AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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Even a poorly made movie can be an "essential" if that movie was one that heralded in a trend in movie subject matter, filming technique or screenwriting, etc.
That could apply to sexploitation films. LOL
While I obviously wouldn't put movies like Deep Throat or The Devil In Miss Jones on the level of any of the movies we've mentioned here, it's also true that if you were trying to get a hold of the porno culture of the 70's, those two movies would absolutely be "essential" to an understanding of the subject. That doesn't mean they should be shown on TCM, but within a certain context they're every bit as "essential" as Citizen Kane.
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I think your argument weakens when you go the subjective route and say THE LOST WEEKEND was the best film about alcohol addiction. And I think that trying to say it reached the biggest audience, implying that box office makes it essential, is flawed as well. It could be said that THE LOST WEEKEND, with one airing on TCM every two or three years, is not reaching much of an audience at all these days, so its impact is slight with modern viewers. The generation where it made its largest impact is mostly deceased. Also, how do you know that THE STRUGGLE did not have staying power with those who saw it. I would guess that Billy Wilder probably did see THE STRUGGLE and was influenced by it. Just like Blake Edwards probably was influenced by THE LOST WEEKEND when he made DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. I really want to challenge you to study films on the subject other than those that appear periodically on TCM. That is, if the subject itself is of interest to you. Otherwise, it seems like you are looking at a very narrow survey in terms of your research.
For instance, look at Fredric March in A STAR IS BORN; James Dunn in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (the same year as THE LOST WEEKEND, and we have another male actor earning an Oscar for playing an alcoholic); Susan Hayward in I'LL CRY TOMORROW; and Gena Rowlands in the TV movie, The Betty Ford Story.
Other than My Sin and The Struggle and that much later TV movie, I've seen all the ones you've mentioned, but other than perhaps the Hayward film, I don't see alcoholism as the defining point of those movies, at least not in the way it was in the Milland and Lemmon films.
But don't think for a second that I wouldn't love to see those two earlier movies. I found The Struggle on Netflix and added it to my q u e u e*, and also discovered a Fredric March film called Merrily We Go To Hell, which from the description sounds like another title for My Sin. (It's also from the same year.) After my current selection, those will be the next two Netflix films I see. Thanks for the recommendation.
So though I make no apologies for being subjective in my taste, I also look at any list of "Essentials" as a continuing work in progress. And who knows, perhaps these "new old" movies may soon be added to my revised list.
* Now how on Earth did that word get censored on the first try? Is it because it's F r e n c h in origin?
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It sounds like you are trying to over-emphasize the importance of THE LOST WEEKEND at the expense of Griffith's earlier innovative film. Plus many films during that 17-year period featured main characters eho suffered from alcoholism-- one was Wallace Beery in the MGM story STABLEMATES. There were pre-codes, too, that treated the subject seriously. So yeah, there was no 17 year gap in the depiction of alcoholics on screen.
Let me back up a minute and try to clarify . The Lost Weekend wasn't the first movie to deal with alcoholism, but at least up to that point, it was the best one. It was also the one that reached the biggest audience, in addition to being the one that has had (along with Days of Wine and Roses) the greatest staying power among critics and on TCM. And since one of the main criteria I use to mark a movie as "Essential" is its impact on public awareness of an important subject, that's why I'd choose The Lost Weekend for that designation, and not the films on the same subject that preceded it. I'd also put Days of Wine and Roses in this category.
And of course I fully realize that in the above paragraph, "best" and "important" are subjective terms, but then I'm writing this in the first person, and not trying to pretend I'm speaking for anyone but myself.
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I'd nominate two candidates for "Perfect Ending", one from 1932 and one from 1933.
Rain, where Walter Huston's sanctimonious preacher drowns himself out of shame for his dirty old man hypocrisy. Schadenfreude isn't a noble sentiment, but it was hard not to feel it in this case.
And Red-Headed Woman, perhaps the only film of the pre-code era where the "sinner" not only didn't repent her evil ways, but came out smelling like a rose with a clueless sugar daddy up one sleeve and her chauffeur up the other. If ever there were a case of an actress born to a role, it was Jean Harlow for this one.
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But since those Edison experimental films weren't noted for any "particular skill or depth", I wouldn't consider them "Essential" for anyone other than a student of early film history, which isn't what I mean by "Essential" when I'm thinking about the subject.
How do we know they were not noted for particular skill or depth in newspaper editorials of the time. They do not seem essential to you, or to me, but maybe to audiences and reviewers in those days, they were very essential.
Quite possibly they were, but whatever skill or depth they had was surely in the cinematography only, for which I'd rate them "Essential" for students of early cinema who may be interested purely in technique, but not for a general audience.
