TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Milburn Stone]

Going on a bit about something I said above: There is something alive about WU,D that strikes me as really remarkable. Screwball comedies of the thirties were very much of their time, which is why they're still great today--they seem to actually be about a time and place. But most screwball comedies made since then seem to be planted in no world that anybody ever lived. W,UD, in contrast, feels very much a part of the 1972 world it came from. The characters may be cartoonish, but the feeling of reality underneath them is exhilarating. There is nothing retro or museum-piece about the film, even though it clearly uses thirties screwball comedy as its model. It's like Bogdanovich said, "I don't want to make a movie like Howard Hawks did, or like he'd make now as the older man he is; I want to make a movie like Howard Hawks would if he were a young man in 1972." Amazingly, he made a movie pretty much as good as that fantasy.

 

Mention must be made of how good Ryan O'Neal is in it. No surprise that Streisand can handle the part, although it stands as one of her most appealing performances. The surprise is that O'Neal is not just a pretty face. He's very good at engendering audience identification.

 

I'm sorry that I wasn't able to see Mo Rocca on TCM's intro and outro. Did he have anything enlightening and/or funny to say? I imagine that he did.              

Edited April 14, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[Rinaldo]

Peter Bogdanovich's directing career started off with such a bang, I suppose it was inevitable there was a falling off.  But The Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc, Paper Moon all right off the bat--wow.

 

Well, no director can manage 100% -- each try a masterpiece. There are too many elements involved in making a movie work. But those three are legacy enough for anyone, and I wouldn't hesitate to call The Last Picture Show a genuinely great achievement. The most proximate cause for the fall, I fear, was his obsession with Cybill Shepherd; I don't mean to pile on -- she certainly was a great camera subject, and if she were in my life I'd want to build movies around her. But he made the old mistake of being oblivious to the limits of the talents of one's beloved: she couldn't manage the period style and manners of Daisy Miller, and everyone was shockingly out of their depth with At Long Last Love -- even Madeline Kahn despite her musical experience, and definitely Shepherd. (It's not that the voice itself was unacceptable -- we've all heard worse, often; but she just had no impulse to express herself in song, it was all by rote. And nobody seemed to have had a dance lesson.) Bogdanovich clearly had no idea how musicals work. Just an embarrassing disaster.

 

And after that, not much worked, though we can all pick out individual achievements that we happen to like. (I've heard defenses of They All Laughed, and I myself have been known to speak up hesitantly for Noises Off.)

 

One bit of trivia: I can think of three movie characters based on Peter Bogdanovich, though none of them bear his name.

[Milburn Stone]

One bit of trivia: I can think of three movie characters based on Peter Bogdanovich, though none of them bear his name.

 

I bet when I saw them I had an inkling they were PB, but I don't remember them now. Spill!

[Rinaldo]

I bet when I saw them I had an inkling they were PB, but I don't remember them now. Spill!

The obvious one is Star 80, the Dorothy Stratton story (she being PB's next obsession after CS). The man in her life is (no doubt after legal wranglings) the fictional "Aram Nicholas," played by Roger Rees.

 

In Hooper, which focuses on the world of stunt people, the pretentious director Roger Deal, played by Robert Klein, is acknowledged to be based in part on PB (with whom star Burt Reynolds had recently worked twice). He blathers about movies being "pieces of time," the title of one of his books.

 

In Irreconcilable Differences, Ryan O'Neal (who obviously had his own history with PB) and Shelley Long have divorced after he became infatuated with Sharon Stone , whom he "discovered" (she had no acting experience) and starred in his movies. One of the big scenes is his starring her in a big musical film (a version of Gone with the Wind) despite her lack of musical talent. The similarities to PB / Polly Platt / CS were widely talked about at the time. 

Edited April 16, 2015 by Rinaldo

[Julia]

He said that a good friend got so upset about the inclusion of the film that it was pulled from the lineup. Her complaint was that it glorified rape. I've seen this movie many times, but it never occurred to me that it glorified rape. I still like it a lot, despite the dicey premise. Powell's character is such a strong woman that it never seems like the women are in any danger whatsoever.

