AndyM108

*Zoo In Budapest *(1933) I believe this popped up once in the middle of the night two Decembers ago. Good memory, Nora. December 5th, 2010 at 3:45 AM EST, to be exact. It's a gem of a movie that I'd love to see again, too. One hopeful sign is that for the past three years (at least) they've been giving Loretta Young's January 6th birthday a pretty good treatment, and unless there's a rights problem I wouldn't be surprised to see it come around again. I get the strong feeling that Young is one of the TCM programmers' favorites, since just in the past two and a half years I've managed to record over 25 of her movies, and the vast majority of those were pre-codes like Zoo in Budapest .

*Toshiro Mifune.* After *finally* recognizing an actor (Jean Gabin) whose career wasn't centered in Hollywood or England, perhaps a precedent has been set to broaden TCM's horizons a bit. There are more than enough of his movies available to fill out 24 hours, and unlike most of the stars we usually get in SUTS, they wouldn't consist in great part either of mediocrities or movies that have been shown dozens of times.

Since Deborah Winger hung around Bob Kerrey, and since Bob Kerrey is a very bright man, my guess is that she was the one who picked the best film of the lot: Rififi And that's all I got. Hard to imagine that any of those others except maybe Spike Lee would go beyond the tried and true.

I'm bored with the whole concept. I understand why TCM does it, but just because a film has won an Oscar does not mean I want to see it (especially if I've seen it endless times......) My sentiments exactly. Hollywood invariably honors the blandest and / or most politically correct** films, and when you've got 31 days of them without respite it's way, way too much. Maybe have an Oscar Week or something, but not an entire month. And without trotting out the names of the obvious culprits, it's the endless repetition of some of these titles that's the worst thing about it. I'd love to see TCM institute a strictly adhered to limit of no more than two screenings of *ANY* film in a 12 month period, and no more than three screenings in 24 months. Make room for more foreign and silent movies, or movies that haven't been beaten into the ground. Do we really need to see Some Like It Hot 3 or 4 times a year? **Not meaning liberal or conservative, but whatever the prevailing values of the time were. Those Noble / Lovable Priests / Bishops movies of the 40's (Crosby, Tracy, Grant, etc.) were every bit as "politically correct" at the time they were made as any Jane Fonda movie.

I'm not sure whether or not they've ever been shown on TCM at all, but I'd sure love to see these ten for starters: *Easy Living* (the Sturges screwball, not the Victor Mature football movie) *Sudden Fear* (Crawford and Palance) *The Great McGinty* (Donleavy) *Criss Cross* (Lancaster) *Diary of a Lost Girl* (Louise Brooks) (Though *Pandora's Box* has shown at least twice in recent years) *Body and Soul* (Garfield) *Champion* (Kirk Douglas) *Dracula* (Lugosi) *The Killing* (Hayden) And finally, *Double Indemnity* (Stanwyck) . I'm sure this must have been shown a million times, but not in the past three years since I've been paying close attention.

IMO Loretta Young is the greatest of all the Hollywood "natural" beauties, but few of her best roles exude much glamor. Louise Brooks is a stunner but in her best roles she's got the same problem. For pure glamor I'd take Rita Hayworth in Gilda , followed by Gene Tierney in Laura and Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year , even though it's somewhat of a comic role. And then there are Audrey Hepburn or Leslie Caron in just about any movie they were in. Harlow is my all-time favorite comedienne, but in order to spot the glamor you have to peel off so many layers of makeup that it's hard to know exactly what's underneath it all. She's got pizzaz and spunk, but that's not quite the same thing as glamor.

Mr. Smith. Again. I'm getting so sick of seeing this tired old chestnut every other month that I'm almost rooting for Claude Rains to shoot Jimmy Stewart instead of himself. It's not the movie itself that's so annoying, it's the way that seemingly every other film between 1940 and 1945 got introduced with The Star Spangled Banner , Columbia the Gem of the Ocean , America The Beautiful , La Marseillaise , the Volga Boat Song , Beethoven's 5th Symphony , or Take Me Out to the Ball Game . It's as if those were the only songs in the entire musical repertory. In all honesty, I think we notice the movies we don't like that much more than the ones we do. The Killers has been on about 3 or 4 times in the past year, but who's complaining? I could watch William Conrad and Charles McGraw bait "Bright Boy" about a hundred more times before getting tired of it, not to mention Ava Gardner screaming *"KITTY IS INNOCENT!"* and Edmond O'Brien being told by his boss not to come back to the office until Monday.. OTOH when Splendor in the Grass or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or any one of a hundred Bible epics or costume dramas show up for their daily appearances, it makes me glad that March Madness and the baseball season are just around the corner. It's sometimes nice not to know the ending by the end of the first five minutes.

