slaytonf
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Posts posted by slaytonf
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I only cite it because every time I watch it on TCM, Robert Osborne introduces it as a B-picture. Perhaps he does so in order to to allow him enhance the value of its Best Picture win.
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So. Casablanca is a programmer, not a B, as it is usually called.
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Are you sure it's both Don Johnson and Sissy Spacek? IMDB doesn't show they've ever worked together.
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>as rdmtimp:
>A night of other films the members appeared in - John in HOW I WON THE WAR, Paul in GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROAD STREET, Ringo in THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, CANDY, THAT'LL BE THE DAY, CAVEMAN, etc).
No, let us not have Candy. Even out of historical interest, let us not have Candy.
Any films of their performances or concerts?
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Thanks for bringing up this point, MovieMadness. I have never bought into the mania for longer-is-better. Sometimes the best thing a director can have is a judicious editor. In fact, Good, Bad, Ugly could easily have a half-hour-plus cut out of it in addition to the originally deleted scenes and profit from it.
A good example of the value of having someone apart from the director handling the content of a film is My Darling Clementine. The boxed set of Ford at Fox has a version with some scenes, and parts of scenes cut by Daryl Zanuck restored, and you know what? the shorter released version is better.
A lot is made of the butchering of Cukor's A Star is Born. Perhaps that is what has fueled the frenzy for restoring every last little bit of it, even to the extent of showing still pictures over which some salvaged sound is played. The fact is, I have always found the movie to be self-indulgent, and over-long, and could, indeed, have benefited from good editing. Too bad there wasn't anyone around to do it. -
Best place to look for 'em is on the Silent Sunday Night series. Check their TCM Database pages. Their films and air dates will be listed under thier names. F'rinstance:
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/115143%7C66024/Harold-Lloyd/
You can see Movie Crazy and Bumping Into Broadway are coming up.
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Thanks, markbeckuaf, for the compliment. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Here's my rundown on the films. Two Against the World has Constance at her society best. There's a lot of enjoyable repartee, even with Neil Hamilton. But the murder thing takes up way, way, way too much of the movie. They coulda, shoulda found some other way of seeing that Victor Linley got what he deserved. Law of the tropics is an interesting look at her later on in her career. You still see the easy, breezy manner. The film also has the vigorous, energetic look of the Warner Bros., but some way into it, it got the feeling of being formulaic and I bailed out after forty minutes. There are some actors who can make an otherwise unwatchable film worth viewing, and Constance Bennett is one of them. But even she couldn't save this one. After Tonight turns out I've seen before, but forgot. It's not remarkable, save for Miss Bennett's presence. That's probably why I don't have much to say about it. The story, or something like it was better treated in Garbo movies, and something with Myrna Loy, called Samboul Quest.
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I would also like to mention Tulsa. It's an ok movie about oil in Oklahoma, but Hayward is at her most vital and riveting.
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Sleepless in Seattle makes me think of You've Got Mail, which makes me think of Shop Around the Corner. I think that takes place around Christmas.
There is also Larceny, Inc.
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Search the light that failed dvd, or the light that failed movie, and you will get responses for sites that sell the DVD. I cannot vouch for the quality of the picture or the reliability of any of the sites. I don't think TCM has shown it, at least not in the last four years or so.
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Thanks for the info, kingrat--kingrat? King Rat? Is there a connection?
Light in the Piazza is a movie I enjoy watching from time to time. It is Olivia de Havilland and Yvette Mimieux that make it. Clara is a role that is easily subject to horrible misplaying with excessive childishness. But Yvette Mimieux performs with simplicity and ingenuousness that is pleasing to watch.
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Tonight, among others, we have three films of Constance Bennett directed by George Cukor. They aren't really great, but they all have worthwhile things about 'em, primarily the presence of Miss Bennett. In What Price Hollywood?, the precursor to A Star is Born, there is the added benefit of Lowell Sherman playing the self destructive alcoholic that was merged with the love-interest in Star. It's wonderful to watch him toss off-hand his acerbic lines. The film is weighed down considerably by Neil Hamilton, playing the drip he usually does. One wonders if Cukor, irked at Wellman's success with Star, remade it to get back up on him. Our Betters is high society/drawing room comedy about the sexual intrigues of the British upper classes. It starts off well, drags in the middle as it sets up for the ending, and finishes delightfully. It's a little complicated to describe, but suffice to say Constance, playing a disillusioned promiscuous wife of an aristocrat, manages to seduce a friend's kept man, get caught at it, and deftly maneuver everyone out of outrage and into amiability. Not something you'd see a couple years later. Rockabye has a good pairing of her and Joel McCrea. My favorite scene is where she takes him to her old stamping grounds to show him some fun. She's a successful Broadway actress, but she shows a true affection for her old familiars in the working class bar they go to. It ends very morally, with everyone making noble sacrifices and all, but don't worry, the movie is all past it, so it doesn't damage it too much.
