CaveGirl
-
Posts
6,085 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
12
Posts posted by CaveGirl
-
-
On 5/31/2018 at 11:21 AM, Hoganman1 said:
Ha, I never thought of that, but it sure makes sense. I thought I was the only one to notice these obscure, but questionable details in movies. Most people don't pay attention or simply don't care. I'm glad to know there are others like me.
All those who are this detail oriented on movie stuff, need to stick together, Hoganman!
Maybe we should start a website, called "Delineating Filmic Details" or at least the more crass, "Essential Yet Unimportant Movie Trivia for Addicts"? -
4 minutes ago, Dargo said:
Yeah, who knew there'd be so much money in that whole kickboxing thing, huh CG?!
(...OR, that that Texas Ranger show would be such a hit for so long, huh!)
LOL
Speaking of shows with a Western slant, I don't even like to eat at a Chuck Wagon, Dargo.
-
On 5/30/2018 at 5:37 PM, jimmymac71 said:
I too would know "Don't Let Go" was not Elvis. I cheated and looked it up. Roy Hamilton. So, who actually sang "All American Boy?" If it is an over-dub, good thing they weren't trying to cheat Bogart or Lorre. This was before Rich Little's time. When listening on headphones, and once again, this isn't a movie I know very well, the voice in question sounded a wee bit British or something similar. Greenstreet, to me, sounded like a cigar smoker, while the other voice was cleaner. I want to believe the voice was added later, as it sounded more like directly talking into the microphone, like when someone sings in a movie and you know it was done in a studio setting.
Really good one, on that AAB record question, Jimmy! I might be hallucinating but I think Bob Dylan covered it on one of his bootleg, Basement Tape albums on those Pig or Swine labels. I think my older brother used to play it occasionally but I could be wrong. I wonder who got the royalty checks if not Bobby Bare?
-
On 5/30/2018 at 6:15 PM, jimmymac71 said:
I am quoting this so everyone can read it again. Beautifully written! I love the movies, and very much dislike a lot of modern television and movies. TCM is the one place to turn for movies that do not insult my being. Similar to sports announcing, one person does play-by-play. The other person does "color." Jon Miller, use to be on ESPN with Joe Morgan. Jon, "The Big Kahuna," is a walking sports encyclopedia. I am not convinced any of our hosts are like that. I do not doubt they love the movies. Tiffany isn't the only one I felt was scripted. Don't throw stones, but Robert seemed to be reading. I've seen older videos celebrating Robert, who was totally jazzed at the idea of having all these movies, and trailers too!!! Kind of like when Norm (Cheers) went to work at the beer factory and hugged the vat. Robert was excited and just had to be a part of it. I don't feel Tiffany was hired because she is female and her name is Vasquez. I do believe TCM found she is young, loves the movies, has some knowledge, and could speak to the younger audience. I think Ben would say (perhaps quietly) we don't really need to do that. A host can be anyone the fans like. The fans don't need to be drawn in by a host. The movies do that all by themselves. Thank You CaveGirl. No pun intended, but you make it flow like wine.
Thanks for the kind words, Jimmy! So to pay you back, here's a true Norm or George Wendt tale. A guy I know, who we all went to school with, came back to town and we decided to go to an event in the downtown area, which always in the summer would have a celebrity guest. This guy, was from a family of four boys, who were all hellions in grade school and as the story goes, his father said one day "I've had it with all of you, one of you is going to military school to knock some sense into you!" None of them of course wanted to go, so they sent the oldest one. The other three continued on their way, being rebels but he came back after four years, wearing suits, wing tip shoes, with short hair and totally oblivious to all current music, movies and stuff. Became kind of like a young Richard Nixon. So, now it is some years later and he still is Mister Straight-Laced who never watches television...and we are downtown and we say "Oh, they say Norm, or George Wendt from "Cheers" is going to be the celebrity guest up on the stage." Our friend says, "What is Cheers?" We're all like, "C'mon, surely you've seen Cheers?" and he's like "No, I've never heard of it." All of a sudden, he gets near to the stage and points to Wendt and says "Hey, I know that guy" so we are like "You just told us you never even heard of Cheers" and he then says "That's Fatty and I went to school with him." We feel sorry for him then, and say "No, that's Norm" but before we can stop him he walks up near the stage and yells out "Hey, Fatty...how are you?"
