TomJH
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Posts posted by TomJH
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55 minutes ago, Allhallowsday said:
JOHN BARRYMORE breaks my heart in DINNER AT EIGHT. That film is loaded with great performances, some schmaltzy, yet his face haunts me. I also enjoy GRAND HOTEL for all of the performances, but again he breaks my heart!
One of my favourite Barrymore performances is as the Baron in Grand Hotel. He is light hearted, charming and flirtatious in his scenes with Joan Crawford, while bringing sensitivity and empathy to those with dying brother Lionel. Barrymore is suave and elegant as a master jewel thief in this film (really a prototype for other actors that would follow in similar roles) but he also brings an unexpected vulnerability to the role, as well. One of my favourite moments in the film is when Lionel (who is wonderful in his role) refers to the smart friends that the Baron must have in a conversation with him. There is a closeup of John with a hint of tears in his eyes, as he replies, "I have no friends."
John Barrymore's Baron Felix von Geigern is a performance of style and grace.
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I can't think of any actor, certainly of his own era, who had the versatility of John Barrymore
Horror and Grand Guignol (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Svengali, Mad Genius)
Costume Hero (Don Juan, When A Man Loves, Beloved Rogue, Tempest)
Debonair Romantic (Raffles, Grand Hotel, Arsene Lupin)
Character Work (Topaze, Councillor at Law, Bill of Divorcement)
Screwball Comedy (20th Century)
Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet (on stage))
I also appreciate the courage it must have taken Barrymore to play a drunken has been actor so perilously close to himself in Dinner at Eight. This was before he started doing some of his later comedy self spoofs. Barrymore had the versatility that would have allowed him to play either Rasputin or the prince who assassinates him in Rasputin and the Empress, a versatility that brother Lionel lacked therefore he got to play the Russian monk. I've often wondered what kind of Rasputin John might have been, Svengali being the closest to an answer.
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55 minutes ago, Sepiatone said:
But you see, TOM, that was all part of the joke! Hope knew he was way past any "prime" he might have had as a Lothario, And he did get a lot of comic mileage out of the "creepy old lech" act. Hope's ego? Well, I've seen so many film clips and live TV performances which were rich in self deprecation and enough generosity in letting anyone on stage with him look good it was hard to imagine him having that big an ego.
Sepiatone
Hope was quite the womanizer in real life so casting him as middle aged cat nip would have appealed to his ego, I suspect.
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Just for the record, since I did dismiss Bachelor in Paradise, I think Hope was co-starred with Paulette Goddard in two of the best spooky comedies made:
Cat and the Canary
The Ghost Breakers
Now these are GOOD movies!
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6 hours ago, Dargo said:
Tell ya what, Tom.
When I earlier posted that reply of mine to Cid up there and said, "Yeah, I've always felt it was probably one of Hope's better ones he made toward the latter half of his movie career", two additional thoughts went through my mind but I failed to add either one of 'em to that sentence. They were:
A- ", but that's not sayin' much, of course.
and
B- ", but this movie is certainly never going to be shown as an "Essential".
And so, I'll leave it to you here, ol' buddy. Pick either selection 'A' or 'B' and I'll go up there and edit in the one you prefer.
LOL
(...in other words, yeah, I have to say I pretty much agree with your thoughts about this Bob Hope movie and his movie career in general)
A is my favourite. That answer just drove you crazy, didn't it, Dargo?
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Maybe I saw a different film from the one getting good reviews on this thread.
I enjoy watching Bob when he was his breezy, younger self with the ladies during the war years. He was eager but often playing the fraidy cat who would finally best his adversaries and win over the girl (be it Dorothy Lamour, Madeliene Carroll or Virginia Mayo).
But by the time he reached his middle years with Bachelor in Paradise all that had changed as he was now the sexually pursued with all women in the neighbourhood interested in him. Now he's the sexually "hot stuff." The transformation must have pleased Hope's ego but he's not nearly so much fun to watch. Nor can I buy him as cat nip to the ladies.
Give me the young Bob Hope of My Favourite Blonde or The Princess and the Pirate any day over this later version. Of course Hope's films of the '60s were generally dreadful and if Bachelor in Paradise is better than most of them (which it is) that hardly qualifies it as a good film, in my opinion.
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You know, when Peter Ustinov played Poirot, at least I could understand him. Albert Finney's frequently garbled accent becomes a hindrance and annoyance to my understanding what he is saying in Orient Express at times.
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SVENGALI (1931) Friday August 14 3am (EST)
John Barrymore at his flamboyant, theatrical best. Barrymore insisted the early scenes in the film were to be largely played for humour before the darker aspects of his characterization would dominate the story.
