ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[southendmd]

Plot:  Based on a true crime story, the movie is about a wild jazz-loving and boozing wife Roxie Hart who kills her boyfriend in cold blood after he leaves her, and how she finagles her way out being convicted. Remade once as a movie, and as a Broadway musical.

IMDb user comment: Long before the musical and long before the musical film, this property had a successful run in three incarnations - first as a Broadway play in the mid-twenties, then as a late silent film in 1927, and finally as the talkie, ROXIE HART, starring Ginger Rogers.

The 1927 film, though seemingly unavailable in any private collection I have come across, does still exist. UCLA, according to a noted archivist and expert on lost films, owns a copy, although I do not find it listed in their online database. Also the George Eastman House of Photography in Ithaca, NY owns a copy. Both UCLA and the Eastman House allow private viewings of their films through pre-arranged appointments in writing. One wishes someone had brought this out on the same disc as the recently DVD'd ROXIE HART to give us both film experiences.

=aside= Fran
Very homey theme!

[memento]

From IMDB: Dr. Joe Darrow is a recently widowed doctor. He is grieving due to the death of his pregnant wife in a Red Cross mission in Venezuela. Although being atheist, he began to believe that his dead wife wants to communicate with him, through her young patients in the Pediatrics of a Chicago hospital. 

[Fran]

From IMDb:  John Sayles' recounting of the 1919 "Black Sox" incident, in which the Chicago team conspired with organized-gambling powers to throw the World Series.

=aside= Paul
 

[southendmd]

IMDb user comment: 

Sluts, Sleaze and Booze, all in the windy city.

John Alderman stars as Steve Desmond, the gad about town who has a series of mobsters on his back.

As with any production that has Dave Friedman involved there is a huge amount of T and A and even Gherkin sex! (now I haven't seen that one before).

A heady mix of roughie explotation and a nudie, all in the mix with a Bonnie and Clyde inspired duo (Steve and Nancy) that forge a bond in filth and shared resentment for "Fats" the guy that has paid to have Steve and Nancy killed.

Highly enjoyable, from an age when smut was good and healthy.

[memento]

From IMDB: Chicago air controller Jack Harris is a wreck with guilt nightmares after a major Transair crash, killing all 174 aboard, gives up the job and designs air control software instead. Five years later, his ex-colleague T.C. Bryant, meanwhile also transferred to Phoenix, desperately asks him to help out short-term, given desperate staff shortage on Newyears eve with a bad storm predicted, after a power cut hits, which is actually the sabotage work of technical whiz John Quinn, who has meanwhile messed up the systems on several airports, so they see their workload multiplied. Colleagues welcome him in very different states of mind but he quickly proves his capabilities, alas then the fatal memories start creeping up again: will his lack of self-confidence cause another drama?

[Fran]

    

From The New York Times: 

Many a mystery is less bewildering than "Heroes for Sale," which was not intended as a puzzler at all. Just when the Strand audience is beginning to wonder how Richard Barthelmess is going to handle an interesting situation, the producers throw the Jonah plot over-board and set the cast to work on a new one. Both plots are good, but not in the same picture.

Plot No. 1 tells the story of a rich young man and a poor young man, both from the same town. During the war Roger Winston, the rich one, leads a prisoner-seeking foray into No Man's Land. He loses his nerve and the capture is made by Tom Holmes, the poor one. Roger receives all the credit while Tom, seeking surcease from the pain of his wounds, acquires the morphine habit. Discredited when his addiction becomes known back home, Tom is cast off, while Roger continues to enjoy his unmerited laurels.

Plot No. 2 shows Tom starting life anew in Chicago. He prospers, marries and becomes half-owner of a labor-saving machine. During a workers' strike, which he tried to stop, his wife is killed. He is blamed for leading the riot and is sentenced to jail. Still prompted by love for his fellow-man, he devotes his fortune to feeding the hungry, but becomes himself a homeless wanderer, unable to find work.

If there be any connection between these stories, it is only that of Tom's unbroken misfortune.

Mr. Barthelmess carries on bravely under the afflictions which fall to the lot of Tom; Aline Mac-Mahon does well, as in any part, as the keeper of the soup kitchen, and Loretta Young, as the wife, and Gordon Westcott, as the spineless Winston, help the story along. The brightest characterization is that of Roger Barrat as Max, the Communist inventor who turns capitalist when his invention proves successful.

[southendmd]

Plot:  Chicago is a worldwide icon in the story of American jazz, from the earliest days of the musical genre up to to the present. "In Chicago - A Jazz Documentary" gives a quick, symbiotic overview of the city's immutable ties to jazz through imagery and in-person narration.

[oilgun]

PLOT: A silent movie version of Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, "The Jungle," appeared in 1914. The novel's graphic descriptions of horrendous conditions in meat-packing plants [in Chicago] spurred passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act. In the silent movie, Sinclair himself played a socialist agitator.

==COMMENT==
Damn Socialists!   

[memento]

From IMDB: " Knute Rockne All American", the biopic about famous Notre Dame beloved coach Knute Rockne, is an excellent sports film to watch. Not ever having seen it, we were surprised by the technique used in the movie by director Lloyd Bacon, who shows he was ahead of his times in photographing football games. The result is a vibrant picture about the man responsible for the legacy of the collegian sport, Knute Rockne.

The film presents Rockne from his humble origins in Chicago to his studies in famed Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. He was an ambitious man who had a vision about how the game should be played. Luckily, he went to give his beloved Notre Dame the glory he was after.

Pat O'Brien looks a bit older when he starts as a freshman. In fact, he doesn't change much throughout the film, but he is fine as Mr. Rockne. Pat O'Brien shows he could inspire the players under him by just being a father figure. Gale Page plays Bonnie Rockne, the wise woman who understood her husband's call in life. Ronald Reagan plays George "The Gipper" Gipp, who was a legend that died much too young, but who left a legacy behind. Donald Crisp makes a good contribution as Father John Callahan who was Rockne's mentor at the university.

This film will delight not only sports because of LLoyd Bacon's direction and the fast pace he gives to the movie.

[southendmd]

In preproduction.

Plot:  Al Ritchie makes a name for himself during 1920's Prohibition as he climbs the mob ranks distributing illegal alcohol.