TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[MissT]

5 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Rosalind Russell day had its delights with Auntie Mame, His Girl Friday, My Sister Eileen--but they wrapped it with Rendezvous, which could have been one of those scripts Myrna Loy balked at and Ms. Russell inherited from MGM.  Because there she was, as a ditsy comic foil to William Powell.  Mr. P. plays a cryptographer during WWI reluctantly trying to outsmart the Germans stateside with codes and cyphers, rather than being on the front. The intrigue plot is played straight, and Ms. R. is the comic relief who seems to have dropped in from another movie.  The integration of the comic and the suspenseful just didn't happen.  Nevertheless, the stars demonstrate chemistry between them, even if her character is borderline insufferable. I may never see all of Mr. Powell's filmography--maybe some of the silents he did don't survive, I don;t know.  But I will catch as much as TCM offers up.

I would have like to seen Gypsy or The Trouble with Angels.  I really liked her in those movies.

[voiceover]

x

Edited August 20, 2017 by voiceover

[Rinaldo]

10 minutes ago, voiceover said:

Catch Sweeney Todd tonight, if you can.  It's a well-done filming of the Broadway production in its 3rd (I think) year.

George Hearn had taken over the title role by then.  I was lucky enough to see Len Cariou do it, a few months after the show opened, so he's still my favorite.  But Hearn nearly matches him, and manages to make the role his own.

Angela Lansbury is suffering a touch of "long run-itis", but her singing is superb.  The Anthony is a Ken doll -- his look makes him as dated in the role as all those ingenues in 60s period horror flicks.

 

It's a taping of the national tour (which starred Lansbury and Hearn) at its last stop, in Los Angeles, in 1982 (the Broadway production had closed in 1980, having run for a year and 5 months). One can see that it's the touring sets because the pie-shop/barbershop unit in the middle of the stage is moved by cast members rather than revolving mechanically, and there are no trapdoors for entrances from below. 

It had been a long 10 months for the tour (which included original cast members Lansbury and Edmund Lyndeck, and some of the mid-run replacements), and just as I'd found when I saw it in Chicago a few months before the taping, some of the voices were shot -- it's a long heavy "sing" for everyone. The only ones who still sounded fresh were Cris Groenendaal as Anthony (whatever one thinks of his look, he has the voice for the challenging part as Victor Garber never quite did [Garber sounded pinched and flat all 3 times I saw him])... and Lansbury herself. What a consummate pro she was and is. I'm so glad we have this visual memento of that production.

[Bastet]

12 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Rosalind Russell day had its delights with Auntie Mame, His Girl Friday, My Sister Eileen--but they wrapped it with Rendezvous, which could have been one of those scripts Myrna Loy balked at and Ms. Russell inherited from MGM.  Because there she was, as a ditsy comic foil to William Powell.

Yes, that was made when Loy was, in simplistic terms, on strike (following MGM's refusal to pay her the same as Powell in light of The Thin Man's tremendous success).  So, not specifically one of those rejected scripts Russell joked Loy rolled down the hill to land on Russell's doorstep (to which Loy replied, "Where were you the night I rolled you Parnell?"), but something MGM put Russell in - and one of the first things MGM put her in, and I think the first thing in a co-starring role - because they didn't have Loy for it.  As filming commenced, Russell basically apologized to Powell, saying she knew he'd rather be doing this with Loy, and he said he loved Myrna and loved working with her, but he thought this was going to be a great thing for Russell and was happy to be doing it with her.

[Milburn Stone]

On 8/17/2017 at 10:10 PM, Rinaldo said:

I saw both [Robert Preston and Forrest Tucker] play Prof. Harold Hill in The Music Man.

Tucker was my introduction to the role--must have seen the same touring company as you. The production played at Ford's Theater in Baltimore. (Torn down in 1964 for a parking lot.) He was good, as I recall. And fine in Auntie Mame, IMO.

[mariah23]

Well, we've got the biggest star for TCM Remembers  (besides Robert Osborne): Jerry Lewis. 

 

Edited to add: TCM has a Remembers for Jerry on Facebook.

Edited August 21, 2017 by mariah23

[Milburn Stone]

I'm just old enough to remember when Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were as big as The Beatles would later be. (Or seemed so, in their way.) And definitely old enough to remember being delighted beyond words as a child by their (and his) movies and TV appearances. Frank Tashlin's Geisha Boy gave me the eight-year old boy's version of an orgasm. It's been a long time since Jerry Lewis delighted me, but it seems weird not to have him in the world.

