TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[bluepiano]

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 8:04 PM, Crisopera said:

This morning, I was watching a little musical called Melody Cruise (1933).  Directed by Mark Sandrich (director of many Astaire & Rogers films), this was worth watching to see the direct influence of Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932) - lots of rhythmic talk/singing, a song going from one person to the next.  Unfortunately, this movie has an uninspiring leading man (Phil Harris, best known today as the voice of Baloo the Bear in The Jungle Book), and the numbers are hardly of Rodgers & Hart quality.  Even Charlie Ruggles struggles to wring laughs out of the script.

I agree that Phil Harris was bland and probably miscast, but I enjoyed the movie for its unrelenting silliness. Silly in a good way. Like the moviemakers were having fun kidding us and we were in on the joke. Some of the musical numbers involving cross cutting, like between people singing parallel songs on two different boats, and incorporating the sounds of people working on the boat, were quite creative. It was still early in the sound era and it's like they were flexing their muscles.

There's also much pre-code sauciness, like when one of the scantily clad stowaway "nieces" says to the other, "every time you have a drink you start taking your close off."

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 8:04 PM, Crisopera said:

Yet another fan of It's Always Fair Weather here. 

And I'm another. I never understood why it's so frequently rated at the bottom of MGM musicals. Maybe some people just don't like any "serious" content injected into their musicals. But it has so many great numbers - "Baby You Knock Me Out," with Cyd Charisse (looking gorgeous), the dance with the trash can lids, the already mentioned Gene Kelly on roller skates. Other pluses for me are seeing Michael Kidd in a rare featured role (Maybe his only one) and the always fun Dolores Grey. Her "Thanks But No Thanks" number is a hoot.

Andre Previn did get an Oscar nomination for the score.

[Rinaldo]

32 minutes ago, bluepiano said:

But it has so many great numbers - "Baby You Knock Me Out," with Cyd Charisse (looking gorgeous),

She does indeed, and she dances the hell out of it, but (private rant, sorry, I know I promised to shut up about this and here I am) the lyrics are C&G at their Comden-and-Greeniest: "Baby you knock me out, mumble mumble, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 boing, baby you knock me out," repeat and repeat. 

32 minutes ago, bluepiano said:

Michael Kidd in a rare featured role (Maybe his only one)

Maybe it was, in a musical. But he got a couple of nice featured roles in nonmusical films late in life: the choreographer of the talent show in Smile, and Harry Hamlin's blue-collar dad in Movie Movie (the second half of this likable spoof double bill is a musical, but Kidd is in the first half, a paraphrase of Golden Boy and its ilk).

[Mick Lady]

Good God! Years on this site and I just found this! So much to comment on, but I'm going to read every single post first, you all deserve it! I just have to thank you all! What a great bunch!

[ratgirlagogo]

29 minutes ago, Mick Lady said:

Good God! Years on this site and I just found this!

I know! Isn't it amazing!  Welcome.

[Mick Lady]

2 minutes ago, ratgirlagogo said:

I know! Isn't it amazing!  Welcome.

Thank you ratgirlagogo! But just wait til I get on my Bette Davis roll! I worship at her feet!'

[chitowngirl]

Slightly off TCM, but related to Classic Movies-FX has a new series called Feud starting up in March. The first season is the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

[AuntiePam]

16 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

Slightly off TCM, but related to Classic Movies-FX has a new series called Feud starting up in March. The first season is the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

I'll watch that -- thanks for the heads-up.

I finally got around to watching Fallen Angel, which was discussed a page or so ago.  With some movies, I have to remind myself to appreciate the direction, the cinematography, the acting -- and not be distracted by unlikely behavior, like a man wearing a suit to a bonfire on the beach, and a woman falling asleep while eating a hot dog, and staying asleep while being carried to her car. (Eric probably didn't have any casual wear, and there might have been a mickey in June's hot dog. )

But the pacing and acting kept me watching, even after I went to the wiki page and spoiled myself for the ending.  I haven't seen every movie Preminger ever directed but of the ones I've seen, I've never been bored.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, AuntiePam said:

I finally got around to watching Fallen Angel, which was discussed a page or so ago.  With some movies, I have to remind myself to appreciate the direction, the cinematography, the acting -- and not be distracted by unlikely behavior, like a man wearing a suit to a bonfire on the beach, and a woman falling asleep while eating a hot dog, and staying asleep while being carried to her car. (Eric probably didn't have any casual wear, and there might have been a mickey in June's hot dog. )

But the pacing and acting kept me watching, even after I went to the wiki page and spoiled myself for the ending.  I haven't seen every movie Preminger ever directed but of the ones I've seen, I've never been bored.

