Arturo

*while 6 years younger sister Joan started off in the mid 30s* This is incorrect. Joan started in leading roles in movies in 1929 as the ingenue in BULLDOG DRUMMOND (earlier she had done a few bits goingback to 1915).

Can we include George Sanders who committed suicide, stating he was bored with life?

I don't really remember how the next lines went, but here goes.... Her name was Rita, Rita Cansino Agua Caliente was where she danced Rumored father was her romance She was young and determined So with movies she took a chance At Fox Studios, not yet with Zanuck She was the hottest dancer north of Tijuana Yeah, Fox studios, Sheehan not Zanuck Her dancing with passion, hoping it becomes fashion At Fox Studios....on the soundstage

I bought and read this awhile back, around the time TCM's monthly highlights was promoting it. I found it well written, but I don't remember if there was anything specifically new in it (I have since read a dozen or more books on the classic movie era, and my memory isn't what it once was. I will skim through it this weekend, and see it there is anything worth sharing.

I see the error on the Directv guide. What they do is list THE SHOW OFF as being about 3 hours long, instead of 77 minutes. The TCM monthly guide shows THE MURDER MAN showing in-between THE SHOW OFF and WHIPSHAW. *So, I would say this is a Directv problem* I've noticed that Directv has done this several times in the last month or so, when a movies seems to be in an impossibly long time slot. Cross-checking with the TCM Monthly schedule usually clears it up, as there is inevitably another movie afterwards that Directv doesn't list. Edited by: Arturo on Oct 1, 2012 7:48 PM

*sp- she was billed as Rita CANSINO (and she was quite high in the billing too.)* I believe she was still billed as Margarita Cansino then, with only her middle name Carmen missing from her given name.

*The only film in his career that I know of which Raoul Walsh would later partially remake was Objective Burma!* Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that two of his early 40s back to back hits at Warners he later remade back to back (or close to it) in the late 40s: HIGH SIERRA - COLORADO TERRITORY THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE - ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON

While I enjoy Walsh's immensely fertile stay WB, there is so much more when it comes to his movies than just this period, roughly encompassed by the 40s, before and after. Suffice to say right now that an enjoyable early 30s film he directed, and starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett, Fox films' ME AND MY GAL, will kick off this month's star tribute tonight on TCM at 8 pm EST, 5 pm PST.

With the rejoiner that I don't normally comment on relatively recent movies on the TCM boards, I will mention one poltical satire from the 30s I really enjoy: THANKS A MILLION. Probably Dick Powell's best early role IMHO, plus Ann Dvorak and Fred Allen. Great fun, and it would be nice if FMC would show it this season, or at least lease it to TCM.

Well if I could hve a house just like one of those in the movies, one of those huge homes on New York's Park Avenue, so often featured in 1930s movies (as escapism for depression audiences I guess) like MY MAN GODFREY, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, HOLIDAY (1938), etc. Especially the last, with its two-story columns and indoor elevator and upstairs (3rd floor?) living rooms....wowee....

*I really enjoy the between-the-films featurette that TCM shows on occasion which uses an alternate scene from Showboat where Ava does Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man in her real voice (which- again- wasn't used for that film either)* *I recall her being really terrific.* Wow, I'd like to see that featurette, better yet, record it. Ava was REALLY upset that for the release print of SHOW BOAT they dubbed in another voice over hers, supposedly to match Kathryn Grayson's more operattish vocals. She felt she had really tried as Julie, and stated something to the effect of, "That's Metro; they'll louse you up every time". Being dubbed in this was the main reason Ava turned down LOVE ME OR LEAVE a few years later. She didn't want to go through that again.... "They have me mouthing the words like I was in a goldfish bowl!" she supposedly screamed. Later, when she and George Cukor saw a screening of LMOLM (he had also turned it down), they agreed that that they made a mistake in refusing to do it.

Also known as VALLE DE LAS ESPADAS (or something similar), this movie has a phanton credit. Linda Darnell is listed in some filmographies of hers as having been in this movie. I don't know where this originated, and I have never actually read it mentioned in any biograhy or biogaphical sketch. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks in advance.

*The Great John L. was a good one, as well. (Although John L. Sullivan himself wasn't that nice a guy. He blew off my grandfather, when he was just a little boy, and was pretty nasty to him. But that's another thread, I guess.)* I think you mean Flynn's character of James Corbett in GENTLEMAN JIM. Ward Bond played John L. Sullivan in it. Doug McClure played Sullivan in THE GREAT JOHN L.

*Anyway, noir, schmoir. Sometimes I think we all worry too much about labels. They are all very good, highly enjoyable films...Kiss of Death, Pickup on South Street, Night and the City, and Panic in the Streets. Regardless of how we categorize any of them. And they're all much the better for having Richard Widmark in them.* IMHO Probably Widmark's best role, and one of his very best films from his 20th Century Fox period, is his vicious rascist thug in NO WAY OUT. Another harrowing, intense movie with a handful of excellent performances.

*As for Tierney being a femme fatale in NATC, I don't think so. A femme fatale manipulates things, usually a man, to suit her own purposes. This is what she does, her goal in a film noir is to gain control of a man - sometimes more than one man- to gratify her own ambition, whether for power, wealth, or even just to reject the one who loves her, "because she can". She tends to be very single-minded, greedy, and very deceptive.* The Real femme fatale in NIGHT AND THE CITY is the Googie Withers character. In her excellent characterization, she has manipulated the poor Francis Sullivan character, and while he outsmarts her in the end, she did drive him to his death. If this crime melodrama genre had had more prestige at that time, I can see multiple acting nominations for this cast.

{font:Times New Roman}*It’s outrageous that she never won an Oscar. Pickup always leaves me in a puddle of tears when she gets it; I think it’s her most memorable role. She deserves a "What a Character" spot.* I agree Thelma Ritter should have received an oscar at some point. My two favorite performances, If I were forced to choose, would be in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES and THE MODEL AND THE MARRIAGE-BROKER. Excellent in both IMHO.{font}

*Vivian Leigh is my favorite female actress but I am not sure how a Garfield and Leigh pairing would have worked. Although maybe it would worked in a "opposites sort of attack way." The New York city street kid with the cultured English lady might have been very interesting to see.* A plausible pairing of Vivien and John could have been in her STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. He could have given Stanley Kowalski an interesting take IMHO.

ANY NUMBER CAN PLAY, with Clark Gable and Alexis Smith, has the King as a gambler, so it fits the "Casino Night" bill.

*I think you need to look back at my earlier posts. I was simply agreeing with helenbaby that Bacall has good points and it is worth her being SOTM.* *Nowhere in my post did I say her role in the MILLIONAIRE movie was a character part.* Since your response was to a post on Bacall in this movie, I interpreted that to mean you referred to HTMAM, as well as the other movies where she was part of an ensemble, as it was an ensemble part in MILLIONAIRE. I apologize if the context made me misinterpret your meaning.

> That faked slap is what appears in the final film. False. Topbilled: Now this is your particular undesirable personality trait. You stick to your guns when shown how it was, and you refuse to accept it...with no evidence to cite, unlike the passages from Flynn's autobiography that was the source of this story, apparently the only first person one at that. Also your totally unfounded assertion that Davis had the hots for Flynn and that may be part of why she treated him the way he did. As I say, we each have our quirks.

*You are taking the joy out of posting around here. I think people are afraid to say anything for fear that you will correct them. What an undesirable personality trait and I am done talking directly with you.* We each have our quirks don't we? As I've stated before, mine deals with infomation that is transmitted here, half a century and more after the fact. If it is something that I may see to be incomplete, incorrect, or misleading, I will post my view of such. Sorry but that is how I am. If it is a joy to post anything here and not worry about whether it is correct or not, then I'm sorry by my character trait.

helenbaby wrote: I'm not a huge fan of Bacall, but she really does outshine both Grable & Monroe in How To Marry a Millionaire. What a fun movie. It had been a long time since I watched it. Topbilled answered: *Her niche is really those expensive ensemble dramas where the box office does not rest on her shoulders and where despite her glamour she can play a very sharp character part while remaining highly billed.* Bacall was NOT playing a character role here; she was one of the three stars, each part roughly equal in weight. Unlike earlier versions of the oft-filmed (by Fox) tale of three girls on the make for rich husbands, HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE has each girl on an even level; the other movies always had one (the star) pretending to be a rich girl on vacation, traveling with her secretary and maid. The story focused on the star; invariably, in the course of the movie the other two were also matched up, but they were in definitely subsidiary roles where, yes, a character actress might be used. Not here; each girl is an equal. Each model and her individual story takes up approximately one third of the storytelling. Plus, all three here: Grable, Monroe and Bacall, are indisputable STARS; if Bacall was third billed it was because she hadn't done a film in two-three years, but she was still very much in the public eye as Mrs. Bogart. And she had never been the superstar that Betty Grable had been for over a decade by that point, or that Marilyn was just then attaining. Of course top billing was duked out between Grable, at 20th the Queen of the Lot until then, and the usurper to same, Monroe, who had earlier in the year had scored her breakthrough hits that not only established her but launched her into the stratosphere. In any case, Bacall was the equal of the other two in screen time and impact. In fact, as the one who intitiated the whole scheme, and as the sensible one who had to reign the other ones in, it can be argued that hers was the pivotal role. Critics and fans have variously singled out each actress as the one who stole the film from the other two. Partisans of each usually maintain that "their" girl was the one to do so. The revelation for the critics and the public was that Bacall's acid delivery and pitch perfect timing of her lines in all the dramas and melodramas she had done previously would be so well suited for comedy. Edited by: Arturo on Sep 21, 2012 4:23 PM

*I will gladly go on record here saying I am a John Garfield fan. However, I do not consider him naturalistic. He is very rehearsed and a method actor to the core.* I disagree with the statement above, as I understand it, that his being a method actor makes him not naturalistic and very rehearsed. The whole philosophy of "the method" is to seem to make all actions come from an organic, natural place so that it does not ring as rehearsed or obviously 'acting".

*Huston pulls a Hitchkok by appearing very briefly in the movie as a Senor Munoz. Also in the film are Gilbert Roland, a wonderfully villainous Laird Cregar, Pedro Armendariz, and a young and very beautiful Jennifer Jones. I'd love to hear from other Garfield fans who know the movie and would agree leaving it out of a retrospective is a major omission.* I too love this movie, but just one correction....Laird Cregar was NOT in WWS, mainly because he had died several years earlier, in 1945.

Another showing coming on FMC: MONDAY, SEPT. 24: 6:00 am EST, 3 AM PST: TWO FLAGS WEST The commander of a cavalry fort in the West during the Civil War is forced to accept a unit of Confederate prisoners who have volunteered to fight Indians under Union command as an alternative to rotting in POW camps. *Cast:* Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell, Jeff Chandler, Cornel Wilde *Director:* Robert Wise 1950