TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Julia]

Davies, who really did not dance well, is cast as a Ruby Keeler-type character, but in Hollywood, not Broadway (and is featured tapping clumsily)

, but almost certainly better than Ruby Keeler. Just, Davies was beautiful, and a brilliant physical comedienne, and Keeler... was a real nice lady who didn't deserve the way Al Jolson treated her.

[elle]

Variety is reporting that Martin Milner has died at age 83.

Sad.  

 

As I commented over on the Adam-12 forum, I love his cameo role in "Mister Roberts", that accent he puts on, too funny!

[Charlie Baker]

Bing displays some edge and fire in Going Hollywood--I do like his singing of "Temptation."  But then there's one of my all time favorite lyric couplets which I first heard when the clip was in That's Entertainment:

"I'm on my way.

(Taking out beret and putting it on) Here's my beret!

I'm going Hollywood!"

[voiceover]

Enjoyed The Secret Garden again.  I always speculate on the sequel: will Mary give it up to sickly pretty-boy cousin Colin, or virile sex god of the Dales, Dickon?   I need a hobby.

 

RIP, Martin Milner.  I remember Adam-12;  mostly just the radio call.   Mostly I remember Milner as playing an otherwise sleazeball character (Neely's husband Nick in Valley of the Dolls) with dignity and grace.

[ratgirlagogo]

Wanted to recommend the IFC series "Documentary Now!" for anyone who isn't watching it.  Sometime TCM host of Essentials Jrs Bill Hader is one of the main stars and the whole thing kind of spoofs/parodies famous documentaries - it purports to be a PBS type show celebrating its 50th anniversary of presenting documentary films , with Dame Helen Mirren (!) as the gravely serious host.    Folks on this board would surely be able to appreciate parodies of Grey Gardens and Nanook of the North more than many who aren't familiar with the originals.  

[Crs97]

I mentioned earlier watching and loving Executive Suite and now I am working out to the original A Star is Born . Fredric March is one of those actors I always love, but never remember. Like I forgot he was Matthew Brady in Inherit the Wind until I looked up his bio, but every time I watch that movie I exclaim how good the actor is!

Well, this is the first time I've seen this version of Star, but I won't forget him again. I am late to the party, I know, but he is now on my radar as a favorite actor!

[mariah23]

Wait until you see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde also The Best Years of Our Lives.

[voiceover]

...and Nothing Sacred and I Married a Witch and One Foot in Heaven!  The last two, especially, are little gems.  Unfortunately, neither is on DVD -- especially surprising for Witch.

[henrysmom]

I Married a Witch is on DVD.  Pretty cheap too, for a Criterion edition.

 

http://www.amazon.com/I-Married-Witch-Criterion-Collection/dp/B00DZP1BVO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441912746&sr=8-1&keywords=i+married+a+witch

[prican58]

News of Dickie Moore passing just coming out.

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/child-star-dick-moore-dies-at-89-starred-blonde-venus-oliver-twist

[voiceover]

I forgot about the addition to the CC. (LOVE that cover design!) Obviously I should take credit for this (IIRC, I did in a previous post where I blew it the first time), as I faked lots of email addys to vote it up on the TCM site.

*runs off to vote up One Foot in Heaven, now the most-deserving  should-be from the March oeuvre 

Edited September 11, 2015 by voiceover

[Milburn Stone]

I forgot about the addition to the CC. (LOVE that cover design!) Obviously I should take credit for this (IIRC, I did in a previous post where I blew it the first time), as I faked lots of email addys to vote it up on the TCM site.

*runs off to vote up One Foot in Heaven, now the most-deserving  should-be from the March oeuvre 

 

What is the CC?

[aradia22]

Criterion Collection?

[Milburn Stone]

Wanted to recommend the IFC series "Documentary Now!" for anyone who isn't watching it.  Sometime TCM host of Essentials Jrs Bill Hader is one of the main stars and the whole thing kind of spoofs/parodies famous documentaries - it purports to be a PBS type show celebrating its 50th anniversary of presenting documentary films , with Dame Helen Mirren (!) as the gravely serious host.    Folks on this board would surely be able to appreciate parodies of Grey Gardens and Nanook of the North more than many who aren't familiar with the originals.  

