TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Wiendish Fitch]

On 4/6/2017 at 5:29 AM, voiceover said:

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.

I've recently developed a complex relationship with Lili; my feminist head really hates how awful Mel Ferrer is to Leslie Caron, but my foolish heart loves, loves, loves the final dream ballet. I treat the latter scene and ending like a movie unto itself, because it's just so damn good: the camera work is impeccable, the choreography simple yet so romantic and intimate (Caron was a dancer, Ferrer only kinda sorta), and holy shit, the chemistry! Ferrer looks at her with such loving, tender protectiveness, and Caron is just lost in a daze. I also love that when they kiss, it's not your typical, perfectly choreographed Hollywood kiss, but so heedless and messy.

I think I mostly like Lili for what it could have been: the story is intriguing, Caron is splendid, as is the rest of the cast (yup, even Zsa Zsa Gabor), but I just wish there hadn't been so many scenes where Ferrer is such a dickhead. Gruff, indifferent, and Mr. Darcy-like I can live with, but tormenting her during the puppet show (why was he even doing that, anyway?! His rival was leaving, he should have been thrilled!) and slapping her just... well, I try not to let my modern sensibilities get in the way, but I can't help it sometimes. It would have been nice if there had been just one scene where Paul was able to connect with Lili sans the puppets, but I guess it would have messed up the narrative flow.

Like I said, ours is a complicated relationship.

Oh, and not that anyone cares, but I used to fantasize about Lili being remade, with Michael Fassbender as Paul. It of course will never happen (and after the shit pile they made of Beauty and the Beast, I'm now more wary of remakes than I used to be), but I still think he would be ludicrously perfect.

Edited April 9, 2017 by Wiendish Fitch

[Milburn Stone]

14 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

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.

Tell me about it.

[ratgirlagogo]

22 hours ago, Crisopera said:

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?)

That was bothering me all day long.  That, and I couldn't figure out the cat connection.  I have seen a number of publicity stills of her holding kittens and puppies (kind of a standard starlet pose) but I can't think of a film of hers that involved a cat as an important character.  Anyone?

[Bastet]

That picture of her with a cat perched on her shoulder (I know there was more than one, but this one seems quite popular) tends to come up first when searching for images of her, so that's probably why they went that route.  Why they gave her dark hair in the doodle, though, I have no idea.

[ratgirlagogo]

Yes, that's the kind of posed shot I'm talking about.  Clearly not a still from a film.

[Bastet]

A cat may have shown up in one of her films, as they sometimes did in the silents, but I don't think the cat in the doodle was meant as an allusion to any movie, I think it was meant to evoke that photo.  I checked the Google Doodle blog, and it says nothing about the cat (or the hair), but I've seen some commentary about the doodle referencing the "iconic" photo I linked.  I wouldn't go that far, but that photo does spring quickly to mind when I picture Mary Pickford, so I can easily imagine it being in the minds of whoever worked on the doodle. 

[ratgirlagogo]

You're most likely right.  Feh.

[Crisopera]

Pursuing a comment above, frankly, unless you're a Moira Shearer, Leslie Caron, or Vincente Minnelli completest, I wouldn't bother with Story of Three Loves.  Admittedly, I haven't seen it in many years, but I remember that all three stories are either mawkish or slightly creepy.  Slightly creepy applies to the Minnelli-directed "Mademoiselle" segment.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Crisopera

[PaulaO]

I love "Dead of Night."  The final story creeps me out every time.

[AuntiePam]

Black Widow was on over the weekend.  Van Heflin, Peggy Garner, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney -- somewhat deceptive title, implying a wife killing her husband -- but what a fun movie, and one where if you paid attention, you could figure out who did it.  Van Heflin usually leaves me cold but I liked him in this, and Miss Garner was a revelation.  Two thumbs up!

