TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Rinaldo]

I just got done watching Travels With My Aunt, and boy does that film look bad.  I'm guessing it was filmed on videotape instead of film stock, b/c it reminded me of the movie version of Mame w/ Lucille Ball which was filmed on videotape as well...right?  Maggie Smith looked garrish w/the red hair and caked on makeup and lipstick.  ... The movie made me think of Auntie Mame, like this could have been a sequel of sorts.

I never heard that either this or Mame was shot on videotape, which would have been quite unusual at the time. Is there a source where I can read about this in connection with Mame? I agree that there's a kinship between the stories.

 

I found the book (which I read first) odd; I really didn't understand the point of it. And the movie didn't make any more sense to me, it still seemed arch whimsy for its own sake. And then I saw a stage adaptation off-Broadway, in which the whole cast was four identically dressed men, sharing the narration and roles; I found it unendurable. So I'm kind of wiped out as far as this story is concerned.

[Milburn Stone]

Saw the rest of Ziegfeld Girl last night, which involved a significant amount of fast-forwarding once the dreary plot took over and not even the charisma of the performers could save it. I did find one touch effective.

When sick-unto-death Lana Turner walks down the steps from the balcony into the lobby as "You Stepped Out of a Dream" was playing, re-creating for herself one last time the posture and moves of her days as a Ziegfeld Girl,

I got the aimed-for goosebumps.

 

Couldn't help but see pre-echoes of Mickey Rooney as sick-unto-death Lorenz Hart stumbling out of the theater one last time at the performance of Connecticut Yankee or Oklahoma or whatever show Words and Music wanted us to believe in stumbled to his death on the way out of. But that's no knock against Ziegfeld Girl.

 

(All right, I've tried to spoiler-tag parts of that second paragraph, and it's not working. Ridiculous to have to spoiler-tag anything in this forum, but those are the rules, so I tried. I really did. Don't know why it worked in the first paragraph and not the second. But my apologies.)

Edited June 8, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[Crisopera]

I love Ziegfeld Girl, even considering the ludicrous plot and the fact that I had to see it a couple of times before I realized that it was supposed to be set in the 1920s.  Adrian didn't even begin to try for any period costumes.  It's really interesting to see all three women at the beginnings of their careers.  I really think it's one of Lana Turner's very best performances - like Joan Crawford, as she got older her face got immobilized and her performances duller.  It's fun to see how they utilized the footage from The Great Ziegfeld - the montage with "You Gotta Pull Strings" is all old footage, and they replaced Virginia Bruce with Judy Garland at the end of the "You Stepped Out of a Dream" sequence (it was originally "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody").  I always skip the "Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Shean" number - I know it was a hugely famous vaudeville routine, but it's dead on the screen.

 

Did anyone watch The Man Who Would Be King on The Essentials?  I had never seen it before, and I'm glad they addressed how nastily racist it is (well, they pussyfooted around it a bit, but it was mentioned).  I was quite shocked - it's not from the 1930s - it's from 1975!  Made me sad - the movie itself is terrific, with fabulous performances by Michael Caine and Sean Connery.  But I honestly had a hard time watching it.  The "natives" are all portrayed as savages. 

[CMH1981]

 

Did anyone watch The Man Who Would Be King on The Essentials?

 

I did, but only b/c I love hearing Robert and Sally talk about the films and why they chose them.  Unfortunately I ended up deleting the movie after it ended and forgot about the follow up conversation b/t the two.  I really wish they would post their full conversations online for each movie from each season.

 

I guess I didn't pay too much attention to the movie, but just enough where I didn't find it that racist b/c they were portraying a certain period of time.  I don't think you could pull off certain periods of time and be politically correct at the same time.  I don't want to start a war or anything but that's just how I feel/felt regarding the movie.

 

In regards to my earlier comments on Travels With My Aunt and Mame being shot on videotape, I can't recall the source but I thought I had read that somewhere, that's why the films look so different.  I'm probably wrong though.

