WhyaDuck

It's New Years Eve, so bring on all these classic songs and dance numbers. What better night for a walk down memory lane than New Years Eve. You can break out your old 40s albums or your old rock n roll records. Radio stations have often went down memory lane on New Years Eve. ..........So for TCM, I can't think of a wider collection of movie music that these Thats Entertainment movies. For those that aren't into, there is always the remote control. Everybody celebrates New Years in their own way. I would think that people that lived though the era of the musicals will have alot of nice memorys brought back to them this New Years Eve. Again, thats a big part of New Years to me. Now if you are 18 or 21, then you don't have many memorys and are busy starting your own collection in life with the latest thing. However, if you've lived any length of time at all, New Years is a good time to recapture your youth or look back a little as you proceed into another new and year of adventure. My memorys of these are not of the 1940s or 1950s. In fact it was 1974. My dad was now gone and my mom very depressed. I saw Astair and Kelly on Johnny Carson promoting this movie. So I put down my Led Zepllin albums for one night and took my mom out. She loved and couldn't believe what I had taken her to see. So besides doing something my mom long remembered, these songs were new to me and I got to see who Mickey Rooney, Astair, Kelly, Judy, Frank and Bing and all the rest were. So this 19 year old enjoyed it very much. Oh yes, there were girls my age in the theatre raving about Gene Kelly, so there were other people my age that enjoyed it. Thats my memory this New Years Eve. I bet alot of people my age or younger have fond memories watching these with their parents also, and are glad they got to see these classic musical numbers. One last edit and memory, this was the only time in my life that I ever heard an audience give a standing ovation to a movie in a theatre. So here is to TCM....Here is to That Entertainment I, II and III.......and heres to you, Happy New Year. .........You can't please everybody, but it's hard to imagine TCM putting more stars and more songs into New Years Eve in any other way........For those that these movies bring back great memorys, ENJOY and HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!! Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Actually," A Christmas Carol, Part II " was a half hour TV comedy in the 1980s. I guess if there was a point, it was charity within reason. Or maybe, a hidden message is don't max out the credit cards over Christmas......but mostly it was a comedy with alot of gags and comics in it. It wasn't to be hard on the poor either and it wasn't. It was just a comdey and they used the ghosts returning the next Christmas because Scrooge was now the town sucker and they taught him moderation. I do think Whitmore as Scrooge says something at the end like, " Not miser or fool, but bussinessman yet fair and honest" ....But it was just a half hour TV comedy, and nothing as heavy as putting the blame on the poor. .....It was a comedy that kept it light an in the spirit of Christmas. It was a TV show in the mid 1980s that only lasted half a season.I don't know the name. Much like Twighlight Zone to Sci-Fi, this show tried to have a different comedy with different actors and comics each week. Completely different each week. The fact that the show got cancelled quickly shows that the public doersn't want different but will watch a show like Andy Griffith up into it being on life support with Mayberry RFD. ......So whatever the name of this short lived comedy series in the 1980s was, one of it's few shows was this Christmas comedy episode. So its intention was for the most part comedy and maybe the other comedys weren't as good as this one. Much like the Alfred Hitchcock TV show, some were beter than others. ...Just one episode in a TV show that got cancelled half way through the season. I only used it and Carol Burnett as examples of why SNL is not out of line doing comedy about old movies or Christmas. It's been done before for years. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Watching Bogart on TCM on Christmas and thinking of Marlow Spade and The Grandma Reindeer Caper. It was Christmas but for a private eye, crime doesn't take a holiday. I got a call to investigate a grandma' that got ran over by a reindeer. I advised calling the police but the voice on the phone insisted on my services. I told them I would stop by, but I get paid handsomely for holidays, at least time and a half. I showed up at the house and right away I suspected foul play. My first suspect was the grandpa'. He was taking it so well and playing cards with cousin Mel. The old boy didn't seem to be too concerned about his late wife out in the snow and the suspicious hoof prints on her back. "You're taking it pretty hard, aren't you pops. Don't let you're wifes demise ruin you're card game ", I said and watched his reaction....... He said, " I enjoy playing cards sir, with a man that likes to play cards "...... I told him, " I like to talk homicide to a man that likes to play cards with a man that likes to play cards "........ He said, " Indeed, I like to talk to a man that likes to talk homicide to a man that likes to play cards with a man that likes to play cards ". .... I said, " Thats ducky, where were you about the time your wife was killed ? " .....Pops claimed he was in the house with the rest of the family and that somehow his wife had been drinking too much egg nog, had forgotten her medication and wandered out into the snow. The old boys alibi would have been better if it wasn't for the rest of the family. They were sitting around discussing if they should open up the old ladys presents or send them back. About this time I suspected everybody in the room. I've seen people bumped off for two bits, so these presents under the tree was enough motive in my book. One thing was clear, they didn't use a rosco. No bullitt wounds. No knife wounds either. No immediate signs of foul play except for those reindeer hoof prints on her back. The family tried to say I may not think there is no such thing as Santa, but they and granpa' do believe. Thats where I caught the lot of em' in the lie. The problem was no sleigh marks, just hoof print marks on the old gals back. When I said that, granpas daughters tried to throw me off the track. They had been giving me the come on since I came in. Now the yougest daughter tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up. Her older sister was tall and cool with those cats eyes. Jeepers, Creepers, where did she get those Peepers. She was a good actress, real good and great gams that went all the way to the floor. She asked me if I could whistle. Then she asked me if I could roll over and play fetch.. I did and she told me I was a good boy, real good. ......I said, " Look sister, it won't do, I won't play the sap or the dog for you ". .....Thats when the dames started bribing me to cut me in on grandmas presents. ....and thats when I had them..... Grandma came walking into the room and you should have seen their face. The old lady was a little worse for wear and needed medical attention quick, but she certainly wasn't dead. ....That didn't stop the attempted homicide. Grandma hadn't forgot her medication, grandpa said he left it in the car. The daughters had slipped grandma a mickey on top of it in her egg nog. What they didn't count on was the old gal could take it. She did stumble out into the snow and thats when someone in a reindeer costume began to jump up and down on her back. Possibly cousin Mel. .....After they thought she was dead, they went in and called me instead of the police. That was their first mistake. The other was when I pulled up and inspected the body and I heard the old gal in the snow ask, " Dat' you Santa Clause ? " ......So I asked the old gal to play along with me while I wrapped up the case. Then I called the police and had them all ran in for attempted homicide as the ambulance took grandma away. The old gals fine, but I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get paid for this caper.. ....Just another Christmas Day in the life of Marlow Spade. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

