coopsgirl

*FWTBT* is definitely not a bad film but it could have been a little better put together. It's funny though b/c I can't really put my finger on what should have been changed exactly. One scene I know I would have cut is Pilar's flashback scene, it was too long and unecessary. The movie itself was also far too long. I feel bad for even saying that b/c it's Gary in color and he's just beautiful but still it was too long. Around two hours should have been plenty. Definitely the best scenes are between Gary and Ingrid. The sexual tension between the two (onscreen and off) is absolutely palpable. I was just floored when I read in the Last Hero book that Swindell thought they were great in FWTBT but had no chemistry in Saratoga Trunk. They filmed Trunk right after FWTBT when their affair was still going full force and I think they have even more chemistry in Saratoga Trunk so I'm not sure what movie he was watching. Like we've talked about before, I'm not sure how some of the looks they give each other in that one made it past the censors b/c it's clear what they're thinking . Here's another one of Gary as Robert Jordan - what a man!

It's been years since I've seen *Top Secret* so I didn't realize the connection to *Cloak and Dagger*. I'll have to watch that one again. It came with a two dvd pack I bought when I got the first *Naked Gun* movie (man I love that old Police Squad stuff!) but I haven't watched *Top Secret* yet. I definitely like the romantic angle of *Cloak and Dagger* more than the spy stuff too. I thought the spy stuff was pretty good though but I've never been much into spy films so I really have nothing to compare it too. My fave parts are with Gary and Lili Palmer in her apartment. She's still being very cold to him and he's just trying to fit into his new world. He's very sweet to her and it does eventually get to her as she reverts back to pre-war Gina in a later scene. They had great chemistry together. I've never seen her in anything else but I thought she did a good job in this one. One thing I would have changed about the film is in the beginning when the guy is trying to recruit Gary to be a spy. His character agrees to it too quickly. If they had told him first about the kidnapped scientist (Loder) I think it would have been more believable b/c of the affection he has for her. I mean, if somebody shows up at my cubicle and wants me to put my life in danger as a spy, a profession I know nothing about, it would take some serious convincing - ha! Here are some pics from *C & D*. I don't know if you've seen *For Whom the Bell Tolls* yet but the guy who played Polda in *Cloak and Dagger* plays Gary's sidekick Anselmo in *FWTBT*. It took me a while to realize that when I was watch C & D. I kept thinking I know that guy from somewhere. Thank goodness for IMDB.com! If you haven't seen it yet I would watch some others of his first, especially the box set with *Peter Ibbetson* as those are all wonderful films. *FWTBT* is pretty good but it's not one of my faves as far as plot goes. Gary, Ingrid, and Katrina Paxinou (who won a best supporting actress oscar for it) are good but the story drags quite a bit. For me that one is pure eye candy as Gary is absolutely, drop dead gorgeous in it. Miss G calls it his "beauty movie" and that is a very apt description. Here are some pics from that one too.

Here's a pic from Along Came Jones. Here's an adorable pic of him with a dog. Bengal Lancer Cowboy and the Lady

AWESOME!!!! Gary would be so proud.

Great idea for a thread. I love the Icons show and they always have interesting guests and topics. If anyone has missed any shows or is new to it you can listen to all the past shows as they are saved on the website. One of my faves was the show with A.C. Lyles who has worked at Paramount for over 70 years beginning when he was in his teens as an office boy and working his way up to producer. He's still going strong at Paramount too. Lots of great stories about the old producers, directors, and stars including Bing Crosby and Gary Cooper.

Aw, he does look like Huck Finn there. It cracked me up that he has his little basket for his fish even though I doubt he caught anything in that particular outing.

I found the article about Mann from following one of those links you posted. I like the guy who wrote the articles too b/c he's a big MST3K fan. I don't know why it's so hard to find pics from Good Sam, I was surprised to find that one. Here's a few more I found this morning. Legion of the Condemned with Fay Wray. Best looking homeless man I've ever seen! (Meet John Doe) Gary as a youngster trying to fish out of a horse trough. I doubt he caught anything!

