Arturo
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Posts posted by Arturo
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Another underrated gem of Don Ameche (since most of his films.were at Fox, most.must be, as they get limited exposure on FMC, even less on TCM) is GIRL TROUBLE (1942), another late screwball.comedy. This one is screwier than THE MAGNIFICENT DOPE, costars Joan Bennett, and features Billie Burke and Helene Reynolds. Bennett plays a socialite suddenly impoverished, and lets her apartment to South American magnate/playboy Ameche. She passes herself off as the maid. It has some topical wartime situations (ration cards, substitute rubber products), and is quite funny in a silly way.
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As we just had a clue on one of the "games and trivia" threads, you are "Desperately Seeking Susan".
Lol.....sounds like a possible entry in the Let's Mingle thread.
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As Cooper aged, his sallow contenance made him fit into his mature roles. Of course the drawback was often a youthful costar. But in a film like 10 NORTH FREDRICK, there is an innate sadness to him that fits in perfectly, as the underappreciated and henpecked father and husband, finding love in Suzy Parker, as his daughter's college roommate.
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SOME LIKE IT HAUTE
Wherein two male musicians, having witnessed a gangland slaying in Chicago during the Roaring 20s, flee to Florida disguised as women. **** hook up with a female ragtime band, and hide out during a long term.gig at a swanky resort hotel. Unfortunately for them, two real transvestites realize they are men, and being fashion-forward, take offense to the musicians' rather tacky and ill-fitting women's attire. They decide to rat them out to the mob, endangering their.lives in the process.
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Your tribute thread to Linda continues to be quite wonderful, Arturo. I think it's important that we take the time to honour actors like Darnell and Andrews, among others, so that, to some degree, hopefully, they won't be forgotten.
Thanks Tom for your kind words, and.........let's hope these tributes come to pass.
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The following is an example of how much TCM connects with people, and how important it can be in someone's life.
On Saturday I attended a memorial service. The lady who'd died was in her late 80s, had had at least two strokes and was quite debilitated, and had lived the last ten years of her life in a nursing home.
One thing she had was a television set, and a cable subscription that included Turner Classic Movies. She loved it. She watched TCM all the time.She lost her ability to use the remote, but made sure everyone (staff, visitors) knew that as long as it was programmed to TCM, she was happy.
This woman had always enjoyed movies of all kinds. I remember, years ago before her health declined, she used to watch and videotape the old movies from TVO's "Saturday Night at the Movies", with Elwy Yost.
So it was very important for her to be able to get TCM in her little room in that nursing home. Whenever I or any other family member would visit her, we'd sit down and join her in watching whatever was on. Even when it became harder and harder for her to speak, it was clear that she still got a kick out of this wonderful tv station.
The last few years of her life, she didn't have much fun. This is an understatement; she was confined to a wheelchair, had many health problems, and was unable to take part in whatever activities the place provided for its residents. And hey, it was a nursing home...even the best ones are hardly where we'd want to be, the last few years of our lives.
But thank gawd for TCM. It provided her with hours of entertainment and escape from the realities of her life, and kept her company. It made her not particularly happy life in that home so much better.
This reminds me of.my stepfather, who is in his 80s. Recently he entered an assisted living facility, and is apparently liking it. He came over on Thanskgiving, and told.me they allow.him to watch tv in the rec room late into the night. He mentioned that the night before, he had.seen a.movie with "el rey del cine mundial" (the king of world cinema). I guessed Clark Gable, knowing IDIOT'S DELIGHT had been on TCM the night before. I was right. He went on to say he likes watching TCM late at night by himself, but also during the day with others, when he doesn't have dialysis or is dealing with its.effects. The station is popular with most of the other residents. Thank you TCM.
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Every time I watch SECOND CHANCE (1953) starring Robert Mitchum, Linda Darnell and Jack Palance, there is a really annoying extra in one scene. He is so obviously looking into the camera, and reacting overtly to the dialogue, that it's distracting. The scene is during an outdoor boxing match with Mitchum. Darnell has just arrived, and meets with Felipe, who is busy making bets. The guy is in the center background, mostly looking directly at the camera.
