TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Tom Holmberg]

14 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Easy Rider

They did "Easy Rider" last week (Tuesdays in June are their 1969 nights).

[Sharpie66]

I am just getting caught up on the past few pages of posts here. I do want to chime in on a few recommendations for old films, but these are not out of Hollywood.

A great classic out of pre-Hitler Germany is M, a really riveting early example of the serial killer story that focuses on the killer, in a career-defining performance by Peter Lorre. I don’t speak German, but the words, “Will nicht— muss!!” are seared in my brain.  It is very transitional from silent to talkie, with long sequences in total silence, but that just adds to the tension, and the use of sound, especially whistling a song, is really well done.

The other movie I unexpectedly fell in love with is the only silent film I own—The Passion of Joan of Arc. Totally unique, with camera angles that define Dutch Tilt and an amazing performance by Falconetti in the title role. 

[Rinaldo]

8 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

And then I wondered if Butch Cassidy as we know it would have existed had there been no Cat Ballou

Interesting thought. One other precedent for transposing casual modern attitudes into the framework of the Western comes to mind: the TV series Maverick, particularly in weeks when James Garner was Maverick. I remember that there were tons of Western series on TV in the 50s, and I couldn't stay interested through an episode of any of them, but Maverick was always fun, precisely because Garner was "different" -- he saw the absurdity that others took at face value. And this became his persona most of the time on film too, relevantly in Support Your Local Sheriff, which came out the same year as Butch Cassidy.

And it occurs to me that Butch's then-startling "solve a solemn Western standoff by kicking the guy in the balls" is essentially the same gag as Indiana Jones handling a sinister master of the whip by pulling out his gun -- in both cases, failing to observe the ceremonial "rules" of the situation and instead resorting to pragmatic common sense.

[Spartan Girl]

TCM On Demand had the original King Kong on the free movies, so I was finally able to watch it.

All I can say is that it's very...dated. And I'm not just referring to the claymation special effects. Let's leave it at that.

[ratgirlagogo]

12 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

I do want to chime in on a few recommendations for old films, but these are not out of Hollywood.

Those are both great films, and completely apropos for this thread since they often show them on TCM.

6 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

And it occurs to me that Butch's then-startling "solve a solemn Western standoff by kicking the guy in the balls" is essentially the same gag as Indiana Jones handling a sinister master of the whip by pulling out his gun -- in both cases, failing to observe the ceremonial "rules" of the situation and instead resorting to pragmatic common sense.

Also in both cases the "ceremonial rules of the situation" are the ceremonial rules of a MOVIE standoff situation. Which is why in both cases it's so funny - the audience has been trained to regard the standoff as grim and tense - then the payoff reminds them that they're watching a movie.  It reminds me of the scene in the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business where Groucho is in the stateroom with Thelma Todd, when her gangster boyfriend bursts in with a gun and proceeds to threaten Groucho with movie-gangster threats - "do you know who I am? do you see this gat?" etc.  And Groucho just keeps throwing back wisecracks at the guy - since he refuses to say any of the gangster movie countersigns -"don't shoot! don't shoot! it's not what you think! etc."  the movie gangster can't shoot him. Classic comedy technique I guess really.

Edited June 13, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 6/12/2019 at 7:56 PM, Spartan Girl said:

TCM On Demand had the original King Kong on the free movies, so I was finally able to watch it.

All I can say is that it's very...dated. And I'm not just referring to the claymation special effects. Let's leave it at that.

I saw it about 20 years ago in a huge theater, and it really got to me.  I remember feeling really sad for him, thinking, "It's not his fault."

.

On 6/10/2019 at 5:36 PM, Bastet said:

When a friend who is also a fan of [The Philadelphia Story] in spite of itself calls me, she opens with, "This is the voice of doom calling," and I do the same when I call her (and then the other mutters "one of the servants has been at the sherry again").  It's quite a quotable film;

I always use "Put salt on its tail" whenever somebody is trying to wrangle something.

[ratgirlagogo]

4 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I saw it about 20 years ago in a huge theater, and it really got to me.  I remember feeling really sad for him, thinking, "It's not his fault."

As Dino de Laurentiis may or may not have said, "Everybody cry when the big monkey die."

