slaytonf
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Posts
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Posts posted by slaytonf
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****! Why don't I ever get CHERRY dum dums!?!
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Constance Bennett and Clarence Brown! Can it get any better? Thanks, gagman66, for the info.
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Of course, the best movie to watch while cocktailing is The Easiest Way, with both Miss Bennett and Robert Montgomery, the two quintessential society alchie types. Except that in this movie, he plays a sobered-up type.
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So no one wants to give it a shot? Well, letssee. . . .
1. A nonconformist, anti-establishment type. . . .
2. confined in dehumanizing circumstances. . . .
3. with more or less overt Christ-figure associations. . .
4. opposed to a sadistic, tyrannical authority figure. . . .
5. becomes the charismatic leader of his fellow confinees. . . .
6. inspires them to grow beyond their self-imposed limitations. . . .
7. watches a voluptuous babe wash a car in a thin cotton dress--the babe, not the car (oh, wait,
that was only in one movie). . . .
8. undergoes exquisite torture at the hands of the authority to break his spirit. . . .
9. escapes for a while. . . .
10. but returns. . . .
11. fatally. . . .
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Wow! Constance Bennett had a silent career! I never even suspected it. Now I have a hankering to see 'em. Perhaps this omission can be addressed on her birthday. TCM has almost a year to arrange it--October 22.
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Similar to searching for a movie in the TCM Database, you can look for a movie star. In the upper right hand corner of most pages on the site there is a search box. Type in the name of a star, make sure the TCMDb is selected. A search results page will appear. Select the star's name and their page will come up. Under their name will appear dates of movies they are in, with an option to the right of them to have a reminder e-mailed to you. But don't trust the information entirely. Keep an eye on the schedule for movies that aren't listed.
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Well, misswonderly, if your scruples allow it, you can see it on YouTube. Just type in the title.
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Not Again! What is the proper way to report this as abuse? It's not insults or bullying.
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I'm happy to see Constance Bennett get her time in the arclight. She was best known for playing high society sophisticates with a breezy pose of jaded detachment, but with a real appetite for fun and spontaneity. There were others who traded in a similar line, like Madge Evans and Claire Dodd, but she was unchallenged for the reigning position. She's one of my favorite actresses, yet I will be the first to wonder aloud if she really merits the distinction. I know she was popular, and some of her movies are among my most favorite--to watch, but comparing her work with, say, Olivia de Havilland, or Jean Arthur, leaves her coming up a little short. However, though her acting range was limited, what she was good at, she was very good at, and I won't make too big a deal about her filmography. I'll just sit back on her days and enjoy the evening.
Among my favorites of her films are What Price Hollywood?, the precursor to A Star is Born, and though inconsistent, is in parts, the equal of the latter film. Look also for an appearance by Lowell Sherman as the self-destructive director, who acts as her Svengali. Another one I like is After Office Hours, a film that starts off as a society scandal romp and strangely morphs into a murder mystery. Just pay attention to Ms. Bennett in that one. She runs rings around Clark Gable, who tries to make a big show, but comes off looking like a floppy puppy dog. Hey, it was early in his career.
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Have fun with friends and family competing to see who can draw more parallels between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Cool Hand Luke! Great parlor game! Not as good as twister, but better than charades. Play it at your upcoming Thanksgiving get-together!
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I recorded M on Sunday night, and just got around to watching it tonight. I've seen this great movie many times before, but it's still as engrossing as ever. It's rare that a film or it's treatment allow an opportunity for unreserved praise, but this is one instance. Fritz Lang's entire frame was shown. It has been mentioned in other threads that the ratios of many films didn't match the 4:3 of TVs, so they were enlarged, usually chopping off the top and bottom of the frame. Sure, in this version there is a black band around the picture, plus the bands at each side of my flat screen TV. But we get all of Fritz Lang's vision. The print was also beautifully pristine, with hardly a chip or fleck in it. This restored version is still some eight minutes shorter than the original release (according to information on the film), but it's better than what has been available since 1960. Thanks to the Netherlands Film Museum, and the other institutions that contributed to the 2000 restoration.
M is both a tour de force, and a textbook example of how to direct a movie. Although from an academic point of view of Fritz Lang's works, Metropolis would have to be judged a better and more important movie, based on its themes and imagery, it's hard not to rate M on an equal level. The opening scenes are a masterful expository sequence, made doubly powerful by its understatement and indirect imagery: the mother's doting care in preparing the meal, mirroing her love for her child, her growing fear, only intensified by the silence, the absence of the child from shots of the domestic scene; intensified also by our knowlege of the child's impending murder, and our helplessness to prevent it; the final shot of the balloon, a hideous mockery of the simple joy it's meant to convey, trapped in the wires like the child is trapped, and then released, along with the child's life. There is not a superfluous scene, shot, or word spoken. Everything in the film serves either to advance the plot, or develop character.
