JamesJazGuitar
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Posts posted by JamesJazGuitar
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1 minute ago, Shank Asu said:
Paris Blues (1961) A romanticized view of the jazz scene in early 60's Paris. I liked the film but felt like it was kind of an unfinished story and there were some plots that never really went anywhere. There's obviously a subtext of race relations in the US juxtaposed to France but it didn't feel genuine to me and more like it was forced in, and then it never really went anywhere. Poitier decides to move back to the US for a woman even though he loves living in Paris and his career is in Paris. I didn't see it as him taking a stand and choosing to fight back against the unseen but referenced racism in the US, but instead i just thought the woman was selfish to expect him to drop everything in his life to move for her. There's obviously something that was left unexplored regarding mixed race couples as well. Clearly Newman's character was hitting on the black Diahann Carroll but ended up with the white Joanne Woodward after she pursued him relentlessly after he showed no interest in her repeatedly. But that never went anywhere. There was a clear set-up for something that was missed. Loved the scenes with Louis Armstrong. Great cast, Sidney Poitier is becoming one of my favorites after watching so many films of his in the last year for the first time that I've loved.
Well said. While I'm a big fan of Paris Blues because I'm a want-a-be jazz musician, as noted there were some missed opportunities here. E.g. Many New York\East Coast based jazz musicians moved to Europe due to how they were treated in the USA. One of my favorites tenor sax player Dexter Gordon did so. I wished they worked in a scene where Carroll meet some of these musicians so that it didn't look like it was only the Poitier character that felt a lot more at "home" (welcomed) in Paris than he did in the USA.
The jazz guitarist Jimmy Raney visited Paris in the late 50s and was very successful. The film also reminds me of his experiences there with French jazz musicians.
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2 hours ago, DougieB said:
Thank you for the link but that site is privately maintained by MovieCollectorOhio, a frequent poster here, and it's invaluable, but TCM up until fairly recently maintained a full movie database (or contracted third party services to maintain it?) similar to the IMDB. In many cases it was more helpful and detailed than the IMDB. There was an link at the top right of the TCM home page. Many TCM fans posted thoughtful (mostly) reviews and comments and it was a quick way to refresh your memory about films, directors, actors and all aspects of filmmaking. I especially liked the links to contemporary reviews from when the films were released. For a brief moment I thought you had somehow magically found a way to resurrect it. The whole thing disappeared in one of the dreaded "upgrades" a couple of years ago and I really miss it.
When I posted those speculative percentages above the person that came to mind was MovieCollector; Does he have stats on TCM films by studio, by some periodic timeframe?
This is yet another topic related to the-films-TCM -shows where actual data would be enlightening. (like the great percent by decade stats he provided).
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1 minute ago, Classic aficionado said:
To jamesjazzguitar, you have a point there. Sound like a whole lot of corporate drama behind the scenes. At the same time, Disney acquiring Fox happened months ago, early this year. TCM is still airing a lot of Fox films. I can't see any decrease in the number of Fox films on TCM. This actually makes it even more shocking to think this would be the reason for an absence of films like "Love Me Tender". If Disney wanted to stop TCM from airing Fox films, they probably would have done so before now. TCM has always done well with negotiating films from other libraries. It would be a travesty for TCM to give up now. July does have a lot of Fox and non-United Artists and non-Time-Warner films scheduled on TCM. It's just Elvis Presley's films that seem to be getting the short end of the stick this time. With TCM having done better with their recent SOTM tributes to Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Clark Gable, Charles Boyer, and Sidney Poitier - expanding beyond the Time-Warner and United Artists libraries, I simply thought that they would do the same for Elvis, that's all.
To DougieB, the TCM database is at this link right here.
https://www.moviecollectoroh.com/reports/TCM_SCHEDULES_SUMMARY_alpha.htm
It looks as though they update it rather frequently.
I think we see things mostly the same on this topic. I'm not so sure I can agree that TCM airs a lot of Fox films (but I'm a stat guy and a lot can be interpreted in many different ways). My gut tell me that less than 5% - 10% of the films TCM shows are from Fox, but that is just a wild guess. I say this since I assume 80% (or so) of the films shown are from what I call the Ted Turner library of films (which your call Time-Warner).
