cigarjoe
-
Posts
10,789 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Posts posted by cigarjoe
-
-
Worst: Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury) in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
-
3
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Sepiatone said:
I really don't understand the "rights" issue. If TCM requests permission to show certain movies but doesn't want to pay some exorbitant fee for it, they could possibly try(if they haven't already) to convince the holders of the rights that their allowing TCM to show them can possibly be considered as a "promotional" showing to help bolster DVD or other "streaming" revenue...?
Sepiatone
Exactly,
Not to be too harsh....
You got to wonder W*T*F is going through their minds (rights holders) some of these titles won't be worth dog poop the longer they keep them in limbo. The major audience for most of these studio production mill content is dying off fast.
-
1
-
1
-
-
9 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
I’m interested in what YOU thought of it....
(I know I’ve mentioned several times that I read it, and while I liked it very much I think it probably could’ve been about 15 to 20 pages shorter (Less the delusional ramblings near the end) and it would’ve made an even better, sharper book.)
It’s a real shame Gresham died so young, he had a lot of promise no doubt.
The MPPC would never have allowed it to be filmed as written. But we should probably wait for TomJH to finish reading it before we discuss it, no?
-
1 minute ago, TomJH said:
I'm half through.
I read it a few years ago and interested in your thoughts about it.
-
17 minutes ago, TomJH said:
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
TomJH just wondering if you've finished Nightmare Alley the novel yet?
-
-
10 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
Stark Fear (1962) - 5/10
Nasty, ugly melodrama starring Beverly Garland as a woman unhappily married to the loathsome Skip Homeier. He drinks too much and likes to slap her around, and that's when he's in a good mood. He disappears and risks losing his job, so Beverly goes looking for him in his rundown home town, where she meets even more unsavory characters. Also featuring Kenneth Tobey as the only decent guy in the film, Hannah Stone, George Clow, and Edna Newman. This low-budget indie was shot in Oklahoma, and it has a vaguely feminist message, although it could rightly be called misanthropic as well. Garland later called it the worst movie she ever made. She said that first-and-only-time director Ned Hockman fought with everyone until he finally walked away and quit the picture. Homeier finished directing the film himself, uncredited.
Source: Something Weird DVD
I liked it a tad better giving it a 6/10
Full review with screencaps here Hokie Okie Oil Patch Noir 😎
-
Timothy Carrey is Atticus Finch
-
1
-
-
When you search for it, it comes up as a Japanese expression meaning to wash your own neck before you get your head chopped off. Maybe it's something similar to meaning coming clean before the consequences catch up to you.
-
1
-
-
taking it on the lam or going on the lam, lam was an expression meaning flight.
In The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, J.E. Lighter defines the term as prison lingo for ''an act of running or flight, esp. a dash to escape from custody.'' In his 1886 ''30 Years a Detective,'' Allan Pinkerton, the first ''private eye,'' explains an operation of pickpockets: ''After he secures the wallet, he will utter the word 'lam!' This means to let the man go and to get out of the way as soon as possible.'' Lighter cites do a lam, make a lam and take a lam early in this century, finally emerging as the passive state of being on the lam.
Lighter speculates that it may be rooted in the dialect Scandinavian verb lam, as in the 1525 ''his wife sore lamming him,'' meaning ''to beat, pound or strike.'' Mark Twain used it twice: ''lamming the lady'' in 1855 and ''lam like all creation'' in 1865, both clearly meaning ''to beat.'' The suggested connection is that to avoid a feared lamming (related to slamming), one lams.
or....
The term came from 1682 when a group of Quakers were going to be arrested on their flight to America so instead of taking their group along a road they had the ship pick them up in the middle of the night to escape from the Red Coats and The Church of England. The ships name was the Lamb. This ship was part of the William Penn's flotilla. The group that was on the Lamb was headed by Cutberth Hayhurst, his wife and kids, his brother and wife and kids, and his sister and husband, along with a few others. These folks were my forefathers. There is plenty of info on the ship called the Lamb, their escape, and the Hayhurst's. Hence the term on The Lamb.
or possibly....
