sewhite2000
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Posts posted by sewhite2000
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For better or worse, the "who deserves to win" conversation mostly takes place in retrospect and with hindsight, not before the event. There are threads on here all the time and have been quite a few recently about who "should" have won this or that in Year Whatever. But, yeah, before a winner is declared, society is all about trying to get into the heads of Academy members and predicting the winners.
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That breakout link thingy TCM does every year that you can click on and it's sort of a stand-alone thing is messed up. The listings for Feb. 13, which is supposed to be Best Foreign Language Film day are completely wrong. Somebody accidentally put the page for Feb. 8, Best Sound day, on that day also. I guess you can still see the correct films on the regular online schedule.
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I Just Watched 31 Days of Oscar Edition, Post #3, 2/3
A River Runs through It (Columbia, 1992) - (Spoiler alerts!) Well, TCM doesn't get to show many Brad Pitt movies, so I'm sure they're glad they can get their hands on this one. While the two romantic leads, Craig Sheffer and cute-as-a-button 22-year-old Emily Lloyd, have been forgotten, you can just see Pitt's white-hot ascent to stardom taking place in this movie, along with his other early performances. And what a part for him. It runs the gamut - his character is always the most dashing, charming guy in the room but also vulnerable, fiercely proud and deeply troubled. This movie is very watchable and re-watchable; I've probably seen it close to a dozen times. But I'm still not sure I get what the message is supposed to be. Tom Skerritt's preacher tries to teach his sons to find grace and to reconnect with their inner selves after dealing with the chaos of the material world by losing themselves in the rhythms of fly fishing. And Pitt's younger son absorbs the lesson and surpasses the teacher, becoming a transcendent genius of the art. But he doesn't learn any of the reverend's other lessons and is doomed for tragedy, partially bringing that doom upon himself by refusing offers of financial help or the chance to relocate to another city where his enemies would probably never find him. Sheffer's older son, on the other hand, is only an okay fly fisherman but is more in tune with his father's plan for navigating life otherwise, and he ends up with a beautiful wife and children and a fulfilling job and happiness. So, how important is fly fishing to all this exactly? Everyone in the cast is great, especially Skerritt and Brenda Blethyn as the parents. I would like to give special attention to Nicole Burdette, who plays the small but moving role of Mabel. She could have practically had her own movie, but instead has to show in just a couple of scenes what it was like to be Native American in Missoula in the 1920s, not much different than what it was like to be black in the Deep South at the same time. Mabel has no patience for intolerance, and she's rowdy and out of control, but she also wants to sublimate her identity with an Anglicized name and considers bobbing her hair to look more like the white flappers. We sense she's had a hard life, but she also beams like a little girl when Lloyd's Jessie tells her how pretty her hair is. This actress' imdb biography is whisper-thin. I don't even know if she's actually Native American. You still saw white people getting parts like that sometimes even as late as the early '90s. But she does a great job. By the way, TCM has clearly been using the same print of this film for 10 years or more, because a line where Pitt's character uses the F-word near the very end of the movie is dubbed out. Every time they show it, you see Pitt's lips moving but there's an artificial silence imposed on the soundtrack.
Bound for Glory (United Artists, 1976) - It's definitely time for a new Woody Guthrie biopic, because a man as fascinating and important as Guthrie deserves better than this funereally paced snoozefest that offers no interesting revelations about its subject other than maybe he liked women and used to live in the Dust Bowl. I need to see more about the impact of his music and his politics. I think there's a really good movie to be made, but this just isn't it. The Oscar-winning cinematography of Haskell Wexler, he of the very long and accomplished career, is about the only thing to really recommend. I suppose David Carradine is all right in the lead role. Some posters in another thread were recently confusing him with his brother Keith, much to my bewilderment. Obviously those people didn't grow up on reruns of Kung-Fu like I did (but hey, I recently got Charles Boyer and Charles Laughton mixed up, so who am I to judge?).
