CineSage_jr
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Posts posted by CineSage_jr
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Isn't that what Ethel Merman basically told Milton Berle in your favorite comedy, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?......CiineSage jr?
Bartlett
Huh?
Most of problems in this word (?) ------> what comes around goes around
You've actually got that silly, hackneyed and ultimately pointless expression backward.
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Hi!
in Hot Topics
Pocket?
Is Alec Guinness's character from GREAT EXPECTATIONS there with you?
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You forget to mention the most important secondary role in the film, played by Oscar-winner Dean Jagger.
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Nautical chimes, as opposed to merely naughty chimes.
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A number of Robinson's Van Goghs can be seen in MGM's LUST FOR LIFE (the loan of which is acknowledged in the film's lengthy end-title).
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I love British movies. Lilli Palmer is beautiful! English crooks killers are so civilized.
Try reading about the Krays, or the two adolescent boys who murdered a little boy for the thrill of it several years ago.
There's far less gun violence in the U.K. than in the United States, and that is, indeed, a good thing, but the raw numbers of those willing and able to kill, and viciously, remains constant everywhere.
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it's good to know the plural police are alive and well at the forum. why bother even clicking on this category if you don't believe in it....odd.
What's "odd" about disputing the very premise of a discussion? Most of problems in this word are caused by people who're content to "go along" with whatever prevailing "wisdom" will generate the fewest waves.
The very importance of this particular subject is in its debunking, not the bland minutiae of various posters' opinions as to which movie star is an undeserved and inappropriate role model.
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But PSYCHO was, in retrospect (though it didn't take too many years before it became evident), the worst thing that ever happened to Hitchcock's careeer (soon compounded by his move to Universal -- a penny-pinching studio that had been since its founding in the business of making bad-to-mediocre movies -- and Hitch's break with Bernard Herrmann), as the film was so immensely successful, and at such low production cost, that Hitch was under great pressure to top it. It foms a clear line of demarcation between the career that spanned, say, THE 39 STEPS, through the glorious 1950s, culminating in his two masterworks, VERTIGO and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and the decade-and-a-half that resulted in formulaic mediocrities like TORN CURTAIN and out-and-out junk like TOPAZ.
Remember that PSYCHO began the public's association of Hitchcock with the concept of "horror." The idea that he was some kind of "horror-director" would've been unthinkable earlier. If you think about it, that's an enormous come-down from the suspense stories he's defined and perfected, with their subtle psychological insights and exploitations. and Hitchcock was, it seems, all too willing to please the "suits" at Universal by running with the label and cheapening his output.
Yes, MARNIE is defintely an interesting film, but "interesting" is about the most enthusiastic adjective one can apply to it. THE BIRDS is overrated; just another attempt at audience-manipulation, like PSYCHO, and FRENZY and FAMILY PLOT were, frankly, unworthy of Hitch's talent.
There was nothing wrong with Hitch wanting to get "smaller" after NORTH BY NORTHWEST, but another THE WRONG MAN or DIAL 'M' FOR MURDER would've been more in keeping with his long-term interests than PSYCHO.
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And tell me how could stupid uneducated Judy so easily succeed in acting like a well-educated intelligent and sophisticated woman and then so easily go back to being stupid Judy?
Elster obviously sent Judy to study with Professor Higgins in London before embarking on his murder plot.
The point of the above quip being, of course, that VERTIGO was always meant to be a warped, futile Pygmalion story.
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I liked it, except for the guy who killed the dame. He seemed to have no reason to do it.
How delightfully hard-boiled. Glad to see that you've allowed yourself to get into the Film Noir spirit.
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They're just actors (often overpaid, and generally over-praised) playing parts. They're not heroes, nor should they be anyone's idols (no apostrophes in making "hero" or "idol" plural).
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Very little of Flynn's real hair was visible under that shoulder-length wig in CAPTAIN BLOOD. Producer Hal Wallis and director Michael Curtiz, in consultation with cinematographers Ernest Haller and Hal Mohr, and make-up department head Perc Westmore, obviously decided that they wanted the black-and-white tones of Flynn's "hair" to have a certain value, and that's what they got after, I'm sure, a lot of wig, make-up and lighting tests..
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Either update it to Plan 9.1 from Outer Space, or give the world the sequel, Plan 10 1/2 from Outer Space.
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That'll teach you not to watch an actor's black-and-white movies before catching his color ones.
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Sorry, but the search function of this message boad doesn't seem equal to the task of finding postings that old.
A pity.
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But Scottie DID pursue Judy up the mission's belltower!
Well, yeah. It turns out that Elster wasn't as smart as he thought he was; if you think about it, that's exactly the mechanism undergirding most crime stories in which the cops and prosecutors triumph at the end.
Of course, if I were a cop or prosecutor, I'd be a bit peeved at Hollywood's collective, decades-old implication that crimes are solved not because the authorities are resourceful and smart, but because the criminals are inept and stupid.
