TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Rinaldo]

8 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

One change Sondheim made for the 1960 movie was a new couplet in "America" that I've always thought is one of his best:

"Life is all right in America/If you're all-white in America."

Genius! Whenever I see a stage revival, I hope for that line to be interpolated, but I don't think it often is. 

Usually when lyrics are changed for the movie version, it's a downgrade. This is one case (actually the only case I know) of a lyric being improved for the movie.

The lyric for "America" has changes throughout in the movie, and I agree that they're better -- sharper and more meaningful -- but in fact they represent the first version of the song that Sondheim wrote. He created it as a challenge number between the Shark boys and girls (as we see it in the movie)... but Jerome Robbins decided that he wanted the number to be women-only, so the entire lyric was rewritten for that purpose, and returned to its original conception only on film. I too have a sneaking wish that any given stage production will use the movie (i.e., original-original) lyrics here, but as it would represent a violation of the performance license, I'm not surprised that it doesn't happen.

It's not surprising that Baby John's movements stood out especially. Eliot Feld went on to become one of the most important figures in modern ballet, with a company bearing his name.

In fact most of the guys among the Jets and Sharks had significant careers afterward -- not surprising, as Robbins picked the cream of what was available when casting the movie. One of the Jets, Harvey Hohnecker (Mouthpiece), has been a Broadway mainstay  as Harvey Evans (original cast of Follies), and had a featured bit just a few years ago in the movie Enchanted.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Rinaldo

[AuntiePam]

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, on Ava Gardner's day.  The movie could have been silly but everyone took it seriously, this mish-mash of myths and legends to showcase Ava Gardner's beauty. 

The premise is that the Flying Dutchman can only have peace when he finds a woman who loves him enough to die for him.  James Mason is the Dutchman.  Ava is Pandora, a beautiful, unfeeling woman who plays with men.  Early on, we watch as a man infatuated with Ava poisons himself and dies right in front of her.  When a woman chastises Pandora for not grieving, she coldly asks if anyone cares whether that man lived or died. 

Enter James Mason, the Dutchman, who doesn't appear to fall under Ava's spell.  She's drawn to him, and she recognizes that there's a mystery about him.  An archaeologist-type figures out that Mason is indeed the legendary Dutchman, but he doesn't tell anyone. 

Now comes a bull-fighter who had a fling with Pandora.  He still loves her, and when he sees that she loves the Dutchman, he stabs him, and believes he's killed him.  (Which he did, except that the Dutchman can't die that way.)  When the Dutchman shows up at a bull-fight the next day, the bullfighter is momentarily distracted and the bull gores him.  As he lay dying, he tells Pandora that he had killed the Dutchman, and that he'd seen the Dutchman's ghost at the bullfight.

Pandora realizes who the Dutchman is and that being with him is her destiny.

So yeah -- pretty silly, but very watchable.  The bullfighter was one of three that Ava had a romance with -- he's a terrible actor, but an excellent bullfighter.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, AuntiePam said:

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, on Ava Gardner's day.  The movie could have been silly but everyone took it seriously, this mish-mash of myths and legends to showcase Ava Gardner's beauty. 

In fact, as you concede later on, it is pretty silly -- no denying it. I find myself wondering what executive approved this extravagant piece of nonsense. Yet I think any movie-lover needs to see it at least once. It's so committed to its excesses and mixing of legends and its go-for-broke intensity, and it looks so sumptuous, Ava Gardner most sumptuous of all. There's nothing else quite like it.

[Inquisitionist]

Caught The Caine Mutiny last night.  Terrific job by a stellar cast.  I was especially impressed by Jose Ferrer as the naval attorney who defended Van Johnson's character.  It was a treat to see Jerry Paris, aka Jerry Helper of The Dick Van Dyke Show -- that's the only time I've seen him in a different role!  Reading the credits at IMDb, I see that the young actor who played the pivotal role of Ensign Keith, Robert Francis, appeared in only 4 movies before dying in a plane crash at age 25.  Apparently, he played a military character each time.

[ruby24]

Just watched A Woman's Face (1941). What a role for Joan Crawford. Pretty dark and twisted story too. I had barely heard anything about this movie before watching it, and now I think it's definitely one of her best movies.

Underrated little gem, imo.