Some associate it with American gangsters during the depression and 1950's. Therefore i'm more inclined to go with Herman Lamm. Herman k. Lamm was a german born bankrobber who lived between 1890 and 1930. He is considered to be the father of modern day bank robbing.
-
1
-
-
8 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
I may have ranked this higher, but the unfortunate presence of two of my least favorite performers (Rooney & Harris) kept my enjoyment moderated.
For some reason I've never liked Harris either, Rooney is pretty good it this, Quicksand, and Drive a Crooked Road.
-
5 hours ago, cigarjoe said:
Street Of Chance (1942)
The Unseen (1945)
Fear In The Night (1947)*
The Big Clock (1948)*
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)*
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948)
The Accused (1949)*
Manhandled (1949)*
So Evil My Love (1949)
Rope Of Sand (1949)*
Chicago Deadline (1949)
The Lawless (1949)
The File On Thelma Jordan (1949)*
No Man Of Her Own (1950)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)*
Union Station (1950)*
Dark City (1950)*
Appointment With Danger (1951)*
Ace In The Hole (1951)*
A Place In The Sun (1951)*
Detective Story (1951)*
The Turning Point (1952)*
The Desperate Hours (1955)*
Short Cut To Hell (1957)
Checking against movieCollectorsOH's list the red asterisks have also been shown
-
My list of 10 Classic Actresses in my favorite (Noir) films:
Gloria Grahame in The Naked Alibi
Marie Windsor in The Narrow Margin
Ann Sheridan in Nora Prentiss
Yvonne De Carlo in Criss Cross
Rita Hayworth in Gilda
Susan Hayward in Deadline At Dawn
Lizbeth Scott in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Evelyn Keyes in Hell's Half Acre
Audrey Totter in The Sellout
Marilyn Monroe in Niagara
Eleven post 1960s actresses in my (some) favorite (Neo Noir) films:
Rita Moreno in Marlowe
Britt Ekland in Get Carter
Isela Vega in Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
Kathleen Turner in Body Heat
Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet
Lena Olin in Romeo Is Bleeding
Rosanna Arquette in The Wrong Man
Patricia Arquette in Lost Highway
Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction
Gina Gershon in This World Then The Fireworks
Marisa Tomei in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
-
1
-
-
10 minutes ago, TomJH said:
Fair enough, cigarjoe, though it's a cop out device by the screen writer. But that's why the Production Code would have accepted it, because it's not "real," it's just a dream.
That Lilith, though, just gets away with fleecing people of tons of money, slipping right past the Production Code in the process. That's significantly different.
Nothing happens, if I remember right, to the thugs that beat up Robert Ryan in The Set Up.
-
How about Paramount Noirs, I sure TCM has shown the asterisked ones the others not sure:
Street Of Chance (1942)
The Unseen (1945)
Fear In The Night (1947)
The Big Clock (1948)*
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948)
The Accused (1949)
Manhandled (1949)*
So Evil My Love (1949)
Rope Of Sand (1949)*
Chicago Deadline (1949)
The Lawless (1949)
The File On Thelma Jordan (1949)
No Man Of Her Own (1950)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)*
Union Station (1950)*
Dark City (1950)
Appointment With Danger (1951)*
Ace In The Hole (1951)*
A Place In The Sun (1951)*
Detective Story (1951)*
The Turning Point (1952)*
The Desperate Hours (1955)*
Short Cut To Hell (1957)
-
2
-
-
Well there are a few that resolve their stories with the "it was all a dream" ending skirting it that way, example, Edward G. Robinson in The Woman In The Window.
-
1
-
-
M (1951) A Visual Archive of 50s L.A.
"If they're 'psychos', how come the hospitals turn 'em loose?"
There is already a plethora of learned scribblings devoted to M.
