Movies

[jaggedwolf]

Lonesome | Rear Window | The Cameraman

Lonesome (1928)

3/419 on the NYC list. A part-talkie about a very lonely gal and a very lonely guy hitting it off at Coney Island and then dramatically losing track of each other.

The talking parts are bad, in execution and in the literal words said. Our main guy loses all rizz as soon as he reacts to the girl saying her name with “You’ve found your little lamb, Mary, and I’ll follow you wherever you go.” He was less charming and/or funny to me than good ole Speedy from Speedy. Apparently the dialogue segments were forced by the studio and filmed without the director, to increase the film's commercial appeal. To the film's detriment.

Got to see more terrifying Coney Island rides, only in this film, a roller coaster wheel catches fire! Did not expect that, was surprised the only resulting injury was our heroine fainting from shock. I liked seeing both their morning routines and workplaces. Later, they both see the sign for the Coney Island 4th of July celebration, which justifies the final reveal for me. The purple-colored frames were cool.

The funniest bit was perhaps early on in the film. Our main guy gets invited by his coworker to hang out with him and the coworker's girlfriend, only to notice that his coworker is wearing on his jacket lapel a giant button that says TWO'S COMPANY THREE'S A CROWD and so our guy gets the message and politely declines.

Rear Window

A rewatch. I last watched this in 2013 or 2014. A less inwardly tormenting Hitchcock, with our guy L.B. Jeffries convinced he's seen a murder in the apartment across the courtyard.

Still a fun watch, with us trapped in Jeff's perspective for most of the film. The Greenwich Village courtyard took six weeks to build, which included a gigantic drainage system for that rain sequence. All the neighbours with their own endeavours and foibles are great, and I think my favorite is the sculptor lady even though she doesn't do much.

Jeff is such a little dick when Lisa brings him dinner, and their arguments about their different lifestyles mostly made me contemplate that huh, I guess the expectation would be either she follows him or he stays in NYC instead of continuing their own things while married. Would it be expected for Lisa to quit her job post-marriage?

Once they're both invested in the murder mystery I enjoy the banter between him and Lisa. He is pretty into how into solving the mystery Lisa gets, climbing from a fire escape into the Thorwald's apartment, though I wonder at his refusal to yell out when Thorwald has Lisa in his grasp.

Stella was great too. My only criticism was that I found Jeff warding off Thorwald with the flash bulbs more comical than tense, which was not aided by the awkward blocking of Thorwald shoving him out the window. And I knew to expect both moments, too...

The Cameraman

4/419 on the NYC list. Firstly, I didn't know one of Buster Keaton's things was maintaining an absolutely stoic expression while engaged in all of these shenanigans, and it did make his schticks funnier. Secondly, I found myself thinking if that Keaton's character does not know where Grand Central is he does not deserve a job as a newsreel cameraman.

It took me a while to warm up to this film. The initial jokes with the camera or the Yankees stadium bit didn't land for me, but I liked Keaton sprinting up and down the stairs of his apartment building while waiting for a phone call, hitting the basement and the roof in his tunnel vision.

Then he gets a monkey sidekick?? Who operates a gun while he's filming a gang war in Chinatown??? The monkey and the way it moves was quite unnerving to me, but again, the monkey operates a machine gun, how can I not enjoy that? It's in an already great sequence where Keaton's character darts between the rival Chinatown gangs to get footage, occasionally helping some fights along or filming from collapsing scaffolding. (I couldn't tell what, if any, usage of yellowface there was here.)

The romance is whatever, but monkey sidekick's final move in this film really does prove he's a homie.