[Rinaldo]

Oddly, Peggy Ann Garner's performance seems not to have been favorably received at the time, and it kind of ended her attempt to move into adult roles in movies, after a successful run as a child actress. I agree about finding her very effective in this. I wasn't sure about Ginger Rogers in this (her later acting performances can be erratic), but she turned out to be just dandy. And yes to Van Heflin. And Gene Tierney is always a pleasure. The whole movie took place in that never-never-NYC of penthouses and nightclubs that existed only in the movies, but that's just fine, as the artificiality is part of the fun.

I recorded Too Many Girls (1940) this morning, and found it an unusually faithful stage-musical adaptation for the period. Songs were dropped, but the ones retained were well used, and the new one ("You're Nearer") was by the original team, Rodgers & Hart (and a terrific song). It's a 4-couples college story, and 3 of the stage men were retained (Eddie Bracken, Hal Le Roy, and Desi Arnaz) along with several of the chorus kids including a recognizable Van Johnson. Lucille Ball (dubbed) was the new ingenue, and though the story doesn't pair her with Desi, he does get a moment where he first sees her and reels backward, and it's nice to have that as this is how they met, and they married 6 months later. Desi is instead paired, sort of, with Ann Miller; they don't really have a subplot together, but they do have a song that he sings and she dances (she's supposed to be Latina in this one, but with a ton of tapping of course). Hal Le Roy turns out to be an eccentric dancer with a style all his own. The story? -- no point getting into all that.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Rinaldo

[Crisopera]

I've got a somewhat odd recommendation (odd because I normally don't like either of the two leading ladies) - Two Sisters from Boston (1946).  The two leading ladies are June Allyson and - yes - the dreaded Kathryn Grayson.  This was early in the starring careers of both ladies, and they are actually very funny - not irritatingly coy and kittenish.  It's set in the 1890s, and was one of the Joe Pasternak-produced sort of A minus pictures.  They must have emptied out the 1890s costumes at MGM.  The script is smart, Peter Lawford and Allyson are charming together, and the supporting cast is full of terrific character people - Jimmy Durante and Ben Blue are hilarious.  The pastiche "burlesque" (not what we think of as burlesque now - more like slightly naughty vaudeville - as naughty as MGM got in 1946) songs by Sammy Fain and Ralph Freed are very smart, and the opera pastiches are terrific (based on music by Liszt and Mendelsohn).  Probably the best reason to see this is to see (and hear) the great Heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, especially in the sequence where his character is recording the Prize Song from Meistersinger.  What a voice!  Of course, he has to sing a duet with Grayson at the end of the movie.  He must have been thinking, I guess the paycheck is worth it - I sang with Nilsson and Traubel!  They show it on TCM a lot, and it's worth 90 minutes.  I almost always watch it when it's on.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Crisopera said:

The pastiche "burlesque" (not what we think of as burlesque now - more like slightly naughty vaudeville

Interestingly, that's quite accurate, as I have to explain to my History of Musicals students: in the nineteenth and very early twentieth century, "burlesque" meant pretty much what the word means in non-theatrical contexts: a spoof or exaggeration. It was a somewhat down-market but entirely family-friendly type of theater mixing musical and comedic bits -- pretty much what was later called vaudeville, while burlesque itself acquired a more low-down meaning. (Thanks for the recommendation for this movie, by the way; I'll look out for it.)

I finally caught up with my recorded copy of Edward, My Son. The title had always sounded like an overwrought weepie to me, but I was wrong as usual. It's a play by (and originally starring) Robert Morley, and it wasn't opened up much for the screen -- I love that about it, proceeding in a series of distinct scenes that keep jumping ahead by a year, through the life of the unseen title character. What we do see is his father, whose self-indulgence ruins all the lives around him, the son's definitely included. Spencer Tracy's stolid ordinariness turned out to be a great match for this oblivious doting father. Deborah Kerr, early in her career, was marvelous as his wife, developing from optimistic joy to drunken misery over the years (though the make-up and hair department did her no favors; they did the standard MGM thing of turning her into a white-haired harridan as soon as she passed 35 -- her performance was good enough to triumph over that, though). Good work also from James Donald, Mervyn Johns, Ian Hunter, Felix Aylmer, and especially Leueen McGrath (crisp and sexy as a loyal secretary; I wish she'd done more movies, though I remember seeing her a lot on TV in my youth). It's a George Cukor movie that I seldom hear mentioned, and I'm glad to have seen it.

