^^ Just saw one last night. The closing shot from "City Lights."
And another: The stairwell scene from A Hard Day's Night with John and the passer-by.
^^ Just saw one last night. The closing shot from "City Lights."
And another: The stairwell scene from A Hard Day's Night with John and the passer-by.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
When I was a young boy, the Canadian Broadcasting Company ran a series of Charlie Chaplan movies. I remember really anticipating each movie and being totally engrossed. I can't find this type of programming on my current network package. I looked up City Lights on Youtube and was able to watch the final four minutes. These movies were so high profile at the time. I heard Chaplan wanted to make a silent movie at this time event though talkies were taking over.Originally Posted by ronmac
What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it brings forth a sound (2112)
Yep, Apparently Chaplin didn't expect sound to be around very long. He didn't look at it an integral part of the art, it seems.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
So, just for shits and giggles, I'm watching "The Beast with Five Fingers." Boy was Robert Alda a terrible actor.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
I'll add that Peter Lorre, and otherwise great actor, is beyond terrible in this movie.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
There are two Bette Davis flicks on TCM tonight. "The Old Maid" (1937) and "Old Acquaintance" (1947). Both are well-rated, from what I understand. I may have seen "The Old Maid."
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Watching a b&w movie called.......
Lady Vanishes (1938).
British film. I'm 5 minutes in....
So I caught a new to me BW on TCM the other day. The Sellout , from 1952. Every once and awhile TCM pulls out a surprise little seen film , this was one for me. Brand name cast , from the principles to a large assortment of quality charactor actors. Theres Walter Pidgeon , Karl Malden , John Hodiak , Audrey Totter. Then theres the menacing Thomas Gomez ( gangster in Key Largo , Everet Sloane ( scummy lawyer in Wells Lady From Shanghi , the often seen Cameron Mitchell. Plot is about a town run by a crooked sheriff , Gomez , and crooked lawyer, Sloane. Hodiak is a federal man trying to crack the syndicate. Healthy dose of coruption , violence , cowerdness , and bravery. a pleasent surprise. I had never seen this one or saw it offered on TCM. Cool stuff.
After Scottbails mentioned in the other movie thread that he saw 12 Angry Men, the other day, there was some discussion re: Lee J Cobb, an actor I've always liked but haven't seen much of. I decided to watch a couple of classics he starred in: On the Waterfront, which I thought I'd seen before, but hadn't, and The Three Faces of Eve, which I've wanted to see since my mom told me about it when I was a kid.
Leonard Maltin gives them 4 and 3½ stars, respectively. I'd give them 3½ and 3¼, respectively. Waterfront was the better movie, overall, but the ending was a little melodramatic and corny. Eve, tho not quite as good, had a much better ending, even if it did feel ever so slightly abridged.
Waterfront had a bunch of future name actors: Brando and Steiger, of course, but also Eva Marie Saint (her first movie), Martin Balsam, Nehemiah Persoff, Pat Hingle, and Herman Munster himself, Fred Gwynne. I almost didn't recognize him, he was so young and thin.
On a side note, I've almost always been opposed to plastic surgery but if there was ever an actor or actress that needed it, it was Karl Malden.
“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
BTW, Ron, I was checkin' out TCM's site yesterday and even through the Fire TV Stick, their site was messed up; it was off by about 12 hours. One of the "now showing" movies listed was Treasure Island when, in fact, Citizen Kane was on.
“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
Malden is a classic example of a great actor whose looks were not a detriment to employment. In fact, that schnoz probably got him work in his early career.
Yeah, my problem is not about what they did to accommodate new technology and devices as much as losing the overall character of the site and creating a terrible user experience. Too many clicks to find too little info. I still don't get it. I try to temper my opinion by the simple fact that most people just don't like change and will push back by nature. But, jeez, they really screwed up IMNSHO.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Gangster movies on TCM all day tomorrow
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I DVRed The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) yesterday afternoon and we watched it in the evening. It was far better than I thought it would be, the only thing that jarred me was the cartoonish Watson. But the guy that played Holmes was perfect and Christopher Lee as Mycroft was as well. Decent plot as well, but that's to be expected with Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.
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
Saw a really weird b&w movie last night. A German pic called The Head from 1959. Very much like the American The Brain That Wouldn't Die, which was made in the same year. In The Head, the mad doctor successfully transplants the head of a hunchback nurse onto the body of a stripper, while the head of the doctor who experimented with keeping a dog's head alive watches from a tray on the lab bench. The head in the tray and the nurse's head are not very happy about the arrangements.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
I'll have what he's having.
Headwaiter!!!
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I had a quip but I think not. Anyway, A Patch of Blue is on now and it's funny, I've never seen it all the way through.
The older I get, the better I was.
I watched From Here to Eternity the other day, which I hadn't seen in quite some time.
Most everyone's good in it but I have to say I found Sinatra a little annoying in it.
The movie is getting dated, now. Often, it borders on melodramatic and even steps over the line a few times. There were also a couple of moments I found maudlin. The dialogue in a few spots was a bit clunky and dated. And some of the scenes just didn't play that well.
It's loaded with a bunch of future stars and well known character actors like Ernie Borgnine, of course, but also Jack Warden, Claude Akins, George Reeves (Superman!), and Robert Wilke (seen most often in the '50s & '60s for playing villains in westerns & guest starring in tons of TV westerns, he was one of the gunslingers waiting for Gary Cooper in High Noon and was the guy who challenged James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven). There was also Tim Ryan, who played the sergeant that's a friend of Burt's character. I had never heard of him before, and I'm not sure if I even recognized him, but I found out he was once married to the woman who played Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies.
