THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR (1961)

Professor Fred MacMurray, who's so absent minded that he borders on being a danger to those around him (during the opening credits alone he blows out the windows to his upstairs classroom and rains broken glass down on the students walking below), fritters his days away tinkering in his laboratory working on Satan only knows what.

As the film opens, he once again misses his own wedding...for the third time!!!  (How this guy ever even got engaged to begin with is a mystery to me.)  Anyway, while he was suppose to be at his wedding, he was actually at home brewing up something so incorrectly that it blew up his shed and knocked him out.  When he awoke he found that he had invented a form of rubber that somehow creates it's own energy.  He names it "Flubber".  Naturally, the first thing he does with this new invention is make his car fly and then attach some Flubber to the bottoms of the college basketball teams shoes!  This causes the players to start flying all over the place and able to jump 20 feet in the air.  Soon after, all kinds of predators (including the government and a local hoodlum) want this amazing new invention for themselves.  Why they don't just take it from the basketball players, I don't know.  Instead, they chase MacMurray all over the place.

For a light-hearted, early 1960's Disney flick, I enjoyed THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR.  Silly as fook story, good special effects, cute dog, sinister undertones, a political jab about killing "every senator and congressman", maybe(?) a reference to TWENTIETH CENTURY that was probably just wishful thinking on my part, medium pace that could have been sped up a bit, great backlot locations, solid acting (especially by MacMurray) plus lots of great classic movie actors like Keenan Wynn (and his real life father Ed Wynn and his real life son Ned Wynn), Edward Andrews, Nancy Olson, James Westerfield and many others...even Leon Tyler from GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW!

Good lazy afternoon time-waster.

Interesting bit of trivia: THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR was actually nominated for three Academy Awards (including Best Cinematography!), but lost all three.

Part 2 - Son of Flubber (1963)
Remake - Flubber (1997)

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps.  It was the walk of a dead man."

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) has a pretty swell life.  He has a cush job as an insurance salesman (semiannual sales record..twice in a row!), he has a cozy apartment and a nice car.  Then his life is turned completely upside-down when he's introduced to Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck).  An outwardly beautiful woman with the soul of a bull shark.  From the very second they lay eyes on each other, it's fireworks!  I love that first scene with them alone together.  There's so much rapid fire double entendres and shit-talking going back and forth, that I couldn't do anything but sit there grinning like a fool, jealous of the brilliant dialogue written by screenwriters Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler.

Anyway, without him even knowing it, from that very first meeting, Phyllis has her claws sunk into Walter's soul and he's doomed.  He tries to play it cool, but then, when she finally admits that she not only wants his help in murdering her husband, but in also setting up an expensive accident insurance policy on him, Walter topples like a house of cards.  He sacrifices his entire life over some sex...but then again, isn't that the short history of humanity?

DOUBLE INDEMNITY is considered a landmark in American cinema and justifiably so.  At the time it came out, there was pretty much nothing like it in regards to the way it looked (darkness everywhere; dust in the air; the shadows of the Venetian blinds going across Walter to look like prison bars, etc.) and the absolute sordid behavior of the lead characters, especially Phyllis Dietrichson.  She's evil through and through.  Just look at her face while her husband is being brutally murdered.  That subtle look of gratification that goes beyond sexual pleasure and into malevolence is extremely disturbing.  And that's really saying a lot about the acting abilities of Barbara Stanwyck (at least to me, because I think that she is the most beautiful woman to ever grace the silver screen).  She's gorgeous, but at the same time completely repulsive.

Fast pace, venomous dialogue, perfect acting, interesting Los Angeles locations, deep shadows, psychosexual themes, costume design by Edith Head, a Raymond Chandler sighting, extremely influential photography that is still being copied today.  Plus...it has the immortal line "They know more tricks than a carload of monkeys." Holy shit!  Hahaha!

I could go on for hours about DOUBLE INDEMNITY, but I'll just cut it short and say that it is required viewing by every classic movie fan.

Fun fact: Edward G. Robinson was was the original singer for Alice in Chain's song "Rooster". "You know he ain't gonna die...yeah, seeeeeee!" True story.

Raymond Chandler (seated)