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Well, it goes even deeper than that: Elster bases his entire murder scheme on his having heard that old bud Scottie's come down with a bad case of vertigo, therefore reasoning its likely he won't pursue Judy/Madeleine up the mission's belltower, giving Elster the freedom to throw the real Madeleine off the top without interference.
That is pretty darned preposterous.
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The entire plot was stupid.
If the killer was able to get into the tower and up to the top
with both his wife AND Judy, with both looking just alike and dressed alike,
with the wife not screaming and kicking and yelling, and then he threw the wife
off and then totally escaped with Judy ? who is dressed up just like the lady who just fell off the
tower! ? and he and Judy got away without being seen by anyone, then why did he need Jimmy
Stewart and Judy at all, and why did he need to use the impossibly
complex scam, and why, then, did he let Judy still work in
a major store in downtown San Francisco AND keep some of his wife?s jewelry, which
was featured in a major painting at the local art museum??
This plot was designed to trick only the audience, not the cops.
No, the biggest point is that Elster, who's already going to have a murder-rap hanging over his head if the police ever find out he killed the
real Madeleine, conspicuously leaves Judy -- his accomplice and the only one who can finger him for the murder,and possibly blackmail
him -- alive, and living in the same town as Scottie (remember that San Francisco was, back then, a pretty small city). And he lets her keep
(or doesn't pay attention to what happens to) Carlotta's necklace. Since Elster can only be executed for murder once, it makes no sense for
him not to kill Judy, too.
Of course, the bottom line is that if a film is compelling enough, holes in mere plot, even those as gaping as VERTIGO's, are
irrelevant.
And thistledown: it's Gavin Elster -- or do you also have a sister called Ulster?
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Humphrey Bogart had been toiling in Hollywood's vineyards, on and off, for eleven years until 1941, when THE MALTESE FALCON and, particularly, HIGH SIERRA finally put him over the top into stardom. It always takes the right actor, in the right role, at the right time to make a star.
Douglas's talent was obvious from the beginning, but it took CHAMPION to expose and exploit his full abilities (as they were at that stage in his career). OUT OF THE PAST was a "soft" supporting role; a thousand actors in Hollywood could've played it adequately, and it wouldn't have made any of them a star, including Douglas.
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Posterity will bless anyone who undertakes the burning of all Red Skelton films, prints and negatives.
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DeHavilland was at both functions, and so was I. The lady was, not surprisingly, utterly delightful in each instance.
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Your sister isn't the character in the movie; how your parents chose to spell her name is irrelevant to that in the script and film..
As to the revealing of Judy's role in impersonating Madeleine, it's very much in keeping with Hitch's belief that suspense and tension
are a product of the audience's knowing what the protagonist does not (such as Hitch's example of showing the ticking time-bomb
under the table), thereby magnifying their expectations and fears as to the outcome of the character's not coming to the necessary
realization in time.
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Will someone explain to me Kim Novak's eyebrows?
No, Judy thinks the nun at the end is Madalyn
Does anyone else think Hitchcock gave away the Mcguffin to soon
Why did he want us to know right away Judy was Madalyn?
Never liked the gull-wing eyebrows.
There's no logic to Judy's reaction to seeing the nun; it's actually Hitchcock's comment on his detested Catholic upbringing.'
The film doesn't have a traditional Hitchcockian "maguffin."
Hitch didn't want audiences to realize Judy and "Madeleine" were one-and-the-same. Were you gazing into your Magic 8-Ball when watching the film for the first time?
The character's name is still spelled Madeleine.
Message was edited by: CineSage_jr
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For a very simple reason: Douglas started his film career with THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS. He played what's conveniently called a "weakling." That continued through OUT OF THE PAST. With MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, I WALK ALONE, MY DEAR SECRETARY, THE WALLS OF JERICHO and A LETTER TO THREE WIVES he played "soft" characters, and stardom is seldom the product of specializing in such parts. You end up as a character actor, as Elisha Cook or Charles Drake.
CHAMPION, with Kirk as a boxer corrupted by his own press notices into a ruthless, self-obsessed heel (something Kirk obviously excelled at playing) -- a thoroughly unappealing individual -- was a star-making turn, provided -- and it was a big "if" -- enough people saw the film to make it a success and credit Kirk with much of said success. That's why Douglas's agent strongly advised his client not to do the film for still-minor-league producer Stanley Kramer. He was urged to take yet another supporting part in a "big," "safe" picture, instead.
As his later track record as producer and star amply demonstrate, Douglas was never one to play it safe, and his gamble with CHAMPION paid off, big time. That's why it made him a star, and OUT OF THE PAST didn't, and wouldn't.
One might also argue that Issur Danielovich didn't choose the surname "Kirk," with its two very hard consonants, just to spend the rest of his career portraying dissolute playboys and dilettantes.
Edward G. Robinson's art collection
in General Discussions
Posted
I have an original still photo of Price with one of the pieces from his art collection, which he autographed for me, probably sixteen years ago, near the end of his life. A treasured keepsake.