The Hustler (20th Century Fox, 1961) - This film is at the crossroads of the more cinema verite style that would become increasingly common in the '60s with one foot still in the past - some of the dialogue still strikes me as the kind of speechifying one would see in an older movie. I pass no judgment; I like both styles, but having both in one movie makes for a slightly uneven mix. Paul Newman I tended to find a little too theatrical and stagey at this stage in his career, though he has charisma coming out the ears. He does that same cracking himself up with some private joke laugh that he does in Cool Hand Luke. He only really became a great actor in the 70s or even the 80s, in my opinion. You're not 15 minutes into the movie before a Fast Eddie-Minnesota Fats showdown is underway. There's sort of an emotional letdown after the intensity of that early highpoint. George C. Scott is electric. He really hit the ground running, nabbing Supporting Actor noms for Anatomy of a Murder and this film early in his career. But the story arc of poor Piper Laurie makes this film a tough and slightly unpleasant watch, as good as she is. Watching this film again helps give some resonance to the sequel The Color of Money, which I also saw again recently, in which Newman's Eddie (and anyone who's seen the original film) can see many of the same traits in the Tom Cruise character that he himself had in the first movie. Oh, and special mention of Myron McCormick, who plays Fast Eddie's first manager, whom I've just learned about by reading that new book about Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. During the Depression, McCormick shared a one-bedroom apartment with Fonda, Stewart and Josh Logan in Manhattan and was the only one of the four getting steady work, in radio. He had his two highest-profile roles at the very end of his career: this film and No Time for Sergeants. Unfortunately, he was dead at the age of 54 only a year after making this movie.
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I Just Watched, 31 Days of Oscar Edition, Post #2, 2/2
Limelight (United Artists, 1952) - This was my first time to see this film all the way through. It's both funny and poignant but verrry loooonng. Presumably, it did not win an Oscar for Best Editing. I feel like I need to read a Chaplin biography and learn what it is exactly that got him banned from the States for essentially 20 years. Red affiliations, I'm sure, but I don't know the specifics. If he was publicly declaring Communist manifestos, I've never seen or heard anything about that. Really my only exposure to his backstory is the Richard Attenborough biopic, which concentrates more on his earlier life. I do know from that movie and other sources about his predilection for very young girls. It's hard for me to watch this movie and not want to play amateur psychiatrist. His character Calvero, as written by Chaplin himself, is able to resist the temptation of young flesh in a way the real-life Chaplin clearly was not. I want to say maybe it was an idealized presentation of Chaplin himself the way he wanted to be, but I'm sure my assumptions are simplistic. Claire Boom, only 20 in this film, is not an actress I'm very familiar with, but she is admittedly lovely. She reminds me of Audrey Hepburn and got her movie start a couple of years ahead of Audrey, who often early in her career played innocent gamines who through the course of the movie gain life experience and become more sophisticated and a bit more world-weary by film's end, just like Bloom's character in this movie. At least in this film, however, Bloom is totally lacking in the humorous side Audrey would also give us. Looking at her imdb resume, I do see I've seen her in other things, though I didn't know who she was when I was watching them: Queen Mary in The King's Speech, Hera in Clash of the Titans, Martin Landau's clueless wife in Crimes and Misdemeanors, "The Wife" in The Outrage, Theodora in The Haunting, Katya in The Brothers Karamazov, Lady Anne in Olivier's Richard III. I mean, my gosh, I've been watching her for years. I just didn't know it. Seeing Sydney Chaplin in a prominent role makes me wonder which Chaplin son it was Brando said Chaplin was so verbally abusive to on the set of The Countess from Hong Kong. Sydney Chaplin would have been middle-aged by then, so I'm wondering if it was a younger son. But Sydney was in that movie as well, so maybe it was him. I guess my biggest gripe about this movie is that it telegraphs its ending so thoroughly practically from the first frame. I was dreading the ending right from the beginning because it was so obvious to me that (Spoiler Alert!) Calvero was going to die. Thereza was so unfailingly devoted to him, even after he ran away, that the only way to get her into that age-appropriate relationship Chaplin probably thought the audience demanded was to kill off his character.
