LsDoorMat
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Posts posted by LsDoorMat
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11 hours ago, cmovieviewer said:
Here are the TCM premieres for March, as determined by MovieCollectorOH’s report published on Feb. 14. Please note that TCM is presenting an ongoing premiere of the 1938 Red Barry serial on Saturdays along with selected cartoons, so these are listed separately. There is also an evening of Treasures from the Disney Vault on the 29th which are all TCM premieres.
Mar 3 - Braveheart (1995) (31 Days of Oscar)
Mar 4 - The French Way (1952)
Mar 9 - Macon County Line (1974)
Mar 9 - Return to Macon County (1975)
Mar 11 - Love in the Afternoon (1972)
Mar 16 - The Only Game in Town (1970)
Mar 17 - Flight of the Doves (1971)
Mar 17 - Return to Glennascaul (1953)
Mar 18 - Spring Dreams (1960)
Mar 18 - Farewell to Spring (1959)
Mar 25 - The Walls of Malapaga (1950)
Mar 29 - Too Many Women (1932) (short)
Mar 29 - Treasures from the Disney Vault:
- The Golden Touch (1935) (animated short)
- The Sword and the Rose (1953)
- In Search of the Castaways (1962)
- Mickey’s Trailer (1938) (animated short)
- Mr. Duck Steps Out (1940) (animated short)
- The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968)
- The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
- Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue (1953)
Mar 30 - Yield to the Night (1956)
Mar 30 - Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951)- Saturdays: Red Barry serial
Mar 10 - Red Barry Ch. 1: Millions for Defense (1938)
Mar 17 - Red Barry Ch. 2: The Curtain Falls (1938)
Mar 24 - Red Barry Ch. 3: The Decoy (1938)
Mar 31 - Red Barry Ch. 4: High Stakes (1938)- Saturdays: cartoons
Mar 10 - Tom and Jerry: The Counterfeit Cat (1950)
Mar 10 - Popeye: Popeye the Sailor (1933)
Mar 17 - MGM Cartoons: Droopy Leprechaun (1958)
Mar 17 - Popeye: I Yam What I Yam (1933)
Mar 24 - MGM Cartoons: The Early Bird Dood It! (1942)
Mar 24 - Popeye: Blow Me Down (1933)
Mar 31 - MGM Cartoons: The Bear That Couldn’t Sleep (1939)
Mar 31 - Popeye: I Eats My Spinach (1933)Thanks very much to MCOH for providing the data!
What about the 8PM March 4 showing of Daughter of the Dragon, a 1931 Paramount film? Has that been on before?
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"The Poppy is Also a Flower" was made in 1966, commissioned by the U.N., and is an anti drug film about a narcotics agent's attempt to trace heroin shipments from the Afghanistan-Iran border to the main European distributor. It stars Stephen Boyd, Trevor Howard, Rita Hayworth, Angie Dickinson, Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, and Marcello Mastroianni. Grace Kelly narrates.
It was cut down to 80 minutes for TV,. After its television broadcast on ABC in 1966, Eli Wallach won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of drug kingpin "Happy" Locarno.
How do the agents trace the shipment? They inject a radioactive compound into it. It rather makes you wonder about the morality of feeding drug addicts radioactive compounds, rather like the feds poisoning alcohol stolen by bootleggers during Prohibition with deadly consequences.
I just found out about this film today, and most people say that it was too many stars and not enough plot. Most of the facts about this film come from courtesy of Wikipedia and imdb.
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It's been awhile since I've seen Carrie, but I don't remember her treating him like a servant. Plus Olivier is playing somebody who ran a restaurant originally, not a banker or attorney. Could you be remembering the more recent version of "The Blue Angel" from the 50s that starred Curt Jurgens as professor Roth? He was a teacher and had no family, but he did give up his place in the community to marry Lola, the cabaret singer. As time passes she tires of him and he is treated like a servant by her. Ten North Frederick does not fit at all, and Carrie fits in some places.
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Somewhat ironic and related to this topic is this advertisement for 1927's The Jazz Singer shown in cinemas. What is ironic about it is that because you could not splice together the sound portions of different Vitaphone films, the ad can only show the silent parts of The Jazz Singer - none of the singing or talking sequences - and you have to wonder what was the point of this thing, because the silent part of The Jazz Singer is completely unimpressive.
