TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[aradia22]

 

Watched The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, and more than anything else, was disappointed that William Powell didn't have more to do, but of course what he did was cherce.

Agreed. Powell was the one who seemed to be in the right movie and I wish Joan had ended up with him in the end... or at least had more scenes with him. I don't think Joan was bad at all but she was playing it a little more like a drama, trading witty barbs, instead of a comedy. We've discussed how much I dislike Robert Montgomery and I think a part like this really demanded a lovable rogue, not a smarmy weasel. I'd say he was the most miscast even if his line delivery wasn't bad.

[voiceover]

I get what you're saying about Stanwyck--but Thorn Birds gave her a great end of career role, to be sure.

 

See, if things had been reversed -- if there had been TCM before 70s TV -- I would've truly appreciated her in that role.  

[prican58]

voiceover, as  a kid I loved Batman, the tv series. I watched it during its initial run. Damned if my head didn't explode when finding that Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero, Walter Slezak, David Wayne, Vincent Price, Roddy MacDowell...(uhh I could go on couldn't I?) were all Hollywood actors of varying degrees of fame? 

 

 

[Julia]

Hey, somebody above mentioned Neil Hamilton (not just What Price Hollywood, Tarzan, the first talking Great Gatsby, and Brewster's Millions). And I will always see Commissioner Gordon.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

voiceover, as  a kid I loved Batman, the tv series. I watched it during its initial run. Damned if my head didn't explode when finding that Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero, Walter Slezak, David Wayne, Vincent Price, Roddy MacDowell...(uhh I could go on couldn't I?) were all Hollywood actors of varying degrees of fame

George Sanders!  Maurice Evans! Ida Lupino!  It is funny.  Seeing it now I understand my parents' reaction to it at the time.  "OMG, I cannot BELIEVE that TALLULAH BANKHEAD is guest starring on this silly show." Of course I had no idea who any of these old actors were or why my parents would be excited to see them, except I guess for Roddy McDowall and Vincent Price.

[aradia22]

The nice thing about those situations is you can enjoy a performance and then have a whole amazing career to discover. It's better than watching an episode of The Twilight Zone or some relatively contemporary made for TV movie and discovering that the actor hasn't done anything else really noteworthy or worth looking up.

[elle]

 

voiceover, as  a kid I loved Batman, the tv series

And what fun it was too watching TCM and discovering not only Alfred but also  Commissioner Gordon were once young with long varied careers of their own!

[Charlie Baker]

I put Remember the Night on my DVR. I love Barbara Stanwyck, have never seen this one.  It's directed by Mitchell Leisen, scripted by Preston Sturges, is Christmasy (Though I won't hold that against it :-) ), evidently just got a restoration for DVD, and comes highly recommended by Victoria Wilson in her mammoth bio of Stanwyck. (A book I do recommend, even if it is absurdly long to cover only the first half of Stanwyck's life and has some minor errors, I understand.)   Hope to watch the movie soon.  Any thoughts out there without spoilers?

Edited December 5, 2014 by Charlie Baker

[Bastet]

I haven't seen the film, but I've been deliberating on that Stanwyck biography since it was reviewed in The Nation.  I don't read a lot of biographies, but I do like Stanwyck and generally like hearing from/about people from that era in Hollywood.  But, my god, the length!  I'm not one to balk at a long book, but that just seems ridiculous for what is basically a part one.

[Charlie Baker]

One of the reasons it's so long is that it goes into a lot of detail about the era, show business in general, people with whom Stanwyck only had a slight connection and projects they worked on.  It mostly held my interest.  And considering the author is a pretty high profile executive level person in the publishing industry and it took her a very long time to complete this book, I wonder just when and if there'll be a follow up.

But yep, it probably didn't have to be that long.

[Rinaldo]

I saw Remember the Night last year; I've been trying to catch up on my Mitchell Leisen (in the last year I've seen Midnight, Swing High Swing Low, The Mating Season, and The Girl Most Likely -- plus a few Twilight Zone episodes). It's one of those odd genre-crossing scripts that they liked then (by Preston Sturges), mixing melodrama, romance, comedy, and a little dash of religion. The means by which Stanwyck and MacMurray find themselves spending time together and getting to know each other is more than usually contrived (though he's prosecuting her, he posts her bail when the courts break for Christmas, and drives her to the Midwest to see her family -- which is so horrible that instead she spends the holiday with his), but both stars are good; it's their first pairing. There are lovely details along the way among the shifts in tone, vignettes of the people they meet and their time together. I feel like the end got truncated, but apparently this is what they wanted.