At this point, we see Wendt get up, walk over to him and start talking. Amazingly, they actually had gone to school together and knew each other quite well from their youth. Our friend at this point actually says to Wendt "Hey, what have you been doing with yourself" proving once again that fame a fickle mistress, since our buddy, has never seen the show. The upshot of the thing was that Wendt then asked to go out with our group after his gig finished for...what else, beers and thanks to our clueless friend we all had a really good time. The End!-
1
-
-
On 5/31/2018 at 12:23 AM, Dargo said:
Wow! So how much did you figure each and every "OOOOH OOOOH OOOOOH NOOOOOOO!" ended up costin' ya that night, CG???
Some things just have to remain unanswered, Dargo.
-
Never thought about Liz starting to resemble Divine as she aged. Thanks for that insider info from the John Waters' files, Dougie!
Divine is missed...
-
On 5/31/2018 at 11:12 AM, Hoganman1 said:
Here's another one. Why do they show an armadillo in the Bela Lugosi film "Dracula". My understanding is they are not native to Eastern Europe. That's always caught my attention when watching that old horror flick. I guess we'll never know for sure,
Never thought about that one, but I do enjoy seeing the creepy crawly things in "Dracula" during the crypt scenes. Would never have known they are not native to EE, so thanks, Hoganman! Of course, there would probably be given a explanation just like they used to do in Superman comic books and the mail bag questions like:
"Dear Mail Bag,
In the last issue, DC #53, Superman was staring at Lois Lane's breasts on Page 9 and panel 4, and his glasses did not melt, nor did his X-ray vision burn a hole in her sweater, and why not?
Johnny Craig"
And the DC Mail Bag would answer with something like this:
Dear Johnny,
That was not really Superman in that panel art, since you missed that he had been hit by Red Kryptonite and a double from the Bizarro world had taken his place, not wearing glasses constructed from the windows in baby Superman's original spacecraft from the planet Krypton. Hope that helps, Johnny!
Superman's Editor for the Smallville Mail Box" -
On 5/31/2018 at 12:05 PM, Dargo said:
There's another couple of Ladd starring films I don't believe I've ever seen on TCM, although coincidentally they are war films. Haven't seen 'em in years:
O.S.S. (1946)
Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950)
(...the latter one would introduce the song "Mona Lisa" to the public and win the Oscar that year for Best Song...Nat King Cole would soon later make a hit recording of it)
I've seen the Captain Carey and yet remember absolutely nothing about it sadly.
-
On 5/26/2018 at 9:00 AM, cigarjoe said:
I 'd rather actually go the other way, and see how some color Neo Noir films would look in Black and White. ?
That's an interesting theory. I wonder too, if a film concocted by a cinematography expert, like John Alton to be in color, which was unusual for him, would look in black and white. Thanks, CJ!
-
On 6/1/2018 at 6:14 AM, Ray Faiola said:
You know what - NEITHER DO I! I just ran the clip and it's a voice double. The resonance is definitely stronger and less chipped than Greenstreet's. But he got the lisp right, which is what fooled my memory. Looks like I stuck my chin out and got clipped!
You didn't stick your chin out...just expressed a sensible explanation which would convince most normal people.
I, on the other hand, am not normal! Like for example, when the nuns would talk about how horrid Doubting Thomas was in the bible, to question if someone was risen from the dead, I would always get up and say "But isn't he the only sane one of the Apostles, to find that circumstance not convincing unless he actually sees the person supposedly risen?"
So thanks for actually checking it out and giving some possible credence to my belief that it does not sound like Greenstreet. Much appreciation, Ray!-
1
-
-
18 hours ago, Dargo said:
Well, seeing as how nobody answered your earlier question here CG, I guess it's up to me here then.
The "C" in Sir Aubrey Smith's (btw, that 'u' in his second name is not superfluous...just in case you might be wonderin' about that) stood for "Chuck"!
