Bill_McCrary
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Posts posted by Bill_McCrary
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My "Red Headed Woman" disc froze with digital breakup during chapter 21. This occurred on 2 different dvd players. A third player froze but didn't have the digital breakup.
I know this sounds obvious, but since I can't be there to see the disc --
Be sure that it is absolutely clean; and be sure NOT to wipe it in a circle but straight out (it's called "radially") from the middle hole area, with a soft, damp cloth. DON'T use any kind of paper, since most will scratch.
While on the subject, if any of you record DVDs and have ever had trouble with them, be sure there are no finger prints/greasy spots near the outside edge, especially when you get ready to finalize. I ruined two perfectly fine discs as I was finalizing, by forgetting to clean my fingerprints first. The DVDRs seem to record right to the edge, whereas most DVD-Rs don't reach as close to the edge (usually, without special formatting for FR), so Rs (which mine were) may be more prone to error. The laser can't focus well (or burn well) through those prints.
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We need your help on the following thread:
Re: Title of old B&W movie aired summer '06 with Asian boy selling lechi nuts
I'm pretty sure it's not 'Oil for the Lamps. . .
On the "other thread" it was determined it was Loretta Young and Clark Gable's movie "Key to the City."
racerT came up with
That was from the 1950 movie "Key to the City" with Clark Gable,Loretta Young and Frank Morgan. The Chinese boy was selling the leechi nuts in the San Francisco police station to a cop played by James Gleason. It was Frank Morgan's final movie. He died soon after filming was completed.
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> "You are Morgan Freeman, who played God in 'Bruce Almighty.'"
Duh..... I'll learn to read one of these days!! Thanks, though.
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I was fascinated by her from the first time I ever saw her. I must have been 11 or so about the time my town got cable (in the early '60s) and we got (all? mostly?) MGM movies every afternoon from a UHF (converted to cable, of course) station in Columbia, the state capital, 85 miles away. I still have lots of audio tapes from the tv from that period. It was later that I saw the (pre-code) Paramount things. One of those (if you've seen them, you'll know which) gave this young thing bad dreams (seemed like witches) for some time, in addition to all the glorious music (Rodgers and Hart, in this case).
My mother says she always felt that Jeanette was making fun of ("our hero") Nelson, as if she knew he was/belonged on a lower rung. I, on the other hand, thought they "sparred" beautifully; not just in "Sweethearts," either. Seemed to me he knew exactly what was going on and was throwing it right back at her.
Nelson took an awful lot of heat from some (serious-music) reviewers, both for his records and his live concerts. I have some clippings from Boston around 1950, complaining (this isn't quoting) that he seemed to be singing "at" the audience at times, not with real feeling, and that the audience (already the "blue-hairs," apparently) were falling at his feet no matter what he did. There were nice things said about accompanist Theodore Paxson's contributions, in a way more than Nelson's. Pity. The record reviewers (especially David Hall in "The Record Book") routinely claimed that his movie singing had killed his ability to sing "fine" music well - Mozart and Haydn, in particular; that he had for too long been singing "for the microphone" instead of in the right style(s). Hmph!!! I think his "Creation" disc (one that came in for sharp criticism) could have served a lot of other singers as an example of how to "send" those numbers. And I was nearly 25 by the time I heard those. Now, as to the Mozart, well.... take some, leave some. His later Columbia items (love songs in various languages, etc.) were certainly off the beaten path and bear study; no warhorses there, more power to him.
Back to Jeanette: About the only criticism I have heard much (including not just reading but going back to something I remember an aunt saying in my teens) was that it just wasn't really big enough without a microphone. Nothing much about her feeling or style or anything; on her records (and broadcasts) those seem in most cases to be fine.
A snobbish (college-professor-type) acquaintance of my late teens (I started as I just barely turned 17), was fond of referring to them as the "Iron Butterfly" and the "Singing Capon." Again, hmph!!!! But then once again.....
Be very careful when judging Jeanette's voice on disc, in particular; she recorded for a good 5 years earlier than Nelson. By his time, things had become much more standardized (speeds, microphones, arrangements). Many of her earliest recordings (up to "Merry Widow," at least) were recorded slower than 78 RPM, and she sounds very different (and better) when they are played right (slower). (And, of course, that goes for all the singers who recorded before around 1935.) Even up to about 1937 (but not often after then), "78's" were often recorded at 76.6 rpm; earlier, many were at 75 rpm. If that doesn't sound like much difference - well, 75 is a semi-tone (one whole note) lower on the keyboard, with 76.6 in between (a 1/4 tone, more or less).
Lawrence Tibbett is another who sounds closer to tenor than resounding baritone on many/most of his most famous records when not played right. If you've heard his "duet" record from "Cuban Love Song," they played the first (harmony) record fast on purpose, while he sang directly for the "main" voice - one of the very first "overdubs." He could sing high, but not THAT high routinely.
