Big_Bopper
-
Posts
491 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Posts posted by Big_Bopper
-
-
it says:
GENERAL LINE
in 6 parts.
Each reel would be changed & they would have no 2nd projector. So the audience would wait.
In Eisenstein's movies the villain is always the church. Isn't that the truth! Who are the villains here? in Potemkin you had that old priest who made believe he was ko'd whose cross fell & stuck in the wood like a knife. They have to show one movie so the thinking is Potemkin is the least offensive.
In General Line there is a drought & it lasts so long the bishop or whatever organizes a procession where god will intervene & bring rain & then the people will truly believe who has the real god. During the procession which is filmed in his usual style a lamb is dying of thirst & is intercut with the bishop & then...........................................no rain......................................
This board has glitches. I will post something & a few sentences won't post!
From my last post I said IMDB has a great feature called: alternate versions
& then I explained that General Line was finished & Eisenstein was very happy with it but Stalin wanted less art or something but the govt wanted changes & so another version was prepared called:
The Old & New & then I said on IMDB the feature of alternate versions says nothing. So all this mystery about General Line will remain a mystery since it is unofficially banned in usa.
why did this not post? & it happened on my first post! nothing works in this joint.
-
I don't hate TCM but I admit they are candy assed. This whole thing about cable tv being able to present things because there are more channels etc. is just so much rubbish. There is always a reason not to show what I like. In the case of October TCM has a very good reason. It has not been passed for exhibition by Hollywood. Every movie on TCM has to be passed on before it can be shown. In the old days tv stations had their own 16mm prints & could show them whenever. Totalitarianism has taken over our tv. No 16mm film can even be shown! except public domain & not even those.... How did this come to pass? Don't bother to answer because whatever the reason it is here & we're stuck with it. Aint it great! All this freedom? We have a gigantic elephant called the krizchun rite. & because of that Hollywood had to control everything. on the other hand we have home video so its not like a total ban is in effect. If you watch something on home video & its not allowed on tv it becomes like porn. That is why I want what I like on TCM. So it don't make me a perv for liking it.
October has a "god" sequence in which symbols are intercut in such a way that it is not good for the god bizness. so no movie. simple enuf.
there is another movie even worse (or better) in there is no home video even. a complete total ban.
Unlike October if you type in GENERAL LINE on IMDB you get the movie. As little as you can get. 3 or 4 people who saw the movie tell you its good. otherwise there is nothing. So you see if there is no home video available, it is not going to be on TCM.
I have the movie however it is a bad quality censored bootleg. *
On IMDB they have a great feature: alternate versions. after General Line was made something went wrong. this is still shrowded in mystery & since no one can see the movie it will continue the mystery. anyway the russisn govt wanted changes & an alternate version called Old & New was made but it too was not good enuf anyway who nows now that is 70 years ago. on IMDB under alternate versions there is nothing.
General Line has a "god" sequence in which religious people try to end a drought by going on procession. it was unsuccessful in a way that is not good for the god bizness. so no movie. simple enuf.
TCM has a reponsibility to show all kinds of old movies. & I don't know about you but so far they have let me down.
* On IMDB they have a great feature: alternate versions. after General Line was made something went wrong. this is still shrowded in mystery & since no one can see the movie it will continue the mystery. anyway the russisn govt wanted changes & an alternate version called Old & New was made but it too was not good enuf anyway who nows now that is 70 years ago. on IMDB under alternate versions there is nothing
here is a title of the movie
& some pix
-
I have not had TCM continuously since it began but I'm convinced they have never shown October. & I have never seen it on any american tv station. Bravo, A&E, AMC, Max Showtime HBO etc. A complete across the board boycott of the movie. But considering TCM has a silent movie night TCM would be the most likely place but it hasn't. Now you can surmise what the reason is but I'll just call it a coincidence. They just never got around to it!