ETA: Did a double feature tonight and watched  Manhattan Melodrama (1934). Can't help but be entertaining with those three stars (Gable, Powell and Loy) but the movie had some weird mixed messages at the end there. Are we supposed to be okay with Gable murdering a guy because he did it for his friend's campaign for governor? That makes it all noble? Um. 

Also, even with a star like Clark Gable in here, the chemistry between Powell and Loy is just undeniable in their first pairing. The way both of them look at each other with these absolutely adoring eyes is just SO cute. Are we sure they never had a fling in real life? Even a brief one? They just can't help but be so natural together, it feels like there must have been something there.

Edited August 13, 2019 by ruby24

[Rinaldo]

12 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Are we sure they never had a fling in real life? Even a brief one? They just can't help but be so natural together, it feels like there must have been something there.

I know this is meant as admiration, but to me it seems dismissive  of their skill as actors (or the art of acting in general). Isn't it simpler to salute them for being good at their job? That's what I do anyway. The point of acting is to create the illusion of things that aren't true, and good actors are very good at this.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Rinaldo
The original wording seemed impolite to other posters, which I would never intend. I hope I've done better now.

[Bastet]

15 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Also, even with a star like Clark Gable in here, the chemistry between Powell and Loy is just undeniable in their first pairing. The way both of them look at each other with these absolutely adoring eyes is just SO cute. Are we sure they never had a fling in real life? Even a brief one?

Unless they're both liars, yes.  First, one or both of them was involved with someone else most of, if not the entire, time.  But, fundamentally, while their chemistry in real life was as instant as it was on-screen, it was platonic -- they adored each other, and became and remained very close, but never dated.  That just wasn't the nature of it.  And, as Myrna Loy said, that's one of the reasons their relationship lasted for life. 

15 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Are we supposed to be okay with Gable murdering a guy because he did it for his friend's campaign for governor? That makes it all noble? Um. 

Well, he's executed, so his behavior is hardly endorsed.  Neither Jim nor Eleanor - and, by extension, the audience - find it noble, they just understand why he did it.  And understand why he's just as okay with having done it in the first place as with Jim first convicting him and later declining to commute the death sentence. 

[AuntiePam]

The Whales of August, Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Ann Sothern (it was her day), and Vincent Price.  What struck me the most about this movie was that it seemed that it was barely written.  The dialogue was so ordinary, every-day.  And the characters -- it was like they were playing themselves.  Demanding, bitter Bette, sweet accepting Lillian, aware and opportunistic Ann, and debonair Vincent Price. 

I wonder if that house is still there.  I'd live there in a heartbeat.

[Charlie Baker]

Liv Ullmanm day is tomorrow and of course some of her collaborations with Ingmar Bergman must  be included.  But it's fun that they included the notoriously bad musical of Lost Horizon.  I am most intrigued by The Emigrants and its sequel The New Land.  I saw these on their initial US release in the early 70s and remember being engrossed and moved by them, and I haven't seen them since. They're long and quite unsparing in telling the story of a Swedish farm family in the 19th Century who move to America in hope of a better life.  With Max von Sydow and LIv Ullmann in the leads.  Not for everyone, but potentially rewarding.  I'm hoping to make space on the DVR and then find the time to watch them.. But not both at one sitting.

[Rinaldo]

26 minutes ago, Charlie Baker said:

Liv Ullmanm day is tomorrow and of course some of her collaborations with Ingmar Bergman must  be included.  But it's fun that they included the notoriously bad musical of Lost Horizon.

It is indeed. After The Emigrants proved unexpectedly successful in the US, there was a push to make a Hollywood star of Ullmann. It didn't work out, not through any particular fault of the great actress herself. But the vehicles were ill-conceived, and she was not after all the new Ingrid Bergman (nobody is an exact replacement for someone else). She made three American pictures as a star, and we're getting two of them. (Missing is 40 Carats, in which a Norwegian-accented New Yorker has to explain how she has a British mother and an American daughter.) Foolish as Lost Horizon is, Zandy's Bride (directed by The Emigrant's Jan Troell) is a lot harder to sit through. Though set in the American West, it has nothing of the entertainment value an audience expects from a Western -- no humor or romance or stirring scenery. I confess I was unable to make it to the end, the one time I tried; if anybody here does see it through, I'd appreciate a report.

