TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[caracas1914]

On 12/31/2020 at 5:47 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.

 

The masochistic "The Party's Over" gets me every time.  

[Rinaldo]

17 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry.  This movie may or may not be noir--but it sure is intriguing. 

It sure is. I finished watching my DVR recording last night, and... hoo boy. As the hosts immediately agreed, the ending is clearly an after-the-fact insertion (the director and one of the principals refused to return to shoot it), even if one knows nothing of the movie's history. For another, it's unsurprising and a relief to learn that it was relocated from a small English town to New England, because the characters and their attitudes (notably the spinster sister's possessiveness about not wanting her brother, who supports her, to marry) make a kind of sense in Agatha Christie territory that they don't in 1945 New Hampshire. Also, call me overly literal, but I found myself thinking (as with Rain Man and The Game) "Their poor mother, waiting so long between children" when I'm invited to accept Moyna Macgill, George Sanders, and Geraldine Fitzgerald (b. 1895, 1906, 1913) as siblings. Well, one should see it for oneself.

Just in passing: This is one of the rare movies in which Sanders got to display his excellent singing skills, if only for a moment. (The big one, of course, is Call Me Madam opposite Ethel Merman.)

This may indeed be one of the biggest roles Macgill got in Hollywood (Wikipedia singles out Frenchman's Creek and The Picture of Dorian Gray -- of course her daughter Angela Lansbury has a leading role in the latter -- and I noticed her also in Green Dolphin Street); she's present throughout the story. At times she looks uncannily like her daughter later in life, in the Murder, She Wrote years, and just occasionally a vocal inflection will sound like her too.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

6 hours ago, caracas1914 said:

The masochistic "The Party's Over" gets me every time.  

That scene is on YouTube, and I agree, from that scene, you'd conclude it was a good movie.

[Mindthinkr]

I am in Little Lord Fauntleroy heaven right now. I have always wanted to see this. I have loved Freddie Bartholomew ever since Captain Courageous. 

[Milburn Stone]

On 1/3/2021 at 2:16 PM, Charlie Baker said:

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry...

We watched the other night, and were blown away. We even liked the ending! Because we interpreted it differently than most.

Before I go on, let me concede that Joan Harrison herself thought the ending was a sell-out, and was so enraged she broke her contract with Universal over it. But I like to meet a finished work of art on its own terms, rather than be influenced by external information. So Universal's motivations in demanding the new ending, what they thought the new ending meant, what Harrison thought the new ending meant, are all irrelevant to me.

I want to indemnify myself against charges of "contrarianism." We reacted the way we did because we honestly thought the ending was supposed to mean what we took it to mean. I will now hide that, because even though it's a 76-year old movie, one should encounter it with no prior information.

Spoiler

We did not take the ending to mean "it had all been just a bad dream." We went back to the moment just before, when George Sanders is holding the vial of poison. We think we are meant to understand that he is considering taking it himself, to escape his guilt. However, he decides against doing this, dumping it into the planter. Then, the "happy ending" happens. We think the place the movie departs from reality is when he dumps the poison in the planter. Instead, in reality, he took it himself. HE IS DEAD NOW. The so-called happy ending is what George Sanders imagines, as a now-dead man. None of that is real. The movie ends tragically, and the "happy ending" of Sanders' imagination-in-death makes the movie's ending goose-bumpily tragic.

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Milburn Stone

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 12/26/2020 at 9:20 AM, 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.

I'm dependent on closed captions, and wish I could get some sort of actual knowledge about how they're produced, just so I could quit wondering why they go wrong.  On some shows, it looks like they're based on what the captioner can hear (hence the "inaudible"), and on some shows, the captions have words that are completely different from what's spoken.  I think those may be based on the script, and the actor altered that line a little, because the meaning is always the same.  I've noticed this in particular on episodes of Seinfeld, where a character will say "I was so mad at him" and the captions say "He made me so mad" or something like that.

And I wonder if nowadays, there are computer-generated captions, which could account for some of the nonsensical ones. 

It's also frustrating when the captions lag significantly, because that makes it harder to follow them, of course, but there will be a word I didn't hear and I'll have to keep it in my head until it shows up in the captions, while still following what's going on in real time, and 90% of the time what I didn't hear doesn't appear in the captions, either.  Arrrggghhh.

