SansFin
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Days Won
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Posts posted by SansFin
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The only time a horror movie is effective on me is when there is great polarity. I need it to engage me deeply before the monster appears. It has to give me puzzle or create concern for character on non-horror matter so I am involved and identify with the characters before the shock and terror of unseen beast.
*Psycho* (1960) did that for me by making me wonder if Norman Bates was going to steal her money or if she was going to fall in love with him. I was truly concerned whether Norman's mother would like her. I am perhaps only person in the world to have seen it without seeing shower scene first in advertisement or clip or parody.
*Cat People* (1942) is also effective horror because I was afraid her mental state would endanger her marriage and his love for her. Fact that her beliefs were real was terrifying.
The slasher flicks carry no sense of horror for me.
No blood and gore movie is anything like real horrors I have seen.
Edited by: SansFin on Oct 23, 2010 9:09 PM
Edited by: SansFin on Oct 24, 2010 1:30 AM
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Thank you for those kind words. I do hope you watch them again. They are all priceless. I often write such things but by the time I complete my thoughts and then groom and regroom it to make sure I did not any words out or make misppelings it is usually several days and everyone has lost interest and the thread has moved to third or fourth page.
Sadly my analysis is obviously flawed. I believe *Tovarich* (1937) is one of the most romantic movies ever made. They were powerful people but they took no risk in love. They married with the blessing of the Czar and moment when they realized they were in love was many years before opening scene of movie.
*Death Takes a Holiday* (1934) is also very romantic movie. He is powerful but is unsure of himself to a great degree and is in a place where he has no control. She is an emotional train-wreck. Their love has no real risk for they are going off to live in their own world. I am not sure if her being in love with death is conflicted. I feel it is right and proper for her.
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It is hard for me to put into words the basics of a truly romantic movie. I do not mean only to write it in English but to state it clearly in any language. It is like experiencing the joy of a sunrise over a forest on a frosty morning and trying to explain the feeling in terms of atmospheric temperature gradients affecting observation of the electromagnetic spectrum between 400nm and 750nm in juxtaposition with the seasonal state of deciduous flora.
I believe it is very important the two people do not need each other in the conventional sense. They are great and good people in their own right and can lead a productive and happy life without the other. They are capable of finding adequate companionship and fulfillment of physical needs with a variety of people without tying themselves to any one person.
This is the very noticeable situation in *The Thomas Crown Affair* (1968). He is a wealthy sophisticate with extensive business interests and a trophy girlfriend with ungodly panties. She is a globe-trotting freelancer with an impressive list of successes. Both have extensive history as loners. Both are consumed by challenges of their work. Their posthumous biographers were sure to say they each lived a full and rich life even though they did not go through the years with a constant and supporting significant other.
They are not wealthy people in *Chocolat* (2000) but they are both strong people. He is a gypsy leader with a rich heritage and a life he loves and he is as successful as he wants to be. She is a bold and adventurous person as shown by her opening a shop during Lent in a deeply religious town. They are both survivors of a hard world and are sure to find joy and contentment in their lives even if they never find true love.
In *Indiscreet* (1958) they are comfortably well-off although not extremely wealthy. He is a businessman so astute he was asked to work on monetary issues for an international organization. She is a renowned actress with many admirers and so in demand she choses her roles carefully. Both have had lovers in the past and are sure to never be alone unless they wished to be.
I believe this is important factor because it heightens the perspective of what the other person brings to the relationship. In no instance do they lack anything in the common, material-world sense. Once they find the other person they realize a deep and unconquerable need they had never known before and the need is specific to that one person and can not be fulfilled by any other.
The second necessary factor is that there is a risk if they let themselves fall in love.
*The Thomas Crown Affair* is very much like a dance by porcupines. One misstep could be painful or even lethal. Love has always been a game for each of them. This time the stakes are far greater than either imagined. If she wins he goes to jail. If he wins she loses hope of the reward money and loses all credibility in her field.
In *Chocolat* she needs some stability in providing a home for her daughter and spreading the gospel of spiced chocolate. She cannot pursue the life of a gypsy. His whole being is wrapped up in transience and living life day-to-day as he finds it. It would be antithetical to his nature to settle for one woman in one place.
*Indiscreet* shows people for whom true love is unacceptable. He is so dedicated to being a bachelor he has scientifically worked out a scheme for keeping women from even thinking about marriage. It is set in an era where a relationship with a married man and gasp extramarital sex could destroy her career.
That they have lives many people envy yet they are willing to risk everything for the other person shows the depth of their feelings.
I also believe it is most romantic when we see the moment at which each realizes they are truly in love.
One of these is difficult for me to define in *The Thomas Crown Affair* I believe his realization may be when he is sitting in his car on the beach and contemplating his future. The fact that he decides to test her shows he can not trust himself to make an actual choice. It is his uncharacteristic uncertainty which demonstrates how much she affects him. Sadly the point when she first fully knows how much she loves him is when she realizes how much she lost by maintaining her persona. That is the most bittersweet scene in any movie.
