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mariah23

By mariah23
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Rinaldo
Rinaldo

Never have I valued TCM as much as I did Sunday afternoon, after a tense visit to the ER Saturday afternoon and the OR Sunday morning. (Spoiler alert: the surgery solved everything, I got sent home Mo

Charlie Baker
Charlie Baker

An item I copied from a Hollywood Reporter news round-up: Carol Burnett, 90, Proves You’re Never Too Old to Pitch At the Paley Center premiere of the Bob Mackie bio-doc Naked Illusion in May

Rinaldo
Rinaldo

He had mixed feelings about it for a while; he had a genuine fondness for Julie Andrews, for instance, but (as with many performers) he got annoyed that he was known to the world for one popular movie

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chediavolo

chediavolo

Just watched night of the iguana. Good movie. Just could not stop staring at Ava Gardner.  my God her looks faded fast. Only 42 . She looked like the definition of white trash.. looked and sounded really rough. But then once I found out that she was an aficionado of bull fighting I couldn’t stand her anymore so that probably sways my opinion.

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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

On 7/30/2023 at 2:06 PM, Charlie Baker said:

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. 

Wouldn't it be funny if when they move it to Broadway they interpolate Mancini's song into Guettel's score? Based on my reaction to Piazza, I'd call it an improvement. (Four bars of beauty are not enough to sustain me.)

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chitowngirl

chitowngirl

On 7/30/2023 at 11:13 AM, Rinaldo said:

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?

Just a few notes immediately tells you EVERYTHING about Jaws

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voiceover

voiceover

On 7/30/2023 at 8:13 AM, Rinaldo said:

Are there movies which were "made" by their music, and wouldn't have been so successful without it?

Even though I love this film on its own merits (sports AND faith? yes please), I’m going to say Chariots of Fire.  The Vangelis theme is among cinema’s most memorable, suits the movie down to the ground, and is probably better known than the story it supports.  It may have pushed it to the front of the Best Picture race that year.

(side: I’ve always heard some of the melody from the hymn “Blessed Assurance” in that theme.  Someday I will find a music geek to explain why I hear that, and why I’m right (or wrong) about it.)

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

6 hours ago, voiceover said:

Even though I love this film on its own merits (sports AND faith? yes please), I’m going to say Chariots of Fire.  The Vangelis theme is among cinema’s most memorable, suits the movie down to the ground, and is probably better known than the story it supports.  It may have pushed it to the front of the Best Picture race that year.

(side: I’ve always heard some of the melody from the hymn “Blessed Assurance” in that theme.  Someday I will find a music geek to explain why I hear that, and why I’m right (or wrong) about it.)

I  don't think you need a music geek, 'cause I hear that too.  Let's ask our actual resident music professional, @Rinaldo

SomeTameGazelle

SomeTameGazelle

23 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I  don't think you need a music geek, 'cause I hear that too.  Let's ask our actual resident music professional, @Rinaldo

I don't know anything about it but I found this video where the player switches between Chariots of Fire and Blessed Assurance. Is the left hand the same for both?  

 

 

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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

7 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

I don't know anything about it but I found this video where the player switches between Chariots of Fire and Blessed Assurance. Is the left hand the same for both?  

There are similarities, which is why this talented pianist decided to combine them in the first place, but the "left hand" is not identical.

I put left hand in quotes because with both tunes, there are more to the harmonic progressions than strictly what the left hand is doing here.

But however you define it (whether literally what the left hand is doing, or--probably more what you had in mind--what the harmonic progressions are), there are strong similarities as well as differences.

voiceover

voiceover

On 8/4/2023 at 4:57 AM, SomeTameGazelle said:

don't know anything about it but I found this video where the player switches between Chariots of Fire and Blessed Assurance.

This was fascinating! and while there are differences, there’s enough of “sames” that makes me want to throw my hat in the air & cheer! because I’ve thought this since I first saw the movie — “Blessed Assurance” was a staple in the church where I grew up — and it felt like a smaller Russian nesting doll inside the grand sweep of Vangelis’ work.  In its own way, too, it underscores a theme in Chariots….  It’s the underpinnings of Eric Liddell’s stronghold on his faith.

 

On 8/3/2023 at 9:17 AM, HyeChaps said:

I walked out of the theatre after seeing The Sting and could not stop complimenting the music

I need clarification on this.  Was your point that the Joplin/Hamlisch score was the best part of that movie?

WendyCR72

WendyCR72

On 8/11/2023 at 9:59 AM, Tom Holmberg said:

Sunday is Paul Newman day.  Unfortunately "Hombre" isn't one of the movies being shown.