[Suzn]

Today I am enjoying early Norma Shearer movies that I'd never seen before: The Last of Mrs Cheyney, Their Own Desire, Let Us Be Gay, Riptide and next up Idiot's Delight and Escape. I didn't know there was a 1929 Mrs Cheyney, only knew of the 1937 Joan Crawford version.  The only one I've seen before is Idiot's Delight.  I'm so glad to see these (mostly) pre-code movies and always glad to see Norma Shearer.

[BooksRule]

4 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I'm dependent on closed captions, and wish I could get some sort of actual knowledge about how they're produced, just so I could quit wondering why they go wrong.  On some shows, it looks like they're based on what the captioner can hear (hence the "inaudible"), and on some shows, the captions have words that are completely different from what's spoken.  I think those may be based on the script, and the actor altered that line a little, because the meaning is always the same.  I've noticed this in particular on episodes of Seinfeld, where a character will say "I was so mad at him" and the captions say "He made me so mad" or something like that.

I re-watched 'The Godfather' this past weekend, and turned on the CC a couple of times when I could catch what they were saying.  I noticed that in all instances the CC wasn't exactly word-for-word but it was close.  Sometimes I wonder if they are using a different (earlier) version of a script.

There used to be a thread about closed-captioning in the old Television Without Pity's site forums that was very interesting to read. Some who posted do CC for a living and it was interesting to get a 'behind the scenes' point of view. I might have to go to archive.org to see that thread was archived by someone.

[EtheltoTillie]

7 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

We watched the other night, and were blown away. We even liked the ending! Because we interpreted it differently than most.

Before I go on, let me concede that Joan Harrison herself thought the ending was a sell-out, and was so enraged she broke her contract with Universal over it. But I like to meet a finished work of art on its own terms, rather than be influenced by external information. So Universal's motivations in demanding the new ending, what they thought the new ending meant, what Harrison thought the new ending meant, are all irrelevant to me.

Before going on, I want to indemnify myself against charges of "contrarianism." We reacted the way we did because we honestly thought the ending was supposed to mean what we took it to mean. I will now hide that, because even though it's a 76-year old movie, one should encounter it with no prior information.

  Reveal spoiler

We did not take the ending to mean "it had all been just a bad dream." We went back to the moment just before, when George Sanders is holding the vial of poison. We think we are meant to understand that he is considering taking it himself, to escape his guilt. However, he decides against doing this, dumping it into the planter. Then, the "happy ending" happens. We think the place the movie departs from reality is when he dumps the poison in the planter. Instead, in reality, he took it himself. HE IS DEAD NOW. The so-called happy ending is what George Sanders imagines, as a now-dead man. None of that is real. The movie ends tragically, and the "happy ending" of Sanders' imagination-in-death makes the movie's ending goose-bumpily tragic.

 

I’ve put this on my watch list. Seems to be unavailable anywhere right now. 

They showed Crossing Delancey the other day by coincidence before Joan Micklin Silver died. I hope someone shows Hester Street. 

[EtheltoTillie]

I watched Family Plot this evening on a whim, not having seen it since its release. It really was a delight. It was like watching for the first time as I didn’t remember the plot. While it is so-called lesser Hitchcock it was very well done and funny. Kudos to John Williams score. 

[EtheltoTillie]

More dispatches from your grounded COVID reporter.  Caught the last half of Saboteur. Very entertaining. Good old Norman Lloyd still going at 106!  It’s fun to see Hitchcock tropes that show up in later films, such as the auction and the Statue of Liberty.

Midnight Lace. B grade Dial M For Murder. Too long for the preposterous plot. I was really rolling my eyes halfway through. Same Scotland Yard detective in both movies. John Williams. 
 

not same John Williams as composer above LOL. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by GussieK

[Wiendish Fitch]

10 hours ago, GussieK said:

I watched Family Plot this evening on a whim, not having seen it since its release. It really was a delight. It was like watching for the first time as I didn’t remember the plot. While it is so-called lesser Hitchcock it was very well done and funny. Kudos to John Williams score. 

Family Plot is decent, even though I find the final shot baffling.

Spoiler

Why does Barbara Harris wink at the camera? Was she really possessed? Or was she faking it? We already know she's a phony spiritualist (redundant, but humor me), so why wink at the audience? Maybe I'm just dense and missing something.

