AndyM108

How on Earth could anyone ever expect Lucille Ball to match Rosalind Russell in a movie like with a plot and characters like this, especially at the age of 63 to Roz's 51? Let Lucy be remembered for her TV shows and her early movie career; that's more than enough to ensure her legacy.

Maybe they should put that original Indian fighter next to that other famous Seattle statue: Workers of the Underworld, unite! You have no place to go but up!

That happened to me so many times in 2010 that I switched to FIOS. Now all I have to worry about are disk failures, which happen about 1 in 100 times, and those #%!!@**# "emergency test" announcements that interrupt the movie randomly in the middle of the night and eat up 2 or 3 minutes of a recording right at the most critical point. You'd think we were back in the days of the Cuban missile crisis with those Conelrad alerts.

Apparently she wasn't the only one. It sounds as if unlike Anne Frank, Kapo and Scream of Fear, there wasn't much to work with. Stage Struck (1957) A Tale of the Theatre Retold; ' Stage Struck' Bows at the Normandie By A. H. WEILER Published: April 23, 1958 THE curtain that rang up last night at the Normandie not only revealed a film troupe that was "Stage Struck" but also proved again that there is no rational argument to explode the star dust and indefinable appeal that is the mystery called the theatre. But the moviemakers who here have restaged with reverence Zoe Akins' play and film "Morning Glory" have not come up with a solution to an enigma or a work that is strikingly inspirational. They obviously are devoted people, whose emotions, unfortunately, rarely move a viewer. Perhaps Miss Akins's story has been told too often. The fact is that the bare bones of the plot—the one dealing with a dewy-eyed, dedicated youngster who steps in for the star at the last moment and succeeds brilliantly—do not constitute a great revelation in a sophisticated age. The director, scenarists and cast, however, are serious about their assignments. They have searched out and photographed in vivid and lovely color nearly every nook and cranny connected with the theatre—from poetry-filled Greenwich Village bistros to swank penthouses, from rehearsal calls on bare stages to 'glamorous, tense first nights, from the fascinating mechanics of backstage operations to the hysteria indigenous to producers' offices and dressing rooms. Perhaps, too, we were all more starry-eyed a quarter of a century ago when Katharine Hepburn, Adolpee Menjou and company first put the trials of Eva Lovelace, née Gertrude Lengenfeider, on public view. These are genuinely bitter-sweet, if somewhat fading, memories. Now, however, the tribulations of bur tyro, whose brash visions of stardom are almost too quickly realized, seem unreal and somewhat fabricated despite the authenticity and tender professionalism lavished on this project. Director Sidney Lumet, the young man who won his professional spurs with éclat with "12 Angry Men," is no flash in the pan. In shooting the film here in its entirety he and his cinematographers have captured the singular beauties of a veritable Baghdad-on-the-Hudson. Minetta Lane in the Village at dawn; the true colors and some of the sleaziness of Times Square in the glare of thousands of neon lights and the raucousness of its population; Central Park in a snowstorm are shining facets that point up the singular character of Our Town. The dialogue of Ruth and Augustus Goetz has caught the character of theatre people. The brittle lines, the constant bussing, the shop talk should have the ring of reality even for an out-of-towner. And certain vignettes come close to the core of the mystery. We have in mind for example, a reading of one of Juliet's great speeches which, while embarrassing at first, turns into a truly heartfelt rendition, or the blinding view of the theatre the petrified young star gets as the curtain first goes up. Susan Strasberg, who already has the memorable "Anne Frank" role on stage and the movies "Picnic' and "The Cobweb" behind her, is competent as the determined Eva Lovelace. She is petite and fragile and sometimes expressive but strangely pallid in a role that would seem to call for fire, not mere smoldering. There is no doubt that she is mastering the requisites of fine acting in the aforementioned Juliet speech as well as in some scenes with the other principals. The girl, in short, who finally gives up her adoration for the producer for love of the theatre, is a poignant but somewhat shadowy creature. Henry Fonda is largely a placid type as the producer who discovers his heart can be reached by love as well as the theatre. Christopher Plummer, who is making his film debut as the playwright whose love she finally spurns, is restrained but effective. Joan Greenwood, as the temperamental star she replaces, is explosively emotional in her exit, and Herbert Marshall does well as the experienced, aging actor who gives the newcomer both affection and assistance. They, as well as their supervisors, wear their hearts on their sleeves. It makes a nice show even if it is not stirring.

