Fedya

I think it's only Cary Grant's wig that's a train wreck.

They Came to Cordura (1959). Not an advertisement for DuPont's polymer fabrics, but a movie that tells us it's going to address the two great fundamental questions that affect mankind: Who am I? and How did I get myself into this movie? Gary Cooper stars as an Army Major in the campaign to find Pancho Villa; due to an act of cowardice he's been made the awards officer, looking for people to write up citations for the Medal of Honor. He winds up with five (Van Heflin, Richard Conte, Tab Hunter, Michael Callen, and Dick York), as well as a military prisoner (Rita Hayworth). He has to take them all back to the fort at Cordura, but complications ensue.... The movie is filled with all sorts of tropes. The difficult slog through the desert seems taken from Immortal Sergeant; Cooper's imperative that he not fall asleep is clearly stolen from Along the Great Divide; falling for the prisoner is a crib of 3:10 to Yuma; and on and on. It goes on for two hours, which is at least a half hour too long, and has a nonsense ending, stealing from a scene in The Best Years of Our Lives. Not one of Cooper's best. 5/10.

You're really purple, not sepia.

I prefer Forbidden Games.

I didn't see Chandler, but last weekend I watched Sex Kittens Go to College. It's hard to imagine too many movies being much worse than that. Well, there's Dondi, which might be the single worst movie I've seen on TCM.

Of course, the main plot of Airplane! comes from Zero Hour!, a 50s movie starring Dana Andrews.

Did you catch The Ritz when TCM ran it back in March? Williams is even younger there, and does the whole role in falsetto.

It showed up last year, and I DVRed it. To be honest, I found it very hard to follow.

Moore lost the Best Actress Oscar to Sissy Spacek that year. When you watch Coal Miner's Daughter, it's easy to see why Spacek was nominated; it's the type of role that has Oscar written all over it. And Spacek is quite good; I don't think she was an unworthy Oscar winner. But Mary Tyler Moore has to do something completely different, playing an emotionally cold mother who in many ways turns out to be the villain of the piece. It's difficult and not showy, but she pulls it off in spades. Timothy Hutton is the one who gets the showy role, and if anything, he's really the lead actor here even though his placement in the credits made him eligible for the Supporting Actor Oscar that he won. (Judd Hirsch actually got an Oscar nomination too, although I have to say he is good in his limited role.) That having been said, I think it's Donald Sutherland who doesn't get enough credit for his part in Ordinary People. He plays the father desperately trying to keep peace, not understanding the family dynamic until it's too late to do anything about it. If anything he's a tragic figure here and, like Moore's performance, it's not the sort of showy thing that tends to get the notice of the Academy. Sutherland didn't get nominated at all, if memory serves. I strongly recommend Ordinary People. I just hope your bathroom tiles don't need re-grouting. I'd call The Trouble With Harry a comedy, although it's certainly a dark comedy.

Can see you through the night?

It's always Marsha! Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

You're mixing up Stepfanie Kramer and Stefanie Powers. (Or am I missing a joke here?) As for Powers, I like Die! Die! My Darling!.

Have you seen Cinderella Liberty? That's from around the same time, and, if memory serves, is set in Seattle.

Nitpick for those googling: It's Stepfanie Kramer; notice the unusual spelling. (My sister is a Stefanie with an F since we're of German descent, so I pick up on people who spell the name other than "Stephanie". Poor Stef could never find anything in her name in all those novelty shops that sold first-name stuff. Then again, my sister Karla with a K had the same problem.)

Not just tomorrow?

I for one was thrilled. (I'm rooting for Germany to win the whole thing.) Now I gotta see how much a DVD of Victory would set me back....

To be fair, the title of the thread has to do with the song.

You mean Harry Belafonte could act? (I've seen The World, the Flesh, and the Devil and some of Belafonte's other movies, and he comes across as the weak link most of the time. Particularly in Carmen Jones.)

I was hoping this would be about White Witch Doctor with Robert Mitchum and Susan Hayward.

She learned English from Kay Fwancis.

Why does Doris Day deserve to have her name misspelled?

What Ever Happened to Baby Chekov? /ducking

Anything with Margaret O'Brien.

All anybody had to do to make 2001 more watchable is chop off the pretentious final third.

My vines have tender grapes, thank you very much.