kingrat

Maltin has been to almost all of the film festivals. He does a good job introducing films or interviewing. This past Saturday he and Christopher Reyna presented a fabulous two-hour program called "A Short History of Widescreen," which included excerpts from Abel Gance and from various examples of Cinerama, Cinemascope, Todd-A-O, VistaVision, and other widescreen formats. Maltin is personable and approachable at the festivals.

One of Ben's favorites is THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. Another is FLETCH.

Oscar had the right idea about moving CASABLANCA and IN WHICH WE SERVE to 1943, because for my taste that's the weakest year of the decade, and it can really use those two splendid films. Best Actor of 1942: Humphrey Bogart, CASABLANCA**** Ronald Colman, RANDOM HARVEST John Mills, IN WHICH WE SERVE Joseph Cotten, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS Monty Woolley, THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER Honorable mention: James Cagney, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY; Jean Gabin, MOONTIDE Best Actress of 1942: Bette Davis, NOW, VOYAGER**** Claudette Colbert, THE PALM BEACH STORY Ingrid Bergman, CASABLANCA Ginger Rogers, THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR Paulette Goddard, REAP THE WILD WIND Honorable mention: Greer Garson, MRS. MINIVER; Greer Garson, RANDOM HARVEST; Carole Lombard, TO BE OR NOT TO BE; Ida Lupino, MOONTIDE; Ginger Rogers, ROXIE HART Best Supporting Actor of 1942: Claude Rains, KINGS ROW**** Claude Rains, CASABLANCA Claude Rains, NOW, VOYAGER Honorable mention: Charles Coburn, IN THIS OUR LIFE; Charles Coburn, KINGS ROW; Thomas Mitchell, MOONTIDE; Ronald Reagan, KINGS ROW; Sig Ruman, TO BE OR NOT TO BE; Henry Travers, MRS. MINIVER Best Supporting Actress of 1942: Florence Bates, THE MOON AND SIXPENCE**** Betty Field, KINGS ROW Agnes Moorehead, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS Mary Astor, THE PALM BEACH STORY Gladys Cooper, NOW, VOYAGER Honorable mention: Celia Johnson, IN WHICH WE SERVE; Kay Johnson, SON OF FURY; Elsa Lanchester, SON OF FURY; Dame May Whitty, MRS. MINIVER

Tom, I have read that Tracy's wife was willing enough to give him a divorce. It was convenient for him in more ways than one to say otherwise, though.

Watched some of Rasputin and the Empress last night, and wow, Lorna was right: Ethel Barrymore really was hammy. Her work in The Spiral Staircase, Pinky, Night Song, and None But the Lonely Heart is so much better. TCM has been showing some really good stuff lately, like Death of a Cyclist, Pepe Le Moko, and Body and Soul. Outstanding films in quality prints.

After tonight I'll be away from the computer for a few days, so I'm bumping this thread in case there are 1942 performances we want to discuss. I noted in the original post that Agnes Moorehead, although nominated for supporting actress for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, was also considered as lead actress by at least one critics' group. I would probably consider this supporting. Walter Pidgeon received a best actor nomination for MRS. MINIVER, but isn't Mr. Miniver a supporting role?

Another great choice for the Tuesday tribute would have been SERIAL, a comedy about life in Marin County. Tuesday plays the wife who blithely falls for whatever fad is popular.

I have Cregar second on my list of supporting actors for 1941. He was going to win, but Bogie determined that Johnny Eager should be considered a 1941 film. He'll be in the top five for best actor for Hangover Square, too.

Interlude (1957) (6/10 overall; cinematography and set design 10/10). Douglas Sirk remake of John M. Stahl's When Tomorrow Comes, which I haven't seen. Innocent young American girl goes to Munich, falls in love with famous conductor who turns out to be married. Will she stay with him or go home with the nice American doctor from her hometown? In 1950s Hollywood films, almost every woman wants to go to Europe and have an affair with Rossano Brazzi, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I'd love to have a couple of the suits he wears, but I sure couldn't manage the perfect silver fox look he does. This is not the movie to convert people who don't like June Allyson (High Barbaree is the one recommended for that). The script seems to suggest that her character is a sweet young thing, which June in 1957 was not. Her hairstyle is, as usual, not at all becoming. She doesn't have much chemistry with Brazzi, either. The script is ponderously written, especially for poor Keith Andes as the doctor, who gets lines like "See, I don't always have my nose in the Journal of Pathology. I can speak French." Marianne Koch (billed as Marianne Cook) as the conductor's wife and Francoise Rosay as her aunt take the acting honors here. Douglas Sirk handles the Cinemascope ratio well, as you might expect, and the camera setups are usually chosen well. The cinematography of William Daniels is absolutely gorgeous, not just the scenes in Munich, Salzburg, and the surrounding countryside, but each interior shot is a marvel of balanced and contrasting colors. The set design is equally superb. If you respond strongly to these visual elements, Interlude is very much worth your while. Just don't expect a film as satisfying as Summertime.