Edited August 20, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[Padma]

re: Cary Grant day. It's pretty hard to believe that Cary Grant never received an Oscar for any of his 76 film roles. Watching Suspicion yesterday, he was the one who made it work imo, not Joan Fontaine. She was fine, did what most good actresses could do--look loving, look fearful, look worried, look ill.  But Grant was great at keeping you guessing. Were those worried looks or sinister ones? there were moments when he seemed menacing--or was it actually loving concern? He kept you guessing right until the end, where Hitchcock could -still- have gone either with the ending as written for the movie, or (as he wanted) with the original ending in the novel. Two very different conclusions, showing completely different kinds of men. Yet Grant's performance made you believe that either one was possible.

Yet Joan Fontaine won an Oscar for her performance and he wasn't even nominated.

I liked Ben M reading Joe M's letter he sent to Grant after he was passed over for "The Philadelphia Story" while the producer, director and ,writer, plus 3 of the 4 main actors--Hepburn, Stewart, and Hussy--received Oscar nominations (Stewart won as Best Actor).  Mankiewicz made it clear he considered Grant a great actor whose performance had been essential to the film and that he, Joe M. was disappointed his work hadn't gotten the recognition it deserved.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Padma

[Milburn Stone]

34 minutes ago, Padma said:

Watching Suspicion yesterday, [Grant] was the one who made it work imo, not Joan Fontaine...Were those worried looks or sinister ones? there were moments when he seemed menacing--or was it actually loving concern? He kept you guessing right until the end, where Hitchcock could -still- have gone either with the ending as written for the movie, or (as he wanted) with the original ending in the novel. Two very different conclusions, showing completely different kinds of men. Yet Grant's performance made you believe that either one was possible.

Great observation. Has it been written anywhere how Hitchcock went about directing him to achieve this ambiguity? I imagine Grant wanting to know whether he was a murderer! And Hitchcock having to reply, "I can't tell you." I wonder whether Hitchcock said, "Just stand over there, say your words, and everything's going to be all right." Or if there was more conversation than that.

The way the character comes across, I think Grant/Hitchcock made the choice to play him like a murderer. I sure thought he was, the first time I saw the movie. I bet they rationalized, "If we play him like a murderer, and then it turns out he's not, it will still make sense, because the audience will assume they've been seeing him filtered through Joan Fontaine's paranoia." Which is pretty much exactly how the movie works.

I also think the approach makes sense because I feel like the character (not just Grant, the character) himself doesn't know whether he's going to kill his wife or not. He's tempted! At the very last, he decides the other way, but I think he's rolled the idea around in his head a few times.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[psychoticstate]

On 8/19/2017 at 10:36 PM, Bastet said:

Yes, that was made when Loy was, in simplistic terms, on strike (following MGM's refusal to pay her the same as Powell in light of The Thin Man's tremendous success).  So, not specifically one of those rejected scripts Russell joked Loy rolled down the hill to land on Russell's doorstep (to which Loy replied, "Where were you the night I rolled you Parnell?"), but something MGM put Russell in - and one of the first things MGM put her in, and I think the first thing in a co-starring role - because they didn't have Loy for it.  As filming commenced, Russell basically apologized to Powell, saying she knew he'd rather be doing this with Loy, and he said he loved Myrna and loved working with her, but he thought this was going to be a great thing for Russell and was happy to be doing it with her.

Love reading this.  Proves that William Powell was an all around amazing man.

 

4 hours ago, Padma said:

re: Cary Grant day. It's pretty hard to believe that Cary Grant never received an Oscar for any of his 76 film roles. Watching Suspicion yesterday, he was the one who made it work imo, not Joan Fontaine. She was fine, did what most good actresses could do--look loving, look fearful, look worried, look ill.  But Grant was great at keeping you guessing. Were those worried looks or sinister ones? there were moments when he seemed menacing--or was it actually loving concern? He kept you guessing right until the end, where Hitchcock could -still- have gone either with the ending as written for the movie, or (as he wanted) with the original ending in the novel. Two very different conclusions, showing completely different kinds of men. Yet Grant's performance made you believe that either one was possible.

Yet Joan Fontaine won an Oscar for her performance and he wasn't even nominated.

I liked Ben M reading Joe M's letter he sent to Grant after he was passed over for "The Philadelphia Story" while the producer, director and ,writer, plus 3 of the 4 main actors--Hepburn, Stewart, and Hussy--received Oscar nominations (Stewart won as Best Actor).  Mankiewicz made it clear he considered Grant a great actor whose performance had been essential to the film and that he, Joe M. was disappointed his work hadn't gotten the recognition it deserved.

I think comedies didn't always get their due back in the day and, as a result, those great comedians didn't always get the Oscar nods they should have.  Cary Grant certainly suffered from that, as did Myrna Loy.

I love Suspicion; I've always felt that Joan Fontaine was nominated as a "sorry" for losing the year before with Rebecca.  I feel she was better in Rebecca, not that she was poor in Suspicion.  But yes, if Cary Grant had not worked, the film would not have worked.  He was pivotal in everything. 

