Palmerin

do the gangster films of such as Ford Coppola and Scorsese qualify as noir? A complaint about DOUBLE INDEMNITY: what's with Stanwyck's wig? Anybody can see that is not real hair!

RED FLAG!: Ball could not sing even one phrase without running out of breath. If I had been the producer, that unfortunate circumstance would have been enough of a warning to make me change the casting of the lead role. Who is going to watch a musical whose star cannot sing??? Newton-John and Travolta in GREASE certainly could sing.

I dread watching the 007 movies on basic cable because bits and pieces of the action scenes get trimmed off. Do they actually think that those missing bits are not noticed by fans who have watched those flicks countless times???

Obviously the people of that station did not care about the importance of setting up an story properly: introducing the characters, explaining their motivation, building up the suspense, etc.

George Cukor was no Vincente Minnelli. Basically all he did was nail the camera to the floor, and have the actors move in front of it.

Back in the 1970s, when WAPA TV--then and today the principal network of Puerto Rico--presented a movie on prime time, the prudent thing to do was to watch the movie in its premiere, because afterwards the network would start pruning it without mercy. The second time WAPA TV broadcast NORTH BY NORTHWEST IT CUT OUT COMPLETELY THE SEQUENCE OF THE PLANE CHASING ROGER THORNHILL!!! What similar outrages do you recall?

OK, the question again: what motivated Halliwell's perplexing statement about child actors in the 1970s? To mention only four, I remember Mark Lester, Fiona Fullerton, Linda Blair, and Tatum O'Neal very well.

And why wouldn't the public be angry? Julie Andrews OWNED that role!

Regarding the failure of many musicals of the 1970s, I suspect that much of the reason for their dismal performance was that they were OLD FASHIONED: id est, made according to a formula that was showing its age. Consider the success of CABARET, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, GREASE, and FLASHDANCE, all of them musicals that broke new ground in their music, choreography, and storytelling.

Credit should be given to Ball for wanting to create an appealing piece of family entertainment at a time when more adult fare dominated cinema. That naturally leads to the question of why so much family entertainment of the time, such as Fleischer's DOCTOR DOLITTLE, was so bad. It seems family entertainment did not get back on its feet until 1977, when STAR WARS came along. I personally suspect it was because so much of it was addressed to a kindergarten mentality, whereas SW appealed to a more developed mentality.

That is where I read it. Remind me how a title is changed, please. How about: THE FORGOTTEN CONTEMPORARIES OF JODIE FOSTER?

MAKE ONE OR TWO APPEARANCES AND THEN ESSENTIALLY RETIRE? Why? Was their experience of filmmaking that disheartening? That certainly was not the case with Jodie Foster.

Leslie Halliwell, in one of the early issues of his THE FILMGOER'S COMPANION, pointed out that, in the 1970s, child actors were poorly regarded--that even outstanding performers such as the boy who played THE GO-BETWEEN did not receive the career nourishment that built up the reputations of such as Temple and Bartholomew. Why was that the case? Haven't child actors always been a favorite part of show business?

What about Robert Preston? Preston is a Broadway legend; his Professor Harold Hill is one of the classic characters of musical comedy. Surely at some moment he must have realized that MAME was bound for disaster, and that he could do nothing to save it. At that time in Puerto Rico, Rafael Pont Flores--a humor columnist, not a film critic, mind you--liked the movie so much that he wrote an enthusiastic review that concluded with: !GRACIAS, LUCILLE BALL! Encouraged by this plaudit, I paid to see the movie; long before its end I was asking myself: What the bloody blue blazes??? This can't be the movie that Pont Flores liked so much!!!

what is this movie supposed to be? If a comedy like I DREAM OF JEANNIE, it's neither witty nor cute; if a fantasy like I MARRIED A WITCH, it's neither imaginative nor fanciful. What it is is a waste of the talents of Stewart, Novak, Lemmon, Kovacs and Lanchester.

The same can be said of THE WIZ. Why didn't its producers cast a newcomer with the talent of a Garland, instead of forcing Diana Ross to play a grown woman with the mind of a child?

The hippie style was so sweet, particularly when decorated with a head band. How do you feel about the most masculine hair of all: the beard and moustache? My jerk of a stepfather, who had a million different prejudices, actually thought that bearded men were effeminate!

The big mistake of MAME is conceiving the character as a Lucy Ricardo type buffoon; anyone who has read the book can tell you that is a total distortion of Dennis' creation. As for the music, WE WANT A LITTLE CHRISTMAS is the sorriest excuse for a Xmas carol ever; only the loutish chorale at the conclusion of the second HOME ALONE is even more loud and garish. Both pieces simply try too hard to be Christmas-y.

The ugly hairdos and fashions of the 1930s are such an eyesore that they make it very difficult for me to watch movies from that period; the same applies to the 1950s and the 1960s. The hairdos of the 1940s, on the other hand, are so attractive that sometimes I keep the TV on a movie I'm not actually watching just to admire the beauty of the women in it; Laraine Day certainly looked cute in the DR. KILDARE movies that were broadcast months ago. One famous hair fashion victim of the 1960s is Queen Mother Sophia of Spain, who has stuck all her life to the Jacqueline Kennedy helmet, even though it went out of fashion decades ago. Really a pity, for she is a handsome woman. Let's not forget male fashions. Do all Mafiosi really wear the greasy slicked back style so noticeable in THE GODFATHER, GOODFELLAS and CASINO? (Goodness, the women in all those movies really have UGLY hair!)

I'm thinking also men's fashions; I just emphasize female fashions because, as a rule, they are the more flamboyant.

Judging from the shows you have watched over the years, which decade had the best hair styles? I personally go gaga over the fashions of GILDA and her contemporaries; long abundant hair is so sexy! In my opinion, Doris Day looked better in her early years, when she wore her hair long; the shorter hairdos for which she is best known were not as flattering.

The first time I saw this movie was in a small black and white set, which means that the shock effect of Albright's painting in color was totally lost, much to my regret. Has anybody here seen it in person? I understand that seeing it up close is a startling experience.

I'm glad that my inquiry about Frank Morgan inspired so much interest. Regarding men's appearance, let me tell you my story. When I was a teenager, I had a very round girlish face that attracted the attention of some very unpleasant looking men. Wishing to stop such unwelcome advances, I grew a full beard. Now I'm 60, and tired of being unemployed. On the advice of my job search counselor, I--extremely reluctantly--shaved my beard. So whom do I see in the mirror after my shave? The round faced girlish boy of 40 years ago. It seems that, if I were an actor, I would be able to pull off Lionel Barrymore's trick of playing the son of Lillian Gish.

Watching the pre-WIZARD OF OZ movies that were presented in the day dedicated to him I came to realize that Morgan was really quite a handsome impressive man, with bright eyes and a warm smile. Was he a romantic leading man early in his career?