lydia221

Can you tell us when (approximately) you saw the trailer? Then we could check back to what movies were showing around that time.

Right! But I think that the real dogs (with apologies to my own dog) were on the Production Code board, considering the nauseating ending of The Women.

See the Wallace Beery entry on the imdb: http://imdb.com/name/nm0000891/ Scroll down to the 'director' section. It helps if you spell his name correctly.

The film test was done on 25 may 1949 and is in black & white. The producer would have been Walter Wanger and the director William Daniels (whose name they misspelled on the card!). And yes, the other card read "Jimmie Wong Howe".

Are there any men in the film? Because The Women has no male actors.

Here is the Robert Mitchum tie-in: R.I.P. Films is an original animated series created by French filmmaker Bruno Collet whose work has been exhibited and praised in numerous film festivals around the world. Like his earlier stop-motion animation short "Calypso is Like So" (2003), featuring a Robert Mitchum puppet running amok on an abandoned movie set, Collet's work pays tribute to the world of classic movies and includes numerous homages and in-joke references to iconic cinema scenes and characters. http://www.tcm.com/2006/RIP/index.jsp?videoName=3DIVEMENSIONAL

I have a dvd recorder with a hard drive, and I make zillions of dvds, most from TCM. As I was getting desperate for storage space, I searched online and came across these very nice multi-dvd boxes: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/search.asp?search=versapak&x=0&y=0 The inserts are generic and interchangeable, so even after you receive your order, you can mix and match (putting, for instance, a 2-dvd insert into a 3-dvd case to get a 5-dvd box). I have a box for Warren William, one for Kay Francis, a couple for Bette Davis, and so on. As for blank dvds, cheaper is not always better. Here is a site that rates blank media: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

I sent my comments (see below) to TCM, with a suggestion that they look also at what others (i.e. all of you) have been posting. Sone of you might want to contact them as well. The more they hear from the 'audience at home', the more they'll notice.

I'm with you -- not only do I miss the old 'one-reel wonders' intro, I actively don't like the new one. It has no personality. And I feel the same way about the new-ish graphics used for the age ratings. I loved the train going by. The weird buildings are bland and lifeless. Dear TCM staff: why not solicit viewer opinion before changing these things? We're the ones who have to look at them. I think of TCM as MY channel; it's almost all I ever watch. I often say that 'our own' Robert Osborne spends as much time in my house as I do.

it is possible that you don't have 'cookies' enabled for the TCM site. Cookies are bits of information, stored by your browser, that enable you to navigate web sites. If you go to the top of the web page and click on Tools, then go down to the item about Cookies, you'll get a side menu. It will tell you the Cookie status of the TCM site. If it says that you are not accepting cookies from the site, just click where it says 'accept session cookies' and then reload the page. If it says that you are already accepting Cookies, then the problem lies elsewhere. (If your browser is Mozilla Firefox, it is a lot harder to get at the Cookies control. I don't know why they set it up that way.) Good luck!

In 1920, German director Paul Legband made a silent version of The Marquise of O (Die Marquise von O). It was shown several times back in the 70s on pbs station WNET in the NY/NJ area.I saw it at least twice -- it's a very good movie, remade in 1976 by Eric Rohmer (also an excellent film). I would like to find a copy of this film, but have had no luck so far. No one seems to have heard of it, although it merited a brief entry in the imdb: http://imdb.com/title/tt0011442/ I think that it must be in the public domain, and therefore can be shared. If anyone out there has a copy of this film, or knows where I can find one, or if you want to share information about it, would you please reply to this post? Thanks. lydia221

Red Doors It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005, and had a limited release this past summer in NYC and San Francisco. http://reddoorsthemovie.com/ If it's not re-released, look for it on dvd; I believe they have a contract.

'Chick' may not be intended as a derogatory term, but, as used by men to describe women, it is certainly a diminutive. What kind of female person do you envision when you think about a chick? Not an intelligent, capable, responsible woman. More like a young, cute, perhaps a little silly, fashion-conscious girl. As sugarpuss said in her post, "Chicks are cute and adorable and fuzzy." That's fine for a six-year-old. But for a grown woman? I don't think that there is a male equivalent, is there? 'Chicks' go out with 'guys' or dudes,' and those are not diminutives. They have positive connotations -- well, 'dude' might or might not, depending of who is saying it. Regardless, it doesn't equate with 'child'. If that is the way we let ourselves be seen, that is the way we will be thought of and treated -- like children. To me, the expression 'chick flick' denotes a movie that men consider second-rate. And so do the terms 'women's picture' and 'weepie'. Because since the beginning of history, women have been considered to be less substantial, intellectually and emotionally and every other way, than men.

Aren't you confusing the medium with the message? Dolores said that she'd follow Warren William anywhere, not David Dwight.