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4 hours ago, Bogie56 said:
Thursday, August 13
John Barrymore
7:15 a.m. Don Juan (1926). Start the day with a swashbuckler.
Politically incorrect stalking of a woman.
Mary threatening to end it rather than submit to his wicked ways after Don Juan forces himself into her bedroom. Juan looks like he thinks it's an act. Years later, when Errol Flynn plays the Don following his statutory rape trial, the screenwriters wouldn't dare have a scene like this but portrayed the bedroom swordsman as a man largely pursued by women. Barrymore's Don Juan is far more aggressive (as well as contemptuous) in his pursuit of women than Flynn's.
The Barrymore version is generally a darker portrait, but you can see how the Flynn version's final duel was influenced by that in this silent. When asked, Flynn said the Barrymore version was probably superior to his own.
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Laraine Day
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I'm looking forward to NIGHT CLUB SCANDAL on John Barrymore day at 12 (EST) midnight (Friday morning).
It's a minor "B" mystery from Paramount and Barrymore, now in his career decline, pretty well walks through his part. But it's quite rare (a TCM premiere?) and the supporting cast includes Lynne Overman as reporter investigating the murder of a doctor's wife. I've always enjoyed Overman's laid back cynicism, often with humoruous overtones. Barrymore and Overman would die just a year apart a few years later.
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Marathon Man (1976)
I went to the dentist today and had a long session, which seemed a lot longer, with the dentist drilling out a large cavity in one tooth. She did a good job and I didn't feel any pain, though half expecting it any moment. When I got out of the chair the first thing I did was thank her for not being like Laurence Olivier. She laughed.
This, in turn, prompted me to watch, for the first time in years, this paranoia inducing thriller about a marathon running college student who gets mixed up in international intrigue including a Nazi on the run in a search for diamonds who, among other things, knows how to derive secrets from anyone with torture devices that involving amateur dentistry. Plot holes, aside, it's a generally superior thriller, with Dustin Hoffman a good everyman with whom the audience can identify, Roy Scheider as his brother working for "the Division", William Devane as a cohort, Marthe Keller as a girl Hoffman meets and, in a small bit role, once again as a thug, old time screen heavy Marc Lawrence.
But the most memorable aspect of the film remains Olivier's cold blooded, intelligent, calculating performance as a monster in human disguise. And the scene in which he has Hoffman tied down to a chair, his mouth pried open, as he brings out his drill, I have to wonder how many others, like myself today, have thought of that moment as they visited their dentist. We have reason enough already to dislike those visits to the dentist's office, but I figure Marathon Man, at least, makes us realize that it could be even worse.
3 out of 4
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Claude Rains was reluctant to play the title character. Aside from getting third billing, he didn't want to be associated heavily with the horror genre for fear that it would impact his career detrimentally. He was also very concerned about the acid scarring makeup that he was to have on his face, insistent that it not be seen on him until the end of the film (unlike the Chaney version). There was also much concern on the actor's part over the mask that his character would wear through much of the film. You will note that the mask, with an almost feline quality to it, makes it easy to recognize Rains even though his face is covered.
After the film's release, though, Rains took his daughter and two of her friends out on Halloween in his Phantom disguise. He found the cloak he had used at the Universal wardrobe department, and in place of the turquoise mask which he couldn't find, the actor wore a Zorro like mask. When he greeted his neighbours at their door he opened his cloak to have the three children pop out yelling "Trick or treat."
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27 minutes ago, rosebette said:
I don't think Kim has a true mullet, just bangs in the front and pulled back on the sides. She may actually have had short hair (which she does in most of her pictures) and a a fall piece was added to give length in the back. I'm female, so maybe I'm no judge, but I don't think too many on this site would say that Kim doesn't look beautiful in Picnic.
I don't think there are many people on planet Earth who would not call Kim Novak a beautiful woman in Picnic.
Momma mia - and I'm not even Italian!
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23 minutes ago, Det Jim McLeod said:
There has been much criticism of Stanwyck's blond wig but I think she should looks sexy in it.
I think she looks tacky in it but maybe that was the point.
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It's my been experience that whenever the shadow of an ape's hand falls over a woman as she sleeps in a film the odds are she will not have a good night's rest.
Murder in the Rue Morgue (1932)
And I have to say that things didn't get a lot better for the ladies in the remake, Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
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Yet another addition to this growing list of culturally significant film titles. Anyone got any others?
Crash Corrigan would be so proud of us.
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22 hours ago, jakeem said:
Carroll Baker, whose status as a screen sex symbol may have overshadowed her acting talent at times, is 89.
This lady is, I believe, the sole survivor of the all star cast of HOW THE WEST WAS WON.
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On 7/30/2020 at 1:23 PM, hamradio said:
Clint Eastwood is 90.
