Tikisoo
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Posts posted by Tikisoo
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>Another fave...the 1924 Ennis House, best known from The House On Haunted Hill (1959)
Also used in the forgettable "Rocketeer" movie. It's a later Frank Lloyd Wright house....his "Aztec" period after his better known "Prairie" period that made him famous. It's great seeing the location in that first photo-way up high above the city. They always seem smaller in person.
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Well I too recall seeing an older movie about the Molly Maguires on TCM, just don't recall the particulars. Not the silent one either, more the 40's/50's as the OP states.
I *had* to see it since one of my best friends, an historian from PA named her youngest daughter Molly Maguire (like Mary Ann) with a 3 syllable Jewish last name. 10 year old Molly-Maguire joked, "I'm the only Irish person in my family"
So I know there is such a movie, but all internet searches come up with the 1970 film.
And Sayle's Matewan is an *excellent* film. I visited the town soon after seeing the movie. The bullet holes are still embedded in the brick building.
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It's amazing when you see this house in person....it's just a 3 sided fa?ade. You can't believe something so fake looks "real" in the movie.
From my earlier post you can see visiting film locations is a big hobby of mine. Somewhere I have a great photo standing in front of the millionaire's castle used in The Fisher King. Another fa?ade dressed up to look like a real dwelling.
And The Timberland Lodge from The Shining is very historic & very real, although they stupidly erected an ugly concrete block storage building in front, ruining the visual impact.
The Double Indemnity house is real, as is the house the Martini's bought in It's A Wonderful Life...
I think the Sunset Blvd house has been torn down.
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I'm with misswonderly (as usual) as I rarely read anything via computer, but this piece was excellent! Ah, us ole people!
A very well written editorial that explains my feelings better than I could, and I've only read halfway through. I already kept this paragraph:
>"The audience goes because the movies are there, not because anyone necessarily loves them. My friends? attitudes are defined so completely by the current movie market that they do not wish to hear that movies, for the first eighty years of their existence, were essentially made for adults. Sure, there were always films for families and children, but, for the most part, ten-year-olds and teens were dragged by their parents to what the parents wanted to see, and this was true well after television reduced the size of the adult audience. The kids saw, and half understood, a satire such as Dr. Strangelove, an earnest social drama such as To Kill a Mockingbird, a cheesy disaster movie such as Airport, and that process of half understanding, half not, may have been part of growing up; it also laid the soil for their own enjoyment of grown-up movies years later. They were not expected to remain in a state of goofy euphoria until they were thirty-five. My friends think that our current situation is normal. They believe that critics are na?ve blowhards, but it is they who are na?ve."
Kid's films used to be a niche, now it's taken over and that's a huge reason why adults just aren't interested in going to the theater anymore.
I wonder if there's ever a shift back to charactor & story driven films, if audiences will make movie going a habit again?
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Interesting point RMeingast.
Isn't there something incredibly scary about being attracted to the guy/gal you know is dangerous? I guess the idea of repulsive vampires to beautiful vampires was originally Bela's doing. He is not only handsome, but suave and commanding...something consistent in portrayals of Dracula, until the added tragedy of Ann Rice vampires.
That just goes to show you the power and impact of a great performance that simply defines the charactor forever. Has there EVER been a wicked with that's not green with a cackley voice?
Please don't forget sexy Chris Sarandon as a vampire in Fright Night-
or my personal favorite Frank Langella, who still turns me on in a big way-
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So few film houses are real, the rooms look big & airy because they're only 2 sided!
A very real house used in a movie was Jean Simmon's house in Home Before Dark filmed in historic Marblehead Massachusetts. I've taken lots of screen shots and compared them with modern shots as the town never changes, just the trees got bigger in 60 years.
She lived in the circa 1731 Lafayette House:
And here's me & my salty dog standing in the corner:
We're still trying to figure out if the interiors were filmed inside-something about the doors & staircases don't seem quite right. But it's a gorgeous home worth over a million dollars even though it doesn't have a yard!
The house I live in IS like The Haunting house....very old & creepy with lots of cobwebs, heh.
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>Markfp said: It may suprise a lot of people here, but those of us who prefer to watch movies uncut and commercial free are in the minority. The vast majority of TV viewers grew up with commercials and frankly just they don't think twice about it.
It's amazing to me anyone *tolerates* commercials and many people actually enjoy them!
I'm often bombarded with silly catchphrases that are met with my blank stare because I've never seen the commercial it's from. People will say, "Have you seen the one...." and I reply, "I don't watch commercials" and they retort, "What about THIS one?" and I have to repeat my answer because they simply cannot comprehend the idea.
