slaytonf

I'm on it.

Frankenstein (1931): Elegance is a term used in science to describe something that accomplishes a lot in as simple a manner as possible. In movies, there are scenes which do not have involved action, or are simple in concept, but because of what happens, or the associations the characters have, it carries meaning on many levels. In this brilliant scene, James Whale presents the simple, though tragic act of Ludwig bringing his drowned daughter into town. This happens during the general celebration in honor of Baron Frankenstein and Elizabeth's upcoming marriage. As he walks, of course, all celebration ceases, the gaiety is replaced with astonishment and horror in everyone he passes. It's as if there is an invisible plane that moves with him. On one side is happiness and light, on the other, bewilderment and shock. But the advancing dismay is also a symbol of the unravelling of Frankenstein's plans and hopes; how what he has done is working to throw his world into disarray. The scene is also a symbol of the impending danger of the monster itself, how its approach threatens to upend the town's security and well-being--although that is unknown at the time.

Hey! You changed your original post. Anyway, it looks like a Hot Point or Whirlpool french door oven. Probably had a rotisserie attachment--ooh think of the chickens you could do four at a time. . . .

Life wasn't all beer and skittles for Brian Keith.

No, it was a Disney movie set.

Shoulda said mule.

The Big House (1930): A central theme of the movie is the conflict and interplay of order and disorder. The very nature of the setting almost requires that. You have the prison authority as a source of order. And you have the convicts which are a source of disorder. This is as you would expect it. But order arises from the convicts, as they have a code of conduct, primarily concerning squealing. And the guards are a source of disorder, promoting convicts to violate that code and inform on others. Throughout the movie there is an exquisite tension between the two, the ferocity and violence with which order is imposed, and its fragility, and the ferocity and violence which is ready to erupt the moment disorder arises on any scale--from a fight between two people to an all-out prison uprising (with tanks!). The first two clips are visual representations of this dialectic. You see irony and beauty in them. Order is imposed on the convicts by the prison authorities, regimenting them like the military. The inmates march smoothly and elegantly, their movements constricted by the guards and the prison building. Disorder obtains in both. In the first, by intent, the dismissed convicts breaking ranks into an amorphous milling mass. In the second, the prison mess descends to chaos over the objection of the guards, and under the hail of bullets. The last clip is unique in movies, American movies at least. No other director had the courage, or the genius that George Hill had to show dialog with a static shot, holding it for some two minutes, and keep the audience engaged. On top of that, he does it without any actors! The fascination arises from the tension built by the conflict between what we expect to see (cuts of close-ups of the speakers), and what we do see. In a way, frustrating our expectations makes us more involved with the 'action' than otherwise.

My only observations have been, as you can see from my first post, that I only see the button for SUGGEST A MOVIE on my old version of Safari. And that it appeared that it stopped working back in May.

Phil Tead Unlike other movie reporters, who, starting with minor roles, built up a career that scaled empyrean heights, Mr. Tead started at the top, in that great-grandaddy of all newspaper movies The Front Page (1931). He was one of the clutch of reporters on execution watch in the pressroom, tossing out wry, satiric observations on the events and people passing through. He blazed through the 30s, mixing it up with the likes of Joan Bennett in The Trial of Vivienne Ware (1932), Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man (1934), Barbara Stanwyck in The Woman in Red (1935), and Tyrone Power and Dorothy Lamour in Johnny Apollo (1940). But the flame that burns hottest lasts the least--or something like that. And his passion for the tribunal arts was rendered a burnt shell. The balance of his career consisted of employment in other fields, even having a semi-regular stint with TV's original Superman.

It is no more a habit for TCM to show movies out of true aspect ratio now than it has ever been. Not knowing how TCM gets its movies, or what they know is in any particular 'print' they get, it's impossible (for me) to say why we end up with them here and there. All I can say is that if you are ready to give up on TCM due to wrong aspect ratios, then you have high standards. So high, they will eliminate a lot of movie watching for you for the sake of a few miscalls.

So I updated my Firefox and it's now current and I still don't get the SUGGEST A MOVIE tab in the COMMUNITY drop-down menu. But my OS is El Capitan (10.11.6), the most recent I can install. So that may be why. But in Safari (Version 9.1.3 (11601.7.8) the most recent that will work with my OS), it shows up. I've noticed differences elsewhere. Frinstance, I can read gmail with Safari, but if I want to send, I have to go to a different browser. For gmail, Chrome seems to work best (hmm. . . .wonder why. . . .). Something similar goes on with YouTube. I'm getting out of date. I'm getting messages from sites saying I need to update my browser. Problem is, Safari works best with my Macbook.

Looks like the Suggest a Movie page stopped working back in May. It only appears as an item in the drop down COMMUNITY menu for Safari, which on my computer is an outdated version, as my computer won't take the latest version of the Mac OS. On Firefox and Chrome browsers the menu doesn't even show the SUGGEST A MOVIE tab.

