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Damien
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Post by Damien »

Frank Borzage's beautiful -- and seldom shown -- Moonrise, a Sound nominee from 1948, is on TCM Wednesday the 3rd, 10:00pm EST.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Post by Mister Tee »

Damien wrote:The Green Goddess is for Oscar completists only. It's pretty deadly -- very creaky and dull in that early talkies way.
The only thing I found interesting about the movie is that Arliss goes completely unpunished at the finish -- which tells you right away it's a pre-Code film.
Damien
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Post by Damien »

The Green Goddess is for Oscar completists only. It's pretty deadly -- very creaky and dull in that early talkies way.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Post by Movielover »

Also, The Green Goddess (1930) is on 2/4 at 6:00. I have already set the DVR for this so I won't miss it as I missed My Son John (I can't BELIEVE I did that. I have seen so little of Helen Hayes and I know Robert Walker's grandson so I especially wanted to see this!)
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Post by Movielover »

I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED MY SON JOHN. This has been on a list of movies I must see for a few years now. Do we think that TCM will incorporate this into their regular cycle? I think they did that last year or two years ago with A Foreign Affair and some other film that has a one-word title about a car.

If someone DVRed it, would I be able to compensate someone for a copy of it?

Thanks!
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Post by dws1982 »

Tonight TCM shows some movies as part of a Jean Simmons tribute.

The first two are widely available--Great Expectations and Elmer Gantry. But the third is The Happy Ending, the film that got her a Best Actress nomination in 1969. It airs at 12:45 AM, Eastern Time.

It's not shown very often, and given that it's written and directed by Richard Brooks, it's probably dull at best. But Oscar completists will want to take note. Of course the most famous thing about the movie is its Oscar-nominated song "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" which has turned into something of a standard. Depending on your perspective, it's either a beautiful song about romantic longing, or a creepy one about an obsessive stalker.




Edited By dws1982 on 1264791618
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Post by FilmFan720 »

flipp525 wrote:
dws1982 wrote:TCM has some that haven't surfaced on TV in awhile coming up:
Sunday, 1/24 at 8:00 PM (EST): To Each His Own
Olivia de Havilland's first, and lesser-known, Oscar-winning performance. I saw part of this back in the late 90's when AMC would air such things, but it's one of the harder to find Best Actress winners.
Thanks for the heads-up, dws. I used to have this on VHS, but lost it awhile back. I never get tired of watching that tear-jerking last scene. A beautiful performance.
I just finished this, recorded from last night, and you are right. What a great final scene, with a wallop of a final scene. As for the film itself, it may not be the best, but it is a more than affective drama and, over the top as the plot may be, never goes to broad with the writing. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
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Post by Big Magilla »

I have this on DVD. It's really an embarrassment to all concerned. Turgid direction by the usually impeccable Leo McCarey with ghastly performances by Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger, the nadir of both their careers.

Today it may play like a parody of the times, but it was made with deadly earnestness.
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Post by Damien »

Mister Tee wrote:
Damien wrote:
dws1982 wrote:Wednesday, 1/27 at 8:00 PM: My Son John
This one has never been shown on TCM before and I can't remember it showing up anywhere else either. This is part of their series on Communist-themed films this month. (Last Wednesday they showed some of the pro-Soviet films made during World War II.)

Wow, it's been decades since I've been aware of My Son John being on TV. I have an old video tape of it and despite the not-great quality of the print, I found the film fascinating. Can't wait to see it in a(hopefully) pristine print.

I've never tracked it down before in many years of looking. I've always heard it's wildly over-the-top Red-baiting, but I'm quite interested in seeing it. It's on opposite the State of the Union, but I'll manage it somehow.

L

It's a pretty crazy movie, but it's not as jingoistic as most of the Red Scare pictures of the early 50s -- there are no swarthy brutish Slavick types running amok, for instance. One of the most striking things about it is that McCarey acknowledges that the philosophy behind Communism is the same as behind Christianity -- the desire to help out your fellow man, to do the least amongst us. What he can't seem to countenance though is turning one's back on Christ. And the people in Frank McHugh's parish are pretty sorry excuses for "Christians" -- at a clothing drive, somebody actually donated umbrella spokes.
This is a companion piece to McCarey's great, under-appreciated Good Sam.

