Murder is My Favorite Crime: Laura (1944)

Murder is my favorite crime.

So I strongly contemplated whether or not I wanted to include this in my Horrorfest. It isn’t really a horror film but more of a mystery thriller, even better defined as a film-noir. I really wanted to include it but, since it wasn’t a real “horror film” I wasn’t sure if I should. But then I had a moment of clarity.

This is my blog. I can do whatever I want!

So I decided I would.

 

So this actually started out as a play and then was turned into a novel. Otto Preminger saw it as the perfect thing to turn into a film. It is known to be one of the best Film-Noir films along with one of the best mystery-thriller films of all time. AFI ranked it #4 on their list of the 10 greatest mystery films.

This film is also famous for Gene Tierney’s portrayal of Laura. This helped give her title of “Film-Noir Queen”.

So anyways, on to the film.

So it starts off with New York City police Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews).

He is investigating the death of the beautiful, successful, advertising executive Laura Hunt. Laura was murdered by a shotgun blast to the face.

Det. McPherson starts investigating and finds himself with multiple murder suspects and motives.

1) Waldo Lybecker

Waldo (Clifton Webb) is a famous columnist and he was the one who actually discovered Laura. She tried to get him to advertise something for him, and faster than you could say Pygmalion, he takes her under his wing and tries to change her and “improve” her.

“Waldo Lydecker: She was quick to seize upon anything that would improve her mind or her appearance. Laura had innate breeding, but she deferred to my judgment and taste. I selected a more attractive hairdress for her. I taught her what clothes were more becoming to her. Through me, she met everyone: The famous and the infamous. Her youth and beauty, her poise and charm of manner captivated them all. She had warmth, vitality. She had authentic magnetism. Wherever we went, she stood out. Men admired her; women envied her. She became as famous as Waldo Lydecker’s walking stick and his white carnation.”

But it goes a little more than that. Waldo becomes obsessed with Laura.

Yep. He is in love with her and wants to be the only man. Every time some other guy came around he would find a way to criticize them and demean them. The two broke it off, but Laura was very upset with him.

Laura started dating another guy, Shelby Carpenter. No matter what Waldo said, Laura wouldn’t listen to him. In fact she decided to marry him.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!

Yep he was angry. Extremely upset about losing Laura to someone he thought was so unworthy? Angry enough to kill?

Hmm…

2) Shelby Carpenter

Shelby (played by Vincent Price) comes from great stock, has expensive tastes, and loves the high life. Only one problem, he has no money. None at all. Instead he has to use to his charms to court rich, older women and have them pay for his expenses. In fact he had found a real great giver in Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson). That is until he met the very charismatic Laura. Not only is she the perfect cash cow to support him, but young and beautiful. Who could ask for anything more?

“Shelby Carpenter: I knew there was something on my mind. Ah yes, will you dine with me tomorrow night?

Laura Hunt: Yes.

Shelby Carpenter: No, it’s not that – it’s the next night. And what about three weeks from tonight? And all the nights in between?

Laura Hunt: Shelby, you talk as if I had no other engagements!

Shelby Carpenter: And two months from now? And the month after that?

Laura Hunt: What about next year?

Shelby Carpenter: Oh, that’s all settled. What about breakfast?

Laura Hunt: What about dancing?

Shelby Carpenter: What about lunch? Beautiful lunches, day after day after day?”

The two starting dating and she gave him a job, one of which he didn’t have to do too much work. The two become engaged and all is well.

Or is it?

It turns out that Laura wasn’t the only person Shelby was seeing. He was going around with a lot of poor models. Rumor has it that Laura found out and was not happy…could he have killed her? If she was about to leave him high and dry, he might have become incensed and murdered her?

3) Ann Treadwell

Ann Treadwell is the rich older aunt of Laura. She and Shelby had been in a relationship for a long time. She knew what he was, but that was what she wanted.

When he left her for Laura, she was furious that her niece stole him away. Furious enough to kill?

Sound suspicious

As Det. McPherson continues to delve into the clues and motives…he learns more and more about Laura. As he learns more and more he starts falling for Laura as well.

One night Det. McPherson is at Laura’s apartment looking at her painting and trying to figure out the mystery, along with Laura. Why does she draw him to her?

When suddenly somebody comes crashing through.

It’s Laura!!!

But wait…

But if that’s Laura? Who is…?

Who is the dead body?

They find out that the murdered girl is one of the models, Diane Redfern. The same model that Shelby was involved with.

