AndyM108

*"Classic" Hollywood Top 10, meaning *pre-1970,* in chronological order* These are impossible to rank in the same order of preference for more than about 15 minutes. So color me fickle. The Penalty (Lon Chaney) Greed (the four hour version) The Crowd Bombshell The Killers (Lancaster / Gardner version) It's A Wonderful Life Out of the Past Nightmare Alley A Star Is Born (Garland version) Vertigo *Top 10 overall, no restrictions, in rough order of preference, subject to change except for the one on top* *Angi Vera* (far and away my favorite movie ever) Pixote Come and See The Bad Sleep Well The Battle of Algiers The Killers Scars of Womanhood Kapo The Sheep Has Five Legs (Fernandel) / Bombshell (tie for best comedy) Germany: Year Zero The problem is that once you get past a certain level, it's almost impossible to rank movies. Not that it's not fun. EDIT: Of course if it's Desert Island Movies, I could watch Bombshell, The Sheep Has Five Legs, and Libeled Lady in an endless loop.

Has Dick Powell ever been SOTM before? If so, there are those such as Susan Hayward who have never been SOTM who deserve it more. Powell was SOTM once, back in October of 2000, and hasn't been a SUTS honoree at any time. Hayward clearly deserves a tribute, but so do many other overlooked actors, and trying to rank them in order of "deserving" is a purely subjective exercise. You want Hayward at the top of the list, I want George Sanders, others have proposed Richard Widmark or even Eleanor Powell. We all want whom we want, and everyone has their reasons.

The 1959 version of Anna Lucasta is one of the seriously overlooked and underrated movies in the entire TCM repertory. Don't miss it for any reason.

There have been other stars whose predominant roles shifted gradually over the years. Bogart went from being an almost Pure Thug archetype in the 30's to varying degrees of subtlety and sympathy after that. And many other actors and actresses displayed versatility throughout their careers. But you're right, Powell pretty much stands alone as an actor who went from playing one type of role almost exclusively in the first half of his career, to playing almost diametrically opposite roles in his later years. Part of me wants to think it was nothing but an act of willpower and insight on Powell's part, but another part of me realizes that the dramatic change in his physical appearance made such a role shift possible. His face went from cherubic to grizzled without batting an eyelash, and by the time it was over it looked as if he'd been born to play all those shadowy roles.

When you think of all the great roles that Powell played once he'd shed his baby face looks and his juvenile parts, it becomes rather clear that he's one of the best examples of the old adage "The good die young". It's not as if he went out as suddenly and quickly as James Dean or Jean Harlow, but it's hard not to feel that at 58 he could have had many more years as a terrific grizzled old character actor.

Powell would be a terrific choice for SOTM. Like many others, I was pleasantly amazed to see his transformation from "one of Broadway's better known juveniles" in 42nd Street to one of the best of all the hardboiled noir actors, not to mention a memorable comic role in Christmas in July. He was SOTM back in 2000, but 14 years is a long time.

For TCM's first 5 years, the December SOTMs were "Best of '94", "Best of '95", "Best of '96", "Best of '97", and "Best of '98". Does anyone know what that meant? Sounds to me like "new" movies, but I guess it depends on what they meant by it. Anyway, after 1998, the December SOTM's have been more traditional: 1999: Burt Lancaster 2000: Lauren Bacall 2001: The Marx Brothers 2002: Montgomery Clift 2003: David Niven 2004: James Stewart 2005: Bing Crosby 2006: Gary Cooper 2007: Irene Dunne 2008: Joseph Cotten 2009: Humphrey Bogart 2010: Mickey Rooney 2011: William Powell 2012: Barbara Stanwyck About the only common thread there is that there aren't any Eleanor Parkers or Alexis Smiths. IOW no cult stars, just mainstream marquee names. The most "forgotten" star today from that list is probably David Niven, but even there you wouldn't have to dig down very deep into the ranks of casual "Classic" film buffs to find plenty of fans of his movies.

