clore

Then you've already lost that competition. Just the other day in one of the forums around here, I saw a body of words that was 14 lines on screen all packed together with not a period or cap in sight and maybe two or three commas.

Goodness Dargo, now you're not only going nuts with the cap shift key, but you're also neglecting to space properly. I got through the first paragraph, but decided it was too much of a strain for me to continue.

> {quote:title=darkblue wrote:}{quote} > Do you and hlywdkjk really think it's fair to remember what someone said previously? > > That's the type of gotcha thing that was so unjust to do to Sarah Palin. These days people have the right to not be held accountable for what they said a little while ago. It's NOT FAIR to REMEMBER! Stop bullying and get with our new political mode. That's funny because when I was originally composing my previous post, I was going to suggest that our friend has a promising career possibility in politics.

You made this assertion in a different thread you created weeks ago. Then you realized you were wrong and apologised for bringing it up. But now you make the same claim again. Why? Not only that, but he expressed that it was OK to show films made up until 1983 because of some Wikipedia reference point of that being the end of "New Hollywood." http://forums.tcm.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8645328

However, I heard a West Virginia hillybilly call his father Pappy. I don't know what he called his mother. Quite possibly it was "Sis."

I love the anecdote that Akim Tamiroff told about Gary Cooper. Tamiroff, as did many, thought that Cooper, not being a trained actor would be easy pickings and thus Tamiroff was certain that he would steal the scene in his first film with Coop. As he told it, he used every trick that he learned in his years with the Moscow Art Theater to upstage his fellow actor. "Then I went to see the rushes and even I could not take my eyes off Gary Cooper." He must have learned something from that experience as Tamiroff's two Oscar nominations came in films in which he appeared with Coop.

Lane Smith and Dan Rather

A few years ago, I carefully studied the film and I checked the time on all the clocks. I've tried that a couple of times. Each time I get so involved in the film that I forget the task. Mind you, I have the DVD, before that I had the VHS - I could easily have gone back, but I just get so caught up in the story that I don't wan't to stop it. The performance of Cooper though is amazing in the last 12 minutes which contains almost no spoken words. A master of body language, it seems that he held on to what he knew from performing in silent films. Watch his reaction when he's looking out the window and sees Frank Miller holding Amy - he backs up, as if he is letting us know without dialog that this is not a position that he expected or in which he wants to be. One of the most deserved Oscars ever.

Only Gary Cooper could have stared in High Noon. No one else could have done it as well as he did. He was perfect. Absolutely. Gregory Peck turned it down, thinking it was too similar to his recent flop THE GUNFIGHTER. Word has it that even Montgomery Clift was considered - can you imagine? Who would have played the young deputy in that case, Dean Stockwell? Other than THE MALTESE FALCON, HIGH NOON is my favorite film of all time. I have seen it more often, but that's because I discovered FALCON almost a decade later. Not only Coop though, like 'em as characters or not, the town is populated by one of the most incredible groups of actors ever. I really see a township being presented here, every role, right down to Tom Greenway as Ezra (he gets me right in the gut) is so perfectly delineated that there isn't a frame that I would touch. The editing, the cinematography, the music - sheer perfection, a veritable college course on film making could use this one film for a whole semester's worth of lessons.

I remember reading a while back in SHOOTING STAR that Ford's treatment of Wayne on the set of STAGECOACH was to actually get his co-stars to rally in his favor. It was said that Ford knew that if he showed favortism toward the young man getting his big break, the rest of the cast might have resented it and attempted typical tricks to upstage Wayne. Not that I would do things the same way, but overall, it strikes me that Ford tended to rule by fear and intimidation while someone such as Capra preferred a happy set, encouraging the cast and crew to make suggestions. I can only hope that with Ford, there was a pendulum-effect off the set to put things in balance.

Yes, I just saw that after I added something to my post and went further up the thread. I stand corrected, but Wayne's attitude toward the film was still apparent, even 20 years after it was made.

I don't know if it's on the web, I read it way back when. I did find this reference to the interview which backs up part of my recollection: “Everyone says High Noon was a great picture because [Dmitri|http://forums.tcm.com/] Tiomkin wrote some great music for it and because Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly were in it. In the picture, four guys come in to gun down the sheriff. He goes to church and asks for help and the guys go, “Oh well, oh gee.” And the women stand up and say, “You rats, you rats.” So Cooper goes out alone. It’s the most un-American thing I ever saw in my whole life. The last thing in the picture is ole Coop putting the United States marshal’s badge under his foot and stepping on it.” http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/high-noon-the-most-un-american-thing-ive-ever-seen-in-my-whole-life/ In the interview, Wayne also made some crack about being glad that he drove Carl Foreman out of the country. When the interviewer challenged him on that, asking something like "who gave you that power?" - Wayne backed off, saying it was just a figure of speech. I guess he wasn't used to being challenged that way. He should have been on his remark about the badge in HIGH NOON. Perhaps if the interviewer had seen it recently, he would have done so. But if Wayne could see something in the movie that didn't exist, perhaps the same applies to the script.