Susan Strasberg's performances in Kapo and Scream of Fear alone put a lie to that assertion. And here's the New York Times review of the original stage production of The Diary of Anne Frank: Theatre: 'The Diary of Anne Frank' By BROOKS ATKINSON October 6, 1955 They have made a lovely, tender drama out of "The Diary of Anne Frank," which opened at the Cort last evening. They have treated it with admiration and respect. "They" are Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who wrote the dramatization; Garson Kanin, who directed; Boris Aronson, who designed the setting, and a remarkable cast in which Joseph Schildkraut is the star. Strange how the shining spirit of a young girl now dead can filter down through the years and inspire a group of theatrical professionals in a foreign land. Among them, not the least and perhaps the finest is Susan Strasberg, who plays the part of Anne. Although Miss Strasberg once appeared at the Theatre de Lys, this is her official Broadway debut, and it is worth particular notice. She is a slender, enchanting young lady with a heart-shaped face, a pair of burning eyes and the soul of an actress. By some magic that cannot be explained, she has caught the whole character of Anne in a flowing, spontaneous, radiant performance. Anne is a girl--not the stage image of a girl--but a capricious, quick-tempered, loving maiden whose imagination is always running ahead of her experience. Whether that is Anne or Miss Strasberg it is hard to say at the moment, for they are blended into one being. It looks artless because Miss Strasberg has created it with so much purity from within....

I dunno, I used to hear "that's white of you" thrown about all the time on the DC playgrounds of the 50's and early 60's, in voices dripping with very un-ironical sarcasm, and I guarantee you it didn't have anything to do with Virgin brides or Mr. Clean.

Thanks for the link to an interesting article. I was glad to see that Novak's favorite film was Middle of the Night, which I've always thought was one of the absolutely best portrayals of the complications of a May-September relationship ever set to film, especially compared to fluff like Love in the Afternoon or Funny Face. Novak was superb in her role as a frankly neurotic young woman who's entering into a relationship that will inevitably take a long time to sort out. Without that touch of neurosis and insecurity, which Novak played to perfection, the movie would have been little more than just one more generic Hollywood fantasy.

You can talk about Powell's wit no less than you can talk about an actor or actresses' cosmetically altered facial features. It's how they come across on the screen, not how they sound in a bar or how they look when they're not before the cameras.

Powell also benefited from having such a perfect sparring partner in Myrna Loy, who also wasn't an ideal Hollywood beauty, but who like Powell could also lure the opposite sex with an endless supply of wit and charm, and an ability to swim in an endless sea of colorful lowlife characters without batting an eye or missing a drink. I can't think of another screen couple whose screen lives came closer to the real All-American ideal, at least in its urban variety, and as far as I'm concerned, they were the perfect romantic couple.

One might almost say that those ubiquitous "Which twin has the Toni?" ads were one of the more pernicious attacks on the entire concept of natural female beauty in the entire 20th century. It's no coincidence that this campaign began in 1948 and ran all through the 50's. "Haunted by ghosts? We'll scare 'em all away!"

I kind of imagine Mae West as James Finlayson's ideal woman. Have you seen my corset, dear?

I've always found myself drooling over the Bacall of To Have and Have Not and Dark Passage, indifferent to the Bacall of How to Marry a Millionaire, and very enamored of Bacall as she got into her 40's and older. Maybe it's just that I like those first two movies and not the third one, but maybe it's just the hair styles. Bacall in her early 20's seems older than that, but in a good way, while Bacall in her late 20's and early 30's seems much older than that in a not-so-good way. And Bacall in her 40's up through the time of her passing seems to have aged better than almost any actress I can think of. Does any of that make sense?

That's an interesting question. 99% of my conscious thoughts about Anna Magnani go back to her role in Open City, where you last see her gunned down in the middle of the street by the Germans, while she was calling out the name of her husband as the Germans were hauling him away. About the only way I could describe her in terms of sex appeal is that she has what Kramer (in Seinfeld) would call "kavorka", an animal magnetism that transcends her "objective" physical qualities. "Roughly handsome" wouldn't be the term I'd use, but the quality she exudes would be somewhat comparable to the appeal of Robert Mitchum, who wasn't exactly Robert Taylor in the mirror, but who still managed to get his point across without too much trouble. Whatever it is, she's got it. And I agree with you about "more unusual beauties". IMO once you get past certain subjective requirements of body type (I admit I like thinner women, but that's just a personal preference), the overriding qualities I look for are personality, curiosity, warmth, and intelligence. I can't think of a single actress whom I'd be more likely to storm the beaches of Normandy for than Rosalind Russell in Roughly Speaking, or Barbara Stanwyck in These Wilder Years. Of course when it comes to leading actresses, the whole thing gets a bit surreal when you see a gorgeous woman like Barbara Stanwyck and compare her to Loretta Young or Ava Gardner, rather than to the 99% of the female population who would die to look like Barbara Stanwyck---especially in middle age or later. It's a bit like comparing an average Major League baseball player to Babe Ruth or Willie Mays, rather than noting that when all is said and done, he's still one of the 750 best ballplayers in the world.

