TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Rinaldo]

13 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

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

I enjoy reading the reactions of others, but I will confess that that 's the first time I've encountered that particular one. I love "Shipoopi," complete with Onna White's choreographic bounty, and for me The Music Man is the most misstep-free of any movie musical adaptation I know. It gets better each time I see it, and I saw it during its original theatrical run. (After seeing the national tour of the stage show, as my first experience with professional theater.)

[Sharpie66]

I think it’s the Buddy Hackett aspect that turns me off Shipoopi, as well as the fat-shaming of Ethel, which I really noticed this time. Actually, it’s more the second than the first, because I like him singing with Harold in the livery stable.

The dancing for the number is wonderful, but watching it at 2:00 am just had me checking the clock for when it’ll be over.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

(After seeing the national tour of the stage show, as my first experience with professional theater.)

Was that the one with Forrest Tucker? I think it might have been my first experience with professional theater, too, when it swang through Baltimore. (You should pardon the expression.)

[Sharpie66]

In 1980, I had the chance to see Dick Van Dyke as Harold Hill, but the matinee I saw was the one performance of the Chicago stop where we got the understudy instead (who was actually really good). 

[Rinaldo]

45 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Was that the one with Forrest Tucker? I think it might have been my first experience with professional theater, too, when it swang through Baltimore. (You should pardon the expression.)

It was indeed the tour with Forrest Tucker. (And Joan Weldon as Marian, and Lucie Lancaster as Mrs. Paroo, and The Frisco Four, and... memory won't help me any more than that.)

But, in a neat synchronicity with @Sharpie66's most recent, we got his understudy. (That's right, at my very first show ever.) The understudy, by the way, was Harry Hickox, whose usual role was Charlie Cowell the anvil salesman. (And who plays that role in the movie.) He was very good, I thought, but clearly I didn't have sophisticated backup for that opinion, what with being a novice and in seventh grade.

And it all worked out, because 3 years later I saw Forrest Tucker do the role after all, in summer stock, at the Melody Top Theater outside Chicago.

[Notwisconsin]

Fun fact: In the song "there's trouble in River City" There's a mention of Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang, which wouldn't start publishing for seven years after the action of the play takes place. The only genuine anachronism of the entire show.

[Rinaldo]

18 hours ago, Notwisconsin said:

Fun fact: In the song "there's trouble in River City" There's a mention of Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang, which wouldn't start publishing for seven years after the action of the play takes place. The only genuine anachronism of the entire show.

That's fun indeed, @Notwisconsin. This wonderful page annotating pretty much every reference in The Music Man mentions that. It also points out one more anachronism, that Bevo (that near-beer that our soon-to-be-corrupted youth will start talking about) wasn't introduced until 1916, four years after the 1912 when the show takes place.

There's also no "same historic day" on which all those famous bandleaders could have been seen together (more for geographic than chronological reasons, as Gilmore died well before Creatore came to the US) -- but that doesn't matter at all, because Hill is lying anyway. And he's pretty perceptive to cite Mendez and Klein (turning them Irish) as great cornet players when they were both preschoolers at that date.

Another of his lies is potentially more problematic (though nobody minds really, including me): Hill keeps telling everyone he graduated from Gary Conservatory "class of aught 5," and Marian discovers that Gary, Indiana, wasn't founded ("built" she says, as if there were no buildings there till that moment!) until 1906. That's true, but in the Midwest in 1912 that was hardly ancient history or faraway esoteric knowledge: any random person might have known that, maybe used to live near there or had relatives there, and blown his cover. Why didn't he just pick Northwestern or Harvard for his fictional alma mater?

All of which is just being silly and having fun with something I've loved most of my life. Seriously, take a look at that page I linked to!

Edited July 6, 2019 by Rinaldo

[Notwisconsin]

Figuring that Wilson wrote the play around 1960 or so, Cap'n Billy and the like were hazy memories of the middle-aged theatergoer (late 30s and up). They knew they had heard the name as a kid but they probably couldn't have placed it, so sure it was plausible.

[Rinaldo]

Of course. All of it's plausible (and has always been) because it pertained to a time several decades before and was safely "period." Nobody's proposing that the script be rewritten. But after you've spent a long time loving or performing the show (or researching it musically, as I have), there's an appreciative smile in eventually noticing the things that don't really fit. (In years past, I've posted here about the mystery of how Hill's con game actually gets him enough money to be worth the time and trouble. Which I noticed only after loving the show for 40 years, and now that I have, it's a sidelight that doesn't bother me a bit, I just salute Willson and Lacey for bamboozling us so well.)

