As war movies go, this is mostly gags?

So many gags.

It’s plenty amiable, but… it’s not very exciting?

It’s generally well liked, though, so perhaps I’m just not getting into the swing of things. I find myself distracted all the time… This thing should be right up my alley — it’s artificial and awkward, which I like, but it’s just hard to care that much.

Oh, OK, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Especially the “boisterous” bit. So it’s not just be. And there’s only two (2) reviews on rottentomatoes, which means that this is a largely forgotten movie, I guess?

OK, I’m bailing on this movie after 70 minutes. I just have zero interest in anything that’s (possibly) happening on the screen.

It does look quite nice, so I’ll give it a ⚀ more.

Ill Met by Moonlight. Michael Powell. 1957. ⚁

This is it! I did it! The final one!

Let me explain: In 2017, I got the bright idea of going looking for box sets of screwball comedies and musicals. I couldn’t believe that there were, like, a 50 DVD box set available for almost no money! So I got two (or was it three?) with a total of about… 70? 80? movies in total.

It turned out that these were all public domain movies. The reasons for the public domainity (that’s a word) varied, but it’s mostly one of two: 1) The studio that had produced them had gone bankrupt (and nobody had bought the rights), or 2) the studio hadn’t bothered to renew the copyright.

Both of these things happened because the movies in question were mostly B movies, or nobody could imagine that anybody would ever want to watch them again.

So we’re not talking… quality films. For the most part.

And since they’re in the public domain, there’s no money in restoring them, so I’ve been watching some pretty wretched DVD transfers.

But… it’s been kinda interesting anyway? Sure, most of these movies are pretty bad, but… I’d been getting such a skewed version of the 30s/40s from watching only the classics? Before watching these movies, I thought that Hollywood were only doing fabulous movies in the 30s.

And they weren’t.

Another kinda interesting (to me) thing about these movies are that more than a handful have Black actors in the leads, which you just don’t see from the major productions of the time.

And I got to see a few 30s serials, which was amusing.

So… all in all, it wasn’t all bad… but… I wouldn’t really recommend the experience. It’s a lot of hours that I could have been watching better movies.

This is very Technicolor.

Some of the gags here are kinda amusing, but the songs just aren’t good enough to save this movie.

The colours do look great.

Fiesta. Richard Thorpe. 1947. ⚁

Gene Autry.

So meta!

This is pretty wild and weird. It’s about Autry being a double, and then hi-jinx ensues (which is traditional enough), but it’s wrapped up in a movie-making thing, and then there’s horses and tricks and stuff, and it’s all very… odd…

It’s like they didn’t quite realise what the formula they were supposed to make was.

I’m enjoying this, but, you know — you can’t really call this a “good movie”. The actors are hamming it up in a very pleasing way, and the cinematography is actually kinda ambitious for this sort of thing…

It’s almost genius. If the jokes had been just a bit funnier, this might have been a cult favourite. Instead it totters on the verge of being awful in ever scene, but somehow manages to make you go “that’s not bad!” all the time.

It’s weirdly inspired, is what I’m saying.

But not actually good?

OK, in the last 15 minutes they mostly abandon the story and just show scenes from a horsey show (which looks like an actual show). And… that’s just not that much fun. But it’s kinda interesting.

The Big Show. Mack V. Wright. 1936. ⚂