Was about to comment, but confused TWTT with Talk Of The Town , also with Jean Arthur. TWTT is the better of the two. Talk Of The Town is an odd Grant outing , OK but off center IMO. Meanwhile Edward G is one of my favorites , versatile but trapped by type casting. Still he had many memorable roles , in and out of his main genre. Larceny INC is great.Originally Posted by ronmac
In the middle of watching Judgement at Nuremberg. Some of you were mentioning great actors but I didn't see Spencer Tracy come up. He may have been my favorite. There are so many other great performances in the movie, Lancaster, Widmark, Schell, Dietrich, Garland. And Montgomery Clift is so good at portraying his character that it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Just saw Nebraska, with Bruce Dern. Nice....
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
Watched some of Tarzan the Apeman (1932) this morning. An enjoyable B&W Saturday morning movie, but fairly brutal toward the animals!
I'd agree about The Whole Town's Talking and Talk of the Town.
And, yeah, Eddie G is one of my faves, too. Loved him in TWTT, Double Indemnity, Key Largo, and Soylent Green.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Tarzan And His Mate.
The underwater ballet...
... Maureen O'Sullivan
(she lived here...)
Stunningly beautiful, and the stuff of the Hays code to come...
Perhaps finding the happy medium is harder than we know.
I like him best in Key Largo. In fact everyone in that movie are at the peak of their powers. In front of and behind the camara. A lasting memory is the ominous piano score as Rocco is first introduced. The camara pans the bathroom with a through the fan shot of EGR ,cigar and all , sitting in the tub obviously enjoying the commotion and conflict in the lobby below. EGR was thoroughly evil to Bogeys reluctant but strong uber good guy. The movie is one of the greats.
Oh, Jane! She and Weissmuller must have gotten it on at some point.
How can you not love that?
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
It's actually weird how erotic it is. I'm just not used to seeing a scene like that in a movie like that. I wish every Creature from the Black Lagoon movie had a scene like that.
I'd say his performances in Double Indemnity and Soylent Green are my favorites.
Great scene.
Not sure how many people are aware of this but she's Mia Farrow's mother and appeared with her in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters.... Maureen O'Sullivan
Also saw her on Johnny Carson years ago. She said Cheeta (the chimp) was gay because every time he got around Johnny Weissmuller, he'd get an erection.
Why do you think it's weird? I saw a documentary on PBS about the Hays Code and they showed a bunch of clips of movies from the pre-code era. One was from a silent short of a woman doing a belly dance. It was unbelievably erotic (probably because the woman actually knew how to do a belly dance).
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
I just haven’t seen many pre-Hays code films - I didn’t mean it was wrong!
I once had dinner with Maureen O’Sullivan - now that’s weird.
Yep, there were a lot of very racy movies back then. In fact, "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" (1932) is a great example of one from the right before the code. But, there are a multitude of silent movies that would raise a few eyebrows today.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
It wasn't a judgement, or anything.I just haven’t seen many pre-Hays code films - I didn’t mean it was wrong!
As for pre-Hays Code movies, I loved them as a teenager. Many are just good movies, of course, but many more are watchable just for the women who went bra-less and, occasionally, wore no underwear, either. Some even had nudity, like in that Tarzan clip, or would show a woman in the bathtub. But it wasn't just the visuals the Hays Code prohibited: single mothers, sexually powerful women, women who used sex, cheating spouses, implied homosexuality (usually between women), etc. Things were pretty lax in Hollywood prior to 1934.
Yeah. I remember when I first saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and the scene with Karen Allen standing on the deck of the ship with the wind blowing her nightgown tight against her body. It was obvious she wasn't wearing anything underneath of it. Instantly reminded me of an old Jean Harlow movie with the same kind of suggestive clothing. What I especially loved about those old movies was when a woman was walking or moving quickly and her boobs would bounce around. God, I loved that. lol
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
In the X-Men movies, whoever is playing Mystique (Rebecca Romijn or Jennifer Lawrence) is usually wearing only blue paint and a little crotch covering. Once you've noticed that it's pretty distracting. I now return you to our black and white presentation.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Where's that cold water gif when you need it.
Anything that was considered sacrilegious was also banned. A classic example is the edit during "Frankenstein" when Colin Clive exclaimed, "Now I know what it feels like to be God!" after the creature comes to life. Luckily, that and the scene with the little girl were restored.
Editing that scene with the little girl was particularly unfortunate, because it changed the entire scene. If you recall the edited version, the monster meets little Maria playing by the edge of a pond. She offers to play with him, showing him how she can make a boat with a daisy as she tosses one into the water, showing how it floats. She shares more flowers with the monster who gets excited and joins in the fun in a very innocent and childish manner. When she runs out of flowers, he looks at her and grunts. Then the scene cuts to her father carrying her lifeless body into the town square.
