AndyM108

Many come here, only to find out that this isn't the Yahoo! message boards, where one can say any dumb, unsubstantiated thing like "the earth is flat!" or that the moon doesn't exist (*) and hardly be challenged! I mean to say this generally, and not to single out any one person. . . . (*) Somebody actually said that on Yahoo!, and was hardly challenged! We had an open forum to begin our 10th grade history classes, and for an entire month one student got up in front of the class each day, armed with photos and Magic Markers, and tried to prove that the Russians' photographs of the dark side of the moon were faked. That was 55 years ago, and to this day he can't explain what had gotten into him.

Fred, in the old days gallons were a lot bigger than they are today. And back then the Atlantic Ocean was really something.

... what movies do you find so dated that their appeal and fame is utterly incomprehensible to you? John Wayne's The Green Berets would be my Red States entry in that contest, and Last Tango In Paris would be the Butter Belt challenger.

So Toronto is a cultural mecca, while Philly is a mecca for thugs and cretins? Maybe. I'm talking about the general *perception* of the Philly of Rizzo's era, which had pretty much been shaped by Rizzo himself, both as a police commissioner and as a mayor. I wasn't talking about Ben Franklin's Philadelphia, or of the Philadelphia of today. *Those* Philadelphias are best described as Cities of Brotherly Love. (pun not intended, Mr. Hanks)

How about Philly's Frank Rizzo? I'll match him against anyone......Remember, "I'll make Attilla the Hun look like a ****"........He used to show up at formal events with a nightstick in his cumberbund. (he was a former cop). My favorite Rizzo quote was when he volunteered to take a lie detector test, and said *"The lie detector lied"* after he failed it! But the point about Ford isn't just that he's a porno addicted, drug addicted, racist clown, it's that he's from *Toronto,* not some city like 1970's Philadelphia (PA) or 1960's Philadelphia (MS), or even some separatist stronghold in Quebec, where you might almost figure it came with the territory. And anyway, while Rizzo was certainly a racist supreme, there's no evidence that he was a connoisseur of either drugs or porn.

Americans seem to be more interested in Ford than Canadians... Well, it's not as if Americans haven't elected their share of porno seekers / drug addicts / angry racists, but Ford wasn't elected by write-in votes from Michigan. The American stereotype of Canadians is that they're above all calm and rational and don't elect flamers to their highest office. And about the only thing that really upsets them is when we down here use "Americans" interchangeably with "U.S. citizens". And when the mayor of *Toronto,* of all places, performs the hat trick of being a porn lover, a drug addict, *and* a flaming racist all in one fell swoop, as well as having one of those Christielike tum-tums for comic effect, then you really can't blame us "Americans" for being attracted to the spectacle like moths to the flame. If he'd been a Frenchman or a German, we might have shrugged our shoulders and say "What do you expect?", but coming from a city we think of as an outpost of civility and sanity, he might as well be a Martian.

I think that this is what some people seem to expect when they start offering their opinions around here.

*Homer:* That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college! (stalks out of the room in a snit) *Bart Simpson:* I don't think any of us expected him to say that.

Your dentist? Eat enough of these things and you'll be your dentist's most lucrative patient. Well, you remember what P. T. Whatley once said: "There's a cavity born every minute."

It's "Jujubes", pronounced JOO-JOO-bees, and my dentist always has a big bowl of them on his reception desk. Says they're worth at least one French Riviera vacation a year. He used to offer Bit-O-Honey, but they only got him to the Bahamas.

I prefer the March version to Tracy's, but has anyone seen the 1920 silent version with John Barrymore? I recorded it about three years ago but haven't yet gotten around to watching it.

I'd totally disagree with that. I'd much rather have the unedited version of a movie to record at 4:00 AM than some blurred version shown in prime time. I hadn't realized that's why Chinatown always shows after midnight, but if that's TCM's reason than I've got no complaint. I watch 90% of my TCM movies from recordings anyway, and have no particular need to see them "live".

Last Saturday I just replaced my 9 year old computer that had XP with a new Dell XPS 8700 desktop with Windows 7, and it's like night and day. The page loading is instantaneous instead of perpetually sluggish, the streaming is much smoother with no freezeups, and my wife was able to install the whole system in less than an hour, with only one phone call required to Dell tech support. Oh, and *EVERYONE* I talked to recommended getting Windows 7 rather than Windows 8. I'm glad I listened to them.

The Now Playing magazine for March shows that the March preview segment will air in the very first time slot after the conclusion of "31 Days" , and will be repeated again a week later.