[ruby24]

Just watched The Naked Spur (1953). Aside from badly needing to be restored, this was a really great western, which isn't normally my favorite genre. But yeah, this was great. Exciting, action-packed. And Robert Ryan was a great villain.

[Rinaldo]

Thanks for the word on The Naked Spur, @ruby24. I found it saved on my DVR (because I've been curious about Ralph Meeker lately, as the original star of Picnic onstage). I had been undecided whether to delete it or watch it, and you've moved me toward the latter.

[Milburn Stone]

20 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Foolish as Lost Horizon is, Zandy's Bride (directed by The Emigrant's Jan Troell) is a lot harder to sit through.

I never saw the musical Lost Horizon until about three years ago. But I did know the songs before, and mostly liked them. So I went in prepared to be a contrarian (i.e., to like the film). And IMO it actually starts off promisingly! The whole opening sequence, with the plane trying to get off the ground before a revolution happens (or something), is dramatic, and realistic in a seventies way that is highly unusual for a musical. (Name another musical that starts out with its main characters being realistically afraid for their lives.) And maybe through the first musical number, I was still, "Hey, that wasn't bad, this has a chance of having been unfairly maligned all these years." But then...

[Rinaldo]

Today is Rod Steiger Day. As I look over the titles included, I see a lot of earlier work I'm not that familiar with, relatively little of the post-1965 work when my college classmates and I considered him one of the greatest actors around -- and an absence of the 1965 movie hat made us think so, The Pawnbroker. (I trust that its absence is due to difficulty in getting access, and not by choice.) After that harrowing experience, we enjoyed seeing him in The Loved One as one of many over-the-top elements of a messy gross-out comedy. And we understood that his Academy Award for In the Heat of the Night (not that he wasn't good in it) was a make-up vote for having awarded Lee Marvin in Steiger's Pawnbroker year. And then we got disillusioned at The Sergeant (inexplicably included by TCM) because even he (we went in thinking "at least he'll be good") couldn't triumph over a pointless, empty script that probably started out as an honest attempt to deal with repressed homosexual urges, but had no insight or point. I thought that movie was completely (justifiably) forgotten now.

And then his Sergio Leone Western, A Fistful of Dynamite (also known, more entertainingly, as Duck, You Sucker!). I'd be glad of a report from anyone who catches it; I couldn't stick out the one TV viewing I've tried; I did enjoy the Leone-Eastwood trilogy, not to mention Once Upon a Time in the West, but this just seemed too unpleasant to sit through.

Edited August 15, 2019 by Rinaldo

[AuntiePam]

6 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

And then his Sergio Leone Western, A Fistful of Dynamite (also known, more entertainingly, as Duck, You Sucker!). I'd be glad of a report from anyone who catches it; I couldn't stick out the one TV viewing I've tried; I did enjoy the Leone-Eastwood trilogy, not to mention Once Upon a Time in the West, but this just seemed too unpleasant to sit through.

I'll take the bullet for you, on Fistful.

Rod Steiger's character in Oklahoma gave me nightmares when I was a little girl.  It looked like he was going to end up with Shirley Jones, and the concept of having to be with (marry, whatever) someone you didn't like was unnerving to a ten-year-old. 

I've come to appreciate him since then.  In the Heat of the Night has stayed on the DVR.  One thing bugs me though, the inconsistency of the actors' clothing.  Was it hot?  Cold?  There's Lee Grant (I almost said Lee Remick) in a trench coat, while everyone around her was sweating. 

I still can't watch Oklahoma though.

[Tom Holmberg]

9 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

And then his Sergio Leone Western, A Fistful of Dynamite (also known, more entertainingly, as Duck, You Sucker!). I'd be glad of a report from anyone who catches it; I couldn't stick out the one TV viewing I've tried;

I have a soft spot for "Duck, You Sucker" (saw it in the theater when it first came out).  It has one of my all-time favorite movie lines:  Steiger and Coburn are hiding the freight car of a train. A canary in a cage shits on Steiger's head and Steiger reacts by looking up and saying, "But for the rich, you sing."

