TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[LilWharveyGal]

16 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

This suggests a possible game for movie lovers: Can someone think of a reasonably well known movie that should be remade? That is, a good idea that wasn't dramatized right (maybe due to censorship restrictions), or for which a better cast now exists, or some other factor?

It's not well known but my first choice would be another musical - Good News.  For a lot of the same reasons you noted, but mainly because it needs to be styled like the 1920's, for Pete's sake.

[Milburn Stone]

3 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

In unrelated news, Ben M has a new, evidently recurring gig with CBS Sunday Morning. His first piece is on Irwin Winkler.

This was great! I had no idea Winkler was still alive, let alone going strong at 88. He looks like he hasn't missed a step. Thanks for the link.

2 hours ago, LilWharveyGal said:

It's not well known but my first choice would be another musical - Good News.  For a lot of the same reasons you noted, but mainly because it needs to be styled like the 1920's, for Pete's sake.

But nobody could take Joan McCracken's place.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

But nobody could take Joan McCracken's place.

That's not an issue if we're adapting the stage show, which has maybe two songs in common with the MGM movie -- neither of them for the Joan McCracken character, who basically was invented for that movie.

[Milburn Stone]

27 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

That's not an issue if we're adapting the stage show, which has maybe two songs in common with the MGM movie -- neither of them for the Joan McCracken character, who basically was invented for that movie.

I guess I'm saying that unlike, for instance, with On the Town, everything MGM did to change Good News made it better. Well, I don't know the stage musical so I don't have the authority to say that. But I do know that you'll pry The French Lesson, Pass That Peace Pipe, and Kay Thompson's totally un-period vocal arrangements out of my cold dead hands.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Milburn Stone

[Rinaldo]

23 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

But I do know that you'll pry The French Lesson, Pass That Peace Pipe, and Kay Thompson's totally un-period vocal arrangements out of my cold dead hands.

But nobody is proposing to pry them out of your hands. That movie exists and nobody is burning all existing copies. The point is precisely that a film of the DeSylva, Brown, & Henderson musical in all its 20s glory would be serving an entirely different purpose and audience. (Probably a minuscule audience, but that's irrelevant to these dream-project games.)

[roseha]

Speaking of Musicals I would love to see a new period 1930s version of Cole Porter’s  “ Anything Goes”.  I’ve seen the 1936 film and in spite of having dream leads in Ethel Merman and Bing Crosby, it’s so disappointing that many of Porter’s great songs were dropped or rewritten, and other writers’ songs added partly due to the influence of Bing of all people! I’m most familiar with the revival version that adds “Friendship” and “Delovely” to the original and it would be such fun to see a period remake with a talented cast take on those songs as well as “I Get a Kick Out of You” , “You’re the Top” and “Blow, Gabriel, “Blow”.  One can dream I guess.

[Tom Holmberg]

Late tonight (or early tomorrow, depending) TCM is running "The Bedford Incident" as part of their Sidney Poitier night. If you haven't seen it, it's a tense Cold War drama. Without giving anything away, I doubt they would make this story this way today.

[Rinaldo]

One Poitier film that I was foolishly hoping would show up this month -- it hasn't been shown in other than special festival circumstances for decades -- was Porgy and Bess. My understanding is that by this point, none of the authors' estates objects to its being seen (as was the case at one time), but it's in need of serious restoration and hasn't had it (yet?).

[ruby24]

9 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

One Poitier film that I was foolishly hoping would show up this month -- it hasn't been shown in other than special festival circumstances for decades -- was Porgy and Bess. My understanding is that by this point, none of the authors' estates objects to its being seen (as was the case at one time), but it's in need of serious restoration and hasn't had it (yet?).

I've always wanted to see this too. Can't find it anywhere.

[ruby24]

Just watched Female (1933) with Ruth Chatterton. These pre-code movies with strong, badass women are so fun. Sad that it had to end with her giving up the business to a man though. Even for pre-code, I guess that was too much.

[ruby24]

Watched Jewel Robbery (1932) today. Lovely little gem. William Powell and Kay Francis were perfect for this kind of thing.

