TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[Padma]

Glad to add "Sante Fe Trail" to my list of viewed Reagan films. He was good in this; so were Flynn, Heflin, Massey and de Havilland. As history, it's a bit odd to see two abolitionists as the bad guys. For a different point of view on John Brown, here's Wikipedia (paraphrased): William Lloyd Garrison ...defended Brown's character saying that the principles of the American Revolution gave some support for Brown 's raid, later adding on the day Brown was hanged, "whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections." And, after the Civil War, Frederick Douglass wrote, "His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine—it was as the burning sun to my taper light—mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him." 

If one is willing to ignore history, this isn't a bad movie.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Padma

[aradia22]

http://www.vulture.com/2016/07/womens-pictures-came-to-television.html?mid=twitter_nymag

It's not the most compelling read and I'm not sure it makes a great argument but it's always nice when someone remembers that there was a time when a female star could easily carry a movie. The whole women's picture with the costumes and whatnot seems like too complicated of a definition though.

[voiceover]

If you get a chance, Downstairs w/John Gilbert is worth the watch -- if only for the jaw-dropping Nasty Boy moments Gilbert pulls off with glee.  My favorite?he asks the cook to spank the flour off his trousers.  And she does.

Eh, I would've, too.

[jjj]

16 hours ago, voiceover said:

If you get a chance, Downstairs w/John Gilbert is worth the watch -- if only for the jaw-dropping Nasty Boy moments Gilbert pulls off with glee.  My favorite?he asks the cook to spank the flour off his trousers.  And she does.

Ewww, that just made me remember that my eighth-grad social studies teacher asked me to do that for him! (chalk dust, allegedly) I'll watch this just for that scene, to see if it is less squicky than it seemed then. 

[Mumbles]

I'm catching up with some stuff on my DVR but I just want to say how much I enjoy Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole's intros to the musicals. They're just kind of delightful - engaging, unscripted, fanboy/fangirl without being gushy.  I would love to go to a cocktail party at their house, or hell, just eavesdrop on them at a restaurant.

[voiceover]

Yikes.  Sorry to read about your experience with wildly inappropriate behavior.

In Downstairs, since it's a grown man flirting with a fellow adult, I didn't think of it as anything but pre-Code sexy.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Mumbles said:

I just want to say how much I enjoy Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole's intros to the musicals. They're just kind of delightful - engaging, unscripted, fanboy/fangirl without being gushy.  I would love to go to a cocktail party at their house, or hell, just eavesdrop on them at a restaurant.

I said something similar about them a while back, and I totally agree. They manage to retain a fan's enthusiasms even while they have the professional insider's insights. I hope they can return often.

Something else I already wrote about -- in fact, we discussed it perhaps as much as anybody wants to -- is Olivier's Hamlet. But I finally watched my recorded copy, and it was my first viewing in many years. I find that I really want to mentally recapture the historical moment into which it was launched. The record of Shakespeare on film spoken in English to that point had been pretty unsatisfactory: the Pickford/Fairbanks Shrew that is only a historical oddity now; the Hollywood Dream and Romeo that now seem so unsatisfactory (but did they in 1948?); the Czinner As You Like It in which not even Olivier is very good; and Olivier's Henry V, which did achieve great popularity in the UK (but did it in the US?). My point is that in 1948, it must have felt amazing to see an artistically coherent, visually striking, poetically eloquent film version of the play that's considered a supreme challenge. It was awarded Best Picture and Best Actor, and I can feel the force of all those fine elements.

But to me now, it doesn't feel satisfying as a rendering of the play (and I'm not just quibbling about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the like; the fullness of all the characters and scenes has been pared down). It actually looks strikingly abstract from my perspective, although what seems modernistic-expressionistic now may just have been a result of trying for a traditional look with a limited budget. Who lives in this castle? No daily life seems to go on there, people only enter a room when some lines need to be spoken, scenes emerge from darkness and return to it. The black and white cinematography still looks elegant, and austere as well.

It also bears the remnants of the old rep-company way of doing Shakespeare too, where it's all set up to enhance the star, and everyone else aims to look good and speak well but otherwise not stand out too much. I'm glad our more recent Hamlets have other points of view, and since we have them, I can gladly accept this one as one partial viewpoint, one that was once new and fascinating, and still is the latter even where it shows its age.

