HarryLong

>>Hey...Pluto is no longer a planet. Wait a minute... D'ya think Halliburton was there already??? Never occurred to me that Pluto's non-planet status might have something to do with Haliburton... Wouldn't surprise me in the least, though.

>>Frank Sinatra is finally getting his biopic, directed by no less a celebrity profiler than Martin Scorsese I can't think of a bigger waste of Scorsese's time.

>>I heard the Academy of Motion Pictures was going to replace all the credits in all the movies by giving credit to blacklisted persons instead of pseudonyms. Fat Chance. Did anybody on this board hear of this? Uh, no, I hadn't heard that the Academy was going to recall all the prints of hundreds, probably thousands of films and redo the credits sequences. As several other posters have noted TCM does show films that were written by, directed by blacklisted people or had them in the caset. And I recall Robert Osborne noting careers that were damaged or destroyed by the blacklist in his intros and/or outros. And how about that remembrance of Kirk Douglas by his son Michael that TCM cycles pretty frequently into its fillers. Michael points out that with SPARTACUS, Kirk defied the Blacklist and gave Dalton Trumbo his first onscreen credit in years. In fact TCM has broadcast Trumbo's JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN. Sorry, but your observation shows some lack of familiarity with TCM...

>>I wish they would screen Witchfinder General, one of the great horror films (and in my opinion Price's greatest role). But they should show the UK version -- the US version looks pretty much the same, but they totally changed the music track. Paul Ferris's music for the UK version is particularly beautiful. I think on its initial theatrical release in the US (as THE CONQUEROR WORM), WITCHFINDER did have the Paul Ferris score. It was the video release that lacked it. The most recent DVD restores the Paul Ferris score. The biggest problem with the US version was the editing which reduced the carnage soemwhat but also reshuffled scenes. Price & his henchman at one point are fleeing from an encounter with Ian Ogilvy & pull over by the roadside to discuss what to do with him. In the US cut, this scene is placed before the encounter, which comes seberal scenes later. AIP during this period seemed to think the just had to re-edit films & the results were usually not beneficial.

He's not precisely a villain (not that he's any model of decency either) in the three films he did for Linsay Anderson: IF..., O LUCKY MAN and BRITANNIA HOSPITAL.

>.the movie is mostly just a verbal sparing between Kate and Peter Well, it's a bit more than that. They're both maneuvering politcally & so are their sons & Philip of France. It's like watching a chess match with human pieces. All the plotting & counter-plotting amongst 6 participants is quite fascinating.

I'm more on the Yuku Scarlet Street boards than the Classic Horror ones. Lots of people don't cotton to me over there. The name I used for this friend of John Beresford Tipton was actually coined by my friend John Soister for a satirical article he wrote for a magazine I edit. I can't take credit for it. And I used it because it amused me - wasn't aware that it might be rule-breaking to use his "real" name. He's actually quite infamous in classic film circles. He might be laughing but he's also somewhat of a joke. (But good grief... what if he's on the level!?)

I don't think it was mentioned (maybe I missed it), but the "before" painting ws done by Ivan Albright's brother (whose first name I'm blanking on). You can see both of them in that photo from LIFE magazine. They looked a lot alike, but they sure didn't paint alike (all of Ivan's work looks like his DG painting... making him an inspired choic eto do the portrait).

Amazon does have an all-region box of David Lean titles that includes BLITHE SPIRIT. At 54 bucks it's less expensive than some of the OOP discs that some sellers are pushing. (I didn't realize so many years had passed since this was released to DVD - I'm a little surpised to see it's gone out of print...)

At the risk of seeming rude... I've watched Virginia Bruce in quite a few movies & it just never struck me before how ... um ... ample she was...

Paramount & Lionsgate have been selling the Republic catalogue back & forth to each other so much I wonder if even they know who owns what...

Maybe The TexasKid meant that LeFran's novella contains a lesbian vampire. That aspect didn't really make it into VAMPYR.

I'm pretty sure Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING made use of infrared film stock.

What!? No CROCODILE DUNDEE or YOUNG EINSTEIN? Edited by: HarryLong on May 13, 2010 11:45 AM

Frazetta did, in fact work for MAD.

>>That user has a history of claiming to see "lost" films through the courtesy of an unnamed millionaire film collector. That almost has to be ole Quasimodo McGillicuddy...

>>I have often held the view that the TCM viewers would love Bollywood musicals. TCM did a Bollywood month years ago & I, for one, enjoyed my first exposure to these films. But I don't think they's shown a single one since. Were the ratings that poor, I wonder?

It's a Wonderful Lifeboat A guardian angel descends to show George Bailey what his home town would have been like had the Titanic not sunk...

>>we learned last week at the TCM Classic Film Festival during the Fragments screenings that THE LAST WARNING (Universal, 1929) which you have asked about many times on these boards, is actually being restored by UCLA in 35 Millimeter Whoopee!!!! At last we'll be able to see it properly rather than on smeary bootleg tapes! I wonder if Kino will release it as they did the other 2 films Paul Leni made for Universal? First THE MAGICIAN shows up on TCM & now this news. Life is good.

I thought TCM had shown BLIND HUSBANDS at some point... Or am I confusing it with FOOLISH WIVES?

>>Everyone is mentioning directors of non-English language films. Aside from the late Sunday-early Monday time slot (or whenever it is), I don't think it would be very good commercial strategery (compliments to George W. Bush) to start to show more and more foreign films. I agree. And get them out of the 2am graveyard! If I want to watch them I have to set the alarm, get up, hit Record & time-shift them.

There have been a number of movies in the past several years that had me flying up the aisle at the end & into the Men's Room. Peter Jackson's KING KONG (an hour longer, at least, than the original) is a prime example.* filmlover's citing of William Powell reminds me that few feature films in the Pre Code era were much over an hour in length. Not only was directing & editing more efficient, so was acting. Beginning with the late 1940s & the introduction of Method Acting we had to have long, meaningful pauses in dialogue. When do you recall Powell pausing in his dialogue for longer than it takes to draw a breath? *On the other hand, Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS films, at 2.5 hours seem almost too short... Every movie should find its own length - but some are too long for their own good. 90 minutes, as one poster noted, is a good length for probably 90-95%.

>>Nothing against Ken Russell, who is underrated imo, but if Bunuel and Antonioni get little airtime, I don't think he should either. Antonioni frankly bores me, but I agree with you about Bunuel. Thing is, so many of Russell?s films were for WB, MGM or UA, so TCM ought to have the broadcast rights. And TCM did a month-long salute to Bunuel a year ir two back... they've never done that with Russell to my knowledge. >>"Tommy" has appeared on TCM several times. Russell has directed a few other films, y?know? >>If TCM showed the restored version of The Devils, I'd probably faint. If Warners ever allows it to be shown anywhere, I?d probably faint. Edited by: HarryLong on May 11, 2010 3:46 PM

CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC?

THE BOYS IN THE BAND?