LornaHansonForbes Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 I was wondering which version you saw, Dargo. I didn't like the alterations Lucas made after the initial release, particularly the scene where Harrison Ford breaks out in song, "Some Enchanted Evening" while riding around with Cindy Williams. Should have left that one on the cutting room floor. Lucas? Making alterations to one his films post-release? ...And said alterations not being an improvement on the original? Color me...what the opposite of shocked? Oh yes: not shocked in the least. ** Now that's sarcasm. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkblue Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 I was wondering which version you saw, Dargo. I didn't like the alterations Lucas made after the initial release, particularly the scene where Harrison Ford breaks out in song, "Some Enchanted Evening" while riding around with Cindy Williams. Should have left that one on the cutting room floor. That scene, and several others - including one where Ron Howard mouths off to the teacher-chaperone at the prom - were forced cuts by the studio. Lucas had no power then to stop the studios from doing it, but after Star Wars made him an untouchable he restored all those scenes. I agree, though, that Ford is no singer. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkblue Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 No Suzanne Sommers???? And no Kathleen Quinlan either??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregoryPeckfan Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Hey, Dark Blue. I love your signature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LornaHansonForbes Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 And no Kathleen Quinlan either??? Yeah, what happened with her? She was really good in APOLLO 13, got an Oscar nomination for it, and then POOF! She's off in witness protection with Brenda Blethyn and Kate Nelligan, I guess... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 I was wondering which version you saw, Dargo. I didn't like the alterations Lucas made after the initial release, particularly the scene where Harrison Ford breaks out in song, "Some Enchanted Evening" while riding around with Cindy Williams. Should have left that one on the cutting room floor. Yes Belle, they did present the remastered version with this included scene, and which I think had been my first exposure to this version, btw. However, I have to add you might be in the minority with your opinion about this particular scene. When Ford began crooning that Rodgers and Hammerstein tune, it received one of the biggest laughs from the assembled audience, and with my wife and I laughing as much as everyone else around us at it. That scene, and several others - including one where Ron Howard mouths off to the teacher-chaperone at the prom - were forced cuts by the studio. Lucas had no power then to stop the studios from doing it, but after Star Wars made him an untouchable he restored all those scenes. I agree, though, that Ford is no singer. Yep dark, that scene was of course also included in this screening. (...good point here, too) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregoryPeckfan Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 (edited) Lucas? Making alterations to one his films post-release? ...And said alterations not being an improvement on the original? Color me...what the opposite of shocked? Oh yes: not shocked in the least. ** Now that's sarcasm. Speilberg decided he needed to update ET, bit just add deleted scenes for the 20 year anniversary. I was all set to see the movie for the first tine on any screen when it was re-released but refused when I saw previews for the altered movie. I was 5 when the film was released and my best friend had nightmares when she saw it, so that was a no-go for me. I have been waiting all this time to be able to see it on the big screen only, and well, it looks like I will never be able to see it. Oh, well. Edited for repeated use of "who decided" Edited March 2, 2016 by GregoryPeckfan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 No Suzanne Sommers???? Wow, why don't you just collectively spit right in her face, Sedona Film Festival?** **No sarcasm, I really mean that. From seeing her in interviews, she seems like a really horrible, delusional, self-important person. ps- was it at a Drive-In? That's the only thing that could possibly make me more jealous of you for being able to see GRAFFITI on the big screen. Yeah, well, and besides, with the general demographic of Sedona residents(and those in attendance during this screening) being retired Boomers, I'm sure almost everyone there ALREADY has at least one Thigh Master sitting somewhere deep in their closet that hasn't been used for decades! (...and so what would have been the point of Suzanne showin' up there that night, right Lorna?!) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LornaHansonForbes Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 was it in a drive-in? does Sedona have any drive-ins left? seeing AMERICAN GRAFITTI at a drive-in in the desert would be just too too too perfect. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkblue Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Hey, darkblue. I love your signature Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 I'd love to see this on the big screen. I really admire Mackenzie Phillips. I'm amazed at what she has gone through and that she continues to thrive. I find her inspiring. After the news of her father was revealed, I destroyed everything I had of the Mamas and the Poppas and got sick thinking of the fact that I had ever sung anything her father wrote. As a life long choir singer, I HAVE SUNG PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING HE WROTE. Hate that man. And GPF, I think I've relayed the following story around here before, but just in case you missed it... For the last two and a half years(and at the insistence of my wife who at the time "suggested" I find some kind of part-time employment so as to, and I quote, "Now that we were both retired, would you PLEASE go out find some kind of part-time job so you can GET OUT OF MY HAIR at least a couple of days a week") and thanks to one of the guys I play tennis with who worked part-time for this particular company, I've had this little part-time gig working for a shuttle company that runs between Sedona and the Phoenix airport. Last June and during another but smaller film festival known as the Sedona Illuminate Film Festival and which primarily features films and speakers with an "uplifting message"(Sedona IS sort of a "mecca for those seeking spiritual enlightenment", ya know), I had occasion to pick up Mackenzie Phillips at the PHX airport and deliver her to the Sedona Rouge Hotel. She had been invited to speak at one of the events during this festival. She "sat shotgun" in my van and we had the most enjoyable conversation during the two hour drive up to Sedona. I found her very outgoing, articulate and quite open to discussing her life and how she "turned it around", and also about her acting career and those she had worked with in the industry. As you may know, for the past few years she has worked at a rehab center located in Pasadena CA helping others who have issues with substance abuse. When I told her I had a 1/24 scale model of the John Milner character yellow Deuce Coupe in AMERICAN GRAFFITI and signed by Paul Le Mat on its roof, she said if I'd drop it by her hotel, she'd autograph the right side door on it for me. (...the next day I did, and she did) 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 was it in a drive-in? does Sedona have any drive-ins left? seeing AMERICAN GRAFITTI at a drive-in in the desert would be just too too too perfect. Nope, I don't think there ever was a drive-in movie theater around here or even down a few miles in the larger town of Cottonwood, Lorna. (...but I know what you mean here...the animated feature "CARS" and which is set in the imaginary town of "Radiator Springs" and seems modeled after Sedona, would be another good suggested film to see at such a venue around here IF one would exist) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 And no Kathleen Quinlan either??? Yep, I always liked her. VERY cute. Nope, unfortunately she wasn't there either, dark. (...but I DID see her the other night on TCM when she played Jim Lovell's wife in APOLLO 13) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LornaHansonForbes Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 fun fact: i live in North Carolina and our local drive-in (THE place in the 50's and 60's, or so I hear) turned into a p o r n theater and then got blown away in a hurricane ca. 1985. i did not know you could have a drive in p o r n theater. sounds like kind of a good idea...at least from the janitor's perspective. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 fun fact: i live in North Carolina and our local drive-in (THE place in the 50's and 60's, or so I hear) turned into a p o r n theater and then got blown away in a hurricane ca. 1985. Well, considering that NC is part of "The Bible Belt", that drive-in's fate after its change to that sort of cinematic entertainment was probably placed "in God's hands", wouldn't you surmise Lorna?!!! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregoryPeckfan Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Has anyone else seen the March promo for the Condemned spotlight? Bizarre use of the Let's ------------- phrase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelleLeGrand1 Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 1) Thanks, Dargo. I'm glad your audience enjoyed the movie as shown. Guess it partly depends on which version one sees first, as it does with any film. Also, thanks for sharing your Mackenzie encounter; she sounds like a peach. I admit to having seen it in original form 12 times (!) in a theater, so that's probably why those additions are jarring to me. 2) DB makes a great point about forced cuts. It must be really frustrating for any filmmaker to have to give up control, especially early in one's career. I wish we could someday see a restored version of both Huston's Red Badge of Courage and Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, but that'll probably never happen. The Lucas revisions wouldn't bother me nearly as much if the original release versions would still be available as part of a DVD set. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJH Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 BEDTIME STORY (1964), or, as it may be better known to some modern filmgoers, the original version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a 1988 comedy. I just saw the original again for the first time in years and found this tale of two competitive French Riviera con artists fleecing rich women a charming, polished delight. David Niven is perfectly cast, bringing his charm and droll humour to the role of the wealthy, well established con artist, working in collaboration with the corrupt captain of police, to suavely pluck the rich female tourists arriving in his affluent but small Mediterranean town, without their ever knowing that they have been plucked. Along, though, comes a brash American con artist interloper (Marlon Brando), threatening to spoil the pickings for Niven. From there the story takes off. The film looks like parts of it may have been filmed in the Riviera, adding considerably to the sunshine kissed affluent atmosphere of this handsome production. And there is often some rather clever dialogue. At one point Brando, in talking to the French town police officer, says, "She caught me with another woman. You're French. You understand." "To be with another woman, that is French," replies the Frenchman, "To be caught, that is American." That same line of dialogue, by the way, would re-appear in the remake (Stanley Shapiro has writing credit on both films). Niven brings his expected aplomb to his role. Did any actor ever look more at home in a white tuxedo? But Brando is an unexpected pleasure to watch in this film, as well, gleefully leaping into the role of the lower class brash Yankee ready to exploit the gullibility of innocent women. At one point Niven says to him, "By no stretch of the imagination would I associate myself with someone like you. You're crude." "Well, so is oil until you refine it into high octane gasoline," says Brando, wanting to be taught all the tricks of sophisticated flip flammery at the hands of an old master like Niven. Both Bedtime Story and its Dirty Rotten Scoundrels remake (reviewed on this thread just a day ago or so, this one featuring Steve Martin and Michael Caine as the con artists) are well worth viewing. Where the remake has an edge over the original, though, is in the casting of Martin, who has a few sequences of physical comedy brilliance when he poses as "Ruprecht," Caine's brain addled "brother," who acts, at times, like he's almost half monkey. These scenes are hysterically funny, thanks to Martin. The remake also changes the ending of the original and, for the better, in a clever twist that I, for one, didn't see coming. However, while the remake is available on DVD, Bedtime Story is strangely missing in action for home theatre viewing. And that's a shame, for the script is clever and the performances of Niven and Brando definitely worth viewing. (Brando's own scenes as simple minded "Ruprecht" are very funny, as well). For those interested, there is at least a decent looking print of Bedtime Story currently available on You Tube. I suggest you see it while you can before it disappears. 3 out of 4. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceA Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 The Big Pond - (7/10) - From Paramount Pictures in 1930 comes this rom-com starring Maurice Chevalier as a charming Frenchman (what else?) who loves young Claudette Colbert, the daughter of chewing gum magnate George Barbier. Her father has plans for her to wed sensible businessman Frank Lyon, so when she meets Chevalier on a family trip to Venice and announces that she wants to marry the penniless European, her father is apoplectic. He comes up with a plan to scare off Chevalier by having him travel back across "the Big Pond" to the U.S. where he can try and fit into both American society and the chewing gum factory. Of course, Chevalier's continental grace and winning personality take things in a different direction. Chevalier was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this, and while he's simply playing himself as usual, he's charismatic and fun. Colbert doesn't get much to do but look on doe-eyed or worried. Barbier is a hoot as the blustery father, and a young Nat Pendleton shows up as a boarding house tough and factory worker. The script is fairly routine, but there are a few nice verbal stingers, the work of dialogue writer Preston Sturges. There's also a cute plot development that could only happen during Prohibition. The weakest elements here are the romantic ones, and the ending is definitely not P.C. Recommended for fans of Chevalier's unique charms, as he also makes time to sing a couple of songs. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
