#Steven Geray

[gatutor]

Marta Mitrovich-Steven Geray "La infiel" (The unfaithful) 1947, de Vincent Sherman.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

The Unfaithful

Warner Bros. tried to pass off Vincent Sherman’s THE UNFAITHFUL (1947, TCM) as an original script, but anybody with half an ounce of film literacy can spot it as a remake of William Wyler’s THE LETTER (1940), albeit one made by people who didn’t understand the original very well. That’s not to fault the cast, who do what they can with the reimagined material. Both films deal with a woman who kills a man and lies about the circumstances. In 1940, that gave Bette Davis the opportunity to deliver one of her greatest and most restrained performances, a burning portrait of sexual hypocrisy. Ann Sheridan plays a nicer lady, who strayed while the husband (Zachary Scott) she wed quickly was off fighting World War II. Nonetheless, when she kills her former lover in self-defense, she lies to protect her husband’s feelings, even when lawyer Lew Ayres advises her to tell the truth. In place of the original’s depiction of racism and the colonial mentality, this film offers some cursory considerations of class and a more persuasive comment on the war’s effect on marital relations. By the time the script gets to Sheridan’s trial, it’s almost persuasive, though the last scene twists itself into pretzels trying to shoehorn its plot within the confines of the Production Code. Sheridan has some very good moments until the final scene, which I don’t think even Davis could have saved. Scott is OK as the husband, though playing a decent man robs him of a lot of his sexual mojo. Ayres works well, though you may wish they’d dropped the other shoe and made his character gay (forbidden under the Production Code, of course). You also get John Hoyt as the police detective on the case, Jerome Cowan as the apoplectic prosecutor, Steven Geray as a blackmailer (in this version instead of an incriminating letter it’s a bust of Sheridan made by the dead man) and some great views of Los Angeles in the late 1940s. The real performance honors, however, go to Eve Arden, whose role as Scott’s cousin has the most intriguing character arc in the film. I’m tempted to say she’s the only one with an arc. She starts out as a flighty society type, dropping one-liners as she tries to pick up all the dirt she can on the crime at her cousin’s house. But the case changes her and reveals a serious, reflective side Arden rarely got to play on screen. If they’d really wanted to transform the material, they’d have made a film about a wise-cracking gossip who grows up when her cousin’s wife is accused of murder. That’s a movie I’d like to see.

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Unfaithful (1947) Vincent Sherman

June 11th 2023

[mariocki]

The High Command (1937)

"Know anything about malaria?"

"I ought to, old boy, I swatted it up for six months. Why?"

"Nothing, only your predecessor died of it."

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have The Adventures of Fu Manchu 1956

[peterlorres21stcentury]

I meant to say this before but I really love your review. Hotel Berlin is an underrated dark little gem of a film. Not without its flaws, but at the same time it was not fucking around! Movies this late in the war tended to strip emotions raw because goddamn it, enough was enough, and that angry energy is so apparent here.

I do wish they hadn't cut so much of Peter's character from the finished product, though. I seem to recall that The Lost One mentioned that certain continuity errors were a result of Peter's conspicuous absence after his big scene (for example, Koenig's change of heart and general stuff must have happened between his meeting with Martin and the final scenes in the shelter, but we don't see any of it. Well, maybe a tiny bit, but it's not enough).

I think I'll watch this once again. By the way, I don't know where else to mention this, but Steven Geray gets what might be the best line near the end, as he's eyeing the Führer's portrait behind the front desk. I'm actually really glad he got this line because between this and his later role in Gilda he is an underrated master of one-liners: "I'd like to see him hung in a... different way." :3

Hotel Berlin (1945)

This might be the most underrated War Era movie I've seen yet.

Both the theatrical trailer and the DVD cover advertise it as a corny exploitation movie. It's nothing of the sort. It's as sincerely written and acted as "Casablanca," with far more direct references to the Jewish people, and specific concentration camps.

I legitimately ordered the DVD just to see Peter Lorre as a disheveled angst-ridden scruff-muffin; I had no idea the character was going to be so compelling, or the rest of the movie equally so. Several other characters also exploded beyond the old clichés I was expecting. The movie appears to be building towards a predictable, cheesy love story, but...doesn't. Another character who at first appears one of the most despicable opportunists in the movie...isn't. And the movie's nuanced look at an indoctrinated population being carpet-bombed while their tyrannical, antisemetic leaders flee to save their own skins is uh...timely, to say the least.

I'm sure it helped that I watched this movie during a rainstorm at night, which is the way to watch it. The timeliness of a story about

Spoilers Below!

Faye Emerson deserved that top billing.

