misswonderly3
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Posts posted by misswonderly3
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On 6/30/2018 at 12:20 AM, slaytonf said:
I find it at least entertaining to watch as I listen to the music. And Ken Russell does have a way with the camera. And I like seeing Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, and Elton John take on The Who. Maybe it didn't do much for you then, but maybe you aren't giving the movie a fair chance now. Thing is, you've probably missed the chance to see it, as it's not on Watch TCM, and I doubt it'll be on again.
Oh, darn.
Guess that was rude, sorry. And judging by what a lot of people are saying here, it is really worth my giving it another shot.
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On 6/29/2018 at 1:10 PM, CaveGirl said:
... Always loved the homage to Eddie Cochran in the Who's "Overture" ....
?? I'm intrigued by this statement. I'm pretty familiar with both "Tommy" (including the Overture) and the music of Eddie Cochran. And in fact, just out of curiousity, figuring it's quite likely I might have missed something, I just listened to the Tommy Overture. Cant' hear any "homage" to Eddie Cochran. Please 'splain.
(Of course, maybe you meant the "overture" as heard in the movie version, which I haven't heard for years.)
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12 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:
For me, the ecdysiast (let's keep it classy) reminded me of Virginia Mayo, but perhaps that's just a fantasy on my part.
Virginia Mayo ! Yes ! She actually looks more like Virgina Mayo than like Rhonda Fleming. Maybe that's who I was thinking of all along. Thanks, cmovieview !
Adele Jergens:
Virginia Mayo:
Rhonda Fleming:
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On 6/30/2018 at 7:11 AM, TikiSoo said:
...I saw Tommy at the theater with fellow teen friends, the perfect age for a rock movie. It was much anticipated since I was a big Who fan, with a crush on Keith Moon-and even own his solo LP. ...
I, too, had a bit of a crush (just a mild passing one) on Keith Moon. Not at the time near the end of his life, when his crazy hard living and alcoholism etc. had ruined his looks (hard to believe he was only 32), but when he was younger and before his wild ways played havoc with his looks. He had a boyish, almost angelic appearance, very "cute", I thought when I was young. Angelic looks that belied his manic behaviour. But poor old Keith was never a "bad" person, just kind of mixed-up and full of manic energy (yes, I know, "manic" twice in as many sentences. But it's a good word to describe him). The same energy that made him such a fantastic drummer. Here's a pic of him,before both Keith and his eyebrows went crazy, one that inspired my teenage crush:
ps: Thanks for your comments on the film "Tommy". Now, thanks to you, I actually would like to see it again.
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On 6/30/2018 at 12:04 PM, CaveGirl said:
Though some might call this information and theory of interpretation varieties abounding, half-baked...I for one always enjoy a discussion about any kind of beans, Eric. It also is relevant to discuss this about "Tommy" since I and some friends have tickets to one of Daltrey's upcoming concerts, in which he is performing around the nation a version of "Tommy" with varied symphonic orchestras. My point was that the precursor for the theme of baked beans in The Who pantheon of symbols was to be seen in the photos for the "The Who Sell Out" album cover with the Heinz Baked Bean can and ensuing photos. Of course we all know that REX, is the King of Beans or why would they be called REX anyway, but The Who bean predilection began with Heinz and ended with the REX brand, thanks to Russell. There are some though who have questioned participants in the film about which brand was used for the Ann-Margret scene since some contend that Heinz had a nicer pinkish-orange colour tone and lent a sort of flesh-like glow to the bolster pillow, as Ann-Margret mounted it. Now I remember being in London at Harrods and Fortnum and Mason and seeing some nice Heinz cans there, but I am more partial to processed peas in cans, but I doubt Ann would have looked as good in a green milieu. It's been said that artist Jeff Koons has contemplated doing a three-dimensional sculpture of the Tommy Bean Scene in a polychrome, stainless steel and enameled aluminum process for a conceptual art show but I have not seen it materialize yet. It is debatable whether he will incorporate The Who's original bean fetish product of Heinz or the later REX type when choosing the exact shade of beans done in the enameling, but I look forward to it.