[Milburn Stone]

I've probably said this before, but I always used to think of The Music Man as pleasant but anodyne and that it was a grave injustice that it lost the Best Musical Tony to the revolutionary West Side Story. That was until I saw the production at the Stratford Festival something like 10 years ago. (Apparently they did it again last summer.) The word "inventive" just kept forming in my mind over and over, one number after the other.

[Popples]

On 7/6/2019 at 6:00 PM, Milburn Stone said:

I've probably said this before, but I always used to think of The Music Man as pleasant but anodyne and that it was a grave injustice that it lost the Best Musical Tony to the revolutionary West Side Story. That was until I saw the production at the Stratford Festival something like 10 years ago. (Apparently they did it again last summer.) The word "inventive" just kept forming in my mind over and over, one number after the other.

The Music Man took home the Tony Award for Outstanding Musical over West Side Story.

[Milburn Stone]

21 minutes ago, Popples said:

The Music Man took home the Tony Award for Outstanding Musical over West Side Story.

Oh yes, that's right. Thanks for the correction. I knew that, but a synapse misfired. What I was trying to say (and I think it's clear this is what I meant from the context of the rest of the post) is that I used to think (as did a lot of folks) that it was a grave injustice that TMM won over WSS--and at some point I stopped thinking that.

[Rinaldo]

Oh, that's funny. I knew what @Milburn Stone meant -- he and I have talked about the whole TMM/WSS thing here more than once -- so my eyes and brain skipped right over what he in fact said there. Weird. 

I too spent time as a smart-ass music-school grad student bemoaning the injustice of West Side losing to a piece of nostalgic Americana (as and stated further above, I knew and quite liked WSS -- I had been assistant music director for our high school production -- but then I got snobby about Art). Eventually I saw what a masterpiece it is in its own way, with depths in what it's saying and how it says it. That year, not two years later*, is when it would have made total sense to have a tie for best musical.

(*And that tie was between The Sound of Music and Fiorello!, for heaven's sake, with Gypsy entirely unawarded.)

Similarly, during those same years I got in the habit of sneering at Oklahoma!, as I got caught up with the current trends in musicals. Then I finally encountered it again, and realized that if I'd written half a dozen of its songs, I could retire, content with a full and perfect life's work. And that I'd been a jerk.

Oh well, as they sing in Follies, "Everybody has to go through stages like that."

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Oh, that's funny. I knew what @Milburn Stone meant -- he and I have talked about the whole TMM/WSS thing here more than once -- so my eyes and brain skipped right over what he in fact said there. Weird. 

My favorite example of a great writer doing this is E.Y. Harburg's lyric for a song he wrote with Jerome Kern, "More and More." (Performed by Deanna Durbin in Can't Help Singing.) Here's how the last two lines go:

More and more I'm less and less unwilling

To give up wanting more and more and more of you.

We know what Harburg means, and with Kern's music, it's easy for the mind to gloss right over the fact that Harburg wrote the complete opposite of what he meant. Clearly he meant that the singer is less and less willing to give up wanting more of her beloved, and that's how we understand the song. But he wrote "unwilling." And he didn't catch it, and Kern didn't catch it, and Durbin didn't catch it, and the musical director of the film didn't catch it, and the music publisher didn't catch it, and the director and producer of the film didn't catch it, and the head of the studio didn't catch it. I didn't catch it myself until playing the song on the piano a few years ago. Wow.

[Tom Holmberg]

This Fri. night TCM is running "Start the Revolution Without Me" a sort Mel Brooks movie pre-dating Mel Brooks. A funny parody of Hollywood costume dramas about two set of twins separated at birth, with Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland as the aristocratic Corsican brothers, the De Sisis, and the peasant Coupé brothers before the French Revolution.  My favorite scene is when the sadistic Gene Wilder character brags, "Some day I will be King!" and the gay Donald Sutherland brother states, "...And I shall be Queen!" 

Edited July 9, 2019 by Tom Holmberg

[ratgirlagogo]

On 7/9/2019 at 8:26 AM, Tom Holmberg said:

This Fri. night TCM is running "Start the Revolution Without Me" a sort Mel Brooks movie pre-dating Mel Brooks.

A huge favorite of mine.  I always found both Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland super-hot in this. LOL.

