daddysprimadonna
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Posts posted by daddysprimadonna
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The fact is, the series would never have become so popular if it hadn't struck a chord with moviegoers, so even if there was never an American family quite like the Hardys, at least it's some distillation of idealized Americana that people responded to.
I know what you mean. These movies are kind of wish fulfillment, and they were moneymakers in their day, so a lot people identified with the wish
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I can't choose just one-so in no particular order-
Way Down East with Lillian Gish
Daddy Long Legs with Mary Pickford
Student Prince Of Old Heidelburg with Norma Shearer and Ramon Novarro
Joan Crawford's flapper silents (Our Dancing Daughters, Our Modern Maidens)
The Birth Of A Nation
Male And Female with Gloria Swanson
Our Dancing Mothers with Alice Joyce and Clara Bow-Alice Joyce held her own in this movie, not an easy feat as Clara Bow's mother
Too many to recall right now!
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LOL That one had a little Italian flavor to it also. Fellini? I'm not up on my European directors very much.
I did like the films shown a year or so ago on TCM from Mexico-there was a really strange one where the people go to a dinner party and can't leave, that was pretty cool. I hate the film from Spain? where the girl is raised in a convent and goes home to see the pervert uncle who tries to marry her.
I liked the Swedish one (hope I didn't say the wrong Scandinavian country) where the boy becomes a pastor in the Middle Ages and has to marry the old woman but he loves a girl. It turned out pretty well.
I hated the one where some poor old woman gets burned as a witch and not even at a stake, she gets pushed face-down into a fire while tied to something. I couldn't watch that.
Why do so many European films have grotesque people or situations in them? Probably I haven't seen enough of them.
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That was wrenching. Louis Malle was there himself when this happened? Nevermind, Mr Osborne just clarified.
Well, y'all were right about one thing-he didn't do the same thing twice. I'm glad I saw this one through.
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I translated it-lol, the very stereotype of a French film
This part of the movie is too serious for me to mock. I can't believe this, though I know it happened.
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Not being proficient in French, I gathered from that post that you're depressed, all is black, and you want a croissant and some coffee? Now, if this were a French movie, you'd have to work sex into this scenario someway-as in, life is worthless, but if you can just have the latest woman you're salivating over, life will have meaning. Right? And life will be even more meaningful if the woman is your mother!
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I think that Oscar (the voters, heck, the whole industry) does indeed love loose women. What's really funny is that they get all excited, every time, about some actress playing a floozy, as if it's the newest freshest most revolutionary thing they've ever seen, when an actress would be extraordinary if she never did play a floozy in at least one film in her career. Has any actress managed that since Lillian Gish? I don't understand how "great acting" is always being confused with "acting the ****". I'd think it would take an extraordinary actress to play a good woman and make her exciting and interesting. At leats that's what actresses themselves used to say-that in playing a "bad girl" role, half your work was already done for you. A really good actress, then, would be one who made a good woman interesting.
Message was edited by: Melanie
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LOL at your post! I love snark, even when it's directed at movies and things I like
I'm watching again tonight, just on the off-chance. But really, these movies are destroying my preconception of French children (at least in former days) as being well-bred and quiet and nicely-behaved, hehe. If I believe these films, they're all little **** in training!
I even gave "Black Moon" a shot, but the violence right from the get-go did that one in. I'm sure that Louis Malle is a fine director, but I'm afraid that his subject matter just isn't to my taste. I'm still watching right now, unless things start getting really nasty or blasphemous. That would just be too unsettling for me. In which case I'll pop in one of the DVDs from a huge stack of pre-Codes I just bought. I like my movie sex wholesome and straightforward
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OK, this third one started out promising, but I had to turn it off just now-that is utterly disgusting. I can't even believe that a boy was hired to act in this part. When the mess with the mother started, that was it. That was too much.
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And that old black-and-white one where all the couples go to the old family chateau in the country to shoot rabbits or something, and the husband's mistress comes along, and the wife can't decide if she's in love with a famous French aviator or not. Everyone's very civilised about mistresses and affairs and things, except the wife, but she's excused by the others because she's from Austria.
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It's like the little girl with the curl-when they do a good one, it's very very good(like the silent Joan Of Arc), but when it's bad, it's horrid
ETA--And I love The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, considering that I would never think I'd love a film where not only are all of the words sung, but they're sung in French. I love that movie, I don't know how they managed to pull that off, but they do.
