kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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Thanks, Bogey. I'll have to add A MEDAL FOR BENNY to the list of films to be seen.
HOTEL BERLIN would make a great double feature with Rene Clement's LES MAUDITS. In HOTEL BERLIN some of the Nazis plan to escape via submarine to South America, and LES MAUDITS is about a group of Nazis who do just that.
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I have some questions about 1945, while we're still sorting out 1944.
1. OPEN CITY - Although Anna Magnani has tons of star presence, I think this is a supporting role. The actor who plays the priest has the only lead.
2. HOTEL BERLIN - I think Helmut Dantine has the only leading role, with both Andrea King and Faye Emerson in the supporting category. Faye got bumped up to top billing when she married Elliott Roosevelt, but that doesn't make her part any bigger. If you haven't seen this film, it's worth seeking out. Imagine GRAND HOTEL set in the last few weeks of Nazi Germany. It's based on a novel by Vicki Baum, who also wrote GRAND HOTEL.
3. A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN - James Dunn won an Oscar for best supporting actor. Had the part been played by Fredric March or Spencer Tracy, it would have been perceived as a lead. Dunn has almost as much screen time as Dorothy McGuire, who, with Peggy Ann Garner, is obviously a lead. I'm content with leaving him in support, but it's a close call.
4. THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY - Ella Raines as lead, Geraldine Fitzgerald as support?
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I really am trying.
My favorite: Mr. Joel McCrea
Where did Dolores Del Rio find the cute sandals on a South Sea Island?
You see this picture and notice the sandals????
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A little sidenote about Jimmy Conlin, whom Bogie mentions as part of Preston Sturges' wonderful stock company: I recently saw a Vitaphone short (very early sound era) of Conlin's vaudeville act with Myrtle Glass. It's called Sharps and Flats, and is available on YouTube. Conlin was short; he reminds me a bit of Dana Carvey in this short. Myrtle Glass is like Imogene Coca channeling one of Carol Burnett's more aggressive characters. Myrtle wants Jimmy to accompany her as she sings "Morning, Noon, and Night." She never gets much of the song sung, but she tears most of Jimmy's clothes off; guys behind a curtain holler "Whoa!" whenever Jimmy gets off a good line; and it goes on from there.
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Robby Benson fans who want to see him out of his underwear can try RUNNING BRAVE (not a bad movie), where he and Jeff McCracken have an altercation in the shower.
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Hey, Bogie, thanks for the additional shout out for Dark Waters. It probably qualifies as film noir, although at the time it might have been called a Gothic or "damsel in distress" story. Even if the film overall isn't at the level of Rebecca, I'd definitely put Andre de Toth's work as one of the top ten directing accomplishments for the year. Merle Oberon and Franchot Tone are fine in the leading roles, but the supporting cast is even stronger.
I'm also glad to see that Kay and skimpole share my fondness for On Approval, the kind of artificial comedy (ultimately derived from Wilde) which doesn't appeal to everyone. The plot is simple: two couples decide to live together platonically for a month "on approval" to see if they are suited. Drinking, dysfunction, and witty lines all ensue. Clive Brook does a sensational job as a first-time director, including the use of devices we associate with the New Wave, except that this is 1944. Unfortunately, this was also the last film he ever directed.
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I recommend the 8pm/5pm title:
O HENRY'S FULL HOUSE.
It is rarely shown. It is hosted and short films introduced by John Steinbeck who was a big fan of O' Henry. Steinbeck is not merely doing a voiceover. He is actually on screen.
I also recommend this movie. The trailer for this film, shown a couple of days ago, mentioned only four stories and four directors. Zanuck was so disappointed by Howard Hawks' "The Ransom of Red Chief" that he cut it from the movie, though it was later restored, because a "full house" suggests five.
