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  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    but have you seen SCTV's version of Ben Hur (1977),
    with John Candy in the title role, and Harold Ramis as his arch-rival Mazzola
    Ben+Hur+2.jpg
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent
    The Devil Rides Out (1968). A fine Hammer horror film with superlative performances from Christopher Lee, and a career best from Charles Gray. If only Gray had performed like this as Blofeld in DAF he could have been the best Blofeld of all. The film is filled with really good scenes of black magic worship, it’s a worthy transition to the screen of Dennis Wheatley’s most famous novel.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent
    Dracula, Prince Of Darkness (1966). This sequel to the original Hammer version of Dracula, begins with a rerun of the thrilling finale to that film, with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing using a pair of candlesticks to form a cross and reduce Dracula to dust. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear in this one and the film is not helped by his absence. Two couples take refuge in Dracula’s castle and one of them has his throat cut, and the ensuing stream of blood revives Dracula. This is quite a good scene. Strangely, Christopher Lee doesn’t utter a word in the entire movie, he is just reduced to hissing a lot. The film is okay, but no where near the majesty of the original Hammer film, Dracula, in my opinion, the best Dracula film of all time.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • HardyboyHardyboy Posts: 5,882Chief of Staff
    I watched Netflix's new version of Rebecca. Remaking Hitchcock is always a dangerous proposition, but the case can be made that Du Maurier's novel is a classic and there's room for another take on it. Maybe, but it ain't this one--which is so devoid of menace and fear and so focused on bright period detail that it's like watching an episode of Downton Abbey. And how many times is Lily James going to play a mousy little sad-sack whose beauty is only later discovered by others? Like even when she's slumming it she isn't drop-dead gorgeous. . .
    Vox clamantis in deserto
  • Lady RoseLady Rose London,UKPosts: 2,667MI6 Agent
    Over the past few days I've watched 'Game Night with Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams and In The Line Of Duty with Aaron Eckhart.


    Both light hearted and watchable. Killed a few hours.I had some proper LOL moments with Game Night.
  • DrydenDryden UKPosts: 131MI6 Agent
    The Trial Of The Chicago 7

    Really, really good as you’d expect from something by Aaron Sorkin. I knew nothing about this going into it but it told the story in an entertaining way and I was engrossed all the way through
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    Bullshot (1983)

    A fun homage and P take on the old Bulldog Drummond films. :D
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    The Omega Man, 1971
    yet more postapocalyptic fun with Charlton Heston

    This one is very near future, two years after humanity has been largely wiped out by a manmade virus accidentally released during a Sino-Russian border war. uh-oh...

    Survivors are now mutated, blind albinos who travel in packs led by a charisimatic cult leader who blames science for what has happened to them (played by Anthony Zerbe ... he's one of ours).
    Heston appears to be the only normal human left, a research scientist who is immune because he has given himself a vaccine he himself developed but since lost.
    Now he holes up in a nice LA apartment, surrounded by his art collection and laboratory, and an arsenal of guns (of course) while the hideously mutated anti-science hordes surround his building every night hurling fireballs at his balcony window, because he is one of those damned scientists.

    nahhh, couldn't happen
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
    directed by Russ Meyers, 1965

    I had been watching an early episode of the Man from UNCLE and was rather impressed by the actress playing that episodes evil henchwoman. Turns out her name's Tura Satana and this was her most famous work.


    Three very bad girls, are driving dangerously fast across the desert in their hot rods, looking for thrills. Satana is the leader of the gang and drives a Porsche. The other two squabble constantly, failing to settle their differences even after a wet t-shirt catfight, before the gang encounters a innocent young couple out to test the speed of the boyfriends car against a stopwatch. Satana suggests a real race and things turn tragic.

    Scene changes to an isolated cabin, where an old man in a wheel chair has two sons and is rumoured to also have a small fortune in cash hidden somewhere on the property. Our three heroines (and a hostage) invite themselves onto the property because they've been travelling a long way through this hot desert and are in need of a shower, but this is just a ruse for Satana's next sinister plan!
    gosh, what's going to happen next?


    check out Tura Satana's biography in wikipedia: this actress led an exciting life! I don't think this movie is so much a work of fiction as Meyers managing to capture a few typical days in her life on celluloid!
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent
    Hands Of The Ripper (1971). A Hammer production, this is the story of the daughter of Jack The Ripper. Some good atmospheric scenes in this one, as the traumatised daughter slashes her way through the movie, Eric Porter tries to understand the psychological reason behind her rampage.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent
    The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

    Sean Connery's last film though tellingly not described as a tribute to the late actor on Film4's TV listings last night.