But I am glad to see that Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is one of them!

Yes, I'm fully aware that the movie basically scuttled the issue of Brick being in love with his "friend" and that Tennessee Williams hated the film because of it, but I just think of it as different characters with the same names and enjoy the utter pretty that was Newman and Taylor together.

Though, again, it flew in the face of the story Williams told, Newman and Taylor absolutely sizzled. And Burl Ives, Madeleine Sherwood, and Jack Carson were terrific, too. Judith Anderson was also good, but she admittedly had a very thankless (seemingly) part compared to the rest.

I came to the movie very late in the game, maybe a decade and a half ago. (I was born in 1972.) The first time I saw it, it took some time for me to realize that Burl Ives was more than Sam the Snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and I half expected him to start singing at some point. But then the movie sucked me in, and that was that.

So, I will be tuning in tonight at 10:15 p.m.!

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

@Wiendish Fitch  He should have been apologizing for the stinker shown last night, Pocket Money.  I love to find these little-known films on star days.

Why was this film made, you ask.  Apparently Newman liked the original book and bought the rights.  Hoping to reignite Cool Hand Luke excitement, he assembled the same director and some of the cast.  Lee Marvin also added.  Newman plays a poor but honest/naive cowhand in the vein of Candide.  He's so broke he's going to work about a month or two to buy and transport some 200 head of rodeo cattle for Strother Martin and at the end of all these weeks, he'd make $500. Even in those days that was a pittance, so the economics of the deal make little sense.  Marvin and Newman travel around Mexico failing to procure said cattle.    The last scene in the hotel was pretty great, though.  This film is either a genius existential meditation or an incomprehensible mess. 

Edited by EtheltoTillie
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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

Then there's The Mackintosh Man.  Paul Newman was keeping pretty busy with weak output the same year he made The Sting, one of the greatest movies of all time. 
Here, Newman affects a barely there Aussie accent.  He's a British spy.  The first half contains an interesting look at British prisons of the time.  The prisoners had to wear neckties.  They also had chamber pots instead of flush toilets.  (There's a scene where Newman and a fellow con make hard boiled eggs in the laundry machine.  I wonder what movie that was paying homage to, wink wink.) 

Newman commits a jewel robbery so he can be convicted and assume an identity of a thief.  Then he's broken out of prison and infiltrates some spy ring. Also has James Mason!  I lost interest after the prison break, but that part was well done. 

Edited by EtheltoTillie
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mariah23

mariah23

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(edited)

Programming update:  Director William Friedkin gets a 2-part tribute on September 14 and November 26.

September 14 starts with Friedkin’s Oscar-winning The French Connection followed by To Live and Die in L.A. and The Boys in the Band.

November 26 has a TCM premiere documentary on the director’s life called William Friedkin: Uncut from 2018 and then The Exorcist.

Edited to add: The Exorcist is NOT a TCM premiere but hasn’t aired on TCM since 2002. (Thank you MovieCollectorOH)

The Exorcist GIF by filmeditor

Edited by mariah23
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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

13 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Poor Paul Newman; even though he became an acclaimed actor, a bankable star, and a certified legend in his lifetime, he never stopped apologizing for The Silver Chalice.

And there's no real reason for him to have done so -- he made worse movies in the course of his long and honorable career (anybody who keeps working that long is bound to). Not that I'm trying to reclaim The Silver Chalice as some kind of underrated masterpiece; it's pretty bad. But it's at least interestingly bad, and I would say that any movie buff who's never seen it owes it a look, it's just so bizarre an item to have emerged from the studio system. At a time when (A) every production decision had to be approved by a well-established corporate hierarchy, and (B) Bible-adjacent meganovels* and the movies made from them were at their height of popularity, Rolf Gerard (otherwise remembered as an operatic set designer) was let loose to create sharp-edged unreal cities and rooms, and some eye-catchingly unhistorical costumes. Even now, I can't think of many other movies that just repudiate realism like that.

(*Man, there were a ton of those vaguely sort-of-religious books around, this one and The Robe and its sequel, and Dear and Glorious Physician and tons more, back to the grandaddy of them all, Ben Hur. My parents had a couple of them on our shelves, and there were more to be had from the library.)

1 hour ago, EtheltoTillie said:

@Wiendish Fitch  He should have been apologizing for the stinker shown last night, Pocket Money. 