[Crisopera]

I watched a fascinating silent Western - The Vanishing American, which was very sympathetic to the Native Americans, with only a small amount of paternalistic condescension.  The real problem I had with it was that the villain (over-acted hugely by Noah Beery) was styled to look like the current comedian Paul F. Tompkins, which made it hard to take him seriously (the moustache-twirling hamminess didn't help, either).  At least it didn't have the painful dialogue about "primitive minds" that afflicts The Squaw Man (sound version), which otherwise is a not-terrible Native American version of Madame Butterfly.  Of course, it didn't help that in both films, the Native American protagonists were played by white actors, but that was to be expected at the period, especially since the romances in both were between whites and Native Americans.

[Milburn Stone]

5 minutes ago, Crisopera said:

I watched a fascinating silent Western - The Vanishing American...the villain (over-acted hugely by Noah Beery)...

I never knew there was a Noah Beery of a generation before the Noah Beery I knew (the one who was in Circus Boy on Saturday AM TV when I was a kid). I always thought my Noah Beery was the son of Wallace Beery. But no, the great and powerful Wikipedia reveals that Noah was Wallace's nephew, and that Noah's dad (also called Noah Beery) was a supporting actor in many films. If that don't beat all.

[Crisopera]

Yeah, I always had a bit of trouble with the Beery family.  They all looked so much alike - I always thought the Noah who was on the Rockford Files was the one from the silents, even though he was billed as Noah Beery, Jr.  You'd think that would have given me a clue...

[Rinaldo]

TCM screwed up in a way they usually don't (most often their occasional scheduling errors involve identifying the wrong example of a title they're showing) -- they got half an hour off from the announced schedule. So when I eagerly had my DVR grab On Approval, I sat down to half an hour of something else, then the first hour of On Approval, then an abrupt cut-off. Fortunately they put it On Demand.

And I recommend it. It's a delightful B&W British comedy, rather "naughty" by the standards of the time, about a Victorian widow (Beatrice Lillie), who's considering marriage to a destitute duke (Clive Brook, who also adapted and directed), but is doubtful enough to want to try him "on approval" -- they will spend a month together at her country house (he chastely absenting himself evenings), with two friends (Googie Withers, Roland Culver) completing the house party. The archness of the comedy doesn't preclude genuine feeling and charm, and all four principal players are masters of the style. There are also some neat (and unexpected for the period) breaking of the fourth wall at the beginning (and, if memory serves, at the end). See it while it's available. Especially if you like British comedy: this is one that should have entered the list of immortal titles, and somehow didn't.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Rinaldo

[bluepiano]

On ‎7‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 1:32 PM, ratgirlagogo said:

What happened to the serials and the Bowery Boys and the children's films showing on Saturday mornings?  I'm still waiting to find out how Ace Drummond defeated the Dragon.

Just jumping in to say how much I love the Bowery Boys. Great memories of my youth in New York City, watching Bowery Boys movies on local TV on Saturday mornings, while my parents were still asleep. (Was it Channel 5 or 9? Not sure).

I've always thought that Huntz Hall was something of a comic genius, and that if he had been able to make the jump from the Bowery Boys to his own starring vehicles he could've been a major comedy star like Bob Hope or Red Skelton.

Edited July 12, 2016 by bluepiano

[Milburn Stone]

10 hours ago, bluepiano said:

Just jumping in to say how much I love the Bowery Boys.

I never cared for them, but there is something brilliant about a series concerning poor, beneath-contempt outcasts coming from a Republic Pictures or an Allied Artists or whatever the hell studio it was, which itself was the poor, beneath-contempt outcast of movie studios. It's like the lowest, unmentionable, untouchable caste in the Hollywood pecking order was making pictures about itself.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[Julia]

I love Bea Lillie. There's a wonderful story (I think in Harpo's book?) about the wife of some retail magnate or other trying to high hat her at a dress salon by loudly asking when "the actress" would be done with the dressing room, and Lillie just as loudly telling the clerk when she came out to "tell the grocer's wife Lady Peel is finished."

