GregoryPeckfan

Quite true. There were stages to this. There was a lot of "yellow journalism" around the kidnapping of the lindberg baby, and this style was used in the filming of Murder on the Orient Express (1976) where Richard Widmark plays the murder victim - in my opinion, a film that David Suchet's version could not have hoped to top as I paid no attention at all to Ratchett in Suchet's version - shows this. I wondered why I was so taken by the murder victim in an Agatha Christie mystery - a film I had seen dozen of times without knowing that Richard Widmark was a movie star. Then I saw R.W. in Yellow Sky opposite Gregory Peck and could not take my eyes off of Widmark. So I looked his career up and realized I already knew who he was. That is when I became a Richard Widmark fan.

I recently saw Lana in the Secret of Dr. Kildare opposite Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore in a single film appearance in the popular series. She stole the film from Lew's leading lady as far as the female acting attention is concerned.

I don't think she has been mentioned.

Yes, well as far as I am concerned, Rayban, this is not the public's business. Why Williams decided to write a tell all reflects badly on her. When Jeremy Brett died, the woman who was living with him when he died decided to write biography about him without his family's or friends' consent and told everything about him. I cried when I read that book and I am glad it was a library book and not a book I bought. Nowadays because of the internet and 24-hour news channels, nothing is secret. But during the studio system era, the press actually worked *with* the studios to make sure that the image portrayed on screen matched the press releases. This continued for a long time. It may have kept going if MGM had not decided to market Frank Sinatra as a clean cut sky guy who needed Gene Kelly to introduce him to girls. Sinatra was NOT that kind of man. Therefore, when he divorced his wife to marry Ava Gardner - remember that Sinatra was Catholic - the press got angry and exposed everything. Meanwhile, Tracy was living with Hepburn but never divorced his wife. But the end of press and Hollywood studios agreeing with each other was gone.

Thanks again, Barton. I appreciate you doing this each month.

That's correct. Plummer had kidney stones. Shatner had not yet memorized his lines and would get through part of his lines, forget what was coming next and then continue. It was a memory thing. But there was a critic in the audience who thought that Bill was doing it on purpose and praised him in a newspaper review. From then on, whenever Shatner would play a larger than life character like Kirk, he would do this strange pausing. But he did not do this when he was playing an ordinary person like in the Twilight Zone episode "Nick of Time." So, basically, we can praise/blame a theatre critic for the Captain Kirk impressions. Your turn, D.J.

The book I got rid of - gave to someone else - spent several pages on it. From what I remember of reading about the tragedy: He did not go into surgery right away after he broke his back. Whether this was a factor or not I do not know. When he finally went into surgery, he would not stop bleeding. He had to be given a transfusion. He then developed pneumonia.

I would like to nominate for pitchforking Father Lord in both The Philadelphia Story and High Society.

Yes, Esther Williams decided to write a tell-all book and expose this. I think she made a lot of money off of it. But her Hollywood friends were furious with her because Jeff died from complications due to his back surgery and shortly after Cooper and Gable (I think that is partly why I got dates confused as I knew that 2 of the 3 actors died within a month of each other. I just got the identity of which 2 mixed up.) I did not read that book. But I did have a Hollywood death book which discussed Jeff in great detail and this whole issue of his "secret" and the death and the timing of his death compared to these screen giants. I've never been a fan of watching people swim, anyway, so I don't know if my reading of this tragedy and the fact that she wrote the tell-all book affects my ability to watch her movies. I don't seem to care in Take me Out to the Ballgame, in which she appears with Kelly and Sinatra. But I am not watching the movie for her. As for Jeff Chandler's career: I am most familiar with Broken arrow and Peyton Place. I have yet to see the war film where he broke his back, but it is on my to-see list. Contrast this with Ricardo Montelban who also broke his back when he fell on rocks during the filming of a western and survived. *note* I no longer have the Hollywood Death book. I recycled it because I decided it was too morbid.

Yes, I remember a lot about the cat and the mirror and I know some people are quite harmful to black cats especially around Halloween so you are not allowed to adopt a black cat from a shelter in October in most places.

Re: MeTV and Remmington Steele and a potential tribute to Doris Roberts: I just tried to check on the website for my local Metv station to see if we would be getting any tribute and the site says that it has been hacked. I guess I'll have to check metv channel itself and wait and see.

His Girl Friday

Baker, Diane

Oh, okay, The Grapes of Wrath character, not the poster Tom.

Yes, I think that Maurice Chevailier did that a lot.

Chester Morris was in The Big House with Robert Montgomery

Zerbe, Anthony

Toy Story

Rear Window

Night People starring Gregory Peck which I have been able to see only once due to it rarely airing on television.

I have not yet seen any of the franchise Aliens. I am familiar with the scene where something comes out of stomachs, but I have not watched the movies.

Happy birthday Mr. Sulu. I am enjoying recording movies of Mr. Lloyd which I have not seen.

Tom's in Canada.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those films where I have read the novel and seen the film. I try to see The movie at least once a year, often on or near Angela Lansbury's birthday.

BEST ACTOR OF 1940: NO ORDER; WINNER LISTED AFTERWARD: Spencer Tracy in Boomtown Clark Gable in Boomtown Charles Chaplin in The Great Dictator Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story Laurence Olivier in Rebecca Joel McCrea in Foreign Correspondent Spencer Tracy in Northwest Passage Cary Grant in His Girl Friday Cary Grant in My Favorite Wife Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk Dennis Morgan in Kitty Foyle Errol Flynn in Virginia City William Powell in I Love You Again Charles Boyer in all This and Heaven Too Raymond Massey in Abe Lincoln in Illinois Fred Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940 W.C. Fields in The Bank Dick Don Ameche in Down Argentine Way Louis Hayward in Dance, Girl, Dance Robert Taylor in Escape Herbert Marshall in The Letter Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee Clark Gable in Strange Cargo Fred McMurray in Remember the Night Fred McMurray in Too Many Husbands Melvin Douglas in Too Many Husbands Laurence Olivier in Pride and Prejudice James Stewart in the Shop Around the Corner Conrad Veidt in The Thief of Bagdad Sabu in the Thief of Bagdad Humphrey Bogart in They Drive By Night George raft in They Drive By Night Robert Taylor in Waterloo Bridge William Holden in Our Town Peter Lorre in Stranger on the Third Floor WINNER: TYRONE POWER IN THE MARK OF ZORRO (second place was Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath)