GordonCole

There are some people of Hollywood lore, who are related by blood, yet without the facts and only the facts, one would be hard pressed to figure it out based on their film personas. Two such people are, Broderick Crawford, tough guy of Willie Stark fame, who was the son of witty comedienne, Helen Broderick who graced such Astaire and Rogers film as Top Hat and Swing Time. They don't even seem to look alike. Name others you are aware of who fit the bill.

Yes, just like Andrew Lloyd Webber's distaste for the rhyming pattern between the words "bother" and "rather" in Lerner's and Loewe's song from My Fair Lady, On the Street Where You Live, I don't get the Noir Tzar supposed rhyming pattern since Muller tends to pronounce Noir as " "Nwaaah" which to me sounds like Martha Raye in heat, and "Nwaaah" does not really rhyme with Tzar. I would perhaps suggest Disbarred Tzar or perhaps Hardy Har Har Tzar as replacements for said title? Or maybe Close But No Cigar Tzar?

Yes. Maybe they will now have the foresight to take the Little House on the Prairie books off the market.

Okay you convinced me. I'm fine with people writing about Ben or Alexander. But if TCM plays a noir film about either, I won't need Muller to do an intro, since I own biographies of both Ben and the Great Alexander myself to which refer, se. I may call you, se...right, se?

Code Key:TIC Acronym

Let's go easy on people without valid argumentation, who use the ad hominem approach of name calling, to make their claims seem more logical or with merit, sewhite. Personally I think being called a "dotard" reflects more on the attributing source entity, than the person they are attempting to malign as being out of touch with reality or sensibility. Signed, The Oldest Dotard Here

I so agree with you, Cigar Joe. I also do not think people should be allowed to write books on famous personages that were alive before the writer was, since as you say "only the folks that had been around at that time would have known the convoluted details". This would cut down on so many cribbed and legend induced biogaphies of celebrities, whose lives preceded by many years that of the newly crowned authors. It would also preclude books on old films that were made way before the current authors were even a twinkle in the eyes of their parents. This way paper would not be wasted so abominably and people could have more time to visit nature and not throw away their lives on reading such fabricated fodder.

Thanks for your thoughts, sewhite. To some, "research" means reading voluminous books and much material about a subject during many years of study and then transmogrifying all your bits of gleaned knowledge and turning them into your own personal porridge of words. To others, "research" apparently means taking whole paragraphs and repeating all salient points in the same order. I do applaud those who don't know a subject well to steal from the best though. Hence, my post.

As Professor Henry Higgins might say "I think you've got it, Vautrin." Some don't ever get it, but you have got it and that takes some sophistication and wit. And I agree, the wine club ads also showcase Muller's additional talents to being a writer/host with skills as wine connoisseur and bon vivant.

Obviously you are a very astute young man, Dargo. I can't imagine though why you are "chuckling", since I only like to give credit where credit is due, and Muller deserves lots of credit for his talent for deep research on films for which he mayhaps is somewhat nescient.

Okay, my unpopular opinion is that I don't care for Paul Newman as an actor. His salad dressings are okay though.

Ethel Waters in The Member of the Wedding. I once heard Butterfly McQueen say something like Ethel was the meanest woman she'd ever met, and I bet Frankie felt that way too about Waters. Who cares if Frankie has gritty elbows and wants to call herself Jasmine?

I think it makes you a collector, just don't end up like the one in the Fowle's novel and film.

I came to her a bit late in my life too, Lydecker as I was around thirty before I appreciated her, but after that I thought she was the cat's meow. Someone here once mentioned that Roddy McDowall had a test he would use when he met people. He said he would ask them if they liked Irene Dunne and if they didn't, he knew he would ot want anything to do with them. I think her frothy style in comedies and her depth in drama, plus singing talents is supreme.

Glad to see even Troy Donahue found it abysmal.

