Remember the Night (1940)

IMDb plot summary: Love blooms between a sympathetic attorney and the comely shoplifter he has taken home for the Christmas holiday.

Directed by Mitchell Leisen. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Beulah Bondi.

Remember the Night Stars Fred MacMurray as a prosecuting attorney and Barbara Stanwyck as the petty thief he's prosecuting right before Christmas. Sensing in the judge a streak of Christmas goodwill, he successfully moves to postpone the trial until after Christmas. He feels bad, however, about Stanwyck being stuck in jail throughout the holidays and so offers to pay her bail. Upon finding out she doesn't have anywhere to go for the holidays, he invites her home to visit his family in Indiana for one last holiday before she's locked up. This is a weirdly sweet holiday movie that is a little jarring considering I most know this pairing from their work in Double Indemnity, which is definitely less than sweet. Unfortunately once they've established the sort of unorthodox dynamic, the rest of the movie plays out much more like a typical romance. The ending does go in a slightly different direction than I expected, but thinking back on it that's the only part that really took any chances with the story. It's probably worth seeing especially if you are fan of either of the stars, but it didn't blow me away.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Remember the Night < The Keep

Remember the Night > BASEketball

Remember the Night > The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Remember the Night < Venom

Remember the Night > Onibaba

Remember the Night > Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

Remember the Night < Notorious

Remember the Night > Marathon

Remember the Night > Moonstruck

Remember the Night > Anna Christie

Remember the Night > Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Final spot: #2024 out of 3548, or 43%.

Whoopee! (1930)

Note: No photo with this one because I couldn't find one without stereotyped Native imagery on it and given the racism issues with one, I figured it'd be best to just avoid it altogether.

IMDb plot summary: Western sheriff Bob Wells is preparing to marry Sally Morgan. Sally flees the wedding with hypochondriac Henry Williams, who thinks he's just giving her a ride; but she left a note saying they've eloped!

Directed by Thornton Freeland. Starring Eddie Cantor, Ethel Shutta, and Paul Gregory.

Whoopee! is a musical comedy starring Eddie Cantor as a hypochondriac in the Old West who is roped into helping a young woman escaped her arranged marriage. Her father won't let her marry the man she wants to marry because he is part Native American, so she asks Cantor to help her escape, and hijinks ensue. This was an unfortunate film because I was thoroughly enjoying it up until about the hour mark. Its style of dance and song and comedy are definitely dated in style but I was loving itm and those dance numbers were astonishingly beautiful at times... and then for basically the entire last half-hour of the film, we get Cantore first in blackface and then in redface. And it's one of the most uncomfortable unpleasant juxtapositions I've seen. It really brings the whole film down -- the last third is just racial stereotypes exploited for laughs. The first hour had its share of problematic moments, but they weren't the centerpiece of an entire act. I still may watch some of those early dance numbers again, but the movie itself is not worth a re-watch on the whole. it really lost its way and never regained it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Whoopee! < The Keep

Whoopee! > The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

Whoopee! < The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Whoopee! > Fame (1980)

Whoopee! > The Big Sleep

Whoopee! < Snatch.

Whoopee! < Prisoners

Whoopee! > The Fighter

Whoopee! > August: Osage County

Whoopee! > Innocence Unprotected

Whoopee! < Pal Joey

Final spot: #2301 out of 3544, or 35%.

The Power of the Dog (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Charismatic rancher Phil Burbank inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother brings home a new wife and her son, Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love.

Directed by Jane Campion. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Jesse Plemons.

The Power of the Dog is a western directed by Jane Campion about a woman who marries a rancher and then has to respond to the personality clashes of her unfriendly, often cruel, brother-in-law and her less masculine son that he incessantly mocks. I watched The Piano by Jane Campion last year and didn't fully grasp it. Even when I knew it was trying to do, it didn't really work for me. This one is a different story. There is a an almost visceral creeping tension to it. Everything just feels off, in a way that feels substantial and thought-provoking. Benedict Cumberbatch is very unsettling in this but the film also does a really interesting job of making its characters not entirely good or bad but really truly flawed people, even as the people around them are quick to ascribe those "full good/full bad" labels to them. I frequently dislike westerns because I feel like they all follow the same formula and I can predict what's going to happen miles away, but this one really goes in different directions every time I think I know what it's going to be doing next. After TikTok had loud opinions about me not liking The Piano, I decided I definitely wanted to give Campion's work another try sometime, and I'm glad for the opportunity to watch this one. It definitely makes me more interested in seeking out her other works in the future.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Power of the Dog > Dark and Stormy Night

The Power of the Dog < Till Death

The Power of the Dog > Timecop

The Power of the Dog < Watchmen

The Power of the Dog > Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage

The Power of the Dog > The Boys of Paul Street

The Power of the Dog > Evita

The Power of the Dog > Cake

The Power of the Dog > The Descendants

The Power of the Dog > I Heart Huckabees

The Power of the Dog > Just Imaginge

Final spot: #1109 out of 3545, or 69%.

Ball of Fire (1941)

IMDb plot summary: A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.

Directed by Howard Hawks. Starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and Oskar Homolka.

