THIS EDITION OF Friday Night at the Movies is confessional by nature.
The first confession is that it's a fill-in. At 3:00 I found out I had just a couple hours' notice to get a diary together.
The second confession is that it may not be the only one posted tonight. The confusion of emails crossing in the ether have left me in a better safe than sorry mind set. And it's anyone's guess if someone else is just about to post.
But the biggest confession is the most personal: this one's about cinematic guilty pleasures: those films I'll watch every time, though for various reasons I keep this fact mostly to myself.
MY CINEMATIC guilty pleasures mostly relate back to the films of my youth. These may not be auteur or worthy of study at any film school, and sometimes they lack appropriate political correctness, but in the privacy of my home I'll eagerly watch them nonetheless.
Invaders From Mars
This film was made three years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but its the same theme, except this time for kids. A little boy sees a mysterious light through his bedroom window at night. It disappears into a nearby field. As adults go to investigate they come back changed. Including his dad. With its double trick ending, it absolutely terrified me as a kid. Still does, sometimes.
Yours, Mine and Ours
Ostensibly based on a true story, this pre-Brady Bunch story of blended families has absolutely no message political, social or otherwise. The dialogue and situations are nothing if not ordinary, and outside of the the presence of Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, there's nothing to particularly recommend it. And I'll watch it every time its on.
The Three Lives of Thomasina
Taking place in 1912, this atypical Disney offering has a cat seemingly dying (including a trip to Heaven where she meets Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess), only to be rescued by a woman (Susan Hampshire) thought to be a witch by the local Scottish townsfolk. A natural healer, she's at odds with the overly-clinical local veterinarian (Patrick McGoohan). Film critic Howard Thompson of the New York Times called it a film 'best suited for small girls' -- which leaves me uh, um, well anyway...
The Glass Bottom Boat
Doris Day films could make up most of my list of guilty pleasures, but of all of them, this one's the guiltiest. As a woman mistaken for a Russian spy, with a cast including a bumbling Dom DeLuise as the real spy, Paul Lynde in drag, and Thelma Ritter as the weary housekeeper, this is Doris Day at her least relevant. And I love every minute of it.
A Guide for the Married Man
A sexist relic of its time, it centered on hubby Walter Matthau's consideration of the possibility of cheating on his wife Inger Stevens. He's guided along by best buddy Robert Morse, who through a series of stories shown as vignettes -- featuring Art Carney, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jayne Mansfield, Sid Caesar, Joey Bishop, and Wally Cox, among others -- act as illustrations of the do's and don'ts of infidelity. Absolutely disgraceful, and if it's on I'm sure to lock the doors and watch it.
How to Murder Your Wife
Just as sexist as Guide for a Married Man, Jack Lemon stars here as a swinging bachelor who wakes up from an all-night drunk to find that he's married Virna Lisi -- who speaks not a single word of English. Brooding over his dilemma, Lemon's character -- a successful comic-strip author by trade -- ponders the possibilities, including murder. Acting out his fantasy through his comic strip, he's brought to trial when his new bride disappears. No self-respecting progressive could possibly embrace it, as I remind myself every time I see it.
Penelope
Natalie Wood as the kleptomaniac wife of a banker. Feeling ignored by her husband, she graduates to robbery -- of his bank. It's a film as slim in its full glory as it is in its description. And sure to get my full attention every time its on.
Queen of Outer Space
A film that's everything it's title promises. Venus, it seems, is ruled by an Amazonian race of women. The evil queen plans to destroy earth (because it has men, natch). But when earthmen are captured beforehand, the heavily lipsticked, scantily clad babe-a-licious inhabitants change their minds and stage a revolt, led by Zsa Zsa Gabor. Just as bad as it sounds and yet it does it for me every time. (And for those who watched the above-posted clip, no, it doesn't really include Richard Nixon).
The Trouble With Angels
Rosalind Russell as the Mother Superior of a private Catholic girls' school, Haley Mills as the student from hell. June Harding as her accomplice in crime. Mary Wickes as the gym teacher. Gypsy Rose Lee in a cameo as a teacher of dance. Of all my guilty pleasures, this one's my all-time favorite (also with my favorite title sequence ever). I laugh, I cry, I go positively gooey inside. And for this one, I offer no apologies.
There. I've made public my list.
So what are your guilty pleasures. Valley of the Dolls? Forbidden Planet? The Bridges of Madison County?
It's your turn to 'fess up'...