Vautrin

Yes. I also don't think Bette would have taken a supporting role, especially to Joan Crawford. Things worked out very well with Eleanor Parker.

According to the Wiki entry on Caged, both Crawford and Davis were possibilities. Bette turned it down because she didn't want to appear in a "dyke" film. Good ol' Mother *******.

I never realized that TCM was a hotbed of left wing agitprop.

War films are hell.

These kinds of films do lend themselves to campiness, and this one in particular. One can still view it straight up as most of the original audience likely did or one can appreciate the camp aspects of it as a modern audience probably does. Either way it's a well done movie with good performances.

As much as I dislike Hoover, I doubt the rumors that he wore dresses are true. Now whether his friendship with Tolson went beyond friendship is something we will likely never know for sure. But there is no doubt that Hoover collected information on famous people, especially politicians. That's one reason that LBJ supposedly said he'd rather have Hoover inside the tent ******* out than outside the tent ******* in. I know that Burt was bi. When just a little lad I spied Burt giving Ty Power a ******* in the bushes by the back of my house. Of course at the time I didn't know who they were. It was only many years later that I recognized them from their movie appearances. You just never know.

He should have done that with Woody Allen instead.

I know Caged is probably supposed to be a serious look at the problems in women's prisons, but to me it's one of the campiest noirs around, much thanks to Hope Emerson's character. I think last week Eddie said people should be munching on some popcorn while watching it. Wouldn't a box of assorted chocolates and a few old movie magazines be more appropriate companions.

Burt and Kirk were lovers for a short while. In fact Burt was the one who deepened the dimple in Kirk's chinny chin chin.

Even a character with a rather ambiguous and perhaps surreal story line has to perform the usual bodily functions. Maybe that is also why some of the pool owners weren't too happy to see him. Look out, here comes pee pee Merrill again. And yes, that storm came at the right time. Water washes away "water." Maybe one of the themes of this is that we must pay due attention to the whole person--mentally, spiritually, and physically.

That reminds me. This guy has been running, walking, and swimming for hours yet he never relieves himself. Maybe he took a quick whiz in one of the pools, maybe in the public pool as payback for the humiliation he was forced to go through. The rainstorm at the end seems a bit contrived. I would have it gradually get darker and then completely dark and just have the sound of Ned's running on the soundtrack and then The End.

Bingo. TCM is just one more institution trying to corrupt innocent minds with thoughts of sex and other naughty things. It's right there in just about everything they do. Take the "Wine Club." You don't really think it's all about paring a certain wine with a certain movie. Wake up. It's really about getting people so blotto that they lose their inhibitions and can't wait to get it on. They're rolling around on the couch before the opening credits are over. TCM=Transgressing Chaste Minds. Parents beware.

I would agree. Of course the plot is somewhat opaque, though that doesn't stop people making judgments about Ned. As I said I find him, for the most part, a sympathetic character. There aren't a whole lot of funny moments in the film, but I got a laugh out of the pool Nazi, who made Ned take a shower and then subjected him to a clean foot inspection. We had a public pool in my town when I was a kid and thankfully we didn't have a character like that.

I guess it was a mental institution with a pool. The story is pretty open ended, so everyone can decide what they see in it. I found him to be a fairly sympathetic figure, though not a wholly sympathetic one, and I see him as more sinned against than sinning. I'll have to go back and read the original short story as it's been a while.

Beatniks were a little stale by '64, so Ned is looking forward to the hippies. With his love of the outdoors, he could start his own commune. I like the look of the spaces, so I do it on purpose.

I'll have to take a look. I just happened to hit upon Women in Love while fiddling around in YT a few days ago. I did enjoy the nudity of Glenda Jackson more than that of Reed and Bates, though all three were in top physical form.

Yeah, one saw a whole lot of Burt. If one wants to take a more realistic approach, mention is made of Ned losing his job and having marital problems, though that doesn't explain the ending very well. On a more allegorical note, a lot of interpretations are possible. I doubt this one was in the original story from 1964, but I kind of like it--Ned is tired of his affluent vanilla world and is swimming away from it to become a proto hippie. What makes the story even more strange is that Ned's wife is present at the very beginning when people are talking about having hangovers.

I've seen it maybe four or five times before and I give it credit for still being interesting after one knows the twist ending. It still moves along at a nice little pace. I never gave a thought to Marie Windsor after she was killed. Things were happening so fast that she is pretty much forgotten. The lot of a policewoman is not an easy one.

I remember seeing it a number of years ago and being mildly interested. I enjoyed it more this time, though I don't see it as a cult film. I thought I spied Cheever in a very brief scene at the party. I did a little googling and it was Cheever. Ned is sort of the usual suspect in upper class Cheeverland, but it's obvious that a number of things have gone wrong. The movie did add a lot of characters not in the 12 page short story. When I saw the N for Nudity I thought it might concern Burt and his former babysitter. Turned out to be the two old fogies and the south end of Burt. Bummer man.

Though there was nothing on TCM from the festival, there are still a number of photo galleries from the festival under the Community-Classic Film Festival tab. Judging from them, TCM still has a way to go in getting young folks to attend the festival.

I'm always skeptical of studio era stars' IQs. It's not that there is any contradiction between being a movie star and having a high IQ, but that it seems too much like more PR puffery that the studios were so good at. Yeah, she plays a dumb blonde, but she has a genius level IQ. Sure.

A 172 IQ. Guess she's no Jayne Mansfield.

Fairly entertaining flick, though the "dead ringer" angle is a bit on the corny side. And putting the scar on the wrong side of his face. D'uh. Joan Bennett playing a distant cousin of her lazy legs character in Scarlet Street. Enjoyable. I was amused by the crook doing a bit of studying and picking up on the psychoanalysts' lingo. Yah, you have de von Hummingbird Syndrome mit a touch of de Persephone complex. I can help you, but first you must all de clothes off taken. The Code ruins this a little since you know that in the end Henreid must pay for his crimes and die. Sort of cuts out the suspense.

He was up to 57,000+ posts before his posts stopped. Maybe he decided to go for 100,000, which he might have reached by the end of this year.