Arturo

*As for Guys and Dolls, while it's by no means my favourite, it's got some pretty good tunes.Besides the two Sepiatone mentions, there's the very fine song, "If I Were a Bell".* I was in a high-school rendition of GUYS AND DOLLS, and it made me appreciate Broadway-style musicals, specifically the clever lyrics that helped the story along (as a kid I recoiled at musical films; they seemed so phony-how DID everybody spontaneously break into the same dance steps and sing the same lyrics?!). I thought that it had great songs, including my favorite "Adelaide's Lament" along with the others mentioned. One great song that was NOT used in the movie version was called 'A Bushel and a Peck" done by the Hot Box Girls. A fun song that should have been included.

*Incidentally, when I look at the publicity poster featuring Anita Ekberg, it is rather obvious that they were trying to mold her in Lucille Ball's image. I think they should've let her have a more contemporary look (for the late 50s) rather than make her appear like an actress from the late 30s. Even Lucille Ball herself had updated to a more modern style!* Topbilled, if you mean the poster featured a few posts down, well I don't see anything of Lucille Ball in her presentation, but rather prime 50s Anita. She kind of resembles a cross between two other European sirens of the day, Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, so this definitely makes her quite 'au courant' for that time (nothing late 30s about her here). What I was surprised, being that this was RKO, and I think Hughes still was (mis)guiding it, was that there wasn't a more exploitative image used; specifically, one where the focus is on her breasts. Anyway, she fit the mid-to-late 50s idea of a European sex goddess IMHO.

OMG lemme see; there were so many: TV reruns brought Tina Louise (and to a lesser extent) Deborah Wally on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Also Mary Tyler Moore on the DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. Classic movies shown on TV brought Linda Darnell, Debra Paget, Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, Lana Turner, Gail Russell, and SOOO many others . . . Angelica Maria was only one of many good or bad girls on dozens of Mexican novelas. Current English language TV brought Susan Dey, Jaclyn Smith, and others . . . Soo Soooo many . . . i can't recall them all

misswonderly wrote: I will say, unequivocally, that John Ford could not do comedy, and should never even have tried. Cinematically anyway, he has the most terrible sense of humour I've ever seen in a film director from that era. It seems that Ford was working in stereotypes about the South when he started filming PINKY. I read that his black characters he wanted all portrayed as "pickaninnies", to the puint where their protrayal and the dialogue was offensive to DArryl Zanuck, who removed him and replaced him with Elia Kazan.

Although I've recommended Angelina Jolie for playing both Loretta Young and Gene Tierney, I think she'd also make a fine Ava Gardner. She has that smoldering sexuality that would be needed by whoever plays her . . . again I think Kate Beckinsdale is amazingly beautiful and sexy, but it wasn't enough for her to work as Ava in THE AVIATOR imho.

*For starters, Power is considered one of the handsomest actors ever, and I agree. To me, Payne had the face of a linebacker.* Yep, finance, you suuure got a good point there. I guess it's because of those "linebacker" looks of his that Payne was cast as leading man in so many Fox musicals with Alice Faye and Betty Grable. Come to think of it, didn't Ty Power get cast with Grable and play in Fox musicals with Alice Faye, as well? Nah, must be my imagination. Must have been that John Payne guy. How could I have ever confused those two? Don't know if you were being facetious there, but actually, this is it in a nutshell. Ty Power DID do musicals (and dramas with music) with Alice Faye (IN OLD CHICAGO, ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND, ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE) and Betty Grable (well only one-A YANK IN THE R.A.F.). In fact, Payne was Power's successor in this genre. Once Power became a huge star, in the late 1930s, Zanuck at 20th Century Fox did two things that most studios did with their stars: they started gearing scripts as star vehicles for Power, and they started looking for backups for him, should he become unmanageable or his appeal falter. So most parts were in the breezy, devil may care Power persona, whether he did them or not. Of course, many of these parts, intended or even announced for him, were done with other actors, including Richard Greene (STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE, LITTLE OLD NEW YORK), John Payne (TIN PAN ALLEY, THE GREAT AMERICAN BROADCAST, TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI), George Montgomery (ORCHESTRA WIVES, TEN GENTLEMEN FROM WEST POINT, CHINA GIRL)-and this is before they all went into WW2. You can picture Ty (well at least I can) in any of these roles. In fact, the popular formula of teaming or Power with Don Ameche (AND Alice Faye), was carried over in some of these films, with Jack Oakie often being the Ameche substitute, and Faye sharing this spot with Grable. Anyway, this pattern continued after the war. By then other actors had joined the ranks of the ersatz Power players: Gregory Peck, Cornel Wilde, Mark Stevens, Glenn Langan, etc. and into the 50s with Rory Calhoun, Dale Robertson, Robert Wagner, etc. So Zanuck pretty much used the Power persona as his most popular male archetype at least until he left his post at Fox in 1956.

