I Just Watched...

[Fading Fast]

52 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

I watched THE OMEN (1976) last night. 
 

I’ve seen the last half before, but I don’t think I had ever seen the first part. So, going into it I totally know how it ended (Which definitely affects the viewing experience.)

it was fine, I prefer it to ROSEMARYS BABY- A film from which it is obviously derived – but to be honest with you, I don’t particularly care for ROSEMARYS BABY. 
 

The only real complaint I have about it is that it wasted LEE REMICK– who was just such a gorgeous and fascinating actress – although you do get to see her in a movie star turban in one scene, She is criminally underused and deserved more screen time.

The real shock for me was that GREGORY PECK was excellent- Forgive me, I’m sure he was an absolutely wonderful person and he was definitely A STAR, but I usually find him stiff. He took on a risky role with this one, apparently concerned that his career was at its end, and really delivers and commits himself 100%.

Mechanically though, it’s not a very interestingly constructed film- apart from the highly memorable score, the direction and editing and shots are all pretty routine. I actually read that it was the intent of the makers to make it highly ambiguous as to whether or not Damien is actually the antichrist, and in that end they failed completely.

I have to say though I was absolutely shocked when I read up on the film after viewing it to see that it was featured in the Medved Brothers “100 worst films of all time” – I know that book has a lot of people here who are not fans of it at all, and I have to say there is nothing about this movie that merits its placement there. 
 

** Although Patrick Troughton’s death scene is obviously fake and should’ve been re-shot more convincingly.

It's funny you mentioned Lee Remick that way as she had never really hit my radar until the past year or so when I saw her in "Anatomy of a Murder," "A Face in the Crowd" and "Wild River" all pretty close to each other. It was only coincidental that she was in all three. As you note, she's a gorgeous and engaging actress. It was her performance in "Wild River" that really impressed me. It was also a movie I had never even heard of until I stumbled upon it and greatly enjoyed. I've haven't seen "Omen," but will keep an eye out for it now.

[LornaHansonForbes]

1 hour ago, mkahn22 said:

It's funny you mentioned Lee Remick that way as she had never really hit my radar until the past year or so when I saw her in "Anatomy of a Murder," "A Face in the Crowd" and "Wild River" all pretty close to each other. It was only coincidental that she was in all three. As you note, she's a gorgeous and engaging actress. It was her performance in "Wild River" that really impressed me. It was also a movie I had never even heard of until I stumbled upon it and greatly enjoyed. I've haven't seen "Omen," but will keep an eye out for it now.

LEE REMICK Gives one of the absolute best performances of the 1960s in WILD RIVER. So beautiful she need not be so talented, so talented she need not be so beautiful – it’s really one of the best performances by an actress I have ever seen. She would be my unequivocal choice for best actress in 1960. 
 

I absolutely hate that she died so young, of cancer I believe, around age 53.

[TomJH]

The African Queen (1951)

I decided to retake a film trip I hadn't been on in many years, travelling on a small rundown boat along an African river in a film primarily memorable due to its opposites attracting two lead characterizations.

Humphrey Bogart won his sole Academy Award playing Charley Allnut, the casual, slovenly captain of a rundown boat eeking out some kind of living on the river, getting by amongst his bottles of rye for recreational support. Katharine Hepburn had the first of her spinster roles as Rosie, the uptight "Psalm singing skinny old maid" Bible thumper who hitches a ride with Allnut after German soldiers invade the small African village where she was living, burning it to the ground and enslaving its people in a film set at the outbreak of WW1. The two eventually decide (Allnut, reluctantly so, after much persuasion from gung ho Rosie) to use their craft, called the African Queen, to blow up a German ship ruling a nearby lake with some home made torpedoes.

That's pretty much the plot and I have to admit that on this viewing of the film I was struck by how thin the story is. While the film was famously filmed in Africa (and a much troubled production it was, eventually leading to a film about the making of it, White Hunter, Black Heart) director John Huston's film has a lot of obvious rear screen projection in the river scenes, as well as miniature work of the boat. The film is about half comedy, at least as far as Bogart's characterization is concerned, and that part works engagingly well. But the final chapter, after Allnut and Rosie are captured by the Germans has, for some reason, always seemed rather light weight and ultimately a bit unsatisfying to me.

