JackFavell

Unfortunately, I haven't seen the whole thing yet. Unfortunately, my recorder blitzed out on me during this film. I have a fairly old recorder , but it has a hard drive I don't want to give up, even though it is temperamental. I have to stay awake to hit the record button and even then, I have to make sure it doesn't cut out on me during a film. I am looking forward to seeing (and hearing) the whole film eventually.

No big. In our family we share. Now I have to work up the gumption to say I want the TV for Lon Chaney day.

Ha! I am missing most of today's programming - it was all I could do to wrangle the TV for one day of Ben Johnson. If I now say I want to stay home and watch Claudette all day, I'll be facing a hurricane of protest.

Perry Mason's theme used to scare the bejesus out of me when I was a kid.

I like Claudette, but I think everything you say is true! She is probably a very limited actress, but I find her more expressive than you do, and I like her within that comfortable range. I just find she exudes warmth. And her voice is like velvet. I think some of the movies today are not her at her best. Did you see the Secret Heart? I think she is quite good in it, as is June Allyson, surprisingly. I prefer Colbert in the thirties and forties myself. I am looking foreward to getting a copy of She Married Her Boss. I need more Gregory La Cava movies, his timing is wonderful. Let's see if this one matches up with My Man Godfrey and Stage Door.

I never thought of Odets as similar to Serling before.... I feel a little sad because I think Serling is actually the more talented. I am not sure I can reconcile the two writers with one another.... kingrat wrote elsewhere that Odets at his worst is like brown gravy poured over everything , and I can totally see this....But Serling to me is razor sharp in his approach. Both are questioning, ambivalent writers though, and their themes are similar. Both men seem equally drawn to the grey flannel world, and equally repulsed by it. Odets as a human being may be second only to Elmer Rice in creepiness. I love what you say about JJ's glasses, and that he sees only what he wants to. Yet there is his first scene on the balcony (after looking in on a sleeping Susie, immediately after Sidney calls him up with the (false) news that Steve has been taken care of) showing Hunsecker staring down at his lighted night city, the dirty town he loves, with the most bereft, saddened look on his face, as though he knows he's already lost Susie. However, I can't tell if he really knows why, or if he truly does but, like the scorpion who stings, it's just his "metier", and he can't change doing what comes naturally. Did you happen to catch Mr. Arkadin the other day? I bet you did! Everything comes around on itself eventually. The scorpion is the crux of that movie, and of Welles work in general - can a man change into something he is not, even if following his own nature means his own demise? A man in youth has the strength to change, but not the self knowledge, whereas the man in age has the self awareness to change but not the will. The parable of The Frog and the Scorpion is pre-eminent in that film..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugmy_zlyPoQ Now can you imagine Orson in SSOS?

*OMG!* Hope you enjoyed it. Looks like you did.

I hear you, Maven - and you are the MAVEN, so you know what you are talking about! These actresses should be spread across the landscape of our cinema more than they are. I was simply impressed with the acting that Viola Spencer, Tyson, and Octavia Spencer did, even if the movie was only so so, and was even perhaps wrong. Thanks for being honest about it! Now to see Alfre Woodard and Viola Davis in a movie together - WHEW!

Gosh, I love Wagon Master. :x

Dreamy!

h1. *Thanks TCM.*

cicely tyson cicely tyson cicely tyson cicely tyson cicely tyson I just saw THE HELP. Even in a movie in which there are other actresses doing some great acting, and she only gets about 3 minutes of full screen time, she is INCREDIBLE. I swear all she has to do is show up on the screen and she moves me to tears. Has she gotten a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars? Now there is one actress who deserves it.

Yes, I agree James Jazz Guitar, it is nice. I am happy that TCM Programmer mixes it up a bit, giving stars like Ann Dvorak, Conrad Veidt and even Ben Johnson a day to shine, in amongst the blockbuster stars like Cary Grant, Montgomery Clift and Joan Crawford. And Ben's career was a lot longer than some stars who are considered "big". He won an academy award, and starred in several westerns. He is unlikely ever to get star of the month treatment, so I'll content myself to bask in his warm presence for today. I am guessing that TCM will be giving Joel McCrea a month of his own soon. Edited by: JackFavell on Aug 11, 2011 6:18 PM

Thank you! :x

Glad you are finally almost done with the day's work, Goddess... I know I'm excited about the lineup tonight! I still can't believe that TCM actually programmed an entire day of Ben Johnson movies. I feel like I am walking on a cloud! To look up and see him on the TV for 24 hours... HEAVEN!

