TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[caracas1914]

The Pre-Code 1933  "Babyface" starring Barbara Stanwyck was something else.   The frank depiction of sex as a transactional exchange vis-a-vis men for her character to climb up the corporate ladder was so  matter of fact.   Spelled out so clearly her father allowed  men to abuse her sexually from a young age, yet the emancipated Babyface isn't portrayed as a "victim" perse, nor some wicked wayward woman, but,  so help me , someone who translates Nietzsche philosophy to exploiting men instead of being exploited.   ( It's hilarious to learn they edited out all references to Nietzsche from the post Code version).  

Her relationship with Chico, portrayed by Theresa Harris, is unique as far as race relations in that time in films,  in that it's established they are first and foremost,  friends, even if the conventions of the time have Chico  become her maid.  

A young John Wayne is one of the men she uses, and again, Stanwyck's character upward mobility is contrasted with the men who think they are using her, yet they let their emotions get in the way while Babyface leaves her feelings at the door.  

Sidenote:  Didn't realize so many pre-Code films are *lost* in that the perceived racier bits were edited out in subsequent airings and some footage has not been recovered.  It was serendipitous that they "found"  the original  Babyface.

[Rinaldo]

There are so many lost or partially lost films. Sometimes scenes were cut for censorship reasons and now can't be found, sometimes a film was shortened after initial release to shorten it for neighborhood viewings (get more shows in a day), or was cut for TV airings in the 1950s and the additional footage misplaced. Sometimes nobody is curating the movie as a whole and part of it can't be found (like the final reel of Gloria Swanson's silent Sadie Thompson).

Or even if the whole duration survives, it may not be the right ratio. This applies to post-1950 movies, when widescreen gradually became standard in movies but they had to be cropped for TV showing. Sometimes the version cropped-for-older-TVs is also that TCM is given to show, and my sad presumption is that this is all that survives (I've mentioned Tender Is the Night and All of Me here). I hope I'm wrong and these were just individual cases of carelessness in providing the film to TCM.

[freddi]

The Bishop's Wife surprises me every year.  I always think I want to see a few scenes, then can't look away from it.  That scene with the professor unable to deliver his book manuscript after twenty years of work (or of not writing), then getting spurred to target his research and knowing that he would live long enough to finish it -- such a side story, but so compelling.  And it does not hit us over the head with the "moral" of the story (well, multiple "moral"s), but leaves it to the viewer to infer that it is better to use money to do good than to build a monument, to re-focus on family, to recognize all the lives encircling the main characters.  Have a great holiday, everyone, the best possible.  

[EtheltoTillie]

Hubby and I really enjoyed It Happened on Fifth Avenue (completely new to us). And Christmas in Connecticut. We need some laughs as we have Covid. What a Christmas surprise. 

[BooksRule]

Those of you who use closed captioning for your TCM watching, do you find it reliable or not?  I don't usually keep CC on, but as I get older, I find myself switching it on more and more.  I was watching 'The Holly and the Ivy' a couple of days ago, and the CC was not very good.  A lot of the lines had 'inaudible' instead of the words, and although there was some mumbling and I could understand why this had to be done, in some instances I -- even with my bad hearing -- could understand every word they were saying and the CC still said 'inaudible' in some parts. They also got more words/phrases wrong than I would have thought.  I know it happens, but some examples: 'our own Bridget' instead of 'our Aunt Bridget' and 'bound to be' instead of 'boundiful'.  I don't know. It just seemed to me to be careless work. 

That aside, I really liked the movie.  It's one I'd never seen before. 

[Milburn Stone]

On 12/24/2020 at 6:10 AM, bmoore4026 said:

Saw the end of Auntie Mame earlier.  God, I wish I was as dynamic as her.  Hell, I wish I were as dynamic as her friends.  And Mame going out of her way to disrupt that WASP family and have their daughter break up with Patrick is delightful.  The fact that the last straw is Mame saying her friends are opening an orphanage for Jewish refugee children has a lot of resonance.

MMV, but that moment felt a little "off" to me when I last saw the movie compared to when I first saw it at time of release. Which only means the moment hasn't aged well (for me), which is an unfair judgment, because the moment was meant for its own time. And that time was only 10 years after the end of the Holocaust. (And was probably taking place during the war, in the film's timeline.)

