I Just Watched...

[LornaHansonForbes]

(i know it was an esoteric reference)

 

[txfilmfan]

26 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

(i know it was an esoteric reference)

 

Even more esoteric:  That was taped from British TV (ITV, specifically).  You can tell because ITV in that era put the little horizontal barber pole icon (called a cue dot/marker, just like in the movies) in the upper right when a commercial break was impending.  It let the various ITV regions know that an ad break was due so that they could insert local ads.

[King Rat]

1 hour ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

I think I was the only person in America who was devastated when ROZ SHAYS fell down that elevator shaft and into Prime Time History.

Though I was not a big fan of L.A. Law, I thought it was foolish to kill off such a good character played by such a fine actress.

[LornaHansonForbes]

25 minutes ago, King Rat said:

Though I was not a big fan of L.A. Law, I thought it was foolish to kill off such a good character played by such a fine actress.

DIANA MULDAUR then (immediately?) ended up on STAR TREK TNG As the ships doctor on the USS enterprise for one season, (apparently because the Director of the show absolutely hated the actress who originated the role (and would return in season three.)

[LornaHansonForbes]

38 minutes ago, txfilmfan said:

Even more esoteric:  That was taped from British TV (ITV, specifically).  You can tell because ITV in that era put the little horizontal barber pole icon (called a cue dot/marker, just like in the movies) in the upper right when a commercial break was impending.  It let the various ITV regions know that an ad break was due so that they could insert local ads.

How do you know that living in Texas? Or are you an ex Texan living in Britain?

[txfilmfan]

14 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

How do you know that living in Texas? Or are you an ex Texan living in Britain?

I've lived in London (temporarily, for work) on 3 separate occasions, dating back to 1995.

[Det Jim McLeod]

On The Waterfront (1954) Blu-ray 10/10

An ex boxer now working on the docks controlled by the mob is conflicted when a man is murdered.

I have seen this countless times and it still has a great impact every time. Marlon Brando's performance as Terry, the punch drunk dockworker is the best male acting I have ever seen. He is totally believable as an ex fighter, not very bright but very sensitive. We see his toughness (or as the character Edie says "he tries to act tough") but he shows warmth and tenderness as well. His scenes with Eva Marie Saint (Edie) are some of my favorite moments. I especially love the scene where he is walking with her and she drops her glove, he picks it up and puts it on his hand. Later there is a scene where he takes her to a bar and they have a very revealing conversation, you can see the pain and conscience in his face.

Another thing I loved was Leonard Bernstein's music score (his only one for a dramatic film). The mournful sounding horn at the beginning sets the mood. The more sad moments have very melancholy strings. The final scene has great impact due to rousing music.

The direction by Elia Kazan really brings us into the gritty world of working class life in the big city. It was filmed on location in winter and we see the actors' breath and hear sounds of the city.

The supporting cast could not be better, Karl Malden gives what may be his best performance ever as the priest who tries to get Terry to stand up to the corruption. Lee J. Cobb is brutal as the mob boss. Rod Steiger (playing Charley, Terry's brother) has the famous heart breaking scene with Brando in a cab, he wants to help his brother but knows deep down he cannot.

The Blu Ray is definitely worth owning for this classic.

[txfilmfan]

I didn't watch it, but I listened to the radio adaptation of Meet Me in St. Louis, which aired on CBS back in December 1946 on the Lux Radio Theatre program.  There were several similar anthology programs on radio at the time that adapted plays and films of the era.  This anthology show ran for 21 years from 1934 to 1955.  Originally, when based in New York, it adapted recent plays for the radio.  It moved to Hollywood in 1936, and switched to film adaptations for the most part.   Broadcast from the KNX/CBS Radio Playhouse on Vine Street in Hollywood, this theater is now the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.  Robert Osborne's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star is outside of this theatre.

This one starred Margaret O'Brien, Tom Drake and Judy Garland.  Veteran radio performer (and later, TV star) Gale Gordon played the head of the family.   It included (surprisingly, to me) several songs from the film, including "The Boy Next Door", "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"  Most of the plot points are there: the various holidays/seasons, the complications of teen romance, etc., though greatly condensed to fit into a hour timeslot.

