TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Chaos Theory]

I am still thinking about 1950 Caged and how good it was.  I watched the movie four times over the 4th of July Weekend.   Considering the time it was made and how God awful some later Women in Prison movies were Ithis movie is more then a classic for me.  It might go into my list  of favorite oldy movies right there with Days Of Wine And Roses and Lost Weeked. (what?  I have a type).  I like human experience movies that dont always end well.  Oh and I also loved Double Indemnity.

 

i just wish there were more well made women in prison movies.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Chaos Theory

[Padma]

1 hour ago, SusieQ said:

I'm an idiot. I guess I was thinking that this was the one time he actually purchased the stuff. I truly never cared about the actual scam. I just love the show so much. And I'm so happy that Wilson insisted that Preston reprise his role or else no movie. (I've never gotten over TBTB replacing Julie Andrews in "My Fair Lady".)

You probably already know that Jack Warner asked Cary Grant to play Hill instead, feeling a movie needed a movie star, just like with My Fair Lady. Grant reportedly told him "Not only will I not be in it, if you don't use Preston, I won't even go see it!" (Reportedly also said that re: Harrison and Higgins.  I could see him as Higgins, but still... Fortunate for his good taste & judgment that both performances were preserved)

[Rinaldo]

3 minutes ago, Padma said:

I could see [Cary Grant] as Higgins, but still...

See him? Absolutely. But hear him? -- he never quite lost his Cockney accent, though he absorbed it into his speech pattern that we came to think of as "uniquely Cary Grant." And to his credit, he emphasized exactly that point to Jack Warner: "The way I talk is the way Eliza has to learn not to talk!" Anyway, good for him and his good judgment, because nobody would have stopped him saying "yes" to both movies except himself.

Anyway, because the studio was denied their hoped-for Grant and Cagney, they had to have a movie star somewhere, which is why we have Hepburn. Amazingly, in the case of The Music Man, all the "box office" substitutions (Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, etc.) turned out to be fine artistic choices. When I show the movie in class, my undergrads are always totally enchanted to discover little Ronny Howard, because they are most familiar with him as a movie director.

[Milburn Stone]

6 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Sure -- but once Prof. Hill hadn't sent in his payments from one town, would the companies trust him again the next time?

Here's what I'm thinking. In every town, Hill was satisfied with the 15% (or whatever) commission he made on the sale. He didn't bilk the instrument companies (he sent them payment, less his commission) and he didn't bilk the customers (they got the instruments they paid for). The only part of the agreement he didn't keep was the essential one, that mere possession of the instruments (along with some ill-defined inspiration he'd provide) would turn the townspeople into capable musicians. But by the time they knew they'd been had, he'd be gone, having pocketed his 15% (which, with all those instruments, was plenty of money), committed no crime, and done nothing to make the instrument companies want to stop doing business with him.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[Rinaldo]

Yep, that was my conclusion too. But that's... almost making an honest living, isn't it? :) He has to give up weeks of his life (I suppose he skips out on his hotel tab too, but that's secondary), only to pocket a proper businessman's 15% or whatever it would be, for all his time. And the townspeople have everything they paid for. (They won't be getting lessons, but they didn't pay for them in advance.) I suppose they can say that whatever they've paid is wasted investment, with no actual band to show for it.

All credit to Meredith Willson (and Franklin Lacey, his co-librettist) for handling all this with so much panache that the weak points occurred to me only after many decades of acquaintance. I adore the show, so all this is just a smile-on-the-side. I'm happy to buy everything, once the overture starts up.

[prican58]

On 7/4/2017 at 10:28 AM, bmoore4026 said:

Well, Happy 4th of July, all.

One of the movies they're playing in honor of today is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  Welcome to America!  Feel free to kidnap a woman and make her your wife against her will.

Today is the annual playing of The Devil's Disciple (Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Lawrence Olivier in the same movie together?  How has this not inspired more fan pairings), The Scarlet Coat, and 1776, which won't be on until late, just in time for fireworks.

Also on today is West Side Story (which deconstructs the hell out of the American Dream) and, late at night, The Music Man, which serves as the counter argument and beat out the former for Best Musical at the Tony Awards.  *dry cough*

I couldn't watch Disciple which hurts because I feel like it's such an unsung film and probably not on anybody's Burt/Kirk pairings radar (except for those really in the know.) I am always willing to watch it and I also like Olivier's performance.  

