rosebette
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Posts posted by rosebette
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On 7/28/2018 at 6:44 AM, TomJH said:
Casanova's Big Night marked Basil Rathbone's return to the big screen for the first time since Dressed to Kill in 1946. Tired of being stereotyped as Sherlock Holmes he had walked away from Hollywood (much to the chagrin of his friend Nigel Bruce) to return to the stage. He would have mixed results there, the highlight being when he played Dr. Sloper on Broadway in The Heiress opposite Wendy Hiller for 410 performances. Rathbone would get a Tony nomination for his performance.
I've often pondered how ironic it would have been if he could have played the role in the film version, as well, reunited with Olivia de Havilland, the former Guy of Gisbourne now playing the former Maid Marian's father. I don't know, though, if Rathbone was even up for consideration for the film role.
Rathbone did a fair amount of early '50s television but he found there was no longer much film work for him when he returned to Hollywood. He would have one marvelous self spoofing turn in Danny Kaye's The Court Jester but soon afterward was appearing in The Black Sleep, a "B" horror schlock with a cast of horror veterans who all needed the work, and a forerunner to the kind of low budget horror/sci fi tripe in which he would primarily get employment during his final years in the '60s.
Rathbone's final two film titles reflect the grim financial times he was going through, Hillbilllys in a Haunted House and a Mexican comedy in which Rathbone's voice was Spanish dubbed, Autopsia de un Fantasma. I don't know if there is an English dubbed version of the latter film. The only one I've seen is the Mexican version with English sub titles. I've yet to sit through the film. Even when appearing in terrible films, though, that had to be demeaning to him, Rathbone, just like Bela Lugosi, gave it his all. Always the professional.
Shortly before his death I sent Rathbone a fan letter. I knew nothing about the type of miserable films in which he was appearing at the time but, based upon my late night television viewings of his '30s and '40s films, extolled the virtues of his performances in Robin Hood and Captain Blood and Zorro, and how much pleasure they brought me. While I didn't receive a response from the actor I like to think that he had the opportunity to read my letter and it briefly warmed his heart to know that there were still fans out there discovering his earlier work and appreciating his tremendous film accomplishments from better days.
Thanks for the mini-tribute to Basil Rathbone, my favorite swordsman (yes, he was a better fencer than Flynn or Power, but like Fred Astaire, he could always help his partner look good, not that Flynn needed much help looking good at anything!), villain, and Sherlock Holmes. I'm sorry that he had passed before I discovered him as an adolescent watching his Sherlock Holmes movies and reading the stories for the first time. I've never seen Cassanova's Big Night, so I'd enjoy seeing him do comedy.
I also wondered about Rathbone pairing with DeHavilland in the film of The Heiress. I've heard a number of speculations about why this didn't happen, one being that he was "blackballed" by a couple of producers and directors for some difficult behavior on Garden of Allah. I find that hard to believe, as he had a reputation of being quite the opposite of his film roles, a charming, intelligent, and thoroughly professional gentleman. (There were also rumors that his domineering wife liked to manage all his contracts.) My own feeling is about whether he would have been accepted as deHavilland's father since he had been cast as a romantic rival for her in two films, even though he was 22 years her senior. There may have also been some less than fatherly chemistry between the two, if you view any of the outtakes and candids from the DVD set of The Adventures of Robin Hood, as well as a few photos on BasilRathbone.net. Not that they were romantically involved, but it does look like they had a lot of fun together on and off the set.
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I'm not a Cher fan, although I enjoyed her in Moonstruck. However, I just watched the Mamma Mia sequel, and like most baby boomers, had to check the entire cast's ages over dinner afterwards. Cher (72) is supposed to be Meryl Streep's (69) mother, and also ex-lover of Andy Garcia (65). Anyway, perhaps I'm just jealous of someone who was on TV when I was in grade school and can afford the plastic surgery to look 10 years younger than I do.
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"One of the most sadistic and sexually perverse of all pre-code films" -- Is this a warning or a selling point? I guess I can't miss this one. You do have a way with words, Tomjh! As my spouse says, DeMille had to show all those people sinning and fornicating to prove how terrible they were. But then, he claims he's not quite convinced and has to rewind the scene of Colbert bathing in ****'s milk.
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21 minutes ago, scsu1975 said:
Thanks for that review. It was a surprising good film, despite being one of the most depressing films I'd ever seen. There were some scenes which seemed out of place, almost comical; the old women whispering about what the Germans do to prisoners, for instance, and Elizabeth Patterson packing heat and poison in case she gets captured.
