TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Hunchback is such a perfect film.

Yes, so beautiful and so sad.

[PaulaO]

I've seen bits and pieces of Hunchback but never the whole thing. So I was excited to watch it last night. But it was so sad, Quasimodo getting 50 lashes, that I had to turn it off. What an excellent performance by Charles Laughton. 1939 was a magical year.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Timothy Spall said Laughton's performance in The Hunchback of Notre Dame is what inspired him to be an actor.

[bluepiano]

Charles Laughton was great in every part he played. Probably my favorite performances of his is in Sidewalks of London, with Vivian Leigh, from 1938. TCM shows it every once in a while, and if you haven't seen it, try to catch it. It's a lovely movie. Really nice work by Vivian Leigh, a year before Gone With the Wind, but Laughton is just amazing. He will break your heart.

 

And Laughton directed just one movie, Night of the Hunter, which is a classic. He was such a talented and unique individual.

[Rinaldo]

I've mentioned it here before, but this prompts me to repeat myself: Simon Callow's biography of Charles Laughton is very much worth reading. One of the best things about it is that Callow, given his own qualifications as actor and director, gives his own insights into Laughton's screen performances, one by one (except for the one or two that seem to be lost), which for me gives it more punch than the usual dutiful-research sort of bio (not that this one lacks research). He even finds merit in some of the Hollywood-progammer performances that are often devalued (like his work with Abbott & Costello, or Deanna Durbin), while occasionally offering a contrary opinion on an often-praised performance. It's altogether a compelling read.

 

Another topic from this thread not long ago: Here's Sheila O'Malley's appreciation of Gena Rowlands's screen work.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Rinaldo

[Inquisitionist]

It's a shame that the movie version of I, Claudius (with Laughton in the title role) didn't work out.  The documentary about it, The Epic That Never Was, is available on youtube -- at the moment.  ;-)

 

In 1937, filming began on "I, Claudius," from the Robert Graves novel, with Charles Laughton in the title role. The cast also included Merle Oberon, Flora Robson, Emlyn Williams and Robert Newton. Producer Alexander Korda hired Josef von Sternberg to direct but once the cameras started rolling it became evident that Laughton was having great difficulty in getting into his part. Matters went from bad to worse, so that when Merle Oberon was involved in a car crash and hospitalised for several weeks, it was looked on, in Emlyn Williams's words, "as a godsend" and the film was abandoned altogether.

 

[prican58]

OK folks, I am getting a bit antsy because I can not find a tv channel that will be airing Miracle on 34th Street (Natalie Wood version) on Thanksgiving day. This is a problem for me. I simply must watch it every Thanksgiving morning.

 

Now, I do own the dvd but my cable company says I can not plug my dvd into the cable box. WHAT? Yes, I could slip it into the laptop and watch but I want to see it on the tv screen. I may be forced to order it on VOD and pay $3.98 for  a 24 hour rental. 

I live in NYC, dammit, and no station will be airing it. Not AMC who has been fairly consistent in airing it and not WPIX channel 11 here in nyc. That, is a sin. My heart is breaking as I see my tradition going down the tubes.

 

Help!

[voiceover]

So here's my two favorite Norma Shearer films: Marie Antoinette and The Women!  When I was younger and didn't know anything, I turned my nose up at The Women, declaring it all manner of bullshit sexism.  What a freakin' moron.  

 

Norma's lovely in a tough role, but Mary Boland was perfection.  "Bring me a bromide!...and put some gin it it!": when I'm needing a liquid boost, that's what I say to bartenders.

[Inquisitionist]

Recorded The Women last night.  Hope to watch it this weekend!

 

Did anyone else catch Cat Ballou last Saturday?  Jed's (Dwayne Hickman's) opening line still makes me laugh as hard now as it did when I was 13:

 

Cat:  Miss Parker didn't introduce us.  I'm Catherine Ballou.

Jed (leans in and enunciates):  I'm drunk as a skunk.

[Milburn Stone]

Norma's lovely in a tough role, but Mary Boland was perfection.  "Bring me a bromide!...and put some gin it it!": when I'm needing a liquid boost, that's what I say to bartenders.

