21. Notorious (1946)

by John Greco

Who ever said Alfred Hitchcock was not a romantic? After all, what could be more romantic than the final scenes in “Notorious” where we see Cary Grant coming to Ingrid Bergman’s rescue just in time to take her away from the murdering Nazi Claude Rains. True for the past two hours Grant forced Ingrid to whore herself  by playing a 20^th Century Mata Hari, seducing and sleeping with Rains in order to obtain secret information. He then resents her for agreeing to do this and hates himself for forcing her do it. Yep, no one knew how to treat a woman like Mr. Hitchcock, just ask Janet Leigh in “Psycho” or Grace Kelly in “Dial M for Murder.”

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Desperate Living, Hairspray, Rear Window, Only Lovers Left Alive and Lauren Castillo book launching on Monday Morning Diary (September 8)

 

Lucille and Melanie at John Waters Festival at Lincoln center on Sunday (photos by Broadway Bob and Sam)

Cult icon Edith Massey as the evil Queen Carlotta in John Waters’ 1977 “Desperate Living”

by Sam Juliano

Summer made a late appearance, but apparently is not so willing to yield anytime soon for the onset of the cool autumn air and beautiful colors associated with this time of the year.  Football lovers are in their glory and schools are in full swing.  This is a lovely time of the year, but it always moves forward in speed mode it seems.  We must enjoy it while we can.

The site’s long running Romantic Countdown has reached the final leg of the journey with the Top 20 set to roll starting on Tuesday.  At his own site our great friend and renowned writer John Grant has called on the powers that be to consider a publishing venture that would include all the reviews written for this remarkable venture.  Certainly the quality of writing for this countdown, as well as the three others that preceded it (musicals, comedies and westerns) were of a similarly high level of excellence.  The countdown will conclude on Monday October 6th, with the unveiling of the Number 1 film.

Lucille and I (and Sammy, Melanie and Broadway Bob for some) saw four films in theaters over the past week, all in fact over the weekend.  Two were part of the complete John Waters retrospective “Fifty Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?” at Lincoln Center, one was an oft-seen classic in a recently opened “theater” and one a new release, that has actually been around in theaters for over two months.

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