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two thousand two hundred fifty-fifth category Peer pressure ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) JUVENILE JUNGLE (1958) RUMBLE FISH (1983)

I love White Christmas. You're correct that White Christmas isn't trying to put on a play. I think they're putting more of a revue together, so it's just a series of individual performances and routines. And not that Bing and Danny aren't trying to put together a quality show, but I think it is something that was thrown together on the fly in light of learning that General Waverly is about to lose everything. I also love Rosemary's "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me" song that she performs outside of Bing and Danny's show. This of course is shown when Rosemary temporarily leaves the show and goes to New York to make it on her own as a singer.

"I try to think that love's not around...but it's uncomfortably near..." (apologies for any LOUD, LONG ADS that play first.)

Runaway Jury (Jury of your Peers) - Great film about jury selection Same with Law and Order To Kill a Mockingbird (Scout has to wear a dress, how can a black man at the time be exonerated) Justice at Nuremberg

Grease (1978) Clueless (1995) Das Experiment (2001) Mean Girls (2004) This Is England (2006)

Dead End 1937 Rebel Without a Cause 1955 The Young Savages 1961 The Breakfast Club 1985 Stand By Me 1986

I do! Because he's the only likeable character in the whole thing. I love it when he tosses the dirt-bag off the roof!

Question for the posters here-- if a film like "The Magnificent Ambersons" is deemed by critics and others to be a failure, even if a 'worthy' failure-- by virtue of poor editing, re-cutting, or some measure of loss of control by the director-- does that ruin it for you? "...Ambersons", (airing again on Monday @ 6:15 p.m. Eastern on TCM) is my favorite of all of Orson Welles' output. Mutilated or not, it's fabulous, in my opinion. Welles is so quickly able to set up the drama of this fascinating group, whose fortunes spiral down as dizzyingly as his camera flows up and down the Ambersons' grand staircase. I was hooked from the first moment. That whole complex, layered scene of the party they throw confirmed it for me. He gets everything right-- the Midwestern town's dense, sharply observant social climate, the brisk mood of the times, the pettiness and closeness and oddity of the family relationships. With Welles, with so many scenes staged with such originality, you almost can't single out one. For me, it will always be that bucketing, jubilant, seething, eventful automobile ride they take through the snowy countryside-- it's a set piece of pure brilliance! And the casting! It's true that the ending, taken out of Welles' hands, is a let down, to say the least. Didn't they re-shoot more than one scene, as well as make drastic cuts? But for me, that doesn't take away from the excellence that came before....

It is never too soon to watch White Christmas. Also, I wanted to give a special shout out to Vera-Ellen. I think she is the best female dancer, ever and never gets her due. She is a joy to watch in this film -- whether she is dancing or not. I love her scenes with Danny Kaye. They are quite the funny pair. I also love her with Astaire in Three Little Words.

Yes. I love Danny Kaye. I also love him in the "Choreography" number because it's just so delightfully weird. I agree about "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing." It's such a beautiful number. I think White Christmas was originally meant to be a reunion between Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, but Fred wasn't available for whatever reason. Then I think Donald O'Connor was linked to the film at some point, but he either was sick or had a conflict or whatever happened, it doesn't matter. He was out. Then Danny Kaye was brought in. I am so happy that things worked out how they did. I love Vera-Ellen and I love Danny Kaye. It's a shame that Rosemary Clooney's acting career didn't really pan out, but maybe she was more comfortable singing and she was definitely good at it. Her black dress in the "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me" number is gorgeous. That dress fits her like a glove. I also love the black and red dress she wears in the "Mr. Bones" number. I hate how people instantly only want to comment on how thin Vera-Ellen is in this film, and completely ignore her fantastic dancing. I especially love the "Abraham" routine. I love Mary Wickes, she is hilarious. Though every time I see her, I think of her as Lucy Ricardo's ballet instructor. "A one, a two, a three, a four..." I agree with you about the ballerinas. I love Bing Crosby's "musician speak" that he uses throughout the film, like when he tells Rosemary Clooney to "bring the cow" (i.e. bring the milk) over to the table. Now I'm trying to decide if it's too early in the year to watch "White Christmas."

