TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[EtheltoTillie]

PSA:  they’re showing Bigger Than Life on Watch TCM for a few more days. They rarely show it, unlike Nicholas Ray’s other films. It’s based on a medical mystery that originally appeared in The New Yorker, but it is a thrilling Technicolor feast for the eyes and a sly commentary on suburban life in the fifties. 
oh, ETA stars James Mason. This was part of James Mason month or something. 

Edited November 20, 2022 by EtheltoTillie
Silly me. I forgot James Mason

[Amello]

I watched Diamond Head (1962) the other night starring Charlton Heston in the lead. It's a film about him opposing his sister marrying a Hawaii'an because of his prejudices. I ended up enjoying it because, for one, it was very soapy, and I think knowing Heston's conservative views I kept waiting for the ball to drop on his more open-minded sister, played by Yvette Mimieux, whereby she would go crazy or see the error of her ways, but was pleasantly surprised by the ultimate outcome in terms of the films messaging. Shamefully, I didn't even realize Aline McMahon was playing the mother of the Hawaii'an brothers, but to my testament the image of her I have in my mind is of her from golden age films like Gold Diggers of 1933, but when I did realize it took a minute to wrap my head around for obvious reasons.

[Rinaldo]

10 hours ago, Amello said:

I think knowing Heston's conservative views I kept waiting for the ball to drop on his more open-minded sister

I think it's a mistake to read Heston's well-known views in later life back into his earlier years. As evidenced in his annotated diaries (published in the late 1970s), he was very vocal for liberal causes through the 1960s, picketing a segregated theater that was showing one of his movies, speaking at events alongside MLK and James Baldwin, etc. Something happened later on that changed his outlook, but like most of us he was a complicated individual.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Rinaldo

[Rinaldo]

I took the opportunity of Angela Lansbury Day to see Gaslight again after several years (nice work at 17, Angie), and I have The Picture of Dorian Gray recorded if I want to check it out again (my memory is that it doesn't work at all, aside from the irresistible lady herself, but these reactions need to be re-checked every so often). 

I did watch my recording of Kind Lady, and my oddest takeaway was that I must have seen it before, despite no such memory. Probably I tuned in long ago without really paying attention. Anyway, I realized that I always knew what the next story beat was going to be. Despite that, I enjoyed it; it was fun seeing two grand old figures of the stage who didn't get all that many big movie roles, Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans, dominate the screen. And the Downton Abbey side of me loves to see the manners of a century ago embodied in such detail -- the upper-class lady alone in her house on the square sending the housemaid out with something for the carolers, and preparing Christmas gifts for all the local tradespeople and police, and receiving the man from the bank at the appointed hour in her drawing room. Lansbury was excellent but it was a very secondary role; her mother showed up for a moment too.

For another side of her, here she is presenting one of the nominated songs at the Oscars. Coming right after her Broadway run in Mame, it seems to be a declaration to Hollywood, "Look at all the talent and charisma you didn't bother to use!"

Edited November 23, 2022 by Rinaldo

[chessiegal]

Just watched The Automat. Wow, that was so good! Brought back so many good memories. It brought back a memory I had totally forgot about - H&H having a Christmas party for employee's children. My father was a factory worker at B.F. Goodrich. They would have a Christmas party for employee's children at the movie theater in Phoenixville, PA. Same theater that was featured in The Blob. ☺️

ETA: Lemon meringue pie was my favorite.

Edited November 23, 2022 by chessiegal

[roseha]

i just watched The Automat also, it was a lot of fun and certainly there was a lot I didn't know about its history.  The odd thing is I have a distinct memory of eating lunch at what I thought was the Automat on 42nd street near Grand Central but I was at a counter with table service.  So maybe it was a Chock Full o' Nuts?  Wish I could be more sure. 

Great to have all those guest interviewees but especially Mel Brooks!

