JackFavell
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Posts posted by JackFavell
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Geez! Hawks just referenced himself!
"I saw Gary Cooper in Sergeant York."
!!!!
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Hey, Bronxie, you mentioned *The Thing* the other day, and I am watching it for the first time today. You are right, I've been watching for only 10 minutes and am absolutely convinced that Hawks directed it, no question at all in my mind. The naturalistic overlapping banter, the female scientist laughing and teasing the military officer who's tied up, it all points to Hawks.
Not to belabor the point, but Bill's hair in *Young and Willing* seemed to have a mind of it's own, standing straight up where it shouldn't have as if it were under it's own power. It was like a separate entity.
I agree about his v.o.'s in *Sunset Blvd*. - they are exceptionally nuanced and humorously bitter. How does he retain that sweetness underneath it all? He and Milland could do the most vile things on earth, but still keep their innate charm and grace, plus a little boyish appeal thrown in. They are both "too beguiling." I think Holden has sweetness in spades.
The scene that caught my eye most recently (out of a movie bursting with great scenes) is the one where he finally tells Betty the truth, inviting her over to 10086 SUNSET BLVD. to see for herself what's really going on. He is horrible, laughing at the pain he is causing, coming clean with a vengeance. But all along his derision is focused on himself, and this is what makes me cry every time I see it. It is selfless, or at least he thinks it is, the way he pushes her away. The kind, gentle way he takes her arm and guides her out the door - as if he were escorting her out of the gates of hell, and the grief stricken look on his face when she does leave break my heart. It's as if he were throwing the last good thing in his life away, and clinging to it at the same time.
I totally understand about Shirley. I really love those performances you mentioned, and I think it's tremendous that she broke from the chorus and actually became such a good actress, she is like no one else in the movies, and always seemed to have that natural quality in her. I don't think you can teach someone that.
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 6, 2011 9:50 AM
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Ha! You have Favell-itis.
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Oh I'm the same way! every time I looked up at the screen his hair was flopping in his face, and I wanted tofrush it aside to see that face! It was driving me crazy. At first I wasn't paying too close attention, but then, as I kept looking, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble to try and peer around that mop so I turned it off. Usually longish hair doesn't bother me, but in this case it did. You'd never know it was William Holden at all, because I literally never saw his cute kisser.
You know, we all talk over here about favorite actors and good looking men, and I realize that William Holden scores on both counts. He is definitely on my list of stars for my video.
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I saw the beginning of *Young and Willing*, but Bill's hair was driving me crazy and I had to stop watching.
I really liked *Force of Arms*, after I settled into it - I thought it was going to be a WAR film, in capital letters, but the love story was sweet and touching, and I really liked his chemistry with Nancy Olsen, I always find them so sweet together. I wonder what year Bill became a good actor? Somewhere in the forties he changes into a terribly romantic disillusioned man, and I find his persona after that time to be like catnip to me.
Does anyone know if he went to war? He has a gap in his credits from 1943 to 1947. I think *Rachel and the Stranger* is the first role where he really catches my attention besides being a pretty face. Or maybe it's Billy Wilder's influence? Even in Sabrina, when he's playing the dissolute younger brother (a part he could play in his sleep) I get more from him than in anything he did before 1947.
As for *Two for the Seesaw*, I am attracted and repelled by it. I like Shirley, but agree with Bronxgal that the role starts to feel uncomfortably familiar for me. Mitchum is fantastic in it - I wish he had played more like this one.
The trick is to come in on *Kisses for my President* in the middle - I tried to watch it once before, and hated it. But I came in this time on a very sexy scene with Fred and Polly in bed and who knew? Fred is kissing her, in her scanty nightgown, and his lips linger open mouthed (in a good way) on hers several times! There is a little Valentino in all men I guess given the right circumstances.
The rest was idiotic.
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 5, 2011 9:24 AM
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 5, 2011 9:26 AM
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I only saw one intro, and she didn't say anything about him that I heard.... she was introducing the later William Holden movies. Maybe someone else saw more?
Ha! your fifteen minutes will come, and maybe because you actually know something, it will be more.
Dang it!Get your cable hooked up!
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 4, 2011 1:27 PM
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Oooh those are great words! I like Bibliotheque a lot!
fenetre is good too.
I had no idea that Kate's partner in crime was still acting. She really had the chops to continue, but I guess the roles didn't.