 

There are two interesting participants, best known as dubbing voices but seen onscreen here. Sterling Holloway plays a member of Fred's family; his mild, high-pitched voice was a Disney constant as a narrator, the Cheshire Cat, Ben Franklin's mouse friend, and so on. And Martha Mears, who is seen briefly as a nightclub singer, has been immortalized on YouTube as the busiest dubber in Hollywood. She sang for over fifty actresses over the years, coloring her voice expertly to sound like each one. But here she is in person.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Rinaldo

[ratgirlagogo]

I read a lot, I love Barbara Stanwyck, and yet that damned biography is sitting right over there on the shelf across from the computer like a cinderblock.  I just can't bring myself to even start it, even though I know I'll find it interesting.

Edited December 6, 2014 by ratgirlagogo

[Crisopera]

I cannot recommend Remember the Night highly enough.  The Sturges script is absolutely beautiful (quite unlike his self-directed scripts like The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, which I adore).  And as I've said before (possibly too often) I think Mitchell Leisen is very underrated as a director.  I also think this is one of Stanwyck's best performances, but then, she's my favorite Hollywood Golden Age actress.  She's got to be the most versatile of them all - and nobody cried as convincingly as she.

 

The cinderblock Wilson bio is worth reading if you're as devoted to Stanwyck as I - and huge books like that are what Kindles are made for!

Edited December 6, 2014 by Crisopera

[MissT]

I absolutely love Barbara Stanwyck.  Every movie I ever saw her in was great - especially fond of Baby Face.  She was great in the Thorn Birds. I haven't read any of the books on her, but I have read that she and her son had a very troubled relationship and there are a lot of interesting rumors about her.  She definitely got around - if you know what I mean.  She slept with almost every leading man in Hollywood. Her affair with Robert Wagner during the filming of Titanic - he was 22 and she was 45.  Her numerous love affairs with men and women, her marriage to Robert Taylor being a marriage of convenience.  He preferred men over women.  I also read that she took his death very hard and they truly cared deeply for each other.  

[Charlie Baker]

The Victoria Wilson book paints her marriage to Taylor as fairly satisfactory for them both for a while.  Her first marriage, to Frank Fay, was a different story entirely, a dark Star-Is-Born-ish type relationship. Fay's movie career after vaudeville and Broadway success didn't amount to much, as hers obviously took off. And I don't recall seeing much of his film work turn up on TCM.  His best known movie was Nothing Sacred and he hardly had the lead in it. It was with him that she adopted her son, who suffered certainly for what his parents did to each other, but also for the demands of her career and her shifting feelings on being a mother, according to the book.

[Dejana]

Later today at 6:30 EST, TCM will show 1943 documentary December 7th, followed by From Here to Eternity at 8 PM.

[Julia]

There are two interesting participants, best known as dubbing voices but seen onscreen here. Sterling Holloway plays a member of Fred's family; his mild, high-pitched voice was a Disney constant as a narrator, the Cheshire Cat, Ben Franklin's mouse friend, and so on.

I actually think I saw Peter and the Wolf first, but it doesn't matter. Whenever I hear his voice, Winnie the Pooh is talking. Which can be a little weird, because he was in enough character roles over the year that he qualifies as That Guy, and frequently it's a little brainbending to hear That Guy talk like Pooh...

[voiceover]

How could you leave out Kaa from The Jungle Book?

 

I enjoyed last night's Robert-convo w/ Rory [daughter of Errol] Flynn.  Her father is one of my faves.  He died when she was 12, and I really felt it when she said, she wished she'd known him as an adult.

[Coffeecup]

How could you leave out Kaa from The Jungle Book?

 

I enjoyed last night's Robert-convo w/ Rory [daughter of Errol] Flynn.  Her father is one of my faves.  He died when she was 12, and I really felt it when she said, she wished she'd known him as an adult.

I enjoyed the interview with Rory too. I watched two of the Errol Flynn movies last night, "Objective, Burma" and "Rocky Mountain." In both movies Flynn played a tough, smart leader. They weren't like the glamorous matinee idol roles he so often played.

