Watch Stalag 17 (1953) Online

Stalag 17 (1953)
iMDB Rating: 8.2
Date Released : 10 August 1953
Genre : Comedy, Drama, War
Stars : William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 700 MB

Stalag 17 Movie Plot

It’s a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17. For the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem – there seems to be a security leak. The Germans always seem to be forewarned about escapes and in the most recent attempt the two men, Manfredi and Johnson, walked straight into a trap and were killed. For some in Barracks 4, especially the loud-mouthed Duke, the leaker is obvious: J.J. Sefton, a wheeler-dealer who doesn’t hesitate to trade with the guards and who has acquired goods and privileges that no other prisoner seems to have. Sefton denies giving the Germans any information and makes it quite clear that he has no intention of ever trying to escape. He plans to ride out the war in what little comfort he can arrange, but it doesn’t extend to spying for the Germans. As tensions mount and a mob mentality takes root, it becomes obvious that Sefton will have to find the real snitch if he is to have any peace and avoid the beatings Duke and …

Stalag 17 Movie Trailer

Stalag 17 Movie Review :

Underrated? – understatement!

In his lengthy and eventful career, Billy Wilder created many films that have rightly attained classic status, but his WWII prisoner of war comedy-drama Stalag 17 is arguably one of his best. The scripting is a perfect example of how to marry a tight plot with sharp dialogue and great characters, and the acting is flawless on all counts. While William Holden’s performance as the cynical American sergeant rightly won him an Oscar, it is the comic antics of Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck that steal the show. And if there was ever a more entertaining ensemble of previously unseen (and sadly subsequently unheard of) supporting players – with the possible exception of Casablanca – I would love to see it. This film predates the more famous WWII pow film The Great Escape by more than a decade, but had Wilder, Holden and company not caused havoc in Stalag 17, the world would never have seen Steve McQueen play the cooler king with such wry aplomb. Stalag 17 is easily one of the finest films of its time, if not of all time, and I would encourage anyone who has never experienced its unique blend of cynicism, comedy, suspense and drama to check it out at the earliest available opportunity.

Streaming Some Like It Hot Online

Some Like It Hot (1959)
iMDB Rating: 8.4
Date Released : 29 March 1959
Genre : Comedy
Stars : Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 700 MB

Some Like It Hot Movie Plot

When two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, witness the the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, they want to get out of town and get away from the gangster responsible, Spats Colombo. They’re desperate to get a gig out of town but the only job they know of is in an all-girl band heading to Florida. They show up at the train station as Josephine and Daphne, the replacement saxophone and bass players. They certainly enjoy being around the girls, especially Sugar Kane Kowalczyk who sings and plays the ukulele. Joe in particular sets out to woo her while Jerry/Daphne is wooed by a millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Mayhem ensues as the two men try to keep their true identities hidden and Spats Colombo and his crew show up for a meeting with several other crime lords.

Some Like It Hot Movie Trailer

Some Like It Hot Movie Review :

Billy Wilder’s screwball masterpiece with Curtis, Lemmon and the immortal Marilyn handed the best comedy roles of their careers.

Admittedly biased, "Some Like It Hot" can certainly stand on its own merit with or without my thunderous round of applause. More than a decade ago, I had the privilege of performing both the Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon roles in "Sugar," the musical adaptation of "Some Like It Hot" which originally starred Tony Roberts, Robert Morse and Elaine Joyce on Broadway in the 70s. Though it hardly compares to the film’s original (how could it???), the musical nevertheless is still a big hit with live audiences. I can’t remember ever having a better time on stage than I did with "Sugar," and it’s all due to the irrepressible talents that instigated it all.

In the 1959 classic, Curtis and Lemmon play two ragtag musicians scraping to make ends meet in Prohibition-era Chicago during the dead of winter who accidentally eyewitness a major gangland rubout (aka the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre). Barely escaping with their lives (their instruments aren’t quite as lucky), our panicky twosome is forced to take it on the lam. Scared out of their shoes (sorry), the boys don heels and dresses after they connect with an all-girl orchestra tour headed for sunny Florida. Killing two birds with one stone, they figure why not go south for the winter while dodging the mob? Once they hit the coast, they’ll ditch both the band and their humiliating outfits.

