TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[voiceover]

Okay: you Hitchcock fans get in here & lecture me about why I should force myself to overpay for the Fandango showing of North by Northwest.

[ratgirlagogo]

On 3/30/2017 at 10:57 PM, Padma said:

And that "student" line -was- pretty funny, though unintentionally so. It was pretty over the top and campy. 

It was intentionally funny IMO - of course she was fucking Claude Rains and of course he was paying for everything.  And of course he was (in the film storyline) the most famous living composer, as opposed to poor little Paul Henreid, a mere performer of music.   And of course this movie is campy and over the top!  I think it might be the only possible way of playing it.  

As far as Bette being sympathetic, one of the main things I like about this movie is that she isn't.  As Hollenius (Claude Rains' character) says about her - she'd be a great woman if only she possessed the quality of courage.  This is kind of the key to the film. She can't woman up and face the consequences of her romantic decisions.  She's more willing to murder than to be honest.  Which is where I think sometimes campy films succeed - in this case, although the film as a whole is not realistic, emotionally it IS realistic.   Women and men cheat on their partners and say they don't want to own up to it because they don't want to "hurt the other person."  Bullshit.  They don't want to deal with the fallout from the other person's reaction.

Edited April 1, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[harrie]

4 hours ago, voiceover said:

Okay: you Hitchcock fans get in here & lecture me about why I should force myself to overpay for the Fandango showing of North by Northwest.

We see that stuff through Fathom Events at a local theater, and the ticket is $8.45.  

[voiceover]

54 minutes ago, harrie said:

We see that stuff through Fathom Events at a local theater, and the ticket is $8.45.  

Yeah, not really what I was asking, the "overpay" being smartass (I paid more, and gladly, for All About Eve last month).

That's why I was summoning fans of the movie; because to me it's more along the lines of a Duty Film.

[Padma]

5 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

It was intentionally funny IMO - of course she was fucking Claude Rains and of course he was paying for everything.  And of course he was (in the film storyline) the most famous living composer, as opposed to poor little Paul Henreid, a mere performer of music.   And of course this movie is campy and over the top!  I think it might be the only possible way of playing it.  

As far as Bette being sympathetic, one of the main things I like about this movie is that she isn't.  As Hollenius (Claude Rains' character) says about her - she'd be a great woman if only she possessed the quality of courage.  This is kind of the key to the film. She can't woman up and face the consequences of her romantic decisions.  She's more willing to murder than to be honest.  Which is where I think sometimes campy films succeed - in this case, although the film as a whole is not realistic, emotionally it IS realistic.   Women and men cheat on their partners and say they don't want to own up to it because they don't want to "hurt the other person."  Bullshit.  They don't want to deal with the fallout from the other person's reaction.

I thought Bette had plenty of courage (and wasn't he kind of proven wrong at the end?) I thought she lacked compassion. But, it -was- kind of cool to watch a movie where no one was likeable (I always like Rains, but he was the bad guy). And Henreid wasn't "just a performer". He wasn't a genius like Rains (and the line of contempt Rains gave for Henreid--the idea of how could a mere performer, not a creator, ever be a genius? -- was good. But... Paul was supposed to be an artist, not just a performer (that was the poor shlub in the orchestra.) 

I really appreciate your discussion and spirited defense of this movie! I don't know anyone whose seen it IRL and I'm still thinking about it because I think I changed my feelings about Bette Davis realizing that, in quite a few of her films, I'm not the "fan" I thought.   It's pretty OTT so viewed as enjoyable camp makes sense.  If its On Demand I may watch again with lowered expectations.

1 hour ago, voiceover said:

Yeah, not really what I was asking, the "overpay" being smartass (I paid more, and gladly, for All About Eve last month).

That's why I was summoning fans of the movie; because to me it's more along the lines of a Duty Film.

Well, the best I've got is that after reading your thoughts about seeing "All About Eve", I'm reconsidering not going to "North by.." I didn't go to "Eve" because, while it's one of my favorites, I just know it too well. Even seeing it in a theater for the first time, I thought I'd be bored because...I just know it too well.