Fiddler on the Roof (United Artists, 1971) - I just haven't warmed up to this movie very much after repeated viewings. I suppose the numbers and the choreography are just as impressive as any lavish production from MGM's Golden Age, but the setting and the costumes and the plethora of characters I just don't care about that much have always failed to capture my imagination. Musicals aren't my favorite genre to begin with, but if I have to watch one, I suppose I prefer the flash of swanky nightclubs and tuxedos and three-piece suits and dresses and evening gowns to poor Russian Jewish milkmen living in the middle of nowhere in 1900. I guess I'm a snob. There is some nice social messaging, and Topol brings a nice subtlety to the lead role. They say in the promo TCM often shows that Zero Mostel originated the role on stage, but Norman Jewison wanted somebody less in your face for the movie, and I think that was a wise choice. I like Mostel, but he knew only one approach to acting, grand and scenery-chewing. I didn't know that John Williams had won an Oscar for "scoring adaption and original song score" for this film. Is that a category that's still in use? Prince won the same award for the Purple Rain movie as I recall, accepting in full Prince regalia, and the Beatles also won that award for Let It Be. And none of of the Beatles actually showed up. Quincy Jones accepted on their behalf. But if it's an award that's still being given, I have no idea who's won it in the last 20 years.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Warner Bros., 1942) - I always get a kick out of Cagney's dance style, especially the performance of the title number. All that crazy hunch-walking with long strides, coupled with dramatic spins and kicks so high, it's a wonder he doesn't fall on his Irish-American arse. I wonder what someone like Fred Astaire thought of Cagney's dancing, if he ever commented on it. Cagney seems to me to have not had any classical (or any?) training. He just does what comes naturally to him, and it works. I love that scene where Joan Leslie first meets Cagney in his makeup and thinks he's a hundred years old and about to go on a date with a 17-year-old! That makes me laugh every time. There are other nice scenes, like when Cagney worries needlessly about having given Leslie's show part away to Fay Templeton. And when Cagney gently kisses S.Z. Sakall on his hat, and Sakall looks up, uncertain what's just happened. And when young Cohan's parents decide a good beating is just what their son needs and debate about where is the best place to strike him! Nice casting bits with Cagney's real-life sister playing his movie sister and Eddie Foy, Jr. playing his father. One weird moment: what the heck was the bit with the number early on in the movie where six-year-old Josie Cohan apparently pulls up her dress and flahses the audience while her parents look on adoringly? We don't see anything, but still ... that certainly wouldn't fly today.
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16 hours ago, Sepiatone said:
There's always something lost when live action films are remade from animated films and vice-versa. And, IMHO, more lost when good movies are remade into musicals. For example---
There's that not too bad but not great '84 movie IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES in which RYAN O'NEAL plays a film director whose career tanks after the failure of his attempted musical remake of GONE WITH THE WIND. In fact, I found the whole idea of turning GWTW into a musical the most amusing aspect of the whole movie.
Sepiatone
You know, that probably seemed really funny and ridiculous in 1984, but since in the intervening years, they've made musicals of Rocky, Sunset Blvd., Legally Blonde, Groundhog Day, Heathers, A Christmas Story, 9 to 5 and, I hear now, Catch Me If You Can, I'm sorta surprised there HASN'T been a Gone With the Wind musical! People have certainly tried to launch one, I would think.
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8 hours ago, MovieMadness said:
We don't need political hosts on movie channels.
8 hours ago, CaveGirl said:Let's not be prejudiced, MM.
If we can allow neophytes who know little about films, and people who can't really write in as hosts, I see no problem allowing a person in the government realm in to extemporize remarks about movies for our enjoyment.
