I Just Watched...

[LornaHansonForbes]

every time i ever go to archive.org, I AM MAKING STRAIGHT FOR THE CLASSIC RADIO SECTION.

 

I have fallen MADLY IN LOVE with GUNSMOKE on the radio.

 

(i tend to be a listener as opposed to someone drawn to visuals)

 

FYI: if you want a GREAT INTRODUCTORY EPISODE, I HIGHLY recommend "FEUD."

 

also TALES OF THE TEXAS RANGERS and THE LIVES OF HARRY LIME are great.

 

(maybe someday i'll check out the films, but for now i'm so happy with the radio.)

[AndreaDoria]

 

 

(i tend to be a listener as opposed to someone drawn to visuals)

 

 

Have you discovered NPR on Saturday afternoons?   I think, "The Moth Radio Hour," is one of the best bits of entertainment all week.

[wouldbestar]

every time i ever go to archive.org, I AM MAKING STRAIGHT FOR THE CLASSIC RADIO SECTION.

 

I have fallen MADLY IN LOVE with GUNSMOKE on the radio.

 

(i tend to be a listener as opposed to someone drawn to visuals)

 

FYI: if you want a GREAT INTRODUCTORY EPISODE, I HIGHLY recommend "FEUD."

 

also TALES OF THE TEXAS RANGERS and THE LIVES OF HARRY LIME are great.

 

(maybe someday i'll check out the films, but for now i'm so happy with the radio.)

Thank you, Lorna.  I grew up with the radio episodes and usually recognized the TV versions right away.  It was fun comparing the two and seeing how they changed the audio to fit the visual.

 

For some reason I best remember Mavis McCloud.  There were two radio versions-one with Barbara Eiler-and the TV one with Fay Spain.  On the radio the whole story takes place in town rather than partly at the Wales ranch and the new husband asks his bride if she loves the man who's after her rather than "I just want to know one thing; do you love me?" as Max Showalter/Casey Adams does on TV-which I think sounds more likely in the situation.  On radio she replies "I hate him!" while the TV Mavis assures her new husband "Yes, oh yes!"  I recognized more titles so I'll be visiting the site again.  What a great thing to discover!

 

I also remember the TV series Tales of the Texas Rangers with Willard Parker and Harry Lauter so I want to check that out to see if that's the same show and scripts.  I understand Death Valley Days was cut from a similar cloth.  We're getting to be in our parents' shoes-how about that!

[speedracer5]

Boys' Night Out (1962). This was a fun Kim Novak film I had never seen. Novak stars as a graduate student who is writing a thesis on "the adolescent sexual fantasies of the adult suburban male." She ends up being hired by four men (three married, one divorced) as a "housekeeper" in an inexpensive (but very opulent and large) apartment in New York City. The three married men are portrayed by: Howard Duff, Howard Morris and Tony Randall. James Garner plays the divorced man. These men commute to work together from Connecticut to New York on the same train. It seems that they frequent the same bar before deciding to go back home to their respective wives. At the bar, Garner witnesses his boss (Roger Addison from Mister Ed) canoodling with his mistress. According to Garner, his boss keeps an apartment in New York where he can entertain his lady before he returns home to his wife.

 

The men, bored with their wives and each feeling that something is lacking in his respective relationship, begin to fantasize about having an apartment in the city where they can entertain their mistresses as well. As a joke, the three married men enlist Garner in locating a luxurious (but cheap) apartment. Garner goes to Thurston Howell III, a landlord who is anxious to rent an apartment in his building in which a murder took place. Garner is able to secure a decent price. Novak ends up answering the same ad. After informing her that the apartment has been rented, Garner offers Novak a position as a housekeeper. Much to his surprise, she accepts the position. Elated, the three husbands think that their infidelity dream is going to come to fruition. Garner isn't too keen on the prospect (Not sure why he decided to get the apartment--maybe he did it just to appease his friends). Each of the three husbands tell a white lie to their respective wives that they are taking a course in New York City and as a result, will be spending the night away from home one night a week.

 

Novak takes the opportunity to conduct her research during each evening with each husband. She gets them to reveal why they're unhappy in their relationships and their feelings in general. Each of these sessions are recorded on a tape recorder. In a form of competition, the men begin to tell each other white lies about their evenings with Novak--as a result, each man thinks that the other has slept with her. Eager to keep getting good fodder for her thesis, Novak doesn't correct them. Garner, repulsed by his friends' tall tales about Novak, refuses to visit her for "his night." He finds himself genuinely falling for her.

 

Eventually the wives get suspicious and they seek out to find the truth behind their husbands' evenings in New York City.