:)

Caught a goodly portion of it. The acting was great. Anne Revere never fails to creep me the hell out. Alice Faye was really sexy in this, to me, for some reason. Not a fan of the song "Slowly," but the rest of David Raksin's score sounded really good.

[Charlie Baker]

Today during the Debbie Reynolds tribute, I caught a Ben M intro where he said Robert Osborne consulted friends when faced with the prospect of joining "an established classic movie channel" (read AMC, and look what happened there) or signing on for TCM and waiting for it to launch.  One who urged him to go with TCM was Debbie Reynolds.

[ratgirlagogo]

55 minutes ago, Charlie Baker said:

 One who urged him to go with TCM was Debbie Reynolds.

As I said above one of the most interesting things about her was her own intense movie fandom.

[Milburn Stone]

I bet it was because she knew that Ted Turner owned the MGM library.

[prican58]

Just read that John Hurt passed away today at 77. The first time I ever saw him was in A Man For All Seasons which I had to watch as an English assignment in high school back in the 70's. Such a good actor.

2017 is just getting its swerve on. 

[mariah23]

Barbara Hale also died.

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, mariah23 said:

Barbara Hale also died.

Shit.

[Padma]

If anyone's interested, TCM is showing "All About Eve" in theaters on March 5.

[Milburn Stone]

This is the darnedest thing. If it's been going on for years, I never noticed it. This year's "31 Days of Oscar" begins with a series of movies that start with "A"...followed by like four days worth of nothing but movies that start with "B"...followed by days of movies that start with "C"...and on and on as they work their way through the rest of the alphabet, I'm assuming. Is that how TCM has always done it? I always thought there was more thematic unity during Oscar month than that.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[ratgirlagogo]

Woof!  I'm CERTAIN that is a new twist. Well I guess I should say more accurately that I have no memory of this ever being done like this in the past.  And not for nothing  like I didn't already hate 31 Days of Oscar enough to begin with.  BTW this is the first year I have seen ads for 31 Days of Oscar on other Turner stations - both TNT and TBS.  Is this also something I just never noticed before?

Edited January 31, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[mariah23]

They have always advertised 31 Days of Oscar on their sister stations.

[Rinaldo]

Thematically, I think they do something different each year. Last time, didn't each movie shown have one element (which might be a crew member or a minor player) in common with the next?

Edited January 31, 2017 by Rinaldo

[LauraAnders]

On 2017-01-18 at 2:51 PM, bluepiano said:

Norman Lloyd, who played the spy hanging from the Statue of Liberty in that scene, is still alive at 102, and has been interviewed by Robert Osborne on TCM.

Hitchcock also used Cummings in Dial M for Murder, so he must've liked him. I agree that he's a light weight, which for me was even more of a problem in Dial M. Hard to figure out what Grace Kelly is supposed to see in him.

But I actually do like Priscilla Lane, and thought she was pretty good in Saboteur. She also stars in one of my favorite somewhat unknown movies, Blues in the Night, an awkward but interesting mix of film noir, romantic drama and musical, with some amazing cinematography. It's shown on TCM from time to time.

I must admit there is definitely something "off" about those two characters. But I really enjoyed every other aspect of the film.

I see that someone mentioned Bette Davis above. If you've never heard of the film "The Little Foxes" (starring Bette Davis and others), I'd like to suggest it to you. It is one of those almost "perfect" films. Amazing how well it has held up after so many years (it was made in 1941). If you love older films, this is one you should definitely see. It's really wonderful.

