TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[EtheltoTillie]

Did anyone watch Tunes of Glory?  I’d never seen it, and it was part of the Memorial Day weekend lineup of military films. It’s like a Scottish version of The Caine Mutiny.  Very interesting take on how war experience affects people in unpredictable ways. So many raves for Alec Guinness’s performance, and while I found it good, I thought his last soliloquy interminable. I preferred the scenes with the dancing class and the dance, and John Mills’s over the top reaction. 

[Mindthinkr]

Recorded Mr Roberts yesterday morning and watched it last night. It was as funny as I remember and made for an enjoyable evening. Plus we had NY cheesecake as a snack. 

[Amello]

Has TCM ever played classic Disney features? I think it could be fun if they dedicated a day to animated features, not just including Disney. Would that be controversial to TCM viewers?

[mariah23]

16 minutes ago, Amello said:

Has TCM ever played classic Disney features? I think it could be fun if they dedicated a day to animated features, not just including Disney. Would that be controversial to TCM viewers?

TCM used to air Treasures from the Disney Vault, hosted by Leonard Maltin.  

[hypnotoad]

Quote

TCM used to air Treasures from the Disney Vault, hosted by Leonard Maltin. 

I remember that! I suppose the issue these days would be Disney wanting to keep all of its stuff under its umbrella and app.

[Sarah 103]

 

13 hours ago, hypnotoad said:

I remember that! I suppose the issue these days would be Disney wanting to keep all of its stuff under its umbrella and app.

I think this would be the larger issue. If they wanted to show something Disney, they would have to pay to license it, and showing Snow White or something else instantly recognizable as classic Disney is probably more expensive than showing something TCM already has the rights to. By "already has the rights to" I am including all of the classic films in the Warner Discovery catalog. 

[Rinaldo]

19 hours ago, hypnotoad said:

I remember that! I suppose the issue these days would be Disney wanting to keep all of its stuff under its umbrella and app.

That's the issue. The occasional Disney Vault evenings pre-dated the creation of the Disney streaming service, so it was a way for them to get some of their titles viewed, and was mutually beneficial. (And even so, I bet Maltin, with his inside track at Disney, did a lot of schmoozing to make it happen.) They also stuck to seldom-seen titles -- the "package" animated films, animated shorts, the early live-action features. But now Disney has its own means of getting its product to TV viewers (and they've farmed some of it out; I see some of the early live-action adventure flicks are on Prime). There's no reason for them to use TCM for that.

[Milburn Stone]

19 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

the "package" animated films

Just picking up on that short phrase to insert that I really like Disney's package animated films. (Those films like Make Mine Music et. al. of second half of the forties). They're usually overlooked, but offer lots of joys, including in their live-action portions and the portions that blend live-action with animation. I almost (sacrilege alert) prefer them to the full-length animated features. Prefer not in the sense that I consider them superior artistic accomplishments to the best of the full-length animated features, prefer in the sense that I'd simply rather watch them.

[Tom Holmberg]

On 5/25/2024 at 4:02 PM, fairffaxx said:

The book was 1000 times better than the movie.

The book is almost always better than the movie.

[fairffaxx]

Especially when it's by Evelyn Waugh.

[Rinaldo]

On 5/30/2024 at 12:12 PM, Milburn Stone said:

I really like Disney's package animated films.

That being so, you might enjoy exploring the YouTube channel Ediz and Ben: 2 young Londoners, 20-ish actors who love Disney (Ben seems to know everything about them, actually). They're making their way through the Disney Animated Classics in chronological order, reacting and commenting. They've just finished the Package Era, and their next post is to be the results of member voting on best song, scene, etc., from those 6 pictures (yes, I voted). Their channel also includes some impressive tutorials on how to do various dances conceived for animation, like Kuzco's entry from The Emperor's New Groove and the one from A Goofy Movie. (They seem to be excellent teachers as well as good dancers.)

I mention this because nobody else seems to talk about those six animated features at all.

[Milburn Stone]

This is amazing, @Rinaldo. Thank you for this information, which I wouldn't have known about it in a million years.

