Frank's Movie Log

Despite featuring an early performance from a young Robert De Niro, director Brian De Palma proves the star of his first filmed picture. He employs an array of formal devices to tell a farcical story of a groom-to-be’s second thoughts after encountering his fiancée’s eccentric family. De Niro plays a groomsman.

It’s an interesting watch, but only somewhat amusing. De Palma presents several sequences like silent comedy. A smart move given the limited budget and novice cast, but style can only gloss over so much.

In Tsarist Russia, a young Jewish woman desperate to visit her ailing father acquires a special travel pass that allows her to move freely through the country, but forever brands her as a prostitute. Continue reading...

Night in the tropics. Jungle drums pound as a woman gazes out her bedroom window. The camera pulls out, tracking over acres of dark jungle, to settle behind a man standing on his porch, gazing at the woman’s bungalow in the distance.

Sure, the shot’s tracking over an obvious paper-mâché model, but kudos to director Alfred Green for trying. This is a movie whose reach exceeds its grasp. Continue reading...

To Joy concerns two promising violinists, played by Stig Olin and Maj-Britt Nilsson. He’s ambitious and frustrated. She pursues him. The two marry, have children, but drift apart as Olin fails to achieve his dreams. Continue reading...

Clown-faced comedian Joe E. Brown heads west with his skirt-chasing cousin, ending up in Pasadena where he enrages a towering South American, played by Bela Lugosi. Continue reading...

Beneath the crude jokes and over-the-top violence lurks a serious film. Okay, maybe not, but Deadpool walks a tonal tightrope with no safety net. Continue reading...

David Lean’s directorial debut. He shares credit with Noël Coward, who also produced, stars, and wrote the screenplay. Continue reading...

In a banana republic, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays an arrogant, entitled American who sets his sites on a snobbish, entitled American played by Loretta Young. The script proffers ample plot involving Young’s corrupt step-father, her aging fiancée, and a farcical kidnapping plot. But my distaste for both characters overrode my interest. Boris Karloff has a forgettable part as Young’s stepfather’s aid.

A would-be social outrage drama that sees Edward G. Robinson editing a New York scandal sheet. Caving to ownership pressure, he assigns amoral reporter Boris Karloff to dredge up a scandalous, twenty-year-old murder story. Continue reading...

Mae Clarke plays a showgirl reduced to prostitution in World War I London. During an air raid, she meets a naive but good-hearted soldier played by Douglass Montgomery. You can see where this is going. Continue reading...