TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[EtheltoTillie]

I think I have posted this before, but my husband and I saw Pink Flamingos on our first date as college students in 1974. Midnight show.  If you think that’s not romantic, we also sat through the oddly paired double bill of If and Romeo and Juliet.

I’m now watching one of tonight’s silent Ozu films. The quality of the film preservation is very poor, unfortunately, but the piano accompaniment is great. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Half assed update on the Watch TCM situation. Twitter (Ben Mankiewicz) and Reddit tell us that they are having some problem with all the Warner streaming apps and they’re trying to fix the update problem and will do so. I’m still dubious. Some commenters think they fired the one guy who does the updates in the mass layoff and now they don’t know what to do. Stay tuned.  
 

The Watch TCM live stream is still running correctly. 

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Half assed update on the Watch TCM situation. Twitter (Ben Mankiewicz) and Reddit tell us that they are having some problem with all the Warner streaming apps and they’re trying to fix the update problem and will do so.

EtoT, can you direct me to the Reddit thread with a link? I'm not conversant with Reddit but I'd like to take a look at this conversation.

Also, @Charlie Baker, that was a great (though angrifying) NYT article on censoring. Thanks for sending.

[EtheltoTillie]

@Milburn Stone  Here is one link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TurnerClassicMovies/comments/14p74ql/watchtcm_films_not_updated_since_6302023/

Here is another:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TurnerClassicMovies/comments/14rndlh/tcm_app_issues_july_2023/

In general, if you want to find something on Reddit, you can always google the word Reddit with whatever it is you're looking for, and the search will likely produce relevant Reddit links. 

 

On 6/29/2023 at 2:55 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

This was fantastic.  It reminded me that every single thing you see in a movie was thought up and put there by somebody.  I didn't know movies had researchers who told them what a Jewish girl's underwear looked like in 1905 (Fiddler on the Roof).  And that there wouldn't be a lot of photos of these garments, so Lillian went to Fairfax Avenue to look for women who would have been girls in 1905, to ask them what the underwear looked like.  Turns out the bloomers have scalloped edges.

I knew what storyboards are, but I never really thought about who drew them, and it never occurred to me that the person who put the storyboard together might not be the director.  The correlation they showed between some of Harold's storyboards and the eventual films was amazing.  He "directed" The Graduate; Mike Nichols put it on film.  And Harold didn't even like the script!

Lillian is a doll, and I would gladly spend many hours listening to her stories.  She had a lot of heartbreak in her life (spending her childhood in orphanages, for starters), but looked at everything in such a matter of fact way. 

I loved how casually she told the story about the drug kingpin who offered to fly her to South America on his private jet so she could tell the people making Scarface what a cocaine cutting room looks like, and the big fight she and Harold had when he said she was out of her mind to even think about going.

I can see how her library became the hangout place for all the people at the studio, including Tom Waits.  Didn't see that coming.

Her Rolodex is something to behold.  It's nice that her library is digitized and on the internet for all to use (at her insistence), but I think there's something lost with the demise of a Rolodex of sources and a library of books and articles with pictures.  And a bunch of people hanging around there.

I can't get over how much I enjoyed this documentary. 

I missed the showing of this, and it's not on Watch TCM right now, so I decided to purchase it on prime.  Will watch later.  I'm very excited about this one. 

[Tom Holmberg]

7 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I think I have posted this before, but my husband and I saw Pink Flamingos on our first date as college students in 1974. Midnight show.  If you think that’s not romantic, we also sat through the oddly paired double bill of If and Romeo and Juliet.

I’m now watching one of tonight’s silent Ozu films. The quality of the film preservation is very poor, unfortunately, but the piano accompaniment is great. 

When I was very young I went to the movies with my older sisters with a double feature of "13 Ghosts" and "Psycho"  I had to stay in the lobby during "Psycho".

[StatisticalOutlier]

3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

EtoT, can you direct me to the Reddit thread with a link? I'm not conversant with Reddit but I'd like to take a look at this conversation.

Since you're new to Reddit, you lucky thing, I'll point out that I find the discussions on Reddit maddeningly impossible to navigate.  I recently discovered "Old Reddit," which arranges the comments like they used to do in the olden days.  (I'm on a computer, not a phone or tablet.)

Also, the default sort at Reddit is "best" and I've always changed it to "oldest first" or sometimes "newest first."  The other day I noticed that in order to change the sort, Reddit now requires you to log in to an account.  Grrrr.  But Old Reddit does let you change the sort without logging in.

