The best-ever baddie on screen
Had a really spectacular scene
Where he pushed a wheelchair
Off a really high stair –
Now what movie could that have been?

Something Russian? Can't recall the title.

Google leads me to say "Kiss of Death."

RogerBob tracked it down. It was Richard Widmark's first film role as the psychopath Tommy Udo. He later told the tale of the audition, where several actors had to play the scene where the wheelchair-bound old lady is sent to her death down the stairs. He claimed he got the part because he was the only one who laughed when he did it.

Ralph, I see what you mean. I think you are recalling the Odessa Steps sequence in Eisenstein's "The Battleship Potemkin", where a basketwork perambulator with a baby in it, trundles down to its doom in front of the advancing soldiers.

I like to think Henry Hathaway had Eisenstein in mind when he filmed the wheelchair scene.

I just treated myself to an hour and half of pure enjoyment. I watched the film again and if anything it's even better than I remember.

I had forgotten the relentless jigsaw of it, separated by the the uncompromising fast fades to black. I still found I couldn't breathe till Nettie got on the train, terrified she'd miss it. I still salivated over the Art Nouveau architecture of my dream New York.

I enjoyed my time there. You come, too?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgfsdfR4h0I

It's about time I emerged, blinking, into the twenty-first century. I've made this sound a bit boring, but I liked it a lot.

A visitor hits town one day
And a posh man invites him to stay.
Each thinks he would rather
Have lived like the other
But both have to go their own way.

Johnny Hallyday?

Manesquier: I have always wanted to be a silent onlooker.

Though he's offering help you can use,
Be careful because he may choose
Someday to demand
That you lend him a hand
With a favor you cannot refuse.

Strangers on a Train?

Not the one I had in mind, but your guess might be a better fit.

Black ladies work hard for rich white ’uns,
and some of the latter are right ’uns!
The former can’t use
their spoilt bosses’ loos;
but in parts of the film the mood lightens.

The Help...?

Yes, Annie. A wonderful book, ...and a great film which fully did it justice.

It was the first, and only, film I've ever seen at the cinema on my own. What a liberating experience that was!! (I'm rather loath to add that it was a Senior Citizens cheap Wednesday morning showing, complete with a free cup of tea and a biscuit. I was so desperate to watch the film that I didn't care!)

Jayne

Rog-Bob

"Leave the gun take the cannoli."

Aha! Our Jayne's male counterpart?

Though the jungle has driven him daft
And brutality’s left him unstaffed,
He’s full of bravado;
‘I’ll find Eldorado
Alone from this crappy old raft!’

Werner Herzog, eh, Rob? "I am the wrath of God"?

Oh you're good!

This might be as bad as one fears
the whole thing could go on for years—
a lot of old movies,
salivating old groovies,
and boring an audience to tears.

As one of the handful of hoaries
enjoying this telling of stories,
I address Mr Hayes:
If you don't like our ways
Then fuck off. You know where the door is.

Oh dear, how this lady obsesses
and inadvertently lets down her tresses,
resorts to obscenities
with no other amenities
which is not a surprise. One confesses.

No, she stands with her hands on her hips
As she stares with keen eyes and pursed lips
At the man who gatecrashed
And whose toecaps got splashed
As he thoughtlessly pissed on her chips.

Mz Drysdale if I may intrude,
and forgive me if this might seem rude
but what you think is witty
I find remarkably longwinded, boring, crude and even I might say, ‘twitty’—
an apposite word to conclude.

But Jim, what it's all done and said,
It might have been nice if instead
Of hurling derision
You'd made a decision
To simply stop reading the thread.

Indeed, you swanned in and destroyed
A game I’d thereunto enjoyed
By applying, I fear,
A gratuitous sneer.
I was more than a little annoyed.

I would like to see this movie.

To irritate philistine sorts,
I’m now having serious thoughts
About trying to do
‘Un Chien Andalou’,
Or even ‘A Zed and Two Noughts’.

The moment I posted I knew it
the chances were high that I’d rue it
but it was Halloween
there now,— I’ve come clean
‘‘twas a devil within made me do it.

C’mon Ann, don’t tell me it’s only the sensitive souls were let loose this year, the idea for a bit of fun became irresistible after a glass ( or two) of good wine and in truth if the chance presented itself I’d probably do it again.
Gawd, it’s not like I’m the Man from Porlock
and I interrupted some
piece of significant
writing or anything
like that
mutter mutter.,.,

Walter, If I had the cash, I'd finance it.

It’s for a mature audience- you guys will have to wait a while.

She once wrote a letter to Daddy
But now she is old and quite mad, she
Serves up a rat
In a sisterly spat
Hail Bette, the crazed-biddy baddie!

Yes, whatever did happen to her?

She instigated the "Psycho-biddy" sub-genre. Also charmingly known as "Hagsploitation". :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-biddy

The conman who coughs, his leg's gammy
The hustler, the song (won a Grammy!)
It's homoerotic,
Warholian, chaotic
And you'll cry on that bus to Miami

Ah, Ratso!

"I'm walking here!" :D

Young Henry had wanted to be
a gangster from aged about three
His friends can't be trusted
So he has them all busted
"What the fuck is so funny 'bout me?"

Well, "it's better than being President of the United States".

Paraphrase of Post 109:

When wine sets my keyboard on sore-lock,
I blame my interior warlock
     for making me trollish.
     But even un-drollish,
I'm better than strawmen from Porlock.