There is much the film explores, the psychology of compulsion, the striving for justice and order among all elements of society. On the surface, there is the police-procedural story of the hunt for the murderer. It is complicated by a parallel procedural story of the underworld seeking the same man. The underworld activities mirror, parrallel, and parody the activities of the legitimate world. Although Mr. Lang is at pains to show the justice of the underworld is a poor imitation, and inadvisable. There is the exquisite juxtaposition of our revulsion for the murderer, and our inevitable identification with him as the underdog, fleeing his pursuers, the object of a kangaroo court, and the victim of his irresistable compulsions. There is also a lot of humor in the film. It serves as a counterpoint to the serious subject of the film, and as a release from the tension.
It was deflating to learn Fritz Lang said the message he wanted to send with this movie was "Mothers, keep an eye on your children." That's it. Just keep an eye on your children. So all the examination of the psyche of a child murderer, played magnificently by Peter Lorre, all the examination of the role of law and justice, and the natural striving for it on all levels of society, all the wry and comic observations on human nature Mr. Lang worked in to the movie as the story unfolded, all of that was just so that he could say at the end of the movie, keep an eye on your children. Sounds shaggy to me.
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You might be thinking of Libeled Lady.
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If I am not mistaken, the Canada schedule is the same as the U. S. schedule, except in rare instances where broadcast rights can't be secured.
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Unless you really, really like vanilla.
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Of course it's Godzilla.
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It might be Dead of Night:
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/72515/Dead-of-Night/
If you want to see it, you can find it on YouTube. Or wait for it to come up again on TCM. It shows up every once in a while.
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bundie, it was my misinterpretation. When I checked to see which films were Mr. Lehrer's, I thought I read he had three selections.
clore, I do remember Cloris Leachman saying the reason she chose Bridge on the River Kwai was that she had not seen it before.
SansFin: Oooo, paranoid.
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The Kona Seaside Hotel, in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island in Hawaii.
Napali Surf Beach Resort, Lahaina, on Maui in Hawaii.
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I have Time Warner Cable. I find that if I record a movie at around 2 to 3 am, I get a message to press a button to continue watching. Since I am never there to press, the channel goes black and then some minutes later the channel comes back on. Rarely, the cable box turns off completely.
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>per Geraldddddd:
>Did it ever dawn on any of you that this is the very reason these films are played so often ?
In fact, it didn't. And thanks for mentioning it. I am glad to hear TCM is increasing in popularity. I understand the necessity of cultivating new viewers, as Mr. Dobbs has referred to. I suppose the shark must keep swimming or suffocate. Reading the comments has made me think back to the first time I saw My Fair Lady on TCM. Oh, what a treat, I thought. It was in letterbox, too, a term I was unfamiliar with at the time, but whose purpose I recognized, and appreciated. Seeing films like this, and other classics whose names I had heard, but never seen, is what hooked me on TCM. Now I am jaded, and it is only the obscure discovery, like Employee's Entrance, that can thrill me the same. I suppose I should feel grateful for that. Even If I can't view these movies with the same enjoyment I did, I can remember what I did feel.
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I don't take offence, and I realized as I wrote this thread I opened myself up for this objection. Normally, I don't complain, because, on the whole, TCM's virtues are infinitely more valuable than its drawbacks. And besides, people make all the points I'd make, anyway. But something did occur to me that was different from what had been posted before, and worthwhile mentioning, and perhaps I didn't emphasize it enough, and that is why go to the trouble of getting a special host, if you're not going to make it special?
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Or is it they have almost identical tastes? The sameness of the programs month to month is discouraging. Tonight we have Jim Lehrer. Alright, I'm thinking, sophisticated, erudite, cosmopolitan, no dummy. We'll get something interesting, something to mix things up a bit. But no, the same titles, the most repeated titles. Fine movies all, but why have a guest programmer if you're just going to air the same thing that would appear any other night of the week? But have no fear, TCM is aware of the potential for exasperation, so after Mr. Lehrer's triptych, it will air as a compensation to its viewers. . . . North By Northwest.
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Impressive.
Doesn't look like Ms. Hitchcock to me.
Constance Bennett Star of the Month
in General Discussions
Posted
>As Arturo said:
>Actually, its turn into a murder mystery was not unusual, but very popular at that time. After the hugely unexpected success of THE THIN MAN in 1934, many more droll society types were involved in murder mysteries, sleuthing, and the like. Many movies plied these waters at least through the end of the decade.
The Thin Man was a murder mystery through and through. It was written by Dashiel Hammet, after all. This holds true with other movies in which droll society types get involved with murders. This movie is strange in that it seems more that two different movies were stitched together.