Yep this leads Mark with another suspect…Laura

4) Laura Hunt

So we’ve heard how Laura rose from nothing to being the top girl. She was beautiful, smart, classy, etc. All women envined her and all men wanted her.

But then the guy she loves and is supposed to marry is running around with a model!!! Cheating on her!!!!

She knew Diane was in love with Shelby, and she knew Shelby only cared about her money. She knew Shelby was taking models to her house and she could have gone after them and shot her for trying to mess with her man.

Or she could be so angry at Shelby for cheating on him that she prepared a way to take care of him.

Instead of killing him, she could have killed Diane to make it look like Shelby and make him pay!

Does it seem too far-fetched? Well she wasn’t at the cabin when the cops looked that weekend. Her response “I was talking a walk.” She didn’t see the newspapers and come back saying she was alive? Or hear it on the radio? Her response: I don’t get a newspaper and my radio is broken.” Did anyone see you there? “Nobody”.

What does this mean? Who is the killer?

You’ll have to watch the film to find out.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For to the previous post, go to Every Time I Bring a Girl Over, You Try to Eat Her!

For more on Laura (1944), go to All I Know About Trilogies is That in the Third One, All Bets are Off

For more on Vincent Price, go to The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind

For more mysteries, go to Quite a Horror Story

For more films based on books, go to But the Book, It Will Never Close…

For more films based on a play, go to Some People Are Just Born Evil

I Love You Anyway: The Notebook (2004)

Romantic Moment #11

The Notebook (2004)

So as I told you all last year when I chose A Walk to Remember to include on my Valentine’s Day Romantic Moments list, that I am not a big Nicholas Sparks fan. In fact the only book/movie that I like (actually Love) is A Walk to Remember.  I’ve never been interested in his other works, and I actually hate  the Notebook. Even though I adore Rachel McAdams and think she is a fantastic actress, I dislike it, A LOT. So why am I including it on this list? You’ll have to read on to find out.

So onwards. The movie begins at a nursing home where an elderly man is reading a romantic story from his notebook to a woman.

The story is set in June of 1940 in South Carolina. A country boy, Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling), has fallen for a heiress Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams). The two spend the summer together, with Noah taking Allie to an abanded house and promising to buy and redo for her. Allie’s parents don’t like Noah and forbid her to see him. The two break up and her family returns to Charleston.

Noah enlists in  World War II and Allie becomes a nurse. At the hospital Allie meets Lon Hammond, Jr. (James Marsden), a handsome, kind, lawyer who is also from Old Money. They date and become engaged.

Meanwhile, Noah has returned from the war and buys the abandoned house, redoing it for Allie. He had seen her in Charleston with Lon, and has convinced himself that by fixing the house he will win her and her love. Allie sees an article about his completed renovation in the newspaper and visits him.

In the present, we are shown that the woman is Allie who suffers from  dementia and her husband is the man reading her their story, but sadly, Allie doesn’t recognize him.

Back in the ’40s, even though she is engaged Allie resumes her relationship with Noah. Allie’s mom comes by and gives her a talking to, telling her Lon has come as well. Allie talks to Lon telling him what happened and Lon, while unhappy, tells her that he loves her and wants to be with her still. Allie is still unsure who she wants.

Back in present day, Allie regains her memory and we see that the man she is with is Noah. She left Lon and her and Noah were married. Allie tells Noah to continue reading the notebook, as it will always bring her back. Allie then relapses, panicking as she does not recognize who is hugging her.  That same night Noah is hospitalised. After he is released from the hospital, Noah goes to Allie’s room and finds her lucid. After telling each other that they love one another, they both go to sleep in Allie’s bed. The next morning, a nurse finds them dead in each other’s arms.

Most Romantic Moment:

So I know that many of you may not agree with my choice of a romantic moment, and that is fine with me. This my blog, and I put what I want on it and I know not everyone will agree with me or like what I post and I’m okay with that.

So the moment I find most romantic is when Lon finds out that Allie cheated on him and still wants to marry her.

I know, I know; not the most conventional moment , but I personally find it extremely romantic. Here is this guy that loves this girl and is prepared to marry her and have a life together, only to find out that she cheated on him with a past boyfriend! Cheated! Now the worst things I believe you could ever do to a person is 1) Lead them on, 2) Lie, and 3) Cheat on them. And out of all of these cheating’s the ultimate treason. She broke his heart, she threw it into the shredder. And how does he respond?