Seven Brides...I always wonder if Amber Tamblyn ever is unamazed by her dad's physical abilities on film. She's known him her entire life so I'm sure she knows his talents first hand. But how weird it must have been for her when she first saw it. I know he still impresses me.

[Silver Raven]

2 hours ago, prican58 said:

Seven Brides...I always wonder if Amber Tamblyn ever is unamazed by her dad's physical abilities on film. She's known him her entire life so I'm sure she knows his talents first hand. But how weird it must have been for her when she first saw it. I know he still impresses me.

He's incredible in Tom Thumb.

[Calvada]

On ‎7‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 9:28 AM, bmoore4026 said:

Well, Happy 4th of July, all.

One of the movies they're playing in honor of today is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  Welcome to America!  Feel free to kidnap a woman and make her your wife against her will.

 

I know!  And then follow this up with a movie about the founding fathers agreeing to continue slavery and kicking that can down the road for almost another century, and one about a con man.  America rules! 

I do enjoy 1776., primarily because of the scenes with John and Abigail Adams.  

[voiceover]

As I watched dreamboat Ivor Novello cruise through early Hitchcock (see what I did there?), it struck me -- at last! -- that HE would've shone as the title character in [the silent] Scaramouche.

Ahhh! Scaramouche, Scaramouche! would you do the fandango? Thunderbolt & lightning, very very frightening.*

 

*Do I at least get credit for holding off that reference the first time around?

Edited July 6, 2017 by voiceover

[voiceover]

Hm.  The 4th of July on TCM.

Storylines that included kidnapping, deceit, blackmail, prejudice, greed.  None of these were celebrated.

They also featured undaunted courage, redemption, forgiveness, love.  All of these were celebrated.

Welcome to America, indeed.

[Charlie Baker]

I wish I had more time to devote to the slate of early Hitchcock shown last night and into today.  Maybe some of it will turn up on On Demand, as I don't have access to Watch TCM, as I have complained ad nauseam.  I would be interested in whatever anyone had to say about those movies. 

Interesting scheduling today too with two movies featuring Janet Leigh and some mother issues.  Psycho followed by Manchurian Candidate.

[HelenBaby]

11 minutes ago, Charlie Baker said:

I wish I had more time to devote to the slate of early Hitchcock shown last night and into today.  Maybe some of it will turn up on On Demand, as I don't have access to Watch TCM, as I have complained ad nauseam.  I would be interested in whatever anyone had to say about those movies. 

Interesting scheduling today too with two movies featuring Janet Leigh and some mother issues.  Psycho followed by Manchurian Candidate.

It was Janet Leigh's date of birth.

[Crisopera]

Quote

I wish I had more time to devote to the slate of early Hitchcock shown last night and into today.  Maybe some of it will turn up on On Demand, as I don't have access to Watch TCM, as I have complained ad nauseam.  I would be interested in whatever anyone had to say about those movies. 

Luckily, I picked up most of them on my VCR, so I'll be binging Hitchcock all weekend.  Yay!  It's so frustrating that I  can't access Watch TCM.  Is that across all Time Warner/Spectrum areas, or just unique to New York City?  It took them forever to even add TCM to the channel lineup - what do they have against it?

[Silver Raven]

The original black and white The Man Who Knew Too Much is so intense.  I think what makes it even more tense is the fact that it was a really early sound film and they didn't use background music.  Except for the actual opera performances.  So all of the action takes place in virtual silence except for ambient sound.

[voiceover]

I was wondering what I wanted for my birthday later this month...but TCM already had Ronald Colman picked out.

A happily tough choice, but I'd probably have to point to Tale of Two Cities as his best work -- if only for that opening scene when he's miserably hungover, but still the sharpest guy in the room.

Lost Horizon gets Best Kiss, even though Vilma Banky got him but good during the silent era.

[Crisopera]

Ronald Colman - sigh.  How incredibly handsome he was.  I was watching The White Sister last night and, frankly, I would have run so fast out of that nunnery you wouldn't have seem me for dust.  I think he and Errol Flynn were the handsomest men ever in movies (with a young Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea as a close runners-up).

[Padma]

Another Colman fan here. Crazy to see him and Cooper in a silent movie the other night.  I hope they're showing "Champagne for Caesar" later this month.