This film should have been subtitled They Made Me a Hun.
I think it was intended to be comical, I think, to point out the absurdity of the propaganda. There's some irony and foreshadowing in the poison (the purpose for what it's intended and for which it's actually used), but to say more, I'd be offering a spoiler.
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Ever in My Heart (1933) - This was a surprise to me. It's a Warner Pre-code with Barbara Stanwyck, Otto Kruger, and Ralph Bellamy. From the one line synopsis, I expected it to be about German espionage in WWI, but I found this tightly crafter little picture to be an honest look at xenophobia and nationalism and the tragedy that can result. I won't give the whole plot away due to the danger of spoilers, but Stanwyck plays a young woman from a prominent small town family who marries a German academic, pre-WWI, but the anti-German sentiment as the war breaks out destroys their marriage. Stanwyck's performance is a revelation, starting from a young bride to a toughened female in uniform. This is also one of Ralph Bellamy's early roles (already losing the girl in the first reel). Otto Kruger delivers a sensitive and nuanced performance; perhaps if he hadn't been German, he could have been destined for more than supporting roles. Anyway, this film is an excellent argument for the "No film longer than 2 hours" thread, as it takes the viewer through the emotional ringer in about 68 minutes, with no cop outs or pat Hollywood endings. An unrecognized classic that is still relevant today.
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On 7/20/2018 at 10:02 PM, TomJH said:
Any film with Hugh Herbert in it feels like it's three hours long to me.
Are you including the Warners' Busy Berkeley movies? I always enjoy watching one of the blondes snooker him into investing in a show.
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2 minutes ago, TomJH said:
I agree that some films need more than a two hour running time. While I think that GWTW, for example, might have used a little judicious editing in its second half, I can't envision that film being effective at two hours.
Having said that, there a relatively few films over two hours that I will watch a second or third time and that includes GWTW, even though I have the DVD. It just sits there in its tremendous length making me think, "Naw, I'll watch something shorter tonight. Where's that Popeye cartoon?"
I know what you mean. On weekends, Hubs and I search TCM On Demand, and often length is a deciding factor. That's probably why we've become fans of Warners' pre-codes, sharp, spicy, and over in under 90 minutes.
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I can see a 2 hour plus length for a story of epic scope, such as Gone with the Wind, but many of today's movies, particularly adventure/action movies run 2 hours and a half. I watched Wonder Woman a while back and thought it would have been better if they had cut the last 45 minutes. I saw only the first Pirates of the Caribbean, and also felt that would have benefitted from cutting out the last 30 minutes. In fact, that movie made me long for the pirate flicks of Errol Flynn, smartly directly by Michael Curtiz. I don't think any of those exceeded a 2 hour running time by much. When there is one action scene after another, after a certain point, it's just boring and tiresome special effects, without a real narrative arc that has a beginning, middle, climax, and end. I remember reading about the making of The Adventures of Robin Hood, in which a jousting scene was planned for the beginning, but it was eventually discarded because the feeling was that including too much spectacle and action would take away from the energy of the story. At 102 minutes TAORH is the perfect length for an action movie.
The Best Years of Our Lives is in a category of its own; while it takes place over a short period of time, I feel as if I am living with these characters and their problems with every scene. It's one of those movies that's an accumulation of perfect scenes, and when I watch it, I don't want to leave the room and miss any of them.
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5 hours ago, hamradio said:
Talk about a l-o-n-g movie...
6 hours!
This was a miniseries, not a movie, so not intended to be watched in a single sitting.
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4 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
the best thing about HUMORESQUE is when everyone stops reciting dialogue and the film has glorious silent sequences where it's just lighting, camera, actors and director.
the script is so terrible but everything else is A-game in that movie.
Except Oscar Levant's lines. He steals the picture.
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6 hours ago, TomJH said:
That's interesting conjecturing, sagebrush.
I recall one of Flynn's biographers also theorizing about the possibility that Errol had ADHD.
Robert Matzen mentions possible ADHD in Errol and Olivia. Flynn had trouble remembering his lines, even in his younger days, and apparently, occasionally ad-libbed, but if the words fit the scene, it was kept.
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Mare Nostrum (1926) - I saw this on TCM On Demand. I didn't to intend to watch all of it, but I found it visually beautiful and haunting and sad, not the usual Hollywood cliches. Like many later silents, it made me wonder about how far film had come before the advent of sound, and how with sound, the visual aspects of film-making took the back seat. By the way, Dietrich stole her exit in Dishonored from Alice Terry's final scene.
