speedracer5

Many actors have their breakthrough role, the role that ruined their careers, the against-type role, the miscast role, etc. There are some performances where you go into the movie wondering if that person can pull it off and are pleasantly surprised when they do... and not surprised when it's apparent that they're over their head. There are also other performances where you're enthralled at a person's outward appearance because they look so much better or worse than they usually do in their other films. I'll give two of my examples: In Five Came Back, I was surprised at how well Lucille Ball performed her dramatic role. Perhaps the reason I was surprised was because this was the first dramatic role I had seen Ball in. I had not yet seen her in The Big Street. Anyway, in Five Came Back, I found that Ball was very effective as one of the castaways vying for one of the spots on the plane. She also undertook a caregiver role to make sure that the young boy, Tommy, was taken care of. My other example is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I was surprised at how insane Bette Davis looked. While I'm fully aware that Davis wasn't known for aging gracefully...(I think she truly last looked her best in All About Eve) she looked absolutely batshit insane in this film--which I know was partly the point, but I was surprised at how bad she'd allow herself to look just to bring Baby Jane to life. She was so haggard and unattractive, it was hard to believe that she was also Margo Channing from just twelve years prior. How about you? What performances surprised you in how good someone was (or on the flipside, how much they sucked), how terrible they looked (or how good), a new talent they exhibited, etc. ?

THE LONG LONG WAIT IN THE DMV LINE Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz star as Tacy and Nicholas Collini in the Technicolor comedy about a newlywed couple who honeymoon in a large trailer that they've purchased as their first home and plan to drive to Colorado. Before they get on the road, they're forced to go to the DMV to get their tags and license plate for their new trailer. On the day they're planning on leaving for their journey, they decide that they'll make a quick trip to the DMV and leave after they have their tags in hand. Arriving at the DMV at the 8am opening time, they find that they're already #125 in line. They ask the man at the information desk what forms they need and proceed to fill them out while waiting for their number to be called. They watch person after person approach the DMV counter only to be told that they're missing required identification, proof of address, proper payment and paperwork. The Collini's become more and more nervous as they watch person after person leave the counter defeated and angry. They're also anxious because they need to leave by no later than 12pm in order to make it to their first trailer park stop before check-in time. Finally #125 is called. They present the forms they were given, only to be given an additional form to fill out on the spot at the counter. The disgruntled DMV representative also advises the Collini's that they are missing the proper title paperwork from their finance company to show they are the proper owners of the car. Cue the mad dash around town and through their belongings in the trailer to try and locate their title paperwork. They make it back into the DMV and through the line again by 11:59am.... just in time to leave by noon for their honeymoon road trip.

He was fantastic in The Adventures of Robin Hood. I love how versatile Claude Rains was. I could hardly believe that he was the same person in 'Robin Hood' that he was in Casablanca. What I loved in 'Robin Hood' is that he played Prince John kind of flamboyantly. He wasn't really evil persay and he wasn't crazy, he just wanted to be in power. Robin Hood was a threat to his power.

Okay. This is actually a recommendation for the day after tomorrow and it is not even on TCM, but, it does involve quite a few well-known classic Hollywood stars, so I'm going with it. On Sunday, CBS is showing 2 episodes of I Love Lucy that they've colorized. One of the episodes is the classic L.A. at Last! episode guest starring William Holden, with a special cameo by Eve Arden. In this episode, the Ricardos and Mertzes have finally arrived in Hollywood after two weeks on the road. While Ricky is reporting for his first day on the job at MGM, Lucy and the Mertzes go to "the watering hole," aka The Brown Derby, to scout movie stars. After seeing Cary Grant, Walter Pidgeon and Ava Gardner, they settle down to eat. William Holden is then seated in the booth next to Lucy and the Mertzes. Lucy, of course, makes a fool of herself. The funniest part of the episode is when Ricky ends up meeting Holden later in the day and asks him to come up to their hotel room to meet Lucy. The other episode that CBS is featuring is Lucy and Superman. In this episode, it's Little Ricky's birthday. Lucy and Carolyn Appleby have planned their sons' parties on the same day and Lucy plays the "Superman" card to force Carolyn to change the date (since Carolyn and Lucy's sons are in the same class and would thus invite the same children). Lucy asks Ricky to use his connections and get George Reeves to appear at the party as Superman. Later, Ricky phones Lucy to say that Superman isn't going to make it. Not wanting to look like an idiot or disappoint her son, Lucy decides to dress up like Superman herself. While I'm mixed on the idea of colorizing I Love Lucy, I'll never turn down an opportunity to watch my favorite television show of all time. CBS, 8pm (PST).

That's right. I remember Farley Granger's skittishness throughout much of the film. It was John Dahl who thought that they'd easily get away with the murder. I don't know why we can say cocky, but other words are censored, like laden! For whatever reason, I managed to get "herpes" allowed. Lol. EDIT: I guess "laden" is acceptable now. It wasn't before.

