Midnight Oil:Movies and More

"Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) IMDb stars Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds. Mr. Deeds is a young man whose amazing abilities include writing poetry for greeting cards, playing the tuba in the town band, and giving away millions of dollars. Jean Arthur is the worldly-wise newspaper reporter, Babe Bennett, who is eventually undone by the unassuming ways of Mr. Deeds. It's an entertaining Frank Capra movie still well worth the price of admission if you are into "oldies", romantic comedy and don't mind the slightly syrupy, "pixilated" point of view of a Depression era film.

Drill down into the Frank Capra Flick that also ran on TVOntario's SNAM: "It Happened One Night". See the Midnight Oil review of this film.

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Catch the video trailer for "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936)

"My Sister Eileen" 1955 INDb is chock full of a sunny optimism and great dance moves courtesy of Bob Fosse. Fosse as the underdog suitor of the highly attractive Eileen (Janet Leigh) is entirely unremarkable - until he puts on his dancing shoes, that is. Eileen's older sister, played by Betty Garrett, isn't a bad hoofer either as she tries every trick she knows to get published while in the Big Apple. My only regret is that we don't get to see Jack Lemmon graduate from charm school into a dance number. A song will have to do.

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Catch the video from the Interviews by TVO about "My Sister Eileen"

This film was screened with "Sweet Charity" also previously reviewed on Midnight Oil.

See Bob Fosse's wonderful coreography in this video segment from "My Sister Eileen" (1955)

Paul Newman is “Nobody’s Fool” (1994) IMDb . Robert Benton’s delicately drawn portrait of aging also stars Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis. Newman plays Sully, a rascally character living in small town America who decides that it’s never too late after all to join the human race. Sully’s worked hard all his life to avoid facing up to inevitable realities. We’d all like to believe that people can get better and not just “older”, in spite of all the examples we see to the contrary. Newman is such a wonderful actor and Benton is such a masterful storyteller in this film that we’ll just have to become believers.

See the “Never Too Late” video interview preview for Nobody’s Fool from SNAM here.

Don't miss the entire TVO SNAM interviews for the "Never Too Late" episode. Includes a discussion of "Nobody's Fool" and "The Late Show" in the discussion of Hollywood films and the subject of aging.

Read Thom Ernst’s blog entry on the ageless Paul Newman .

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Catch the video trailer for Nobody’s Fool here.

"Operation Crossbow (1965)" -INDb combines a good spy story and WWII military history with a pinch of the human interest angle thrown in for good measure. George Peppard is the British spy masquerading as a Dutch engineer in the pay of the Germans to help create the dreaded V2 rocket bombs (no explanation of his American accent). Sophia Loren makes a cameo appearance as the Italian wife of the Dutch engineer trying to escape the Nazi occupation with her (trilingual ?) children. It's all very confusing. You have to keep an eye on those German subtitles. Sophia is evidently there to prop up the galmour factor. If you like rockets a lot, wartime intrigue or Sophia Loren, this film may have some points of interest for you.

This movie was recently screened with two other wartime movies on TVO. See reviews for “The Man Who Never Was” 1956 and “Went the Day Well?” 1942 in the Midnight Oil video trailer section.

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See director, Michael Anderson interviewed in the video trailer of "Operation Crossbow" from TVO.

Catch the opening scenes video trailer of “Operation Crossbow” 1965