TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Rinaldo]

I confess to being remiss in my investigation of the Gidget oeuvre. Thanks!

[Inquisitionist]

9 hours ago, voiceover said:

Michael Callan will always be the "Shoulda picked him!" guy from Gidget Goes Hawaiian... #moondoggiesux

I remember him showing up on TV quite a bit in the early 70s, things like The Love Boat.  He also played a love interest of Rhoda's in an early season of Mary Tyler Moore.  So cute!

17 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I saw Cat Ballou for what must have been the first time since seeing it in a theater, when it was brand new, all those umpty-ump years ago.

I'm pretty sure I saw it during one of its early runs on TV, in the late 1960s, when I was 13-ish.  Loved it then and still enjoy watching it again now!

[Charlie Baker]

My first exposure to Michael Callan was in the actually pretty good movie of Jules Verne's Mysterious Island and my very young self definitely crushed on him.

On a more serious note, to echo Rinaldo, it's bittersweet to see the likes of Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye in Cat Ballou. Grateful they're in it, and as a whole the movie is still fun,

[prican58]

Yes, it was mos def Gidget Goes Hawaiian. Very dreamy looking guys like Callan, Joby Baker (yes I think he's dreamy and the king of all 60s dreamies Jimmy Darren.

[prican58]

I couldn't find the musical number he did in Hawaiian which is a pretty substantial number, but there is a piece of it in this around the 35 second mark.

 

 

[mariah23]

Hey guys,

A bit off-topic, but I’m doing an online focus group about TCM for my Capstone, which is my final class before I get my Masters.

Please PM me if you are interested in participating.

I've got one so far, anyone else interested?

Edited March 5, 2018 by mariah23

[GreekGeek]

On 2/28/2018 at 1:24 PM, Charlie Baker said:

My first exposure to Michael Callan was in the actually pretty good movie of Jules Verne's Mysterious Island and my very young self definitely crushed on him.

 

Interesting! I only knew him via a short-lived 60's sitcom called Occasional Wife: Swinging bachelor who works for a baby food company can't get promoted because his boss wants only married men as executives. He gets a lady friend of his to pretend she's his wife. Hilarity ensues.

[Rinaldo]

I suppose this is veering out of the purview of this topic, but Occasional Wife is one of a couple of one season late-60s sitcoms (others are Love on a Rooftop, Good Morning World, The Good Guys) that exactly coincided with my undergraduate years when I saw TV only when visiting the family between semesters. So I never saw them, only heard about them, leading to intense curiosity about them and desire to see them, even though they probably weren't all that good really. At least He and She, which seems to be remembered with some affection, has a little bit of afterlife -- some of its episodes are on YouTube.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Rinaldo

[PaulaO]

Watching "The Music Man" for about the 100th time, and thinking yet again Robert Preston wuz robbed at Oscar time.

[voiceover]

10 hours ago, PaulaO said:

Watching "The Music Man" for about the 100th time, and thinking yet again Robert Preston wuz robbed at Oscar time.

Eh.  I'd allow a nom...I guess...but Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch pretty much lapped that field.  Peter O'Toole would've been my runner-up.

Just watched Braveheart.  There is a lot about this film I like -- the tremendous supporting performances, for starters.  Angus Macfadyen's Robert the Bruce is in my Top Five ("Drink!") Movie Royalty. 

And I will always respect what Mel Gibson did with all those men, all those horses, and all that mud. And he did it with very limited CGI.  Which I despise/ hate/ loathewiththefireofathousandsuns.  (Enough to write the never-ending white paper on the subject.)

Gibson's version of CGI was confined to mechanical horses (still can't spot 'em) and careful layering of reshoots of the same actors in the initial battle set-ups.  But it was nothing next to today's video gaming of crowd scenes, which make me want to CGI my own eyes out.

Edited March 4, 2018 by voiceover

[voiceover]

Yay on TCM for giving us An Evening with Anna May Wong.

Boo on TCM for leaving it out of the "March on TCM" promo.  Arghhhhh.

