clore
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Posts posted by clore
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Aren't commercial-supported television channels considered a different "platform" (or outlet) than a commercial-free channel and "exclusivity" doesn't necessarily cross all platforms?
I would imagine that it's a case of if the gorilla is big enough, he gets what he wants. Be it the distributor being able to avoid exclusivity, or the buyer being able to demand it. AMC has the whole "Godfather" series locked up until the year 2020 begins.
I'm not sure if there are any more FCC regulations about such things. It used to be that if a local station had the rights to a syndicated series or movie, it could even effect exclusivity by notifying the cable companies to block out any incoming signals (such as TBS) that carry the same show.
I'm not certain if those rules or anything similar are still in effect. It seems that I can see FRIENDS or SEINFELD on several channels on my cable system. I've also seen the likes of DR. ZHIVAGO and WEST SIDE STORY air as PBS network movies within weeks of airing on TCM.
But hey, when I got started in the business, cable's only function was to bring a signal to areas in which the terrain made broadcast reception nearly impossible. There were no superstations or premium movie channels back then.
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A lot of Columbia titles have also been airing on Antenna TV within close proximity of airing on TCM. Particularly in the Boston **** and Lone Wolf series.
Maybe there isn't an exclusivity clause in the cases of some films. The last time that TCM aired *McLintock*, it aired on AMC within a few days, but the broadcast occupied a time slot that was 45 minutes longer.
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Boetticher was a bit pragmatic about it all. While he may have been greatly disturbed by the cutting of his film, he did say that it was the opportunity of his lifetime to have gotten to make the film in the first place.
Another Scott/Brown film that I'd love to see on TCM is CORONER CREEK. It anticipates the Boetticher films in that Scott is on the vengeance trail after his fiancee has been killed. I have a VHS copy made from a Cinemax airing at least 20 years ago. However, they didn't air it in the admittedly cheap Cinecolor process, a shortcoming of some of those Brown/Scott westerns of the period.
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For what it's worth, one thing holding back a lot of titles is the need for it to be made available in a digital format for TCM's digital servers which are now the channel's source rather than the old tape format.
Someone has to pony up the dollars necessary to convert these things and it's the distributor. Even if that happens to be the sister company that holds the former Turner library, I imagine it's being done on an as necessary or priority basis.
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Just how many forums has this thing been posted in today? I could swear that I've seen this in four different forums and it is barely worth putting up once.
I mean, c'mon, knocking the guy because of his brother having been in a particluar band? Because he was a male model - boy, that must be a first for the industry, hiring a model as an actor.
As far as comparisons to Cagney and Garfield, he's a former street kid just as they were. This isn't some Ivy League guy playing a tough guy. Rising up from poverty is the Great American Dream. If Wahlberg wants to cite either as an influence, hey - they must have meant something to him, so instead, rejoice that Wahlberg's watching old movies.
And what does "ILLIGITIZE" mean anyway?
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The strange thing is though, Columbia films were available to TCM from the time the channel first launched, and since they were not in Ted Turner's original library I have no idea why that was the case.
I'm not surprised. Titles don't make money sitting on the shelf and there's only so many venues for vintage movies on TV these days.
During the 80s, Columbia had a deal with HBO/Cinemax that gave the cable giant access to just about everything in the library, as long as it wasn't tied up elsewhere. Thus, HBO couldn't air a title while its network or syndication window was still open.
I was trying to put together some film packages for syndication for Columbia's Screen Gems division and I had to work around the HBO window which was usually one year.
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> {quote:title=fredbaetz wrote:}{quote}I remember we had a long discussion on what many consider the best of the Westerns of Scott and Boetticher which is "7 Men From Now" with a great supporting cast headed by Gail Russell and the terrific Lee Marvin. A Bajak production from John Wayne's company and to star Wayne, but he was involved with Fords "The Seachers" , so he bought Scott aboard who bought Boetticher on board. The was the first of the Scott/Betticher/Brown and the first of the five westerns that Burt Kennedy scripted. One of the truly great Westerns that was lost for a long time after Waynes death, but finally saw the light of day again and recognized as a classic piece of film making...
I hope that you don't mind, but I have to correct you here Fred. Harry Joe Brown had nothing to do with 7 MEN FROM NOW. He had been making films with Scott for years already, but was absent for this one. Nor did Scott bring Boetticher into the mix. The director was brought in by Wayne who had produced THE BULLFIGHTER AND THE LADY a few years earlier. Once he read the Kennedy script, he jumped at the chance to direct it.
It was Wayne's decision to cast Scott, he wanted to throw a former co-star some work. According to Boetticher, Wayne thought that Scott was finished career-wise. I guess he didn't notice that Scott was in the top ten of all stars from 1950-53 according to the Quigley poll.
I wish that TCM would dig up the Scott/Brown film THE WALKING HILLS. It's a hidden treasure film and with Arthur Kennedy, John Ireland, Ella Raines and Edgar Buchanan, it has one of the best supporting casts of any Scott film of the period. Noted blues singer Josh White also has a role and performs, thus committing one of the blues greats to celluloid.
