TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Charlie Baker]

Not great TCM news. I wasn't aware of this, but TCM Underground wrapped at the end of February. The programmer Millie De Chirico (who had appeared in promos for Underground and co-wrote a book about it) was among those let go in Warner Discovery budget cuts in December.  One might have guessed...

The tweet closing the TCMU account says that the kind of movies shown will still be part of TCM's schedule. Time will tell. I wasn't a regular viewer like I've been for Noir Alley, but having the niche there and making things like Skidoo or The Big Cube  or other just plain weird or obscure titles available was a very good thing. 

[Sarah 103]

I think the original version of To Be or Not to Be is better because the story works better when the characters are playing it closer to straight and don't realize they're in a comedy. What do other people think? 

[kristen111]

On 8/14/2022 at 11:03 AM, Milburn Stone said:

I think there is truth in this. Not among film buffs, but in the wider audience of film lovers. Wilder simply has more "name recognition." Ask random film fanciers if they know the names Wilder and Lubitsch, and more will answer yes to Wilder. Further, even among those who know both names, more will be able to list more Wilder films than Lubitsch. A big part of this is simply that Wilder lived and continued to make movies into a later period than Lubitsch did. Memories are short, and it's easier to remember the work of someone who continued to work into the mid-70s than someone whose last film was in 1948. (And most of whose body of work was in silent film, in a language other than English.)

Lubitsch’s house was shown on “Million Dollar Listing” this season.  Gorgeous old style furnishings.  You can still see it on Demand now.

This month was all four star movies.  Love them.

[kristen111]

My two favorites.  A Letter to Three Wives and the Merry Widow starring Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas.

[Rinaldo]

Yesterday's Tom Sawyer turned out, as I suspected, to be the musical version (songs by the Sherman brothers), not the "other" 1973 film with the same title (which was made for TV and thus had no Oscar connection). Just another of those very occasional listing glitches that I group under my "jostled something with their elbows" heading... and in fairness, usually getting both the title and year right would clear away all ambiguity.

[Charlie Baker]

Bert I. Gordon has died at 100.

Auteur of Mutant Monster Movies

[kristen111]

On 3/7/2023 at 10:28 PM, kristen111 said:

My two favorites.  A Letter to Three Wives and the Merry Widow starring Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas.

I’m so mad.  I taped the Merry Widow and somehow lost it.  Does anyone know when it will be shown again?  I just love the dance scene upstairs in the private room.  They both were gorgeous.

[Tom Holmberg]

5 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Bert I. Gordon has died at 100.

Auteur of Mutant Monster Movies

Also Topol, best known for "Fiddler on the Roof," but he also appeared in a Bond movie and "Flash Gordon", among others

[EtheltoTillie]

23 hours ago, kristen111 said:

I’m so mad.  I taped the Merry Widow and somehow lost it.  Does anyone know when it will be shown again?  I just love the dance scene upstairs in the private room.  They both were gorgeous.

Looks like they are not repeating it on Watch TCM right now.  You'll have to just keep checking back and checking the TCM schedules.  It's random. 

[BooksRule]

On 3/8/2023 at 6:59 AM, Rinaldo said:

Yesterday's Tom Sawyer turned out, as I suspected, to be the musical version (songs by the Sherman brothers), not the "other" 1973 film with the same title (which was made for TV and thus had no Oscar connection).

I'm so glad that I checked the schedule online and didn't rely on the on-screen cable guide on my TV.  It had the 'other' one listed.  When I saw that it was the Sherman brothers' one, I set my DVR.  It's always been a favorite of mine, mainly due to nostalgia.  I think I went to see it at the theater multiple times when it came out, mainly because I was about the same age as Jeff East and had a huge crush on him. I still like watching it (Celeste Holm is great and Lucille Benson was always a hoot), but the songs seem a little cheesy now, except for the theme song, sung by Charley Pride.  It's still a great song, especially when watching the scene with the riverboat coming into the dock -- sideways! -- with the huge Mississippi on screen. 

[Rinaldo]

 A word of appreciation also for the contribution of John Williams to Tom Sawyer, as arranger and orchestrator. Very stirring sounds behind Charley Pride's vocals, for instance, and a nice ragtime piano during Muff Potter's song. 

