Sprocket_Man

> {quote:title=Rhonda12345 wrote:}{quote} > I am just wondering why Rue and Tom are not on the TCM Remembers tribute. I know there is not room for everyone, but Tom and Rue were "troopers" in the television, motion picture and theater industry for decades. The word is troupers, no quotation marks needed.

> {quote:title=fredbaetz wrote:}{quote} > There was a microchip in candy paper? I guess I never got past the shower scene..... There was no such thing as a microchip in 1966, nor were they even contemplated. The film's Maguffin was a microdot, a tiny piece of film containing an important cipher.

> {quote:title=skimpole wrote:}{quote} > And here are the forties: > 1945 > Academy: The Long Weekend > Peary: They were Expendable > TheyShoot: Children of Paradise > Gerbert: Detour/Children of Paradise > Hindsight: The Bells of St. Mary > Armchair: The Picture of Dorian Grey > Cropduster: Children of Paradise > Me: Children of Paradise Apparently, it's not just the Weekend that got Lost.

> {quote:title=myidolspencer wrote:}{quote} > It's early, but "King's Speech" seems a lock-(type of film) that will sweep 2010 OSCARS-(predix) People who start making sweeping, unequivocal statements like the above usually end up eating a bit of crow when the returns come in.

> {quote:title=athensfilmfreak wrote:}{quote} > Does anybody know what happened to the portrait of Gene Tierney/'Laura' hanging on the wall of her apartment in LAURA? Was it given to Tierney? Does somebody own it now? Is it missing? Thanks. As was usually the practice, a large photo of Tierney was just painted over to make it look like a portrait painted from scratch. The studio probably didn't think it was worth much, and I doubt that it survives.

> {quote:title=Laone08 wrote:}{quote} > Marilyn was often snubbed and looked down on by her peers as being ignorant, but this was not the case, and TCM should not be lowering itself to the level of the National Enquirer to participate and perpetuate such ignorance about Marilyn Monroe. Marilyns feelings were often hurt when people summed her up as stupid simply because she sometimes played such characters in films. By allowing this Word of Mouth segment to continue rotation, TCM is stabbing Marilyn through the heart every time it airs. > > Please consider removing this "Word of Mouth" segment from rotation. There have been worse things said about Monroe, but her reputation hasn't suffered. Monroe, herself, is nearly fifty years dead, and is past caring. In a world full of real and tragic injustices, this counts about as much as a sneeze in a cancer ward.

I met her at a Motion Picture Academy screening of FUNNY GIRL about three and a half years ago and asked that she autograph a still photo from FORBIDDEN PLANET. She was very sweet and accommodating. Maybe it was just because I grew up only about fifteen minutes north of her hometown of Ossining, NY.

> {quote:title=luvbwmovies wrote:}{quote} > In the 1960's I saw this movie on TV. I have never seen it since then. I think it took place in Africa. It had something to do with local farmers. There was an oncoming invasion of army ants that were on the move, decimating crops. The local farmers dug deep trenches around their crops, filling them with water, hoping to prevent the ants from getting to the crops, but the ants used leaves to float across the trenches. I would very much like to know the name of the movie and have the opportunity to watch it again. Thanks to anyone who can help! Sounds like Saul Bass's PHASE IV.

> {quote:title=C.Bogle wrote:}{quote} > The contention that the Nazis processed the bodies of many Holocaust victims > into soap is an old wives' tale, supported by the uncritical and unexamined > repetition of rumors and not by historical evidence. It's somewhat reminiscent > of the oft repeated, but false, statement that Hitler was elected leader of > Germany. > > http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/soap.html The real point is not whether it's true but whether any sane person would seriously put such a thing past the Nazis. And in 1933 Hitler was elected German Chancellor, the office in which most political and administrative power resides. Hitler was given the largely ceremonial presidency the next year upon the death of Paul von Hindenburg who, many hoped, would hold Hitler's power in check, at least in the sphere of public opinion.

No, no, it was Frank Capra's "State of the Onion."

> {quote:title=Goalieboy82 wrote:}{quote} > does anyone know if they make 70mm movie camera's for the general public. would love to make a film using 70mm camera and 70mm film. the film would be a ice hockey game film. > thanks Firstly, there's no such thing as a 70mm camera. Large-format films are, and have always been, shot on 65mm film which is later printed onto 70mm film for release. Secondly, there are lightweight 65mm cameras; one, its body constructed of machined magnesium and introduced earlier this year, weighs all of seven (7) pounds, not including the film, itself. Lastly, the cost of the negative film stock and processing would be ruinously expensive. In this age when one can buy a near-professional quality high-definition 24fps digital camera for about $1200, it's incomprehensible that anyone outside a major movie production would want to deal with the problems of 65mm photography.

> {quote:title=myidolspencer wrote:}{quote} > It's early, but "King's Speech" seems a lock-(type of film) that will sweep 2010 OSCARS-(predix) I can only imagine that head writer Bruce Vilanch is already crafting a slew of stuttering jokes for James Franco and Anne Hathaway.

I find myself watching the George C. Scott version, year after year. Not because Scott is the greatest Scrooge ever committed to film (he's adequate, not much more, and doesn't sound remotely English, but because he was a large man, his physicality makes him menacing in a way that other, frailer Scrooges are not), but because of the film's truly splendid supporting cast: David Warner, Susannah York, Roger Rees, Edward Woodward, Frank Finlay. Just as any dramatization of "Moby-Dick" is only as good as the actor playing Starbuck, so is a filmed "A Christmas Carol[/i]" utterly dependent on who plays Bob Cratchit, who's really the story's dramatic linchpin. Warner, who for many viewers must overcome associations with villains he's played in the past, is truly marvelous, specifically because he's a man conflicted by a typically 19th Century British sense of honor that binds him to his employer, however unjust that employer might be, and the love he has for his family; in each case he ends up making personal sacrifices for the welfare of each. It's particularly necessary in light of the illogical situation in which Charles Dickens has placed Cratchit -- Britain is in the throes of the Industrial Revolution: new businesses are springing up like weeds all over the country, and every new business needs a bookkeeper-administrator. Cratchit, a skilled green eye-shade man, could practically write his own ticket at any one of these new firms of which the owners are apt to be much more generous and kind than Scrooge, yet he stays with Scrooge & Co. and endures his low pay, lower status, and utter lack of appreciation on the part of his boss. That is the mark of a (perhaps too) honorable man, and Warner makes that aspect of the character come alive as no other Cratchit has.

> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote} > A few years ago, NBC aired "Schindler's List" with no commercials at all. For the all-too-obvious reason that interrupting a story of the horrors of the Holocaust to sell soap (a particularly dreadful association, if you know what the Nazis did with the bodies of many of those they exterminated in concentration camps) and other products (many produced by U.S. companies that maintained business ties to Nazi Germany even during the War) would be far more costly to the network in bad publicity than the money they might forgo by not selling commercial time to advertisers.

Robert Osborne's introduction was, not surprisingly, inaccurate: it wasn't William Wyler, the man who actually ended up directing the film, who harbored a years-long desire to bring Jessamyn West's collection of short stores to the screen, but Frank Capra, who envisioned Bing Crosby and Jean Arthur in the roles of Jess and Eliza Birdwell. Capra couldn't interest a studio in the the property and eventually sold it to his old Liberty Films partner, Wyler, who managed to persuade Allied Artists, a poverty-row studio looking to make a jump to the big leagues, to back what turned out to be an iffy financial propsition. It should also be noted that West called her book "The Friendly Persuasion[/i], which refers to Quakers, themselves; in shaving off the article "the" from the title, it subtly changes the meaning, making it a reference to how the Quakers bring others around to their Pacifist ways of thinking. It's a debatable point as to which title is better suited to the story the book tells.

> {quote:title=bklynrose wrote:}{quote} > Shame on NBC for putings profits before Christmas memories. > cat Broadcast television is a business; were it not for the commercial time networks sell, they couldn't put on anything. In any case, when the film was presumed to be in the public domain, the countless local stations that showed it (in generally inferior prints and transfers) larded it with just as many commercials as NBC does now. You and everyone else have every opportunity to see the film uncut and uninterrupted by spending the modest sum of money it takes to purchase a DVD or Blu-ray of the film.

