The Silver Screen Oasis

jamesjazzguitar wrote: ↑January 1st, 2024, 1:49 pm

ElCid wrote: ↑January 1st, 2024, 12:39 pm I "opened" my January TCM Now Playing email this morning. Nice write up by Donald Liebenson about Robert Mitchum as SOTM. Mitchum is my favorite actor so I may be biased, but he made many, many absolutely great movies and TCM is showing some of them.
Yet another example of greatest actors, actresses, directors and screenwriters never winning an Oscar.
Hope you can read the short article and the list of movies being shown.
Showing Tuesdays - 47 movies.

Is TCM showing The Big Steal? (which I believe is one of your favorite Mitchum films).

I'm hoping TCM shows Where Danger Lives (1950 - RKO). While only an OK film, it does feature Faith Domergue. Yea, she wasn't a great actress, by any means, but I find her deadpan style appealing. The film also has Claude Rains. He is only featured in one key scene, but it is a well-directed one and the contrast in acting style of Mitchum and Domergue, with that of an animated Rains is well worth seeing.

PS: Did you wish to post a link? I ask because you mention a short article and list of movies being shown.

Yes and...
I'm never sure about posting links to things I subscribe to, such as TCM, even though it is free. Try the below:
https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programmin ... rt-mitchum
I think Where Danger Lives is on Tuesday, Jan. 02.- lot of good ones.

kingrat wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2024, 8:52 pm Delighted that TCM is showing so many Mitchum movies this month. It seems churlish to wish that they had found room for THE NIGHT FIGHTERS, a fine film set in Ireland, and, to show Mitchum as part of an ensemble in the latter part of his career, THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON. I'm not especially fond of that film, but it's an interesting part of his career.

With THE LOCKET, fortunately part of this month's celebration, we get to see Mitchum before Hollywood had him typed, playing a sensitive painter.

The Locket is such a great movie. It's so unique and I don't mind the flashback within a flashback narrative. Laraine Day is excellent as the lead and Robert Mitchum and Brian Aherne are great too. The Locket is one of the few psychology movies of the 1940s that doesn't seem to have a pat and convenient answer to Day's mental issues, including kleptomania.

TCM's daytime theme for Friday January 5 is Movies On Ice, concluding with ICE CASTLES (1978) with its iconic Robby Benson in tight whities phone call scene.

kingrat wrote: ↑January 4th, 2024, 4:37 pm My oh my. The perfect double feature would be RUNNING BRAVE, where we have the fight in the shower scene with Robby naked from behind and the other guy frontally naked.

Robby has to wear a lot more clothes in THE CHOSEN.

Hate to break it to you, but if Running Brave was to air, you would find that it wasn't as ... Fleshy as it used to be. The DVD release edited out the frontal nudity according to the IMDb Parents Guide....

kingrat wrote: ↑January 5th, 2024, 5:15 pm

CinemaInternational wrote: ↑January 5th, 2024, 1:58 pm

kingrat wrote: ↑January 4th, 2024, 4:37 pm My oh my. The perfect double feature would be RUNNING BRAVE, where we have the fight in the shower scene with Robby naked from behind and the other guy frontally naked.

Robby has to wear a lot more clothes in THE CHOSEN..

Hate to break it to you, but if Running Brave was to air, you would find that it wasn't as ... Fleshy as it used to be. The DVD release edited out the frontal nudity according to the IMDb Parents Guide....

Interesting, if disappointing. That's as bad as AutoTuning my favorite singers from the past--a practice which is almost universal these days in re-releases or re-mixes.

I was surprised that the full frontal nudity made it to RUNNING BRAVE. It's probably still there on the VHS release.

Similarly, Barbra Streisand's "F** off" in THE OWL IN THE PUSSYCAT was edited out of the DVD release of the movie. However, that moment is in the pan-and-scan VHS release, which my mother has.

kingrat wrote: ↑January 5th, 2024, 5:15 pm

CinemaInternational wrote: ↑January 5th, 2024, 1:58 pm

kingrat wrote: ↑January 4th, 2024, 4:37 pm My oh my. The perfect double feature would be RUNNING BRAVE, where we have the fight in the shower scene with Robby naked from behind and the other guy frontally naked.

Robby has to wear a lot more clothes in THE CHOSEN.

Hate to break it to you, but if Running Brave was to air, you would find that it wasn't as ... Fleshy as it used to be. The DVD release edited out the frontal nudity according to the IMDb Parents Guide....

Interesting, if disappointing. That's as bad as AutoTuning my favorite singers from the past--a practice which is almost universal these days in re-releases or re-mixes.

What is somewhat odd is that Running Brave was originally an independent production picked up for release by Disney after it was filmed, but Disney has no ties to it today. Disney did have their own in-house nudity issue in 1983 in Never Cry Wolf, which had this extremely long scene with Charles Martin Smith running nude through the Alaska wild, with subliminally fast frontal nudity shots. Remarkably, that film went out under the Walt Disney Pictures banner and got a PG, but the nudity likely explains why Disney threw that one unto Tubi, rather than air it on their flagship Disney +.

Just putting this here... It has to do with Columbia's 100th anniversary....

For the first time, I watched Desired Me (1947), with Mitchum and Greer Garson. Now this wasn't part of his SOTM tribute which somewhat surprised me. Anyhow, not really much takes place in the film, running at 91 minutes. This being an early Mitchum film (for MGM no less), we see little of the Mitchum screen persona that would become his trademark. Garson is a stellar actress, so she does give it her all.

The film cost around 4 million and only collected around 2 million at the box-office. MGM should have used Walter Pidgeon since their parings were always winners and Mitchum was still new to movie audiences. I assume Mitchum was on loan-out from RKO to MGM. It appears this loan-out helped RKO more than MGM, because, while the film lost money for MGM, 2 million is still solid box-office and parring Mitchum with one of the most popular actresses of the times, was good for Mitchum\RKO, who would go on to make hit after hit until he left the studio in 1954.

PS: Poor Greer was really injured falling off the rocks along the coast (which was one of the best things about the movie; the coastal visuals). She had to have multiple surgeries.

The Grass is Greener at 8 PM on Tuesday is a great little comedy with Robert Mitchum, Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr and Jean Simmons.
Farewell My Lovely at 2 AM on Wed morning is the best version of the book that I have seen. Although it does deviate in a significant area. The music and cinematography really sets it.
The Wrath of God at 11 AM is an amusing Western comedy.
I don't believe it has or will be shown, but I've always liked Mitchum's It's A Wonderful Country. A western set in Mexico and US with comedic moments.

ElCid wrote: ↑January 25th, 2024, 3:51 pm ...
I don't believe it has or will be shown, but I've always liked Mitchum's It's A Wonderful Country. A western set in Mexico and US with comedic moments.

TCM showed The Wonderful Country (1959) early in the morning on January 10 as a continuation of Robert Mitchum westerns that began the previous evening. Sorry that you missed it. TCM does include it occasionally so it might be scheduled again at some point.