Vautrin

Studio era Hollywood spoonfed the audience just as much as they do today, the only difference being the contents of the spoon.

"Change lemon Kool-Aid into Cherry Kool-Aid. Nothing to it, Mr. Faro.

The evidence for the existence of Cecil B. DeMille is pretty persuasive.

Wow, that's 61 movies and a long trailer. If this thing ever takes off as a franchise, look out.

Maybe it's time for a sequel--The Twenty Commandments or Ten More Commandments or The Ten Commandments, Part Deux. Even if there is a possible natural explanation for the parting of the sea, that doesn't mean it happened, especially as there is no evidence it did.

I think CBS did it for the shock value and the publicity it would garner. Just like Midnight Cowboy was downgraded from X to R, and though The Damned was more explicit than Cowboy, it's hardly an X film.

I'm surprised Marlowe was driving a 1940 car in 1941 as he always seems to be one case away from going bankrupt. Of course DiMaggio's hitting streak isn't mentioned in the novel since it was published the year before DiMaggio's streak. It does give some detail to the narration and is discussed between Marlowe and his pal the newsdealer. I'm glad the latter only got beat up and not killed as so often happens to innocent bystanders. There also isn't much of the intellectual side of Marlowe as there is in the novels. No chess playing or references to highbrow literature, but that is a minor quibble that does nothing to take away from the movie.

It was quite controversial for its sexual content when it first came out, though the original X rating was later changed to an R, which seems about right. By later standards it's not really an X rated flick. CBS ran it in the early 1970s on its late night movie program and had to cut out all the "good" parts, but it got a lot of publicity at the time.

I looked at her filmography and she has made a lot of movies, and is still pretty busy in her mid 70s. I'm guessing a lot of them are on the mediocre side. She was also in an earlier Nazi pervy movie, Visconti's The Damned from 1969. That one took place entirely in the Third Reich years.

In one episode of TMTMS Mary shows Lou something she has written as a personal project. He looks it over and tells her it isn't really that good. Then he pulls an old paperback out of his desk drawer and reads that passage from Red Wind, though he leaves out the last sentence.

Different time, different place, different mental furniture. Often done with a lot of style. Of course a lot of the studio era was just a fantasy, though with some bits of realism to go with it. I don't idolize it, but I do find it entertaining in many respects.

Yes it was. She became kind of a sidekick to Marlowe. The Mitchum version did take more liberties with the novel than the earlier one. A conman was okay in the 1940s version, but by the 1970s it was okay to change him into a madame. Apparently Rampling's geezer hubby didn't care too much if she was cheating on him, as he just leaves after he sees them kissing. I can't think offhand of that 1970s movie, but she was in The Night Porter last night. I saw it many years ago but after the first half hour I decided to hit the hay.

I thought the Mitchum version was pretty good and although he was a lot older than Marlowe was supposed to be it really didn't matter that much and, for whatever reason, he didn't look that old to me. In the book Amthor is a man and he runs some kind of occult/mental health sanitarium scam which allows him to dope up Marlowe, which seems to happen in most of the novels and leads to amusing prose about dancing mice, etc. Changing him into a madame allows for some superficial nudity. Anne Riordan who meets Marlowe at the drop off point after he comes to is totally absent from the Mitchum version, which is too bad because she was kind of a comic burr/love interest in the book. I'm sure there are other differences, but those two are the most obvious I can think of. Chandler is confusing enough as it is without trying to figure out all the differences between the novel and the move adaptations. And Sylvia Miles surely deserved her Academy Award nomination.

Never become pals with a guy at the bowling alley who spends more time looking into his own mirror than drinking beer.

Two movies for the price of one. A meat and potatoes crime flick that transforms into a social message flick about the evils of yellow journalism and the social and economic roots of crime, per Dr. Vito. Bridges wears silk shirts and platinum cuff links, yet he lives in a dumpy motel. Obviously he doesn't have a steady income. I can understand Lovejoy joining in the crime spree as he is desperate for cash and he's just the wheel man, which means that Lloyd takes all the chances. I'm surprised a egotistic nutcase like Lloyd lets him take half the proceeds. But yes ,these guys are pretty stupid when it comes to crime. Lloyd leaves the ransom note in a menu. D'uh. I thought the manicurist was kind of cute, though obviously very needy. Be fun to see how she would be in a true relationship. I know the jail break in by the mob is based on a true story, but the whole idea of these guys breaking into this fortress like jail seemed not very believable and I really can't buy it. On the whole it's a pretty decent movie, with the message ending not doing too much to ruin the overall story. I didn't find it that grim, because it's so obviously contrived. Same with Bridges' psycho character. And yes, Lovejoy should have at least been able to get a job as a Boston cop and then collect a penchin, as one of the salesman says in the documentary Salesman.

I was halfway hoping that at some point in the film Garfield would give his mom a few jabs and then finish up with a couple of shots to the breadbasket. What a nag.

Or crooked labor contractors, not that they have many fans. While the gila monsters' bite is very painful, it's not fatal. Maybe Howard was getting a laugh at Dobbsey by exaggerating the danger of gila monsters.

I always get a kick out of the scene where the three are in the tent at night. One goes out to take a "look see." When he comes back, the next one goes out to do the same. When he comes back, the last one goes out for the same reason, to make sure his goods are undisturbed, just as the others did. Then Huston says something like If you fellows are satisfied I won't start start again.

If there are any Mad Man fans here, it is running on DirecTV 500 at 3 and 7 pm. every day.

Now that's uber topical. Wonder if the cast got a little miffed with that approach. I've seen most of those live recreations of All in the Family that run occasionally. They're fun to watch, and while they can recreate the scripts, they obviously can't recreate the 1970s, forgive me, zeitgeist.

Yes that theme of a small town being run by a few families or a company has been popular for a long time, maybe because it's something that a lot of people can recognize from their own experience. There can be two opposite takes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (besides others). It's about communism or it's about McCarthyism. Take your pick. Even on its own it's a very good film.

Maude is on FETV, but I don't think I could take Maude on a second go around. A little of Maude went a long way. Maude tackled a lot of contemporary subjects just like All in the Family. That's why these shows seem dated more than other "regular" sitcoms that just look dated for their clothing and slang. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was usually non-political, though it did have the occasional Nixon/ Watergate joke. I watch Green Acres on the weekends. It's still corny, but it's still kind of funny with Oliver being the only normal person trying to live among the crazies of Hooterville.

Just substitute organized crime for aliens and leave out the seed pods. I'm sure there are quite a few small towns and small cities where hidden things are going on, if not as serious as what occurred in the movie or what you experienced. Now it's often about opioids.

Pretty entertaining, if not that original. Reminded me a bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A town is increasingly menaced by a force it at first doesn't recognize and ends with the two main characters running for their lives. Uncle Ira is no longer mowing the lawn, he's running a bookie joint. Yeah, many of the people didn't seem to understand that the mafia plays for keeps and doesn't fool around. But all's well that ends well. I liked the scenes that illustrate the power relations of small city politics. As Eddie mentioned, Keufauver hoped that appearing in this flick might help his political campaign for the presidency. But Adlai Stevenson wasn't about to be fooled. Adlai played a piebald horse in High Noon. Checkmate.

Fort Apache. Cambridge, MA.