ElCid
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Posts posted by ElCid
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On 6/26/2019 at 10:07 AM, Hibi said:
Did Susan play the same character every appearance? Yeah, it was the instrumental version played over the credits that I remember.
She played different roles as many of them did. Janice Rule, Suzane Pleshette, Patty McCormack, etc.
On 6/26/2019 at 4:37 PM, TikiSoo said:There isn't enough Susan Kohner out there. Thanks for letting me know to look at Rt 66 -it'll be worth taking out from the li-berry just to see her.
Great comparison to Natalie, whom I also like. I actually like Kohner better because she has a stronger voice. Are you aware Kohner's sons are modern movie producers? Imagine having such a gorgeous Mom?
And my friend Mod Betty is doing a two week podcast of her drive on 66 from Chicago to AZ. It's a caravan of hipsters.
Kohner was in Episode 13 of season 1 and episode 28 of Season 3.
On 6/26/2019 at 4:41 PM, Looney said:And side note, every time I see her it surprises me Barbara Hale didn't become a bigger star because I have to admit, she really sends me.
Of course she did become a star. Perry Mason was a big show, but I mean in the moving pictures. Having said that, I haven't seen much of her work outside of Perry Mason and honestly she wasn't required to deliver a wide range of emotions in any episode I've ever seen and I've seen most of them.
The Falcon in Hollywood and the The Falcon Out West. To me, Hollywood is the better movie, but Hale has pretty good roles in both.
On 6/26/2019 at 5:03 PM, Hibi said:Regarding Route 66, Did George Maharis ever come back to the show after he became ill? Or did Glenn Corbett remain on the show till it ended?
As someone mentioned he came back for one episode and then disapperared entirely and was replaced by Corbett. Interestingly, when Maharais was out, the first few episodes began with Tod calling him on the phone while he was hospitalized somewhere. You only heard Tod's side. Then they just stopped referring to him at all and Tod was on his own.
Buz disappeared in Ep. 13 of season 3 (1962). Buz reappeared in Ep. 17 and then was gone for good. Lincoln Case (Glen Corbett) joins the series in Ep. 23. He plays a soldier on leave from Vietnam, who decides to not re-enlist and then joins Tod. Lot of inaccuracies re: the Army, but hey that's TV.
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13 hours ago, Hibi said:
WOW. LOL. I mostly remember the theme song.
Not the Bobby Troup version, but the one by Nelson Riddle. Producers did not want to pay Troup for rights to his song. Troup's is the much recorded version about getting my kicks on Route 66. Riddle's is just music.
12 hours ago, Vautrin said:I missed the original run of Route 66. It was either on too late or I was playing outside,
so it was refreshing to watch a show whose episodes I haven't seen half a dozen times.
I think the writers and producers were trying to go a bit to the idea of socially significant
themes in many of the episodes. It's funny how two guys traveling around in a car happen to meet so many nuts and weirdos and get into so many dangerous situations every week. Must be a TV
show. Despite all that I still find it entertaining, probably as much for how parts of the
country looked and the mores of the early 1960s than for the plots themselves.
Possibly my favorite parts. I frequently look up some of the motels, hotels, businesses, etc. featured in the shows to see if still there. Most aren't. Season Three, episode 28 took place on a man-made island in St.Petersburg, FL area. Tod is selling plots for new houses and Linc (Buz's successor) is working building sea walls so they can build more houses. They end up driving racing boats for competing rich young women - neither is a blonde - Janice Rule and Susan Kohner. Kohner was in a couple of episodes and I really like her. She appears to be one of those young actresses of the Natalie Wood type.
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3 minutes ago, Michael Rennie said:
Here is their site. There were recently added to my area on Xfinity/Comcast.
I was updating my OTA TV today and noticed that some local stations now have two stations on same channel, as in 4-1 and 4-1 again and then 4-2 and 4-2 again. Each with different networks. Used to be 4-1,4-2, 4-3, 4-6, etc. This is worse than HD radio on my car.
I periodically run the auto search feature for channels as you never know when new ones have been added or old ones have boosted their power.
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2 minutes ago, cigarjoe said:
Film Noir The Naked Alibi (1954) with Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry.
Now that should be one for Noir Alley.
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2 minutes ago, Hibi said:
Yeah, Perry used to be on in the mornings too, years ago. MEtv used to show Route 66 late at night (think it was Sundays?) but I guess they dropped it. Never new CRAWFORD was on that show! How long was it on? I remember the show vaguely. My parents must have watched it.
