AndyM108
-
Posts
4,255 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
18
Posts posted by AndyM108
-
-
maybe most people even back then knew that racism was wrong: stupid and cruel and unjust and oppressive. Defined perhaps mostly by that first adjective.
I had always been under the impression that, when it came to white people practising racism in the first half of the 20th century, it was a case of "they know not what they do."
I think that before the civil rights movement forced the issue of race into adult discussion, you have to differentiate between northern and southern racism, while always allowing for individual exceptions on both sides.
In the South, the racism was much more conscious and deliberate, since it was a reaction to the demographics surrounding them, and also to the living memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction. There was nothing abstract about it, and it explains what on the surface seems to be the almost comical absurdity to which the South insisted on race distinctions.
In the North, though, it was largely a matter of seeing the "Negro" as a vaguely exotic, almost foreign creature that was largely absent from the average person's everyday life. This lack of ongoing confrontation with "the problem" in the North prevented the extreme attitudes that could provoke a violent reaction at the drop of a hat (or a furtive glance at a white woman), but it didn't prevent Northerners from buying into the idea of black inferiority. It was easier to let the South have its way, and the benefits of racial equality seemed way too ephemeral and abstract to stir up much passion in the absence of an ongoing public debate where an organized black viewpoint was in the forefront of the discussion.
All this was largely a matter of circumstance. Anti-black racism was most prevalent in the South, where blacks were seen as the most plausible threat to what amounted to American apartheid. OTOH anti-semitism took greater root in the North, as did the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's when it was directed against immigrant Catholics and Jews as much or more than it targeted blacks. And it's hard not to see *that* as a reaction to the fact that most of those immigrants settled in the North and the Midwest.
And along those lines, it's also not hard to figure out why the West Coast was the area of the worst anti-Japanese prejudice, a phenomenon that long pre-dated Pearl Harbor. Californians had just enough contact with the Japanese (and Chinese, for that matter) to see them as a threat to their "way of life", but not enough contact and enlightenment to see them in a more positive light. All this enlightenment and acceptance was going to have to wait until after the war's end to begin to develop, and even now we're still working at it.
-
> {quote:title=Mr.Froy wrote:}{quote}Years ago I read a lengthy article in The New Yorker written by Buckley
> that was about a more or less typical week or two in his private life. The
> piece was hilarious. It read like the life of an upper class twit, American
> style. His housekeeper had to prepare a sandwich just right so that Bill
> could eat it. No satirist could have produced a funnier piece if they had
> tried. That doesn't diminish his intelligence or wit, but it does mean he
> came from a very rarefied position in society and it's hard not to remember
> that when considering his politics.
>
> Limbaugh and Coulter may be deficient in the wit department, but they're
> still as funny as hell. ]
Sure, when they can get their scripts written for them and hide behind a wall of flunkies who can screen their phone calls and cut off anyone who's embarrassing them. When was the last time you saw Rush in a setting he didn't control?
Think about it: Can you even imagine either Limbaugh or Coulter hosting a show like Firing Line for 33 years? Those two couldn't make a show like that last for 33 minutes.
-
> {quote:title=Dargo2 wrote:}{quote}SURE they did, Twink!
>
> I guess you didn't know that one of the very actresses in this very movie had this very procedure of looking older done on HERSELF!
>
>
> (...uh huh...Agnes Moorehead was ONLY 23 YEARS OLD when they filmed this movie!)
>
>
>
>
Hell, that's nothing.Warner Brothers grabbed Lauren Bacall right after her Bat Mitzvah, and put her in To Have and Have Not just a few months after that. Which means she was only 14 when Dark Passage was released two years later.
Don't believe me? Here's her first WB publicity photo, right before she was chosen for THAHN and turned over to the makeup crew:
-
For a drug-related film, I'd go with Al Pacino in The Panic In Needle Park. That was his first starring role, and one of his best.
-
Before I answer with a "classic" film, I have to put in a plug for the greatest film ever. Period.
Angi Vera (Hungary, 1979) - A young idealistic nurse is recruited by the Communists right after their post-WW2 takeover of the country, and sent to a cadre training school to receive a proper Marxist education. She meets all kinds of fellow incoming students, ranging from hard core Stalinists to hedonists who had made their mark resisting the Nazis. She somehow manages to befriend them all.