Has anyone else noticed a distracting or annoying extra, or one obviously wanting to be noticed?
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Thanks. I actually recorded WAWTG first, then didnt have room for the first showing of Amber. Forced myself to watch WAWTG the next day before the next showing of Amber to make room to record it. So it worked out ok. (except for sitting through WAWTG!) Will post again once I watch it.
FOREVER AMBER will be shown again on FMC, around the 19th or 20 th of this month. There are at least two showings. I will post the times later.
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If it hasn't been mentioned, how about the tussle between.Joan Crawford.and.Mercedes.McCambridge in JOHNNY GUITAR? Joan.seems to have involved in quite.a few of these in her long.career.
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Not sure if it's been mentioned, but a "Don't Like" button can be very useful, even a necessity. Also, the notification re. PMs received seems to not always be accurate.
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SWM, searching for governess for precocious French-speaking female child. Must not mind mood swings of epic proportions, nor blood-curdling screams emanating from the tower.in the North Wing. Companionship and marriage a possibility.
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Tomorrow, Wednesday, 12/9 @ 12:10 pm.est, FMC will show THE MAGNIFICENT DOPE (1942), a film that I consider.an underrated gem in the filmographies of both Don Ameche and Henry Fonda. This late screwball comedy has Ameche and Edward.Everett Horton running a business training school, along with Ameche's fiancee Lynn Bari. The scheme up a contest to drum up enrollments, to identify the Laziest Man in America. The winner is supposed to take their course, and become a successful individual. Hick.Fonda wins, but he ends up changing them, as well.as prominent businessmen like George Barbier. A funny comedy.
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WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS was on a couple.of times.this week on the Fox Movie Channel,.along with NIGHTMARE ALLEY. Many of the studio's films noir were.released.on dvd a few years ago, in the Fox Film Noir series. They have decent prints, feature commentaries and other extras.
NIGHTMARE ALLEY will be on FMC this Thursday and Friday mornings, and WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS on Friday and Saturday.
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On FMC (all times eastern):
Tueaday, 12/8:
3:30 am: HOW TO STEAL A MILLION (1966)..........................6 am: HEAVEN WITH A BARBED WIRE FENCE (1939).............................7:10 am: SUSANNAH OF THE MOUNTIES (1939)............................8:30 am: CALL OF THE WILD (1935)..........................9:55 am: BRIGHAM YOUNG (1940).......................11:50 am: WHITE FEATHER (1955)..........................1:30 pm: SIERRA BARON (1958)................
Wednesday, 12/9:
3 am: SIERRA BARON (1958)..........................4:30 am: CALL OF THE WILD (1935)............................6 am: WHITE FEATHER (1955)......................7:45 am: 13 FIGHTING MEN (1960).........................9 am: THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME (1961)..............................10:50 am: CLAUDIA AND DAVID (1946)...........................12:10 pm: THE MAGNIFICENT DOPE (1942)..........................1:35 pm: IT HAPPENED IN FPATBUSH (1942)..................
Thursday, 12/10:
4 am: THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME (1961)........................6 am: I WAS AN ADVENTURESS (1940)...........................7:30 am: NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947).............................9:30 am: DECISION BEFORE DAWN (1951)............................11:40 am: THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1966)..............................1:30 pm: THE TERRORISTS (1975)................
Friday, 12/11:
3 am: SANDCASTLES (1972)..............................4:15 am: THIS IS MY AFFAIR (1937)...............................6 am: NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947)............................7:55 am: WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950)...........................9:35 am: THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1966)..................................11:25 am: THE TERRORISTS (1975)...............................12:55 pm: THE KREMLIN LETTER (1970)................
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There's nothing quite so sad as wasted potential. Both Linda Darnell and Dana Andrews had some wonderful screen moments during the '40s, memorably co-starred in Fallen Angel where Dana did well and Linda really had a hard boiled triumph as a noir dame. It's certainly easy to understand his obsession with her character.
