JarrodMcDonald

Who did I miss? _*A P R I L*_ 1 Debbie Reynolds, Wallace Beery, Lon Chaney Sr. 2 Buddy Ebsen, Alec Guinness 3 Marlon Brando, Doris Day, Leslie Howard 4 Anthony Perkins 5 Spencer Tracy, Melvyn Douglas, Gregory Peck, Bette Davis 6 Greer Garson, Walter Huston 7 James Garner, William Eythe, Bert Wheeler 8 Mary Pickford, Walter Connolly, Sonja Henie 9 Brandon DeWilde, Ward Bond 10 Harry Morgan, Chuck Connors 11 Paul Douglas 12 Lionel Barrymore, Ann Miller, Lily Pons 13 Howard Keel 14 Rod Steiger, John Gielgud, Richard Hart, Lee Tracy, James Stephenson 15 16 Charles Chaplin, Peter Ustinov 17 Anne Shirley, William Holden 18 Barbara Hale, Hayley Mills 19 May Robson, Jayne Mansfield, Constance Talmadge 20 Nina Foch, Harold Lloyd, Bruce Cabot 21 22 Eddie Albert 23 Sandra Dee, Shirley Temple, Simone Simon, Richard Haydn 24 Shirley MacLaine 25 26 27 28 Carolyn Jones 29 Richard Carlson, Celeste Holm 30 David Manners, Eve Arden

Thanks Holly. I just found it and commented on it. Great pictures of Eastwood!

Okay, just for you Web...give me a minute and I will post the April and May birthdays in separate threads. I know the anticipation is too much for ya!

His career is truly legendary. I have to go off the beaten path when I select my favorite Eastwood flick. It's TRUE CRIME. I love the scene where his character tries to get all these things done in a day to bond with his little girl. Eastwood had a child with the costar of this film, Frances Fisher, very late in life. I got the feeling that was one of his most autobiographical scenes on film. I hope he lives to 100! For his daughter's sake and for ours!

I love how their films have exclamation marks at the end of the titles. ! ! !

Yes...is there a thread for him somewhere? I know that TCM is doing a birthday marathon of his films.

Thanks for the correction...I welcome all corrections on this thread. (I want it to be as accurate as possible.) I have lists for each month of the year, but it only includes actors. I guess I am prejudiced against directors, unless they happen to also be actors. If it's alright, I will add Cyd to the OP, for March 8. Thanks.

I'm sure I have neglected to mention someone's favorite, since that always happens! *_M A R C H_* 1 David Niven, Harry Belafonte, Ron Howard 2 Desi Arnaz 3 Jean Harlow, Bobby Driscoll, Edna Best 4 John Garfield, Shemp Howard 5 Rex Harrison, Henry Travers, Dean Stockwell 6 Lou Costello, Guy Kibbee 7 Anna Magnani 8 Louise Beavers, Claire Trevor, Cyd Charisse 9 Will Geer 10 Barry Fitzgerald 11 Dorothy Gish 12 13 14 15 George Brent, Macdonald Carey, Verree Teasdale 16 Mercedes McCambridge, Jerry Lewis 17 18 Robert Donat, Edward Everett Horton 19 Pamela Britton, Louis Hayward 20 Wendell Corey, Jack Kruschen, Michael Redgrave, Ozzie Nelson 21 Edgar Buchanan 22 Karl Malden, Chico Marx, Joseph Schildkraut 23 Joan Crawford 24 Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Richard Conte 25 Nancy Kelly 26 Sterling Hayden 27 Richard Denning, Gloria Swanson 28 Freddie Bartholomew, Frank Lovejoy, Flora Robson 29 Dennis O'Keefe 30 31 Shirley Jones, Eddie Quillan, Richard Kiley, Richard Chamberlain

By the way, ZAZ will return to TCM's primetime lineup on April 16. NAKED GUN! and TOP SECRET! will be shown.

I don't dislike this film. I rather enjoy it. But it does seem claustrophic, though perhaps that's the intention. Shelley Winters' death occurs off-camera in this story. It is thoroughly described but not shown. Jack Palance's character is confronted with his mortality, also off-camera.

At least you're not into the Bowery Boys. There are about 92,000 films starring those guys.

THE GREAT CARUSO, with Mario Lanza as the legendary opera singer.

I think you opened a can of worms! You will be watching only Robin Hood movies from now on (there won't be time for anything else). LOL

I agree...I think Palance is probably miscast. He should've been given another role. It would've been better if Ida had reunited with Robert Ryan on screen for this one.

TCM is also showing CONTEMPT. This time Jack Palance is not playing an actor, but instead is a wolfish producer. It's another movie business story, directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It airs a few hours after THE BIG KNIFE.

Sloane kind of hams it up as the producer. Supposedly, the producer is based on Harry Cohn. The film is also noted for its many long takes. Long takes work if there is a lot of carefully arranged detail in the scene, like Orson Welles does with Gregg Toland on KANE. But in THE BIG KNIFE it tends to make the production seem more stage-bound. Nonetheless, I find the premise definitely engaging and the dialogue (most of it from Odets) is great.

On March 7, the same evening as the Academy Awards, TCM will broadcast THE BIG KNIFE. The film is a searing noir about Hollywood. It is directed and produced by Robert Aldrich. James Poe's script is based on the play by Clifford Odets. Of course, there are other Hollywood-expos? dramas. One of the most well-known: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. But not even that effort can match the depiction of the movie business and its power brokers in THE BIG KNIFE. This exciting story is brought to life by a roster of powerhouse talent in 1955: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters (truly sensational), and Everett Sloane. Adding to the fun: the mingling of fictitious names with real ones, like Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, William Wyler and others.

Just a reminder that there will be DESIRE tonight.

Yes, when you parody a genre, you are working with a formula that is already familiar to the audience. They have been conditioned to accept certain implausibilities, and when you suddenly spoof that, the audience seems to like being liberated and given a good laugh.

I think the genius of ZAZ is a combination of two things. These are two things that all comedy writers must do: - carefully set up running gags (examples: the addictions of Lloyd Bridges' character; the quick scenes of the jive characters that set the stage for Barbara Billingsley's 'translation;' the on-going suicides of the fellow passengers that Hays spills his guts to, and so forth) - also you must take risks. I am sure when they made this film, they figured it would either be a box office smash or a box office bomb. There is no middle ground for this kind of comedy. Either audiences will love it or they will hate it. Some of the adult-type jokes are very risky (the implied pedophilia of Peter Graves' character, the simulated sex scene with the blow-up doll, the scene of the horse in the woman's bed).

Thanks... I reviewed AIRPLANE! this morning...I think the most dated thing about it: the clothing, hairstyles and make-up of the time period, not the humor. Most of the more comical lines are understandable to today's audience. Granted, the jokes about Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan are definitely topical. (Reagan would've been campaigning for president when the picture was filmed.) A few of the jokes fell flat. Like the scene where the guy is on the phone and mentions Barbara Stanwyck, then says 'Jarrod & Heath, the barn is on fire!' Obviously, that was a reference to Stanwyck's TV series 'The Big Valley' but it didn't really have anything to do with what was happening in the movie. It was probably an in-joke that only ZAZ would get. Of all the performers, I thought Leslie Nielsen was the best...his timing is perfect. He is the funniest. Haggerty and Hays are charming in the more romantic leading roles, but they get a chance to really cut it up in the scene that spoofs SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD airs immediately before it. Double feature.

Incidentally, ROBIN AND MARIAN airs on TCM May 8.

I bet they did watch THE CROWDED SKY.

Yes, I vaguely recall it. I just looked it up, and supposedly, it is told with more historical realism.