clore

I've never seen Seven Days in May but it is interesting to note that he was the only member of the cast who was nominated for an Oscar that year (Best Supporting Actor, 1964). I'm not saying the AMPAS is right and you're wrong, just pointing it out is all. Oh no, I knew that he was nominated, that was why I made that earlier crack about his taking an Oscar-baiting attitude toward his telephone scene. But if there's anything that the academy loves, it's drunks, whores and the afflicted. I'm being serious here, so many nominations and wins for having one of those character traits. In Claire Trevor's case, she had two out of three. O'Brien was a marvelous actor, one who could be subtle when he wanted to be. But he did have his demons - he did like to drink and he had his infirmaries - he had severe cataracts that at times had him memorizing lines by having them read to him. His hamming it up may have had an effect on Douglas and March, both of whom were not exactly the most subtle of actors. It may also hae been related to his periods of sobriety. As far as who's right, me or the Academy... that's what makes a horse race. We're just having dfiscussions here, I'm not out to win anything, just have some fun. But you are right, that youing man in HUNCHBACK looks almost nothing like the Senator in SEVEN DAYS. Heck, even by the time of WHITE HEAT, he already seems to have aged 20 years. Look at him in BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ and Lancaster in the earlier part of the same film. For Burt it seems as if only ten years passed since THE KILLERS, it looks at least twice that for O'Brien. But Ava Gardner didn't age too well either - maybe she was out drinking with Eddie. Too many Tom Collins for Kitty Collins. BTW - the "O'Brien" part is correct, it's the "Edmond" part that seems to be misspelled.

MARTY may have been one of the most un-cynical films ever made. Although it ends on an upbeat note, there's plenty of cynicism in MARTY. Look at Aunt Catherine and her chat with Marty's mother. Look at the marriage between Virginia and Tommy - there's more going on there than just the disagreement over having Aunt Catherine in the house. Listen to Tommy's advice for Marty. Chayefsky paints Marty's friends as losers - rightfully so of course. In the end it comes down to "Look you fat pig, be happy you found anyone else at all. You wanna end up like these guys?" Sure, all's well for Marty and Clara, but most of what we see is a bunch of miserable people. Boy, that Paddy Chayefsky - he sure can write. MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT is much the same - it may end in a happy resolution, but just about everyone else surrounding those two characters are just miserable to be with. The protagonist of AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY is one of the screen's great cynics, perhaps the closest we get to seeing Chayefsky's alter ego.

He was in "Liberty Valance"? I just watched that last month on Jimmy Stewart's day. Are we talking about more ham? In LIBERTY VALANCE, O'Brien plays Dutton Peabody, the editor of The Shinbone Star. It's as if Ford said "Do it like Tommy Mitchell did in Stagecoach" to which O'Brien added even more Laughton-esque layers of bacon fat. When he gets on the phone and begins to bluster, all I can see are rooster feathers. i wonder if O'Brien was thinking "Gee, I got an Oscar for my big telephone scene in THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA. Let me show them what I can really do with just a prop and an accent." I also have problems with marking up the posts, and the worst part is that it's not consistent. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. So that is why I just copy-and-paste some text and paint it red so it can be distinguished from my own contribution.

O'Brien's not an actor I normally consider to be hammy, but there are moments when his performance in this one film skirts the borders of Ham City. In THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, O'Brien seems to be channeling both Charles Laughton and Thomas Mitchell, his two co-stars in HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. The problem is that he's aping the worst of both so it's not even lean ham. In SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, he appears to be doing Laughton from ADVISE & CONSENT but going way past what Laughton would have considered too much. I find his is the worst performance in an otherwise remarkable ensemble. Even Kirk Douglas is restrained.

Evidently Clint Walker is. I caught a Cheyenne episode yesterday that was a total knockoff of Springfield Rifle. When the actor playing Phil Carey's part was killed it looked like the movie scene down to the way the horse fell. It was fun watching to see how well the teleplay followed the film which it did right down to Col. Sharp's name. I don't remember the title of the episode but it's from the 1956-57 season. That was "Test of Courage." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0540149/ This was common for the Warner series to remake Warner movies. 77 SUNSET STRIP had used "Dial M For Murder" and "Strangers on a Train" for story material. Richard Long was the bad guy in both. Meanwhile, on his own series BOURBON STREET BEAT, Long got to play the good guy in a remake of "White Heat."

Was it still listed on the home page sked? I haven't seen the TCM home page in ages. I come straight to the boards via a bookmark. I did check the daily schedule this morning via the link at the top of this page, and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY was listed there.

We've been discussing this since before the weekend: http://forums.tcm.com/thread.jspa?threadID=161810&tstart=0

Could the second one possibly be IMPACT: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041503/

How did we forget Charles Laughton? Even the often hammy Peter Ustinov knew there was already enough ham already and toned it down for his scenes with Laughton in SPARTACUS. Otherwise, Ustinov's performance in QUO VADIS certainly has him as a qualifier. How about Jay Robinson as Caligula in THE ROBE? He didn't just play to the back row, he played to the theater across the street.

I can't even watch GOLDEN BOY as Cobb comes off like Chico Marx to me, or one of the Super Mario Brothers - the short one. Then again, I must admit that I find Clifford Odets to be unbearable for the most part. I find his work so overwrought as to become laughable. He's also hamming it up in MAN OF THE WEST and THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE to a great extent. Less so in 12 ANGRY MEN, but there are a few scenes where the pork starts showing.

If Maltin were introducing something such as CLEOPATRA, I'd expect some mention of the activities of Taylor and Burton. That's probably what is remembered most by those who were around the time. Similar would apply to THE FOUNTAINHEAD and the Cooper/Neal affair. I agree that Maltin probably wrote his own intros, or at least had far more input into the copy than any guest host to date. I excpected better but will remain open-minded enough to see what he has in store for the nights to come.

