skjam | Entries tagged with new york city

Fatal Attraction (1987) dir. Adrian Lyne

Dan Gallegher (Michael Douglas) has a pretty comfortable life. He loves his wife Beth (Ann Archer) and daughter Ellen (Ellen Latzen) and has a well-paid job as the house lawyer for a publishing firm in New York City. Things are going so well that the family is thinking of moving to a bigger house in the suburbs. But Dan has a touch of arrogance and is about to make a very bad decision that puts everything at risk.

By chance, Dan has to stay in town one weekend for urgent work while Beth and Ellen are away visiting relatives. He meets a woman named Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) at a book launch party on Friday night. She's very attractive and flirtatious but as far as Dan is concerned, nothing comes of it. Except that the next morning, he meets her again at the urgent work meeting as she's a new hire at the publishing company that has information he needs to prepare a case. Alex turns up her sexual advances, and Dan decides that since he has the opportunity and Beth will never know, he can indulge himself in a one-night stand.

The sex is hot, if a bit clumsy, and Alex is fun to be with despite some clear abandonment issues...until Dan tries to leave to do his actual work, at which point Alex turns clingy and demands more time. Dan eventually manages to leave, thinking the affair is over. It isn't.

Alex is emotionally unbalanced, and now believes that Dan secretly loves her and they are meant to be together. She becomes a stalker, following Dan around, calling him at all hours, and even claiming that she's become pregnant with his child. (Whether the pregnancy is real is one of the few things the movie leaves vague--but Glenn Close was actually pregnant at the time.) When Dan isn't won over by these tactics, Alex escalates, and her attraction becomes fatal.

This movie did very well at the box office and got several award nominations. It's quite well directed, has good costume and set design, and is indeed pretty good as a thriller.

Dan isn't a very sympathetic protagonist. He falls easily for Alex's charms, and has no compelling excuse for cheating. While the particular consequences of this action are disproportionate, he should have known going in that he was incurring risks ranging from disease to divorce. And he makes matters more difficult for himself by not fessing up when Alex starts stalking him. On the other hand, once Alex does start stalking him, there isn't much he can do to stop her. The same police indifference that helps endanger female stalking victims works against him, and is exacerbated by sexism; as a man he should be able to handle this, right?

Alex is pretty clearly not right in the head, and the system has failed her by not getting her the help she needs long since. But her actions quickly turn from sad to horrendous, and after a certain particularly monstrous act, it's no surprise that test audiences wanted her death to be a punishment rather than part of her plan as in the first-filmed ending. Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" is a leitmotif for Alex, as she clearly identifies with the tragic heroine Cio-Cio-san. But unlike Pinkerton, Dan has never lied to Alex or pretended that he feels anything towards her than a temporary lust. He's baffled when she directly accuses him of thinking exactly what he was thinking about their one-night stand, as she delusionally has attached much more weight to the relationship than ever existed.

The sympathetic people in this movie are Beth and Ellen, who didn't do anything to bring about Dan's infidelity or Alex's wrath, and don't know why they're being endangered.

Content note: Violence, some lethal. Discussion of suicide (and actual suicide in the alternate ending.) Death of an animal. Extramarital sex (on camera, no genitals) as well as marital sex (likewise). A bit of nudity. Child in peril. Rough language, ranging from Ellen innocently repeating a naughty word she overheard to Alex using a homophobic slur in a scattershot attempt to find the worst insult she can use for Dan. This one's a pretty nasty "R" so approach with caution for younger viewers.

Some of the cultural assumptions that make up the background of the movie have changed drastically in the last four decades, while others have remained intact. Since it's well made, Fatal Attraction would make good viewing to spark discussions on cheating, casual sex and stalking. Recommended most for thriller fans.

Current Music: "If You Leave" Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark

Coogan's Bluff (1968) dir. Don Siegel

Deputy Sheriff Coogan (Clint Eastwood) is sent from his native Arizona to New York City to extradite escaped felon James Ringerman (Don Stroud). He expects it to be a quick process, but Ringerman had a bad trip on LSD and is currently under observation at Bellevue. NYPD Lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) explains a bit of the bureaucratic process in a rather dismissive fashion (he's got his own worries.) While at the police station, Coogan becomes interested in parole officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark) though they start off poorly due to his misunderstanding of how her job works.