I don't mean merely that the mention of Jewish refugee children has dated, which it obviously has, since there are no more Jewish refugee children. I mean that the whole repudiation of anti-Semitism, which once felt like a heroic stance for Mame to take, now feels a bit like virtue-signaling on Mame's part.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[Robert Lynch]

Rosalind Russell's best role by far is Auntie Mame. Just her dictation and pronunciation make her role the most iconic of  all the roles she did throughout the 30s-60s of her acting career.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Robert Lynch

[ruby24]

8 hours ago, BooksRule said:

Those of you who use closed captioning for your TCM watching, do you find it reliable or not?  I don't usually keep CC on, but as I get older, I find myself switching it on more and more.  I was watching 'The Holly and the Ivy' a couple of days ago, and the CC was not very good.  A lot of the lines had 'inaudible' instead of the words, and although there was some mumbling and I could understand why this had to be done, in some instances I -- even with my bad hearing -- could understand every word they were saying and the CC still said 'inaudible' in some parts. They also got more words/phrases wrong than I would have thought.  I know it happens, but some examples: 'our own Bridget' instead of 'our Aunt Bridget' and 'bound to be' instead of 'boundiful'.  I don't know. It just seemed to me to be careless work. 

That aside, I really liked the movie.  It's one I'd never seen before. 

Just watched this the other day too. Really liked it. Surprising little discovery. 

It's not exactly a "feel good" Christmas movie, because it's about an unhappy, basically estranged family, but the acting was great.

[BooksRule]

1 hour ago, ruby24 said:

It's not exactly a "feel good" Christmas movie, because it's about an unhappy, basically estranged family, but the acting was great.

I think the description on the on-screen TV guide said it was a 'heartwarming story', but I wouldn't have called it heartwarming.  

[EtheltoTillie]

21 hours ago, BooksRule said:

Those of you who use closed captioning for your TCM watching, do you find it reliable or not?  I don't usually keep CC on, but as I get older, I find myself switching it on more and more.  I was watching 'The Holly and the Ivy' a couple of days ago, and the CC was not very good.  A lot of the lines had 'inaudible' instead of the words, and although there was some mumbling and I could understand why this had to be done, in some instances I -- even with my bad hearing -- could understand every word they were saying and the CC still said 'inaudible' in some parts. They also got more words/phrases wrong than I would have thought.  I know it happens, but some examples: 'our own Bridget' instead of 'our Aunt Bridget' and 'bound to be' instead of 'boundiful'.  I don't know. It just seemed to me to be careless work. 

That aside, I really liked the movie.  It's one I'd never seen before. 

I use closed captions for everything. Usually reliable occasionally not

[Suzn]

I'm just here to complain about the Christmas movie lineup.  There are movies TCM has shown before that were missing from the lineup while repeating the ones shown.  Where was Holiday Inn (I believe the origin of the song White Christmas)?  And they had multiple showing of the 1938 Christmas Carol and none of the definitive 1951 version with Alastair Sim.  I find the 1938 version lame and unwatchable.  I can think of a number of Christmas movies that would have been welcome and instead we got several that I consider not very good.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Suzn

[Wiendish Fitch]

33 minutes ago, Suzn said:

 And they had multiple showing of the 1938 Christmas Carol and none of the definitive 1951 version with Alastair Sims.  I find the 1938 version lame and unwatchable.  

I'm with you there. The 1938 CC is so rushed and sloppy, and Reginald Owen is a lame Scrooge. Sim's Scrooge could eat him for lunch.

I will say this for the two: they both suffer from having Tiny Tims who are way too big and healthy. Anthony Walters from the 1984 George C. Scott version is my favorite because, while he's a cute enough kid, he actually does look frail and sickly.

[Suzn]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I'm with you there. The 1938 CC is so rushed and sloppy, and Reginald Owen is a lame Scrooge. Sim's Scrooge could eat him for lunch.

I will say this for the two: they both suffer from having Tiny Tims who are way too big and healthy. Anthony Walters from the 1984 George C. Scott version is my favorite because, while he's a cute enough kid, he actually does look frail and sickly.

I never thought about it, but you're probably right about Tiny Tim.

P.S.  I corrected the spelling of "Sim".

