list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around One, Two, Three on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/One_Two_Three/25553/default.aspx Title: One, Two, Three
Year: 1961
Director: Billy Wilder
Plot: In his last starring film (it was supposed to be his last film, but Ragtime came along in 1981), James Cagney plays Coca-Cola executive C.R. MacNamara. Assigned to manage Coke's West Berlin office, MacNamara dreams of being transferred to London, and to do this he must curry favor with his Atlanta-based boss, Hazeltine (Howard St. John). Thus, MacNamara agrees to look after Hazeltine's dizzy, impulsive daughter, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), during her visit to Germany. Weeks pass, and on the eve of Hazeltine's visit to West Berlin, Scarlett announces that she's gotten married. Even worse, her husband is a hygienically challenged East Berlin Communist named Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz). The crafty MacNamara arranges for Piffl to be arrested by the East Berlin police and to have the marriage annulled, only to discover that Scarlett is pregnant. In rapid-fire "one, two, three" fashion, MacNamara must arrange for Piffl to be released by the Communists and successfully pass off the scrungy, doggedly anti-capitalist Piffl as an acceptable husband for Scarlett. MacNamara must accomplish this in less than 12 hours, all the while trying to mollify his wife (Arlene Francis), who has learned of his affair with busty secretary Ingeborg (Lilo Pulver). Seldom pausing for breath, Billy Wilder's film is a crackling, mile-a-minute farce, taking satiric scattershots at Coca-Cola, the Cold War (the film is set in the months just before the erection of the Berlin Wall), Russian red tape, Communist and capitalist hypocrisy, Southern bigotry, the German "war guilt," rock music, and even Cagney's own movie image. Not all the gags are in the best of taste, and most of the one-liners have dated rather badly, but Cagney's mesmerizing performance holds the whole affair together. Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond adapted their screenplay from an obscure play by Ferenc Molnár. Watch for Red Buttons in an unbilled cameo as a military policeman, and listen for the voice of Sig Rumann, emanating from the mouth of actor Hubert Von Meyerinck (the Count von Droste-Schattenburg). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 1
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Number of blog posts: 4
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:01:06 GMTOne, Two, Three1961Billy WilderIn his last starring film (it was supposed to be his last film, but <a href=/films/28009/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Ragtime</a> came along in 1981), <a href="/players/P____10165/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>James Cagney</a> plays Coca-Cola executive C.R. MacNamara. Assigned to manage Coke's West Berlin office, MacNamara dreams of being transferred to London, and to do this he must curry favor with his Atlanta-based boss, Hazeltine (Howard St. John). Thus, MacNamara agrees to look after Hazeltine's dizzy, impulsive daughter, Scarlett (<a href="/players/P____70981/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Pamela Tiffin</a>), during her visit to Germany. Weeks pass, and on the eve of Hazeltine's visit to West Berlin, Scarlett announces that she's gotten married. Even worse, her husband is a hygienically challenged East Berlin Communist named Otto Piffl (<a href="/players/P_____9317/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Horst Buchholz</a>). The crafty MacNamara arranges for Piffl to be arrested by the East Berlin police and to have the marriage annulled, only to discover that Scarlett is pregnant. In rapid-fire "one, two, three" fashion, MacNamara must arrange for Piffl to be released by the Communists and successfully pass off the scrungy, doggedly anti-capitalist Piffl as an acceptable husband for Scarlett. MacNamara must accomplish this in less than 12 hours, all the while trying to mollify his wife (<a href="/players/P____24668/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Arlene Francis</a>), who has learned of his affair with busty secretary Ingeborg (<a href="/players/P____58048/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Lilo Pulver</a>). Seldom pausing for breath, <a href="/players/P___116768/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Billy Wilder</a>'s film is a crackling, mile-a-minute farce, taking satiric scattershots at Coca-Cola, the Cold War (the film is set in the months just before the erection of the Berlin Wall), Russian red tape, Communist and capitalist hypocrisy, Southern bigotry, the German "war guilt," rock music, and even Cagney's own movie image. Not all the gags are in the best of taste, and most of the one-liners have dated rather badly, but Cagney's mesmerizing performance holds the whole affair together. <a href="/players/P___116768/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Billy Wilder</a> and I.A.L. Diamond adapted their screenplay from an obscure play by Ferenc Molnár. Watch for <a href="/players/P_____9969/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Red Buttons</a> in an unbilled cameo as a military policeman, and listen for the voice of <a href="/players/P____62113/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Sig Rumann</a>, emanating from the mouth of actor Hubert Von Meyerinck (the Count von Droste-Schattenburg). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide1Slightly Tagged (1-5)343http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t30891wqkjj.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/One_Two_Three/25553/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/7/35995.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
