Princess of Tap

Richard Chamberlain was the guy that screwed up the plans on the Towering Inferno for his father-in-law William Holden.

Polly was in kisses for my president with Fred MacMurray.

If it hadn't been for Basil Rathbone, Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power wouldn't have been great swashbucklers. According to his contract, Basil had to make them look really good. Among fencing movie stars, only Toshiro Mifune was the real thing. It would have been my fondest desire to see Musashi and Basil Rathbone fight it out. But only for the camera, not the real thing!

Julie Harris is perfect for the part. She's not too old--she's just not cutesy-wootsy looking. Not every young girl is cutesy-wootsy looking. As Smokey Robinson would say - - Beauty's Only Skin Deep.

Believe it or not not, Une Affaire de Femmes was not Claude Chabrol's most controversial film. It was Violette Nozière, again based on a true story and again starring Isabelle Huppert. In this film, Isabelle plays a young woman living at home with middle-class parents, while living a double life as a street prostitute. When she contracts syphilis she convinces her parents that it's an inherited disease that can only be cured by taking strong medicine. I don't want to spoil this French Lizzie Borden case, you'll just have to see the end. But I can tell you that Isabelle Huppert won the 1978 Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Violette Nozière.

We always have the same discussion when we talk to people who speak Spanish in America. I had a professor from Spain once and nobody in the class could understand him. Around where I live there are of complaints about English programming - - particularly what we call the Britcoms, a lot of people can't understand them. In Québec, the French language has developed according to the different cultural, historical and geographical standards. And they were up there for a long time, rather isolated. It's taken the French-speaking world a long time to accept Quebeçois French. But finally it's happening. It's their way of speaking and that's their reality. I used to go to Brussels a lot on the way to Paris - - because I got cheap plane tickets. They've always been geographically close to France but their language is still different as well. They have some vocabulary that I didn't understand and they had an accent that was different. When I was in Québec I recorded a lot of the radio and television. It was fun to listen to and to compare the accents. Just like the English in England - - if you know French you shouldn't have any problem communicating with people in Québec.

I normally don't mention the score but this deserves recognition. Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a Viennese composer of classical music, who had his life all successfully set out before himself when the Nazis invaded Austria. He escaped with no money; he barely escaped with his life. However, by doing so he changed screen music forever. His score for the Warner Brothers movie Robin Hood is considered to be the best and most original example of what a film score should be. My DVD of Robin Hood has the feature where you can listen to the score by itself, just like a CD. I would suggest you all should do that. I also have recordings of Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Franz Warman and Miklos Rózsa. The classical music station that I listen to plays them all but,they play more Korngold because he wrote more classical music apart from film music. I particularly like his Violin Concerto. For a working class-- Street Smart Studio, Warner Brothers could pull out the stops when they wanted to. And Robin Hood was one of those times.

This next one is a labor of love because these are actually some of my all-time favorite character performers and roles. It sounds corny but I have to say they don't make actors like these anymore. Maybe it's because we don't have more Repertory. 1938-- Best Supporting Actor * 1)Michel Simon--Le Quai des Brumes* 2) Mickey Rooney - - Boys Town 3) Robert Morley - - Marie Antoinette 4) Walter Catlett - Bringing Up Baby 5) Fritz Feld-- Bringing Up Baby 6)Tie: Lew Ayres and Henry Kolker- - Holiday 7)Pat O'Brien - - Angels with Dirty Faces 1938-- Best Supporting Actress *1) May Robson-- Bringing Up Baby*( possibly the best supporting-character actress in any screwball--) 2) Dame May Whitty - - The Lady Vanishes 3) Jean Dixon - - Bringing Up Baby 4) Luella Gear - - Carefree 5) Edna May Oliver - - Little Miss Broadway 6) Beulah Bondi - - Of Human Hearts 7) Faye Bainter - - Jezebel

1938 is thrilling for me because my number one movie is my favorite movie screwball, Bringing Up Baby. Also at the top of my list is another lifetime favorite with the same stars, Holiday. All the other films are so well known, there's no point in mentioning them - - except for St. Martin's Lane. A film that I just saw maybe 20 or 25 years ago and couldn't get out of my mind. But you don't get to see it too often. I often heard that Tommy Tune was going to do this as a musical on Broadway,but I don't believe he ever did. The musical was called Busker Alley, written by the Sherman Brothers. Tune toured with it but it never opened on Broadway due to a number of unfortunate incidents. 1938-- Best Actress Ranked by numbers - number one is number one *1) Katharine Hepburn - - Bringing Up Baby* 2) Katharine Hepburn - - Holiday 3) Bette Davis - - Jezebel 4) Michèle Morgan - - Le Quai des Brumes 5) Norma Shearer - - Marie Antoinette 6) Wendy Hiller - - Pygmalion 7)Tie: Vivien Leigh - - St Martin's Lane Margaret Lockwood - - The Lady Vanishes 1938 - - Best Actor *1)James Cagney - - Angels with Dirty Faces* 2) Jean Gabin--Le Quai des Brumes 3) Spencer Tracy-- Boys Town 4) Cary Grant-- Bringing Up Baby 5) Charles Laughton - - St Martin's Lane 6) Leslie Howard - - Pygmalion 7) Michael Redgrave - - The Lady Vanishes( his first film role)

