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The Bribe was a bit of a snoozer for me, but I'm glad you liked it, ElCid. I really like Charles Laughton and Vincent Price, I always enjoy these two superb hams no matter what they're in. Price was really a bad guy in this one. When he first appeared, I saw similarities to his character in His Kind of Woman (friendly, affable, wants the protagonist guy to go hunting or fishing with him....) but that soon changed. I don't think I've ever seen Vincent Price play such a wicked character before ( his Wax Museum and other horror films don't count, since those movies are so over-the-top and even in them, Price's crazy character is kind of sympathetic.) And I also found Laughton's performance quite entertaining. The scene where he gets so upset when Taylor knocks his X-rays to the floor is kind of funny. But I've never been a fan of either Robert Taylor or Ava Gardner. Ava's ok in this, and I know that all hetero men love her madly. And she's a sympathetic character, she's NOT a femme fatale. That's nicely unexpected. But Robert Taylor ! Man, being kissed by him would be like being kissed by one of those wooden South American statues in the hotel lobby ! I've NEVER understood why he was such a big star. His acting is always strictly play-by-rote, and his handsomeness is of the same type as Lana Turner's beauty - he also looks like he's made out of wax. The only time he looked appealing was when he was all messed up, after he wakes up from Ava's drugged drink. He's all disheveled , his hair is falling over his face (so much better than that combed back widow's peak look he usually had), and he needs a shave. This is the only time he's ever attractive (he has a scene with a similar rough look in High Wall.) The rest of the time he looks to me like he could be an android from Bladerunner sent into the past. I'm also not a big fan of noirs set in Mexico or Argentina or any other hot sweaty south of the American border places. I prefer the American urban settings. Although at least there was plenty of rain in this one.

It was nicely ecological of Steve to turn off the kitchen light after he took the knife out of the drawer!

Lorna, about X, Y, & Zee: Susannah York very earnestly does all the "creating a character" things one might do in an ordinary movie, but you'd think Michael Caine would have taken her aside and said, "Darling, this is a piece of caca and all you have to do is show up and take the money the way Liz and I are doing." So much of Elizabeth Taylor's later career seems to consist of variations on her aging, shrewish, and drunken character in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but she's no longer getting dialogue by Edward Albee, direction by Mike Nichols, etc. And to follow up on the interesting discussion of Jane Fonda: Fonda strikes me as having no real center to her personality, so she goes through phases to find meaning in her life: Sex Kitten Jane, Political Jane, Serious Actress Jane, Fitness Jane, Born-Again Jane, Philanthropist Jane, and so on. Some of us have known people like that (especially if we were around during the 1960s), but not many have the money and celebrity that Fonda has had.

A lot of posters here are not fans of Robert Taylor and I can understand why they may find his appeal limited. I find him, at best, adequate in some of his '50s films but far from exciting. However, he was highly effective as a cold blooded killer with a psychopathic hatred towards Indians (okay, okay, indigenous people) in The Last Hunt, a western made in 1956. We're far from the land of noir here, of course, but Taylor's hard boiled coldness in this tale about buffalo hunters could have worked well as a character in a noir study, as well. This film is shown on TCM quite often and is worth a look for Taylor's performance. The film has a unique climax, quite unlike that of any other western that comes to mind. Okay, back to the noir talk . . .

Just watched the interview on Sunday Morning. Very enjoyable. Love James Caan, excellent actor and interesting man. His role as Sunny in the Godfather, makes most think Caan is Italian. He's Jewish and from Queens. Ben did a good job with the interview. It's a limited time slot and the interview managed to give us a good glimpse into Caan and his career. Ben asked some good questions and didn't talk much, letting Caan have center stage. Hope James Caan gets to play more roles in films and tv.

Kit's strict Dad took his Princess back home in a smart but sensible 1965 Plymouth Valiant Signet.

Steve hauled his wife's remains to a roadside burial in a 1964 Ford Country Sedan station wagon.

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) A woman finally realizes that her husband is a fortune hunter and decides to divorce him. He realizes that his only hope of keeping his meal ticket is to murder her before she meets with her attorney. Her current lover is present when the attempt is made. I firmly believe that this might have been a great movie if it had had a larger budget and different leads. The script is reasonably solid, the direction is quite adequate, the editing is deft and the cinematography borders on excellent. It seems to me to be missing atmospheric details which could not be included in a limited budget. There is no accounting for the human heart but I could not square Lee J. Cobb as a semi-tough cop who would lose his head so completely over a dame. It is my personal preference that a noir have a femme fatale who is actually present and not phoning in the performance from her beachfront condo as Jane Wyatt does here. I found John Dall to deliver the best performance which is both a wonderful and a sad indictment of the movie. He is perfect as a boyishly simple honest cop who finds himself in a horrible predicament and forging ahead despite knowing how much it will hurt to reveal the truth. Alan Wells has only a small role but I found it to be very powerful and more interesting than the two leads'. Lisa Howard plays John Dall's wife quite well. 6.3/10 I watched it on: Amazon Prime Video. I see that it is listed on several streaming services and available for free viewing on: The Film Detective.

COPIED AND PASTED AND EDITED FROM THE IMDB TRIVIA SECTION FOR OBSESSION (1976) (some interesting bits whether they are true or not- LHF) Composer Bernard Herrmann became infatuated with Geneviève Bujold after seeing her performance in an early cut of "Obsession". His feelings were heightened by Bujold's surprise visit to the soundtrack recording sessions in London in July 1975, the only time the two met in person. Herrmann's friend Charles Gerhardt recalled, "As she spoke to Benny in a heavy French accent I could tell he was about to get the hanky out. She told him of all the trouble she'd had with Cliff Robertson because he spent all his time in makeup and didn't make their love scenes meaningful. She said, 'Mr. Herrmann, he wouldn't make love to me - but you made love to me with your music'. And Benny started to cry. He would tell that story over and over at dinner, and start crying again every time". After Herrmann's death five months later, his widow found a photo of Bujold in his wallet. Alfred Hitchcock was reportedly furious when Brian De Palma decided to make Obsession (1976), because he thought it was a virtual remake of Vertigo (1958). THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE!- LHF: Cliff Robertson's onset behaviour caused considerable friction. In the documentary "DePalma", Brian dePalma recounts that Robertson would deliberately deliver a poor performance and line readings when shooting reverse shots for Genevieve Bujold. He insisted on a dark tanning makeup, inappropriate for his troubled character. It made lighting him so difficult that at one point cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond shoved him against a wood wall and shouted "You! You are the same colour as this wall!" The church seen at the beginning of the film, Church of San Miniato, is different from the one that Michael actually goes into when he sees Sandra. The reason for this is because the priests of the Church of San Miniato would not allow De Palma and his crew to film inside of the church, because of a previous film crew that turned out to be making a porno film, and had told them otherwise. This can be seen clearly when Michael goes into the church, which only has one door to enter into, and then in the next shot, where Michael's back is towards the door, and there are now two, and a windows on the doors that don't match the one that we saw on the outside shot. The collegiate church in the town of San Gimignano was used for the interior shots. According to Brian De Palma, Cliff Robertson was very difficult to work with. According to Brian De Palma in the DVD interviews, when Bernard Herrmann watched Obsession for the first time, he knew exactly how the music score would sound. One of his final scores, Bernard Herrmann personally considered his work for this film to be his best. This film, which has often been compared with Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," begins and ends in New Orleans. Ironically, Bernard Herrmann, the only person who worked on both "Vertigo" and "Obsession," had suggested to Hitchcock that he set "Vertigo" in New Orleans instead of San Francisco, and that Charles Boyer instead of James Stewart should have been the male lead. Spoilers The trivia item below may give away important plot points. It was Bernard Herrmann who insisted upon the removal of the final part of the film. In the original script, Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson) kills Robert Lasalle (John Lithgow) and goes to Jail. Michael spent years in jail. When he got out, he travels back to Italy and he travels back to the church and there he sees his daughter who is in a sort of catatonic stage. And the priest who is at the church tells Michael that the only way to get her out of this catatonic stage is to restage the kidnapping yet again with real money and he does. And she comes back from her state and embraces her father. Brian De Palma said that it would have made the movie 3 hours if the entire script were shot. It was Bernard Herrmann who insisted to remove these elements which led to the released version. According to De Palma, Bernard Herrmann said "Well that stuff the future just get rid of it. It doesn't work. They get together in the end." Brian De Palma also said "I think he was feeling musically there was something that would be difficult to recapitulate in the future again." 14 of 15 found this interesting | Share this

As most y'all know,my wife was 10 years my senior. And we found PLENTY to talk about. And while several of her interests and mine were the same, it was the other interests that we could introduce and interest each other in that made our lives enjoyable. ie; In my past life(1st marriage) I could never get much into decorating for Christmas. And she showed me the joy of turning our home into "Christmas central". And before she never gave a second thought to classical music, but wound up enjoying going to DSO concerts and Beethoven's 9th symphony became her favorite. And her being Mexican got me to learn there's more to Mexican cuisine than tacos, burritos and guacamole. So, you see? It's not the AGE that really matters. It's the PEOPLE involved. Sepiatone

Well I married a teacher from my High School who was never MY teacher, but actually got to know him through his first wife, who graduated a few years before me. When she left him, he latched onto me. As an older person, I trusted he knew what he was doing & became wife #2. He was a baffoon and after I left found he had called all my girlfriends looking for a date. Some people are just lazy opportunists and will take whatever wanders their way. When I was in my early 40's and asked out by men in their early 20's, I wondered how my ex-husband could even be attracted to someone that much younger. Thankfully, I was mature enough at that point to discourage younger guys from pursuing the Wild Sue.

Finally watched "The Road to Hong Kong" on my DVR. Very little about Hong Kong and a lot about outer space nonsense, with Joan Collins as the romance object for both Crosby and Hope. What a stinker.

1958 T-B in------we won't go there.

And it's not like she's actively unattractive or anything--she's just (God forbid) a regular-looking person with major acting chops. Which is precisely what both roles required. At least Pfeiffer and Spacek are both fine actresses, and their casting may have been partly intended to increase the marketability of what were likely seen as commercially risky projects. But since Bates had already received a Tony nomination for 'night, Mother and an Obie Award for Frankie and Johnny, her attitude is totally understandable.

When You Wish Upon A Star - Cliff Edwards sang - Pinocchio Betty Grable

JJ Walker (Dynomite!)

That was quite a spread, wasn't it? It was a set, according to this reviewer of the Blu Ray release, who also says that Joan's role was first offered to Barbara Stanwyck, who was (wisely) "unavailable." Maybe Sven opted to use the extra time on Sven surround instead of a trivia segment. I have found a few nuggets. Andi Garrett (Libby) had done a few episodes of "Wild Wild West" and then turned up years later in an episode of "The Black Sheep Squadron." (She must have made an impression on Robert Conrad.) Sarah Lane (Kit) appeared in a few episodes of "The Virginian," and a couple of "Billy Jack" movies, and in-between , something called "Schoolgirls in Chains." (How that one has escaped me, I don't know.) Kid sister Sharyl Locke perhaps should have been familiar to us. She was Jenny in "Father Goose" just a year before. She later appeared in an episode of "Burke's Law."

Yes!

Disagree with Eddie (he must not be a fisherman) the blue water fishing sequence is the first well done action sequence. This Noir plays more like an Adventure Noir. Agree with Cid too but for me the more times I see it the more I like it. Like I mentioned almost every shot has a fan, a desk fan, a ceiling fan, or fan thrown shadows, and then the blinds shadows everywhere to boot. This go round I was paying more attention to the actors. Robert Taylor has improved a bit, Ava is great at being seductive. Charles Laughton as J.J. is pretty entertaining ( a thought came to me while watching was, another actor who could have played that part to perfection would have been Wallace Beery) Vincent Price is good and John Hodiak plays a good drunk.

Pay Day (1922)

I like it, but may have a problem watching it in the future. Eddie gave a whole lot of reasons of why it is not a good movie. I don't think he ever actually said it was a bad movie, but criticized the directing, screenwriting, acting, plot, etc. Other than the cinemaphotographer and Vincent Minelli's directing of closing scene, don't think he had anything good to say about it. While not among the greats of Noir, it is definitely better than Eddie makes it out to be. Especially considering some of the things he has picked to show and applaud in the past.

You Can't Take It with You (1938) Next: The play's the thing for Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve

TikiSoo: Older doesn't mean wiser. My late paternal grandmother used to say that to my Dad. She and my Dad's father got divorced after my Dad lost his older sister but she loved him until the day he died. He remarried a younger, non-Jewish woman; but the result was that my Dad got a younger sister and I have a terrific Aunt. Now, my sort of niece (my nasty adopted sister's daughter, who is not so great herself) got divorced after only a year and married a rebound guy who has an ego bigger than many actors, a certain U.S. President, etc. He is ten years older than she is, hates Jews (even though he claims to be half-Jewish) and convinced my niece to leave a job at a doctor's office (I was so proud of her then for pursuing a degree after never being one to stick post-HS education out) to join his vanity business. He evidently has money, which both my "sister" and she like. I never met someone I wanted to marry (plus, I am ugly). As far as younger guys, Whoopie Goldberg long ago made a remark about having little to talk about with them. As for your experience with a High School teacher, watch In and Out (Matt Dillon was Joan Cusack's student). It is also very funny and attacks stereotypes people have of gay individuals.

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Count me in as someone who LOVES it! I actually liked the two teen girls, played by Andi Garrett and Sarah Lane (with the names of "Libby" and "Kit"), they were funny and just typical teen girls with their pranks and girl talk. Sharyl Locke was good too as the mischievous little sister. For some reason, I was always turned on by older Joan Crawford. She was very sexually aggressive, I kinda liked that. I thought John Ireland was very menacing, the final moments where he is stalking the girls were very suspenseful. As for Sven, I thought the skit with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis imitators was pretty funny. I wish he would have done more trivia about the cast members, I would have liked to know if the girls did anything else. Crawford wouldn't do another movie for two years. The next was Berserk! , another psycho killer movie set in a circus. John Ireland did a horror movie in 1974 called The House Of Seven Corpses. He played a short tempered movie director doing a movie in a haunted house. Leif Erickson, who plays the understanding father of the girls, had played Joan Crawford's brother in William Castle's ax murder movie Strait Jacket. He also played a villain in the Gregory Peck thriller Mirage, released the same year as I Saw What You Did. Patricia Breslin plays the worried mother in this one. She had a very memorable role in The Twilight Zone episode called "Nick Of Time", where she was the wife of William Shatner. She is the voice of reason as her husband is obsessed with a fortune telling machine.

Thank you, TopBilled, for your usual great job in putting this into a format which is accessible and easy to refer to. I especially want to commend your choice of photos to accompany each entry. I spent as much time admiring the photos as I did reading the lists.

FORTY WINKS

YOU'RE FIRED (1919)

MILLION DOLLAR MERMAID

I always took those two people not as bank robbers per se but as political radicals robbing banks, maybe members of the Beacon Hill Liberation Army.

Ha!! Actually I thought John did a good job. He was pretty frightening in his own laconic Ireland way. This movie was better than I remembered. Moody photography and some fair suspense. Those dumb, naive teens, though -- ugh! Joan, however, looked and sounded drunk. No polite way to say it.

Well we know JANET and JOAN got the point!

'57 T-B in Daddy-O (1958): The American Friend (1977): The Birdcage (1996): in Dragstrip Girl (1957): in Unwed Mother (1958):

Estelle Parsons was in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) with Gene Hackman, who was in Twilight (1998) with Paul Newman. Next: Ingrid Thulin

And Kathy Bates lost her " 'night Mother" stage role to Sissy Spacek for the film version. I remember reading an article where she threw some shade at the industry about being passed over for the parts.

A MILLIONAIRE FOR CHRISTY (1951)

@37Kitties: If you live in the USA you can find MY FIRST WIFE (1984-Aus) for sale on Amazon. AMAZON doesn't make it easy to find VHS listings anymore, but the movie was released by 'CONTINENTAL Home Video' circa 1986. It has been OOP for years as you probably have guessed -- but "My First Wife" can be found depending on the budget you have at your disposal. So should you journey to Amazon and narrow your search to 'Movies & Tv' and then type "vhs MY FIRST WIFE" in the subject line it will come up for sale. You might have to scroll down the listings a little bit -- but the listing is there and there's 2 of them for sale. One is $27.00 + $3.99 shipping and the other is $28.75 + $3.99 shipping. There are times when Amazon has VHS tapes for sale that are not currently found on eBay; however, nowadays Amazon makes it tricky to find certain VHS releases of movies that are for sale. Maybe the geniuses who run Amazon think every movie that's ever been issued on VHS has subsequently been released on DVD and/or Blu-Ray, which is definitely not the case. → Recently, I bought a Columbia VHS tape from Amazon of the 1978 television movie "A FAMILY UPSIDE DOWN" starring Fred Astaire and Helen Hayes. I did not find it on eBay for sale, but I checked Amazon and there was one for sale so I snagged it a few days ago and it will hopefully arrive next week. I'd almost forgotten that the tape I already had of this tele-film was a ropey copy and not a genuine 'Columbia' videocassette . . . so I figured I'd better try and find a *proper* tape before the VHS release just disappears into the mist. It looked to be a genuine tape I bought. I'm keeping my fingers xxx crossed xxx, anyway! There are lots of hard-to-find VHS goodies sitting for sale on Amazon because it is simply difficult to locate some of them; I have found that it helps if I type vhs A FAMILY UPSIDE DOWN on the subject line instead of merely "A FAMILY UPSIDE DOWN". --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALSO: Anyone else remember the 1978 movie SLOW DANCING IN THE BIG CITY? I taped it off Cinemax all the way back in 2004 because it had never been made available on ßETA, VHS, DVD and has not been made available on Blu-Ray or 4K in the years since as far as I know. I suspect the music rights have kept SLOW DANCING IN THE BIG CITY off of any homevideo mediums to date. I remember hearing the song "I Feel The Earth Move" by Carole King in the movie; Anne Ditchburn rehearses to it. Apparently, music rights issues have kept a small-ish number of movies off of DVD and/or Blu-Ray discs that had VHS releases such as LITTLE DARLINGS (Paramount), LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (Paramount), AMERICAN HOT WAX (Fotomat).