*I'd show ( Bicycle Thieves) to my 12-year old (if I had a 12-year old), but other parents may find it a bit over the heads of a child that age.* My daughter and I had a great discussion after watching The Grapes of Wrath and she digested it well, but I don't think she found it to be great "entertainment". Maybe I will wait awhile before throwing something like that at her again, not to mention with subtitles. Bicycle Thieves is about as far removed from "entertainment" as you can get, but unlike The Grapes of Wrath, it doesn't have any scenes of gratuitous violence or cruelty. The Grapes of Wrath is overtly political from start to finish, whereas the "message" of Bicycle Thieves is much more about the vagaries of bad luck and how lives can be plunged into the abyss by a single act of misfortune. In the end, it's a call on how well you think your child may be prepared to handle a theme like that, especially one where there are no stirring speeches at the end to remember it by. It's one of those movies where you're going to have to provide most of the explanations, because the movie isn't going to do it for you. As for the 1942 version of The Gold Rush, if you're not used to the 1925 silent version, you may well not react as strongly against the "enhanced" version as I do. (On my personal scale of 1 to 10, the silent version is a 10 and the 1942 version is a 1.) But if it turns out that it's once again the 1942 version that winds up being shown, I would strongly recommend you rent the restored Criterion silent version to see what true genius can bring to a movie without the excess baggage of ego thrown in.

By the way, others correspond with me by using my actual real first name which is in my handle: Rey I'm terrible with names, but I should be able to remember that one. ----------------------------------------------------------- Rey, by the way I'm Lorry Driver. And no, I do not drive lorries for a living. ROFL That's funny, because until I opened up a book shop in 1984 and had several thousand customers get to know me by my real name of Andy, the great majority of my friends and acquaintances knew me only as "Taxi". I drove a cab for exactly three months in 1967, but at some point during that time I wandered into a pool room with my badge on my coat, and the moniker has stuck to me ever since, at least in the pool rooms. The biggest difference is that back in 1967 every pool room regular had a nickname of one kind or another (Crip, Shakey, Half Man, Bugs, Jeeter, Weenie Beenie, Rags, Hands, Fats, etc.), but now almost everyone I know except for me goes strictly by his given name. If you ask me, it's yet another sign of the decline of Western Civilization.

The Gold Rush (1925) - finally some Chaplin! Let's hope that this time they're finally showing that 1925 silent version, as opposed to the heavily butchered ("enhanced") 1942 silent/sound hybrid which is nothing but a tribute to Chaplin's unlimited ego. The good news is that since Criterion has recently released a DVD set with both versions on it, we may actually be getting the real deal again. I'm not holding my breath, but you can't lose em all. The Bicycle Thief (1948) - a good pick for our first foreign film? Bicycle Thieves (which is the actual title) may be one of the top 10 movies of all time, and it's placed that high many times in various critics' polls. I could watch it 100 times over and find something new in it each time. It's a profoundly moral tale. That said, you should be warned that it's a film that depicts sorrow of a type that's may be hard to convey to a young child. The plot revolves around the head of a poor Italian family after WW2 who's just gotten a job that requires a bicycle - - - and then the bicycle gets stolen. There's no happy ending, even though seldom has the reality of poverty ever been so eloquently depicted on a movie screen. I'd show it to *my* 12-year old (if I had a 12-year old), but other parents may find it a bit over the heads of a child that age. It's about a world as far removed from Shirley Temple as you can get.

fxreyman, you should save that last message, because you're probably going to have to repeat it about 1,000 more times before the information within it sinks in. TCM can draw from an enormous well of older films, but the well is not bottomless. Fred always likes to say that these newer films are available on other cable channels. Well if most people are like me, they can only afford to have TCM and having TCM usually means a higher tier of programming. The other subscriber channels, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel all are very expensive and don't always show "older" newer films. Of course there are the Encore channels as well, but they show a lot of repeats each month. They also don't really show a lot of the films that people like me would like to see. This is a particularly good point. I'm fortunate in that TCM comes with my Verizon FIOS's second cheapest tier, but others aren't so lucky. And as you say, those premium movie channels are very expensive, they repeat movies over and over, and they almost never show the sort of better quality newer movies that we get on TCM. Whenever I've been on the road in a motel with HBO, I've yet to see any movies worth watching. Their original programming is terrific, but those are TV shows, not movies.