One of the few things I really liked in Peter Jackson's King Kong was the scene where Kong has captured Naomi Watts and set her down on the ledge, where she is frozen in fear - and then on a sudden hunch,  she performs her vaudeville act for him! Dancing, acrobatics,  tumbling. Exactly what would appeal to a gorilla, to a lot of animals I think if the pets I've had are any measure - they've all been pretty fascinated by physical play like that. 

[Spartan Girl]

6 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

As Dino de Laurentiis may or may not have said, "Everybody cry when the big monkey die."

One of the few things I really liked in Peter Jackson's King Kong was the scene where Kong has captured Naomi Watts and set her down on the ledge, where she is frozen in fear - and then on a sudden hunch,  she performs her vaudeville act for him! Dancing, acrobatics,  tumbling. Exactly what would appeal to a gorilla, to a lot of animals I think if the pets I've had are any measure - they've all been pretty fascinated by physical play like that. 

Yeah I prefer Naomi Watts' Ann to Fay Wray's Ann. I'm sorry but Fay annoyed the crap out of me: all she did was just stand there and scream while Kong was fighting all the monsters to protect her -- she didnt even have to sense to at least try to climb down from the tree and escape while Kong was distracted. I know it was the 30s and people tended to think that women werw brainless but GEEZ.

Not to mention that Fay had no sympathy whatsoever for Kong and was fone with him being taken from the island and exploited for a sideshow. At least in the remakes Jessica Lang and Naomi's versions came to care for him.

The scene with Kong taking Ann's clothes off made me wince a little bit. Yes I know he was a wild animal that didnt didn't what clothes were for and he was just playing with her, but still. On that note, in the 1976 remake when Charles Grodin's jerk character accused Kong of trying to "rape" Jessica, I yelled at my TV, "How would that even physically be possible?"

[mariah23]

Franco Zeffirelli has died, age 96.

[Spartan Girl]

Zeffirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet was the best one, it must be said.

[Milburn Stone]

R.I.P. Zefferelli. Every teenager on a date in 1968 saw his R and J, and loved it. (I say without fear of contradiction.😊)

Caught up with the first two-thirds of The Lion Has Wings last night. A heavily propagandistic film that is neither fish nor fowl (documentary? narrative story? I don't know where it goes in the remaining third) from Britain in 1940. The most questionable claim it makes--and it makes it repeatedly, to ensure the British audience gets it--is that Britain wasn't bombing civilian targets, only military ones. In fact, Churchill chose to bomb large German cities early in the war. Not that I'm saying he was wrong, since teaching the Nazis there was a price to pay might have paid off. Just that the film is a bit hard to swallow. I find films like this fascinating, and they always make me wonder what kind of propaganda about ourselves we're swallowing without knowing it. (Along with the people of every place and time.)

Edited June 15, 2019 by Milburn Stone

[Rinaldo]

5 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

R.I.P. Zefferelli. Every teenager on a date in 1968 saw his R and J, and loved it. (I say without fear of contradiction.

I dare say you're right. I didn't see it on a date, but with a group of college friends shortly before graduation, and I did love it. It still stands as (so far as I can recall) the only movie that's made me cry because of something sad (the near misses in the tomb scene). I've been moved by lots of movies, but without actual tears, which for whatever reason are reserved (for me) for transcendent happy moments (like the end of ET).

6 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Zeffirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet was the best one, it must be said.

Thinking back on all of them that I've seen, I agree. (Though there's one from 1954, directed by Renato Castellani, that's never seen any more, and I'd love TCM to dig it out for us. Much has been written in praise of its visual splendor, and some of its acting.)

Edited June 15, 2019 by Rinaldo

[voiceover]

20 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

As Dino de Laurentiis may or may not have said, "Everybody cry when the big monkey die."

I swear we share a brain...of course, *mine is the half that immediately thought of John Belushi as de Laurentiis (on SNL talking to Dan Ackroyd's Tom Snyder):

"Okay.. I want to tell you something.. when the Jaws die, nobody cry.. when my Kong die, everybody cry."

14 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

it was the 30s and people tended to think that women were brainless 

Wow.  Couldn't disagree more.

Kay Francis as Mary Stevens, M.D.? Zita Johann, standing alone against Boris Karloff's reincarnated mummy, bravely summoning the goddess Isis to her side? Garbo's Mata Hari & Queen Christina?  All the women of Stage Door?  The early films of Barbara Stanwyck & Bette Davis?  Vivien Leigh's Scarlett? [pauses for breath]

Yes: Wray was a bimbo in this particular film, but she was Beauty who brought down the Beast.  None of the men could manage that for her.

