AndyM108

I also prefer the 1940 version because the plot was better developed, but I do think that Kent Douglass (AKA Douglass Montgomery) was also good, and very well cast for the part. One of the reasons for my thinking this is that he bore a striking resemblance to the soldier on the cover of Paul Fussell's landmark book, The Great War and Modern Memory. Remember that this was a 19 year old boy, and not a 29 year old man, which was Robert Taylor's age at the time of the remake. These weren't grizzled war veterans, they were for the great part young innocents who'd been thrust into history with no real preparation for the carnage that they were to see.

Grodin is wonderful in it but it's DeNiro that I thought was the film's chief marvel. Aside from being funny in a tough guy sort of way, he also brought some vulnerabilty to the role, as well. A great performance, that few ever rank among his best. DeNiro and Pacino and Daniel Day-Lewis and Cagney and Bogart and Jimmy Stewart all have one big thing in common: They're craftsmen first, and only incidentally "stars".

Ahem, excuse me here Andy, but I THINK you forgot to include MIDNIGHT RUN on that there list o' yours. (...and where Bobby showed some comedic chops within) I might have, if I'd seen it. Much as I love DeNiro's movies, I've probably seen three Cagneys for every one of his. Too bad there's not a TCM 2 for more recent films.

I really don't think De Niro, as good as he is, has had a career approaching Cagney's. Really? Mean Streets The Godfather, Part 2 Taxi Driver 1900 The Deer Hunter Raging Bull Once Upon a Time in America Goodfellas Cape Fear A Bronx Tale Casino Sleepers Analyze This City By the Sea Righteous Kill I'd put that incomplete list up against Cagney's best any day, even though I'd also consider Cagney at least DeNiro's equal as an actor. My only problem with Cagney is that so many of his post-1933 movies were truncated by the constraints of the Breen Code. It wasn't his fault, and he transcended those limitations as well as anyone, but there were too many artificial endings to too many of those movies for my taste. Other than The Roaring Twenties, White Heat, and the vastly underrated These Wilder Years (with Barbara Stanwyck), I can't think of any other post-1933 films of his that I'd put in the same class as those DeNiro films. You can add Yankee Doodle Dandy if you like musicals, but that's only one more movie and it doesn't change the balance. That's exactly what I'm doing. Since we on these boards are assumed to be primarily old movie fans, you've got to go with Cagney. Okay, then all you're saying is that you (or "we") like the studio era movies more than you like the ones from the past 40 years. Fair enough, but I was more trying to compare the actual quality of the films themselves rather than registering a genre preference. What I would have most loved to have seen is what a young Cagney might have been able to do under a director such as Martin Scorcese, unconstrained by Pope Breen and his stupid production code. Then we could really make a fair comparison between these two great actors.

The next time TCM shows The Salesman, it should combine it with a premiere showing of Glengarry Glen Ross, one of the great movies of the 90's. They'd be perfect complements to each other.

I always sit up and take note of Bonita Granville because of These Three, for which she earned a richly deserved Best Supporting Actress nomination at a very young age. She is an eeevil in that movie. Makes Patty McCormick look like Shirley Temple. Yes, but Lee Eun-shim in The Housemaid makes Bonita Granville look like the Blue Ribbon winning bunny rabbit in the Shangri-La Petting Zoo.

I remember when this happened and it was outrageous, especially attributing his downward spiral partially to eating junk food. Which became famously known as the "Twinkies defense".

This is the kind of thing that I wish could be regularly slotted rather than grouped together in one night as they do strike the emotions and one should not go into say the third or fourth film in a block without some time to regain one's composure. Good point, and well taken. The only exception I'd make would be for complementary documentaries by the same filmmaker, for instance if Louis Malle had done a followup work on the city then known as Bombay.

I watched Salesman and the Milk documentary, and echo Hibi's take on both of them. The Milk film in particular was even better than I might have expected. I'd seen the Rogosin documentary on Africa in 2013 when they had the Rogosin evening, and that was also first rate. I recorded Calcutta and Sans Soleil and I look forward to seeing them both. I only wish that TCM could get the rights to some of those terrific PBS "American Experience" documentaries like Eyes on the Prize and Freedom Riders, because those really are the gold standard of the entire genre.