Despite Julie warming up to him a bit, Coogan is generally unimpressed by New York City's people and culture, becoming impatient to pick up his prisoner. He bluffs (thus the title) the Bellevue staff into thinking he's got the releases needed to get Ringerman out of the hospital. But his carelessness and rush to be done results in him losing Ringerman and his gun. Despite being warned off by the New York police and taken off the case by the Arizona sheriff's office, Coogan's pride has been damaged, and he will not rest until he's personally recaptured the criminal.

This was Eastwood's first go-round as a "cowboy cop", before the much better received Dirty Harry series. It's notable here that Coogan's antics make life much more difficult for himself and everyone around him, and are ultimately a big waste of time. He could have accomplished just as much by taking Lt. McElroy's advice and waiting it out, with much less personal injury and property damage. Yes, New York City is disgusting in this late Sixties setting, with its permissiveness and criminal coddling and chiseling, not to mention the hippies. Ringerman's girlfriend Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling) is a particularly rancid example of the Love Generation gone wrong. But if he'd just held on, Coogan would have gotten what he wanted. Heck, there's even a moment where Julie suggests an activity that would have shortcut his search by Ringerman by a day by coincidence if he'd been able to turn off his pride for a moment.

At the beginning of the film, we see Coogan in his native territory, ignoring orders from his sheriff to apprehend a fugitive in his own way, then chaining the man up so he can visit a girlfriend before taking the man in. Coogan repeatedly shows a tendency to not listen to instructions or suggestions, defy protocol and violate privacy laws, and will gladly seduce women and betray them to get what he wants. (Apparently he does make some apologies offscreen at the end of the movie, since McElroy and Julie act as though he's mended fences.)

A highlight of the movie is one scene where Coogan tries to get information out of Ringerman's mother Ellen (Betty Field) only to be outmatched by her brazenness. (He did have a follow-up plan but he'd screwed up the NYPD's investigation in the process, canceling out both.) There's a nifty scene in a psychedelic nightclub, and general glimpses of New York City in the late 1960s, like the Pan Am helipad. (No scenes of the actual Coogan's Bluff, though.) Oh, and the motorcycle chase is pretty good.

Content note: Gun violence and fisticuffs, hospitalization but no deaths. Female nudity and male shirtlessness. Sexual assault. Extramarital sex. Drug abuse. Coogan breaks a lot of laws and ultimately faces no legal consequences. Older teens should be okay.

This is a lesser Eastwood film, to fill in checklists for his fans, or for fans of the cowboy cop subgenre in general.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Someone practicing the clarinet

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) dir. Robert Benton

Today was supposed to be one of the five best days in Ted Kramer's (Dustin Hoffman) life. His hard work and long hours at the high-powered Manhattan advertising agency where he works have finally paid off with a major account and a fast track to promotion. When he gets home late...again, he's immediately on the phone for more work. He barely registers that his wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) is trying to tell him that she's leaving. She is desperately trying to get out the door as he tries to grasp the concept, leaving him to take care of their son Billy (Justin Henry) on his own.

It's immediately clear that Ted has been an absentee father who's left all the domestic affairs to his wife. He's inept at basic cooking (while boasting how the best chefs are men), grocery shopping (Billy's memorized the brands that Joanna uses) and doesn't even know what grade his son's in. He's struggling badly, with a little help from divorced neighbor Margaret (Jane Alexander), but refusing to hire a nanny presumably because he thinks that Joanna will come crawling back soon. (In the later custody hearing, she mentions that he would often express doubts about her being able to support herself.)

Over the next few months, Ted slowly repairs his relationship with Billy and learns how to be a better father. There are bumps along the way, such as a one-night stand with a co-worker (JoBeth Williams) and a playground accident that requires a trip to the emergency room, but things are looking up on that front. However, Ted's work is suffering because of his need to take care of his child, and his boss/friend Jim O'Connor (George Coe) can only extend him so much leeway.