 

I'm loving this show. In line with your theory that we TCM buffs will appreciate the show more than regular folks, I wanted to hazard a guess as to the "model" for last night's episode. I'm gonna go ahead and say it was Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line. I've never seen the movie! But I pride myself that my film literacy is so awesome that I don't have to see a movie to recognize it. :)

Edited September 11, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[Julia]

I Married a Witch is on DVD.  Pretty cheap too, for a Criterion edition.

If it's in the Criterion Collection, it's also on Hulu.

News of Dickie Moore passing just coming out.

Wow, I honestly thought he'd already passed. He was sort of the last of his era, wasn't he.

[Bastet]

Wow, I honestly thought he'd already passed. He was sort of the last of his era, wasn't he.

 

Pretty much, I think.  Jean Darling, another child actor in the silent era (Our Gang) just died a few days ago at 93.

[mariah23]

TCM has scheduled a tribute to Dick Moore on September 24.

[Rinaldo]

Jean Darling, another child actor in the silent era (Our Gang) just died a few days ago at 93.

That news was going around the musical-theater boards when it happened. It's kind of mind boggling to me, but the little girl in Our Gang was also the creator of the role of Carrie in Carousel, and thus the first to sing "When I Marry Mr. Snow."

[prican58]

Dickie out lives by decades the other Little Rascal cutie Scotty Beckett. Beckett had a hard time after becoming a teen. He did quite a few things like Battleground but for the most part he couldn't succeed in Hollywood. Died at 38..sad

 

I always thought it was interesting that Moore married Jane Powell so late in both their lives. I wonder if during their respective years in H'Wood they knew each other well enough to maybe have always been smitten with each other?  Imagine the adorable kids they might have had if they married when they were much younger!  

 

Actually I just read that they only met in the 80's! Go figure.

Edited September 12, 2015 by prican58

[ratgirlagogo]

 

I'm gonna go ahead and say it was Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line. I've never seen the movie! But I pride myself that my film literacy is so awesome that I don't have to see a movie to recognize it. :)

I HAVE seen The Thin Blue Line and it seems pretty clear to me you're right.

[voiceover]

Criterion Collection?

 

Yup.

[prican58]

I found this on ytube and it has tons of films with big time stars like Ty Power, Loretta Young and countless others and they are free. Lots of 20th Century Fox films, British films and other studios. The uploads are quite amazing. Don't know where the uploader even gets these. Could they all be in the public domain? 

 

The Killers with Lancaster and Ava Gardner! 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tas3u-DUT-c

[mariah23]

Probably not in the public domain.

[Julia]

Where there are quite a few Hollywood movies in the public domain, particularly silents, is the Wayback Machine.

[Inquisitionist]

"A Lot of Livin' To Do" is one of my favorite movie dance numbers ever, as I think I've posted in another thread here.

 

Great dancing, yes, but both "Birdie" and "Hugo" seem to have some pitch problems with their singing.  Ouch!

 

Glad I finally stumbled across this thread.  I'm learning so much!

[Charlie Baker]

A night of Jean Luc Godard?  I'm impressed, TCM, even if I'm not particularly a fan.  Breathless still looks fantastic, anyway.  And I might tape one of the overnight titles I've never seen. 

[King of Birds]

Charlie Baker, I'm curious which one you taped. I have always heard about "All the Boys Are Called Patrick" - an early short, but have never seen it, so that's what I'm recording.

[Charlie Baker]

I recorded Masculin Feminin and hope to get to it shortly.  Would be interested to know what you thought of the short, King of Birds, which I've never seen.  I did see Charlotte et son Jules, which TCM showed after Breathless, and it seemed like something of a warm up for Breathless, especially with the presence of Belmondo.

[prican58]

This is sort of barely TCM related but I am now reading a Sinatra bio called Frank: The Voice. Loving it. I come to read that Frank was friends with Jackie Gleason. It's not portrayed as an enduring friendship. In fact it seems like they used to pal around a bit at Toots Shore's watering hole in NYC.

 

I got to thinking that I really don't know a lot about Gleason as a person or his own personal dynamic. I am trying to find a definitive bio of him but there have been quite a number of books about him and I can't figure out which ones are more real and not as gossipy. Has anyone ever read any in particular?