[Charlie Baker]

CBS Sunday Morning  Oscar day stories:

Scorsese and Film Preservaton

Ben with Al Pacino and Ellen Burstyn on The Actors Studio 

 

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 2/26/2023 at 3:41 PM, EtheltoTillie said:

I liked the noir selection, Hunt the Man Down, with Gig Young as a young defense lawyer.  It played, as Muller noted, like a pilot for a Perry Mason type show.  It had some preposterous convoluted plotting, but it was still fun to watch. 

We wanted to watch something not too long, and this one is just over an hour, so it got the nod.  I agree--it was fun to watch. 

I'm terrible at following plots and just kind of rolled with this one like I always do, knowing if there were an exam I'd fail miserably.  But it was interesting enough that when it was over, we put our minds together to figure out who was who, who was with whom at the party and whether they were married or just friends or had been engaged at some point, who married whom afterward.  Convoluted to say the least, but somehow not annoyingly convoluted.

[EtheltoTillie]

19 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

 A word of appreciation also for the contribution of John Williams to Tom Sawyer, as arranger and orchestrator. Very stirring sounds behind Charley Pride's vocals, for instance, and a nice ragtime piano during Muff Potter's song. 

I missed Tom Sawyer on TCM but I watched it on Tubi. 

[mariah23]

Is anyone else having this problem with TCM?  Since the time change yesterday, the films are one hour behind.  For example, The Longest Day didn’t start until 8PM last night (I’m in the central time zone).

[Miss Anne Thrope]

Yes. I wondered if programming had forgotten to account for the lost hour when putting March together. 

[Charlie Baker]

Michael Caine is 90 today.

[roseha]

According to Instagram Kim Novak has just turned 90 as well.  

[Rinaldo]

I'm watching some of Olivier's Hamlet right now. I remember when I first saw it on TV's Late Show, after having been primed for it by admiring remarks in my paperback copy's introduction... I felt let down by the slow pace, the truly savage cutting, the determination to make it all internal and melancholy, and the epigraph  (with which I disagreed, in my youthful arrogance) "This is the story of a man who could not make up his mind." And I was surprised that this was considered a Best Picture; as I came to know them later, I found the other two Shakespeare movies he directed (Henry V and Richard III) much more complete and satisfying. I suppose this one seemed more culturally respectable at the time, and was compared favorably to some previous tries at Shakespeare? Or the timing was right, as sometimes happens.

When I saw later Hamlet adaptations (Richard Chamberlain on TV, the Zeffirelli/Gibson and Branagh movies), I found them much more satisfying, even if each had its weak points too. I wonder what others here think. 

[Charlie Baker]

I saw the Olivier a few years ago after not seeing it for a long time, and I think I like it more than you do.  Though I don't disagree with you about its flaws.  And yes, I imagine it was quite impressive on its initial release. I remember the Chamberlain being good, but it's been a good while.  Derek Jacobi had the role in the 80s when the BBC was working its way through Shakespeare and that production I remember as being quite good, with Patrick Stewart as Claudius and Claire Bloom as Gertrude. Then Jacobi went on to play Claudius for Branagh, whose film  I like, but it can challenge the endurance and could be accused of a little stunt casting.  Or not.

[Rinaldo]

On 3/16/2023 at 11:11 AM, Charlie Baker said:

I saw the Olivier a few years ago after not seeing it for a long time, and I think I like it more than you do.  

No problem, most people seem to! I do miss Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, which even the Chamberlain, trimmed (very thoughtfully, by John Barton) to fit into 2 hours minus commercials, found room for. It helps that they paced it faster. A friend refers to this as the "Byronic Gothic Hamlet:" which I think summarizes it pretty well -- the Regency/Napoleonic period fits very well with ghosts and murky castles and maidens who go mad. And the supporting cast is so strong: Richard Johnson & Margaret Leighton as the royal couple, John Gielgud as the ghost, Michael Redgrave as Polonius.

On 3/16/2023 at 11:11 AM, Charlie Baker said:

Derek Jacobi had the role in the 80s when the BBC was working its way through Shakespeare and that production I remember as being quite good, with Patrick Stewart as Claudius and Claire Bloom as Gertrude.

I hadn't watched that in a while, so I pulled the DVD off my shelf and gave it another re-view. All three of those principals are indeed exceptional. But the rest of the cast, and the direction, are rather too rep-company-ordinary for me (at that period the BBC Series seemed to want to avoid any eccentricity, so as not to alienate the viewers at home). I don't want a "concept," but we do need a clear dramatic drive. And the scenic production if of an odd unhelpful kind that they didn't often use: neither realistic nor stylized scenery, but almost none -- just a vast studio space with a sky drop beyond, and occasional bits of blank well or whatever dropped in.

