On Dangerous Ground, Lenny, & A Place in the Sun

On Dangerous Ground is just like every other movie where the hero falls for a blind girl. Well, except for The Killer, because there isn't an insane amount of violence or plans for surgery. Didn't entirely hold my interest, but it was different for a film noir to end up with lots of snow and bright scenes. Not enough movies now understand that you can have a dark movie without the movie being so dark you can't see anything. Too bad the movie just seemed to meander. Doesn't change my opinion of Nick Ray as someone with a couple good movies but nothing too special.

Lenny was interesting and funny. I think I'd seen at least part of it before. Didn't remember much except for impressions of Dustin Hoffman doing the routines. Didn't remember all the nudity, which could mean I saw a censored version on TV, but that really would be strange, considering it's all about being obscene, and would render the trial scenes almost incoherent. Didn't realize that it was a Bob Fosse film, but I saw his touch throughout.

A Place in the Sun was just depressing. I think I used to get it confused with some other movie. I didn't even know it was based on An American Tragedy until after I saw it. I unfortunately have too many movies where I don't know why I need to see them until after I've seen them. Well, besides the obvious one that I needed to see it because of Montgomery Clift. Who was good, as was Shelley Winters, but Elizabeth Taylor didn't do much besides be attractive. I kept getting the feeling that this could all be solved by a simple abortion or good use of birth control. Did sort of send the message that having pre-marital sex will lead to death. And whenever there was a plan to go get married, I just kept thinking that abortion was just hidden. The scene with the doctor had that come really close to being explicit, but I can't imagine what the various censorship boards would have done to the movie that mentioned abortion.