ElCid
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Posts posted by ElCid
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The rumor is that most moderators here look more like Tiffany. Oh and did you see her last Saturday. She was dressed really nice and looked great. I also believe she was solid. To me she has made progress.
I give up. Who is Tiffany? Got a picture?
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I've been trying for weeks now to get an answer from TCM to a simple question by posting it using the "Contact Us" button on the right side of the forum screen. But I never hear a word. I've sent them multiple requests and never get a reply.
Has anyone here EVER gotten a reply to a question they've posed via the Contact Us form?
Or does anyone have a real email or phone number to actually reach a human being at TCM?
TCM, you treat your customers with even more arrogance than AT&T, and that's saying a lot.
I use the contact us link at tcm.com rather than the one here. Not sure what the difference is, if any.
Regardless, I almost never get an answer to even the simplest questions.
I have submittted questions about the Now Playing Guide changeover to digital only and get an automated response telling me how to subscribe to the print edition that is being abolished.
Guess the thing to remember is that there are no commercials on TCM or this site, so they don't got a lot of money.
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I sent another email to TCM and did NOT select Now Playing Guide as subject. However, I did mention it in small case in the body. I made a suggestion on how they might improve the formating of the Monthly Schedule for printing.
ZAP!!! Got an email from TCM on how to subscribe to the Now Playing Guide. Send $12 to Palm Coast FL address and in 6-12 weeks you will receive your first issue.
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I just received the NOW PLAYING NEWSLETTER in my email inbox with a photo of a dour Ben Mankiewcz. You have to click a link to "schedule" or download "at a glance" overview.
It contains links for SOTM, specials (in this case 4th of July movies), Ben's & Scorsese's "picks", "Film Comment magazine's "picks" and Baclot Member "spotlight" (groan)
When you click "AT A GLANCE" you get the highlights of the month with the P for premieres!
Then, "Here's your crossword!" Really? Like I can fill in a crossword on my computer? No, I have to print it out myself. I can just imagine how fun THAT is if you receive your email on your phone.
I don't know about you, but I gave up having a home printer long ago. It's much more efficient to send data to a real brick/mortar printer and pick it up later. Kind of takes the fun out of having a crossword on the back page of a magazine.
Haha, every link will first connect to "manage.com/track/click" so much for BigMovieBrother watching you.
What about accessing the Movie Listings (monthly schedule), the main body of current NPG? It's about 21 pages in printed version, which is about 5.5" by 8.5" in size. TCM could easily format to print two pages per standard 8.5 x 11 paper. Remove all the pictures in current version and could do whole thing on 6-8 pages of paper.
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Just talked with someone who "works for TCM" You do not receive the email notification re: NPG being available online until your subscription actually expires.
They are currently working on determining how much to send in refunds.
I just did a test and it would take 29 sheets of paper for me to print the July Monthly Guide from the TCM.com site. That is the standard landscape version as on the screen. If you change to portrait, it is only 22 pages.
They cancelled the NPG because too many people did not wish to pay $13.00 per year.
The person I spoke with does not know of any changes that will be made to the Monthly Schedule to maker it more print friendly.
I guess we're screwed,
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Received the first newsletter today (for July). Does include a link to a separate "At A Glance" section which retains the format of the previous printed version for all days of the month. Indicates daily themes and premieres as before.
Then there's a schedule link which is just a link to the on-line monthly schedule that we've been seeing for a while now. So from a do-it-yourself printing perspective this is all we have to work with. (Unless you want to try to do something with one of the daily schedule formats.)
I guess the semi-monthly newsletter will just feature additional announcements / articles in the secondary e-mail each month.
Interesting. I requested the email version month or two ago and I have not received one. Did get the print version. Maybe they don't send out email if you were sent print?
Signed up for email again anyway.
Went to TCM.com and clicked on month schedule, then print to get preview of what it will be like. Waited several minutes for it to load and it never did.
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Have never liked Jery Lewis or anything he has done.