[prican58]

Growing up I also remember watching the Bowery Boys a s a kid in NYC and I remember not really digging them too much. But watching the recent airings have changed my mind. The earlier films are the most interesting to me. Maybe it's just the primitiveness of the Monogram productions but for sure I have come to appreciate Leo Gorcey. I do think he was a pretty good actor and the way he handles Slip's malapropisms is pure gold. I think it conveyed the idea that Slip may not have been a genius but he was a guy who tried to better himself by using a varied vocabulary. It was just too bad he was saying them incorrectly.  

The later films just make me wonder about these 35+ year old guys still hanging out at Louie's and getting into mischief. 

[bluepiano]

2 hours ago, prican58 said:

Growing up I also remember watching the Bowery Boys a s a kid in NYC and I remember not really digging them too much. But watching the recent airings have changed my mind. The earlier films are the most interesting to me.

The most interesting thing about The Bowery Boys is that they began their screen lives by playing real juvenile delinquents in the 1937 movie Dead End, based on a well-known Broadway play, which was a dramatic portrayal of the grim reality of slum life on the Lower East Side of NY. I believe that most of them were also in the play. In the movie, Silvia Sidney and Joel McCrea were the romantic leads, and Humphrey Bogart had one of his most important early roles as the local gangster.

Apparently audiences really liked the chemistry in that group of young actors, so Warner Brothers brought them back again in other movies, like Angels with Dirty Faces with Cagney and Bogart, and called them The Dead End Kids to capitalize on their popularity from Dead End. But they gradually moved towards playing their roles for comedy, rather than being tough street kids. And by the time they got featured in their own movies, under a few different names but eventually The Bowery Boys, they were a total comedy act. (Warner Brothers had dropped them, and they apparently owned the Dead End Kids name, so Monogram couldn't use it.)

So I think they had one of the weirder movie careers, going from working for a major studio, appearing with major stars, to cranking out second features on Poverty Row. On the other hand, they stayed employed for many years, and I guess those Bowery Boy movies were quite successful on their own terms and helped keep Monogram alive. So maybe that's also why I like the Bowery Boys, because I admire the whole Poverty Row ethos of shoestring, no-frills movie making, especially in contrast to some of the bloated big studio movies of the day.

Edited July 13, 2016 by bluepiano

[Milburn Stone]

10 hours ago, bluepiano said:

I guess those Bowery Boy movies were quite successful on their own terms and helped keep Monogram alive.

And in a way, vice versa, just because it was a perfect pairing of studio and subject. The lowly Bowery Boys were an analogue of lowly Monogram itself. I'm not a lover of either one, but I can see how if (in an alternate universe) the Bowery Boys/Dead End Kids had stayed under contract to Warner Bros., those movies would be nothing like the cheap, vaguely unsavory, Bowery-like movies that came out of Monogram, which looked as if they were directed by actual homeless people.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[bmoore4026]

It's B-Western Day today!!!  Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, the women own ranches that are under threat, and there's always some goofy old timer sidekick...or fat one, which ever comes first.  Oh!  Can't forget the cowboy band with the guitars and stuff.

[Crisopera]

I was watching The Great Garrick over the weekend, one of my favorite romantic comedies, charmingly directed by James Whale, with beautiful 18th-century costumes and a host of character actors, and was led to think about Brian Aherne.  He's terrific in this, very funny, and I wondered why he never really made it as a big star.  (He was a good writer, too - his autobiography, A Proper Job, is one of the best of Golden Age autobiographies).  He is irritatingly smug as the love interests for Katharine Hepburn (in Sylvia Scarlett) and Rosalind Russell (in What a Woman! and Hired Wife - he's less annoying in My Sister Eileen).  But his performance in Juarez (as Emperor Maximilian) rises to the level of tragedy - it's by far the best performance in the movie.  He's also excellent in My Son, My Son.  He just didn't take with the public.  I believe he wasn't terribly ambitious, either. 

