kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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Talent is a big part of the decision on whether to hire an actor? I am shocked, shocked.
I'd guess that this was mostly a publicity stunt. Unfortunately, imdb had to pay money to defend the suit.
But a show about the exotic dancers of Houston is EXACTLY what this country needs.
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George Montgomery, when he sees Ginger Rogers as ROXIE HART:
"Why, she's just a girl . . . like me!"
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I'll echo Addison that isn't a year I'm as passionate about as other years. Wait till we do 1947, a year of incredible performances which were not nominated. I'm less fond of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE than many of you are.
Voting with the Oscar ballots:
Best Actor: Laurence Olivier, HENRY V. I would seriously consider Dana Andrews had he been the one nominated and not Fredric March, who impresses me less.
Best Supporting Actor: Claude Rains, NOTORIOUS. Although Clifton Webb gives his definitive bitchy queen performance in THE RAZOR'S EDGE and Harold Russell adds immeasurably to THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.
Best Actress: Celia Johnson, BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Unlike Addison, I really like Jane Wyman in THE YEARLING, but I agree that Rosalind Russell and Jennifer Jones gave much better performances in other films.
Best Supporting Actress: Anyone other than Lillian Gish in DUEL IN THE SUN, unless "Funniest Death Scene" is an Oscar category. (Sorry, LG fans, I love her in other roles, but this is not one of her best.)
Best Director: A tie between William Wyler for THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES and David Lean for BRIEF ENCOUNTER would suit me fine. Brilliant work by both (and for anyone who doesn't like their work, I can point to many specifics).
Best Picture: Because BRIEF ENCOUNTER failed to be nominated, no tie this time. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.
I haven't seen CLUNY BROWN but hope to do so in the near future.
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{font:Calibri}Thursday TCM will present seven films directed by Jean Negulesco, but they are augmenting these by including his films in other tributes. TCM has made a particular effort here and in the past to provide a clearer view of this director, and I am grateful. SCANDAL IN SCOURIE was included for Greer Garson month, the fine THREE CAME HOME (1950) will be in Friday night’s women in war presentation (I’m really looking forward to those films), and late tonight a lineup of mostly noir leads off with THREE STRANGERS (1946), a little-known but most interesting and unusual movie with a John Huston script. Geraldine Fitzgerald, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre are the three strangers who share a lottery ticket. Negulesco fought to get Fitzgerald for the lead and Lorre for the romantic role in the subplot. He had previously cast Lorre as the writer who’s the normal person in THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS. These are interesting examples of how casting helps reveal the director’s vision.{font}
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{font:Calibri}Thursday morning the Negulesco tribute begins. Instead of mentioning them in the order they’ll be shown, I’m going to mention them in chronological order to talk about the shape of his career. {font}
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{font:Calibri}NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (1946) is the kind of unpretentious mix of noir and woman’s film that looks even better on second viewing. John Garfield is the con man who falls for his mark, Geraldine Fitzgerald. Walter Brennan leaves his bag of cutes behind and gives a moving performance as an aging con man. Faye Emerson grabs the attention as a no-good gal.{font}
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{font:Calibri}DEEP VALLEY (1947). A shout-out to moirafinnie for insisting that I see this film, which is my favorite Negulesco. Ida Lupino’s best role as the shy who falls for convict Dane Clark (his best role, too). Fay Bainter and Henry Hull are perfect as Ida’s neurotic parents, and there are many remarkable directorial touches. {font}
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{font:Calibri}JOHNNY BELINDA (1948). One of Negulesco’s best-known films, and his personal favorite. The 12 Oscar nominations had something to do with that. A well-made tale with Jane Wyman as the deaf mute heroine, Lew Ayres as a kindly doctor, and Agnes Moorehead and Charles Bickford as her parents.{font}
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{font:Calibri}TITANIC (1953). Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, and an iceberg. Richard Basehart as a drunken ex-priest and a very young Robert Wagner. These later Negulesco films are capably directed entertainments, but without the many personal touches of his earlier films. Perhaps he isn’t hungry and ambitious for greatness any more, and it shows.{font}
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{font:Calibri}THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (1954). This seems to me one of the quintessential 1950s films, love it or hate it. Rome, great scenery, love stories.{font}
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{font:Calibri}COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS (1959). Never heard of it? What does the title say? Maybe you’ll be able to finish it and even like it. Deborah Kerr, Rossano Brazzi, and Maurice Chevalier, which ought to be good. Brazzi plays a French soldier who keeps getting called back into service and away from neglected wife Deborah.{font}
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{font:Calibri}JESSICA (1962). This one I haven’t seen, and will record. “When a sexy midwife comes to town, the local women abstain from sex rather than risk having her deliver their babies.” Angie Dickinson, Maurice Chevalier, Noel-Noel. Angie will be convincingly sexy, I have no doubt of that.{font}
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Edited by: kingrat on Apr 9, 2013 1:50 PM
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A number of years ago I saw a cashier in a cafeteria in Atlanta who looked like Lee Remick. She said that other people also had told her so, and that her husband thought she looked like Lee Remick.