There are actually two copies available: a rehearsal copy and the final version that aired.  I heard the latter on Sirius XM this morning.   It's part of their tribute to Margaret O'Brien, who turns 85 later this week.  The rehearsal copy apparently was included on the film's Blu-Ray and is inferior in audio quality.  The rehearsal version has no audience.

Two interesting tidbits: the ad for Lux dish flakes asked for patience from consumers.  Apparently there were still post-war shortages in late 1946.  At the end of the program, there was a short interview segment (hokily written, IMO) that was essentially an advertisement for the three stars' upcoming MGM projects.  There was a blurb about Judy's new baby too (Liza).

[Sepiatone]

Well, I'm glad to learn you didn't hear any of that on DEAN JAGGER's old radio!   

  Sepiatone

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, txfilmfan said:

I didn't watch it, but I listened to the radio adaptation of Meet Me in St. Louis, which aired on CBS back in December 1946 on the Lux Radio Theatre program.  There were several similar anthology programs on radio at the time that adapted plays and films of the era. 

Guest stars re-enacting their condensed movies was basically "Movies on television" before there was television--There were a half dozen such shows, although Lux is the best remembered.

DIANA MULDAUR then (immediately?) ended up on STAR TREK TNG As the ships doctor on the USS enterprise for one season, (apparently because the Director of the show absolutely hated the actress who originated the role (and would return in season three.)

Also, Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) was making a pest of herself about "Female roles on Star Trek", like Denise Crosby before her, and threatening to quit.

There's a great deleted scene from Galaxy Quest (1999) where Sigourney Weaver does a perfect the-fans-get-it parody of disgruntled Star Trek:TNG actresses.

[Katie_G]

...1950  directed by Henry Hathaway    2 hours

Tyrone Power as Saxon 'Walter of Gurnie'. Still hatin' Normans 200 years after invasion.
Jack Hawkins as his bowman and BFF, Tristram
Orson Welles as 'Bayan of the Hundred Eyes', Mongol warlord
Cécile Aubry as Maryam, Tyrone's requisite love interest. 
Michael Rennie as Norman King Edward
Robert Blake as 'Mahmoud'

Synopsis: A disinherited 13th Century Saxon nobleman leaves Norman England with an archer friend to seek his fortune in the Far East.   Not to be confused with Tyrone's pirate movie The Black Swan from 8 years earlier. 

My apologies if I seem a bit scratchy or unkind, but this tested my patience.   The Black Rose refers to the French girl played by newcomer Cecile Aubry. Although 21, she looks and acts about 14.  Director Hathaway was later quoted as saying she "didn't have a lick of sense." but I disagree. For an unknown with no acting credits to speak of, who's not as attractive as the part calls for, to land a starring role in a major film opposite Tyrone Power, she must have had a lick of something.  I mean, come on, credit where it's due. 

What's wrong with this picture?   Let me count the ways...

Cécile is far from the only oddity however. Power is supposed to be a young man attending Oxford.  He's referred to as 'lad', 'son' and so forth, but he looks even older than his 36 years. His aging process accelerated after the war due to stress, drinking, smoking, and the onset of congenital heart disease. He still looks good, but he's no spring chicken. Jack Hawkins looks older yet, when these two 'lads' set off for China, crossing the desert on camels.  Nothing much happens along the way and it seems to take f o r e v e r. Just when this was showing promise as a "so bad it's good" film, it bogs down.  At one point, perhaps to liven things up, Tyrone is made to walk a gauntlet of knives barefoot while others hit him with full pig bladders. I'm not making this up.

Was Zanuck sending a message?

Welles in blackface and squinting like a nuclear bomb just detonated is another sight to behold. Quite a come-down from Citizen Kane.  Cecile is also in greasepaint at first because she's desperately trying to escape being 'gifted' into a harem and attaches herself to Tyrone like a barnacle. Not that I blame her.  Did I mention Robert Blake is in this?

....