To change any Reddit thread to Old Reddit, replace the "www" in the URL with "old" and leave everything else the same.  The ones EtoT linked to are:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TurnerClassicMovies/comments/14p74ql/watchtcm_films_not_updated_since_6302023/

https://old.reddit.com/r/TurnerClassicMovies/comments/14rndlh/tcm_app_issues_july_2023/

 

 

 

[jah1986]

On 7/7/2023 at 11:26 AM, Suzn said:

 I get it on Hulu Live and my signing up for Hulu was dependent on TCM being on the line up.

I'm the same way, I get it through YouTubeTV and one of the reasons I didn't switch to another on-line service is because they didn't include TCM.

[Suzn]

On 7/8/2023 at 3:37 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

 They should just sell that as a streaming app in that format, and it would be quite popular, I think. But I would not want an app that was just the live channel without the on demand feature. 

My point was that TCM is watchable by streaming.  I think that as you say, they should offer a streaming app.

On another topic, I've wanted them to split it into movies 1960 & prior and for those more recent.

[EtheltoTillie]

4 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

When I was very young I went to the movies with my older sisters with a double feature of "13 Ghosts" and "Psycho"  I had to stay in the lobby during "Psycho".

This is like my family lore.   When I was about 8, my 14 year old cousin took me and her 9 year old sister to see a McHale's Navy movie.  We didn't know that the second feature was Black Sabbath, an extremely scary vampire/horror trilogy with Boris Karloff.  We screamed for two hours straight and laugh about it years later.  TCM sometimes shows it.

I'm having to record a lot more movies now, until, or if, they fix this on demand problem. 

Edited July 10, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

I started watching Tokyo Chorus last night (the Ozu silent film).  Will finish tonight.  My preliminary comment: There's a lot of potty humor.  First the main character's son stands on a child's potty to reach a high shelf, knocking down dad's records.  Later, there's a scene where all the men at the corporate offices go in the bathroom to view their annual bonus envelopes in secret.  Urinals figure heavily.  What does this say about me or this movie that I choose to comment on this?  It's really a wonderful film with high level emotional content.  As I noted last night the film quality was poor. 

[voiceover]

Head’s-up: Watch TCM has updated at last!!

Give us days and days to whine, and hey presto, we get results.

[Charlie Baker]

Glad Watch TCM got the update and glad to see the last two Noir Alley installments on it.  Neither is indisputably classic noir, but I think both are worthwhile. Deep Valley is rural, almost Gothic, and has some fine acting across the board, including from an unusually cast Ida Lupino.  Impact has a rural aspect, too, but it's almost Frank Capra-esque, mixed in with some traditional noir elements.

[EtheltoTillie]

It’s updated, but earlier today it was malfunctioning in playing the newly loaded movies. To be continued. 

[voiceover]

If you’ve got to roll “Turner Classic” into the 21st century, I’m okay with 23-year-old Almost Famous joining the ranks.

God, I loveloveLOVE this movie.  All of it.  Everything about it.  The fact that what it’s about (a 70s rock band) isn’t *really what it’s about (the life of a writer).  It’s also a coming-of-age story for most of the characters, where the wisdom feels dearly bought.

And the cast is perfect! Patrick Fugit’s William — who’s basically playing director Cameron Crowe at 15 — is  scary smart about what he knows, but also just a Bambi stumbling over what he doesn’t.  Kate Hudson reminds me of her mom in Cactus Flower: all world-weary veneer barely able to contain an aching vulnerability.

But I save most of my adoration for the supporting players.  Billy Crudup is the guitarist of my tweenage pinup years (and hooray! he’s not a dick).  Jason Lee’s lead singer *is a dick, but he’s hilarious, and often right on, in his blustery tirades (to Crudup’s Russell: “And let me tell you something else: your looks have become a problem!!”)  It’s hard not to like William’s mother, even though she’s as close as this story gets to a villain.  I found out after first viewing that Frances McDormand  & Billy Crudup had worked together before, which makes her trilling of “There’s hope for you yet…Rrrrussellll!” feel like an inside joke.