I saw this years ago when it first was on TV. SNL has had alot of funny Christmas bits, and this was a funny one. I love It's A Wonderful Life but what if after this heartfelt ending, absent minded Uncle Billy remembered he accidently gave the old savings and loans money to Mr Potter. Suddenly this holiday cheer turns to revenge on this awful man. I love how the whole town comes crashing in on Potter and the Jimmy Stewart immitation is funny. ...I always liked Rich Little and Frank Gorshin, David Frye and such. Shows like SNL and SCTV were great immitations. That Dave Thomas was the only person I ever saw that could do Bob Hope. Bob Hope and Johnny Carson nailed Rich Little one night how he and nobody else can do Bob Hope. Well, Dave Thomas on SCTV nailed it. I wish he was still on TV doing a phoney Bob Hope Christmas Show with it. SNL had a good one when Tom Hanks immitated a Dean Martin Christmas Show including The Gold Diggers. I don't see this as any more of an insult to a classic than Carol Burnett and her bits about Gone With The Wind and such. ......Shows like SNL, SCTV, Mad TV, In Living Color...to name a few....have kept the sketch comedy alive that I grew up watching on shows like Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin and such.....I'm glad TV comedy hasn't been totaly reduced to sitcoms. OK, I Love Lucy was funny, but most sitcoms aren't. I find most of these family sitcoms to be very routine and without much thought behind them. A young couple and some kids, thats a sitcom, big deal......So heres to the comedy writers still going strong on TV in these SNL type shows that are a throw back to the old variety shows. A TV show once did " A Christmas Carol, Part II " ....it had James Whitmore in it as Scrooge. .....It's Christmas Eve the next year and the ghosts return. " Is this to be an annual event " Scrooge asks.......The ghosts show how Scrooge has went from miser to town fool and is now letting people take advantage of him. ......The last ghost is the grim reaper, and Scrooge asks this ghost why it never speaks. The grim reaper replies, " I have a cold ". ......Tiny Tim has grown up to be a spoiled brat and the grim reaper shows Scrooge his tombstone again, but now it says Ebenezer Screege. " This is worse than last year, at least the tombstone was spelled right last year ", Scrooge tells the ghost. ........So Scrooge wakes up and the kids asks if he wants the biggest goose in the window as last year. "No", says Scrooge, " Just a goose big enough for their family, nothing more, and bring back the change this year ". The message Scrooge learns is that charity doesn't have to make him the town patsy I love this kind of stuff because there is more thought behind it than some sitcom about one of the kids getting a D in math or the usual nothingness of most sitcoms.......So may Christmas Future bring us more funny holiday stuff. Much better than the tired soap operas with a Christmas tree setting thrown in. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Bells Of St Marys is very heartwarming. Of course it has Bing Crosby singing holiday songs Father O'Malley and Bergman in one of my favorite movies of her as the nun. The kids and the story just capture you and it makes you feel kind of good all over like Christmas. ....Father O'Malley and the nun at the end has me fighting back the tears. Its A Wonderful Life is so great and those scenes before and after the angel where Jimmy Stewart is beside himslf and praying out loud. Sincere, heartfelt prayer. ......The end, especialy when his brother in the Navy comes in the house, he is alive and so are all the seamen his brother saved on the Navy ship because George once saved his brother. The book the Angel left with the words, No Man Is Poor Who Has Friends. The brother saying, " Heres to my brother Geotge, the richest man in town ". ...If you can keep from crying at that ending, you are a tougher guy than me. The Grinch, the half hour TV version. Not that long 2 hour thing. The half hour version is perfect because....it's a poem. A half hour poem from beginning to end. You have the voice of Boris Karloff which is perfect for the Grinch. ....but it's a nice little half hour poem. " and the Grinch thought of something he hadn't thought before....Perhaps Christmas doesn't come from a store....Perhaps Christmas means just a little bit more ".....Are those not great words in this poem. " So Welcome Christmas. Christmas time is in our grasp....As long as we have hands to clasp. " ......Yes, this too tears me up. Not the new version. The half hour poem is great. Charlie Brown Christmas is a cartoon classic also, and that music, that wondeful music gets better as the years go by. Miracle On 34th Street, the old version. He deserved that Acadamy Award, didn't he. The concept of faith and believe is put on trial, and it's a wonderful movie as even I believe he is Santa Clause. I've seen all the versions of Scrooge and I must say I enjoy the Bill Murray version. The old english verion is a classic but I also like George C Scott in his most Patton like voice asking, " are there no orphanages and jails that my taxes fund. Let the poor go there or die and reduce the worlds surplus