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THE LOST WEEKEND hardly covered new ground. See D.W. Griffith's talkie THE STRUGGLE.
Technically that's correct, but since virtually nobody saw The Struggle upon its release to poor reviews, I think that after a lapse of 17 years you'd have to give The Lost Weekend far more credit for re-introducing the subject of alcoholism to the broad public in a dramatic but non-sensationalistic manner.
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The point you're making is a good one, and that's why I suggested replacing "wasn't explored before" with "explored with particular skill and/or depth". There's always going to be subjectivity involved, but I don't think that "Essential" should be equated with popularity, for the reasons I expressed earlier.
But even using the Edison example, none of it was explored before, and he was developing the skills to tell stories with the new medium. In fact, all films are building on previous skills of the filmmakers-- even a cheesy low budget horror film requires that the makers explore the subject matter with some level of depth, or else it will not be coherent to audiences. So I don't think this definition exactly works.
But since those Edison experimental films weren't noted for any "particular skill or depth", I wouldn't consider them "Essential" for anyone other than a student of early film history, which isn't what I mean by "Essential" when I'm thinking about the subject.
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Well you're very good at straddling that fence! One other thing to note is that the play didn't do well and it wasn't really considered to be 'ace' material. So Casablanca could be the best example of mediocre material turned into solid gold by the Warner Brothers studio system. (a point similar to the one made but Arturo) That just might get it over that fence.
One way of clarifying the distinction I'd make between "Inner Circle" Essentials and other Essentials is to think about the post-films discussions they might engender.
In an "Inner Circle" Essential (IMO) like Make Way For Tomorrow, it's hard to imagine that a lot of Depression families wouldn't have seen variations of that superbly presented theme of intergenerational obligations playing out in their own households. And I'd be surprised if this movie didn't make at least some of those families search their consciences and see their obligations in a fresh light. This was a film that clearly transcended the "mere movie" category.
Whereas by contrast, what sort of thought-provoking discussions would have been caused by Casablanca? A renewed since of identification with the European underground, perhaps, and maybe a bit of a tic upward in pro-French sentiment, thanks to the stirring rendition of La Marseillaise. But by the time that Casablanca had been released in early 1943, it's not likely to have stirred too many draft dodgers into suddenly seeing the error of their ways and enlisting in the Army or Marines.
All of which doesn't mean that Casablanca isn't an "Essential" movie for film buffs and Hollywood historians. It's certainly all of that. But I don't see it as existing on any higher level, like Make Way For Tomorrow and other films that succeed in hitting home on topics that we live with every day.
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My definition of an essential movie would be that it was ground breaking either technically or that the plot explored a subject or theme that wasn’t explored before. With this definition the number of essential movies would be small. Movies like Baby Face, The Lost Weekend or Pinky.
Replace "wasn't explored before" with "explored with particular skill and/or depth", and I think you're getting closer to a better definition of "Essential". And I definitely agree that those three films you cited fall into the "Essential" category in a way that Casablanca doesn't, great a movie as it is.
I like your refined definition. I'm also glad you as well as others understood why, based on said definition, a movie like Casablanca is NOT 'essential'. I was waiting to be told 'are you crazy,, Casablanca NOT essential'!
I'll probably now get in your doghouse, but I actually would place Casablanca in the "Essential" category, if not in what I'd call the "Inner Circle" of Essentials, which is what I really meant in that above statement. IMO Casablanca is "Essential" for being a superbly crafted example of the Hollywood wartime genre, featuring iconic performance by one of the best casts ever assembled. But since beyond that it's little more than a wartime good guys vs bad guys film, I wouldn't say it's "essential" to anyone seeking to understand anything more than Hollywood movie history, or the appeal of Bogie and Bergman, etc. If that sounds as if I'm trying to straddle the fence, so be it, but then this isn't always a clear cut subject.
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To me, an "Essential" is a film that has an identifiable place in film history, regardless of the quality of the film.
That would be covered by the third and / or last categories I mentioned, but I can't think of too many "Essential" movies by any definition that wouldn't have at least one distinctive positive quality. I don't think the problem with most "Essentials" lists is that they promote mediocre movies, but rather that they overlook too many that are outstanding.
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I feel SONG OF THE SOUTH can be grouped as an essential based on it's being a fine example of the "clueless" nature of film makers in those times concerning racial representation in movies. So, by that criteria, GWTW also is an essential. And that sort of brings us back to defining what "essential" means in these sort of discussions.
Is it the directing? The story? The writing? The acting? The cinematography? All of these? Or something else?