Ball of Fire is a screwball comedy written by Billy Wilder and starring Gary Cooper as a bookish professor who, alongside seven other intellectuals, had been working on writing an encyclopedia for years. In his search to complete the entry on slang, he comes across fast-talkin nightclub singer played by Barbara Stanwyck, who is hiding from the law and decides to hide out in the professor's home as part of his study. I've seen the musical remake of this film but somehow never made it to the original, and it's definitely a blast. Stanwyck is at maybe her best here, funny and witty and sharp and always seeming to have the upper hand. I've never been a huge fan of Gary Cooper but his woodenness definitely works in his favor here. And of course the sample of character actors playing his elderly professor friends are all delightful. The first hour of the film is probably the better -- it loses a little bit of its comedic luster when it tries to settle on the romantic drama in the second half -- but the casting is so still so much fun but it totally works. This one has been on my list for forever, and it's definitely one I'm going to return to.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Ball of Fire > The Keep

Ball of Fire > Till Death

Ball of Fire > Hearts Beat Loud

Ball of Fire < Take the Money and Run

Ball of Fire > Primal Fear

Ball of Fire > Requiem for a Dream

Ball of Fire < Night of the Living Dead

Ball of Fire < Babe

Ball of Fire > Hamilton

Ball of Fire < Waking Life

Ball of Fire < Ruby Sparks

Final spot: #269 out of 3546, or 92%.

Holiday (1930)

IMDb plot summary: Holiday is a 1930 American Pre-Code romantic comedy film which tells the story of a young man who is torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family.

Directed by Edward H. Griffith. Starring Ann Harding, Mary Astor, and Robert Ames.

Holiday follows the story of a rich young woman who gets engaged to someone below her station. She brings him home to meet her family, including her father, who is very skeptical of the young man's worth, and her sister, who is somewhat the black sheep of the family and is fully on board with anything that gives her sister any happiness. Things get tense when it comes out that the man's goal is to make enough money to live off of for a while and then quit his job and go out enjoying life while he's young enough to do so, and the fiance's work-centric family is not okay with this. If this sounds familiar, there was a 1938 adaptation starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. And while that's a good movie, I think the star power of both of those characters made it difficult for me to connect to the characters themselves. These actors are all primarily unknown to me, although I'm sure they weren't unknown in the 30s. I found myself really drawn toward the sister character. She just has such good will and love for her sister even when she deeply disagrees with what she's doing with her life. The ending of the story is tremendously satisfying. It does make me want to go back and re-watch the more famous version, but I'm happy to have seen this one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Holiday > Dark and Stormy Night

Holiday > Till Death

Holiday < Hearts Beat Loud

Holiday < Brigsby Bear

Holiday > Is It College Yet?

Holiday < Good Kill

Holiday > The Great Gatsby (2013)

Holiday < Ninotchka

Holiday < Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Holiday > Il Postino: The Postman

Holiday < Roxanne

Final spot: #743 out of 3543, or 79%.

The Big House (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A convict falls in love with his new cellmate's sister, only to become embroiled in a planned break-out which is certain to have lethal consequences.

Directed by George W. Hill. Starring Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, and Lewis Stone.

The Big House is, I have just learned, one of the first prison movies. As such, I shouldn't be surprised that it's full of familiar tropes, although of course they weren't that at the time. The story follows a man convicted of manslaughter and his desperation to get out, sometimes at the expense of his cellmates. The film puts an interesting spin on it, humanizing the other prisoners, frankly much more than I would have expected for the time. That being said, what went on to work over and over and over again doesn't work any better for me the first time the formula was invented. I find myself watching all the different characters and their motivations but not ending up caring about any of them. There was an interesting section in the middle where a character we think is the antagonist becomes sort of the central character of the film for a while, which was an interesting diversion, but then it went back to the same story that I was expecting. If this is your genre, this is definitely one worth watching, if for nothing else than for the history of the genre, but if the formula has never worked for you, this early iteration of it probably will do no better.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The Big House < The Keep

The Big House > War of the Buttons (1994)

The Big House < Flypaper

The Big House < Fame (1980)

The Big House > The Da Vinci Code

The Big House > Tiramisu

The Big House < The Preacher's Wife

The Big House > The Deadly Affair

The Big House > Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The Big House < Marvin's Room

The Big House < Rio Bravo

The Big House > Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Final spot: #2467 out of 3541, or 30%.

Anna Christie (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A young woman reunites with her estranged father and falls in love with a sailor, but struggles to tell them about her dark past.

Directed by Clarence Brown. Starring Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, and George F. Marion.

Anna Christie is a film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play. It stars Greta Garbo in her first speaking role, which is interesting. The story follows a coal barge worker who gave his daughter up when she was very young to live on a farm with his family so she wouldn't have a life on the sea, which he thought would not be suitable for her. Now she's an adult and she's coming back to visit him, but there's darkness in her past that she is afraid to bring up now that she has a chance at happiness in her life. When I saw this movie, I thought back to when I read the play a couple years ago and I could have sworn that the play ended completely differently but no, it turns out I was wrong and both play and film have a happy ending -- a sort of abruptly happy ending, but a happy ending. Somehow the tragedy of the story and the box into which this woman finds herself, based on how she is supposed to have behaved as a woman, rang so loudly to me that I drowned out the happy ending in my memory. And honestly, I think this is still a tragedy, and a deeply unsatisfying one. Even if her new family will accept her as she is now, it all depends on their goodness, not that she is inherently worthy of love. The acting and the scripting in this is good and well paced and relatable, but I think no matter how this story is told, I'll never be all right with the ending.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Anna Christie < The Keep

Anna Christie > War of the Buttons (1994)

Anna Christie > Flypaper

Anna Christie < Venom

Anna Christie > Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Anna Christie > If...

Anna Christie < Notorious

Anna Christie > Vantage Point

Anna Christie > The Rescuers

Anna Christie > An American in Paris

Anna Christie < Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Final spot: #2023 out of 3542, or 43%.