On IMDB when you hit title & type October you do not get the movie. Then at the bottom it says:
AKA title search for "october"
& if you hit that you get the movie.
But you see it is not "Also Known As" October. It is October. That is its only title. The IMDB people are being disingenuous. I guess if it prevents people from getting info about the movie then that is their intention. So they had to lie a little...so what? No harm no foul.....
Kind of a situation where a movie database becomes ......like Oliver Reed in ZPG when he typed "abortion" & got zapped with electricity!
-
Double Indemnity is a Paramount picture. Big Clock also, So they don't count. I can never afford these packages. Phantom Lady is a good Universal noir.
-
this famous movie by eisenstein is now in a new restored version 143 min. which I have not seen yet. I know TCM is too candy assed to show a movie like this because by showing it they can be accused of advocating the overthrow of our govt. (somebody please do so as we can't get any worse) I don't expect any of you will actually post a reply on this so I'll just ramble on to the great unwashed cybermasses.
I like the movie. & because I like it I want that to be verified by TCM as proper. it is a russian version of Birth of a Nation. they are entitled to tell their history in their movies. What I like is the complicated editing which is way ahead of its time. they have several sequences which are mind boggling. *
another unusual feature is the listings for external reviews. there are very few & the ones that are there don't produce a review. SORRY you don't like the movie IMDB. there are several versions of the movie under the title OCTOBER, so you'd think you could use reviews which can tell you the differences etc.
here is a review:
Camera Journal
October
Russia, silent, 164min, (13,000ft - 8,600ft), 1928
Oktiabr/ Ten Days That Shook the World
1917. The Bolsheviks overthrow the Kerensky government.
Commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, Eisenstein?s October is a rip-roaring epic on a massive scale. When Bolsheviks are massacred by troops, and a bourgeois woman uses a parasol to mutilate a worker, the populace take to the streets and lay siege to the Winter Palace. In the cabinet room a pompous minister says: ?Let us meet the revolutionaries with dignity? but the ministers no longer set the agenda. Workers break in and surge over and around the cabinet table like the wine now flowing in the palace?s ransacked cellar. When Kerensky approaches the opening doors of the Tsarist apartment, Eisenstein intercuts a shot of the **** feathers of a mechanical peacock. The most celebrated scene, The Raising of the Bridges, is cut to rat-a-tat guns, and takes in the astonishing sight of the hanging and falling of a dead white horse. The film wasn?t well-received in Russia, coinciding with Stalin's purging of Trotsky, and Eisenstein was obliged re-edit it, to remove opposition figures. A further nine-hundred feet were pruned for its 1928 European release as Ten Days That Shook The World. Most of the footage was restored in 1967.
d/ed Sergei Eisenstein; sc Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov; ph Edouard Tisse, with Vladimir Nilsen, Vladimir Popov; pd Vasili Kovrigin; m Edmund Meisel
V Nikandrov, Vladimir Popov, Boris Livanov, Chibisov, Smelsky, Edouard Tisse, N Podvoisky, The Red Army, The Red Navy, The People of St Petersburg
"The most brilliant, vivid, inventive and intellectual of all his films. Made, astonishingly, in three months." Peter John Dyer (Films & Filming, August 1959)
"Another curate's egg of lyrical and crude symbolism." Raymond Durgnat (1969)
On the horse off the bridge scene: "In England where animal lovers abound, there could possibly be the occassional spectator who will be privately concerned about whether or not a live horse was subjected to cruelty for the sake of a telling image; and with this kind of question uppermost in the mind, Eisenstein's intention would obviously lose weight." Gordon Gow (Films & Filming, Oct 1973)
/ Before the film?s completion the LA Times reproduced a still from the looting episode as evidence of the ?continuing Bolshevik crimes?.
