-
Posts
154,044 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
376
Everything posted by TopBilled
-
*IT HAPPENED AT THE INN/GOUPI MAINS ROUGES (1946)* From Agee on February 16, 1946: I have a standing love affair with a good deal that is French. This film reawakened me to the fact. GOUPI is a comic melodrama about a family of wrangling, innocently cruel, frustrated, strongly individualistic peasants. Like most French films, this one is basically nearer literature than movie. But, like many, it is always supple, quick and expressive visually. In its use of dialogue and sound, it makes even the best American work look childish so far as skill with character and background and atmosphere are concerned. At times the picture goes so wild that it suggests simply that rural life is at once the most localized and the most universal. As a whole, and more intensely, gently, and richly, it embodies France. There is no evidence, good or bad, that Pierre Very, who wrote the picture, or Jacques Becker, who directed it, were trying to do anything great. Perhaps for that reason, among many others, I thought it wiser, more beautiful, and much more fun than nine out of ten masterpieces, written or filmed.
-
Yes, it is interesting to see how Agee regards NOTORIOUS when the film was first released. I think sometimes, due to nostalgia, we tend to over-rate classic movies. Though this is certainly a great picture by any era's standards.
-
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
TopBilled replied to TopBilled's topic in General Discussions
*GARY CLARKE* HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958) with Robert H. Harris DRAGSTRIP RIOT (1958) with Yvonne Lime WILD, WILD WINTER (1964) with Chris Noel -
Add WOMAN IN HIDING on June 29th.
-
Jose Ferrer would be a perfect candidate for a SUTS tribute. It wouldn't be the usual Hepburn or Grant or Stewart repeats.
-
You're welcome. It's interesting to read about Bette's appreciation of Jeanne Eagels' talent. Supposedly, JEALOUSY is lost, but I seriously doubt that. I am sure that after Warner Bros. bought it from Paramount to make DECEPTION, that they kept a copy of it somewhere. It's probably in poor condition, has missing fragments and needs restoration. I am surprised the '29 version of THE LETTER has not aired. If they do another evening of films based on works by Somerset Maugham, it would fit right in!
-
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
TopBilled replied to TopBilled's topic in General Discussions
*JANE WITHERS* BRIGHT EYES (1934) with Shirley Temple THIS IS THE LIFE (1935) with John McGuire, Sally Blane & Sidney Toler GINGER (1935) with O.P. Heggie LITTLE MISS NOBODY (1936) with Jane Darwell PADDY O'DAY (1936) with Jane Darwell PEPPER (1936) with Slim Summerville & Dean Jagger GENTLE JULIA (1936) with Tom Brown WILD AND WOOLLY (1937) with Walter Brennan 45 FATHERS (1937) with Thomas Beck CAN THIS BE DIXIE? (1937) with Slim Summerville THE HOLY TERROR (1937) with Tony Martin, Leah Ray & El Brendel ANGEL'S HOLIDAY (1937) with Joan Davis & Sally Blane RASCALS (1938) with Rochelle Hudson & Robert Wilcox KEEP SMILING (1938) with Gloria Stuart, Henry Wilcoxon & Helen Westley ALWAYS IN TROUBLE (1938) with Arthur Treacher CHECKERS (1938) with Stuart Erwin & Una Merkel BOY FRIEND (1939) with Arleen Whelan PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES (1939) with the Ritz Brothers CHICKEN WAGON FAMILY (1939) with Leo Carrillo, Marjorie Weaver & Spring Byington THE ARIZONA WILDCAT (1939) with Leo Carrillo & Pauline Moore GIRL FROM AVENUE A (1940) with Kent Taylor & Elyse Knox YOUTH WILL BE SERVED (1940) with Jane Darwell, Elyse Knox & Joe Brown Jr. HIGH SCHOOL (1940) with Joe Brown Jr. HER FIRST BEAU (1941) with Jackie Cooper, Edith Fellows & Josephine Hutchinson SMALL TOWN DEB (1941) with Jane Darwell & Cobina Wright Jr. A VERY YOUNG LADY (1941) with Nancy Kelly & John Sutton GOLDEN HOOFS (1941) with Charles Buddy Rogers THE MAD MARTINDALES (1942) with Marjorie Weaver, Alan Mowbray & Jimmy Lydon YOUNG AMERICA (1942) with Jane Darwell JOHNNY DOUGHBOY (1942) with Henry Wilcoxon & William Demarest FACES IN THE FOG (1944) with Paul Kelly MY BEST GAL (1944) with Jimmy Lydon AFFAIRS OF GERALDINE (1946) with Jimmy Lydon DANGER STREET (1947) with Robert Lowery & Lyle Talbot -
*THE IRON MAJOR (1943)* From Agee on November 20, 1943: THE IRON MAJOR is a respectful, rather dull picture about the football coach Frank Cavanaugh. Such able, unintellectual, cagy teachers are very much worth talking about, but all the talk here is in words of less than one syllable. All you get is Pat O'Brien's nicely controlled performance and a few pretty period-shots of Worcester, Mass.
