“Excuse me, Mrs. Crane. This coffee made me think how good whiskey would taste.”

– Dan, Starret's foreman

“You know, it isn't what a man wants to do, Lacey, but what he has to do. Now take me – I love to smoke cigarettes, but the doctors say I can't have them. So what do I do? I chew toothpicks, tons of them.”

– Det. Lt. Sims

The first film dinner of 2024.

New Year's Eve celebrations.

 

A mousy bank clerk (Dinos Iliopoulos), who bears an uncanny resemblance to a criminal on the run, finds himself hiding in a shady cabaret on New Year's Eve instead of spending a quiet evening alone. During his forced stay at the nightclub, he comes to enjoy and identify more and more with his newfound persona and assumes the role of the notorious “Drago”.

 

An initial box office dud, it is now considered one of the top ten all-time best Greek films.

 

Happy new year, everyone! On to many more cinematic discoveries!

“Time to empty our slop pails and run a little water over our faces, then back to our cells for the entire day.”

– Fontaine

The main character is a “short girl” [I do not agree with the infantilizing wording] on Short Girl Appreciation Day (USA)

 

The great Gloria Swanson (4'11” – 5ft 2 / 1,49 m) – fabulously decked out by Edith Head (5'1” / 1,55 m) with an endless parade of platform shoes – in Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950).

“I am big. It's the pictures that got small.”

– Norma Desmond

Also starring, Buster Keaton, who was 5'5” / 1,65 m.

Someone named Greg for National Greg Day (USA)

“Sie können sich einen anderen Beruf aussuchen. Sie sind ein toter Mann.”

Eating hard candy on National Hard Candy Day (USA)

 

Lucio is the class clown, a ne'er-do-well relying on his police-dad's rank and classmates' homework. One of these classmates, a smart little girl, promises him fancy lollipops in exchange for protection. And she has a secret for him too, about the origin of the candy, and the nice man giving her those and other nice things. Under oath, she tells Lucio everything and then promptly disappears. With his friend gone, killed as he later finds out, and an oath weighing on his heart, what can Lucio do when another girl goes missing?

“Only a child can kill the monster.”

– narrator

Cornell Woolrich's haunting tales of childhood lost leaped from Ireland to Argentina. With some similarities with Fritz Lang's M (1931), this fairy-tale feels more oppressive; due to the helplessness of a boy's power in an adult world and his understanding of grown-up responsibilities. A restored version in wider circulation is long overdue.

– This guy's got a lot of class.

– Yeah? If he's got so much class, what's he doin' with you?

“Have you seen Mr Tavernier tonight?”