Thursday, February 16, 2023

Thursday Movie Picks- Forced Proximity

 

All month it is romance time at Wandering Through The Shelves and this week it's about couple who are stuck together, I  a room, a boat etc.. or handcuffed, no, not like 50 Shades of Crap. I know I am forgetting some great films and hope I see them suggested here. Oh, I forgot to mention about my Oscar post from yesterday...that rap song won the Oscar. The song fro. Chicago was nominated a d the LOTR: 2 Towers song was the Cinderslut. Personally, I love that song the best. Ok, back to the movies-I have picked my 3...

1. THE 39 STEPS- 1935

This stars, be still my heart, Robert Donat, as an innocent man( what else would he be in a Hitchcock film) who comes across a woman in distress. He helps her out bringing her to his flat but she is murdered and he is framed and goes on the run. He meets up with the beautiful Madeleine Carroll who wants nothing to do with him. He ends up handcuffed to her and, when thugs try to kill her, she starts to believe in him. There is much more to the story as it is classic Hitchcock film. It's one of my favourite of his films.

2. THE BLUE LAGOON-1980

One day I must see the one with Jean Simmons but, so far, I've just seen this dumb flick starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins as 2 young people who were the sole survivors of a shipwreck when they were little kids. They are on a deserted island who somehow survive and grow up into 2 beautiful adolescents. Being teens, they're horntoads and get it on resulting in young Brooke getting knocked up...Oh my! It's just so dumb but it has some cult status for its dumbness.

3. THE BREAKFAST CLUB-1985

A John Hughes film that made him and the young stars famous from Molly Ringworm ..er Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Ally Sheedy to Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson. These kids have all been bad boys and girls who must give up their Saturday and spend it in school detention. You have the popular kids like popular Molly and jock Emilio to the nerdy, brainiac Hall, the misfit, Sheedy and the very, very annoying loser delinquent, Nelson, who never shuts up. You get to learn why each are there and that they are more than just their stereotypes. Of course, romance blooms( if I was the mom of Molly Dingbat, I would be having a heart attack) except for the brain because, well, he is a nerd. It's a fun movie with some great 80s music. 

Which movies can you think of.

27 comments:

  1. Hi, Birgit!

    Happy Thankful Thursday Movie Day, dear friend!

    This is an interesting theme. I studied The 39 Steps in my college film course. I love scenes in suspense, mystery and horror films that take place aboard trains, and Hitchcock was a master of the device.

    If I watched The Blue Lagoon at some point in my life, it was many years ago, because I don't remember much about it. Brook Shields will soon be 58 (and r.i.p. Raquel Welch).

    Over the years, I have seen The Breakfast Club a few times. It was one of the first films Mrs. Shady and I watched together as a couple.
    Special shout out goes to Anthony Michael Hall who played Rusty Griswold in Nat'l Lampoon's Vacay, appeared in another Molly Ringwald movie, Sixteen Candles, and starred in Weird Science. In 2019, Hall played "Rusty" the security guard on The Goldbergs and, in the 2020s, has had a recurring role on the sitcom playing a teacher who is sweet on the newly widowed Beverly Goldberg.

    I can think of countless films in which people are in forced proximity because they are pinned down inside a tent or cabin in the woods by a (Blair) witch or a slasher (Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers), in a farmhouse by an army of flesh eating ghouls (Night of the Living Dead), aboard a train with a slasher (Terror Train) or aboard a train with a sizzler (Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot), but it is harder for me to think of specific movies in which romantic couples are in forced proximity. However, since you included The Breakfast Club, which is about a diverse group confined to quarters, then I think it is fair game for me to mention films that do not necessarily involve two trapped lovers.

    However, I did manage to come up with two examples of lovers in forced proximity: Paradise (1982) starring Phoebe Cates and Willie Aames, was attacked by critics as being a knock-off of The Blue Lagoon. Spoiler alert: Two teenagers discover love and sex on a remote tropical island.

    Next, I've got what is arguably the most bizarre close proximity situation ever: In Killer Shrews (1959) a handsome captain and the wacky scientists' daughter turn sweet on each other while being pinned down on a remote island by jumbo size, bloodthirsty mutant shrews. The lovebirds make good their escape to the boat and the open water by lashing together 50 gallon chemical drums, inverting them, getting inside and duckwalking to the beach - one of the craziest sights in sci-fi/horror movie history.