/ Restored in 1967 with a music score by Shostakovich. The re-release didn?t reach England until 1970.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have two versions of October. They are both the same version but the translations are very different. as it has the shostakovich music on a soundtrack, they weren't able to extend the translations. the titles are just as complicated as the movie. they have a flow & the english interpreters sometimes lose it by trying to give too much info. I'm curious to see the new version as the ones I have run very fast.
on IMDB they list Writer: John Reed. John Reed did not write the movie. The movie was not based on John Reed's book. So how does John Reed's name end up under the writer's listing? Sheer lunacy! John Reed wrote A book about the subject. that is all. I repeat. there is NO connection of John Reed to this movie. NONE. Nada. zilch.
here is another review:
October -- Sergei Eisenstein's overlooked masterwork
? John Nesbit
"We have the right to be proud that to us fell the good fortune of beginning the building of the Soviet State and by doing so, opening a new chapter in the history of the world." Vladimir Lenin
Commissioned by the Soviet Central Committee in 1927 to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the October Revolution, October ( also known as Ten Days that Shook the World) is the last significant silent film of legendary director Sergei Eisenstein. The Russian government desired the finest documentary possible, so they assigned their finest director the task of re-creating the Russian Revolution, and gave him immense resources to create his film. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Eisenstein's films conform to the party line. Yet, the great director is still able to find enough artistic license to experiment.
"In the light of the resolutions of the Central Committee, all workers in art must ... fully subordinate our creative work to the interests of the education of the Soviet people. From this aim we must not take one step aside nor deviate a single iota. We must master the Lenin-Stalin method of perceiving reality and history ... This is a guarantee that our cinematography will be able to surmount all the ideological and artistic failures...and will again begin to create pictures of high quality, worthy of the Stalinist epoch." Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein's epic drama comes as close to being an eyewitness documentary account about Lenin and the Socialist Revolution as possible since Nikolai Podvolsky and other leaders of the uprising served as consultants. Filming the events in their actual locations in Petrograd (later to be named Leningrad, Stalingrad, and return to St. Petersburg) give the film added credibility that historians will find especially fascinating-especially notable is the storming of the actual Winter Palace. On the other hand, modern viewers with little interest in the Russian Revolution will think October overdoes its history, as occasionally events feel like they are tediously filmed in real time.
Nevertheless, Eisenstein ranks as a leading film grammarian-his editing techniques and use of creative camera angles have been studied and imitated for years. Given free creative reign and a large budget to produce October, Eisenstein pulls out all the cinematic tricks he can muster with his impressionistic style and ability construct incredibly complex large-scale mob scenes.
Imagine the technical challenge of staging such scenes in 1927! Filmmakers couldn't rely on CGI to fill in for the thousands of extras involved with these massive scenes. Much like his famous Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin, the famous director communicates a sense of the chaos through a montage that combines large scale shots, a slowly rising bridge with dead horse attached, more intimate shots of a woman with hair draped over the bridge, and a fallen corpse. Individually many of these shots would appear to be lifted from a surrealistic Goya painting, but taken as a whole it makes sense and can only be Eisenstein. This bridge montage stands as the highlight of the historic film.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sounds like a perfect candidate for TCM sunday silents. duh
[this would not post?!]
*THE PROBLEM is I could not find the movie on IMDB! they have chose to NOT list it. I know it sounds odd but if you type in OCTOBER you get alot of stuff but not the eisenstein movie. They decided to list the movie under a spelling that is no known language..here it is OCTYABR...so you must look up eisenstein & then scroll down to the listing & punch it there. seems a very silly thing to do for a database. I suggest you all try & find this movie the usual way. maybe I'm wrong.
*this was supposed to appear where the star is.
-
I love this movie & everything about the movie works great. all the performances are perfect & the direction is as good as it gets.
just that there is a bit that is lacking logic. If you have the movie take a look at it. The framing story is in a courtroom & 7 defendants are on trial for murder or accessory to murder. jinks, cobbit & cherokee get called as witnesses & get up & testify! don't they know they don't have to testify against themselves? this part troubles me. & they have no legal representation. it is the state's case to prove them guilty. & cherokee is a lawyer! it is easy to overlook this & just groove with the movie & maybe thats the best recipe. what do you think?