However.  I must crown Philip Seymour Hoffman as my favorite.  His Lester Bangs is the smartest, funniest person in the room — even though most of his scenes are just him on the phone, mentoring William through the tour.  His principal piece of advice (“Don’t make friends with the rock stars!”) is dead on.  And completely ignored by the two people who come to regret not listening.  His final monologue — an effort to dig his protege out of a sad, shocked, bitter hole — makes me weep and laugh all at once.  And the last thing he says to William (“Be honest.  And UN-MERCIFUL!”) should be hung above every writer’s desk, right next to Orwell’s Six Rules.

 

[lurkerbee]

9 hours ago, voiceover said:

If you’ve got to roll “Turner Classic” into the 21st century, I’m okay with 23-year-old Almost Famous joining the ranks.

God, I loveloveLOVE this movie.  All of it.  Everything about it.  The fact that what it’s about (a 70s rock band) isn’t *really what it’s about (the life of a writer).  It’s also a coming-of-age story for most of the characters, where the wisdom feels dearly bought.

And the cast is perfect! Patrick Fugit’s William — who’s basically playing director Cameron Crowe at 15 — is  scary smart about what he knows, but also just a Bambi stumbling over what he doesn’t.  Kate Hudson reminds me of her mom in Cactus Flower: all world-weary veneer barely able to contain an aching vulnerability.

But I save most of my adoration for the supporting players.  Billy Crudup is the guitarist of my tweenage pinup years (and hooray! he’s not a dick).  Jason Lee’s lead singer *is a dick, but he’s hilarious, and often right on, in his blustery tirades (to Crudup’s Russell: “And let me tell you something else: your looks have become a problem!!”)  It’s hard not to like William’s mother, even though she’s as close as this story gets to a villain.  I found out after first viewing that Frances McDormand  & Billy Crudup had worked together before, which makes her trilling of “There’s hope for you yet…Rrrrussellll!” feel like an inside joke.

However.  I must crown Philip Seymour Hoffman as my favorite.  His Lester Bangs is the smartest, funniest person in the room — even though most of his scenes are just him on the phone, mentoring William through the tour.  His principal piece of advice (“Don’t make friends with the rock stars!”) is dead on.  And completely ignored by the two people who come to regret not listening.  His final monologue — an effort to dig his protege out of a sad, shocked, bitter hole — makes me weep and laugh all at once.  And the last thing he says to William (“Be honest.  And UN-MERCIFUL!”) should be hung above every writer’s desk, right next to Orwell’s Six Rules.

 

Amen to everything you said. This movie is just perfection for me. It’s one of my all time favorite movies and even though I have it on DVD & can watch whenever I want, I still sat down to watch on TCM last night. On this viewing, it hit me that along with Hoffman’s Lester Bangs, Crudup’s Russell is also among my all time favorite film performances. I can’t imagine anyone else playing Russell. What an almost perfect cast.

Edited July 16, 2023 by lurkerbee

[chessiegal]

Mileage truly does vary. We watched Almost Famous for the first time last night. When it ended, we looked at each other and said - there is a movie we'll never have to watch again. I found it tedious.

[Bastet]

As I said in another thread recently when Almost Famous was discussed, I saw it at a Director's Guild screening shortly before it was released and I didn't fawn over it as much as the industry crowd did, but I knew it was going to be a sensation and Kate Hudson was going to be the talk of the town.  It's a good film, but I agreed with the poster in that thread who'd just seen it for the first time that it has its head pretty far up its own ass -- it's one of those films men make and then stand around telling each other how fucking brilliant they are.  But I think it's a lot less offensive than most of those films.  I did like it, but have never re-watched it, so I think I'll give it a fresh look now that it's on TCM.

[Crashcourse]

I'm another one who loves Almost Famous.  All of the actors were spot on.  Billy Crudup was perfect as the 70s rock star, and Kate Hudson will always be Penny Lane for me.  Patrick Fugit, Jason Lee, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Frances McDormand...I could go on but all of the actors were great.  Oh, and Jimmy Fallon was in it! 

One of the funniest scenes was when they were on the plane and they thought it was going to crash, and everyone had a confession to make.  The guy who confessed he was gay and then the plane leveled right afterwards--the "oh shit" look on his face was priceless.

[EtheltoTillie]

I tried rewatching it a couple of years ago and I gave up less than halfway through. I also thought it was tedious. Too self satisfied. 

[Milburn Stone]

12 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

The guy who confessed he was gay and then the plane leveled right afterwards--the "oh shit" look on his face was priceless.