Watch as much as you can, however you can.  She's something extraordinary. 

Worth sitting through all of it just to see her dance on a kitchen counter in Piccadilly, where she manages to be smokin', yet adorable, all at once.  This scene is a key to her charms.

Edited March 5, 2018 by voiceover

[StatisticalOutlier]

I just found out in another thread that the archives of the discussion forums at imdb.com are available at https://moviechat.org

Don't get me wrong--I love the discussion of TCM movies here, but for a more in-depth discussion of individual movies, sometimes going back for years, imdb (and now moviechat) can't be beat.  FWIW, the trolls don't tend to hang out in "classic" movie threads.

[voiceover]

So, without consulting us, TCM has hired new hosts.  And Tiffany V is out of Saturday morning duties, just as I was getting fond of her.  Her wardrobe, I always envied.

Would've preferred Ileana Douglas and Michael McKean.  WTF happened to the concept of online voting??  According to the article, Karger is "popular with the audience".  Really?  He's not bad, but...eh.

[Rinaldo]

10 hours ago, voiceover said:

Would've preferred Ileana Douglas and Michael McKean.

I might have too, but as they both retain active acting or producing careers, they might not be able to commit themselves to a weekly schedule year-round.

[Charlie Baker]

From what I've seen of Dave Karger, I think he may grow into the job--I think Ben M really has.   I don't know Alicia Malone--I haven't succumbed and subscribed to Filmstruck.  I will miss Tiffany too.

I would expect Ileana Douglas and Michael McKean will turn up on occasion--as Rinaldo said, their other commitments may keep them from regular stints.

Unrelated--I saw that Laughing Boy with Ramon Navarro and Lupe Velez was on the schedule yesterday but missed the chance to DVR it.   Any thoughts on that one, voiceover or anyone else?

[wilsie]

@voiceover  I liked Tiffany Vasquez a lot.  She was informative and likable.  Dave Karger is meh for me but I really dislike Eddie Muller and I love film noir.    I know he's written books but, for me, he tries too hard to affect a tough guy personality when he does his introductions.  

[Crisopera]

Just finished watching the 1952 Prisoner of Zenda, and, since it is a virtual shot-for-shot remake of the 1937 version, I thought I'd throw out my comparisons, at least as far as the cast goes. Ronald Colman wins by a mile over Stewart Granger - and I'm quite fond of Granger in other movies, notably Scaramouche. Colman is just so much more charming (and, imo, handsome). Deborah Kerr is a much better actress than Madeleine Carroll, but is just short of Carroll's almost supernatural perfection of fairy-princess beauty - call it a tie. Raymond Massey over Robert Douglas hands down - Douglas couldn't be more boring. The 1937 sidekicks (C. Aubrey Smith and David Niven) are definitely better than 1952 (Louis Calhern and Robert Coote).  And finally, two more ties - Mary Astor and Jane Greer as Michael's loyal mistress are both gorgeous and terrific actresses, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and James Mason as the treacherous Rupert of Hentzau. Fairbanks is more lighthearted and Mason more threatening, but both wonderful.  i believe you can see where my heart  lies - I even prefer the glossy black and white of 1937 over the Technicolor of 1952 (although I might give the edge to Walter Plunkett's costumes over Ernest Dryden's, but it would be very close...)

[Milburn Stone]

12 hours ago, voiceover said:

Would've preferred Ileana Douglas and Michael McKean.  WTF happened to the concept of online voting?? 

Perhaps you're being facetious with that question, but I wonder (hypothetically), if there had been online voting in 1994, would Robert Osborne have been the overwhelming favorite of the mob? I tend to doubt it. 

[voiceover]

13 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

I saw that Laughing Boy with Ramon Navarro and Lupe Velez was on the schedule yesterday but missed the chance to DVR it.   Any thoughts on that one, voiceover or anyone else?

Well, you force me to confess that I'm not a fan of Ramon's talkies.  With the sound on.  On mute, they're just fine (although that Prince Valiant wig in Laughing Boy: ughhhhh, no).

