MissGoddess

>>>DeNiro is a frightening bad dream. It's all about the concept of "self" and whether a "self" even exists.<<< Ack!! Throw me a life preserver, ChiO! You've left me drowning in waters too deep for me. I don't know what that means. Aside from that, there is something about that actor, DeNiro---in anything---that leaves me feeling dirty. I avoid his movies now. The only movie I managed to tolerate him in, and it's by far his most UNtypical, was *The Last Tycoon* . DeNiro (and half the time, Pacino, though Pacino has passion---I like that) played the same character all the time; a thug or a bum (morally speaking). I just don't like thugs and bums who are *nothing else* but thugs and bums---when a character lacks that most important ingredient which brings out the human flavor of any situation, call it personality or humor, I switch the channel and I don't care who's directing them. Scorcese chose DeNiro time and again and I don't understand why there is a fascination for him---my reaction is like Richard SchNickel's to The Quiet Man!. I think I can deal with Owen Wilson or Adam Sandler (God help me!) easier than the cretins of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon (just the title sends me to the shower). However, I'm still willing to give *King of Comedy* a shot simply because of Jerry Lewis---who bothers me, but he's a genuine talent from the old days and that card lets him into my exlcusive club . As you can see guys, I cannnot separate characters and moral qualities from the artist (director)---if they are too morally ambiguous it becomes an issue and I must turn away in protest. Only someone whose made as many mistakes as I dares to take such a high toned attitude, LOL. Now, as for Ford, I don't like to recommend movies to win anyone over because my own appreciation for them came so gradually, along with, I modestly hope, a growth in my own maturity and perception of the human spirit. I have watched his movies since the beginning and for many years without feeling so much as a single inclination to say "wow". Until a few years ago when I began to take a closer look, and I said my first silent "wow". After a third, fourth and fifth look I kept peeling back so many layers upon layers and finding what writers have described as "Homeric" dimension and almost Shakespearean perception of human values and character. I could not believe all that was contained in his seemingly straightforward films. He was a sneaky old fox and he pulled the wool over my eyes but good. But above all, I saw the *love* for humanity that was there, and without which you really cannot be an artist---the best crafstman or technician in the world, maybe, but not a true artist. Enough hyperbole. His movies are like the paintings you shuffle past in the museum, give a dutiful few minutes of observation to and mentally think (so what? it's pretty and obviously the guy is talented...but, Next!). Perhaps, like me, you have to return again and again, and see why so many generations have found what they needed when looking upon it. Forget what the historians and critics (or I) say, find your own Ford. It's the *journey* I recommend, not just the films.

*The Barbarian* is one of my favorite pre-codes with Myrna. It's one of those movies that came in the wave of exotica the swept the movies in the late twenties and early thirties and Navarro's character is a less effective Valentino-style, Middle Eastern romeo. Nils Asther portrayed a similar type in Garbo's *Wild Orchids* . It may be he liked to wear makeup---all the time! The lady seated with them is actress Louise Closser Hale.

I said it first, but I think I said it more pointedly. Here is a reviewer who compared 3:10 to Yuma (2007) to High Noon: Peter Bradshaw Friday September 14, 2007 The Guardian (UK) "When the hands point up - the excitement starts!" read the slogan on the original poster for High Noon. The slogan for this movie could be: "When the little hand's pointing to the three, and the big hand's pointing to the two, all the excitement you've been enjoying sort of dribbles away!" Despite a faintly anti-climactic ending, there's plenty of entertainment in this robust, old-fashioned western tale. Before Elmore Leonard was the writer of the funky action-crime novels that made him, like Philip K Dick in the sci-fi genre, Hollywood's status-symbol adaptee, he was the author of classic westerns; James Mangold's new film 3.10 to Yuma is a revival of Leonard's 1953 short story, which was first filmed in 1957 with Glenn Ford, and the resemblances to the Gary Cooper classic were immediately obvious: the lone decent guy deserted by various yellow-bellies and left to face a terrible reckoning with the bad men alone. With this new version, the parallel with High Noon isn't so emphatic, as the distinction between the good guys and bad guys doesn't seem quite so clear. But the comparison is unavoidable..... ......Traditionally, the western is a genre in which elemental human drama of good versus evil can be staged in the vast arena of the frontier. But for me, that ethical contest here became muddled, and not obviously in the interests of complexity or ambiguity. It appeared to fudge the issue of precisely what sacrifices the good guys have to make if the bad guys are to be brought to book, and it began to look to me not merely as if the movie's sympathies were sneakily on the villain's side, but as if the sacrifices endured by the virtuous did not even have the effect of defeating evil.

Thanks, Angie---for the great picture from *General Died at Dawn* . The quality is very nice, too, befitting the subject.

Ha ha! Angie you answered Ken exactly as I did!!

>>>Sorry ladies -Paulette Goddard is the main attraction in " The Unconquered ",<<< Paulette who? I didn't know there was anyone else in the movie but Gary and a few Indians...

*Phantom Lady*

*Ella Raines* *Ella in Phantom Lady* Famous Character actor Gabby Hayes had this to say about Ella Raines on the set of "Tall in the Saddle"

*The Blue Gardenia*

Bette Davis in William Wyler's *The Letter*

*Out of the Past*

Opening scene from *The Killers* (the only scenes actually taken from Hemingway's story) Later scenes from same.

