W.S. Van Dyke - Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)

At the Capitol
After a two-year sabbatical the Nick Charleses are back in town again with "The Shadow of the Thin Man," which is currently stopping at the Capitol. And the news this morning is that they are still the same merrily married couple, that they are still at home to such motley folk as Rainbow Benny, Spider Webb and Meat Balls Murphy, and that William Powell—Nick, none other—still drinks cocktails with an obvious zest that must be worth millions in advertising to the liquor industry. But delightful people that they are, there is a slight change coming over the Charleses, increasingly noticeable in their visits since "The Thin Mar" first appeared in 1934. Nick Jr. is growing to be a big boy now and there isn't quite the same old flashing give and take between mamma and papa. The Charleses, we're afraid, are settling down.

Think, for instance, of how long it takes Nick to take over the reins in that Stephens-Macy race track scandal despite the fact that there is always a murder around the corner. It isn't until after a newspaper buddy is about to take the rap for the second death that Nick begins to display some of the old dash. After that the wheels begin to move. Around the dubious demise of the frightened jockey and the killing of Whitey the blackmailer Nick sets his bait to be sniffed by all sorts of unpretty people—a blond lady with a spurious accent and several sources of support, a neurotic little killer, a couple of snarling gangsters, suave gents and race-track touts.

Don't ask us who the villain is. That's Nick's story and only his silken mental processes could have pieced it together. But there are some exciting moments before the final showdown—especially when Nick leaves his offspring (who's a bore anyway) at home and prowls around the deserted stables, the corridors of a boxing arena, and dowdy boarding houses, always adding a new piece to the jig-saw puzzle. Myrna Loy is still practically perfect as his adoring and indulgent helpmate, and as some of the strange folk he meets in his travels, Stella Adler, Alan Baxter, Sam Levene and Lou Lubin all give excellent performances. In short, the Charleses and friends are choice company still, but some of their former reckless joie de vivre is gone.
NY Times, November 21, 1941





http://rapidshare.com/files/178878494/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/178880477/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/178882021/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/178883871/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.004
http://rapidshare.com/files/178885501/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.005
http://rapidshare.com/files/178886924/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.006
http://rapidshare.com/files/178888123/Shadow_of_the_Thin_Man__1941_.DAT.007

no pass

W.S. Van Dyke - Another Thin Man (1939)

Description: In the third film of the series of six, Nick and Nora are back in New York with a new addition: Nick Junior! They've returned from a trip and are immediately called to the Long Island home of wealthy Colonel MacFay, who believes that a younger man named Phil Church is out to kill him. Church seems the likely suspect when MacFay is killed, but Nick seems to think that's just too likely. One murder leads to another, but in the end, of course, our hero is able to pull the complex puzzle apart, put the pieces together, and solve the crimes.





http://rapidshare.com/files/178865474/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/178867336/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/178869655/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/178871569/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.004
http://rapidshare.com/files/178873283/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.005
http://rapidshare.com/files/178875277/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.006
http://rapidshare.com/files/178876674/Another_Thin_Man__1939_.DAT.007

no pass

W.S. Van Dyke - After the Thin Man (1936)

Selma asks Nick to find her missing husband. He had been seeing a bit on the side, and blackmailing a local criminal. David Graham claims he paid the missing husband to get rid of a former girlfriend. Will Nick locate him?





http://rapidshare.com/files/178849055/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/178851275/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/178853781/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/178856522/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.004
http://rapidshare.com/files/178859090/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.005
http://rapidshare.com/files/178861080/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.006
http://rapidshare.com/files/178863258/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.007
http://rapidshare.com/files/178863410/After_The_Thin_Man__1936_.avi.008

no pass

W.S. Van Dyke - Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

dvdsavant review
Manhattan Melodrama (1934) is considered a classic mostly for its high-powered casting. William Powell and Clark Gable play two disadvantaged boys (Mickey Rooney is young Gable) who grow up to be a respected District Attorney and a notorious gambler, respectively, and Myrna Loy is the 'swell dame' who loves them both but chooses the 'good' one. It's the familiar good boy/bad boy plotting we remember from old Warner Bros. pictures. MGM soaks the entire tale in a barely restrained piety that includes periodic appearances by a friendly priest (Leo Carrillo).

