TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Crisopera]

I think you can add Harrison Ford to the older-man group of "real movie stars." 

[MissT]

I think Robert Duvall is up there.  He's an excellent actor.   Remember he played Boo in To Kill A Mockingbird.  

I do like Tom Hanks.  I remember him starting out with Bosom Buddies.  

But I could also include Robert Redford. 

[Rinaldo]

I agree about Hanks, Redford (when he still chooses to work), Ford, Washington (who overlaps with Hanks a bit at the lower end of this age range). Not quite sure about Duvall as a star, though he's maybe the American actor I admire most. Has there ever been a boffo opening weekend for "the new Robert Duvall movie"? Maybe I'm forgetting something.

The point about Kevin Kline is that he never was a star in this sense at any age, not really. Like many another fine actor. He was in some hits, when part of certain ensembles (The Big Chill) and combinations. But there was no devoted following for him.

[Padma]

16 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

What does it mean to be a "big movie star" these days?   Who in Kline's age bracket (late 60s males) do you think currently qualifies? 

Would you think of anyone like Richard Dreyfuss or Bill Murray? It's funny some of the ones I thought of that are great actors but not box office draws are older than I thought--Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall both in mid-80s.  Al Pacino's 76 and Warren Beatty's 79.  Harrison Ford's one of the few big stars in that age group (74) who is still a box office favorite.  George Clooney is only 5 years younger than Hanks.

The mention of "The Big Chill" made me think of William Hurt. He was such a big star in the 1980s but then did one poorly received movie after another.  He's 66.  It's hard to think of someone who is in his early-to-mid sixties like Hanks and is not just a fine actor but also a "star" in the sense of being bankable as Hanks still is.

[Milburn Stone]

15 hours ago, Padma said:

The mention of "The Big Chill" made me think of William Hurt. He was such a big star in the 1980s but then did one poorly received movie after another.  He's 66. 

I really liked him in the season of Damages in which he was a major character (season 2, 2009). But I seem to recall stories/rumors about his being "difficult" on the set. Maybe that's why he hasn't done more?

Edited September 14, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[Inquisitionist]

Hurt's "fallow period" preceded Damages, didn't it?  I've seen almost all his movies from the 1980s, but the only 1990s film I've seen was One True Thing, and that wasn't because of him.  He seems to have made some odd choices, as this 1994 article documents.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Inquisitionist

[Rinaldo]

Huh, I'd pretty much forgotten about Hurt. In fact he's worked more often onscreen in recent years than I'd been aware of (which I suppose is indicative in itself), and presumably that's bringing in enough of an income to keep him going.

What look like "choices" to us bystanders may be less so to the actor -- if they want to keep working, they have to take (what seems to be) the best of what they get offered; I presume nobody starts out thinking "I want to make a piece of crap this year." And if you've been "difficult" on the set often enough (no matter how much a sympathetic director -- which not all directors are -- may understand is part of your process), that can be sufficient to slide you another slot down the list when TPTB are considering which actor in your age group to consider for a starring role. And in time, a less-than-starring role.

That 1994 article reminded me of a personal connection, once or twice removed. That movie Trial by Jury (which, despite hopeful thoughts in that article that it was "more commercial," opened small and vanished almost immediately; I had to hustle to catch it in a theater) had a friend of mine in the cast as one of the jurors -- more accurately, the brother of a friend. He reported that most of the cast seemed hard-working and concentrated on getting the job done, but Armand Assante and William Hurt were devoted to out-"actor's process" each other whenever they had a scene together, each determined to show everyone present what a devoted "real actor" they were. The term my friend used was "pecker-waving." (I'm normally reluctant to report such subjective gossip, but it's been 22 years and nobody cares about this movie anyway.)

[Inquisitionist]

18 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

...Armand Assante and William Hurt were devoted to out-"actor's process" each other whenever they had a scene together, each determined to show everyone present what a devoted "real actor" they were. The term my friend used was "pecker-waving." (I'm normally reluctant to report such subjective gossip, but it's been 22 years and nobody cares about this movie anyway.)

Bring it on!  This certainly sounds plausible.  :-)

[voiceover]

Sooooo...this had been a crap day.  

But I came home to I Married a Witch!!  Somebody up there loves me.

*looks heavenward*  Thanks, Dad.

[a few hours later] [looks around]

Wow, slow night, huh.

