kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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Guns of Navarone - Peck and Niven as leads, Quinn as supporting sounds right.
Spartacus - I also wondered about whether Olivier should be considered a lead. If that's what you have, Bogey, I'll go with it.
Judgment at Nuremberg - I don't see Schell as a lead. Definitely not his story. Tracy is a lead, and arguably Dietrich.
Long Day's Journey Into Night - Just saw this again when it was shown recently on TCM. Robards in support and the others as leads is how I would categorize it.
Cape Fear - I consider Mitchum as supporting, but Polly Bergen as a co-lead with Peck. Mitchum is a serious contender in the supporting category.
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Thelma Ritter has an even larger role in a better movie in 1951, The Model and the Marriage Broker. She plays the marriage broker, not the model, in case you were wondering, and has a wider range of emotion to portray than in any other film of hers I've seen. Thelma makes my list of top five nominees for best actress.
Lawrence, I'll agree that 1951 is not a great year for numbers in the supporting actress category. Most of my candidates are from less familiar films like Decision Before Dawn, Laughter in Paradise, The Tall Target, Westward the Women, Teresa, The Blue Veil, and Goodbye, My Fancy.
1952 will present us with some more problems. I think Colette Marchand plays a lead in Moulin Rouge, even if she does disappear halfway through the movie. Her effect on Jose Ferrer is really what the film is about.
Are Paul Douglas and Robert Ryan leads in Clash by Night, or is Stanwyck the only lead?
Richard Burton is, of course, a lead in My Cousin Rachel.
I think Alberto Sordi has a supporting role in The White Sheik, even if he does play the title character.
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Without intending to, I watched most of All About Eve yesterday for the umpteenth time. Missed all of Thelma Ritter's scenes. Speedracer's right, she just disappears. In memory she has a larger part, because she certainly makes the most of the time she has, and she has the supremely great line, "Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end."
On the other hand, I saw almost all of Celeste Holm's scenes, every line perfectly timed and pointed, every emotional reaction dead-on. George Sanders is perfection, too, though Addison DeWitt expresses fewer emotions than the ordinary person. Because Margo Channing is a diva, it's easy to overlook how many layers and changes of emotion Bette Davis finds in the part. I have always liked Gary Merrill in just about anything, not a star, but a capable actor with an attractive voice and a solid masculine presence.
It's heresy, but I prefer Marilyn Monroe in small roles as in All About Eve and especially The Asphalt Jungle to most of her starring roles, except for Some Like It Hot. Even that, to me, is a Jack Lemmon movie with a good performance by Tony Curtis, a sublime performance by Joe E. Brown, and good work by Marilyn.
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For all fans of witch doctor movies, here's one not to miss on Tuesday:
28 Tuesday 8:00 AM SAADIA (1953)A young doctor in the Sahara clashes with the local witch doctor.
Dir: Albert Lewin Cast: Cornel Wilde , Mel Ferrer , Rita Gam .
C-87 mins,
If you like other Albert Lewin movies like Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Saadia is worth checking out. You'll see some attractive paintings. The female witch doctor seems to have a definite crush on the young heroine.
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Some fun stories about Panic in the Streets: Kazan cast an actress as Zero Mostel's wife that he knew Mostel didn't like, because husband and wife argue throughout the film. Kazan was not impressed by Paul Douglas as an actor, though he admitted that Douglas was effective as the cop in Panic in the Streets. Kazan thought that Douglas "should have been a host in a steakhouse." Eddie Muller has said that he thinks the Richard Widmark we see in the domestic scenes with Barbara Bel Geddes is close to the way Widmark was in real life. Widmark sometimes named this as his favorite film.
Bogie, I'm pleased that you also mentioned Jack Webb in The Men. People like me who have scarcely seen him play any role but Sgt. Joe Friday in Dragnet will be surprised at what a good performance Jack Webb gave in this film.
I was also pleasantly surprised by Mel Ferrer in Born To Be Bad. Ferrer is often wooden, but he certainly comes to life playing Joan Fontaine's biotchy art world friend.
Joan Fontaine makes one of the great movie exits in Born To Be Bad: [SPOILER] If you're being kicked out of the mansion, at least drive away with a pile of fur coats in the back seat.
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From the new movie Now You See Me 2:
Michael Caine: "I spent 1.2 million dollars for this bottle of champagne."
