Identify This Movie

[Murdoch]

Another one from Godard:

Might not be from a Godard film tho

[SpiderBaby]

I think that is in Two In The Wave as well, during Cannes protest footage with Godard/Truffaut/Polanski/etc.
Edit: Here is the full footage of this day (that pic is at around the 4:30 mark, but it is translated as A**holes, not idiots.).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQXtFXpO9Y

Now I have had something for a while but still don't know what this is from. It's most likely not from a film/short, as I have seen alot of Keaton. Anybody know where this pic came from:

[karmajuice]

That's just a publicity photo. Keaton has lots of similar pictures, most of them amusing (although this is probably my favorite). I don't know if it was shot to promote a film or whether they sold the little figure of him and the photo was an advertisement for those. I believe it's included in the booklet for the MoC Complete Shorts set.

[SpiderBaby]

Thanks for your help. I figured it was just a photo, but just to of made sure, I posted it. It's prob my fav Keaton photo as well.

[Roger Ryan]

Judging from Keaton's look, I'd say this photo was taken during the early MGM period, probably 1928 or '29. Photographers (and the camera in general) loved Keaton and many of his publicity stills are suitable for framing. My personal favorite is the one where he is posing as the "Venus de Milo".

[SamLowry]

I have one that has been bothering me for decades. Some time in the 80s I caught the end of a black & white film (British? 40s? 50s?) on an old movie channel. It had a noirish mood/style to it, though If I recall seemed more drama/mystery than noir & more of a British feel (could have been from the actors in it or the style). I believe there was someone (detective?) searching for a murderer. The detective realizes because of something that the murderer isn't an adult, but the girl & goes to a house. In one scene you see the girl from the side in a wicker chair. There's something about the mystery that involves steps/the staircase... & in the final scene you the girl through a window (it's raining outside) with water on it, she tells the detective "Look (Alex?) I'm crying" (she in fact is not crying). The movie looked really interesting & I always wanted to see it again, but I couldn't find it in the tv listings. I was also a fan of electronic music at the time & loved a song by David van Tieghem (Laurie Anderson's percussionist) from his solo debut called "These Things Happen" which featured several movie dialogue samples. I could have sworn that the girl in the movie's "Look" was what was sampled in this song (youtube clip), but have never been able to track it down to verify.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

It's been some time since I've seen it, but might it be The Bad Seed?

[zedz]

I don't think it's The Bad Seed. That's a very straight play adaptation, and it has two endings that are vastly different from what you describe and not easily forgotten.

Spoiler

The little girl goes to the lake and is struck down by lightning, then she returns to life for a cutesy-pie curtain call where she gets the more appropriate comeuppance for her multiple homicides - a spanking!

But the rain-on-glass / "Look, I'm crying" thing seems naggingly familiar to me, maybe it was from earlier in the film?

[George Kaplan]

I could have sworn that the girl in the movie's "Look" was what was sampled in this song (youtube clip), but have never been able to track it down to verify.

The audio sample of the little girl saying "Look" in the Van Tieghem video is from THE BIRDS, from the beginning of the bird attack on the children's party. But I agree with zedz that the "Look, I'm crying", when in fact the tears are rainwater is naggingly familiar. Any possibility that what you're after is also Hitchcock-related, perhaps from the television series?

[karmajuice]

Roger Ryan, that "Buster de Milo" photo is pure brilliance. I may have to frame a copy of that and put it on my wall.

[George Kaplan]

Here is one that has been haunting me for a very long time, that I saw on television as a child in the 1960's. The film is probably black and white (it certainly was on our b&w TV!) and, very similar to SamLowry's puzzle had: a British feel to it, possibly due to the cast rather than the production itself; seemingly from the 40's or early 50's; and also a crime drama that was more mystery/melodrama than noir. I would even say decisively so. The plot involved a young man who brings his new bride to live in the family home, which is occupied by his three (or at least multiple) elderly (?) female relatives. My memory has always been that they were his aunts, rather his mother or sisters, though I could be mistaken. The young wife, whom I remember as being, or looking like, Margaret Lockwood, soon feels that there is something sinister afoot, and the aunts are whom she begins to fear. The only vivid memory I have of a particular scene is of the wife sitting before her bedroom mirror and opening a flower box in order to pin on a corsage, and discovers a tarantula or large spider in the box.

