Swithin

I went to a kid's show a few years ago -- *Shockheaded Peter*, which has been a great hit around the world. It's based on a children's book and is VERY gory (as fairy tales tend to be). The kids in the audience loved it, the adults were kind of weirded out. One of the characters is the Scissor Man, who cuts off a little boy's thumbs because he disobeys his mother and sucks his thumb as soon as she leaves the house! Here's a version of the song ("Snip Snip"), beloved by kids and eschewed by parents: I don't want to get into too much psychology, but I have a few friends who tried to keep their kids from seeing depictions of evil and violence. Those kids are now on anti-depressents. Violence is part of life; we need to exercise discretion, but we can't pretend it doesn't exist.

My love for old films developed because my mother watched them on tv when I was very young -- mostly the old Million Dollar Movie in NYC, and the Early Show, and the Late Show, etc. I think with discretion, today's children should be similarly encouraged. But I don't like it when TCM tries to gear Saturday morning films to children -- that's just copying the other stations, and makes for less choice for the rest of us.

I'm really sorry I missed *Biography of a Bachelor Girl*, which I've seen only once. I was flying back from the UK last night -- should have checked the schedule before I left! I love Ann Harding. Not a huge name but a huge talent.

This post may contain a Frisco Jenny spoiler! Frisco Jenny is like a sort of inverted Madame X -- perhaps you've seen one of the versions of that film. In Madame X, her long-lost son (unknown to him) becomes the lawyer who tries to get her acquitted of murder; in Frisco Jenny, the son is the DA who tries to get her (i.e. Ruth Chatterton) convicted! The last scene -- Helen Jerome Eddy burning the newspaper clippings -- is one of the most heartbreaking endings in any film. And Frisco Jenny also includes the San Francisco earthquake, which seems to be caused by a slap that Ruth Chatterton gets from her father!

Yes, "The Cook..." was a bit of a bore. But I loved Greenaway's *A Zed and Two Noughts" and liked *Drowning by Numbers*. I could never get into his *Draughtsman's Contract*.

I turned down an upgrade to my cable box, because I have nearly 100 films on my current box. I want to keep many of them; others I haven't watched yet. I don't mind an endless parade of pre-code films. Love those Warner Vitograph movies -- I'm waiting to see *Frisco Jenny* again. But I'd also like to see *Jalna* -- not pre-code, but it hasn't been on for a long time. Maybe TCM should do a Jessie Ralph tribute!

I found *Pulp Fiction* rather lame. When you can appreciate films such as *Cannibal Holocaust* and *Pieces*, a maintstream cartoony attempt at that kind of trash is just a bore.

I love *Nashville* too. Those performers also wrote their songs, for the most part. I wore out my old LP of the soundtrack. I also liked Altman's *Popeye*. Rather peculiar film.

When I was very young, I walked out of *The Rat Race* (Tony Curtis/Debbie Reynolds). I guess it wasn't exactly a kid's movie. Years later I walked out of *Time Bandits*, which I hated. I would have walked out of another Terry Gilliam film some time later -- *Brazil* -- but I had a dinner engagement in the neighborhood after the movie. That overrated overtouted pile (Brazil) is for me the worst movie of all time. Bad not in a good *Plan 9...* way; bad in a repulsive pretentious way.

While I deplore the way AMC shows films (commericals inserted mid-speech), I think *The Godfather* gets enough coverage. I wouldn't want TCM to get hold of it, think of all the time that would be taken up at the expense of other films! So I'll cope with AMC's faults rather than have all those hours taken up on TCM with a film about which one might soon say, "enough already!" Also, I live in NYC and don't get TCM in HD; I do get AMC in HD. So perhaps that compensates a little for AMC's flaws.

I'm in London, UK at the moment, interesting to check out TCM on tv here -- I have two TCM channels, one starts at 8pm. Will the new site allow for e-mail changes? I have an outdated address registered in my profile, which deprives me of certain benefits, and I don't want to re-register. If they are improving the site, it would be nice to fix that kink.