Vincent Price I have seen an animated short film he narrated. His range was impressive and he had a great ability to influence the listener . Like my aforementioned Warren William, Vincent Price had the perfect combination of a deep voice and a straight face that could sell a state of the art freezer to an igloo-bound Eskimo. OTOH to anyone who recognized Price's voice in a Lincoln documentary, the effect might be that we'd want to count the silverware after Lincoln left the room.

Paul Robeson. My God, yes, a thousand times yes. Beethoven's Ode to Joy And an excerpt from Othello

Thanks. If playing a waiter in 'Casablanca' is [sakall's] best-known role it's no wonder that I'm unaware of him. That movie has sent my mind wandering every time I've ever attempted to watch it - and that's his good one. Well, then, what about Franklin Pangborn or Eric Blore? Or is it you don't pay attention to any character actors, no matter how well known? But going in another direction, why not Warren William? If this hypothetical exercise has anything to do with Abraham Lincoln, I'd bet that within the first few minutes Warren William could sell Jeff Davis himself on the necessity of staying in the Union.

Again, we have differing views on the definition of classic film. Maybe RUTHLESS PEOPLE has not yet achieved classic status, but I do think BODY HEAT, a more contemporary noir, has definitely reached the realm of classic film. Actually I wasn't trying to impose my own view of "classic", and in fact my own definition would likely be close to yours, and it would have little to do with when a film came out. I was merely using the term as I've understood that most people here have come to use it, to refer to Hollywood studio films that are at least 40 or 50 years old.

Andy, If I am not mistaken, Kathleen Turner gets away with her crimes in BODY HEAT and ends up on some beach enjoying the fruits of her labors. Also, the kidnappers in RUTHLESS PEOPLE (played by Helen Slater and Judge Reinhold) go unpunished...actually, their victim (Bette Midler) runs off with them! Could be, though I haven't seen those two films. And I'm sure that there are other examples from the last 40 or 45 years as well. But my comment was directed at "classic" films, and in case I wasn't clear about the dates I assign to that genre, I use it to mean films prior to the withering away of the Breen code, or roughly prior to the mid-60's. Films after that seem to be governed by a rather (cough, cough) different code.

Most of the "inept" law enforcement I've seen in classic films is usually done for comic effect, as in The Thin Man , or any one of the innumerable private detective series like The Lone Wolf or Torchy Blaine. In 99% of the serious crime dramas the police are almost always shown to be sober and intelligent. Exhibits A and B: The Sam Levene character in The Killers and the entire L.A. police department in He Walked By Night . IMO what's really annoying is that in the "classic" movie era it seems as if in every single caper movie --- The Asphalt Jungle , The Killing , etc.---the thieves make such a complete botch of it so early in the movie that there's absolutely no suspense about the eventual ending. Just once I'd wish they'd give us an ending scene of the bad guys lolling in the Riviera, lighting cigars with $100 bills, while the cops are left scratching their heads and vowing to get them "the next time they try anything". It would be a nice change of pace from the usual formula.

I wonder how many other people read the title of this thread, and for obvious reasons did a complete double take!

And if I had the money to get the necessary rights, I'd make Gabin a SOTM and show all 95 of his movies on TCM. Jean Gabin was to cool what Michael Jordan was to last second game winning jump shots, and it's a shame that other than that one glorious day last August, we almost never get exposed to more than a tiny handful of his films over here. If only people knew just how much they were missing.

When I mentioned Jean Gabin earlier, I should have mentioned that he's the only actor with a 2-volume, 994 page bio entitled World's Coolest Movie Star , with separate introductions by Michele Morgan and Brigitte Bardot. Top that, Dream Factory!

It's certainly harder to think of cool females for some reason. One who comes to mind for me is Ida Lupino. Most definitely Ida Lupino, but I'd add Barbara Stanwyck and Lauren Bacall to the list. The Bacall characters in those Bogey flicks were all far cooler than he was, and whenever the script didn't demand otherwise, Stanwyck was right up there with her. For men, the usual suspects: Mitchum, Mifune, Gabin, Bogart, Kirk Douglas, Montand, Belmondo, McQueen, Newman, Brando, Juano Hernandez, Dean, and (in his later roles) Dick Powell. Obviously that's just the tip of the iceberg, and I didn't even bother with actors who debuted after 1970.