I love the whole damn thing. Not usually a Danny Kaye fan, I think he's hysterical in WC. "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" is wonderful and one of my favorite musical numbers ever and, like you, I love "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" (Rosemary is very sexy looking and singing!) Dean Jagger is great, Mary Wickes is great and my only small complaint are those annoying little ballerinas taking up space in the final number.

Other people’s opinions, even a professional film critic’s, doesn’t affect my opinion one way or the other about a film. All that matters to me is my opinion and feelings about a film. I really like The Magnificent Ambersons and I lament the loss of Welles’ original cut and ending. Right now, a filmmaker, Joshua Grossberg is in Brazil looking for Welles’ original cut which is rumored to be residing there. TCM is funding the expedition. If successful, the original cut will be on TCM next summer. I can only hope the rumor pans out and Grossberg’s expedition is successful. https://www.google.com/amp/s/deadline.com/2021/04/tcm-documentary-search-orson-welles-the-magnificent-ambersons-1234732933/amp/ Until then though, I really love ‘Ambersons’ as it is right now. It is a compelling story and my heartaches for poor Aunt Fanny.

Reefer Madness Eighth Grade (2018) Marty Footloose

OTTO PREMINGER was such an infamous (if occasionally benevolent) @sshole that I am kinda wondering if maybe, just maybe he was SUPERNICE WHEN HE WAS ON ACID, kinda like MR BURNS in THE X-FILES PARODY ON "THE SIMPSONS" AND AS SUCH, everyone on-set was like "you know, this movie is GONNA SUCK, but it's just so nice to not get shouted at in German for 12 hours every day...."

I love that you tagged your post "disaster spectacle camp", which is perfect. There's something about all-star casts, with each one going the distance to stand out, that brings out the ham in everyone. And in sequels it gets worse, because producers are trying to outdo themselves to top the last one. Even with the first one, it was still a little derivative. Earlier movies like The High and the Mighty (1954), Back From Eternity (1956) and The Crowded Sky(1960) were variations on the same movie-stars-in-peril theme. Even Lost Horizon (1937) sort of falls within the genre. My favorite is The Crowded Sky; not only does each member of the cast have a backstory, they have "inner monologues" to fill in character specifics and plot points for the audience. Too much information, folks.. The best is Patsy Kelly as an agent shepherding her "new James Dean" client to a screen test in Hollywood. When the method actor confronts real fear, the results are hilarious.

Nice line up of two Neo Noir and then then The Lineup last night thanks TCM! Surprised that Eddie didn't mention the other two Classic Noir with good car chases Side Street and The Big Steal.

Bernard And The Genie (1991) A naive young art dealer happens to generate a £50,000,000 profit for his company. This results in his being fired, his girlfriend leaving him and a maniac attacking him with a scimitar. This movie is a romp. It is simply heart-warming while not saccharine. Even the few bits of revenge are sweetly appropriate. It is just plain good fun. Alan Cumming is a cuddly little cherub! It is easy to see why he can never cope with the troubles thrown his way. His thoughts turn to helping others even when he is at his lowest. He is the most hopeless of all hopeless gits. He submerges for this role all those traits which have brought him so much critical acclaim as a dramatic actor in London and on Broadway. Lenny Henry is one of the funniest men who ever lived! He is marvelously antic in perfectly natural way. He is best described as a cross between Groucho Marx and Benny Hill. 8.4/11 This movie is available for viewing for free with commercials on IMDbTV.

I'm watching WIlliam Friedkin talk about The French Connection, and how he had an instinct for the kind of actors he wanted for the film, and I'm wondering if Preminger told people he had an instinct that it would work, and of course, everyone followed along because, well, he's Otto Preminger.

Oui, bien sûr, Cinemaman! Bien fait. C'est à ton tour!

Bad movies can have a certain charm sometimes and be funny without even trying. This was just bad, I couldn't even finish it.