Soon after her "classes" begin, she falls in love with one of her instructors, one who's on the more idealistic side of the spectrum. They have a brief affair, but when the most hard core woman of the entire lot sees her leaving her lover's bedroom after midnight, we know that there's going to be trouble.
And trouble does come, in the form of a denunciation before a mass meeting of fellow cadres, where she hears the accusation against her, and immediately turns on her lover in an act of self-preservation. And yet we know that she's hiding her true feelings, since when her lover takes the floor to say that their love was sincere, her face begins to weaken, revealing the human being underneath.
And then in what I consider to be one of the finest acting performances I've ever witnessed, Angi Vera (Veronika Papp) turns on a dime, realizes where she is, realizes that her entire future hangs in the balance, freezes her face, says *NO* - I never loved him, and goes on to "confess" her "mistake" in the manner that she knows will earn her a reprieve, as her lover is thrown to the wolves.
Result: A nice cushy job on a Budapest newspaper, arranged by the very same hardcore woman who had been her accuser! And yet in an unbelievably poignant closing scene, the two of them are being driven by limo to Budapest along a rutted country road, when suddenly they pass a hunched over woman trying to peddle a bicycle up an impossible hill. At this point, Angi Vera looks back and sees that the woman on the bicycle is one of the free-spirited cadres who had refused to buckle and was expelled for her resistance. We know, and Angi Vera knows even more, that this disgraced former comrade is going to be pedaling an uphill path for the rest of her life.
And the look of sheer horror on Angi Vera's face when she realizes the cost to her soul of her decision to betray her lover, and when she realizes the grim life ahead of her in spite of her nominally privileged immediate future, is a look that's impossible to describe. It's the look of a person who knows that she has sold her soul to the devil, and knows that she will be paying the price for an Orwellian forever.
Okay, end of digression. But God, I'd pay two hundred dollars for a good subtitled DVD of that film.
OK, to restrict the choice to the "classic" American movie repertory, can there really be anything other than Casablanca ?
-
I love how Edward Arnold went from Perry White to Lex Luthor in the space of one post.
Well, if you'd seen that WW2 propaganda movie "Inflation" on TCM just a few weeks ago, you'd see Arnold in the role of The Devil. And then of course there's The Devil and Daniel Webster. With those in mind, I can't think of a better choice for Superman's arch-enemy than Edward Arnold. Just strap a girdle around him and he's ready to go.
-
That's why I try to go to the picture show during weekday afternoons,
when there are fewer patrons and thus less jibber jabber of various
kinds. The loudest noise is usually some old timer falling asleep and
snoring for a few minutes.
I also go to matinees in order to avoid the jabberers, but after suffering through the earsplitting sound level in the "upcoming attractions" I almost find myself yearning for some cellphone yakkers to come along and give the amplifiers a bit of competition.
For a crypto Nazi, Bill (just kiddin, don't have a from beyond the grave
hissy fit there W.F.) wasn't such a bad guy. But despite all his urbanity,
intelligence, and wit, or maybe due to it, Buckley was a bit of a snob,
so it's not very surprising that he would use an insult like that which
really doesn't address the specifics of the argument, but just makes
fun of his opponent.
My favorite Buckleyism: *"He has all of the attributes of a dog, except loyalty."*
I read Will's column on occasion and he's a very prolific name dropper of
figures from history, literature, sports, etc. I can imagine Will having a
rolodex on his desk where the names are rotated on some schedule.
Let's see, last mentioned Plato in 2011, time to do so again. I haven't
followed Pat Buchanan in a while and I know he can get way out there
sometimes, but Pat always knew his history and politics better than most
columnists did, and he had a good sense of humor too.
Pat Buchanan, nativist atrocity that he may be, has more sense of humor in his little finger than Will has in his entire body. Most of Will's quotes used to come from an old book store customer of mine, a fellow named Timothy Dickinson, who was a walking encylopedia and walking Bartlett's, in addition to being able to name the Popes in revervse chronological order and tell you the day of the week for any event in history, always with the reigning calendar in mind. At one point he was so well known for his relationship to Will that Garry Trudeau ran a parody of him in Doonesbury.
OTOH on the day after Clinton's 1996 re-election, Buchanan came into my shop about a minute after it opened, and in reference to his infamous convention speech of 1992, broke out in a huge grin and simply said, *"Well, they can't blame this one on me!"* I couldn't imagine Will coming out with a line like that in a million years.