I will take this opportunity to ask if anyone here has joined the TCM Backlot program.  And if so, do you think it's worthwhile?

Edited September 16, 2016 by voiceover

[Crisopera]

Just watched a minor but interesting B-picture from MGM, Straight is the Way , about a man coming out of prison and trying to keep to the straight and narrow.  Mostly cliches, but the milieu is interesting - the Jewish Lower East Side (and it is specifically Jewish - the hero's name is Benny Horowitz).  However, the casting is hilarious - the Waspiest people to ever play tough Jews: Franchot Tone (the role played on Broadway by Paul Muni), May Robson, and Karen Morley.  

[prican58]

Another minor B picture The Covenant with Death. It's an early Gene Hackman performance, where George Maharis is the star, but I am liking the supporting cast....Whit Bissell, Arthur O'Connell, Katy Jurado, Earl Holliman, Lonny Chapman and Jose De Vega aka Chino in West Side Story!

Maharis was a good looking guy.

[Rinaldo]

On September 16, 2016 at 8:36 PM, prican58 said:

Another minor B picture The Covenant with Death. It's an early Gene Hackman performance, where George Maharis is the star, but I am liking the supporting cast....Whit Bissell, Arthur O'Connell, Katy Jurado, Earl Holliman, Lonny Chapman and Jose De Vega...

I love that sort of cast, where one is tempted to speculate how it got assembled. This morning my DVR gave me a title which may even surpass it: Wind Across the Everglades (1958), written by Budd Schulberg, directed by Nicholas Ray (famously fired during production). Starring Burl Ives and Christopher Plummer, with Gypsy Rose Lee, George Voskovec, Emmett Kelly, Chana Eden (that year's "exotic foreign newcomer"), Peter Falk, and MacKinlay Kantor. Who came up with that mix?

[mariah23]

2016 is relentless!  Charmaine Carr, aka "Leisl" has died.

[prican58]

On 9/18/2016 at 2:27 PM, Rinaldo said:

I love that sort of cast, where one is tempted to speculate how it got assembled. This morning my DVR gave me a title which may even surpass it: Wind Across the Everglades (1958), written by Budd Schulberg, directed by Nicholas Ray (famously fired during production). Starring Burl Ives and Christopher Plummer, with Gypsy Rose Lee, George Voskovec, Emmett Kelly, Chana Eden (that year's "exotic foreign newcomer"), Peter Falk, and MacKinlay Kantor. Who came up with that mix?

Chino is showing up everywhere! Jose De Vega in an obscure Robert Taylor western from 1967 Return of the Gunfighter. Well, either it's not him or he is uncredited b/c I don't see his name in imdb or wiki. Anyway, Taylor is practically unrecognizable without his mustache and he looks old but he was only 55 or so and died in 1969 of lung cancer.

It's amazing to think of how many actors of that era died of cancer and were heavy smokers. Besides him Ann Sheridan and Betty Grable died way before their time. Sad. Amazing that someone like Bette Davis smoked just as much but lived into her 80's. Cancer nonetheless but she lasted. Just goes to show that sometimes it's just luck/fate or whatever no matter what you do.

OMG, a pre Medical Center Chad Everett in this! He sure was pretty. 

Edited September 19, 2016 by prican58

[Rinaldo]

I love TCM for all the great movies it shows, but occasionally its scheduling includes a crummy, justly forgotten movie, and that can be fun too. I saw a couple recently.

The Island of Love (1963). Robert Preston and Tony Randall, both reliably pleasant to see, as con men trying first to shoot a movie, then to buy a Greek island and promote it as <title phrase>. It's a mess, as it keeps going on to different premises, none of them particularly funny or involving. Walter Matthau (pre-star) is in it, as are all available Greek-American actors, like Michael Constantine and Titos Vandis. Directed by Morton Da Costa, thereby answering two questions at once: 1, "What other movies did Morton Da Costa direct besides Auntie Mame and The Music Man?" and 2, "After two such successes, why didn't he go on to have a long successful career as a movie director?"

