JackFavell

Thanks for the Marie Prevost lobby card and still. I love the deliciously wise and bemused look on her face in the lobby card.

Colleen Moore? It's always gonna be my first guess from now on. A Talmadge? I know it's far fetched but it actually looks like Norma to me. I can't imagine it is.

I never knew Walter Long had a career as a leading man! At least he looks like the lead in that poster..... !!!!

It sure looks like Charles Farrell to me.

Jeff, love the beach pajamas, but I love the Louise Fazenda even more. How gorgeously silvered.

Jeff, I just wanted to say, I never noticed the eyes on the Colleen portrait in blonde, but when I woke up the next morning I just realized it was her. I also wanted to say how much I love the color tones of the Valentino-Banky picture, it's my favorite of your photos this time around.

Nice! I never knew they were around in 1979.

> What you've written could apply to the entire movie-going experience. What WE, as viewers, bring to the film's story, which might have nothing to do with the film...but how we filter it. A few minutes after I posted it I had a premonition you were going to say that! I think that's true of every movie yes. However, to me, Ophuls is the master of subjective, ephemeral feeling. Sometimes, we don't even know how we feel about his characters at any given time, because they are in the act of changing as we watch. He has the gift of showing us someone looking, or seeing for the first time. I think he incorporates emotions that are nostalgic, romantic, laden with more than one viewpoint, and I honestly don't have a clue how he does this. Remembrance and love are among the most personal internal feelings we have, and because his characters basically think out loud to us (even without talking), we are in communication with them all the time during his films. I don't necessarily get that communication when watching something like Out of the Past, for instance. >I am not sure either man wanted Madame as much as he did once she was desired by another - which everyone here has touched on already. > *I don't know about that now. Looks like the General and Baron gave a very good showing of wanting Madame (though the Baron was more demonstrative than the General. Poor guy. Remember when he started to waltz with her and just when the song was ending? Can he not catch a break or what!)* The General was prodded because she was doing exactly what he had been doing for years... I guess you are right, I should not say his love was any less for her before he found out about the Baron, but he suddenly came to realize that he cared for her far more than he showed. Only when the Baron entered the picture, did he wake up, and realize his love. >*Would you rather not be with the one you love (the Countess' plight) or lose the one you love (the General's plight).* I have a feeling my answer to your question will be the only one coming down on the side of losing the one you love. In my life, I have spent a lot of time wanting. Many times, it's been a particular person, who was, through circumstance, timing or whatever, was denied me. With time, the want has gone away, leaving some regret at what I didn't get. However, being the vapid woman I am, over time, even that regret has passed. Sometimes it's taken a long, long time to go away, but it has eventually. I have lost my love as well. It was far more painful than I ever could imagine, and far more painful than the wanting ever was. But with that experience of loss, the loss of something I HAD, I received an abundance of gifts - self knowledge and growth, and the memories of happy and sad times. Without the shared experience, there are no memories, there is no growth, only emptiness left over. This is why I would choose the more painful experience of losing the love I had, rather than not getting the love I wanted. Edited by: JackFavell on Dec 8, 2011 2:31 PM

Oh! I am so stupid. Colleen?

What I find fascinating as this discussion goes on is that I agree with all of you. All of you are right. Ophuls movie is completely subjective. It only exists as we see it. It is whatever we make of it. He leaves enough unsaid and interpretive to give the audience a chance to make up their own minds about what the characters think and do. We come into the movie in the experience of watching it, by adding our own experiences to the story as we watch. He makes no comment of his own, and yet there are layers ans layers of depth to be found here, maybe not in the characters themselves, but in the story and the way actions play out. Ophuls makes flowers out of film, with petals within petals of delicate truths. He can sweep you up emotionally, and yet have acres of reserve that seems cold at first but then changes to depth of feeling. His movies are really about life and how we see it, and on top of that, how we change, how our emotions change. I think, aside from the other intangible things that he is able to convey, he is also making a subtle statement on the vapidity of life in the upper classes. Or maybe the vapidity of life itself for everyone. How the heck does he do that??? I think we can feel for every one of the characters at some point in the story, at some point in our lives. How awful life would be if we couldn't be swept away by love! And yet, how awful life would be if that's how we lived our lives all the time - swept away by a pair of earrings or a cape or some clothes or a pretty girl or whatever - if we never grew to acknowledge our own shallowness. This is what growing up is. I tend to agree that the General is the character who has the most depth, and that the Baron is shallower than he first appears. I thought it wonderful that Ophuls made the main character such a cipher in some ways. I liked Darrieux 's bland, almost vapid, girlish performance. I think Vivien would have given so much weight to it and we would have identified with her so much that the delicate balancing act of good and bad might have been skewed, though I love the idea of it. But perhaps it would have been even more deep with her in the role. Anyway, Ophuls is all about shifts in perception, between us and his characters, and between the characters themselves.....such small things have such drastic effect on people and their emotions, relationships. We are somewhat mercurial creatures. I am not sure either man wanted Madame as much as he did once she was desired by another - which everyone here has touched on already. And Madame did not want the things she had, she wanted the one thing she could not have. What a sad idea of humanity, but I think it's true. We are deluded at best. She really was "the earrings" , only dear when invested with something "other". In the end, she was less important to either of them than getting satisfaction in a duel. So things and even people are only important as they relate to US and what our feelings are. This movie is all about appearances, as opposed to the reality of things. And appearances are ephemeral. The truth is, as long as the status quo was kept up, between the General and Madame de.... life was pretty good and they had some semblance of happiness. It seemed stifling at first, but when looking back seems better than it was at the beginning. How tragic that that small happiness was thrown away for what was presumed to be a large happiness, one which faded as soon as it was tested. How does Ophuls makes such a grand love turn small? Fascinating. Such deep thoughts should not be allowed in the movies. Edited by: JackFavell on Dec 8, 2011 8:49 AM

Bebe was my other choice, but I don't see where you gave it away! Darn it.

I'm always wrong, but is it Mary Astor?

h5. Wow!

Hey, did anyone see *Redemption* the other morning? While not the best picture I have ever seen, I thought Gilbert was quite good in it, and it was a perfect role for him. Maybe it's because I was expecting a terrible movie, but I liked it very much. I've certainly seen many pre-codes that were far worse. Oh, and his voice? It sounded better than in any other of his pre-codes.

all your thirties favorites I couldn't possibly tell you all my thirties favorites, because there would be pages and pages of character actors, bit players....etc. But I'll narrow down my very favorites to a manageable list. I can't even say yet how many will be on it.

I think I get it... Prison = boring.

I'll be blunt. I don't enjoy the male female appeal categorizing. I think I do understand it, and if it makes you happy then that's great, I won't ever complain. However, it makes me uncomfortable making those kinds of generalizations - this film is for women, this film is for men.... this movie star is aimed at so and so....I just can't get behind that way of thinking at all. It is very foreign to me and makes me feel like I am putting people I love in a little tiny box. That said, I don't mind if others discuss the male female dynamics of films or stars. It's interesting to read.

Hi Jake! I'm not a huge Billy Squier fan, but it's nice to see you back on the boards.

Ah, OK. So The Great Escape is a captive film, and Brute Force is a prison film.

I am so sorry I ranted at you... I completely skipped over the last page of posts, I came to the top of page two and thought I was at the top of page one. Then when I "returned to thread", I saw that you had already agreed with MissG. I would never have written my overblown defense of Carl had I seen that post. But thanks for going back over it, and looking again. I can't think of too many people who once they give their opinion, will actually go back look at the film, and change their minds. Thank you for that! Does the ending strike you as any better now? And what's the difference between a prison film and a captive film? Maven, I knew someone was going to notice that I hadn't replied to the list making! I have to think about my favorites from the thirties. I can definitely do a quick list of fve, but I might forget someone important. Do I have to stick with five, or can I do ten? Can I also do a long list, so I can include some favorites not always given credit? You know, I gotta get my character actors in. Edited by: JackFavell on Dec 5, 2011 5:48 PM

So that's how they make them! I've seen the irons, even saw some last week when shopping, but I never could figure out how they made the cookies. My mother in law from Germany says they used to make elderberry flower pancakes in much the same way. They would take the flower, dip it in the batter and fry them up with the flower still inside. http://www.amiexpat.com/recipes/real-german-cuisine/hollerkuchle-elder-flower-pancakes/

I always loved *Fitzwilly* when I was a kid, but I did miss it this time. I suspect it will be on again before Christmas... but I haven't checked the sched yet.

I am liking Irene better and better. You do have to watch Life with Father, just to see what a really good actress Dunne is - she plays totally against type there. Now I find Irene remote, and Loy completely warm and accessible.