kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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Scsu, I'm so glad you got to see The Man Who Knew Infinity and that you enjoyed it as much as I did.
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I've only seen Come Fill the Cup online. Too bad someone doesn't bring this out at least on DVD-R. It's a Lost Weekend-type story, with a romantic triangle and some noirish elements. James Cagney is a newspaper reporter whose drinking costs him his job and his fiancee (Phyllis Thaxter). Cagney goes to a halfway house run by James Gleason, a dried-out alcoholic. Gleason gets a much meatier role than usual. Watching these two veteran actors play off each other is a real treat.
When Cagney begins to get his life turned around, Phyllis Thaxter's back asking for his help with her new fiance (Gig Young), nephew of the newspaper owner (Raymond Massey). Seems Phyllis has left one alcoholic only to find another (this seems very realistic to me). Gig Young is handsome, charming, and completely messed up. He's involved with a nightclub singer with underworld connections, in addition to his other problems.
Curtis Bernhardt directs capably, and Cagney, Gleason, and Young as the three alcoholics are all especially fine. I would guess that the studio pushed Gig Young rather than James Gleason for the Oscar nomination hoping that this would give a boost to the younger actor's career.
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Another good film starring John Savage is The Amateur, in which he determines to avenge his girlfriend's death at the hands of a terrorist. Things get a little more complicated than he expects. Christopher Plummer plays a rather sympathetic Czech agent.
But Rayban is really correct: John Savage does not have the instincts of a star. He doesn't have that "Look at me, world, I'm lighting up the screen" attitude that even the nicest and sanest stars have. Savage is a very good supporting actor. He got noticed for his fine performance in The Deer Hunter, and that led to the starring roles already mentioned.
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Marlon Brando's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire is certainly the most important performance of 1951 in historical terms, but 1951 had one of the deepest best actor fields ever. Adding Oskar Werner, an easy winner for supporting actor, makes it even tougher. Trying to pick the top five is all but impossible for me.
Best Actor for 1951:
Robert Ryan, ON DANGEROUS GROUND****
Oskar Werner, DECISION BEFORE DAWN
Robert Walker, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
Michael Redgrave, THE BROWNING VERSION
John Garfield, HE RAN ALL THE WAY
Marlon Brando, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Montgomery Clift, A PLACE IN THE SUN
Alastair Sim, A CHRISTMAS CAROL
James Cagney, COME FILL THE CUP
Canada Lee, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
Humphrey Bogart, THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Kirk Douglas, ACE IN THE HOLE
Alec Guinness, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB
Chishu Ryu, EARLY SUMMER
Dan Duryea, CHICAGO CALLING
Honorable mention: Gene Kelly, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS; James Mason, THE DESERT FOX; Dick Powell, CRY DANGER; Alastair Sim, LAUGHTER IN PARADISE; Robert Taylor, WESTWARD THE WOMEN; Spencer Tracy, THE PEOPLE AGAINST O'HARA; David Wayne, M
Best Actress for 1951:
Ida Lupino, ON DANGEROUS GROUND****
Vivien Leigh, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Katharine Hepburn, THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Thelma Ritter, THE MODEL AND THE MARRIAGE BROKER
Pier Angeli, TERESA
Honorable mention: Leslie Caron, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS; Valentina Cortese, THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL; Setsuko Hara, EARLY SUMMER; Thelma Ritter, THE MATING SEASON; Elizabeth Taylor, A PLACE IN THE SUN; Shelley Winters, HE RAN ALL THE WAY; Jane Wyman, THE BLUE VEIL
Best Supporting Actor for 1951:
James Gleason, COME FILL THE CUP****
Ward Bond, ON DANGEROUS GROUND
Peter Ustinov, QUO VADIS
Karl Malden, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Robert Morley, THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Charles Carson, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
Honorable mention: Howard Da Silva, M; Wallace Ford, HE RAN ALL THE WAY; Leo Genn, QUO VADIS; Norman Lloyd, M; Vincent Price, HIS KIND OF WOMAN; Gig Young, COME FILL THE CUP
Best Supporting Actress for 1951:
Hildegard Knef, DECISION BEFORE DAWN****
Agnes Moorehead, THE BLUE VEIL
Patricia Collinge, TERESA
Hope Emerson, WESTWARD THE WOMEN
Kim Hunter, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Eve Arden, GOODBYE, MY FANCY
Honorable mention: Fay Compton, LAUGHTER IN PARADISE; Ruby Dee, THE TALL TARGET; Marion Lorne, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN; Jan Sterling, ACE IN THE HOLE; Vivian Vance, THE BLUE VEIL
Newcomer Award: Pier Angeli, TERESA
Synergy Award: James Cagney and James Gleason, COME FILL THE CUP
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Saw Dave Karger's outro for Raffles and disappointly bland intro to GWTW. Because it's Olivia's month, you'd think there would have been a mention of the fact that while other actresses went after the role of Scarlett, Olivia knew that Melanie could be a great part for her and went after it.