But after reading your comments--all the new things you noticed--I reevaluated. It was too late to see "Eve", but I'm reconsidering "North by" which I was going to miss for the same reason--I just know it too well. Still, I'm sure I'd notice new things, as you said, and its a fun film--fun to see all the principles (Grant, Mason, Saint and--I'll add in Martin Landau whose also a favorite) bigger than lifesize (for the first time).   And its a very visually striking film -- lots of "cinematic scenes", with interesting use of color, that I'm sure are done much greater justice seen on the big screen. 

But you say its like a "duty" which makes it seem you're not a fan of the film. I think it's a fun movie, one of Hitchcok's more entertaining and romantic ones. Great for popcorn!  The only drawback for me is just whether it would be too familiar or that just being shown on the big screen, as originally intended, would add something special enough to make it seem fresh.

[voiceover]

6 minutes ago, Padma said:

Well, the best I've got is that after reading your thoughts about seeing "All About Eve", I'm reconsidering not going to "North by.." I didn't go to "Eve" because, while it's one of my favorites, I just know it too well. Even seeing it in a theater for the first time, I thought I'd be bored because...I just know it too well.

But after reading your comments--all the new things you noticed--I reevaluated. It was too late to see "Eve", but I'm reconsidering "North by" which I was going to miss for the same reason--I just know it too well. Still, I'm sure I'd notice new things, as you said, and its a fun film--fun to see all the principles (Grant, Mason, Saint and--I'll add in Martin Landau whose also a favorite) bigger than lifesize (for the first time).   And its a very visually striking film -- lots of "cinematic scenes", with interesting use of color, that I'm sure are done much greater justice seen on the big screen. 

But you say its like a "duty" which makes it seem you're not a fan of the film. I think it's a fun movie, one of Hitchcok's more entertaining and romantic ones. Great for popcorn!  The only drawback for me is just whether it would be too familiar or that just being shown on the big screen, as originally intended, would add something special enough to make it seem fresh.

Padma to the rescue!?

Actually, I saw the movie as a kid, and nothing stuck -- not like The Birds, which terrified me.  Sooo, I was dragging my feet, even at the thought of 3-story Cary (eh, give me His Girl Friday! I'll buy out the freakin' theater).

But.  You like it.  And there's the thought of that Mt Rushmore sequence on the big screen.  Could be awesome.

[harrie]

9 hours ago, voiceover said:

Yeah, not really what I was asking, the "overpay" being smartass (I paid more, and gladly, for All About Eve last month).

That's why I was summoning fans of the movie; because to me it's more along the lines of a Duty Film.

Yeah, I know.  

Just my opinion, but a lot of the TCM Classics titles this year feel like Duty Films, as you put it.  That being said, the only reason I'm not going to NXNW today is because I had knee replacement surgery two weeks ago, and getting to the theater would be an exhausting ordeal.  As you have noted about other classic films seen on the big screen, you notice things you hadn't seen before, which I usually enjoy even if I'm "meh" on a flick.  Ultra-shallow person that I am, I would also like to experience the Cary Grant vs. plane scene on the big screen. 

[voiceover]

Here's the last article Robert Osborne wrote for the TCM site; this one about April's "Star of the Month": character actors.

As thrilled as I was to see both the article & the April theme, I'm almost as bummed to note that one of my favorites is missing -- a woman who fulfills all the requirements of what a character actor does, as listed by Robert.

Where's Mary Boland???

The greatest of all the Mrs Bennetts (who am I kidding -- she laps that field!), and her Countess from The Women is just delish.

Robert's gone on record as saying his favorite movie line is "Bolt the door, Maria!" from The Heiress.  Mine is from Boland's Pride & Prejudice ("I am afraid, Mr Darcy, that the honour of standing up with you is more than I can bear!"), but #2 was memorably uttered by Boland herself in The Women: 

"Bring me a bromide!...and put some gin in it!"

-- a little something I love to drop into a convo when I've had a day.