I am thrilled with Ann Harding Day today.  I set my DVR for quite a few, including When Ladies Meet and Animal Kingdom, neither of which I've seen in ages, and Double Harness, which I could view every other day.

[voiceover]

5 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I also think the approach makes sense because I feel like the character (not just Grant, the character) himself doesn't know whether he's going to kill his wife or not. He's tempted! At the very last, he decides the other way, but I think he's rolled the idea around in his head a few times.

I stand and applaud this last line, mostly because of the "rolled [it] around in his head" part.  Much of what I've read on this film insists that Hitch weenied out because Cary Grant couldn't play a wife-killer.  But I couldn't square it with the performance; wasn't sure why.  So what you wrote makes all that click.

The Lodger faces the same argument in theory circles (heroic leading man as killer) but I think Ivor Novello's convincing as a truly innocent man whose plans for revenge cast him in the worst possible light.  Grant's Johnny, OTOH, could've gone either way.  

Don't know if I explained that right, but it made sense in my head as I wrote it.

Edited August 22, 2017 by voiceover

[mariah23]

12 minutes ago, voiceover said:

I stand and applaud this last line, mostly because of the "rolled [it] around in his head" part.  Much of what I've read on this film insists that Hitch weenied out because Cary Grant couldn't play a wife-killer.  But I couldn't square it with the performance; wasn't sure why.  So what you wrote makes all that click.

The Lodger faces the same argument in theory circles (heroic leading man as killer) but I think Ivor Novello's convincing as a truly innocent man whose plans for revenge cast him in the worst possible light.  Grant's Johnny, OTOH, could've gone either way.  

Don't know if I explained that right, but it made sense in my head as I wrote it.

From what I read, Hitchcock wanted Grant to be the killer, but Selznick thought that the audience wouldn't accept Grant as a murderer.

[voiceover]

My phone ate my entry

Edited August 22, 2017 by voiceover

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, mariah23 said:

From what I read, Hitchcock wanted Grant to be the killer, but Selznick thought that the audience wouldn't accept Grant as a murderer.

No doubt, but the question is, does the movie as it stands make sense--regardless of Hitchcock's wanting it to end a different way. And I think it does. The other ending would have been awesome, but I think the movie we have works. Because you can read it as the story of a bounder who in his desperation truly, seriously considers disposing of his wife on a number of occasions (i.e., her fears are not mere paranoia) but who, in the end, just can't do it because he loves her too much. Grant makes me buy it.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[voiceover]

Watching The Flame Within -- again -- and can't figure out why it's the first time I looked at him and said: "Louis Hayward!"  Sadly, not the first time it's taken me more than one viewing to recognize actors in a supporting cast.  

And I love Hayward!!  The man was born to star in costume dramas.  He certainly had the looks.  And never seemed to take himself seriously in those roles. Part of his charm -- he always made me smile in those pictures.

Edited August 22, 2017 by voiceover

[Padma]

10 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

The way the character comes across, I think Grant/Hitchcock made the choice to play him like a murderer. I sure thought he was, the first time I saw the movie. I bet they rationalized, "If we play him like a murderer, and then it turns out he's not, it will still make sense, because the audience will assume they've been seeing him filtered through Joan Fontaine's paranoia." Which is pretty much exactly how the movie works.

I also think the approach makes sense because I feel like the character (not just Grant, the character) himself doesn't know whether he's going to kill his wife or not. He's tempted! At the very last, he decides the other way, but I think he's rolled the idea around in his head a few times.

Now that you mention it, it would have made perfect sense for Hitchcock to have told him to play it as if he's guilty -- trusting in Grant's acting to not make it so heavy handed that there'd be no ambiguity later (or, maybe even worse! Seem so much like a murderer that we wouldn't like him any more. Even in his darkest moments, I just love how he keeps us guessing. One of my favorite scenes is the dinner party where no one looks like a murderer but...they look at Cary...hmm...wondering. His expression then, before and after, is just perfect.  I've never thought before that some of that "keep us guessing" could have been, as you say, that he himself might have been so desperate he even wondered if he could kill his wife or friend. That interpretation works too, not that Joan misunderstands him, but that he really IS struggling with his own worst impulses, even if just briefly.

He gives such a tremendous performance.

6 hours ago, psychoticstate said:

I think comedies didn't always get their due back in the day and, as a result, those great comedians didn't always get the Oscar nods they should have.  Cary Grant certainly suffered from that, as did Myrna Loy.