What's not been said here or in other threads about studio contract players is that, while not under contract to a particular studio there were many actors who were favorites of a studio's casting directors (Walter Abel, William Bendix and William Demarest come to mind at Paramount) who cast them, or persuaded the studio's directors and producers to cast them, in film after film. Though they certainly worked on other lots, a disproportionate number of films in their resumes were made by studios to whom they were never under exclusive or long-term contract. For an independent actor having a studio's casting director in his or her corner was worth its weight in gold and often made the difference between having a spotty career and a richly rewarding one.

> *During the last part the writers were discussing the deaths of some of the major moguls including Walt Disney. It was indicated he passed away in 1966. Note to the writers: I do believe he passed in 1971.* Not only that, but people, horses and dogs die; students passing their examinations, cars in the left-hand lane and kidney stones pass.

> {quote:title=TikiSoo wrote:}{quote} > P&P films are tough for me to watch, and I'm aware of this being the factor. I'm a RED SHOES hater, but I loved BLACK NARCISSUS. I'm always kind of "off kilter" watching P&P films, but it never occurred to me it might be editing choices. And I absolutely know what you mean about "rhythm" although I could never pinpoint it. My favorite Archers film is A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. It's a really fascinating bit of fantasy-propaganda, intensely romantic and frequently moving. It's so effective (at least on me) that one overlooks the fact that the whole celestial "trial" of Peter Carter makes no sense logically.

> {quote:title=JonnyGeetar wrote:}{quote} > _IT HAS NOTHING NEW TO SAY PERIOD._ > There. I said it. And I'm glad you did. I pretty much know what they're going to show, or Chistopher Plummer is going to say before it's shown or said. There's not been an episode, yet, that hasn't literally put me to sleep.

> {quote:title=VP19 wrote:}{quote} > The same thing happened to the 1937 Paramount film "Swing High, Swing Low." The original 35mm negative was borrowed by Fox when it re-did the story for the 1948 remake "When My Baby Smiles At Me," but it was never returned to Paramount and is since lost. Surviving 35mm portions have been combined with footage from a 16mm print belonging to director Mitchell Leisen. (The film's condition, even though it's in the public domain, is probably why it wasn't part of Universal's "Carole Lombard: The Glamour Collection," alongside her three other films with Fred MacMurray.) > > The irony? "Swing High, Swing Low" was Paramount's most profitable film of '37, so one would think a full 35mm print is out there somewhere. Besides the obvious fact that the negative and all prints from its original release would have been perishable, flammable nitrate, there's also the matter of popular films being the victims of their own success because those prints were often made directly from the original negative that, over time, deteriorated from overuse. Add to all that Paramount's sale of its pre-1948 films to MCA-Universal, in which the negatives (usually cut to conform to general-release running times) were all that were transferred to MCA's possession (with original sound and picture elements often discarded by Paramount), and you see how unlikely it is that the full version will ever turn up. > {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote} >"The Thing" can trace its lineage back to H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds" of 1898, and Percival Lowell's 19th Century publicity about his belief that there was some form of intelligent life on Mars. But even long before Lowell, there were 19th Century books written about life on other planets, and space travel, including Thomas Dick's famous "The Philosophy of a Future State," which mentioned space travel by superior beings. His book was reprinted many times in the 19th Century and brought the concept of space travel by superior beings from other plants to the general public. > > "The Thing" was based on a short story [by John W. Campbell], published in 1938, titled "Who Goes There?" The life-on-other-words trope can be traced back at least as far as the writings of Cyrano de Bergerac in the early 17th century. Why do you think it has to be one or the other, invaders-from space or an allegory about Communism? Storytelling is a matter of adapting various stock situations to the dramatic point the writer is trying to make. So, yes, THE THING is about Communist influence in society.

> {quote:title=rayallen wrote:}{quote} > From the New World Encyclopedia: > > "A noteworthy piece of trivia is that all of Lang's films feature a shot of his hand. Alfred Hitchcock would later follow Lang's ritual with cameo appearances in his films." > > Was the man shown in full? Well, Lang played himself, in a sizable part, in Jean-Luc Godard's LE M?PRIS (CONTEMPT).