Return to Treasure Island (1954). I believe this showed up on a day with a "return" title theme. I dare say it'll be a long time before it shows up again. This is really the bottom of the lesser-half-of-50s-double-feature barrel. Modern-day Jamesina Hawkins (guess who she's a descendant of) has a map, or something, and various groups are descending upon said island to find the treasure left there. Tab Hunter has been stranded there for years too. Many wondrous things can be seen, like MST3K-worthy "I've just been hit by a bullet/arrow and I'm going to scream and fall!" acting by all crew members, framing of group conversations so no one is quite in shot, an inept sequence where our ingenue (Dawn Adams) is to be whipped but we never quite see or hear or understand it and I'm not sure it ever happened (misses whether as drama or titillation), and the magical dis- and re-appearance of Tab's shoes as he runs around the island, depending on which day they shot this bit (and how rocky this particular terrain is). They really don't make 'em like this any more, thank goodness.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Rinaldo

[Charlie Baker]

I must completely agree with Rinaldo about those two movies.  While the general ineptitude may qualify it, Return to Treasure Island doesn't even seem to have enough going of interest to sustain an episode of MST3k.  Maybe if one's thing is staring at a young shirtless Tab Hunter for an hour and ten minutes....

And like Rinaldo, I appreciate TCM for the opportunity to see items like these.  My recent one was Two Smart People. I read it was the last movie Lucille Ball did under her MGM contract.  She looks gorgeous and is paired with the very attractive John Hodiak.  They play a couple con artists who sort of stumble into each other's cons.  It was intended, I think, to be a hybrid of a romantic comedy and a noir and is basically just pretty boring.  Though Elisha Cook makes a good thug and the ever-reliable Lloyd Nolan is very effective as a cop out to bring Hodiak to justice.  This was directed by Jules Dassin, who went on to better things and display more directorial ability. The production is elaborate but the staging and pacing seem off.  The writing is also to blame, though.  

[Crisopera]

I just finished the novel "Now, Voyager," by the splendidly New-Englandly-named Olive Higgins Prouty, upon which the Bette Davis movie is based, and I thought it was excellent.  The movie is VERY faithful (except the pivotal car accident takes place in Italy, not South America), and a lot of the movie dialogue comes straight from the book.  The prose is slightly purple, but nothing terrible, and happily quite free of the casual, everyday racism that books of the period seem to be rife with. I feel quite motivated to search out her other books about the Vale family.  Worth a read if you love the movie the way I do.

[Charlie Baker]

I watched Stormy Weather last night for the first time in a long time.  It was part of a Bill Robinson evening.  The script is a slight backstager, and pairing Robinson with Lena Horne romantically was certainly a no go.  But there's so much talent in it, doing what they do best, the leads plus Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Ada Brown, Katherine Dunham and her dancers, the amazing Nicholas Brothers.  Plus it's remarkably stereotype free for a movie of its time. Fast and fun.

[Rinaldo]

I'm finally getting to some of my DVR backlog, and last night's viewing (from Olivia DeHavilland Day) was To Each His Own, an unabashed weepie ("woman's picture" as it would have been classed then) in the Madame X vein: in her heedless unwed youth she gave up her son, now in lonely embittered middle age she meets him again, and they finally connect and he realizes she is his mother, fade out.

The surprise is how well written and acted and directed (by Mitchell Leisen) it is. The recent past is one of the hardest to get right in movies, but the teens and 20s hair and clothing styles look very good to me, and I love the old-style wood-paneled pharmacy where our heroine's father worked. Her characterization is so much more interesting than usual for such melodrama: a nice small-town girl but really more interested in adventure and excitement than her neighbors expect from her. She gently turns down the local rich boy who likes her, but goes into a one-night stand with a visiting aviator-soldier with her eyes open. Lots of convincing little details all through (in ODH's acting too; she deserved her Oscar). Some nice tart bits from supporting players too. I see that John Lund has gotten some flak for his double role as father and son, but he seemed just right to me, and the doubling really works: when the son shows up in a crowd, not only his mother but we the audience instantly know who he is. Altogether a pleasurable experience.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Rinaldo

[Crisopera]

Couldn't agree more, Rinaldo.  This is one of all-time favorites, and the detailing you mention goes a long way towards giving it atmosphere.  Besides ODH and John Lund, I love the performance of Roland Culver, who also gives a wonderful performance in the hilarious On Approval.  As I've mentioned before, it's a pleasure to see a movie where the heroine is convincingly middle-aged, as old Hollywood usually gave us fifty-year-olds with white hair and a stoop.

[Rinaldo]

52 minutes ago, Crisopera said:

As I've mentioned before, it's a pleasure to see a movie where the heroine is convincingly middle-aged, as old Hollywood usually gave us fifty-year-olds with white hair and a stoop.