Yes, its hard to get awards for comedy and he was just as good at that as drama, maybe even better. And I saw "Walk, Don't Run" for the first time yesterday and enjoyed him in that, too, intentionally refusing to still play the romantic lead at his age, but still holding the whole picture together and making a nice (if premature) transition to a character actor or supporting actor. (And I loved him as the grizzled crotchety old boat captain in "Father Goose", but I guess  his fans just couldn't accept it, even though there still was a romance.  He could do everything.

4 hours ago, mariah23 said:

From what I read, Hitchcock wanted Grant to be the killer, but Selznick thought that the audience wouldn't accept Grant as a murderer.

I read that, too. Not that Hitchcock thought he couldn't pull off a role as a killer but that audiences just wouldn't accept it. (And, while I usually like movies to keep the novel's ending, I think Selznick was right on that one. The movie ending was a lot more satisfying to me the way Hitchcock -had- to end it.)

[Charlie Baker]

I just saw Holiday not long ago, but wound up watching a good portion of it again.  A little while ago, some posters held that it was superior to Philadelphia Story.  It's at the very least equal.  And I hope sometime TCM trots out the first filming with Ann Harding. Speaking of whom, I heartily endorse psychoticstate's choices.

[voiceover]

My two favorite classics within a week of each other!   Ahhhh...Garson & Olivier & Pride and Prejudice.  This was the first version I ever saw, fortunately for me -- since that means I can love it on its own merits, and handwave the changes from the book, and not be upset that Olivier's Darcy doesn't go swimming, or walking through the fields at dawn.

[Charlie Baker]

Enjoyed Diabolique last night--the made for Hitchcock property that got away from him.  The big plot twist at the end is the sort of thing that unfortunately has been done to death in this age of outrageous Peak TV, and seldom set up as well as it is in this movie. So it's maybe not as shocking as it had to be initially.  But the thick seedy atmosphere and tension certainly survive.  Star of the day Madame Signoret and her co-stars do bang-up work, and the direction is tight.

[Wiendish Fitch]

On 8/23/2017 at 8:14 PM, voiceover said:

My two favorite classics within a week of each other!   Ahhhh...Garson & Olivier & Pride and Prejudice.  This was the first version I ever saw, fortunately for me -- since that means I can love it on its own merits, and handwave the changes from the book, and not be upset that Olivier's Darcy doesn't go swimming, or walking through the fields at dawn.

Garson and Olivier are the bright spots in that... I'll be generous and just say "flawed" adaptation. I adore the archery scene; it's a delightful bit of character development, and Garson gets to show off her subtly comic, mischievous side (check out the twinkle in her eye as Olivier is mansplaining to her).

Quote

 

Catch Sweeney Todd tonight, if you can.  It's a well-done filming of the Broadway production in its 3rd (I think) year.

George Hearn had taken over the title role by then.  I was lucky enough to see Len Cariou do it, a few months after the show opened, so he's still my favorite.  But Hearn nearly matches him, and manages to make the role his own.

Angela Lansbury is suffering a touch of "long run-itis", but her singing is superb.  The Anthony is a Ken doll -- his look makes him as dated in the role as all those ingenues in 60s period horror flicks.

 

I really like that version, though my biggest complaint is Betsy Joslyn as Johanna: the shrill, histrionic singing and acting, the distractingly obvious wig (seriously, are blonde actresses in such short supply?), the dumpy, Holly Hobbie wardrobe, the crazy eyes, just... what?!

George Hearn is my favorite Sweeney Todd. He brings such a sense of menace and Shakespearean tragedy to the part, and how about that from the depths of hell bass singing voice? I love Len Cariou's sining voice, but it's almost too beautiful for the role (just my opinion, of course).

Edited August 27, 2017 by Wiendish Fitch

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I really like that version, though my biggest complaint is Betsy Joslyn as Johanna: the shrill, histrionic singing and acting,

Per my previous comment about this being taped at the end of a 10-month tour... Of those who were vocally shot at the end of it (when I saw them in Chicago, and here in LA), probably the most far gone was Joslyn. Too bad -- it's punishing writing for soprano voice, like many Broadway parts of its type: wanting "high-note effects" several notes lower in the scale than they should ideally be produced, throwing the whole instrument out of whack after repeating the punishment 8 times a week for a year.

My own ideal Sweeney Todd cast, vocally but also dramatically, was the one I saw during the Kennedy Center "Sondheim Celebration": Brian Stokes Mitchell and Christine Baranski, with just-out-of-college Celia Keenan-Bolger as Johanna and Mary Beth Peil as the beggar woman.

[voiceover]

For the silent movie & horror fans here:

This weekend, the Audience Channel is running Shadow of the Vampire.  It's about the filming of Nosferatu, and has the utterly freakin' brilliant conceit that Max Schreck (who played the title role) was an actual vampire, and that FW Murnau knew this, but hired him anyway.

The always-wonderful Eddie Izzard* shines as the film-within-the-film's leading man, and John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, and Catherine McCormack round out a fine ensemble.