Maybe it's to show what kind of character she had. And why Spade won't have anything more to with her. Remember what Spade says about the kind of reputation that was good for business.

Billy West. Starting out as the world's best Chaplin impersonator, he soon realized its inadvisability, and went into movie reporting. After his first foray in Exposure (1932), he vaulted to A-list company--James Cagney in Picture Snatcher (1933), Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in It Happened One Night (1934), Jean Arthur in The Defense Rests (1934), Madge Evans and Robert Young in Paris Interlude.

I thought about it, and I decided I don't know enough about magic realism to say. But I would not be surprised if this served as an influence on its practicioners, with the prosaic and magical worlds impinging on one another. I would not characterize Cocteau as a magical realist. He has been called a Surrealist by many, even in his lifetime, and he rejected the association. He probably saw himself as his own guy, exploring his own insights into the human condition, and not promoting any one -ism or another.

Roscoe Karns. His slightly cynical, slightly nasal characterizations acted often as an ironic base to the acid of the press corps, neutralizing their sardonic regard for humanity and its doings. Ok, so maybe he wasn't quite the career movie reporter. With him, reporting was more like moonlighting. And his roles were more substantial than just a member of the pack, with a line or two, and a credit (if any) of 'reporter.' His characters actually had names! In some movies, they even rose to the level of what could be called a supporting role. He rubbed elbows with Constance Bennett in Two Against the World (1932), William Powell and Joan Blondell in Lawyer Man (1932), Ida Lupino in Search for Beauty (1934), Bette Davis in Front Page Woman (1935), and Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday (1940).

La belle et la Bête (1946): Asked what the most beautiful movie ever made was, it would be natural for people to immediately think of color movies. Familiarity with the accomplishments of cinematographers and directors in Black/White has faded. Technicolor has saturated our consciousness, justifiably so. But is color beauty? And is beauty just color? What about the fine gradations of silver tones, the distillation of reality to a fundamental dichotomy in Black/White? Certainly set design, frame composition, camera movement all contribute to the beauty of a movie. Add to that the story, and how the actors animate it, and how all that relates to the visuals. You can readily imagine how a Black/White movie can make a strong play for the title of most beautiful. And if you were searching for one to choose, you couldn't do better than this one. Filmed in wartime France on a limited budget, Cocteau, not being able to make the movie he wanted, made the movie he could. Employing the Val Lewton mode of filmmaking, instead of showing the castle Beast and Belle lived in, he created a magical world of light and shadow, dreamy and otherworldly, allowing the imaginations of the viewers to create their own realms. And there has been nobody more inventive in the creation of atmosphere, sculptured mantel faces that follow people's movements and blow smoke from the nostrils, arms that serve at the dinner table, arm-held candelabras that light and extinguish themselves. The blurring of the animate and inanimate, the mannered acting, the scrupulous observance of etiquette and courtesy, to the point of ritual, contribute to the other-worldly aspect, and a menacing and unsettled tone is lent by the shadowy indefiniteness of the palace and the billowing of draperies on windows that hang in mid-air. This is juxtaposed with the solid daylight world of Belle's family. A world of furniture and farm animals. Of lost argosies and insolvency. Of spite, venom, of limitation, and ambition. There are ties between this world and the one of Beast, or more like contrasts drawn, like the billowing sheets hanging in the farmyard. But unlike the diaphanous wings of the supernatural of the palace, they are the laundry Belle's family must do now she is gone, and they drag in the dirt. The counterpoising of the magical and the actual worlds, the inroads they make on each other make the movie scintillate in our eyes and in our minds. This is the source of its beauty. In the scene above, Belle asks to walk with Beast through his grounds. While they walk, his predatory lusts are aroused by nearby game. Because of Belle's presence, he must struggle to restrain himself. Having her witness his savage behavior is unthinkable. Still it is a wrenching effort, his fist clenching in agony. Belle takes his hand, thinking he is offering it to lead her on the walk. Doing so, she helps to neutralize his distress. It is a small act, but is incalculably powerful. An illustration, in small, of the movie's story; Beast's suffering, and Belle's power to transform him.

George Chandler: Lanky, long-faced, he could be counted on for wolf-pack ferocity. He started modestly in his reportorial career in shorts like The Back Page (1931). But he didn't remain there long, moving on to features with Sob Sister (1931). Then the big time with Walter Huston and Jean Harlow in Beast of the City (1932), Lee Tracy and Ann Dvorak in The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932), James Cagney in Picture Snatcher (1933), and Bette Davis in Front Page Woman (1935). From there he never looked back.

Not people who made their living reporting on movies. But actors who you could be pretty much assured of appearing when reporters showed up on screen, for a murder, a scandal, or some other paper-selling event. They can be counted on to be tenacious and unscrupulous. Misrepresent embarrassing situations. Take photographs at inopportune moments. And generally come off as pestering invasive nuisances. That is, when they are not the crusading heroes of the movie, indefatigably tracing down a murderer and showing up the police. We can start with James Donlan: He had a mushy, nasally voice, rotund figure, and inoffensive manner. He cut his teeth on the newspaper business in Mother's Cry (1930) and never looked back, rushing through A Free Soul (1931), Five Star Final (1931), Is My Face Red? (1932), Madison Square Garden (1932), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and any number of others.

