AndyM108

I haven't seen the remake, but I can't imagine anyone but Sig Ruman as "Concentration Camp Ehrhardt". (Question: Who played Nazis in more movies, Sig Ruman or Conrad Veidt?)

On a related note, I'll mention Rod Steiger, Jerry Orbach, Valerie Harper, George Steinbrenner, and Garry & Penny Marshall, of whom I assumed were Jewish -- but weren't. That's funny, since I've always assumed that George Steinbrenner's father was one of the founders of the German-American Bund.

I've seen both versions several times each, and while they're clearly standard issue formula movies, they still keep your attention from beginning to end. What really surprised me is just how well cast Richard Boone was in Laird Cregar's role of the perverted detective Ed Cornell. Two different "looks"---one slightly effeminate, the other who looks like he was shot through the forest and hit every tree---but both highly credible for the part. About the only reasons I like I Wake Up Screaming a bit better are Victor Mature, Elisha Cook Jr., and of course the classic , but they're both among the better noirs. BTW here's the full version of Vicki on You Tube.

With the sole exception of Night of the Living Dead, the only horror movies I can watch more than once are those where the motif is psychological terror induced by human beings, not by some Hollywood makeup artist or special effects maven. Movies like Sudden Fear or The Night of the Hunter have more real tension in them than a hundred vampire or monster films.

And George Reeves. Definitely murdered. Jeez, I just assumed he forget where he was one night and decided to cruise the penthouse bar circuit by single leaps and bounds. So who got him? Lex Luther? The Prankster? Please don't tell me it was Mxyzptlk, because that would have serious implications for all the rest of us.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the stars who try to separate their private lives from their public lives also seem to do the best job of growing old. I'm thinking along the lines of Stanwyck, Newman/Woodward, Ryan, Widmark, Katharine Hepburn, and others who treated their work as a craft, and didn't play up to the gossip columnists and paparazzi in an attempt to keep getting their names in the paper.

I agree about Hepburn and Grant--he is her best foil, though maybe not vice versa (I like him best with Irene Dunne). The entire Hepburn/Tracy series of films was, I think, based on their amazing chemistry in Woman of the Year. They rarely ever captured that "magic" again--I think Adam's Rib cpmes the closest, though more a portrait of an established couple rather than the newly wed couple--it's more cozy than sexy. And of course WOTY devolves --in my mind anyway--into another "Let's humiliate Kate movie" (though her character was rather a b*tch). I liked WOTY a lot better the first time than on subsequent viewings, same with their other "comedies", if that's what you can call Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike. There's something about the whole Tracy/Hepburn chemistry that just grates on me after a while, probably just because I've never cared for Tracy's screen character, whereas Grant gives Hepburn room to breathe.* Tracy's characters are always walking around with a giant chip on their shoulder, and for all his alleged great acting (can't argue with a thousand critics) his screen roles all seem to run together, and not in a very entertaining way. Hepburn matured into a pretty good dramatic actress--have you ever seen Long Day's Journey into Night? She's pretty terrific in that. I haven't, but I will the next time it comes around. I was so turned off by her pre-Stage Door films, and so much love her comedies with Grant, that it's probably going to take me awhile to give her a fresh look as a dramatic actress. I do like her in Undercurrent with Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, so at least that's a start. Aside from those Grant comedies, where I really appreciate her the most is in those two Cavett interviews from the early 70's. My late Aunt in the Village knew her briefly when she was in New York on the stage, and never had a bad word to say about her. As a person she seems absolutely fascinating. *I get the feeling that if Tracy had been given Grant's role in Bringing Up Baby, Hepburn would've wound up in a hospital.

Although critics and audiences at the time certainly didn't agree, I find the beautiful Katharine Hepburn absolutely hilarious in Bringing Up Baby - as Susan and as "Swingin' Door Susie." Absolutely. Drop dead gorgeous at her peak, and to my mind a much better comedienne than dramatic actress. And also much better with Grant than with Tracy, since while Grant could match wits with her on equal terms, all Tracy mostly did in their movies was to growl and grumble and act like a pigheaded fool. Too much message and too little comedy.

She wasn't the most gorgeous actress by modern standards, but there's never been another comedienne like her. "THAT'S ARSON!"