 

[EtheltoTillie]

32 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Family Plot is decent, even though I find the final shot baffling.

  Hide contents

Why does Barbara Harris wink at the camera? Was she really possessed? Or was she faking it? We already know she's a phony spiritualist (redundant, but humor me), so why wink at the audience? Maybe I'm just dense and missing something.

 

I saw a story quoted in IMDB. You could google it. I’m not great at spoiler  tags. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

25 minutes ago, GussieK said:

I saw a story quoted in IMDB. You could google it. I’m not great at spoiler  tags. 

*smacks forehead* 

I usually consult IMDb after every movie I watch! Man, should have seen that. Forgive my ignorance.

[EtheltoTillie]

7 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

*smacks forehead* 

I usually consult IMDb after every movie I watch! Man, should have seen that. Forgive my ignorance.

No problem. I was coming back here to say check out Karger’s remarks at the end of the movie on Watch TCM. 

Also notable in the movie. Ed Lauter all around scary!  Katherine Helmond not even recognizable to me. Nicholas Colasanto (Coach from Cheers) hysterical in his early scene. 

Edited January 10, 2021 by GussieK

[EtheltoTillie]

It’s Rod Taylor Day, and what better way to kick it off than with Hotel, the first of the classic omnibus book adaptations from Arthur Hailey. What a hoot. I had not seen this one before. Standouts are Richard Conte, Merle Oberon, burglar Karl Malden. and of course Rod Taylor. Excellent jazz singing by Carmen Macrae. 

Spoiler

Deus ex machina, the elevator drop  

 

[benteen]

Glad to see that one of my favorites, Clue, will be on TCM tonight.

[Mindthinkr]

3 hours ago, benteen said:

Glad to see that one of my favorites, Clue, will be on TCM tonight.

Thanks for mentioning that. I’ve never seen it and have always wanted to. Here is my opportunity!  TCM 9:45pm EST 

[tennisgurl]

4 hours ago, benteen said:

Glad to see that one of my favorites, Clue, will be on TCM tonight.

I love Clue so much, I am so excited that its on tonight! 

"To make a long story short..."

"TOO LATE."

On the absolute side of the movie spectrum, they are also playing Night of the Hunter today, one of the creepiest movies of the 1950s. Robert Mitchum is just nightmare fuel incarnate and the camera work is more unnerving and scary than a hundred buckets of blood in a bloodier modern horror movie. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Oh yeah that and cape fear. They were doing a promo for night of the hunter over the weekend. 

[EtheltoTillie]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I love Clue so much, I am so excited that its on tonight! 

"To make a long story short..."

"TOO LATE."

On the absolute side of the movie spectrum, they are also playing Night of the Hunter today, one of the creepiest movies of the 1950s. Robert Mitchum is just nightmare fuel incarnate and the camera work is more unnerving and scary than a hundred buckets of blood in a bloodier modern horror movie. 

I don’t see that showing in our area. It is showing January 23 in NYC. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Sorry for more posts. Night of the Hunter was on this afternoon, but they don’t seem to have added it to Watch TCM. It will be repeated on Jan 23. 

[Bastet]

If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic, I could come perform Clue in your home for anyone who misses it; I know the movie verbatim.  So do three of my friends, so if we got a few more, we could each take a role.  The witty dialogue, the social commentary, the performances ... it's a delight.

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

"To make a long story short..."

"TOO LATE."

I have to bite my tongue whenever someone other than my friends and family who are used to me saying it and know its origin says "To make a long story short," because interjecting with "Too late" is as natural to me as breathing.

(Same with "You could've fooled me," because, thanks to Moonlighting's Maddie Hayes, my instinct is to snap, "A gnat with a lobotomy could fool you.")

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, GussieK said:

Night of the Hunter was on this afternoon, but they don’t seem to have added it to Watch TCM. It will be repeated on Jan 23. 

It's certainly very much worth seeing, if anybody hasn't. Emphasis on its creepiness and horror factor, though accurate, should be augmented by awareness of how beautifully it's made. Charles Laughton directed, marvelously, and it's a shame this is the only time he did so. (If he'd lived a little longer, into the late 1960s, he might have blossomed in the new atmosphere and found new horizons as both actor and director.) He got remarkable performances out of everybody: the kids, Shelley Winters, Mitchum, and especially Lillian Gish (though perhaps she didn't need much coaxing -- the behind-the-scenes extras on the Criterion set show how completely "present" she was in one take after another, each reading subtly different but all good). It's a unique piece of filmmaking.