Edited June 8, 2015 by CMH1981

[HelenBaby]

I feel the same way about period films. It would be unrealistic to be politically correct when the times portrayed weren't. I feel that way about films made during the 30's and 40's that show black face or where Asians are played by white people. It's a cringe worthy thing no doubt, but a person might be missing a worthwhile story because a certain thing might be offensive.

[Milburn Stone]

I love Ziegfeld Girl, even considering the ludicrous plot and the fact that I had to see it a couple of times before I realized that it was supposed to be set in the 1920s.  Adrian didn't even begin to try for any period costumes.

 

I know. When the whole Jimmy Stewart

bootlegging

plot kicked in, I had to ask myself, "Wait a minute--this is happening during

Prohibition

?!??"

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Did anyone watch The Man Who Would Be King on The Essentials?  I had never seen it before, and I'm glad they addressed how nastily racist it is (well, they pussyfooted around it a bit, but it was mentioned).  I was quite shocked - it's not from the 1930s - it's from 1975!  Made me sad - the movie itself is terrific, with fabulous performances by Michael Caine and Sean Connery.  But I honestly had a hard time watching it.  The "natives" are all portrayed as savages

Not as savage as the Sean Connery character, who is portrayed as willing to  break any law or cultural taboo in order to gain power. This is one of my favorite movies and I've always felt we all caught a break when John Huston was unable to make it in the fifties with his original casting of Gable and Bogart in the Connery and Caine roles, respectively. This is so much better with a Scot and a Cockney in the leads.  These  guys are the kinds of guys that did all the heavy lifting in building the British Empire - not defending the Empire at all, but pointing out that these kinds of guys usually didn't get the big rewards either - they usually just died so some Lord Whoever gained a  little more real estate.    I don't see this film as racist - I see it as showing how ground-level imperialist operatives like PInky and Daniel would be eager to do what they could, no matter what that might be,  to make their fortunes, given that they both came from the social and  ethnic underclass in the UK.   

Edited June 9, 2015 by ratgirlagogo

[bmoore4026]

Well Finian's Rainbow was on today.  Could this work today?  Not so much as a movie but as one of those live network musical things? 

 

NOTE:  On second thought, maybe not.  Second act is so damn stupid.

Edited June 9, 2015 by bmoore4026

[Julia]

I probably won't watch it again, but I saw Man Who Would Be King in a theater, and what I took away from it was that racism and greed make you stupid. Which I do get was unlikely to be Kipling's point, but I thought the movie was pretty harsh about british colonialism and its effects, down to having the two brutish would be 'gods' being played by actors of scottish and irish descent.

[Rinaldo]

Well Finian's Rainbow was on today.  Could this work today?  Not so much as a movie but as one of those live network musical things? 

It's practically unknown today (has kind of dropped out of the canon, and at one point it was definitely among the top dozen classics), so it would never be chosen. But that's not what you asked. I think the show can work today, as was proven by the Encores! production a few years back (same season as the On The Town whose star and director got it to Broadway this year... man, that was a good Encores! season). It transferred to Broadway nearly intact, though (as I'd feared) it ran out of audience after three or four months. But it gave us a wonderful cast recording (PS Classics to the rescue again), with Kate Baldwin, Cheyenne Jackson, Jim Norton, et al. And it surprised me and my subscriber friends: the story is playable after all, and genuinely entertaining with no cringing (an innovation of the "why did it take us so long to think of this obvious solution?" variety was to have the senator played by a different actor when he changes race). The score, of course, is one of the all-time top ones.

[ulkis]

Who must I pay to remake Scaramouche again? I was watching the silent version of Scaramouche that they aired, and while I like it - the casting is very good, Ramon Novarro looked the part, although his Andre-Louis was a bit too emo - it's really a novel that was meant to be made into a movie with dialogue, there are so many good lines in the book.  And I don't like the Stewart Granger version. It's as if The Empire Strikes Back

ended with Darth Vader saying, "Luke, I am your half-brother". Yeah, not quite the same punch.

Plus I don't think Stewart Granger was right for the role physically. It's a good movie in and of itself, I just think it's a so-so adaptation.