Eighteen months after she left, Joanna pops back up in New York. She's gotten some therapy, a decent job, and is ready to take full custody of Billy. This leads to the court case of the title.

This Oscar-winning movie was based on a novel of the same name by Avery Corman. It was a rare (especially at the time) look at the trials and joys of single fatherhood. Dustin Hoffman really sells his role as a man who has been so wrapped up in his position of breadwinner for the family that he's lost sight of why he had a family to begin with, and learns to become a better person. Meryl Streep brings nuance to an unsympathetic role (and had a chance to rewrite some of the character's dialogue as Joanna is a much shallower and self-centered character in the book.)

The courtroom scenes are harrowing, with both parents raked over the coals. (There's some fudging as to the state of divorce law in the late 1970s for dramatic purposes.)

It's also a very New York City movie, with an entire scene dedicated to the view from Ted's new office window.

Content note: Divorce. Injury to a child. Extramarital sex and female nudity. A bit of rough language. This was rated PG back in the day, but would be a minimum PG-13 now.

This is a meaty movie with some difficult subject matter so should lead to some interesting discussions if you let it. Recommended to adult viewers who are emotionally ready.

Ghostbusters 2 (1989) dir. Ivan Reitman

It has been five years since the Ghostbusters saved New York City, and by extension the world, from the threat of Gozer the Gozerian. Due to the massive destruction caused by their struggle, the team was sued by multiple government agencies for the damage. At the same time, a drastic drop in paranormal activity allowed rumors spread by a certain hostile government agent that the Ghostbusters had actually used hallucinogens and special effects to create fake ghosts to defraud the public. Their small company was forced into bankruptcy and they were put under a restraining order preventing them from working as paranormal investigators.

Ray (Dan Ackroyd) runs a small bookshop and appears at children's parties with Winston (Ernie Hudson) (who apparently has no other income) in their old Ghostbuster outfits. But even the children have moved on, preferring He-Man as a cultural reference. Peter (Bill Murray) hosts a cable access show on the paranormal, but due to his reputation can't get the good guests. Egon (Harold Ramis) has done all right for himself, landing a research position at Columbia University studying whether human emotions have an effect on the environment.

Dana (Sigourney Weaver) broke up with Peter over his refusal to commit to the relationship, then married a fellow musician. But when that man got a lucrative job offer in Britain, he divorced Dana and moved, so that she is raising their baby Oscar (William and Henry Deutschendorf) alone. To have more time with her child, she took a temporary jub doing painting restoration at an art museum. Her boss, Dr. Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol) has been hitting on her when not obsessing over his latest acquisition, a painting of alleged dictator and black magician Vigo the Carpathian (body by Wilhelm von Homburg, voice by Max von Sydow).

Once again, it's Dana who first notices that something eerie is going on when Oscar's baby carriage rolls off by itself and strolls right into the middle of the street. She contacts Egon to check into the matter, and specifically asks that Peter not be told. Peter of course finds out and invites himself along on the investigation to try and rekindle his relationship with Dana. He's still a sleaze so that part doesn't go so well, but he does start to bond with Oscar.

The former Ghostbusters (sans Winston at this point) investigate the street, and accidentally cause a blackout in the process of finding an abandoned tunnel with psychoactive slime running through it. This gets them arrested, but ghosts showing up in the courtroom gets the judge convinced to lift the restraining order.

This and a sudden rise in ghost activity needing busting allows our heroes to be back in action and again the toast of the town. Meanwhile, Janosz has become dominated by the spirit of Vigo, which is using the portrait as a channel to the living world. Vigo needs a human infant to possess at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve to begin his comeback to rule the world. Janosz has just the baby in mind so that he can compel Dana to be his wife.

Things are about to become very bad indeed, for the slime is supercharged with negative emotions from 1980s New York City, and Vigo draws strength from that.

While the first Ghostbusters movie had been very successful, some of the people who'd be needed to make a sequel had a falling out, and schedule conflicts arose, so it took five years before this movie was made.

Good: Some great jokes, excellent special effects, guest appearance by the Statue of Liberty.

