NipkowDisc
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this is the kind of programming choices that is slowly but inexorably causing dismayed longtime tcm viewers to write-off a increasingly disconnected tcm...imo.
someday all that will be left is a tiny niche of silent film enthusiasts.
that seems to be what tcm is working torwards.
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Aw, I'm just a kidder...no kiddin!"
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It would appear that he succeeded in getting that attention, particularly with the lady in the chair.
To the best of my knowledge, Kiss of Death is the only time that Widmark played a psycho. The character that he played in Road House, though, is clearly more than a little off. You just know that the actor was undoubtedly handed a lot of scripts in which he played a nut case and resisted them, as best he could, to avoid being stereotyped.
(Arturo, of course, thinks he's a psycho in No Way Out).
I enjoy watching Widmark in much of what he did but it's when he played a slimy character (Night and the City) or a hard nosed belligerent (The Bedford Incident, one of my very favourite Widmark performances) that he really stands out for me.
But Tommy Udo, right at the start of his film career, was a great hallmark characterization, and Widmark will always have a warm place in the hearts of film noir enthusiasts, I'm sure, because of it.
Widmark must've enjoyed having fans come up to him over the years and asking him to do Tommy Udo.
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Thank you for starting such a great thread Holden! As many of you may know (or have noticed), Lucille Ball is one of my absolute favorite people of all time, and I'm not just basing this opinion on her television work. I Love Lucy is my favorite television show of all time, but I believe that Lucy's film work deserves to be recognized as well. She appeared in so many films that I enjoy.
Excuse me while I geek out for a second and talk about all my favorite Lucille Ball films:
(I apologize for being verbose)
The Long Long Trailer (1954). Even though this episode is basically one long I Love Lucy episode, it is hilarious and in my top 10 favorite movies of all time. I've seen this movie so many times that I'm pretty much able to recite the dialogue with the film (I don't do this of course, because it'd be annoying if I wasn't watching alone). This film features many hilarious Lucille Ball physical comedy scenes. The most manic scene is where Lucy is attempting to cook dinner in the trailer while Desi drives to their next stop. Desi is singing loudly and is unable to hear Lucy's pleas for him to stop, nor does he look back to see her in the window. This scene is chaos and it's hilarious. My favorite scene in the film however, is an earlier scene. Lucy and Desi decide to take an old logging road because they want to be somewhere secluded (the night before, Desi ended up having to give an impromptu party for the trailer park while Lucy was asleep. The trailer park hostess, thinking she was helping an injured Lucy, gave her sleeping pills). The trailer is all whopper-jawed and Desi is unable to straighten it out. It has also started pouring outside. Lucy ingeniously manages to rig coat hangers and forks to keep all the pans on the stove and she cooks dinner. Later, when they decide to go to bed, Desi is fast asleep on his bed (his is on the side that's leaning toward the ground). Lucy, whose bed is at the top of the slant, literally keeps falling out of bed. After taking a huge leap onto the bed, the jack supporting the trailer gives way, and Lucy goes flying out the door and into a huge mud swamp. Desi, woken by Lucy's scream, pokes his head out the door and says: "What's the matter honey? Can't you sleep?"
The Affairs of Annabel (1938). This is a lesser known Lucille Ball film and only seems to end up on TCM once a year. Unfortunately, it is currently not on DVD. I am hoping that WB Archives will release it in the future. This film co-stars Jack Oakie. This film is one of the earliest showcases for Ball's skill at physical comedy. She portrays an actress who is put through one crazy publicity scheme after another by her agent, portrayed by Oakie. At the beginning of the film, we're greeted by Ball who is completing a 30 day stint in prison-- a stunt organized by Oakie to promote her film about a woman in prison. Finally a free woman, Ball walks out of the pokey expecting to see mobs of photographers and people. However, there's nobody there except Oakie. The main action of the film involves Oakie getting Ball a job as a maid to promote her new film where Ball portrays a maid. The comedy involves the family that Ball works with, her ineptitude at actually performing her maid duties and the family eventually figuring out who Ball actually is. There is a sequel to this film made later in the year, Annabel Takes a Tour, but it is not as good as the first film. Apparently RKO wanted to create a series of 'Annabel' films, but the project was scrapped when Jack Oakie wanted more money.