Looks like the SOTM is Carson on TCM, and it looks like I see a lot more "newer" movies than I can ever remember seeing before, many of which are TCM firsts. A couple of noteworthy older premieres, which unfortunately are being shown back-to-back beginning at midnight on Sunday the 16th: *12:00 AM* *SCAR OF SHAME (1927)* * * *In this silent film, a composer marries an abused girl to protect her but can't face his family's prejudices.* *BW-76 mins, TV-G,* *2:00 AM* *WITHOUT PITY (1948)* * * *A black American GI decides to remain in Italy than return to a racially divided United States and falls in love with an Italian girl.* *BW-90 mins,*

Is that a roundabout way of saying that Fort Sumter was your favorite opening of a movie? But with your accidental misplacement into a long lost thread as an excuse, I'll put in a belated vote for another one of my favorite openings, the closeup of the steel helmet in The Steel Helmet, where the helmet gradually rises from the ground to reveal the soldier underneath.

Stephan55, that was one of the best expressed appreciations of TCM I've ever read. You can tell that a lot of thought went into it. There's a Christopher Morley book, Parnassus on Wheels, about an itinerant book shop that has a sign on its door that expresses my view of TCM perfectly: *"We have exactly what you want, although you may not know it."* I also find that TCM is much better appreciated as a long range endeavor than as immediate gratification on any given day. Or to quote you back on yourself: I hesitate to use the word love, but i sometimes hear myself saying "I love TCM" in the context of a conversation with someone who has no idea of the wonder that can be found in watching an "ancient" silent film, or attempting to explain that B&W, as in still photography, has so many subtle shades that can be appreciated, or that one can find a great deal of common humanity in watching a "foreign" film. Often they look at me dumbfounded, and I then realize how far that TCM has taken me on my own personal journey in the story of film. I owe TCM much. And am grateful that they have the intuitive vision & guts to carry it through, that even though I too have sometimes questioned as to where they were taking me, but in retrospect am so very glad that I went along the journey with them.

Andy, if you're sitting around waiting for a film from 2006 to air on TCM, then it's not anything to want to see very badly. For every time slot TCM uses to air films from the last 20-30 years, that's that much less time they use for showing films from the 20s and 30s that are NOT available anywhere else and have likely NOT aired for years on TCM. They used to relegate many of these 20s and 30s films to the wee hours that even THAT was ok because we could tape them. Now many of these films are not shown at all. I watch TCM to see Alice White and Dorothy Mackaill and John Gilbert and Richard Barthelmess, not to see Kevin Spacey and Drew Barrymore films (or who ever they show from newer films). First, I'm not expecting TCM to show many 21st century films, or even that many films from after 1970. If they choose the right ones, then I look upon them as a bonus. "Classic" to me isn't just about a few decades. Reservoir Dogs would be a perfect example of a "new" movie that I was thrilled to find on the schedule; that godawful Tim Robbins/Paul Newman movie, not so much. But everyone's taste will differ on calls like that. And don't get me wrong. I love Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Mackaill and Richard Dix, and I wish they'd show more of all of them. But I'd much rather that TCM show movies like Raging Bull or Mean Streets once a year than to see Little Caesar or The Public Enemy 4 to 6 times a year. It's not that I object to the older movies, and I think they should make up about 80% of the time slots. I just wish they'd cut back on those multi-multiple showings of movies from any era and give some of the more obscure movies a chance to be seen. What I'd strongly suggest is going over the schedules as they get posted every month and mark these obscure movies for recording. That way it won't matter as much if they don't get shown again for another year or two. This is especially critical if you're like me and like foreign and silent movies, which fairly often get shown once and once only. BTW since I started being hooked on TCM over four years ago, 83% of the movies I've recorded have been before 1960, and 92% have been before 1970. It's easy to pick a rather flukish period like the past couple of weeks and make too much of that, but the core of TCM continues to be the feature films of the studio era. Oh, and nearly a dozen of those movies I've recorded featured Richard Barthelmess. I could watch Heroes For Sale and Massacre and Central Air many times over, and I'd love to see him get a SUTS day.

Personally, I think the 30s comedies show people who are kinder, more human, more like my own friends and relatives. Well, it is true that in the 30's movies they gave out a lot more with *"You dirty rat!"* and a lot less with *"You 12 letter word for the incest that dares not speak its name!"* while they pumped multiple rounds of machine gun bullets into their chosen targets. We were *so* much nicer back then! And oh, yes. Back then those gentlemen gangsters never stepped out without first adjusting their coats and ties. Like Don Costello said in The Blue Dahlia, there's ethics in every profession.