That only leaves around 20 percent for Columbia, Fox, Republic (which TCM almost never features), early Paramount films, and Universal (where TCM will pony up for their horror classics, but not much else).
Anyhow, I believe we have the same overall goal: TCM lease more films from studios outside of the Turner\Time-Warner library!
Take care.
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Just now, LuckyDan said:
Can't disagree more. Cancel culture goes hand in hand with the concept of political correctness. It is the inevitable result of political correctness. If a thought or a statement can be said to be correct politically, it follows that any opposing thought must be incorrect, politically. From there it's a very short walk from simply being incorrect to being hateful, and not simply wrong but evil. Once you have cast your opponents beliefs as evil, it is very easy to say they must be punished for avoiding their thoughts and holding their opinion.
Liberals used to say, if you don't like it, change the channel. Progressives now say, if you don't like it, smash a brick over their head. (I miss liberals.)
Mores are elastic. Dogma is strict.
Yea, I know we disagree on this topic. Political correctness has also existed since mankind began and formed political systems.
Take your example of dogma: what side of the political spectrum was mainly the one pushing dogmatic ideals, and conformity to these ideals over the centuries?
You know the answer but I guess you will continue to pretend you don't. I do agree that in the USA progressive (which I'm not, since I'm a libertarian) today are more dogmatic and trying to ensure conformity to their dogmatic ideals than conservatives. Maybe a lot more. That is because they have the political power to do so.
I reject such thinking from both sides of the political spectrum. I.e. let people be what they want to be, and think what they wish to think, as long as they are not harming others. I would hope that is a concept most people would agree with but it appears the vast majority of people do not. Oh well, I just play more guitar and ignore them.
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2 hours ago, Thompson said:
Jane is no Ida Lupino. I’m watching A Star is Born with Judy Garland and if it wasn’t for a couple of hard boiled egg shells in my coffee I might have to puke.
Curious why you would compare Jane Fonda to Ida Lupino. I.e. of all the studio-era actresses why Lupino?
Anyhow, I'm a big fan of both of their work.
It appears you don't like A Star is Born, or is it just Garland, or both?
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3 hours ago, CinemaInternational said:
Everyone said that the Fox network would never work and that it would go off the air quickly. Ironically, it was the stink over Married with Children, The Simpsons, and Shannon Doherty's loss of virginity episode on Beverly Hills 90210 that really gave them their start and kept them on the air and in business. Talk about irony......
What occurred with Married with Children etc.. was the first time I became aware of a cancel-culture type of activity backfiring and instead of getting shows canceled made them major hits. And yes folks I meant to say cancel-culture; this isn't something that progressive just invented in the last few years, but instead has been going on since the beginning of time: public pressure to ensure conformity to norms.
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So I'm driving and I have sports-talk radio on. This is at a time I'm typically not driving (which is the only time I list to AM radio); the host mentions: this is our noir segment.
Say what???? It appears this is a recurring part of their broadcast. They go on to discuss The Naked Kiss, mentioning director Sam Fuller, the year it was made, 1964, give a description of the movie (but make it clear they don't want to give away the story), and play audio clips from the film. I was in shock. (as in Shock Corridor the Fuller film made before this one).
This host has been on sport stations for years in So Cal, but I had no idea he was into this. Then they go on to another film; The Longest Day. They compare the film to Saving Private Ryan but go on to say, well, The Longest Day, has Robert Mitchum, storming that beachhead and what can be better than that.
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18 hours ago, SweetSue said:
Haha thanks! My taste ranges from 20s & 30s swing/ Jazz to 60s & 70s psychedelic rock and occasionally heavy metal. It's a very broad range I'd say and I somehow still refuse to let myself listen to the music most my age are listening to, nothing against it, but it just sounds like noise to me.😂
So we have more in common than just Bette Davis. I'm an amateur jazz guitarist and play jazz from the 20s - 60s. But I also love 60s British invasion rock, mostly The Beatles and Kinks.
