TomJH

I don't know how accurate the comment was since The Picture of Dorian Gray was made at MGM (and Zanuck swore to never loan Power out again after Marie Antoinette) but I had heard that Tyrone had been considered for the title role in that film (I assume they would have pushed the production back until he was returned from the war). I think he would have been far more effective than the actor who played the lead role like a somnambulist. You're a fan of Henry King, I see, and, of course, Power made more films with him than any other director. But perhaps that was a bit of a problem, in retrospect, when looking back upon the quality of his films. I've noticed that many of the films in Ty's career that people list as favourites were not directed by King, Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley, Witness for the Prosecution, Long Gray Line, even Abandon Ship. Power appeared in four swashbucklers but, really, how much discussion do you ever see of the three directed by King, as opposed to the one Rouben Mamoulian helmed, the invigorating Mark of Zorro? For my money The Black Swan is probably Power's most entertaining film with King (with apologies to Lloyds of London, Swithin).

That was the first substantial role of Power's film career, the one that made him a star in 1936. To call that your favourite role is rather insulting to the rest of his career, don't you think so, Swithin? Mark of Zorro, Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley, Witness for the Prosecution were all yet to come but none of them measure up to Lloyds of London? Certainly as an actor he would grow and do far better work in any of a number of later roles. To my eyes he looks like what he was in Lloyds of London, a rather callow youth too young, even, for his leading lady in the film.

It sure sounds like Mostel's singing to me.

Rathbone is wonderful as the Cockney song and dance man in that number. Somewhere I read that Basil called that scene his favourite of all the Sherlock Holmes films. But in listening to his singing voice I have to ask if it was really the actor's own voice or was it dubbed by someone. If it was Rathbone's voice he did a marvelous job in disguising it because it doesn't sound like him in the least.

One of the Karloff films to which few make mention is UNCONQUERED, Cecil B. DeMille's spectacle about Indian wars in colonial America. Ironically this was one of the biggest box office films in which Boris ever appeared. The film is atmospheric, colourful and completely racist in its unsubtle presentation of Indians as blood thirty savages desiring to slaughter white men and tie a white woman to a torture stake. Boris plays Guyasuta, a Seneca chief, and it's kind of fascinating to watch an Englishman with a lisp in this role. It's a fun film despite the simplicity of its screenplay with its depiction of good white settlers versus evil red devils. This is one Seneca Indian that will never miss a tea break.

Let's get this straight, there's nothing gross about two women kissing on the lips. By the way, did their tongues come out?

One of Boris's more bizarre and intriguing performances was also in one of his best film, THE BLACK CAT. This was the first and, in my opinion, best of his co-starring features with Lugosi, though cases can be made for a couple of their other films together, as well. This tale of cult worshippers, human sacrifices and a body preserved to look life-like definitely has a kinky pre code vibe. And take a look at the moody photography glimpsed in the gif below.

Yvonne Furneaux in THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE. As the promiscuous town wench who betrays the title character out of jealousy, later to try to redeem herself, what might have been a window dressing role in an Errol Flynn swashbuckler somehow became something more than that thanks to Furneaux's spirited performance which has a sensitive final scene. It's a small role but she makes a bigger impression in this Warner Bros. production than does the film's leading lady.

Here's the iconic pre code poster of The Sin of Nora Moran for which I suspect the film is better remembered than the film itself. Doesn't look a lot like Zita Johann, I noticed.

Well I finally saw Wicked Woman. I'm just sorry that we didn't get to see more of Percy making out with Beverly. It would have added to the film's already considerable sleaze factor (as well as been a treat for chunky little guys watching the film who fantasize about hard boiled sleek, leggy blondes).

The were lucky. If it had been Donald Trump he'd have grabbed . . . okay, okay, leave it for Off Topics.

1. Marx Brothers - A Night at the Opera 2. Boris Karloff - Bride of Frankenstein 3. Bela Lugosi - Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 4. Basil Rathbone - Adventures of Robin Hood 5. Farley Granger - Strangers on a Train 6. Kirk Douglas - Paths of Glory 7. Natalie Wood - The Searchers 8. Bette Davis - The Letter 9. Sidney Poitier - A Raisin in the Sun 10 Walter Matthau - Lonely Are the Brave

Most of the reason Wayne's name lives on as well as it does today, I feel, is because of his Ford films (acknowledging that Red River was Howard Hawks). But if Wayne hadn't been willing to be an occasional whipping boy to the director's tirades it wouldn't have happened. Wayne was always a career-orientated man and if taking a nasty old man's abuse was required, he did it, as well as avoiding war service when he was afraid his absence in Hollywood might hurt his career just as his star was starting to build. A man does what he has to do to survive. Waving the American flag harder than anybody in later years out of guilt over lack of WW2 participation was one of the results. But, in doing so while blasting young Americans years later for a reluctance to go to Viet Nam, John Wayne was also a spectacular hypocrite.

It was Robert Montgomery, a real life war hero, who came to Wayne's rescue while shooting They Were Expendable by telling Ford to lay off the Duke for not participating in the war. Ford got off Wayne's back after that during that film's shooting.