Edited January 31, 2017 by LauraAnders

[Rinaldo]

I know the play The Little Foxes well, as it was my junior-year play in high school and I was the assistant to our faculty director. I had the movie on my DVR, and then I had to trade it in last week for the more advanced model because the old one was no longer dealing with the signals I was getting. (Biggest problem: I was getting sound but not picture for TCM. I had support on the line for an hour or two about that, with resets and refreshed signals and all, till he finally said I should just get the free upgrade and that would probably solve it. Annoyingly, it did.) So whatever I saved on the old one is lost forever. Or until it's shown again.

One interesting detail: the composer of the music for the movie was Meredith Willson. (I was delighted to point this out to my high school classmates, as it happened that our musical that same year was The Music Man.)

[psychoticstate]

On 1/8/2017 at 4:12 PM, Rinaldo said:

The key, as @ratgirlagogo indicated, is that it was made with a straight face -- in fact, as far as I can tell, they sincerely thought they were making a good action movie. Which makes it all the more classic.

That said, I must admit that I can't make it all the way through in real time; I have to fast-forward at times. But I'm sorry we don't get this kind of (moderately) big-budget straight-faced trash any more.

Gymkata also belongs to the c. 1985 wave of movies starring the studs of that particular era of men's Olympic gymnastics: Kurt Thomas in this, Mitch Gaylord in American Anthem, and Bart Conner in Rad (featuring his love of BMX racing rather than his gymastics skills, though in the event an injury led to his needing a stunt driver) plus a handful of appearances in series like Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel. That phenomenon is another that will never happen again.

Holy cow.  I loved American Anthem when it came out in 1985 - - Mitch Gaylord AND Andy Taylor from Duran Duran doing the theme song?  Yes! - - and I've caught it here and there since and still love it.   Ridiculous on some, maybe a lot, of levels but it was an 80s movie and it had Mitch Gaylord, who I watched raptly during the 1984 Olympics. 

 

On 1/12/2017 at 9:19 AM, spaceghostess said:

OMG. With all the time I spend on this site, how is it that I've only just discovered this forum?! My father instilled in me, pretty much from birth, a love for/obsession with classic film. Said love/obsession causes me to part with more money than my cheap soul would normally deem acceptable for the monthly sling subscription that delivers TCM to my cord-cut universe.

I'm having a ball catching up on the insightful posts here. The many great write-ups and recommendations of movies I haven't yet seen--or have seen, but should consider viewing again through a different lens (so to speak) are greatly appreciated!

I'm inspired to dash off a few lines as I munch my lunch and watch 1931's Private Lives, starring Norma Shearer and the criminally underrated Robert Montgomery. This version, is, IMHO, a charming and deft adaptation of Coward's play (despite initial reservations about Shearer's casting, Coward gave it his own stamp of approval in the end). I could write for yonks about Montgomery's intelligence and versatility (and hotness, rowr), and perhaps will in the future? Right now, however, I only have time to thank the movie gods that this puppy slipped in there before the Code stomped the sex out of everything.

There is kissing between divorced and remarried (to other people) people! Long clinches and short ones, necking, and cuddling in bed (something handled with a clever little sight gag that may have helped them squeak it past any limited enforcement that may have been going on). All the physical stuff works out quite well, as the chemistry between the leads is sizzlingly delightful. I now want to watch this and and Here Comes Mr. Jordan back-to-back, the better to enjoy the contrast between Montgomery's tough-guy comic characterization and his playboy one. He was equally adept at both, and I wish he'd made a hundred more movies than he did. A brilliant man who led a fascinating life which, as far as I know, has NOT been honored with a biography. Someone should do something about that. Maybe that someone will be me.

Anyway, thank you all for this place--I'm so happy to have found it!

I adore Norma Shearer.  I think it's a tragedy that she is mostly remembered for being Irving Thalberg's wife and for The Women.  The Women is one of my favorite films of all time but Norma certainly played more than just Mary Haines type roles.  In Private Lives, the screen is absolutely alive with her energy.  Definitely check out The Divorcee and Strangers May Kiss.  The first is easy enough to find via DVD or on TCM.  The second isn't available on DVD (no idea why) but TCM does play it occasionally.  Norma is just stunning.  And while aspects of both films are dated -- especially the parts about women being ruined if they have pasts, while men are expected to do just that - - it's amazing to realize that she was playing characters that explored their freedom and sexuality back in 1930 and 1931 when it simply wasn't done in general. 