Hey! I was thinking of you last night... guess who subbed for RO? I swear it was Illeana Douglas.
When is RO due back? I miss him, much as i like Illeana.
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 4, 2011 12:54 PM
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*Heavenly Creatures* was a brilliant movie I thought, with such a dark theme, I loved the use of color.
I almost didn't put *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (love the word parapluie!) on my list because it has such a disillusioned ending.
I thought it was about the ephemeral nature of what we think of as true love, how it passes so quickly away. It broke my heart.
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> Now you both have gone and pointed out the other end of the movie for me, Brook's end; his resistance against her love. That's as much of the movie too, though Dietrich is so blinding. I can see von Sternberg yelling through his megaphone now: "You vill be stone, Clive. You are stone!!!"
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> *"SHANGHAI EXPRESS: Or _What Happens When An Immovable Object Meets An Unstoppable Force???"*_
Ha ha! isn't that the truth!
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That album cover made me want to hear this one:
Let Him Run Wild:
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I think you cut to the heart of the movie with those lines. I loved the way the minister changed his mind about her, and then phrased it at the end - something about "love without faith"....
Only Dietrich and Garbo could make self sacrifice so impressive - they both are so strong, it makes what they are doing even more selfless...
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 4, 2011 10:30 AM
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> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}So glad you two have discovered one of my long time favorites, *Shanghai Express*. I've loved this movie forever. Along with *Morocco*, it's my favorite Von Sternberg. SE is an exciting, potently exotic concoction of the golden age of sound stage filmmaking...the kind of hyper romantic movie world that cannot ever be repeated. And Dietrich makes a wonderful instrument for Von Sternberg's imagination and creativity. She's ever bit his creation as the sets and mood. I don't think any other actress could have been as perfect for him, few would have put themselves so totally in his hands, being so willing a Trilby for his Svengali. I like la Dietrich for many reasons, and her loyalty to VSB and always giving him the credit for her career is one of them. She's like Duke was to Pappy, a loyal soldier.
Marlene would be proud to be thought of as a "loyal soldier". She allowed herself to be molded, even though she had a strong will of her own. I think she knew a good thing when she saw it and was grateful to VSB for giving her her very different persona.
When someone invests so much of their heart and soul into a movie - plus time, money, brains and effort, you have to be impressed. Von Sternberg was a filmmaker, above everything, and it's a shame we can't see this kind of movie ever coming to the fore again. The lushness, the romanticism are gone forever, like the old south in Gone with the Wind. Nowadays when they try for the romantic in films, we are inextricably linked with reality and naturalism. It's not an easy combination, though Hollywood seems to want to take the easy way out. Von Sternberg would never have taken the easy way.... perhaps with disastrous consequences for his career.
> Anyway, I love the movie's visual splendor, exoticism and sensuality, and it's remarkable that anyone as wooden as Clive Brook can be the love object and yet not spoil matters. Somehow, watching the movie repeatedly has softened my resistence to him and now I can view him with amusement, laughing at his stiffness that seems too earnest not to be deliberate and tongue-in-cheek. I think he's hilarious. If he's a Cigar Store Indian, then he makes a perfect perch for Dietrich's plumy Bird of Paradise.
I think you are right.... he is perfect in his uprightness, and completely offsets Marlene. I was wracking my brains for who might have played him better, and I could NOT think of a single actor, except maybe for Ronald Colman, and I think he might not have taken the role. The more she teases, the more upright he becomes.... if he were to waver, it would not be so much fun. It's about Doc's fall from the mountaintop, and the further he has to fall, the better we like it. So the more I think about the movie, the more I think Brook is the perfect choice.
You are dead on about Brook, he is hilarious in his misconceptions, so very male, and so very deluded, while foundering around trying to hold her off. He might as well try to hold off the steam from the train whistle. Marlene is insidious, she will get inside you and never let you rest. It would have been easier for him to give in right away, but then he wouldn't have been worth the effort.
> Marvelous screencaps, Jackie. The shot of la Dietrich with the overhead light, smoking alone in the train corridor, is one of my all time favorites in film.
My sister used to have a lot of movie books, and I remember this shot and many other iconic Dietrich shots. There is a book I have, *Four Fabulous Faces* (the other three being Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, and Greta Garbo) with some of the most stunning photos of stars I've ever seen. Then it shows how these particular stars influenced fashion, makeup, and style, and it also shows other stars adopting their looks. It's worth getting a peek at.
