CaveGirl

Wow, TB you pulled one out of your hat this time that I shall have to go look up in my "History of the American Film" book since I do not know her at all. Good work! And love the picture of Spanky and Alfalfa.

Obviously I have no problem with a movie that is for adults, not allowing children to be in the viewing audience. But when adult fare, and I don't mean anything necessarily pornographic, just something that debates topics of that might warrant use of a brain to comprehend, are immediately put in the banning basket by those too obtuse to get the point, yes, I do become a bit flummoxed. This is like banning "Ulysses" because one thinks stream of consciousness persiflage is confusing to read. Or banning "Wake Up, Little Susie" by the Everly Brothers because you think their being late means they were doing something nasty at the drive-in. By the way, I recall it might have been banned in Boston! I bring up this topic, due to reading another post on this site which critiques the movie "Death in Venice" as promoting pedophilia, because of the main character and his secretive watching of the character of Tadzio. I don't even think of DIV as being controversial, but the implication that watching someone can be so indicative of an immoral thought, made me think that TCM needs to remove that tribute promo bit about Ida Lupino, and her directing skills since in it the narrator, Lee Grant makes mention of how she saw Ida on the street one time and followed her for quite some time, noting how pretty she found her to be. Apparently, looking at someone now and noting their attractiveness is anathema. Thanks, Lawrence!

Dang! Do you look anything like Buddy Love?

We seem to be reaching a watershed moment here lately, with new posters wherein a film delineating a situation that it not to the liking of some, is thought to be unworthy of viewing and hence should not be seen by any. Maybe my not so incipient belief that I can withstand viewing thoughts on screen that might not be of my taste, but still do not affect me as a person in my life choices, results in my abhorrence to others trying to ban films they cannot deal with successfully without being overtaken by insidious imitation. It would be similar to all wine being banned, by those who cannot take a drink without overdoing it, whilst I might only want one drink per month and hence do not appreciate being deprived of that possibility. I have heard of the weak taking over the earth but I had not realized it would be happening so soon. Perhaps such personages fear, due to thinking that everyone is like them, that others are so weak in their impulses, that is be necessary to not show fare like a film about Ted Bundy, due to men watching the film who will immediately choose to become serial killers. Or showing "The Man With the Golden Arm" will promote drug addiction, yet I watched and have stayed clean. There are films of degradation like "Salo" that though I find repugnant in many ways, I also think are interesting fare and have something to say. Often it is necessary to show things in films that are not superficially appealing to make a point. Am I alone in this, or would one prefer that all films that have any adult content be relegated to the art house theaters and never shown on a network like TCM? For a list of some of the most controversial films of all time, go here and ask yourself if you were unable to watch these films without faltering in your normal belief system: http://www.filmsite.org/controversialfilms.html

You'd probably marry Ingels after being married to Jack Cassidy too, Dargo. I mean, think of the time he would have spent in front of the mirror primping and getting ready for his big glossy 8x10's. I mean he did seem to be a bit of a narcissist. Oh wait, I forgot...you wouldn't need any upkeep, being so handsome and all.

I agree, Hibi but who knows. Maybe she didn't want to do some of them or she was assailed by outside duties. I mean the life of a nun must be filled with many tasks.

I don't think that this movie promotes pedophilia in any aspect, shape or form. The boy represents beauty and youth and is a bit like the theme in Inge's "Splendour in the Grass". It is about a recognition of time passing and your youth fading, and the boy Tadzio reminds the main character of his past and what is lost just as Natalie Wood realizes at the end of the film, when she remeets Beatty and realizes what they have both lost. I am reminded of a line in the movie "Pollyanna" about what one sees in life, when one spends time assuming another's intentions. If you look for evil, you will surely find it.

I'm gonna say "The Day The Earth Stood Still" since I think it began the spate of sci-fi films which has continued unabated for eons. I know it was not the first, but it set higher standards of technical achievements and being a classy act was seen probably by more adults than the previous sillier type kiddie fare about rockets and space travel. Plus, it made aliens sexy!

Only you can find the time, TB to post about a whole year of entertainment in one fell swoop per day. I thoroughly enjoyed your write-up today and was surprised to learn that Jerry Lewis has the time to help you with your annum reviews since I thought he was working on his new film, "Big Finish". Thanks also for the making me think about the name Estes Kefauver, which always brings a smile to my face!

TB, you are so bad! But I guess Lucy did not care for her dating her baby, Desi Junior at all. Nevertheless I must say Patty Duke was an exceptional actress no matter what the material given her. Even in something as silly as "The Patty Duke Show" she is amazingly believable as two distinct personages in the characters of Patty and Cathy. With good material she is of course superb. I think I remember a fabulous movie, perhaps made for tv, which was called "My Sweet Charlie" perhaps, in which as usual Patty Duke makes even good material be more impressive. I am so sorry to hear of her passing. I am glad that being on this site, people always inform each other of losses like this, so thanks to all who keep us informed.

Pardon me for forgetting what you had said last year but I might have been drinking too many wine coolers back then. Your take on espionage being a tough business is apt, but perhaps being so tough it naturally leads to being spoofed? Kind of like how people enjoy seeing the mighty fall? Or...maybe not.

