scsu1975

He is delicious in that role. I recommend his book, "The Comeback," which tells of his gradual descent, then turning his life around.

I found his obituary in a couple of 1915 newspapers, so I am assuming his date of death is correct, unless he was misidentified. I sent two cast corrections to the imdb page yesterday, for Blackwell and Pryce. Today I checked, and they messed them both up. Instead of listing Blackwell as Boyd, they now list him as Rhys Pryce, and they list Knute Rahm as Boyd! I give up. By the way, if you check Pryce's imdb page, the photo shown is from The Colonel's Escape.

Interesting to note that the item credits Emil Newman for musical direction in The Best Years of Our Lives, when it was Hugo Friedhofer who won the oscar for best score.

Fascinating! Thanks for posting this. The IMDb entry is screwed up big time. They have Carlyle Blackwell playing the wrong part. In addition, the actor playing C. Rhys Price, is, in fact, C. Rhys Price. His photo is below: Price fought in Mexico, then left after an assassination attempt, landing in Los Angeles. For a few years, the Mexicans tried to get him back so they could kill him. I believe the Mexican government had a $25,000 price on his head. He eventually worked for the Kalem Company. Contemporary accounts for this film claim that he was in it (which, of course, was a major marketing ploy). At first, I thought those were mistakes, until I saw his picture and read up on him. During WWI, he joined the Canadian forces, and was killed in France.

That is Steele, portraying Tor in Ed Wood.

George "The Animal" Steele just showcased his own fur.

Could have been worse. You could have slept with Evelyn Prentice, then she could have been late.

Tropic Zone (1953) youtube How can you make a film about a banana plantation exciting? You can’t. Rhonda Fleming (who looks spectacular, as always) plays the owner of a banana plantation in the Caribbean which is on the verge of going belly up. Enter Ronald Reagan, who saves the day. Seems Reagan is a political escapee from somewhere (probably where the Democrats are still in control), so he is in this country illegally. Nasty John Wengraf, who wants to buy out Fleming, blackmails Reagan into helping him wreck the plantation. Reagan pretends to go along, but you know at some point he is going to kick somebody’s a**. The highlight of the film occurs about halfway through, with a pretty good six minute brawl. Reagan cleans house, and Fleming gets the top of her dress torn off. The rest of the film is slow going. Estelita Rodriguez sings a few songs, and Noah Beery Jr. takes a nice part as Reagan’s buddy. Grant Withers plays Fleming’s drunken and former foreman. The climax features Reagan, Fleming, et al trying to transport 8000 banana stems to a dock so that the Tropic Fruit Company will give Fleming a contract. This ten minute march is clearly an homage to the exodus scene in The Ten Commandments, if you can imagine Reagan as Moses, Fleming as Mrs. Moses, and the bananas as the Hebrews leaving Egypt. This is the exact moment when Reagan conceived his “trickle down” theory.

Submitted for your approval ... my annual Christmas present. Enjoy.

I believe the nitwit who said that about Dunaway was Joan Crawford.

Even in science fiction, a man is incapable of figuring out what is in a woman's mind.

The Witching Hour (1934) youtube Fairly entertaining flick, just over an hour long, dealing with hypnotism, psychology, and … murder. John Holliday runs a gambling den inside his home. His daughter (Judith Allen) is gaga over Tom Brown. Brown has a fear of cat’s eye rings, so Holliday tries to help him overcome it, inadvertently hypnotizing him with the ring. Later, while Brown is gazing at the ring, he manages to hypnotize himself, then bump off a guy who had threatened Holliday. Naturally, the police don’t buy that explanation, so Holliday enlists the aid of a retired judge (Sir Guy Standing) to take the defense. William Frawley plays the grumpy jury foreman. The courtroom theatrics are ridiculous, as might be expected for a 1930s film (hypnotizing a juror, firing a gun in the courtroom), but the movie still manages to work if you don’t think too hard. The film was based on a play, and there are two silent versions as well (both lost, I presume). Personally, my eyes were more or less glued to Judith Allen, who was a revelation. Her career never took off, but she had the talent, and, if I may be blunt, a terrific bod. A rare photo of Sir Guy Standing sitting.

Check out around the 1:30 mark:

It is not generally known that Zsa Zsa also designed the props for Queen of Outer Space.

"Dahlink, I love you, but gimme Pahk Avenue. No, vait, dat is my sister's line."

Narcotic (1933) youtube Complete mess of a movie. Harry Cording, best known for playing heavies, has the lead as a doctor who opens a free clinic, then discovers he is running out of money. Maybe he should have been an economist instead. His Chinese friend, named Gee Wu, thinks that Cording needs some relaxation, so he takes him to the local drug den where they smoke dope. Cording then invents something called “Tiger Fat,” which is supposed to cure everything. Too bad it doesn’t work on bad acting, directing, writing, editing, and photography. Cording hawks his crap in a few scenes, interspersed with some other scenes of his distraught wife, played by Joan Dix. If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of Dix, probably because she can’t act. There is a dope party where everyone gets loaded, some by snorting, others by smoking, and/or injecting. Several people take a “bang,” and one guy tells a dame not to get the “ding.” None of this made any sense to me, so I got loaded myself and miraculously everything became clear. Characters simply appear out of nowhere, and we have no idea who they are. Several scenes are obviously taken from silent films because they are sped up. One snake eats another snake. Gee Wu takes Cording’s wife to some guy who looks like Mark Twain, in an attempt to help Cording – which makes no sense, since Wu got Cording in this mess in the first place. By the way, Gee Wu was not the original name of the character. The first choice was Won Hong Lo, but for some reason, that did not get past the censor. Cording shows off his latest invention – the apple flute.

I never heard of this film, and thanks to your review, I will continue to never hear of it.

I hear Sville was a barber.

Yeah, but not so much here, after Joan Crawford ran him down with a Panzer:

It was a very long pin.

My introduction to Jack Palance was Attack! (1956), where he plays a Lieutenant, who, fed up with a cowardly Captain (Eddie Albert), tells him where to get off. It's my favorite Palance performance.

How about a simpler plot, like a guy becomes a member of the TCM Message Boards, then wishes he had never been born?

Played by ear ... and was that ever painful ... <rimshot>

It started that way, then turned into a "holiday party," which cut back on several of my piano solos.

Not if he was doing it simultaneously. Remember, this is a guy who could do one-armed pushups.