Can you demonstrate how? I'm sure Vincente Minnelli and Gene Kelly would be surprised and confused to learn who was responsible for their brilliance. The only movies of Stanley Donen that had Mr. Kidd do the choreography for are It's Always Fair Weather (1955), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Movie Movie (1978). Which critiques?

It wasn't in my original post about Charade (1963), but in a later one after discussion had expanded to Mr. Donen generally. I'll quote myself: Stanley Donen, along with Vincente Minnelli, was principally responsible for the look of MGM musicals in the golden age; and by extension all major studio musicals--as the others tried to copy or out-do them. Consider the list: On the Town (1949) Royal Wedding (1951) Singin' in the Rain (1952) Give a Girl a Break (1953) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) Deep in My Heart (1954) It's Always Fair Weather (1955) Funny Face (1957) The Pajama Game (1957) Damn Yankees! (1958) Granted, not all of them are for the ages. But you won't find anyone with a better line-up. As with Minnelli, he had a masterful sense of light, color, composition, and action. But they manifest in different ways. The impression I get is that while Minnelli tended to create spectrums of color on the screen, Donen tended to triads. And overall, Donen's musicals tended to have a greater focus on dancing along with the singing. If you are interested, I'll post a few things from his movies that demonstrate why I consider him so highly.

You are? When? Murnau gets quite a bit of recognition, through Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise (1927), which get plenty of screenings at film festivals, particularly silent festivals. King Vidor and Clarence Brown are under recognized. Brown especially for his work with Greta Garbo, and his The Yearling (1946), one of the great American movies. The lack of recognition of these directors doesn't mean Stanley Donen is properly recognized. My point being he is almost never recognized for his fundamental contributions and pervasive influence on moviemaking. And never given the proper credit when he is.

Her best role? Yes, I'd say so. A fine actress who had some opportunity to show what she could do, but not enough. Thankfully, Mel Brooks knew.

John McPhee is a non-fiction author whose writings encompass a wide range of topics, Wimbledon, birch bark canoes, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Soviet-era underground Russian art, New York City farmer's markets, the shad (a fish), Bill Bradley, and lighter-than-air-ships to name a few. His work appears mostly in The New Yorker Magazine, of which he has collected most, if not all, in some two dozen or so books. A big part of his writings deal with environmental matters, and a bigger part with geology (once having intentions of becoming a geologist), including A History Of The Geology Of The Entire United Staes, From East To West (not the title of a book, but my emphasis due to the epic nature of the work). My favorite book of his is a triptych of stories called The Control of Nature (1987), about how people cope with overwhelming natural conditions. I almost said disasters, but the events only become so when viewed from a human perspective. One describes the storm drain system of the Los Angeles basin developed to handle massive flash flood debris flows; one the herculean, if not heroic, efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers to keep the Mississippi River from jumping out of its bed and rushing down the Atchafalya River, leaving New Orleans high and dry; and one the herculean and heroic (and successful) fight to save an Icelandic fishing village from being buried under a brobdingnagian lava flow. The last, I think was made into a movie. I'll forever be grateful to the person who introduced me to John McPhee, suggesting I read his book Oranges (1967), which is not surprisingly about the orange industry in Florida. His works are fascinating reading. I read almost exclusively fiction, but he is the major exception-- Oh--I haven't said why I am writing this about him. Well, I was reading La Place de la Concorde Suisse (1984), about the Swiss civilian army, written in the depths of the CW, as part of a plan of mine of reading through his works again. As it's summer and plenty of daylight left after work, I don't go straight home, but stop off somewhere where I can have tea (cold or hot, as the temperature dictates) and sit outside in pleasant circumstances and read a chapter or four. This has been especially nice this year, as the summer has been unaccountably mild. Not like last year when we had withering hot spells for a week or more-- I've digressed again. It seems I get engrossed not only by his writing, but writing about his writing. Anyway, in La Place de la Concorde Suisse, he writes that among the things for which America, if not the world should be grateful to Switzerland for (in addition to the coo-coo-clock, per Harry Lime) is: William Wyler of Oberehrendingen, in the Canton of d'Argovie, director of "Wuthering Heights," director of "Friendly Persuasion," director of "The Big Country," director of "Ben Hur." Thank you, Switzerland. Friendly Persuasion (1956), Tuesday, August, 20, 9:30 pm Pacific time. Dead End (1937), Wednesday, August 21, 8:30 am Pacific time. Dodsworth (1936), Monday, August 26, 7:00 pm Pacific time.

Yes, Minnelli is the only director I would rank with Donen in the importance and influence of his musicals.