Richard Kimble
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Posts posted by Richard Kimble
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*The Bradbury Building* is an architectural landmark located at 304 Broadway at West 3rd Street in downtown Los Angeles, California. Built in 1893, the building was commissioned by Los Angeles gold-mining millionaire Lewis L. Bradbury and constructed by draftsman George Wyman from the original design by Sumner Hunt. - Wikipedia
Vintage photo
Recent photos
A number of films and TV episodes have been shot at the Bradbury Building (though despite what you may have read, Double Indemnity was not one of them)
DOA (1949)
The Outer Limits - "Demon With A Glass Hand" (1964)
Blade Runner (1982)
Quantum Leap - "Play It Again Seymour" (1989)
Wolf (1994)
The Artist (2011)
An interesting exploration of whether the1942 film China Girl filmed location shots at the Bradbury Building:
http://ladailymirror.com/2012/01/14/the-bradbury-building-and-the-mystery-of-china-girl/
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(Descriptions from Wikipedia)
Red Rock Canyon State Park features scenic desert cliffs, buttes and spectacular rock formations. The park is located where the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada converges with the El Paso Mountains. Red Rock Canyon is an approximately 27,000 acres unit located along State Highway 14 in Kern County, about 80 miles east of Bakersfield and 25 miles north of Mojave.
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Bronson Canyon, or Bronson Caves, is a section of Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California that has become famous as a filming location for a large number of movies and TV shows, especially westerns and science fiction, from the early days of motion pictures to the present. Its craggy and remote-looking setting, but easily accessible location, has made it a prime choice for filmmakers, particularly of low-budget films, who want to place scenes in a lonely wilderness.
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Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park is a 932-acre park located in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northern Los Angeles County, California. It is in Agua Dulce between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley north of Los Angeles and seen easily by motorists driving the Antelope Valley Freeway.
In 1935, Universal Pictures assigned Stanley Bergerman as executive producer on the film Werewolf of London. Bergerman suggested the Vasquez Rocks as the location for what was supposed to be Tibet. Since then, Vasquez Rocks have been used innumerable times in motion pictures, various television series and in moving and still photography advertisements, and continue to be used in them today.
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Before yesterday, I didn't know much about Leigh Brackett. I'd seen the name in the screenplay credits of some notable films of course, but not much beyond that.
Leigh Brackett's Chandlerish first novel, the hard-boiled noir No Good from a Corpse, was published in 1944. After reading it Howard Hawks sent for "this guy Brackett" to work on the script for The Big Sleep.
Imagine his surprise when she showed up for work.
Leigh Brackett and Howard Hawks on the Set of Rio Bravo:
Yes I was aware Leigh Brackett was a woman, and I knew she'd written The Long Goodbye for Robert Altman. I either never knew or had forgotten she worked on The Empire Strikes Back (I'm not a Star Wars person).
What I definitely never knew was that she was a prolific science fiction novelist and story writer. Indeed her Wikipedia page is devoted almost entirely to her SF output, with her screenwriting and mystery fiction careers almost as afterthoughts.
Differing perspectives can be fascinating. If I'd written the Wiki article it would have been about LB's screenwriting career, mentioning her SF oeuvre only in passing.
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Photoplay, July 1925:
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There is no exact date, only landmarks.
In 1957 the MCA talent agency was able to force Fox to hire Dean Martin for The Young Lions (in a role intended for TCF contract star Tony Randall), after threatening to withdraw their clients Brando and Clift from the project. For me this is a key turning point in the power shift from studios to agents.
FWIW Universal continued to have contract players well into the '70s.
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I much prefer the March version, although I agree with you that they went overboard on the Hyde makeup
As for the Tracy, I yield to Somerset Maugham, who while visiting the set and watching Tracy's performance, asked in a voice loud enough for all to hear:
"Which one is he playing now?"
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> It was the earliest work I've seen JOHN CULLUM in, spectacular as Edward Rutledge
Cullum plays a significant supporting role in All The Way Home (1963)
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The songs are mostly mediocre: "Mama Look Sharp" is cringeworthy, while "Does Anybody Care" and "He Plays the Violin" are almost as embarrassing. "Dear Mr Adams" has the best lyrics of the score, with some amusing if elementary rhymes (and one embarrassing moment of choreography). The intended showstopper "Molasses To Rum To Slaves" isn't too bad either.