And while most anti-Commie movies portrayed an idealized pristine middle-class American family life, the Dean Jagger/Helen Hayes household occupies is dark, old-fashioned and uninviting, with Father a churlish buffoon and Mother somehere between dotty and full-fledged nuts; she always bordering on the hysterical. Rather than a scribe against the evils of Communism, the movie is a dissection -- an over-the-top dissection, to be sure -- of the kind of family life that would cause a radical breakaway

Can't wait to hear reactions to the picture.




Edited By Damien on 1264527690
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Reza
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Post by Reza »

A friend from San Francisco sent me video copies of the extremely rare Private Worlds (1935), Death of a Salesman (1951) and The Blue Veil (1951) originally recorded off tv years ago. I don't believe these ever show up on tv anymore or available on DVD.
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Post by Mister Tee »

Damien wrote:
dws1982 wrote:Wednesday, 1/27 at 8:00 PM: My Son John
This one has never been shown on TCM before and I can't remember it showing up anywhere else either. This is part of their series on Communist-themed films this month. (Last Wednesday they showed some of the pro-Soviet films made during World War II.)
Wow, it's been decades since I've been aware of My Son John being on TV. I have an old video tape of it and despite the not-great quality of the print, I found the film fascinating. Can't wait to see it in a(hopefully) pristine print.
I've never tracked it down before in many years of looking. I've always heard it's wildly over-the-top Red-baiting, but I'm quite interested in seeing it. It's on opposite the State of the Union, but I'll manage it somehow.

Lonelyhearts is just a ridiculous gloss on the West book. Dore Schary couldn't have been less right for the adaptation assignment -- it'd be like Akiva Goldsman doing Roberto Bolano.

To Each His Own is corn, but I think corn that works. That last line is a killer.
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Post by flipp525 »

dws1982 wrote:TCM has some that haven't surfaced on TV in awhile coming up:
Sunday, 1/24 at 8:00 PM (EST): To Each His Own
Olivia de Havilland's first, and lesser-known, Oscar-winning performance. I saw part of this back in the late 90's when AMC would air such things, but it's one of the harder to find Best Actress winners.
Thanks for the heads-up, dws. I used to have this on VHS, but lost it awhile back. I never get tired of watching that tear-jerking last scene. A beautiful performance.
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Damien
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Post by Damien »

dws1982 wrote:Wednesday, 1/27 at 8:00 PM: My Son John
This one has never been shown on TCM before and I can't remember it showing up anywhere else either. This is part of their series on Communist-themed films this month. (Last Wednesday they showed some of the pro-Soviet films made during World War II.)

Wow, it's been decades since I've been aware of My Son John being on TV. I have an old video tape of it and despite the not-great quality of the print, I found the film fascinating. Can't wait to see it in a(hopefully) pristine print.

Interesting side note, Frank McHugh plays the same priest character he enacted in Going My Way. The differences in the two characterizations are illustrative of how Leo McCarey had changed in 8 years.




Edited By Damien on 1264462206
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
dws1982
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Post by dws1982 »

TCM has some that haven't surfaced on TV in awhile coming up:
Sunday, 1/24 at 8:00 PM (EST): To Each His Own
Olivia de Havilland's first, and lesser-known, Oscar-winning performance. I saw part of this back in the late 90's when AMC would air such things, but it's one of the harder to find Best Actress winners.

Early Monday, 1/25 at 2:45 AM: Lola Montes
I'll probably skip this and just watch the Criterion Blu- Ray that's coming next month.

Monday, 1/25 at 8:00 PM: Lonelyhearts
Actually this did just air a month or two ago, but it's not on DVD, and Oscar completists might have missed it before now. Maureen Stapleton gets her first nomination. Not much of a movie, considering the cast, which also includes Myrna Loy, Robert Ryan, and Montgomery Clift.

Wednesday, 1/27 at 8:00 PM: My Son John
This one has never been shown on TCM before and I can't remember it showing up anywhere else either. This is part of their series on Communist-themed films this month. (Last Wednesday they showed some of the pro-Soviet films made during World War II.)
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Post by Big Magilla »

Berlin Express is on DVD as well. It's a Warner Archive title.

Also available from the Archive: several other Ryan westerns including Best of the Badmen starring Ryan, Claire Trevor, Robert Preston and Walter Brennan, as well as Edna Ferber's Ice Palace starring Richard Burton, Ryan, Carolyn Jones, Martha Hyer and Shirley Knight. Ryan is one of Alaska's first U.S. Senators in that one.
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