 

---

 

I really liked this movie. It had the great aesthetic of a 1960s movie, complete with the very 60s music and opening title graphics. I love the 1960s movies, they have such fun opening sequences. Novak's apartment was fantastic. I love the mid-century modern style and her apartment was so much fun. I especially liked her turquoise kitchen--it had one of the coolest ovens:

 

It kind of looked like this:

 

 

Anyway. The ending of the film was predictable, but Novak was superb. I even liked Garner in this film. Sometimes, his characters are a little too egotistic and macho for my tastes, but he was excellent and more subdued in this film. The wives (played by Janet Blair, Patti Page and Ann Jefferys) were fun. I also liked seeing Jessie Royce Landis and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

 

Anyway, this was a great 60s fluff film and the beginning of an era where sexual habits and preferences could be more openly discussed in film. This paves the way for other 60s sexual revolution films (some good, some bad) like: Sex and the Single Girl; Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice; Midnight Cowboy; just to name a few.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie and look forward to seeing more films from Ms. Novak and other films from the 1960s that may have a similar vibe and aesthetic.

[Sepiatone]

Great cast in that movie.  I first saw it as a 15 year old and thought it really cool.  Was already a sort of Garner fan, and also always liked HOWARD MORRIS from earlier comedy efforts.

 

I always liked when RUTH McDEVITT, listening through the wall, misinterprets what she hears!

 

A pleasant romp of a movie and as you stated, indicative of the style of "sexual farce" in movies of that era.  I too, never tire of it.

 

 

Sepiatone

[wouldbestar]

I always liked when RUTH McDEVITT, listening through the wall, misinterprets what she hears!

 

Sepiatone

 

Ruth McDevitt's birthday was a few days ago and I though of her in this right away ("Do I dare?   Do I dare?")  I think John McGiver played her husband and they were a great team.  Putting Jessie Royce Landis and her in the same film was genius and guaranteed laughs aplenty.  In fact everybody in this film was funny and that's a hard feat.  Love it too.    

[Tikisoo]

speedracer said: It had the great aesthetic of a 1960s movie, complete with the very 60s music and opening title graphics. I love the 1960s movies, they have such fun opening sequences.

 

The 60's were the last decade of originality in fashion, colors, and design in general. Watch ay old Ed Sullivan Show and be dazzled by the colorful clothing designs. So glad newer generations appreciate this.

 

Re: Howard Morris- His son kept Morris's old phone number & answering machine hooked up for years after his death. I once gave Morris a call to tell him what an incredible comedian he was & all the many years of joy he has brought to our lives.

[Sepiatone]

I've lately been watching old ANDY GRIFFITH reruns on METV and TVLAND, and chuckle over Morris's EARNEST T. BASS character.

 

Like DANNY THOMAS and SHELDON LEONARD, he wound up making tons of money BEHIND the scenes in television, didn't he?

 

 

Sepiatone

[LornaHansonForbes]

Thank you, Lorna.  I grew up with the radio episodes [of GUNSMOKE] and usually recognized the TV versions right away.  It was fun comparing the two and seeing how they changed the audio to fit the visual.

 

I also remember the TV series Tales of the Texas Rangers

 

i've never seen any TV episodes of GUNSMOKE (I was born in '78, if that helps frame it) i cannot imagine it could be better than the radio show- and the i just really enjoy the cast- especially William Conrad, Parley Baer, Georgia Ellis and Howard "Floyd the Barber" McNeer (sp?)- who BLOWS MY MIND with how dark and funny he is as "Doc" in this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxsTwEvgU24

 

The cool thing about TALES OF THE TEXAS RANGERS (the radio show) is that its framework is very much like LAW AND ORDER- It's a neo-western, set in the 1920's and 1930's and it gets a little bit into forensics even. it is also hampered in no way by a production code as strict as that placed in the motion picture industry at the time and some of the episodes are BRUTAL ("Canned Death" comes to mind; there is another- DREAM CROP (I think?) that deals with marajuana growers. Joel McCrea stars and is, as always, awesome.

 

[LornaHansonForbes]

I like this version of Northanger Abbey too. A few years ago I taped an early 80's version which I enjoyed as well. I have never read the book but am planning on it. Jane's Pride and Prejudice is so superb and makes you want to read more.

 

There's not a lot to it, it's kind of the red-headed stepchild of her ouevre, but deservedly so.

 

Not bad, but not good...in the end, not much.

 

(maybe it's just me, i also think EMMA is too long.)

