Identify This Movie

[der_Artur]

Thank you two. It's a good motivation to finally check out Larry Cohen.

[HarryLong]

All of Cohen's films are worth checking out, particularly for their offbeat flashes of humor (as in RETURN TO SALEM'S LOT). I especially recommend his rather straightforward Hitchcockian exercise, SPECIAL EFFECTS.

[ozukarodzi]

I watched this film a very long time ago when I was a kid: All I remember is the ending of it, in which a group of fighters are stuck in a basement and they are surrounded by soldiers who are trying to get them. They shoot down into the basement, throw grenade at them, send soldiers, etc...nothing work. Finally, they flood the basement, and minutes by minutes the water rises until they get drowned. The ending left a big impression on me.

I would appreciate if someone could give me the title of this film. Those images at the end are stuck in my head, but I can not recall the title of the film.

[otis]

Operation Daybreak?

[ozukarodzi]

Thanks Otis, it is Operation Daybreak.

[jamiersale]

Ok, this has been driving me crazy.

The movie is from the 50s or 60s, in black and white, and is French. It has to do with a young man who gets a job at a train station, and it is his first day. At the end a German train comes, and the girl who also works there blows it up. I dont remember much else, I watched it on TCM a while back.

Any thoughts?

[Cold Bishop]

It's not french. And it's in the collection.

[jamiersale]

That would explain me not being able to find it, thank you.

[bottled spider]

I've checked through most of the preceding pages and didn't notice this one mentioned yet.

The entire movie is set in a Manhattan apartment, with only two characters. A woman (played by a Canadian actress) has invited a male co-worker over for dinner. He is a paralegal (if I remember); I don't remember what she does, but her ambition is to write. At one point she reluctantly admits she has only ever published through a vanity press. He coaxes her into reading him one of her stories, ostensibly a children's story, which proves to be a horrific tale of abuse that sounds uncomfortably like autobiography. Later they make out a bit, which she interrupts to bring out a birthday cake for herself, during which brief interval the man tries to slink away because he's chickened out of proceeding any further.

It came out in the late nineties.

[reno dakota]

Could it be What Happened Was...?

[bottled spider]

That's it! Thank you Reno.

I remember Karen Sillas being described as "darling of the indie circuit", but googling her image brings up a bunch of soft porn.

[zedz]

Hey, I could have answered that if I'd got here sooner. The director / star of What Happened Was, Tom Noonan, is better known for playing creeps and psychos in Michael Mann films.

[Wombatz]

I probably just suck at googling. This is also a childhood memory, a Western playing in the years when "civilization" took over, which ended when the hero was run over by a train. I think it was in color, I think it had star power of the chiseled chin kind, and I seem to remember the guy tried to be a family man, to settle down, but didn't have the mindframe, and in the end he was run over and then that was it.

[reno dakota]

a Western playing in the years when "civilization" took over, which ended when the hero was run over by a train.

Well, whatever it is, you've just spoiled it for us all.

[Mr. Ned]

Sounds an awful lot like Kid Blue from 1972, starring Dennis Hopper, Ben Johnson, and Warren fuckin' Oates.

[Wombatz]

Hm, thanks, you may be right, though from what I find on the web, my memory would have extensively rewritten the film, which of course is possible. But it seems Kid Blue has a different ending, and I remember no comedy (though of course maybe that's just me. Erm.).

The way it works in my mind is: There's a house by the railway, the cowboy (I think I picture him as Burt Lancaster, though that doesn't square, I guess) loves the woman who lives there. There may be a husband, which would fit Kid Blue, but I don't see him. The interior of the house would be a bit stagey and very flowery. I remember it more like a private story than social satire. His time is past, he rides out. It's like a semi-suicide.

Hm, really not much to go from (especially since maybe it's all tangled up, a single viewing on tv, at least 25 years ago, when I had no idea who Dennis Hopper was). It's probably better not to disturb glorious wtf-moments like these anyway.

[antnield]

The way it works in my mind is: There's a house by the railway, the cowboy (I think I picture him as Burt Lancaster, though that doesn't square, I guess) loves the woman who lives there. There may be a husband, which would fit Kid Blue, but I don't see him. The interior of the house would be a bit stagey and very flowery. I remember it more like a private story than social satire. His time is past, he rides out. It's like a semi-suicide.

Hm, really not much to go from (especially since maybe it's all tangled up, a single viewing on tv, at least 25 years ago, when I had no idea who Dennis Hopper was). It's probably better not to disturb glorious wtf-moments like these anyway.

That description chimes a little with Will Penny (Charlton Heston in the lead, not Burt Lancaster).

[Wombatz]

Yes, it definitely struck me more as this kind of film. But that may be inexperience, the question really remains: was there ever a western where the hero was run over by a train?

[Caged Horse]

"What's wrong with getting hit by a train? Lots of respectable people have been hit by trains."

[Murdoch]

I saw this cover and was wondering what film it was from - if it is from one. Any ideas?

[domino harvey]

Lang's Secret Beyond the Door

[Murdoch]

Thanks!

[domino harvey]

That's a pretty decent book too if memory serves. There are a couple essays on Klute in it though, so the perimeters are pretty loose

[Murdoch]

Good to know, it's a subject I have a great deal of interest in so I'll probably pick it up.

[panicprevention]

i need some help; does anyone happen to know what film this screencapture is from?

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyi9c ... o1_500.jpg