... or for any of several others. Heck, he was downright proud of WUSA (1970) and described it as "the most significant film I've ever made and the best." That's admittedly a stinker of a different kind -- politically well-intentioned and utterly sincere about its dreariness -- but aspirations don't make a bad movie any better. I notice that TCM didn't dig that one up, nor should they have.

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

Praise for Rachel, Rachel,* which also aired last night.  I hadn't seen it since original release.  The church scene was overdone as was the scene where Joanne goes into the soda shop and is surrounded by loud teenagers.  Seems like they were going for auditory overload to unnerve her.

Great job establishing the character with her dowdy shirtwaist dresses with Peter Pan collars.  They were already outmoded at the time, and the scene with the teenagers showed what people were really wearing by then.  Joanne was well known for being a seamstress, and I wonder what her involvement was with the costumes.

*Newman's directorial debut.  He doesn't act in the movie. 

 

Edited by EtheltoTillie
EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

One last recommendation from the obscure-film list:  On Rhonda Fleming Day they showed Home Before Dark, which really stars Jean Simmons.  Rhonda Fleming plays the evil stepsister.  The always wonderful Mabel Albertson played the evil stepmother.  She had a career playing domineering mothers-in-law/evil stepmothers. 

This is a melodramatic cross between Gaslight and The Heiress (and Cinderella), if you will.  At the beginning, Jean is released from a mental hospital.  Her creepy college professor hubby really has a thing for sister Rhonda Fleming.

A must watch if you need to see Simmons as a blonde!   The movie is in black and white, so in the beginning, I think she has grey hair, then later it's dyed blond, but they all look blond.  At the end she reverts to her natural dark hair to show she's emerging from her mental capitivity.

Best scene: Jean gets her hair done like Rhonda Fleming's in platinum blond with a loony braid wreath on top.  She gets drunk and wears a dress two sizes too large and smears lipstick outside the lines.  She embarrasses herself and everyone else by showing up at a Christmas party with her dress falling down and her bra/slip showing. 

Edited by EtheltoTillie
voiceover

voiceover

And tomorrow is Ronald Colman day!  For about the billionth time I’d like to bore remind the thread that his first appearance in Tale of Two Cities — wincing in the throes of a hangover — is neck & neck with that zoom dolly of John Wayne in Stagecoach for my favorite intro in movies.

Go figure: take that signature mustache away and he’s even more devastating: drunk, clever, impassioned, brilliant, in love…drunk (god, he’s great liquored-up!!). 

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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

6 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

On Rhonda Fleming Day they showed Home Before Dark, which really stars Jean Simmons. 

This turns up on TCM from time to time, and I caught it a few years ago, largely because Pauline Kale give it a capsule writeup in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, mostly to praise Jean Simmons's performance. Simmons is indeed the best thing in the movie, which is otherwise a second-tier small-cast B&W release with psychological ambitions beyond its abilities to fulfill. The premise is intriguing enough: she emerges from a stay in the loony bin to deal with her paranoid fantasies, only to find that the fantasies were in fact the truth. But nothing leads to anything else; there's a serious lack of coherent structure. Also of all "title songs," this must be one of the most unneeded and inappropriate.

8 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Praise for Rachel, Rachel ... Newman's directorial debut.  He doesn't act in the movie. 

That could be a cool theme for TCM, some month in the future: movies directed by actors who don't appear in the movie. Many well-known actors have directed a movie or two, but most often as vehicles for themselves (like the Olivier and Branagh Shakespeare films). So this could be an interesting roster: Newman did several for Joanne Woodward (my favorite being The Glass Menagerie), Jack Nicholson did Drive, He Said (new horizons in male nudity, so it'll always have a place on my list), Charles Laughton of course with Night of the Hunter, Robert Redford and Ordinary People, and the list goes on.

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Wiendish Fitch

Wiendish Fitch

1 minute ago, voiceover said:

And tomorrow is Ronald Colman day!  For about the billionth time I’d like to bore remind the thread that his first appearance in Tale of Two Cities — wincing in the throes of a hangover — is neck & neck with that zoom dolly of John Wayne in Stagecoach for my favorite intro in movies.

Go figure: take that signature mustache away and he’s even more devastating: drunk, clever, impassioned, brilliant, in love…drunk (god, he’s great liquored-up!!). 

Ooooohhh, my adoration of Ronald Colman knows no bounds. He is so damned good in A Tale of Two Cities and Random Harvest (let the haters sneer, I love this movie to bits). 