I think it could be any or all of those things. IMO the "Inner Circle" of Essentials would consist of great stories, well directed and acted, with or without Brand Name actors, that focus on topics of lasting human concern. These topics would include political and / or social issues that have been with us forever and will never go away, plus the eternal human drama among generations and between the sexes. Two examples among many: Kapo and Make Way For Tomorrow.
Below that, but still "Essential", would be the very best "entertainment" movies, chosen for their dynamic cinematic qualities and the presence of charismatic performances. Two examples among many: The Wizard of Oz and Singing In The Rain.
Alongside that, you'd have the great "breakthrough" movies, where the totality of the viewing experience takes the audience where it's never been before, even if the acting is sometimes more than a little crude. Much as it makes me cringe, The Birth of a Nation may be the best example of this category. And on an entirely different scale, there's Shock Corridor.
And then you'd have the many hundreds of "Essentials" that are the cream of a particular genre, like screwballs or pre-codes or musicals or noirs or westerns (etc.) These would be the sort of "entertainment" movies that don't go much beyond that in terms of objectives, but the story and the acting and the directing are so compelling that they'd still be considered "Essential" by nearly all movie buffs. Random picks here would be films like The Lady Eve, The Story of Temple Drake, Guys and Dolls, Nightmare Alley, and The Naked Spur. All of these are great movies, but by non-cinematic standards they're also "just movies", and IMO not quite on the same level as the first category, even if I'd still call them "Essential".
And needless to say, all of the above is just one person's subjective take on the subject.
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My definition of an essential movie would be that it was ground breaking either technically or that the plot explored a subject or theme that wasn’t explored before.
As much as I want to like this definition, I cannot fully accept it. Because using it, we could say that all of the experimental films that Thomas Edison shot in the 1890s would be essential (since he was the first person to explore filmmaking and early concepts in story-telling)...and I don't think all of his efforts are essential.
The point you're making is a good one, and that's why I suggested replacing "wasn't explored before" with "explored with particular skill and/or depth". There's always going to be subjectivity involved, but I don't think that "Essential" should be equated with popularity, for the reasons I expressed earlier.
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Unfortunately The Racket has already begun, since this precursor of the 1951 Robert Ryan remake may be the best of the lot. But there's another great Louis Wolheim performance at 11:30 in Gentleman's Fate. Wolheim's early demise just when the sound era was dawning is one of the great tragic losses in movie history.
The 8:30 film, Paid, may be Joan Crawford's best (or at least rawest) early performance this side of Rain. And where was the ACLU when she needed it? Don't miss this movie if you can help it.
Finally, The Sin of Madelon Claudet (at 1:15) gives us one of Helen Hayes' more memorable roles, a tearjerker to be sure (about a mother separated from her son, who doesn't know who she is), but one played with conviction. It's just about on the level of Gladys George's pefomance in Madame X.
I haven't seen War Nurse (at 10:00), but any film with Robert Montgomery and a backup cast like that has to be worth checking out.
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My definition of an essential movie would be that it was ground breaking either technically or that the plot explored a subject or theme that wasn’t explored before. With this definition the number of essential movies would be small. Movies like Baby Face, The Lost Weekend or Pinky.
Replace "wasn't explored before" with "explored with particular skill and/or depth", and I think you're getting closer to a better definition of "Essential". And I definitely agree that those three films you cited fall into the "Essential" category in a way that Casablanca doesn't, great a movie as it is.
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For example:
If someone wants to watch essential...
Alfred Hitchcock
-Psycho
-North By Northwest
-The Birds
Hitchcock without Vertigo ???!!!! Of course the problem is that with the very top directors like Hitchcock and Kurosawa, and with the top actors and actresses who weren't merely playing the same character over and over, you could pretty much name 50% or more of their films as "Essentials".
Barbara Stanwyck, for example:
--The Miracle Woman
--Night Nurse
--So Big
--Baby Face
--Stella Dallas
--Remember The Night
--The Lady Eve
--Double Indemnity
--The File on Thelma Jordan
--The Violent Men
--These Wilder Years (her most underrated movie, with James Cagney)
--There's Always Tomorrow
--Walk on the Wild Side
Seriously, how could you ever narrow down a list like that? More likely, you'd have to add significantly to it in order to do her career full justice.
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For an alternative show for those who might like to see Christianity in action in real life, as opposed to the Hollywood version, at 9:00 PM EDT on Sunday there's the second part of a terrific four part documentary on the Mexican border that's showing on the Al-Jazeera America network. The title is Borderland, the episodes run an hour each, and it features a politically diverse of six Americans who follow the trail of three different illegal immigrants, from their hometowns in Mexico to their final destination in a morgue in Arizona. The Americans get paired off into three teams of two each, with a pro-immigration person and an anti-immigration counterpart in each group, and so far it's made for an eye-opening viewing experience. Much more depth to it than anything I've yet to see on any other network.
