CineSage_jr

> {quote:title=hamradio wrote:}{quote} > I think this might be slightly off topic but I'm at home couldn't go to work today due to local flooding and I have watched on my local programming channel "Network West Virginia" an episode of a series I've never seen before "Racket Squad, One More Dream". Its kind of funny to think people could be that gullable to be suckered by that hypnosis scam. LOL! > It was made in 1952 and Philip Morris cigarettes sponsered it. They mentioned be sure to watch "My Little Margie" - another unknown series to me. > > The other old series which I've have only seen about 4 episodes but not this one "Dragnet" 1953 with Jack Webb and Ben Alexander. It involved a hit and run driver that killed a lady and child. I think the episode is named "Borrowed Power" It involved a borrowed delivery truck. > > Has anyone watched these old TV series during the 1950's and your thoughts on them. > > At least its more enjoyable then going down the street and watching this I remember Racket Squad, with Reed Hadley, from re-runs in the 1960s, and My Little Margie from the tail-end of the 1950s. I don't remember having any particular fondness for either; they were typical, throw-away entertainment vehicles of their time. As for the 1987 DRAGNET film, Jack Webb did not have a hand in writing the script. He received a screen credit for the use of the scripts to which he contributed in the 1950s and '60s. And there's no way the movie could ever have been "played straight"; the DRAGNET series always played like some weird form of Kabuki Theater, anyway, but you do have to give Webb credit: even back then he was a smart enough man to understand that his dramatic choices were considered rather peculiar and over-the-top, even then, but he did them anyway, in spite of what his colleagues and critics may have said about the show.

STAGECOACH didn't so much "revive" the Western (since Hollywood was always cranking out B-product at a furious pace), but made it clear to studios that there was money to be made in A-level films in the genre.

> {quote:title=myidolspencer wrote:}{quote} > WOW, it appears this has kinda' gotten out of hand. But, to the individual that said what I only reported on was "rubbish" I've been covering all things movie related almost 30 years now. What do you mean by "covering?" That implies that you're some kind of journalist, though it's hard for me to imagine that you've ever been paid to write since you specialize in impenetrable run-on sentences, and have apparently never considered breaking up those unreadable sentences into even moderately-organized paragraphs. No sensible person ever pays good money for that.

I suspect that the cue to which you refer was written by Waxman.

That's Sage, Polecat.

The reason you can't find it is that it's invisible, for cryin' out loud!

Not a very good solution at all, considering what a botch Fox has made of their own channel. Even if Universal had an inventory of great movies (they don't; that studio has always been in the business of making bad-to-mediocre films, with only a relative handful being of substantial merit. Most of the really fine films they now own were bought from Paramount), a channel's only going to be as good as the people running it, and the budget they're given to implement their vision.

> {quote:title=lzcutter wrote:}{quote}> I guess I'm the contrary one here. I'm really glad that Capra retired after *Pocketful of Miracles*. His type of film would have become increasingly out of step as the 1960s progressed. One thing to keep in mind, take some of Capra's autobiography with a grain of salt. He was a man with some grudges and axes to grind when he wrote it. > > As for Wilder, I'm glad he kept making movies after *Kiss Me Stupid*. I love the *Private Life of Sherlock Holmes* and would rather put up with *Fedora* and *Avanti* than not have that one. I think that something as innately dark as IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (though, perhaps, with the more appropriate and believable Saturday Night Live "ending") is quite timeless, and would be embraced by modern sensibilities if it were a new film (remember, it was not well-received in its day). Re Wilder's films, you're absolutely right about THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; it is, arguably, his masterpiece, and certainly the most personal film he ever made, though I think you're just as wrong about AVANTI!. Though way too long (the longest film Wilder ever made, in fact, with a performance by Jack Lemmon that's a bit too strident and shrill), I think it's a neglected minor classic. Perhaps you think it a bit too sweet a film from someone whose trademark curare-tipped arrows have found their way to your heart.

Should Charles Boyer, a Frenchman, have played a Romanian (in HOLD BACK THE DAWN)? Or Robert Wagner, a German-American, played a Greek-American in BENEATH THE TWELVE-MILE REEF? Or Irish-American J. Carroll Naish played every ethnicity known to man (except, ironically enough, in nearly 500 films, an Irishman)? The point is not -- acting ability aside -- the ethnicity of who plays the character, but how much innate dignity the actor invests in the performance. From a purely dramatic standpoint, all characters must have that sense of dignity, of their own place in the universe and justification for their subsequent actions, if those characters are to be multi-dimensional and believable. Without that dignity, character descends into caricature, a fate from which an actor's being of the same ethnicity as the character will not save it.

Which is why, for many years, MGM films had the worst sound in Hollywood. PS: David Niven's two sons are David, Jr, and Jamie.

I'd call RIDING HIGH (Capra's remake of his own 1934 BROADWAY BILL) and HERE COMES THE GROOM less than satisfying, too, and Capra made them in the early 1950s.

I met him once; a sweet man, not very unlike the characters he generally played.

Firstly, Mr Farr, THE GUNFIGHTER was issued last year as part of the Fox Westerns box. Secondly, THE AFRICAN QUEEN has been restored and will be a special edition DVD, with copious bonus materials, later this year. Thirdly, public domain titles are always problemamtical, either because no one knows where first rate picture and sound elements are, or the owners of those elements see no finiancial reward in restoring them and issuing DVDs since other companies have every legal right to issue the same film on disc at a fraction of the cost and for a fraction of the price a profitable version made from the best elements would command at retail.

Charlie Brackett and Iz Diamond were Wilder's two long-term collaborators, but there were several others for shorter periods, among whom were Raymond Chandler, Walter Newman, Wendell Mayes, Lesser Samuels and Harry Kurnitz.

