CineSage_jr

Kirk Douglas, already a star, had agreed to play Brad Braden, but then his agent asked for more money than the parsimonious DeMille wanted to pay. So, the part went to the little-known Charlton Heston, under contract to producer Hal Wallis, who was based at Paramount. Really unfortunate, as Douglas would have given the film an energy and dramatic focus that the laconic Heston simply didn't have and couldn't provide at that point in his career (and has never had, compared to the tightly-wound intensity that's Douglas's trademark). Dramatically, the film really is as awful as people say, and probably the most inexplicable and undeserving Best Picture Oscar winner in Academy history. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH does have one great merit, though: it provides a priceless filmic record of what the Ringing Brother, Barum & Bailey Circus was like at the midpoint of the 20th century -- not the acts so much as how the circus functioned when it was still under canvas, before the era of the Big Top gave way to that of the Big Arenas, like Madison Square Garden, which sucked away most of the romance and drama of the tent, the very thing that called to the nomad in us all (and who among us has not, at some point in our lives, not dreamt of running away with the circus?). For the circus to truly be The Circus, it must tower over us, and reduce us to the size of small children; in arenas, most of the spectators hover above it, with the acts reduced to the size and scale of postage stamps. If you ever have the oppotunity to see THE GREATEST HOW ON EARTH on the Big Screen, only there does the circus continue to tower, and make children of us all.

I found Alec Baldwin to be among the most pretentious and self-conscious Guest Programmers on TCM. It was obvious that he was trying VERY hard to show everyone what a knowledgable and deep-thinking "cinema scholar" he is.....and he failed miserably. I can't believe that Robert Osborne was able to keep a straight face during some of Baldwin's "insightful" comments....but then, knowing Baldwin's volatile temper, poor Robert was probably afraid to do ANYTHING that could set Baldwin off! What an obvious political rant this is on the part of you two. Baldwin's comments were more on-the-money than most of the other "Guest Programmers'" were by at least half a notch.

A Happy Thanksgiving, without a showing of PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE??? Sack the entire programming staff first thing Friday morning.

No, it's not Bronson.

Swanson, it is. Cooper? No way!

Bronson is not in the movie.

Once, I was in California, and I told a lady I was from Chicago. She said, "Wow! I've never been that far east!" I said, "Um, Chicago's in the midwest." She knew that. But I still thought it was funny. Of course, no trip was complete without the inevitable, DON'T TELL ME! YOU'RE A *****CUB FAN! The lady didn't say that Chicago was in the East, only that it was east of California, and farther east than, say, Denver, or, Rapid City, South Da-KO-tah (as our Mr Vandamm was wont to say it).

You are the most annoying person on this board--and also one of the worse spellers - I will never read another word you write as I am going to join the others who have you on their ignore list -And by the way I spelled it right. I asked you a legitimate question, since it wasn't clear whether you were referring to June Haver, or June Havoc. You spelled June Haver's name correctly only after I pointed out that you'd misspelled it, and obviously went back to correct your previous posting (I copied and pasted that posting into the top of my own, so that misspelling reflects accurately your error). It's extraordinarily dishonest of you to do that and then claim that you got it right on the first try. And I am "one of the worst spellers?" Not in the space-time continuum in which all six-billion known Earth people live, sweetie.

You remind me of the apoplectically incoherent peanut salesman in DUCK SOUP, after Harpo gets through with him. HONK, HONK!

Really? Did either of you have any Bad Days there?

You're like a rat in a maze that just can't find the cheese, fella.

In the scene, an airline name, Northwest, can be seen in the background. And since a trip to South Dakota (Mt. Rushmore) from NYC would be in a very slight northerly direction, and since we never know which airline he and Carroll do get on, it could very well have been Northwest. So he would be going "North by Northwest." LOL! This may be the most outrageous example of a product endoresment in a film, getting it right in the title (no, probably "Boeing, Boeing" may be the most blatant). The wide gap in your reasoning is that the plane is waiting to take off not from Idyllwild International Airport (now known as JFK Int'l) in New York City, but at O'Hare Airport (though I suppose it could also be Midway Airport) in Chicago (remember that Roger Thornhill leaves NYC on the 20th Century Limited train, on which he meets Eve Kendall; it's only after returning to Eve's hotel from the crop-duster episode that he follows her to the auction house, arranges to have himself arrested and, instead of being taken to police headquarters, is driven to the airport by the cops).