Stage Door (1937). While this isn't a Lucille Ball starring vehicle, this film is one of my favorites. This is a great ensemble film featuring a fantastic cast. Aside from Ball, the film also features Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Ann Miller, Adolphe Menjou, just to name a few. Lucy doesn't have any physical comedy scenes, but this film was a showcase for her ability to give smart quips and also demonstrate some dramatic skills. She more than holds her own with Hepburn and Rogers.
Five Came Back (1939). This is a straight dramatic film, one that I think shows another side of Ball's acting skills. This is another ensemble picture and another one in which Ball shines. Her character is a departure from Ball's normal characters (up to that time), she plays a bit of a floozy. This film was a milestone in Ball's career and led to her getting better roles.
Dance, Girl Dance (1940). Ball plays another floozy in this film, this time a burlesque dancer known as "Bubbles." She is the antagonist to Maureen O'Hara's protagonist. Ball has a lot of great moments in this film: Her burlesque dance, hiring O'Hara to be her stooge, her catfight with O'Hara*, her scene in the courtroom where she shows off her scratches and black eye. This is a fun film and I highly recommend it.
*Ball was filming the catfight scene the day she met Desi Arnaz on the set of her next film, Too Many Girls. She arrived on the set in costume--torn dress, black eye, her hair a mess. Arnaz was not impressed. It was only until the met again later in the evening, after Ball had cleaned up, that Arnaz fell for her.
The Dark Corner (1946). Lucille Ball in a film noir! This was a great movie. I thought Ball performed her scenes very well, even if I found her co-star, Mark Stevens, to be a bit of a bore. Ball and the great supporting cast (Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Kurt Kreuger, etc.) made this film worth the wait and watch. I'm looking forward to her other noir, Lured, which is airing in November.
Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949). This film features Ball in a role similar to that of her most famous role, Lucy Ricardo, which would come two years later. Ball portrays a wishful secretary, who unfortunately is awful. The hunky William Holden co-stars as a man running a real estate company which is really a front for his horse track gambling racket. Holden comes to the secretarial school that Ball attends looking for a secretary whom he feels wouldn't be smart enough to figure out his scam and could add to the illusion of being a legit real estate firm. He sees Ball failing miserably at typing and chooses her. Lucy, of course, overjoyed at being hired on doesn't realize what is really going on even when Holden's clients call and come in placing bets. She just assumes that it's real estate jargon. Ball ends up getting Holden on the hook to develop a real subdivision and even lines him up with real homebuyers. He has to comply, otherwise, the jig is up with his bookie business. Hilarity ensues when Lucy and the female homebuyers move the strings marking the walls of their respective properties. The concrete crew comes in the next day to pour concrete along the strings, only to realize quickly that something was wrong. Wanting to make their bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and bathrooms bigger, the ladies end up making their homes overlap one another, making the bathrooms HUGE while making the living rooms tiny, and a variety of other hilarious problems. Of course, Lucy eventually figures out what Holden is up to and she concocts a scheme to get back at him. Her scheme is very reminiscent of something that Lucy Ricardo did in an episode of I Love Lucy.
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968). Co-starring Henry Fonda and a precursor to The Brady Bunch, this film features Ball as a widow with eight children and Fonda as a widower with ten. I am usually not a fan of children actors, but the children actors in this film were competent and some were actually funny, like the kid that played Phillip--the poor kid that couldn't reach the food at the dinner table. Ball and Fonda make a nice couple, even if I think both of them are a smidge too old for their roles, they make it believable and are funny along the way. Lucille Ball has a hilarious drunk scene where she ends up laughing and crying uncontrollably and pours milk down the front of a poor unsuspecting child. My favorite scene is the scene when the kids are getting their room and bathroom assignments. For some reason, the kids being told "You're now 10, Red, C" (for example) cracked me up. I also like the scene in the crowded nightclub when Ball's slip falls down and her fake eyelash falls into her cocktail.