Bayan of the Hundred (squinting) Eyes

 

[LornaHansonForbes]

3 hours ago, txfilmfan said:

I didn't watch it, but I listened to the radio adaptation of Meet Me in St. Louis, which aired on CBS back in December 1946 on the Lux Radio Theatre program.  There were several similar anthology programs on radio at the time that adapted plays and films of the era.  This anthology show ran for 21 years from 1934 to 1955.  Originally, when based in New York, it adapted recent plays for the radio.  It moved to Hollywood in 1936, and switched to film adaptations for the most part.   Broadcast from the KNX/CBS Radio Playhouse on Vine Street in Hollywood, this theater is now the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.  Robert Osborne's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star is outside of this theatre.

This one starred Margaret O'Brien, Tom Drake and Judy Garland.  Veteran radio performer (and later, TV star) Gale Gordon played the head of the family.   It included (surprisingly, to me) several songs from the film, including "The Boy Next Door", "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"  Most of the plot points are there: the various holidays/seasons, the complications of teen romance, etc., though greatly condensed to fit into a hour timeslot.

There are actually two copies available: a rehearsal copy and the final version that aired.  I heard the latter on Sirius XM this morning.   It's part of their tribute to Margaret O'Brien, who turns 85 later this week.  The rehearsal copy apparently was included on the film's Blu-Ray and is inferior in audio quality.  The rehearsal version has no audience.

Two interesting tidbits: the ad for Lux dish flakes asked for patience from consumers.  Apparently there were still post-war shortages in late 1946.  At the end of the program, there was a short interview segment (hokily written, IMO) that was essentially an advertisement for the three stars' upcoming MGM projects.  There was a blurb about Judy's new baby too (Liza).

I love the SIRIUS CLASSIC RADIO CHANNEL (148), the host GREG BELL (who is very interesting) did a great interview with OSBORNE before he passed.

[CinemaInternational]

On 1/11/2022 at 4:02 PM, LornaHansonForbes said:

I think I was the only person in America who was devastated when ROZ SHAYS fell down that elevator shaft and into Prime Time History.

Muldaur's big plunge on LA Law ended up becoming a metaphor for the series itself, as the series which had been a critical and audience favorite and mostly a calm and cohesive working environment fell entirely to pieces shortly after she left the show. The episode where she was killed off aired in March of 1991 as part of the show's fifth season, which would become the series' fourth to win Best Drama series at the Emmys. To make it even more shocking, they killed Roz off at the end of the episode's first main act.

It was later revealed she was killed off the show because the writer/producer who created the character, David E. Kelley was leaving the show to create his own show Picket Fences (and later another trio of law shows: The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal), and he didn't want to see the character get softened or maladjusted by the new troop of writers coming in because Roz was his favorite character and one he had created himself.

In addition to Kelley leaving at the end of the fifth season, so too left  original cast members Harry Hamlin, Jimmy Smits, and Michelle Greene, which left a gap on the show. Some new producer came in, didn't even last the whole sixth season, as show quality sagged and ratings dipped. Kelley , Smits, and show creator Stephen Bochco (doing groundwork at the time on NYPD Blue) came back in for just a handful of episodes to try to shore things up, which was enough to keep the show up for Emmys that year. Richard Dysert won the show's final award that year. But by season's end,  Susan Dey, another original cast member left, as did would-be cast replacements Amanda Donohue, Cecil Hoffman, Tom Verica, Michael Cumpsty and Conchata Farrell.

Season 7 brought in the showrunners from St. Elsewhere and Northern Exposure. They were a bad fit for LA Law, as fans of the show started turning it off in droves as the show sank in quality. The season opener, inspired by the riots after the verdict in the Rodney King case, was regarded as the only decent episode of the season. And yet another original cast member left, this time Susan Ruttan. And the Emmys dropped the show entirely.