 

I had seen "Objective, Burma" before but had never seen "Rocky Mountain." Don't know how I missed that one all these years, because I love Westerns. RM had many features I enjoy in the genre: lots of horses, exciting chase scenes, cavalry charges, solider/Indian fights, and the stark beautiful desert scenery (New Mexico). This is a black-and-white film, but I love b&w, and the scenery looked just about as beautiful as it would have in color. The supporting cast was very strong, especially Slim Pickens. I was surprised to see on the TCM listing of RM that  reviewer Leonard Maltin gave RM only two and a half stars. I would have given it three and a half stars. Not a profound film, but a good solid Western, and Flynn did a wonderful job.

[Bastet]

I'm curious to hear others' opinions on Rocky Mountain -- I am not a fan of westerns, but my dad is, so I tend to toss in a couple of westerns on DVD with each selection of birthday and Christmas gifts.  I'm largely flying blind because, again, not my genre, and running out of options as the years pass, so recommendations are always appreciated.  RM is available on DVD, so I'd love to hear other posters chime in on its merits. 

[Milburn Stone]

Just went to Netflix to see if they have Rocky Mountain on DVD, and they do. But here's the weird thing. Next to the entry on Rocky Mountain is artwork of a DVD cover showing Errol Flynn and the title...Montana. The capsule description sounds like Rocky Mountain, though. So I'm wondering, did Netflix just put in the wrong artwork, or is it possible that Rocky Mountain was actually re-named Montana at some point in its release history?

[Crisopera]

Montana and Rocky Mountain are two separate films, both from 1950.  His leading lady in Montana is Alexis Smith - I'm sure she enjoyed working with Flynn, since he was one of the few leading men in Hollywood taller than she!

[Milburn Stone]

Well, I'll put it in my queue, and hope to receive the movie they're calling Rocky Mountain, and not the movie called Montana that they've used the artwork from.

[Bastet]

The 2014 TCM Remembers is up.

[voiceover]

Here's a couple of under-the-radar Westerns:

Yellow Sky (1948) with Gregory Peck & Anne Baxter.  She's a tomboy who tries to hide the silver mine her grandfather discovered from Peck's gang of outlaws.    They fall in love, blahblah...it's on that other classic film wannabe channel from time to time.

The Last Wagon (1956) with Richard Widmark.  He's a half-breed who guides some settlers through suspect territory, falling for Felicia Farr (Mrs Jack Lemmon) along the way.  A great cinematic smooch toward the end.

[prican58]

TCM Remembers 2014 is great. So many big time, famous folks who passed on. This may be the most. The fact that they start the reel with 2 very famous ones and end with arguably, the biggest star ever who was America's darling just shows how much talent was lost. 

 

This was a supreme effort by whoever headed up the project. Thank goodness a certain 98 year old guy didn't make it.

 

Is Kirk Douglas the last remaining huge male star of Old Hollywood?  

[Julia]

I think he just might be.

And, having looked that up, I can't believe Louise Rainer is still here.

[Wiendish Fitch]

The TCM Remembers 2014 faked me out but good. I thought for sure they'd forgotten

Shirley Temple

, but they saved her for the end. One of their best.

[Milburn Stone]

I love how they interspersed the superstars all the way through with those less well-known. It had the effect of honoring the less well-known in a way they fully deserved. (No sense of ranking, as would be communicated by a structure that built to all the "important people.")

Edited December 12, 2014 by Milburn Stone

[Rinaldo]

Are there any more chances to see that if I missed it?

[Bastet]

Do you mean TCM Remembers, Rinaldo?  Just click on the link in my original post about it; that takes you to where it is on the TCM website.

 

I love how they interspersed the superstars all the way through with those less well-known.

 

Yes, that's one of the things I always so appreciate about TCM Remembers.  This year, I was happy to see James Rebhorn included, as he was one of my favorite character actors (even though he'll always be Guiding Light's Bradley Raines to me).

[kassa]

I don't know what I have to do to get TCM.  I had it when my cable bill was $17/month, back in the 80s.  I think there were 25 channels or something.  But now I'm paying over $200 (well, internet and phone bundled in) and I can't get it.  I have HBO, but no TCM.   My mom says the same (and at one point she had ALL the movie channels).  I have Comcast.

