CineSage_jr

The only ones i agree with are best Dickens adaptation, though RICHARD III probably is better than HENRY V one a technical level. What's always been fascinating about British cinema is that its sensibilities are just slightly different from Hollywood's, in ways that extend from writing and acting to cinematography (you always know when you're watching a British movie from the 1930s or 40s, even before anyone opens his/her mouth).

Well, the film (and the play on which it is based) is a polemic, somewhat heavy-handed, reflecting the politics of its author, Lillian Hellman (never mind that her politics and mine are generally similar, propaganda is propaganda). Paul Lukas was the cousin of one of my best and oldest friends (who, apparently, didn't like Lukas too much, which may be why I never got an invitation to meet him. That's too bad, because I've owned an original Warner's script from WATCH ON THE RHINE for over thirty years, and it would've been nice to get it autographed), and his presence lends the film what little heart and authenticity it has (he probably deserved the Oscar, though many would argue that it should've gone to Humphrey Bogart for CASABLANCA, another Warner's film that treated the same subject matter a lot more excitingly and memorably).

Actually a number of Laughton films are in TCM's library, including MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935) THE BARRETTS OF WOMPOLE STREET THE CANTERVILLE GHOST THIS LAND IS MINE! ADVISE AND CONSENT YOUNG BESS THE BRIBE STAND BY FOR ACTION THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

I've already got my ticket of the L.A. County Museum HEIRESS screening, and will run by the Academy Thursday morning to pick up one for their evening with Miss deJ.

G.W. Bush's misunderstimation of the intricacies of the English language.

REBECCA?

THE UNSUSPECTED.

The Bride Came C.O.D.?

The film's original ending was reportedly more pessimistic: Mitch and Melanie drive from Bodega Bay, assuming that the birds have only overtaken that one small town. Upon arriving in San Francisco, however, they catch sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, completely covered in birds. This is a much better ending that the one used in what's always been a very unsatisfying film.

The "yoots of America," Fudge? Have you been taking elocution lessons from the ghost of Casey Stengel?

In 1929 William Fox (real name: Wilhelm F?chs) made a secret pact with Nicholas Schenck, chairman of Loew's, to buy controlling interest in Loew's and its subsidiary, MGM. When Louis B. Mayer got wind of what he saw as a total betrayal of him by Schenck (whom he despised in any case), he appealed to his friend, Pres. Herbert Hoover, to ask that the Justice Dept. derail the takeover. Shortly after Fox had acquired the Loew's shares, the Stock Market suffered its infamous Black Tuesday crash (10/29/1929). Fox had bought most of the stock on margin, meaning that he'd only put up a small percentage of the stock's value in cash, and had his margins called, which required additional cash payments to Loew's shareholders to keep the shares he controlled from being repossessed. While scrambling to borrow enough money to prevent loss of the stock, Fox was involved in a serious car accident, which laid him up for months. He was unable to meet the margin call, and lost everything, dying relatively poor and in obscurity. He was only able to get as far as he did because there was no federal Securities and Exchange Commission, whoch would never let anyone or company try to consolodate an industry to the extent that Fox would have, had he succeeded. Warner's and Paramount weren't involved in any of these machinations, but they would've had a very difficult time competing in an industry so heavily dominated by a Fox-Loew's combine.

Selznick didn't maintain a full-service music department during his years running an independent studio (beyond employing Lou Forbes -- brother of Warner Bros. music director Leo Forbstein -- as his music director). Steiner was, I believe, under contract to RKO in 1936, and Selznick borrowed him from that studio as needed.

What do you expect at 4:30 in the morning?

Even if he was, it wasn't a plot-point, as in THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS.

THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR?