Great stuff about Man of the West, Frank. Judging by Gary's actions toward Julie's character as you pointed out it's clear he wanted her but I don't think anything ever happened between them. Although you could also look at it like they did sleep together but him being a little standoffish towards her is his way of not leading her on any further. I still don't think there was anything between them but I see how you could see it both ways. Here's an article I found on Time's website about Mann's films. I just picked out the part about Man of the West but I'll include the link if anyone wants to read the whole article. Most of the men in the instructively deranged Man of the West are not fit to live, period. They are a gang of outlaws led by Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb), a ranting, randy patriarch ? a western King Lear. Link Jones (Gary Cooper) was once a part of this gang, and Dock treated him like a son (though Cobb was 10 years younger than Cooper). In fact, this was Mann's patriarch period: four consecutive movies, in 1957-58, with a father-son relationship at their core. In three of them ? Men in War, Man of the West and God's Little Acre ? the father figure is, respectively, shell-shocked, homicidal and genially obsessive. (Only in The Tin Star is the older Henry Fonda unconditionally, paternalistically helpful to the callow sheriff played by Anthony Perkins.) Like many a Mann hero with a deadly past, the Cooper character has managed to reform himself without getting strung up first. But now, through a series of credence-straining coincidences, Link has landed back with Dock's gang, and in the company of a saloon singer named Billie (sultry Julie London). Billie, whose affection for Link must remain unfulfilled because he has a wife back home, wonders how a man so righteous could have run with a gang so rancid: "You're not like them." "I was," Link replies. "There wasn't any difference at all." Explaining his youth with Dock, Link says, "He taught me killing and stealing. I didn't know any better. Then one day I grew up. There's a point where you either grow up and become a man, or ya rot like that bunch." Just how rotten they are becomes clear when a gang member, Coaley (Jack Lord, another Mann villain with a Pepsodent smile), waves a knife in Billie's face and forces her to strip in front of the entire gang ? and Link. This long scene is a battle between the lurid prurience of the men in the shack (and maybe in the audience) and the proprieties of the Production Code. The undressing stops at her petticoat. Still, it packs a slow, sadistic jolt. At the time, it affronted not just the softer sensibilities of the audience but Hollywood's movie mores. From films of the '50s I can't think of a scene like it. The plot justification for the stripping comes later, when Cooper and Lord engage in a brawl that lasts a harrowing 4 minutes 25 seconds. It's one of the longest fights ever in American movies, and startling in its vicious, clumsy realism. ("I never saw anything like that in my life," Dock says in stunned admiration, and for once we have to agree with him.) Link eventually strips Coaley, as Coaley had made Billie do. The message: expressions of male sexuality and male violence can be equally pernicious ? and, in movies, equally crowd-pleasing. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1223014-1,00.html There was another paragraph that discussed women in Mann's westerns and how they either fell into the virgin or **** model. They didn't mention Billie from MotW however (at least I didn't see it) and even though I haven't seen any other of Mann's films, I'm willing to bet she's one of the most interesting of his female characters. I think she falls somewhere inbetween the virgin/**** type. She's not completely virtuous as she is a saloon singer who doesn't exactly seem a stranger to men, but she's also very embarassed when she has to take her clothes off in front of Dock's gang. The auther also pointed out that usually the virgin types were there to basically get the "hero" to save them and the whores were there to tempt them. Again Billie fits both these bills to a tee. Link defends her honor in the fight against Coaley and also is tempted by her flirtations.

Here's a slideshow I made of using clips from Desire (1936). Here's Gary's clip from Wings (1927). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR1qw9Yr_6I

Here's a pic I found from Good Sam. Here's one from Cowboy and The Lady. This one is just a promo pic. This one is from Distant Drums. Here's another publicity shot with that beautiful smile.

I'm not a real big fan of Pat as an actress (she was good, just not my cup of tea) but I do have a lot of respect for her as a person. She's been through a lot of hardships in her life; in love with a man she couldn't have, one of her children died at a young age, and all those strokes in her early 40s. Man just one of those things happens to someone and they could easily just give up and find themselves in all kinds of trouble. You have to respect someone who went through all that and still came out with her head held high.

That's both sweet and sad about Pat Neal and her collection of Gary stuff. There's one line from Nevada where Gary's sidekick and him are talking about William Powell's character and his way with the ladies in the movie. He says to Gary "It's unfair for one man to have such fatal power over women." That line always cracks me up as it certainly applies to Gary. Regarding Man of the West, I never even thought that Link and Billie slept together. I'll sure watch that film differently the next time.

"Sugarbritches" has said he wouldn't mind going to a back up role in order to give more time to one of the younger catchers and also act as a mentor to him. I think it's a great idea as good catchers are becoming harder to find. And yes thoughts of Gary always perk me up!!

Yes I watched the Astros let another victory get away thanks to light 'em up Lidge. I swear that man is gonna put me on blood pressure medication!! I'm rooting for the Indians in the playoffs b/c they had such a great season and have gotten very little recognition for it.

Great stuff John, thanks so much for sharing. That's so neat that you got to just hang out with Fay Wray. I really like her a lot too and it just cracked me up about her Gary Cooper closet. That hit awfully close to home as I have pics of him covering a whole wall of my closet. It's a good place to hang up stuff that just doesn't really fit anywhere else . Of course I have an awful lot of Gary stuff in my livingroom too including nearly a dozen movie stills, reproduction movie posters, books and old movie magazines. I'm becoming addicted to collecting old Photoplays and other movie mags and Kim and Theresa also have great collections too, much more than me, but I'm getting there. Ebay is a wonderful thing - ha! It's nice to hear stories about him being so nice to the fans too. I can't imagine how weird it must feel to have people clamoring around you wanting your autography or a pic with you but I love the people who are polite about it b/c without those fans they don't have a job.

*you cant ruin my view on gary* I know, I just had to mess with ya! My mom was picking on me the other day saying if Gary was a modern movie star and he was running around with all these women, I would turn on him. She's probably right about that too. Of course he had so many other wonderful qualities and was so talented, I don't know if I would or not. I know it's hypocritical, but I can't help it. I love Gary and nothing can change it!!

*Well then I won't spoil you own view you have on him Theresa* I will He had an affair with Audrey Hepburn while they were filming Love in the Afternoon. He was 56 and she was 28. Of course it wasn't long after that, that Gary converted to Catholocism and changed his ways. I don't know that she was the last, but she was probably one of the last leading ladies he had a fling with.

I loved the last Icons show John where you and Meir Ribalow discussed Westerns past and present. They are probably the genre I know least about (that and film noir) as I have never really been interested in them but the discussion was great. It's still hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that I love Gary's westerns and they are actually some of my favorite of his films. I think I could watch The Hanging Tree everyday I was glad you brought up the fight scene between Gary and Jack Lord on the show. It was a very powerful scene especially to see Gary, who was usually pretty mellow, in such a rage. I mean he literally rips Jack Lords pants to shreds as he rips them off. One of my favorite parts of MotW is after the stripping scene when Gary and Julie go out to the barn. It's very telling of how his character has changed that she has no problem being in front of just him in her skivvies but she was afraid in front of Tobin's gang. I mean she doesn't really know him that well but she feels safe with him and I think that is just the very heart of who Gary was and the characters that he played. That's a big part of why I love him and and his films so much. There's just such a huge comfort factor in watching him.

Barbara is definitely in one of her 'mean-woman' roles in Blowing Wild, much different from Ball of Fire and Meet John Doe. I think she was equally good at both types of roles though and I really want to see Double Indemnity and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (this one will be on TCM soon) as she is really bad in those. Ruth Roman also did three films with Gary and Blowing Wild was their last one together. She was also in Dallas (another one of my faves) and she only has one scene with Gary in Good Sam but I'm counting it anyway - ha!

Wow y'all sure were busy last night - good stuff though! John, thanks for the info about Souls at Sea. I know that was a pretty common practice in the 30s to cut scenes out of films for distribution in the South. They did it with one of Shirley Temple's films (one of her big ones but the name escapes me) where she's tap dancing on the stairs with a black man. I like Souls at Sea but I know Gary wasn't happy with the final product and now that sheds a little more light on why he didn't like it. Blowing Wild is one of his films that I re-watch the most. I love him and Stanwyck together (she and Jean Arthur are my fave actresses). I never thought of it as film noir (don't know much about that genre) but I can see how it might be considered noir-ish. Kim - you're cracking me up about the accent thing. I notice when I get off the phone with you that I start talking different too for a while. It's weird how accents can rub off on you. If I tried to do another accent on purpose though it would sound terrible. This hick Southeast Tx accent is the only one I can do - ha! Dan - Don't let the date of a movie fool you People talk a lot about pre-codes but really not all films that came out before the production code would be considered a "pre-code" like most people think about them. They're not all 'Babyface's (which I also like too Frank and I had a chance to see it on the big screen this summer). I get tickled sometimes when people go on and on about pre-codes b/c a large amount of those movies could have been released without any problems after the production code as well. I'm also a fan of the code (well at least some parts of it. Minorities were probably hurt the most by it and that's a shame) and wish movies could go back to having more decency. I think the code forced movie makers to be more clever and make better products. As far as Jean Harlow goes, I've only seen one of her movies, Bombshell, as a double feature with Babyface. You might like that one Dan, as its a satire about her image as a sex goddess. It's really a fun movie.

You are cracking me up!!! I went back and found the episode on my SNL dvd collection where Madeliene Kahn was the host and I watched the skit of her and Baba Wawa (ha!) and it was cracking me up!!

I don't mind the thin eyebrows so much, I mean I don't really like them but it was the style. What I don't like is the super high, thin eyebrows. They just shouldn't be that high up. Marlene does a good job in both her films with Gary; Morroco and Desire.

It's a good pic of Gary so that's why I posted it (ha!). Marlene was pretty but those eyebrows are frightening!!!!!

Here are some more pics from Devil and the Deep, Desire, and City Streets.

Here's a pic I found from Along Came Jones.