Well okay, it actually stood for "Charles".
(...BUT, I hear the "colonials" he worked with in Hollywood used to often call him "Chuck" on the set, and just to get a rise out of him...he always hated that, ya know...thought that nickname WAY too informal to be ascribed to such a formal and respectable man as himself)
Why thanks, Dargo for doing this spectacular research. Speaking for myself, I have always hated the name "Chuck" and actually had to stop dating a man named that, as I could not imagine myself saying his name in a lifetime commitment type of way. He turned out to be a multimillionaire so maybe my prejudice was misplaced?
-
There's something in me, that when I see a compelling film, makes me wonder if it is based on true life events. So then I go searching and often find information that confirms the inspiration was from such a situation. In the following case though, when I saw the movie "An American Tragedy" I was about twelve years old and it was my mother who told me about the real life case it was formulated from.
One of the most interesting back stories for films I've seen is the basis for the movie, "A Place in the Sun" with Taylor and Clift and its earlier filmed version. Oddly enough, before I ever saw the movie from the early 1950's, I had freakishly seen the 1931 film, "An American Tragedy" with Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney and Frances Dee. Taken of course from the eponymous novel by Theodore Dreiser, this was a hard hitting tale of ambition, desire and social mores, that was based on the life of Chester Gillette.
The true life tragedy occurred in similar respects to the book, play and films. Chester, son of missionaries, left home in Montana to find his fortune at his uncle's factory in in New York, wherein he met a fellow worker named Grace Brown with whom he started keeping company. Upon finding that she was pregnant in 1906, it appears his plan was to take her to the Adirondack Mountain area and the Arrowhead Hotel, and then to cause her death by drowning at Big Moose Lake, or so the police believed due to many clues and circumstances after the fact. It was believed that Chester had clubbed Grace in the boat with a tennis racket and thrown her body overboard. When she was found later with injuries relevant to such a scenario, Gillette was brought to trial and prosecuted for murdering Grace for which he was found guilty and died in the electric chair in 1908. One divergence from the actual situations was that in the movie, like APITS, the male implies he was planning to drown his paramour [as played by Shelley Winters] but began to relent and yet the boat rocked and she still fell overboard to her death]. Perhaps this was to make the love affair between Clift and Taylor seem less odious, but basically the story in both film versions follows the true story quite accurately, but with a few minor changes.
Dreiser seemed the perfect novelist to bring this tale to life, based on his own extramarital affairs and his basic philosophies of life like epitomized in the following quote:
"You walk into a room, see a woman and something happens. It's chemical. What are you going to do about it?
Though it was never exactly known what other woman was the instigation for Chester to kill his current girlfriend, some did identify a wealthy socialite named Harriet Benedict possibly as the motivating factor.
Being that true life is often more fascinating than fiction, tales based on such scandals are often quite enticing. If you have one that you found interesting, please share.
Surprisingly, there is a connection from this film in a Kevin Bacon kind of way, to another true life inspired film, since the father of Phillips Holmes was stage actor, Taylor Holmes, most famous to me as Ezra Grindle in the movie, "Nightmare Alley" and from that lies the parallel. If you can connect the dots and tell me what film I am talking about, I will bestow on you the Sine Qua Non Film Scholar of the Century award! -
Not in the sense of war films, but movies that never received numerous tv viewings or revivals for some reason.
For this category, I nominate the 1949 version of "The Great Gatsby" with Alan Ladd. Now after reading that book and having a professor who was obsessed with it and would talk about Owl Eyes and Daisy's voice sounding like money continually in class, he once said that he thought Alan Ladd was the most perfect choice to play Jay Gatsby of any actor.
This movie I believe was never much shown on tv due to a Paramount packaging deal, that some here probably know more about than I, which precluded it being in the group exhibited. It also never seems to be on any revival circuits and I've only seen bits of it online, but from what I've seen I'd love to see more. I have to admit that I'm not sure I will be thrilled with the casting of Daisy, Tom, Nick, Myrtle or other famous characters but I do see Ladd as being the epitome of a Gatsby type.Name another movie that is famous but still mostly unseen due to whatever, that prohibits it being shown, that deserves better.