[aradia22]

I started watching Picnic and it was fine (I kept comparing it the production of the play I saw recently) but after maybe 15 minutes I realized I wasn't in the mood for it so I put on Forsaking All Others (1934). I forgot how much I love these old romantic comedies. I can see why this is a lesser one but it's not terrible. I feel certain that I've watched it before, or at least the part where Dylan and Mary go to the house and then the others catch up to them. Maybe it's one of those movies where I only watched the middle. Anyway, solid Mankiewicz script as far as quips go. Lots of zingers. A few nice Adrian costumes. Not too crazy with the ruffles in this one. I feel like Robert Montgomery was great here. He's such a Dylan. I never buy him as a real romantic lead. He's much better as this schmuck. Clark Gable looked gorgeous and there were moments when I thought he found a real sensitivity in his acting that wasn't required for a silly movie like this. Also, I thought it was funny how many times they managed to get him in partial states of undress. Oh, 1934. On that note, it made me realize how warped my brain is getting from the new superhero body standards. Gable looked lean and almost lanky to me at times until he stood next to Montgomery or something. Actors now are getting so unnaturally big and muscular. I also thought that this was the sweetest and gentlest character I've seen him play. Sure, there was the hairbrush thing but aside from that, he was a tabby cat. I'm not sure I was into it but maybe if he'd have been more aggressive then Mary would have leapt into his arms halfway through the movie. Joan was great but she was a lot more standard and I feel like part of the issue with her character is how the plot played out. Things were great at first. But somewhere after the Todd's party, even though there were some great moments, the plot gets kind of inert and it makes less sense for things to drag on the way they do until they get resolved in a big rush at the very end. I wish the revelation had come earlier instead of the revelation --> HEA ending we got. It would have improved the writing for Mary's character and given me more time with Gable and Crawford as a couple and I can never get enough of that. Frances Drake was beautiful as Connie but not a particularly great actress. I don't think I've seen her in anything else. It was weird to see Rosalind Russell in such a small part. I kept expecting her character to come back in some way.

For some reason, more than other movies around this time, I started thinking about how this movie would have played coming out around the Depression. I think maybe it was Crawford. She wasn't her kind of scrappy working girl character. But it also wasn't such a glamorous movie that you'd think audiences would see it as escapism. It seemed like it was about society types in a way that was out of touch with everyday people. Also, I noticed way more... not racist... but racially weird comments in this script. I mean, normally if the movie isn't about race, they don't bring it up at all but I kept noticing them tossing off little comments that seemed weird. 

If you like witty scripts, I recommend it. It's harmless enough and mostly a vehicle for zingers delivered by pretty people. 

[Crisopera]

Frances Drake was absolutely gorgeous, and had a medium-weight career, until she married into the British aristocracy and retired in the 1940s.  Her best-known movies are probably Mad Love (with Peter Lorre) and Les Miserables (as Eponine), both in 1935.  Strikingly beautiful, but not strikingly talented.

[prican58]

Watching Babes In Arms now and I notice Sidney Miller. Didn't know his name but the face is one I've always liked. He is un credited in this but he plays Sid the kid who takes over the piano when Mickey takes up the bass to accompany Judy. And plays the "uncle" in their rehersal. Mickey shows him how to play it like Lionel Barrymore. He sort of reminds me of a better looking Larry Fine.

I did not realize the talent until reading his imdb bio.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0587804/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Here he is in The Men of Boys Town at about 15 seconds or so. He was the father of actor Barry Miller who played Ralph the stand up wanna be in Fame. The things you learn.

