kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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To have the evening of Bastille Day devoted to five Rene Clair films, and to have all three of Kieslowski's Three Colors films shown back to back: wow!
Also scheduled on June 29, for the first time in several years, is Carol Reed's wonderful fable A Kid for Two Farthings. A boy in the East End of London, hoping his father will return from WWII, buys a unicorn (actually a goat with only one horn). Celia Johnson plays his mother, Diana Dors looks stunning, and there's a great feeling for the community. Realistic, romantic, funny, sad.
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I'd guess that in previous years, TCM could not lease some of the Universal titles that Rock Hudson fans would hope to see. In this past year movies like All That Heaven Allows and Magnificent Obsession have finally been appearing on the TCM schedule.
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mrroberts, according to William Wellman Jr., his father said he was never so happy as when directing at Warner Brothers. He had some limited choices of project, and at one point Wellman deliberately picked projects other than women's pictures because he had made several and didn't want to be typed as a woman's director.
Safe in Hell came with Dorothy Mackaill already attached as the star. Wellman then had choices among the WB character actors for some of the other parts.
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Wow! Remy and obrienmundy, you guys are setting the bar high, turning in your papers, which the teacher will give a big fat A+, while the rest of us are still sitting in class trying to think of something to write. I'm just glad that neither of you used the feature of Sunset Boulevard that I'm considering.
Remy, I love the idea of featuring contract directors. H.C. Potter is an excellent choice. Totally obscure, yet TCM fans know some of his work. Charles Boyer would make an excellent SOTM.
So would Sylvia Sidney, which gives us the chance to see a number of interesting 1930s movies. Love the David Raksin tribute.
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Holden, I'm a big fan of PORTRAIT OF JENNIE.
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Lust: Jack Nicholson in Carnal Knowledge.
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The score to *The Ghost and Mrs. Muir* was Bernard Herrmann's favorite of all that he composed. Several of you have mentioned the reasons why this is one of the best romantic films ever made.
I believe this is one of the films that Fox kept for its own movie channel for many years. With *The Ghost and Mrs. Muir* and *Laura* on the TCM schedule, that probably means that Fox will now license any of its films for the right price.
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Frank, you might think of Ziegfeld Girl as a Lana Turner film. She's young, luscious, and beautiful, and this movie, which she steals from Judy Garland and Hedy Lamarr, made her a star. Jimmy plays her "just folks" boyfriend from the days before she was a star.
On some of the Robert Ryan films you haven't seen:
About Mrs. Leslie: Ryan plays a rich, glamorous man who has an affair with an ordinary housewife (Shirley Booth). He and Booth have surprisingly good chemistry. This is a good film, realistic rather than goopy and sentimental.
King of Kings: Ryan plays John the Baptizer, as he is called in this film. Some like his performance, but to me it's a complete misfire, even silly, one of Ryan's rare failures. I don't think highly of the film.
Billy Budd: Ryan plays the evil Claggart who torments the young sailor Billy Budd (Terence Stamp) simply because he's good, handsome, and well-liked by the men. A difficult film to watch because of the subject, though the actors are all good.
Tender Comrade: I like this WWII homefront movie quite a bit. Ryan marries Ginger Rogers, and they make a nice couple. He goes off to war, and she gets a factory job and shares a house with several other women.
The Dirty Dozen: Ryan plays one of the brass, a small part. Lee Marvin, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, John Cassavetes, and others have the better roles.
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Val, my take on The Monuments Men was similar to yours. It's an entertaining film, not a great one, but enjoyable, and I'm all for films that assert the importance of art in our lives.
As other posters have noted, it doesn't have John Frankenheimer (or equivalent--would that there were some!) as a director. I'm very pleased that The Train is beginning to get the recognition it deserves.
Clooney is a traditional director of some talent. The Ides of March was quite a good film in the manner of Preminger or Zinnemann.
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Why not? We had a great response last time, with some excellent new challengers.
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Hal Ashby
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The lists make it easier to recommend certain movies to certain people. If you like X, try Y. I've recorded any number of films from recommendations here.
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mrroberts, thank you for creating this thread. I've ordered a copy of the book. Quite a number of a my favorite 1930s and 1940s films come from Warner Brothers. Too bad there's not an equivalent book for each of the major studios.
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I agree with Dargo about Mac Davis, who was excellent as the Dandy Don Meredith character in NORTH DALLAS FORTY.
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Kevin Brownlow's biography of David Lean mentions that when Lean began as a cutter, most of the cutters in England were women. This is before the jobs were unionized. When that happened, men took over the editing jobs. I don't know if a similar thing happened in America.
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They work on the schedule about six months in advance, so are probably working on the SUTS schedule now.
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When I recently watched Twelve O?Clock High, I admired the editing by Barbara McLean. Checking the Oscar nominations revealed that between 1934, when the Best Editing award was established, and 1969 twelve different women were nominated for the award. Barbara McLean, a favorite editor of Darryl F. Zanuck, was the only one whose name I knew. Some major films were edited by women, including both the Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor versions of Cleopatra, and in 1935 two women were nominated for the award. It would be interesting to know more about these women. A list of the nominees follows.