population ". ....Many times I have heard people talking of how they pay taxes and they are basicaly saying the same darn thing. Health Care and such would cost too much. I pay too much in taxes already. Am I my brothers keeper. We don't need more schools, we need more jails. It's the same thing, get it. There are alot of Chritmas movies old and new that I like. but they aren't on the must do list for me. Here are some albums or CDs that are Dean Martin Christmas....I love this CD......Marshmellow World is so fun.....Walking In a Winter Wonderland....and Deano trying to get the girl by saying Baby It's Cold Outside......Just a fun time with Dean and I play it alot. Bing Crosby Christmas ....Bing was the sound of Christmas and any CD that has him singing White Christmas is great. I like how Bing sings festive songs and religious songs. Louis Armstrong Christmas.... I like this, especially if the CD includes What A Wonderful World. ...Cool Yule and such is fun and I love hearing Pops read The Night Before Christmas. Satchmo and that great horn. I love it. Al Hirt Christmas........That horn and voice tear up Nutty Jingle Bells and such......but what I really love is that golden trumpet on Ave Maria. That is the best. Herb Albert and The Tiajuana Brass Christmas.......Another trumpet to a different beat that captures a more latin sound with great holiday versions of standards. Boots Randolph Christmas...... This is some great sax to open presents by or just look at the tree Elvis Presley Christmas......This rocks and it has Blue Christmas but for the soldiers, I like his version of I'll Be Home For Christmas. There are other CDs and Albums such as The Carpenters, ot Pipe Organ records or the old Lawrence Welk Christmas Album from the late 1950s with Larry singing in his bass voice, Up On The Rooftop. ......but I really like the albums I listed aboveand I'll stick with those, and I will play those. I've already played Dean Martin alot and I'm ready for more. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Have you ever seen that. The orphans waiting for the priest to come back, waiting for their Christmas presents. ....Spencer Tracy as the priest sees them looking out the window and he frowns.....He has been trying to get donations for these needy kids, but he has a sack full of nothing. Nobody donated anything but broken junk.....Spencer Tracy as the priest has to go in and face those kids and see the looks on their faces change from expectation to disappointment....then to top it off the bundle of food isn't a turkey, it's mush, as Tracy trys to tell them it's good food, not an empty stomach for any of them. I mention this because it's not too late for us. Friday I get to help deliver charity baskets. Saturday and Sunday I've got a bunch of stuffed animals for two differnt clubs Childrens partys. Dollar store stuff that I buy after Christmas at half price and keep in a closet all year. I don't know if I have enough for both places, but if I don't, 20 bucks should add Holiday coloring books or something. Every kid will get something. ....I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back. I'm saying this because I'm not by any means well off, but I've found anything you can do is better than nothing. You can still kick in a buck to a charity or help deliver a needy basket. There have been Christmases when I felt broke until I delivered needy baskets and seen how bleak other peoples lives are and the look on their face from getting a church or clubs needy basket. I'm telling you our home and Christmas tree look like a mansion after that and I'm as full of the holiday spirit as old Scrooge upon waking up on Christmas morning and being reborn. So for those who have seen this sad scene in Boys Town or for those who haven't....all I'm saying is like old Scrooge, Theres Still Time. ......even if it's just kicking in when you pass that Salvation Army person ringing their bell. If you can spare a dime or some time, a little can go along way. Cast your bread upon the water and it will come back many fold. It really is a good Christmas feeling to do something, anything, for somebody, especially the needy and the children. It's a feeling all about you that I guarantee will keep the holiday blues away and you will feel like a Bing Crosby Christmas song or something. It's a great feeling indeed. The amazing thing is that whatever I do for a church or a club as far as charity work at Christmas or whenever......somehow God always seems to give me a little windfall during the year. What goes around, comes around. ...If I help people, people help me. ...If I donate money, somehow God always has some extra money come to me at some point over the year that I wasn't expecting. ...Thats the miracle, it's like you are donating to yourself in alot of ways. I'ld like to think the miracle of Jesus feeding all those people with a couple fishes was that everybody went home and brought back food themselves, and those two fishes brought out the miracle of charity. Anyway, Boys Town has Christmas scene in it that is a good wake up call. The good news there is still time to do something about it this holiday season. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