I know there are a lot of posters on these boards who don't care for Hepburn but I have to say that I think she is really perfect in this role (probably the best of her spinster portrayals). Particularly touching, I feel, even if it's predictable, is when Rosie and Allnut discover middle aged love with one another. The role of the sloppy Allnut is more of a stretch for Bogart as an actor but he handles the part well and makes the character a very likable one. (Bogart ranked this as one of his three favourite films, along with The Maltese Falcon and To Have and Have Not).

In the final analysis, while I think the popular African Queen seems a little too light weight to be considered a great film, the characterizations by Hepburn and Bogart make it a film well worth viewing. Robert Morley is effectively cast in a small role as Hepburn's minister brother who meets his end not long after the film begins. Also of note, Jack Cardiff's outstanding Technicolor photography makes the film a constant visual pleasure.

3 out of 4

[MrMagoo]

I agree with much of your take, Tom. Unlike some around here with their love/hate for Hepburn (I'm more in the love camp) I have one with Bogart. I always felt he was fairly one dimensional and his characters all seemed to be a play on the same theme. In THE AFRICAN QUEEN he shows a lot more versatility. Yes, he showed some humor. He showed vulnerability and doubt. He was leery and reluctant but came around to do the right thing. A nice turn and a well deserved Oscar award. 

Yes, and Hepburn from opening scene to the end a nice progression from uptight school marm type to courageous and romantic heroine.

My only quarrel was the preposterous ending...talk about a lucky shot. 

[TomJH]

9 minutes ago, MrMagoo said:

I agree with much of your take, Tom. Unlike some around here with their love/hate for Hepburn (I'm more in the love camp) I have one with Bogart. I always felt he was fairly one dimensional and his characters all seemed to be a play on the same theme. In THE AFRICAN QUEEN he shows a lot more versatility. Yes, he showed some humor. He showed vulnerability and doubt. He was leery and reluctant but came around to do the right thing. A nice turn and a well deserved Oscar award. 

Yes, and Hepburn from opening scene to the end a nice progression from uptight school marm type to courageous and romantic heroine.

My only quarrel was the preposterous ending...talk about a lucky shot. 

Yes, preposterous is a pretty good word to describe that ending of The African Queen, Mr. Magoo. I see I'm not the only one who felt let down by the writing there. I like Bogart as an actor more than you do, it would appear, but it's nice to see him successfully play against his screen image as the rumpot boat skipper in this film. The discovery of middle aged love by two people who had never experienced it before I also found quite touching. Hepburn and Bogart played off each other well. Far better to have one memorable screen encounter such as this one between two major stars than numerous co-starring efforts with lesser results.

[MrMagoo]

Watched PIG (2021) last night.

Highly recommend. A very quirky story which I like. The script was a first film effort by Vanessa Block and Michael Sarnoski.  I would keep an eye on them. Sarnoski also directed and it's obvious he had a pretty clear vision of what he wanted to show.

Screenplays must "show" and not "tell" the audience what is happening. Obstacle, obstacle, obstacle. Pretty much every character had a backstory and an obstacle to overcome. The truffle hunting pig was a unique metaphorical device the filmmakers used to tie all the character's backstories together. It's a very human story.

Nicolas Cage was (for once) very understated. No screaming and flying off the handle stuff like he's often prone to do. I felt he captured the tortured protagonist perfectly. The story revealed itself in layers; like peeling an onion. The supporting cast, also, slowly, revealed themselves. Kudos all around. I would say the screenplay gets my highest marks. Great story.

My only complaint, and it's a small one, is that at no time in the movie did they clean Nicholas Cage's character up...at all. I mean visually. Dirty and bloodied. The whole movie.