Go ahead...make my warm milk.
Eastwood seems such an indestructible force. I felt much the same way about John Wayne when he was alive but Clint has outlived the Duke by almost two decades so far.
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35 minutes ago, TheCid said:
OK, where is it available? Is it going to be on TCM?
Incidentally, Margolin was a producer(?) on Love American Style TV series as well as frequent actor in it.
I found it on the internet a few years ago and only just watched it now after burning it. But I just noticed there is a copy of it now on You Tube. It's also available as a Warner's Archive made on demand DVD (Amazon should have it, among others).
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Essential Mitchum;
1947 Out of the Past
1955 Night of the Hunter
1960 The Sundowners
1962 Cape Fear
1973 The Friends of Eddie Coyle
1975 Farewell My Lovely
1983 A Killer in the Family (MTV)
Honourable Mention:
Pursued
Crossfire
The Big Steal
His Kind of Woman
The Lusty Men
Heaven Knows Mr. Allison
Home From The Hill
El Dorado
The Yakuza
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A Killer In The Family (1983)
Gripping made-for-TV account of the true life story of Gary Tison, a killer serving a life sentence in an Arizona penal institute, who is broken out of prison by his three sons after he tells them his life is in danger there. Along with another inmate, a two time killer who participates in the escape, the five men head for Mexico with police on their tail.
Filmed entirely on location in Utah with great desert backdrops, the primary power of this surprisingly violent film lies in the performance of Robert Mitchum as the mercurial Tison. In the film's early scenes, when his family visits him for picnic outings, he comes across as a loving family man. Once on the road, however, a gradual cold blooded ruthlessness shocking to his sons emerges. Mitchum is frightening in some scenes of this film as you never quite know how he will react to a situation, and there will be a true life recreation of an incident in the middle of the desert that, while you can see it coming, is still shocking in its impact.
Much of the film concentrates upon the relationship between Tison and his oldest son (played by James Spader) who participates in the prison escape largely to make sure that his two younger brothers (both of whom unquestioningly love their father) are not hurt or killed. Spader is excellent as is, in a stone cold portrait, Stuart Margolin (Angel in The Rockford Files) as the other convict who joins the escape.
Any Mitchum fan should see this film which, from what I read, adheres to the facts of the Tison case. This is a performance by the actor that should not be missed. There is no compromising in this portrait of manipulative evil.
3 out of 4
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13 hours ago, Swithin said:
He was nominated for Oscars twice: for Tortilla Flat (1942, Supporting Actor); and some years earlier, for The Affairs of Cellini (1934, Best Actor), a film I don't think I've seen. (Btw, one of the dogs in Tortilla Flat is Toto. Like Frank, Toto appeared in Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz. Fleming also directed Tortilla Flat.)
Morgan is a lot of fun to watch in Affairs of Cellini as a King largely afraid of the Queen. It's a more familiar Morgan characterization, though, slightly bumbling for humourous effect, as opposed to the sensitive character work that he did in Tortilla Flat.
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8 hours ago, kingrat said:
Tom, it may be unfair, but I tend to believe that the most broadly played scenes are the ones directed by Ford. Mervyn LeRoy replaced Ford, Joshua Logan directed some of it uncredited, and it is said that Henry Fonda even directed a few scenes. Fonda and Logan came to the film from the Broadway play; as well as directing, Logan was also co-author of the play with Thomas Heggen, on whose book it is based. Logan and Fonda had a more serious view of the story. Someone on imdb (I think) says that the scene of the sailors returning drunk from leave was much more realistic on stage; it's broadly played slapstick on screen, though enjoyable enough. Again, I'm guessing that Ford directed that scene. Fonda wanted to make the film as much like the play as possible, and that was apparently the source of his friction with Ford. Both play and film were highly successful at the box office.
Ford and his love of broad humour! The Searchers is a very great western but I always cringe when I see the slapstick fight with Ken Curtis (with that atrocious accent) and Jeffrey Hunter rolling on the ground together. The scene is completely out of place in such a film but you just know it was done because it made Pappy Ford laugh.
When it comes to Mr. Roberts, I don't know which scenes are Ford and which are LeRoy but, you're right, any in which subtlety is thrown to the wind when there's any comedy is probably Ford. LeRoy, by the way, once estimated that 90% of the film was his. If that's true you can hardly blame Ford entirely for a cartoony Captain though he may have established the tone for the characterization in Cagney's mind.
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JOHN BARRYMORE
in General Discussions
Posted
I agree. The only scenes in Grand Hotel I don't care for are those with Garbo (possibly her worst performance). Barrymore's love scenes with her, done in the grand manner, seem over the top to me. I'm not a fan of Crawford but she's great in this film.