filmnoirguy

Once again, I'd like to watch Thelma Ritter as Ellen McNulty steal the show in 1951's The Mating Season. She received her second Supporting Oscar nod (6 noms, no wins) and was billed fourth behind Gene Tierney, John Lund and Miriam Hopkins. Directed by Michell Leisen for Paramount.

Tarantino told Bill Maher on his show last Friday that he would be doing one more movie. Talk about pressure! Maybe he should quit with Once Upon a Time....while he's at the top of his game.

50 year old Cary Grant turned down the role of Linus Larabee in 1954's Sabrina because he felt he would look too old opposite 25 year old Audrey Hepburn and 36 year old William Holden. So 55 year old Humphrey Bogart accepted the role. Apparently Grant changed his mind when he starred with Audrey in 1963's Charade.

Thanks for including the often overlooked Dorothy McGuire. I remember when she died in 2001, the Academy Awards show in early 2002 failed to list her in their In Memoriam, later apologizing after a backlash from fans and critics. Whether recreating her Broadway performance in Claudia, starring in its sequel Claudia and David, giving dramatic performances in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Spiral Staircase, The Enchanted Cottage, her Oscar nod in Gentleman's Agreement, Friendly Persuasion and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, or comedy turns in Mister 880, Callaway Went Thataway and Three Coins in the Fountain, plus family films like Swiss Family Robinson and Old Yeller, McGuire was always at the top of her game. The reason I like Geraldine Page so much---when I went to one of her movies I never knew which Page was going to show up. When I compare her performance as Alexandra Del Lago in Sweet Bird of Youth (my personal favorite) to her Evie Jackson in Dear Heart and her interior designer Eve in Interiors to her Oscar winning Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful, I have to remind myself that I'm watching the same actress. She very well could have won Oscars for any or all of those performances.

Totally agree. My favorite Irene Dunne performance was her portrayal of Marta Hanson in 1948's I Remember Mama. Favorite Fredric March performance was his turn as Al Stephenson in 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives.

I'm not going to get mad at you for anything, but for me Jaws the Revenge was the worst sequel. Of course, none of them lived up to the original which was 4 stars all the way.

It's so hot and humid where I live, I'm going to bask in a/c and watch Born on the Fourth of July. 😎

I believe the scene of Dreyfus throwing shovels, dirt and plants out of his window and frantically running around his yard with a wheelbarrow was shortened for the re-release of Close Encounters. Personally, I prefer the original version without the added footage inside the spaceship.

I remember when Jane Fonda was married to Ted Turner, TCM showed the sanitized version of her 1978 movie Coming Home in the wee small hours of the morning. It was the edited print that had been shown on other TV stations with the sex/nudity scene between Fonda's and Jon Voight's characters deleted. (So it must have been shown on TCM sometime between its premiere on 4.14.1994 and their divorce on 5.22.2001.) All hell broke loose with fans and critics alike accusing TCM of not following its own "uncut" rule.

Sitting in a bath tub filled with ice cubes and an old fashioned fan oscillating nearby.

I've loved all of Leslie Caron's performances, especially An American in Paris, Lili, Daddy Long Legs, Gigi, Fanny, The L-Shaped Room, Father Goose, and Chocolat.

My favorites have been Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings. And, no, I won't be hosting in this lifetime.

Hitchcock agrees! He wrote that this was his personal favorite because it took place in a small town with the locals unaware that a serial killer was living in their mist. (Or something like that)

That's Tippi Hedren who also starred in Hitchcock's Marni (1964). According to her auto-bio, Hitch, who loved to cast blondes in his movies, became very upset with her when she wouldn't "play ball" with him, telling her that he would ruin her career, which apparently he did. The brunette in The Birds is Suzanne Pleshette who played Bob Newhart's wife in his sitcom The Bob Newhart Show for 6 seasons in the 1970s.

Another reason: Jean Arthur asked the play's writer-director Garson Kanin to change the story-line so that her character, Billie Dawn, would not be "living in sin" with Harry Brock. She thought it would be detrimental to her reputation as an actress. When he refused, she dropped out of the play, handing the role over to her understudy Judy Holliday.

Do you mean that Paul Douglas starred with Judy Holliday in the Broadway play Born Yesterday? I know that Broderick Crawford starred in the movie version. Born Yesterday is my favorite Judy Holliday movie. And to think she beat out Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd. and Bette Davis in All About Eve for the Oscar that year!

I enjoyed host Dave Karger's and author John Malahy's kickoff to the Summer Movies Series on TCM: Moon Over Miami Starring Betty Grable, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, Carole Landis, Charlotte Greenwood and Jack Haley.