Edited June 10, 2015 by ulkis

[Milburn Stone]

I think [FInian's Rainbow] can work today, as was proven by the Encores! production a few years back (same season as the On The Town whose star and director got it to Broadway this year... man, that was a good Encores! season). It transferred to Broadway nearly intact, though (as I'd feared) it ran out of audience after three or four months. But it gave us a wonderful cast recording (PS Classics to the rescue again), with Kate Baldwin, Cheyenne Jackson, Jim Norton, et al. And it surprised me and my subscriber friends: the story is playable after all, and genuinely entertaining with no cringing (an innovation of the "why did it take us so long to think of this obvious solution?" variety was to have the senator played by a different actor when he changes race). The score, of course, is one of the all-time top ones.

 

I count myself blessed that I saw this revival on Broadway. Heaven. To the names you mention, I'll add musical director Rob Berman as a key figure in the production's success. Here's what knocked me out. We all know one thing that distinguished this revival was having the right number of musicians in the pit, playing the original orchestrations. But even though that's rare, it's not unique. In this case, it was not only that they played the original orchestrations, it was how they played them--with total fealty to 1947. The sound of the Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific did not quite conjure 1949, for all the admirable qualities of that production. But the sound of the pit band at Finian's made the St. James Theatre into a time machine.

 

A lot of this, of course, had to be careful observance of all the score markings, etc., etc., but somehow it seemed to be more than that.

[bmoore4026]

Who must I pay to remake Scaramouche again?

 

Downside to this would be everything would be less colorful and more super sloppy, just like a whoooooole lot of period movies made today.

[Rinaldo]

There actually was a remake of Scaramouche in the 1970s, with Michael Sarrazin and Ursula Andress. It was, I believe, an Italian production into which he was slotted, and made little impression (I've never seen it).

[ulkis]

There actually was a remake of Scaramouche in the 1970s, with Michael Sarrazin and Ursula Andress. It was, I believe, an Italian production into which he was slotted, and made little impression (I've never seen it).

 

I read the synopses, it seems to deviate a lot from the book as well. 

[magicdog]

Also, getting to see Jimmy Stewart playing an unsympathetic guy in this early stage of his stardom is interesting.

 

 

You should get a look at him in, "After The Thin Man" (1936). 

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Who must I pay to remake Scaramouche again?

I will contribute to your Kickstarter.  Seems so obvious, what with the BBC Musketeers and all.

[Charlie Baker]

The TCM Summer of Darkness is evidently in full swing.  Today we got a couple slices of noir heaven.  The smooth, accomplished Murder, My Sweet, with Dick Powell a long way from the juvenile musical lead of Warner Brothers, and darn convincing.  The shoddy, ragged Detour (a shame TCM's print isn't in better shape, but an improved one wouldn't shake those qualities), often heavy-handed (that scoring often too much), but still uncompromising and hard-hitting, except maybe for the succumbing to the Code and 

having the protagonist picked up by the cops at the end.

. Both of these delicious. 

[Rinaldo]

The TCM Summer of Darkness is evidently in full swing.  Today we got a couple slices of noir heaven.  The smooth, accomplished Murder, My Sweet, with Dick Powell a long way from the juvenile musical lead of Warner Brothers, and darn convincing.  

I believe Chandler said that Dick Powell was the closest of all film Marlowes to the way he imagined the character. And I've never seen it. One of many lacks that I need to remedy.

[3pwood]

Chandler died in 1959, so he never saw Robert Mitchum as Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely (1975) & The Big Sleep (1978).  I was astonished to find that Powell was as good as Bogart, but Mitchum was the best of all in my view.  Wikipedia says that the role has also been played by Robert Montgomery, James Garner, Elliott Gould, & George Montgomery, none of whom inspire me to look for those versions.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

The shoddy, ragged Detour (a shame TCM's print isn't in better shape, but an improved one wouldn't shake those qualities), often heavy-handed (that scoring often too much), but still uncompromising and hard-hitting, except maybe for the succumbing to the Code and  Spoiler. 