Just watched a film noir that I thought would be quite bad. "Raw Deal" with leads I barely knew of--Dennis O'Keefe and Marsha Hunt. (Claire Trevor and Raymond Burr were, for me, the biggest names. And John Ireland was in it, too, although I'm not that familiar with him either.) Love triangle story about an ex-con on the run.  The actors were good, the story kind of what you'd expect.

But it actually was not a run of the mill film noir at all.  What was remarkable about it was the way it was filmed. Every shot was so beautifully lit and composed.  The director was Anthony Mann, but it seems the amazing style was due to a  cinematographer that I've never heard of, John Alton.  Three years after this, film he won an Oscar for "An American in Paris" (1951) 

It's really unfortunate that we have such a "cult of the director"(not that Anthony Mann isn't deserving, too, as his films have a distinctive style as well) but so few cinematographers (or editors, for that matter) receive the name recognition and public acclaim that they deserve.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Padma

[Wiendish Fitch]

God, I love Ronald Colman. Those eyes, that voice, that slow-breaking smile... dammit, I drooled on myself.

Random Harvest is my absolute favorite of his movies; I don't care how preposterous the story is, Colman and Greer Garson are friggin' magical together.

[Bastet]

2 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

God, I love Ronald Colman. Those eyes, that voice, that slow-breaking smile... dammit, I drooled on myself.

Ha!  And, yeah, that about sums it up.  He's truly lovely to watch.

[ratgirlagogo]

21 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

I wish I had more time to devote to the slate of early Hitchcock shown last night and into today.

Me too.  The only one I've watched so far was The Ring - and when I recorded it I wasn't even paying enough attention to notice that it was part of the Hitchcock block.   Boy, do the actors in Hitchcock's early British films have not-Hollywood faces - I really liked the first half hour or so of the film set in the travelling circus.  Also there are very few title cards, and there are a lot of visual tricks that suggest sound -  a sudden huge close-up of a ring-bell being struck at the end of a round, montages of double exposures and multiple images on screen of dancing feet and musical instruments to get across the idea of a long, loud, exhausting jazz party.  And who knew that Hitchcock even DID a boxing movie - let alone that this boxing movie was the ONE film he both wrote AND directed?  The boxing scenes themselves I loved - a real peek into the past of fighting sports.   

What did not work so well for me was the central love triangle - since The Girl is successfully (emotionally) seduced by  The Rival in the very beginning of the story, before we have a chance to see much of anything with her relationship with The Boy - even though she marries The Boy (and the wedding scene is very funny) halfway through the film  I never had the feeling she was that much in love with The Boy in the first place so that weakens the whole conflict about her stepping out with The Rival after the marriage and weakens the (spoiler) happy ending also.

Still it's fascinating and I'm probably going to watch it at least once again before I delete it.

Edited July 7, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Crisopera]

I thought The Ring was very interesting also, for the reasons you mention - plus the fact that the Rival was played by Ian Hunter, who went on to a long Hollywood career (probably most famously as King Richard in the Errol Flynn Robin Hood), but mostly as the nice best friend who often got or lost the girl by being patient.  Odd to see him in this kind of role.  (And Carl Brisson, the Danish actor who played the Boy, was Rosalind Russell's father-in-law!)

Edited July 7, 2017 by Crisopera

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, Padma said:

It's really unfortunate that we have such a "cult of the director"...

I agree. And so, for whatever it may be worth, did my father, himself a director (Chicago-based, mostly of commercials plus industrial and educational films). Obviously it can be handy to use a director's name to typify a certain look or genre, and some directors really do have a distinctive style that they imprint on their work. But others can deserve credit for what goes right with a movie, too: the writer for sure (I can think of a number of comedies in which a good script and premise, plus a game cast, triumph over indifferent direction), or as mentioned the editor or cinematographer. Even a composer (they can't make up for everything else, but I bet Laura wouldn't burn in the memory as much without David Raksin's music... OK, and Gene Tierney's face).

[Milburn Stone]

Just watched Hitchcock's The Skin Game which I DVR'ed. Fascinating how, as different as this story is from the sort he'd become identified with, and as early in his oeuvre as it is, you still see unmistakable Hitchcock touches and tropes that turned up in his films for the rest of his career.

I also couldn't help relate it to the Anthony Trollope novel I'm reading, The Prime Minister. (I'm making my way through his Palliser series.) The manner of speaking of the characters in The Skin Game is not altogether different from that of the characters in Trollope. And why should they differ? Only sixty years separate the work! Fewer years, by a considerable number, than separate us from The Skin Game. That blows my mind.

