Swithin
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Posts posted by Swithin
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I think what she did wrong was to use such an inflammatory word as "racist" to describe a scene in a movie from another era, and to imply by her thread title that this was a major problem with TCM. You can't bandy about emotionally charged words like "racist" so loosely, without expecting some criticism.
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And how do we all feel about this:
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Who me? I thought we were discussing Mammy Van Doren!
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Good evening to you, and welcome to the board! The first film sounds like Friendly Persuasion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Persuasion_(film)
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Mammy's an old English/Irish/Scots expression used for mothers and nannies/nurses, which did spread to the American South. Black AND white characters include GWTW's Mammy and Abner's Mammy Yokum.
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A tale about Purim's heroine married to chubby Jersey comic.
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There is a VERY big difference between racism and an actor merely playing a character of a different race/ethnicity. The latter might be a little insensitive, if there are lots of eligible actors and few roles to go around, but it's not racism. I finally saw Shanghai Gesture the other day. Despite not being Chinese, I think Ona Munson was brilliant as Mother Gin Sling! She was as brilliant as Chuk Iwuji, the black Nigerian actor who played King Henry VI in a Royal Shakespeare Company production I saw several years ago. (FYI, King Henry VI of England was not black).
The great Greek actress Katina Paxinou played Pilar, a Spanish woman, in For Whom the Bell Tolls and won an Oscar for her performance. Other Spaniards in that film were played by Ingrid Bergman (Swedish); Akim Tamiroff (Russian); Joseph Calleia (Maltese); etc. And Linda Hunt won an Oscar for playing a Filipino man in The Year of Living Dangerously!
Am I offended by Alec Guinness' portrayal of Fagin? Yes, but that's because he plays the role as an outrageously negative caricature, not because he's not Jewish.
For better or worse, it's called acting.
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Who isn't amazing on your list, Polecat? That's a pretty great bunch of actors!
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LZ, I assume it was your last point, as the other possibilities would have been known farther in advance. I went to a screening at the Walter Reade Theater (my local cinema) in NYC. As part of a Noel Coward series, they were supposed to show the 1933 version of Bitter Sweet, but when the print was put on, it was discovered that the BFI had sent the ( largely reviled) 1940 version. Audience got refunds, but they had no choice but to show the wrong film at that point.
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Yancy, you forgot the ladies. No films with women playing housewives.
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Damn! I was looking forward to *The Damned*, it has become a rarity. Why did this happen?
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Robert Donat deserved the Oscar for Best Actor for Goodbye Mr. Chips. Gable and Stewart gave good and enjoyable performances in popular films, but their performances were not on Donat's level. Of course, my favorite Donat line in any film, and one which he delivers with exasperated perfection -- his life depends on it -- is "What are the 39 steps?!!!"
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I think *Robert Donat's* last performance (as the Mandarin of Yang Cheng in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness ) is one of the great supporting performances and should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. I guess it would be considered politically incorrect today, as he plays a Chinese character, but he is truly magnificent in the role.
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I love Rosalind Russell. She should have won Oscars on any number of occasions.
Btw, Paul Newman made his Broadway debut (1953) in the original production of Picnic. That's where he met Joanne Woodward, who was an understudy. They married five years later. Rosalind Russell's role, Rosemary, was played on Broadway by Eileen Heckart.
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Maybe there should be a new category: best performance by an actor/actress playing a hunchback? Not a bad idea. Probably calls for another thread! Igor/Ygor in his various incarnations was also a hunchback.
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*Burgess Meredith* had an incredible career in theater, including classics and modern plays. I had some dealings with him around 1996/7. He was so kind, did me a big professional favor and followed up with a very sweet personal favor. I thought he should have won the Oscar for The Day of the Locust.
I've never liked Hackman much.
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I love filmed classics, epics, Laughton, etc. But somehow I could never get into The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It doesn't work for me as a film. Maybe it's a Cyrano-type thing. The beauty and the beast story has been done so many times.
You want a hunchback -- here's one. *Jane Adams* as the hunchbacked nurse in *House of* *Dracula* gives a terrific performance and should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
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I take Cooper over Wayne. Don't forget Peter Ibbetson, one of the great surreal screen romances with Cooper and the beautiful Ann Harding. There are echoes of it in, of all places, the romance between Aragorn and Arwen in Lord of the Rings.
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That makes sense -- thanks. Filmlinc and TCM probably draw on much the same audiences. The Kelly retrospective begins on July 13.
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Godzilla did a screen test for Cabiria but lost out to Mrs. Fellini.
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Maybe it was the scar! Actually, I think I just don't like those later MGM musicals. I don't even like the later Astaire stuff, though I love his films with Ginger. It's the style of those late 40s musicals, I think, that I don't like. Something flat about them, IMHO.
I don't think I ever posted anything about Mr. Veidt, though I do like him. Actually, if I remember correctly, he does a mean tango in one of his films -- perhaps with Joan Crawford in Above Suspician ?
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The Quiet Man should have won the Oscar that year.
Gene Kelly is one actor I just can't stand. My neighborhood cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, is doing a huge Kelly film series this July -- 22 films. There's a line in the schedule that says: "Due to a studio-imposed moratorium, we regret that we are unable to include Singing in the Rain in this series." That's ok with me, but why do you think the film is restricted?
The series also includes films directed by Kelly, like Gigot. Of the 22, the only one I like (of those I've seen) is Marjorie Morningstar . I might go to The Young Girls of Rochefort.
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I agree, I loved Lee Marvin in that film -- even though I usually can't stand drunk performances -- and Cat Ballou is certainly not forgettable. However, I was pulling for Oskar Werner that year, who gave a stunning performance in Ship of Fools.
But in terms of this thread, I think *Rod Steiger* should have won for his performance as the Hasidic Rabbi in the 1981 film *The Chosen*. It was a towering performance, and an uncharacteristically subtle one for Steiger. He wasn't even nominated. 1981 was a stupid year for Oscars, the best film award going to the insipid, sloppily directed Chariots of Fire instead of the brilliant Reds, due to political squeamishness.
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Well, since that famous year with the two over-the-top (but utterly enjoyable) performances came up, let me chime in and say the winner in 1950 should have been the brilliant performance by *Eleanor Parker* in Caged. (The winner, Judy Holliday, is my second choice).
But to the point of this thread, two actresses gave really super performances in 1932, and were not nominated: *Marlene Dietrich* in Blonde Venus; and *Kay Francis* in One Way Passage. The Dietrich film is perhaps the most underrated of her Von Sternberg efforts, and she gives an extremely subtle and many-layered performance, including the song in the apesuit!
Shoulda Got The Oscar but Not Even Nominated
in General Discussions
Posted
*The Winslow Boy* is an excellent adaptation of Rattigan's play, and Donat is terrific as Sir Robert Morton. Last year was Rattigan's centennial -- I don't remember whether TCM celebrated it. There are so many excellent films of his plays.
Has Donat ever been SOTM? Despite his relatively few films, there are some I've never seen. For Love or Money, That Night in London, Men of Tomorrow being three that are unknown to me.