In *Chocolat* she is clearly first stirred when haggling with him at their first meeting. The 'I could really go for this guy' is clearly visible. His point is when he is first tasting her chocolate and he realizes he must hide his emotions by teasing her.
In *Indiscreet* her feelings are completely defined when she loses the struggle to be respectable and calls down to the desk to ask him to go to the ballet with her. I do not feel that we see his actual realization of the totality of his emotions. He was clearly thinking that all the things he said and did were only part of his game until he sees her crying. His breakdown and telling her she will like being married is done as more of an acknowledgment of his feelings without his realizing the implications. The movie had to end there but I have always felt it would have made a beautiful first scene of a sequel.
The most telling realization of love is in *Pygmalion* (1938) and *My Fair Lady* (1964). It is when she is practicing and cannot get it right. He launches into exalted pronouncement of the nobility of the English language and she is overwhelmed with awe and realizes there is no way she could not love and adore him. His realization is when he sees her as something other than a millstone around his neck.
I believe these points of realization work only if we feel they are in love without their knowing it. The fact that they are surprised by it shows how deeply the other person has gotten under their skin as if it is a comfortable and welcome feeling they had not questioned up to that point.
I find it very effective when the points are distant from each other. It is poignant when one person realizes it long before the other and is forced by their feelings to remain close to the other person despite suffering indignities unwittingly inflicted by them.
The most romantic movie of all is the one playing in my head at this moment as I think of such things and have had cause recently to call up old memories and write down bits of them. Perhaps my esso will not mind being awakened early to discuss my feelings.
Edited by: SansFin on Oct 11, 2010 10:25 AM
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> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}
> a young podiatrist, who was complaining that he was never sure whether women wanted to go out with him for himself. "Let's face it, he said, I'm a good catch".
Many might consider him a good catch. He had the prestige of the title, he surely made as much money as a real doctor and there was no danger of him being called out at three in the morning for an emergency corn-ectomy.
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> {quote:title=traceyk65 wrote:}{quote}
> Sean Connery. Ooo ahh, He can do more with a lifted eyebrow than most guys can with their whole faces.
If he lifted my eyebrow I would follow him anywhere.
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I believe boys always came only to see Mrs. Peel in cat-suit.
Many of us fell in love with John Steed. Who could not? He was mature, sophisticated and had a playful side. Mrs. Peel being his equal was icing on the cake.
We did not have access to American television. I think my parents did not have television set until about 1970.
I doubt teachers would have thought Honey West acceptable teaching tool. We were learning English and all know Americans speak it well only in movies.
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> {quote:title=CineMaven wrote:}{quote}
> Sans Fin, I was not a fan of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" when it first came out. The shock
> of replacing Sean Connery was more than my teenaged mind could bear. I too am a Diana Rigg
> fan ("The Avengers") from way back, and I felt she got cheated not being 'with' Sean Connery's
> Bond.
I do not think movie would have worked with Sean Connery as James Bond. Could any woman have truly brought Connery/Bond to the altar? Could anyone have murdered Mrs. Connery/Bond? It had to be someone being passed title of 007/Bond and not yet matching his predecessor's skills with women or enemies.
I adored Diana Rigg because Mrs. Peel was first woman I remember seeing who was smart, beautiful and allowed to fight men on equal terms. She could disarm men with either a smile or a karate chop. We watched the series in school and I do not remember anyone being absent on days they were shown.
*Who Was That Lady?* (1960) is on now. Sadly it is my least favorite Tony Curtis movie.
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My favorite has always been *On Her Majesty's Secret Service* (1969) because Diana Rigg was in it. She has long been my hero.
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> {quote:title=markbeckuaf wrote:}{quote}
> Speaking of that--who do you prefer in the role of The Falcon? Sanders, Conway or Calvert?
If pressed I have to say I prefer Tom Conway but only because George Sanders played him exactly the same as he played The Saint and did not try to truly establish it as separate character.
It is sad to say I have never seen any of the movies with John Calvert as The Falcon. I have read reviews of them and wish very much TCM could show them.
I prefer Louis Hayward as The Saint because he carried the amoral air I find so wonderful. I always felt George Sanders played him as slightly a parody. *The Saint in New York* also had a much stronger script in that The Saint actually set out to kill people rather than relying on police to take over at the end.
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Thank you for information on foot problems of the era. That explains why I could find no noir film on "Droppedit's Shoe Loss Page":
"This site is devoted to women losing one of their footwear and getting stranded afterwards wearing only one shoe."
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*I Love a Mystery* (1945)
*The Devil's Mask* (1946)
*The Unknown* (1946)
Jim Bannon as Jack Packard. As far as I know this is the complete series. I have only seen one so these are going to be watched with great interest.