[Tom Holmberg]

On Weds. Sept. 25, 9:30 pm (CT) TCM will show the divisive 1973 Altman film "The Long Goodbye." People tend to like it or hate it.  I'm in the like it group.  If you haven't seen it (or seen it lately) it's worth a watch.

[Rinaldo]

On 9/17/2019 at 3:01 PM, Rinaldo said:

One Poitier film that I was foolishly hoping would show up this month -- it hasn't been shown in other than special festival circumstances for decades -- was Porgy and Bess. My understanding is that by this point, none of the authors' estates objects to its being seen (as was the case at one time), but it's in need of serious restoration and hasn't had it (yet?).

My comment above was too simplistic in some respects, but at least partially right. Here's a Hollywood Reporter article from two years ago about the scarcity of the Porgy and Bess movie (only a handful of prints known to exist, most in dubious condition), the rights issues in which it's tangled up, and the still-unraised cost of a restoration.

"The Search for the 'Holy Grail' of Missing Movies"

[xaxat]

I just watched Ice Station Zebra. I have a weird relationship with this movie in that I'm not convinced that it is good, yet I always watch when it is on. It's an action/espionage movie that is over three hours long and it feels like ninety percent of it is exposition and the McGuffin doesn't feel that compelling. 

On the other hand, you have the roguish charm of Patrick McGoohan, Rock Hudson putting in another one of his solid cinema performances and a gorgeous score.

I think part of my affection stems from the fact that I first saw it back in the nineties at DC's historic Uptown theater. It has one of the largest non IMAX screens in the US. They are kind of like TCM when they show classic movies. You get the curtain opening, the overture, the intermission etc. It's a totally different experience from most theaters. (I also got to see Lawrence of Arabia there.)

Afterwards, Ben M teased the showing of "possibly the greatest prison movie ever, The Shawshank Redemption."

Nope, that title goes to Cool Hand Luke.

[Rinaldo]

48 minutes ago, xaxat said:

I think part of my affection stems from the fact that I first saw it back in the nineties at DC's historic Uptown theater.

Ah... that would do it. So many great memories of the Uptown Theatre, going back to the 70s for me. (Only first run for me though.) Hello, Dolly! in its initial run (yes, complete with intermission and all)! Star Wars on its (exceptionally, Wednesday) opening day, coming out of nowhere for most of us and so much fun on that big screen that I sat through it twice (which one could do then). And so many more. 

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, xaxat said:

Afterwards, Ben M teased the showing of "possibly the greatest prison movie ever, The Shawshank Redemption."

Nope, that title goes to Cool Hand Luke.

I'm with Ben. 

[magicdog]

On 9/6/2019 at 1:24 AM, ruby24 said:

Does anyone have suggestions for more of these kinds of movies? 

A little late on this but I always enjoyed, "The Flame & The Arrow" (1950) with Burt Lancaster.  It's been referred to by some as "Robin Hood in Italy", but I love it just the same!  Plus, Burt does many of his own stunts, as he had once been an acrobat.

Same with "The Crimson Pirate" (1952).

For a good mix of comedy and swashbuckling, I recommend Danny Kaye's, "The Court Jester", one of the funniest movies ever!  

Edited September 21, 2019 by magicdog

[Milburn Stone]

15 hours ago, xaxat said:

Rock Hudson putting in another one of his solid cinema performances...

This phrase catches my attention, because--and my impressions at the time and my memories of them could be wrong--I always had the feeling he wasn't respected very much as an actor. That he was judged to be "wooden," emotionless, just a pretty face, a subject for jokes. (The fake name Rock probably contributed to this.) This is so strange because the evidence of his films is that he was pretty consistently just right for whatever the property was, whether it be comedy, melodrama, action, or suspense.

[AuntiePam]

Still catching up with movies on the DVR from Summer Under the Stars:  The Private Life of Henry VIII, for which Charles Laughton won a Best Actor Oscar.  Wiki says it was the first British production to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. 

The movie focuses on five of Henry's marriages.  Nothing on Katherine of Aragon, because she was "respectable", therefore not interesting. There's plenty of humor and even some tension, even though we know how it all ends.  The kitchen scenes are brilliant, and made me wonder if that Downton Abbey guy had seen the movie.