Anyone who can sit all the way through Detour without their mind being completely blown by Ann Savage doesn't get   Noir and probably doesn't get movies, at all.

[Rinaldo]

Chandler died in 1959, so he never saw Robert Mitchum as Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely (1975) & The Big Sleep (1978).  I was astonished to find that Powell was as good as Bogart, but Mitchum was the best of all in my view.  Wikipedia says that the role has also been played by Robert Montgomery, James Garner, Elliott Gould, & George Montgomery, none of whom inspire me to look for those versions.

I saw the Mitchum Big Sleep; one thing I remember appreciating about it was its ability to be more sexually frank than the Bogart version (and it matters, as the plot hinges on pornographic scandal).

 

Both of the Messrs. Montgomery versions were within Chandler's lifetime, and he wasn't alone in not thinking terribly high of them. Robert M's Lady in the Lake (he directed it too) stood out for its use of first-person camera: we saw only what Marlowe saw, and saw his face only rarely, when he passed a mirror or something like that.

 

James Garner starred in the 1969 Marlowe (from The Little Sister). It wasn't well received, but I'd still like to catch up with it someday, if only for the supporting cast: Carroll O'Connor, Rita Moreno, William Daniels, Bruce Lee.

 

The Long Goodbye (1973), with Elliott Gould, shouldn't be too quickly dismissed. Robert Altman directed, and Leigh Brackett (who also worked on the classic Big Sleep) did the screenplay. It was at her insistence that it was updated to a contemporary setting. I know that may sink it for some right there, but I find it fascinating. Marlowe is still living by his moral code from an earlier time, while finding that nobody else believes in such things. It also has a very witty soundtrack: all the music (even doorbells, even a Mexican funeral band) is a version of John Williams and Johnny Mercer's lush title song, a little dig at Hollywood's over-plugging of title songs (while still being dramatically effective). I wouldn't call Gould one of the iconic Marlowes, but I like the movie.

[Milburn Stone]

The Long Goodbye (1973), with Elliott Gould, shouldn't be too quickly dismissed. Robert Altman directed, and Leigh Brackett (who also worked on the classic Big Sleep) did the screenplay. It was at her insistence that it was updated to a contemporary setting. I know that may sink it for some right there, but I find it fascinating. Marlowe is still living by his moral code from an earlier time, while finding that nobody else believes in such things. It also has a very witty soundtrack: all the music (even doorbells, even a Mexican funeral band) is a version of John Williams and Johnny Mercer's lush title song, a little dig at Hollywood's over-plugging of title songs (while still being dramatically effective). I wouldn't call Gould one of the iconic Marlowes, but I like the movie.

 

Ditto to all of this.

[3pwood]

The Long Goodbye does sound like a movie worth watching, & sufficiently different from the original material to avoid direct comparisons between Elliott Gould & other Marlowes.  I've always thought Gould does a good job with whatever he's in & this is probably no exception.  

[ratgirlagogo]

Late mentioning this but hail and farewell Christopher Lee.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/11/christopher-lee-dies-at-the-age-of-93-dracula

[ratgirlagogo]

And June 22nd TCM will be doing it's Christopher Lee programming:

http://www.tcm.com/schedule/index.html?tz=MST&sdate=2015-06-22

 

They had to do Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula - and then I suppose it makes sense to do Dracula Prince of Darkness and Dracula has risen from the grave.  And they start with The Mummy, which I also understand.  But as famous as these films made him, they're either nonspeaking or barely speaking parts.  For the speaking roles they're showing  Horror Express which I just love and  isn't as well known. But I would have skipped the Musketeers movies, as good as they are and as much as I like them since Rochfort is a supporting part., which would have freed up room for something like The Devil Rides Out or The Two Faces of Dr. Jeckyll or even The Man With The Golden Gun.  And I'm really shocked they aren't showing The Wicker Man, which supposedly was one of Sir Christopher's own favorites.

[Milburn Stone]

Loved Eddie Muller's intro to the noir Tomorrow Is Another Day: "Director Felix Feist wasn't even a household name in his own home."

