AndyM108

"In interviews, (Jeanne) Crain alleged that Pallette was not only a bigot, who refused to share a table with black cast member Clarence Muse, but an admirer of Adolf Hitler as well." So I guess he wasn't likely to have gotten one of those NAACP Lifetime Achievement Awards along with Donald Sterling. OTOH he'd probably be right at home Up There (or Down There) with the longtime John Birch Society stalwart Adolphe Menjou. Anyway, it's sad to know about that about Pallette, because he was one great character actor. I'm glad he didn't start running his mouth before he made all his earlier movies.

My favorite Eugene Pallette performance is probably Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood, but I also liked him in My Man Godfrey. He's also in some other films I've seen like Topper and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but I can't remember him well enough to say whether or not I liked his performance. He seems to be fairly consistent in his work, so I'm going to say I probably liked him. Another very good movie Pallette was in was Bordertown, with Paul Muni and Bette Davis, well before Davis's physical qualities had gone South. He plays gold digger Davis's millionaire husband, and you can probably guess what his fate turns out to be.

I'm gonna' sue. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna' sue them. And I think you should sue, too. And I might even get around to suing you, too, if you don't sue. I love it! One of my all time favorite character actors.

It seems Netflix is renting out the Criterion collection of this film. You can "Add All" and get the 1946 version and then the 1964 version, or you can rent just Disc 1 for the original or Disc 2 for the remake. I'm going to add Disc 1 and move it to the top of the queue. When I finish watching "I Wake Up Screaming," I'll get this one. Glad you mentioned this, since I didn't realize that you could get the 1964 version by clicking "add all" and deleting the 1946 version, which I already own. P.S. East Side, West Side is a pretty good drama---not great, but well cast---and Astaire proves that he can do more than sing and dance in On The Beach. I think you'll like them both. And if you like Laird Cregar, you'll love I Wake Up Screaming. It may be his best role, and that's saying a lot. One small warning, though: Don't watch On The Beach before going to bed. I'm not talking about the grim ending, only that you won't be able to get "Waltzing Matilda" out of your brain for a week. Great song, but it does tend to stay with you.

Eugene Pallette was a true character, with his distinctive waddle and bullfrog voice. In real life he was just as "colorful" as in his movies. After WW2 he was convinced that the world was headed for a nuclear holocaust, so he went out and bought a 3,500 acre "mountain fortress" in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, complete with its own cannery and lumber mill, and a bottomless supply of cattle and other food. He stayed there for two years before he realized that his fears were probably ungrounded. IMO his best role was as Henry Fonda's eccentric millionaire dad in The Lady Eve, where we first see him coming down the stairs to breakfast, singing "For tonight we'll merry, merry be" in his typical bullfrog imitation. But his best single line came in Marlene Dietrich's Shanghai Express, when Pallette ("Sam Salt") discovers that his traveling companion Warner Oland ("Mr. Henry Chang") is really the leader of a band of Chinese revolutionaries who've just taken over the train. Here's the ensuing exchange: Sam Salt: I can't make head or tail outta' you, Mr. Chang. Are you Chinese, or are you white, or what are you? Mr. Henry Chang: My mother is Chinese. My father was white. Sam Salt: You look more like a white man to me. Mr. Henry Chang: I'm not proud of my white blood. Sam Salt: Oh, you're not, are you? Mr. Henry Chang: No, I'm not. Sam Salt: Rather be a Chinaman, huh? Mr. Henry Chang: Yes. Sam Salt: What future is there in bein' a Chinaman? You're born, eat your way through a handful of rice, and you die. What a country! Let's have a drink!

Sorry! I seem to have struck a nerve. I've only ever seen her in "Mogambo." I tried watching "Barefoot Contessa" but it was boring. I've heard of some of Gardner's other films like "The Killers," which I'm presuming is the one featured in this picture. I'll definitely have to look out for this one as it seems to be her ultimate performance. It's not only Gardner's best performance, it's also got Burt Lancaster, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker and the most chilling pair of supporting actors (who are the actual "killers") you'll ever see in Charles McGraw and William Conrad, here shown in the diner at the opening of the movie, grilling poor Harry Hayden, AKA "Bright Boy", about their soon-to-be victim Lancaster's ("the Swede") whereabouts. Hemingway said that this was the ONLY film version of his writing that he could stand to watch, even though only the diner scene was what he described in his short story---the rest of the film was an extension of it. In fact he liked the movie so much, he got a personal copy and would show it to his friends down in Key West.

Unfortunately Netflix only has the original Lancaster / Gardner version, though for some weird reason it gives the year as 1964. So it looks as if I'm going to have to wait for TCM to show it.