The other movies I haven't seen, so I'm looking forward to them.
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If it's any help, I can tell you the shot of the model train is not from either The Devil and Miss Jones, or Bachelor Mother. I might have suggested Holiday Affair. A model train figures prominently in that. But I think it ends on a real train with them going to California.
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As of now, this is what I get when I click on the link:
h1. We're sorry.
Service is temporarily unavailable. Our engineers are working quickly to resolve the issue.[Find out why|http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/error_troubleshooting#service_is_temporarily_unavailable] you may have encountered this error.
But your earlier link worked for me. But I don't have a clue about the films.
this error
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More on a technical level, does it appear that the theme of Books-into-Movies continues all the way through tommorrow up to the next evening's programming? Ship of Fools, Caine Mutiny, and Anatomy of a Murder are all books, but are things like Light in the Piazza, The Haunting, and The Chosen based on books?
As for Anatomy, if it's part of the theme, I think the story was improved in the movie, omitting the romance between Jimmy Stewart's character and Mary, Quiil's daughter, which might work in a book, but would be overly complicating in a movie. On the whole, I think the movie edges out the book, primarily because of Jimmy Stewart's and Lee Remick's performances, and Duke Ellington's score. I have a recording of a live performance of a suite from the movie. It's killer.
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TCM had two days of movies to commerate Memorial day last May.
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Robert Bresson is an important filmmaker, around the world and to other filmmakers, if not so much so here in the United States. His films are intensely moral debates, whose themes usually involve sin, atonement, salvation, and corruption. He was also noted for using non-professionals for his actors, to achieve a less polished appearance to the performances. Nevertheless, his films are always powerful and engrossing, especially, for instance The Trial of Joan of Arc. One of his most accessible to American audiences is A Man Escaped, which is based on the escape from a German-run prison by resistance fighter Andre Devigny in World War II. Even though it takes place essentially inside a prison cell, it is still suspenseful and riveting.
Pickpocket again is a moralistic tale of sin, punishment, remorse, atonement, and redemption. Not necessarily in that order. On the surface, it appears a simple tale of a man falling into a life of theft, his efforts, successful and not, to go straight due to his involvement with a woman, and how he comes to a resolution of his conflicting impulses.
If I remember correctly, TCM has shown his Diary of a Country Priest, and The Trial of Joan of Arc
Films I would like TCM to show are Ladies of the Bois du Boulogne, Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette, Lancelot du Lac, The Devil Probably, and L'Argent.
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Despite the lack of women characters, the trilogy of films are well made, well acted, and well directed. Sergio Leone was a superior visual stylist, with innovative ways of using both the field of the picture and it's border, perspective, different planes, and visual contrast. As cigarjoe posted, Once Upon a Time in the West is not all male. There is only one woman character, but Claudia Cardinale more than holds her own against all the males arrayed around her.
For a western with a majority of women roles, try Westward the Women, by William Wellman, a great Western, unfortunately overlooked, and shown on TCM periodically.
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Hey, Blondie! Yooouuu know what your are?! Just a dirty son-of-a- ayeeayeeayeeahhh!
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HIgh Plains Drifter was his last good western. The Unforgiven, like many of his movies, was High Plains Drifter, which, in turn, was A Fistfull of Dollars. That is, man comes to town, man shoots everyone, man leaves.
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The next good western he was in was hizzown High Plains Drifter, and it was his last.
Man, that opening shot for Good, Bad, and Ugly is fantastic. Leone had it.
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Try Harry Harrison's Deathworld series, particularly Deathworld 2 and Deathworld 3.
A long time ago, in a city far away, a theater scheduled an entire day of Leone films, including all of Eastwood's no-names, plus Once Upon a Time in the West. A group of friends decided to see all of them. Some ten hours or so later, emerging into the sunset light, groggy, disoriented, our brains gooey, we felt like we had just eaten two Thanksgiving dinners in a row with our minds.
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And Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and Boxcar Bertha, and Italianamerican, and The King of Comedy, and I think, New York, New York.
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Yet you did manage to force yourself to watch it. The whale hunting scenes were the worst part of the movie, at least from a technical standpoint. It looks like they didn't cheat on the money, though. After all, it was a Barrymore picture, and he was still a big star. Even so, they don't come off well. As I said, don't compare it with Melville's book. The only things common with it are Ahab's name and the title. And his bit leg.
An excuse to talk about Sally Ann Howes
in General Discussions
Posted
In listening to Mr. Osborne's description of The Admirable Crichton, I was irresistibly reminded of Swept Away, by Lina Wertmuller. They both have the same subversive inversion of the social order. I wonder if she wasn't inspired by Barrie's work.
But to the important point, I am not well acquainted with Miss Howes, except with her role in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a television version of Brigadoon, in which she plays Fiona. She has a beautiful voice and is quite an able actress. It would be a treat to see more of her work.