Tag: sergeant york

2020: Year In Review + Top 10 Movies Watched

Well, it’s New Year’s Eve, everybody, and it’s time to take a look back at the year 2020. First, I’ll take a look at some changes with the blog itself that have been going on. One of the big ones was me joining the Classic Movie Blog Association back in August, which has been a thrill for me. I also, early on in the year, debuted a new feature on various theatrical shorts (Coming Up Shorts!), with me adding my comments on individual shorts on every review. Over the last few months, I’ve also been changing up my review format a little, as I’ve tinkered with it to get things around to where I’d like them. It’s not something I’m doing for every post, but I’m having some fun doing it (and, I hope, entertaining all my readers in the process). After finally getting around to working on it, I debuted my new logo design a month ago, while simultaneously announcing my attempt at hosting various blogathons with my Stars Of The Month being planned throughout 2021 (starting off with Doris Day, Clark Gable and Gene Kelly, in that order).

Obviously, one big thing going on for the entirety of 2020 has been the pandemic, which, particularly for a lot of us movie fans, has resulted in us going back to our “comfort cinema.” For me, that has long been the various classic musicals I like, along with a lot of the comedies (not so much the dramas). But, I would say my plans, particularly with regard to movies I’ve been reviewing for the year, didn’t really change that much, as that was mostly determined between the movies I was given for Christmas last year, and my birthday this year. What did change a little was the movies I was willing to purchase on disc (but, then again, I already covered that in my Top 10 Disc Releases Of 2020 post last month). I started out the year by finishing up my run through of actress Ginger Rogers’ filmography (from among the films I own on disc, anyway). After that, I switched to the films featuring comedy team Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (and threw in a post on them as a screen team). I also went through a handful of the silent movies featuring Harold Lloyd, my usual noirs for November, and a few Christmas films to finish out the year. Throw in my special 200th post on the Top 10 Years At The Movies and my 250th on Top 5 Dance Routines I Would Love To Learn, and that should cover most of what I had to do this year!

And with all that said, here’s my list of the top 10 movies that I watched/reviewed for the year 2020, culled from the list of 2020 reviews, plus 2019 releases reviewed after January 1, 2020 and 2020 releases reviewed before December 31, 2020 (also a few films released on disc in 2018, but obviously they’re included in the 2020 reviews).  While I was able to enjoy watching a great many movies, some new and some I’ve seen before, the movies on this list are those I enjoyed the most, and would recommend to anybody that is interested!  And if any of these appeal to you, be sure to click on the movie titles to go to Amazon and support this site!