-
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
TopBilled replied to TopBilled's topic in General Discussions
*J.D. CANNON* COOL HAND LUKE (1967) with Paul Newman & George Kennedy HEAVEN WITH A GUN (1969) with Glenn Ford & Carolyn Jones THE 1,000 PLANE RAID (1969) with Christopher George & Laraine Stephens -
*NOTORIOUS (1946)* From Agee on August 17, 1946: NOTORIOUS lacks many of the qualities which made the best of Hitchcock's movies so good. But it has more than enough good qualities of its own. Hitchcock has always been as good at domestic psychology as at thrillers. Many times he makes a moment in a party, or a lovers' quarrel, or a mere interior shrewdly exciting in ways that few people in films seem to know. His great skill in directing women, which boggled in SPELLBOUND, is functioning beautifully again. I think Ingrid Bergman's performance here is the best of hers that I have seen. One would think that the use of the camera subjectively, that is as one of the characters, would for many years have been as basic a movie device as the close-up, but few people try it and Hitchcock is nearly the only living man I can think of who knows just when and how to. He is equally resourceful, and exceptional, in his manufacture of expressive little air-pockets of dead silence. He has a strong sense of the importance of the real place and the real atmosphere; the shots of Rio de Janeiro are excellent and one late-afternoon love scene is equally remarkable in its special emotion and the grandeur of excitement it gets away with, and in communicating the exact place, weather and time of day.
-
Thanks, Kyle. I completely agree, citing all the reasons you listed in your post, that the films featuring immigrants in June are probably not part of the Race and Hollywood series. Perhaps the Race and Hollywood series will resume in July. I am still hoping for a set of Jewish-themed films, as I think that would be very interesting.
-
So glad to see this thread today. I just watched THE LETTER (1929) last night. Before the film starts, there is a disclaimer that the audio is missing from the first few minutes but that the rest of the sound is well intact and that (these are their words), this is a good opportunity to see Jeanne Eagels' _amazing_ performance. They actually call it 'amazing' before the film starts. With a set-up like that, you wonder what you are in for, and if someone can live up to such hype. She most certainly does. Jeanne Eagels is amazing in this film because of how forceful she is with the character's dialogue and intensely desperate actions. She also brings a fragile quality to the role that makes her seem completely believable to the jury when she is in fact lying through her teeth about killing her lover. The film varies significantly from the 1940 remake (where Bette Davis gives an equally powerful interpretation), because without a morals code, she gets off at the end and is free to cause more destruction without anyone killing her for her crimes...which is how I think Maugham really envisioned the character. Interestingly, Bette appeared in the remake of Jeanne's other talkie made at Paramount called JEALOUSY, with Fredric March. It was renamed DECEPTION and Bette costarred with Claude Rains.
-
*CORVETTE K-225 (1943)* From Agee on October 8, 1943: CORVETTE K-225 is an unusually decent and unpretentious, but not very interesting, semi-documentary about Corvette K-225. Some of it, made in Canada and on the North Atlantic, is fresh and pretty to see; even genuinely moving. The more violent stuff, though well-contrived, is strictly studio, and suffers by comparison.