John Sturges directed, long before the bloat began to set into his films and it runs a lean 78 minutes. Charles Lawton was the cinematographer and must have impressed his bosses as he made five more films with them.
It comes from a novel by Alan LeMay who also wrote THE SEARCHERS.
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Personally, I think that TCM should only show what I want them to show at any given moment. If I want DOUBLE INDEMNITY to air, they should stop the movie that is airing and put on what I want. If I change my mind half-way through, then they should air my next choice.
If I want to see a movie made last year, they should show it because it's all about what I want to see. Why should your choices be given more consideration than mine?
What's this stuff about "Essential" movies? Look at tonight, the movie is THE THIRD MAN. Goodness, this movie is so essential that they schedule it just about every month. How can anyone say that it's gone down the toilet when so many of the titles are just recycled? Besides, most of what does air there does fit in with your demands of 30s - 60s Hollywood films, so what has changed?
Oh yeah, THE THIRD MAN isn't a Hollywood film.
Here's this year's list - only six of twenty-six (23%) were made after 1970, only four aren't Hollywood movies.
March 3 – Some Like It Hot (1959)
March 3 – Special Late-Night Presentation at 2 a.m.: This is Spinal Tap (1984)
March 10 – The Razor's Edge (1946)
March 17 – Alice Adams (1935)
March 24 – The Goodbye Girl (1977)
March 31 – Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
April 7 – Gilda (1946)
April 14 – The Fallen Idol (1948)
April 21 – Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
April 28 – The Third Man (1949)
May 5 – Camille (1936)
May 12 – Diabolique (1955)
May 19 – Wuthering Heights (1939)
May 26 – Dinner at Eight (1933)
June 2 – Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
June 9 – Jezebel (1938)
June 16 – Special Double Feature: The Way We Were (1973)
June 16 – Special Late-Night Presentation: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
June 23 – Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
June 30 – Sullivan's Travels (1941)
July 7 – Summertime (1955)
July 14 – The Band Wagon (1953)
July 21 – To Have and Have Not (1944)
July 28 – What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Aug. 11 – Lolita (1962)
Aug. 18 – Captains Courageous (1937)
Funny you should ask about Hal Roach shorts. Didn't they just air some Hal Roach shorts earlier this week, with Laurel and Hardy?
I don't get the Halloween complaint. You say they show the same crap every year, and you want it replaced with Universal titles which you want to become the new traditional Halloween programming. You know what will happen next? Somebody else will write that each year TCM airs the same Universal stuff every year and it's time for a change. How about a mix of Universal, Hammer, AIP, some Lugosi Monograms, some imports...
Spread it around a bit.
As for the intros, what does it matter? Are the old intros classic? How can they be, they were made in the last 18 years, no matter which ones you like most. Does the intro affect the film presented? That's minor stuff on the list of grievances that you have.
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Here's the Kino release details according to Amazon:
After the death of Cedric ('Ceddie')'s English father, he and his mother live together in Brooklyn. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, had disowned Cedric's father when he married an American. But when the Earl's remaining son dies, he accepts Cedric as Lord Fauntleroy, his heir, and the Earl sends for Cedric and his mother. Cedric uses the first of his newly found wealth to do some favors for his old friends, and then heads to England, where he must try to overcome the Earl's dislike for Cedric's mother. This is the ONLY authorized edition of this classic film from the estate of David O. Selznick, restored and remastered in high definition from the George Eastman House.
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> {quote:title=Edgecliff wrote:}{quote}I have never seen the film before and enjoyed it very much. Wonderful character actors. Kino is bringing out a remastered Blu Ray edition of the film in June. This is from the Selznick collection.
Just before coming back here, I went looking at Amazon to see just which version of the film I had previously. There I came across the info on the upcoming release, put it in my cart and didn't even bother to find out who issued the one that I did own. At this point, it doesn't matter but it was probably Alpha anyway.
It's always great to see the two stalwart representatives of "the sun never sets on the British Empire" - C. Aubrey Smith and Henry Stephenson - in the same film. Then there were all of those actors who were such a part of the Frankenstein series popping up - what a little jewel this film is.
And I can't forget perennial policeman Robert Emmett O'Connor showing up also.
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I've seen SWEEPINGS before, but it was interesting to see again last night as the 1939 remake THREE SONS was on just two days earlier. Interestingly, William Gargan who played the oldest son in last night's film, was Uncle Thane in the remake.
JALNA was OK, it gave David Manners a much more animated role than he was getting in Universal horror films which presented him as a rather bland leading man. It's not the kind of film that I'm likely to revisit, but I'm determined to see as many of Cromwell's films as possible.As good as he was in directing actors, his films usually show considerable care taken in visual conpositions. Right off the bat in JALNA, he had the camera pan the dining table while each character present was identified by real name and by character name.
Not a big deal, but when so many characters are thrown at you at once, it was a nice touch.