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Post Date: 10/7/2008 11:01:06 AM
Body: Product placement in movies is now so overdone that we may not even notice it unless a particular film or TV show really hits us over the head with a blatant in-your-face product shot. Otherwise, seeing commercial goods everywhere merely seems like everyday life in capitalist America. Just look at any of the websites that tally up products spotlighted in mainstream movies and you’ll probably be surprised (though not shocked) at how many brands appear in each new release. Did you notice that Blades of Glory contains 38 separate products? Probably not. Many of those products couldn’t have gotten their money’s worth, because the movie doesn’t allow the audience to walk away recalling any one particular item. At a time when TV’s Top Chef and 30 Rock show us how lame blatantly whorish and ironic product placement can get, and while moviegoers are being subjected to more subliminal, suggestive and unintentional advertisements (Speed Racer, Wall-E and Beverly Hills Chihuahua respectively have us thinking about McDonalds, Apple products and Taco Bell, though some of these associations are not necessarily the movie’s fault), it’s good to remember that not all product placement is superfluous or despicable. Some of it is actually funny, smart and beneficial to mankind. Movie: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Product: Reese’s Pieces In case you don’t believe the part about product placement being beneficial to mankind, just imagine what could have happened if E.T. had featured either of Steven Spielberg’s first choices in candy placement, M&Ms or Hershey’s Kisses, rather than Reese’s Pieces. Would the delicious peanut butter candies still exist today? Okay, they might, but they certainly wouldn’t have become so popular so fast. Don’t forget that advertising is not simply about a greedy corporation marketing a product for profitable gain; it’s also about alerting us to wonderful new products that we otherwise might not have noticed. And isn’t your choice of sundae mix-ins better thanks to millions of moviegoers noticing the existence of Reese’s Pieces? Movie: Back to the Future Product: DeLorean DMC-12 On the opposite side of the spectrum from Reese’s Pieces, the DeLorean DMC-12 (popularly referred to as simply the DeLorean), is possibly the least necessary product ever to be placed prominently in a film. Maybe if it were actually a time machine it would be a must-have and the DeLorean Motor Company could have been back in business despite having gone bust a few years prior to the release of Back to the Future. Instead, the DeLorean is just a cool car, yet one that highly appeals to huge BTTF fans. And of the 6,500 DMC-12s still in existence, it’s likely that a large percentage are possessed by people who’ve installed a mock Flux Capacitor and own a vanity license plate that says something like “MCFLY” or “88 MPH” or “OUTATIME”. Get ready to see more tributes to the movie, too, since a car manufacturer in Houston has begun making new DMC-12s in limited production. Movie: The Wizard Product: Nintendo A year after Mac and Me seemed to indicate that really, really prominent and shameless product placement was possibly a bad idea, The Wizard came out and provided the opposing argument. Then and now people have looked at the film’s promotion of Nintendo’s latest and much-anticipated blockbuster video game (and the the system’s “so bad” Power Glove controller) as one of the low moments in product placement, but for anyone who cared about video games in 1989, the chance to even get a glimpse of Super Mario Bros. 3 was worth the price of admission for an otherwise lame kiddie version of Rain Man. Movie: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle Product: White Castle Like The Wizard’s promotion of Nintendo products, the employment of the White Castle fast food brand in Harold and Kumar is about reminding an audience about something it already likes and desires. But unlike The Wizard, Harold and Kumar doesn’t make the sponsorship seem like such a cheap grab for cash. Sure, the stoner comedy could have used any fast food place, real or made up, but for anyone who has devoured a whole Crave Case with one other friend at four in the morning, the specifically branded joke is all the more appreciated. Movie: Wayne’s World Products: Pizza Hut; Doritos; Reebok; Nuprin; Pepsi Tina Fey may seem like the smartest SNL vet ever, but each time 30 Rock does the ironic product placement shtick, a number of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey loyalists likely shout at their screen, “Sheah, right! As if that’s not a 15-year-old gag.” And Fey isn’t the only one guilty of recycling the joke, although occasionally movies like Talladega Nights and Josie and the Pussycats can get away with it, because it’s kind of a necessary gag when satirizing things like NASCAR and pop music. Even the reflexive use of product placement in Fight Club somewhat descends from the Wayne’s World scene. Movie: Best in Show Products: Starbucks; Apple; J. Crew; L.L. Bean Product placement doesn’t always have to be about favorably advertising a brand. It can also be about making fun of a brand, or making fun of a certain kind of person that brand is geared toward. In the mockumentary Best in Show, Starbucks is made fun of for having so many locations, while Apple is merely employed in the joke. Catalog clothing companies J. Crew and L.L. Bean are also simultaneously the butt of a joke and the means with which Christopher Guest makes fun of two of his film’s characters. Movie: Good Bye Lenin! Product: Coca-Cola Product placement can also be about employing a product that serves as an idea. Coca-Cola is a brand that has been featured in tons of films as more a symbol of capitalism and the West than of soda pop (see my old post on Coca-Cola in cinema here), and in this German comedy, a giant Coca-Cola billboard serves to represent the westernization going on outside the window of the room of an oblivious woman being duped to believe the Berlin Wall never fell. Movie: One, Two, Three Product: Pepsi The Coca-Cola placement in Good Bye Lenin! recalls Billy Wilder’s film One, Two, Three, which also deals with the division of East and West Berlin and also employs the iconic brand for the same kind of symbolic representation of capitalism. In Wilder’s film, though, the product is much more prominent, as the plot revolves around a Coca-Cola executive (played by James Cagney). Yet after so much mention of Coke, especially with the association of overbearing consumerism and cultural imperialism, you’re more likely to come away from the film wanting a bottle of Pepsi, instead. Of course, it also helps that the final shot in the film is of Cagney holding a bottle of Coca-Cola’s main competitor. Movie: Breathless (À bout de souffle) If you’re surprised that there was product placement as long ago as 1961, when One, Two, Three was released, let’s go back even further to 1960, and to another country, France. Jean-Luc Godard’s breakthrough and groundbreaking film probably wasn’t meant to increase sales of the New York Herald Tribune, but what male viewer could resist purchasing a subscription after watching and hearing Jean Seberg peddle the newspaper at the beginning of the film? Perhaps now the film even still inspires young men to subscribe to New York magazine, as a substitute for its now unavailable ancestor. Oh, and just so you know, product placement can be found many, many decades earlier than the 1960s. Movie: Minority Report Products: Lexus; Guiness; American Express; and others The product placement in Minority Report is considered an example of overkill, but that’s also the point. The film is set in a not-so-far-off future in which ads are everywhere, and most of them are personalized to address the consumer directly by name. It’s one of many futurist ideas in the film meant to exaggerate the present while predicting the direction technology is going. Already people receive personalized spam and internet ads, and advances in personalized marketing are growing closer and closer to what exists as a joke/prophesy in Spielberg’s film. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:01:06 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/7/2008 11:01:06 AM Product placement in movies is now so overdone that we may not even notice it unless a particular film or TV show really hits us over the head with a blatant in-your-face product shot. Otherwise, seeing commercial goods everywhere merely seems like everyday life in capitalist America. Just look at any of the websites that tally up products spotlighted in mainstream movies and you’ll probably be surprised (though not shocked) at how many brands appear in each new release. Did you notice that Blades of Glory contains 38 separate products? Probably not. Many of those products couldn’t have gotten their money’s worth, because the movie doesn’t allow the audience to walk away recalling any one particular item. At a time when TV’s Top Chef and 30 Rock show us how lame blatantly whorish and ironic product placement can get, and while moviegoers are being subjected to more subliminal, suggestive and unintentional advertisements (Speed Racer, Wall-E and Beverly Hills Chihuahua respectively have us thinking about McDonalds, Apple products and Taco Bell, though some of these associations are not necessarily the movie’s fault), it’s good to remember that not all product placement is superfluous or despicable. Some of it is actually funny, smart and beneficial to mankind. Movie: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Product: Reese’s Pieces In case you don’t believe the part about product placement being beneficial to mankind, just imagine what could