Robert Montgomery stars with her in both of those movies as well.  I think they played very well off each other.  He wore tuxes and suits very well, didn't he?  I'm sure it was helped by the fact that he was tall for the period (6'1").   I also enjoyed him with Joan Crawford; some of their films were a lot of fun.   He was excellent in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a great film if for no other reason than it was a Hitchcock screwball comedy (and with the gorgeous Carole Lombard.) 

[Crisopera]

I do enjoy Norma Shearer in her silent and pre-Code days, but in her later, great-lady-of-MGM days, she sort of...calcified.  Starting with The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), she became very grand, and her acting devolved into lots of lovely hand gestures and very affected performances, culminating in her incredibly annoying Irene in Idiot's Delight (1939).  I actually rather like her performance in The Women - she toughens up nicely, and it's an incredibly difficult role to play - the "perfect wife" surrounded by a bunch of much more entertaining characters.

[ratgirlagogo]

On 1/31/2017 at 10:27 AM, mariah23 said:

 

They have always advertised 31 Days of Oscar on their sister stations.

 

Hmm, well I'd guess you'd be the one to know.  And here I thought I DID actually watch the sister stations - where was I?

[wilsie]

I love that they're showing the movies in alphabetical order.

[Milburn Stone]

18 minutes ago, wilsie said:

I love that they're showing the movies in alphabetical order.

Yeah, I kind of discovered that by accident. It was earlier this week, and looking ahead on the grid for TCM (as I sometimes do) I saw a succession of movies whose thematic unity was not immediately apparent to me. But that wasn't the first time that ever happened, and usually I'm able to figure it out eventually; that's part of the fun, as all inveterate TCM watchers know. Only this time, the answer continued to elude me. Until I said, "Hey, wait just a goldarn minute here--all these movies start with A!" And so I continued on through the grid for about five more days into the future, and saw a pattern emerging.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[wilsie]

@Milburn Stone It really makes for a great mix of movies, doesn't it?  I love trying to figure out how the movies are connected, too.

[prican58]

It's kind of neat but I am a bit disappointed. There's not much thought going into programming. Take Battleground, for instance. I love this movie with its pretty amazing cast but it starting at 5:45 am on a Friday sucks. Yes, I can't always have a film air when I want it but I would have liked a programmer say "This is such a good movie let's try to air it where more folks can watch." Maybe they would have aired it at 11pm on a week night and I still wouldn't have been able to watch but lots of folks do watch tv at that time. I would have been ok with that. I really think it's a film that should be celebrated more even though its reputation is already good. 

But that's ok, it's just me. I hope plenty of people got exposed to it. 

[Rinaldo]

The alphabetical order meant that The Big Country came up today, having been aired only recently. I had to DVR it again, quite literally for the sake of the main titles and Jerome Moross's theme. There have been lots of Westerns with fine musical scores, but is there any that's more instantly evocative than this one? It practically created the sound that we associate with Westerns, and with the vast prairies in general -- that "wide open spaces" sound in music. The opening string agitation, the brass fanfare against it, and then the soaring string tune when it finally arrives. That's mastery in music.

Its only rival, I think, is the obvious one: Elmer Bernstein's theme for The Magnificent Seven. It's corny through overuse, it's been parodied and quoted more than one musical track should be asked to endure... but damn. Just listen to it again and it does its job perfectly. I hope Mr. Bernstein was pleased with himself when he put down his pen after that one. So, those would be the two.

[Rinaldo]

More on the music front: I watched Blues in the Night (1941) for the first time. What a genuinely weird little item, and not what one would expect from the title. But then it wasn't filmed under that title; it was just another programmer with a second-level cast (after first choices for two roles, James Cagney and John Garfield, declined) called Hot Nocturne. And the story has its intriguing side: the life of small-time band musicians in that era, with aspirations toward jazz or blues. They encounter each other in dives, building up more instruments in the group, they hop a freight together when they're broke, their relationships break up and re-form. But the story gets more and more conventional and melodramatic as we move into the second half, and the interesting bits get fewer and fewer. (And for all the respect in with Betty Field is held, to me her performance was absurd bug-eyed overacting.)