    Now, I enjoyed this film in a low-key way just as I did in the cinema - it looks mega spectacular and Bond fans will notice a number of references, including the clay pigeon shooting on the Nautilus, as if from Thunderball. Even films that weren't Connery's such as Octopussy seem to get referenced.
    It's rubbish, however. Connery was joint producer and the woes of the film maybe got to him, just as it did on NSNA where he was forced to step in and do the work. His performance is largely phoned in and a bit weary, with no surprises.
    It's an ensemble effort but it was reworked to revolve around Connery's decreasing star wattage. The other characters offer no charm no useful backstory and unlike the Avengers the script doesn't pitch them as underdogs or outsiders so we have no reason to care, esp as their fictional characters - Dorien Grey, The Invisible Man, Captain Nemo etc - live in a fictional steampunk world.
    The script is bad but though this film put paid to Connery's film career as he grew sick of it all, you do have to wonder how he once again signed off on a movie with no decent script in place - this happened with NSNA and The Avengers. Whenever he signed on just for the money it went badly wrong - Meteor was an earlier example. Unlike Caine, he seemed unable latterly to do films for the joy of it all, in odd contrast to his decisions in the 1970s.

    Still, I'd rather this film existed than didn't.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    Tonight I've been enjoying " Salem's Lot " (1979) still holds up as a
    horror classic, I remember as a kid being really scared watching this
    over two nights., and it got me in to Stephen King Books.
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,172MI6 Agent
    I watched The King of Thieves last night. A load of twaddle. British heist movies are rank bad (excepting The Bank Job which at least has slick direction and a sense of humour. Sexy Beast is phenomenal, but that's more a character piece.)

    On Friday I thoroughly enjoyed The Talented Mr Ripley, but it us dulling through repeat viewings. First film I saw where I recognised Matt Damon could act.
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent
    The Man Who Would Be King

    This Connery-Caine classic from 1975 was shown as a tribute to the late actor. Bond fans of a certain age may recall seeing this on telly and hoping their man would step up to the acting plate - this he does, of course, and you noted that this was Connery's acting chops to the fore. The narrative arc is memorable as the two wily ex-soldiers go on an adventure to con the Indian natives but find events do not entirely go their way.

    iu.jpg

    Watching it today, as I have since, I find that the two leads aren't quite as charming as I remembered. Okay, they're chancers and conmen so maybe not supposed to be. It's directed by the late great John Huston - well, alright, but he also did Escape to Victory. :# The film is an epic but he doesn't bring much of that I feel - there's more to an epic than pointing the camera at the natives or a mountain panorama. Huston had wanted to make the film with Bogart and Gable in the 50s but never got it off the ground. I do think the film needs a bit of the old Hollywood magic to make it work - face it, for the two roguish soldiers to make it several hundred miles north through the snowy wastes of north India would take magic really, but Huston doesn't convey this. Likewise, when they reach their destination, the mystic mumbo jumbo of the natives would work better in a film with the flavour of Black Narcissus or The Lost Horizon (the 1930s version) but here it actually gets a bit boring and is not convincing enough.

    Admittedly this was.a time when Hollywood was demystifying itself and making grittier efforts so that magical flavour was out of favour.

    On another post I wrote how Connery wasn't a great romantic lead - a sex symbol, yes, but he didn't have that way of giving himself up to another person. That applies here to this bromance, for that is what it is. Caine and Connery work well together. But this is a buddy movie that plays out like a romance, with the play out of breakup due to greed, another woman, ego or betrayal. You don't quite get that with Connery and Caine, they are mates but don't seem to have that bond.

    The two actors are perhaps too old for this (if so, so would have been Bogart and Gable for sure) you can't forgive their excess as the folly of youth. Perhaps it might have been better in the mid 60s, with Connery as he was in The Hill and Caine the bolshy corporal from The Ipcress File. The middle-aged fellas actually might seem a bit dim to be going off on this adventure. On the other hand, one can't help thinking, well of course these two soldiers will succeed in their endeavour - they're Connery and Caine. And I never warmed to them so much that you feel the pain of their fallout as the film progresses. You should feel complicit in their wrongdoing and then later ashamed. You don't really get that arc in the movie.

    One problem here is to avoid the essential narrative theme - this is really a Bob Hope Bing Crosby Road To... film. I mean the plot is pretty much the same and if it looked more Hollywood that might make it more obvious, and the gritty location work does help dispel this.
    What has long struck me is that Connery's Danny changes his character and that's the nub of the film - but tbh it comes across less as Danny but just Connery being himself. I'd have liked a bit of the slight pomposity we saw in Connery's Name of the Rose or The Last Crusade to be seen here. Again, the double act doesn't quite come off as his Danny doesn't seem that well drawn initially.

