Sprocket_Man

Interestingly, the last two postings each spelled the name of Telly Savalas's character wrong...and right. In the original TV movie, The Marcus-Nelson Murders (which really is excellent), it's spelled "Theo Kojack"; in the series that followed, it was abbreviated to "Kojak" (neither of which is distinctly Greek, though the character would make occasional references to his heritage). This brings to mind a memory of a hot summer's day thirty-four years ago when I visited the set of an episode ("The Pride and the Princess"), filming in Manhattan, and on location in Washington Square Park, as the cinematographer was the father of one of my college classmates.

Yes, they're two different things: the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) established criminal defendants' right to effective counsel, (though many states, mainly in the South, interpret the word "effective" very narrowly), whereas Miranda v. Arizona (1966) resulted in the Supreme Court precedent that upon arrest criminal suspects must be informed that any statements they make to police may incriminate them, are entitled to counsel, and that counsel will be provided by the state if they cannot afford legal representation. Unfortunately, this year the Court, in the case of Berghuis v. Thompkins, watered down Miranda protections by ruling that criminal suspects must "unambiguously" invoke their rights; if they choose not to (or, as a practical matter, fail to invoke them, as the police are no longer required to adviise them that they even have any rights), any subsequent statements they make may be held against them in court. It's something all those self-appointed law-and-order types will certainly applaud -- until they find themselves in police custody. Then their tune is apt to be rather different. Too bad the justices of the Supreme Court have probably never been with the police when they arrest someone, or seen the inside of a police station when a suspect is booked.

I don't think that BRAINSTORM was, or is, considered a "good note" for anyone involved with it.

"Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, however, they are not entitled to their own facts." ...Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I didn't catch all of Wuhl's appearance, but he did refer to TO BE OR NOT TO BE screenwriter "Edwin Justin Mayer" when the man's name was actually Edwin Justus Mayer. He does deserve to be commended, though, on his choice of a great, great movie.

As regards Wyler being a "coward," I presume you were referring to his willingness to tackle controversial subject matter in a forthright way. I should think that, on the basis of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES alone -- which said to the American public that their revered, returned war heroes were not all the happy and well-adjusted men song and story portrayed them to be, and the society those men fought to protect and preserve wasn't the egalitarian utopia with "liberty and justice for all" it styles itself to be -- you would know Wyler as someone who never shied away from telling a hard lesson. Beyond that, Wyler's personal courage was on display during production of his World War II documentary MEMPHIS BELLE; he and his cameraman, Franz Planer, spent months in B-17's in missions over Germany and occupied France, enduring the same hardships (high altitude, 40-degree-below-zero conditions, intolerable noise) and dangers as the bombers' regular aircrews (which had a nearly 60% fatality rate), shooting footage. Then there was the little matter of his standing in solidarity with Joseph L. Mankiewicz as the latter's Directors Guild presidency was threatened by Cecil B. DeMille and his cronies over the mandatory anti-Communist loyalty oath DeMille tried to force on the guild's membership in an era when even the faintest hint of Communist sympathies could end a career. You can find cowards in every walk of life, including Hollywood, but Wyler certainly wasn't one of them...

http://www.amazon.com/Early-Warner-Studios-Images-America/dp/0738580910/ref=pd_sim_b_1

> {quote:title=Web wrote:}{quote} > I've seen the movie at least 10 times and I still pronounce it QWAH-ter-mass. So Ben pronouncing it like that does not mean he's never seen the movie. It might just mean that he hadn't seen it earlier that day. But then he may be like me who intends to continue to pronounce it the way it looks like it should be pronounced in American English. I also don't pronounce the "Carnegie" in Carnegie Hall the way it should be pronounced and don't know many Americans who do. No, it just means that some people never learn.