[NickAndNora34]

Frantic (1988) starring Harrison Ford and Broadway star Betty Buckley. One of the film critics on the back of the DVD case compared this one to something of a sort of Hitchcock caliber. I strongly disagree. The storyline was rather interesting. Ford plays a doctor who is temporarily in France for a convention of sorts, when these plans are upended when wife Buckley gets kidnapped from their hotel. I sadly predicted the ending... I mean, I mainly watched this one for Mr. Ford, as I am a fan of his. 

 

Score: 2/5. One for Ford, and one for Emmanuelle Seigner, who played the French streetwise waif who accompanies Ford in the search for his wife (whom I developed no sympathy for). 

[EricJ]

Frantic (1988) starring Harrison Ford and Broadway star Betty Buckley. One of the film critics on the back of the DVD case compared this one to something of a sort of Hitchcock caliber. I strongly disagree. The storyline was rather interesting. Ford plays a doctor who is temporarily in France for a convention of sorts, when these plans are upended when wife Buckley gets kidnapped from their hotel. I sadly predicted the ending... I mean, I mainly watched this one for Mr. Ford, as I am a fan of his. 

 

 

I showed this to someone who had never seen any Roman Polanski in their life (only saw "Chinatown" later), and on first watch they already noticed Polanski's ability to let things start edgy and then build more and more steadily paranoid.

Not one of his more classic examples, but still an example.

[scsu1975]

The Virginian (1929 version)

 

Mixed bag of a western, with Gary Cooper as the title character, Richard Arlen as his old friend Steve, and Walter Huston as the scumbag Trampas.  I suppose this was considered entertaining in 1929, and is probably worth a peek. But it has not held up well.

 

I didn’t get interested in this film until it was almost two-thirds over. It dragged for the most part, because nothing seemed to be going on. And there are only so many times I can stand to hear “I reckon …” and “well, I’ll be a ____.” I was disappointed though, that no one was called an ornery sidewinder.

 

One of the better scenes is when Cooper has to order the hanging of Arlen for cattle rustling. Ah, the good old days, before we had liberals insisting you needed a judge and a jury. Of course, Huston is the mastermind behind the rustling, so ultimately, he and Cooper will have to settle the score.

 

The climactic shootout is pretty tame, and also weird, as Huston makes sure his hat stays in place despite taking several bullets and spinning to the ground.

 

Huston’s moustache seems to change shape a few times, and I kept waiting for it to fall off. Mary Brian plays the school marm and wears way too much eye makeup. Eugene Pallette plays a cowboy named “Honey.” He wears a gun just to hold his pants up. Jack Pennick, a frequent John Ford player, has a bit and looks very young … but just as bad-looking as ever.

[Casablanca100views]

Boys' Night Out (1962). 

 

---

 

I really liked this movie. It had the great aesthetic of a 1960s movie, complete with the very 60s music and opening title graphics. I love the 1960s movies, they have such fun opening sequences. Novak's apartment was fantastic. I love the mid-century modern style and her apartment was so much fun. I especially liked her turquoise kitchen--it had one of the coolest ovens:

 

It kind of looked like this:

 

 

Anyway. The ending of the film was predictable, but Novak was superb. I even liked Garner in this film. Sometimes, his characters are a little too egotistic and macho for my tastes, but he was excellent and more subdued in this film. The wives (played by Janet Blair, Patti Page and Ann Jefferys) were fun. I also liked seeing Jessie Royce Landis and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

 

Anyway, this was a great 60s fluff film and the beginning of an era where sexual habits and preferences could be more openly discussed in film. This paves the way for other 60s sexual revolution films (some good, some bad) like: Sex and the Single Girl; Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice; Midnight Cowboy; just to name a few.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie and look forward to seeing more films from Ms. Novak and other films from the 1960s that may have a similar vibe and aesthetic.

 

I'm glad you posted the pic of that mid-century cooktop.  I had just watched a rerun on HGTV had found one still installed in an ancient kitchen as a "Before" in a renovation. Whoa, it didn't age well.  I can't say it looked that spiffy as the one above.   

 

Other movies that feature kitchen scenes are The Parent Trap (1961) and Pillow Talk (1959)- focus on Doris Day's apartment, not Rock's after the remodel.  

[speedracer5]

I'm glad you posted the pic of that mid-century cooktop.  I had just watched a rerun on HGTV had found one still installed in an ancient kitchen as a "Before" in a renovation. Whoa, it didn't age well.  I can't say it looked that spiffy as the one above.   

 

Other movies that feature kitchen scenes are The Parent Trap (1961) and Pillow Talk (1959)- focus on Doris Day's apartment, not Rock's after the remodel.  

Speaking of The Parent Trap, didn't Brian Keith have the most fantastic ranch home?  I absolutely love his house.  It is much cooler than Maureen O'Hara's stuffy Boston townhouse.