My two main passions are movies and music from the 30s - 60s and these overlapped. E.g. I would see a film from the 30s with a song I liked, get the sheet music and learn to play it or my guitar teacher would show me a song from the 50s to learn and I would seek out movies that featured that song.
So cool to see someone of your generation that is into what was created well before they were born. You have given me hope! (ha ha).
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43 minutes ago, Bronxgirl48 said:
Ah, thanks, Moe, I now understand what you were getting at.
On a (very) shallow note, I'm grieving for the fact that we will never again see the 1930's and '40's Asian detective series like Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto or Mr. Wong on Turner Classic Movies because of previous backlash. Frankly it makes me sad. Am I wrong to feel this way?
Note that both the Chan and Moto serials are the property of 20th Century Fox which was recently purchased by Disney. I assume you know that TCM has always had limited access to 20th Century Fox films due to the fact Fox plays hardball when it comes to leasing their films to competing content providers (which of course Time Warner is), reserving their films for Fox content providers and networks.
Mr. Wong is Monogram; How many Monogram films does TCM show? Few that I can recall.
So I question the assumption that TCM isn't showing these serials for "PC" type reasons.
I would also be sad if TCM wasn't leasing these films because of their content, especially since all of these serials show the Asian detective as intelligent, competent, brave, and stand up citizens. So I hope that isn't the case. But if it is, that makes me sad, and no one is wrong to feel that way (and BTW my mom is 100% Japanese).
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14 hours ago, midwestan said:
I still find it hard to believe that someone as good as Barbara Stanwyck (and Deborah Kerr, for that matter) never won a competitive Oscar as Best Actress. On top of that, Mitchum's only nomination came very early in his career in "The Story of G.I. Joe". Gardner's only nomination came for "Mogambo", when I thought she should have at least been nominated for her performances in "The Barefoot Contessa" or "Bhowani Junction", which I consider better performances from her.
The Academy Awards are just a marketing event manufactured by the studios to promote their products. During the studio-era were most actors and directors were under contract with a specific studio, the awards were not intended to reflect who was the best, but instead who to promote so the studio could make more money off the actors \ directors they had under contract.
Actors like Stanwyck were largely independent, signing short term contracts (e.g. 3 picture deals), instead of 7 year contracts. Same goes for Cary Grant and some others. Mitchum was under contract for RKO early in his career but after that made films with multiple studios. For me that is the primary reason for their lack of nominations.
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4 hours ago, Thompson said:
Jack Elam, Ben Johnson, Chester, Denver Pyle, Charles McGraw, Anthony Caruso, Edgar Buchanan, Ken Curtis . . . Needless to say I am a fan of Gunsmoke, until Newly came along, but yeah it has to be black and white, color just ruins westerns. I remember like yesterday when color TVs came on the market. No, I said, who would want one of those? Everybody looks green.
Well Newly is still with us (actor Buck Taylor, so he may be featured in a sequel). I'm a fan of Gunsmoke, especially the first few seasons where it was 30 minutes, and in Black and White. I like some of the color episodes but not as much as I like a B&W western (same goes for crime drama).
But I rank the character of Festus to be one of the most annoying in T.V. history, right up there with Gomer Pyle.
Now I'm not knocking these actors but just the personas of these characters. Of course maybe I'm channeling Doc; Festus annoyed the hell out of him!
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3 hours ago, Moe Howard said:
I used to have MOVIES before I went back to Direct, always thought it was pretty good.
You're preaching to the choir though on this type of editing though. I've posted before about the cut on Three Days of the Condor. The word "homosexual" is removed. It's not used in any derogatory way at all, but someone thought it needed to go.
I really like the movies MOVIES shows since they focus on studios that TCM doesn't (Warner, MGM, RKO). Thus MOVIES has those fine 20th Century Fox noirs, films from Columbia studios and others like United Artist. So while I don't like the editing or the commercials, I still end up watching MOVIES.
Thursday is noir in the evening, and Sundays is almost all noir films.
