TopBilled
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*JOHN SAXON*
RUNNING WILD (1955) with Mamie Van Doren & Keenan Wynn
THE UNGUARDED MOMENT (1956) with Esther Williams & George Nader
ROCK, PRETTY BABY (1956) with Sal Mineo, Luana Patten & Fay Wray
THE RESTLESS YEARS (1958) with Sandra Dee, Luana Patten & Margaret Lindsay
THE BIG FISHERMAN (1959) with Howard Keel, Susan Kohner, Martha Hyer & Herbert Lom
THE CAVERN (1964) with Brian Aherne & Larry Hagman
POSSE FROM HELL (1961) with Audie Murphy & Vic Morrow
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Fortunately, TCM did play most (if not all) the Bowery Boys selections last year.
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YELLOWSTONE KELLY aired several times yesterday. I have seen them do ads at the end, during the closing credits of a spaghetti western for instance, but this was the first time during the actual movie.
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*GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)*
From Agee on January 10, 1948:
David Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS is an over-sunny transcription of Dickens. It seems to me primarily unimportant how well or ill somebody's else's classic is brought to film, but it is a very pleasant piece of entertainment. Its first half unfolds as prettily as a Japanese paper flower on water.
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*VERA-ELLEN*
THREE LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE (1946) with June Haver, Vivian Blaine, Frank Latimore, George Montgomery & Celeste Holm
CARNIVAL IN COSTA RICA (1947) with Dick Haymes, Cesar Romero & Celeste Holm
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Such great mentions in this thread.
For a special SOTM feature on TCM, they could try honoring all the one-hit wonders who normally do not get recognition.
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I was reading about the Motion Picture retirement home (or whatever it is officially called) recently. I think they have begun to face budget cuts, and it is no longer like it was.
I agree that it would make a great documentary...but probably because of the request of families to respect their privacy (and the fact that some of the stars do not want their public to see them in failing health), it would not be an easy project to do.
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Thanks everyone...you guys are a wealth of information. I especially like that version of Joan of Arc...she should've been in more films (we were robbed).
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I am watching YELLOWSTONE KELLY on the Encore Westerns channel right now. Along the bottom of the screen they just flashed an ad for some Jerry Lewis special that is going to premiere on one of the Encore channels. Using my DVR, I rewound my 'live feed' to see if I was imagining this. No. There it was...this is the first time I have seen them do this.
I think these things happen when our channels start to do original programming and they want to boost ratings.
Please do not let TCM begin this process. It is very intrusive when one is trying to watch a film.
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I guess I am not considering television movies or even work on film behind the scenes (such as choreography or other technical fields). But from I can tell, these folks only appeared before a movie camera one time:
SHE (1935)...HELEN GAHAGAN
RAWHIDE (1938)...LOU GEHRIG
BROTHER RAT AND A BABY...PETER B. GOOD
THE MAD EMPRESS...MEDEA NOVORA
STAGE DOOR CANTEEN...KATHARINE CORNELL
A CANTERBURY TALE...JOHN SWEET
NO LEAVE, NO LOVE...PAT KIRKWOOD
GOOD NEWS (1947)...JOAN MCCRACKEN
THE BLACK ROSE...CECILE AUBREY
BECAUSE YOU'RE MINE...DORETTA MORROW
THE BIG SKY...ELIZABETH THREATT
THE MARSHAL'S DAUGHTER...LAURIE ANDERS
THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS...JOHNNIE RAY
JOHNNY TREMAIN...HAL STALMASTER
DANCE WITH ME, HENRY...RUSTY HAMER
LI'L ABNER...PETER PALMER
THE PAJAMA GAME...JOHN RAITT
A GLOBAL AFFAIR...MICHELE MERCIER
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The sexual orientation angle does not always work...after all, Rock Hudson was married (whatever those reasons were).
Then, there are those like Liz Taylor that were married countless times and still died single.