[Rinaldo]

I do remember that he is one of the British almost-stars of a certain age who, in the few years before and after 1960, became highly employable as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady for whatever tours and summer stock packages could secure him. That show was a bit of a bonanza for those gentlemen at the height of its (almost inconceivable now) popularity.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Rinaldo

[Padma]

1 hour ago, Crisopera said:

I was watching The Great Garrick over the weekend, one of my favorite romantic comedies, charmingly directed by James Whale, with beautiful 18th-century costumes and a host of character actors, and was led to think about Brian Aherne.  He's terrific in this, very funny, and I wondered why he never really made it as a big star.  (He was a good writer, too - his autobiography, A Proper Job, is one of the best of Golden Age autobiographies).  He is irritatingly smug as the love interests for Katharine Hepburn (in Sylvia Scarlett) and Rosalind Russell (in What a Woman! and Hired Wife - he's less annoying in My Sister Eileen).  But his performance in Juarez (as Emperor Maximilian) rises to the level of tragedy - it's by far the best performance in the movie.  He's also excellent in My Son, My Son.  He just didn't take with the public.  I believe he wasn't terribly ambitious, either. 

I agree he could be so good in the right part and has the presence and style that you could imagine becoming more of a big name than he was. He seems like another actor who just had the bad luck/lack the right connections to never get cast in a star-making film

As for his writing, he also wrote a (kind of) biography of his good friend, George Sanders, A Dreadful Man, that mainly centered around his correspondence with Benita Hume, Sander's wife.  He (GS) comes through as quite a character (a bit of an unpleasant one, but Aherne liked him a lot anyway).

Edited July 13, 2016 by Padma

[prican58]

Watching Cowboy Canteen (1944). Jane Frazee is the apparent star but I see Dub Taylor as a young and chubby good ol' boy. Fascinating.

My main reason to watch is the music as it takes place on a dude ranch and it features Tex Ritter (John's dad), Roy Acuff who was a big mover and shaker in Country music. My fave though are The Mills Brothers even though they are seemingly out of place. I read that they were a big influence on Dean Martin and it is easy to see.

Still, it's a pretty bad C picture programmer.  

[ratgirlagogo]

46 minutes ago, prican58 said:

My main reason to watch is the music

That's true with most of these singing cowboy musicals - or at least one hopes it's true!   I like the whole low-key offhand quality these cheap Westerns have anyway, but I'm particularly fond of Tex Ritter.

Edited July 14, 2016 by ratgirlagogo

[Charlie Baker]

Westerns aren't particularly a genre I visit often, but today they did have some stuff that captured my attention.  The Bronze Buckaroo is a standard singing cowboy film from the 30s with an all black cast.  Which TCM followed with a Gene Autry entry.  Then the one that most grabbed me: Go West, Young Lady, a modest Western musical comedy, which was pretty fun on its own terms. The leads were a perky Penny Singleton and a young, handsome, slightly gawky Glenn Ford.  Charles Ruggles played Ms. S.'s uncle. Bad girl was Ann Miller who tapped up a storm in cowboy boots and high top shoes.  As Leonard Maltin mentions in his classic movie guide, the most delightful number was called something like "I Wanna Be a Singing Cowboy," performed by that great character actor Allan Jenkins, who hoofs along with Miller as well.  There's also a fairly strong climactic fight between Ms. Singleton and Ms. Miler, which looked to be slightly cheated by speeding up the film but which also looked like the ladies did themselves, without doubles.   And the wrap up has the townswomen fighting off the bad guys with pots and pans. 

Tomorrow during the day there are beach party movies.  Then the evening has 70s women-led pictures, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, The Stepford Wives, Looking for Mr. Goodbar.  Quite diverse. 

Been away from TCM (and this forum) for a while.  Nice to be back.

[bmoore4026]

Well, today is Bastille Day yet we do not have any showings of any French Revolution movies.

Marie Antoinette

The Scarlet Pimpernel

A Tale of Two Cities (either the 30s version or the 60s one)

The Black Book aka The Reign of Terror (an obscure one about a man and woman trying to get a hold of Robespierre's enemies list and use to overthrow him.  It is in the public domain, though.)

We are getting a lot of beach themed movies, though.  Gidget, Where the Boys are, etc.  Earlier this morning they showed Catalina Caper, a popular MST3K episode (Tom Servo's Creepy Girl infatuation still brings the giggles in me)

Friday, they are continuing the Olivia Di Haviland tribute, with The Heiress first up.  I was first exposed to this movie years ago through a Carol Burnette sketch.  Someone might have posted it on YouTube.  If it is, be sure to check it out.