[Milburn Stone]

Hoo boy. I finished The Lion Has Wings last night. It just gets weirder. It seems we're meant to identify with Ralph Richardson's suffering because he's the guy that has to make the phone call to send the fighter planes into the air, then wait for reports of the outcome. Meanwhile, we're cutting back to the pilots up in the sky doing plane-to-plane combat with the Nazis heading for England. But yeah, Ralph Richardson is the really brave one here. Oh, and he's also the hero because he had to stay up all night.

Edited June 16, 2019 by Milburn Stone

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/15/2019 at 6:03 AM, Spartan Girl said:

I know it was the 30s and people tended to think that women werw brainless but GEEZ.

My own view is that fashions change, technology changes, external circumstances change, but people don't. We're pretty much the same as the people in the 1930s, and for that matter the people in the 1030s.

The "proof" (I realize this is just an opinion so proof is the wrong word, but I think it supports my point) is that we enjoy the great movies of the past. The basis of our enjoyment is that we understand the characters. Just as we understand the characters in Shakespeare. We could not possibly enjoy old movies if we could not fundamentally understand the characters, and we could not possibly understand the characters if we were different, fundamentally, from them.

[Tom Holmberg]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Ralph Richardson's suffering because he's the guy that has to make the phone call to send the fighter planes into the air, then wait for reports of the outcome.

This was often the case in air warfare movies, see "Dawn Patrol" and "Twelve O'clock High."  There's some truth in it.  Sending people to die isn't easy. For example, in the RAF 60% of bomber flight crew members became casualties.

Edited June 16, 2019 by Tom Holmberg

[Spartan Girl]

18 hours ago, voiceover said:

I swear we share a brain...of course, *mine is the half that immediately thought of John Belushi as de Laurentiis (on SNL talking to Dan Ackroyd's Tom Snyder):

"Okay.. I want to tell you something.. when the Jaws die, nobody cry.. when my Kong die, everybody cry."

Wow.  Couldn't disagree more.

Kay Francis as Mary Stevens, M.D.? Zita Johann, standing alone against Boris Karloff's reincarnated mummy, bravely summoning the goddess Isis to her side? Garbo's Mata Hari & Queen Christina?  All the women of Stage Door?  The early films of Barbara Stanwyck & Bette Davis?  Vivien Leigh's Scarlett? [pauses for breath]

Yes: Wray was a bimbo in this particular film, but she was Beauty who brought down the Beast.  None of the men could manage that for her.

Fair point, but in most scary movies back them they were just the damsels in distress that did nothing except look pretty, as was the case with Fay.

I mean, the whole tone of the movie was "women aint nothing but trouble, men can't think straight when there's a pretty face." Jack, the supposed hero/love interest is a total misogynist, he just makes an exception for Ann because she's is sweet and pretty. So yeah, I'm pretty sure the writers of THAT movie at least didn't think much of women back then.

And technically, the men used Ann/Fay as bait to bring down Kong, she really didn't do anything. She was nothing more than the doll used in the Kong scenes.

[Rinaldo]

10 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

This was often the case in air warfare movies, see "Dawn Patrol" and "Twelve O'clock High."  There's some truth in it.  Sending people to die isn't easy. For example, in the RAF 60% of bomber flight crew members became casualties.

One of the interesting undercurrents in the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy L. Sayers is exactly this. He came back from WWI a wreck (we would now talk about PTSD), and all his friends, not to mention people of the working classes, took the attitude that he was indulging himself or even malingering, "he didn't have it any harder than anyone else, and with his officer status, he had a softer time than the ones on the front lines." But for him the point was that he gave the orders that got masses of other soldiers killed, and for a while after coming home he couldn't live with himself because of that.

[voiceover]

8 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I'm pretty sure the writers of [King Kong] at least didn't think much of women back then.

Welllllllll ackshully...

Ruth Rose co-wrote the '33 Kong with Jim Creelman.  She went on to pen mostly adventure films (including Mighty Joe Young; obviously she had a monkey oeuvre).  And though Creelman was a dude, he did crank out -- among other works -- a script for Gloria Swanson.   She plays a hot-tempered socialite who turns out to be a game gal in a crisis (takes over stoking the engine when the yacht she commandeers blows off course).  This was based on a story by famous feminist Fannie Hurst.

