clore
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Posts posted by clore
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>>But you're all ignoring the undeniable fact that the film is rubbish - pseudo-intellectual , high-toned rubbish, perhaps, but not to be taken seriously as either a work of cinematic art nor a philosophical statement.
I have to disagree there - I called the film a train wreck and it seems to have other detractors here. A few of us are poking fun at it.
>>The main thing it's good for is a few laughs at the over-wrought pretentious dialogue -written, I understand, by Miss Rand herself.
At one point Cooper was having trouble with a line and wanted to change it ever so slightly. Vidor reminded him that Rand had an iron-clad contract and would have to be brought to the set. Rather than deal with that necessity, Cooper shrugged his shoulders and read the line as written.
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>>Unfortunately I have to wait until TCM schedules this again to see it intact. We had digital breakup that night due to the weather and it simply wasn't watchable. (For some reason, in my neighborhood at least, TCM is always one of the worst-affected channels when that happens -- thank goodness it's rare.)
You too? I'm in Jackson Heights and last week was pretty bad. I did get to see SUSAN SLADE intact but a few days earlier had gotten through about an hour of PARRISH before the stained-glass light show began. That went on continuously for the rest of the film and into the next one.
But I'm also one of those who can get every other channel perfectly during a storm but for some reason TCM is affected. Murphy's Law I guess.
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>>Major plot hole: that a newspaper could get an entire metropolis worked up into a lather over the look of a privately-financed building!
Or that a newspaper would have two architectural critics.
Or that someone would go through life with the name "Toohey" which sounds as if he's about to spit.
I've read Rand's book and the film gets the essence of it - it can't be helped that the premise was faulty. Vidor thought it was ridiculous, especially the ending. He asked Jack Warner "Do you think the courts would forgive me if I threw the film into the fire?"
Warner responded "The court might, but I won't."
I find the film to be a glorious train wreck - I can't help but watch it whenever it's on.
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One thing that always bugged me about the movie FAIL-SAFE was in Larry Hagman's performance. He plays a translator, but he's a good ol' American boy. So why is it that when he's translating the Russian dialogue, does he speak English with a Russian accent?
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Did you see the rest of the movie? That became a plot point later on.
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>>I don't know why this is, but I am not familiar with PARRISH. Is it good?
You can check it out when it airs again in August on Claudette Colbert day.
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Poor Ben wasn't even remembered in the credits for CHEYENNE AUTUMN. Neither he nor Harry Carey Jr. gets billing in their last film for John Ford.
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I've seen CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESAR, albeit many years ago. I'd recommend it as a decent spoof of radio quiz shows. I got a note from Amazon today that they have marked it down from $9.98 to $5.49, perhaps a bit more of an inducement.
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>>.It's a combination of Kiplings "Soldiers 3" and his ballad "Gunga Din"...Sinatra and the "Rat Pack" remade it in the 1960's as "Sergeants 3" in 1962.....
There's also an MGM film from 1951 titled SOLDIERS THREE which stars Walter Pidgeon, Stewart Granger and David Niven. Also in the cast is Robert Newton, playing a character named "Bill Sykes" which is only one letter away from the Bill Sikes that he played in OLIVER TWIST.
Robert Coote who was in GUNGA DIN is also in the cast.
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>>From the "Games and Trivia" section, it seems as if nobody has seen HOSTILE WITNESS, which was on TCM last week and was actually pretty good.
I saw it, remembering way back when I was writing an article on upcoming films in the mid-60s and mentioned that Ray Milland was being hailed by his producer for bringing in HOSTILE WITNESS under-schedule and under-budget. I figured it was his familiarity with the material from the stage version that gave him such an edge.
I kept watching the papers, but it was never released theatrically in NYC.
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>>It happened so quickly onscreen, but you could really see how bogus the baby doll was when the scene was broken down into stills.
As the old commercials used to say "You can tell it's Mattel, it's swell."
Boy, those old plastic dolls sure smelled bad when they were burning.
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On that day in November 1965, I was watching MOTHRA on WABC's 430 Movie.