What prevented it from being a forgotten B-picture was the song contributions of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer: "This Time the Dream's on Me," but especially "Blues in the Night" -- a true instant classic that so impressed the producers that they changed the movie's title. And we hear it several times during the movie, but never the whole song: the most memorable rendition remains the very first, when our momentarily jailed musicians are schooled in "the misery" by the black prisoners in the next cell. (The straightforward portrayal of segregation in overnight lockups rather negated by the unmentioned appropriation of this bit of music by a white band as its own hit -- something that of course has happened again and again.) In fact most of the band's presentations of it are disappointingly danced-up-tempo, as if there were nothing special about it. (Its real extended-form greatness had to wait to be revealed in the recordings by Woody Herman, Dinah Shore, Artie Shaw, Cab Calloway, Eileen Farrell, and others.) So... a very ordinary movie with some fascinating bits-in-passing that never add up, and one piece of great art that doesn't get the treatment it deserves.

(At the Academy Awards, by the way, this was the year that Best Song went to "The Last Time I Saw Paris," which so infuriated its composer Jerome Kern that he made sure that all future nominees had to be first heard in their respective films. He too thought "Blues in the Night" should have won.)

[Milburn Stone]

50 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

What prevented it from being a forgotten B-picture was the song contributions of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer: "This Time the Dream's on Me," but especially "Blues in the Night" -- a true instant classic that so impressed the producers that they changed the movie's title.

Hey, don't forget "Hang on to Your Lids, Kids" and "Says Who? Says You, Says I." :) I'm only semi-kidding about that last Mercer-Arlen tune; l actually like it a lot.

Thanks for the post. I learned a lot from it. 

[Rinaldo]

6 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Hey, don't forget "Hang on to Your Lids, Kids" and "Says Who? Says You, Says I." :) I'm only semi-kidding about that last Mercer-Arlen tune; l actually like it a lot.

I like 'em both myself. There are several nice musical sequences.

[prican58]

Has anyone ever seen this? I never heard of it but I am curious to watch Paul Douglas & Ruth Roman acting together.

 

[Crisopera]

I'm very fond of Blues in the Night (although I agree about Betty Field's overacting), since I adore Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer.  But it's got one of those 40s novelty numbers with the screechy Cass Daley (a perfectly nice-looking woman who distorts her face to be "funny"). The song they use, "Says Who? Says You, Says I" is nice but the number is annoying in the extreme (I understand that they're trying to convey the depths of Jigger's degradation, but they could have just shown a part of the number).  Richard Whorf had an interesting career - went from actor to film director to prolific television director, and also was a stage costume designer who won a Tony for the 1954 Giraudoux play Ondine, starring Audrey Hepburn (who won Best Actress).  Versatile guy.

[Rinaldo]

And while we're mentioning actors-turned-directors, I should have mentioned the rare chance to see Elia Kazan in an acting role -- a fairly big one too, the clarinetist in the band, and the designated mama's boy in the subplots.

Thanks for the information about Richard Whorf's later career, of which I knew nothing. But I've certainly seen the production photos from that Ondine production, and the costumes were indeed quite something, particularly the seaweed-crisscrossed body stockings for Ms. Hepburn, to tastefully suggest an unclothed water nymph. A versatile man indeed.

[bmoore4026]

Tuned into Fame just in time for the "Hot Lunch" sequence.  If I had to work in that cafeteria, I'd shoot myself.

Being in the High School of Performing Arts seems cool, though.  Wish I went there.  I do remember from A Chorus Line of the character of Diana (based on Priscilla Lopez's experiences) talking about going there and having an asshole of an improvisation teacher.  I do wonder what class she took after she dropped that one after praying and meditating for so long.

Weird seeing Maureen Teefy from Grease 2 and Paul McCrane from lots of things in this.  I wonder why the former didn't go further.  I thought she was real good in this.  And wonder if the latter would ever realize that roles he'd be best remembered for where of assholes who die horribly (see Robocop and ER.)

And the dancing in the street to the theme song scene is one of the best scenes in movie history

Edited February 8, 2017 by bmoore4026

[Rinaldo]

I didn't catch Fame this time around, but I remember it well. Other actors in the cast whom I recall fondly are Albert Hague as the music teacher (Mr. Shorofsky), who reprised the role in the later TV series, but who is best known to me as the composer of Broadway musicals like Plain and Fancy and Redhead. And Boyd Gaines, who when he turned up in one scene in the cautionary role of "former star acting student who's now reduced to waiting tables," was best known from the sitcom One Day at a Time, but is now one of the most awarded of Broadway actors, with four Tony awards (and the first actor to be nominated in all four categories).