What about James Cagney as Eddie Bartlett in The Roaring Twenties. Is he the biggest star to play a cabbie? Well, there's no question that the 1976 megahit Taxi Driver was the biggest moneymaker and most critically acclaimed movie about a cabbie, but whether James Cagney or Robert DeNiro would be considered the "biggest star" is one of those questions whose answer likely depends on how you doctor the argument. Personally, I love em both, the movies and the stars, since they're both inimitable in their own ways.

I would include Tomorrow: the World! (1944) on your list; in fact, it's my favorite baaaaaad movie ever I think (sadly I don't think its on DVD, so I depend on TCM to show it, and they haven't aired it in forever and a day.) I saw that movie once before I got my DVD recorder, and yeah, it was kind of a hoot. But it wasn't My Son John. NOTHING can beat My Son John for sheer derangement A brief synopsis from memory: Time: Korean War Place: Small town USA, somewhere in small town or suburban New York State Characters: Twin brother soldiers, about to be shipped overseas to fight. Seen playing catch with a football in their spacious front yard, and then not seen again Evil brother John (Robert Walker, in his last movie---he died while it was being filmed), vaguely gayish, not so vaguely Communistic, smarmy and condescending to his slightly senile parents, played by Dean Jagger and Helen Hayes, both Catholics of the Cardinal Spellman persuasion. Jagger's character was depicted as a lovable and sentimental lush---the backbone of our country---and a vocal Commie hater who suspected the worst of John; Hayes was a mother in denial. Both were pious Catholics under their local priest, Frank McHugh (who else?), who as usual simply played his familiar screen persona, unchanged for 20 years at that point and counting. Plot: Van Heflin, the square jawed and solemn FBI agent, is the skunk at the garden party who tells John's parents that he's under suspicion of spying for the Russkies. Jagger naturally says "I knew it", but Hayes is comforted when John literally swears on the family Bible that he's not now and has never been, etc., etc. A neo-heavenly glow shines upon this memorable scene, as Hayes nearly cries with joy. Yada yada yada, Jagger and the FBI get the goods on John, who then phones the FBI and tells them he wants to spill the beans on his comrades. The FBI agent warns John that the Commies are wiretapping the FBI's phone (er, it was usually the other way around, but never mind), and to take a circuitous route. And here's where it really gets good, at least if you know the street layout of Washington. John leaves his apartment, but just as his cab pulls out onto the street, a big bad black limo emerges from the Russian Embassy at 16th & L and starts following him. The FBI building was then at 9th and Pennsylvania, southeast of where John was. But instead, the next thing we see is John getting tommygunned down on the steps of the Tidal Basin, just below the Lincoln Memorial at 23rd and Rock Creek Parkway. Quite a circuitous route, all right, sort of like a dragonfly buzzing around a room. John's final words: "They got me." But then there's the ending to end all endings. John is dead, but he'd been scheduled to deliver a commencement speech at his unnamed alma mater. At the time he'd accepted the invitation, he was still a Commie, and was going to convert all the innocent young things to lives in Stalin's secret service. But not now! And so lo and behold, during the final scene, we see an absolutely comatose group of graduates, silently observing an old Revere tape recorder on the stage, with a heavenly set of spotlights shining on it. And on the tape is John, warning the graduates about how undefined "stimulants" can lead to the "narcotics" of Communism, and so on. Not a peep out of the grads, who file silently out of the hall. And in the parking lot, we get one last look and Dean and Helen. Dean turns to his wife and says more or less that John got what was coming to him. What a lovely couple they made, and what a sweetly sentimental denouement to the life of John. Just in case we hadn't understood the message. And here's the final kicker: The director of My Son John was none other than Leo McCarey of Duck Soup fame. God knows what he was thinking when he made this one, not to mention what Groucho might have thought if he'd stumbled across it.. But if you've never seen it, you simply have to. It's so unbelievably, bizarrely bad that it's a classic of unintentional humor, right up on Reefer Madness level, which is kind of the gold standard for movies like this.

The issue of TCM repeats is still not being fully addressed. Perhaps not, but since I'm not privy to any inside information on the subject, all I can do is continue to say that I wish they'd have fewer of them, while at the same time noting that relative to other non-commercial channels, they're virtually repeat-free.

