lzcutter

Here's the singing Santa link that you were talking about: http://badaboo.free.fr/merryxmas.swf It's definitely the Drifters doing the doo-**** in the promo. But the song in the holiday promo is different and that's the puzzlement! Message was edited by: lzcutter

Director and choreographer Michael Kidd has passed away: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/arts/dance/24cnd-kidd.html

I am not sure where Tom Arnold is getting his info. The USO and Wayne Newton (who took over when Bob Hope was no longer able to travel) have been putting together the USO tours and working tirelessly overseas to entertain the troops. Newton recently had to take some time off due to a heart condition but he expects to back in Iraq in the New Year. Everyone from Jay Leno to Toby Keith to Beyonce and more have been to Iraq under the banner of the USO.

FF, Regarding A Star is Born and Becky Sharpe and UCLA Archives. It could be restrictions on the provisions that were signed when the films were deposited with the Archive that keeps the restored versions from being released on DVD . I will try to find out more and let you know what I find out.

UCLA Archives restored this version of A Star is Born a few years back. However, the print that TCM usually airs is the faded Public Domain print. It would be great if TCM could do a Preservation Festival in partnership with UCLA and other archives so that they would have access to the restored prints even if it was just a short window for broadcast.

Brando was more than the greatest actor of all time. He paid close attention to the world around him, which little could be said of Oliver, Tracy. Brando even marched with Martin Luther King and several civil right activists during the 60's.>> I don't know about that. Both men supported the Allies during World War II by donating their time and their money. The 1960s were filled with much more social upheaval and social causes than the era that Tracey and Olivier came of age in so to compare the three on that basis is kind of like comparing apples and oranges. As for Olivier vs Brando, Olivier is much more that just a Shakespearean actor. His work in the 1930s and in the 1970s reveals a very different actor. The fact that he loved performing Shakespeare and committed some of those performances to film shouldn't detract from the fact that he had some very good, even great performances on film outside of Shakespeare. They are two very different actors from two very different generations. So, actually comparing them, now that I think about it, is like comparing apples and oranges.

Katrina, The movie you are looking for is "Ball of Fire" with Barbara Stanwyck as the burlesque queen, Sugarpuss O'Shea who finds shelter with Gary Cooper (sorry, not Jimmy Stewart) and his group of linguistic professors as they work on a dictionary.

ML. No telepathy or bat signals needed. The mystical Mongo can be contacted here: http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=60753&tstart=15

Frank Capra, Jr has died: Wilmington Studio Head Frank Capra Jr. Dies By MARTHA WAGGONER Associated Press Writer Frank Capra Jr., the son of "It's A Wonderful Life" director Frank Capra who followed his father into the movie business and help build the largest television and movie studio on the East Coast, has died. He was 73. Capra Jr. died Wednesday night at a hospital in Philadelphia, said Bill Vassar, the executive vice president of Wilmington-based EUE/Screen Gems Studios, of which Capra was president. Vassar said Capra died following a long fight with prostate cancer, which had spread over the past several months. "With his Hollywood pedigree and extensive experience as a producer, Frank was the perfect ambassador to Hollywood," Chris Cooney, chief operating officer of EUE Screen Gems LTD, said in a statement. "He will be missed as a friend and a colleague." Under Capra's leadership, EUE/Screen Gems' credits include several major motion pictures, including "28 Days," "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," "Domestic Disturbance," "Black Knight" and "A Walk to Remember." He also was at the helm when "Dawson's Creek" - starring a then-unknown Katie Holmes - filmed at the studios, and he kept all nine of the studio's sound stages full in recent years between movies and the filming of another successful teenage soap, "One Tree Hill." "He brings a certain cachet to the studio that would not be there and wasn't there before he came," said Bill Arnold, the former director of the North Carolina Film Office, said in an interview earlier this year. "When Frank came on, I think it assumed a larger profile just because of Frank's name." Capra was one of three children of Frank Capra and Lucille Rayburn Warner Capra, who tried to protect her children from the Hollywood life. Still, he could tell stories about dinners with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, and said he was best friends with Gary Cooper's daughter Maria. For the past several years, he screened his family's 35mm print of his father's 1946 Christmas favorite at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. In an interview in the summer of 2007, Capra Jr. said his father had no idea he was making the classic film, starring Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore. "I don't think any filmmaker knows that," he said. "He loved the idea of the story. He fell in love with that idea of the story about a man who could see the world the way it would have been had he never been born." Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at this time. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Frank Capra, Jr. Film Studies Scholarship Fund, c/o Marla Rice Evans at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 South College Street, Wilmington, NC 28403