I suppose you would not allow Ronald Reagan in to discuss episodes of "Death Valley Days" or "Bedtime for Bonzo' just cuz he went from acting in Hollywood to acting in Washington?Tsk tsk!!
Dennis Miller introduced some movies on TCM, and MM made no objection to him.
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I Just Watched 31 Days of Oscar 2018 Edition, Post #1: 2/1
Swing Time (RKO, 1936) - "The Way You Look Tonight" is the song that won the Oscar from this movie, but my personal favorite is "A Fine Romance". The song is performed under a reversal of the usual Astaire-Rogers romantic dynamic. Normally, he's the one trying to woo her from the beginning of the movie and has to wear down her resistance. Here, he's trying to resist HER advances because he feels guilty about the fiance waiting for him in another city, and she, put out by him playing hot and cold with her, launches into the sarcastic number. Although, after a dialogue interlude in which Rogers learns about said fiance, now they resume their more conventional roles of her pulling away from him, and the number resumes with him singing. I guess the other notable thing about the movie is the replacement of the goon-eyed, double-taking, easily shocked and offended Edward Everett Horton from the first two Astaire-Rogers starring vehicles with borderline idiot savant Victor Moore as Astaire's boon companion this time around. They both have their advantages. Moore fits in so naturally I would have liked to have seen him work with Astaire again.
The Harvey Girls (MGM, 1946) - Pleasant, if not especially memorable, MGM big-budget Judy Garland musical Western from her mid-pushing-to-late years at the studio. Her romantic lead, John Hodiak, is not an actor I've come to know very well, although he had some other high-profile appearances in Lifeboat and Battleground. IMDB suggests he come to prominence at least partly because so many big-name actors were off at war. The same thing happened with Gregory Peck, but he made a much more substantial career out the opportunity. I think it didn't help he and Preston Foster were both wearing similar mustaches. The first couple of times I saw the movie, I had a bit of trouble telling them apart! I did like the bit where he lets Garland know he's aware the story she's telling is Longfellow, that he's not just some hick rube. Angela Lansbury transitioned very quickly from semi-sexpot roles like here and Gaslight to matronly roles. She played Elvis' mother in Blue Hawaii when she was in her mid-30s and only about eight years older than him! They dubbed her singing voice for some reason, though I'm sure she would have been just fine. Interesting to see Ray Bolger appearing prominently alongside Garland in the "Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe" number, although their characters barely interact for the rest of the film, given of course, that he's the Scarecrow, and she's Dorothy. I wonder if the powers that be knowingly placed them together in a couple of closeups as a kind of Easter egg, or if the same people worked together so often in MGM's Golden Age, that nobody even thought twice about it. And you feel bad about Chill Willis' character having to beg Garland NOT to marry him, because ... why? Because it would make her look like a heel if she was the one doing the begging? Although they do establish that Hodiak wrote the letters she fell in love with, so by old movie tropes, that made him her soul mate.
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TCM gave Clive his own primetime spotlight in December, kicking the evening off with Bride of Frankenstein and following up with One More River, a movie I'd never seen before. I don't know if he got to choose his role. Given the popularity of the Frankenstein movies, I would think he could have been the romantic male lead if he'd wanted to be. Instead he plays the brutish, abusive husband who refuses to give his wife (Diana Wynyard) a divorce when she begins an affair (sort of) with another man. Made at the very end of the pre-Code era, it still required some changes before release. In the original script, Clive's character was implied to take sexual pleasure from hurting women, but all those references were removed. A sexual encounter between Clive and his estranged wife and whether that encounter was consensual figures heavily into the plot, also a night spent together in a car by Wynyard and her would-be lover (Frank Lawton). Take out the naughty bits, and it's a bit of a stuffy manor drama, but I still enjoyed it. Also entertaining for TCM fans because lookalike character actors C. Aubrey Smith and Henry Stephenson are both in it and have scenes together! Just in case you thought they were the same person, like people used to say about Michael and Janet.