Some Like It Hot

Even though Oklahoma! ushered in the era of the integrated (integration of music, dialog, & dance to advance a plot) book musical (though there were earlier prototypes), Broadway was still producing a lot of revues up through the 1950s. The thing is - they typically had short runs, nobody remembers them today, and they'll almost certainly never be revived, because they were usually built around a certain personality of the era. Revues are still a part of Broadway today, but there are far fewer of them. Modern ones tend to be built around composers (like Ain't Misbehavin' in the 1970s or Side by Side by Sondheim) rather than performer personalities. And in the last 20 years or so, we've seen the rise of the jukebox musical, or as some put it more diplomatically, the catalog musical. This is a throwback somewhat to Hollywood, where a ready-made catalog of songs is stitched together with a story, sometimes biographical, but not always. Mamma Mia!, Cher, Tina, Jersey Boys, Jagged Little Pill and others are examples. Moulin Rouge is a somewhat different take on this. It's similar to what M-G-M would do with their musicals - take a bunch of songs (typically ones they already owned) and stitch them together to make a movie. Singin' in the Rain is a familiar example, as nearly all of the songs in the film were not written for it.

1968 gave you two versions of Mr. Law: angelic/avian (Barbarella) or scruffy (Skidoo)

Worse than you can possibly imagine. Did Otto think he was putting regular sugar cubes into his kaffee mit schlag?

Pickup (1951) SPOILER WARNING Hugo Haas is the Orson Welles of this production - writer, director, star. He plays Jan Horak, a middle aged man with simple tastes, winding down his career of walking the railroad tracks and looking for maintenance issues. He's a widower who gets his pension in six years. He meets gold digger Betty (Beverly Michaels) at a local carnival. She is the aggressor here, eager for money. Eventually, she and Jan talk, they even see each other a few times. But Betty wants everything now, and Jan is a slow and steady wins the race kind of guy, so she decides to move on to more agreeable prey. Except she is being thrown out of her rooming house and the landlady is going to sic the law on her if she does not pay her back for some stuff that belonged to her that Betty hocked. In case you haven't picked up on it yet, Betty is completely bad news. Desperate, she gets Jan to marry her so she can at least have a roof and stay out of jail. The day after their wedding Jan suddenly and completely loses his hearing, so he is going to retire early due to his disability. But a car hits him and somehow that restores his hearing. He goes home to tell Betty the good news, but overhears her talking about how she wants out because she married a healthy man and now he is a cripple. So he plays deaf to find out what she is up to, and quickly realizes he has married a monster. In the meantime she becomes involved with Steve, a younger man who is going to be taking over walking the tracks from Jan since he is retiring. And this is odd because Steve knows what she is. She ruined a friend of his and tells Steve straight up she is dumping Jan because he is deaf but first she wants to empty his bank account. Subtlety is not her forte. What would happen to Steve if he runs out of health or money? So Jan hears her plotting with Steve, hears about going to a lawyer seeing if she can get money in a divorce, hears her saying she could get his money if she and Jan had a joint account - Jan refuses to sign the paperwork. And when all else fails she convinces Steve that Jan is beating her to get him to agree to murder Jan. All the time Jan is pretending to be deaf. Watch yourself and see how this all pans out. This is a very low budget film. Most of the film is three people in a couple of rooms - Jan, Betty, and Steve. The rest are shots of preexisting exteriors. Hugo Haas gives the best performance, probably because he wrote and directed this so he knew what he wanted from his character. Beverly Michaels could probably have done well in higher budget noirs, but apparently she was very hard to get along with according to Haas. This is a pretty good noir with a most unusual script, and I'd recommend it. 7/10 Source: Youtube

I was more surprised to discover TCM back on my basic Comcast plan !? PONEY BOY -SODA POP - ****? no commercials = what channel is on? TCM!?🤔 but yes I too caught the French Connection last night - noticed an allusion to The Shining - trophy🏆 for anyone who can place it?