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I was all prepared to stop watching If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) after the first few minutes. After all, it was a typical big studio attempt to tap into the counter-culture movement for marketing potential--from the mainstream viewpoint, that is. What a surprise! Not only did I watch it all the way through, I actually enjoyed a lot in it. It attempts to be satiric, ironic, quirky, and off-beat. And it succeeds--a lot of the time. The direction, editing, and sound can be witty, playing with the subject matter, situations, and setting. The comedy doesn't always work, the pace drags in places, and the characters get tedious at times riding their respective hobby-horses. But there's a lot of fun on the way, and a decent love story between antipathies, played by Suzanne Pleshette, and Ian McShane. You'll also see a lot of faces more familiar to you from TV of the era and succeeding decades. In the end, the movie does manage not to be bound by conventions of Hollywood storytelling. To know what I mean, you'll have to watch it all the way through yourself. Oh, wait--it's on now.
I almost skipped over this thread because you did not include the title of the movie.
If it's Tuesday... is actually a very good movie. Been waiting for couple of years for TCM to show it again. I watched it and recorded it, although I have already seen it a couple of times. It has been schduled before and then pre-empted. The pictures with names at the end of the people with cameos was a nice touch.
A lot better movie than it gets credit for.
Suzanne Pleshette is one of my favorite actresses. I think this was one movie/show where they really did a good job with styling her hair. But that's my personal opinion.
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Due to a cable system issue I missed recording Noir Alley this week, and there was no On Demand listing later to bail me out - boo! However, after visiting the Noir Alley Facebook page I discovered that there is now a Noir Alley web site - noirally.tcm.com - and you can watch Eddie’s intros for several of the films there - yay! (Look under the “Video Archive” tab. No after-movie clips are included, though.) So I was able to catch the intro for High Wall there this week. Thank you TCM for fully supporting Noir Alley!
(movie spoilers ahead)
How bleak must things have been in post-war America that the more cynical noir stories seem to have resonated with audiences? Since I am now watching the Noir Alley films on a regular basis, I am somewhat surprised that I find myself depressed by the more negative aspects of many of the stories. In High Wall, for example, we see:
- a District Attorney who is hell-bent on convicting a mentally damaged suspect while he’s still healthy enough to stand trial
- another scene of a suspect alone in the middle of a group of interrogators trying to convince him to confess
- a court-appointed lawyer who is mostly interested in selling the defendant’s story to the tabloids
- a psychiatric review board who claims that the patient’s son is in the next room so they can see how he will react
Is there any connection between the bleakness of these films and the fact that many of the screenwriters ended up on the Hollywood Black List?
Robert Taylor is one of my favorite actors and Audrey Totter is really great in the film - she almost single-handedly pulled me through much of the movie. Poor Herbert Marshall in another slimy villain role. Overall High Wall is well-crafted (do all noir movies have great cinematography?) and I enjoyed seeing how they wrapped things up in the end.
I don't think the movies in general were anymore bleak than at any other period. You have to add in the vast numbers of westerns, non-noir mysteries, comedies, dramas, SciFi, horror and others that were also being produced.
I think part of the appearance of so much bleak noir is that TCM has done a good job of acquiring them and showing them.
"- a District Attorney who is hell-bent on convicting a mentally damaged suspect while he’s still healthy enough to stand trial
- another scene of a suspect alone in the middle of a group of interrogators trying to convince him to confess
- a court-appointed lawyer who is mostly interested in selling the defendant’s story to the tabloids
- a psychiatric review board who claims that the patient’s son is in the next room so they can see how he will react"
There are movies and TV shows today and over past 30 years that have also had these features. In fact, you could say one and two are "ripped from the headlines" as in Law and Order TV series.
When I go on the On Demand premium channels movie selections, a lot of them appear pretty bleak to me. Then I will begin some and they turn out to be bleak.
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Notwithstanding the half-way interesting Bentley on tonight's Paris When it Sizzles (1964), I have opted for Saturday's Zabriskie Point (1970), and its 1952 Buick Special 2-door Tourback Sedan:
Normally I don't go for these types of cars. They look like marshmallows on steroids to me. But this one has something to it. The whitewalls don't hurt.
A friend has a 2006 Mercury Marquis as a "secondary" driver. Keeps it because it is a big, comfortable car.
His wife and I tried to convince him that he needs to get wide whitewall tires for it.
