Hey. Lana Turner.

I’m watching the last few movies from a couple of public domain DVD box sets I bought in 2017. I think there were about 70 movies in total in those sets?

I’ve got… eight movies left.

Well, this is in colour, which is unusual, but it’s totally unrestored… I wonder where it’s sourced from? It looks very soft (which might point to a TV transmission at some point in the er provenance), but it’s got scratches that are totally sharp. So… it’s from a film copy?

Very odd.

Right:

This is one of a handful of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer productions of the 1950-1951 period whose original copyrights were never renewed and are now apparently in Public Domain; for this reason this title is now offered, often in very inferior copies, at bargain prices, by numerous VHS and DVD distributors who do not normally handle copyrighted or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer material.

And I guess it’s because it sucks:

In her autobiography, Lana Turner revealed that she thought the script for the film was stupid. She fought against doing the film, but lost.

Oh yeah, this is a musical. Turner’s vocals have been looped in, apparently.

Director Hartman had been working in movies since the early 30s, but mostly as a writer (and composer). He only directed this handful of movies… and… based on this one, it’s odd that he even got to make this many movies.

But apparently the three 40s movies are supposed to be good?

OK, this is just totally without any sort of interest, so I’m bailing after half an hour. Too bad, because Lana Turner can be fun.

Mr. Imperium. Don Hartman. 1951. ⚀

Tex Ritter! I didn’t even know that he was an… actor? We had like Tex Ritter comics when I was a child, but I thought that was a … German thing?

… No, that was Tex Willer. Which is Italian.

Let me see if you can detect a certain pattern in the names of the roles Ritter was playing:

No? No pattern?

Geez.

This is most amiable. I guess this is one of those B movie things? I mean, it’s not part of a serial, but it looks like it’s Extruded Western Product — they had to keep the kids entertained, week in, week out at the movies.

It’s cheap and cheery, with gags, music and action.

That said, it’s not actually like good — there’s no reason to watch this unless you’re really curious about what one of these movies were like. (Which I am.)

Sing, Cowboy, Sing. Robert N. Bradbury. 1937. ⚁

They’re so young!

I saw this movie at the time, and I was… unimpressed? Yeah. I thought it was kinda… sophomoric? Jejune? One of them there words. But that’s all I remember: I remember nothing of the movie itself.

So I’m excited to watch this again, because I’ve grown to appreciate Tarantino in some of his better movies (Jackie Brown, Once Upon etc, etc).

It looks kinda cheap? Was it really cheap?

It was!

What? I thought it was super duper successful? I guess not…

OK, resetting expectations again…

OK, I’m kinda bored now. Everybody talks in exactly the same voice, and it’s getting annoying listening to the same guy shouting at himself all the time.

At least it has a happy ending.

I liked the timeline, but the rest was kinda … snooze-worthy.

So: I was right the first time around when I watched this when I was 25.

Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino. 1992. ⚂