Edited August 15, 2019 by Tom Holmberg

[AuntiePam]

Blue Gardenia, on Ann Sothern's day, with Anne Baxter and Richard Conte.  Baxter gets drunk and ends up in lecherous Raymond Burr's apartment.  In repelling his advances, she picks up a fireplace poker.  We see a mirror break. 

Next thing we know, Baxter is rushing out of the apartment, without her shoes.  In the morning, the newspaper reports that Burr has been murdered with a fireplace poker.  She thinks she killed him.

Well, we all know she didn't, because earlier in the movie, Burr gets a frantic phone call from a spurned lover, so we know that this other woman did it.  We find out for sure when the police visit the music store where she works.  They're not looking for her but she thinks they are, and she cuts her wrist in the employee restroom.

So we're supposed to believe that Baxter was passed out in Burr's apartment while he was being murdered, and that she left the apartment without noticing his body?  Or are we supposed to believe that she awoke and left and he was still alive?  And she ran out without encountering him at all?

Either way, it makes no sense, and it kinda ticked me off -- it's messy.

Other than that, the movie was fine.  Or okay.  I can't warm to Anne Baxter.  She'll always be Eve Harrington to me.

Edited August 15, 2019 by AuntiePam

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, AuntiePam said:

I can't warm to Anne Baxter.  She'll always be Eve Harrington to me.

Not to me -- I saw her play Margo Channing! (She was marvelous, too.)

[Notwisconsin]

What was the deal with The Loved One? It was Horrible!!!!! How did Terry Southern manage to get it produced? The Cast was amazing. How the hell did they get them to do it?

[Rinaldo]

31 minutes ago, Notwisconsin said:

What was the deal with The Loved One? It was Horrible!!!!! How did Terry Southern manage to get it produced? The Cast was amazing. How the hell did they get them to do it

Like so many other things... it probably looked better in advance than it turned out to be. Evelyn Waugh, the author of the source novella (which is an Englishman being nasty about the American funeral business; many of the grosser characters and incidents were invented by the screenwriters), has some stature as a dark satirist. They did assemble an amazing cast. I can tell you that it played its best to college crowds in 1965 (me among them), eager to laugh together at something that "went too far." But...

Tomorrow is Irene Dunne Day. They've obliged me by scheduling a lot that I haven't had a chance to see before; a couple of her popular comedies that I've missed, and no fewer than three Jerome Kern musicals (beyond the obligatory and classic Show Boat) that don't often turn up. I'll have to concentrate hard on clearing out the DVR this weekend.

Edited August 15, 2019 by Rinaldo

[Spartan Girl]

"They call me Mister Tibbs!"

Sidney. Fucking. Poitier.

[Bastet]

29 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Sidney. Fucking. Poitier.

I've probably told this story before, but we were in the same somewhat-crowded corner of the room at a benefit, and he put his hand on my back to keep me from getting jostled, and then pardoned himself and gave me that incredible smile as he walked away.  I was all giddy just over that brief interaction.  (It was a Feminist Majority Foundation public education event back in the late '90s about the human rights abuses against women and girls in Afghanistan [in other words, before the Taliban was paid much attention in the U.S.], and he not only attended but participated in the program, something that made him even more wonderful in my eyes.)

Edited August 16, 2019 by Bastet

[AuntiePam]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

Not to me -- I saw her play Margo Channing! (She was marvelous, too.)

I'm so envious of New Yorkers.  Any big-city-ers, actually.  I've seen two Broadway productions -- Fiddler and Hair, and it was a major production to get to see those.

It's weird that I can admire Bette Davis, who played more than her share of wicked, scheming women, and who in real life was reportedly not a charmer -- but Anne Baxter's one role soured me on her. 

Bastet, I'd still be giddy over that encounter.

[Rinaldo]

On 8/14/2019 at 3:43 AM, ruby24 said:

Just watched The Naked Spur (1953). Aside from badly needing to be restored, this was a really great western, which isn't normally my favorite genre. But yeah, this was great. Exciting, action-packed. And Robert Ryan was a great villain.