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The last time that I saw NETWORK on TCM, I noticed that the captioning left out the cuss words. It lessens the effect of the scene where the control room is going ballistic over Beale having cursed on the air.
Please note that I'm not holding TCM responsible for the editorial decision to eliminate the words. I do however find it a double-standard to think that people who are hard of hearing need to be shielded from such language more than those without such difficulties.
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That's weird - that in no way matches what is scheduled for the weekend of April 22-24.
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Columbia had a real Renaissance during the 50s. It actually started with 1949's ALL THE KING'S MEN and continued with BORN YESTERDAY, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, PICNIC, THE CAINE MUTINY, ON THE WATERFRONT, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. Unlike the other majors, Coulmbia wasn't broadsided when the majors had to divest themselves of their theaters. There was no panic in the executive ranks for them.
It may have taken a decade to fully prove it, but Columbia was more than just Capra, Cohn was vindicated.
RKO really struggled with the maniacal Hughes at the helm. The 40s may not have been as good for them as the 30s, but they had some steam going with their modestly budgeted features and some projects acquired from Selznick who was desperate for cash. But Hughes was ruining the cash cows of Mitchum and Russell, putting them in routine junk, often re-shooting them because he was such a micro-manager that he could not leave well enough alone.
They might have been tight over at Universal, but they knew how to make money. Francis the Mule, Ma and Pa Kettle, Abbott and Costello plus cheap Audie Murphy westerns kept them solvent, as did the sci-fi items from Jack Arnold. They also had the Stewart/Mann machine going for them, so there were some minor "A" films coming out of them. They might not have had the artistic ambitions of Columbia or Paramount - who seemed to weather the decade well also - but they at least made money.
Back to Universal in the 60s (and some 70s) - here's a few more disasters for some big stars:
Julie Christie - IN SEARCH OF GREGORY was sent looking for an audience in 1969. Co-star Michael Sarrazin wasn't allowed to do MIDNIGHT COWBOY and was contractually bound to do this. RIP Michael.
Andy Griffith - ANGEL IN MY POCKET - Just coming out of a successful series, any potential was squandered and he went back to TV.
Sidney Poitier - THE LOST MAN - was anyone hotter in 1969? An uninspired remake of ODD MAN OUT.
Liz Taylor and Richard Burton - BOOM (aptly titled, it was a bomb)
Liz Taylor - SECRET CEREMONY - Liz bombs out again, taking Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum with her
Richard Burton - RAID ON ROMMEL (Dick literally tanks out in a cheapie that is comprised of TOBRUK footage
Faye Dunaway - PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD
Gregory Peck - SHOOT OUT - not one of Peck's better westerns, actually 1971 though
George C. Scott - The previous year's Oscar winner's quirky THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS is given the saturation booking treatment instead of just going to art houses where it might have gained a better following. Sent out on a double bill with Peter Fonda's THE HIRED HAND, another one that required special handling.
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Pevney was a very good TV director, it's just that his big screen work is rather nondescript. He had a similar background as Lamont Johnson, another ex-actor who turned director and had much better success on TV than he did with feature films.
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>>Anyone familiar with KITTY, at 8 EDT?
Ray plays a cad, thus for me it's one of his best films. Goddard also comes off well and the production is quite lush. Check out the tracking shot when the new father goes to see his child for the first time, quite impressive for a film of this vintage.
EDITED TO ADD
That show wasn't as impressive as I remembered, I thought it was seamless but there were edits within the Duke's walk through the residence.
Edited by: clore on Apr 19, 2011 9:22 PM
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Other than Sirk, I'd say that Universal was pretty much bereft of any directors of distinction by that point. Anthony Mann was already a journeyman, Jack Arnold was never really given the proper opportunities except for THE TATTERED DRESS and the hack Joseph Pevney would probably be next on the list. MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES was supposed to be their big offering for their Silver Anniversary and they gave it to Joe. Heck, Pevney even directed Hudson's previous film, TWILIGHT FOR THE GODS from a best-selling novel and turned in a most lackluster film.
