FredCDobbs

I happen to think that there are plenty of intellectual kids, and I've know many average kids who are always interested in what adult life is like. And I think TCM could capture that audience by showing normal kids watching and commenting about TCM movies. When I was a kid we had Mr. Wizard on TV. He was the science guy of the 1950s. The man acted like an adult and he treated kids like mature students. Now the science guys on TV act like idiots "to appeal to the kids". Well, I don't think the kids are all idiots, and I think most of them would like to see a sensible character like Mr. Wizard used to be. I like the old-fashioned Christmas promo with the normal little girl that is currently showing on TCM. I think most kids are normal and would like to see normal, not goofy, promos. There can be funny promos for kids, but they don't have to be gross.

Oh, I was just joking. Ha ha. The Frankenstein cartoon could be funny, but the images are just a little too gross for me. Maybe it's just me. I've seen too many bad things in the news business and I don't like to see gross images anymore. I'll look forward to seeing the one with the King Kong character.

What the heck is all this sighing going on around here? I've only seen the Frankenstein one, and I don't like looking at the gross images. I like to watch tv to relax and see some art. I don't like to see gross images dancing around the screen. I also don't like all the screeching music during the Rob Zombie promo.

You've got your opinion about this punk stuff and I have mine.

Yes, it must be for the new "youth" audience of punks, goths, hippies, junkies, hoodlums, and freakos.

Alright, just forget I said anything. I just think it's silly to start a new day at 6 AM on any TV schedule. Two of my recorders require me to click on AM or PM to set the timer, and the TCM schedule confuses me by saying something is on at AM on Wed, when it's actually on at AM on Thur. Plus I'm two time zones over from Eastern and I've got to calculate that too. I shouldn't have to work out a complex math quiz every time I set my recorder. Bah.

Lol, don't worry about it. I was just expressing my opinion. I've been around so long I remember when TV went on the air about 5 pm and off the air at 10 pm. But I'm not old enough to remember the 1939 World's Fair on TV.

I haven't had any problems with it. I receive my signal via Direct TV. I suppose the networks send out signals to different satellites, and I think all cable companies receive their signals via satellite. So I suppose one satellite could have trouble while the others don't.

And don't forget, among the British, Brandy was the cure for any illness and for car wrecks and plane crashes too.

Mark, the TCM day/timing error in the on-line listings has nothing at all to do with the FCC. All they have to do is move the listed date, day, and time headline up in their on-line schedule by two or three movies. For example, tonight, instead of having the words "7 Thursday" listed just before "6:15 AM" and "Soldier and the Lady", they should move the words "7 Thursday" up and listed just before "12 AM" and "Charade". That's all they would have to do.

By the early 1930s, millions of parents in the US thought there were too many movies about prostitution. There were hundreds of them. And there was no restriction about kids seeing these films. Kids in America had never before been exposed to this topic in literature, art, or in any other form on such a wide scale, and the parents began to rebel about these cheap sleazy stories. The 1934 code prohibited such obvious stories about prostitutes, and dozens (perhaps hundreds) of sound films made from 1929 to early 1934 were suddenly pulled off the market and no longer distributed or they had many key scenes and dialogue removed from them.

I found this about a 1966 movie called "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold".... "Ex-L.A. Rams linebacker Mike Henry makes his debut as Tarzan in this 1960s adventure. His arrival in Mexico wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase is quite jarring, as is his subsequent "James Bond style" gunfight. But, not to fear, this is just to show us that this Tarzan is handy with modern weapons and is at ease in any environment. He does go into the jungle(in his loincloth)accompanied by a couple of wild animals and this is where the film gets interesting. He has to find the legendary Valley of Gold and protect its citizens from greedy villain Vinaro(David Opatashu) and his well organized(not to mention armed-to-the-teeth) army. The story is a little hokey at times, and seeing Tarzan use guns, grenades and a tank is a little hard to take, but overall the characterizations are good and the Mexican scenery is nothing short of spectacular(especially the Aztec pyramid city)."

Why did all those people go there? Was this part of a revolution?

For a tank to be involved, wouldn't the Mexican government have to be involved in the movie plot?