Thanks again for the tip, @ruby24. There are indeed some technical obstacles in watching, not all of which may be salvageable by restoration (which it does indeed need) -- lighting & color are wildly different in successive shots, some process shots are excessively obvious now (the avalanche near the start), not all the actors are good at "looping" thieir lines after the location shooting, and Bronislau Kaper should have been prevented at gunpoint from slathering "Beautiful Dreamer" all over the soundtrack at every tender moment. But it's an absorbing tale, with only five speaking roles, mostly all trapped together throughout the picture. Yes, an outstanding subtle performance from Robert Ryan (what a great actor he was), and also an entertaining one from Ralph Meeker that provides some contrast to the prevailing earnestness.

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

2 hours ago, Notwisconsin said:

What was the deal with The Loved One? It was Horrible!!!!! How did Terry Southern manage to get it produced? The Cast was amazing. How the hell did they get them to do it?

Actually, that movie had me LMAO , very dark humor, you can never go wrong with Jonathan Winters.

[voiceover]

9 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

I can't warm to Anne Baxter.  She'll always be Eve Harrington to me.

Sounds like you need an Anne Baxter Day -- maybe next August? 

My favorite of hers is also one of my Top Five ("Drink!") Westerns: 1948's Yellow Sky.  She's "Mike", a tomboy who takes care of her grandfather & their remote ranch.  Then one day Gregory Peck & his band of outlaws ride in, tracking the rumor of a silver mine that is the family secret.

She's completely adorable, and Peck -- in a rare bad-boy turn -- shares an incredibly sexy first-kiss moment with her.  

Speaking of sexy: she also steals scenes from all those screen veterans as Nefretiri in Ten Commandments.  Neither Brynner nor Heston was good enough for her Queen of the Nile.  She should've run off with John Derek's Joshua.

[PaulaO]

I will never warm to Anne Baxter either.  So shoot me.  Didn't she do commercials in the 60s for Hostess cupcakes/Twinkies/Snoballs?

[voiceover]

That was Ann Blyth.  Early 70s.

[ruby24]

Watched Kiss of Death (1947) last night. Worth it for Richard Widmark's performance as Tommy Udo alone, but the movie was pretty good too. 

[Charlie Baker]

I've heard or read and it makes sense that In the Heat of the Night was a compromise Oscar Best Picture choice between the "new" "hip" Hollywood of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde and the more traditional Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and (eh, whatever) Doctor Dolittle.  I love Graduate and B and C, but in some ways they seem a bit more dated than Heat.  It holds up and Poitier and Steiger are so good. 

I go back and forth on Anne Baxter but she pulls off a completely against type role in Swamp Water. where she plays kind of a wild child orphan scrambling around the Okefonokee.  Also like her as good but no-nonsense girl in Magnificent Ambersons. 

[mariah23]

Another one for this year’s TCM Remembers: Peter Fonda has died.

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

I've heard or read and it makes sense that In the Heat of the Night was a compromise Oscar Best Picture choice between the "new" "hip" Hollywood of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde and the more traditional Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and (eh, whatever) Doctor Dolittle.  I love Graduate and B and C, but in some ways they seem a bit more dated than Heat.  It holds up and Poitier and Steiger are so good.

I agree that it makes a kind of sense to see it that way, even if it's not literally true (voters don't confer to decide on comprises). I think it's also true that at that historical moment people wanted to vote for something that saw the possibility of racists getting their consciousness raised. (But in a less retro way that Guess Who's Coming...) As for Doctor Dolittle, "whatever" indeed; several commentators have remarked that in the mid-60s it became a reflex to nominate the big musical blockbuster of the year (even if nobody liked it). (At the same time, I'd maintain that Oliver! winning Best Picture the following year was thoroughly justified; it's a beautifully made film.)

I also agree about Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate not holding up over the years all that well. But then I was a traitor to my generation even when The Graduate was new: I remember sitting in a packed college-town theater the first weekend it opened and being the only one not applauding at the end. Apart from the comedic scenes early on, it did nothing for me. But I know I'm in a minority on both, especially among cinemaphiles.

[ruby24]

Watched Bathing Beauty (1944) tonight. Plot is dumb but the spectacular finale is pretty much the only thing you'd remember from this. I wanted to see some Esther Williams movies, because I'd never seen any. 

[ratgirlagogo]

On 8/16/2019 at 6:41 PM, mariah23 said:

Another one for this year’s TCM Remembers: Peter Fonda has died.