  1. An American In Paris (1951) (Warner Home Video, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Obviously, for the top spot for this year, I would choose the classic film musical starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. With great tunes from George and Ira Gershwin, including “‘S Wonderful,” “I Got Rhythm” and “Our Love Is Here To Stay,” plus a number of others, it’s worth seeing just to have that fantastic music stuck in your head! And that’s not even covering the dancing, which is great, and one of the best reasons to see this movie, especially on the big screen (which I was fortunate enough to do this year, before the pandemic hit)! Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and watch it first chance you get! Full review here.
  2. The Music Man (1962) (Warner Home Video, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Following close behind for the second spot would be the classic 1962 film musical The Music Man! This is another film with a memorable score, that’s sure to leave me with a number of fun songs stuck in my head! With a great cast including Robert Preston as the conman Harold Hill, plus Shirley Jones as “Marian The Librarian,” it’s hard not to have fun with this one! So be sure to give this one a chance, too! Full review here.
  3. Sergeant York (1941) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Gary Cooper stars as real-life WWI hero Alvin York in this film. Through his journey from a man prone to drinking and fighting to a man of faith, especially as he goes off to war, this is one of Gary Cooper’s best performances (and his first Best Acting Oscar). After years of not looking too great because of the available film elements, this movie has been carefully restored, which allows this wonderful film to shine again! Full review here.
  4. Show Boat (1936) (Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Currently occupying the fourth spot for one of the best movies I watched in 2020 would be the 1936 Show Boat. Featuring Irene Dunne as Magnolia Hawks and Allen Jones as Gaylord Ravenal, the story follows their romance through its ups and downs. Based on the Broadway show (and with a few new songs added for this movie by composers Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein), this is the best known version of the tale, and rightly so! Even better, this black-and-white film has been restored, and now looks magnificent! Full review here.
  5. In Person (1935) (Warner Archive Collection, DVD, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Ginger Rogers stars as an actress in hiding after being mobbed by her fans, but she slowly gets past her fear of mobs. This romantic comedy is a bit of fun, and throws in a few musical numbers featuring Ginger herself. The film has long been “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind,” but it’s a bit more available now, and well worth seeing (in my opinion)! Full review here.
  6. Love Me Tonight (1932) (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • This early pre-Code musical is the third of four pairings for Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. He plays a tailor, and she a princess, and through some mistaken identity shenanigans, they fall in love. One of the first (if not the first) integrated film musicals, with music provided by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. In spite of its age, this movie still works quite well, and, with a new 4K remaster, it looks stunning to boot! Be sure to give it a shot if you can! Full review here.
  7. The Naughty Nineties (1945) (Shout Factory, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • It’s Bud Abbott and Lou Costello doing their complete “Who’s On First?” routine. In any normal year, that alone is good enough for it to make the list, never mind in a year with a pandemic that left me wanting good comedy more than ever! Sure, the plot of them facing off against a group of river gamblers who took over a showboat is nothing to write home about, but Bud and Lou make this movie well worth it! Full review here.
  8. In The Navy (1941) (Shout Factory, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Another Abbott and Costello film. This time, they’re In The Navy, and joined again by the Andrews Sisters, with an assist from Dick Powell! In this film, the boys help a famous singer stay out of the spotlight (although one female photographer is bound and determined to put an end to that)! The songs here are some of the more memorable ones (particularly the title tune), and with a plethora of comedy routines from Bud and Lou, it’s a fun film I enjoy watching every now and then! Full review here.
  9. Girl Crazy (1943) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland team up again for the last film in their “let’s put on a show” series. He is a girl crazy college student sent to a boys only western college, where he finds her as the only girl. Based on the original Broadway show, and making use of a number of big Gershwin hit tunes, this one is about as much fun as one could hope for! Throw in the newly restored picture, and this movie is well worth seeing! Full review here.
  10. Lost In A Harem (1944) (Warner Archive Collection, DVD, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Hey Abbott! We’ve got another film featuring Bud and Lou, the second of three that they made for MGM. This one features them as a pair of magicians in the Mideast who help a prince overthrow his corrupt uncle. Bud and Lou work with Murray Leonard to pull off such fun comedy routines as “Slowly I Turned” (I’m still not mentioning the place!) and “Invisible Friend,” which for me are among some of their most memorable! Yep, Abbott and Costello continue to provide the laughs! Full review here.

Honorable mentions: Roxie Hart (1942) (20th Century Fox/Disney, DVD), The Freshman (1925) (Criterion Collection, Blu-ray), Pat And Mike (1952) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray)

So thank you all for sticking with me in 2020, and I wish you a Happy New Year as we head into 2021! And please let me know what movies you’ve enjoyed this year as well (whether those you’ve seen or whatever movies I’ve reviewed, whatever works for you)!

Also, if you are interested in joining in on my month-long “Star Of The Month” blogathons for 2021, whether for next month, which starts tomorrow (Doris Day), February (Clark Gable) or beyond, please be sure to check out my Coming Soon In 2021: “Star/Genre Of The Month” Blogathons post to sign up!

Previous Years

2019

2018

Top 10 Disc Releases Of 2020

As has more or less been established here, I very much enjoy watching movies on physical media, whether Blu-ray or DVD (depending on what’s available). Of course, with some Blu-ray releases, I also enjoy getting to see the movies restored and looking better than they have in years! So, with regards to the many movies released on physical media in 2020, here’s my list of what I think are some of the best releases for the year!  Again, my thoughts are coming ONLY from what I have been able to see myself. I do NOT receive screeners of any kind (nor, quite frankly, would I want to), these are all movies I myself bought. These are chosen from among the 2020 releases I have seen, as of 11/25/2020. Admittedly, the list only includes stuff released up through October 2020, as my budget (and Christmas getting closer) didn’t leave me room for any November releases (or December, since, as I said before, I don’t get any screeners and therefore could not see any of those releases before their official release date). So, this list is what it is (but, I will give a shout-out to some of the others afterwards).  And if any of these appeal to you, be sure to click on the movie titles to use my affiliate links to go to Amazon and buy them!