Glenn Ford is in a 1953 treasure hunting film called "Plunder of the Sun", photographed at some Mayan pyramids, but I don't remember a tank.

I liked the Mabuse film very much but the sub-titles were too difficult to read. I noticed that the title maker would turn on the titles for about as long as the speaker spoke the words, which was very quickly, then the titles would suddenly go off, even if no one else was speaking. That?s just too fast for me to read titles and to try to watch a little of the film itself. I have no idea what the plot was about.

How about the widow Mrs. Kane in Citizen Kane?

That?s a difficult assignment since the plot isn?t very convoluted and the film isn?t very noir, but we all have to give professors the answers they want or they get upset. Maybe your daughter can study the film from the point of view (as Mike mentioned) that the hero needed to get rid of his wife but couldn?t do it because he?s not a bad guy. But some of the clues point to him, and the cops don?t care whether he is a bad guy or not. So the hero has two problems, the crazy guy who keeps pestering him, and the murder of his wife which the hero gets blamed for. Not only that, but the hero has to come up with some explanation as to why he didn?t tell the police about the crazy guy in advance, so a little ?convoluting? puts the hero in jeopardy for two reasons: 1) it looks like he killed his wife, and 2) if he didn?t, it looks like he made a deal with the crazy guy to kill his wife, so the hero is in a whole lot of trouble, which is often a hallmark of film noir movies. I can?t remember all of the details of the film now. Didn?t the hero learn that the crazy guy killed his wife but he still didn?t go to the police? This really makes it look bad for him. I think a key attraction of many film noir movies is that many of the innocent heroes get into trouble and they are in trouble until the end of the film. This has an effect on the audience, since I?ve often heard people say that ?innocent people go to jail all the time?, and many people have a fear of being falsely accused of a crime. I think this technique in a noir movie helps draw the audience into the plot of the film and helps the audience members (both men and women) to try to think of different ways to try to get out of the mess, to try to think of different things they could do or say to get themselves out of trouble. In a way, ?The Wrong Man? was a pretty good Hitchcock noir, and so were both versions of ?The Saboteur?. Hitchcock always said that he liked to draw the audience into the plot by making his characters seem like average people who got sucked into a nightmare world beyond their control. This is what happens to the hero in Strangers on a Train. Also, what is norish about it is that the hero himself has to prove himself innocent. He can?t just sit back and wait for the police to do it, since they don?t believe him. So, he risks himself even further by being drawn into the murder plot, after the fact, where he could make some mistakes and make it seem as if he is trying to cover up his own crime, but in the end he finally gets the necessary clue that proves him to be innocent.

"Random Harvest" was the best.

I like the December holiday promo featuring the little girl and the scenes from Christmas movies. This seems to have been done in a 1950s or early '60s style of filming and editing, and I like it.

All DVD and VCR recorders are set to start the next day at 12 midnight. It is very confusing to see 1/4 of TCM's listings shown listed on the wrong day. It is difficult enough to re-calculate my time with the TCM Eastern time, but trying to figure out what day the AM is on in the TCM schedule is simply not necessary. AM starts at midnight, not at 6 AM.

?I, too, like Complicated Women though I wanted it to be longer!? Complicated Women was embarrassing. They aren?t ?complicated?, they?re ?wh***s?. The really intelligent women go to the university and get degrees. They become doctors, lawyers, and scientists. The ones in Complicated Women have a useful life-span of 15 years, from about age 18 to about age 33 or 34, then they are thrown out when the rich men find a younger ?complicated woman?.

"In Vivien's Myra, she is sympathetic from the beginning, without ever really deviating from who she was." In Vivien's Myra, there was no clue that she was a prostitute. She was a very nice girl all the way through, until she read that her boyfriend was dead and then she decided that was a good reason to become a prostitute, which is downright silly.

"She could have just fled and never talked to them again." Then we would have no movie. How about having her ask the young guy for money for sex during the first five minutes? Then the movie could end right there.

?Knocked 'em down like bowling pins lined up -- all the way to the top; just goes to show what reading can do for a girl...? A girl basing her philosophy of ?success? in life on Nietzsche philosophy is not such a good idea. Most modern guys aren?t as stupid as the ones in that movie.