{"id":36389,"date":"2016-11-07T16:19:17","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T00:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36389"},"modified":"2016-11-07T23:03:10","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T07:03:10","slug":"challenge-week-40-moonrise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-40-moonrise\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Week 40: Moonrise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow. I had high hopes for this, as I’ve been heard good things about it (not from a lot of people, as it’s pretty obscure), I loved the Frank Borzage film Jeremy gave me earlier (here’s that review<\/a>), and I generally like film noir no matter what.<\/p>\n

I was unprepared for how much I would love it.<\/p>\n

The opening is a very expressionistic depiction of a man being hanged, all in shadows, followed by an ominous shot of a baby crying in a crib with a shadow over him cast from a hanging toy. Flashforward, the kid is getting bullied on the schoolyard about his dad being hanged. Flashforward again, the young man is still getting into fistfights over this spectre from his past.<\/p>\n

\"tf-shadow-hanging\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All that is done with very little exposition, just letting us see and experience what this kid is going through and the violent, desperate man he becomes. The rest of the movie gets a little more conventional – he meets a girl, but the police are after him and he panics, etc. But it maintains this veneer of heightened romanticism. It’s set in the Deep South, which makes the role played by Rex Ingram all the more fascinating – it’s not a typical role for a black man in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

It’s a crying shame that this film isn’t better known than it is – I couldn’t find it on DVD, and it left Amazon streaming before its week came up. Thankfully someone has uploaded it on YouTube in excellent quality. It’s weird that it’s fallen through the cracks. It feels very like Night of the Hunter<\/em>, another noirish film steeped in mythic Southern Gothic Romanticism, and some of the interactions between Danny and the “slow” man played by a young Harry Morgan prefigures Sonny’s protection of Billy in The Last Picture Show<\/em>. Ripe for rediscovery.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for giving me this to watch, Kristina. This is a special, special movie.<\/p>\n

\"tf-ferris-straight\"<\/p>\n

Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n

1948, USA<\/em>
\ndirected by Frank Borzage, written by Charles F. Haas<\/em>
\nstarring Dane Clark, Gail Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Allyn Joslyn, Rex Ingram, Harry Morgan<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how Moonrise<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n

Moonrise<\/b> > A Day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Pleasure
\nMoonrise<\/b> > Mr. Sardonicus
\nMoonrise<\/b> > The Mummy
\nMoonrise < Wings of Desire<\/b>
\nMoonrise<\/b> > My Cousin Vinny
\nMoonrise < Adaptation.<\/b>
\nMoonrise < The Treasure of the Sierra Madre<\/b>
\nMoonrise < Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels<\/b>
\nMoonrise < Red Dust<\/b>
\nMoonrise < Dinner at Eight<\/b>
\nMoonrise<\/b> > The Woman in the Window
\nMoonrise<\/b> > The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/p>\n

Final #345 out of 3711 films on my chart (91%)<\/p>\n

It is now my #1 Frank Borzage film, my #1 Dane Clark film, my #1 Gail Russell film, my #1 Ethel Barrymore film, my #20 Film Noir, my #10 Melodrama, and my #4 film of 1948.<\/p>\n

Moonrise<\/em> was recommended by Kristina Dijon<\/a>, a film blogger friend. Averaging together this #345 ranking with my #928 ranking of her other film, Crime Wave<\/em>, gives Kristina an average ranking of 636.<\/p>\n

A few more screenshots…<\/h3>\n

\"tf-crib\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-kid\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-teasing\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-moonrise\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-hunting\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-trio\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-romantic\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-with-girl\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-ferriswheel\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-dog\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow. I had high hopes for this, as I’ve been heard good things about it (not from a lot of people, as it’s pretty obscure), I loved the Frank Borzage film Jeremy gave me earlier (here’s that review), and I generally like film noir no matter what. I was unprepared for how much I would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[3233,3238],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-moonrise-feat.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36386,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/challenge-week-39-little-man-what-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":36389,"position":0},"title":"Challenge Week 39: Little Man, What Now?","author":"Jandy","date":"October 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love that people have dug deep in this challenge and brought me some classic-era films that I not only hadn't seen, but hadn't even heard of! I've see a few Frank Borzage films but never really gotten the hype, so I was glad to get another chance to check\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tf-feat-little-man.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36554,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-47-limelight\/","url_meta":{"origin":36389,"position":1},"title":"Challenge Week 47: Limelight","author":"Jandy","date":"December 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been wanting to see Limelight for quite some time, as what most people consider Chaplin's last great film, so I really appreciate the push to see it. I had high hopes and they were both met and exceeded. Interestingly, the FB group where I've been tracking this challenge seemed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-feat-limelight.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2837,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/tv-sci-fi-worlds-2-spoilers-for-dollhouse\/","url_meta":{"origin":36389,"position":2},"title":"TV: Sci-Fi Worlds #2 (SPOILERS for Dollhouse)","author":"Jandy","date":"October 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a week behind on these, but I wanted to get these up. Dollhouse 1x13: Epitaph One and 2x01: Vows (SPOILERS) 1x13: Epitaph One Wow, that was good. THAT is what I wanted from the show in the first place. The darkness, the mystery, the weight. It's perfect. I hope\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Television"","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36434,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-42-millennium-actress\/","url_meta":{"origin":36389,"position":3},"title":"Challenge Week 42: Millennium Actress","author":"Jandy","date":"November 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This completes Satoshi Kon's filmography for me, and OMG did I save the best for last (unwittingly). I liked his other three films, but I loved this one - not only does it avoid some of the excesses that anime often falls into for me (including the end of Kon's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-feat-millennium-actress.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35407,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/challenge-week-1-babettes-feast\/","url_meta":{"origin":36389,"position":4},"title":"Challenge Week 1: Babette’s Feast","author":"Jandy","date":"January 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite having heard Babette's Feast raved about by a lot of different people, I had never drummed up the motivation to see it myself. Here's the description from HuluPlus: \"Two devout and elderly sisters allow their cook, a French refugee, to prepare a feast in honor of their late father's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/tf-feat-babette5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2783,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/fall-tv-is-upon-us-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":36389,"position":5},"title":"Fall TV is Upon Us Again","author":"Jandy","date":"September 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"And my DVR begins its protests against abuse and overwork. I'm trying to cut down this year, really I am, but I think what's going to happen (again) is I start off watching way too much and then shows will fall off as the season goes on. At least this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Television"","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/30-rock-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}