CaveGirl

Hey, you! Shouldn't you be out romancing some ladies who look like Judy Canova? Sepia knows that I have the best intentions toward his posts. Butting into my fun. Simply no excuse for your behaviour. Didja see that extra "u" there? Here's a few more. Your humour is very wrong, you are giving me a brain tumour and your posts are not succour to my thread. Take that, Dargo!

Now this is really what I was talking about. People who were lucky enough to have a mug that made them irresistible to filmmakers. She sure doesn't look like her younger incarnation. Thanks for the pictorials, Ham!

Goodness gracious, as Shirley Temple would say. What the heck happened???

I dunno, Lawrence. Looking at her picture right next to your picture of the forbidding Christopher Lee, I was thinking what a cute couple they would make. Scary, but cute! Boy, would Charles Addams have dug them together as Gomez and Morticia.

Really Really? You think Victor Mature is one of the most unattractive men in movies? Now you've got me wondering who you find the most attractive. Till you answer that, remind me not to ask you to find me any blind dates, TS!

Hi, Eugenia! Good one, but not quite as unattractive as I was hoping. She definitely fits into the movie battleaxe thread I am hoping to post next though, as does Marjorie Main. But I really feel there are so many more deserving movie stars for this category. I apologize for being so perverse!

Hey, Sepia! Those are good tries but can't you go a bit deeper into the ugly vein? I know you can do it!

Besides having a beautiful voice, her great skill was also being able to mimic the sound and accents of those for whom she was dubbing their songs so as to make the substitution seamless. Most sorry to have heard of her death.

I recently attended an Edward G. Robinson festival of films locally, which included the movie “The Red House”. Though I own this film I had never seen it on the big screen so was delighted to attend. Since I see it is playing on TCM on August 1st this is my recommendation which you are welcome to ignore. Spoilers Ahead!!! One should always watch who comes calling at their door, just as Eddie G. should have, in this film directed by Delmer Daves and adapted from the novel by George Agnew Chamberlain. “The Red House” [aka “No Trespassing”-1947] stars Robinson as the compelled toward goodness Pete Morgan, whose outer shell perhaps shrouds a deeper secret. With Lon McCallister as the romantic interloper and Oxhouse Woods trail blazer, Nathan Storm, Judith Anderson in a surprising turn as the bucolic and self-abasing Ellen Morgan, who is Pete’s sister, Allene Roberts as the sweet yet troubled adopted Morgan daughter, Meg, and able support by the “Confidential Magazine” cover boy, Rory Calhoun as the rustic ne’er-do-well named Teller, Julie London as the enticing Tibby, Harry Shannon as Doctor Byrne the former suitor of Ellen and last but not least, the lovely Ona Munson showing another side to her more famous role as GWTW’s Belle Watling, this film is packed to the gills with stellar performances. “The Red House” is a swirling, seething maelstrom of repressed passion and bridled lust, set on a seemingly placid Americana farm, which looks not unlike a painting created out of the mind of Grandma Moses. One first encounters the prairie heartland, as the film opens with a voiceover narrator intoning that the Morgan farm is like a “walled castle” with the occupants liking to keep to themselves. And the princess ensconced in this veritable cornucopia of covetousness is young Meg Morgan who is being delivered home from school safe and sound on a rural school bus. Seated by her classmates, Nathan and Tibby, Meg is well aware of the boundless differences between her and her rival for Nathan’s affections, the glamorous and alluring Tibby. As Tibby departs with one backward glance like Lot’s wife, Meg makes known to Nathan her hope that he would be willing to help out her adopted father, Pete on their farm as after school employment. Pete is getting unable to manage, due to his wooden leg and it would be a boon to them if Nathan would oblige this request. After being hired and revealing to them the fact that in town they are known as the Mysterious Morgans, Nathan is informed that Meg is their adopted daughter whose parents died out of town, and that being self- sufficient means, ergo that they like to keep to themselves. All is well until Nathan reveals that after work he intends to go off into the raging storm, and is bound and determined to take the shortcut through the Oxhouse Woods which will “save him time”. Barely able to conceal his trepidation and emotions, Pete is adamant that Nathan not take the shortcut, and with the wind whipping and spitting wildly, Nathan removes himself from Pete’s strong grasp. He is then reviled as he exits with Pete’s stinging words “Stay away from the Red House in the woods…can you save yourself from a scream?” So begins this journey into the mind of a man obsessed with the past, and fearful of the future, and it is a dark and lonely path that Pete finds himself revisiting daily. Only a master thespian would have been able to so seamlessly portray the many conflicting facets of Morgan’s character, which encompass his kindly, caring side contrasted with the hurtful, volatile and controlling aspects of his enraged persona. This film is about a veiled house of secrets with the Red House possibly representing the corpus delicti or body of crime clues of this perversion. Just as in “The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili” written by the famous Mad Monk, Colonna in the Middle Ages, in which Colonna who was obsessed with architecture described the buildings of his dream in search of his lover, in sexual and most licentious terms, so too in this film the enigmatic Red House, lying just out of reach and bounded on one side by the infamous Ice House, appears to mean more than its literal description. Could Pete’s wooden leg be a symbolic expression of moribund libido which had been cuckolded or is this one step too far in an analysis. Regardless in this day of much discussion about adults preying on children in inappropriate ways, this film seems prescient, in its revelatory stance on how behavior which on the surface may seem to denote honest care and affection, can mask deeper seated subterranean tendencies. In some ways, this film could fit into some noirish guidelines being that it similar themes and has a narration introduction, which mentions that Piney Ridge was originally a place of darkness covered by woods, till the highways and civilization caused some areas to be cleared of the overlying foliage, all except for the area of the dreaded Oxhouse Woods and the Morgan Farm. This amazing case study of textbook delineations concerning repressed sexuality, jealousy, teenage angst, the masks of convention, religious fervor, psychic delusion, fetishism and more, in one fell swoop deserves more recognition. It has enough paradoxical issues to evoke memories of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” and even if one does not go in for all the extraneous medieval symbolic minutiae, this is bottom line a fascinating descent into madness, with great performances by the cast. This is now my favorite Eddie G. film. What's yours and why?