I highly recommend PIG

 

 

 

 

[filmnoirguy]

3 hours ago, mkahn22 said:

It's funny you mentioned Lee Remick that way as she had never really hit my radar until the past year or so when I saw her in "Anatomy of a Murder," "A Face in the Crowd" and "Wild River" all pretty close to each other. It was only coincidental that she was in all three. As you note, she's a gorgeous and engaging actress. It was her performance in "Wild River" that really impressed me. It was also a movie I had never even heard of until I stumbled upon it and greatly enjoyed. I've haven't seen "Omen," but will keep an eye out for it now.

Lee Remick received a well deserved Oscar nod for 1962's "The Days of Wine and Roses" as did co-star Jack Lemmon.  I've never seen a Remick performance I didn't like, and this one is probably my "all-timer."

[MrMagoo]

7 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Yes, preposterous is a pretty good word to describe that ending of The African Queen, Mr. Magoo. I see I'm not the only one who felt let down by the writing there. I like Bogart as an actor more than you do, it would appear, but it's nice to see him successfully play against his screen image as the rumpot boat skipper in this film. The discovery of middle aged love by two people who had never experienced it before I also found quite touching. Hepburn and Bogart played off each other well. Far better to have one memorable screen encounter such as this one between two major stars than numerous co-starring efforts with lesser results.

The ending. Yeah, the ending. I thought that was sort of "too easy" and I'm surprised John Huston would direct a film with such a (dare I say) amateurish finale. AQ was shot in color. 4 years later Huston directed MOBY DICK in B&W. MOBY DICK had, for it's time, one of the more harrowing endings on the big screen even as everyone knew how it was going to end before sitting down. I rate MD ahead of AQ on my Huston list of favorites. 

[King Rat]

3 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

LEE REMICK Gives one of the absolute best performances of the 1960s in WILD RIVER. So beautiful she need not be so talented, so talented she need not be so beautiful – it’s really one of the best performances by an actress I have ever seen. She would be my unequivocal choice for best actress in 1960. 
 

And mine. And mine. And mine. (I'm voting early and often for her.) Could not agree more with every word of this.

37 minutes ago, filmnoirguy said:

Lee Remick received a well deserved Oscar nod for 1962's "The Days of Wine and Roses" as did co-star Jack Lemmon.  I've never seen a Remick performance I didn't like, and this one is probably my "all-timer."

 

4 hours ago, mkahn22 said:

It's funny you mentioned Lee Remick that way as she had never really hit my radar until the past year or so when I saw her in "Anatomy of a Murder," "A Face in the Crowd" and "Wild River" all pretty close to each other. It was only coincidental that she was in all three. As you note, she's a gorgeous and engaging actress. It was her performance in "Wild River" that really impressed me. It was also a movie I had never even heard of until I stumbled upon it and greatly enjoyed.

If you haven't seen Days of Wine and Roses, that's the next one to see.

Far more than most actresses of her time, Lee Remick showed an ability to portray different kinds of female sexuality, which is quite different from the Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield Hollywood sex goddess thing: the girl who reeks of sex (The Long Hot Summer); the seductive, manipulative, and twisted woman (Anatomy of a Murder); and the young woman with normal, healthy, and attractive sexuality (Wild River).

[King Rat]

I've been enjoying revisits to films this week, from The King and I to The French Connection to Shakespeare in Love. I'd forgotten how much my husband enjoyed Shakespeare in Love when we saw it on its first release. He liked it just as much the second time. The film has acquired a certain amount of baggage, from whether it deserved the Best Picture award to the backlash against Gwyneth Paltrow naming her daughter Apple (I told her Kumquat would have been better, but did she listen?). Like The French Connection--a film to which it has probably never been compared--Shakespeare in Love is very well constructed, and this old-fashioned virtue counts for a lot on repeated viewing. The cinematography and costumes are gorgeous. The script finds the sweet spot with in-jokes for those who know their Elizabethan drama, yet plenty of drama, romance, and comedy for those who don't.

[TomJH]

4 hours ago, MrMagoo said:

The ending. Yeah, the ending. I thought that was sort of "too easy" and I'm surprised John Huston would direct a film with such a (dare I say) amateurish finale. AQ was shot in color. 4 years later Huston directed MOBY DICK in B&W. MOBY DICK had, for it's time, one of the more harrowing endings on the big screen even as everyone knew how it was going to end before sitting down. I rate MD ahead of AQ on my Huston list of favorites. 

