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*Ward Bond* To Richard Greene in LITTLE OLD NEW YORK: Why, you dribblin' young pup--I'll break you in two!

*CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1945)* From Agee on August 17, 1946: In CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA large million-dollar chunks of ancient Egypt are tossed around under Shaw's lines. It is often pleasantly gaudy, sometimes beautiful, and never, I think, primarily objectionable. The movie could have been as good, I am sure, and perhaps better if the budget had been adequately only to take care of the players and their costumes. Even as it stands, the show is exceedingly good at the core, if you enjoy Shaw. Over that I am in no position to argue. I know of very little writing, and not much music, for that matter, more pleasing than his work. Nor do I expect to see his dialogue better used or his insights better understood than by most of the people in this cast, particularly Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh in the leading roles.

*MARY BADHAM* TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1963) with Gregory Peck & Robert Duvall THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (1966) with Natalie Wood & Robert Redford LET'S KILL UNCLE (1966) with Nigel Green

*Non-musical Judy Garland* On and off THE CLOCK, she knows A CHILD IS WAITING.

There is considerable debate about what Hitchcock's original intentions were. In the novel upon which the screenplay is based, Fontaine's character drinks the poison that Grant's character has given her. The book ends on an interesting note, because she is the narrator of the story. We are taken up to the final moments when she sips the drink and is starting to die. So he is definitely murdering her in the book. Looking at the film as it plays in its 'finished form,' the romantic ending is simply garbage when you think about the fact that he had already embezzled and stolen from her and had intentionally caused the death of her father. His goal was to make her his victim, and killing her would be the ultimate act. For more information on Anthony Berkeley's novel, entitled Before the Fact, check out the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Fact

It could be argued that Chester Morris was a more naturalistic actor. I think Robert Ryan was relying a lot on the method acting approach by 1956, and those moody mannerisms are in fact affectations that he was inserting to make the part seem raw and 'real.'

Hi Dargo, I don't think I suggested Lucy was not a sexpot back in the day or that her sex appeal wasn't promoted by RKO. I am sure they did exploit her that way when they cast her and marketed films in which she appeared. My point was that Lucy created the role in FIVE CAME BACK, and when it was remade twenty years later, they found another actress who in some way resembled her. Just like with STAGE STRUCK, they cast Susan Strasberg who had some similarities to Kate. As for Lucy, of course she was sexy...Desi found her irresistible when he met her on the RKO lot.

Arturo, Something you posted earlier did not seem right to me, so I just did some checking about this statement you made: >What I was surprised, being that this was RKO, and I think Hughes still was (mis)guiding it, was that there wasn't a more exploitative image used; specifically, one where the focus is on her breasts. Hughes sold RKO in mid-1955 to General Tire and Rubber Company. They lacked Hollywood know-how, and it is under their management, that RKO took its fatal tumble. It seems their main interest in RKO was exploiting its old library of films for television, and this is probably why they remade some of those earlier classics from the 30s, with popular stars of the 50s and with some of the productions in color (anticipating the transition to color television). BACK FROM ETERNITY, of course, was made in black-and-white; but likely it was intended for a quick theatrical run, then reruns on television. General Tire and Rubber did not fare too well, and in January 1957, they shut down all production at the studio. RKO was sold later that year to Lucy and Desi at a substantial loss to General Tire and Rubber. BACK FROM ETERNITY was released on September 7, 1956. According to the TCM database, it was in production from March 5 - April 26, 1956. That was a good nine months after General Tire and Rubber had taken over. Hughes likely had nothing to do with this picture, its casting of Anita Ekberg or its marketing.

I think it's easy to assume Robert Ryan was the better actor, but Chester Morris was a well-trained thespian himself and he gives a good performance in the original. It would be fun to watch both versions back-to-back one evening on TCM...programmers are you listening? LOL

Do you really have to capitalize the word 'nothing' in your post? We're going to disagree on this, and I am going to stick by my original observation. I do think they are basically copying the original film down to the casting of this role. Moving on...

I think you are talking about a few different things here. First, you are referring to screen persona, where if we cast Robert Ryan or Maureen O'Hara, the audience automatically expects them to play a certain 'type.' Unless the intention is to cast 'against type.' In this case, RKO is strictly sticking to the formula for this kind of genre, and they are not really trying to update the narrative in any sort of way. I mentioned the Debbie Reynolds picture in an earlier post, and another example is RKO's other remake at this time, STAGE STRUCK, where Susan Stasberg essays Kate Hepburn's Oscar-winning part in MORNING GLORY. Again, it's another misfire, and with a cast like Strasberg and Henry Fonda (not to mention Herbert Marshall and Christopher Plummer), surely it cannot be the acting that's the problem. I think the real problem, aside from obviously dated material, is the choice of direction. Going back to ETERNITY, we have John Farrow who usually handles studio assignments rather admirably. But here, he is probably the wrong choice, and since he is uninspired to do anything real daring with the material, we get an uninspired picture that fails to excite or even vaguely interest audiences (unless you are a fan of the actors and that is why you are watching, to see them).

Sorry, Arturo, but I do think they are trying to make Anita Ekberg fit the role that Lucille Ball created in the earlier picture. If not, then they would've hired an actress like Leslie Caron with darker, shorter hair and a completely different body build.

