kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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SueSue, this is great news. Concerning *Laura*: for some time it was believed that Fox would not license certain of those most famous titles, such as *Laura*. I now wonder if there are any Fox titles off limits, if they are letting TCM show *Laura*.
RO interviewing Olivia. Mother Dolores Hart as a guest programmer. Mary Astor as January Star of the Month. Wow!
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Mark, do not miss *One Week*. This is the Keaton film where the house falls down around him. There are other classic moments, too.
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Bronislau Kaper's music for *A Life of Her Own* is great, and Ann Dvorak is unforgettable.
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KonaRose, I don't believe *Mirage* has ever been shown on TCM. It's a well-made thriller with a strong cast. I hope that TCM can arrange to show it. It would also be a great choice for the TCM Film Festival, as Diane Baker is a good friend of Robert Osborne. When she attended the festival a couple of years ago, she seemed to be in excellent health.
*Mirage* is available (or it used to be, anyway) in a package of Gregory Peck films if you'd like your own copy.
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I started watching *Le Havre*, not intending to continue, but it was quite good, well acted and smartly directed. Although the plot revolves around a young immigrant from Gabon, the film is really about some interesting working class people in their 60s and how they react to various situations.
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Gagman, like you I enjoyed the first episode of *The Story of Film* very much and am curious to see how the series unfolds. The clear examples of different kinds of editing would be very useful for students in an Intro to Film course.
TCM festivalgoers had to love the shot of Grauman's Chinese and the attention to the Hollywood at Highland outdoor mall's recreation of some of the Babylon set of *Intolerance*.
Edited by: kingrat on Sep 3, 2013 7:11 PM
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I believe that *The Ghost and Mrs. Muir* is one of the films Fox has been reluctant to license to other stations. Too bad it couldn't be shown on Rex Harrison's day, for it's one of his best films and best performances.
I was very glad that *St. Martin's Lane* (*Sidewalks of London*) was shown, because Vivien Leigh and Charles Laughton are terrific. Also liked *The Foxes of Harrow*, with Rex Harrison a more caddish Rhett Butler type, and Maureen O'Hara extremely beautiful in the Scarlett role. Susan Doll's article on the Morlocks site about this film is excellent.
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I'm bumping the thread so that more people will see it. Here's hoping some new people will try their hands, along with those of us who love pretending to program TCM for a week.
Swithin, if you have any questions about hosting it, send a PM to one of the vets like capuchin or lzcutter or filmlover or Polecat.
If you've never tried to put a week's schedule together, you'll be surprised at how much you learn, such as which stars worked at which studios. You also have an increased appreciation for the work of the real programmers.
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*Salvatore Giuliano* (1961, dir. Francesco Rosi) begins with an overhead shot of a dead young man in a town square. There will be many more overhead shots, sometimes of outlaws in the Sicilian mountains shooting at soldiers, sometimes of people on the town roofs looking down at the soldiers in the street. Rosi has a complicated story to tell, and he wants our intellectual attention rather than a close identification with the characters or issues. Much of the film, particularly the first half, is in documentary style, with a narrator giving us significant information.
The story moves back and forth in time from just after WWII to 1960. Giuliano is a young criminal who becomes a fighter in the Sicilian independence movement, but he and his men aren?t given the pardon they expect. Outlaws, the Mafia, the police, and various shadowy right-wing causes all get tangled together, and Rosi doesn?t pretend that he can unravel all the threads. The police and the caribinieri (soldiers) are rivals, even enemies, and if you can unravel who?s betraying whom, you have more information than the viewer and the filmmaker possess. A key event is the massacre of Communist sympathizers at a May Day picnic in a mountain meadow. Giuliano scarcely appears except as a dead man or an offscreen presence. The second half of the film deals with a long, complex, and indeed confused trial of Giuliano?s men, but the first half, with its splendid location photography, makes a stronger impression.