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I own the Citadel The Films of Errol Flynn, which is now being discussed on another thread. It's terrific, great pictures, write-ups, including background on Flynn's life, etc. It's quite weathered, though, as it's probably 40+ years old.
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Even the difference between 1950 and 1956 is surprising, as if he aged 20 years in about 6.
But Goldarn it, in his youth, maybe one of the most beautiful men who ever lived.
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I've heard the cast album with Carol Lawrence. Also, my dad had an album of her singing show tunes. She had a lovely voice and was a gifted dancer. She was married to Robert Goulet, and apparently, they were one of Broadway's "golden" couples.
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A year or so ago, I saw an Actor's Equity production of West Side Story at a local theater. I must admit, it was as if I had never seen the film. There was a rawness and freshness to the performance, and quite frankly, some harsher elements of the book are toned down for the film (Anita is practically raped in the drugstore scene, so her motivation for saying that Maria is dead is much clearer; the language in the movie is also cleaned up considerably, even though the 50s language still doesn't approach the crudity of modern speech). Of course, the production did use a primarily Latino cast for the Puerto Rican roles, which made a huge difference. The actor who played Tony was incandescent. When he sings "Something's Coming," the audience believed that this is a young man filled with hopes and dreams, not just some actor just mouthing the words. I don't know if a film can ever replicate the immediacy and brilliance of Bernstein and Robbins' production in live performance. That being said, I have a hope for Josh Groban in the role of Tony, if a film or televised live production is cast.
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6 hours ago, CaveGirl said:
Enjoyed immensely reading your very insightful post on Flynn, Tom!
I keep thinking about Richard Dreyfuss once saying something about Flynn's ability to make believable on film, the most outrageous exploits written up by authors like Rafael Sabatini, in many of those Warners adventure flicks. I bought the big book with all his films, when I was a teen and would enjoy reading about them and the whole background stories of his career. The beginning part about him coming to America and life with Lily Damita all the way up to his odd ending with Beverly Aadland, still does not diminish his natural abilities on screen and as a serious actor. I don't think Flynn really appreciated his own talents, and was dismissive of them, not realizing he had something intrinsically that others did not, which was not just athleticism and looks but charm.
Is the book The Films of Errol Flynn by Tony Thomas and Rudy Behlmer? My father gave this to me for Christmas when I was 13, and my copy is falling apart. I was in love with Errol when I first saw The Adventures of Robin Hood on syndicated TV at age 10. A few years later, when The Partridge Family and David Cassidy were the rage, the same station ran Captain Blood. That movie made me realize what pallid stuff my peers were idolizing. I think Flynn fit the definition of star, a bright, meteoric presence; you believed he was Robin Hood or Captain Blood. The face, the grace, the voice, the way with a line -- yet, he also burned out, all too soon, due to his own inner demons. Reading the book was a bit of a shock to me, as I realized this idol had feet of clay. Yet, I still have enormous respect for his talent, and also feel a sense of loss when I watch the later films, wondering what could have been if Flynn had chosen a more moderate lifestyle. We get glimpses of the accomplished actor that could have emerged if he had had the self-discipline.
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Some wonderful posts on this thread. However, there should be some kind of warning on SpeedRacer's cellphone background. I think if it were the background on my cell, I'd be easily distracted from whatever navigating I'm attempting via cell phone.
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4 hours ago, TomJH said:
That Forsyte Woman was one of a small handful of films that Flynn called a favourite in his career.
I can understand why since it gave him the opportunity to stretch as an actor by playing a cold, unsympathetic character, and at MGM, a far more prestigious studio than Warner Brothers. Flynn wrote in his autobiography of the fun he had making this film with Greer Garson. The two of them played pranks upon one another, and years later Garson wrote affectionately about Flynn.
The problem is the film is one of those MGM productions that is almost suffocated with "good taste." It's rather slow and a bit dull, though Flynn is the most interesting performer in the film. Errol really tries in this film but come off a bit wooden, at times, in his underplaying. I have the feeling the director may not have given him much assistance.
Interestingly, Flynn had played a role not completely dissimilar in Silver River at Warners shortly before this film. It was a troubled production, though, Flynn having fall outs with buddy director Raoul Walsh (taken off Flynn's upcoming Don Juan project as a result) and Errol made only passing reference to the film in his book. The irony is that, for my money, his performance in that film under Walsh direction's is far more successful (even vulnerable at times) than in the emotionally cold MGM film.
