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Poll

What's your favorite film by Leo McCarey?

Indiscreet
0 (0%)
The Kid from Spain
0 (0%)
Duck Soup
11 (44%)
Six of a Kind
0 (0%)
Belle of the Nineties
0 (0%)
Ruggles of Red Gap
2 (8%)
The Milky Way
0 (0%)
Make Way for Tomorrow
5 (20%)
The Awful Truth
2 (8%)
Love Affair
0 (0%)
Once Upon a Honeymoon
0 (0%)
Going My Way
1 (4%)
The Bells of St. Mary's
1 (4%)
Good Sam
0 (0%)
An Affair to Remember
0 (0%)
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!
0 (0%)
Satan Never Sleeps
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
3 (12%)
don't like any
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 24

Author Topic: McCarey, Leo  (Read 3961 times)

roujin

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Re: Director's Best: Leo McCarey
« Reply #20 on: February 12, 2014, 12:10:31 AM »
Loved Going My Way.

1SO

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Re: Director's Best: Leo McCarey
« Reply #21 on: February 12, 2014, 01:00:24 AM »
I'd love to hear more. It's such a corny, old fashioned movie. Usually listed among the undeserving Best Picture Winners.

jascook

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Re: Director's Best: Leo McCarey
« Reply #22 on: June 21, 2014, 09:45:26 AM »
Going My Way: 9/10
Duck Soup: 7/10
The Milky Way: 5/10
« Last Edit: June 26, 2014, 06:11:59 AM by jascook »
Sara: Good-bye, father Isak. Can't you see you're the one I love? Today, tomorrow and forever.
Isak Borg: I'll keep that in mind.

roujin

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Re: Director's Best: Leo McCarey
« Reply #23 on: August 27, 2014, 08:56:25 PM »
1. The Awful Truth (1937)
2. Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
3. Going My Way (1944)
4. The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
5. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)
6. Love Affair (1939)

Duck Soup (1933)
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958)

1SO

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Re: Director's Best: Leo McCarey
« Reply #24 on: August 29, 2014, 08:28:28 PM »
RE-WATCH MARATHON


Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)
Hotel Manager: How many children have you?
Pa: Five of them.
Hotel Manager: Really! I'll bet they've brought you a lot of pleasure!
Pa: I bet you haven't any children.

Make Way For Tomorrow

What a dear, sweet, beautiful movie. I heard about this when I learned it helped inspire Tokyo Story, but I got a lot more out of this 1937 Faberge Egg of a film directed by Leo McCarey. The story and the style reminded me more of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Ikiru. The feeling of approaching death hangs overhead like a darkening cloud, and there's a dramatic tonal change in the final 45 minutes.

The film plays best in the first half, with McCarey pulling some uncomfortable laughs out of the awkward intrusion of the elder parents. ("How fancy can a sandwich be?") A wonderful bit involving a squeaky rocking chair will remind you that McCarey also made Duck Soup, a thought you wouldn't expect to have from this material. Sometimes it gets kinda schmaltzy - the Mom is passive aggressive about the kids going out and leaving her alone - but all the points of view are understandable and sympathetic. Much more insightful than you expect to find in a product of 1930s Hollywood.

The lengthy back section is devoted to one special day the old couple spend together. I was bracing for a heart attack finale or for something similarly tragic, but this avoids cheap tricks and goes for a bittersweet conclusion that found its way to my heart without aiming directly for it. As for the day, well here it gets a little drawn out. At times it does capture the feeling of spending the day with grandparents a little too well. Beulah Bondi as Lucy shows a completely different side of herself as opposed to when she's in the hands of her children. It makes this day feel even more intimate for the viewer. Barkley is played by the wonderful Victor Moore (Swing Time) and he's much more consistently cranky, though his overriding trait is the desire for good conversation with decent people. They're a very adorable couple, but I really missed the friction with the kids. Still, this is a movie I want to grow old with.
RATING: * * * 1/2


REASON FOR RE-WATCH: Mrs. 1SO hadn't seen this and I had to think the experience could only be heightened by sharing it with her.


I don't think you will ever change my opinion that this is the Best Screenplay of 1937. It's that saying about how no film ever tries to be bad. Every one of them is hoping for the best. Even a cash register like Transformers 4 can only improve its chances by having a great script. The trouble is great scripts are so rare, and if you want to know why than try to write one. However, for every thousand monkeys sitting their thousand typewriters, a work of beauty will happen.

