Rinaldo

Last night (Wednesday) the theme was Shakespeare, a very welcome one for me. (Some of my friends have managed to see all 39 plays onstage; I'm at about half that, though I've seen some of those in multiple productions.) These were a nice varied choice too, 4 different decades and two each from Hollywood and UK. I'm well familiar with all of these, and for most of them watched only to see whatever intros and postludes they supplied. The two that come first chronologically aren't favorites of mine: this is probably a majority opinion in the case of the MGM Romeo and Juliet (with the proviso that it's beautifully designed and staged, and that several of the supporting players are admirable -- for me, that includes John Barrymore's fascinatingly old-school Mercutio), but not the Olivier Hamlet. Laurence Olivier himself is always worth a careful watch in whatever he filmed, but I'm unconvinced by his eviscerating of the play while allowing long wordless sequences of camera movement. He gave it a look and feel all its own, for sure, but one that I can't buy -- even in this abbreviated version, Hamlet is not "the story of a man who could not make up his mind." Of the participants, I especially like Stanley Holloway as the Gravedigger and William Walton, the composer. But I think Kenneth Branagh and even, in his oddball way, Franco Zeffirelli captured more of the play on film; and Olivier directed better films of Shakespeare earlier, with the fabulous Henry V (possibly my favorite 1940s movie, even with the irresistible competition from Hollywood in that decade), and later, with the highly entertaining Richard III. What a shame he didn't get to film his legendary Macbeth, which he played onstage with Vivien Leigh. No quibbles about the Branagh Henry V, not better than the Olivier but equal to it, and with a wonderful cast top to bottom. And I've changed my mind in my old age about the Mankiewicz Julius Caesar. Despite its mixture of acting styles -- Gielgud's classic rhetoric, Brando's inner-directed focus, Mason's quiet command of the camera -- it works for me. A fitting conclusion to the evening.

@EtheltoTillie, I think we were intended to catch on a little earlier than she (but only a little). At least, that's how it worked out for me. Maybe you did better than I did.

Mostly because of @Charlie Baker's recommendation, I've just caught up with Woman [not "Women" as my onscreen guide would have it] on the Run. I don't automatically fall down and admire every noir that comes along, but this was a good one. And different from others, being in large part the story of a woman's rediscovery of her love for her husband, and being shot mostly on location in San Francisco. The mixing of the final streak of suspense with a character being trapped on a roller coaster feels a bit like a Hitchcock setpiece, and the fadeout does feel (as our hosts said) a bit Wellesian. I'm very glad I saw it.

Tony (or Anthony, as he was billed until around 1970) had an extensive Broadway career, beginning as the guy who dated or was married to "the girl" in the typical light comedies of those years (with the true lead role being her put-upon father, as in Take Her She's Mine, Never Too Late, Don't Drink the Water). Often he was a replacement later in the run, taking over for Robert Redford in Barefoot in the Park, for Jerry Orbach in Promises Promises, for Robert Klein in They're Playing Our Song, and much later for Jason Alexander's narrator/multicharacter role in Jerome Robbins' Broadway. I think the only time I actually saw him onstage was in Sugar, the musical adaptation of Some Like It Hot in 1972. He and Robert Morse were supposedly equal-billed as the men who join the all-girl band, but Morse was shamelessly playing to the audience as Daphne, so Roberts inevitably faded into the background a bit by staying in character as Jo. He kept going on Broadway (and surely acted on other stages too) to 2009, in a full range of roles from farce to classic drama (Chekhov), musicals and boulevard comedies, specifically Jewish (Sisters Rosensweig, Cabaret) or not. Never quite a star (despite getting some leading roles), he leaves a considerable legacy.

I remember when I first became aware of Gene Hackman (Bonnie and Clyde and then I Never Sang for My Father), I said something like, "He's such a good actor, and he'll probably never have a big career because he doesn't 'look like a movie star'." Wow, I'm an amazing predictor, huh? 🙄 I do that kind of idiocy again and again; I remember also recalling "Farrah Fawcett was promoted as the Big New Thing in Myra Breckinridge... boy, that's a career that went nowhere" (and two months later Charlie's Angels happened), and "I keep seeing Don Johnson in these nothing movies, I guess the ship has sailed on the possibility of stardom for him" (and the following year we got Miami Vice), and "That Ted Danson was memorable in his bits in The Onion Field and Body Heat, and he's not bad-looking, but apparently he's never going to make that step to leading roles" (you guessed it; immediately after I said it, Cheers). I take pride in being the worst predictor ever.

Oh, but I can't be bummed by the return of 31 Days of Oscar! https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programming Article/021882/31-days-of-oscar This year, as catalogued in the article, it's yet another method of organization: shared nomination category during the day, shared character category evenings and overnight. I'm especially looking forward to Oscar-Worthy [I refuse to give up my hyphen for compound adjectives] Prostitutes, Patients, Alcoholics, and Heiresses. I'm ready and waiting.

I can't recall details, but I seem to remember that there have been some similar instances. (Aside of course from "Noir Alley," which gives us a preview of Sunday morning's feature the night before.) In some cases a title that they've procured fits two different days' themes, so they use it for both. Waste not, want not.

I've seen only short bits of it as yet, but I thought the 5-host New Year's Eve worked out rather well. Seeing our hosts spending time together, sharing their pleasure in movies that we generally don't get to see them talk about... (I know they all present all sorts, but Eddie and Jacqueline especially do have their special niches on the air), that was fun. Maybe I'm a pushover, but It did feel like a bit of a party to me.

