Swithin

Filmgoddess, I may disagree with you about a certain city in California, but I totally agree with your post here. Well said!

When older films are shown, there is no difference on my tv between HD and non-HD TCM channels. I get the black space on the sides, which I assume means the aspect ratio is preserved. But a DVD of an old film would film the whole screen, presumably without mucking up the ratio, is that correct? How does that work? With films in other (more modern) ratios, the amount of space above/below depends on the ratio.

Helen, I don't know how this matter got to such a stage for you. You make it sound as if you're bound by some sort of legal agreement! Perhaps, when you got the first PM, you should have cut and pasted it here, rather than let a bully get the better of you. You've been around here a long time, so when you say something like "No one cares what I have to say anyway," it makes me think you've allowed yourself to become the victim of a bully, a bully who should be outed. Perhaps the Moderator could shed some light on this, now that it probably has become one of those threads that's going to grow like Topsy! And I can't imagine that you could get in trouble for anything you've already said. These ain't atomic secrets. So, to answer the question you posed, I would say, either tell us all, or ask Michael to chime in and clarify the situation.

Yes, that's it. Actual title is "Manhattan." Originally written for the show Garrick Gaities (1925), and said to have been introduced in that show by Sterling Holloway. Garrick Gaities was not the first Rodgers & Hart show. Here's an early (rather odd) film version of the song.

A pretty dreadful song, though one that fits its movie, is the title song from Spider Baby (1968), sung by Lon Chaney, Jr. over the opening credits: Screams and moans and bats and bonesTeenage monsters in haunted homes The ghosts on the stair The vampires bite Better beware, there's a full moon tonight Cannibal spiders creep and crawl Boys and ghouls having a ball Frankenstein, Dracula and even the Mummy Are sure to end up in someone's tummy Take a fresh rodent, some toadstools and weeds And an old owl and the young one she breeds Mix in seven legs of an eight-legged beast Then you are all set for a cannibal feast Sit around the fire with the cup of brew A fiend and a werewolf on each side of you This cannibal **** is strange to behold And the maddest story ever told

I said some things about Babes in Toyland which (although they have been part of the conversation about the film for decades) were perceived as provacative (and I understand why). Unlike most films, I knew nothing about the directors of Babes. Sometimes that's a way to get a perspective on a controversial film. For example, Michael Reeves, the director of Witchfinder General, perhaps the most depressing of all films, committed suicide. Not so surprising, if his world-view is reflected in that film. The directors of Babes in Toyland were Gus Meins and Charley Rogers. Rogers directed dozens of Laurel & Hardy films and was probably on the set for their sake. I did not know anything about Gus Meins, who was most likely the main influence on Babes. I found out something very disturbing about him on his Wikipedia entry. I won't repeat it here. But I think a "disturbance" of that nature would be reflected in work like Babes, which is surreal to begin with. I know there are people who just want to take films at face value and not look too deeply. That's their right. To them, Rear Window is a mystery about a man with a broken leg looking out a window, rather than about an impotent voyeur, which is the accepted interpretation. For Hitchcock, too, nothing is what it seems on the surface, and every little symbol has a deeper meaning.

That's it, one of my favorite movies. You're up...

Hey Dargo, that's a good song, but don't you wish this poem from The Loved One had been set to music? They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue; I wept as I remembered how often you and I Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ’tis here you’ll lie; Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a ****, Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.

Here's another good one, originally from the 1953 Broadway show Hazel Flagg, a musical version of the film Nothing Sacred.

No, sorry. Hint for the first part of the clue: A low-calorie beer is called a "..." beer.

*TerrorVision,* with the great *Mary Woronov*, is an excellent example of 80s horror/sci-fi/camp. I saw it in the movies and the audience hooted and hollared at the antics of Mary, as Raquel Putterman, and her family. It's on in the wee hours tonight. I'm not a big fan of TCM showing too many 80s movies, but I will certainly make an exception for high-class product like this! It will be interesting to see how it holds up. Possibilty it needs a wild audience to add to the appreciation of its art.

Thank you for the beautiful photo of the lovely Nanette! I worked with her on a project about ten years ago, she is as generous and sweet as she is talented. I have a nice photo taken with her.

I agree with you, but, with respect, not about that one song, although it is hard not to be moved by it. So many great New York songs. When I was a small boy, my mother would sing "Lullaby of B'way" to me to get me to sleep. I thought it was about me, because of the line, "Manhattan babies don't sleep tight...until the dawn"! Decades later, I produced a series of concerts featuring New York songs, to celebrate the centennial of the 1898 consolidation of the five boroughs as NYC. I dug up every song and piece of instrumental music I could, classical and pop, from The Staten Island Gentleman to The Banks of the Bronx to Spanish Harlem to Give My Regards to the Comden/Green/Bernstein New York New York to Bock/Harnick Little Old New York to The Bowery, etc. But, spiteful, selfish creature that I am, I left out the Kander/Ebb New York New York (but I have to admit it is a rousing tune).

I don't agree. I have a friend from Oklahoma, who retired to Berkeley, CA and was shocked at how the natives there look down on people from elsewhere. He spent his career in NYC and said that people in NYC are not like that. My cousin, who moved to Portland, OR (a city which I love), has also said that he felt that the locals felt that about newcomers. I think in New York we welcome the "tired and poor," as the poem goes, it's just those people who leave their small towns because they feel suffocated there who can be tedious in NY (The "If I can make it there I'll make it anywhere" people). Though we welcome them, too. But the thread is about the song. I don't like that message as the sole sung anthem about the city. I spend alot of time in London, which is in many ways more diverse than NY these days. I find the natives there -- my friends included -- to be far more insular than New Yorkers. And just to get a tiny bit political (but it is relevant, based on your comment), I, and just about every New Yorker I know, supports the most liberal immigration legislation!