have happened if E.T. had featured either of Steven Spielberg’s first choices in candy placement, M&Ms or Hershey’s Kisses, rather than Reese’s Pieces. Would the delicious peanut butter candies still exist today? Okay, they might, but they certainly wouldn’t have become so popular so fast. Don’t forget that advertising is not simply about a greedy corporation marketing a product for profitable gain; it’s also about alerting us to wonderful new products that we otherwise might not have noticed. And isn’t your choice of sundae mix-ins better thanks to millions of moviegoers noticing the existence of Reese’s Pieces? Movie: Back to the Future Product: DeLorean DMC-12 On the opposite side of the spectrum from Reese’s Pieces, the DeLorean DMC-12 (popularly referred to as simply the DeLorean), is possibly the least necessary product ever to be placed prominently in a film. Maybe if it were actually a time machine it would be a must-have and the DeLorean Motor Company could have been back in business despite having gone bust a few years prior to the release of Back to the Future. Instead, the DeLorean is just a cool car, yet one that highly appeals to huge BTTF fans. And of the 6,500 DMC-12s still in existence, it’s likely that a large percentage are possessed by people who’ve installed a mock Flux Capacitor and own a vanity license plate that says something like “MCFLY” or “88 MPH” or “OUTATIME”. Get ready to see more tributes to the movie, too, since a car manufacturer in Houston has begun making new DMC-12s in limited production. Movie: The Wizard Product: Nintendo A year after Mac and Me seemed to indicate that really, really prominent and shameless product placement was possibly a bad idea, The Wizard came out and provided the opposing argument. Then and now people have looked at the film’s promotion of Nintendo’s latest and much-anticipated blockbuster video game (and the the system’s “so bad” Power Glove controller) as one of the low moments in product placement, but for anyone who cared about video games in 1989, the chance to even get a glimpse of Super Mario Bros. 3 was worth the price of admission for an otherwise lame kiddie version of Rain Man. Movie: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle Product: White Castle Like The Wizard’s promotion of Nintendo products, the employment of the White Castle fast food brand in Harold and Kumar is about reminding an audience about something it already likes and desires. But unlike The Wizard, Harold and Kumar doesn’t make the sponsorship seem like such a cheap grab for cash. Sure, the stoner comedy could have used any fast food place, real or made up, but for anyone who has devoured a whole Crave Case with one other friend at four in the morning, the specifically branded joke is all the more appreciated. Movie: Wayne’s World Products: Pizza Hut; Doritos; Reebok; Nuprin; Pepsi Tina Fey may seem like the smartest SNL vet ever, but each time 30 Rock does the ironic product placement shtick, a number of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey loyalists likely shout at their screen, “Sheah, right! As if that’s not a 15-year-old gag.” And Fey isn’t the only one guilty of recycling the joke, although occasionally movies like Talladega Nights and Josie and the Pussycats can get away with it, because it’s kind of a necessary gag when satirizing things like NASCAR and pop music. Even the reflexive use of product placement in Fight Club somewhat descends from the Wayne’s World scene. Movie: Best in Show Products: Starbucks; Apple; J. Crew; L.L. Bean Product placement doesn’t always have to be about favorably advertising a brand. It can also be about making fun of a brand, or making fun of a certain kind of person that brand is geared toward. In the mockumentary Best in Show, Starbucks is made fun of for having so many locations, while Apple is merely employed in the joke. Catalog clothing companies J. Crew and L.L. Bean are also simultaneously the butt of a joke and the means with which Christopher Guest makes fun of two of his film’s characters. Movie: Good Bye Lenin! Product: Coca-Cola Product placement can also be about employing a product that serves as an idea. Coca-Cola is a brand that has been featured in tons of films as more a symbol of capitalism and the West than of soda pop (see my old post on Coca-Cola in cinema here), and in this German comedy, a giant Coca-Cola billboard serves to represent the westernization going on outside the window of the room of an oblivious woman being duped to believe the Berlin Wall never fell. Movie: One, Two, Three Product: Pepsi The Coca-Cola placement in Good Bye Lenin! recalls Billy Wilder’s film One, Two, Three, which also deals with the division of East and West Berlin and also employs the iconic brand for the same kind of symbolic representation of capitalism. In Wilder’s film, though, the product is much more prominent, as the plot revolves around a Coca-Cola executive (played by James Cagney). Yet after so much mention of Coke, especially with the association of overbearing consumerism and cultural imperialism, you’re more likely to come away from the film wanting a bottle of Pepsi, instead. Of course, it also helps that the final shot in