 

Sinatra was such a complex guy that it got me thinking about Gleason. He seemed like he could be a tad arrogant.

I love reading bios of famous people, especially show biz types. I've read both Ava Gardner's and Robert Mitchum's bios by Lee Server and they were certainly colorful folks. 

[HelenBaby]

Wait until you see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde also The Best Years of Our Lives.

March is really a great actor. He had a few misses in the 30's but overall he always gave a solid effort. In addition to his 2 Best Actor Oscar winning roles, he really good in Middle of the Night with Kim Novak and Seven Days in May also starring Kirk Douglas & Burt Lancaster.

[Rinaldo]

And his last performance, in The Iceman Cometh, is just heartbreakingly fine. He hadn't lost a step in all those years in the business. (The movie also contains Robert Ryan's last performance, equally superb. And both are big roles -- Ryan's especially so -- not just quick cameos for an old pro.)

Edited September 18, 2015 by Rinaldo

[Charlie Baker]

My own little response round-up:

 

King of Birds:  I happened to see All the Boys Are Called Patrick because it turned out to be available on Time Warner's TCM On Dermand. (Still gripes my behind that Time Warner does not give me access to Watch TCM online.)  It was pretty delightful (scripted by Eric Rohmer),  I guess the Charlotte character played by the same actress is supposed to be the same in Charlotte et son Jules, too.Masculin Feminin I guess I "got" -- satire on gender roles and the radicalism of youth just for the sake of being radical with lots of New Wave style and a downbeat ending -- but it didn't engage me.  Still glad I recorded and watched it.

 

Prican58:  I too would be interested in a recommendation from someone  for a Gleason bio.  Have you read Rita Moreno's memoir?  Or tackle that dauntingly huge biography of Barbara Stanwyck (and only covering half her life) by Victoria Wilson?  How about Shawn Levy's book on Paul Newman? I really liked all of these.

 

I will add my admiration of Fredric March.  An earlier performance is his very fun take off on John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway.

[prican58]

Charlie Baker, I did read Rita's autobio. A friend went to a book signing in Manhattan and got me a signed copy. The book was pretty interesting. Rita's mother was her most important person. Mom was a free spirit and in my mind probably a bit mentally  unstable. Not in a dangerous way but her decision making in life was not good. 

 

I didn't really like her raconteur-ing style. She tries to be very flowery and colorfully descriptive especially of Puerto Rico. It was a bit much. But that's fine. She went through a lot, especially in regards to Marlon Brando.

I have always been a fan of hers ever since I was a kid and when watching The King and I when it first aired on network tv and my mom pointed out that she was Puerto Rican. Stamp of approval for me. 

 

Re Stanwyck, no but damn I need to buy that! Isn't it actually the first part of the publication? I know that there was a bio quite a few years ago of Elvis and that was 2 separate volumes. I want to read that as well.

 

I would recommend "Get Happy" by  Gerald Clarke, about Judy Garland. We have all heard and read all the crazy tragic things that went on in her life but it is worth reading. I just found out that a new Mickey Rooney bio is due out i October. The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney by Richard A Lurtzman. I adore Mickey and I would mos def buy that. 

Mel Torme wrote "The Other Side of the Rainbow" back in 1974. I read it a number of years ago and boy, was Mel brutally honest about her. But he wasn't malicious (IMO), just wrote what he saw. I think Liza was not a fan of it.  

With people who are such icons and who have gone through a lot of ups and downs, it's difficult to know what books to read without having felt like you are rehashing stuff. I mean, how many books on the Kennedy's can one read?  That's why I think books such as the Stanwyck and Elvis ones. are the only way to really know all there is. 

[Rinaldo]

I would want to recommend Simon Callow's biographies of actors: One modest volume about Charles Laughton, and two fat books (with promise of a third and last to come) about Orson Welles. They're not beyond quibble (some consistent misspellings of famous people have gone uncorrected, some pages of speculation are exactly that), but he's tried to do original research, and having an actual successful actor as author, able to evaluate filmed acting, or to give insight into different kinds of director-actor relationships makes these books uniquely readable and fascinating for me.