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Citizen Kane is one of those "Essentials" that lies well outside the usual lines, since it's never been popular outside the repertory crowd. Unlike Gone With The Wind or The Godfather, its virtues have never been widely appreciated by any sort of a mass audience.
Of course there have been other films that didn't make much of a splash upon their initial release, like It's A Wonderful Life, but once that movie got revived and re-publicized decades later, it wasn't just the art house crowd that loved it.
All of which is to say that "public opinion" isn't the only way that a film may come to be viewed as "Essential". Personally I think the "Essential" Citizen Kane is more than a bit overrated, but it's also hard for me to say that any film with its level of near-unanimous critical acclaim could ever drop down into a lower category.
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The Yankees and the Rays, followed by the Orioles and the Red Sox. We all have our own particular mythologies to worship.
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Classics are more personal. Essentials are more public opinion.
That's a good distinction, but it's also kind of circular, sort of like "famous for being famous." To be much more than that would require a far more knowledgable viewing base than we have today, which in turn would require infinitely more time to devote to acquiring a real knowledge of "classic era" films than the average person could possibly hope to acquire in his or her relatively limited leisure hours.
I'll take my own case as one example of what I'm talking about. Until I closed my shop and retired from my full time job at the end of 2006, my knowledge of "classic era" films was limited to the sort of "Essentials" that run on PBS, along with distant memories of movies I saw at three local repertory theaters when I was in my 20's, many decades earlier. Back then, my idea of an "Essential" movie would have been severely limitied by the limited range of my exposure.
Fast forward to the last 5 years, when with plenty of time to invest in TCM / FMC and the possession of a good DVD recorder, my exposure to "classic" era films has multiplied tenfold, and has likewise expanded my list of "Essentials" to movies I'd never even heard of before.
I suppose to an extent "the wisdom of crowds", if extended to encompass all the world's critics, might overcome what I'd call this "bias of limited knowledge." But how many of these critics actually are familiar with even the "classic" holdings of the TCM library, let alone the "classic" holdings of foreign films, or the "classic" era films that never even made it out of their original nitrate state, and are now lost to the ages? Should this sort of misfortune of limited exposure really disqualify a film from the "Essential" label? I don't think so, without getting back to negative circular reasoning.
And I won't even get into the biases of people who insist that movies should be "entertainment" and nothing else. ("If you want to send a message, use Western Union.") That's a whole other realm of self-imposed ignorance that eliminates many of the greatest movies that transcend "entertainment" values.
All of this is probably little more than a longwinded way of saying that popularity alone doesn't determine whether a film is "Essential", becase popularity - - - or the lack of it, which is really what's at issue here - - - is often way too determined by factors that have nothing to do with a film's "essential" qualities. And maybe that's why, after digging a bit deeper than the AFI Top 100, I'm a bit skeptical of the whole idea of establishing a list of "Essential" films by consensus. To use a crude analogy, it's a bit like relying on that 1999 internet poll which rated Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan above Stan Musial and Grover Cleveland Alexander as baseball players worthy of inclusion on the "All-Century" roster.
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I don't think there is anything too "hot" or "raunchy" about Song of the South. The fly in the ointment with that film is the Disney Company's complete and adamant refusal to allow the film out of the vault at least here in the States.
Probably that's the case, but I'd bet a fair amount of money that the reason for Disney's position is the inflammatory racial stereotyping. Of all the major studios, Disney has always seemed the most PR-conscious of the lot, and Song Of The South apparently had all of the negative racial aspects associated with Gone With The Wind, but without a powerful dramatic story (not to mention Rhett and Scarlett) to fortify it against future assaults.
But just to repeat myself, I would be strongly in favor of a TCM screening of Song of the South, if for no other reason than to see it for myself. Suppression of art is never a winner in my book.
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Andy,
To avoid confusion-- these films are not on TCM's upcoming Essentials schedule.
Ouch!
But then I guess that two of those titles we mentioned (Pink Flamingoes, Song of the South) are probably too hot (or raunchy) for TCM to handle, albeit for entirely different reasons. Paisan and The Story of Temple Drake have been shown at least several times already, and they would make terrific additions to an "Essentials" list that tried to reach beyond the stale confines of the AFI Top 100.
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I can't stick around today to discuss any of these in depth, but I'm particularly glad to see these four films on the Essentials list:
May 26: PAISAN I might have chosen Germany: Year Zero as an alternative to Open City, since in terms of depicting the effect of World War II on civilians it's hard to top that one. But in terms of accessibility it may be that Paisan is the most "accessible" of the three great Rossellini war triology films, and best suited for the casual TCM viewer.