-
One I would like TCM to show is "Woman on the Run" with ann sheridan & dennis o'keefe. It was filmned in SF. I have it on vhs but the quality is funky. dark. could use an upgrade.
-
I'll trade vhs tapes. I've got over 100. email me at
handycam3@juno.com
we'll discuss it further.
-
I should have found this interview when I started this thread but by luck I did find it & it is great. The best show biz interview I have ever seen. he is so honest .........
I started the thread because Michael Winner's early great british pix are being suppressed. The System I was lucky to get from Canada off CBC & it is so good its hard to believe TCM has never shown it. MGM owns the bastardized version The Girl Getters. The Jokers & I'll Never Forget Whatisname are 2 & 3 of an Oliver Reed trilogy. Thats why I started the thread. so ok heres the interview you be the judge.
http://thecamerajournal.blogspot.com/2007/09/michael-winner.html
-
here are some - you can add more if you like........
intermission by anne baxter 1977
lucky star by margaret lockwood 1955
tall dark & gruesome by christopher lee 1977
millers high life by ann miller 1974
please don't hate me by dmitri tiomkin 1959
take one by mervyn leroy 1975
hollywood hussar by john loder 1977
its a hell of a life by edward dmytryk 1979
shake the stars down by yolande donlan 1976
before I forget by james mason 1982
cagney by cagney 1976
all my yesterdays by edward g robinson 1973
my story by mary astor 1959
a life on film by mary astor 1971
the wind at my back by pat o'brien 1964
a tree is a tree by king vidor 1953
i like what i know by vincent price 1959
in & out of character by basil rathbone 1962
early stages by john gielgud 1953
the original sin by anthony quinn 1972
self portrain by gene tierney 1979
each man in his time by raoul walsh 1974
the laugh is on me by phil silvers 1974
confessions of an actor by laurence olivier 1982
dear me by peter ustinov 1978
memoirs of a professional cad by george sanders 1960
i.e. by mickey rooney 1965
-
lawrence tierney was a nasty boy in The Hoodlum. & I like Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.
-
"well, this is what I call the long arm of coincidence!" ..... the pope is visiting here today.
in the movie it was said: " The pope never visits a city where the newspapers are on strike. well thats show biz! You don't need to respect him just because he pretends he's holy. good point. when I think what they spend on robes & jewels. Look its the pope at yankee stadium! Christ what a mob! it'd be a great location for my yamaha commercial."
I see exactly what you mean RB is very political. it has everything to do with jfk being bumped. at that time it was not talked about.
I just want to say TCM showed the best version ever seen since 1968.
& what I said about the window....in the home video version they show the curtain & the string for the pull down shade & it dissolves ..... the thing is when the girl Terry went out the window, it was mentioned she jumped but actualy the coven threw her out. & taped a note to the window with a bandaid. The castevets were out walking conveniently which gives them an alibi & also seals the suicide in the minds of the cops. the window at the end means Rosemary will meet a similar fate as she now knows too much & can't be trusted. They removed the dissolve. just wanted to clear that up.
-
Ted De Corsia was a great criminal. he even played a crooked cop in The Killing. I liked Nehmiah Persoff in Street of Sinners. Realistic. Anthony Quinn was great as a thug in Naked Street. Raymond Burr played a great gangster in Raw Deal & who could forget Johnny Friendly - Lee j Cobb.
-
What I didn't tell you in the previous post... the tape Paramount Home Video sent me as a replacement had a white label & said "studio copy" - see at that time Paramount had never issued a complete version for the public to buy. back then people were not familiar with the movie. they must have sold hundreds of thousands of the cut version. I was the only person who noticed it was cut & they sent me their only studio copy! The only way I found out what was cut was thru a book which had a detailed synopsis. " The Cinema of Roman Polanski" by ivan butler.