[EtheltoTillie]

Mel Brooks and the lady who could give you 20 nickels. Loved it. They showed the Edward Hopper painting at the end. I saw the painting last weekend at the Whitney Museum. Currently running a great Hopper retrospective. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

16 hours ago, roseha said:

i just watched The Automat also, it was a lot of fun and certainly there was a lot I didn't know about its history.  The odd thing is I have a distinct memory of eating lunch at what I thought was the Automat on 42nd street near Grand Central but I was at a counter with table service.  So maybe it was a Chock Full o' Nuts?  Wish I could be more sure. 

Great to have all those guest interviewees but especially Mel Brooks!

If it had a counter, it was probably a Chock.  Then there was the conveyor belt sushi place on Fifth Ave. in the 30s.  You sat at a giant counter and the conveyor belt would travel around the entire restaurant and you would grab your small plates of sushi.  At the end they would total up how many plates you had.  Sort of a smashup of Chock Full o' Nuts and the Automat.  That place has probably been gone for 30 years. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[Rinaldo]

17 hours ago, roseha said:

... The odd thing is I have a distinct memory of eating lunch at what I thought was the Automat on 42nd street near Grand Central but I was at a counter with table service. .... 

Great to have all those guest interviewees but especially Mel Brooks!

As @EtheltoTillie said, if there was a counter and you were being served, that was by definition not an Automat. The essence of the Automat was getting your own food out of the little windows.

Yes, Mel Brooks was a riot. But so was Colin Powell, at the moment when someone was trying to neaten up his suit to hide a button, being nonplussed and asking with a smirk, "What's a button, when Mel Brooks is sitting over there looking like a bum?" I have no idea why that whole bit was left in, if timing was demanding that so much be edited out, but it was undeniably an amusingly unexpected bit of verité amid all the nostalgia.

[EtheltoTillie]

I watched Get Shorty last night, and it was hilarious.  I hadn't seen it since original run. 

BTW, Watch TCM is doing something really strange.  They're putting up a lot of movies on the list, but you can't watch all of them.  They used to not list the ones that weren't available.  So it's a nuisance to see the thumbnail and then find out you can't watch it.  What's up with that, TCM?

My cable screwed up my DVR recording of The Automat, and it wasn't available on Watch TCM.  But it is available on HBO Max!  Many of the TCM offerings are on HBO Max, as has been noted here in the past.  I'm waiting to see how Discovery+ ties in with HBO--eventually it will be one channel?

[Cobb Salad]

@EtheltoTillie it is available on Watch TCM - I am watching it now. 

[EtheltoTillie]

46 minutes ago, Cobb Salad said:

@EtheltoTillie it is available on Watch TCM - I am watching it now. 

Yes it is. Go figure. Also Rio Bravo, which was not available earlier. I wanted to watch it because it was mentioned when I was watching Get Shorty. They are still not making available some of the Paul Newman movies and The Last of Sheila, all of which have been discussed here. 

[SusieQ]

On 11/22/2022 at 5:52 PM, Rinaldo said:

I took the opportunity of Angela Lansbury Day to see Gaslight again after several years (nice work at 17, Angie), and I have The Picture of Dorian Gray recorded if I want to check it out again (my memory is that it doesn't work at all, aside from the irresistible lady herself, but these reactions need to be re-checked every so often). 

I did watch my recording of Kind Lady, and my oddest takeaway was that I must have seen it before, despite no such memory. Probably I tuned in long ago without really paying attention. Anyway, I realized that I always knew what the next story beat was going to be. Despite that, I enjoyed it; it was fun seeing two grand old figures of the stage who didn't get all that many big movie roles, Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans, dominate the screen. And the Downton Abbey side of me loves to see the manners of a century ago embodied in such detail -- the upper-class lady alone in her house on the square sending the housemaid out with something for the carolers, and preparing Christmas gifts for all the local tradespeople and police, and receiving the man from the bank at the appointed hour in her drawing room. Lansbury was excellent but it was a very secondary role; her mother showed up for a moment too.