Obviously William Powell wasn't Robert Taylor or Errol Flynn in terms of matinee idol looks, but then leading men of the movies have always been able to sport a far wider range of facial and body characteristics than their female counterparts, not to mention that there are plenty of them (like Powell or Gable) whose charismatic personality adds a lot to their appeal. There are a few non-Loretta Young level of beauty women (Rosalind Russell would be one) whose engaging personalities have enabled them to play credible romantic leads on occasion, but usually they wind up as the "best friend" (see Celeste Holm in Gentleman's Agreement). And if there's ever been a female counterpart to "ruggedly handsome" who's showed up as a romantic lead, I'd like to know who she might have been. In fact it's not all that uncommon that these women (like Mercedes McCambridge) often get typecast as lesbians. Even in the past, when the beauty standards weren't so rigid, and non-glamorous women occasionally got cast in romantic leads, we often tend to look at their movies now and kind of scratch our heads about the casting. Ruth Chatterton and Mae West* come to mind here, but they weren't the only ones. And while the aging Stewarts and the Bogarts were allowed to grab the likes of Kim Novak and Lauren Bacall without causing too many guffaws, the second that actresses like Miriam Hopkins started putting on the old double chin, there they'd go straight into "character" roles. I'm not defending this double standard, but it'd be silly not to recognize it. *Though in West's case, she's much more of a conscious self-parody of a certain type of glamor queen than any real romantic lead.

Right. By "romantic" leads I'm assuming that means that the attraction was mutual and sexual, and not based on pity, "respect", or some sort of a business arrangement. By that standard, whatever romantic leads Morgan played were in movies I've never seen on TCM, likely during the silent era. Compare that to William Powell who was younger by only 2 years but was able to convincingly attract much younger women in droves! Very good contrast. You might also add Bogart / Bergman in Casablanca, or Warren William or Richard Barthelmess paired with Loretta Young and many other much younger leading ladies in movies like Employees' Entrance, Midnight Mary, or Heroes For Sale. And then of course there's Clark Gable, who was almost in a class by himself, false teeth and all. "He's not just old enough to be your father, he IS your father!"

Possibly very early in his career, but by the time he got to Bombshell, where he played Jean Harlow's drunken mooch of a father, he'd already been typecast as somewhat of a buffoon. He was only 43 in that movie, but physically he seemed more like a man in his 60's, and not exactly the Lewis Stone variety of septuagenarian.

Since I've only seen Conrad in a handful of movies and never on TV, that famous scene of his with Charles McGraw in The Killers, where they keep taunting "bright boy", is enough to seal the deal for me: "They eat the dinner. They all come here and eat the big dinner."

TikiSoo Posted Yesterday, 06:24 AM The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story (1996) Susan Warms Dryfoos The LINE KING is a laugh riot! The images of Hirschfeld driving his caddy in NYC is burned in my brain! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Never heard of it before, but since this is 2015, here it is already on YouTube: [...] My favorite Hirschfeld book is a Prohibition era tome called Manhattan Oases, New York's 1932 Speak-Easies, which has Hirschfeld's sketches of his favorite watering holes. The best one has a picture of a cherubic-looking baby above a bar, relieving himself in a river, with a cautionary note underneath that reads "NEVER DRINK WATER".

You wouldn't really want to meet "Max" (William Conrad in The Killers) or "Doc Penny" (Ted de Corsia in Crime Wave) in a dark alley, or run into "Red" (Rudy Bond in Nightfall) or "Tommy DeVito" (Joe Pesci in Goodfellas) anywhere outside of a bughouse. And for "heavies" on the nominally right side of the law, it's tough to beat Robert Ryan or Sterling Hayden. In fact it'd be hard to imagine Robert Ryan as anything but a "heavy" even if he were playing Jesus Christ Himself; He'd probably beat up his own Mother.

You beat me to it. Definitely worth the 10 minute time investment.

I used to love Fields back when along with Casablanca, Fields and the Marx Brothers were the staples of 1001 repertory film festivals on every college campus. Eventually they all mostly wore out their welcome for me due to overexposure, but It's a Gift, The Fatal Glass of Beer (another short), and the Road Hog part from If I Had A Million still retain their freshness, especially the last of those three. BTW that Road Hog part obviously served as the inspiration for one of the great comedies of the 80's, Danny DeVito's and Richard Dreyfuss's Tin Men, which starts out exactly like the Fields segment, with the new car getting smashed by a road hog just as it was being driven out of the dealership. The difference is that while Fields gets his revenge with one elegant scheme that brings quick closure, DeVito and Dreyfuss escalate their feud to The War of the Roses levels.

Or You're Telling Me, or the best Fields performance of them all, as the anti-Road Hog crusader in his segment of If I Had A Million. How did you like that, you great snorting road hog?

One that's being shown for (I think) the first time on TCM is I Can Get It For You Wholesale, whose brief summary reads "A ruthless fashion designer steps on everyone in her way in order to reach the top of her profession. Eventually she is forced to choose between her ambition and the man she loves." In addition to Hayward, it's got George Sanders and Sam Jaffe, and the presence of those three alone should tell you that this is a movie you won't want to miss. Good thing it's being given the 8:00 PM slot instead of in the wee hours of the morning. The Fox Movie Channel used to show it all the time, and it was one of their better offerings.

One glaring omission from the Summer of Darkness series is a terrific noir that Montalban did with Anne Bancroft and Lee Marvin, Life in the Balance (1955). It's about a serial killer (Marvin, who else?) on the loose while an innocent musician (Montalban) is the prime suspect. This movie has one of Bancroft's earliest featured roles, and after watching it a second time I'm beginning to root for a Bancroft SOTM tribute. I suspect the problem with that is that many of her best movies (like this one) were made by Fox.