Alfred Hitchcock, John Steinbeck Movie: **** Life Boat (1944)

 This is a very good movie about a group of people that make it to a life boat after a German U-boat sunk their ship.  It includes both passengers and crew, and a member of the crew that sunk them.  Connie Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) was the first on the boat, having ben put there by a crew member.  She is taking pictures for publication.  The boat is then caught by a crew member, John Kovac (John Hodiak) from the engine room who was on break when the ship was hit.  He asserts himself as captain.  Gus Smith (William Bendix) another crew member who has been shot in the leg.  Stanley "Sparks" Garrett (Hume Cronyn) is a radio operator.  Alice McKenzie (Mary Anderson) is and army nurse.  She takes to fixing Smith's leg as best she can.  Charles J. Rittenhouse (Henry Hull) arrives next.  H is a wealthy industrialist.  Joe Spencer (Canada Lee) African American steward arrives with a woman, Mrs. Higley (Heather Angel) who is clutching her baby.  Spencer explains he had to drag her along as she has tried to drown the baby and herself.  The baby dies.  She is in shell shock and very distraught.  Lastly Willi (Walter Slezak) arrives and the quickly he is German and from the U-boat which was sunk.  

There is a feeling to throw the German back, but calmer voices prevail and they keep him for now.  He is the only one with a compass which he keeps hid, but he influences them to go towards German resupply ships instead of Bermuda where they want to go.  Mrs Higley is shell shocked and after missing her baby wants to join her.  They have to tie her up, but when they are all asleep she manages to slip over the side.  

During the course of being marooned, Porter loses everything, first her camera, then her fur coat which she gives to Mrs. Higley before she goes over the side, her typewriter gets knocked over the side.  Even her bracelet which she uses to attract fish but then it gets away.  Those on the boat facer storms, thirst, hunger, nerves, the boat filling with water, not knowing which way to go, treachery and people from different backgrounds.  

Smith, really Schmidt, gets gangrene in his leg.  The German, (they discover he is the captain) indicates he has a history of being a doctor and cuts off the leg to save his life.  However over time Smith is so thirsty he starts drinking sea water.  He becomes delusional.  With the German captain encouraging him, he goes overboard to join his girl.  The others are distraught with him when they discover this, and that he has water.  That was why he got Smith to go over the edge as he had discovered this.  They finally throw the German overboard,  just before they are found by a German resupply ship.  However the ship is under attack and they are in the middle of the fight.  When the resupply ship is sunk they are set to be rescued.  Based on the book by John Steinbeck.  This is a very good Hitchcock, and is a very good study of persons under pressure as are John Steinbeck's books.

Alfred Hitchcock Movie Review: **** Suspicion (1941)

 Johnny Aysgarth (Cary Grant) is a down on his luck lady's man and gambler.  He meets Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) on the train.  They have a nonconventional romance.  He crashes a family balls and meets her parents, General McLaidlaw (Cedric Hardwicke) and Mrs. McLaidlaw (May Whitty).  The father does not approve of Aysgarth, who is known as a womanizer.  They marry.  Getting home from their honeymoon he starts to reveal his true self.  He has bought a nice home and hired maids, with no means of support.  He expects his wife's income to pay for everything.  He is disappointed when father-in-law sends a couple chairs for a wedding present.  He sells them to get money for the race track.  He hits big at the races and buys them back. His good friend, Beaky (Nigel Bruce) visits and tells the Mrs what kind of person Aysgarth is.  He faces the necessity of getting a job.  Which he does but embezzles money.  Father-in-laws dies, but nothing except the continued income goes to the daughter, and a portrait of the general.  Aysgarth is in dire straits.  She starts a real estate business with Beaky, but decides he isn't going to work due to bad soil so backs out.  Beaky is to go to Paris to get out of the deal, but he dies while he is there.  He had a chronic reaction to brandy and someone gave him a full glass.  Lina worries this may have been her husband.  Now she is worrying her husband may do her in next.  Her husband has been asking questions about poisons.  She makes arrangements to go to her mother's.  Johnny drives her and the door flings open.  Johnny reaches over to close the door, but she thinks he is tryig to push her out.  Johnny gets the car stopped and wonders what is wrong.  She discovers her husband was in Liverpool trying to resolve his debt without success.  He was not in Paris.  Consequently he thought of taking his own life was the next best option, not murdering his wife.  They reconcile and head home together to face the music.

Music Review: Andy Williams: 16 Most Requested Songs

Andy Williams: 16 Most Requested Songs, CDS Columbia Records, 1986.

Andy Williams has a distinctive voice, and had his own TV varity show for many years.  He also regularly hosted a TV Christmas Special.  The mosgt distinctive songs in this C.D. are covers of movie themes, "Moon River," "Born Free," "Love Theme" from Romeo and Juliet, "Maria" from West Side Story amd "The Impossible Dream" from "Man of la Mancha."  Also included is "Danny Boy" and the "Hawaiian Wedding Song."

Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart Movie: ****^ Rear Window (1955)

 L.B. Jefferies (James Stewart) is a photographic reporter but is down with a broken leg he received while working.  He has plenty of time to look at his back window at the neighbors.  His nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) chastises him as being a window peeper.  His girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) visits and he pays more attention to the neighbors than to her.  He doesn't want the relationship to go further as he feels they are from different worlds, however she loves him.  Things get interesting when he observes a neighbor going out late night on a stormy night, and his wife disappearing after that.  He is convinced the neighbor, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has killed his wife. However he cannot convince anyone else of this.  He talks to his friend in the police, Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey) but nothing he can do without some type of evidence.  The police enquire and he tells them his wife went to France.  He is later observed going through his wife's purse, which has her rings, including the wedding ring.  But how to get anything to show the police.  Lisa decides to intervene directly.  First they get him out of the house, and then she goes in and finds the ring.  However Thorwald comes home too early and finds her.  She puts on the ring.  Jefferies calls the police saving her life, but she is taken to the police station.  

They now have some proof, but Thorwald is onto Jefferies and shows up at his apartment.  Very exciting and very tense.  

Tom Selleck TV Movie Review: **** Last Stand at Saber River (1997)

 Paul Cable (Tom Selleck) returns home from the Civil War having fought for the Confederacy.  He left the war after being wounded and knowing the war is now a lost cause.  He meets his wife, Martha (Suzy Amis) and two kids, Clare and Davis (Rachel Duncan and Haley Joel Osment) in Texas where they have been staying with her father, James Sanford (Harry Carey Jr.).  Cable learns that is third child, Mary, became ill and died three years earlier.  Quickly we learn that things are not right between the Cables; they are both much changed from the war.  They are anxious to get home--which is in Arizona.  

However in arriving home things still are not good.  Another family has been living in their house, and when they ask them to move there is a gun battle in which Martha kills a couple men when they draw on her husband.  Of course the rest of the family wants to make it even and another brother dies.  In addition there are another coupoe ranchers, Vern and Duane Kidston (Keith and David Carradine) who supported the Union.  There is an instant feud.  Lastly there is a man who has been running guns for the confederacy, Edward Janroe (David Dukes) who wants Cable to continue fighting for the cause while Cable says the war is over.  

When the papers announce the war is over, Genroe says he will tell Cable who is on his ranch.  Instead he trashes the house, and then murders Duane Kidston.  He is framing Cable as the murderer.  He wants to create a war so Cable has to kill the local Unionists.   Would have worked but Cable and Kidston talk before killing each other as Martha has a gun drawn on Kidston to save her husband's life.  Then it is obvious what has happened.

This movie is very good.  It shows Selleck when he was young, before the Magnum PI days.  It also shows a very strong woman in Martha.  She saves her husband on several times.  And at the end of the movie her heart finally melts and she and her husband reconcile.  The kids are also pretty strong, especially Clare.

Movie Review: ***^ Premonition (2007)

 Now this is a movie based on confusion.  Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) is informed by a police officer that her husband, Jim Hanson (Julian McMahon) has passed away in a car accident.  But then when she wakes the next morning he is alive.  And then his funeral comes, and she is not willing to accept that he is dead, so she insists on seeing him in the casket, to discover he was decapitated.  But then he is alive again the next day.  She ends up being hauled away to a mental hospital, but then he is alive again.  She begins to realize she is not living her days in order.  She figures what day she is at, and on what day her husband dies.  The only one who understands her "premonition" is a minister.  Her daughter, Megan (Shyann McClure) shows up with cuts and scars one day.  But later she lives the day of her running through a glass window.  She has another daughter, Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness).  She discovers that her husband was a flirt, Claire (Amber Valletta) which he hopes becomes more.  She gets to the point of reconciling with her husband and talking to him about things; before it is too late.  She also has a very opinionated mother who takes care of the kids frequently.  Joanne (Kate Nelligan) is worried about her daughter and arranges for her to go into a mental hospital.  Linda's good friend Annie (Nia Long) is also involved in this.  She even goes to where her husband is going to crash.  He leaves early for work on the day of the crash, and she misses the chance to keep him home, wo she follows.  She finally gets him on the phone, after he told the flirt it was a no go.  She asks hi to turn around, and in doing so a truck crashes with his vehicle.  We see her several months later, and she is now pregnant with their third child.

Music Review: The Turtles: 20 Greatest Hitsl

 The Turtles: 20 Greatest Hits, Rhino Records, 1984.

The Turtles have a unique sound, but they must not have4 had very many hit songs because some of these are rather painful.  Only a couple r4cogizable songs, "It Ain't Me Babe" a cover of a Bob Dhlan song, and "Happy Together."  This is their only number one hit.  It is very recognizable and a fun song.  Another top scoring song was "She'd Rather Be With Me."  I also like Elenore.