the film is of Cagney holding a bottle of Coca-Cola’s main competitor. Movie: Breathless (À bout de souffle) If you’re surprised that there was product placement as long ago as 1961, when One, Two, Three was released, let’s go back even further to 1960, and to another country, France. Jean-Luc Godard’s breakthrough and groundbreaking film probably wasn’t meant to increase sales of the New York Herald Tribune, but what male viewer could resist purchasing a subscription after watching and hearing Jean Seberg peddle the newspaper at the beginning of the film? Perhaps now the film even still inspires young men to subscribe to New York magazine, as a substitute for its now unavailable ancestor. Oh, and just so you know, product placement can be found many, many decades earlier than the 1960s. Movie: Minority Report Products: Lexus; Guiness; American Express; and others The product placement in Minority Report is considered an example of overkill, but that’s also the point. The film is set in a not-so-far-off future in which ads are everywhere, and most of them are personalized to address the consumer directly by name. It’s one of many futurist ideas in the film meant to exaggerate the present while predicting the direction technology is going. Already people receive personalized spam and internet ads, and advances in personalized marketing are growing closer and closer to what exists as a joke/prophesy in Spielberg’s film. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/jjgittes/archive/2008/5/13/28960.aspx Post By: jjgittes
Post To: jjgittes Blog
Post Date: 5/13/2008 5:25:36 PM
Body: To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of ONE, TWO, THREE before I saw the trailer on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOiDKpNqOE4&feature=user) for its airing on Reel 13 this past Saturday. It’s easy to see, though, how the film got lost in the shuffle of time in spite of its big names (James Cagney and Billy Wilder). Its broad comedy style feels very dated and probably foreign to most modern audiences. Similarly, its political references to Cold War issues and sentiments (How many do you think got the reference when one of the Russian characters started to bang his shoe on a table?), which feature prominently in the plot, don’t have the resonance they would have had back then.The film takes place in 1961, the year of its release, and features James Cagney as the head of the Germany branch of Coca-Cola. The plot starts to unfold when his boss – the CEO of Coke – asks Cagney to look after his daughter during her trip to Berlin. The daughter (Pamela Tiffin) is an unruly (and dim) Southern belle who gets herself into trouble when she gets involved with a Communist from the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. And it’s up to the resourceful Cagney to bail her out (in order to save his own job). The deft hand of Wilder counterbalances the potential corniness of the plot. In the world he creates, most of the events that transpire seem plausible, in spite of some of the conveniences. It all fits within the style. I only wish some of the supporting characters were a little more drawn out. Tiffin doesn’t have much to work with at all, which is problematic, because the daughter character is the catalyst. Her Communist lover is a little more three-dimensional on the page, but is unfortunately played by Horst Buchholz, who is as equally bad here as he was in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. It’s Cagney, though, that is the real engine of the film. His machine gun delivery is in perfect alignment with the verbose and fast-paced screenplay. His energy and presence are the foundation for all the things that make the film work.At times, the film feels like a sitcom. Some of the wacky plot coincidences are something you might see on THREE’S COMPANY or SEINFELD. It also reminded me of some other Wilder films like THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH and THE FORTUNE COOKIE in the sense that they never seem to be able to escape their theatricality - One, Two, Three was based on a play and I imagine it would be riotous on stage. On screen, though, about a quarter of the jokes fall flat because successful comedy films move at a different rhythm that they do in theater. Another quarter of the jokes are dead air because they are references to things that are lost on modern audiences. The remaining half, however, work anywhere anytime and most of the belly laughs in the film, in true keeping with the tradition of farce, come in the zany final act. For most of the film, I felt detached, bored and a little put off by the silliness of the style and the borderline offensive xenophobia (the film is plays up on archaic stereotypes of both Russians and Germans). In the last thirty minutes, however, Comedy General Cagney leads his troops in a race against the clock where all kinds of mayhem ensues. Several storylines intersect with each other and work toward satisfying resolution with breakneck speed. It takes ONE, TWO, THREE about an hour to really get moving, which is probably way too long, but given there are moments of the film that still make me laugh days later, I almost wonder if it wasn’t worth the wait.