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Disagree. A Harry Morgan tribute should occur on TVLand. His film career was largely at Fox (in the 40s) and Universal (in the 50s), before he turned to the more lucrative field of television, which is where he made his greatest mark. If he had been a contracted player at MGM, Warners or RKO, then it would be easier for TCM to spotlight him.
This said, TCM should definitely feature a clip of him in their year-end tribute to stars we've lost in the past 12 months. And the Oscar telecast in March should have a clip of him, too. We'll see if that happens...
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*THUNDER ROCK (1942)*
From Agee on November 4, 1944:
It is well produced and on the whole very well acted, especially by Barbara Mullen. There were moments when it really moved me.
It is not only on the side of the angels, but it sometimes takes their side with passion and some eloquence. But angels bore me at least as much as anyone else when they arrange themselves so little theatrically.
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*GLENN FORD*
BABIES FOR SALE (1940) with Rochelle Hudson
CONVICTED WOMAN (1940) with Rochelle Hudson, Frieda Inescort, June Lang & Lola Lane
MEN WITHOUT SOULS (1940) with John Litel, Barton MacLane & Rochelle Hudson
GO WEST, YOUNG LADY (1941) with Penny Singleton & Ann Miller
THE ADVENTURES OF MARTIN EDEN (1942) with Claire Trevor, Evelyn Keyes & Stuart Erwin
GALLANT JOURNEY (1946) with Janet Blair & Charlie Ruggles
FRAMED (1947) with Janis Carter & Barry Sullivan
THE RETURN OF OCTOBER (1948) with Terry Moore & Dame May Whitty
THE FLYING MISSILE (1950) with Viveca Lindfors
THE REDHEAD AND THE COWBOY (1950) with Rhonda Fleming & Edmond O'Brien
CRY FOR HAPPY (1961) with Donald O'Connor & Miyoshi Umeki
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Good topic. I would mention *Glenn Ford* and *Evelyn Keyes*. For some reason, I really love them together. They did six films at Columbia in the 40s. I think the best one is THE MATING OF MILLIE. TCM recently aired MR. SOFT TOUCH, which was made after MILLIE, and I thought it was great, too.
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*JUNE ALLYSON*
THE SHRIKE (1955) with Jose Ferrer
YOU CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM IT (1956) with Jack Lemmon & Charles Bickford
A STRANGER IN MY ARMS (1959) with Jeff Chandler, Sandra Dee & Charles Coburn
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*YOUTH RUNS WILD (1944)*
From Agee on January 20, 1945:
One of the best fiction films of the past year, YOUTH RUNS WILD, was made by Val Lewton and his associates. I esteem them so highly because for all their unevenness their achievements are so consistently alive, limber, poetic, humane, so eager toward the possibilities of the screen, and so resolutely against the grain of all we have learned to expect from the big studios.
But I am afraid there is no reason to believe that the makers of these films, under the best of circumstances, would be equipped to make the great, and probably very vulgar, and certainly very forceful revolutionary pictures that are so desperately needed.
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*THE MACOMBER AFFAIR (1947)*
From Agee on August 30, 1947:
Best movie job on Hemingway, to date. I persist in believing that Zoltan Korda is one of the best directors in Hollywood.
Earlier, from Agee on April 7. 1947:
THE MACOMBER AFFAIR (United Artists) is a screen version of Ernest Hemingway's excruciating study of the relationships between an ill-married American couple and their hired English hunter-guide, and of the relations of all three to what Hemingway once called grace under pressure.
Since the three are hunting big game in Africa, the pressures are primitive, and considerable. Macomber (Robert Preston) is a good shot but he lacks courage in a crisis and the sportsman's sense of honor towards his quarry. Besides, he talks too much about himself.
The hunter (Gregory Peck), on the other hand, is everything a Hemingway hero should be. Mrs. Macomber (Joan Bennett) is not slow to choose between them nor delicate in showing her preference in several almost unbearably ugly scenes of cruelty and humiliation.