Not every 30s female film character was a PhD candidate or Brie Larson's Captain Marvel*.  But Ellen Ripley ran back to look for a ***fucking cat*** in 1979's Alien.   At least Fay Wray did exactly what I would do in her sitch: scream my head off & pass out.

Beware the Broad Brush.  It doesn't apply to every broad.

*thank the Lord

3 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

But for [Lord Peter] the point was that he gave the orders that got masses of other soldiers killed, and for a while after coming home he couldn't live with himself because of that.

Yes!!!  And it was to carry over to his detective work.  He loved to solve the crime; he couldn't bear to think of the guilty party being put to death after.  This was most agonizing to read in Busman's Honeymoon.  In the last chapter, Harriet comforts her new husband as he dissolves into a weeping wreck at the hour of a (particularly nasty & unrepentant) murderer's execution.

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/16/2019 at 11:19 AM, Tom Holmberg said:

This was often the case in air warfare movies, see "Dawn Patrol" and "Twelve O'clock High."  There's some truth in it.  Sending people to die isn't easy. For example, in the RAF 60% of bomber flight crew members became casualties.

And I'd add Command Decision. That's what they were going for in The Lion Has Wings, but Ralph Richardson's character is so thinly sketched (and that's putting it nicely) that there's no possibility of identification with him. He just looks like an upper-class twit to be carrying on so. I imagine that all involved were so pre-occupied with the importance of the task of mobilizing the audience that they forgot to lay a proper foundation for it. Although, who knows, the 1940 British audience, who were under attack, might well have eaten it up. (Bombs falling on them might have been all the "foundation" they needed.) All I can say for sure is that, unlike those other movies, which somehow create a universal proposition that transcends the period, TLHW doesn't hold up. But it is a fascinating document, which I don't regret watching for its glimpse into the history of propaganda.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Milburn Stone

[AuntiePam]

40 Little Mothers, 1940, Eddie Cantor, Judith Anderson (before she was a dame), and a wonderful character actress, Nydia Westman, who stole the show.  The plot is silly but the movie's worth watching -- Cantor sings a charming little song, he barely over-acts, the baby is adorable, and Nydia Westman is an absolute delight. 

[Charlie Baker]

As we discussed this lady here a while ago, I thought some of us might enjoy this as much as I did,

On Pauline Kael on !00th Anniversary of Her Birth

[Rinaldo]

5 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

As we discussed this lady here a while ago, I thought some of us might enjoy this as much as I did,

On Pauline Kael on !00th Anniversary of Her Birth

I did enjoy it; thanks for sharing! 

It's interesting the different "relationship" different readers have had with her. I, unlike this writer, never heard of the "auteur theory" until I read her first book, where she took it down so gleefully and specifically. (I'm not surprised Andrew Sarris never forgave her, even being unbecomingly vicious when writing her obituary decades later. But it's easy to misunderstand, though she explained it again and again to interviewers later on: the version of auteurism she went after was a very specific point of view that was briefly fashionable in the 1950s -- the proposition that once you decide that a particular director is one of the great ones with a distinctive signature, all of his works become equally important and worthy of study so you can enjoy how he repeats his themes in all his pictures. She never disagreed with the idea that a director has a lot to do with how a movie comes out.)

Having read her first couple of books, I was thrilled when she started writing for The New Yorker, and I devoured her biweekly (later weekly) as each article appeared. I no doubt swallowed her too uncritically, but I was in love with how well she wrote. I love reading anyone who can awaken me to new awareness in any of the arts (Rosen in music, Osborne in opera, Croce in ballet), and I'm afraid their views become mine for a while, until I can eventually sober up and use what I've learned to think for myself again. From my present vantage point, especially now that we have a biography and other writings about her, I can see problematic sides to her work: the antipathies that were barely acknowledged (as if any sentient being would share them), the lack of candor about how chummy she was with some people that she wrote about, the lack of ethics in  connection with The Citizen Kane Book (adopting someone else's research with only token acknowledgment), the increasing aggrandizement of marginal films if they gave her a convenient chance to say something she wanted to say. And so on.

Still, no one else writing about movies helped me develop my own tastes so much; nobody else clued me in to so many older movies I needed to see (and usually did enjoy, without feeling they were "good for me"); nobody else was as just plain fun to read. She'll have a permanent spot in the history of the medium, I think.