well i agree that star names now may be what will drive greenlighting any biopic, unless its a relatively inexpensive movie, say, for hbo. i too feel that the casting for the AVIATOR left something to be desired. i think leonardo did a great job, i felt that he lacked gravitas, he seemed like a callow kid. by contrast i feel he was much more believable as j. edgar. he,s matured lookswise in the several years between the two biopics. Now i think that kate beckinsdale was inadequate in conveying ava. but in my case i feel tha kate, beautiful tho she is, does not compare to avas feline beauty and sensuality. And (junior moment here) the actress doing hepburn sis well with voice and mannnerisms, but physically left much to be desired, i just couldnt see her as katherine unless i closed my eyes. in the manner of Jolie being too shapely, lately she seems painfully thin, but as stated, would general audiences today know enough about these stars of yesteryear to be able to critque how much resemblance those playing them have?

I Think a great subject would be Gene Tierney. She had an interesting life, filled with trajedy, such as her father losing his wealth, and later using Gene as a mealticket, or her daughter with severe mental retardation, which led to her mental illness and suicide attempts. I think Angelina Jolie might work as Gene. Linda Darnell had some drama in her life, from an outrageously overbearing stage mother that had to be thrown out of the soundstages of her films, to despondency over a backstreet affair whch caused her to contemplate suicide, to her tragic death in a house fire. Jennifer Beals actually resembles her quite a bit, but maybe someone else would have to play the 15 year old Linda that scored a lead within days of arriving in Hollywood. Loretta Young is another with an interesting story, from being leading lady as a teen, to having a child with Clark Gable outof wedlock-and hypocritically, denied it till the end- and her great success in early TV. Angelina Jolie again might work playing her.

Topbilled wote: I am at home today watching some MA & PA KETTLE films. It occurs to me that we would never find them on TCM eight days a year Topper, again I find it amazing that you would watch the Ma & Pa Kettle films, like Judy Canova. This is because a year or so ago you were so critical of MURDER HE SAYS, (also featuring Marjorie Main) calling it lowbrow, and intimating that you only like sopshisticated comedy and film fare in general.

It has also been proposed that the original site of Aztlán was the area around what is now Lake Powell. Part of the migration legend also describes a stay at Culhuacán ("leaning hill" or "curved hill"). Proponents of the Lake Powell theory equate this Culhuacán with the ancient home of the Anasazi at Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park. Researchers who believe Aztlán was located in the Lake Powell region also cite the fact that the language spoken by the Aztecs and the Ute people belong to the same Uto-Aztecan linguistic group. VX: The theories that Aztlan is located somewhere in the Southwest was promulgated by Chicanistas as another way of legitimizing our presence here, in the face of recurring nativist xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria. Scholars took up the banner, and their research has been conducted so as to bolster the conclusion they wish. The linguistic argument has always seemed specious to me, because the Uto-Aztecan language family is a large, far-flung group of smaller language families, some more closely related than others. This U-A family is analogous to the Indo-European family of languages, which includes many of the the historic languages in Europe, and extending all the way into the Indian subcontinent. So many of these languages have been separate from each other for millenia: Latin was in existence 2,000 years ago, and its modern descendents developed from local dialects into full languages in the last 1,000-1,200 years ago. They are closely related languages; they are more distantly related, timewise,from other branches of the family, such as the Germanic branch. Similarly, it seems difficult to believe that the Aztecs moved in a few hundred years from the Four Corners area to their historic homeland when the languages of the supposed area of origin are distantly related to Nahuatl. So much more plausible that they came from an area not nearly so distant, where MANY groups spoke Uto-Azteca tongues, including many speaking various Nahuatl dialects. A couple of hundred kilometers north of Anahuac was to fluid border area separating the high cultures of Mesoamerica with the mainly hunter-gatherer groups of Aridoamerica. From here the Aztecs could have come, just another band of the culturally similar, liguistically diverse, nomadic groups that they later called Chichimecas.

Fred C. Dobbs wrote: Several on-line dictionaries say that the term Aztec became popular in the late 1700s, probably to distinquish the modern Mexican people (the Spanish and Hispanics) from the old native Indian tribe. Fred, the "modern Mexican people" for the most part do not consider themselves "Spanish and Hispanics". Unless one is a fairly recent arrival from Spain, say, as a refuge of the Spanish Civil War, most Mexicans do not think of themselves as Spanish or Hispanic. Mexico continues to be a multi-ethnic country, where centuries after the conquest, some 55 native languages are still spoken from anywhere from a few to over a million individuals, Despite the population crash after the arrival of the Spaniards, by far the largest racial component in the Mexican population is indigenous, either pure (or nearly so), or mixed indigenous-European (Mestizo). The pure European stock is less than 10% of the population. A once significant black and mulato strain is still identifiable in only a few enclaves (Veracruz, Guerrero), it mostly having been absorbed into the mestizo majority. These terms, (indian, mestizo), are originally based on racial composition, but now are used to convey cultural identification. The Mexican national culture, a product of two dominant strains, is considered to be mestizo culture. An individual who is 100% pure indian racially, will be considered mestizo if that is his cultural identification. BTW, the term Azteca came from Aztlan, the mythical homeland of the Aztecs. Most scholars place this somewhere to the north and/or west of Mexico City, in Michoacan, Jalisco or Nayarit. However, many nationalistic Chicanos here in the US symbolically call the Southwest as Aztlan.

Typically, TCM's '70s selections are more *American Graffiti* than *American Gigolo*. Hwkdkid; AMERICAN GIGOLO is actually 1980 (ok, admittedly early 1980). But even though it was filmed in 1979, its release makes it an 80s movie (as does the narcissistic "me" content pointing to the Reagan years).

I too feel this film is unjustly underrated. In fact, I had planned on posting something like this awhile back when TCM showed it,but didn't get around to it-just as well, your description of the films virtues is very well done and I second all that you state. Thoroughly enjoyable,and if it wafsn't for the a hardening of and crags in Flynn's face, and that sad lack of joie de vivre, one would think this was a prime Flynn swashbuckler.

This is one of James Stewart's best early films. Stewart was really good at being noble and righteous without coming across as smug and self-important. Frank Morgan gives a very touching performance here. Too bad he couldn't have turned himself into a wizard and floated away from it all in a balloon. Misswonderly: I agree that this is one of his best films and best early performances, maybe even better than for which he won the oscar that same year (if not nearly as good as that for which he should've won the previous year). LOL . . . Frank Morgan had to float away from it all in a balloon precisely because he was NOT a wizard.

WHY would anyone who watches TCM movie classics ever want to see either one of those movies aired on this channel??? We come here to watch the OLD classics...not garbage....im shocked! Never thought i would hear those movies come out of u?? There was a long discussion about this not to long back...i believe that even Kim got involved reassuring us that TCM swore to stay on the same format they always havea nd would not change to like AMC did... So even in 2008 worries about TCM going the way of AMG were being voiced here. Hmmm...

TCMfan23 wrote: I'm watching the mortal storm right now on TCM. It has me thinking about how scary life was in Europe back in the 40's. Glad I wasn't around then. TCMfan23: of course life was scary in Europe in the (first half of the) 40s . . . it was engulfed in a horrific war. TMS takes place (mostly) in the (last half of the) 30s, as conditions in Germany under Hitler went from bad o worse to intolerable. Living in Germany at this time in the 30s, and countries they'd occupy starting in 1938, must have been very scary. Terrific movie of course, and Hollywood dealing with the Nazi threat at time when isolationism still the prevailing sentiment in the US, even as war raged overseas. Edited by: Arturo on May 26, 2012 1:41 PM

*"Poverty row" doesn't necessarily mean a bad or crummy movie...it simply means lower-budgeted.* Kriegerg, very well put. It's always been implied that expensive movies are better than less expensive, but that doesn't hold up. A budget has nothing to do with how well a given film turns out. A couple of the things that would work for "poverty row" studios, probably made DILLINGER look so realistic on its "miniscule' budget, is that a lot of it was probably done in actual locations, or standing sets were employed for their city scenes. *Wouldbestar wrote:* *Robert Mitchum, Kim Hunter and Gloria Stuart means they must have done something right.* Well, Mitchum and Hunter were at the beginning of their careers, wheras Stuart was already on her way down from her days as a sought after ingenue in the mid-late 30s. Less prestigious studios would often get talent that was past its prime, at least as far as the major studios were concerned; this is how Kay Francis ended up at Monogram. Conversly, these studios were often the testing ground for some players that could become known there, and get picked up by other studios that could afford to offer them better salaries. Mitchum actually got noticed in a Monogram release (offhand don't remember if it was WHEN STRANGERS MARRY or JOHNNY DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE), and led directly to being hired for his breakthrough role in THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO. Kim Hunter never quite found a long-term berth in Hollywood, both because or her frequent stagework, and later being blacklisted. Perhaps the supreme example of someone at one of the "lesser" studios, that became a big boxoffice name, was John Wayne. After THE BIG TRAIL bombed in 1930, he was relegated to serials and quickie westerns made for various poverty row outfits. It wasn't until he scored in STAGECOACH at the end of the decade, did he become a bankable star, which he remained until his death. Of course he was under contract at Republic when he became a star, and that studio made a hefty profit loaning him to other companies.

OMG . . . I can't believe I made such an elemental mistake. I just fixed it through editing. Guess I was so put off by the way my post looked when it posted, that I didn't bother to review it. Thanks.

"*El Paso" wants to be a really big western but it is not quite there. Costarring a pretty healthy supporting cast of the lovely Gail Russell, Sterling Hayden, H B Warner, Gabby Hayes and an extremely nasty Dick Foran. Beautifully shot in color Payne fits a western pretty well in what looks like his first go of one.* **Actually, Payne had done a Western back in 1937, one of his first films when he was still going by his full name of John Howard Payne . . . FAIR WARNING. It is a shame that Payne was not used for Westerns or Noirs while under contract at Fox. I guess they prefered to keep in in the musicals that had brought him fame.

*I mean like more sci/fi, adventure and +I mean like more sci/fi, adventure and Hitchcock. No suspence drama with a woman in the lead role is any good. +*Let's see now: MARNIE . . . Tippi Hedren THE BIRDS . . . Tippi Hedren VERTIGO . . . James Stewart AND Kim Novak REAR WINDOW . . . James Stewart AND Grace Kelly I CONFESS . . . Montgomery Clift AND Anne Baxter UNDER CAPRICORN . . . Ingrid Bergman NOTORIOUS . . . Ingrid Bergman SPELLBOUND . . . Ingrid Bergman SUSPICION . . . Joan Fontaine REBECCA . . . joan Fontaine Just a few of Hitchcock's better known classics. What was that about wanting men's movies like . . .. *" Hitchcock. No suspence drama with a woman in the lead role is any good."* Edited by: Arturo on May 22, 2012 8:29 PM

They seemed headed in the right direction until they backed the wrong pictures, *Doctor Doolittle *and *Hello Dolly!* and ended up selling off their backlot. Actually, Fox had sold off the backlot by the early 60s at the latest. This is usually attributed to the studio's huge white elephant in CLEOPATRA'S cost overruns. Anyway, by the mid-60s Century City was rising on the former Fox backlot.

*Professor Shellabarger was quite angry with Fox for filming only half of his best seller. But the film ran for two hours and twenty minutes and for the life of me I don't see how they could have filmed the entire big novel. I have read the book and while Don Pedro's life in Spain after his Aztec adventures was interesting ,it was nothing compared to the exploits he had in Mexico.Shellabarger was accurate and authentic in every detail of his writings......* Seems to have been a common practice back then, for studios to film only a portion of a large novel. The most famous is probably WUTHERING HEIGHTS, where only approximately half of the book was filmed. 20th Century Fox seemed to do this quite often, and off the top of my head I can think of several examples: HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941) Due to rising production costs, and the ominous storm clouds of WW2, the studio was forced to cut back the original conception (in fact, the New York office-the moneymen-had cancelled it altogether for a time). Not only was Technicolor scrapped, but the four hour epic Zanuck envisioned was reduced by half . . . it now concentrated on Huw's viewpoint as a child only, and Tyrone Power's part of Huw as an adult was eliminated. KEYS TO THE KINGDOM (1944) Again wartime restrictions was the culprit, and this time the priest's character as a boy and young man was whittled next to nothing. A part for Gene Tierney did not make the grade with this revision. THE FOXES OF HARROW (1947): Expansive historical novel was cut back by quite a bit, and the proposed filming in Technicolor was scrapped to save money. LYDIA BAILEY (1952): Another sweeping historical novel which only used a portion of the story. The ending seems strangely anticlimactic, as if more should follow-kinda like if GWTW had ended at the intermission. Additionally, location filming was cut back to a minimum.

I must respectfully disagree. Everything I've read has mentioned that Betty neveranted to make this movie . . . I believe she even went on suspension to avoid it. She WAS at a crossroads in mid 1952, if not quite yet on the skids (she slipped from No. 3 to No. 21 from 1951 to the next year in th Exhibitor's Poll). She was actually no longer as seriously involved in her career; she'd much rather be at the races. Opportunities came without her taking advantage of them. In 1951, she almost got Cary Grant as costar for MEET ME AFTER THE SHOW, her last big musical hit at the studio. She wanted a change of pace, and so turned down THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (1952). She wanted to do more sophisticated comedy, but then turned down a couple that were offered to her, MY WIFE'S BEST FRIEND (1952) and, later, THE LIEUTENANT WORE SKIRTS (1956)-both film projects started out under different titles which I can't recall at the moment. She had hoped the studio would buy a big Broadway success (they tried to get ANNIE GET HER GUN and BORN YESTERDAY), and in fact, bought such a property for her, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. But she was already causing Zanuck enough heartache, that he decided to give it to someone else . . . although he first considered Mitzi Gaynor before taking a chance and giving it to Marilyn (remember, at this point MM was not quite yet a proven commodity . . . DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK was disappointing commercially, despite the HUGE publicity Marilyn was by then getting. . . her breakthrough hit, NIAGARA, came in early 1953). An ideal role for Betty at this time might have been MONKEY BUSINESS or better yet, DREAMBOAT (in the roles played by Ginger Rogers-later Ginger would inherit another part Grable rejected in TEENAGE REBEL (1956)-another chance at more serious drama). But Betty would probably had rejected them, since the characters were no longer ingenues (as she would later reject the part done by Ethel Merman in THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954)-even though the role was similar to her 1947 hit, MOTHER WORE TIGHTS (she explained this by saying something like 'we were playing at grownups, it was fun then-but not now that we are there agewise'). It's not like Betty had never starred in a drama; she had: I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941), and an early noir to boot. But it came early in her stardom, before her image had fully gelled, or congealed (she even had a musical number recorded, and cut-"Hot Spot"-the original title of this movie). But she didn't feel confortable doing drama; she rejected the role of Sophie in THE RAZOR'S EDGE (1946), stating that her fans would expect her to rise out of the ocean with seaweed in her hair and burst into song). And it's not like the studio or Betty didn't try to vary or expand her image once it had set in with the public; they had: THE SHOCKING MISS PILGRIM (1946) had Betty covering up her million dollar legs -an important component of the Grable fomula-as a late 19th century working girl. It wasn't the usual huge grosser her movies then were. More importantly, thousands of disgruntled fans wrote to complain about the lack of legs. THAT LADY IN ERMINE (1948) a Ruritarian musical fantasy, hopefully to have had the deft touch of Lubitsch, who died while filming, and completed by the decidedly heavier touch of Preminger. Poor reviews and receipts. THE BEAUTIFUL BLONDE FROM BASHFUL BEND (1949) Preston Sturges was brought in to hopefully give Betty a new comedy classic, but the farce again fared poorly with critics and public alike. Admittedly, these were not HUGE steps from her usual musical comedy moves, but they didn't sit well with her public. So Betty had reason to worry about such a departure in the form of what became PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET. She knew she'd never win an Oscar, nor did she strive to move in that direction. So, having lost out on her dream role in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, she settled for another musical, a remake of THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE (1953). It did vary the formula a bit, but Zanuck was still upset with her, and threw it out on a double-bill; its gross was thus hard to determine, but rest assured it didn't start stampedes to the theater to see it. After this, she acquitted herself well, and held her ground with Marilyn and Lauren Bacall in HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953). But after reading he writing on the wall, with the most prominent grafitti saying MM, she left 20th for good. At Columbia, she did a musical remake of TOO MANY HUSBANDS, know titled THREE FOR THE SHOW (1955). She then unwisely returned to Fox, and played a co-ed, in the puerile HOW TO BE VERY VERY POPULAR (Marilyn turned down being her costar, and replacement Sheree North stole the notices). She missed out playing Adelaide in GUYS AND DOLLS, when she stood up Goldwyn for her sick dog. After that she confined herself performing onstage or in TV variety shows.

*My quibble is the omission of the genocide of thousands that took place during the course of Cortez' trip to Tenochtitlan.* Well, that for me would not be a quibble, but a horrific reaction to perhaps the greatest demographic catastrophe in historic times, if not ever. Cortés and the other Spaniards unwittingly unleashed diseases unknown to the Western Hemisphere, and they spread like wildfire, well in advance (sometimes by over a century) of the actual presence of the conquistadores, missionaries, etc. While they did slaughter many thousands in their conquest of México (and perhaps only the masacre at Cholula would have been appropriate in the timeframe of the film), untold millions would die in the coming decades after the arrival of the white man, and not just from war or disease. It has been estimated that at least 25-30 million people lived in Central México at the time of contact, and a century later, maybe 1.5 million. That's a 95% decrease! And it happened elsewhere. Europeans arriving in the Mexican Northwest/American Southwest found an area bereft of the majority of its inhabitants, and cultures that were impoverished or on the verge of collapse. Anyway, this wasn't genocide (or even rock n roll, David B.) for the most part, since it wasn't planned to systematically wipe out the natives (leave that for the British and Americans later); although certain exceedingly ruthless conquistadores laid waste to large stretches of territory. Quite a tragic and ignomious part of world history.

MovieProfessor wrote: **The real biggest of all controversy for the film occurred when none other than Betty Grable decided she would like to play the role of the pickpocket. At this point, the situation became somewhat bizarre, because Betty insisted upon having a song and dance routine placed into the script! Of course, Fuller wasn’t about to have anything to do with* Actually, from what I read, in biographies of Betty Grable and elswhere, they seem consistent in that she DIDN'T want to do this film, then called "Blaze of Glory"(or something like that). She felt Zanuck was foisting on her what she called a "skid" movie, which is a project felt to be beneath the star, either to break them or their spirit, to have them get back in line, or maybe to hasten their decline and/or departure. She was adamant that she would not film something she couldn't take her young daughters to see. Mostly, she was worried that the part called for some heavy dramatics, and she felt that she would not be able to handle them. Always sensible about herself and her appeal, she knew her fans would not want to see her in this type of film, and she wasn't willing to try and stretch her acting mettle at this point in her career. Anyway, this would have been an intriguing casting, but Betty wouldn't have it, and ironically, thereby hastened her departure from Fox.