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I guess one nice thing about TCM is that you just never know. This past year, TCM showed The Naked Jungle, a sort of odd combination of intimate psychosexual drama involving an arranged marriage and epic man-vs.-ant jungle adventure, a Paramount release starring Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker. It aired in 1998 and not again until 2017, 19 years later! So, you can never say never.
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The Mission surprises me a bit, given its stunning cinematography (for which it won an Oscar) big-name stars and prestige feel. It seems a TCM natural. Seems like it would have made the 31 Days roster at least once in the network's history, if nothing else. I had to look it up. I was a bit surprised neither of its stars were nominated, but it was up for Best Picture and Best Director and several of the crew awards. And I think Warner Bros., with whom TCM is very cozy, holds the rights. At least they did at one time.
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On 1/31/2018 at 11:25 AM, Hibi said:
I like Dave. Easy on the eyes, Though he doesnt seem to know a lot about old movies from some of his patter. He dresses well ........We get a Tiffany break too!!! All good.
Yeah, you get a Tiffany break all right. A PERMANENT ONE! BWA HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!!!
Ahem.
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Found an old notebook in which I wrote down some of my nightly TCM viewings from early 2010. Thought I'd share so everyone could compare and contrast between what was on then and now. I enjoy looking back at a small section of time on TCM and seeing what the trends were about what they were showing. Usually, I'm most interested in distribution by studio and decade, although I've been thinking recently about going back and examining by genre, as well.
The first night I wrote down was January 25, but the ink is smudged, so I don't know what the theme of the evening was. Then I didn't write anything down for 31 Days of Oscar (I probably recorded them in their own notebook) and resumed my record-keeping in March. There were a couple of nights I didn't watch:
1/25 - Theme:????
Sweet Bird of Youth (MGM, 1962)1/26 - Theme: Bob's Picks
The Major and the Minor (Paramount, 1942)
Manhunt (20th Century Fox, 1941)1/27 - Theme: Movies about Russia (Theme of the Month)
My Son John (Paramount, 1952)1/28 - Theme: The Road Movies
Road to Singapore (Paramount, 1940)
Road to Zanzibar (Paramount, 1941)1/29 - Theme: Jean Simmons
Great Expectations (Universal, 1947)
Elmer Gantry (United Artists, 1960)1/30 - Theme: Flora Robson
Wuthering Heights (United Artists, 1939)
Murder at the Gallop (MGM, 1963)1/31 - Theme: Irving Berlin Songs
Blue Skies (Paramount, 1946)
Annie, Get Your Gun (MGM, 1949)3/4 - Theme: 2009 Honorary Oscar Winners
To Have and Have Not (Warner Bros., 1944)
All the President's Men (Warner Bros., 1976)3/5 - Theme: Air Disasters
The Crowded Sky (Warner Bros., 1960)
Airplane! (Paramount, 1980)
Zero Hour! (Paramount, 1957)3/6 - Theme: Star-Making Performances
A Streetcar Named Desire (Warner Bros., 1951)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (MGM, 1956)3/8 - Theme: Warner Bros.