The 1932 version crafted by Fritz Lang is a masterpiece. A case history of a psychopathic child killer, a chilling subject. It was produced by Seymour Nebenzal. That twenty years later, Nebenzal again turned to the same material and remade a bona fide classic took a lot of balls. This version was of course hampered by the Motion Picture Production Code. The queasy subject of molestation had to be cloaked, hinted at with visual metaphors, and yet the film is taut, the acting amazing and the pace exciting. The murderer makes off with trophies, the little girls shoes (stand ins for probably the obvious i.e., their panties). A metaphor for their innocence, their virginity.
Director Joseph Losey with writers Norman Reilly Raine, Leo Katcher and Waldo Salt, do justice updating Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou vision. The Cinematography was by Ernest Laszlo the Music by Michel Michelet. Of the actors David Wayne gives an amazing tour de force performance. Howard da Silva, Martin Gabel, Luther Adler, John Miljan, Raymond Burr, Glenn Anders, Steve Brodie, Karen Morley, and Janine Perreau all acquit themselves admirably.
For me I enjoy it all and especially the visuals of a mostly gone forever L.A.
Angels Flight
The film opens with a night ride up Angels Flight from Third and Hill Street, to Third and Olive Street. We learn of the child murders from the screaming headlines of the bundled papers tossed in the funicular car by a news delivery man.
The ride up Angels Flight beginning at bottom Hill Avenue & entrance to Third Street Tunnel
Visual Metaphors
Looking East down Third Street
During the credit sequence, that follows, because of the Motion Picture Production Code visual metaphors were used. The Losey version makes a point of stating that the killer does not "violate" his victims, but if you watch the title sequence it says something else, there are some very explicit visual clues of what he does do.
A little girl is standing by a vending machine that has a mirror we first see David Wayne in the mirror he's playing with a toy called a "whizzer" he pulling on it stretching and releasing it at crotch level no less. It attracts the attention of the little girl, she's curious about it. It's not much of a stretch to say its a visual metaphor for exposing himself to the child. He's pulled out and playing with his ****, playing with it, stretching it and making it grow.
Another sequence follows a little girl is attempting to drink from a fountain. David Wayne approaches. His back is to the camera, looks again like he's exposed himself. We first see a stream of water, again at crotch level its as if he is peeing. He again attracts the curiosity of the girl. The very next image has the little girl bending over towards his crotch. This suggests the possible performance of oral sex. The oral metaphor is enhanced by Wayne playing a toy flute throughout the film, a sexually deviant pied piper.
Another sequence finds Wayne watching a little girl take off her shoes, later we know that he collects the shoes of his victims, makes and sense? no. But this is code Hollywood, and Wayne is a pedophile sex maniac from the aforementioned visual clues. So obviously the shoes have to be a metaphor for the girls panties.One of the final shots in the title sequence has Wayne leaning up against a boardwalk rail with his body in a very twisted almost "S" shape. He's a "Sicko." seriously twisted.
We then creepily follow the pedophile on his hunts for new victims....
bingo! Elsie Coster and her ball 
Bunker HillWayne's latest victim resides with her mother in the Alta Vista Apartment house at the West end of the Bunker Hill section of Third Street just above and North of the tunnel portal. The Alta Vista was the setting for the 1939 novel "Ask The Dust" by Italian-American author John Fante It was set during the Great Depression-era in Los Angeles. The novel is an American classic.
The Alta Vista Apartments 255 South Bunker Hill Avenue 
Mrs Coster, (Karen Morley) in an Alta Vista apartment. 
Interior hallway looking up...
When her little girl Elsie does not come back from school with the other children Mrs. Coster is frantic.
...and down 
Above, Mrs Coster along side the Alta Vista, looking for Elsie. To her right is the small terrace park above the West Portal of the Third Street Tunnel. Note the clothesline with wash hanging between the palm trees, how L.A.
Sunshine Apartments on Clay Street and Third and behind the Hillcrest Hotel 
David Wayne's apartment house at 315 South Bunker Hill Ave 
a 1950 Studebaker Commander 
David Wayne above West Portal of Third Street Tunnel 
Hope Street headwall above Third Street Tunnel. 
Hope Street Stairway 
Third Street Tunnel West Portal 
Angels Flight and Third Street Tunnel East Portal For the rest of the images of the L.A. Gas Works, Ocean Park Pier, and the Bradbury Building check full review at Noirsille.The remake like it's predecessor is more about how society reacts to the shocking murders than the murders themselves. It in this respect mimics the hysteria of the hunt for the "card carrying commies" by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Director Losey and other in the cast were under investigation during the principal photography.
The remake suffers from being relatively unknown until fairly recently, eclipsed by Lang's original masterpiece on one hand and from it being shelved by Columbia Pictures soon after release. 8/10 -
Past Midnight (1991)
Rutger Hauer gets out of prison after 15 years for stabbing his wife to death. He actually videoed the murder. His social worker Natasha Richardson becomes convinced he was innocent. Watchable 6/10.
-
1
-
-
The pervy posters could be a benign augury of the sexual revolution coming down the pike in just a few years.
-
2 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
Period of Adjustment (1962) - 5/10
Weak comedy based on a Tennessee Williams play. Newlyweds George (Jim Hutton) and Isabel (Jane Fonda) met when she was his hospital nurse, where he was a patient due to lingering war injuries from when he was in Korea. Their wedded bliss is short-lived as they immediately begin fighting. George heads to the home of Army buddy Ralph (Tony Franciosa) to try and find emotional support, only to discover that Ralph is battling with his wife Dorothea (Lois Nettleton). Also featuring John McGiver, Mabel Albertson, John Astin, Barbara Perry, Dub Taylor, and Jack Albertson. Fonda and Hutton sport some atrocious southern accents, and the whole cast seems to think that loudly shouting dialogue makes things funny (which seems to be a common misconception in many a 60's comedy). The pervy poster looks like it's from a porn flick.
Source: TCM
You forgot to mention it's a Christmas film, I'd give it a 6/10, and isn't that the second pervy poster you've mentioned this week?
-
2 hours ago, TomJH said:
So why did the Production Code allow Lilith to get away with it?
Probably because she's a doctor, a billionaire gets a way with a lot of stuff also.....
-
1
-
2
-
-
26 minutes ago, Hibi said:
Who knew Eleanor was a trailblazer? LOL.
She looked as if she was having fun in the role
-
8 minutes ago, Hibi said:
Didn't the rating system start in 67 or 68?
Someplace in that time period but each state had its own obscenity laws that were also evolving.
-
3 minutes ago, Hibi said:
I think it was so brief they probably missed it. She did a lot of moving around. (LOL).
That's what I mean by an international cut. Looks like they cut just at the points where more would be revealed. If it was shot full matte and cut down to 1.85 : 1 there's gonna be a "lot" of Eleanor on film, they just creatively cropped it. moving the rectangle box of the frame up and down. For an international cut they could crop it differently.
I Just Watched...
in General Discussions
Posted
This one is one of those lurid Pulp Fiction Cover Color Noirs, like Slightly Scarlet, Vertigo, Niagara, Desert Fury, Inferno, Bad Day At Black Rock, A Kiss Before Dying, Violent Saturday, etc., etc.. Diana Dors lights up every scene she's in like a highway flare. Told in a death row flashback. Nice to see Dennis Franz and Marie Windsor together again to jog your cinematic memory. Rod Steiger seems wasted though.
Directed by John Farrow (The Big Clock, His Kind of Woman, Where Danger Lives, Alias Nick Beal, Night Has a Thousand Eyes)
Cinematography was by Lucien Ballard (Laura, Don't Bother to Knock, Inferno, A Kiss Before Dying, The Killing, Murder by Contract, City of Fear, Neo Noir's The Getaway, Mikey and Nicky). The appropriate cheap soapy-sleazy music by Daniele Amfitheatrof.
Art Direction by Franz Bachelin, Albert S. D'Agostino. Set Decoration by Ross Dowd, Costume Design by Howard Shoup. Could have been better. 6.5 -7/10