*Salvatore Giuliano* is not for those who would prefer a fictionalized, close-up, worked-out version of events. If you can accept the approach, Rosi?s direction is brilliant without calling attention to itself, and the editing fits the film?s style exactly. You?ll see lots of men running across beautiful landscapes. The scene in Giuliano?s town where the women try to prevent the soldiers from arresting their men is another strong and memorable scene. Gillo Pontecorvo?s *The Battle of Algiers* is only one film which seems influenced by *Salvatore Giuliano*.
Two caveats: it helps if you realize that ?Turiddu? is a diminutive of ?Salvatore? (this was confusing), and there are far too many white subtitles against a brilliant white background which makes them all but illegible. Most of the cast were local non-professionals, but Rosi does a great job of helping them to unselfconscious performances. Martin Scorsese named this one of his favorite ten films. Not many of us would, but Rosi is a very impressive director.
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Sepiatone, I believe you're thinking of *Mirage*, which has never been shown on TCM. Diane Baker, Walter Matthau, and Jack Weston are also in it. A good thriller.
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Richard, I loved the excerpt from *From Here to Eternity*. Great writing, so much fun.
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obrien and skimpole, I really enjoyed your posts. These suggestions always leave me arguing with myself, let alone anyone else. I don't even know if I prefer the international version of the awards (skimpole) or the Oscar ballot format (obrienmundy)!
THE WAGES OF FEAR is one of my favorite films. What a great year for foreign films: THE WAGES OF FEAR, THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE . . ., I VITELLONI, TOKYO STORY, UGETSU, to name only five. skimpole's pick of THE BAND WAGON as best American film is fine with me, but so is the Academy's choice of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, and THE NAKED SPUR is one of my favorite westerns, and . . .no, I have to stop. I'm cool with Oscar's choice of Audrey Hepburn in ROMAN HOLIDAY as Best Actress, but Jennifer Jones in BEAT THE DEVIL is another favorite. Selznick should have let her play in more comedies!
As for the great years of the 1940s, choices like Claude Rains, Judith Anderson, Henry Fonda, and Bette Davis certainly work for me. Trying to figure out who should have won is great fun . . . I think.
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William Holden fans need to keep an eye out for THE SEVENTH DAWN, which was postponed earlier and will be shown in October or November. This fine drama, set in Malaya after WWII, is one of his best 1960s films. Holden's best friend, who fights with him against the Japanese, becomes a Communist insurgent. Capucine and Susannah York also have prominent roles in the movie.
It's a little odd that some of Holden's best-known films aren't being shown--some would have to be leased from Paramount/Universal--but it's a chance to explore some of his other films.
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Holden, the general rule is that TCM is not permitted to show Disney animated films but can show the other Disney films.
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Part of the problem with GYPSY is the stodgy direction. Mervyn LeRoy made some very good films at Warner Brothers and in his early MGM period. His films tended to get longer and slower from then on. His early WB films crackle with energy. GYPSY has a seedy and sleazy setting, and it needs to have some of the raw energy, so to speak, of burlesque. Of course LeRoy wasn't known for musicals, and this doesn't help. Natalie Wood is beautiful, Karl Malden is sympathetic, and Rosalind Russell might have been better with a different director.
In this era Russell's husband, Frederick Brisson, was snapping up lots of Broadway hits for her: GYPSY, AUNTIE MAME, FIVE FINGER EXERCISE, A MAJORITY OF ONE. Except for AUNTIE MAME, these are not the films most Rosalind Russell fans prefer.
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Welcome to the boards, pcastro. Like you, I'm pleased that TCM showed the Truffaut retrospective and the day-long tribute to Catherine Deneuve. Granted that French is a difficult language to pronounce, the host for the Truffaut series might have done a little more homework to get more of the names right. "Francoise Dorleac" evidently had a sex change and became "Francois," like the director.
I did think that David Edelstein's introductions were otherwise very good.
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Agreed, Tom. THE MACOMBER AFFAIR is a very good film.