    The film was not a smash hit and the first half hour doesn't help. Even on repeated viewing I didn't quite catch that Caine is trying to pickpocket Rudyard Kipling's pocket but finds he's nicked the watch of a fellow freemason and feels duty bound as a fellow mason to return it. The thing about Masons is that being a secretive organisation, nobody is interested in them except Masons and those who think they secretly control the world and so on. It needs more prepping as a central plot advice, as this turns out to be. That said, this is the only film I've seen in which freemasonry is depicted relatively sympathetically rather than as the Illuminati. But it isn't clear why Kipling, even as a fellow Mason, would want or need any involvement with these two hucksters, esp as I've said, they don't seem nearly as funny or charming as I remember.

    The end is stirring stuff and the rope bridge is another reason why Connery was so suitable for Indy and the Last Crusade, seeing as it featured in the previous film, Temple of Doom.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent
    Quatermass And The Pit. (1967).

    The third in Hammer’s trilogy and it’s really good. This time filmed in colour and Andrew Keir replaces Brian Donlevy as Quatermass. A Martian spacecraft is found whilst digging in a London Underground station and releases an ancient evil. Most people find this the best of the trilogy but Quatermass II remains my favourite. Well worth watching and Julian Glover has an early role as a young Colonel.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, 1965 *
    Based on the book by le Carre, which I still regard as his best told tale.
    Directed by Martin Ritt, who I'm not familiar with. Wikipedia tells me Ritt otherwise was known for "serious issues" type dramas, not crowdpleasing thrillers, and it shows.

    Most important: starring Richard Burton, whose performance dominates this experience.
    I believe I've never actually seen a film with Burton before, but he's got a hammy overacting style that is instantly recognisable from a hundred parodies. Brooding, surly, slurry speeched and constantly snarling. I bet Dalton's Bond owes more to this performance than it does to any previous cinematic Bond!

    There's an actor playing Smiley who bears no resemblance to the character as described by le Carre, or as interpreted by either Guiness or Oldman.

    Cinematically this is very black and white, all static camera shots of shabby interiors, magnifying every stain on the wallpaper and every wrinkle in Burton's skin. probably owes a lot visually to the Third Man (which borrowed from German Expressionism so it all comes full circle), but whereas that film was taut and suspenseful, this one is slow and stagey, plodding along like a verbose stage play.
    I dont think any of it is actually filmed in Germany, despite opening and closing at The Wall (both sequences look great). (whereas Funeral in Berlin had much authentic Berlin content) First half is mostly set in working class London, and makes postwar English life look like a depressing grind (the kind of no-hope existence normal folks read Ian Fleming novels to escape from). Scenes in communist East Germany in the second half look scarcely more bleak than working class London.

    I say above this is still my favourite le Carre novel. But while the adaptation is very faithful plot-wise, I think it worked much better as a book. As a film, especially a slow stagey film, it is overwhelmed by the incomprehensible dialog during Burton's long interrogation scenes.
    But this is where I appreciate the casting of such a hammy stage actor. The characters job is too deceive his interrogators, and all the world, with his carefully rehearsed disinformation and manufactured persona as an embittered castoff from the Secret Service. So the fact we are so very aware He Is Acting!!! gives these long dialogs a second level of meaning, distracting from how boring the actual dialog is.


    Bernard Lee has a cameo in this, He is the grocer whom Burton assaults near the beginning. Too bad, missed opportunity.
    What they should have done: Bernard Lee should have had the office next to Control's, and at one point the two secret service chiefs encounter each other in the hall. Lee should glare at Control, then shuffle away muttering loudly:
    "bloody Control bloody overcomplicated spy schemes. All you need to bloody do is send your damn man to sleep with the villains bloody girlfriend, then blow up the villains bloody headquarters, then youve saved the bloody world yet again, thats the job! Don't know why bloody Control has to make this dirty damn business seem so bloody difficult! grumble grumble mutter mutter now wheres my damn pipe etc..."
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent
    ^ That's a fine review. :)

    You missed a Bond reference - Michael Hordern pops up at one point as a homosexual going after Burton's expelled agent. Hordern would go on to voice Paddington in the 1970s TV series, later played of course by Ben Wilshaw, who also did Q.

    Okay, so it's an obscure reference. :D
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Lady RoseLady Rose London,UKPosts: 2,667MI6 Agent
    Tonight I've been enjoying " Salem's Lot " (1979) still holds up as a
    horror classic, I remember as a kid being really scared watching this
    over two nights., and it got me in to Stephen King Books.

