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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 4, 2016 16:36:40 GMT -5
The next classic movie I'll be watching is dedicated to Hoosier X. You'll be proud of me
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 4, 2016 19:01:41 GMT -5
The Harvey Girls (1945) Judy Garland, John Hodiak. Ray Bolger, Angela Lansbury, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Virginia O'Brien, Preston Foster Before McDonald's, Harvey Restaurants was sprouting up in the old west. Known for it's steaks and pretty waitresses, they proved to be a better attraction than the local brothels First time viewing this musical. Beautiful technicolor, great cast (especially Angela Lansbury) wonderful costumes and sets. The music was 50-50 to my ears, a couple of great songs and a few they left me cold. Quite enjoyable. Best scene was the all-girl barroom brawl. I guess I'd rank this tied for third place among Judy's musicals. Wizard Of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis are considerably ahead. Tied with Easter Parade. If I had a dime for every time Hoosier mentioned this film, I could but this
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 4, 2016 21:54:29 GMT -5
The Harvey Girls (1945) Judy Garland, John Hodiak. Ray Bolger, Angela Lansbury, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Virginia O'Brien, Preston Foster Before McDonald's, Harvey Restaurants was sprouting up in the old west. Known for it's steaks and pretty waitresses, they proved to be a better attraction than the local brothels First time viewing this musical. Beautiful technicolor, great cast (especially Angela Lansbury) wonderful costumes and sets. The music was 50-50 to my ears, a couple of great songs and a few they left me cold. Quite enjoyable. Best scene was the all-girl barroom brawl. I guess I'd rank this tied for third place among Judy's musicals. Wizard Of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis are considerably ahead. Tied with Easter Parade. If I had a dime for every time Hoosier mentioned this film, I could but this Yay! The last time I DVRed it, I watched it, and then I watched the Wild, Wild West number (with Ray Bolger and Virginia O'Brien) several times before I deleted it. I think all the songs are great. Especially now that I've seen it a few times. The songs that used to be kind of iffy have grown on me.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 5, 2016 0:13:45 GMT -5
Just finished watching Evel Knievel, with George Hamilton. The film is total hogwash; built on the legend of Evel, produced by George Hamilton, with a script rewritten by John Millius. That is quite a pack of con artists, which is why the film is so much fun. Hamilton and Millius understand what a carney Evel was and the play it to the hilt, even the most ludicrous of stories. They capture Knieval's insecurity and jealousy, thought not really his more violent nature, as the end of his career would showcase. Great film though, with one of Hamilton's better performances; plus nice character turns by Dub Taylor and Bert Freed, as Evel's doctor who delights in torturing his patient (rips off a bandage, pours whiskey on a wound) and predicting his death in his jumps. It's a good old-fashioned low-budget, drive-in movie kind of film.
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Post by Rob Allen on Dec 5, 2016 2:35:47 GMT -5
My wife's Jean Harlow set has one film with Myrna Loy and we happened to watch the first half of that one tonight. This Harlow set is double-sided DVDs, which I've never seen before. The DVD we watched tonight has two films that co-star Clark Gable; we saw China Seas already, so tonight we flipped it over for Wife Versus Secretary from 1936. Gable is a wealthy publisher with a fantastic Manhattan apartment; Myrna Loy is his wife and Jean Harlow his secretary. The wife and the secretary don't seem to be in conflict in the first half of the movie. Other people seem suspicious but the three of them seem to be fine together. We'll probably watch it from the beginning again, with the sound on next time.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 5, 2016 6:57:58 GMT -5
1963's Cleopatra, with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Martin Landau et al.
As far as spectacles go, it's hard to top this kind of toga and sandals epic. The story is ambitious, the actors go at it with the appropriate seriousness, the sets are amazing. Nevertheless, I found myself bored a few times. Where the movie fails, I fear, is in the very love affair between Cleopatra and Marc-Antony; I had a hard time believing it. Cleopatra is wonderfully manipulative and self-reliant from the start; seeing her lose her cool over the very well-played Antony who in this movie is mostly a self-pitying drunk feels like a plot-mandated twist as unlikely as Anakin Skywalker turning all evil in thirty seconds in Revenge of the Sith.
By way of comparison, James Purefoy and Lyndsay Marshal (in the HBO series Rome) were more convincing. Cleopatra was as smart as in Mankiewicz' film, but not as much kn control, emotionally; Antony was more of a rogue with no self-control than a sorry drunk.
