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*FRANCIS* FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE (1950) with Donald O'Connor & Patricia Medina FRANCIS GOES TO THE RACES (1951) with Donald O'Connor & Piper Laurie FRANCIS GOES TO WEST POINT (1952) with Donald O'Connor & Lori Nelson FRANCIS COVERS THE BIG TOWN (1953) with Donald O'Connor & Yvette Duguay FRANCIS JOINS THE WACS (1954) with Donald O'Connor & Julie Adams FRANCIS IN THE NAVY (1955) with Donald O'Connor & Martha Hyer FRANCIS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1956) with Mickey Rooney

*TOGETHER AGAIN (1944)* From Agee on December 9, 1944: Comedy about a small-town mayor (Irene Dunne), too much on her dignity to be interested in love; and a big-town sculptor (Charles Boyer) who changes her mind. There are flashes of wit in it, verbal, even psychological, and even visual, but nearly all of them, like the story itself, are suicidally professional and forced.

Sorry, but I am one who doesn't like it. Anyway, this thread is not about that film (there is an older existing thread to be found on the subject). I picked the Kettle films as an exaggerated way of saying there are certain types of classic film programming that get pre-empted due to coverage of the holidays. We could just as easily say pre-codes instead of hillbilly comedy. At least nine days per year (counting two full days for Memorial Day now), the schedule automatically excludes most pre-codes.

Arturo, I still don't like MURDER HE SAYS. I don't know why. And I love Judy Canova and Percy Kilbride. I don't know why. LOL

I find it interesting that they had such a hard time filming it (the stars did not get along at all). It's a great film and they share a unique chemistry that would have worked well in other films.

It has since re-aired. But this title is not in heavy rotation like others on this channel. Apparently, Universal remade it in the 60s. So at some point they acquired it from Paramount. Encore is the place where we find the most Universal film classics on cable...and in this case, some of the Paramount oaters.

Those phone calls are what makes it so good. This is a case where the production code of old Hollywood needed to be abandoned in order to show us the truly creepy, sick mind of a villain. It makes the horror more real, the shock on the woman's face more authentic. Keir does a superb job.

>Dullea is good in this. He's also good in Bunny Lake is Missing. I agree. He is equally good...and mad...in DE SADE.

I am at home today watching some MA & PA KETTLE films. It occurs to me that we would never find them on TCM eight days a year. The schedule is narrowly defined on Christmas, on New Year's, on St. Patrick's Day, on Easter, on Memorial Day, on the Fourth of July, on Halloween, and on Thanksgiving. Interesting that PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE is on at least once a year without fail while Marjorie Main and her brood must wait a few years before being shown again.

*Steven Spielberg's Letters of Recommendation* Extra-terrestrials and artificial intelligence. Subject matter for hit movies.

*JANICE RULE* HOLIDAY FOR SINNERS (1952) with Gig Young & Keenan Wynn ROGUE'S MARCH (1953) with Peter Lawford & Richard Greene A WOMAN'S DEVOTION (1956) with Ralph Meeker & Paul Henreid GUN FOR A COWARD (1957) with Fred MacMurray & Jeffrey Hunter THE SUBTERRANEANS (1960) with Leslie Caron & George Peppard INVITATION TO A GUNFIGHTER (1964) with Yul Brynner ALVAREZ KELLY (1966) with William Holden & Richard WIdmark WELCOME TO HARD TIMES (1967) with Henry Fonda & Aldo Ray THE AMBUSHERS (1967) with Dean Martin & Senta Berger THE SWIMMER (1968) with Burt Lancaster GUMSHOE (1971) with Albert Finney & Billie Whitelaw 3 WOMEN (1977) with Shelley Duvall & Sissy Spacek MISSING (1982) with Jack Lemmon & Sissy Spacek

*BATAAN (1943)* From Agee on June 3, 1943: I have heard BATAAN criticized for presuming so shallowly to portray war. But I think it much less shallow than most of the more ambitious war pictures, which are indeed insults both to the men who make real war and to the men who made the images. BATAAN is essentially, I think, not a drama but a certain kind of native ritual dance. As such its image of war is not only na?ve, coarse-grained, primitive; it is also honest, accomplished in terms of its aesthetic, and true.

>Several different existing threads, in fact...so why not just bump one of those instead of starting another one? ?:| I agree. As long as they keep doing it, there will be posters like you getting after them for it. LOL

*THE CANTERVILLE GHOST (1944)* From Agee on July 22, 1944: THE CANTERVILLE GHOST is played in a mock-pansy, mock-Shakespearean style by Charles Laughton. He is a coward who can only go his rest when a descendant, Robert Young, proves himself brave in warfare. The possibilities here seem thin at best, but a sufficient understanding of cowardice might still have made them amount to something. Margaret O'Brien is involved in this, too, and gives the film what little charm it has; but more still makes it an unhappy experience. She is an uncannily talented child, and it is infuriating to see her handled, and gradually being ruined, by oafs.

