therealfuster
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Posts posted by therealfuster
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director, and why?
I have so many, it is hard to pick a favorite.
I'll start with Kubrick. He is a favorite because though he does fit that haughty auteur classification, each one of his films seemingly is totally different.
I could watch "Clockwork Orange" over and over, and have...always finding new and interesting things. His films have wit, humor, prescience, technical expertise, style, and yet basic human qualities.
There is a unifying thread to his work despite the diversity of actors, and content.
Up there with him, I might pick Bunuel or Polanski, but I'd like to hear other's choices first.
Well?
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Since everyone is clarifying, then I will too!
I understand your point, and you are saying that you only question the repetition of "The Passion of Joan of Arc" so soon, when the likes of "The Joyless Street, Intolerance, Don Juan, The Wind, He Who Gets Slapped, The Last Laugh, Orphans of the Storm etc." sit on the shelf.
My bone of contention is though, that regardless of what TCM has done with the films you mention, they are not as unshown on tv as the Dreyer films. I've seen all the ones you mention shown quite often on PBS and a few other channels over the last ten years. And I live in a small town in the midwest.
But as for Dreyer...he is never shown anywhere usually. Perhaps in big market cities, on local channels they show Dreyer, but I can verify that his films do not have the fame and regularity of showing of the films you mention since I have looked for them continually, and for that reason, it is a coup that TCM caters to film fans who have seen the more easily accessible films you mention like of Griffith, Murnau et cetera.
I had to purchase all the Dreyer films I wanted to see, being that they are never shown on tv to my knowledge.
As for The Chessplayer, I saw a dvd for it recently at a large chain and hope to purchase it the next time I visit. They also had La Terre I think, which is also an excellent film.
So basically then our only bone of contention relates to which films really are the less broadcast, of which I believe it is the Dreyer films, and perhaps you believe otherwise. Being that I peruse tv listings constantly and for years for classic silents, and never saw Dreyer's catalogue show up even on PBS who have had silent film series and shown many Grifftiths and Seastrom's "The Wind", then I will remain with the belief that the rarity of Dreyer deserves at least two or three showings in a short time for starved Dreyer fans who perhaps cannot afford to spend 36 bucks a pop on any of his oeuvre.
This is not to say I do not agree with you that films by Victor Seastrom, Griffith, Murnau et cetera should be aired more than once also on TCM. But they have been shown for years in film retrospectives on tv and are much more common to most film fans.
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a chronological history of the horror film, starting with early silents like "Vampyr" and moving through things like "The Old Dark House" or even oddball things like "The Man Who Laughs", moving through the Universal years, one hit wonders like "Carnival of Souls" and end in modern day after passing through the Hammer and Amicus days.
I might need a whole week to actually do all these films justice, as there are so many good ones.
I would make byways into foreign horror along the way, and salute Bava, Polanski and Japanese cinema as in "Kwaidan" and France too. England has had its share of good horror, with films like "Dead of Night" et cetera.
So it would be a chronological, world tour of horror with many pitstops and offbeat oddities like the silent "Dementia" [the one spotlighted in The Blob, and not Coppola's #13], and even something made for tv like "Trilogy of Terror."
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but back in the 1940's, and maybe even a little earlier they had those short clips of a popular song, which were called Soundies I think.
You could play them out at joints through some type of jukebox like apparatus, and then see and hear the hits of the day. I'm sure we've all seen some of those which starred Duke Ellington and his band, shown between movies on TCM.
The much later concept of the music video, did not start just with MTV, as there were prerecorded promotional videos made of Top 40 songs back in the mid-60's, with things like the Troggs, who sang "Wild Thing", some psychedelic stuff created for the Beach Boys for "Good Vibrations" and some songs by the Beatles had videos made for them, which were shown occasionally.
So there were video type promotions done for songs pre-MTV, they just had limited venues to be seen as there was no 24 hour network for them.
That's my take. Most of what could be called a Soundie or 60's promo type thing were still created to drum up business for the song being sold, whether it be an acetate 78, a vinyl 45 or a much later cd.
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Claude Rains and Peter Lorre, but I might have to go with Ronald Colman.
All three actors are recognizable onscreen, by their most distinctive voices, even if one is not looking at the screen.
I'd have to vote for Bogey too, and maybe Mitchum.
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I bought up the three first Legacy sets in one fell swoop when I saw them! They are marvelous.
I am going to buy the new ones with the Mummy and Invisible Man today.
And that Sherlock Holmes series is expensive, but any amount is worth paying to see Gale Sondergaard as the Spider Woman.
A dvd I just picked up last Friday, is "Eyes Without a Face" [aka "Les Yeux Sans Visage"] directed by
Georges Franju.
