Fedya

> Otherwise why would he, Chaplin, mess with his original work? Hubris?

> Thankfully TCM already knows what it's doing and does it supremely well. You should re-post this comment the next time TCM runs *Some Like It Hot*. ;-)

They didn't honor Allan Dwan, either.

What so glorious about using sporting events to inculcate phony patriotism?

> I of course was speakin' for many of us "Boomers" around here As somebody born after the Boomers, I have a tendency to get irritated with the idea that the Boomers' cultural touchstones ought to be cultural touchstones for all of us. And I say this as somebody who is of course a fan of old movies. I don't have any particular issue with movies from the 1950s and 1960s, which can be just as enjoyable or lousy as films from other decades. (Well, I have a problem with the pointless zooms that started to show up sometime in the 1960s, but that's a different story.) But latter-day stuff set in that era I tend to find tedious. (I have a feeling I'm one of the few here who doesn't care for Mad Men, for example.) And can we finally retire the {insert expletive here} -gate suffix for scandals while we're at it?

> But are there are any movies about wives with such odd taste? Bette Davis' love interest in a lot of her films was George Brent, who was there mostly because he was so bland he'd make her shine by comparison.

> And yet another little bit of our collective childhood passes. I was born in 1972. Annette Funicello was not part of my childhood. This is not to say anything bad about her work, of course. (I know we also have posters older than Annette, so she wasn't part of their childhood either.)

> Since Robert Young's character in The Guilty Generation doesn't want the world to know that he is the son of a gangster, I don't quite understand the logic of Harry Cohn's complaint. To be fair, Young's character is supposed to be a successful architect. At least, successful enough to get a contract to design multiple hotels; besides, he's already won an award for his designs. I'd think that calls for being well-dressed.

> This is a freak event in Fredericksburg to have snow on March 25. The movie that the snowstorm destroyed??? The ironically titled "Spring Is Here". Aaaaaaargh. You didn't miss much. I recorded it the last time it was on back in 2006 or so, and it was so boring I fast-forwarded through the musical numbers! I don't think they've run *Tanned Legs* (which I recorded the same morning) since then, either. At least that one had some legs and Dagwood Bumstead. (On the other hand, the last time they had a tribute to Lake earlier this year, they showed some different not-particularly-good movies.)

> I remember vividly her death in that plane crash, and how Life Magazine (I'm pretty sure it was Life) printed a picture of her body at the crash scene and was blasted for doing so. It wouldn't have been the last time [Life magazine ran such a photo|http://kottke.org/08/07/the-most-beautiful-suicide].

> And what, you may ask, does any of these people have to do with the movies? Well, except they've all been in them, at least once. I for one wouldn't mind seeing TCM show *Americathon*.

> I just really wish they were showing the rarely aired Othello at 8:00, and not 4:00 in the GD morning. "I wonder if he means gold-diggers... or that other well-known word." Glenda Farrell, *Girl Missing* (1933)

Did anybody get up to see Queen Gertrude when Olivier started his soliloquy?

They totally ignored Allan Dwan, too.

I didn't see a thread for it, but [Ruth Prawer Jhabvala|http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/movies/ruth-prawer-jhabvala-writer-dies-at-85.html?hp&_r=0], who wrote the screenplays to a bunch of the Merchant-Ivory movies, has died at the age of 85.

> "Wow...those RICHARD EGAN kisses were to DIE for!" What does Mme. Sepiatone think of Richard Egan's kisses in *A Summer Place* ?

> Could you really picture Jimmy Stewart uttering "f-bombs"? Jimmy Stewart, maybe not, but [Tony Randall|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iih5LjRHqdE], yes.

> (Last photo I could find): If you want some more Easter photos, try [here|http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301644/Here-comes-Peter-Cottontail-And-hes-bringing-awesomely-awkward-Easter-family-photos-him.html]. They're not Hollywood-related, however.

> I just think the idea of boiling puppies for medicinal purposes is distasteful even as a story element in a film. I probably would have been laughing over how bizarre the idea is. And I say this as a dog lover. I also like cats, and thought the old [bonsai Kitten|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten] website was a hoot. It astonished me how many prudes got up in arms about what was fairly obviously a spoof.

> The expression "phone it in" doesn't even work here. Burton seemed as if he sent HIS performance in by *carrier pidgeon* ! So he sent his performance in by Walter's brother? ;-) OK, OK, on a more serious note, the Christian-themed movie I wouldn't mind seeing on Easter is *The Sign of the Cross*. Because you can never have too much lesbian dancing or bathing in goats' milk to go with your Christian virtue.

I had a much bigger problem with the print to *Crime Wave*, which looked like it was herky-jerky and the movement all wrong.

> The first season of DOWNTON ABBEY copied the famous scene in MRS. MINIVER where Dame May Whitty decides to let the stationmaster win the flower show award he deserves. If you know the original, this is boring. The original was fairly boring too.

> Gad. Is there a worse movie with more talented people in it?? *A Woman's Secret*, which was on just after, would give it a run for its money. It stars Melvyn Douglas, Maureen O'Hara, and Gloria Grahame; is directed by Nicholas Ray; and has a Herman Mankiewicz screenplay from a novel by Vicki Baum ( *Grand Hotel* ). And yet, the whole thing is a mess.

> To be clear: what makes me cringe is when a famous scene from a movie is recreated or echoed in a film. There are also the near shot-for-shot remakes. *Twist Around the Clock*, for example, is an almost shot-for-shot remake of *Rock Around the Clock*. Musical acts aside, of course.

> The only post 1940 movie she made that I can stomach ( that I've SEEN, anyway) is *Mildred Pierce*. You don't like watching Crawford go way, way, WAY over the top? *Queen Bee* is a riot, for one. And boy is she fun going up against Robert Stack in *The Caretakers*.