Absolutely! (Though with hindsight, we now know this isn't how de Havilland looked as she aged, it's still way better than the norm for old Hollywood, where adults always seemed to have ancient geezers for parents.) The book about Leisen reveals that they got to this realistic look in stages: at first they gave her a white wig, but when that didn't work right (it actually glamorized her), Leisen and his stylists thought it over and realized that a contemporary woman, especially one running a cosmetics empire, could retain her hair color if she chose. They just made sure the hair didn't look too shiny-glamorous, they made her figure just slightly stouter, and lit her less flatteringly (she really looks stunning in some of the flashback scenes).

I agree about Roland Culver (and On Approval too!); the specifics of his performance keep him from seeming too obvious a plot device. Among supporting actors, I'll also mention Alma Macrorie, by profession a film editor (and Leisen's regular one during this era), in her first acting role (of very few), warm and casual as the small-town lady who keeps having kids (sort of a Conchata Ferrell type), and Victoria Horne as the maternity nurse who moves into Jody's cosmetics business (sort of a Mary Wickes type).

[Milburn Stone]

To Each His Own was full of that skip-framing when I DVR'ed it. Unwatchable, which was disappointing, because I wanted to see it.

Now--before you can say "There he goes again"--I have one new thing to add. A few minutes ago I googled "TCM skip-framing on DirecTV" (or something like that), and lo and behold, look what came up:

http://forums.tcm.com/index.php?/topic/54925-picture-jumps-on-ch-256-direct-tv/

http://forums.tcm.com/index.php?/topic/58072-movies-are-skippingstuttering/

Two different threads on the TCM Message Board in which people have been complaining about exactly this issue for some time (occurs only with TCM, only on DirecTV), with no response from TCM.

What's it going to take, TCM?

[Milburn Stone]

This is a post on one of the threads on the TCM message board, from a professional, a video editor, who sees the problem and has the expertise to diagnose it. Unfortunately, since he doesn't work for TCM, he can't fix it. The problem dates to October of last year. 

Moderator:

To recap...

1. Movies skip/stutter like frames are lost.

2. Seems more prevalent on B&W movies.

3. Skipping +/- in the movie can sometimes cause it to stop, but if skip +/- again it will return (buffering?).

4. Appears to only happen on DirecTV DVRs.  Possibly only on HR24 models, maybe at a certain firmware level.

5. Only happens on the TCM channel.

6. Happens on multiple users throughout the country.

7. Happens on multiple TV brands.

8. DirecTV has monitored the feed, and sees it on the incoming signal.

9. Problem started in October of 2015.

My guess as to what's happening:

In October TCM changed the way they are encoding and/or container in some movies.  I'm guessing they increased the compression and/or decreased the bitrate.  The DirecTV HR24 is unable to cope with decoding the new coding/container method.  It can't decode the video fast enough, so skips frames.  If you play around with +/- timecode, you may get lucky and hit a buffering that allows the timing to work.  Bottom line -- TCM encoding is now incompatible with HR24 decoding.

I am a video editor, and can force this problem by trying to squeeze the size on a video by excessive compression and/or insufficient bit rate.

I, along with several others, think it's time TCM ponied up and implemented a correction to whatever they did in October of 2015.

[Padma]

14 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Edited September 28, 2016 by Padma

[prican58]

Watching Music For Millions with June Allyson, Margaret O'Brien and Jimmy Durante. Can anyone tell me what is the consensus re Durante? I personally love him. I remember him from his numerous tv appearances in the 60's/70's. To me he is just a damn fine entertainer. Somehow the schtick never gets old for me. Good for what ails you. 

I'm a sucker for your basic entertanment. 

[Rinaldo]

Is there ever a consensus on anyone? ☺ But I love him too. It's hard to imagine how he got famous in the first place, he was such a particular performance personality and delivery. But once he was in fact famous, he delivered reliably every time, essentially always "as himself." I'm discovering that he was also deeply entwined in the history of the stage musical. He was in original casts of musicals by Gershwin, Rodgers, and Porter, for instance. And in all those cases his presence was so valued that those eminent songwriters were happy to have him contribute some songs of his own. 

I too remember him from his TV show in my youth, although of course I had no idea of his history. "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

Edited September 28, 2016 by Rinaldo

[voiceover]

Giggling over Three Musketeers, and renewing my decades-long crush on Simon Ward -- one of those 70s Brits who classed up whatever joint in whatever picture he was in.