Even as late as that Playboy interview with Wayne (1970 or 71), the actor claimed that when he sent back the script for HIGH NOON to his agent Charles Feldman, he told him "You send me another un-American script like that and you're fired." Yet I've seen the clip of Wayne accepting the Oscar for Cooper and he does say "I'm gonna have to check with my agent about why I didn't get the part." The story goes that Cooper asked Wayne to pick it up, just to throw it back at him. Wayne called Cooper and begged him to refuse the part, telling him that he would be killing his career. Cooper had the last laugh apparently. In that Playboy interview, Wayne was still insisting that it was un-American to show Kane throwing his badge on the ground and stepping on it. Kane does toss the badge, but he doesn't step on it. As far as I know, that pic that you provided the link for was from Cooper visiting the set of OPERATION PACIFIC.

Let these guys "duke" it out:

clore, everything is relative. Certainly by the time that High Noon came along Cooper's career was no longer enjoying the heady prestige of the 1941 to '43 period in which he received three Oscar nominations (one win) in three giant box office films, all of which were nominated as best picture. How many other actors, including Wayne, ever had a ride like that? That's sort of my point though - that relative to himself, Cooper wasn't as "steady" as he had been. You know as well as I do that by 1950-51, the studios, because of TV as well as the enforced ban on owning theaters, were looking for ways to cut back on the expensive players such as Cooper, Flynn, Bogart and Gable or among the women, Davis and Crawford. Some were assigned to some of their respective worst films by this point, possibly with the studio hoping it would be refused and they could terminate the contract. The IMDb has UNCONQUERED as being released in October 1947, so it most likely didn't hit "the nabes" (as Variety called them) until 1948. Films didn't get saturation bookings on the first weekend back then, and they would be rolled out regionally. A De Mille pic was prestigious, perhaps the most-well known director to the public at the time. His stuff was critic-proof and no doubt with Cooper as another drawing card, the film hung around for a while. Also, one factor in any year of the Quigley Poll could have been the re-release of something from the past. That's where Gable was lucky, he had GWTW coming out every few years, helping him to maintain his position when so many of his post-war films were relatively lackluster.

I guess it depends on how one looks at the figures. Let's plot it this way: 1944: Cooper # 2 1945: Cooper # 6 1946: Cooper # 4 1947: Cooper # 4 1948: Cooper # 4 1949: Cooper # 5 1950: Cooper MIA (even Randolph Scott made it that year to # 10) 1951: Cooper # 8 (again, even Scott ranked higher at # 7) 1952: Cooper # 2 1953: Cooper # 1 1954: Cooper # 3 Relative to his own position, Cooper was losing ground. Mind you, I'm just playing devil's advocate here to perhaps explain how it could be perceived that HIGH NOON was a reboot for Cooper's career. I used Randolph Scott as a comparison as he was originally positioned by Paramount as another Gary Cooper, had been performing for nearly two decades in mostly non-distinguished films, and suddenly his status rises above that of Cooper by way of some modestly budgeted westerns. But with HIGH NOON, Cooper suddenly sees himself in the highest position than he had been in since 1944's ranking at second place and the halo effect was good for at least another two years.

In the movie "Mothra", I've heard of New York City but New *Kirk* City? Talk about getting lost in translation. I noticed that one quick shot showed us the "New Kirk Motors Bilding." (sic)

I had read in one of the several Cooper bios around my apartment that DALLAS was "a disappointment" for Warners, and that as that film followed the unsuccessful BRIGHT LEAF that DISTANT DRUMS wasn't given much of a budget or recognizable names besides Cooper's. At least they gave him Technicolor, look at what WB did to Errol Flynn with MARA MARU and ROCKY MOUNTAIN. YOU'RE IN THE NAVY NOW was unsuccessful under that title so it was taken back, retitled U.S.S. TEAKETTLE and it still sank. HIGH NOON wasn't well served by being followed by SPRINGFIELD RIFLE, but supposedly it made some money. That one had a few too many subplots, and really isn't any better than the lower cost westerns that Randolph Scott was making for the same director, Andre De Toth. BLOWING WILD and RETURN TO PARADISE didn't do much for him either, but soon he was back in the swing of things as GARDEN OF EVIL and VERA CRUZ were popular with the public, even if the critics didn't care for them.