Edited July 14, 2016 by bmoore4026
Because Di Haviland night is Friday not Thursday

[Crisopera]

They are showing De Havilland's two Oscar performances this Friday-into-Saturday - The Heiress, in which she is amazing ("Yes, I can be very cruel.  I have been taught by masters"), and To Each His Own, which is personal favorite.  She is great - she deserved both Oscars.  To Each His Own is a big, plush soap opera, reminiscent of all those pre-Code Mother Love dramas (girl gets pregnant, gives up baby, becomes a wealthy cosmetics magnate, pines forever after).  This is directed by my favorite underrated director, Mitchell Leisen, and very well, too.  The art direction is super, costumes very period-accurate, and it's nice to see a middle-aged character actually look middle-aged, not ancient.  And there's an absolutely charming supporting performance by Roland Culver (of On Approval fame), as a deus ex machine who brings mother and son together (and courts De Havilland).  Lovely, well worth a watch.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Crisopera

[Rinaldo]

I have to see To Each His Own! I've read so much about it in the book about Leisen, with lots of oral history from De Havilland and others.

It's true about parents of adults in older movies (and more recent ones too, sometimes) looking preposterously ancient (especially if younger actors are age-ing themselves up). From the stills I've seen, this is indeed a noteworthy exception.

[Rinaldo]

Other upcoming titles worth catching:

4:45 a.m. Friday morning: Breaking Away (1979). I think of this is being a popular classic, but I find that few people know about it now. It was being filmed in Bloomington Indiana while I was at IU in grad school, and I could have been an extra (they were advertising desperately for bodies for the background). I still kick myself that I didn't, because it's one of the best coming-of age friends-who-stick-together movies (and it's a theme I'm always a sucker for). The friends are Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Dennis Christopher, and Christopher's parents are beautifully played by Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie.

I'll just mention in passing that there's another glitch in the onscreen schedule and descriptions: the Tom Thumb at 2:00 p.m. is not the Italian-cast one Comcast describes, but the familiar one with Russ Tamblyn et al. That's what it says online anyway, and as there seems to be a George Pal theme going on that afternoon, that's what I'm inclined to trust.

It's not hard to tell what the theme is after midnight Saturday, what with a lineup of Reefer Madness, Marihuana, Cocaine Fiends, The Terrible Truth, and Keep Off the Grass.

And right after that, at 6 a.m. Sunday, highest recommendation for The Beggar's Opera. It's the immortal John Gay creation that essentially invented operetta (or musicals, according to definition) in the early 18th century, but filmed with swashbuckling flair by the young Peter Brook, of all people. Laurence Olivier is a dashing Macheath. He sings for himself while most of the others (Hugh Griffith, Dorothy Tutin, Stanley Holloway, Laurence Naismith) are dubbed. The whole thing is quick, tongue-in-cheek, offhand and yet stirring.

[Sharpie66]

I love Breaking Away! Saw that in the theater when it came out, and as a young teen, it really resonated with me. Also, I grew up in Joliet, another quarry town back in the day, so that was another point in common. 

[Crisopera]

I also love Breaking Away!  I went to IU in the middle 1980s (grad school for voice - you too, Rinaldo?)  and I loved the movie a lot more than the school.  Paul Dooley is so, so great in it - but then, so is everyone else.  A truly lovely movie.

And I'm so looking forward to The Beggar's Opera.  It's been years since I saw it, but I remember really enjoying it.

A top recommendation - at 2:15 PM on Sunday - The Palm Beach Story  - one of the greats from Preston Sturges.  Genuinely hilarious.  The Weenie King!  Toto!  The Ale & Quail Club!  Heaven on earth.

[Rinaldo]

Yes, I only left The Palm Beach Story unmentioned because it's one of the movies for which I had to buy the DVD so I can watch it any time. It's that special; my favorite Sturges, I think.

Crisopera, I left Bloomington in 1980 (returning for final doctoral exams in 1985), but my grad work was indeed in music. I hung out with a lot of the opera students, and of course went to all the operas, but my major was music theory. That's what I teach now. (I write about opera and musicals, though.)

[ratgirlagogo]

On 7/13/2016 at 10:11 PM, Charlie Baker said:

 The Bronze Buckaroo is a standard singing cowboy film from the 30s with an all black cast.