Yes, I like Moby Dick, as well, including Gregory Peck's much maligned Ahab. Mechanical whale or not, those are the scenes that stay with me the most, especially when the beast swims towards the camera with its jaws open. Those scenes clinch it, by the way, that I will never go on an ocean voyage (and also put on hold any thoughts of being a whaler).

[Dargo]

4 hours ago, MrMagoo said:

AQ was shot in color. 4 years later Huston directed MOBY DICK in B&W.

Ummm...sure looks like a color movie to me here, Magoo...

Although because Huston chose to tone down the color in his film here, I can understand why you might have remembered it as being in B&W.

(...and in regard to this, in Huston's autobiography titled "An Open Book", I remember reading many a passage within it where he talks of his choices of the color tints of the various filmstock, the camera aperture settings and filters, and the lighting effects that he would select for his various productions)

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, Dargo said:

Although because Huston chose to tone down the color in his film here, I can understand why you might have remembered it as being in B&W.

The new Blu-ray version restored Huston's  tone-down of color, which was consciously supposed to resemble weatherbeaten whaling-ship imagery, although TV and reissue prints cheated on him and used glorious Technicolor for most of the reissues.

The disk's OOP, though, but hopefully the "proper" mastering's still around for any future MGM/UA-vultures.

[sewhite2000]

1/18 Gloria (Columbia, 1980)
Source: TCM

Night Three of TCM's month-long theme of accents continued (I stayed up really late that night) with Madison, Wisconsin-born Gena Rowlands going full-on Noo Yawk for this gender-switch version of The Professional minus the cringey Lolita-fetish overtones (there's one bit of dialogue where the boy refers to the adult woman as his "girlfriend", but they don't make age-inappropriate infatuation a running subplot for the entire movie). Oh, there's also a bit of the former moll element also used in Sister Act, minus the singing nuns. Rowlands lived long enough in New York City and prided herself on being such a tough broad that the role was probably not that much of a stretch for her. Written and directed by Rowland's real-life husband, John Cassavettes, known to TCM fans as a former actor, the only Oscar nominaee from The Dirty Dozen, who also appeared in such films as Edge of the City, the '60s color remake of The Killers and what I think was his best role in Rosemary's Baby. Cassavettes, beginning with Faces (1968) became known as a writer-director who encouraged broad improvisation on the part of his actors, in a style as far as I know was very similar to what is done in the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm. He would sketch out a plot outline, then break it down by scenes, having specific ideas about where in the overall action each scene should begin and end but leaving it to his actors to come up with their own dialogue and pacing on the journey, filming as many takes as necessary. He and Rowlands worked on 10 films together, the most famous one being, if not this one, then probably A Woman Under the Influence. Gloria, I have a feeling, was less improvisational than a lot of Cassavettes movies; certain scenes almost certainly had scripted dialogue, Though a scene near the end that takes place in a mobster's apartment and is populated with non-actors recruited from the actual Mob world has a very classically Cassevettes-ian feel. Cassavettes himself described it as "a very fast-moving and thoughtless piece about gangsters - and I don't even know any gangsters". The interiors were mostly shot in the Concourse, a former luxury hotel turned apartment complex on 16st Street in the South Bronx, which producer Sam Shaw described as a "poor man's Dakota," referring to the ritzy building where John Lennon and Yoko Ono were living when Lennon was killed. The Concourse had seen better days - Babe Ruth perpetually rented a suite there during baseball seasons in the '20s and the '30s; Cassavettes believed its faded glory look made it the perfect locale.  Exteriors were shot in real-life New York and New Jersey locations - most recognizably Times Square - and one scene was shot on an interstate in Pennsylvania. The movie was enough of a success that Cassavettes actually began working on the script for a Gloria 2 about five years later, but it never got made because of his untimely death at the age of 60 in 1989. Cassavettes said Gloria was his least favorite film. The fact that he initially "only" wanted to be the writer indicates he saw it as product and not so much his own complete vision. Regardless, it was his most commercially successful and arguably his most acclaimed film - it tied with Louis Malle's Atlantic City for the Golden Lion at the 1980 Venice Film Festival.