> {quote:title=MovieProfessor wrote:}{quote} > Since the early 1960s, this film has been chopped up from various available elements of both 16mm and 35mm. As to the issue of whether or not there has been missing footage has become a matter of conjecture. The now 87 minute version of the film (often thought to be the most complete) was a result of putting together the two different types of film elements. It?s believed throughout the film?s lifetime, it was shorten and important character development was lost, affecting a reasonable, smooth continuity. The film was cut shortly into its release when the studio felt that there were too many shots in which the Thing was seen too clearly, and that the audience would just view him as a big guy in a funny suit. RKO was probably right, but it resulted in a fairly short film getting even shorter. The fact is, when a movie's really great, like this one, you want to see every piece of film that was shot, even if it isn't ideally suited to the final movie. > {quote:title=ValentineXavier wrote:}{quote} > Fred, he is hardly the first person to hypothesize that 'the flying saucer scare' was just a reaction to the supposed 'Red menace,' just as the Japanese monster films were inspired by the fear of nuclear bombs/war...Don't accuse Ben of making it up, because he didn't, others did, long before he mentioned it. Of course it's an allegory about Communism, no less than HIGH NOON is a deliberate, conscious polemic about McCarthyism. One of the most interesting things about THE THING, though, is that its contemporary, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, tells the same story, only from the opposite point of view (scientists as rational saviors, military as trigger-happy incompetents who'll destroy the world if left to their own devices. As for accusing Ben of making things up, even when he or Bob Osborne are relaying information that's 100% accurate (sadly, not all that often), neither is "making up" anything -- it's all from writers who supply them with copy that they then recite. If you want to let both Bob and Ben off the hook for simply being too trusting, I can't stop you, but it certainly helps when an on-air face has a BS-O-meter that tells them when some assertion is less than kosher.

> {quote:title=TikiSoo wrote:}{quote} > I am very humbly asking if anyone else has noticed Ford's odd mix of wide shots/medium shots/close ups and if this was intentional. I am sometimes jarred by it, it just doesn't seem to fit to ME. But what do I know? > I promise to take notes next Ford film I watch to give real examples, since it's all a blur to me now. This board is full of Ford fans who know his films scene by scene and I'm hoping to be enlightened. > > I do exactly know what you mean about the uber close ups, jiggly camera, over used zoom effects a lot of modern filmmakers (esp commercials) use. I hate it too. We've even talked about the wholly inappropriate camera taking a side view of Lithgow as he talks on Essentials Jr. > > Please don't assume I have no taste or experience as a film viewer. I'm not saying anything of the kind, only that your friends may have led you down a path that leads nowhere. If you want to look at films whose directorial and editorial choices seem odd, if not downright unworkable, you need look no further than the work of the Archers, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. Their films display the most peculiar rhythms that common sense -- the sort ingrained from thousands of hours of film-going with more conventional fare -- tell you shouldn't work, but do, and brilliantly (though, to be fair, much of British cinema of the 1930's-'60's is rhythmically different from U.S. product). As you may imagine, Powell & Pressburger chose every angle and cut with an eye toward a very deliberate emotional effect and, I can assure you, that John Ford did no less.

> {quote:title=TikiSoo wrote:}{quote} > I love THE QUIET MAN, but once watched it with filmmaker friends of mine who ripped it apart scene by scene. I didn't know what the heck they were talking about. > > Viewing the film 10 years later, I then saw exactly what they saw. Ford seemed to invariably make the wrong choice of close-up, medium and long shots to tell the story for the viewer's subliminal intimacy. It was more glaringly noticeable since I wasn't discovering the story for the first time, I was familiar with it. > > I then watched STAGECOACH and noticed exactly the same poor choices. It really hurts my emotional involvement for his films. > > Could this be the editor's choice rather than the director's? > > I also realize as an artist matures they choose more unusual techniques, rather than the typical or beginner's path. Could this be it? Could Ford's framing choices be more difficult & advanced and I'm just looking at things with a "beginner's" eye? > > I'd really love to hear Ford's fans explain this to me. I want to like Ford's films, I just am distracted by his seemingly weird compositions of scenes. Since modern films are almost nothing but close-ups, superfluous camera movement and slow-motion effects -- and I suspect that your "filmmaker friends" are likely exponents of that sort of incoherent rubbish -- whatever they might say about the simplicity of Ford's style, his certainty that close-ups are emotional and expository trump-cards whose power is not to be diluted or squandered through overuse, and a reluctance to move the camera when the subject is stationary (and no slow-motion, of course), I'd say that your buddies are simply and utterly unqualified to pass judgment on Ford's work.