TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Mumbles]

I second the shoutout to Reagan in The Killers. It's a good movie (Siegel went on to so Dirty Harry and other movies with Clint Eastwood) and Reagan is terrifying in it.

[bluepiano]

It's actually shocking that Ronnie would've agreed to do a part like that to close out his film career, especially since he was already involved in Republican politics by that time, and his political ambitions were well known.

[ratgirlagogo]

Even as I was typing I KNEW that both Emo Philips and Jim Belushi would have fans of some kind.  (Interestingly nobody stood up for Adam Sandler.)  Thus kind of underlining my initial point - that Joe Penner was so screamingly unfunny that I can't think of anyone today as unfunny as him.

 

 

Joe Penner was country corn, like Bob the Cable Guy, Jim Foxworthy, Jim Varney, or Hee-Haw.

He is less funny than any of those folks.  He's less funny than ( the much complained about today by my fellow Gene Autry fans) Smiley Burnette who would also have fallen into that category.  

 

 

Does Chez Rat have someplace online to find those shows?

Oh, these days I'm sure there are any number of places but two long-established online stations that we like are Yesterday USA and Radio Once More.

[prican58]

I have tickets to see On The Waterfront on Sunday. So excited to see it. I am still kicking myself for having missed The Ten Commandments last month. I was so psyched for it but the date got away from me since I didn't buy the tickets a week or more in advance. 

 

What I really can't wait to see is I The King and I later this year. My parents had the original soundtrack LP since I was a little kid and I used to play it often. It was a huge deal back in the mid/late 60's when it debuted on TV. My mom let me know that Rita Moreno was in it and she was Puerto Rican. She was a big source of pride amongst my people. I still love the music and damn if all those kids weren't the cutest!

 

Shall we dance?

[Julia]

prican58, if you get a chance to see/rewatch Singing in the Rain, Lina's friend Zelda (the one who walked the red carpet with her rich old husband at the beginning of the movie) is an impossibly young Rita Moreno.

[Milburn Stone]

prican58, if you get a chance to see/rewatch Singing in the Rain, Lina's friend Zelda (the one who walked the red carpet with her rich old husband at the beginning of the movie) is an impossibly young Rita Moreno.

 

And she has one moment later (if I'm not mistaken), when Lina is walking off in a huff over something, and Zelda is there in support. Or maybe it's not that. But it's something on the set.

[Julia]

And she has one moment later (if I'm not mistaken), when Lina is walking off in a huff over something, and Zelda is there in support. Or maybe it's not that. But it's something on the set.

She outs Cathy Selden being on the lot to Lina because they increased the size of Cathy's role as Zelda's younger sister.

There were absolutely worse movies that my daughter could have made me watch 147,000 times, but I've watched it kind of a lot...

[prican58]

Yeah, Julia, I knew Rita was in that. I got you beat as I must have seen it 148,000 times.

[elle]

prican58, if you get a chance to see/rewatch Singing in the Rain, Lina's friend Zelda (the one who walked the red carpet with her rich old husband at the beginning of the movie) is an impossibly young Rita Moreno.

 

She outs Cathy Selden being on the lot to Lina because they increased the size of Cathy's role as Zelda's younger sister.

 

Her line is "Anytime, Don!" in response to his thanking her. :o)

 

She has a moment in between the two mentioned, the one at the party where she is dancing with "the old man".   She is so cute!

 

I thought she was the best one in West Side Story.  Thankfully, so did a lot of other people specifically the Academy.

[Julia]

Yeah, Julia, I knew Rita was in that. I got you beat as I must have seen it 148,000 times.

 

Hey, she left for college. 

[Milburn Stone]

I've wondered in the past whether some of Zelda ended up on the cutting room floor (or was excised from a pre-final draft of the script). This is because she's in the movie just enough to make it seem a little weird that there's not more of her. In particular, the fact that she's pissed off at Kathy for stealing screen time from her makes you think there had to be a subplot in which we actually see this to be taking place.