His voice is too high-pitched and distracting.  People said that about John Gilbert, too, but he sounds all right to me; I quite enjoy a number of his post-silent era films.

As far as the hosting question: well duh, the duties can't pay what McKean and Douglas can earn in their field.  But I can wish for them.  They're right after "a pony" on my list.

As far as Robert winning an online poll in 1994: most everyone who might have voted for him was just learning how to manipulate a mouse*, forget submitting a ballot.  But once I laid eyes on Mr Osborne, it was love at first sight and no tags back.  His voice and manner (and background) had me hooked from the start.  

Ben, OTOH, looks so much like my ex that I found myself hate-loving him from his first intro.

Face it.  We've been spoiled.  TCM was very lucky to have captured lightning in a bottle -- twice -- expecting a trifecta was too much.  Just like my beloved Ramon, Karger and Malone have voices that grate.  Maybe they'll wear me down over time.

*This includes me in film school.  I cringe to remember.

[Milburn Stone]

3 minutes ago, voiceover said:

As far as Robert winning an online poll in 1994: most everyone who might have voted for him was just learning how to manipulate a mouse*, forget submitting a ballot.  But once I laid eyes on Mr Osborne, it was love at first sight and no tags back.  His voice and manner (and background) had me hooked from the start.

Change online poll to any other kind of poll, and my point stands. A vote of cable TV watchers who were movie fans in 1994 (the year Osborne started on TCM) would never have resulted in Osborne's selection. Yet is there anyone among us who now doubts that he was the perfect choice? Steve Jobs didn't ask people what they wanted either. He succeeded by giving them what they never knew they needed.

[Rinaldo]

7 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Steve Jobs didn't ask people what they wanted either. He succeeded by giving them what they never knew they needed.

Exactly. I'm not a big believer in online polls for this sort of thing. Leave it to the professionals. 

Dave K has seemed just fine in the segments I've seen, actually more so than Ben M for me (he tries to get too cute sometimes... still, it's not a major issue and I have no real problem with him either). 

[mariah23]

Last chance everyone!

I’ve got one person so far and I need several more people for my online focus group.  Please PM me for details.  I need an answer by Tuesday.

[elle]

Question for the group, I have this very vague memory of TCM occasionally showing original movie trailers to promote upcoming movies.  Does anyone else remember this?  Do they (still) show these?

[ratgirlagogo]

On 3/8/2018 at 12:18 AM, voiceover said:

Well, you force me to confess that I'm not a fan of Ramon's talkies.  With the sound on.  On mute, they're just fine (although that Prince Valiant wig in Laughing Boy: ughhhhh, no).

I've never seen the movie Laughing Boy but the book it's based on is one of the saddest books I've ever read in my life.

I don't think I ever talked about The Barbarian at this site or TWOP but I'll just say that although it is completely  indefensible politically, much worse in many ways than Gone With The Wind which I hate and have always hated as you all know - I find this movie so ridiculously over the top that it gets a pass from me.   I'm so out of control in heat over both Ramon and Myrna that I kind of assume all the viewers are equally distracted.:)

Plus I fucking ADORE this song:

The original version, from the film:

Edited March 10, 2018 by ratgirlagogo

[ratgirlagogo]

On 3/8/2018 at 12:18 AM, voiceover said:

Ben, OTOH, looks so much like my ex that I found myself hate-loving him from his first intro.

I'm not sure what to say here cause I do think myself that Ben is hot.  Hope you've moved on to an equal (OK, better) level of excitement !

[StatisticalOutlier]

19 hours ago, elle said:

Question for the group, I have this very vague memory of TCM occasionally showing original movie trailers to promote upcoming movies.  Does anyone else remember this?  Do they (still) show these?

I've seen some.  They're memorable to me because they're what I guess I would call "long form" ones, where the trailer talked about the movie instead of just showing scenes, like they do today.  I guess they were trailers for those movies; they're too short to be featurettes (another term I may be making up).