I had never seen or heard of Dave Karger before. Seems like you guys have already made the key points. He's cute. He has an engaging smile. You can't really tell if he knows about the subject or is just reading what someone else has written. He seems like a blander Andy Cohen.
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Tom, thanks for the powerful music and, as you say, the stunning cinematography of Frederick Young, who is one of the greats. Hint: this film is likely to appear on a future top 10 list.
Wow, Lawrence, I haven't seen any of the Holden films that you haven't seen, and haven't even heard of most of them. Cast in the right films, Holden could certainly have been one of the great 40s noir actors.
I would imagine that, like certain other very masculine actors, Holden may have felt that acting wasn't a manly profession.
Fortunately, he was able to work with some top directors like Wilder, Lean, Reed, Wise, Cukor, Lumet, and Peckinpah before his career was over. Lewis Gilbert isn't too shabby, either.
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That having been said, I think it's Donald Sutherland who doesn't get enough credit for his part in Ordinary People. He plays the father desperately trying to keep peace, not understanding the family dynamic until it's too late to do anything about it. If anything he's a tragic figure here and, like Moore's performance, it's not the sort of showy thing that tends to get the notice of the Academy. Sutherland didn't get nominated at all, if memory serves.
You could probably win a lot of bar bets about how many times Donald Sutherland has been nominated for an Oscar. The answer is zero.
Although I'm not a horror movie fan, Christopher Lee is a great choice for SOTM. This will make a lot of people happy.
I'd like to see The Naked Edge, for Deborah Kerr as well as for Gary Cooper.
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The main reason for the decline of Dark Shadows had to do with the two movies that were made, Night of Dark Shadows and House of Dark Shadows. While actors were working on those movies, they couldn't be working on the continuing TV story. The writers copied various other stories, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Rebecca, and The Dunwich Horror (the previously mentioned Leviathan plotline). Nipkow is certainly right that viewers wanted Barnabas at the center of the stories. Jonathan Frid was pleased about the popularity of David Selby as Quentin, however, because that give him a little more breathing room and time off.
Thayer David has an excellent supporting role in Douglas Sirk's A Time To Love and a Time to Die, but that movie is hard to find in any form; I've only seen it on a panned-and-scanned VHS tape.
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Lawrence, thanks for a great review of Holden's career. He is one of the stars who exemplifies the 1950s, with a great run of films in that decade. Thanks for mentioning The Key, a little-known masterpiece, and The 7th Dawn, one of his best 1960s films.
The paradox of William Holden is that he seems like the kind of man almost any man would want to be and most women would want to date/marry/etc., yet at the same time, no actor is better is better at conveying guilt, self-disgust, and self-loathing, not even Dana Andrews, a similar type in many ways, right down to the alcoholism. Perhaps one reason that Holden's performance in Sunset Boulevard holds up so well is that Holden put some of his own emotions up there on the screen.
What a great photo of Holden, too. That's how his fans want to remember him.
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Thanks, Swithin, for the wonderful excerpt from The L-Shaped Room. I'd forgotten just how good this scene is.
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I also liked Jerry Lacy as the Reverend Trask (and other characters).
But I'm always going to remember him as the ghost of Humphrey Bogart in Woody Allen's "Play It Again Sam" (1972). Lacy also appeared in the original stage version. Diane Keaton was in both versions, too.
Jerry Lacy even got to play two different evil Reverend Trasks in different centuries. Always a reliable actor.
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I haven't seen Chandler, either, Bogie.
I'd like to recommend The L-Shaped Room, which is rarely seen around these parts and usually unavailable on DVD. Leslie Caron was nominated for an Oscar and won the BAFTA award for Best Actress. She plays a young Frenchwoman, pregnant with no husband, who goes to England and lives in a seedy boardinghouse until her baby is due. The strong cast includes Tom Bell (a good actor who sabotaged his own career) as a would-be writer, Brock Peters as a jazz musician in love with him (one of the first black gay characters on screen), Avis Bunnage as the frequently unsympathetic landlady, and Cicely Courtneidge as a retired music hall performer. Bryan Forbes as screenwriter and director is another plus.
If you're looking for kitchen sink realism, you'll find some here.
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Pennock was the grown-up version of some Satanic baby, with Marie Wallace the mother, I think. Bernau may have played the father. I am working from memory here. One issue with this show was that characters would die off, then come back as another character, so I may have some of these people/roles mixed up.
I think Marie Wallace also played a sort of "Bride of Frankenstein" in another incarnation.
Absolutely right, scsu. Marie Wallace also played crazy Jenny, Quentin's first wife, who was, I believe, the daughter or niece of the gypsies Magda and Sandor (Grayson Hall and Thayer David). Christopher Pennock and Christopher Bernau were brought on during the Leviathan storyline which was not so popular with viewers.
Thayer David's Count Petofi was a fabulous villain, and the show was crazy not to bring Petofi back. Because they had time travel and parallel worlds, there were always plenty of possibilities. Humbert Allen Astredo as Nicholas Blair was another great villain, and, of course, Lara Parker as Angelique.