Sergeant York has shown in prime time many times over the years, and is guaranteed to be shown again in prime time in the future. Just stick around if you don't believe me. I wish I could say the same thing about many of the silent and foreign classics that often show after midnight on Sunday and then are never seen again for years.

Not really, because the suspense in The Slender Thread derived from the fact that her call COULD be traced, but it needed the suicide Hot line office, the huge telephone company building with countless thousands of connecting plugs and wires that had to be narrowed down, plus the police and fire departments and the State Department of Motor Vehicles, in order to locate the caller's number and where she was calling from. It was like a giant public works department that gave employment to pretty much every proactive player we see in the movie. Using a prepaid cell phone that was hard to trace (though not impossible) would keep the suspense, but everything else about the film would have to be changed dramatically.

*SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT* I just saw the Sidney Poitier / Anne Bancroft movie The Slender Thread for the first time today. Too bad it wasn't shown in prime time, because it was a terrific suspense movie that had the added benefit of showing Poitier in a totally race-neutral role. (Although his race may have played into his demurral when he was asked if he wanted to meet Bancroft once she'd recovered.) What also made this a movie to savor was that it was one that would be hopelessly anachronistic today. Just think: The entire plot of this 99 minute film centers around a coordinated effort by scores of public servants in Seattle to trace the phone number of a woman (Bancroft) who's called to a suicide hot line to tell a volunteer (Poitier) that she's swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. Of course it would take about 10 seconds for the line to be traced today, which would kind of do away with the suspense! In addition to Poitier and Bancroft, Steven Hill gives a chilling and highly credible performance as the unforgiving husband who's driven Bancroft to her suicide attempt. He's such a creepy character that he makes us almost want to force him to swallow those pills instead, and that's a sign that he plays the part to perfection.

Richard Widmark would be 100 years old this year (Dec 26th) . He must get a top priority. I couldn't agree more, and TCM couldn't make a better selection. Widmark often gets typecast as a street thug because of his captivating Tommy Udo role in Kiss of Death, but he had dramatic roles of almost every type, and excelled in all of them. The fact that he was also one of Hollywood's best people in real life probably shouldn't enter into consideration, but then again maybe it should.

Should it be according to who has not had a turn yet? That should be a big factor. Or is it okay if the star was honored at least once before in the history of TCM? Yes, but only after at least an 8 or 10 year lapse What about character actors and actresses? Definitely yes for SUTS, but for SOTM I'd use character actors only as a group, with perhaps one month a year devoted to 4 or 5 different actors, with the 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM time slots set aside once a week to give them some room to stretch out. Should a star who would have celebrated their 100th birthday be given priority consideration? Only if he or she hadn't been SOTM for at least 5 years previous to that 100th birthday. But for those stars who've been neglected, that anniversary should jump them to the top of the queue.

Hey, since there aren't any notable TCM premieres scheduled for May 10th, why not? But let's do the same for George Sanders and Susan Hayward when their birthdays come around. Deal?

My best friend Back In The Day was a Brit who came over here with his family when he was only three years old, and some of their conversations were like Abbott and Costello. My favorite exchange was like a perpetual motion machine. *Father* (after watching a knockout in a boxing match): *Blimey, Nigel, he didn't 'alf give it to 'im, did he?* *Son: What, Pop, he didn't give him half of it?* *Father: No, no! - - - 'E didn't 'alf give it to 'im!*

Who's that woman on the left? Is that Mrs. Bobby Valentine?

Yeah, that photo of Stanwyck in Thelma Jordon cracked me up, too, and yes, of course I also immediately thought of Double Indemnity. And what was really funny is that Stanwyck tried to deny that that was her in the photo! *"That's not me, that's my twin sister Phyllis Dietrichson!"*

Andy, our posts came in a minute apart and I see we both have the same take about Corey's Cleve character when watching Thelma Jordon, did you also think of Remember the Night and how MacMurray tried to botch the case against Stanwyck in court, just as Cleve does? I did, but I thought of Double Indemnity even more, since in both that film and Thelma Jordon, Stanwyck appeared much older than MacMurray (because of her blonde wig) and Corey (because of the 7 year age gap). Whereas in Remember The Night Stanwyck was still in the period of The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire, where she played entirely credible younger characters, with her male co-leads* almost exactly the same age. *Andrews, not Cooper in the case of Ball of Fire

Easy memory trick: Michael *JORDAN* Thelma *JORDON*