Poll

What's your favorite film by Lloyd Bacon?

Moby Dick
0 (0%)
42nd Street
5 (22.7%)
Picture Snatcher
0 (0%)
Footlight Parade
2 (9.1%)
Wonder Bar
0 (0%)
He Was Her Man
0 (0%)
Here Comes the Navy
0 (0%)
The Irish in Us
0 (0%)
Frisco Kid
0 (0%)
Cain and Mabel
0 (0%)
Gold Diggers of 1937
0 (0%)
Marked Woman
0 (0%)
Ever Since Eve
0 (0%)
San Quentin
0 (0%)
A Slight Case of Murder
0 (0%)
Racket Busters
0 (0%)
Boy Meets Girl
0 (0%)
The Oklahoma Kid
0 (0%)
Invisible Stripes
0 (0%)
Brother Orchid
0 (0%)
Knute Rockne All American
0 (0%)
Footsteps in the Dark
0 (0%)
Affectionately Yours
0 (0%)
Larceny, Inc.
0 (0%)
Action in the North Atlantic
2 (9.1%)
The Fighting Sullivans
1 (4.5%)
It Happens Every Spring
0 (0%)
Miss Grant Takes Richmond
0 (0%)
Kill the Umpire
0 (0%)
The Fuller Brush Girl
0 (0%)
The Frogmen
0 (0%)
The French Line
0 (0%)
She Couldn't Say No
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
12 (54.5%)
don't like any
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 22

Author Topic: Bacon, Lloyd  (Read 5456 times)

pixote

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Re: Bacon, Lloyd
« Reply #30 on: July 10, 2017, 02:25:59 PM »
I didn't. I didn't want to start a debate with Antares over a film I didn't have much of an opinion on, especially when I had watched the more propaganda-slanted war film Action in the North Atlantic just a couple of days earlier. It's more Hollywood, but also a lot more fun to watch and rewatch.

The Fighting Sullivans held up for me on rewatch (a couple years ago). The pleasant Americana of the first half was a little more episodic than I remembered (to its detriment), but Thomas Mitchell's long glance near the end still broke my heart. I still haven't seen Action in the North Atlantic, despite my best intentions.

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1SO

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Re: Bacon, Lloyd
« Reply #31 on: July 10, 2017, 10:45:32 PM »
I just did a double-take when I saw that more than half of all voters haven't seen a Lloyd Bacon film.
That may not be accurate. Some people may not realize he directed 42nd Street and Footlight Parade because the musical sequences were directed by Busby Berkeley. Next on his list for popularity (and greatness) is Action in the North Atlantic, but again it has co-directors (Byron Haskin, Raoul Walsh), which works against any attempt to establish him as an auteur. My Top 3 where he has sole credit are Larceny Inc., Footsteps in the Dark and Cain and Mabel. All are hugely enjoyable, but they don't even combine to create a distinct sense of style



I have had some experience with Lloyd Bacon before, and I've always found his films to be good, but never great. His is a workmanlike style which assures entertainment, but basically guarantees a lack of greatness.

Too true. I've seen so many of his films because he made 57 features for Warner Bros. from 1930 to 1943. I've seen 26 of them and will probably watch the rest in my lifetime. He's made 9 films with Cagney, 7 with Bogart, 10 with Pat O'Brien, 6 with Dick Powell, 8 with Joan Blondell and 3 with Edward G. Robinson.




Corndog

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Re: Bacon, Lloyd
« Reply #32 on: July 11, 2017, 07:03:16 AM »
I'm not averse to continuing to see his movies, but they also won't get me excited anymore.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

1SO

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Re: Bacon, Lloyd - Director's Best
« Reply #33 on: September 02, 2018, 01:15:58 PM »
It Happens Every Spring (1949)
* *
I understand people calling Ray Milland a lightweight Cary Grant. Their basic charms come from the same well, but it's like saying there's little difference between Bogart, Cagney, Robinson and Raft. Each has their own nuances and I find all of them entertaining. This baseball film teams Milland up with Paul Douglas, another actor I always enjoy. There's a one-joke idea of a tonic that makes baseball resistant to wood, and that Disney-esque premise is as deep as the writers go. The film's rarely funny because it rarely tries for a joke. Even the baseball gag nearly drops away. What's left are a lot of interesting avenues that could have been explored, but the film just drives by them to the end credits.

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Re: Bacon, Lloyd
« Reply #34 on: August 24, 2020, 09:18:37 PM »
Updated Ranking

Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933)
★ ★ ★ – Okay
Kay Francis exists at the intersection of Loretta Young and Aline MacMahon, and is slightly less interesting to watch. Here she’s a female doctor who came up through life with Lyle Talbot (a slightly more interesting George Brent). The script quickly runs out of ways for people to be shocked by a female doctor, spends a long time on Stevens barely-contained crush on her friend, but pulls it together for a gripping pandemic finale. Glenda Farrell (slight less Joan Blondell) is  here to help.


Home Sweet Homicide (1946)
★ ★ ★ – Okay
Novel attempt to make a Family Noir mostly works because it’s a murder mystery Randolph Scott, James Gleason and Lynn Bari are here to give it some cred. The focus is on the kids and nobody here is as annoying as Bobby Driscoll in The Window, but I also miss the darkness and danger of a film like that. This is - dare I say - too Disney for its own good.


Mother is a Freshman (1949)
★ ★ ½
Loretta Young shines in a high concept idea that could've desperately benefitted from some big laughs instead of a lot of warm smiles. Technicolor is a surprisingly good fit for Bacon. On the other hand some of the relationship material has not dated well, especially a scene where it appears Van Johnson is putting uncomfortable #TimesUp moves on Young. The fact that he's not and that it's a joke of the script only makes the scene worse.

 

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