"The Cop and the Anthem" has Charles Laughton and David Wayne, both outstanding, as homeless men, with a brief appearance by Marilyn Monroe. "The Gift of the Magi" has Farley Granger and Jeanne Crain. Richard Widmark reprises his KISS OF DEATH character in another story; unclear if this is intended as parody, or just a miscalculation. "The Last Leaf" is my favorite, with excellent expressionistic direction by Jean Negulesco. Jean Peters goes beyond the call of duty to make her sister (Anne Baxter) want to live, and their neighbor, Gregory Ratoff, does even more than that. Laughton, Wayne, Peters, and Ratoff would all make my honor roll of performances for 1952.
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Hey, Sepiatone, don't forget Burt Lancaster and Jean Peters as Apaches in (wait for it) APACHE. No explanation for Burt's blue eyes, either.
My favorite entry in the "Anyone Can Play an Indian" sweepstakes is Katharine Ross in TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE. Yes, even more than Audrey Hepburn in THE UNFORGIVEN, who seems totally authentic by comparison. The political correctness of 1968, which is the main ingredient of Abraham Polonsky's script for WILLIE BOY, didn't extend to not casting a very pale Anglo actress as a Native American.
In Jennifer Jones' comparatively brief filmography she played characters who were part Indian (DUEL IN THE SUN), Cuban (WE WERE STRANGERS), half-Asian (LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING), and gypsy (GONE TO EARTH).
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Currently I'm reading Kevin Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By, and its been fantastic so far.
Lawrence, if you're interested in David Lean, Kevin Brownlow's biography of Lean is first-rate. I loved this quote from one of Lean's friends (David Lean was married six times): "He married his wives when other men would have been divorcing them."
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1944 was quite a year for Faye Emerson. She had signed with Warner Brothers in 1941, and in 1944 she gave outstanding performances in three seriously underrated films: THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS, THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU, and BETWEEN TWO WORLDS.
THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS has the very best showcase for her, as she gets to play both the young woman, not yet corrupted, who meets Dimitrios (Zachary Scott), and the world-weary madam this girl becomes. THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS is very much like CITIZEN KANE as a film noir, and this was surely intentional. It uses the same kind of flashback structure and the chiaroscuro lighting. Jean Negulesco hoped to win the Oscar for it. He didn't, but the skill and passion he put into the film are evident.
This was Negulesco's third shot at a first film. He had been set to direct THE MALTESE FALCON, but was removed from the project. He began directing SINGAPORE WOMAN, a very loose remake of DANGEROUS starring Brenda Marshall, but he was removed from this project, too, before completion. The nightclub scene, at least, looks very much like Negulesco's work. He was afraid he'd never get another chance, but he did, and a twenty-year career followed.
THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU is an outstanding wartime romance, very capably directed by Delmer Daves, who gets the most from his fine cast. Dennis Morgan and Dane Clark are two servicemen on leave. They meet defense workers Eleanor Parker and Faye Emerson, and, of course, fall in love. Morgan and Parker have great chemistry in the serious main plot, and Dane Clark, surprisingly good with comedy, and Faye Emerson have chemistry in the secondary love story. Add Henry Travers and Beulah Bondi as Eleanor's parents--Bondi in a mostly unsympathetic role, for a change--and Andrea King as the sister who's fooling around while her her husband's away in the war, and you have a solid film, sweet and romantic but with more than a touch of bitters. (There are even hints of a discussion of abortion, as much as the Code will allow.)
If I were going to make up a name for an obscure director, I couldn't do better than Edward A. Blatt, who directed BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. This film wins my Best Ensemble award: John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Eleanor Parker, Faye Emerson, Sydney Greenstreet, Edmund Gwenn, Sara Allgood, Isobel Elsom, to name a few, all do outstanding work in this remake of OUTWARD BOUND, in which passengers on a ship begin to realize that they are on their way to judgment in the afterlife. A few characters are added to the remake (including Faye's basically sympathetic gal who'd like a rich husband), the setting is updated to the Blitz in WWII, and a film noir atmosphere of fog and shadows also contributes to good effect.