[Calvada]

aradia22, if you like Clark Gable, he's the star of the month in May.  Also coming in May, on two consecutive Fridays, the 50th anniversary of 1967.  What a lineup!  On May 12, it will include The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Dirty Dozen, The Producers, and Camelot.  Then on May 19, Cool Hand Luke, Bonnie and Clyde, Point Blank, Belle du Jour, and Wait Until Dark.  The film year of 1967 rivals 1939 as the greatest ever. 

Question - what other years would you suggest as one of the best film years?  And do you think 1939 and 1967 are the top two years, or are there other years you would put above them? 

[Rinaldo]

52 minutes ago, Calvada said:

what other years would you suggest as one of the best film years?  And do you think 1939 and 1967 are the top two years, or are there other years you would put above them?

I was around for 1967, and would find that some of the movies listed are memorable classics, others are well-made pieces of entertainment, and others (to my taste) aren't all that great -- Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is (I guess) important sociologcally but really isn't very good, and Camelot (much as I love the music) is pretty bad at times. I think 1939's status is safe.

I might tentatively suggest 1972, which has The Godfather, Cabaret, Play it Again Sam, Deliverance, and Sounder. It looks even better if rather than a calendar year, we take a one-year slice of time starting 3 months earlier. Going from October 1971 through September 1972, you lose none of those titles and add The French Connection, Fiddler on the Roof, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Harold and Maude, A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, and The Last Picture Show.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Rinaldo

[ratgirlagogo]

1 hour ago, Calvada said:

 

aradia22, if you like Clark Gable, he's the star of the month in May.

 

Ha, IF she likes Clark Gable!  You don't know the half of it.  So pleased to see you back on this board, aradia22.  Missed you.

Edited April 14, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[prican58]

The 70's are my go to classic era after the 30s and 40s. 

[Rinaldo]

7 hours ago, prican58 said:

The 70's are my go to classic era after the 30s and 40s. 

Pauline Kael, notoriously hard to please, led off one of her late-1972 columns with a paragraph summing up the previous two years, saying it had, unexpectedly, turned out to be a classic period in the history of movies. She gave an extensive list of recent releases (including some about which it was possible to have reservations) and said "One can hardly ask for more from any art form, 'high' or 'low'."

[AuntiePam]

14 hours ago, Calvada said:

aradia22, if you like Clark Gable, he's the star of the month in May.  Also coming in May, on two consecutive Fridays, the 50th anniversary of 1967.  What a lineup!  On May 12, it will include The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Dirty Dozen, The Producers, and Camelot.  Then on May 19, Cool Hand Luke, Bonnie and Clyde, Point Blank, Belle du Jour, and Wait Until Dark.  The film year of 1967 rivals 1939 as the greatest ever. 

Question - what other years would you suggest as one of the best film years?  And do you think 1939 and 1967 are the top two years, or are there other years you would put above them? 

I hadn't thought of 1967 as special, and then I read Mark Harris's book -- Pictures at a Revolution, focusing on the five nominees for best picture that year.  It's a great read, with fascinating background on the movie-making process in general, as well as the background on those five movies.

Mankiewicz and Dunaway seemed to agree about 1967, in the interview rebroadcast a couple weeks back. 

[Milburn Stone]

Additionally, I have a fondness for the films of the late seventies and early eighties. I can't pinpoint a year, but movies like Close Encounters, Superman, E.T., Raiders, and Back to the Future seemed to form a whole new genre--big, thrilling adventure movies of quality that appealed to everybody, not just this or that segment of the market. We haven't seen their like since.

[AuntiePam]

Colorado Territory, 1949, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Henry Hull, Dorothy Malone.  Plot similar to High Sierra (also directed by Walsh) but set in the old west.  It was a pleasant surprise.  Familiar plot and characters but almost nothing played out as expected. 

A supper scene was unusual.  Mayo cooks a pot of goopy stuff over an open fire, spoons it onto a plate, and then McCrea actually ate it -- whatever it was -- and not just one bite either.  We never see actors eating unidentifiable food.  Also fun to see McCrea rolling his own skinny cigarettes -- one-handed, of course -- and smoking them.  No ready-mades in this movie! 