EATA--And that old one where all the couples go to the country to shoot rabbits or something and stay at the family chateau, and the husband's mistress comes along and the wife can't decide if she's in love with a famous French aviator. I don't remember the name or the actors right now.
Message was edited by: Melanie
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I'm sure it will
Sorry for coming on so strong about it, it's just that bratty children and too much self-aware trendiness are pet peeves of mine. Didn't mean to sound so very acerbic about it. I look forward to the next one -
Yes, everything's updated, and also I've tried from three different browsers (Safari, IE, and Firefox) and can't access it. Can't access it no matter what computer, ISP, or browser I use, so it has to be on TCM's end. But if they're not going to help, I guess that's that. It's very aggravating.
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Sheesh. This movie "Zazie" is just stupid. It seems like it tries to be like "A Hard Day's Night" or "Help!" but it's not funny and those kinda were. Even the Beatles were never able to top themselves in those movies, because "Magical Mystery Tour" was pretty stupid too. This dumb movie doesn't even come close. It doesn't have the the John Lennon twisted sense of wordplay and cynicism or something to keep it from being just a lot of unfunny silliness. And the bratty kid who only looks smart compared to the idiot adults who apparently never think to just to pop her one.
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I liked the first one, "Elevator To the Gallows". This next one, "Zazie", is annoying to me. I can't stand movies about bratty precocious kids, or "mod" film effects meant to be funny. So I'm just waiting this one out. I imagine the next one will be good.
Message was edited by: Melanie
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I still can't access my "Watches"--TCM, can't someone help me with this? I have tried from different computers, using different ISPs, so it's not my computer or my ISP settings. The page times out when I click the link for "Your Watches", no matter what computer using what ISP I use. I think that it may be an email address issue-when the board was being spammed and I was being inundated with emails, I changed the email address linked to Watches, but not to the rest of the TCM forum features, including my sign-in address. So the "Watch" feature has a different email address than my sign-in address, etc. But of course I can't access my Watches in order to change it back to the old one! I'm not positive that that's the problem, because I was able to access my Watches for a day or two after the spamming problem. But for app a month now I haven't been able to. Can't someone at TCM please help me with this? I have cleared cookies, signed out and back in, everything I can think of, and nothing's working. Please give me some help with this, it's very aggaravating to not be able to access my Watch list! Thank you, if you help, that is!
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I still can't access my "Watches"--TCM, can't someone help me with this? I have tried from different computers, using different ISPs, so it's not my computer or my ISP settings. The page times out when I click the link for "Your Watches", no matter what computer using what ISP I use. I think that it may be an email address issue-when the board was being spammed and I was being inundated with emails, I changed the email address linked to Watches, but not to the rest of the TCM forum features, including my sign-in address. So the "Watch" feature has a different email address than my sign-in address, etc. But of course I can't access my Watches in order to change it back to the old one! I'm not positive that that's the problem, because I was able to access my Watches for a day or two after the spamming problem. But for app a month now I haven't been able to. Can't someone at TCM please help me with this? I have cleared cookies, signed out and back in, everything I can think of, and nothing's working. Please give me some help with this, it's very aggaravating to not be able to access my Watch list! Thank you, if you help, that is!
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Cool! Thanks for mentioning where you found it, I'm going to go have a look there-you can't have too many places in which to hunt down old movies
Thanks again! -
"Escapade" sounds interesting, because I love both of those actors. You might ask some of the movie sellers on iOffer if they can get it, some of them have movies even besides the ones listed in their stores, and they take requests. I am so glad to have a found a place that sells so many old and especially pre-Code movies, including ones seldom seen on TCM (I also finally got The Hollywood Revue Of 1929, I've been dying to see this for the little vignette of Norma Shearer and John Gilbert doing the balcony scene from Romeo And Juliet-first they play it straight, then they do a "jazz baby" version of it--I thought I'd never be able to see this!) And "Dancing Mothers" with Alice Joyce and Clara Bow-I was surprised to see what a wonderful and lovely actress Alice Joyce was, she more than holds her own against Clara Bow's perpetual motion--but Clara is also wonderful in this movie. I said that I wasn't going to see "The Story Of Temple Drake" with Miriam Hopkins because it sounded uncomfortably sleazy from the reviews I've read, but when I saw it on iOffer, I couldn't resist
So I have it-I haven't watched it yet, I'm still hesistant to see a story where a woman wallows in being degraded. I don't mind a little male dominance a la Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind, but a romance factor has to be there, or it's just sleaze and degradation to me.I'm so happy to have found a place to acquire these movies and many others that I've wanted to see for eons, and very happy to share the good news
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I just got a replacement copy because I lost my other one. Thankfully my new copy is of better quality than the one that I lost! It's a good movie, pretty much in the average of Joan's movies from this period, I think. She plays a wealthy girl who commits murder. This is the one with the famous Adrian frock with all the ruffles on the sleeves.