> {quote:title=lzcutter wrote:}{quote} > *From your postings I am tempted to think Wyler a coward but I dont really know what his motivations were for the decisions he made and until I do I should refrain from labeling him I do* > > Remember also, that this film was produced by United Artists. Wyler may have wanted to make the story less subtle (which is not me saying that he would have had it more in your face or more graphic) but had his hands tied by the Production Code. > > The Production Code, while coming into its twilight years, was still in force and it forbade homosexuality. > > United Artists may have focused on the bottom line of the film making money and that may also have hampered Wyler's ability to tell the story the way he wanted to. > > Perhaps those posters who know more about Wyler (ie, Sprocket_Man) will weigh in. Wyler wasn't, say, Otto Preminger (or even Billy Wilder), and had no desire to shove people's faces into his material. As was the case with many films as the Production Code loosened it grip, the sense of freedom enjoyed by filmmakers was somewhat illusory in that the final arbiter of what went into a film wasn't the Breen Office but moviegoers, themselves, and that was something Hollywood had, and still has, trouble gauging. Wyler knew he had a window of opportunity denied him when he made THESE THREE a quarter-century earlier, but he wasn't about to make THE CHILDREN'S HOUR so explicit that it both alienated audiences and ended up dramatically inert. The evolution of a filmmaker like Wyler, who learned to tell the stories he wanted to tell during the heyday of the Production Code -- which forced clever, skilled writers and directors to say what they had to say by indirection, to be, for lack of a better word, subversive and involve the audience in the story-telling process -- wasn't about to throw all that out the window and simply state through flat, dead-on exposition and character development, his film's themes and intent. He'd worked too long and hard honing his skills to capitulate to a laissez faire style of storytelling that has, sadly, come to dominate filmmaking nowadays. It's an odd a testament to the carefully learned and husbanded skills of Hollywood professionals of Wyler's day that a THESE THREE, for all its pulled punches and tippy-toeing around its subject matter, remains a better, more polished and entertaining movie than THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. Censorship is never good but, in the right circumstances, it is[/i] often useful.

> {quote:title=Swithin wrote:}{quote} > You say ee-ther, I say i-ther. BERN-ard is the Brit pronunciation. If the character had been a clerk, and Ben or or RO didn't pronounce it "clark," would that upset you as much? This isn't about common words with regional pronunciations, but proper names whose pronunciations are basically immutable. The character is British, demanding that his given name be pronounced "BERN-urd." Most importantly, his last name is pronounced "QWAY-ter-mass" on either side of the Atlantic, and every place else, just as your surname is what it is.

1978 was the year I had the entirety of MGM's Lot 2 all to myself for a few afternoons. Block after block of New York and London streets, ocean liner facades and small midwestern towns. It was pretty dilapidated by then; simultaneously fascinating, exhilarating and sad. As you can imagine, I've already ordered the book, along with the companion volume about the early Warner Bros. lot that's due out in a couple of weeks.

> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote} > Its an oddity of geography, because of the odd curvature of Panama, so that a ship has to sail Eastwardly through the Canal, to get from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The Canal actually runs northwest (Atlantic end) to southeast (Pacific end) because it was obviously cheaper and quicker to cut it across the isthmus's narrowest point. The topography was also most conducive to constructing Gat?n Lake, whose fresh water is necessary to operate the series of locks in the Canal that compensate for the fifty-foot height differential between the surfaces of the Pacific (higher) and Atlantic (lower).

One would think that TCM would take at least minimal pains to avoid introductory remarks by Robert Osborne or Ben Mankieiwcz that are proved to be egregiously erroneous almost as soon as the film begins. Before this afternoon's airing of FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH, Ben kept referring to "Bern-NAHRD QWAH-ter-mass"; ten minutes into the film, as Andrew Keir, the a splendid embodiment of the character makes his first appearance, the audience hers, with its very own ears, that his name is, in fact, pronounced "BERN-erd QWAY-ter-mass." This isn't exactly privileged information; no one was keeping it a secret. All this does is send the unmistakable message that no one in charge has actually seen the movie being introduced and described. It probably prompts in more than a few heads the question, "Why should I bother listening to someone who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about?" Why don't TCM's producers provide Osborne and Mankiewciz with notes pointing out how things are to be spoken? It really doesn't take all that much time or money to do things right, to do the necessary research. These persistently lax standards reflect poorly on all of TCM, and really shouldn't be tolerated by the people who actually run the channel, or the folks at parent company Time Warner.

> {quote:title=SansFin wrote:}{quote} > > {quote:title=hamradio wrote:}{quote} > I would not use chemicals on big bug. You would miss the delightful sizzle sound of giant bug-zapper. You'll probably also never buy another sandwich at Subway.

> {quote:title=chakobsa wrote:}{quote} >plays a criminal/con man who marries a rich, beautiful woman after he gets into her parents' home posing as a plumber?? To establish his cover in Boston while he and his confederates plan their heist at Los Angeles International Airport, Eli Kotch (Coburn) actually marries the young companion to a wealthy older woman. He then abandons his wife-of-convenience to pull off the robbery. Unbeknownst to Kotch, who jets off with his partners to split their loot, his wife's employer dies, leaving the young woman her millions, the O. Henry-esque twist at the end saying that crime may pay, but not committing the crime would've paid much, much better. DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND is one of those films seen when young that seems so marvelous, but doesn't stand up when re-viewed as an adult. I love Coburn, and the Boston locations, but the film is rather tedious and pointless. Fortunately, there are some really wonderful films in Coburn's resume.