 

This reminds me of movie quotes that have made their way into the conversation of me and my friends. With one friend, with whom I share a mania for Double Indemnity, we're always saying "That tears it," or "Have you got a bottle of beer that's not working?" With another friend, it's "I have a dispatch for the queen," from Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (I think). These quotes are like some form of code. 

[Julia]

My office husband and I used 'jungle red' as code. Kind of a lot.

[bluepiano]

I live in NYC, dammit, and no station will be airing it. Not AMC who has been fairly consistent in airing it and not WPIX channel 11 here in nyc. That, is a sin. My heart is breaking as I see my tradition going down the tubes.

 

As someone who grew up in NYC I find this shocking. In my childhood memories, Miracle on 34th Street was shown pretty much round the clock on Thanksgiving on one of the local channels, 11 or 9. What's happening to the world? (In later years I lived right by where they blew up the giant balloons the night before the parade. That was always cool to watch.)

 

There are so few Thanksgiving movies. Although i guess most people consider Miracle a Christmas movie. Well, there's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. RIP John Candy. For me you will always be Del Griffith.

Edited November 25, 2015 by bluepiano

[Julia]

As someone who grew up in NYC I find this shocking. In my childhood memories, Miracle on 34th Street was shown round the clock on Thanksgiving on one of the local channels, 11 or 9. What's happening to the world? (In later years I lived right by where they blew up the giant balloons the night before the parade. That was always cool to watch

 

WPIX-11. They also had the Yule Log and Babes in Toyland/March of the Wooden Soldiers.

[Rinaldo]

 When I was younger and didn't know anything, I turned my nose up at The Women, declaring it all manner of bullshit sexism.  

Well, that's not untrue really... but if you love movies and their history (including following the careers of stars of that period), it's irresistible nonetheless. (Plus, it really is about a narrow sliver of class and period.)

[Julia]

The funny thing about the sexism in The Women is that the author's big issue was class, not sex. She had more than a little in common with Crystal Allen - common being the term her own husband's first wife's friends would have gone with - but she was also wildly ambitious in her own right, and ended up being one of the first elected woman Senators. I think it was the sphere women were expected to live in and their dependence on men she had contempt for.

Although in fairness, I think she was pretty comfortable being one of the very few women in power.

[Rinaldo]

A couple more thoughts about The Women, because some bits in it surprised me recently on a re-viewing:

 

I mentioned a page back that Norma Shearer surprised me this time around (I had the image of her Juliet and other "noble" roles in my head). She's lively and fun in the early scenes, definitely an asset. (And being the "good" character is actually a tough acting challenge.)

 

I don't know what Rosalind Russell was up to with all that manic overacting (not her usual thing at all). She must have been asked for it, so maybe Cukor thought that Sylvia would be too off-putting to audiences unless she were "funny."

 

For that matter, I don't know what Adrian was up to with his costumes. Most of his other film work that I recall (and certainly his elegant work for Camelot onstage) strikes me as timeless and tasteful, but here it's like he was trying to go over the top again and again. I suppose it's fun in its way, looked at in that spirit.

 

I'm not one of the great Joan Crawford fans in general (nothing against her, she just tends not to strike sparks with me as a rule), but she does play Crystal Allen well (with more subtlety than one might expect for the "other woman" role). But it's curious that she's almost exactly the same age as Russell and Shearer, and looks it. I would expect the threat to the Haines marriage to have youth as one of her weapons, though I suppose that doesn't necessarily have to be true.

 

Did anyone see the telecast of the 2001 NY revival? I saw it onstage. Pretty bad, I thought, except for Cynthia Nixon (Mary) and one or two others. No feel for period or class or style at all.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Rinaldo

[elle]

I don't know what Rosalind Russell was up to with all that manic overacting (not her usual thing at all). She must have been asked for it, so maybe Cukor thought that Sylvia would be too off-putting to audiences unless she were "funny."

I thought she was over the top too, but then I thought as you said it was a way to make her unlikeable.  Was this a transition role for her, to go from noble lady to comedy?

