FredCDobbs
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Posts posted by FredCDobbs
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Did Carl Foreman ever go on record what his intent was in the story? If so, that would settle the argument.........
I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read anything he said about it, but John Wayne is supposed to have thought it was an “anti-American” movie, because the whole town failed to help the Marshal.
However, the theme of the film, about one decent lone man in a town full of cowards who owe the lone man a lot of favors, could be applied in any country, in any town, under any political system.
We could just as easily say that Marshal Kane was a lone brave freedom fighter in some Communist country that is run by corrupt politicians. We could say he was an underground fighter risking his life in Nazi Germany. And we could say he was an honest man in some big American city full of crooks and crooked politicians.
As it is, all the capitalist businessmen in town refused to help Kane. The good decent church men refused to help him. His religious wife refuses to help him (through most of the movie). Then at the end, she renounced her religious beliefs to kill a man to save her brave husband’s life.
So, while it might have intended to carry a Communist message (about the Capitalists and church people), the story itself could actually be applied in so many places about so many types of people, governments, and economic systems, I never thought of it as a Communist movie. Foreman might have watered down the “message” so much that it turned out to be a universal story of a brave man fighting bad guys alone, which can apply anywhere at any time. And there are hundreds of Western movies that have carried that message, going back to Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, and even many of John Wayne's earliest Westerns where he risked his life to save all the people in a small town.
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Ok, college and rugby.
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I've often wondered what happened to Phillips Holmes. He was a Paramount star who signed on to MGM in the early 1930's. He had some good movies at Paramount including "An American Tragedy", "Devil's Holiday" and "Broken Lullaby". He was a handsome guy who was a forerunner of Montgomery Clift; troubled, brooding and sensitive.
MGM put him in "Dinner At Eight" but he had only two or three lines and less than 5 minutes airtime
in a 100 minute movie. In "Stage Mother" he also had about 5 minutes total of air time. After a few more
roles with limited airtime he was dropped.
Did MGM not know what to do with him? Was he troublesome? I would have thought he had great potential.
Killed in a military plane crash in 1942.
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I think her life was in danger, having let Burr in the apartment. And yes, it was deliberately dubious, but I think Burr would have killed her, justifiable homicide.
In most states, you can not murder someone because of what you think they "might" do.
During my years in the news business, I learned a lot about something called "common law", which is an old English term which meant something like "laws that seem right but that are not written in any lawbook", or "unwritten 'laws'".
Many judges, cops, and DAs will say "There is no such thing as common law."
And, in some states, that is true.
So, I would say that in some states, she might have gotten away with her shooting of him, but in others (especially California) she would not.
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An English college clubhouse, maybe? 1920s? 30s? Who are they listening to? A big band? Hitler?
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Well Fred, the producers wouldn't have cast you in a noir. You would take a logical action and than there wouldn't be any movie plot!
Of course when you go to that place where they will never find you, make sure it isn't a gas station along the 395!
Oh, yeah, and then there's Robert Mitchum in OUT OF THE PAST..... the same story.... he goes to work in a gas station in a small town in California, but it is on a main tourist route! Doh.....
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There is something that bothers me about "The Killers".
Burt Lancaster knows they are coming to kill him, and he just waits for them. Not me!!! I would walk away from that place as fast as I could and catch the next bus to someplace where they would never find me.
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Oh, PS: After about 63 years of seeing it, I finally figured something out..... all she had to do to get out of that house and not be alone was to call an ambulance and claim she was having a heart attack and they would have taken her to a hospital.
But, like me, I guess she was so frightened and paranoid, she didn't think of that.
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The weakness of Sorry, Wrong Number is that it is a half-hour premise (originally done on radio) stretched into ninety minutes, and some of the packing material is kind of evident (a lot of establishing shots; some long-lingering tracking shots of the house (which actually work just fine) and there's a long, lingering shot of a couple of professional dancers doing a tango when Wendell Corey takes Stanwyck's call in the restaurant. ) Stanwyck is pushed into the background before her BIG last act; it's a rare movie where she plays a lead and is the biggest star but isn't on screen for over 90% of the film.
That type of thing bothers me about some films, but not this one.
I find this one very interesting and it doesn't seem padded to me.
The stuff about the bad-heart paranoia is interesting, the father buying her anything she wants (including a husband) is interesting, the theft and spies are interesting. Even that phone number of the morgue, is interesting, although quite odd.
