TopBilled

Some of you are very critical of TCM in terms of this issue. Now I can see why they started airing that recent disclaimer before movies. I wonder why so many folks over-analyze this when it is much easier to just get widescreen copies on Netflix. Maybe I am missing something...? LOL

I didn't particularly care for this film. I thought it squandered Barrymore's talents and showed how badly his career was sliding at the end. Also, what a thankless role for Virginia Bruce. After the first fifteen minutes, she is not seen again until the very end. The majority of her performance is a voice-over. John Howard was very wooden, especially in scenes where he was supposed to be animated with her invisible figure. At least Barrymore pantomimed those moments better. The only one I liked in this film was Margaret Hamilton who always gives 100%. As for the production values, the special effects were like a rotten slice of cheese, and much of the film's tone and manner seemed like a ripoff of TOPPER.

*BEN COOPER* WOMAN THEY ALMOST LYNCHED (1953) with John Lund, Brian Donlevy, Audrey Totter & Joan Leslie THE FIGHTING CHANCE (1955) with Rod Cameron & Julie Bishop A STRANGE ADVENTURE (1956) with Joan Evans & Maria English DUEL AT APACHE WELLS (1957) with Anna Maria Alberghetti & Jim Davis OUTLAW'S SON (1957) with Dane Clark, Lori Nelson & Ellen Drew CHARTROOSE CABOOSE (1960) with Molly Bee & Edgar Buchanan GUNFIGHT AT COMANCHE CREEK (1963) with Audie Murphy & Colleen Miller ARIZONA RAIDERS (1965) with Audie Murphy, Michael Dante & Buster Crabbe

*A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945)* From Agee on February 17, 1945: I think it a more interesting and likable movie than most. It concentrates on poverty, on some crucial aspects of early puberty, on domestic relationships, and on life in a big city, which are rarely undertaken on the American screen, with considerable enthusiasm, tenderness, discipline and intelligence. It even presents and accepts the idea, unpopular enough even in contemporary fiction, that some antagonisms and inadequacies are too deeply rooted to be wholly explicable or curable. It also develops a main love interest between a little girl and her father. It presents a drunkard, the father, for once without moralizing about him or reforming him. The agencies concerned about this are doubtless satisfied with his death. The tenements sets and city streets of the movie are as lovingly and exhaustively detailed and as solid-looking as any I can remember. I was especially moved and impressed by James Dunn as the father and by the ways, visible and sometimes stammering though they were, in which Peggy Ann Garner and director Elia Kazan handled what I take to be her rigidity as an actress, turning it into a part of her personal and visual charm, and of the role she is in those respects so well suited for. A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN also contains single moments or shots so extraordinarily good that they make me wonder why the rest, granted the same eye that made or saved these, need have fallen short. And in a screen play so obviously careful, I don't understand the virtual absence of the symbolic tree of the title, which could have been accounted for in about three extra shots.

Deanna and Judy made appeared on screen together, in a short film for MGM in 1936 called EVERY SUNDAY. They played sisters. Deanna did an operatic aria and Judy did a traditional swing number.

She was given a Juvenile Oscar for her work in THREE SMART GIRLS. But I really like her work in the sequel, THREE SMART GIRLS GROW UP. She's a bit more polished in front of the camera at this point, and she's supported by a wonderful cast.

I think she's great, too. But yes, she did not save Universal from bankruptcy. This has been covered in other threads. W.C. Fields is the one who single-handedly saved Universal from bankruptcy. Fields had a huge radio following, too, plus his built-in movie audience from his days at Paramount. After his tenure at Paramount ended, he was back on the market so to speak. Because he signed with Universal, the banks decided not to call in the troubled studio's loans. They considered Fields in the late 30s a bankable talent. His upcoming films were thought to be guaranteed money-makers (which they were). Of course, Deanna would do more for Universal than Fields over the course of the next decade, but during that crucial moment, it was Fields, a proven talent, who saved the studio from collapse. It is probably easier to give a sweet, doe-eyed girl the credit instead of an irascible old coot.

I will be watching neither. Instead, I will be looking at a few discs from ClassicFlix and streaming a title or two from Netflix online. The more TCM re-airs GASLIGHT, NORTH BY NORTHWEST and SOME LIKE IT HOT, then the more I look at competitive sources that offer other classic movies.

*ROUGHLY SPEAKING (1945)* From Agee on February 24, 1945: ROUGHLY SPEAKING is, I fear, a faithful history of the American middle class. It glories in the idea that this is still a country where you don't get shot for dreaming. The one dream worth about ninety percent of its footage is the making of money. The most nearly respectable object of all this dreaming is to make sure that the boys get to Andover and Yale. The whole thing depresses me beyond words. Jack Carson, however, is likable, as he always is.

*ANNA STEN* EXILE EXPRESS (1939) with Alan Marshal & Jerome Cowan THE MAN I MARRIED (1940) with Joan Bennett, Francis Lederer & Lloyd Nolan THE CHETNIKS! (1943) with Philip Dorn THEY CAME TO BLOW UP AMERICA (1943) with George Sanders & Ward Bond THREE RUSSIAN GIRLS (1944) with Kent Smith LET'S LIVE A LITTLE (1948) with Hedy Lamarr & Robert Cummings RUNAWAY DAUGHTERS (1956) with Maria English & John Litel THE NUN AND THE SERGEANT (1962) with Robert Webber

I know...I am very excited about HOLY MATRIMONY airing tomorrow on TCM.