*The Saint In New York* (1938) - Louis Hayward
*The Saint Strikes Back* (1939) - George Sanders
*The Saint In London* (1939) - George Sanders
*The Saint's Double Trouble* (1940) - George Sanders
*The Saint Takes Over* (1940) - George Sanders
*The Saint In Palm Springs* (1941) - George Sanders
*The Saint's Vacation* (1941) - Hugh Sinclair
*The Saint Meets the Tiger* (1943) - Hugh Sinclair
One of the greatest series ever! Sadly leaving out *The Saint's Girl Friday* (1953) which I have never seen which had Louis Hayward returning to the role.
Thank you TCM for such a great schedule!
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What must one think of movies with titles like *We're Not Dressing* (1934) or *Putting Pants on Philip* (1927)?
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Is *Picadilly Jim* the one where he is cartoonist and falls in love with girl whose family he parodies? I love it and have not seen it in years.
I have wondered why TCM can not do a director of the month as well as star of the month. I hate to make big deal of it since TCM is already so wonderful.
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> {quote:title=redriver wrote:}{quote}
> I lived in Chicago for thirty years. Wonderful city! You do have anonymity. Nobody cares who you are and what you do.
I lived in a big city four years and never saw people who lived in apartments on either side of me. When living in a small town I was depositing my paycheck and the teller asked if I wanted to keep out more cash because the dress I had looked at in the window down the street the week before was now on sale.
Capuchin likes to tell how he learned to not lock his car in Detroit because people would break out windows to get in but he had to lock his car in small town in Missouri or he might come back and find people had put into it bags of tomatos and zucchini which were excess from their gardens.
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If you have a mind for that sort of thing:
A Fly in the Pink (1971)
Boobs in the Night (1943)
The Bushwhackers (1925)
Famous Boners (1942)
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Of course my mind is pure. Pure what I will not say.
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*The Woman Eater* (1958)
*Let Us Be Gay* (1930)
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Aldo Ray
Anthony Dexter
Jody Lawrence
Barry Fitzgerald
Bill Murray
Bob Hope
Bruce Lee
Burgess Meredith
Butch Patrick
Cary Grant
Charles Herbert
Christopher Lee
Connie Francis
Danny Kaye
Dean Martin
Jerry Lewis
Dennis Morgan
Don Murray
Eddie Albert
Joan Leslie
Edna May Oliver
Errol Flynn
Frank Morgan
Gene Barry
Gene Raymond
George C. Scott
Grace Kelly
Harold Lloyd
Herbert Marshall
James Craig
James Stewart
Jean Arthur
Joan Davis
John Gilbert
Kay Francis
Kirk Douglas
Laurence Harvey
Lee Marvin
Leslie Howard
Mae Murray
Margaret Lindsay
Martha Scott
Melvyn Douglas
Nelson Eddy
Oskar Werner
Patrick Wayne
Randolph Scott
Rex Harrison
Richard Burton
Robert Montgomery
Robert Ryan
Robert Vaughn
Ron Howard
Sylvia Sidney
Thelma Todd
Patsy Kelly
Linda Douglas
Tony Curtis
Trevor Howard
Warren William
William Tracy
Woody Allen
Zachary Scott
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My favorite Communist was Hedy Lamarr as Theodore in *Comrade X* (1940).
She is in danger because she is true Communist in Russia. Her father Felix Bressart/Vanya explains: "The communists have ideas. But they found out you can't run a government with everybody going around having ideas. So what is happening, the communists are being executed so that Communism should succeed."
So true.
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> {quote:title=CineMaven wrote:}{quote}
> Well WHAT are you two night owls doing up so late?
I am not a night owl but I have been called a bat. It seems to me to be more appropriate for this thread.
I really did like your review very much. I hope you can remind me when this movie is scheduled.
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> {quote:title=LoveFilmNoir wrote:}{quote}
> What I would give to have access to TCM's entire broadcast history! I kind of wish they had broadcast dates of rare films on the film's info page.
It is sad to say I do not have access to all TCM history. You can find many old schedules at:
http://www.classicmovies.org/turner/turner0106.htm
The site once listed schedules back to May 2005 but now it only lists schedules back to January 2006.
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> {quote:title=CineMaven wrote:}{quote}
> She doesnt pay attention to the ominous music signifying a monster in the midst.
Oh thank you loads for saying that Miss Maven! It made me wonder what background music would be appropriate for certain moments in my life. Now I have the theme from *The Twilight Zone* going through my head on an endless loop.
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According to my database *Ride the Pink Horse* (1947) last aired on TCM on May 9, 2005 and November 26, 2005. Some movies seem to have a six year cycle so perhaps it will air again soon.
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Jacopo: Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?
Dantes: Death is too good for them.
*The Count of Monte Cristo* (2002)
TCM PROGRAMMING CHALLENGE #17: THE FALL FASHION CHALLENGE
in TCM Program Challenges Archive
Posted
I believe Capuchin made a very nice schedule. It is over-the-top with remakes but I know of great differences between versions I have seen and would very much like to see this on TCM sometimes for movies where I know of only one version.
Thank you for making a great challenge Countess! I only have two days and one evening to do and then checking all of it before I can post mine.