I've been hooked on TCM for years now. I just always remember being a fan of Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, James (Jimmy) Steward, John Wayne, and many many more. The following two movies are Boom Town and Thief.
Boom Town (1940). The movie follows the oil adventures of Big John McMasters (Clark Gable) and Square John Sand (Spencer Tracy). The two are frenemies. At times throughout the movie they are partners and other times they are rivals. There are also times when one is up and the other is down and one tries to help out the other. They also crisscross the country, trying to find the next oil patch. They even head down to South America where Square John Sand makes it big, but then a revolution results in him losing everything. Big John McMasters, down on his luck, also heads to South America where he is offered a job by his old partner, but he refuses to take the job.
The underlying story behind the up and down nature of the oil business is Betsy Bartlett (Claudette Colbert). During the early part of the movie, Sand keeps mentioning a young woman. The young woman, Bartlett, shows up in search of Sand. She runs into McMasters. During their conversation throughout the night, they fall in love. Though it isn't mentioned, you get hints that Bartlett is the young woman that Sand is in love with as she knows certain details about McMasters that were from the correspondence from Sand. Realizing that she has fallen in love with McMasters, she decides that she must leave the town, not wanting to get in the middle of the two. Instead, McMasters pushes for the two to get married.
It turns out that McMasters is not a very faithful husband. He cheats on Bartlett with two different women. One is a dancer and another is a valued employee. The dancer was more of a one night stand. The valued employee, Karen Vanmeer (Hedy Lamarr), is a more long term relationship. When Bartlett discovered that relationship, she attempts to commit suicide, but realizes it is a mistake and calls for help. Interestingly, Hedy Lamarr was both an actress and inventor. Via Wikipedia, one of her inventions was presented to the US military during World War II. The invention was a radio guidance system that would allow torpedoes to avoid countermeasures. It was rejected by the military due to complications in implementing the idea, but she was just ahead of her time, "Frequency hopping became a foundational technology for spread spectrum communications. Its principles directly influenced the development of secure wireless networking, including Bluetooth and early versions of Wi-Fi . . . "
An interesting moment in the movie was when one of the oil wells starts to burn. How accurate this is, I don't know, but the movie shows how these fires were put out. Metal roofing was removed from a building and used as a shield against the fire. McMasters and Sand were decked out in some heat resistance clothing. Firemen would continuously spray them with water as they pushed the shield closer and closer to the fire -- trying to keep them as cool as possible. The two of them were bringing nitro along with them. The nitro was used to douse the fire by eliminating oxygen. It looked like a very risky, but necessary process.
As the movie heads to a conclusion, McMasters and his oil empire is taken down by Washington DC. McMasters and Bartlett head to California to try to hit it rich once more. Sand it also there at the same location. He didn't realize that McMasters had secretly sold him half of the land. They talk about the fact that they're in the Kettleman Hills. The movie ends with oil rigs packed onto the screen, indicating that the two have once again hit it big. Kettleman Hills has little meaning to people these days (including me), but I suspect that people knew what that name drop meant in 1940. Per Wikipedia, in 1928 a major oil field was found there.
This is a fun movie to watch with two top stars (Gable and Tracy) playing off of each other as either friends or enemies throughout the movie.
Thief (1981). I found this to be an interesting movie in terms of who was involved in the movie. This was Michael Mann's feature film debut (he had previously directed an episode of a TV series and some short films). He later went on to direct movies such as The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali, and Collateral to name a few. This movie was also one of Jerry Bruckheimer's first movies that he produced. After this, he went on to produce well known movie franchises such as Bad Boys, Beverly Hills, National Treasure, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Top Gun.
The movie stars James Caan (Frank) and has a solid supporting cast of Jim Belushi, Willie Nelson, and Tuesday Weld to name a few. The movie starts off with Frank stealing diamonds from a safe deposit box. He gives the diamonds to Joe Gags to fence the diamonds. Joe Gags, due to bad behavior on his part, ends up being thrown from a high rise building before Frank can collect his share of the theft.
Frank is able to track down his money via a high level mobster named Leo (Robert Prosky). Leo returns the money in hopes of enticing Frank to join forces. During this meeting, detectives are tracking Leo's movement and notice the meeting. They are unaware of who Frank is (which implies that he does a rather good job of making sure that he is not suspected of doing the various thefts). They also happen to be corrupt and throughout the rest of the movie cause Frank some consternation.
Frank initially declines Leo's offer, but then changes his mind while talking to his girlfriend (Tuesday Weld). The goal is to make one last big splash before getting out of the lifestyle and becoming a family man. Of course, nothing ever turns out as one would hope.
Frank and Barry (Jim Belushi) agree to steal even more diamonds from a skyscraper. The building is protected by multiple security systems and an impressive vault. It is an interesting caper. This is where Frank gets screwed by Leo. Leo gives him far less than the agreed upon price. The remaining amount is "invested" in various shopping malls. Who knows how real that is. Frank threatens Leo, which doesn't go over well as the end result is the assassination of Barry.
On the other hand, Frank decided to turn the tables. He goes on a rampage and murders Leo along with a number of other individuals.
As a note, the Willie Nelson character is a mentor of sorts to Frank.
I found the movie to be well done though the final few minutes where Frank is out for revenge is a little over the top. Also, as the movie ends, Frank kicks his now wife out of the house and tells her to get lost. A move meant to protect her in case his efforts of revenge fail. There is a scene where he is handing her around $400,000 in cash. Google AI tells me that is $1.4 million in 2025 dollars. Did he really need to take the chance of working for Leo? Having $400,000 indicated that he saved his money. Life would have potentially turned out a lot better for him if he just did his own thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment