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The following was originally envisioned as a three hour animated epic, but after the many many cuts made to it by (surprisingly uncredited) editor Marv Newland just prior to its formal release, the end result would be...

Paul Robeson starred in a very early Hammer film called "Song of Freedom" in 1936. It was directed by J. Elder Lee, who also directed Anna May Wong in "Tiger Bay". It has a fascinating plot with Robeson playing the son of African immigrant parents in London. As a dock worker, he sings while he works and is discovered by an opera impresario. He is successful yet at the same time he's haunted by a melody. That's the Crux of the plot not to give away anymore, he returns to Africa to find out more about the past of his family and perhaps something about this song. This was an outstanding chance for Robeson to play something substantial outside of what was being offered black performers in Hollywood movies in the 1930s. And as a performer it gave him a chance to please the audience with some singing, while at the same time it's not a musical and he actually is performing a dramatic role.

You are being astonishingly arrogant and condescending. For the record, I don't really care all that much about the visual changes to TCM. I don't like them, but they're not going to stop me from watching the station. I suspect most people here who are complaining about these changes feel the same way: Look, it's not that big a deal, but still, it's ugly and unnecessary. Most people who come to these boards are long-time TCM fans; it's not unreasonable or inappropriate that they think it's ok to vent here about something like a stylistic overhaul of the way TCM presents itself. I don't think anyone here who dislikes these changes is saying they're going to boycott TCM or anything like that, they're simply expressing their dislike of the new format in a completely appropriate way, eg, posting here on the TCM forums. How come you've taken this up as such a big cause? I can't help but suspect that you think anyone who's objecting to the "TCM Refresh" is old and conservative. I suspect you think anyone who's bothered by the changes also dislikes it when TCM shows anything made after 1960, or a foreign language film, or presents programming with themes such as " Women in Cinema", or TCM Underground films. Guess what? I am happy when TCM shows all of the above. I'm not "conservative" when it comes to such programming. I welcome it. My annoyance with the visual changes the station has recently made is completely valid, and has nothing to do with how I feel about their programming. ( True, ok, you have not directly said there's a connection, but I have a feeling you think there is. Correct me if I'm wrong.) Oh, and by the way, as I stated before, I've been watching TCM since 2005, and contrary to what you seem to think, there has never been as radical an alteration to the visuals of the station as there is now. So your " Oh, you'll get used to it and then you'll complain about another change 5 years from now" idea is unfounded, and insulting.

It could have been more exciting if he'd burst out, "...and that starts with "C", and that rhymes with "T", and that stands for "TROUBLE " ! "

I agree with that; Like I said I like The Strip mostly because of the jazz angle. It is an MGM film and that is a double-edge sword in terms of being noir-ish: MGM "noir" films have higher production values but are not very gritty and often lack noir visuals (as is the case with The Strip). The Strip features L.A.'s Sunset strip but does not use it to its full advantage. The film is set against the backdrop of Hollywood's Sunset Strip, with Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines and Jack Teagarden appearing as themselves in the film. Pete Rugolo, who is credited with Leo Arnaud with the film's orchestrations, was a well-known jazz arranger. Much of the picture was shot on location in and around the Sunset Strip. Interiors were shot at popular nightclubs Mocambo and Ciro's and at restaurants Little Hungary and Stripps.

Most people don't make provisions for internet message communities. Unless another member knows that person in RL, deaths often go unannounced. This is one good reason to choose a young person as your executor-they know how to access your electronic filing & can follow your wishes pretty easily if you set it up for them. My cousin's daughter visibly BRISTLED when I asked her to be my executor. My cousin & I had to reassure her it was an honorable responsibility. Maybe people will treat each other here more respectfully knowing any one of us could kick off any time. Old timer FredCDobbs was a board curmudgeon but he was a long time camera operator bringing a wealth of knowledge to his technical posts. RIP.

My family was long involved in trade(or labor)unionism since before WWI and never once considered themselves "communists" in the Soviet sense.( or any sense). Trade union's racially inclusive doctrines no doubt seemed radical enough to an institutionally racist U.S.A. at the time that making them and anyone associated with them seen as "communist" and therefore against good, solid American "principles" . Sepiatone

Yes, the original 161 version was fine as it was. The restored scenes don't really add too much, so it was kind of unnecessary. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach had to re dub in their dialogue in those scenes with their much older sounding voices. The restored scenes should have just been DVD extras.

The Grass Is Greener (1960) shows well how a caring, wise and very very British gentleman reacts to his wife running off to London for an affair with an American. The entire situation is handled with thought, consideration and pistols at thirty paces. I feel it strains credibility a bit that any woman married to Cary Grant might feel even the slightest attraction to Robert Mitchum but there is no accounting for taste.

Hmm... That brought to my mind someone like one of the hosts/former hosts from the children's show Blues Clues. Already been a host - have that training behind them, and would appeal to kids who grew up on Blues Clues. Just a different teleprompter...

1943

Happy Labor Day Everybody. Hey. Did everybody watch the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon every year?

I just watched a pre-release version of the classic movie "My Darling Clementine" (1946) starring Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell and Victor Mature and directed by John Ford. A commentary after the film explained and showed the differences between John Ford's original cut and the final version after many changes dictated by Darryl F. Zanuck. First of all, the film is magnificent with beautiful black and white photography showing the sky and vistas with rock formations. Characters are often silhouetted dramatically. It's not just an action-type western but also a tender love story with really interesting characters. In the original version, the score was simpler and included natural sounds or maybe a soft "My Darling Clementine" tune playing in the distance. Lots of Hollywood-type orchestral music was added by Zanuck. Zanuck took out some scenes and dialogue that help you understand the relationship between Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp as well as well as Chihuahua. The original version (before Zanuck's cutting and changing) - at least for me - is so much better. Somehow, it's more engaging and has more mood and atmosphere. So glad it was restored and I had a chance to see it. I would be interested to know of other films that were changed in there final versions and how this effected the quality of the films.

W ED., 9-8 10:00 pm (ET) American Masters: Mike Nichols (2016) 53m | Documentary directed by Elaine May about the life of Mike Nichols[1] broadcast on the PBS series American Masters. It is derived from a lengthy interview with Nichols conducted by producer Julian Schlossberg. Brian Lowry of Variety has called it "the last memorable Nichols-May collaboration." Director No Director Available "Meet one of America’s late, great directors, Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Angels in America), who discusses his life and 50-year artistic career, from the comedy duo Nichols and May to his final film, Charlie Wilson’s War. The documentary includes new interviews with Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and more, plus insights and highlights from Nichols’ acclaimed films......... se e: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/mike-nichols-about-the-film/6065/ ======================================================== THURS. 9-9 3:30 am (ET) Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989) 1h 29m | Adventure | TV-14 A series of adventures, mishaps and practical jokes is set in motion when Penn Jillette publicly states he wishes someone would try to kill him in order to add excitement to his life. Director Arthur Penn Cast Caitlin Clarke, Eddie Gorodetsky, Avanti Taylor " It was the last theatrical film directed by Arthur Penn, and received mostly negative reviews from critics.[5]Quentin Tarantino has said that this film exemplifies the poor quality of directors' final movies........ "...........Director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) lamely plays the shell game with reality and illusion, revealing nested layers of deceit as he dares the audience to believe what it sees. Is someone really stalking Penn or is it just another charade? Elaborate set pieces that allow the pair to showcase stage routines impede the story; a lengthy fantasy in black and white almost buries the movie. But the final indignity is the belabored postscript, a suicide joke that attempts to squeeze a final drop of irony from this lemon." https://ew.com/article/1990/05/11/penn-teller-get-killed/ ========================================================================= late FRI., 9-10 12:30 am (ET) Out of the Blue (1947) 1h 26m | Comedy a petty spat between bohemian photographer David Galleo (Turhan Bey) and his bourgeois neighbors Arthur (George Brent) and Mae Earthleigh (Carole Landis). Mae wants David’s dog to be exiled from the building for digging up her flower beds one time too many. Arthur sics his lawyers on David, thinking his troubles will soon be over. ....... Director Leigh Jason Cast George Brent, Virginia Mayo, Turhan Bey "........The scenario by Caspary, Bullock and Eliscu is filled with darkly funny and erotically charged moments, enough of them to wonder how it passed the production code then being enforced. Dvorak thought the same thing – “between you and me we probably got away with murder. That is none of the performance was censored, saved by the comedy angle no doubt.” It is very frank about adultery, crimes of passion, casual sex and even more casual murder – a pre-Code sensibility in a post-Code world...... se e : https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/85961/out-of-the-blue#articles-reviews?articleId=021446