CaveGirl, priding yourself as I presume you do on your exceptional literary skills, I'm surprised you did not practice the dull but necessary discipline of paragraphing in the above post.
No matter how interesting the content, my eyes and my brain have difficulty taking in one huge block of text. I realize there are times when it's fun to do this on purpose, perhaps that was what you were aiming for. But for me, one long run-on big uninterrupted block of text is just a can of worms. Er, beans.
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2 hours ago, NipkowDisc said:
not very good. I stayed up late and lost sleep time for that? how is tcm gonna make it up to me? ...
so here is mcgraw at the hospital paying respects to his late partner's wife and his new partner shows up and mcgraw is not happy with the pearing. no explanation given as to why
Nipkow, perhaps the film should have featured a scene that looked like this:
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Unfortunately, I usually don't get a chance to post here about the latest Noir Alley offering til an hour or two after it's aired, by which time everyone's left the building.
Oh well, a few thoughts about "Armoured Car Robbery":
I love, love these noir "terrain vague" locations. "Noir Alley"'s been on a roll with films with such settings lately. There are two in ACR, first the deserted garage or whatever it is where the first car, the one used in the heist, has been left and discovered by the cops.
But the second one is the cherry on this noir sundae (sorry, sometimes being silly is good for the soul). The wharf, or waterfront warehouse buildings or whatever that place is. The shacky old building where poor old Benny (Douglas Fowley) gets his for insisting on getting a doctor. Hey, he's only been shot in the gut, why can't he man up and take it? I really enjoy this scene, where the crooks sneak around under piers, etc., watching the cops looking for them, gun at the ready. Of course one of them slips on a pile of rope or something, making a huge racket that alerts the cops and puts the final mark of disaster on the attempt to make the heist aftermath go smoothly. No such luck. But the atmosphere of this shipping warehouse /dock setting is just to my noirish otherworldly taste - it looks like a place where anything could happen, like all good terrain vagues do.
Other stuff: Thought the stripper (who I noticed doesn't actually strip, she parades around, in high heels, waving a feather boa) looked a bit like Rhonda Fleming. I love her reaction when she finds out her husband (the aforementioned Benny) "didn't make it" . She doesn't miss a beat. You can think these people are hard as nails, but at least you have to admire their honesty. They can't be bothered to be hypocritical.
Lorna - or Vautrin, sorry, guys, one of you? -- said it would have been neat (as in neat and tidy) if Charles McGraw's character had married his partner's widow. Yeah, but he's supposed to be a stand-up guy who doesn't do that kind of thing. Plus, the widow wasn't half as sexy as Adele Jergens.
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1 minute ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
Thanks for the info, and good God I hope Barbara Hale wasn't also there.
Well, the article does go on to say that Talman was exonerated of all charges. I dunno, these Hollywood Babylon stories are fascinating. So different from now, when every time a famous actor so much as sneezes there's a twitter chain about it.
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32 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
now, i liked ARMORED CAR ROBBERY quite a bit.
it was so black and white in many senses- the duality angle of the story, that CHARLES MCGRAW and WILLIAM TALMAN (who were both excellent, although I especially liked little things McGraw did with his eyes and expression, even licking his lips in one scene where he gets a lead) were living parallel lives was strong without being forced. i couldn't help but wonder though, if an extra 30 minutes were in the budget, whether they could have worked in something where McGraw's character was also seeing his deceased partner's wife, as was the case with Talman, just to add a shade of grey to his moral standing....but really, it worked just fine like it was.
what was all this about a lewd public act charge against Talman? I couldn't find it on wikipedia.
what was the make of jalopy in the first scene where we see "WRIGLEY FIELD" in LA?
there was a strong resemblance between this film and THE KILLING (1956) only I LIKE THIS FILM A WHOLE LOT BETTER THAN "THE KILLING"!
Yeah, I kind of wish Eddie had told us some of those stories he tantalizingly hints at.