Sorry to say that the movie falls apart after the best person in it, dies.  And that happens halfway through!  But the last ten minutes or so, which has Murnau actually filming the climax, snaps it back to awesome.

*Izzard was also wonderful as Charlie Chaplin in Cat's Meow.  That one's about the death of director Thomas Ince during a party on WR Hearst's yacht.

[Rinaldo]

Recorded on Cary Grant day but watched only today: None But the Lonely Heart from 1944, Cary Grant's big personal project after becoming a star, something of a return to his roots as a working-class English kid looking for a way to escape the squalor. Clifford Odets adapted the novel and directed, and an impressive streets-of-London's-East-End set was created. It's seldom shown and it meant a lot to him, clearly a lot of care went into it, so I'm saddened to find that it isn't really as good as I'd hoped. Part of it is the stirring "the deck is stacked against us Ordinary Folk but we'll triumph somehow, someday" speeches which sound so dated and over-explicit now, part of is that Grant is clearly too old for a guy approaching 20 and his accent is oddly unconvincing compared to some of the others... but in the end I have to admit that he doesn't quite rise to the occasion. Some lines and situations carry conviction, but in others he seems to be staying on the surface. I won't speculate why, but it's a disappointment.

There are good contributions from the supporting cast, George Coulouris and June Duprez, and most especially Ethel Barrymore as Grant's mother. She's wonderful, full of conviction and feeling and authenticity. I had forgotten that she won a Supporting Actress Academy Award (I did remember that Grant got the second of his two nominations), and I'm glad that others noticed how exceptional she was. Too bad about the movie itself. One wants such worthy uncommercial efforts to be artistic successes.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Rinaldo

[ratgirlagogo]

 In the wake of Charlottesville, I assume, a Memphis theatre is cancelling its showing of Gone With the Wind :

http://www.avclub.com/memphis-theater-cancels-annual-gone-with-the-wind-scree-1798467064

 

Given recent events I understand they want to avoid a slugfest shitshow that might well involve injury and deaths - in their position I believe I'd do the same.  But as I've said before I don't like this movie but I don't believe in banning art in the attempt to make contemporary audiences more comfortable with our history.  If anything this is a particularly good time to be talking about the issues and emotions raised by this film - since clearly, as Faulkner said, "the past is never dead, in fact it's not even past."

Edited August 28, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Crisopera]

I watched The Private Affairs of Bel Ami over the weekend, and found it interesting.  Adapted (quite closely until the ending) from a novel by Guy de Maupassant, it was one of those ponderous literary adaptations by Albert Lewin, in which the stiff dialogue doesn't help (but the sets and costumes are gorgeous).  At least George Sanders is perfectly cast, as opposed to the disastrous Hurd Hatfield in Lewin's Picture of Dorian Gray.  I'm a big fan of Sanders, so it's nice to see him as the leading man, although, in that capacity, I much prefer A Scandal in Paris, which is much lighter and more fun.

[Milburn Stone]

12 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Recorded on Cary Grant day but watched only today: None But the Lonely Heart from 1944, Cary Grant's big personal project after becoming a star, something of a return to his roots as a working-class English kid looking for a way to escape the squalor...

A tangential question, @Rinaldo: Was the song "None But the Lonely Heart" (the pop song adaptation of Tchaikovsky, sung by Sinatra on his "No One Cares" album) written for the movie? Or maybe the lyric was just inspired by the title of the movie. The phrase is so unique that I can't imagine the song isn't connected with the movie in some way, even if only because of the movie putting the title into the zeitgeist for the lyricist to use.

[Rinaldo]

22 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Was the song "None But the Lonely Heart" (the pop song adaptation of Tchaikovsky, sung by Sinatra on his "No One Cares" album) written for the movie? Or maybe the lyric was just inspired by the title of the movie. The phrase is so unique that I can't imagine the song isn't connected with the movie in some way, even if only because of the movie putting the title into the zeitgeist for the lyricist to use.

This deserves a multi-part answer! First of all, "None But the Lonely Heart" isn't a "pop song adaptation" of Tchaikovsky, though I don't doubt that Sinatra (and likely others) made it seem so: it is the actual title of Tchaikovsky's best-known song for voice and piano, setting the Goethe poem "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" (which means exactly the same thing), one of the songs sung by the mysterious traveling performers in his novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (which itself was adapted as the French opera Mignon). It became one of Tchaikovsky's most popular tunes, and the song has been recorded in many languages, and instrumentally as well. So the answer to your question is No to both alternatives: It was neither written for the film nor inspired by its title -- rather the title was inspired by Tchaikovsky's famous song.