I'd need to see a better shot of Sten. The one with Cooper shows her to have more of a Madeline Khan "cuteness" than a Gene Tierney "beauty". Yeah, I'd agree. And even after doing a google image search for Anna Sten, she seems interchangeable with any one of a number of generic Hollywood leading ladies of the period. She looks a bit like Marlene Dietrich in a few of those pictures, in another she recalls Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity , and in others she half-favors Claudette Colbert or Joan Crawford. They don't pay these makeover folks for nothing. But in none of them does she come within a mile of Gene Tierney. She simply doesn't have Tierney's natural radiance, and without that she's just another pretty face.

The "one and only" Louise Brooks? Huh? "Huh" what? As I said, it's all subjective, but if your taste runs to buxoms like Marilyn or Liz, more power to you.

The problem with being that beautiful is that people will never take you seriously as an actress. Ingrid Bergman was beautiful, but she wasn't in Tierney's league. This is where subjectivity really takes over, doesn't it? You can dispute whether they belong in some mythical "top 10" beauty ranking, but any standard of beauty that doesn't include Katharine Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck is a standard that's insanely limited, and both of them were highly respected for their acting talents for their entire careers. Their problem may have been the opposite of Bergman's, in that their acting ability was recognized so early in their careers that people overlooked just how beautiful they were. But look at Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (when she was 36) or Hepburn in Woman of the Year (when she was 34), and if those aren't beautiful women, then Jeremy Lin is just another Ivy League point guard.

I never thought that the heavenly Miss Tierney ever looked more beautiful than in my favourite film of her's, Laura. Same here. In fact I've seen Laura so many times and enjoyed it on so many levels that it's almost impossible for me to think of Gene Tierney in any other role, even though I've seen at least half a dozen of her other movies. And while Tierney's looks didn't have the staying power of Loretta Young, who stayed slim and glamorous well into her later years, for a decade or so she was right up there with Rita Hayworth, Jane Greer, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner and Brigitte Bardot, and of course the one and only Louise Brooks. Not that there's anything subjective about that list, mind you!

I've never been a big McCrea fan, but after seeing all these early 30's listings, I'm now beginning to think that lack of exposure has been my main problem with him, and I'm looking forward to being converted. Just hope there aren't too many westerns in there. Overall, this is looking like the best month since August's SUTS with Gabin, Dvorak and Chaney----and brother, after a whole month of Doris Day are we ever going to need it! And if Eugenia H is out there, did you notice this seldom-seen Stanwyck? This may not be a TCM premiere, but it'll be a premiere for me: May 24 7:00AM Gambling Lady (1934)

If I took a word association test, the first name I'd associate with "most treacherous femme fatale" would probably be Greer, with Ava *"KITTY IS INNOCENT!! KITTY IS INNOCENT!!"* Gardner in The Killers as a very close second. The advanced metrics say Stanwyck in Double Indemnity , since she never dropped even a hint of humanity from beginning to end, but that hideous blond wig telegraphs her character just a little too obviously. Whereas OTOH women who look like Greer and Gardner could probably keep fooling their men even after they'd emptied their guns into their backs, so in the end they wind up with my Oscar in this particular category.

Way too much villainy to choose among, but here are three that jump to mind immediately: Richard Widmark's Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death Robert Ryan's Reno Smith in Bad Day at Black Rock And of course Lionel Barrymore's Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life

bagladymimi, what I find interesting about what you just wrote is that I tend to be skeptical or even cynical about movies with what seem to be "forced" happy endings. When it comes to movies that are centered around historical events, the first thing I look for is historical realism, not inspiration. It's not that I'm "against" happy endings, but way too often they seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It's like a cat's face grafted onto a dog's body. And yet even though we're apparently looking for different things in a movie, we both found The Search to be a film for the ages. I looked at the location scenery, and it rang true to life in postwar Europe. I watched Aline MacMahon's beautifully understated performance and recognized the sort of people who'd undoubtedly lost loved ones in the war and were dedicating their lives to make sure it never happened again. She was the antithesis of the stereotype of the "faceless bureaucrat". And then there was Jarmila Novotná and Ivan Jandl, the mother and her boy. I suppose that it's theoretically possible for Hollywood to have uncovered two actors who could have played those two roles as well as those two did, but the odds against it would have been about a million to one. Every word Ms. Novotná spoke was a testimony to the true meaning of war. Every facial gesture that Ivan made was equally eloquent, even before he began to speak. My father was a Norwegian-American who lost a brother in the resistance. A different roll of the dice, and my father could have remained in Europe while his brother came over here. I could have been that boy. I know I'm rambling, but to me it's precisely movies like this that define the essence and the promise of Turner Classic Movies. AFAIC it's every bit as deserving of "The Essentials" designation as any of the AFI's Top 100, perhaps even more so. Maybe one of the programmers will one day recognize this and schedule it in prime time in order to bring it to a wider audience than it received in mid-morning.