Edited May 31 by Milburn Stone

[voiceover]

His Girl Friday: My all-timer.  Yet I thrill to notice new little bits & pieces.

That first reunion between Hildy & Walter is some fabulous verbal ping-pong ([referring to Walter’s lap] “I jumped out of that window years ago!”).  

But.  Those nonverbals they exchange during the lunch with Bruce (that look she gives him when he uses her lit match — that she’s holding — to light his own cig) could make up their own silent short film; one I’d happily rank in my Top 25.

And Hildy’s other boys are simply wonderful! from snarking the Law (Sheriff: “He’s just as sane as I am!”  NewsGang: “Saner!”), to the way they act towards the only girl in their inner sanctum.  She’s herself with them (“Hey, I paid twenty bucks for this hat!”), and they treat her with the respect she has earned  — to a man, they admire her writing skills — but also with the derisive teasing accorded one of their own.  If the exes are a ping-pong match, the reporters pool is a hockey game: the no-quarter-given slinging of the puck until there’s a score.

And this has been your Sportsball Review of a Classic Film for today.

[EtheltoTillie]

I watched a few minutes of the ‘80s version they were also showing, with Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve and Burt Reynolds, but it wasn’t very engaging. 

[EtheltoTillie]

It’s Alec Guinness week. After Tunes of Glory there was River Kwai, which I’m rewatching. Now I see there is the politically incorrect antiquity A Majority of One, where Rosalind Russell plays a Jewish woman (originated on Broadway by Gertrude Berg) and —wait for it— Alec Guinness plays a Japanese widower. I have not tried watching this yet, but I watched Ben Mankiewicz’s intro, which surprisingly does not mention this yellow face problem, which seems to rival that of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and which had been discussed by the hosts. Instead he tells the story about how Roz Russell did not want to take the part until she heard that Guinness was cast, and that’s what convinced her. Huh?  

Oh, and the genius plot is that they fall in love despite her son’s being killed by Japanese in WWII and his son being killed at Hiroshima. Groan. 
Edit. It was his daughter who died at Hiroshima. 

Edited June 1 by EtheltoTillie

[Milburn Stone]

43 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Now I see there is the politically incorrect antiquity A Majority of One, where Rosalind Russell plays a Jewish woman (originated on Broadway by Gertrude Berg) and —wait for it— Alec Guinness plays a Japanese widower. I have not tried watching this yet, but I watched Ben Mankiewicz’s intro, which surprisingly does not mention this yellow face problem, which seems to rival that of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s...

Sarah Silverman on her podcast has complained about Hollywood's longstanding (and ongoing) "Jewface" problem, i.e. its regular practice of casting non-Jewish actors as Jewish characters when those characters' Jewishness is central to the story. The casting of Rosalind Russell, an Irish Catholic, to play a role originated on Broadway by Gertrude Berg, can be cited as an example. Silverman's beef isn't with the actors who get the parts, who she agrees can be wonderfully effective, but with Hollywood's apparent aversion to casting Jewish actors in those roles. A prominent recent example of the practice is Rachael Brosnahan as Mrs. Maisel.

It's almost as if Hollywood thinks that a Jewish actor playing a Jewish character is too much Jewishness for the public's taste.

Sharing this not to defend or condemn the practice but to point out the bottomless complexities of the issue when [insert not correct ethnicity actor here] plays [insert prominently ethnic character here].

Article.

 

[EtheltoTillie]

Remember Gregory Peck in Gentleman’s Agreement!  Well, on the other hand he was only pretending to be Jewish as a character. 

Edited June 1 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

So A Majority of One was a cringe fest, yet there was something compelling and rather sweet about it too. Mae Questel (Betty Boop!) weighed in on how “the element” was coming to ruin her Brooklyn neighborhood. Eddie the Japanese houseboy was also played by a white actor. Alec Guinness seemed to be channeling Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove!  Roz Russell’s kimono scene could have been an outtake from Auntie Mame.  