And willbefree, maybe we're not ignoring you, maybe there just aren't a lot of Firefox users. Glad you found out, though....it's been going on for years.
My question is, does anyone have the rights for IAWL 35mm screenings? Is that (or even DVD projection) "public domain"?
I drag the family out every year for the 35mm holiday screenings hoping eventually they'll catch the bug for it!
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Well, thank you very much for agreeing with me that TCMs "intros" are less than great. People think I'm a curmudgeon for disliking them and often think I'm dissing R.O.
The intros are awful because they often just tell who's in the film, the basic plotline and pedestrian stuff. Heck, I already KNOW that, I read the program. And worse if they are INCORRECT!
Most of us already know basic Hollywood history such as who was married to whom, or that the film was made right before WW2, or that Gene Kelly broke his ankle so Fred Astaire came out of retirement..
I definitely prefer more in depth intros that give some backround story of the making of the film; a star's career at the time and how the movie fit into that, or difficult choices the director may have made. The outros may be some reflecting tidbit about the set/effects/choices made.
When I first attended Cinefile Society screenings, I'd be confused by the intros, (Who's Harry Cohn? What do you mean typical MGM? What's poverty row?) but I just sat tight & listened. I'm proud to say 10 years later, I absolutely follow the introduction and 99% of what is told is an interesting revelation about the film we're about to see.
(except when talking about Marilyn, Judy or the Marx Bros...what a know it all)
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>Dothery said: I have Frank Capra's book, "The Name Above the Title," and I would highly recommend it to any fan of his movies. It's fascinating.
Yes, it is a fascinating read, but I understand that's because much of it is fantasy.
Don't get me wrong-I love Capra and he led a very interesting life and accomplished many things. But as it's an autobiography, you must take it with a grain of salt. Point of view may be skewed and memories embellished over time.
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I'm glad people recognise Savini & his talents. I have my own Tom Savini story:
He once visited a museum I worked in. I was more interested in him as a "cute guy" than as a Hollywood special effects guy but immediately knew my disadvantage, never having seen his work. I 'splained, "I just can't watch gory bloody scary movies."
So he told me to rent Friday The 13th at my local video store (yeah, that long ago) and watch it with the sound off. He said you won't get involved in the story and you'll see the effects as we do- a technical art.
He was 100% right. I also realized how manipulative the special effects can be. It was my first horror film and I can brave most any of them these days.
Thanks Tom!
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Someone recently asked what was the first Zombie movie made? I thought White Zombie with Bela Lugosi from the 30's was the earliest I remembered seeing.
This week I went to a local "Zombiegeddon" screening of three great zombie movies spanning from '72 to 2012.
I noticed these zombies are now dead people craving human flesh, attacking, killing & eating their victims.
This is a far cry from the Voodoo idea of zombies being benign drones raised from the dead to silently do a master's bidding in earlier films.
Discussing this concept with a fellow Cinefile, we wondered when this shift of definition came about? His guess was Night Of The Living Dead in '69 was the first "flesh eating" zombie movie.
Any authorities on the genre out there to confirm this?
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>Sepia said: I don't understand the music choices in the film either. That "mock-rock" you all know by now that I can't stand.
Heh, I forgot about that. I hate the rolling romantic piano over Humbert's confessions of love for Lolita after she's married. It's just so over the top.
>Bild said: His creepiness was of a clinical rather than a gross kind, and he's such a learned and witty narrator that he draws readers in to sympathize with him
Exactly. In the aforementioned tearful "confession" scene, you realize he is hopelessly caught in an unattainable fantasy, like an underdeveloped adolescent. Like I stated earlier, the lunatics running the asylum.
Notice in this scene Lolita dons horn rimmed glasses like a professor?
And wasn't Shelly Winters murdered in this one too? (drowned in both Place In The Sun & Night of the Hunter) It certainly taught me at a young age not to be a whining complaining demanding wife!
(And you'll always read "Bildge" to me. Glad you're not an impostor!)
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>Bildwasser said: And in the book, Lolita is no innocent. This doesn't excuse Humbert's behavior in any way of course.
Exactly. I see the story as pretty tragic for the adults involved. It reminds me of the phrase, "the lunatics are running the asylum".
And the music chosen to emphasize important scenes always strikes me as strange. But I still love Kubrick and his interpretation of the story.
(Why'd you change your name from Bilge?)
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Of course Robert Osborne prefers attending film festivals and cruises to taping tiresome intros/outros, wouldn't you?
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>Sepiatone said: I'm sad to report, expano, that it was only recently I found out Bob Einstein and Albert Brooks were BROTHERS!