There's some humor and wit in the dialogue, and fine acting all around.  I'm glad TCM showed it.

[Wiendish Fitch]

6 minutes ago, AuntiePam said:

Colorado Territory, 1949, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Henry Hull, Dorothy Malone.  Plot similar to High Sierra (also directed by Walsh) but set in the old west.  It was a pleasant surprise.  Familiar plot and characters but almost nothing played out as expected. 

A supper scene was unusual.  Mayo cooks a pot of goopy stuff over an open fire, spoons it onto a plate, and then McCrea actually ate it -- whatever it was -- and not just one bite either.  We never see actors eating unidentifiable food.  Also fun to see McCrea rolling his own skinny cigarettes -- one-handed, of course -- and smoking them.  No ready-mades in this movie! 

There's some humor and wit in the dialogue, and fine acting all around.  I'm glad TCM showed it.

Colorado Territory isn't perfect (Joel McCrea bores me cross-eyed, and I never thought Virginia Mayo was anything special), but I think it's a vast improvement over High Sierra, because the "Velma" character here (played by Dorothy Malone) genuinely deserves our contempt because she's a greedy, exploitative traitor. Compare that to Joan Leslie, whose great crime was not wanting to marry this decades older ex-con she's known for less than a month. Sorry, but I take serious umbrage with that plot line in High Sierra; I appreciate what it was going for, but I think it fails miserably. 

[AuntiePam]

9 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Sorry, but I take serious umbrage with that plot line in High Sierra; I appreciate what it was going for, but I think it fails miserably. 

Maybe Walsh did the remake to improve on High Sierra -- the later movie makes a lot more sense, plot-wise.  I didn't care for High Sierra, but it's been awhile since I've seen it and I wouldn't have been able to say what I didn't like.  I'm thinking maybe you've given me the reason.  Also, Bogie often leaves me cold.  I liked him in African Queen and The Caine Mutiny, but that's about it. 

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Additionally, I have a fondness for the films of the late seventies and early eighties. I can't pinpoint a year, but movies like Close Encounters, Superman, E.T., Raiders, and Back to the Future seemed to form a whole new genre--big, thrilling adventure movies of quality that appealed to everybody, not just this or that segment of the market. We haven't seen their like since.

A likely year for the start of this idea would be 1975, the year of Jaws. It caused an upheaval in the existing order in at least three ways.

1. It proved that summer movie releases could be gigantic hits (it's hard to remember now, but this was not at all the general industry belief before).
2. It showed that immediate wide release into a maximum number of theaters, rather than the previously obligatory "tiered" release, starting in a handful of theaters and then widening bit by bit, could pay off financially.
3. It showed the world that Steven Spielberg was a crackerjack creator of irresistible popular entertainments. (His skill had already been evident in small-screen and small-release work, but this was the moment that proclaimed it to the world. Most of the advance word on Jaws had been negative, what with all the problems during shooting... and then this happened.)

Several of the subsequent titles that @Milburn Stone mentioned were Spielberg's work, of course, and Bob Zemeckis (BTTF) had worked for him. Others took the hint.

It takes nothing away from the quality of these still-enjoyable blockbusters to note (and I'm not claiming to be original here) that their success also had a negative effect on US filmmaking. With these flicks so financially successful, the studios wanted those kinds of numbers on everything, the business started (gradually at first) to shift in favor of summer blockbusters, sure things, appeal to the widest possible (international) audience, adventure stories above all, and extended franchises. Which is where we find ourselves now. 

(I hope I'm not a snob. I love a lot of the movies we've had in this vein; I assume most of us do. But I don't want them to be all that gets made, or all that gets advertised to potential audiences.)

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

It takes nothing away from the quality of these still-enjoyable blockbusters to note (and I'm not claiming to be original here) that their success also had a negative effect on US filmmaking. With these flicks so financially successful, the studios wanted those kinds of numbers on everything, the business started (gradually at first) to shift in favor of summer blockbusters, sure things, appeal to the widest possible (international) audience, adventure stories above all, and extended franchises. Which is where we find ourselves now. 

