Fedya

The Z is pronounced like an English TH (unvoiced), as any Castilian would tell you.

That's why she's so good in Imitation of Life.

Joyzelle Joyner also played the Martian queen in Just Imagine (1930), a movie that's fun because of how bizarre it is. Unfortunately it's difficult to find.

Old Glory (1939). Uncle Sam (voiced by Shepperd Strudwick) teaches Porky Pig the importance of American values. This is an odd short, in part because there is by design no humor here. If it had been made in World War II, that would make sense. But it came out in 1939. The other interesting thing is the use of rotoscoping to animate all the figures from American history. (Archive sound of John Litel from an early WB live-action short is used for Patrick Henry's voice.) The rotoscoping is excellent, and makes the short worth a watch. 8/10 for the rotoscoping; 5/10 for the rest.

Burl Ives and I share a birthday.

I prefer the zombie version. "Maggie the Cat is UNDEAD!"

The bong gig sounds like nice work if you can get it.

Ooh, now I want to see Scandal again.

My sister lived in Sterling, so I've been to Clinton. I find it hard to believe there's anything charming in that town.

Well, why do they need gin? Vodka will do just fine.

Based on some of the comments he made about The Bad and the Beautiful and East of Eden, he's definitely throwing in some dry humor.

Upscale theater owners in New York lobby government to allow movie theaters to sell alcoholic beverages to patrons Adding alcohol can't make the movie-going experience any worse than it already is. And I can imagine some advertising opportunities for the TCM Wine Club....

La Pointe Courte (1955) Agnès Varda tells two unrelated stories in this movie, going back and forth between them. The first is a neo-realist look at the life of a fishing village (in fact, a part of the municipality of Sète); the second is the story of a couple whose marriage is on the rocks. The fishing village scenes are excellent, filled with striking cinematography (Varda's start as a still photographer obviously helped) and a fascinating look at the lives of the villagers. There's some shocking realism, such as a scene in which a kid asks for one particular kitten not to be drowned because he wants to keep that one. Varda also shows off her cat fetish as there are lots and lots of shots of cats. The movie is considered a forerunner of La nouvelle vague, and the scenes with the couple are certainly the new vague, as they go on talking and talking and talking elliptically. Watch for the villagers. The water jousting is a real thing that continues to this day; fast forward through the couple. 8/10.

And I'd assume the 1923 Desire is a lost film, since I can't find much information about it anywhere?

Thank you! I remember some years back when TCM was running Rose Marie (the MacDonald/Eddy movie, not a Baby Rose Marie short), my set-top box guide actually had a synopsis for the Sissy Spacek film Marie: A True Story. I'm thankful for that because it made me look for the later movie when it finally did show up and it was more than worth a watch.

TCM is running a bunch of Marlene Dietrich movies on Tuesday night, with the new-to-me Desire kicking things off at 8:00 PM. According to IMDb, the movie is about a jewel thief (Dietrich) who hides her stolen goods with an unwitting American abroad (Gary Cooper) and then runs into difficulty trying to get them back. However, TCM's one-sentence synopsis for the movie reads, "Before they can marry, two society types run off with lower-class loves." Any idea what movie that synopsis is supposed to be for?

LA got bombed in the Ray Milland/Frankie Avalon classic Panic in Year Zero!

Several years earlier, Cary Grant's Mr. Blandings was pulling down $12,000 a year, for what that's worth.

How about a little salvation from Clark Gable:

So he's no worse than Jane Fonda.

She lost her youth and she lost her Tony, now she's lost her mind?

Right after they bring Hot Spell to the big screen.

San Francisco has excellent special effects for 1936.

You can hear snippets of the song in the RTE radio documentary at the link I gave above. Or you can watch it on Youtube: The UK thought they should win with Cliff Richard's rendition of "Congratulations and Jubilations", but the funny thing is both songs are, as the British would say, naff. There's a lot of fun stuff in Eurovision, some of it an absolute disaster (which is what makes it so fun). There are also a few famous songs. ABBA won for Sweden in 1974 with "Waterloo". And then in 1967, Luxembourg entered a vocal version of "Love Is Blue". You probably recognize the melody: Bleu, bleu, l'amour est bleu; Bleu est l'amour, est l'amour est bleu