Roz Russell did okay with her Yiddish inflections.  There’s always something off when non Jews try this, but she overcame with her humanity. 

I enjoyed seeing that Roz was really crocheting in her shipboard scene. They so often fake knitting and crocheting and it drives me crazy as a practitioner of both! (I recently applauded Miss Bette Davis knitting in another movie.). 

Edited June 1 by EtheltoTillie

[mariah23]

TCM Remembers Janis Page who passed away yesterday at the young age of 101.

https://youtu.be/TcTpVeMNp0E?si=DrkWZ_Jyf3aOhw6K

Edited June 4 by mariah23

[EtheltoTillie]

Peggy Sue Got Married is unwatchable!  I forgot that Francis Ford Coppola directed this mess. What was Nic Cage doing?  

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Peggy Sue Got Married is unwatchable!  I forgot that Francis Ford Coppola directed this mess. What was Nic Cage doing?  

I have a different memory of a Coppola family member being problematic in this. When I saw it on initial release, I kept being distracted by the very amateurish acting of Nancy, the sister in the flashbacks. I thought "Hollywood is stuffed with girls who can act better than this, and Coppola is a good director -- how on earth did this happen?" And then it came to me instantly: "Oh of course, she's Family." And when the the credits rolled, there it was: Sofia Coppola. Later, the poor kid got widely roasted for her work in The Godfather Part III. (So much so that Pauline Kael, very uncharacteristically, reacted in a motherly-protective way and came up with some nice things to say so she wouldn't feel totally miserable.) Since then, of course, Sofia has found her true calling as a fine movie director and has nothing to be embarrassed about.

[EtheltoTillie]

If you think Sofia's performance is even worse than Nic's, then I might have to go back to look.  I didn't get far enough.

   I read some commentaries that said Cage would only do this movie if he could go for broke in the acting.  Sheesh.  He was so wonderful in Valley Girl. . . .

On another note, at the beginning I kept looking at the daughter and saying "is that Helen Hunt?"  Yes, it was, and only a few actual years younger than KT.  So those jokes about their looking like sisters made sense. 

Edited June 4 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

I also rewatched American Graffiti.  It was all filmed at night, so it was very hard to see.  I had forgotten that Cindy Williams got into the car with Harrison Ford at the end.  The movie holds up, I think.  It's hard to watch Mackenzie Phillips, knowing everything we have learned about her later.

Richard Dreyfuss has always played a loudmouth/smart ass, so I guess he's always been playing himself.  As his recent antics have shown.  We discussed some of this under the actors' misdeeds thread.

I was glad this was on, because I had just finished reading the Ron Howard/Clint Howard memoir about their life as child actors.  I found it fascinating.  Their parents really took pains to raise unspoiled children.  Yet his father was a great acting coach who really made Ron and Clint into successful child actors, since he had to be on set.  He had his own acting aspirations that ended up being subsumed to the kids'.

As for Graffiti, also with Coppola involvement--as producer--Ron Howard was the only well-known actor in the movie at the time.  He was the draw.  He talks about how they had to try to sleep all day to film at night.

Edited June 4 by EtheltoTillie

[mariah23]

6 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I also rewatched American Graffiti.  It was all filmed at night, so it was very hard to see.  I had forgotten that Cindy Williams got into the car with Harrison Ford at the end.  The movie holds up, I think.  It's hard to watch Michelle Phillips, knowing everything we have learned about her later.

Richard Dreyfuss has always played a loudmouth/smart ass, so I guess he's always been playing himself.  As his recent antics have shown.  We discussed some of this under the actors' misdeeds thread.

I was glad this was on, because I had just finished reading the Ron Howard/Clint Howard memoir about their life as child actors.  I found it fascinating.  Their parents really took pains to raise unspoiled children.  Yet his father was a great acting coach who really made Ron and Clint into successful child actors, since he had to be on set.  He had his own acting aspirations that ended up being subsumed to the kids'.

As for Graffiti, also with Coppola involvement--as producer--Ron Howard was the only well-known actor in the movie at the time.  He was the draw.  He talks about how they had to try to sleep all day to film at night.

