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CineSage_jr

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Posts posted by CineSage_jr

  1. A thread about Alan Ladd elsewhere on this site brings to mind the fact that he wasn't Paramount's first choice for the role of Raven, the lead in THIS GUN FOR HIRE (1941), the film that made Ladd a star.

     

    Who was the studio's preferred lead?

  2. Actually, they didn't resemble each other at all. Moreover, Cooper didn't have the physique of an athlete, and it showed.

     

    I've said for years that the only actor who should have played Gehrig was Robert Montgomery. Not only did two men look enough alike to be brothers (though, to be fair, the actor who most looked like Gehrig was Warner Bros. stock player George Tobias), Montgomery was, like Gehrig, from New York City, and had the same urban quality in his streetwise voice, mannerisms and bearing (compared to Cooper's Montana-British upbringing and education).

     

    Montgomery was closer in age to Gehrig (11 months younger, versus Cooper's 25 months older), and had played a boxer in HERE COMES MR JORDAN (1941); there was no questioning his being able to look like an athlete.

     

    I had much the same conversation with Samuel Goldwyn, jr., last year at a screening of the film at the Motion Picture Academy. Not surprisingly, he wasn't inclined to second-guess his father's casting choices sixty-three years later.

     

    Please bear in mind that Montgomery's never been a particular favorite of mine, but when an actor's right for a part, he's right.

  3. Well, obviously ****, or **** (remember "The Noble Mr Alcock" in the wonderful British miniseries, To Serve Them All My Days?).

     

    Of course, the name "Hitchcock" is rather open to **** embellishment, as well.

  4. According to Mervyn LeRoy, in his frankly not too terribly accurate autobiography, Take One, one of the larger lights on the set of I AM A FUGITIVE blew during a take of the last shot. LeRoy said that no one had thought of having Muni's character, Allan James, fade into blackness. When they saw the various takes the in "rushes" the next day, everyone agreed that it lent a special poignancy to the film's conclusion, so they went with it.

     

    As for memorable final moments from films, there're always

     

    The Statue of Liberty towaring over the Charlton Heston and the beach in PLANET OF THE APES.

     

    Joe E. Brown's "Well, nobody's perfect!" line to Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT.

     

    Rex Harrison's "Come, Lucia, you'll never be tired again" (cribbed by James Cameron at the end of TITANIC) to Gene Tierney in THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR.

  5. Very interesting idea. I've always liked McCrea. He's certainly soft spoken enough. As good as the underlying feelings between Ladd and Arthur were they might have been very interesting interactions between with McCrea. I like the way you think.

     

    The problem with Ladd in SHANE (apart from the fact that I think McCrea was a better actor) is that it was probably Ladd's last film as a "pretty boy." Afterward, he seemed to age rather rapidly, but in SHANE he just doesn't seem to physically convey the weariness of the aging gunfighter he's supposed to be, which is, after all, central to Jack Schaefer's tale.

  6. You should call the L.A. County Museum box office at 323-857-6010, and the Motion Picture Academy at 310-247-3600 and ask them what their mail-order policies are (the former accepts credit cards; the latter only takes personal checks and money orders), but both hold tickets at "will call" windows, so they don't have to be mailed to you).

     

    The L.A. County Museum also has a website page devoted to film ticket sales; they're not yet listing THE HEIRESS screening, though tickets are already available):

     

    https://tx1.lacma.org/default.asp

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