[Rinaldo]

I don't keep track, but I feel like I've seen trailers shown on TCM pretty recently. They (and featurettes too, a perfectly correct and common term) are part of the "filler" used to keep time slots for movies at the half-hour marks on the schedule. (And much more welcome, to me, than promos about wine clubs or fan clubs or whatever, though probably others like those.)

I especially like seeing the featureless, when they show them, because these used to turn up as network filler after the showing of movies (back when popular new movies would eventually be shown by the big networks), and I would invariably tune in halfway through them, when I was looking for the next show or whatever. And I'd wish I had caught them from the beginning. (For the same reason, it makes me happy when DVD makers dig them up as use them as extras.)

Edited March 11, 2018 by Rinaldo

[ratgirlagogo]

They show trailers all the time, sometimes just to show them but more often to promote an upcoming broadcast of the film in question.  Yesterday I remember them showing the ones for National Velvet (showing tomorrow) and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (showing Friday) - they showed many others of course but those two just came to mind.    They also show 20 to 30 minute promotional featurettes for some of the films - I assume they were intended for distributors and theater owners.  There's one about Alcatraz that was a promotion for Point Blank, and for a while they were showing one for Eye of the Devil all the time.  One they show WAY too much as a palate cleanser for the Saturday TCM Underground films is The Corvair in Action!,  a six minute promotional film from 1960 that I assume was directed at car dealers.

ETA: I just went to the video section of the TCM website and put "trailers" in the search bar and it came up with 338 results.   So I guess there are at least that many.   Seems like there should be more - probably just what they're making available online.

Edited March 11, 2018 by ratgirlagogo

[Crisopera]

The interstitial material is one of the reasons reasons I love TCM so much.  Besides the trailers, I'm particularly fond of Fitzpatrick's Travel Talks, the MGM travelogues.  They are sometimes wincingly racist, but the documentary footage is fascinating.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 12/30/2017 at 8:28 PM, jjj said:

It has been a while since The Trouble with Angels (1966) aired on TCM, but I read today that the nun on whom the Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) character was based passed away this week, around age 94.  She was first portrayed in the Jane Trahey semi-autobiographical book Life with Mother Superior, where Jane was the friend to "Mary Clancy"; not surprisingly, the official Dominican convent obituary does not mention the Hayley Mills character! (Jane Trahey died back in 2000).  Links to the TCM background on the film and the obituary for Sister John Eudes Courtney:  http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/198743|35942/The-Trouble-with-Angels.html and    https://www.sinsinawa.org/news-events/obituaries2017.html  I love this film -- if anyone from TCM reads this thread, I hope they will think about airing it again. 

 

Thanks for posting this.  I love TTWA so much, I bought a DVD.  I was 11 when it came out.  Not Catholic.  Just love the movie.

Relevant because Binnie Barnes played one of the nuns. Yesterday, I was watching the awful "Skylark" on TCM, with Ray Milland and Claudette Colbert.  I couldn't even watch to the end.  I couldn't identify Binnie Barnes at first, so I had to look it up.  She had such a weird accent.  Her British accent came through, but she was trying to put on a lower-class American accent.  (She was playing the villainess.)

Edited March 12, 2018 by GussieK

[jjj]

1 hour ago, GussieK said:

Thanks for posting this.  I love TTWA so much, I bought a DVD.  I was 11 when it came out.  Not Catholic.  Just love the movie.

Relevant because Binnie Barnes played one of the nuns. Yesterday, I was watching the awful "Skylark" on TCM, with Ray Milland and Claudette Colbert.  I couldn't even watch to the end.  I couldn't identify Binnie Barnes at first, so I had to look it up.  She had such a weird accent.  Her British accent came through, but she was trying to put on a lower-class American accent.  (She was playing the villainess.)

Thanks for going back and reading this!  I read the book as a child, and it really made an impression on me as someone who had attended a Catholic school.  I also lived near the actual convent school where the movie was filmed.   I think there was a subsequent comment here that the obituary for Sister John Eudes Courtney was updated to reflect that she was the basis of that character in the book and movie.  I always watch this when it airs. 