i would love to see all the blondies series

Another musical with disjointed musical routines is There's No Business Like Show Business, which I love. I think it works though, because we're seeing these routines outside of the confines of a "show within a show." We see the "Alexander's Ragtime Band" when it's being performed as part of a show. Marilyn Monroe's numbers ("Lazy" and "Heat Wave") are presented as rehearsal sessions. The "Lazy" song is also a plot device as Donald O'Connor and Mitzi Gaynor's characters are offered roles in the number which causes a small rift in their relationship to their parents, Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey--who are trying to keep the family act together. Johnnie Ray's numbers are just presented as a number that he's performing for the family, because he's planning on leaving the family act to become a man of the cloth. O'Connor and Monroe's "A Man Chases a Girl" number is used as a plot device to establish their romance. The other numbers in this film, are used to show other jobs that the family members are doing to stay afloat, or performances that are being put on because they're a musical family. Films like The Band Wagon or Summer Stock however, just seem to be a bunch of random songs that have nothing that even remotely ties them together. I think this is even more glaring in Summer Stock, when we have the famous "Get Happy" number that was clearly filmed months after the rest of the film, as Judy Garland looks completely different here than she does in the rest of the film. I think it's impressive when a musical can present a cohesive story that can use songs that move the plot without relying on the show-within-a-show trope. The Wizard of Oz and Grease come to mind.

"'Scuse me while I disappear . . .." This is Ella Fitzgerald's recording of "Angel Eyes" that I first heard:

Barry Next: Audrey, Richard and Shelley

Diana next: Gene, John and Patricia

Otto liked to push the envelope on film and in his personal life -- affairs with Gypsy Rose Lee (which produced look-a-like son Eric) and Dorothy Dandridge. But SKIDOO is in another realm entirely, lol.

You couldn't pay me enough money to watch a movie about a rat! I think that is Ted Danson with Howie Mandel (the film is A Fine Mess - don't think I ever saw it).

The Matchmaker

Zander the Great (1925)

The scene in question is at approximately the 10-minute mark of the film. On WatchTCM, there is also the introduction with Ben and William Friedkin at the beginning, so the edit occurs at around 16:20.

I saw the Movies! edit of Chinatown a few years ago and noted that "screwing" (in the reproductive sense) was allowed but "Chinaman" was silenced. Has anyone ever used that term as an epithet?

Yes. Slang for an Italian. Which was also censored. TCM is now censoring their films.

That was familiar to me too somehow and if I hadn't been on my new bike trainer I would have researched the location. I'm glad to hear it's still with us. Contemporary cityscapes are always fun to see in old movies and tv shows.

Siege of Terror (1972) Spain/Dir: Luis Marquina - Love triangle that leads to betrayal and murder, starring Riccardo Garrone, Libertad Leblanc and Tony Kendall. Also featuring Carlos Pinar, Francisco Piquer, Loredana Giustini, Lorenzo Robledo, and Maria Mune. Boring and clumsy, and the location shooting adds little. Also released as Corruption. (4/10)

I’ve made it through about 15 minutes. It’s pretty Godawful, but John Philip Law looks smoking hot as a hippie named “STASH.” (Which, as bad as the movie is, that’s a great character name.)

Webster, Marian, played by Claire Trevor in "Velvet Touch"

The Searchers 1956 The Man Who Liberty Valance 1962 Hellfighters 1968 next; Dolores del Rio and Pedro Armendariz

There's No Business Like Show Business.

CONSOLATION MARRIAGE (1931)

Thanks for providing the actual script from the movie! It sort-of answers the question i had about how the new show numbers (Triplets, Louisiana Hayride, film noir Girl Hunt) relate to each other but I don't really see a connection to a children's book writer. I'm wondering if being very logical was a concern. Perhaps like the song "That's Entertainment", they just wanted to be entertaining. I just viewed a Busby Berkley musical I had never seen before from 1935 featuring a wildly creative big musical number "Broadway Melody" done in true Busby Berkley style with a multitude of pianos and patterns made by dancers. This is meant to be a show at a hotel which it could not possibly be. This film - like many others - doesn't have musical numbers presented to tell a story or in a logical way (although they're great to watch!). Perhaps out of this tradition, there are the unrelated musical numbers in the Bandwagon?

I would normally say, "Don't get me started on this one," but that ship has sailed. "The Philadelphia Story" is tops in my book! The cast does it for me, from Grant, Hepburn, and Stewart to Virginia Weidler and Roland Young. "High Society" leaves me completely flat with its cast -- sadly because I rather like them all individually in other films. In short, I'll watch TPS whenever it comes on. HS, I tried to make it through the entire thing once and failed. Since then each time I try to give another chance I always turn the channel soon into the movie. Sorry, Bing and Frank and Grace.