For another side of her, here she is presenting one of the nominated songs at the Oscars. Coming right after her Broadway run in Mame, it seems to be a declaration to Hollywood, "Look at all the talent and charisma you didn't bother to use!"

WOW! She is fabulous! Thank you so much for posting. 

[Milburn Stone]

Re The Automat, watched the first ten minutes or so of That Touch of Mink last night. First time in a long time. Those first minutes, establishing the two leads plus the two secondaries (plus John Astin), are really great!

[voiceover]

Mickey Kuhn, who played 7-year-old Beau Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, has died.                                                                 
 
This is a story about the day they shot his famous line, and it’s so veryvery Old Hollywood, I had to share it here:

“Fleming took me aside and said, ‘I want to talk with you, Mickey. Your mother is dying and you’re going to be left all alone. How would you feel about that?’ I began crying, he handed me to Leslie Howard (who played his father), and it was shot in one take. Howard then handed me back to Fleming who said, ‘Now it’s over, you can calm down and even take a punch at me if you want.’ At that moment, someone on the set took a photo.”

[EtheltoTillie]

On 11/24/2022 at 10:29 AM, Milburn Stone said:

Re The Automat, watched the first ten minutes or so of That Touch of Mink last night. First time in a long time. Those first minutes, establishing the two leads plus the two secondaries (plus John Astin), are really great!

Aw that was fun. Audrey Meadows sneaking food to unemployed Doris through the little windows, and then she was caught by her boss, none other than Richard Deacon!  John Astin was a snake!  

[SomeTameGazelle]

Just watched a significant percentage of Kiss Me Kate. I always like Ann Miller (those legs! Those skirts!),  but when she's dancing with Tommy Rall I cannot take my eyes off him.

I like Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel in this although I find the plot drags in parts. I watched a fair chunk of Lovely to Look At as well recently and Lilli is much less insipid than Stephanie. 

Is there a reason why the car that takes Lilli from the theatre is right hand drive? Are they supposed to be in England even though all the actors and crew and gangsters are American? 

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Is there a reason why the car that takes Lilli from the theatre is right hand drive? Are they supposed to be in England even though all the actors and crew and gangsters are American? 

In the stage show (can't speak for the movie as I only watch the songs Tommy Rall is in), they're doing a pre-Broadway tryout in Baltimore. Maybe there's a production story behind the choice of car, but I have no idea what it would be.

[SomeTameGazelle]

13 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

In the stage show (can't speak for the movie as I only watch the songs Tommy Rall is in), they're doing a pre-Broadway tryout in Baltimore. Maybe there's a production story behind the choice of car, but I have no idea what it would be.

Thanks. I was thinking of you when I discovered that the mostly disappointing Lovely to Look At is a reworking of Roberta, which I have not managed to catch. 

[Rinaldo]

29 minutes ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

I was thinking of you when I discovered that the mostly disappointing Lovely to Look At is a reworking of Roberta, which I have not managed to catch. 

Aw, thanks for thinking of me. (I had no idea I'd put my stamp on Roberta.) I've only seen Lovely To Look At in the last couple of years, and was surprised at how thoroughly reworked it was. Randolph Scott's role got split in two, so Red Skelton could inherit the salon and Howard Keel could be a romantic lead; and therefore they had to add Ann Miller's character so there could be three couples. Songs were reassigned, new obstacles invented, you name it they did it. This is definitely not one of the immortals from MGM in the 50s.

[voiceover]

I call this: “Counterpoint”.

One of my favorite musical scenes is from one of my favorite musicals.  It’s one of those “Let’s sing a song we all know!” moments that just always works, whether it’s “Auld Lang Syne” at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, “Tiny Dancer” on the bus during Almost Famous, or “Wunderbar” (even though it’s really a fake ballad from a fake show) in Kiss Me, Kate.

