kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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Joe, I'm surprised it hasn't been turned into a musical, given that practically everything else has, although To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar: The Musical is a lot to put on a marquee.
I remember liking the film, which isn't the last word in realism or gay life, but was quite enjoyable.
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Joe, thanks for starting this thread. I'm a big fan of THE LAST LEAF, in particular, and love Joe Mac Donald's cinematography and Jean Negulesco's direction. This story could have been way too sentimental, but instead it's very moving. Jean Peters is terrific, and this is probably the best Gregory Ratoff performance I've seen, not to slight Anne Baxter, either.
In addition to Charles Laughton's great work, David Wayne is equally superb as his friend.
This movie was not a favorite of auteurist critics, probably because Howard Hawks' THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF is one of the weaker segments (to me, the weakest). Hawks tends to exclude children from his films, and maybe he wasn't comfortable working with children.
Jean Peters is so good in this movie, PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, and APACHE that an early 50s moviegoer might have expected great things from her. Instead, she got involved with Howard Hughes.
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The last scene at the gas station is great. I'm with you all the way on that.
I've read that the "chicken salad sandwich" scene is based on a scene from an earlier movie. Is this correct?
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The story can work in so many different genres: horror, suspense, screwball comedy. It's a remarkable story.
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I loved both LE SILENCE DE LA MER and LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES. Many thanks to TCM for showing these two films which are not readily available. For instance, our local public library has three or four Melville films, such as LE SAMOURAI, but not these two.
LE SILENCE DE LA MER would make a great double feature with either PERSONA or Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (hint to programmers). LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES catches that moment in adolescence when everything, including sexuality, is shapeless and volatile, intense and inconsistent.
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Swithin, I always appreciate your calling our attention to those who worked on Broadway. Thank you for reminding us about them and for sharing your memories.
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A little-known but very fine English comedy from the 1980s is Experience Preferred But Not Essential.
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Jo Van Fleet's makeup in Wild River is very good, and there is nothing phony about her performance. She and Lee Remick were never better, and this is one of the very few films which accurately shows the South I grew up in.
I wouldn't call this one of Clift's best performances, but he is still good.
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Fedya, I love your schedule, love the idea of scheduling movies you haven't seen all the way through. The tongue-in-cheek approach to "Hollywood's Greatest Year" is fun, too.
Actually, Spencer Tracy plays the title role in Cass Timberlane.
I like the constancy of Constances. Constance Smith was the first wife of Bryan Forbes. According to his autobiography, they both realized quickly that the marriage was a big mistake.
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Great schedules, everyone! Polecat, I love the Tony/Oscar combos and hope TCM will steal this. Skimpole always includes films I'd like to see, and I'm pleased to see the anti-Oscar theme devoted to art direction.
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Sometimes character actors get a role which makes them stars, at least for a while. Gene Hackman and The French Connection is a good example. Once he was no longer getting lead roles, he slipped comfortably back into the character actor niche, picked up a second Oscar, this time for supporting actor, and continued to work.
George Segal is one of those actors on the cusp of leading man/character actor, and he continued to work after he was no longer getting romantic leads.
In some ways these actors had an easier time than those who always played romantic leads.
Television provided many opportunities for former stars to do smaller work.
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Khartoum was better than I remembered and would definitely make my top 10 list for 1966. Line after line could have come from a contemporary movie. Charismatic Muslim leader wants to be acknowledged throughout the Muslim world and will kill all who oppose him. Western leader who has no imperialist ambitions and will do as little as possible to oppose him, frustrating the designs of some of his advisers. This didn't resonate in 1966, but it certainly does now. Exemplary cinematography by Edward Scaife, sometimes billed as Ted Scaife, and best known to me for his brilliant work on The Kremlin Letter. Charlton Heston wouldn't be my first choice as Gordon, but he brings many of the right qualities and does his best, holding his own with both Richardson and Olivier. Robert Ardrey's script makes both Gordon and the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier, superb) intelligent and at least partly sympathetic characters. A strong supporting cast, capable direction by Basil Dearden, and great second-unit work by Yakima Canutt.
Far less succesful was 2014's The Trip to Italy. Two actors or TV personalities I'd never heard of go to Italy. Gorgeous scenery, mouth-watering shots of food, and lots of references to the Italian travels of Byron and Shelley. That's the plus side.
Steve Coogan fades into the background. Rob Brydon is the dominant one, or at least the one who rarely shuts up. The funniest bit comes early as Brydon trashes The Dark Knight Rises, imitating an assistant director trying to cope with Christian Bale's mumbling and Tom Hardy's utter incomprehensibility. Brydon fances himself--perhaps I should just stop there--an impressionist. He does a very good Michael Caine and Hugh Grant, a lousy Gore Vidal, a Richard Burton that's only halfway there. As the film went on, I came to detest Brydon--actor or character, whichever: I just wanted him to go away. All in all, the film was like an "I went to Italy and all I got was this lousy Godfather impersonation" T-shirt.
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I'm also a big fan of this film. The balance of comedy, romance, and pathos is just about perfect. This was Bernard Herrmann's favorite among his scores.