I just remembered I have the DVD of My Darling Clementine. It's not a new release, but it says it has the "Alternate Pre-Release Version of Movie," as well as other extras, including a behind the scenes featurette about the alternate version.

Here to set some tone, and submitted for your approval, I present my dear friend Maurice Chevalier (with the tilted cap). I know some people don't care for him but well, whattaya gonna do? You're gonna sweep those clouds away! No, this is NOT the Hackmark Channel. Heaven forbid!

Well frankly I love to wallow quite a bit myself. I am weepier than usual these days for a variety of reasons. Growing old(er), loss, grief, illness, pain, change in general. The usual suspects. Round 'em up! I was so privileged to share my mother with you, John, and everyone else. I'm grateful she had such an appreciative audience. I will keep her memory (and movie reviews) alive.

Today (September 7th), is my 24th wedding anniversary. But we really have two: one where we were official married here in the USA in a very small US family setting, and the other on the 21st where we went to Italy and were married in her hometown where I was welcomed like Patton was in the film when he entered Italy. E.g. Many people out on their balconies throwing flowers and filling up the streets outside the 800 year old church.

True, which is why I used the term celebrity instead of film star or actor. Such TCM "events" as SOTM are PR\marketing events and the viewing public's knowledge, appreciation and general "love" of the celebrity impacts how marketable they are. Another factor is what celebrities are still alive that can assist in the promotion. E.g. Carol Burnett is still fairly well known and she is a big fan of Ball. Burnett's show is on retro T.V. (E.g. ME-TV, right before Perry Mason so I sometimes watch it). Burnett does funny ads promoting ME-TV shows where she pretends (as she is today) to talk to T.V. characters - E.g. Sheriff Taylor, Hogan of Hogan's Heroes, etc... (via clips from their ME-TV show of course). I could see a great ad for TCM were Carol "talks to" Lucy saying something like "hey, do you know you're being featured as Star of the Month", and Lucy responds (via a clip from one of her T.V. shows).

Whoa. The promo for season 3 is neat. I’m really looking forward to it a whole lot. I can’t wait.

I never watched the telethon. While I appreciate Jerry Lewis’ intent with the telethon, I’ve never been a fan of his films. So watching hours of him didnt seem appealing. As for my Labor Day, really a 4-day Labor Day weekend, I celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary with my husband. We went to the zoo and out to dinner where an accordionist was providing entertainment. I heard an accordion version of “Beyond the Sea” and the theme from the first Super Mario NES game. On Saturday, my husband and I saw “Jailhouse Rock” at the theater then went to a metal show and saw Megadeth. On Sunday, we had our first day of our beginner’s pottery class then my parents came up for dinner. Yesterday, my board game group came over and we played games all day.

