Swithin

Helen Jerome Eddy as Amah in Frisco Jenny has one of the most heart-breaking scenes in any movie: burning the newspaper clippings at the very end of the film.

Wasn't that a movie already, with Mamie Van Doren? "The college goes wild, the battle of the sex kittens begins..."

I used to think the old Braves team was a great team -- the one with Aaron, Alou, Torre, Carty, et. al. As a New Yorker who grew up near Yankee Stadium and used to love to go to games, I have lost my enthusiasm. When a local team wins, there's too much fuss, it's almost like a football game in the North of England. And I don't like fuss on the Sidewalks of New York! But -- to get back to movies -- I think Damn Yankees is one of the great modern (i.e. post-1950) musical movies.

You are right, that's sort of my point. So in the absence of a legal obligation, perhaps a moral one could have been applied: they could have said this is causing a great deal of distress, so we're taking it down, as we are allowed to.

There is a difference. YouTube is not Congress. Just as I can throw someone out of my house if I don't like what they say, YouTube can take down anything it wants. It is not Congress and has the right to edit and control its space as it sees fit. It may be their position to allow free speech, but there is no obligation for it to do so. The right to free speech in the US Constitution does not apply universally in this country. As you know, the moderator of these boards can take down anything he pleases.

Mr. RM, I hope that I have never been so presumptuous as to "chew you out," though I have mentioned, often, my dislike of photos in general, because they distract from conversation. My favorite part of this website is the sparkling conversation aspect, whether we are agreeing or disagreeing about something, and I generally find photos a distraction from that. But I was thinking of an irony recently. Forgive me for getting into a almost political subject, though it is film related. During the period that riots in the Middle East were caused by that anti-Islamic film, YouTube refused to take it down, because of freedom of speech issues. In fact, of course YouTube could have taken it down -- the US Constitution says that Congress isn't allowed to make a law prohibiting freedom of speech -- but a private entity -- YouTube -- could certainly have its own rules. But the irony is that YouTube refused to take down a film that caused riots, and worse; but they would take down a copyrighted movie clip, or photo, or something like that, in a second, if it infringed on someone's economic rights! Seems strange to me that money talks; death and destruction do not.

She wasn't, but yes, she certainly could!

Ms. Patterson was of course Mrs. Trumble on I Love Lucy, one of the many character actors to switch to television. And I love her as one of the three aunts (with Blanche Friderici and Ethel Griffies) in Love Me Tonight.

Re: "Fair Use," I remember one of the lawyers I worked with on productions telling me that "Fair Use is a defense, not a right." Meaning I should not try to get away with using an excerpt from a play still in copyright, thinking that I had a "fair use" right. There is of course tons of public domain material, in all formats, so long as one is clear as to what public domain means.

As I've writ before, I'm not a big fan of photo use on this board, particularly in threads that have active discussions. It pushes the discussion too far away. And after all, we are all adept at the use of the Internet and can search around on our own, if we want to see something. I like some of the threads that are purely photographic -- like TopBilled's character actor thread, and I do understand that in an obit thread, it might make sense to post a photo of the deceased. But in general, if the copyright rule can be strongly enforced so that posters are less promiscuous with photo use, that's fine with me. I've been involved in performing arts production for decades, and I do understand the copyright rules, which are many and varied (though changeable!). But... I didn't really explore the thread in question and so don't understand why just the photo in question could not have been removed rather than the whole thread.

Didn't someone say there wasn't going to be a January? Maybe the Mayan situation? In any case, some interesting bits with my least favorite actress of the classical period: Loretta Young. And I'll be really happy to see Oharu again.

Well, ok, if we must call the new revived dead "zombies," that doesn't upset me as much as calling a second-rate director like Romero called the "godfather" of the genre, no matter who called him that. Actually, there is quite a stream of though in Voodoo that describes zombies as the dead brought back to life to do work. One stream says that they might be people who were injected with a serum (perhaps the poison from the puffer fish, or something like that), or something else. But a strong tradition states that zombies are dead brought back to life by zobop (magicians) and others. That's why there is a tradition to bury someone with an eyeless needle and some thread; because the corpse will be so busy trying to thread the needle, he won't hear the call of the zobop!

I don't consider Romero the "godfather of all zombies," I consider him the godfather of the ruination of zombies movies. The fascinating concept of the zombie comes largely out of Haitian culture, voodoo, and to some extent, syncretistic influences of West African religion in the New World, combining with indigenous currents and even Roman Catholicism. Although of course sensationalized in books such as Seabrook's The Magic Island, the idea of the zombie and Voodoo, albeit sensationalized, are depicted along the lines of their traditions in many early horror films, White Zombie and King of the Zombies being favorites. In Alfred Metraux' classic scholarly book on Voodoo, the concept of the zombie he describes is pretty closely related to the zombies in the old films. Even later films are true to the basics -- Zombies of Mora Tau, Macumba Love, etc. To call Romero, who actually destroyed the genre, in my opinion, the "godfather," is an insult to the genre. To quote the last line of King of the Zombies, spoken by Mantan Moreland, "If there's one thing I wouldn't want to be twice, zombies is both of them!" That line could have been spoken by the genre itself, Romero's shlock ripoffs representing the "twice" of Moreland's comment.

