RIFLE RANGE BOY

All about Eve 1950 Hailed as the film with the best screenplay ever written, it is indeed sheer pleasure to watch all the stars rattle off their lines with great finesse. For their effort, this flick starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter as the main characters was feted with 14 Oscar nominations, a commendable never repeated until 1997 with Titanic. Many of their lines are evergreen and are oft-repeated, like "put on your seat belt, it is going to be a bumpy night!" Almost all the lines are melody to the ears, some incisive laced with loads of sarcasm, others with comical double meaning word play. Even Marilyn Monroe who had a minor role delivered her witty lines  very  well. The interesting thing about the movie is the blurring of real life and reel life in the lives of the actors and the role that they were supposed to act. Well Bette Davis, who was a fading star then and got the role after the original actress hurt her back, was just being her in the film as...

The letter 1940 After hearing about Betty Davis and her eyes in Kim Carnes' song since the 80s, I finally got the chance to see a full length feature film with Davis as the leading star. The movie is set in a pre-Independence Singapore where the colonial masters were calling the shots and the humble natives were just humble servants. Well, the servants had the last say at the end of movie. From the outset, we can make out that the whole setting is staged. There were not anywhere near the Far East but all the coconut trees did the trick. It was a bright moonlight lit night at a time when the weary bodied natives were resting after a long day's work on their hammocks in the compound of the Crosbies' bungalow when the sound of multiple gun shots pierced the tranquility of the night. A man stumbles out of the main door of the bungalow, obviously after being shot at and falls over the stairs. A lady follows him and empties the contents of her gun repeatedly till it runs o...