 

I've read Muller, and probably heard him on DVD commentaries, but I never saw him before. He's pretty good.

 

I only made it about halfway through the movie--the first half was pretty good, and then it became boring--but was pleasantly surprised by Steve Cochran's sympathetic performance. I'd only seen him as a tough guy before.

[aradia22]

I watched Rashomon today. I don't know if it's still on Watch TCM. It's definitely a movie that I don't think you can fully process after one viewing. There were probably also a lot of things I missed not having gone to film school and having that vocabulary and lens for viewing the movie. But I still found it very compelling. I was worried at first. Past "Rashomon" type stories I've seen have tended to be lighthearted. Aside from Law and Order, rape and murder is not really my thing. But I got very drawn into it. This movie is far from feminist and yet it presented a very interesting and complicated female character. There's so much I want to dive into concerning masculinity and femininity and honor. I mean, I followed the story and I got the gist of the frame with the woodcutter and the priest but when I mean there's a lot to unpack I think this is a movie that rewards discussion. I thought the acting was on the whole pretty good given the style of movie. It also gave me the feeling of watching a play. Yes, they had two large settings with the temple and the woods but I can see how you could easily shrink it down and put that on stage. It wasn't just the action but the writing. It was particularly apparent at the temple and during the "trial" but it felt very much like watching a play in the way it was presented and acted and the way the dialogue was written. 

 

I never really knew where it was going. During the wife's account I found it super interesting when they cut back from the flashback. The way she was posed and the way she described the following events reminded me so much of Velma in Chicago during Cell Block Tango. I think that was when I started to not trust her. Towards the very end... I'd say during the woodcutter's account when I saw his version of Tajomaru I went in a completely different direction and convinced myself that one of the guys at the temple was the real Tajomaru and the bandit who had committed the crime and who had been captured was an impostor. This happened when I read And Then There Were None as well. As soon as I know there's a mystery, my brain goes into overdrive over-complicating things. 

[aradia22]

 

Downside to this would be everything would be less colorful and more super sloppy, just like a whoooooole lot of period movies made today.

Period movies are one of my favorite genres but I can't deny that they've gotten very dour lately. I think there was a period in the 90's with those Austen adaptations bathed in sunlight. And now there's so much rain and misery and that damn blue/green/gray filter that ruins so many other movies. It's like our idea of the past is the cold and pristine Greek statues and we ignore the bright layers of paint that actually covered them.

[bmoore4026]

Period movies are one of my favorite genres but I can't deny that they've gotten very dour lately. I think there was a period in the 90's with those Austen adaptations bathed in sunlight. And now there's so much rain and misery and that damn blue/green/gray filter that ruins so many other movies. It's like our idea of the past is the cold and pristine Greek statues and we ignore the bright layers of paint that actually covered them.

 

Hell, even those statues are too bright.  I think we're so obsessed with the past being a "disgusting place", that we forget that a whole lot of beauty and color was all about.

 

I've been playing The Witcher 3, which is based on medieval times, and, as hyper-violent as it is, does feature some beautiful colors and scenery.  Much like the movies of old.  FULL CIRCLE!

[aradia22]

 

I think we're so obsessed with the past being a "disgusting place", that we forget that a whole lot of beauty and color was all about.

Lies! The sun never came out in medieval times. That's why it was called the Dark Ages. ;)

[Rinaldo]

I think we're so obsessed with the past being a "disgusting place", that we forget that a whole lot of beauty and color was all about.

This reminds me that I'm in the middle of rereading The Once and Future King, for the first time really since high school (when I was devoted to it, but then forgot about it). It occurs to me, as it did back then, that it creates a really vivid cinematic picture of that time and that story, and that it would make a terrific film. Not musicalized (Camelot), not animated (The Sword in the Stone), but a real attempt to put T.H. White's vision on the screen, as he saw and told it. Probably just the last two of the four "books," starting with Lancelot's story and depicting him as ugly and self-hating, as White describes him. So many chapters contain effective dialogue that could go right into the screenplay. None of the extant Arthurian movies tell the story his way.

