rosebette

I think it's Shirley Mills, who played Ruthie, the younger daughter in Grapes of Wrath.

http://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/movies/885/Four-s-A-Crowd/ gets 404 error, logged in as Verizon Fios user using TCM on Demand. Please fix ASAP.

The "Gotta Dance" number is not a "vanity piece"; it's a production number. Typically, most standard movie musicals end with a production number, and since this is a movie about making a movie musical, and the number is the last number that's to appear in the film within a film, it fits within that context. Also, the number doesn't just focus on Gene, but also on the other dancers and the storyline of the number. It's also the only time Gene has a big number with a female dancer at his level in the movie. Gene's number with Debbie Reynolds is simple and abbreviated, and the Good Mornin number is a trio. And as a another poster mentioned, would we deprive audiences of Cyd Charisse?

Pursuit to Algiers was described, I think, as "the Love Boat" of the series. I still enjoy that one, which is shown often. One point to note, the mildly flirtatious attitude Holmes takes to the young woman on the ship. There is also some nice work by Nigel Bruce at one point when he believes Holmes is dead. For Basil fanatics, I highly recommend two sites www.basilrathbone.net and http://thegreatbaz.wordpress.com/ Both sites reveal dimensions and new information about this respected and multi-talented actor.

I've never seen The Scarlet Claw; it's always shown at a time when I'm not available to see it. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the best of all the films, but I've never seen all the Universal films. Rathbone's Holmes is the best -- that voice, the razor sharp intelligence, even the physicality that he gives the role. Also, he has a subdued sexiness (perhaps that's what we pick up in all those villainous roles). Holmes is written as asexual, but there's a definite vibe in Rathbone's scenes with women.

While Gene Kelly was known for his ego and perfectionism, I'm a little concerned about some of the other aspersions cast on his character. His first wife, Betsy Blair, was a highly precocious and politically involved young woman, not a na?ve school girl (in fact, more political than Kelly, to the extent that she may have been subject to the blacklist). She was 17 when they married, but you must remember that many young women married at that age in the 40s and 50s. They divorced in the mid-50s because she could no longer stand in his "shadow," but even after the divorce he went to bat for her when the blacklist tried to keep her from getting her role in Marty. Gene began seeing Jean Coyne Stanley Donen's ex-wife after the divorce; also, Donen was no saint, having been married 5 times and been involved in numerous affairs. Gene and Jean Coyne stayed together until her death from cancer in the 1970s. The reason Kelly and Donen disliked Busby Berkeley was that his philosophy of choreography and filming dance was completely different from theirs. Donen admitted as much in his interview in "The Story of Film," although he also admitted to admiring Berkeley later. Berkeley was more focused on what the camera was doing than on the dancers themselves, which was the opposite of both Kelly and Donen's ideas about dance on film. A good deal of the above information is in Alvin Yudoff's bio, Gene Kelly: Life of Dance and Dreams. According to Yudoff, he was as hard on himself and his own performance as he was on others. In that respect, he was like another dancer, Fred Astaire, who apparently was also a perfectionist, but Astaire was a more likeable and modest personality. I'm of the opinion that Kelly (and Donen as well) was one of the great artists of musical film. He created some of the most wonderful musical moments in film history. If he was a man of ego, so be it. Are we going to tear Orson Welles apart because he had a huge ego and criticize his work based on how he treated Rita Hayworth ?

I was too cowardly for the rants that might come if I expressed your opinion, overeasy. I completely agree. I saw Giant a few weeks back on another station, and Dean's dialogue was completely unintelligible. I couldn't see why the daughter in the story would be attracted to him. I also think Rebel Without a Cause is an overwrought movie and Dean comes across as a neurotic and self-absorbed adolescent. Director Nicholas Ray did far superior work in They Live by Night with Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell (now, there are two really lost, desperate young people) and even in On Dangerous Ground, which was shown on Robert Ryan's birthday. Watch Ryan and Ida Lupino in that one -- some of those scenes were so full of sensitivity and loneliness that I was close to tears. Dean made 3 films and is lionized, whereas these two pros (one who became one of the first woman directors) don't have nearly the name recognition that he has.