On 3/16/2023 at 11:11 AM, Charlie Baker said:

Then Jacobi went on to play Claudius for Branagh, whose film  I like, but it can challenge the endurance and could be accused of a little stunt casting.  Or not.

Oh, I think stunt casting is undeniable! I mean when you get Gielgud & Dench to play silent flashes of Priam and Hecuba while the Player mentions them, somebody's gone too far with the idea of making the play "intelligible." And I have my issues with some of the production: making the ghost something on the scale of King Kong despite the description of it looking just like the late king walking sadly by, and introducing chandelier-shining antics into the final duel, for instance. Still, it's full of action and wit, and as Shaw said, those are the qualities that need to be maximized to make it not seem as long as it is (which it doesn't, for me). And so much of the cast is so good: Not only Branagh and Jacobi, but Julie Christie (for once, we *don't* get a Freudian gloss on the mother-son scenes), Richard Briers as Polonius, Charlton Heston and Rosemary Harris as the players, and on and on, including, wonderfully, Billy Crystal as the Gravedigger.

[Milburn Stone]

What do we think of the Ethan Hawke version? I like it! Transplanted to modern-day corporate Manhattan, with the king now "the CEO of Denmark Corporation," the "to be or not to be" soliloquy taking place in a Blockbuster Store, Bill Murray as Polonius, etc. It created a mood.

[Rinaldo]

17 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

What do we think of the Ethan Hawke version? I like it.

I like it too. It's not what I would watch when I'm in the mood for Hamlet, but it's got a lot going for it in its own right, and the juxtapositions are often witty.

The version co-directed by and starring Campbell Scott (originally for a US cable channel, I think) is worth seeing too. It's a contemporary Long Island setting, and an all-American cast using its own accents. Jamie Sheridan and Blair Brown are king and queen, Roscoe Lee Browne is Polonius, John Benjamin Hickey is Horatio.

I find it fun to imagine a video montage of all the filmed Hamlets, each in a different scene that (we hope) would add up to all the character's scenes. Olivier is great at several points -- let's say the "Oh that this too too solid flesh" soliloquy. Mel Gibson is very effective with "Alas poor Yorick." Campbell Scott is delightful in the whole scene with Polonius and the players' arrival. I'd give Branagh "To be or not to be," Chamberlain "'Tis now the very witching hour of night."

Edited March 20, 2023 by Rinaldo

[Charlie Baker]

I haven't seen either of these.  I had an aversion to Ethan Hawke for a while. which I've since gotten over.  And Campbell Scott is an underappreciated talent. To quote Harold Hill, you gentlemen intrigue me.

Kevin Kline recorded his stage performance for PBS in the 90s. I'm betting that's worth a re-watch.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Charlie Baker

[Charlie Baker]

Ok, one more filmed Hamlet--Nicol Williamson directed by Tony Richardson in 1969.  I saw it a few years ago on one of the channels that have been overtaken by familiar old TV series, but started out showing some interesting old movies.  Not a lot of it stuck with me, but I recall it being respectable. And it had the possible stunt casting of girl-of-the-moment Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia. 

[Rinaldo]

I'm not crazy about the Williamson Hamlet, but I saw it a long time ago; I should see if it or I have changed. 

There are still more versions, of course. In the early 1960s a video "Hamlet at Elsinore" (i.e., shot in the actual Danish castle) was telecast, starring Christopher Plummer, and with then-unknown Robert Shaw, Donald Sutherland, and Michael Caine in the cast. I missed it at the time, so I bought the DVD when it became available. It made very little impression on me, I regret to say.

Richard Burton's Broadway production (directed by John Gielgud) was filmed for a special four-night showing in selected theaters. It was supposed to then be destroyed, but a copy was found and arrangements were made for it to be released on home video. I haven't seen it, but two books were written about it by actors in the cast; the better-remembered one is by William Redfield, but the interesting thing to me is how little the two accounts agree about what went on in rehearsal.

And then there's the German film starring Maximilian Schell. Dubbed into English (Schell doing his own role), it has the interesting distinction of having been chosen for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode.

Now someday we should talk about the many, many screen versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[mariah23]

New question:  Who wants to see TCM air some of the Looney Tunes classic cartoons?