According to IMDB, Andrea King was originally to be billed as the film's female lead, with Faye Emerson billed as a supporting character. When Emerson married the son of President Roosevelt, she was given top billing over King, to capitalize on her new fame. I find that ironic, given that by the end of the movie, Faye's character Tilly has, against all odds, proven to be the film's true heroine.

Introduced as a materialistic Nazi informer, dating SS officers and betraying a hiding resistance fighter just to get herself some new shoes, Tilly's reality turns upside-down when she learns that the lover she thought she'd lost is still alive. After an emotional breakdown over what her despair let her become, she defends her boyfriend's mother against a Nazi officer, and delivers the most powerful speech in the movie. It is her character who finally mentions the Jews out loud, after an entire movie and an entire genre dancing around the subject.

I've recorded the scene from the DVD and uploaded it to YouTube:

"Go on shoot me, arrest me, have me killed, I don't care! Why should I. I loved Max Baruch and you sent him to a concentration camp! You hung a sign around my neck saying I loved a Jew! And you paraded me down the street. They'll hang something around your neck someday, and it won't be a sign!"

Corny Romance is Just a Red Herring

My stance that Emersen deserved that top billing in no way negates Andrea King's marvelous performance as the film's faux female lead. Though we are warned right from the start that her character, movie star Lisa Dorn, is a Nazi and a master manipulator, the film plays her as the straightforward love interest for much of the film: helping the hero partially out of the hope that he'll save her in return, seemingly building a genuine admiration for his heroism...then completely subverts expectations by revealing her to be exactly what she she was introduced as: a Nazi collaborator out to save her own skin.

I was genuinely afraid at the end that the hero would find himself unable to shoot her, and we'd see her tearfully declare her love for him, and end with him forgiving her. Not so. She argues pathetically, trying to excuse her betrayal and convince Richter that she loves him, and he doesn't fall for it. Richter sees Sam Spade's "I'll be waiting for you," and raises him two gunshots.

Peter Lorre like we've never seen him before

Okay, maybe we have seen Peter angsting around and wobbling drunkenly a few times before. But this was the first time I saw him directly address the issues that so closely affected him (and his costars of course) in real life.

Peter Lorre died before talk about the Holocaust really became mainstream. But the emotion behind the lines he delivers as the self-hating German professor speaks volumes. The gleeful smile he wears in his first scene, while saying that the bombing is only what the Germans deserve; his bitter sarcasm about the achievements of German science in the concentration camps, and wondering where all the "good Germans" are now; his breakdown when Richter tells him of a mutual friend's murder at Dachau. Much like his frantic escape attempt in "Casablanca," Peter likely didn't have to fish too hard to dig up the needed emotions for these scenes.

This is also the closest I've ever come to seeing Peter cry.

Other PL fans have lamented that his role was too small. I agree that I'd have loved to see a hell of a lot more of Koenig, but it's not like many of the other characters had much more screen time, which all the different storylines running at once. Aside from maybe Helmut Dantine and Andrea King, most of the important characters probably only have a handful of scenes tops. The fact that Peter's character not only lives to the end as one of the heroes, but gets to read President Roosevelt's uplifting speech to the German people, definitely counts for something.

That speech packed a powerful punch for me, at a time when I sometimes need reminding that indoctrinated civilians in war zones are still individuals, and can't be lumped with their dogmatic leaders. I don't doubt for a minute that President Biden took inspiration from Roosevelt for how to address the Palestinian people in regards to stopping Hamas.

The Fugitive

I suppose I should also mention the film's lead: Helmut Dantine as Martin Richter, the German anti-Nazi resistance fighter who escaped Dachau Concentration Camp. Helmut Dantine played Jan, the Bulgarian husband in "Casablanca." The controlled desperation with which he gambled at Rick's roulette wheel as Jan serves well for his fugitive resistance fighter in this movie. The fact that Dantine was actually imprisoned at Rosserlaende Concentration Camp for his anti-Nazi political activism at age 19 no doubt also helped him in the role.

My only complaint is the makeup and costuming department failing to help him look the part. While Paul Henreid got a scar and a white streak of hair for Victor Laszlo, Dantine is done up to look like a particularly slick, clean movie star, standing out in a cast of disheveled and weary looking people. One could interpret this as a symbolic way of singling him out as the hero, but I found it distracting. I am not throwing shade on Dantine's acting abilities or natural looks, just how the people in charge had him presented.

I'm unsure how to close this review.

It's getting late and I have some more clips to upload, and cake to eat. "Hotel Berlin" is up there with "Casablanca" on my personal list of unironically great old movies. Professor Koenig is on my list favorite Peter Lorre characters, and I have a handful of new favorite actors.

I'll just finish by saying that this guy in the barrette looks noticeably like Robert Picardo, if maybe a "stretched out" version thereof. Voyager's EMH hanging out with a holo-Peter Lorre in one of Tom Paris's noir programs is something I never knew I needed.