A tippet is a small fur piece, sometimes even a capelet. This is a wonderful movie. My favorite scene -- where she breaks the piggy bank.

Classic stars -- either Basil Rathbone or Ronald Colman. If you've been following the website The Baz http://thegreatbaz.wordpress.com/ or Basilrathbone.net, you'll learn that Rathbone was a charming, intelligent, and sensitive man, very well-liked among his colleagues, quite different from his on-screen image as a villain. He did have a long marriage, but possibly not as happy as has been assumed. I find Ronald Colman to be sensitive, intelligent, and soulful. I fell in love with him when I first saw him in Lost Horizon on TV when I was 11 or 12. I've always been haunted by him as the character in that film, as well as Smitty in Random Harvest. Apparently, he was a somewhat shy and gentle man, and also long-married. I guess what I'm looking for is someone to have long talks with, not just hop in the sack with. I could name any number of actors for the latter! It's kind of interesting that one woman posted her "lesbian partners." I'd have to say if l leaned that way, I'd choose either Kay Francis or Barbara Stanwyck. I don't think Kay would be faithful, though, but I love her in that riding outfit in The Notorious Affair, right before she goes into the stable with the groom!

I only saw a bit of the Hayworth version, but saw all of Rain, even though I said I was going to bed. Crawford was outstanding, a really raw and honest performance. When she "converts" and tells "Handsome" that she won't be going to Australia, there is such torment, sadness, guilt, and regret. I think that role and Grand Hotel were her two best early performances. Walter Huston is also outstanding. His face in that last scene expresses the torment that he is going through. The conversion scene plays a bit like a seduction, which is perhaps as it should. As I said, I didn't see the Hayworth version, but I wonder whether she had the acting chops for the type of performance we see from Crawford.

I just saw this movie on TCM On Demand. What a heartbreaking and beautiful film. I believe the lead actress deserved to be known as the Chinese Garbo, and in fact, her natural and sensitive performance exceeds many of Garbo's. Unlike many silent films, this one was beautifully underplayed, and the subtle piano score helped. This is one of the few films Cousins raved about that I agree on.

I agree with this assessment of Cousins. One thing that has been bothering me is that Cousins will talk about a technique or a director from an era, such as the 30s, and then show a film completely out of that era, often something from the 80s, 90s, or later using an example of that technique. He did this several times in the 30s episode. As far as the idea of the romanticization of the gangster, watching the gritty Public Enemy, with its completely amoral (an eminently watchable) Tom Powers as depicted by Cagney, I think that both Enemy and the original Scarface (not the remake) are two of the sparest and unromanticized gangster films ever made. Look at these two movies compared to something like the Godfather. I also find some of Cousins' worship of the Europeans laughable. Last week when he showed the clip from French film where the couple makes love in the mud with the crowd looking on and then the man envisions the woman on a toilet, I couldn't stop from laughing. Somehow this is superior to what came out of Hollywood in the 30s?

Colorado Territory is my favorite McCrea Western. It's a Western remake of High Sierra, by the same director, Raoul Walsh, but I think it's just as good in its own way. I always tear up at the end. Trooper Hook made in the 50s with Barbara Stanwyck is another underrated film. She plays a woman who was captured and lived as a wife of an Indian, and McCrea acts as her protector as she returns to her husband. Great chemistry between McCrea and Stanwyck and balanced portrayal of native Americans.

Mark Cousins' voice is making me crazy, not because of the Irish accent, but because of the monotone and then the slight rise at the end of each sentence as if he's asking a question. It reminds me of the annoying habit of some of my female students who make presentations and end each statement with the same lift, thus negating the importance of the statement, and letting the words drift as if they're asking a question. I just want to slap them. I'm finding the content of the series fascinating and wish I had DVR and the ability to see some of these films which are shown in the wee hours. However, I do find that his opinion of American film is unfairly low. Just because foreign filmmakers created brilliant and engaging work that has been lost or underappreciated does not necessarily mean that what Americans did during the same time is therefore crap. It's as if I've just tried sushi and decided that my New England lobster fest with the chowder is now no longer any good. Also some of the European directors, such as Fritz Lang, eventually migrated to American cinema in the 30s. If they had stayed in their own countries they would have been silenced or even exterminated with the rise of Naziism.