I think the best part was some of the dialogue between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, before their characters hooked up. I found it funny, but not in a bad way. I'm not sure I can explain it.
And also, of course, the bar scene when Lancaster goes up against "Fatso" is classic.
Still, overall it has become, imo, a 3 star movie.
“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 really like Donna Reed in this one.
Yeah, she won an Oscar for her role.
“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
Really? Wasn't aware.
The 39 Steps, Psycho and North by Northwest are on TCM tonight.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
I posted something on Facebook a couple weeks ago and began using it as my signature here at PE. A few people commented on it. Yesterday, my niece saw it and asked me, "what the fuck does that mean?" I said, "hard to decipher, isn't it?" She said, "it makes my head hurt."
Okay, so when watching a movie that has a scene that shows any kind of print, be it note, letter, book, newspaper, what have you, I like to pause the movie and read it because a lot of times they don't show it long enough and there may be clues to the story. Usually not but sometimes there is. There are other reasons, too, specifically with newspapers. On newspapers, headlines and subheadlines can often be interesting or, sometimes, funny. I also like to check the date on newspapers because movies often take place at a time different than when it's released and you can find out when the story takes place. Also, the cinephile in me likes to know when the filming took place. Sometimes a real event is alluded to in the newspaper and I've occasionally found that the event occurred after the date on the newspaper. Oops. And, occasionally, they might use a real newspaper and you can get some interesting info from it.
But the main reason I like to read the other stuff on a newspaper is because rather than use a real newspaper, or even a part of it, they will often just make shit up. Sometimes it's interesting. And often times it's just gobbledygook and can be humorous. When I was watching From Here to Eternity a couple weeks ago, twice they showed Burt Lancaster reading a short article on a newspaper regarding the killing of Fatso, Ernest Borgnine's character. The first time was to report on the incident. The second was to report the investigation had stalled. Checking to see if there was more info, I paused the movie and saw that twice they used they used the same gobbledygook. When I saw it I just laughed. Hence my signature. And now the mystery is solved.
In older movies, I also like reading business cards and telephone books because, for some reason, I love reading old phone numbers (in addition to addresses). I just love the way they named phone numbers, back then, like Pennsylvania 6-5000, which was the phone number of a hotel in NYC that was the inspiration for the Glenn Miller hit. The PE in Pennsylvania was the exchange name or central office where the number was located. The name of the exchange had nothing to do with its physical location, however; it was just a mnemonic. Murray Hill 5-9975 was the phone number of Lucy and Ricky. And, of course, Butterfield 8 was the number you called to get that tramp... that hussy... that whore, Elizabeth Taylor. lol
[Note: the first two letters of the exchange name were capitalized in the phone book, on business cards, and on the label in the middle of the phone dial. So, in print you would see PEnnsylvania, MUrray Hill, and BUtterfield and you can see this in old movies. I read on Wikipedia that people were resistant to switching to all numbers and as late as 1983, Bell of Pennsylvania still had named exchanges in their phone book in the Philly area]
BTW, I often like to read the titles of books, too, if there's a scene in someone's library or in a bookstore. In older movies, they usually just use classics. But in newer movies, they'll often use books significant to the director. I've also found the same is true when you see records, videotapes, or DVDs. The director will often put his/her favorite records or movies in there. In fact, they do the same with something they're showing on TV or in a movie theater, too. For example, John Carpenter used two in Halloween: The Thing from Another World and Forbidden Planet (Halloween was the first movie I noticed a director doing something like that, hence that example).
I just remembered something else directors will do in "newer" movies: put a notable movie on a theater marquee. But that's another thing that can be kinda cool with older movies: check out the marquee. Sometimes there's a really interesting movie being shown. I've seen a lot of titles on marquees that are classics or art house staples from the likes of Bergman, Fellini, De Sica, Kurosawa, etc.
You know, this brings up another aspect of movies. We like to point out errors of continuity, which is often related to set design or costume design, but EoCs were often due to the fact that they didn't have immediate playback at the time. I don't remember when it started but a newer development in filmmaking was the use of recording to video tape simultaneously. After a director calls "cut", he/she can go back and look at it and decide whether to keep it or not. The other reason is they may need to reposition people or things for the scene. But here's the thing most people don't think about or realize: if set design is done well, most people don't notice. And here's my main point: if you look closely, much of the set and/or costume design is done for a purpose, whether it's to give more background to a character or to affect the viewer subconsciously.
But all of this is to say that pausing a movie and looking at all the details on screen can yield interesting info or humorous things. Movies aren't just "moving pictures", you know.
“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
Barry, I still don't understand what your sig means! But that's ok.
BTW, those exchanges in the old phone numbers did often (maybe always?) correspond to locations! Murray Hill is a neighborhood on the East Side in NYC, below 42nd Street. I grew up in the Lenox Hill and Carnegie Hill neighborhoods, and we had phone numbers using those exchanges. Realtors still use those neighborhood names, when a property is in one of the desirable ones (probably all of them, these days). Most REAL New Yorkers (like me) still use them too. Of course, sometimes the unofficial neighborhood names are better than the official ones, like Hell's Kitchen instead of Clinton.
Many times, you would hear a phone number beginning with "KLondike 5," because that would be 555, and no phone numbers began with those numbers. So people wouldn't get prank calls.
One of the classic newspapers in a movie (and I'm surprised you didn't mention it) was Hitchcock's appearance in "Lifeboat."
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
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