Four years. One of the few that actually had an ending. Spoiler: In final double episode, Tod gets married to Barbara Eden. Nina Foch and Chill Wills were in it. There was one episode scheduled for Nov. 29, 1963 which was not shown until the series went into syndication. It was titled I'm Here to Kill a King and had a Tod look-a-like as an assassin hired to kill a country's leader visiting the U.S. JFK was assassinated on Nov. 22.
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Just now, Hibi said:
Wow. I didnt know there was a color episode. I never saw that one. So it was on 9 seasons then? I know, the plots are confusing enough w/out editing out parts.
That's why you really need to watch the quick post trial summaries, usually in Perry's office. They wrap it all up and put a bow on it.
One thing about the shows, you usually know within the first 10 minutes or so who is going to be murdered. It's almost always the real nasty, mean person.
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8 minutes ago, Vautrin said:
I think Fetv showed Perry Mason four times a day, two episodes in the afternoon and two in the
evening. Now they're down to just two a day. And of course loads of commercials, as if the plots
weren't already confusing enough. They showed the one color episode that was a test to see
how it looked if there was going to be a tenth season in color. Looked pretty good and Paul's
hair was as white as snow. Fetv, and then there's Maude.
I don't like the color episode. Somehow it just doesn't fit. I think the people involved didn't like it either.
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8 minutes ago, Vautrin said:
It's a channel that shows old TV shows (with lots of commercials or course). As far as I know
it's the only channel like that on DirecTV except for TVLand. Perry Mason. Mary Tyler Moore
Show, Roy Rogers, Sgt. Preston, etc. They just started showing Route 66 at the beginning
of June. Fe stand for Family Entertainment.
I've got Route 66 on DVD and frequently watch episodes. Until I got the DVD I had not remembered how serious the episodes were, for the most part. Nor that Tod and Buzz got into fights with someone else almost every episode. Surprisingly a lot of fairly big name stars (Joan Crawford) appeared on it. Also, only two episodes actually took place on Route 66. The first few episodes were in southern MS and Louisiana. All shows were filmed on location around the country and two episodes in Canada. Florida was popular the last two years.
I think Perry is on MeTV every day also. At one time, they showed it twice per day.
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2 minutes ago, TomJH said:
Now Della was an attractive woman!
"Oh, Perry, Perry. Why can't you go for me? I'm attractive."
"It's kind of complicated. Della. Let me put it this way - Hamilton Burger has that something extra I like."
Ham, hell. What about Paul Drake?
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15 minutes ago, TomJH said:
Not exactly surprising since shallow observations about the attractiveness (or not) of a particular actor or actress are easy to make and we all seem to have an opinion on the subject.
One of the things I like about Kristine Miller's classy good looks, by the way, is that she doesn't look like Gloria Grahame, a slightly odd looking woman I would never pay much attention to unless she splashed a pot of hot coffee in my face. Grahame was a fine actress, by the way, and I would hasten to tell her that before she hurled a hot pot of boiling joe at me.
"So you think I'm 'slightly odd looking?'"
"Well, yeh. But you are a good actress."
I think reason Graham succeeded more than Miller and others was that something extra. She may not have been the most beautiful, but she brought something to the roles than mere looks would not.
Incidentally, I didn't watch latest Noir Alley (don't like movies with kids), but remember Miller from Too Late for Tears. Decent acting, but not really all that memorable. Had to really reach back to remember her in it.
Watched an episode of Perry Mason last night. There were five blondes in it. I think Della may have been the only non-blonde in it. There were even a few in the courtroom spectator scenes. Perhaps that is a factor with some actresses in the 40's -60's - too many blondes to actually stand out.
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20 minutes ago, TomJH said:
You know it's really a case of getting the right breaks with the roles attained for a little known actress like Kristine Miller. I see that she did a lot of TV work after Too Late for Tears and appeared in a few films with largely undistinguished titles. The one exception to that was an unbilled part as Donna Reed's roommate in From Here to Eternity. The fact that Miller was unbilled in that film just four years after a fairly sizable role in Too Late for Tears seems to indicate that her career was in a struggle at that point.
Not as impressed with Miller's beauty as some others, but that is relative to each person anyway.
Regardless, I think it was in ImDB or Wikipedia that she joked that only her arm ended up in From Here to Eternity. Everything else ended up on the cutting room floor. Appears more than her are showed up.
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Talent, promotion, endurance and the right people (including her) to pick the music, movies, performances, etc.
Every time i watch A League of Their Own it is hard to think of Madonna in that and some of the songs she sang and her other "performances>"
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27 minutes ago, cigarjoe said:
Your loss pilgrim.