NBC still decided to go in with a final year with new producers, bizarrely even folding in two characters played by Debi Mazar and Alan Rosenberg from a cancelled Bochco show, Civil Wars, that had aired on a rival network, ABC. The final year was regarded as a big step up from the previous year, but the show had lost its momentum and the ratings were on par with the previous year. Jill Eikenberry got one last farewell nomination at the Emmys (much like Angela Lansbury, they loved to nominate her, but always stiffed her over in the end); she lost to Leigh Taylor-Young on Picket Fences. And NBC decided to give LA Law's timeslot to a certain new medical show called ER.....and the rest they say is history

[sewhite2000]

1/3 Jewel Robbery (Warner Bros., 1932)
Source: TCM

Kicking off Kay Francis' SOTM run, this night seems to have been focused on romantic comedies, or at least breezy romances (not so sure Raffles was considered a comedy) with an element of crime involved. This one aired right before an Ernst Lubitsch movie, and I have to say, it holds up favorably against it, though maybe the plot, such as it is, meanders a bit and doesn't necessarily lead up to much of a payoff. But it's got "Lubitsch touch" elements - a Vienna setting, sexy banter and improbable romance.

Certainly the most memorable element of this pre-Code production that is still talked about today is the introduction of "happy cigarettes" that debonair jewel thief Wiliam Powell hands out to his victims. A few puffs and then they suddenly find everything hilariously funny and then want to take a nap for the next 12 hours. No mention of the munchies, but you get the idea. I don't suppose it caused any puzzlement to 1932 audiences about just what kind of cigarettes these were. I remember the first time I watched this film, also on TCM, many years ago, and Robert Osborne was particularly tickled to talk about the "wacky tobaccy" employed in the film. I don't recall if it was even mentioned in the intro/outro this time around, which I think was handled by Dave Karger, but as has been mentioned on another thread, there were some odd substitutions by Ben Mankiewicz, apparently because one of the Paramount offerings TCM had been planning to show had to be dropped at the last minute. This was the fifth of six pairings of Powell and Francis. They worked together at both Paramount and Warner Bros. He would soon depart for MGM, where he'd get into a much more celebrated on-screen partnership with Myrna Loy.

Francis plays a wealthy wife who goes on a jewelry shopping spree with both her husband, who I think is a member of the nobility (she certainly has the money for the jewels) and a man who's some sort of cabinet minister and also her lover. We get the impression that maybe she has several lovers, being easily bored with her huband. It's definitely a pre-Code movie. Then in come Powell and his gang. His modus operandi seems to be walk in the place, draw guns, and take what you want. Sort of a wonder the guy isn't in jail. He doesn't go to one per cent of the subterfuge employed by Ronald Colman in Raffles. Of course, he has his "happy cigarettes", which tend to leave potential witnesses with dreamy recollections of the holdup men at best. Francis is thrilled by bravado and gentlemanly charm. Powell is drawn to her beauty and the fact that she's sympathetic to him. She proves a bit of a nuisance, as she will neither smoke a "happy cigarette" nor allow herself to be sequestered with her companions in a vault. Powell initially works up some annoyance, but his growing attraction to her finally tamps don that instinct.

The film is an adaptation of a play by Ladislas Fodor. As I recall, there are three big set pieces: the jewelry store, the police station and a lengthy scene that takes place at both of the leads' residences. In the middle act,  Francis, who has absolute clarity, having avoided the "happy cigarettes", nevertheless doesn't identify Powell, feigning an inabiity to do so. Neverthless, the police seem to be gearing up for a takedown of the gang, but "happy cigarettes" are unwittingly passed around the station by a private detective who was conned into helping transport the stolen goods the day before, and nobody has much motivation to go out and take a bite out of crime after that. Then there's a lengthy final act, a bit of a cat-and-mouse game between the two leads. Is he going to return her personal property, thereby giving her even less of a reason to rat him out? Is he going to kidnap her? Or is he going to get arrested, and will she have a part in it? I won't reveal the answers. There is an interesting moment in the final shot when one of the leads breaks the fourth  wall - something I think was very rare for the time. It provides a surprising little gag on which to end the movie.

There weren't any stylistic elements that really jumped out at me, other than it employed Lbuitsch elements as mentioned above, and unlike Trouble in Paradise, it didn't make me care enough about the characters to root about some sort of happy ending for them. Both Powell and Francis have their routines down well - he's hard-nosed but exceedingly charming and vulnerable to a melting heart. She's a bit flightly and we learn early on amoral in a way only pre-Code could allow, but when she loses her heart, she goes all the way. Directed by William Dieterle, whose career began and ended in Germany, but during his nearly quarter century in Hollywood gave us the two fantastic Jennifer Jones-Joseph Cotten pairings Love Letters and Portrait of Jennie, as well as everything from the Mickey Rooney version of A Midsummer Night's Dream to The Story of Louis Pasteur.