The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros., 1928)
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Warner Bros., 1933)
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Warner Bros., 1939)3/10 - Theme: Star of the Month - Ginger Rogers
The Gay Divorcee (RKO, 1934)
Top Hat (RKO, 1935)3/11 - Theme: Charles Coburn
The Lady Eve (Paramount, 1941)
The More, the Merrier (Columbia. 1943)3/12 - Theme: Ray Harryhausen
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (Warner Bros., 1953)
It Came from Beneath the Sea (Columbia, 1955)
The Monster That Challenged the World (United Artists, 1957)3/13 - Theme: Movies with the Word "Heat" in the Title
White Heat (Warner Bros., 1949)
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (Columbia, 1966)3/14 - Theme: Tina Louise
God's Little Acre (United Artists, 1958)
For Those Who Think Young (United Artists, 1964)3/15 - Theme: Bob's Picks
Boomtown (MGM, 1940)
The Prince and the Pauper (Warner Bros., 1937)3/17 - Theme: Star of the Month: Ginger Rogers
42nd Street (Warner Bros., 1933)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (Warner Bros., 1933)3/18 - Theme: Wyatt Earp
My Darling Clementine (20th Century Fox, 1946)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (Paramount, 1957)3/19 - Theme: Boarding Schools
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (MGM, 1939)
A Yank at Eton (MGM, 1942)3/20 - Theme: Peter O'Toole
Lawrence of Arabia (Columbia, 1962)
The Ruling Class (Embassy, 1972)3/21 - Theme: Inspired by Akira Kurosawa
The Outrage (MGM, 1964)3/22 - Theme: Guest Programmer of the Month, Kareem Abdul-Jabar
The Big Sleep (Warner Bros., 1946)
The Maltese Falcon (Warner Bros., 1941)3/24 - Theme: Star of the Month - Ginger Rogers
Vivacious Lady (RKO, 1938)
Bachelor Mother (RKO, 1939)3/25 - Theme: Dysfunctional Families
Interiors (United Artists, 1978)
Ordinary People (Paramount, 1980)
I Never Sang for My Father (Columbia, 1970)3/26 - Theme: Louis Jordan
Gigi (MGM, 1958)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Universal, 1948)
Julie (MGM, 1956)3/28 - Theme: Moving to the Country
The Egg and I (Universal, 1947)
George Washington Slept Here (Warner Bros., 1942)3/29 - Theme: The Marx Brothers
Monkey Business (Paramount, 1931)
Horse Feathers (Paramount, 1932)
Duck Soup (Paramount, 1933)3/31 - Theme: Star of the Month - Ginger Rogers
Kitty Foyle (RKO, 1940)
Tom, Dick and Harry (RKO, 1941)4/1 - Theme: Guest Programmer of the Month Raquel Welch
Adam's Rib (MGM, 1949)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Columbia, 1939)4/2 - Theme: Fun in the Sun
Fun on the Weekend (United Artists, 1947)
Gidget (Columbia, 1959)
Palm Springs Weekend (Warner Bros., 1963)4/4 - Theme: Theme: Higher Callings
Keys of the Kingdom (20th Century Fox, 1945)
The Nun's Story (Warner Bros., 1959)4/6 - Theme: George Stevens
Alice Adams (RKO, 1935)
Annie Oakley (RKO, 1935)
Okay, breaking down these selections by studio. I watched about 70 films total during this time:
Warner Bros. 16
Paramount 13
MGM 11
RKO 8
United Artists/Columbia 7 each
20th Century Fox/Universal 3 each
Embassy 1Look at all those Paramounts!
And by decade:
20s 1
30s 17
40s 24
50s 13
60s 9
70s 4
80s 2
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Well ... I must confess this was my first question after seeing LawrenceA's still from Runaway Nightmare:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245400/faq?ref_=tt_faq_1#fq0020424
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The artist is Peetie Wheatstraw, and the album is Peetie Wheatstraw Vol. 1 193-1932, but the song, for whatever reason, is titled "Pete Wheatstraw".
Here it is on Amazon. It's Track 14.
https://www.amazon.com/Peetie-Wheatstraw-Vol-1-1930-1932/dp/B000S556Y2
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I don't know what the origin of the name "Petey Wheatstraw" is, but it goes back a ways. I recently added a 1930 blues song to my iTunes collection by one Peetie Wheatstraw (not his real name), and the song is called "Pete Wheatstraw".
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6 hours ago, TomJH said:
While I can't say that I ever noticed it before, there really is a difference between looking at Claudette from her left side as opposed to the right
Wow! What a difference!