The man with the attractive socialite, by the way, was not her husband, which is made pretty clear early on because she corrects someone who assumes that and admits that they were on deck "watching the sunset" or some such nonsense. She is one of the strongest figures on the boat, but also the most amoral, which might also be why she admires Holmes, who is wiling to cross moral boundaries.

This is a wonderful, sexy little movie. It was on a couple of weeks ago, and I saw only parts of it because it was too late, but this time I caught the parts I missed. The chemistry between Jean Arthur and Joel Mcrea is fantastic: the scene where he's showing her the travel case and their faces are so close together, the necking scene on the steps, and then the conversation when they're in bed in their separate rooms, and the ending... Don't know how they got this one past the censors.

I didn't find the movie racist, but rather that the movie is depicting the racist attitudes of many Texans toward Mexican-Americans. I think the ending of the film clearly indicates that these attitudes must be changed for Texas to move forward. The Rock Hudson character's fight in the diner that refused to serve Mexicans and the last scene with the two babies in the crib, one white and one Latino, showed the director's attitude toward the subject of racism. My problem with the movie is James Dean's performance. I feel he is one of the most over-rated actors in film history. Most of his dialogue was almost unintelligible; he barely looked at the camera and appeared to be mumbling throughout the movie. If he hadn't been killed in a tragic accident, I wonder if he would have been as highly regarded as he is today. I think if a stronger actor had portrayed his character, say a Robert Mitchum, it would have been a stronger movie.

I think it's Walter Huston.

Did anyone catch the Paul Henreid/Eleanor Parker version of Of Human Bondage on Tuesday? It's rarely shown, and I thought a few folks might give their opinion. I was pleasantly surprised by Parker's performance. I thought she was very believable, even her cockney accent was good. I think she was really underrated as an actress. Henreid was a bit old for the part (although Leslie Howard was older, apparently, but he always gives off the air of a geeky graduate student). Janis Paige was a knockout, too. Talk about being surrounded by beautiful women -- Alexis Smith also gave a fine, sensitive performance. In some ways, the underplaying served the story better than the first version. I never saw the Kim Novak version, so don't know how that one measures up.

They should run Young Frankenstein back to back with Son of Frankenstein (w/ Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff), which is the movie on which the storyline is based. Apparently, Rathbone disliked the movie and was deliberately hammy in the scenes with Lionel Atwell, the policeman with the prosthetic arm. So, it didn't take much to push those scenes over the top.I loved the Mel Brooks tribute. My guilty pleasure is actually Men in Tights, which in many places is a scene-for-scene remake of the Flynn film -- you can tell that Brooks both loves the original, but has great fun with it!

I love the 30s -- those slinky gowns cut on the bias, which realy show a woman's natural figure. My husband loves that era because it's obvious they were wearing no underwear! I also think the 40s are great -- suits and hats, everyone looks so put together. I find the 50s too ladylike, all those poofy skirts and cinched waists.

I happened to be on break this week and got to see The Edge of Darkness, about the Norwegian resistance against the Nazis. The movie was meticulously cast and a powerful ensemble piece. Although Errol Flynn is the hero, it's hardly a typical Flynn vehicle, as those in supporting roles, such as Walter Huston, were as prominent. There was so much character development in so many of the supporting roles as they move from fear and complacency to resisitance. Ann Sheridan was also top notch and has a pivotal moment in the film; I think she was truly underrated. The camera work at the end was also excellent; the battles really moved. I was surprised how well this movie holds up today.

I read the book Now Voyager a few years back, and there are some interesting differences between the book and the film. The book actually begins with Charlotte's transformation and appearance on the cruise and fills in the "backstory" later. Another significant factor, Jerry confesses he also had a nervous breakdown.

The strangest coincidence -- I had WCRB Classical on today, and they played variations on Auld Lang Syne by Franz Waxman! One variation was in the style of Beethoven and one in the style of Mozart. Just goes to show that film composers were not just musical "hacks."My favorite score -- Rebecca.

H.B. Warner. He was the judge in Mr. Deeds, which was broadcast on Sunday. Speaking of fabulous faces, Coop's was really fabulous -- I don't think any other actor could communicate more by saying less.