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Skimpole, to get back to your original question: there's the film where Thelma Todd is married to Cary Grant but wants to carry on with Roland Young. This is before Cary became a star, of course, and it became a basic principle of the movies that any gal who can should trade up to Cary Grant.
In a similar vein:
In COME AND GET IT the beautiful young Frances Farmer is part of a triangle with Edward Arnold and Walter Brennan. You can't imagine, say, Joel McCrea as part of a triangle with Marie Dressler and Marjorie Main, which would be the equivalent.
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David, I'm really enjoying your account of your travels. I had to laugh when you mentioned the Riviera Theater. There was a movie theater by that name in my hometown, only all of the locals called it the Ruh-VEER-uh. I was grown up before I realized that wasn't the correct pronunciation.
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{font:Calibri}A few words about some of the new additions to the festival lineup which were unfamiliar to me:{font}
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{font:Calibri}LA TRAVERSEE DE PARIS (aka FOUR BAGS FULL (1956), dir. Claude Autant-Lara). Jean Gabin and the comedian Bourvil must transport four bags of black market pork across Paris during the Nazi occupation. The film, which mixes comedy and drama, outraged some of its initial viewers in its less than heroic portrayal of some of the French characters. In the pre-New Wave days this movie had a solid reputation, and it sounds worthy of re-discovery, especially if you enjoyed Jean Gabin’s Summer Under the Stars day as much as I did. {font}
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{font:Calibri}SUDDENLY IT’S SPRING (1947, dir. Mitchell Leisen). In this comedy Paulette Goddard plays a WAC marriage counselor whose own marriage to Fred MacMurray is on the rocks. Macdonald Carey costars. The imdb rating is a very favorable 7.5 of 10, although the only posted review is lukewarm. The team of Leisen, Goddard, and MacMurray has definite possibilities. {font}
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{font:Calibri}TRY AND GET ME (aka THE SOUND OF FURY, (1950) dir. Cy Enfield). Lloyd Bridges and Frank Lovejoy star in this film noir which is based on some of the same incidents which inspired Fritz Lang’s FURY. Enfield was blacklisted and is best known for a film he made in England, ZULU. There’s a good write-up on this film in Richard Harland Smith’s most recent Movie Morlocks column.{font}
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{font:Calibri}Known to me, but not seen: {font}
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{font:Calibri}IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY (1947, dir. Robert Hamer), which is one of the most admired British film noirs. Googie Withers plays a housewife whose life is turned upside down by an escaped criminal who is her ex-boyfriend.{font}
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{font:Calibri}CLUNY BROWN (1946 , dir. Ernst Lubitsch). This comedy has a devoted following. Jennifer Jones is a plumber’s niece who likes to fix drains herself. Charles Boyer as an intellectual Czech refugee, Peter Lawford is an English aristocrat, with Helen Walker, C. Aubrey Smith, and Una O’Connor as a mother who says little but coughs meaningfully.{font}
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{font:Calibri}THE SWIMMER (1968, dir. Frank Perry). Burt Lancaster revisits his past as he swims through various suburban swimming pools. Based on a John Cheever story. Janice Rule, Marge Champion, and Kim Hunter are also in the cast.{font}
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{font:Calibri}SAFE IN HELL (1931 , dir. William Wellman). A remarkable pre-Code with a great performance by Dorothy Mackaill. A lady of easy virtue kills a man and flees to a Caribbean island with no extradition treaty. The past has a way of catching up with her, and the present has its problems, too. Donald Bogle will introduce, no doubt mentioning the remarkable supporting performances by Nina Mae McKinney and Clarence Muse. William Wellman, Jr. will also be in attendance.{font}
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{font:Calibri}THE TALL TARGET (1951 , dir. Anthony Mann). Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural train makes its way toward Washington, but threats of a assassination plot abound. Dick Powell stars as a detective, Adolph Menjou as a politician, and Ruby Dee has a great supporting role as a slave. Different from Mann’s most famous films, but very enjoyable, perhaps especially if you’ve just seen LINCOLN.{font}
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Kyle, I noted 1 change from the schedule available yesterday to the one I received by email today. The previous schedule had THE GENERAL being shown at the TCL Chinese twice on Sunday, once at 9:30 a.m. and once at 7:30 p.m., which seemed strange. The morning show at TCL (Grauman's) Chinese is now the premiere of the restoration of BADLANDS.
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For anyone wondering about the TBA slots on Sunday, the festival will repeat movies which were sellouts or near sellouts so that fans who missed them will get a second chance. Sometimes the featured guests will return for the second showing, but sometimes they cannot.