I hope that when TCM does the memorial they include the wonderful The Hired Hand, which Peter Fonda both directed and starred in.  A forgotten gem of the period and an interesting example of a Western that was revisionist not in the sense of being super violent but in understanding the pragmatism of the frontier, especially women's pragmatism.

Edited August 18, 2019 by ratgirlagogo
punctuation! the reader's friend!

[Rinaldo]

Errol Flynn Day. Maybe only a handful of his pictures are classics, but those are true classics. At a minimum, anybody who's never seen The Adventures of Robin Hood needs to catch it (2 pm ET today), and check it off the list of "Essentials That I've Experienced." There's Flynn himself; Olivia de Havilland was never lovelier; the Technicolor is of an intensity likely to raise the suspicion that we're getting cheated with other color movies; and Erich Wolfgang Korngold here set the standard for original orchestral soundtracks, one seldom surpassed since.

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

Errol Flynn Day. Maybe only a handful of his pictures are classics, but those are true classics. At a minimum, anybody who's never seen The Adventures of Robin Hood needs to catch it (2 pm ET today), and check it off the list of "Essentials That I've Experienced." There's Flynn himself; Olivia de Havilland was never lovelier; the Technicolor is of an intensity likely to raise the suspicion that we're getting cheated with other color movies; and Erich Wolfgang Korngold here set the standard for original orchestral soundtracks, one seldom surpassed since.

Yes to this whole post. And better The Adventures of Robin Hood than that crappy Robin and Marian one that will be on for Audrey Hepburn Day tomorrow. Again I ask why TCM picked that over Breakfast At Tiffany's or even her final film Always (not great but Audrey was awesome it it) is freaking beyond me.

Back to Errol, he sure did a lot of movies with Olivia. Maybe I'll check out Captain Blood tonight too...

[Wiendish Fitch]

17 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Back to Errol, he sure did a lot of movies with Olivia. Maybe I'll check out Captain Blood tonight too...

Captain Blood is great, one of the best pirate movies ever. Olivia de Havilland was only in her teens when she made it!

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Errol Flynn Day. Maybe only a handful of his pictures are classics, but those are true classics. At a minimum, anybody who's never seen The Adventures of Robin Hood needs to catch it (2 pm ET today), and check it off the list of "Essentials That I've Experienced." There's Flynn himself; Olivia de Havilland was never lovelier; the Technicolor is of an intensity likely to raise the suspicion that we're getting cheated with other color movies; and Erich Wolfgang Korngold here set the standard for original orchestral soundtracks, one seldom surpassed since.

I adore The Adventures of Robin Hood. Pure cinema magic.

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Captain Blood is great, one of the best pirate movies ever. Olivia de Havilland was only in her teens when she made it!

I adore The Adventures of Robin Hood. Pure cinema magic.

Cool, I'll definitely check out Captain Blood. Just hope it's not rapey like The Black Swan.

Watching Robin Hood now, and boy for a guy that skinny Errol sure could eat, lol. Also I do love his big laugh.

[Rinaldo]

7 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

... that crappy Robin and Marian one that will be on for Audrey Hepburn Day tomorrow. Again I ask why TCM picked that over Breakfast At Tiffany's or even her final film Always (not great but Audrey was awesome it it) is freaking beyond me.

They must have a package deal or something on Robin and Marian. I don't begrudge an occasional showing (people are bound to be curious about the pairing of Connery and Hepburn in these iconic roles, though they're likely to be disappointed), but they've been overdoing it lately. I suspect they're giving Breakfast at Tiffany's a rest these days, and I can understand why if so. (Now watch them run it next month and prove me wrong.)

My own candidate for an Audrey movie they should have included is, of course, Two for the Road. Another obvious absentee is Roman Holiday, the movie that made her an instant star (Gregory Peck saw it during shooting, and demanded that her billing be promoted to equality with his, lest he look like a jerk). There's also How To Steal a Million, and a late appearance in a Bogdanovich movie, They All Laughed, which doesn't do much for her, but it's a rarity (I bet TCM has never shown it). I could live without R&M, The Children's Hour, and Green Mansions. At least we'll get Funny Face and Charade.

Isn't it funny that she still inspires this kind of personal protective loyalty?

