scsu1975
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Posts posted by scsu1975
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17 hours ago, hamradio said:
Wiki doesn't seem to know anything about William C. Haines (tried clicking on it) nor does anybody else on the internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Byrd_at_the_South_Pole
William C. Haines was an Ohio farm boy who became a meteorologist, before enlisting in the Army in 1918, where he served in the meteorological department. Haines accompanied Byrd on three trips to the Antarctic. At “Little America,” a base established by Byrd at the South Pole, there is a mountain named after Haines. Haines was awarded two gold medals by Congress, one in 1931 and another in 1937. In appreciation, Byrd gave Haines a watch, bearing the inscription “To my close friend Bill Haines, whose brilliant forecasts enabled us to conquer by air the North and South Poles. Dick Byrd, Dec. 25, 1930.” Haines finished his career in the late 1940s as assistant meteorologist in St. Louis.
Here is a photo of Haines from 1948:
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Flight to Nowhere (1946) YouTube
This should be subtitled “The Plot to Nowhere.”The film opens in Honolulu (I’m sure it was filmed on location) and some guy gets gunned down. Then we get stock footage of an atomic explosion. That’s pretty much all the excitement in the movie, and the opening credits haven’t even rolled yet.
Everybody is trying to find a map to a uranium mine. No one is who they seem to be. In other words, you think you are watching actors, but you’re not.
Alan Curtis walks around like Al Gore and reads his lines off a teleprompter. He gets cold-cocked twice and makes wisecracks about it. A way-over-the-hill Jack Holt is shoved into several scenes as a government man. Evelyn Ankers doesn’t even get a chance to scream. Silent film cowboy Hoot Gibson has a bit as a sheriff. Jerome Cowan is a bad guy. The climax lasts about 20 seconds.You can fall asleep several times during the film (as I did) and not miss anything.
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2 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
I recall Madigan as being an acceptable although not extraordinary police drama.
I've seen Inger Stevens in a lot of things, like The Buccaneer, Firecreek, Hang 'Em High, and Five Card Stud. But I think the role I remember her most from is "The Hitch-Hiker" episode of The Twilight Zone.
Inger Stevens is really gorgeous in Madigan. It's been some time since I've seen it, but it's a pretty good cop movie, and the characters have plenty of flaws. Later, there was a short-lived TV series of the same name, also starring Widmark. It may have been part of that NBC Mystery Theater ("McCloud," etc), but I can't recall offhand. However, if you've seen the movie, you know a TV series would make no sense.
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Welcome to the boards. You may have access to 1000s of movies, but not all at once. On Demand usually features films that have just shown on TCM in the past week, and they can be viewed on the site for about a week. The site is updated as new films are added and old ones are removed.
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44 minutes ago, NipkowDisc said:
getting a special film endowment so they can update their coffer with some fresh new movies?
Like ... Hot Spell, for instance?
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2 hours ago, Fedya said:
Secret Ceremony sounds like a fascinating mess.
Only if you enjoy Liz Taylor burping.
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31 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
I have. I gave it a 5/10, or a C-. Not the finest hour for anyone involved.
Speaking of which, I'll be recording Secret Ceremony (1968), as it's a Robert Mitchum movie that I haven't seen. I'm not expecting much, though.
For lack of a better phrase, this movie blows. I have no idea what the title means. Elizabeth Taylor is a hooker who looks like Mia Farrow's dead mother; Farrow is a nutjob who looks like Taylor's missing daughter. Robert Mitchum is Farrow's stepfather who is doing her. His accent changes back and forth from English to American. Farrow pretends she is pregnant by putting a stuffed animal under her clothes. Mitchum calls Taylor a cow, and describes his ex-wife's breasts as "fantastic opulent mother-of-pearly globes." He describes his escapades with Farrow: "She manipulated my toes so cleverly my hair stood on end." Taylor lies in bed and says "there were two mice fell in a pail of milk. One of them yelled for help and drowned. The other kept peddling around and around till in the morning he found himself on top of butter."
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1 hour ago, TomJH said:
But more than a decade later, now a middle aged actress working at Fox, she had the opportunity to memorably stretch her dramatic wings once again, with her role as Aunt Cissy in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn then, not long afterward, as Zeena, the sensual carny act fortune teller who can't resist an attractive man's embrace in Nightmare Alley.
The last time I saw Nightmare Alley, I realized how incredibly hot Joan was.
She was so versatile. I get a kick out of her performance in The Twilight Zone episode "What's In the Box" where she and William Demarest basically beat the crap out of each other.
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1 hour ago, calvinnme said:
All day tomorrow is a good day of "Films starring George Brent that are good not necessarily because of George Brent". The only one I haven't seen is "Submarine D-1", so I can't comment on its quality.
Hmmm ... I wonder if the "D" stands for "derriere."
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3 hours ago, Bogie56 said:
Wednesday, March 14
6:30 p.m. Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959). With UCLA Basketball star Denny Miller. I don’t know about this one. Something tells me it ain’t a classic.