]]>Tue, 13 May 2008 21:25:36 GMTjjgittesjjgittes Blog5/13/2008 5:25:36 PMTo be honest, I hadn&rsquo;t even heard of ONE, TWO, THREE before I saw the trailer on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOiDKpNqOE4&amp;feature=user) for its airing on Reel 13 this past Saturday. It&rsquo;s easy to see, though, how the film got lost in the shuffle of time in spite of its big names (James Cagney and Billy Wilder). Its broad comedy style feels very dated and probably foreign to most modern audiences. Similarly, its political references to Cold War issues and sentiments (How many do you think got the reference when one of the Russian characters started to bang his shoe on a table?), which feature prominently in the plot, don&rsquo;t have the resonance they would have had back then.The film takes place in 1961, the year of its release, and features James Cagney as the head of the Germany branch of Coca-Cola. The plot starts to unfold when his boss &ndash; the CEO of Coke &ndash; asks Cagney to look after his daughter during her trip to Berlin. The daughter (Pamela Tiffin) is an unruly (and dim) Southern belle who gets herself into trouble when she gets involved with a Communist from the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. And it&rsquo;s up to the resourceful Cagney to bail her out (in order to save his own job). The deft hand of Wilder counterbalances the potential corniness of the plot. In the world he creates, most of the events that transpire seem plausible, in spite of some of the conveniences. It all fits within the style. I only wish some of the supporting characters were a little more drawn out. Tiffin doesn&rsquo;t have much to work with at all, which is problematic, because the daughter character is the catalyst. Her Communist lover is a little more three-dimensional on the page, but is unfortunately played by Horst Buchholz, who is as equally bad here as he was in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. It&rsquo;s Cagney, though, that is the real engine of the film. His machine gun delivery is in perfect alignment with the verbose and fast-paced screenplay. His energy and presence are the foundation for all the things that make the film work.At times, the film feels like a sitcom. Some of the wacky plot coincidences are something you might see on THREE&rsquo;S COMPANY or SEINFELD. It also reminded me of some other Wilder films like THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH and THE FORTUNE COOKIE in the sense that they never seem to be able to escape their theatricality - One, Two, Three was based on a play and I imagine it would be riotous on stage. On screen, though, about a quarter of the jokes fall flat because successful comedy films move at a different rhythm that they do in theater. Another quarter of the jokes are dead air because they are references to things that are lost on modern audiences. The remaining half, however, work anywhere anytime and most of the belly laughs in the film, in true keeping with the tradition of farce, come in the zany final act. For most of the film, I felt detached, bored and a little put off by the silliness of the style and the borderline offensive xenophobia (the film is plays up on archaic stereotypes of both Russians and Germans). In the last thirty minutes, however, Comedy General Cagney leads his troops in a race against the clock where all kinds of mayhem ensues. Several storylines intersect with each other and work toward satisfying resolution with breakneck speed. It takes ONE, TWO, THREE about an hour to really get moving, which is probably way too long, but given there are moments of the film that still make me laugh days later, I almost wonder if it wasn&rsquo;t worth the wait. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/31/26780.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
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Post Date: 3/31/2008 1:00:45 PM
Body: Weather permitting, I should be at Yankees Stadium this afternoon for opening day. So, I figured I’d share one of my favorite jokes from Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (a film I also wrote about last week). James Cagney plays a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin who’s supposed to be making sure his boss’ 17-year-old daughter, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), stays out of trouble. He does a bad job, though, because Scarlett sneaks into East Berlin, marries a young communist and gets pregnant with his child. When Cagney’s character asks the girl why she’s been helping to blow up balloons featuring the words, “Yankee Go Home”, she replies that where she comes from (Atlanta), everyone hates Yankees. I know it’s not meant to be baseball-related, but I sometimes like to pretend that Scarlett has foreseen the ‘96 and ‘99 World Series (the film takes place a few years after the Braves beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series, but the team wasn’t yet in Atlanta at that time). And I wonder if most Yankees fans would appreciate that line or see it as a reason to hate One, Two, Three. I’ve encountered a lot of fans of the team who are just that serious that they would probably boycott a movie that makes their Bombers sound or look bad. Here’s five such films I figure no “true” Yankees fan can admit to enjoying: Damn Yankees - Obviously it’s in the title that this is anti-Yankees propaganda. Adapted from a stage musical of the same name, the 1958 film is about