HarryLong

*What are the sources for this "behind the velvet curtain" info and can they be trusted?* In this case I'd say no. You can check out this guy's books on Amazon. Many have a "look inside" feature & it quickly becomes obvious how bogus they are. One of them (I forget which book) quotes a conversation on-set, between scenes between Cary Grant, George Cukor & Katherine Hepburn that goes on for several pages. Now he doesn't pretend to have been there to record or over-hear it but the whole thing is reproduced as though they are verbatim quotes. After 70 years!? And, as I said, no indication who it is that initially overheard this conversation? This guy's books just reek of bogus.

I don't always stay till the end of the credits anymore and there are several reasons. A primary one is that my bladder has gotten weaker with age and after a two-hour or more movie, I just gotta go so bad! and sometimes so bad that I want to be first in the rest room. I used to stay through all the credits, but at 10+ minutes and listing things like who the accountants are... I mean, really! Plus if I like the movie enough, I'll be getting the DVD & can read the credits there or on IMDB. Certainly one reason for staying to read all the credits at one time was that the information just wasn't easily available anywhere else. More casual movie-goers, are probably not that interested in the credits - and the theater turning up the houselights and sending in the cleaning crew doesn't much induce them to stay.

Anything from Darwin Porter is to be taken with a very large shaker of grains of salt.

*Your joke was as plain as the nose on my face* Pinnochio jokes always are...

*I think the professor should be played by Michael Caine.* A cockney speech professor?

*Can't forget Wendell Corey in The Killer is Loose. Here's Wendell (the killer) on a suburban street at night disguised as a woman walking right by the cops who were doing surveillance looking for him. Rhonda Fleming co-starring in that movie said Wendell in drag scared her.* *Then there was Norman Bates as mother...* And isn't Ross Martin in drag at one point in EXPERIMENT IN TERROR? (Been a few years since I watched it.) Interesting that men in women';s clothes are either scary or funny but never sexy. On the other hand, a woman in men's clothes, say Dietrich in a tuxedo or a naval uniform...

*he was quite a long time carouser* Was?

*I wonder why he never made any appearances in other films, like Otto Preminger did.* I'm sure it's because as far as Hitchcock was concerned there _were_ no other films.

I second the suggestion to get Firefox. Mostly I post here while I'm at work (sssh!), so I have no choice. Buit with another message board I participate in I was having nothing but problems while I was using Explorer. Since I got Firefox at home I have no problems with it. Just Google Firefox or Mozilla... you'll find it.

*well, all I can say is...I'll sue* I just hope that no one gets careless with matches around your aprtment if you go that route.

Oh, I just spotted this: *I remember when the "Twilight" series started coming out; the book store where I was working couldn't keep them in stock. I remember grumbling to myself about how dumb they appeared to be, and also being annoyed at how many people ( and not just young girls) asked for them* I also work in a bookstore part-time. And it _is_ depressing how many middle-aged women want these books. I just want to tell them to grow up or get a life or something.

I thought Clooney left before Dorian, but I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure they did not leave at exactly the same time - probably having to do with contract renewal dates. The younger guy with nearly-white hair wasn't that bad, but then his intros were being written by the same people who wrote Clooney's & Dorian's (I accidentally taped CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN twice from AMC & Dorian & Clooney delivered the same into - word for word). But then of coure the infamous "intermissions" began & then they increased & I stopped watching it. For about a year or so I had TCM & AMC on my cable & it really was heaven.

The sad thing is (speaking non-Fox for a moment) there is restoration work going on witha number of old film, but it's unlikely we'll see them offered commercially. TCM showed a stunning print of THE MAGICIAN a few months back but so far as I know there are no plans for a release (after all, who;s ever heard of director Rex Ingram or stars Alice Terry and Paul Wegener?). I understand Hugh Hefner (as a big a fan of old movies as feminine charms) dropped a bundle on getting the Paramount Fu Manchu films with Warner Oland. I'm not holding my breath on those seeing the light of day, either.

