Thursday, November 6, 2014

Jason watches SALUTE THE TOFF (1952)

This was at Pixar, but not sponsored by Pixar. They do free screenings every Monday night for employees and guests, so I'm very happy that I have a friend who just started working at Pixar (also happy because she's soooooo much happier there than her previous job.)

Incidentally, this now means I've seen special screenings (although not of the respective studio's films) at DreamWorks Animation, NetFlix, and now Pixar's in-house theaters.

First there was a trailer for next week's film, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, and then trailers for other films that fit with the crime story theme of the feature.

Then a cartoon short, LITTLE JOHNNY JET (1953): Mom and Pop airplane--him a WWII vet, are expecting. But Pop airplane can't find work because everybody wants these fancy new jet airplanes, while he's an old propeller model. When Junior comes along and is a jet, Pop is distraught, until Junior saves his life and helps him win an around-the-world race.

SALUTE THE TOFF (1952) is one of two films shot back-to-back about the character of The Honourable Richard Rollison, aka The Toff. Both films are on BFI's "75 Most Wanted" list of films that are classified as "missing, believed lost." I guess this one isn't (and after this screening it was donated to the BFI collection.) The Toff is a sort of rakish, playboy, modern (umm...for 1950s) version of Sherlock Holmes. The brilliant investigator who doesn't work for (and is sometimes a thorn in the side of) Scotland yard. The plot is a bit convoluted, centering on a missing employee and a valuable business deal. And the print clearly has some scenes cut short by censors (a knife in a woman's back just suddenly...appears as she's already on the floor.) But it has plenty of cool, British B-Noir feel, and I loved it (while also being a little giddy about seeing a "lost" film.)


Total Running Time: 82 minutes (although with some censor cuts it was probably a couple of minutes short)
My Total Minutes: 370,557

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