Swithin
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Posts posted by Swithin
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That IS hilarious -- but tragic!
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If I had to pick one, it would be *Madame Sul-Te-Wan* in *King of the Zombies* (1941). Madame, who plays Tahama, the cook and high priestess, gives a brilliant, memorable performance and has some of the great lines of cinema, e.g. "Tahama cooks for the living, not the dead!" She worked with D.W. Griffith and is generally regarded as the first African-American to have signed a contract with a major studio.
I could mention many others, but they are probably pretty obvious -- Karloff, Lugosi, Lorre, Rains, Zucco, two Chaneys, Atwill, etc., but it's people like Madame who helped make the films great and whose names are not well known.
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Please don't eat worms, Miss W.! In another thread, I've already referred to the Canadian chef who wanted to introduce horse meat to NYC, if you eat worms, you'll reinforce the idea of strange Canadian culinary habits!
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*Outward Bound* is another. Here's a list:
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?year=1930,1930&title_type=feature&sort=moviemeter,asc
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Horemheb -- Victor Mature in *The Egyptian* (1954)
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*Naked Prey* ?
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You got it Miles, one of Hugh Grant's two great movies.
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Caucasian bait residence
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The Mummy and The Black Cat are two great, perfect films, in every way. But I love the follow-up Mummy movies as well. However I've always felt that the death of *Tante Berthe* in *The Mummy's Curse* is one of the great disappointments of cinema. Such an endearing character, played to perfection by Ann Codee: she sings a great song, is sympathetic and helpful to Princess Ananka, then BAM: killed by Kharis. It's just not fair.
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Lady for a Day ?
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Sadly that seems to be the case, Hibi, among a certain group. On the Ingrid Bergman thread about her Oscar win for Murder on the Orient Express, I was going to write that maybe she should have won a few years later, for Autumn Sonata. But then I checked out who actually did win in 1979, for a great performance, and realized I better keep my mouth shut.
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Sorry, it was Jessica Grayson who played Addie the maid in The Little Foxes.
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Lillian Hellman depicted African Americans positively in her plays, which filtered into her films. She had to portray them in roles that would have been realistic for the South she was writing about, but the black characters have more depth, such as Hattie McDaniel in The Little Foxes.
As I recall, Hattie McDaniel's character, although a wise servent, was also fairly well-rounded in Blonde Venus. ("I know when a white man's browsin'!)
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I didn't either, until I just checked IMDB. He seems to have played an elevator operator and was on 21 episodes. Here's a site that has an image of him in that role:
http://funstuff2go.blogspot.com/2011/02/classic-tv-gems-my-little-margie_01.html
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The movie's pretty awful, too, but fun in that way grade z horror can be. I'd like to see Best in his recurring role on My Little Margie, haven't seen that series in ages! I wonder how he's portrayed.
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Willie Best appeared in many movies and also in early television. I recently watched The Monster Walks, an enjoyable grade z 1932 horror that he's in, billed as Sleep 'n Eat.
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Paul Porcasi, one of my favorites, was in it. He played the Egyptian police chief. He adds something special to all the movies he's in.
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Oland has a very interesting role in Shanghai Express, in which he plays a man who is half Chinese but who identifies himself as Chinese. Eugene Pallette asks him a fairly outrageous question about why? Oland also plays Dr. Yogami, an Asian, in Werewolf of London.
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Today's Guardian has an interesting story about Isabella Rosselini, the daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rosselini.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/30/isabella-rossellini-bee-movie
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Forgot about The Ugly American, I went to see it as a kid, liked it so much I went back twice. Haven't seen it in years!
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I like the old dark house in The Old Dark House (1932). "No beds! They can't have beds!" Also Boris Karloff's house in The Black Cat (1934) is quite something, inspired by some interesting modern architecture (as is his character's name).
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In addition to Dame Wendy, the cast also featured Denis Lawson as Algy and Phyllida Law (mother of Emma Thompson) as Miss Prism. Royalty Theatre, London, about 1987. A few years later, I saw Maggie Smith as Lady B., at the Aldwych.
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Yes, as my earlier post said, I think Streep won this year for her incredible performance in Iron Lady. But a few years before, she should have also won for Julia, instead of Bullock, whom I just don't get as an actress.
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Miss W., she wants to tell him. The psychiatrist -- played so well by the great Philip Dorn -- tells her she must not, it could be dangerous. But I agree with you about An Affair to Remember.
How do you feel about Baby Jane ? At the end of that film, Jane says to Blanche, when she finds out the truth, "we could have been friends..." So many situations in films could have been happy, if only...
Great Horror Performances!
in General Discussions
Posted
The thing is, Princess A., those big male names of the past played the monsters or mad scientists, etc. The names you give today are mostly for heroic women. The male heroes of old were not the stars of the films, but rather actors like David Manners, etc., who also tended to be romantic leads. An exception of old would be *Gloria Holden's* brilliant performance in *Dracula's Daughter*.
Regarding the ladies of the modern age, let's not forget those who aren't superstars. Two great ladies of modern horror: *Lynda Day George* and *Mary Woronov*.
Today's monsters -- whether the Mummy or the Alien creature -- are often mechanical.