The soundtracks are another matter, and usually more truthful in their own way. But it has been mentioned somewhere in the posts about how much the sound editors could do. It seems to me that some (several?) of Deanna Durbin's (and at least one of Grace Moore's) Decca 78's were made from (edited?) film, dubbed to disc. On a clean enough pressing, it's pretty obvious. 78's were usually direct-to-disc, with no chance to "improve" things from other takes; but NOT always!
One last (soprano) comment, for now: I haven't double-checked the newest prints/DVDs of "The Great Waltz," but I was shocked (yes, shocked, I tell you!!!) when my mother and I saw "That's Entertainment" in the movies. By then I had played my TV-audiotape of the movie till I knew every part of it and spoke dialogue in advance (shades of "Rocky Horror! - but I didn't dress for it!!).
When they played the "Vienna Woods" scene - well, something was wrong. It was still fine, but.... In the standard print, when Miliza Korjus does the roulades before the end -- Douglas Shearer (must have been) had edited takes to create "fantastic" series of note-cascades, lasting maybe 4 measures before the conclusion. In TE, the "real" take (no apparent editing) was used, same voice of course, but standard two-measure roulades.
I haven't gotten over it yet, 30 years later. I "knew" from the beginning, probably, that I was hearing the impossible, but I was used to it. The truth was still pretty, but it hurt! With all the cleaned-up soundtracks we have now, sometimes the edits are clearer, too. And, too, Rhino/TCM CDs are good about showing all the dates when portions of tracks were created; fascinating.
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I share a significant statistic with singer/actress Alanis Morissette and the late comedic actor George Burns. If you know what honor they share, you pretty much know who I am.
So... what honor do the three of them share?
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Update on my post from Wednesday night: 12/13 11:46pm/8:46p- September In The Rain 1937-6m-A (Note: this cartoon is usually cut for political incorrectness)
4 minutes, 36 seconds of it were shown tonight! Basically Jolson, and Fred and Ginger. I haven't gotten out my laserdisc yet to see what wasn't shown, but if the very beginning was an indication, then it's understandable....... Neat enough short, but "short" is operative here! :
Turns out (checked my laserdisc) that is one of the shortest cartoons they made, at about 5:45, so only one part was edited - Fats Waller and (kinda hard to tell but I think) Louis Armstrong, right after Fred and Ginger, before the closing shots, a little over a minute. Strange - Jolson in blackface, Aunt Jemima, ok; Waller and Armstrong (but also some very "outrageous" backup singers!), not ok?!
And, people, stay off MGMWBRKO's case: Where would we all have been since June without him? If you're (fairly) new to these boards, hold tight, sit still, take a breather - RELAX!!! and read all that has been going on in this (long in a short time) thread, before you start sounding off!
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Who are you? CIA? FBI? KGB?
Man, I cannot believe that you got that correct answer with so few hints!
Well, it DID take me three-four days and one wrong guess; but it was the "favorite actress" part that did it. Saw your comments elsewhere on JB and went from there; only one from the late 'fifties (in IMDB) that made any sense - and none at all until I looked at Joan's movies.
I relinquish my turn (once again). But one of these days......
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I hope everyone recognized I was being "ironic" in my earlier post of a quote. Not my own thoughts on the matter, certainly.....
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Ann Rutherford does not. I wasted a gorgeous 8x10.
Possibly there is some reason now that she doesn't, but at the Williamsburg (VA) film festival a couple of years ago she was one of the most gracious, obliging stars there. She had to be told by some of the staff to please limit herself to signing two items apiece as long as there were others in line, since at first she was signing a folder's worth of items for a fan or two! Wonderful lady. Unfortunately all my pictures turned out except for the ones of her (camera problems, boo-hoo).
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12/13 11:46pm/8:46p- September In The Rain 1937-6m-A (Note: this cartoon is usually cut for political incorrectness)
4 minutes, 36 seconds of it were shown tonight! Basically Jolson, and Fred and Ginger. I haven't gotten out my laserdisc yet to see what wasn't shown, but if the very beginning was an indication, then it's understandable....... Neat enough short, but "short" is operative here!
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Once the film was cut together, a dupe of the workprint was often made and a temp mix completed (mixing all the tracks down to one mag strip) and then the rough cut could be shown. At these screenings, the film was threaded into the projector and the corresponding mag track was threaded onto a special sound projector and these two were "interlocked" together so that the audience could watch the film.
Somewhere I read, maybe (the late, lamented) Video magazine or such, about The Glenn Miller Story, when they finally issued it in stereo (VHS at the time). It could have been Bob Dorian on AMC (old-style) talking about it. The point being, they had finally found the soundtrack which had been taken to, I think, Radio City MH for the premiere, finished "just" in time - picture on one set of reels, soundtrack on another, and sync'd up for the audience, as you've described. Whoever was telling/writing the story sounded as though that was one movie that either had never "officially" been shown (around the country) in stereo, or else all the stereo prints had disappeared.
