Enough about dead dogs. Let's recap some movies! I've seen five so far this month. (It's getting harder and harder to find movies that I want to watch.)

43. (981.) Hollywood Party (1934)
This musical comedy is fantastic. It's just a series of vaudeville bits and musical reviews, and about halfway through Jimmy Durante grabs Mickey Mouse by the tail and forces Mickey to play a cartoon about gingerbread men soldiers torn to crumbs by war. I really enjoyed the whole thing.

44. (982.) Indecent (1932)
I watched this because I saw it advertised as Myrna Loy's first lead role. I've since learned that wasn't quite true, which is good because this isn't a very good movie. It manages to make its salacious subject matter positively boring. I've seen plenty of silents with better camera work and editing than this early talkie. According to the title cards, Loy was on loan from MGM, and the makers of this "independent" movie must have been new at what they were doing.

45. (983.) The Trial (1962)
Uh... this is... I guess the word is Kafkaesque. (Franz Kafka wrote the book this Orson Welles movie is based on.) I don't know what it's all supposed to mean, and I have a hunch Kafka didn't either. It's all German Expressionism and Orwellian dystopia, two great tastes that leave you wanting to throw up. Your mileage may vary.

46. (984.) Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966)
The story for this movie is credited not to Daniel Defoe, the writer of Robinson Crusoe, but one "Retlaw Yensid," which as anyone named Walter can tell you, is "Walter Disney" spelled backwards. This appears to be the only feature length movie that Walt Disney was ever credited with writing the story for. What a shame it's so mediocre (despite the efforts of Dick Van Dyke).

47. (985.) Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
This is another film that left me wondering what exactly the point was. In his first movie role, Christopher Plummer (looking exactly like Michael Fassbender) plays a Audubon Society marshal charged with preventing Burl Ives from killing any more birds in the Florida Everglades at the turn of the 20th century. In the end, I guess he succeeds, kind of, but not really. Honestly, the third act reminds me of Apocalypse Now!. Is that a good thing?

More to come.

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