The extended version includes the number "Cool, Considerate Men" which had been cut from the 1972 release (allegedly b/c Nixon wanted it (?)... Did he really think a movie song might cost him votes? He must've thought the movie would be a big hit rather than the box office flop it was). Like "Molasses". "Cool" is better musically than lyrically, but it is interestingly choreographed and the closest thing in the film to actual CINEMATIC film-making (most of the direction is awful, though I'll admit there is a perverse pleasure in counting examples of inept direction: "Look! There's William Daniels sitting stiffly on the table, just as he must have done on Broadway in order to break up the staging! Look, there's the messenger delivering the messages with the exact expression on his face each time!").
The saving graces of 1776 remains screenwriter Peter Stone's witty repartee and the superb cinematography of Harry Stradling Jr.
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> I think the same thing goes for current rock-oriented singers who try to sing old standards. While I admire their desire to expose their fans to these great songs, as well as their good taste in choosing those particular songs, they just don't have the jazzy swing required to put the song over, in my opinion. Obviously, many of Rod Stewart's fans would disagree, but I'd rather hear him sing "You Wear It Well," which he sings superlatively, and leave "They Can't Take That Away From Me" to Fred Astaire.
On the flip side, Linda Ronstadt's covers of rock songs like Warren Zevon's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" and Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk" are embarrassingly bad, while her standards albums like What's New (arranged by Nelson Riddle) are very good.
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Technicians working on the stop motion shots for Metropolis, 1927:
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Movie theater on Woodward Avenue, Detroit, July 1917:
A detail taken from this photograph (warning -- large file):
http://i.imgur.com/cubos5i.jpg
The film playing is Somewhere in Georgia, starring Detroit's baseball superstar Ty Cobb:
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> Do they ALL have to have been FAMOUS singers, and THEN big movie stars?
If not, I'd like to add KEN CURTIS to the list.
So we're getting to *that* point in the thread...
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>Tommy Sands was great as a tough Marine in None But The Brave(1965)
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That's one of the worst performances ever
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Cary Grant and Walter Pidgeon both had some success in stage operettas, but seldom sang onscreen.
William Frawley ("Carolina In The Morning"), Sterling Holloway ("Mountain Greenery", "Manhattan"), Clifton Webb ("Easter Parade") and Jerry Orbach ("Try to Remember") all introduced song standards on stage, but aren't remembered for singing in films.
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Pre-production promotional poster for Frankenstein (1930):
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This is an ensemble piece, so Will Rogers must share screen time not only with top-billed Janet Gaynor as the daughter but also future director Norman Foster as the son (for those who care, Foster is OK but his slow speaking style and overage juvenile manner probably would've ended up limiting his roles even if he hadn't switched to directing).
There was a notable technical moment, where we see and hear the midway barkers telling us it's the last performance of the fair, the last night, last chance, etc... Then we go to the next scene of Janet Gaynor and Des Moines reporter Lew Ayres bittersweetly visiting the isolated spot of their tryst the night before -- and we still hear the barkers' warnings of "last night" and "last chance".
A few moments remind us this was made pre-code. Just before the family leaves for the fair, an antsy Gaynor tells Foster, "Haven't you ever felt like going someplace and raising hell?"
But the real jaw-droppers come in the relationships between the farm kids and their big city romances. It's clearly implied that Gaynor and Ayres have sex. As far as Foster and carny acrobat Sally Eilers are concerned, it's a lot more than implied: it's even the subject of a joking exchange between Foster, oblivious mother Louise Dresser and a possibly suspicious Rogers.
This seems like an odd thing to include in what is presented as a family film, but perhaps the term "family film" meant something different in 1933, and rural audiences weren't quite so naive as we like to think.
Another moment near the end gives us an earthiness missing in the squeaky clean musical version. Leaving with the family in their truck the morning after the fair, Rogers tell his hog, "Well Blueboy, you're a prize winner today, and ham tomorrow."
This reminder of the reality of farm life also recalls the famous story where somebody asked Rogers if he actually ate the hog after the film wrapped production. Rogers replied, "No, I just couldn't bring myself to eat a fellow actor".
60 years later Billy Crystal would steal this line re: the calf in City Slickers.
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>I find the Steiger original more pathetic than anything else. I'm actually uncomfortable watching it.
I think that was the point.
