clore

There's a 1962 British film titled TWO GUYS ABROAD starring George Raft and Maxie Rosenbloom that never saw the light of day. Raft was also in 1972's DEAHEAD MILES in a cameo with Ida Lupino in a film written by Terrence Malick. Though the film starred Alan Arkin, it was never released although it did land on TV which is where I saw it circa 1980 or so. Bruce Bennett has a nice bit as a legendary trucker.

So instead of getting upset, enjoy the dramatic series and eventually TCM will reschedule "The Dangerous Days Of Kiowa Jones". Oh, I'm not upset. I've gone 45 years without seeing it. I'm just surprised that it was such a late switch, usually we get at least a few days notice. Maybe a little disappointed, but I've pretty much forgotten about it already.

I also thought the kid playing Tiny Tim in the 1938(?) MGM version looked like Shelley Duvall and the Demon Puppet from Child's Play had some kind of hellish offspring. You didn't recognize him from *Goodbye Mr. Chips*?

I really wanted to see it for oddball reasons. It aired on ABC on Christmas night in 1966. Back then, the networks didn't bother scheduling anything that they had faith in from Christmas to New Years because Nielsen didn't use national data from that period. The week caused such abberations to normal viewing habits, so the nets tended to throw in repeats of regular series and weak movies. I wanted to see just how weak this one was. The policy has long since changed, but I recall critics of the time referring to how it tended to be the worst week for viewing options.

Given those names, then we have former film directors helming TV episodes, just like SCREEN DIRECTOR'S PLAYHOUSE. In fact, Waggner (or "waGGner" as he was often billed) did one of those PLAYHOUSE episodes, the one with Errol Flynn.

Believe me, if it were to be allowed, I could sit here and rattle off two-dozen worthy candidates. I mean, if they are going to run old half-hour TV shows from SCREEN DIRECTOR'S PLAYHOUSE, it seems that TV movies should be allowed. Or even certain TV series episodes, such as the John Ford WAGON TRAIN episode, or the Sam Fuller-directed episode of THE VIRGINIAN.

Judging by the length, it must be three episodes stitched together as the NORTHWEST PASSAGE series sourced was a half-hour one. TCM has also aired HONDO AND THE APACHES which was pasted together from two episodes of the HONDO series. Plus they've aired numerous U.N.C.L.E. "movies" - a few of which did have scenes not in the original episodes.

It was scheduled for 2pm today. It's still on the online monthly schedule. Did someone realize that it's a TV movie and cancel it? The same thing happened when the Robert Taylor TV movie RETURN OF THE GUNFIGHTER was scheduled when he was SOTM, it was switched at the last minute. Oh well, I guess i can take solace in the pan-and-scan version of THE BEST HOUSE IN LONDON which is on in its place.

Hicks also played Scrooge in a 1913 adaptation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224067/

No one who saw her dance in Lang's THE INDIAN TOMB is likely to forget her. The dance starts about three minutes into the clip:

Lee Marvin and Charles Bickford were also doctors. The whole cast looked like a group of guys who would plot together to rob a bank. This might have been better over at Fox where you likely would have had the likes of Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter and Bradford Dillman in the cast rather than a bunch of 40-year-old medical students from Murderer's Row. Still, it's one of Lon Chaney's few A-grade productions within his last two decades. Kramer apparently liked the guy and gave him roles in HIGH NOON and THE DEFIANT ONES also. Whew - Mitchum, Marvin, Chaney, Crawford, Sinatra - what was the booze budget on this one?

You can abandon hope on the GODFATHER films as AMC has them until 12/31/19.

There was a 1928 short made in in the UK: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271165/

If they don't, if they speak quickly and in one long unbroken speech, without stopping, it becomes just blathering, a jumble of words. Are you suggesting that perhaps Martin Scorsese is the one who wrote those synopses?

No, you don't complain much from what I've seen and you, just as anyone, are entitled to express your dissatisfaction. I've probably seen the film thirty times since it premiered on CBS back in Fall of 1967. But there's been at least a year between each subsequent viewing. As much as I love Hitchcock and Grant, each man has a number of films for which I've reached the saturation point on any more screenings. Heck, tonight one of my favorite noirs is airing, but I won't be tuning in to see OUT OF THE PAST again. I've got a DVD of FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE which I've yet to open, so that's on the plan for this evening.