As a Fox star, Betty Grable's films are less available to TCM than the stars of MGM, Columbia, RKO, or Warner Brothers. But Fox has been making more of their films available to TCM than formerly, so there is hope. Grable was one of the biggest female box office stars ever, and I'd like to see more of her work.

Private Worlds was rather disappointing (6/10), given the presence of Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Joan Bennett, and Joel McCrea. Based on a novel by Phyllis Bottome (The Mortal Storm). Colbert and McCrea are progressive psychiatrists who try to improve patient treatment, against the wishes of the local "Send 'em to the padded cell" Nurse Ratched type (Esther Dale). Unfortunately, the new and improved treatment seems to consist of Claudette getting up in the patient's face, grinning like a jack-o'-lantern and saying, "I'm your friend!" That would send me catatonic for sure. Joan Bennett, as McCrea's wife, feels threatened by his closeness with Colbert. McCrea expects to be the new head of the institution, but the board chooses a conservative outsider (Boyer). If you aren't expecting a hate-turns-to-love vibe for Boyer and Colbert, you haven't watched enough movies. To get revenge on Boyer, McCrea starts an affair with Boyer's nutso sister (Helen Vinson). Charles Boyer and Helen Vinson are the least likely siblings this side of Dean Martin and Wendy Hiller in Toys in the Attic, and we never learn why one talks like Paris, France, and one talks like Paris, Texas. Gregory La Cava is a fine director of romantic comedy, but this film needed an Edmund Goulding or John Cromwell, someone who could develop the domestic melodrama implicit in this material. All of the "sane" people come close to breaking down at one point or another, and that could have been the unifying theme behind the script. The pacing is off, and the script is too talky. The four stars are effectively cast, and several rounds of script revision and perhaps a different director might have made this a much better film. One of the mental patients (the one who keeps saying "I'm Carrie Flint!") is played by Jean Rouverol, who would be blacklisted and eventually would write for the soaps.

Absolutely true. Makes me want to run screaming out of the room. The only other actor who affects me that way is Paul Reiser. Another poster here, bronxgirl, has the same reaction to Arthur O'Connell. Tom, I love that scene in NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK.

This year the acting categories are all strong, especially Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. Back in the 1930s I had trouble finding even five candidates for Best Supporting Actor, but not this year. Several actors had two or even three performances that contended for honors. Best Actor of 1941: Humphrey Bogart, THE MALTESE FALCON**** Humphrey Bogart, HIGH SIERRA Gary Cooper, BALL OF FIRE Joel McCrea, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS Charles Coburn, THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES Henry Fonda, THE LADY EVE Honorable mention: Gary Cooper, MEET JOHN DOE; W.C. Fields, NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK; Clark Gable, H O N K Y TONK; Louis Hayward, LADIES IN RETIREMENT; Walter Pidgeon, MAN HUNT; Edward G. Robinson, THE SEA WOLF; Orson Welles, CITIZEN KANE Best Actress of 1941: Barbara Stanwyck, BALL OF FIRE**** Barbara Stanwyck, THE LADY EVE Mary Astor, THE MALTESE FALCON Joan Crawford, A WOMAN'S FACE Ida Lupino, LADIES IN RETIREMENT Vivien Leigh, THAT HAMILTON WOMAN Bette Davis, THE LITTLE FOXES Joan Bennett, MAN HUNT Olivia De Havilland, HOLD BACK THE DAWN Honorable mention: Jean Arthur, THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES; Mary Astor, THE GREAT LIE; Hedy Lamarr, H.M. PULHAM, ESQ.; Ida Lupino, HIGH SIERRA; Sylvia Sidney, THE WAGONS ROLL AT NIGHT; Barbara Stanwyck, MEET JOHN DOE; Lana Turner, H O N K Y TONK; Lana Turner, ZIEGFELD GIRL Best Supporting Actor of 1941: Van Heflin, JOHNNY EAGER**** Laird Cregar, I WAKE UP SCREAMING Sydney Greenstreet, THE MALTESE FALCON Peter Lorre, THE MALTESE FALCON Conrad Veidt, A WOMAN'S FACE James Gleason, MEET JOHN DOE Eugene Pallette, THE LADY EVE Dan Duryea, THE LITTLE FOXES Joseph Cotten, CITIZEN KANE Donald Crisp, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY Best Supporting Actress of 1941: Paulette Goddard, HOLD BACK THE DAWN**** Margaret Wycherley, SERGEANT YORK Ona Munson, THE SHANGHAI GESTURE Sara Allgood, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY Beulah Bondi, PENNY SERENADE Honorable mention: Patricia Collinge, THE LITTLE FOXES; Isobel Elsom, LADIES IN RETIREMENT; Susan Hayward, ADAM HAD FOUR SONS; Elsa Lanchester, LADIES IN RETIREMENT BIZARRO AWARD (combined this year with the DRAG QUEEN INSPIRATION AWARD): Costumes, hairstyles, and especially headdresses for Ona Munson in THE SHANGHAI GESTURE. CORRECT CASTING AWARD: To me, Barry Fitzgerald is the creepiest actor in studio era Hollywood, even (or especially) when sloshing around buckets of Irish charm, so casting him as a treacherous, sniveling villain in THE SEA WOLF is absolutely perfect. I WISH IT WERE TRUE AWARD: In NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK, Franklin Pangborn plays the head of a Hollywood studio. Wouldn't you like to see the films he would make if he had his druthers?

