Beginning in the 1910s, the American Red Cross offered a high volume of fundraising films that highlighted its work. These films were mostly seen in nontheatrical settings – churches, schools, social clubs – and they offered a straightforward presentation of Red Cross workers helping those in physical and economic distress.
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It is never a good idea to approach a film with preconceived notions of its awfulness. That is not easy when the film in question of the 1977 “A Little Night Music,” which has a reputation for being something of a mess.
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During the 1950s, the comedy team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall enjoyed a very mild degree of success on the nightclub circuit and in television appearances. They turned up briefly in the 1951 revue film “Starlift,” but A-list stardom eluded them and the pair spent much of the decade working separately.
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The other day, a woman in a Facebook movies forum asked if she should see Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” I encouraged her to see it, even though I am not a fan of the film.
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“Big Timers” is a cheaply-made featurette of the “race films” genre that created productions with all-Black casts that were released exclusively to the racially segregated theaters of the Jim Crow era.
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Pawnshop owners Moe, Larry and Curly share fatherhood duties for 10-year-old Egbert, who returns home from school one afternoon demanding to know the origins of his peculiar family structure. Moe begins a story that launches an extended flashback on how a gangster’s moll “borrowed” her sister’s infant to throw the police off her trail. This hard-boiled dame’s boyfriend runs a shakedown racket that tries to pressure the pawnbrokers into giving him “protection” money. When the pawnbrokers refuse, a fight breaks out in the store between the owners and the hoodlums. The moll flees and never returns for Egbert, who is adopted by the trio. But Egbert rejects this surrogate family and goes off to find his mother, leaving his would-be fathers to abuse each other in frustration.
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It is impossible to make an intentionally campy film. The whole point of camp is that it never realizes that it is camp. For example, “Valley of the Dolls” is genius camp because it is so wonderfully wrong at every imaginable turn, with the gifted cast trying and cluelessly failing to create alchemy with their material. If the actors started winking at the audience or smirking at their material, then it is not camp – it is just plain dumb.
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