Since HBO Max doesn't seem to care for it(if one doesn't know, HBO Max let the license for the post-1950 cartoons expire at the end of 2022) and some Looney Tunes cartoons like Duck Amuck and What's Opera Doc? will air on TCM next month as part of the Warner Bros. 100th anniversary campaign, why not make it permanent?

[Milburn Stone]

51 minutes ago, mariah23 said:

HBO Max let the license for the post-1950 cartoons expire at the end of 2022

This must be correct, but I can't understand why they'd even need a license. The parent company Warner Bros. Discovery owns the cartoons lock, stock, and barrel! (Don't they?)

[mariah23]

28 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

This must be correct, but I can't understand why they'd even need a license. The parent company Warner Bros. Discovery owns the cartoons lock, stock, and barrel! (Don't they?)

You think they do…I still don’t understand their reasoning unless that Zaslav guy hates animation.

Edited March 22, 2023 by mariah23
I meant do

[voiceover]

4 hours ago, mariah23 said:

like Duck Amuck and What's Opera Doc?

Two of my faves, tho I must give Amuck a nod, if only for the great reveal at the end.

[Rinaldo]

Licenses get passed from one corporation to another all the time, it seems. What Warners has control over now may have no relation to what was released with the Warner name in the past. It's very confusing.

I'm still trying to figure out who has jurisdiction over the 1952 Warner release Where's Charley?  It's never been on any home video and is never shown any more. (A copy sometimes sneaks onto YouTube.) You'd think a Frank Loesser musical with Ray Bolger and Allyn McLerie wouldn't have totally disappeared like that. And Loesser's widow Jo Sullivan clarified 12 years ago that she hadn't been doing anything to block its availability (rumors to that effect had been going around, as they usually do). 

[roseha]

6 hours ago, mariah23 said:

New question:  Who wants to see TCM air some of the Looney Tunes classic cartoons?

Since HBO Max doesn't seem to care for it(if one doesn't know, HBO Max let the license for the post-1950 cartoons expire at the end of 2022) and some Looney Tunes cartoons like Duck Amuck and What's Opera Doc? will air on TCM next month as part of the Warner Bros. 100th anniversary campaign, why not make it permanent?

A poster on another thread mentioned that MeTV airs Looney Toons at 9 AM Eastern Time on Saturdays.  I don't know what era they are showing but maybe your favorites will show up.

I once worked for a film society and we showed some Chuck Jones cartoons on the big screen.  Those Road Runner cartoons looked great.

[mariah23]

9 minutes ago, roseha said:

A poster on another thread mentioned that MeTV airs Looney Toons at 9 AM Eastern Time on Saturdays.  I don't know what era they are showing but maybe your favorites will show up.

I once worked for a film society and we showed some Chuck Jones cartoons on the big screen.  Those Road Runner cartoons looked great.

Thank you.  Unfortunately I don’t have meTV but after they took off Looney Tunes I immediately bought a 6 volume collection.  Nobody takes away my Looney Tunes!

[Charlie Baker]

I haven't watched a lot but the MeTV showcase called Bugs Bunny and Friends seems to span the history of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, except for the newest ones made specifically for HBO Max. (And what happens to them?) They look great, even the oldest ones, on MeTV. 

[ekelks]

4 minutes ago, ekelks said:

 

 

 

 

 

April is Warner Bros 100❤️th anniversary. TCM is dedicating all of April to Warner's. They'll air Looney Tunes then, surely. 

HBOMAX still has Looney Tunes. Look at hubs, left of home, scroll down to bottom, it's the next to last hub, I think, click there. It's really hard to see. I had to go up to my tv set to peer at it. 

Find  the A to Z section: you'll see 15 seasons of Looney Tunes, beginning with the early black and whites, which are also part of a section of features: Where It All Began. There's tons of features highlighting Elmer Fudd, etc. 

 

 

 

[ratgirlagogo]

On 3/22/2023 at 10:59 PM, roseha said:

A poster on another thread mentioned that MeTV airs Looney Toons at 9 AM Eastern Time on Saturdays.  I don't know what era they are showing but maybe your favorites will show up.

They also run a show called Toon In with ME every weekday morning at 7 AM.  It's intended as something of a sibling show to Svengoolie, with a human host and a puppet host, along with live action comedy skits.  I haven't watched in a while but I believe they still run a mixture of Fleischer, Warner Bros, Hanna Barbera, MGM, and DePatie Freling.

