The four levels of illness

(The title is an inside joke.  Many of us at the Food Hole are having to take an excruciatingly long (eight hours!) computer course on food safety.  I did aboot four hours today and was doing alright until the dulcet tones of my female "instructor" started in on the four levels of illness.  I became glazed to say the least.)

But really I just want to hit on a few movies real quick.

I saw two Capra films o'er this past weekend and I still hate Capra.  I saw Platinum Blonde and Lost Horizon.  Re the latter film I pretty much concur w/ David Thomson's feelings.  Lost Horizon is "dopey", a bunch of drug store, half-assed religious claptrap that goes on entirely too long (and Capra axed 50 minutes off of the version you can see now!) and has an awful ending of swirling headlines and four English diplomats toasting Ronald Coleman in their stuffy club.  Blech.  I really was hoping that they would escape and Shangri-la be exposed as a cult.  No such luck.

Platinum Blonde is better.  And my flip response, I suppose, my Twitter or quick Facebook review would be:  Too much Loretta Young, not enough Jean Harlow! Thomson likes the film more than I do, for sure.  He likes the star, Robert Williams, who died right after the film was released.  But from my perspective, today, I think the hand-wringing about Williams' being seduced by the chi chi set, landing in a "gilded cage" (gosh, they say that a lot, gilded cage, it gets v annoying but quick), him becoming the Cinderella Man, & on and on, etc, ... does not  resonate with me.

Platinum blonde, indeed.

It was nice to see Harlow play a classy lady for once but Capra did not come close to capturing Harlow's raw, fun sex appeal.  Plus Capra insists on his corny ass bit player studio cut-ins that drive me crazy.

Also saw Morocco, starring Dietrich.  Did not like this much, either, but more than either of the Capra films.  You know, Lubitsch just did not have these sound problems, even back in 1930. Lubitsch was just way of everybody else in Hollywood at that time.  Dietrich's scene in the tux, kissing the girl full-on is still pretty cool to watch even today.

I saw a really excellent film, too, A Room at the Top, but that will have to be for another time, hopefully soon.

Kisses, ...