herbiehancock

No 27 – Some Like it Hot Director – Billy Wilder EGADS !! Almost an entire month has passed without me blogging. If I continue at this rate I’ll still be watching these films when I’m 50. Well, I firmly believe I’ll still be watching THIS film when I’m 50. I love it. It is genius. This is a very important film; it is the film which convinced my youngest sister not to dismiss Black and White films. It is also the film with the funniest closing line ever. This film is most well known for the middle section in which Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dress up as women to join an all-girl jazz band. Yet there is so much more in this film. Some of it works utterly utterly brilliantly while others feel out of place. I’m going to begin with the out of place elements so that I can then begin spouting on about the bits of the film I love. The film is set in the 1920’s and the opening scenes do an excellent job of showing the excess and the glamour of the illegal speakeasies. It sets up the characters...

No 314 - Sweet Smell of Success Director - Alexander Mackendrick . Don't be fooled by the jolly sounding title or the casting of Tony Curtis. This is a dark and angry film. Bleak and treacherous and cruel. This is also one of those more unusual things. A film which isn't about the protagonist. Curtis' Sidney might be the character we follow for the entire film, but he is just an outsider in the main plot. Sidney plays a press agent. A sneaky, slimy, cowardly man who will double cross anyone and everyone in order to make some money. Throughout the film he shows that he really has no morals at all. The film flies along at quite a breakneck speed and only stops briefly when introducing non pivotal characters. However the small amount of time the story spends on Rita shows us a fair amount about her character. She is pretty (in that wonderful 50's blonde bombshell way) but not too bright. She has a child and has recently been hurt pretty badly because of the fact that dr...