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Tom, in Patricia Neal's Private Screenings interview, she talks about how excited she was to be cast opposite Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's because they had done some scenes together at the Actors Studio before his success in Hollywood. She was dismayed to find that he had acquired a swelled ego, and she did not enjoy working with him. Peppard is really good in his early films like The Strange One and Home from the Hill, but I agree with you that he is wooden in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
And Dargo, I'm with you that George Hamilton is actually good in Home from the Hill, too.
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Susan Strasberg received glowing reviews on Broadway for her portrayal of Anne Frank. She was widely expected to have a big career in both movies and theater. Obviously, this did not happen. An unhappy love affair with Richard Burton is sometimes cited as one of the factors which derailed her career.
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There are period cliches in cinematography just as there are in writing, directing, and acting. The current cliche is blue-toned cinematography, whereas in the 70s it was brown tones.
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In many ways, Metropolitan is an update of Edith Wharton, who wrote about the same social class in New York.
I loved the scene where one of the characters complains that The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie did not actually show the charm of that class, which Whit Stillman does, among other things.
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I agree with finance and Andy that THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and THE GRADUATE define their decades best.
Rey's choice of GHOSTBUSTERS for the 1980s is good, too. This is the Reagan era comedy: the human villain, played by William Atherton, works for the EPA. The Reagan era drama for the 80s is AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. Cool dude works out his problems and alienation by becoming a military officer? This is so NOT the late 1960s, which, as Sepiatone said, is defined by EASY RIDER. Show EASY RIDER and AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN as a double feature and you'll understand how American culture changed between 1969 and 1982.
THE MATRIX is another excellent choice for defining its decade.
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I think TopBilled has called attention to some of the problematic elements in Shane, and that slayton has made an excellent defense of the film as a whole. This is the kind of intelligent discussion I enjoy. And the jokes about Montgomery Clift playing Joey are too cool!
I tend to vacillate between the opposing views of this film. Stevens is a director I tend to admire rather than love, and I dislike the way he drags out the endings of The More the Merrier and The Talk of the Town. The deliberately paced, monumental style that Stevens favors after WWII suits the subject matter of Shane reasonably well.
Directors didn't always have control over the musical scores of their films, although Stevens may have been in a strong enough position to insist on that. There are films I would like to see without having to hear their scores, or with only a third of the score, and Red River and High Noon are at the top of that list.
Joey's crush on Shane is the emotional heart of the film, and these scenes work really well.
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Among the less familiar items in the lineup, I'd like to recommend Avalon ("You cut the toikey without me?") and The Juggler.
Another film which would have been an interesting addition is Middle of the Night, a "coded Jewish" film the way some other films are "coded gay." Paddy Chayefsky could openly write about Italian-Americans in New York in Marty, but apparently could not identify the family in Middle of the Night as Jewish. Some viewers would take the hint that immigrants working in the garment industry in New York were almost certainly Jewish, but this would go over the heads of many other viewers. We had an interesting discussion on this topic about three or four years ago on these boards.
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Thanks for your work, obrienmundy. These are interesting polls. Here are the 20:
1927/28:
The Crowd
Sunrise
1929/30:
All Quiet on the Western Front
1931/32:
Grand Hotel
Shanghai Express
1932/33:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Little Women
1935:
Top Hat
1936:
Dodsworth
Libeled Lady
1937:
The Awful Truth
Lost Horizon
Stage Door
1938:
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Grand Illusion
Jezebel
Pygmalion
1939:
Gone with the Wind
Stagecoach
The Wizard of Oz
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Count me in as another fan of The Hard Way. This is one of the many films that has developed a following of loyal admirers, thanks mainly to its exposure on TCM.
Have to agree that the pretty and sweet Joan Leslie doesn't seem the likeliest candidate to become a Broadway star, but everything else about the movie works. I'm with the rest of you on the excellence of Ida, Gladys George, Jack Carson, and the kissable Dennis Morgan.
Dennis Morgan turns out not to be Mr. Nice Guy. He essentially marries Joan Leslie to spite Ida. For me, this only deepens the impact of the film.
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Elizabeth Threatt as the Blackfoot princess Teal Eye in The Big Sky.
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No one has mentioned my two favorite surrealist films: Duck Soup and Dames. The original Surrealists recognized Duck Soup as being surreal.
To me, the greatest surrealist director is Busby Berkeley, in his musical sequences, and this is especially so in Dames. The combination of elements is startling, unexpected, and just plain loopy. Berkeley's surrealism is so natural and spontaneous that by comparison Bunuel looks like a prissy graduate student!
Slayton has given a good description of the goals of the original surrealists. The quarrel between the in-group of surrealists and the heretic Cocteau is reflected in Orpheus.
Remakes that outshine the original
in General Discussions
Posted
In addition to some of the ones already mentioned--The Maltese Falcon, A Star Is Born (Garland), The Man Who Knew Too Much (Stewart)--I'll add:
The Age of Innocence
The Letter (Wyler/Bette Davis)
An Affair To Remember--though many prefer Love Affair, the better production values and the greater emphasis on comedy put the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr version ahead for me