HarryLong

Warners had a habit of marketing their period films with posters depicting the stars in modern dress. They feared period films didn't sell, but rather they stop making them, they decided to try misleading the public.

I might be wrong but I thought there were 4 Jeeves films made with Arthur Treacher.

>>She was found dead in the garage of her house, while sitting in her automobile. The death was assumed to be an accident, by way of Thelma having gotten drunk and then drove home, only to fall asleep at the steering wheel of her car, after having parked her car while the motor was still running. It was easy to figure out that she died from a high amount of noxious carbon monoxide poisoning. If shen was even still alive when the motor was started. She also showed signs of having been severely beaten, with facial bruises, broken teeth, etc.

>>Ah the Swiss...money talks, Polanski walks. No. It's simply that the LA authorities could not or would not provide any evidence that Polaski has not served his full sentence & thus show proof that Polaski was a fugitive from justice.

I haven't yet seen the Directors' Cut (Universal only sent me a screener of the theatrical version), but I'm told there is more of the actor-backstory in that cut. How much of it is actually relevant is another story... The novelization also has a good deal more; I suspect it's based on the full screenplay.

>>if TCM want's to schedule rare Valentino, how about a restored version of MOUSIER BEAUCAIRE (1924)? I'm holding out for MOUSIEST BEAUCAIRE...

>>Fred, you were actually able to decipher what mikemcgee wrote? The frightening thing is that he even edited it!

>>And Robert Osborne again referred to Una Merkel as "Yuna". I must pay attention to see if he says Yuna O'Connor sometime.. In some ways it's a pity TCM screened the 65mm print. The camera equipment West had built definitely limited him. The 35 mm has a lot more camera movement (& close-ups). Of the two sound versions it's my preferred one. And it certainly puts to the lie that sound movies were static as late as 1930. Only ion the first transitional year of 1928 was that wholly true; afterward it's a question of whether or not the director was any good or not. As to West's movie career ending due to his suspected involvement in Thema Todd's death, it should be noted that he hadn'y made a film in 4 years when she was murdered & had given several interviews around the time of ALIBI and CORSAIR that he was losing interest in the medium.

>>The director is more an action director than a horror film director which might explain why the film is never as terrifying as it might have been And it's the action scenes that really damage the film because they are so stultifying. Oh, they're action-filled alright, but the just go on and on... But I appreciated thge 3000 or so quick visual references to other Universal & Hammer horror films. And I loved that image near the end of the bloody fingerprints on the piano keys; it was only one example of poetry-of-horror that is in the film. Very much a mixed bag of inspired touches, elemnts that don't work & unnecessary padding (just what was the point of making Lawrence Talbot an actor?)...

Bridie also wrote THE ANATOMIST (about Dr Knox and Burke & Hare) which Sims performed on the London stage & in a television adaptation. Sim may have done other Bridie plays - I don't recall. One of my favorite Sim performances is in a film that used to show up pretty regularly on A&E but which I haven't seen in ages: THE GREEN MAN. Maybe it's because Sim plays a bomb-planting terrorist who eliminates politicians... The idea isn't so funny anymore, but the film & Sim are a hoot.

Well, so few were even watching the screen...

>>Spoiler Alert: Did U notice: Makeup artist Rick Baker appears as the gypsy man who whistles prior to the werewolf attack on the gypsy camp ... :LO)! He also gets his head taken off by the first wolfman, doesn't he (it looked like him anyway). I liked it but I didn't love it & I think the main problem is overkill in the wolfman attacks. They go one & on & claim dozens of victims & in stead of being terrifying (think the graverobber at the beginning of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN), they just become numbing. It's the difference between hearing a news report on one little kid run down by a car compared to thousands dying in an earthquake. One is a tragedy; the other is statistics.

>>really tacky production- with cheap CGI effects and bad make up It's an Asylum* DVD... what did you expect? *Or as the OP spells it, Assylum - which just might be more appropriate...

Falconetti had made two films a decade prior. The experience was making this film was so intense she suffered a nervous breakdown & production had to be suspended. She probably had no desire to make any more movies after that.

It's not exactly a low-budget film (though it may have been economically produced). It has A list actors in the leads & the costumes are by Travis Banton! Anyway, RKO had a pretty extensive backlot and a location called "the ranch" (where the exteriors for HUNCHBACK were filmed). Additionally Ray Corrigan's property (Corriganville) was often rented out for low budget westerns and Bronson Canyon was another locale favored for exteriors (everything from westerns to sci-fi). It could have been any of these, but my bet is on RKO's ranch.

>>Kent Smith ... I've read that he was not considered attractive or anyway sexy enough for bigger roles Interesting. I'd never heard that before. I think he is very handsome in a guy-next-door way, but he didn't exactly have the kind of chemistry that grabbed the camera, did he (unlike, say, other guy-next-door types such as Dennis Morgan)? He did play leads in a number of films during his stay at RKO, but it mnight have been the result of Victory Casting. There's an amusing comment on him in CAT PEOPLE - whether it was in the script or an idea of the director's, I don't know, but every time he goes out to a restaurant he orders apple pie.

I didn't know Cary Grant made any movies with Greta Garbo...

>>That short always amazes me, since the MGM facility was so vast by then And just think: this was just in the first year of its amalgamated existence.

I'm a big Poverty Row fan, too... and especially of PRC. I doubt they had as much money to work with as even Monogram, but the producr sems more interesting somehow. I'd certainly add STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP to their best-of list. And I'd rank Ulmer's STRANGE ILLUSION over his BLUEBEARD any day. Love the George Zucco films - especially THE FLYING SERPENT (remake of DEVIL BAT or not) anhd THE MAD MONSTER.

>>The one (1) question that kept running through my mind as I watched the film was, Who really would have paid to sit through this film? Where would a film like this play? Given it was distributed by American International Pictures, it probably played a great many drive-ins... no doubt on a double bill (imagine this going out with something like INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN!). It was marketed as a horror film, not an art film.

>>Not that anyone on these boards would notice, but was Dennis Hopper wearing trousers about two sizes too small? Night Tide would make a great "young men in tight pants" doubleheader with Cocteau's Orpheus. Add QUERELLE and make it a triple-bill...

>>And I doubt that there's any symbolic significance to the way the crowd streams into the square; director William Dieterle probably just found it visually interesting, since he wasn't provided enough extras to fill the whole square. That's most likely it; it's certainly visually more interesting that the mob in the 1923 version. And Dieterle was schooled in German Expressionism as a director...

>>trust this newbie with a new take on a classic? It can't be any worse than the previous attempt... maybe...

Hey, all thos estars were drawing a weekly paycheck. Keep 'em busy!

>>Is that the one where Tallulah Bankhead and William Bendix fight to eat Zuzu's petals as the angel points out that James Stewart would not have been a nazi spy if he killed himself? And Walter Slezak steals the Reichsmarks that befuddled old Henry Hull was supposed to stow in the purser's safe just before the dance floor opened up & dunked them all in the ocean... Yup.