Shut up! Spitfire was on last month (or so) and it was one of the most entertaining, grand and glorious failures I've ever seen. Loved every minute; and I still laugh recalling Hepburn using the term "whaht traish." If Laurence Olivier did a guest spot on Amos N' Andy it wouldn't be as good as Spitfire. Now that's what I love, someone with a strong POV who stands up to the mob, even when I'm part of the lynching party. And truth be told, I have to admit that I found Spitfire "captivating" (if that's the word), for about the same reason that I can't stay away from Reefer Madness or My Son John. Some movies are just so sidesplittingly and unintentionally risible that they easily cruise into the Guilty Pleasures category. Spitfire is definitely one of those movies. And Kate? Well, she had both the looks and the "southern" accent of one of Seinfeld's Brooklyn-born girlfriends, Tracy Kolis. But A Minority of One? Nah. That one should have been sent to the Soviets as part of our special Psywar exchange program, to convince Khrushchev & Co. that we were a bunch of clueless wonders and have them let their guard down.

I don't think you are pointing things out correctly. You griped about Retroflex showing repeats without also acknowledging that TCM shows its share of repeats (as do many other classic movie channels). I am currently looking over the new October schedule for TCM and there are several repeats within the same month, not to mention films airing in October that are airing earlier in the summer. So if you are going to try to slam Retroflex and its sister channels by that criteria (repeats) you have to apply it to TCM, too. I've many, many times over the past few years stated my wish that TCM would show fewer repeats, but let's get a little perspective. When I just now looked at Retroflex's online schedule for the next two weeks, I found multiple movies that were repeated 2 or 3 times within a period of 48 hours. Black Sunday will play 3 times within 24 hours tomorrow. An Unmarried Woman has 5 scheduled showings over the next two weeks. Hairspray will have 6. There are many others that will be played 2 or 3 times within that same period. How many movies does TCM even show 6 times within the space of a year? I don't know the answer to that, but I'd strongly suspect that it's very few, and it's a relatively rare occasion that a title even gets shown 3 times within the space of 2 months. IMO the bigger problem in many ways is that it relegates its "rarer" titles to the overnight schedule, especially those that aren't considered to be in the Hollywood "mainstream", whatever that is. Of course there are exceptions to this general rule, for which I'm grateful. As I said, a little perspective. More power to any network that can provide uninterrupted movies that TCM doesn't have, and even more power to any network that shows these movies without requiring a subscription to a premium movie package. None of this is meant to say that TCM is perfect. We all want it to improve in directions that we favor. But where else are you ever going to find The Housemaid, Diary of a Chambermaid, an entire evening of Mae West, Wings, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, a day full of classic noirs, multiple different Screen Directors' Playhouse shorts, a night full of rare documentaries like the one that's on now (Salesman), and innumerable other classic features from the Studio era and beyond, all in the course of a rather ordinary 7 days? And I didn't even mention Maureen O'Hara, who's not my cup of tea but who obviously has a big following around here.

These other stations are competition to TCM (i.e. they pull viewers from TCM), but yea, it is of a very limited nature. But one point is clear: if a station is showing a movie one really wants to see, that TCM isn't showning (or hasn't shown for years), one is likely to seek out that station (or purchase the movie if it is available). I just went out an hour ago and dropped $130 at Barnes & Noble's half-price Criteriion Collection sale, which got me two boxed sets and a copy of Samuel Fuller's The White Dog. I'm fully aware that TCM is not the sole source of terrific movies, but it's far and away the best one for those of us on limited budgets and a desire to go beyond movies we already know and have seen. I often feel that this point gets lost amidst the constant kvetching about TCM's shortcomings. These folks certainly have a right to their opinions, but by the same token I've got a right to mine. But yea the rotation of movies is very limited on these stations. So does TCM have any reason to be concerned? I have no idea. But some concern (even if unfounded) by TCM execs would help us TCM viewers; e.g. if the concern about losing viewers motivates TCM to lease more movies from outside the Turner Library, that is a big win for us TCM viewers. I would agree with the above sentiment. We all wish that TCM would expand its repertory in directions that we favor, with all the variety that this implies. But I also think it's relevant to note the extremely limited nature of these other channels, some of which are premium, and others of which constantly interrupt their films for commercials. I fail to see what's wrong (or "sarcastic") about pointing out that there's more than one side to a story. Or is only one side of a discussion considered to be "productive"?

