MyFavoriteFilms
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Posts posted by MyFavoriteFilms
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I think we are all entrusted to serve others in our various occupations. That does not exclude film directors.
Again, he is reckless with movie-going demographics. No black person would enjoy paying to see this film.
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Yes, it's hard to think of anyone else playing Dorothy but Judy Garland. I think that if they had made it with Shirley and W.C. Fields, it would've been completely different in tone (especially with Fields' anarchic brand of humor).
Some other ones I thought of:
Burt Lancaster as ELMER GANTRY. No one else has that magnetic charisma. He's perfect in that role.
It's hard to imagine Spencer Tracy not playing Father Flannigan in BOYS TOWN. A well-deserved Oscar for that.
Jessica Tandy in DRIVING MISS DAISY. That was another role Bette feverishly campaigned to get but lost.
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Fabian gets killed off 27 minutes into the 65 version (and this includes a lengthy opening credit sequence). So he really doesn't have much chance to act in this film. I love the line where he tells the one chick she's 'dead sexy.' That was surely not in the original!
Hugh O'Brien is a good choice and so is Shirley Eaton as the female lead. But as you said, the rest of the actors seem too similar in style that it hurts the film. In the original, there is a more eclectic group of actors: Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston, plus C. Aubrey Smith doing a fantastic job as the old coot. I am most impressed with Judith Anderson. Just such solid acting from her. Incidentally, she and Walter Huston would reunite as lovers in THE FURIES about five years later.
It doesn't surprise me that Towers kept remaking it and trying to squeeze more money out of it. That's what a producer does.
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I have his bio on James Dean...and yes, he did research the actor's origins in Indiana. Of course, James Dean lived such a short life, that it isn't too difficult to go all the way back to the beginning.
He also did a book on Spencer Tracy, but I loaned it to a friend and I can't remember how much research he did for it. I remember he concentrated a lot on Tracy's drinking problem which I didn't care for.
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You've made errors with your post, Harry. Woody Allen's films have certainly not turned much profit when compared to other directors. Yet he is allowed to keep churning them out. LOL He has been entrusted with creating ensemble pieces that provide many roles for a wide variety of stage, television and film performers.
There are ideals to be found in Hollywood, along with the profit-making.
I don't buy the excuse that Griffy was surprised that his view of history was considered racist. No. He was more surprised that people actually called him out on his racism and that he was forced to confront his own hatred of African Americans.
Modern audiences like to come up with excuses or rationale that may defend a bum filmmaker. I don't.
In our industry, in our country, there are bound to be artists who go too far with the kinds of statements they are trying to make. Sometimes they get by with it, and other times there is an incredible backlash. In the case of a Cat Named Griffith (Bill Cosby's term for D.W. Griffith) the backlash has lasted decades.
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I finished watching the 45 version AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. Interestingly, the disc obtained thru Netflix had a bonus feature of the British opening credits sequence (twas called TEN LITTLE N-words in that one).
The greatest difference in Claire's version is that none of the deaths are depicted on camera. In the remake twenty years later, all of the dead bodies are seen. But with Claire (and the code) we get shots of boots, lifeless hands and crumpled bodies at a distance. One character falls and dies behind a large piece of furniture! There are no close-ups of the grisly murders. Sometimes you cannot even tell who has died, until the character's name is mentioned or unless you happen to already be familiar with Christie's story.
Another change is that Claire sets his movie at a remote house on an island in summertime. There are all sorts of seashore moments involving the charcters. But in the 65 film, they are at a mountain lodge in winter. So when we have the death with the bee sting, we see a bee buzzing around outside the window in the original. But in the second film, since there would be no bee outside in winter, it is changed to a bedspread with a bee pattern on it. LOL
The other obvious difference is definitely the sex scene. There is no sex in the first film.
My personal opinion is that the actors are much better in the first film. Judith Anderson is superb. The way she sits there knitting and looking on as if she is the murderer (when she is not) is truly spellbinding.
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Harry,
I am going to assume you didn't eat enough breakfast this morning. It's one thing for you to disagree with what I have written (tsk-tsk) but for you to pooh-pooh it on an empty stomach without stating where we differ, it just seems so undiplomatic. LOL
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> Legend has it that Jimmy Stewart's father took out an ad in his local paper urging people to avoid this "dirty picture."
Was he still alive when THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB premiered? LOL
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Thanks Laura...I thought I did see it when I combed through the schedule earlier in the month. I didn't think the programmers would forget to show it. It did air in August. Most of the time it just gets one yearly screening on TCM. Just like the Debbie Reynolds-Dick Powell holiday romance SUSAN SLEPT HERE only gets shown around Christmas time.
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Thanks Angel...I just may put this on my holiday shopping list as a gift to moi.
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I do like Alan Young and Mr. Ed as well as Bat Masterson. These shows are not on DVD yet, are they? I think the Shout Factory has started releasing discs of Patty Duke's series.
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These casting decisions (replacing Lana with Lee Remick) signified the changing of the guard in Hollywood. But Lana would continue to hold on through the 60s as a bankable lead. She didn't have to resort to supporting roles or character parts.
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TRIUMPH OF THE WILL has been mentioned previously in the thread. But nobody has mentioned Mein Kampf.