[cinemaquiles]

Você se lembra? 10 produções filmadas no Brasil disponíveis no streaming!

[byneddiedingo]

Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart, Robert Warwick, Morris Ankrum, William Ching, Steven Geray, Hadda Brooks. Screenplay: Andrew Solt, Edmund H. North, based on a story by Dorothy B. Hughes. Cinematography: Burnett Guffey. Art direction: Robert Peterson. Film editing: Viola Lawrence. Music: George Antheil.

The "lonely place" is Hollywood, where Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a screenwriter with a barely held-in-check violent streak. This celebrated movie contains one of Bogart's best performances, though it looks and feels like the low-budget production it was. Bogart's own company, Santana, produced it for release through Columbia, instead of Bogart's employer, Warner Bros., which may explain why, apart from Bogart and Gloria Grahame, the supporting cast is so unfamiliar: The best-known face among them is Frank Lovejoy, who plays Bogart's old army buddy, now a police detective. In a Lonely Place seems to be set in a different Hollywood from the one seen in the year's other great noir melodrama, Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. There are no movie star cameos and glitzy settings in the Bogart film. What this one has going for it, however, is a haunting, off-beat quality, along with some surprising heat generated between Bogart and Grahame, who plays Laurel Gray, a would-be movie actress with an intriguing, only partly glimpsed past that hints at a sapphic subtext. She has, for example, a rather bullying masseuse (Ruth Gillette), who seems to be a figure out of this past. In fact, the whole film is made up of enigmatic figures, including Steele's closest friends, his agent, Mel Lippman (Art Smith), and an aging alcoholic actor, Charlie Waterman (Robert Warwick). Both of them stick with Steele despite his tendency to fly off the handle: He insults and at one point even slugs the agent, while at another he defends the actor with his fists against an insult. Though the central plot has to do with Steele's being suspected of murdering a hat-check girl (Martha Stewart) he brought to his apartment to tell him the plot of a novel he's supposed to adapt, the film is less a murder mystery than a study of a damaged man and his inability to overcome whatever made him that way. And despite the usual tendency of Hollywood films to end with a resolution by tying up loose ends, In a Lonely Place leaves its characters as tensely enigmatic as they were at the start -- perhaps even more so.

[nelson-riddle-me-this]

1946 🎬

1967 🎶

🎬1946: Gilda (dir. Charles Vidor)

Rita Hayworth is spellbinding! Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford have great chemistry, and Steven Geray is very fun in his supporting role. It's glamorous and twisted and oh so watchable. There are two songs in it, and though "Put The Blame On Mame" is undoubtedly iconic, I have a greater fondness for "Amado Mio".

🎶1967: "You Only Live Twice"

(sung by Nancy Sinatra, music by John Barry, lyrics by Leslie Bricusse)

Sorry to James Bond post on main, but I really love this song and it's meant more to me in my life than any other song I can currently think of from 1967. The melody is gorgeous, the lyrics are among the more meaningful and inspiring of the Bond cannon, and that cascading counter-line is iconic.

send me a 🎬 + a year and i’ll tell you my favorite movie from that year. OR send me a 🎶 + a year and i’ll tell you my favorite song from that year.

[byneddiedingo]

Cast: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan, George Winslow, Marcel Dalio, Taylor Holmes, Norma Varden, Howard Wendell, Steven Geray. Screenplay: Charles Lederer, based on a musical comedy by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos. Cinematography: Harry J. Wild. Art direction: Lyle R. Wheeler, Joseph C. Wright. Costume design: Travilla. Film editing: Hugh S. Fowler. Songs by Jule Styne and Leo Robin.

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) | dir. Howard Hawks

[alexlacquemanne]

Mars XXMMIII

Films

Gilda (1946) de Charles Vidor avec Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia, Steven Geray et Joe Sawyer

Le Port de l'angoisse (To Have and Have Not) (1944) de Howard Hawks avec Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael et Sheldon Leonard

Le Lion et le Vent (The Wind and the Lion) (1975) de John Milius avec Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, John Huston, Geoffrey Lewis, Steve Kanaly et Vladek Sheybal

Indiana Jones et le Temple maudit (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) (1984) de Steven Spielberg avec Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan, Amrish Puri et Roshan Seth

Mon crime (2023) de François Ozon avec Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon, Fabrice Luchini, André Dussollier et Félix Lefebvre

À notre regrettable époux (1988) de Serge Korber avec Jacqueline Maillan, Alida Valli, Jacques Dufilho, Pierre Tornade, Jean-Pierre Aumont et Hubert Deschamps

