AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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Only God can make a tree.
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I was in Berkeley in the Summer/Fall of 1971 helping a friend set up bogus "film societies" on the UC campus in order to get cheap hall rent for his non-theatrical screenings of recent movies. At that point in Berkeley it was probably almost as easy to see movies from the 30's and 40's as it was to see then-current films.
My friend's friend, the director Mark Lester, provided the biggest buzz of the season somewhere in San Francisco with his premiere of the Cockettes' film Tricia's Wedding, a lampoon in drag of Tricia Nixon's recent betrothals. You haven't truly lived until you've seen the "Kennedy Sisters" singing "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me". ;-)
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A 40 year old car might be worth something of value, but not a 40 year old movie.
You jest, but the percentage of 40 year old movies worth watching is way higher than the percentage of 40 year old cars that are still in one piece. And not even Last Tango in Paris is as bad as a 1973 Pinto, though admittedly it'd be a close call. ;-)
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I just noticed that on September 5th, the first night of Kim Novak begins at 8:00 PM with Kim Novak: Live From The TCM Classic Film Festival, followed by Vertigo at 10:00 PM.
The problem is that since the 8:00 movie runs but 50 or 51 minutes plus the usual beginning and ending filler, that still leaves the hour between 9:00 and 10:00 unaccounted for. Anyone have any thoughts on this? The gap appears both in Now Playing and in the online schedule.
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I had the good fortune to see Marian and Jimmy McPartland perform together at Blues Alley in Washington in the 70's. They were divorced at the time but that didn't stop them from making joint appearances, and they remarried a few weeks before Jimmy died in 1991. What a long and fulfilled life she had.
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Since there was no way for Johnson to foresee the tragic consequences of sticking to his principles, I found it admirable that he was willing to sacrifice his career for the sake of protecting the reputation and career of an innocent third party. I'd like to think I would have done the same, though in today's world the chances that his armed robbery conviction wouldn't have already come out would be slim to nonexistent, and the whole basis for the plot would have been rendered moot.
In terms of comparisons to other movies, when I saw Johnson and his wife slowly walking away at the end, I was reminded of the ending of Marked Woman, where Bette Davis and her fellow "hostesses" walked off into the night fog of anonymity while the prosecutor (Bogart) reaped the favorable publicity that was the direct result of their willingness to risk their lives to bring down the mob. Sometimes virtue is indeed its only reward, as Davis had lost her sister and Johnson and his wife had lost their son.
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Van Johnson's one of many actors who could be quite good when given a meaty part, as he was in Slander, but unlike a Cagney or a Robert Ryan, he couldn't make a mediocre movie borderline memorable simply by his mere presence.
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I think it's clear that the answer to this is that TCM is trying to lure you into the Noah's Ark trap. (smile)
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*One would be cheating themselves out of the complete silent film experience by distracting themselves in choosing another track to play if their first choice doesn't work for them. The whole idea behind a film score for silents is to add ambiance without calling attention to itself.*
One genre in particular where the silents often excelled was the melodrama, and in great part I think this is because a few understated musical chords accompanying a slight change in an actor's face can often be far more effective than words in conveying genuine emotion. In fact whenever I see a sound era actor or actress (Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan come to mind) employ such minimalism in order to convey deep emotions, I often say to myself "That was an actor who could have been just as great in silents."
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*I rather like the music on the silent movies.*
Me, too, though there are a few exceptions, nearly all of which are cases of not leaving well enough alone. The Gold Rush went from being one of the best silent films to being possibly *the* worst silent film with that unspeakably horrible 1942 sound track. And then there are those recently screened (on TCM) Harold Lloyd shorts, to which generic ragtime music was newly added. Those work about as well as the "enhancements" to our TCM forum pages.
But for the most part the original soundtracks of the silents work beautifully, and even some of the restored ones. I don't see how the soundtracks of the 4 hour version of Greed, or the one from The Crowd, or any of those from Lon Chaney's movies like The Penalty, or those from Louise Brooks' two G.W. Pabst films, could be improved by trying to personalize it from your own CD collection.
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*But NO actress back then, or even NOW, could project the SASS and PANACHE like Mae could!*
I dunno, I think Jean Harlow might have had something to say about that. Greatest comedy actor ever, and no other actress is even close.
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If some of you are like me, there are two problems with movie poster collecting: Wall space and money. Those vintage babies ain't cheap, often running into hundreds of dollars or even a thousand or more.
But if you love the images and can live with (dirty word alert) *reproductions,* an affordable alternative is the many books of posters that are widely available online. My favorite is Eddie Muller's The Art of Noir: The Posters and Graphics From the Classic Era of Film Noir, with 338 images, but there are many other poster books out there that cover pretty much every conceivable genre, nearly all of which will set you back less than nearly any vintage poster.
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I don't have a citation, but I've read in many places that The Killers was the only screen adaptation of any of his writing that Hemingway thought did him justice, even though it was only the opening "Bright Boy" scene in the diner that was actually based on his original short story.
Of course since Hemingway offered that opinion immediately after seeing The Killers upon its release in 1946, that wouldn't have precluded his also liking the Garfield movie that came out four years later.