Lon: [to Allie] The way I see it, I got three choices. One, I can shoot him. Two, I can kick the crap out of him. Or three, I leave you. Well, all that’s no good. You see, ’cause none of those options get me you. In spite of everything, I love you.

This girl cheated on him, she broke his heart and he doesn’t get mad or angry, like I would have been. I would have been all kinds of crazy if I found out the person I was engaged to cheated on me. Like Kelly Clarkson in Since You Been Gone or Madea.

But does Lon do this? Does he freak out or scream or get angry? No, no, nope. He tells her he still loves her and wants to continue spending the rest of his life with her. He does nothing but waits for her to decide who she wants. That’s real love. He’s like the guy in “Keep on Loving You“.

I know I’m like the only one, but I totally would have picked Lon.

(Start at 8:17) 

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Potato: Aliens in the Attic (2009)

You’re gonna need a bigger potato.

First I want to say happy 50th! This is my 50th post! I never thought I would make so many in such a few months 😀

So I know this isn’t really a Halloweeny film; but it has aliens in it so it counts. I was up early this morning and was flipping channels and this came on. I remember when this first came out in theaters, I never saw it as I thought it was going to be extremely dumb and full of childish slapstick comedy. It was full of that, and it was pretty dumb at times; but it ended up being better than I thought it would be. I actually only came in at the end of the film, so it took a while for me to get a sense of what was going on.

So these aliens invade, and only the kids are aware of this; as always the adults are stupidly blind to anything going on.

When I came into the story, the aliens had attached these mind control devices to one of the kids, Bethany’s, boyfriend Ricky. There was also one attached to the Grandma, but the kids were controlling it. The twin boys were incredibly adorable and remind me of my nephew who is obsessed with video games.

The fight between the two, was purely structured to garnish cheap laughs from children as they watch an elderly lady kick butt.

The only thing that makes this scene even funny is the lovely Doris Roberts. I love her so much!

Bethany comes in at the end and sees her boyfriend kicked through the basement. The other kids tell her that aliens have invaded which she finds hard to believe. She goes to talk to her loser boyfriend, which we find out is a liar and cheating on her. He breaks up with her and takes off.

The adults discover the worn-torn, destroyed room and immediately yell at the oldest kid in the room, Tom (Bethany is in the basement). All the kids get sent up to their rooms as they are being punished for destroying everything.

Bethany reconvenes with them upstairs trying to do something. Tom has given up, as he feels they can do nothing to save Earth. Bethany tries to get everyone to go fight, but they won’t follow anyone but Tom.

Tom I thought was very attractive. Super sexy as he was played by Carter Jenkins. Anyways, Tom is now encouraged and they go down to the basement to defeat the aliens.

When they get there they discover their cousin Jake, played by Austin Butler. (Where has he gone? I haven’t seen him in anything recently.) He was kidnapped by the Zarkonian aliens and knows they are trying to create some kind of machine. The kids had become friends with one of the aliens, Spark, and he is the techno one that they are forcing to build the machine.

They are about to give up again, when Jake comes up with a mentos/cola bomb. They shoot them at the aliens which knock them all out except for the commander. Tom takes him out with his potato gun, which accidentally knocks him into the machine they were forcing Sparks to create.

Everyone cheers at this, but then Sparks tells them that it is not good, it makes the commander big!

They have to try and battle him while the other kids handle the small aliens. Jake is able to distract the commander while Tom calibrates the mathematic equation to shoot the commander with a mind controlling device. While he is doing this, one of the other aliens increases his size and the commander and him have an epic fight.

While they duke it out Sparks reverses the machine, making anything that goes through it little. Tom sends them both through the machine, with the “ugly” alien going off with his girlfriend, while the commander is seemingly zapped into nothingness.

They have stopped the aliens, but there is still an invasion coming. One the adults stupidly think are a meteor shower.

Sparks calls the aliens and tells them to retreat. After a tearful goodbye, he goes home to be with his family. All the kids enjoy the rest of their vacation, having finally bonded and become a perfect unit.

Cheesy, yes. The very, very, end was hilarious though. 😀

Hope you enjoyed that lighthearted post. More posts to come. 10 days until Halloween!

To start Horrorfest from the beginning, go to I Don’t Belong In the World

For the previous post, go to Quite a Horror Story

For more on aliens, go to When Potatoes Go Bad

For more on channel surfing, go to Secrets Are Great, Unless You Get Caught

For more on video games, go to Push All the Buttons!