Edited July 11, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[Spunkygal]

On 7/9/2019 at 7:26 AM, Tom Holmberg said:

This Fri. night TCM is running "Start the Revolution Without Me" a sort Mel Brooks movie pre-dating Mel Brooks. A funny parody of Hollywood costume dramas about two set of twins separated at birth, with Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland as the aristocratic Corsican brothers, the De Sisis, and the peasant Coupé brothers before the French Revolution.  My favorite scene is when the sadistic Gene Wilder character brags, "Some day I will be King!" and the gay Donald Sutherland brother states, "...And I shall be Queen!" 

Just FYI, looks like now it will be aired on Sunday morning at 1:00 am Central. Thanks for the recommendation!

[AuntiePam]

Watched Now, Voyager for the nth time today, and kept waiting for a scene that must have been from another movie.  The scene I was waiting for was Christina accusing Charlotte of befriending her only because of Charlotte's relationship with Jerry, Tina's father. 

I wonder what movie I was thinking of.

And what a great movie.  It never gets old. 

[Spartan Girl]

So I caught the 1936 Romeo and Juliet yesterday, and I'm sorry but I stand by my opinion that the 1968 Franco Zefirreli one was far better, especially in terms of emotional range. Leslie Howard might have good in other films but for his Romeo, all I could see was wimpy Ashley Wilkes.

I remember how in Twilight New Moon Bella's stupid classmates were sniveling over this version. To which I can only reply, Gimme a break. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

14 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

So I caught the 1936 Romeo and Juliet yesterday, and I'm sorry but I stand by my opinion that the 1968 Franco Zefirreli one was far better, especially in terms of emotional range. Leslie Howard might have good in other films but for his Romeo, all I could see was wimpy Ashley Wilkes.

I remember how in Twilight New Moon Bella's stupid classmates were sniveling over this version. To which I can only reply, Gimme a break. 

That, and he and Norma Shearer were, oh, 20-25 years too old for the parts. In the scene where Juliet's mom talks to her, I was thinking, "Is no one going to address that mother and daughter are practically the same age?!"

God love 'em, they tried...

Yet they weren't as offensive as sad, bloated, weathered John Barrymore as Mercutio. Yee-ikes.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Wiendish Fitch

[ruby24]

Movies I've watched on TCM over the last week:

All This and Heaven Too- Too long, but I mostly liked it. Bette Davis and Charles Boyer were really good and so was the actress who played the wife.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon- Pretty good, but not as good as I was expecting, considering how well regarded it is. Cinematography was great though. I wonder if that accounts for a lot of its reputation, to be honest.

Dodge  City- Lots of fun! Hadn't seen Errol Flynn in a western yet. Enjoyed it quite a bit. This is more my kind of western than She Wore a Yellow Ribbon I think. 

Broadway Melody of 1940- loved this! It took me a long time to get around to it, because I've seen most of Fred Astaire's movies, but I think this one might actually be one of his best. 

Diary of a Lost Girl- Loved it. That Louise Brooks, man. She has such a fierce look in her eye, she seems so modern! It's obvious how different she is onscreen compared to other stars of the silent era. It's quite striking. This movie moved swiftly too, where as for me a lot of silents feel a bit slower paced. Not this one. Very entertaining.

[mariah23]

52 minutes ago, ruby24 said:

Movies I've watched on TCM over the last week:

All This and Heaven Too- Too long, but I mostly liked it. Bette Davis and Charles Boyer were really good and so was the actress who played the wife.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon- Pretty good, but not as good as I was expecting, considering how well regarded it is. Cinematography was great though. I wonder if that accounts for a lot of its reputation, to be honest.

Dodge  City- Lots of fun! Hadn't seen Errol Flynn in a western yet. Enjoyed it quite a bit. This is more my kind of western than She Wore a Yellow Ribbon I think. 

Broadway Melody of 1940- loved this! It took me a long time to get around to it, because I've seen most of Fred Astaire's movies, but I think this one might actually be one of his best. 

Diary of a Lost Girl- Loved it. That Louise Brooks, man. She has such a fierce look in her eye, she seems so modern! It's obvious how different she is onscreen compared to other stars of the silent era. It's quite striking. This movie moved swiftly too, where as for me a lot of silents feel a bit slower paced. Not this one. Very entertaining.

Diary of a Lost Girl was on TCM and I missed it?!

[ruby24]

Oh wait, I forgot a couple:

The War of the Worlds- really good sci-fi, although the characters were barely memorable.