Loy's Eleanor Packer begins as an unhappy gambler's moll to Gable's Blackie Gallagher, a 'noble' crook forever defending his good name in the underworld. Powell's Jim Wade tells Blackie of his intention to clean up the city, and, old pal that he is, Blackie encourages him. Eleanor decides that she prefers Wade's clean living to Gallagher's diamonds and yachts, but Blackie holds no ill will even after she throws him over. A couple of murders later, Blackie goes to prison and possible execution refusing to defend himself, with the noble motive that he doesn't want to drag honest politician Wade down with him.

Manhattan Fairy Tale would be a better title for this fantasy with its scrupulously honest politico, gloriously noble racketeer and the glamorous but virtuous sweetheart who loves them both. Blackie and Eleanor apparently live together, but the movie seems to imply that he's too busy for sex. Wade is so pure that he doesn't realize that associating with Blackie is potential poison for his career.

Myrna's best moment is her first flirtatious taxicab encounter with Jim Wade, and it's a classic. For most of the rest of the show she's on the sidelines looking glamorous or concerned as needed. (Spoiler) This is really a love story between two 'swell guys' who have always been 'on the level' with each other and stay loyal to the weepie ending -- where Gable plays a death row inmate who talks the Governor out of commuting his execution. It's great fairy tale storytelling.






http://rapidshare.com/files/195383232/ManMelodrama_JBd.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/195388498/ManMelodrama_JBd.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/195393610/ManMelodrama_JBd.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/195398457/ManMelodrama_JBd.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/195403543/ManMelodrama_JBd.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/195408771/ManMelodrama_JBd.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/195412740/ManMelodrama_JBd.part7.rar

no pass

W.S. Van Dyke & Robert J. Flaherty - White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)

Even today, the Marquesas Islands beckon travelers yearning for an exotic and authentic Polynesian experience. Imagine the wonder of 1928 audiences when White Shadows in the South Seas took them thousands of miles from home to that remote Eden of rolling waves and palm-fringed beaches. The first of W.S. Van Dyke’s famed filmed-on-location adventures (the others: The Pagan and Trader Horn) tells a dramatic tale of foreign interlopers – a booze-sodden doctor and a rapacious pearl trader – who bring destruction to a vibrant Pacific culture. The film features synchronized music and sound effects plus spectacular, Academy Award®-winning cinematography that captures a paradise in peril.










http://rapidshare.com/files/398681446/White_Shadows.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/398715129/White_Shadows.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/398740835/White_Shadows.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/398765923/White_Shadows.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/398954266/White_Shadows.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/399017172/White_Shadows.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/399074850/White_Shadows.part7.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/398774272/White_Shadows.part8.rar

Subtítulos en castellano

no pw

W.S. Van Dyke - The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)

spoilers!
Max Baer plays a fat-headed boxer who falls in love and marries sweet Myrna Loy. However, soon after the wedding, Baer begins drinking and womanizing and seemed to be a major jerk--and a very talented boxer. Unfortunately, he promised again and again he'd change, but he didn't. By the end of the film, he'd lost his wife and manager and didn't seem to care. However, the usual cliché of "turnaround scene" when the boxer hit bottom never really occurred with Baer's character! By the big fight at the end of the film, he STILL was a jerk--yet despite this, the wife and manager came running back to him!! This made very little sense and seems to have set back women's rights several decades.


While the plot of this film and production values are at best average, this film has a lot of historical value and so it shouldn't be written off completely. That's because this boxing film is unique in that it stars several real boxers--including several champions. Max Baer and Primo Carnera were, at the time, the most famous active boxers--both having been champions. Max Baer is the star of the film and does a pretty good job of acting considering he is NOT an actor. Plus, it's interesting to see Max Baer, Jr.'s ("Jethro" from THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES) father act. In addition, Jack Dempsey (perhaps the most famous boxer of the 20th Century) makes a significant appearance as well and there are some small cameos by famous boxers and wrestlers of the age. So, as a result, this movie is a MUST for boxing fans or lovers of pop culture and American history. All I suggest, though, is that you realize this is NOT a great film--just interesting for reasons other than artistic merit.