 

Well, the plot kind of pivots on a reenactment of an incident known as the rape of the sabine women, which was essentially the colonization of a neighboring tribe through violent abduction and nonconsensual sex, so she has an argument there. As you say, the plan was derailed by Milly, but essentially the second half of the movie was an extended "...but secretly, they really wanted it," and then the fathers hand their daughters over to the kidnappers as wives because they think they've been raped and the best thing a woman who's been raped can hope for is that her rapist will marry her. Not really an edifying message, although I enjoyed the movie as a document of its time.

[bmoore4026]

It's Esther Williams Day today!  Yay!

[HelenBaby]

Great tribute to RO tonight. And I love that song "The More I See You" very much.

[Milburn Stone]

Great tribute to RO tonight. And I love that song "The More I See You" very much.

 

I enjoyed it too.

 

I was a bit surprised that they showed as much blooper reel as they did. Especially as it revealed a whole "flamboyant, theatrical" side of RO that he and the network take care to keep under wraps in the creation of his official persona.

 

And speaking of that official persona, I thought Ben Mankiewicz said the single most profound thing in the tribute. One of those observations that's so obvious, no one thinks to make it, until somebody does. Paraphrasing, because I don't remember his exact words, but the thought was that in television history, there has never been a more indissoluble bond between man and channel. That TCM is Robert Osborne, and vice versa.

 

Underlying everything was the sadness that we know it will not go on forever.

[HelenBaby]

I don't know if the network goes out of their way to protect Osborne's "flamboyant, theatrical side" because I've had the pleasure of going on the cruises and he's pretty forthcoming about his life. He's never "come out" even though I think it's pretty obvious that he's gay. But at his age, what would be the point? A lot of people who wouldn't appreciate knowing the facts of Osborne's personal life watch TCM and it would serve no purpose to make that a focal point when he's there to talk about movies. That's his priority.

Edited April 16, 2015 by HelenBaby

[Milburn Stone]

I don't know if the network goes out of their way to protect Osborne's "flamboyant, theatrical side" because I've had the pleasure of going on the cruises and he's pretty forthcoming about his life. He's never "come out" even though I think it's pretty obvious that he's gay. But at his age, what would be the point? A lot of conservatives watch TCM and it would serve no purpose to make that a focal point when he's there to talk about movies. That's his priority.

 

Absolutely zero disagreement with any of the above. I was simply observing that the RO in some of the blooper clips had a whole different "presentation of self" than the one he crafts for public consumption in his professional life. I attach no value judgment to that. Was merely surprised that TCM allowed us a glimpse of it.

 

I was at the first TCM Film Festival--an experience I treasure--and had the opportunity to enjoy him in many presentations there, in all of which he remained true to his professional persona--as well he should have. Also was glad I had the opportunity for a brief personal encounter (while waiting for an elevator together) in which I shook his hand and expressed how grateful I was for the wonderful job he does.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[HelenBaby]

I misunderstood what you posted, MS. I guess I wasn't really surprised at his funny little outburst at his failure to pronounce "La Cienega." That was very funny.

[Milburn Stone]

No problem, Helen. I can see where what I wrote was eminently misinterpretable.

[gutette]

A lot of conservatives watch TCM and it would serve no purpose to make that a focal point when he's there to talk about movies.

 

A lot of conservatives -- and probably a few liberals -- would prefer you not paint with such a broad brush.

[Julia]

My dad was very - I think the most value-neutral description is - old school. He could perfectly equably coexist with the gay people around him (he lived in Greenwich Village and Soho for sixty years), but he was also pretty much the guy DADT was designed for. He thought anyone whose life was less normcore than he thought his was should live their lives discreetly out of sight to keep from influencing children, and he would have been - was - OK with someone less discreet being fired from their job so that no-one thought we as a society approved of their - and if he wouldn't have used the word out loud, it's what he meant - deviance..

He didn't mean to hurt anyone. He actually served as next of kin and patient advocate for a gay friend whose family dumped him because he was dying of AIDS, which is more than I've ever done. But he would almost certainly have stopped watching if Robert Osborne had been more open about his sexuality, and in the generation behind me most likely so would some of my lovely nieces, because they all were raised to believe that there is an obligation to preserve the world they were raised in.

I think they're behind the wave of history, but I know for a fact they exist. They pretty much ruled the world when Robert Osborne was coming up, and I have to imagine there are a disproportionate number of people who agree with them watching a channel showing largely G-rated movies made seventy years ago under the Hays Code by producers who made Brick straight and never did quite explain why those furrin children wanted to eat Elizabeth Taylor's cousin Sebastian.