 

So just now I googled, and found this, on, of all places, moviefone.com:

 

15. Also cut: most of Rita Moreno's performance. The future EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony)-winner is seen briefly at the beginning of the film as silent star Zelda Zanders. She was to have had her own number, "Make Hay While the Sun Shines."

Edited April 24, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[prican58]

 

 

So just now I googled, and found this, on, of all places, moviefone.com:

 

15. Also cut: most of Rita Moreno's performance. The future EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony)-winner is seen briefly at the beginning of the film as silent star Zelda Zanders. She was to have had her own number, "Make Hay While the Sun Shines."

Damn, if only somewhere someone could unearth the missing footage. I'd like to think it was cut due to time constraints and not due to the number just not working. Would love to have Rita immortalized in another movie musical.

 

In Rita's autobio she says that she thinks she was all wrong for the role of Tuptim in The King and I and that France Nuyen would have been better in it. She had been Rita's main competition, plus France was part Vietnamese and younger. Rita never mentioned anything about her role being cut. 

Edited April 24, 2016 by prican58

[Padma]

In Rita's autobio she says that she thinks she was all wrong for the role of Tuptim in The King and I and that France Nuyen would have been better in it. She had been Rita's main competition, plus France was part Vietnamese and younger. Rita never mentioned anything about her role being cut. 

Hollywood always cast ethnicities oddly. I could see why it would feel strange to be Puerto Rican and cast as someone Burmese--especially when there's a reputable Asian actress competing for it--however, I thought she was fine. Then again, I prefer her acting to Nguyen's. (However, I envy both of them as two women who aged so beautifully--and at least It appears--so naturally. I'm a lot younger, yet very envious of both. Whether they had work done or not, they both look amazing--and Rita's, incredibly, 84.).

[prican58]

Haven't seen France in many years but Rita really does look wonderful. My mom is only about 3 yrs older and while mom looks great for her age Rita mos def looks like she's in her 70's.

 

Rita didn't really say that she felt odd doing the role and she did say that she really wanted the part. 

[Gemma Violet]

Yours, Mine & Ours just played.  I've seen it a couple dozen times but I just had to watch it again.  Never get tired of it.

[Milburn Stone]

Rita didn't really say that she felt odd doing the role... 

 

I'm glad, because she was good in it.

 

Yul Brynner wasn't Siamese, either.

[elle]

Yours, Mine & Ours just played.  I've seen it a couple dozen times but I just had to watch it again.  Never get tired of it.

it was followed by With Six you get Egg-roll.  A theme maybe tonight?

 

I think YM&O is my favorite "straight" role for Lucille Ball.  It is amazing how well she was able to adapt so successfully with the times and the various aspects of the industry.

[Milburn Stone]

it was followed by With Six you get Egg-roll.  A theme maybe tonight?

 

 

It so happened I had Eggroll on without sound for about an hour last night, as deliberate pictorial background for other stuff, and I wondered if it was one of those movies that's much better if you don't know what anybody's saying, because pictorially, it was kind of interesting! Slightly long-in-the-tooth Doris looked good, as did young Barbara Hershey; the always-welcome, always-sexy Elaine Devry turned up; the disco-dancing club scene was fun; the hippies were amiably ridiculous; and the vivid sixties color photography was candy for the eyes. I have an inkling that dialogue would have ruined everything! Am I right, or is the movie with sound not as dumb as I think?

[Julia]

I'm glad, because she was good in it.

 

Yul Brynner wasn't Siamese, either.

 

He was eurasian, though, wasn't he? At least, I thought he used to say he had some mongol in his family.

 

15. Also cut: most of Rita Moreno's performance. The future EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony)-winner is seen briefly at the beginning of the film as silent star Zelda Zanders. She was to have had her own number, "Make Hay While the Sun Shines."

 

Do you suppose they meant this? I really question the choice to cut that while leaving the mawkish (JMO) You Are My Lucky Star, even if they did at least have the great good sense to cut most of that.

[Milburn Stone]

Do you suppose they meant this? I really question the choice to cut that while leaving the mawkish (JMO) You Are My Lucky Star, even if they did at least have the great good sense to cut most of that.