I've researched Lockwood's credits without any luck. The film's plot has echoes of de Toth's DARK WATERS, but is not that film, which also made a distinct impression upon me as a child, and which I've seen several times since. The actress could, of course, have been Joan Bennett and again Lang's THE SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR has echoes of my description; but again I know that film well and it's not the same. If I had to make a best guess about the casting of one of the aunts I'd go with Ethel Griffies - THE BIRDS again!

[Jonathan S]

three (or at least multiple) elderly (?) female relatives.

When I read that, I thought it might be the rarely seen 1948 British film The Three Weird Sisters set in a sinister, crumbling Welsh mansion, but I don't recall anything else you mention fitting that film.
A young secretary is taken by her boss to the mansion, where she is menaced by his three elderly half-sisters, and Nancy Price - playing the dominant sister - does bear quite a strong resemblance to Ethel Griffies (at least how she looked in The Birds) but that's about it, I think.

[SamLowry]

Thanks, The Three Weird Sisters is a definite possibility. IMDB description calls it a gothic tale written by Dylan Thomas, which sounds correct. When the movie aired, I actually had something to do & so I only caught glimpses of the movie, but I found it so different & compelling, I kept the tv on & going back to catch glimpses of it & have been hoping to catch it again in its entirety for decades now. For some reason I remember the number 3 was important & so were steps (I remember a scene a girl/woman is on the steps in the basement....and so I thought the title was something like The Third Step or The Three Stairs. It's not 39 Steps, which I've seen & I've been meaning to catch The Spiral Staircase, but I'm pretty certain the film was set in the UK, not New England. The description mentions that one of the sisters is blind & I seem to recall the girl being blind (but why she would be looking into a window with rain on it & saying "look, I'm crying"?). The only problem is I don't recall the other 2 sisters, just another woman who works with the man who goes back to the house.

[zedz]

Even if it's not the film, you should see The Spiral Staircase right away: it's fantastic. And, more on topic, is does have sequences with the girl on the basement stairs, and there's a theme of disablity - though the heroine is mute, not blind.

[SamLowry]

Yeah, I noticed the similarities between the 2 & it occurred to me that they may have been a double-feature or maybe there was mention of Staircase in an intro to the movie.

[L.A.]

I'm asking this on behalf of a friend...

Probably a French film in question. A young boy befriends an escapee. The escapee demands the young boy to get him money and food. The events probably takes place near a river bank or a beach.

I know this is not much but does this perhaps sound familiar? Anyone?

[domino harvey]

Well, that's Great Expectations

[zedz]

There's a great Czech film from the 60s called The Escape or The Flight by Stepan Skalsky which is pretty much exactly that plot, but as domino suggests, it's rather a generic plot.

Distinguishing features of The Flight: the boy is also on the run - he's run away from home and ended up in the middle of nowhere; much of the action takes place in a very scrappy, muddy and sparse wood and in an abandoned cabin; high contrast black and white photography, with some dynamic handheld / mobile camera action and visual echoes of Ivan's Childhood.

[knives]

[reno dakota]

That's Mia Hansen-Løve's Le père de mes enfants

[knives]

Thank you very much.

[cocaine socialist]

[carax09]

Licence To Kill (1989)

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Two questions. One I asked before but it never got answered.

1. In Godard's Historie(s) du Cinema, there's a clip of a black and white film of a man looking up a girls dress and while looking up he gets peed on by her. Does anyone know what that is?

2. I swore it was in his American movies documentary, but when I tried to check, I couldn't find it. I remember seeing a Scorsese interview where he was talking about a b-western that influence the Travis Bickle talking in the mirror scene in Taxi Driver. They show the opening title of the film and a clip of two men pulling put guns over and over again while firing at something. Does anyone remember what it was?

[domino harvey]

First one's Salo, and that's gotta be a record for the same scene being asked about in this thread