  1. Sergeant York (1941) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Gary Cooper stars in this classic biographical film about World War I hero Alvin York. With the original camera negative long gone (possibly as far back as the 1950s), this movie hasn’t looked that great for some time. But, the good people at Warner Archive have put in a lot of effort and time (more than a year, from the sound of things) to get this movie looking better than it has in a LOOOONNNG time! And of course, it’s a wonderful movie, too (has to be, for a big musical fan like myself to claim it as the best release of the year over a number of other big musicals that I also like)! Full review here.
  2. Show Boat (1936) (Criterion Collection, Blu-ray and DVD, My Rating: 10/10)
    • The 1936 version of Show Boat, starring Irene Dunne and Allan Jones is considered to be the best version of the three. This year, it made it out on Blu-ray, featuring a new 4K restoration. That restoration brings this wonderful film to life, with its wonderful music, fun comedy, and all-around great performances from the cast. This new release was a treat to see, and certainly comes with some of my highest recommendations for the year! Full review here.
  3. Love Me Tonight (1932) (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • The third of four movies pairing Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald (and the first to make it to Blu-ray), this pre-Code has Maurice as a tailor who has to impersonate a baron to get money owed him, but falls in love with the princess, played by Jeanette. The new Blu-ray from Kino looks fantastic with its new 4K remaster, and it’s extras are also quite interesting. A film I’ve looked forward to seeing after hearing it was coming, and neither the movie nor the presentation disappoints! Full review here.
  4. Girl Crazy (1943) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10) (Full review here) &
  5. Strike Up The Band (1940) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 9/10) (Full review here)
    • This year, we finally got two of the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland “let’s put on a show” team-up movies on Blu-ray! Strike Up The Band features Mickey Rooney as a high school orchestra leader, with Judy as a singer, and Girl Crazy features Mickey being sent out to a Western college to get away from girls (and, wouldn’t you know, Judy just happens to be the only one there). Both films are wonderful (obviously, everybody will get different mileage out of them), with wonderful new transfers that leave them both looking better than they have in years! I’d certainly suggest grabbing both of them (especially if you want to see at least their other two “let’s put on a show” films make the jump to Blu-ray, along with some of the other films they worked together on)!
  6. Pat And Mike (1952) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10) (Full review here) &
  7. Without Love (1945) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 9/10) (Full review here)
    • Here we have another pair of films featuring a classic screen team, and this time, it’s Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn! In Pat And Mike, Katharine is a rising golf and tennis player, and Spencer Tracy is the sports promoter who helps her to get into all the tournaments where the big money is. In Without Love, they play a pair of scientists who decide to try a marriage without love, while they work on some stuff for the government. Both films give us that classic Tracy and Hepburn chemistry, and both films have been given new transfers that are sure to wow! Again, if you want more of the Warner-owned films they made together (or apart), I would certainly recommend looking into this pair of Blu-rays!
  8. Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, My Rating: 10/10)
    • Esther Williams stars in this biographical film about Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman. It’s considered one of her best films (partly because it doesn’t require as many plot devices to get her into the water), and I would definitely agree! And, of course, it’s been restored for Blu-ray, allowing us to see the color and detail in those swimming sequences even better now than before! One I think is certainly worth consideration! Full review here.
  9. Holiday (1938 and 1930) (Criterion Collection, Blu-ray and DVD, My Ratings: 10/10 for 1938 and 6/10 for 1930)
    • With this classic 1938 film, we have the third of the four films pairing up Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Here, he plays a self-made man now engaged to one of the elite, but has to face off with their way of living as it clashes with his own ideas. The 1938 film has been restored for this release, and I’ll say that it certainly looks fantastic! And among the extras is the 1930 version (which, along with the 1938 film, features Edward Everett Horton as part of the cast)! See review for 1938 film here, 1930 film here and my comments comparing the two films here.
  10. Africa Screams (1949) (Classicflix, Blu-ray and DVD, My Rating: 9/10)
    • This Abbott and Costello film is a must on this list, in my opinion. While the film may not be Bud and Lou at their absolute best, it’s still close enough, especially with this newly restored Blu-ray or DVD! After a successful Kickstarter campaign in December 2019, this public domain film was restored by Bob Furmanek and his team the the 3-D Film Archive, and it looks better than it has in years! Throw in a host of fun extras, and this really is one of the best releases of 2020! One last note, though: this is a limited edition, and I’m hearing that this one is getting close to sold out, so, if you want it, don’t delay, or you’ll regret it! Full review here.

Special Honorable Mention:

Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1 (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray)

While not a set of movies, this collection is still a lot of fun. It includes nineteen shorts directed by animation legend Tex Avery, with nine of his one-shots alongside series including Screwy Squirrel, George & Junior and Droopy. All of the shorts have been given restorations from 4K scans of the best available elements, with the results juts about as good as you can hope for! And, just as good, Volume 2 has just been announced, so if you haven’t got the first volume yet, be sure to look into it (and be prepared to laugh at all the screwball antics)! Full review here.