I usually prefer black & white movies, but my favorite Hitchcock film is in color: 1. Rear Window 2. Strangers on a Train 3. North by Northwest 4. Vertigo 5. Psycho 6. Rebecca 7. Spellbound 8. Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock's favorite) 9. Notorious (Pat Hitchcock's favorite) 10. Frenzy

I remember Virginia Leith as William Holden's leading lady (is that term still acceptable?) in 1956's Toward the Unknown. She was quite good, actually. I do agree with Maltin that Black Widow is a dull mystery, and that Rogers and Raft give "remarkably poor performances." But then again, the script gave them nothing to work with.

For 1952, The Bad and the Beautiful got 6 Oscar nods and 5 wins. Best Actor nominee Kirk Douglas lost to Gary Cooper. Biggest disappointment: David Raksin was not nominated for Scoring of a Dramatic Picture. The Best Pic Oscar winner The Greatest Show on Earth received 5 noms. For 2006, the Best Pic Oscar winner was The Departed with 5 nods and 4 wins. Supporting Actor Mark Wahlberg lost to Alan Arkin. Biggest disappointment: Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for Blood Diamond rather than The Departed.

I was an ad agency copywriter/producer who worked with Crosby on three TV commercials that ran on the Bing Crosby Pro Am Golf Tournament. We completed all three commercials in one day and Bing was a joy to work with. He was so professional, the crew called him "one shot Bing" (which he got a big kick out of). You still haven't answered Shank Asu's question: Where did you hear that Bing was an anti-semite?

I love all three of these guys. But then, the 1950s is my favorite decade for Golden Age movies. So, if you're twisting my arm, I would put them in this order: James Dean knocked my socks off when I saw him as Cal Trask in his first film, 1955's East of Eden. He deserved his posthumous Oscar nod (he was killed on Sept 30, 1955), losing to Ernest Borgnine as Marty. His second film as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause, was released shortly after his death on Oct 27, 1955. Probably his most popular movie with teens and young adults. His final film, Giant was released on Nov 24, 1956 and earned him a second posthumous Oscar nomination, losing to Yul Brynner in The King and I. I recently re- watched Giant. His screen time as Jeff Rink was much longer than I had remembered and once again he blew me away. He had been cast to play Rocky Barbella in 1956's Somebody Up There Likes Me and we can only wonder what he could have done with the role. The same can be said about Montgomery Clift's screen debut as Ralph Stevenson in 1948's The Search, followed by Red River that same year and as the cad Morris in 1949's The Heiress. My personal favorites are his performances as George Eastman in 1951's A Place in the Sun and as Robert E. Lee Prewitt in 1953's From Here to Eternity, and the Academy voters agreed. He scored in two more movies with Elizabeth Taylor: As John Wickliff Shawnessy in 1957's Raintree County and as surgeon John Cukrowicz in 1959's Suddenly Last Summer. Besides the last two pictures you mentioned, I would add his performances as TVA admininistrator Chuck Glover in the 1960 drama Wild River, and as Perce Howland in 1961's The Misfits. I'm really not putting Brando in third place here. Ask me tomorrow, and I'll probably change the order around. The Godfather notwithstanding, I also prefer his 1950's performances. Especially as Stanley Kowalski in 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire and as Terry Malloy in 1954's On the Waterfront that earned him two Oscar nods and one win. He also received Oscar nominations as Mexican rancher Emiliano Zapata in 1952's Viva Zapata! as Mark Antony in 1953's Julius Caesar and as Air Force Major Ace Gruver in 1957's Sayonara. Ask teenagers back in the day, and I bet they would add his Johnny Strabler in 1953's The Wild One.

Ever notice how slender and elegant Garland is in the Get Happy number? As an afterthought when the movie was finished, the producer and director decided Summer Stock needed one more big production number. So a couple of months later, Garland was called back to film Get Happy. In the meantime, unhappy with her "chubby" (her word, not mine) appearance in the film, she had gone on a crash diet. Of all her movies, many film historians consider this to be Garland's best musical number. Garland was suppose to join Kelly and Phil Silvers for Heavenly Music. The two guys were in makeup and costume and the crew was prepped to shoot when they got word that Judy had called in sick. Rather than sitting around and wasting the day, Kelly and director Charles Walters decided to film it without her (much to her chagrin). There is a scene backstage when all three are in their costumes. All of the dramatic scenes were filmed first, then the musical numbers were filmed later. Hence Judy appears backstage in costume for a number she never filmed!

Martin Ritt directed. One of my favorites, he also directed Paul Newman in 1963's Hud.

David Lean went out on a high note with A Passage to India. I had forgotten that was his last picture.