[Rinaldo]

I always have closed captioning on. (I in fact hear almost everything fine, but that one moment where I miss a mumbled phrase, the CC saves me from awkwardly having to backtrack 15 seconds.) Most of the time it's good, especially for recent things where (I assume) some kind of official CC script was provided. I sometimes wish it weren't so chatty about background music (although I must admit, in a situation like the faux-Regency miniseries Bridgerton on Netflix, I'm grateful when it tells me which current pop tune is being played by the little orchestra at a ball -- I wouldn't know otherwise), but probably others need that, so fine. But in older movies they do sometimes get a detail hilariously wrong. Especially but not only with British idioms being totally misinterpreted. (I picture some ill-paid office temp tasked with transcribing some old movie they've never seen before; I'm not unsympathetic, but I do feel there should be a stage of some knowledgeable person watching and checking their work -- an editor, in effect. Clearly in some cases there has been no editor.)

My own favorite aspect of Rosalind Russell is her early work in comedy, like His Girl Friday and My Sister Eileen. But chacun à son goût.

One year TCM showed several contrasted Christmas Carols, which I liked. It was fun to see the differences in the movies starring Seymour Hicks (a truly weird early talkie), the Reginald Owen (not my fave by a long shot, but I recognized it as the very first version I saw on TV, when I was about 5, so I have a certain fondness for it), and the great Alistair Sim. They also threw in Scrooge, which I don't care for, but many do. I wish they could include the George C. Scott one as well, which is very good (terrific supporting actors, too), but a commercial channel seems to own that for re-broadcast. (An appreciative word for Mr. Magoo, too!) I still think there's room for a new version that brings to life aspects of Dickens that nobody has attempted so far: in particular his uncanny four-dimensional androgynous Christmas Past, which at times seems to have multiple limbs because of being perceived across time -- in a time of SF spectaculars, that would be child's play, but nobody's done it.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Rinaldo

[BooksRule]

On 12/27/2020 at 1:58 PM, Suzn said:

And they had multiple showing of the 1938 Christmas Carol and none of the definitive 1951 version with Alastair Sim.

I know it's too late now, but I noticed that the FXM channel (which shows a lot of old movies along with newer ones, albeit with commercials and I'm sure they are edited) had the 1951 version listed several times (but not the 1938 one).  I know I saw the 1951 version last year, but I don't remember which channel was airing it. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by BooksRule
added a little bit

[caracas1914]

I've watched soo many foreign films in my life that CC on english speaking  films doesn't phase me at all.   As an American, it's especially helpful on British/English movies/shows where the accents make some dialogue  indecipherable to my ears.

Netflix shows so  so many foreign TV series, let alone movies, that I would think CC isn't that distracting once you get used to it. 

[caracas1914]

On 12/24/2020 at 7:28 PM, Rinaldo said:

There are so many lost or partially lost films. Sometimes scenes were cut for censorship reasons and now can't be found, sometimes a film was shortened after initial release to shorten it for neighborhood viewings (get more shows in a day), or was cut for TV airings in the 1950s and the additional footage misplaced. Sometimes nobody is curating the movie as a whole and part of it can't be found (like the final reel of Gloria Swanson's silent Sadie Thompson).

Or even if the whole duration survives, it may not be the right ratio. This applies to post-1950 movies, when widescreen gradually became standard in movies but they had to be cropped for TV showing. Sometimes the version cropped-for-older-TVs is also that TCM is given to show, and my sad presumption is that this is all that survives (I've mentioned Tender Is the Night and All of Me here). I hope I'm wrong and these were just individual cases of carelessness in providing the film to TCM.

I've always thought the Holy Grail was Orson Welles'  "The Magnificent Ambersons", which IMO is probably gone forever,   Some claim a copy of the original uncut film was sent down by RKO  to Orson Welles who was in Brazil;   I just read there is yet another effort to try to find the excised footage.  However back then they would burn all the excess footage found in their vaults/warehouses after awhile.

The other lost movie  frequently referenced is the silent 1924 film "Greed" by Eric Von Stronheim.   Reputedly the first cut ran over 8 hours!

Back to the Welles film, even a novice like me can tell where the movie was edited down but still, it's such a great work of art, oh well, coulda shoulda woulda.....