 

The character I could not understand or stand was Joan Fontaine.  Of all the "types" she was the worse as far as being wishy washy listening to Sylvia and not thinking for herself.

 

Did anyone see the telecast of the 2001 NY revival? I saw it onstage. Pretty bad, I thought, except for Cynthia Nixon (Mary) and one or two others. No feel for period or class or style at all.

No, I did not but your comment about it having no feel for anything about the original (paraphrasing) is why I think the movie also was an abject failure.  Not only did they not have the feel right but I think that the time period has passed where we, the viewer, are removed from the action and are interested in the daily doings of the "upper class" or "famous".  

 

I think the remake The Opposite Sex worked because they moved the setting to "Show Business" another place where most people at the time did not have much access to people's lives as was the case with the play and original movie.

 

Strangely, actors can reach back to play characters of the further past but can not capture that moment in time while trying to bring it "up to date".

[Julia]

I didn't think the tv version really worked (although Cynthia Nixon was wonderful, and it was interesting to get to hear a speech they cut from the original movie and find out why Ruth Hussey's character was being gratuitously nasty). It was, though, a shining light before the world compared with the abject horror of the Meg Ryan remake.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Julia

[Rinaldo]

I thought she was over the top too, but then I thought as you said it was a way to make her unlikeable.  Was this a transition role for her, to go from noble lady to comedy?

Apparently so -- she had done comedy before, but it seems that her primary screen identification had been in "ladylike" roles, in which she felt trapped. So Sylvia was a liberation in that sense, and His Girl Friday came right after.

I think the movie also was an abject failure.  Not only did they not have the feel right but I think that the time period has passed where we, the viewer, are removed from the action and are interested in the daily doings of the "upper class" or "famous".

 

I don't find the movie an abject failure, though it certainly has its dated or unworkable moments. In fact it seems (to me) more and more palatable with time, as the way of life it depicts seems more and more a quaint vestige of the past, amusing without guilt because it has so little to do with the way people live now. (The whole "establish residence in Reno so you can get a divorce" scenario has to be explained at length to young people now.)

I think the remake The Opposite Sex worked ....

 

This is why I enjoy these forums, contact with new opinions. (I'm totally sincere.) I don't think I've ever heard The Opposite Sex defended before ("abject failure" tends to be the terms in which it's described), and I don't think it works at all -- but I'm glad to see someone speak up for it. It's fun at least to see Joan Collins so early in her career, and Dolores Gray at all (she was an important stage performer who didn't get many screen roles).

[elle]

I don't find the movie an abject failure, though it certainly has its dated or unworkable moments. In fact it seems (to me) more and more palatable with time, as the way of life it depicts seems more and more a quaint vestige of the past, amusing without guilt because it has so little to do with the way people live now. (The whole "establish residence in Reno so you can get a divorce" scenario has to be explained at length to young people now.)

Oops!  I should have been more specific.  I was referring to the 2008 version with Meg Ryan as the "abject failure".    i like the original, although I do find the switch to color jarring and unnecessary.  Sorry for the confusion!

 

It's fun at least to see Joan Collins so early in her career, and Dolores Gray at all (she was an important stage performer who didn't get many screen roles).

I love seeing Carolyn Jones!

[elle]

WPIX-11. They also had the Yule Log and Babes in Toyland/March of the Wooden Soldiers.

The Hallmark Movies and Mysteries Channel is having a Thanksgiving yule log today with Christmas songs and the occasional appearance of a Jack Russell Terrier who trades off with an orange tabby.  (very patient but whose tail is telling a different tale) :0)

 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Edited November 26, 2015 by elle

[Foghorn Leghorn]

OK folks, I am getting a bit antsy because I can not find a tv channel that will be airing Miracle on 34th Street (Natalie Wood version) on Thanksgiving day. This is a problem for me. I simply must watch it every Thanksgiving morning.

 

Now, I do own the dvd but my cable company says I can not plug my dvd into the cable box. WHAT? Yes, I could slip it into the laptop and watch but I want to see it on the tv screen. I may be forced to order it on VOD and pay $3.98 for  a 24 hour rental. 