A bit of trivia - Miller played basketball on the same team as future Olympic Gold Medalist Rafer Johnson - who himself appeared in two Tarzan movies featuring former pro football player Mike Henry as the loinclothed swinger.
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3 hours ago, Bogie56 said:
Wednesday, March 14
6:30 p.m. Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959). With UCLA Basketball star Denny Miller. I don’t know about this one. Something tells me it ain’t a classic.
From The Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star:
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Maybe it's time for see some disclaimers on TCM On Demand, such as
"The following film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit this screen, to run in the time allotted and edited for content"
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1 hour ago, Bogie56 said:
Sunday, March 11
1:45 p.m. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Where is Mr. Smith today when we need him?
Probably living as Ms. Smith.
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I will leave the thread open.
(As a side note, having driven on Interstate 95 in CT for most of my adult life, I always wondered who John Davis Lodge was, since part of the highway is named after him. I finally found out several years ago when I got involved with classic films.)
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#1 Richard Johnson
#2 Ron Randell
#6 John Lodge
#9 Rod Laroque
#10 Jack Buchanan
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3 hours ago, TomJH said:
Rich, I don't know if you have Universal's single disk DVD release of A & C Meet Frankenstein. It has a Bonus Feature section with a documentary on the making of the film. The documentary is on You Tube.
Bobby Barber's role as court jester for Bud and Lou is brought up. It includes an outtake from Meet Frankenstein with Lugosi coming down the stairs at the castle, with Bud and Lou and a number of other cast members at the bottom of the stairs. But little Bobby Barber can be seen walking down the stairs following Lugosi. He has a hat pulled down over his head and a black cloak around him, not unlike the way Lon Chaney appeared in Phantom of the Opera.
Anyway Bud and Lou and others at the bottom of the stairs are breaking up and you see Lugosi, obviously surprised, turning around and start to address Barber. The outtake ends there and you don't know what Lugosi said, of course, but he doesn't look happy. He was a one take professional who did not appreciate joking around when he had to deliver his dialogue or do a scene. At the same time he apparently did enjoy the antics on the set as long as it didn't involve any of his scenes.
I found this shot which shows that Lugosi could join in on the fun when Barber was the victim:
Barber also appears in the final film very briefly in a scene with Lon Chaney (Barber's the short one on the right).
I don't have the dvd; in fact, I own very few. But I have seen that clip, probably in a blooper reel.
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3 hours ago, cigarjoe said:
But my fondest memories of the team though are from their 1952 to 1954, half-hour TV series, The Abbott and Costello Show. It really gave you a feel for more of their vaudeville backgrounds, with all their various routines, and the routines of their vaudeville background costars, Sidney Fields (Mr. Fields, and his various relatives), Joe Besser (Stinky Davis), Joe Kirk (Mr. Bacciagalupe).
Let's not forget Bobby Barber, bit player extraordinaire, who always seem to turn up on their films, as well as the television episodes.
During the first day of shooting Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Barber hid in the rafters and dropped an egg on the head of director Charles Barton. He was also prone to ruining a take by running through a scene, wearing shorts, and yelling “Fellows, be quiet. I can’t sleep!”
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13 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
I believe to this day that Wendy Barrie was Wayne Morris in drag.
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19 minutes ago, Dargo said:
Actually, I understand the portly director didn't much care how his name might have been shortened. "Al", "Alf", "Fred" or "Hitch" were supposedly fine by him.
Nope, as I believe it was in fact the man himself who coined that old phrase...
"You can call me anything you want. Just don't call me 'late for dinner'!"
By the looks of him, no one ever did.
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She was probably just as confused when she talked about being directed by Lainie Kazan in On The Waterfront.
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12 hours ago, Bogie56 said:
Wednesday, March 7
8:15 a.m. Quo Vadis (1951). Peter Ustinov puts on a good show in this one. See the tears?
Quo Vadis is really a strange film. I find some of the performances (like Ustinov's) very hammy, and Robert Taylor is stiff as usual. Deborah Kerr looks stunning, however. The real shame is that Miklos Rozsa's score was dubbed at such a low level that it is very difficult for viewers to appreciate what a fine piece of scoring this is. The Prelude is magnificent, and the love theme for Marcus and Lygia is one of Rozsa's loveliest compositions. As a bit of trivia, Miklos composed a march ("Hail Galba") which is heard when the troops are advancing toward Rome. Rozsa later used this same march in Ben-Hur, at the conclusion of the chariot race. Lovers of film scores should get their hands on the soundtrack.
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2 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
Tear Gas Squad (1940)
This cheesy time-waster has Morgan singing at least 4 songs, which doesn't sound like much, but the movie is less than an hour long. Morgan is annoying throughout, alternately obnoxious and/or whiny,
You mean you didn't like it when Morgan sang in the Police Glee Club?
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Movie - WW2 plane crash and crew were ghosts
in Information, Please!
Posted
Night of the Living Dead