After 1950, however, both of their careers went into a gradual decline, and fans of the two stars are forced to find films in both of their careers then that had snatches of interest to them.
Who knows, but for Darnell's tragic death, perhaps the two would have been reunited once again on screen, as you suggest, Arturo.
It could've happened. As pointed out here, Dana Andrews costarred later in the decade with Jeanne Crain, another frequent costar since the 40s. Darnell and Andrews did ZERO HOUR, her last movie until she did the aforementioned BLACK SPURS.
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After having just seen In a Lonely Place for the first time, I must say it is probably one of Humphrey Bogart's best film performances. I loved the premise of the film and I loved how ambiguous Bogart's character was. He's framed as one of the protagonists of the story, but his character isn't really a good guy. His tendency toward violence and quick temper outbursts puts his character in doubt. Bogart did an excellent job portraying a conflicted man. A man with all these character flaws, who is suspected of murder. While that is the main plot line, there is another subplot involving Bogart's character, a screenwriter who has toiled unsuccessfully for years writing screenplays that he cannot sell. He is finally contacted to adapt a book to the big screen, but the book turns out to be a trashy pulp fiction type novel--not the type of material Bogart's character aspires to write about. However, he is down on his luck and cannot afford to be picky.
This was a great film and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with some of Bogart's more well known films: Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon, to name a few.
I totally agree with your assessment, this is one of Bogart's best. I'm not sure it is underrated however, at least not on these boards. Many people love this film, with its air of ambiguity and cynicism, and its great writing and directing, and not least of all, its cast,.from Gloria Grahame on down. A total gem.
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At a Black Friday sale, I bought two biographies on Frank Sinatra, including one called "Sinatra In Hollywood". I can't wait to read it.
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I just saw TOWN TAMER, a 1965 western starring Dana Andrews as a former town sheriff looking to settle an old score with the crook who runs a small western town, the crook played by an appropriately cast Bruce Cabot.
This is a quickie economy affair, the most noteworthy aspect of which is that it gave employment to so many Hollywood veterans who undoubtedly needed the work at the time. The cast alone makes the film worth a look, no matter the many failings of the production itself. Featured along with Andrews are Terry Moore, Lyle Bettger, Pat O'Brien as a crooked town judge, Barton MacLane (on the right side of the law, for a change), Lon Chaney Jr as the town mayor who runs a stable, Phil Carey, Colleen Gray, Richard Jaeckel as the town's punk deputy, Jeanne Cagney, Richard Arlen, good ol' Sonny Tufts, Don "Red" Barry, James Brown, Richard Webb and Bob Steele (the cold blooded Canino in The Big Sleep).
To be honest, the story and production values aren't that much and Andrews, physically, at least, looks quite aged and not in the best of shape. When Jaeckel (shades of 15 years earlier when he taunted Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter) refers to Andrews as an "old man," you can understand why.
Andrews has a couple of fist fights in the film in which the face of his stuntman double is so painfully obvious throughout the action that it's almost laughable. There will be a couple of quick insert shots of Dana getting banged up then it's back to the double again who doesn't even look all that much like Andrews.
One of Andrews' fights is with a young, over muscled 6 ft 5 in. thyroid case that could be nicknamed Young Man Mountain because of his size. You almost feel sorry for Andrews' double having to take him on. To the credibility of the film, at least, the scene leaves Andrews lying on the floor, badly beaten. Any other result in this film with this aging leading man and this human Wall of Muscle would have been ludicrous.
The film opens with Andrews, walking along the street with his wife, getting bushwacked by a hidden killer (hired by Cabot to do the job). But the killer's bullet misses Andrews, striking his wife, played (very briefly, obviously) by Colleen Gray, who is killed. This happens before the film's opening titles. After the titles it is two years later, with Andrews looking for the man behind the killer, Cabot, for revenge.
