Swithin

I think *Dark Passage* is an excellent film, certainly my favorite Bogart/Bacall film. Very strange and moody. I think the work of Delmer Daves deserves more attention -- his style was unique. Check out *The Red House*, Daves' film just preceding Dark Passage, also unusual.

The great E.E. Clive! Always added something, in even the smallest of roles. I would like to see him as SOTM -- IMHO, that's the best thing TCM could do, take a great actor like E.E. Clive, who contributed so much, and show a series of his films. I don't care who the "stars" are!

> {quote:title=Swithin wrote:}{quote}In this 50s schlocker, a woman from Pittsburgh, who is among a group of people who go to Africa to look for treasure, becomes a monster. Hint: She's transformed by a mad doctor. The film ends with her coming up from the quicksand, as a monster, then a ? On the screen.

*Napoleon* is an amazing film. I saw it at Radio City Music Hall around 1980, with a live orchestra conducted by Carmine Coppola. At the screening the night before, from the stage of Radio City, they telephoned Abel Gance in Paris. I later saw the film in London (albeit on television), with the score by Carl Davis (a native New Yorker). However, I prefer the Coppola score. I felt that he incorporated French classical music with his own compositions very effectively. I recall not liking Davis's score as much, though I do like his work. I would like to see a DVD set with every conceivable permutation of this extraordinary movie. One of my five top films.

I live in NYC (aka a cultural paradise) and haven't been at MOMA for years -- even though I could walk there! I keep meaning to visit. I do go to my local cinema, which is the Film Society of Lincoln Center's theaters, though I missed a screening of Terence Davies' House of Mirth last month, which I very much wanted to see. Davies is my favorite contemporary director.

Point C in your list shows I was wrong about something. I haven't gone into the "George Brent" thread, because the subject doesn't interest me, but I assumed it was a thread that was COMPLIMENTARY to his rear end, not insulting!

Ironically, Moroni Olsen played John Knox in Mary of Scotland!

In this 50s schlocker, a woman from Pittsburgh, who is among a group of people who go to Africa to look for treasure, becomes a monster.

Interesting post. The "movie fiction" part is something I didn't realize, meaning it would be difficult to discuss somewhat fact-based films such as JFK, Nixon, The Killing Fields, and even Goodnight and Good Luck. What if David Hare's play about Iraq (Stuff Happens) had been made into a film -- or was it? If this board existed in the Vietnam War era, imagine a discussion about Coming Home and The Deer Hunter! I thing the problem is not the focused discussion, it's the ease of being led astray into a real political argument.

Somewhere along the line, we Americans got the wrong idea. The fact that the constitution says the government shall make no law prohibiting freedom of speech doesn't mean others can't control expression. I can throw you out of my house if I don't like something you say. TCM can throw you out of this board if you go beyond what they decide is acceptable.

I'll never understand some of the technical issues of this board, I don't even know how to post photos! The book AA is even longer and more dense than the film. I agree with you -- though I never thought of it that way -- that Warner Brothers may have kept in the social issues that appealed to them. Steffi Duna does seethe with sexuality! I love all the character actors in the film. In the smaller roles, Rafaela Ottiano has a wonderful bit part. And one of my favorite lines is Gale Sondergaard's to Claude Rains: "You're so wise, and so clever, but I know something that would kill you, if you knew..." Gale of course won the first Oscar ever awarded for Best Supporting Actress for Anthony Adverse.

Where did that piece about his MGM period come from? I didn't say that. I remember when AA was on Channel 4, I was very young, loved the film even then, and even wrote to NBC to say please put it on as a sort of Christmas present. They put it on two nights before Christmas that year, I was amazed that they responded! I think the scope of the film would not have worked as well at MGM, it would have been too slicked up. But I do find the theme of searching in some of LeRoy's films (also Random Harvest, etc.) very appealing.

WL also ran Tavern on the Green for a while, as well as a renovated Russian Tea Room.

*Anthony Adverse* (1936). It has everything -- high society, sex, religion, grand opera, and even Napoleon. Grand cast, great scope over time and place, and also the best, most sophisticated score (by Korngold) of any film -- a leitmotif for every character and situation.

I agree. He directed my favorite film.

I've always thought Ms. Young to be one of the weaker actors of the classic period, and that includes the pre-code films. Regarding the "scandal," I think that has been authenticated recently, is that correct? It had to be covered up, given the times.

Republican spokespeople, the ones who usually defend everything. Just to be more specific: The Republican spokespeople I heard were saying that Mitt and Rubio gave good speeches but that the conversation tomorrow is going to be about Clint's performance. Someone who thought Romney's speech was great said "The Clint thing blew their final night, I can't believe they let that happen."

I think the consensus among even the most stalwart Republican partisans is that it was a mistake. Maybe the Democrats can get Luise Rainer to give a more youthful impression.

I'm a fairly progressive Democrat, but that's not why I found Clint's presence troubling. They used him, and it was painful to see the great Clint doddering and seeming bewildered on stage.

So sad to see Clint Eastwood live on television tonight. Big mistake.

I have faith that even more young people will come to classic films. When I was a child, I became interested because my mother watched classics on television. That's how I became interested, and I branched out on my own as I grew up. In grade school, they showed us movies once a month. When I got to college, film history classes were just coming in. Now, schools show old movies regularly, and nearly every college has a film study/history department which is in many cases on par with its literature department. So I think the future of the art form is secure in the hands of later generations.

How about *Mad Love,* directed by the great Karl Freund, who later was Lucy's cinematographer.

So nice to watch *Casablanca* tonight -- good people fighting Nazis -- instead of watching some of the "stuff" going on elsewhere!

I shouldn't have used the word "ridiculous." My favorite "classic" films are from the 1930s. I was not born in the 1930s. So I don't think all of us who love the "classics" are looking for screenings of the films of our youth. New generations will continue to discover and learn to love the films from the silent era through the end of the studio era, just as they learn to love novels of earlier eras. Not everyone will do this, but there will always be an influx of substantial numbers of young bloods who love old movies. I remember when I was "young blood," watching old movies, made a few decades before I was born, on Million Dollar Movie on Channel 9 in NYC, and on Shock Theater on Channel 7. I don't think it follows that as newer generations arise, the classic movie lovers among them will be more interested in the films of later decades. But classic films, or genre films, will continue to be made, to some extent, and I'm sure TCM will add them judiciously to their lineups over time. I don't know the metrics, but I assume TCM has a dedicated share of the market that no other network that shows movies has. FMC occasionally shows its classics, but it also shows so many of its later films, that I don't even have the patience to look at their schedule. So I think the hand-wringing is premature. Yes, Polaroid and other companies may have made bad decisions, but they were faced with desperate situations related to their survival. TCM is in an enviable position with an audience that I assume to be more dedicated than that of any other film network. I don't see anything that would indicate that they intend to change their mission. And with 24 hours of programming time, there's plenty of time for variety and diversity.

"If there's one thing I wouldn't wanna be twice, zombies is both of them!" (Mantan Moreland in the best zombie movie of them all.)