 

 

It's really frustrating, but I can't really justify upping my bill even further for this one channel.

[3pwood]

It's really frustrating, but I can't really justify upping my bill even further for this one channel.

 

In my view, the only single channel worth upping your bill for would be TCM.   I did some 20 years ago & have never regretted it.  I figure that I enjoy it at least 10 times more than anything else on TV, so I'm really getting 10 (or more) extra channels for the increase in the bill.  

[prican58]

kassa, I think that if you watch HBO with a certain amount of consistancy you could still see the shows/movies on netflix or by buying the dvd;s. Granted you wouldn't be watching live or in the actual season but you could see them. Personally, I would dump HBO and get TCM, if that's possible.   Just sayin'.

 

Rinaldo, "utube" has it up under TCM Remembers 2014. I did that b/c the link took too long to buffer.

 

Again, great job by the TCMers.

 

Milburn, I also liked how they interspersed clips of the people they already acknowledged, throughout the entire video. They showed actor X and then a minute or so later they showed that same actor again in a moment long clip.

Edited December 12, 2014 by prican58

[voiceover]

I found a new Favorite Line.  This one's from Mr Blandings.  Pardon the paraphrase:

"It's just four walls and a couple of nail kegs, but to me it'll always be home."

-- I LOVE Melvyn Douglas!

if you watch HBO with a certain amount of consistancy you could still see the shows/movies on netflix or by buying the dvds

 

Of course, the only real problem with watching the classics on video: No Robert.

Edited December 12, 2014 by voiceover

[Rinaldo]

Do you mean TCM Remembers, Rinaldo?  Just click on the link in my original post about it

Thank you, Bastet. Catching up with topics occasionally as I do, I saw your original post one day, and the other posts referring to it on a different visit, so I foolishly thought it was a particular telecast and wasn't sure how to find it. Yes, this was lovely.

[Crisopera]

Goodness, TCM Remembers is beautiful this year.  It moved me to tears (of course, it usually does.)  "I'll be waiting for you" killed me.

[Bastet]

I had forgotten Shirley Temple died this year, so I figured Lauren Bacall would be the closer.  When she instead came early on, but got a clip, I thought that was appropriate -- I like that they intersperse big-name stars with lesser knowns, but also do a little something extra for the BIG names.  When they got to James Garner, I thought he was the last one, and then "Little Shirley" started singing.  Well done.

 

Many on the TCM message board are criticizing the choice of music, and the overall tone these TCM Remembers pieces tend to take, feeling the song and images should create a more upbeat celebration of these people's lives/careers than a mourning of their passing.  I think the balance between those two things is a struggle every time someone dies, so I take the point, but I'm fine with it the way it is.  First of all, every year there are people memorialized who didn't die naturally at the end of a long life they were probably ready to leave behind given the state of their health.  Even with those who were so lucky, though, I still think it's sad they're gone.  I think of the rest of TCM's programming as a tribute to their work, so I rather like TCM Remembers being a mourning of their passing.  I don't find it maudlin or manipulative.

[Charlie Baker]

I too thought TCM Remembers was, as usual, tastefully, artistically done, and entirely appropriate.  Something tells me a lighter, more celebratory tone would draw maybe as much criticism as the customary elegiac one. 

 

I watched Lili (which I haven't seen since childhood) and Summer Stock as part of the Charles Walters Friday Night Spotlight.  (And just might check out the biography written by the cohost.) Lili still works for me as a lovely little fable, even if some of it is not exactly PC. (I actually forgot

the puppeteer strikes Lili.

) It works because somehow Leslie Caron's utter, simple sincerity still works. (Though I read on IMDB she thought the movie could damage her career.) I don't know what contemporary kids might make of it.  Summer Stock has Kelly and Garland and that's more than enough. I'm glad Kelly did it, instead of Mickey Rooney, who I guess was intially mentioned for it, to make it kind of an adult Judy and Mickey reunion Let's Put On a Show musical. I didn't stay up for or DVR the notorious Torch Song.

 

Caught the second half of My Fair Lady--another instance of being drawn in without intending to be.  I enjoyed it more than the last time I watched it.  It is great that it is so faithful to the stage version, that it preserves Harrison's performance, that it is so distinctively designed.  And I enjoy Audrey Hepburn too, even with the dubbing factor. I was exposed to Pygmalion first, so I really appreciate the extensive use of Bernard Shaw's dialogue.  Perhaps it is due to the shortened attention span of us all, but the movie can feel a bit slow-paced.  I'm not sure it would be a matter of cutting anything to improve that, and I would shudder at the thought of anyone remaking it. 