I've only had this on video before, and the dvd is fabulous, with amazing cinematography by pioneer of camera innovations, Eugen Schufftan, inventor of the noted Shufftan Process.
It has crisp, yet eerie and moodily lit visuals, and stars Alida Valli and Edith Scob, and is very poetic horror for those who appreciate the understated style of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur.
I highly recommend this dvd which is by Criterion I think.
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given by Maggie Smith in monologues in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie".
Okay, she turned out to be a bit wrong, but still they sounded great when she intoned them to "her girls".
There's a nice little speech in "Harvey" that is in the play, and of course for some real frenzied melodrama, there are always lines from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" one can use about the nonexistent baby.
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I have TIme Warner Cable and TCM sounds fine here.
Seriously good luck, that kind of interference drives me crazy so I know what you are going through...
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because this may be a semantics issue.
If he said The Great Ziegfeld was the first musical to win "Best Picture" then he may have been correct.
I think the term Best Picture was not used till the 1930's in nomenclature for the Academy Awards, being that from the first ones for "Seventh Heaven" with Janet Gaynor till the one for "Broadway Melody" there were so few awards they were named a bit differently.
The top film was called something like "Best Production" which might be where the difference lies in what Robert meant.
I'm just guessing, I did not see what you mention. I'm just saying that if he said "The Great Ziegfeld" was the first musical to win "Best Picture" and you were thinking Oscar in general, then technically Robert was right on the money.
That particular wording may be the issue, and it separates "Broadway Melody" in essence as it was awarded "Best Production".
I agree, even if this is what happened, it might have made sense for him to make a distinction about that there was an earlier musical winner, but with a bit different award title.
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wait!
One of the most heartwarming things I ever saw, was an old broadcast of a "This Is Your Life" episode surprising Buster, from the 1950's, that was shown on PBS about ten years ago or more.
The series also showed repeats of episodes spotlighting the lives of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and also Jackie Coogan.
The Buster episode was a classic and reunited him with many old castmates, and even Red Skelton was on hand talking about contributions that Buster made to sight gags on his films.
Too bad some of those episodes could not be shown again, as many of the great stars were surprised and shown in a more natural way than on premieres, et cetera.
Of course, some hated it and it showed. Ralph Edwards could be grating on one's nerves and I think honoree Lowell Thomas was the guest who walked off the show live, and would not cooperate.
I look forward to seeing the new documentary on Buster.
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As for the famous bellhop in SLIH, it was played by Al [aka Allen Breneman] and one can only wonder what he looks like today.
After doing some research years ago, since he was uncredited [shocking isn't it?] I found his name, and that he was in no other films, which is a major loss to the film historical record in my humble opinion.
He held his own up there with Curtis and Lemmon, so it is a sad story.
Apparently Al also appeared in an episode of the tv western, "Restless Gun" and a show called "Letter to Loretta" before his most famous role in the Billy Wilder classic.
After that, Al only seems to have appeared on an episode of the sitcom "My Three Sons" playing Jerry in Don Grady's [Robbie-middle son, till they replaced Tim Considine] band.
But all hope is not lost, as I was pleased to see that Billy Redden, the famous Duelling Banjo boy from "Deliverance" [another one role wonder] was coaxed out of retirement by Tim Burton to play [surprise!] Banjo Man in "Big Wish".
Burton was also responsible for putting the cult figure Korla Pandit in his film "Ed Wood" so he must appreciate those of such unsung talents.
Thanks for asking about Al, as he is a major part of the film SLIH to be sure.
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but then I am a bit odd!
I've known since I was about ten, but my mother would always identify the character actors in films for me, that we watched together.
I then would occasionally pick up books I saw, with bios of all the major and many minor character actors, and look up people when I saw them in films. Even the likes of Eily Malyon does not escape my eye if I see her playing a maid.
It's not a pretty addiction. No one cares when you are noticing that Arthur Hunnicutt is in a scene with the likes of Kirk Douglas and is stealing his thunder. I even went to the trouble of trying to find out info about the pintsize bellhop in "Some Like It Hot" who kept hitting on Jack Lemmon in his Daphne incarnation.
My favorites are as obscure as Billy Benedict and as famous as Elisha Cook, Junior, but I always wonder what Senior looked like.
Edna Mae Oliver was a gem in "David Copperfield" and I wish she could have sniffed her way through many more films and enhanced them with her wit and charm.
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all the suggestions mentioned, particulary Richard Widmark, Lizbeth Scott and Jean Simmons.
I'd like to see James Whitmore, Shirley Knight, Piper Laurie and I bet Terry Moore would have some interesting stories.