    I absolutely love that. I remember being absolutely petrified but totally glued as a kid. I saw it not too long ago and it's still eerie. James Mason is fabulous.

    I'm surprised it hasn't had a remake to be honest.
  • Shady TreeShady Tree London, UKPosts: 2,965MI6 Agent
    edited November 2020
    Walter Hill's '48 hrs.' (1982). Roger Spottiswoode (dir. TND) was a co-writer on this seminal 80s buddy movie. The racist jibes, played for laughs, make some of this uncomfotable viewing now - perhaps explaining the movie's long-since waned star - but the chemistry between Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy is strong and Murphy's comic business is mostly effective against the genuine drama of the movie and its sense of danger. The villain, James Remar, while hardly a cut above gritty TV cop show fare in terms of dramatic stature (he's 'The Streets of San Francisco'-level material), is a violent enough adversary to give the film some heft. Worth a spin for early 80s nostalgia. In part this was cliched already (Remar). In other respects, which also seem cliched now, it felt fresh at the time (the Nolte/ Murphy buddy riff).
    Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
  • HardyboyHardyboy Posts: 5,882Chief of Staff
    The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, 1965

    Most important: starring Richard Burton, whose performance dominates this experience.
    I believe I've never actually seen a film with Burton before, but he's got a hammy overacting style that is instantly recognisable from a hundred parodies. Brooding, surly, slurry speeched and constantly snarling.

    Burton's hamminess is legendary--he's long been held up an example of a great stage actor who didn't know how to dial it down for the screen. That said, I actually think Leamas is one of his better film performances. . .though I do agree with Le Carre himself, who said that Peter Finch should have played the part.

    And I for one like the film--I think it's a good adaptation of the novel and it stands in stark contrast to the fantasy of Bond and other '60s Bond stories. But I respect where you're coming from, CP!
    Vox clamantis in deserto
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent
    Burton was pulled up on his hamminess in his final film, Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he played O'Brien - the sinister interrogator of Mr Smith, played by John Hurt. It's one of those films that's simply never shown on telly any more, even as a curiosity. Burton it was said would then check himself when acting, sometimes calling 'cut' himself when he caught himself 'doing a Burton'. He also noted his hammy style in a film like Beckett I think when he was on the chat show Parkinson in the early 70s.

    A legend when I was growing up, I was shocked some 15 years ago to learn someone a bit younger had never heard of him. But then, his films don't seem to endure. Cleopatra is rubbish, and The Robe is heavy going, as is Look Back in Anger frankly.

    I loved Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf but again that's a film almost never shown on telly these days. Surely you've seen Where Eagles Dare, caractacus potts? What about my fave guilty pleasure, The Wild Geese, with Richard Harris, Hardy Kruger and Roger Moore?

    Known for taking the big money roles, Burton doesn't leave the movie legacy he might have. It's odd, really.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    Hardyboy wrote:
    And I for one like the film--I think it's a good adaptation of the novel and it stands in stark contrast to the fantasy of Bond and other '60s Bond stories. But I respect where you're coming from, CP!

    I liked it too!
    I was trying to describe the experience, rather than make a subjective value judgement.

    Its a film we should probably discuss more round these parts. We talk about le Carre's books plenty. And lots of talk about more recent adaptations of his books.
    But this one was the first ever le Carre adaptation, and it was coincident with Thunderball and the height of spymania, when there was dozens of mostly very silly Bond parodies competing. This grim grey superserious spyfilm contrasts strongly with all of these. Even the Ipcress File (which is funny in its own way) looks like a colourful spyspoof in comparison.
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    Re-watched The Meg, :# still rubbish and even worse on a second viewing.
    Although worth a watch, to take the piss out of it.
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • HardyboyHardyboy Posts: 5,882Chief of Staff
    But this one was the first ever le Carre adaptation, and it was coincident with Thunderball and the height of spymania, when there was dozens of mostly very silly Bond parodies competing. This grim grey superserious spyfilm contrasts strongly with all of these. Even the Ipcress File (which is funny in its own way) looks like a colourful spyspoof in comparison.

