kmccalle Reviews

High Sierra (1940)

Sophomoric drivel with good performance by Ida Lupino

[4 January 1999]

Bogart plays his usual tough-guy-with-soft-heart in this unlikely story about a robbery and it's (for the time) predictable consequences. The film is riddled with jarring, corny, 40's-movie, gangster talk, like "take that copper". Then there's the old cliche where the girl can't afford the operation -- blaach.

A strikingly beautiful Ida Lupino plays the gun mole with elan. Even so, you should skip this one unless you can't live without consuming every last nanosecond of Humphrey Bogart's filmography.

Lost in Yonkers (1993)

Touching and thoughtful

[9/10 · 20 December 1998]

Memorable, well thought-out characters interact in this family disrupted by WWII. Set (of course) in Yonkers, a domineering grandmother inhibits aspirations of her offspring with selfish, puritanical behavior deriving from her own, difficult upbringing.