I live in NYC, dammit, and no station will be airing it. Not AMC who has been fairly consistent in airing it and not WPIX channel 11 here in nyc. That, is a sin. My heart is breaking as I see my tradition going down the tubes.

 

Help!

 

I too was appalled that movie was not being aired anywhere yesterday!!!  I live in Canada but thought it would be aired on American Thanksgiving tv somewhere on a channel I could get.  It is my absolute favorite movie but must be the black and white version and of course the original with Natalie Wood!  When it comes on I record it and play it over and over.  Natalie's side eyes are priceless.  And how that huge turkey cooked in 4 hours is beyond me.  The parade was over by late morning yet Maureen tells John "dinner's at 3."  

[prican58]

Foghorn, ditto on the b/w version and the Natalie version. I never watch the Parade live but I do "watch" it as part of the movie.  I do believe that it will be aired as we get closer to Christmas.

 

I will be going the VOD route, it seems 

[Julia]

And how that huge turkey cooked in 4 hours is beyond me.  The parade was over by late morning yet Maureen tells John "dinner's at 3."

*koff*christmas miracle*koff*

[Constantinople]

Damn!

 

I don't have TCM and Jason & the Argonauts was on tonight.

[HelenBaby]

I just checked TCM's December schedule and Miracle on 34th Street is not scheduled.

[CMH1981]

Has TCM ever shown Miracle on 34th Street recently?  I thought AMC has had the rights to show it for the past years or so.  I too looked on my cable guide to see who was playing it, and I believe it said that it was IFC or some other channel I don't get.  I was more upset that Maureen didn't get a mention at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade since she just recently passed.  I equate this movie w/ the parade and vice versa, so I was upset they didn't honor her in some way.

[editorgrrl]

Miracle on 34th Street airs on Sundance at least eight times, beginning Sunday, December 6, at 7 p.m. EST: http://www.sundance.tv/films/miracle-on-34th-street

[Julia]

I just checked FIOS, and the only place I see it listed this season is 12/6, 7 PM on Sundance. You can, though, buy it for $5 on iTunes.

[elle]

I don't have TCM and Jason & the Argonauts was on tonight.

I know!  I was bummed this month missing out on the Myrna Loy movies.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I am pretty sure TCM aired Miracle on 34th Street last year.  I don't get Sundance sadly....

[bmoore4026]

Usually I don't watch TCM's Underground on late Saturday Nights/Early Sunday Mornings, but rather glad I did tonight!  Tonight I watched Polyester by John Holmes, and it was one of the funniest damn things I ever saw.

 

Just all the overwrought soap opera tropes being played to such extremes was fantastic, as were things like the nuns charging in and carrying Francine's (played brilliantly, as always, by the late Divine) daughter away and Francine's awful ex-husband driving down the street with a megaphone, saying horrible things about her, and, of course, Francine's recently rich friend.  She wasn't Bette Davis, but who cares, she made scenes fun.  Then there's the scene where Francine comes home and finds her evil mother shot and her daughter attempting suicide and the dog had hanged itself.  So wrong, but I laughed so hard.

 

I think I'm gonna start collecting the John Waters/Divine movies now, along with Serial Mom.

 

Late coming edit 12/3: I MEANT JOHN WATERS!  I have to go die of embarrassment now.

Edited December 3, 2015 by bmoore4026

[Charlie Baker]

From John Waters to Satyajit Ray--no graceful segue for that, but TCM is absolutely doing what it does in giving us both of them within two days.

Anyway,just wanted to alert anyone who didn't know that  tomorrow night's schedule has all three films of Ray's Apu trilogy--which trace one everyday man's life in India from boyhood to fatherhood.  These are not "easy" films but they are beautiful, memorable, moving.

 

Edited to correct time of showing.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Charlie Baker

[CMH1981]

I see AMC is playing Miracle on 34th Street on 12/10...but I have a feeling it's the bastardized color version w/ is sacrilege in my book.

 

So I was watching Ransom! this morning, and I have to say I love this film...so much that i'm about to order the dvd from Warner Archives.  This movie is so much better than the Ron Howard remake from the 90's.  I still find it suspenseful overtime I watch this film.