 

I have my doubts about moviefone.com, but one reason it's plausible that "We'll Make Hay While the Sun Shines" was originally planned is that it is from the Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown catalog, from which all the other songs in the film (except "Moses Supposes") were drawn.

[Rinaldo]

the Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown catalog, from which all the other songs in the film (except "Moses Supposes") were drawn.

And "Make 'Em Laugh," a new (not back-catalog) song by Freed and Brown. (We can leave Cole Porter out of it, I hope -- it resembles "Be a Clown" in several ways, but is not as identical as legend would have it.)

[henrysmom]

 

I have an inkling that dialogue would have ruined everything! Am I right, or is the movie with sound not as dumb as I think?

 With Six You Get Eggroll isn't all that bad, but it isn't all that good either.  If you think about it as three sitcom episodes (60s sitcoms, not the more realistic ones that came around in the 1970s) it is a nice little time waster.  Doris Day (who I adore) does a good job and she has some great scenes in the beginning where she is running a lumberyard after her husband's death.  Brian Keith is just as good as her suitor/later husband.  If you go in not expecting much, you'd find it a nice enough film.  It certainly isn't the career killer some people say it is (of Doris Day).  It may have been her last film, but I don't blame the film for that.  Just changing times and tastes.

 

And speaking of Day, and tying this to Ronald Reagan as well, I was impressed by Ronald Reagan in The Winning Team.  The film itself was one of those "true life" portraits of a famous person, sanitized for popular consumption.  In this case, baseball player Grover Cleveland Alexander, whose alcoholism and other issues were kind of cleaned up so people could (I guess) sympathize with him more.  But Reagan did a good job with what he got.  Day played his ever patient wife.

 

 

I've caught Passport to Pimlico, and decades ago saw The Happiest Days of Your Life,  but have yet to see titles like Folly To Be Wise or Laughter in Paradise and the others that Pauline Kael used to rave about in her capsule writeups that I've never had a chance to see

 

 

I <love> Alastair Sim.  You should try to track down those films--they were great fun.  I saw Folly to Be Wise on YouTube ages ago.  I'm sure it has been taken down for copyright reasons by now, but I'd love to see it again.  I also found the tv movie version of Cold Comfort Farm Sim did back in the late 1960s.  Great stuff, incredibly well cast.  It had that creaky, "this set is going to fall down in a minute" cheap appearance so many older tv shows have, but the actors and writing were wonderful and very true to the book.

 

Green for Danger is another great Sim movie, as is The Green Man.  Green for Danger is a mystery set during WWII, with Sim playing a police inspector trying to find out which doctor or nurse killed a patient during an operation, and why.   If you have any interest in the war, it is an intriguing picture of life in England during the German bombings.

 

The Green Man is a dark comedy with Sim playing an assassin.  He is attempting to murder a government minister, who has taken off for a dirty weekend with a secretary at an inn called the Green Man.  A vacuum cleaner salesman manages to find out about the plot and takes off for the inn to try to save the minister's life. Very funny, but like I said dark comedy.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2016 by henrysmom

[elle]

It so happened I had Eggroll on without sound for about an hour last night, as deliberate pictorial background for other stuff, and I wondered if it was one of those movies that's much better if you don't know what anybody's saying, because pictorially, it was kind of interesting! Slightly long-in-the-tooth Doris looked good, as did young Barbara Hershey; the always-welcome, always-sexy Elaine Devry turned up; the disco-dancing club scene was fun; the hippies were amiably ridiculous; and the vivid sixties color photography was candy for the eyes. I have an inkling that dialogue would have ruined everything! Am I right, or is the movie with sound not as dumb as I think?

It is not so dumb-ish.  I find Barbara Hershey particularly annoying.  I think Day and Keith have chemistry.  The most fun though is from the supporting cast.