Another Thin Man- I'm trying to make my way the whole series. I loved the first and second one, but this one was weaker, imo. Nick and Nora still had some good scenes and lines together though.

[Bastet]

35 minutes ago, ruby24 said:

Another Thin Man- I'm trying to make my way the whole series. I loved the first and second one, but this one was weaker, imo. Nick and Nora still had some good scenes and lines together though.

The quality drops off after the second one - Goodrich and Hackett ended that one with the pregnancy revelation assuming that would ensure MGM wouldn't commission a third film, which obviously didn't work - and then steadily declines after the third (the last one written by Goodrich and Hackett).

But, while I watch the first two more often than the next four, I do watch all six every year or two - it's still William Powell and Myrna Loy, after all.

When you get to The Thin Man Goes Home (number 5), that's quite the mixed bag.  There are certain aspects of it that suggest it should rank somewhere in the middle - they ditch the kid at boarding school, and Nora gets more to do on her own than usual - but on the whole it's perhaps the worst of the six.  (There's no booze for starters, and they're in Nick's small hometown so it's a different vibe altogether.)

[Tom Holmberg]

11 hours ago, mariah23 said:

That Louise Brooks, man. She has such a fierce look in her eye, she seems so modern!

You compare her to most of the Hollywood actresses of the era and it's like she dropped in from her time machine. She does look very "modern."

[benteen]

Destination: Moon is on tonight.  I saw it a few months ago and found myself really enjoying it.  It's definitely hokey in parts and one character is so damn unrealistic and annoying.  But I love old sci-fi movies.

[mariah23]

13 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Oh wait, I forgot a couple:

The War of the Worlds- really good sci-fi, although the characters were barely memorable.

Another Thin Man- I'm trying to make my way the whole series. I loved the first and second one, but this one was weaker, imo. Nick and Nora still had some good scenes and lines together though.

ruby24, while the next three Thin Man's are good, they do get weaker.

[Rinaldo]

20 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

So I caught the 1936 Romeo and Juliet yesterday, and I'm sorry but I stand by my opinion that the 1968 Franco [Zeffirelli] one was far better, especially in terms of emotional range. 

Why apologize? 🙂 I think that opinion is near-universal. I mean, maybe there are ways the Zeffirelli movie could be improved, but it's still the best rendition of the play we have, and a wonderful, touching piece of entertainment. (Though I wish TCM would occasionally let us have a look at the 1954 Anglo-Italian film with Laurence Harvey as Romeo, Flora Robson as the Nurse, and Mervyn Johns as the Friar. It's highly spoken of as a visual and artistic achievement, and it never seems to be shown.) 

But I will be a contrarian on one point:

19 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Yet they weren't as offensive as sad, bloated, weathered John Barrymore as Mercutio. Yee-ikes.

To me, Barrymore (or at least pieces of his performance) is one of the redeeming elements of the picture. Overage and overweight as he may be is, when he begins the Queen Mab speech, I can feel the old rhetorical way of speaking Shakespeare come to life and show its power as nowhere else on film. That's what Shaw referred to so often in his Shakespeare criticism as "making music with the words."

18 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Broadway Melody of 1940- loved this! It took me a long time to get around to it, because I've seen most of Fred Astaire's movies, but I think this one might actually be one of his best. 

It's a whole lot of fun. That long "Begin the Beguine" sequence is just breathtaking great art, and I never tire of it no matter how many times I see it. Eleanor Powell is a great partner for him in this.

[ratgirlagogo]

On 7/16/2019 at 3:00 PM, Rinaldo said:

To me, Barrymore (or at least pieces of his performance) is one of the redeeming elements of the picture. Overage and overweight as he may be is, when he begins the Queen Mab speech, I can feel the old rhetorical way of speaking Shakespeare come to life and show its power as nowhere else on film. That's what Shaw referred to so often in his Shakespeare criticism as "making music with the words."

As always I agree with you 100% about Barrymore as Mercutio in this film.  While I love silent films with all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength, I often wonder if we would think differently about John Barrymore if sound films had begun around 1920 and we could have heard as well as seen some of his big filmed stage roles.

Edited July 17, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[ruby24]

Watched 3:10 to Yuma tonight. Great movie! Glenn Ford was SO GOOD in this. Surprised how great he was, actually.

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Watched 3:10 to Yuma tonight. Great movie! Glenn Ford was SO GOOD in this. Surprised how great he was, actually.

