filmnoirguy

Well worth the price!

I think Lemmon and Matthau were equally good in both comedies and dramas. Here are my favorites: For comedy, I liked Jack Lemmon best in Some Like It Hot and for his Lead Actor Oscar nod in The Apartment. For drama, I liked him best for his Lead Actor Oscar nod in The Days of Wine and Roses and in Glengarry Glen Ross. Walter Matthau won the Supporting Oscar for The Fortune Cookie and he well deserved it, plus he was nominated for Lead Actor in The Sunshine Boys. He got a Best Actor Oscar nod for Kotch which was directed by Lemmon. And I also liked him in the dramatic The Taki

Remember when Judy Garland's song from A Star Is Born "The Man That Got Away" was criticized for being grammatically incorrect? When asked why, lyricist Ira Gershwin said that it sounded better than "the man who got away." I agree.

For the first time, I saw Side Street with Farley Granger on Movies! Shot on location, it was fun to see what parts of NYC looked like in 1949. Excellent black & white cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg. Supporting cast included Jean Hagen, James Craig, Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens and Cathy O'Donnell as his pregnant wife. Ends with wild chase finale.

I saw Christopher Plummer in the world premiere of the musical Cyrano at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 1973. Then he took it to Broadway and won a Tony. One of his best movie performances was playing Mike Wallace in The Insider.

Another David Lean movie I love is 1984's A Passage to India.

My grandson just turned 12 so we watched Stand By Me together the other night. As Mika pointed out above, Kirby plays the grocer who tells Gordie that he resembles his dead brother. The movie ends with Gordie as an adult (Richard Dreyfuss) saying: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?"

I have a friend who was in charge of VIPs at a major airline in NYC back in the day. I asked him if there were any celebs who were especially rude or caused trouble. He said: "Only one. Lucille Ball. I had to deal with her many times. She was either drunk and making demands by throwing the F word around. Or she was sober and making demands by throwing the F word around."

In BUtterfield 8, Laurence Harvey barks into the phone: "You've GOT to tell me where she is! It's a matter of LIFE AND DEATH!" Eddie Fisher to Elizabeth Taylor: "I'm sick of opening up that door every other day and finding you boozed up, burned out and ugly."

Among Golden Age movie stars who never received the Kennedy Center Honors are Olivia de Havilland, her sister Joan Fontaine, Mickey Rooney, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Debbie Reynolds, Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Jane Wyman, Montgomery Clift, Loretta Young, Doris Day....and the list goes on!

Here are some songs, nominated or not, I think should have won: 1937: "They Can't Take That Away from Me" from Shall We Dance 1944: "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me in St. Louis (Or "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" not nominated from same movie) 1954: "The Man That Got Away" from A Star is Born 1960: "The Second Time Around" from High Time 1964: "A Hard Day's Night" from same (not nominated) 1967: "The Look of Love" from Casino Royale 1977: "Nobody Does It Better" from The Spy Who Loved Me 1980: "On the Road Again" from Honeysuckle Ros

Thank you, Jakeem. Terrific recap of Apted's career. Appreciate it!

My second favorite movie of 1948 is Hamlet. (My favorite, I Remember Mama, received 4 nods but not for Best Pic.) I've seen all of the screen versions of Hamlet and, unlike Hamlet who just couldn't make up his mind, I can: this version is the best. Oscars went to Best Picture, Actor Laurence Olivier, Art-Set Decoration and Costumes. Olivier lost the Director Oscar to John Huston for Treasure of Sierra Madre, who richly deserved to be recognized. As did Walter Huston for Supporting Actor. It is puzzling why Bogart, who gave one of his greatest performances, was not nominated. 1948 was a

I loved Terry Moore best in her Oscar nominated role of Marie Buckholder in 1952's Come Back, Little Sheba. But I gotta tell you, those images in the headline really don't look like balloons!

I liked Gene Kelly as D'Artagnan in 1948's The Three Musketeers, the 1944 film noir Christmas Holiday with Deanna Durbin, and 1958's Marjorie Morningstar with Natalie Wood.