If you have a cutting-edge phone, there is a TCM App which will have that information once the decisions are made. If you can't make use of the app, there's an electronic bulletin board outside Club TCM which has that information, though you'll have to watch a variety of other announcements to get to the ones you want.
The first year, there was a bulletin board in the lobby of the Chinese multiplex which had a posted schedule with the TBA films filled in as that information became available. I wish that the festival would bring this back, for it's a convenience for all the fans going in and out of the multiplex.
Another way of finding out is to ask someone who has a smartphone. People are usually very obliging.
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SansFin, the latest New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle had "Odessan" as an answer, so naturally I thought of you.
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{font:Calibri}Once again at the very last minute with no fanfare the TCM Festival programmers have come up with some gems which are exactly what I want to see. Yes, I mean the British noir IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY and the Lubitsch comedy CLUNY BROWN, which is not available on DVD. But hey, seeing it on the big screen with other passionate moviegoers works just fine. THE TRAIN on the big screen? Sounds good to me. With the showing of SECONDS last year, someone at the festival must love John Frankenheimer’s 60s films as much as I do. Anthony Mann’s THE TALL TARGET? Not one of his greatest films, but a delight nonetheless, and it’s set on a train, carrying out the travel theme.{font}
{font:Calibri}The addition of I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING will please a number of people, LA TRAVERSEE DE PARIS was once a well-known comedy, A ROOM WITH A VIEW on the big screen will be lovely, and the premiere restoration of the English-language version of VOYAGE TO ITALY is another feather in the festival’s cap. {font}
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Edited by: kingrat on Apr 4, 2013 12:52 PM
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Val, I think you've mentioned liking A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. For you, how does this differ from LA FEMME NIKITA? I turned off LA FEMME NIKITA after half an hour or so when I saw it on TV some time ago--it did not appeal to me, in part for the reasons you mentioned--but I walked out of the theater after seeing maybe 15-20 minutes of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which I found utterly vile and disgusting. I'd never seen a film that found rape and brutality to be fun and cool, and I didn't want to see the rest of it. Please don't say that we're supposed to sympathize with the couple being brutalized, because if you actually do sympathize with them, you walk out of the theater. Malcolm McDowell is supposed to be way cool, by definition.
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The Private Affairs of Bel Ami
Whistle Down the Wind
The Key (1958)
Night Song
The Long Night
Deep Valley
Death of a Scoundrel
TCM has been good about showing the last five of these great but little-known films.
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To add three that haven't been mentioned:
The climax of STRAY DOG as the policeman and the criminal struggle while in a nearby house a woman plays a piano sonata (it's been identified as Mozart and as Clementi in different sources, and I don't know which is correct). Stunning, even for Kurosawa.
Lee Remick singing "In the Garden" in WILD RIVER as she and Montgomery Clift drift across the river on a raft.
Bronislau Kaper's bittersweet melody as Lana Turner leaves her hometown in A LIFE OF HER OWN.
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Great quote, Dargo, and all too true. Too many of the film school directors don't know much of anything except film school. I tend to agree with Slayton. MissW, I didn't like the unimaginative copying of LADY FROM SHANGHAI in MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, but I loved the scene in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS where Owen Wilson tells Bunuel the plot of THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL.
One of the worst examples of movie references comes from MICHAEL CLAYTON. Near the beginning of the film, George Clooney gets out of his car and goes into a field where there are horses. This makes absolutely no sense whatever in the film. However, classic film fans recognize this as an "homage" to THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, where Sterling Hayden's desire to get back to the horse farm where he grew up does make sense.
The first season of DOWNTON ABBEY copied the famous scene in MRS. MINIVER where Dame May Whitty decides to let the stationmaster win the flower show award he deserves. If you know the original, this is boring.
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I love the challenge, even though I can't do all of it.
Best Actor: Henry Fonda, THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Best Supporting Actor: James Stephenson, THE LETTER
Best Actress: Bette Davis, THE LETTER
Best Supporting Actress: Judith Anderson, REBECCA
Cinematography, B&W: Gaetano (Tony) Gaudio, THE LETTER
Cinematography, Color: Georges Perinal, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD
Original Screenplay: Preston Sturges, THE GREAT MCGINTY
Original Story: ARISE, MY LOVE
Screenplay: REBECCA
Here's where it gets even tougher: Best Director and Best Picture. It's probably whichever of REBECCA, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, and THE LETTER that I saw last. One of these films has the greatest opening minute of just about any film, and that film will get the vote for Best Director. The Best Picture will go to the film of the three I'd most readily pop in the DVR player tonight.
Best Director: William Wyler, THE LETTER
Best Original Production: REBECCA
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Did anyone else see this wonderful film? And did anyone else have the problem that after the fight between Jean Gabin and Pierre Brasseur at the dodgems, the screen froze? I'm guessing this was courtesy of my local cable company.
