TopBilled
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Posts posted by TopBilled
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*JOURNEY INTO FEAR (1943)*
From Agee on February 20, 1943:
JOURNEY INTO FEAR is disappointing. Orson Welles' adaptation of Eric Ambler's stories has sophistication without much journeying. However, it is good to see so likable an entertainer as Welles making an unpretentious pleasure-picture.
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I find it interesting that people wait for TCM to show them a certain film, especially if it's already commercially available elsewhere.
Where TCM is worth its weight in gold is those times that rediscovered flims, not yet released, get a chance to rebuild an audience due to a special broadcast.
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Not counting myself, I don't know of anyone who's been lucky enough to kiss such handsome beautiful faces...except for my girl Olivia.
Let's have a night of passion on TCM.
*THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1942)*
*THE HEIRESS (1949)*
*MY COUSIN RACHEL (1952)*
*LIBEL (1959)*
I didn't even select her pictures with John Lund, John Forsythe, Rossano Brazzi and James Caan. If I had a second night, then I surely would!
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I want everyone to know that I have been behaving and have not offered any opinions on this subject. LOL
I do think there are a lot of other threads where posters express frustration with the TCM repeats.
But we have to remember all the great premieres they bring to us throughout the year.
Screening THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE on TCM last September has been the high point for me (and I'm sure it has been for others, too).
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It has aired on FMC in the past and is available thru Netflix which is where I had first seen it a year ago.
The cable guide gives it only two stars.
It works because former-real life marrieds Basehart and Cortese have an intriguing chemistry.
I think it should've aired on TCM primetime, and I would present it as part of a double-feature with Preminger's WHIRLPOOL, made at Fox around the same time. They both have the same haunting atmosphere and noir deliciousness.
For those that are interested, check out the Criterion restored version of THIEVES HIGHWAY, the other film Cortese made at Fox as part of her multi-picture contract.
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I agree, Valentine. I think the Oscars are irrelevant to a lot of folks now. Ask someone to name the major winners from four or five years ago, and they can't tell you without looking it up on wikipedia. It's like the Superbowl. Who remembers the winners of a Superbowl from eight or nine years ago? Unless you were in the competition or unless you or someone you know won, it becomes nearly useless trivia.
In this case, it will probably remain relevant to industry professionals and film buffs. But to the average joe, they are just yearly hype (with a lot of related awards shows) that fade quickly into the back of one's memory.
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*GREEN GRASS OF WYOMING (1948)*
From Agee on June 19, 1948:
A white stallion and a black mare which are as magnificent as anything on the contemporary screen; and several considerably less magnificent human beings, who are around too much.
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*WHITNEY HOUSTON*
THE BODYGUARD (1992) with Kevin Costner
WAITING TO EXHALE (1995) with Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine & Gregory Hines
THE PREACHER'S WIFE (1996) with Denzel Washington & Gregory Hines
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA (1997) with Brandi, Bernadette Peters & Whoopi Goldberg
SPARKLE (2012) with Jordin Sparks
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You're right.
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There's a thread somewhere on one of these forums about actors who appear in both the original and the remake. I don't know if we added Herbert Marshall to that for THE LETTER. If not, we should.
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Well, we will find out in four or five days what the few missing gaps may be.
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*A LOVER'S RETURN (1948)*
From Agee on February 14, 1948:
Louis Jouvet, in charge of a ballet troupe, gets back to Lyon after twenty years. He torments the bourgeoisie types who did him dirt. The story is essentially trash, but it is acutely understood, easily filmed and nicely played. Pleasant ballet stuff, backstage and on.