July 14: PINK FLAMINGOS This was the first of the great underground "Midnight Movies" of the 70's, introducing John Waters and Divine to a generation of film phreaks. I only hope that TCM doesn't cut out the last scene. SPOILER ALERT: The plot revolves around a contest for "filthiest family", and the LOSING family kidnaps teenage girls, takes them to a dungeon-like basement, impregnates them, and then sells the babies on the black market in order to finance a heroin ring that concentrates their sales on schoolchildren. So you can only imagine what the winner must do to top that!
And hey, if a few of the details are a bit off, it's been over 40 years since I've seen it.
August 4: SONG OF THE SOUTH I've never seen this, and I hope that we're getting the original version, because from what I've heard, the racial stereotypes in this film make Butterfly McQueen seem like Abbey Lincoln in Nothing But A Man by comparison. It's a landmark in film history, and it deserves to be shown in unexpurgated format, and fully discussed.
August 25: THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE In the absence of the unlikely discovery of a print of Convention City, this movie has got to be the rawest of all the pre-code films, and as such is about as "essential" as it gets. Not even the obligatory impossible ending can erase everything that went on before. Miriam Hopkins is at her Trouble In Paradise best, only in an entirely different type of role.
There are quite a few other great movies on that list, but in terms of what I'd call "Pleasant Surprises", these four are at the top.
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What we want is a film that can best represent a specific category , that can be used as a first step into that category. What film would be a good introduction to "Clark Gable the actor" for a young viewer? What film would be a good representation of a "30's Screwball Comedy" or a "40's Film Noir" ? How do you introduce Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford to a new viewer in a way that would encourage them to seek out other films done by those men? Think of an "Essential" only as way of encouraging the viewer to go further down that path and view other films of a similar type.
That's a very good way of putting it, though in practice it often equates to "A movie is 'Essential' because it's already well-known." And yet "well-known" is in turn often dependent on how wide a distribution the movie received when it first came out, and the state of its availability since then. As a result, a list of "Essentials" becomes "essentially" a perpetual motion machine.
Throw in the widespread mainstream resistance to foreign films, and the concept of "Essential" often becomes little more than an internet popularity contest. Every regular contributor here can probably think of a hundred movies that would be "essential" for any viewer with an open mind, and yet would never make the TCM cut, for the reasons cited above. It's not necessarily a problem that TCM is equipped to tackle head-on, but it is a problem nevertheless.
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pretty sure he didnt blow it on nose candy. (eyecandy seemed more his thing but... ).
his problem seems to have been a more common one: relatives.That makes me think of my all-time favorite comedy, Bombshell, which featured Jean Harlow in the "Rooney" role and Frank Morgan and Ted Healy as the ubermooching father and brother. Rooney was too young to have played a major part in that classic 1933 film, but maybe he should have produced and starred in a remake.
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"The star of the Andy Hardy films and Hollywood's highest-paid actor in the
late 1930s and early 1940s, Rooney was a product of the industry's old studio
system and was not entitled to hefty royalty payments, Augustine said."If the highest paid star in Hollywood for several years couldn't have figured out a way to keep some of his money, I'm not crying any tears for him. I'm failing to see much difference between Rooney and an overpaid ballplayer who blows his money on stupid investments and nose candy. The world is full of celebrities without an ounce of common sense, and Rooney just happened to be one of them.
OTOH he did what he wanted to for most of his long life, and as the old cliche goes, "You can't take it with you." He may not have been the brightest penny in the roll, but cue up Francis Albert, he did it "His Way", and on some level you've gotta respect that.
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Good point, but it appears the amount of royalities Rooney received wasn't even enough to support his life style.
If Mickey Rooney couldn't live on all the millions of dollars of royalties he must have received during his lifetime, I'd suggest he might have just considered finding a better "life style."
Classic yes but is it essential?
in General Discussions
Posted
Well The Devil and Miss Jones is a well made movie very funny but like many 30's movies one that explores the relationship between management and workers. Jean Arthur is great in this movie. Oh, wait, you said Devil IN Miss Jones! Never mind.
That's funny, because when I first saw listings in my local TV section for The Devil and Miss Jones, I was really starting to wonder how that "porno movie" had ever slipped by the FCC censors. And in hindsight, I'd bet a fat w a d* of Franklins that the porno producers were paying a tongue in cheek tribute to Studio Era Hollywood when they gave their movie that nearly identical title.
*Again, I see that the robonanny has strange ideas of scatology.