RobertMarshall

Which actors can you think of who were often able, even though not in the leading role, to "steal the show," to some extent, from the star in the lead role? One I can think of is the great Walter Pidgeon. In "Command Decision" (1948), for example, with Clark Gable in the lead role, although Pidgeon's was also a major role.

Oh, no. What did I help start here? You're right, Cinemascope, there was no point in my getting into modern-era movies here. (Who wants to, anyway?) I saw some other posts getting into it and I jumped aboard. There are no oldtimers I dislike. They all brought something worthwhile to films. In any era, you wonder about the casting decisions and the launching of stardoms. So-and-so's okay, and now you can't picture anybody else singing that song from that musical that she made a hit, but why was she chosen? Reasonably attractive, but kind of unusual. Doesn't bring the biggest amount of charisma in the world to the project. Does she have connections? But it's all part of Hollywood. Even among today's actors, there aren't any I CAN'T STAND. Today we're in a whole other filmmaking era I can't stand, with scripts and unwritten rules and agendas I can't stand. (And there's another thread for that subject.) But not the actors. To find people I can't stand, all I have to do is turn on the TV. Where and how do they find them? But that is DEFINITELY a subject for another website, thank goodness. Sorry for leading the discussion astray, and for bringing it up one more time. Moving swiftly ahead...

Ha, ha, Klondike. I shouldn't have said that's the premise. I knew there was more to it than that. I couldn't remember the plot. I was trying to come up with things I remembered to make it recognizable. I thought that's what this thread was for. Yes, Dan, I'm pretty sure it was "I See a Dark Stranger" (1946), also starring Trevor Howard, and Raymond Huntley as a Nazi spy who hopes to use Deborah Kerr's Irish lass's hatred of the British to help him obtain the plans for the D-Day invasion. Much more entertaing than I made it sound! Thanks.

I'm mystified by the success of most modern actors and actresses. Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Julia Roberts. Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone. I guess it finally dawned on me what kind of era we had entered as far as moviemaking and "stars" when I saw "Rocky," written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. Once upon a time, moviegoers saw characters who were, in some ways, their betters; they saw things worth aspiring to. The view was now definitely downward. To go back earlier,Tony Curtis in sagas set in times of antiquity, as a Roman or Viking, especially when surrounded by classically trained British actors. The Roman upper classes speak English with a British accent, the lower classes with a New York accent. In those films, Curtis seems like a juvenile delinquent brought into a drama group to keep him off the streets and out of trouble. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The special effects is the star of their movies, anyway. Lucas, or Lukas, Haas. An armadillo has a more expressive face.

What is the title of the movie starring Deborah Kerr as a proud Irish spitfire who, I guess the premise is, marries an Englishman, and is highly sensitive to any percieved ethnic insults. When things seem to have settled down at last, and, I guess, they're on their honeymoon, in the final scene, she again erupts in indignation. The camera pans around and upward to reveal the source of her outrage: her husband has booked them into The Oliver Cromwell Inn (or some similar name).