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*RAY MILLAND*
CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON (1934) with Warner Oland & Alan Mowbray
THE GLASS KEY (1935) with George Raft, Edward Arnold & Claire Dodd
THREE SMART GIRLS (1936) with Deanna Durbin
THE JUNGLE PRINCESS (1936) with Dorothy Lamour & Ray Mala
NEXT TIME WE LOVE (1936) with Margaret Sullavan & James Stewart
EASY LIVING (1937) with Jean Arthur & Edward Arnold
BULLDOG DRUMMOND ESCAPES (1937) with Guy Standing & Heather Angel
EBB TIDE (1937) with Frances Farmer
WINGS OVER HONOLULU (1937) with Wendy Barrie
SAY IT IN FRENCH (1938) with Olympe Bradna
HER JUNGLE LOVE (1938) with Dorothy Lamour
TROPIC HOLIDAY (1938) with Bob Burns, Dorothy Lamour & Martha Raye
MEN WITH WINGS (1938) with Fred MacMurray & Louise Campbell
HOTEL IMPERIAL (1939) with Isa Miranda & Reginald Owen
FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS (1940) with Ellen Drew
UNTAMED (1940) with Patricia Morison & Akim Tamiroff
SKYLARK (1941) with Claudette Colbert & Brian Aherne
I WANTED WINGS (1941) with William Holden & Veronica Lake
THE LADY HAS PLANS (1942) with Paulette Goddard
ARE HUSBANDS NECESSARY? (1942) with Betty Field & Patricia Morison
THE WELL-GROOMED BRIDE (1946) with Olivia de Havilland & Sonny Tufts
CALIFORNIA (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck & Barry Fitzgerald
THE IMPERFECT LADY (1947) with Teresa Wright & Anthony Quinn
GOLDEN EARRINGS (1947) with Marlene Dietrich
THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN (1947) with Teresa Wright & Brian Donlevy
ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949) with Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell & George Macready
IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING (1949) with Jean Peters & Paul Douglas
COPPER CANYON (1950) with Hedy Lamarr & Macdonald Carey
RHUBARB (1951) with Jan Sterling
THE THIEF (1952) with Rita Gam
SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (1952) with Joan Fontaine & Teresa Wright
JAMAICA RUN (1953) with Arlene Dahl & Wendell Corey
THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING (1955) with Joan Collins & Farley Granger
LISBON (1956) with Maureen O'Hara & Claude Rains
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CASABLANCA was released on November 25, 1942 on the east coast. It opened in the rest of the country in January 1943.
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Interesting question, Dargo.
First, I don't think the auteur theorists were coming up with anything new. Since the 1910s, there had been very well known directors and influential movie stars, at least in Hollywood (and probably elsewhere internationally).
What Agee and other film critics of his day were doing is that they were identifying quality craftsmanship that seemed to be repeated in films made by certain studios, directors and actors. The later theorists went a step further and sought out-right classification, focused on the director and usually politicized in some way.
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Agee doesn't seem to favor a particular genre. But he does favor certain directors and performers, both in Hollywood and abroad. I think he looks for a certain level of quality, and if someone is consistent in this regard (in Agee's opinion) then he pours on the praise. Though he will also take some of his favorite film artists to task if he believes they fall short of their potential.
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*KATHRYN CRAWFORD*
MODERN LOVE (1929) with Charley Chase & Jean Hersholt
SENOR AMERICANO (1929) with Ken Maynard
RED HOT RHYTHM (1929) with Alan Hale
THE CLIMAX (1930) with Jean Hersholt
HIDE-OUT (1930) with James Murray
SAFETY IN NUMBERS (1930) with Charles Buddy Rogers & Carole Lombard
FLYING HIGH (1931) with Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood & Pat O'Brien
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*CARNEGIE HALL (1947)*
From Agee on May 10, 1947:
About the thickest and sourest mess of musical mulligatawny I have yet had to sit down to. It is a sort of aural compromise between the Johnstown flood and the Black Hole of Calcutta.
I have an idea that some of the music was well done, but I was so exhausted by suffering and rage that I can't possibly be sure of what. However, as a gnarled mirror of American musical taste at its worst, and as a record of what various prominent musicians look like under strange professional circumstances, it is a permanently fascinating and valuable show.
I am sorry to be writing this way about CARNEGIE HALL, for I can't avoid feeling that some rather good intentions were involved in it. But then I can't doubt that Hitler had good intentions. He and I just didn't see eye to eye.