You make some interesting points, but he can still be suspected of murder and actually be a murderer! The twist would be that she finds out for sure that he is a psychopath, and now nobody will believe her, until she kills him in self-defense. Or, he could've done away with her, and we could've seen him walk away, like Hannibal Lecter. Instead, we get this trite romantic ending...an ending that probably tested well with audiences at the time, but which is not authentic to the story that Hitchcock and his wife, screenwriter Alma Reville, were likely trying to tell. After all, we certainly would not expect Norman Bates to become a romantic hero at the end of PSYCHO, would we? Where it's all a dream and Marion Crane never died? And Mrs. Bates has a nice home-cooked meal waiting for him when he gets back from the asylum?

>I think the original version was much better. This later version is boring with a bad cast. I do not think the remake has an inferior cast. Come on: Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger and Beulah Bondi a bad cast? If I was the director assigned to the project, I would be doing a happy jig that the studio had given me these fine actors to work with! What is uninspired about the remake is that RKO was desperately trying to reformulate earlier hits and some of these stories were already twenty or more years old and a bit dated. BUNDLE OF JOY, a musical remake of the studio's earlier comedy BACHELOR MOTHER, is another such misfire. But, hey, at least RKO was trying to stay afloat. Incidentally, when I look at the publicity poster featuring Anita Ekberg, it is rather obvious that they were trying to mold her in Lucille Ball's image. I think they should've let her have a more contemporary look (for the late 50s) rather than make her appear like an actress from the late 30s. Even Lucille Ball herself had updated to a more modern style!

That's an excellent way to look at it, clore. And I can go along with that approach, to a point. If it had been telegraphed earlier in the film that she was viewing him wrongly, then that would definitely make sense. But now what we have is us (meaning us classic film buffs) trying to rationalize the studio's decision and almost excuse what I would call a dishonest ending. We could start another topic of conversation here about Hitchcock films that have happy endings and ones that do not. SUSPICION was never intended to be MR. AND MRS. SMITH.

*Maria Ouspenskaya* To Lon Chaney Jr. in THE WOLF MAN: Whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives, becomes a werewolf himself.

*Directed by Ida Lupino* Ida has eight feature film credits as director from NEVER FEAR in 1950 to THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS in 1966. During this time, she also directed 62 episodes of various television series. What other woman was doing that in Hollywood? Nobody; just her!

*GREGORY HINES* WOLFEN (1981) with Albert Finney DEAL OF THE CENTURY (1983) with Chevy Chase, Sigourney Weaver & Vince Edwards THE COTTON CLUB (1984) with Richard Gere WHITE NIGHTS (1985) with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Helen Mirren & Geraldine Page RUNNING SCARED (1986) with Billy Crystal OFF LIMITS (1988) with Willem Dafoe TAP (1989) with Sammy Davis Jr. A RAGE IN HARLEM (1991) with Forest Whitaker RENAISSANCE MAN (1994) with Danny de Vito & Cliff Robertson WAITING TO EXHALE (1995) with Angela Bassett, Whitney Houston & Loretta Devine THE PREACHER'S WIFE (1996) with Denzel Washington & Whitney Houston GOOD LUCK (1996) with James Earl Jones ONCE IN THE LIFE (2000) with Laurence Fishburne & Annabella Sciorra

*TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944)* From Agee on November 4, 1944: It has so little to do with Ernest Hemingway's novel that I see no point in discussing its faithfulness. It gets along on a mere thin excuse for a story and concentrates on character and atmosphere rather than plot. The best of the picture has no plot at all, but is a leisurely series of mating duels between Humphrey Bogart at his most proficient and the very entertaining, nervy, adolescent new blonde, Lauren Bacall. Whether or not you like the film will depend I believe almost entirely on whether you like Miss Bacall.

>And so, keep up the good work here, TB. Your thread is much appreciated by me, and I'm sure by many others around here. Thanks, Dargo. I loved the blurb about TYCOON as well. I roared when I first read it. He has a few other doozies.

You are right about how prolific Ward Bond was in films. Not even counting over 100 episodes for television's Wagon Train, he has at least 227 film credits according to the TCM database. As you said a fair number are uncredited parts from early in his career, but he certainly worked a lot. I am going to profile him tomorrow. I am trying to alternate between the men and the women. I already had Dudley Digges' piece prepared for yesterday, and later today I am going to post Maria Ouspenskaya. Check back for Ward Bond.

Thanks for the information about Dudley Digges. I just looked him up to learn more. He was born in Dublin. He appeared in 40 Hollywood productions starting in 1929, and he seems to have worked at all the major studios. One of his first notable Hollywood roles was as a villain in the Ricardo Cortez version of MALTESE FALCON. He died in New York in 1947. His last film credit is for THE SEARCHING WIND in '46.

*Dudley Digges* To Ian Wolfe in THE SEARCHING WIND: I _hate_ the opera. There's something insane about people opening their mouths very wide.

I agree that SUSPICION has the most disappointing ending of all time. They totally changed Grant's character at the finish line. If Hitch had to reshoot the final scene, then RKO should've scraped together some more money and had him film a few quick scenes to insert earlier in the film to foreshadow the unexpected climax. As it is now, SUSPICION spends nearly its entire running time heading in one direction, then it suddenly goes in a reverse direction at the last minute. I get frustrated every time I watch it. It is not necessarily a weak ending, just the wrong ending.

I need to find Kyle's thread about the Essentials schedule. My guess is that the edition with REBEL will be rerun again later this year. So the film does not suffer from lack of exposure on TCM.