Total films seen this year: 7

 

[JamesJazGuitar]

34 minutes ago, sewhite2000 said:

There weren't any stylistic elements that really jumped out at me,

The Kay taking a bath scene wasn't stylistic enough for you?     I'm sure it was for the everyday folks that saw this film during the depression.    

Very nice summary of the film,   a film I really enjoy.  

[sewhite2000]

Tnanks. Yes, I almost mentioned the bath scene, though I was even more impressed by her towel scene in Mandalay a week later. The studios definitely played up her sex appeal pre-Code for all it was worth!

[King Rat]

3 hours ago, CinemaInternational said:

Muldaur's big plunge on LA Law ended up becoming a metaphor for the series itself, as the series which had been a critical and audience favorite and mostly a calm and cohesive working environment fell entirely to pieces shortly after she left the show. The episode where she was killed off aired in March of 1991 as part of the show's fifth season, which would become the series' fourth to win Best Drama series at the Emmys. To make it even more shocking, they killed Roz off at the end of the episode's first main act.

It was later revealed she was killed off the show because the writer/producer who created the character, David E. Kelley was leaving the show to create his own show Picket Fences (and later another trio of law shows: The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal), and he didn't want to see the character get softened or maladjusted by the new troop of writers coming in because Roz was his favorite character and one he had created himself.

In addition to Kelley leaving at the end of the fifth season, so too left  original cast members Harry Hamlin, Jimmy Smits, and Michelle Greene, which left a gap on the show. Some new producer came in, didn't even last the whole sixth season, as show quality sagged and ratings dipped. Kelley , Smits, and show creator Stephen Bochco (doing groundwork at the time on NYPD Blue) came back in for just a handful of episodes to try to shore things up, which was enough to keep the show up for Emmys that year. Richard Dysert won the show's final award that year. But by season's end,  Susan Dey, another original cast member left, as did would-be cast replacements Amanda Donohue, Cecil Hoffman, Tom Verica, Michael Cumpsty and Conchata Farrell.

Season 7 brought in the showrunners from St. Elsewhere and Northern Exposure. They were a bad fit for LA Law, as fans of the show started turning it off in droves as the show sank in quality. The season opener, inspired by the riots after the verdict in the Rodney King case, was regarded as the only decent episode of the season. And yet another original cast member left, this time Susan Ruttan. And the Emmys dropped the show entirely.

NBC still decided to go in with a final year with new producers, bizarrely even folding in two characters played by Debi Mazar and Alan Rosenberg from a cancelled Bochco show, Civil Wars, that had aired on a rival network, ABC. The final year was regarded as a big step up from the previous year, but the show had lost its momentum and the ratings were on par with the previous year. Jill Eikenberry got one last farewell nomination at the Emmys (much like Angela Lansbury, they loved to nominate her, but always stiffed her over in the end); she lost to Leigh Taylor-Young on Picket Fences. And NBC decided to give LA Law's timeslot to a certain new medical show called ER.....and the rest they say is history

Thanks for the background information. My lawyer friends used to hoot at the opening scene in many of the shows where all the lawyers would sit around the conference table and talk about the one case they were working on. As if!

[TomJH]

The Chase (1966)

With the seething divisions and violence within America today perhaps this Arthur Penn-directed exploration of a small Texas town ready to explode, a combination of soapy pot boiler and indictment of the violence in '60s America, will have more resonance with some audience members than it did at the time of its release.

Marlon Brando heads a very big cast of stars as the sheriff of the town trying to bring in a local, named Bubber, just escaped from prison, before the drunken rowdies and racists of the town can get a hold of him. As Brando becomes a man alone trying to uphold the law towards the end, one can see elements of High Noon in the story.

There will eventually be a scene of violence against the sheriff that will be brutally eye opening and jolting.