A few sentences on potential alternative casting.  Cassavettes originslly envisioned selling the script outright to Columbia and leaving it up to them to chose the director. After Barbra Streisand turned down the part, Rowlands became attached which also drew Cassavettes' attention and the interest in the studio with him, knowing he and Rowlands had a relationship and worked well together. There are different stories about whether the studio requested Cassavettes direct or demanded as a condition of them making a movie out of his script. The working title for the script was One Summer Night. Cassavettes wrote the part of the boy with Ricky Schroder in mind, the boy actor having recently become a big deal with his part in MGM's 1979 remake of The Champ. Schroder committed to other films, however, and MGM lost interest in the project. Cassavettes took his script to Columbia instead, and at some point, the script was altered to make the boy Puerto Rican. It was the only movie role for eight-year-old John Adames (who now goes by Juan Adames). There are conflicting stories about how he was cast. Either he lived in the same neighborhood as the casting director's sister, and she discovered him through word of mouth in the neighborhood, or he showed up with doezens of other child actors for an audition and impressed Cassavettes, who staged a parlor trick of putting all the children and their parents in one room and seeing who held up best under the pressure. However he got the part, Adames beat out at least 350 competitors. Adames, unlike Schroder, didn't have a breakthrough career moment. He tied for the 1980 Worst Supporting Actor Razzie with Laurence Olivier from The Jazz Singer (hey, he can spend the rest of his life saying, "I tied Olivier for an award ..."). Seymour Cassel, who'd gotten a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Cassavettes' Faces, lobbied for the part of the boy's father, but Cassavettes went with Buck Henry, casting him against type in a heavily dramatic and tragic role. 

Okay, I must admit before getting into the plot that I fell asleep I think three times during this movie, anywhere from five to 15 minutes each time, so I'm relying on imdb a bit to make sure I get the points straight. This shouldn't be interpreted as resulting from boredom with the movie. It was my third TCM film that night. I think it started at 11 pm my time. It had been a long day, and I wasn't in the peppiest frame of mind for a late night movie. So, I'm going to go pretty broad here, since I don't really remember a lot of minute specifics. The family of a six-year-old boy, Phil Dawn (Adames) is wiped out by the Mob. His father Jack (Henry)  is/was the Mob accountant and has been keeping a black book that's his own personal copy of their records that ideally he could have used as a bargaining chip perhaps with either the Mob or the police, but this obviously doesn't prove to be a good idea, as the mob gets the idea to simply kill the whole family and take the book. Just before this happens, Jack places Phil in the care of a neighbor, Gloria Swenson (Rowlands - a tip of the hat to Gloria Swanson?), who happens to have been the former girlfriend of the mobster Tony Tanzini (Basillo Fanchina), one of the men who wants Phil dead. Jack's much younger Puerto Rican wife Jeri (Julie Carmen) is also a victim of the slaughter, along with Phil's siblings. Phil is half Puerto Rican. This opening sequence goes on FOREVER, lots of crying and hugging and weeping and wailing of hands and gnashing of teeth as Jack and everyone in the family seems aware of what's going to happen to them. As stated before, I was repeatedly falling asleep, and generally I don't root for carnage in a movie, but it was a so obviously telegraphed plot point, I was annoyed at how long it took to actually occur. Gloria and Phil go on the run in NYC with their would-be killers in hot pursuit. There's an interpret-it-as-you-will ending - deus ex machina? fantasizing on the boy's part? a shift to the supernatural? - that leaves us on a bit of an arty note more akin to the films of the '70s than the Stallone-Schwarzennegar shoot-em'-ups that would follow.

It probably speaks to my inclination to mainstream fare, but in my opinion, this is the strongest of the Rowlands-Cassavettes collaborations I've seen. Don't read too much into my use of the word "manstream", by which I mostly mean it appears to have been conventionally scripted and deals with a very standard Hollywood trope. It's shot in a very gritty indie style and has that "classic" run-down pre-Guliani New York City setting, evoking films like Dog Day Afternoon and The French Connection.