[Charlie Baker]

Yet another 70s item I wanted to note showed last night as one of guest presenter Edgar Wright's selections. It's one I'm much more familiar with than the other 70s flicks I posted about. The Last of Sheila has a group of movie people gathered on a producer's yacht for a week of, among other things, elaborate game playing. Everyone's past comes into play in the game, including a death, and then there's more death. There's high style and bitchy humor and a few chills. Plus a terrific cast--well, and Raquel Welch, who does manage to get by while among this group, which is to her credit.  Directed by Herbert Ross, scripted by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, one of a kind, taking off from Agatha Christie in its whodunnit and how'dtheydoit pretty distinctively.   

Edited June 25, 2015 by Charlie Baker

[caracas1914]

OMG, I had forgotten about "The last of Sheila". What I do remember post the movie release was the normally discrete and reticent James Mason going on and on how Raquel Welch was the most unprofessional actor he had ever worked with and how she was just horrible on set.

That movie had two of my favorite actors of that era, Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett. It was I think underrated and would blow out of the water most whodunnits that a studio would OK these days.

Plus Dyan Cannon!

Edited June 25, 2015 by caracas1914

[Milburn Stone]

The Last of Sheila...scripted by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, one of a kind, taking off from Agatha Christie in its whodunnit and how'dtheydoit pretty distinctively.   

 

I was sorry I stumbled into this halfway through (and shortly stumbled out again)--would have set the DVR for it had I known. I haven't seen it since it came out, but I enjoyed it back then. Couldn't tell from the snippet I saw whether it has held up, but I'm encouraged that it held up pretty well for you.

[Rinaldo]

I was a big devotee of The Last of Sheila when it came out, and I own the DVD. A few aspects of the story (not mystery-related, and no point going into detail) don't hold up well, and it always had some of the worst sound recording of its time (someone as good as Dyan Cannon shouldn't get garbled). But the setting is fun, the puzzles are clever, and just the fact of it being a Sondheim/Perkins script is a kick.

[SeriousPurrs]

I was sorry I stumbled into this halfway through (and shortly stumbled out again)--would have set the DVR for it had I known. I haven't seen it since it came out, but I enjoyed it back then. Couldn't tell from the snippet I saw whether it has held up, but I'm encouraged that it held up pretty well for you.

 

If you have Comcast On Demand--TCM is showing The Last of Sheila, available until 6-30-15.

[Milburn Stone]

Don't have that, but thanks for the alert anyway, SeriousPurrs. Your post makes it occur to me that it might be available in the iTunes Store/Apple TV or on Netflix. I'll look into it.

 

Edited to add: It is available in the iTunes Store! Sadly in SD, but I think I can handle it. Will probably give it a gander soon.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[Milburn Stone]

If two posts in a row are allowed here...I started watching The Last of Sheila last night and couldn't get into it. More accurately, it might be said I actively resisted getting into it. Its accurate observation of the style of the early seventies is time-capsule worthy. That's a virtue, artistically--but I don't want to go back there! Maybe it's personal.

 

I assume Dyan Cannon was Sue Mengers, and I did find that amusing.

[editorgrrl]

Yet another 70s item I wanted to note showed last night as one of guest presenter Edgar Wright's selections.

Wait, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) curated a block of programming?! Sorry I missed it.

[Charlie Baker]

I've been diving into the TCM 70s presentations lately, but I get what you're saying, Milburn Stone.  I wouldn't want to go back there either and these movies are certainly, shall we say, highly evocative of the era.  I'll probably overload on these movies before too long, but I caught--for something completely different--Enter the Dragon! Not my bag at all, but it was kind of fascinating, and Bruce Lee certainly had screen presence.

 

Yep--that Edgar Wright, editorgrrl.  I only happened on his stint when I checked out Last of Sheila, which I think he cited as something of an inspiration for Hot Fuzz!

,

ETA: Dyan Cannon was absolutely playing Sue Mengers--to the hilt.