I'm not sure whether Blake Edwards was a house director, but even still, there's nothing on his resume to suggest that he (or any of the others in house except for Sirk) could give THIS EARTH IS MINE the "A" level treatment. King had one thing in his favor when it came to actors, he could make even the most limited performers shine. He had been doing it with Power and Peck for years and at this point, Hudson had showed that with a great director he was more than just another pretty face.
Please Peck and Power fans, don't jump on me as I like both men but each of them had respective limitations that King knew how to make them work to their favor. As a studio, Universal didn't quite know what to do with their talent. They had Hudson and Curtis under contract and each one had to be loaned out to others in order to prove they were above the house's cheapjack programmers.
I think Sirk would have been fine for the melodramatic elements of THIS EARTH IS MINE, he was good with high class soap opera stuff. But I can't say that he had the eye for composition that King had. Having been making films since the silents, King knew how to convey ideas strictly in visual terms, perhaps not as well as John Ford but damn close. Universal may just have wanted to keep Hudson content at this point and give him an in-house chance with a top director rather than let another studio reap the benefit.
But the Universal of the 50s was practically MGM compared to the studio's output of the 60s. Somehow they enticed top talent into some of the biggest flops of their respective careers:
Charlton Heston - THE WAR LORD and COUNTERPOINT
Paul Newman - TORN CURTAIN, SECRET WAR OF HARRY FRIGG and WINNING
John Wayne - THE HELLFIGHTERS
George Peppard - WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT FEELING GOOD? and P.J. (not bad but just dumped in theaters)
Marlon Brando - THE COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG (from Chaplin, with Loren) and THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY
Rosalind Russell - ROSIE
James Stewart - followed his surprising SHENANDOAH success with the abysmal THE RARE BREED
Dean Martin - TEXAS ACROSS THE RIVER and ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO (with Peppard)
James Garner - THE PINK JUNGLE
OK, Richard Widmark was past his sell-by date in 1968, but the studio took his MADIGAN and just did its usual dumping into saturation bookings and wasted one of Don Siegel's best efforts.
For my money, there was little to differentiate a Universal theatrical of the 60s from a TV movie.
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That's got to be the first anecdote that I've ever read about Thorpe, a guy who is usually just dismissed as being a company man who took any assignment and brought it in on schedule and under budget. I did once read that Robert Montgomery liked to work with him as Thorpe was content to let Bob direct as much as possible.
Here's something to note about Thorpe - his last film was the appropriately titled THE LAST CHALLENGE and it starred Glenn Ford whose next film was DAY OF THE EVIL GUN. That film's director was Jerry Thorpe, Richard's son.
There's always Michael Curtiz who started at Warners in 1926 and made his last film there in 1954. I haven't checked every title in the IMDb but I'm fairly certain that in that period, he never took on an outside assignment.
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I suppose we could consider Richard Thorpe up there with King and Brown in terms of tenure - but certainly not in terms of ability.
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Thanks for the compliment Professor. If I'm right, the only time that Clarence Brown left the MGM lot was to do THE RAINS CAME at Fox.
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I must be having trouble with my NYC Time-Warner supplier as all I've been getting from TCM for the last 30 minutes is what is known as the stained glass window effect. I was watching PARRISH but once the tobacco field went on fire, the image looks like the light show at the end of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.
No other channel is affected.
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>>This time up, the studio hired director Henry King from rival company 20th Century-Fox.
From the time that King made LIGHTNIN" for Fox until his retirement, THIS EARTH IS MINE is the only film that he made away from Fox or the later 20th Century/Fox.
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Isn't that the wrong Charles Robinson? You want the one also known as Charles Knox Robinson, not the NIGHT COURT guy.
"The Fountainhead"...Did Cooper Ruin It?
in General Discussions
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>>Sure, I have MY way of working; historically correct restoration. (I restore carousels)
It's a small world. Allow me to hijack this thread long enough to mention that my sister Noreene was the editor of a magazine titled "Carousel Horse and Trader" and for years covered the scene both in the States and in Europe. You've probably crossed paths somewhere.