I agree that Jaws was the start of it all. I remember the sheer joy of standing in line with everybody.

As for the summer blockbuster genre starting a decline toward the lowest common denominator (my interpretation, not necessarily yours), you're right, and the difference was entirely in what lay behind the moviemaking. The studios beginning to crave those kinds of numbers caused the studios to make movies for no other reason than to make money--and the resulting movies showed it. (And mostly continue to show it.) The thing that distinguishes that first round of summer blockbusters (say 1975-1985) is that so many of them were made by masterful young filmmakers in love with movies, making a new kind of movie they themselves wanted to see.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[SeanC]

5 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

The studios beginning to crave those kinds of numbers caused the studios to make movies for no other reason than to make money--and the resulting movies showed it. 

That was hardly a new phenomenon.

[aradia22]

Quote

aradia22, if you like Clark Gable, he's the star of the month in May. 

Sadly, we don't get TCM anymore. I've still got a bunch of movies on the DVR but after that, I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to the thread. :(

[Milburn Stone]

7 hours ago, SeanC said:

That was hardly a new phenomenon.

No. What was a new phenomenon was the studios giving money to young filmmakers who wanted to make movies for no other reason than the love of film.

[ratgirlagogo]

6 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Sadly, we don't get TCM anymore. I've still got a bunch of movies on the DVR but after that, I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to the thread. :(

That IS sad.  But as long as we're talking about a movie you've seen I hope that you continue here.  You can get old movies from the public library for free, for example.

Edited April 15, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Charlie Baker]

Amidst the Easter themed movies on tomorrow's schedule, TCM did not bump Noir Alley and is showing a sleeper I only discovered fairly recently.  The Set-Up is about a boxer who never really made it and is now in decline, but refuses to take a fall.  It unfolds in real time (a little over an hour total running time), is well made and dense with atmosphere and tension, and has a prime Robert Ryan performance. 

[bmoore4026]

6 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Sadly, we don't get TCM anymore. I've still got a bunch of movies on the DVR but after that, I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to the thread. :(

TCM really should have streaming services.

Watching Ivanhoe now.  Anyone else wish they brought back how the Middle Ages were portrayed in movies back then?  Bright colors, bright lighting, no over emphasis on everything being in filth?  Maybe it's just me.

Tonight, we have rabbit themed movies, including Night of the Lepus, a movie about giant cuddly "killer" bunnies :D

Edited April 15, 2017 by bmoore4026

[Rinaldo]

10 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Watching Ivanhoe now.  Anyone else wish they brought back how the Middle Ages were portrayed in movies back then?  Bright colors, bright lighting, no over emphasis on everything being in filth?

Maybe not for everything, but I'd like to see that kind of production for the right story -- there's never been a real movie of The Once and Future King, for instance, and it would lend itself to that treatment.

Also, there's probably never been another movie where Joan Fontaine looked kind of ordinary and ho-hum -- because right next to her was the young Elizabeth Taylor.

[Milburn Stone]

21 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Watching Ivanhoe now.  Anyone else wish they brought back how the Middle Ages were portrayed in movies back then?  Bright colors, bright lighting, no over emphasis on everything being in filth?  Maybe it's just me.

I know. From today's period films, you'd think the sun never came out in the Middle Ages. I'm pretty sure it did.

And the Middle Ages are always better with Rozsa's music.

[mariah23]

7 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Sadly, we don't get TCM anymore. I've still got a bunch of movies on the DVR but after that, I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to the thread. :(

Use a friend or relative's password.  That's how I watch TCM now.

[ratgirlagogo]

3 hours ago, bmoore4026 said:

TCM really should have streaming services.

If you already get TCM and have the correct cable provider (which we only got this year) there is Watch TCM.  And it seems like Filmstruck is TCM/Criterion's maiden voyage into streaming content independent of TV.