I'm sure you like Night and the City (1950) with Widmark, Tierney, Hugh Marlowe, Googie Withers, Francis L. Sullivan and Herbert Lom. If you do its sort of a gateway Noir to other British Noirs along with Terror on a Train (1953) with Glen Ford.
You probably haven't see the right ones. I Became a Criminal (1947) with Trevor Howard is excellent. The Long Memory (1953) with John Mills, Brighton Rock (1948) with Richard Attenborough, Pool Of London with Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, For Them That Trespass (1949) with Stephen Murray and Richard Todd, are also good. Another great one is Never Let Go (1960) with Peter Sellers and Richard Todd.
But there are plenty others that we never see. The Blue Lamp (1950) is one that is highly thought of, but I've never seen it.
Have seen Night and Terror both - didn't care for them. Ironically I am a big fan of trains. Have never cared for Peter Sellers in any movie.
My loss, Pilgrim.
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2 hours ago, cigarjoe said:
Didn't he talk about the child actress at the outro? I could have sworn he did. I usually watch on Sun since I invariably fall asleep, (I usually wake at 5-5:30 AM), that makes for a long day trying to stay up if I don't catch a nap.
However attempting to watch Marriage on the Rocks took care of nap time, lol. I was ready to stay up for last nights viewing.
I've seen the film before. So far the only Noir that I hadn't seen on Noir Alley was The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950).
It would be nice if TCM would invest some $$$ into Noir Alley and sprinkle some little seen French & Britt Noirs into the mix. A lot of us have seen most of the TCM library Noirs, the saving grace for them is of course Eddie's commentaries.
From the British Noirs I have seen, I would prefer they keep doing American. I have watched a few and always been disappointed. As for French, I assume they would all be in French with subtitles, so I would pass on that as well.
Watched Eddie's intro and passed on the film.
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Short answer: No. "The [Geneva] Convention lists in detail the types of work a prisoner of war may be compelled to perform, “besides work connected with camp administration, installation or maintenance”.[2] This list builds upon the general prohibition found in the 1929 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War that “work done by prisoners of war shall have no direct connection with the operations of the war”.[3]https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule95
Not saying POW's were not involved in performing forced labor on war related projects and that their commanders did not resist it. However, in Bridge Nicholson not only cooperated, but took over construction and made it better and quicker. That is collaboration.
Nicholson was collaborating with the enemy in order to construct a bridge to be used to support the Japanese war effort. The part about transporting "his" troops to a hospital was BS and he would have known that. The Japanese would never have given up space on the trains to transport POW's to a hospital.
The below is form Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai
Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question. Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. Toosey in fact did as much as possible to delay the building of the bridge. While Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed.[24][25] Some consider the film to be an insulting parody of Toosey.[24] On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and, if he had, due to his collaboration he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers.[24] He strongly denied the claim that the book was anti-British, although many involved in the film itself (including Alec Guinness) felt otherwise.[30] Ernest Gordon, a survivor of the railway construction and POW camps described in the novel/film, stated in a 1962 book, Through the Valley of the Kwai: "In Pierre Boulle's book The Bridge over the River Kwai and the film which was based on it, the impression was given that British officers not only took part in building the bridge willingly, but finished in record time to demonstrate to the enemy their superior efficiency. This was an entertaining story. But I am writing a factual account, and in justice to these men—living and dead—who worked on that bridge, I must make it clear that we never did so willingly. We worked at bayonet point and under bamboo lash, taking any risk to sabotage the operation whenever the opportunity arose."[23]
The bridge was destroyed by Allied air raids, not sabotage.
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Per TCM schedule as of 8:55 AM, Fri., Shadow on the Wall is Noir Alley movie on Sat and Sunday. Not to confuse anyone with the above posts re: a July Noir Alley feature.
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11 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:
Cid, you're a respected poster here, and a regular Noir Alley contributor; I don't want to fight with you. Honestly.
Still, with your somewhat severe assessment of characters like Skip McCoy, I kind of wonder why you like noir at all. Almost all film noir features "criminal" or "bad" characters - "bad", as in the black and white concept that people who steal or otherwise break the law must be bad. But, as I said in an earlier post - a page or so back, I know you read it - part of the appeal of noir, of what makes it different and interesting, is the way it often depicts people who get involved in crime, or as in the case of Skip, are hard-boiled long-time crooks, as sympathetic. At the very least, as I said in that earlier post, these kinds of films are very different from the earlier "crime" or gangster movies in that the criminal characters are shown as having both "good" and "bad" aspects to their characters. The "grey" I was talking about.This complexity of character is a large part of what makes noir unusual and interesting.