Now if Anna Magnani was still alive, she'd be my first choice.
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From a slight perusal of the films you mentioned, it seems I see some of the early Edison Motion Pictures which featured just real life activities being displayed, like the "NY City Ghetto Fish Market" one, and one film is by Frank Grandon, of whom I basically only know the name from a book on early silents I have.
The titles of others sound like similar experiments from other studios, in documenting real life actualities like Thomas Edison's joint did in the early years of the century.
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who would enjoy seeing the black and white only films from 1930-1950.
Where do I sign up?
Truly, if one had an overall vision and knowledge of how often a film like "Gertrud" has ever played on tv in the States on any channel...if ever, then one would hardly find it objectionable percentage wise to begrudge fans of it, who may have never seen it, two showings in a short time.
It's called...consideration of other's tastes.
I only saw "Day of Wrath" once, before it came out on video and now dvd, by driving 100 miles to a college showing it years ago.
And it was quite worth the drive, but was not an accessible film till the recent past.
I am continually bored by film series in my hometown, which only show classics like "The Big Sleep" [which I love by the way] over and over, but I know that they are trying to appeal to a more mass audience, so I don't try to change their programming to suit only me.
TCM has made an effort to appeal to both the wide range film fan, and the more specialized ones, who get nothing anywhere else, so I find it unnerving that anyone would try to make the channel appeal to a more mass common denominator.
They show over probably 300 or more movies of all varieties in a month, and if they repeat a few obscure films, what is that to beef about? One may consider that a rhetorical question!
Instead of trying to change their excellent programming, why not just turn on VH1 and watch reruns of the Surreal Life or the 20th showing of a Britney Spears life story.
One will never see Buster Keaton on VH1, MTV or the majority of trendy cable channels, so that's where to go for non-Buster viewing obviously.
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I know some people in my own family, who could host a movie marathon and know more film trivia than most hosts on tv, as they lived through it.
The problem with someone who is only versed in what they've read in books on film, is that books can be wrong.
Just last night I saw some show on the History Channel again discussing the radio version broadcast by Orson Welles of "War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells, and each time the numbers of U.S. citizens who fell for the invasion idea, gets larger, and last niight it was reported as millions of people.
Give me a break! People who lived through it and have old newspaper clippings will tell you it was a few nimrods in New Jersey and not the whole country.
Don't tell this to anyone who believes the continually inflated numbers over the years in books.
This is as bad as believing that Elvis was only shown from the waist up on "The Ed Sullivan Show", when in fact it only occurred on his third scheduled appearance.
So...I'd like to see some old timers who love film as hosts.
Robert Osbourne is good as all seem to agree, and I do enjoy his intros and interviews with the stars. He does his homework and does not ask asinine questions like Larry King.
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Bette Davis?
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"ram Buster Keaton" down your throat?
I would think that you have enough advance notice to remove your throat logistically from this intended debacle, Lux.
Yes, if one is tuned in to a discriminating cable channel for movies, then one might find films by Buster Keaton.
But if one does not appreciate his oeuvre, then perhaps one should look for a less discriminating cable programmer, which only shows sound films of a later vintage, that appeal to the masses.
Why have a beef with the one cable channel which serves those who enjoy the whole history of film, and not just those of the last forty years?
Good golly, TCM shows continual films all day, every day of every genre and vintage, which adds up to about twelve a day sometimes, and you begrudge silent film fans seeing ten gems by Buster Keaton in a month of films?
I think that one must consider the overall vision of the cable channel. Don't go to an antique shop, and then complain they sell no Oakley sunglasses.
TCM does a marvelous job of showcasing all types of quality films, so unless one watches 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week continually, surely one can allow others to have some films that perhaps are not to one's own liking, to watch ten or more times a month.
But then that's just me. I don't watch every film on TCM, but I find over 60% of their weekly programming of interest, yet I do not try to make it 100%, as that is unreasonable in my opinion and not evocative of being considerate to other's tastes unlike my own.
Besides not liking Buster Keaton, I'd be curious which other silent film stars you don't like, Lux.
Indulge me....
therealfuster
"lux0786
Considering that TCM generally shows one silent movie a week and one International movie a week (some exceptions, i.e., in the next month or two they're going to ram Buster Keaton down our throats with about 10 movies in a row) why give us these movies so soon when they have others on the shelf that haven't been shown in months. Maybe if silents and foreign movies were scheduled more frequently it would make more sense to repeat so soon. Perhaps the TCM programmer would like to commnent on this."
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Mary Badham and was appalled at that Twilight Zone where they dubbed her voice, due to her teeny little accent.