 

Quote

Watching Ivanhoe now.

I know I've said this before - but this is an incredibly beautiful movie, just visually.  When we showed it at the library some years ago the audience actually burst into applause at the end (this never happens FWIW).

Edited April 15, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Willowsmom]

• Ah, Harvey! Not a fan of James Stewart but love Cecil Kellaway and Josephine Hull!

[bmoore4026]

5 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

I know I've said this before - but this is an incredibly beautiful movie, just visually.  When we showed it at the library some years ago the audience actually burst into applause at the end (this never happens FWIW).

It is a beautiful movie.  Valiant hero, fair princess, even fairer maiden, wicked villains, Robin Hood, gorgeous sets, great action scenes, intrigue, fantastic costuming, brilliant acting, and a bittersweet ending.  What's not to love? :D

[MisterBluxom]

On 2017-04-13 at 11:46 PM, ratgirlagogo said:

Ha, IF she likes Clark Gable!  You don't know the half of it.  So pleased to see you back on this board, aradia22.  Missed you.

I just watched "Strange Cargo" with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford. Some interesting points:

Joan got top billing there. This movie was made in 1940 (after Gone with the Wind) - hard to understand why she ever got top billing.

The story was kind of dis-jointed and I think the director put the actors into some very difficult situations. But they both gave wonderful performances. Even if you disagree with me that the story was kind of crummy and some of the other actors really didn't fit (like Peter Lorre), the performances given by Gable and Crawford were so great that they overcame any of the flaws in this film.  I don't know if TCM will be showing this movie or not. But if they don't, I sure would like to recommend it to anyone who likes either or both of these actors.

I had never before seen  Strange Cargo but found it on a web page from some critic who claimed it was one of JC's top five films. Hard to disagree with that. She was terrific. They both were.

Edited April 16, 2017 by MissBluxom

[MisterBluxom]

For anyone who may be interested, I was checking into some of Gable's movies and I discovered that he was credited for making 15 movies in 1931:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000022/

Can you believe that? How in the world can any A-List actor ever make 15 movies in the same calendar year? What gives?

Edited April 16, 2017 by MissBluxom

[voiceover]

As President, recording secretary, and principal dancer of the Ramon Novarro Fan Club, I'm popping in to remind you all that his Ben-Hur, the best of all the Hurs, is the Silent Sunday Night feature.

Among the reasons this is so: the chariot race kicks. ASS.  That's some incredible visuals, what I would kill to see on the big screen.

And, as always true of his "Boy King" portrayals, he moves seamlessly from greenhorn sweet-natured Mama's Boy, to bitter angry vengeance-seeker, to Prince of Wisdom & Grace.

Happy Easter, all.

[Rinaldo]

7 hours ago, MissBluxom said:

How in the world can any A-List actor ever make 15 movies in the same calendar year?

There are two parts to the answer: 1, those were the days of studio contracts, when the studio that "owned" you (MGM in his case, though with loan-outs and trades possible) told you where to report, the day after your current movie wrapped; and 2, Gable was not yet A-list when the year started. You can see him transitioning from bit player to second man to leading man in the course of the year, by clicking through to each individual film and looking at the billing order. Indeed, in the credits before this year, he was usually "uncredited," and in the lists for early 1931 there are generally one or two men billed above him, but by the end he's at the top -- an impressive rise in such a short time. And starting the very next year, his number of movies per year becomes a saner 4 or 5, as befits a star.

[Charlie Baker]

Contract players as so well-described by Rinaldo could also be working on more than one film simultaneously, depending on their role and the shooting schedules.  There was always something in production and the studios got as much for their money as possible.

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Contract players as so well-described by Rinaldo could also be working on more than one film simultaneously, depending on their role and the shooting schedules.  There was always something in production and the studios got as much for their money as possible.