> {quote:title=hlywdkjk wrote:}{quote} > But what I don't get is why GE, if it sells off NBC/Universal, would want to become primarily a Financial Services Company - 'cause that's pretty much all they'll have left. Being in the "debt business" sounds extremely foolish these days. > GE is the nation's largest defense contractor; as long as they maintain their incestuous relationship with crooked politicians willing to lie to get this country into wars, and keep us on a permanent war-footing, GE's profitability is assured. As for Universal, a better analogy to its fate is what happened to MGM after it was bought by Ted Turner, who kept only the film library and then immediately sold off the studio lot to Lorimar Telepictures (later acquired by the then-Warner Communications). And bear in mind that Universal's land is worth far more than MGM's was...

> {quote:title=markfp2 wrote:}{quote} > If the deal went through, I doubt that either of the studios would close. They both seem to be doing well with tv productions and studio rentals to independent producers. I would be surprised if either of them had the room to do the work of both. If anything, the deal could make them stronger. Take for example, the two great studios in England, Pinewood and Shepperton. When they merged a few years ago there was talk of closing one of them, but today they are both thriving under the same ownership. Let's just wait and see what happens before anyone panics. Oh, and let's not believe all the rumors on the internet either. This is a very poor analogy, as Shepperton anbd Pinewood are, and have always been, studio facilities for hire, and not in the business of actually conceiving, producing and distributing films of their own, which is what Universal has been doing (even if it's specialized in making bad-to-mediocre films, with the occasional quality production slipping through every now and then) since 1912.

See yourself as the daughter, or the "real" man?

This is rubbish. There is no "battle" between TCM and AMC any more than there's a "battle" between the Food Network and the Golf Channel. If AMC has a natural cometitotr, it's TNT or TBS, not TCM. Stop spreading such silly rumors that have no basis in fact.

> {quote:title=TikiSoo wrote:}{quote} > > {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote} > I very much like the ending; tragic for the romance, but successful for morality. The "adventure" shows they are not really so different inside and the thoughtfulness & respect shown for each other in the ending bridges their two classes. The ending's hardly "tragic," merely bittersweet. And I wouldn't characterize the Princess's decision as one of morality, but of duty, even though the film makes plain early-on in the expository set-up that establish her chracter and her reason for instigating the events around which the movie's whole second act revolve, that she's fed up with having to fulfill that duty, even before meeting Joe Bradley (it's the reason, of course, for her slipping out of her country's embassy to go on her escapade). The point the film makes is one of an irreconcilable conflict: she's rebellious toward the duties her station in life have thrust upon her because she's still young and immature; her time spent "on the lam" in Rome with Bardley then, inevitably, mature her, but that very maturity just as inevitably makes her realize that her duties to King and Country transcend any feelings she may have toward Joe, or her own longing and ambitions, however genuine they may be. In this, ROMAN HOLIDAY's ending is true and honest, unlike the one to IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, in which the runaway heiress's plutocrat father (Walter Connolly) is delighted that his daughter (Claudette Colbert), badly in need of a "real" man to tame her flightiness, rejects the equally-spoiled playboy, King Westley (Jameson Thomas) in favor of honest, down-to-earth reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable). The Pollyanna happy ending of the Capra/Riskin film really doesn't sit as well as the one to Wyler and Dalton Trumbo's film. Bittersweet it may be, but it's entirely appropriate, necessary and satisfying.

Very good, not great. About 15 minutes too long, and Gregory Peck is miscast, forcing newcomer Audrey Hepburn to carry the whole movie (which is, when one thinks about it, just a pleasant rehash of Capra's IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT). Fortunately, she was good enough to do just that, but one can't count on that happening every time.

You might just chalk it up to THE LONGEST DAY's not being a particularly good movie. PS: It's Field Marshal Rommel (one "L"; the surname, Marshall, contains two "L's").

Maybe because it's obvious that only a xenophobic paranoiac would have written what you wrote below, and that I was only boiling that down to its essence.

FXM last showed it about four months ago.

"Anti-Anglo propaganda???" Just what kind of xenophobic paranoiac are you, anyway (especially since Henry II, and his Angevin Dynasty, were more Norman French than English, anyway)? James Goldman's wonderful script is merely an embellishment on history (and no more so than Shakespeare's historical dramas), in short the story of a very dysfunctional family, reunited for the Christmas holidays, circa 1182 AD. PS: That Cliff Robertson won the Best Actor Oscar for, of all things, the treacly CHARLY, over Peter O'Toole's Henry II is one of the great injustices in Academy-voting history.

> {quote:title=HollywoodGolightly wrote:}{quote} > > {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote} > > That's certainly true in the case of T.E. Lawrence: at the end of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA you really don't know any more about why he did the things he did than you knew before the film began but, as the saying goes, it's all about the journey (which all dramatic stories are, after all), and not the destination. > > I don't know about that, CineSage. After watching Lawrence dozens of times, including many 70mm engagements, I think I have a pretty good idea why he did the things he did. But to try to put it into words could take me ages. You may think you do, but nobody can. The character was meant to be maddeningly mysterious, just as the film was meant to be deliberately obscure and imprecise. Anybody who thinks, "Ah! Lawrence decided to enlist criminals in his brigade, and slaughter the entire Turkish column because he earlier had to execute Gassim after rescuring him from the Nefud Desert, and was later sodomized by the Turkish Bey" is simply barking up the wrong tree, and looking for answers where none were provided. LAWRENCE is a film that just as deliberately eschews the usual cause-and-effect that propels most dramas. SCHINDLER tries to do that too but, as the people who made it haven't the talent of those responsible for the earlier film, they don't quite pull it off. As a result, T.E. Lawrence is, and remains, a compelling mystery, whereas Oskar Schindler is merely a cipher.