Make Way is based on a novel by Josephine Lawrence and a play by Helen and Nolan Leary. The screenplay by Viña Delmar (The Awful Truth) aims to humanize the parents and their children. There are bad decisions and bad people but this isn't a film with villains. I adore the parents (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) though they bring some of this misfortune on themselves. I understand the reactions of the children, suddenly placed into making choices that will hurt either the ones who raised them or the ones they are trying to raise.

The movie is funny, though not in the broad way you might associate with Leo McCarey, and it's sad, but it never milks tears like the situation would suggest. The balance of performances, the unusual structure, the almost stage-like direction (with very selective changes to the frame, like the intrusion of and absence caused by a rocking chair), they don't feel like anything else from this time in American filmmaking. I don't know when Make Way For Tomorrow was officially re-evaluated and discovered, when Criterion decided to add it to their collection, but I am so grateful that it happened. The movie seems ahead of its time in terms of sophistication. (You might think of that final section as Linklater's Before movies with Jesse and Celine in their 70s.) Though the film's drama would offer some workable solutions in the modern day, the characters are so much stronger in their impact than you're used to seeing, no matter what the point in time.
RATING: * * * *, rising up to my Top 3 of 1937

I should add that it took some time for Mrs. 1SO to be won over by the film. She wasn't sure if many of the earlier scenes were going for comedy or drama. (I was already loving it more than my first viewing.) However, that final section worked on her like a magic spell.

Sandy

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Re: Director's Best: Leo McCarey
« Reply #25 on: August 29, 2014, 08:57:50 PM »
Hotel Manager: How many children have you?
Pa: Five of them.
Hotel Manager: Really! I'll bet they've brought you a lot of pleasure!
Pa: I bet you haven't any children.

 :))


1SO

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Re: McCarey, Leo
« Reply #26 on: July 14, 2018, 12:43:00 AM »
1. Duck Soup
2. Make Way For Tomorrow

3. The Awful Truth
4. Going My Way
5. Six of a Kind
6. An Affair to Remember
7. Love Affair

8. Good Sam
9. The Ruggles of Red Gap
10. The Kid From Spain
11. Once Upon a Honeymoon
12. The Bells of St. Mary's
« Last Edit: July 15, 2018, 01:15:59 AM by 1SO »

1SO

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Re: McCarey, Leo
« Reply #27 on: July 15, 2018, 09:17:24 AM »
The Kid From Spain (1932)
★ ★
Eddie Cantor’s problem is his desperate need to always be telling jokes. He lacks the filter most comedians have that prevent them from telling bad jokes. Cantor doesn’t care. Doesn’t care how old or corny the joke is so long as they keep rolling out of his mouth. He’s Groucho Marx with the wit of Jamie Kennedy. At least Grouch could pass the baton to others, this cast is only around to feed Cantor a set-up and if they don’t do it, Cantor will feed himself. Some of the jokes are genuinely clever or funny, but they are specks of dew on the desert sand. Cantor’s blackface finale is morally troubling, but a nice break from all the humor.

I had a wonderfully distracting week, which put me behind in my movie watching, but I might try to join you in The Kid from Spain, since it's on Filmstruck.

pixote
pixote, you should watch the opening, a musical number choreographed by the master Busby Berkeley. Perhaps the most sexually brazen Berkeley yet, set in a women’s dorm as they wake up to start the day, with lyrics like…
“I’ll be here ’til I’m twenty;
I’m only seventeen.
By that time I’ll know plenty…
of course, ya’ll know what I mean…”


Six of a Kind (1934)
★ ★ ★ – Good
Leo McCarey may have started in silent comedy, but the double whammy of Duck Soup and this show a real excitement for capturing the energy of verbal comedians. An hour of SNL sketches loosely stitched into a single routine of obnoxious idiots and the frustrated people stuck in their company. This should have annoyed me more, and the W.C. Fields material is a lot of effort for minimum chuckles. I’ve seen Burns and Allen numerous times before and I always cringe in anticipation, but they deliver in spite of that. The MVP however is Charles Ruggles, who has perfect delivery and is the one actor whose humor hasn’t dated. Luckily, he’s the lead.

Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: McCarey, Leo
« Reply #28 on: October 23, 2018, 05:13:02 AM »
Duck Soup, 50°
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: McCarey, Leo
« Reply #29 on: December 24, 2023, 05:07:46 AM »
The Awful Truth (1937)

Fun screwball comedy about a couple that files for divorce and then proceeds to sabotage each other's dating life. Fun lead performances, a few hilarious scenes, and a cute dog! What's not to like!

 

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