Andrews doesn't know who the actual killer is. But the audience does. It's Lyle Bettger, who, after the titles, is now the sheriff of the small town in which Andrews arrives. Well, one of the most interesting aspects of this little film is how Bettger behaves more sympathetically towards Andrews than any of the others working for crook Cabot (who has much of the town in his hip pocket).
At one point Bettger states that he hates himself over the accidental death of Andrews' wife. Here's the irony - Andrews gets along with him well, not knowing he's his own wife's killer.
It's an interesting premise, and I wish that Town Tamer had explored the possibilities of the irony of this relationship more fully, instilling even more sympathy into Bettger's somewhat reformed character. The fact remains, however, that Andrews and Bettger do give the film's two best performances, partially because of this dynamic in their relations with one another, plus the fact that they also have the two best roles in the film, in my opinion.
In the final analysis, Town Tamer is an okay time waster, more noteworthy for its veteran cast than story line. Call it a geriatric western, if you will. There is the inevitable final showdown, with Andrews standing alone ready to take on a saloon full of bad guys. Rather than being laughable, however, there's a feeling of doom as Andrews is about to perform an act of potential self sacrifice (he faces them all alone to save other towns people from also getting killed).
In the true tradition of western heroes, he's a man about to do what a man's gotta do. I found myself rooting for Dana then, finally a bit emotionally caught in his character's drama. That, at least, is something.
TOWN TAMER was one of the A. C. Lyles' produced quickie westerns, at Paramount studios in the mid 1960's. Despite the miniscule budgets, he was able to get quite a few stars from yesteryear in his productions, to provide, as someone said, work therapy. These oaters were popular at second run houses.
The last film made by my favorite actress, Linda Darnell was in a Lyles western, also from 1965, BLACK SPURS. Despite being billed second to Rory Calhoun, her role as a madam/dance hall hostess was not that significant-third billed Terry Moore had more screen time-but it provided her with her first movie role in several years. During production, she came on the set caring a spear, joking that her role was so small she might as well be a spear-chucker (or something along those lines). Other names include Scott Brady, Patricia Owens, Lon Chaney, Jr.
Unfortunately, Linda died before the film's release. Lyles has stated in the Biography episode on Linda that there were several film offers waiting for her; she might've had a career renaissance. Who knows, maybe one was TOWN TAMER with frequent costar Dana Andrews. We will never know.
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I'm missing the regular doses of Susan Hayward on TCM. Encore Westerns has been showing TULSA, for anyone that's interested, or needs a Hayward fix.
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Off-White Christmas
Bob Wallace & Phil Davis meet the lovely Haynes Sisters in Florida and follow them up to Vermont, where the sisters have a gig.
When they get to Vermont, they pull into the inn where the girls have the gig.
Once in the lobby, they meet up with the goony handy man, beauty queen innkeeper's wife in crazy sweaters, and spoiled brat of a maid. They realize they are in the wrong Vermont Inn. When the innkeeper walks in, they recognize him from the showbiz circuits where he used to be a stand up comedian. When they discover the innkeeper needs help, they put on a stand-up comedy show for him to star in.
Then three local woodsmen walk in and Wallace & Davis run for the hills.
Which one is Other Brother Darryl?
Hit songs from this film musical include "The Best Things Happen While You're Stuttering", "Count Your Sweaters Instead of Sheep", and "Brothers".
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In FOREVER.AMBER, Linda Darnell gets into a fight with Margaret Wycherly, who plays a nurse who is supposed to treat Cornel Wilde, Linda's true love, for the bubonic plague. Instead, Wycherly decides to strangle him in order to steal his gold watch. Darnell wakes up in time to pull her off and fight for her man. She ends up killing the nurse, and has her removed as another plague victim.
Two other catfights had been.scripted and/or filmed.for FA. Each had her fighting with another woman, who take offense when their respective.men pay more attention to Amber when she arrives at their workplace. One is in the den of thieves, over highwayman John.Russell, the other in the royal theater company, over Captain Glenn Langan.
Neither actress in the catfight got a credit, as the parts were eliminated, in the former, or.severely pared back to the role of.extra, in the latter. This was in an attempt to cut the perceived lengthy running time.