(...and speaking of "The Killers" and "remakes", what do you folks think of the 1964 remake co-starring a certain future POTUS in his big screen swan song?...my opinion: Angie Dickinson couldn't hold a candle to Ava, AND in fact, Ronnie is a poor substitute for Albert Dekker) I've read so many bad things about that remake that now I want to watch it. And since the original is tied with Out of the Past as the greatest noir ever, I'm almost hoping that Divine Symmetry will give us closure and reveal the 1964 version to be one of the two worst. And in my perverse image of an ideal world, the remade Dekker would have died in a manner that anticipated the way the real Dekker met his finish four years later. Nothing against Ronnie, but I'm rooting for it to be on an Ed Wood level of unintentional awfulness.

Haha. At the risk of going off topic in this thread... what is "the" ultimate Ava Gardner film? Are you kidding? Is this a serious question? "KITTY IS INNOCENT! KITTY IS INNOCENT! KITTY IS INNOCENT!"

But I think that The Strawberry Blonde successfully demonstrated that Cagney could be something other than just that. The tough little mug with a touch of sensitivity who mellows in middle age and discovers that his dream girl was just an illusion and that the "plain" girl he married (not that Olivia de havilland is anything like plain) was the real gem, after all. But I'm not saying for a second that Cagney wasn't versatile, or that he wasn't good in The Strawberry Blonde. I just don't care for the entire genre. As I said, different strokes for different folks.

Here's a "blue" cartoon that I used to feature in midnight shows on college campuses in the 70's, only it was under a different name, without titles, and with a much better soundtrack. But it's still the same cartoon, and it's a hoot. I bought my copy from a guy who worked (seriously) at a religious film service in Michigan. He had lent it to the AFI for a cartoon series, which is where I first saw it. P.S. Disregard the title, which is totally misleading, in some sort of an attempt to make it into a political statement. The name it's better known by is "P e c k e r Island." I later showed it along with Reefer Madness and Jack Webb's Red Nightmare as part of a "Sex, Drugs and Treason" package. It was a lot of fun while it lasted.

I love The Strawberry Blonde. Jack Carson is hilarious, yet the comedy never overwhelms the nostalgia or the love story. The scene where Cagney meets ODH after getting out of prison is movingly done, without ever going overboard on the schmaltz. Different strokes for different folks. To me Cagney's the quintessential midcentury motormouthed city boy, either a gangster or a con man. 13 Rue Madelaine is a "good guy" variant on that, and These Wilder Years is just an exception, in a movie where Stanwyck's counterpoint is really what sells me on it. I have no interest in seeing him in Breen era romantic comedies or in any sort of period pieces.

White Heat and The Public Enemy are my two longstanding favorites, but after watching the tribute yesterday, I have to add three more to the list: Hard to Handle, Lady Killer and Jimmy the Gent, all in the Con Man genre that Cagney was so perfectly suited for. I'd seen the last two before, but Hard to Handle was a revelation in more ways than one. Not only was it the perfect vehicle for the Cagney screen persona, but it also gave Ruth Donnelly a chance to shine in a comic role as I've never seen her shine before. The way her opinion of Cagney rose and fell about 10 times in direct proportion to his bank account, often changing about every five minutes, had to be one of the better running gags I've ever seen in what was essentially a programmer. But few actors could ever do more with a programmer than James Cagney. So I guess I'd rank them like this: 1. White Heat 2. The Public Enemy 3. Hard to Handle 4. The Roaring Twenties 5. 13 Rue Madelaine 6. Lady Killer 7. These Wilder Years 8. Footlight Parade 9. Blonde Crazy 10. Picture Snatcher 11. Jimmy the Gent 12. Angels With Dirty Faces Three I can live without: Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Strawberry Blonde, and Man of a Thousand Faces. It's probably not a coincidence that those are all period pieces and/or biopics, two genres that put me to sleep. When I want to see Cagney dance, I'll just put on Footlight Parade.

Nice that someone keeps track of these things.......... There's actually a WikiPage devoted to that exact topic, with about the top 110 films listed in the order of the number of F-word mentions. I tried linking the page, but it doesn't work. I've noticed that this is often a problem with Wiki.

This is one thread I'm definitely bookmarking, and a big tip 'o the hat to MultiEye. Since TCM has had WB cartoon festivals in the past, I've always wondered why there haven't been any lately. It's been a long time.

As for "they don't make 'em like that anymore"....there were very few of Cagney's contemporaries that even had his talent & charisma. Nowadays, all I see are "naturalistic" read "bland" performances in film, even among the best of them. Cagney's talent and charisma were off the charts, but if you think that all recent actors are "bland", I'm not sure which ones you're referring to. Certainly not Pacino, DeNiro or Daniel Day-Lewis, just to mention three of many. Cagney was a product of his time and place, as are virtually all actors. What makes him timeless is his talent, but I guarantee that people will be watching Godfather 2 and Goodfellas for just as long as they'll be watching The Public Enemy, and for the same reason: They're all great movies.