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i'll just tack this on here instead of starting a new thread. In the outro to King Kong, the tour guides just stumped Ben M. with the trivia question what movie was Fay Wray shooting concurrently with King Kong? The answer was The Most Dangerous Game. Now, who knows what order they shoot the intros/outros in, but I'm pretty sure Ben M. mentioned this very bit of trivia when he recently introduced Game. Perhaps the King Kong intro was shot first and aired later. Or perhaps, as many here want to claim, Ben was just reading from cue cards and didn't remember he'd just used that piece of trivia himself. Ben did say that invariably when he meets a TCM fan, they ask him a trivia question and when he can't answer it, "They judge me". This surprised me a bit, but maybe the average TCM fan is a diferent animal than the people who inhabit these message boards. Based on my time here, I would think if he met any of the posters on here, they would either attack him for his politics or call him by a mocking anti-Semitic version of his name or tell him why he should be replaced by Eddie Muller ...
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I was happy to learn just now from the TCM Tour Guide hosts who are helping Ben M. introduce New York-set movies tonight that at the very beginning of each tour, they still play a recording of the "dearly missed Robert Osborne", as the female guide put it. I wasn't sure, because immediately after Robert died, they re-edited the bus tour promos that air on the network to remove any mention of him, mentioning only Ben's commentary, which I assume also appears in places during the tour. I'm not really sure why they took him out of the commercial, especially now that I know he's still part of the tour. I think part of it is they don't want to confuse viewers of TCM that he's still alive.
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Well, there's a list of all the Guest Programmers and the movies they chose that I think you asked for and got on another thread. I don't personally recall Letterman being a GP prior to this Essentials gig, but I could have missed it. You could look it up on that list.
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38 minutes ago, Arsan404 said:
He also appeared on 60 Minutes in 1992 to defend himself of the accusations:
Yeah, this op/ed thing where he said it was the last time he was going to talk about it was at least 20 years after this thing.
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Re: LawrenceA's assertion that the chances Allen will make a TV appearance to discuss the matter being "next to nil": Allen wrote an op/ed piece in the New York Times a few years ago, giving his side of the story. He prefaced it by saying "This is the last time I'm ever going to talk about this," and I imagine he'll stick to that.
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Just for the sake of clarification, it's probably not accurate to say they were "his picks". Letterman wasn't a Guest Programmer. He was the co-host of The Essentials. He may have had a hand in picking some of them. It's ambiguous who has the ultimate say in The Essentials. I do fondly remember when Sally Field was co-hosting with Robert Osborne, she would occasionally pull back the curtain a bit and say something like "Well, this was one of your picks, and I don't necessarily agree with it, but I do appreciate this film for what it is ...". So, probably both Letterman and Baldwin had some input, but also Charlie Tabesh and TCM's programming department.
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7 hours ago, TheCid said:
Actually there has always been time between one movie and the next that had to be filled. It was unusual for TCM to go from one movie straight to the next because of trying to start them on the half hour or at least the quarter hour. Usually filled in with news from Hollywood in the good old days, promos for upcoming movies, the mini-bio commentaries or shorts.
It is just that the wine and backlot ads are so prevalent (and irritating) now. Especially the wine ads. I think it is interesting that your first order will be 12 bottles of wine.
Well, yes, but once in a while, a movie would end at like :58 or :59, Robert would do his remarks, they'd show what the next three movies were going to be, and then they would just cue up the Now Playing opening for the next movie. That's what I meant by "extra win". It didn't happen often, but it did happen. I don't think that will ever happen anymore. They will always leave room for either Wine Club or Backlot.
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On 1/10/2018 at 2:22 PM, RipMurdock said:
He is on all the time in primo time on the wine ads.
Ha, ha oh my God, the Wine Club and the Backlot ads. Hey, I rarely watch TCM in the daytime. Are they as prevalent then, too? Because in primetime, holy cow, there is an ad for one or the other the last thing they show before every movie. I mean EVERY movie!
Does anyone remember back in the Robert Osborne days when a movie would end, he'd do his outro, and then they would IMMEDIATELY start the next movie? I always felt like a little bonus win when that happened. In primetime now, there will ALWAYS be an ad for Wine Club or Backlot before a new movie starts. .