-
2
-
-
6 minutes ago, Vautrin said:
I feel a little sorry for any guy named Wilmer, even if he was a jerk. One of my favorite parts
of The Maltese Falcon is the interplay between Gutman and Spade in the former's hotel room,
the whole I like to talk to a man who likes to talk to other men who like to talk, etc. Cracks me
up every time.
Snappy dialogue for sure and Bogart was always up to it, with that overlying commentary. Poor Elisha! My mother always said she felt sorry for him since he always looked worried, even as late as in the film "The House on Haunted Hill". To this day, I've always wondered if he was Junior, then just what did Elisha Cook, Senior look like? I think the time has come to find out, so excuse me while I go hunting him down online.
-
On 5/26/2018 at 5:47 PM, STRM2862 said:
I Was Just Looking To See Where Tiffany Vasquez Went, I Liked Her As Well! I Read That She’s No Longer On TCM, So If You’re Reading This, @tiffanyvasquez, BEST WISHES!! You WILL Be Missed!!
When I Entered Tiffany’s Name, I Saw A Few Rude Comments, One In Particular, From 2016, When Tiffany Was New. The Particular Post I Saw Was From Someone Who Actually Said, “We Hate Her!”
Seriously?! How Truly Rude & Sad That Anyone Could “Hate,” A Person She Doesn’t Even Know!! I Know It Was 2 Yrs. Ago, and Tiffany Was New, and Most Likely, A Bit Nervous, But Those Comments Are Uncalled For!!
I Haven’t Been On the Message Boards Much, But If Comments Like Those Are Common, I Don’t Think I Want To Be Part of A Community of SOME People Who Could Make Negative Comments About People They Don’t Even Know!!
Thankfully, It Looks Like MOST Comments Are POSITIVE!! But PLEASE, Let’s ALL Think About, and Watch, What We Say About Others!!! We Have Enough,...Actually TOO MUCH Negativity, and Disagreements, In Our Country Now!! This Should Be A Positive Forum To Speak About A Mutual Love of Films!! I HOPE We Can Keep It That Way!!!
If So, It Will Be A Pleasure To Be Part of the TCM Message Board Community!!
Thanks For Letting Me Speak My Mind!!!
Again,...GOOD LUCK In All Your Endeavors, Tiffany Vasquez!! You Will Be Missed!!
T'is true that speaking with venomous commentary does no one good and is in poor taste. But there is also the other side of criticism wherein people who are fine people, might take exception to someone hired for a position that they feel the person is unqualified for in essence. Perhaps some find it unkind to vent such remarks but then it is also unkind to not give a qualified person a position, by offering it to someone of lesser abilities. As I recall, that was the brunt of what constituted the sometimes seemingly less than complimentary posts about Tiffany, and was warranted I feel. If anyone would be able to tell if someone was knowledgeable enough about films to be commenting on them publically as a host, it is the majority of the crowd who hang out here at the TCM Forum. About 90% of such folks are major film buffs, know their facts without having to research anything and have the street credibility to be allowed to vent honest criticism about anything regarding moviedom, including tv hosts. If the host knows less than their audience, don't expect or demand simpering positivity, as that is just not understanding the motivation and trying to make it all seem unseemly. Without negativity, then all we would have in life is constant positivity which is why Rome fell, the inhabitants of Berlin liked the National Socialist party ideas without seeing the defects or how "Gunsmoke" stayed on tv for a few too many years. Happy talk may be good for tv weathercasts but not for getting quality in any circumstance by not allowing people to vent justly.
-
On 4/27/2018 at 1:56 PM, jimmymac71 said:
If I have FilmStruck, can I skip the introductions? I don't need the monthly schedule or any of these film-jockeys. Just play the movies. If I want more information, there is always the Internet and the TCM database.
Sometimes I feel the same way, Jimmymac!
-
On 4/27/2018 at 8:15 AM, rayban said:
I don't miss her.