Edited December 14, 2014 by Charlie Baker

[Crisopera]

I love My Fair Lady on stage, but I think the movie is very heavy and slow, Audrey Hepburn is miscast, and I much prefer Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller (from the 1938 Pygmalion) as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.  That said, it really deserved all the awards for those amazing costumes and set design, and Stanley Holloway is great.

[Milburn Stone]

I'm glad you mentioned the Charles Walters bio, Charlie Baker, because I wasn't watching Friday night and wouldn't have known about the book. Just found it on Amazon, and the blurbs and reviews--all raves--convinced me to order it without a second thought. (Combined with the subject, a director I've always admired and wanted to know more about.)

 

Here's the link:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Walters-Director-Hollywood-Classics/dp/0813147212

[voiceover]

I was glad to hear Robert echo my own thoughts about Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady -- even though I think she's fine in the role, it's a real miscast.

 

Every year I think they can't top themselves doing TCM Remembers, and every year, they do.  As usual, by the end, I was just...gutted.

[Rinaldo]

I love My Fair Lady on stage, but I think the movie is very heavy and slow, Audrey Hepburn is miscast, and I much prefer Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller (from the 1938 Pygmalion) as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.  

I've seen My Fair Lady a number of times onstage (though it's been a while now), and noticed that it's at risk in performance: though expertly structured, it's quite long, and it needs brisk, energetic pacing to come off as it should. It didn't get that in the movie.

 

I'll go halves on the two principals: Wendy Hiller is incomparable as Eliza, keeping her true and complicated to the end (I, like most people I know, adore Audrey Hepburn in general, but she's not well cast here, and like many Elizas she relaxes once she gets to be pretty and cultured). But Rex Harrison has something special that made him brilliant in many Shaw roles: he could convey that intellectual callousness and unintended cruelty and remain somehow innocent of it -- he didn't become hateful, just amusing in his self-absorption. That's essential to keeping Shaw buoyant (Howard played him too romantically and gently).

[voiceover]

Howard played him too romantically and gently

 

Wow, agree to disagree.  I thought he was spot-on.  Maybe he came off "romantic" because he's so...pretty.  But IIRC, even GBS liked him as Higgins.

[voiceover]

p.s.: Fuming over the stupid oversight of the usually reliable TCM programmers to include what even their website calls the greatest Scrooge: Alastair Sim's in the 1951 Christmas Carol.  I think they showed it last year, but not this year!  wt...everybadword.

[Milburn Stone]

Flipped over to A Night to Remember just in time to see the Titanic going down. There was something really, really horrifying about those shots--far more horrifying than anything in Cameron's Titanic.

[Rinaldo]

But IIRC, even GBS liked [Leslie Howard] as Higgins.

Shaw was usually circumspect about knocking the films Pascal made of his work, but we do have a famous quote from him on this performance: "The trouble with Leslie is, he always thinks he's playing Romeo."

[voiceover]

I've heard different accounts.  Who knows what he really thought? Contrarian bastard.  Used to love everything he wrote, until I read more of his non-theatrical stuff.  I think Harrison did well because he played so many of the parts that were Shaw-as-character, and they shared certain qualities.  But I still love Howard best in that role.

Edited December 17, 2014 by voiceover

[Julia]

Speaking of Leslie Howard, Pygmalion and Romeo, does anyone else think it must have been weird for Mrs. Patrick Campbell (the actress Shaw wrote Eliza Doolittle for) to play Juliet's nurse in the Norma Shearer Romeo and Juliet with Henry Higgins playing Romeo?

Edited December 17, 2014 by Julia

[Crisopera]

Actually,  the Howard/Shearer R&J came before the Pygmalion movie.  But still, it must have been weird for Mrs. Patrick Campbell not to be the star of anything she was in.  Apparently, she was quite something - I don't know how apocryphal it is, but I've always heard that she said to Irving Thalberg (Shearer's husband and a huge producer at MGM) about Shearer, "She has such pretty little eyes - and so close together!"  Marie Dressler played a version of her in Dinner at Eight.