That all black cast rendered it a non-standard singing cowboy film, unfortunately.  As a race movie of the period it's budget was even more ridiculously low than for the average singing cowboy movie, since it could only be distributed to a very small number of theaters.  While the budget limits  are only too evident in Herb Jeffries' films, I can say that the music is always way better than you'd expect it to be. "I'm A Happy Cowboy" is one of the best (many people think it IS the best) of the singing cowboy anthems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D96gvWk6lE

[voiceover]

Stepford Wives...*shudders*

The final scene between Paula Prentiss & Katherine Ross is the strangest combination of funny and horrifying.  Still creeps me out, even after all these years.

[bmoore4026]

Well, today there are going to be movies with a desert theme, either American or Middle Eastern.  Guess the programmers wanted to remind us it's hotter than hell out.

Edited July 15, 2016 by bmoore4026
'cause I really shouldn't have used the f word

[Wiendish Fitch]

3 hours ago, voiceover said:

Stepford Wives...*shudders*

The final scene between Paula Prentiss & Katherine Ross is the strangest combination of funny and horrifying.  Still creeps me out, even after all these years.

 

The final scene is my favorite kind for horror movies; terrifying, but ultimately heartbreaking.

Spoiler

It's heartbreaking because what Joanne feared came to pass: she was forgotten. What makes the finale so brutally effective and emotionally resonant is that it's a very human need to be seen as significant and irreplaceable... but Joanne was replaced, and no one, not even her kids, were any the wiser. She was just another of Stepford's casualties.

With all that said, and if you'll pardon my French, the 2004 remake can go fuck itself. Seriously.

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

With all that said, and if you'll pardon my French, the 2004 remake [of The Stepford Wives] can go fuck itself. Seriously.

No argument about that, but I've never found the first movie to be all that satisfactory, either, despite effective moments. And the Ira Levin novel was oddly thin too, by his standards. The basic premise of the story was an instant classic (Levin's brilliant at premises; he also gave us Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil), but somehow it never dramatizes quite right. Plus, the first movie suffered (William Goldman wrote about this, but I figured it out myself on first viewing) from the casting of the director's wife, Nanette Newman (but who's gonna tell him she's not right?) -- the whole costume scheme for the wives was geared to the necessity of keeping her well covered up, so these piggish husbands' dream world is filled with floor-length dresses. It's still a great idea for a story, though.

[Padma]

Someone asked me the other day what some of my favorite satirical films were. Couldn't think of as many as you'd hope for (the soon-to-be-in-theaters "Planet of the Apes" one of the top), but The Stepford Wives made it, too. Seeing it again last night, I really disagree with William Goldman.  The Stepford Wives are a -woman's- fantasy of what men want in a wife--they're the "happy homemaker" not the "happy hooker".  I admire Martha Stewart, but it's the exaggerated idea of what she and all -those- kinds of women's magazines represented that's mocked here.

Can't really say it well, but if Goldman had had his way, and all the women had been transformed into sexy bombshells, it would have been just an "eye candy for guys" movie with a really dulled-down message about how men objectify women (meanwhile a lot of the male audience would be going "Whoo-yay!" over it). Much as I admire Goldman's talent, in this case, I really think the director was right, and we're lucky his casting of his wife changed the script.  Having the independent, interesting and attractive -real- women, with their -real- personalities replaced by Martha Stewart-style "perfect" wives and mothers who live only to make life pleasant for husbands gets across the idea Levin was going for a lot better, imo, than replacing them with men's fantasies of being married to a Playboy model (who can also keep the house clean).  This didn't muddy the message and makes it easy for everyone to feel sad at the end for the individuality that's been lost.

[aradia22]

Warren Beatty is making a movie where he plays Howard Hughes. It's only tangentially related to TCM so I started a new thread over in Movies.

But my response is... "what?"

Also, I was upset I missed The Stepford Wives the other night because I finally read the book about a month ago.

Quote

The basic premise of the story was an instant classic (Levin's brilliant at premises; he also gave us Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil), but somehow it never dramatizes quite right.

I agree. There are some good points made throughout and it does get tense at the end as Joanna gets close to finding out the truth (maybe around the library part) and as she's getting chased. But I also felt throughout that it was a man's voice. It had a pretty shallow view of most of the characters, particularly her two friends. It was repetitive but also rushed and the end was a little unsatisfying. And whatever he was trying to do with the black family happened way too quickly to have any weight. But I'm glad I finally read it and it's a really quick read so I didn't feel like my time was wasted. I've seen some clips of the movie and I get the sense it's more sinister. I actually don't hate the remake, but then I saw it in the theater as a double feature with some girlfriends on my birthday.