This could also belong in the "That Wouldn't Work Now" topic. The idea that it's funny that someone is gay and comes out of the closet when he doesn't have to--well, it was a different time and all that, but a movie's attitude, not just depicting a different time but having sport with gayness in its present-time interaction with the audience, is hard to look past now.

Not like it condemns a movie to the pits of hell for all time, just that it hits a more than sour note.

[Fool to cry]

I saw Almost Famous when it came out and liked it. The scene where Penny almost died is a deliberate homage to The Apartment which Cameron Crowe acknowledged in his book where he has conversations with director Billy Wilder. A movie which came out the same time was a remake of The Apartment was Loser with Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari who had just been in American Pie. I also saw that in the theater and halfway in was like "Wait a minute! This is The Apartment but with college kids!" It was directed by Amy Heckerling the director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which Cameron Crowe wrote.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Fool to cry

[Wiendish Fitch]

Yesterday would have been Natalie Wood's 85th birthday. She really did leave us too soon.

[Rinaldo]

On 7/17/2023 at 7:31 PM, Crashcourse said:

Billy Crudup was perfect as the 70s rock star

Billy Crudup is one of those movie careers that didn't quite happen the way it seemed it would. Year after year, Premiere magazine would include him in their obligatory article about The Next Big Things in Movies, but the explosion never happened. He did get some good roles, and some big ones (usually in smaller projects), but never became the star as was predicted -- maybe because that wasn't his own main drive.

As with some other actors (Robert Sean Leonard comes to mind), his greatness came through on stage, and maybe that was his real goal and (if one may put it that way) spiritual home. As it happens, I saw his professional debut role, right after graduating from NYU's Tisch School, in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Unknown though he was then, he had a central role, with more established actors (among them Robert Sean Leonard, Blair Brown, Victor Garber, Lisa Banes, Paul Giamatti) in support. And my friends and I all thought "he's amazing, I can't wait to see his career develop." And it has, but not quite in the way we imagined. But his Septimus in that play remains among the half-dozen greatest pieces of acting I've seen in all my years of theatergoing.

[Charlie Baker]

Going a little off topic, but I too saw that production of Arcadia, and it was thrilling to see young actors of the caliber of Crudup, Leonard, and Jennifer Dundas excel in key roles in such a demanding play. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

2 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

Going a little off topic, but I too saw that production of Arcadia, and it was thrilling to see young actors of the caliber of Crudup, Leonard, and Jennifer Dundas excel in key roles in such a demanding play. 

I discovered Arcadia too late to have seen this production (and I would have loved to have been able to see it, as well as the original West End production with Rufus Sewell as Septimus) but I did get to see the revival in 2011 in which Crudup played Bernard Nightingale, a part for which he is perhaps too handsome. 

I first saw Billy Crudup in the film Stage Beauty where I thought he was fantastic as Ned Kynaston. 

[Rinaldo]

42 minutes ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

I did get to see the revival in 2011 in which Crudup played Bernard Nightingale, a part for which he is perhaps too handsome. 

I saw that too, and found him the best Bernard of the 7 or 8 I've seen. (He's written so "big" in self-portrayal that it can be hard to fill it out without being cartoonish, but Crudup aced it.) Also notable in that production was another former Septimus, Raúl Esparza (he has repeatedly said it's his favorite of all the roles he's played), taking a smaller part, Valentine.

[Charlie Baker]

A fairly recent movie that didn't get the attention it should have was  20th Century Women, and Crudup does a fine job in it.

[mariah23]

Greta Gerwig is TCM’s guest programmer tonight and Ben Mankiewicz asked Gerwig what Golden Age of Hollywood star she would cast as Barbie.

 The winner is….drumroll please….

This lady!

[StatisticalOutlier]

3 hours ago, mariah23 said:

This lady!

Sorry, but who is that?

[mariah23]

3 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Sorry, but who is that?

Carole Lombard!!

 

[StatisticalOutlier]

Thanks.  I couldn't quite place her, and the person in the .gif looked like Isabelle Huppert to me.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 7/22/2023 at 8:19 PM, mariah23 said:

Greta Gerwig is TCM’s guest programmer tonight and Ben Mankiewicz asked Gerwig what Golden Age of Hollywood star she would cast as Barbie.

 The winner is….drumroll please….

This lady!

I wish I had seen this.  They're not showing it on Watch TCM.  What did she have to say about Philadelphia Story?

There's going to be an off-Broadway production of Arcadia later this year, I just saw. 

