MissGoddess

>>>My favorite Robert Ryan movie is "Clash By Night". He tell Barbara Stanwyck "That`s the liquor talking" and she replies "two tiny slugs". I love that line..<<< That movie is filled with lines and bits of character business I love. Like this one, which may be my favorite Stanwyck moment in any film, when she tells fluffy-brained Marilyn: "Home is where you go when you've run out of places." Plunk! Dumps her cigarette in the coffee cup. Hee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Sometimes I rewind that bit over and over because she just cracks me up every time---and because I agree with her.

I'm with Ken on my aversion to nihilism in Peckinpah's (or anyone's) films, but Frank you touched on the aspects of the movie that have always had me curious. I will watch it eventually because I feel like I should at least once.

I think I speak for all the ladies here Frank, when I say you picked some CHOICE screen-caps to share!!! I've added all of them to my Coop photobucket, which already has over 500 images!!

I have always avoided TWB because of the excessive violence, though I'm still curious about the characters of Robert Ryan and Bill Holden.

There are several really "famous" classic movies I still haven't seen, which is so silly. I haven't seen *The Wild Bunch* , either, for instance.

Can you believe I have NEVER seen *The Boy with Green Hair* ? I have heard about it practically all my classic-viewing life but it's always evaded me. I will have to see if it's on dvd.

I only saw the last 20 minutes or so, from the time Pidgeon (still in the cave) pretended to go along with Sanders' idea and rigged up that "spear" to the end. I never saw Joan except in the brief flashback sequence. I was already mad that they didn't end up together---is what Sanders' said about her fate true? I didn't know this was a Fritz Lang film, I just happened to turn to FMC and there it was. I'm not sure I want to see the rest since it ends like it did.

Marvin seemed just plain mean for meanness sake. Ryan's meanness usually seemed to have its root in some inner torment or conflict, as if he never intended to turn out this way or like life had played him a dirty trick. I don't think any such conflicts exist in Marvin's villains. His baddies like being vicious. That's why I'm almost prompted to laugh (somewhat nervously) at his Libert Valance---it's such pure unadulterated viciousness for its own sake, as though it really brought him some kind of perverse joy to hurt people.

Excellent quotes! I have read that book on Mitchum but didn't remember that passage about Crossfire.

John---I finally got to the DVDSavant article on Man of the West---very interesting and additional proof that this movie begs for a dvd release. Because of Gary Cooper's accumulated screen image as utterly moral, gentle, and decent, I think 1958 audiences had a hard time accepting that he could ever have been a murderous cutthroat, let alone worry that he might not overcome his little 'outlaw' problem. In Unforgiven, I had a hard time picturing Eastwood's character as having once been good. I couldn't quite picture cold-blooded, cynical Clint settled down as the good husband and solid father that he seems to have become. Ha haaaaa!!! I was rolling at the last bit about Clint---I totally agree, Hugh Beaumont he was NOT---ever! And from the comments below the article (yours?) I see that there were additional love scenes between Link and Billie which were deleted, because Julie London didn't come off too well in them. I believe you mentioned that before, perhaps there is where the more clear inference they slept together lay.

That is so cool! The Master of Supsense in the Windy City. I just realized something; I have never seen a Hitchcock movie on the big screen...maybe I'll have to fly out there.

I'll look for it, thanks Mike!

Here are some more interesting quotes by and about the actor: * "Ryan's kindly, rather worried face and tired eyes are sometimes seen in completely sympathetic parts, but the emotion he conveys most effectively on the screen is hate." Ian & Elisabeth Cameron, The Heavies * "When McCarthy started, I expected to be a target simply because I was involved in things he was throwing rocks at. I never was a target. Now, looking back, I suspect my Irish name, my being a Catholic and an ex-Marine sort of softened the blow." RR * In the early Fifties Ryan and his wife founded the private Oakwood School "which was a foolhardy thing to do, but we did it. We were dissatisfied with the education system where we lived in North Hollywood. The public schools were too crowded, the private schools were too full of rich kids. In the beginning we didn't have a clear-cut educational philosophy, it was watered-down progressive. For a while we had trouble with the more conservative elements in the community. When we ran up the UN flag, they threw eggs in the windows and at night they painted crosses on the building." * "Ryan's role as the anti-Semitic G.I. in 'Crossfire' is an extra-ordinary performance; full in terms of the character he was playing, of concealment, with a thin coating of restless charm covering a cancerous malignancy that threatened to break out and shatter everything." John Cutts, Films and Filming * "As in many noir films, Robert Ryan delivers Clash by Night's most anguished performance. As the model of the alienated man, pain constantly flickers beneath the sardonic mask of his face, although he holds his mouth tightly in check, and his powerful body in a useless rigidity. Ryan etches a complex portrayal of an unhappy personality whose miseries are expressed in acts of cruelty, but who is accepted with some degree of audience understanding." Julie Kirgo, Film Noir * "Generally, I'm fated to work in faraway, desolate places. As I said to Cary Grant one time - I told him how much I envied him because as the suave, charming, gifted man he is, he makes all his pictures in places like Monte Carlo, London, Paris, the French Riviera, and I make mine in deserts with a dirty shirt and a two day growth of beard and bad food. But that's an act of birth. As I said, I get all the worst locations because of the way I look." RR One last word: CARY GRANT to ROBERT RYAN: "I want you to know that I just saw 'The Set-Up', and I thought your performance was one of the best I've ever seen."