    I highly recommend The Circle (2015), in which 50 random humans are beamed aboard an alien spacecraft, forced to stand in a circle and select one person per minute to be killed by an alien death ray gun. It's a fascinating psycho thriller inviting you to try and guess how the evil game will play out, which members of the group are considered expendable and which ones lives are considered to be of greater value, for whatever reason, granting them immunity from being "voted off."

    Then there's the classic scene in The Thing (1982) in which the characters are tied to chairs and to each other while their blood is tested to determine which among them is an alien menace. Spoiler alert: High jinks ensue.

    Enjoy the rest of your week, dear friend BB!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I knew you would go the horror route because so many are confined to a cabin or train. I love that you chose Attack of the Killer Shrews because it is a personal favourite of mine. It’s so bad it’s great. Some Like It Hot is a good one and you could say Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were enclosed in women’s clothes to hide. That film with Brooke Shields is pretty awful to be honest.

      Delete
    2. I just noticed I am showing up as anonymous. I bought. New iPad but now don’t know how to change it so my name shows up.

      Delete
  2. Hi Birgit well seen all 3 of these ..and the music is the best thing about the last one!….I am busy watching tennis at the moment so no films for me…hope you are well take care xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow…even the dreadful Blue Lagoon! The music in the last one is the best thing. I hope you are enjoying your tennis

      Delete
  3. Nice picks! I haven't seen The Blue Lagoon but I'm very interested in that documentary Brook Shields has coming out that talks about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I’d like to see the documentary because she was very young to be making a film like this.

      Delete
  4. Only seen The Breakfast Club of these. Well, I might have seen 39 Steps aeons ago, but I don’t remember.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You might have seen that Hitchcock film..it’s excellent.

      Delete
  5. I've seen Breakfast Club (meh) but not the other two. The first movie that comes to mind for me is It Happened One Night. I'd have to think some more for others, but I'm sure this is very fertile ground.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I agree about The Breakfast Club and found the character of Judd Nelson very annoying. I like your pick but I already spoke about it last year. I should have chosen Opertion Petticoat

      Delete
    2. The funny thing was, for The Breakfast Club I was the target audience. I was a teen when it came out. It was supposed to speak to me. It did not.

      Delete
  6. I've seen the second two. Another one is 10 Cloverfield Lane.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That’s an excellent choice and one I still need to see. Oh man and then there is tha5 comedy with Brendan Fraser where he grew up in a bomb shelter with his mom and dad played by Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek.

      Delete
  7. Hi Birgit!

    Good picks! Well I don’t know if you can say this version of The Blue Lagoon is good in anyway other than it fits the theme very well 😊 but otherwise it’s a stinker!

    However, your other two are much better. I can see why 39 Steps was such a big step forward for Hitch. It’s very clever, has many of his signature touches and a terrific pairing of Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It’s not in my top 10 faves of his work but would make a top 15.

    Breakfast Club is very much of its time in certain ways but remains relatable enough to be entertaining now. It seemed for a while afterwards that Judd Nelson (along with the rest of the cast) was going to be big, but it didn’t happen.

    My first thought and impulse was the everyone more or less trapped on a yacht “The Last of Sheila” from 1973 as a tribute to the just departed Raquel Welch but there is no real love story involved. Great movie however. As far as Raquel…. I am SO bereft! This one hit home and hit hard, it’s not just that she always seemed so healthy but when I was a kid she was a young woman and such an enormous star and it just feels weird and sad that she’s gone.

    So, I moved on. I have seen the original The Blue Lagoon (1949) with the fabulous Jean Simmons and while it’s better than the Brooke Shields it’s far from one of her best. It’s very pretty to look at though!

    The next is one starring my favorite all-time actress Linda Darnell, 1952’s “Island of Desire” that served as Tab Hunter’s screen bow. Linda’s a nurse on a hospital ship sunk during WWII and only she and sailor Tab survive ending up marooned on a South Seas island. They grow closer until a single engine plane crashes on the isle and the pilot proves to be a fly in the ointment of their romance.