 

Since the kidnappers are never acknowledged or shown (outside of a shadow of a guy smoking basically) did anyone else get the feeling that it was the older brother who was behind it all?  He just screamed guilty to me, and if I had to pick a reason it would be jealousy that the younger brother is running the family business instead of him.

[prican58]

I see AMC is playing Miracle on 34th Street on 12/10...but I have a feeling it's the bastardized color version w/ is sacrilege in my book.

 

CMH1981, bastardized is indeed the word. I would just turn down the color if it's the only chance I have to see it.

I am glad to see  Sundance  airing it but it should be on a classic channel. (I'm looking at you Fox Movie Channel!)

 

Now, moving on to Christmas I hope this same situation doesn't arise with "Scrooge" with Alistair Sim. I do enjoy the Reginald Owen version very much but Sim is the ultimate performance. I do think that it isn't run as often as the Owen but I will settle for one airing at a decent time on the Eve or the Day.

[editorgrrl]

Now, moving on to Christmas I hope this same situation doesn't arise with "Scrooge" with Alistair Sim. I do enjoy the Reginald Owen version very much but Sim is the ultimate performance. I do think that it isn't run as often as the Owen but I will settle for one airing at a decent time on the Eve or the Day.

TCM is showing the 1938 Reginald Owen A Christmas Carol on December 6, 11, and 24: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/70898/A-Christmas-Carol/ but not the 1951 Alastair Sim version: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/70899/A-Christmas-Carol/

[bluepiano]

Now, moving on to Christmas I hope this same situation doesn't arise with "Scrooge" with Alistair Sim. I do enjoy the Reginald Owen version very much but Sim is the ultimate performance. I do think that it isn't run as often as the Owen but I will settle for one airing at a decent time on the Eve or the Day.

 

With you 100% there. Sim IS Scrooge for me. His manic giggling in the scene when he wakes up Christmas morning is one of my all time favorite bits of comic acting.

 

TCM recently showed Stage Fright, in which he did a great job in the supporting role of Jane Wyman's father. I know it's generally considered a minor Hitchcock (he's put it down himself), but I like it a lot. Some neat plot twists, and Marlena Dietrich is wonderfully evil. And for Fawlty Towers fan, she has a scene at the end of the movie with a young Ballard Berkley, who many years later would play The Major.

 

The funny thing about the sexism in The Women is that the author's big issue was class, not sex.

 

The fact that Crystal is a working girl clearly makes her inferior in the eyes of the rich, idle wives, and there is a subtext that the Norma Shearer character is supposed to feel especially humiliated because her husband had an affair with such a lowly creature. (Affairs among people of the same class would've been somehow more acceptable). And I think it's also implied that Crystal taking away the husband of one of the snooty ladies she has to wait on is also a measure of payback. I don't know about the period in which the movie was released, but from our modern perspective it makes her behavior, if not sympathetic, more understandable.

 

For me the weirdest thing in that movie has always been the extended fashion show. I guess it was supposed to appeal to middle class female audiences, who could fantasize themselves as being in the place of the movie's characters and ooh and ah over the fancy duds.

Edited November 29, 2015 by bluepiano

[Rinaldo]

For me the weirdest thing in that movie has always been the extended fashion show. 

I think there's general agreement about that. And in fairness, that reaction isn't just a recent phenomenon -- it goes a long way back. (The producer seems to have wanted it, come hell or high water, despite Cukor's wishes and despite the screenplay.) TV showings (which were probably a main means of keeping movies "alive" in the 1950s, before revival-movie houses and long before home video) always cut out the whole fashion show. I saw the movie several times, way back when, and had no idea the fashion show ever existed. (The fashion salon scenes surrounding it were of course always there.)

[Julia]

And too, the fashion show was in Technicolor, which all the starring actresses refused to appear in.

[HelenBaby]

I know that the fashion show in The Women brings the story to a halt, but I can't help but love it and all the wacky fashions. I really love the movie even if it's old fashioned and maybe sexist. My life in no way reflects anything we're shown in that movie but it's got top notch performances in it. Yes, even Rosalind Russell, who really got to let loose. Everyone in it is so different than they were in just about any other movie they made, maybe with the exception of Russell and Fontaine. Joan got a lot of mileage out of that meek simpering persona for a while.