Angel Dust (1994) Japan/Dir: Gakuryu Ishii - After a series of bizarre murders occurring on crowded trains, the police enlist profiler Dr. Suma (Kaho Minami) to try and catch the culprit. The investigation leads to Suma's old mentor, controversial psychiatrist Dr. Aku (Takeshi Wakamatsu) and his cutting-edge "reverse brainwashing" techniques used to deprogram former cult members. The overly-familiar subject matter is enlivened a bit by stylish cinematic techniques, although some of those (like a repeated audio clip) can be more distracting than illuminating. (6/10)

Room 222 Principal Seymour Kaufman played by Michael Constantine Welcome Back Kotter Principal Michael Goodman played by John Sylvester White The White Shadow Principal Jim Willis played by Ed Bernard Principal Sybill Buchanan played by Joan Pringle

The Beguiled (1971, 2017) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Alien 2: On Earth (1980) Italy/Dir: Ciro Ippolito - Unauthorized sequel-in-name-only that concerns a fallen meteorite, actually an alien egg, that is carried into a deep cavern by a group of vacationing spelunkers. Eventually the "egg" hatches and chaos ensues. Writer-producer-director Ippolito decided to make this dumb rip-off after the success of Lucio Fulci's Zombie (aka Zombi 2), an unauthorized "sequel" to Dawn of the Dead. That movie was pretty good, though, while this cheapjack waste of time is slow, poorly acted, badly edited and just plain terrible. I did like some of the score, though. (3/10)

GOODBYE MR CHIPS eventually

(Replying to MOVIECOLLECTOROH's comment) Sad to say there seems to be a category of changes that never show up in the current schedule system. When Fluffy went down, the online TCM schedule was never updated to show the change, same for Bugsy today. (I checked Fluffy in the monthly schedule a day after the change and it was still there. Same thing for Bugsy today.) (As you know, the daily schedule removes old listings at the end of the day, but the monthly schedule keeps everything through the end of the month.) The process TCM uses to notify other services when programming is changed seems to be disconnected from TCM's own website. I went ahead and made a request in the 'Problems with TCM.com' forum asking them to update things online when changes are made, if that means anything...

But they weren't duped about how racist the American society was.

Sisters ("White Christmas") Next: Learning to Dance

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! (1974) Next: lots of storms, bad weather

Blithe Spirit (1945) An excellent version of Noel Coward's witty play. Best things are Kay Hammond as a catty ghost and Margaret Rutherford as an eccentric medium.

Are the hosts really middle aged? Man, I must be older than I thought.

I've heard the figure is $1.25Million. (...which was reportedly taken from TCM's 20th Century Fox/Paramount Pictures movie procurement fund)

OKAY then. And NOW where the hell were we in this "Noir" thread, anyway? Oh yeah... No, Joe wasn't being "noble" there, James. What he was being was secretive to Betty about the circumstances of his life at the time. However, and once again, when the chips were down and after the sparks had kindled between Joe and Betty, he did the honorable thing by being brutally honest with her about those circumstances, and all the while knowing that it meant he would lose her. (...ya know, he COULD have just strung her along a lot longer, don't ya?!)

True, but THEN here King Rat, there's the FLIP SIDE of this so-called "Language inflation" of which you speak. Uh-huh, I'm talkin' about those out there who LACK a damn vocabulary past a junior high school level, and which is something, a strong vocabulary that is, that's an absolute necessity in order to express an opinion or thought to its fullest, clearest and most comprehensive. AND, which is something, the LACK of a vocubulary that is, that defined a certain individual who I will now NOT name. (...BUT who I WILL now say Stephen Colbert, and considering his name was brought up earlier here, spent four-plus years mocking, AND to be honest here, I LOVED almost each and every damn time that he DID!)

It is worth seeing. I like Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly as the bad guys.