Ah, yes, if the movie deals specifically with concurrent societal situation, I do find myself thinking about it (as oppsed to thinking about Elizabethan England while watching ELIZABETH AND ESSEX). THE MORE THE MERRIER is a good example (and heavens, do I love that movie! What a cast). As to the scandals... well, damn few stars didn't have something - they're only human. But unless there's something about the role that calls to mind their private life (like Errol Flynn portraying a playboy) I rarely think of them. One recent exception was while watching a film with Barbara Payton & thinking what a shame it was that she basically flushed her life down the drain because she was actually a pretty good actress.

*I think you could have gotten your point across a bit more politely. My post was in direct reference to my wishing that we could see some of the forgotten gems and to have them all in the best possible condition.* It was not my intention to be impolite, but that was my first reaction. The way you phrased your observation struck me as being naive. Movies are a business & the prople who run those businesses view the movies as commodities in the smae way people who run shoe businesses view their product. I'm not saying it's rigth, I'm just saying that's the reality. There's a lot of forgotten gems out there I'd love to see made available commercially - hell, I'd even settle for a chance to see them on TCM - but unless the people who own them see the possibility of making agreat deal of money on them, it just isn't going to happen. It may have escaped your notice that with the rise of BluRay just about every studio is dumping their older DVD titles. They are not bringing them on on BR unless the film is one of the heavy-hitters, like CASABLANCA or GONE WITH THE WIND. Those studios that are offering their older films are doing so as burn-on-demand discs. It sucks, but we classic movie lovers are a fringe market.

Depends on how often I might have seen the movie. If it's the first time & the movie truly engages me on some level it would be the last you mentioned. If I've seen the film before, I'll probably ruminate on some or all of the items in the first group. But, truth to tell, I spend so much time writing about movies, I often find myself trying to determine how I'm going to phrase my observations... and then I catch myself & remind myself that i don't have to write about _this_ movie...

*It should be about giving something back to the fans and to artists' families who take great pride in the original productions.* Please tell me you are not truly that naive about business. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, btw, is not PD. The copyright is held by Pakula-Mulligan and Brentwood Productions. Additionally the copyright for the book is in effect & Universal has been known to issue cease and desist orders on unauthorized showings.

Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye had ____________s? Ya learn something new every day!

THE ANGRY RED PLANET (1959) - A I P Most, maybe all, of AIP's movies in the 1960s had the full credits at the end. I know this is true of the Roger Corman Poe films and the other Corman films I've seen from the period. (Also MASTER OF THE WORLD now that I think of it.)

THE EGG AND I?

*One that they've shown for years, but I always like it, is the semi-animated short with a few weary late night people going home (?) on the subway, a young woman in what looks like a brownstone apartment building window removing (or putting on?) a fur coat, an old man sitting by a window. autumn leaves flying up the street. I think it ends at one of those Hopper-like diners.* I'm pretty certain all the images in that opening are from Hopper paintings.

*Harry, you're in bad company.* Aw, you're just guessing. You're right, of course, but you're just guessing.

Perhaps we should be reading your defense of Zasu Pitts and why you think she's funny. Her appeal has always eluded me.

*an insider (possibly from Criterion) explained that Criterion's biggest risk with a full restoration of a public domain film is that people will make copies and repackage and that proving that they used Criterion's source material illegally may be hard to prove etc etc etc.* This is true. I was told much the same thing by a representative of Milestone when I asked about a restoration of THE BAT to go with their stunning resoration of THE BAT WHISPERS. He basically said that once they spend all the money for the restoration work on a PD title & out it out on the market losts of copies are going to show up in the Dollar stores for a buck. It's just too big a gamble that they'll even break even. (And what's really nutty is that the purveyors of these cheaping will then watermark their discs to keep others from copying the films they've essentially stolen.)

*I thought I'd dust this off to remind everyone the extremely rare* *Secret Beyond the Door is airing September 20, at 6 p.m. EST* Everyone in the Central PA area stay off Rte 422 between 5:30 and 6:00 that night. I'll be driving like a bat out of hell to get home in time to DVDR it.