 

George Carlin as Herbie Fleck

Alice Ghostley as Abby’s maid, Molly (Abby = Doris Day)

Pat Carroll as Maxine Scott, Abby’s sister 

Herb Voland as Harry Scott, Abby’s brother-in-law

[Rinaldo]

I saw Folly to Be Wise on YouTube ages ago.  I'm sure it has been taken down for copyright reasons by now, but I'd love to see it again. 

 

Green for Danger is another great Sim movie, as is The Green Man.  Green for Danger is a mystery set during WWII...

 

The Green Man is a dark comedy with Sim playing an assassin.  He is attempting to murder a government minister, who has taken off for a dirty weekend with a secretary at an inn called the Green Man.  A vacuum cleaner salesman manages to find out about the plot and takes off for the inn to try to save the minister's life. Very funny, but like I said dark comedy.

I saw 2 minutes of Folly To Be Wise on YouTube a couple of years ago, which was all that was available right then. Now, there's one of those redirect-to-another-site pages for it, but in fact that other page has also been removed as a violation. But hurray -- I just looked on Amazon UK, and found that there's an Alastair Sim Collection on DVD with this, The Green Man, and Laughter in Paradise (and two more). Absolutely worth it. I'm buying it. (I have a player that can handle the format and region.) If only it had The Happiest Days of Your Life too (which I saw once and loved)... but I mustn't be greedy.

 

TCM showed Green for Danger a while back, and I made a point of seeing it as the title had come up in an online discussion of the classic British "fair-play mystery" novels, in which all the clues are right in front of you, but you're misdirected and don't understand what they mean. Christianna Brand's book is one of the few that's not by one of the classic series writers like Christie, Carr, Marsh, Allingham, Sayers, etc., but is considered their equal, and this is a good dramatization of it.

 

I actually saw some of The Green Man in my youth! It was on a local TV station as the Saturday afternoon movie, and I remember the vacuum cleaner salesman showing up, but not much else. (I was very young, and I wasn't able to see it to the end.) I do remember that the only actor I recognized was Terry-Thomas, who was in some popular American films around that time.

[prican58]

Here is what Wiki says about Yul. I don't think anyone thinks Wiki is 100% correct but this is a lot of info.  

What a movie his life would make,

 

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

[3pwood]

[Green for Danger] is another great Sim movie, as is The Green Man.  [Green for Danger] is a mystery set during WWII, with Sim playing a police inspector trying to find out which doctor or nurse killed a patient during an operation, and why.   If you have any interest in the war, it is an intriguing picture of life in England during the German bombings.

 

 I've been trying to see Green For Danger ever since I read the brilliant novel by Christianna Brand -- I'm keeping on & urge everyone else to do so (meanwhile, if you haven't read the book, do please bug your local library).

[Charlie Baker]

Our network is teaming with Criterion Collection for a new streaming service.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/tcm-and-criterion-to-offer-streaming-service.html

[Crisopera]

About the Criterion/TCM streaming service - since I can't access Watch TCM (damn you, Time Warner!), I wonder if I'll be able to access this.  Probably, since it's a pay service.  I hope so, anyway.  This sounds worth almost any fee.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Crisopera

[bluepiano]

Watching this 1960 B&W British movie, Never Let Go, about an average guy who becomes obsessed with getting his stolen car back and goes after the car theft ring. Peter Sellers plays the head crook, a violent, mentally unbalanced sadist, and he is absolutely terrifying. What a great actor he was, because even though he doesn't change himself physically, you don't for a second even think about it being the funny Peter Sellers that you know and love. It's as if the inner rage of the character he's playing brings about a total transformation.

Sellers shows that he also could've been a great dramatic actor, if that was his focus, instead of comedy. He and Alec Guinness must've been the two most versatile actors ever.

I never even heard of Never Let Go, but it's an incredibly powerful movie. The acting, direction, music score, everything is top notch. That was a great period in British cinema.

Edited April 28, 2016 by bluepiano

[voiceover]

While mooning over Across to Singapore, and melting over Ramon Novarro's grin, I thought -- not for the first time! -- about what an expressive, made-for-the-silent-screen face he had.  He's always more fun to watch than anyone else on the screen with him.

