Fedya
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Posts posted by Fedya
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> I'd forgotten how funny Glenda Farrell was in this.
"Go someplace warm -- and I don't mean California!"
She has an even more shocking line in *Girl Missing*, when she and her fellow gold-digger read the "Dear Jane" letter Guy Kibbee wrote them:
"It's addressed to us all right. 'To the G.D. Sisters.' I wonder if he means 'gold-diggers'... or that other well-known word."
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The various actresses in *The Stepford Wives*.
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When did *The Secret Fury* get pulled from the TCM schedule and replaced by *Postmark for Danger*?
I could swear that as late as the afternoon of Tuesday 9/25, TCM had *The Secret Fury* (1950, starring Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan) on the schedule for 11:30 AM this morning. But when I turned TCM on at lunchtime, they were 20 minutes into something called *Postmark for Danger*, made in the UK in the mid-1950s. Thankfully, I'd already seen *The Secret Fury* the last time it was on TCM, but still, I was surprised to see a movie pulled so late.
*Postmark for Danger* was entertaining enough, if not particularly good.
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> 2. Thelma Ritter richly deserved the Oscar that year and Donna Reed's win is inexplicable.
I think you're being a bit harsh on Reed. (Although I think *From Here to Eternity* is one of the more underrated movies: it didn't make the AFI Top 100 list in 2009.)
The other actress who gave an Oscar-worthy performance that year was Gloria Grahame, who was much better in *The Big Heat* than in her relatively small role in *The Bad and the Beautiful* wthat actually got her the Oscar.
As for Ritter, my favorite performance of hers is in *The Mating Season*, where she totally steals the picture.
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> All through out the movie I kept trying to figure out where I had seen Nina Foch before
You probably saw her in *Executive Suite*.
(I don't know why she got an Oscar nomination for it, but she did.)
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Maybe he didn't want to spoil the ending? ;-)
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Charles Coburn goes undercover in his own department store in the shoe department in *The Devil and Miss Jones*. I don't recall if there's a scene like the one you describe, however.
(Even if it's not the movie you're looking for, it's worth watching.)
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There weren't any commercial breaks in the last 30 minutes of *Girl on a Motorcycle* (I didn't see the first hour).
What a hoot. Marianne Faithfull couldn't act. I mean, she could barely even sit in front of rear-projection photography! And yet here she is flailing about wildly. And then there's a psychedlic sex scene iwth Alain Delon. Awful, awful movie, but one of those films that's so awful it's funny. Especially the ending.
Why couldn't TCM have shown this in their salute to Jack Cardiff? ;-)
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> Time is not kind, nor is fate. She died at age 49. *49!*
Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, destroying slowly but without pity that which yesterday was young. Alone our memories resist this disintegration and grow more lovely with the passing years.
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*The Cobweb* is a hoot: patients and staff at a sanatorium spend two hours arguing over the drapes.
It'll be on again later in the month as part of Lauren Bacall's "Star of the Month" salute.
Polly Bergen's nervous breakdown at the beginning of *The Caretakers* is also fun. And that movie has late-period Joan Crawford, sternly giving 150%.
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The one difference is that Scott Pelley reads the news live and Jay Leno does his shows on same-day taping. RO, as I understand it, does a couple of weeks' worth of intros over two or three days. In theory, it ought to be possible to get Osborne far enough ahead that he could take a vacation from everything else and not have to worry about doing TCM intros for a month or two. (Although, to be fair, there are schedule changes that could throw a monkey wrench into the works regarding the intros.)
How long does it take to record one evening's worth of movie intros/outros?
Along the same lines, I believe Pat Sajak works a whopping 39 days a year recording one week's worth of Wheel of Fortune shows on each of those 39 (non-consecutive!) days. It might even be less; people who know more about this stuff than I say that Wheel sometimes tapes six shows in one day and uses the sixth in non-themed weeks. Nice work if you can get it.
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> The second thing is that TCM doesn't actually sell anything. When TCM promotes a DVD release, even ones with their name or logo on it, it's because of some marketing arrangement they have with the studio or distributor that is selling them.