TCM pandering the a younger audience showing new films EVERYONE has already seen, films that have been available at Netflix of the DVD bin at Walmart for years. What a foolish waste of time and effort trying to get a younger audience who'll never sit through a real classic film..... Maybe you've seen all those newer films that occasionally show up on TCM, but I sure haven't, and I'm glad to be exposed to them. I don't subscribe to any of the premium movie channels, and I won't sit through any movie that's interrupted by commercials. I can and do get many newer (and many older) movies from Netflix, but on Netflix there's a turnaround time of 4 or 5 days per movie, not to mention a long waiting period for some of them. And if you want to talk about movies that EVERYONE has seen, you might want to begin with Fred Astaire month. If I had a hundred bucks for every time Fred and Ginger have danced across my TV screen via TCM, I could buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. I'm not complaining about Fred and Ginger, but then that's because unlike some people here, I don't expect TCM to cater to my personal tastes alone. And BTW if at 69 I'm considered to be part of the "younger audience", I can only hope to keep it that way for about the next 30 years.

*Jeez, Fred, on a list as long as a Ted Cruz filibuster, there's no Robert Mitchum? No Richard Widmark? No Vincent Price? No Robert Ryan? No Burt Lancaster? No Richard Conte? No Dana Andrews? No Richard Basehart? No Edmond O'Brien? No Raymond Burr? No Broderick Crawford? No Barton MacLane? No Chester Morris? No Victor Mature? No Louis Calhern? No Jack Carson? No Glenn Ford? No Ray Milland? No Lee J. Cobb? No Sterling Hayden? No Susan Hayward? No Anne Baxter? No Lauren Bacall? No Jane Greer? No Gloria Grahame? No Lizabeth Scott? And Good God, no GLENDA??!!!* Nice list of fine names. Well, someone had to speak up for the killers amongst us! ---------------------------------------------------------- One thing that anyone who has watched the channel for many years has to understand is that there was a time when much of what TCM showed was new to many of its viewers because they were debuting films that hadn't seen been featured in an uncut, commercial free environment since they were last seen in a movie theater years ago. TCM brought those films to us and they still do. But like any long-term relationship, the newness is off the vine. If a relationship is to survive long-term, change has to occur. It cannot stay the same or that relationship will die. Well put. During my first Oscar Month in 2010 I recorded and watched 80 movies. In Oscar 's 31 Days in 2013 I recorded 25, and most of them were second copies I wanted to get on single disks. The only cure for this sort of thing is Alzheimer's. We all want fresh blood, but the more we see, the less that's going to be fresh.

Maybe we should just leave out the words classic, old, and new, and show lists of our favorite actors, whose films we would like to see more of on TCM, such as:. . . Jeez, Fred, on a list as long as a Ted Cruz filibuster, there's no Robert Mitchum? No Richard Widmark? No Vincent Price? No Robert Ryan? No Burt Lancaster? No Richard Conte? No Dana Andrews? No Richard Basehart? No Edmond O'Brien? No Raymond Burr? No Broderick Crawford? No Barton MacLane? No Chester Morris? No Victor Mature? No Louis Calhern? No Jack Carson? No Glenn Ford? No Ray Milland? No Lee J. Cobb? No Sterling Hayden? No Susan Hayward? No Anne Baxter? No Lauren Bacall? No Jane Greer? No Gloria Grahame? No Lizabeth Scott? And Good God, no *GLENDA??!!!* Say, what's a mug or a dish gotta do to break into society these days? Dance the Continental in a teacup?

While there are people at this forum wishing TCM would show more post 1968 movies I know of no one that doesn't wish for TCM to show movies from the so called studio era. When 70% to 80% of the movies shown on TCM are from the 30's through the 50's, I honestly can't see what people are complaining about. I'd personally love to see TCM show *more* foreign / silent / post-1970 films, not because I want to see fewer titles from the Studio Era, but because the Studio Era films are almost invariably the ones that get repeated into the ground. If only we could get *one* less showing a *year* of some of the old chestnuts*, that would free up a lot of time slots for movies from *all* eras, *including the Studio Era,* that haven't been played ad infinitum. I'm more than happy to see 70% - 80% of TCM's offerings come from the same 30 year period, but I wish there'd be a few more premieres and fewer of those movies shown 3 to 6 times a year. I don't keep coming back to TCM to see the AFI Top 100 films for the 50th time; I come back to see movies I've never seen before. Fresh blood is what we film vampires need to survive. *Gaslight; Casablanca; Woman of the Year; The Lady Eve; etc., etc. Great movies, but do we really need to see them every 3 or 4 months?

