MattHelm

I just read Jerry Lewis's bio "Dean & Me: A Love Story." A must read for any fan of theirs. No punches pulled on Dean or himself, and a lot of great anecdotes.

Rondo Hatton

In a documentary I saw, he says he regrets what happened to Davies, yet not for what he intentionally did, but that people mistakenly connected the character in CK to her. I think his regret is sincere even though he was still in denial. Then again, he regretted his War of the Worlds broadcast too ... all the way to Hollywood.

I didn't mean to say all documentaries are made by fans, only that fans do make documentaries and tend to whitewash actors. There's a great one that pulls no punches from showing both sides of the Kane War, done by PBS's American Masters. It comes with the CK DVD. Hearst was responsible for her film career because she was a showgirl when he met her in NY, and he brought her to California for the sole purpose of putting her in the movies. He started a movie company and made Davies a partner, but make no mistake, he had full say over everything. He affiliated the company with MGM and the purpose was to make sure Davies got key roles. Hearst would send detailed letters dictating to filmmakers how he wanted the movies to go. Later when he couldn't intimidate MGM to give her those Norma Shearer roles, he took the company over to Warner Bros. Davies was paid for her roles and her part in the movie company so she had a few bucks of her own ... but didn't need to spend it since Hearst paid for everything anyway. While she could have supported herself, she didn't have the kind of money like the $1 million she gave Hearst ... she sold a bunch of jewelry and gifts he had given her to get that money. Though she didn't have to do that, she owed him a lot and it was basically just paying him back his own money. She did owe her film career to Hearst, but also owes it to him for running it into the ground. If she had left him before that she probably would have had a great career. Sure a lot of myths abound probably, but in her own words, she was a gold digger and wasn't ashamed of it. As far as Davies and Hearst's wife liking each other, Davies had to leave San Simeon whenever Hearst's wife visited, and resented it. That's when she'd have affairs out of spite with Chaplin or Dick Powell, knowing that Hearst's private detectives were following her and it would get back to him. And later, Davies was barred from Hearst's funeral by the family.

It isn't Kings Row is it?

You got it thirdman. Nicely done.

Hee hee, don't worry I'll behave.

Documentaries are made by fans and are usually subjective and biased towards the star. A lot of things are whitewashed and/or left out. I think Hearst's money was one reason in the beginning, but certainly the power to get her roles was most likely what kept them together. Of course she most likely had feelings for him, but who could say it was love. Anna Nicole Smith says she loved her husband too, and had money of her own from modeling. As for losing roles to Shearer ... the reason Davies lost out to her in those roles was because Shearer was married to Thalberg, who called the shots. Had it not been so, Davies probably would have got them. My original point was, I don't think it's fair to demonize Welles for Davies' own unethical choices that led to her own fall from grace. It's one thing to admire her as an actress, but I wouldn't canonize her as a person.

There have already been actors who have played Welles ... the movie RKO 281 ... and Vincent D'onfrio from Law and Order played him in Ed Wood. But a biopic on his whole life would be good. Sinatra has been done a couple of times. Once in a TV movie and another in an HBO Rat Pack movie, played by Ray Liotta. Horrible performance ... when he laughs he has the Henry Hill laugh from Goodfellas ... heh heh heh heh heh heh. Scorcese said years ago that he wanted to make a Dean Martin biopic. He wanted Tom Hanks who is the last person you'd think of. And he wanted John Travolta to play Sinatra in that movie. No way. I think Jeremy Northram who played Dino in the 2002 TV Martin And Lewis movie did a good job. But I'd love to see a Dino movie. There's plenty of material to do one based on his daughter's book and Jerry Lewis's new book on their partnership.

Yeah, but since Hearst blackmailed studios to get her roles, her social standing and reputation as an actress became synonomous. There's no way of knowing how she would have done on her own, and if she could have done just as well, she wouldn't have needed Hearst. Let's face it, if you look at Hearst who was much older and not very good looking, and married ... it was totally a financial situation with her, and a means to get roles. After all, she could have had anyone she wanted with her looks. On the second disc that comes with the Citizen Kane DVD, there's a documentary about the making of the movie and the Hearst feud. It turns out that Hearst wasn't what Kane portrayed him to be in some ways. Hearst never became that lone, bitter person that Kane was in the end. Oddly enough, as Welles got older, he became like Kane himself.

My favorite Debbie Reynolds movie is The Tender Trap ... not so much for her, but for the title song and Sinatra singing it ... and that hat he had.

