
Jay Carmody
Movies reviews only
Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) |
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, whatever its defects, is the perfect representatives of Lorelei Lee, and... Dorothy. - Washington Star
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| Posted Mar 08, 2023
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Sayonara (1957) |
Warners should find themselves rolling in money, popularity, and the old conviction that there is nothing wrong with the movies that a good picture cannot correct. - Washington Star
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| Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Flower Drum Song (1961) |
It is sweet, sentimental, sad and seemingly endless. - Washington Star
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| Posted Feb 27, 2023
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Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) |
“Requiem for a Heavyweight” is assured a top rung among 1962’s movies.
Man's subhumanity to man is the theme of the film. - Washington Star
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| Posted Feb 14, 2023
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Back to Bataan (1945) |
This is the story of the Filipino refusal to give up, a blending of fact and fiction which adds up to a dramatic spectacle of gallantry of an appeal rarely achieved in its field. - Washington Star
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Diabolique (1955) |
This is a superbly chilling slice of life, one indeed to challenge the best of Alfred Hitchcock. It is a tale of murder which turns the innately innocent setting of a boarding school into a hair-raising labyrinth of passion. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jan 31, 2023
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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) |
There is uproarious comedy, heartbreaking poignance, suspense, excitement and a dozen other elements fused into a masterpiece that involves more imagination than has gone into the making of all other films to date. - Washington Star
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| Posted Dec 21, 2022
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The Maltese Falcon (1941) |
Young Huston establishes himself immediately as a director who can teach a lot of tricks to his elders. They add up to the major trick of producing a melodrama that is chockfull of entertainment... which masks the fact that it was made once before. - Washington Star
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| Posted Nov 11, 2022
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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) |
The Capra genius for creating unforgettable incident manifests itself in a dozen sequences in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. - Washington Star
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| Posted Nov 09, 2022
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Stalag 17 (1953) |
It is a comedy drama that is both comic and dramatic. - Washington Star
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| Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Village of the Damned (1960) |
Behind this rather silly title lies one of the period's truly exciting screen tales, chillingly imagined and icily visualized in direction and performance. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 28, 2022
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Cobra Woman (1944) |
The most impressive thing about Cobra Woman is that Miss Montez plays two roles, those of twin sisters. Neither of the girls is complex in any way, which makes Miss Montez's work less difficult than if Bette Davis were called upon. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 20, 2022
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High Noon (1952) |
High Noon achieves a shattering tension. It is a remorselessly deliberate pace at which Zinnemann follows his story's hero along the desperately lonely trail of courage against ever-mounting odds. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 20, 2022
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A Raisin in the Sun (1961) |
Dramatically superior... gains truly in the deepened sympathy with which Poitier infuses his role. - Washington Star
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| Posted Aug 23, 2022
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Private Property (1960) |
Mr. Stevens is a film maker who takes deadly aim on a lean, chilling, dramatically pointed narrative that is hypnotically holding from the opening scene to the end. - Washington Star
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| Posted Aug 03, 2022
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Gigi (1958) |
In cast and direction, the Lerner-Loewe standard could not be more vivaciously served than by such players as Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron, and by a story painter as sure-eyed as Vincente Minnelli. - Washington Star
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| Posted Mar 25, 2022
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From Here to Eternity (1953) |
It represents the screen at its best in every department, including one of the most compulsive musical scores. - Washington Star
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| Posted Mar 17, 2022
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The Apartment (1960) |
Mr. Wilder, possessor of Hollywood's sharpest eye for the witheringly ironic comment on human behavior, is richly blessed with the opportunity to use it in The Apartment. - Washington Star
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| Posted Mar 16, 2022
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Cleo From 5 to 7 (1961) |
Cleo, from 5 to 7, is a French film of all sorts of special distinctions. Two of these are the performance of lovely, young Corinne Marchand as Cleo and the direction of the film by Agnes Varda, who also wrote the screenplay. - Washington Star
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| Posted Feb 17, 2022
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Porgy and Bess (1959) |
Verve and vitality have been sacrificed in the big picture directed by Otto Preminger in favor of spectacle and sentimentality. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jan 20, 2022
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Nightmare Alley (1947) |
What happens to these proud, seedy carnival characters compares with the life of vaudevillians as glee wine to absinthe. Absinthe spiked with heroin. - Washington Star
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| Posted Dec 03, 2021
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West Side Story (1961) |
West Side Story comes to the screen with the same gem-like brilliance that made it both a fine and popular work of art on the stage. The film version... does this not by merely echoing the original but by adding a transforming inspiration of its own. - Washington Star
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| Posted Dec 01, 2021
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The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) |
Mr. Lean's direction of Bridge on the River Kwai is a piece of sheer magic down to such a careful detail as the contrast between the natural beauty of its landscape and the man-made horror that takes place on it. - Washington Star
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| Posted Nov 17, 2021
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Marty (1955) |
Under Delbert Mann's direction, these familiar movie land marks burst suddenly into moving and unfamiliar life. - Washington Star
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| Posted Oct 18, 2021
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The Wizard of Oz (1939) |
The world of yesterday's, and perhaps tomorrow's, dreams created decades ago in the imagination of Frank L. Baum comes to the screen as a triumph of the movie camera in the realm of fantasy. - Washington Star
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| Posted Oct 14, 2021
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Sunset Blvd. (1950) |