All the movies promoted in the "Hi, this is the TCM Classic Movie news report for (insert month here)" or the box sets they advertise? Dollars to doughnuts I'd wager it's a barter agreement: we promote certain DVDs from your studio, and you let us have the cable rights to certain movies from your studio. And yes, it's advertising.
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> Thank you, thestick. You're not prejudiced, you're just very, very, very smart.
You (the plural you; *willbefree25* 's post only reminded me of this) may enjoy Orin Kerr's posts [brilliant People Agree With Me|http://www.volokh.com/2010/08/04/brilliant-people-agree-with-me/] and the follow-up, [People Who Disagree Wih Me Are Just Arguing in Bad Faith|http://www.volokh.com/2010/08/16/people-who-disagre-with-me-are-just-arguing-in-bad-faith/]. :-)
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*Written on the Wind* is, like a lot of Douglas Sirk's work, a hoot. It's one of those films that would fit right in with that "subtext" thread going on elsewhere in the forum.
When I [blogged about it back in May|http://justacineast.blogspot.com/2012/05/oooh-another-hilariously-overwrought.html], I wrote:
> From the very start, you know that this is going to be a fun movie: Robert Stack rapidly and drunkenly drives his sports car to one of those lovely southern mansions, and runs in. Shots ring out, and we see Lauren Bacall shot and Stack staggering out of the house. And all of this is only over the opening credits....
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NOTES ON A SCHEDULE
TCM shows a broad spectrum of movies, in almost every genre. I decided to display this by picking out a bunch of broad genres, and then showing a whole range of sub-genres within each main genre.
Sunday morning and afternoon start out with a bunch of anthology movies, which in theory contain several different genres within each movie. (At least, they can; not all of them do.) There's comedy, drama, and horror, as well as both American and British movies. The afternoon concludes with the short Lionpower from MGM, which was MGM's 1967 look at the movies that were going to be coming out from MGM in the "four seasons of LIONPOWER!"
Sunday being Sunday, I figured it would also be a good day for religion-themed movies, which includes the Silent Sunday Nights film, the Lillian Gish version of *The White Sister*, and the TCM Import, *The Burmese Harp*, about a Japanese soldier who becomes a monk to escape the war.
The religious movies end with a biopic, which is a good way to tie together the religious movies with the next theme, disaster movies. OK, technically *The Producers* isn't a disaster, but the plot involves Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder trying to produce a disaster.
A comedic movie about crooks trying to create a disaster is a good segue into Monday night, and the Columbia theme: Columbia's comic crooks. It's a night of movies from Columbia that are about criminals and gangsters, with a relatively comic bent. *So You Won't Talk* is supposedly a remake of *The Whole Town's Talking*, starring Joe E. Brown in the Edward G. Robinson role(s).
There are a lot of movies set in the world of newspapers and magazines, and I decided to highlight these with a bunch of films across a range of dramas. I'll grant that *Cimarron* might be a bit of a stretch, but Richard Dix and Irene Dunne do play newspaper publishers.
We go from one horror movie with a newspaperman (again, I'll admit calling *Doctor X* a newspaper movie is a bit of a stretch) to a horror movie about a doctor, *The Return of Doctor X*, which is really worth watching for poor Humphrey Bogart's pallid performance. It kicks off a night of doctor movies, including two with Edward G. Robinson as the doctor, and one with Robert Mitchum!
The last of the doctor movies stars Kay Francis, which is a good way to kick off a day of "chick flicks" with strong female protagonists on Wednesday. Eventually we get to a bunch of movies with female spies, although they're relatively different genres of spy films.
This is especially true of the last one, *Thirteen Frightened Girls*, which was directed by William Castle. Yes, that William Castle. That's a good way to kick off a night of teen movies.