Well, according to Imbd, in 1960 Talman was arrested for participating in a "wild nude party". ! ! It says:
In March of 1960 Talman made headlines when he was arrested during a police raid of an alleged "wild nude party"
"Wild nude party" ! I love it !
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On 6/29/2018 at 5:54 PM, TheCid said:
I looked it up on Wiki and I know I've seen it, but don't remember it very well. Will have to watch it.
Yeah, especially for you because it's got the word "car" in the title.?
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On 6/29/2018 at 10:07 AM, arpirose said:
Richard Fleicher did not want to stay directing B Pictures . ......
.....I forgot to mention 10 Rillington Place (1971) that FLEICHER DIRECTED WITH A YOUNG RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH. I suppose that would be calLED NEO-NOIR TODAY.
I kind of don't want to get into this, but I can't seem to stop myself: I would not call "10 Rillington Place" a noir of any kind, "neo" or otherwise. I don't regard movies about psychotic sex killers as "noirs" - some of them might be good movies, and they're certainly dark, but they are in a different category from noir.
Noir, for me anyway, is never about compulsive serial sex murderers. It's a particularly nasty topic which doesn't belong in the noir world.
I've noticed that a lot of people seem to think that anything with nastiness, with murder and weird sex in it, is a film noir. That is not my idea of noir at all, and if you read any of the original writings about the idea of film noir (you know, those French guys in the late 1950s, Cahiers du Cinema and all that), they don't say much about that stuff. Just because it's dark and there's a killing (or several) in a film, doesn't necessarily make it a "noir".
I know cigarjoe has a theory about this, how different people have different responses to "dark" films, depending on their own personal history, personality, and sensitivities. He says each individual's response to a film (or I suppose, any work of fiction for that matter) is like a "tuning fork", and they will "pick up" different aspects of the film according to their own personal set of emotions and ideas. This is an extremely interesting theory that I do kind of subscribe to, and I appreciate cigarjoe's telling us about it (which he has, a few times.)
Still, horrid sex murders and characters like the Richard Attenborough one in "10 Rillington Place" will never hold a place in my tuning fork noir world.
"That said", "10 Rillington Place" is a good movie. I just can't watch it, it's too horrible. (and it's not a noir.)
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On 6/29/2018 at 9:08 AM, LornaHansonForbes said:
1. What a great write-up!
2. Among the other things Richard Fleischer directed is MANDINGO (1975). I saw it last weekend. I'm never going to look at his work the same way again, actually I'm never going to look at anything the same way again (read my review somewhere a few pages back in the I JUST WATCHED thread if you DARE.)
3. I love the term "terrain vague."
4. I was gonna make a superfluous u joke, but Lord Knows, Canada has taken enough crap from The States lately. Enjoy your superfluous "u"s, the majesty of your landscape, your sane (for the moment at least) government- and please be patient with your neighbor country until we are under new management.
Thanks for your kind words, Lorna baby.
Hey, did you mean "neighboUr" country?
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5 hours ago, EricJ said:
Wrong beans, though--
The Who were parodying the oft-seen Heinz "What's For Tea?" ads (which I would have never known in the US except for being a richly overexposed target of parodies for British comics like Benny Hill and The Goodies), but Ken's old advertising devils were for Rex baked beans. So it's open to interpretation.
What's open to interpretation? Russell probably didn't think the exact brand of canned beans was important. I dunno, I only saw the movie once, and that was a long time ago.
Eric, did you not see my post explaining about the whole "canned beans" thing?
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16 hours ago, EricJ said:
It was baked beans. And why? Accdg. to IMDb:
IOW, pretty much Ken Russell throwing story out the window and making the whole scene About Him.
But it would also have been an allusion to the cover of The Who's album (the one that just preceded "Tommy"). "The Who Sell Out". Each of the four members of the band are featured advertising something, and Roger Daltry's rolling in what looks like a bath of baked beans.
Also, beans are mentioned on the album, not so much a song as one of the little fake adverts, "jingles", that make this album so unusual and kind of fun.