-
> {quote:title=ValentineXavier wrote:}{quote}
> > {quote:title=}{quote}
> I'm another vote for the Fleischer Superman cartoons. So well done, so ahead of their time. Fast and intense. Betty Boop's Sno-White is still my pick for best cartoon ever made, but I don't think any cartoon art since has surpassed the Fleischers' Superman toons.
Good picks, but I'd go with Betty Boop's Minnie The Moocher with Cab Calloway or Donald Duck's Moving Day.
(Minnie the Moocher)(Moving Day) -
> {quote:title=Dargo2 wrote:}{quote}Okay, c'mon here, folks. What say we get back to talkin' about Bogie and Bacall here!
>
> (...'cause all this talk about Ayn is givin' me a SIDE ACHE from LAUGHIN' so hard!!!)
Now don't you go be dissin on my Little Orphan Aynie!
-
> {quote:title=AddisonDeWitless wrote:}{quote}The Fountainhead has Reefer Madness beat when it comes to larfs, but I stress that is my personal taste.
>
> anyhoos...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Edited by: AddisonDeWitless on Jun 16, 2013 7:47 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Edited by: AddisonDeWitless on Jun 16, 2013 7:48 PM
> *Jack:* Oh, why don't you button up your lip? You're always squawkin' about something. You've got more static than a radio.
>
*Mae:* I wish you'd lay off those kids!
*Jack:* Oh, why don't you get over that "mother complex"?
*Jimmy:* Let's go, Jack. I'm red-hot!
*Jack:* Better be careful how you drive, or the first thing you know you'll be ice cold.
*Bureau Official:* Here is an example: A fifteen-year-old lad apprehended in the act of staging a holdup - fifteen years old and a marijuana addict. Here is a most tragic case.
*Dr. Carroll:* Yes. I remember. Just a young boy... under the influence of drugs... who killed his entire family with an axe.
*Bill:* Ya know after that session we had yesterday, I went home and told mother that the trouble with her pot roast gravy was that she hadn't added three heaping teaspoonfuls of olive oil.
*Mary:* What did she say?
*Bill:* She didn't say anything; she just threw me out of the kitchen.
*Mary:* Why, no wonder.
*Bill:* Gosh! Hot chocolate! Thanks, Mrs. Lane!
*Ralph:* Mae? MAE!
*Mae:* What do you want?
*Ralph:* Bring me some reefers!
*Jimmy:* How about driving over to the... Joe's place with me? I'll buy you a soda!
*Bill:* I never drink the stuff!
*Dr. Carroll:* I'm going to ask you a straightforward question: Isn't it true that you have, perhaps unwillingly, acquired a certain habit through association with certain undesirable people?
-
> {quote:title=AddisonDeWitless wrote:}{quote}
> > {quote:title=AndyM108 wrote:}{quote}
> >
> > *But the main reason I keep coming back to Dark Passage is the sheer romaticism of the improbable pairing of a falsely accused, rather weatherworn, mid-40ish man on the lam with a drop-dead gorgeous 23-year old woman of flaring nostrils and independent means, complete with a ready-made theme song that follows them all the way from her apartment in San Francisco to a little bar in Peru. To me the whole movie is just too marvelous for words. cinematic flaws be damned.*
> >
> That is poetry, man.
> And it almost makes me change my mind about the film.
>
> ps- (I totally get why others like it though.) I have plenty o' "flawed but loved" titles of me own.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> pss- you also nailed The Fountainhead. Seriously, give it another shot some time when it's on. It's the most outrageous comedy of the 1940's besides maybe 1941's Tomorrow: the World!. I never watch it without being doubled over, tears streaming down my face.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> psss- seriously.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Edited by: AddisonDeWitless on Jun 16, 2013 3:48 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Edited by: AddisonDeWitless on Jun 16, 2013 3:48 PM
> now I had to go and mess up the colors.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *aw shucks*
> *im just a humble cockroach*
*jumping from one key*
*to another*
*even as mehitabel*
*is holding aw shucks*
*captive within*
*some alien box B-)*
Since I did at one point record The Fountainhead, probably to ward off any visits from a future House Committee on Un-American Activities, I'll give it another shot. But there's no way it'll ever match the Twin Pillars of Sublime Self-Parody: Reefer Madness and My Son John.
-
> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}Ben said this is one of the all-time great "soaps". A bit of an overstatement. What do you feel are the top all-time soaps?