I don't think I've ever seen that, and now I want to. But to me, Glenn Ford had an annoying trait that became more annoying the later in his career he got. That sort of hesitating, stammering thing he does. It's like he said to himself: "Real people don't always know what they're going to say next. So I should act more like one of those real people, and make it apparent that I'm thinking of what to say, working out what I'm trying to say while I'm saying it, just like real people do." The problem is, unlike with Jimmy Stewart (who somehow made the stammering thing feel like part of the character), with Ford you can always see the "actor wheels" turning, the intention to stammer, in his head. At least that's my subjective reaction.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Milburn Stone

[Lokiberry]

10 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Watched 3:10 to Yuma tonight. Great movie! Glenn Ford was SO GOOD in this. Surprised how great he was, actually.

I love 3:10 to Yuma! I think it's better than High Noon. Ford gives such a complicated, seductive performance.; while Van Heflin excels as an everyman who takes a dangerous job just to get enough money so he and his family can survive and then has to face fear, temptation, and a  growing need to do the right thing. Those last few minutes when they try to get to the train are real edge-of-your-seat stuff, and put to shame similar higher budget  efforts. And, that ending where Heflin's wife is waiting by the tracks to see if he made it out alive, and he waves to her from the train and it starts raining is one of the most satisfying endings ever. 

Ford and Heflin made this movie. I've always loved Ford, and I think Heflin is the best actor I've ever seen. He wasn't the most attractive guy in the world, and I suppose that stopped him from becoming a really big name star, but he was just so damn talented.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Lokiberry

[tennisgurl]

Them was on TCM Underground not long ago, and I am so glad I got it recorded! Its the standard to which all American 50s radioactive giant creature B movies aspire to!

On 7/15/2019 at 7:58 PM, ruby24 said:

Diary of a Lost Girl- Loved it. That Louise Brooks, man. She has such a fierce look in her eye, she seems so modern!

Sooooo good! Her movies really hold up well in my opinion, I consider most of them to be good introductions to silent film for new comers, they are quite approachable to a modern audience.  Louis Brooks is one of, if not my number one, favorite silent era film star, she is so intense and electric, and she does read as very modern to me. I think she would fit right in with Indie movie stars of the today. I feel like a modern Louis Brooks would have an awesomely quirky Instagram feed 😉 

[CherryMalotte]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

 Louis Brooks is one of, if not my number one, favorite silent era film star

Myself as well - next to Clara Bow.  Special place in my heart for Gloria Swanson too.  I highly recommend  seeking out Louise Brooks: Looking For Lulu which TCM has shown a couple of times that I know of, plus it's available on the Criterion edition of Pandora's Box which I'd recommend as well.  Louise was one of the smartest people that ever hit Hollywood, and most self destructive.  She really didn't care much about acting but yet was probably one of the most natural actresses ever, and intuitive.  Her Barry Paris written biography is a must read. 

[ruby24]

Watched A Summer Place tonight. Of the 50's soap operas, so far the Douglas Sirk movies have been the best for me (love All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind- some of my favorite movies of the 50's, period). I was disappointed by Peyton Place. This was better than that one, but the teenagers kind of annoyed me by the end.

I know Troy Donahue was a big teen idol back then, but man was he a drip. No charisma at all.

What other 50's soaps are any good?

[Charlie Baker]

The Zeffirelli R and J is the best one,  But I enjoy the 1936 R and J as a kind of MGM take on the stage productions that would feature a big name in the lead role(s) even if they were aged out of it,  You can suspend disbelief if you go with it and find the actors good enough.

Have you seen Imitation of Life, ruby24? Another SIrk that would seem up your alley, Donahue turns up in it in a small role--fair warning. Tab Hunter was the better actor of the two heart throbs. 

[mariah23]

11 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Watched A Summer Place tonight. Of the 50's soap operas, so far the Douglas Sirk movies have been the best for me (love All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind- some of my favorite movies of the 50's, period). I was disappointed by Peyton Place. This was better than that one, but the teenagers kind of annoyed me by the end.

I know Troy Donahue was a big teen idol back then, but man was he a drip. No charisma at all.

What other 50's soaps are any good?

It’s not a 50’s soap, but 1961’s Susan Slade is a cheesy laughfest.  Plus it’s got Troy Donahue!

