Poll

Your Favorite Joseph L. Mankiewicz Films Are...

Backfire
0 (0%)
Dragonwyck
0 (0%)
Somewhere in the Night
1 (1.1%)
The Late George Apley
0 (0%)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
6 (6.5%)
Escape
0 (0%)
A Letter to Three Wives
10 (10.8%)
House of Strangers
0 (0%)
No Way Out
3 (3.2%)
All About Eve
35 (37.6%)
People Will Talk
1 (1.1%)
5 Fingers
0 (0%)
Julius Caesar
2 (2.2%)
The Barefoot Contessa
4 (4.3%)
Guys and Dolls
4 (4.3%)
The Quiet American
3 (3.2%)
Suddenly, Last Summer
2 (2.2%)
Cleopatra
2 (2.2%)
The Honey Pot
0 (0%)
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
0 (0%)
There Was a Crooked Man...
0 (0%)
Sleuth
16 (17.2%)
haven't seen any
4 (4.3%)
don't like any
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 50

Author Topic: Mankiewicz, Joseph L  (Read 8831 times)

Corndog

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #40 on: March 30, 2016, 08:10:13 AM »
1. All About Eve (2.5)
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #41 on: March 31, 2016, 12:47:47 AM »
All About Eve
Dragonwyck
5 Fingers
The Barefoot Contessa

Cleopatra
A Letter to Three Wives
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

No one here has seen 5 Fingers ?
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1SO

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #42 on: March 31, 2016, 01:44:28 AM »
I had to look that title up. I have not, though I'm always positive with Mankiewicz and the IMDB rating is 7.9. I don't seek out James Mason films even though he's always good.

pixote

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #43 on: March 31, 2016, 12:07:42 PM »
I enjoyed 5 Fingers when I saw it.

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verbALs

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #44 on: October 09, 2016, 01:28:50 PM »
1. All About Eve
2. Sleuth
3. Letter to Three Wives
4. Somewhere in the Night

Nothing wrong with any of them and I want to see more. I'd like to look at the Mankiewicz/ Greene collab. Intriguing.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2016, 01:46:29 PM by verbALs »
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1SO

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #45 on: February 05, 2018, 12:35:46 AM »
Updated Rankings

5 Fingers (1952)
* * * - Good
James Mason is so good at playing morally bankrupt leads, and his performance as a traitor for the nazis who is doing it for the money which will buy him the freedom to be a gentleman, stands head, shoulders, torso and knees above everything else. I wish someone among the rest of the cast could match his charge, but that one performance and some cool espionage details makes for a compelling enough thriller.


The Honey Pot (1967)
* * ½
Warm-up to Sleuth is a dialogue-heavy filmed play with deceptions, hijinks, high-toned comedy and a slight case of murder. For all the words, the dialogue isn't as sharp as usual for Mankiewicz, and, except for Maggie Smith, the performances aren't as juicy as Olivier and Caine in Sleuth. Some nice surprises, but they feel stretched over a film that didn't need to be this long.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #46 on: March 07, 2018, 06:08:31 AM »
James Mason is great in that.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #47 on: March 07, 2018, 06:09:55 AM »
5. A Letter to Three Wives
6. Dragonwyck
7. 5 Fingers

It's funny, I have a box set with these three exact movies. Now I have to get my hands on House of Strangers.
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Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #48 on: March 27, 2018, 06:03:58 AM »
All About Eve, 70˚
Extraordinary (81-100˚) | Very good (61-80˚) | Good (41-60˚) | Fair (21-40˚) | Poor (0-20˚)

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Mankiewicz, Joseph L
« Reply #49 on: March 19, 2022, 11:03:08 PM »
Criterion Channel is dropping a bunch of his films at the end of the month. Marathon time!



Dragonwyck (1946)

Parts of this film feel like entire other films I've seen or books I've read but somehow the mix here of all the characters and the world works for me. Vincent Price plays a stoic man who owns the lands farmers work in the early 1800s of America. He employs a farmer's simple daughter (Gene Tierney) to watch his daughter but fate has other plans for her role at house Dragonwyck.

It's so clear this is based on a book because there are so many scenes where there's missing exposition you'd get in a novel that is simply gone. I much prefer this as it's not hard to piece together the context of it all and how the wider world informs Price's character and the decisions he makes later in the film. We don't need to see all the social and political machinations at work, we're here for the human drama and boy is it juicy.

There is just layer upon layer here to peel back as we examine characters and their motivations. It's also a film that frankly discusses God and religion at a number of key points without being an overtly religious film even though it is one of the main driving differences between the two main characters. Once again, I could see much more of this being fleshed out in the novel but we get enough here.

I think that's my recurring feeling is that each scene and moment feels as if it could have gone on longer or given us setup but instead it goes through a lot in a lean runtime and there's something so much more meaty about that. My only lingering question is what happens to Katrine in the second half. I guess it's a big house...

That might make it sound as if I found this film simply adequate. Far from it. This was like eating a lean sirloin. Not as big or juicy as other cuts but each bite is flavorful and textured just enough to keep you satisfied throughout.



Sleuth
Dragonwyck
All About Eve

The Barefoot Contessa
« Last Edit: March 19, 2022, 11:07:07 PM by Sam the Cinema Snob »