[Terrafamilia]

I've been enjoying the Falcon series they've be showing the last several weeks on Saturday mornings.

Re. Olivia de Havilland: I don't think I've seen her in anything other than GWTW and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I loved her in the latter though I understand she didn't think much of it.

[Wiendish Fitch]

28 minutes ago, Terrafamilia said:

Re. Olivia de Havilland: I don't think I've seen her in anything other than GWTW and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I loved her in the latter though I understand she didn't think much of it.

If you're interested in seeking out de Havilland's other works, I highly recommend The Heiress. She won her second Best Actress Oscar for it, and for good reason, IMO.

She's also splendid in The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Strawberry Blonde. 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Wiendish Fitch

[Terrafamilia]

I haven't. My old movie viewing has been rather sporadic. My tastes run into science fiction and fantasy and some assorted mysteries, musicals and comedies.

[mariah23]

9 minutes ago, Terrafamilia said:

I haven't. My old movie viewing has been rather sporadic. My tastes run into science fiction and fantasy and some assorted mysteries, musicals and comedies.

Science Fiction?!  Then you are going to love next month’s lineup.

[BooksRule]

On 6/22/2019 at 7:18 PM, mariah23 said:

Science Fiction?!  Then you are going to love next month’s lineup

Great!  I haven't seen the schedule, but I'm a big fan, too.  Speaking of:

Do any of you catch any of the films that are shown as part of the 'TCM Underground' series?  I've enjoyed watching some movies that I probably wouldn't have watched otherwise.  I'm glad that I've been able to see some of the earlier films from some well-known directors, but I do have to say that most of them aren't movies that I want to watch again (Cronenberg's 'Scanners' and 'Rabid', for example).  A few days ago I recorded 'The Bed Sitting Room' (Richard Lester), because I had seen references to it in science fiction film books, but had never seen it.  If you've never seen it, it is about the 20 English survivors of a nuclear war.  One is transforming into a bed sitting room (due to radiation), a family lives on a subway car (the Circle Line that continuously runs the same route every day), a young woman who is 17 months pregnant with 'something' (we never see what it is). It was definitely interesting, but very odd.  Mainly a series of black comedy sketches that kind of combine and tie together at the end.  It did have it moments--I think my favorite parts were the BBC newscaster who still presents the evening news and that they no longer sing 'God save our gracious Queen...', but now sing 'God save Mr. Ethel Shroake of 393A High Street, Leytonshire' (Mrs. Shroake being the last surviving heir to the throne).  

Edited June 26, 2019 by BooksRule
Typo

[elle]

AMC host, Bob Dorian, has passed. 

I take a bit of exception to the paragraph comparing Dorian and Osborne. The way it reads it as if the Dorian quote refers back to his TCM counterpart. I doubt that would have been Dorian's intent.

I remember those days when American Movie Classics came on the cable line up back in 1984.  Bob Dorian was a fun enthusiastic host. My memory conflates his tenure with Nick Clooney, I did not remember Dorian had originally been alone. It should be no surprise that he left right around the time AMC changed their programming.

[Tom Holmberg]

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 3:06 PM, Terrafamilia said:

I've been enjoying the Falcon series they've be showing the last several weeks on Saturday mornings

It's fun to watch these series they run on Sat. mornings.  I hadn't watch any of the Dr. Kildare movies before and really enjoyed them.

[Tom Holmberg]

Tomorrow afternoon, June 29, TCM will be showing "Point Blank", the 1967 Lee Marvin adaptation of a Donald E. Westlake "Parker" novel ("The Hunter").  This has been remade a couple of more times, but this version is the best. Worth catching if you haven't seen it, or even if you have.

[ratgirlagogo]

On 6/26/2019 at 9:57 AM, BooksRule said:

Do any of you catch any of the films that are shown as part of the 'TCM Underground' series? 

This has  always been  one of my favorite parts of the programming.  It does go through phases - as with the rest of the schedule, they will show the same films several times in a year (Berserk, or Food of the Gods, etc.) which I suppose has to do with broadcast rights?  But really there is so much for them to choose from I don't understand why they don't mix it up a little more.

Also this is  programming that could REALLY benefit from host intros and outros, given that it is often quite obscure to a present day audience.  I don't understand why they don't do this. Your example of The Bed-Sitting Room is a good one.  Of course one can look these films up for oneself, as I always do anyway, but, come on.