Ball has quite a few "stinkers" on her resume, but I've found that even if I'm not a fan of the film as a whole, usually Lucy was the best part. I could be biased, but I don't believe so. In her autobiography, "Love, Lucy" Ball states that in the beginning of her career, she never turned down roles, no matter how bad the film sounded. She stated that even if the film was terrible, she always learned something new about the filmmaking process and she just wanted to learn. That's a reason she appears in so many uncredited and bit parts at the very beginning of her career. She sought out as many of these small jobs as she could, because she just wanted to learn about the business. She shines in many of these tiny roles. I think it's a testament to her talent and natural charm. Even in a film that I absolutely loathed, like Ziegfeld Follies, even though she has no speaking parts, Ball's performance was one of the most memorable. The film Next Time I Marry is not very good, but Ball's part as the heiress trying to find a husband quickly in order to secure her inheritance, was funny.
Sorry this was so long, what can I say? I Love Lucy! (okay that was cheesy, lol).
I managed to get the tracks to FSM's cd release of Adolph Deutch's music to TLLT. charming music and lucy & desi sing!
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I like her film work. Guess I've seen most of it. She's rarely anything like the wacky character of her television shows. By the way, I always felt that Lucy and Heddy Lamar could play sisters. Without Heddy's accent or with if, if Lucy were able.
she was pretty wacky in that new moon trailer trying to fix nicky his salad for his ragu of beef dinner.
"ragu of beef?..I'm your boy!"
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doan forget this guy...
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Here's a new international TV spot for STAR WARS:THE FORECE AWKENS that is currently airing:
only shot I liked are the tie fighters headin' towards the imperial destroyer. hope jabba shows up.
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OK, late to the party, but must state---
Widmark's TOMMY UDO was a psychotic killer that was hard to top.
Jack Palance didn't NEED make-up for his HYDE portrayal. If anything he needed it more to do JECKYLL!
I always thought Frederic March's make-up and portrayal of Hyde was too over the top campy to be taken as a "serious" horror thriller.
Sepiatone
March's Hyde is like Jerry Lewis on speed.
but dammit if it ain't entertaining. -
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/08/11/kate_mara_s_fantastic_four_wig_a_tribute.html
this was a pretty funny article on slate about the really awful wig they slapped on the female lead who had to return for extensive reshoots after she had cut her hair. it's pretty funny.
ps- any of you who have seen the film: is it true that Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan have almost no lines in the movie?!
I think she looks hotter in that awful wig.
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Flopping at the box office? Could had knocked me over with a feather.
The Fantastic Four I knew as a kid were these people.
Exactly.
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Hate to ruin your fun but, Marvel had nothing to do with it. Its Marvel characters but, Fox produced this turkey, they are the ones taking the bath. I guess this loss balances out the profits from that last debate
Marvel studios would never bomb this badly.
I just heard on the radio the other day how "Today is a golden age for dramas on television" .Too bad some would rather rip Hollywood rather than praise those who are making good stuff.
yeah, a golden age for drama with teens and twentysomethings. older generational people were written off like 30 years ago.
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In your OP you spent some time telling us the Origin story and I thought you would then tell us how they had changed that for the worse.