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES has a great final gag centering around George Washington's birthday.

Now there's a movie that I've never heard of.

I don't dislike the guy, I knew him many years ago when we were both in our mid-teens and thus I've long known of his enthusiasm. I was just disappointed that with all that he knows, that he chose to mention the off-set activities rather than spend the time filling us in on the films. How often does Richard Boleslawski get a prime-time slot, yet there was no mention of him before THE PAINTED VEIL. The film was subject to some drastic trimming before it was released, with a number of familiar players ending up on the cutting room floor. A bit more on that would have been more appropriate than what we were given.

Lee J. Cobb has to be in the running.

That Greta Garbo and George Brent had a thing going on while making THE PAINTED VEIL. That Anthony Quinn and Ruth Warrick were getting it on while filming CHINA SKY. What we we hear about Ingrid Bergman or Curt Jurgens when he intros INN OF THE SIXTH HAPPINESS? Was the inn the home to more happiness than we know?

But *Lonely Are the Brave* is my favorite Kirk Douglas movie (I mean where he's the star). I just can't watch the ending. Whiskey!!! (Maybe one of the most beautiful animals I ever saw). Maybe I'm not remembering correctly, but Whiskey looked a lot like Randolph Scott's favorite horse, Stardust. They have similar markings and that golden mane.

I wonder if Maltin actually saw I LOVED A WOMAN. If he had, he could not help but see the similarities to CITIZEN KANE in the story.

I've been saying that for years, nice to know that someone else agrees with me. He does that also in LADY IN THE LAKE and I half expect one of the other cast members to offer him a carrot. EARL OF CHICAGO is a strange film, it seems as if it doesn't know what it wants to be and then it hits you with that ending that is among the perplexing I've ever seen.

Cagney gives an incredible performance here, but at no time do I have an ounce of sympathy for Jarrett, and I am sure Cagney doesn't want us to. I'm sure that Walsh didn't either. The director made the two perfect bookends for the gangster film in the 40s. He starts with the very sympathetic Roy Earle in HIGH SIERRA, who when things go awry, takes an elevated position at the end just to show us how much he can fall from grace. We still feel a bit sorry for him as he takes the tumble even if he did tell the cops to "come and get me." That's a line repeated in WHITE HEAT. With Cody Jarrett, we have another hood who takes to an perch up on high, but can we feel any remorse? The film ends perfectly, he doesn't even get to take a fall. All of his plans blow up in his face. It's also a symbol of the atomic age, things are changing and his kind of hood is on the way out. The big bad guys wear white collars now. Walsh even links the two films slightly in a line of dialogue referring to the location of the train robbery as being "the High Sierra tunnel."

Paul Kelly and Tom Neal They not only appeared in four films together, they both served time for manslaughter.

It sounds a bit like the 1946 version of BLACK BEAUTY which starts off in England with adolescent Mona Freeman doing her best to attract the visiting American Richard Denning who has eyes for Freeman's cousin Evelyn Ankers. The movie throws the classic book away to follow Freeman's pursuit of her ideal beau, so don't gauge the possibility of this being the film you're looking for by any other adaptation of BLACK BEAUTY.

My guess would be that it served a useful purpose in the early days of sound as many of the actors were new to the screen from the stage. This way you could put a name to the face. Many silent films would put the actor's name on the first interstitial that had a line of dialogue for that character.

I love those ANGELS WASH THEIR FACES ads that note Ronald Regan (sic) in the cast. I hope that they got his name correct when issuing his paycheck, he'll need the money. This guy is going nowhere fast.

What I find funny (well really sad), is that often most people complain that an actor is type-cast. That they do the same role over and over again or they play themselves. For example, complaints about Kate Hepburn or John Wayne. What i find funny is that I just wrote something on another message board about how when I was just discovering films, I'm talking between the ages of 7 and 10, that the idea of typecasting never dawned on me. I first saw Cagney in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY and this was in 1958. I saw PUBLIC ENEMY in 1960, it never dawned on me that an actor should have to be tied down either by a studio or by the public. It was similar with James Stewart of whom early on I would see going from westerns to comedies to dramas. Between these two men, I had the (mistaken) early impression that an actor should be able handle just about anything. Of course I would eventually have to modify that to "a good actor should be able to handle anything" but I find it amusing that a Cagney had to beg to do a musical or that Dick Powell had to beg to do Philip Marlowe. Now Bogie is an interesting case of someone who wanted to "stretch" as they call it now and his last decade is filled with examples of this. No longer under contract, for the most part he was doing the picking and even the failures for the most part are interesting. I'm not talking TOKYO JOE or CHAIN LIGHTNING here, but rather THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA or BEAT THE DEVIL where he was doing something a bit offbeat for him. Even Bogart recognized that he was getting older and after THE DESPERATE HOURS he said after a screening that "maybe I'm getting too old to be playing hoodlums." He was right, his part was played on stage by Paul Newman, that type of cheap hood didn't tend to live to be Bogie's age and hearing that dialogue about how he had it so badly in his youth just doesn't work right when it's coming out of the mouth of a 55 year old man. He comes off as a perpetual whiner, not a dangerous criminal. But his comic turn as another prison escapee in WE'RE NO ANGELS is an absolute delight and one of my favorite performances from him as he doesn't try to be funny, he lets the dialogue do what it's supposed to do. I find it ironic that people complained he was too old for SABRINA since Audrey Hepburn was so much younger. Wasn't Bogie going home to Lauren Bacall every night? It's unfortunate that filmgoers will "type" an actor to the point that Errol Flynn was stuck in such roles that he wasn't given the proper appreciation for THAT FORSYTE WOMAN or CRY WOLF as he's quite effective in each.