Woody Harrelson: "You paid too much. Liquor Shack had it for 700K."
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Some random thoughts:
Clearly I need to add South Sea Sinner to my must-see list. Liberace and Shelley Winters. The cast parties must have been interesting.
As usual, the group is reminding me of performances I should have included, like James Stewart and Dan Duryea in Winchester '73, Jessie White in Harvey, and Ingrid Bergman in Stromboli, which I like better than the other Rossellini films I've seen.
Speaking of John Garfield, another role he could have played to perfection would have been the Van Johnson role in The Caine Mutiny. Although Van Johnson gives a fine performance, I believe Garfield's blue-collar edge would have brought a greater sense of anguish.
Four of the films from this year--All About Eve, The Asphalt Jungle, Rashomon, and Sunset Boulevard--are among the most imitated films of all time.
Among my absolute favorite moments from this year: 1) the tender scenes between Barbara Stanwyck and Gilbert Roland in The Furies; 2) Sam Jaffe delays his escape to watch a teenage girl dance to the jukebox.
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I would call Janet Leigh a lead in Psycho.
Jean Simmons should be a lead in Spartacus, I think.
But Fred MacMurray seems like a supporting actor in The Apartment.
Decision Before Dawn is an oddly structured film. Gary Merrill and Richard Basehart seem to be the leads, then it's all Oskar Werner's story, until Basehart comes in again toward the end. I can go along with Werner as a lead, but it means that the leading actor category in 1951 is incredibly strong, with eight or ten guys who would normally be giving the best performance of the year.
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A couple of questions about 1951:
Is Oskar Werner supporting for DECISION BEFORE DAWN?
Do you consider Shelley Winters lead or supporting for A PLACE IN THE SUN?
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Romantic Fatalism Line of the Year (and Many A Year) Award
In A Lonely Place
I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks when she loved me.
Tom, as memorable as the line from In a Lonely Place is, I believe it's close to what Glenn Ford says about George Macready in Gilda, who talks about being born the night Macready saved his life. There's a similar line in The Seventh Victim as well.
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Thanks, Lawrence, I'll correct this.
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Woody also A) pays homage to
rips off the hall of mirrors scene from THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI in MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY. Woody, Brian De Palma, and Quentin Tarentino do the reference/homage/ripoff thing a lot. It beats having to come up with your own ideas. -
1950 has a bunch of tough guys scuffling for Best Actor, an easy winner for Best Actress, two great character actors in a coin toss for Best Supporting Actor, and two sizzling performances for Best Supporting Actress which are not nearly so well-known as they should be.
Best Actor for 1950:
William Holden, SUNSET BOULEVARD****
Humphrey Bogart, IN A LONELY PLACE
John Garfield, THE BREAKING POINT
Toshiro Mifune, RASHOMON
Marlon Brando, THE MEN
John Dall, GUN CRAZY
Honorable mention: Dirk Bogarde, SO LONG AT THE FAIR; Sessue Hayakawa, THREE CAME HOME; Jean Marais, ORPHEUS; Edmond O'Brien, D.O.A.; Sidney Poitier, NO WAY OUT; Richard Widmark, NIGHT AND THE CITY; Richard Widmark, PANIC IN THE STREETS
Best Actress for 1950:
Bette Davis, ALL ABOUT EVE****
Gloria Swanson, SUNSET BOULEVARD
Patricia Neal, THE BREAKING POINT
Machiko Kyo, RASHOMON
Gloria Grahame, IN A LONELY PLACE
Peggy Cummins, GUN CRAZY
Honorable mention: Claudette Colbert, THREE CAME HOME; Linda Darnell, NO WAY OUT; Judy Holliday, BORN YESTERDAY; Jean Simmons, SO LONG AT THE FAIR; Barbara Stanwyck, THE FURIES
Best Supporting Actor for 1950:
Sam Jaffe, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE****
George Sanders, ALL ABOUT EVE
Lloyd Bridges, TRY AND GET ME
Louis Calhern, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
Mel Ferrer, BORN TO BE BAD
Honorable mention: Walter Huston, THE FURIES; Zero Mostel, PANIC IN THE STREETS; Jack Palance, PANIC IN THE STREETS; Gilbert Roland, THE FURIES; Jack Webb, THE MEN; James Whitmore, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
Best Supporting Actress for 1950:
Judith Anderson, THE FURIES****
Ann Dvorak, A LIFE OF HER OWN
Marilyn Monroe, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
Hope Emerson, CAGED
Lee Patrick, CAGED
Honorable mention: Celeste Holm, ALL ABOUT EVE; Thelma Ritter, ALL ABOUT EVE; Blanche Yurka, THE FURIES
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You have four listed that I haven't seen yet. The Furies, Les Parents Terribles, Three Came Home, and The Breaking Point.