It's one of the more unpredictable slots.  You might be seeing super-campy-kitsch like Gymkata, , straight-up exploitation like Child Bride, or art films like Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.   I love TCM.

Edited June 29, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[Rinaldo]

17 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Tomorrow afternoon, June 29, TCM will be showing "Point Blank", the 1967 Lee Marvin adaptation of a Donald E. Westlake "Parker" novel ("The Hunter").  This has been remade a couple of more times, but this version is the best. Worth catching if you haven't seen it, or even if you have.

I'll enthusiastically endorse this. I'm a long-time fan of the writing of Donald E. Westlake, and one of his many accomplishments was to maintain a second (not-exactly-secret) identity as Richard Stark, author of 16 books about amoral criminal Parker, mostly paperback originals (back when the spinning paperback rack at the corner drug store was where you could buy compact pieces of tough-guy fiction); then after a two-decade silence he came back with 8 more, now hardcover originals. 

There have been a number of films made of various of the books, with Parker played by Lee Marvin, Jim Brown, Robert Duvall, Peter Coyote, Mel Gibson (The Hunter remake), and Jason Statham. Only the last of these uses the Parker name; Westlake had always withheld use of the name unless the producers would agree to film a series of the books; finally his widow agreed to such a deal with Statham's producers, but so far no sequels have appeared. In any case, Point Blank is a fine piece of work, director John Boorman making memorable use of color and framing.

[elle]

I know someone here can help identify a movie poster image for me.  CNN has a promo for their upcoming documentary on movies. I can not identify one of the images.  I think it is for a western movie. It shows a white background, a silhouette from the legs down standing on a red rose. It can be seen at about 0.29. just before it dissolves into a graphic for The Birds.

Edited June 30, 2019 by elle

[Rinaldo]

11 hours ago, elle said:

I know someone here can help identify a movie poster image for me.  CNN has a promo for their upcoming documentary on movies. I can not identify one of the images.  I think it is for a western movie....

It looked like a Western to me too, what with the indication of boots, but (thanks to a screen capture and Google image search) it turns out to be the poster for the Kubrick film Barry Lyndon. It's an image I don't remember at all, though I saw the movie when it was in theaters. It does seem an odd one to include in a series of really familiar images.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Rinaldo

[elle]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

It looked like a Western to me too, what with the indication of boots, but (thanks to a screen capture and Google image search) it turns out to be the poster for the Kubrick film Barry Lyndon. It's an image I don't remember at all, though I saw the movie when it was in theaters. It seems an odd one to single out as iconic among the other familiar ones.

Thank you, Rinaldo! Great detective work, I would not begin to know how to do the capture/search you used.  

I am only vaguely aware of the movie Barry Lyndon and that is only to know it is not the period movie with Albert Finney, which is of course Tom Jones.  It is a strange choice to include in the promo as it does not seem to be a movie that is in the pop culture psyche as Jaws is which came out the same year in 1975.

Funny story, when I was trying to figure this out, I was showing off to my daughter by naming all the other movies. Trying to help me identify the one that dissolved (Barry Lyndon into The Birds), she confidently said "oh I know that, it's Infinity War! You know, how some characters turn to dust"  After my husband pointed out the those were birds, to which I expressed my chagrin at missing that, we agreed that it was a good guess but not plausible because that movie is of the 2010s.  That lead into a conversation about which movies from the 2010s will be on future lists, excluding Marvel movies.  I could not think of any!  The 00s and 10s sorta of blur together. My husband quipped "if it's not on TCM.."  

In my defense, I did eventually suggest The Martian.

[ratgirlagogo]

11 hours ago, elle said:

I am only vaguely aware of the movie Barry Lyndon and that is only to know it is not the period movie with Albert Finney, which is of course Tom Jones.  It is a strange choice to include in the promo as it does not seem to be a movie that is in the pop culture psyche as Jaws is which came out the same year in 1975.

I saw this movie when it came out, in the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.  Visually it is hands down one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen - the scenes shot by candlelight were so thrilling to look at I had to remind myself to breathe.  I felt like I was really looking at 18th century nightlife and gambling hells.   But like most of Kubrick's films I admire it more than love it.