[prican58]

The Ronald Colman Appreciation Club is in session. 

crisopera, running right behind you re The White Sister. Lordy! Colman was so made for the cinema. Talkies were invented just for him.

On 7/7/2017 at 9:11 AM, Crisopera said:

Ronald Colman - sigh.  How incredibly handsome he was.  I was watching The White Sister last night and, frankly, I would have run so fast out of that nunnery you wouldn't have seem me for dust.  I think he and Errol Flynn were the handsomest men ever in movies (with a young Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea as a close runners-up).

[ratgirlagogo]

I just finished watching Aventure malgache, one of the two French-language  WW2 propaganda films Hitchcock made for the war effort.  Have any of you seen this?  It was so confusing - I understood the main plot of it as the conflict between the two main characters, one a defense lawyer who is a WWI vet and runs a pirate radio station as part of the Resistance, the other the corrupt chief of police  who is a Vichy collaborator.  Interesting to see how the war played out in Madagascar but the whole thing, especially multiple framing devices (the actor telling this whole story backstage in Paris, the court case with the two main guys) left me at a bit of a loss as to  what I had actually seen.  Apparently the British War Office felt the same since this and Bon Voyage were the end of Hitchcock's contribution to wartime propaganda.

[Rinaldo]

I imagine TCM could get a day's theme out of propaganda films from major producers or directors, though I don't know that it would make an especially enticing day's viewing. Disney made a feature, Victory Through Air Power, that mixed live action (including straight-to-camera address) with animation. It's never been rereleased, unsurprisingly, though Leonard Maltin got it into one of the "vault" DVD boxes.

Of all things to encounter on the air this afternoon: Our Miss Brooks. It must be one of the earliest examples of a TV show spinning off into a movie, and (like Batman) it used the TV cast but (unlike Zorro) it wasn't just episodes edited together. It was like an extra-long episode (guest stars, Don Porter and Nick Adams) but also threw aside series continuity to take us from Miss Brooks's and Mr. Boynton's first meeting to (at last) their engagement. It's certainly barely a movie at all, but I got a kick out of seeing it, because the sitcom was as regular a part of my childhood as I Love Lucy, and I actually preferred it at the time. Maybe Eve Arden was more my style of humor, even at that tender age. And the show long ago stopped circulating in syndication, and hasn't had the deluxe DVD presentation (though I see that some fly-by-night-looking companies have made attempts that are no longer available). So this was a great pleasure to revisit.

[Padma]

I was hoping someone watched "Our Miss Brooks" -- part of my childhood, too and it was even more fun than I expected to have the gang all back together in a movie (I'd forgotten her funny little landlady (Jane Morgan) and Gale Gordon.  Richard Crenna was a lot more a part in the tv show, but I enjoyed the Porter/Adams story tking the time instead.) Happy endings all the way around.  And some of Ben's comments made me laugh--he's quite "Eve Arden-like" in his dry humor, isn't he?

Of course, I had to look up Eve on Wikipedia, and since Rinaldo mentioned "I Love Lucy" (never one of my choices either), I'm including this little bit of trivia where the two intersected: "Arden had a very brief guest appearance in a 1955 I Love Lucy episode entitled "L.A. at Last" in which she played herself. While awaiting their food at The Brown Derby, Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) argue over whether a certain portrait on a nearby wall is Shelley Winters or Judy Holliday. Lucy urges Ethel to ask a lady occupying the next booth, who turns and replies, "Neither. That's Eve Arden." Ethel suddenly realizes she was just talking to Arden herself, who soon passes Lucy and Ethel's table to leave the restaurant while the pair gawk."

[Crisopera]

FYI for my fellow Pre-Code people - The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932) is streaming on Amazon Prime.  This is one I hadn't seen - the genesis of the "three (or more) girls live together and go man-hunting" trope, much beloved by 20th-Century Fox through the years.  This one is the (vague) basis for the 1950s version How to Marry a Millionaire (extremely vague).  This is a much more hard-boiled version, with the three blondes (Joan Blondell, Madge Evans, and the fabulous Ina Claire) as unabashed gold-diggers.  Directed by Lowell Sherman (who also plays one of the men), it's pretty snappy, if very episodic.  Sherman is an interesting figure - he was a very successful actor in silents and early talkies, sort of a less appealing William Powell type (mustachioed, dapper, cynical).  He also gave a terrific performance as the proto-Norman Maine figure in What Price Hollywood? - somehow, that role brings out the best in its players - Fredric March and James Mason are also great.  (I haven't seen the Streisand version, so I can't comment on it.)  He directed Mae West's starring debut, She Done Hime Wrong, and also directed Katharine Hepburn to her first Oscar in Morning Glory,  Sadly, he died young (only 46).

