Bogie56

The November schedule for Canada is finally up!

"He gave us a talk on Dr. Sweitzer and Dr. Zhivago." - Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze to James Mason as Humbert Humbert in Lolita (1962) describing a lecture she attended given by (the phoney intellectual) Clare Quilty.

My point was in He Got Game he is portraying people yet again as caricatures. I think as a result of dog-awful filmmaking more than anything else. So, my comment didn't really have much to do with your rebuttal - I think. But, yes he is a filmmaker who pushes the envelope and has made a few really good films years ago.

Thanks, AndyM for posting all of that. Personally, I would love to see TCM replace SUTS with something else. Many others have already posted suggestions on how SUTS could be changed. Almost anything would be better in my books.

Add Max von Sydow to that list! Here is a guy who for 60 years has worked with the very best directors all over the world.

I caught Terminal Station (1953) aka Indiscretion of an American Wife at a Vittorio De Sica retrospective here in Toronto yesterday. Terminal Station as the print was titled was almost 90 minutes long, whereas American Wife as was shown on TCM is about 65 minutes. Apparently, producer David O. Selznick deleted masses of footage after Terminal Station tested poorly. Shades of Magnificent Ambersons, but fortunately in this case the former, director's cut has survived. It has been a while since I have seen American Wife to compare but no doubt Selznick cut out scads of the 'neo-realist' textures in the film that had become trade marks of De Sica's films. You wonder why he bothered to hire the filmmaker who had recently wowed people with Shoeshine (1946); Bicycle Thieves (1948); Miracle in Milan (1951); and Umberto D. (1952) if he was to become so untrusting of his vision. And with the excised material so went the crux of De Sica's theme in this film which is namely the inability or difficulty people have communicating with one another. Lots of the extraneous detail in the film is about just that. And of course our two leads are constantly trying to find a place and a moment for a private conversation. Ilsa Lund's love-triangle confusion is nothing compared to that of Jennifer Jones' Mary Forbes. I think she changes her mind every five minutes as to whether to return to her husband in Philadelphia or to stay in Italy with her lover, Montgomery Clift. What probably unnerved audiences is that Terminal Station is like stepping into the last reel of Casablanca or a Douglas Sirk soaper. It is over-wrought right from the get-go. We haven't had the benefit of a back-story. It starts with the painful goodbye at the train station and (in the De Sica version at least) plays out in real time before Jennifer's train is set to depart. A construct like High Noon that is again ruined by the deletion of scenes in the American version. I have to say I like the film a lot. It was one of those that stays with you and seems even better the next day. So, try to catch the longer version called Terminal Station. Oh, and it has a very young Richard Beymer playing Jennifer Jones' nephew in it. The only thing that bothered me is that Jennifer Jones' dubbing, or ADR in the first reel was uncut so the sync is rather sloppy. The Italians don't bother to adjust the sync in their pictures.

Hands down, O'Toole was robbed.

"Excuse the soiled sock" - Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze in Lolita (1962) foreshadowing Humbert's encounter with the teenage nymphet. Also exposing Charlotte's faux sophistication.

I'm very sorry to hear this. I've read several of his books and thought they were very good. He also appeared on Charlie Rose's Brain Series for those that may wish to check that out. It was a terrific series and available online at Charlie Rose's web site the last time I checked.

Monday, August 31 "Hum Baby" It's that Haze Woman ... Shelley Winters! 8:15 a.m. The Chapman Report (1962) with Jane Fonda! 10 p.m. Lolita (1961) with career best performances by Shelley Winters and James Mason.

Maybe he appeared in too many Carousel shows? Bad joke, but I could hardly believe the back-story of that one! "Is it possible dear for someone to hit you hard and for it not to hurt you at all" - Shirley Jones to her daughter in Carousel (1956) explaining why she loves her wife-beating husband, Gordon MacRae

I could empathize fully with how confused Ilsa was. WWII raging, dead husband turns up in the middle of a new torrid affair. On the run again. Then bammo ... right into a love triangle with the Nazis hot on her heels. What a script! No wonder she wanted Rick to do the thinking for all of them.

Sunday, August 30/31 "Yup" it's Gary Cooper day. 3 a.m. Dallas (1950) This is the only Cooper film that I haven’t seen. 4:45 a.m. Gary Cooper doc. Once again TCM isn’t opting to buy the rights to broadcast new programs in Canada. And 'Nope' there's no High Noon, The Westerner, or The Virginian

In the professional film sound business itself, the 'soundtrack' was a three track recording: music, dialogue and effects. People used the same term for slightly different things.

I caught Teorema at the BFI in London two years ago. Just okay. Didn't knock my socks off.

I finally caught up with Michael Curtiz' Flamingo Road (1949). What a soaper. I never did catch the tv series based on the same source material. Frankly, the film didn't work for me at all. Even the quick dolly into close up shots that work so effectively in Casablanca seem outrageously hokey here. I had heard that Joan was good in this one. Maltin has high praise for her performance. But she just seemed horribly miscast in that she was way too old for the part. She's 44 at the time and looks every day of it. She's supposed to be a carnival dancer and someone so pretty that Zachary Scott contemplates dumping his much younger society babe for her. He becomes a hopeless alcoholic and commits suicide all because of his lost love of Joan with the frumpy hairdo. And Joan plays the part as a misunderstood nice little gal. Might have been more interesting if she had just settled in and played a tart all the way ala, Rain. And the cat house converted to tame drinks club house run by a madame is just ridiculous. What no sex? That's production code for you. But even so, Joan's part should have gone to a 24 year-old knock out. Now I could see all the men falling over this carnival dancer if she had been played by Lauren Bacall.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I thought about that afterward. That comes from the old lp sections that were labeled 'Movie Soundtracks.' And in the vinyl days the movie soundtrack album usually referred to the score of the film. I still have a few kicking around. So, I guess the answer is that a movie soundtrack is all of those things. The complete soundtrack: dialogue, music and sound effects; or the movie's score; or the movie's songs.

Saturday, August 29 “You owe me money!” 6 a.m. Not With My Wife You Don’t (1966) 8:15 a.m. The Bank Shot (1974) … I haven’t seen either of these. 10:30 p.m. Rage (1972) with Scott, Richard Basehart and Martin Sheen. I’m really curious to see this one.

Alexander Knox. Raymond Massey. Walter Huston. Bruce Greenwood. Gordon Pinsent. William Shatner. What do these Canadians have in common? They all played American Presidents.

Technically, the term soundtrack is Dialogue, Music and Effects. But most people think of the music track when asked about the 'soundtrack.'

Have you seen He Got Game? I wasn't saying this about all of his films. But in that one ALL of the characters are stereotypes IMHO.

Maybe it's just me but in some of his films I find Spike Lee's depiction of African Americans to be caricatures if not stereotypes. He's gets away with it because he is African American himself. He Got Game (1998) and Miracle at St. Anna (2008) were just dreadful. Malcolm X (1992), Do the Right Thing (1989) and 4 Little Girls (1997) were all very good though.

"And your little dog too" - Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz (1939) I know the quote is longer but I like this part the best as you can add it to the end of lots of statements.

De Niro steals Mean Streets

It's odd that Ingrid Bergman who was born AND died on August 29 is being celebrated by TCM on August 28. The 29th would have been her 100th birthday.