If Ford was a so called "friend" of Wayne's, why did Ford berate/belittle him and why did Wayne put up with the old man's sadism for years? Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Ford helped to bring out the best in the Duke as an actor and cast him in many of his best movies, would it? In other words, Wayne took the abuse as long as his career benefited from the relationship. Does this fit in with your image of Wayne as the macho all-American or more like an insecure actor doing what he had to do to survive?

The fact that John Wayne was intimated by John Ford, who also ragged him about his lack of participation in WW2 and reduced him to tears on at least one occasion would not fit in with the image his worshippers have of him. Macho figures on pedestals don't cry.

Fallen Angel is a must for Linda Darnell fans (and anyone else who likes watching a smoking hot noir temptress). Having everyman Dana Andrews in the lead is another plus.

I wish there was a noir in which Byron Foulger played a henpecked husband who hired Hope Emerson to knock off his wife (Faye Emerson). Richard Conte would be Byron's gay lover. Complications ensue when Hope falls in love with Byron's wife, but Faye has the hots for Conte (and tries to convert him). This would be Gay Hit Woman Noir. Film Highlight Moments: "I could have married any man. Instead I got a wimp, a wimp, a WIMP who couldn't make REAL money!" "Don't tell me how you're going to do it. Just get it over with." "Oh, you're a sweet little thing. I could snap your neck in a second with my man hands."

Mitchum turned down The Defiant Ones, not because he wouldn't work with a black co-star, but because he said that a black convict would never be chained to a white one. He considered the premise of the film to be a false one.

This is a video of Wayne accepting Coop's Academy Award for him at the 1953 Oscar ceremony. Wayne had been one of the right wing Hollywood forces that had tried to pressure Gary Cooper not to accept a role in High Noon since it was written by Carl Foreman, a known Hollywood Communist. For years afterward the Duke also proclaimed High Noon "anti American" since the screenplay depicts an American town that turns its back on its marshal, with he and Hawks later making Rio Bravo as opposition to it. Yet here is Wayne (out of his friendship for Coop) accepting his Oscar for him for the very film he tried to talk him out of working in. And notice his comment at the end of this acceptance speech - blasting his agent for not giving him a crack at the role! I like Wayne as an actor, generally speaking, and have enjoyed watching him in numerous films. But, as a man, his hypocrisy, at times, is stunning and quite stomach turning. By the way, Dargo, I agree with your assessment of Cooper's versatility as an actor over Wayne. I find it sad that today so few talk about Coop, one of the great box office stars of all time (18 times named one of the top ten money makers of the year).

I recorded Wicked Woman and it sits ready to be viewed on DVD. Beverly Michaels, a poor man's tarty Lana Turner. Richard Egan, her hunky target. Percy Helton, sexy as a sleazy wart hog. I can hardly wait.

When it comes to THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE it was always the performances of James Stewart and Lee Marvin that impressed me the most, and still do. John Wayne appears to be on cruise patrol, merely going through the paces. It's far from the Duke at his best in my opinion (Red River, The Searchers, The Shootist). Wayne's career fortune was in being a favourite of Ford and Hawks. His outstanding films without those two directors are, to put it mildly, limited.

The gay subtext in Gilda has been a matter of discussion for years. It's all in the eyes of the viewer (influenced, I suspect, by the sexual preferences of same, a well). Quite frankly, gay viewers "tune" themselves more to these perseptions regarding films made during the Hollywood production code period, it seems to me, than do straight viewers. Gilda's a declasse bad girl in a film with a cop out ending as she merely turns out to be a tease. Columbia could have it both ways with an ending like that, promoting Rita as a high class tramp but finally letting audiences know that she's really a "good girl" after all who just likes to tease poor Johnny in a love-hate relationship. I have always found Glenn Ford's Johnny to be quite dislikable in this film. He really is a rotter. Rita Hayworth, on the other hand, whatever you think of her character aside, is so spectacular to view, this potent combination of sensuality and high class allure, that it is impossible to take your eyes off her. Her introduction in this film, a closeup of her face as she tosses her hair in the air, saying, "Who, me?" remains one of the most memorably breath taking moments of the movies. Hayworth alone makes a re-viewing of Gilda an occasional necessity for me. Afterward you realize that not much ever really happens in the film. It's showcasing Rita at the peak of her physical allure that this film is really all about. It's a shame that Hayworth later (especially after her marriage to Ali Khan and return to the movies) lost the confidence that she had as an actress in this film. It's only when she later had some musical numbers that the confidence briefly returned.

It's my understanding that Mitchum said that a white and black prisoner would never be chained together so thought the premise of the film a phony one.

I definitely raise an eyebrow at the inclusion of The Master of Ballantrae because I thought I was one of the few who really like this later Flynn effort. It's rarely mentioned by fans, a bit unfairly, I think. Great on location photography by Jack Cardiff enhances the appeal of this film but director William Keighley keeps the film moving at a fast pace. A later Errol, while no longer the light heated charmer that he had been in his prime years, is still a force to be reckoned with with a sword in his hand. The flair was still there even if he was older and a bit grimmer. Roger Livesey is great in support.