One of the interesting things about cars (and advertising) of the 40's through 60's is that most advertising showed illustrations of the cars rather than actual pictures. The illustrators usually took artistic license to show them longer and lower than they really were.
They even went to extreme of showing the people inside smaller than in reality.
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You may wish to visit the Film Noir Foundation website. Muller is the founder and president. You can donate and receive their e-magazine filled with Noir information.
I watch Noir Alley primarily to hear Muller as I have seen all the shows and have many on DVD.
http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/home.html
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Most on here are already well aware that the Korean war-(l950-53) has been barely covered by Hollywood.
There was always a running joke that the marvelous tv series "M*A*S*H" (l972-83) lasted for over 11 seasons & that war only lasted 3, at least with U.S. involvement anyway
& for yrs it's been truly difficult to even cite (10) motion pictures that covered the forgotten war?
the sole flix I can think of are>
"M*A*S*H" (l970)-(I'm not a fan of Donald Sutherland myself though & if only Alan Alda had portrayed Hawkeye Pierce in the theatrical version)
"The Manchurian Candidate" (l962)
"Battle Circus" (l953)
"Men in War" (l957)
"Pork Chop Hill" (l959)
"MacArthur" (l978)
& please help out, I simply can't really think of any others???
THANX
This is just one source. Google Korean War movies for others.
Appear to about 50 American ones.
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I remember the full-room sleeping cars from Silver Streak and Murder On the Orient Express (not Assassination), and thought you were "supposed" to book those on an all-night Amtrak cross country.
And then, like the myth of the Hollywood Apartment, I found out those were only limited premium sleeper cabins, and the standard Amtrak sleeper cabin was a British-style train compartment with pull-down beds, much as you'd find on the Hogwarts Express.
(Not sure if they still use the "Bunk bed" berths as seen in old 30's comedies, back when the Super Chief and Twentieth Century were the most traveled lines.)
Always wanted to take one of those, but never found the right destination.
For the upper and lower "bunk beds" (actually sections), try VIA Rail Canada. I think they still have them.
Another Hollywood exageration for scenic effect was the rooms on trains. In Silver Streak, most shots were taken when two bedrooms were opened with the cameras in one. Or else taken on a sound stage with an enlarged bedroom.
The ones in Orient Express are actually appropriately sized whether on a soundstage or actual train - unique for movies.
They may appear larger because of the camera angles and not realizing there is a wall just outside camera views.
Most Amtrak sleepers still have "pull down" beds in the sleepers. One pulls from the top of wall and other folds over the daytime sofa seating. Somewhat different in the roomettes, but basically same principal.
However, the roomettes are definitiely smaller and while there are two beds (upper and lower), you really better like each other as the roomettes are very small.
If travelling at night, definitely want a bed.
Before Amtrak, some higher level trains had roomettes (2 beds), bedrooms (2 beds-more space), sections (upper and lower berths w/curtains), compartments (2 beds-more space) and drawing rooms (3 beds-more space). The drawing rooms could seat 4-5 comfortably during the day. However, they were few and far between even on most luxourious trains - and very costly. Even the bedrooms in the Orient Express were not much bigger than the bedrooms on Amtrak today. Bedroom design has not changed much since the 1920's.
Also the Super Chief and Twentieth Century Limited were not the "most traveled lines," just the most expensive and most famous.
In fact, Santa Fe made more money off the coach only El Capitan than it did the Super Chief or the Chief simply due to greater number of passengers. New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads probably did have more passengers per mile than other roads at the time. But a lot of that would have been commuters.
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You probably notice a lot of things the regular viewer with no knowledge of trains
wouldn't. I do notice those 1930s films where it's very obvious the train is just
a model.
Drives my wife nuts when I point out the discrepancies. One that gets me is when they use actual train names, but the train they used did not go where the movie shows it going. In one Thin Man movie, they are on the Sunset Limited, which was possible but very, very unlikely. As it would have meant going to New Orleans and then to California. Usual route from NY was through Chicago and then to CA.
Silver Streak and Narrow Margin both used Canadian trains. SS used the CP Rail Canadian trains, but relettered them for Amroad and set it in US. NM use VIA Rail(I think also Canadian).