That impulse to keep the world from changing is (leaving aside its place in the current political spectrum) precisely small-c conservative.

[steps down from soapbox]

Edited April 16, 2015 by Julia

[Milburn Stone]

Beautifully expressed, Julia. The fact is, some of the "flamboyant, theatrical" bloopers presented on the tribute were different from the persona carefully crafted by Osborne and the network over all these years. That's why someone behind the scenes making a decision to show them stood out as unusual. But that doesn't mean that showing them was a blunder. One could just as easily read the decision to show them to mean, "It's high time we stopped being afraid to reveal a fuller palette of personality from Robert. The world won't come to an end."

[LuciaMia]

I know yesterday was Anthony Quinn day, but I think they can give 'Barrabas' a rest for a while. They showed it on Easter week, as did PBS and several other cable stations. ;-)

*********

Enjoyed seeing 'Shoes of the Fisherman' again, even tho David Jansenn's reporter persona is as leaden as they come.

Edited April 16, 2015 by LuciaMia

[Julia]

One could just as easily read the decision to show them to mean, "It's high time we stopped being afraid to reveal a fuller palette of personality from Robert. The world won't come to an end."

 

I'd like to think it was his decision.

[Milburn Stone]

I'd like to think it was his decision.

 

Yes, I was thinking that too.

[Bastet]

I missed the RO tribute, and I don't see another airing scheduled for this month, so I'll have to keep my eye out for a later repeat.  But on the TCM message boards, there is a recap from someone who was there for the taping of it.

[Milburn Stone]

I missed the RO tribute, and I don't see another airing scheduled for this month, so I'll have to keep my eye out for a later repeat.  But on the TCM message boards, there is a recap from someone who was there for the taping of it.

 

Interesting that the broadcast omitted the call-in from Bill Cosby. :)

[3pwood]

I'm pleased (& somewhat surprised) to learn from that recap that Keith Richards watches TCM.

[Milburn Stone]

Changing the subject...this could be something TCM has been doing for a while, but I just noticed it for the first time the other night. Namely, not starting programming when it's supposed to start, but instead running promos, filler, etc. for ten or fifteen minutes first.

 

Now, TCM has often filled out the remainder of a time slot with self-promotional stuff. But they've always started the main event on time, to my knowledge; the self-promos come at the end, to fill out the hour. The other night, however, I saw them delay a film a good ten or fifteen minutes beyond its scheduled start time, in order to self-promote.

 

I hope this was a one-off, and not a sign that TCM is looking for new ways to "enhance" the effectiveness of its self-promotion by compelling the watching of it in order to get to the movie. Has anyone else noticed this?

Edited April 16, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[HelenBaby]

A lot of conservatives -- and probably a few liberals -- would prefer you not paint with such a broad brush.

You're right. I apologize and have edited my post.

[elle]

I'm not sure of today's theme, however, Miranda was among th afternoon movies.  What a treat to see a very young David Tomlinson!  Plus Margaret Rutherford is fun anytime.  (movie was okay)

[HelenBaby]

Today's theme was By the Sea.

Edited April 17, 2015 by HelenBaby

[chitowngirl]

I enjoyed the Tribute and I especially loved the outtakes. I didn't really think of RO acting flamboyantly. I just thought he was being goofy and maybe a little punchy from flubbing his lines. I guess I never thought about him in any other way than the host of TCM because that was all that I needed from him. Anything else is his own business.

[elle]

I recently saw the musical play Mamma Mia.  There was something about the actress playing the character of "Rosie" that seemed very familiar but I could not place it.  I caught the Thelma Todd/Patsy Kelly short tonight and it hit me right between the eyes!  Patsy Kelly, of course!  

 

I doubt if the character in the musical was based on her, and it may have been just the actress that night; but it was funny to me that I could see Patsy Kelly playing that role had the musical existed back then.

[Charlie Baker]

We discussed Sophia Loren here a while back, and last night TCM showed a few of her films.  Watched Marriage Italian Style in which she and Marcello Mastroianni were in top form.  And then, Ms. L's most recent acting credit, a short directed by her son, Human Voice, adapted from Jean Cocteau's one woman play.  She hasn't lost her power--she threw herself into this role of a woman desperately resisting the end of an affair.  Great to see her.  