And on the TCM promo about soundtracks, we can see some of those being run through the machines. No "movie," just the soundtracks being copied off. Neat. And with all the shrinking of film, bad sprockets, etc., there must be lots of either mechanical or digital adjustments to be made before the final mating of sound and image these days.
Someone - was it Mel Brooks? - was telling, years ago, about getting his movie ready in the nick of time for its first showing (maybe for investors, maybe for the real premiere, I don't remember) and his amazement that he got the sound and the action in sync; he apparently was cutting "by hand," himself, not a "real" editor doing it. There probably was some truth there somewhere, at least. I'd love to think I've got those interviews/comments on some of my old VHS tapes, along with the hosts in younger days...
I hadn't quite caught on until really recently about the "cutter" part of lzcutter; is there a thread where you've told (more) about your work?
Bill
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No problem here with Ben (Mankiewicz) - I saw (or did I imagine it?) Robert's introduction of Ben to us a few years back, explaining who was going to be on when, doing what - which is basically how it's been, and mostly for a while saw him on Cartoon Alley and the Westerns. I like the way he does most, with a sense that he's telling us a lot but could tell us even more, maybe, in the right circumstances (small gathering, out of earshot, like at the places he has visited on the Hollywood Forever spots). Speaking of which, it would be nice to have some more of those - or have they shown us all the worthwhile ones?).
But for the "regular" movies, I still like to hear what Robert has to say about so many of the people he either knew or knew through THEIR friends.
Glad we have both!
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no mention of Una Merkel
Fred mentioned her (in another thread?) when we talked about accents, etc. He referred to her as from Kentucky, I think. She certainly had one of the most unusual voices, and there's no mistaking her even with no picture, but I mostly find it adorable. Of course, my being from the South myself may have influenced my feeling for her...... When I hear people talk about "exaggerated" (and I'm sure hers was as real as it gets), I think about how people routinely talk in a couple of towns not 15 miles away from our "big city" of 25,000; there ARE plenty who talk like that!
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Just went to check out my (not-yet-completed) disc - hadn't watched that part of it the other night live:
The Captain wants to put her in his cabin, seeing her beauty, but the women try to defend her (you know just how much influence THEY had!). JB is put in the "hell-hole" with the other men. Finally, after a "stormy voyage," to quote the intertitle, as they are getting close to New Orleans, the Captain makes his move. JB hears Manon cry out and incites the slaves who are in the cage with him to break loose, and, through some much-speeded-up shenanigans onboard, gets her to the boat. You've seen the rest. VERY different version of the end of the story from others!!
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I just couldn't take the whole southern belle thing and Scarlett O'Hara made me want to jump up on the screen and coldcock her.
Well, we just say, "Bless yo' heart," and move along! (smile)
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I have "White Heat" with its beginning and ending.
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...they seemed to be making up a trio by pulling out people from trios.
Ah, now I've seen your point! And Curly would have been a good one from that standpoint. Maybe with the "trio" aspect to work on, someone will come up with something better for us. Don't guess the Weir (sp?) Brothers have anything to do with this? Hadn't even thought about them until just now in years. Vaguely remember them on the Ed Sullivan Show, from my growing-up days.
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Thanks for over twelve years of solid, dependable friendly hosting of our (mostly!) favorite movies on what is certainly our favorite movie channel! I have always felt that you were talking directly to us, and even that sometimes you were actually there in the studio (in realtime) and not taped days or weeks earlier.
I hope you at least hear about the nice things that so many of us have to say from time to time (there's at least one other thread that goes that way!), but we understand that it would not "do" for you to come on here with us. That's fine. Long and happy life to you!!
Bill
Message was edited by:
Bill_McCrary
(slight grammatical change)
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Why don't we all just let this thread die?! I HATE seeing the subject/title coming up every time. If someone wants to start another post and we go there, fine. Just not this one. If this turns out to be the last post here, Hallelujah!
Bill
And please, don't anybody say ANYTHING in response to anything that "certain other person" comes back with. Ever...
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The Joker Is Wild?
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MY SON JOHN (1952).
I don't think I've seen that one - and it surely didn't come up in any of about 20 searches I tried on IMDB. Would I have found it on the TCM database, I wonder?
What I really want is someone to come forward with the name of the third movie below I was trying to think of.... Seems to me that the picture was about to "wrap," the big race scene had been shot, and he was out riding and got hit by another driver, died, and they either had to change the outcome of the race, or some such. I'm thinking it was a mid-'30s movie, but I'm also thinking it was one of the Silent Sundays ones......... If I only had my database up and running already, the way I plan to finish it.
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You have one Bill?
Feel free (anyone) to come up with the next one. I'm saving up for a "humdinger" (not a Hummer!) one of these times.
Dennis Morgan
in Information, Please!
Posted
I an hoping someone can tell me about the movie "The Desert Song" with Dennis Morgan & Irene Manning.
Check your PMs for one from me. And if the source works out (or even if not), let me know!