 

ratgirlagogo - I agree about Aventure Malgache - I also had problems following the plotline.  But I thought Bon Voyage was pretty clever - wasn't expecting the plot twist.

[ratgirlagogo]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Of all things to encounter on the air this afternoon: Our Miss Brooks. It must be one of the earliest examples of a TV show spinning off into a movie, and (like Batman) it used the TV cast but (unlike Zorro) it wasn't just episodes edited together. It was like an extra-long episode (guest stars, Don Porter and Nick Adams) but also threw aside series continuity to take us from Miss Brooks's and Mr. Boynton's first meeting to (at last) their engagement. It's certainly barely a movie at all, but I got a kick out of seeing it, because the sitcom was as regular a part of my childhood as I Love Lucy, and I actually preferred it at the time. Maybe Eve Arden was more my style of humor, even at that tender age. And the show long ago stopped circulating in syndication, and hasn't had the deluxe DVD presentation (though I see that some fly-by-night-looking companies have made attempts that are no longer available). So this was a great pleasure to revisit.

 

1 hour ago, Padma said:

was hoping someone watched "Our Miss Brooks" -- part of my childhood, too and it was even more fun than I expected to have the gang all back together in a movie (I'd forgotten her funny little landlady (Jane Morgan) and Gale Gordon.  Richard Crenna was a lot more a part in the tv show, but I enjoyed the Porter/Adams story tking the time instead.) Happy endings all the way around. 

Mr Rat and I watched this earlier this year (much as I love Eve Arden and the rest of the cast I am NOT a fan of the radio show or the TV show- but Mr Rat is) and were fairly bemused by it.  I don't even understand why they made it into a theatrical film in the first place since it was after the TV show came to an end.  Having Brooks and Boynton be  an actual couple for most of the movie eliminates the most basic running gag of the show - that Miss Brooks is a super-horny single girl and Mr  Boynton is an oblivious male virgin (and he's a BIOLOGY teacher, haw haw) who never recognizes their dates as actual dates -  just two good chums spending time together.  I agree with Ben that Eve Arden makes every line seem funnier than it actually is - she's kind of a Janeane Garafolo of that time period in terms of snarky sarcastic delivery - but that has always annoyed me all the more since I wish she'd been on a better show.  Mr Rat is more of the opinion that he just likes her so much that he's glad she was on a hit.

BTW Rinaldo I don't know if you pick up MeTV where you live - but if you do Our Miss Brooks is part of their lineup - every morning at 5 AM in NYC.

[Rinaldo]

14 minutes ago, ratgirlagogo said:

BTW Rinaldo I don't know if you pick up MeTV where you live - but if you do Our Miss Brooks is part of their lineup - every morning at 5 AM in NYC.

How strange. We have MeTV in the Philly-Delaware region but 5 AM is when old shows stop and infomercials (money-making secrets) start every morning. No Miss Brooks for me!

BTW @ratgirlagogo, you may be amused by the opinions of my late grandmother on syndicated TV as of 1981 (she lived with my parents for the last decade of her life, till she was 94, and she'd never owned a TV at home). She noticed that "that girl with the dark hair" (Mary Tyler Moore) had two shows: "one with her husband and one with her boss, and I like the one with her boss better, because when she's with her husband she cries too much." But her favorite of all the old shows in afternoon rotation was Our Miss Brooks. Why? "Because she speaks up good and clear, and I can hear her."

Edited July 10, 2017 by Rinaldo

[psychoticstate]

On 7/9/2017 at 4:39 PM, Crisopera said:

FYI for my fellow Pre-Code people - The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932) is streaming on Amazon Prime.  This is one I hadn't seen - the genesis of the "three (or more) girls live together and go man-hunting" trope, much beloved by 20th-Century Fox through the years.  This one is the (vague) basis for the 1950s version How to Marry a Millionaire (extremely vague).  This is a much more hard-boiled version, with the three blondes (Joan Blondell, Madge Evans, and the fabulous Ina Claire) as unabashed gold-diggers.  Directed by Lowell Sherman (who also plays one of the men), it's pretty snappy, if very episodic.  Sherman is an interesting figure - he was a very successful actor in silents and early talkies, sort of a less appealing William Powell type (mustachioed, dapper, cynical).  He also gave a terrific performance as the proto-Norman Maine figure in What Price Hollywood? - somehow, that role brings out the best in its players - Fredric March and James Mason are also great.  (I haven't seen the Streisand version, so I can't comment on it.)  He directed Mae West's starring debut, She Done Hime Wrong, and also directed Katharine Hepburn to her first Oscar in Morning Glory,  Sadly, he died young (only 46).