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1 hour ago, NipkowDisc said:
you know why PBS doan pull this crud? because they have enough sense to know that such a great film like this one will be appreciated more by younger people when they can hear the dialogue.
If you are saying PBS never shows silent films, you are wrong. I can remember as a kid about the ONLY place you could see a silent film on TV, unless it was one of the great silent comics, was PBS. I remember watching "Way Down East" on PBS as well as "The Jazz Singer", which is almost completely silent. At nine I was quite surprised to see that The Jazz Singer was almost completely silent and could not figure out what the big deal had been about it in 1927. Fortunately, the host came on at the end and explained what the big deal was. I'd say it is very interesting to compare the silent and sound versions of a film, but I can't think of any other films off the top of my head where both versions exist.
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Speaking of dual silent/sound releases, I have a VHS tape of the silent version of Gladys Brockwell's last film, "The Drake Case", also made at Universal. The sound version does not survive. It was made in 1929 shortly before Ms. Brockwell died at age 34 in an auto accident. As a talkie, from what I've read, it was quite a hit. Unlike some of the other earlie talkies, this was not a silent film with a few sentences of dialog inserted for the novelty of it all the absence of which you do not even notice, such as in the case of 1928's "Lady of Chance" which also survives only silent and is quite satisfying as it is. Instead, The Drake Case was filmed at Universal as a talkie with complete dialogue. Since few theatres were wired for sound in 1929, it was slated to also be released as a silent. As such, titles were inserted to try to explain what was going on. However, because The Drake Case is apparently a very chatty talkie, as was the custom in very early talking film, and missing that traditional silent film pantomime, no title cards can adequately explain the situation. Thus, nobody even tried. So you have the players conversing for quite a long time, and not giving you any gestures as you would normally have in a true silent film to cue you in on what's going on, then you'll get a title card that says "Lulu was upset". At what? Why? No further elaboration is given. And on it goes like this for the better part of an hour. A good analogy would be the films made prior to 1910 in which very little in the way of plot is conveyed and very few title cards are present.
One particularly tragic thing about the loss of the sound version of this film is that we'll never be able to judge the last performance Gladys Brockwell ever gave. Supposedly Ms. Brockwell's mother was seen repeatedly viewing the film as long as it ran in theatres. I guess a talking record of her daughter on film keeping the illusion of her life around just a bit longer was a comfort to her.
If you don't know who Gladys Brockwell is, she was the cast off girlfriend in the first all talking film ever made, "Lights of New York". She was also the evil sister in the silent film "Seventh Heaven".
Sorry to get so OT here, but you do get some weird results in 1929/1930 as the film industry transitioned from silent to sound. I didn't try to watch the film last night, but if TCM did not give people notice that they were showing the silent version of AQOTWF, I can see why some people would be disappointed as that is what I would be expecting. I have the old Universal Cinema Classics DVD version of the film with sound and the Robert Osborne introduction that I bought about 10 years ago. It says it runs 132 minutes. Does the new bluray add any significant length to the sound version?
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1 hour ago, sewhite2000 said:
I assume the James Bond films fall in the MGM/UA library Calvin mentioned, since TCM never shows them (one time, when Sean Connery was SOTM, TCM showed Dr. No and Goldfinger, I think, but that may the only Bond film airings in the network's history). And possibly all the Beatles films except A Hard Day's Night, which has somehow ended up under other ownership, and TCM has shown it a few times in the past couple of years.
The James Bond films are in the MGM/UA library. Hard Day's Night and Help! are also. A Hard Day's Night was released on Criterion DVD, and their restoration might be the reason that it showed up on TCM. The good news is that King of Jazz will be out on Criterion DVD soon too, so we'll have a digital version of that film. The hope is that someday that will show up on TCM.
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The original TCM library was the pre 1949 WB/ pre 86 MGM/ entire RKO library. And there are exceptions to this rule, plus I may be a year off on the years shown above. There is another library confusingly called MGM/UA library that really has nothing to do with MGM production and is actually United Artists films. Rocky and Annie Hall would fall under this umbrella. TCM has never had control over these films and if they are shown, they have had to rent them out.
At any rate, in 1996 Ted Turner sold his communications network and his film library to Warner Brothers, reuniting the two sets of WB fillms. The bad news is that TCM has had no official library since then. However, Warner Brothers owns TCM and therefore wants TCM to succeed. Thus you see more modern WB films showing up as well as the older ones. Warner Brothers also controls the Monogram/Allied Artists library, the distribution rights to almost all of the old Sam Goldwyn library, and the distribution rights to some post 1950 Paramount films.
TCM has a good working relationship with Sony, and for several years had access to the old Columbias. That agreement expired some years ago, but still Columbia films are still quite common on TCM. Fox Movie Channel decided to sell out about six years ago and show their modern films during the day and their classic films at night. What really happened is that they show their worst old films during that time and including some weird kung fu films from the 1980s. The good news is that Fox films that TCM never had access to before - Laura, The Razor's Edge, etc. - now play on TCM pretty regularly.
What will always be a rarity? The 1929-1949 Paramounts owned by Universal as well as the older Universals from the 30s and 40s. Why? Because those films have to be digitized to show on TCM. The last time any of them aired was in the VHS days on the old AMC pre 2002, and what is available now is not suitable for viewing on TCM. So you may see the odd old Universal or Paramount show up on TCM, especially if Universal or TCM has made a DVD-R available to the public for purchase, but that's about it. And a bad indication is that Universal Vault - the Universal equivalent of the Warner Archive - has not had a new release since December 2016.
Too late to make a long story short, TCM has lots of diversity for 11 months out of the year. Unfortunately you are asking your question during Oscar month, when they only play Oscar nominated films and shorts, so no B films at all show up, no odd surprises from the vault. On March 4 things should improve.
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I always wondered, why did the cops just take Sam's word that Bridget was the murderer? Why didn't she tell them that he helped her to get some revenge? It wasn't like forensic science was very advanced in 1941.
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1 hour ago, sewhite2000 said:
There have been threads devoted to individual years, but I can't recall one covering the entire history of the Oscars before!
I want to play the game, but it will probably a few days before I can gather my thoughts together on that many years!
Oh, I just did the whole thing because I'd always wanted to gather my thoughts in one place. Feel welcome to comment on just one year or a group of years or whatever you like!
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And he'll be waiting for her? In twenty years? He'd have a new girl before she hit the first floor of the building they were in standing between the two cops.
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These are my viewpoints only. There are probably lots of other threads here from the past that do the same thing, but I couldn't dig any up off the bat. I realize lots of these films are ineligible or were not nominated, but they are my choices. Actual Best Picture Oscar winners are in bold.
Let's turn on that way back machine.
1927-1928 - Oscar split the nominated films into two categories. Wings won the general best picture award, and Sunrise won the best artistic picture. If they combined the nominees I'd pick Sunrise for its imagery, the protagonist who has a change of heart and oddly walks like the Frankenstein monster, and for that picture of a city street when streetcars, autos, and horses shared the road with apparently no rules whatsoever.
1928-1929 - I'd pick "The Cameraman" instead of "The Broadway Melody". BWM was primitive because all sound films were still primitive. The Cameraman was released within the period of eligibility and is probably the best thing Buster Keaton ever did. For years MGM showed this film as a demonstration of the right way to do comedy.
1929-1930 - All Quiet on The Western Front - They got it right. It still looks like it was made last week.
1930-1931 Cimarron - Richard Dix is a ham on a grand scale playing a serial wife deserter yet got a best actor nomination, and the racism is cringe worthy. Probably won because the camera moved for the first time after sound came in. Instead I'd pick the unnominated and ineligible "City Lights", which was released early in 1931, within the period of eligibility. The Academy probably erred in ruling out silent films so soon after sound came in.
1931-1932- Although I can't find anything too off about winner "Grand Hotel", "The Smiling Lieutenant" just holds up better and is a great example of a precode film. The only really bad thing about GH is Garbo's performance. It was the first time I saw her and I thought she was doing an impression of Ophelia. It was just too much.
1933 - Duck Soup or maybe Gold Diggers of 1933 instead of Cavalcade - what a boring plodding film.
Can you imagine Groucho making an Oscar acceptance speech in his prime?1934 - It Happened One Night - They got it right.
1935 - Bride of Frankenstein over Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 Dodsworth over The Great Ziegfeld
1937 Make Way For Tomorrow over The Life of Emil Zola
1938 Bringing Up Baby over You Cant Take it With You, which just tries too hard.
1939 Gone With the Wind - inaccuracies about race relations in the old south aside, still holds up.
1940 - The Great Dictator over Rebecca, but I admit it is close.
1941 - Obviously Citizen Kane over How Green Was My Valley. How Green Was My Valley is not a bad film. But it is not studied almost 80 years later for its technique either. WR Hearst blackballed Citizen Kane, and that is the ONLY reason it did not win. Hearst was more upset about how Marion Davies was represented than anything. If the film had left her out of it he would never have pitched a fit.
1942 - Random Harvest over Mrs. Miniver - you get to keep the same star, keep the war message, and it just gets me every time.
1943 - Casablanca - One of the best ever made, they got this one right.
1944 - Double Indemnity over Going My Way
1945 - The Lost Weekend still holds up, in spite of trite ending.
1946 It's a Wonderful Life over Best Years of Our Lives.
1947 Out of the Past over Gentleman's Agreement
1948 Treasure of the Sierra Madre over Hamlet
1949 White Heat over All The King's Men - WH is the one Cagney should have won the Oscar for.
1950 Sunset Boulevard over All About Eve, but it is close.
1951 Ace in the Hole over American in Paris. "Ace in the Hole" is a gritty film about yellow journalism with the great Kirk Douglas. Much better than the tiresome ballet "An American in Paris"
1952 Singin in the Rain over Greatest Show on Earth - Academy must have thought it was the last chance to award DeMille even though The Greatest Show on Earth is a documentary more than anything. Ironically, the winning of "An American In Paris" the previous year shut out the real best picture, "Singin in the Rain", also a musical.
1953 Roman Holiday over From Here to Eternity
1954 Rear Window over On The Waterfront
1955 I think they got it right with Marty. Although it is of its time, I think it examines its time very well.
1956 The Searchers over Around the World in 80 Days - looks every day of its 62 years in age.
The Searchers was one of the best acting jobs by the Duke ever with an interesting theme.1957 Twelve Angry Men over Bridge on the River Kwai
1958 Vertigo slam dunk over Gigi, one of the worst choices ever. Gigi is basically about every older friend and relative that a young girl trusts pushing her towards a life of prostitution. But truthfully, Vertigo flopped when it was first released to the point that it drove a permanent wedge between James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. So I really can't blame the Academy for passing it over either.
1959 Some Like it Hot over Ben Hur. I thought the silent version was better and it was MGM's last hurrah. I almost picked "North By Northwest", but "The Wrong Man" was already an overdone topic with Hitchcock, and I already have him winning in 1958 and 1960.
1960 - Psycho over The Apartment though it is close.
1961 - Judgement at Nuremburg over West Side Story -
In today's world of terrorists and deadly teens with automatic weapons, a bunch of kids with rhythm and switchblades are just not that scary or entertaining in spite of the choreography.1962 To Kill a Mockingbird over Lawrence of Arabia, but it is close.
1963 - The Great Escape over Tom Jones
1964 Dr. Strangelove over My Fair Lady
1965 The Sound of Music - they got it right
1966 The Good the Bad and the Ugly over Man for All Seasons
1967 - In The Heat of the Night - they got it right.
1968 - 2001 A Space Odyssey over Oliver
1969 - Butch Cassidy over Midnight Cowboy, but it was close.
1970 - Patton - they got it right.
1971 - A Clockwork Orange over The French Connection
1972 - The Godfather, best film of all time IMHO.
1973 - The Sting - They got it right
1974 - Godfather Part II - they got it right
1975 - One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - They got it right.
1976 - Taxi Driver over Rocky
1977 Star Wars over Annie Hall - SW changed the way sci-fi was made, it was a feel good film when we needed it.
1978 - The Deer Hunter - They got it right.
1979 - Alien over Kramer V Kramer
1980 - The Shining over Ordinary People - a very ordinary film.
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark over Chariots of Fire. ROTLA was a great crowd pleaser and there is nothing wrong with rewarding a crowd pleaser now and again.
1982 Blade Runner over Gandhi - a message film that takes no chances.
1983 A Christmas Story over Terms of Endearment. Both are about dysfunctional families, but ACS is just better IMHO.
1984 Amadeus - They got it right.
1985 Back To the Future over Out of Africa.
Even with the silly non-science thrown in BTTF was entertaining and so 80s. Out of Africa is the best cure for insomnia save Ambien.1986 Platoon - They got this right.
1987 - Princess Bride vs The Last Emperor - plodding and not well remembered. With TPB you still have a story about royalty and everybody can relate to it. Plus I'd rather be lectured by a lovable old grandpa than a bunch of Maoists in pajamas.
1988 Rain Man - They probably got this one right.
1989 - Crimes and Misdemeanors over Driving Miss Daisy, but not a bad choice. If you wanted to reward Woody Allen, this would be the time to do so.
1990 - Goodfellas over Dancing with Wolves - GF is the best film about the Mafia from the working hood's point of view ever made.
1991 Silence of the Lambs - got it right
1992 Unforgiven - got it right
1993 Schindler's List - got it right
1994 - Shawshank Redemption over Forrest Gump
1995 Apollo 13 or The Usual Suspects over Braveheart.
1996 Fargo over The English Patient - I'll have what Elaine of Seinfeld is having when it comes to The English Patient. All that sand! And I'm supposed to feel sorry for a guy who was sleeping with the wife of someone who considered him a friend?
1997 - LA Confidential over Titanic - James Cameron is a great special effects guy but could not come up with an original script if his life depended upon it. And all of that business about Rose feeling like a slave wouldn't go over today either. She looked awfully well fed and leisurely to be a slave.
1998 - Saving Private Ryan over Shakespeare in Love - How ironic that Hollywood makes just about the best film about WWII ever and it gets passed over when inferior films about WWII got rewarded up to about 1960.
1999 Fight Club over American Beauty, but not that bad of a decision.
2000 Memento over Gladiator by a nose.
2001 A Beautiful Mind - they got it right.
2002 The Pianist over Chicago - a forgettable version of an often told tale. See Roxy Hart for the best version.
2003 Lord of the Rings III - they got it right.
2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind over Million Dollar Baby - I'd like to thank the GOP for going bonkers over Terry Schiavo for this Oscar and my now ironclad medical directive.
2005- Brokeback Mountain over Crash - The academy behaves cowardly. They have a realistic depiction of a gay love story and pick a stereotypical and obvious tale about racism instead.
2006 - The Departed - They got this right.
2007 - No Country for Old Men - They got this right.
2008 - The Dark Knight over Slumdog Millionaire - Just because TDK is a superhero film - and it really isn't because Batman is completely mortal -does not mean it isn't full of messages. Maybe SDM was a shout out to Bollywood?
2009 - Inglourious Basterds over Hurt Locker- The time for the Academy to realize James Cameron was a hack was 12 years past due. Rewarding the unworthy work of his ex-wife was an inappropriate way to show that they realized it.
2010 - Inception over The King's Speech - I see what they are trying to do here. They mistook two great acting performances and a worthy topic for a great film. I disagree.
2011 - The Intouchables over The Artist - If a silent film can win, so can a foreign one. If you haven't seen it, do so.
2012 - Zero Dark Thirty over Argo - If you had to give Ms. Bigelow some Oscar love, here was the time to do so.
2013 - 12 Years a Slave - They got this right.
2014 - Interstellar over Birdman - You must be kidding? I never got this choice at all. As inane as The Naked Lunch.
2015 - Spotlight - They probably got this one right.
2016 - La La Land over Moonlight - Probably shamed because of "Oscars so White" the Academy made what will be probably looked on as a bad decision down the line. The most interesting character in Moonlight, an empathetic drug dealer, leaves after just one quarter of the film is over.
2017 - I'm pullling for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
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46 minutes ago, laffite said:
Ratings are bunk.
Related topic : I don't consult ratings at all prior to choosing a movie to watch (if possible). Scanning Neflix pages had become frustrating for me because I found it difficult and time consuming to weigh all the factors. I'm now conducting an experiment whereby I choose a movie basically at random. I would like to know the actors but that's it. Reading Netflix blurbs has been long verboten for me because they tend to reveal too much (or simply wrong). I go by the actors and the images on the cover but after that it is an intuitive choice. I have found so far that in most cases the choices have been acceptable. I have enjoyed movies that I feel certain would have been rejected. But it works the other way too at times. I am currently on the 8-at-time DVD plan and if i don't like something back to the mailbox it goes. I just got sick and tired of my own judgments and assumptions about unknowns and rejecting a movie because I don't like this actor or whatever ... just order and go cold turkey. I admit I may not always know in advnce what I may like or not like. Order and go cold turkey, life is good.
Actually, up to now, imdb ratings have worked pretty well for me, especially when I am looking for something from the distant past. Anything voted to an average of 7.0 by more than 40 people is usually a good movie. There are always exceptions. An example would be 1938's "Exposed" starring Glenda Farrell and Otto Kruger. The rating is 6.0 and even the description of the plot is wrong, but if you can find a watchable copy I would highly recommend that unique comedy. To me it was an 8/10.
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29 minutes ago, laffite said:
I loved the Flash Gordon series when I was a kid. I was young enough to think those space ships really cool. There were two Mings ; One with an elaborate devilishly looking beard, the other a little guy that was bald. The latter gave me the creeps.
Re Dick Tracy, this was long at time ago but I remember being quite, quite impressed with Madonna. I don't remember the song but gosh I thought she was very good overall. I have no details but I seem to remember a particular scene that was especially excellent. Anyone else on the same page with that ... or am I reading a different book.
Sure she has a great voice, but in the 80s she was everywhere to the point that it got tiresome. I remember a local Dallas radio station having a "No Madonna" weekend with a jingle that went like "You deserve a break today so tune in and get away from Madonna...". As for her acting, it was hit and miss, mainly miss. If you want to see Madonna do some truly dreadful acting in a dreadful film you need go no further than 1993's "Body of Evidence". And yes it is on DVD! And people are paying 47 dollars over at Amazon for a new copy that includes the unrated version! WHY??? This stuff is MST3K material.
To go back to "Dick Tracy", she wasn't bad until her final scene. SPOILER AHEAD. I MEAN IT! When she dies, I laughed. I could have told my then toddler of a nephew "Bang! You're dead!" and he would have given a similar performance. But then he was three.
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2 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
i started watching THE GREAT LIE (1941) last night as i couldn't think of anything else to do...
i've seen it before and liked it fine, it's got a great premise and strong finish (as i recall), but this time around I didn't make it to the finish line because something about it just stuck in my craw.
and it was this: about 30ish minutes in, George Brent goes to visit Bette Davis at her [fabulously decorated] farm in Virginia where she apparently is allowing a Summer Stock review of HELLZAPOPPIN led by Hattie McDaniel to crash. There is a long, INCREDIBLY PATRONIZING musical montage of, like, 30 black farmworkers shot in this highly idealized fashion which- while it might not have intended to be- is nonetheless CONDESCENDING TO AN OFFENSIVE LEVEL. This, of course, follows several minutes of Hattie McDaniel being sincere and earnest in a frankly humiliating role.
NOW, i am not saying TCM should not show THE GREAT LIE or that those of you who like THE GREAT LIE should not enjoy it, I admit that- beyond that scene, it's a solid enough movie.
But the events of the last two years have kinda broken me to where when **** like this comes up, I just can't.
I'm white as a jar of Miracle Whip, and seriously, I cannot imagine how enraging a scene like this would be to a person of color in this day and age.
Jar of Miracle Whip here too, and I agree. Besides this aspect of the film there is an angle about relationships between men and women that is pretty timeless. WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD.
Mary Astor as Sandra is very convincing as the vengeful woman who never wanted her child, but is glad to act like she does to get Pete back. And she seems to enjoy torturing Maggie as to what her next move will be. Why? You might ask. Because Sandra knows that Pete may have married her at one time when drunk, but he chose Maggie. He still chose Maggie in his heart even after he was married to Sandra. It is never said, but I think Pete wouldn't budge on the date and place for Sandra and himself to remarry because he KNEW she'd say no, that she'd put her career first. This gave him the excuse to get out of the marriage while being able to lay the blame entirely at Sandra's feet and leave skid marks on his way back to Maggie. This movie may have been made almost 80 years ago, but this is still the M.O. for most men. If they are with "miss right now" and find "miss right" they will find some way to make "miss right now" leave them, so they do not have to be the bad guy. Some things never change.-
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"Six Bridges To Cross" (1955) Universal 8/10
This film is a crime drama that traces the strange relationship of a street smart hoodlum (Tony Curtis) with a straight arrow cop over 20 years. The film starts out with Sal Mineo playing adolescent hoodlum Jerry Florea in 1933, robbing street vendors of fruit with his gang and doing some nighttime breaking and entering. It is fleeing after one of these nighttime burglaries when Florea is shot by rookie cop Edward Gallagher (George Nader). Ed thought he shot an adult, and is upset when he realizes he shot a kid, plus due to his wound Jerry will never be able to have kids of his own. Being that this is during the production code era, that is as detailed as the wound description gets. The community is in an uproar over the shooting of a child, juvenile delinquent or not, but Gallagher manages to keep his job. Gallagher's guilt does cause him to strike up a friendship with Jerry that begins as Jerry is recovering in the hospital. Jerry gives Gallagher tips on crimes that help his career, and Ed tries to befriend the boy and point him in the right direction, only to be let down time and again.
Both Curtis and Mineo were great in this. They really do seem to be playing the exact same character at different ages. As adult Jerry Florea, Curtis flashes that charming smile of his and plays the lying sociopath so well that even an audience should have a hard time determining when he is conscientious and when he is not. Florea can be violent when he needs to be, but mainly thieving and its thrill are his game. He doesn't even seem to enjoy the actual fruit of his theft that much.
An interesting piece of trivia - Sammy Davis Jr. sings the film's theme song. It was in route to the recording studio to sing this song that he had the car accident that caused him to lose an eye.
Source -youtube a couple of days ago. See it while you can before Universal has it taken down, even though I doubt they have any intention of ever releasing it.
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15 minutes ago, TopBilled said:
I think the whole topic about votes for lost films is an interesting one. Does this mean the IMDb should disallow someone from voting for a film because it's non-existent?
The IMDb was launched in October 1990 (over 27 years ago). It's possible that some of the votes for the non-existent films were from actors, directors or crew still living in the 90s that worked on those lost silent films. So technically a film does not have to be around today for it to have been seen by some of the voters.
I've thought about it, and I came to the same conclusion that you did. That some of these votes were cast, not only by some people who worked on the films at the time, but more likely people who actually saw the films in the theaters and remembered them fondly after several decades. There was one guy who was born in the mid 1940s - F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre - who could have not seen the films that he reviewed. He was reviewing films that were lost before he was old enough to remember the silent films he reviewed. When emailed by curious people over at nitrateville he would say that some private collector would let him and him alone look at some lone existing copy and that is where his reviews came from. We'll never know the truth though, because Mr. MacIntyre committed suicide by setting himself on fire in June 2010. Odd thing was he also reviewed films that were very much with us, such as Metropolis. Like I said earlier, I've reviewed some lost films, but in each case I say that they are lost but that something remains - stills, Vitaphone soundtracks, some odd reels - enough that I can piece together an idea of what it was like. Sometimes I'll leave a rating, but usually I will not, because there simply is not enough left to rate.
P.S. Where have you been TopBilled? You used to post at a tremendous pace. You hardly come around any more. Don't be like markbecuaf (SP?) and just disappear.
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5 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
Better than TARGETS (1968)?
ive never seen LAST PICTURE SHOW, but TARGETS is an AMAAAAAAAAAZING piece of filmmaking. Like seriously, one of the finest movies I’ve seen.
Not just an amazing piece of filmmaking, but wasn't it the first to depict somebody going off the deep end for no reason who was seeking to kill as many strangers as possible? How oddly prescient that film was, especially since the commentary on the DVD says that the inspiration was the killer on the tower at the University of Texas back in the 60s who actually had a brain tumor as a mitigating circumstance. So creepy to juxtapose the "old time" horror film and star (Boris Karloff) with what makes the old time horror films look very tame - the modern monster armed to the teeth with no ability to empathize whatsoever. People are just "targets".
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Just now, jamesjazzguitar said:
But what does this have to do with 'rarely seen films'? I.e. what criteria are you using to determine a 'rarely seen film'?
Or did you just mean films you haven't seen?
Oh, I've seen quite a few of them. By "rarely seen", I'm guessing that any film with such a low count of imdb votes (I limited the number of votes to 35-500) has not been seen very much by the public, and may not even be available in any format. For example, Convention City, which does not exist, has 30 plus votes.
How can you vote on a nonexistent film? I guess we'd have to ask the late F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre. I've written reviews on nonexistent films before - say "Golddiggers of Broadway" (1929). But I make it clear that in the strict sense the film is lost, that I've only seen the same two reels everybody else has, but I have listened to the complete soundtrack that is still available. Based on that, I can give my impressions.
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I used imdb to list all American made feature films (60 minutes to 150 minutes in length) made from 1928 through 1971 highly rated (6.9 to 10.0) in order of ascending imdb rating. The number of votes had to be from 35 to 500. This keeps out more mainstream entries and attempts to keep out lost films. However, some lost film do show up, particularly from the silent era. Plus for some reason people seem to upvote all of the Bowery Boys films. Maybe you'll find this boring, and maybe you'll find it a way to discover some lost jewels. Check out youtube. Many of them are over there.
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On 2/11/2018 at 10:55 AM, sagebrush said:
I feel this way about Greta Garbo's melancholy ballerina in GRAND HOTEL. Way too melodramatic, and when she is beckoning the phone to "ring, ring", I can't help but snicker. This is the only of Garbo's performances that I don't feel she was right for.
Grand Hotel was the first time I ever saw Greta Garbo in a film. And afterwards I was very puzzled as to what the allure was. Her entire performance just drifted into camp. After TCM came on the air and I got to see her entire body of work I was much more of a fan.
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On 2/11/2018 at 8:05 AM, Sepiatone said:
BARBARA STANWYCK: Very talented actress to be sure. But IMO, while not totally UNattractive, not particularly pretty or "sexy". But who has been placed in roles that call for an actress that fits those bills. Like HENRY FONDA or GARY COOPER getting all befuddled wen she cuddles up to them like she's some kind of "sex kitten", or FRED MacMURRAY risking life and livelihood for her. Just doesn't cut it for me. JEAN ARTHUR is an actress in this box. Like Barbara, LOVED her in most of the movies she was in, but, the gorgeous vamp roles too, didn't work for me.
It's funny, I don't have this feeling about Stanwyck at all, but I do feel this exact same way about Mary Astor. She was a great actress and an asset to every film I've seen her in, but I just never bought her as a seductress or someone who could seduce Bogie in The Maltese Falcon, etc. She was good looking but not beautiful, IMHO, and as a result she aged well.
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18 hours ago, Gershwin fan said:
K..... Good for him. He doesn't have to like it. Not sure why you're expecting us to care about some dumbazz's blog though.
I really didn't expect anybody to care, and maybe I should have dragged this to the OT forum to begin with. It just seemed like a good example of how rough and ignorant some people have gotten in their discourse with the example of certain political leaders who they adore who have equally rough and ignorant discourse. And from the number of like minded comments you can tell this fellow is not alone. I actually responded in kind to his entire post using logic and staying away from insults of any kind. My comment went into moderation and - not surprisingly - he rejected my comment.
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I don't know if it's a hit or miss, but tomorrow I'm recording "Immortal Love" (1961), which is oddly titled once you hear the subject matter. I'd never heard about it until I saw it on the schedule, and apparently it's about a man who is away at war, and a crippled man who wants the soldier's girlfriend and rapes and impregnates her in order to get her. He also lies to her about about the soldier being killed. The descriptions read that the couple (rapist and victim) suffer through three decades of bad marriage and an unhappy brood of children, and that the couple torment each other. I don't know how I'll feel about this until I see it I suppose, but I can't imagine me having any problem with a rapist being emotionally tormented and punished for thirty years by his victim. I can't imagine why the rapist would want to torment the wife though, after all he lied to her and raped her and basically stole her life from her. I guess that is why films from different times and cultures are interesting.
TCM Premieres
in General Discussions
Posted
Wow, I was an avid watcher of TCM in 2008 and I don't remember Daughter of the Dragon. It must have been during the spring when my -at that time - new boss was driving me crazy. He also indirectly caused "The Robert Montgomery Birthday Tribute great DVD recording disaster of 2008" as I like to call it. Don't ask.