Still, good dialogues. And those images... I never get tired of scenes where thousands of soldiers are played by thousands of people instead of a bunch of pixels.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 5, 2016 9:21:02 GMT -5
Hitler's Children (1943) Tim Holt, Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Otto Kruger, Hans Conreid Based on the meticulously researched expose as originally serialized in The Reader's Digest, Hitler's Children tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Hitler brood. Upon the Nazi takeover of Germany, one of their chief tenets was that German women must bear as many children as possible to make the state stronger in the future. Unfortunately, due to Adolph having only one testicle, he could not fertilize his mistress Eva Braun. So instead, the Hitlers adopted many tykes and claimed they were their natural parents. The movie follows the upbringing of the darling little Hitlers, from rambunctious devils to miniature storm troopers. We see them change from diapers to brown shirts. But just before the attack on Poland, the Hitler youth change. The natural inclination of young teens to rebel against their parents takes hold. Adolph loses control of his little kinder. They leave roller skates and marbles where he can do a pratfall in the hallways. During an important meeting, Hitler delivers a powerful speech and then sits on a whoppee cushion. In the middle of the night, the Hitlerettes shave off half his mustache. You'll fall in love with the little Hitlers. A rollicking good time to be had. Unfortunately, after Poland fell, Hitler gassed them
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2016 10:07:30 GMT -5
Attention John Carradine fans! I turned on the TV to watch one of the documentaries I DVRed and it was tuned to TCM (of course) and a movie was just starting. Hitler's Madman (1943)! I've heard of it but don't know much about it. So I decided to watch it for a bit and see what it was about. The cast looked promising. John Carradine. Patricia Morison, one of my favorite obscure actresses. (She's still alive at the age of 101!) Edgar Kennedy, who you should remember as the lemonade salesman in Duck Soup. A couple of other people. (Ava Gardner was in it as well but not credited, so I didn't know until halfway through the movie. She gets picked to be sent to the Russian Front to "entertain" the German soldiers. It is very disturbing for 1943.) I got a few minutes into it and I realized John Carradine was playing Reinhard Heydrich, the Hangman! OMG! He's pretty scary. It's very effective for a 1943 Hollywood movie about a current event. The guy who played Himmler looked a lot like Robert Benchley, which made me laugh. I watched this as well! It really bothered me after it went off. Despite the more modern and graphic Nazi based movies, this one just freaked me out. The ending scenes where the villagers are being rounded up, the children being taken away....this was a very disturbing movie for that era. I caught the Ava Gardener reference before the movie started (the host discussed her) and noticed her when they were selecting women to "entertain" the troops. The movie's director was a German who fled Nazi Germany and according to the TCM host, this movie was shot very quickly. When MGM viewed it, they liked what they saw but wanted some scenes reshot--Ava was in one of those scenes. On a lighter note, I also watched The Graduate from 1967. I had watched bits and pieces of it, but never all the way through. Very shocking for 1967 I imagine, but what a great movie. Mrs. Robinson was one hot mess! I also caught the end of David and Bathsheba with Gregory Peck as David. I'm going to try to catch this one again all the way through.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 5, 2016 11:01:11 GMT -5
My wife's Jean Harlow set has one film with Myrna Loy and we happened to watch the first half of that one tonight. This Harlow set is double-sided DVDs, which I've never seen before. The DVD we watched tonight has two films that co-star Clark Gable; we saw China Seas already, so tonight we flipped it over for Wife Versus Secretary from 1936. Gable is a wealthy publisher with a fantastic Manhattan apartment; Myrna Loy is his wife and Jean Harlow his secretary. The wife and the secretary don't seem to be in conflict in the first half of the movie. Other people seem suspicious but the three of them seem to be fine together. We'll probably watch it from the beginning again, with the sound on next time. China Seas is a heckuva a lot of fun. I didn't know Myrna Loy was in Wife vs. Secretary or I would have seen it a long time ago. I'll have to check the TCM schedule and see if it's on during Myrna Loy month.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 5, 2016 11:35:34 GMT -5
I watched Woodstock (1970) over the weekend. TCM seems to have scheduled a 225-minute movie in a 195-minute time slot. I DVRed it and I was watching it and it ended in the middle of Janis Joplin's set. I did a little Internet research and it seems that the original movie was 185 minutes, but a director's cut was released in 1994 with 40 extra minutes.
It's weird that I've never seen it before. I had the album for years in the 1980s and 1990s and we were always playing the FISH Cheer and the Fixin'-to-Die Rag and the Star Spangled Banner.