I like SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, avidly, avidly, lol. It reeks of Clifford Odets, who fascinates me, because he seemed to be all about the tensions and conflicts between art vs. commerce -- sensitive creative souls forced to sell out in the market places of life, something I think Odets knew intimately. I haven't read the Lehman novella the movie is adapted from, but SSOS's dialogue sounds an awful lot like idealist-turned-cynic Odets. It seems like you also understand that conflict - do you have a thwarted art career in your past? I think most artists understand this all too well. The relationships between JJ, Sidney, Steve, Kello, and Susie, are filled with sado-masochistic metaphors. "Punish", "punishment" "chastise", "discipline", "whip" "threat" are words used to queasy power-play effect. Sidney's mantra of dog-eat-dog is reinforced with this language of dominance and submission. *Hunsecker is an ego-driven, rigid, self-loathing, sexually repressed gargoyle who can astutely size up Sidney's world of "moral twilight" but apparently can't see into his own diseased soul, although on some level he knows he's damned.* Ah...so that;s why he wears those glasses - not to see the better with, but to block out anything he doesn't want to see. Kinetic Falco is almost like the stolid, immobile, reptilian Hunsecker's id, let loose for the destruction of enemies, then reigned in for purposes of self-protective control before the cage is opened once again. That's beautiful! Even those pictures I posted show Sydney as small, like a ventriloquist's dummy or a puppet to be released and pulled back again. No, I don't think Susie is an innocent. Let's just leave it at that for now, because I don't even want to think about possible scenarios... I find that the most fascinating thing in your post. I have to go back and watch Susie's scenes with this in mind. Tony and Burt were born to play these roles. Curtis as Sidney Falco is like some curly-haired, sleazy urban Pan. Lancaster as JJ Hunsecker has infinite reserves of coiled, basilisk, satanic grace and sinister power. Their unholy pas de deux is an acrid "joy" to watch. You bet they were, and your words are PERFECT. How do you capture someone in words like that? It's such a gift. I can't believe this film was not popular, and yet I can. SSOS is I think a masterpiece, and possibly the best film to come out of the 1950's. Screenplay, direction, music, entire cast, it's pitch-perfect, effortlessly trenchant, authentically rancid, and, of course, brilliantly quotable. I think you may be right. It's definitely on the top of my favorite fifties movies, and I only saw it for the first time a few months ago.

Ha! Aren't they pretty?

Wow! That's fascinating, Bronxie! I really love your take on SSOS. I had no idea you liked it so much, nor that you knew anything about Clifford Odets. I have always liked Odets, even when he is at his most swampy or overbaked. I acted in his play *Waiting for Lefty* some years ago and always felt a respect for his ideals, though he never really lived up to his initial promise as a playwright. I still think he has something to say nowadays. When I was looking up Odets just now, I found a photo from SSOS thrown in amongst the photos of the intellectual looking writer. I don't have a copy of the film of my own, so the photo I saw suddenly propelled me further into your discussion of Sydney and JJ. The first thing I thought of when looking at this picture of the two men is how much it reminded me of *Citizen Kane* - the scene where Kane and his wife are sitting at the table and years pass until they finally have nothing to say to one another? I realized how much Sydney and JJ are like a husband and wife.... Look at Sydney's face - the hurt, reproachful suppressed anger there .... and look at JJ, purposefully looking down and away, negating Sydney by his very body position, hiding behind his glasses. Like George and Martha in *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf*. Any wife or husband who has gone through a bad stretch in their marriage knows those looks only too well. They have an almost too intimate knowledge of one another. Here is another intimate photo of the two of them together: Look how close they are to one another... I am tempted to say that Sydney is the wife and JJ is the husband, but I dislike that kind of categorization in general. So let's just say that Sydney is the submissive, JJ is the dominant one. How many couples have you seen at a party in this same stance? This whole movie is about crowding, in a crowded city: where everyone is looking over someone else's shoulder: But in this movie, that closeness is raised to the nth degree. Crowding as a technique for subverting the will. Or crowding someone out: Look how small Sydney's head is in the above shot. I'd been wondering what gave this movie it's incestuous feeling - How did MacKendrick capture that sado-**** that you talk about with his camera? and I found out by accident. There are tons of photos from the movie online showing those dominant and submissive set-ups, which to me anyway are not clear when watching the movie... it just moves too fast and the words bite too hard for you to notice the actual set-ups or the way it's filmed (except for the crisp black and whiteness of it). One knows it is done well, and it's exciting to see the camera moving so expertly to show every grain of dirt, every bead of sweat...... but how MacKendrick achieved such fear and emotional pitch eluded me till I saw these photos. Even the camera lurks way too close, holding the actors in place with nowhere to go: the actors are exposed and we are a witness to those jangling nerve endings. No wonder the characters come out, say things inappropriately. They can't help themselves, they've been crowded for too long. SSOS reminds me of a family reunion in which the members of the family can't stand one another, but can't get away from each other either. Edited by: JackFavell on Aug 11, 2011 2:59 PM

Oh, holy smokes, wbs! I would have had a heart attack! I'm so glad you got the channel back in time to see most of Ben's SUTS day! whew! Thank goodness.

OH MY GOSH! IT'S BEAUTIFUL! Thanks, MIssG!!!!!! How cool is that?!!!

Good Morning, Ben Johnson fans!

It's already done! And just in case there is any doubt who to thank for tomorrow's lineup:

> I have Ellery Queen in my rental queue, too. Never have seen it but it looks pretty good. Movies based on the character go back at least to the 1930s. I hope you like it. It was a favorite of mine - great theme too. by Elmer Bernstein. I think it was one of those shows that just barely hung on to it's time slot, with poor ratings. The production values could be better, and sometimes it's a bit trite, but it has a lot of quaint charm, thanks to the cast - Jim Hutton is a doll, and David Wayne is his crusty old dad. And of course, Higgins!