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His Girl Friday
Great 66 Points 1940

Fast talking, smartalecky comedy hit a peak with His Girl Friday. Still LOL funny today, it’s also plenty clever enough to travel through the ages as intelligent entertainment for movie lovers of any generation.

How could it not be? It stars the most versatile movie star ever in Cary Grant…

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WikChip Image Grant & Russell - made for each other
Gentlemen Prefe...
OK 66 Points 1953

A sparkling Marilyn Monroe and one terrific song don’t fully rescue this Howard Hawks musical-comedy from the dregs of cheesiness. The song? Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, a theatrically produced Song and Dance number performed by the inimitable MM in an iconic pink dress

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WikChip Video Watch this and skip the movie.
Bus Stop
Good 66 Points 1956

Marilyn Monroe rescues Bus Stop, as she rescued so many of her movies, her luminescent sexuality juxtaposed against an American society inchoately besotted with her. True fans can’t avert their eyes.

To be clear, Bus Stop is a cheesy time-capsule, a Fifties classic capable of making "Alan…

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WikChip Video The Making of Bus Stop - Documentary
Quartet
OK 66 Points 2012

Senior citizen cinema is experiencing somewhat of a boomlet now. Quartet typifies the trend, spinning a gently comedic story about old flames who reunite in a retirement home for musicians and opera singers. It’s a pleasant enough movie, albeit too formulaic to be really interesting.

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WikChip Image Now that's a retirement home.
Witness for the...
Really Great 66 Points 1957

Starched and stilted, Witness for the Prosecution nonetheless packs one hell of a punch at the end, with glorious detail throughout and a powerhouse cast who are the complete masters of their juicy roles. Nevermind that its theatrical roots show. Agatha Christie knew how to write for max view…

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WikChip Image Wilder angle: Dietrich looks up at Power
Cabaret
Really Great 66 Points 1972

This paean to lost licentiousness in the face of fascism won eight (8!) Oscars, losing out only on Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay (both to The Godfather for Pete’s sake). The movie that made Liza more famous for her talent than her…

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WikChip Image Sexy Brilliance.
August: Osage C...
Good 66 Points 2013

Unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way, wrote Tolstoy. The Oklahoma family in August: Osage County is unhappy because their matriarch is a pill popping shrew. This monstrous maternal presence is masterfully played by the incomparable Meryl Streep. She’s vividly entertaining, albe…

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WikChip Image Mother-Daughter embrace. Isn't that n...
There's No Busi...
Really Great 66 Points 1954

There’s No Business Like Show Business and there was no show business phonier than vaudeville, till movies. So an overtly phony movie about vaudeville makes for a phony convergence. It was perhaps the last of the musical extravaganzas, a calorically rich compendium of Irving Berlin’s showstoppi…

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WikChip Video Marilyn Monroe & Donald O'Connor: Sta...
How to Marry a ...
Very Good 66 Points 1953

How to Marry a Millionaire opens with a five minute bravura orchestral concert, which amazing though it is, is five minutes of men in tuxes when you’re expecting Marilyn Monroe.

Then you get Lauren Bacall as the queen bee, the head girl, the model with a plan. And a luscious Marilyn. And …

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WikChip Image Marilyn at the premier. 'Nuff said.
12 Angry Men
Good 66 Points 1957

12 Angry Men has lost its punch, coming across today as more tortured and melodramatic than taut and credible. Still, it’s a classic, enduring as a case study of group dynamics more than as a compelling drama.

The well-known story follows a jury into and through their deliberations on a murd…

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WikChip Image 12 Great Actors