The last teen movie, early Thursday morning, is *High School Confidential*, which I'm not certain has any actual teens despite the high school setting. It's also hilariously bad. That makes it a good movie to start a day of films that are "So bad they're good". Howl along at Tony Bennett's emoting in *The Oscar* or Carol Channing doing a strip-tease in *Skidoo*, among others. The bad news is that *Dondi* is terrible, and has no redeeming quailities that I can think of. If you ever need to punish your children, make them watch *Dondi*.
I know Peter Lorre wasn't exactly a star by Hollywood standards, although he was a more than dependable actor. He also appeared in a broad range of movies, so I decided to highlight that broad range in one of his days as Star of the Month. The last of his films that I selected being a musical, I figured I'd have to start with a musical for Friday morning, in my day of Westerns. The Westerns continue until Friday night, when we get war movies (of course, following after a war movie set in the Old West).
This brings us to TCM Underground, and two movies that probably will never be shown on TCM because from what I've read (I'll admit to not having seen either of them), they're too brutal. *Men Behind the Sun* is about [unit 731|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731], a Japanese installation which engaged in testing biological and chemical weapons on Chinese and Soviet POWs, as well as nasty medical experiments. *Black Sun*, from the same director, is about the [Rape of Nanking|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre].
The last of the war movies isn't so much a docudrama as an instructional film designed for recruits to learn about the interrogation tactics Nazis would use. That, I suppose, is close enough to a docudrama to seque into a day of docudramas.
TCM has shown blaxploitation movies in TCM Underground, but I don't think there are enough of them to do an entire day. So I had to do the next best thing, which is movies that aren't quite blaxploitation. We start off with "Smacksploitation Cinema", as everybody only watches *Mildred Pierce* to see Mildred give Veda the smack she richly deserves. That's followed by Walter Matthau as a dentist in *Cactus Flower* and a Laurel and Hardy short about slacks.
We then have this week's TCM Essential, *The Killing*, which is one of Stanley Kubrick's earliest movies, about robbing a racetrack of a day's betting profits.
On the rest of Saturday night, we have, in order, Paul Douglas as an alleged tax evader; Jean Harlow's back being used as the punchline of a joke; Bette Davis as a librarian who refuses to remove a book about Communism from her stacks; Joan Crawford axe-murdering the Six-Million Dollar Man; and one that speaks for itself.
I believe I actually only used four premieres (I'm not certain whether both Laurel and Hardy shorts aired in the Hal Roach salute or not). I'm always a bit afraid to select a premiere because I'll worry that I'm going to run out of premieres and then have to scramble to complete the schedule with previously-aired movies.
As for the premieres, *We're Not Married* is a Fox film about a soon-to-be Justice of the Peace who jumps the gun by marrying five couples a week early, and then the consequences for each of those couples for their marriages not being valid;
*On the Front Page* is a Stan Laurel (apparently without Oliver Hardy!) silent two-reeler;
*Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea* involves Peter Lorre on a submarine that's on a mission to restore the Van Allen Belts before Earth overheats; and
*The Man Who Never Was* is a dramatization of the story of [Operation Mincemeat|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat].