[EtheltoTillie]

14 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

It's certainly very much worth seeing, if anybody hasn't. Emphasis on its creepiness and horror factor, though accurate, should be augmented by awareness of how beautifully it's made. Charles Laughton directed, marvelously, and it's a shame this is the only time he did so. (If he'd lived a little longer, into the late 1960s, he might have blossomed in the new atmosphere and found new horizons as both actor and director.) He got remarkable performances out of everybody: the kids, Shelley Winters, Mitchum, and especially Lillian Gish (though perhaps she didn't need much coaxing -- the behind-the-scenes extras on the Criterion set show how completely "present" she was in one take after another, each reading subtly different but all good). It's a unique piece of filmmaking.

Whatever promo I was watching the other night talked about how well Laughton worked with the actors, because he was an actor. Very interesting. 

[LilWharveyGal]

2 hours ago, Bastet said:

If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic, I could come perform Clue in your home for anyone who misses it; I know the movie verbatim.  So do three of my friends, so if we got a few more, we could each take a role.  

I'm right there with ya. It's you and me, honeybunch.

[EtheltoTillie]

46 minutes ago, LilWharveyGal said:

I'm right there with ya. It's you and me, honeybunch.

What are the chances?  They’re having a Clue themed party on tonight’s episode of the Goldbergs. Yes it’s an awful show, but I watch it occasionally.  

[Rinaldo]

Did anybody else watch Deathtrap when it was shown a week ago as part of their whodunnit theme? I have such tangled-up mixed feelings about it. I loved Ira Levin's play for its elegant symmetrical meta construction when it was new; but the movie discards a lot of that, some inevitably because it's a movie and not a play, but some needlessly and hurtfully. The story seemed daring and surprising when new, but now a crucial aspect of it seems so dated that I doubt any theater companies want to do it any more. At least half the cast (Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth) are badly miscast, as well as hurtfully directed by Sidney Lumet, who really has no affinity with the material. And so it goes.

I have similarly mixed feelings about The Last of Sheila, shown the same night, though in this case it's an original screenplay and a very ingenious one. But again some of the attitudes seem too dated to be enjoyable or even comprehensible now. Plus it's not helpfully directed (some of the worst sound recording ever, in terms of incomprehensible dialogue), and I would wish about half the cast replaced. At least this time Dyan Cannon (a favorite performer of mine, actually) is fun despite being a dubious match to the role.

[Milburn Stone]

44 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

I have similarly mixed feelings about The Last of Sheila, shown the same night, though in this case it's an original screenplay and a very ingenious one. But again some of the attitudes seem too dated to be enjoyable or even comprehensible now. Plus it's not helpfully directed (some of the worst sound recording ever, in terms of incomprehensible dialogue), and I would wish about half the cast replaced. At least this time Dyan Cannon (a favorite performer of mine, actually) is fun despite being a dubious match to the role.

I liked it when it came out, but when I started watching it in recent times, I couldn't. I so wanted to. The screenplay is co-written by Sondheim, for God's sake! Seeing it now (or starting to), I didn't just find that it hadn't aged well; I wondered if it was ever any good, and if a spell had been cast over me in 1973. 

Fellow Dyan Cannon lover here. A DC movie that totally holds up is Heaven Can Wait.

[Charlie Baker]

I have to disagree about The Last of Sheila.  I will concede that it is dated, or very much of its time, but the script, as Rinaldo says, is ingenious.  And the cast is strong--I'll even allow Raquel Welch, who doesn't get lost in the mix, to her credit, even if she didn't endear herself to her castmates, to put it mildly. Dyan Cannon pretty much steals all her scenes, but everyone else is quite good.  It still entertains me. 

And Rinaldo is spot on about Deathtrap.  The play might have been the last gasp of that kind of intricate stage thriller--some fairly high-profile attempts at that kind of thing in the wake of Deathtrap's theatrical success failed.  And it wasn't well transferred to film.

