AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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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.
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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?)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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a hosting website like Photobucket
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.
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(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.
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Wondering on what the swear word count will be for DePalma's version...
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?)
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My sense is that the role called for the sort of over the top character that both of these actors portrayed, and that they both did terrific jobs of it.
True. I guess I just like Muni better than Pacino. Pacino is such a ham, to me. As for mush-mouth Brando, meh.
I can see your take on Pacino, but in that regard Muni was the original Joseph Tura.
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That's what I figured might be your objection to the film. You know, as it is, when this film premiered at Radio City Music Hall, half the audience walked out because of the interracial relationship between Meagan(Stanwyck) and Yen. It lost a lot of money. Now imagine if an Asian actor had been cast instead of Nils Asther, what that reaction would have been.
And imagine what Joe Breen's reaction would have been if he'd been in charge of the Production Code in 1932. Ouch!
I agree with your disliking having white actors playing other ethnic groups most times, but Asther did a good job with the role and yes I'm also sure Capra really had no choice in casting this way and his hand was forced.If you can get past that, you might want to take another look at this interesting film.Strictly because of my love of Stanwyck and Walter Connolly, I've now tried watching General Yen three times, but the last two times I couldn't make it all the way through, for the same reason I didn't like it the first time around.
Now Ruby Keeler as James Cagney's "Shanghai Lil" (which I'm running downstairs to watch in a minute or two), that's another story, but in that case we're talking about a lighthearted musical number and not the central plot of the movie.
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You consider EXECUTIVE SUITE an Allyson movie? She is about the 12th most imporatnt cast member.
I consider Executive Suite an "Allyson movie" because it was shown as part of her SOTM tribute. Nothing more and nothing less. She was fine but not exceptionally so in that relatively minor role. But my point is that Allyson played in a number of movies that I liked, and with the exception of Miracle on 34th Street, which is more an exception than anything else, O'Hara played in the genres I avoid. I only wish that she'd been cast in a few contemporary urban dramas, so that I would be interested in watching her.
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I hate this film and Pacino in it. It's just so over-the-top that I find it annoying. I'm a pretty big De Palma fan (not so much Pacino), but this one is just unwatchable, to me. I do love De Palma/Pacino - CARLITO'S WAY, however.
I agree with you about Carlito's Way, but if you think that Pacino is over the top in Scarface, what about Muni's performance in the original version? It's not as if Muni was foreshadowing Marlon Brando's Don Corleone as the embodiment of softspoken mobsters.
My sense is that the role called for the sort of over the top character that both of these actors portrayed, and that they both did terrific jobs of it. -
Sorry about the confusion, LavenderBlue. I always separate my responses to different people's comments with one of these
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As for General Yen, I'm just not a fan of casting white men in sexually charged non-white parts, when one of the reasons was that the film industry wanted to eat its cake and have it, too. It wanted to portray cross-racial attraction without bringing forth the censors who would have balked at the same plot if General Yen had been played by an Asian actor. I realize why they'd feel they were forced to make such a casting, but the whole thing just leaves me with a bad taste. It has nothing to do with either Stanwyck's or Asther's performances.
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I thought Robert Osborne's comment a couple of years ago about A GREAT MAN'S LADY was that it was a TCM premiere but maybe it was more along the lines that it was not a Stanwyck movie that was played often or was very well known.
Just for the record, A Great Man's Lady was shown in the 8:00 PM prime time slot, on Wednesday 9/8/2010. I make note of the time and date every time I record a movie, and that's when I recorded this one.
I like SO BIG a lot. It's another example where one should not believe the Leonard Maltin review.
Totally agree on both counts. So Big is one of my top 10 Stanwycks, one of the ones I can watch repeatedly without having it go stale on me. IMO that was her first truly transcendent performance, though she'd had plenty of very good ones before it.
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A Great Man's Lady played in September of 2010, and I don't think it was a premiere then. Fine performance by Stanwyck, though I liked a similar "aging" role that she had in the 1932 So Big a lot better.
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Just saw this mindblowing movie tonight, with an extraordinary performance by a child actor. TCM should go after it with a vengeance.
Thomas Doret in The Kid With a Bike
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mr6666
Posted Today, 07:32 PM
airs Thurs., 7-17 under Crime Remakes:
following Scarface ('32) w/Paul Muni
2:00 am ETC- 170 minwarScarface (1983)A determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel while succumbing to greed in this adaptation of "Scarface" (1932).
Dir: Brian De Palma Cast: Al Pacino , Steven Bauer , Michelle Pfeiffer .
ARTICLE: http://www.tcm.com/t...e/articles.html
I am SO glad that we're finally getting this. I rented it from Netflix a few months ago after having seen the Muni original 4 or 5 times. IMO the Pacino version is easily the better of the two, though the Muni's pretty d a m n good in its own right, as one of the Big Three groundbreaking gangster flicks of the early sound era.
Too bad it's showing in the middle of the night, but if they tried it in prime time we'd probably have half the people around here dying of apoplexy and threatening legal action.
It's not exactly Family Fare.-
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Andy, not even MIRACLE ON 34th STREET? That's very surprising, that's standard fare for the holiday season.
Okay, I did like that movie, but as I hadn't seen it for several years I'd pretty much forgotten the cast other than Natalie Wood, and even in her case it's only because it got mentioned so often in one of those tributes to her.
Like I said for me this was a great day. They maybe "50's cheapies" but anytime I get to see George Sanders as a killer, Raymond Burr as a very mean guy (not to mention Sterling with Barbara), and Cagney and Stanwyck in the only film they ever made together, I'm there, and happy.
You and me both.
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For me it is. I got to tape THESE WILDER YEARS, WITNESS TO MURDER and about to tape CRIME OF PASSION. Those were missing from my Stanwyck collection.So I'm thrilled with today's choices.
THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN is always GREAT to see on TCM.Well, I guess in that case. But they arent some of her better films......(aside from Yen).....50s cheapies, The Cagney one isnt bad; though Barbara doesnt have much to do in it.........
Guess it's just a matter of taste, since General Yen is one of only about 3 Stanwycks I don't like, out of the 65 or so I've seen. IMO Witness to Murder is every bit as good as the much more celebrated Rear Window, mainly because Stanwyck is light years over Grace Kelly as an actress. And These Wilder Years may be her most underrated movie----the way she does more with less in that film in terms of conveying wordless emotions is one of the many ways she demonstrates just how far above the crowd her talent took her. It's kind of a potboiler plot, but the acting brings it way beyond the script.
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Great interviews with the greatest actress of all time. Didn't you also post these last year, or some other time before that? If it wasn't you, then someone else must have, because they've been put up here before.
What is "THE" James Cagney Film For You?
in General Discussions
Posted
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.