The Furies is one of my favorite Anthony Mann westerns. It's a psychological noirish western, with Barbara Stanwyck as the spoiled daughter of big-time rancher Walter Huston. She does not like her new stepmother Judith Anderson at all. She's fascinated by bad boy Wendell Corey but has had a long friendship with Gilbert Roland, son of a Mexican family that has lived on the ranch. His mother is Blanche Yurka, scary as usual.
Les Parents Terribles is a Cocteau adaptation directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. It's one of the most honest films about adolescence I've ever seen, especially catching a phase where the young can be attracted to both sexes. Cocteau and Melville don't feel the need to be sentimental at all about their young characters, unlike Rebel Without a Cause and many another film.
TCM has shown Three Came Home fairly regularly so that viewers can discover for themselves how solid this Jean Negulesco film is. Claudette Colbert and Patric Knowles are put in a Japanese prison camp in Borneo during WWII. Sessue Hayakawa is the not altogether unsympathetic camp commandant. Based on a true story. No Great Escape heroics; much closer to King Rat.
The Breaking Point is one of my favorite Michael Curtiz films, with outstanding performances by John Garfield and Patricia Neal. A much more serious and noirish take on Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, and in no way like the film Hawks made from it.
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SUSAN SLADE is the movie where the baby catches on fire and you tell it's a doll, right?
That's the one.
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TOP TEN FILMS OF 1950
All About Eve
Sunset Boulevard
Rashomon
The Asphalt Jungle
The Furies
In a Lonely Place
Orpheus
Les Parents Terribles
Three Came Home
The Breaking Point
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I can usually do without directors' "homages'' to other directors. It's usually part of the "I've been to film school!" mentality. One of the most moronic examples is in MICHAEL CLAYTON, where George Clooney gets out of his car to go look at horses (and thereby escape being blown up), something which makes no sense unless you've seen the end of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, where it made sense because Sterling Hayden had grown up on a horse farm.
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Although it's rightly counted in the "Brit noir" category, IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY (how's that for a downbeat title?) actually has a scene with Googie Withers at the kitchen sink.
WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN (which I haven't seen) is sometimes named as a key film in this genre.
Some other titles which come to mind:
A TASTE OF HONEY
THE ANGRY SILENCE
THE L-SHAPED ROOM
THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
BILLY LIAR
THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES
ROOM AT THE TOP
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Wait...What?...
This was a thing?! (in the 20th Century...in a Western nation)?!?!
Yes, I was stunned by the f l o g g i n g scene in KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS, too. Apparently this punishment could be added for crimes deemed especially heinous.
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I saw KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS. Doesn't sound like a Joan Fontaine movie, does it? Set in England, it features some atmospheric film noir sequences, Burt Lancaster as an American soldier who's been in a Nazi prison and has what we would now call PTSD, Joan Fontaine as the upstanding woman whose apartment he sneaks into when he's running away from the cops, and Robert Newton as a thoroughly enjoyable over-the-top villain. Did I mention Burt's shirtless scenes? His eyes are photographed extremely well; I'm not sure if he looks more handsome in any other movie, even TRAPEZE. We even see (or rather, hear) Burt being flogged as part of the English justice system.
Fontaine and Lancaster make a reasonably good romantic couple. Director Norman Foster and his cinematographer, Russell Metty, add some noir styling. I found it a very entertaining film noir plus romance. The "oops, gotta follow the Code" ending seems tacked on, but it doesn't spoil the film. Burt Lancaster fans will certainly enjoy it.
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As a group we seem to think Bogart is the actor of the decade, put Bette, Barbara, and Olivia at the top of the best actress races, love Claude Rains and Walter Huston, ditto Judith Anderson and Agnes Moorehead. Makes perfectly good sense to me.