Michelle?  

[EtheltoTillie]

Also, now I have "Gary, Indiana" as an earworm. 

 

 

[EtheltoTillie]

11 minutes ago, mariah23 said:

Michelle?  

Duh, I mean Mackenzie  Thanks! I will correct. 

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/3/2024 at 5:40 PM, mariah23 said:

TCM Remembers Janis Page who passed away yesterday at the young age of 101.

https://youtu.be/TcTpVeMNp0E?si=DrkWZ_Jyf3aOhw6K

She was really something.

[SomeTameGazelle]

Moon Over Miami is pretty cute but did Charlotte Greenwood give Jack Haley a jar of astonishingly deeply red-coloured guacamole? 

[Sarah 103]

My problem with Peggy Sue Got Married is that she does nothing to change or improve her life. Instead, she improves the lives of men around her. That aspect of the movie really bothered me. 

I love American Graffiti. It's a dream of mine to see Lucas's version of the script with the alternate song choices. He had three possible songs mapped out for every scene. I saw it in a theater last year and it helped me appreciate what they did with sound. The soundtrack, the way they manipulated the songs, it has a distinctive sound that is not like no other movie. 

Edited June 5 by Sarah 103

[Wiendish Fitch]

54 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

My problem with Peggy Sue Got Married is that she does nothing to change or improve her life. Instead, she improves the lives of men around her. That aspect of the movie really bothered me. 

A fair complaint, but I actually appreciate how Peggy Sue Got Married is about accepting your life's choices, embracing the good in your life, and not dwelling on regrets. 

Really, what keeps me from loving Peggy Sue Got Married is that damned Nicholas Cage. Rarely has miscasting ruined a movie so irreparably for me. 

[EtheltoTillie]

42 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

A fair complaint, but I actually appreciate how Peggy Sue Got Married is about accepting your life's choices, embracing the good in your life, and not dwelling on regrets. 

Really, what keeps me from loving Peggy Sue Got Married is that damned Nicholas Cage. Rarely has miscasting ruined a movie so irreparably for me. 

Nic Cage's hair deserves a separate listing in the cast.

The writing combined with his acting makes it impossible to believe she would choose to stay with him. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

12 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Nic Cage's hair deserves a separate listing in the cast.

The writing combined with his acting makes it impossible to believe she would choose to stay with him. 

If her ex-husband had been played by someone, shall we say, closer to Earth, then

Spoiler

I would totally buy her reconciling with him at the end.

However, he's such a cringe-y nutcase, I can't understand what she ever saw in him. 

[fairffaxx]

Two excellent movies were on TCM this morning:

    "Victim" (1961) starring Dirk Bogarde, dramatizing the effects of England's laws criminalizing homosexual conduct; 

    "Les Diaboliques" (1955) starring Simone Signoret & Vera Clouzot, in French with English subtitles, grand guignol at its finest.

I don't know if they'll be available to watch on demand but would be well worth searching out.

[EtheltoTillie]

45 minutes ago, fairffaxx said:

Two excellent movies were on TCM this morning:

    "Victim" (1961) starring Dirk Bogarde, dramatizing the effects of England's laws criminalizing homosexual conduct; 

    "Les Diaboliques" (1955) starring Simone Signoret & Vera Clouzot, in French with English subtitles, grand guignol at its finest.

I don't know if they'll be available to watch on demand but would be well worth searching out.

Both of these are indeed stupendous.

[fairffaxx]

TCM is a real blessing.  

[EtheltoTillie]

9 minutes ago, fairffaxx said:

TCM is a real blessing.  

I watch it more than anything else, I think. 

[Milburn Stone]

13 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I watch it more than anything else, I think. 

And it must be in the top 10 of all topics on this site. I know there are some topics that have earned more than 213 pages of commentary, but there can't be many.

[chessiegal]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

And it must be in the top 10 of all topics on this site. I know there are some topics that have earned more than 213 pages of commentary, but there can't be many.