-
It had a sort of queer undercurrent. which is probably why it is not seen often. My thoughts about the tunnel itself is it is much too far to dig. A more practical way would be to prefabricate sections & then drop them into the ocean & connect them. The Atlantic is deep enough so no ship will hit it. maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the ocean is too deep. the pressure would be too great for 1930's tech. I like the leading lady. The one who played the daughter. She was in "Kennel Murder Case".......when I saw her I thought "I can watch this, no problem."
-
I have the English version with Timothy Dalton. Don't think I ever seen the one you mention.
-
Normally I hate movies where the character talks to herself but it works somehow in this movie. Ever wonder if little hollywood elves edit the movies when nobody is watching? An awful lot of movies show signs of tampering.
I bought a vhs of rosemary's baby around 1990 & it was missing some scenes. Bet you're wondering what was cut. I will tell you but first - I called Paramount Home Video & asked them why they sent me a cut movie. They were very nice & told me to send it back & I did & got an uncut version. Anyway the missing scenes: there are 4.
1. after rosemary wakes up
some of the scene was cut -
Guy: "Whats the matter?"...
Rosemary: "nothing" .....
Guy: "I didn't want to miss the night."
Rosemary: "last night wasn't the only split second..."
2. After Hutch leaves
Guy: "that was a nice surprise..."
Rosemary: "guess what he said...I look terrible"
Guy: "good old Hutch, spreading cheer wherever he goes...he is a professional crepe hanger..."
Rosemary: "He isn't a professional crepe hanger."
Guy: "one of the top ranking amateurs."
3. Rosemary goes to meet Hutch at the Radio City. cut
the phone call to Hutch is not cut but after she finds out he's in a coma
4. Rosemary walks & runs into Minnie
Minnie: "Well this is what I call the long arm of coincidence!......I said to myself, "As long as Rosemary's out, I might as well go out & do the last bit of Christmas shopping." ....and here you are & here I am!"........Why, what's the matter, dear?....do you feel alright, Rosemary?.......you poor thing...you know what I think?...I think we ought to be going home now, what do you say?"
Rosemary: "no no you have to finish your Christmas shopping."
Minnie: "Oh shoot .... there's two more weeks yet...."
somebody told me the names of the characters are hints at real life people. Hutch is Hitch. & Grace Cardiff is Grace Kelly... etc.
On the TCM version, the color is normal but on the home video version the scene with the devil is tinted red. At the very end on the movie, Rosemary looks out the window.... on the home video version you see a curtain & the string of a pull down shade. on the TCM version the curtain & string are missing.
little elves. what would we do without them?
-
I don't know if its a sequel but I think it is. Don Q son of zorro 1923 is a sequel to mark of zorro 1920. both with douglas fairbanks. also son of the sheik 1926 is a sequel to the sheik 1921 both with rudolph valentino. maybee rudy he lern de art of sequeling frum doug.
-
with regards to the movie, I watched a few minutes & it was awful. There was no story. none. Nothing happened. The group was standing there & had nothing to do or say! The title change had to do with Catch Us If You Can being old by the time the movie was finished. So they changed it to be able to promote it with a new song. I have a video of Havin a Wild Weekend. I wanted to like the movie but there was nothing to like.
-
Thanks for suggesting that movie. I will be on the lookout for it. It makes sense because Hanks was so blown away by DC5 it stands to reason he would be involved with a movie. & director too. I bet the group is based on DC5.
I don't want to say a miracle happened but close to it. I spoke to an at&t lady about my acct. which was 157$ & they taped it & played it back to a supervisor. They dropped all the charges! I got a new revised bill for $23...... all the bill was computer generated profit where if you are late $25 is added etc. plus they shut off my long distance service but continued to charge me $27 a month! Thats nerve. for once a mega monster corporation took its boot off my neck. so I'll be on the web for awhile but I want my I want my I want my tcm............