Less good: This movie's plot structure is eerily similar to the first one's, with many repeated story beats. The characters and situations are reset to very near the beginning of the first movie, so in a way this one ends with very little progress. (A notable exception is Dr. Venkman, who no longer hits on any woman that crosses his path. He's solely interested in getting back with Dana, even if he can't quite understand what he did to lose her in the first place. While he has to start at zero in that relationship again, at least we're not seeing him being a horndog to other women.)

Also, poor Winston is underused again.

It's notable that the success of the cartoon spinoff The Real Ghostbusters fed back into this movie. Mascot character Slimer (Ivan Reitman) appears even if he isn't properly explained, and in an effort to be more kid-friendly, the characters have cut way back on smoking and the sex talk.

Content note: baby in peril, Dana is seen in a bra and later in a towel, a bit of rough language, slapstick violence. Janosz is under the delusion that if he forces himself on Dana, she will grow to love him.

My DVD came with two episodes of the cartoon, "Citizen Ghost", which explains why the Ghostbusters let Slimer hang around; and "Brothers in Slime" which references the psychoactive slime from this movie (calling Vigo out by name) even though the events of the second movie could not have happened in nearly the same way in the cartoon.

Overall, it's an okay movie with its major flaw being that it's a little bit too much of a retread. Maybe we didn't need sequels and remakes, but here we are. Consider getting it in a set with the original. And of course, recommended to fans of Eighties comedies.

Current Music: "Christmas Serenade"

Scarlet Street (1945) dir. Fritz Lang

It's 1934, well into the Great Depression, but at least Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) has a job. Indeed, there's a party tonight celebrating his 25th year as a cashier for the J.J. Hogarth (Russell Hicks) upscale menswear concern. In commemoration, the boss presents him with an engraved watch. Then Mr. Hagarth is called away by a lady who the workers are pretty sure isn't his wife. Chris muses that it might be nice to have a pretty woman who loves you. Reluctant to go home just yet, Chris wanders around Greenwich Village for a while.

Chris comes across a young woman being assaulted by a man who he coldcocks. Chris, a good citizen, calls for a police officer, but the man recovers and runs away before the policeman can arrive. The woman, Katherine "Kitty" Clark (Joan Bennett) insists on Chris staying with her for a bit as they get a bit to drink and in her case eat. Kitty allows Chris to believe that she's an out-of-work actress (her real occupation is never named) and Chris allows her to believe that he's an artist by admitting he does a bit of painting. Kitty makes up in her head that he's a more famous and prosperous artist than he's letting on.

The next day, we learn a bit more about what's really up with both of them. Chris is the second husband of Adele Cross (Rosalind Ivan), who apparently married him for his modest but steady income and is constantly bugging him for more money. She has access to a decent stash, a life insurance payoff from her police officer first husband, Homer Higgins (Charles Kemper), who was presumed dead of drowning when he attempted to save a suicidal woman. However, Adele is saving that for her old age and refuses to touch it. She despises Chris' painting hobby (he works in the bathroom) and begrudges every penny he wastes on paints and canvases. Since painting is the one thing that makes Chris happy, he doesn't want to give it up, even though he's been repeatedly told he has no talent.

Kitty, meanwhile, is in love with Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea), the same man we saw attacking her earlier. He's a louse who's always on the brink of making it big if he just had enough dough, and keeps taking it from Kitty even though she's no better off than he is. Kitty's roommate Milly Ray (Margaret Lindsay) keeps telling her Johnny's no good, but Kitty's infatuated with his bad boy charm. When he learns that Mr. Cross is supposedly well-off and has a bit of a crush on Kitty, he gets the idea of Kitty leading Chris on to bilk money out of him. Kitty finds Chris pleasant to talk to but physically repulsive, and is reluctant to agree. But a girl's gotta eat.

Between the initial misunderstandings, the deliberate bad actions of several characters, and a couple of nasty coincidences, it all ends in tears.

This film noir was loosely based on the novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, which had also been filmed by Jean Renoir under that title in 1931.

Edward G. Robinson plays a bit against type as not a tough guy, but a quiet man who's kept his head down and done his job and not rocked the boat for most of his adult life. Being talked into doing dubious things is both frightening and a little freeing for Christopher Cross, but he's still got a lot of bottled up frustration that eventually explodes.