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by caracas1914

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, caracas1914 said:

I've always thought the Holy Grail was Orson Welles'  "The Magnificent Ambersons", which IMO is probably gone forever,   

I agree with both parts of that sentence. Studios just didn't retain discarded footage, especially if they intervened like that, so what's gone is really gone. And it's a genuine loss. The first time I saw the movie (not that long ago, on TCM) I was aware of its history and reputation, but was surprised by what it was like: It takes off with a light, stylized wit unlike anything else he ever made. And I wonder why he didn't stay put in LA to ensure that it made its way to release unscathed (or, if changes were made, they were his changes)? Repeatedly, he seems to have had these self-destructive impulses, however much he would have denied it -- walking away from a project near the finish line which needed his on-site protection, "having to be" somewhere else on some other project. 

I have a list of Alternate Earth scenarios in which I can watch movies that were botched in the final edit or cancelled after planning but before production: Ambersons comes first, and after that the abandoned film of She Loves Me, the complete Way We Were, the unabridged On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the full-length Garland/Mason A Star Is Born, the written but never-made Sondheim/Goldman musical Singing Out Loud...

[EtheltoTillie]

21 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I always have closed captioning on. (I in fact hear almost everything fine, but that one moment where I miss a mumbled phrase, the CC saves me from awkwardly having to backtrack 15 seconds.) Most of the time it's good, especially for recent things where (I assume) some kind of official CC script was provided. I sometimes wish it weren't so chatty about background music (although I must admit, in a situation like the faux-Regency miniseries Bridgerton on Netflix, I'm grateful when it tells me which current pop tune is being played by the little orchestra at a ball -- I wouldn't know otherwise), but probably others need that, so fine. But in older movies they do sometimes get a detail hilariously wrong. Especially but not only with British idioms being totally misinterpreted. (I picture some ill-paid office temp tasked with transcribing some old movie they've never seen before; I'm not unsympathetic, but I do feel there should be a stage of some knowledgeable person watching and checking their work -- an editor, in effect. Clearly in some cases there has been no editor.)

My own favorite aspect of Rosalind Russell is her early work in comedy, like His Girl Friday and My Sister Eileen. But chacun à son goût.

One year TCM showed several contrasted Christmas Carols, which I liked. It was fun to see the differences in the movies starring Seymour Hicks (a truly weird early talkie), the Reginald Owen (not my fave by a long shot, but I recognized it as the very first version I saw on TV, when I was about 5, so I have a certain fondness for it), and the great Alistair Sim. They also threw in Scrooge, which I don't care for, but many do. I wish they could include the George C. Scott one as well, which is very good (terrific supporting actors, too), but a commercial channel seems to own that for re-broadcast. (An appreciative word for Mr. Magoo, too!) I still think there's room for a new version that brings to life aspects of Dickens that nobody has attempted so far: in particular his uncanny four-dimensional androgynous Christmas Past, which at times seems to have multiple limbs because of being perceived across time -- in a time of SF spectaculars, that would be child's play, but nobody's done it.

Glad someone is showing an appreciation for the Mr Magoo Carol. The music is excellent and it always makes me cry. I am old enough to have watched it when it was new. 
my favorite Roz Russell movie is The Trouble With Angels. 

[Milburn Stone]

14 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I have a list of Alternate Earth scenarios in which I can watch movies that were botched in the final edit or cancelled after planning but before production: Ambersons comes first, and after that the abandoned film of She Loves Me, the complete Way We Were, the unabridged On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the full-length Garland/Mason A Star Is Born, the written but never-made Sondheim/Goldman musical Singing Out Loud...

On my list is the un-made 1960s MGM musical, produced by Arthur Freed, with a script by Comden and Green, songs from the Irving Berlin catalogue, to be titled Say It With Music.

I'm interested to know if what was cut from On a Clear Day is much more than Jack Nicholson's performance of "Who Is There Among Us Who Knows." I have heard this performance on a bootleg LP, and it's nothing to mourn the loss of. And the film's depiction of him as a hippie was so out-of-touch it was sad. As was the depiction of College 1969. Here are the parts I love: The pre-credit "Hurry It's Lovely Up Here" with Barbra singing to time-lapse flowers, gorgeous; the credit sequence with its beautiful rectangles within rectangles of color; Nelson Riddle's orchestrations; the "previous life" segments; and Barbra's rendition of the title song. I thank Vincente Minnelli for all of these. If the unabridged version of the film would help make sense of all the rest of it, I'd welcome it.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

I'm interested to know if what was cut from On a Clear Day is much more than Jack Nicholson's performance of "Who Is There Among Us Who Knows."