 

For that matter, I also very much like Callow's My Life in Pieces -- "pieces" in the sense of short articles for magazines and newspapers, of which he has written many over the years. He's strung them together in roughly the order he wrote them, with new interstitial material (visually identifiable as such) to help us keep track of his life along the way. So it's kind of a loose autobiography, but that's secondary to his writing about Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Paul Scofield, John Dexter, and many many more.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

know that there was a bio quite a few years ago of Elvis and that was 2 separate volumes. I want to read that as well.

That would be David Guralnick's great Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love.  This is one of the rare books where I would say that even if you THINK you aren't interested in Elvis, you will learn so much about popular music and radio and concert touring and music distribution for this time period that you will not just learn something, but actually are likely to BECOME interested in Elvis.   I'd make a similar recommendation for Nick Tosches' biography of Dean Martin - until I read this book I would have said there was almost no one whose biography I had a smaller interest in reading than Dean Martin.

[prican58]

ratgirl, I started reading Toches' book ages ago and somehow I couldn't get through it. I don't even remember why. I think I felt as though it went into way too much detail of Dean's life before he got well known. Not saying that I am not interested in an icon's "regular" life but it just seemed like treading water. Maybe I should try again. It has been ages so I may be misremembering (thanks, Roger Clemons for giving us that word) my reasons for dropping it. 

 

Anybody know what is the definitive Charlie Chaplin bio? Now there's a life.

Edited September 19, 2015 by prican58

[Milburn Stone]

For our book club here, I want to recommend the bio of composer of Cy Coleman, You Fascinate Me So, by Andy Propst. (Hey, they made a movie of Sweet Charity, and Coleman wrote a couple of scores for comedies, so he relates to TCM--if tenuously.) Very thoroughly researched, and all wheat, no chaff, in its 400+ pages. Written in a style that propels the reader forward. For this devotee of Coleman's work, the book is actually one of those "you can't put down." I've found a few errors (misspelling of composer Johnny Richards' name as Johnny Richard; failure to recognize that songwriter Bill Schluger was actually Capitol Records producer Dave Cavanaugh under a pseudonym; giving late-sixties Chicago Tribune movie reviewer Clifford Terry's name as Terry Clifford; perhaps a few others), but these are minor, and don't undermine confidence that Propst's book contains a wealth of valid information and insight.

[Charlie Baker]

Never got to that Charles Walters biography, Milburn Stone.  Would you recommend it? 

[ratgirlagogo]

 

ratgirl, I started reading Toches' book ages ago and somehow I couldn't get through it. I don't even remember why. I think I felt as though it went into way too much detail of Dean's life before he got well known

I get that. One part of what I found fascinating and  valuable about it was the level of detail in which Tosches shows that mobsters controlled most of the areas of show business in which Martin worked - that and all the ways in which the mob guys preferred Martin to Sinatra.  The big idea being that Martin embodied a particular kind of underworld ideal of the "menefreghista" (literally a guy that doesn't give a fuck) that allowed him to function around these deeply scary people.  Although he was a good singer and a very, very good actor he always claimed to have no artistic ambitions and be interested in nothing but money,  unlike Sinatra  or Jerry Lewis who were considered "difficult" because  they were willing to admit they took their own work seriously.

Also I had not realized until reading this book that he was one of Elvis' very favorite singers, although once I learned this it's impossible not to hear the Martin influence in Elvis' singing.  And not entirely parenthetically, Elvis himself is another sad example of someone who worked beneath his own abilities for too much of his career in order to make money for the people around him,and because he never wanted to be regarded as "difficult."

Edited September 19, 2015 by ratgirlagogo

[mariah23]

Does anyone know when Volume 2 of Stanwyck's book comes out?

[Charlie Baker]

I've seen no word at all about Part Two of the Stanwyck bio.  The author is a high-level publishing executive, and the first one took a very long time.  I hope it's not terribly long until the second book sees the light of day, but the lack of anything about it out there makes me wonder.

[Bastet]

Volume one was 15 years in the making, and I have yet to see anything about when we might see volume two.

 

Or, what Charlie Baker said.

Edited September 19, 2015 by Bastet

[Rinaldo]

 I think I felt as though it went into way too much detail of Dean's life before he got well known. 