 

The kitchen is gorgeous.  I love the oven that is built into the brick.  I also love the large windows and the dark brown stained woodwork. The chairs at the island are really cool too.  

 

[TomJH]

The Virginian (1929 version)

 

Mixed bag of a western, with Gary Cooper as the title character, Richard Arlen as his old friend Steve, and Walter Huston as the scumbag Trampas.  I suppose this was considered entertaining in 1929, and is probably worth a peek. But it has not held up well.

 

One of the better scenes is when Cooper has to order the hanging of Arlen for cattle rustling. Ah, the good old days, before we had liberals insisting you needed a judge and a jury. Of course, Huston is the mastermind behind the rustling, so ultimately, he and Cooper will have to settle the score.

 

 

I can't strongly disagree with your review of The Virginian, Rich. But keep in mind that this now primitive western was, in its defense, either the first or second film of the genre to be released as a talkie. So of course it's dated. The presentation's quite static and the characters all stereotypes. The film is of historical significance since it is the one which cemented Gary Cooper's stardom, and he always felt a great indebtedness to director Victor Fleming for it.

 

A couple of points of interest to me about the movie. One is the "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" theme of the film, a staple for westerns, in particular, of course. But when Cooper is preparing for his final gunfight with Trampas (Huston), with his girl hating violence and protesting to the point of threatening to leave him if he shoots someone, it is a direct forerunner to High Noon, to be filmed almost a quarter of a century later.

 

Secondly, this film has one of the most famous (if now hoary) lines of dialogue in it, the "If you want to call me that, smile" line which Coop delivers to Walter Huston while sticking a gun in his stomach. Huston's response is even better, a wide smile as he says, words to the effect, "I always smile when I have a .45 pointed at me."

 

Finally, you made reference to the hanging scene, which I regard as the highlight of the film for effectiveness. You're dealing with a man as part of a (essentially) rough justice lynching party stringing up some rustlers, one of whom happens to be his best friend who went wrong. I think this scene works well because both Cooper and Richard Arlen keep their emotions macho suppressed, yet the audience can still feel them bubbling just beneath the surface. Cooper's sensitivity comes through in this scene.

 

Coop always acted with his eyes. Even in this early stage in his career, when he was still very much learning the ropes as an actor, you can still see the pain in them in the scene's final moment. That is, of course, if you've got a reasonably clear print of The Virginian to view, rather than some washed out version of the film.

 

[LornaHansonForbes]

Speaking of The Parent Trap, didn't Brian Keith have the most fantastic ranch home?  I absolutely love his house.  It is much cooler than Maureen O'Hara's stuffy Boston townhouse.

 

The kitchen is gorgeous.  I love the oven that is built into the brick.  I also love the large windows and the dark brown stained woodwork. The chairs at the island are really cool too.  

 

 

I am intrigued as to whether this is a soundstage or the actual interior of a home, I'm inclined to believe the first- which makes that live oak and structure in the background all the more impressive- a matte painting perhaps?

[Swithin]

I watched Woman in Gold (2015), about an elderly Jewish woman, living in LA, who fled the Nazis and, following the death of her sister, attempts to reclaim magnificent Klimt paintings, including the painting in the title, looted by the Nazis from her family home in Vienna and now in one of Vienna's great museums.

 

The film is about the woman's coming to terms with her past and the attempt to see justice done; and also about the growing awareness about his past of her young lawyer, who is the grandson of the Austrian-Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg, who also fled the Nazis.

 

I liked the film, which received mixed reviews. There are a few annoying cliches, particularly in the relationship between the young lawyer and his wife. Some reviewers said the film was a dull movie about a fascinating true story, but I didn't find it dull at all. And I thought Helen Mirren was excellent as the lead, Maria Altmann, who died in Los Angeles in 2011 at the age of 94.

 

The painting now hangs in the Neue Galerie in New York City.

 

[scsu1975]

 

 

Finally, you made reference to the hanging scene, which I regard as the highlight of the film for effectiveness. You're dealing with a man as part of a (essentially) rough justice lynching party stringing up some rustlers, one of whom happens to be his best friend who went wrong. I think this scene works well because both Cooper and Richard Arlen keep their emotions macho suppressed, yet the audience can still feel them bubbling just beneath the surface. Cooper's sensitivity comes through in this scene.

 

There was an interesting sequence in this scene. Cooper and Arlen had a "secret whistle" between them. Just before Arlen is hanged, he hears a similar whistle and looks startled, then sees there are two birds nearby whistling. We see a brief smile cross his face.

