TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[BooksRule]

Re-watching 'Mad Love'.  Peter Lorre was so good in this movie.  Before I watched this for the first time, I had only seen him in more comic-type roles ('The Raven', 'Arsenic & Old Lace', etc.).  His portrayal of Dr. Gogol in this one makes my skin crawl.  So creepy!

[Wiendish Fitch]

I LOVE Mad Love! By far my favorite Peter Lorre performance. I love how, tempting as it might be, they never once try to woobify Dr. Gogol; I don't care if he's a brilliant surgeon, he's a deranged incel who must be stopped. Lorre does have to walk a fine line between campy and creepy, but he does it absolutely brilliantly. I can't recommend this movie enough for fans of black and white horror. The sets and cinematography are also out of this world. Other thoughts:

It was kind of weird seeing Colin Clive in a non-Dr. Frankenstein role. 

Disney fans, be on the lookout (hear-out?) for Billy "Sneezy" Gilbert and Edward "Timothy Q. Mouse" Brophy!

Frances Drake is great as Yvonne, a wonderfully self-possessed heroine.

It was... weirdly progressive how Gogol's assistant surgeon was an Asian man who isn't a cringey stereotype, but just a normal person who is clearly great at his job. Hey, for a film from 1935, that's really saying something.

Edited October 6 by Wiendish Fitch

[BooksRule]

8 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

It was... weirdly progressive how Gogol's assistant surgeon was an Asian man who isn't a cringey stereotype, but just a normal person who is clearly great at his job. Hey, for a film from 1935, that's really saying something.

I noticed that, too.  That was good.

[EtheltoTillie]

Why did no one ever tell me that the 1960 version of Little Shop of Horrors is a Borscht Belt comedy routine?  In the first scene the aptly named Mrs. Shiva, the one whose relatives keep dying, asks for a discount on flowers. Mr. Mushnick the florist says “What am I — a philatelist?”  Dead. I’m dead. And that’s just in the first two minutes. 

Edited October 9 by EtheltoTillie

[Milburn Stone]

And then, so it's not only Jewish, Jack Nicholson as the dental patient who's into pain! Oy gevalt!

[EtheltoTillie]

I'm going to watch Mad Love, as recommended.  In turn I urge you all to watch the insane fever dream that is Detour.  That was last week's Noir Alley.  Ann Savage should have won an Oscar for that performance. 

[Charlie Baker]

Two stars with new books turned up on CBS Sunday Morning:

Shirley MacLaine

Ben with Al Pacino  with a link for the extended interview

 

[Tom Holmberg]

Thurs. Oct. 17 TCM has a nice selection of hard-boiled films:

Le Samourai (1967)
Bullitt (1968)
Point Blank (1967)
Get Carter (1971)

[Fool to cry]

On 10/9/2024 at 11:53 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

I'm going to watch Mad Love, as recommended.  In turn I urge you all to watch the insane fever dream that is Detour.  That was last week's Noir Alley.  Ann Savage should have won an Oscar for that performance. 

There are a lot of great classic noirs, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, but Detour captures the pitiless dark soul of film noir.

[mariah23]

TCM Remembers Mitzi Gaynor who passed away today at age 93.

[Wiendish Fitch]

3 minutes ago, mariah23 said:

TCM Remembers Mitzi Gaynor who passed away today at age 93.

She was super talented. I don't like the film version of South Pacific (damn you, Joshua Logan!), but Gaynor was well-cast as Nellie Forbush. 

[Charlie Baker]

This past week's Noir Alley The Crooked Way isn't all that remarkable but it does have the striking work of one of Eddie's favorite cinematographers, John Alton.

The new documentary on the Merchant/Ivory team is on Watch TCM and what I've seen of it looks very good, especially for fans of their movies. 

Tonight's Creepy Cinema movies are definitely creepy.  Targets, Peter Bogdanovich's first feature as director (he's also in the cast), is a disturbing, somewhat Hitchcockian look at a mass shooting.  It's got a lot of polish on an American International budget, and it's got a touching late performance from Boris Karloff.

The second one, The Fan, is something else entirely.  It's focused on a movie star's stalker turned slasher in 80s horror style   I don't recommend this at all, though some have found camp value in the stage musical that the star lady is performing in, as well as some of the over-the-top mayhem. Lauren Bacall, James Garner, and Maureen Stapleton (One exclamation point for each of them--!!!) slummed it in this one.

Mitzi Gaynor did what she could in movies and when the roles weren't coming turned to Las Vegas and TV for some snazzy specials.  She was smart. 

 

[Spartan Girl]

8 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

She was super talented. I don't like the film version of South Pacific (damn you, Joshua Logan!), but Gaynor was well-cast as Nellie Forbush. 

You got to give the musical credit for showing that even nice people can be racist too. That was pretty ballsy for its day. But lots of parts have not aged well: Bloody Mary was basically auctioning off her daughter and Cable was pretty much fetishizing her as the Lotus Flower Trope. The poor girl barely had any lines! Not to mention her lover dies and she’s left heartbroken and alone at the end!

Still, Nellie ultimately realizing she was an ass and stepping up to be stepmom was a good character arc that Gaynor pulled off beautifully. And her singing was superb. 

[BooksRule]

I watched 'The Devil Bat' this morning (a Bela Lugosi selection, since he's TCM's Star of the Month for October). It wasn't too bad, and the giant bats were even a little creepy when they were just being still and not flying around.

I had to laugh at the on-screen description of the movie.  Someone was definitely on the wrong page when they wrote it: 'Believing his employers swindled him out of company profits, a mad scientist invents gigantic baseball bats that attack anyone who wears a certain lotion--which his employers now do.'  That would have been an entirely different, but maybe entertaining film. 