The "Hot Lunch" number always bugged me, though I know I shouldn't take it seriously and they just need an excuse for a song every so often. But it seemed to be saying that if all those classical musicians really admitted what they actually like, they'd be jammin' contemporary pop like everyone else.

[Rinaldo]

Did anybody else find that the TCM showing of 42nd Street last night included audio narration of the action? I stopped by in the middle and was startled to hear descriptions like "Julian Marsh sits down with her and looks worried." This is a feature available on this and some other channels, but it's optional, and I was unable to turn it off -- in fact I checked several times, and all my relevant settings were set to OFF. I did all the standard things, turning all such settings On and Off to reset them, turning the TV off and on again, etc. Finally I gave up. This morning all seems to be well, but I wonder if anyone else experienced this aberration last night. (Maybe some underling aired this one movie with the wrong settings?)

Edited February 9, 2017 by Rinaldo

[Cobb Salad]

I caught a few minutes of 42nd Street last night and noted the audio narration as well.  I happened to have the closed captioning on then turned it off, which turned off the audio narration.  I was watching it on an old Sony Triniton TV. 

[bmoore4026]

2 hours ago, Cobb Salad said:

I caught a few minutes of 42nd Street last night and noted the audio narration as well.  I happened to have the closed captioning on then turned it off, which turned off the audio narration.  I was watching it on an old Sony Triniton TV. 

Christ, they drove me up the wall within a minute!  I couldn't watch the movie, I couldn't.  Thanks for ruining my viewing experience, TCM.

Gone with the Wind is on at 11 Central tonight.  I might watch it, I don't know.

I've been thinking about what some people have said about Melanie and I've come around a bit.  She is a strong character.  She endured the same hardships as Scarlett but came out an even stronger woman.  She kept her cool many times and still had empathy for people, cared for people, didn't use them.  Scarlett was strong in her own way, as was Mammy.  In spite of the Civil War and making the South look sympathetic (though not as much as Birth of a Nation), the story is about women facing adversity in the face of disaster and rebuilding.

On another topic, I am hoping TCM show The Lord of the Rings trilogy again this year.  That series of movies is best watched sparingly, I think, much like a big meal on Thanksgiving or something.  I mean, Warner Bros. owns both the films and TCM, don't they?  Shouldn't be hard to air.  I'd get to bawl my eyes out a second time when Frodo leaves Sam behind in the regular world.  God, even thinking about it makes me a little sad.  But, it's a beautiful kind of sad.

[ratgirlagogo]

12 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Did anybody else find that the TCM showing of 42nd Street last night included audio narration of the action? I stopped by in the middle and was startled to hear descriptions like "Julian Marsh sits down with her and looks worried." This is a feature available on this and some other channels, but it's optional, and I was unable to turn it off -- in fact I checked several times, and all my relevant settings were set to OFF. I did all the standard things, turning all such settings On and Off to reset them, turning the TV off and on again, etc. Finally I gave up. This morning all seems to be well, but I wonder if anyone else experienced this aberration last night. (Maybe some underling aired this one movie with the wrong settings?)

I didn't watch this airing of the film but it happens once in a while and my guess would be your last sentence explains it.  TCM has more audio described programming than some other stations because its content is, of course, classic, and more likely to have been selected for audio description.  It's interesting how many TCM films aren't subtitled, BTW.   And how many of the older international films have terrible subtitling - either just wacky translations or don't display properly on a contemporary TV screen.

[Milburn Stone]

Was up late enough to see the first ten minutes or so of Gone With the Wind. The opening shots of slaves in the field, and then the prologue over these shots with its words yearning for a time of "Cavaliers and Cotton Fields," the "pretty world" of "Gallantry," of "Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and Slave," followed by the comedic moment of the black "foreman" calling quitting time (when in fact the foremen in the fields were whites with whips), revolted me as never before. It really felt different to me this time. I've always been one to say, "hey, cut it slack, the movie was from a different time, it's art, enjoy it for what it is." But this time, the movie, in normalizing (to use a contemporary word) the evil it portrayed, struck me as a malignancy that ought never be shown on our screens again.