I loved the movie! One of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I'd sure like to see the rest of it. I think I may have to break down and buy my own copy one of these days.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 5, 2016 15:07:46 GMT -5
I watched Woodstock (1970) over the weekend. TCM seems to have scheduled a 225-minute movie in a 195-minute time slot. I DVRed it and I was watching it and it ended in the middle of Janis Joplin's set. I did a little Internet research and it seems that the original movie was 185 minutes, but a director's cut was released in 1994 with 40 extra minutes. It's weird that I've never seen it before. I had the album for years in the 1980s and 1990s and we were always playing the FISH Cheer and the Fixin'-to-Die Rag and the Star Spangled Banner. I loved the movie! One of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I'd sure like to see the rest of it. I think I may have to break down and buy my own copy one of these days. I was 14 years old during the summer of Woodstock. Working that summer at my Grandfather's deli. My uncle, then about 19, asked me if I wanted to go to the Woodstock festival with him.Thought it over, then said no, I was broke and needed the money from the job. And it's a good thing I didn't go. After my uncle arrived at the festival grounds, he scored some LSD and pretty much has no recollection about the concert. If I went with him, we'd probably have gotten separated right from the beginning and I'd still be wandering around lost in upstate NY So I saw the movie when it debuted the following year. It was the first film to charge $5 admission due to it's length. And of course I immediately bought the triple album and played it to death. Now I have the box set that came out some year back which includes just about everything that was captured on tape
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Dec 5, 2016 17:03:22 GMT -5
Made my weekly excursion to the Performing Arts Library and picked up this batch to watch during the week
Harem Girl (1952) Joan Davis, Peggie Castle Hot Blood (1956) Jane Russell, Cornell Wilde Hook,Line and Sinker (1968) Jerry Lewis, Peter Lawford The Brothers Warner-Documentary about Warner Bros Studio It Started With A Kiss (1959) Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds Harry And Walter Go To New York (1976) Michael Caine, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Elliot Gould Ironweed (1987) Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep Inn Of The Sixth Happiness (1958) Ingrid Bergman, Robert Donat, Curt Jurgens
The most intriguing is one I've never heard about and stars no one I've ever heard of
Calvacade (1933)-It won the Oscar for Best Picture and Frank Lloyd won for Best Director. The box states that there are 25,000 costumes and a scene using 2,500 actors. It's a Noel Coward adaptation about a British Family during the first few decades of the 20th Century. And the library had it available in Blu-Ray
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Post by berkley on Dec 5, 2016 21:02:52 GMT -5
1963's Cleopatra, with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Martin Landau et al. As far as spectacles go, it's hard to top this kind of toga and sandals epic. The story is ambitious, the actors go at it with the appropriate seriousness, the sets are amazing. Nevertheless, I found myself bored a few times. Where the movie fails, I fear, is in the very love affair between Cleopatra and Marc-Antony; I had a hard time believing it. Cleopatra is wonderfully manipulative and self-reliant from the start; seeing her lose her cool over the very well-played Antony who in this movie is mostly a self-pitying drunk feels like a plot-mandated twist as unlikely as Anakin Skywalker turning all evil in thirty seconds in Revenge of the Sith. By way of comparison, James Purefoy and Lyndsay Marshal (in the HBO series Rome) were more convincing. Cleopatra was as smart as in Mankiewicz' film, but not as much kn control, emotionally; Antony was more of a rogue with no self-control than a sorry drunk. Still, good dialogues. And those images... I never get tired of scenes where thousands of soldiers are played by thousands of people instead of a bunch of pixels. I agree about Purfoy's performance as Antony in Rome - one of the best I've seen in recent years - but didn't like how they played Cleopatra: I didn't get the sense of intelligence you saw, and that's the key to any portrayal of the historical character, IMO. The charm of her personality, as described in Plutarch, is something I've never even seen attempted - film-makers usually going for a more traditional seductress type, or even a teenage coquette. I have yet to see the famous Taylor/Burton spectacular.
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Post by berkley on Dec 5, 2016 21:04:20 GMT -5
Hitler's Children (1943) Tim Holt, Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Otto Kruger, Hans Conreid You'll fall in love with the little Hitlers. A rollicking good time to be had. Unfortunately, after Poland fell, Hitler gassed them I'm hard pressed to choose which of these Little Hitlers I like best, but I think Nick Lowe just takes it, for me:
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 6, 2016 0:54:39 GMT -5
As a public service for the fans of this thread, here's a YouTube video of Baby Rose Marie, for anybody who missed the Baby Rose Marie Vitaphone shorts on TCM today:
Remember Rose Marie on The Dick Van Dyke Show? This is her. She's still alive, by the way.
And just to be mean, here's Van and Schenck:
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