Edited July 15, 2016 by aradia22
responding to previous comment

[Rinaldo]

56 minutes ago, Padma said:

The Stepford Wives are a -woman's- fantasy of what men want in a wife--they're the "happy homemaker" not the "happy hooker".  I admire Martha Stewart, but it's the exaggerated idea of what she and all -those- kinds of women's magazines represented that's mocked here.

I always enjoy your posts, Padma, and this is a gallant defense of the movie, but I literally don't understand it. The men have turned their wives into a woman's fantasy/fear of what men really want? How would that work? "A dulled-down message about how men objectify women" is indeed exactly what the story is trying to be, I think: the sneaking fear that if they could have their way, men would prefer a robot who would take care of everything in the home and always be up for sex. And it would be exactly the film-makers' challenge to get that across to audiences so strongly that the men in the audience would not react with a "woo-hoo." That's what satirists need to do. But I don't think it's been done successfully in any of the versions of this story.

[Rick Kitchen]

21 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

4:45 a.m. Friday morning: Breaking Away (1979). I think of this is being a popular classic, but I find that few people know about it now. It was being filmed in Bloomington Indiana while I was at IU in grad school, and I could have been an extra (they were advertising desperately for bodies for the background). I still kick myself that I didn't, because it's one of the best coming-of age friends-who-stick-together movies (and it's a theme I'm always a sucker for). The friends are Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Dennis Christopher, and Christopher's parents are beautifully played by Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie.

Breaking Away is a great movie.

Another great bicycling movie, also written by Breaking Away's Steve Tesich, is American Flyers, starring a pre-Untouchables Kevin Costner.  It always makes me sniffle.  :)

[Rinaldo]

56 minutes ago, Rick Kitchen said:

Another great bicycling movie, also written by Breaking Away's Steve Tesich, is American Flyers, starring a pre-Untouchables Kevin Costner. 

In fact it was pre-almost-everything for Kevin Costner; in terms of really noticeable roles, only Silverado preceded it (as he'd been edited out of The Big Chill). The casting for which I most remember it was that it was a unique movie-star role for David Marshall Grant, otherwise seen mostly on TV guest shots and onstage. And it was the only time he was billed as David Grant, I have no idea why. His iconic credits for me are a recurring character on thirtysomething including the "two guys in bed together! OMG!!" scene that got folks so het up at the time, and in the original Broadway cast of Angels in America. These days he's mostly a writer and producer (though he did play Anne Hathaway's father in The Devil Wears Prada).

[Rick Kitchen]

David Michael Grant was also a young, innocent teenager (who doesn't realize that he's the object of his sister's boyfriend's crush) in Happy Birthday, Gemini, which starred Madeleine Kahn in an awesome comedic turn.

[Rinaldo]

He's a special fave of mine, so I have to be a jerk and whisper "David Marshall Grant." I never saw Happy Birthday, Gemini, though I know the play on which it's based. I did know him from something before the thirtysomething arc. Looking at his IMDb, it must have been Bat*21, as my familiarity with American Flyers came later, on HBO.

[Rick Kitchen]

Heh, I knew that.  :D

[Padma]

3 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I always enjoy your posts, Padma, and this is a gallant defense of the movie, but I literally don't understand it. The men have turned their wives into a woman's fantasy/fear of what men really want? How would that work? "A dulled-down message about how men objectify women" is indeed exactly what the story is trying to be, I think: the sneaking fear that if they could have their way, men would prefer a robot who would take care of everything in the home and always be up for sex. And it would be exactly the film-makers' challenge to get that across to audiences so strongly that the men in the audience would not react with a "woo-hoo." That's what satirists need to do. But I don't think it's been done successfully in any of the versions of this story.

Trying again.... I wasn't very clear there, was I? I didn't mean the men in the story were turning women into women like those whom their wives admired, I meant that the director's choice was to make Stepford women an image of a "model American wife and mother" that both women AND men in the audience could see as being a satirized stereotype--and one we all could reject. 