Some of you are thinking I'm pushing the issue too far. But I've run across people who think Wisconsin is on the East Coast. Wisconsin is, as everyone knows, on the Cheesed Coast.

End the bold by [/bee] (drop the two "ees," just use the "b").

Could the clip be June Havor singing 'Hello My Baby' in blackface from the film I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now? Don't mean to critcize, but because of the above spelling, I'm not sure whether you're referring to June Haver, or June Havoc (you're caught right in the middle, between the spelling of the two -- very different -- ladies' names).

Thanks, Frank, you're very kind. I just posted another comment about CASABLANCA that you may wish to read: http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=117221&tstart=0 As for OMAR KHAYYAM, I'm not saying it's a particularly good movie (how good was any Y. Frank Freeman, jr.-produced film?), but it's colorful and a bit different, though it descends from the aforementioned philosophizing into a standard melodramatic adventure story. It does have a first-rate cast and a very nice Victor Young score, though.

Oooohhh, that's clever! Thirteen years of education at public expense, and that's all you can come up with. PS: It should be "deleted word," not "depleted."

When Kong climbs the first building and sees the woman with the dark hair sleeping, he reaches in and grabs her. Seeing it is not Ann Darrow, he lets her go and she falls. While I have seen this scene so often before, I never felt the real horror of the scene. I mean, here is a woman peacefully sleeping. She never suspects in her slumber that in a few seconds, she will be awakened as a giant ape's hand grabs her, will be pulled out of the window far above the street below and then will be dropped to her death. Could anything be so horrible as to be asleep, then wake to incredible fright, then die all in a few seconds, without a chance to even think about it? That was not only true horror back then, it still is today. I couldn't agree more. The implications are indeed nightmarish and awful. Interestingly, the censors later cut some of Kong's mayhem against the natives on Skull Island (eating one unfortunate soul, and trampling another into the ground), but left in the last moments on earth of the Sleeping Woman. One might question the curious selectivity in their reasoning. The second time I saw CHEYENNE AUTUMN I noticed something ... there is a scene where the Cheyenne are breaking camp, drums are beating, and Gilbert Roland (as a Cheyenne leader) is babbling something to Carroll Baker .. and while all this is going on, a horse walking in the background decides to relieve himself. Hey, you can't buy authenticity like that.

You can type in the commands, yourself. The problem is, if I type them here, the form executes them, making the explanations bold, italicized, or underlined. Suffice it to say that the commands b for bold, i for italics, and u for underline should be within brackets -- [], with the end-command adding a slash within brackets [/]

With me, it was OMAR KHAYYAM, still one of my guilty-pleasure movies (an Arabian Nights movie without genies, magic lamps or flying carpets, and a philosophical bent). If it's part of the post-1948 package of films TCM's leased from Paramount, I wish they'd finally get around to showing it (it used to play all the time on the old AMC).

No, they didn't: the 1982 TV movie version had a score by British composer Laurence Rosenthal.

Devlin isn't a bad guy, he's just got an unpleasant job to do; the stakes are very high, and the consequences of his not doing that job as it needs to be done (Nazis with nukes) are too dire to allow the feelings, or well-being, of Alicia to enter into the equation. It's the genius of Ben Hecht and Hitchcock to draw Sebastian so sympathetically in the writing and casting, making him a sort of red-herring that places Devlin's machinations in a deliberately stark and unflattering light. It is, in a sense, a kind of fake casting-against type.

Boy, are you sensitive. You know, I don't need an "ignore" feature on this site to ignore you; it comes naturally.

"Seven Brides for Seven Butchers" is obviously the musical adaptation of MARTY. The film would've actually been far more interesting and dynamic if it had been "Six Brides for Seven Brothers."

The film would've actually been far more interesting and dynamic if it had been "Six Brides for Seven Brothers."