film lover 293 Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1968). For a Good film, one star out of ten. For Camp, 7.5 stars out of ten. This epic stars Mamie Van Doren, a cast of nobodies, and a takeoff on Robby the Robot. It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich (who used the alias "Derek Thomas" for the director credit (according to imdb), and was credited as "Narrator" under Bogdanovich's name. Movie looks Ultra-Cheap. Idiocies are too numerous to list them all, but a few favorites: 1. Less than two minutes into the film, while film is showing versions of "spacecraft", it shows something that looks like a mound of flour, with a flour sifter suspended above it. 2. Women communicate telepathically, yet there are at Least four shots of a microphone when they're communicating (the shots I spotted look like a hearing aid or a drive-thru microphone hanging from an ear, LOL. 3. Dinosaurs are dispatched with revolvers. 4."Voila" is pronounced "voy-la". Are multiple copies of film on YT. Potential viewers are Warned/Alerted. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJH Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1968). For a Good film, one star out of ten. For Camp, 7.5 stars out of ten. This epic stars Mamie Van Doren, a cast of nobodies, Thanks film lover. There simply aren't enough reviews of Mamie Van Doren dinosaur films on this thread. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceA Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 Valiant Is the Word for Carrie - (6/10) - Paramount soapy tearjerker from 1936. Gladys George stars as Carrie Snyder, a woman of ill-repute who is constantly harassed by the citizens of her small town. They want her out, and they get really serious about it after she befriends the lonely son of the town grocer. She skips town, and not long after the boy is left an orphan. He also finds ANOTHER oprhan kid, a small girl, and they hide out together in a seedy fisherman's shack. When Carrie gets word, she brings the children to live with her in the big city, where she opens a chain of cleaning stores and becomes quite successful. The kids grow up, and then the soap opera kicks into high gear. Gladys George is really the only thing worth seeing this for. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and she is terrific. The rest of the cast however, is less so. For the first half, the two kid actors are cloying and overly rehearsed in that bad kid-actor way. When they grow up into John Howard and Arline Judge, they aren't much better, especially Howard, who possesses all of the screen charisma of a loaf of white bread. There are some decent supporting turns from such reliables as Harry Carey Sr., Dudley Digges, and Grady Sutton that help smooth things a bit. The script, from a best-selling book, is hokey and contrived, and there's a lot left unsaid due to censor restrictions. Director Wesley Ruggles does his best to keep things moving along, but it's not worth the effort. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cigarjoe Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 The Beat Generation (1959) Another Tail Fin Noir (barely), a curiosity on the cusp of Classic Noir/Neo Noir, Directed by Charles F. Haas, and stars, Steve Cochran, Mamie Van Doren, Ray Danton, Jackie Coogan, Fay Spain, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Cathy Crosby, Ray Anthony, Dick Contino, Maila Nurmi (Vampira) "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom and Sid Melton. In The Beat Generation Steve Cochran plays a Sergeant of Detectives Culloran, who is after a serial rapist dubbed "The Aspirin Kid" Stan Hess, (Ray Danton) a quasi "Beat" coffee house guru, who charismatically attracts women but is in reality a misogynist. The Kid's M.O. is to impersonate the friend of his victim's husband, boyfriend, etc., etc., by saying that he's there to pay back some money that he borrowed. He then gains entrance to their house by saying he needs a pen to write his check. Once inside he fakes a headache, and asks the victim for a glass of water so that he can take a aspirin. While the victim is out of the room he puts on leather gloves and lies in wait, attacking them from behind and **** them upon their return. The film has a bit of crossdressing humor as the Coogan and Sid Melton in drag try to bait a lovers lane bandit . It also seems to cram in some of society's in things of 1959, hula hoops, California mussel beach blanket culture, even references to TV's Sea Hunt with a scuba sequence, I'm surprised it didn't have some surfing too. Like a lot of Hollywood films that attempted to replicate the 60's you get the impression that the Beat Generation wasn't just a man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums or a base without strings, while ponytailed babes wearing black leotards dance in abandonment. lol. Soundtrack is Jazz, torch songs, bongo music. As a visual Noir it's a 5/10 it's pretty hard to get that claustrophobic atmosphere in a film shot in 2.35:1 CinemaScope, as an entertaining window onto a frozen moment of a quickly changing culture filtered through a Hollywood reflection 7/10. Crazy Man, Dig? fuller review on Film Noir/Gangster board 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregoryPeckfan Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 Cigarjoe- I noticed you mentioned Jackie Coogan in the cast. I haven't seen him in anything except The Kid. I know about the Jackie Coogan law. How old was Jackie Coogan when he made this movie? This sounds like a film I'd love to see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceA Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 Cigarjoe- I noticed you mentioned Jackie Coogan in the cast. I haven't seen him in anything except The Kid. I know about the Jackie Coogan law. How old was Jackie Coogan when he made this movie? This sounds like a film I'd love to see. You never saw him in The Addams Family tv show? And if you want prime Jackie Coogan, you need to see MESA OF LOST WOMEN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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