There are a lot of plot threads that wander throughout this film. Escaped from prison is Robert Redford as Bubber several years before becoming a star (somehow Redford never quite seems like someone whose name would be Bubber). Back home are his wife (Jane Fonda) and best friend (James Fox) who are now having a clandestine affair. Fox is also the son of E. G. Marshall, the ultra rich big cheese of the town and bank president who used his influence to get  Brando the sheriff's job (as a result many say Brando is in his back pocket while Brando tries to assert his independence).

Also in the cast are Robert Duvall as a weakling bank employee, Janice Rule as his sluttish wife openly having an affair with another bank employee, Henry Hull as a real estate salesman and the town's chief gossip, Miriam Hopkins as the mother of Bubber, Angie Dickinson (looking good) as Brando's loyal wife and Martha Hyer as the whining wife of the man Rule is romancing. She spends all of her scenes drunk. As I said, the cast is a big one.

Top acting honours go to Brando (one of the very few characters of integrity in the film) and Janice Rule, delicious as the randy, bored, sluttish wife always ready to party.

The message of the film seems to be that violence is almost inevitable in any bored, restless, gossipy small town, in this case, a Texas one. Speaking of Texas, there will be a scene of violence at the end which has direct echoes, three years following JFK's assassination, of the death of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Chase may be overlong and a bit rambling but it occasionally hits a dramatic bullseye. It's worth watching, if only for the cast. The film also benefits from John Barry's dramatic musical score.

2.5 out of 4

 

[TomJH]

4 hours ago, TomJH said:

=

 

 

[Fading Fast]

 

The Graduate from 1967 with Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and Katherine Ross

 

 

The Graduate pulls off the difficult balance of being both a very sad and very funny movie. A high-achieving Ivy league student, Dustin Hoffman, comes home to his West Coast upper-middle-class family after graduation. They want to celebrate his success, but he's having some sort of elite-kid crisis of confidence where he's decided nothing means anything. 

 

Tossing herself in front of this disaffected youth is Mrs. Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft, one of Hoffman's parents' best friends and the wife of his father's business partner. Through a haze of cigarette smoke, this deeply sun-tanned cougar **** ****, rocking a heck of a forty-year-old body, offers herself up sexually to Hoffman.

 

Even discontented Hoffman, as any normal twenty-year old would, loses his cool when a prurient forty-year old family friend he's known since he was a child comes on to him. 

 

Hoffman's initially befuddle amazement, mixed with fear and titillation, prompts one of movie history's funniest and most-famous lines, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." 

 

She was and, following much more hilarious Hoffman bumbling, including his awkward efforts at getting a room at the upscale Taft Hotel, she does. After that, many more "meetings" at the Taft ensue.

 

All is going well from there for a bit, if having sex with a married friend of your parents can ever really go well, until Bancroft's college-age daughter, Katharine Ross, returns from Berkley. Bancroft's clueless-at-this-point husband pushes Hoffman to ask her out.

 

Bancroft, frighteningly in control until now, becomes even more frightening when she loses her cool and forbids Hoffman from seeing her daughter, which of course, drives him right to her. After one of the oddest first dates ever - Hoffman tries to sabotage the effort by taking sheltered Ross to a burlesque show - these two kids fall for each other. 

 

There's nothing more beautiful than a young boy and girl in love, unless the boy's been banging the girl's mother. When that tidbit comes out, as one can imagine, all hell breaks loose with daughter Ross being quickly shipped back to Berkeley.

 

But Hoffman, who until now, has found no purpose in life, makes marrying Ross his purpose. After more misdirection, yelling and angst, (spoiler alert), Hoffman "steals" Ross out of the church on her wedding day. He effectively breaks up a quickly arranged-by-her-parents marriage to a "nice" (read anyone but Hoffman) boy. 

 

As these two kids "escape" from the church, a step ahead of her pursuing parents, the true-love-wins-out narrative is undermined by Hoffman's and Ross' looks of "what the heck did we just do" confusion and, maybe, remorse. Like the entire movie, its humor is wrapped inside a deep despondency. 