[AuntiePam]

On 8/15/2019 at 4:10 PM, Tom Holmberg said:

I have a soft spot for "Duck, You Sucker" (saw it in the theater when it first came out).  It has one of my all-time favorite movie lines:  Steiger and Coburn are hiding the freight car of a train. A canary in a cage shits on Steiger's head and Steiger reacts by looking up and saying, "But for the rich, you sing."

That was so good. 

I think I've seen all the Leone movies, and a few spaghetti westerns that were done by someone else.  My Name is Nobody is my favorite, but Fistful is a solid #2, especially for Steiger's performance.  What a great character. 

Ben Mankiewicz (sp?) said at the end that Leone and Steiger disagreed about the tone of the movie -- Leone wanted a light comedy and Steiger wanted an epic western.  The result was a nice mix, maybe tending more toward the comedy. 

Steiger's accent -- did Al Pacino see this movie?  I could hear Scarface.  Coburn's Irish lilt was sometimes quite good.

I think my favorite thing about these movies is the long slow shots of people's faces, watching their expressions change, and marveling at how much can be conveyed with eyes.  And the music that goes along with the more emotional moments.

I'm glad I watched this, and glad that Rinaldo sort of made a dare out of it.  Otherwise I might have skipped it. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

4 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

My own candidate for an Audrey movie they should have included is, of course, Two for the Road. Another obvious absentee is Roman Holiday, the movie that made her an instant star (Gregory Peck saw it during shooting, and demanded that her billing be promoted to equality with his, lest he look like a jerk). There's also How To Steal a Million, and a late appearance in a Bogdanovich movie, They All Laughed, which doesn't do much for her, but it's a rarity (I bet TCM has never shown it). I could live without R&M, The Children's Hour, and Green Mansions. At least we'll get Funny Face and Charade.

Isn't it funny that she still inspires this kind of personal protective loyalty?

Funny, but not surprising. Audrey Hepburn was one of a kind. I'm planning to read Dutch Girl, which is about her girlhood during WWII. God, the horrors she endured during that time, it's amazing that she turned out to be such a kind, lovely (inside and out) woman with a zest for life and great love of people.

How to Steal a Million is too underrated. I never thought Audrey had any competitors in the pretty department, but I was wrong: young Peter O'Toole. I can't think of a truly bad movie William Wyler ever directed (Friendly Persuasion was quaint and boring AF, but I've seen worse).

[Constant Viewer]

33 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

How to Steal a Million is too underrated. I never thought Audrey had any competitors in the pretty department, but I was wrong: young Peter O'Toole.

Oh I agree! The whole movie is charming and Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole play off each other well. 

[Spartan Girl]

I have to say Captain Blood is pretty good! Errol was definitely a heartthrob in this movie...

I'm happy that they'll at least have Sabrina and Funny Face on tomorrow. Funny Face proves that Audrey could sing -- she wasn't Julie Andrews, but she wasn't terrible either. And hey, if Jack Warner hadn't been such a dick and cast Julie in MFL instead of Audrey, we wouldn't have had Mary Poppins. Would have loved to see Julie do Eliza on the big screen though.

And I love Sabrina. The part with William Holden picking her up and her deliberately hiding the fact that she's the driver's daughter was priceless. And I like that this is the kind of love triangle movie where the third party decides to be the gentleman and step aside. (I mean, I personally felt that Audrey in her prime was mismatched with the 20-years-older Humprey Bogart, but whatever...)

I wish Charade and Wait Until Dark wasn't on so damn late though!

Edited August 18, 2019 by Spartan Girl

[ruby24]

Watched Neptune's Daughter (1949). Much better than Bathing Beauty! Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban make a great couple in this. Very fun. And I had no idea that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was from a movie.

I agree that Audrey and Bogie were a mismatch in Sabrina. It's still a great movie, but the truth is she has no chemistry with him and lots of chemistry with William Holden. 

[ratgirlagogo]

9 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

They must have a package deal or something on Robin and Marian.

At least that would be a reason I could understand.   I just cannot believe it's because of viewer requests.

[Spartan Girl]

Happy Audrey Day!

So I'm watching Green Mansions. Pretty sure this would be an example of whitewashing today. And it is so weird to see Anthony Perkins as the male romantic lead. He will always be Norman Bates to me.