And did you further know their father was Parkyakarkus?
>TopBIlled's one line OP in May to start this thread: Who are the best character actors?
Wouldn't you like to give others a chance to respond with THEIR contributions? Several charactors you are now posting photos of (& quoting) were already mentioned earlier.
I am under the impression message boards are a place to open conversations with others....not just respond to your own questions.
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OK, I ponder this question a LOT while I'm working on old antiques...what life was like then they were first worked on....
Although I love the clothes/cars/horses/houses of the earliest 3 decades of this century, I don't think I would have liked living then. Stories I hear about employment, how guys would go from shop to shop looking for a job, women taking in laundry, etc. No social security, no epa, filthy work conditions, etc. Not fun.
I think the "golden" time for the recent US (really, you can only compare decades we are familiar with) is Dargo's time.
Anyone born right after WW2 has had the best opportunities. That's when owning your own home became the standard. You could get an education inexpensively and if you worked hard find a "lifetime" employer. And most retirees receive SS plus pension and some take jobs on top of that!
The opportunities in the entertainment field were open, you wouldn't believe how many autobiographies I've read where talented people "fell" into a defining gig. Nowadays, the bottleneck is full of all sorts vying for the one coveted position of "star".
The developments made in health care in the past 20 years are staggering. And aging baby boomers are benefitting from that too.
I hate seeing the strains put on kids these days-there are 50 kids to a class and no teacher guidance. Most kids have one parent and very little emotional stability from family. They are told by the media they are "sexy" and they "need" to have every electronic gizmo. The job market sucks now, what's it going to be like when my kid graduates? Again, there's too many people out there for each job.
The biggest difference I see for baby boomers and the present generation is security: financial as well as emotional. And those of us born in between (like my family 1961-70) it's been a sliding scale downward.
So the greatest decade to live in is right now, especially if you're a senior citizen.
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>yancy said: Robert Osborne leaving TCM, which will happen at some point, might alter my viewing habits to some degree since I enjoy him as much as the movies. My evening tv viewing will definitely be different without him.
Really?
Well see, this is why I enjoy the message boards. What I don't give a whit about, someone else may feel very strongly about. Reading other opinions helps round out my view.
While I really like the idea of a TV "movie host" and think Osborne & Mankeiwicz do a good job hosting, nothing they ever say interests me. But I'm glad to know others enjoy them so much.
Also, it's "wean" as in taking a baby off mother's milk, not "ween" as in "loser".
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>Tom said: any theory about Bette Davis having unrequited feelings for Errol Flynn, either during his lifetime or afterward, is pure fantasy
>Hibi said: In reference to another post I dont believe Bette had the hots for Errol Flynn at all.........
You're both taking the idea seriously, as in "real love".
I could absolutely believe Bette would come on to Errol in hopes of some sort of physical affair as a *power play.* If she could be in some sort of offscreen sexual liason with the leading man, he might be more apt to give her better support instead of hogging all the limelight for himself.
And all eyes go to Errol when he's on the screen (easily overshadowing Vincent Price who has similar screen presence) and I'm sure Bette could sense that power. Back then it was more common for wimmen to use their sexual prowess to gain strategic control-and Bette was most definitely a woman who needed power to perform.
2 years ago I was Bette Davis as Baby Jane for Halloween and wore that fun make up with a baby doll dress & carried a 14" rubber rat. Sadly, most people thought I was a demented prom queen, they didn't recognise the charactor.
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I thought I was the only person who had The Psychotronic Film Guide, Addison. Not the best book, but definitely gathers oddball movies.
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Oooo, I like your emoticon source! (thank you!)
>I am sorry to say that I am so jaded that I believe such a job would quickly be handed down to Maltin's subordinates.
I don't think so. If they just HIRE someone truly qualified to do the job, that person would do it. It's not THAT hard for a true professional writer.
The Leonard Maltin Guide, yes, I can see how that easily gets "farmed out". It's 3-4 sentences for thousands of films. But I'll betcha he writes all of his reviews and commentary when filmed for documentaries and DVD extra features.
Writing copy for Robert Osborne/TCM is a serious gig, not "routine".
>finance wrote: Where's your message boards loyalty? A number of people on these boards could do a good job
I have zero board loyalty. If you ever met our film society president and heard just ONE of his film intros, you'd see the difference.
We're hobbyists....the two people I suggested are professionals who actually possess knowledge of classic film history AND are fantastic speakers. You have to be an eloquent speaker yourself to write successfully for other people.
