clore

A man goes journeying through the wilds of the African desert in. . . . a business suit. While overly dramatic music punctuates his every move and Donald Pleasance does his Peter Lorre impression.

1973's CHARLEY VARRICK and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE would have to be considered. There's also the same year's THE OUTFIT with Robert Duvall from the author of POINT BLACK, Donald Westlake. He was also the author of the source material for THE SPLIT, a 1968 film with Jim Brown, Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine and Warren Oates. The British made their contribution with GET CARTER whose director Mike Hodges came back to rib the genre with PULP, once again starring Michael Caine and vets Mickey Rooney, Lizabeth Scott and Lionel Stander. Perhaps the worst one of the period was the mind-numbingly boring CHANDLER with Warren Oates and Leslie Caron. It's played on TCM a couple of times but it's not as if anyone needs to see it unless they are a completist. I almost forgot THE GETAWAY with Steve McQueen teaming up with Sam Peckinpah and yielding marvelous results even if Ali McGraw is along for the ride. EDITED TO ADD One that I did forget and had to come back to add is 1968's *P.J*. starring George Peppard and Raymond Burr. This one was marketed in typical fashion by the Universal of the 60s - meaning it was dumped into neighborhood theaters along with another Universal feature on the bottom of the bill and gone by the end of the month. Far better than HARPER or TONY ROME, this John Guillerman film was unuisual for a film from the studio at that time in that they actually did some shooting in NYC although there were some obvious studio sets. As far as I know it has never been released on home video and even the TV prints were not worth saving as they were edited for broadcast standards of the day and even had some alternate footage added. Edited by: clore on Jul 26, 2011 10:33 PM

Valentino and Raft actually knew each other, they were both taxi dancers who performed in some of the same places in New York City. Paramount was grooming Raft as another Valentino, but gave up on his being taken as a Latin lover type or any other type. Raft was no more fun for the bosses at Paramount than he was at Warners.

I could psychoanalyze what you have written, but I think I will just keep my observations to myself. I suggest that you leave that to qualified experts in the field, they know what they're doing.

I remember that years ago I had a big book called HOLLYWOOD SCREEN LEGENDS that was actually a collection of articles from several movie magazines. One article was on films of the 40s and the comment was that Lizabeth Scott thought that she was Lauren Bacall when in reality she wasn't even the equal of Ella Raines.

I have been making suggestions about how to improve such programming so it better reaches its target audience. And perhaps some people here think that Tippi Hedren isn't an inducement to keep viewers tuned in. As to your suggestions for movies for Essentials Jr., are they really any better than what TCM is scheduling? If you think so, then aren't you in effect saying that TCM doesn't know what it's doing? One person's suggestion is another person's criticism. isn't it? For example, you seem to think that ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY is a better title than THE THING. According to my eight-year-old granddaughters, the A&C film was the worst one of the A&C films they have seen to date, and that is easily a dozen of them. Granted they haven't seen DANCE WITH ME HENRY yet, otherwise I'm sure they would pick that as the worst. But they love THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES and have watched it four or five times. MEET FRANKENSTEIN they've seen three times and they even re-enact bits from the film. If they had seen MEET THE MUMMY first, they might never have wanted to look at another A&C film again. They did like THE THING though, so they must think that TCM knows what they are doing in trying to reach the target audience. They didn't think so two weeks before and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON got about twenty minutes old before they wanted to watch something else. One could say that they bashed the film, another might consider that their yawns were constructive criticism. Being a relative and being biased, I'll consider it the latter.

There is no need to criticize her. Plus, we should respect TCM making her their choice for this week. TCM knows what it is doing. I'll remind you that you said that the next time that you criticize TCM for something - such as which titles are selected for The Essentials, Jr.

It seemed that she would would have rather been anywhere else in the world other than the TCM host chair. Exactly, and while that seems to be considered bashing around here, one can't put up a subject and expect total agreement. Tippi seems that she wants to be here as much as she wanted to be pecked to death by birds in the attic. She may not have the kind of career that provides her with colorful stories, but given her delivery, I wouldn't be surprised if someone is seeing to it that she has as little to say as possible. After all, Ben M. is able to provide background on titles made before he was born. It's just that Hedren was never a good enough actress to be convincing outside of her rather narrow range.

Ben isn't my cup of tea and he makes more mistakes, on average, than any other person on TCM. Well, there really is only one other person on TCM. Can we really count Alec Baldwin who drops in for one title per week? Besides, as I've said in previous criticisms of either. you can't blame the speaker for mistakes made by the researcher. He has a smug, self-satisfied way about him that I find off-putting especially when he's tooling around that car with that -- whoever the heck it is -- doing their "Entourage" impersonation. As far as I'm concerned, Ben has come a long way from the time they shot those darn promos and TCM would do well to stop airing them. They've been running constantly for five years it seems and were they on film, the sprocket holes would be worn out. I do think that there appear to have been obvious steps made to make Ben more warm and fuzzy during the past year. Initially I wasn't that bowled over by him, but whatever the makeover consisted of, he's getting the act down and at least he already has the association with the channel. These "I've been Bob's good friend since were in adjoining cribs" proclamations are getting worn out, as are the references to his being around for the Arab film fest and the Essentials.