    Off the desert island kick and into the jungle my next would be “Five Came Back” from 1939. A small group of 12 people are flying from L.A. to Panama City when their flight runs into bad weather and crash lands in the Amazon. As they struggle to repair the engines and survive in the hostile environment several of the passenger’s relationships change and the pilot (Chester Morris) finds himself falling for the “shady lady” (Lucille Ball!!) among them. Trim little suspenser that is considered one of the first disaster movies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should have chosen Operation Petticoat!! That’s a great one. Blue Lagoon is a huge stinker and I, too, was shocked by Raquel Welch’s passing. She was someone, I thought, would make it to her mid 90s. She always seemed in great shape…and I don’t mean just that killer body but she ate well, didn’t smoke etc… she had some good roles too that have gone unnoticed.
      I can’t stand Judd Nelson’s character in that movie. I also thought it was sad how Ally Sheedy went “normal” dressed in a cute blecchh blouse looking ll sweet and wholesome. She looked better the other way. Then there’s Molly Ringworm…
      I would love the see your last pick for sure as well as the Linda Darnell film which, I knew you were going to choose. Obviously, I want to see the original version of Blue Lagoon with Jean Simmons.

      Delete
  8. I never saw The Blue Lagoon. Hard to believe, I know.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I've never seen Blue Lagoon either, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Breakfast Club. Thinking about being stuck in a room with someone, the worst torture I can think of would be stuck in my office with Fox 'news' on the TV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hahahaaaa….you are so right! I would go out of my mind. Can you imagine being stuck in a room with Trump? I bet you his aftershave would knock us out.

      Delete
  10. BIRGIT~

    'The 39 Steps' was an excellent choice on your part!

    I've never seen 'The Blue Lagoon' (ain't got time for *that*). And I tried to watch 'The Breakfast Club' once but couldn't get through it and shut 'er down early.

    I had 2 problems with 'The B.C.' : 1) By the time I saw it, I was already a young man, and I just couldn't relate to the whole storyline. I had long moved past that stage of life. 2) The whole premise seemed too contrived for me. It just came across as an artificially contrived circumstance to tell a predictable story. But I really dig some other John Hughes films!

    Two prison movies ("forced proximity") immediately came to mind: 'Cool Hand Luke' and the original 'The Longest Yard' - both great movies that I own on DVD.

    Another lesser known but no less great film is 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison', starring Robert Mitchum (a U.S. Marine sergeant) and Deborah Kerr (an Irish Catholic nun) stranded together on a Pacific Island during WWII. A terrific story and my favorite Mitchum movie.

    ~ D-FensDogG

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OMG! I should have picked Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison! I love that movie so much and it is such a gentle romance that could never be. Yeah, I know what you mean about BC. It’s of that era and Judd Nelson was so annoying. So was Ringworm and I wished they left Ally Sheedy as she was and not make her into something cute…blechhh.
      Cool Hand Luck and the Original Longest Yard are great but non romance which is why I didn’t choose that one or The Defiant Ones.

      Delete
    2. Oops! I didn't catch that part about how the movies needed to include a 'Romance' aspect. I just got lucky that my 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison' choice included the requirement.

      ~ D-FensDogG

      POSTSCRIPT: Just thinking about the movie inspired me to re-watch it again last night. It was one of my Ma's Top 10 favorite movies of all time, and that's how I came to learn about it decades and decades ago.

      Delete
    3. Another World War II movie with a man in forced proximity to a nun is Sea Wife, where Richard Burton falls for Joan Collins (who is a nun but for reasons isn't wearing her habit) on a lifeboat. Don't laugh at the thought of Joan Collins as a nun; the movie isn't bad at all.

      And Birgit and I matched on The 39 Steps.

      Delete
  11. I enjoyed Breakfast Club. How are you feeling?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not a huge fan of Club but it was so popular but I love the music. I am doing aok. Major expenses happened like a new back door needed and furnace went which sucks. Pain is pain but nothing atrocious

      Delete
  12. Wow I totally forgot Breakfast Club and Blue Lagoon (which think I even saw the sequel)…they are a good fit for the theme.

    ReplyDelete