Edited June 27, 2015 by Charlie Baker

[Rinaldo]

Maybe I should have been watching more of the TCM presentations lately, if the 70s are a theme. That was definitely "my" decade -- my life got a lot better at the start of the decade, and the good times lasted right up to 1980. And I went to the movies a lot back then too. Now I need to try The Last of Sheila and see how I feel about it after a lapse of some years.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Enter the Dragon! Not my bag at all, but it was kind of fascinating, and Bruce Lee certainly had screen presence.

And likely not the bag of many here - but for those who ARE intrigued the El Rey Network (Robert Rodriguez' network) shows the classic Shaw Brothers kung fu/wuxia films on a regular basis thoughout the week.  If you are going to watch just one, I'd recommend Come Drink With Me, which made a huge star of the beautiful Cheng Pei-Pei, whom most of you probably saw when she played Jade Fox 35 years later in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Come Drink With Me is a real movie-movie, and a great one by anybody's standards, I think.  I wish they'd show it with subtitles instead of the dubbing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Drink_with_Me

[editorgrrl]

TCM is showing That Forsyte Woman (1949) next Monday, July 6, at 2:15 a.m. It stars Greer Garson and Errol Flynn: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/92691/That-Forsyte-Woman/

PBS is currently showing the 10-part 2002 adaptation, The Forsyte Saga, with Gina McKee and Damian Lewis.

Edited June 28, 2015 by editorgrrl

[Rick Kitchen]

The original Forsyte Saga with Eric Porter and Kenneth More is so superior.  And Nyree Dawn Porter!  I fell in love

[Charlie Baker]

Last night's Essential was The Picture of Dorian Gray which I did not watch,  After it, I did watch another adaptation from director/writer/producer Albert Lewin, The Moon and Sixpence, a fictionalization of the artist Paul Gauguin's life by Somerset Maugham.  A strange film, with a lot packed into just under an hour and a half.  The central character is an unrepentant heel who abandons his wife to paint, wrecks another's marriage, moves to Tahiti and marries a native, and does not have a happy ending. There's unchallenged  rampant misogyny and acceptance of abuse. (Which might have been accurate to the period of the story.)  And it's stylistically different, with multiple voice over narrators, a sepia tinting once the story moves to Tahiti, and color when we get very brief glimpses of the character's Gauguin-like paintings. A couple familiar character actors got to play unusual roles for them here.  Steven Geray as the husband whose life is wrecked, and Florence Bates, as an interloper in Tahiti.  I remember someone posting quite some time ago about actors with beautiful rich speaking voices, and this one's got two--Herbert Marshall as a writer (and Maugham stand-in) and George Sanders in the lead. The dialogue is flowery and literary and they make it a pleasure to listen to.  I will say, beyond of course Sanders' skill at playing despicable, here he has some very strong brief moments of pain and vulnerability that suggest a range he didn't get to explore in his career. 

 

Lewin's best known movie was Dorian Gray which was under MGM.  His others, including Moon, were independent productions.  TCM followed Moon with Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, with Ava Gardner and James Mason, which I didn't watch,but does seem like another intriguing curiosity.

 

Wow, didn't mean to go on at such length. 

[Rinaldo]

I tuned in in the middle of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I've seen it before, and found it pretty fundamentally flawed -- Hurt Hatfield never looks truly young, and the others don't age around him as the story progresses -- but I had to stick around long enough to see young Angela Lansbury sing "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird." I know her singing was dubbed, and it doesn't matter to me: that's just a lovely couple of minutes, and it does touch something vital. To ruin such youth and joy, that's real depravity.

 

My DVR saved Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. I'll get to it, as it's a famous example of... something.

[mariah23]

Pandora has great cinematography and Ava Gardner was never more beautiful on screen ( IMO, of course)

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Pandora has great cinematography and Ava Gardner was never more beautiful on screen ( IMO, of course)

Too true, but it's still (whispers) kind of a  bad movie.

[3pwood]

Wow, didn't mean to go on at such length. 

 

George Sanders has that effect on me too.