I feel like Rowland must have been familiar with some the great noir roles. This part could have been played by Gloria Grahame or Ida Lupino back in the day, and Rowlands evokes both of these actresses and others. Her Gloria is a pretty standard tough chick with a heart of gold that was probably more at home in studio era Hollywood than this post-modern maverick era. Adames as Phil strikes me as a real kid, refreshingly authentic in this rather stylized gangster world. He's as out of place in this modern noir as Lily Tomlin being all '70s tantra and shakra (sp?) in  The Late Show. This incongruity has made his performance somewhat controversial, which probably led to his Razzie, which I found unfair (Olivier at least knew he was hamming it up). True, his character's constant braggadocio begins to grate, but boys his age tend to "front" a lot. I liked the more serious Buck Henry, though as stated earlier, I was pretty much ready for his character to go ahead and meet his fate. Lawrence Tierney, still making a living before Tarantino "rediscovered" him for Reservoir Dogs, has a small bit as a bartender.

In the Cassavettes resume, this one comes after Opening Night and before Love Streams, both of which are more classcally "Cassavettian" films (and both of which he also appears as an actor). Gloria  was remade in 1999 with Sharon Stone, though that film curiously makes no reference to this one in its credits.

Total films seen this year: 31

 

 

 

[MrMagoo]

4 hours ago, Dargo said:

Ummm...sure looks like a color movie to me here, Magoo...

Although because Huston chose to tone down the color in his film here, I can understand why you might have remembered it as being in B&W.

(...and in regard to this, in Huston's autobiography titled "An Open Book", I remember reading many a passage within it where he talks of his choices of the color tints of the various filmstock, the camera aperture settings and filters, and the lighting effects that he would select for his various productions)

I could have sworn it was in B&W. Boy, that should be my biggest goof. Thanks for the post.

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, MrMagoo said:

I could have sworn it was in B&W. Boy, that should be my biggest goof. Thanks for the post.

You're welcome.

As I said earlier, it's perfectly understandable that you might have remembered this film being in B&W, and due to Huston's decision to film it such muted colors.

(...btw, and re another point I brought up earlier...if you've never read it, I highly recommend the aforementioned John Huston's autobiography "An Open Book")

[JamesJazGuitar]

12 minutes ago, Dargo said:

You're welcome.

As I said earlier, it's perfectly understandable that you might have remembered this film being in B&W, and due to Huston's decision to film it such muted colors.

(...btw, and re another point I brought us earlier...if you've never read it, I highly recommend the aforementioned John Huston's autobiography "An Open Book")

I'll have to read this since I wonder how he frames himself with regards to how he treated the many women in his life.     Based on book Courage and Art (Jeffrey Meyers),  he was a a-hole of the first degree, especially to his wives.    To his girlfriend like Olivia DeHavilland he was only a first degree jerk! 

Thus I wonder how he spins his years married to Evelyn Keyes.   E.g.  does he mention how he would invite his lover to a party Keyes was hosting while they were married? 

[Dargo]

1 minute ago, JamesJazGuitar said:

I'll have to read this since I wonder how he frames himself with regards to how he treated the many women in his life.     Based on book Courage and Art (Jeffrey Meyers),  he was a a-hole of the first degree, especially to his wives.    To his girlfriend like Olivia DeHavilland he was only a first degree jerk! 

Thus I wonder how he spins his years married to Evelyn Keyes.   E.g.  does he mention how he would invite his lover to a party Keyes was hosting while they were married? 

It's been many years since I've read this book, James. I think when it was first published back in 1980.

However, I do recall Huston being quite candid about himself in it, and with many examples of him placing a fair amount of blame on himself for his shortcomings as a man and his failed relationships.

And as I mentioned earlier to Magoo here, I recall that he goes into much detail about the specifics in regard to the productions of his films, as well.

(...and of course, he gives his account of that little "incident" at that Hollywood soiree he had with speedy's favorite actor that involved one of your favorite actresses here)

[TomJH]

1 hour ago, Dargo said:

It's been many years since I've read this book, James. I think when it was first published back in 1980.