If your wife says the ending is the two of you, you are indeed blessed. Merry Christmas. I've heard Jack Lemmon or somebody on TCM saying that Lemmon character and MacLaines character are not good people or heros and are flawed, but that didn't sound right to me as I say. I always liked both characters all through the movie. ....Maybe the actors in the movie had to look at this movie inside out as they saw themselves in it or acted in it......I had the luxury of watching it from the outside in. I see a different movie. I always liked both characters, even when I saw this on TV when I was around 11 or 12 years old decades ago. .....So in thinking it over, in 1960 I don't think it was called sexuall harrasement as it is now. I don't even think they had any legal avenues or anything back then. These two people are just victims of the power of some greedy corporate bosses. Lemmon is actualy a guy from Ohio that gets ate up and spit out by New York City. ....I'll go as far as to say that if the characters were awful, we the audience wouldn't give a darn if they fall in love at the end, we just wouldn't. ....So it's not all Wilder growing a rose in a garbage can, we like these two all through the movie, WHY ?.....because they are the victims, we want to see the harrasement end, we want better for them as the audience. ....So we see both completely sexually harrased by the corporate power bosses all through Christmas and New Years, and yet they find each other...they find each other....and if they were awful people we wouldn't care, but they aren't awful, just victims.....and we feel it's a happy holiday ending because in the end they are victims no more. They find each other and they always were human beings as we the audience knew all along. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

