Dargo2

>Who was Belinda Lee? Now c'mon finance, SURELY you remember those hits, "I'm Sorry", and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", don't YA?! (...oh...wait...sorry, never mind)

Ya know TB, this is a good question and one which I'm not really sure has a definitive answer to it. BUT, it appears this guy HERE knows the difference between a true thespian and a "movie star", anyway... (...sorry...couldn't resist...this is one of my favorites of O'Toole's roles)

I'm gonna go with somethin' a little newer here and suggest what I consider an excellent film adaptation of one of Joseph Wambaugh's powerful crime novels about the LAPD and the justice system, and which contains the breakout role for actor James Woods, who plays his sociopath role of cop killer Gregory Powell so masterfully understated and yet effectively chilling, in 1979's The Onion Field . (...Woods' Powell always reminded me of a more subdued version of Richard Widmark's breakout role of Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death)

Annie Get Your Gun (1950) - Frank Morgan (best known as the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz) was cast as Wild West legend Buffalo Bill Cody in the screen version of this Broadway musical. Just days into filming, Morgan died and was replaced by Louis Calhern. But in the scene where Buffalo Bill first rides into town, when the audience sees Cody from a distance, the actor on horseback is Morgan. The actor in the close-up - and from then on - is Calhern. And how can we forget... Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) - Often called the worst film ever made, but Director Ed Wood was able to hire horror movie icon Bela Lugosi because the actor was 73, past his prime, addicted to morphine, and up for anything that paid. Wood cast Lugosi as "the Ghoul Man." After compiling just a few minutes of footage (with no dialogue because Wood hadn't actually written the script yet), Lugosi died of a heart attack. Not wanting to lose out on the publicity from having a recently departed screen legend in his film, Wood shot the rest of Plan 9 with Tom Mason, a Los Angeles chiropractor, standing in for Lugosi. To account for the two men looking nothing alike, in all of his scenes, Mason held a black cape over his face.

Hmmmm, speaking of Trapeze and Sophia... Has anyone in this thread yet mentioned that other Italian beauty here?...

(...one of the most entertaining movies made within the last few years with this premise...or ANY premise for THAT matter!)

LOL Nope, played my usual round of Friday tennis, then took one of my motorcycles for a little spin, then had dinner with the wife at one of the nicer restaurants here in Sedona , and now I'm sittin' behind this here keyboard with a nice single malt whisky beside it. (...yep, life is tough, alright!)

Yep, I liked "Harry O". It reminded me of another "P.I." themed series in which the lead character lived by the beach and wasn't the usual "heroic" type..."The Rockford Files", of course. Now THIS guy I know I've seen before, but I don't recall what films or TV shows I've seen him in...which is usually how I decipher their names.

..with.. ...a VERY close second!

Anthony Zerbe

>Jane Wyman & Ronald Reagan at the Trocadero. Captain Reagan is attached to the Air Corps, stationed near Hollywood in 1944. Now why is that after readin' that, my thoughts turned to paraphrasing that classic line the late great George Gobel once told Johnny on "The Tonight Show" about how because he was stationed at an Air Corps base in Wichita during all of WWII, we can personally thank him that no Japanese aircraft ever made it past Tulsa!" (...but of course in Ronnie's case, I was thinkin' of substituting the town of Tulsa with "Culver City"!!!...okay, or maybe "Inglewood"..which sounds funnier to you?..."Culver City", RIGHT???!!!)

And to get this baby back on track... I have to say I've never seen this Jean Arthur flick, but seein' as how I've always really liked her, AND that the premise sounds entertaining, I'm lookin' forward to watchin' it tomorrow. (...or at the very least, record it so I can watch it later)

Nope, those bed bug haven't made their way out here to Southwest(US) yet! (...but we're expectin' that latest Chinese bird flu thing to hit us any day now around here!!!)

>...what, did a 'bad' dream wake you up? Now Twink! Considering the detour I've momentarily taken this thread on, shouldn't your inquiry here be if I've just awaken from a "WET" dream???? LOL (...though in EITHER case, the answer would be, no) Edited by: Dargo2 on Apr 19, 2013 12:01 AM

WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!!! They're gonna show WHAT on TCM???!!! (...oh...wait...you said "AND Miss Jones", not "IN Miss Jones" here, didn't ya...sorry...never mind...funny what a difference one little change from a conjunction to a preposition can make sometimes, isn't it!)

I'm thinkin' it's Michael "Something" Jr. (...sure wish I could remember his last name, though)

Yeah, yeah, Sprocket ol' buddy, BUT seein' as how you're usually such a freakin' stickler for other peoples' spelling, grammar AND syntax, the LEAST you could've done was to give dpompper a little slack for how well she did in THOSE departments in her responses to you anyway, RIGHT???!!! ROFL

Good pick here, Tom. Reminds me of the look on the little Italian boy's face here...

Yep, Miracle on 34th Street has a great warmhearted and perfect "punchline" ending to the film all at once, alright. Switching gears again(so to speak...and you'll soon see why I've used this particular expression here ), here is one I've always thought was a "perfect ending" to a film because of how its presentation reflects so perfectly upon the beginning of the film. As T.E.Lawrence is being driven in a British Army staff car across the desert after being dismissed by his superiors, and with a look on his face a combination of many emotions but perhaps primarily with looks of disgust and disillusionment in evidence, a British soldier riding a motorcycle passes the staff car and Lawrence's gaze focuses upon it...and thus this nicely bookends the opening scene of Lawrence of Arabia in which director David Lean has previously showed the manner in which Lawrence would meet his death while riding his Brough Superior motorcycle sometime later in his life.

>Yes, that's what I was saying. It's subjective, what makes that perfect ending. If an ambiguous ending, that leaves one to think about the film... Hmmmm...speaking of "ambiguous endings"...Does Cagney really "turn yellah" as they're strappin' him into Ol' Sparky, or is he doin' one final good deed for his boyhood pal O'Brien? (...yep, I'd say this is one of the great ambiguous endings in all of film)

>Dargo, it's interesting that Best Years, a post war "reality" film, chose to have a fairly upbeat happy ending for all the key characters involved. Yet I find it to be a pretty satisfactory ending, too. Yep, and probably because the "hard road ahead" warning that Fred gives to Peggy tempers the whole "And they lived happily ever after" aspect to the ending, and helps ground it more in reality.

Well Tom, I've never been one to cry at weddings, but I gotta admit THIS one does kinda bring a tear to my eyes whenever I watch it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz9RvmwLk_o

Nope, THAT was true. I was conceived in beautiful Kelowna BC, but my unwed biological mother(with whom the last few years I've had the great good fortune to reconnect and now have a wonderful "new family" up there in Canada) came to Los Angeles in 1952 and where a private adoption was arranged with two wonderful people who would become my parents....and who would spoil me rotten! (...in other words, I've pretty much lived a charmed existence..i.e.: I'm one "LUCKY bastard"!!!)

Ah HA!!! It seems I have at least ONE person fooled around here that I'm a "nice guy", anyway! Hey Twink! I also have a very nice bridge I'll sell ya that spans two boroughs of New York City! (...juuuuust kiddin' of course...ya see the point is here that IF one can't laugh at themselves, then they really have no business laughing at anyone else, right?!...and no, I really don't considered myself a "bastard" in the pejorative sense, THOUGH of course this is always open to debate among those in my social circle)

Probably not, willbe. (...but then again, you know how us bastards can be sometimes, dontcha?)