 

The Graduate, based on a 1963 book by Charles Webb, hit theaters in 1967 as the perfect kickoff to the late-sixties counterculture movement. An upper-middle-class kid, an early Baby Boomer, rebels against his parents' "bourgeois values" for no specific reason other than he doesn't like those values, he thinks.

 

By the 1980s, most of these rebellious kids were building middle-class careers of their own, taking on mortgages and having kids, but for five or so years, starting in the late 1960s, they rocked the foundations of American culture with their amorphous, albeit spirited, rebellion. 

 

Yet none of that makes The Graduate a classic. It's Hoffman's surprised, diffident response to the incredible moment when he realizes what Mrs Robinson wants that makes it forever memorable. Plus, being raised a good boy, even when they are sleeping together, he still calls her "Mrs. Robinson." 

 

 

N.B. #1 Mrs. Robinson, who did seduce Ben, later accuses Ben of **** her to create a cover story for her husband and daughter. Maybe this accusation wasn't as meaningful at the time, but today, when that charge alone can ruin a young man's life, we see Mrs. Robinson as a cruel and vindictive woman. For modern audiences, this takes some of the fun frisson right out of the movie. 

 

 N.B. #2 The college kids' clothes, hairstyles and even attitudes here are literally at the pivot from early sixties Ivy cool to late-sixties hippie flower power. The Graduate is an amazing time capsule that captures this incredibly quick cultural shift.  

[Tikisoo]

I'm starting to think I can get some kind of idea about my enjoyment of a movie from the DVD cover. I picked up a stack from the library and decided to view this one first:

Why? Because the picture is 2 faces, close & both smiling. Movies about PEOPLE and their lives are the most interesting to me after 2 years of solitude. I'm sure most people have seen this Jodie Foster directorial debut, but I had not. The story was delightful, well acted and yes, very well told by the director. 

It's the story of Didi, an average woman played by Jodie Foster and her exceptionally brilliant 6-7 year old child, Fred. Diane Wiest plays a Psychologist that specializes in gifted children who wants to develop little Fred's abilities by intense schooling, taking him away from his Mom. Wiest's charactor seems a little stereotypical in her high professional achievement in contrast with low social & personal attributes. Good thing Wiest plays the role, she's perfect acting smart & clueless at the same time.

Little Fred has the ability to grasp this and orchestrates his life to avoid & overcome this same path for himself. We see painful episodes of Fred's social rejections and discovery of those who accept him. A standout performance is similarly brilliant boy played by PJ Ochlan,  who is mean to Fred who idolizes him. Another is an adult played by Harry Connick Jr who genuinely likes having Fred around. Both the pool hall & piano playing scene are standouts. This illustrates how difficult socialization is for Fred, since no one is on a similar level intellectually or socially. Also notable support is cutie Debi Mazar as Didi's best friend.

Of course there is a happy ending when all elements come together. But it's the way the story is told that makes this movie worth watching. The editing, story flow is paced well. I especially like the deftness of the story, the action & sparse dialogue tell you everything, but it's not spoon fed to you-there's much here left to the viewer to discern.

 

[Tikisoo]

9 minutes ago, mkahn22 said:

Hoffman's initially befuddle amazement, mixed with fear and titillation, prompts one of movie history's funniest and most-famous lines, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." 

Actually the funniest line comes next, "Aren't you?"

10 minutes ago, mkahn22 said:

N.B. #1  N.B. #2

What does N.B. stand for?

[Fading Fast]

4 minutes ago, TikiSoo said:

Actually the funniest line comes next, "Aren't you?"

What does N.B. stand for?

Good point on the funniest line.

 

nota bene

 

N.B. An abbreviation for the Latin phrase nota bene, meaning “note well.” It is used to emphasize an important point.