Honorable Mentions: Kentucky Kernels (1934) (Warner Archive, Blu-ray), Romance On The High Seas (1948) (Warner Archive, Blu-ray), Murder, He Says (1945) (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray)

While 2020 has been a very tough year because of the pandemic, for classic film fans, it has been a great year of releases on physical media! For me personally, the pandemic hitting certainly forced me to step back and re-evaluate the types of movies I was willing to look into. In my mind, Warner Archive Collection won the year again, after a somewhat slow start (that admittedly did have a few titles that I was glad to see make it out on Blu-ray). They really upped their output of pre-1954 films, throwing in three-strip technicolor movies, musicals, and other big, long-awaited classics on Blu-ray. As I said, I can only claim to have seen some of this year’s releases up through October, but November has a few that I look forward to seeing, including Libeled Lady and the finally restored to its original glory The Pirate with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. And, oh, what a December it will also be, with a few Christmas holiday classics coming, like The Shop Around The Corner, It Happened On Fifth Avenue and Holiday Affair, plus The Harvey Girls (I don’t think they’ve released enough Judy Garland on Blu-ray this year, do you? 😉 ), Mister Roberts (1955), and more! With all their musical output this year, I’m certainly a happy camper (I wish Fred Astaire could have been represented, but they said in one of their podcasts earlier in the year that they were working on one of his films, so I guess that gives me something to look forward to in 2021)! And, while it’s not a title I myself am interested in, due to its genre, I do want to plug Warner Archive’s Blu-ray release of the 1933 film The Mystery Of The Wax Museum. A film originally made in the Two-Color Technicolor process but considered, for a time, to be lost, it has been restored in collaboration with UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Film Foundation (and is the only way to see the restoration, as Warner Archive’s reissue of the later 1953 remake House Of Wax still includes the old transfer as an extra, and not the new restoration).

And Warner Archive were hardly the only label to have a good year of releases, either! Kino Lorber has been digging further into Universal’s catalog, both through films licensed through a second deal, as well as a few releases that they worked on remastering/restoring from the first one, all of which resulted in a number of three-film boxsets featuring various actors and actresses and a couple different film genres, like noir and westerns. Criterion has, through their licensing deals with all the studios, managed to get a few wonderful releases out, including two Warner-owned Buster Keaton silent comedies, as well as one Show Boat, plus a number of other big films. And Classicflix has been busy, releasing many Hal Roach streamliners (movies with shorter runtimes, usually about an hour) on DVD only, along with their Blu-ray and DVD releases of Africa Screams, Zenobia (1939) and the Marx Brothers film A Night In Casablanca. Despite the pandemic, 2020 has been filled with MANY wonderful releases on Blu-ray and DVD (and not enough funds to get them all), and I can only hope that 2021 manages to be better yet (both in terms of getting past the pandemic and getting more classic movie releases on disc)!

Previous years:

2019

2018

What’s Old Is A New Release Again (2020) with… Sergeant York (1941)

Now we’ve got a movie I’ve been looking forward to seeing again for a long time, that classic 1941 movie Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper! Of course, we’ve got a pair of theatrical shorts to start with (both of which are included as extras on the recent Blu-ray release from Warner Archive Collection), and then we can get right to the movie itself!

Coming Up Shorts! with… Lions For Sale (1941)

(Length: 9 minutes)

This short shows how lions used to be trained for circuses. It’s interesting stuff to watch the lions go from being cubs to full grown within the types of training they undergo. The commentary by Knox Manning manages to be quite amusing, as he describes some of the action going on. Like I said, an interesting short, although one I probably won’t be revisiting much.

Coming Up Shorts! with… Porky’s Preview (1941)

(Length: 6 minutes, 50 seconds)

Porky hosts a showing of a cartoon that he drew himself. This was a fun little black-and-white cartoon, with a brief appearance from Porky himself (shorter than one would think, considering the cartoon’s title). Still, I enjoyed the gags, and the drawings for Porky’s “cartoon” certainly look like what one might expect a little child to draw. A very fun cartoon, although it does have one very dated moment, where part of Porky’s “cartoon” is fairly obviously making a reference to Al Jolson, with the character wearing blackface. But, that is the only drawback, and I enjoyed seeing an unfamiliar (to me) Looney Tunes short!