 

 

Thank you for the info, @Crisopera.  I've never seen The Greeks Had a Word for Them and will definitely check out my Amazon Prime to locate it.

 

Did anyone watch the John Gilbert marathon that was running on TCM today?  I DVR'd quite a few.

[Charlie Baker]

Another daytime curiosity on our network this morning--one I don't necessarily recommend unless you're as fascinated by these things as I am.  Way Back Home is based on a radio series that was created by and starred Phillips Lord, who evidently created further vehicles on radio, film, and TV for a couple decades.  This is set in a rural community in Maine, with Lord only in his late twenties at the time. playing the much older sage of the town, living with his wife and the young boy they are fostering.  There's loads of corny humor,  much built around the less intelligent folks in the community,, there are several old songs that stop the story cold, and there's melodrama--the boy's father shows up

Spoiler

and kidnaps him, which leads to a horse and buggy chase climax

, there's a would-be star-crossed romance between a farmer's daughter and the probably illegitimate son of the town pariah.  The girl is played by Bette Davis, in one of her four films released in 1931, her first year in the movies.  She looks very young, fresh, and pretty, and plays the ingenue role straight.  Certainly no indication here of the direction she would take.. 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Charlie Baker

[Chaos Theory]

TCM just had "Days Of Wine And Roses" which is my all time favorite old timey movie.  I turned it on when it was already 3/4 of the way through and didn't have the chance to tape it.  It is one of the few movies I actually own but still I would have loved to have it on my DVR.   Addiction movies are one of my favorite kinds of movies and this one was incredibly well done.  The first time I saw it I was blown away by the acting by both Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.     Its a great movie if you like the genre.  

[voiceover]

Watching If I Were King, it occurred to me that, though I can certainly appreciate a sexy, 3-days-in-the-desert scruff on most men, my beloved Ronald Colman is not among of them.  

There's my adored one onscreen, and all I can do is wince. "Get a razor, fer crissakes!"

Hey! a straight line from tonight's lightbulb moment to remembering that his most famous cleanshaven role was as Tale of Two Cities' Sydney Carton.  My favorite of all his many fine -- and fine-looking -- performances.

Edited July 14, 2017 by voiceover
Because iPhones are pretty quick to post if you pause

[bmoore4026]

Well, once again, it's Bastille Day but there are fuck all French Revolution pics on today.  We've got a crap full of Minnelli though.

Seriously, how are people going to experience the glory that is The Black Book if they don't show it?

[Milburn Stone]

They should at least show Start the Revolution Without Me. (I think they have, though.)

[voiceover]

57 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Well, once again, it's Bastille Day but there are fuck all French Revolution pics on today.  

That's because they're saving the best one for next Thursday.

*ducks airborne tomato*

Hey, not my idea.  They coulda shown Tale of Two Cities twice.

[Charlie Baker]

I hadn't seen Lifeboat in many years, and I had the chance to watch as it aired last night.   It holds up and strikes me as pretty uncompromising for its time, still strong stuff.  It's worth noting again that Hitchcock and the writers beautifully sustained a generally suspenseful and engaging story within the limitations of the setting and premise.  From this viewing,  I thought too that Ms. Bankhead generally does not come off as campy or upstaging and is pretty much a member of the solid ensemble.  Guest host Alexandre Phillippe noted the mixed reception the movie got and its reputation as propagandistic, then called the movie a masterpiece--I don't know about that, but it does probably deserve to be considered on a level with most of the master's best and best known works.

[Milburn Stone]

I share your appreciation of Lifeboat.

[voiceover]

Lifeboat's in my Hitchcock Top 5. Hodiak & Bankhead really generated Teh Heat.  When he got the right co-star (like Garland in Harvey Girls) ....rrrrowr!  

[mariah23]

George A. Romero dead at the age of 77. 