The Money Trap 1965

Lithgow's first major role, so I'm willing to cut him some slack, but he was chewing the scenery -- or is that just because Cliff is such a stiff by comparison? I know he was supposed to be quiet, reserved and almost catatonic, but sheesh! The real winner is Bujold, who puts in a lovely, nuanced performance. It's an interesting movie, though I thought Zsigmond's fussy, filtered look seems very dated today. The score stands as one of Herrmann's best, despite his reuse of theme's we've heard before....

I'd forgotten how Sit-Commy the opening theme sounds. The composer, Van Alexander, did a of of work in tv comedy.

Since you quote a different name and a death date for the title of this thread, I must confess to confusion.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942)

It fits as well as The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Why wouldn't a movie with death and murder fit? Death and murder?! Murder and death?! If it's a monster you want, John Ireland as a homicidal man of "about 40" is pretty monstrous.

I just watched OBSESSION (1976)- the image above was SO GIANT, I figured I should just let it have its own space. I really liked this movie a lot more than I expected to- although I don't quite see why BERNARD HERRMAN got an Oscar nomination for re-heating his score for VERTIGO, maybe his dying helped push him over the hump that year. warning spoilers possible as you watch this movie, you will inevitably more or less guess the ending, BUT there are a couple of really well-done surprises at the reveal- which was marred for me by the fact THAT THE SOUND WENT OUT ON MY TELEVISION during the denoument (I thought for a long time it was just DePalma being "arty" before I realized "no.") thankfully it was just a glitch and i resumed watching after turning the tv off and back on. I'm always going to be a little standoffish with CLIFF ROBERTSON over the SHAME episodes of the BATMAN tv series, but I respect the talent that is there. question: was this the film where he discovered the head of Columbia was stealing money on? GENEVIEVE BUJOLD is a fascinator- even with a bad haircut- and she has a particularly standout scene where she handles some complicated dialogue about restoring a fresco on the wall of a church in Italy and discovering an original artwork underneath that is pivotal. If I liked DON'T LOOK BACK at all I would suggest it as a double feature with this film, but I really don't. quite well filmed and photgraphed, I didn't mind the constant Vaseline on the camera, but I couldn't help but wonder if the shooting of this movie and MAME in the same year didn't perhaps jump-start the petroleum crisis of the 1970s. there was only one thing that I did NOT like in this movie and that is JOHN LITHGOW. He is dreadful. Some actors are just utterly incapable of subtlety. They compulsively overract. I have never liked JOHN LITHGOW- with the exception of the time that he admonished the audience upon winning his third inexplicable Emmy in a row for THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN for honoring him for work that he thought was AWFUL. THANK GOD I wasn't in the audience because I would have instantly done one of these:

LITTLE CAESAR (1931)

Rich is the master. His sci-fi thread was great too. It seems like he tapered off on the JD thread right around the time he started his mammoth project of reconstructing the schedule from 100 years ago from the local theater in the town where he grew up, complete with stills from the films and plot synopses, many from films that no longer even exist. I can't imagine the man hours it's taking to do that. (Plus, I seem to recall that in one of the Board overhauls he lost the pictures from the JD thread and had to go back and reinsert them all. I think lzcutter ended up doing the same for one of Kyle's threads.) Underneath that glib exterior there's a real scholar. In a toe-to-toe with Ben, Rich would win for sure. The point I was trying to make was that Ben can fit into some contexts better than others and that the JD series seems compatible with his inner goofball. (Pun intended.)

YEAH?! So, you think Ben is pretty clever with his takes on these J-D flicks, do ya Doug? Well, Ben couldn't/can't hold a candle to our own Rich (scsu1975) around here when it comes to this sort'a thing, ya know! In other words, I'm sure you've been around here long enough to have caught Rich's old Juvenile Delinquent movie thread that he used to update every month or so, haven't you. Now THAT was ALWAYS funny and very clever, and never "sometimes". (...couldn't wait for his next installments back then...boy, I miss that thread of his)

I certainly did NOT recognize Michael Landon as the Albino Dowser in GODS LITTLE ACRE '58-he looks more like Sterling Holloway