One thing I cannot understand with all these superhero movies is that every second one seems to be a reboot and we go right back to square one with yet another origin story. Now that is boring, boring, boring. Do we need to see how Batman Begins every 8 years? Why not just get on with it with your new cast?
todays Hollywood stupes do not know or care about the past history or chronology of past American television shows and they certainly do not care about established comic book character histories or story development. it's all meaningless to them as all they wanna know is pc captain planet-esque or teenage ninja turtle-ish horse dung. because they are a group of foul-ups who do not care if intelligence or continuity is behind anything they churn out. they're idiots!...and they doan care. why should they raking in the moolah they are?
they couldn't get back to basics even if they wanted to because they simply would not know how to.
imagine putting Mr. Kotter's remedial level sweathogs in charge of the jet propulsion laboratory.
the Hollywood studios have fallen into the hands of people who oughta be doing trash pickups and scraping up dog doo from parking lots. nepotism? who knows?
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So, pray tell what is the new spin on it?
As I won't be rushing to see it you might as well finish your story.
the spin is that it is bombing at the box office very badly.
for starters the human torch is now black.
nick fury ain't enough for the political correctists.
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obviously the film is for teens and juveniles but marvel finally has blowtorched it's own behind with this one. you fool around with a franchise's origins too much and eventually you will screw up and screwing up with the younger demographic, contemporary hollywood's core audience, is a terrific feat. screwing up with today's smartphone-wielding younger demo is a pretty good screw-up.
marvel productions lets some know-it-all kid re-imagine the fantastic four and it woan even work with the smartphonics. very outstanding.
the fantastic four was already bent outta shape with the earlier films. why re-imagine the fantastic four for a demographic that was never really familiar with it's comic book origins in the first place? today's incompetent hollywwood foul-ups continue to proceed with the assumption that the younger demographic will never be interested or capable of appreciating 20th century american society as it was decades ago so they have to contemporize everything and now they have rebooted what they had previously contemporized.today's smartphone kiddies were never really familiar with the fantastic four in the first place.
1961, the world's greatest comic magazine begins...
Reed Richards, brilliant middle-aged scientific genius with some graying hair builds a rocketship prototype manned by himself, his best friend and pilot Ben Grimm, his young wife Sue and her kid brother Johnny Storm. think joe cartwright with blonde hair.
cosmic ray exposure, fantastic powers gained and a resolve to use their new powers contructively and altruistically against the backdrop of 1960s NYC. their main guidance, the wisdom, judgment, foresight and scientific genius of Reed Richards. That WAS the fantastic four of yesteryear.
but stan lee got old and off into the hands of hollywood buttwipes it went. this is what you get when you write off generations of older film and TV viewers. you kill a little bit more of past americana. but to continue the pattern of dumbing down anything and everything, even todays comic book superheroes hafta be authority-disrespecting impetious-minded twentysomethings...even Reed Richards!
I'm sick of it.
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And then there's...
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Wake me up when it is on cable.
wake me up when princess leia sees the ghost of jabba the hutt.
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Bobby Ewing's dream sequence and failing to make Steve Forrest the new Jock Ewing.
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They may have to change their rules--there are Gaping holes in that list you could sail the Titanic through--Wayne, Bogart, Hepburn (Both), Crawford--the list is endless--the directors are all gone (Except for James Cameron).
Edit: Announce Olivia de Havilland as 2016's recipient of the AFI award Now & get a taped speech--2 or 25 minute--& get it ready & fly it to the U.S.
or have the reel transported across the atlantic by the tcm classic cruise ship.
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loved it and without color! no, I'm sorry. there IS something wrong here.
You're missing the point. You're a niche audience. So are all those who enjoy the good films (not the garbage) on TCM. Hollyweird doesn't MAKE movies for you, they make movies for morons.
and I know what it is. todays studio execs are clueless bleep-ups!
Again, no they are not. The execs follow the money trail. All the way to the bank. And they laugh at people like you and me and all the people who like the good films (not the garbage) on TCM.
We are the dinosaurs. The morons who lap up the crap from Hollyweird are the future. Get used to it. Except for a few artsy and indie films, it ain't going back to the way it was.
sure they follow the money trail...and along the way what was forgotten is movie making is suppose to be an artform. they sure seem to be clueless about that. so we're all suppose to understand the overriding profit potential of fifteen year olds? I understand it and today's Hollywood money grubbers suck because of it!