Back to A Tale of Two Cities, it has a small but memorable part played by Lucille La Verne... the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

No haters here, @Wiendish Fitch  I have an irrational affection forRandom Harvest.  The moment when

Spoiler

the camera pulls back to reveal Greer Garson as Colman’s now sophisticated secretary, unrecognized by him

, is one of my favorites.  I cannot ever fail to tear up at the end. Spoiler tags for those who have never seen the movie, as this should be appreciated without knowing about it. 

Edited by EtheltoTillie
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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

So even Deborah Kerr has to apologize for a Bible adjacent sword and sandal epic.  For Deborah Kerr Day, TCM was showing Quo Vadis, where Peter Ustinov chews the scenery as Nero (some think he was robbed of the Oscar, but, well, see for yourself).  Deborah is a Christian maiden.  I've only watched half so far.  Don't know how I've managed to miss this one up till now.  It's a real textbook example of the genre, with pretentious dialog and wooden acting.  Robert Taylor is particularly bad.  Here's what NYT's Bosley Crowther said:  "a staggering combination of cinema brilliance and sheer banality, of visual excitement and verbal boredom, of historical pretentiousness and sex."

Fans of Ustinov and Kerr can also catch them in The Sundowners, which is actually a favorite of mine. 

Both films still available on Watch TCM.

Edited by EtheltoTillie
SomeTameGazelle

SomeTameGazelle

7 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

So even Deborah Kerr has to apologize for a Bible adjacent sword and sandal epic.  For Deborah Kerr Day, TCM was showing Quo Vadis, where Peter Ustinov chews the scenery as Nero (some think he was robbed of the Oscar, but, well, see for yourself).  Deborah is a Christian maiden.  I've only watched half so far.  Don't know how I've managed to miss this one up till now.  It's a real textbook example of the genre, with pretentious dialog and wooden acting.  Robert Taylor is particularly bad.  Here's what NYT's Bosley Crowther said:  "a staggering combination of cinema brilliance and sheer banality, of visual excitement and verbal boredom, of historical pretentiousness and sex."

Ha! I just made my mother watch Hail, Caesar! in order to explain a reference in a clue on Jeopardy and then we saw bits and pieces of Quo Vadis on TCM and I have to say I probably just found the latter funny as a result. 

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

53 minutes ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Ha! I just made my mother watch Hail, Caesar! in order to explain a reference in a clue on Jeopardy and then we saw bits and pieces of Quo Vadis on TCM and I have to say I probably just found the latter funny as a result. 

Oh, this just tickles my heart.  You must tell us what the Jeopardy clue was! 

My brother-in-law still holds it against me for making him watch Hail, Caesar!  He didn't get the joke.  Quo Vadis was so clearly an inspiration. 

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SomeTameGazelle

SomeTameGazelle

22 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Oh, this just tickles my heart.  You must tell us what the Jeopardy clue was! 

My brother-in-law still holds it against me for making him watch Hail, Caesar!  He didn't get the joke.  Quo Vadis was so clearly an inspiration. 

It was in a recent repeat episode, originally broadcast October 21, 2022. The clue was in the Double Jeopardy round, under the category Movie & TV Directors:

Screenshot_20230816_164203_Chrome.jpg.ca81f5dfadbb23127b980343c742e7ef.jpg

[I have taken the screenshot from  the J! Archive so it's not the Jeopardy font.]

https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=7478&highlight=Hail+caesar

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

Speaking of bras and slips, one of the most emotionally realistic scenes in Rachel, Rachel was the moment where Joanne is walking to school on the last day and her slip starts showing from the bottom of her skirt, and she's trying unsuccessfully to hike it up so the kids won't laugh at her.  No one under the age of 60, say, will remember ever having to deal with this.  But it was a real fact of life.  A total embarrassment.  Brilliant to include this bit of business. 

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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

(edited)
58 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Speaking of bras and slips, one of the most emotionally realistic scenes in Rachel, Rachel was the moment where Joanne is walking to school on the last day and her slip starts showing from the bottom of her skirt, and she's trying unsuccessfully to hike it up so the kids won't laugh at her.  No one under the age of 60, say, will remember ever having to deal with this.  But it was a real fact of life.  A total embarrassment.  Brilliant to include this bit of business. 

Yes, that was a thing when I was a kid in the fifties and sixties, but I only knew that because movies, sitcoms and cartoons made such a big deal of it. I never understood why! Apparently it was as bad as a man walking down the street in his underwear! But a woman being ashamed because a half-inch of slip showed below her skirt never did compute for my boy brain and I bet most grown men didn't understand the shame either. 

