johnnyweekes70

My favourite Ronald Colman picture is The Unholy Garden. I know it's not regarded as one of his finer vehicles but there's a breezy charm about it, a typically funny performance by Warren Hymer as Colman's buddy, as well as a great roster of familiar character faces in addition to Fay Wray, always a welcome sight. The story is ludicrous but it's been given the polished treatment by Goldwyn, who didn't like how it turned out, and Colman is marvelously watchable in it. Colman was a fine, cultivated actor, who's wife was the wonderful Benita Hume. Colman didn't approve of George Sanders (I wonder how many did), who had obviously expressed interest in Hume while Colman was still alive and, after he died, Sanders wasted zero in asking Hume to marry him, which she surprisingly enough did and they lived happily-ever-after until she died. George Sanders was such a cad! Gotta love that guy. Johnny

There's some pertinent observations about this horrible fact in the thread "ACK! Zeta Jones now officially Lana" and all I can add is a big ol' sigh that reminds me what Sean Connery recently said about Hollywood...that those in charge of green-lighting garbage are "idiots." Couldn't have put it better myself.

I don't know why Twilight's Last Gleaming doesn't turn up or is available on video. Maybe because it's highly critical of the US government or Charles Durning's president is as silly as Cy Kendell's FBI agent in The Invisible Menace. Aldrich was a very fine director, responsible for some original, ahead-of-their-time pictures, particularly Vera Cruz, with Lancaster and Gary Cooper, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, although it's only in recent years I've really begun to investigate him. Lancaster is an acquired taste, I think. I do admit I've enjoyed more Lancaster films the older I get than I did in my younger film appreciation days. My current recommendation for Lancaster viewing is Lawman and one of my favourite '60s action pictures, The Train. I just love that film. Johnny

Ruggles in Ruggles of Red Gap, though Hope's role in Fancy Pants wasn't called Ruggles. Can't remember the name even though the film is sitting on the shelf behind me.

"Does the TCM message board tolerate this kind of bad behavior?" Maybe not. I know I read a particularily rude and nasty comment posted here yesterday, which I replied to, expressing my concern over the use of inappropriate language and comments, and my response and the original, have vanished. Maybe I was dreaming. I would sincerely hope that these threads are not considered forums in which to air dirty laundry and assault people with rude and bitter statements.

Glad you got home safe! Nothing sweeter than the lights of home after driving through that kind of storm! The quote sounds like it's from Pat and Mike. Johnny

ayresorchids, There's a great boxed set out by Image called The Origins of Film which contains a disc showcasing silent African-American films and includes Micheaux's Within Our Gates, which has run on TCM and a film called The Scar of Shame, which is a standard melodrama of the period, along with a unique sound experiment from 1923 with Eubie Blake. They're fascinating, particularly the Micheaux film since most of his work is long gone. Also included in the box is A Florida Enchantment (1915) which deals with gender-swapping, literally (and includes some very obvious white performers in blackface). It is all historically relevant and interesting. Johnny

Oh, and Fred C. Dobbs - Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

3. Buck Cantrell - George Brent in Jezebel 4. Joe Clay - Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses 6. Pola Debevoise - Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire

They all played ghosts. Kay Hammond in Blithe Spirit; Lou Costello in The Time of Their Lives; Robert Donat in The Ghost Goes West.

I like Katharine Hepburn. But this reminds me of the time I saw Woman of the Year a couple of years ago and was hugely disappointed. I thought I'd watched better B films than that one. The only sequence I found entertaining was a bit with Tracy snickering at Hepburn as she was trying to cook, or make toast, or something like that. I don't remember it too well coz I tried to forget that film. I think the Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy unity is just a little overrated. I found the Katharine Hepburn/Peter O'Toole combo much more energized, and I'd love to see the Katharine Hepburn/Bob Hope combo at some point in the near future. Also, you gotta love those outfits in Christopher Strong. Hepburn's comments in All About Me regarding those were very humourous. Good Heavens, what a shallow posting I've come up with!

Tim Holt (!) in The Magnificent Ambersons.