Donna Wandrey had the small role of Roxanne Drew, with whom Barnabas fell madly in love, and then re-encountered her in another timeline where she turned out to be a vampire. Donna Wandrey later was the original Barbara Ryan on As the World Turns, and under-utilized there as well.
Lorna, thanks for the pictures of Collinwood and the Old House.
The pace of the show does seem slow by our standards, but absolutely not by the standards of fifty years ago. The regular soaps often dragged out their stories to even greater length. One actress remembered being pregnant for fourteen months in her show's storyline.
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Actually, I think your first impression was right.
Olivier's HAMLET is okay- but to me, no great shakes.
worse still is the fact that the movie reinforces the notion that actors should (for the most part) not direct themselves, because every time i see any of it, i come away with the impression that Larry is constantly CENTER STAGE, and all the other actors keep to the background- this thing is ALL about HIM- and aside from Jean Simmon's Oscar-nominated role as Ophelia, it really seems like they all knew this was LARRY'S SHOW and they needed to just stay in the background.And he's too old for the part and that Dwayne Hickman hair is awful.
Love the Dwayne Hickman hair comment. To me, Hamlet is much weaker and less interesting in every way than Henry V and Richard III, both of which Olivier directs very well. He also gives marvelous performances of those title roles, too. I don't really get why the critics of the time and the Academy voters were so impressed by the film and by Olivier's performance.
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Frid was so great. I also loved John Karlen as Willie Loomis. And that Grayson Hall had a face almost as skeletally exciting on screen as Barbara Steele's. Why Doctor Julia Hoffman ever thought there could be a romance between her and Barnabas is beyond me!
I was always rooting for Julia to succeed with Barnabas, but it was not to be.
David Selby and Kate Jackson went on to big TV careers, and Joel Crothers and Christopher Bernau were soap stars until their untimely deaths from AIDS. I would have thought that Christopher Pennock, Lara Parker, and Donna Wandrey would go on to bigger careers. After Marie Wallace was written off Somerset (and the show went on to fail), she was never again cast in one of the soap biotch roles she could play so well.
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TOP 10 FILMS OF 1951
Cry, the Beloved Country
Strangers on a Train
M
Early Summer
The River
Westward the Women
Decision Before Dawn
The African Queen
On Dangerous Ground
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
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Hibi, thank you so much for posting these photos. It's good to see that many of the surviving cast members are doing so well.
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Along with Three Came Home, The Breaking Point, and The Furies, because you are a noir aficionado I also recommend Try and Get Me, which is based on the same incident that inspired Fritz Lang's Fury back in the 1930s. Frank Lovejoy plays the down-on-his-luck guy looking for work, Kathleen Ryan is his wife, and Lloyd Bridges, cast against type, gives a very strong performance as the no-good villain out to corrupt him and draw him into his criminal schemes. Lloyd Bridges' wife has a small part as a reporter from San Francisco covering the story.
The director is Cy Endfield, one of the best unknown directors anywhere. Try and Get Me, Hell Drivers, Zulu, and Sands of the Kalahari--not a bad resume.
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Bogie, I think that makes sense. Julie Christie's character in Billy Liar isn't really developed; it's just that she makes a big impression when she finally appears because she has so much star power.
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Actually, it's G.H. Hardy.
May I ask in what state you saw the film? It doesn't seem to be playing near me, and I would love to see it. I have the book on which the film is based.
Yes, I'm in Southern California. Hope you can find it near you.
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Favorite David Hasselhoff? Why, his work on The Young and the Restless when he replaced William Gray Espy as Snapper Foster.
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Last night we went to see The Man Who Knew Infinity, about the Indian mathematician S. Ramanujan who went to Cambridge in 1914 to study with (and educate) the mathematician G.S. Hardy. Dev Patel as Ramanujan and Jeremy Irons as Hardy are excellent, as you might expect, as is Toby Jones as Littlewood, another mathematician. Ramanujan had to leave behind his family in India, including a young wife and a strong-willed mother.
If this sounds like your kind of film, you will probably like it, for it is well-made. I'm pleased that there is interest in making films about people like Turing, Hawking, and Ramanujan.
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Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!!!!!!!!!!!!
DARK SHADOWS is a valid obsession. A lot of fans are here.
Yes we are.
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I love They Came to Cordura, which for some reason doesn't have a high reputation.
HITS & MISSES: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow on TCM
in General Discussions
Posted
Those of you who watch Barry Lyndon can observe a phenomenon I've never seen in any other film: the supporting actors get more close-ups than the star. This is especially true in the first half of the film. The supporting actors carry the dialogue and the story. Kubrick cuts back and forth, so that Ryan O'Neal is rarely in extended shots with other actors, and we rarely see his reaction shots.
I'll draw the obvious conclusion: Kubrick is aware that Ryan O'Neal is a non-swimmer dropped in the deep end, and he adopts these unusual procedures to cover up his star's lack of acting ability.