Three very different characters for Faye Emerson, three fine performances. Oh, something else happened to her in 1944: she married Elliott Roosevelt, son of the President. She didn't stay long in Hollywood, though she made some other interesting films like NOBODY LIVES FOREVER, DANGER SIGNAL, and HOTEL BERLIN. This intelligent and sophisticated woman made a successful life in television, theater, and business, but I can't help wondering what films she might have made had she stayed in Hollywood.
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Lawrence, the Chinese market is huge for current films, especially action movies. A friend had written a screenplay for a thriller in which the villain was Chinese; he was told in a potential greenlight meeting this was unacceptable for commercial reasons. It is not surprising that a sympathetic Tibetan character was changed to another nationality.
Here's a fun trivia question. What actress made only two well-known films (she had earlier made a few which were not widely distributed), in both of which she played characters of a different race?
Hint: the time frame is 1950s-early 60s.
Susan Kohner is an intelligent guess, but wrong.
Hint: the actress played both of these roles on Broadway.
Hint: They were both musicals.
Answer: Juanita Hall, an African-American who played Bloody Mary, a Polynesian woman in SOUTH PACIFIC and a Chinese-American woman in FLOWER DRUM SONG. (Earlier in her career she had made a few race movies.)
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1944: Best Actor is between a distinguished Shakespearean actor and a polished comic actor in a dramatic role. Best Actress has a clear favorite, although both of the lead categories have many fine performances to choose from. Best Supporting Actor is a tough two-man race, and the top five candidates for Best Supporting Actress all give Oscar-worthy performances (two of them did in fact win Oscars).
Best Actor for 1944:
Laurence Olivier, HENRY V****
Fred MacMurray, DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Charles Boyer, GASLIGHT
Walter Pidgeon, MRS. PARKINGTON
Ray Milland, THE UNINVITED
Honorable mention: Dana Andrews, LAURA; Clive Brook, ON APPROVAL; Nikolai Cherkasov, IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART 1; Laird Cregar, THE LODGER; Charles Laughton, THE SUSPECT; Peter Lorre, THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS; Gregory Peck, THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM; Eric Portman, A CANTERBURY TALE; Claude Rains, MR. SKEFFINGTON; Edward G. Robinson, THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
Best Actress for 1944:
Barbara Stanwyck, DOUBLE INDEMNITY****
Judy Garland, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
Greer Garson, MRS. PARKINGTON
Tallulah Bankhead, LIFEBOAT
Claire Trevor, MURDER, MY SWEET
Honorable mention: Lauren Bacall, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT; Joan Bennett, THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW; Ingrid Bergman, GASLIGHT; Bette Davis, MR, SKEFFINGTON; Betty Hutton, THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK; Celia Johnson, THIS HAPPY BREED; Beatrice Lillie, ON APPROVAL; Ida Lupino, IN OUR TIME; Eleanor Parker, THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU; Gene Tierney, LAURA; Googie Withers, ON APPROVAL
Best Supporting Actor for 1944:
Clifton Webb, LAURA****
Edward G. Robinson, DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Cecil Kellaway, FRENCHMAN'S CREEK
William Bendix, LIFEBOAT
Monty Woolley, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY
Honorable mention: Hume Cronyn, LIFEBOAT; Sydney Greenstreet, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS; Edmund Gwenn, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS; Canada Lee, LIFEBOAT; Peter Lorre, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE; Mike Mazurki, MURDER, MY SWEET; Thomas Mitchell, DARK WATERS
Best Supporting Actress for 1944:
Faye Emerson, THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS****
Agnes Moorehead, MRS. PARKINGTON
Cornelia Otis Skinner, THE UNINVITED
Ethel Barrymore, NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART
Anne Revere, NATIONAL VELVET
Honorable mention: Fay Bainter, DARK WATERS; Beulah Bondi, THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU; Faye Emerson, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS; Faye Emerson, THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU; Jennifer Jones, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY; Angela Lansbury, GASLIGHT; Diana Lynn, THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK; Agnes Moorehead, THE SEVENTH CROSS
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Concerning BILLY BUDD, which was mentioned below in the thread: great story, very well cast with Robert Ryan, Terence Stamp, and Peter Ustinov, but alas, Peter Ustinov is not a good director. As in clueless. If you ever see LADY L, you may wonder, "How bad can any movie with Paul Newman and Sophia Loren be?" Answer: really, really bad. Ustinov doesn't understand film pacing, among other things. Actors just saying their lines is not enough.
We had a power outage that wiped out the first half of ABOUT MRS. LESLIE, but the movie will be shown again in July, and I did get to watch the rest of the movie, which I had seen on TV long ago. It was as good as remembered, with Shirley Booth getting to the heart of her character. I believe that when, on the plane to California, Booth and Ryan take hands, that marks the transition to a fully consummated affair, though the movie can never be explicit about this.
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Speaking of Tom Wilkinson, in his big breakdown scene in MICHAEL CLAYTON, he suddenly drops into a thick Irish brogue.
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Top 10 Films of 1944:
Henry V
Meet Me in St. Louis
Double Indemnity
Laura
The Mask of Dimitrios
Between Two Worlds
Murder, My Sweet
Mrs. Parkington
The Uninvited
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
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Spencer Tracy - EDWARD, MY SON
Gregory Peck - DUEL IN THE SUN
June Allyson - THE SHRIKE
Fred MacMurray - THE CAINE MUTINY
Katharine Hepburn - SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
Martha Scott - SO WELL REMEMBERED
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Actually, Fitzgerald's performance in AND THEN THERE WERE NONE is one of the few I find semi-palatable. He's playing a judge who's unjustly sent a man to the gallows. Creepy actor cast as creepy character.
More on the upcoming year 1944: I consider both Beatrice Lillie and Googie Withers to have leading roles in ON APPROVAL.
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Bogie, do you count all of these as 1944 films?
Henry V
National Velvet
Ivan the Terrible, Part 1
A Canterbury Tale
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A number of people have been looking forward to the TCM premiere of ABOUT MRS. LESLIE, with the unlikely but satisfying combination of Shirley Booth and Robert Ryan.
TENDER COMRADE is another good one. Ginger Rogers and Robert Ryan work well together.
Robert Ryan has good chemistry with just about all his leading ladies. Claudette Colbert in THE SECRET FURY is the only exception that comes to mind.
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SO PROUDLY WE HAIL and CRY HAVOC feature the bravery of American nurses during the disastrous defeat in the Philippines. Both endings are intended to give the audience hope and courage in the long war ahead. Both films have lots of good (and good-looking) actresses.
THE BELLS GO DOWN is about firefighters in London during the Blitz. One of the first films that brought James Mason to attention.
ABOVE SUSPICION has Joan Crawford cast against type: she's playing a normal woman! It's the kind of "heroine in a romantic thriller" part that dozens of actresses could do. She pairs nicely with Fred MacMurray as an ordinary couple doing a little spying in pre-war Nazi Germany. The film is very much like Hitchcock. Another good romantic thriller, of the damsel in distress variety, is THE MAN IN GREY.
MR. LUCKY has certain parallels with CASABLANCA, as Cary Grant plays the same kind of reluctant hero as Bogart's Rick. Laraine Day is quite good as the heroine, and Charles Bickford has an excellent scene as her father. MR. LUCKY is one of my three or four favorite Cary Grant performances.
FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO is a most enjoyable Billy Wilder movie set in Egypt, with spies, Nazis, and Rommel all involved.
THE FALLEN SPARROW concerns a survivor of the Spanish Civil War who's been tortured in Fascist prisons, but now returned to New York. John Garfield has one of his best roles as the ex-prisoner. Walter Slezak plays an extremely creepy guy in a wheelchair. Some of the people in New York are Nazi sympathizers (this is also pre-WWII). Is Maureen O'Hara friend or foe? Patricia Morison and Martha Vickers are lovely additions to the cast. Photographed by Nicholas Musuraca, so there are some striking film noir textures.