Edited March 28, 2023 by ratgirlagogo

[bmoore4026]

I could kick myself for missing much of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie last night.  It's one of my favorite movies.  The last ten minutes of the film are awe-inspiring, as is the scene where Jean is showing slides to her class and the "I am a teacher" monologue.  Maggie Smith earned that Oscar.  Not that the other actresses didn't, but there's something magnetic in her performance.  I don't think the movie would have worked have it been done by anyone else.  Yes, I think she did better than Vanessa Redgrave would have done.

As for TCM Underground and the Saturday morning line up, it's frustrating.  It was nice that TCM was giving a spotlight to the cult classics.  They have just as much influence as any other highly regarded films.  They couldn't have kept the Saturday morning stuff and found another host of TCM Underground?

[ratgirlagogo]

16 hours ago, bmoore4026 said:

found another host of TCM Underground?

What host?  They never bothered to HAVE a host for TCM Underground in the first place. I never ever understood this since  these were films that  required intros and outros at least as much as the Sunday night foreign films. Many of them WERE foreign films (Hausu, Belladonna of Sadness, Valerie's Week of Wonders, Funeral Parade of Roses) or very underground (Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore,  the drag romps of the Gay Girls Riding Club, the Curtis Harrington shorts), plus all the films that have only survived today  through the tireless work of Mike Vraney, a.k.a. the Henri Langlois of exploitation.

I'm so angry about all this I can't even bring myself to think about what  other one-two punches might be hovering in the middle distance, to paraphrase Gore Vidal.

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by ratgirlagogo

[roseha]

I finally saw Laura, I think for some reason I had only seen it up to the point when the detective wakes up and sees Laura walking in the door.  Watching tonight, I wondered was she really alive or was he dreaming.  Turns out she's alive.  Anyway, great cast, and a great dramatic ending.  Great mysterious atmosphere including Gene Tierney's performance.  Although I do think the painting isn't very flattering.  Though Waldo did call that out.

So I really need to see Double Indemnity, one of the other essential noirs that Eddie Muller mentions along with many others in his Ask Eddie show on Youtube (which I really enjoy watching).    I love films like In a Lonely Place and The Big Sleep - I've been a Bogart fan since I was a teenager - but I think if I were to recommend a noir story to someone to start it would be Out of the Past; that has such a feeling of foreboding and doom and Robert Mitchum is great.  But there are many more I need to see, I should be recording Noir Alley when it returns.

[voiceover]

23 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

the Henri Langlois of exploitation

Who had “Henry Langlois” on their TCM bingo card????  Damn girl! you snapped me right back to my theory class in film school.

[EtheltoTillie]

19 hours ago, roseha said:

 

So I really need to see Double Indemnity, one of the other essential noirs that Eddie Muller mentions along with many others in his Ask Eddie show on Youtube (which I really enjoy watching).    I love films like In a Lonely Place and The Big Sleep - I've been a Bogart fan since I was a teenager - but I think if I were to recommend a noir story to someone to start it would be Out of the Past; that has such a feeling of foreboding and doom and Robert Mitchum is great.  But there are many more I need to see, I should be recording Noir Alley when it returns.

I recommend Double Indemnity in your noir review.  It is an essential. 

Last night I ended up watching all four (almost) hours of Woodstock in the middle of the night.  Once I started I couldn't stop.  I was only 14 at the time of the festival and wouldn't have gone, but I had the record album and wore it out.  Still, I've only ever seen the movie maybe once and didn't see this version, with Jimi Hendrix's long performance at the end.  Wow wow wow.  Other standouts for me:  Joan Baez, Country Joe, Santana, Janis Joplin.  How did it escape me until now that Martin Scorsese was involved in the editing?   It's an amazing feat how they strung together the best parts of performances and the documentary footage and "man on the street" interviews.  When I was younger I wouldn't have been so aware of this part of the process. 

I felt a little sad at the passage of time and the memory of how we looked and sounded back then and how different the world is now.  I have to say I didn't really know anyone who referred to people as "cats," as was the case with the one girl with the headband who was a hippie from Central Casting.  I always thought that expression was left to Sammy Davis Jr. and the Rat Pack.

BTW, one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in any movie is Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man talking to the Columbia Record Club: "No I didn't order Santana Abraxas." 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[StatisticalOutlier]

3 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Last night I ended up watching all four (almost) hours of Woodstock in the middle of the night.  Once I started I couldn't stop. 