[Crisopera]

I love Durante too.  He just seems so...decent.  And funny.  His shtick just works for me.  I'm sure Red Skelton was a nice man also, but not funny at all, at least not to me.  I think we've discussed before how humor ages - some is just baffling to look back at nowadays.  There was a whole set of "ugly" women comedians in the 30s and 40s (Cass Daley comes to mind particularly) who just make me cringe to watch them.  Martha Raye and Judy Canova were probably the best known - and at least they could both sing.

[Rinaldo]

14 minutes ago, Crisopera said:

There was a whole set of "ugly" women comedians in the 30s and 40s (Cass Daley comes to mind particularly) who just make me cringe to watch them.  Martha Raye and Judy Canova were probably the best known - and at least they could both sing.

Yes, that whole phenomenon is worthy of a dissertation somewhere -- and has probably already had more than one. It's not a matter of our critiquing those women's appearances -- their main shtick was "I'm ugly."* It was an unfortunate strain in American humor that lasted a long time: into the 1960s and beyond there was Phyllis Diller (there was even a series created for her, The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, as if the title were inherently incongruous and hilarious; fortunately it bombed in record time), Joanne Worley worked this a bit on Laugh-In though she mostly got away from it (and she too was a genuine musical talent), and early Joan Rivers.

(*Not the same thing, but sociologically adjacent perhaps, and something I've noticed as a historian of musical theater, is how often the defining comedic characteristic of the "second woman" in classic musicals, "the funny one," is that she's sexually active/available. Her big song will be something like "I Cain't Say No," "The Love of My Life," "It's a Woman's Prerogative," "Always True to You (In My Fashion).")

[prican58]

Red Skelton was funny to me. I grew up watching his comedy show on CBS back in the 60's and loved his goofiness. Still do. I also have a soft spot for him because I knew of his personal heartache of losing a son to leukemia. He just seemed so accessible and so human when he would say "God Bless" at the end of each show. He was must see tv in our home. Even my Dominican grandma who didn't speak English enjoyed his show and used to call him La Viejita because he reminded her of a little old lady.   

I still use Durante's phrase "I got a million of 'em." when appropriate and only certain folks get the joke. 

[Sharpie66]

This reminds of my 7th grade speech/drama/journalism class. For the first portion, we had to do an interview in which we were both the interviewer and the interviewee, and the latter could be a real person or made up. As was typical, I was in lunchtime homeroom two hours before the class, frantically trying to come up with something to do. For some reason, fairy tales came to mind, so ?I started to run through the 7 dwarves' names. "Grumpy, Doc, Sleepy, Sneezy..." but instead of the last two, they came out "Sleazy," and the lightbulb popped up over my head. I interviewed "Sleazy, the unknown cousin of the Seven Dwarves," and I used the only impersonation I have ever been able to do, even at the age of 12--Mae West. Even in 1978, I think the only person who got the reference was the teacher, who nearly fell off her chair in the back of the room, she was laughing so hard. My classmates had no idea who I was supposed to sound like. 

My entendres were barely there at all, let alone double, but I still got an A on the assignment.

[prican58]

Sharpie, you slay me! 

[mariah23]

Hey guys, a little off-topic here, I'm in my final year of grad school and for my final assignment, I have to create an IMC campaign for a company of my choice.  I chose TCM as my company, but I can't decide what project I want to do for a campaign.  Something with Backlot, another film festival, something with the partnership with FilmStruck, I don't know.  I just want to pick your brains.

[Padma]

TCM's documentary "Role Model: Gene Wilder" just started--Wilder interviewed by a very low key Alec Baldwin. Just the two talking outdoors--some clips--and I love it already!

Edited September 30, 2016 by Padma

[voiceover]

Padma, I was just dropping in to discuss same!  Very enjoyable.

Gene talked about why he made the Willy Wonka character...well, kinda scary: because he was holding up a moral compass for his replacement, and he had to make sure that the chosen child had the right stuff.  I love that film & his performance, so that totally made sense to me.

And referencing the crazy of his Dr Frankenstein: he was releasing anger towards his 1st wife.  Of course.

If it's OnDemand, I highly recommend catching it if you missed it tonight.

mariah23, my first thought about TCM the company is their involvement in & support of film preservation.  

