kingrat

There's Louis Malle's fine film THE FIRE WITHIN (LE FEU FOLLET) about a young man who visits his friends trying to find a reason to go on living, but their lives make him even more depressed. Not recommended for those suffering from depression.

Lawrence, I thought Marc Singer and Jane Badler were going to be big stars. The mini-series was a great form, perfect for books too long for a movie and yet with a definite conclusion.

I know there are sometimes strange combinations when the daytime theme ends and the evening theme begins, but I particularly like Thursday's back to back showing of FINIAN'S RAINBOW and VIRIDIANA. Although YOUNG CASSIDY isn't all that successful as a whole, you get to see Michael Redgrave as Yeats, Edith Evans as Lady Gregory, Flora Robson with a good death scene, Rod Taylor and Julie Christie looking young and gorgeous. The young Maggie Smith has a delicate beauty and a flawless ivory complexion; too bad she didn't play more romantic roles in her early career. And Sian Phillips, T.P. McKenna, Jack MacGowran--it's a great cast.

Swithin, thanks for the link to the fascinating article about Nicolas de Gunzburg.

Absolutely! Ralph Macchio and Diane Lane as well.

The actors who dub the supposedly American characters (in English) in the first section of I AM CUBA are particularly atrocious. Better to turn down the sound and just watch the camera movement.

Susan Sarandon in BULL DURHAM: "Men will do anything if they think it's foreplay."

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY - The novel is told by the butler, an unreliable narrator. The tone is high comedy with undertones of tragedy. The film, with a more objective viewpoint, reverses the tones. The tone is tragic, thanks in no small part to the performances by Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, with moments of comedy. The novel is fine, quite well-written, but scarcely at all moving, unlike the film. I believe I prefer the movie versions of HOWARDS END and A ROOM WITH A VIEW to the Forster originals, though the difference is not so great.

Yes, Margaret Lindsay refused to play the game of publicly dating various actors and eventually marrying someone, perhaps in a "lavender marriage" like Janet Gaynor and Adrian (where a lesbian marries a gay man). Not playing the game hurt her career. She was friends with Edgar Ulmer and his wife, and lived in their house for a time, according to Ulmer's daughter, who introduced HER SISTER'S SECRET.

I'll have to look for the original. in HONEYMOON FOR THREE George Brent plays a best-selling author pursued by his female fans. Ann Sheridan, his secretary, is of course the right woman for him.

Sunday 3/13 had a schedule very much to my taste, with LOVE LETTERS, THE UNINVITED, THE QUIET AMERICAN (1958), TOOTSIE, and SAWDUST AND TINSEL. THE SMILING LIEUTENANT and VICTOR/VICTORIA aren't chopped liver, either. I should have taken the opportunity to see Errol Flynn in THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER. Monday 3/14 - Anyone who hasn't seen THE ASPHALT JUNGLE has a chance to remedy that. Tuesday 3/15 - HONEYMOON FOR THREE is a very funny screwball comedy. Ann Sheridan should have been cast in more comedies. And George Brent can actually play comedy, which surprised the heck out of me.

Love the photos, Lawrence. Just a reminder to everyone that THE TEN COMMANDMENTS will be shown in theaters in many cities across the country on March 20 and March 23. THE KING AND I will be shown at this year's TCM Film Festival. For those who don't know THE JOURNEY, I highly recommend it. TCM shows it from time to time. A varied group of people tries to leave Hungary in 1956 during the Soviet takeover. Deborah Kerr wants to help her lover (Jason Robards) escape, for he has participated in the struggle against the Soviet. Yul Brynner plays the Russian officer who controls their fate, and he's very smitten with Deborah. One of Anatole Litvak's best films.

LA KERMESSE HEROIQUE (aka CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS) was shown on TCM a couple of years ago. It was famous in its day, then became less well known. A town in Belgium is about to be conquered by the Spanish during the religious wars of the seventeenth century. The men run and hide, but the women find a way to conquer the conquerors. OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA was shown on TCM three or four years ago. It's based on a best-selling novel by Alice Tisdale Hobart and was directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Pat O'Brien plays an oil company employee in China, and Josephine Hutchinson is his wife. The theme of the film is the sacrifice that the woman is expected to make for her husband and the sacrifice that the husband is expected to make for his employer. The climax of the film is the choice O'Brien must make between helping his wife through a difficult pregnancy and helping to put out an oil fire in a remote location. Although some of the scenes are stagy, this is one of the most intelligent films of the period. The company bosses aren't mustache-twirling villains, but they think nothing of appropriating the invention Pat O'Brien makes, and he doesn't feel that he has been wronged. Hollywood has rarely made good films about big business, but this one is an exception.