I saw The Real West again somewhere in the early 90s - it aired on A&E. I think that if I were to compare his appearance to a film, it would be to THE NAKED EDGE which I saw once and can't bear to go through it again. I haven't seen THE UNCONQUERED since the glory days of AMC, probably 20 years ago at least. I'm not a De Mille enthusiast, but that one was fun for me. I have it on tape, but as I have one remaining VCR, it only gets used under extreme emergencies, such as when the cable service went out and I was waiting for the repairman for four days. When that happened, I did watch THE HANGING TREE which had yet to air on TCM and had not aired in years.

I remember seeing Cooper just before his death, as the host of a special about "The Real West." He was looking pretty ghastly, and according to his bio, he had to shoot his scenes in very brief takes as he just wasn't up to it. He was committed to doing it though, feeling that it was important to dispel the kinds of "legends" that his own films helped to create.

I have never come across a VHS or DVD of Cooper's THE SPOILERS, not even on the bootleg market. Maybe someone has a 16mm of it, but I used to travel in those circles and back then, no one had a copy. Never saw it get a revival at any NYC theater or museum. I have about 45 Cooper films on tape, a dozen on DVD, but that one is a Holy Grail for me in any form.

By the time that Cooper did get around to the "thriller" genre, it was for Fritz Lang's CLOAK AND DAGGER. I'm a big fan of the director and the star, but this was not in the upper tier for either of them. One Cooper film which TCM aired not too long ago was one that I haven't seen in ages titled GOOD SAM. I didn't recall it as being much, but it was worse than I remembered. Faux Capra at its worst, turning Coop into an absolute idiot and enough to make any fan squirm. One that I've never seen is THE SPOILERS which would give us all a good chance to compare Cooper to Wayne as both appeared in the same role in adaptations of the Rex Beach novel.

You bring up a good point, a lot of those Cooper goodies are MIA since Universal doesn't seem to want to make the best of the Paramount titles that they own. Thus, we're missing some of his best work. I recently saw SOULS AT SEA courtesy of a friend's Region 2 copy - I had not seen that one in over 30 years.

I think a lot of it has to do with what has also caused Clark Gable to have declined in the minds of many. Both Cooper and Gable made a lot of films that were formerly called "romances." And both were doing it for a longer period than they should have, looking a bit seedy next to female co-stars dfecades younger. It was such that had Cary Grant gracefully retire even if he did hang on to his looks longer than Cooper or Gable. Wayne's films were less concerned with him getting the woman in the end. Even a youngster can look at many a Wayne film today and see a man of action, and not a lot of what we called "yucky stuff" in my day. Cooper was lucky to have gotten a HIGH NOON that saved him from that awful string of films that came before it. The later VERA CRUZ, MAN OF THE WEST and THE HANGING TREE were extremely fine westerns that were not appreciated so much when first released as they are now. Here in NYC, MAN OF THE WEST went straight to the neighborhood theaters, the first Cooper film in his starring career that did not get a Broadway opening. All that notwithstanding, at 60 years old, I can say that Cooper was always my preference, though I liked Wayne. I saw HIGH NOON on TV on the day he died (it pre-empted the scheduled movie), and have seen it once a year at least since then. I wasn't even ten years old when I first saw it, but even then I knew I was watching something special. Only something that I read many years later by Peter Bogdanovich can summon my thoughts about how that film affected me. He wrote that it was the kind of film that so involved him, that he would forget the ending and be rooting for someone to come to Will Kane's assistance.

I watch TCM 6 - 12 hours daily. If I'm not , I'm either DVRing the movies so I could watch later. What's the other option of the "either" that you described? Does it possibly include working or going to school? TCM should get rid of Essentials Jr. (it didn't work before. why try it again?) and Underground (unless they bring back the low budget 60s horror and 60s spaghetti westerns). How do you know that Essentials Jr "didn't work before?" Did you take a survey? Did you read this somewhere? Spaghetti westerns were featured on the Underground? When was this? They're 5 - 10 minute talks bore me to death. When Fox Movie Channel had Tom Rothman , the man spoke for 30 minutes before and after a movie. Yeah, heaven forbid that you might learn something, even if it is just film history or trivia. But you do exaggerate once again - Rothman did not speak for 30 minutes before and after ever. Besides, you could always change the channel, turn off the TV or maybe pick up a book.