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Have you noticed they have been putting classic films back in the theaters for one day a year or so ? They are trying to get older people to the theater. But, Home theaters with big screens, hi def, stereo sound etc...are keeping people at home. Of my older relatives, none go to the theaters even when there is a movie they like playing. Its so much easier to wait for it to come to tv.
Then you have those in ill health, those who no longer drive, those on fixed incomes who can't afford $12 tickets in some places. You add it all together, no too many seniors are coming to the theaters. Pair that with teens and kids taking movies to billion dollar box offices practically all summer. What would you expect the film makers to do ?
My parent can't go. My aunt and uncle went to one movie this century: "Lincoln" . They enjoyed it and the theater also. But, haven't been back. Why would anyone make movies for them ??
hollywood today is run by incompetents. they should know how and be able to make movies that can appeal to a broad multi-generational demographic. I started watching movies and tv shows as a kid. first for me mostly low-budget 50s sci-fi then on to more serious fare like the 1940s and 30s crime noir genre with cagney, bogart, robinson and garfield. then historical and biblical epics like the Egyptian. I first saw that on a CBS affiliate station outta Philadelphia on a Saturday afternoon 40 years ago. I've loved it ever since. my point is that as a 1960s couch potato space cadet, I learned to like these genres as I grew up by watching them. films that were made three and four decades before I was born. those now extinct analog crt days. now some say on this board that older fare being in black & white precludes the possibility or expectation of todays teen demographic ever developing any familiarity with any of it. hey, I first watched The Egyptian on a black & white TV! formatted for a crt TV screen! loved it and without color! no, I'm sorry. there IS something wrong here.
and I know what it is. todays studio execs are clueless bleep-ups!
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The best scene in the film was when Purdom tried to strangle/drown Darvi. Seeing her head underwater while the musical score was pounding away was absolutely riveting.
and doan forget the kitty jumping away from her as sinuhe backs her down. the cat knew.
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Perhaps the people who wrote these reviews were thinking Purdom in THIS biblical epic could have MAYBE chewed the scenery a little more...like say Burton did in THE ROBE??? LOL
Yep, count me in with the folks here who think Purdom, and in fact Darvi, got a bum rap and were fine in their roles.
(...and speaking of Bella Darvi...is it only me, or does anyone else here think Darvi resembled Viveca Lindfors quite a bit?)
well, personally I think if sinuhe had to bankrupt himself and blow the funds for his adoptive parents second life, he shoulda done it for a better looking babe than bella darvi she's a woof-woof.
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The Egyptian is an exceptional epic of ancient Egypt and it is beyond me how anyone could think that Edmund Purdom's performance has any shortcomings. his performance is low-key but tremendously heartfelt. there is so much pathos at the end after completing the story of his life for his son. and the nearby guards not knowing this dying old man was the unrecognized true son of a great pharaoh denied his heritage because of human avarice. yet learning this toward the end of his lifelong sojourn the two things that sinuhe the egyptian valued the most were truth and goodness.
so aptly we read at the end:
"These things happened thirteen centuries
before the birth of Jesus Christ"
...and Michael Wilding was damn good too.
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Kiss of the Vampire aka. kiss of evil. a good one. some turn of the century motor tripping honeymooners short on petrol run afoul of some local aristocrat vampire cultists who start out real hospitable. a very well-directed little diddy by Don Sharpe. starts out real good too. some professor shows up at his daughter's funeral a little tight and rams a shovel right through her casket. that guy ain't gonna have his daughter a vampire. no sir!
today's powerhouse sunday line-up
in General Discussions
Posted
starts at two this afternoon with the hasty heart and never lets up right with a face in the crowd into late nite. this is one sunday that tcm programmers decided not to waste.
my complements...
"That's better. That's more like it!" -the captain (james cagney)