AndyM108

Most classic movie fans seem to adulate Gloria Grahame, who had sex with her 13-year-old stepson. Today she would be considered a pedophile and would need to register as a sex offender. But back then she eventually got around to marrying him - - - two divorces later, but whatever - - - and they stayed married for 14 years and produced three children.

Great tout, Tom. Here's a YouTube clip on that vodka ad: "I suffered from severe childhood trauma. I was breastfed with falsies."

Great screen couples come and go, but there'll never be another one like this:

Thanks for the post Jake. Many Motown records, as records of most popular groups pre~Beatles, have been dismissed as a couple of hits and the rest filler. But if you are into the Motown sound, many of these records are quite good. The "filler" often consisted of songs that may have contenders for singles, but outvoted in the company's infamous "Quality Control" weekly meetings. So often the material is very good. You couldn't be more right about that. I bought nearly every Motown/Tamla/Gordy/Soul 45 from the early 60's through the mid-60's, and spent almost as much time on B-side songs like "I'm In Love Again" (The Supremes), "Goddess of Love" (The Marvelettes), "Hot Cha" (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars), "I Truly, Truly Believe" (The Tempts), and "Who's Lovin' You? (The Miracles) as I did playing the A-sides. If anyone wants to savor what may be the best Motown album (actually Tamla) ever produced, they should get a hold of this double LP from 1965:

I think he got this reputation as "pretentious" because his characters often like jazz or classical music and read philosophy. It's the American knee-jerk reaction of distrust to anything intellectual. It must therefore be labelled "pretentious". I think it's more akin to the sort of reaction that Bob Dylan got from some of his former fans when he switched from folk to electronic rock music. When Allen switched from comedy to more serious stuff a lot of people felt that same sense of "betrayal", and the "pretentious" tag was a handy epithet to throw at him. Lots of film lovers are much more comfortable with characters and directors who find one genre, preferably in the realm of "comfort food" films, and stick to it forever. But if the explanation for "pretentious" lies in the jazz soundtracks of some of his movies, that's rather ironic, considering that much of that music was wildly popular within the living memories of many of the filmgoers of the 70's and 80's. If you really want "pretentious", nothing but NOTHING can hold a candle to the soundtrack in The Graduate.

And when the storyline comes close to some of the real life.allegations, whether true or not, the creepiness someone else mentioned comes to the fore. Except that Farrow's allegations concern child molesting, not a midlife crisis. There *is* a difference between the two. One is criminally psychopathic. The other is often celebrated in "classic" Hollywood movies of the Breen era. Many or most of the male stars of the 50's were at one point depicted as cradle robbers in critically acclaimed films. Audrey Hepburn scarcely ever had a cinematic relationship with a man who wasn't old enough to be her father and then some. Allen's movies often deal with the awkward relationship between his character and college age women, but what does that have to do with child molesting? Some of those movie relationships of his seem kind of pathetic, but truth be told, they're not *that* much more pathetic than Gary Cooper's role in Love In The Afternoon. This isn't exactly Roman Polanski we're talking about, and the relationship Allen began with a 19 or 20 year old girl in 1991 is still going strong when the "girl" is in her 40's.

As for the criticism that all his movies are the same (which in fact I believe someone else made), first, it's not really true. By that I meant Allen's earlier comedies up through Love and Death. I haven't seen enough of his post- Manhattan films to make any gross generalization.

*but I've seen too many cases of "recovered memories" and vengeful spouses (mostly men, I might add)* Nice save. Well, I added it because while false "recovered memories"* seem to be mostly in the realm of women, "vengeful spouses" (or vengeful lovers) are every bit as likely to be men. And just because I'm skeptical about what Farrow says about Allen doesn't mean I think that all such incidents are invented. *Not that all of them are phony.

In terms of Allen's films alone, Husbands and Wives is easily my favorite, and Annie Hall still holds up pretty well (thanks to Diane Keaton), as does Broadway Danny Rose and to an extent Radio Days and Manhattan Murder Mystery. But sometime around Manhattan, I began to get the feeling about his comedies that once you've seen one, you've seen them all. I don't know about "pretentious", but there's a sameness to too many of his films for me ever to consider his overall repertory for anything beyond the mythical "Hall of Very Good". That may be unfair, since I haven't seen most of his more recent films, but at this point those movies are near the back of a very long line of movies to get to.

The problem I had with The Ethicist's response wasn't that his generic point about boycotting films wasn't reasonable and balanced. The point is that by limiting his naming to Woody Allen, he wasn't acknowledging the parallel question of whether Mia Farrow's movies should be shunned, if she was simply making up those charges. After reading Mia's accusation, Allen's defense, and the conflicting thoughts on the matter by Allen's children, I think that it's much more likely that Farrow was motivated by hurt and rage at Allen's liason with their 20-year old adopted daughter, and as a result began making all kinds of unwarranted inferences about his relationship with Dylan. Personally I don't take an actor or actress's character into account when deciding to attend his or her films. And though I believe Allen's story to be far more credible than Mia's, that doesn't mean I'd want to boycott her movies. In fact it's rather ironic that the one Woody Allen movie I still would want to see again is Husbands and Wives - - - the last one he made with Mia Farrow. Farrow's done a lot of good things in her life, and I don't think of her in general as a bad person, but I've seen too many cases of "recovered memories" and vengeful spouses (mostly men, I might add) not to take her accusations against Allen with a mountain of salt.

