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Gregory Peck in Court

By the way, we watched the Hitchcock courtroom drama The Paradine Case (1947), starring Gregory Peck, last night. We’d taped it off BBC2 on Monday afternoon.

It couldn’t be called the best work from either Hitch or Peck (some of the melodrama is rather overacted), but it has a strong cast and was worth seeing again. Mr. Peck was 30 years old at the time and wears a few dashes of grey in his hair for added maturity! Although he’s supposed to be English, he doesn’t try to fake the accent, which somehow works in his favour. The actual courtroom scenes are the best moments (Charles Laughton is terrific as the judge). Trivia: it was the Hollywood debut for both Alida Valli and Louis Jourdan.
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The Third Man (1949)

Blogging the midnight oil! I remembered there was, after all, something worth commenting on from last week, and so, I present…

Classic Movie Mini-Review!

Last Thursday night, we watched The Third Man (1949). I hadn’t seen it in about ten years. I spotted the video for £3.99 (in Virgin) and snapped it up. Well, what a movie! Orson Welles—need I say more? Yes. Welles has no creative role here; the story is Graham Greene’s and the direction is Carol Reed’s (Ollie Reed’s uncle). The setting is post-War Vienna, both beautiful and yet still ravaged by the conflict. The story is about the black market, an apparently dead racketeer and a ‘third man’… to say any more would be a spoiler. The emphasis is totally on atmosphere.

The Third Man 1949 Poster
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