My "Silent Actor Breakdown": Fairbanks, the Pirate; Valentino, the Lover; Gilbert, the Rogue; Colman, the Gentleman; Novarro, the Boy King.  All 5 together? the Perfect Man.

[Julia]

On 4/27/2016 at 10:46 AM, Charlie Baker said:

Our network is teaming with Criterion Collection for a new streaming service.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/tcm-and-criterion-to-offer-streaming-service.html

 

On 4/27/2016 at 11:38 AM, Crisopera said:

About the Criterion/TCM streaming service - since I can't access Watch TCM (damn you, Time Warner!), I wonder if I'll be able to access this.  Probably, since it's a pay service.  I hope so, anyway.  This sounds worth almost any fee.

With the caveat that I'm sure the TCM project will be better curated and have more supporting materials, I'm a little bummed that it's coming off Hulu. I'd really like TCM to concentrate on developing a subscription model for their own site. I was really unhappy not being able to access it when I was stuck with TWC.

[Milburn Stone]

It would be nice if the TCM/Criterion streaming venture ended up as a portal on AppleTV.

[voiceover]

I missed the opening for The Uninvited tonight.  Have The Essentials been delayed again?

[Julia]

18 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

It would be nice if the TCM/Criterion streaming venture ended up as a portal on AppleTV.

That would make me really happy. I don't mind watching movies on my computer or my tablet, but some movies should just be in the largest format you can manage.

7 hours ago, voiceover said:

I missed the opening for The Uninvited tonight.  Have The Essentials been delayed again?

Aw, dammit, I can't believe I missed The Uninvited. It never got as much attention, but I thought it was better at what it was trying to do than Rebecca was.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Julia

[prican58]

Rita Moreno looks fantabulous!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChWenHmU8AA5yng.jpg:large

[Charlie Baker]

I caught the Sophia Loren appearance at the TCM Festival, where she was interviewed by her son Eduardo.  It was a fun watch; she's very warm and droll.  It was interesting, among other things, to hear her English a bit less secure than it once was.  Eduardo commented on how her English was clear in the brief vintage interview clips they show, even with a slight hint of British to it, and his mother dismissed it as "acting."

This interview was on TCM On Demand at least over the weekend, and is probably available on Watch TCM.  Not that I would know, Time Warner. 

Edited May 2, 2016 by Charlie Baker

[Cobb Salad]

I saw the interview with Sophia Loren as well.  I especially enjoyed the part when her son brought up Cary Grant and the "bittersweet" feelings for their relationship because a different outcome threatened his entire existence, lol. 

[prican58]

What is it about this Mr George Arliss? I know who he was, very honored career and the guy who Bette Davis said discovered her. He's freaky looking...no lips, too much make up. A Successful Calamity is on now and seriously, Mary Astor plays his wife! Reminds me of Joe E. Brown but Joe was better looking.

Anyway, I do like him and I am enjoying him. Nice to see Grant Mitchell. 

This I want to see. Really love Jack Carson.

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/845/Two-Guys-from-Milwaukee/articles.html

Edited May 3, 2016 by prican58

[prican58]

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/04/olivia-de-havilland-joan-fontaine-sibling-rivalry

Really good piece. i love when VF does stories about famous folks like this.

[Rinaldo]

Music in the Air is playing right now! One of my favorite Kern musicals, but it was an era when stage musicals were eviscerated when filmed. I'm half an hour in and this one isn't faring too badly. Most of the songs are there, and in recognizable arrangements. Gloria Swanson gets to show off her operetta-style soprano!

[Julia]

On May 2, 2016 at 5:24 PM, Charlie Baker said:

I caught the Sophia Loren appearance at the TCM Festival, where she was interviewed by her son Eduardo.  It was a fun watch; she's very warm and droll.  It was interesting, among other things, to hear her English a bit less secure than it once was.  Eduardo commented on how her English was clear in the brief vintage interview clips they show, even with a slight hint of British to it, and his mother dismissed it as "acting."