[HelenBaby]

It's amazing that Loren is 80 years old. She still looks great.

[bmoore4026]

Is today Shirley MacLaine's birthday?  Because there are a lot of Shirley MacLaine movies on today!

[Bastet]

Yep, she's 81 today (per IMDb). 

 

I like her, and I'm home today to get a bunch of stuff done around the house -- I didn't need to know about this marathon!   I'll at least have to watch The Apartment (again). 

[Rinaldo]

If Carol Haney hadn't missed that performance of The Pajama Game, the night the talent scouts came, would she have been the movie star instead of her understudy Shirley MacLaine? Or was Shirley going to break through somehow, no matter what?

[Charlie Baker]

IIRC, Shirley MacLaine says in one of her books that the first time Carol Haney was out of Pajama Game she was seen by the scouts.  Then later in the run, Haney was out again, and Hitchcock was in the audience and cast her in The Trouble with Harry.  So she, given her metaphysical bent, would probably conclude she was destined for a film career.

 

Oh, and today is also Barbra Streisand's birthday.

[ratgirlagogo]

Shirley MacLaine has such a specific kind of appeal - I t hink she's like Jack Nicholson in that.  Both have the talent and basic actor's training  and work ethic that would have gotten them steady gigs no matter what - but they each had a very specific 60's/70's persona that allowed them to play leads in that period.  I like them both and think they would both have had the ability to be great actors in ANY time period - but time periods have types.  Jean Harlow couldn't have gotten arrested in the 70's or 80's, IMO.  No matter how great she was she would have been a character actress at that time.

[Rinaldo]

Shirley MacLaine has such a specific kind of appeal

 

I was just thinking the same thing -- and not everybody went for it, even in the days when she first came to the forefront. Claire Bloom, who was trying her luck in Hollywood around the same time, tells a story against herself in her autobiography. She was so sure that if one of the two of them was going to be a big star, it would be Claire; her reaction on seeing Shirley, she reacted, "Oh, the poor plain girl," sure that her own "classic" looks would prevail. But in fact, it worked the other way around, because Shirley was someone distinctive onscreen that nobody else was, "and Audrey Hepburn was the elfin princess, while I... was a lady. Which is fatal." (This is all from memory. I hope the wording is not too far off.) 

[Terrafamilia]

Just got finished watching The Son of the Sheik that I had recorded from last Sunday. I must say that it was pretty good, though you might want to choose to believe that the implied rape didn't really happen. Whatever happened was off-screen so that's a viable option. I'm still just a bit puzzled by Valentino's mystique. Sure, he was a nice looking guy and he certainly had a very engaging smile but... I guess I'm not the target audience. :-) One probably had to have been there. Anyway, I thought his turn as Papa Sheik was better than that as son Ahmed. It gave a glimpse of what might have been had he lived.

[Milburn Stone]

Shirley MacLaine in the Martin & Lewis version of Artists and Models is some kind of combination of va-va-voom and OMG.

[Julia]

I'm still just a bit puzzled by Valentino's mystique. Sure, he was a nice looking guy and he certainly had a very engaging smile but... I guess I'm not the target audience. :-) One probably had to have been there.

The sheik was like Tarzan, defanged non-con. He was an exotic, someone the woman in the audience was never going to meet (and who probably would have been ushered out of her town before sunset), and because he was Not Like Us, it wasn't rape, it was his unfettered primal male urges™ driving him to take his mate on silken cushions. It was always going to end in marriage.

 

Besides, unlike everyone she knew back in the mostly-agrarian but industrial sometimes world, he was so well groomed.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Julia

[Charlie Baker]

I read a novel that could be of interest to many TCM types.  A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott is the story of Julie, aspiring screenwriter, who has a grunt work job in David O. Selznick's office as production gears up on Gone with the Wind.  She has a relationship with an associate producer of the movie, and winds up working for Carole Lombard as the filming proceeds.  I wish I could say the book completely lives up to the premise.  It doesn't, it's uneven, but a lot of it is fun and rings authentic.  Then there's a direct tie to TCM.  Tonight they're running Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood and in the book Julie is one of the young hopefuls Ms. Marion mentors. 

[Milburn Stone]

Charlie, through most of your description of the book, I assumed it was a novel. But your last sentence makes me think it's a biography. Is that correct?