a Washington Senators fan who sells his soul to the devil in order to play for the team and help them defeat the Yanks for the league pennant. (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:00:45 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/31/2008 1:00:45 PM Weather permitting, I should be at Yankees Stadium this afternoon for opening day. So, I figured I’d share one of my favorite jokes from Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (a film I also wrote about last week). James Cagney plays a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin who’s supposed to be making sure his boss’ 17-year-old daughter, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), stays out of trouble. He does a bad job, though, because Scarlett sneaks into East Berlin, marries a young communist and gets pregnant with his child. When Cagney’s character asks the girl why she’s been helping to blow up balloons featuring the words, “Yankee Go Home”, she replies that where she comes from (Atlanta), everyone hates Yankees. I know it’s not meant to be baseball-related, but I sometimes like to pretend that Scarlett has foreseen the ‘96 and ‘99 World Series (the film takes place a few years after the Braves beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series, but the team wasn’t yet in Atlanta at that time). And I wonder if most Yankees fans would appreciate that line or see it as a reason to hate One, Two, Three. I’ve encountered a lot of fans of the team who are just that serious that they would probably boycott a movie that makes their Bombers sound or look bad. Here’s five such films I figure no “true” Yankees fan can admit to enjoying: Damn Yankees - Obviously it’s in the title that this is anti-Yankees propaganda. Adapted from a stage musical of the same name, the 1958 film is about a Washington Senators fan who sells his soul to the devil in order to play for the team and help them defeat the Yanks for the league pennant. (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/27/26663.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/27/2008 5:00:28 PM
Body: This morning I was watching Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (see, readers, I do know movies before 1990), and it made me wonder if Coca-Cola is the most cinematic commercial product in the history of film. Not the most prominent in film, necessarily (in terms of either direct product placement or more casual indirect appearance,) but at least the most significant to film. After all, Coca-Cola did own a movie studio (Columbia Pictures) for the greater part of a decade (the 1980s). In addition to One, Two, Three, which is about a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin, the soft drink figures specifically in and fundamentally to the plots of The Gods Must Be Crazy, Good Bye Lenin! and, obviously, The Coca-Cola Kid. But primarily, such direct incorporations of the brand are more about their connection to the U.S. and capitalism than they are to the actual product of soda. Even when Superman throws a bad guy at a giant Coca-Cola billboard in Superman II, the brand comes with a connotation of Americanism that overshadows any intent to market a beverage. And certainly the title in Godard’s Masculin, Feminin that says “The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola” means Coca-Cola in its non-product definition of being a metaphor for capitalist America. And is the joke in Dr. Strangelove (in the video above) that the head of Coca-Cola is analogous to the President of the United States? (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:00:28 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/27/2008 5:00:28 PM This morning I was watching Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (see, readers, I do know movies before 1990), and it made me wonder if Coca-Cola is the most cinematic commercial product in the history of film. Not the most prominent in film, necessarily (in terms of either direct product placement or more casual indirect appearance,) but at least the most significant to film. After all, Coca-Cola did own a movie studio (Columbia Pictures) for the greater part of a decade (the 1980s). In addition to One, Two, Three, which is about a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin, the soft drink figures specifically in and fundamentally to the plots of The Gods Must Be Crazy, Good Bye Lenin! and, obviously, The Coca-Cola Kid. But primarily, such direct incorporations of the brand are more about their connection to the U.S. and capitalism than they are to the actual product of soda. Even when Superman throws a bad guy at a giant Coca-Cola billboard in Superman II, the brand comes with a connotation of Americanism that overshadows any intent to market a beverage. And certainly the title in Godard’s Masculin, Feminin that says “The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola” means Coca-Cola in its non-product definition of being a metaphor for capitalist America. And is the joke in Dr. Strangelove (in the video above) that the head of Coca-Cola is analogous to the President of the United States? (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/marriage/MemberTagFilms.aspxmarriage
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]]>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:41:26 GMT153832Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/coca-cola/MemberTagFilms.aspxcoca-cola
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