This interview was on TCM On Demand at least over the weekend, and is probably available on Watch TCM.  Not that I would know, Time Warner. 

I thought she was sweet about refusing to sign the infamous Jayne Mansfield picture. Her english reminded me of my nonna, who got tired of translating in her head. 

[bluepiano]

Mary Astor Day on her birthday, with TCM showing movies she made in the early sound days. They were kind of clunky and slow, as movies from that period tended to be, but still entertaining, and a great time capsule. And Mary was so lovely and charming in those days. If people today know her at all it's probably from The Maltese Falcon, but I never understood why they made her look so severe looking and cold in that movie. Especially as Bogart is supposed to be totally enamored of her.

She really had a lot of range as an actress, from playing virtuous working girls to femme fatales to the perfect mother in Meet Me in St. Louis. She was amazing as a prostitute in a not very well know but excellent movie called Act of Violence, directed by Fred Zinneman, with Van Heflin and Robert Ryan. She was so good that the first time I saw the movie I didn't even recognize her. Highly recommended the next time it shows up on TCM.

Edited May 4, 2016 by bluepiano

[Julia]

7 hours ago, bluepiano said:

Mary Astor Day on her birthday, with TCM showing movies she made in the early sound days. They were kind of clunky and slow, as movies from that period tended to be, but still entertaining, and a great time capsule. And Mary was so lovely and charming in those days. If people today know her at all it's probably from The Maltese Falcon, but I never understood why they made her look so severe looking and cold in that movie. Especially as Bogart is supposed to be totally enamored of her.

She really had a lot of range as an actress, from playing virtuous working girls to femme fatales to the perfect mother in Meet Me in St. Louis. She was amazing as a prostitute in a not very well know but excellent movie called Act of Violence, directed by Fred Zinneman, with Van Heflin and Robert Ryan. She was so good that the first time I saw the movie I didn't even recognize her. Highly recommended the next time it shows up on TCM.

She'd had a scandal a few years earlier. Her husband stole her diary, in which she supposedly recorded fairly detailed descriptions of her dalliances with George S Kaufman (at the time, a big celebrity, a member of the Algonquin round table, and writer of, among other things, You Can't Take It With You, The Man Who Came To Dinner, The Royal Family, The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, and Dinner at Eight. He was also the first director of Guys and Dolls on Broadway). Astor's husband threatened to use the diary as evidence in the custody battle over their daughter. In the end he wasn't allowed to, because she claimed the really inflammatory sections were forged after the theft, but, details of what she was supposed to have written kept showing up in the press.

After that, she played characters who were presented as soiled goods in some way, until she started playing mothers.

[bluepiano]

According to her Wikipedia bio, the publicity generated by the divorce and scandal actually helped her career. The Maltese Falcon and The Great Lie, for which she won an Oscar (her exchanges with Bette Davis are classic) came a few years afterwards.

Another interesting thing about Astor is that she was a fairly accomplished writer. In addition to an autobiography, she wrote several novels.

[Rinaldo]

Mary Astor also does one of the best jobs of miming piano playing I know (in The Great Lie) -- others in that category would be young Alan Alda in The Mephisto Waltz and Richard Chamberlain in The Music Lovers. The soundtrack is provided by someone else (as are the hand closeups), but any time you can see her at the piano, she's on the right notes.

[bluepiano]

Referencing Wikipedia again, she studied piano in her youth, and could apparently really play.

[Rinaldo]

Yes, that always helps when you need to fake it onscreen.

[henrysmom]

http://www.eonline.com/news/762594/jessica-lange-susan-sarandon-to-star-in-ryan-murphy-s-feud-as-hollywood-icons-joan-crawford-and-bette-davis

[Rinaldo]

Cool! (What's the TCM connection?)

[NewDigs]

14 hours ago, henrysmom said:

http://www.eonline.com/news/762594/jessica-lange-susan-sarandon-to-star-in-ryan-murphy-s-feud-as-hollywood-icons-joan-crawford-and-bette-davis

Wow. I've always wondered about that.

Should be interesting.

Thanks!