Enter a major detour in the form of luscious Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane, given one of the sexiest (yet innocent) entrances ever afforded a star. Snugly fit in flashy ‘Jazz Age’ threads, a blast from the locomotive’s engine taunts her incredible hour-glass figure as she rushes to catch her train to Florida. The boys, stopped dead in their high-heeled tracks by this gorgeous vision, decide maybe the gig might not be so bad after all. As the totally unreliable but engagingly free-spirited vocalist/ukelele player for the band, Sugar gets instantly chummy with the "girls" when they cover for her after getting caught with a flask of booze. As things progress, complications naturally set in – playboy Curtis falls for Monroe but has his "Josephine" guise to contend with, while Lemmon’s "Daphne" has to deal with the persistently amorous attentions of a handsy older millionaire.

What results is an uproarious Marx Brothers-like farce with mistaken identities, burlesque-styled antics, and a madcap chase finale, all under the exact supervision of director Billy Wilder, who also co-wrote the script. Lemmon and Curtis pull off the silly shenanigans with customary flair and are such a great team, you almost wish THEY ended up together! Curtis does a dead-on Cary Grant imitation while posing as a Shell Oil millionaire to impress Marilyn; Lemmon induces campy hilarity in his scenes with lecherous Joe E. Brown (who also gets to deliver the film’s blue-ribbon closing line). As for the immortal Monroe, she is at her zenith here as the bubbly, vacuous, zowie-looking flapper looking for love in all the wrong places. Despite her gold-digging instincts, Monroe’s Sugar is cozy, vulnerable and altogether loveable, getting a lot of mileage too out of her solo singing spots, which include the kinetic "Running Wild," the torchy "I’m Through With Love," and her classic "boop-boop-a-doop" signature song, "I Wanna Be Loved by You."

The film is dotted with fun, atmospheric characters. Pat O’Brien and George Raft both get to spoof their Warner Bros. stereotypes as cop vs. gangster, Joan Shawlee shows off a bit of her stinger as the by-the-rules bandleader Sweet Sue, Mike Mazurki overplays delightfully the archetypal dim-bulbed henchman, and, if I’m not mistaken, I think that’s young Billy Gray of "Father Knows Best" fame (the role is not listed in the credits) playing a snappy, pint-sized bellhop who comes on strong with the "girls."

For those headscratchers who can’t figure out why the so-called "mild" humor of "Some Like It Hot" is considered such a classic today, I can only presume that they have been brought up on, or excessively numbed by, the graphic, mindless toilet humor of present-day "comedies." There was a time when going for a laugh had subtlety and purity – it relied on wit, timing, inventiveness and suggestion – not shock or gross-out value. It’s the difference between Sid Caesar and Andrew "Dice" Clay; between Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and Chris Farley and David Spade; between "I Love Lucy" and "Married With Children"; between Lemmon’s novel use of maracas in the hilarious "engagement" sequence, and Cameron Diaz’s use of hair gel in a scene that ANYBODY could have made funny. Jack Lemmon could do more with a pair of maracas than most actors today could do with a whole roomful of props. While "Some Like It Hot" bristles with clever sexual innuendo, today’s "insult" comedies are inundated with in-your-face sexual assault which, after awhile, gets quite tiresome — lacking any kind of finesse and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. I still have hope…

Having ultimate faith in my fellow film devotees, THAT is why "Some Like It Hot" will (and should be) considered one of THE screwball classics of all time, and why most of today’s attempts will (and should be) yesterday’s news.

Streaming The Apartment (1960) Online

The Apartment (1960)
iMDB Rating: 8.4
Date Released : 16 September 1960
Genre : Comedy, Drama, Romance
Stars : Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 700 MB

The Apartment Movie Plot

As of November 1, 1959, mild mannered C.C. Baxter has been working at Consolidated Life, an insurance company, for close to four years, and is one of close to thirty-two thousand employees located in their Manhattan head office. To distinguish himself from all the other lowly cogs in the company in the hopes of moving up the corporate ladder, he often works late, but only because he can’t get into his apartment, located off of Central Park West, since he has provided it to a handful of company executives – Mssrs. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger – on a rotating basis for their extramarital liaisons in return for a good word to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake. When Baxter is called into Sheldrake’s office for the first time, he learns that it isn’t just to be promoted as he expects, but also to add married Sheldrake to the list to who he will lend his apartment. What Baxter is unaware of is that Sheldrake’s mistress is Fran Kubelik, an elevator girl in the …

The Apartment Movie Trailer

The Apartment Movie Review :

Becoming A Mensch

Ohhh – after my 4th or 5th viewing, I think this may be one of the most remarkable blends of comedy and drama to have ever been filmed – THE APARTMENT – in subtle ways – rises well above the conventions of any genre. It was my introduction to the great Billy Wilder, and my fondness for Jack Lemmon (a remarkable and sorely missed actor) begins here as well.

