CaveGirl
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Posts posted by CaveGirl
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13 minutes ago, NickAndNora34 said:
I always liked the use of the mirrors towards the end of The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Rita Hayworth shoots the mirrors right in front of her and the camera work is great. Makes you feel all sorts of ways. The way they filmed with the mirrors all over the place and shattering/moving really emphasizes the action and intensity of the scene.
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Brilliant choice; thanks, N&N!
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36 minutes ago, Dargo said:
Hey CG! Young Bobby here has a question for ya about all this...
"You talkin' to ME?"
What an iconic scene! I only got tired of it when a husband of a friend of mine, would imitate it every time you said hi to him, for about five years and wore out its welcome in my lexicon. DeNiro's take on that is brilliant and so psychologically disturbing.
I wonder if DeNiro will use it in the upcoming Lifetime movie "The Michael Cohen Story", when he plays Robert Mueller?
Thanks, Dargo! -
36 minutes ago, TopBilled said:
On Saturday I will be posting my review about Robert Siodmak's THE DARK MIRROR in the Essentials forum.
Olivia de Havilland plays twins in the movie and Siodmak makes excellent use of mirror images.
Wonderful, TB! Love that Siodmak movie and so looking forward to your review.
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On 4/13/2018 at 1:22 AM, Stephan55 said:
It always makes me smile with disbelief when I hear a bunch of Bachelor and Bachelorette fanatics go on and on about that "reality" show.
Trying to inject any rationale into such a "conversation" is akin to when I used to waste my time talking to some of my old acquaintances who avidly believed that everything they saw in "perfessnal rasslin" ("professional" wrestling) was real too!
Or those that believed anything (and everything) in tabloid "news" print (i.e. the National Enquirer) was the gospel truth.
What? I don't understand, Stephan. Are you trying to lie and say that the "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" shows are not on the up and up? Next you will be saying that the "64,000 Question' was fixed and that Rita Hayworth didn't do her own singing in films. For shame!
Why are you so cynical? Not everything in life is fake ya know and by the way my dear uncle used to be a "professional wrestler" and he said every fall he took and every umbrella he was hit with by some old lady outside the ring was real...so there!
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On 4/16/2018 at 2:35 AM, skimpole said:
OK, Solaris was supposed to have started eighteen minutes ago. But some moron in programming thought it would be a good to run the four version of Greed as if they were running the two hour version. And then some other moron thought they'd just ignore the fact that they booked Solaris. So what is going on? I don't appreciate this kind of incompetence, and I don't appreciate having to watch foreign language films in the middle of the night.
Uh, they booked my copy of "Solaris" a few months ago, but I shall have to take the blame for them playing "Greed" instead.
It was stuck way far back in my hall closet with all my other Tarkovsky films, and I went to get it last week and my doggie, Yuri grabbed it and chewed through the jewel case, and basically destroyed it just like he was a canine version of the KGB, so I could not ship it to TCM in time for the scheduled showing.
Sorry...-
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On 4/16/2018 at 1:27 PM, Goalieboy82 said:
Uh, where's Donald O'Connor?
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Well, you must have the Golden Touch or are related to someone important, if just by complaining you can watch things magically reappear, Spence.
Share the Power with the People!
Back later to work on answering your post. My mind is currently not up to the task due to watching too much news.-
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Wow, Ebaillargeon! A topic I've never really thought about but I admire your esoteric interest in bringing it up.
Any movie related topic is so much fun to delve into, especially one like this. Unfortunately, up till now I have paid short shrift to gas stations in films, but now I see the fun of it and have enjoyed reading all the posts. Sadly the only gas station in films I remember being so classy, does not fit your time period as it is the one in "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" which is a delight. I think it was an ESSO but could be wrong.
Great thread! -
I have always been fascinated by mirrors. One of my earliest memories was of looking at a stereoptiscope card from the 1890's which had a room depicted with the three stages of a female's life, with mirrors reflecting each period of her kissing a puppy love admirer, marrying a suitor and taking care of a baby. The reflections of each vignette showed other details in the room, from differing angles and it was a bit eerie to view, as if one was entering the Victorian paradise. So it is natural perhaps that I have also been attracted to the usage of mirrors in films.