This whole subject (the frequency with which certain actors, especially character actors, appeared) fascinates me. Because it underlines that we don't actually expect actors to convince us of the reality of their characters. How could we, when we instantly recognize that guy as the guy we saw last week in some different movie, and the week before that in some yet again different movie? All we ask is that the actor perform the assigned dramatic function adequately. (In lucky cases, brilliantly.) We'll supply the author's intention with our minds. It's why I always distrust a reaction like "I totally believed [X] in the part." No, you couldn't. Not totally.

[Silver Raven]

It always blows my mind how Gable made the movie San Francisco, about the 1906 earthquake, in 1936, just 30 years after the quake.  That would be as close to us as a movie set in 1987.

[Rinaldo]

A subject that interests me (I'm surprised that nobody seems to have written a book about it yet, given the abundance of Hollywood-history writing) is how long the practice of actors working under contract to studios may have persisted. It began diminishing in the 1950s, concurrently with the studios losing control of the physical theaters, but how long did it last?

The little bits one reads here and there fascinate me. Like this bit from an online interview with Shirley Knight (a Warners contract player in the early 1960s):

Quote

You were never out of work.  What would happen there was, for example, I would be doing a movie and if I had a week off, they would put you in Sugarfoot or Maverick or Cheyenne, or The Roaring 20s or 77 Sunset Strip.  So I did masses of the Warner Bros. television shows.  Literally, you would go do – I remember doing a really terrible film called Ice Palace, with Richard Burton and Robert Ryan.  I would have time off [in between my scenes].  If I did a couple weeks on the movie and I had a week off, they would put me in a Roaring 20s, or any of those shows.  They used you so much when you were under contract, they would put a wig on you.  A couple of times I wore a black wig or a red wig, so that I wouldn’t be so recognizable, evidently.

You had your own little house on the lot, which are offices now, but it used to be you had your own little kitchenette and bed and bathroom.  And that was good, because you were there a lot.  I was friends with the other contract players – Roger Moore and James Garner and the girl that did The Roaring 20s, Dorothy Provine.  We were friends, and we would sit around and talk.

...They probably all sat around the table, I would think, and they would say, “Well, the little bouncy girl, Connie Stevens.”  They would put her in all those parts, and then I would be in the more serious parts.  They had one of each.  There was always a lady, either a daughter or a woman in distress, if you think about it, in all of their shows.  So I was perfect, in a sense, because I was more of a chameleon than the other girls under contract, Dorothy Provine and Connie Stevens, who were particular types.

It does seem to have lasted longest at Universal, with people they had under contract for TV. Sharon Gless says that she was the last of them, and if one traces her career, it's clear that she was plugged into everything that Universal did where there was a vacant spot.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Rinaldo

[GreekGeek]

On 4/13/2017 at 10:21 PM, Calvada said:

aradia22, if you like Clark Gable, he's the star of the month in May.  Also coming in May, on two consecutive Fridays, the 50th anniversary of 1967.  What a lineup!  On May 12, it will include The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Dirty Dozen, The Producers, and Camelot.  Then on May 19, Cool Hand Luke, Bonnie and Clyde, Point Blank, Belle du Jour, and Wait Until Dark.  The film year of 1967 rivals 1939 as the greatest ever. 

Question - what other years would you suggest as one of the best film years?  And do you think 1939 and 1967 are the top two years, or are there other years you would put above them? 

1972 is a contender for sure; I think 1976 is also a really strong year. It gave us Taxi Driver, All the President's Men, Rocky, Network, Bound for Glory, Carrie, The Bad News Bears, The Omen, Marathon Man, 1900, Stay Hungry (hellooo, Ahnuld!), The Shootist (goodbye, John Wayne), Family Plot (goodbye, Alfred Hitchcock), Silent Movie (nearly 40 years before The Artist, and more fun), The Seven Per Cent Solution, and many more.

[bmoore4026]

The ending of Ben-Hur may be the most beautiful ending in cinema history.  Even if you aren't part of any Christian following or aren't religious at all, you have to appreciate the ending.  After that Judah and his family have been through, the rain (fused with the blood of Jesus) washing away the disease and pain and all that and bringing about rebirth is beautiful.