> P.S. Good observation about the train being a character, CinemAva. I love the way the sound of its rhythm seems to pulsate with the erotic energy being teased to the surface between Dietrich and Brook.
I love the way you said this. it is a big tease, this movie.
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 4, 2011 10:25 AM
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I've done that. (sheepish grin)
I bet we can agree on this one.
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Oh, Ro! I am so glad you will get to see it! It's really good!
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Oh, Sister! FANTASTIC write-up!
I am so with you on *Shanghai Express.* This is my favorite Von Sternberg now.
It was WONDERFUL. One of the best looking movies I've ever seen, but without the kitsch of *The Scarlet Empress*. I find that I love Von Sternberg, even if he was a task-master and way too profligate.
I really enjoyed what you said about the train being a character - I felt that too - I thought that no one but David Lean could make a train appear that stunning , but I was wrong:
Marlene was awe-inspiringly beautiful, she was the whole movie really - you simply can't take your eyes off of her. She moves, her eyes flicker around, everything she does catches your eye. How Clive Brook could remain such a stick in the mud with her hands all over him, I'll never know. There is a shot where Marlene turns him in her arms and stands behind him, all the while her hands are pressing his chest... I would post it but I can't find it. I don't know how an actor could remain cool when she was touching him like that.
It would have been nice if an actor with a bit more expressiveness played "Doc", though I do see the point in using him - she looked even MORE fantastically sexy because Clive was so stodgy. I wanted her to take him in the worst way and degrade him.
It was great to see Anna May Wong with a meaty role, she was flawless, her scene during and after Oland has got a hold of her was spectacular. Your words are so beautiful about her, I can't write anything more. I really enjoyed how modern the two women's relationship was - it stands out even now, eighty years later, just like the one in *Baby Face* does. Would we be further along in our development as human beings if the production code had never been instituted? It feels like it to me sometimes.
I also thought Warner Oland quite good, bringing a little realistic bureaucratic sympathy to the villain role. I loved the way the film was written - showing the uppity westerners to be no better than their "captors"... It made me laugh every time one of them complained about the swinish behavior of the Chinese, when they were behaving even worse.
Was Louise Closser Hale's little dog a Lhasa Apso?
I thought it quite appropriate that she was cosseting a little Chinese or Tibetan dog, while berating the Chinese people she encountered.
Here are some of the shots from the movie that really caught my attention. I loved the use of shutters and shades in the film.
Our first real glimpse of Shanghai Lily. Before this shot, we see her within a car window, partially blocked by her hat and veil, and turning just a bit away from the camera. Here, she enters the compartment which the fusty minister has just left because he doesn't want to be near "the bad woman" Anna May Wong. Shanghai Lily has no such pretentions. She pulls the shade down just as we see her face clearly. Von Sternberg keeps her mysterious.
Marlene seems to have been incredibly inspiring to Von Sternberg. There is not a shot of her in the film that isn't a piece of art in itself. She's like porcelain:
Using Anna May Wong and Marlene to offset one another was brilliant. Their contempt for the respectable passengers echoes one another, though Wong's seems more racially based, and Marlene's is more humorous. Plus, Von Sternberg again uses them as works of art, setting each other off perfectly:
Here is my favorite shot in the film, it's jawdropping - the conductor passing through the train at night, row upon row of compartments in front of him...
I also LOVE the way Von Sternberg uses extremely slow fades:
SHANGHAI LILY - SPOILED
You make a great comparison to *Grand Hotel*... but the thing I like most is how *Shanghai Express* gives us a huge twist - the most prejudiced man on the train, Rev. Mr. Carmichael (very well played by Lawrence Grant), does an about face by the end of the picture. He really refutes his false notions, at least about Lily. The man we thought was going to be kindly and sympathetic, Mr. Salt, (Eugene Palette), turns out to be easily swayed by the cheap but snooty Mrs. Haggerty, the most prejudiced of the lot.
I love it when Mrs. Haggerty comes into the girls compartment, where they are playing their phonograph too loud. She introduces herself, handing out that infamous card that AMW throws casually on the table, and says, "I hope you girls will come and stay with me at my boarding house..." and one of them says, "What kind of a house did you say it was?" I laughed my head off at that.
