Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · MGM · 1936

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San Francisco

58Watch it awake.

A house can watch it, and the priest is the only man not selling the saloon.

The review

The rental lists still print this as the year's largest, and one older list names Modern Times. I won't invent a winner from that. Clark Gable is a saloon king on the Barbary Coast who wants to own a singer, Jeanette MacDonald. Spencer Tracy is the priest who wants his soul, and the priest is not a joke. Then the city comes down. I'm not turning the rubble into a thrill.

A house can watch it. The singer has a job. She is not only something he means to own, and the priest is in the story because a man like that needs stopping. What the quake leaves is a city full of people, not a gag. If the kids are old enough for a town falling, stay in the room. Don't let the songs talk you into thinking the saloon was the life worth saving.

Journal

Keep San Francisco in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 58. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household is the thin one.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Encanto

70 instead of 58

Encanto is still a musical film, and it scores 70 instead of 58. What you gain is household: A grandmother, a house, sisters.

The eight

7
Industry
He runs a saloon and she sings; those jobs are how that coast stays open.
3
Household
He wants to own the singer, which is a claim, not a marriage or a child.
7
Piety
Tracy's priest wants the saloon king's soul, and he is not played as a joke.
6
Courage
A priest stands against the man who wants to own her, and then the city falls.
7
Republic
When the quake brings the city down, the people of that town are what's left.
5
Temperance
The saloon is the want, and a priest is there because someone should refuse it.
5
Truth
He wants to own the singer; the priest is there for a soul, not a bargain.
6
Stewardship
After the quake, what remains to look after is the city that came down.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · San Francisco · 58IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · Columbia · 1959

Pass it on

Anatomy of a Murder

58Watch it awake.

Adults. The courtroom is the work. What happened and what can be proved are not the same fact.

The review

A soldier shoots a bar owner and says the man raped his wife. A former prosecutor who now fishes more than he practices takes the defense. I am not going to describe the testimony. In 1959 the testimony itself was the scandal, because a courtroom in an American film was asked to say out loud what a trial of this kind has to say. The lawyer is good at the saying. He is also having a good time, and the film lets you see the good time, which is the correction inside the craft.

Adults. A house does not need this as a primer. A house that wants one picture of how a verdict is made, rather than how a villain confesses, can use it. Ask, at the end, what the jury was allowed to know and what the rooms already knew. Those are different piles. The decade's more famous courtroom hours snap the case shut with a witness who breaks. This one is more honest about the gap, and less honest about whether the lawyer is a man to admire. Admire the proceeding. Decline the grin.

Journal

Keep Anatomy of a Murder in the record.