Having just watched it the other night for the first time in many years, I'd have a hard time thinking of a bigger (or better) soaper than the 1959 version of Imitation of Life. You might even say that it was four soapers rolled into one big ending lather, but amazingly enough, they pulled it off.
-
> {quote:title=misswonderly wrote:}{quote}
>
> As for the argument that to edit old films to "reflect a more enlightened present", here's the thing:
> The times in which those films were made were not enlightened; that is a fact. And there is something vaguely disturbing, creepy even, about the idea of altering those films to make it look as though they were.
> Rascism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry were so endemic to most of the 20th century that if we were to start deleting passages, scenes, and bits of dialogue from the movies made then we'd have a sort of ragged patchwork quilt of a movie, with so many pieces snipped out and stitched up again that it would hardly be worth the trouble to do it.
>
I agree, but I think a two-part response is called for, and we seem at times only to think of the first part.
That first part is easy: Don't edit / censor the racist / sexist comments / scenes. As I think we all seem to agree, these comments / scenes reflected (in part, anyway) what we were, and to pretend otherwise is wrong on a hundred levels.
But the second part requires a bit more effort, which would entail *also* giving more exposure to those films from the past which went (at least somewhat) against the grain: Intruder in the Dust; Nothing But a Man; Raisin in the Sun; and other movies that actually recognized and confronted the realities of their day, rather than just treated blacks and other minorities as part of a neverending minstrel show.
It's always seemed to me that TCM has a twofold mission: To entertain and to educate. These two aren't necessarily conflicting, but at times the second value has to be placed before the first one, in cases where the best movies aren't necessarily the most familiar to a modern day mass audience.
To be specific: It would be nice to show more movies like Intruder in the Dust, more independently produced movies by black studios and directors, perhaps as a SUTS day as an attention-getter but then also scattered more frequently through the course of regular programming. I realize that many of these films are lost, and that others are technically substandard and in need of restoration, but OTOH plenty of them are also both available and in the public domain, and if the will is there, there's no reason why they can't be introduced on a fairly regular basis.
It's often said that the way to counter misinformation is with *correct* information rather than *censoring* the misinformation, and I think that the same reasoning should apply here. Why shouldn't the films of Oscar Micheaux be shown at least as often as (for instance) the films of Al Jolson?
-
> {quote:title=drednm wrote:}{quote}No major studio would have wasted money on this drivel.
You're right, they just spent it on surfer movies and swimming pool movies instead.
-
> {quote:title=Mr.Froy wrote:}{quote}I bet if RG3's surgery turns out to be successful, the Washington
> Honkies are going to have a great year
I've always thought that the easiest escape route for the Redskins would be just to change their name to the ******. They wouldn't even have to change the cadence of their fight song, and since every **** I've known felt pride in his heritage, the new name would accepted by everyone except for a few tradition-minded folks such as myself.
-
*Superman: Aldo Ray* (with his hair died blue-black, of course!)
*Lois: Ann Sheridan*
*Jimmy: Mickey Rooney*
*Perry: John Hamilton* (sorry, but he was born for that role)
*Lux Luthor: Edward Arnold* (think of The Devil and Daniel Webster )
*The Prankster: Warren William*
*Mr. Mxyzptlk: Peter Lorre*
-
> {quote:title=AddisonDeWitless wrote:}{quote}this may go over like a **** in church, but Pitfall (1948) is available in full on youtube:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbY7xSQnMMc
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Edited by: AddisonDeWitless on Jun 13, 2013 12:32 PM
>
Not at all a **** in church, but a pretty good movie, even if the YouTube version had a few flickers and out of sync soundtrack moments. Watching her stoic bearing throughout the film while Dick Powell is putting her through the wringer, you can certainly see where the producers of Father Knows Best got the idea to cast Jane Wyatt as Margaret Anderson. And of course Raymond Burr is at his Laird Cregarish best as the detective turned stalker. Raymond Burr never lets you down.
And to return the favor, if anyone (like me) missed Dan Duryea / Jayne Mansfield film The Burglar the other night, here's the full version on YouTube, complete with the newsreel lead-in that sets the table for the plot:
-
> {quote:title=TomJH wrote:}{quote}
> Andy, William Powell and Jean Harlow were a real life, as well as screen couple. No, they never had the same popularity as a team as Bogart and Bacall but I think the public accepted them, and Powell was 19 years her senior.