About an hour was cut. It was to have been a full-scale "road show" format with intermission. I'm well aware that the movie was something of a misfire and the cut footage wouldn't have saved it; still, I want to see the intended format, just once. It's always a bit of a jolt, every time Jack Nicholson pops in for a lien or two and then vanishes.

Besides the song you mention (which includes a snatch of Barbra vocalizing), cuts included Montand's response "She Wasn't You," and the songs "Wait Till We're 65" and "On the S.S. Bernard Cohn," as well as a new one called "E.S.P." about which relatively little can be found. And all the dance numbers were cut (if memory serves, Ron Field removed his choreographer credit). Maybe they would been as hokey as Minnelli's/Lerner's idea of the counterculture, but I'd still rather see the whole thing as planned, rather than the corporate-decreed truncation. 

[Milburn Stone]

5 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

Maybe they would been as hokey as Minnelli's/Lerner's idea of the counterculture, but I'd still rather see the whole thing as planned, rather than the corporate-decreed truncation. 

100%. (As the kids say nowadays.)

[meowmommy]

4 hours ago, GussieK said:

Glad someone is showing an appreciation for the Mr Magoo Carol. The music is excellent and it always makes me cry. I am old enough to have watched it when it was new. 
my favorite Roz Russell movie is The Trouble With Angels. 

I adore Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.  And as a certified misanthrope, I cried, too.  "Alone in the world" always makes me sob like I'm eight years old again.

They did the exterior shots of The Trouble with Angels and its sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows, in the town where I finished high school.  That's just about all I know about the town where I finished high school.

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, meowmommy said:

I adore Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. 

As we seem to have several fans of it here, I'll never have a better chance to ask: Does anyone know why it has Christmas Present preceding Christmas Past? It must be the only version to do so.

[meowmommy]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

As we seem to have several fans of it here, I'll never have a better chance to ask: Does anyone know why it has Christmas Present preceding Christmas Past? It must be the only version to do so.

According to IMDb:

Quote

This version of "A Christmas Carol" is unique to all other versions in that the first spirit to visit Scrooge is the "Spirit of Christmas Present", followed by the spirits of Christmas past and future, whereas in all other versions Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past first, then present, and future. No records exist to explain this change, but some have guessed that it had to do with running times and commercial breaks.

I'm pretty sure I saw Mr. Magoo as a child before I ever saw another version, so it always seemed perfectly normal to me.

[ruby24]

I'm planning to watch Bells Are Ringing (1960) tomorrow. Can anyone tell me if it's a holiday movie, set around Christmas or New Year's or anything? (Or is TCM just playing it now because it has "bells" in the title?)

[Schnickelfritz]

10 hours ago, ruby24 said:

I'm planning to watch Bells Are Ringing (1960) tomorrow. Can anyone tell me if it's a holiday movie, set around Christmas or New Year's or anything? (Or is TCM just playing it now because it has "bells" in the title?)

I don't believe it's a holiday movie but it is a Judy HOLLIDAY movie.

[EtheltoTillie]

I watched Bells Are Ringing last night. It’s a bit of a hot mess. There is one great song. Just In Time. Jule Styne, who also wrote the Magoo music!  
I enjoyed seeing Jean Stapleton and Frank Gorshin. 

[EtheltoTillie]

I fast forwarded through a lot of it. The bookie plot was incomprehensible. 

[Rinaldo]

Even at the time (beginning onstage) Bells Are Ringing was reviewed as an old-fashioned sort of story, a vehicle for the talents of its leading lady, and appealing according to the degree one finds Judy Holliday irresistible. Many did, and do. In addition to the classic "Just In Time," there's a type of song for which I'm always a sucker, a counterpoint duet (two tunes are first sung separately, then simultaneously), "Better Than a Dream." This was actually added to the Broadway production late in its run (it isn't in the published script or score), but fortunately it was retained for the movie while several songs were cut.

Quick eyes can see that the "Midas Touch" number is sung by a young Hal Linden, decades before his TV fame as Barney Miller. He had been the leading man's understudy on Broadway, and replaced him for the end of the run.

[GreekGeek]

On 12/29/2020 at 7:28 PM, Rinaldo said:

As we seem to have several fans of it here, I'll never have a better chance to ask: Does anyone know why it has Christmas Present preceding Christmas Past? It must be the only version to do so.