[EtheltoTillie]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Did anybody else watch Deathtrap when it was shown a week ago as part of their whodunnit theme? I have such tangled-up mixed feelings about it. I loved Ira Levin's play for its elegant symmetrical meta construction when it was new; but the movie discards a lot of that, some inevitably because it's a movie and not a play, but some needlessly and hurtfully. The story seemed daring and surprising when new, but now a crucial aspect of it seems so dated that I doubt any theater companies want to do it any more. At least half the cast (Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth) are badly miscast, as well as hurtfully directed by Sidney Lumet, who really has no affinity with the material. And so it goes.

I have similarly mixed feelings about The Last of Sheila, shown the same night, though in this case it's an original screenplay and a very ingenious one. But again some of the attitudes seem too dated to be enjoyable or even comprehensible now. Plus it's not helpfully directed (some of the worst sound recording ever, in terms of incomprehensible dialogue), and I would wish about half the cast replaced. At least this time Dyan Cannon (a favorite performer of mine, actually) is fun despite being a dubious match to the role.

I have to agree. I watched it a few months ago. 

[Mindthinkr]

I turned to Dr Zhivago just in time to see my favorite scene. Where the ice crystals on the window fade to the blooming daffodils. It’s blows me away every time. (Saw this movie when I was a small kid. I didn’t understand it, but the cinematography was not lost on me.) 

I did catch most of Clue last night. Clever and I loved the alternative endings and the cards Turing over to show the cast. 

[Rinaldo]

4 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

And the cast is strong--I'll even allow Raquel Welch, who doesn't get lost in the mix, to her credit, even if she didn't endear herself to her castmates, to put it mildly.

Yes. Actually (though I realize all this is too hypothetical to be worth sharing), if I were to partially recast this movie, Welch would be one of the ones I'd keep (despite the real-life issues you refer to). She's playing a movie star, and certainly convinces as one. (And, despite the fame of her figure, I kept noticing how magnetic her facial close-ups are.) I would also ask for a bit of rewriting. But of course, the movie is what it is, and isn't going to change.

[benteen]

On 1/13/2021 at 6:27 PM, Rinaldo said:

It's certainly very much worth seeing, if anybody hasn't. Emphasis on its creepiness and horror factor, though accurate, should be augmented by awareness of how beautifully it's made. Charles Laughton directed, marvelously, and it's a shame this is the only time he did so. (If he'd lived a little longer, into the late 1960s, he might have blossomed in the new atmosphere and found new horizons as both actor and director.) He got remarkable performances out of everybody: the kids, Shelley Winters, Mitchum, and especially Lillian Gish (though perhaps she didn't need much coaxing -- the behind-the-scenes extras on the Criterion set show how completely "present" she was in one take after another, each reading subtly different but all good). It's a unique piece of filmmaking.

Laughton actually hated children and had Mitchum work with the kids since he had three of his own.

[voiceover]

"It's late and I'm very very tired of youth and love and self-sacrifice."

-- Kit in Old Acquaintance

Another one of Bette Davis's Best Lines Evah, Darling.  Of course I never got it until recently.  Now it's on my business cards.

Probably one of the best women's friendship films ever made.

[Rinaldo]

19 hours ago, benteen said:

Laughton actually hated children and had Mitchum work with the kids since he had three of his own.

That's one of the legends proven false by the DVD extras I mentioned. We can see Laughton working with the children painstakingly.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

We streamed (and thoroughly enjoyed) Evil Under the Sun recently, and hoped to see Death on the Nile on TCM on-demand, but while it was up earlier in the week, it had been taken down by last night when we planned to watch it. (Also gone on Watch TCM.)

Que sera sera, and I'm sure it will be on one or another streaming platform again before long. In the meantime, what are the best Agatha Christie movies, in your opinion? (Either Marple or Poirot. Or neither.) We watched the early-seventies Murder on the Orient Express last night, which I thought was meh but Mrs. Stone liked it. (I think she'd like Albert Finney in anything.) 

With the encouragement of @Rinaldo and @Charlie Baker, we may give The Last of Sheila a try as a bit of faux-Christie. But I'd still love to have your thoughts on the best AC movies, among the many that have been made.