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JUNE 21-27, 2013
TCM shows every genre of film and then some
SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2012
Anthologies contain multiple genres, all in one
0600 *Easy Money* (1948, Gainsborough, 94 min, p/s)
0745 *It's a Big Country* (1951, MGM, 89 min)
0915 *Dead of Night* (1945, Ealing, 103 min, p/s)
1100 *The Yellow Rolls Royce* (1964, MGM, 122 min)
1315 *We're Not Married* (1952, Fox, 86 min) PREMIERE #1
1445 *If I Had a Million* (1932, Paramount, 83 min p/s)
1615 *On Our Merry Way* (1948, UA, 98 min)
1800 *Trio* (1950, Gainsborough, 91 min, p/s)
Short: Lionpower from MGM (1967, MGM, 27 min)
Religious movies
2000 Religious love story: *The Sign of the Cross* (1932, Paramount, 122 min, p/s)
2215 Religious musical: *The Singing Nun* (MGM, 1966, 97 min)
0000 Silent Sunday Nights: Religious melodrama: *The White Sister* (1923, Inspiration, 143 min)
0230 TCM Imports: Religious war movie: *The Burmese Harp* (1956, Nikkatsu, 116 min)
0430 Religious noir: *Red Light* (1949, Roy Del Ruth, 83 min, p/s)
MONDAY, JUNE 22
0600 Religious fantasy movie: *The Bishop's Wife* (1947, RKO, 109 min)
0800 Religious biopic: *The Passion of Joan of Arc* (1928, Soci?t? g?n?rale, 114 min, p/s)
Disaster movies
1000 Disaster biopic: *Scott of the Antarctic* (1948, Ealing, 111 min, p/s)
1200 Disaster prestige: *San Francisco* (1936, MGM, 115 min)
1400 Disaster musical: *The Unsinkable Molly Brown* (1964, MGM, 128 min)
1615 Disaster sci-fi: *Capricorn One* (1977, Associated General, 123 min, p/s)
1830 Disaster comedy: *The Producers* (1968, Embassy, 88 min, p/s)
Columbia's comic crooks
2000 *Surprise Package* (1960, Columbia, 100 min)
2145 *The Happening* (1967, Columbia, 101 min)
2330 *The Big Mouth* (1967, Columbia, 107 min) Exempt from premiere total
Short: You're Next (1940, Columbia, 18 min)
0145 *The Lady and the Mob* (1939, Columbia, 66 min) Exempt from premiere total
Short: Fraidy Cat (1951, Columbia, 18 min)
0315 *So You Won't Talk* (1940, Columbia, 69 min) Exempt from premiere total
0430 *Miss Grant Takes Richmond* (1949, Columbia, 87 min)
TUESDAY, JUNE 23
Publishing in every genre
0600 Pressroom romcom: *His Girl Friday* (1940, Columbia, 92 min)
0745 Pressroom drama: *Dateline USA* (1952, Fox, 87 min, p/s)
Short: On the Front Page (1926, Hal Roach, 22 min) PREMIERE #2
0945 Pressroom mystery: *While the City Sleeps* (1956, RKO, 100 min)
1130 Pressroom epic: *Cimarron* (1931, RKO, 123 min)
1345 Pressroom noir: *The Big Clock* (1949, Paramount, 95 min, p/s)
1530 Pressroom fantasy: *It Happened Tomorrow* (1944, UA, 85 min, p/s)
1700 Pressroom gangster: *Picture Snatcher* (1933, WB, 77 min)
1830 Pressroom horror: *Doctor X* (1932, WB, 76 min)
Doctor movies
2000 Doctor horror: *The Return of Doctor X* (1939, WB, 62 min)
2115 Doctor falls in love with patient movie: *This Woman is Dangerous* (1952, WB, 100 min, p/s)
2300 Doctor noir: *Where Danger Lives* (1950, RKO, 92 min)
0045 Doctor gangster: *The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse* (1938, WB, 87 min)
0230 Doctor Comedy: *Doctor in the House* (1954, Rank, 92 min, p/s)
0415 Doctor biopic: *Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet* (1940, WB, 103 min)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24
0600 Doctor melodrama: *One Man's Journey* (1933, RKO, 72 min)
Chick flicks
0715 Chick flick doctor film: *Mary Stevens, MD* (1933, WB, 72 min)
0830 Chick flick noir: *Leave Her to Heaven* (1945, Fox, 110 min, p/s)
1030 Chick flick military: *So Proudly We Hail* (193, Paramount, 126 min, p/s)
1245 Woman abandons her son only to meet him 20 years later picture: *To Each His Own* (1946, Paramount, 122 min, p/s)
1500 Chick flick detective movie: *Nancy Drew, Detective* (1938, WB, 66 min)
Lady spies
1615 Lady spy by choice: *Carve Her Name With Pride* (1958, Rank, 119 min, p/s)
1815 Lady spy impressed into service: *Above Suspicion* (1943, MGM, 91 min)