[Rinaldo]

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution! What bliss! I love it unreservedly. I am not in general an admirer of Nicol Williamson, but he found his role in this twitchy paranoid Sherlock Holmes, perfectly paired with Alan Arkin's delightfully shrewd Sigmund Freud. An absolutely stuffed cast, with Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, Joel Grey, Régine, Samantha Eggar, Georgia Brown, Charles Gray, and oh just incidentally Laurence Olivier. Herbert Ross keeping it all afloat with designs by that master of detail Ken Adams. A nifty score by John Addison -- with a brand-new song by Stephen Sondheim. And Nicholas Meyer actually improving his own novel while turning it into a screenplay. Sometimes everything goes right.

[BooksRule]

19 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution! What bliss! I love it unreservedly.

I've never seen this movie, so I recorded it.  I'll weigh in my thoughts when I've had a chance to give it a watch.  I do love that list of actors, though.

[chessiegal]

We gave up on The Seven-Per-Cent Solution after about 40 minutes. It was tooooo slowwwww.

[EtheltoTillie]

22 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution! What bliss! I love it unreservedly. I am not in general an admirer of Nicol Williamson, but he found his role in this twitchy paranoid Sherlock Holmes, perfectly paired with Alan Arkin's delightfully shrewd Sigmund Freud. An absolutely stuffed cast, with Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, Joel Grey, Régine, Samantha Eggar, Georgia Brown, Charles Gray, and oh just incidentally Laurence Olivier. Herbert Ross keeping it all afloat with designs by that master of detail Ken Adams. A nifty score by John Addison -- with a brand-new song by Stephen Sondheim. And Nicholas Meyer actually improving his own novel while turning it into a screenplay. Sometimes everything goes right.

I loved that movie when it came out, and it's on my list to rewatch later today.  I hope I still like it. 

Earlier today I watched the other Nicol Williamson movie, The Human Factor.  A very bleak Graham Greene spy story. Definitely worth watching.   I'm not sure why Nicol Williamson has the reputation for being the "greatest actor since Marlon Brando," as the intro explained.  He's very good, but I don't know.  Even Marlon Brando is not the greatest actor since Marlon Brando lol.

A good view of the English class and educational system and how all of those hoity toity people ended up in the dirty spy business.  Spoilers: 

Spoiler

Derek Jacobi ends up dead because he didn't have the right connections. 

Great additional cast:  Iman, John Gielgud, Christopher Morley,  oops Robert Morley. Also Richard Attenborough. 

Edited October 21 by EtheltoTillie
Wrong name.

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I'm not sure why Nicol Williamson has the reputation for being the "greatest actor since Marlon Brando,"

He does? I believe you, but this is the first I've heard of it. I mostly hear about how impossible he was to work with. Paul Rudnick's chapter about dealing with him during the run of I Hate Hamlet is the most entertaining of the many instances.

[EtheltoTillie]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

He does? I believe you, but this is the first I've heard of it. I mostly hear about how impossible he was to work with. Paul Rudnick's chapter about dealing with him during the run of I Hate Hamlet is the most entertaining of the many instances.

It was part of Ben’s intro. But he also told some stories about how difficult he was. 

They were in part referencing his stage appearance in John Osborne’s Inadmissible Evidence.  There’s a filmed version of it I’d love to get my hands on. There are some clips available on YouTube. 

Edited October 22 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

Don’t miss the dead pheasants and the owl figurines!  

[Rinaldo]

12 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

It was part of Ben’s intro. But he also told some stories about how difficult he was.

I've seen that now. Which means I'm now aware it was John Osborne who made that claim, in the first excitement of having "discovered" him. So OK, the sort of thing that's been said about many an actor at various times. 

[voiceover]

22 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Even Marlon Brando is not the greatest actor since Marlon Brando

Funny AF & worth the repost.

[Tom Holmberg]

On 10/20/2024 at 7:22 PM, Rinaldo said:

Alan Arkin's delightfully shrewd Sigmund Freud.

Alan Arkin made the movie.  He was excellent as Freud.

[mariah23]

TCM Remembers Teri Garr, who passed away today at age 79.

[voiceover]

On 10/29/2024 at 10:43 AM, mariah23 said:

 

TCM Remembers Teri Garr

 

I still can’t find the link to this.  Anyone else see it?  I’m really surprised & disappointed that they haven’t put it out yet.

[EtheltoTillie]

I encourage everyone to watch the masterpiece Harlan County, USA. It’s still on Watch TCM.  Even if you’ve seen it, tune in for Ben’s interview with 99 year old Lee Grant and her stories about the blacklist and meeting and being inspired by and working with Kopple. 
As for the film, I wish I knew how Kopple filmed in the mines.  They couldn’t have allowed her in there. Maybe she used miners to do it. Or she snuck in, in disguise?  
As a lifelong New Yorker, I loved the convo between the striking miner and the NYC cop. 
I’m afraid I applied modern sensibilities in my reaction to the 16 year old widow of the murdered miner (with a one year old child . . . ). Still tragic. I guess the age of consent in Kentucky was low anyway. It’s apparently 16 now. I can’t find what it was back then. They always had those marriage exceptions. Loretta Lynn married at 15.

Edited Yest. at 11:55 AM by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

Answering my own question about Harlan County.  This article has some info about how Kopple filmed in the mines.  Some subterfuge, some use of alternate locations. 

https://www.widescreenings.com/harlan-county-barbara-kopple-analysis.html

The article also has some interesting perspective on the policeman/miner convo. 

[Charlie Baker]

Gig Young movies during the day today, and Gena Rowlands tribute tonight.