Hollywood Picks the Classics - A Guide for the Beginner & the Aficianad

[Reza]

Reza's neighborhood

My ''neighborhood'' happens to be AMC, TCM, the Fox Channel or Amazon.Com. And all the tv channels mentioned are nowhere near my neck of the woods. I search the net for the tv schedules and then request a friend in San Francisco to record the films for me. It gets harder and harder to come across any of the old nominees playing on tv now. My friend also happens to belong to a trading club and she sometimes comes across dupes of rare films.

Reza, I hope you weren't taking my comment as hostile, because it certainly wasn't meant that way. I'd just found it maddening that you and Magilla were saying Berkeley Square and The Pied Piper had been shown recently on stations -- like Fox Movie, AMC or TCM -- that I get on my cable system (and scan religiously for new finds). I've always assumed these stations have the same schedules wherever they were shown, but, if your friend in SF got Berkeley Square off Fox Movie, he had access to something we in NY didn't (or else both Damien and I missed).

No I never thought your comments were hostile. I just thought it amusing that my ''neighborhood'' (as far as getting to watch films) were those same tv channels from your neck of the woods.

Just checked my video copy of Berkeley Square. Don't know from where it was recorded but it's a pretty shaky dupe. My friend got it from the Trading Post she belongs to.

[Mister Tee]

I wish Warner would release Viva Villa! on DVD with the alternate takes of Lee Tracy channeling Ben Hecht.

Tracy's scenes had to be re-shot when he got drunk and urinated off the balcony of his Mexico City hotel on a passing military parade after which his career was never the same. His Tony and later Oscar nominated role in The Best Man rescued him from obscurity 30 years later.

I'd never heard that story, Magilla. But I can certainly see why Tracy would have been a choice for the role, since he'd just played essentially the same part opposite Jean Harlow.

[Big Magilla]

I wish Warner would release Viva Villa! on DVD with the alternate takes of Lee Tracy channeling Ben Hecht.

Tracy's scenes had to be re-shot when he got drunk and urinated off the balcony of his Mexico City hotel on a passing military parade after which his career was never the same. His Tony and later Oscar nominated role in The Best Man rescued him from obscurity 30 years later.

[Mister Tee]

Reza's neighborhood

My ''neighborhood'' happens to be AMC, TCM, the Fox Channel or Amazon.Com. And all the tv channels mentioned are nowhere near my neck of the woods. I search the net for the tv schedules and then request a friend in San Francisco to record the films for me. It gets harder and harder to come across any of the old nominees playing on tv now. My friend also happens to belong to a trading club and she sometimes comes across dupes of rare films.

Reza, I hope you weren't taking my comment as hostile, because it certainly wasn't meant that way. I'd just found it maddening that you and Magilla were saying Berkeley Square and The Pied Piper had been shown recently on stations -- like Fox Movie, AMC or TCM -- that I get on my cable system (and scan religiously for new finds). I've always assumed these stations have the same schedules wherever they were shown, but, if your friend in SF got Berkeley Square off Fox Movie, he had access to something we in NY didn't (or else both Damien and I missed).

I'm sure no one can talk you out of watching Flirtation Walk, but I warn you, Magilla's right: it's utterly dreary. Magilla is also right that alot of those hard-to-find 30s best picture nominees are hardly worth the trouble of tracking down (though obsessives like ourselves will of couse not be swayed). I'd in fact make the case that Flirtation Walk's year, 1934, is the worst on that score -- in addition to Flirtation, One Night of Love and Here Comes the Navy are strictly punch-the-clock ordeals (the latter's only attraction is newly-remembered Gloria Stuart in one of her star-period roles). Surprisingly, though, one effort from that year I thought would be unendurable, Viva Villa (Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa?), turned out to be snappy fun, thanks to Stu Erwin channeling Ben Hecht (giving a far better performance than in his nominated Pigskin Parade -- talk about tough going).

[Reza]

Reza's neighborhood

My ''neighborhood'' happens to be AMC, TCM, the Fox Channel or Amazon.Com. And all the tv channels mentioned are nowhere near my neck of the woods. I search the net for the tv schedules and then request a friend in San Francisco to record the films for me. It gets harder and harder to come across any of the old nominees playing on tv now. My friend also happens to belong to a trading club and she sometimes comes across dupes of rare films.