Generally I like the idea of back-to-backs, as long as they're far enough apart in time and/or cast so that they don't just seem like carbon copies. The Criminal Code and Convicted were marginal, since the Ford version is so weak, but for movies like Scarface, Waterloo Bridge, A Star Is Born (the first three, but not the Streisand), The Maltese Falcon (with Satan Met a Lady and the Bogart, not the 1931 version), I like the idea of showing one after the other. Makes it easier to get them both on the same DVD, if nothing else.

PB is horrible, use Imgur Or Flickr. That's what I use, and it's the easiest site for a clueless technopeasant like myself that I've ever seen. It makes bulk uploading as easy as drinking a beer.

(Hmm, I wonder how many times Paul Muni used "louse" or "copper" in the original Scarface?) Whatever the count, it can't possibly be as many times as Walter Huston said "YEAHHHH?" in The Criminal Code. I stopped counting at about 700 when a phone call interrupted me with about 10 minutes to go.

Well, the F word count alone is through the roof! LOL. Actually the F-Bomb count in Scarface is a mere 207 in 170 minutes, which works out to a paltry 1.21 times a minute. That 207 ranks it way down at #48 on the all time list for feature films. The Wolf of Wall Street laps the field with an appropriate 569. (Hmm, I wonder how many times Paul Muni used "louse" or "copper" in the original Scarface?)

Did they really have reform schools back then? I remember my father threatening to send me to one when I was wicked, but I always thought it was just a bunch of hooey. In the 30's there were reform schools, German Bund summer camps in Long Island, and probably a few mental hospitals that were still called "Lunatic Asylums". As the old cliche goes, the past is a foreign country. And in some cases it isn't even past.

Footlight Parade is my favorite musical. I have two taped version of the film that I made myself from T.V. back in the 80s. One with the entire movie and one without any of the musical scenes except the final one. This one is just for the Cagney and Blondell banter and pre-code one-liners and Shanghai Lil scene etc... Great stuff. Overall I'd go with 42nd Street over Footlight Parade**, but it's like 100 compared to 99. I'm just glad to be able to see Cagney the Hoofer in a movie that's not Yankee Doodle Dandy or some other godawful biopic hagiography. When you're able to combine Cagney's patented early career street persona with his athleticism, it's a pairing that can't be beat. **With the tiebreaker being the classic Ginger Rogers retort, "It must have been hard on your mother, not having any children".

There is some very fine acting in this movie (Connolly also does well in a role that is unique for him). So how do you feel about The Good Earth? Pretty much the same thing. Muni should have stuck to movies about gangsters, chain gangs, and comedies about newspapers, instead of trying to go "serious" on us. I couldn't watch The Good Earth for more than a few minutes. As Russell Baker might put it, Barbara Stanwyck was serious; Paul Muni is just solemn. Of course Keeler in Shanghai Lil is a different story since she was playing a character. Yeah, and anyway that was far and away the greatest musical routine in the history of movies. Even without the tap dance scene at the end, you had all those sardonic comments by the barflies at the beginning of the skit. ("She said she won't be mine / for all of Palestine"; "Say, that Oriental / dame is detrimental / to our / in-dus-try", etc.), and the song itself has one of those captivating melodies you can never get tired of humming or singing to yourself. I am thoroughly convinced that having an internal repertory of songs like "Shanghai Lil" can add a full decade to a person's life. After the movie I felt Osborne made a strange comment about the casting. He said that casting a white actor in an asian role couldn't be done today because it wouldn't be PC. Typically PC is used by those that don't feel something is wrong but only perceived to be wrong because people are so PC. So I found the use of 'PC' strange. (of course maybe I"m to PC!) Osborne was using the term as it's generally used today, meaning exactly as you say it does---not really wrong, but officially frowned upon. The irony is that the first mocking use of that term was made by the British Communist Jessica Mitford way back in the 1950's, only in her case it was self-mocking in the collective sense.

Maybe tcm would hafta show more John Wayne movies. More likely we'd be getting more Mel Gibson, and lot of interviews with Ginger Rogers' mother.

Yes, this would be a great movie to air as a TCM Import. Last week when I bought several films at B&N's half price Criterion Collection sale, I made notes of another dozen I hadn't seen and put them all in my Netflix queue. The Kid With A Bike was the first one that arrived, and it's going to be very hard to top. Personally I'd love for TCM to make the Criterion Collection a SOTM, because it'd be the best "Star" Of The Month they could ever find in terms of quality. And BTW the Criterion Collection isn't all foreign movies by a long shot. There are plenty of neglected American films in it as well, plus scores of better but more familiar titles that TCM has often played. Their only common point is the quality.