Still from Robert Siodmak's *Cry of the City*

I have to agree with cigarjoe---this new version is bad. I was very disappointed. Crowe was alright but everything about the direction and characters bothered me, it was very poorly done. Not one moment of suspense, when there could have been many, and totally unrealistic. Roy Rogers westerns are more believable than this.

That Amazon sale is tempting, especially since they are over the $25 dollar limit to get free shipping. But I have to put a stranglehold on my click-to-buy impulse until I've saved enough for the gigantic Ford at Fox purchase. From the November sale at ddd, I've decided to get the AH Presents Season III, the Powell/Loy non-thin man set, the John Ford set released a couple of years ago, and the Barrymore silents. That is enough extravagence for a whole year!

Yes, I too have noticed that things have gotten back up to speed---I even got into my Private Messages with no problem.

Yes, and I believe the more restrained handling of these shooting scenes gave the filmmaker a chance to show the IMPACT of a death....in Yuma there was only ONE instance, in about 200 shooting deaths, where the director chose to give a few lousy seconds to absorbing the impact of one man's dying. It is sickening to do otherwise. Back on track with Gary----you all may want to read CineSage, jr's interesting posting in the linked thread below because he actually has one of the original final drafts of the script to Mr Deed's Goes To Town plus some interesting Meet John Doe info. http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=114201&tstart=0

That's so interesting about the gensis of "John Does"! I'm going to tell the little bunch in That Thread to read your post.

Hi T---no, they're not showing up there either but I clicked on the links---Greer had great gams!

A lovely, haunting story in the tradition of *The Ghost and Mrs Muir* ...I was privileged to see it on the big screen in Los Angeles and let me tell you, that is the way to really appreciate the exquisite photographic effects. The cinematographer, the great Joseph August (along with some uncredited assistance by the equally great Lee Garmes) did his best to provide specific atmospheres with various lens filters, including one which gives the illusion that the scene is painted on a canvas---it's hard to see that until it's blown up on a large screen. Marvelous. I'm so glad it is on dvd. I've read several of Nathan's books, he was a very romantic fellow. I want to get actress Anna Lee's recently published autobiography---she was married to him.

Theresa, dahlink, I only see boxes with red "Xs" in them....

I think they were trying hard to pander to a teenage male audience---there are virtually no real love scenes (thank heavens no nudity) but I haven't even mentioned to you ladies how much blood and gore there was---it made Gladiator look tame. It was so unnecessary too---like one scene where the animal vet operates on a Pinkerton agent that Russell shot in the stomach---they show EVERYTHING, all the gore and I had my face averted for about 1/4 of the film due to scenes like that. Totally gratuitous and in the most juvenile fashion.

He really does look like a sweet guy. Which brings up another point (sorry to keep carping on 3:10 to Yuma) that I disliked about that movie....everyone, with the sole exception of Christian Bale's character and his family were portrayed as, at best, venal and generally criminal, vicious, psychotic, and dangerous. I mean entire towns were portrayed this way---mine workers, farmer, Indians, townfolk, Everyone! Basically, the director is saying everyone out west in those days was absolute trash who'd shoot you down for a quarter. That is rubbish---what about all the decent, honest, hardworking people who just wanted a new start in life---I think they vastly outnumbered the scavengers and it bothers me that "revisionist" ideas in westerns for the past 30 years try to paint everyone who settled the west as a vicious outcast. That is simply untrue and frankly, not very interesting from a storytelling point of view. Look at how High Noon, for instance, presents a similar circumstance: supposedly only one man is standing up for what is right. But that doesn't mean that everyone in the town was ready to sell out to Frank Miller and gun down Marshall Kane, does it? That is how they would show it today. They were scared, they had gotten soft and comfortable but it would be unrealistic to show them all suddenly turning into murderers. That's what they did in Yuma. It was like the west suddenly became Sodom and Gomorrah.... We really need to send these directors to school, to John Ford, Howard Hawks, Delmer Daves, and Anthony Mann 101.

>>>The pic of Linda on the edge of the bed in a black negligee is from a deleted scene in Forever Amber. I believe the bath scene is as well. Someone mentioned on this thread that 20th should release this DVD. I'd love for it to have all of the scenes deleted because of the censorship fears Fox had re: this movie. I first saw this foto of Linda (on the edge of the bed) in an article in Life magazine on the releas of this movie. <<< I love that shot! It looks like it might have been one of the best scenes in the movie, if they'd only left it in. I even like that it's in black and white---it has more of a "gothic" air about it. Thank you for the information.

Frequent Gary Cooper leading lady *Fay Wray* will be the subject of a new documentary as well as a special screening of her first starring role, Eric Von Stroheim's The Wedding March (1927), here in New York at the Film Forum in honor of what would have been her 100th birthday. Here is an article about the documentary (I wonder if she said anything about Gary?): http://baltimore.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=21279 And the filmforum link, which in turn has links to other articles at the bottom: http://www.filmforum.org/films/faywray.html P.S. Fay Wray was married to screenwriter Robert Riskin, who we just discussed.