The Apartment was on TCM yesterday and I wasn't going to watch it again but once I started I did watch it again. It is a Christmas film of a different kind. You see, you have these guys cheating on their wives at Christmas. Lets start with that... ....I know they say that Lemmon isn't a good person and MacLaine isn't a good person and there is no real good person in this and Wilder builds a rose in a garbage can....and that never sounded right to me....So lets look at this movie another way because for some reason I always liked both Lemmon and MacLaine early on in this film. Or at least felt sorry for them. Lemmon is a suffering hero, not a hero, a suffering hero. Why is he suffering ? This movie is also about job harrasment and sexual harrasment, or at least it would be in 2008. Harrasment is about WHO HAS THE POWER ?. Now most workers never meet the heads of a company like MacMurray. MacMurray wouldn't bother with hiring and firing elevator girls or some nobody in accounting. ....MacMurray plays the villian and he is, but there are others.....This all starts with the heads of personel, Ray Walston and the other guy. Now this movie makes Ray Walston and the other guy look not as bad as MacMurray. Ray Walston can often be fun to watch but lets face it, he and this other guy in personel are guilty of harrasment. Both of these guys are villians. They have the power. So this story really starts with the heads of personel cheating on THEIR wives. They have the power to hire and fire. They are the head or personel. What the movie doesn't show is at some point these two guys started this whole thing. Maybe they've did this to other workers or maybe it's the first time, but we know at some point they are the ones who come up with the idea to borrow some employees apartment for their hookers and mistresses. .....Enter Lemmon who the movie tells us is from Ohio. He has this low level job in this New York skyscraper building. The young guy from Ohio is a sucker for these two New York executives. ....You can bet your money that the personel executives saw the kid from Ohio coming and saw him as a sucker and THEY asked HIM for the use of his apartment. This is how the harrasment began. It's very hard to say no to the heads of personel that control your paycheck. .....Now they may have started with just asking to use it once, and then again, and then again. We know from the movie that Walston and the other guy have impossed their power on Lemmon for over a year. We see from the start of the movie Lemmon out in the rain waiting to get in his own apartment, which makes him immediatly the suffering hero. We see he is NOT moving up the company ladder when they show his job. Why then is he out in the rain ? ......Because the heads of personel can hire and fire. They can wright this guy from Ohio up for being 5 seconds late or say he takes too long at lunch or say they have heard complaints about him. Personel can make his life a living hell and fire the boy from Ohio if he doesn't hand over the key. ....We can see from the movie that Walston and this other villian are not giving the boy from Ohio many perks at they treat him lousy, so they must be threating him with his job, which is harrasment. We can see Lemmon is in fear of losing his job. We also see that the one head of personel tries to use the apartment to cheat on his wife on Christmas of all times. Christmas Day at 4:00 to be exact. Thats as bad as MacMurray using the apartment to cheat on his wife on Christmas Eve. ...Now this is probably the first time in over a year that the kid from Ohio doesn't give them the key, and right away Walston and the other guy show their ugly side with " What has buddy boy done for us lately ", and the heads of personel give out information where this worker lives of all things. They give out personel information to a complete stranger. Already we can see they intend to fire him or show their complete power so he never refuses their power again. Thats harrasment and giving out personel information such as adresses is against the law as is harrasment. Walston and this other guy are villians of the worst kind. The movie shows us two company stooges. Lemmon as one of the low level workers and MacLaine even lower as an elevator operator soon to be replaced my automated elevators in the 1960s. The movie shows us Lemmon is in love with her early on. We can see he wants to ask her out. .......but Lemmon is a suffering hero remember, so the curve ball is the head of everything in the skyscraper cheats on his wife also and MacMurray notices the elevator girl one day and decides she would be easy enough to go after. ....The elevator girl actually lets herself believe that the top executive is intersted in her enough to leave his wife, and this of course crushes Lemmon.....Now MacMurray has heard about his heads of personel and this apartment, and he uses his power to get in on it. Abuse of power. MacMurray is shown as a villian more. We see him cheating on his wife on Christmas Eve with MacLaine. She now sees how much he has to leave to be with his wife on Christmas and what a nothing she is to him. We see him say he didn't have time to shop as he hands her money like a prostitute. We see MacMurray at home on Christmas pretending to be a good husband and father. We see him get called on the phone by Lemmon over MacLaines attempted suicide. We see MacMurray cover his rear end and hide his affairs from his family on Christmas. We hear the villian music as MacMurray hits the office and fires the secretary the day after Christmas, a secretary he use to have an affair with and now we see the sexual harrasment. We see the abuse of power. Harrasment is very clear with MacMurray, but we as the audience must see it in the heads of peronel as well, such as Ray Walston. As for Christmas, Lemmon is upset to find the elevator girl is who the top exec brought to his apartment....but once he sees she is dying, he rushes to save her life, with alot of help from huis neighbor who tells him to grow up and be a human being....all in the setting off this apartment and his Christmas tree that he gets punched into for his efforts.........MacMurray actually promotes Lemmon to keep him quite about the whole thing, and with MacMurray it's probably a short term promotion. A bandaid on his family problem. .....But now it's New Years Eve and MacMurray wants to bring the elevator girl back to the apartment, and our suffering hero can take no more. Our suffering hero becomes a hero. He refuses and MacMurray threatens to fire him, Sexual harrasment. ...and Lemmon quits, with the neighbors words to be a human being in his head. A Happy Ending. MacMurray lets it slip to the elevator girl how the guy that saved her life quit his job when asked for the apartment and said especially not the elevator girl. We see her face understand how he feels for her now. We see her running to him as the happy ending music plays. We see them now together and starting the New Year both out of work but together as she says they will send the boss a fruit cake every Christmas. So I don't see Lemmon as a bad person or MacLaine as a bad person as I heard, and that Wilder builds a rose in a garbage can. As you watch this you must try to see the suffering and the harrasment. It looks like play time and Walston and the other guy are not that bad. They are in fact monsters. They are as bad as MacMurray, as quilty as MacMurray. A happy ending would be seeing them all charged with harrasment and lose their jobs and have to pay out some money in damages or something. Unfortunatly MacMurray and the heads of personel will probably give Lemmon and MacLaine bad job referrences for the rest of their lives and they will just harrass other employees in the future.......but the young guy from Ohio and the elevator girl are out, they got out of this garbage can, but they were always the victims of harrasment, not the villians. So it is a very good movie with Christmas time in it....I enjoyed watching it again and feel I've thought out why hearing Lemmon and MacLaine are flawed characters didn't sound right to me. They are victims of harrasment, both of them........and it comes crashing down over the holidays all around them.......but I'm glad I saw Burl Ives in The Big Country again, because Burl Ives could lay the same thing to these two, " You quit your job over her, Why ? ...And you, you ran out on the top executive and ran to him, Why ?.....It's pretty obviuose ". .....Through all the harrasment, a happy holiday ending........I also really like the ending because alot of old movies end with the big kiss, this doesn't. She runs to him but they never kiss. You think they will, but they don't. Maybe it's because of being a victim of sexuall harrasement. Maybe MacMurray has made kisses and love mean nothing. As Lemmon says he adores her, she tells him to shut up and play cards. In some ways a Chaplin kind of ending, out of work on New Years with their whole lives before them and now together. A Happy Ending as Chaplin said at the end of Gold Rush, another nice Holiday movie. Yes, her running with the music now celebrating is very silent movie and Chaplin movie and music like. Alot of good silent scenes in this with alot of visuel effects. The tennis racket to strain spaggetti or the rest of the apartment shows he wasn't profiting of Ray Walston or the other head of personel. The lousy apartment itself tells you that in sight like a silent movie.....Very deserving of it's Acadamy Award Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

