Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Lists: Those Trash Classics ....

We have been here before - call them what you will: Bad Movies We Love, Guilty Pleasures, Trash or Utter Trash ... those delirious melodramas and just plain bad movies that are so enjoyable - most of the great ladies did some: Lana and Susan and Joan and Bette specialised in them later in their careers, while other great ladies like Olivia and sister Joan dipped their toes in the muddy waters too. 
I have covered them in more detail in my earlier reviews - click on Trash-A label to read on ...http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/trash-favourites.html
Right now, I list them:
  • PORTRAIT IN BLACK - Lana's crowning epic, from 1960 (whereas IMITATION OF LIFE is a cult classic)
  • LOVE HAS MANY FACES - Lana does Acapulco, with Ruth Roman and those beach boy bums in speedos in 1966
  • WHERE LOVE HAS GONE - Susan and Bette go head to head in this 1964 stinker 
  • I THANK A FOOL - Susan and Finch should have been a great team but not in this weird meller shot in Ireland ...
  • ADA - Susan in fighting form
  • BACK STREET - the best of the Susan's ?, 1961
  • STOLEN HOURS - love Susan's British remake of Bette' DARK VICTORY, in 1963
  • SERENADE - Fontaine is stupendous in this Mario Lansz sudser, 1956
  • ISLAND IN THE SUN - Joan 'romances' Harry Belafonte ... 1957
  • LADY IN A CAGE - sister Olivia is trapped
  • THE SINGING NUN - Debbie's worst in 1966, a travesty of the real Nun's Story
  • A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME - Shelley chomps the scenery. 1964.
  • SYLVIA - a Carroll Baker epic, its delirious, its delovely 
  • SINCERELY YOURS - Liberace's sickly starrer, with Dot Malone and Joanne Dru competing for him ... a 1956 howler.
  • MAMBO - a 1954 discovery, torrid saga with Silvana Mangano and Shelley Winters, in Italy.
  • FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN - the perfect 1957 Universal-International meller, as is:
  • THE FEMALE ANIMAL - thats Hedy Lamarr in 1957 with Jan Sterling, splendid as ever.
  • GO NAKED IN THE WORLD - Gina ! 1960.
  • THE CHAPMAN REPORT - Shelley, Glynis, Claire, young Jane Fonda ... we love Cukor's starry drama, The Higher Trash.
  • THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER - Jane Russell ! with Agnes Moorehead as the madam, 1956.
  • A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO - one of Laurence Harvey's worst 
  • WALK ON THE WILD SIDE - ditto, but with Stanwyck, Capucine, Fonda, Baxter ...
  • THE LOVE MACHINE - a scream with gay David Hemmings and Dyan Cannon both wanting John Philip Law
  • THE CROWDED SKY - best of the airline disasters?, 1960
  • DORIAN GRAY - Helmut ! in 1970s London 
  • GOODBYE GEMINI - one of the terrible British flicks of the era, 1970 - as was:
  • MY LOVER, MY SON - why Romy. why did you make this terrible film?
  • 10.30 PM SUMMER - fake arty 1966 Eurofare, but it does have Melina, Romy and Peter Finch
  • POPE JOAN - Liv may have been great in those Bergman films but made some stinkers in English, none worse than this in 1972.
  • Glenda made some stinkers too, none worse than THE INCREDIBLE SARAH in 1976, where she flounces around as Bernhardt in a Readers Digest travesty. Its a scream. 
  • BLUEBEARD - Edward Dmytryk helmed some Trash Classic favourites like THE CARPETBAGGERS, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, but came a cropper here, aided by Burton's worst performance, in 1972
  • THE SQUEEZE - rather good Brit gangster flick, from 1977, with down on their luck Boyd, Hemmings, Carol White ...  BRANNIGAN (John Wayne) and HENNESSEY (Rod Steiger and wasted Lee Remick) were amusing mid-70s British thrillers too ...
We don't bother with the insultingly bad, like THE OSCAR or HARLOW ..... then there are the Troy Donahue and Ann-Margret clunkers, and you know how we love those Bette and Joans: TORCH SONG, HARRIET CRAIG, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, QUEEN BEE, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, BERSERK! or two Bettes in DEAD RINGER.

1 comment:

  1. I find you impertinent! How very dare you put LADY IN A CAGE, (a masterpiece with one of Olivia's finest performances), THE CHAPMAN REPORT and THE BEST OF EVERYTHING in any list of 'bad' or 'trash' movies and from reading that list it would appear Susan Hayward never made a good movie...well, made in the sixties she didn't.

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