[mariah23]

Update: Martin Landau has died at age 89.

[ratgirlagogo]

3 hours ago, mariah23 said:

George A. Romero dead at the age of 77.

I know I'm one of the only horror fans here - but damn this is sad.  Night of the Living Dead is a watershed film in the horror genre - there's every horror movie made before it, and then there's every horror movie made after it.  Also for all the respect he got, it never really translated into cash money - for various reasons NOTLD passed into public domain early on so he didn't benefit from it being sold in every convenience store everywhere on home video, and he didn't direct very much in later years because he couldn't get the financial backing (!) even though he was so widely admired.  And of course he should have been getting royalties from The Walking Dead.   But my own favorite of his films has got to be the original Dawn of the Dead - both for the slapstick horror comedy and for the politics of it -critical of consumerism and racism and gentrification (which for the record are kind of the opposite of the politics of too much of the current undead craze, certainly including TWD ).  Hail and farewell and RIP, sir.

Edited July 17, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Charlie Baker]

Martin Landau was so consistently excellent and such a distinctive, elegant presence.  Of course, probably best associated with TCM for North by Northwest and maybe Cleopatra, but also so fine in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors and Tim Burton's Ed Wood, to name a few.  Not to mention Mission: Impossible, where he greatly impressed my child self.

George Romero redefined horror, no question,as well as advancing independent moviemaking, and as ratgirl notes, his impact on pop culture continues.

[Milburn Stone]

23 minutes ago, Charlie Baker said:

Martin Landau was so consistently excellent and such a distinctive, elegant presence.  Of course, probably best associated with TCM for North by Northwest...

His Leonard is so iconic. I wonder how he came up with that characterization. I mean, I wonder what actorly key word or concept went through his mind to lead him to that. For instance, was it: "I'm a male Mrs. Danvers." Or maybe: "Leonard loves Van Damm, so maybe Leonard appropriates Van Damm's manner."

I saw him and Eva Marie Saint being interviewed by Osborne after the screening of NbNW at the first TCM film festival, but I don't recall that question being asked. I wish I could ask it now.

[Padma]

On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 11:18 AM, Charlie Baker said:

I hadn't seen Lifeboat in many years, and I had the chance to watch as it aired last night.   It holds up and strikes me as pretty uncompromising for its time, still strong stuff.  It's worth noting again that Hitchcock and the writers beautifully sustained a generally suspenseful and engaging story within the limitations of the setting and premise.  From this viewing,  I thought too that Ms. Bankhead generally does not come off as campy or upstaging and is pretty much a member of the solid ensemble.  Guest host Alexandre Phillippe noted the mixed reception the movie got and its reputation as propagandistic, then called the movie a masterpiece--I don't know about that, but it does probably deserve to be considered on a level with most of the master's best and best known works.

I asked "Who's the pretty, interesting actress?" and was very surprised it was Tallulah Bankhead who looked and sounded nothing like I expected.  I guess I had never seen her before, only seen imitators, heard about her...known she was the inspiration for Cruella de Ville, pictured her so OTT in real life that I forgot she was actually supposed to be a good actress. It was really nice to see her in a film. And, interesting choices, especially the end which was far more downbeat than I expected. Good film--a different kind of Hitchock.

Landau was so memorable in everything but especially Crimes and Misdemeanors, one of my favorite films.  His performance sold the whole thing for me. 

[Charlie Baker]

Caught a brief. beautifully done TCM Remembers for Martin Landau today.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXnNEtKD6o

[bmoore4026]

<B>Deliverance</b> was on earlier tonight.  Anyone else introduced to that movie through Tiny Toon Adventures?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb8DQAiEK8Q

[prican58]

https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/demons-of-the-film-colony-when-bela-lugosi-met-boris-karloff/

[voiceover]

As much as I adore Ronald Colman's intro scene in Tale of Two Cities* (desperately hungover yet able to plot out a defense strategy), I think he had me for keeps a few minutes later.  

Courtside: He looks the scoundrel Barsad in the eye, pulls his lawyer's wig off, and...winks! 

*simply faints dead away at the mere memory of the moment*

What a tremendous marriage of actor to role.  While it's true that his speaking voice was one of the finest of the age, his expressive face was all.  

The silent film actors!  "We had faces then...", indeed.

 

* May have mentioned that once or twice or eleventy-thousand times before.

Edited July 21, 2017 by voiceover