Swithin

On Svengoolie tomorrow, July 24, 2021: In terms of plot, performances, design, and sheer creepiness, Edgar Ulmer's 1934 pre-code masterpiece The Black Cat is one of the great films. " Did you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead." The Lugosi/Karloff chess game likely inspired Ingmar Bergman's similar scene in The Seventh Seal. Karloff's character, architect Hjalmar Poelzig, is named for Hans Poelzig, a German architect, but is said to be based partly on Aleister Crowley. There's even a little humour, particularly in this scene between Henry Armetta and Albert Conti.

I haven't meticulously been following this conversation, but I did try to do my chart based on the website that was recommended earlier. I'm a Leo (which of course I knew); Libra ascendant (which goes against something I heard in the past); Moon in Gemini; I have no earth signs. I have 4 fire signs, 5 air signs, 1 water sign; 9 masculine, 1 feminine, 3 cardinal, 3 fixed, 4 mutable. Not sure I understand the other stuff; for example Jupiter in Sagittarius; Saturn in Leo; and all the houses.

The Sheltering Sky (1990)

The New World (2005) is a fine film, directed by Terence Malick; perhaps the only one of this films that has moved me. Pocahontas and Captain John Smith are characters. You didn't say (or did you?) that the films should focus on American history? If not, there's tons of other films, like Becket and The Lion in Winter, which combine to give a good depiction of Henry II and his times, even if some of the facts are not accurate (e.g. making Becket a Saxon was a total fiction). I think if you show Gone with the Wind, you could also show Little Women (perhaps the 1933 version), which shows a slice of Yankee life during the Civil War.

I've used this before, but it's such a great song: "September in the Rain" sung by James Melton in Melody for Two (1937) Next: How about "air" in the song (not necessarily in the title).

I thought the guy on the left might be Frank McHugh.

And now I'm reminded that it was actually the 2004 Athens Olympics we watched in London. I was home in NYC watching the 2012 London Olympics. But in any case, these films are awesome!

Thanks! I wasn't at the stadium in East London; I was on the other side of town, in West London, watching it on TV with my friends.

Although I'm looking forward to that, I was hoping for the 2012 ceremony. I was in London at that time and watched it with two friends, one since died.

I guess that's my favorite episode of the series, and she has the best lines! Ralph is lucky that she didn't stab him with a fork. Btw, Ms. Garde also created the role of Aunt Eller in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! Betty Garde stabbing Hope Emerson with a fork in Caged (1950) Betty Garden (center) in Oklahoma!

Don't you think she was lovely on the The Honeymooners?

Donald Crisp was in The Sisters with Laura Hope Crews.

The Sisters is one of my favorite Bette Davis films. I think she's beautiful in it and that the character has a magnetism that her sisters don't. As for Errol, I've never thought of him as a particularly handsome bloke, but in The Sisters, he is! The unmoustachiod look suits him.

Actually, although I said I don't like the Hammer films which focus on the classic Universal characters, I do remember enjoying The Scars of Dracula (1970). I haven't seen it in ages, though.

I like some of the non-Universal related Hammer films. Quatermass and the Pit is brilliant; Curse of the Vampire, The Reptile, and The Gorgon are satisfying. There are others as well. I'd like to see a festival of non-horror Hammer films, of which there are many. How can you not like this lady: Jacqueline Pearce in The Reptile

Well I hope the vampires don't have to wait five years to be invited in!

You might like Macumba Love. I think you'll find something in it to interest you, and you won't need your binoculars!

White Zombie is a great movie. I have a degree in Theology and did some Voodoo study. White Zombie -- and the whole movie zombie phenomenon -- was inspired in part by Seabrook's The Magic Island, published in 1929. A fascinating book, though rather sensationalist. Anthropologist Alfred Metraux's Voodoo in Haiti (1958) is a scholarly approach. I love the opening of White Zombie, with the burial at the crossroads, and that haunting music/chanting. Images from Seabrook's The Magic Island. I have a first edition.

I know, my comment to him was before that thread arose, else I certainly wouldn't have made that comparison!

I once told a friend of mine -- a great classic film buff -- that he reminded me of George Brent. I meant it as a great compliment, but he was offended.

If you pause the film (as you may have done) before the mystery man turns, from his left profile, seen only briefly, he does look more like Ameche than Brent.

I was surprised that a Warner Brothers cartoon would have focused so much on MGM stars. Although many WB stars were included, many were not.

The news about Britney Spears brings to mind the tragedy of the great Frances Farmer. Here she is singing "Aura Lea" in Come and Get It (1936), which takes place in Wisconsin but has the feel of a western (cowboy hats, logging, etc.). And here she is 20 years later, returning to show business, singing "Aura Lea" on the Ed Sullivan Show: Another song sung by an actor/actress who had a tragic life.

This is posted in the IMDB summary:"A tour of Ciro's Nightclub packed with caricatures of many top stars, including (in order) Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Edward G. Robinson and Ann Sheridan, Johnny Weissmuller, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and George Raft, Harpo Marx, Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Leopold Stokowski, James Stewart and Dorothy Lamour, Tyrone Power and Sonja Henie, The Frankenstein Monster, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Curly Howard, Oliver Hardy, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and Lewis Stone, Kay Kyser, Peter Lorre, Henry Fonda, J. Edgar Hoover, Ned Sparks, Jerry Colonna, and Groucho Marx; many more just get sight gags, such as Claudette Colbert, Norma Shearer, William Powell, Don Ameche, Wallace Beery, C. Aubrey Smith, Boris Karloff, Arthur Treacher, Buster Keaton and Mischa Auer."

Two great English character actors grace The Mummy (1959): Raymond Huntley (left), and Felix Aylmer (center), with Peter Cushing.