Don't get me wrong, I like Osborne. But I think his interest in writing his own intro/outro just isn't there. He's happy to be the front man and read whatever's given to him-and often doesn't catch the errors. (remember-he's an ACTOR for the most part)
Therefore I think TCM should just hire a professional writer with a full knowledge of film history. Simplest route to success.
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Congrats Polecat....I haven't seen you posting as regularly as in the past & missed you! Ah, shades of the CANADIAN thread a few years ago...
Recently heard a day of tribute to Julia Child on NPR and Akroyd's SNL portrayal was highlighted. Not only did Julia LOVE the sketch, but it was said Dan's mother was the "Julia Child of Canada" with her own very popular TV cooking show.
I love Capuchin's "doomsday" line up. I think the day may have been chosen to coincide with the whole Mayan calendar "end of the world" date coming up Dec 20th-the 21st being "survivor day". Too bad no On The Beach, which is my personal favorite apocalyptic movie.
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Uh oh, I hope this does not begin a board argument....
>I am sorry to say I believe this would not be a good solution. The synopses in Leonard Maltin's reviews often contain errors. I see little benefit to changing the source of the introductory scripts from TCM's lackeys to Leonard Maltin's lackeys.
I suggested Leonard Maltin and/or the president of my film group. NOT a staff that works for them on publishing movie guides.
>The number of movies aired on TCM is so large that no one person could know all of them. The copywriter would often have to watch the movie before beginning their writing.
Both of the people mentioned do not see the TCM library as "vast". They are familiar with a large body of films which is why I suggested them. In fact, both of those people are "familiar" with rarities you & I most likely have never seen or heard of.
With an oddball film they're not familiar with, sure, they'd watch it first. It's part of the job.
Also realize, they would not synopsize the film (as in the guide), but instead talk about what's interesting to note about the film. And yes, our President researches via reliable sources, not the internet like the "lackeys".
In essence, they would be the copy editor. Maltin may be expensive, or he may not-you never know until you inquire.
OTOH the President of our film group (or any real knowledgeable film historian) would most likely be less expensive to hire and not perpetuate common mistakes.
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>Addison said: Personally, I just like Osborne, (the intro/outros) are... stale, they're not funny, they're not insightful, they re-hash *** we've heard too many times, and they have been riddled with innacuracies both minor and less-than-minor
And I have to agree. I like Osborne, he is a great MC. He looks handsome (what a wardrobe!) and has a personable demeanor. What comes out of his mouth is a diffferent matter.
What would be the solution is for TCM to just HIRE one person to write the intro/outros-someone with real film knowledge.
I can think of two perfect candidates off hand, Leonard Maltin or the president of my film group. Both have great knowledge of film and know exactly what a seasoned cinefile would be interested to hear.
As a public speaker myself, I have found no value in "talking to the lowest common denominator" but instead to "elevate" any newcomer in the field by covering a more technically detailed subject-in a simple to follow way.
The only restriction is keeping the into/outro to 2 minutes of text! Not an easy thing to do, but it can be mastered with practice.
C'mon TCM, don't your viewers deserve a little professionalism? Everything else is top notch: your sets, your MC, your promos, your programming....
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OK I know it's a re-make of Red Dust which some will argue is superior, but I want to know your thoughts on Mogambo as a film.
After seeing bits & pieces of it I finally watched the entire movie last night and was hugely disappointed. There was no attempt to blend "Hollywood Africa" and "Authentic Africa" scenes-the transition in lighting & staging was jarring. It can be done better, we know it can, it just seems like the director didn't bother trying.
As for the director, I have tried my darndest to like John Ford's work. Overall, I find his directing heavy handed and often inappropriate in close vs wide shots.
Specifically in this movie, both the female leads (Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner) seem "coached" as if in a high school play. I know both actresses have talent, they've given subtle and strong performances in other films. But in Mogambo, Kelly overacts and is cloyingly silly in the introduction scenes. No woman would act like she did in the tent with her husband. Oh, unless she was 16.
And poor Ava Gardner is so forced and over-the-top you can't believe her for one minute. She's like a cartoon charactor. She's usually so smooth, even if her charactor is rattled.
Did John Ford hate women? The female portrayals in Mogambo really seem forced and juvenile, not typical for those actresses. But as usual, Gable was relaxed and commanding. He seems the only one to escape Ford's heavy handling.
Kevin Kline to portray Errol Flynn
in General Discussions
Posted
Um, no.
Sorry about the size of that last photo...it's been my desktop picture for 3 months now and think it captures Flynn's essence. Although Kline's a fine actor, I doubt he's good enough to convince me he's Flynn.