Swithin
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Posts posted by Swithin
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Helen Flint as Belle has a good scene with Eric Linden as Richard Miller in Ah, Wilderness! Have the ladies in the various versions of Waterloo Bridge been mentioned?
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I think *Madame X* may be the champ -- filmed around a dozen times. *The Fall of the House of Usher* comes close (my favorite being the odd 1949 UK version).
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I think there are enough films for *Teresa Wright* to merit a SOTM treatment. My impression in knowing her slightly was that she was basically not of "Hollywood," even though she had been married to screenwriter Niven Busch. Her second husband, playwright Bob Anderson, who wrote Tea and Sympathy, I Never Sang for My Father, etc., and Teresa were basically New Yorkers, and I think she preferred living here. She did alot of TV and theater.
Interesting that the Best Years of Our Lives crowd (Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright) all preferred to live in NYC and environs.
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Very good! I was totally off track, thinking of the song "Ahab the Arab" and of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick (which is of course sort of a Bible)!
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Will Geer did alot of theater as well. One of the first plays I ever saw was 110 in the Shade, a musical based on The Rainmaker. It was a great show and was nominated for several Tonys -- including Will Geer for Best Featured Actor.
Will's theater credits also include this off-Broadway production of The Seagull. Look at this cast!
http://www.lortel.org/lla_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=4889
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This is surely wrong, but I'll give it a try:
*The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima*
My reasoning being that in the song "Ahab the Arab," Fatima is Mrs. Ahab, sort of.
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And the greatest **** of '50s films: Bella Darvi as Nefer in *The Egyptian*.
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MovieGal, your recommendations for SOTM are the best! *Beulah Bondi* personifies what made the classic films great, in so many wonderful performances. If TCM finally got round to making "character" actors SOTMs, which is long overdue, Miss Bondi is where they should begin. And *Teresa Wright* -- she's wonderful! I worked with her on a project in 1997. So lovely and kind, and of course talented. I would love to see both of those ladies honored.
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So many great possibilities for this thread. I've always liked Irma La Douce and Sophia Loren as "Mara of Rome" in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. And Marked Woman -- all those "clip-joint hostesses!" And I love Lila Kedrova as the aging prostitute Madame Hortense in Zorba the Greek.
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There's some stuff in White Cargo that verges on the kinky, with just a little reading between the lines. Like when Lamarr as Tondelayo says to Richard Carlson something like: " You beat me, then you give me bangles, then we make love."
Reminds me of a line from one of Mae West's best songs: "A New Way to Go to Town" from I'm No Angel, a lyric of which is "Give me my bracelets and hold me down. I found a new way to go to town!"
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I was pleased to see *The Leather Boys* on the list -- It's been yonks since I've seen that! Great cast. Dudley Sutton, who plays one of the leads, was the original Mr. Sloane on stage in Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane.
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There's an ongoing joke in White Cargo (the "I am Tondelayo" movie). Walter Pidgeon gets exasperated whenever anyone uses the word "acclimatize." Although acclimate is more common usage, at least acclimatize is a real word.
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I was watching "The Chris Mathews Show" on Sunday morning and was surprised to see Gloria Borger, one of CNN's top pundits on the panel, as CNN and NBC are rivals. I think it's just a case of what the contract says. Obviously in Ben's case (as in Gloria's), his contract doesn't prevent him from taking other gigs. Perhaps Ben wouldn't be allowed to introduce films on another station, but TCM doesn't care what he does in other arenas. Or maybe Ben just doesn't get that much work out of TCM for the station to disallow any other gainful employment.
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That is very interesting. All This, and Heaven Too is one of my favorite Bette Davis films, but I would never in a million years have noticed -- or understood that! Those little touches can be fascinating -- if you understand them. Like the black mass recited by Boris Karloff in The Black Cat, which is just a bunch of Latin expressions strung together, sort of the opposite situation to your math example.
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Givenbak, thank you for that thoughtful, interesting, and well-annotated list. I would also include Maurice and Lilies ( Les Feluettes ) somewhere, as well as some love stories sans angst and discrimination. And of course Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
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I think the TCM "Star of the Month" doesn't mean that they select a movie "star" and pay tribute during a given month. I think it means that TCM selects someone in the industry and dubs them TCM's "Star" of the month. There's a difference. Sort of like the old "Queen for a Day."
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If it's any consolation to you, Sepia, Angela Lansbury's grandfather George Lansbury was a leading left-wing politician and head of the Labour Party for several years.
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Thanks, Miss W., Regarding the film, I think for many of the classic films, the prime ingredient -- the tomatoes in the tomato sauce -- is actually sometimes the character actor, while the pretty "lead" can be the basil, garlic, etc.!
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Miss W., baby, I would take exception to your use of the word "mere" as related to character roles.
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I totally agree with you about the term "character actor." I feel it was they who made the films great, and I'd like more attention paid to them as Stars of the Month. I love Angela Lansbury but don't consider her to be a character actor -- perhaps because I've seen her often on stage -- in Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd. But even in her films roles, I wouldn't classify her as a character actor, meaning no disrespect either to her or to character actors in general. I don't think all supporting roles in film are by definition "character" roles.
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*Gypsy* (1962)
Next: bigamy
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Before we go on dissing January, there is one thing that raises TCM's January schedule above many other months for me: it's a rare month that NBNW isn't on the schedule!!!
I love Angela and am looking forward to seeing the lesser-known films.
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I'm actually getting tired of the SOTM leading actors and the devotion to the "big names." I think the greatness of the "classic" films is largely in the character roles/actors, and I'd like to see some of them given full star of the month treatment. Like Beulah Bondi month, Eugene Pallette month, etc. They had big enough roles, even in supporting parts.
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Hi TB, Happy New Year! I meant that State of the Union and The Manchurian Candidate both share uncanny similiarities related to Angela as manipulative politico, of course in the latter film of a much more sinister nature. Sometimes it's nice to pair films not just because they have the same artist (or as happens sometimes the same word in the title) but because of more subtle connections.
Proposal For LGBT Week in June
in General Discussions
Posted
Just took down this book from the shelf. It's called Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History. Quite a scholarly tome, edited by Robert A. Schanke and Kim Marra, who were professors of theater in Iowa at the date of the writing (1998).
Here are a few chapter titles:
Alla Nazimova: The Witch of Makeup
Staging Heterosexuality: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne's Design for Living
Kit and Guth: A Lavender Marriage on Broadway
Monty Woolley: The Public and Private Man from Saratoga Springs
Mary Martin: Washin' That Man Right Outta Her Hair
also chapters on Cheryl Crawford, Margaret Webster (the director and daughter of Dame May Whitty), and artists from earlier generations.