Here's a couple of threads with lots of info on the promo: http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=119533&tstart=0 http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=119531&tstart=30

Tom, It is called the MGM Studio Tour of 1925 and it is run on TCM occasionally. I saw it last over the summer on TCM after a Lon Chaney film on Silent Sundays. It may be included in a box set of MGM films.

Redriver, If it helps, Kane lost to How Green Was My Valley in the Best Picture race that year.

Kyle, Banacek definitely starred George Peppard. I remember watching it when I was a teen. I think it was part of the weekly NBC Mystery wheel, which rotated with McMillan and Wife, Hec Ramsey and McCloud.

Here's another thread: http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=119181&tstart=0

The RCA/Victor Company with Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra released a number of film score albums by Max Steiner (including the Now Voyager one at the top of the Amazon list in vallo's link as well as a separate one for Steiner's Music for Gone With the Wind), Erich Von Korngold, the music from Captain from Castille, scores from Bogart's films and two from Bette Davis films, including one dedicated to Elizabeth and Essex. There may have been some more but my memory of all listings is hazy. They may be available on CD. It would be worth searching Amazon and other sites for. They were great compilation albums in their day.

A poster here in another thread posted that she and Bill Wellman, Jr appeared at the Lone Pine Film Festival back in the mid to late 1990s but while Bill, Jr has made appearances there since then, Mrs. Wellman has not. Perhaps she is in ill health or unable to travel?

Their stories and lives are being preserved through the Turner Archive Project that does film/video histories with the men and women who were in front of the camera and behind the camera as well as those who worked in the studios.

Mongo, Thanks so much! Fedya, I am looking forward to your warped sense of programming for the next Challenge and I hope that all who participated this time around will return for the next one.

Okay, color me confused again. The clip provided in the link takes you to the artist singing not the TCM Remembers 2007 spot. I have not seen the Remembers spot yet. Is this the song used in the promo?

Wow, this is a surprise! I'm actually kind of speechless. Thank you to everyone for enjoying my schedule so much. I was afraid folks were getting tired of all my talk of restoration and preservation. I hope one of these days that TCM will do a Preservation Festival as I think it could be great. Anyways, as moderator of the next Challenge I will have to put my thinking cap on and come up with a theme. So stay tuned! The TCM Programming Challenge #9 is coming! Thank you again!

Dear Santa, All I want and all I need is Rhett. As God as my witness, I have been a very good girl this year. Regards, Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler c/o Tara Plantation Georgia

Zachsgranny, I believe you are looking for 'Wild in the Streets" starring Christopher Jones. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063808/

I assumed that from the home page statement that said there were 150,000 films in the data base that the database still existed.>> MaryJ, The database does still exist. It can be accessed from the homepage here: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/index.jsp The database was originally created by the American Film Institute and through negotiation, TCM is able to bring that database to us. However the 150,000 films featured in the database are not owned by TCM nor does TCM have access to all the films.

Wow, that took some doing to get the thread to open. I had a whole post in my head that I was going to write about my choice but it took so long to get the thread to open that I forgot what I wanted to say. The schedules are all worthy and all are very creative. Choosing just one is difficult but a choice has to be made. I cast my vote for Movieman1957's schedule. I really loved the Henry 8th theme! Message was edited by: lzcutter

I didn't notice the reduced size of the furniture,>> Kyle, I noticed it in the courtroom scenes. The tables and chairs especially. When Fonda walked by them on his way to address the jury or a witness, I remarked to Mr Cutter that the furniture seemed off scale. He concurred and I realized that it was done to make Fonda appear taller.