THE LOCKET has a wonderful structure of interlocking flashbacks. RAW DEAL is the unusual film where the bad girl (Claire Trevor, of course) narrates the flashbacks.

Jake, I also liked THE IDES OF MARCH very much. It felt very much like a film by Zinnemann or Preminger, and I intend that as a high compliment.

Top 10 Films for 1941: Citizen Kane The Maltese Falcon The Lady Eve Ball of Fire Johnny Eager A Woman's Face Sullivan's Travels How Green Was My Valley Ladies in Retirement Honeymoon for Three

One of the most bizarre political films: GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE, which is a fantasy about what a benevolent dictator (i.e., William Randolph Hearst) could do to fix what was wrong with the U.S. An end to prohibition, with national liquor stores, for one thing. TCM shows this from time to time, and it's worth seeing just to learn how Hearst wanted to change things. Also, to give thanks that we never had such a benevolent dictator.

Thanks, Bogie, for the heads-up about JOHNNY EAGER as a 1941 film. No one will be happier than a certain actor who has no fewer than three great supporting performances in 1942 and has now just lost his top competition. But adding Van Heflin to the 1941 crew makes this one of the most outrageously strong supporting actor fields ever.

I'll second the recommendations for Ghost Breakers, City for Conquest, Strange Cargo, and The Stranger on the Third Floor, and also put in a plug for Johnny Apollo. This is a gangster film that looks like a film noir in style. One of Henry Hathaway's best. Tyrone Power is an upper-crust young man who turns gangster when his father is brought low. The real revelation is Dorothy Lamour, excellent in a straight dramatic role. Too bad she didn't get more opportunity to do film noir. She would have been believable as heroine or as femme fatale. TCM showed this when Tyrone Power was Star of the Month.

NOCTURNE and JOHNNY ANGEL are both quite entertaining. It's astonishing to most of us today that Raft's place in the pecking order at Warner Brothers was above Bogart. It has been said that the pecking order was Cagney, Robinson, Raft, Bogart. Bogart gets stuck playing the good brother in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (when he wasn't playing Mexican bandits or Irish stableboys), and I believe Raft turned down THE MALTESE FALCON and HIGH SIERRA. I'm glad to see the love for Anton Walbrook. Both versions of GASLIGHT are worth getting to know.

I loved this exchange from Pepe Le Moko: Jean Gabin (indicating the diamond earrings): "What did you do before the diamonds?" Mireille Balin: "Dreamed of them."

The 1982 English comedy EXPERIENCE PREFERRED . . . BUT NOT ESSENTIAL.

Ray Blanton, the corrupt governor of Tennessee, was so oily and smarmy in real life that actor could possibly be hammy enough to play him. Too bad the movie isn't better. Sounds like it was potentially a good vehicle for Sissy Spacek.

Seeing Lana in ZIEGFELD GIRL and another 1941 film, H O N K Y TONK, made me finally understand why she became such a big star. There's the mask-faced Lana of her late 1950s films, when the years in Hollywood and the bad romantic choices had taken their toll. In 1941 she was a petite, fresh, luscious, very beautiful and very talented young woman. ZIEGFELD GIRL, which is basically one of those "three girls" pictures, stars Judy Garland, James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, and a whole slew of fine character actors, and who walks away with the picture? Lana.

I think a lot of people will go bonkers at the thought of getting to attend the Faye Dunaway interview. Prepare for long lines. Too bad Burt Reynolds and Billy Dee Williams aren't able to attend, but congratulations to TCM for being able to add Faye Dunaway.