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46 minutes ago, Moe Howard said:
What?!?! Threats of banning something creates panic buying??? This must be something new!
It is very true with guns so I assume it works with other products are well.
The NRA has worked with gun manufactures on this marketing strategy for years now. E.g. NRA has articles in their magazine to members how Obama would ban this gun, or that gun (when the Obama admin had no specific such plans), and sales of these guns increase big-time.
There are suckers born every minute.
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31 minutes ago, Thompson said:
No no no no. Are you kidding? You eat hard boiled eggs and put the shells in with the coffee grounds into the coffee pot. Now you can also do that with soft boiled eggs which gives your coffee a feminine touch. Personally I like a raw one in my morning beer, no shell.
Funny but in the movie Double Wedding TCM showed the other day, William Powell goes to a bar (since that is where he has to take his phone calls) and they ask him if he wants breakfast. He gets a beer with a raw egg. I wonder if anyone here has actually tried this and what they think about it.
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1 hour ago, midwestan said:
"East Side, West Side" is another film I've seen before, and once again, Charisse co-stars with a pretty strong lineup of talent. The only rub I'd have against this one was how easy the cops let Van Heflin's character ( a former cop) immerse himself in a crime scene, just days after he returned from a stint in Italy as an employee of the State Department. Several days ago, there were a couple of posters who intimated that Ava Gardner may have been attractive to look at on screen, but they didn't think she was a very good actress. I disagree. I think she's quite underrated; sort of like how some see Robert Mitchum or Jane Russell.
Yea, the lead cop (a young William Conrad in fine form), and how he let Heflin's character take over the case wasn't very realistic but hey, it's Hollywood!
I have always felt Ava Gardner was a good actress. Not in the league of Stanwyck (few are), but convincing in the roles I've seen her in.
As for Mitchum; I can't recall anyone at this forum ever saying they felt Mitchum wasn't a fine actor. I think he was one of the best.
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53 minutes ago, Moe Howard said:
It seems especially pointless to edit the word from a film called Chinatown. If it's recent, it's some ham-fisted attempt to quell anti Asian activity.
But this has been going on for years. Just simple words need to be removed. Mexican is now a slur, ridiculous.
Yes, it is ridiculous but a lot of MOVIES-TV editing fall under that category; this is because MOVIES is an over-the-air broadcast network and subject to more restrictions. But some of their editing is self-imposed. E.g. They show the 1946 noir The Dark Corner; There is an Italian statue made many years ago shown of a nude women. Like all of these statues the women's breast are exposed. But this was shown in American movie theaters in the 40 like that: MOVIES blocks them out!!! This is art you bozos! If it was OK to show them in 1946 it should be OK now.
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I watched East Side, West Side last night for the 2nd time and was glad I did. The film has a fine cast with first rate, experienced actors like Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin, new to Hollywood actor James Mason, and fairly new actresses Ava Gardner and Cyd Charisse.
The film is a very mature and frank portrayal of a man (Mason), who has a mistress (Gardner) who also plays the field, a wife that loves him as well as supports him (Stanwyck), and a man, who was a former cop, that steps into the drama (Heflin), who falls for Stanwyck. All in a well filmed New York setting. The film is mostly a melodrama but it does take an interesting turn with a murder. The film is fairly open about sexuality especially for a 1949 film.
If you haven't seen the film I highly recommend it.
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17 hours ago, Classic aficionado said:
Good grief.
Among the films that I was hoping TCM would include for Elvis Presley's SOTM in July, they're only showing "Change of Habit" and "Frankie and Johnny".
According to TCM's database, it's been at least eight years since TCM aired "Love Me Tender" - Elvis' film debut. What is TCM's problem?
In the last few years, TCM has been doing better regarding leasing films from other film studios' libraries. There isn't any reason for TCM to stop doing so now, and to merely stick to the Time-Warner (1924-1986 MGM) library and the United Artists (1987-present MGM) library.
Uh, Love Me Tender is a 20th Century Fox and Disney recently purchased the company, along with the rights to all their films.