Kitty does feel bad about taking Chris' money and pretending to like him more than she actually does. If they could have been actual friends, she could have lived with that. But she isn't willing to cross Johnny, and does like having nice things, so she goes along with it, even when he comes up with a bonkers scheme to make her look like an artist herself.

Johnny, of course, is a no-good punk who is just charming enough on the surface to fool people who aren't looking for the hook, or who have fallen in love with him. He largely digs his own grave.

And Charles Kemper is funny as the not actually dead Homer Higgins, who wears a fake eye patch and thinks he's going to get money from Chris to keep Adele from knowing she's a bigamist.

Of course, things reach a crisis point and everything goes sour.

The ending had some trouble with the Hays Code, as Chris has gotten away with murder, but him becoming a homeless, jobless derelict haunted by voices in his head was considered punishment enough to fit the overall code requirements. The movie still got banned by local film boards with higher standards.

I was lucky enough to see this in a good print (as a public domain movie, a lot of the versions floating around are of poor quality) which showed Fritz Lang's direction off well. A couple of standout moments for me were the two times a love song record gets stuck and repeats, and the flickering motel sign when Chris contemplates where his life has led.

Content note: murder, attempted suicide, assault. It's heavily implied that Johhny and Kitty are having extramarital sex, and Chris is emotionally unfaithful to Adele, even if he's not initially trying to get Kitty in the sack. Emotional abuse by Adele and Johnny to their partners. Alcohol abuse. Chris is not punished by the law for his crimes. Older teenagers on up should be able to handle this.

Recommended to film noir lovers and Edward G. Robinson fans.

Boys of the City (1940) dir. Joseph H. Lewis

Summer, 1940. New York City is in the middle of a scorching heatwave. "Knuckles" Dolan (Dave O'Brien) is worried about his kid brother Danny Dolan (Bobby Jordan) and his gang of underprivileged youths. It's been too hot for them to exercise and blow off steam in the gym, so they might be getting in trouble. Sure enough, the boys, including especially tough-acting Muggs McGinnis (Leo Gorcey), black kid Scruno (Ernest Morrison) and token well-off boy Algy Wilkes (Eugene Francis), take it into their heads to tamper with a fire hydrant to get a cool water experience for a few minutes. They don't mean any harm, but damage a grocer's pushcart and get into a loud altercation which lands the boys down at the police station.

Algy's father talks the police chief into not pressing charges on the promise that he'll send the boys out of town for a few days to his country house where they can camp. Knuckles will go along as the chaperone. The young city rascals are not so sure about being out in the "wilderness" but between that and jail, they acquiesce.

Meanwhile, Judge Malcolm Parker (Forrest Taylor) has been indicted for taking bribes, and is due to testify in a few days. The gangsters he's been accepting money from would really rather he didn't and have already tried to kill him once. The crooked judge decides to decamp to his country manor for a little while, taking along his secretary Giles (Dennis Moore), bodyguard Simp (Vince Barnett) and lovely young ward Louise Mason (Inna Gest).

The judge's roadster has a minor collision with the station wagon carrying the boys, damaging both vehicles. About half a mile later, the roadster conks out from a faulty fuel line and the engine is destroyed by a time bomb. (A small one, but if the car had been moving at the time...) The judge's party is forced to hitch a ride with the station wagon, which itself gives up the ghost just as it reaches the judge's manor.

The manor turns out to be a spooky old place that was originally in Judge Parker's wife's family for generations--most of them being buried in the adjacent graveyard, including the wife herself, lost Leonore. Currently it's inhabited only by creepy-acting housekeeper Agnes (Minerva Urecal) and a silent cook (Jerry Mandy). Initially the judge is going to send the boys the additional 25 miles to their destination on foot, but quickly reconsiders. A lot more people in the house will confuse and possibly frighten off any mob hitmen.