[CinemaInternational]

Another lousy movie in the new year: Amistad (1997)

Amistad was seemingly made with the best intentions, but instead it turns out to be the deadliest kind of Oscar bait: the pompous, condescending, and ultimately crushing kind. The central problem lies in the script; it might be  the aftermath folowing the happening of a group of imprisoned Africans who rose up and slaughtered some of the slave boat supervisors, but these African characters are treated as mostly sideline players in their own story, only Djimon Hounsau playing the leader of the uprising, has a sizable part, and even then the film shortchanges him by having his lines only translated or not even provided with subtitles. No, instead the film mostly loiters on several others: Morgan Freeman as  an abolitionist, good if underutilized, Matthew McConaughey, a bit out of his depth, as a lawyer, Nigel Hawthorne as Martin Van Buren, not strong enough against society's ills, and Anthony Hopkins, grandstanding all the way, as John Quincy Adams, who has this big long speech at the Supreme Court that with the rousing music in the background is a scene that you can feel them trying to shape so that Academy voters would scream OSCAR! OSCAR!. {this whole film is the thirstiest piece of Oscar bait I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot over the years} And years before she would  have an unfulfilling role in a Scorsese movie just offering wordless looks, Anna Paquin has a lousy role in a Spielberg movie playing a bigoted Spanish queen who has one scene praising slavery, and only turns up two other times to cut her food and to bounce on a bed. 
The film is truly shameless, it sets up what could be a gripping story, then it mostly forgets those it should be about. It is handsomely photographed and scored, with several scenes showing the abomination of the inhumanity of slavery that are truly chilling, plus several scenes involving religion and faith that are truly moving. Hounsou is greatly affecting. But ultimately and unfortunately the film only emerges as a celebration of itself, with Spielberg seemingly confident that he would score another Best Picture and directing nomination. [It didn't and he didn't either] . Its almost anticlimactic with one seeming victory seen coming a wearying 50 minutes before the end. The self importance only ends up enervating what should have been an important story. All too often the cinema of good intentions is the cinema of calculation and rigidity.....and a film like this  buckles under the burden of its ambition.

[Sepiatone]

10 hours ago, TomJH said:

The Chase (1966)

With the seething divisions and violence within America today perhaps this Arthur Penn-directed exploration of a small Texas town ready to explode, a combination of soapy pot boiler and indictment of the violence in '60s America, will have more resonance with some audience members than it did at the time of its release.

Marlon Brando heads a very big cast of stars as the sheriff of the town trying to bring in a local, named Bubber, just escaped from prison, before the drunken rowdies and racists of the town can get a hold of him. As Brando becomes a man alone trying to uphold the law towards the end, one can see elements of High Noon in the story.

There will eventually be a scene of violence against the sheriff that will be brutally eye opening and jolting.

There are a lot of plot threads that wander throughout this film. Escaped from prison is Robert Redford as Bubber several years before becoming a star (somehow Redford never quite seems like someone whose name would be Bubber). Back home are his wife (Jane Fonda) and best friend (James Fox) who are now having a clandestine affair. Fox is also the son of E. G. Marshall, the ultra rich big cheese of the town and bank president who used his influence to get  Brando the sheriff's job (as a result many say Brando is in his back pocket while Brando tries to assert his independence).

Also in the cast are Robert Duvall as a weakling bank employee, Janice Rule as his sluttish wife openly having an affair with another bank employee, Henry Hull as a real estate salesman and the town's chief gossip, Miriam Hopkins as the mother of Bubber, Angie Dickinson (looking good) as Brando's loyal wife and Martha Hyer as the whining wife of the man Rule is romancing. She spends all of her scenes drunk. As I said, the cast is a big one.

Top acting honours go to Brando (one of the very few characters of integrity in the film) and Janice Rule, delicious as the randy, bored, sluttish wife always ready to party.

The message of the film seems to be that violence is almost inevitable in any bored, restless, gossipy small town, in this case, a Texas one. Speaking of Texas, there will be a scene of violence at the end which has direct echoes, three years following JFK's assassination, of the death of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Chase may be overlong and a bit rambling but it occasionally hits a dramatic bullseye. It's worth watching, if only for the cast. The film also benefits from John Barry's dramatic musical score.

2.5 out of 4

 

Y'know, I long thought it was Brando's sheriff character that called the guy "Bubber".  Everyone else sounded like they called him "Bubba".   And Brando's character called him "Bubber" for the same reason there's folks who pronounce the word "warsh" instead of "wash".   A peculiar Southern colloqialism.

Whitefang