I'm not sure what's changed in me or what's changed in the world to make me react this new way after all this time, but there you have it. A significant factor may be my reading, a couple of years ago, an astonishing history of American slavery by Edward Baptist called The Half Has Never Been Told. And maybe movies like Twelve Years a Slave and Django have had their effect on me. Anyway, re GwtW, others got there before me in having this reaction. But if I'm any barometer, it's spreading.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[ratgirlagogo]

15 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

But this time, the movie, in normalizing (to use a contemporary word) the evil it portrayed, struck me as a malignancy that ought never be shown on our screens again.

I wouldn't go that far - partially because of reading some of your own comments on this film over the years BTW, and because I don't believe in sweeping shit like this under the rug.  Censoring history doesn't change history - it just increases ignorance of history - which means people don't recognize bad ideas from the past when they reappear - or even worse I suppose they don't recognize GOOD ideas either.  But as you may remember I have always always  hated this film.  What gets to me is that I've never, never, ever met anyone, not even one of my fellow silent film fanatics,  who told me The Birth of A Nation was their favorite movie - one watches it because it is a landmark on many levels in terms of film history and it is indeed impressive - but many many people have told me GWTW was their favorite film and while it doesn't paint the KKK as saviors coming in to put everything to rights like TBOAN - it romanticizes the whole era of African chattel slavery in a way that enrages me.

Another complicating factor is that (as I have also said before) I have had many black friends tell me that they like this film because it's almost unique in general audience Hollywood films of this period in having a substantial black cast, in substantial roles.  How many other roles did Hattie McDaniel play that were large and serious enough that she could even have been CONSIDERED for an Oscar?  And as I know you've said before her character is the moral center of the film.  In a way that just makes it kind of worse! but I understand the whole ambiguity here.  Maybe.  I think.

Edited February 11, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Milburn Stone]

8 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

Another complicating factor is that (as I have also said before) I have had many black friends tell me that they like this film because it's almost unique in general audience Hollywood films of this period in having a substantial black cast, in substantial roles.  How many other roles did Hattie McDaniel play that were large and serious enough that she could even have been CONSIDERED for an Oscar?  And as I know you've said before her character is the moral center of the film.  In a way that just makes it kind of worse! but I understand the whole ambiguity here.  Maybe.  I think.

It is complicated. And speaking of Hattie McDaniel, it's heartbreaking to see her in the other films that routinely play on TCM, from the period in which she was under contract to Warners, in which she plays a succession of maids that are nothing more than "comic relief." And comic relief based on the characters' "naive (stupid) innocence," rather than wisdom. Makes her major contribution as the moral center of GwtW all the more treasurable.

The bright spots for her after GwtW are her musical number in Thank Your Lucky Stars (as has probably been remarked previously by me, @Rinaldo, and others)--and, ironically, her role in Disney's Song of the South, a film that's banned now, in which her character (Aunt Tempy) is of roughly equal moral stature and weight to her Mammy in GwtW. (And she gets a good song in it.)

Edited February 11, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[SeanC]

As far as racial politics goes, GWTW is redeemable only in the sense that it's much less racist than the source novel.  Both of them are also impressive literary/cinematic works in many other respects, which I think is a big part of what's so frustrating about them, because they could be easily discarded otherwise.

Speaking of racially dubious 1930s Hollywood product, The Good Earth aired the other day, which I finally got the chance to watch.  Unlike GWTW, the source material isn't the problem here, since it's based on a terrific Pearl S. Buck novel.  Rather, the issue here is that they cast white actors in the leads (and a decent number of the supporting parts).  Among other things, this gets your surreal scenes like Luise Rainer and Paul Muni having several sons all played by actual Chinese-American actors.  On a production level the film is amazing (that Oscar for Best Cinematography was well-deserved), and overall the film is fine, even if it has almost the literal opposite of the book's ending (and the book's ending was the best part; it's an indelible literary image).