Here is one explanation from the AV Club (just the author's opinion, not any sort of inside information):

Quote

By swapping the two ghosts, the script allows for us to see Scrooge getting to know Tiny Tim, then go back and see what a sad little boy Scrooge was. It foregrounds why he’s so taken with Tiny Tim to a degree that doesn’t really happen in Dickens’ original, which requires readers to remember back past young Scrooge’s adventures with Fezziwig and Belle, back to that sad young boy sitting alone at his school, then connect that boy to Tiny Tim.

But then the author points out the awkwardness of Scrooge starting to get his act together by feeling concern over Tiny Tim, only to regress again when the Ghost of Christmas Past appears, and finally to change dramatically when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him his future.

[EtheltoTillie]

That’s Entertainment I and II. That is all!  

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, GussieK said:

That’s Entertainment I and II. That is all!  

I'm probably at a table for one with this one, but I'm always annoyed when That's Entertainment winds up being TCM's New Year's Eve marathon.  I've never been able to sit through anything close to the whole thing, and in fact even got bored years ago fast-forwarding through looking for the behind-the-scenes stuff.

[EtheltoTillie]

7 hours ago, Bastet said:

I'm probably at a table for one with this one, but I'm always annoyed when That's Entertainment winds up being TCM's New Year's Eve marathon.  I've never been able to sit through anything close to the whole thing, and in fact even got bored years ago fast-forwarding through looking for the behind-the-scenes stuff.

We will have to agree to disagree here. I find it soothing to watch these. 

[Miss Anne Thrope]

8 hours ago, Bastet said:

I'm probably at a table for one with this one, but I'm always annoyed when That's Entertainment winds up being TCM's New Year's Eve marathon.  I've never been able to sit through anything close to the whole thing, and in fact even got bored years ago fast-forwarding through looking for the behind-the-scenes stuff.

If we can make it a two-top, I'll buy drinks.   (And I absolutely adore many musicals but find these types of compilations a snooze.)

Edited January 1, 2021 by Miss Anne Thrope

[Milburn Stone]

Only the first TE! is really good, but even that might be one of those movies you "had to be there" for. In 1974, it was a tremendous deal. The culture had descended into decadence (fun decadence for the young, which I was, but still decadence), most classic musicals had been forgotten by the masses, and a well-made documentary venerating them was a thing to behold. Theaters hadn't yet been subdivided into multiplexes, and it played on the big screen, in a big auditorium, with fabulous image quality and sound. Those of us who loved musicals felt that finally, finally, the form was getting the respect it deserved. And that finally, MGM, which had been desecrated by corporate predators, had recognized its own value. Of course that last part wasn't true, but it seemed like it was at the time, even though one of the narrators (Sinatra, I think) says of the musicals, and we all knew it to be true, "We will never see their like again." Today, I'm sure the movie looks like just another clip job.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 12/31/2020 at 8:47 AM, Rinaldo said:

Even at the time (beginning onstage) Bells Are Ringing was reviewed as an old-fashioned sort of story, a vehicle for the talents of its leading lady, and appealing according to the degree one finds Judy Holliday irresistible. Many did, and do. In addition to the classic "Just In Time," there's a type of song for which I'm always a sucker, a counterpoint duet (two tunes are first sung separately, then simultaneously), "Better Than a Dream." This was actually added to the Broadway production late in its run (it isn't in the published script or score), but fortunately it was retained for the movie while several songs were cut.

Quick eyes can see that the "Midas Touch" number is sung by a young Hal Linden, decades before his TV fame as Barney Miller. He had been the leading man's understudy on Broadway, and replaced him for the end of the run.

Well I really couldn’t make him out as Hal Linden but I’ll take your word for it LOL. 

[Bastet]

5 hours ago, GussieK said:

We will have to agree to disagree here.

No need, since I wasn't arguing anything.

[Suzn]

I have mixed feeling about That's Entertainment.  I've always loved musicals but I didn't think everything they showed was wonderful. Of course  they showed some early stuff that was very clumsy, such as the painful early song and dance by Joan Crawford and the horrible Two-Faced Woman song she did.  Part of my problem with it was that since it was only from MGM, that left out some of my favorite musicals like Carousel and South Pacific and the RKO Astaire and Rogers movies.  They made it sound as if no one but MGM made musicals and they pronounce Singing the the Rain the best ever (I don't like it).