[Rinaldo]

21 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

They also show 20 to 30 minute promotional featurettes for some of the films - I assume they were intended for distributors and theater owners. 

 

That's undoubtedly true, but I think they had other uses too. They may have sometimes been shown as part of the old first-run movie-palace experience, which even after the days of the double feature had ended would give an audience extra value with a cartoon, maybe a live musical short, and possibly a longer featurette like this promoting an upcoming movie. I have memories of the weirdest little "extras" of this sort on my family's twice-a-year days in the Chicago Loop (dentist appointments in the morning, then movie after lunch). One time there was a little item with David Niven and Nanette Fabray whose message seemed to be "eat more meat." (I didn't always get subtexts when I was that young.)

Edited to add: And as I alluded earlier, TV made use of these featurettes too, to fill up odd time segments when a movie wouldn't go to the next half-hour marker, or a live program ended early, or an early cable station just needed Stuff to fill up the neglected slots in its schedule. Now, if we're lucky, they get a permanent home on the appropriate DVD. 

4 hours ago, GussieK said:

I couldn't identify Binnie Barnes at first, so I had to look it up.  She had such a weird accent.  Her British accent came through, but she was trying to put on a lower-class American accent.  

The weirdest example of "Binnie Barnes + accent" has to be Forty Carats. Binnie Barnes gets to be British, but she has a Norwegian daughter (Liv Ullmann) and an American granddaughter (Deborah Raffin). All this is hand-waved away with, oh... living at embassies around the world and Liv moaning "I'm a mongrel, and I feel like one right now." It happened during the year of "we're going to make Liv Ullmann a Hollywood star no matter what," but it didn't happen, and her seriousness was certainly an unhappy fit for this silly story.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Rinaldo

[EtheltoTillie]

10 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

The weirdest example of "Binnie Barnes + accent" has to be Forty Carats. Binnie Barnes gets to be British, but she has a Norwegian daughter (Liv Ullmann) and an American granddaughter (Deborah Raffin). All this is hand-waved away with, oh... living at embassies around the world and Liv moaning "I'm a mongrel, and I feel like one right now." It happened during the year of "we're going to make Liv Ullmann a Hollywood star no matter what," but it didn't happen, and her seriousness was certainly an unhappy fit for this silly story.

Wow, I have to check this out.  I have not seen Forty Carats since it came out.  (Forgive me but I always confuse it with Cactus Flower!  Two Scandinavian stars, similar themes, simlar time period, so sue me.)

Binnie Barnes as Liv Ullmann's mother--that should be funny.  You are really right about the effort to make Liv Ullmann a Hollywood star.  She was never going to be the next Ingrid Bergman.

Edited March 12, 2018 by GussieK

[Milburn Stone]

5 minutes ago, GussieK said:

Wow, I have to check this out.  I have not seen Forty Carats since it came out.  (Forgive me but I always confuse it with Cactus Flower!  Two Scandinavian stars, similar themes, simlar time period, so sue me.)

Also both adapted from stage comedies. (And showed it.)

I'd be surprised if anybody didn't confuse them.

[EtheltoTillie]

I think my favorite Binnie Barnes role is her turn as Mrs. Seton Cram in Holiday. 

[EtheltoTillie]

On 12/19/2017 at 7:23 AM, Rinaldo said:

Not quite what I said, just to keep the record straight. But it's always nice to be welcomed, and Sim is certainly in my top level now, if not "the best."

I am new to this thread, but I will be here often!  I didn't know about it on TWOP either . . . :(

I'm reading back a ways, and I will chime in late to the party:  Mr. Magoo is the best Scrooge!  Yes, really.  Followed by Sim.

Toby Tyler!  Yowza.  I watched that for the first time when it aired in December.  What a freaky movie.  Too scary for kids.  How did that one get past the Disney censors?

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Also both adapted from stage comedies. (And showed it.)

