[People Who Don't Need to Be SOTM Again Any Time Soon]

It's probably worth noting that when TCM opened up a vote for SOTM for the first time ever to Backlot members, their two choices were between Bette Davis and Myrna Loy, two stars who'd each been SOTM twice already. And they chose Loy. So, she's on my three-time list above, while Davis isn't.

[One Good Turn Deserves Another]

Christopher Reeve once said the nerdier Cary Grant roles like Bringing Up Baby were his inspiration for playing Clark Kent, and you can definitely see that.

[People Who Don't Need to Be SOTM Again Any Time Soon]

While watching A Star is Born last night, I started thinking, hey why not Jack Carson for SOTM? I'm not sure he's ever even gotten a SUTS day. This would be an easy one for TCM with the majority of his films at WB. He was definitely a loyal soldier to his studio, seemingly happy in doing whatever was asked of him. For several years there, he would move back and forth from one movie to the next between leading roles opposite the likes of Doris Day or as a comedy duo with Dennis Morgan and comic or dramatic supporting roles.

[Filmic Ailurophobia]

Well, I tried to keep quiet about it, but clearly the you know what has been let out of the bag by this point.

Of course, it's impossible now to look at Pleasance as Blofeld and not think of Mike Myers as Dr. Evil! At least for me.

[One Good Turn Deserves Another]

Yes! That's a good one.

[Filmic Ailurophobia]

I was trying to play along and figure out the connections between all these movies based on context without looking up the word, but the older I get, the more easily frustrated I get, so I just looked up the word on dictionary.com. I won't spoil for everybody else. I feel pretty dumb now that I know what it is.

[TCM via cable vs satellite providers]

Okay, well, I seem to be spewing out some bad information, which I always hate to do. Thanks all of you who are hipper on this stuff than me.

I will cling to the only point I really intended to make, however. I don't think AT&T's purchase of Time Warner includes what used to be known as Time Warner Cable, as that division had already been sold some time ago. I don't know if the name TWC is still being used in some parts of the country. Where I live, it's been called Spectrum for a couple of years now.

[TCM via cable vs satellite providers]

Yeah, sorry, I believe Charter actually owns both Comcast and Time-Warner now. Hard to keep track of all these mergers. But I believe my point that AT&T is not buying Time-Warner Cable is still valid.

[OMG OMG OMG BEYOND THE FOREST IS ON AMAZON PRIME!!!!!!!!!!]

Well, you can touch the thermostat, but he has the super-power of detecting as little as half-a-degree change in temp no matter where he is in the house, and he will put it back where he had it within a minute of you having touched it!

So far, I've never pushed the deadline on Amazon Prime. They do let you keep it for a long time as long you don't start watching it. I just try to make sure before I actually watch a movie that I'm really going to have time to finish it!

[OMG OMG OMG BEYOND THE FOREST IS ON AMAZON PRIME!!!!!!!!!!]

1 hour ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

I am not sure. I'm not really tech inclined...

all I know is that Amazon prime is a streaming service that comes with your television, if you have one of those fancy-schmancy Internet capable TVs. It's basically Netflix. Only on Netflix everything automatically comes with the service, with Amazon prime you have to pay either a rental or a purchase fee for about 2/3 of their stuff. It's worth it though because their catalog is way way way way way better.

Yes, I'm no techie, either, but for the rental price, once you start watching it, somehow your link to the material is automatically broken after 48 hours. But if you want to watch a movie multiple times during that 48 hours, you can.

Your statement is very accurate. My 80-something parents just got a smart TV for the first time in their lives, from which they can access both Netflix and Amazon. among other services. Right now, they're only doing Netflix, because beyond the subscription price, everything is free. Though all the movies, as far as I can tell, are no more than 15 years old, and that's probably pushing it, and I just don't know how interested my folks will be in those. I think they will run out of stuff they would like to watch very quickly. Whereas with Amazon, while you do have to pay a rental price, their selection is staggering, and availability of movies TCM fans would enjoy is infinitely better than Netflix. I've gently tried to suggest to my parents that as far as content goes, Amazon is way more suited for them. But my dad is all about free these days, and he can watch each Netflix movie for free. Every time I visit, he laughs at me for doing "that stupid iTunes thing, where you have to pay", whereas he streams music for free on Pandora. He has no control over what the next song will be, and he has to sit through advertisements, but it's free, so he's a genius, and I'm doing it all wrong. So, I seriously doubt I will be able to convince him to try Amazon. I tried to tell him in my last visit that Amazon is just like going to Blockbuster, which he did for 25 years, except now he can do it from his TV. But his only reply is, "Yeah, but Netflix is free". End of discussion.

[People Who Don't Need to Be SOTM Again Any Time Soon]

Please go back and look at my edit! Maybe we'll see her again!

[People Who Don't Need to Be SOTM Again Any Time Soon]

Kay Francis has been SOTM, and pretty recently, too, at least relatively for SOTM. I'm gonna have to go look it up, but we probably won't see her again any time soon.

Edit: I'm sorry, it's been longer than I thought. Kay's one and only time as SOTM was September, 2008, so she's definitely due to come around again.

[OMG OMG OMG BEYOND THE FOREST IS ON AMAZON PRIME!!!!!!!!!!]

1 hour ago, Ray Faiola said:

Can you download from Amazon prime?

Yes, you can purchase the movie for a higher price. Or for the lower price, you can have access to it for, I think, either 30 or 60 days, but once you start watching it, you only have 48 hours to finish it.