Edited January 2, 2021 by Suzn

[Rinaldo]

When That's Entertainment was new, there was really no other way for viewers to see older musical movies on a regular basis (aside from the lucky few who lived in cities with good revival houses, or attended colleges with good "classics" series). Sometimes certain commercial TV stations would show selected items from the past (growing up in Chicago, I know that I could see 3 Astaire-Rogers movies each New Years Eve). But interested as I was, I had never even heard of Eleanor Powell, and that's just one example. So it served a purpose at the time. (MGM showing only MGM stuff was just a given.) I'm not altogether sure why TCM continues to feature it, as they've made most of the complete movies represented familiar to us now, but maybe viewing figures tell a story.

As for Singin' in the Rain being the best, such a notion can only be an opinion, but it's at least a widely shared one. I don't happen to share it (I would place SITR pretty high up on my own list, but not at the top), but I don't mind them saying it. When I taught a History of Musicals course (stage musicals), I refrained from naming any particular title, though once in a while students would try to corner me. 😉

Edited January 2, 2021 by Rinaldo

[Charlie Baker]

I suspect Rinaldo is correct about TCM drawing viewers with the That's Entertainment series marathons. (And maybe a lot of TCM watchers don't dive as deeply into the catalog as we do here?)  My experience in access and discovery of vintage films is similar to his.  Part I introduced me to Eleanor Powell in that astonishing number with Fred Astaire.  I haven't seen Part III as much, and I enjoy the very badness of Ms. Crawford's "Two Faced Woman" number, appreciate the behind the scenes look at the shooting of Ms. Powell's "Fascinating Rhythm" number, the footage Judy Garland completed for Annie Get Your Gun, Lena Horne's touching appearance.  

Oh, and a belated happy 2021, everyone!

Edited January 2, 2021 by Charlie Baker

[Suzn]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

When That's Entertainment was new, there was really no other way for viewers to see older musical movies on a regular basis (aside from the lucky few who lived in cities with good revival houses, or attended colleges with good "classics" series). Sometimes certain commercial TV stations would show selected items from the past (growing up in Chicago, I know that I could see 3 Astaire-Rogers movies each New Years Eve). But interested as I was, I had never even heard of Eleanor Powell, and that's just one example. So it served a purpose at the time. (MGM showing only MGM stuff was just a given.) I'm not altogether sure why TCM continues to feature it, as they've made most of the complete movies represented familiar to us now, but maybe viewing figures tell a story.

As for Singin' in the Rain being the best, such a notion can only be an opinion, but it's at least a widely shared one. I don't happen to share it (I would place SITR pretty high up on my own list, but not at the top), but I don't mind them saying it. When I taught a History of Musicals course (stage musicals), I refrained from naming any particular title, though once in a while students would try to corner me. 😉

I wouldn't have expected anything but MGM musicals, but they kept talking about MGM as though no other studio was making high quality musicals.  My favorites were non-MGM.  I watched old movies starting when my parents bought our first TV in 1956.  What was available was patchy and there have been a number of stars I've "discovered" since watching TCM.

1 hour ago, Charlie Baker said:

I suspect Rinaldo is correct about TCM drawing viewers with the That's Entertainment series marathons. (And maybe a lot of TCM watchers don't dive as deeply into the catalog as we do here?)  My experience in access and discovery of vintage films is similar to his.  Part I introduced me to Eleanor Powell in that astonishing number with Fred Astaire.  I haven't seen Part III as much, and I enjoy the very badness of Ms. Crawford's "Two Faced Woman" number, appreciate the behind the scenes look at the shooting of Ms. Powell's "Fascinating Rhythm" number, the footage Judy Garland completed for Annie Get Your Gun, Lena Horne's touching appearance.  

Oh, and a belated happy 2021, everyone!

The behind the scenes stuff is the best of the compilations.  It always makes me sad that Judy Garland was unable to continue on Annie Get Your Gun - she was wonderful and Betty Hutton was unwatchable.

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

But interested as I was, I had never even heard of Eleanor Powell, and that's just one example.

Funny (or not) that you should mention her, because in my post of yesterday morning with the same thrust, I was thinking of citing her as an example of someone who, interested as I was in 1974 (and I would place myself then in the upper .001% of the population in terms of interest), had never heard of her.