It looks a bit like a stage production.  The costumes and sets are elaborate but they don't look lived in -- everything's too bright and clean. 

Two for the Seesaw, Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine.  Set in NYC, Mitchum is a lawyer from Nebraska, recently separated from his wife.  Through a friend, he meets MacLaine, a dancer, often taken advantage of because of her good nature.  I liked this a lot, partly for seeing what parts of NYC looked like during that time period (the set decorators did excellent work) but mostly because of the performances, and the brilliant back and forth between those two. Both believable.

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

Two for the Seesaw, Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. 

This is an interesting play-to-movie adaptation, because the Broadway cast was Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft -- at that moment an equally starry and cinema-ready pairing, right? 

Yet they didn't make the movie. One never knows why, of course, unless it's been recorded in print somewhere. There can be so many reasons, including lack of interest from one of the stage stars, a studio's obligation to find something for a particular performer, simple availability during the shooting schedule, who some executive considers "hot" right then... I wonder what it was this time.

[AuntiePam]

9 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

This is an interesting play-to-movie adaptation, because the Broadway cast was Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft -- at that moment an equally starry and cinema-ready pairing, right?

That's interesting.  The movie had several split screen shots that made me think "that would work great in a stage play".  I wonder if the stage play did that. 

Fonda and Bancroft would have worked just fine.  Fonda maybe better than Mitchum.  Mitchum wasn't quite believable as a man still in love with his wife -- there's no vulnerability to Mitchum.  Fonda had vulnerability in spades.

[Charlie Baker]

Rock Hudson has always seemed well-cast and well-used in what I've seen of his films. I suspect Milburn is correct in that he didn't get a lot of respect in the industry or critical community. He also is one of those movie actors whose physical presence helped a lot, in addition to whatever acting ability or range he possessed. I think he said in interviews he felt his best work was in Giant--he's really good and somewhat out of the type of vehicle that made his career in Seconds.

[Spartan Girl]

To Kill A Mockingbird is on now!

Last month I was listening to an interview with Aaron Sorkin about his stage version on Broadway, and he mentioned that Atticus Finch's flaw -- maybe more so in the original novel -- is kind of a racist apologist. Even though he stands up for what's right and everything, he still makes excuses for the racist townspeople characters, saying that they're poor ignorant people that need something to blame and that times are "changing too fast" for them. You know, the same kinds of excuses people use today.

[ratgirlagogo]

1 hour ago, Charlie Baker said:

-he's really good and somewhat out of the type of vehicle that made his career in Seconds.

That's a favorite of mine.

[ratgirlagogo]

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

Last month I was listening to an interview with Aaron Sorkin about his stage version on Broadway, and he mentioned that Atticus Finch's flaw -- maybe more so in the original novel -- is kind of a racist apologist.

I haven't seen Sorkin's adaptation, so I won't comment on it.  But I can say, because he has talked about it, that this adaptation integrated elements from Go Set A Watchman, a first draft of Mockingbird that was published after Harper Lee's death and sold as being a "sequel" to Mockingbird.   The Atticus in Watchman is racist and kind of an asshole and the whole story is different - set in what was the present day (late 50's) as opposed to the 1930's. 

IMO it shouldn't have been published, at least not in the way that it was.  It's a first draft  and she had reasons for changing the story. If it had been published as an example of how writers change and develop their stories, that would have been cool.  But that's not what happened.   It's a shitty trend in publishing - they did the same thing with Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men back in 2002 - published the first draft as though it were the Author's Intended Version - which it was not. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Set_a_Watchman

[Wiendish Fitch]

Rock Hudson is great in Seconds. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that Hudson was a much better actor than people gave him credit for. Sure, he was sometimes miscast or gave a stinker of a performance, but that's true for practically any actor (even Laurence Olivier slummed it now and then). Hudson just had such warmth, presence, and a very understated integrity that deserves more appreciation.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Just a little heads-up in case anyone is wanting to dip a toe into foreign movies--on Sunday night at 11:00 pm Pacific (Monday morning at 2:00 am Eastern) TCM is showing Days of Being Wild. 