Edited by Milburn Stone
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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

(edited)
11 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

So even Deborah Kerr has to apologize for a Bible adjacent sword and sandal epic.  For Deborah Kerr Day, TCM was showing Quo Vadis, where Peter Ustinov chews the scenery as Nero (some think he was robbed of the Oscar, but, well, see for yourself).  Deborah is a Christian maiden.  I've only watched half so far....

I recorded it, and have so far watched only the opening titles (I'll always watch at least that much of any movie I record, to check out the format & presentation, plus who designed the costumes and who composed the music). I'd already seen most of the other titles on Deborah Kerr Day, and this is one of those "huge in its time / nearly forgotten now" epics that begs me to check it out and see what pulled in audiences then. One mild surprise was that such a colorful large-scape epic wasn't in a widescreen format -- then I checked and found that it was just a year or two early for that.

23 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Apparently it [showing one's slip] was as bad as a man walking up the street in only his underwear...

Maybe, being male, I don't really understand the nuances, or maybe it varied according to locale, but in my formative years (the 1950s) I recall showing a bit of slip being a bit of a gaffe, but only a bit -- less so than a man being told his fly was unzipped, which also happened on occasion. Even with a teacher, we could mention it to her, she might giggle or say oops and correct it, and life would go on and it would be instantly forgotten.

Edited by Rinaldo
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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)

Completists will want to watch Scandal at Scourie, where the stars of Mrs. Miniver are roped into a remake of Anne of Green Gables.  In this case, the cute little orphan helps resolve centuries of Protestant/Catholic prejudice.  Walter Pidgeon learns to eat fish on Fridays. 

Be sure to catch early scenes of  Endora (Agnes Moorehead) essaying a French Canadian accent as a nun. 

For those who are wondering, the source material was apparently a short story from Good Housekeeping magazine.

The stars were first paired in another orphan-themed film, the biopic Blossoms in the Dust,  which also dealt with the stigma of "illegitimacy" among foundlings.

Edited by EtheltoTillie
EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

They really should do a better job with the closed captioning.  I use them all the time, as my hearing is fading.  For those who don't use captions, the captions usually run slightly ahead of the dialog.  I was confused when Greer Garson shouted "Padisha," as she boiled over some preserves on the stove.  Then I realized she actually said "Perdition."

In another scene, Walter Pidgeon called the orphan "poor little wife," when he really said "waif."  There were lots more that I can't remember now. 

benteen

benteen

(edited)

I couldn't finish watching Quo Vadis. I found it disappointing that films like QV and The Robe (which I also couldn't finish) took Best Picture spots away from far more worthy films. The Ten Commandments is loaded with corny dialogue and performances (and unintentional humor) but unlike the previous two films, actually manages to pull it off. Plus it's truly an amazing piece of cinema in terms of scope and production. There's a reason it keeps getting aired every year. Quo Vadis and The Robe are slogs that I couldn't even finish. 

Edited by benteen
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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

2 hours ago, benteen said:

I couldn't finish watching Quo Vadis. I found it disappointing that films like and The Robe (which I also couldn't finish) took Best Picture spots away from far more worthy films. The Ten Commandments is loaded with corny dialogue and performances (and unintentional humor) but unlike the previous two films, actually manages to pull it off. Plus it's truly an amazing piece of cinema in terms of scope and production. There's a reason it keeps getting aired every year. Quo Vadis and The Robe are slogs that I couldn't even finish. 

I have to agree after a couple of days of not returning to watch the end of Quo Vadis. 

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BooksRule

BooksRule

I decided to record a few Greer Garson movies the other day to watch later.  So far, I've watched 'Pride and Prejudice' which I had never seen before.  It was good, but I wished it had been filmed in color (I did read the trivia online about why it ended up in black & white).  I re-watched 'Mrs. Miniver' yesterday.  The other three I recorded were also new to me.  I just finished watching 'Mrs. Parkington'. It was okay, but I thought that Agnes Moorehead was the best character (I think she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for the role).  Glady Cooper's character was kind of fun, too.  I would have liked to see more scenes with her.  I have 'That Forsyte Woman' and 'Random Harvest' recorded, too, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to watching them.  Probably not until sometime this weekend.  

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on these movies.  (Even the two I haven't seen yet.  I don't mind spoilers.)

EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

@BooksRule  I wrote something about Random Harvest above a few days ago, and you must watch it without spoilers!  It's too good not to.

I love that version of Pride and Prejudice, even though it departs from the novel.  I enjoyed noticing the actor who plays Mr. Collins in a very small role in Random Harvest.  That's NOT a spoiler. 

Agnes Moorehead keeps showing up in these movies too!

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