Vautrin
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Posts posted by Vautrin
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2 hours ago, Dargo said:
I think his hands would've been tied in this regard too, Vautrin. This would not have been an option even if he had tried it, I wouldn't think.
It probably would've been common knowledge that Crystal Shackelford (Fitzgerald) had been murdered and by Jerome Arbutny (Greenstreet) by the time he had tried to cash in the ticket.
(...remember all the headlines in the local London papers naming her as the potential big winner of the lottery in the first place, and so word of her murder would have almost assuredly soon been the next big headline, wouldn't ya think?!)
He could have pointed the cops toward her husband. He went into her apartment and looked like he was
just about to pull a gun out and blow her away for lying about her pregnancy when he realized she was
already dead. Of course the problem with that is that Lorre didn't know about it. But seeing it was a lot
of dough, I think it would have been worth the risk. Lorre does end up with a woman who is obviously
totally in love with him, but they have no money. Better to have both.
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2 hours ago, Dargo said:
Yeah, I have to say the only low point for Holden in the 1950s I can think of might've been that time a waiter tripped and covered him in food while he dined at the Brown Derby.
But other than THAT, the '50s were sure good to him alright, and it wasn't until the mid-'60s and when he did that turkey of a movie set in Paris with his old girlfriend Audrey was when his career seemed to jump the shark a bit.
(...still though, we will always have The Wild Bunch and Network to best remember him by in his later years)
Well, that's what happens when a big movie star abandons the big screen for the small screen.
His later films don't seem to have the same quality as his 50s work did, except for exceptions The Wild Bunch
and Network. There was Breezy from the early 1970s. I never know whether to take it as a serious look at
May-December romance or as a bizarre outlier that is unintentionally funny. I usually go with the latter.
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2 hours ago, cigarjoe said:
They did all three sign the back of the ticket.
Anyway it was an entertaining enough film for me. Made a bit more interesting with the Irish Sweepstakes tiket angle. I remember the Irish Sweepstakes when I was a kid. My folks had purchased a ticket and got a horse just like in the film. The big day of the race their horse didn't run so they ended up getting a consolation prize, I was too little to remember any details but it was enough money to take an extended trip to Europe.
I was thinking that if Lorre was playing one of his typical conniving underhanded characters he would have
found two people to stand in for the other two ticket signers and tried to cash the ticket. It certainly would
have been worth the risk. As he was playing a more honest person, he didn't try it.
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2 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:
I do not believe for one moment that that old lady really thought the spirit of her dead husband was communicating with her. To me it was clear that she was making the whole thing up because she suspected Greenstreet of embezzling her investments and was using the dead husband story to catch him. She was just pretending to believe her husband's spirit visited her as a means of tripping Greenstreet up. This took some fine acting on the part of Rosalind Ivan--she had to convey to the audience, without saying anything, that this was what she was up to. You could tell she was stringing Greenstreet along, for instance, the way she told him she couldn't marry him because her husband would be jealous. The expression on her face, her tone of voice -- it all indicated to me that she knew what Greenstreet was up to and was playing with him.
Toward the end of the film she seemed to realize what Greenstreet was up to, but before that I figured
she was just another of those well off English eccentrics who like to dabble in things supernatural.
Wherever one wants to draw the line of what she knew or didn't know, Rosalind Ivan was wonderful in
the role.
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I've always thought that William Holden had a great run for most of the 1950s--two Best Actor
nominations, for Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17, a win for the latter. And other good movies--
Union Station, Born Yesterday, Sabrina, The Country Girl, Picnic, The Bridge on the River Kwai,
The Horse Soldiers. There were some lesser movies in that period of course, but for the most part
it's a pretty impressive list.
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The sweepstakes ticket plot was interesting, but the three individual stories were a mixed bag.
They were mostly rather cliched movie plots, but they were helped by the talent of the actors
and a few twists here and there, such as the wife in intimate communication with her deceased
hubby. I was a little surprised that the three strangers didn't pay more attention to the sweepstakes
and the fact that the ticket was being held by just one of them. At any other time Greeenstreet would
have camped outside Fitzgerald's apartment or else hired someone to do so. Maybe they figured
it was such a long shot that it wasn't worth thinking about. I'd give this one a B-. The idea sounds better
than the actual execution of it.
The theory that Michael Lindsay-Hogg is the son of Orson Welles might not be that clear cut. One
Welles' biographer says that Fitzgerald went to Ireland in May 1939 and did not come back to
the U.S. until October of 1939 and was already pregnant at that time. Welles was not out of the U.S.
during that time. So by the timeline Welles could not have been his father. That's assuming that
the timeline is correct. Intriguing subject.
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5 hours ago, kingrat said:
Kauffmann was usually considered the best critic of actors. His reviews were collected in book form, and some libraries may still have them. I always enjoyed his work, too.
That would be a book worth reading. After all this time I don't remember specifics, but I do remember
his general tone and style.
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8 hours ago, SadPanda said:
After I've seen a movie, it's then that I sometimes read their opinions.