[3pwood]

4 minutes ago, voiceover said:

Here's the last article Robert Osborne wrote for the TCM site; this one about April's "Star of the Month": character actors.

As thrilled as I was to see both the article & the April theme, I'm almost as bummed to note that one of my favorites is missing -- a woman who fulfills all the requirements of what a character actor does, as listed by Robert.

Where's Mary Boland???

The greatest of all the Mrs Bennetts (who am I kidding -- she laps that field!), and her Countess from The Women is just delish.

Robert's gone on record as saying his favorite movie line is "Bolt the door, Maria!" from The Heiress.  Mine is from Boland's Pride & Prejudice ("I am afraid, Mr Darcy, that the honour of standing up with you is more than I can bear!"), but #2 was memorably uttered by Boland herself in The Women: 

"Bring me a bromide!...and put some gin in it!"

-- a little something I love to drop into a convo when I've had a day.

Toujours, l'amour!

[Rinaldo]

15 minutes ago, voiceover said:

Where's Mary Boland???

I was going to pipe in with "She was too much of a star to qualify" (she really was -- on Broadway, a musical could sell out in advance on her name and would need to close when she finally left the cast because audiences weren't interested without her). But I see that Mr. Osborne allowed for that by describing many of his choices as "character stars," which fits her. So I suppose we have to chalk it up to what he said: you can't include everyone in a limited selection. And with Billie Burke and Spring Byington on the list (Florence Bates is really a different shtick), he did have the "dithery dowager" Fach covered.

[Rinaldo]

The Manchurian Candidate: Love it love it love it. It was one of the first DVDs I bought. I was glad that Ben M. debunked the legend that the film was unviewable for decades, though he could have gone further still: it didn't just air on TV a couple of times, it was in rotation at the revival movie houses in those cities that had one -- I saw it at the Circle Theatre in DC in the mid 1970s. It also was nice of him not to take cheap shots at the remake (it doesn't begin to compare with the original, but it's not despicably made, just misguided). But how can one talk about the movie and not mention Angela Lansbury's performance??

[Padma]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

The Manchurian Candidate: Love it love it love it. It was one of the first DVDs I bought. I was glad that Ben M. debunked the legend that the film was unviewable for decades, though he could have gone further still: it didn't just air on TV a couple of times, it was in rotation at the revival movie houses in those cities that had one -- I saw it at the Circle Theatre in DC in the mid 1970s. It also was nice of him not to take cheap shots at the remake (it doesn't begin to compare with the original, but it's not despicably made, just misguided). But how can one talk about the movie and not mention Angela Lansbury's performance??

The one Sinatra had pulled because of the Kennedy assassination was "Suddenly", although I would have understood it if he had for this one, too. As for Sinatra in the film, I know he was a "one, maybe you-could-sometimes-get-two-takes" kind of actor but, even so, did he ever give a bad performance? He played such a variety of characters in such a range of films and I remember him as so good in everything.

Lansbury was even more chilling than I remembered her, probably because, in often working late, I have on "Murder, She Wrote" where she's utterly likeable in every way as mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher. I'm glad they minimized the physical contact between mother and son from what was in the book, though, and Frankenheimer still made her completely loathesome.  Great film and after 45 years it still feels fresh and relevant. 

[3pwood]

14 hours ago, Padma said:

... Great film and after 45 years it still feels fresh and relevant. 

As it should.

[voiceover]

Another Howard Keel "Hummana hummana!" performance in Calamity Jane.  Not on my favorites list, but likeable enough, esp with Keel's Wild Bill & that "Deadwood Stage" number, which I always find myself warbling for the next 24 hours ("Whip crack-a-way, whip crack-a-wayyyyy....").

And there's the frenemy subplot between the two women.  Nicely handled, nicely solved.  Doris Day has such a sweet moment of heartbreak, I forgive her the occasional overdoing of the tomboy thang.  There's the fact that Bill -- while appreciating Jane in the evening gown, loved her as she was.  And she knew it!  The day after they become engaged, she's cleaned up, sure; but in buckskin trousers.

