LornaHansonForbes

HOMIGAH YOU GUYS... IT'S COMING ON TONIGHT!!!!!!! TIP: for an authentic ZHIVAGO experience, crank your A/C down as low as you can and crack open a can of beets. I swear I can hear that damn Bailalinka thing already.

This is a somewhat unrelated note, but I watched the Academy Awards footage from the year Lila Kedrova won supporting actress (1965). it was a well-attended category, Grayson Hall was there looking very chic, Gladys Cooper was there, and Agnes Moorehead (the favorite for SWEET CHARLOTTE) as there and I SWEAR TO YOU, SHE IS TOTALLY MADE UP AS ENDORA. The eyes, the lashes, the hair helmet....it's in black and white, but you just know it was fire engine red in real life. here tis:

Bravo Speedy, Miss W, and if I may single you out, Laffite. Yes, yes, and AMEN.

....MEET FRANKENSTEIN is my favorite, and was one of the first black and white movies I saw. It was kind of the gateway classic film for me that got me interested in old movies and old horror movies.it's extremely funny, but the horror and fantasy sequences are superior to those in most of the universal monster movies that came before it. but as someone who is interested in music, you would probably really like BUCK PRIVATES or HOLD THAT GHOST!

I also also love how the trailer starts with a shot of the blue sky, and then the camera is all like "whoops! sorry! i was supposed to be pointed this way" and makes a violent pan to the left to reveal the stampeding Mongolians.

The mystery of 55 DAYS AT PEKING- to me- is just why it plays so often on weekend afternoons. I mean, it is what it and is, and there's been enough good stuff on for me to allow it, but every time I see 55 DAYS AT PEKING on a Sat/Sun afternoon, I can't help but think they were close to sealing the deals on the schedule for the month and were all "damn, we have three hours we have to fill on a Saturday" and someone tossed a dart and it landed on "55 DAYS," barely missing the deeply-pocked post-its bearing the names of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, ICE STATION ZEBRA, and THE GREAT RACE affixed to the wall nearby. I could forgive it if it was any damn good, but it isn't, and I LOVE Nic Ray.

I remember watching HOLD THAT GHOST on the SUPERSTATION in the eighties when I was a kid and totally not getting what on earth Joan Davis meant about her stolen "mules." My father explained to me that mule was an outdated term for slipper. Ever since, I have referred to my slippers as mules, confusing all sorts of people and making myself seem about 40 years older than I am. It's a cute movie, kind of obviously some stitched-together routines and a strange ending- but fun. I don't know when the last time I saw it was (it might have been that one and only time from my childhood) but I was surprised at the things I recalled, even the line "does mooses have tonsils?"- which I remembered RIGHT, and I NEVER remember ANYTHING right! TCM has been really good about showing ABBOTT AND COSTELLO, ....MEET FRANKENSTEIN and THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES were both on recentlyish...I was very intrigued by THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES and would like to see it again very much- it's actually kind of a dark film, and the two leads barely interract (they were in a terrible feud at the time)- but it's very interesting, a good companion film to ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY/THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

PHARISEE! PHARISEE! STONE HIM! STONE HIM! (laff. Eees yoke.)

I also love the look on Hayward's face at 22 seconds in...as if she's having serious misgivings about the whole thing. (as well she should.)

It SURPASSES anything ever filmed BEFORE! (2:12 in is where I began laughing uncontrollably) (highly recommended)

I really hope that's the wallpaper on your phone.

Agnes Moorehead in THE CONQUEROR:

EXT- TOP OF THE CANYON OVERLOOKING 'THE CONQUEROR' SET- LATE AFTERNOON DICK POWELL sits by himself on a large flat rock, taking in the view of the sun as it fades in the West. The very last of a stub of a cigarette he holds without thought in his hand burns out and singes his finger. POWELL "Damn it!" (sucks his finger) He scours the surface of the rock next to him, where not much of a bottle of scotch and innumerable crumpled packets of Chesterfields lie next to innumerable script pages and memos weighed down by rocks and thermoses and bottles to keep them from blowing off in the winds. He tosses pack after pack in search of one last cig, then realizes he's out. He turns and looks in the direction of the far-off set, when suddenly, a figure appears on the horizon: a wraith-like specter draped in grey rags dancing in the winds. His heart freezes. His blood congeals. The figure moves closer. The wraith, it's arms outstretched towards him, the fingers like talons moves closer and closer. He wants to movie, but he can't. He is paralyzed. Then, mere feet away, a ragged veil is dropped. AGNES MOOREHEAD Well Dickie Boy, how's tricks!?" POWELL Aggie?!?! She nods and holds out her rag-draped hands. AGNES MOOREHEAD You like? POWELL God, Aggie, you almost killed me! AGNES MOOREHEAD (modeling her rags) I saw Wayne in his costume when I was getting fitted and I figured I needed to lend as much authenticity as I could to the film. Dickie Boy, there are not many directors I will go full-hag for, but I am ready to go full-hag, for you... POWELL Oh, Aggie... AGNES MOOREHEAD ...just call me 'Ag the Hag.' She notices he is not well and goes to his side. AG THE HAG Dickie darling, you look almost as bad as me. What's wrong? POWELL Oh God, Aggie. When I saw you, I thought you were Death, come to take me. AG THE HAG Well I realize I'm not exactly Rita Hayworth without the make-up... POWELL And the sad thing was, Aggie, I welcomed it. In fact, I'm downright disappointed you're not. AG THE HAG (taken aback) Dickie, what's the matter? POWELL Everything. You got a cigarette? AG THE HAG Yah, of course. (they light up) AG THE HAG How's Junie? POWELL I wouldn't know. AG THE HAG Ah. I'm sorry. Got any papercuts you need me to squeeze a lemon on? POWELL God Ags, it's been a nightmare. This whole thing has been a wide awake nightmare. Hughes is a ******* maniac... Hayward's out of her mind. AG THE HAG Yes, when I was in wardrobe I heard her having a discussion with the animal wranglers. Are you sure she wouldn't be better as Genghis Kahn than Wayne? POWELL Shirley ****** Temple would be better as Ghengis Kahn than Wayne. Anyway, Susan's threatened to walk because the panther tried to bite her, that's the freshest catastrophe of the day. AG THE HAG You sure she didn't bite it first? POWELL We're 10 days behind and Hughes keeps sending me memos. I've shot Susan's dance scene a hundred and fifty times and it's still not right according to him. And it never will be. And it doesn't matter anyway, we're here in the ****** desert in Utah, sucking sand, making what is going to be one of the worst ******** movies ever made out of what is easily the worst ******* ****ing script anyone ever ate a ream of eight and a half by eleven and *****ed out. Oh Aggie, on my own two knees so help me: I'm cracking up." AG THE HAG Well, Dickie Boy, you wanted to direct. Silence. Moorehead reaches down and picks up a handful of sand. AG THE HAG Did you know that each one of these grains of sand has been here for thousands of years? And thousands of years after you and I are gone, it'll still be here. You and me all the problems we have will be gone, and the last bit of this film rots off the reel in a basement somewhere. But each one of these: (she scatters the sand to the wind) AG THE HAG ...will still be here.

oh, they'll edit "eff" out. I know that.

maybe they'll show the last ten minutes tonight, thus making the film: I'LL (LITERALLY) CRY TOMORROW.

THE PUMPKIN EATER and THIS SPORTING LIFE would make the world's most depressing double feature. What WAS IT about the early sixties that made some of the films so damn grim?

+1 (well, + everyone, I think.)

and not meaning to be Debbie Downer, but this is noteworthy: Seven years after making THE CONQUEROR, Dick Powell was diagnosed with several malignant tumors. He died in 1963. (his widow, June Allyson mentioned in a 2001 interview with Larry King that the spots were in his lungs and he was a heavy smoker, but even if it wasn't the radiation that caused the tumors, the stress of making the film had to've had a bad effect on his health and I think it's safe to say he ended up conquered by the film.) Had he lived, he might've turned in to a really fine director.

I'm kind of surprised no one has ever made a movie about the making of THE CONQUEROR. Does THE AVIATOR deal with it? (I can never make it more than an hour into it, but I have my doubts it does.) It's a fascinating story and one that could easily be made into a film itself.

And really, he didn't do all that bad a job considering what he had to work with (horrible script, bad casting, irradiated sand, reshoots, a megalomaniacal film producer who wears kleenex boxes on his feet and sends you ninety-eight page memos every day....I can only imagine what circle of Hell it was closest to.)

...and for the record, I think Wayne was one of the best actors of his generation and I rankle a tad when people say he always played the same role. that said: he is AWFUL in THE CONQUEROR. So bad, in fact, that I really did not notice much else of what was going on. SO BAD, he made EVERYTHING ELSE about the movie LOOK GOOD, and I think he wasn't the only big problem with the film. It was just an all-encompassing BADNESS that obscured near-everything else on screen. (bless his heart.)

I did such a double take on reading that. It's funny, because I was thinking earlier today how interesting it was that Wayne gave (arguably) his worst performance in his worst film and (arguably) his best performance in his best film IN THE SAME YEAR (1956) in, respectively, THE CONQUEROR and THE SEARCHERS.

well, for the record, I REALLY DID, but no one has ever accused me of having good taste.

especially in THE PUMPKIN EATER...Man, that film...it's good, and she's terrific, but....wow.

I think it was the Italian genes. She was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano. I watched some of THE PUMPKIN EATER yesterday and man, she was just beautiful. You could not take yours eyes off of her. I can still remember when I heard she had died on the news, the reporter was just going in to the segment "...and actress Anne Bancroft" and a picture of her came up and I yelled out loud "NOOOO!" before she got to "...has died." She was only 73.