The director is Wong Kar-Wai, a Hong Kong cinema auteur (or, probably, the Hong Kong cinema auteur), and the cinematography is by the always remarkable Christopher Doyle (they worked together frequently).  The cast is made up of a ton of Hong Kong movie megastars from the 1990s.  The main character is played by Leslie Cheung, who was a massive HK movie star and Cantopop singing star, until his suicide in 2003. 

This is not a martial arts or swordplay movie, or a John Woo bloodbath (all genres I enjoy), but a romantic, full-on Hong Kong art movie. 

I really appreciate TCM showing foreign movies on Sunday nights.  Unfortunately, they're not at a time when people will be just surfing by and possibly drawn in, but at least it's some mainstream exposure.

[Milburn Stone]

19 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

Two for the Seesaw, Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine.  Set in NYC, Mitchum is a lawyer from Nebraska, recently separated from his wife.  Through a friend, he meets MacLaine, a dancer, often taken advantage of because of her good nature.  I liked this a lot, partly for seeing what parts of NYC looked like during that time period (the set decorators did excellent work) but mostly because of the performances, and the brilliant back and forth between those two. Both believable.

Here's some trivia (and I mean it really is trivial, unless you're a jazz fan, in which case it's not). It's the only movie I'm aware of in which the voice of the great jazz singer Jackie Cain can be heard. (Of the married duo Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, who sometimes went by Jackie & Roy.) At a beatnik party, she's heard from the record player, singing Andre and Dory Previn's song "Second Chance." (The tune appears without lyrics as a running theme elsewhere in Andre's score for the movie.) Anyway, Jackie was a superb singer, and if the moment happens to catch your ear when you're watching the movie, she and Roy have a lot of discs out there for your investigation.

[Tom Holmberg]

On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 7:16 PM, xaxat said:

I just watched Ice Station Zebra. I have a weird relationship with this movie in that I'm not convinced that it is good

You and Howard Hughes.  Apparently he was obsessed with that movie.

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/movies/make-like-a-hermit-and-retreat-to-ice-station-zebra/

[Spartan Girl]

Caught Kubrick's Lolita and really hate how they try to justify the guy leching after his stepdaughter by making the wife out to be a bitch. He's still a pervert grooming an underage girl for sex. Gross.

[Milburn Stone]

12 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Caught Kubrick's Lolita and really hate how they try to justify the guy leching after his stepdaughter by making the wife out to be a bitch. He's still a pervert grooming an underage girl for sex. Gross.

I guess it's a Rorschach test, but I didn't think the Shelley Winters character was made out to be a bitch. A figure of ridicule, yes. But portrayed with empathy, by Shelley Winters with Kubrick's full participation. She had needs, and it wasn't her fault that Humbert Humbert deceived her into thinking he would fulfill them. And the reason I feel that way about her is that the movie made me feel that way about her.

[ratgirlagogo]

5 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

5 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Caught Kubrick's Lolita and really hate how they try to justify the guy leching after his stepdaughter by making the wife out to be a bitch. He's still a pervert grooming an underage girl for sex. Gross.

I guess it's a Rorschach test, but I didn't think the Shelley Winters character was made out to be a bitch. A figure of ridicule, yes. But portrayed with empathy, by Shelley Winters with Kubrick's full participation. She had needs, and it wasn't her fault that Humbert Humbert deceived her into thinking he would fulfill them. And the reason I feel that way about her is that the movie made me feel that way about her.

It is hard to watch for sure.  On the one hand, the young and gorgeous Sue Lyons - and on the other - Shelley Jesus fucking christ 1960's Winters - and on the third hand the very handsome James Mason choosing between them, like there was any question, haw haw haw.

However I agree with Milburn Stone that as hard as that is to watch the movie shows us Charlotte Haze as a human woman and not the distorted caricature that she is in the book (not that Nabokov thinks she is a caricature, but that the book is Humbert Humbert's version of events and he is the most unreliable of narrators) and I do think the movie has sympathy for her character. In other words it is hard to watch because we know Humbert is a predator and pathetically Charlotte does not.   It reminds me of the awful wedding night between Shelley and Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter, in which she is mocked and degraded by Mitchum for her normal human desires, because he is a criminal and a psychopath. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[benteen]

Saw The Big Sleep.  It's a lot of fun and Bogart is great as Marlowe but good lord, is that plot convoluted.  Reading about it online, I found that the film is notorious for how difficult it is to follow the plot, whatever that may be.