Unfortunately, the first time I heard "Secret Love", Freddie Fender was warbling it on my AM radio.  And I can't get past that.

[prican58]

Watching the Faye Dunaway interview and I must say I am impressed. Ben is committed to it and clearly a fan of hers . She comes off as very intelligent and humble. I really must go over her films again because she is one actress that I maybe don't go out of my way for. Kudos to Ben.

Ben talks about how 1967 (Bonnie & Clyde) through 1977 or so was a seminal or in fact THE seminal decade of film making and I kind of believe him. The Classic 30's-40's films are great but this decade really had so many acting and directing giants. Faye, Jane, Ellen Burstyn, Rowlands and tons more along with Hackman, Hoffman, Nicholson, etc and Lumet, Pollack, Jewison (I know I am spelling this wrong) Coppolla and it is mind boggling, really. 

I think it's time TCM widens the net even more than they have. To many of us late Boomers these folks were our superstars and they should be celebrated as much as our studio system faves.

Oooh, Gold Diggers of 1933 Tuesday at 8. I do love this movie. Joanie Blondell. Love. Her.

I have lately been rediscovering Ann Sothern. Any fans? 

[PaulaO]

My hide is quite chapped.   Now Playing lists "Of Human Bondage" early Tuesday but the on screen guide has a different line up.  I've never seen OHB and was so looking forward to it.  Le sigh.

[prican58]

I'm guessing it's the Bette Davis OHB, PaulaO ?

[ratgirlagogo]

1 hour ago, prican58 said:

I have lately been rediscovering Ann Sothern. Any fans? 

Oh, I love her.  Maisie! Maisie! Maisie! 

[voiceover]

2 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

Oh, I love her.  Maisie! Maisie! Maisie! 

Which begs a question you knew I'd ask: favorite Maisie?

[PaulaO]

10 hours ago, prican58 said:

I'm guessing it's the Bette Davis OHB, PaulaO ?

But of course!

[bmoore4026]

This morning and afternoon, they're showing movies based on classic novels, including Billy Budd.  Question: Does anyone feel queasy  during the last thirty minutes or so of the film, what with the whole trial and all that?

[SeanC]

Another Part of the Forest, the prequel to The Little Foxes released seven years after the film, is a case of diminishing returns, since it hits many of the same basic story beats, just with an overall less dynamic cast and direction.  Though, ironically, the one returning castmember is the least successful part of the movie -- casting Dan Duryea as Oscar struck me as an interesting notion when I read about it, since I thought it would be an opportunity to show him playing a really different sort of character, but instead what they do is make the young Oscar act exactly like Leo, which doesn't fit at all.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, bmoore4026 said:

This morning and afternoon, they're showing movies based on classic novels, including Billy Budd.  Question: Does anyone feel queasy  during the last thirty minutes or so of the film, what with the whole trial and all that?

I'm not sure what is being asked. Queasy, for what reason? It's a disturbing scene, deliberately so I would think, and a disturbing and enigmatic book. It's hard to figure out (as those who've written about it agree, or demonstrated by their disagreement with each other) just what Melville was getting at with all this, and maybe he didn't quite know himself. Ustinov's film takes perhaps too straight and simple a view of it all (Capt. Vere, as he writes and acts him, is a much more benevolent figure than the curiously swift-to-judgment figure in the book, when even his officers are in favor of mercy), but even so, he can't quite make it go down easily. Benjamin Britten's opera (with E.M. Forster as librettist) takes yet another view of the story, and is in turn susceptible to more than one interpretation in performance.

(All of this is further complicated by the novella's odd history, discovered only after Melville's death, edited and published in a version that was later repudiated by Melville researchers and republished -- simultaneously with the release of this film -- in a substantially different form. But this doesn't bear directly on the play, opera, or movie, all of which had to take the book as they found it.)