I just recorded all the bad sci-fi/horror movies that were on yesterday morning. I'm looking forward to them--especially The Giant Behemoth, about a radioactive dinosaur.

I first saw Rope a couple years ago on TCM and really liked it. It's not my favorite Hitchcock movie, but I like it because it's interesting. Perhaps more technically interesting than it is storywise, but I really liked it. I loved the tension that existed throughout most of the film when everyone kept asking where so and so was and his body was in the trunk under the hor d'oeuvres. The long shots were also very interesting. I think they only led to the uncomfortableness of the film. The problem with the two lead characters is they got too cocky about what they had done. If they hadn't gotten so confident and arrogant, perhaps James Stewart wouldn't have figured it out.

Unfortunately for me... as someone who is almost 31 but looks 18 and is perpetually carded (but I almost seem insulted when I'm not carded. I don't know why) I would probably be cast as a high school student and as a result, would be one of those actors who is 30 years old but playing a 17 year old. Lol. I'd probably end up in something schmaltzy like "Cheaper By the Dozen" or something--at least I'd get to meet Myrna Loy. Maybe I'll wait until the late 1960s and try to get a role in "Yours, Mine and Ours" so I can meet one of my faves--Lucille Ball. I'd love to say I'd be cast in a musical with Gene Kelly or something, but I have absolutely zero dancing talent. Lol.

1) Yes. 15 premieres + all the exempt premieres that I mentioned in the requirements. 2) Yes. The SOTM has to be someone who participated in some aspect of the filmmaking process but didn't appear in the film (unless it was a cameo like Hitchcock, for example). If your author also wrote various screenplay versions of his novels, then he would be eligible! Otherwise, I would save that idea for a theme in your schedule.

I love Lucy was black and white the entire run. There is one episode that was filmed in color as an experiment. It's a special feature on the I love Lucy DVD boxed set. The video that was posted here is also a special feature. The video is someone's home video. The Lucy Show, which I believe started in 1962, filmed the first season in black and white and the remaining 5 seasons in color.

I also purchased my Bewitched DVDs in black and white. That's how the show was originally made and that's what I want. When they moved to color in season 5 or 6 (whichever it was) then those episodes are fine. I completely agree with Holden and Kid Dabb's assessment on Bewitched in black and white vs color. I agree that Elizabeth Montgomery looked prettier in the black and white. I think the color somehow made her look older. While she was still a very pretty woman, the black and white gave her a nicer look. I Dream of Jeannie on the other hand... needs color. That show is so colorful that it's hard to watch the first season which is in black and white. The effects needed for 'Jeannie' (Jeannie's pink smoke, for example) and the costuming looks so much better in color. I liked The Andy Griffith Show in black and white better than when it was in color. 'Andy Griffith' was a very quaint show and the black and white was a perfect fit. When it moved to color, it just didn't work as well for me--though many of the color episodes (albeit, Barney-less, sigh) were still very funny. Recently CBS has become obsessed with releasing 1-2 colorized episodes of I Love Lucy as little mini specials. As someone who is absolutely obsessed with this show and love everything about it, I have mixed feelings about this. I am typically someone who wants to see old television shows and films uncut and in their original format. I want to see the program/movie how it was originally intended. I love that my I Love Lucy DVDs even have some of the original commercials included. In addition to painstakingly restoring the series from the original film, CBS also restored some additional footage that has been missing since when the show was originally aired. I love that I can see my favorite show of all time in it's original form and not chopped up by the networks to fit in more dumb car insurance commercials... (sorry I went off on a tangent there)... Anyway, this Sunday at 8:00pm CBS is airing two more episodes that they have colorized (previous episodes included "The Christmas Show," "Lucy's Italian Movie," and "Job Switching"). This time, they've colorized "L.A. at Last!" with special guest star William Holden and "Lucy and Superman" with special guest star George Reeves as Superman. I absolutely love the Holden episode, it is hilarious. I am mixed on whether or not I like what CBS is doing: on one hand, I like that they're reintroducing a 60+ year old show to a new audience to hopefully grow the already large fanbase... but on the other hand, I don't know if I like the idea of the show being colorized. I don't know if CBS thinks nobody will watch a black and white show or perhaps they think it's a fun idea to colorize such a famous black and white show and is treating this as a novelty. I think the colorization is very well done. For once, they didn't make Lucy's hair orange and give Ricky this insanely dark skin color. I love to watch the I Love Lucy episodes and try to imagine what color Lucy's clothes are. I'm always excited to find real color photographs taken on the I Love Lucy set, or seeing photos of the actual clothing or something and being able to see definitive proof as to what color different outfits were. I saw Lucy's classic polka dot dress at a museum in Hollywood--for those who are curious, it's navy blue with white polka dots. I heard that much of the set and costumes were in various shades of grey because that showed up best on the film. Even the cast members wore grey tinted makeup (with the exception of Desi Arnaz I imagine). I'd have to think that in person, they probably didn't look as good as they did in black and white. Lol. I'll still watch the special anyway... but I would never replace my black and white I Love Lucy episodes with colorized ones.