-
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
TopBilled replied to TopBilled's topic in General Discussions
*BILLIE WHITELAW* BOBBIKINS (1960) with Shirley Jones & Max Bygraves PAYROLL (1962) with Michael Craig CHARLIE BUBBLES (1968) with Albert Finney & Liza Minnelli TWISTED NERVE (1969) with Hayley Mills LEO THE LAST (1970) with Marcello Mastroianni START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME (1970) with Gene Wilder & Donald Sutherland GUMSHOE (1971) with Albert Finney & Janice Rule EAGLE IN A CAGE (1972) with Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud & Moses Gunn NIGHTWATCH (1973) with Elizabeth Taylor & Laurence Harvey THE OMEN (1976) with Gregory Peck, Lee Remick & David Warner -
Arturo, I don't know about THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, but MURIETA does come up on the TCM database under the keyword 'immigrant.' I composed my list that way. I have not seen MURIETA, but whether it was based on a true story or not, it seems in description at least a bit like a reworking of Robin Hood and thus a bit Hollywood-ized. Now I am curious to see this film. I think your comments point up the potentially contentious nature of these race/images series that TCM does each summer. In an earlier post, I commended the programmers for being rather diverse and including many ethnic groups. But as your post indicates, TCM viewers who are among select ethnic groups may find fault with the inclusion or exclusion of certain titles. This said, I do not think a series about immigrants has to suggest racism, discrimination or stereotypes (though I am sure some of these films contain those elements). My guess is that the programmers would've selected the least offensive, most politically correct films possible. And in those instances where they are screening something potentially controversial, I am sure like before that Mr. Osborne will be interviewing an expert who can discuss the political and cultural ramifications of a particular immigrant group being presented in such a way on film.
-
*DEERSLAYER (1943)* From Agee on November 20, 1943: This film can be recommended to anyone who would not feel that an eight-year-old boy who gallops up howling 'Wah-wah, I'm an Indian' needs to consult a psychiatrist. I don't feel that most bad pictures are bad enough to be funny; they are just bad enough to be fascinating, not to say depressing as hell. But this defenseless and disarming show is the purest dumb delight I have seen in a long time.
-
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
TopBilled replied to TopBilled's topic in General Discussions
*GORDON JONES* NIGHT WAITRESS (1936) with Margot Grahame THERE GOES MY GIRL (1937) with Gene Raymond & Ann Sothern CHINA PASSAGE (1937) with Constance Worth WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE (1937) with Preston Foster & Ann Dvorak THE BIG SHOT (1937) with Guy Kibbee, Cora Witherspoon & Dorothy Moore QUICK MONEY (1937) with Fred Stone & Dorothy Moore THEY WANTED TO MARRY (1937) with Betty Furness NIGHT SPOT (1938) with Parkyakarkus I TAKE THIS OATH (1940) with Joyce Compton THE BLONDE FROM SINGAPORE (1941) with Florence Rice & Leif Erikson BLACK EAGLE: THE STORY OF A HORSE (1948) with William Bishop & Virginia Patton SONS OF ADVENTURE (1948) with Lynne Roberts & Russ Hayden THE ARIZONA COWBOY (1950) with Rex Allen & Teala Loring -
Here are some other films, based on this theme, worth checking out: - GATEWAY (1938) with Don Ameche, Arleen Whelan, Binnie Barnes & Gilbert Roland. Twentieth-Century Fox. An Irish immigrant (Whalen) meets a returning war correspondent (Ameche) on a liner bound for New York. When she resists the amorous advances of another passenger, charges result in her being detained at Ellis Island. - G.I. WAR BRIDES (1946) with Anna Lee & James Ellison. Republic. Linda Powell (Lee), an English girl, stows away on a ship bound for the United States in order to join the G.I. (Ellison) she loves. She assumes the identity of an English war bride. - ROMANCE IN MANHATTAN (1935) with Ginger Rogers & Francis Lederer. RKO. A New York chorus girl (Rogers) helps an illegal immigrant (Lederer) build a new life in the big city. - THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1941) with Peter Lorre & Evelyn Keyes. Columbia. When a fire leaves him hideously scarred, an immigrant (Lorre) turns to crime. - LITTLE NELLY KELLY (1940) with Judy Garland, George Murphy & Charles Winninger. MGM. The daughter (Garland) of Irish immigrants patches up differences between her father (Murphy) and grandfather (Winninger) and rises to the top on Broadway. - BORDER INCIDENT (1950) with Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy & Howard Da Silva. MGM. Police try to crack down on the illegal immigration racket. - DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS (1958) with Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins & Burl Ives. Paramount. A fiery immigrant (Loren) falls in love with her aging husband's brooding young son (Perkins). - COME LIVE WITH ME (1941) with James Stewart & Hedy Lamarr. MGM. A Viennese refugee (Lamarr) weds a struggling author (Stewart) platonically so she can stay in the U.S. - A LADY WITHOUT PASSPORT (1950) with Hedy Lamarr, John Hodiak & James Craig. MGM. An immigration detective (Hodiak) falls in love with an illegal immigrant (Lamarr). - A DREAM OF KINGS (1969) with Anthony Quinn, Irene Papas & Inger Stevens. National General Pictures. A