Jeff's Reviews | Thoughts on every movie I've ever seen.

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Mad Love (1935)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

A cross between Frankenstein and Edward Scissorhands. The pianist actor is cool. He stands for the Classical horror film.

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Chaplin is getting old, and his films are beginning to look a bit too Hollywood-ized. They’re still funny, though. Funny corn-eating scene. Not sure when he put the sound in, or if it was originally recorded with sound, but it works for the most part. Except when he sings a…

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Night Mail (1936)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

Long and underexposed. Interesting moment of tension with the bag-catching on the side of the train.

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The River (1938)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

A cine-poem. More informative than most other cine-poems. The poetry gets old, though.

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Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

To me, the film supports immorality. It was an act of lying which resolved the story. If the film was made to support immorality, I think it was well-made. If the point of the film was to support morality, then the film is badly made. Kind of preachy. Great casting.…

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The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

A really simple story, and a really long movie. The dramatic arc is just not big enough to support its length. Otuku’s death at the end was the only cool thing about it. Wordy dialogue.

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The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

Classic story, with classic characters and good acting. More than meets the eye in this one. Using the same actors in both sequences was a neat trick. Make-up, costuming, and dance sequences are excellent, and the transition to color was really nice.

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Rebecca (1940)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

Decent story, but bit cheesy at times, a bit slow. Not good enough to support its length. I’ve seen the basic story somewhere else before, in another movie, I think. Just another one of the old movies where most of the screentime sets up for a long monologue near the…

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Strange Cargo (1940)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

The angel character was pretty cool, almost like a genius character. There was an awful lot of religion in this movie though, and I think it detracted from the interesting story. Some of the messages are driven so hard that they are a bit corny. Crawford is refreshing. Her imperfect,…

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Bambi (1942)

Reviewed on Dec 31, 1969

Made back when Disney made real classics. The sheer spectacle of the integration of music with high-quality color animation was enough to woo audiences back then, and the films were not yet ruined by toy merchandising, the abuse of pop songs, fast cuts, and commercialism in general. Unfortunately, today the…

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