Narcissus might seem to be a starting point and pioneer, in the concept of admiring a self image, though it be in water. Reflective surfaces of any kind are a bit mystical. Artificial mirror entities date from around 6200 BCE and were found near Turkey of polished obsidian. The Egyptians believed each person had a double called Ka and some think they put mirrors in tombs to preserve the Ka, which they felt was the double discovered in the mirror's reflection. By 1000 BCE, mirrors had proliferated all over the world. I saw some ancient ones of bronze and silver in an Etruscan museum in Italy, along with tales of their magic as talismans.
In later centuries, the mysticism of Roman scryers continued concerning the mirror's properties, being that they were known as Specularii, from the Latin for mirror. Shakespeare continued in entertainment and stage form many of the symbolic beliefs with witches using magic and mirrors in things like "Macbeth". Even in recent times of a century past, for some it was thought that a mirror in a home of a recently deceased person should be covered to protect the living.
Mirrors [or reasonable facsimiles] have been objects for scrying, observing, grooming, reflecting, conjuring, distorting, and probing the universe since time immemorial. No wonder they are often components of films since they add a verisimilitude of daily life to the entertainment. Used in American funhouses for the vox populi or in places like the Musee Grenin in Paris, they exist seemingly so one can seek infinity in a hexagonal mirrored room. Things like a Mystic Maze where three large mirrors equilaterally spaced can turn a few people into a crowd, seem very suited to film tricks. And as a staged spectacle, even King Louis XIV regaled his subjects with his Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. Hence it seems that it is a natural progression that those making films would also be intrigued by the use of mirrors as adjuncts to pure cinematic realizations of life.
For this reason, I ask you which movies have attracted you due to the usage of some form of mirrors or reflective surfaces in the architecture of the film, or the storyline? Sorry it took so long to get to the point but there is so much history with mirrors and their connection to human illusion and reality.
I have two films which I enjoy with mirror or mirror-like content. The first is "Dead of Night" which has the totally straightforward mirror motif of the haunted mirror which portends disaster, and mental aberrations in one who looks into it, with the newly wed husband succumbing in dire fashion. My second choice is a bit more abstruse, being that the use of mirror images or reflections in Jacques Tati's "Playtime" freakishly is the only way the City of Light can be viewed in the ostensible following of tourists visiting Paris. Only by reflection in doors and other such mirrorlike, glass surfaces are the famous buildings viewed. This anomaly of normal film standards sets this film apart and makes it one of the most unique and revelatory films for me, which can be viewed purely on a surface level or in this subtext mode. So it mirrors reality but we see reality in it only through the mirror darkly.
I look forward to any films with mirrors or mirror-like forms that have caught your attention, that you would like to share. -
Love that movie! Both of them actually. The dance sequence is so bizarre and well, everything else too. Haven't seen it for awhile but would welcome a drive-in theatre showing to see it in its proper milieu. Ray Dennis Steckler is definitely a one of a kind director. Those wacky Lemon Grove kids films are probably one of a kind too.
What was the bit about RFABB starting out with a different title as I recall? My brain is not functioning well today to recall the situation.Even the bit with the good looking woman with the warts on her face is totally a one of a kind experience! Is Steckler still alive? Haven't thought about him for awhile. If so, he really should make a new movie and if dead, well he really should make a new movie!!!
Thanks, Cigar Joe!
Addendum: Just checked IMDB and it started out as and "and Boo Boo" and typographically ended up as "a Boo Boo" for the title. -
Oh, lordie! That scene with Jack Nicholson doing his best Walter Denton/Richard Crenna imitation still cracks me up today!
I don't think I would enjoy any movie scene with dental tools, now that I think about it.Yikes!
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Gotcha!
You thought I was referring to the classic Roger Corman film, with Paul Birch as the alien who had to wear sunglasses to hide his interplanetary origins, also with the great Beverly Garland [before she became a syrupy mother figure on "My Three Sons"], Jonathon Haze of Seymour fame with his plant Audrey, Junior and the King, Dick Miller!
Well, you can talk about that amazing film that I loved as a kid, but really I am talking about my visions of what people here probably really look like. I see so many names that I feel so familiar with, but then I realize I probably have an image that is so off and maybe not even of the same sex as the poster really inhabits in their true persona. I will envision one poster as a Merle Oberon lookalike and then find out later that they are a dead ringer for Wally Cox.