*SOME SPOILERS*

The cold take on the sex-and-money ethos to be found in many corporate environments hasn't dated one bit; it could be argued that THE APARTMENT stands a bit ahead of its' time in the depiction of (what would appear to be) educated employees treated like (and feeling like) tools to be used in generation of someone else's income. Lemmon's character never forgets that he's disposable, even if the optimist in him hopes that something better may be found in his superiors. Deep down he knows this to be a pipe dream – the sexual adventurism of those same superiors betrays their utter lack of ethics. Of course, Lemmon's character isn't entirely above it all; he's been more than willing to hire out his own apartment as a place for his colleagues' peccadilloes, in exchange for career advancement, which of course – as Wilder early on links amoral sexual conduct and professional/corporate/financial misconduct in a greater social critique – gets him into trouble.

The dialogue is – as is always true with Wilder – very finely crafted, yet seems natural – this film is a remarkable display of the kind of reactions any of us would offer in similar situations. Interestingly, our two protagonists are also wonderfully imperfect as human beings – Lemmon and MacLaine bear some responsibility for the very serious situations they've gotten themselves into; they manage to realize this ("Be a mensch!" Lemmon's doctor neighbor exclaims) just in time to set things right. MacLaine in particular delivers a remarkable, complex performance – sweet and smart in her earliest scenes, bleak and emotionally ravaged in her climactic scene with MacMurray, naive elsewhere, sharp but hopeful at the end. The cinematography captures the entire cast beautifully – with minimal movement, abundant long takes, and a sleek lack of visual clutter, all of the principals are free to reveal their own best and worst impulses, within an environment that is stripped of artifice. The end result is a film filled with great moments one can easily identify with.

Streaming Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Online

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
iMDB Rating: 8.5
Date Released : 6 February 1958
Genre : Crime, Drama, Mystery
Stars : Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 870 MB

Witness for the Prosecution Movie Plot

It’s Britain, 1953. Upon his return to work following a heart attack, irrepressible barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts, known as a barrister for the hopeless, takes on a murder case, much to the exasperation of his medical team, led by his overly regulated private nurse, Miss Plimsoll, who tries her hardest to ensure that he not return to his hard living ways – including excessive cigar smoking and drinking – while he takes his medication and gets his much needed rest. That case is defending American war veteran Leonard Vole, a poor, out of work, struggling inventor who is accused of murdering his fifty-six year old lonely and wealthy widowed acquaintance, Emily French. The initial evidence is circumstantial but points to Leonard as the murderer. Despite being happily married to East German former beer hall performer Christine Vole, he fostered that friendship with Mrs. French in the hopes that she would finance one of his many inventions to the tune of a few hundred pounds. It thus does …

Witness for the Prosecution Movie Trailer

Witness for the Prosecution Movie Review :

Love That Laughton

Charlie Chaplin was funny. Charles Laughton was witty. As good as ‘Witness For The Prosecution’ is—Agatha Christie’s story, the other actors, the technical expertise—the Oscar-nominated Laughton is THE reason to see this film. What he brings to Billy Wilder’s 1957 courtroom thriller is his tremendous wit and intellect. It’s a serious story, but the dark-comic tag team of Wilder/Laughton upgraded the film from "a good courtroom mystery" to "a classic of the courtroom genre".

The headlining star, Tyrone Power, sure doesn’t help them very much. He plays anguish about as smoothly as ripped sandpaper…and anguish is the unfortunate emotion he’s got to play for most of the picture. Power has been accused of murdering a wealthy older woman. His wife (Marlene Dietrich) seems to be doing all she can to sell him out, appearing as…drum roll, please, drummer man…the star witness for the prosecution. Laughton is the brilliant (and ailing) English barrister defending Power. The plot twists ‘n’ turns a dozen ways from Sunday, just as it always does in Christie’s best work.

Amongst all the talk of bloody murder, there are running gags about cigars and alcohol. More dark wit—Laughton’s character’s poor health might cause him to drop dead at any moment. Wilder weaved thrills and smiles as well as any director. In this, he was wise to anchor the supporting cast with mainstays of the stiff upper lip. John Williams and Ian Wolfe (Hirsch from "WKRP"), not to mention Laughton’s control-freak assistant Elsa Lanchester (who was also CL’s real-life wife), are bloody good.