[Padma]

2 hours ago, SeanC said:

As far as racial politics goes, GWTW is redeemable only in the sense that it's much less racist than the source novel.  Both of them are also impressive literary/cinematic works in many other respects, which I think is a big part of what's so frustrating about them, because they could be easily discarded otherwise.

Speaking of racially dubious 1930s Hollywood product, The Good Earth aired the other day, which I finally got the chance to watch.  Unlike GWTW, the source material isn't the problem here, since it's based on a terrific Pearl S. Buck novel.  Rather, the issue here is that they cast white actors in the leads (and a decent number of the supporting parts).  Among other things, this gets your surreal scenes like Luise Rainer and Paul Muni having several sons all played by actual Chinese-American actors.  On a production level the film is amazing (that Oscar for Best Cinematography was well-deserved), and overall the film is fine, even if it has almost the literal opposite of the book's ending (and the book's ending was the best part; it's an indelible literary image).

Yes, GWTW has great performances, a memorable romance in an historic setting and is impressively filmed. But it's shot through and through with racism--both from the source material and the racism in contemporary Hollywood of the time. I can respect its accomplishments as a film--skip to a couple of the scenes with Gable and Leigh that I like--and otherwise wouldn't sit through it as the sympathetic point of view toward the racist Southermers makes it unwatchable.

The Good Earth is different, as you say, because of the wonderful novel. Muni and Rainer did well with the parts even though they weren't Chinese. (As did Alec Guinness, I thought, in The Tea House of the August Moon). The same could not be said of Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Truly a low point in anti-Asian characterizations by white actors (probably just doing "as directed"--but still truly awful).

On a different note. For Ronald Reagan film buffs, the movie that I think is his best is on TCM tomorrow morning (4 a.m. EST). Richard Todd is also very good as the lead in "The Hasty Heart".  It was originally a play and is not as melodramatic as many of his more famous roles.  It's not a great film, but it's a good one.

[Charlie Baker]

It's been interesting to be around long enough to see society's perception of GWTW evolve in a similar way to how the reputation of Birth of a Nation changed. The filmmaking craft and artistry still noted, but the unacceptable content forever shading the work.  I'm sure there was opposition to both films at the time of their release--but time and awakened consciousness can only increase it.

[Ohwell]

6 hours ago, SeanC said:

Speaking of racially dubious 1930s Hollywood product, The Good Earth aired the other day, which I finally got the chance to watch.  Unlike GWTW, the source material isn't the problem here, since it's based on a terrific Pearl S. Buck novel.  Rather, the issue here is that they cast white actors in the leads (and a decent number of the supporting parts).  Among other things, this gets your surreal scenes like Luise Rainer and Paul Muni having several sons all played by actual Chinese-American actors.  On a production level the film is amazing (that Oscar for Best Cinematography was well-deserved), and overall the film is fine, even if it has almost the literal opposite of the book's ending (and the book's ending was the best part; it's an indelible literary image).

Although I did not like the fact that the lead actors were white, The Good Earth is still one of my favorite movies.

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, Padma said:

...the sympathetic point of view toward the racist Southermers makes it unwatchable.

In addition to the factors I mentioned, I think the current political environment has done its part to make me come around to this. Accepting the movie's sympathetic point of view toward racist Southerners and to a racist system is tantamount to being OK with a Confederate flag being defiantly hoisted over a statehouse or an interstate highway.

[Sharpie66]

Last Monday's Independent Lens on PBS was "A Birth of a Movement," about the protests from the African-American community after TBOAN was released. It should still be on the PBS website. 

As for GWTW, I have never liked that movie, maybe partially because I tried to read the book way too young (3rd grade, so around 8 or 9 years old), then I saw it in the theater for a revival in 1976, when I was in 5th grade, and again just didn't like it. It boils down to both the racism, but also I have never liked Scarlett. I find her to be just a bitch who I cannot stand. I just want to shake her and tell her to get over Ashley, he is just not that into you!

Anyway, I am currently watching one of my all-time faves, A Hard Day's Night. So much fun!!

"He's very...clean."

The press conference scene reminds of a clip from the recent Ron Howard doc on the Beatles' live shows. In it, while the four are being interviewed while sitting two behind the other two, George is flicking his cigarette ash into John's hair, causing Paul to just crack up.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Sharpie66