AndyM108

I haven't seen THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK. A few of you have mentioned that one. That was Al Pacino's first starring role, and both he and his co-lead Kitty Winn were fully Oscar-worthy in their performances. And while this may or may not serve as a recommendation to everyone, a late friend of mine who was a part of that New York scene in the 70's told me on many occasions that *The Panic In Needle Park* was far and away the most realistic movie about "the life" that he'd ever seen, at least from the perspective of a former addict. He rated it above *The Man With The Golden Arm,* which to him was about the highest praise he could give a movie about the drug life - - - and he'd seen every movie about that subject that he could.

Special effects can enhance an otherwise well-told and well-acted tale, but if the story isn't there to begin with, it's like spraying deodorant on a man who hasn't bathed for a year. When I read a review that dwells on a movie's special effects, I know that it's a movie to avoid.

Parody? Are you referring to, "Do Your B**ls Hang Low"? I still remember the complete lyrics to that one. Let's just say it was a closely related variant to that one, only it began with "Does".

*Part* of the late Lawrence Tierney??? Sure, the part that when matched with John Dillinger's made two of a kind in a poker game depicted by Jack Davis in Tales From The Crypt. Long before part of Tierney joined him, Dillinger's entry was so well known that it inspired a parody of the old soldiers' song *"Do Your Ears Hang Low?"* that Washington schoolchildren used to march to during the years of the Korean War. And God knows how many of them made a pilgrimage up 16th Street to that medical museum, only to be told that it was closed to children.

A recent urban legend I've heard is that part of the late Lawrence Tierney is on display at the Walter Reed medical museum here in Washington. Supposedly this was one of the reasons that Tierney was cast in the title role of the 1945 biopic of John Dillinger, whose own body part is on permanent exhibit at the same museum.

I didn't notice that last night, but I've just about given up on relying on the Now Playing guide for anything much more than "Probable Listings". I've always thought that TCM should send out e-mail notices whenever there's *any* change in the program guide, either to Now Playing or to the online listings.

2. What about Cary Grant & Rock Hudson in a movie? I suppose it would have been a romantic comedy, though both actors were capable of straight dramatic fare. Stop, you're killing me with those straight lines!

1. What kind of film would Marilyn Monroe & Frank Sinatra have made? They almost appeared together in GUYS AND DOLLS. I don't know what title I'd give such a movie, but you'd better believe I'd stage it in the White House bedroom.

I don't have anything against "31 Days", since I realize it's a good marketing tool for TCM to bring in new viewers. And since in the first exposure I had to it in 2010, there were scores of films I hadn't seen before, it'd be hypocritical of me to object now that it seems like mostly repeats. But as for the Oscar ceremony, IMO it's like everything related to the Super Bowl except the game itself. On Super Bowl Sunday, I watch the game but mute everything else, from the pregame blather to the butchered Star-Spangled Banner to the commercials to the moronic halftime shows. Similarly, when it comes to movies, I love the films themselves (at least many of them), but not the surrounding celebrity-driven hoopla that defines Oscar night, which is what Haskell is objecting to.

Does this make the film a real classic? Maybe more of a real classic, with such a strong performance? Yet we have to ask ourselves whether or not the performance is complementary to the rest of the film as a whole, or does it seem like hogging the spotlight and throw everything off balance? Another way of putting this might be, *"Does the performance tell us something we may not have known about the character, or does it mostly tell us something we already knew about the actor?"*

Thanks for sharing, "notwanted", and welcome to the Forums. All this essay does is to make me wish that we could see more of Molly Haskell on TCM (though not in February!), since she tells it like it is and she's right on nearly every count. My only disappointment is that apparently she'll break down and watch the damn thing anyway.

I've always wanted to see North Dallas Forty, but now you've got me gunshy about Blow-Up, which I've recorded but haven't yet gotten around to watching. As for The Conversation, I think my Wet Noodle award pretty much summarizes my opinion of it. IMO it's little more than a well acted generic drama movie, not nearly worthy of the praise handed out to it.* It had a certain noirish feel, in that there was much ambiguity and no admirable characters, but for whatever reason it just never grabbed me. *I can't help but think that much of the praise for The Conversation was due to the fact that it was released right before Watergate reached its climax, at a time when concern about eavesdropping was at a then all-time high. There have been very few movies whose underlying sensibility so conveniently jibed with that of its most likely critics.

