FredCDobbs

There was a good two-part TV film titled ?Out on a Limb? with Shirley Mclaine. This was based on her book. The first half was a love story (boring) and the second half was about her trip to Peru or some place like that, and her ?psychic? experiences. I don?t believe in the psychic stuff. I think she was smoking dope at the time. Anyway, a friend of mine taped these two shows back in 1987, and I found the second one to be very interesting. I still have the tape and I watch it every few years. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093688/

I think the film was ?Million Dollar Mermaid? (1952), which was about Annette Kellerman.

That was an Ester Williams movie. I don?t remember which one. Go here and look for the plots of her various movies: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0930565/

Dame May Whitty and Ben Webster in Lassy Come Home.

Call Her Savage

I don?t think TCM has a list of their shorts anywhere. They just seem to turn up at random.

The American term ?available light? generally refers to night time and whatever real local light is available at night, such as street lights, neon, etc. In American films shot outdoors during the day, they often use a lot of artificial lights or reflectors (or both) to fill in the shadows in people?s faces so they won?t be dark in bright sunlight. They often try to keep people facing away from the sun so they won?t squint, but they fill in with reflectors and artificial light so their faces won?t be in the shadows. A reflector is not like a mirror. It?s more like a white sheet on a board to reflect some sunlight onto the face. I don?t remember if Italian cameramen used reflectors or not in the ?40s. In the US, reflectors were also used to fill in shadows on the shady side of things like wagons, buildings, and other places in bright sunlight that are in the shadows.

Was the guy sent to China to live? Was his business some kind of oil?

I meant to say "The Greatest Story Ever Told"

King of Kings

"Son of Kong"

She was great in King's Row!

Ahhh shucks, he ain?t worth nothin?. He?s just a no-good, dang-blasted worthless ol? coot who don?t care for nobody ?cept himself. He?ll rob your false teeth right out of your mouth while you?re sleepin?. He?ll try to steal your gal when your back is turned. And he?s the worst pirate, the baddest outlaw, and the most no-count ol? rascal what ever appeared on the silver screen.

"The Return of Dr. X"

Vince, Thanks for the information. 'Serie Noire' means ?black series?. I didn?t start noticing the ?film noir? term until the late ?70s or the ?80s. Back in the ?50s and ?60s, they were generally called ?available light? films because they used so much available light in the street scenes, the neon lights, streetlights, etc. But that term was in articles written for photographers. I don?t know what they were called among literary people and screen writers.

I think the new schedules for March and April look pretty good, now that ?The World?s Worst Academy Award-Winning Movies? month is over.

Penso che il ladro sia stato rubato. ? stato rapinato e riscatto tenuto. Il riscatto era una bicicletta. Qualcosa gradisce quella. Non mi ricordo dei particolari. Rocco

?I suppose I liked making the labels because I like to do that sort of thing.? I do too. I had one of the original labelers, back in the ?60s, one of those plastic things that pressed a letter in a plastic strip. I used to stick those on my file cabinets, book case shelves, kitchen cabinets, etc. I would have bought DVD labels but my recorder instructions manual told me not to use them.

?Is there a Link to All of TCMs Movies in their Library????? I don?t think so.

I looked up the definition at Dictionary dot com and got this: 1. a. To cheat or swindle. b. To obtain by deception. 1. To use a chisel. 2. Informal. a. To use unethical methods; cheat: ?who's up, who's down and who's chiseling on the side? (James Reston). b. To intrude oneself without welcome: always tries to chisel in on our conversations.

There is a 360-degree pan at the beginning of the cattle drive in ?Red River?. I can?t figure out where they hid all the crew, the director, the technicians, etc.

The scene of Mammy and Melanie Wilkes walking up the stairs near the end of ?Gone With the Wind? is rather famous. It was a long take until the very end. This one scene was one of the most important to help Hattie McDaniel win the academy award for that film. Everybody in the audience is crying by the time she reaches the top of the stairs. That scene was done with a ?boom?, a camera on the end of a long crane and the crane has its own dolly wheels, so the camera can go up and down as well as sideways or backwards and forwards.

Yep, Jimmie, all you have to do is say ?a boy and a girl and they kissed under a tree? and these memory experts will give you a list of all the movies that contained such a scene.

Oh, now I remember. Film hadn't been invented yet. I was just a child back then.

It might be interesting to find some translations of old French film articles to try to find out why the French started calling certain American crime films of the ?40s and ?50s ?noir? films. After all, ?The Blue Angel? could be called, symbolically, a very ?dark? or ?black? film. I wonder if the French did call those early films ?noir?, but maybe the French term didn?t catch on in America until the 1950s or ?60s, at a time when the expression ?film noir? referred mainly to modern crime films? In American film reviews and technical articles about films in the ?50s, the articles most often used the term ?available light? to refer to the films. I was a student photographer back then, and the story going around in film magazines was that the dark moody crime films being shot on the streets of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles were known as ?available light? films because Kodak had invented a new more light-sensitive black and white film that allowed the Hollywood cameramen to shoot street scenes at night with a lot of available light coming from street lights and neon signs. I didn?t hear the ?film noir? French term until the late ?70s or early ?80s.