But of course, part of that for you, me, and probably @Charlie Baker, is that we were 24 (or whatever) at the time. Musical lovers who were 45 at the time certainly would have known (and revered) her.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Milburn Stone

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 minute ago, Suzn said:

The behind the scenes stuff is the best of the compilations.  It always makes me sad that Judy Garland was unable to continue on Annie Get Your Gun - she was wonderful and Betty Hutton was unwatchable.

To be fair, I never liked Annie Get Your Gun (was anyone else rooting for Annie to shoot Frank?!), so I don't think even Judy at her peak would have been able to save it.

I adore That's Entertainment I & III (I've griped about Part 2 before, so no need to dredge that one up), and while not every MGM musical was a masterpiece, they always pulled out all the stops, I respect that. For instance, as many times as I've seen it, the "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" number from The Great Ziegfeld never- and I do mean never- fails to make my jaw plummet. Seriously, I can't even imagine the budget for that!

I love the goodies and behind-the-scenes stuff of the third installment, and kudos to them for showing "Swing Trot" from The Barkleys of Broadway without the opening credits! It's not a great number, but I will take all the Astaire/Rogers I can get!

It will always piss me off that Lena Horne didn't get to play Julie in Show Boat. 

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I adore That's Entertainment I & III (I've griped about Part 2 before...

There are two bits I like in Part II: The opening credits, where Saul Bass had fun spoofing every corny way to display credits ever invented (book, scroll, petals in water, fire, sky, pyramids), and Bobby Van's hopping number from Small Town Girl. Again, I had never known the latter existed; now, of course, I've seen the whole movie thanks to TCM. Other than those, no thanks.

[Inquisitionist]

On 12/28/2020 at 4:33 PM, caracas1914 said:

Netflix shows so  so many foreign TV series, let alone movies, that I would think CC isn't that distracting once you get used to it. 

I find it horribly distracting when it's not needed.  My eyes keep getting drawn to reading ahead instead of listening to the actors.  Ugh.

[Inquisitionist]

On 12/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, WendyCR72 said:

Here is the link to the video to TCM Remembers 2020. So many names this year...

https://fb.watch/2qOCZJMO9c/

So fitting that it ends with the luminous Olivia de Havilland.  ❤️

[Rinaldo]

I also find it fitting that Tommy Rall and Ann Reinking get adjacent spots. Two immortal screen figures with skills that went far beyond their fabulous dancing.

[Charlie Baker]

This week's Noir Alley isn't available on Watch TCM, unfortunately, because it's worth seeking out.  Last fall, Noir Alley showed They Won't Believe Me, produced by the Hitchcock associate Joan Harrison, and Eddie Muller had as co-host Christina Lane, the author of a biography of  Ms. Harrison.  She was back on in this installment, which featured another project of JH's, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry.  This movie may or may not be noir--but it sure is intriguing.  For me it played a bit more like an episode of the later Hitchcock TV series Ms. H. produced than a pure noir.  A man, whose once prominent family fell from grace, is the sole support of his two sisters, and does not have much of a life.  Until a younger woman joins the firm he designs fabrics for, and the two develop a romance.  But his one sister, supposedly a near invalid with multiple ills, does her best to prevent them from marrying, and from there things do get murky and noirish. I won't reveal anything, because this is a pretty obscure movie, and the resolution is completely out of left field. You might find it absurd, dismaying, off-putting, or a hoot. (The ending was studio dictated and led to JH leaving her position.)

George Sanders is excellent as the repressed Harry, who finally gets to cut loose--well, loose for him.  Geraldine Fitzgerald is even better as the passive-aggressive sister from hell.  I haven't done the research but this might have been the most substantial role Moyna MacGill had in Hollywood.  (She was Angela Lansbury's mother and had a career in the UK before coming here.) She plays the "nicer" sister very well.

I hope this turns up again in TCM's rotation. Not a classic, maybe not genuine noir, but compelling.

 

[Milburn Stone]

Thanks for the alert, @Charlie Baker. I DVR all the Noir Alleys, but it sometimes takes us a while to get around to watching them. I'll move this into prime position. I thought Christina Lane did a great job co-hosting They Won't Believe Me, so much so that I got her book on Joan Harrison (Phantom Lady) and devoured it.