Just because Skip was a pickpocket, it does not follow that he was a nasty person. Tough and snarky and distrustful of just about everyone, yes - that is why he did not commit to Candy til well into the film, because he did not trust her. He trusted no one (maybe Moe), because he has no reason to trust anyone. We get an idea of what kind of life Skip had , what kind of things might have led him to becoming a thief, in a very brief interaction between him and Candy. When they're in that boat, Candy asks him how he came to be a pickpocket -"why do you do what you do?", something like that. Skip immediately gets angry and shuts her down (and yes, unfortunately, slaps her.) Just that 10 second conversation is enough to suggest that Skip had a rough childhood and probably very little education.
And was it you who said you couldn't imagine Skip and Candy living a "legal" lifestyle because they couldn't earn a living living except through crime (or prostitution) ? But - and this is one reason I like Pickup on South Street- the film makes it pretty clear that Skip is, in his own way, quite smart. Even Candy is no dummy. For reasons cited earlier, I don't really like the notion of these two living a respectable life, but I also don't think they're too dumb or too tough to do so if they chose.
I'm really blathering on too long here about that one character (Skip.) My larger point is, many noir protagonists are criminals, or at the very least, dishonest in some way (like Stan in Nightmare Alley.) But they're still interesting - it's because they live outside the law that they are (interesting.) And most of the time, they're morally ambiguous- a bit "bad", a bit "good" - just like most of us.
Don't forget, "crime is just a left-handed form of human endeavour".
OK, final response (I hope). I'm just trying to offer an alternative view to that expressed by you and maybe others on the Skip character. I just don't interpret him as being that nice and he is definitely a criminal-three convictions and sentences to prison. As I said earlier, perhaps if it had been a longer movie and they had developed his character more, I could have seen what you see. But, I don't. I might add I paid attention to the movie and watched it on a big screen TV.
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11 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:
No ,not really. That is, I never got the idea that he stole the money for Moe's burial. I offered a perfectly plausible explanation as to how Skip was able to afford Moe's funeral- did you read it?
And I don't even really see him as "conflicted"; just because he's a professional pickpocket, and a tough snarky suspicious ( as in distrustful) guy, doesn't make him "bad" enough to be conflicted when he does something decent.
Your explanation was that he used Moe's money, if I recall correctly. Assuming he got to it before someone else did, such as the police who knew she had a "roll" on her all the time. Regardless, Moe said she did not have enough; close, but not enough.
Or maybe he did use the $500 he stole from Candy. And he did steal it as in he did not give her the microfilm it was supposed to pay for. Not to mention the manner in which he took it from her.
I did not see him as conflicted. He was pretty convincing as a criminal who might be sympathetic to Moe, but not anyone else, including Candy up until close to the end. That's why I don't really accept the 180 turn around in the final scene. He was a three time loser who was back to picking pockets within days, if not hours, after his release. Remember he already had a stash hidden in his "icebox" when he added Candy's stuff.
11 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:We have covered this ground before and I guess we will just have to agree-to-disagree.
To me someone that makes their living from stealing from others is "bad" enough to be a conflicted noir protagonist. In fact to me that is the heart of many noir protagonist.
In addition I felt I was supporting your point and not Cid's (as in the 180 degree turn); there was NO 180 degree turn but instead just a guy that, while a criminal, did care about others and would do good deeds for them.
See above. The only person he cared about a little was Moe, maybe. He did not care for Candy at all until late in the movie. The 180 to me is that he was a three time loser who returned to a life of crime within hours of getting out of prison, whose only compassion was for Moe, a little, and very late for Candy. In fact I could see him abandoning Candy later on or as you suggested becoming her pimp.
Maybe I was just so convinced by how evil or criminal he was in the first half of the movie, that the change at the end just came too quick to be convincing.
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1 hour ago, misswonderly3 said:
(Quoting you twice from the same post !)
I really don't get why so many people, when they watch these kinds of movies, always seem to assume the worst about the criminal characters featured in them. That's exactly why I like noir: a lot of the time, the very people who are "criminal" are also sympathetic. It's that "grey" moral area- most people, criminal or law-abiding, are neither bad nor good, but have elements of both in their character. I love the way film noir explores this. (Yes, ok, there are lots of outright "bad" people in noir, for sure. But much of the time the protagonist, in this case Skip McCoy, is clearly not all "bad".)
For one thing, he is not violent. Yes, he knocks Candy around a bit, and especially in today's era, that is not acceptable. But he does not commit violent crime, he doesn't even carry a gun.