Hi, I hope that you've read the posts of younger viewers who aren't thrilled by TCM's attempts to be hip and happening. Obviously, nothing stays the same forever, and I would expect some innovation. But I am tired of the media's obsession with the "18-35 males" mystique. My kids are in their 20s and they also find Ben pompous and annoying. (I don't know what they'll think of Rob Zombie, but my daughter, who is a big X-Files fan, told me that I'd better tape 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' or else {that's the movie that Fox Mulder watched forty-some times.} ) I'm so pleased to hear your promise about TCM not going the way of AMC & Bravo. When I watch tv, 99% of the time TCM is what I'm watching. But I have to ask -- what do you guys have against Marion Davies? Many of her films are fabulous. Why not show them? Or put them out in a boxed set (and for The Patsy, you might want to include the old piano score; the new one was not, in my opinion at least, a success). I'm lucky to have some of her films and to have seen others at NYC's Film Forum (which always sells out for her movies). It was wonderful to see the silent version of Marianne, and movies like The Red Mill, and even the costume dramas. Show them if you want to do something new. (Old is new?) Thanks for listening and for reading out posts.

I had seen part of this movie once before and have been waiting for it to come around again so I could get it on a dvd. I like it a lot and am glad to know that others do, too. Warren William reminds me a little of John Barrymore, toned down a LOT. (I love all three of the original Barrymores.) And of course John Barrymore is in Grand Hotel -- which, as our own Robert Osborne reminded us, served as a model for Skyscraper Souls (same year, too) -- except that William's part here is equivalent to Wallace Beery's, not Barrymore's. Skyscraper Souls also resembles Grand Hotel in having an excellent cast. Jean Hersholt was actually in both films.

Robert Osborne is real. He knew/knows all the classic actresses and actors. He knows Hollywood. And he's a neat guy, very down-to-earth. All Ben knows is his famous last name. But he comes across as thinking that he's hot stuff.

Maybe it is "Three Strangers" (1946) According to legend, if three strangers gather before a figure of Kwan Yin (Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny) on the night of the Chinese New Year and all make the same wish, Kwan Yin will grant the wish. In 1938 London, Crystal Shackleford decides to put the legend to the test. She picks two strangers off the street, and puts the proposition to them. They decide that an ideal wish would be for a winning sweepstakes ticket. After all, everyone needs money and it should be easy to divide the winnings equally...

How appropriate that you should ask just now about this song. It comes originally from the film "Sally," made in 1929. It was one of the first films to be shot in two-strip technicolor. Just yesterday I recorded my vhs copy of "Sally" onto a dvd. I had taped it off TCM several years ago, and in his intro, Robert Osborne said that the color version of the film has been lost, except for a couple of dance sequences - which TCM incorporated into their restored version. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0020358/ Here is the imdb soundtrack list: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0020358/soundtrack As I recall, "Look for the Silver Lining" is sung quite differently here from the way we hear it in TCM's movie intro. The later movie, entitled "Look for the Silver Lining," is actually a biopic about Marilyn Miller, the actress who played Sally in the original Broadway show, and then reprised her role in the film "Sally." If you're interested, someone has posted a long bio of Miller on the imdb: http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0588894/bio

Have you any idea how old you were when you saw this movie? That might give us a cutoff date.

I have seen many versions of who wrote what in Citizen Kane, but never have I found positive substantiation for what you claim. Personally, I find so much of Orson Welles in the Citizen Kane screenplay that I cannot accept the notion that he added only a few finishing touches. On the other hand, knowing something of Welles's character, I am certain that Mankiewicz did more on the script than Welles would have wanted to acknowledge. To be fair, Welles did, in the lengthy interviews he did with Peter Bogdanovich, give Mankiewicz a good bit of credit. My point was not to make a case for who did what, but rather to say that Ben M's comment was an arrogant overstatement. You can't ignore Orson Welles when you talk about the Citizen Kane script.

The "grey screen of death" is exactly what it sounds like: the screen goes a medium grey color for 2-4 seconds. (I took the name from the 'blue screen of death' familiar to computer users.) The sound usually goes too, but not always. You can imagine how annoying this is when one is trying to record a film, especially a film which one has been awaiting anxiously. And the thing is, it only happens with TCM. Which is almost the only station that I watch.

Ben M. got off to a poor start with me even before he got started. In his introductory promo, he informed us that his grandfather had written Citizen Kane. Not co-written. Written. Right there, he made a bad impression. Doesn't he know? Or does he not care? Then he told us that he was chosen as the new host because of his family name -- and because he really likes movies. Well, so do I, and I'm not as boring as he is. He just stands there like one of those operatic tenors who think that 'acting' means shifting one's hands ever so slightly every now and then; and he doesn't have the saving grace of being able to belt out an aria. I won't listen to him any more. When I do weekend recording, I just edit him out before burning dvds. I have a sneaking suspicion that he was chosen because TCM thought they needed someone hip and happening to appeal to younger viewers. Boy, were they wrong. Even my kids think that he's a loser.

Anyone with kids can raise their own film-watching pals. My children won't watch just any classic movie, but if I choose carefully, they will usually enjoy what I select. My advice: 1) educate your partners/friends without being overbearing; 2) try to show them movies that you think they will like (instead of just what you want to see - you'll start to figure out what they like after a few failures); 3) be willing to make deals. I watched every *!?"%*& season of the X-Files with my daughter, and actually enjoyed a lot of it. In return, she watched things that I wanted to show her. (And I notice that she chooses movies or shows which she thinks I will like; it works both ways, so you shouldn't have to sit through films that you absolutely can't stomach.) A little flexibility goes a long way.

Or if you are a Raritan-Valley Cablevision customer who watches TCM regularly, and you have never had the "grey-screen-of death" problem, please let me know that.