Anne Bauchens ? Cleopatra (1934); North West Mounted Police (1940), WON; The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); The Ten Commandments (1956)
Margaret Booth ? Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Barbara McLean ? Les Miserables (1935); Lloyd?s of London (1936); Alexander?s Ragtime Band (1938); The Rains Came (1939);The Song of Bernadette (1943); Wilson (1944), WON; All About Eve (1950)
Dorothy Spencer ? Stagecoach (1939), co-editor; Decision Before Dawn (1951); Cleopatra (1964)
Monica Collingwood ? The Bishop?s Wife (1947)
Adrienne Fazan ? An American in Paris (1951)
Alma Macrorie - The Bridges at Toko-ri (1955)
Viola Lawrence ? Pal Joey (1957), co-editor; Pepe (1960), co-editor
Anne V. Coates ? Lawrence of Arabia (1962), WON; Becket (1964)
Marjorie Fowler ? Doctor Dolittle (1967), co-editor
Eve Newman ? Wild in the Streets (1968), co-editor
Francoise Bonnot ? Z (1969), WON
In 1970 Thelma Schoonmaker won her first Oscar nomination for Woodstock, and she would go on to win three Oscars as the editor of Martin Scorsese movies.
This would make an interesting emphasis for a future 31 Days of Oscar or perhaps a Friday Night Spotlight for some month. Presented by Thelma Schoonmaker, perhaps?
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You're right, wouldbestar, Harry Bellaver played Ernie Downs, one of Constance Ford's husbands on *Another World*. She did indeed have good actors to work with. Although being married to Ada didn't bode well for a guy's longevity!
If I remember correctly, Harry Bellaver also has a good-sized role in *The Brothers Rico*.
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Jake, I was also glad to see *Jean de Florette* on the schedule. *Lisa* is rarely seen, so hearing Mother Dolores Hart introduce it will be a special pleasure.
Fans of Anthony Mann's noirs can see *He Walked by Night* and *Raw Deal*. *F for Fake* is set for May 29. If I remember correctly, this was announced a while ago, then withdrawn, so it will be good to see this Orson Welles rarity.
A number of the Australian films interest me. I wish that the June Allyson tribute had included the rarely-seen *The Shrike*, and that *High Barbaree* and *The Secret Heart*, two of her best films, were being shown in prime time, but that's what recorders are for.
As usual, there's a great variety with something for just about every taste.
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Rita Gam was in SAADIA with Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was in BORN TO BE BAD with Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine was in UNTIL THEY SAIL with Paul Newman
Next up: Edna May Oliver
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Dargo, I think your point about satire usually involving two-dimensional characters is well taken. The other genre that comes to mind is political films like the early Eisenstein films. There are no three-dimensional characters in *Battleship Potemkin*, but the power of the Odessa steps sequence still gets to me, as familiar as it is.
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If we're going to talk about scary women of the screen, three who definitely scare me are:
Judith Anderson - as Mrs. Danvers in *Rebecca*
Blanche Yurka - *A Tale of Two Cities, The Furies*
Katina Paxinou - *Uncle Silas, Confidential Agent*. And the thought of having her as a mother--*Rocco and His Brothers*--is maybe scariest of all.
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Inappropriate smiling is almost a trademark of Maria Schell's performances. I do like her, but could understand if someone did not. JF, laffite, I think you're getting at the heart of *White Nights*. Maria is as much a romantic as Joan Fontaine in *Letter from an Unknown Woman*, whose romanticism ruins her life.
Marcello is simply not believable as a shy guy, and this hurts the movie a little. "Women love shy men," Maria says, at which point I muttered, "Right, as long as they look like Marcello Mastroianni."
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*The Great Sinner*, with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, is a version of *The Gambler*. Not great, but not bad at all. I actually prefer it to Sternberg's *Crime and Punishment*, which doesn't really work for me.
The BBC did a great version of *The Gambler*, with Edith Evans unforgettable as the gambling grandmother.
Two superb BBC mini-series (late 60s/early 70s vintage) are unavailable because of poor preservation practices by the BBC. I saw *The Possessed*, which was brilliant, and heard great things about *The Idiot*, which wasn't shown in America. I believe that one episode of *The Idiot* has been lost and that *The Possessed* only exists in an inferior version of the original print.
JUNE SCHEDULE IS UP
in General Discussions
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finance, you'll be pleased that daytime on June 30 is devoted to Susan Hayward. That should make a lot of us happy.
Note to self: the Rene Clair films are scheduled on June 18, which is definitely not Bastille Day. Still, that should be an enjoyable evening.
Sam Peckinpah tribute on June 11, Ida Lupino tribute on June 12, and for hard-core noir fans, an evening of Lawrence Tierney films on June 25.