It's not going to be that simple. Agnes blames the judge for Leonora's death of loneliness (she intimates Judge Parker was "cruel" and that he likes "younger women.") Judge Parker has been slowly embezzling Louise's fortune, and if the judge were out of the way, then Giles will be her guardian and have access to that money. Also, Parker was the judge who sentenced Knuckles to death for a crime he did not commit (Knuckles was saved at the last moment and pardoned.) The judge doesn't recognize Knuckles at first, but it sure is an interesting coincidence. Oh, and there's a mysterious man (Stephen Chase) lurking about who may have something to do with events.

This movie was a sequel to East Side Kids (1940) and made the East Side Kids (later the Bowery Boys) into a series. Most of the continuing characters were recast, and it would be a couple more reshuffles before the classic Bowery Boys lineup was established.

The thriller plotline and comedic antics are rather clumsily meshed together, and the boys' characters are still rough sketches of who they would become in later movies. This is especially painful with Scruno, who is written down to negative stereotypes of black people being cowardly, superstitious, servile and loving that watermelon. Oy.

The best acting job is put in by Ms. Urecal as the spooky, vengeful housekeeper, but Taylor and Moore do a good job of being slimy bastards who no longer trust each other or anyone else.

Content note: Murder (shown in shadow), a little non-lethal gunplay, a couple of people are knocked out by blows to the head. The boys steal the judge's cigars and smoke them--only Muggs doesn't get sick from this. Racist depiction of the black kid, some period sexist language.

This movie is in the public domain, unlike some others from the same series, so is easy to find. It's just a hair over an hour long, so an okay choice for a double feature.

Ghostbusters (1984) dir. Ivan Reitman

The parapsychology department at Columbia University in New York City is small, consisting of three men. They are Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Ackroyd) and Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis). While the other two are serious and dedicated paranormal researchers, Dr. Venkman as head of the department is treating it more as a scam, running rigged psychic experiments to amuse himself and hit on female students. Thus, even after an incident at the New York Public Library finally provides solid proof of the existence of ghosts, the department is shut down and the three expelled from the university.

Egon has come up with technology that will actually capture and hold ghosts, so the three men decide to enter the private sector as "Ghostbusters." A third mortgage produces enough capital for a rundown fire station, a converted hearse, unlicensed nuclear accelerators, and a television ad campaign. But of course, most people don't believe in ghosts, so the customers aren't rolling in. Cynical office manager Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) doesn't have a lot to do.

However, one person in New York is about ready to believe in ghosts. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), a classical musician, found a portal to another dimension in her refrigerator. She contacts the Ghostbusters, but Peter does not find anything wrong in Dana's apartment, and just uses the occasion to hit on her. He reluctantly agrees to research the matter further. Meanwhile, Dana's neighbor, nebbish accountant Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), also has a hopeless crush on her.

The Ghostbusters' first publicly successful case is at a hotel, battling the rotund ghost we will come to know as Slimer (Ivan Reitman). This leads to other jobs, and soon the Ghostbusters have more business than they can handle, needing to hire a fourth man, Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson). But this also attracts the attention of stupidly arrogant EPA agent Walter Peck (William Atherton) who is simultaneously convinced the Ghostbusters are pulling some kind of hoax and that they're violating environmental regulations. (He is technically correct on the second part.)

Egon realizes the surge of paranormal energy in New York City is not "natural"--there's way too much of it, and it's building up to something. That, it turns out, ties back to Dana and Louis, who are being targeted by the ancient Sumerian spirit Zuul to be turned into the Gatekeeper and Keymaster, who will open a portal and summon Gozer the Destructor (Slavitza Jovan) to bring about the next Age of Darkness.

Walter Peck abuses his authority to shut down the containment unit the Ghostbusters have been using to store the ghosts they've busted, unleashing a flood of supernatural horrors on the city, and making conditions ripe for the coming of Gozer. With the few people who could stop the menace in jail, who will save New York?

This supernatural comedy film took the old "ghostbusters" idea used in previous Hollywood movies and updated it for the then current day, with modern technology applied to the problem of catching ghosts. It had a solid cast of veteran comedy performers (and hot actress Sigourney Weaver) and didn't stint on the cool special effects. And of course, a very catchy theme song by Ray Parker, Jr. It's no surprise it did very well at the box office.

To repeat myself, the special effects were some of the best parts of the movie, and have generally aged well. This did mean that the budget was well above that of a normal comedy film.