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*I liked Bette Davis's Bronx accent in THE CATERED AFFAIR. That is much more difficult than a Southern accent.*
Maybe so, but a Dixie dialect coming out of the mouth of a young Bette Davis is a lot more melodious (and appealing) than a Bronx accent spoken by a slightly crazy and shrewish middle aged version of Miss B. And I say that as a native New Yorker who loves every New Yawk accent except the ones spoken on Wall Street and Madison Avenue.
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*So Andy, did watching Bette open with the Southern accent on that old Dick Cavett interview segment shown last night prompt you to post this?*
No, since at the time I saw the Carson interview I hadn't watched Parachute Jumper. The main things I remember about the Carson interview were that Davis came across as so NICE; that she had lost weight since the last movie appearances I remembered her in during the mid-60's; that she reminded me of my favorite late aunt from Patchin Place in everything but her accent; and that she said she hated Parachute Jumper. I'm glad I didn't take that comment to heart, since I found it one of the best of her pre-code movies along with So Big, and infinitely better than Ex-Lady. Though in defense of that last one, Gene Raymond can pretty much put the kibosh on any movie with his robotic persona.
*(...btw, while I enjoyed the Carson interviews TCM showed, you can't beat those much longer Cavett show interviews for many more insights into those stars of yore, can ya!)*
Totally agree with you on this. Cavett brought out the best in all the stars he interviewed, particularly Bette and Kate.
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I'd love to see a repeat of Bette Davis's Parachute Jumper alongside Katharine Hepburn's Spitfire, just to compare their accents. Here we have one upper crust New England girl (Hepburn) playing the part of a hillbilly, and another one (Davis) in the role of "Alabama", complete with a deep Dixie drawl.
Personally I thought that Bette pulled it off quite well, whereas Kate was just unintentionally hilarious in what was probably the worst performance of her career, but I wonder what the take on their accents would be from people who come from either of those parts of the country. I note that Davis said she hated Parachute Jumper, but then what does she know? I loved it.
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Quite a site, but is there a way to browse only the COVERS of a particular magazine?
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This hasn't been the greatest of SUTS months, but then that's because I've seen so many of the movies already. I love Bogart, but there wasn't anything new there. Ditto Lana Turner and Clark Gable. It more or less depends on what you like and how many times you've already seen everything. True TCM junkies are always looking for fresh blood, not leftovers. Which is why my highlight day was Catherine Deneuve, followed by the upcoming tributes to Bette Davis (with a bunch of her seldom seen pre-codes) and Glenda Farrell (the entire Torchy series at once, not spread out over two months).
Of course the only real solution to endless repeats is amnesia or Alzheimer's, because then even Some Like It Hot will seem like a discovery and not just another retread. Fortunately that solution will soon become available to many of us here. (smile)
(And hey, where are the smiley buttons? I must have left them with my glasses.)
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*One on my list is this year's "The Great Gatsby." I think this is the first movie I ever left. It made me ill. So many quick cuts and camera movement (and I can't find words to say about the music) that it all made me dizzy.*
The main saving grace to The Great Gatsby is that the previews were so over-the-top mindless that it easily deterred me from seeing the complete movie.
(BTW what's up with the elimination of nearly all of the formatting options?)
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Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, the pre-code Loretta Young, Jane Greer, Audrey Hepburn, the young Ruby Dee, Brigitte Bardot, Lee Remick, Meg Ryan, and the middle aged Lilli Palmer in Hard Contract. I'll let the women rate the men.
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> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}I think THE GRADUATE is the most underrated of those movies which are usually considered overrated.
Au contraire, The Graduate is the most overrated of the underrated overrated movies. Though Bonnie and Clyde gives it a run for its money. B-)
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I don't know about the "worst" movie, because most if not all of these got good reviews, but off the top of my head I can think of ten you couldn't pay me enough money to see again, in chronological order:
The Jazz Singer (the first and the worst, excruciating on too many levels to count)
The 1942 yakety yak version of The Gold Rush (like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa)
Pride of the Yankees (the most mis-cast lead actor ever; you might as well have hired someone with Parkinson's disease to play a baseball player)
Bus Stop
Zorba The Greek
The Graduate (most overrated movie ever)
Putney Swope (lamest comedy ever)
Last Tango in Paris (creepiest movie ever)
Going Places (wins the all-time misogyny award)
My Dinner With Andre (most pretentious movie ever)
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Strangest thing, but for some reason when I do the calendar dropdown for the Daily Schedule, September 1st comes up as an error message, even though every other day of the month appears as normal, as does much of October. I've noticed the absence of September 1st for quite some time, but until today I didn't realize that this was the only date missing. Does anyone know what might be the reason for this? It's not my IP, since the same error message comes up on all of them.
The monthly schedule is complete, so it's only the daily schedule I'm talking about. It's positively weird.
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The Story of Temple Drake played at 8:00 PM on 9/14/2011 and at 12:45 AM on 11/5/2012. I think that that 2011 screening was a TCM premiere. Too bad they can't substitute this movie for the next 10 times they'll show Splendor in the Grass.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen was last shown at 8:15 AM on 12/6/2012, but that movie has also played many times in the past few years.
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