Greek-American (Quinn) tries to find money in order to fly his terminally-ill young son to Greece and Mt. Olympus in the hope that it will cure him. - BELOVED (1934) with John Boles & Gloria Stuart. Universal. A story about four generations in a German family of musicians. - CRY TOUGH (1959) with John Saxon, Linda Cristal & Joseph Calleia. United Artists. After getting out of prison, a Latino criminal (Saxon) tries to go straight. - DAUGHTER OF SHANGHAI (1938) with Anna May Wong, Charles Bickford & Larry 'Buster' Crabbe. Paramount. A young Chinese woman (Wong) tracks down the smugglers who killed her father. - DONDI (1961) with David Janssen & Patti Page. Allied Artists. World War II GIs adopt an Italian war orphan. - FLOWER DRUM SONG (1961) with Nancy Kwan & James Shigeta. Universal. A refugee (Kwan) travels to Chinatown as a mail-order bride. - FORGED PASSPORT (1939) with Paul Kelly & Lyle Talbot. Republic. A border patrolman (Kelly) on the California-Mexico border tries to bring down a gang of smugglers he believes was responsible for his partner?s death. - GAMBLING HOUSE (1951) with Victor Mature, Terry Moore & William Bendix. RKO. A gambler (Mature) faces deportation when he gets mixed up with murder. - GIVE US THIS DAY/CHRIST IN CONCRETE (1949) with Sam Wanamaker. Eagle-Lion. Geremio (Wanamaker) is an Italian immigrant who lies to his girlfriend that he owns his own home and, after they are married, has to rent one for their three-day honeymoon. The years pass and they are unable to save enough money to get out of their slum tenement. - HOLD BACK THE DAWN (1941) with Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland & Paulette Goddard. Paramount. A gigolo (Boyer) flees Nazi occupation and sets his sights on a shy schoolteacher (de Havilland) who happens to be a US citizen. - ILLEGAL ENTRY (1949) with Howard Duff, Marta Toren & George Brent. Universal. A federal agent (Brent) is assigned to uncover a smuggling racket. - IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1937) with Alan Baxter & Andrea Leeds. Republic. The story of immigrant brothers; one aspires to become an educator, the other has recently graduated from law school. The lawyer must come to the defense of his sibling, who gets tangled in a web of blackmail and murder. - IT'S A BIG COUNTRY: AN AMERICAN ANTHOLOGY (1952) with William Powell, Fredric March, Janet Leigh, Ethel Barrymore, etc. MGM. Seven stories celebrate diversity of American life. - MURIETA (1965) with Jeffrey Hunter & Arthur Kennedy. Warner Bros. A Mexican peasant (Hunter) takes out his vengeance on the men who beat him and killed his wife by forming a gang of outlaws to rob the countryside. - MY GIRL TISA (1948) with Lilli Palmer, Sam Wanamaker & Akim Tamiroff. Warner Bros. A devoted immigrant girl (Palmer) is working to bring her father to the U. S. - MY AMERICAN WIFE (1936) with Francis Lederer, Ann Sothern & Billie Burke. Paramount. An American girl (Sothern) gets mixed up with a European Count (Lederer). - PAY OR DIE (1960) with Ernest Borgnine & Zohra Lampert. Allied Artists. A New York Police lieutenant (Borgnine) tries to rid Little Italy of the Mafia and is killed for it. - SINS OF MAN (1936) with Jean Hersholt & Don Ameche. Twentieth-Century Fox. An Austrian church bell ringer (Hersholt) loves music and wants his two sons (both played by Ameche) to love it too. The first goes to America and the second is born deaf-mute but gains hearing during WWI bombing. - STRANGE WIVES (1934) with Roger Pryor, June Clayworth & Esther Ralston. Universal. When a young man (Pryor) marries a Russian girl (Clayworth), he finds that he has married her entire family. - SWORD IN THE DESERT (1949) with Dana Andrews, Marta Toren & Stephen McNally. Universal. A freighter captain (Andrews) hopes to take the money and run after helping to smuggle Jewish refugees ashore in pre-Israel Palestine. - TAXI (1953) with Dan Dailey & Constance Smith. Twentieth-Century Fox. A New York City cab driver (Dailey) tries to help an Irish girl (Smith) find her husband. - THAT GIRL FROM PARIS (1937) with Lily Pons, Jack Oakie & Gene Raymond. RKO. A French opera star (Pons) flees a wedding and runs to America. - THE BLACK ORCHID (1959) with Sophia Loren & Anthony Quinn. Paramount. An aging widower (Quinn) fights family disapproval when he falls in love with a gangster's widow (Loren). - THE PUSHER (1960) with Robert Lansing & Kathy Carlyle. United Artists. A policeman is on the hunt for a heroin dealer, whose drugs have killed some Puerto Rican teens in El Barrio. - THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945) with Greer Garson, Gregory Peck & Donald Crisp. MGM. An Irish housemaid's (Garson) romance with the boss's son (Peck) is complicated by labor disputes in the Pittsburgh mills. - TONIGHT WE SING (1953) with David Wayne, Ezio Pinza & Anne Bancroft. Twentieth-Century Fox. The story of impresario Sol Hurok. - UP IN CENTRAL PARK (1948) with Deanna Durbin, Dick Haymes & Vincent Price. Universal. An Irish colleen in turn of the century New York City helps expose a corrupt politician (Price). - GREEN CARD (1990) with Gerard Depardieu & Andie MacDowell. Walt Disney Studios. A French artist (Depardieu) marries a lonely woman (MacDowell) to win U.S. citizenship then falls in love with her. - WALK LIKE A DRAGON (1960) with Jack Lord, Nobu McCarthy & James Shigeta. Paramount. A cowboy (Lord) experiences trouble when he falls for a Chinese slave girl (McCarthy) in a Western town.