Amtrak had (probably sitll has) a phobia about its trains being in movies. Maybe now that there long distance routes are threatened with huge budget cuts maybe they will change their minds.
You are correct about the models, but they got better and sometimes I can't tell the difference. I think now they tend to use more real trains, even when they destroy them as in The Fugitive. That wreck is still there, but as a tourist attraction now.
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This is another favorite of mine and comes on Sat., June 24 at 6:00 PM ET.
Every time I watch a western made in the 30's or 40's, I think of Hearts of the West.
Not sure how accurate it is, but it seems believable to me.
Regardless, it is a very good comedy set in 1930's Hollywood. Stars Jeff Bridges, Andy Griffith, Blythe Danner, Alan Arkin and other familar faces.
tcm.com/tcmdb/title/3611/Hearts-of-the-West/articles.html
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The Rathbone-Bruce Holmes' film Terror by Night takes place aboard
a train. As I recall, there aren't a lot of shots of the train moving on
the tracks, just a lot of interior shots of the train and Holmes and
Watson opening and closing the doors of the compartments questioning
various suspects. And as a bonus there is the name of Watson's old
friend on the train, Major Duncan-Bleek. I say old boy.
How about the symbolism of the train having many fewer cars as it
exits the tunnel compared to the number it had when entering the
tunnel?
One of Hollywood's many train gaffs. One of my favorite movies is The Narrow Margin. It leaves Chicago as a full-size passenger train. Yet later shots are obviously film they had on hand of a train moving. I remember the scenes in Assassination (1987) where Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland get on an Amtrak passenger train with sleeping cars. Later shots show the train using a switch engine as motive power. I am not aware of Amtrak using switch engines to actually for power on trains other than to move cars around a yard or station.
As for tunnels, I have hundreds of train books and magazines and lots of train documentary DVD's. There are always lots of trains entering tunnels, as well as crossing bridges. They are more interesting and show the engineering marvels of railroad construction. I don't believe there was any sexual intention in taking or publishing the pictures.
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Sure. GEORGE CARLIN once brought up the "train in a tunnel" thing in a routine of his about that sort of thing. saying, "You don't have to be FELLINI to figure THAT one out!"
In other movies I've seen gushing OIL DERRICKS and ROCKET LIFT-OFFS used for the same effect.
I too, brought it to light when watching NBNW with friends about 25 years ago or so. Grant pulling Eva up to the train compartment's "pull down" bed and then quickly cutting to the "train in the tunnel" shot, and a friend quipping: "HOW did they KNOW Cary Grant that well? Maybe, to be more accurate, they should have used a TROLLEY CAR!"
Sepiatone
As many times as I have watched North By Northwest, I never realized the symbolism of the train entering the tunnel in the final scene until I read it here not that long ago. I just thought it was a train going into a tunnel and the movie ends.
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Some of my other favorites not mentioned are From Russia With Love, Murder on the Orient Express, Sleepers West, and Under Siege 2: Dark Teritory.
If talking "shots," always been a sucker for movies with scenes on passenger trains such as The Falcon's Adventure and The Saint in Palms Springs.
John Farr's top ten of 100 Greatest mentioned in my previous post are (in order) The Train, North by Northwest, Twentieth Century, The Lady Vanishes, La Bete Humaine, High Noon, Brief Encounter, The General, Buth Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Murder on the Orient Express.
Interesting fact about Orient Express is that it is probably only one where the scenes were either filmed on an actual passenger car or on sets using same dimensions as real passenger cars. Most movies used sets where the interiors of passengers cars were much larger than in reality.
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Trains and Model railroading are two of my primary interests. There are few, if any, movies about trains as such. The movies use the train as a setting or feature to advance the story. There are lots of documentaries about trains, railroading, passenger trains, etc.
There are a lot of great "train movies." My favorite is Silver Streak (1976) not to be confused with 1934's The Silver Streak. Both Narrow Margin (1990) and The Narrow Margin (1952) are also favorites of mine. Breakheart Pass is a great one.
For me, at least about 50% of the movie has to take place on a train, in a train yard or in a station for it to be a train movie.
