On a completely different war-movie note, I have to ask if anyone else saw 1927's Wings last night on TCM. Not only was it an amazing film with incredible aerial sequences, and not only did Clara Bow kick all kinds of ass with a tremendous performance, but it had the single slashiest scene I've ever ever seen in an ostensibly heteronormative movie. A tender, mournful, genuinely moving and wrenching and utterly slashtastic death scene (right after this moment, when I groaned, "Oh, just kiss him already!", he kissed him already -- according to Wikipedia, the first known M/M kiss on film ever, anywhere)
I didn't, but back when AMC used to be allowed to show classic movies, I watched that one a couple of times, and I less than three it SO MUCH.
JZ, I just sent you the NYT review of the picture from Aug. 13, 1927. The word, "HoYAY!" does not appear in the article.
I just love the name on the byline: Mordaunt Hall.
The NYT review is online.
The last chapter, that concerned with the return of Powell to his home in this country, is, like so many screen stories, much too sentimental, and there is far more of it than one wants.
Things haven't changed since 1927, have they.
Oooh, thanks!
Caught the NYT in an error -- Arlen's character is named
David
Armstrong, not Bruce. I'm sorely tempted to email the ombudsman about this. A big old gross error like that, out flapping in the wind for 81 years; they'd better get on it right away!
JZ, I bet the omsbudsman would get a kick out of that!
Awesome Rambo review.
(Wait for the end - you need to see the sign-off. And then tell me this kid wasn't the original inspiration for McLovin.)
I don't know how you can ask Casablanca to be more gay when it's already got Renault saying things like "She was asking about you earlier, Rick, in a way that made me
extremely jealous."
We taped Wings and are now looking forward to it even more.
As for Casablanca, any movie that ends with one man saying to another, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," doesn't need any more gay subtext credentials.
We taped Wings and are now looking forward to it even more.
I was thinking of you and Hubs and your love of old movies when I watched it. It's just... oh, it's an unbearably intimate, romantic scene.
I don't know enough about Wellman or either of the actors to even guess whether it was intentional or accidental; but, watching it, I could imagine some rural teenage boy in 1927, full of feelings he can't name but that scare him shitless, ducking out of an afternoon of school or chores to see that bang-up new flying aces movie, and being completely shaken by this one brief little window into a world he hadn't imagined could exist.
