MattHelm
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Posts posted by MattHelm
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That Universal set came out at least four years ago though. That's when I bought it. They have shown those movies here and there, but I wish they'd beef up the horror movies around Halloween. This past Halloween was like this Christmas with the skimping on the movies. I'd even like to see the Hammer horror movies on TCM. Or even early Roger Corman movies.
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I can't see anyone else playing Mildred Pierce but Crawford. I can see Crawford in From Here To Eternity as the character was in the book. What a great book.
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You want a laugh? I looked up Ring of Fear on Amazon to find out more about the box set and what corelating factor underlies the selection of movies, and why they're being packaged together. This is obviously a mistake, but it cracked me up.
"This title will be released on January 1, 2010. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com."
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I used to choose going to the movies by actor, actress, director or story ... today it's down to director and/or story. There isn't a single actor or actress that gets me in the theater. However, there's 99.9% of them that keeps me out of there.
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Paris Hilton
Tom Ccruise
50 Cent
Britney Spears
Lindsay Lohan
Jessica Simpson
Brad Pitt
Angelina Jolie
Adam Sandler
Jennifer Lopez
Julia Roberts
Jim Carrey
Anna Nicole Smith
Good list. I'd add: George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Barbara Streisand, Ashley Judd, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Ben Affleck, Eminem, Ed Asner, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Rob Reiner, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen Degenerate, Oprah, Spielberg, Howard Stern, Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Cameron Diaz, Larry David, Tony Danza, everyone on The View, Dr. Phil, Bill Moyers, Bette Midler, and oh so many more ...
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Ida Lupino ... including ones she directed.
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With all do respect, if you did know her, I'm sure you'd say nothing but kind words about her anyway, as would I. I do think she was fond of Hearst and wasn't a gold digger in the end, but in the beginning was a different story. He took a showgirl and showered her with money, gifts, a movie career ... I'm sure no one is naive to think in the beginning she fell for this old man at first sight and didn't reward him for his gifts. How could that not be gold digging? I believe in her biography she said something like, this gold digger fell in love, in the end. There was another reference somewhere else where she said she was a gold digger in the beginning and wasn't ashamed of it. I'm sure she did have a lot of money of her own, but many sources corroborate her selling her jewelry Hearst gave her to give him that million. Which still she didn't have to do. I'm not saying she was a bad person at all, many actresses got to the top sleeping with producers, etc. That's Hollywood. I just wonder how she could stay with a man like Hearst who hurt many people including friends, like Fatty Arbuckle. You're judged by the company you keep often, and can be fair game.
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I'm sure he gave a bunch of interviews and said different things in all of them. No one can still for sure put his childhood together because of all the stories he's made up. I think he regrets a lot, not just about Davies, but his career went downhill because of it and he had to take parts he didn't want to pay for his movie projects, and borrow the rest. It's too bad because he only did to Hearst what Hearst had been doing to people for years. Both their assaults on each other backfired.
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My Man Godfrey:
(at the dump)
Lombard: Could you tell me why you live in a place like this when there's so many other nice places?
Powell: You really want to know?
L: Oh, I'm very curious.
P: It's because my real estate agent felt that the altitude would be very good for my asthma.
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Alice Brady: You mustn't come between Irene and Godfrey. He's the first thing she's shown any affection for since her pomeranian died.
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Powell: The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job.
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Lombard: Godfrey loves me! He put me in the shower!
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Selmer Jackson: Take a look at the dizzy old gal with the goat
Eugene Pallette: I've had to look at her for 20 years - that's MRS. Bullock!
SJ: I'm terribly sorry!
EP: How do you think I feel?
Message was edited by:
MattHelm
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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.
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Rondo Hatton
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I can rip older movies apart, but not in a bad way. There are certain things that I find hilarious that weren't meant to be. Also there are great old movies where they use obvious models for boats, cars, planes, etc., that crack me up.
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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.
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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.
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It isn't Kings Row is it?
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You got it thirdman. Nicely done.
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Hee hee, don't worry I'll behave.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Has anyone seen the 1956 movie Full Of Life, starring Richard Conte and Judy Holliday? It was adapted from a John Fante book that is hilarious. I wish that would come out on DVD. Fante was the first Italian-American writer of the 20th century and his Wait Until Spring Bandini was made into an OK movie in 1989, that should be on DVD too, starring Joe Mantegna.
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I think if Cary Grant actually was trying to kill Monkey Face, it would have been too predictable, with all the coincidences and the conversations with the murder mystery writer on the perfect crime, etc. I think whether it was for creative reasons or not, it was the right choice, because it went the opposite direction of what you were thinking the first time you saw it.
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Joan Fontaine even made an appearence in a Bruce Springsteen song ... imagine that. My two favorite Fontaine movies are Suspicion and Jane Eyre. The first, because of Cary Grant and his name for her "monkey face" (plus, Nigel Bruce and the Brandy scare), and the second, because Orson Welles stole that movie. I think that was his best role.
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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.
What Movie or Movies are You Still Waiting for a DVD Release?
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It Conquered The World ... a cheesy Roger Corman B flick, but it scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. That and another one of his that I can't remember the title, but a small group of people survived an atomic war because of a mountain range they were sheltered by. They had to fight off mutants and themselves. Anyone know this one?