    One thing I find interesting is that Paul Dehn had a hand in both the script for Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Goldfinger! Talk about a man who could change hats. And I've always found Dehn fascinating--himself a spy (and, according to Le Carre, an ASSASSIN!), a screenwriter, and openly gay. A good movie could be made about him. . .
    Vox clamantis in deserto
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    I've never heard of Paul Dehn before, but he seems very interesting. After googling him for a while the sources say very little about his WWII service. Most sources just say Dehn was an SOE officer, was an instructor at Camp X and he was on missions in France and Norway. Historynet.com also mentions more about the skills he passed on as an instructor, mostly classic espionage skills. Other than his connection to spy movies I was naturally intreaged by the mention of a mission to Norway. I'm above average knowledgable about espionage and special operations in WWII in Norway, and I've never heard of non-Norwegian SOE agents working here. There was a company of Norwegian agents in Scotland who knew the country and language, so why use a foreigner? I hope to find out more.
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited December 2020
    Camp X' official net site says Dehn did meat Ian Fleming at the camp and they formed a lasting friendship.
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited December 2020
    The same site says Dehn was a political warfare instructor at Camp X.
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    21 bridges (2019)

    This is an action thriller starring Chadwick Boseman as a New York policman. Two men end up robbing far more drugs than they planned and killing half a dozen police officers in the process, making their chances of survival very small. Boseman character orders all travel into and out of Manhattan stopped to trap the cop killers, but gradually understands the case is murkier and more complicated than the thought. I expected a standard high-consept action movie, but this is closer to movies like Serpico, The Parallax View and Heat. 21 bridges has a high consept and a grand scale, but it also handles story and character very well. The director is an Irishman named Brian Kirk. He has only done high-end TV before, such as GoT, Luther, Great Expectations and Penny Dreadful. But making a few episodes of a major TV series today is comparable to a mid-level movie twenty years ago.
    I think Brian Kirk should be considered as a Bond director, because he handles both both epic and personal, has a very good understanding of story and character and the movie looks and sounds great. He is also used to directing for series showrunners, and that's basically what Babs and Michael Wilson are.
    Excellent movie!
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent
    Key Largo.

    Fine Bogart film with Lauren Bacall and Edward G Robinson.

    Bogart is a former service man who visits a family in their Florida hotel (I think) because he was with their relative when he died at Cassino. But in a plot line that would anticipate The Spy Who Loved Me, he finds a sultry Russian spy there who's being terrorised by a man with steel teeth - no, not that one - he finds the hotel has been taken over by hoodlums.

    Swaggering, cowardly and a star, Edward G Robinson's character really has all at the hallmarks of a certain departing US President, where unexpected natural events conspire to defeat his plans.

    One support actor I swore was Saxby from Diamonds are Forever. He isn't/wasn't but Bruce Cabot in DAF had one hell of a career, dating back to the 30s, and died just one year after DAF.
    He is notorious however his part in the downfall of Errol Flynn as recounted by David Niven in his Hollywood bio, turning on his mate when he was owed money and sent in the receivers to grab his possessions. No idea he played Saxby in DAF - still he gets shot so that' something!

    High Society

    Amusing slightly hollow classic musical. Great songs, great starts, great gags - something's.a bit off though. You know you're getting on a bit when you start to identify more with George, Grace Kelly's intended in the film, a stuffed shirt stitched up by Bing Crosby, whose machinations seem perhaps less amusing and rakish today, a bit like Roger Moore's card play to seduce Solitaire.

    Sinatra has a Bond-like tux and is 'taken for a ride' by Grace Kelly in a speeding car that Thunderball seemed to borrow from; this and a similar scene in To Catch A Thief are a bit sad in view of how she later died.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,172MI6 Agent
    High Society

    Amusing slightly hollow classic musical. Great songs, great starts, great gags - something's.a bit off though. You know you're getting on a bit when you start to identify more with George, Grace Kelly's intended in the film, a stuffed shirt stitched up by Bing Crosby, whose machinations seem perhaps less amusing and rakish today, a bit like Roger Moore's card play to seduce Solitaire.

    Sinatra has a Bond-like tux and is 'taken for a ride' by Grace Kelly in a speeding car that Thunderball seemed to borrow from; this and a similar scene in To Catch A Thief are a bit sad in view of how she later died.

    Watched it tonight. Very dated. I'd never seen it before. Good songs. Performances a bit so-so. Best sequence was Grace Kelly drunk ar her bridal shower singing "Sensational".

    I prefer the original "The Philadelphia Story" - no offence to Bing Crosby, but he's no Cary Grant. Jimmy Stewart won a leading man Oscar for a supporting part in that one. He was as miscast in the 1940 version as Sinatra is in this. Bing seems too old to have been married to Grace Kelly - though they had just made The Country Girl together to great acclaim, different kind of film though - and I rather fancy his and Sinatra's roles should have been reversed. Lush photography sets and costumes. A money spinner in its day but not much joy for this viewer.
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