[bmoore4026]

10 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

I'm not sure what is being asked. Queasy, for what reason? It's a disturbing scene, deliberately so I would think, and a disturbing and enigmatic book. It's hard to figure out (as those who've written about it agree, or demonstrated by their disagreement with each other) just what Melville was getting at with all this, and maybe he didn't quite know himself. Ustinov's film takes perhaps too straight and simple a view of it all (Capt. Vere, as he writes and acts him, is a much more benevolent figure than the curiously swift-to-judgment figure in the book, when even his officers are in favor of mercy), but even so, he can't quite make it go down easily. Benjamin Britten's opera (with E.M. Forster as librettist) takes yet another view of the story, and is in turn susceptible to more than one interpretation in performance.

(All of this is further complicated by the novella's odd history, discovered only after Melville's death, edited and published in a version that was later repudiated by Melville researchers and republished -- simultaneously with the release of this film -- in a substantially different form. But this doesn't bear directly on the play, opera, or movie, all of which had to take the book as they found it.)

It's because Billy Budd accidentally killed Claggart yet, because of the articles of war, he's tried and executed even though he didn't mean it.  The very prospect over the unfairness of it all made me queasy.

I think Melville had some gay issues.  Moby Dick has some blatant homoeroticism (Queequeg snuggling with Ishmael, anyone), but Billy Budd takes that homoeroticism up to eleven.  Almost every man on that ship seems to love Billy Budd except Claggart, who has some severe homosexual issues and takes it out on the crew through "discipline".

[Rinaldo]

Yes, that is (according to some, including me) a big part of what the book is about, not a defect but a feature. That's (part of) what makes it fascinating, seeing internalized homophobia playing out dramatically like that. Rather than feeling queasy at the prospect of dramatic conflict, I marvel at how far Melville got with this, in a time which certainly didn't have it all sorted out (not that we do either). He may have been groping, experimenting with material he didn't fully understand (and it went unpublished in his lifetime), but he was definitely getting at something that wasn't otherwise addressed in the literature around him. Even half a century later, two gay writers, Forster and Britten, found it murky material to handle for opera, and it precipitated some antagonism between them.

Ustinov makes it all perhaps a little too straightforward, and Vere too shallowly kind-hearted. It's still an absorbing movie, with really fine performances by Terence Stamp and Robert Ryan. And it has a value in preserving the work of some English stage actors of the time who were otherwise scantily preserved in their prime on film: Paul Rogers, John Neville.

[prican58]

16 hours ago, voiceover said:

Which begs a question you knew I'd ask: favorite Maisie?

I haven't seen them all so I cannot say but I enjoyed the one with Robert Young and Ruth Hussey and I really liked the one shown last Sat with Lew Ayres. Great cast in that one with C Aubrey Smith playing a servant. I am so used to him playing an aristocrat or British military man. I even caught a glimpse of a young Hans Conreid as one of the party people.

Sothern has this Joan Blondell appeal to me and I understand that the two of them were sort of confused for one another. Not sure if they liked each other. I'm smitten. 

9 hours ago, PaulaO said:

But of course!

I love the young blondish Bette Davis.

[ratgirlagogo]

18 hours ago, voiceover said:

Which begs a question you knew I'd ask: favorite Maisie?

Hey! you can't trick me!  Of course I LOVE THEM ALL.

[prican58]

Confound you, ratgirl! (shaking my first in the air) I should have come up with that! 

[Milburn Stone]

20 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Yes, that is (according to some, including me) a big part of what the book is about, not a defect but a feature. That's (part of) what makes it fascinating, seeing internalized homophobia playing out dramatically like that. Rather than feeling queasy at the prospect of dramatic conflict, I marvel at how far Melville got with this, in a time which certainly didn't have it all sorted out (not that we do either).

You get at a disturbing trend, which is to regard all information we don't like, or all characters we disapprove of, as far too upsetting to tolerate. Billy Budd should not have to come with a trigger warning.

[Milburn Stone]

On 4/1/2017 at 5:15 PM, voiceover said:

Okay: you Hitchcock fans get in here & lecture me about why I should force myself to overpay for the Fandango showing of North by Northwest.