However, I do recall Huston being quite candid about himself in it, and with many examples of him placing a fair amount of blame on himself for his shortcomings as a man and his failed relationships.

And as I mentioned earlier to Magoo here, I recall that he goes into much detail about the specifics in regard to the productions of his films, as well.

(...and of course, he gives his account of that little "incident" at that Hollywood soiree he had with speedy's favorite actor that involved one of your favorite actresses here)

To the best of my knowledge Flynn never spoke or wrote about his fight with Huston. Mind you, when he put his autobiography together he had just finished making a film with Huston with whom he had patched things up. It seems to me I've read that Huston said Errol was gentlemanly during the fight inasmuch as he didn't kick him in the ribs after he was knocked down. Both men went to the hospital afterward. Selznick was furious at both men for fighting at his home party, alcohol having a lot to do with it, as well as, presumably, Errol's jealousy over the director's relationship with Olivia de Havilland. Olivia really liked her bad boys.

Perhaps Huston was lucky that he hadn't met Flynn in his earlier Australia-New Guinea days as a scrapper. Flynn wrote that when he fought someone then he fought dirty and for keeps. In that respect he was like many others of the rough 'n ready types like himself Down Under. By 1945 when they fought Flynn was not as physically healthy as he would have been in his pre-Hollywood days.

[Dargo]

2 hours ago, TomJH said:

To the best of my knowledge Flynn never spoke or wrote about his fight with Huston. Mind you, when he put his autobiography together he had just finished making a film with Huston with whom he had patched things up. It seems to me I've read that Huston said Errol was gentlemanly during the fight inasmuch as he didn't kick him in the ribs after he was knocked down. Both men went to the hospital afterward. Selznick was furious at both men for fighting at his home party, alcohol having a lot to do with it, as well as, presumably, Errol's jealousy over the director's relationship with Olivia de Havilland. Olivia really liked her bad boys.

 

Yep Tom, as I recall (and remember here it's been now 42 years since I read "An Open Book") Huston, who was reportedly an amateur boxing champion himself, recounted the leadup to his fight with Flynn, the fight itself, and the aftermath of it, and which included how they would become friends later on.

Now, I must admit I've never read "My Wicked, Wicked Ways", but I find it strange that Flynn didn't cover this in his own autobiography.

(...didn't this ever strike you as a bit strange, too?)

[Roy Cronin]

Lee Remick:  Don't forget that she also did some terrific television work, particularly,  for me, the mini-series Nutcracker.   Fabulous supporting cast, including John Glover.

 

[TomJH]

6 hours ago, Dargo said:

Yep Tom, as I recall (and remember here it's been now 42 years since I read "An Open Book") Huston, who was reportedly an amateur boxing champion himself, recounted the leadup to his fight with Flynn, the fight itself, and the aftermath of it, and which included how they would become friends later on.

Now, I must admit I've never read "My Wicked, Wicked Ways", but I find it strange that Flynn didn't cover this in his own autobiography.

(...didn't this ever strike you as a bit strange, too?)

Again, I wondered if Flynn left it out because he had just made Roots of Heaven with Huston at a time when work in Hollywood was not easy to come by for him, was hoping for more work and perhaps thought it best to not bring up a fight with a popular director. But that's just a guess on my part because, like you, I find it a little strange he didn't mention the fight either especially since the fight, whether he wrote about it or not, had been the talk of the town fourteen years before. And 14 years is not an eternity.

But Flynn left a lot of things out of his book, including his fight with a stunt man on the Charge of the Light Brigade set that Niven later wrote about. Apparently, though, My Wicked Wicked Ways was later republished with sections in it left out about first wife Lili Damita (and Mike Curtiz, too, I believe) for fear of lawsuits by the publisher.

According to a recent biography on Curtiz he and Damita had had an affair in Europe ten years or so before she met Errol. Yet I have never seen a single reference made by Flynn in regard to this, which I find baffling. It was well known he hated Curtiz and Damita had hounded him unmercifully through law courts over alimony payments helping to put him in financial straits in his later years, yet he made no reference in his autobiography of them having once been lovers. This has me scratching my head. How could he not know? Hollywood is as gossipy a town as there has ever been. Lots of truths and half truths float around there.

