Vautrin

Which one?

Me neither. I think most people realize this is a product of its time, not that that makes it alright. When vanilla worlds collide.

I don't recall ever seeing this one before, even as a kid. Pretty good if a bit on the nuts and bolts side with some human drama thrown in and a clunky love story. This is the type of movie that Technicolor improves by about 10%. The religious overtones are kind of silly, but it was 1951 so what do you expect. I was a little surprised by the absence of some Ruskie scowling and throwing sand during the UN scene. Felt sorry for the person who was left off the ship just because the dude who was screwing one of the big shot's daughter got a free pass. And while John Hoyt was a creep it seems kind of mean to keep him off the ship he paid for. Too bad he shot Sam Drucker. Who's going to run the general store after they get to the new planet.

I enjoyed your post. I was an usher for about six months while I was in high school about 25 years after your hitch. Thank goodness we didn't have to wear pants with stripes on the side. Just regular dark slacks with a dark red jacket with black lapels. I think we had to wear bow ties. Must have been a clip on because I never knew how to tie a bow tie. Still don't. And of course a trusty small flashlight to guide patrons to their seats. This was a theater in a fairly upscale town, so I guess the ushers made it more special. I think this theater showed mostly 20th Century Fox flicks and most of them lasted for a few weeks or sometime even longer. I still got bored after seeing the movie repeatedly, except for Joe where I first saw Susan Sarandon do her thing. The worst was Cromwell, which ran for about two and a half hours and it seemed to be about four. We used to chat with the candy counter girls and they were all cute. Maybe that was a job requirement. They allowed us to dip into the popcorn holder. The popcorn was not popped fresh but was brought out of their supply closet in big plastic bags. It still tasted pretty good. The theater was run by a husband and wife couple who never talked very much. The assistant manager was a guy with a bad stomach who would always send various ushers across the street to the drugstore to buy Tums. We also had a middle age head usher named Jack. And Jack liked to take a nip every once in a while. He usually wasn't effected too badly by that, but one night he tried to jump/hop over the velvet rope that separated the lobby from the balcony staircase. He didn't make it which made everybody laugh. We never had any fistfights because this was a pretty mellow crew, sometimes artificially so. One of the best parts was that the theater was only a few minutes away from a pizza place which made for a nice snack. And the theater was called The Rialto, which we called the Rathole, though it wasn't really that bad. And last but not least, Ruth Roman was a major talent, depending perhaps on one's definition of talent.

Peyton Place reminds me a bit of Picnic. Of course they both have holiday celebrations with picnics with two boys who eat too much junk food and one falls asleep with his watermelon. There there are the small towns that are controlled by two lunkhead company heads with two spoiled sons. Peyton Place is lot sleazier and dangerous. Murder, rape, suicides, you name it. Lorne Greene examining Little Joe. PP is one of the best camp classics of the 1950s. I always get a laugh out of the good doctor Swain, except when he's blackmailing people or falsifying medical records. Way to go. I was looking at the Peyton Place review in Maltin's guide and in the cast list he puts Diane Varsi near the end, just after Mildred Dunnock. Just because she was kind of a one hit wonder doesn't mean she deserves that slight.

I think some people here do idolize movie stars to a certain degree, not to the slobbering teenage one, but to some place along the continuum. After all this Kirk stuff, I would love to hear about the Kinks, and there is Celluloid Heroes. I don't know that much about Ray Davies' personal life. I suppose on the surface he seemed like a witty down to earth guy with a longing for the "good" old days of bygone England. But I wouldn't be shocked if that wasn't the whole of the actual Ray. My favorite band is the Beatles and my favorite Beatle is John, but John could be a big creep and jackass, but I can live with that. I guess my point is ....I like John Lennon more than Kirk Douglas. Whatever. Sexy Izzy you'll get yours yet, However big you think you are ah ah ah. In the internet era, people whom one disagrees with are called trolls. I get it. It keeps things nice and simplistic.

I really hadn't thought too much about the details. I wasn't planning on inserting your story about Kirk's high-handedness (surprise, surprise ) into that beyond the grave schemata, but I could certainly add it in. And as it's my hereafter I get to make the transportation rules and regs. Maybe I could place Mr. Douglas by the baggage carousel eternally waiting for a suitcase that will never show up. Ouch.

Was Kirk a Zionist? I mean a dyed-in-the-wool zealous type. I don't know. I kind of doubt it. Zionists were just another group of European colonialists come to exploit and kill the native people. But I doubt he knew much about that.

Robert Conrad vs. Ed Asner. I can only hope it was a food eating contest.