[ratgirlagogo]

2 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Have you seen Imitation of Life, ruby24? Another SIrk that would seem up your alley, Donahue turns up in it in a small role--fair warning. Tab Hunter was the better actor of the two heart throbs. 

I'm not a good person to ask about soaps since I kind of don't get them, but agree with this recommendation.  What's a soap opera?  Giant, I guess, and Show Boat - and  Autumn Leaves?

If you have Watch TCM or TCM on demand Tab Hunter: Confidential will be there for a while and it's worth watching.  I loved that Tab and I both think his performance in Gunman's Walk is his best.

Edited July 19, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[ruby24]

Yes, I have seen Imitation of Life! I love that one too.

[Rinaldo]

The whole topic of Shakespeare movies is an endlessly discussable one. There are two threads for it on this site, but surely TCM discussion can include a little bit of it too. So many great stage interpretations of the past century were left unfilmed, so that their greatness is now a matter of written description instead of visible record. The obvious exception is Laurence Olivier, who rose to the occasion as his own director too. It's marvelous that we have his Henry V and Richard III, and I only wish that the unfortunate Othello could have been replaced by a Macbeth (his performances alongside Vivien Leigh in the 1950s became legendary, but plans to film it fell through).

Of course Olivier represented a newer, more up-to-date approach than his great contemporary, John Gielgud, who represented their generation's version of the rhetorical, "musical" approach to speaking Shakespeare (each generation is modern to itself and old-fashioned to the next). In his prime, Gielgud is represented only by his Cassius, improbably part of that big Hollywood Caesar. We might have had his much-praised Lear and Prospero preserved in the BBC "complete" video series, but they passed him by.

[freddi]

It's been over a week since the 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" aired on TCM, and I have tried to watch it on three separate nights, then get too scared to continue -- and I know how the 1956 version ends!  I still have it on the final available hours on my cable/TV setup, so will make one more try.  I think I saw it is coming back at the end of the month.  I am sure I have only seen this on television, and as a child, so it must have traumatized me more than I realized!  Eeek! 

[DorianGray]

In reply to ruby24's search for more 50s era soapiness, I agree about Susan Slade and Autumn Leaves being more good soapy drama.  I'll add Harriet Craig (which is a quirky story about a woman who loves her house more than her husband) and Magnificent Obsession, which is more tempestuous than All that Heaven Allows, but stars Rock and Jane circa about a year earlier.  Back Street which was just on a few days ago is fun, and I think is still on the WatchTCM app.  And Madam X with Lana Turner is a good old potboiler.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, DorianGray said:

In reply to ruby24's search for more 50s era soapiness, I agree about Susan Slade and Autumn Leaves being more good soapy drama.  I'll add Harriet Craig (which is a quirky story about a woman who loves her house more than her husband) and Magnificent Obsession, which is more tempestuous than All that Heaven Allows, but stars Rock and Jane circa about a year earlier.  Back Street which was just on a few days ago is fun, and I think is still on the WatchTCM app.  And Madam X with Lana Turner is a good old potboiler.

Has anyone ever seen Peyton Place? I haven't, but I always imagine it being like a Douglas Sirk movie without Douglas Sirk. I'm intrigued because A) the screenplay is by John Michael Hayes, and B) the score is beautiful, by Franz Waxman. (A lyric by Paul Francis Webster was set to his main title theme and recorded gorgeously by Rosemary Clooney, though this version wasn't used in the movie.) Anyway, it seems all kinds of promising, but that doesn't mean it's good. Just wondering.

Edited to add: I see now that @ruby24 mentioned being disappointed by Peyton Place a few posts upthread. Would love to hear more detailed reactions, if any.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Milburn Stone

[harrie]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

Has anyone ever seen Peyton Place? I haven't, but I always imagine it being like a Douglas Sirk movie without Douglas Sirk. I'm intrigued because A) the screenplay is by John Michael Hayes, and B) the score is beautiful, by Franz Waxman. (A lyric by Paul Francis Webster was set to his main title theme and recorded gorgeously by Rosemary Clooney, though this version wasn't used in the movie.) Anyway, it seems all kinds of promising, but that doesn't mean it's good. Just wondering.

Edited to add: I see now that @ruby24 mentioned being disappointed by Peyton Place a few posts upthread. Would love to hear more detailed reactions, if any.