Movies of this type have been ripped off so often that students of the "don’t give away the ending" class are bound to figure it out. I did. That hardly mattered because there were STILL more surprises to come. Through all that plot, Dietrich winds up being the most fascinating character. Project back and you’ll realize how well her performance works. But she & Power are merely the star attractions in ‘Witness For The Prosecution’. The main dish is Charles Laughton. Considering how ironic and cynical our society has become, it’s stunning that brilliant old pros like Wilder and Laughton aren’t more popular today. After this movie, they’ve become personal heroes of mine.

Watch Double Indemnity (1944) Online

Double Indemnity (1944)
iMDB Rating: 8.5
Date Released : 24 April 1944
Genre : Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
Stars : Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 700 MB

Double Indemnity Movie Plot

In 1938, Walter Neff, an experienced salesman of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Co., meets the seductive wife of one of his clients, Phyllis Dietrichson, and they have an affair. Phyllis proposes to kill her husband to receive the proceeds of an accident insurance policy and Walter devises a scheme to receive twice the amount based on a double indemnity clause. When Mr. Dietrichson is found dead on a train-track, the police accept the determination of accidental death. However, the insurance analyst and Walter’s best friend Barton Keyes does not buy the story and suspects that Phyllis has murdered her husband with the help of another man.

Double Indemnity Movie Trailer

Double Indemnity Movie Review :

One of the best films noir ever, Double Indemnity communicates with amazing effectiveness the depths of depravity, greed, lust, and betrayal of the seemingly innocent and beautiful.

This is one of the best films of all time, not necessarily because of its story but because of the acting, direction, cinematography, lighting, and just the way that the story itself was told. At the time the film was released, the idea of revealing who the killer was in the opening scene was virtually unheard of, but it ended up being very effective because it allowed the audience to concentrate more on other elements of the film, which was the goal of Billy Wilder, the director. Instead of trying to figure out who the perpetrator was, there is more emphasis on how the crime was pulled off, what mistakes were made during the murder, who betrayed who, how close Barton Keyes (the insurance investigator) was getting to solving the case, and, probably most importantly, what kind of person Walter Neff is and whether or not sympathy should be felt toward him.

Barbara Stanwyck, in one of the most remembered performances of her extensive career, represents (with nearly flawless ease) the cold and ruthless manipulator who has no difficulty in ruining other people’s lives in various ways (including death, if necessary) in order to get what she wants. Known in the film community as the `femme fatale,’ this is someone who uses her sexual prowess, seductiveness, and emotional detachment to drag an unsuspecting person (generally an interested man) into a scheme from which she is expected to benefit heavily and he is most likely headed for destruction. In these types of films, the man often either finds his life in ruins or ends up dead, as is often (but not always) also the case with the fate of the femme fatale.

Barbara Stanwyck (as Phyllis Dietrichson, the murderous femme fatale in Double Indemnity) and Fred MacMurray (as Walter Neff, her ‘victim’), have amazing chemistry on screen. Their attraction is incredibly well portrayed, and the development of their relationship with each other is so convincing that what happens between them almost seems normal. Besides that, their mutually calculated interaction, although it seems at first like it has been rehearsed endlessly and ultimately brought unconvincingly to the screen, is exactly as it was meant to be, because it represents each character’s intentions, even very subtly foreshadowing their future betrayals against each other. Phyllis has gone through every word she ever says to Walter in her head. She has practiced what she wants to say when she brings up the idea of life insurance to Walter in the beginning and she knows what she wants to say whenever they interact with each other because she has been planning for quite some time the prospect of murdering her husband in order to collect his fortune. Walter, conversely, methodically makes amorous advances as though this is something that he does regularly, and then ultimately he also plans out his conversations with Phyllis because he begins to suspect her and is sure to tell her only what he wants her to hear. This seemingly stiff dialogue brilliantly represents Phyllis and Walter’s precise (and sinister) intentions, and it’s quick pace creates a feeling of urgency and restlessness.

Probably the most fascinating and entertaining actor in the film, Edward G. Robinson, plays Barton Keyes, Walter’s friend and employer at the insurance company where he works. Keyes is a very suspicious man who closely investigates the insurance claims which come into the company, having a striking history of accurately isolating fraudulent claims and throwing them out. His handling of Phyllis’s (and Walter’s, technically) claim and the way that he gets closer and closer to the truth create a great atmosphere of tension and drama.

Double Indemnity is nearly flawless. From the shocking and unexpected beginning to the already known but still surprising end, the audience is held rapt by the excellent performances, the brilliant and imaginative direction, and the flawlessly created atmosphere. This is excellent, excellent filmmaking, and is a classic film that should not be missed.