Yes, Arcand has made some good films! But I think his "French" sensibility wasn't right for Love and Human Remains. Maybe Cronenberg would have been good. But the play was so good, really odd, yet compelling and moving. Regarding Britishisms, I'm off to London on Monday. Brushing up on my Britishisms, which I will be chuffed to use there! But of course I will set my recorder to record The Fall of the House of Usher -- the rare 1949 Brit version, on TCM on 10/24. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I've been waiting to see it again for decades. I much prefer it to the stodgy Corman version, the best part of which is Vincent Price's seeming homage to John Abbott's character (Frederick Fairlie) in The Woman in White (they both have VERY sensitive hearing).

I saw a great Canadian play once (1992, in Hampstead, London): *Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love*, by Brad Fraser. It's about a group of people in Edmonton, during a period when the city is being terrorized by a serial killer. I think the play could be classified as horror; it was certainly scary, and creepy, though it had a certain pathos. But the film -- directed by Denys Arcand -- was shot in Montreal, in French, and just didn't work. Although the playwright wrote the screenplay, he was obliged to remove alot of what was best about the play, and it was fairly boring. The program for the play, quoting the 1992 Rough Guide, says: "Edmonton is the most northerly city in North America, and at times it can seem a little too far north, as if it had developed reluctantly where a city was needed but not really wanted. The premier attraction for 70% of the visitors is a shopping centre: West Edmonton Mall is the largest shopping centre in North America." Arcand was the wrong director to shoot the film version, and Montreal the wrong place to film it. It could have been a great Canadian horror film, had it been filmed in Edmonton, in English, without many of the best bits of the play having been cut.

Speaking of Cronenberg, my favorite of his films is They Came from Within. What a great film! You refer to it by its other title, Shivers. became somewhat disappointed with Cronenberg as he became famous, got big budgets, and lost that elemental ability to make low-budget horror, which had enhanced his early films. Slickness sort of neutralized the creepiness of his early films.

Sorry, I spend a fair amount of time in the UK (going next week in fact), so UK usage (sceptic for skeptic) sometimes creeps in. But you make an interesting point, as septic also plays a role in certain horror films.

But what about that great Canadian contribution to the horror genre -- "Strange Paradise." Do you know it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Paradise

PrincessA, I like your comments about the sceptic in horror films. It's sort of one of the regular roles, almost like a commedia dell'Arte character. I agree that Dana Andrews is a great example. By the way, one of my favorite horror film scenes is from that film -- it's during the seance, when the great British actress Athene Seyler, playing the villain's mother, sings "Cherry Ripe." Dame Athene, a great classical stage actress who lived to 101, famously played Dame Bea in the hilarious film Make Mine Mink.

Speaking of Canada, which everyone seems to do on this board more than anyone in real life does, I wonder if anyone remembers the Canadian television series *"Strange Paradise."* I was hooked on it many years ago. I particularly liked Cosette Lee as Raxl. Much preferred this series to "Dark Shadows," which I couldn't get into. Some of the episodes seem to be on YouTube, though I haven't fully explored them yet.

Princess, I'm intrigued by your question about the worst horror film, because I feel standards of measurement and sensibilities are different for horror films. A really, truly bad horror film can be a thing of beauty and a joy forever! So, to answer your question, I would say that stodginess and being boring are qualities that are bad in a horror film. I find a few of the films based on Stephen King novels stodgy and boring (not Carrie ).

*Conquest of the South Pole* ? (Well, it makes sense if you think Conquest is a lousy movie).

Forgive this off-topic note: Christopher Walken's parents had a bakery in Astoria, Queens, NY. They had the best almond croissants! It was called, appropriately, Walken's Bakery.

Yes, that's quite right, and many of the stars who were major character actors in films were leading men and women on stage, in an earlier era, often in the classics.

I understand your point. I guess I have a very special respect for the classic character actors, who made the films great. Sometimes I think I think there are alot of people on this board who are a little over the top in the star*#*&^ing vein. I guess I thought that any of the actors in your thread could be referred to in a sentence as: "that classic character actor.... " and everyone would know what that meant. If I said "that classic character actor Noel Coward...", it wouldn't quite make sense, despite The Master's few character roles. But anyway, it's a great thread.