[Reza]

Most of the rarely shown Oscar nominees are films that didn't deserve their nominations in the first place. The one it took me the longest to track down was Flirtation Walk. I sat there with my mouth open, incredulous that this piece of nonsense could have been nominated for best picture. If they were going to nominate a Dick Powell musical in 1934, it should have been the joyous Dames.

If anyone is interested (despite Magilla's negative view), Flirtation Walk will be shown on TCM on September 24.

For the record I will request this film to be recorded on video.

[Big Magilla]

Forgot about The Way of All Flesh. I have recollections of seeing The White Parade on daytime TV in the 50s.

Most of the rarely shown Oscar nominees are films that didn't deserve their nominations in the first place. The one it took me the longest to track down was Flirtation Walk. I sat there with my mouth open, incredulous that this piece of nonsense could have been nominated for best picture. If they were going to nominate a Dick Powell musical in 1934, it should have been the joyous Dames.

Exceptions to the rule include Berkely Square, a beautifully constructed film that puts all subsequent back-in-time travel romances to shame, Private Worlds, an early psychiatrists at work drama that is dated as far as the psychiatry goes but still volatile in its dramtic tensions, and The Pied Piper with a terrific Monty Woolley accompanied by the two best child actors of the 40s, Roddy McDowall and Peggy Ann Garner who were together again briefly in The Keys of the Kingdom, finally out on DVD next week.

[Mister Tee]

Tee. I taped two early 30s Ann Harding vehicles from AMC about a dozen years ago -- Westawrd Passage and The Life of Vergie Winters -- and when I get my act together and finishing indexing all my movies and send the list to you (soon, I promise), you are welcomed to borrow them.

Whenever's convenient, Damien. I look forward to meeting you.

I feel somewhat relieved you're missing those same few items on the check-off list as I. It persuades me that, whatever's been shown in Magilla's or Reza's neighborhoods, these films have obviously not been on NY TV in a quarter-century, or one of us would surely have caught them (as we recently did House of Rothschild and Merrily We Live).

There's one more I'm missing that I regret not having nailed down -- They Knew What They Wanted. It was shown on a local station (Channel 9, I think) the night before Thanksgiving in the early 80s. I actually had it on for a moment -- but the friends with whom I was socializing made it quickly clear they weren't putting up with Charles Laughton doing an overblown Italian accent; we switched to some ghastly thing on HBO. Who knew it would be my last chance?

I didn't mean to denigrate Password, which I in fact watched regularly as a kid. They did have a higher calibre of guest than the LA version. All I meant to say about Fontaine was, at the time I had no other identity for her (it wasn't till high school that I found the Oscar winner list in the World Almanac, and discovered Rebecca and Suspicion).

Dick Patterson actually did some NY-based game shows. I was at a taping of one To Tell the Truth he did (did you ever go to those tapings in Manhattan?). It was while he was doing Fade Out/Fade In -- his one moment of near-fame.

[Reza]

I've never seen any sign of The White Parade or The Way of All Flesh (you sure the latter isn't also lost?). And The Pied Piper remains stubbornly elusive for me.

The Way of the Flesh is one of the very famous lost films.

[Damien]

Tee. I taped two early 30s Ann Harding vehicles from AMC about a dozen years ago -- Westawrd Passage and The Life of Vergie Winters -- and when I get my act together and finishing indexing all my movies and send the list to you (soon, I promise), you are welcomed to borrow them.

I too have been desperately seeking Berkeley Square, The Pied Piper, A Medal for Benny, The Constant Nymph, The Blue Veil, The Mark, and especially Valiant is the Word for Carrie, and I've not seen them anywhere in 2 decades. I did see A Medal For Benny on channel 5 here in New York in the early 70s. It's a shame there's not a Paramount Movie Channel akin to Fox's (and, damn, how many times can Fox show Carnival in Costa Rica?).

I think people are being overly harsh in thrir attitudes to Joan Fontaine. As I said in another thread, I think that although Olivia was the far nicer person (I've heard some stories about Fontaine that would put Joan Crawford to shame), I think Joan was much more talented than her mannered sister.

And we tend to forget what a Big Star Fontaine was through most of the 40s. Even in 1948 she got top billing over Jimmy Stewart in You Gotta Stay Happy. And any actress who starred in -- in addition to her 2 Hitchcok films -- Letter From An Unknown Woman and September Affair is okay in my book. (Speaking of lost Oscar nominees, I've never ever seen or heard of her 1945 vehicle, Original Story nominee The Affairs of Susan being shown anywhere.)

