This Week's Classic Cinema Obsession: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (Edward A Blatt, 1944)

In honor of John Garfield's birthday, TCM is running his movies all day Thursday, March 4th.

As far as I'm concerned, any movie with John Garfield is worth watching. But the one I'm most looking forward to is an underrated gem of a movie that really affected me the first time I saw it and it continues to move me each time I've seen it since.

It's BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, playing on Thursday, March 4, on TCM at 3:30 PM EST. It's a strange sort of film that is part angsty-doomed romance, part metaphysical morality play, and part film blanc with a dash of film noir. It's about a group of passengers on an eerie ocean steam ship who think they are traveling across the Atlantic from war-torn Britain to America. But where they're really headed is the eternal destination, either Heaven or Hell. These folks are dead and they're all passengers on the ship "between two worlds," the in-between ship that traverses the divide between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It's the ship that sails an ocean limbo, shrouded in mist, somewhere between life and afterlife.

This Week's Classic Cinema Obsession: THE CRAZIES (George Romero, 1973)

I don't normally like remakes, but in the case of George Romero's 1973 cult movie, THE CRAZIES, I'm all for it.

Why? Because the '73 version of THE CRAZIES is not a good movie. I wouldn't call it a bad movie, exactly, but it's one of those movies with a great premise done in by a bad script and bad acting (and, it must be said, the most annoying soundtrack ever -- 90 minutes of military snare drum over EVERY SCENE is enough to make the ears bleed). It has its moments, but ultimately it's a failure. It's the perfect, "If only..." or "What might have been..." movie, so that makes it the perfect candidate for a remake.

This Week's Classic Cinema Obsession: GYPSY (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962)

The Siren has a great post going on her blog about uncool cinema opinions (she defines "uncool" as "courting hoots of derision from critical colleagues") and while I offered a few of my own in the comments section, here on my own blog I'm going to offer up my big one:

I absolutely love the movie version of GYPSY (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962).


And everyone can bask in the glorious uncoolness (i.e.: awesomeness) of this movie on Wednesday, February 10th when GYPSY plays on TCM at 5:30 PM EST.

This Week's Classic Cinema Obsession: MOONRISE (Frank Borzage, 1948)

This week's obsession is a movie I haven't seen. Yet.

It's MOONRISE (Frank Borzage, 1948) and it's playing Wednesday night at 10:00 PM EST on TCM and I cannot wait.

It's one of those movies that cinephiles and in-the-know types are hep to but it's not available on DVD and it wasn't a big hit at the time of its initial release in 1948. In other words, we're talking cult status, forgotten masterpiece stuff. I've never seen it and I'm dying to catch a glimpse.

MOONRISE falls into a sub-genre of noir that I think is best described as "Romance Noir" (NORA PRENTISS is another example of the type, which I briefly reviewed here).

Lyrical romance with a side dish of psychological melodrama is the order of the day in the rundown diner of Romance Noir. Sure, there's murder and violence in these types of films, but the real pulse of Romance Noir is found, of course, in the love story. That's one of the reason's I'm excited to watch MOONRISE -- I want to get lost in the love story, a love story with a dark noir-ish sensibility, all shadows, forbidden love, a little masochism, the kind that hurts so good, etc. etc., all that angsty wounded-hearts film noir suffering....

"But remember," the Romance Noir seems to be saying, "love never fails, love might even save, there might be a light at the end of that long, dark, black-hearted tunnel, there might be redemption in the arms of someone you love...." I have a feeling this is where MOONRISE is coming from and if I'm right, it's gonna be good. Count me in.