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Speedracer, I enjoy the passion of your writeups on studio era films as you are now at that wonderful stage of discovering so many of them. And you are to be envied in making those fresh film discoveries (not that there aren't still a few for me, every now and then, as well). But you're also lucky, too, because the old stuff is now so much more easily accessible (not only through the wonders of TCM, but also through the internet and DVDs) than it was for so many of the rest of us years ago when we often had to scratch around (often late night television broadcasting miserable prints) in order to find them.
I re-watched Andrews just a few months ago in one of those films you mentioned, Where the Sidewalk Ends. I think it has one of the actor's best performances as that tough veteran cop who accidentally kills a suspect after striking him, and then indulges in a coverup, with ramifications upon others. Noir buffs should probably love this one.
SPOILER ALERT: Others may well disagree with me but, generally effective as this film's ending is, I think it would have been even more memorable if Andrews' character, on a suicide mission to get the bad guy, had paid the ultimate price in doing so, rather than the script having found a way to have him survive. We're in a hard dark street world in this film (and Andrews' character has been a hard dark street world guy, badge on his chest or not). To have him, all in the name of saving an innocent man from being executed for an act he has commited (accident ir not), save that man (which he does do in this film anyway, I know) but at the price of his own life, would have been far more memorably redemptive of his character, I feel, and even give him shades of a tragic anit-hero figure.
None of this quibbling about the ending's writing, however, takes away from the fine performance that Andrews gave us.
Speedracer, I enjoy the passion of your writeups on studio era films as you are now at that wonderful stage of discovering so many of them. And you are to be envied in making those fresh film discoveries (not that there aren't still a few for me, every now and then, as well). But you're also lucky, too, because the old stuff is now so much more easily accessible (not only through the wonders of TCM, but also through the internet and DVDs) than it was for so many of the rest of us years ago when we often had to scratch around (often late night television broadcasting miserable prints) in order to find them.
I re-watched Andrews just a few months ago in one of those films you mentioned, Where the Sidewalk Ends. I think it has one of the actor's best performances as that tough veteran cop who accidentally kills a suspect after striking him, and then indulges in a coverup, with ramifications upon others. Noir buffs should probably love this one.
SPOILER ALERT: Others may well disagree with me but, generally effective as this film's ending is, I think it would have been even more memorable if Andrews' character, on a suicide mission to get the bad guy, had paid the ultimate price in doing so, rather than the script having found a way to have him survive. We're in a hard dark street world in this film (and Andrews' character has been a hard dark street world guy, badge on his chest or not). To have him, all in the name of saving an innocent man from being executed for an act he has commited (accident ir not), save that man (which he does do in this film anyway, I know) but at the price of his own life, would have been far more memorably redemptive of his character, I feel, and even give him shades of a tragic anit-hero figure.
None of this quibbling about the ending's writing, however, takes away from the fine performance that Andrews gave us.
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS was on a couple.of times.this week on the Fox Movie Channel,.along with NIGHTMARE ALLEY. Many of the studio's films noir were.released.on dvd a few years ago, in the Fox Film Noir series. They have decent prints, feature commentaries and other extras.
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Don't know if it's been mentioned, but in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES, there is a scene at a dinner table, where there is a discussion about the value of radio commercials. Radio executive Florence Bates is stating how much the commercials are being absorbed by housewives as they go about their daily routine. Thelma Ritter, as Sadie the domestic, is used as an example. Bates says Sadie is subconsciously absorbing it all, saying something like, "First comes saturation. After saturation comes penetration!"
Kirk Douglas chimes in, "Good thing she didn't hear you say that!"
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I think the reason IRMA LA DOUCE was made without the songs, is that by the late 50s, and into the early 60s, film musicals were routinely bombing at the boxoffice, even presold Broadway titles.
Romantic movie "happy endings" that made you want to scream
in General Discussions
Posted
The same.could be said about Michael Wilding's then current marriage to Liz Taylor. At least.they remained.friends.of.sorts after.it.ended.