Tee, let's not be bitchy, lol. Remember Password was a New York-based show, which meant it was actually intelligent, and it attracted many A list guest stars in the 60s. Anne Bancroft was a guest the same year The Miracle Worker, and other guests included Carol Burnett, Lena Horne, Jack Benny, Carol Channing, James Stewart, Jane Powell, Laurence Harvey, Lauren Bacall, Shelley Winters, Tony Perkins, Lynn Redgrave (when she was an Oscar nominee for Georgy Girl), Janet Leigh, Lucille Ball, Robert Preston and, hmmmm, Olivia de Havilland. It was the west coast game shows of the 60s where you would see people nobody ever heard of other than as game show contestants, people like Mickey Manners, Dick Patterson, Sid Gould and Deanna Lund.

[Mister Tee]

For the life of me, I can't remember a thing about the 60th anniversary show -- and I recall the 50th and 40th quite well. I'll have to dig out Inside Oscar and read the play-by-play.

Magilla, I obviously misread you original post. When it comes to best picture nominees, I'm far further along -- though, in addition to the ones you've mentioned, I've never seen any sign of The White Parade or The Way of All Flesh (you sure the latter isn't also lost?). And The Pied Piper remains stubbornly elusive for me.

I'll check the racks at my Tower video store for The Mark. I may have missed its release because, unlike my prior (neighborhood) video outlet, Tower doesn't prominently display all newly released classics.

[Reza]

I think I noticed A Medal for Benny (1945) on the TCM schedule some months back. And I received the dvd of The Mark (1962) just a few weeks ago, bought off Amazon.

[Damien]

I especially don't understand why they've apparently buried Private Worlds given the continuing popularity of the films of Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Joan Bennett, Joel McCrea and director Gregory LaCava. Maybe Universal will put it out on DVD in a package of Colbert's films along with The Gilded Lily, Midnight, Arise, My Love and Rememebr the Day.

Private Worlds was shown at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the Gregory LaCava retrospective last year. It has some narrative absurdities, but overall it is a very mature film, both in terms of its handling of mental illness and in the inter-relationships of the chatacters. Beautifully acted, too.

[Hustler]

I checked Damien's books. Fontaine was a no-show at the 70th, but did show at the 60th, after which she vowed never to return.

yep. and I´m quoting Damien´s book page 726, last paragraph: "While the Academy debated a return engagement at the Shrine, Joan Fontaine said count her out. Relating her troubles on Oscar night, the 1941 winner explained to thr Herald Examiner´s Mitchell Fink that her limo never returned to pick her up after the ball. After an hour of standing in the cold, two ladies I never met gave us a lift back to the hotel. Since she paid for the whole trip to L.A. herself except for the missing limousine, Fontaine vowed that this was her last Oscar Show, stating: from now on, they can muck it up by themselves.

[Big Magilla]

Tee, we're both off by a decade. I checked Damien's books. Fontaine was a no-show at the 70th, but did show at the 60th, after which she vowed never to return.

I do recall your comment about The Racket now that you mention it. I was referring to films nominated in the best picture category. If The Racket is no longer obscured from the public that leaves only East Lynne and The Patriot.

I also recall mentioning that The Mark was available on DVD from VCI. Apparently it's been discontinued, but you can probably find a video store somewhere that will rent it.

I don't know what's happened to the others you mention. I've seen them all on TV and not all that long ago.

Reza mentioned Berekely Square being shown on either AMC or the Fox Movie Channel last year. I recall seeing Valiant Is the Word for Carrie on either AMC or TCM, probably the latter, a few years back. It's an even odder best actress contender for Gladys George than White Banners was for Fay Bainter.

The Pied Piper was shown quite a bit on AMC a few years back. The Constant Nymph is tied up in a rights dispute, but why Private Worlds, A Medal for Benny and The Blue Veil haven't been shown in ages is beyond me. I especially don't understand why they've apparently buried Private Worlds given the continuing popularity of the films of Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Joan Bennett, Joel McCrea and director Gregory LaCava. Maybe Universal will put it out on DVD in a package of Colbert's films along with The Gilded Lily, Midnight, Arise, My Love and Rememebr the Day.