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I Just Watched...
in General Discussions
Posted
I Just Watched 31 Days of Oscar Edition, Post #4 - 2/4
Black Narcissus (Dist. in US by Universal, 1947) - Beautiful to look at it, but I'm not sure what it all means. Ben M. added on a PC postscript advising us to look at the movie through the lens of hindsight and context of the time it was made, given the stereotyped portrayals of the Indians, whom the David Farrar government agent character, even though he seems to be the most in touch with them, continually describes as "children". Well, the character played by Jean Simmons (18 when she made this picture, I think) is more a woman-child, exuding sex everywhere she goes in her wordless performance. And speaking of that government agent, it was almost a caricature of inflaming female desire with all those shorty-shorts he wore and unbuttoned shirts. And even in one scene when he's summoned by emergency, shirtless! I know it was an emergency, but he couldn't have taken 15 seconds to throw on a shirt? The convent I think has good intentions, but the Mother Superior saddles Deborah Kerr's sister with a team of borderline basket cases (and I guess in the case of Sister Ruth, all-out basket case). The nun who cares too much and maybe killed a child because of it. The world-weary nun who foolishly plants pretty flowers instead of food. The hypercritical nun. And of course Sister Ruth. It's probably a grand theme in British literature that immersion into the exotic can cause one to go balmy. A Passage to India, for example, has similar themes. That belltower assault near the end rivals Vertigo for intensity. I liked the flashback scenes of Kerr's pre-nun life. And Kerr and Farrar constantly bickering like an old married couple, and their tender goodbye, well, as tender as they could get, anyway. Oh, yeah, are there no horses in India? Everybody galloping around on those little ponies! Maybe that was some kind of status symbol with the nobility. I don't know. It was never explained.
Zorba the Greek (20th Century Fox, 1964) (Spoiler alerts!) After cautioning us that the portrayal of Indians in Black Narcissus was stereotyped, Ben M. didn't say ANYTHING about the portrayal of Cretans in this movie! They certainly come across as barbaric and medieval in their treatment of women. Look what happens to Irene Papas' poor Widow! This is only the second time I've seen this movie, and I'd forgotten how miserable it all is. I grew up always occasionally hearing about both the novel and the movie and what wonderful, uplifting themes they had of Zorba's views about how to live life. Still haven't read the book, but I'm not convinced from watching the movie. Athony Quinn's Zorba and the half-Englishman played by Alan Bates both suffer terrible personal loss, but just a few minutes later, that all seems to be forgotten about as we take a sharp left turn into slapstick comedy as Zorba's log-pulley system goes disastrously awry, presumably bringing financial ruin, but then the two men have some lamb and start dancing in the sand, and it's apparently supposed to be a happy ending.
I found this interesting onlline essay regarding the Widow scene from someone who is apparently not a common watcher of classic films (he begins by saying learning the movie was two and a half hours and in black and white put him in a foul mood even before he started watching it, so clearly black and white is not something he's used to):
http://deepaknair.com/2012/12/01/ok-here-are-my-thoughts-on-zorba-the-greek-after-sleeping-on-it/
The Song of Bernadette (20th Century Fox, 1943) - I'm not much for religious vision movies, which were earth-shattering events at one time, I guess, but I swear there was a run in like the '90s and the '00s where I was reading every other week about someone who had seen Jesus in a tortilla or Mary in a splatter of paint, and the uniqueness of each individual sighting dissipated. Jennifer Jones won an Oscar right out of the chute to begin her career. She's certainly earnest in this film, and she captivates your attention, but it's a pretty one-note performance. She has this vision, she believes in it, and she's unfailingly polite but resolute in the face of all disbelievers. And this goes on for more than two and a half hours. I was more interested in the machinations of the city government as they try to deal with what they perceive to be a crisis. Vincent Price is the best reason to watch this film. Although I also like Charles Bickford's highly practical priest.