[mariah23]

3 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I wish I had seen this.  They're not showing it on Watch TCM.  What did she have to say about Philadelphia Story?

There's going to be an off-Broadway production of Arcadia later this year, I just saw. 

You can see her interview here:

 

[Charlie Baker]

Thursday is the last night of the month's spotlight on B movies.  Jeremy Arnold who is guesting with Ben wrote this for TCM.com:

Spotlight on B movies

He's spot on about the ones I've caught. Most of the ones currently on Watch TCM I"ve seen. I wish all twenty of them were there. Hopefully they are or will be put in rotation. They're not undiscovered masterpieces, but they are snappy and entertaining, in a number of genres, and not at all run of the mill.  Plus they average about an hour in length.   And as Arnold says, there are some stand out performances (Elsa Lanchester, Boris Karloff).

One of the reasons I've loved TCM is for their offering this kind of presentation.

[Tom Holmberg]

Early Friday morning, July 28, TCM will be running "Blondie."  They almost never run Blondie pictures (and neither does anyone else), so this is a nice addition.  "Blondie" movies were a standby choice for TV stations back in the 50s and 60s.

[BooksRule]

I just finished watching my recording of 'The Swarm' (I still have a little soft spot for those sometimes good/many times bad disaster movies that I remember from my youth, so I watch it every couple of years on TCM.) I noticed that the running time listed was less than 2 hours, but it became obvious that it was going to go much longer.  I also noticed some scenes that I don't remember ever seeing before on any of the TCM airings.  Most were filler, but it was interesting to see them (for example, I had no idea that the young boy, Paul, didn't survive. There was a scene in the hospital that I had never seen before. I guess I just assumed that he survived and was somewhere with the Marysville refugees).  I looked it up and apparently, there is an 'extended cut' that was for TV that was almost 40 minutes longer.  Now I'm wondering if TCM shows both versions or just kind of alternates between them. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by BooksRule

[Rinaldo]

20 hours ago, BooksRule said:

apparently, there is an 'extended cut' that was for TV

The phenomenon of an extended version for TV is an intricate one. The old-time "Sunday Night NBC Movie" and so on had to air in timeslots that were exact multiples of an hour -- it messed up scheduling if there were straggling quarter hours or whatever. So a movie that just failed to fit into a 2-hour slot (with commercials) might be asked to provide padding to let it occupy a 3-hour one. Often they could provide scenes excised during editing (if they couldn't, my memory is that the network would tease that at the end we'd get a "special preview" of some forthcoming big-screen movie -- a studio promo film of suitable length).

Sometimes these additional scenes get an afterlife as a director's cut or an alternative version (as with The Swarm, apparently); or they've been known to eventually turn up as "cut scenes" extras on a DVD; or maybe they vanish into oblivion again once the network airing is over. That last option seems to be the case with one of my favorite movies, The Late Show, recently shown on TCM. When it got a network airing, I noticed a couple of extra scenes that cleverly related to lines from elsewhere in the story. But I guess they're gone forever by now.

[BooksRule]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

The phenomenon of an extended version for TV is an intricate one.

I noticed that on some movie listings on imdb.com, you will see some cast listed as only being in the 'extended TV version/cut' (or whatever they want to call it).  'Earthquake' is like that.  They added some scenes for TV airings.

[Charlie Baker]

 I posted about this before , but I think my favorite example of a movie with added footage for TV airings was Joseph Losey's quite strange Secret Ceremony, which starred Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Mitchum, and Mia Farrow.  I didn't see the reworking, in fact I only saw the original movie a few years ago on TCM.  But there was editing for network broadcast standards, and completely new scenes with characters unseen in the original who explained the oblique story, one of them a psychiatrist.  

[voiceover]

Just finished Body Heat, again, for the express purpose of sitting through that star-making Mickey Rourke debut.  Damn! but he was perfect.  And perfectly beautiful.  

Also reminded me that Ted Danson had turned in a solid “best friend” performance, with an unexpected, chilling twist: he lays out the killer’s plan.  While he’s laughing.  Only he knows it’s not funny, because he’s guessed who the murderer is.

Props also to JA Preston, the cop that won’t quit following the trail, even though he fears what he’ll find.  His voice kept nudging me until I finally remembered how I knew him: the judge in A Few Good Men.

[EtheltoTillie]

Ted Danson is a fave of mine. A solid anchor in so many successful series.  The sly straight man..