That was a great movie. The hippie stuff had to do with the era when the film was made and the target audience of young adults. Lots of hippies went to see it. They were paranoid about "narks" bugging all their phones, and the anti-war leftists were paranoid about the FBI and CIA bugging their phones. The big joke was, only the phone company (one big company back then) had the power to bug all the phones. Yes, but what I wrote about its predicting the NSA scandal is by way of a rather ironic reversal: in the movie, TPC ("The Phone Company") wants Dr Shaefer (James Coburn) to use his position as the President's psychiatrist to persuade him that TPC should be allowed to implant a phone receiver/ transmitter in the skull of every American, so that everyone will be able to phone anyone instantly and directly (with the obvious byproduct being that TPC will be able to monitor and record everyone's thoughts). In real, 2006 life, it's the President who, in effect, has strong-armed the phone companies into spying for him. OK ! Who said "I'm getting too old for this stuff?" I've heard this line, or some close variant of it, in a dozen or more films. It's hardlyt clever, and wasn't even very clever the first time. O, the sad state of modern screenwriting!

Someone has got to be at the bottom. Well, well, aren't you the little social Darwinist? Marie Antoinette got sent to the guillotine for stating similar sentiments.

The only solution to any of this is for TW to create a TCM II that'll concentrate on newer films of merit (admittedly, not an inexpensive prospect, but the parent company does have extremely deep pockets). The channel could show (relatively) new films in, say, a five-to-one ratio to great classic films that would, one hopes, kindle an interest in those older films in younger audiences who would then be induced to check out the programming on TCM I. This way, those of us who're devoted to the original TCM would feel sure in the knowledge that no one was tinkering with what we've come to love, and TW would have created an inroad into the next generation of film loverfs who'll have to sustain the channel(s) when the rest of us are dead. PS: TCMProgrammer, when are you going to fully exploit all the pre-1948 Paramount films in the package you've leased from Universal (specifically Billy Wilder's FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO)?

What you're not tasking into consideration is that whatever Osborne's guests say in their taped discussions is subject to editing or, in extreme cases, abandonment. If Mr Bogle had said anything of a truly racist or inflammatory nature, it seems certain that the piece wouldn't have run as you saw it. As such, I think you probably are overly sensitive. Presuming that your ancestors weren't brought to this continent in chains, I can only conclude that you don't have an inalienable right to cry 'racism.'

Correct spelling: Rroberto Rossellini, and, yes, he was the husband of Ingrid Bergman, and mother of Isabella and her twin, Isotta, Rossellini.

Warner's continued to assign identification of various films to "Warner Bros.," "Vitaphone" and "First National" depending, in general, on what kind of movie it was, and how important it was for years after they acquired the First National Studio facility in Burbank in 1929 and moved most of their filmmaking activities there. The First National imprint ("A Warner Bros.-First National Picture") lasted well into the 1940s. Warner's actually sold off the First National name in 2002. The company that purchased it in turn sold it to a production company that plans to resurrect the name as a going concern.

No, no, no fault on your part. I got it; I was just trying to turn the joke into something open-ended and un-resolvable, ? la Abbott & Costello's "Formaledhyde' routine.

Alas Ms Warbucks, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was filmed in Anscocolor. Yes and no. The negative was standard Eastmancolor; Ansco made the release prints.

I worked on Sunset Boulevard back in ?77. On day I had lunch at a small cafe across the street from the Warner Brothers studios. There were some studio guys in the cafe and one of them was telling a story about the time Lana was on location filming a movie (I think in Hawaii), and she was staying at a fancy hotel. One of the studio guys said she saw a $5,000 mink coat she liked in a hotel store. The guy said she bought it had had it charged to room service. It should be make clear that at the time you had your lunch, that 12-acre studio lot hadn't belonged to Warner Bros. for 23 years (it was bought by Paramount in 1954, and by Gene Autry in 1965, who used it for his TV station, KTLA, and as a rental facility for filmmaking; in 1985, Autry sold KTLA to the Tribune Co, later the parent of the Los Angeles Times; in 1988, the lot, itself, was sold to Tribune Co.).

Norma's property is worth a lot more at current prices.