Here's the "jingle", which happens to feature the album cover too:
("What's for tea, darling?" "Darling, I said, What's for tea?" "What's for tea, daughter?")
edit: Oops... I posted this before seeing that CaveGirl had already mentioned the beans on the cover of "The Who Sell Out". That's what I get for getting all carried away and posting something before catching up on the thread, first.
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5 minutes ago, slaytonf said:
As Robert Osborne said, the story is the excuse for song and dance in musicals. So with opera. And so with rock opera.
It isn't clear to me from how you put it, but I hope you think "Quadrophenia" is as good as "Tommy." Because though it's not as popular, I do.
"Can you see the real me. . . .?"
Well, clearly we're agreed on how great a rock band The Who are.
I'm not sure how you could have missed it, I thought I'd made a big point of saying how good "Quadrophenia" is. I love it just as much as "Tommy". To quote my own post, this is what I said about it:
"The music on this, too, is first-rate, I love all the songs on "Quadrophenia". "
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Up this weekend on Noir Alley: "Armoured Car Robbery". This is a cool little heist movie, starring William Talman as the brains of the heist operation, and Charles McGraw as the cop assigned to figure out who did the heist job. Both are well-cast.
Talman has a great face for noir; it's rough and sad at the same time. He's hard as nails, yet you feel sorry for him. This goes for all his roles, not just as the heist boss in "Armoured Car Robbery".
Same could be said for Charles McGraw. What a great tough guy, whether he's cast as villain ("The Killers") or hero (sort of - "The Narrow Margin".)
I won't say much about "Armoured Car Robbery" yet, as I hate people who do the spoiler thing and don't want to be one of them. But I do recommend this Richard Fleischer film (who also directed "The Narrow Margin"and "Compulsion", among others.) It's got all the elements a good noir should have, including one of those "terrain vague" locations I've mentioned before, lots of tough talk, and oh yes, a stripper girlfriend - er, no, wife - who's bored with her profession, along with a few other things.
Anyway, it's a fun ride for noir fans. Check it out. I'm looking forward to hear what Eddie has to say about it.
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On 6/23/2018 at 11:01 PM, EricJ said:
I take it you never watched the series, where she ritually mentioned it once per episode.
The show was intentionally cribbing the Carry On comedies, but even they would have considered that shameless.
Actually, the bits that link showed were quite funny. I'm sorry I've never seen the series, it seems really clever and amusing in that way only those British television shows could do. The Brits were (are?) shameless when it comes to dirty jokes - shameless and often hilarious.
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Who doesn't love The Who? And if you love The Who, then of course you love "Tommy".
Coincidentally, I just listened to this great album in its entirety a few weeks ago (for the first time in a while.) And I thought about it what I always think: truly great music, some of the best rock ever made. Every track is fantastic; you can tell that Townshend, who'd written some outstanding music already, had really found his muse by the time he got to "Tommy". Every time I hear "Pinball Wizard" I realize it's one of the most exciting rock songs ever written. And that's just the "hit" from the album; there are so many unusual, interesting, inventive, and - at the risk of sounding horribly pretentious - "transcendent" (apologies to Shelley Duvall) pieces on "Tommy".
Anyone here seen "Almost Famous"? Remember that scene near the beginning, when the kid's going through the rock albums his older sister has left for him, along with a note that says something like, "this music will change your life". One of the first record covers we see is the iconic, strange blue and black grid which is "Tommy".
So, having acknowledged, probably excessively, how much I love this album, I will say, what makes "Tommy" great is the music. The story is silly, and doesn't really make much sense. But that's ok. You could say the same for most operas, whether they're classical or rock. The whole thing about Tommy having a cult following ( I mean the character Tommy), and having some kind of spiritual epiphany when he "becomes aware", is all a bunch of rubbish. But that's ok. It's not for the story that I listen to "Tommy", it's not the story that goes through my head sometimes in the form of an earworm. It's the amazing (journey) songs.