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Ted Danson is a fave of mine. A solid anchor in so many successful series.  The sly straight man..

He was certainly eye-catching in Body Heat. And he had been a linchpin in The Onion Field (the death that set the rest of the story in motion). It was possible to wonder whether he'd be permanently stuck in the supporting track -- and then just a year later Cheers happened, and he's been king of TV ever since. (One fun side note: Danson has said that at one point, after a series instantly was cancelled, he was worried that he'd worn out his welcome in the sitcom world, and that's when he begged Steven Spielberg to give him any part, a small one, in his next movie... and that's why he appears briefly in Saving Private Ryan.)

I knew J.A. Preston as a precinct commander on Hill Street Blues, which was brand new at the time of Body Heat.

Slight change of topic: Body Heart has a dynamite score by John Barry, one of my all-time favorites.  Except for special-interest nerds like me, I wouldn't claim that it's the most memorable thing about the movie. BUT are there movies for which this is true? Are there movies which were "made" by their music, and wouldn't have been so successful without it? (instrumental only, to avoid clouding the discussion with musicals or phenomena like Saturday Night Fever)

I immediately thought of Summer of '42, which TCM showed recently. It's so bathed in Michel Legrand's evocative theme song that it's hard to imagine it working with a minimal sort of score.

Maybe another example is Laura. which I recall some of the participants said didn't play nearly as well until David Raskin supplied his immortal theme.

Any others?

[Rinaldo]

We're on the verge of August, time for TCM's Summer Under the Stars. Here is their schedule for the month, complete with links, and a welcome innovation -- captions pointing out the "first-timers," those who haven't been featured in this way before. The names in question are

• Anthony Perkins (August 2)
• Stella Stevens (3)
• Jackie Cooper (4)
• The Nicholas Brothers (9) (yay!)
• Rhonda Fleming (10)
• Katy Jurado (16)
• Geraldine Chaplin (22)
• John Carradine (31)

The lineups toward the end of the month aren't filled in yet (though they are on the downloadable page, which doesn't have links to each title). I know I'll be fearing back to this listing often in the course of the month.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Rinaldo

[EtheltoTillie]

4 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

He was certainly eye-catching in Body Heat. And he had been a linchpin in The Onion Field (the death that set the rest of the story in motion). It was possible to wonder whether he'd be permanently stuck in the supporting track -- and then just a year later Cheers happened, and he's been king of TV ever since. (One fun side note: Danson has said that at one point, after a series instantly was cancelled, he was worried that he'd worn out his welcome in the sitcom world, and that's when he begged Steven Spielberg to give him any part, a small one, in his next movie... and that's why he appears briefly in Saving Private Ryan.)

I knew J.A. Preston as a precinct commander on Hill Street Blues, which was brand new at the time of Body Heat.

Slight change of topic: Body Heart has a dynamite score by John Barry, one of my all-time favorites.  Except for special-interest nerds like me, I wouldn't claim that it's the most memorable thing about the movie. BUT are there movies for which this is true? Are there movies which were "made" by their music, and wouldn't have been so successful without it? (instrumental only, to avoid clouding the discussion with musicals or phenomena like Saturday Night Fever)

I immediately thought of Summer of '42, which TCM showed recently. It's so bathed in Michel Legrand's evocative theme song that it's hard to imagine it working with a minimal sort of score.

Maybe another example is Laura. which I recall some of the participants said didn't play nearly as well until David Raskin supplied his immortal theme.

Any others?

Theme songs:  Days of Wine and Roses (Mancini).  Just started rewatching it the other day.  But it was so troubling I couldn't finish.  (On the same day I also started and didn't finish Tea and Sympathy.  My kishkes are weak lately.)

Oh, well, throw in any Henry Mancini score for good measure. 

Similar:  Lolita, a very troubling film, but a great theme song, by Nelson Riddle.  (I was listening to a podcast series about the book and movie recently, so this is in mind.)  These are two great theme songs from the early sixties.  (I still cannot fathom how Nabokov came up with that book.  I confess to not having read it in its entirety.  Sorry, not sorry.)

Summer of '42.  Gee, that movie just doesn't hold up.  In fact, it really wasn't ever much of anything but a B-grade Love Story with teen titillation factor.

Hey, I forgot about Ted Danson in The Onion Field.  Thanks for the reminder.  They never show that anywhere. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[Charlie Baker]

Danson, Rourke, and Preston really stand out in Body Heat. And the Barry score is very strong.  Danson has really delivered in his wide range of TV roles, including as a baddie on the legal thriller Damages.