Actor of the Decade: Humphrey Bogart
Supporting Actress: Judith Anderson, Rebecca
Supporting Actor: Claude Rains, Notorious. With so many outstanding performances, Claude Rains is the Supporting Actor of the Decade and thus edges ahead of Walter Huston's wonderful performance in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Actress: A painfully shy young woman develops a sense of her own power. Wait, that could be Bette Davis in Now, Voyager or Olivia De Havilland in The Heiress. Either would be a worthy winner. Bette Davis, Now, Voyager.
Actor: Three great Bogart performances to choose from, along with Robert Ryan in The Set-Up and Laurence Olivier as Henry V. Then there's Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath. I love 'em all. Olivier, Henry V.
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I was inclined to see Kerr as supporting.
You can make a good argument that way. She does have less screen time than Seberg or Niven.
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Looking at 1957-1959: don't know if any of these will come into play for Lawrence, but here's how I currently have them.
A Hatful of Rain - Franciosa, Don Murray, and Eva Marie Saint all leads
The Seventh Seal - Max Von Sydow lead, all others supporting. As a relative unknown, he only got fourth billing.
Burl Ives, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - supporting? He was listed as a lead and not nominated, which is why his Oscar win was for The Big Country
The Big Country - Jean Simmons a lead, along with Gregory Peck
Bonjour Tristesse - Jean Seberg, Deborah Kerr, and David Niven all leads
The Nun's Story - Peter Finch as a lead, along with Audrey Hepburn
Career - Franciosa as the only lead
Shake Hands with the Devil - James Cagney as supporting, with Don Murray the only lead
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I'd like to see The History of Mr. Polly, The Queen of Spades, and The Small Back Room, not to mention The Walls of Malapaga, a Rene Clement film which is hard to find. It was well regarded when it first was released. It's difficult to find most of Clement's early films, but Les Maudits turned out to be a dark gem, Knave of Hearts (Monsieur Ripois) is a dry champagne comedy about a man incapable of fidelity, and This Angry Age, seen on YouTube in a mostly B&W, panned and scanned version of a widescreen color film, is a strong film despite these limitations.
The Window is a version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." No one believes he saw a murder except the murderer.
Colorado Territory is a western version of High Sierra, also directed by Raoul Walsh. Some like it better than the original, though I wouldn't go that far.
Flamingo Road is the kind of melodrama Joan Crawford fans usually love. When the carny goes out of business, Joan tries to go respectable in a small town. Sydney Greenstreet as a corrupt villain adds to the fun.
The Fan is a version of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan. Otto Preminger accentuates the melodrama rather than the comedy, and to me the film works if you can accept it on those terms.
The Great Gatsby is a reasonably good version of Fitzgerald's novel, acceptably if not brilliantly directed by Elliot Nugent. Alan Ladd is an effective Gatsby, here portrayed as a former Prohibition bootlegger/gangster. A strong cast, although Betty Field seems a bit miscast as Daisy.
Intruder in the Dust is one of the best films Clarence Brown ever directed. This Southern-born director does a great job of turning a minor Faulkner novel into a solid film. Claude Jarman, Jr. and David Brian work together to prove that Juano Hernandez did not commit a murder. Perhaps the best role Hernandez ever had, and he knows just what to do with it.
I love films about Resistance/Occupation/Collaboration, so Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Silence de la Mer is definitely to my taste. A German officer is billeted in a French house, but the occupants protest by refusing to speak to him. Despite, or because of, their silence, he can't help talking to them.
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rips off the hall of mirrors scene from THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI in MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY. Woody, Brian De Palma, and Quentin Tarentino do the reference/homage/ripoff thing a lot. It beats having to come up with your own ideas.
Lead or Supporting Role?
in Your Favorites
Posted
I'll go along with you guys. Mitchum gives up his supporting actor award for the shark-infested waters of the best actor pool. 1962 is another year where the competition for best actor is especially tough.
Moving Attenborough to the lead category makes the supporting actor ranks for 1963 thinner still. With James Fox as a lead for The Servant along with Dirk Bogarde, best actor is strong, but I have to reach for supporting actor nominees. Brandon de Wilde belongs as a lead actor for Hud; the movie is his story as much or even more than Newman's.
Still in 1963: does Julie Christie belong in lead or supporting for Billy Liar?