CelluloidKid

*Thread: Alec Baldwin Co-Host TCM The Essentials Weekly Movie Showcase March 2009!!* http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?messageID=8191545

Wallace Beery was in _Grand Hotel_ (1932) W./Joan Crawford! *NEW STAR: JOAN CRAWFORD!*

U are welcome....enjoy the documentary! Very enlightening!

Sorry if I got some of names wrong...but a goo chuck of the actors were exiled! Thanks for pointing out my bad! Have U watched _Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood_!? Good documentary! The name that I ment to say for the film _Casablanca_ (1942) were: Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Lorre, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey, Helmut Dantine, Marcel Dalio, Ludwig St?ssel and Wolfgang Zilzer _Casablanca_ (1942), trust me & when U watch the documentary, U won't view _Casablanca_ (1942) in the same light!

Hmmmmmm........If a friend came to me and asked for my "Top 3-5 films Released in 1932" HERE ARE MINE: *1) _Grand Hotel_ (1932)* Starring Greta Garbo, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt!! *2) _The Mummy_ (1932)* Starring Boris Karloff! Silly today ...but still fun for a Sta afternoon! *3) _Red Dust_ (1932)* Starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow...NUFF SAID!...Oh, besides film history and legends were born!! *4) _Freaks_ (1932)* - Banned in Europe...Trashed by critics etc...etc....We know the story...Now the film is a "Cult Classic! Tod Browning gave us nightmares. *5) _The Most Dangerous Game_ (1932)* - Fay Wray Screams again..and a Scream Queen was born! Also, the jungle sets were also used for simultaneous filming of jungle scenes in King Kong (1933). Did Fay ever get confused..!?? I wonder!?.

*La vie est bien ici Jean Harlow!!* I just love Jean Harlow...U can tell she lived her short life at 140 MPH...Man I lover her!!!...She is the "Definitive" 30's Movie Star! Their is always that "1" star that defines Each Era of Cinema! & Jean Harlow is that star for the 1930's! All of her comedies were nutty...& just a blast to watch & "Pre-Code"!.. ... I want to go to a party like that in _Bombshell_! LOL! That was pure crazy fun! I always knew that character of 'Lola Burns" was "Loosely" based on Jean Harlow herself. It was mentioned in the book: _Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow_. U should check it out.! Very fascinating to watch _Bombshell_ (1933), & have the following question rolling around in the back of in the back of your head: "Is Jean Harlow Playing Lola Burns..."OR" is Jean Harlow just being who she really was off camera? U kow when the camera stopped rolling??!! Hmmmmm.. Interesting after thought! _Bombshell_ (1933) also is a great Pre-Code film! Great Lines like: Lola Burns: I didn't give you that for a negligee, that's an evening wrap! Loretta: I know, Miss Lola, but the negligee you gave me got all tore up night before last. Lola Burns: Your day off is sure brutal on your lingerie. ROFL!! LOL! I really wish we could get a Jean Harlow box set onto DVD! As a cultural sidenote, _Bombshell_ (1933) led to the creation of the phrase "Blonde Bombshell", Jean Harlow was described as the Blonde Bombshell. Her heavies, or "Gangster Pictures" were among her best! Jean really shown! _The Beast of the City_ (1932) is my all time favorite of her "Gangster" films! *_Dinner at Eight_ (1933), _The Beast of the City_ (1932) & _Hell's Angels_ (1930) are my three (3) all time favorite Jean Harlow films!* *China Seas (1935) is interesting to watch! Strange casting! Strange setting!* I mean, Just watch her in in _Dinner at Eight_ (1933). She explodes on screen!! I just really love her in this film!! She is funny, she is smart as a whip, sharp as a tack, and just hits every line right on the head! Jean Harlow, she really holds her own against such more trained actors like Wallace Beery. It's sad to know her clock was running out of time, and well _Dinner at Eight_ (1933) was the next film in her film cannon was going to push her into become a "Superstar"! After that, it was straight up! _Best Lines_: - _Dinner at Eight_ (1933) ...LOL! OMG! Soooo Pre-Code! Kitty: I was reading a book the other day. Carlotta: Reading a book? Kitty: Yes. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession? Carlotta: Oh, my dear, that's something you need never worry about. Funny story about watching: _Dinner at Eight_ (1933): My dad came to get me for dinner...(His partner is in the hospital.) So it's about 07:30 (MT - Arizona time) ..My dad was at my house at 07:10pm....HUNGRY!"....We ended up leaving for dinner at 08:00pm, Because my dad has only seen bits of _Dinner at Eight_ (1933) (& Because I talk about classic films, buy books on films, Classic films on DVD..etc.. etc...So, all through out dinner off & on we would talk about Jean Harlow and her film career!) Great night! *Interesting side note to _Dinner at Eight_ (1933)* -- See Below ----- *_Per Movie Data Base_:* Jean Harlow's big break came in 1930, when she landed a role in Howard Hughes' World War I epic _Hell's Angels_ (1930), which turned out to be a smash hit. Not long after the film's debut, Hughes sold her contract to MGM for $60,000, and it was there where her career shot to unprecedented heights. Her appearance in Platinum Blonde (1931) cemented her role as America's new sex symbol. The next year her paired with Clark Gable in John Ford's Red Dust (1932), the second of six films she would make with Gable. It was while filming this picture (which took 44 days to complete at a cost of $408,000) that she received word that her new husband, MGM producer Paul Bern, had committed suicide. His death threatened to halt production of the film, and MGM chief Louis B. Mayer had even contacted Tallulah Bankhead to replace Harlow if she were unable to continue, a step that proved to be unnecessary. The film was released late in 1932 and was an instant hit. She was _becoming_ a superstar. In MGM's glittering all-star Dinner at Eight (1933) Jean was at her comedic best as the wife of a ruthless tycoon (Wallace Beery) trying to take over another man's (Lionel Barrymore) failing business. Later that year she played the part of Lola Burns in director Victor Fleming's hit _Bombshell_ (1933). It was a Hollywood parody loosely based on her real-life experience, right down to her greedy stepfather. - More Here - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001318/bio On June 7, 1937, she died from the ailment. She was only 26! WOW! Very sad! *Jean Harlow - March 3, 1911?June 7, 1937!*

*TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: JEAN HARLOW Saturday, January 10th, 2009!* 6:00pm - Dinner At Eight (1933 8:00pm - Bombshell (1933) 9:45pm - Platinum Blonde (1931) 11:30pm - Hold Your Man (1933) 1:00am - The Public Enemy (1931) *All Times are Arizona (MT) - Please Check Local Listings!* *_Jean Harlow - Trivia_* When Jean moved into a house on Club Drive in Beverly Hills her new neighbor was canine superstar Rin Tin Tin. Jean adored the dog and he became a regular guest at her home. In fact, Rin Tin Tin would later die cradled in her arms. Media reports at the time claimed "many men would have gladly traded places with that lucky dog!" Jean had a photographic memory. She never ran lines. She'd simply look over the script, come out of her dressing room and do it perfectly, take after take. To make her hair platinum blonde her hairdresser used peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux Flakes. The day she died, there wasn't one sound in the M-G-M commissary for three hours. Years after her death her mother was admitted to the same hospital and the same exact hospital room where Jean was when she was ill and in that room her mother died. She was the very first film actress to grace the cover of Life magazine in May 1937.

Corsica ... _War and Peace_ (1956) *NEW WORD: Souvenir!*

My Partner Part 2: *_Kim Novak_* Picnic (1955) Middle of the Night (1959) Pal Joey (1957) Vertigo (1958) Bell, Book and Candle (1958) *_Rita Hayworth_* Susan and God (1940) - She even stands out among Miss Joan Crawford! Gilda (1946) The Lady from Shanghai (1948) Affair in Trinidad (1952) Separate Tables (1958) *_Jack Nicholson_* Easy Rider Chinatown As Good as It Gets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest A Few Good Men

My partner read this thread...and he is a huge Billy Wilder fan here is his picks! *Billy Wilder - Director/Writer!* Double Indemnity (1944) The Apartment Stalag 17 Sunset Boulevard Sabrina (1954) *Also, His picks for _Joan Crawford_:* Johnny Guitar Daisy Kenyon Sadie McKee The Women (1939) Reunion in France - Just because it was an odd film! (This is in the words of my partner!) Sudden Fear (1952) *Also, His picks for _Jack Lemmon_:* Mister Roberts (1955) Some Like It Hot (1959) Bell, Book and Candle (1958) The Odd Couple (1968) The Out-of-Towners (1970) *& his picks for, _Walter Matthau_:* The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) The Sunshine Boys (1975) King Creole (1958) Plaza Suite (1971) Dennis the Menace (1993) - I don;t know why I enjoyed this! (This is in the words of my partner!)

_Cher_ I would tell some one to see: Mask Silkwood Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean Tea with Mussolini Suspect

Hmmm for _Sigourney Weaver_ I would say: Alien Galaxy Quest Heartbreakers Working Girl Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey I know 3-5 ...But I would I would throw in: The Year of Living Dangerously

The chemistry between Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake just burns the screen in _The Blue Dahlia_ (1946)!! _The Blue Dahlia_ (1946) was nominated for an Academy Award: Oscar, Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Raymond Chandler; 1947!! However, I always preferred Veronica Lake in _This Gun for Hire_ where is a nightclub magician and singer!!! _The Blue Dahlia_

*_William Holden_* Golden Boy (1939) Sunset Boulevard (1950) Stalag 17 (1953) The Wild Bunch (1969) Picnic (1955)

exile ... Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood - Documentary! *NEW WORD: Auschwitz!*

*Good selection W./Nicholas Ray.!*

*_Film Noir_* Rififi (1955) Double Indemnity (1944) Laura Mildred Pierce Violent Saturday (1955)