Here are the current choices for 1935: Best Actor: Charles Laughton, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY* Ronald Colman, A TALE OF TWO CITIES Paul Muni, BORDERTOWN Robert Donat, THE 39 STEPS Fredric March, THE DARK ANGEL Best Actress: Francoise Rosay, LA KERMESSE HEROIQUE* Katharine Hepburn, ALICE ADAMS Bette Davis, DANGEROUS Marlene Dietrich, THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN Josephine Hutchinson, OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA Honorable mention: Madeleine Carroll, THE 39 STEPS; Bette Davis, BORDERTOWN; Miriam Hopkins, BARBARY COAST; Carole Lombard, HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE; Merle Oberon, THE DARK ANGEL Best Supporting Actor: Eric Blore, TOP HAT* Herbert Marshall, THE DARK ANGEL Franchot Tone, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY Walter Brennan, BARBARY COAST W.C. Fields, DAVID COPPERFIELD Honorable mention: Ralph Bellamy, HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE; Cary Grant, SYLVIA SCARLETT; Cesar Romero, THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN Best Supporting Actress: Blanche Yurka, A TALE OF TWO CITIES* Edna May Oliver, A TALE OF TWO CITIES Margaret Lindsay, BORDERTOWN Peggy Ashcroft, THE 39 STEPS Janet Beecher, THE DARK ANGEL Honorable mention: Jean Muir, OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA

Top 10 for 1935, no particular order. Very much subject to change on seeing or re-seeing more films: The 39 Steps La Kermesse Heroique (Carnival in Flanders) A Night at the Opera The Devil Is a Woman A Tale of Two Cities Mutiny on the Bounty Top Hat Oil for the Lamps of China David Copperfield The Dark Angel

TOYS IN THE ATTIC has some of the least probable siblings: Geraldine Page, Dean Martin, and Wendy Hiller.

Natalie Wood having a meltdown in the sound booth while she's supposed to be lip-synching her musical number (INSIDE DAISY CLOVER).

A classic open ending from one of Ben M's very favorite films: THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK leaves us, well, hanging.

If I've seen fifteen of the films Bogie hasn't, there are many more of the ones he's seen that I haven't! THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI is hard to come by, if I remember correctly. THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD is interesting if only because this is one of the few Hollywood films of the classic era which is about Jews. It's also interesting to see George Arliss' acting style, which is based on earlier theatrical traditions. A fun fact about THE AGE OF INNOCENCE: Julie Haydon, who plays May Welland (the role played by Winona Ryder in the Scorsese film), was the original Laura in THE GLASS MENAGERIE. She was the mistress of the prominent Broadway theater critic George Jean Nathan, usually taken to be the model for Addison DeWitt in ALL ABOUT EVE.

The John Brahm film LET US LIVE, with Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Sullivan, definitely belongs on your list. The French poetic realism style, as in PORT OF SHADOWS, also belongs there.

1934's Suspension of Disbelief Award: Mickey Rooney grows up to be Clark Gable (MANHATTAN MELODRAMA). Best Supporting Actor for 1934: Ned Sparks, IMITATION OF LIFE* Peter Lorre, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH Melville Cooper, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN Charles Vanel, LES MISERABLES We do seem to have a consensus that Colbert, Davis, Lombard, and Loy all belong on the short list for Best Actress this year.

DAMES has some of Busby Berkeley's giddiest, most surreal musical numbers. Not to be missed. HEAT LIGHTNING is another early Mervyn LeRoy film that has much more energy than the stodgier, longer films he made in the 1950s. It has some resemblances to THE PETRIFIED FOREST, which hadn't been filmed yet. Aline MacMahon, having fallen for a guy (Preston Foster) who turned out to be a criminal, now runs a filling station in the desert. She tries to look after her younger sister (Ann Dvorak), who's in love with a fellow Aline thinks is no good. Meanwhile, two dizzy, man-crazy dames (Ruth Donnelly and Glenda Farrell) who've just gotten Reno divorces stop for the night with their chauffeur. And--you guessed it--Preston Foster turns up again. Aline in overalls looks extremely butch early in the film and then transforms into all woman when her ex-beau returns. It's interesting to see her in a leading role, and one that calls for serious drama. All this, and Jane Darwell as a tourist who stops for gas.

Come on, guys, you KNOW you want to see Joan Crawford in blackface!

There are many portrayals of monarchs on screen, so maybe it's more important to think of others. But we do remember Bette Davis as Elizabeth I (twice), Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I (twice), Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II, Marlene Dietrich as Catherine the Great (THE SCARLET EMPRESS), etc. Katharine Hepburn is less than ideally cast as MARY OF SCOTLAND. There are also portrayals of female criminals, such as Ann Todd as Madeleine Smith in MADELEINE, Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker in BONNIE AND CLYDE, etc. Greer Garson, who did several of these biopics, also played Eleanor Roosevelt in SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO. Nicole Kidman played Virginia Woolf in THE HOURS. Rosalind Russell played Sister Kenny, who developed a new treatment in the fight against polio.

I'm a big fan of HIGH BARBAREE, which no one has mentioned yet. It's one of the best 1940s romances.