Brutal Sorcery (1983) Hong Kong/Thailand/Dir: Pang Ling - Outrageous supernatural horror concerning a cab driver who gets possessed by evil spirits after unknowingly giving a ride to two ghosts. The cab driver and his family seek help from the medical community as well as various spiritualists. This fast-paced phantasmagoria is filled with unusual imagery and shocking moments. Unfortunately, the characterizations are thin and the plot is near incoherent. There's also music lifted from the 1980 Flash Gordon. (5/10)

His health was bad since 2000 and it must have been hell for him as he was a very active man.He made excellent films,Anything between 1959 up to 1977 is good.I was expecting this any month unfortunately,His pal Alain Delon also had health issues,Delon will be 86 in november but wants to do one final good film. Belmondo in the movies was impersonating LA JOIE DE VIVRE.Delon and Bardot (87 this month )are the last big stars of their era in France.

Andy I agree with you that the longer introductions are certainly better. Eddie always gets 5-6 minutes and has graphics inserted to reinforce his comments, so there is a commitment from both host and TCM to produce a better product. I noticed the first intro that Ben did on the primetime Sep. 1 kickoff was allowed to take more time and also had inserts and clips along the way. Obviously this takes more production resources so I'm not sure how TCM decides what to allocate. Jacqueline Stewart doesn't get an abundance of time, but she also gets the inserts. Once you come to appreciate the extended format the quick less-than-2-minute intros seem like nothing.

Exactly! Language inflation strikes again. People who add the word "centric" to a noun or adjective or adverb are so much smarter than people who don't. People with "skill sets" are so much more talented than those who merely have "skills." "Maintenance workers" get so much less dirty than "janitors." There are no homeless people, let alone "bums." They are "persons temporarily experiencing homelessness." Yes, bureaucrats actually say that these days. Though I haven't seen it in print yet, I'm expecting "ex-cons" to become "persons formerly experiencing incarceration."

Can't believe you can't recognize that Joe is actually being noble, yes James, noble, when he has Betty come out to 10086 Sunset Blvd to see how he lives. Everything about it, the way the script is written and the way Holden plays it, points to this. (...and why the death of Joe especially hits hard, as by the thought that basically Joe was a decent guy at heart who didn't deserve his fate)

To Be Or Not To Be (1942) TCM On Demand 7/10 A Polish theatrical troupe deals with the Nazi invasion in Warsaw. I had created a thread several months ago about top rated IMDB films that I had not seen, this was one of them. While it is not one of the greatest films I ever saw, I thought it was very good. It seems like an unlikely subject for a comedy, but much was very funny. The first scene where we see Hitler turned out to be both shocking and hilarious, though the rest of the film does not quite live up to that beginning. Jack Benny plays the lead hammy actor of the troupe, he has some subtle but funny scenes with his reactions and quips. He is not on screen for long periods of time and the more dramatic moments without do not work as well. Still, Carole Lombard (her last movie) gives a fine performance. Due to her death and the subject matter it must have not been very funny to the audiences of that time. I am sure modern audiences may think it is in bad taste as well, but I liked it.

One of the greatest films ever made about this subject would be...

2013 The Eternal Zero (2013) Takashi Yamazaki, Japan The grandchildren of a Kamikaze Pilot investigate his time in WWII. This won Best Film at the Awards of the Japanese Academy. Though very well done I found it a bit overtly sentimental and cliched at times. Some of the CGI is spectacular and some of it is simply OTT.

Nice to see you back because now more than ever we need the laughs

Notice you did not mention Sybill Sheperd's full frontal nudity on the diving board scene. At least I think it was full frontal. Regardless, my opinion is that TCM does a very good job of showing movies as best they can. The problem is what they are able to obtain and the quality of different "cuts." TCM is still commercial free in that there are no commercials during the movies. For many movies more editing in the beginning would be a real help. Not for nudity, language, etc., but simply because the movie is too damn long and therefore too damn boring. TCM does not do that, but the studios sure could. Also, very, very, very few movies should be over 120 minutes and most would be better at 90-100 minutes.

Vera-Ellen was in Call Me Madam with Ethel Merman

Outstanding . Where's the genuflect emoji? The wit is appreciated.