And I sort of forgot about Donald O'Connor being in that dance team with Peggy Ryan I think it was. He is one of my adult favorites too. I could watch him dance up the wall in SITR daily.
Liz was excellent too, as are your other choices.
Thanks for participating!
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love "Horror Hotel" or "City of the Dead" as I think it is called.
Some others I would recommend are "Spoorloos" [The Vanishing] of George Sluizer [only the original, not the American remake], that Spanish film "Tombs of the Blind Dead", the Sixties flick "The Horrible Docter Hichcock" directed by Riccardo Freda, or "Black Sunday" by Mario Bava, "Eyes Without a Face" by Franju which has similar understated qualities like those of the Lewton/Tourneur partnership, Chaney's "The Unknown" which is creepy in its perversions, and any films with Barbara Steele, who personifies horror with her large bulbous eyes, black hair and knobby chin, yet is oddly attractive in a macabre way.
Someone mentioned "Isle of the Dead" and though any Karloff is great, this one is fantastic and a bit different and very morbid. Someone else mentioned Charles Middleton as "The Strangler of the Swamp" and it is really a great B-film and the mists are beguiling.
I also like Karen Black in "Trilogy of Terror" and almost any of the Hammer or Amicus anthology films, like "Dr. Terror's House of Horror" or "The House That Dripped Blood" et cetera.
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always proved true on screen!
Though she was marvelous in "All About Eve" I also admired her performance in that Mankiewicz film, "A Letter to Three Wives" which is equally intelligently written.
She is much missed...
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the beginning of that most classic film, "Billy Jack" and make it start on an Indian reservation in Kansas.
I would have the song "One Tin Soldier" be playing in the background on trumpet, with a person like Montgomery Clift as Pruitt from "From Here to Eternity" wailing the song, and have Native American dancers writhing, to enliven the song and emphasize the lyrics.
I would change the ending too, and make sure that Billy Jack is convicted, sentenced to death and eviserated and placed in an Iron Maiden...to make sure he is dead, and that no sequel can be made.
If a presequel was planned, hopefully it will be written by Jim Thompson and not Tom Laughlin.
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child actors?
I'm not going to say "best" child actors, as taste is relative, but all mine are ones who I think also could equit themselves admirably on screen in drama or comedy.
This topic came to mind yesterday, as I was watching little Miss Margaret O'Brien with June Allyson and Marsha Hunt in that tearjerker with Jose Iturbi. I think she was one of the best and I will add to my list on the side of the girls, Peggy Ann Garner, Diana Lynn, Virginia Weidler, Marcia Mae Jones and the adorable Sybil Jason who stole "The Little Princess" away from Shirley Temple.
For later time frames I think Patty Duke and Patty McCormack were quite accomplished and talented.
One the male side, my favorite child actors are Jackie Coogan, Mickey Rooney, Roddy McDowall, and Robert Blake [or Mickey Gubitosi!].
I also think one of the best later child stars, who was also great as a young adult before his untimely death in a traffic accident, was Brandon De Wilde.
In addition, Bobby Driscoll was marvelous in the noir thriller, "The Window" and it was sad to hear of his demise at an early age.
Well, who are your favorites?
Oh I forgot...I don't know how great his thespian skills would be judged by the Actors Studio, but I always enjoy the insufferably entertaining Jackie "Butch" Jenkins too, and he was adorable in the recent TCM showing of "My Brother Talks to Horses".
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to AMC, and not only will you not have to see "Gertrud" for the three years you'd request...but you will not have to worry about ever seeing it there.
One does not find filet mignon at the drive thru.
TCM serves finer cuts of meat, and with generous portions.
Kudos to TCM for being there for film fans of international cinema!
Favorite Character Actresses
in General Discussions
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something today about one of my favorite character actresses, Una O'Connor but you beat me to it.
I own copies of The Invisible Man but had to stay up to watch her schtick in it last nite, just for the fun of it.
She somehow manages, to steal every scene she is in, and though she is full of antics it never detracts from the movie.
As for the others you mention, Maude has been a favorite since I saw her in W.C. Fields' film "Poppy" and she is magnificent and so human. I love Miss Watson and Miss Dale, and I put them in the same category as the greats Ruth Donnelly, Jane Darwell, and Clara Blandick.
A few other favorites of mine are Zazu Pitts, Laura Hope Crews, and Margaret Dumont. Josephine Hull is a treasure and Beulah Bondi transcended character parts and could carry a whole film. I think her transformation from kindly mother to nasty old crone in Capra's IAWL, is what holds the film together.
I also love and adore Estelle Winwood.
Great question and I look forward to seeing other's favorites.