That's me. I always get my Now Playing Guide and excitedly circle everything that I want to make sure to watch/DVR and then still have to make sure to look at the schedule either on the TV or in a joint effort between the TV and the TCM website to make sure I remember to record everything. Today, I recorded all of the bad sci-fi movies. I look forward to watching some of them this weekend after work. We were put on mandatory OT this weekend, so while 16 hours of time and a half is nice... I'd much rather watch movies and work on my house. ::sigh:: I'm definitely buying myself some fun movies or something after all the OT is done for the quarter. I think I've put in 50+ hours a week for the last 1.5 months.

I believe I made a similar list in another thread a few weeks ago, but these lists are always fun to make. Here's mine, which I'm sure is quite different than the one I made in the other thread: 1- Errol Flynn (I don't care that I've seen most of his movies. I love him. He deserves a day.) 2- Myrna Loy 3- Claude Rains 4- Angela Lansbury 5- Anne Baxter 6- George Sanders 7- William Holden 8- Jean Arthur 9- Gene Tierney 10- Fred MacMurray 11- Jean Harlow 12- Ann Sheridan 13- Ida Lupino 14- Charles Coburn 15- Olivia de Havilland 16- Rosalind Russell 17- James Cagney 18- Joel McCrea 19- Richard Widmark 20- Lucille Ball 21- SZ Sakall 22- Tony Curtis 23- Jack Carson 24- William Frawley 25- Dean Martin 26- Jack Lemmon 27- Eddie Albert 28- Joan Blondell 29- Hayley Mills 30- Agnes Moorehead 31- Eve Arden I had three other picks: Vera-Ellen, Mitzi Gaynor and Judy Holliday, but I don't know if these ladies made enough films to fill a full SUTS day.

I really liked Lucille Ball's performance in Stage Door. While I think that Stage Door is definitely one of the highlights and more well known films in Ball's filmography, it might be lesser known in Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers' careers. Ball, Queen of the Bs at RKO at this point, really lucked out getting this supporting role in an A-list picture with Hepburn and Rogers and she more than holds her own with the two stars. The cast is really what makes this film-- a true ensemble piece. Eve Arden, who wears a cat around her shoulders for much of the film, is hilarious and has many of the great lines in the film. Lauren Bacall was excellent in Murder on the Orient Express and The Shootist. It's amazing to me, that two people like Bacall and John Wayne, who were at complete opposite ends of the political spectrum got along so well and made two films together. I've never heard Bacall say a bad work about "Duke Wayne" (as she refers to him in many of her interviews).

I love that song! I'm not usually a Top 40 pop music fan, but that song is pretty catchy. I've never found JT to be all that attractive and his voice is pretty nasally, but many of his songs have good beats.

I have! I own this movie as part of TCMs "Errol Flynn Adventures" collection. In fact, this film is the one I referenced in my opening post on this thread :-) I think it's a great movie and definitely deserves to be more well known. I accidentally replied to the wrong post. This should be in response to mr6666s post asking if I've seen this film.

Re: the studios forcing them to stay in shape, agreed. I don't think there are many stars (or any?) who constantly gained or lost weight for various roles, like actors do these days. Good thing Johnny Weissmuller worked out--not much room in that loin cloth to hide a beer gut. Lol.

I was typing that exact thing! My verboseness caused me to post the same thing after your very succinct post. Lol.

