MADAME X, starring Lana Turner. She gave her all for this one.
Absolutely -- despite the Ross Hunter gloss, it is Lana's finest acting in that final scene that makes this one of the great melodramatic endings. I cry ever time.
My choice, too. I didn't sob quite so much on second viewing ...
TO ANTHONY MAROSE-Good choice-LEGENDS OF THE FALL-I have a feeling the ending of that tragic movie has a scenario, that might become common in the near future the way this country[that is AMERICA] is going. But I will stop at that.
Pelle The Conqueror : outstanding character driven drama by Bille August + a beautifully filmed study of the suppression of the poor
Didn't like that one - too slow and not enough story for its length.
A good melodrama takes its times and counts on the audience to invest in the characters. A lot happens to Pelle and his father, but there are no car chases or super heroes. It's a beautiful film.
Pelle The Conqueror : outstanding character driven drama by Bille August + a beautifully filmed study of the suppression of the poor
Didn't like that one - too slow and not enough story for its length.
A good melodrama takes its times and counts on the audience to invest in the characters. A lot happens to Pelle and his father, but there are no car chases or super heroes. It's a beautiful film.
For the record, I don't need car chases and superheroes for a movie to be good. Indeed, the melodramas that I have enjoyed over the years don't have these elements. Pelle had wonderful sense of time and place, decent characters, and a so-so story that would have been better if it was 40 minutes shorter. lol
With that classic scene with Richard Barthelmess searching for misunderstood Lillian Gish, who's fainted on an ice floe, which is headed straight for the falls. Barthelmess jumps form ice piece to ice piece, trying to reach her unconscious form, before it hurtles into the abyss...
And, they really filmed this on a frozen river, as ice was headed towards a steep falls.
Worth seeing.
But very melodramatic.
Griffith was a master at that. Sections of BIRTH OF A NATION can still bring a tear, while other scenes are laughably over-the-top in melodrama....
