LornaHansonForbes
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Posts posted by LornaHansonForbes
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I can agree with all the above.
Oh good.
I was worried the first response would be a death threat. (seriously, some people around here LOVE CAGED.)
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I just watched Caged with Eleanor Parker and Agnes Moorehead. Wow! What a great movie! Previously, I was only acquainted with Parker through her two films with Errol. She was a great actress, I don't know why I hadn't really heard of her prior to watching the films made with Errol. Parker is definitely underrated. I always love Moorehead in everything she does, so I was anticipating her to be great. While the film was definitely gritty, it was interesting to see how an innocent woman becomes slowly hardened and entrenched in the "criminal lifestyle" after a year and a half in jail.
Y'know, I watch some or all of CAGED each time it's on, and each time I come away with a slightly different impression. It is most certainly an entertaining and well-acted film (although- forgive me- I think Eleanor Parker is a bit mannered in the lead role)...the performance I usually come away most impressed with is the lady who plays Kitty Stark (I'm sorry I can never remember her name) but it's a meaty buffet of tough broad performances all around.
Still, I kinda sorta can't help but feel like it could have used a lighter hand in the script and direction, because there's a point where it makes a turn into Horatio Alger territory and becomes a little too sensational to have as much of an impact as it could.
ps- all apologies, 'cause I know there are some hardcore Caged fans out there.
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THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR - containing the other alleged personal favorite of Herrman's scores- is on right now, & I think it is a wonderful example of a terrific score that stands alone on its own merits, yet fits the film which it accompanies like a glove.
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Actually Lorna, I kind'a see what ya mean here and must admit I too shared this feeling to a small degree while watching this film the other night.
Do you perhaps think knowing beforehand that this particular score of Herrmann's is most associated with Hitchcock's "big" production of NBNW, that perhaps there's a subconscious tendency to feel this way about it being used in Nicholas Ray's smaller production?
(...that would be my guess anyway)
well, if this is any help, when I first saw ON DANGEROUS GROUND, I was watching it first and foremost because it was a Nicolas Ray film and secondly because it had Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan together. I don't think I even realized Bernard Herrmann scored it and I recall thinking to myself as the opening credits unfolded "wow this is a really big powerful, intense score" and as I watch the rest of the film my feelings that the size of the score did not match the size of the production were reinforced. I also have to add that I first saw ODG via a Netflix DVD that came through the mail, & I kept it for a week and watched it a couple times maybe even three. And each time I walked away with the feeling "nice film, nice score, but somehow the two just don't match one another."
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thanks to everybody for the info. Damn sorry I missed it.
it has a very lengthy entry in THE PSYCOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE- which I highly recommend. (I keep a copy on the back of my toilet.) according to author Daniel J Weldon, POOR WHITE TRASH played in drive-ins well into the 1970s and ended up grossing 10 million dollars (!) he also has a lengthy entry on POOR WHITE TRASH 2.
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Herrmann himself disagreed -- he felt it was his best score
well, it may well have been his best or his favorite score, but that doesn't mean that it fits the scale of the film, which in spite of the vast landscape on which it takes place, is (at least in my opinion) a small, intimate story with basically three characters- and it's largely a first-person study of Robert Ryan's detective character. it's a big big score with a quality to it that, well, one could describe as slightly bombastic, and to me is just too big for the small black and white, intimate film that is ON DANGEROUS GROUND.
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mr6666 has just listed Bayou, which is on at 2.a.m. in the TCM Premieres thread.
Looks like Baby Doll in swamp country and as he points out it has Timothy Carey in it.d.
BAYOU does not even have a Wikipedia entry, but can anyone tell me: was it also known/ released as POOR WHITE TRASH?
(no, I'm not kidding.)
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(...and I have to admit, I've always thought the musical score was a little TOO BIG for a small, but good, and rather intimate film like ON DANGEROUS GROUND. In fact, it's my only complaint about the movie.)
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RED LIGHT was a strange movie all around. I don't know much about music, but i recall a LOT of refrains from AVE MARIA whenever George started thinking about his departed priest brother, and I recall it being used heavily throughout the finale. Honestly: it got to be a little hokey.Speaking of Red Light, Tiomkin used a theme from It's a Wonderful Life during the climax. It was the same theme he used when George Bailey was on the bridge praying for Clarence to help him.
But it was still a really interesting film. Weird, but interesting (in spite of Raft.)
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I wish they would get rid of the turgid music. It is just a bunch of stings strung together so badly you can hear the edits.
And it detracts from the beautiful montages someone has taken the time to put together.
+1.
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Well, then, there were a lot of popsicles in Hollywood in the '50s.
yep, a whoooooole lot of popsicles. choose your flavour: William Holden, Bing Crosby, David Niven, Clark Gable, Alfred Hitchcock, Ray Milland, or the most popular flavor: penicillin.
(She was SUCH a tramp!)
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TORLETT STREET: the film the censors wanted to flush!
(but they couldn't cuz it got stuck.)
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But isn't it unusual to have one running this quickly?
no, not really. I remember when Lizabeth Scott died sometime this winter, they were up and running her trib pretty soon after the announcement, in fact I even had to apologize because I was really going on and on about "oh I don't think she'll get any kind of tribute from TCM" and boom: there it was on the TV as I was typing.
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Really fast. This was up and running a maximum of 7 hours after it was first mentioned on these boards.
just as the New York Times has pre-written obituaries on file for famous people who have yet to die, I'm sure TCM has stockpiles of "TCM remembers" already put together for the likes of Kirk Douglas, Angela Lansbury, Olivia de Havilland, Doris Day and others, all ready to go for the sad inevitable day of their passing.