Men in the audience are looking at a "Stepford woman" as an idealized "wife and mother", a perfect homemaker who never complains, keeps the house clean (and whom they can imagine is always up for sex). For women looking at the Stepford wives, they would seem non-threatening, like the exaggerated 1950s ideal/stereotype of the perfect homemaker (who, the female audience will be relieved to see, isn't "perfect" at all, but has lost all originality and personality and is, just, well, a robot.)  So, I think that it works this way as satire for both men and women in the audience.

I think the Goldman version--let's assume with perfect homemakers who are also sexy bombshells--they'd risk men going "Heck, ya! How do I get to live in that town?" And women could feel threatened, like these sexy, gorgeous robot women also are great homemakers--kind of confirming that fear we all have that there really -could- be perfection but it's not people, it's robots and they could not only do what we humans do but more of it, and better!  (And the sequel "Stepford Husbands" would show an ideal town where robotic men have been created to be their wives' ideal spouses--again, probably exchanging the satirical message for a "Why can't you be more like that robot?" one.  I think it works well here because men and women can both feel repelled by these robots and see that a lot more has been lost by conformity than has been gained.  I haven't read the book, though, so not sure how close/far this was from Levin.

And does the post above mean "The Beggar's Opera" is on at 3 a.m. PST?  I'd love to see it so I hope it'll make it onto "On Demand". TCM shows so many forgettable films during the day sometimes, that it seems they could have given this one a better slot.  (3 a.m. is pretty much "the worst" in my book.)

[ratgirlagogo]

22 hours ago, Crisopera said:

A top recommendation - at 2:15 PM on Sunday - The Palm Beach Story  - one of the greats from Preston Sturges.  Genuinely hilarious.  The Weenie King!  Toto!  The Ale & Quail Club!  Heaven on earth.

Seconded.  "But that's a whole nother movie....."

55 minutes ago, Padma said:

And does the post above mean "The Beggar's Opera" is on at 3 a.m. PST?

That's the weekly International slot, right after the weekly Silent slot.  Usually (hell, always) some of the best movies of the entire week are on between midnight and six am on Sundays.

Edited July 15, 2016 by ratgirlagogo

[bmoore4026]

Caught the end tail of The Heiress.  I can see why De Haviland won that Oscar.  Catherine so desperately wanted to be loved.  I can sympathize with that.  Her desperation in thinking Morris would return and her absolute despair when he doesn't and her slow walk up the stairs in utter defeat maybe one of the saddest moments in cinema.

And when her asshole father tells her and the maid that he's dying,  you can feel the penetrating hatred Catherine is giving off.  Her finally telling off her father doesn't seem satisfying or triumphant.  It feels like evil has won.  "I've been taught by masters", indeed.

[Crisopera]

Watching The Heiress tonight, I realized what a real masterpiece it is.  The utter perfection of the cast - the heartbreaking beauty of Montgomery Clift, the brilliant  performance of Olivia de Havilland that transformed one of the most beautiful women in movies into the plain Catherine, the genuinely monstrous Ralph Richardson, the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography of Leo Tover, the beautiful Aaron Copland score (although apparently he didn't write the music over the opening credits), the wonderful period costumes of Edith Head, the terrific period art direction of Harry Horner and John Meehan, and above all the masterful direction of William Wyler.  (I did think it was fascinating that Wyler wanted to cast Errol Flynn as Morris, although, as much as I love Flynn and think he's an underrated actor, I'm certainly glad it didn't work out.)  One of the best films of the 1940s.

[NewDigs]

Chiming in, late, on the wonderfulness that is Breaking Away. The bicycling aspect got me interested but the cast, the story, the locations, etc etc really totally sucked me in. Now I will almost always watch it when I see it listed. Also own the dvd. Great movie!

Costner edited out of Big Chill? Good. Not a fan of his but haven't seen American Flyers, partly 'cuz of him, but there is the bicycling...

[Sharpie66]

Costner was the person whose funeral they all reunited for. I can't remember if it was his actual body we see getting prepared for the funeral in the opening credits, though.

(BTW, a cycling story that would make a great film is the rivalry between Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault, on full display in the '86 Tour de France. See Slaying the Badger, a 30 for 30 documentary on the subject. Teammates, longtime French sports star vs. up-and-coming young brash American, betrayal with the threat of physical harm--it has it all!)

Edited July 16, 2016 by Sharpie66