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*VINTON HAWORTH/JACK ARNOLD*
NIGHT WAITRESS (1936) with Margot Grahame & Gordon Jones
CHINA PASSAGE (1937) with Constance Worth & Gordon Jones
RIDING ON AIR (1937) with Joe E. Brown, Guy Kibbee & Florence Rice
ENEMY AGENT (1940) with Richard Cromwell & Helen Vinson
DANGER ON WHEELS (1940) with Richard Arlen, Andy Devine & Peggy Moran
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*THE CAPTIVE HEART (1947)*
From Agee on May 10, 1947:
A British movie about prisoners of war, this has been greeted as a masterpiece by some. And now we know what a masterpiece is: something that isn't either really bad or by any generosity really good.
THE CAPTIVE HEART is another of those group-as-hero stories. It is a dangerous clich? in which each member of the group is just one more clich?. Michael Redgrave is a Czech who for self-protection is forced to take on a dead Englishman's identity and to write the widow love letters.
This decent, mediocre film is sincerely but often cornily written and is in general honestly acted.
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*THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (1944)*
From Agee on May 13, 1944:
This film gets long and soggy. But it has frequent good intentions and occasional near-successes. It is at its best when it forgets to be a biography and stretches its points for the fun of it. The jumping frog contest is really funny.
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*JUDY CANOVA*
GOING HIGHBROW (1935) with Guy Kibbee & ZaSu Pitts
ARTISTS AND MODELS (1937) with Jack Benny & Ida Lupino
THRILL OF A LIFETIME (1937) with the Yacht Club Boys & Eleanore Whitney
SCATTERBRAIN (1940) with Alan Mowbray
SIS HOPKINS (1941) with Bob Crosby & Susan Hayward
PUDDIN' HEAD (1941) with Francis Lederer & Slim Summerville
SLEEPYTIME GAL (1942) with Tom Brown
JOAN OF OZARK (1942) with Joe E. Brown & Eddie Foy Jr.
TRUE TO THE ARMY (1942) with Allan Jones & Ann Miller
CHATTERBOX (1943) with Joe E. Brown & Rosemary Lane
SLEEPY LAGOON (1943) with Dennis Day
LOUISIANA HAYRIDE (1944) with Ross Hunter & Lloyd Bridges
HIT THE HAY (1945) with Ross Hunter
SINGIN' IN THE CORN (1946) with Allen Jenkins & Guinn Big Boy Williams
HONEYCHILE (1951) with Eddie Foy Jr.
OKLAHOMA ANNIE (1952) with John Russell & Grant Withers
THE WAC FROM WALLA WALLA (1952) with Stephen Dunne & Irene Ryan
UNTAMED HEIRESS (1954) with Don Barry
CAROLINA CANNONBALL (1955) with Andy Clyde & Ross Elliott
LAY THAT RIFLE DOWN (1955) with Robert Lowery
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YES, how did we omit Inspector Clouseau...!
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*THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945)*
From Agee on May 12, 1945:
Greer Garson has kinds of vitality and resource which might do very good kinds of work. But ordinarily they are turned into wax.
She is waxen in stretches of THE VALLEY OF DECISION. She is embarrassingly actressy in some others. But here, as an Irish servant in a rich Scottish household, she is alive, vivid and charming and suggests how really good she might be under better circumstances.
She seems suffocated and immobilized by MGM's image of her. I could imagine her as a very good Lady Macbeth. I could still more easily imagine her as a wonderful Elisabeth Ney who left the court of Ludwig of Bavaria for a rotting estate in Texas. But I suppose the best she will ever be allowed is this sort of short trot in pre-conditioned open air.
Tay Garnett's direction is good, too good to be wasted on big, solemn, expensive trash collections like this.
WANTED: Classic Films Featuring This Classic Artist
in General Discussions
Posted
*ALAN FREED*
ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK (1956) with Bill Haley
DON'T KNOCK THE ROCK (1956) with Alan Dale, Patricia Hardy & Fay Baker
MISTER ROCK AND ROLL (1957) with Lois O'Brien
GO, JOHNNY, GO! (1959) with Chuck Berry