I don't want to be influenced in any way at all before I see the movie.
I don't know if reading a review before seeing a movie would influence me that much, perhaps a
bit. I really don't read a lot of movie reviews anymore. I used to enjoy the late Stanley Kauffmann,
who reviewed movies for the New Republic for many years. They were well-written, witty, and informative.
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I'm not too surprised that an old Ivy Leaguer with the name of Bosley was something of a
stick in the mud as the 1960s came into view. But he is entitled to his opinion and had
experience in film reviewing. The Bos also championed foreign films back in the day, so
that's a positive. Crowther was before my time, but I do remember Vincent Canby, who
did the grunt work of film reviews for the Times for a long time. Of course I don't recall
his reviews of individual films, but I'd day he was more open to new things than the Bos
and often took a witty, light-hearted approach to his work. While it's interesting to read
film criticism, I would never take their word for any film before seeing it for myself.
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Dead ladies can't take care of themselves. Alice Cooper was always a Mr. Showbiz type, so I'm not
surprised to see him in this.
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Come back, Fast Willie Parker.
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2 hours ago, Dargo said:
"Meat packing", ya say? SURE he did, then.
Wasn't Marlowe supposed to have had a little fling with his partner's wife in The Maltese Falc.....
Oops, sorry. That was Sam Spade, wasn't it.
(...ya know, I always DID get those two guys confused with each other)
An inordinate number of Marlowe's clients were packing something, but it wasn't meat or a gun.
I always thought Spade was more of a rough and tumble and unsophisticated guy compared to the
chess playing, literature quoting Marlowe, but you need both types in the PI game.
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2 hours ago, SadPanda said:
It was a simple matter of saying "okay, you walk ahead a ways - I'll catch up."
Jerry doesn't punch - especially not tough guys. But he was disappointingly lame in this particular moment.
Yeah, it wasn't his finest. Why ruin a perfectly nice jacket just to appease Tierney. Oh well.
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Not a bad little film. The location scenes help. And Priscilla Lane is fun as Tierney's girlfriend.
After Tierney was fired and got involved with the meat packing family, he reminded me a bit of a
poor man's Philip Marlowe, though I don't think Marlowe was ever involved with meat packing.
And at a little over an hour it moves along at a good clip.
Sure, Jerry with his European carry all, nttawwt, was not the toughest guy around, but I wouldn't
ruin a nice jacket like that just because Tierney was such a boor. He should have given Tierney a
quick shot to the stomach and then run like hell. Old Tierney may have been tough, but I doubt he
could move very quickly.
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I have the Naked CD, though I haven't listened to it in a while. McCartney's unadorned version does
sound better than Spector's bells and whistles one, though Spector added so much that the basic
version sounds a bit like a demo.
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I was watching Perry Mason last night and one of the women in the courtroom spectators' section
looked like Jackie Joseph. Of course it was an uncredited role so it wouldn't be on her list of
credits. Maybe she picked up a little extra quick change or maybe it was just a woman who looked
like Jackie Joseph.
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I suppose they're okay, especially if one is in a wistful mood. The Long and
Winding Road is good enough, but it's never been one of my favorite Beatles' songs.
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If you go back to the original post and reply it should be pretty clear that I was talking about
Early 1970 and not Maybe I'm Amazed, though I can see there might have been some confusion.
I guess The Long and Winding Road is a fitting title for the Beatles final number one single, but I
like Let It Be much better.
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17 hours ago, Princess of Tap said:
" Maybe I'm Amazed" yeah, but I certainly was not aware of this 1970 music.
It definitely belongs in my"Ebony and Ivory" collection.
I would guess it's a relatively little known song, though it is on some of his greatest hits albums.
The subject matter is certainly topical and the song is nice enough.
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I had a maybe Ringo moment. I happened to be in New York on the day of the Bangladesh concert. I was
passing by MSG and noticed a small crowd just milling around. Went over to check it out. Some folks
were complaining that the concert should be free. Power to the people, right on. They started to go
into the lobby or whatever ones wants to call it and started a little disturbance re this should be a
free concert. Things started to get more loud and some people became more aggressive, but New York's
finest were on the job and there would be no free concert that night. Later on people were running around,
trying to find the exit from MSG that the limos would take. We found it and I'm sure Ringo and George
and others were in them. Of course it was hard to see into them. But it was a fun night and a splendid
time was had by all.
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Peace. Ringo did live longer than John and George and being 80 is something to celebrate, even if that
landmark is more common today. The only record I ever bought by Ringo was the It Don't Come Easy
single. The B side is an interesting little ditty titled Early 1970 about the Beatles' travails during that
time. The cover is kind of funny, a photo of Ringo dressed all in black wearing boots and a cowboy hat
and strumming an acoustic guitar. Whatever.
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Madeline Kahn.......tongues.
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Prime Years
in General Discussions
Posted
Oops, sorry about that. I saw the name James Stewart and a list of some of his movies and
skipped right over William Holden.