I agree with you about the film. And certainly not an epic, not even a bad one. It's a little story blown out of proportion on screen. They really lost the knack in making film musicals around that time -- an exception might be *A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum*, which had a unique visual sense. Also not an epic -- musicals just don't quality.

I know Julie, she's amazing, a fun babe, with loads of talent and style. Sorry I missed the film, but I'm out of the country at the moment.

I think Frank Morgan's performance in *Tortilla Flat* is one of the best supporting performances on film.

One might say that a non-epic film has an epic length, or epic characteristics, or pretensions; but I think several things have to come together to call a film an epic film. I also think musicals are a totally different genre. And I strenuously disagree with the person who wrote that *A Passage to India*, which I consider to be David Lean's greatest film, is boring. I think with that film Lean finally mastered the visual language of cinema.

I love all those movies! As I've said before, *The Egyptian* is my fave, but I was taken to *Land of the Pharaohs* as a child, and I will never forget that ending.

Thanks for pointing out that *Safe in Hell* is on. What a movie! Pre-code with a vengeance. I saw it at the Film Forum in NYC a few years ago and have been wanting to see it again. This film is amazing, and I agree with you about the ending.

*The Iliad* and *The Odyssey* were epic poems which told the stories of Ancient Greece -- even more ancient than the period of Homer. And of course the epic of Gilgamesh, even older, told stories of an earlier age. Is the Bible an epic? Much of it is offered as history. And for better or worse, I guess we would consider films inspired by the Bible to be epics -- *Samson and Delilah*, *The Ten Commandments*, etc. But an epic film has come to mean something a little different. How to define that? We don't want to say it's merely length, though that was a feature of the epic poems. Many of them were oral stories -- a way of handing down history.

And lots and lots of actors! Abel Gance's *Napolean*, for example, is a great, big, silent epic. Is *Lord of the Rings* an epic? Where do CGIs fit in? Maybe the "retelling of history" angle is a useful one.

The dogs in *Tortilla Flat* and Spot in *Slaughterhouse Five* have very specific, recognizeable reactions to spiritual phenomena; you can find their experiences described and classified to some extent in Rudolf Otto's book *The Idea of the Holy*. I was reluctant to include the donkey Balthazar, despite his "journey" and his being one of the screen's most potent religious symbols. And so I'm not too sure we can include Lassie, although maybe we better, because there seem to be precious few exact representations of what I'm referring to.

It's ok to criticize, I think, and to disagree about an actor's talent and values, within respectful bounds. If that isn't the case, then I'm waiting for an apology from the poster who criticized Jane Fonda recently.

I've got this big coffee-table book -- *Epic: History on the Big Screen* by Baird Searles. Searles's definition is that an epic film is a "retelling of history." The book, which has gorgeous pictures, is arranged by historical period, from Antiquity through the 20th Century. Near the beginning of the book there is a stunning double-page photo from my favorite epic, *The Egyptian*. The last photo in the book is from *The Last Emperor*. He also includes *Queen Christina*, *The Scarlet Empress*, and *The Adventures of Robin Hood*, which I really don't think of as epics. I guess for me, epic films refer to the big widescreen color movies, largely from the 1950s, which take place in ancient days. That's a rather limited view. Perhaps a good subject for a TCM series would be silent epics. I guess a broader definition would include *Reds* and *A Passage to India*, both of which would be among my favorite epics, if they were classified as epics. Yes, some epics can be dull. Someone referred to *Gandhi* -- I could never watch the whole of that noble film. I much prefer the depiction of Gandhi in the TV miniseries *Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy*.

Actually, I was recently watching *Green Pastures*, some of which is set in heaven. We should start a thread on depictions of heaven in the movies.

What a lovely post, I agree with you. Although you seem to be assuming that you will be going to heaven!

Thanks, DougieB, the book sounds fascinating, I will look for it. Regarding heaven, Miss Wonderley, there has been theological debate about the nature of animals. Roughly speaking, I think St. Bonaventure believed that animals could go to heaven; St. Thomas Aquinas had the opposite view. I guess that's not surprising, since St. Bonaventure was a Franciscan, i.e. a member of the order founded by St. Francis of Assisi.