Primo Carnera was the world's heavyweight boxing champion when this film was made and released. He refused to make the movie using the first script, which had him knocked out in the end, but agreed to a revised script with an additional $10,000 salary.

Max Baer was the leading heavyweight contender for the title. Both he and Carnera made their motion picture debuts in this film.

In an interview, Myrna Loy stated that Max Baer carefully watched Primo Carnera's boxing style during the filming and used this information to beat him in their real-life match for the title in March, 1934.

Fred 'Snowflake' Toones is in studio records/casting call lists for the role of "Trainer," but he did not appear or was not identifiable in the movie. A Contemporary Motion Picture Herald article stated that Lionel Barrymore, Jean Hersholt, Lupe Velez and Johnny Weissmuller were to appear as fight fans in the audience of the championship fight, but they were not seen.










"Originally, screenwriter Frances Marion, who had just won an Oscar® for another boxing themed movie The Champ (1931), was given the assignment at MGM to write a new story for Myrna Loy and Clark Gable to fit the title The Sailor and the Lady. Howard Hawks was slated to direct and the story department was instructed to deliver a typical Gable scenario: gruff but lovable sailor falls for an upper class girl. Marion dismissed the story idea as warmed-over pudding, but was ordered to proceed by studio head Louis B. Mayer. After working on the script for weeks, Marion turned it in only to find out that Clark Gable was no longer available to do the film. Instead, the studio had signed the real-life boxer Max Baer to star, with the story's focus shifted to the world of the boxing ring. Major re-writes were needed to accommodate this significant premise change in the newly re-titled The Prizefighter and the Lady, and Marion wanted nothing to do with it. "Gene Tunney (Heavyweight Boxing Champion 1926-28) is my friend. He married a beautiful society girl - and they might think that I have exploited their love affair," she pleaded with a studio supervisor as remembered in her 1973 autobiography Off With Their Heads. "Just tear up that manuscript and find another story - dozens of that genre have been published."¿ The studio supervisor reminded her not-so-nicely that she was contractually obligated to do as the studio said, so she re-wrote the script to accommodate the new boxing angle.





"Since Gable was no longer available to star in The Prizefighter and the Lady, director Howard Hawks begged off the project as well. Woody Van Dyke, who was known for his speedy shooting style, was re-assigned to direct. MGM asked Hawks to stay on board for a few weeks, however, in order to help Max Baer, who had never been in a film before, with his acting. The results were excellent, as Baer proved to be a natural in front of the camera. He shines in his winning debut performance, and holds his own next to seasoned performers like Myrna Loy and Walter Huston, who plays Baer's manager in the film.





"The Prizefighter and the Lady climaxes with a heavily hyped fight scene between Baer's character and reigning real-life World Heavyweight Champion Primo Carnera. The shooting of this scene was an event on the set since Baer was a real-life contender for Carnera's Heavyweight title. People came from far and wide to watch the thrilling fight being filmed. Former Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey was an added treat playing the referee. The following year, Max Baer did beat Primo Carnera in the ring for real, and Baer became the new World Heavyweight Champion of 1934.





"The film was a hit, with Frances Marion's screenplay winning an Academy Award nomination. The critics praised Max Baer's winning personality and natural screen presence; in fact, many people felt that he walked away with the movie. Following his boxing career, Baer managed to make a living as an actor, appearing in several feature films throughout the 1940s and 50s, including The Harder They Fall (1956).





http://rapidshare.com/files/282760182/1933._The_Prizefighter_And_The_Lady__Hawks-Van_Dyke_.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/282941967/1933._The_Prizefighter_And_The_Lady__Hawks-Van_Dyke_.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/283011149/1933._The_Prizefighter_And_The_Lady__Hawks-Van_Dyke_.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/283083390/1933._The_Prizefighter_And_The_Lady__Hawks-Van_Dyke_.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/283186207/1933._The_Prizefighter_And_The_Lady__Hawks-Van_Dyke_.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/283190754/1933._The_Prizefighter_And_The_Lady__Hawks-Van_Dyke_.part6.rar


Rar Password: none