Lovers of film noir should try to see PORT OF SHADOWS, which looks like a source for many later films. Mist, fog, shadows. Gangsters. Fatalism. A lovely young girl in a translucent raincoat. Doomed romance. An acceptance of the small moments that can be seized from the darkness. Colorful mnor characters. The prospect of escape to Venezuela that you know will never happen. Beautiful images by the director, Marcel Carne, and the cinematographer, Eugen Schufftan. A fabulous script by Jacques Prevert. Great acting by Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michele Morgan, Pierre Brasseur, and a strong supporting cast.
The painter takes us to the heart of noir. He tried painting women, children, flowers, but he also found himself showing something hidden behind them. If he tried to paint a swimmer, he painted a man drowning. That is noir.
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Huzzah! Huzzah! This is great news. An event not to be missed.
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Jonas, thank you for the information about the different versions of JOURNEY TO ITALY and FEAR. Both of them looked very handsome. FEAR isn't much like the other Rossellini films, but it's a stylish film noir, so what's the problem? FEAR is actually a safer recommendation for many classic film lovers than some of Rossellini's better-known titles; it would make a fun double feature with SUDDEN FEAR, which I believe is also from the same year.
TCM deserves great praise for showing so many Rossellini films this month. It also makes great sense to show the war trilogy together and the four Bergman films together. This Friday includes some very obscure films along with THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS. If you're at all interested in seeing them, don't forget to record. We're getting a unique opportunity to see his films together in a short period of time. He often falls into the "admire rather than love" category for me, but his films are very much worth seeing.
One aspect of ROME OPEN CITY and GERMANY YEAR ZERO which deserves special comment is the left-wing homophobia of both films. It is not a coincidence in ROME OPEN CITY that the Nazi female interrogator is a lesbian, or that the traitor is the woman who sleeps with her. In this film Rossellini wants to reconcile Catholicism and Communism, and one way of doing so is to equate homosexuality and Nazism. (The death of the priest, which is supposed to be moving, but to me is not, is another way.) Again, in GERMANY YEAR ZERO, the Nazi schoolmaster is a homosexual and a pedophile. Apparently none of the Nazis were heterosexuals. This attitude continues in Costa-Gavras' Z, where the fascist assassin has a yen for Arab teenaged boys. It's amusing to note that the evil Commie lesbian played by Lotte Lenya in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is a descendant of the evil Nazi lesbian in ROME OPEN CITY.
Also worth noting is that in all four Ingrid Bergman films shown this past Friday, she plays an unhappily married woman. Granted, a happily married woman is usually not a great part, but this begins to feel autobiographical.
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Eric Blore is one of my favorites, especially in IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER.
Wanted to share Donald Bogle's comment that Butterfly McQueen turns every scene into a little surrealist poem. As Miss McQueen said, she was an intelligent person playing characters who were not intelligent.
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The print TCM has shown of THE HOUSE ON 92nd STREET is absolutely gorgeous. Not to be missed if you haven't seen it.
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Swithin, Jean Redpath's first album of Robert Burns songs is one of the most beautiful collections ever. "Country Lassie" is my very favorite.
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Did you notice the tongue-in-cheek wit of the programmers? BETTE DAIVS: THE BENEVOLENT VOLCANO is followed by STROMBOLI, which involves a real volcano.
TCM Presents Jean Negulesco
in General Discussions
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Yes, the major weakness of DEEP VALLEY is that the psychological plot (the parents' alienation from each other, Ida's stuttering) gets resolved too quickly so that the film can turn its attention to the working out of the romantic plot. The bittersweet ending is one of the things I like best about it, and the final shot catches this exactly.
DEEP VALLEY is one of those films you can watch a second time with the dialogue turned down and just enjoy what Negulesco is doing with the camera. The way he films the mother coming down the stairs for the first time in years is especially nice. So is the totally unexpected cut from Ida looking dreamily off the top of a hill (at a beautiful view, I was sure) to the convicts working on the road.
I hope I didn't oversell the film, but, at the very least, this is Ida Lupino at her best.
RO's intro to THREE STRANGERS was really interesting. John Huston had written the script before he made THE MALTESE FALCON (which, I think, was supposed to be directed by Negulesco). After the great success of THE MALTESE FALCON, Huston proposed re-working the script as a sequel to THE MALTESE FALCON, with the three characters being Sam Spade, Bridget O'Shaughnessy, and Caspar Gutman. However, Warner Brothers didn't own the rights to the characters, only to THE MALTESE FALCON itself. Eventually Negulesco made the film, although Huston didn't like the changes that were made (I've read or heard this from other sources). I'm guessing that the romantic subplot, which is very Negulesco, did not appeal to Huston, although the ironic ending is very much Huston. To me THREE STRANGERS is as satisfying as it is unusual.