Okay, Kirk cheated at solitaire and he never picked up a check. I don't know if Dougie was a terrible person. Maybe, maybe not. I found him to be a bit on the pompous side, but that's not unusual in Hollywood or a terrible sin. I've never been big on idolizing movie stars, so that may play into some of my comments. If folks want to dis a movie star, even on a tribute thread, that's their right. I was thinking of starting a thread titled What's the Frequency, Issur? It wouldn't be about what a terrible person Kirk was (or wasn't). It would be about his adventures in the hereafter where he runs into many of his old studio era pals. But that was just a passing thought.

I don't think people come here to prove things, but just to discuss stuff, shoot the breeze, etc. And if it doesn't work, that's okay, though I'm not sure what was supposed to work. As far as I know there is no connection between not voting and flying to other countries. After all, about 45% of eligible voters don't vote in presidential elections and a majority in off year elections. That's a rather larger number of people.

It seems that not only was Kirk perhaps cheated out of an Oscar, but maybe a Nobel Peace Prize too. Never trust a goober farmer from Georgia. It's nice that he flew to lots of countries, but that doesn't say much about a person to me. If I was well off, I'd be happy to fly to other countries too. Frank Sinatra was a big philanthropist too, but in private life he seems to have been something of an s.o.b. , so philanthropy is not always a sign of a person's morality. Too bad that Rush Windbag has lowered the value of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I can't recall if the CIA was involved in the U.S. Information Agency. Have to check that out.

I'm glad I don't live in that land down under. I'd be broke. Thank goodness I reside in the freedom loving USA where lazy bums like myself aren't forced to vote. He might have been a nice person or not. With the Hollywood hype machine, who can tell.

One of today's episodes starred Phyllis Newman as an American Indian princess. In the other Ida Lupino played a mad scientist who made a duplicate of West, fancy duds and all. I didn't watch that one.

Persistence, my man, persistence. That's the spirit. But how do we actually know Kirk voted in every major election. That could just be a rumor. This may be self interested, but I would put not voting far down on the list of bad acts, close to jaywalking.

If posters want to discuss Kirk Douglas' career, that's fine. If someone wants to discuss another aspect of his life, that's fine also. Everyone will have their own take. I likely have a more jaded view than some posters about movie stars and so while I enjoyed a number of Kirk Douglas films, I don't feel any particular connection to him. Besides it helps while away the hours until Green Acres comes on.

I'm just discussing this aspect of Mr. Douglas as other people discuss other aspects of his life. Opinions will differ as they often do. The rumor about Natalie Wood was brought up on the first day of the post by someone else so it was already in the air so to speak. My point was not that serial adultery makes one a rapist, only that the adultery was a fact, the rape was a rumor.

Calling attention to oneself goes against everything Kirk Douglas stood for.

Rumors become part of an actor or really any celebrity's life, not a major part but they trail around them. It's really another aspect of the Hollywood hype machinery, which works both ways, good and bad. And movie stars are part of the machinery, good and bad. Some folks are more interested in some rumors than other folks. I find nothing wrong with that. And while Natalie's story is a rumor, Kirk's serial adultery, which apparently was okay with his second wife, is fact and doesn't make him look very good.

I don't know. The general Douglas screen persona was a guy who didn't take too much and was ready to charge ahead with fists flying. Of course he didn't play that type of character all the time, but I think that was the way many fans saw him.

Possibly. Sometimes at the end of an episode one or the other would produce a little black book and the other would try to get it away from him. But considering they spent so much time fighting egomaniacal villains it must have been difficult to find the time to get dates. I also wondered how the regular cowboys took West's dandified clothes. Oh no, here comes that pretty boy James West. Conrad did look sharp in those outfits, though they seem a bit unsuited to the business at hand.

I always took it as West was such a chick magnet that one kiss knocked her over. Why they changed it into a punch I don't know. Just a humorous bit of trivia. I always got a laugh out of the ending of so many episodes where West and Gordon would have two lovely ladies on the train for a dinner and theater date. Was the Secret Service running some kind of escort service or something?

I'm gonna have to pull a little Kirk here. If somebody told the old boy to stop it, give it up, let it go, nobody agrees with you, your posts are not good, well you know how Kirk would likely react. 'Nuff said.

As I've previously mentioned, rumors are a part of Hollywood. They are part of a star's story, which may be unfair, but that's the way it goes. Some of them are of interest to some folks. Others are not. To each their own.

I get that it's about paying tribute to a good actor, but many actors have rumors concerning them and those rumors often become part of their bio, for better or worse. It twas ever thus in Tinsel Town. The Mitchum example was the first that came to mind. It is lacking in that it was factual, so chose whichever rumor you like. Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Bob Hope, et al. Somewhere along the line when these folks are discussed, the rumors will show up too.