So, to me, the whole film is just great, and that last few minutes is really outstanding and freaks me out every time, even after 66 years of seeing it!
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The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
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He wasn't stalking her? He wasn't harassing her?
The law says that the crimes of stalking and harassing are not punishable by death, and you can't kill someone who is just packing a bag.
If it was up to me, Raymond Burr should have been shot at the beginning of every film he was in.
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Those are very strange...they look like door knobs!
Yes, they are door knobs.
The last lady in this video:
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I'm happy to say that what I thought would happen in Sorry Wrong Number did not happen at all. I'm looking forward to adding this to my collection-- even if now I know the ending, I feel like there are some plot elements that I missed that would warrant a second or third (or more) glance.
Although the basic plot of the film is fairly simple, the screenwriter and director did a good job of making the overall film rather complex with a lot of unusual and interesting sub-plots and flashbacks.
Back in the old days, when I was a kid in the late 1940s and all during the 50s, there would occasionally be a telephone switching error like the one shown in the movie, and we actually could hear other people talking when we picked up our telephones to dial a number. I suppose that was due to some problem in the old type of mechanical switching systems they used back in those days.
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Interesting discussions on Pitfall.
Justifiable homicide for Scott, or not?
Scott goes to jail, Powell does not. Why?
I still think a good lawyer could get her off with self defense, but the film doesn't want us to consider such a happy ending.(ValentineXavier at the time of the movie's showing in 2013)
Nope, it doesn't. Hays still around at that point? The bad dame had to be punished, the guy who premeditated a killing did not.
Wow.
She shoots Burr for no legal reason. He was packing a bag and had his side and back turned to her, and she shot him. He did not break in and he was not threatening her. So her shooting of him was illegal.
Powell shot a burglar who was breaking into his home. We all heard window glass breaking as the guy broke in. Powell was defending his home, his family, and himself, so that shooting was legal.
If Burr was breaking into Scott's apartment and she shot him, then that would have been a legal shooting.
The "code" part of the film was Powell telling the full story to the police, instead of not telling them all the background information. However, he broke no law, so he was not arrested. He broke a "moral code" with his affair with Scott, thus, according to the code, he had to tell all about himself and the dame to the police and his wife.
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It looks a little like a "THE LODGER" type of film, about Jack Da Ripper. Except for the snow. Usually such Ripper films take place in London, but snow and brownstone apartment houses suggest New York, and I can't find a New York Ripper film.
Still working on it......
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I watched Sorry Wrong Number last night-- loved it! The ending was not what I was anticipating at all. This was a fantastic film noir.
I first saw this in a theater in 1948...... 66 years ago.
About all I remember is her on the telephone, and that frightening ending!!! Yikes!!!
The reason I can remember some films for so long is because I remembered some parts of the films all of my life. So, my memory all along the way keeps parts of the movies fresh in my mind for many decades. Stanwyck's screaming at the end was frightening. I think I didn't understand or remember most of the adult talking stuff in the film, which is most of the film, but her on the phone and then the ending was scary to a little kid like me!!!
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MORE GREAT FILMS TODAY TOO !!!
I CAN'T GET ANY WORK DONE..... I'VE GOT TO WATCH ALL OF THESE !!!!
Fred
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Hi Kid,
Your photos seem a little squeezed together. Is this an old standard of 4:3 or is this a wide screen film?
And how about posting another one.
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Oh, you just did post another one. Thanks.
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Perhaps I chose an obscure reference for the second pic. The answer to that one is a general term for the female head of a British household.
The first Pic is Midnight
The second is _ _ _ _ of the house
A woman at the head of a household: a portrait of the lady of the house
They were all immensely surprised when Gweneth Cassella, the lady of the household, came through the front door, her own briefcase at her side.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/lady
MIDNIGHT LADY ??
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Whatever happened to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS on TCM?
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Midnight
12 O'clock
Twelve O'clock
Matriarch
Dame
May
Whitty
Mrs. Bramson
So? Which is it?
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CITIZEN KANE snow globe, first seen on Susan Alexander's dresser (in front of old photo of young girl) the night Mr. Kane first meets her.
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Modern women's "fashions" are ugly.
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Screenshot!
in Games and Trivia
Posted
More photos please.