The Fabelmans (2022) de Steven Spielberg avec Gabriel LaBelle, Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Keeley Karsten, Julia Butters et Judd Hirsch

Les Caprices de Marie (1970) de Philippe de Broca avec Marthe Keller, Philippe Noiret, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Valentina Cortese, Henri Crémieux, Fernand Gravey, Bert Convy, Colin Drake et François Périer

Le Quai des brumes (1938) de Marcel Carné avec Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Michel Simon, Pierre Brasseur, Édouard Delmont, Aimos et Robert Le Vigan

Le Veau gras (1939) de Serge de Poligny avec François Périer, Elvire Popesco, Armand Bernard, André Lefaur, Gabrielle Fontan, Robert Le Vigan, Marcelle Praince et Raymond Cordy

Séries

Top Gear Saison 16, 12

Surfin' USA - L'Albanie en Rolls-Royce - 1200 km en un plein - Trois camions d'enfer - La fiesta dans tous ses états - Moteur nature - Vietnam Special - Construire l'impossible - En route pour la Côte d'Azur !

Friends Saison 6

Celui qui avait une jolie colocataire - Celui qui avait les dents blanches - Celui qui s'était drogué - Celui qui souhaitait la bonne année - Celui qui avait le derrière entre deux chaises - Celui qui inventait des histoires - Celui qui sortait avec la sœur - Celui qui ne pouvait pas pleurer - Ce qui aurait pu se passer : 1re partie - Ce qui aurait pu se passer : 2e partie - Celui qui avait l'Unagi - Celui qui sortait avec une étudiante - Celui qui avait des problèmes de frigo - Celui qui avait une audition - Celui qui rencontrait le père - Celui qui se la jouait grave - Celui qui achetait la bague

L'agence tous risques Saison 2, 3

Pièces détachées - Nouvelle cuisine - Opération finale - Les cloches de Sainte-Marie - Souvenirs - Au feu ! - Promenade dans les bois - Vacances au bord du lac - Au-delà de la rivière : 1re partie - Au-delà de la rivière : 2e partie - Vacances en Floride - La dernière séance - Double foyer - Echec aux affreux - Voie de garage - Collection - Extorsions - Le nouveau shérif - Le champion - Belle évasion - Les braconniers

Columbo Saison 4, 7, 1

Entre le crépuscule et l'aube - Des sourires et des armes - Poids mort

La Pause Biodiv : Mission pollinis'Actions

La vache ! - Espèce de larve ! - Vive la belle étoile ! - Pile 30 minutes ! - Je végétalise - Sous les pavés, la plante !

Méli Mélo : Démêlons les fils de l'eau

De source sûre ! - Un léger penchant - L'étroite moustiquaire - Culture et Captages - Les sceptique de la fosse ! - Le changement c'est maintenant - Le goût des eaux - Eau propre eau sale ! - Papy lingette ! - Bzz ! - Au prix que ça coûte ! - Sors de ton lit ! - Vive l'herbe libre ! - Allais, allez ! - Des tout petits cachets ! - Tartare de sédiments !

Coffre à Catch

#105 - Un hall of famer à la ECW ! (avec Vinny Brun) - #106 - Hardy Boyz et Poêle à frire ! - #107 : Une nouvelle ceinture pour une nouvelle ère ! - #108 : Mark Henry présente la barre de faire !

Inspecteur Barnaby Saison 6

Mort en eau trouble - Le Parcours du combattant - Une touche de sang - La Maison de Satan - Les oiseaux de proie

Meurtres au paradis Saison 12

L'éclipse - Les Survivalistes - Plage à vendre

Affaires sensibles

Gianni Agnelli, le dernier roi d’Italie - François Cevert : dernière course contre la mort - Netflix, l'histoire mouvementée derrière l'écran - L'histoire mouvementée de Metallica - Mars 2002 : massacre au Conseil municipal de Nanterre

Livres

Détective Conan Tome 5 de Gōshō Aoyama

Pourquoi ne faisons-nous rien pendant que la maison brûle ? de Claude Bourguignon et Lydia Bourguignon

Une vie de malade ! de Nadim Aswissri

Les Trois Mousquetaires, tome I d'Alexandre Dumas

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Conspirators (1944) Jean Negulesco

January 15th 2022

[mariocki]

The Dark Past (1948)

"What's eating you?"

"Nothing."

"That's what I mean, you haven't got the jitters like everyone else."

"I'm taking you at your word, Walker."

"My word?"

"You said you were waiting for someone. If we behaved ourselves, nothing would happen to us. I'm behaving myself."

[gatutor]

Susan Hayward-Steven Geray "Muerte al amanecer" (Deadline at dawn) 1946, de Harold Clurman, William Cameron Menzies.

[tvln]

the high command (uk, dickinson 37)