[Charlie Baker]

No, it is a novel, sorry if I wasn't clear on that point.  Its story has the fictional heroine joining a group of young women wanting to write movies that Ms. Marion informally works with.  I don't know if that's based in fact or not--maybe the program tonight will touch on that. 

[Milburn Stone]

Oops...re-reading your post, I can see you were clear. In the last sentence, somehow I read "in the book" as "in the film." (Which would have meant Julie really was a mentee of Marion.)

Edited April 25, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[Rinaldo]

That reminds me of Garson Kanin's miniseries Moviola. One of its three segments was "The Scarlett O'Hara Wars," and I always find it fun to see who gets to play the stars of yesteryear. I recall especially the rightness of Carrie Nye as Tallulah Bankhead, Sharon Gless as Carole Lombard, and the final cameo by Morgan Brittany as Vivien Leigh.

[Julia]

That reminds me of Garson Kanin's miniseries Moviola. One of its three segments was "The Scarlett O'Hara Wars," and I always find it fun to see who gets to play the stars of yesteryear. I recall especially the rightness of Carrie Nye as Tallulah Bankhead, Sharon Gless as Carole Lombard, and the final cameo by Morgan Brittany as Vivien Leigh.

I wasn't sure about Sharon Gless - she didn't really have the physicality, but she was really effective at conveying the Great Broad quality Lombard was supposed to have had - and I thought Morgan Brittany was more effective in appearance than in performance, but Carrie Nye was absolutely magic as Tallulah Bankhead (who was, I think, the most interesting of the three).

[Charlie Baker]

I remember that, Rinaldo, and I agree with you about those actresses. I think I watched all three segments, but the Scarlett one was the best.

[chitowngirl]

What were the other two Moviolas segments? Was one of them about Ziegfield?

[Bastet]

One was about Marilyn Monroe, and one was about Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.

[Rinaldo]

I wasn't sure about Sharon Gless - she didn't really have the physicality, but she was really effective at conveying the Great Broad quality Lombard was supposed to have had - and I thought Morgan Brittany was more effective in appearance than in performance, but Carrie Nye was absolutely magic as Tallulah Bankhead (who was, I think, the most interesting of the three).

I just thought it was cool that after Sharon Gless had been in several light-comedy telefilms, and received the obligatory comparisons to Lombard, she actually got to play her. Carrie Nye of course had been compared to Tallulah all through her career; that persona and look were hers naturally. And as I recall, Morgan Brittany didn't have to do much but show up in the last quarter hour as the solution to the casting dilemma, out of left field, and appear so impossibly magnetic that she was satisfying as the solution to all the buildup -- and she was. (She was ridiculously gorgeous at the time, and the same visual category of beauty -- brunette with memorable eyes etc. -- as Leigh.) Some of the other casting was odd: I'm not sure why Barrie Youngfellow would be Joan Crawford except for that strong chin. And though impersonating Clark Gable is a losing battle, Edward Winter was even less apt than James Brolin had been in the movie. We also had Tony Curtis as Selznick, Harold Gould as Mayer, and George Furth as Cukor.

 

The first segment cast Kristina Wayborn as Garbo, Brian Keith as Mauritz Stiller, Barry Bostwick as John Gilbert, John Rubinstein as Thalberg. I do think there must have been apter casting for Lillian Gish than Mackenzie Phillips, and I had forgotten that Cecilia Hart (married to James Earl Jones for decades now) was Norma Shearer.

 

The third one had Constance Forslund as Marilyn Monroe, Lloyd Bridges as Johnny Hyde, Vic Taybeck as Harry Cohn, Michael Lerner as Jack Warner.

[chitowngirl]

Barrie Youngfellow was in the popular sitcom It's A Living at the time and was familiar to the TV audience.

[Julia]

I do think there must have been apter casting for Lillian Gish than Mackenzie Phillips

Just, wow. The shape of the face is right, but I can't think of anything else that is, physically, anyway. Pretty much the same for Cecilia Hart, although I'm more confident that her performance was good. Edward Winter was a deft comic actor, but I don't really see him as a manly-man sex symbol. Can't see Bostwick or Furth either. I think I would have enjoyed Vic Tayback as Harry Cohn, though, if they didn't pretty him up too much.

They really had Tony Curtis playing the tall producer with the artistic veneer and Harold Gould (all of two years older) playing his father-in-law the diminutive tummler? I can't parse that at all.