Yeah, that probably is about the best pre-Bogey/Bacall example of a May-December screen couple, since Powell was 19 years older than Harlow. OTOH they never married, and the only movie that ended with them paired with each other was Reckless. In Libeled Lady Powell wound up with Myrna Loy while Harlow (finally) hooked Spencer Tracy.
-
> {quote:title=Dargo2 wrote:}{quote}Hmmm...well Andy, most people seemed to accept the 25 year age difference between Coop and Patricia Neal in *The Fountainhead*, I believe.
>
> (...though personally, I always had a little problem "accepting" Ayn Rand's overall PREMISE in that sucker!!!)
>
> LOL
Since I haven't seen The Fountainhead in about 40 years and have spent the past 40 trying to forget that I ever saw it, my memories of Cooper and Neal as a plausible screen couple will have to defer to yours. But I certainly don't remember them as being a romantic couple in anywhere near the traditional sense that Bogey and Bacall were. In fact that whole movie just seemed like a Randian version of a socialist realist painting, with the only difference being that occasionally a few mouths looked like they moved, showing about as much emotion as Pat Nixon's face while her husband was delivering his "Checkers" speech.
-
> {quote:title=misswonderly wrote:}{quote}I love *Dark Passage*, and despite various comments here from people explaining why they prefer other Bogart / Bacall films, cannot understand why anyone wouldn't rate it as highly as them. (the other B & B movies.)
>
> There's so much to enjoy in *Dark Passage*: the on-location shooting of San Francisco and its fascinating buildings and labyrinthine streets, the off-beat story, and the performances of both its leads and its character actors (as Tom has noted.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
I can easily understand *why* some people would rank Dark Passage at the bottom of the Bogart/Bacall list. The reasons have been well spelled out by critics and by others here. But even though my head tells me that it's the least of the B/B combo films, I've always enjoyed it the most. Why?
Part of it's that I like the city setting. Part of it's that I can't resist Agnes Moorehead's pure evil ugliness, Tom D'Andrea's strange cab driver character, and Clifton Young's perfectly pitched "cheap crook". Part of it's the way that the movie runs the cliche of Everyone is Suspicious of Our Hero For No Apparent Reason nearly into the ground, as misswonderly notes, along with that surgeon's throwaway line.
But the main reason I keep coming back to Dark Passage is the sheer romaticism of the improbable pairing of a falsely accused, rather weatherworn, mid-40ish man on the lam with a drop-dead gorgeous 23-year old woman of flaring nostrils and independent means, complete with a ready-made theme song that follows them all the way from her apartment in San Francisco to a little bar in Peru. To me the whole movie is just too marvelous for words, cinematic flaws be damned.
-
For those who remember the artist Milton Caniff only for his Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates comic strips, here's a contribution he made to a 1942 "Pocket Guide to China" handbook that was given to all servicemen stationed in the Pacific Theater during the first two years of the war. It was later reprinted on the Sunday funnies pages. You have to wonder what the Korean War version might have looked like.
I should add, however, that this cartoon "instructional" was removed from the 1944 edition of the handbook, so at least somebody in command came to his senses.
-
Mark,
Without putting the knock on any of tonight's other movies, I think you're really going to enjoy Nightfall if you haven't already seen it. And here's a prediction: The actor whose performance you'll remember the best will be one of the secondary players, Rudy Bond. You're in for a treat.
-
> {quote:title=JamesH wrote:}{quote}
>
> I will never be smart enough to understand how or why the Nazi's hated the Jews, Gypsies and Candlestick makers so much. Maybe it will never be known. But watch "Kapo" if you dare, simply to know that it has happened and as a result, your knowledge of it, just may help prevent it from happening again. We at least, owe them that!
Or to quote George Santayana: *Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.* And unfortunately, it's often with the same not-so-happy ending.
-
Toshiro Mifune
Jean Gabin
Robert Ryan
And do I ever wish that TCM would give us a lot more of those first two.
-
1
-
Should offensive dialogue be removed to satisfy political correctness?
in General Discussions
Posted
One thing that should be mentioned is that the Japanese were every bit as racist towards us as we were towards them. Anyone who doubts this should read John Dower's classic comparison of the American and Japanese racial propaganda during WW2, War Without Mercy.
But as a side note, one benefit of seeing lots of pre-war and post-war Japanese movies is that it reminds us that for all our cultural differences and national hostilities, we're all pretty much the same species of humanity underneath the skin. Those 1930's Ozu movies and the postwar Kurosawa noirs are striking testaments to this point.