The Italian cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli passed away 16 August in Rome. He was 82. Being a photographer/sometime artist myself, I've always enjoyed the work of one who can master capturing light and colour on film and ever since I saw The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, I thought Delli Colli's command of colour impressive. For me, he made those two films as well as the later Once Upon a Time in America, a true work of art, photographically. That's not meant to sell Sergio Leone short, I'd never do that. But Leone's personal visions, the extreme close-up or the landscape vista, were fully realized by Delli Colli. His last film, Roberto Beningi's Life is Beautiful was also aided immeasurably by Delli Colli's distinct touch. For me, he's up there with William Daniels, James Wong Howe, Lee Garmes, Karl Freund, Vittorio Storaro and many other giants of the field.

Well, a pretty nifty guess, I'd say, and a very interesting (if somewhat overwrought) film. Sorry, I should have nodded the game your way. Blast off, Tracey!

Oh, lux0786, are thinking of Melanie Griffith?

Yeah, Elizabeth Taylor's voice in Life with Father drove me up the wall! Darn near ruined that film, even though it's so good.

That would be the one, Tracey! Good call!

No, not that one. Clue #3 - ....over a woman he adored but who cruelly used and abused him....

Yeah, to dismiss Griffith as a racist is unfair. I think it's entirely relevant whether racism is intentional in a film or not and, as I posted, Griffith's film reflects certain ideologies shared by many of his contemporaries. As I've already stated, and elaborated on by you, dredagain, it's entirely wrong to rewrite or, worse, ban history to suit our overzealous modern attitude towards PC. I've got the Image DVD of the film, not I watch it much, but I really can't believe TCM won't show it when I saw Go Into Your Dance on TCM a few years back and couldn't believe my eyes. Will they show Mammy or Big Boy and still avoid BOAN?

No, but that's a good one. Clue #2 - ...for 'killing' his friend....

Thanks! I love that film and I'm looking forward to the Lewton DVD set! Clue #1 - He's going to the chair (the electric one, that is)....

Cat People?

Sorry, I meant I don't think it's intentionally racist, which doesn't excuse the film in any way, but does separate the differences between Griffith setting out to make a racist epic or simply film what he thought was a grand spectacle, which is what I believe he intended. This really is something that could be discussed at great length and in entire books or dissertations, especially at having a fairly obviously white actor in blackface play Gus rather than have an African-American do it, when the difference surely would have been recognizable. If BOAN is racist than so is Gone with the Wind, Too Hot to Handle and many other films made much later than BOAN.

I think it's tempting to say BOAN is racist but that's a pretty murky issue. Griffith had the unconscious attitude shared by a lot of his fellow Southerners and, as Richard Schickel pointed out, it's far more accurate to describe BOAN as a sexist and condescending (regarding race) film than a purely racist one. The original book was much more scathing than Griffith's film and it's interesting to note that the early part, or first half of the film, virtually ignores the book and retains a racial attitude towards African-Americans common at the time. Griffith should've known better when it came to the Klan and rape sequence (which is an entirely different matter on its own and a fascinating one) but I don't think this film needs to be avoided purely based on a charge of racism. It is definitely a work of art, however much its content is upsetting to the stomach, and it is the American cinema's first groundbreaking, though sickly sentimental, epic. If people of whatever race want to know what all the trouble is about, then Griffith's film is a pretty fair place to garner a turn-of-the-century, heavily Victorian attitude towards its subject matter. I really don't think it even occured to Griffith that glorifying the **** was an issue; he just thought it was good filmmaking. It's idiotic, to be sure, but I don't think it's racist. I like Sally of the Sawdust better anyway.

Madge and Larry, Thanks for your kind words. Larry, by all means, 'steal' the idea, I figured others have done so already but everytime I went into the homes where my wife works, or has worked, all I ever saw were cheap public domain garbage or Carousel or Fiddler on the Roof and I'm sure residents wouldn't mind watching something else. I brought them It's a Wonderful World, with Colbert and Stewart, and that went over them like the repeal of Prohibition did with the American public of 1933. Nice to see the more lucid clients have a good laugh. Some of them have been through so much grief and sadness I think they should spend whatever cognizant time they have left watching silly old films coz that's what I'll want to be doing when I'm in their position, if I ever make it to their position! Johnny