I thought Reagan played a pretty good Scrooge. Refuse to tax the rich but tax the waitresss and cab drivers tips. Announce that he wanted to do away with the Midfdle Class. Try to eliminate unions and equal labor laws. The elimination of mental homes and dumping the mentally challanged out in the street to be homeless. Trying to eliminate school lunches and calling Ketchup a vegatable. .......All in all, he made a pretty good corporate scrooge....not really a good thing.

This movie will be a real lemon at the box office. The Nixon movie proved nobody wants to pay the big bucks to see a movie about Nixon. I thought little came out in the Frost / Nixon interviews and most of it was pretty dull at the time. I like Buddy Hackett on Johnny Carson telling David Frost that he really had America fooled at first thinking he was a comic. He did have that big finish joke about the Catholic on Friday talking to his dinner saying, " You aren't a steak, you are a fish ". .... This may be a good movie, but it will be a real dud at the box office because nobody is going to pay to see this. Theatres will pull it after a week of empty seats. Nobody will pay to see a movie about Nixon, thats been proven.

The idea that movies have to be 50 years old to be classics as one person said is why I say eliminate the word CLASSIC and replace it with VINTAGE. Trust me, alot of therse 50 year old movies are not classic but just some cheap movie that the studio kicked out that hasn't got better with age. I see TCM as a channel for VINTAGE movies and not all are classics. As for those who say there is no room for movies from the 1970s that are already 30 years old or more.....I say TCM is forced to show alot of movies over and over and over and over and over and over......Oh, IF they get this other studio contract you say. And I say they will still be forced to show too many reruns. I like Citizen Kane but not 20 or 30 times a year and Rosebud is his sled, we get it ........I think there is room for the 1970s movies and many 1970s movies such as Hard Times or The Last Detail are never shown on any channel anymore. So I'm all for TCM being a VINTAGE movie channel but I feel the 1970s are 30 years old and are more than vintage. Classic. In Monkey Bussiness, Groucho is a stow away and yet hob nobbing with an elite old guy on deck. The topic of ART comes up and Groucho says, " I was AFRAID we would get around to ART ".....THis debate over what is classic falls into that frame of mind. ....Beach Blanket Bingo ? Classic my fathers mustache. ....but VINTAGE, YES Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

This movie never USE to get shown and I had to find the video for my mom back in the late 1980s or early 1990s because it always reminds her of her parents old time radio and such. This movie never got shown and It's A Wonderful Life was being shown year round. ....That was then....Whoever owns the rights to Its A Wonderful Life put a stop to it being shown as much as it was, such as non stop for 24 hours........So A Christmas Story now gets shown non stop for 24 hours by some stations and they just beat it to death. ........A Christmas Story is a very good movie, worth watching during the holidays. ....If you find yourself watching any movie two or three times in one day, that may not be a good thing. So I like this movie but I hate the way some stations will take a movie like this and show it over and over in a 24 hour marathon. See, the problem is that by Christmas Day the big holiday sales push is over and alot of times you can't find good Christmas shows on TV on Christmas but there is always one crazy channel that shows the same movie over and over for 24 hours and thats no good either. .....Christmas Story is a classic, but nothing should be shown 24 hours non stop as this other cable station does. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

In the early 1990s it was AMC that showed the old movies on cable that my retired parents liked to watch, and they did a very good job of it back then. . When AMC stopped showing the older movies, I'm glad cable had TCM to show the old movies that my parents still enjoy to this day. It serves a purpose to show the older movies. I also like alot of these movies. We live in a commercial world aimed at selling to an age group of teeneagers. Radio stations have long dumped the music of the great songs of the 1930, 1940s and 1950s. My parents use to enjoy this music on the radio on vacations but it was eliminated before this 1974 date. Also eliminated were stations that played entire Broadway music albums. For a while the Rock of the 1950s and 1960s became classic oldies but now most stations have dumped that also. The radio had Disco of the 70s as classic but now thats too old also. They now consider the 80s and 90s as classic music. .....So for the most part radio has just decided to eliminate about 60 years of recorded music because it doesn't reach it's 30 year old worker listeners or the corporate sales pitch to teenagers. ..... I can understand your not wanting this to happen to the movies as well. So maybe the word CLASSIC gets used too much. Lets just say VINTAGE instead. .....TCM provides a channel for these older movies to be shown, be they Acadamy Award movies or just cheap second features or cheap drive-in movies or even comedy shorts......It gives all these movies a channel to be shown on. So although I like alot of movies from 1974 on, I would hate to see the old movies knocked off TCM by a new marketing format aimed at a younger audience. I don't agree that 1974 is new however. We are moving into a new decade in 2010 and it seems to me that movies that are 20 or 30 years old are starting to get kind of old. I would be more for saying no movies from the last 20 to 25 years, which puts us at 1988 or 1983......Either way, the 1970s movies are old enough now to be shown on TCM. .......So I'm all for keeping the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s stuff on TCM and those were vintage in the 1960s. But you must add the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s now because those are now vintage and the 1980s movies will start to become vintage with each passing year. So I can't see a 1974 cut off, but I can see people wanting TCM to be a VINTAGE MOVIE CHANNEL. .....There is something to be said for providing the senior citizens with these movies as PBS provides Lawrence Welk reruns....and younger generations should have alternative viewing choices besides the commercial corporate sitcoms and reality shows. .....The great thing about liking movies if you are young is that all of these old movies are new to you if you haven't seen them. TCM VINTAGE MOVIES is good alternative viewing, and I agree that movie from the last 10 to 15 years shouldn't be on. I think the 1970s movie are old enough to be called vintage going into 2010. TCM must agree because they show their share of 1970s movies.