I think that's a danger with any performer biography -- we the readers (I absolutely include myself) are eager to find more about the stuff we know about -- behind the scenes of a performer's life -- and the early life can feel like marking time when we're impatient. It takes an exceptional writer to jolt me out of that mindset, or an unusual structure (often one that starts with some famous event, then takes us back to the start).

 

One absolutely outstanding book of this type, by the way, is Lisa Jo Sagolla's The Girl Who Fell Down: A Biography of Joan McCracken. Joan McCracken's film career is almost vestigial -- best remembered as the oddly fascinating specialty dancer-singer in the MGM Good News movie -- but she was around for some important stuff: one of Agnes DeMille's "special girls" in ballet around 1940 who went on to work in musicals (famously "the girl who falls down" in the original ensemble of Oklahoma!) and onward. Her first husband went on to become Truman Capote's life partner, her second was Bob Fosse. The book begins with a detailed you-are-there account of Oklahoma! opening night and becoming aware of this special personality in the chorus, after which we go back to her early life, and proceed to get a real picture of a certain kind of career at a certain historical moment (when ballet was sweeping the US, and its dancers spreading out to other careers). 

 

Thanks for the tip on the Cy Coleman book, Milburn Stone! Somehow, though that's my personal and professional home territory, I had remained unaware of it.

... I may be misremembering (thanks, Roger Clemons for giving us that word)...

Hardly! :) Like many another word thought to be a new coinage, that useful word has been in the language for centuries (there's a recorded example in 1533). I've been happily using it all my life.

Edited September 19, 2015 by Rinaldo

[Milburn Stone]

Never got to that Charles Walters biography, Milburn Stone.  Would you recommend it? 

 

I recommend it highly, Charlie.

[Milburn Stone]

I think that's a danger with any performer biography -- we the readers (I absolutely include myself) are eager to find more about the stuff we know about -- behind the scenes of a performer's life -- and the early life can feel like marking time when we're impatient.

 

Agree this is a common problem, Rinaldo--and that's another mark in the plus-column for the Cy Coleman bio. It doesn't solve the problem by using the device of starting on a high point and flashing back; it's strictly chronological. Yet Propst found a way to convey all the early-life material without prolonging the reader's agony as he (the reader) waits for "the good stuff." Propst doesn't give it short shrift, either. Here's how I think he pulls off the trick. While remaining very aware that the reader wants to get to the good stuff, and keeping his obligation to the reader to get to that stuff early on in the book, he remains focused, even in the childhood and teen years, on what made Seymour Kaufman Cy Coleman. Nothing's extraneous to that, so nothing feels like you're marking time.

Edited September 19, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[voiceover]

Late to mention this, but here goes anyway:

I don't know how I missed the news about Omar Sharif.  My guess? I've been so mired in grief for my dad, a lot of things have been passing me by.

(When I was a little girl I told Dad he looked like a "skinny Omar Sharif" -- I guess it was the nose and the mustache; one man Egyptian, the other Iranian.  Anyway, Dad rolled his eyes at that; he never could take a compliment about his good looks.)

 

I always find something new in Zhivago; it's like GWTW in that respect.  This time I was thinking about how Sharif played the title role: as a truly *good* man.  There's an innocence that's not cloying; a trust in his fellow man freely given, if not always returned.  I am struggling with this explanation!  I'll think on it & give it another pass.

 

Anyway.  RIP, Mr Sharif.  I hope when you meet my dad, you'll tell him you see the resemblance. 

[mariah23]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Charlie Baker]

We've discussed this before--The More the Merrier on tonight's TCM schedule. If you haven't seen it, try it.  Romantic comedy doesn't get any better than this. 

[Julia]

We've discussed this before--The More the Merrier on tonight's TCM schedule. If you haven't seen it, try it.  Romantic comedy doesn't get any better than this.

Just a wonderful, silly movie. So much of the stuff Jean Arthur did was weighty and portentious, which is fine, but it's such fun to watch her having a good time.

[Rinaldo]

And Joel McCrea... he's so good, always. Funny, romantic, strong, whatever a given movie needs, he provides it, and he always makes his costars look good too.