Third Annual Mustache Movie Marathon: Final Week



It is currently December 2nd as I am writing this sentence.  By the time I finish this, it could easily be December 3rd.  This year has gone by so quickly.  November went by really quickly.  And as November ended, so did my month of mustache movies.

I watched four movies that involved mustaches to a big degree over the last nine days of the month.  I’m only going to cover three of them, since one of the movies (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) was included in my December 2012 marathon.  So there are three movies that I will be writing about in this final post for the third annual Mustache Movie Marathon.  It’s time to get started.

City Lights

Charlie Chaplin is someone who I hadn’t watched until I began the Mustache Movie Marathons.  I’m not sure I’ve seen any of his movies outside of the ones that I’ve watched for the marathons.  This year, I chose to watch City Lights for my Chaplin pick because I wanted to see the one with the skating.  That’s right, I picked the wrong movie.  City Lights isn’t the one with the skating.  The one with the skating is Modern Times.  Woops.

City Lights is about Charlie Chaplin’s tramp character falling in love with a blind woman and pretending to be wealthy when he is, in fact, a tramp.  Like usual, there are good physical jokes throughout the movie, including a boxing scene that is among the greatest boxing scenes that I have ever seen in cinema.  You can never go wrong with a Chaplin movie, even if it’s the wrong one for what you want to watch.

As for the mustaches, Chaplin sports his usual tramp mustache, which later became known as the Hitler mustache.  It’s really too bad that the mustache gained that terrible reputation.  It’s only a form of facial hair.  Either way, that mustache is as much a part of the character as the hat, cane, or overall demeanor.  The character wouldn’t be complete without the hat.

Prancer

It’s the end of November.  Everyone is getting ready for the holidays.  I thought I might as well toss in a Christmas movie, and what better way to have a reason for it than to have a Christmas movie featuring Sam Elliott.

Prancer is about a girl who is obsessed with Christmas finding a reindeer in the woods.  She thinks it is Prancer, the reindeer that helps Santa Claus on Christmas.  When she discovers that Prancer has been shot, the girl helps to nurse him back to health.  Her father does not like this so she keeps Prancer secret from him.  The father is Sam Elliott.  If the story sounds annoying, let me tell you that it sure is.  I dislike every character in the movie in terms of both the writing and the personalities.

As much as I hate the movie, Sam Elliott does wear a great mustache in it, as he almost always does.  Can anyone rock a mustache like he can?  I’m not sure anyone can.  Maybe Selleck, but Elliott might have the edge.  Good facial landscaping.

A Night in Casablanca

This was my first Marx Brothers movie.  I know, I know.  Someone as into movies as me should have seen one of their movies before.  A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera, or Duck Soup.  Those are all them right?  I should have seen one of those before, but I haven’t.  I’ve seen A Night in Casablanca though.

A Night in Casablanca was originally intended to be a parody of the film Casablanca.  After a little bit of investigation by Warner Brothers (which may or may not be a myth), the story took on a much more original slant.  Three of the Marx Brothers show up to ham it up in the movie.  There are laughs, interesting situations, and it’s hard to take your eye off of it.  I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed the time I spent watching it.

You might call the inclusion of this movie in the Mustache Movie Marathon a cheat.  In a way it is.  Groucho Marx does not actually have a mustache.  He just uses grease paint or something to smear a black mustache on his lip, and to accentuate his eyebrows.  I’m still counting it.  I don’t have much to say about it though.  It’s a black grease smear on his upper lip.  It’s not like he really spent time growing it out.


That brings an end to the third annual Mustache Movie Marathon.  It was a fun ride.  I saw some movies I didn’t know existed before now (The Winning Season), and I broadened my horizons somewhat (A Night in Casablanca).  I saw a lot of mustaches.  It’s a great way to celebrate November.  Now I must say farewell to it for another year.  Next November, I’ll marathon some more mustache movies.  Until then, keep on watching and enjoying movies.  I’ll be around with the Sunday “Bad” Movies, Work Stories, Power Rangers reviews, and whatever else I’m doing.  See you around.

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