After having viewed two BBC adaptations of this story and having read the book, I would say this film was completely miscast and missing a key element, the undertone of repression and sexuality, particularly in the casting of Greer Garson as Irene. This was a part made for Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, or some other actress who had a persona with undertones of sensuality. Walter Pidgeon and Robert Young as Bohemian types? I could see Errol in either role. I can't imagine a woman defying her position in society for either of these guys.
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Captured (1933) -- This is quite a departure from all the drawing room dramas/comedies and adapted stage plays that we've been seeing Leslie Howard in. It's a Warner's pre-code war film about British prisoners of war, directed by Roy del Ruth, hard-hitting and gritty. Leslie Howard is the commanding officer of a group of British POWS who manages to have a sympathetic relationship with the commandant of the camp, Paul Lukas, to get decent treatment of the soldiers. The Germans are treated even-handedly in this film, not as monsters, but as just doing their jobs, and there is even a scene of camaraderie in the trenches between British and German infantry. In the storyline Howard has left new bride Margaret Lindsay back home (she's on screen for less than 10 minutes, I think), and eventually downed flight pilot Douglas Fairbanks shows up at the camp. There is plenty of friction regarding plot points that I won't reveal here. However, tension and ambiguity about characters' motives and decisions, some pre-code frankness (males shown nude in the shower/dressing area, explicit mention of rape), and some action that moves along like gangbusters. Howard is excellent; his eyes can express more than a thousand words -- he is gifted with dialogue and he underplays throughout, which makes him more sympathetic in some ways than the impulsive Fairbanks character. I think this movie shows that even as early as 1933, Warners' was at the top of the game for moving action and story along in a tight, realistic way. I caught this one on Turner On Demand, and I think it was the Howard movie I most enjoyed. (I slept through Spitfire, I admit.) I'm looking forward to watching the Russion spy movie he made with Kay Francis, which is directed by Mike Curtiz.
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Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, and Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe. I don't even care about the plots in The Big Sleep or Murder My Sweet -- I'd watch them with my eyes closed just for the dialogue.
For TV, I always enjoyed Jim Garner in The Rockford Files. He always had such a great sense of humor and this beleaguered, self-deprecating manner. I was a fan of Remington Steele; the young Pierce Brosnan was easy on the eye, and he and co-star Stephanie Zimbalist had great chemistry. I also enjoy British detective series, especially Inspector Morse (in both the old and the Endeavour incarnations). James Horton's handsome and conscience-stricken Sidney Chambers in Grantchester would be an occasion of sin if he showed up in my Episcopal/Anglican parish -- yum!
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"By the Waterfall" in Footlight Parade (1933). All the musical numbers were supposed to be "Trailers" put on before films, and the chorus girls were supposed to be bused from theater to theater. They could set up a giant fountain and swimming pool at several different theaters? Also, the camera angles, etc., are definitely semi-pornographic. Allegedly, Berkeley got his ideas for his musical numbers while drinking bourbon and sitting in his bathtub, which I could believe.
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3 hours ago, kingrat said:
According to Beau Bridges, his father Lloyd was blacklisted because he invited James Edwards to his house for dinner.
I'm currently reading High Noon by Glenn Frankel,which I highly recommend. It's about Carl Foreman and the blacklist and how this all ultimately tied into that film, but it mentions that Lloyd Bridges was associated with leftist and "Communist" groups early in his career. I put "Communist" in quotes because as most people who know the history of this period understand, "Communist" could mean having an association with any "leftist" or progressive group, so it's a pretty broad label.
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4 hours ago, TomJH said:
Here's the Vera Zorina take on Slaughter from Warners' ON YOUR TOES. The dance starts at the 1:50 mark. And take a look at who Vera's male dance partner is. Okay, he poses while she does the dancing. Still, it's a surprise to see him here.
I saw this on TCM a few months back. It's the musical On Your Toes with the score, but without anyone singing the songs. Eddie Albert is pretty terrific, considering he wasn't a professional dancer. The Slaughter is quite an impressive number, but different from the one in Words and Music. That being said, I enjoyed the Warner's movie more -- a flawed piece, but lots of humor and good playing by the standard Warners' stable of actors. By the way, this clip also shows the superiority of Warners' sound versus MGM.
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I Just Watched...
in General Discussions
Posted
One of my favorite candids of all time. Here's another one. Maybe Errol (and Ouida)
did have something to worry about.