Vautrin

Didn't Shane get into a hellacious fistfight that left him bleeding from the mouth? I also think Jean Arthur attended to his injuries. If I recall it correctly, Joe Buck, mad at all the robocalls he was getting, ground the telephone into John McIver's mouth so hard that it drew blood.

Only some movies? I think movie fans are used to the unbelievability of many movies and just take it as part of the package, though it's still fun to point out some of the more unrealistic parts. Maybe another reason I've never caught this film is the two and a half hour running time, but I'm in good shape for the Veterans' Day showing. Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood are a bit of an unusual paring. Burton talked to empty chairs when he was drunk, Clint when he was sober.

Zeta came along and knocked down the bottom half of a tree whose top half was destroyed by a storm about a year ago. Now I have a large flat low stump. I'll have to find some heavy piece of statuary to fill it up. At least I got some firewood out of the whole deal. Mother Nature can be mean.

I know it seems to be shown fairly often, but I've never hit the schedule right. I'm going to try to catch it this time around.

Maybe this year they're going with The Good War theme. Every war after WWII is on a much smaller scale and with less glorious results. I've seen all of them except for Where Eagles Dare so maybe I'll watch that one if I'm in the mood.

I've seen it a few times before. The general spooky atmosphere and visuals are more impressive than the plot or characters, which are occasionally on the weak side. I can certainly understand Jacqueline hiding out. If I had that hairdo I'd do the same thing, though suicide was going a bit too far. And the Satanists were the most gentle and unassuming devil worshipers I can recall in a movie. Hard to get very worked about about them. So Beaumont is married to Mary's older sister and then in a few days falls in love with her, despite being much older. That struck me as a bit odd, though in Hollywood it's not much of a big deal. How fortunate that Jacqueline decided to commit a self-induced big sleep and make it easier for the kids to live happily ever after. All in all though, despite its limitations, I enjoy this film for its overall weirdness and the fact that it only runs 71 minutes doesn't hurt.

I remember seeing a few of Connery's Bond movies in the theater. It was a big deal back in the day. Of course he had a lot of good roles in addition to Bond, but that's always what he will be remembered for. It may sound silly, but I always feel a little better when the person who died made it past their birthday that year, and 90 is a nice round number. I always got a kick out of Celebrity Jeopardy on SNL and I hope Connery enjoyed it too. R.I.P.

Oops. I sometimes get them mixed up. As long as the rosebud connection is still there.

Granted, in the movie Elster doesn't have the starring role that Scotty and M/J do, even though he sets the whole whirligig in motion. Elster has a similar haughtiness to that of James Mason in NBNW, but he is also rather on the bland side, which in my estimation makes him a successful villain. I knew there was something very wrong with Uncle Charlie when he just left wads of cash lying on the floor of his room at the start of the movie. Total indifference to money. Put this guy in the nuthouse. When he shows the same indifference about money to the local bank president I thought the banker was going to faint or at least exhale deeply.

I always liked the fact that Elster got away with it, at least in the American version. He was kind of creepy and arrogant, but it's nice to see a smart villain getting a break once in a while.

Charrrgggeee. Actually I was thinking of the original rosebud, which is another bit of info that Mankiewicz picked up from his acquaintance with Hearst.

Mank's great uncle, I think that's the correct relationship, Herman, was often a guest of Hearst and so knew both Hearst and Davies, so I'm guessing that at least some of Davies was incorporated into his screenplay for Kane. If I recall correctly, Marion Davies also liked elaborate puzzles. The question is who will play rosebud?

That's hard to believe, but I'll take your word for it. I saw The Magic Box once many years ago and don't remember very much about it.

I've seen it a half dozen times or so over the years. Sometimes I'm in the mood to watch it again and sometimes not. Either way, a most excellent film. My two favorite stories are the one with Sally Ann Howes and the one with Michael Redgrave. The others are pretty good too. I really can't blame Mervyn Jones for strangling the know it all psychiatrist with the heavy German accent. He was a real pain. Jah wohl.

Shame (1968) by the original Woody Allen. Frankie as Dirty Harry? C'mon, man. The punks would have laughed at the sawed-off crooner while he delivered those famous Dirty Harry lines.

A few notches above routine, but nothing very exciting. It's basically just another cops and gangsters flick with some nice touches. The bad guy usually is a juicier role than the cop, at least an honest cop, so Ryan comes off better than Mitchum, whose character is a bit on the dull side. Maybe if Bob had taken a few hits of weed it would have helped. I felt sorry for Talman. He shot the two goons who were out to kill him and just a few hours later he's killed in the police station by Ryan. Ham Burger just can't win. I had a hard time buying that Liz Scott would be interested in that green newspaper reporter at the end of the movie. You'd better keep an eye on your wallet buddy.

In the late 1960s Johnny went to Jamaica and became friends with the Wailers, even signing them to a contract. His timing was a little off and he sold the contract in the early 1970s to Chris Blackwell and the rest is,,,,,a bus through Babylon.

The Neville Brand Story. Brand was reported to have a liberry of 30,000 books. At the pace of reading one book a week and taking two weeks off for vacation he could finish 50 books a year. So it would take him 600 years to read all his books. The good news is if he doubled the number of books read per year it would only take him 300 years to complete the task. Keep on readin'.

I believe Eduardo said that booze and cigs had taken their toll on Dana Andrew's kisser, but he looked okay to me. He would have been 40 or 41 at the time and he looks his age, but that's all. I always enjoy seeing arrogant cop Malden prove what an idiot he is by arresting the wrong man, while the audience knows he's making a dumb mistake, but he just keeps on in his clueless, self-assured way. I wanted to see some crook put Karl's head in a vise and tighten it until his eyeballs pop out, but I suppose that wouldn't get pass the censors. You can't always get what you want.

Well, knowing how slowly the mummy moves I could see it taking him 30 years to get from Massachusetts to Louisiana. I never got into the Universal Mummy movies, though I've seen a couple of them. They are entertaining in a weird way and they are fairly short in the running time dept.

I saw Psycho on the big screen many years ago, I just can't remember where.

On a cold and gray Atlanta morn, Another singer is assigned to the ghetto, the TCM ghetto.

The mummy wears a codpiece. Isn't that an anachronism?

There are some details I don't recall because the last time I saw it was a year or two ago. I'll be watching the next time it shows up on TCM.

I'm sure most people would like to see the original version, at least once, even if the visuals are not that good. I'm a little surprised that Eddie didn't make mention of the cuts made to it.