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The War Lover was excellent, with McQueen showing us the dark side of his rebellious macho persona. Robert Wagner was very effective as the friend who wises up to him, and it was fun to see a young Michael Crawford as the innocent kid in the bomber crew.
Some very good fighter pilot scenes. Good direction by Philip Leacock, whose fine film Innocent Sinners was shown a few months ago on TCM.
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{font:Calibri}I enjoyed The Quiet American (1958, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz) very much. Americans in 1958 weren’t interested in Vietnam, the movie doesn’t have a feel-good ending, and Mankiewicz apparently inverts the politics of Graham Greene’s novel. Who exactly was the target audience? Maybe it was us. Seeing Saigon as it was then is most interesting. The story is set in 1952, as the Communists are having some success against the French, and the Americans may be interesting in supporting a “third force” which is neither colonialist nor Communist.{font}
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{font:Calibri}Audie Murphy is the title character, a naïve idealist from Texas—or is he as innocent as he seems? The main character is a cynical English journalist played by Michael Redgrave, and he is superb. The journalist is separated from his wife, who won’t divorce him for religious reasons, and he’s keeping a Vietnamese girlfriend, played by the Italian actress Giorgia Moll. The young American falls for her, too, and the love triangle becomes enmeshed with the political differences of the two men, with two different ways of looking at the world. {font}
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{font:Calibri}SPOILERS: In the Mankiewicz telling of the story, the journalist’s cynicism makes him just as vulnerable as if he were an innocent, and the sense of a superior knowingness which is central to his being is shattered by those who know how to exploit this weakness. Redgrave gives us the full measure of the man’s ultimate awareness of his moral degradation.{font}
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{font:Calibri}Claude Dauphin plays essentially the Claude Rains role from Casablanca, and does so well, and Fred Sadoff and Richard Loo play their roles of Communist sympathizers very skillfully. The gifted cinematographer is Robert Krasker (The Third Man), who provides appropriately noirish shadows to parts of the drama. Not a success in its time, but it looks good today.{font}
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MissW, I love LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, which I see as a critique of Lisa's romanticism. This kind of romantic love is literally fatal to the people Lisa cares about.
Joan Fontaine does an excellent job of making this kind of romantic attachment believable.
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Another great Holden performance can be found in Carol Reed's THE KEY (1958), another excellent film missing from the Holden tribute. However, TCM does show THE KEY from time to time. It's worth seeking out. Many other good films will be on display, of course.
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More Truffaut on Monday, August 12, for Catherine Deneuve day as MISSISSIPPI MERMAID and THE LAST METRO will be repeated.
I'm curious to know what others think of the suffused-with-red cinematography of THE LAST METRO. Apparently that's what Truffaut wanted to re-create the kind of film stock in use at the time. To me it's very off-putting.
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Just thinking about MURDER, HE SAYS puts a big smile on my face. TCM has done a lot to help us discover this forgotten gem, first by showing it at the initial TCM Film Festival, where it was a big hit, and then by showing it from time to time on the network.
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Hi, Maven, I want to play along, too. These are some I'm looking forward to:
Joan Fontaine - This Above All (Arturo recommends it)
Fred MacMurray - Murder, He Says (love this movie)
Steve McQueen - The War Lover (never seen it)
Lana Turner - Green Dolphin Street (love the wacko plot)
Henry Fonda - The Long Night (great film; must check out I Met My Love Again)
Catherine Deneuve - Un Flic (Deneuve & Delon? gotta see it - SansFin, thanks for recommending Le Sauvage)
Mickey Rooney - Pulp - quite entertaining and well directed
Gregory Peck - wonder what Days of Glory is like; The Macomber Affair is on in Eastern primetime!
Ann Blyth - The Helen Morgan Story - early Paul Newman film
Randolph Scott - The Tall T - never seen it, really looking forward to this one
Pasolini and Bunuel
in General Discussions
Posted
*Accattone* and *Los Olvidados* are scheduled in the next few months, in conjunction with *The Story of Film*.