For another, there's no reason at all to think he's so self-centred that he wouldn't have any kind of decency in him, the kind of decency that he displays when he retrieves Moe's coffin from its journey to Potters Field and gives her the "proper" burial she always wanted. It's one of Skip's actions that makes him sympathetic, likable even, and I have no problem believing that he could and would do such a thing.
Also, it's implied that Skip and Moe have known each other a long time -- Moe says something about having known Skip since he was a young kid. This suggests a long-term, even respectful, acquaintance between them. In fact, I can imagine Moe being a kind of mother figure to Skip.
Sorry, I just don't see it. Seems to me that the screenplay and direction built Skip us as a not so good person and then did a 180. He didn't really seem to care for people all that much, although he could justify Moe giving him up. I perceived that as a bad guy excusing the bad act of someone he knew well. Same as his supposedly giving up crime in the very end of the movie. Maybe a longer movie could have seen him evolving as a person.
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2 minutes ago, speedracer5 said:
I figured that it was a way to show that underneath the criminal exterior, Skip does have a heart and wants Moe to have the dignified funeral that she was saving up for. I think Moe says something about having to make a living so that she can die. When Joey comes to kill her, she says "I tried." Despite Moe's occupation as a stool pigeon, Skip says that she has to make a living somehow. She also refuses to tell Joey where Skip lives. She also wouldn't tell the police where he lived at the beginning of the film either. Perhaps paying for a proper grave was Skip's way of repaying Moe? I'll assume he had some money from picking pockets.
After being out of prison for one week. He would have had to have picked some very profitable pockets. Just thought it was incongruous with the position Skip was in per the film. Also, while he accepted Moe's requirement that she sell the information she had, still don't see him as being all that generous in taking responsibility for her burial.
Of course, I also question the ending anyway. Skip and Candy go off hand in hand to "sin" no more by criminal activities. Whereas both had fallen into criminal activities because they could not make money any other way. Especially Skip as he had already been to prison three times. If he could have made an honest living, seems like he would already have done it instead of returning to being a pickpocket only one week out of prison.
Still a very good movie.
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11 hours ago, speedracer5 said:
The scene where Moe knows that she's going to be killed is so sad. The addition of the music in the background really lends to the poignance of the scene. The ending where Joey caulks his gun, and Moe knows the end is coming, is heart-wrenching.
The next scene when Richard Widmark is informed that Moe will be buried in a Potter's field is even sadder. That was the one thing that Moe didn't want in her life, she even laments that she won't get the fancy funeral she dreamt of in one of her last minutes of life.
If Thelma Ritter ever deserved to win one of her six Oscar nominations, it was for this film.
My question on the retrieval of the coffin scene is where did Widmark get the money for another coffin, plot, headstone, etc.? While nice, it did seem out of character for McCoy.
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Pickup on South Street is a very good movie and has a very good cast. I'm not quite as enthused about it as Miss Wonderly or Eddie Muller though. The story kept my attention all the way through even though I had seen it years ago.
Eddie mentions that Fuller was in the 1st Infantry Div. (the Big Red One) during WW II. Early in the initial subway scenes there is a soldier in uniform and he is wearing a 1st Inf. Div. patch. I wonder if Fuller did this intentionally.
Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe for the role of Candy. NAH! Jean Peters was excellent in this role and she looked the part. Grable and Monroe could have played it, but never as convincingly.
Willis Bouchey played the FBI and he also played one in Suddenly. He's another one of those guys that shows up a lot, but seldom in a big role, and you remember him. He was often the judge in Perry Mason series.
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1 hour ago, speedracer5 said:
Don't miss tonight's Noir Alley everyone! Pickup on South Street is a good one!
And the below is on at 11:30, but only lasts for 10 minutes I think. Du Cote de la Cote (1958). A short subject about the French Riviera
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Saturday, June 15, 2:15 PM, Kansas City Confidential (1952) with John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, Neville Brand.
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Of course she did become a star. Perry Mason was a big show, but I mean in the moving pictures. Having said that, I haven't seen much of her work outside of Perry Mason and honestly she wasn't required to deliver a wide range of emotions in any episode I've ever seen and I've seen most of them.
HITS & MISSES: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow on TCM
in General Discussions
Posted
My wife and I saw it when it came out. She is from TN and we were living there at the time. Blanton's campaign theme was a Ray of Blanton Sunshine - or something like that.
The previous election had a lot of candidates running for the nomination (Dem I think, but not sure). A reporter asked one why he was running and he said everybody should run for governor some time. Another reporter shouted "I thought everyone was." Sort of like the current Dem primary.
The movie was OK, but not great.