I read The Ethicist every week, and what he didn't really address is the strong possibility that there might be a better case for boycotting Mia Farrow's films. Here's Woody Allen's defense, in his own words: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html I'm not making this point as a lover of Woody Allen's films (I'm not a particular fan of his), but only as someone who doesn't believe in railroading an innocent person on the basis of questionable assumptions, questionable testimony, and questionable scenarios, simply because that person seems vaguely "creepy". Anyone who says we should boycott Woody Allen's movies owes it to themselves to read and digest his summary of the charges against him, and not just hand wave them away.

*YES!!!!!*

TCM posted the following excerpt from the film to their Twitter and YouTube accounts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ugqr1Q6oA This leads me to believe that they will indeed be airing the original 1925 version later this evening.

You don't look like no South American to me!

THAT makes me think of the old BO DIDDLY song Which in turn makes ME think of Bo Diddly's famous "ugly stick" in this classic song that I'd sing to my mother in my lesser moments....

I'm going for the Peeping Tom baby that went around snooping down the hotel hallways in 42nd Street.

(I'm sure I'll have to watch it again now just 'cause it's so bad) Funny how that "so bad it's good" principle can work on your subconscious. For the past five nights I've had to fight off a similar urge to watch My Dinner With Andre, though fortunately for my sanity I've so far succeeded.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how have you been enjoying this thread?

One of the neatest things about the old (and now revived) Howard Theater in DC was the way that the singers would often come out in white suits or dresses, and as they went from one song to the next, the spotlights would shine on them in different colors, changing the apparent colors of their clothing to green or orange or whatever. Since this was at a time when a large segment of inner city fashion was dominated by bright and solid neon colors, the practice worked on more than one level. This may have been a common practice in other music genres, but since my taste in music back then was almost exclusively R&B, it wouldn't have come to my attention. But it wouldn't have worked as well if the performers hadn't been dressed in solid white.

Very sad story about Flo Ballard, and also about Mary Wells, though at least in Wells's case she did have a few good minor hits on 20th Century Fox and Atco - - - "Ain't It The Truth" and "Dear Lover" IMO were *almost* (if not quite) as good as some of her best Motowns. And died at 49 of too many cigarettes. What a heartbreak for those of us who remembered her at her peak. I didn't realize that Cindy Birdsong was with Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, another of the great screaming groups. "I'm Still Waiting" is one of my all-time favorites in that genre.

This doesn't even touch on the inner group tensions when Diana was selected over Florence as the lead singer. Didn't Florence Ballard eventually get the boot over these tensions, to be replaced by (?) Cindy Birdsong? And didn't she (Florence) pretty much die both young and broke?

Melvin Franklin had the lead in "I Truly Truly Believe", which was the flip side of the Tempts' classic Number One hit, "I Wish It Would Rain". Kind of ironic I didn't know that, since I liked the B-side on that single much better than the hit side. Another non-Ruffin Tempts lead that I loved was "Please Return Your Love to Me", with Eddie Kendricks doing the upfront honors. Did he lead on many (or any) others? My Temptations memories aren't all that strong compared to some of the other groups.

Old Fred watching TCM: Don't forget to dress appropriately for the occasion: the[/i]dream.jpg]

I'll cede the r&b crown to Arturo. Maybe all I'm left with is the title of "King of Disco"......Answer my Melvin Franklin question.. No idea about that Temps question, and I've got only about half a dozen disco 45's in my 1000+ R&B / soul collection. At that point in time (to use a catchphrase from that era), I'd turned backwards and was mostly into Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the other vocalists from the swing and bebop eras. And even further back, to the great soundtrack theme song from They Shoot Horses, Don't They, as sung by the great Lee Wiley: Of course my wife grew up with disco, so much so that when I met her one of my names for her was "Disco Duck". She's worn out my Anita ward and Chic records to the point where I cry for mercy.

Well I prefer that when someone has a negative attitude towards an actor, actress, director, etc... they don't "just leave it at that", but instead take the time to explain why. (even in a thread devoted to said person). This forum will get very boring if people feel that only cheerleading is cool. To me being harsh and negative is just as "cool" when one can back up their POV. I've only seen a few of Skelton's movies, but a few was more than enough. The last one, only two weeks ago, was "Whistling In Brooklyn", which seems fairly representative of his style of comedy. And while I'm sure he was popular and all that, IMO that whole style of comedy (Skelton and Hope) wears thin after the first few scenes. It's tough to walk a line between a romantic aspirant and complete buffoon, but I don't think he pulls it off all that well. And beyond that, there's just too much of the "ten impossible things to believe before breakfast" schtick, most notably with Skelton doing his Max Patkin imitation before a curiously credulous crowd at Ebbets Field. Personally I'll take Grant / Hepburn or Belushi / Ackroyd or Jean Harlow or Fernandel any day. But that said, it's all just a matter of taste, especially in comedy, and I'm certainly not recommending that TCM hold back on any birthday tribute or even another SUTS day somewhere in the future.