Filmgoddess

That's kinda sad, actually. I'll take Splendored Thing any day of the week over MARTY, which seems like a dreary little TV movie of the week. No thanks.

What's that line? I knew Loretta Young before she was a virigin? She was typical of those who find religion AFTER they've spent the first 30 years of their life sinning like a drunken sailor. Get the sin out of the way, find religion, and then try to impose it on everyone you encounter in your life. It doesn't "endear" her to me but make me call her a hypocrite. She literally makes me sick to my stomach. December Star of the Month: Barbara Stanwcyk January Star of the Month: Loretta Young The sublime, followed by the ridiculous.

The great lady Connie Wald, died on November 10th at the age of 96, her son confirmed. She knew simply everyone in Hollywood. More people than even Robert Osborne (because she was far older). She was the widow of producer Jerry Wald (who died 50 years ago). 70 years ago they started giving dinner parties for every name who ever walked into the door. Nancy Reagan knew her before she met the future president. She was Audrey Hepburn's best friend who stayed with her after her surgery in 1992, just 10 weeks before she died. She was beloved by all. And her legendary Thanksgiving Dinner will go on ... as she told her son "no flowers, no service, and don't cancel Thanksgiving!" They don't make 'em like that anymore. RIP.

The composer, whose 25 year collaboration with Merchant Ivory netted him 2 Oscar noms for the scores to Howards End and The Remains of the Day, has died at the age of 71 his longtime partner announced. From 1979 to 2005, he composed the scores to all of their films. It's hard to imagine Merchant Ivory without his great scores. He will be missed. RIP.

What are the Backstreet Boys? Sounds like a group of escorts.

I'll completely disagree that the film is "drek." I think it's a fairly typical example of the kind of manipulative, sappy, romantic melodrama that Hollywood made in the 1950s. Put two great stars together in a romantic setting and add lush music and ... well, I'm sucked in every time. Willingly and gladly. I downloaded a new, glorious copy of this film just two weeks ago. It had been a few years since I'd seen it. I love William Holden (can anyone explain how the horrible Jose Ferrer beat him out for the Oscar for Sunset Blvd in 1950?) but I've always had some reservations about Jennifer Jones. Not in this film. She is perfect. She seems like she is actually Eurasian. Every moment, every gesture. It is a superb performance. When she returns to the hilltop, well, it chokes me up every time. The film plain works whether you like it or not. I always wondered what happened to Han Suyin and was stunned to learn she was still alive and living in Switzerland at the age of 95. 3 days after I watched the film, she was dead. As for Ms. Jones and Mr. Holden. The reason that she didn't want to kiss him and chewed garlic beforehand was because she knew of his reputation of seducing almost all of his leading ladies. She wanted to avoid the ritual. Makes perfect sense to me. As for the poster who made the comment about the portrayal of racism and that Americans could have cared less and that twaddle about only the upper classes cared. Balderdash. The most racist elements in almost any society are among the lower, not the upper classes. Go to any small town in America, especially, in the South, and you will see basic intolerance (generally-speaking) towards anything that is not EXACTLY like what they grew up with. So being a Eurasian (remember South Pacific? Poor Joe Cable thinks he won't be able to bring his Asian bride back to Philly) would definitely have been a no-no. Enjoy the film, wallow in it. That's what you're supposed to do. It's not Tolstoy. It's old-fashioned Hollywood romance.

That doesn't necessarily make him great, it makes him versatile. Not quite the same thing. Also, it could be that the producer knew that Curtiz would made the film that the PRODUCER wanted so he was assigned to those projects. And there's the rub right there ... "assigned." The projects were never his own ... ever. And that for me, "tears it" as Fred MacMurray said in Double Indemnity.

Jame: here's where I'll disagree with you. I don't think it takes a "great director" to direct a "great film." Many great films have been directed by non-great directors. Take THE THIN MAN. It's not a great film because the director was great but, rather, because 2 stars came together and made that script sing. A monkey could have directed it and it would be great. The director was average, at best. It's also true that not every great performance is given by a great actor. Many mediocre actors are capable of giving a great performance, once or twice. Greatness are those who can give great performances again and again and again. just my take.