It happens about 30 minutes in.  Our Story So Far has featured a bitter leading lady and her ex, a vain actor-turned-director who’s herding cats (disguised as performers) while producing his latest.  Then, in her dressing room on opening night, she interrupts their running feud to present a gift: the cork from their wedding champagne!  She’s saved it all this time, only to surprise him with it on the anniversary..of their divorce. The mood thaws as the two reminisce about their early married life (“That’s where I spent my honeymoon…at the Five & Dime!”), when they were in the chorus of a ridiculous operetta, and what was the name of that song? 

And then, Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson break into “Wunderbar”, a number both ridiculous (the two mug their way through the sappy lyrics), and ridiculously romantic (he takes her in his arms and waltzes her through the dressing rooms and out into the hallway).  Lilli proves to be sentimental and game; Fred shows he’s really still in love with her.

*sigh*  Then, of course, they kiss.  
 

[StatisticalOutlier]

TCM is showing The Automat again, on Sunday December 18 at 12:00 noon Eastern.

I was poking around the internet for automat information and found a story that an automat had opened in Jersey City.  Automat Kitchen.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/theyve-been-gone-for-20-years-but-now-automats-are-back-with-a-high-tech-twist/2852749/

But it's lame, and no different from ordering on your phone or a kiosk at the location, except your food is in a locker instead of handed to you or put on a shelf.  BFD, and I'm happy to report it closed earlier this year.

[Rinaldo]

14 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I was poking around the internet for automat information and found a story that an automat had opened in Jersey City. 

This is getting dangerously far afield, but I spent over a decade of my life in Bloomington, Indiana, and one thing I really miss about that region is the really excellent cafeterias. It's not an automat, but it represents the same principle of an abundant choice of homey, well-prepared food for you to select on the spot, take to a table, and eat. And they're still flourishing there, as far as I can tell.

Back to movies: I watched my recording of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Alas, this isn't one of those times when I can revise a prior negative judgment upward. It's one of the times when Hollywood tried to dramatize a famous literary work, and nothing went right. Well, almost nothing -- George Sanders was a suitably Mephistophelean choice to drag the protagonist into sin (if the superstructure around him had been better built). And Angela Lansbury was ideal in every respect, an indelible picture of youth and innocence destroyed. Seeing what happens to her should have engaged us with the story. But there's this Hurd-Hatfield-shaped blank in the middle. I guess he was, by some standard, a good-looking man, but he never seems young or vibrant in any way that would make us empathize with him and want to follow his story. (Around 2000, Jude Law could have given us both the fresh beauty and the inner corruption; indeed, his Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley is a pretty close match. I don't know who his equivalent would have been in 1945, but even Peter Lawford, also in the cast and far from the world's greatest actor, would have been an improvement on what we got.)

Edited November 30, 2022 by Rinaldo

[EtheltoTillie]

@Rinaldo, I don't begrudge you the mention of Bloomington, as it's the location of one of my top-five movies, Breaking Away!  So it's not even off topic, IMHO. 

They had cafeteria service in addition to vending machines at the Manhattan Automats when I used to go in the 70s.  I once went to one of those big cafeterias in Memphis, across the street from Graceland.  I really enjoyed it. 

Edited December 5, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

I watched an awful movie yesterday:  Desire Me, with Robert Mitchum as a French fisherman from Brittany--wot?

Married to Greer Garson.  It's a reverse Martin Guerre/Sommersby.

After the war, Garson thinks Mitchum is dead, so she takes up with someone who's conning her and knew her husband in the prisoner of war camp.  Played by Richard Hart.  A real stinker with nothing believable about it.  I skipped through most of it. 

[mariah23]

1 hour ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I watched an awful movie yesterday:  Desire Me, with Robert Mitchum as a French fisherman from Brittany--wot?

Married to Greer Garson.  It's a reverse Martin Guerre/Sommersby.

After the war, Garson thinks Mitchum is dead, so she takes up with someone who's conning her and knew her husband in the prisoner of war camp.  Played by Richard Hart.  A real stinker with nothing believable about it.  I skipped through most of it. 