>Borgnine's Marty was more a victim of circumstance than being the depressing character that Steiger portrayed.
So he's not an "ugly little man", but really a take-charge guy just waiting for the right girl to come along? I don't think that's what Chayefsky intended
>The TV play may have been more realistic, but if Hecht-Hill-Lancaster wanted people to buy tickets in droves, there had to be a bit more optimism in the film.
The movie was produced as a tax write-off, so I doubt if the producers were too worried about tickets at that stage.
FWIW Steiger was offered the role in the film first, but he refused to sign a longterm contract with the HHL production company. That's why they signed Borgnine (who after the Oscar did his damnedest to get out of his own HHL contract).
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He'll be remembered for Jungle and Combat, but was always a memorable presence onscreen. Got a rare chance to show his lighter side in The Bad News Bears.
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I prefer the TV version with Rod Steiger
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I believe some books by Kevin Brownlow as well as the TCM documentary on Francis Marion, Without Lying Down (in which Brownlow appears), touch on the subject of woman editors in early Hollywood. IIRC, the logic for women getting the chance at editing jobs, when most other positions behind the camera were closed to them, went something like this: women sewing dresses in sweatshops had proven they could handle tedious work demanding constant attention to detail.
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Is that from Another Thin Man? That's the youngest -- and the preppiest -- I've ever seen him.
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> Why was Kelly earning more than Garner on "Maverick"? Garner was clearly first banana, even then
I can only guess. It may have been because Garner was totally unknown when he signed his WB contract, while Kelly had already had some fairly noticeable roles at Universal (such as To Hell And Back) when he signed his.
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In the early 1950s James Gleason was asking $3K a week. How often he got this price I don't know, but its the reason he didn't end up playing Fred Mertz. William Frawley, virtually blackballed because of his drinking, signed on with Lucy at $300 a week (of course he would later get raises).
In 1958 character actor Gerald Mohr made $18K (this came to light in his divorce hearing).
I believe Bonanza paid its major guest stars $3K. This was probably the neighborhood for most TV shows of that type (hour long, one camera shooting schedule). The show's cast made peanuts at first, but after it was established as a big hit they would get into the $12K a week range.
The Warners TV factory of the late '50s/early '60s attempted to bring their working philosophy to the small screen -- i.e. paying their actors as little as possible. Some of their western contractees held out -- Clint Walker actually did so for an entire year. While Maverick was in the top 10, James Garner was making $500 a week. His partner Jack Kelly got more -- $600.
Working for Dick Powell and Four Star was paradise by comparison. By the third and final season of Wanted Dead Or Alive, Steve McQueen was making $100K a year -- compared to Garner's $20K.
Robert Conrad once described his stint on WB's Hawaiian Eye along these lines: "I made $250 a week for three years. The fourth year I got a raise to $350 -- and they let me park my car on the lot".
In the early years of The Beverly Hillbillies Buddy Ebsen got $2K a week, while Irene Ryan, Max Baer, and Donna Douglas each got about $300 (Raymond Bailey and Nancy Kulp I don't know about). After the show's smash success Baer tried to organize a group holdout, but Ryan caved in and it collapsed. They would eventually get raises, though nothing close to what they were asking. This is why the cast members of this and other shows like The Virginian often made personal appearances at rodeos, county fairs, supermarket openings, etc... These paid more than their acting gigs.
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The Beatles with Shirley Temple and her daughter, 1964:
National anthems in movies
in General Discussions
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>In The Smallest Show on Earth, the audience rushes out as the movie ends so they won't have to stand while "God Save the Queen" is played. They are called "anthem sprinters."
Just a few days ago something occurred to me. There seem to be very few films from the studio era in which we hear "The Star Spangled Banner".
I can think of two, curiously both comedies: The Music Box and No Time For Sergeants. In both cases, the characters in the film that are listening (civilian in the first example, military in the second) stand at attention.
Robert "Believe It Or Not!" Ripley made a BION short for Warners in the early '30s, in which we hear a quartet singing "To Anacreon in Heaven", an English drinking song whose tune Frances Scott Key appropriated for the SBB. This film was produced after the greatest triumph of Ripley's career, when he published a BION column claiming the US did not have an official national anthem. This caused a public furor (and avalanche of publicity for Ripley), leading to a Congressional act making the SBB America's official national anthem. The Music Box was released about a year later.