I have always liked Marlene. But after her day, I find that I love her, I love her freedom, her strength, her smarts, her bravery, her sensibility, and her sensuality. I love her for what she did in WWII, taking a stand that led to her ostracism from her homeland, because it was RIGHT. She is a model for me of what a woman should be, an open, charitable human being, and if I were as beautiful and defiant of society's mores as she was, I might have lived my life in a similar way.
But most of all I just love to watch her - preferably in stunning black and white.
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Ibet you liked that scene where they are doing the dishes together. I just love it, it actually makes me think of Lombard and Powell married and at home together. I agree with movieman - they still have sparks.
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Shoot! I knew I should have recorded it. I'm going to go start watching now.
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This is the best I've liked Wendell. He really made me like him, which is saying A LOT, since he is at the top of my "WHA? That guy's a movie star?" list. Plus I just realized his initials spell out the french term for bathroom. I thought he really did some pure film acting, like you said, with a lot of pathos. I felt so sorry for him, and somehow he got to me for the first time in a movie.
Help me! I don't want to like Wendell Corey!
Favell's Five Favorite Film Fellas:
1. William Powell
2. Ben Johnson (Is he too obscure? I'll substitute someone else)
3. Charles Boyer
4. Gary Cooper
5. Jimmy Cagney
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> {quote:title=CineMaven wrote:}{quote}Oh my goodness, Jackie.
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> Jackaaa*A*aaay!!
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> You sold out your sister...your own flesh and blood, for raisins.
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> *RAISINS!!!* Well...
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> You know you've got to do penance. Yeah, I'm sayin' it: penance. I need to read your thoughts on "Brainstorm" and "I Walk Alone." You'll never be able to make it up to your sister, but maybe...vicariously through me...through some film reviews you can patch up the pieces of your torn relationship.
I expect the mail is slow right now...I'm expecting my copy of *Brainstorm* sometime in the next week. I watched I Walk Alone two weeks ago, and I have another agonizing confession to make......
h5. I liked Wendell Corey best.
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I like Todd Rundgren - my favorite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXq81-cGJr4
He did a great job producing XTC's Skylarking.
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Monik,
Can you tell me about the *Tovarich* production that was supposed to have Marlene and Connie in it? I found a mere mention of it elsewhere and cannot find any info at all about it.
I'm wishing they had made this alternate version, or that Marlene and Veidt had worked together on something else. Holy smokes that would have been something!
Did they know one another?
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Ha! Yessss.. ... it was me..... (sound of diabolical laughter)
My older sis used to sit up at night, in the top bunk bed, and she would position her dresser mirror so she could see down the hallway right to the TV. I could never watch from my position in the lower bunk, so one night I went and told on her, cause she was being bad.
Sure I did it. I knew my mom would give me raisins if I told. Yup. I did it for the raisins.
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> {quote:title=JakeHolman wrote:}{quote}
> Hi JF,
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> I'm doin' fine, actually. Here in the big T -- better known as Texas.
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> I've gone through several Hurricanes. The last one was IKE. A bad one that did a lot of damage.
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> But the one that left an indelible impression on me was Katrina. I was there when the eye passed through Pass Christian, Bay St Louis and Waveland, MS.
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> The destruction was terrible with immense human suffering. But those people are resilient and tough.
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> Many left the area. Some stayed.
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> Anyway, I hope all is well with you and you are always welcome here.
Hey there! We got through just fine...it's taken me a few days to get back online, and then another day or two to read through all the threads and emails I have missed.
I really enjoyed the Bill Monroe. Classic country always gets to me.
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Maven, I am so sorry for all the things I did to yo.......um, I mean that your little bro and sis put you through!
I didn't know when I was telling on you for stealing the raisins that you would take it so hard.
I am so glad you are giving MMG another chance.... I hope it plays better for you this time through.
P.S. I love what you wrote about Gail Patrick. She was just gorgeous, and I wish she had had a chance to break through with one juicy leading role, where she didn't play an ice queen. I think her voice is thrilling, and her delivery is divine.
Western Movie Rambles
in Westerns
Posted
I think in the silent thread, someone mentioned that the soundtrack for this version was different than the one the last time they showed it.
I'll have to check my copy from the last showing - If the music annoys me or is too distracting, I just turn the sound down. I did that with one of the Lon Chaney films recently. Electronics are not my favorite either when it comes to silent film.
Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 6, 2011 10:25 AM