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I've never managed to see this one before, well, once I tried via a poor DVD copy, but the print was totally unacceptable so I turned it off and eventually threw it out. It was a joy to see it tonight in such splendid condition among the other John Cromwell films, I was getting all misty-eyed toward the end. You folks will have me up until dawn as I don't have any recording equipment and I'm quite a fan of the versatile Mr. Cromwell.
However, I do have a request - two actually. Many years ago I saw the Cromwell film VILLAGE TALE with Randolph Scott and liked it very much. Around the same time, I saw Cromwell's THE SILVER CORD which stars Joel McCrea (and Irene Dunne) but doesn't appear during next month's McCrea fest. Cromwell deserves a whole month, possibly with his son, actor James Cromwell co-hosting, as was done for William Wellman a few years ago.
If it's at all possible to air these two RKO films, I'm certain that I won't be the only appreciative viewer out there.
Thanks again.
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I don't know if it makes any difference but didn't you write that the original issue was "flawed" causing WHV to pull the film for awhile and offer replacements to the early buyers? (If November 2010 was the date the very first copies went on sale.)
Within a month, there were enough complaints for the Archive people to make the replacement available:
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I don't know when *The Cyclops* went on sale through the Warner Archive Collection but it is likely that the WHV embargo applies in this case.
It went on sale on November 18, 2010.
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Ross Martin was also in GERONIMO.
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Many say that the "golden age" of TV died with the loss of live anthology shows. I disagree, it just morphed into taped and filmed dramas, and while not all TV movies are great, there were a number of them that can stand next to any of the best live programming of the 50s.
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About a decade ago, TCM played this back-to-back with APACHE starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Peters. Never saw so many blue-eyed Indians in one night.
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> {quote:title=hamradio wrote:}{quote}
> I can already hear the Lenscrafters "made in half an hour" jokes.
I'll keep an eye out for them.
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It reminds me of something I say about statements made by politicians.
"Just because that's what they imply, you don't necessarily have to infer it that way."
I do agree with you, maybe what they should do is put some disclaimer on the bottom of the screen noting that they take no responsibility for cuts made by the distributors. This way, if they get one of those old 8mm Castle Films "complete edition" reels that run about 15 minutes, they're covered.
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> {quote:title=Sepiatone wrote:}{quote}
> Some of the early "Made-For-TV" movies were quite good. The best of them, in my opinion, was the early Speilberg work *Duel* . Then there's *My Sweet Charlie* with Patty Duke and Al Freeman.
It just happens that the two titles that you mentioned, did get a theatrical release in the U.S. after they aired on TV. For DUEL, they even added footage. I really don't have a problem with the better made-for-TV movies airing on TCM. I'd love to see BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL, THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA and FEAR ON TRIAL air again. The "Moviola" mini-series would be a natural.
On the other hand, the disease-of-the-week type films, or MOTHER, MAY I SLEEP WITH DANGER? can remain on Lifetime.
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Well, at least they must have spelled "TCM" correctly.
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In 1967, at the height of the Bogart phenomenon, THE AFRICAN QUEEN was re-released here in NYC at two Manhattan theaters.
"Bogart, the King is back with the Queen" proclaimed the newspaper ads.
A friend and I went to see it at the Trans-Lux theater and boy were we disappointed - the print was in black-and-white.
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> {quote:title=Sepiatone wrote:}{quote}I recall seeing a "short" shown between movies on TCM that was a musical number that had an actress(whom I CAN'T recall) being surrounded by well dressed "suitors" which danced around her that included Anderson and STEVE FORREST, who's also still with us.
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That was Lana Turner doing "A Great Lady Has an Interivew" in 1954 which originally aired on The Ed Sullivan Show (when it was known as Toast of the Town). You can also spot Paul Picerni in the bit. It was originally a song done by Judy Garland in ZIEGFELD FOLLIES.
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I agree - I started to watch it, but the image is too fuzzy. Not that I expect a 45-year-old TV movie to be in any decent shape these days.
But with THE GREEN SLIME running tonight, it's not too often that one gets to see two Robert Horton films within 24 hours.
Western Movie Rambles
in Westerns
Posted
What was it with Columbia westerns and hand injuries? In THE MAN FROM LARAMIE, James Stewart gets shot in his hand at close range and in ALVAREZ KELLY, William Holden gets a finger shot off.
I very much enjoy THE NEVADAN, which also has some elements of the later Boetticher films in the relationship between Scott and Tucker. Frank Faylen and Jeff Corey add color as two villainous brothers.
Once in a while, Macready got to play something other than the cold villain. He shows up with Kirk Douglas for the fourth time in SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (DETECTIVE STORY and TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN being the other two besides the Kubrick film) and he also has a decent sized part as Secretary of State Cordell Hull in TORA! TORA! TORA!
In the rarely screened ALIAS NICK BEAL, Macready actually gets to play a minister, the one who first notices that Ray Milland may indeed be the devil.