Such a stinker that the director demanded he not have his name in the credits.

[Charlie Baker]

Some time ago in this forum, there was a short exchange about how it would be nice if TCM devoted some more time and attention to film composers. Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music was not produced by or for TCM, I don’t believe, but it’s great they acquired it.  A long career and a lengthy list of credits the man had—and with a late in life pop hit, yet.  This documentary is not flawless—there’s probably a bit too much glorification of Gone with the Wind for a 2021 production, though it was certainly some of Steiner’s most enduring work.  There’s also a little excessive denigration of "As Time Goes By," which Steiner was made to use, grudgingly, as the main theme for Casablanca. And the narrator of a film like this should pronounce names of a couple major Hollywood figures correctly—maybe that’s nitpicky of me, but it made me wince a little.  Yet the documentary is worthwhile.  Steiner’s biography is pretty compelling, there’s an effective, accessible overview of the evolution of film scoring, and some nice behind the scenes and personal recollection stories.  The film aired twice last night and is on Watch TCM. 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Charlie Baker

[Wiendish Fitch]

On 12/5/2022 at 4:31 PM, EtheltoTillie said:

I watched an awful movie yesterday:  Desire Me, with Robert Mitchum as a French fisherman from Brittany--wot?

Married to Greer Garson.  It's a reverse Martin Guerre/Sommersby.

After the war, Garson thinks Mitchum is dead, so she takes up with someone who's conning her and knew her husband in the prisoner of war camp.  Played by Richard Hart.  A real stinker with nothing believable about it.  I skipped through most of it. 

Ugh, Desire Me, or, as I like to call it, When Director-less Movies Happen to Good People.

I like both Greer Garson and Robert Mitchum, but neither of them could polish this dreary turd of a film. Garson tries (and fails, but it's not her fault), and the normally charismatic Mitchum just seems mortified. I sometimes wonder if someone like Douglas Sirk could have saved this script and made it into a tighter, better (and still gloriously trashy) melodrama?

Oh well, we'll never know.

[Lady Whistleup]

I saw both In the Good Old Summertime and Shop Around the Corner today on TCM. The Shop Around the Corner is truly my favorite Christmas movie of all time.

[HyeChaps]

If only they also showed "You've Got Mail" too!

[Rinaldo]

13 hours ago, HyeChaps said:

If only they also showed "You've Got Mail" too!

I'd settle for the video of the Broadway revival of She Loves Me that's available on various streaming services.

On 12/7/2022 at 9:32 AM, Charlie Baker said:

Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music was not produced by or for TCM, I don’t believe, but it’s great they acquired it.  A long career and a lengthy list of credits the man had—and with a late in life pop hit, yet.  This documentary is not flawless—there’s probably a bit too much glorification of Gone with the Wind for a 2021 production, though it was certainly some of Steiner’s most enduring work.  There’s also a little excessive denigration of "As Time Goes By," which Steiner was made to use, grudgingly, as the main theme for Casablanca. And the narrator of a film like this should pronounce names of a couple major Hollywood figures correctly—maybe that’s nitpicky of me, but it made me wince a little.  Yet the documentary is worthwhile.  Steiner’s biography is pretty compelling, there’s an effective, accessible overview of the evolution of film scoring, and some nice behind the scenes and personal recollection stories. 

I just saw this, and have some thoughts (as a historian of popular music of the past, how could I not?). This was indeed not a TCM production, but was made by South African director Diana Friedberg and released in 2019. The narrator is her husband Lionel Friedberg, which helpfully explains why nobody would correct him on his mispronunciations -- not just names, but musical terms like "Fine." 

I'll take a slightly different viewpoint on a couple of the points quoted. I think it's appropriate to spend some time on Gone with the Wind, as it was so important to his career and how the public perceived film music, and the industry placed such weight on it; but it seems to take up more time than it does, because they keep returning to it after seemingly moving on to other topics -- back to the 30s, now GWTW again, on to his next assignment, back to GWTW one more time. (And the selection of clips from the movie could have used an editor's eagle eye too.) 