Early in the film, Ernie (the Grant character) is hanging out with a cellist (he soon deserts her for a flashier woman) and hears the song being played; she tells him the title and composer, and he says he likes it, and it speaks to him. I assume that something similar happens in the novel from which the movie was adapted (it's by the same author as How Green Was My Valley).

Here's a cello rendition of the song (by Piatagorsky), and here it is sung in Russian by Dmitri Hvorastovsky.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

Thanks for filling me in on that, @Rinaldo! There have been so many pop song adaptations of classical works by such as Rachmaninoff, Borodin, Chopin, Ravel, et. al., that I've just always assumed "None But the Lonely Heart" was yet another.

[voiceover]

Marion Davies Day tomorrow!  If you only watch one, let it be The Patsy.  She's the "plain" little sister, in love with her glamorous big sister's boyfriend.  Hijinks ensue, most memorably as Marion trots out some dead-on imitations of the era's leading ladies.  Now it's tough to watch Gloria Swanson without seeing Marion affect her overbite. 

[Charlie Baker]

Had DVRed The L-Shaped Room and watched last night.  It's definitely the kitchen sink school of British films, but also a bittersweet romance and a social drama looking quite clear-eyed at the lower class urban existence of London at the time.  It's also very candid for its time about pregnancy outside of marriage, abortion, homosexuality.  Leslie Caron is excellent, fully deserving of the Oscar nomination she got for it, and apart from Brock Peters, very good as a musician neighbor in the seedy boarding house where these people find themselves, the cast is full of splendid British character actors who were unfamiliar to me, including Tom Bell as the male lead. Also saw the enjoyable documentary Leslie Caron Reluctant Star through On Demand which is just Ms. C. discussing her life and career with clips and in some of the locations where her films were shot.

[voiceover]

I can't believe they've left out one of his greatest performances.  How the hell can it truly be George Sanders Day without Shere Khan & The Jungle Book?

[Rinaldo]

My own candidate for movie they should have included on George Sanders Day to give us a rounded picture is Call Me Madam. He's Ethel Merman's love interest, and he sings (quite well).

[Crisopera]

He also sings a bit in The Private Affairs of Bel Ami - a rather pleasant song which recurs throughout the movie, and sings quite well there, too.

[voiceover]

Well, if it's singing you want, check out around the 2:08 mark.

Yes: in this performance, he had it all.

Edited August 30, 2017 by voiceover

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, voiceover said:

Well, if it's singing you want, check out around the 2:08 mark.

Yes: in this performance, he had it all.

@voiceover, I know how much you want Shere Khan's singing voice on "That's What Friends Are For" to be that of George Sanders, but it isn't.

So you'll have to settle for Sanders almost having it all.

P.S. I agree with you about Marion Davies in The Patsy.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[Charlie Baker]

She kicked off the Summer Under the Stars month and now Vulture has ranked her movies, to start a series of "classic Hollywood rankings."

 

MM Movies ranked

[voiceover]

Of course, my suggestion that George Sanders sang one line in The Jungle Book, thus making it a perfect George Sanders film, might have been meant to be as tongue-in-cheek as my suggestion that Shere Khan was his greatest performance.  Although, much like Audrey & Marni in My Fair Lady, George probably could've managed the line Bill sang.  Maybe "forrrrrr-rrrr"  wouldn't have carried that long, though -- so probably for the best.

Next time I will footnote, as I should have done here, with my white paper on Disney villains.

 

[elle]

On 8/31/2017 at 2:20 PM, voiceover said:

Of course, my suggestion that George Sanders sang one line in The Jungle Book, thus making it a perfect George Sanders film, might have been meant to be as tongue-in-cheek as my suggestion that Shere Khan was his greatest performance.  Although, much like Audrey & Marni in My Fair Lady, George probably could've managed the line Bill sang.  Maybe "forrrrrr-rrrr"  wouldn't have carried that long, though -- so probably for the best.

Next time I will footnote, as I should have done here, with my white paper on Disney villains.

 

George Sanders may not have sung in The Jungle Book, but I can not imagine any other voice for Shere Khan !

On 8/30/2017 at 5:48 AM, Rinaldo said:

My own candidate for movie they should have included on George Sanders Day to give us a rounded picture is Call Me Madam. He's Ethel Merman's love interest, and he sings (quite well).

 

As Rinaldo commented, we do get to hear GS sing in Call Me Madam, and dance too if memory serves correctly.  It is quite the treat!  He recorded an album called The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady.  He was a triple threat!

Tell me, did they show Foreign Correspondent ? As much as I love Sanders as a villain, I always enjoying seeing him play a good guy, even one you may have a question or two about him.  Scott Ffolliott is one of my favorite characters.   We also get "good guy" Sanders in The Saint and The Falcon series.  (and who better to play the Falcon's brother than George's own brother Tom?)