Kharis ...._The Mummy's Hand_ (1940) *NEW WORD: Torah!*

Thelma Todd wsa in: _The Bohemian Girl_ (1936) WHICH stars Laurel and Hardy and Thelma Todd in her last role before her mysterious death, & it ws directed by James W. Horne! *NEW DIRECTOR: James W. Horney!*

I got an email from a friend (I'm still waiting for an answer back!) who told me that _Violent Saturday!_ will be shown on TV Feb 29, 2008 ...but what channel I have no Clue...Sorry TCM, but I checked W./AMC and well nothing!! *_Violent Saturday!_* Contrary to popular cliches, a film noir doesn't have to be in set on the mean, rain-slicked backstreets of a cramped, malevolent city, nor does it even have to be in black-and-white ("noir" is really a world-view than a palette). And although purists may argue otherwise, a movie need not have been produced during the tumultuous years of WWII and its immediate aftermath to be considered a true "noir." Case in point: Richard Fleischer's Violent Saturday, a brightly colored, black-hearted look at crime and the American character from 1955 that's just now being re-released in a sparkling new 35mm print. This rarely seen pulp masterpiece was not only shot in blazing DeLuxe Color and ultra-wide CinemaScope, it's set in a seemingly idyllic desert mining town, and most of it unfolds in bright, broad daylight -- the better to see the corruption festering just below the happy surface. Noir? You bet. The Yale-educated Fleischer -- son of the maverick animator Max Fleischer -- kept busy right through 1989, making stuff like Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja (he died in 2006), but back in the '40s and '50s he made as string of B-noirs that rank among the best of the genre. The most well-known is probably the drum-tight Narrow Margin, but Fleischer also gave us the underseen Armored Car Robbery and the excellent Rogue Cop, about rampaging policeman ( Robert Taylor) who makes Bad Lieutenant look like Officer Friendly. (Fleischer also made a number of good, moody crime films durning the '60s and '70s, like true-crime classics The Boston Strangler and 10 Rillington Place, and the solid Elmore Leonard adaptation Mr. Majestyk, starring Charles Bronson.) Violent Saturday, however, just might be Fleischer's best noir; it's certainly his most expansive. Adapted by Sydney Boehm (The Big Heat, Shock Treatment) from William L. Heath's dime-store classic, the film is ostensibly about a bank heist the small but bustling Arizona mining town of Bradenville, where copper is king. Three "salesmen" -- ringleader Stephen McNally, bespectacled cold fish J. Carrol Naish and an unforgettable Lee Marvin, playing a tweaking, benzedrine-sniffing hood with a bad nose-spray habit and a grudge against the world -- check into the Bradenville Hotel then case the bank, which they plan to rob just before noon on the following day -- a Saturday, natch. But the real action is in the town itself. The town's copper scion ( Richard Egan) is a sloppy, unhappily married drunk; his wife ( Margaret Hayes) is the country-club **** who's sleeping with an oily Don Juan (He: "Why do you play golf?" She: "I look good in sweaters"); the prim librarian (played by the wonderful Sylvia Sydney) is a thief and a blackmailer, and the town's milquetoast bank manager ( Tommy Noonan) is a sweaty, drooling peeping tom. Even the ostensible hero ( Victor Mature), the mine superintendent, is crippled by a sense of his own inadequate masculinity: He served on the home front instead of the beaches of Iwo Jima, and his disillusioned young son knows it. Twin Peaks has nothing on this town. Did I mention Ernest Borgnine as a pitchfork-weilding Amish farmer? Tough stuff, indeed, and in true noir fashion, that happy ending is anything but. *Keep an eye peeled and say prayer for an upcoming DVD release!*

_Niagara_ (1953) was a very interesting film Noir.......I remember watching way back for the 1st time in the early 80's ...I would classify _Niagara_ (1953) as a film Noir (Even if it was shot in Technicolor!) The big debate is the end of the film, did MM die or did she live? I mean after all the camera does pan to the elevator, & U do see the elevator go down at the end of the film...was it MM or Mr. Cotton!??!

*Trivia for:* *A Star Is Born (1976)* Barbra Streisand insisted that she wanted Elvis Presley for the part of John Norman Howard. She even went to Las Vegas to see Elvis after one of his performances in 1975 and talked to him directly to convince him to play the part. Elvis wanted to do it but Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, was angry that Streisand did not come to him first. He told the producers that if they wanted Elvis, Elvis's name had to be at the top of the movie poster, above Streisand's name. Moreover, it was told that he asked them a very large sum of money while Elvis hadn't been in a movie since 1969 and nobody knew what he could do at the box-office. Because of all that, Elvis Presley didn't make the movie although he had been Streisand's first choice since the beginning of the project. *This would have made for a lot better film!!*

I like: _Roustabout_ (1964) & _King Creole_ (1958)!

Eleanor Powell was in _Honolulu_ (1939) directed by Edward Buzzell! *NEW DIRECTOR: Edward Buzzell!*

If I suggested "Musicals" to a friend here is my picks! _Musicals:_ Singin' in the Rain (1952) Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) The Sound of Music (1965) Cabaret (1972) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) - The film dialogue is all sung as recitative, even the most casual conversation.