[Charlie Baker]

The original And Then There Were None from 1945 holds up well.  (The remakes (as Ten Little Indians) are pretty meh. ) Peter Ustinov's first outing as Poirot, Death on the Nile is well worth a look just to see Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith, and Bette Davis letting it rip in the same movie, and pretty good otherwise.  It will turn up again. Margaret Rutherford's turns as Miss Marple are fun. (Though I may have read somewhere Ms. Christie herself wasn't crazy about them.)

Speaking of faux Christie, I was more impressed than I thought I would be by Rian Johnson's Knives Out.  Which is way too recent for this forum.

[Rinaldo]

On 1/17/2021 at 4:29 PM, Milburn Stone said:

what are the best Agatha Christie movies, in your opinion? 

The first of the all-star extravaganzas, Murder on the Orient Express with Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Ingrid Bergman, and on and on, still stands out for me above all others. There'll never be a cast like that again, and they're not cameos -- they're all trapped together the whole time (plus the designs, and Richard Rodney Bennett's music!).

Evil under the Sun comes in a strong second for me, with Diana Rigg & Maggie Smith facing off, and Cole Porter music behind it all.

After that, and the 1945 And Then There Were None, I'm not enthusiastic about many of the others. The recent big-screen efforts have been more like fantasies inspired by vague memories of her books. And delightful though Margaret Rutherford was, she's not remotely Miss Marple -- she's a new creation, as are most of the screenplays devised for her (one of them even begins with a steal from Dorothy Sayers, though apparently I'm the only one who thinks so). 

So from there on, I'd say we have to turn to the TV adaptations: Miss Marple with Joan Hickson as infinitely the best embodiment of Jane Marple, David Suchet as Poirot (preferably the earlier seasons before Suchet took charge and decided they should be dark and religious, with lots of newly invented elements), plus possibly the best of the eight telefilms made for CBS in the 1980s (set in the present, and somewhat Americanized, but we get three more appearances by Ustinov as Poirot) though these require great selectivity. Likewise the best of the Partners in Crime series with Francesca Annis have their charm.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Rinaldo

[benteen]

Also TV but the 2015 BBC One And Then There Were None miniseries is great.  

[Milburn Stone]

What do we think about The Mirror Crack'd?

[EtheltoTillie]

You could do worse as a Martin Luther King Day offering than In the Heat of The Night. I really didn’t remember a thing about this, as I saw it in 1967 at the age of 12, and I would not have appreciated all its nuances. Wow, this was a powerful film. 

[Charlie Baker]

Given the premise and the people involved, The Mirror Crack'd should have been so much better than it was.  

[EtheltoTillie]

More Sidney Poitier:  Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is kind of silly.  No comparison to In the Heat of the Night, made same year.  I did not recognize Weezy Jefferson (Isabel Sanford) as the angry Black maid! 

[Wiendish Fitch]

13 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Given the premise and the people involved, The Mirror Crack'd should have been so much better than it was.  

It's okay, though I hate how poor MIss Marple is barely in it.

[EtheltoTillie]

4 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

It's okay, though I hate how poor MIss Marple is barely in it.

I just watched it based on the discussion here. It was as good as a Murder She Wrote episode.  And great cast.  

[Suzn]

On 1/17/2021 at 3:29 PM, Milburn Stone said:

We streamed (and thoroughly enjoyed) Evil Under the Sun recently, and hoped to see Death on the Nile on TCM on-demand, but while it was up earlier in the week, it had been taken down by last night when we planned to watch it. (Also gone on Watch TCM.)

....

With the encouragement of @Rinaldo and @Charlie Baker, we may give The Last of Sheila a try as a bit of faux-Christie. But I'd still love to have your thoughts on the best AC movies, among the many that have been made.

I think Death on the Nile is absolutely the best of the bunch with Evil Under the Sun close behind.  Peter Unstinov was excellent as Hercule Poirot and I quite enjoyed his portrayal.

On 1/17/2021 at 7:27 PM, Charlie Baker said:

The original And Then There Were None from 1945 holds up well.  (The remakes (as Ten Little Indians) are pretty meh. ) Peter Ustinov's first outing as Poirot, Death on the Nile is well worth a look just to see Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith, and Bette Davis letting it rip in the same movie, and pretty good otherwise.  It will turn up again. Margaret Rutherford's turns as Miss Marple are fun. (Though I may have read somewhere Ms. Christie herself wasn't crazy about them.)