I watch Peyton Place and enjoy it (sentiment may play a role in this, as my mom loved both the movie and series); and while I know of Sirk and his films, I'm not well-informed enough to compare/contrast.   PP is dated in some ways, but sexual abuse is dealt with pretty frankly, and the performances are good, IMO (Hope Lange in particular, again IMO).  Beautiful scenery in spots, much of the film having been shot in Maine.  Soapy yes, but also a decent portrayal of small-town attitudes / life in the 50s.  I try to catch it whenever I can. 

[Milburn Stone]

13 hours ago, harrie said:

I watch Peyton Place and enjoy it (sentiment may play a role in this, as my mom loved both the movie and series); and while I know of Sirk and his films, I'm not well-informed enough to compare/contrast.   PP is dated in some ways, but sexual abuse is dealt with pretty frankly, and the performances are good, IMO (Hope Lange in particular, again IMO).  Beautiful scenery in spots, much of the film having been shot in Maine.  Soapy yes, but also a decent portrayal of small-town attitudes / life in the 50s.  I try to catch it whenever I can. 

Thanks for this review, @harrie. About a month ago we were in Maine, in Belfast, and spent one day in the town a bit south of it, Camden. I knew nothing about Peyton Place being shot in part there, but it only took about five minutes in the town to realize it. This is not because I recognized any scenery (since I've never to my knowledge seen the movie), but because so many of the shops catering to visitors gave unmistakeable clues.  The bookstore on the main street had copies of the novel on prominent display. Clothing stores had "high end" T-shirts in the window saying Peyton Place. Etc. If you knew anything at all about the movies of the late fifties, you didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out why. 🙂  

[AuntiePam]

For soap, I'll recommend Picnic.  Yes, William Holden is way too old for the part, but he and Kim Novak dancing to Moonglow -- look up "seduction" in the dictionary, it's them, and that song.  Rosalind Russell is also a treat.

I'm curious about what you all think of The Boy with Green Hair.  It was compulsively watchable, thanks to Dean Stockwell's performance -- but what was the moral of the movie?  At first I thought it was individuality/differences -- be proud of who you are, it's okay to be different, take advantage of it. 

Then I thought it was racism/discrimination -- especially when the one kid says "Would you want your sister to marry a boy with green hair?" 

And then it turned into a sort of little-child-shall-lead-them anti-war thing. 

Whatever it was supposed to be, it's worth watching, just for Stockwell.

[crowsworks]

On 6/25/2014 at 6:47 PM, Rinaldo said:

You know how everybody has (at least) one major star that they can't stand? Kathryn Grayson is mine. She must have had something to appeal to audiences in the heyday of MGM musicals, but I'm damned if I can see it in her case. Couldn't act, cutesie-poo mannerisms, and a real nothing vocally. (I'm an opera fan and I like lyric-coloratura sopranos, if they're good...) Admittedly my viewpoint was spoiled by my first encounter with her, onstage in Chicago in the national tour of my then-favorite musical Camelot. Unforgivable in every way, and still one of the most unprofessional "professional" performances I've ever seen.

Sometimes singers and even john Garfield's violin sound slightly screechy. (see Irene Dunne except My love is gone with the wind) but i blame the dated recording equipment. They can digitize film but not the sound as much. 

 

 

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On 7/15/2019 at 6:43 PM, Spartan Girl said:

So I caught the 1936 Romeo and Juliet yesterday, and I'm sorry but I stand by my opinion that the 1968 Franco Zefirreli one was far better, especially in terms of emotional range. Leslie Howard might have good in other films but for his Romeo, all I could see was wimpy Ashley Wilkes.

I remember how in Twilight New Moon Bella's stupid classmates were sniveling over this version. To which I can only reply, Gimme a break. 

Lesley was better in spy or action movies See: Scarlet Pimpernel. Petrified Forest - Nazi's got him IRL.

[crowsworks]

I love old Scifi and horror. Best Ghost story - the Uninvited with Ray Milland.

even the MST3K worthy as still fun.

[benteen]

Five Came Back was a good movie, featuring a young Lucille Ball.

Edited July 22, 2019 by benteen

[Lokiberry]

23 minutes ago, benteen said:

Five Came Back was a good movie, featuring a young Lucille Ball.

Yeah, I loved it! It was a really well made B movie. There was a remake in the 50s (can't remember the title) but this is the good version.  

This one also has Chester Morris and Allen Jenkins, two actors I just enjoy in everything. I was watching Pillow Talk off my DVR a few days ago, and the old man operating the elevator seemed awfuly familiar. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out who it was and then suddenly I was like, "OMG, it's Allen Jenkins!"