Bogie56
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Posts posted by Bogie56
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Not a psychopath, but George Macready has an uncredited role in Wilson, as William McCombs, Woodrow Wilson's campaign manager at the 1912 Democratic Convention. It's an early, uncharacteristic role for Macready, and he plays it very well. It's fun to see him prancing around the convention floor during the Wilson demonstration. That convention segment is the best political convention scene in any movie. But no psychopaths involved.
Macready is probably a sociopath in one of his best film roles as General Paul Mireau in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957).
His facial scar adds a very nice touch to the part too.
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On Patricia Neal's day, I recorded...
I made sure to record The Breaking Point since it was so highly recommended. I'm thinking of doing a double feature and watching To Have and Have Not and then follow it up with The Breaking Point so that I can compare.
You might consider a triple-bill by following those two with Islands In the Stream (1977) which stars George C. Scott and David Hemmings as Eddy in what is probably his best ever screen performance.
**EDIT
It too is based on a Hemingway story that has similarities to To Have and Have Not.
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Well, actually, I think They Drive by Night also featured apples .Fruit, anyway. Specifically, Californian fruit that gets tossed around by regular Joe truckers who just want to make a decent living, but have to deal with crooked dealers reluctant to pay them, defective trucks, perilous high altitude roads with scary curves, and of course, trying to stay awake while driving for 10 hours straight.
I kept thinking of this film while watching Thieves' Highway. Very similar themes. Even though they were made nine or so years apart, I feel they'd make a good double bill. If you want to spotlight Californian fruit, trucks, and falling asleep, that is. No Ida Lupino in the later film, though.
I actually liked Thieves' Highway, partly because of Richard Conte, who I always like, and partly because I enjoy location shots from 1940s warehouses and seedy hotels.
Also, as you say, the actress who played Rica was good. I'd never heard of Valentina Cortese before, although she did look familiar. I thought she had a great face. And that lovely dark curly hair ! Good on Richard Conte for choosing her over the insipid Polly.
When Ingrid Bergman won her supporting Oscar for Murder on the Orient Express she apologized to Valentina Cortese whom she was competing against. Ms. Cortese was nominated that year for Truffaut's Day For Night.
And I think Bergman even pointed out that Cortese should have been nominated the previous year for that film but for a stupid Academy rule.
At the time the Academy rule allowed for the cast of the winner of the Best Foreign Film Award to be eligible for acting awards in the following year. Considering that handicap, it was a miracle that Valentina Cortese was even nominated.
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Yeah well, would somebody please explain to me(in good ol' plain English, btw) how and why in those "romance languages", some freakin' inanimate object CAN have a "gender" in the FIRST place???
Sorry, but somethin' like a CHAIR having a "gender" is just, well, DUMB! it's a freakin' CHAIR for crissake, and used by BOTH freakin' genders, now ain't IT???
(...okay, okay...I suppose somethin' like this MIGHT BE a "cute" and "quaint" little concept...but STILL, it just doesn't make any sense at ALL in this day and age, now does IT?!!!)
Was this a set up? Are you now the straight-man for Andy M?
It's quite an act!!!!!!
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Tom, when I first saw the title of this thread I assumed there would be mention of Robert Walker and his most memorable role of "Bruno" in the Hitchcock classic STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (airing tonight no less). I rate "Bruno" right at the top of a "psychopath" list, along with some others already mentioned here. Read the little bio of Walker's all too brief life and career on the TCM home page, it is very, very sad. That guy had a lot of potential to build a great career as an actor, playing various character types. SOAT is one of Hitchcock's very best films and Walker and Farley Granger both shine here.
One of my favourite psycho touches was during the fight on the out-of-control merry-go-round. While Bruno is struggling with Guy a little boy wants to join in and keeps punching Bruno on the arm. Fed up, Bruno turns and grabs the kid and tries to hurl him to certain death but Guy intervenes.
Another nice touch has Bruno caressing his mother's hand with a bit too much fervour.
Walker is just pitch-perfect as Bruno Anthony. In fact, Strangers on a Train suffers dreadfully whenever he disappears for too long.
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Tuesday, August 18
3:15 p.m. Storm in a Teacup (1937) with Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison. Haven’t seen this one.
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"Give my love to the sunrise."
- Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister to Orson Welles as she lies dying at the end of The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
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FANNY (1961) is a very charming film that I like a lot, but a big fault in it is an example of exactly what you speak- the actress playing Leslie Caron's mother is quite obviously dubbed, whether her lip movements are off I can't remember, but the sound of her dialogue being delivered is louder and clearer than that of every actor she is on screen with, even someone without a lot of knowledge about ADR and filmmaking can tell something isn't right.
I much prefer to get the original actor back in for looping and to coach him or her to flatten their accent or to improve their performance. AND you often do not have to tackle the entire film but just the most objectionable scenes.
That said, it is usually an executive who having lived with the film for a good six months and who winces every time that actor comes on the screen that makes these decisions. And that's what I meant by not being objective. They tend to just want to get rid of the entire performance. You wonder why they cast these people in the first place if they were so 'wrong'.