There was a stage musical version of Summer of '42, which didn't have access to the Legrand music, and I think it never got past the workshop stage. And how could there be a stage musical of Breakfast at Tiffany's without Moon River? The very gifted Adam Guettel has musicalized Days of Wine and Roses, which had an Off-Broadway run  I didn't get to, and may get a longer life--but the Mancini theme? I think I'd miss it. 

[EtheltoTillie]

So I got Covid again.  Here's what I watched on Friday while sitting home sick--a 70s and 80s fest:

1) Freebie and the Bean.  Had never seen this.  Since both stars recently died, it was worth watching.  It is the most politically incorrect film you can imagine.  Valerie Harper as Arkin's Mexican wife doesn't cut it.  Arkin as Mexican "Bean" also doesn't cut it.  Insane plot.  Anti gay and trans slurs.  Oh, and someone please tell me how (spoiler)

Spoiler

Alan Arkin is not really dead at the end.  Was it a trick/surprise or just in Caan's imagination? 

2) Mean Streets.  Of course, I had seen this when it came out.  Too long.  Too meandering.  Too dark (actually visually dark, I mean).  But it contains the template for Goodfellas.  Also some actual scenes as Scorcese's sketchbook.  Scorcese's mom, Harvey Keitel tying his tie, slow pan of the guys sitting at the bar, restaurant kitchen scenes, all those skeevy clubs and diners.  I learned in the intro that it had not been filmed in NYC, which was quite apparent to me now on rewatch. 

3) Straight Time.  I had seen this also when it came out.  I don't buy that Theresa Russell would ever go out with Dustin Hoffman's character.  Dustin Hoffman was acting with his hair, mustache and shirts.  That is, I didn't really think he was lost in the role of the criminal, the way Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton were.  He's always a showboat ("I'm walkin' here/time for Judge Wapner").  Still, an interesting portrait of inept criminal activity and the inevitable crime doesn't pay story line.  Hoffman's character each time is foiled by not following the time line and blames everyone else.

4) Something Wild.  Had never seen this "cult" film, directed by Jonathan Demme.  I had recorded it a while back, as they were showing it when Ray Liotta died.  A real misfire for me.  Melanie Griffith always annoying in any movie.  Jeff Daniels's motivations unclear.  Ray Liotta over the top--and I love Ray Liotta.  I was disturbed by Lulu's sexually overpowering Daniels as much as by Liotta's overpowering everyone else.  At the end, when Sister Carol was singing, it reminded me of the end of Married to the Mob and realized that it was she who was singing in MTTM, which was also directed by Demme. 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

6 minutes ago, Charlie Baker said:

Danson, Rourke, and Preston really stand out in Body Heat. And the Barry score is very strong.  Danson has really delivered in his wide range of TV roles, including as a baddie on the legal thriller Damages.

There was a stage musical version of Summer of '42, which didn't have access to the Legrand music, and I think it never got past the workshop stage. And how could there be a stage musical of Breakfast at Tiffany's without Moon River? The very gifted Adam Guettel has musicalized Days of Wine and Roses, which had an Off-Broadway run  I didn't get to, and may get a longer life--but the Mancini theme? I think I'd miss it. 

I originally wanted to see the Guittel musical, as I liked Light in the Piazza, but it has already closed.  Was it a limited run?  I thought it closed for not doing well.  Now after my abortive effort to rewatch the movie, I'm not sure I'd even go. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[Charlie Baker]

As I understand it, Days of Wine and Roses was something of a hot ticket and a limited run, and there's some buzz about it moving on to a commercial run at some point.  And some buzz about City Center Encores' (quite wonderful) Light in the Piazza doing the same.  Theater talk! But classic movie based. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Six degrees of separation:  I see I had recently posted about a Malcolm McDowell movie.  He was married to Mary Steenburgen, who's now married to - - Ted Danson. 

Wait!  Mary Steenburgen won Oscar for Melvin and Howard, directed by -- Jonathan Demme!

 

[Rinaldo]

5 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

There was a stage musical version of Summer of '42, which didn't have access to the Legrand music, and I think it never got past the workshop stage.

It had an off-Broadway run and seemed to be doing OK, but it closed because of 9/11. It has had some regional productions since, and a recording was even made (I haven't heard it).