Most likely true, but I noticed today that one forum I follow, House Hunters International, has 255 pages. TCM isn't even close.

The Commercials That Annoy forum has 707 pages! Now I'm going to have to start paying attention.

Edited June 6 by chessiegal
Additional info

[mariah23]

Several forums in the Counting On have over 1000 pages.

[hypnotoad]

Quote

His Girl Friday: My all-timer.

I love it too. In fact, I recently started a classic movie program at my library and I'm showing His Girl Friday next month. I show a movie every week and this month is my own Noir Alley!

Quote

Really, what keeps me from loving Peggy Sue Got Married is that damned Nicholas Cage. Rarely has miscasting ruined a movie so irreparably for me. 

Completely agree. He's just awful in the movie. I've got no idea what the hell he was doing.

Quote

"Les Diaboliques" (1955) starring Simone Signoret & Vera Clouzot, in French with English subtitles, grand guignol at its finest.

This is one of my favorite horror movies. Incredibly creepy.

[bmoore4026]

Well, I finished watching Saving Private Ryan in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day.  Anyone else think it was screwed over for the Best Picture Oscar in favor of Shakespeare in Love?

[voiceover]

1 hour ago, bmoore4026 said:

Anyone else think [Saving Private Ryan] was screwed over for the Best Picture Oscar in favor of Shakespeare in Love?

Nope.  Absolutely not.  This is a hill I will die on, if you’ll pardon that expression here.

That first twenty-or-so minutes of the landing on D-Day is awe-inspiring & unforgettable & I remember thinking: Christ, I’ve never seen anything like this!

And then *that’s over, and the scripted stuff starts, and it’s every war movie from the 40s through the 60s: platoon of young men featuring Guy from New Yawk, Southern boy sharpshooter, sensitive medic, stoic Sarge, sweet Midwesterner, etc etc etc., all bound together in the service of A Mission.

It’s well-done, to be sure, and not since Val Kilmer smirked through the role of Doc Holliday have I ever loved a noncom like I loved Tom Sizemore’s Sergeant Horvath.

But I can’t pretend the bulk of that movie isn’t just a more expensive, elegant retread.

Shakespeare in Love was a Best Picture for all the screenwriters.  They’re the under-praised, overlooked, much-maligned real heroes of Hollywood, and that seething group voted it to victory.   Marc Norman composed a charming story, and then Tom Stoppard stepped in and made it iridescent.   He turned that terrific group of actors even better by giving them those words to speak.

[Rinaldo]

8 hours ago, bmoore4026 said:

Anyone else think it was screwed over for the Best Picture Oscar in favor of Shakespeare in Love?

A lot of people apparently do, and they're not shy about saying so on other sites I frequent (like Sporcle). And I will foolishly (because it's the internet) always try to explain why they're wrong. Their argument generally seems to be that Any War Movie, or Any Action Movie, is inherently better than Any Literary Comedy. Or, alternatively, that Spielberg is Always Better Than Anything.

As @voiceover eloquently said, the first 20 minutes are astounding. (Though as one irreverent commentator remarked, why shouldn't they be? they probably cost more than the actual Normandy invasion.)  OK, credit where it's due. But what about the rest of the running time? (And whose flashback is this anyway? Ryan, who wasn't present for a big part of what we see?) All standard-issue stuff.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare in Love is like nothing else. And more important, it all works. The screenwriters not only had a great idea, they polished it into brilliance. (My father, a director himself, always maintained that it was always about the writing.) And then the actors (and yes, the director; and the designers and everybody) brought it to incomparable life. It's a movie I never tire of rewatching.

[graybrown bird]

TCM and my sweet cat Emma (now sadly gone) got me through the pandemic.

[EtheltoTillie]

Geez, I can’t stand seeing Tom Hanks being interviewed as an elder statesman as if he served on D-Day. Christiane Amanpour for Pete’s sake!  
 

I actually liked Shakespeare in Love but I was creeped out yesterday by a post Oscar photo op with the cast and Gwyneth standing next to Harvey Weinstein. 