Speaking of faux Christie, I was more impressed than I thought I would be by Rian Johnson's Knives Out.  Which is way too recent for this forum.

I'm sorry, I just can't stand Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple.  She doesn't seem a bit like the Miss Marple in the books.

I really liked Knives Out and found it a credible faux Christie.

On 1/18/2021 at 9:18 AM, Rinaldo said:

So from there on, I'd say we have to turn to the TV adaptations: Miss Marple with Joan Hickson as infinitely the best embodiment of Jane Marple, David Suchet as Poirot (preferably the earlier seasons before Suchet took charge and decided they should be dark and religious, with lots of newly invented elements), plus possibly the best of the eight telefilms made for CBS in the 1980s (set in the present, and somewhat Americanized, but we get three more appearances by Ustinov as Poirot) though these require great selectivity. Likewise the best of the Partners in Crime series with Francesca Annis have their charm.

It's too bad but IMO the superior ACs were made for TV.  Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and David Suchet as Hercule Poirot embody their characters in a way not seen in movies, although as I said above I did enjoy Peter Ustinov very much.

14 hours ago, GussieK said:

More Sidney Poitier:  Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is kind of silly.  No comparison to In the Heat of the Night, made same year.  I did not recognize Weezy Jefferson (Isabel Sanford) as the angry Black maid! 

I hadn't seen In the Heat of the Night for years and I was very impressed with it - probably even more than when seeing it new.  Even though I knew Sidney Poitier's character survived, it created tension and worry for him.  I will always love the scene of him being slapped and returning a slap.

Guess Who's Coming for Dinner - yes, silly is the word.  Just a silly fantasy with Sidney Poitier as the most perfect man ever created.  Ridiculous.

[Rinaldo]

On 1/19/2021 at 1:56 PM, Suzn said:

Guess Who's Coming for Dinner - yes, silly is the word.  Just a silly fantasy with Sidney Poitier as the most perfect man ever created.  Ridiculous.

The script has been performed as a stage play in recent years, at various regional theaters -- and I found this hard to believe but local reviews seemed to concur, that without alterations it now plays as comedy (and is intended to). Make of that what you will.

The movie The Mirror Crack'd is a sad misfire, in my opinion. For a variety of reasons (the quite sombre outcome isn't really suited to an all-star extravaganza, for one thing), but mostly because Angela Lansbury was all wrong as Miss Marple, whether the director, writer, or actress made the choice to show her as an acid-tongued smoker. Even Helen Hayes, who wasn't great in the role and wasn't British, came closer; and actually, Lansbury herself came closer to a proper Miss Marple later when playing Jessica Fletcher. (That's still not very close, though.)

By quite some distance the best Jane Marple was, as @Suzn said, Joan Hickson. She alone seemed like the unassuming old lady whom others might overlook and dismiss precisely because of her age and ordinariness, and not suspect that she saw everything and could understand what others couldn't.

Another endorsement of Knives Out here. It's didn't imitate or specifically echo Christie, but it achieved what she did: a mystery that turned itself on its head, with all clues displayed in plain sight, a surprising and yet inevitable outcome, and that "I should have seen it for myself" (but one never does) feeling after it was all over.

[Milburn Stone]

We watched the 1945 And Then There Were None last night, and were thoroughly delighted by it (and in its grip the whole time). Thanks to all you who have recommended it.

I did begin to suspect about 2/3 of the way through that

Spoiler

the attractive young couple would prove innocent of any past death and would survive in a romantic/comedic finale. But wait...this morning, I can remember why the young man was innocent, and why he was there despite this, but I can no longer remember why the young woman was unblemished by guilt, and if she was, why she was invited.

But then, a benefit of my age is that even though I adored Knives Out when it was released, I can no longer remember who the culprit was, and so will be able to enjoy the movie the next time I see it. :)

[MissAlmond]

The Brabourne produced trio (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun) remain my absolute favorites. I also really enjoy Margaret Rutherford's Murder Most Foul.  For me The Mirror Crack'ed was a misfire as was the 1985 version of Ordeal by Innocence due to the Dave Brubeck (whose music I normally love) score.  Not a single version of Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None have 100% worked for me, all are "off" in different ways.  There's a 2017 version of Crooked House floating around that I've never seen because it keeps moving around various media outlets and I'm never able to catch it.