GordonCole

And wasn't it amazing how just that change with the glasses made him totally unrecognizable.

Though it seems fairly tame now, In the Realm of the Senses from 1976 directed by Oshima was quite controversial in its time. Death by sex is still a taboo subject though would be my guess unless it is something like the movie Liquid Sky.

None of the usual suspects vying for the job with little real qualifications, please. I'd prefer to just see Ben take over. I am surprised General Mike Flynn is not on the list though since I'm sure he could be a good host for the more noirish elements in film or any about espionage.

One of the greatest mini-series ever and he contributed to its grandeur. Thanks for the update on his passing.

Kathleen Howard as the classically nasty mother, Mrs. Bissonette.

Anton Diffring

For those interested in the work of Samuel Beckett, his short film with Buster Keaton from 1965, called appropriately, Film is available in a dvd which also includes the 1961 tv Play of the Week of his Waiting For Godot with Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith. Film was shot by noted cinematographer, Boris Kaufman and stars Keaton in Beckett's interesting take on fame. I saw this being sold in a current catalog from Movies Unlimited in regular and Blu-ray versions with the price starting at about twenty-six dollars, before shipping and handling, which includes the short film and also the tv version of Waiting For Godot. Check it out also at Amazon: https://milestonefilms.com/products/film-by-samuel-beckett

Wonderful actress and she always reminded me of Mildred Natwick, another Hitch favorite.

I doubt it. Taking things in stride based on a knowledge of the past would take some scholarship which is too much trouble for a large number of the population.

Great song and too bad he is not known more now but it is great that he did have a later resurgence. Being that Leiber and Stoller concentrated on much from the black culture surrounding them as in Smokey Joe's Cafe and such and revered Brown it seems more likely than them referencing whitebread Charlie and his pal Snoopy.

Some who knew him say Cain would have liked the mostly detested version of his novel Butterfly, which starred the inimitable Pia Zadora but he was dead by then so who knows. And Tom mostly thought his female characters would have been better served by male actors so that was a tough call. Good choices though on Cain and Williams so thanks.

Well his surname was Queen so I get your drift.

Thank you for mentioning this, Rayban as Peter Lazer was in one of the most chilling Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes called Special Delivery. It was adapted from the spooky Ray Bradbury story, Boys! Grow Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar! and though it sounds a bit silly was quite chilling and similar in tone to Invasion of the Body Snatchers with the mushrooms being from space and taking over the country by using the children to grow the spores right under the parent's noses. Also in the cast were Steve Dunne and Beatrice Straight and perennial youth, Michael Burns more famous for his role as the Blue Boy later on Dragnet. Lazer was a fine child actor and even if only for this role should be remembered.

One belief about the origin of the song Charlie Brown by Leiber and Stoller is that the name was a tribute to the blues singer, Charles Brown mostly famous for the song Merry Christmas, Baby. Charles Brown was considered to be a heavy influence on later hitmakers like Ivory Joe Hunter and the ill-fated Johnny Ace. Charles Brown was the singer who gave Leiber and Stoller their very first hit record called Hard Times in around 1951 on the Aladdin label. He later lost some popularity in the mid 1950's but was still considered one of the important early voices in rock and roll's roots. Hope that helps as to where the title came from since I don't believe Leiber and Stoller were referencing the Charles Schultz character but they were known to have an affinity for black performers and settings in their songs.

His contributions to film history with his work on the incredible epic I Am Cuba as directed by Kalatozov cannot be underestimated. It's sad that many do not know of his work as the lyrical poetry of that film and other works of art are immense. Thanks for the update, Swithin.

Ossessione in some ways is more rewarding to watch than the Turner/Garfield version and Rocco and His Brothers predates all Diner-like life passages films. The Leopard is a masterful film. I can't say I enjoy seeing actors dubbed when their voice is well known but that's my only objection.

Thanks for the update. I was looking forward last night to reseeing and relishing the scene in I Walked With a Zombie where Tom Conway tells Dee that she probably thinks the little fishies jumping up in the air offside the boat are happy, but they are actually trying to save their lives from being eaten by ichthyologic monsters from below. I shall now wait till it is rescheduled.

It happens often that the originator of a published piece is approached by Hollywood for an adaptation to be made for the screen. Sadly though, it can be a blight on their career that they never envisioned for the author. It's known that Truman Capote supposedly detested the film version of BAT with Audrey Hepburn so no matter how successful the film is, many creators loathe the screen versions that they had no power over. And who can blame them? Even the creators of some comic strip heroes and heroines hate the finished product on film as I can testify having known a few of them. Others that have gone down in history are sought.

I'm kind of more of an FFRF guy.

Ann's mother was a concert singer and she taught music but Ann's flair lay more in musical comedy as you say. Besides if they wanted to replace Jeanette they could have just hired her sister, Blossom Rock right?

It's brutal, savage and hard to watch but essential pulp fiction on film, the 2010 version of Jim Thompson's seminal title, The Killer Inside Me. With the recent Oscar bestowal on Casey Affleck perhaps this film may receive more attention. Having seen it when it came out I had not expected the rather mild looking Affleck to hit the maudit and violent notes of psychpathology that Thompson bestowed on his character, Lou Ford, who seems to have a triumvirate of the disparate criminal elements of real-life killers like Harvey Glatman, John George Haigh and Edmund Kemper. But Thompson's West Texas Deputy Sheriff is an amalgam of the worst of all and beyond, since he is trapped in his miasma of almost controlled rage, violence and stasis hidden well under an outer vestige of normalcy. The reason Thompson's gritty and vicious novels ring true, is that he lived it in his travels as a bellboy, oil rig worker and tramp. Whoever said write about what you know, gave Thompson a good steer and this Oklahoma native endowed his writing with every nuance of mental aberrations that he'd experienced in his years on the periphery of society. It's said that without the reprints of many of his Gallimard classics by Black Lizard he might not have come back into prominence but I doubt it. And though the Stacy Keach film version of the book which came out in 1976 was sufficient the Affleck take is more true to the nature of the original novel so this neglected gem may acquire a new audience, if of course they have the stomach for it. A neglected gem should always be shared...

That's my favorite part of the movie too; the dinner table scene wherein he shows his vast distaste for women who outlive their providers and feast on the male's former income and live in upscale domiciles. I don't think there is a sexual undertone from Charlie to Uncle Charlie but he represents the type of man in her ideal world that she would want as a mate. His relations with women are not about sex but about control and manipulation but he might use sex to entice them into his lair, till he can snatch their savings or an emerald ring.

This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch of John Cleese's about Upper Class Twits, Cigar Joe. Have you seen it? I believe Cleese wrote it because he said the twits in his neighborhood would make noise at night after clubbing and he wanted to make a spectacle of them since they kept waking him up. They still probably are above the average twit who uses Twitter but you be the judge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqObJtGrKaA

I think getting Shatner to do all the parts to recreate the original 1960's Star Trek series, in a kind of Alec Guinness type way would be admirable.

I agree with you that this is a very symbiotic and visceral relationship which translates on film to being caught between a rock and a hard place. Young Charlie's idolatry toward Uncle Charlie creates tension in many ways and as you say there is an underlying sexual tension perhaps in the subtext. Good call. I always found the insertion into the film concerning the head injury to Uncle Charlie at a young age to be tangential to the basic explanation of what made him go astray, in a nature or nurture conjecture.