>>>I bet I am the only poster who remembers the name of Irena's perfume<<< Lelage, wasn't it? I may not be spelling it correctly.

Arkadin, you named two I've been longing to see myself for ages. They played them at a Sirk retrospective in NY a while ago, which of course I missed. ChiO---please see A SCANDAL IN PARIS, it's a genuine treasure. George Sanders again, in a movie that makes the most of his talents, and not just for caustic witticisms. Though men might find it a bit soapy, I think the drama, ALL I DESIRE, with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray is a very adult look at marriage and infidelity as it happens in an ordinary, middle-class family.

Thistle---I never even heard of Flesh and Fantasy. So many movies out there still to discover! But there is hope. I remember when *Light in the Piazza* just seemed like a completely obscure movie no one would catch onto (in spite of a big star like Olivia de Havilland in the lead), but lo! and behold! It not only started to pop up on TCM more often, they made a Broadway play out of it and now it's on dvd. Now, I'd like to add *The Picasso Summer* . Has anyone besides me ever seen this movie? It stars Yvette Mimieux and Albert Finne.

>>>Swindell thought they were great in FWTBT but had no chemistry in Saratoga Trunk. They filmed Trunk right after FWTBT when their affair was still going full force and I think they have even more chemistry in Saratoga Trunk so I'm not sure what movie he was watching. Like we've talked about before, I'm not sure how some of the looks they give each other in that one made it past the censors b/c it's clear what they're thinking <<< Yes, what was Swindell smoking...I mean thinking, when he wrote that? ST is basically a lot of foreplay between Coop and Ingrid with a story wrapped around it and a few bizarre characters thrown in for good measure. Was it you---or Kimmy---or someone else who did that YouTube clip of the scenes from Saratoga Trunk? I posted that in another classic movies forum and everyone thought it was one of the sexiest things they'd ever seen!

Frank: Lana liked to say: "I like the boys and the boys like me!" I'm glad she can count you among them, too. As for the pictures, quite honestly I think maybe only 30 or 40 percent of the still photos I have seen---anywhere---of her manage to capture her real appeal and beauty. For that you have to see her movies. Sometimes these posed pictures make her seem too static and hers was a living, moving loveliness. What I believe she did best on screen was not act, so much as react to her leading men. I haven't seen very many other actresses who seemed to genuinely like men as much she did and show it. She can be having a dialogue scene with a woman and it's OK but watch her really light up when the leading man appears. It's quite funny and cute! Ava challenged her men sexually like an equal; Hepburn, too---intellectually, but as though their superior; Rita vamped them but sometimes with a bit of inward fear, and Marilyn was always in her own orbit. Lana, to me, seems to really be with her men, as though it's the most natural place in the world for her to be.

CM----Postman may be Lana's most exciting movie of her entire career. ForeverG---Please feel free to post any pictures of Lana at any age---I for one think she aged very gracefully and I think it's adorable how she always made such an effort to look her best. She knew what she always was to her fans, a "glamour girl", and I think she was sweet not to think that was something to be ashamed of.

Oooh, I'm a flame of burning desire! You posted pictures from *For Whom the Bell Tolls* ! I'm melting. The movie can be a bore but his Robert Jordan is EVERYTHING a man should be (such a glorious cliche!). Inside and out. No wonder Ingrid's "Maria" seems to go all to pieces every time she shares the same atmosphere---she practically vibrates with emotion (Ingrid really did fall for him so it's not acting). I have to give "Pappa" credit for designing the perfect part for him. Too bad the direction is a bit stolid and makes the whole thing drag on. Frank --- Glad you finally watched C&D. This was Lilli Palmer's first Hollywood movie, and what an introduction, co-starring with Gary Cooper. I haven't read her autobiography, Change Lobsters and Dance, which is supposed to be one of the best ever written by an actress. I want to know what she had to say about Coop. I think he is very good with her.

You're too kind CM, there other posters here far more eloquent than I can hope to be. And it's easy to babble on about what interests me.

Thanks Ken---I never watched "The Waltons" but I certainly do know W'73 and now I can picture him.

*The Iceman Cometh* , like other "serious" plays such as Death of a Salesman, A Doll's House and Long Day's Journey into Night (among others) have always put me off. Maybe being forced to study them in the past has created a mental block. I have read about Ryan's wonderful performance, though, and would probably rent it if it came to dvd. However, I couldn't promise not to use the FF button.

*Act of Violence*

*Bad Day at Black Rock*