T'is true that apparently a few posters really do put their real mug on their photo, but they are few and far between not that I am castigating them for not doing that, as it really is probably the wisest route to take, due to so many nutjobs on the Internet.
I'll think someone from the way they post, must resemble Ernest Truex or Irving Bacon and then realize they are the double of Guy Madison. Someone seems like they might be Argentina Brunetti's twin and they end up looking like the Weinie King from "The Palm Beach Story". The tough guy you think would be akin to Rocky Marciano on steroids ends up looking like Arnold Stang and the femme fatale turns out not to be a mirror image of Marilyn Maxwell or even Beverly Michaels but looks more like Frieda Inescort, not that this is a bad thing.
Do you ever get that spooky feeling that if you really encountered some people here whose names you see everyday, that you would be mightily surprised? Any particular posters who really have confounded you in envisioning their true appearance due to them being so mysteriously enchanting? Please share...I won't tell a soul!
Just think, we could even have a true celebrity on here, that we are not aware of. Why there could also be famous criminals using the site to think up escape routes from the slammer and who knows what else. They could certainly learn a lot about making it out of the Big House if they watch a lot of TCM!
And if there are aliens from other planets hanging out around Groom Lake, they could do worse than monitor this board to see what are common thoughts and feelings of the typical American resident. If you see any trucks with seed pods entering your town tonight, then you might want to check your basement for any replicas of you and members of your family, unless you would like a visit from Doctor Miles Bennell.-
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On 3/16/2018 at 3:13 PM, papyrusbeetle said:
If there ever was a movie about DISASTER, this is it.
When it came out, critics commented that perhaps it was Communist propaganda.
Seen today, it is at times beautiful, crazy, and horrifying. It's just the U.S. CONGRESS.
but it is a "noir" vision of the U.S. CONGRESS that no one has ever come close to.
strangest of all, they didn't know it WAS "noir".
Listen to Dr. Drew Casper's audio commentary and you will know what TERROR is.!
I just want to say that anyone who uses quotes by Rafael Sabatini, is a wonderful person, Papyrusbeetle!
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Well, this must be the new wave as I too have watched TCM while in the dental chair. My dentist though gives you earphones so I could watch all the Joe E. Brown flicks I want if possible.
Can you imagine watching "Marathon Man" with the dental scene that brings to mind experiments with Josef Mengele while having dental work done?
I also have watched TCM at my car dealership. The morons there supposedly always put on the same dang channel on in the waiting room, day after day and I would invariably end up sitting there with three strangers watching that horribly loud "Let's Make a Deal" every time. Then, my primary car physician commiserated with my issue and told me where they hid the remote in the waiting room. The next time I was there, I stole it and secreted it under the pages of the day's newspaper. It was from the same cable company I had so I knew how to change channels. Right as they went to commercial I switched the channel to TCM to a nice Bogart movie. I looked around innocently at the faces of the zombies in the waiting room and they all looked a bit perplexed, but you know how people are. They will accept anything. I had a nice time watching this great b&w movie and when I was leaving switched the channel back to Headline News.
I also have watched TCM in the back of a limo going to a catered affair. TCM goes well with champagne!
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Just in case these two don't work out, I hear Max Headroom is looking for a new gig!
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On 3/26/2018 at 7:03 PM, cigarjoe said:
I'm just throwing this out there, but don't you think our classic movie heritage as curated by TCM preserves a view of America seen through rose colored glasses, that wasn't quite truthful, isn't quite real, it sort of whitewashes everything. Continually reinforcing a false past, and always having happy endings isn't quite helpful, when you know it was never like that. You could say all this culminates into folks trying to make that fantasy real, a Disneyland version of America,
This is why some folks go balistic when TCM programs movies from the 1960's onwards, it doesn't fit their fairytale views.
I know the bulk of films TCM controls is from the Classic Hollywood Era, but do you see what I'm getting at, replaying the same old same old is just positive reinforcement of an ideal that never really was.
I think you are dead on!
I don't know if this is intent oriented subversion, or just occurs because let's face it, the majority of films, particularly American made, do preach that type of stance. Maybe more films like "Blue Velvet" by Lynch which start off showing the classic American apple pie scene, but then descend into a subterranean level with a close-up view of the true sordid underbelly would alter that view if visualized more in films.
This is a bit off topic, but I just read an article about Martin Luther King in "Time" magazine called something like "The Whitewashing of MLK" or such which reflects on something similar to your thought process. It concerns how the holiday is celebrated with much patting on backs and feeling of accomplishment in the public sector and promulgated on media outlets, while perhaps the true steps toward equality are still not where they should be. That too is a replaying of some victories of the movement, but not a true reflection of what really was accomplished.
I will say TCM does show some off the wall films, but more would be impressive. Great topic by the way!-
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No.
I've probably entered the realm of the obscurantist in trying to explain my terms. "Incubus" to my knowledge [and I could be wrong] is the only film done in Esperanto. That would make it one of a kind in my book.
"Angry Red Planet" is the only film with large sections of film tinted or colored or whatever a bright red color. That would make it one of a kind.I'm looking for films which have one element that sets them apart from all others, which might have some similarities in other aspects. Let's say you have the typical antebellum film set in the South, with all the Southern belles and lots of carpetbaggers and other common elements of the genre, but this one film also has a giant ape in it, which can play Beethoven on the pianoforte. See, up till the ape it is not a Sine Qua Non film by my definition but with the addition of that enchanting character, it then becomes a Sine Qua Non film.
I am glad you have never encountered ennui while watching films. This first began occurring after I watched the film "Dead of Night" in an endless loop one evening, and had a dream I had entered the haunted mirror scene with the murder occurring in the reflection. There are so many movies I don't even have to watch but can close my eyes and recount the whole scenario slipping in front of my eyes scene by scene. Some movies I want to end in different ways, if I just watch enough, for example in "Vertigo" it is obvious that Scotty could not really have saved himself from the roof ledge, if the policeman offering a hand fell over him, so in that film, I realize that the whole following storyline is just Scotty dreaming it all on the way to his death from the roof. There is no Madeleine Elster, or Midge or spiral French twist, as none of that occurred. Knowing that Scotty is dead and we are only into the first few minutes of the film, gives me ennui. Be glad you don't have it...
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2 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
Please don't see the O'Brien \ Bogie \ Sheridan film The Great O'Malley where Pat plays Crabby Appleto to a T.
On-line therapy wouldn't be enough after that experience.
I could only bear to watch that abomination once, due to it having that adorable Sybil Jason in it!!!
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On 4/9/2018 at 9:02 PM, Swithin said:
I like Maude Adams.
Excuse me, Swithin?
That would be the Maude Adams, born in the 1870's and who starred on the stage in the early 1900's as Peter Pan, her most famous role??? She was quite dishy and I appreciate all her beautiful stage photos in my book "The History of the Stage". To this day I would kill to see her only appearance on film, in a screen test done for Selznick in the 1930's.
I would have thought with your predilections that you would have been more attracted to Maud Adams, who appeared in "Rollerball" and "Octopussy".
Thanks for the insights into your psyche! -
12 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
While O'Brien could be rather 'flat' in some of his performances he could be very animated; E.g. The Front Page or Torrid Zone (where he goes toe-to-toe with Cagney). In many of the other films O'Brien did with Cagney, the character O'Brien played was more low key by 'nature'. E.g Angel with Dirty Wings. I.e. the energy level O'Brien channeled to those characters was the right level for the character. That is the basic job of a secondary-leading man; to provide a counter balance to the lead actor.
You're right, James. I probably took the easy way out for explaining why I don't care for Pat without really extrapolating on it. I think he totally reminds me of an old man who lived in my neighborhood who was a know-it-all, loud mouthed curmudgeon, who was right wing and used to lord it over all the kids and tell them what they were allowed to think about everything. He would also yell at you if your ball went over his fence into his yard. We called him Crabby Appleton. That is who Pat O'Brien reminds me of, and this must be why I don't care for him in films. Your points about Pat's persona in films is right on! You're a scholar and a gentleman.
Excuse me while I go continue my online therapy...-
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After watching way too many films, one reaches a point where they almost know every plotline and every rejoinder which can be offered by the protagonist in a movie. One reaches a state of ennui, and then, miraculously some wacky film comes on unexpectedly and can renew all your enjoyment in films.