My response is that it depends on how recently you've seen it on a big screen. If the answer is "within the last five years" (it is possible; I saw it on the screen of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood at the first TCM Film Festival), then I'd say there's no pressing need. If the answer is "never," then I'd say there is. The big-screen experience of that movie (with Herrmann's score--arguably the best of his entire career--coming over a big theater sound system) is incomparable.

After that screening, Robert Osborne interviewed Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau on the stage. Hitchcock heaven.

[Charlie Baker]

Saw Holiday last night for the first time in a while.   It doesn't have a lot of staginess, even if it's based on a play, it's dialogue driven (but what dialogue!) and there's not a lot of flashy camera work or editing.  It's a streamlined adaptation, just a little over an hour and a half. It has a fine supporting cast, especially Lew Ayres (whom we discussed a while back here) and the character actor star of the month choice herein Edward Everett Horton.  It's funny and affecting, drawing one very nicely into these rich white people's problems.  And it's got Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in full blown star power. Pretty delightful.  I never saw the original film version with Ann Harding in the lead and Horton playing the same role he does in this one.  Would anyone who has care to report?

[Rinaldo]

I got 20 minutes into Holiday on the DVR before I had to go to bed, and I hope I finish it tonight. This is a long-postponed duty-which-is-in-fact-a-pleasure: My best movie-lover friend, a woman I've known for 40 years since we were both grad students at different Midwestern universities, is definite about Holiday being her all-time favorite movie. And I've never seen it. Haven't been avoiding it, it just never seemed to come up on TV or in revival houses or any of that. If it's played on TCM before (and it must have), it was before I started scouring the listings weekly to make sure I didn't miss something essential. I absolutely see the appeal, and I can't wait to get to the end.

[Crisopera]

Holiday is a big favorite of mine.  I like it so much better than the comparable Philadelphia Story.  And Lew Ayres is genuinely heartbreaking - he should have gotten an Oscar nomination.

[Rinaldo]

24 minutes ago, Crisopera said:

I like it so much better than the comparable Philadelphia Story. 

My friend always says (and did in her blog) that she does too. One thing (out of many) that she says she likes about it -- compared to The Philadelphia Story and other Katharine Hepburn movie comedies of that period -- is that Kate doesn't have to be "taught a lesson" or otherwise humbled in this story. It's a different plot setup than we usually see for her.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Rinaldo

[Bastet]

Holiday has long been on my list of underrated gems, and is one of my favorite films.  I watch it semi-frequently on DVD, but when I came across it last night about halfway through, I had to stop and watch yet again.  I love the chemistry between Grant and Hepburn in all their collaborations (yes, even Sylvia Scarlett; there isn't a long list of things I like about that film, but the way they play off each other is one of them), and think it's at its best in this film.  And, yes, it is wonderful that Hepburn's character is "allowed" to be right - and righteous - about how she sees the world and what she wants out of life.  

[Crisopera]

6 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Kate doesn't have to be "taught a lesson" or otherwise humbled in this story.

Yes, yes, yes!  Probably the biggest reason that I prefer it to Philadelphia Story.  Mind you, I do love the Grant/Stewart scene in PS - "Champagne is a great leveleler."

[Padma]

I can understand seeing the homoerotic subtext in Billy Budd because it's an all male story and he's the beautiful innocent boy whom nearly everyone loves, some platonically, some fatherly, and some like Claggert perhaps with repressed sexual feelings and some non-sexual feelings of resentment.

For me, I see main theme of the novel being less about homosexuality and more about Billy's innocence and purity contrasted with every other man in that environment. And, more than that, how that contrast and the tragic ending sets up the theme of the pitfalls of blind obedience to rules and authority.  Following the law is required in BB, but doing it does not bring justice.

That's my interpretation anyway.

I think the biggest problem with the novel is the obvious one that Melville didn't get to finish it. Not just that he got to Ch.26 but not to Ch28, but that his process of writing wasn't all that linear and what was preserved was often out of order, disjointed notes, some things indecipherable to his wife and others after his death, etc. He just didn't get to work through his creative ideas and shape them fully into the book he wanted Billy Budd to be. Other people did it--so at least we have something--but we don't have the completed Melville novel, which is sad.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Padma

[voiceover]

On 4/4/2017 at 4:37 PM, ratgirlagogo said:

Hey! you can't trick me!  Of course I LOVE THEM ALL.