One of the first things I noticed on the December schedule was this Friday's screening of Blonde Venus. Can anyone here tell me if that's ever been shown before on TCM? I know that I've been looking for it to show up ever since October of 2009, but no luck until now. Also, one that you missed which shows some Ed Woodish promise is Lana Turner's The Big Cube, (this Saturday night at 4 AM), which according to the synopsis centers around Turner and her stepdaughter almost ruining their lives with a sugar cube laced with LSD! I've just begun watching the Camp Classic Ten Violent Girls from last night's Underground movies, and The Big Cube looks like a worthy successor.

What absolutely amazed me about the theyshootpictures.com site was how many of the top 200 movies have been shown on TCM over the past 4 years. I went through the list and counted 101 that I've recorded, plus 22 more that I chose not to for varying reasons. What's even more impressive is that these numbers come in spite the the fact that so many of the top 200 are foreign. When you allow for that, it's almost a run of the table when it comes to American films: The only Hollywood movies out of the top 200 I can't remember seeing on TCM since September of 2009 were The Godfather, Godfather 2, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Nashville, It's a Wonderful Life, The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, Alien, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That's all of 11, most of which are either tied up with other networks or would be prohibitively expensive to acquire. The next time some feels like complaining about the selections we get on TCM, they should ask themselves this question: How many repertory theaters in New York, California, Toronto, London or Paris are likely to have shown this high a percentage of these movies over the past 4 years as TCM? I doubt if there's a single one among them.

If changes need to be made, OK. But PLEASE, NO COMMERCIALS!! I think that breaking up the films with commercials would be the one thing that would cause mass defections around here. I know I'd *never* tune into any movie channel which interrupted the film for even one 30 second commercial break. Between movies, I don't care what they promote, but leave the movies themselves in one piece. OTOH as misswonderly notes, there's absolutely no indication that any such move is being contemplated, so I wouldn't be losing any sleep over the thought.

At least you could have mentioned Hayward before Sanders. I'm constantly having to fight off newly mentioned people. *This probably just comes down to taste,* (emphasis added) but IMO Sanders' movies were for the most part more interesting than Hayward's; he was in far more films overall; and while his looks precluded him from playing romantic leads he was certainly a lot more than your generic "supporting role" actor in plenty of his films. What would All About Eve, Death of a Scoundrel, Witness to Murder, The Light Touch, The Whole Truth, Journey to Italy, The Lodger, or Foreign Correspondent have been without Sanders' presence, just to name a few? That's not a knock against Hayward, who definitely deserves a SOTM as well, but at least she did have a SUTS day.

Ida Lupino has already been Star of the Month. Either June or July 2007, I think. You're right. I checked, and Lupino was SOTM in June of 2007, before I began my saturation viewing. Also back in September of 1997. So since she hasn't been totally neglected, I'll say that the next ones should go to the *TOTALLY* overlooked George Sanders (who hasn't even had a SUTS day) and Susan Hayward (who at least had a SUTS day in 2006). The only explanation I can see for Sanders' omission is that someone at TCM has a religious objection to suicide, but then look at all the terrific films of his that they've shown just in the past few years. Easily enough for a SOTM tribute. *Rage in Heaven (1941)* *The Whole Truth (1958)* *Hangover Square (1945)* *The Last Voyage (1960)* *The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)* *Quiet, Please---Murder (1942)* *All About Eve (1950)* *Foreign Correspondent (1940)* *Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1940)* *The Lodger (1944)* *I Can Get It For You Wholesale (1951)* *While The City Sleeps (1956)* *A Shot in the Dark (1964)* *Lured (1947)* *Witness to Murder (1964)* *Five Golden Hours (1960)* *This Land Is Mine (1943)* *The Bitter Waters (1956)* *Death of a Scoundrel (1956)* *The Light Touch (1952)* That's at least 20 regular feature length films (I've probably missed a few), and then there are also these: The Saint Strikes Back (1939) The Saint in London (1939) The Saint?s Double Trouble (1940) The Saint Takes Over (1940) The Saint in Palm Springs (1941) The Saint?s Vacation (1941) The Falcon Takes Over (1942) A Date With the Falcon (1941) The Gay Falcon (1942) The Falcon?s Brother (1942)