Interesting article. While I'm all about talking about sexy hot men in movies, I think my particular taste differs from that of the author of this article. I never look at a man and think "wow, what a sexy barrel chested man." The only men that she even mentioned that I thought were hot was William Holden in Picnic and Burt Lancaster. She also mentioned Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity. For whatever reason, while I never really found MacMurray to be "hot" I found him attractive in Double Indemnity-- maybe it was the bad boy factor, lol. I do agree with the author to some extent when she says the male stars of today are scrawny and that the stars of yesterday could probably kick their a sses. Of course, there are some stars today that would definitely hold their own in a fight, but for every Mark Wahlberg, you've got the pansies from Twilight. I find a lot of the Old Hollywood men sexier than today's male stars simply because of their image they seemed to convey in their personal lives and their film personalities. Men back in the day also seemed to be less groomed (except when it comes to mustaches and hairstyles) than the men these days. Nobody would be calling Clark Gable a "metrosexual" in the 1930s. Now it seems like many of the male celebrities spend an inordinate amount of time perfecting their faux hawks, using male facial and skin products, getting manicures, and the like. Clark Gable was made out to be the outdoorsy/everyday man. He often portrayed men at home in nature and not worried about getting in a brawl, getting dirty, and the like. Combine that with his gruff sounding voice and his handsome looks (despite having kind of big ears, imo) and he was a hit with the ladies. He exuded charm and confidence. He gave the sense that he could take care of his lady and protect her. Cary Grant was the urbane, sophisticated, witty man. He definitely wore a suit well and had that great voice. His good looks combined with his smooth lines also made him a popular star. Errol Flynn. Well. Do I really need to explain why he was a hit with the female audience? While he was definitely a big man (height wise and had broad shoulders) he wasn't a barrel chested type like Robert Mitchum. Flynn, in his prime, was svelte but athletic with very long legs. In films, he could charm the ladies with a smooth line and his sexy smile and then immediately turn around and out fence (or out fox) his opponent. He would effortlessly defeat his adversary with some fancy footwork and clever quips. That's just naming a few examples. There were some major male stars who weren't tall (Gene Kelly, James Cagney) others who weren't "barrel chested" (Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra) and in between. These men were all popular stars. It's because these stars had attractive and distinct personalities. In my opinion, that's what's missing these days in films-- personality. While there are definitely good actors out there, so many of them are interchangeable, or they become one note performers. How many times can Liam Neeson do various versions of Taken? How many times is Bruce Willis going to make the same action film playing the same character? Even if some Old Hollywood actors played the same type of character in their films, they do so with such confidence and style that it's hard not to fall in love with them. Perhaps that's another thing that's missing: style. The men back then were much better dressed than they are now. I may be going off on a tangent now, but maybe we're seeing the Old Hollywood men as sexier because of the whole package of an Old Hollywood film. Combine the black and white with the soft focus lenses, or complimentary lighting, the gorgeous leading lady, the rich film scores, the tailored and fitted suits or tuxes, just the whole package. The overall aesthetics only enhance the overall effect and product of all those involved-- I mean, I always think Flynn or Holden make smoking look super hot and I think smoking is disgusting! Look how glamorous the leading ladies look with the long cigarette holders. It's all about the overall elegant look of the studio era films. (I was excited to see this article was from someone who works for The Oregonian-- a newspaper I'm very familiar with!)

I loved I Confess. I just watched it for the first time a few months ago when TCM did their Montgomery Clift Birthday Theme Day. I've been enjoying Anne Baxter's films more and more and I've been a fan of Clift for quite some time--so when I saw the two of them were co-starring in a Hitchcock (!) film, I just had to record it. I loved the movie, I thought Clift was fantastic as the priest accused of murder.

I've never heard of Abandon Ship. I will definitely look for it on the TCM schedule. The Breaking Point also sounds very good. I really like Curtiz' films. I will have to seek this one out as well. I'm only familiar with Garfield via the much more well known The Postman Always Rings Twice and the slightly lesser known Four Daughters.

Thank you Lavender and James. I'm not very familiar with Loretta Young, but I've really been enjoying the Pre-Code films as I've been able to watch them. All the films you two mentioned sound very interesting, especially Call of the Wild. I always enjoy some behind the scenes scandal!

Thank you Dargo and Tracey. This film sounds really good. I'm still trying to see all the Jean Arthur I can and I love Billy Wilder. While I can't say I'm the biggest Marlene Dietrich fan, I found her oddly intriguing in her few minutes of Touch of Evil, and it sounds like she's an interesting character in this film as well. I hope TCM airs this film in the near future.

Thank you everyone for all your responses on this thread. I see there is some controversy as to what the intent of this thread was. For all intents and purposes, this thread was meant to be an open ended discussion as to what some people felt were underrated (or perhaps I should have said "lesser known") films in a particular star's career. Every major star in Hollywood has the films they're known for and "the other" films. I wanted to know what of "the other" films people loved. Of course in a group of avid movie watchers, people are going to be more knowledgeable about someone's filmography than the layman movie watcher, but no matter how much of a film buff someone is, everyone knows what the major films are in someone's career--films that the average movie watcher is likely to have at least heard of. I purposefully phrased the question to be open ended because I wanted to encourage discussion. I didn't want to pigeonhole everyone into a specific train of thought-- that stifles conversation. I've loved seeing everyone's opinions on different lesser known films of a particular actor's career. Like with many of my threads, one of the main goals is simply film recommendations. The recommendations I get on this thread have very rarely steered me wrong and I trust people's opinions on here more so than the critics or someone who has over analyzed a film to death, purely to find fault with it. Through recommendations on this board, I've been able to discover many new actors and continue watching more and more of their films to further gain an appreciation for their contributions. I've loved getting more recommendations for Gene Tierney's work (I had no idea she made so many films) and Jean Arthur especially. Thank you to everyone!

Maureen McCormick and Barry Williams in "The Blue Lagoon."