I'm glad to hear that Ben was chosen. It's only right that he be given the additional exposure, having been a second-stringer up until now. It also keeps a TCM face in front of the camera so hopefully they won't have to keep making the "Bob is taking some well-deserved time off..." announcement before and after every film. There is a greater sense of continuity this way. Ben has the routine down, no offence to the guest hosts, but they have been out of their element and it would have been better to go with the home team player in the first place.

I find her extremely dull, no more lively as a host than she was as an actress.

Neither is aestehtically nor ethically defensible, whatever the reasons for its use. Or else/in addition, get that guy featured in one of the TCM Fanatic shorts to strip the soundtrack for the films and have him replace it with something more relevent to today's youth. Every time that I see that short I cringe.

Ida Lupino was the best & onlyiest female director in Hollywood. Flip-flopping? Well, it's a change from your other declaration of "zilch, zero, nada" but it's still incorrect. Why do you refuse to recognize Dorothy Arzner?

I remember the Karloff fest, but not so much of the horror stuff in October 2003. That period is a blur anyway as where I was employed at the time had downsized so much that those of us who remained kept hearing "we have to do more with less" and thus it was implied that if you wanted to keep your job, you had to put in extra hours. But we were salaried an not given overtime. It was just a year of that before another group was sent home packing, I was one of them that time and actually glad of it by then. Now the company is practically closed as so many clients left as they were not getting proper attention and that led to yet more layoffs. I do remember seeing Hammer films on Sunday nights though. I even recorded the Lubitsch film then so I was paying attention on the weekends. Halloween was always extra-special to me as it is the day after my birthday. Thus as a kid there were two days of goodies in a row and it's no wonder that I was what they call "a monster kid."

Three characters usually depicted in different time periods unite for a crisis. Well, they did that kind of thing often. I remember seeing one that pitted Hercules against Genghis Khan. I forget how or if he got there, but another one had Hercules fighting moon men. I saw that on the big screen and the one thing that i remember is how it had nice color and cinematography. Another one had him fighting pirates but none of them showed how he managed to bounce from one era to another. I did see THE MIGHTY URSUS on the big screen when I was a kid. It was on a double-bill with one of my favorites - JACK THE GIANT KILLER.

I'll second that endorsement, a very good film and Novarro is particularly memorable. As for Evelyn Laye, she was a revelation. I had never seen her in anything else and apparently she didn't make too many films and not another one for over 30 years after this one.

Since you're thinking that Danny Kaye was a 'boy" I'm guessing that the lead is supposed to be a young man. Thus, it's possible that you're thinking of THE WONDERS OF ALLADIN starring Donald O'Connor. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055178/

Not wanting to disappoint ya but that "Frankenstein Marathon" you found was seen in 2003. The site archives still contain many links to previous events like that one. It is a bit disappointing, but I still hold out hope that some more Universals will show up. And with ISLAND OF LOST SOULS coming out on DVD, maybe there's a chance of that one. It's weird - I've already got most of the old horror films on tape or disc that I might want to see. Still there is something special in knowing that others are watching at the same time as I am watching.

Here's Matthau Cossell

Bela Lugosi Howard Cossell

Lou Diamond Phillips originally reminded me of young Frank Langella; The older Langella reminds me of Sean Connery: Langella Connery

Cagney and Morrow even appeared together in TRIBUTE TO A BAD MAN.

Forget it, images can't be posted in this forum. But don't worry, for years they have been looking into it.

It could be a double bill with HERCULES, SAMSON AND ULYSSES. Believe it or not, I've actually seen that one! I started to watch that one once many years ago. It was on following The Tonight Show one night in the early 70s and I remember being disappointed that Ulysses was a bit of a meek letdown. I must have been too sleepy to determine if it was a spoof or not, and ended up nodding off.

And I hope the "Classic Horror" evenings live up to the name and the quality set with the first evening's line-up. That should please many around here. I did a search for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN on the web site and there was a little blurb about a Frankenstein night that had the first three Universal films and a Hammer title. But the link does not lead to an elaboration. See item number four on the following: http://www.tcm.com/search...enstein&type=allSite|http://www.tcm.com/search/index.html?text=brideoffrankenstein&type=allSite There's an erroneous date for the production of BRIDE but there does appear to be something planned. From that I can only speculate that we may be seeing some more of the Universal classics than the few that have aired so far this year.