This the movie where Audrey adopted her pet fawn Pippin. He was adorable.

[Rinaldo]

14 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

[Anthony Perkins] will always be Norman Bates to me.

Alas, that reaction was widespread once Psycho existed, and pretty much killed Perkins's career. It's the most extreme such case I can think of, and the saddest. Directors and producers shared the public's feeling, and would no longer cast him in the sympathetic, charming sorts of roles in which he had excelled before. Not Green Mansions -- that was just a horrible mistake all around -- but look at his work in Friendly Persuasion, or even more, in The Matchmaker, and one can see why he was quickly becoming a big star. Few young actors have had such warmth and appeal in front of the camera; now that I think of it, it's a kind of male equivalent of what Audrey Hepburn had with audiences at that time. Of course there's the question of whether that kind of gentle charm would have been sustainable as he aged; but we'll never know now. He ended up mostly employed for twitchy variations on the Norman Bates image (see Pretty Poison and Murder on the Orient Express).

I say it only as a personal matter, but I've tried to eliminate the formation "Actor X will always be Role Y to me" from my vocabulary. And the Tony Perkins story is one reason why.

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Alas, that reaction was widespread once Psycho existed, and pretty much killed Perkins's career. It's the most extreme such case I can think of, and the saddest. Directors and producers shared the public's feeling, and would no longer cast him in the sympathetic, charming sorts of roles in which he had excelled before. Not Green Mansions -- that was just a horrible mistake all around -- but look at his work in Friendly Persuasion, or even more, in The Matchmaker, and one can see why he was quickly becoming a big star. Few young actors have had such warmth and appeal in front of the camera; now that I think of it, it's a kind of male equivalent of what Audrey Hepburn had with audiences at that time. Of course there's the question of whether that kind of gentle charm would have been sustainable as he aged; but we'll never know now. He ended up mostly employed for twitchy variations on the Norman Bates image (see Pretty Poison and Murder on the Orient Express).

I say it only as a personal matter, but I've tried to eliminate the formation "Actor X will always be Role Y to me" from my vocabulary. And the Tony Perkins story is one reason why.

Yikes. I didn't mean to offend, this was just the first movie I've seen him in that wasn't Psycho. And to be fair, I did think he was good playing outside the Norman Trope in Green Mansions, even though that movie wasn't great on the whole.

[Rinaldo]

No offense taken -- I tried and tried to reword that comment to emphasize that it's just my weird knee-jerk reaction to the "X will always be Y to me" formation. I should have kept quiet (though Perkins's later history is indeed a rather sad one, maybe it would have been anyway, as he had some personal issues).

Actually, you're more generous than I would be about his Green Mansions performance! Though I try to be cautious about calling anyone miscast (again, that's what acting is for), this part seemed a real stretch for him. And seriously, do look out for him in The Matchmaker if you can find it. The trailer gives a glimpse of it, though it's all rather hard-sell in the style of the time. The movie is available on YouTube for a price, but I hope that TCM will get around to it someday.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Rinaldo

[AuntiePam]

Finishing up Rod Steiger's day with Running the Arrow.  Steiger plays an un-Reconstructed Confederate soldier who heads west after the war.  He falls in with a Sioux played by -- I kid you not -- Jay C. Flippen in a short black wig (think Moe from the Three Stooges).  Flippen speaks English with no accent, and I'm confused as hell.  He and Steiger communicate with no problem.  All is revealed later on, when Steiger's Sioux wife compliments him on speaking her language -- with no accent, even though Steiger is speaking English.  Apparently he and Flippen spent enough time together for Steiger to learn to speak the Sioux language -- without an accent.

So the writers have decided that everyone will just speak English but we're supposed to believe the Sioux are speaking Sioux and Steiger is speaking Sioux when he's with the Sioux.  At least I think that's what happened.

The movie is entertaining, but the language thing is SO weird.  And Jay C. Flippen as a Sioux?  Terrible casting choice, but he's good in the role, and has some really funny lines.

One scene I liked was at the beginning of the movie.  Steiger's character is at Appomattox when Lee signs the surrender.  He picks up a rifle and takes aim at Grant, but is stopped by a doctor.  "If you shoot Grant, you'll have to shoot Lee too, else he'll die of the shame."