I avoid it when it's on for that very reason.  If I start I can't stop.

3 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Still, I've only ever seen the movie maybe once and didn't see this version, with Jimi Hendrix's long performance at the end.  Wow wow wow. 

I saw it when it came out.  I was 13 and went with my two little brothers.  It was rated R so my mother went to the box office and told them it was okay for us to go, and dropped us off. 

Then I saw it in a theater again, the re-release in 1994.  It was in a sparsely populated theater in New York City and I swear everybody in there was under a spell.  Then some morons came in about halfway through all confused and talking loudly, and I was the one who figured out they had come into the wrong theater--they were showing it on multiple screens.  I went and told them that, and it still didn't shut them up.  "She said we're in the wrong theater.  What theater are we supposed to be in?" 

Spell broken, unfortunately.

I don't know how many times I've seen it on TV.  I love almost all of it, but Ten Years After absolutely blows me away every time. 

3 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I felt a little sad at the passage of time and the memory of how we looked and sounded back then and how different the world is now. 

What I find infinitely fascinating about watching Woodstock is seeing guys with crew cuts and black glasses alongside guys with long hair and mustaches alongside guys who had obviously been in the military.  And girls with flip hairdos alongside girls with long straight hair.  It was such an interesting time.

3 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I have to say I didn't really know anyone who referred to people as "cats," as was the case with the one girl with the headband who was a hippie from Central Casting.  I always thought that expression was left to Sammy Davis Jr. and the Rat Pack.

Heh.  I'll never forget my older brother, who is Woodstock age, was once describing an African-American man and called him, without really thinking, a "black cat."

Do we know what happened to the girl in the  headband?  I'd love to have an update on everybody in the crowd who's featured.  I think the guy who was cleaning the portacans wasn't happy with his portrayal, and might even have sued over it. 

And what about the little kids who were there?  How did they turn out?

[Milburn Stone]

9 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

What I find infinitely fascinating about watching Woodstock is seeing guys with crew cuts and black glasses alongside guys with long hair and mustaches alongside guys who had obviously been in the military.  And girls with flip hairdos alongside girls with long straight hair.  It was such an interesting time.

I love that about the sixties. In some sense, it was a more diverse time than the present, sadly. In '68 and '69, a given Top 40 radio station would be playing everything from The Beatles to Cream to Sinatra to Petula Clark to Herb Alpert to Mancini to Otis Redding to the Stones to the Fifth Dimension to Hugo Montenegro to Sly and the Family Stone to the Doors to Archie Bell and the Drells to The Archies to Marvin Gaye to Elvis to the Paul Mauriat Orchestra to Stevie Wonder to the Cowsills.

[Mindthinkr]

9 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Do we know what happened to the girl in the  headband?  I'd love to have an update on everybody in the crowd who's featured. 

I don’t know about everyone you’ve mentioned, but I can tell you about the couple on the front of the album cover snuggling in a blanket. They are still together and have been happily married for ages (over 40 years). Her name is Barbara (she’s been on tv discussing this so I don’t think I’m outting her). We went to nursing school together and she was a wonderful, studious, and caring person. After graduating she went on to become a school nurse. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

31 minutes ago, Mindthinkr said:

I don’t know about everyone you’ve mentioned, but I can tell you about the couple on the front of the album cover snuggling in a blanket.

Oh yeah.  For some reason they were in the news a few years ago--maybe they were just at that point widely identified?  I can't remember.

They're in the news now because she died last week.

I did find a story, about a couple who met on the way to Woodstock and are still together.  They've always looked for a photo of them at the event, but never found one until a friend saw them in the trailer for the PBS documentary a couple of years ago.  (I imagine they'd dissected the Woodstock movie to rival the Zapruder film.) 

According to this story, they both had cameras with them but neither took any pictures, never mind selfies.  I'm old, so I find that charming.  And I adore that picture.  Much better than any selfie they would have taken.

https://people.com/human-interest/couple-who-met-at-woodstock-finds-photo-50-years-later/

[StatisticalOutlier]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

In '68 and '69, a given Top 40 radio station would be playing everything from The Beatles to Cream to Sinatra to Petula Clark to Herb Alpert to Mancini to Otis Redding to the Stones to the Fifth Dimension to Hugo Montenegro to Sly and the Family Stone to the Doors to Archie Bell and the Drells to The Archies to Marvin Gaye to Elvis to the Paul Mauriat Orchestra to Stevie Wonder to the Cowsills.

