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Showing posts with label King Vidor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label King Vidor. Show all posts

Sunday, April 6, 2014

The champ 1931 - A heartwarming film about parents and children


IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,3


Director: King Vidor
Main Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates


"Wallace Beery won an Academy Award for his tour de force performance as a washed-up boxer. The bibulous Beery travels from one tank-town bout to another in the company of his faithful son Jackie Cooper and his stuttering manager Roscoe Ates. Hoping for a comeback in Tijuana, Beery is approached by his ex-wife Irene Rich, now married to wealthy Hale Hamilton. Rich convinces Beery that Cooper would be better off with her. Feigning brusqueness, Beery orders his son to get lost, hoping that the kid will be disillusioned enough to remain with his mother. But Cooper runs away from his new home and shows up back in Tijuana, just as Beery is in the middle of his comeback bout. Cheered on by his son, Beery knocks his opponent cold - and then collapses himself. Dying, Beery tells the tearful Cooper that everything will be all right if the boy returns to his mom. While Wallace Beery was capable of laying on pathos with a trowel, his final scene in The Champ can still move an audience to tears - far more so than the similar scene between Jon Voight and Rick Schroeder in the wearisome 1979 remake. In 1953, writer Frances Marion updated and revised her Champ script, changed the washed-up pug to a washed-up comedian, and came up with The Clown, one of Red Skelton's few dramatic vehicles." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:




Saturday, March 10, 2012

Street scene 1931 - An unforgettable slice of urban living


IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022436/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,7


Director: King Vidor
Main Cast: Sylvia Sidney, William Collier Jr., Estelle Taylor, Beulah Bondi, David Landau



"Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene was purchased for the screen by producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1931. The entire story takes place on the street in front of a foreboding old New York brownstone, between one evening and the next afternoon. The individual fates of eight neighboring Manhattan families intertwine during this brief stretch of time.
Street Scene is a dated but still moving look at one New York neighborhood in the midst of a heat wave. It's true that today's audiences are used to this kind of ensemble, slice-of-life effort, so the impact has lessened somewhat; it's also true that the accents employed, vital to letting audiences in 1931 know the ethnic background of each character, will come across as stilted and artificial to 21st century ears. But there's enough poetry in Rice's dialogue to help skate over the charge of stereotypes, and the author's keen ability to create memorable scenes is a big help. Granted, Street betrays its stage origins in its single setting, but director King Vidor creatively opens up the piece by employing a dazzling array of angles and set-ups to keep the setting intact while adding movement and variety to the visuals. He also masterfully handles the climactic set piece, employing a number of deft tricks to create maximum dramatic effect. The large cast is good, although some players are a bit more emphatic than is really necessary. A very young Sylvia Sidney, however, is mesmerizing as the young girl whose dreams are shattered in one violent instant." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/street-scene-v47300/

Download links:


(DVDrip, 586 MB):

http://netload.in/dateit8juUfV0NS/Street_Scene_1931__DVDRip.part1.rar.htm 
http://netload.in/dateieU0TjDZPax/Street_Scene_1931__DVDRip.part2.rar.htm 
http://netload.in/datei7Tf4cT5X9k/Street_Scene_1931__DVDRip.part3.rar.htm

Or:

Friday, February 10, 2012

The citadel 1938 - A superior look at the medical profession


IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029995/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,3


Director: King Vidor
Main Cast: Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, Rex Harrison



"Although made in 1938, The Citadel remains a powerful, haunting and rewarding drama. True, time has lessened its impact somewhat, as modern viewers have likely been exposed to other films that traffic in Citadel's general theme of the power of wealth to corrupt the spirit - and even other films that also specifically deal with this theme as it applies to those in the field of medicine. Nevertheless, Citadel still seems fresh, and the care with which it has been made ensures that it retains a great deal of impact. Credit goes to any number of people, starting with the team of screenwriters who did a skillful job of adapting A.J. Cronin's novel; the screenplay is by necessity less complex than the novel, but it is highly effective and affecting. King Vidor also deserves applause for his sensitive yet powerful direction; Vidor examines humanity in both its glory and its shame, reveling in the former and expressing sadness and regret rather than condemnation for the latter. Finally, there's the expert cast, with Rex Harrison and Ralph Richardson turning in sterling support for stars Rosalind Russell and Robert Donat. Russell is surprisingly good, her 'American-ness' not getting in the way as much as one might think; she delivers a finely nuanced performance that is a small gem. And Robert Donat delivers a carefully wrought performance that is a large treasure, calling upon all of his considerable talents and detailing a character whose changes are made true and easily believable. His climactic speech is everything one could wish for and more. Add in some lovely Harry Stradling camerawork, and the result is a fine, stirring classic." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-citadel-v9728/

DVD links:


Saturday, February 4, 2012

Stella Dallas 1937 - The complexity of maternal love


IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029608/
IMDB rating: 7,5


Director: King Vidor
Main Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale, Marjorie Main



"The height of multiple-hankie melodrama, King Vidor's Stella Dallas is also the most affecting screen adaptation of the Olive Higgins Prouty novel. The combined talents of Samuel Goldwyn, director King Vidor and star Barbara Stanwyck lift this property far above the level of mere soap opera. As the ultimate self-abnegating mother, Stanwyck endows her upwardly aspiring Stella with a potent mixture of crass fashion sense, hedonistic energy, self-aware pathos, and maternal love, while Anne Shirley's Laurel is visibly and poignantly torn between embarrassment and daughterly attachment. Stanwyck's dignity gives Stella's sacrifice to the class system the emotional punch that it requires, as she memorably stands outside a bay window in the rain, watching her refined daughter finally get what Stella always wanted for her. Critically praised for its superior performances, Stella Dallas garnered Stanwyck the first of her four Oscar nominations for Best Actress, as well as a Supporting Actress nomination for Shirley. Previously filmed in 1925, Stella Dallas was remade again in 1990 as the Bette Midler vehicle Stella." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/stella-dallas-v46809

DVD links: