Arturo

As pointed out by Hibi, she and her then husband had the production company, contracted to release through Universal. So they probably couldn't (or wouldn't) pay the higher salary to get a big-name male actor as costar. Plus, Fontaine's then-primadonna-ish demeanor probably meant she felt she didn't need much support, as she might've felt she was, and was meant to be, the whole show, and didn't want to be upstaged by another star.

I often.think it's a shame that one of Sophia's prior Hollywood Co-stars, Cary Grant, was not here with her again. However, the affair they had had earlier probably precluded this. I wonder if Grant was even approached, but ths idea was probably dismissed out of hand.

Thanks for the interesting link. I mentioned this same thing here; scroll below to my comments on 12/20/2015. The extra ending voiceover was added to the movie, after the release, when condemnation by the Catholic Legion of Decency, and boycott of FOREVER AMBER by them, led to the insertion of this dialogue to appease the organization. Some scenes were also cut short or excised.

It was good.seeing Linda Darnell.the other night on TCM, in it's showing of NO WAY OUT. It was also good hearing Robert Osborne mention her in the intro, as the appearances of her films.on TCM are scarce enough. I agree with Osborne's assessment of NWO still packing a wallop, and how it must've been when it was released in 1950. Now, if TCM can only round up 1 1/2 to 2 dozen more Darnell.movies,.and they can do that SOTM tribute.

Don't worry. You'll probably soon forget if you need to worry. I agree, it's great to see IVY on TCM; it's been years (decades?) since I've seen it. Great that.the station is showing some rarities, especially when you think of how often TCM gets bashed and trashed on these message boards.

Well, I missed the Bowie interview on 60 Minutes. I programmed it on the dvr, and then went out for a couple of hours. When I got home and played it, it seems that the clips were on in an additional hour, so I didn't get it.

Afterwards, while watching NO WAY OUT, an excellent film, my wife again( and who freely admits to having a HUGE crush on Sidney Poitier when she was young) commented on how LINDA DARNELL looked more "bi-racial" than Mell Ferrer could ever HOPE to! We do this sort of thing a LOT while watching movies. Sepiatone I totally agree about Linda Darnell, which is why I feel.she would've been far.more.believable.than Jeanne Crain in the previous year's PINKY. Linda was actually up for the role,.and she wanted.it desperately. But according to writer Philip Dunne, she lost.out because studio head.Darryl Zanuck wanted the actress.to be "whiter than white", and that Linda had "the touch of the adventuress", which Zanuck thought would.compromise the whitebread he wanted Pinky to be.

The resurrection of this thread made me sad when I read this comment from Fred, the first I've come across since the apparent confirmation of his death. Hopefully, Dobbs is in a.place where he can have visions of the technicolored, widescreen view of the world that prevailed in his formative years. Hopefully for him, the women there are dressed to the nines, with the fully matching accessorizations.

I don't know if Lucille Ball was a genius, but she definitely was not over-rated; she deserved the praise and accolades she received for I Love Lucy, etc. Yes, along with her husband and herself, much of the success for the show was due to the excellent writers. But they wrote to Lucy's specifications and talents, often using shorthand like, "do facial shot G", or things of that nature. She was a genius at interpreting the writng, and along with her comic timing, her expressions and reactions of her fluid face were exactly right, every time. She finally found her niche, despite the success she had worked up to on the big screen, and the physical reactions.were lost.on radio.audiences. Yes the whole world Loved Lucy, and her show, and she was the main reason. As for her not being funny, or "on", all.the time, that must be something no one should have to do. Whether her comedy was solely the results of the writers and her rehearsals, or not, she would be worn ragged trying to be that way 24/7. It would be exhausting for the listener also. In college I knew this budding comedian, who was always "on". Boy, he wore you out after a couple.of minutes. I learned to avoid him, as did others. Oh, he was funny alright, hilarious in fact. But it quickly got old, and he never wavered. Whew! Lucy was a genius at what she had to do, which was all.anyone should ever expect of her.

Thanks for the heads up...will set to record it.

Tonight, at 10 pm.est, TCM will show NO WAY OUT (1950), starring Linda Darnell, Richard Summary, Stephen McNally, and, making his film.debut, Sidney Poitier. Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, this is a searing drama of racial strife, featuring excellent writing and acting. Widmark is a racist sociopathic hoodlum, who, convinced that intern Poitier intentionally killed his brother, foments a race riot. Darnell plays his ex-sister-in-law/girlfriend, who is unwittingly instrumental in starting the riot, and ending up saving Poitier from Widmark. A very good film dealing with racial tensions, something that still lingers in this country. NWO was one of Linda's best films, and gave her one of her best acting opportunities. By contrast, on Tuesday, 1/26@ 8:40 am est, Fox Movie Channel will show Linda's most prominent film, the once controversial FOREVER AMBER (1947). Despite the overblown and hyped project falling short of expectations, this is a colorful sumptuous production, much better than its surviving reputation. However, Linda is not given much of an acting opportunity here, but is game as the blonde hussy climbing up social from.man to.man,.reaching the court of King Charles II as his mistress.

On FMC (all times eastern): Monday, 1/25: 3:30 am: FROM THE TERRACE (1960)............................6 am: IF I'M LUCKY (1946)...............................7:30 am: MY LUCKY STAR (1938)...... .....................9 am: MOTHER IS A FRESHMAN (1949).............................10:25 am: TAKE CARE OF MY LITTLE GIRL (1951)..............................12 pm: THE MAGNIFICENT DOPE (1942)............................1:30 pm: IT HAPPENED IN FLATBUSH (1942).................. Tuesday, 1/26: 3:30 am: CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE (1947)................................6 am: SNIPER'S RIDGE (1961)...................................7:05 am: THE IMMORTAL SERGEANT (1943)....................................8:40 am: FOREVER AMBER (1947).....................................11 am: CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE (1947)................................1:25 pm: THE REWARD (1965)................. Wednesday, 1/27: 3 am: THE REWARD (1965).......................................4:35 am: SIERRA BARON (1958)...................................6 am: THE IMMORTAL SERGEANT (1943)........................................7:40 am: CRASH FIVE (1943).......................................9:30 am: DECISION BEFORE DAWN (1951).................................11:35: THE PURPLE HEART (1944)..................................1:20 pm: TOGETHER BROTHERS (1973).................. Thursday, 1/28: 1 am: TOGETHER BROTHERS (1973)................................6 am: MOONRISE (1942)...................................7:45 am: HOUSE OF STRANGERS (1949)..................................9:30 am: DAISY KENYON (1947).................................11:15 am: NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947).................................1:15 pm: WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950)...................

Thanks Hibi. If I am not mistaken, I believe there is an actual Mexican movie with the name of ¡AY CHIHUAHUA, NO TE RAJES! I used the title because of the dog breed, obviously. But in this context, it is referring to the city or (more likely) the state.of Chihuahua. It roughly translates as "Hey Chihuahua, don't chicken out", or ".....don't back down".

1. ASTA SLICK FROM PUNKIN CRICK 2. MA AND PA KIBBLES 3. ASTA AND COSTELLO AT THE KENNEL 4. THE **** OF MADISON COUNTY 5. STRANGERS WHEN WE SNIFF 6. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MASTIFF 7. THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH IN HUMAN YEARS 8. SPRINGTIME WITH THE ROTTWIES 9. DASHHUND KENYON 10. ¡AY CHIHUAHUA NO TE RAJES!

Sad indeed! Fred was such a presence.on these boards. He could be exasperating in his opinionated steadfastness, even when proven wrong. And his outdated ideas.made one wonder if he really lived through the 60s. But he was a font of interesting information about many things, and his passion for classic era films was quite clear. Fred, you will be missed. RIP old man.

Some more sad news. The Eagles were a great band, and Frey an integral part of that. They epitomized the whole 1970s, "laid-back" California vibe. I was a fan, even if I didn't subscribe to the whole laid-back ethos, or rather, it wasn't as popular in the East L.A. barrio where I grew up. But great songs and writing are.timeless, which is what.Frey and the Eagles.produced.

Two movies with Linda Darnell.will be on TCM in the next few days, including one later today. Today, Tueday, 1/19 @ 6:15 pm est: BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE (1952): The first film Linda did at RKO, where ex-lover Howard Hughes was intent on revealing as much of Linda (or her cleavage at least-this is the man who brought us Jane Russell) as the period costumes and the media watchdogs of the time would permit. Here she is a damsel in distress, becoming a pawn between the titular character and the governor of Jamaica. With a hammy Robert Newton, and a not far behind William Bendix, Keith Andes, Torin Thatcher,.and Irene Ryan. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Not a classic swashbuckler, but colorful and fun. Sunday, January 24 @ 10 pm est: NO WAY OUT (1950): One of Darnell's best films.and acting, this harrowing racial drama still hits a hard wallop. Pulling no punches, it features a uniformly strong cast, excellent.writing and direction; the latter by Joseph Mankiewicz. Featuring.Sidney Poitier's film debut, and Also starring Richard Widmark and Stephen McNally, with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, among others. Also, upcoming Linda Darnell.appearances: TCM.will.show FOREVER AMBER on Tuesday, 1/26 @ 8;40 am est. And EncoreWesterns, in their airing again of the classic tv show, Wagon Train, will have the first of two episodes with Linda, "The Dora Gray Story", on Friday, 1/29 @ 2:15 pm, and the first season finale, "The Sacramento Story", where she cameos the Dora Gray character, on Saturday, 1/30 @ 11 am. More.on these later.....

No, Jane Weidlan was in the Go-Gos, at this time, and Sparks were always just Ron and Russell Mael, plus assorted side musicians. Cool Places was a duet between the two entities (Sparks and Jane).

LOL. Noddy Holder's name and appearance can bring a smile of recognition. Slade and Sparks were two groups that had distinct phases of popularity in the 1970s, and then again in the 1980s. Of course the level of their respective popularities was also distinct. Slade were massive in Britain in the early 70s. But after being out of the public eye for some 2-3 years, making their film FLAME and then residing in the U.S., AND their diversifying and diluting their traditional stomping sound, their popularity had pretty much evaporated by 1977. They struggled for a few years, until they reemerged as heavy metal heroes in the 1980s. They again became a regular presence on the singles charts, if not nearly so all-conquering as in the 70s. They even got into the U.S. charts. When Sparks relocated to London from the U.S. in the early 70s, they were lumped into the glam rock movement, rightly or wrongly. Their unusual appearances, quirky songs, droll lyrics and witty performances soon brought them a cult audience. Oh and Russell Mael's odd voice, trillingly falsetto one moment, muscularly masculine the next. In early 1974, their song This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us, with slashing guitars and Russell's falsetto mode making the lyrics all but unintelligible, exploded up the British charts. In short order a string of similar hit singles made them teen idols in Britain, and cult figures here. Besides the first, other hits included, Amateur Hour, Something for the Girl with Everything (my personal favorite), Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth, and Looks, Looks, Looks. Thier albums of the time, Kimono My House, Propaganda and Indiscreet, were also full of songs.with the same virtues as the hits, off-the-wall subject matter or unusual pov, musical accompaniment that could be either hard rocking, or delicately precious, or both. . After a couple of years, this success had waned, but the Mael brothers soldiered on. At the end of the decade, they started to do electronic disco in the album The Number One Song in Heaven (am I recalling correctly that it was produced by Giorgio Moroder?); this brought them back into the Top Ten charts in Britain. This paved the way for success in the 80s, where in the U.S. their cult status increased to the point of flirting with real popularity throughout the 80s and beyond. Their music was now dressed in danceable New Wave trappings, but otherwise retaining the qualities that always distinguished Sparks, and they placed many songs in the Billboard Modern Tracks chart, as well as some in their Hot Hundred chart. They retain some of their following and remain a popular live act.

I don't know about T.Rex live, having never seen them in concert. I heard the performances could be erratic, especially with Bolan's ingestions of large quantities of booze and drugs. Marc himself said that during the heights of T.Rexstacy @ 1972, it didn' matter what was played, in England and elsewhere, since the non-stop screaming drowned everything out. I did read that his shows on the last British tour with the Damned were very good, with the band being tight, and it was said, the best T.Rex incarnation as far as concerts. However, my comments were about Bolan in Britain, where his career was on an upswing at the time of his death. Yes, in the U.S. he was not a presence at this time. And Bolan no longer held onto the dream of making it in the land of Presley, at least not for the immediate future, but was happy to be back in his native England, where he loved the energy of 1976-77, and all his focus was on Britain, AND where he was doing better than he had since around early 1974. IF he had died a year earlier, before the resurgence going on at time of his death, then the story would have been about how he died a total has-been, throwing away the massive popularity he enjoyed in the early 1970s (again, my comments are about Britain). I don't which story would be sadder, the wasted opportunites, or the cutting short of the renewed promise. PS......I just rememebered reading another Bowie meeting in New York, also in 1974 or early 75, like the one with Lennon. Except this one was with Bowie and old friend Marc Bolan. Bolan later was inspired by the meeting into writing and recording his British Top Twenty hit, "New York City., from the summer of 1975. Apparently, one of the two lines in the song, about seeing a woman with a frog in her hand, actually was witnessed by Bolan and Bowie during the course of their meeting.

Thank you for that great clip. It illustrates several points about Slade I mentioned, besides Holder's Lennon-sounding voice, it is a commercial pop song with a beat, if not quite as Beatle-esque as some of their other songs of the period, but melodic and with simple harmonies. It is from the excellent.film FLAME. "Far Far Away" would be the last in their long list of unbroken Top Three hits in Britain, when it got to No.2 in late 1974. They would not get that high again on the British charts for another 9 years, with 1983's power ballad, "My Oh My", which also got to No. 2.

Glitter, or Glam Rock, was an all-encapsulating term that lumped.many disparate artists together, both in England, where it had huge popularity in the first half of the 70s, and in America, where radio programmers and audiences in general largely rejected the exponents of the trend as "f a * * *ts". In England, all sorts of bands were squeezed in, from 50s retro pop bands like Mud, the Rubettes, Barry Blue Showaddywaddy, and Wizzard (the 50s sound and look was present from the beginning, heavily influenced by T.Rex' Electric Warrior album), to art-rockers like Roxy Music (also.strong.50s sound and look) and Cockney Rebel, to stomping teen idols like Sweet,.Slade and Suzi Quatro, to failed early 60 s singers like Gary Glitter or Alvin Stardust, now in the mode of Elvis or Gene Vincent, to straightforward rockers like Mott the Hoople (more 50s) or Geordie or Alice Cooper, to idiosyncratic artists like Leo Sayer.or Sparks. Even more mainstream.seeming artists like Rod Stewart.and the Faces, or Elton John. Mostly it was about the way they dressed, but also about attitude; they were there to give a real SHOW, and have everyone have Fun. And it wasn't only glitter and platform boots, but also styles from the past. Roxy Music originally started wearing glittering stage wear right out of 50s rock and roll (other than Eno, who went with feathers, eyeshadow, heavy makeup, etc.) Later, they went with more 40s outfits, or in Bryan Ferry's case, gaucho outfits at one point. The point is, it all was glam, looks-wise, and that is how they were perceived.

I totally agree. In 1977, Bolan's career was on the upswing. After his drastic decline in sales since 1973, partially because that is the normal cycle of a teenage idol, as the young girl fans grow up, but largely because his music got so self-indulgently bloated, as he got physically bloated in his indulgences (not a good image for a teen idol). Additionally, like Slade, he spent crucial years away from Britain, where the no longer constant exposure on TV led to an "out of sight, out of mind" situation. His was more of a tax-exile, but he also initially tried to focus on breaking in America, with the same results as as Slade. He finally returned to England, both because his earnings had waned significantly, but also because he missed his land so much. In the end, he was putting together the pieces for a comeback, and possibly least renewed success. His music was stripped of the obnoxious clutter.and back to basics, as the pink energy also renewed his poetic flair in his lyrics. His last album, Dandy in the Underworld, got critical praise as.well as being his best selling lp in 3 years. He had the hit series, and was the first mainstream rock artist to champion the Punk movement (he was called the "Godfather of Punk"), and the respect and affection for this movement was mutual; most of the punk bands had cut their teeth on the glam rock of Bolan and Bowie, etc. They often would state their first concerts were from Bowie's Ziggy Stardust shows, which would influence them enormously, as did the fast pace of songs like Bowie's "Suffragette City" or "Hang on to Yourself", T.Rex' "Solid Gold Easyi Action", or Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz". And Johnny Rotten's red spiky hairstyle, as other punks' variously colored coifs, were also directly inspired by Bowie's Ziggy hairstyle.

I would say that Bowie was just as influential as Elvis and The Beatles (I would add Dylan to this short-list), possibly more so, as he influenced any number of genres and movements from the 70s to the present. This influence has been recognized and acknowledged since at least the late 70s (the tag line in Britain to promote the "Heroes" album in 1977 -the year of Punk- "There's New Wave, there's Old Wave, and there's David Bowie"). Elvis, the Beatles and Bowie were more influential than actually innovators, per se. They were all popularizers of trends that were beginning, and were thus given credit as innovators more than their actual warranting of this. However, Elvis, in as much as he was an innovator, was so only at the beginning of his career. Both Bowie and the Beatles we're so throughout their careers. After their break-up in 1970, the ex-Beatles did what they were known for; there would be no More innovation. Bowie, on the other had, was innovative throughout his decades-long career, and not just in the musical sphere. But with the Beatles' massive success, as opposed to Bowie's going from mass popularity to cult figure, back and forth, it may be a toss-up as to who was actually more influential.

Reminds me of a story I read about Lennon while he was recording in New York, @ 1974-75. It seems he heard a voice coming from the next recording room which sounded.exactly like him. He had to investigate, and popped in next door. It turned out to be Noddy Holder, the raspy-voiced singer of Slade. Despite Slade being Britain's biggest selling group shortly before, around 1973, Lennon was not too familiar with them; at this point he hadn't been in England in a few years. He and Noddy talked for a bit.. This was during Slade's all-out assault to succeed in America, relocating to these shores for a couple of years, touring and recording here in their attempts to crack open this market. It didn't happen for them. In fact, their long stretch away from Britain, added to an earlier stretch out of the spotlight filming their film FLAME (one of the Best Rock and Roll films ever, btw) meant that they lost a good portion of their popularity there, and each release sold less than the last, so that by 1977 they could release an album titled, not so ironically, Whatever Happened to Slade (a very good heavy metal disc btw-which is what the title alluded to, along with their long sojourn abroad). The unfortunate thing about Slade's fall from popularity is that they had moved on from their stomping hits to more melodic, harmony-driven Beatle-esque songs. The diminishing returns on these led them to diversify with the occasional funk, reggae, New wave, even disco number, flailing away at what might hit, in their attempts to win over the resistant yanks; this also why they settled on heavy metal. This would lead to a resurgence in their popularity in England in 1980, where they ended up being last-minute replacements for Black Sabbath at the Reading Heavy Metal festival, and stole the show. They remained popular for most of the 80s, and finally managed to crack the U.S. charts.