The dialogue is heavy on the improvisation, and most of the humor hits, with many quotable lines.

Dr. Venkman's sleazy attitude towards women has aged less well. We are perhaps meant to see him as a more desirable suitor for Dana than the short and poorly socialized Louis, but it's not a fair comparison. Also, while Walter Peck is definitely in the wrong, Peter's snotty behavior did not help, and he doesn't follow up by contacting the EPA to have a more sensible conversation about that storage facility. Egon and Janine's budding romance in the background is much more likable.

Content note: Ray has a dream about being sexually assaulted. Lots of slapstick violence, none fatal to humans or animals. A bit of rough language. Casual smoking. Some jump scares. Guidance recommended for younger viewers.

This is a fun movie that stands up to repeated viewings. (I'm more nostalgic for The Real Ghostbusters, the animated series spun off from it.) Recommended to fans of Eighties comedy and special effects buffs.

Current Music: "Ghostbusters Theme"

The Broadway Melody (1929) dir. Harry Beaumont

Things are looking up for Eddie Kearns (Charles King). The singer/composer/dancer has managed to sell his latest sone, "The Broadway Melody" to producer Francis Zanfield (Eddie Kane) to use in his new musical revue, sung by himself! Plus his fiancée Henrietta "Hank" Mahoney (Bessie Love) has come to town with her sister Queenie (Anita Page), fresh off doing reasonably well on the vaudeville circuit. If he can get them parts in the big show, their careers will be made too!

The girls' agent, Uncle Jed (Jed Prouty, sporting a stammer) isn't too optimistic about this career move, but Hank's sure she and Queenie can hit it big. Hank has the brains of the sisters, and the business sense, while Queenie...Queenie's pretty. Very pretty. When Eddie sees her for the first time since she hit puberty, he starts having attraction to his fiancée's sister. And though Queenie tries to hide it, vice versa.

Zanfield isn't too impressed with the sisters at first due to sabotage and Hank's moxie clashing with his autocratic temperament, but does find Queenie attractive and reluctantly signs the package deal on. As the revue shapes up, one of Zanfield's financial backers, Jacques Warriner (Kenneth Thomson) takes a fancy to Queenie and begins wooing her. Queenie is flattered, and trying to forget her traitorous feelings towards Eddie, so goes along despite everyone warning her Warriner's bad news.

This movie was the first "talkie" to win the Best Picture Oscar, and for its time is something of a technical marvel. The movie sound industry was still in its infancy, and the cast and crew had to make a lot of innovations up as they went along. (There was a silent version made as many theaters still didn't have sound systems.) So there's singing, and orchestras playing, and sound effects and dancing. There was even a color section, though that's been lost to time. And that technical wizardry is at least partly what won this movie the Oscar.

The story tucked in around the musical numbers is pretty thin as the actors try to make the love square look more dramatic than it is. The parts where the various show people are trying to put together the revue despite each other and Zanfield are more amusing, if a bit shallow. If you don't like stories where women are primarily valued for their looks, this is not the movie for you. For those who enjoy history, Mr. Zanfield is obviously Florenz Zigfeld of "Zigfeld's Follies" and Jacques Warriner seems to be a dig at rival studio Warner Brothers' Jack Warner.

And naturally, modern audiences might be baffled at Queenie being considered just so much more desirable than Hank.

Content note: Attempted rape, some fisticuffs. The costume designer is a broad gay stereotype. Skimpy lingerie and showgirl costumes on the women, who sometimes hug and kiss each other in a way the Hays Code would soon not allow. Some outdated slang. Copious amounts of alcohol in some scenes despite Prohibition still being on.

Despite its flaws, the formula was set for other movies, including three more with the words "Broadway Melody" in the title. The disc I watched also came with "Dogway Melody" which parodied this movie and a couple of others with a cast of dogs performing on their hind legs in what I could only guess was some sort of animal abuse. (The British censors agreed and banned it there.)

This isn't one of the great movies, or all that good of one, honestly, but it's worth seeing because it has so many firsts and set the trends that other Oscar winners would follow.

The musical numbers range from okay to quite good.