[scsu1975]

 

 

I liked the film, which received mixed reviews. There are a few annoying cliches, particularly in the relationship between the young lawyer and his wife. Some reviewers said the film was a dull movie about a fascinating true story, but I didn't find it dull at all. And I thought Helen Mirren was excellent as the lead, Maria Altmann, who died in Los Angeles in 2011 at the age of 94.

 

I saw this in the theater when it was released and was very impressed. I don't see how anyone could have found it dull. It's a great story.

[Casablanca100views]

I am intrigued as to whether this is a soundstage or the actual interior of a home, I'm inclined to believe the first- which makes that live oak and structure in the background all the more impressive- a matte painting perhaps?

 

Back to PARENT TRAP interiors.

 

With the lighting and the shooting schedule (even with youngsters) it would be hard to join the takes throughout the day.  I would say it's a well-crafted indoor/outdoor set on a soundstage. It is all in an interior set, with "filtered sunlight" illuminating through the windows "outside."  I also notice in the photo it appears there's a secondary cooktop under the wall ovens in the brick, or it could just be a ledge.  

 

I love the movie has Una Merkel in it.  She's always been a favorite of mine.

[LornaHansonForbes]

Back to PARENT TRAP interiors.

 

With the lighting and the shooting schedule (even with youngsters) it would be hard to join the takes throughout the day.  I would say it's a well-crafted indoor/outdoor set on a soundstage. It is all in an interior set, with "filtered sunlight" illuminating through the windows "outside."  I also notice in the photo it appears there's a secondary cooktop under the wall ovens in the brick, or it could just be a ledge.  

 

I love the movie has Una Merkel in it.  She's always been a favorite of mine.

 

You think they built the tree? That's impressive...

[Casablanca100views]

You think they built the tree? That's impressive...

 

I am going to watch THE PARENT TRAP again to test my supposition about the interior sets of both of these phenomenal houses. I will look to see if the ceilings look partial or not.  In the movie location listing it didn't reference a house and this case I think it would have.   At the studios, they can do anything and crafting a Coastal Live Oak from castings or creating leaves on a felled one, it would have been done.  They did a lot at the Disney Golden Oak Ranch near Simi Valley, their busy back lot.  If anyone has been there, maybe they can enlighten us about that.  

[LornaHansonForbes]

i managed to locate and watch TOMORROW THE WORLD! which i DVRed the other night.

It is every bit as hilarious as I recall.

[Casablanca100views]

Laundry day today, so it was a double feature of two previously unseen movies 

 

 

LOUISA (1950)

A Rom-Com for the over-60 set.   I found it absolutely delightful.  Spring Byington in the title role who's living with son Ronald Reagan and his family.  Louisa gets fought over romantically by charming grocer Henry Hammond (Edmund Gwenn) and Type-A tycoon (and Ronnie's boss) Abel Burnside (Charles Coburn).  The guys are wonderful as immature cut-ups and Louisa's teen-aged granddaughter, Cathy (Piper Laurie, in her screen debut) her brilliant geek boyfriend Jimmy,(Scotty Beckett) are a great contrast in young love.  It all takes place in Pleasantville and watch for the charming bit of Americana with the Community Square Dance and the 'dancing under the bar' competition.  It's a hoot! 

 

Creepy production side note: Piper Laurie admitted years later that she lost her bloom during the production (while she was in her teens) to the 40-ish rogue named Ronald Reagan. 

 

Second feature 

 

 

GREEN LIGHT (1937)

From the Lloyd C. Douglas novel of the same name.  

Errol Flynn plays the impossibly handsome and impossibly noble Dr. Newell Paige.   Almost immediately in the story, I am treated to another performance by Spring Byington. It is short-lived, however.  If you haven't read Lloyd C. Douglas' works, he likes to kill off significant characters early-on; sort of to prove a point in his philosophy/theology.

 

Anyhoo, rounding out the cast is Sir Cedric Hardwicke (being a heavy-hitter "teacher in a collar" Pastor "Dean" Harcourt, with the best anchorman hair I have ever seen) and some more philosophy.  But just when you think it's going to be 90 minutes of preachiness, the story takes some interesting turns (at least to me it's interesting) and the ethically-challenged Dr. Endicott appears, admitting, "Greed and medicine don't mix."  No sh**, Sherlock.  The plot is filled out with two very lovely co-stars, Margaret Lindsay and Anita Louise who don't compete, but cooperate when the situation calls for their nobler aspects to come out while fighting wood ticks. Oh, and Walter Abel!  Okay, so now you know. There are wood ticks in this story.  I liked this drama, but it is definitely not Noir-ish.  

 

Watch for Sylvia.  I loved her too.   along with Errol.