[Rinaldo]

Indeed, it's said that for one particular murder in the story, nobody had an answer for who did it, the original author included (when they called him).

One fun detail is that as part of the building-up of the Bogart-Bacall relationship in The Big Sleep, a whole scene was lifted intact from an earlier movie. Remember the scene where they suddenly start talking very suggestively about horse racing? -- that comes from Straight, Place and Show (a Ritz Brothers vehicle -- it was shown on TCM not long ago), where it was spoken by Ethel Merman and Richard Arlen, and didn't seem nearly so risqué.

Side note: The film of another Chandler novel is coming up on Wednesday (10:30 p.m. ET): The Long Goodbye. The information that it's an Altman movie starring Elliott Gould as Marlowe, updated to a then-contemporary setting, might make it sound like something to avoid, but I like it. The screenplay is by Leigh Brackett, who also co-wrote The Big Sleep (the updating is said to have been her idea), and the theme of the lone detective trying to maintain order in an amoral world works just as well in 1973 LA.

I'll also confess that a major reason I enjoy it is a musical joke that plays throughout the movie, a spoof of Hollywood's overuse of theme songs: John Williams supplied a big title song sung during the credits, and (except for "Hooray for Hollywood," heard in the opening and closing moments)  it is the source of every bit of music heard throughout. And I mean EVERY bit: party music, supermarket Muzak, a Mexican funeral band, a doorbell, everything. It's one of the wittiest soundtracks I know.

[Tom Holmberg]

3 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

the theme of the lone detective trying to maintain order in an amoral world works just as well in 1973 LA.

Altman's Marlowe is sort of a man out of time, a 40s detective in the "late Sixties" (actually early 70s) world.

You are right about the soundtrack. One of the best ever.

[meowmommy]

5 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Altman's Marlowe is sort of a man out of time, a 40s detective in the "late Sixties" (actually early 70s) world.

One of the most interesting man out of his time movies is "Man of the Century," a movie filmed and set in 1999, with a lead character who lives as if it's the 1920s.  Wish TCM would show it.

[Rinaldo]

I just watched Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much for the first time. Or rather, his first movie by that title, because they're really very different. The family is English (not American), they have a daughter (not son), and the mother is an Olympic-level skeet shooter (not retired pop singer). Plus of course it's all in B&W with rather modest production values. And nothing corresponding to "Que sera," we end with a tense shootout in a squalid London street (with a nifty but prepared twist near the end). The same Arthur Benjamin "Storm Clouds Cantata" with a noisy spot for the attempted assassination, though. Peter Lorre and his henchmen plotting in their rickety attic gave their bit a rather "Threepenny Opera" sort of vibe. I'm glad I saw it.

[benteen]

Watched Sweet Smell of Success on the TCM app, starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.  Lancaster plays a powerful columnist in New York City and Curtis plays a sleazy PR man (is there any other kind?) who is always hanging around him.  Great film.  Both of them play real bastards.  It takes place in 1957 and the city itself is as much of a part of the story as the characters.  The cinematography by James Wong Howe (a legend in the industry who did films like The Thin Man, The Rose Tattoo and Hud) is really impressive.

Edited September 24, 2019 by benteen

[Rinaldo]

Sweet Smell of Success has come up in this topic once or twice before, and it's always a pleasure to talk about. As @benteen says, a great film, and someone's always discovering it for the first time (my own first viewing wasn't all that long ago), which is cool because we can discuss it again.

Being immersed in the very active nightlife of NYC in that era is fun, and the two stars were never better. We're told that location shooting was hampered by mobs of teenage Tony Curtis fans, but then they didn't show up for the finished movie (it was a financial failure at the time); it remains maybe his finest acting performance. Likewise for Burt Lancaster, so determined to turn himself from an enjoyable action star into a serious actor;  this is one time he really succeeded in a big way.