[Raja]

2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

A lot of people apparently do, and they're not shy about saying so on other sites I frequent (like Sporcle). And I will foolishly (because it's the internet) always try to explain why they're wrong. Their argument generally seems to be that Any War Movie, or Any Action Movie, is inherently better than Any Literary Comedy. Or, alternatively, that Spielberg is Always Better Than Anything.

All genre fans want their genre to win so better films in it will be made. The low budget bunk in WWII films now clogging the free streaming services make you cry for the days when Spanish Army extras carrying WWII era equipment look at least presentable.

[Milburn Stone]

On 6/7/2024 at 12:03 AM, voiceover said:

That first twenty-or-so minutes of the landing on D-Day is awe-inspiring & unforgettable & I remember thinking: Christ, I’ve never seen anything like this!

And then *that’s over, and the scripted stuff starts, and it’s every war movie from the 40s through the 60s...

I agree with all this, but when the movie gets to the epilogue, I'm putty in its hands. The old veteran (Private Ryan I assume?) walking through the soldiers' graveyard as John Williams' "Hymn to the Fallen" comes on the soundtrack--very emotional for me. 90% of it is the music. But credit to Spielberg or the writers where it's due; somebody had to think of ending the movie that way, and they thought of it. No present-day epilogue, no "Hymn to the Fallen"--a stupendous marriage of filmic images and music--no me sobbing uncontrollably in the movie theater.

Edited June 8 by Milburn Stone

[EtheltoTillie]

Tonight is salute to the Tony awards, with movies that were made into stage productions. I enjoyed digging into a rewatch of Sunset Boulevard and Billy Elliot. I am recording the next feature, a new to me The Band’s Visit. 
I saw BE on B’way but never saw SB. 
 

[Charlie Baker]

The SB musical has some signature Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes (though the lyrics aren't great) and of course a monster of a role for a diva (the rest of the show and the characters kind of pale in comparison, unlike the movie).  Glenn Close was not the strongest singer in the world but she pulled it off in the original. I didn't see it when she did a revival. The production coming to NY from London where it was a big hit looks radically reconceived and I don't know that I'd be interested in seeing it.

I may not be remembering correctly, but at some point, pre or post Sweeney Todd, I believe Stephen Sondheim was going to write a SB musical with Angela Lansbury as Norma.  Wow at the thought. 

The musical of The Band's Visit is quite lovely--and I haven't seen the movie, which I should, now that it's easily available on Watch TCM. 

Apologies if this is too OT.

Edited June 15 by Charlie Baker

[Rinaldo]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:42 PM, Charlie Baker said:

I may not be remembering correctly, but at some point, pre or post Sweeney Todd, I believe Stephen Sondheim was going to write a SB musical with Angela Lansbury as Norma.  Wow at the thought. 

I agree at the enticement of the idea, and I vaguely remembered that too, but if Wikipedia is to believed, that's not how it happened. Sondheim was exploring the idea in the 1960s, and had even started work on it with Burt Shevelove, with the idea that Jeanette MacDonald would star; then he happened to meet Billy Wilder, and when he tried the idea out on him, Wilder responded that it would have to be an opera because it's about the dethronement of a queen, and that stopped Sondheim. (I wouldn't have thought that one conversation would extinguish work on a project he was that interested in, but I do know how a negative word from the right person at a particular team can sour one on an idea.)

Then later, Hal Prince had the idea of a movie-musical version about a fading musical-theater diva, with Sondheim to write the score; and Sondheim declined because of what Wilder had said. We may have dodged a bullet there, because Prince, whatever his other talents, really could not direct movies.

I think I may have mixed all this up with the story of a musical adaptation of a different classic about an aging once-formidable lady for Lansbury: Kander and Ebb's musical of Dürrenmatt's The Visit. This was announced, and then her husband fell ill and she withdrew in order to take care of him during his final years. The musical remained in development for years, and when it finally happened Claire was played by (RIP) Chita Rivera.

Edited June 18 by Rinaldo