Enjoyed watching for the umpteenth time Hitchcock’s film, Strangers on a Train. The perverse joy of seeing Robert Walker’s vile persona of Bruno, burst that child’s balloon one last time, satisfied again as I reach the upper echelon of age and my potential demise. I’d also like to thank host, Eddie Muller for making my remaining years be at ease. Being in my dotage, it has become of necessity to lessen my heavy worldly burden of storing and maintaining my library of nearly a thousand books on film. The sadness of divesting myself of such trusted friends has now been alleviated by knowing that Mr.Muller’s intros will assuage the pain of this future task. I no longer will need to refer to any of the said books since just by the simple act of listening to Muller’s preambles to films he is hosting on TCM, I can enjoy almost verbatim, all the descriptions and analyses of such movies that are in the books I own, and will no longer have the burden of caring for and storing such tomes, since Muller obviously seems to have access to the same ones. For example, in his Sunday intro to Strangers on a Train, I got out my book published by Citadel in 1976, titled The Films of Alfred Hitchcock, written by Robert Harris and Michael S. Lasky, and as I started reading the back info on the film on Page 154, I was simultaneously hearing Muller detail almost verbatim the whole paragraph in the book about author, Patricia Highsmith and Hitch’s giving of the book to potential writers, settling on Chandler who proved to be a problem, then having Czenzi Ormonde, who was connected to Ben Hecht take over, with also remarks about Hitch’s distaste for Granger and how he would have preferred Holden and so on and so on, and I was elated to hear Mr. Muller repeating these details even in the same chronological order as the book. For this, I must offer my thanks to Muller, since his conservation of energy being expended in coming up with his intros by utilizing excellent research done by previous authors, I find quite commendable. His conservation of energy will lead to a conservation of energy for me also, since I find that due to his prowess in this model, I will no longer need my largesse of books on films and their background, since being that his intros and remarks almost always reference such things in exquisite detail. I think this is truly honoring the work of some exceptionally knowledgeable writers on noir films and books and it is good of Muller to see their value by utilizing it in his introductions to films. I realize he has limited time so who can blame him for not giving credit when due to the original researchers. I can rest easy now and donate all my books to a library or film consortium, since Muller will always be there to document past ideas and film theory of others, and I will always be listening with ardor and enjoyment too. I must add though in acknowledgement, that I did not see Muller’s clever use of the term “Noirvember” [substituting for the word “November”] anywhere in the Hitchcock book, so I must praise him for coming up with that dastardly witticism himself. The supreme pleasure of now in old age to rid myself of so many valued but now worthless possessions like books on noir, crime and even suspense works like those of Highsmith makes me a joyous curmudgeon. The fact that Muller retains a publisher for his books which entertain a vast audience of fans of his Noir Petit fiction and philosophical bent, shows how much the world has progressed since the olden days when artists like Highsmith died without even having a publisher, with her work being rejected, or people like Wolfson, Fante and others were not acclaimed as the Czar of Noir is today. So kudos to Mr. Muller for sharing his formidable gifts with his TCM audience and I can only hope he continues to share with us access to more knowledge from books on film by earlier writers, which are currently out of print.

It's probably because so many people have heard the question "Who was buried in Grant's Tomb?" which has created such interest.

I think then they should also ban all appearances on tape or film of Carrot Top.

This is one book I've never read but due to your excellent rendering of its value, I look forward to finding it for perusal. Thanks, Christine for your excellent exegesis of both film and book.

Wasn't it Perkins who married Berry Berenson after having some kind of reversion therapy which he claimed altered his gay alliances in order to achieve heterosexual happiness? I always felt sad he had demons which caused him to first be relegated to clean cut Americana boys in films in his early days and then turned the exact opposite way in regarding him as a deranged killer type due to Psycho when the only thing true was that he was an excellent actor able to do many things with his talent. I still recall him doing a comedy sketch on SNL where he played a management trainer for a hotel management corporation or some such, standing at a duplicate of the Bates Hotel set piece office room and being hilariously funny. He could have done comedy as well as anyone if given the chance and I mourn his loss to films. He did do some light comedy of course in things like Tall Story but I feel he was never given his due by Hollywood sadly. Of course...in many ways his performance in Psycho was incredibly comedic but not many people probably got that in their first viewing.

I'm with you on that substitution...

If you could plan a meeting in the vicinity of the area filmed for Hitch's The Trouble with Harry during the fall season, I'd be sure to come. Sorry though...I can't "movie" using the word as a verb since I was taught by nuns who would hardly approve of such foul grammatical standards.

Seriously one of the best yet rarely viewed Draculas. Good choice. Surprisingly the Louis Jourdan one also still sticks in my memory from tv viewing.

Enjoyed again watching Albert Finney in one of his most seminal roles, last night on TCM. The Kitchen Sink School of Film is perhaps enjoying a renaissance? So many good ones from that period in Britain leave a hunger for more?

It was exciting to see last night on TCM the heralded Japanese horror film called Jikogu [aka Hell or Sinners from Hell] from 1960 by famed director, Nobuo Nakagama. This seminal work contains incredibly innovative use of color and framing techniques pioneered by this director with blocked off scenes using black in a sort of Mondrian-esque style. Very revolutionary at the time with poetic images detailing Nakagama's moral philosophy that is often an alien concept to horror flicks. Set in a time period similar to Dante's Inferno style theatrics, the after effects on two theological students due to their involvement in a manslaughter case, rolls along while evolving in a frightening karmic conclusion. Even the beginning credits of the movie evoke a lurid representation of all moral and human vicissitudes of life, in an previously unseen avant garde style particularly for horror films and even mainstream ones of the time. The abstract and illusory settings for Jikogu were designed by Harayasu Kurosawa and add to the tempestuous and frightening aspects of the story. Not known so much outside Japan this movie has recently been available for international audiences who revel in its amazing ahead of its time look and message and it is mandatory viewing for any fan of world horror cinema in my opinion. The second film shown was actually a previous work to the above film, but also by Nakagama from 1959, called Tokaido Yotsuya [aka The Ghost of Yotsuya] taken from a 19th century Kabuki tale in which an errant samurai kills another in order to marry his unknowing daughter, then promises her he will avenge said murder. Startling scenes of poisoned corpses in swamps and the ghostly hauntings of replicants of the slaughtered create a ghastly atmosphere of fear and horror. In the tradition of Japanese standards the apparitions represent the moral outrage of the slain and can only be observed by the guilty. The eternal fires of karma take revenge in powerfully staged settings with music, color and mise en scene articulating the karmic resolutions. Though both films sound on paper as only perhaps intellectual enterprises they express on film very shocking denouements to the recipients of their wrath and are better seen than described. A fan of someone like Bava could perhaps see some relevance and relation to his use of color and atmosphere possibly, due to the evocative cinematography rampant in both films. Don't know if I am the only fan of Japanese horror here but I hope not. I