I have a first edition of MWWW, before stuff about Damita was exorcised from it, and that's what I'm going by when I say he left her Curtiz affair out of it.

By the way Errol selected that pensive, moody looking photo of himself for the book's back cover. Others thought he should have had a flashy, glamour image of himself but, at the end of his life, Errol must have thought this less than complimentary picture was more a true reflection of what he thought of himself. In many ways his book is a startlingly candid self assessment of himself and career, including his opinion that he had appeared in few good films. At the same time, though, Flynn spoke very little about some people who were friends (like Ida Lupino who is buried beside him) and left out many incidents and, particularly in his pre-Hollywood life, you have to wonder how much of what he told (through ghost writer Earl Conrad) was good old fashioned bull.

It's a witty, colourful book, however, with Flynn's sense of humour, as well as later disenchantment with life coming though in it. It was first published in December, 1959 and is still available today making My Wicked Wicked Ways, I believe, the longest selling autobiography by an actor.

[Tikisoo]

2 hours ago, TomJH said:

At the same time, though, Flynn spoke very little about some people who were friends (like Ida Lupino who is buried beside him) and left out many incidents and, particularly in his pre-Hollywood life, you have to wonder how much of what he told (through ghost writer Earl Conrad) was good old fashioned bull.

Love this conversation as I agree with all the Lee Remick, John Huston & Flynn comments. Could any other actress imprint the simple line, "He likes to go"? Never a bad performance.

As an older person who also lived a brash & "wicked" youth, I much appreciate Flynn's autobiography. Most of us have a vast different perspective of our lives when older, some minor events became life-changing & once huge emotional events like romances become intellectualized over time.

Who knows who cares? It's a well written great autobiography of what he wanted to say.

I also really love this book:

..but I'm a Kate Hepburn fan. Hepburn is a pro & trouper but still a woman and she describes the rough conditions, having to dress behind a bush & fix herself for filming. It's a thin book & easy to find. I've purchased several copies as gifts.

[TomJH]

1 hour ago, TikiSoo said:

Love this conversation as I agree with all the Lee Remick, John Huston & Flynn comments. Could any other actress imprint the simple line, "He likes to go"? Never a bad performance.

As an older person who also lived a brash & "wicked" youth, I much appreciate Flynn's autobiography. Most of us have a vast different perspective of our lives when older, some minor events became life-changing & once huge emotional events like romances become intellectualized over time.

 

TikiSoo, have you read Flynn's first book, Beam Ends, published in 1937, an account of a trip he took on a schooner with three friends along the Australian coast circa 1930? There are the usual embellishments with the truth, of course, but it's a breezy, light hearted affair, often written in high spirits by Flynn about his early days which helped to forge his personality. The book is no longer published but you can find used copies available of it on the internet. There was no ghost writer involved on this one. Flynn, as you undoubtedly know, would rather have been a writer than actor but, ultimately, he lacked the discipline to continue to work at it.

To give you some of the flavour of his writing in Beam Ends Flynn started his short novel this way:

"Throw it down on top of the bastard!"

The third mate looked down on me where I lay in the coal bunker. "That ought to bring him round," he added sardonically.

He was right. It brought me round. A barrel full of fine coal hurtling down on top of you from a height of ten feet will either bring you round or take you out. Momentarily debating the wisdom of lying there as if nothing at all had happened, a second and somewhat heavier load immediately solved all doubts about this line of action.

Spitting out a mouthful of black dust, I climbed unsteadily up the hatch and advanced on the mate. That gentleman, waiting dispassionately until the right moment, planted his fist solidly between my eyes. The next thing I knew Trelawny was standing by my side saying, "Drink this, old man."

That, however, was the next morning.

[Bronxgirl48]

On 3/3/2022 at 3:32 PM, mkahn22 said:

"Mr. Boy-nem..."    Perfect.

I could never pronounce it otherwise after this film, lol.

And I was always dropping my "h's" after UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS ("Mr. 'udson")