[Padma]

On ‎8‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 10:39 AM, Charlie Baker said:

She kicked off the Summer Under the Stars month and now Vulture has ranked her movies, to start a series of "classic Hollywood rankings."

 

MM Movies ranked

That was a very good list to read, particularly as I recently realized that Marilyn Monroe is one of my favorite actresses (may even be at the top of the list). I didn't realize she had been in 29 films (many small parts). I thought the writer had some good observations, including how often her character is written and directed in a condescending or even dehumanizing way (didn't use that word) and how she always--even from the tiniest bit parts in the earliest films--rose above the material. Also how, regardless of the failures of writing, directing or co-stars she was always very good in her part and brought something special to it, whether it was comedy or drama--(and its hard to tell, looking back at this list, which she would be considered best at. You'd really have to say "both".)  I was surprised that I've not only never seen, but never even heard of #4 on the list,  "Don't Bother to Knock", described here as "the 1952 noir [where] Monroe plays a mentally ill babysitter caring for the daughter of guests at a New York hotel where all the action takes place."

The writer's comments about "Some Like It Hot" also caught my eye with this description of the very unusual mix of qualities that she brought to the screen:  " 'Some Like It Hot' has everything I love about Monroe, and film itself, really — it spotlights her entrancing charisma, sensuality, melancholic undertow, and beguiling physicality, which is an unparalleled concoction of sensuality and nervous vulnerability. The blonde bombshells to come in her wake often mimicked the sexuality part, heightening it to ridiculous levels, but missed these other attributes that made Monroe feel startlingly real, not just a studio product to be packaged and sold."

[mariah23]

16 hours ago, elle said:

George Sanders may not have sung in The Jungle Book, but I can not imagine any other voice for Shere Khan !

 

As Rinaldo commented, we do get to hear GS sing in Call Me Madam, and dance too if memory serves correctly.  It is quite the treat!  He recorded an album called The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady.  He was a triple threat!

Tell me, did they show Foreign Correspondent ? As much as I love Sanders as a villain, I always enjoying seeing him play a good guy, even one you may have a question or two about him.  Scott Ffolliott is one of my favorite characters.   We also get "good guy" Sanders in The Saint and The Falcon series.  (and who better to play the Falcon's brother than George's own brother Tom?)

Yes. Foreign Correspondent is on WATCH TCM until sometime Wednesday.

[LilWharveyGal]

I'm not as well-watched as many of you, but I must give a plug for the Nazimova Camille that's airing tonight.  Hands down, it features the most memorable set design I've ever seen.  It's sort of an ominous, early Art Deco hobbit hole.   I didn't love the movie, but the unique look has always stuck with me.  Oh yeah, and it features a guy called Rudolph who may have some fans here. :)

[JustaPerson]

36 minutes ago, LilWharveyGal said:

I'm not as well-watched as many of you, but I must give a plug for the Nazimova Camille that's airing tonight.  Hands down, it features the most memorable set design I've ever seen.  It's sort of an ominous, early Art Deco hobbit hole.   I didn't love the movie, but the unique look has always stuck with me.  Oh yeah, and it features a guy called Rudolph who may have some fans here.

Wasn't the set design done by Rudolph Valentino's then-wife? I do prefer the Grabo Camille, mostly because Nazimova's version had her dying alone. I think the rumor was that Valentino was too good in her death scene and in the movie, and Nazimova didn't want him outshining her so reduced his role.

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, JustaPerson said:

Wasn't the set design done by Rudolph Valentino's then-wife?

That's the person, Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Shaughnessy in Salt Lake City), though they didn't marry until after this movie. Thanks for the alert. I'll keep an eye out.

Isn't it odd that the Dumas Lady of the Camellias story is always called Camille in the US? Possibly the first American version did change her name in that way, but in all the movies known to me, she's still Marguerite as in the original. So the title doesn't actually refer to anyone.

[voiceover]

4 hours ago, LilWharveyGal said:

 I must give a plug for the Nazimova Camille that's airing tonight.  Hands down, it features the most memorable set design I've ever seen.  It's sort of an ominous, early Art Deco hobbit hole.   I didn't love the movie, but the unique look has always stuck with me.  Oh yeah, and it features a guy called Rudolph who may have some fans here. :)

Yezzzz, *show of hands*...but it's probably my least favorite of his, because it's all Nazimova.  At her insistence.  

Plus, that character is more my boy Ramon Navarro than Rudy V.  But good point about the art direction.

 

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid is tonight's prime time.  There are all kinds of things really wrong with the storyline -- like, the biggest part of this movie are the heroes running from a barely-seen posse.  Pffft.

But I surely do love all the scenes with just Newman & Redford.  Anyone besides me freak out at the end of 

Spoiler

The Sting, because you thought: Oh hell! it's happening again!!