The dialogue just crackles with original ways of saying things. So much so that in Diner, there's a character who speaks only in lines from Sweet Smell of Success. Which is such a bizarre and specific detail to invent, it makes me think Barry Levinson must have known someone like that. (And how wonderful that the TCM site permanently houses exactly that little scene.)

[AuntiePam]

17 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I just watched Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much for the first time. Or rather, his first movie by that title, because they're really very different.

I stopped watching early on, when a skier lit a cigarette.  I was already a bit put off by the lack of realism in the skiing and the skeet shooting.  Unless those scenes were important to the plot, just leave them out if they can't be done right. 

Watched Downstairs, an entry from Paul Lukas' day in August.  Lukas is the loyal (to a fault) butler for a wealthy family.  John Gilbert is the new chauffeur. He seduces the cook for her money, blackmails the baroness, and plays fast and loose with the butler's new wife.  Julian Fellowes may have watched this at some point.  It does a good job of showing how things worked, the hierarchy, the rules of behavior in households where everyone was so close in some ways, far apart in others. 

[Suzn]

On 9/19/2019 at 10:19 PM, ruby24 said:

Watched Jewel Robbery (1932) today. Lovely little gem. William Powell and Kay Francis were perfect for this kind of thing.

Yes!  You picked a couple of movies that I love.  Kay Francis is a favorite of mine and Jewel Robbery is one of her most glamorous movies.  It's a delicious little fantasy.  William Powell is perfect, of course.

On 9/17/2019 at 4:21 PM, ruby24 said:

Just watched Female (1933) with Ruth Chatterton. These pre-code movies with strong, badass women are so fun. Sad that it had to end with her giving up the business to a man though. Even for pre-code, I guess that was too much.

Ruth Chatterton is a more recent "discovery" for me, having first seen her in Dodsworth.  Female is such a turn of the tables with  an executive with her secretaries.  It's a shame they had to go all conventional with the ending.

[Inquisitionist]

On 9/20/2019 at 11:02 AM, Tom Holmberg said:

On Weds. Sept. 25, 9:30 pm (CT) TCM will show the divisive 1973 Altman film "The Long Goodbye." People tend to like it or hate it.  I'm in the like it group.  If you haven't seen it (or seen it lately) it's worth a watch.

I've set my DVR and will let you know where I fall!

On 9/20/2019 at 7:16 PM, xaxat said:

I just watched Ice Station Zebra. I have a weird relationship with this movie in that I'm not convinced that it is good,

My weird relationship with that movie is that one of the producers (I couldn't tell you which one) lived across the street from my great-uncle in Sherman Oaks, CA, and took my brothers and me to a Dodgers game when we visited in the late 1970s.  And yet, I've never watched the movie...

[Tom Holmberg]

1 hour ago, Inquisitionist said:

And yet, I've never watched the movie...

Are you waiting until you're a recluse billionaire? :)

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 9/21/2019 at 6:45 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

I really appreciate TCM showing foreign movies on Sunday nights.  Unfortunately, they're not at a time when people will be just surfing by and possibly drawn in, but at least it's some mainstream exposure.

Quoting myself here.

I watched the intro to Days of Being Wild and was shocked that the director, Wong Kar-Wai, was repeatedly referred to as "Kar-Wai."  "Wong" is his last name; in Chinese, it goes at the beginning.  I know that people not familiar with Chinese can get it wrong (it happens all the time in internet discussions), but that fact that you see it both ways in doing internet research should fire some sort of neuron that would prompt a researcher to find out which one is right, which isn't hard to do at all once you know there's an issue in the first place, which you would if you see it both ways, which you would if you're doing internet research. 

(I specify "internet research" because an actual book would absolutely refer to him as "Wong" throughout.)

And this reminded me of an incident several years ago, when Robert Osborne commented on another favorite movie of mine, Where Is My Friend's House?  It's an Iranian movie about two little boys, and after the movie, Osborne said the village where it was filmed was destroyed in the 1990 earthquake, and the boys were killed.

They weren't, and in fact appeared in a later film by the same director, Abbas Kiarostami.