Not only that, but both stage comedies are Americanized adaptations of French plays by the same writing team (Fleur de cactus and Quarante carats by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy, who collaborated on 20 or so boulevard comedies for Parisian theatergoers). So the movies share a lot of DNA.

Plus, as I mentioned here about a year ago, the "meet the stuffy prospective parents-in-law" scenes can make the movies of Forty Carats and Mame intersect in my memory for a moment, though the stories aren't otherwise alike. But in both cases we meet those parents late in the movie, they're written as stereotypical Connecticut WASPs, and the father is played by Don Porter.

[EtheltoTillie]

14 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

Not only that, but both stage comedies are Americanized adaptations of French plays by the same writing team (Fleur de cactus and Quarante carats by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy, who collaborated on 20 or so boulevard comedies for Parisian theatergoers). So the movies share a lot of DNA.

 

Now, that's some trivia for you.  No wonder they seem alike. 

[ratgirlagogo]

On 3/11/2018 at 9:49 AM, Rinaldo said:

(And much more welcome, to me, than promos about wine clubs or fan clubs or whatever, though probably others like those.)

The one promo for the TCM wine club I like - well really it is this one part in it that I like.  The one with the couple who have prepared a cheese and fruit and cured meat board to accompany the Marx Brothers wine.   Eddie Muller deadpans "this looks absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to start throwing them."

[Milburn Stone]

10 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

The one promo for the TCM wine club I like - well really it is this one part in it that I like.  The one with the couple who have prepared a cheese and fruit and cured meat board to accompany the Marx Brothers wine.   Eddie Muller deadpans "this looks absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to start throwing them."

That is a good moment. The rest of it, you can see literally see the expiation, as they plead, "Oh dear Lord, what depths have I sunk to, that I'm seriously pretending that specific wines enhance specific movies?" It was less embarrassing when an anonymous voiceover did all the selling.

TCM's Filmstruck continues to make progress in the integration (and useful packaging into conceptual baskets) of the Warner catalog (including pre-1986 MGM). As of last night when I took a peek, I was pleasantly surprised to see they've created an avatar for a selection of films with screenplays by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. When you click it, you're taken to a choice of about 6-8 films by the great husband and wife team, plus a roughly 5-7 minute bio of them presented by Alicia Malone. (Who is very good, by the way. Smart, vivacious, witty--a good writer herself, if my guess is correct from the sound of it that she writes her own material. She'll be a good host on TCM.) Anyway, while it makes all the sense in the world to create a grouping around Goodrich & Hackett, it's far from obvious that they'd do so, so kudos are in order.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[StatisticalOutlier]

There was a real stinker on this morning:  The Young Lovers, with Peter Fonda.  But I will say this for it:  I think it has the most scenes of steps, and of people going up and down steps, than any movie in history.  I don't know if it was deliberate--the plot was pretty thin, and what was there wasn't fleshed out, so maybe they used shots of people ascending 100 steps in an amphitheater to fill the time.  Even descending 100 steps takes a little while.  And they did a lot of both.

ETA:  I should note that there was not an event at the amphitheater--it was just where they kept arranging to meet, without ever agreeing whether to meet at the top or the bottom, so invariably one of the young lovers would be at the top and one would be at the bottom, and the camera would follow the entire trek up or down.  It was the head-scratchingest thing, but it made me appreciate their fitness.

Edited March 14, 2018 by StatisticalOutlier

[Charlie Baker]

So Elizabeth Taylor is Star of the Month and they are covering her career pretty well, condensed in a few days, rather than one day a week for the month, from the child star phase to the fluffier fifties films, to the quality stuff like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer tonight, the good Tennessee Williams vehicles she had. (No Virginia Woolf, but that has been shown a lot.) Though Boom, the not so good Williams project is not on the schedule.  However, there is a fair amount of the weird or out and out bad stuff too, which has its pleasures.  Reflections in a Golden Eye, Secret Ceremony, X Y and Zee, Night Watch, Doctor Faustus. 