I've seen so few movies from the 70's that I remember with any great fondness that I'm going to just list them all at once. *1970* 1. King: From Montgomery to Memphis (the best documentary on the civil rights movement I've yet to see, including Eyes on the Prize) 2. The Sicilian Clan 3. I Never Sang For My Father 4. Bed and Board Watched but didn't like: Five Easy Pieces (Karen Black should have bopped Nicholson upside his head with that ketchup bottle) *1971* 1. The Panic in Needle Park (You can see Pacino's greatness in his first feature film) 2. The Last Picture Show 3. The Anderson Tapes 4. Shaft 5. Klute *1972* 1. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds 2. Deliverance 3. The Godfather 4. Payday 5. Two Men in Town 6. Across 110th Street (Hey, that's where I was born) 8. Cabaret 9. Un Flic 10. Cries and Whispers Best of the rest: Lady Sings the Blues Worst movie of the decade: Last Tango in Paris *1973* 1. Mean Streets 2. Serpico 3. The Friends of Eddie Coyle 4. The Sting (a bit generic, but still very well done) 5. Badlands 6. The Outfit 7. Scenes From a Marriage 8. The Paper Chase *1974* 1. Godfather II 2. The Appreticeship of Duddy Kravitz 3. Chinatown 4. Death Wish 5. The Taking of Pelham 123 6. Thieves Like Us Wet noodle award*: The Conversation *1975* 1. Hard Times 2. Dog Day Afternoon 3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 4. The Stepford Wives 5. Rollerball *1976* 1. Taxi Driver 2. Rocky 3. All The President's Men 4. Network 5. Obsession Wet noodle award: Hollywood on Trial (documentary) Have to see: Harlan County, USA *1977* 1. Animal House 2. Short Eyes 3. Annie Hall Have to see: Killer of Sheep Please, no: A Star Is Born (The 4th time was the curse) *1978* 1. The Cheap Detective 2. Massacre Mafia Style (another one Ed Wood should've directed) 3. Days of Heaven 4. The Deer Hunter 5. Death on the Nile *1979* 1. Angi Vera (greatest movie ever) 2. Breaking Away 3. Raging Bull 4. The Tin Drum Wet noodle award: My Brilliant Career; Wise Blood Have to see: The Europeans *Best of the 1970's Decade* (not counting documentaries) 1. Angi Vera** 2. Mean Streets 3. Godfather II 4. Hard Times 5. Raging Bull 6. Animal House 7. The Panic in Needle Park 8. Taxi Driver 9. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds 10. Serpico (Hmm, it's not hard to tell who my two favorite actors of the 70's are, is it? ) * Wet noodle award: Not that bad but highly overrated **One of these years TCM might get this greatest of all movies, but in the meantime I'll pay anyone $100 for a U.S.compatible subtitled DVD

What kind of film would Richard Widmark & Jack Nicholson have made? That's easy: *GATS AT THE GARDEN:* Featuring a courtside duel to the death between two hotheaded rival fans, set during the 7th game of a Knicks - Lakers NBA Finals. Of course Spike Lee would be the director. That goes without saying.

Lucille Ball and Jerry Lewis... Hasn't Jerry Lewis gone on record saying that he doesn't like female comediennes? I think he said something to the effect that female comediennes aren't funny. If Jerry Lewis actually said that, it would be the first and last genuinely funny line that narcissistic moron ever spoke in his entire career.

To try to answer point 1 ( the way I interpret this) , I believe the public has to relate to the film at the time it was made. So the film's popularity at the time it was made would be the way to measure that. But how do you judge a film that "bombed" when it was first shown and yet over time it has built up a popular following? Laughton's Night Of The Hunter comes to my mind for example. And of course there is the opposite side of the coin, a film that really scored big at its release but is poorly thought of today. Can a film be a legitimate classic and later lose its rating or visa versa? I think we each have our own set of standards, and IMO it's a sad person who lets popularity (or the lack of it) guide his taste in movies or anything else. That said, all our personal standards give us is a basis for argument. They certainly don't settle the issue of what films deserve a label of "classic" over the broader realm of critics and audiences. There are plenty of movies with 90% or better ratings from Rotten Tomatoes that I consider wildly overrated, and even more films hovering in the 50% range that I put near the top of my list. But the key word there is "my". To go beyond that we have to figure out what most people (critics and audience) think are the most important factors in the makeup of a "classic" movie. Hell, I just watched Die! Die! My Darling, and thought that Tallulah Bankhead's performance was nearly up to Bette Davis's memorable role in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? And yet the latter film got a 91% RT rating while the Bankhead movie got but 44%. That gap seems seriously out of whack to me, but I'd still be interested in finding out *why* Bankhead's stellar acting in Die! Die! seemed not to resonate very much across the board.