Don't sugarcoat it, Rayban!
-
On 5/28/2018 at 6:57 AM, TomJH said:
David Niven was one of the great raconteurs who, for a while, during his early Hollywood years, shared a bachelor house with Errol Flynn. Here's a TV interview with Niven reporting on Flynn's fight with a stunt man. It's a famous anecdote which Niven would later write about in one of his books, Bring On The Empty Horses. It's interesting to see him briefly relate the tale in in person in this 1968 television interview. You can find the anecdote at the 6:35 mark of this video.
If anyone has any Niven or Flynn anecdotes, or any anecdotes in general about Hollywood and its many characters, who lived there during the studio days, please feel free to share a contribution here.
I always enjoyed the story about the gang who hung out with John Barrymore, like Flynn and company, stealing his body after he died and setting it up somewhere to be regaled by the group, sitting comfortably in a chair, as they partied in the edifice. Can't remember the whole story, but I might have read it in that book "Goodnight, Sweet Prince" or "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" but not sure. I think Gene Fowler was there but not sure about friends like Fields and Decker or Carradine.
-
On 5/29/2018 at 1:36 PM, Ray Faiola said:
It's Greenstreet. It was looped in studio as a "wild" insert.
Now, if you want oddball voices, watch some Universal films of the 1930's. Whenever a voice insert was needed, they would have one of the technicians (probably Bernard Brown himself - who else would have the gall) to dub in the line. This practice was rampant in the serials. The insert would sound NOTHING like the on-screen actor's voice (Lugosi was often victim to this heinous practice).
In HOLD THAT GHOST, Don Terry's voice is dubbed (only one line - "Wait a minute, we know our way around") by a virtual soundalike for Cliff Clark. Was it Cliff? He was shooting MOB TOWN on the lot.
Thanks, Ray but I just don't buy it.
One cannot just go on credits or the typical background story about such things. Let's use for example the case of the famous "Twilight Zone" episode, called "The Eye of the Beholder".
According to the credits, noted Actors Studio graduate, Maxine Stuart, was chosen to do all the scenes as the bandaged Janet Tyler, since she had a notable throaty and very intense voice. At the end of the episode, as we all know, the bandages come off, and the "ugly" Janet is revealed to be the beauteous, Donna Douglas of Elly Mae fame on "The Beverly Hillbillies". The "ugly" [but to us very handsome guy from the home for the unsuitable and unsurgically possible victims of their unattractiveness] fellow comes in to tell Janet Tyler [who is now being played by Donna] that she will enjoy her new home and she says something like "Why are we like this?" or whatever, and of course it was thought that she was dubbed by Maxine, since their voices are not the least alike.
But in actuality, Donna Douglas supposedly had been listening all during the filming and was able quite effectively to mimic the very unique voice of Maxine, and the production crew decided not to do the voiceover as a match, and left the voice of Douglas in. I always wait for this moment to listen and see if it really sounds right, and Donna does an excellent rendition, in fact much closer to Maxine's voice than the voice in the MF sounds like Greenstreet. Even this legendary story have some detractors but the version about Douglas has been confirmed by many, though maybe not Stuart.
So, I rest my case...and won't stop searching till I find definitive proof, or maybe contact Gutman from beyond the grave! -
On 5/28/2018 at 11:15 AM, Hoganman1 said:
Interesting. I think see where you want to go with this thread. There are many "mysteries" surrounding movies. One famous one is whether or not Shame slumps in the saddle and dies at the end. Another one is how did Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer) get out of his sick bed and beat Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) to the showdown with Johnny Ringo in Tombstone. Another thing that's always bothered me was that in The Untouchables (with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery) they killed Frank Nitti during the trial of Capone. History reveals that Nitti actually outlived Capone and ran his organization long after Capone was imprisoned as shown in the 60s TV show The Untouchables. I'm sure there are many more out there. I plan to give this some thought to see how many I can find.