Not in many a year has so large a cast and such extravagant production been utilized to tell a story of such dazzling drama that one forgets its few minor flaws. - Washington Star
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| Posted Oct 11, 2021
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Leave Her to Heaven (1945) |
There is no question that [Tierney] is in there trying every second to find the writhing emotional essence of the character. The quality is so elusive, or repugnant, however, that the effort is vain. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 29, 2021
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Them! (1954) |
With ants of such drawing power as these, Warner Bros. might have skimped on cast costs in the production of Them. To its credit, it did nothing of the kind. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 28, 2021
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The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) |
The moviegoer who is not a science-fiction addict might well come to the conclusion that he should disappear before the film's hero does. Or, better still, not show up at all. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 24, 2021
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The Little Fugitive (1953) |
This is the motion picture that was made on a shoestring and turned out to be worth its weight in emeralds. It is as simple as it is fascinating. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 16, 2021
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Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) |
It is unlikely that even the most intense of Hornblower admirers will find anything to complain of in Peck's portrait of the lion-hearted captain, or of Miss Mayo's impersonation of the fiery, lovely Lady Barbara. - Washington Star
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| Posted Aug 20, 2021
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Strangers on a Train (1951) |
All this is quite incredible, but it is not lacking in excitement at any time. - Washington Star
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| Posted Aug 20, 2021
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Excuse My Dust (1951) |
This has been done a number of times before. It also has been done better, but seldom better natured. - Washington Star
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| Posted Aug 20, 2021
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Ace in the Hole (1951) |
Ace in the Hole is a dizzily exciting blend of the elements that go into maddog journalism. - Washington Star
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| Posted Aug 20, 2021
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Black Orpheus (1959) |
Miss Dawn is a vivid performer who meets a worthy match in Bruno Melo, a noted athlete in Rio. whose amateur standing as an actor is deftly concealed in his passionate Orpheus portrait. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jul 27, 2021
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The Pearl (1947) |
Despite its shortcomings, The Pearl is refreshingly distinctive, sometimes brilliant in its simplicity. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jul 19, 2021
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North by Northwest (1959) |
The acting in North by Northwest has that brilliant, cool surface that represents the perfect polish for the best of Hitchcock. Grant, to be sure, is the director's Number 1 hand at this sort of thing. Mason, nevertheless, comes close to matching him. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jun 08, 2021
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Rear Window (1954) |
Alfred Hitchcock, a wizard at finding the exciting angle from which to view life, comes up with one of his all-time bests in Rear Window... Rarely has Hitchcock been so entertaining as in this act of turning moviegoers into unabashed Peeping Toms. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jun 07, 2021
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The Women (1939) |
Without delay let it be said that [The Women] is as slick, clever, beautifully groomed and venomous piece of entertainment as Hollywood has produced. - Washington Star
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| Posted May 25, 2021
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Pather Panchali (1955) |
In its own novel idiom, at once Indian and universal, Pather Panchali has so much more to say than most films... Nor is its eloquence altogether visual. It also has a musical score by Ravi Shankar, to deepen both its moods. and its meaning. - Washington Star
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| Posted May 05, 2021
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On the Waterfront (1954) |
Miss Saint, a first timer in films, turns in a powerful, if subdued, performance as Terry Malloy's inspiring girl; Rod Steiger is impressive as the hero's craven brother... and the others are the kind of actors Director Kazan insists upon. - Washington Star
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| Posted Apr 08, 2021
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The Hitch-Hiker (1953) |
Behind a camera, Miss Lupino operates with as much intelligence and intensity as she ever did before one as an actress. The bleak and menacing landscape representing backroads Mexico is one she turns into one of her film's most dramatic aspects. - Washington Star
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| Posted Feb 24, 2021
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Babes in Arms (1939) |
It may not be art, in fact no one pretends that it is, but the people who know they like Mickey must think of him hereafter as the nearest thing to a universal genius the screen has yet unveiled. - Washington Star
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| Posted Feb 19, 2021
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Intruder in the Dust (1949) |
Intruder in the Dust is full of the kind of performances that could be called blazing. The most affecting of these is the almost ominously quiet, honest portrait of Lucas by Actor Hernandez. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jan 29, 2021
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The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) |
It Is an interesting picture but neither so interesting nor effective as it might have been had Producer-Director Otto Preminger subjected himself to a few restraints. - Washington Star
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| Posted Dec 22, 2020
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Cabin in the Sky (1943) |
The former Broadway musical puts bounce, melody, comedy and poignance back on the screen in a fashion designed to work wonders for the war-jaded spirits of the body politic. - Washington Star
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| Posted Dec 16, 2020
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Casanova Brown (1944) |
On the whole, without managing to be a great comedy, Producer Johnson's picture will make the Cooper following happy at the chance to see the lanky one playing again what looks like the typical American small-town guy. - Washington Star
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| Posted Nov 24, 2020
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Home of the Brave (1949) |
Unlike most screenplays, the excitement of Home of the Brave comes from without as well as within the machine-made product. - Washington Star
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| Posted Nov 17, 2020
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Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) |
The screen's collection of immortal heroes is increased by the addition now of Cyrano de Bergerac. - Washington Star
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| Posted Sep 02, 2020
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Night and Day (1946) |
To demur that it let a few false notes get into Porter's life story is merely querulousness that will never enter the heads or the reactions of the multitudes who will enjoy it. - Washington Star
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| Posted Jul 31, 2020
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