I also finally got a copy of The Trial Of Mary Dugan, it was really good! (Thank goodness I don't have to futilely beg TCM to show it now!!!) And some of Norma Shearer's last silents-Upstage, Lucretia Lombard, and After Midnight. I've watched all but Lucretia Lombard so far, Upstage especially was pretty good.
I found tons of old movies on iOffer, I ordered about 30 that I haven't seen or loved so much that I want to own them, especially ones that are seldom shown on TCM such as "Chance At Heaven" with Ginger Rogers and Joel McCrea. Lots and lots of pre-Codes!
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Looking forward to your review, you have a way with words
Message was edited by: Melanie
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I also love Robert Montgomery in "Another Language" with Helen Hayes. He quite held his own in this movie with such an intelligent actress. It was really a pretty intelligent and modern movie in most ways, especially compared to a lot of other movies of its kind in that era. Actually, if you can disregard the clothes and other surface things, a lot of movies from that time deal in a very modern way with adult issues. It's almost as if movies from the Forties and later took a step back (not that I don't like movies from later times, they have their own qualities to appreciate). But women in the movies from the early Thirties and their lives are easy to relate to. Ann Harding is another actress who played roles like that. Women in a lot of movies from then make even women in the supposedly more liberated Sixties look positively childish.
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"The Man In Possession" is my current obssession movie
The first few times I watched it, I saw it as more comedic. The more I've watched it, the more I see a gradual shift to a dramatic undercurrent-it reminds me of the end of "Private Lives" with Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery, actually-the fear on their faces at the end of the movie, making the viewer wonder how these two people who can't live without each other, are going to make it together. You can see that they're wondering that too. I see a bit of fear in Irene Purcell's and Robert Montgomery's characters in "The Man In Possession" near the end when they decide to go away together, fear of the weaknesses within themselves and hoping that together they can overcome them. Both movies make me consider the faith people must put in each other and their love. -
I loved this movie (and I like Jean Porter also). It's hard to believe that there was a time when people could hound a girl because of her possible illegitimacy to the point of suicide, and attribute a loose character to her merely on the basis of her possible parentage. But I also don't like today's "celebration" of purposely having children out of wedlock. Why were we never able to find a happy medium?
I wouldn't have had a second thought about Shirley and Ronald Reagan being wed in the movie, if a major premise of the movie hadn't been that he was her father (both the town and herself believing it). That made it kind of icky. Although many years ago, my husband used to be mistaken for my father, and once even my grandfather (boy was he pi**ed, he told me that I had to start wearing make-up, LOL). I've somewhat caught up to him since then though
And the GREATEST Female Role in ALLLL of Motion Picture History Is...
in General Discussions
Posted
Strictly speaking of the roles, and not necessarily the actresses who played them (though the roles were made great by great performances, IMO the role itself must have been of importance on its own, for one reason or another, to count, in answer to this question--
Scarlett O'Hara-Gone With The Wind---a pre-eminent role for an actress
Marguerite Gaultier-Camille
I almost want to add "Lara" from Dr Zhivago, but I don't know why, that film was so completely Omar Sharifs-maybe because it was a strong, though not pre-eminent, role in a sweeping epic.
Lillian Gish's roles in her latter career were almost always about her character, but not in a grand way. As much as I adore both her and Pickford, I can't count them, Pickford especially so-her roles were so anomolous and suited to Pickford alone.
Marie Antoinette in "Marie Antoinette"-Norma Shearer made that role classic, though I have to admit, how much help does an historical personality such as Marie Antoinette really need, to be memorable, if the actress is good enough?
I know there's more out there, these came easily to mind.