So, "that said", I don't really get that much out of the Ken Russell film. I'd much rather listen to the record.
(Just an addendum: A much better "rock opera", in terms of story (but not music), of Pete Townshend's is "Quadrophenia", which was also made into a movie. The music on this, too, is first-rate, I love all the songs on "Quadrophenia". But the story actually kind of makes sense, certainly it's a much better narrative than that of "Tommy". )
Still, whether we're talking about "Tommy", "Quadrophenia", "Who's Next", or even "The Who Sell Out" (amongst others), what counts is the great music The Who made. When it comes to songs, music trumps lyrics every time.
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On 6/27/2018 at 5:57 PM, lydecker said:
I think Robert Preston is fabulous in just about anything he does from noir to musicals (especially Victor/Victoria!) I'm a major fan of this guy and know he deserves a SUTS Day or to be a SOTM.
I love Robert Preston. Something I saw on TCM a while ago featured him: The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. I was unfamiliar with this film, although I'd heard of it. It was very good, a really interesting family story with well-developed characters and first-rate acting. And Robert Preston is outstanding in it.
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12 hours ago, TikiSoo said:
Miss W- I love the song WELLS FARGO WAGON, I just bristle every time Ronny Howard intentionally spits. I'm sure he was coached by the director to do so, but it just annoys me.
Sorry, Tiki baby, I misunderstood. And yes, I agree, while the song itself is lively and fun, and it's a big deal when Winthrop overcomes his painful shyness to sing, they overdo the lisp and the subsequent spitting.
In the stage production I saw recently, they don't have him spitting at all.
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22 hours ago, NickAndNora34 said:
This movie musical is one of my absolute favorites (not to mention, one of my favorite films of all time). I remember when I checked it out from the library (summer of 2013, to be exact). I watched it about 3 times within the week; that's how much I enjoyed it. The music is quite catchy and it's fun to learn the words to all the songs.
My favorite number in this is "Marian the Librarian." I love the melody and the rhymes Meredith Willson came up with. However, I have noticed that the melody is the same as a song from 1950, called "Pink Champagne" by Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers.
Thanks for posting "Pink Champagne", NandN. I'm impressed that you knew the song. I enjoyed listening to it, it's pretty darn good. I do have to disagree a little, however, about its being the same melody as "Marian". Yes, without a doubt, that rhythmic line (da-daddle-da -da, da-daddle-da-da etc.), is exactly the same in both songs. But the melodies are different.
I found "Marian" on youtube and once again, had to laugh. It's not only a really good song, it's very funny. How can you resist lyrics like "If I stumbled, and busted my whatchamacallit*, /I could lie on the floor unnoticed/ Till my body had turned to carrion. ( or actually, "caaaaaar -ion")."
I mean, as TikiSoo observed, how many songs have the word "carrion" in them? But it works ! It's a hilarious scene.
* "Whatchamacallit" Presumably, his bum. I always thought so, anyway.
By the way, thought I might as well include "Marian the Librarian" here. Any excuse to listen to ( and see) this clever, funny number. Plus we can play the two songs back to back and compare.
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Well, unlike the O.P. and a couple of others here, I love musicals. I can never quite understand why others don't -of course, it all depends on how good the music in the musical is, and in the case of The Music Man, it couldn't be better.
It's high praise for The Music Man for me to say that, because, as stated, I am a hard-core fan of musicals. So I love many musical films. But The Music Man has to be right up there in my top 5.
I agree with all here who've praised the performances of Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. However, great though they are, I think the film stands up on its own merits, apart from the excellence of those two stars (who definitely contribute to its success, they're both charming and hugely talented.) What I'm trying to say is, I like The Music Man for its own sake and not just because of the charisma of its lead performers.
I recently saw a live production of The Music Man at Stratford, which has a world-class theatre festival just an hour's drive from my home. It was fantastic ! They'd added quite a bit of dancing - the "76 Trombones" number is literally a real show-stopper, with an exuberant cast stepping and twirling all over the stage. It was a lot of fun, and proved to me that it isn't only the filmed version that's an outstanding musical, it's the story and most of all, the songs themselves. Some of the best songs ever in a musical.