Argh, yer a blooming one, ya are, Dargo. Next I suppose I will need to use Cockney rhyming slang to please you? Okay, call me on the dog and bone, or come up the apples and pears to discuss this, since I'm all Jack Jones. Either that or you will end up in Davy Jone's locker and I'm not monkeying around.

Thanks for the Keaton update, Bogie!

That's funny you say that, TB since I was just watching my dvd of that movie and laughing about how little alike Eddie and Judy appear to be as relations. Rory was always kind of low rent looking to me, like a somewhat attractive gas station attendant, no offense to gas station attendants, but Julie was lovely in everything.

Didn't Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady" say something to Eliza like: "Where the devil are my slippers, Eliza?" Now she should have said something back like: "Go find them yourself, you old codger with the bad toupee!" At least that's what I would have said after all that abuse.

Well, Rondo was voted the handsomest boy in his senior class, ya know, Dargo and stayed that way till the acromegaly started affecting his looks. But yeah, I do still find him kinda cute. Sorry I was so hard on you, but life can be a cruel mistress occasionally.

You're right, Dargo. Judy Canova is a glamour girl compared to that chick in the film "Crybaby" named Kim McGuire. The title of her character says it all, she played Mona "Hatchet-Face" Malnorowski. I think Waters had a talent for finding people who were beauty challenged. Eddie G. is a not the best looking but does have dignity, as does Miss Judith. Is this really the best you can do for my thread? I expect so much more from you, ya know!

Maybe TCM could show "North by Northwest" backwards and retitle it "Northwest by North" and put it in a tribute day with Christopher Nolan's film "Memento", TB. Showing "Memento" backwards is always a good idea. Or put the Hitchcock film in listed as "Tsewhtron yb Htron" and see if people think it is a Russian film.

I vote that you are "fabulous" too, Eugenia!

Who cares! Call me insensitive, call me callous but that's the way I roll. They might be living off their inheritances earned by their famous relatives, while we slave here trying to find fun in talking about movies. Go for it, Down.

Do others get sick and tired of polls detailing all the enviable qualities of others, when it is so much more fun to talk about the less appealing characteristics of almost anyone. In comparison, then one feels great knowing they are better looking than Jack Elam or Judy Canova hopefully. Of course this will be very subjective, knowing that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder but you heard it here first. Who are the least attractive, we can even say maybe revolting looking stars of the silver screen? Nominate your male and female choices here, and we can submit the final tally to Facebook. Try to pick people who are dead so we don't hurt anyone's feelings! I've already given two choices but I might also add that woman who starred in films of John Waters, her name was Edith Something* if I recall. I'm sure someone here will give me her last name as I'm too tired to look it up. *Massey [hope she wasn't related to Raymond!]

That line is a quote by Bette Davis, who said her father told her that early in her career. He said not to worry about bad reviews of her films, because "today's newspaper is tomorrow's toilet paper". The line has movie lore pedigree, coming from Bette's lips.

Those are winners too, Jlewis! One of my favorites is so obvious, but it is "How to Sleep". Who else but Benchley would think of such a thing. I always remember the story about him visiting Dorothy Parker after a suicide attempt when she tried to slit her wrists I think and he supposedly said "Dorothy, you really need to stop doing things like this as you might hurt yourself." Thanks for your additions.

Are Arresting exegesis of this iconic scene, TB! I have to admit that though the latter part is all Hitchcock, the beginning sequence as you know, really does owe a lot to the similar scene in the early 1940's film, "The Seventh Victim" as directed by Mark Robson and produced by Val Lewton. I remember reading about it in a film book I had when I was about sixteen and dying to see this film and when I finally did, was amazed at how much the shadow coming toward the shower curtain reminds one of the "Psycho" set piece. Both scenes still shock each in their own way of course.

Even though I started this thread and appeared to be cracking on poor old Wendell, I actually find him very appealing just as I do Ralph Bellamy. They did get stuck playing the other man parts a lot, but did it so well they were perennials in that field. Bellamy is so funny in "The Awful Truth" in such a thankless part that it really takes talent to play, just as Corey was also capable of. They both deserve special Oscars for having the guts to play the more boring parts and let people like Mitchum and Grant get the fun parts!

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I'm sure you would not want to miss one of the Algonquin's most illustrious diners in a short on movie viewing, which is on the late TCM schedule for Monday at 5:49am or the early TCM schedule for Tuesday at the same 5:49am time slot. It also stars the well named King Baggot! You can thank me some other time: 5:49 AM NIGHT AT THE MOVIES, A (1937) In this comedic short, a man and wife suffer through a night together at the movies. Dir: Roy Rowland Cast: Robert Benchley , King Baggot , Flora Finch . BW-10 mins,