There's been a lot of George Brent during the daytime hours--The Purchase Price, where he and Barbara Stanwyck do what they can with the script, then paired in the much better Baby Face. Also some of Mr. Brent's roles opposite Bette Davis, The Old Maid and The Great Lie.  And more obscure things, like the Western they showed today, God's Country and the Woman, (In color from 1936!) which I was only able to see a few minutes of.  I guess he was likable enough, attractive enough, competent enough, but in no way was he going to take over a movie from Ms. Davis or Ms. Stanwyck.

[voiceover]

Yeah, I was always a bit... astonished, I guess! that someone so bland was paired with someone like Davis.

Then I saw him do second-lead duty in 1939's The Rains Came.  As the resident Fashionable Young Man in the fake-India expat community, he makes a perfunctory pass early on at childhood buddy Myrna Loy.  Since she's married (and they're really just friends), he turns his gaze on the group's ingenue, who's obviously crushing on him.  But then he surprises himself, and us, by being noble, and gently refusing her not-very-veiled come-on.

Then: the rains come!  And the half-hearted rake turns selfless hero.  So despite the swoon-worthy romance between Loy and Ty Power (and it IS swoon-worthy), Brent's Tom Ransome really got to me.

Later I saw him opposite Merle Oberon in 'Til We Meet Again.  While I do love the original the best, this one's well-cast and wonderful, and though I couldn't buy George as a criminal, he'd finally sold me on his leading man qualities.  

So I was finally able to watch Dark Victory without rolling my eyes.

Edited March 17, 2018 by voiceover

[Charlie Baker]

Re those behind the scenes featurettes mentioned above:  I remember, as Rinaldo said, how they sometimes filled time after the showing of a movie on broadcast TV.  Last night after Suddenly Last Summer, TCM showed one shot during production of The Night of the Iguana, in which Elizabeth Taylor was there with Richard Burton on the set.  There were voiceover interviews from cast members, some of which might have been scripted, glimpses of Ms. Taylor teasing Mr. Burton between shots when he was trussed up in a hammock, as well as Deborah Kerr being carried into a boat for transport to the set, John Huston at work and photogenically mulling things over staring out at the sea, Cyril Delevanti riding the boat to set.  It also told how the set was basically built from scratch on a remote island and while the cast was put up in nearby Puerto Vallarta, the construction people and rest of the crew were evidently housed on the island in accommodations built along with the set.  

[Crisopera]

God's Country and the Woman was famously the movie that Bette Davis went on strike rather than act in.  I watched most of it with closed captioning, but I still agree with Bette. It certainly did nothing for her replacement, Beverly Roberts (who?).

 

 

[jjj]

I don't think I ever even heard of Secret Ceremony, but was curious to see Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow together.  What a strange film -- more than a psychological thriller, almost a horror film.  I am still not sure who in the film knew who the other characters were in relation to one another.  

[Rinaldo]

I remember when Secret Ceremony was released -- I saw ads for it, and trailers in the theater. But I never actually saw it; I'm mildly sorry I missed it this time around, but not uncontrollably so. ☺ It was a period when psychological semi-supernatural suspense/horror movies were all the rage, and there seemed to be new ones out every month. After a few disappointing experiences, I tended to give the whole genre a miss for a while.

[Charlie Baker]

Secret Ceremony is a strange one all right--sometimes Robert Mitchum appears as if he's wondering what on earth he's doing in this movie. (Though maybe his thoughts would have expressed it a little more colorfully.)  Still it has some compelling moments.  I think both it and Reflections in a Golden Eye may come across better now than they did in their initial releases.  Though neither is a masterwork, to understate it, I think an audience of today might be a little more accommodating with the weirdness on display. 

When Secret Ceremony played on broadcast TV, the network softened it, of course, and the studio shot new scenes with actors who weren't in the rest of the movie in an effort to make things clearer.

[ratgirlagogo]

Is TCM a pixelated mess for anyone else right now?   It's not my cable, all the other channels are fine.  

[Charlie Baker]

Had my first chance to check in at TCM just now and the picture is fine.