Well, I saw 2001 on the big screen and it just bored most of the audience...but you are suppose to like it because you are told you should ? .....Yes, he tied in classic music with things in space, but mostly people come away saying what is that big black thing, what is that and whats it all mean....real 1960s heavy type stuff that you are suppose to work overtime on...... Again. Lolita is just teenage porn, you tell me different. ....Sellers with his worst accents and most unfunny lines.......Plus that corney music........I've seen all these actors in better stuff. ...I am not a Lolita fan and am amazed this cheap kiddie porn is passed off as a classic. How anybody can sit through it without being bored to death amazes me. Kubrick did have the ability to bore you to death, and maybe thats classic ? But he had some great movies also. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Just saw the end of the Kirk Douglas movie as I came in the door. Osbourne ane the woman agreed this is a classic BUT you don't have to love all of Kubriick even though you are told to. They did say LOLITA is easy to sit through and on this I will disagree........I think LOLITA is a bore and Peter Sellers at his worst with this whole hype over the teenage girl as just stupid and below par. I have and always will think this movie is just semi-porn in the name or art and it is below all the actors in tthe movie. LOLITA to me is the most over rated movie ever put on film. Clockwork Orange is just White Punks On Dope and 2001 Space Odessey is very hard to sit through. The worst was the last effort with Tom Cruise, which is also boring but shows why you can never get a doctor when you need one. I should have watched Eyes Wide open or Shut ( I forget the name ) with eyes wide closed. ......But Kubrick hit homers with Dr Strangelove and Spartacus this other Kirk Douglas film....maybe he was better with Kirk Douglas ? ..... THis is just my opinion but I think Lolita stinks and always will. ....The movie is a bore to me.....Osborne says its a classic, I say classic explitive......but I agree that Kubrick made movies that are hard to sit through, on that I agree...but he made some great movies that are nice to watch such as Strangelove and Spartacus....Clockwork is just to White Punks On Dope being bad little English Boys for me and 2001 just drifts into nonsense...and Lolita stinks. BUT...let me finish saying that Dr Strangeglove is great and the Kirk Douglas movies, especially Spatacus are fantastic. Spartacus is easily one of the best movies ever made considering who is in it including a great performance by Sir Lawrence. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

6 Years in old movies to me is about the same time era. Left out the word Sweet. Left out a T in Matthau and yes, I did edit a few times because I don't type that well. Thank you for pointing this out. I do like this movie and it has a great cast and alot of the lines in it are so great. I like Lonesome Roads calling his show Cracker Barrell, which shows his disrespect right there for his audience. He then has a politician on saying that Daniel Boone didn't need Social Security and Medicare as Walter Matthau looks at the TV and says, " Very Woodsy, would you turn this TV off ". .....Alot of things in this movie hold up in what we hear today. ...I like this movie alot.

I agree with Film Fatelles original post that this is not really a movie topic. Someone has raised the question of creation or evolution. This is like asking the chicken or the egg. No man did not live with dinosaures unless you think The Flintstones is a documerntary. On the other hand 7 days to God probably aren't the same time length as 7 days to us. Of course we have fossils that prove evolution does exist. Still, isn't the creation of life itself a miracle. If you believe in creation in either form, can you rule out a creator. If man was made in the creators image, then couldn't all life be created in the creators image, if we are to say all life began with the creator. This would mean all creatures great and small are of the creatore and man doesn't have the right to blow it all up, which would be an unholy act upon creation either way. ....This brings us to if a tree falls in a forest and no human hears it, does it make a sound. This is the arrogance of mankind because to the birds and deer and other animals it makes a heck of a sound and we over estimate mankind not being there to hear it. ...Creation either way shows we humans have learned how to destroy the world, but now we must learn how to save it. So to wrap this all into movies, let me start with Inherit The Wind and Spencer Tracey at the end. It is important that after the so called Monkee Trial he leaves the court room weighing The Bible in one hand with a Science book in the other. Spence Tracey weighs them smiling and walks out with both, as if to say there can be an even blend of both. Another movie that I love is Oh God. At the end George Burns as God says, " These things I gave you on this earth, it's all here to work if you just try. If you find it hard to believe in me, maybe it will help if you know that I believe in you. "......The next and last time we see God is when he is dressed up to go on safari. He says he is off to spend time with the other animals, he created them also. John Denver asks if he will ever get to talk to him again. Burns as God says, " You talk, I'll listen ". I don't believe everything is the same but I do believe The River Of Life makes sense in that we are all created by the creator. The American Indians believed this also and had respect for the animals around them. I think we can learn alot from other religions as opposed to saying the my scripture is better than your scripture so therefore I will crash planes into tall buildings and blow up innocent victims in the name of my scripture. I will fight holy wars and burn crosses and eliminate and kill or at least try to dominate all those non believers who are not on the same stairway to heaven as I believe in. We will make hell on earth over who is going to heaven and that is mankinds insanity. .....and as far as the nun who told our 3rd grade class that our dead pets can't go to heaven because they have no souls, I disagree. Many off Gods other creatures have more soul than most of mankind. If indeed there is a heaven, why wouldn't we be able to enjoy the creators other creatures. Why couldn't people be reunited with their favorite pets. It wouldn't be much of a heaven if you couldn't be. My guess is God likes pets or he wouldn''t have created them. God could also have many images and be many things, so many things could be in the image of the creator. This is just my way I've transformed from a dogmatic religion that said it was the only true religion as all religions claim. I can neither be this self rightouse in religion or in science. Religion, if it does teach Love Thy Neighbor, is needed now more than ever. My best way to love thy neighbor is to embrace Christian, Muslim, Hebrew and all faiths yet denouncing their claims to being the only true religion and for me to say to them to quit killing over who is going to heaven. It would all be the same God and you do ruthless and unholy acts in the name and the eyes of the Creator. The future of mankind lies in our being able to accept each other differences, and to maybe understand that together we can cross taboo and dogma scripture and make this truely heaven on earth. Or we can blow it all up, and in that case heaven will be what we made it on earth, and that won't be very much. ...Anyway, I'm at peace trying to overlook the religions and love thy neighbor. It is what I have come to believe in my lifetime. ....This is not to say I'm perfect, far from it. I have many flaws. It's just that one of them is not thinking that I am part of some ancient religion and because of this I am going to heaven and all other religions are going to hell. That would be very narrow minded. The idea this religion gives me the right to kill or second class people of other religions would be an unholy act in the eyes of God. It makes it easier that I believe in a God of Love, not some tyrant that I worship to so he can burn all my enemies for eternity, this warped God of Vengence and Hate sounds more like the devil to me. So again, Spencer Tracey holding the scripture in one hand and a science book in the other as he smiles because both are important books. That is my movie for this topic as well as Oh God. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Of course Andy Griffith is not just great in this but amazinly great. I never thought he had a movie like this in him. .....Patricia Neal did this movie and won the award for HUD around this time. Her strong performance keeps this movie together......Tony Franciosa as the agent is no less than Tony Curtis as the agent in The Smell Of Success, and watching it it could have been Tony Curtis as the same sleezy character. Its a great sleezy character that Franciosa does as well as Curtis in the other. ......and the hidden gem in this is Walter Mathau who was at the start of giving us decades of great movie characters of many types and kinds. In this Mathau is the man of the press who is never once fooled by the corporate sales pitch for one Lonesome Roads. Mathau is important in this movie as the few not taken in by mob support. ....A very young Lee Remick looks young and sexy as the teenage batton twirler, but we all know she was a pretty good actress for years to come. Not sure iif this was a take off on Jerry Lee Lewis or not as far as the young wife. Kazan was really making great films and this is one of them. Andy Griffith would of course become Sherriff Andy Taylor and Ben Matlock....but this performance around the time he did No Time For Seargents shows how talented Andy Griffith was. Still I'm watching this enjoying the sleezy Franciosa character and waiting for Mathau to get in the last words and tell Lonesome Roads off in the end. Also just saw a very old Walter Winchell followed by a very young Mike Wallace, over a decade before 60 Minutes. Its something they combined those two like that. If this movie about a folk singer becoming this political on TV and in government sounds far fetched, consider how the fok singing comic Smothers Brothers started believing their act and messing with networks before replaced or how Sinatra tried to be the power behind JFK. ....Consider the actors and wretslers and comics that us hicks and rubes have actually voted into office. or just consider the TV personalities trying to tell us what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, who to vote for and what to think ....As Mathau says, Once we get wise to them. ......So not only can this movie happen, it does happen Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