*ROCK HUDSON* THE DESERT HAWK (1950) with Yvonne de Carlo THE FAT MAN (1951) with Julie London HORIZONS WEST (1952) with Robert Ryan & Julie Adams SCARLET ANGEL (1952) with Yvonne de Carlo HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAL? (1952) with Piper Laurie & Charles Coburn SEMINOLE (1953) with Barbara Hale & Anthony Quinn SEA DEVILS (1953) with Yvonne de Carlo BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY (1953) with Marcia Henderson & Steve Cochran THE LAWLESS BREED (1953) with Julie Adams GUN FURY (1953) with Donna Reed THE GOLDEN BLADE (1953) with Piper Laurie TAZA, SON OF COCHISE (1954) with Barbara Rush BENGAL BRIGADE (1954) with Arlene Dahl MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954) with Jane Wyman CAPTAIN LIGHTFOOT (1955) with Barbara Rush ONE DESIRE (1955) with Anne Baxter & Julie Adams NEVER SAY GOODBYE (1956) with Cornell Borchers & George Sanders ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1956) with Jane Wyman A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1957) with Jennifer Jones BATTLE HYMN (1957) with Anna Kashfi & Don DeFore TWILIGHT FOR THE GODS (1958) with Cyd Charisse & Arthur Kennedy PILLOW TALK (1959) with Doris Day THIS EARTH IS MINE (1959) with Jean Simmons, Dorothy McGuire & Claude Rains THE SPIRAL ROAD (1962) with Gena Rowlands & Burl Ives A GATHERING OF EAGLES (1963) with Rod Taylor STRANGE BEDFELLOWS (1965) with Gina Lollobrigida A VERY SPECIAL FAVOR (1965) with Leslie Caron & Charles Boyer BLINDFOLD (1966) with Claudia Cardinale TOBRUK (1967) with George Peppard THE UNDEFEATED (1969) with John Wayne A FINE PAIR (1969) with Claudia Cardinale DARLING LILI (1970) with Julie Andrews HORNETS' NEST (1970 with Sylva Koscina PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW (1971) with Angie Dickinson

*Audrey Hepburn & William Holden* SABRINA spends time in PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES.

*Directed by Cornel Wilde* The actor turns director with two action classics from the 1960s: BEACH RED and THE NAKED PREY.

*THUNDERHEAD, SON OF FLICKA (1945)* From Agee on March 17, 1945: The film has some beautiful horses, especially a heart-stopping, blue-eyed, pure-white stallion whom I would love to see in any adequately fierce movie about Pegasus or, for that matter, any really appreciative story about plain horses. This is not such a story. Whenever the horses are busy, it is pleasant to look at; but so are moving clouds, or water, without much credit to their recorder. The picture gets very little even out of the mild drama it allows itself; nothing whatever of the power and glory there could be in a properly unhuman film about wild and half-wild animals.

*ROSSANA PODESTA* ULYSSES (1955) with Kirk Douglas, Silvana Mangano & Anthony Quinn HELEN OF TROY (1956) with Jack Sernas & Cedric Hardwicke SANTIAGO (1956) with Alan Ladd RAW WIND IN EDEN (1958) with Jeff Chandler & Esther Williams FURY OF THE PAGANS (1963) with Edmund Purdom SODOM AND GOMORRAH (1963) with Stewart Granger & Pier Angeli THE GOLDEN ARROW (1964) with Tab Hunter

My favorite performance of Teresa Wright's occurs in THE LITTLE FOXES with Bette Davis. Also, I think she's sensational as Robert Mitchum's spinster sister in TRACK OF THE CAT. Each nuance, even in a scene with routine action, carries significant meaning.

*Enoch Arden* Irene Dunne is MY FAVORITE WIFE; and so is Doris Day who tells James Garner to MOVE OVER, DARLING.

*CLINT EASTWOOD AS THE MAN WITH NO NAME* A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) with Marianne Koch FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965) with Lee Van Cleef THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) with Lee Van Cleef & Eli Wallach

*CORNERED (1946)* From Agee on February 16, 1946: Without losing much if any force as melodrama, CORNERED is elaborate, self-assured, and ambitious. I have never been to Buenos Aires, and I have known few fascists or even people who pretended to be or thought they were, but in casting, business, setting and with few exceptions in writing and costuming, the picture consistently convinced and excited me. Dick Powell, with a Bogart haircut, sometimes works a little too conspicuously at being The New Dick Powell (rougher, tougher and more terrific as the billboards not very helpfully insist). But on the whole, perhaps because he still looks less official, less highly paid to look small-bracket, and less superhuman and bound to win-out, I think he is even better, just now, for this sort of role.

Teresa Wright would soon find more work on television. She made occasional returns to motion pictures, usually in high-profile productions. Fontaine continued to do leading roles in A-budget pictures into the 1960s. Milland worked extensively in film for the rest of his career, though by the 1970s he had become a supporting actor.

It doesn't surprise me that Milland worked with her on the role. He would soon start directing films, and I can see him trying to coach a fellow actor to produce the best performance.