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I believe this is the film with the Swedish (?) actress in the lead whose accent (acting?) was so bad, she was completely dubbed by ANGELA LANSBURY.
I've seen these decisions up close for my entire career. And I must say that these decisions to essentially re-voice an actor are as often as not made by people who do not know what they are doing and are not being very objective in the first place.
If one 'American' ear had trouble with an accent ... zoom ... out goes the original performance. The amount of work that follows to replace someone's original performance is huge and the results are not always very good.
It is one thing to replace a lead actor in a movie that is being entirely looped by everyone, like an Italian film but to do so in a film where all the other actors are giving 'original' performances then you can expect mismatches and things to stand out. Especially in older films when the mixing technology was not what we have today.
Ingrid Thulin was a very good Swedish actress. The Swedish usually speak very good English. Liv Ullmann, Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman are prime examples.
What I am saying is that it would not surprise me one bit if this was a bad decision made by some executive at the studio.
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I didn't know there was talkie version of THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE.
I'm only familar with the silent film with Rudolph Valentino.
Yes, it starred Mr. Excitement, Glenn Ford.
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Monday, August 17
Lee J. Cobb day. Too bad they couldn’t play Cobb’s Death of a Salesman which he made as a TV MOW in 1966. It was Cobb’s signature piece.
11:30 p.m. On the Waterfront (1954). This Elia Kazan picture is the pick of the bunch.
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Has anyone seen The Patricia Neal Story (1981) directed by Anthony Harvey? Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde were both nominated for Golden Globes and Mildred Dunnock plays herself!
The film deals with Patricia Neal's recovery from a stroke with the aid of her husband, Roald Dahl.
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Wallace Ford is very good in this too.
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blowing a raspberry
later known as a
Bronx Cheer
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Sunday, August 16
noon. The Breaking Point (1950). This is one of the highlights of August for me. John Garfield and Patricia Neal. For some reason this film is now hard to find. Wallace Ford is very good in it too.
4 a.m. The Road Builder (1971). Don’t know much about this one. Pamela Brown co-stars.
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Saturday, August 15
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. day but no State Secret (1950). Let's hope TCM shows that one at some point as it is one of his best.
I do want to record these …
6 a.m. Chances (1931) a WWI picture
8:30 a.m. It’s Tough to be Famous (1932)
11:15 a.m. Captured! (1933) another WWI picture. This one with Leslie Howard.
12:30 p.m. Having Wonderful Time (1938)
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Great topic. In the noir forums something similar was discussed related to the noir film The Narrow Margin.
As you note the polarizing factors are themes, storylines, characters, style, etc.. that are familiar to the viewers on one side (and well received if one likes these) with lack of originality, suspense (since we know what is coming) and sometimes just boring, on the other side.
I would say a well done formulaic film is something I enjoy when I'm into that style (e.g. Noir, screwball comedies), but a very original movie (one that pushes the boundaries of a formula or even breaks them), are the masterpieces of film history.
Well, I guess there's formula then there's FORMULA.
I had a differing interpretation to what the OP meant by formula. James, you are looking at 'traditions' which could be described as formula. I was looking at formula as hackneyed script conventions.
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You might have a problem finding anyone here willing to admit they find comfort in being spoon fed formula.
But you never know.
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OTOH there was one boxing movie, The Prizefighter and the Lady, where even Ryan might have been reluctant to take on the leading actor.
For anyone who doesn't recognize the name of that actor sharing the screen with Myrna Loy, just a few years later he became the heavyweight champion of the world.
I can think of another. Cassius Clay aka Mohammed Ali in Requiem For a Heavyweight (1962). He wasn't a bad fighter!
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I understand that John Wayne was almost middle of the road politically compared to Bond.
You should be in the diplomatic service.
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Was Miss Havisham of Great Expectations a bit of a psychopath? I loved Martita Hunt in this part in the David Lean 1946 version of the Dickens' classic.
Miss Havisham is so disillusioned with life after being stood up at the alter that she raises a young girl to hate men and then unleashes her on the kindest and gentlest of boys, young Pip. Her own subtle cruelty is quite possibly the only thing she now enjoys about life.
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I think Bond's best ever film performance was in the bit part he had as 'Yank' in Ford's The Long Voyage Home (1940).
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But since Andy said that Ryan didn't get into fights (or, perhaps, many of them, at least), I wonder what Borgnine's statement is based upon. Does this mean he actually saw him in action, I wonder.
I just looked at Borgnine's autobiography and have to confess that there is no reference to Ryan as fighter. He does mention that he was a 6 foot four marine.
It must have been a comment that Mr. Borgnine made when I saw him at the BFI in a Q&A. I know that he said he was the 'toughest guy in Hollywood.'
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I didn't know how far right of right wing Bond was until I read Joseph McBride's Searching for John Ford.
HITS & MISSES: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow on TCM
in General Discussions
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Ingrid Thulin is impressive in a small part in Wild Strawberries (1957) and also in the lead roles in Winter Light (1963) and Cries and Whispers (1972).