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Actually I wasn't really trying to correct you so much as I wanted to be able to make a "translation" from one year's box office receipts to another's. I was surprised how easy that turned out to be, with a little assistance from the IMDB and an inflation calculator.
well either way, thanks for the info, and its a real testament to Ava's starpower that she was able to line them up around the block to see such an unremarkable film.
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The episode where the Air Force accuses her late husband of murder when an abandon plane is recovered decades later gave Angela a chance to be fired up. I just saw this episode this week and I recall thinking to myself; "wow, I don't remember ever seeing Jessica being so emotional".
wow, thank you. That was one I don't remember ever seeing either in first run or repeats. Will try to look out for it, do you remember the episode title by any chance?
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LOL. I was always disappointed that they never gave Angela something to really chew on in an episode. Get very emotional over a close friend getting murdered or something. They never let her get emotionally involved in any case...............
Actually, the pilot episode "the murder of Sherlock Holmes" features a solution where Jessica's love interest ends up being the killer. In the reveal scene she actually gets very emotional. They even brought the character back after he had served time in prison for a later episode, and he ends up being the victim.
There was also a later episode where the Cabot Cove real estate broker played by John Astin who had been a regular on the show is revealed to be the killer.she gets a little emotional on that one.
But other than that, yes you are 100 percent right, I really do wish they had provided the character with a little bit more range outside of the few times where Jessica goes undercover and plays a dithering society matron or her Daffy British cousin or something like that.
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I did not care much for her as Katharine Hepburn. The Academy obviously thought otherwise since she was given an Oscar for it..
I think Blanchett's Oscar win was one of those times where their selection just reeked of politics. She had been nominated for Best Lead something like 3 times before, & I think there was still residual guilt over not awarding her for her Queen Elizabeth in 1998 and giving it instead to Princess Gwynnikins (an investment that has paid off so little that it looks absolutely and utterly foolish in retrospect)
it was one of those "its her time AND she's in the supporting category, let's go ahead, an Oscar is an Oscar etc etc" decisions. she won pretty much so that they can finally bill her as "Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett" and not because of anything spectacular she did in the role.
ironically, while I have not seen all of her films, her work in " the Aviator" is about the only time where I can recalled distincly not liking her in a film. I even liked her in "notes on a scandal" where I thought she was the true lead and far, far better than the one note performance given by co-star Judi Dench that for some reason went over gangbusters with the Academy.
(of course, you could say that about every Judi Dench performance.)
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I would put his Sherif Ali Ibn El Kharish in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) up there in the ten best supporting actor film performances of all time. He really should have won the Oscar for that part.
It really is subtle work, and he adds such nuance to a character it would be so easy to hate at the beginning and we really see how he changes through the film- which is what great acting is all about.
I think Ed Begley won for SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH largely because he had been working in TV, film and radio since God was a boy (or so it seemed)- and he's fine, but no: not as good as Sharif.
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They shouldve given her an honorary one by now.....
Damn straight.
(Of course, the $60 million she made off MURDER and the continuing residual checks must surely soften the blow a tad. )
"Oh, let me just dry my eyes with this $100 bill..."
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I suspect the line up will be Lawrence, Zhivago and Funny Girl. Nothing else.......We'll see.
Yup. Even odds on that.
Although they have shown JUGGERNAUT before, and (again) it is REALLY, REALLY GOOD (only it'll likely air after those three colossal films have run and thusly start at about four in the morning.)
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They won in different years, right? I dont recall them sharing the award...........
Yes, they won in different years.
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. They always gave it to Lucy or Mary Tyler Moore. The Emmy's always have their pet "favorites". Angela Lansbury has had 16 or more Emmy nominations and has never won one. Not even an honorary one. (12 for every season of Murder, She Wrote, and others for other specials....)
Do they ever!
I remember reading once about who exactly votes on the Emmys and how they decide (ONE episode out of the whole season is submitted for consideration, and the award is actually for that episode, not the season.) It's a bunch of stodgy old f a r t s (no offense intended) who "like whats they like, dagnabbit"- and their favorites are nearly always out of step with what the public is actually watching and likes and is deserving in the first place.
I remember how Candice Bergen won Best Actress in a comedy just for shouting all her lines, like ten years in a row, for MURPHY BROWN. This was followed by Helen Hunt winning for her smug joylessness in MAD ABOUT YOU five times, which gave way to PATRICIA HEATON (who is about as funny as a crutch) winning every year for four years for EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND* meanwhile any number of better, and actually funny, actresses went home empty handed year after year after year.
ps- I kindasorta understand though why Angie never won for MURDER SHE WROTE, it just wasn't really a "dynamic" Emmy role, and so often she was up against the gals from CAGNEY AND LACEY or some other show with more drama.) She did do some TV movies through, where I know she showed her dramatic side- whether she should've won for them, I can't say.)
*Actually no, not everyone. In fact I ****ing HATE Raymond.
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And I think that's one of the weaknesses of the film. A bad decision on Lean's part (the blankness)...........
Oh yeah, absolutely.
But still, Sharif pulls it off, which could not have been easy (both because it was not right for the film and so much less than he was capable of as an actor.)
I Just Watched...
in General Discussions
Posted
Thank you. It's a remarkable transformation that she undergoes in CAGED...and it could have easily been a camp performance, but there is nothing camp about it. If I were allowed to fudge with the Oscar nominations in 1950, I probably would've replaced Hope Emerson's name with hers in the Best Supporting Actress category (although Emerson is pretty good herself.)