OK...You've combined Obama with The Scar. Good for you ? How long did it take you to come up with that one ? I feel I can say this because you aren't really talking about movies, are you ? But since all African-American men accused of attacking a woman are now to be linked to Obama, may I suggest a movie..." To Kill A Mockingbird ". Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

This movie is an instant CLASSIC for no small reason. The biggest reason hit me when I saw it at the theatre. They spent alot of money on the baseball scenes. Most movies like The Babe or the awful Cobb don't do that. Cobb spent very little money on baseball scenes and it was cheaper to focus on the old Cobb drinking booze in his hotel room. 8 Men Out makes you feel like you are at an old time ball game, and that took money to do that. I'm watching this on TCM and I'm watching Charlie Sheen, and an endless cast of good actors. ... ....I've always thought John Carradine as Casey in Grapes Of Wrath was one of the best character actors ever. He was also great in Dracula type movies and Westerns such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or The Shootist. ....So as I'm watching this movie, I forgot the Baseball Commissioner George " Mountain ' Landis is played by the great John Carradine. He turns in another excellent performance. So as a baseball fan, this is the best because they spent the money on the old time settings to make you feel like you are indeed at the games back then. As a movie fan, I like the Titanic recreation of the game and the actors in the film TCM is correct, it should be an early CLASSIC. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

and Harry Dean Stanton was " Brain " in Escape To New York with another musician, this time Isaac Hayes.

With Halloween upon us, I might add that Carolyn Jones and Angelica Huston looked great as Mortica Addams and the Elviras looked pretty good....but then again most woman look pretty good in that black silk vampire costume. Anyway, thats my extra Halloween additions. Oh yeah, Kim Novak in Bell, Book and Candle.

James Coburn was in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid with Bob Dylan. Dylans song Knocking On Heavens Door came from this movie. ....and yes there are one or two real movies with real actors that Bob Dylan was in to keep this thread going. Theres alot of actors in a 2003 movie for a hint. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

Not a movie but a nice compact cartoon poem. The TV cartoon version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming, it came It came just the same It came without ribbons, it came without tags it came without presents and boxes and bags Then the old Grinch thought of something he never thought before Perhaps Christmas doesn't come from a store Perhaps Christmas means just a little bit more and all the people of Whoville say That the Grinches heart grew three sizes that day Christmas Day is in our grasp as long as we have hands to clasp The simple message of this always tears me up. Its just done so well at the end of this. The long movie to me ruins the whole idea and simple message of the shorter, older and better version with Karloff the narrator. Message was edited by: WhyaDuck

James Earl Jones was in Dr Strangelove with Slim Pickens, and I'm glad I got to get Slim Pickens in here. A very funny character actor.