I actually appreciated the emphasis on "As Time Goes By," because in my experience people automatically assume that it's written by the film's credited composer (same thing happens with The Graduate, likewise to my annoyance). It needs to be spelled out that it was a pre-existing song, Steiner would rather have written his own (and, as shown elsewhere in the film, he was capable of creating a good pop tune) which is wholly understandable, but he nevertheless wove it into his underscoring very cleverly.

I also liked the time given to A Summer Place, because I myself never dreamed it was Steiner's until I actually saw the movie on TCM a few years ago. Thanks to the hit record, I thought that Percy Faith wrote the score for the film (as he did for others). It's gratifying to think that Steiner had a huge popular hit at the end of his career, giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he hadn't gone out of date (and, I hope, a nice nest egg too).

All the details from people like Hugo Friedhofer were most welcome, and I was especially tickled to unexpectedly see a friend and colleague, Nathan Platte, onscreen briefly as one of the experts. For anyone interested, he has written an insightful and highly readable book about the music written for David O. Selznick's films. Nathan is one of the rare musicologists who is both a scrupulous researcher and a precise, witty writer, with insight into movies as well as music.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

18 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I also liked the time given to A Summer Place, because I myself never dreamed it was Steiner's until I actually saw the movie on TCM a few years ago.

Where in the movie does the song occur? I would have thought the main title, but I just found a youtube that features Elmer Bernstein's recording of the movie's main title, and it's not the song.

I've known for a long time that the tune was Steiner's but it still blows my mind. Yes, he could turn his mind to a pop tune when he wanted to but he never wrote a pop tune anything like that pop tune. If I didn't know it was Steiner, and you'd told me some golden age film composer had written it, I would have guessed Tiomkin, but never Steiner.

[HyeChaps]

[Rinaldo]

18 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Where in the movie does the song occur?

A short way into the film, when Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue go for a walk together. I too expected the famous theme to lead off the movie as its title music, possibly sung by the standard invisible Hollywood chorus -- but no, the titles were scored with a dramatic piece of Steiner orchestral music. Then, after the main characters had been introduced, the two kids got their scene together, and I told myself "OK, now we'll get The Theme" -- and we did! Not only that, it sounded just like the best-selling Percy Faith record, with the piano triplets as an accompaniment (upon realizing that this was a Steiner score, I had guessed that that piano bing-bing-bing, at least, would turn out to be an extra garnish by Faith, the movie version being more purely orchestral -- wrong again!).

Edited December 12, 2022 by Rinaldo

[MissAlmond]

TCM Remembers 2022

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by MissAlmond
Updated video

[Milburn Stone]

15 hours ago, MissAlmond said:

TCM Remembers 2022

A good piece, as usual. And, as usual, including some I didn't realize had died. I just wish everyone could have been on a few frames longer than they were. I realize that would have increased the length of the whole piece by a minute or more, but that would have been a good trade for being able to register the passing of someone before they were off my screen. 

[meowmommy]

4 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I just wish everyone could have been on a few frames longer than they were.

The names flew by really, really quickly.  I felt like I had time to read the name or look at the picture, but not both.

[voiceover]

TCM Remembers: I’ve noticed that it hurts a little more every year now, because it slaps me right across my mortality.  
 

[WendyCR72]

New TCM Remembers 2022 link. TCM said in the comments of the re-upload that there was some issue with the music.

 

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

New TCM Remembers 2022 link. TCM said in the comments of the re-upload that there was some issue with the music.

I wonder whether it's a trick to get more YouTube views. I don't hear any difference in the music. In fact, I wonder whether the absurdly short time given to each passing is also a trick, to make people re-watch a few times and increase the views. The more views, the more potential revenue.