And here's a little something I'd never confess outside this thread:  I'm always charmed by the Etta/Butch bicycling sequence, even with/especially because of BJ Thomas singing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".

I'll see myself out.

[Rinaldo]

6 minutes ago, voiceover said:

but it's probably my least favorite of his, because it's all Nazimova.  At her insistence.

Or, because that's the nature of the story? It's hard to escape this tale, whoever tells it, being all about her. It's certainly true in Verdi as well.

8 minutes ago, voiceover said:

And here's a little something I'd never confess outside this thread:  I'm always charmed by the Etta/Butch bicycling sequence, even with/especially because of BJ Thomas singing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".

I don't get it -- what's to be ashamed of about liking this, and what's not to like? I'm usually cold to the "boy and girl bond through wacky activities" montages, but this one is hard to resist, and the song's a classic. (Now the attempt to repeat the effect in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and that ditty about molasses and honey... OK, that's embarrassing -- but for them, not us.)

[voiceover]

6 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

Or, because that's the nature of the story? It's hard to escape this tale, whoever tells it, being all about her. It's certainly true in Verdi as well.

Because Robert Taylor was sweet, touching, and memorable as Armand -- not to mention a fine match for Garbo, even though she clearly carries the film.  And he was with her when she died.

In addition to Nazimova's "Lookatmeeee!!" diva-ness, Valentino is simply miscast.  He's a man in a boy's role -- thus my comment about Navarro, the Silent Era's Boy King, being better suited.

But even Wrong Rudy>No Rudy.

[ratgirlagogo]

The thing I've always liked about Raindrops in Butch Cassidy is that while it is such a 60's song in every way and thus ought to seem glaringly out of place - it perfectly suits the characters in the film, the way they are living in the moment and refusing to think or plan for what they must KNOW is going to happen.

Also really was startled by the TCM Remembers bit they put together for Jerry Lewis - a few shots of his famous mugging, but mostly quiet reaction shots.  Very unexpected, at least by me, and moving.

http://w.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/1348525/TCM-Remembers-Jerry-Lewis-1926-2017-.html

ETA:  also unexpected was the Labor Day programming - basically all women's pictures, and not Norma Rae type stuff either.  Well I guess Woman of the Year and Annie Oakley involve women on the job, but unless some kind of point was being made about housekeeping being as much work as a paid job (which, yes) why were they showing Penny Serenade and I Remember Mama?  or Alice Adams (husband-hunting as a job?)?

Edited September 4, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Milburn Stone]

48 minutes ago, ratgirlagogo said:

The thing I've always liked about Raindrops in Butch Cassidy is that while it is such a 60's song in every way and thus ought to seem glaringly out of place - it perfectly suits the characters in the film, the way they are living in the moment and refusing to think or plan for what they must KNOW is going to happen.

In a way, the thing that's most brilliant about it is that it's glaringly out of place. It instantly underlines for the audience on an emotional level that the movie is speaking to them, the young audience of 1969. It's not the only element of the film that makes a western feel like a countercultural statement--William Goldman's script, George Roy Hill's direction, and the casting (including Elaine from The Graduate!) all do as well--but it's an important one.

[Rinaldo]

As a musicologist, I'm fascinated by the question of when music seems "out of place" to us, wrong for the period. (And I include myself in "us" for sure -- my reactions can be as irrational as anyone's.) We mostly accept without question the presence of background music despite lack of realistic justification, and we always accept music in a style much more recent than the era we're seeing -- there's nothing medieval about the music of Camelot and nothing ancient-Rome-ish about any of the movies set there. It's all twentieth century music, and we wouldn't accept anything else. Yet somehow it's still possible to cross a line and sever our suspension of disbelief.

(Actually, speaking of Rome, my mother and I -- the two musicians in the family if that's relevant -- were both jolted by the use of an organ in Ben-Hur when the family saw it. Somehow we could accept modern brass, strings, woodwinds, but using that keyboard instrument made it stick out as a Signifier of Piety rather than a contributor to atmosphere.)

And somehow in Butch Cassidy*, we can find that song a jolt in style and still (if we're susceptible) enjoy it anyway. Probably film scholars have already talked this phenomenon to death somewhere.

(*We were talking about MAD magazine parodies here recently, so I'll report full recall on the title Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid.)

[Milburn Stone]

30 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

And somehow in Butch Cassidy, we can find that song a jolt in style and still (if we're susceptible) enjoy it anyway.

I like everything about your post, with only the mild quibble that I would take out "still/ anyway" and substitute the word "especially." The use of that song was a bold move, but one that makes the movie as iconic a piece of countercultural pop art as it is. With that montage and that music, we understand that Butch and Sundance are Billy and Wyatt from Easy Rider (but with more charm).