Shameless Self Expression

A poor Irish family during the 1920s comes into some money, and it doesn’t seem to bring happiness. Edward Chapman (the ‘Paycock’ of the title) and Sara Allgood (his wife ‘Juno’) are the patriarch and matriarch of the family respectively, the former a blathering barfly. John Laurie is their troubled son, an IRA member.   The more of his films that I see, I’ve had to change my tune on the worst film directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock ( “Strangers on a Train” , “Vertigo” , “Shadow of a Doubt” ). As of the time of writing this review I have now seen all 52 of his films (with “Downhill” being the last viewed, review to come) that are still available. So I can safely say that this 1929 bore is easily his worst film still publicly available. Where was the plot? It only arrives after about 30 minutes, which is 15 minutes too late. Where was the progression of said plot? Nowhere. I had heard that the film has a creepy, unusual atmosphere but even directorially this is mostly a point-and...

Set on a cruise ship, the film follows two couples (Jayne Mansfield and Tommy Noonan, Marie McDonald and Mickey Hargitay) and their various issues. Mansfield is eager for a baby but writer husband is too stressed to hold up his end of the bargain so to speak. A subsequent meeting with the ship’s doctor (Fritz Feld) results in the latter giving Noonan an aspirin that he calls a fertility drug (!). T.C. Jones plays Babette, the ship’s hairdresser (!!), whilst Eddie Quillan has a small role as the ship’s bartender.   Wanna see Jayne Mansfield’s tits in a movie? This movie has that. Want anything else? This 1963 sex comedy from director King Donovan (his sole feature directing gig) has limited supply of anything else. I still think it might be worth seeing for the curious and cinephiles among you, but just be aware that this is not a good film. It’s a movie where you get to see Jayne Mansfield naked in a series of repeated shots sprinkled throughout. For what it is, I got what I wa...