-
Okay, thanks. The FMC schedule currently goes until April 30th. And the Encore schedules also go through April, with many individual titles listed for play in May as well. TCM is the only channel that seems to allow us to look at the schedule so far ahead. Up around the bend: we will have the annual summer showing of 1776...plus there is a month of Leslie Howard films in July.
-
How sad that nobody mentioned Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage...!
-
calvin, In the Immigrants Series thread, there are a few more titles you do not have here. You may wish to add them to your list.
-
*FROM THIS DAY FORWARD (1946)* From Agee on April 27, 1946: I respect the sincerity of FROM THIS DAY FORWARD. It tells a story about young married love up against the worst that a bad economic system can do and send an audience home comfortable. Its message seems to be that in the long run ardor and courage, neither of which is seriously embarrassed by any difficulties, will hold their fort, and better. Movies so seldom try to be honest or sympathetic about such problems of working-class life. However, I must regret two kinds of miscarriage of sincerity which use up some of the film. One kind is most fully represented by Joan Fontaine as the wife. Quite aside from her efforts to be at once a serious actress and a fan magazine star, she has for all her good intentions about the understanding of her role that an heiress might have who was advised by her analyst to take up social work in order to work off her guilt about her income. The other kind is best embodied in bits by a resentful intellectual who slaps some books off a counter, and by the clerk at an orange-drink stand who sharply communicates the meanness and snobbery with which members of the same class treat each other. Both bits, like an ugly scene in court, are neat and authentic beyond the picture's ability to communicate more pleasant aspects of underprivileged city life; yet all three, I feel, are false in their own way. They supplant the unrealism of most movies with a slick kind of pseudo-realism, rather special to New York, which has been most clearly developed in the less good mannerisms of the Group Theater. FROM THIS DAY FORWARD is an unusually serious and respectable film, but very little in it is free from one or the other of these kinds of falseness.
-
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
TopBilled replied to TopBilled's topic in General Discussions
*MICHELINE CHEIREL* CORNERED (1945) with Dick Powell & Walter Slezak SO DARK THE NIGHT (1946) with Steven Geray THE CRIME DOCTOR'S GAMBLE (1947) with Warner Baxter JEWELS OF BRANDENBURG (1947) with Richard Travis -
>Romance in Manhattan (1934) with Ginger Rogers protecting an illegal immigrant from capture and forced return. I really like this film, too. It aired when Ginger was SOTM two years ago. Francis Lederer plays the immigrant. There are some other films I thought could easily have been included. If you go to the TCM database and do a keyword search for the word 'immigrants' you will find over 700 titles that match this criteria. Many of them are in foreign languages. And some in English with gangster themes were probably not chosen since they do not really point up a positive experience of assimilation. I do like how the programmers have found films to represent as many ethnic groups as possible. My one suggestion is that the programmers could've done an evening of documentaries on this subject. The theme lends itself beautifully to non-fiction film.
-
You are so right, cody. Thanks for the correction. BOSTON ****'S CHINESE CURSE first hit movie screens in March '49, while TRAPPED BY BOSTON **** was released the previous May. In June, TCM is reversing the order and showing CHINESE CURSE first, then TRAPPED a week later.