Never saw "The Thornbirds." I know alot of Lillian Gish's friends, and I know how simply awful Davis' behavior was to everyone on the set of Whales. But of course that has nothing to do with performance. I look at Stanwyck at film after film and, although I like her, I think, what a fake/false move! I would have to sit there in front of the telly with you to point them out. And I believe she really was always the same. This ain't no Meryl Streep or even Irene Dunne. "It's the same dame!" But a very enjoyable dame nevertheless, in many good movies. We could go on like this forever, and I know I'm SO in the minority here.

I've had to deal with photo copyright alot. You should make an effort to identify the photographer. Sometimes if you can show that if you've really made an effort to locate the photographer/estate, you can use it. Sometimes also how you are going to use it might be an issue. If you were using it in a published book or magazine, for which copies were sold, you should take special care. What do you mean use it in your artwork? That might make a difference. But you should contact photo libraries for advice. A good place to start would be here, even just to ask your general question: http://www.nypl.org/locations/schwarzman/prints-and-photographs-study-room/photography-collection A 1945 photo would not be public domain.

Arturo, I was thinking of Gwenn's '30s films, which Hitchcock certainly would have been familiar with. The Hollywood ones -- are there any more benevolent characters than Mr. Bonnyfeather in Anthony Adverse -- and Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, which defined Gwenn for the public at that time? Hitchcock would also have been familiar with Gwenn's early English films, which were almost all benevolent roles. Interesting point about Bette and her mannerisms. That's what people have been saying about Maggie Smith for years. But I find many of Stanwyck's gestures false, in Golden Boy, to give you an example. It's hard for me to get into the Bette/Barbara discussion, because, despite your criticisms of Bette's "mannerisms," I don't even think there in the same league enough to have a conversation about! But one thing I do agree with you about. Although I don't think Stanwyck was as good as the rest of the posters here, I don't think she was ever really bad.

"It's the same dame." Baby Face with a few bucks is Martha Ivers is Julia Treadway. But it's late, and I'm typing on an iPad now, which is not ideal. Hence my going O.T. to your interesting Miracle on 34th St. post, much of which I agree with. But you say don't watch Gwenn in Foreign Correspondent. In fact, that's one of the things Hitchcock does -- fools us by taking an actor who signifies goodness and sweetness and makes him an assassin. Back to BS: Dare I inject Bette Davis into this: Mildred is NOT Charlotte (twice) is NOT Empress Carlota is NOT Baby Jane is NOT Henriette, etc. It's NOT the same dame.

By hagiography I mean indiscriminate adulation, without looking at the flaws.

Great song, as is "I'll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, too..." I was on jury duty a few years ago, in July, down in Lower Manhattan, and found myself, at lunchtime, walking down Mott Street. And these words from "I'll Take Manhattan" came to me: "and tell me what street, compares with Mott Street in July..."

Good defense, and eloquent. But you defied anyone to say she was always the same after I already said it! Once again, to quote William Demerest in The Lady Eve, "it's the same dame." But I do like her, and love several of her films. I actually don't even like Loretta Young! And it's not easy to temper all the hagiography in this thread, but someone's got to do it!

You got it. "New York, New York" ("Start spreading the news...) is a song for *outsiders,* not for natives. I find it to be a nasty, overly aggressive message about people coming to New York from other parts of the country to express their egomania. The top New York song for me will always be the first song I ever learned, the song that identified NYC in films for decades: "The Sidewalks of New York." When Ralph Bellamy as FDR goes to the podium to nominate Al Smith, at the end of Sunrise at Campobello, and the orchestra plays "The Sidewalks of New York," which ends the movie, it gives me goosebumps. Here it is at the start of a Buster Keaton film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS3znEzH8U8

*Peter Ibbetson* (1935) Next: Eels

As a native New Yorker, I have always disliked the song "New York, New York," from the movie of the same name. I mean the song that begins "Start spreading the news...," not the wonderful Bernstein-Comden-Green "New York, New York," from On the Town.

Fred, I almost agree with you, if not exactly, then at least in principle, that there was a kind of film which represented the beginning of the end of that era. I used to think it was *Green Dolphin Street* (1947), which hearkened back to the great full-rigged films of the '30s, with an amazing cast, including four top character actors: Gladys Cooper, Edmund Gwenn, Frank Morgan, and Dame May Whitty. But now I think the beginning of the (or the actual) end of that era might be *The Last Hurrah* (1958), which on the face of it (and you know by now that I read between the lines) is about politics, but is actually, IMHO, John Ford's homage to the old Hollywood. Spencer Tracy represents the "classic" Hollywood; the other candidate (who uses television for political ads) represents the "modern" age, and the transcendence of television. The scene that furthers that theme is the wake scene -- where Ford gathers many of his old character actors together at a wake -- Ward Bond, Jane Darwell, etc. I see it as Ford's wake for the old Hollywood. So we all have our beginning of the end films, and they are probably different films, but we probably agree that there was a "beginning of the end." There are films made later, which may be in the " old tradition," but they may be exceptions that prove the rule.