I'm not surprised both you and Rinaldo thought of Westerns, since the climactic event in the film is a duel.  (A little off topic, one of my recent intellectual projects has been watching the TV series Gunsmoke all the way through.  The first six seasons of Gunsmoke are heavily concerned with showing what it's like to live in a place where dueling is legal -  woof.)

I also agree with you that Barry Lyndon is the outlier in this group to me in terms of present-day popularity.  Also as usual with these things the movies are mostly from the last 40 years - other than Vertigo and Anatomy of a Murder. Come to think of it Anatomy of a Murder is an outlier too.

[tennisgurl]

On 6/26/2019 at 7:57 AM, BooksRule said:

Do any of you catch any of the films that are shown as part of the 'TCM Underground' series?

I love the TCM Underground series, its such an eclectic mix of oddball films and I never know what is going to end up being shown, its so much fun. I just caught the 1950s Hammer Mummy and I really enjoyed it. Not as atmospheric as the 30s film but its very much a Hammer Horror Mummy. I do think the segments could use a host to introduce the movies, so many of them are so quirky that context would be really helpful. 

[Rinaldo]

On 7/1/2019 at 3:25 AM, ratgirlagogo said:

the movies are mostly from the last 40 years - other than Vertigo and Anatomy of a Murder. Come to think of it Anatomy of a Murder is an outlier too.

The thing is, both of those were memorable poster images or main-title graphics (what we in the 60s, prompted by having a father in the business, referred to as "Saul Bass titles") -- so successful at their purpose that they instantly summon up the movie, and as such they seem (to me) to be bridging the time gap, and thus less of an outlier. Go back into the 40s, and that kind of "invent one image to recall it all" mindset wasn't so much a priority.

And in that context, I can see that the Barry Lyndon one does also presents a unique graphic, it's just that the movie itself hasn't become immortal like the others. (I too was impressed -- how did they make it look like he lost his leg, from all angles, when CGI hasn't been invented yet? -- but not truly involved.)

On 6/30/2019 at 3:29 PM, elle said:

I would not begin to know how to do the capture/search you used.  

Truly, it's not that advanced, or I wouldn't be able to do it! I'll leave image capture aside because it may depend on your OS or perhaps need a special app (the capacity is now built into the newest Mac systems, if you know the key combinations). But image searches are truly easy, at least with Google (the only one I've tried):

After any search, I see a row of options across the top of my browser window (All / Videos / Images / etc.). If I choose "Images," up in the window for typing one's search is a small icon of a camera. Click on that, and I get a new search window that prompts me to either give it the URL of an image I want to identify, or upload an image I have saved on my computer. After I've done one of those actions, I get a long list of pages that contain that image.

I was clued into this by a helpful friend in his 20s -- I hadn't immediately understood about it myself. Now I use image search all the time to track down unidentified pictures. So I've ventured onto this sidebar as a way of paying my own belated education forward.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Rinaldo

[Spartan Girl]

I watched My Fair Lady last night, and after comparing it to the clips I found of Audrey singing the songs before they dubbed Marni Nixon, I really think they ought to have left Audrey's voice in. She wasn't a bad singer -- no worse than Rex, who spoke-sang more than actually sang -- even if she didn't match the vocal range of the songs. They could have just tweaked the notes to match a more alto voice.

But even if her voice wasn't perfect, it just sounded more natural, more lively, more in character for Eliza. Or maybe that's in hindsight knowing it was her voice instead of Marni's.

[Wiendish Fitch]

9 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

I watched My Fair Lady last night, and after comparing it to the clips I found of Audrey singing the songs before they dubbed Marni Nixon, I really think they ought to have left Audrey's voice in. She wasn't a bad singer -- no worse than Rex, who spoke-sang more than actually sang -- even if she didn't match the vocal range of the songs. They could have just tweaked the notes to match a more alto voice.

But even if her voice wasn't perfect, it just sounded more natural, more lively, more in character for Eliza. Or maybe that's in hindsight knowing it was her voice instead of Marni's.

Eh, Nixon's voice is fine (even if it's way too incongruously polished to be believable as Eliza), but I can't disagree with your assessment either. See, this is why you just go with an actor who can actually sing. Don't dub them, don't make a singer out of someone who plainly can't, just get an actor who can sing. End of story.

As for My Fair Lady, I just wish they had kept George Bernard Shaw's original ending of Eliza leaving Higgins for realsies. Seriously, I hated that she went back to him! Sweetheart, you are way too good for that pompous asshat!