I think D.W. Griffith's epic film functions with the same purpose in mind as Hitler's book. It was meant to incite hatred against an 'inferior' race. The more I think about it, I would say Griffith not only bought into the myths he read about in the original source material, but he intended to use it to disempower black America. His purpose is not to entertain, but to stymie a large number of free Americans because of his ethnocentric views.
He misuses the medium with which he has been entrusted. And yet, nearly a century later, we have critics and scholars that want to honor such 'achievement.'
Question: why aren't we looking at how well Hitler's book was written? Surely, he had some sort of artistic merit, did he not?
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However, considering the fact that some U.S. titles were changed in Great Britain due to censorship, they must have had their own version of a morals code.
If anyone posting is British or has studied the British film industry, I'd be curious to read the replies...
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Most studios had certain 'types' on the lot. And I think many of them are interchangeable. They are especially interchangeable when they leave their respective studios and work as freelance stars in more independent film projects.
I don't mean to offend fans of these performers....because they are all good in their own way. Yet:
I think most of Marjorie Main's roles could've been done by Charlotte Greenwood (and vice-versa). And I think several of Ty Power's roles could've been done by Errol Flynn (and vice-versa). Marilyn Monroe and Kim Novak seem interchangeable in some film roles, since their styles are almost identical. Etcetera, etcetera.
But I believe there are some actors in career-defining roles that really, in retrospect, seem as if they could not have been done (as well) by someone else.
A lot of Jimmy Stewart's westerns could've easily substituted him with someone else...but that is not the case in two of his earlier films. I don't think anyone else could've pulled off MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON like he did, and I also think he delivers an untouchable performance in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY.
Louis Calhern as Justice Holmes in THE MAGNIFICENT YANKEE seems like another role that may've been done by someone else, but it would not have had the same impact. He was born to do that part.
Clark Gable as Rhett Butler...nobody else would've worked. Nobody.
Elizabeth Taylor in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is up there with the best of them...plenty of other actresses could've attempted it (I read that Bette Davis wanted the role)...but there's something Liz does with it that puts it leagues above everyone else. I consider it to be one of the most-deserved Oscars (unlike her earlier win).
The list goes on...what are some actors/roles that seem irreplaceable to you?
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Jonas,
I really like the comparison you draw between cinematic 'masterpieces' and classic works of art in painting. That's a good analogy.
But I do think Griffith's work is over-estimated, over-valued, 'historically' bloated. What alarms me is that people confuse his techniques with his methods. Technique as it applies to knowledge of the tools in filmmaking. And method as it applies to his decision to use narrative storytelling in a most powerful medium to convey a message of hate. I don't think it's wise to use his technique to justify excusing his method.
The answer is not to ban his work but it is certainly not to celebrate it or raise it up as a classic. I purposely deny it classic status, because it has become a historical document on technique and a discussion piece on method that seems to fail in almost every regard.
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> *M* (1931) is a foreign movie with subtitles. There is a scene where a woman says bastard and son of a b. Peter Lorre was very convincing, his best performance!
I figured there had been some foreign films that were more progressive in this regard. There were others, I'm sure...films that American audiences may know very little about, because certain actors and directors did not cross the globe and work in Hollywood.
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I was determined not to like KISS ME, STUPID. It's definitely racy and from what I had read before seeing the movie, I was about to write it off as another one of Billy Wilder's silly experiments. But I do like it...I think it cleverly pushes the 'envelope' so to speak. And when you dissect the meaning of these characters' lives (especially their sex lives), it does seem morally correct and to actually fall within the boundaries of the code.
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> Then, there's Charles Coburn's "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" running gag in THE MORE THE MERRIER. He probably got a pass because he was repeating a famous historical quote.
I agree...it did have a more historical origin...and he said quite a few times in the film. But would he have been allowed this if Clark/Rhett hadn't blazed the trail four years earlier???
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I've been reading about the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Very interesting:
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> I think this aritcle shows this is still a problem. ROFL! There is NO uniform dress code on Capital Hill http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11339.html
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> I think if D.W. Griffith lived today, he would have deja vu.
That's great! Thanks for the link.
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Yes, Lynn, I am the arbitrator of it.
I find it amazing that you are defending Griffy in your post. I am sure many others would disagree with the stance you are taking.
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Good points, hamradio. I shouldn't judge a nearly hundred year old film by modern standards. But in a way, it does have to be evaluated according to some universal (or truly classic) criteria. If it does not stand the time test and becomes more an artifact of its era, then we have to define it that way.
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Some of us eat breakfast at the greasy spoon (THIS), then have a snack at the Fox commissary (FMC), enjoy lunch at the Netflix cafe and go to the uptown joint (TCM) for steak dinner. The table scraps known as AMC are used for dog food. LOL
And that is actually how I watch THIS...I review a previous night's film in the morning when I can zap thru the ads.
Frankly my dear, I don't give a Clark Gable!
in General Discussions
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There was still a changing of the guard around this time, Turo. It explains how Barbara Stanwyck winds up fifth-billed behind Laurence Harvey and Jane Fonda in WALK ON THE WILD SIDE. The playing field changed in the early 60s...dramatically.