Apologies -- I know it can be disappointing to be told that one's favorite opinions aren't controversial after all 😉 , but I think you'd find that there are loads of people who love "Winter Was Warm," me among them. It (like the rest of Mr. Magoo's score) is the work of the same formidable team that did the score for Funny Girl, after all: Jule Styne and Bob Merrill. And it's received other recordings after the original one. Here's a lovely version by the great Victoria Clark:

For me too! I was going to mention him, but that message was getting self-indulgently long, and I tried to edit it down. But in my first draft I listed him alongside the other 4 actors I named. Mr. Magoo did a serious job there (and had a surprising amount of authentic Dickens dialogue to work with). It doesn't spoil it, but I do have a genuine question about his version: why did they put Christmas Present first? I've never seen any background info that answers that.

I'm addicted to comparing film (or video) versions of the Shakespeare plays, which I started reading at an early age. The Hamlets, for instance, all cast different light on what their makers found important, and I can jump around happily among half a dozen versions. There are an astonishing number of Midsummer Night's Dreams, all remarkably different from each other, and there's fun to be had in most of them (my own personal favorite, if pressed, is the Glyndebourne video of Benjamin Britten's opera, but that's just me). 40 years ago we had no films of Much Ado About Nothing; now we have two good ones. With Romeo and Juliet it gets especially complicated, because there's so much more text in the play than any film wants to (or should?) retain. The Zeffirelli got to me at the ideal age, and I still like to revisit it, but I can see its faults (like the dead studio sound of some of the post-dubbing -- like many Italian films it largely gave up on getting the sound right on location, and had the actors rerecord their lines after the fact, not always perfectly synced, let alone given proper distance perspective). The old MGM version is pretty much DOA, but it is at least beautiful in terms of design and B&W cinematography, and John Barrymore's Mercutio gives us a wonderful glimpse of a previous generation's stage style. There's also a sumptuous 1954 version directed by Renato Castellani, with a vivid Romeo from Laurence Harvey, some British stalwarts in support, costume designs based on Renaissance painting, and lots of Italian locations (looking much cleaner than a decade later for F.Z.). Luhrmann's adaptation is well known enough not to need description from me. The BBC "Complete Shakespeare" version uses by far the most complete text, but for me never really comes to life. I also discovered a 2013 film that I somehow never heard about at the time, with Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet. Apparently the fact that the screenplay includes additional lines by Julian Fellowes provided some critics with an easy chance to take cheap shots at it, as if nobody had ever taken a new look at the over-familiar plays before. I found it effective and entertaining, and Fellowes's embellishments intelligently conceived.

I do understand the sentiment (I fell for the movie on first run, and still love it), but I do think we have to give Zeffirelli his credit. The look and flow of it are his (OK, the music is Nino Rota's), and appealing as the stars are, they never made the same impression onscreen again.

I had a good time this month rummaging around on different services and channels and watching all the Christmas Carol versions I could find. One of the pleasures of the project was find that they could all coexist; almost all of them had virtues absent in another version. There are a number of excellent portrayals of Scrooge: Alistair Sim, George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine are all very fine, and each finds different legitimate facets to stress. I do still think there's room for another film that puts a priority on bringing to life exactly what Dickens wrote; the book is short enough that the goal might be attainable. I don't think the departures are criminal or anything, but I have yet to see, for example, the weird SF-like Christmas Past of the novella. On the whole, with due deference to many others, my heart remains with the 1984 George C. Scott telefilm, his Ebenezer being the most pleased with his own sarcastic wit (right out of the book -- Scrooge is constantly punning and one-upping in his interactions), and the cast of British eminences being top-tier. But others will have their own favorites.

Of the Martin & Lewis films, one, the 1954 Living It Up, is of some interest to TCM addicts, because it's a gender-flipped remake of the 1937 comedy Nothing Sacred, by way of the 1953 Broadway musical Hazel Flagg, with Lewis in the Carole Lombard role (Homer Flagg instead of Hazel Flagg). Janet Leigh takes over the Fredric March role, retaining the name Wally Cook. Dean Martin sings a couple of the Jule Styne songs from the musical, and Martin & Lewis together sing the best-remembered number, "Every Street's a Boulevard in Old New York." It's just such a bizarre circumstance that this happened: Paramount bought the rights to a musical, and unlike most such cases when the musical bombs (only archival fanatics like me remember it), went ahead and actually made the movie, with two of their biggest stars. Here's the big number:

Carol Burnett's "The Lady Heir" sketch (after The Heiress, of course) was a special delight to me for two reasons. 1, it happens that I'd never seen it before. 2, it served (as the best parodies can) as an act of criticism of the source material. Please understand: I'm very fond of The Heiress -- I'm touched by it in the intended way, and I admire the writing, acting, direction, everything. Still, a furtive bit of me thinks that Catherine could have reacted in other ways. She might have had a final satisfying confrontation with him and told him what she thought. Or she could have reacted less self-destructively and decided that even if this gentlemen turned out to be a cad, someone else might not and she should keep a positive attitude. Or she could be pragmatic and decide, "He's going to be careful to treat me well and keep me happy, and I might as well fool myself with him as with someone else." Or of course she could do what Catherine did in this sketch.