Fox always charged a premium leasing price to content providers for their films, as well as, not even leasing films once Fox started some of their own movie-related-networks.
Disney is even more controlling when it comes to their products.
Therefore when you say: "There isn't any reason for TCM to stop doing so now", you likely don't know what is taking place with the leasing of any 20th Century Fox.
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16 hours ago, Bronxgirl48 said:
james, I'm sorry if my "beg to differ" was interpreted by you as supercilious in some way. I just thought I was being polite, lol. But re-reading your original post I can see how hasty I was in immediately pre-forming my own opinions about what I thought you had meant.
No problem. A common theme I bring up is how us studio-era movie fans watch movies verses how they were watched when released at the time. I have found that few of us watch the films associated with an actor or director in chronological order. This is unlike my dad who saw these films in theaters as they were released.
I try to live by the principle of "each movie stands on its own", but of course that is only in theory; we are influenced by what we have seen before. In the case of SLOMI; before I saw this film, I had seen Van Heflin in a few roles and one that stood out was his Oscar winning supporting-actor in Johnny Eager. I had seen Kirk Douglas in films like Spartacus, Seven Days in May and a few noirs like Out of the Past and I Walk Alone. Thus by the time I saw SLOMI for the first time, what popped into my head was: they miscast the two leading men!
I know that isn't the case now, but I have found such bias is hard to get out of my head.
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46 minutes ago, Moe Howard said:
Harm? No. Will adding another line -regardless of motivation- bring a resolution?
Of course there can be no "resolution" since there isn't anything to resolve as it relates to movies made decades ago. So that does bring in question: what are the activist that wish for content-providers to provide OCD content messaging, trying to accomplish? I have heard it is to educate people; Well if one really needs to be educated that some (many) movies made decades ago have content related to depictions and \ or behaviors that are no longer appropriate in today's society, I don't see how such OCD messaging is going to accomplish that. I.e. if it isn't obvious to someone, I assume they must feel it is appropriate today.
So no-harm, but no-gain either, appears to be the overall outcome.
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As far as which of the 3 actors has the film legacy I would want to watch if I could only watch the films from one of these three, it would be Clift.
Brando would have my favorite film in On the Waterfront but that being said, I still prefer Clift's overall film legacy over that of Brando.
I have never been a fan of James Dean.
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4 hours ago, Thompson said:
Hello western peoples. Just sit back and think about it and Warren Oates comes out on top.
I love 50s westerns and watch them often on ME-TV and Warren Oates always pops up. If I recall correctly the characters he played are always cads (at best), and often just downright mean killers. Oates is great at these roles and stands out over the other actors that have such parts; E.g. if he is one of 3 brothers, that are part of a criminal gang, Oates makes his mark with the limited screen time he is given.
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I watched Double Wedding last night on TCM; This was the only William Powell \ Myrna Loy film I had not seen. It had it moments but I found it to be only OK. Of course how much the sudden death of Jean Harlow, who was Powell's fiancée and Loy's close friend, had on the two appears to have impacted the film (based on their own comments).
My view was that the Powell character was all-over-the-place; yes, he is a free spirited bohemian but then he would sometimes change persona into the type of sophisticated gentleman Powell screen persona. In some ways this was necessary to ground the character, but it just didn't work for me. The Loy character just lacked charm. The character was a no-nonsense harden gal and we often find such a female character in these type of romantic comedies but at some point (say halfway), they lighten up. The Loy character never does that even at the end. (The Shop Around the Corner is a good example of the type of female character that does tone-it-down as the plot moves forward).
Some of the screwball comedy scenes worked but others fell flat.
Still it was great for TCM to feature Florence Rice last night. She made some good films during her fairly short film career.
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What Are You Listening To?
in Your Favorites
Posted
I really like those Cara Emerald songs. Yes, the singer of the Zippers, Katharine Whalen and Cara have a similar voice and style of singing.
The Zippers put out some nice records, but my favorite is a solo album by Whalen call Jazz Squad. Here is one track, the old standard Just You, Just Me.