So if you were head of programming what would you program? e.g. what percentage of programming would be devoted to pre-codes, Production-code movies, foreign films, silents, movies released in, say the last 20 years, color films verses black and white etc... I'd simply try to get the most varied selection of the best movies available that TCM could afford within the constraints of its budget. Due to those constraints, it's clear that the bulk of the schedule would have to be devoted to studio era films, but I'd try to include better later movies and foreign films within the limitations of that budget. And you know what? With a few minor adjustments around the edges (more silents and foreign movies; fewer repeats on the musicals), I strongly suspect that "my" programming wouldn't be a whole lot different than what we're already getting right now. Of course if I had an unlimited budget to work with, that'd be another story, but that's not what I assume the question was about. We all wish that TCM would simply show only the movies that WE want to see, but fortunately that's not the way it works.

But when I see something like SUNSET BOULEVARD, THE MATCHMAKER and KING CREOLE on Retroflex with perfect prints and no commercials, you can bet I am right there watching it. In fact, Retroflex is becoming my go-to for Paramount gems; ME-TV is becoming my go-to for those classic horror gems from Universal (even with commercials); Encore Westerns is becoming my go-to for all those great Columbia B westerns that TCM does not show; and with FLIX I am getting some British gems like THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST starring Michael Redgrave and Margaret Rutherford that TCM again does not play. So what am I using TCM for-- the occasional titles in the Turner Library that are not overplayed or that I do not have a copy of in my collection. And I am using TCM when they have a knowledgeable guest host who has first-hand accounts of the making of a classic movie (like Mitzi Gaynor, Dolores Hart, Shirley Jones and Robert Wagner). If we look at what I have just written, TCM is competing with several other classic movie channels for my attention. Just for grins, I went down to look for Retroflex on my TV, where Fios is my provider. I quickly discovered three salient facts: 1. Their schedule is very repetitive, with some selections were being played as many as 3 or 4 times in the next few days. 2. Nearly all of the titles I found had played on TCM, and I already had either recorded them or I never wanted them to begin with. (King Creole? No thanks.) 3. When I actually tried to tune in to the channel, I discovered that it's part of a premium package, just like HBO and Encore and Sundance. Whereas at least on Fios, TCM comes with the lower priced package. If that's "competition" for TCM, it's certainly of a very limited nature: Limited to those who can afford the extra charges, and limited to those who don't mind all the repetition, which is infinitely greater than TCM at its worst. Oh, and BTW, do they also show uninterrupted, commercial-free silent and/or foreign films? That's not a rhetorical question. Where else other than TCM can you find Lon Chaney, Louise Brooks, Toshiro Mifune or Jeanne Moreau on your TV? If there are any such networks, I'd sure love to know about them.

So only Jews should play Jews? No, just actresses who can do so a bit more convincingly than Roz did in this picture. It was on the cringeworthy level of Katharine Hepburn's "hillbilly" portrayal in the mercifully forgotten Spitfire. Molly Picon instead of Roz Russell, and Sessue Hayakawa in the Guinness role? Never heard of Molly Picon, but surely they could have found someone, anyone better than Rosalind Russell to play that part----and again, don't get me wrong, I love her in just about everything else I've seen her in. She just was hopelessly miscast in this one. As for Guinness, same deal, only not quite as extreme. Only an 8 on a 1 to 10 scale of awfulness, whereas Roz was a full-blooded 10. And Kate was about a 13 on that same 10 scale in Spitfire---she was off the charts.

It is EPIC miscasting, like on a "John Wayne IS Ghengis Khan"-level miscasting. I've never seen either of those movies (thank God), but no miscasting could possibly have been so laughable as Rosalind Russell and Alec Guinness playing a Jewish widow and a Japanese widower in the howler known as The Majority of One. Roz is one of my all-time favorites, but listening to her trying to put on a "Jewish" Brooklyn accent had me begging the screen for mercy by the time her first scene was half over.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, too. Early on, I was worried this film would be too silly with how they waved the rat poison in the face of the viewer. However, I was really pulled in hearing that piano. Sometimes it would be the soundtrack to the film, sometimes it would be someone playing in the other room, and sometimes the housemaid would be at it, banging away. It really added to the atmosphere and cranked up the tension as the movie progressed. I should have mentioned that important element, and you're absolutely right. At times it got to the point where you wanted to run upstairs, strangle the girl, and feed her to the rats yourself. Of course since it would've more or less ended the movie right then and there if Mr. Kim had followed my armchair impulse, I'm glad he allowed the plot to lead to a more unconventional denouement.