I watched FITB a second time yesterday, and I also agree that its problem was in the casting and directing rather than in the script. What's really eery about the casting is that if Jack Kelly hadn't dyed his hair blond, he and Zimbalist would be virtual ringers for each other whenever they flashed that squinty-eyed, self-depreciating, toothy smile of theirs. Kelly's face is a bit narrower, but other than that they could easily be mistaken for brothers. You can see this particularly at the start of the movie, prior to when they became political rivals. You could almost make the same point about the movie after that, Twilight of Honor. Not as good a script as Fever in the Blood, but it still suffered from the incredibly bland performance of Richard Chamberlain. Even Claude Rains just kind of mailed it in, throwing out one bromide after the other and not letting up until the inevitable marriage at the end of the movie.

Guess what, it's not easy to copy & paste columns. Foreign + Hollywood Hollywood Only Angi Vera All About Eve Battle of Algiers (The) Best Years of Our Lives Come and See (The) Crowd Diabolique Deception Elmer Gantry Elmer Gantry Forbidden Games Forty-Second Street Germany: Year Zero Goodfellas High and Low (The) Hard Way It’s a Wonderful Life It’s a Wonderful Life (Le) Jour Se Leve Jungle Fever Kapo (The) Killers Libeled Lady Libeled Lady M My Fair Lady Nightmare Alley Nightmare Alley Open City Out of the Past Pandora’s Box (The) Panic in Needle Park Quartet Quicksand Red Beard Red-Headed Woman (The) Search (The) Search (The) Testament of Dr. Mabuse Trouble in Paradise (The) Umbrellas of Cherbourg (The) Unsuspected Vertigo Vertigo Witness For The Prosecution Witness For The Prosecution X, Malcolm X, Malcolm (The) Young Philadelphians (The) Young Philadelphians Z Zoo in Budapest

I'm waiting for TCM to show those 1970's Pat O'Brien ads for Natures spelled backwards. That should get these Forums moving.

Every time I try to make up a top 10 list of my favorite actors, there's always a mix of the classic era, golden era, and the more recent years. For my money Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino can hold their own with anyone from the studio era, and on average their movies are far superior in terms of plot and character development. As much as I love the old time films, I've yet to see many performances that can top (for example) Daniel Day-Lewis's Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. Too many of Hollywood's best actors back in the day got too easily typecast into the same constricted roles over and over again, with formulaic sword fights and fist fights that differ from today's pathetic high tech "action" movies only in their cruder technology. The stars had plenty of personality but not too much subtlety, and their films all too often seemed to end in the same way every time. The problem with too many movies of the Breen era is that the censors greatly restricted the range of their scripts. I wish that I had a dollar for every marriage proposal scene before about 1960 that took place in the last two minutes of the movie, because if I could arrange for such a payoff, I'd be a very rich man. Once in a while, it's nice and sentimental, but when you can set your watch to it, it becomes a bit much. OTOH when it comes to actresses, I'll have to agree that the studio era and silent era women win hands down. There was a vivacity to their performances that suggested a sort of sex appeal and personality that even Joe Breen's Victorian code book couldn't squash. Barbara Stanwyck, Roz Russell, Ida Lupino, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks in her two G.W. Pabst films----With the possible exception of Judy Davis, there's no one remotely comparable to them on today's big screen. They were infinitely more interesting and far more appealing.

Actually, I think that Peck's carpenter-created persona is perfect as a a counterpoint to Audrey's glow. What would you have wanted, someone like Rod Steiger chewing the scenery? Maybe not Steiger, but definitely Grant or Rex Harrison, or any actor with charisma greater than a pet rock.

I'd like Roman Holiday if the male lead were someone other than the cigar store Indian. Audrey isn't the problem. The problem is that other than Rex Harrison, none of her co-leads really complement her persona; they're either mostly way too old (Cooper is a casting joke is Love in the Afternoon) or way too wooden.

Speaking of Audrey, I just noticed this kind of comical take by one of her fans, where she agonizes over Miz Hepburn's alleged "20 inch" waist and "103 pounds" packed into a 5'7" frame: How Audrey Hepburn Ruined My Day For comparison, my 5'6" wife wears a size zero dress, but still wears jeans with a 28" waist measurement. Color me skeptical about Audrey's 20 inches. EDIT: Never mind, I've just been corrected. Her jeans size is indeed a 28, but she's got a certified 20 inch waist on her 115-120 lb frame. Thin but hardly anorexic.