So on the one hand, I'm glad that TCM shows these movies, but it would be really nice if they could get their facts straight.  The last thing we need is more people going around calling Wong Kar-Wai "Kar-Wai," and I know that Osborne's statement made a lot of people unnecessarily sad.  One commenter said, "The movie was a heartbreaking story in the first place. Hearing about the boys and the village makes me feel like I've been kicked in the stomach."  People corrected Osborne's statement, and I hope this commenter checked back later and found out she was misled.

[Spartan Girl]

The original La Cage Aux Folles is on. It feels weird to watch after seeing The Birdcage a billion times. I know the French film was first and it's good and all that, but honestly? I like Birdcage better.

[Was-MArsenault]

52 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

The original La Cage Aux Folles is on. It feels weird to watch after seeing The Birdcage a billion times. I know the French film was first and it's good and all that, but honestly? I like Birdcage better.

The Birdcage is a really unfunny movie in my opinion, but my mom loves it though.

[Rinaldo]

3 minutes ago, MikaelaArsenault said:

The Birdcage is a really unfunny movie in my opinion

I agree with you, but (to quote GB Shaw), who are you and I against so many? 😉

But then I'm not crazy about any of the incarnations of La Cage aux folles, including the stage musical. They just don't tickle my funny bone or speak to me in any way, and I don't love the basic premise either. Chacun à son goût.

[Was-MArsenault]

1 minute ago, Rinaldo said:

I agree with you, but (to quote GB Shaw), who are you and I against so many? 😉

But then I'm not crazy about any of the incarnations of La Cage aux folles, including the stage musical. They just don't tickle my funny bone or speak to me in any way, and I don't love the basic premise either. Chacun à son goût.

I just saw some of the original version of it, and it was pretty good from what I watched.

[Rinaldo]

I just finished watching Too Many Crooks, a little British comedy from 1959, and it does tickle my funny bone, as a number of the modest British comedies of that era do -- several of them written by the same scenarist as this one, Michael Pertwee. 

This one is the durable "ransom of Red Chief" premise, also later used in the American Ruthless People. A hapless quartet of petty crooks plots to kidnap the daughter of a soulless businessman, but end up with his wife instead -- whom he's delighted to be free of, pooh-poohing all their ransom demands. The wife, hearing of this, becomes so furious that she takes over the gang and leads them to revenge, grabbing all her husband's illicit stashes of cash.

On hand are several of the masters of this genre at the time: Terry-Thomas (as the villain/victim), George Cole, Brenda de Banzie. And Pertwee's lines and situations are often really surprising and hilarious. I especially treasure a morning in small-claims court where Terry-Thomas is called up on one charge after another, trying to ad-lib his way out of each in turn. And the moment when the wife turns from a weeping frump into a decisive fury, calling the crooks rude names and using her martial arts skills to fling them across the room.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Rinaldo

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 9/23/2019 at 8:10 AM, Rinaldo said:

Side note: The film of another Chandler novel is coming up on Wednesday (10:30 p.m. ET): The Long Goodbye. ...

I'll also confess that a major reason I enjoy it is a musical joke that plays throughout the movie, a spoof of Hollywood's overuse of theme songs: John Williams supplied a big title song sung during the credits, and (except for "Hooray for Hollywood," heard in the opening and closing moments)  it is the source of every bit of music heard throughout. And I mean EVERY bit: party music, supermarket Muzak, a Mexican funeral band, a doorbell, everything. It's one of the wittiest soundtracks I know.

We watched this last night, and Mr. Outlier noticed that it was the same song over and over.  I didn't, but the captions identified it every time it played, so I was able to get in on the joke, too.  Yay for captions.

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On 9/24/2019 at 2:26 PM, AuntiePam said:

I stopped watching early on, when a skier lit a cigarette.  I was already a bit put off by the lack of realism in the skiing and the skeet shooting.

If you're put off by a skier smoking, then you never skied at Purgatory, in Durango, Colorado.  I'm telling you, those were the smokiest lifts ever; I attributed it to the hordes of Texans who skied there, and for all I know they picked it because they could smoke.