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Eh, Nixon's voice is fine (even if it's way too incongruously polished to be believable as Eliza), but I can't disagree with your assessment either. See, this is why you just go with an actor who can actually sing. Don't dub them, don't make a singer out of someone who plainly can't, just get an actor who can sing. End of story.

As for My Fair Lady, I just wish they had kept George Bernard Shaw's original ending of Eliza leaving Higgins for realsies. Seriously, I hated that she went back to him! Sweetheart, you are way too good for that pompous asshat!

Seriously. Plus, Audrey was in her prime and Rex was, what, 50?!

For what it's worth, the Broadway revival changes the end back to the Shaw ending. I can't wait to see it when the tour comes to my town next year!

[Rinaldo]

I agree that Audrey Hepburn's singing was appealing and uniquely "her"; she did sing in other movies, and memorably: in Funny Face opposite Fred Astaire, and of course "Moon River" in Breakfast at TIffany's. 

But the role of Eliza Doolittle is written for soprano, no way around it. One reason Marni Nixon sounds joltingly incongruous (the start of "The Rain in Spain" always made my History of Musicals class laugh, and I can't disagree) is that she and Audrey never worked together to smooth the difference (as Nixon and Deborah Kerr did so perfectly in The King and I); the dubbing was imposed after shooting was complete, to unsatisfying result. (For what it's worth, several British people I know consider Hepburn equally wrong from a speaking standpoint: her vocal inflections, which sound British to American ears, reveal her Dutch origins to them, even when speaking "posh.")

So in the end I agree with @Wiendish Fitch: the solution is to cast someone who can actually do what's needed. One of the (many) reasons The Music Man is my favorite of all stage-to-screen musical adaptations is that it was impeccably cast, and everyone is singing with their own voice.

But of course Hollywood has never worked that way as a general procedure. In the case of My Fair Lady Warner's had given way (not without some resistance) on casting Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway, neither of them a box-office draw, so for the third starring role they considered it mandatory to have just such a draw. It wasn't going to happen any other way.

And of course on the many websites devoted to dubbing in the movies, we can see that several top "musical" stars of the cinema always had their singing dubbed: Rita Hayworth and Cyd Charisse for starters. They wouldn't have appeared in musicals otherwise.

[Sharpie66]

I saw both Rex Harrison and Cathleen Nesbitt in a touring show in Chicago in the early ‘80s (she was the original Mrs. Higgins on Broadway), which made the age gap with the young woman playing Eliza even more ridiculous. For their ages, they were both great to watch, though. (ION, also saw Yul Brynner in his final tour in The King and I—also great!)

I am now watching my annual viewing of 1776 and quoting along with the film. 

“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!”

“A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake, I'd accept with some despair. But no, You sent us Congress! Good God, Sir, was that fair?”

And the best delivery from William Daniels: “Oh, good god.”

This film introduced me to the incredible best couple in American history, John and Abigail Adams. For as much of an ass as he could be, they made an amazing pair. I have a collection of their letters to each other, which is well worth reading (My Dearest Friend).

[LilWharveyGal]

35 minutes ago, Sharpie66 said:

I saw both Rex Harrison and Cathleen Nesbitt in a touring show in Chicago in the early ‘80s...

I read this way too fast and thought you were saying you saw them in the early '80's in a touring show of Chicago. 😲

[Sharpie66]

Now it’s Music Man!! Hermione Gingold is a treasure.

”The Ruby-Hat of Omar Kai-yi-yi-I am appalled!”

[Sharpie66]

I always love how they use the barbershop quartet in this show. The mashups of Pick a Little/Goodnight Ladies and Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You are both so well done. 

I also love the transitions into songs throughout. The train, the piano exercise, the chickens on Pick a Little, and all the patter songs evolving naturally. 

[tennisgurl]

Great choices for Fourth of July! The opening song for The Music Man, Rock Island, is one of my favorite openings for a musical ever! The direction, the diction, the way the song moves along with the train, the gradual introduction of Harald Hill, it’s all so much fun.

[Sharpie66]

I will say, Shipoopi is the big misstep here, especially egregious in a film over two hours long.

[Spartan Girl]

I watched The Glass Slipper and I guess I liked it a little better than The Slipper and the Rose if only because I liked the idea of a angrier, bitter Cinderella who learns to let people in.