2000 Teenage girl spies: *Thirteen Frightened Girls* (1963, Columbia, 89 min, p/s)
Teen flicks
2145 Teen crime movie: *Teenage Crime Wave* (1955, Columbia, 77 min, p/s)
Short: Teenagers on Trial (1955, RKO, 19 min)
2330 Teens on the job: *The Youngest Profession* (1943, MGM, 82 min)
0100 Teen stalkers: *The Unguarded Moment* (1956, Universal, 95 min, p/s)
0245 Teen drama: *Wild Boys of the Road* (1933, WB, 68 min)
0400 Teen musical: *Babes on Broadway* (1941, MGM, 118 min)
THURSDAY, JUNE 25
The "So bad it's good" movie
0600 So bad it's good, with "teens": *High School Confidential!* (1958, MGM, 85 min)
0730 So bad it's good courtroom drama: *The Story of Mankind* (1957, WB, 100 min, p/s)
0915 So bad it's good backstge movie: *The Oscar* (1966, Paramount, 119 min, p/s)
1115 So bad it's good crime movie: *Skidoo* (1968, Paramount, 97 min, p/s)
1300 So Bad it's good disaster movie: *The Crowded Sky* (1960, WB, 105 min, p/s)
Short: Script Girl (1938, WB, 20 min)
1515 So bad it's good Christmas movie: *Santa Claus Conquers the Martians* (1964, Jalor, 81 min, p/s)
1645 So bad it's good scifi: *They Came From Beyond Space* (1967, Amicus, 85 min, p/s)
1830 So bad it's not even so bad it's good: *Dondi* (1961, Allied Artists, 99 min, p/s)
Star of the Month Peter Lorre has done a lot of different genres of film
2000 Lorre in a psychological thriller *M* (1931, Nero-Film AG, 110 min, p/s)
2200 Lorre in sci-fi *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea* (1961, Fox, 105 min) PREMIERE #3
0000 Lorre in a comedy *Arsenic and Old Lace* (1944, WB, 118 min)
0215 Lorre in a teen flick *Muscle Beach Party* (1964, Alta Vista, 99 min, p/s)
0400 Lorre in a musical *Silk Stockings* (1957, MGM, 117 min)
FRIDAY, JUNE 26
Westerns:
0600 Western musical: *Paint Your Wagon* (1969, Paramount, 158 min)
0845 Western noir: *No Name on the Bullet* (1959, Universal, 77 min, p/s)
1015 Western comedy: *Support Your Local Sheriff!* (1969, UA, 92 min)
1200 Western scifi: *Westworld* (1973, MGM, 88 min)
1330 Western romcom: *The First Traveling Saleslady* (1956, RKO, 92 min)
1515 Western courtroom drama: *Sergeant Rutledge* (1960, WB, 111 min)
Short: Calgary Stampede (1948, WB, 18 min)
War films
1730 War western: *They Died With Their Boots On* (1941, WB, 140 min)
2000 War police procedural: *The Man Who Never Was* (1956, Fox, 103 min) PREMIERE #4
Short: I Won't Play (1944, WB, 18 min)
2215 War mystery: *Stalag 17* (1953, Paramount, 120 min, p/s)
0030 War thriller: *36 Hours* (1965, MGM, 115 min)
0230 War Underground: *Men Behind the Sun* (1988, Sil-Metropole, 95 min)
0415 *Black Sun* (1995, TF, 91 min)
SATURDAY, JUNE 27
0600 War comedy: *Operation Mad Ball* (1957, Columbia, 105 min, p/s)
Short: Winning Your Wings (1942, US Army Air Forces, 18 min, p/s)
Docudramas
0815 War Docudrama: *Resisting Enemy Interrogation* (1944, First Motion Picture Unit, 70 min, p/s)
0930 Courtroom docudrama: *Boomerang* (1947, Fox, 88 min, p/s)
1100 Spy docudrama: *The House on 92nd Street* (1945, Fox, 88 min, p/s)
1230 Medical docudrama: *The Killer That Stalked New York* (1950, Columbia, 76 min, p/s)
1400 Political docudrama: *The Phenix City Story* (1955, Allied Artists, 100 min, p/s)
Not Quite Blaxploitation Cinema
1545 Smacksploitation: *Mildred Pierce* (1945, WB, 111 min)
1745 Plaquesploitation: *Cactus Flower* (1969, Columbia, 103 min, p/s)
Slacksploitatoin short: Putting Pants on Philip (1927, Hal Roach, 19 min, p/s)
2000 Tracksploitation: TCM Essential: *The Killing* (1956, UA, 85 min, p/s)
2130 Taxploitation: *The Mating Game* (1959, MGM, 96 min)
2315 Backsploitation: *Dinner at Eight* (1933, MGM, 111 min)
0115 Stacksploitatoin: *Storm Center* (1956, Phoenix/Columbia, 85 min, p/s)
0245 Hacksploitation: *Strait-Jacket* (1964, Columbia, 93 min, p/s)
0430 Waxploitation: *The Mystery of the Wax Museum* (1933, WB, 77 min)
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I'm more tired of the "TCM should program for MY tastes, not other people's" attitude that seems to show up all too often.
