AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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.
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Are The Lovers and Bay of Angels premieres?
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.
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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.
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And then there are stepmothers.
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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.
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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.
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As always we have some of the usual subjects with several new members added to the SUTS club. I always welcome first timers and also seeing some of the more obscure films of any of the stars.
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.
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Outstanding, and thanks. I'll check back after watching Right Cross from the overnight DVD.
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Top Billed, do you have any knowledge of when they'll release the full August schedule?
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This may be the best SUTS month ever, equal to the one that had Gabin and Chaney.
8.08 JEANNE MOREAU - The TCM highlight of the year. Hope we're getting The Lovers and Bay of Angels, and maybe even a return of The Bride Wore Black and Elevator to the Gallows.
8.09 WILLIAM POWELL - A few silents and pre-codes, please, and easy on The Thin Man. They're great but everyone's seen them a hundred times.
8.17 JOHN HODIAK - How did he slip in there? But I'm glad he did.
8.20 THELMA RITTER - Everyone's favorite character actress, long overdue for a tribute.
8.21 LEE TRACY - Never made a dull movie in his life. Get the Mexican Ambassador to introduce the prime time selections.
8.24 GLADYS GEORGE - Another great character actress, who died way too young.
8.25 DICK POWELL - Can the juveniles and give us nothing but noirs and it'll be second only to Moreau day.
8.26 SOPHIA LOREN - Hope they make it topheavy with her earlier Italian movies and not her Hollywood blockbusters.
8.27 EDMOND O’BRIEN - The ultimate lunchpail actor, never gave a bad performance.
There are also plenty of other great selections like Stanwyck and Lombard, but it's hard to see where they'll get any premieres with those two.
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The reason I would like to use the theme of a director's work in their homeland and then in Hollywood is because I think it would be interesting to watch but I am incapable of finding such movies on my own. I take example from Mark Twain's fence-whitewashing technique to try to find ways to lure others into doing work which I can not or do not wish to do.
Dammit, that's my move! Find your own way of avoiding work!
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I don't think the point about Bowie is that he was a "second-stringer', since obviously he's a major talent. It's that nobody in the entire community that originated and popularized the genre commonly known as "soul music" would have considered David Bowie to be a "soul" singer in a million years. The Righteous Brothers, sure, and a few other crossover singers like Stories who got plenty of airtime on the R&B stations; but David Bowie? Don't be ridic.
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Your raising the issue of expatriates brings to my mind an idea for a future Challenge: a night wherein is shown a movie a director made in their homeland and then a movie with the same plot which they made after living in Hollywood for many years. I believe the differences between the two would be very interesting. It would be interesting also to see what basic values did not change.
That sounds like another interesting theme, and maybe you or someone with much more knowledge of directors than I have could post a list of prominent directors who'd established solid bodies of work in their own countries before taking their talents to South Beach----Oops, I mean Hollywood.
Fritz Lang and Hitchcock would be two I'd lead off with, but I'm sure that there were many others who'd be worth exploring.
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This was from the previous thread:
My intention is that the movies should be of that country. I do not wish to see movies such as: Quo Vadis (1951) and Roman Holiday (1953) presented as Italian movies. They are very good movies but they are in my opinion Hollywood movies even although they were filmed in Italy and Italian companies and Italian people participated in their production.
Got it, and I'm glad that's what you meant. Any other interpretation would have defeated the whole purpose and spirit of the suggestion.
EDIT: I see you reinforced this point below, which I hadn't yet read when I wrote the above.
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The mid '70s were the high point of soul, and Bowie was right there.
That sure would be news to quite a few folks in Detroit, Memphis, DC and Philadelphia, just to name a few places where the soul DJ's and their listeners barely even heard of David Bowie, let alone ever played his music.
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These movies must be feature-length movies from any one country except: U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, Japan, France or Sweden. The movies must also not have been made by directors whose main body of work was in any of those countries.
Love your template, Sans Fin, but just to be 100% certain I understand you, you're saying that (for instance) a Hungarian director must not have produced his main body of work in Hollywood, Canada, Mexico, GB, Japan, France or Sweden.
IOW you're not looking for expats, but directors whose main body of work is in their own country. Is this correct? I hope so, because you didn't exclude the country (Germany) whose silent films of the 20's may encompass the greatest bloc of 5-star films of any one decade in any one country, the U.S. included. The only question is how many of these largely unscreened gems still exist.
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I'd love to see a month devoted to classic French, Japanese or Italian films. It'd be a nice change of pace from Hollywood themes that get showcased to the max already. You'd also be more likely to see more premieres than usual, or at least we'd get to see some films in prime time that previously had been exclusively relegated to the overnight ghetto.
Maybe you could devote one night each to a particular actor, perhaps choosing one from each decade from the 30's through the 60's, with either the 20's or the 70's being a bonus if the tribute was over five weeks instead of four. Or alternately, you could feature a representative sampling of films from each of those decades in successive weeks, with a variety of leading actors.
But whatever the theme, the main point is to get as many premieres as possible, and as few of the same old films that show up half a dozen times a year.
And P.S.: Gigi is not a French film.
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I went through the riots in Washington, D.C. at the time. It's interesting.. the London and French riots produced songs, but none I can recall here in the States -
The closest I can think of was that the Washington riots were the background to a fairly long segment of Talk to Me, a largely embellished biopic of the late DC talk show host and stand-up comedian Petey Greene. The film took so many liberties with the facts that the details are scarcely worth mentioning.
One of the saddest things I've ever witnessed was that about 15 minutes after the news came in that Dr. King had been shot, I was in an otherwise all black pool room in the 1400 block of Irving St. in DC. I'd just dropped a friend off and heard the news on my car radio on my way back to the pool room.
There I found half the players in tears, while the other half were laughing at the ones who were crying, apparently for being sentimentalists or something. I had to drag one of my better friends out of there before he started attacking the mockers, and then an hour later I had to drag him out of a mixed race bar on Mt. Pleasant St. when some stewed old white guy started proclaiming that King had gotten what he deserved. It was a very sad and very strange evening.
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I'm waiting for TCM to show those 1970's Pat O'Brien ads for Natures spelled backwards. That should get these Forums moving.