And yet I still find it disconcerting to see Sha Na Na in Woodstock. 

The New York Times's obituary for Bobbi Ercoline, the girl on the album cover, says:  "In fact, she and Nick represented something else: the broad appeal held by the counterculture of the 1960s."  They were devout Catholics who had just started dating that summer, and the friend who went with them had recently returned from Vietnam.  And when walking after ditching their car, they picked up a guy who was having a bad acid trip (the butterfly flag is his).  It's this mishmash I find so interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/arts/music/bobbi-ercoline-dead.html

[Mindthinkr]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

They're in the news now because she died last week.

I’m gobsmacked. I hadn’t heard that. 

[EtheltoTillie]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

And yet I still find it disconcerting to see Sha Na Na in Woodstock. 

The New York Times's obituary for Bobbi Ercoline, the girl on the album cover, says:  "In fact, she and Nick represented something else: the broad appeal held by the counterculture of the 1960s."  They were devout Catholics who had just started dating that summer, and the friend who went with them had recently returned from Vietnam.  And when walking after ditching their car, they picked up a guy who was having a bad acid trip (the butterfly flag is his).  It's this mishmash I find so interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/arts/music/bobbi-ercoline-dead.html

OMG thanks for sharing.  It was so recent!  I missed it in the Times. 

I also loved how the movie showed the kids lining up to call their parents to let them know they were okay.  Some would use the old trick of calling collect without connecting as a signal. 

Edited March 31, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[SusieQ]

20 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I recommend Double Indemnity in your noir review.  It is an essential. 

Last night I ended up watching all four (almost) hours of Woodstock in the middle of the night.  Once I started I couldn't stop.  I was only 14 at the time of the festival and wouldn't have gone, but I had the record album and wore it out.  Still, I've only ever seen the movie maybe once and didn't see this version, with Jimi Hendrix's long performance at the end.  Wow wow wow.  Other standouts for me:  Joan Baez, Country Joe, Santana, Janis Joplin.  How did it escape me until now that Martin Scorsese was involved in the editing?   It's an amazing feat how they strung together the best parts of performances and the documentary footage and "man on the street" interviews.  When I was younger I wouldn't have been so aware of this part of the process. 

I felt a little sad at the passage of time and the memory of how we looked and sounded back then and how different the world is now.  I have to say I didn't really know anyone who referred to people as "cats," as was the case with the one girl with the headband who was a hippie from Central Casting.  I always thought that expression was left to Sammy Davis Jr. and the Rat Pack.

BTW, one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in any movie is Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man talking to the Columbia Record Club: "No I didn't order Santana Abraxas." 

 

I too was 14 at the time. I heard the advertisements for the concert on WNEW -FM and wanted so much to go. Knew no one old enough with a car, so that was a no go.

My late husband, who was as clean cut as you could be did go with his cousins. What I remember him saying was how Richie Havens playing on stage woke him up. How I wish Richie Havens could have woken me up!!!

[Tom Holmberg]

20 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I recommend Double Indemnity in your noir review.  It is an essential. 

Last night I ended up watching all four (almost) hours of Woodstock in the middle of the night.  Once I started I couldn't stop.  I was only 14 at the time of the festival and wouldn't have gone, but I had the record album and wore it out.  Still, I've only ever seen the movie maybe once and didn't see this version, with Jimi Hendrix's long performance at the end.  Wow wow wow.  Other standouts for me:  Joan Baez, Country Joe, Santana, Janis Joplin.  How did it escape me until now that Martin Scorsese was involved in the editing?   It's an amazing feat how they strung together the best parts of performances and the documentary footage and "man on the street" interviews.  When I was younger I wouldn't have been so aware of this part of the process. 

I felt a little sad at the passage of time and the memory of how we looked and sounded back then and how different the world is now.  I have to say I didn't really know anyone who referred to people as "cats," as was the case with the one girl with the headband who was a hippie from Central Casting.  I always thought that expression was left to Sammy Davis Jr. and the Rat Pack.

BTW, one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in any movie is Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man talking to the Columbia Record Club: "No I didn't order Santana Abraxas." 

 

I'd like to see a documentary revisiting many of the attendees at the festival who got interviewed and where they are now.  I have seen info on the Porta Potty guy.  Apparently he wasn't happy to be the movie.