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> No matter where you live, it's always something.
I live in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and when Irene came by last year, I lost power for 46 hours.
Other places nearby had it much worse.
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*F For Fake* is the sort of movie that is the reason why I retch when I hear the word "auteur". There are too many people who will praise a movie to high heaven simply because the person who wrote/directed/produced (and often starred in) it spent his life fighting the studio system, and made a movie that wasn't done The Hollywood Way.
Sure, there are times when doing things differently can yield great results. But just as often (and as is the case with *F For Fake* ), the result can be a tedious mess.
By the same token, as I understand it Welles re-edited and re-edited *Mr. Arkadin*. I don't know if there's one "official" version from the multitudionus edits, but if there is, I must not have seen that version. Because the version I've seen isn't the masterpiece the proponents of the auteur theory seem to claim it is.
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Submit your resume to TCM.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but *Tales of Manhattan* is a Fox film.
(With the WC Fields sketch back in it, it also runs over 120 minutes. At least it did whenever it was on the Fox Movie Channel.)
Now if only TCM could get the rights to show it from Fox. It's really a movie that belongs in The Essentials. Sanders' story with Edward G. Robinson is excellent, as is Charles Laughton's story as a composer.
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> Hah, good one. I'll add any film in which an animal is killed, real or otherwise, but especially real.
I love the scene in *Marnie* where Tippi Hedren misses a jump because she sees something red, causing her horse to be injured to the point that it's going to have to be put down. Marnie's screaming for somebody to shoot the horse is a hoot.
Of course, the whole movie is Hitchcock's great comedy, and Diane Baker is a lot of fun too. Who knew Hitchcock was so good at comedy? ;-)
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> I get Cornel Wilde and Victor Mature mixed up.
Victor Mature is the one with the big ****. ;-)
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I don't know, VX; I find quite a few of Hitchcock's movies more preferable. There's just something so unrealistic and unappealing about Kim Novak's characters, and the second half of the film comes across as tedious. We get that Jimmy Stewart is obsessed with this blonde. We don't need an hour of our noses being rubbed in it!
It's not that the first of Novak's characters is supposed to be insane; Norman Bates' and Bruno Antony's insanity are much more engaging.
As for Hitchcock's movies that I think are best, my selections would probably include *Notorious* and *Lifeboat* (in which Hitchcock does a really good job showing just how ugly people can become), and even *Foreign Correspondent*, which does a great job of combining a great story with great visuals and some comic relief. (The casting of Santa Claus as a hired killer is a big plus.)
Then again, I prefer *Saboteur* (which might be my favorite) to *North by Northwest*: the story works better with a perceived Everyman like Bob Cummings than with the more patrician Cary Grant.
Lawerence Tonight
in General Discussions
Posted
Erich von Stroheim would have come up with more original desert shots 40 years earlier if only cameras with a 4031847031754982735087.6:1 aspect ratio had been around for the Death Valley scenes of *Greed*.