Just because I cite something as being frequently aired, it's not actually a complaint, just an observation. It's actually a blessing in disguise since it drives me to my own collection and there are tons of things there that I've yet to watch. If I can get an average of one movie per day out of TCM, I'm a happy person. That's more than I get out of HBO although that may increase now that I've traded in my old cable boxes for HD ones and can now see widescreen movies on HBO. I'm such a purist that I won't watch pan-and-scan versions of films that I haven't seen before and most of the ones that I have seen already.

*Splendor in the Grass* is listed and it's about time that this film was nominated for the "Some Like It From Here to Eternity in a North By Northwest Direction" award for most frequently aired titles.

What I find amusing is that you have to click on the link that says "Read the Full Synopsis." Then when you get there it says "Brief synopsis." The lack of a paragraph structure does make it difficult to read, which is one reason why I never bother to read them all the way through even after I've seen a film for the first time.

O'Brien might just have decided to sound like a combination of his old buddy Jimmy Cagney AND Edward G.Robinson, ya see. Warner's really tried hard to get Notre Dame to approve the casting of Cagney as Rockne. But the officials would not have it. Not only did they cite Cagney's gangster image as a detriment, but at the time Cagney was rumored to be a Commie sympathizer. Warner's cited Cagney's boxoffice stature as being far and away superior to that of O'Brien and since Notre Dame was getting a piece of the action, it would have meant more dollars for them. Misjudgment or not when it came to Cagney, one must admire that they stuck to their principles.

Are you talking about "McMillan and Wife"? ..and that wasn't even weekly. It wasn't weekly, but then again, the OP made no comment that submissions had to refer to strictly weekly programs. It was regularly scheduled, rotating among MCCLOUD and COLUMBO and it sold itself on his name in the promos. It *was* a star vehicle and with episodes running either 90 or 120 minutes, it would be pretty near impossible to keep that up for weekly airing. It's too demanding upon the lead if he has to do a movie-length TV show each week for 26 weeks. Sure, THE VIRGINIAN was on for years as a 90-minute program, but they divided the stories among the males in the cast so that the brunt wasn't on just one of them.

I'm only going to give one because he was the first director whom I noticed way back in childhood. The name Michael Curtiz kept popping up in the credits of films that I really enjoyed on TV and he has rarely disappointed me. I've seen just about all of his sound films.

What was it that Harpo Marx said about the last years of John Barrymore? Something along the lines of "The passing of a great man is tragic, and doubly so when the greatness passes before the man." This stemmed from Harpo seeing Barrymore at some night spot, crawling around on the floor in a drunken stupor and trying to find the phone number of some floozy whom he had met earlier.

This really should have been reissued in the '70s; the college crowd would have loved it. This would have been great for midnight shows. I'll never forget the first time that I saw it which was only a few years ago. I was astounded that there is that subplot and the sight of Clarence Wilson getting high was too much. To me, Wilson was always be the nasty orphanage head in the Our Gang short "Shrimps For a Day" but now I have a much better reference point for him.

Sure I am, JEWEL ROBBERY is airing. It's not every night that you get to see William Powell handing out reefers and commenting that smoking it will make you hungry.

Another thing that Brooks did was to mix performers somewhat. About a decade before the film was made, I read about John Barrymore's habit of using the large planters on the set of MIDNIGHT as a urinal. When warned about that, Barrymore then used the ladies room rather than the men's room because it was closer. The remark made may have been altered somewhat, but when confronted by a woman wishing to use the ladies room who reminded him that "this is for ladies," Barrymore responded with a line similar to "So is this, but every now and then I have to run a little water through it." I believe it was the book "Hollywood Director" about Mitchell Leisen that detailed that incident, but I can't find my dog-eaten (yes, not just dog-earred) copy of it to double-check. Brooks may well have figured that with Flynn having played Barrymore and also having a similar reputation, it was suitable for the story. And I'd have to agree, the movie doesn't claim to be a biopic or documentary, otherwise there would be much else that we would have to dismiss. In this case the scene is fun enough for me to allow Mel to win one for the zipper.