Several years ago, Kalmbach publishing published a "book" 100 Greatest Train Movies. It's not bad, but some questionable choices in it. Was written by a movie buff and not a train buff. For example, he included a couple of movies where it begins with someone walking across a train yard for a few minutes. Rest of movie has no trains at all.
You can google 100 best or greatest train movies and see a lot of information.
I did watch Danger lights and had seen it before. Nice train scenes, but I actually found the movie kind of boring. However, it is considered a classic among railroad buffs as it has so much about railroading and so many train shots in it.
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Has anyone received the July issue of Now Playing yet?
I'm getting worried that mine was lost in the mail...
Have had mine for a week or two.
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Saturday's night of Raymond Chandler movies inspired my wife and I to plan a home festival of gumshoe movies. We haven't seen MARLOWE yet but plan to include it, as my wife is a big fan of "The Rockford Files," which this movie seemed to resemble, loosely.
Another updated Chandler story that's well done is THE LONG GOODBYE (1973), directed by Robert Altman and starring Elliott Gould as Marlowe. I liked it a lot and would recommend it. I do wish, however, that there had been an earlier version of the 1953 novel. While I can enjoy the 1970s setting in the Altman movie, part of what I love about Chandler is the way he evokes the 1940s and 50s.
In our gumshoe festival, we'll probably also include, from Chandler, MURDER, MY SWEET and THE FALCON TAKES OVER, both of which used the same source novel, "Farewell, My Lovely." Of course, we'll also watch THE BIG SLEEP.
Among the non-Chandler movies, we're thinking about THE MALTESE FALCON, maybe something from the Thin Man series, and perhaps even some Sherlock Holmes (who's a private detective even if he's not a "gumshoe"). The Hildegarde Withers movies are another possibility, and perhaps The Saint.
Other suggestions?
The Hildegarde Withers movies with Edna May Oliver are the best and my favorite is Murder on a Honeymoon. Murder on a Bridle Path with Helen Broderick as Withers is not bad, but the ones with ZaSu pitts are poor.
Sounds like a good evening, but really should have several to cover even a portion of these good genre movies.
You might try The Falcon movies with George Sanders and Tom Conway. Actual brothers for those who may not know. Although I like all The Saint and The Falcon movies, I think the ones with Conway are somewhat lighter and more entertaining. Especially, The Falcon in Mexico and then in Hollywood. The Falcon and the Co-Eds is pretty good also.
So many great, entertaining movies from the 30's through the 50's especially in the "gumshoe" genre. Even Nancy Drew!
Speaking of PI's, interesting that in the 50's, 60's and 70's, they were all over the TV. Now that we have far more channels/networks, are there any PI series?
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Perhaps you figure, with Murder My Sweet and the Falcon film, you've already seen enough of the story. But how about Farewell My Lovely, with Mitchum? Great, moody, score by David Shire. Forgot the music? Here it is. Makes me think of lonely nights in the big city.
Thanks, Great music and really makes the movie. My absolute favorite of the three versions.
Every time I hear the opening music of Farewell, I immediately think of Body Heat. Not a noir per se, but very close.
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Lila Leeds has a supporting role as the
sexy secretary. She is more notorious as the woman who was
busted with Mitchum in 1948 for inhaling some weed.
Now that is important information. I'll have to add that to the notes I have for my DVD of The Big Steal, which was delayed somewhat by Mithcum's unfortunate incarceration. Also to my DVD for Lady in the Lake.
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MCOH, this talk of the minivans now reminds me of a vehicle from which many believe Lee Iococca drew inspiration, the Brubaker Box...
This was the brainchild of one Curtis Brubaker back in the late-'60s, and when the chassis of the VW Beetle would become the basis for various custom-built vehicles during that era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brubaker_Box
In film, a Brubaker Box can be briefly seen during the "tree museum" scene(btw and speakin' o' which, don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?...sorry, couldn't resist) in 1973's SOYLENT GREEN here...
Read where Iococcoa got the inspiration from the Dodge Pick-up and Dodge delivery van. Thought combining the two into one family oriented vehicle would be good, especially as a replacement for the station wagon.
Does TCM ever answer "Contact Us" questions?
in General Discussions
Posted
Thanks. It's Tiffany Vazquez.