[Charlie Baker]

@VOICEOVER, none  of the emojis seemed the right response.  Just wanted to say I get it.

[EtheltoTillie]

Did anyone watch Period of Adjustment last night?  I had seen it before, but I was lured into watching again halfway through and couldn't stop myself. It's so dated, and I think Jane Fonda plays over the top, but you just can't take your eyes away from the train wreck.  The toxicity of the marriages of Lois Nettleton and Tony Franciosa, and her parents, was palpable.

The performances of John McGiver and Mabel Albertson are so spot on perfect--and the writing--you want to just keep rewatching, especially the police station scene--played with Jack Albertson, Mabel's real-life brother. 

Mabel took her patented mother in law act to Bewitched.  Meanwhile, John McGiver was such a memorable staple of my childhood moviegoing experience. 

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

BTW, Period of Adjustment is a Christmas movie!  As only Tennessee Williams could write one.

[EtheltoTillie]

More fun:  Looks like John McGiver once appeared on Bewitched too, but apparently not in an episode with Mabel Albertson.

I was glad to see that TCM Remembers featured Gilbert Gottfried.  Gilbert was famous for his impressions of John McGiver! 

Edited December 21, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[voiceover]

Just here for the annual registering of my disgruntlement over TCM’s refusal to screen the best version of A Christmas Carol.  Alastair Sim is even in one of the December TCM ads — on TCM!, ffs.

I know it’s Fox’s to hoard, but so is All About Eve, and that’s never mattered. It’s worse than the networks surrendering A Charlie Brown Christmas to AppleTV.  For Christmas this year, I’d like the execs to all pound sand.

<huffs off to purify my soul with  some Student Prince in Old Heidelberg >

[Suzn]

56 minutes ago, voiceover said:

Just here for the annual registering of my disgruntlement over TCM’s refusal to screen the best version of A Christmas Carol.  Alastair Sim is even in one of the December TCM ads — on TCM!, ffs.

I know it’s Fox’s to hoard, but so is All About Eve, and that’s never mattered. It’s worse than the networks surrendering A Charlie Brown Christmas to AppleTV.  For Christmas this year, I’d like the execs to all pound sand.

<huffs off to purify my soul with  some Student Prince in Old Heidelberg >

I'm with you 100%!  They just play that awful version I just hate.

[GreekGeek]

TCM just showed a movie I had never heard of but which a number of people seem to remember with great affection: All Mine to Give. It seemed like two different movies: the first half dealing with a Scottish immigrant couple's life in frontier Wisconsin in the 1850's, and the second half about their six young children after the death of the parents. On Christmas Eve, the oldest boy has to find new homes for his brothers and sisters. Rather grim stuff for the holidays, but a lot of sweet and funny scenes too.

Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns were the parents, and there were some faces familiar from TV also. Alan Hale Jr. (Skipper!) was a lumberjack boss, and Reta Shaw did her best "haughty old biddy" shtick as an unpleasant church lady. Patty McCormick played the oldest sister, and it was nice to see her as a good girl in contrast to her role as the murderous Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed.

[EtheltoTillie]

1 hour ago, GreekGeek said:

TCM just showed a movie I had never heard of but which a number of people seem to remember with great affection: All Mine to Give. It

Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns were the parents, and there were some

That is a good movie. A real tearjerker. 

[MissAlmond]

On 12/22/2022 at 11:41 PM, voiceover said:

Just here for the annual registering of my disgruntlement over TCM’s refusal to screen the best version of A Christmas Carol.  Alastair Sim is even in one of the December TCM ads — on TCM!, ffs.

Speaking of A Christmas Carol, 1951's Tiny Tim (Glyn Dearman) is gone while 1938's (Terry Kilburn) is still alive at 96. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Just learned a new Christmas movie factoid.  I caught the last part of the Cecil B. DeMille King of Kings the other day.  The silent version.  The actor playing Jesus, H.B. Warner, was over 50 at the time, and then he went on to play Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life.  That's a double threat!