You got it, Hoganman! Should we just believe all that we read in books and movie magazines or dig in when things don't seem to fit the bill? Movie mysteries are all around us, just waiting to be cracked open. Like for example, who is the Billy Gray listed in the credits of "Some Like It Hot" since it definitely does not seem to be the darling Bud Anderson of "Father Knows Best" fame. What exactly is stuck on the lamp in the bedroom scenes in "Dracula" with Helen Chandler. So many mysteries, so little time but I will uncover who was really the voice at the end of MF someday I'm sure. Thanks for your most sage post!
-
On 5/28/2018 at 2:15 AM, Sundance said:
The script has Greenstreet uttering the words "off camera" or CLOSEUP of the Bird.
The line,"it's a fake" shows Greenstreet uttering it on camera
but it's a shot which doesn't last long.
I agree, it does not sound like the "fatman", but keep in mind that he was very frustrated.
Hmmm...so the script says:
"GUTMAN
[hoarsely]
It's a fake!"
Are you implying, Sundance that it was father of actor, Lee Hoarsely, who played Matt Houston on tv?
Oh wait, he spelled it "Horsley".
Never mind...
-
On 5/26/2018 at 6:31 PM, Vautrin said:
It was Wilmer practicing his ventriloquism skills just before he slipped out the
back door.
Now that makes sense! I hate to brag but I have really great voice identification skills. I was the only one in my family who could tell on the phone, which twin was calling of my two cousins, who not even their mother could tell apart on the phone. And of course, I can usually tell celebrity voices on tv commercials plus I won 100 bucks once for betting a guy that the person singing the song, "Don't Let Go" was not Elvis, so hearing that Wilmer might have thrown his voice in the area of the falcon, makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Vautrin!
-
8 minutes ago, Sundance said:
Don't be sorry...I am glad to contribute to your thread.
I also got up late. And next time, I may need your help!
Though groggy, I still should be able to tell the difference between Nick and Dennis, but when I think of them back then I do think they sort of resembled each other with the blonde locks and all. Of course, Dennis lived a lot longer. Is the name Sundance, in honor of Redford, the film festival or Earl Holliman of the tv show, "Hotel de Paree", if you don't think it is too personal a question?
-
On 5/26/2018 at 7:32 AM, Jlewis said:
I have all three of Danny Peary's books on the subject published between 1981-1988, the golden age of VHS when you no longer had to pay a fortune to watch a certain title you were curious about by way of a 16mm catalogue or wait for some inner city "art house" theater to revive it. Obviously he did not invent the word, but he was the one who made it popular. All three books are excellent reads for any movie fan because he digs pretty DEEP into a lot of titles from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Wizard Of Oz and even the pornographic Beyond The Green Door. There is no cookie cutter definition for what a cult movie must be except that as many... or more... people enjoy it today than at the time of its release. Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory is a perfect example since only certain critics were discussing it back in 1971 (and not too favorably) but most of the family audiences it was intended for did not warm to it until after enough showings on TV built up a fan base. Both Citizen Kane and Casablanca made the cut for this same reason, but Gone With The Wind did not because it was always a mammoth part of the cultural landscape since Day #1. Likewise Disney's Fantasia made the cut but not Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs or Bambi, although the latter could potentially be a cult film since it merely broke even initially at the box-office in 1942. Yet because Bambi is so much a part of the Disney story book franchise, it can't be a cult. A cult generally is something that needs rediscovery after being ignored for a couple years. Many would debate if John Ford's The Searchers should have been included since it was a profitable film even in 1956, just not one discussed much by Ford fans until the 1970s. Intriguingly Annie Hall also is included in one of the later books even though one would argue it is the least "cult"-like of all of Woody Allen's films, being a Best Picture winner (like Casablanca).
I have all three of those books too, and when written he really did have a good handle on what constituted a "cult" film, with things like "Deep End", "A Boy and His Dog" et cetera.
-
1
-
Movie Mysteries
in General Discussions
Posted
Honest to Gloria Blondell, I love all movies of Tod Browning. His love of carny folk and ability to show them as people and not objects, in films like "Freaks" and all his other wonderful classics, is testament to his character in my book. Love his absolute fondness for the seeming weird and outre, and general mien at producing such distinctive films, unlike any others of the time.