Well, keep your fingers crossed, GPF since we can all hope and pray that Sister Rose does give us her take on "Strange Cargo". Being that it was found to be so offensive by the LOD, the studio released an expurgated version. The other films which will be spotlighted this Thursday are "The Moon is Blue", "Baby Doll" and "L'Amore". "Baby Doll", from Tennessee Williams' original play called "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" was called a "meandering social satire" with "stylized violence", "implied marital infidelity" and "leering sexual situations" by the LOD yet some outside their auspices said there was more sensuality in DeMille's "The Ten Commandments". Some of the other incendiary comments about the above films, came from famed Catholic hierarchy like Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, who denounced TMIS as an "occasion of sin" and violating "standards of morality and decency" and he asked all Catholics to boycott any theater showing it forever. Rossellini's "L'Amore" caused Cardinal Spellman to be "morally outraged" and he wanted it banned all across the US. And he joined the LOD crowd in denouncing "Strange Cargo" as ridiculing Catholicism and being opposed to the standards of the Encyclical "Divini Illius Magistri" issued in 1939 by Pope Pius XI. But in view of the fact, that Cardinal Spellman himself had been of aid to the Kennedy family many times, in terms of obtaining annulments for the many marriages of people like Jackie's sister, Lee Bouvier Canfield Radziwill Herbert [after divorces and illicit affairs resulting in pregnancies] and his friendships and defense of the Communist witchhunt tactics of his friends like Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy, plus other instances of situations that could be occasions of sin with some in the entertainment industry, methinks Cardinal Spellman's condemnation of films was as hypocritical as the beliefs held by the Legion's overzealous archbishops. I do want to praise Sister Rose for taking on the huge challenge of revisiting these past ratings of films, and giving us her current take on them. Hopefully she will not be excommunicated!

You are probably right, Vautrin. Filmmakers would not understand at all the main character's attraction to that woman's elbows. You know the one he met at the sanatarium. They would want to make it all sensuous and not understand the elbow's allure.

Clever take, GPF! Coincidentally, our newbie's name is Paul and Sister Rose is from the Pauline group, and Saint Paul notoriously did not like uppity women, so could he have returned from the grave to taunt me? I guess miracles can happen? If I'm gonna have a saint return from death, why couldn't it have been that dishy Saint Sebastian!

Sepia, I wonder if when Charlton played Moses in the movie they kept showing him the rushes?

Miss W., we went to the top of Blarney Castle also and wasn't it fun when they would have to hold you upside down so you did not fall through the grating while you were kissing the stone. My friend's necklace fell off and went down the hole! You are right, the setting is beautiful and I took pics from the top and love looking at them. Did you drink any warm Guinness while you were there?

Yeah, it is kind of like confusing mortal sin with venial sin, Hibi. I remember how they had those milk bottles with black spots on them in old Baltimore catechisms, which meant the bottle owner had some sins but had not gone totally to pot yet. A few Hail Marys and Our Fathers in the confessional and those black spots were wiped away! Oh, by the way I keep forgetting to say this, that trying to find out exactly who was in the Legion of Decency and what qualified them to be rating films, is impossible to find apparently as I have looked and looked. It must have been a secret committee. I wonder if it was composed of cardinals, archbishops, bishops or all three? I don't think those men should have been watching all those condemned films, as it might have led them to an occasion of sin or bad thoughts.

Uh, but June had that awful squeaking and syrupy simpering voice while Dino's was more soothing. To each his own though I guess.

Put a grey translucent piece of plastic over your tv screen?

About all I remember from the original FOD was the monkey footage which looked real and it seems like there was some footage of a newsman on tv killing himself on air. Am I on the money or hallucinating, Lawrence and congrats of achieving survival status amongst your peers.

For some people, a sex drive is the distance from their house to their paramour's house, Down. Now don't think I approve of such behaviour as I would not want our newbie, Paul to say I will need many prayers to get out of purgatory when I croak, and that I will be relegated to the seventh circle of the inferno till Elvis returns. Your book titles remind me of the wonderful book "Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". One of the most insightful tomes I have ever read on life and its vagaries.

Don't you love when Little Edie talks about the Marble Faun continually in the film, Holden?

"Cape Fear" might qualify if there are enough venetian blinds in it, Down.

I don't know if it is better to be dogmatic than pedantic, but I'm totally for your suggestion, James. Either that or we could discuss the stigmata in films, and why has the life of Therese Neumann never been committed to celluloid. I had given up arguing with nuns and priests, in high school I thought. My mother said once just to humor them since they are very subjugated and don't know any better plus are not allowed much leeway in thinking.

I'll explain my header for all those who need Cliff Notes later, but right now I want to talk about the movie I saw last night, "The Maids". I have wanted to see this film for eons. Written by the infamous Jean Genet, he of the petty criminal past, who became a noted poet and playwright in France due to interventions by Jean Cocteau and later by praise in print from Jean-Paul Sartre. So I'm watching the film which starred Susannah York and Glenda Jackson, and all of a sudden a woman enters the scene and she is playing Madame. She is mesmerizing, and doing in my opinion her best Joan Greenwood impression and I keep thinking, who is this? She looks a bit familiar but who is this? Finally I look at the DVD box and realize it is Vivien Merchant. Now her name is very familiar since I first saw her in "Alfie" and I think she was the wife of Harold Pinter, but what is so incredible is that I would never have thought the woman who played that mousy lady in "Alfie" that gets used by Michael Caine could have played this part in "The Maids". From frowsy to sophisticated lady of leisure, this is what I would call real acting. Sure we all love Brando and others who are great in parts, but to be able to totally transform oneself into an entirely different person is genius. Sadly I'm sure not many people know Vivien Merchant but this thread is devoted to others like her who are not so famous but do deserve fame. Next?