Cinemascope
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Posts posted by Cinemascope
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Ah, it's an underrated movie, IMHO.
But even when I watched him in that movie with Pier Angeli, it just looked more natural to me that they'd been brother and sister or best friends, or something, lol.
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Anyone catch that cute little promo with the penguins, on ABC at the top of the hour?
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lol, that's 2001 for you come to life!
Now we can all shudder collectively at the prospect of "Windows Vista".
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That's amazing, hard to believe it took that long before the movie could be shown again in Germany.
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Ah interesting channel, I should call up and see if it's worth getting.
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I should be getting the re-mastered Universal Home Video DVD in a few more days.
How interesting and ironic, the DVD will come with a Robert Osborne introduction, yet I just saw the film on TCM, without a RO introduction, lol
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What's interesting is that now we're seeing the whole thing over again with television sets.
TV's used to be basically the same as the Academy ratio. Now they're closer to 1.85:1 of regular widescreen (non-anamorphic).
With the old-style TVs, you have to "letterbox" widescreen movies.
With the newer HDTV sets, you have movies filmed in Academy ratio being shown with black bars on the sides.
The more things change, the more they stay the same?
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So, Fred, I'm curious, in your opinion, which of the video versions of GWTW do you think comes closest to what the movie looked like in theater screens in 1939?
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It was a match made in heaven... in Hollywood heaven, at least
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I can more than understand, Melanie, I think without a TiVo the ceremony would be unbearable... at least with it you can zip past the commercials and the boring parts... and oh well, present-day Hollywood is an entirely different thing than during the Golden Era, but I'll be darned if I'm not a sucker for it at least once a year.
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Aye, I TiVo'd it last time it showed, the cast is sweet -- Cyd, Ricardo, Esther, Peter Lawford, Jimmy Durante, Xavier Cougat.
Do you think Ricardo was a better dancer than Peter?
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Well, I guess I don't have to tell you that if you liked the comic strips, you'll be in much better position to appreciate these unique French movies.
I've not watched them properly, but a quick glance just to check the DVD's were OK leads me to the strong suspicion that the Cleopatra movie is quite a bit superior to the Caesar one (which was the first one).
Also, the original is only available dubbed on the UK market, whereas the sequel allows you to choose subtitled or dubbed versions.
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Ah, but how often do they show foreign-language movies for the "Essentials"?
Of course, if they did do so on a regular basis, there are too many movies that should be included, anything from Potemkin to Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources.
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Yes, it can be funny. I see Gene Kelly as kinda cute, but not sexy.
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Well the chopping off would be due to it being shown in a 1.85:1 ratio, as Izcutter pointed out. I'm sure it must be possible to blow up a movie shot in Academy ratio and keep the proper ratio, although I don't recall any specific example... Also Izcutter said that this print was Eastmancolor, right?
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Well, Japan *is* supposed to be region 2, but there are a number of reasons why a Japanese DVD might play without any trouble in your U.S.-bought DVD player... many of those reasons are listed in this entry:
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What awesome photos! Thank you!
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What makes you think you're "breaking it to me"?
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Totally agree, re Melanie -- but movie goers sometimes expect bravado, not subtlety!
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That's a great movie, too!
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I don't have specific names, but you might try newsrooms and/or arts staff at Variety, The L.A. Times, The New York Times, you could write to Roger Ebert or Leonard Maltin (see their websites). Maybe also domestic film preservation societies?
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Maybe not the movie, but I'd certainly say she stole all the scenes she was in!
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I (heart) Hattie McDaniel!
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Ah, well, show biz is a bit unpredicatable, isn't it?
One small quibble -- and this is only about the CG's that preceded the showing of the movie: they said the movie was nominated for "Best Screenplay - Arthur Edeson".
As anyone who's watched Casablanca more than a few times, you'd instantly recognize the name of Mr. Edeson as a cinematographer, not a screenwriter. And yes, the imdb.com quickly confirmed that All Quiet on the Western Front was nominated for its cinematography -- as well as for "writing achievement".
[i]All Quiet On The Western Front[/i], 1930
in General Discussions
Posted
For what it's worth, if anyone is interested in reading, here is the full review that ran in The New York Times in 1930... I always find it fascinating to read reactions written upon the original release of classic films.
April 30, 1930
THE SCREEN; Young Germany in the War.
By MORDAUNT HALL.
From the pages of Erich Maria Remarque's widely read book of young Germany in the World War, "All Quiet on the Western Front," Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures Corporation has produced a trenchant and imaginative audible picture, in which the producers adhere with remarkable fidelity to the spirit and events of the original stirring novel. It was presented last night at the Central Theatre before an audience that most of the time was held to silence by its realistic scenes. It is a notable achievement, sincere and earnest, with glimpses that are vivid and graphic. Like the original, it does not mince matters concerning the horrors of battle. It is a vocalized screen offering that is pulsating and harrowing, one in which the fighting flashes are photographed in an amazingly effective fashion.
Lewis Milestone, who has several good films to his credit, was entrusted with the direction of this production. And Mr. Laemmle had the foresight to employ those well-known playwrights, George Abbott and Maxwell Anderson, to make the adaptation and write the dialogue. Some of the scenes are not a little too long, and one might also say that a few members of the cast are not Teutonic in appearance; but this means but little when one considers the picture as a whole, for wherever possible, Mr. Milestone has used his fecund imagination, still clinging loyally to the incidents of the book. In fact, one is just as gripped by witnessing the picture as one was by reading the printed pages, and in most instances it seems as though the very impressions written in ink by Herr Remarque had become animated on the screen.
In nearly all the sequences, fulsomeness is avoided. Truth comes to the fore, when the young soldiers are elated at the idea of joining up, when they are disillusioned, when they are hungry, when they are killing rats in a dugout, when they are shaken with fear and when they, or one of them, becomes fed up with the conception of war held by the elderly man back home.
Often the scenes are of such excellence that if they were not audible one might believe that they were actual motion pictures of activities behind the lines, in the trenches and in No Man's Land. It is an expansive production with views that never appear to be cramped. In looking at a dugout one readily imagines a long line of such earthy abodes. When shells demolish these underground quarters, the shrieks of fear, coupled with the rat-tat-tat of machine guns, the bang-ziz of the trench mortars and the whining of shells, it tells the story of the terrors of fighting better than anything so far has done in animated photography coupled with the microphone.
There are heartrending glimpses in a hospital, where one youngster has had his leg amputated and still believes that he has a pain in his toes. Just as he complains of this, he remembers another soldier who had complained of the same pain in the identical words. He then realizes what has happened to him, and he shrieks and cries out that he does not want to go through life a cripple. There is the death room from which nobody is said to come out, and Paul, admirably acted by Lewis Ayres, is taken to this chamber shouting, as he is wheeled away, that he will come back. And he does. The agony in this hospital reflects that of the details given by Herr Remarque.
In an early sequence there is the introduction of the tyrant corporal. Himmelstoss, who has no end of ideas to keep young soldiers on the alert, sometimes amusing himself by making them crawl under tables and then, during the day, ordering them to fall on their faces in the mud. Just as by reading the book, one learns, while looking at this animated work, to hate Himmelstoss. And one occasion when the audience broke their wrapt stillness last night was with an outburst of laughter. This happened when Paul and his comrades lay in wait for the detested non-commissioned officer, and, after thrashing him, left him in a stagnant pool with a sack tied over his head.
Soldiers are perceived being taken like cattle to the firing line and then having to wait for food. There is the cook, who finds that he has enough rations for twice the number of the men left in the company, and when he hears that many have been killed and others wounded he still insists that these soldiers will only receive their ordinary rations. Here that amiable war veteran, Katczinsky, splendidly acted by Louis Wolheim, grabs the culinary expert by the throat and finally a sergeant intervenes and instructs the cook to give the company the full rations intended for the survivors and those who have either died or been wounded.
Now and again songs are heard, genuine melody that comes from the soldiers, and as time goes on Paul and his comrades begin to look upon the warfare with the same philosophic demeanor that Katczinsky reveals. But when the big guns begin to boom there are further terrors for the soldiers and in one of these Paul has his encounter with a Frenchman in a shell hole. Paul stabs the Frenchman to death and as he observes life ebbing from the man with whom he had struggled, he fetches water from the bottom of the shell hole and moistens the Frenchman's lipe. It is to Paul a frightening and nerve-racking experience, especially when he eventually pulls from a pocket a photograph of the wife and child of the man he had slain.
Raymond Griffith, the erstwhile comedian who, years before acting in film comedies, lost his voice through shrieking in a stage melodrama, gives a marvelous performance as the dying Frenchman. It may be a little too long for one's peace of mind, but this does not detract from Mr. Griffith's sterling portrayal.
Another comedian, none other than George (Slim) Summerville, also distinguishes himself in a light but very telling r?le, that of Tjaden. It is he who talks about the Kaiser and himself both having no reason to go to war?the only difference, according to the soldier in the trenches, being that the Kaiser is at home. It is Tjaden who is left behind when the youngsters swim over to the farmhouse and visit the French girls.
Much has been made of the pair of boots and the soldier who wanted them and declared, when he got them from the man who passed on, that they would make fighting almost agreeable for anybody. Mr. Milestone has done wonders with this passage, showing the boots on the man and soon depicting that while they may have been comfortable and water-tight, boots don't matter much when a shell with a man's name written on it comes his way.
The episodes are unfolded with excellent continuity and one of the outstanding ones is where Paul goes home and finds everything changed, including himself. He is asked by the same professor who had taught him, to talk to the new batch of pupils about the war. He remembers his enthusiasm for it when he enlisted in 1914 and he now knows how different are his impressions since he has been stringing barbed wire under the dangerous glare of Very lights in No Man's Land. He knows what a uniform means, and believes that there is no glory at the front; all he has to say to the boys is hard and terse. He tires of the gray heads who think that they know something about war and prefers to cut his leave short and go back to the fighting area rather than listen to the arguments of those who have not been disillusioned by shells, mud, rats and vermin.
During the intermission a curtain is lowered with "poppies, row on row," a glimpse of Flanders field. After that comes more grim battle episodes and more suffering of the men in the gray-green tunics.
All the players do capital work, but Beryl Mercer does not seem to be a good choice for the r?le of Paul's mother. This may be due, however, to having seen her relatively recently in the picturization of Sir James M. Barrie's playlet, "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals."
Messrs. Milestone, Abbott and Anderson in this film have contributed a memorable piece of work to the screen.