Under the pressures, Macomber finds his courage for the first time in his life. Finding it, his life really begins and his abjectness towards his wife is at an end. Mrs. Macomber promptly shoots him through the head.
According to Hemingway, she shoots him deliberately. According to Mrs. Macomber in the movie, it was just a tragic accident, and the audience is left to make up its own mind.
Up to this point, MACOMBER is a brilliantly good job, the best yet, of bringing Hemingway to the screen. None of the three principal players could possibly be improved on. The African landscapes and hunting scenes (which were made in Africa and Mexico) are as believable as a neighbor's backyard.
Director Zoltan Korda has already made two films in Africa, which is a help in this particular picture. Still more important, he knows people, and style, and atmosphere, and how to make them vivid on a screen. There is hardly a point that Hemingway made in this savage, complex communiqu? about the war between the sexes that Korda and his actors fail to make in movie terms.
In fact, a good 95% of MACOMBER is a remarkably exciting picture for mature audiences. The worst of Hollywood's improvements on the original story is the did-she-or-didn't-she ending which pulls the fuse out of Hemingway's whole payoff.
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*BRIAN AHERNE*
HIRED WIFE (1940) with Rosalind Russell
THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF (1941) with Kay Francis
SKYLARK (1941) with Claudette Colbert
FIRST COMES COURAGE (1943) with Merle Oberon
ANGEL ON THE AMAZON (1948) with George Brent & Vera Ralston
THE CAVERN (1964) with John Saxon
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If I could go back in time and remake this (a fourth time) with any classic film stars, I would choose Claudette Colbert and Cary Grant.
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I love all three versions. MGM was smart to remake it with these remarkable leading ladies...they all do it justice. I wish TCM would show them all back-to-back one evening...I think that would be a real treat!
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*BODY AND SOUL (1947)*
From Agee on November 8, 1947:
BODY AND SOUL gets very bitter and discreetly leftish about commercialism in prize fighting. It is really nothing much, I suppose, when you get right down to it. But it was almost continuously interesting and exhilarating while I watched it, mainly because everyone had clearly decided to do every scene to a finish and because, barring a few letdowns, scene after scene came off that way.
It was never as nervy as the best of NIGHTMARE ALLEY, but of its own kind it is more solidly made. I like both pictures because in both there is quick satirical observation, a sense of meanness to match the meanness of the worlds they are showing.
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*BARBARA HALE*
AND BABY MAKES THREE (1949) with Robert Young
EMERGENCY WEDDING (1950) with Larry Parks
LORNA DOONE (1951) with Richard Greene
THE FIRST TIME (1952) with Robert Cummings
LAST OF THE COMANCHES (1953) with Broderick Crawford
THE HOUSTON STORY (1956) with Gene Evans
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I just finally got around to watching THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. I know, where have I been all these years, to have missed such a classic gem for so long!
When I was reading user reviews, a lot of folks thought Patty Duke was miscast in her vamped-up role as a singer. I would have to agree. Quite a few people thought it should've been played by Ann-Margret, and I think they're right. Duke is a fine actress in her own right, but this project was not right for her. I suppose she was trying to shed her goody-two-shoes sitcom image, but she was ill-equipped to pull off this part.
LEAST & MOST FAVORITE of the week...
in General Discussions
Posted
The film I enjoyed and loved the most was AIRPORT (1970). It showed up on the Encore Family channel two days ago. I had never seen it. Of course, it was not in widescreen, but I thought it was very well-done and worth watching in any format.
It contained all the ingredients of classic filmmaking I like: it had a strong script, attractive old school Hollywood stars (Burt Lancaster & Dean Martin), big-budget studio production values (from Universal), and scene-stealing supporting turns by four pros-- Helen Hays (who walked off with an Oscar); Van Heflin (intense, as a terrorist); Maureen Stapleton (as his frazzled and shamed wife); and Barbara Hale as Martin's cast-off wife, dealing with the consequences of a loveless and faithless marriage. Great stuff!