I will admit I find this entire topic folly. One clue that it is folly is that "real classic" was used. To me having to put 'real' before 'classic shows that the term 'classic' doesn't have any actual meaning. While I can define elements of a flim and film making that I like or even one could say require for me to enjoy a film, I would never say that these elements define a 'classic'. Instead these elements only define my personal taste. I certainly would never try to embellish my personal taste in movies by claiming any objective standard - - - I like what I like and that's about it - - - but I do think that TopBilled's exercise might well prove to be useful in seeing what sort of traits are most commonly found *in movies where the sense of being a "classic" has reached a strong critical consensus.* IOW what combination of factors differentiate a universally regarded "classic" like Stella Dallas from the average studio era soaper? Unless I'm mistaken, that's what I think this thread is supposed to be about.

*Alec Baldwin is a Commie rat!* LOL Another good addition here. (...however Andy, I'm pretty sure you want to place a couple of these " around that description of Alec you just typed, OR some folks might get the wrong idea of what YOU really think of Mr.Baldwin) Hey, what about the Commie peacenik who started TCM on its Primrose Path of Commie Rats and foreign movies? Wasn't he married to Hanoi Jane? (Oh, all right.....)

*Overall, for every modern star who's an attraction in himself / herself, there are 10 stars from the studio era who bring about that reaction in me.* Maybe it's because you have had more years to be exposed to them and their films. In thirty or forty years from now, someone may come along (a lot of someones) who feel that way about Hopkins or Streep because they have seen endless repeats of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and OUT OF AFRICA. Well, it's not so much that I've been exposed to the studio era stars for "more years". It's more that I've been exposed to TCM for the last 4 1/2! I blame all my biases on TCM! But even so, and even though I think that the *best* movies from the post-studio era are better as a group than the best movies from the preceding generations, I still can't imagine I could ever warm to the generic movies of today as much as I cuddle up to those from the 30's and 40's that featured stars with distinctive *personalities,* and character actors who were as familiar as my pool room buddies.

Alec Baldwin is a Commie rat!

Funny, I just went to put Councillor at Law on my Netflix queue, and found out that it's currently unavailable. But then I also discovered that I rented it in early 2009 and gave it 4 stars out of 5. Stupid Alzheimer's!

This topic caused a major stir here related to the Story of Film series. e.g. that many Hollywood movies are just silly fluff with the ONLY reasons they were made was to entertain and make money. As were most foreign movies. The difference is that *those* foreign movies seldom make it across the ocean or the border, which can give us an inflated idea of the overall foreign product. Personally I'd like to see another TCM channel devoted to foreign movies that don't make the existing TCM cut, but that's probably for another lifetime.

I haven't seen the rest of TopBilled's list, but this one is but 1 of 21 different criteria for regarding a movie as a "classic". Beyond the example you give, I can think of plenty of B-movies (Torchy Blane; Boston ****; etc.) that are "classic" in one way or another without putting them into the highest "classic" echelon. IOW it's all relative.

Does the film have a reason for existing? That's a very high standard when you elaborate on it the way you have, and it's a good one to start off the discussion. I'm always interested to see how people apply it to particular movies. My only initial comment would be that I find that that standard was met more consistently in the better foreign films of past decades* than it was in most Hollywood films. Though I would qualify that somewhat by acknowledging that by the time most foreign films make it over here, the worst ones have mostly been culled out, so in a way the comparison is a bit unfair. *Most markedly in the Italian neo-realist films of the 40's and 50's, which IMO as a group were the finest movies ever made.

*That's a good point, though I tend to notice it more in films from the 30's, which often featured some of my all-time favorite actors (Stanwyck, Davis, Cagney, Bogart, etc.)* I was thinking more about people like Anthony Hopkins and Meryl Streep, who consistently turn in these stellar performances, occasionally in rather mundane, or mediocre vehicles with costars that cannot come close to matching their talents. I see what you're saying, though the difference for me is that while I can enjoy a generic Bogey or Eddie G solely on the strength of their personalities, I can't even begin to do that for an otherwise blah movie with Hopkins or Streep. Overall, for every modern star who's an attraction in himself / herself, there are 10 stars from the studio era who bring about that reaction in me.