You're right.  Trick question.

Another of my post-1950 favorite musicals; Lili is the second from 1953.

Only one song, and predominantly dancing, but such a sweet story.  Even when you're older and finally get the not-that-subtle undertones.

IIRC, it's Mel Ferrer's performance in this, caught Audrey Hepburn's attention (& eventual hand in marriage), and I can see it.  He's handsome, and just scary enough in the Mr Rochester vein to unleash the sex in the script.  It's never that dancing, smirking Jean-Pierre Aumont.

Though Lili gets to deliver that great speech to him, in all her hard-won self-awareness.  I loved that moment after he asks, "When did you learn all that?" and she  says, "We don't learn.  We just get older. And we know."

The "learning to love Paul" ballet is wonderful; the puppets are charming; and if you've gotta have one song, "Hi Lili/Hi lo" is the perfect bittersweet fall into the music box of childhood.

[Charlie Baker]

Yesterday TCM showed a number of Melvyn Douglas films through the day--he was born April 5, along with Bette Davis, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, and Walter Huston. (Quite a TCM birthday trove.)  Caught up with two of his pairings with Joan Blondell--The Amazing Mr. Williams, a mystery/comedy with a slight whiff of Thin Man, and Good Girls Go to Paris, a semi-screwball rom com, both directed by Alexander Hall.  They're not cinema landmarks, but they are fun.  And Mr. D. and Ms. B meshed very well--a nice teaming. I'm not sure she's received the attention she's due. 

[Rinaldo]

5 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Yesterday TCM showed a number of Melvyn Douglas films 

And one that they showed at 7:30 a.m., that I snagged to watch yesterday evening (so no, I haven't finished Holiday yet) was Dangerous Corner, based on a J.B. Priestly play that I'm very fond of. I've seen a British TV version of it, but had forgotten (if I ever knew) that there was an early-talkie adaptation too. Also in the cast are Virginia Bruce, Conrad Nagel, Ian Keith, and Betty Furness. Though short (66 minutes), it was more faithful to its source than I'd expected, indulging mostly in some intelligent opening-up to show us the important backstory to the One Fateful Evening, rather than make us hear about it in conversation. (Plus a few of the undercurrents, including a strong homoerotic element, went by the wayside.) But the main structure is intact: a group of friends (all British in the original, but not here), sitting in conversation after a dinner party, ask one seemingly innocent question that eventually unravels a whole series of events in the past year, until they discover how much they've all been lying to each other and committing crimes against each other that had been blamed on others.

And then at the denouement, we jump back in time to the beginning of the conversation -- and this time the question gets ignored and their lives go on undisturbed. The moral (I'm half joking here, but only half) seems to be "We really don't have to insist on an answer to every little mystery; we'll be much happier if some secrets stay hidden." They've put it On Demand on their website until April 12, and I recommend it. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Rinaldo

[psychoticstate]

I was thrilled to see the Melvyn Douglas marathon.  Love him!  Recorded many of them and can't wait to hit the DVR this weekend. 

[psychoticstate]

Did anyone catch Under Eighteen and Street of Women?  They played either earlier this week or last week. 

Absolute Pre-Code gems!  Both from Warners - - UE from 1931 and SOW from 1932. 

Warren William is the wealthy playboy who can help innocent Marian Marsh out of her tenement apartment in Under Eighteen.  Marsh has sweet Regis Toomey, as a milkman who wants to marry her but Marsh has seen enough of sister Anita Page's disappointing marriage to think she'd be better off getting "favors" from William.  Not only that but Page needs $200 in order to divorce her unemployed "bum" of a husband and William certainly has got it. Under Eighteen is actually a fairly gritty and realistic look at the working class after the Depression.  Love Warren William and always appreciate catching his movies when they are aired.  Surprised that Page's husband smacks her enough to blacken her eye and yet when she returns to him by the end because he's won some money, it's apparently good and well. 