-
Normally I choose to think in terms of stuff I like but the 50's Man Who Knew Too Much is so bad it has to be Hitch's worst. This movie is a mess. just awful. doris day singing!
-
Yes I'm still around. But I don't get VH1 Classic no mo. Joan Jett sang "Bits & Pieces" on the show & to tell you the truth she failed to capture the essence of the song. Its virtually impossible to convey the impact of Dave Clark 5 back then. But Tom Hanks knew it & he tried so give him credit. Back in 1964 I had nothing. no money. no records. I was not tuned in to the culture. All I had was radio & it was free. I didn't know what any of the singers looked like. I was really out of it. Talk about a captive audience. That was me.
I think I saw the movie "Havin a wild Weekend" & it was terrible. They had no story. I was able to get all the 45rpm records & they are great. & I have a video of Dave Clark 5 from Disney Channel. Its very good about 45 min. long. Here's a pic. Even color back then was non existent.
-
Its not what you think. I have no interest in him as an actor. But did you see him on VH1 rock & roll hall of fame 2008? He introduced/inducted the Dave Clark Five. Anyway he wrote this long intro which he recited & it appeared to be autobiographical. In this long recitation he was able to mention each of the Dave Clark Five hit songs. The reason I bring this to your attention is its possible to still see it if you get VH1 Classic. I have never seen Tom Hanks so nervous & worked up before. He must have taken weeks to write it & rehearse the speech. Please check this out!
here's dave clark accepting the award. 2 of the group died this year.
-
At this point I am gunna lose phone service as well. I owe Comcast 150$ & at&t 157$...... of which I have nothing to pay with. if the phone goes, internet goes with it. Oh well I'll just have to live my life in the real world & relate to real living people instead of movie characters & cyber folk. I was off everything for 6 months & then I was able to get back on. that was 6 months ago. lifes a **** & then u die
october
in General Discussions
Posted
The General Line aka Old and New (original title: Staroye i novoye) is a 1929 Soviet film directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
The General Line was begun in 1927 as a celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, as championed by old-line Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. Hoping to reach a wide audience, the director forsook his usual practice of emphasizing groups by concentrating on a single rural heroine. Eisenstein briefly abandoned this project to film October: Ten Days That Shook the World, in honour of the 10th anniversary of the Revolution. By the time he was able to return to this film, the Party's attitudes had changed and Trotsky had fallen from grace. As a result, the film was hastily re-edited and sent out in 1929 under a new title, The Old and the New. In later years, archivists restored The General Line to an approximation of Eisenstein's original concept. Much of the director's montage-like imagery?such as using simple props to trace the progress from the agrarian customs of the 19th-century to the more mechanized procedures of the 20th?were common to both versions of the film.
the story of General Line (since you will probably not see it) is this town is dirt poor. you never seen such poverty. they do all the farming by hand. use oxes & horses to pull plows & the animals are soo skinny. the town decides to put their money together & send an emissary to Moscow & try n get modern equipment. The girl Marfa is chosen & she goes to Moscow & the looks on the faces of the people! She talks to the necessary departments of the Central Comittee & the various sub depts. & finally she succeeds in getting the gear. When the Tractor arrives is a grand moment - a dream come true. Then she catches one of the men stealing money to buy booze. There is nothing objectionable except the depiction of the bishop & the lamb.
you can buy the movie here
http://www.ihffilm.com/137.html
All the Soviets were schooled by Griffith films - especially Intolerence...... they tried to adapt Griffith to Soviets stories - its a fact - they admit it. In this movie Eisenstein chose this girl to be his Lilian Gish. She was not an actress.
I just go for this stuff. I used to be a sort of student of russia. I can't tell you how but I was dirt poor as a kid & I relate to it. TCM needs to show all the well known Russian silents. without sound even. just show em. thats what we gots a TCM for. they have shown Earth, End of St. Petersburg & Potemkin ...... not much but its a start.