"Funny total insanity" comes in different forms and levels. While I love the "total funny insanity" of the Marx brothers, my wife can't stand it. I don't however, like the "total funny insanity" of The Three Stooges. I have friends and relatives who crack up at the mere mention of names like ADAM SANDLER or WILL FERRELL, while I just don't see it. But I NEVER considered Monty Python as "total funny insanity". I thought of them more as "shameless parody anarchists" who didn't consider anything to be a "sacred cow". Sort of what SOUTH PARK is. MARS ATTACKS just struck me as a movie that spent a lot of money in trying too hard. I love the "funny insanity" of The Producers, but cringe at the total lameness of Blazing Saddles. Fawlty Towers is my favorite TV comedy this side of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but Monty Python mostly leaves me cold. There's really no accounting for anyone's taste in humor. But I'm sort of with you on AUDREY HEPBURN. There's movies she's done that I liked and liked her in, but the adoration piled on her mystified me. She was a competent enough actress, but I never could understand the fawning people did over her. I'm just the opposite with Audrey. I can't think of a single movie of hers other than My Fair Lady and Wait Until Dark that I'd ever want to watch again, but if you're as captivated by the gamine look and style as I am, then she'll always be an actress who draws you like a moth to a flame.

Somehow I find an amazing resemblance between Judge Judith Schiendlin and Thelma Ritter. Completely agree. They're a pair of tough broads from Brooklyn with an old fashioned Brooklyn way about them. Love em both.

Now that Bay of Angels is playing in August, I won't need to figure out how to watch the VHS tape. I've rented the DVD from Netflix in the interim, but I'm really looking forward to getting it in the DVD format. I've never had Bravo, and back when I recorded it on tape I also didn't have IFC, which is about the only other network I can imagine might (might) have shown it. Moreau gives great performances in all of her films, but her portrayal of a compulsive gambler in this movie may be her best one ever. She's like a flame to her poor younger male companion's moth, but I can't say I'd have done any differently in his place.

Neither of the two have articles on them on their TCM Database pages. Some posters have said that is a good indication they have not been shown. And yet at some point prior to 2009 I recorded a commercial-free copy of Bay of Angels from my TV onto a VHS, which I can't play back since I junked my VHS player. Can you think of any other non-premium channel where I might have been able to do that? I've never subscribed to any of the premium movie channels, so it couldn't have come from any of them, and I know that PBS never shows films that obscure.

Are The Lovers and Bay of Angels premieres? I've been on the lookout for both of those movies since I began recording systematically in September of 2009, and I can guarantee this will be the premiere of both of those movies since that date. I think that Bay of Angels may have played on TCM before that, however, since somewhere I think I have an old VHS of it, and I can't imagine what other station I could've gotten it from.

And then there are stepmothers.

The movie I'm most looking forward to on Betty Grable's day is I WAKE UP SCREAMING though I'll record some of the seldom seen musicals too. You'll love I Wake Up Screaming---it's impossible not to---but though Grable and Victor Mature are the nominal leads, and Carole Landis also has a brief part as Vicki at the beginning, what you'll remember from that movie five years from now is the "Street Scene" theme music and the unforgettable breakthrough performance of Laird Cregar as the p e r v e r t e d detective Ed Cornell. will give you a hint of the atmosphere. And if you like Cornell here, you'll love Cregar on Alan Ladd's SUTS day, as the fastidious traitor in the first Ladd-Veronica Lake movie, This Gun For Hire. Cregar's early death from a crash diet was truly one of Hollywood's greatest "what might have been" losses, much more than James Dean's and nearly as much as Jean Harlow's. Cregar was born to play roles like this, and he dominates the screen every moment he's on it.

They have amped up the use of European stars this time-- David Niven, Jeanne Moreau and Sophia Loren. True, but other than Moreau's, how many of those films are going to be anything but the usual Hollywood fare? I've yet to see any SUTS month honor more than one genuine "foreign" star with movies made in his or her country. Moreau is the only one this year that fits that description.

Yeah, I could have done without Marlon Brando who was a SUTS honoree just a few years ago, and his films are in heavy rotation year round. Ernest Borgnine is another one that does not really cover any new territory. And Cary Grant, great as he may be, is already overplayed on TCM. I wish that SUTS consisted of nothing but TCM premieres and as few of the Usual Suspects as possible, but much as I don't want to see the Same Old Same Old with Brando/Grant/Loren/Audrey/etc., it's clear that TCM views SUTS month as a way of balancing its appeal to newcomers who haven't seen these movies a hundred times, and rewarding us hard core types who want to see more foreign stars, silent stars, and movies in general that don't get played much in the normal scheduling. And while personally I'll probably skip over about 60% of the days completely, the other 40% will more than make up for it. Just get your recorders ready and assume that you're not going to see the best SUTS movies on TCM again for a long, long time, and strike while the iron is hot.