Martin channels his considerable charm and vulnerability into the part, visibly brightening the gloomy old house with his arrival.

Hey pallies, likes it is always our purest of pure pleasure to share more Dino-devotion from pallies who have been previously featured on the pages of our humble little ilovedinomartin blog.  It is so remarkably  reassurin' to know that cyberspace is chocked full of scribers who can't way to spread more awesome adulation of our Dino through the vehicle of the written word.

Today is a cool case in point dudes.   Our pallies at goggle Dino-'lerts most recently send us to the media pad "The A.V. Club" where Miss Gwen Ihnat recently reviewed that silver screen dramatic Dino-classic "Toys In The Attic."  Well, if memory served us correct, we thoughts that we had posted some Dino-reviews from that stunnin' source below.  When we plugged "The A.V. Club" into the ol' ilovedinomartin search engine, we found that we had no only posted remarkable reviews from there before, but indeed 'nother post from Miss Ihnat who previously did a rad review of the Dino sex farce of sex farces, "Kiss Me Stupid."  If you clicks  HERE you will find ilovedinomartin's February 13, 2015 write up of said.

Today we feature Miss Ihnat's love affair with 'nother Dino big screen classic drama, "Toys In The Attic."  Gwen has not only a deep appreciation for this adaptation of Miss Lillian Hellman's play by the same name, but a deeply deep appreciation for our most beloved Dino as well.  Ihnat's words that we use to tag this particular post speaks volumes of her awesome amore of our main man,.." Martin channels his considerable charm and vulnerability into the part, visibly brightening the gloomy old house with his arrival."  She closes her review with yet 'nother nod of adulation for our Dino,.."But Toys In The Attic is worth seeking out, even if just to see Dean Martin’s greatest cinematic performance that’s not cowboy-related."

Once 'gain we sez our thank you very much to Miss Gwen Ihnat and all the pallies at "The A.V. Club" for puttin' their readership on to 'nother lesser known, but brightly brilliant Dino-flick.
To checks this out in it's original source, simply clicks on the tag of this here Dino-gram.  Deeply delighted in Dino,DMP

Toys In The Attic is hard to find, but worth the search

By Gwen Ihnat@gwenemarie

Oct 23, 2015 12:00 PM



Yvette Mimieux, Geraldine Page, Dean Martin

Toys In The Attic (1963)

Geraldine Page was coming off of two Tennessee Williams movies when she made Toys In The Attic in 1963, and must have felt right at home in another twisted Southern drama. This time, though, the drama was based on a Tony-nominated Lillian Hellman play, and featured family in a fatal brand of romance. Page starred as Carrie, who lives with her sister Anna (Wendy Hiller) in a crumbling old New Orleans house, where they wait for visits from their ne’er-do-well younger brother Julian, played by Dean Martin. Julian returns to town with an unstable young bride and a mysterious pile of cash, and as is so often the case in Southern gothic dramas, the stress of this visit causes long-buried family secrets and desires to flood to the surface.

The maniacal twists and turns of the script are fun to navigate, and Page proves why whole theaters are named after her. But the real revelation here is Martin, going toe-to-toe with the grand dame of the American stage. Hellman based Julian on her own father, a charismatic traveling salesman who was doted on by his two sisters. Martin channels his considerable charm and vulnerability into the part, visibly brightening the gloomy old house with his arrival. As the young bride, Yvette Mimieux is so lovely, it’s hard to believe she didn’t have a bigger career, and Gene Tierney makes the most of her brief appearance as Julian’s new mother-in-law, a New Orleans society force to be reckoned with.

The bond between the three siblings is the only family (and for the sisters, the only basic human contact) that they know. Toys In The Attic goes to great lengths to depict the downside of that much sibling isolation and devotion. George Roy Hill, directing only his second movie about a decade before winning the Oscar for The Sting, crafts the bleak camera angles and stark black-and-white contrasts as adeptly as any horror movie, which is actually what Toys transforms into. Carrie starts out fluffy and inconsequential but slowly becomes monstrous as her attachment to Julian consumes her. Julian is all brash and polish until his secretive sides are exposed. It’s such a master class in everything—acting, cinematography, screenwriting, yet its only Oscar nomination was for costume design—it’s hard to believe this movie appears to have fallen off the pop-culture landscape (give or take an Aerosmith title track). It shows up on TCM occasionally, but it’s not as readily available as some other classics from the era. But Toys In The Attic is worth seeking out, even if just to see Dean Martin’s greatest cinematic performance that’s not cowboy-related.

Availability: Toys In The Attic is available on DVD from Amazon and possibly your local video store/library.