*MILDRED PIERCE (1945)* From Agee on October 13, 1945: Nasty, gratifying version of the James Cain novel about suburban grass-widowhood and the power of the native passion for money and all that money can buy. Attempt made to sell Mildred as noble when she is merely idiotic or at best pathetic. But constant, virulent, lambent attention to money and its effects and more authentic suggestions of sex than one hopes to see in American films. Excellent work by Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott and Ann Blyth who is as good an embodiment of all that is most terrifying about native contemporary adolescence as I ever hope to see.

*MONTY WOOLLEY* THE PIED PIPER (1942) with Roddy McDowall & Anne Baxter LIFE BEGINS AT EIGHT-THIRTY (1942) with Ida Lupino & Cornel Wilde HOLY MATRIMONY (1943) with Gracie Fields & Laird Cregar IRISH EYES ARE SMILING (1944) with June Haver, Dick Haymes & Anthony Quinn MOLLY AND ME (1945) with Gracie Fields & Roddy McDowall MISS TATLOCK'S MILLIONS (1948) with John Lund, Wanda Hendrix & Barry Fitzgerald AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL (1951) with Thelma Ritter, David Wayne, Jean Peters & Constance Bennett

I am definitely looking forward to seeing THE INVISIBLE WOMAN.

*JOY HODGES* PERSONAL SECRETARY (1938) with William Gargan & Andy Devine THEY ASKED FOR IT (1939) with William Lundigan & Michael Whalen THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR (1939) with Hugh Herbert & Eddie Quillan MARGIE (1940) with Tom Brown & Nan Grey LAUGHING AT DANGER (1940) with Frankie Darro

*THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)* From Agee on February 2, 1948: TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE (Warner) is one of the best things Hollywood has done since it learned to talk. The movie can take place, without blushing, among the best ever made. But unlike many films of high quality, it does not wear its art on its sleeve. Movie trade papers are treating it as a western. A Los Angeles newspaper reporter called it hilariously funny. TREASURE is not essentially either a western or a comedy. The squeamish and the lovelorn may be wise to stay away, for it has no heroine and a few scenes are shatteringly brutal. But is a magnificent and unconventional piece of screen entertainment. John Huston wrote the screenplay and directed the film. It is adapted from a novel by Mexico's mysterious stranger, B. Traven. The story, ideal for movie purposes, is a sardonic, intensely realistic fable, masterfully disguised as an adventure story.

You're welcome...!

*WILLIAM TRACY & JOE SAWYER AS SGTS. DOUBLEDAY & AMES* TANKS A MILLION (1940) with James Gleason & Elyse Knox HAY FOOT (1942) with James Gleason & Elyse Knox ABOUT FACE (1942) with Marjorie Lord YANKS AHOY (1943) with Marjorie Woodworth FALL IN (1943) with Arthur Hunnicutt HERE COMES TROUBLE (1948) with Betty Compson AS YOU WERE! (1951) with Russell Hicks MR. WALKIE TALKIE (1952) with Alan Hale Jr.

*HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944)* From Agee on August 21, 1944: HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (Paramount) is the newest cinematic caprice from Preston Sturges (THE GREAT MCGINTY, THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK). It beats a satirical tattoo on the American small town. It also tells a story that is touching and chock-full of human frailties. It is rich in homely detail, and it achieves a reality transcending the limitations of its familiar slapstick. Expertly sandwiched between the pratfalls and the broad pie-throwing burlesque of suburban manners lies a richer comedy idea: the alchemy by which a phony hero is transmuted from the base metal of conventional heroics to the pure gold of true heroism.

I am thinking LOLLY MADONNA XXX would be a good companion film for GOD'S LITTLE ACRE, which I love.

I like Ida and Joan in THE BIGAMIST. That is a great film. I haven't seen IVY yet.

*VERA RALSTON* LAKE PLACID SERENADE (1944) with Eugene Pallette & Vera Vague THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944) with Richard Arlen & Erich Von Stroheim STORM OVER LISBON (1944) with Richard Arlen & Erich Von Stroheim MURDER IN THE MUSIC HALL (1946) with William Marshall & Helen Walker WYOMING (1947) with Bill Elliott & John Carroll THE WILD BLUE YONDER (1951) with Wendell Corey, Forrest Tucker & Phil Harris BELLE LE GRAND (1951) with John Carroll TIMBERJACK (1955) with Sterling Hayden, Adolphe Menjou & Hoagy Carmichael ACCUSED OF MURDER (1956) with David Brian SPOILERS OF THE FOREST (1957) with Rod Cameron & Ray Collins THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE (1958) with Rod Cameron

I really want to see LOLLY MADONNA XXX. It is not on DVD. It looks very interesting and was one of his final pictures.

*THE GREAT DAWN (1947)* From Agee on September 27, 1947: THE GREAT DAWN is a quasi-biography of the Italian musical prodigy Pierino Gamba, starring Pierino Gamba. Now and then the picture faintly promises to show how a prodigy is really manufactured and sold; and Pierino, a haunted-looking little boy, looks as if under wise direction he could carry whatever they handed him. But the promise never pays off, whether because this is a highly authorized biography, or because of everybody's genuine affection and admiration for the child, or because this particularly prodigy is as lucky in life as he is on film, I don't know. What you get here is a simple little story about a gifted child. There is also his pretty mother, a runaway bourgeoisie; his musician father, who runs away from her; her solid father, who detests artists; and an engaging, slaphappy priest, who rather suggests Keenan Wynn and who is chiefly responsible for developing and placing the boy's talent. In many respects the whole business is rather thin, even silly. But there are redeeming features which make the picture, at worst, pleasant to sit through.

I do think EYRE would've been better if Welles had directed the entire thing. Agee is right that after its excellent beginning, it becomes mired in cliches and long, drawn-out exchanges between the main characters with very little action. It essentially becomes a two-character play, which in cinema, tends to be rather boring.