I finally saw TCM Remembers last night after reading about how bad it was here for days. I honestly didn't think it was that bad, or that good. Respectful? I don't know if it was or wasn't. I think they were going after a lonely, sad moody piece that reminded me of a Hopper painting of a girl in a hotel room, though more darkly lit. I think these tributes are just as much for the roles these people played as they are for the people themselves. After all, we only know them through their roles and not personally. And this tribute centered on, as they all do, footage from their films, not home movies or photographs. We love many of these actors from the flawed and failed characters they played, and I think that's as close to the human element as you can get with actors, unless you know them personally. I don't see this TCM Remembers piece as any different from the roles many of them have played in Film Noirs or other dramas that we admired them in, and maybe this is sort of their last performance. Doesn't mean you have to like it.

Here's one: In a scene in The Wrecking Crew, the soundtrack has Dean Martin singing made up lyrics to "King of the Road." Instead of the line "I'm King of the Road" what does he sing instead?

Ok, I've got one: In the movie Manpower, Edward G. Robinson, at a diner, asks for a bottle of wine and then tells them to wrap it up. How does the guy behind the counter rephrase the order when he yells it back to the kitchen?

Davies ruined her own reputation. After all, if you're going to play with matches you're going to get burned. It was well known that she was Hearst's kept woman, and that Hearst was very married, well before Welles made Kane. With the names changed, why were they so dead set against the movie if it weren't already common knowledge? Hearst was a tyrant and used his newspapers to get his way and also to get Davies roles. It's said he'd tell studios that he'd refuse to advertise their movies in his papers if she didn't get a role she wanted, which was just about every major paper in that day. Which is why Welles made the movie, to be David to Hearst's Goliath. Whether you like Davies or not, everyone's responsible for their own actions, as she is for her own reputation's demise.

The problem most period movies depicting that era make is putting the actors in brand spanking new clothes in that era's style, as opposed to that lived-in look. To me BTTF does that. Everyone is too clean cut. But I haven't seen it almost since it came out, never really cared for it. Anything with a Huey Lewis soundtrack gives me suicidal thoughts.

Yeah, though JFK and Bobby really screwed him once they got in office.

Yeah, The Clan, The Summit, The Caucus ... they settled on The Rat Pack, after the Holmbly Hills Rat Pack at Bogie's, because The Clan was too close to The Klan.

The Monkey's Paw reference was a good point. However, if I could invite dead (and a couple of living) stars the way they looked in their primes from the 1950s, the list would be: Frank Sinatra Dean Martin Sammy Davis Jr. Jerry Lewis Robert Mitchum William Holden Shirley Maclaine John Wayne Don Rickles Grace Kelly I think the booze bill would wipe out my bank account.

Jack Nicholson is an interesting choice I haven't thought of. But I'm wary of him, I think he might ham it up a bit too much like he's done in everything in the past 10 years. I can't see him affecting a believable accent either. I think Rickman would make a great Cratchit. The problem with most versions is that you don't care about Cratchit because he's just there. But Gene Lockhart's and David Collings (1970 musical) are good natured and sympathetic, and their small roles make the movies better. Depp's so versatile that I can actually see him as a good Scrooge. Kevin Spacey would make a good Scrooge or Cratchit, too.

I think just the opposite, Back To The Future looks very 80s to me. A Christmas Story is one of the very few movies that gets it right. BTTF, and just about every other movie that depicts the 20s-50s, makes the mistake of basing the characters's looks on how Hollywood depicted them at the time in movies (or TV in the 50s). ACS bases the characters on real people, not that era's Hollywood version of the time. The only other movies that get this right are Woody Allen's, especially Radio Days.

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

I think Yahoo.com has a feature like that in its TV section.

Did anyone see this short between The Bachelor And The Bobbysoxer and Dream Wife tonight? Wasn't the beginning strangely like The Twilight Zone's opening? It had that strange Dali-esque landscape like The Zone had, with the same sort of intro narration. I think Serling lifted the idea of his opening from this.

I'm not a big fan of Sims' Scrooge. I don't mind versions that add to the story, but that movie's additions were mostly boring clutter. I think Albert Finney was the best Scrooge even though it was a musical. None of the versions are really definitive of the book and you'd have to pick out certain performances a la carte from all of them to put together the best cast. A Christmas story is a classic because it's the only movie that really captures what Christmas is to a kid, and it's so well done. I think Darren McGavin is hilarious in it. The looks he gives his family and shaking his head at them is a hoot.