I wouldn't want the kind of life the characters had, but I love it for what it was.

[MissT]

Did anyone happen to catch Pather Panchali on last evening?   They showed the entire trilogy/series, but I only watched the first one.  I was bored and nothing else on the TV interested me so I watched it.  I actually thought it was good even though there was sub-titles (I normally have a hard time watch foreign films with sub-titles) and the acting wasn't very good. 

[ratgirlagogo]

 

Tonight I watched Polyester by John Holmes, and it was one of the funniest damn things I ever saw.

I'm sure John Waters would be beyond thrilled that you subconsciously mixed him up with John Holmes......I saw it in the theater when it first came out -  in Smell-O-VIsion (courtesy of scratch'sniff cardboard programs) with a packed raucously appreciative audience. One of the only times I ever really enjoyed myself at a movie premiere.

 

 

Did anyone happen to catch Pather Panchali on last evening?

I've seen the trilogy before.  It will reward your interest if you watch it all the way through although it's true that having seen it I haven't felt the need to watch it again for a long time.  I think it startled people when it first came out because it was remarkable work for a director's first film, and because it was made so completely outside the Bollywood studio system - including a cast of actors who mostly wouldn't have been allowed to set foot onto a Bollywood soundstage.  I think more highly of the acting than you do - the performance of the mother in particular.

[Crisopera]

Goodness, I was happy to see Crossing Delancey again.  I love that movie.  Of course, Amy Irving's intransigence against getting involved with Peter Riegert always baffled me.  I mean, it's Peter Riegert at his most charming, the character is a real mensch, and you get free pickles!  What could be bad?

[Inquisitionist]

I caught the 2nd half or so of Crossing Delancey.  Looking for an opportunity to see the whole thing!

[Julia]

Goodness, I was happy to see Crossing Delancey again.  I love that movie.  Of course, Amy Irving's intransigence against getting involved with Peter Riegert always baffled me.  I mean, it's Peter Riegert at his most charming, the character is a real mensch, and you get free pickles!  What could be bad?

 

I think it's supposed to be a metaphor for rejecting your heritage in exchange for the hollow satisfactions and shallow values of trendy modern life. Not that she wouldn't have become the envy of all her friends in Manhattan for hooking up with someone whose store only foodies know about. Also, Peter Riegert, who this movie and Local Hero cemented my crush on.

[voiceover]

... Peter Riegert, who this movie...cemented my crush on.

This was right after/maybe during his Bette Midler-dating phase, IIRC.  

 

I had to miss this morning's Tale of Two Cities, with Ronald Colman in one of the greatest opening shots of that era (ties for first with John Wayne in Stagecoach).  Lord, I love it when a gentleman is a rascal.

 

Very pissy over the Reginald Owen Christmas Carol being shown.  Must be a studio issue.  Sim is so clearly the best Scrooge ever.  I wish that WGN was still doing their round-the-clock showing of the film.  I'd take 8 hours of "The spirits did it all in one night!" over equivalent "You'll shoot your eye out!", any day.  (Though I like that movie, too)

[Amello]

I had to miss this morning's Tale of Two Cities, with Ronald Colman in one of the greatest opening shots of that era (ties for first with John Wayne in Stagecoach).  Lord, I love it when a gentleman is a rascal.

 

Edna May Oliver kicking ass is one of my favourite things that has ever existed. 

[elle]

Edna May Oliver kicking ass is one of my favourite things that has ever existed. 

Right up there with her defending all and sundry from the plague of donkeys!

[Crisopera]

If you want to see Edna May Oliver kick some more historical ass, take a look at Drums Along the Mohawk.  Not John Ford's greatest movie, but she was amazing! (Nominated for Best Supporting.)

[Julia]

Right up until that weird thing at the end where she pretended that she was only being rude to Lizzie to find out if she was sincere, her Lady Catherine de Bourgh was the best thing about the Olivier Pride and Prejudice (JMO).