Not funny at all, that's how clever directors (and writers) got around the rules. That was the beauty of the language of cinema, before it got so explicit. Of course movies could get around the rules, but there were limits to that wink-winking that extended all the way up through the end of the Production Code. You would never see interracial romantic scenes between whites and blacks, and you never saw any actual romantic scenes between same-sex couples, only parodies that were obviously comic, or scenes of male friendship bonding under emotional conditions, such as you had in Wings. There was enough public sympathy for bootleggers in the age of prohibition to let the Volstead Act be ignored and even implicitly preached against on the screen, but there was no such sympathy for "race defiling" or "crimes against nature", which in the 1920's were taboos on the level of incest.

There is nothing gay about either one of these characters. I suppose no one has ever kissed a best friend or their Father when they were dying? Please! This world today is nuts! It isn't even the first male to male kiss in the movie. That happens earlier when the French General is pinning medals on Jack, David and another man. Granted, the other man is slightly giddy. This is obviously true, and if it weren't, you would've had the Catholic Church and every other guardian of 1920's "morality" howling for the heads of the filmmakers. Funny how nobody at the time uttered a single indignant peep about it.

That B.J. Thomas song in BCATSK represents everything I can't stand about so many of the movies from that time period. It's the complete interjection of present-day sensibilities into movies set in the past, which in this case seemed so totally incongruous and over the top as to make you wonder WTH they were even thinking about. It's as if movies had to double as a rock or pop concert in order to attract an audience. I like both Newman and Redford, but IMO this one was just a clinker.

Like CaveGirl, I seldom scare easily in movies. The Exorcist mostly had me just rolling my eyes. I knew about the shower scene in Psycho so I was prepared for it. 99% of my favorite noirs and mob movies I can write off as "entertainment", and in many ways Freaks was as much a humanistic social commentary as it was a horror movie. And even with war movies there's the comfort (if you can call it that) that while there can be grisly moments there's seldom anything depicted that I haven't already read about or seen in documentaries. But The Housemaid----Wow. Just wow. Or make that WOW. To call it "Hitchcockian" is to flatter Hitchcock, though I guess Vertigo may be a "better" movie. But for sheer psychological horror that builds from nearly the first foreshadowing scene where the girl slips the note in Mr. Kim's piano, to the almost Jonestown-like double suicide at the end*, I can't think of a single other movie that comes close, in spite of all the unanswered questions that Kay notes below. It doesn't have just one chilling moment, it's that literally every moment is fraught with the anticipation that some unspeakable horror is about to take place within the next ten seconds. There's not a single juxtaposing "normal" scene once you get past the first minute or two. I only hope that next time TCM shows this remarkable work, it gets the PrimeTime spot that it richly deserves. I'll only add to this by saying that every character was perfectly cast, including the children. *Well, not "the end", exactly, as there's an "ending" that almost seems like a variant of those tagged-on Breen endings during the height of the Production Code era that tried to negate everything that's gone on before. But even this rather incongruous tag-on is done with such subtle skill and humor that it doesn't even detract 1% from the movie's overall impact, which if nothing else will likely make you want to eat out for the next few weeks, or at least never hire a maid. Oh, and if anyone didn't record it and doesn't want to wait for it to show up again, here it is in its entirety on YouTube.

Other than Reefer Madness, which I use to show for profit, I think the movies I've watched the most have been The Battle of Algiers, Casablanca, The Killers, Out of the Past, Kiss of Death, The Asphalt Jungle, and Baby Face. But of all those, only the first two were primarily on the Silver Screen. It's funny that I generally can't stand musicals, but the few I do like I've watched repeatedly and will probably keep watching: A Star Is Born (Garland version, though in many ways that's more a drama than a musical); the three Berkeleys from 1933; Singin' in the Rain; Damn Yankees; My Fair Lady; and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I wouldn't mind if TCM showed My Fair Lady every three months, just so I could be continually re-enchanted by Audrey, and of course Rex Harrison is perfect as 'Enry 'Iggins.