Street of Women has a terrible name but the fashionable and glam Kay Francis stars in it and I found it to be an entertaining flick. Francis is a fashion designer (fitting) who has been in a three year long affair with architect Alan Dinehart, unhappily married to a woman who doesn't love him either but won't give him a divorce.  Dinehart's daughter, played by the lovely Gloria Stuart in her first film role (yes, that Gloria Stuart from Titanic), has met and fallen in love with Francis' brother, Allen Vincent.  Vincent is horrified to learn of Francis' relationship and cuts ties, leading Francis to do the same with Dinehart.  Roland Young has a supporting role as friend to Francis and employer to Vincent and the wonderful Louise Beavers plays Francis' maid.  The ending is no surprise to anyone but still an enjoyable ride.  And Francis' Art Deco apartment??  LOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEE.  Can I have it?  Please?  I could just stare at the architecture and furnishings and be over the moon.  Well, that and Kay Francis' to-die-for fashions. 

[Crisopera]

Actually, I found the ending of Street of Women to be quite surprising.  After all, even in Pre-Code movies, 

Spoiler

the adulterous couple rarely get a happy ending.  

Odd to see the usually corrupt politician/gangster  Alan Dinehart as the romantic lead.  I did enjoy it, though.  Nice to see Kay Francis playing a woman who has her own business (built by herself, with no assistance from her lover).  And yes, the sets and costumes are fabulous.

[Silver Raven]

The Warner Archive has a whole section of pre-code films.

 

https://www.warnerarchive.com/browse/genre/forbidden-hollywood
 

[voiceover]

God bless MGM & their Dickens adaptations! Not a huge fan of the book, but David Copperfield the movie is wonderful, and every time I see Freddie Bartholomew in anything, I marvel at how he always managed to hold his own, opposite the Barrymores, Rathbones, Olivers, and Tracys of that world (just get a load of his reax to the "I don't like boys!" line in Copperfield.  He was TEN).

p.s. Where was the Oscar for W.C. Fields' Micawber & his "I...have arrived!"?

p.s.s. This is the only movie of which I might reasonably say, "If only I had a Mr Dick like that in my life!"

Edited April 7, 2017 by voiceover
Because I had to recheck his birth date. He was TEN!

[Crisopera]

It's certainly a good thing that today's Google Doodle honors the 125th birthday of Mary Pickford, but the drawing is of a black-haired girl with a cat on her shoulder and a hand on a movie camera.  Considering that one of the things for which Mary Pickford was most known was her head of golden curls, this seems like a bit of an oversight.  (Did the artist not look at even ONE of the zillion pictures available online?)

[Rinaldo]

It looks like Monday is Anthology Film Evening (and Osborne's Picks): Tales of Manhattan, O. Henry's Full House, and Dead of Night all in a row. (The Story of Three Loves also seems to be one -- a trio of stories -- but I think I'm right in saying it doesn't have the classic status of the other three, at least I've not heard of it before.) The one I've seen is Dead of Night, and it's a gem. I'll be looking out for the others.

Edited April 9, 2017 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

24 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

It looks like Monday is Anthology Film Evening (and Osborne's Picks): Tales of Manhattan, O. Henry's Full House, and Dark of Night all in a row. (The Story of Three Loves also seems to be one -- a trio of stories -- but I think I'm right in saying it doesn't have the classic status of the other three, at least I've not heard of it before.) The one I've seen is Dark of Night, and it's a gem. I'll be looking out for the others.

Just for the historical record, when humans are reading this thread thousands of years from now--and I know you know this, Rinaldo, it was just a slip of the mind-finger connection--the title is Dead of Night.

[Rinaldo]

It was indeed. I've gone back and corrected my post for the sake of those simply looking for information, but it's good to have your comment. The annoying thing is, I did go back and double-check on the TCM site before posting, and my mind still couldn't carry the info safely for 20 seconds.

[Pyralis]

I only ever seem to see the Moira Schearer & her amazing red hair part of "Three Loves".  Angst at its finest.