EDGE OF DARKNESS is about a Norwegian town that resists Nazi occupation. Anyone sensing a theme for this year? Errol Flynn (as a British spy) and Ann Sheridan star, but there's an outstanding supporting cast which includes Judith Anderson in a sympathetic role.
TENDER COMRADE shows us the courtship of Ginger Rogers and Robert Ryan. Ryan goes off to war, and Ginger shares a house with several other women who are working in defense plants. Patricia Collinge plays a woman whose husband and son are both away fighting the war.
Just writing about these films makes me wonder if I've underestimated this year a little. If there are very few really outstanding films, there are quite a few films of the second rank that are worth seeing. Hm: I like all of these WWII films better than FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, which was the big war film of the year.
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Mary Ure was married to Robert Shaw; they were still married at the time of her death in April 1975. Before him she was married to John Osbourne. I think Mary Ure preferred stage work to film work so that's one reason her filmography is rather small. Plus, it's possible Shaw had an ego that didn't care for the notion his wife could have a more successful film career than he had. Ergo, she didn't work in films as much as she could have.
Mr. Gorman, I've read that Mary Ure's alcoholism seriously limited her work. She was a talented actress, and it's too bad she didn't have a larger career.
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One Boston critic said that in MYSTIC RIVER Laura Linney was the one who really nailed the South Boston accent.
Having grown up in the South, I'm quickly knocked out of a film by a bad Southern accent. Angela Lansbury in BLUE HAWAII is one I recall as being pretty bad.
After seeing Matthew Rhys in BROTHERS AND SISTERS on TV, I was surprised to learn that he's Welsh by birth. British actors learn vocal technique in a way that most American actors don't.
Watching Ava Gardner in any of her movies, who would guess that she is from rural North Carolina? MGM's training school did a most effective job of eliminating her accent.
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Early in RUN OF THE ARROW Rod Steiger has a long speech in which he drifts back and forth between a bad Irish accent and a bad Southern accent.
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Will rearrange my ballots accordingly. Ethel's competition in the supporting category is just as tough as it would have been as a lead. Claude Rains would have made the top five as supporting, maybe not as a leading man.
It's just as easy not to vote for Barry Fitzgerald as a lead as it would have been not to vote for him in support.
Your Favourite Performances from 1929 to present are...
in Your Favorites
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A few notes about some of the films people mentioned that they haven't seen:
COVER GIRL can be recommended for all who enjoy Gene Kelly's dancing or Rita Hayworth's loveliness. FRENCHMAN'S CREEK is a fun film about seventeenth century pirates in England. Unfortunately, the print shown on TCM was bleached out and frankly awful; the DVD is said to be fine.
THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM is a solid, well-acted film about a missionary in China, as ColumboFan can tell you. It is an honest and intelligent film about men of the cloth and the political situations they encounter, unlike, well, a certain other film of this year.
MRS. PARKINGTON is not liked in some quarters, but it is my favorite Greer Garson film, favorite Walter Pidgeon film, and favorite Tay Garnett film. Greer and Walter have never had as much sex appeal as here; Agnes Moorehead is great fun as a mistress of Walter's who isn't really of noble birth, but certainly should be; and the scene where Greer gets fitted for a bustle is a special favorite.
If you like Shakespeare, HENRY V is the one of the very best Shakespeare films ever. If you like the strangeness of Powell & Pressburger, try A CANTERBURY TALE. The scenes of the bombed-out city of Canterbury and the final scene in Canterbury Cathedral of the blessing of the troops are quite moving. THIS HAPPY BREED is a Noel Coward play, not unlike CAVALCADE, which follows a family from WWI to the present day. This time it's a lower-middle-class family, which is the background Coward came from. It's essentially a filmed play, but with a strong cast.