And Tiki my friend, I have to say, I love "Wells Fargo Wagon". It's tremendously catchy and joyful - - but then, just about all the numbers in The Music Man are. Catchy and joyful, that is.
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My husband and I are on a roll with rewatching some foreign language films. We have a few on DVD from Criterion. So, first up:
DAY FOR NIGHT
I'd seen this a couple of times before, but years ago. I'd forgotten how enjoyable it is. It's a loving tribute to movies and the art of movie-making from the great French director, Francois Truffaut. I think the reason I'd forgotten about it is because in a way it isn't "about" anything, in the sense that there's not much story. The story is the making of a film. The film within the film is called "Meet Pamela", an intergenerational love story. But whether you bother to follow the plot of "Meet Pamela" isn't' important, "Day for Night" is much more about the travails and joys of filmmaking, the various and diverse problems that emerge, how they're resolved, the characters of the cast and crew, and how they each cope with and react to all the intricacies of making a major motion picture.
The young woman who plays "Julie", who plays "Pamela" (are you following this?) is Jacqueline Bisset, who is heart-breakingly beautiful in this movie. Jean-Pierre Leaud ("The 400 Blows") plays the young actor who plays her husband (not "Julie's" husband, "Pamela's"). Confusingly, both the actor and the character he plays have the same name (Alphonse.) All the actors in "Day for Night" are good and fun to watch, but the one who really caught my eye was the woman who plays Severine, (who plays the mother in "Meet Pamela"). It's Valentina Cortese. I kept trying to figure out where I'd seen her before, and finally realized it was as a much younger actress in the fine 1949 Jules Dassin film, "Thieves Highway". So now I want to see "Thieves Highway". Cortese plays her actress character as a fragile, booze-tippling former diva who keeps forgetting her mark and her lines and mourns her lost youth, but is still compelling on-screen.
Anyway, I absolutely recommend "Day for Night" for anyone who loves and reveres the art of movie-making.It's a sweet film, you can tell that Truffaut and everyone involved is doing it as a labour of love. And it's a really interesting look at the kind of thing that goes on behind-the-scenes in filmmaking. At least, circa 1973.
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7 hours ago, sewhite2000 said:
According to imdb, the character of McBurney, played by Ferrell, is an Irish immigrant in the novel, of which there were plenty fighting for the North, and so his accent is correct. Ferrell is perfectly capable of an American accent - see Crazy Heart, for example - and volunteered to do so, but it was Sofia Coppola who wanted him to use his natural brogue, yet another element that would make his character alien to the school's denizens. It's actually Clint Eastwood, who wasn't going to be bothered with learning an Irish accent, who was technically incorrect!
Yes, NickandNora, the person who originally posted about "The Beguiled" (the remake), set me straight on the fact that the Union soldier is in fact Irish. As I admitted in my post, I have not seen either film (the original or the remake), so was unaware of those kind of details.
Now I wouldn't mind seeing both. I love Irish accents, and Colin Farrell is easy on the eyes (imo), so bring on "The Beguiled" !
Opulence on opulence: Tommy directed by Ken Russell
in General Discussions
Posted
Well, MotherofZeus, I enjoyed your childhood tale of woe. It does sound as though it would have been a traumatizing, or at the very least, disturbing experience, to have been taken to see a movie like "Tommy" when you were only four years old. Definitely not intended for four-year-olds, and I hope you'll forgive me if I say I can't imagine what your mother could have been thinking to take you.
Still, we must separate the movie from the music, especially the music as it was originally recorded and intended to be heard, which was of course on the album "Tommy", released years before the movie. The way the songs are performed on the album, the music is different from how it's heard in the film. Since you seem to like The Who's music other than "Tommy", you might want to give the songs from "Tommy" another chance; just forget about the movie and try listening to the album. On ne sait jamais.