Edited September 30, 2016 by voiceover

[bluepiano]

On ‎9‎/‎28‎/‎2016 at 6:27 AM, Rinaldo said:

(*Not the same thing, but sociologically adjacent perhaps, and something I've noticed as a historian of musical theater, is how often the defining comedic characteristic of the "second woman" in classic musicals, "the funny one," is that she's sexually active/available. Her big song will be something like "I Cain't Say No," "The Love of My Life," "It's a Woman's Prerogative," "Always True to You (In My Fashion).")

What about Ann Miller singing "It's Too Darn Hot" in Kiss Me, Kate? As the second woman in a lot of movie musicals she was invariably more blatantly sexual than the female lead.

Edited October 3, 2016 by bluepiano

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, bluepiano said:

What about Ann Miller singing "It's Too Darn Hot" in Kiss Me, Kate? As the second woman in a lot of movie musicals she was invariably more blatantly sexual than the female lead.

I'm sure Ann Miller played that character niche in several movie musicals with songs to match, but I wouldn't use that song from Kiss Me, Kate as an example. (I already suggested "Always True to You (In My Fashion).") Lois is doing that number purely as a diegetic audition piece, with no character significance, and in the stage version the song isn't hers at all -- it's sung by the valet and his friends to open Act II.

[Jordan Baker]

As long as we're discussing Kiss Me, Kate, may I just say (and, yes, I know this is heresy) that I love the movie. I actually prefer it to the stage version. OK, Kathryn Grayson was miscast (IMO), and there are cheesy element galore. But all the minuses are offset by the incredible plus of the "From This Moment On" dance number, part (or maybe all) of which was choreographed by a young Bob Fosse. He was also one of the featured dancers. If you've never seen it, do. It's terrific.

[Rinaldo]

43 minutes ago, Jordan Baker said:

As long as we're discussing Kiss Me, Kate, may I just say (and, yes, I know this is heresy) that I love the movie. I actually prefer it to the stage version. OK, Kathryn Grayson was miscast (IMO), and there are cheesy element galore. But all the minuses are offset by the incredible plus of the "From This Moment On" dance number, part (or maybe all) of which was choreographed by a young Bob Fosse. He was also one of the featured dancers. If you've never seen it, do. It's terrific.

Point by point (wishing it were in person, so we could exchange opinionated grins and bang our beer steins decisively on the bar):

Love the movie: Many do!

Prefer it to the stage version: HERESY!!! ☺☺ 

Kathryn Grayson miscast: as she is in anything calling for a human being.

Cheesy elements: Actually I wouldn't be inclined to cite many of these (there are some, sure... like the vestiges of the 3-D it was designed for).

"From This Moment On": Yes yes yes!!!!! One of the great sequences in movie musical history, right up there with the best there's ever been. And a rare meeting of the three great dancer-juveniles of the era, Bob Fosse, Bobby Van, and Tommy Rall. Heaven. Everyone needs to see it, as Jordan Baker said.

But just to clarify, Bob Fosse definitely choreographed his portion (duet with Carol Haney), and we can see that already he knew what he liked. But not the number as a whole, the historical record is clear that it (like the rest of the movie's choreography is the work of Hermes Pan, a gentleman with other fine movie musicals to his credit. Clearly he tailored each of the three guys' segments to their respective strengths -- Fosse given control of his style as mentioned, Van as a regular hoofer type (tap et al), and Rall balletic. Again, just a fabulous few minutes.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Rinaldo

[voiceover]

Watch it, fellas.  Kiss Me, Kate is my all-time favorite movie musical (eh, it's neck & neck with Cabaret), and part of the reason is all that Grayson & Keel togetherness (love the inside-baseball photos on the piano of the two of them).  "Wunderbar" is the most enchanting of musical numbers, and by the time he sweeps her up into his arms, I'm always...just....gone.

[Rinaldo]

Just to prove I'm not a grinch, I feel the need to show (if only to myself) that there are tons of musicals that I love (just not KMK or anything with K*thr*n Gr**s*n): Love Me Tonight, Top Hat, Roberta, Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Broadway Melody of 1940, You Were Never Lovelier, Cover Girl, Meet Me in St. Louis, Summer Stock, Royal Wedding, Singin' in the Rain, Where's Charley?, The Band Wagon, The Beggar's Opera, Call Me Madam, A Star Is Born (1954), It's Always Fair Weather, My Sister Eileen, Funny Face, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, The Music Man, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Funny Girl, Oliver!, Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Tom Sawyer, The Slipper and the Rose, Hair, Little Shop of Horrors, Dick Tracy, Beauty and the Beast, Gypsy (1993), Chicago, Enchanted, Tangled, The Last Five Years, Into the Woods.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Rinaldo

[Wiendish Fitch]

Am I the only one who likes Kathryn Grayson in Kiss Me, Kate? Yeah, she was far from the best actress, but I thought she was great fun as snarky, temperamental Lily, and you can tell she's enjoying herself. I love her deadpan expressions throughout "Too Darn Hot".