For me that day came when the film, "Incubus" came on from 1960. Having had a friend who was not only a Mensa member, but raised bonzai plants, and wanted to learn Esperanto, I could relate totally to this film and its weird storyline and lack of language that was accessible in a normal way. Plus...it starred William Shatner and he just can work the rust off any script with his amazing visual pyrotechnics of emoting, and eye movements! I'd heard of the film but to catch it on the cuff accidentally was pure joy and better than a shot of adrenaline.
Other movies which are similarly one of a kind might be something like "Angry Red Planet". What makes it so fun is seeing it with people who are not film fans, on their television, and they keep thinking that the color settings are screwed up and try to fix them continually. Is there anything more enjoyable than watching someone keep altering the green hues on the screen interminably while you can just sit back and laugh? No!
A Sine Qua Non Film, which in my meaning denotes something "without which none" as my Latin nun used to call it, and it can be the most high class and sophisticated film around or a Grade Z monstrosity with Arch Hall, Junior but it still is one of a kind.
Please submit any films which if they didn't exist, their genre would also not exist. For example, "Angry Red Planet" is in the "Carmen-Tinted Sci-Fi Programmer" category. Get it? -
Faith and begorrah only a fine person could have found something positive in my woebegone tale of bar incitements, TP! I'm sure you are right though...
Later after the O'Brien conversation, we talked with the locals from the south, about my great-great-great aunts, who looked like Dame May Whitty and Una O'Connor, and who had received a letter from Ireland in 1920 or so, thanking them for contributing so generously to the IRA in their time of need. I made a big hit with that story. They were from County Cork and pro-IRA.-
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I think you have made a great choice here in honoring Wayne Morris, Spence. So often actors in films who seemed to only get the chance for minor or subsidiary roles are forgotten, yet you have chosen to give a fine delineation of the many facets of his career. Often just not getting the breaks at crucial times can end a career.
Another fascinating aspect of your post, is to spotlight how ironic it is that often the people who are the real heroes in life, would never be chosen to play the self same type of hero in a movie. And the person chosen to play the movie, might be the one who would be running away and crying like a baby if they were really faced with real life tragedies or danger. Irony of irony, but art doesn't imitate life and movies are the proof of that.
Fine exegesis and I enjoyed reading all your research about Morris, though I did know a teensy weensy bit of it beforehand from reading way too many books on character actors in films. Thanks, Spence for sharing! -
Speaking of Pat O'Brien, reminds me of the time I was in a bar in Dublin with some American tourists and one brought up the name of Pat O'Brien and there was loud booing and insults being hurled [ along with some bottles of Guinness] as the local boys basically said they hated, despised and abhorred Pat O'Brien because they were sick of seeing him portray the Irish in films, particularly since he was US born and bred and to them was a ridiculous cliche of an lad of Ireland, and they found him corny, annoying and also called him too right wing to be a true fellow Irishman. I found it hilarious that just his name had stirred up such antagonism and ridicule.
I did always find him boring though in films mostly, and this would why I might think he is not highly regarded now as an icon?
NEW HOSTS DAVE KARGER AND ALICIA MALONE...
in General Discussions
Posted
"permagrin"?
Who coined that, as I've encountered this style of Moonie reaction to everything a few times in my life. It is very disconcerting. I had one such person smile continually at me [with a giant dental grin that looked like Conrad Veidt in "The Man Who Laughs" film] that was denying my request for a replacement of a defective dvd at some big giant conglomerate store, even though I had a receipt. I finally said to her "Why are you smiling?" I think she was an alien or a follower of Warren Jeffs. I finally had to ask for a manager with a normal facial position who also had no idea why she was smiling but asked her why she was refusing my valid refund. And she still kept smiling. Creepy!
Not that I think this new male host is any way near that overly happy. He just seems a little more happy than most, but admittedly not a good look for introducing "The Sorrow and the Pity".
It's true, Robert Osborne had just the right amounts of humor, seriousness, and all other attributes that made for a great host. Too many people make the intros about showing off or being a know it all, but he always seemed really just interested in sharing a film with others. Not criticizing the new hosts though for anything as they seem acceptably okay.