Tom: this is where I disagree with you. Curtiz "achievements" haven't been overlooked. The big difference, which I've explained elsewhere, is that the vision for his films wasn't his, it was the producers. This is what sets the true "auteurs" apart from the directors like Curtiz. Hitchcock's films weren't the vision of the producer, they were the vision of Hitchcock. He came up with the ideas. Curtiz never did. Hal Wallis did. That doesn't mean he wasn't a fine director but he is simply not in the same class as Hitchcock or Ford or Welles because he "merely" -- sorry, the only word I can think of -- carried out the vision of others, he didn't have it himself.

Ray: I agree with you and the I don't think that snobbery you claim even exists. But there are certain directors who are true "auteurs" back then ... it's a vision thing. People like Welles, Renoir, Hitchcock, Ford .... the resulting films really were their singular vision. That's not to denigrate the contributions of the other artisans working on their films but ... it was these singular visions that made those films what they were. The others carried out those visions but are not the ones responsible for the bigger picture. At least that's how I see the "auteur theory."

Tom: Sorry I didn't go back that far in the thread. You're right, of course. I just love the "auteur" theory for the most part but there are lots of films made in the 1930s and 1940s in which the producer -- at Warners especially -- is the true author of the film and the director is, in essence, a traffic cop. I'd even go so far as to say -- under the exact same circumstances -- that Casablanca would have turned out exactly the same if I had directed it. Wallis is the genius there, not Curtiz. The same is true, of course, with Gone With the Wind. Neither Fleming or Cukor is the author of that film. That is David O. Selznick, beginning, middle, and end.

Donald Spoto? Seriously? The man is worse than Kitty Kelley.

That's completely neurotic if you ask me. The NYTimes interview makes her sound worse than I ever imagined. And she really flatters herself to think that she had a "career." Without Hitchcock, she'd be a perfume tester at Bloomingdale's. Hedren, apparently, wants it both ways. Oh, and you can add to the list of attention-whores ... that big fat liar Esther Williams.

I think most of this stuff is absolute trash and nonsense. Tippi Hedren had nothing but nice to things to say about Hitchcock and appeared at tributes to him saying more nice things. While he was alive. Now, that he's dead she has nothing but bad things to say. Sounds like attention-**** if you ask me. I'm more likely to believe someone if they're willing to go on the record and say these things while the person is alive to respond. This goes for Christina Crawford and Gary Crosby as well. People who wait until someone is dead to "reveal all" have NO credibility in my book. Get the hook for these attention seeking whores.

Michael Curtiz was a fine director. But let's face some reality. He was not the "author" of his most famous film, CASABLANCA. Anyone who has read Round Up the Usual Suspects would realize that the true "author" of that film was Hal Wallis. Credit for that film belongs mostly to him, not Michael Curtiz.

Actress Marjorie Lane has died at the age of 100. She was the singing voice of Eleanor Powell in the 1930s. Ellie died 30 years ago. She also married Brian Donlevy.

"Do you suppose that's where he cut her up?" "When General Motors has to go to the bathroom five times a day .... " "I want no part of it."

I'm with you on that one. John Kerr is cute. He turned up, the other night, on an early Columbo I was watching as a murder victim (unbilled!) killed in the first 5 minutes by Eddie Albert. As for Bacall. Enough already for the over-rated female impersonator. She never carried a single film on her own. I watched KEY LARGO again the other night and you hardly notice her she's so dull. Claire Trevor acted rings around here as did everyone else in the film including the silent Indians.

For me, I don't think Sellers' work has aged particularly well. Like Danny Kaye, his humor is very much of the period and has dated very badly. Much of it is no longer watchable. The Panther movies are awful and all his ethnic stuff. Egads. Even make my skin crawl and I don't give too hoots about that stuff.

I was actually going to say that Sellers was the least funny thing in the whole movie I love Estelle Winwood passing gas. Or at least the excuse of being able to type that sentence.

Life-like. I must really remember to take my meds.

Gavin was almost life-life. I must say that opening scene in PSYCHO with this shirt off. It give me palpitations. Then he opens his mouth and it kills it. But he was one prime piece of beautiful beefcake.

That may be true about Cooper but it doesn't show on the screen where he is so natural that the acting just completely disappears and he just is the character (to paraphrase something that Frank Capra once said about James Stewart).

I would also have given her an Oscar the next year for REAR WINDOW -- for which she wasn't even nominated! Or was she? Can't recall. I've seen that movie a hundred times and I still practically wet my pants with laughter at some of her lines.

Definitely agree with you on Widmark. Glenn Ford? Almost as good a cure for insomnia as Gregory Peck!