[Sharpie66]

I always liked the two gangsters in the film. Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore are really hilarious, and I love their rendition of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"!

(BTW, in a Taming of the Shrew sidenote, I saw a production of it at the Globe in London back in 2012, and it really added something to the play by showing Bianca being even more of a bitch than Katherine in their first fight we see on stage, but as soon as their dad shows up, she immediately plays the cowering victim to Kate's shrew. The entire audience went "Ooooooooo!" at that.)

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Am I the only one who likes Kathryn Grayson in Kiss Me, Kate? 

No. When she sings "I Hate Men," I believe that she hates men. Even though from all accounts she didn't.

[NewDigs]

Okay, 'cuz I'm twelve. 

Edited October 4, 2016 by NewDigs

[Rinaldo]

Cole Porter counted on us all being twelve there.

It's odd that that line made it through the Hollywood censors -- I guess it was so far beyond the pale that nobody could acknowledge the possibility of a second meaning -- because otherwise the Kiss Me, Kate movie has the most thoroughly laundered lyrics in Hollywood history. Respectable-sounding lines that had been passed for the original-cast recording and for radio play (which were strict in their own way -- a few years later even My Fair Lady had to change lyrics for its cast recording) were deemed filthy by MGM. Like "Of course I'm awfully glad that mother had to marry father" or "His business is the 'business' that he gives his secretary." Nope. Too risqué.

[Jordan Baker]

7 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

I always liked the two gangsters in the film. Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore are really hilarious, and I love their rendition of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"!

Another of my favorite moments from the movie! And the fact that they could sing and even do a bit of dancing shows how versatile they were (as were so many actors back in the day). I mean, when you think Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore, song-and-dance doesn't immediately spring to mind. But they were great.

4 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Cole Porter counted on us all being twelve there.

It's odd that that line made it through the Hollywood censors -- I guess it was so far beyond the pale that nobody could acknowledge the possibility of a second meaning -- because otherwise the Kiss Me, Kate movie has the most thoroughly laundered lyrics in Hollywood history. Respectable-sounding lines that had been passed for the original-cast recording and for radio play (which were strict in their own way -- a few years later even My Fair Lady had to change lyrics for its cast recording) were deemed filthy by MGM. Like "Of course I'm awfully glad that mother had to marry father" or "His business is the 'business' that he gives his secretary." Nope. Too risqué.

I never knew MGM changed the lyrics. The things you learn on PTV! :)

[Rinaldo]

16 hours ago, Jordan Baker said:

I never knew MGM changed the lyrics. 

Kiss Me, Kate was pretty well known as a cast recording by that time, too, so even knowing their prudery I'm a bit surprised that MGM would find widely familiar songs so unacceptable. Lots of lines were changed in "Too Darn Hot," "I Hate Men," "Where Is the Life That Late I Led," "Always True to You," and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," maybe more. I can't think of another film adaptation that censored so many lyrics; one line (a semi-famous one, too) in "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan" in The Band Wagon, one or two in "Officer Krupke" in West Side Story (the cast recording and the film made different bowdlerizations of "schmuck"), can't think of many more.

Oh -- in The Music Man a spoken line that was too profane: the "tough kid" Tommy says "great honk" instead of "jeeley kly."

Edited October 5, 2016 by Rinaldo

[Charlie Baker]

I saw a couple Buster Keaton early talkies yesterday--Free and Easy and Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath. Both have the stagy, stilted quality of early sound movies, but they also have Buster's deadpan and his superb command of physical comedy, along with some snappy dialogue and farcical situations.  So I enjoyed them quite a bit. 

[LuciaMia]

Loved that Mary Pickford bio TCM had on last night. But when they said when she decided to end her movie career, I thought, Wait, wasn't she in "Night Of The Hunter"? Then realized I was confusing her with Lilian Gish! LOL