> {quote:title=TikiSoo wrote:}{quote} >I noticed the last time viewing The Wizard of Oz (on the big screen) Terry had _several_ close ups, where the dog's full body filled the entire screen. > > That little dog must have had a heck of a publicist/manager. The close-ups were merely a cheap way of sucking up to Franklin Roosevelt's scottie, Fala.

> {quote:title=Arturo wrote:}{quote} > Let's not forget Rosa Stadner's memorable playing of the Mother Superior in KEYS OF THE KINGDOM from 1944. It's Rose (pronounced "Rosa"; the "e" isn't silent) Stradner, who also happened to be the wife of writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

The West Coast premiere of the film was at Grauman's Chinese on August 15th, 1939; the World premiere was three days earlier at Loew's Capitol Theater in New York.

You've just confirmed by assertion.

> {quote:title=Terrence1 wrote:}{quote} > You're right about the music being used in "The Robe." Also, it was in the final scene of "The Song of Bernadette." It's a stirring piece of music and I never get tired of hearing it. > > Terrence. Except that Alfred Newman didn't use it in THE SONG OF BERNADETTE. Due to the (then public domain) film's constant, ubiquitous showings in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, more people have probably heard it in the last scene of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE than in any other movie. The rest of the film's score is credited to Dimitri Tiomkin.

> {quote:title=Big_Bopper wrote:}{quote} > you've heard me talk about how certain pix with names in the credits become rare. one such pic is The Clay Pigeon - 1949 by richard fleisher [sic]. the name in the credits is Carl Foreman & so TCM cannot show it. I copied it off AMC in the 90's & it is not on video in this country. > available from Spain! R.O. again worships the blacklist. There are lots of films that used to commonly air on TV that are not to be found these days, and it's for the most innocuous of reasons. Foreman's name is on plenty of films, from HIGH NOON to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, that TCM, and plenty of other outlets, show all the time. You're just looking for excuses to criticize those who criticize the Blacklist, but it won't wash. We're on to you.

Kirk Douglas and Christopher Plummer in Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers (1976). Burt Lancaster in Moses, the Lawgiver (1974) Laurence Olivier, Anne Bancroft, Peter Ustinov, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quinn, Ralph Richardson, Rod Steiger, Ernest Borgnine and James Earl Jones in Jesus of Nazareth (1977) John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, Viveca Lindfors and Derek Jacobi in Inside the Third Reich (1982) Toshiro Mifune in Shogun (1980) Richard Widmark in Mr Horn (1976) Charlton Heston in Chiefs (1983) Marlon Brando, Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda in Roots: The Next Generations (1979) Gregory Peck, John Gielgud, Christopher Plummer in The Scarlet and the Black (1983) Anthony Quinn in The Old Man and the Sea (1990)

The older Morse gets, the more he looks as though he and the late George Plimpton were separated at birth.

> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote} > If anything, the names "Gable and Grable" would have been great for promoting the film. Only if the film were ALL ABOUT EVE or STALAG 17.

As so often happens in Hollywood, THE GREAT RACE was released at roughly the same time as THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES, a film with roughly the same story. Though the latter film has an extraordinary look and feel to it, capturing a sense of time and place like few other film's I've ever watched (my opinion being formed after attending a screening of a 70mm print newly struck by 20th Century-Fox about four or five years ago), in every creative sense the film is an unwatchable mess. The dramatic elements in MAGNIFICENT MEN are clumsily assembled, the comedy is decidedly unfunny and the casting uninspired. Though each film revolves around a romantic triangle, MAGNIFICENT MEN's is totally conventional: two men vying for the hand of a woman. THE GREAT RACE's is far more interesting: the Great Leslie's (Tony Curtis) competition for the attentions of Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood) isn't another man, but the cause of women's suffrage, to which Maggie is committed (or thinks she is). THE GREAT RACE's villain is the engagingly over-the-top Professor Fate (tackled with relish by Jack Lemmon), who seems dropped into the film from a Mack Sennett silent comedy; even better is his dim-bulb henchman, Max (Peter Falk steals the movie, plain and simple). By contrast, no one in MAGNIFICENT MEN knows the film's villain, Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas) even is a villain, thereby gutting his effectiveness as one. And he gets his comeuppance via his own miscalculation, and not through the wits and resourcefulness of the piece's hero (they, in fact, don't even know to where, or why, he eventually disappears, since they never knew he was trying to undermine them in the first place). This is not the stuff of good drama. It is, in fact, unforgivably inept. THE GREAT RACE is, then, by far the superior film, consistently wry, funny and trafficking lightly and effectively in the language of traditional Hollywood comedy, which Blake Edwards obviously took in with every draw on his mother's milk (with the unfortunate exception of the rather strained "Prisoner of Zenda" section). Getting to Paris was never, and has never been so much fun.