Marni Nixon did this so many times I don't know which one you're talking about-- My Fair Lady - - Audrey Hepburn West Side Story - - Natalie Wood The King and I - - Deborah Kerr To her dying day Deborah Kerr swore she sang on that record. Natalie and Audrey actually made some recordings. They were obviously not going to be up to Snuff - - so the producers quickly replaced them with Marni. Although Marni sings all these roles, she had to, as an actress, adapt to each actress individually.

I've never seen Trainspotting but I know Robert Carlyle was in both that film and in the full monty. Everyone in the full monty was good, but I think the audience really identified with the character Gaz. I think it was the slang that really confused me. Let me see if I can remember something--something about a kit or something I don't know--

The thing about the full monty - - is I grew up watching The Beatles. And if you can understand the Beatles, you would think you could understand anybody in England. Watching Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes isn't the same thing as understanding Ringo Starr.LOL As a child, I really cut my teeth on the London version of My Fair Lady - - in some of those instances it took me years before I figured out what Julie Andrews was saying. Also, it took me years before I figured out what Rex Harrison was talking about i.e.-- the Spanish Inquisition.

You have no problem with British accents because your head of state is the Queen of England. I have to give it to her - - she speaks English better than anyone I've ever heard in my life. Ironically, I would say her son, the Prince of Wales would come in second in my book.

Nijinsky - - afternoon of a faun--and they said that Gene Kelly was the intellectual one.LOL Very correct and Well Done - - Speed Racer it's all yours!

I'm a fan of Tom Selleck in Magnum PI- - I can remember Howard Duff in one of his last roles, playing Magnums grandfather. He was really good.

Sorry to have butted in, maybe loosing the equilibrium of the thread. But, I think, Lawrence did answer the question. SO, it's his thread, if he wants it. Lawrence is still up - -

Limey-- with all the slang and the fast speed of the language, sometimes I only get 80 to 90% of it. Tell the truth - - the first time I saw the Full Monty I was on Air France. And maybe the sound wasn't so good but,that's about all I got of that show either, was about 85%. Have you been to Sheffield, I heard that they were supposed to be speaking English. I never had any trouble understanding Cockneys in London or The Beatles from Liverpool - - but I lost whole paragraphs in The Full Monty; eventually I just gave up and used subtitles. What do you think of that?

I've gone on vacation to Montréal - - and I've seen French movies on television. Do you watch those?

Isabelle Huppert and the late Claude Chabrol are very well known in World Cinema. TCM shows films that are primarily in English and, I imagine, that primarily are judged to be interesting to the American audience. French artists like these have their films shown in large American cities. I lived in a small town in the Alps in France. And their local cinemas had films from all over the world - - China, the United States, Latin America ect. When a Woody Allen movie would come to town there would be two versions of them - - one in French and one in English with subtitles because he was so popular in France. Some people just had to see his movie in the VO- - that's French for original version. However, in any place I've lived in the United States, I haven't had any trouble finding these movies on VHS and now on DVD at the public library.

Roger Ebert noted the irony of this movie - - today in France women have the right to have an abortion and the French government will pay for it in their insurance package. What do you think of that? FYI It was a French scientist who discovered the morning after pill. French women have had it in their pharmacies for decades.

Film Lover, you're up!

The reason I didn't answer this question is because it was written incorrectly. Buddy Holly Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were not on the way to the American Bandstand - TV show produced by Dick Clark. They were on their way to a rock and roll venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. I would never have given that answer because American Bandstand had nothing to do with this story. Sorry to interrupt - - but when it comes to rock and roll I like to get it straight. And please excuse the interruption.

Isabelle Huppert received the Career Tribute at the 50th Anniversary 2014 Chicago International Film Festival. Ms Huppert selected four of her films to be shown: The Piano Teacher-- Michael Hanneke Going Places-- Bertrand Brier White Material-- Claire Denis The Lacemaker--Claude Goretta

French director Claude Chabrol was one of the original Cahiers du Cinéma and French New Wave directors. Along with Eric Rohmer, he wrote a critique of Hitchcock movies called Alfred Hitchcock in 1957. In 1996 he won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film with La Cérémonie ( The Ceremony ) starring Isabelle Huppert. Chabrol appeared in Orson Welles' last unfinished film, The Other Side of the Wind.

Ida and Howard had their own TV situational comedy just like Lucy and Desi. Mr. Adams and Eve. You can check it out on YouTube. It didn't last long but I really liked it.