[Kanopy and MoviePass]

Bumping up this thread to report I discovered that the AMC chain - where I probably see 90 per cent of my movies - does not, as I feared, accept MoviePass. However, they're getting ready to launch their own competing service, which will be more expensive and allow you to see fewer movies per month, but on the other hand will apply to all the AMC formats, 3-D, IMAX, Dolby, etc., which MoviePass does not.

http://collider.com/amc-stubs-a-list-rival-movie-pass/#image

[Mad about Musicals & Mario Lanza]

I recently added Kate Smith's version of "God Bless America" to my iTunes collection. Not that I was clamoring for it, but it's so iconic, it seemed worth having. I kind of have an idea that I might assemble a sort of Great American Songbook worth of stuff in addition to all my '60s pop/rock. I'd never heard the complete recording before. The version they've been playing during the seventh inning at Yankees games for a million years, they very unceremoniously and abruptly cut off after she runs through the lyrics one time, but in the complete recording, she goes through the second part of the lyrics much more slowly and laboriously a second time.

Anyway, I'm completely unfamiliar with any other song she's ever recorded, though I assume she was at one time a really big deal. She strikes me as a very strident over-singer, a plow-ahead, damn-the-torpedoes vocalist. There's a different kind of over-singing today. Now, everyone who does God Bless America wants to put as many vocal gymnastics into the performance as Mariah Carey (even the men).  

[People Who Don't Need to Be SOTM Again Any Time Soon]

I plunged down the rabbit hole of looking at all the Stars of the Month and counting their appearances. Interestingly, Steve McQueen and Dean Martin, both due up later this year, will each be first-timers. I'm relatively shocked by McQueen especially, as TCM seems to play his movies a lot. He's probably had several SUTS days.

Anyway, there are still plenty of people waiting their turn. I've seen some calls for Joan Bennett recently, and there's currently a thread calling for Ricardo Montalban. We finally got Susan Hayward a couple of years back after many years of people on these boards demanding her. I personally wouldn't mind seeing Brian Aherne or Howard DeSilva, but I'm probably dreaming.

Anyway, for the record, no one has yet been SOTM four times, but there have been quite a few actors (16) who have been honored three times. Here are all of them in alphabetical order:

Joan Crawford
Doris Day
Olivia De Havilland
Clark Gable
Greta Garbo
Judy Garland
Greer Garson
Cary Grant
Katharine Hepburn
Myrna Loy
Frank Sinatra
Barbara Stanwyck
James Stewart
Elizabeth Taylor
John Wayne
Natalie Wood

Interestingly, that's five men and 11 women. TCM definitely tends to show less diversity among its female selections than its male selections.

So, I would call for a indefinite moratorium on these performers. I feel a little bad about that, as Ms. Day and Ms. DeHavilland are still living, and it's kind of neat to think they might be aware of being honored. But there are so many out there yet to get the spotlight.
 

[Who still saved all their NP Guide's???]

I posted a link for you! Click where it says TCM Stars of the Month!

[Who still saved all their NP Guide's???]

 

[Note on An American in Paris]

14 hours ago, CaveGirl said:

Love Mulligan!

Wonder if there are any films with Brubeck and Desmond in them? Thanks for the info!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in this case, Jerry Mulligan (note the spelling) is the name of Gene Kelly's character and is not Gerry Mulligan, the jazz saxophonist.

[One Good Turn Deserves Another]

Wow! The last time I saw that movie was before I knew who Ned Sparks was, but ... yeah, I totally see that!

[One Good Turn Deserves Another]

Ooh, I just thought of one! Took several days for the veil to be lifted from my brain for this incredibly obvious one, Tony Curtis brilliantly channeling Cary Grant in Some Like It Hot.

[TCM via cable vs satellite providers]

No one here seems to be aware that Time Warner actually sold off the cable end of its business to Comcast at least two years ago, maybe three. I'm keenly aware of this since I was a Time Warner customer. The resulting corporate entity from this merger is called Spectrum. So, AT&T's purchase of the rest of Time Warner has zilch to do with what used to be its cable assets and, I assume, will have zero impact on whether Spectrum continues to carry TCM or not, since AT&T will have absolutely nothing to do with that. So far, Spectrum is still carrying TCM in my area.

[Movies you almost despair of seeing on TCM]

25 minutes ago, slaytonf said:

 

I was unaware of his contributions to this movie. I have the cover of "I Put a Spell on You" by the Alan Price Set from 1966 in my iTunes collection.

[W.C. foields is sadly getting more and more forgotten?]

TCM has continued to honor Fields' film work as much as they can. I think pretty much all his films were at Paramount or Universal? So they don't get shown with the regularity of Meet Me in St. Louis or North by Northwest, but yes, there have been at least a couple of primetime nights devoted to Fields in relatively recent years.

In general (non-TCM) culture, it is possible he's being forgotten. When I was a child in the '70s, we somehow were aware enough of Fields to tell each other, "Go away, kid; you bother me", even if weren't seeing his films anywhere. Somehow, we were at least aware of that expression. I don't know that anyone under 40 would be aware of that expression, unless they watch TCM maybe.

[One Good Turn Deserves Another]

I don't have a specific imitation reference, but there's a lot about Jeremy Irons that makes me think of Boris Karloff. I feel like that's party intentional on Irons' part.

Edit: Oops, "partly"