The restored scene shows how she ran out of flowers and he innocently, yet unknowingly, lifts her up and tosses her into the water to make her float. There is no grunt. When she flails in the water, he totally freaks out and runs through the woods in hysterics. That is one incredibly powerful scene that humanized the creature. Remember, the essence of the movie is how it creates empathy for the monster. And those silly edits completely undermined that.
Karloff's genius is well on display in this iconic scene.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Yeah, the first time I ever saw Frankenstein was the edited version. I was a kid and while I understood that the monster had killed the girl I didn't know how or understand why. Made the monster seem that much more inhuman.
Edit: And now that I think about it, it comes off as a non sequitur.
What is strange to me now is that I saw the edited version well after the end of the Hays Code era. Why would they still be showing it? When were the edits restored?
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Yeah, I loved that scene too!
The film was restored not long ago. I'd say within the last 20 years.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
You know, now that I think about it, didn't TCM premiere the restored version in the mid to late '90s? I seem to remember watching it for that very reason.
Since I cut the cable, I kinda miss TCM (I also miss the old AMC but that's another story). For a couple of years I even subscribed to their monthly guide. Unfortunately, movies sometimes got in the way of chores, much to the ex's chagrin. Altho, she wasn't without her favorites; she never missed Now, Voyager or Stella Dallas when they were on TCM.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Another thing the Hays Code prohibited was the bad guy winning in the end. The Code said the bad guy always has to get his comeuppance. One pre-Code example in which the bad-guy (-gal in this case) wins is Jean Harlow's Red-Headed Woman. Throughout the movie she seduces and connives her way to the top. At the end she rides away in a limo with another sugar-daddy and her complicit boyfriend (Charles Boyer) at the wheel as the chauffeur.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
So during that Hays Code period, were producers able to make movies that didn't follow the code, and they just didn't get approval or got some kind of adult rating? It's crazy if there was a code that was mandatory no matter what, but maybe that was the case?
I've never see that movie but you're right. How many movies did Jimmy Cagney or Edward G Robinson or Bogey or George Raft make where they died in the end because they played criminals or gangsters?
I just thought of another one where the "bad guy" gets away: I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang with Paul Muni. Technically, Muni's not a bad guy. He plays an average Joe who gets caught up in a crime and is put away. However, he escapes but then has to go on the run. The movie is actually really good and is one of those social issue movies about the justice system and how it fails the poor and working class with part of the movie taking place in a prison.
Well, shit. I just looked it up and it was released in 1932, so it's pre-Code. It might have still been released during the Code era given its message. BTW, it won the Oscar for Best Picture and Muni was nominated as Best Actor. If you run across it on TV, watch it... if only for the final scene, which is pretty powerful.
Well, the film industry adopted the code to avoid governmental censorship; they policed themselves. There were two Code offices (in NYC and LA) and movies were submitted before release. If a movie didn't pass, it had to be edited before release.
Some states still had their own code enforcement (they had censorship boards prior to the Hays Code era). My father told me that back when he was a truck driver, he saw The Manchurian Candidate down in the South when it was released in '62. He said it did not contain the kissing scene between Angela Lansbury and Lawrence Harvey. Altho, it's possible the theater itself did the editing, which was not unheard of.
After the end of the Code era is when the MPAA started using ratings and for the same reason: to avoid possible gov't censorship. These were the initial ratings: G (general), M (mature but with no age limit), R (had to be 16 without a parent), and X (17 or 18 without a parent). The rating M was changed to GP which then became PG (I can still remember the change from M-GP-PG). If a movie wasn't submitted for a rating, it was rated X, which is how the porn industry succeeded. A few mainstream movies that were submitted still received an X rating: Midnight Cowboy, Myra Breckinridge, A Clockwork Orange, et al. The X rating for movies that aren't porn was changed to NC-17 to distinguish those kinds of movies from pornography.
Edit: Forgot to mention that the first R rated movie was The Graduate.
Why the industry was worried about censorship isn't really a mystery. Movies weren't considered on the same level as the press and there were plenty of complaints about movies that "went too far". Besides, if the gov't could prohibit the production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol, they could certainly regulate movies, especially considering there were indecency laws. Hell, it was a violation of US law to distribute contraception through the mail, at one time. This country has always been prudish and puritanical; you know that, Jed.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Great movie.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
I should have known you've seen it. I think I was still a teenager when I saw it and it had an impact on me, probably helping to shape who I am now, politically speaking. Which I'm sure you understand.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
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