And Now For The Main Feature…

Our story starts in the state of Tennessee, in the year 1916. In the Valley of the Three Forks, Alvin York (Gary Cooper) works hard on his family’s farm, but he is also prone to drinking and getting into fights. One day, while out hunting with his brother George (Dickie Moore), Alvin meets and falls for Gracie Williams (Joan Leslie). While she is interested in him, she is less than thrilled with his fighting habit, particularly when he chases off a rival suitor, Zeb Andrews (Robert Porterfield). Alvin believes she turns down his proposal because he is poor, and sets out to buy a better piece of land. He makes a deal with Nate Tompkins (Erville Alderson) for some land, and promises to pay him the full price within sixty days. He works hard, but comes just short at the deadline. He convinces Nate to give him an extension of a few days so that he can win a turkey shoot to get the rest of the money. Alvin is successful at the turkey shoot, but Nate had already sold the land to Zeb, which makes Alvin angry. After doing a bit of drinking with his buddies, Alvin sets out to kill Nate and Zeb, but is stopped by a bolt of lightning. He finds himself near a church, and comes in, where he is received with great rejoicing by his friend, Pastor Rosier Pile (Walter Brennan). Now a Christian believer, Alvin sets out to make things right and apologize to Nate and Zeb.

Then, war arrives (World War I, that is), and with it, the draft. Alvin, who believes that the Bible is against killing, hopes to get an exemption as a conscientious objector. However, Alvin’s request for exemption is denied, on the basis that his denomination has no formal creed against its members going to war, so he is drafted. Alvin’s shooting skills impress some of his superior officers, but he is wary about a possible promotion, still worried about having to kill. Major Buxton (Stanley Ridges) tells him briefly about the history of the United States, and of the sacrifices required of his fellow countrymen to maintain their freedom. Alvin is given a ten day furlough to think the matter over, and comes back declaring he is willing to stay in the army. Once training is over, he is sent over to Europe, where he is part of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. But, will he survive and be able to put his skills to good use?

Sergeant York is based on the life of the real Alvin York, a man who (spoiler alert!) lived to the age of 76, dying in 1964. Upon his return from war, he was immediately hit with many offers from Hollywood to have his story told on the big screen, but he turned them down. Producer Jesse Lasky tried to make an offer multiple times over the years (and was rejected), but with the threat of another war in Europe, he tried again to convince Alvin to allow a movie to be made about him. Alvin finally consented, with some conditions. Among those conditions, Alvin wanted Gary Cooper (and only Gary Cooper) to portray him, he wanted somebody who wasn’t a cigarette smoking actress to portray his wife Gracie, and he wanted his share of the profits to go towards a Bible School he was trying to build. With those conditions met, the movie was made, with great care taken to portray everything accurately (outside of a few changes here and there). The movie would prove to be very popular at the box office, and was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning two (including Gary Cooper’s first win as Best Actor).

I was introduced to Sergeant York most of a decade ago. I think I caught it on the Turner Classic Movies channel and recorded it. The main thing I do remember for sure is that the movie had my attention the entire time, and I really enjoyed watching it! So getting to see it again via the recent Blu-ray (more on that in a moment) was a real treat! For me, this IS Gary Cooper’s best movie (at least, from those I’ve seen so far). I like his portrayal of the real Sergeant York’s journey from his wilder lifestyle through his conversion and his wartime dilemma. Of course, the rest of the cast is no slouch either, with Margaret Wycherly as Mother York, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias as his army buddy “Pusher” Ross or the many others who helped make this a great movie! The wartime scenes are impressive, and it’s fun seeing Alvin use his skills from back home to help out in wartime. For some, the religious element may turn them off from the movie, but, to the best of my knowledge about the real Alvin York, that was very much a part of him, and the movie really wouldn’t be complete without it. But for my money, this movie is absolutely fantastic, and well worth seeing!

This movie is available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive Collection sporting a 4K scan of the best surviving nitrate elements, which in this case is a second generation nitrate fine grain made off the camera negative, since, according to the Warner Archive podcast, the original camera negative was gone by the time that Warner sold their pre-1949 library back in 1956. A lot of work was put into restoring this film, and it looks fantastic! But don’t take my word for it! They’ve got a video up on YouTube to show their restoration compared to what it looked like before, as I have linked at the bottom of this page! Again, this movie looks fantastic, and this new Blu-ray release IS the best way to see this absolutely wonderful classic!

Film Length: 2 hours, 14 minutes

My Rating: 10/10

*ranked #1 in Top 10 Disc Releases Of 2020

**ranked #3 in Top 10 Movies Watched In 2020

List Of Actor/Actress Filmographies/Collections

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) – Gary Cooper – Casanova Brown (1944)

Nice Girl? (1941) – Walter Brennan – To Have And Have Not (1944)

Joan Leslie – Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Music In My Heart (1940) – George Tobias – Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

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