EugeniaH

Most of the cast of A Raisin in the Sun.

I haven't read this one, lav. I remember your recommending it to me, but unfortunately it's not available at my library. I guess I could try to pick up a copy on amazon... The one that I just read is pretty comprehensive, though.

I very recently finished this same book, GayD. I found it very balanced and well-written and I recommend it to others who'd like to find out more about her.

You should be a politician instead, Dargo! America's been desperate lately, lol.

Mid-life crisis? BRING IT ON!

This reminds me of all the teen magazines I used to read. Lots of color spreads of Robby Benson and Scott Baio, lol... Robby had kind of a nerdy voice, I think...

Thank goodness, I can barely remember the film now, but the "dreary horridness" was what really hit me on the gut level. I was first interested in it because it was a "period piece", but I never got completely comfortable... The Paul Dano character was especially creepy to me. I kept wanting to turn the movie off but something compelled me to at least skip around so I got a sense of the ending. BAAAD MOVE! I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep that night.

Ugh, I did NOT like that movie, either (very disturbing). That would be my number one if there was a thread here called, I Will Never Watch Again.

That's one of my favorites too. I don't think it's been mentioned yet but Lupino also directed the Twilight Zone ep "The Masks", one of the best in the series, with a shocker ending. She was the only woman to direct an episode in TZ.

Wow, there were SO many wonderful films in 1937. I first wanted to post on this thread last night but I couldn't list all the movies I wanted to on my smartphone (would take too long...) In no order, here are my favorites (I also have all of these on DVD): The Awful Truth A Day at the Races Easy Living History is Made at Night Internes Can't Take Money (this film has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread. I can't recommend it enough. I know, I have a Stanwyck bias, but I really do like this movie and there are some truly emotional moments in it.) It's Love I'm After King Solomon's Mines Nothing Sacred Stella Dallas (Oscar nomination) True Confession

The first movie I saw featuring Clift was "From Here to Eternity", and immediately knew that I was watching a terrific actor. He hooked me from the first lines he spoke. As I was listing all my "favorites" by him, I thought to myself, "Well, those are all the ones I've seen!" So in this I'm saying - I've never been disappointed in his acting no matter what movie I watch. Here's my list in order of preference: I Confess A Place in the Sun From Here to Eternity The Heiress Judgment at Nuremberg **Note: With this list, if I were to rank my favorite movies in general, the order would be different ("Eternity" would be first). This list is just favorite Clift performances...

I've been on a "The Fugitive" kick lately... Even though we all know he escapes to the next adventure in the end, the writing is just so terrific. Incredible, the range of plots, one after the next, just in one season!

Shemp definitely came a distant second to Curly. Unfortunately, as the Stooges' time went on and other actors were brought in like Joe DeRita, the quality really suffered. Their stuff wasn't as "fresh". I can't think of specifics now but sometimes they'd do some plays on words that were funny (although nothing tops the Marx Brothers in that area!)

In Stella Dallas, Stella sits at her vanity putting on cold cream as daughter Laurel talks about the woman she admires. Although Stella is jealous she tries to share her interest. She grabs the photo of the woman out of Laurel's hand but Stella's hand is greasy with cold cream. Laurel is furious and lashes out... The camera shot is now looking in the vanity mirror. Laurel is horrified by her outburst and Stella "shrinks". Laurel quietly helps her mother color her hair. You can see how homely Stella is, in comparison to the other woman, and how vulnerable... A lot of unspoken feelings reflected in the faces of the characters, and the viewer is looking "in the mirror", with Laurel. Powerful scene.

I have it, too. I have a good friend who is a classic film nut but doesn't like Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges. Sheesh... I can't watch the Stooges for long blocks of time, though.

I think Clapton wrote "Wonderful Tonight" for Patty. Isn't it nice to be someone with besotted rock stars writing ballads for you!

I just read about "Something" last night - Harrison wrote it for Patty Boyd. (I'm slogging through a terrific 800+ page Beatles biography by Bob Spitz - 300+ pages to go)

* A SPOILER LISTED HERE* It was mentioned that Peck's son had committed suicide around the time that the Omen movie team wanted to send the script to Peck, in the hopes that he would be willing to star in it. In the original version of the script, Peck's character kills Damien by stabbing him. The script writers or director (or both) felt very uneasy to send Peck, who had just lost his son, a script in which his character kills his son, but they did, and they were relieved and thrilled when Peck said he wanted to make the movie. Peck was at a point in his career where there was a bit of a stretch between movies and he was looking for a good project. Director Richard Donner was especially thrilled (as you could see in the multiple interviews) to have Peck star. He said Peck and Lee Remick gave the movie "class". William Holden was originally considered for the Peck role but he turned it down. Obviously he since changed his mind, because he starred in "Damien, Omen II" as Damien's uncle (Peck's brother).

I'm finishing up watching all the DVD extras to "The Omen". Pretty intense. Now I'm reaching for "The Odd Couple," lol. Anyway, I did learn that Omen made so much money for the studio that they were able to get "Star Wars" off the ground...

Sorry, Tom, I hope I didn't come across as harping on you... I didn't look at that original photo for long.

Ugh, Tom, that first photo is so nauseatingly realistic...

For some reason I remember that you had mentioned before about this movie not being shown in Canada. What a shame - it would be worth getting the rights to that gem! Glad that another poster was able to help you out here. The mirror story would be my second favorite. The story involving the young-ish girl packed a wallop in the very beginning (when we learned the truth of the boy she was just visiting), but otherwise it fell a little more flat. The movie is very cerebral, but engrossing and entertaining. And I liked the character of the psychiatrist trying to rationalize everything, though his ideas only went so far. I found so many references to Twilight Zone eps that I started getting the feeling that Serling went to the "Dead of Night" well again and again when he was needing ideas.

Dead of Night (1945). What a wonderful, thought-provoking, creepy film! I watched this again after a too-long gap of about six years. Were there many anthology films made during this time? "Flesh and Fantasy" (1943) comes to mind but "Dead of Night" is superior. The plot involves an architect who arrives at a country house for work, in a recurring nightmare, and he's terrified because he knows how this nightmare is going to end... At the house there are a number of guests and they soon fall into talking about their own horrifying supernatural tales. The stories of each of the guests range from semi-comical (the "golfing" episode was my least favorite, although there was one chilling moment in that; I won't spoil it here) to the terrifying (the best of the lot, imo, is the 'ventriloquist' episode). I think it's been commented on a number of times here on the board that Rod Serling probably drew heavily on "Dead of Night" when writing a number of scripts for "The Twilight Zone" (as just one example, the scene where the dummy bites the hand of the ventriloquist is copied almost exactly in the TZ ep "The Dummy"). I'm not sure if this movie was a blockbuster (the copy I watched wasn't spectacular in quality), but I think it was ahead of its time in terms of depth of concepts, that there is more than meets the eye...

I picked up "Tracy and Hepburn" in a used book store a few weeks ago, and I loved it. Kanin's love for the both of them is very deep and well-expressed. I was more interested in the Spencer anecdotes, truthfully - what a colorful personality; I laughed out loud a few times. He had a way with words - he talked about his drinking struggles as "being on the ol' heimerdeimer". Spencer Tracy is my favorite actor, and his work with Katharine Hepburn was magic, though he wasn't dependent on her to shine.

I got all the seasons of The Fugitive on DVD (why did I wait this long?), and am now devouring a marathon of those eps. Right now watching "Crack in a Crystal Ball". Lots of Twilight Zone alumni actors on this series, sometimes a few in one ep, and lots of TZ music from Bernard Hermann used here.