WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[Robert Regan]

Alison, that's why I try to avoid hearing anything about what they say or do off-screen. They put the best of themselves into their work, don't they?

[JackFavell]

It's so easy for our plaster saints to fail us, isn't it? The reality is just so far short of our expectations. I can't tell you how many actors have annoyed me or ruined my vision of them by talking too much or doing things I don't approve of. Sorry but I have a singular prudish streak within my generally tolerant makeup that has nothing to do with what society deems 'the right thing to do' it's just a code of my own and when someone crosses the line, I just don't care anymore.

It's kind of like the young actor I worked with, a beautiful boy with long blonde hair and a nice temperament who seemed perfect to pretty much every woman in my theatre group. After working on a goofy romantic comedy with him, I walked over and told him how much I enjoyed acting with him. He turned to me and said, "You're a good kisser." Pouf! My crush on him ended that moment, my illusions shattered by his rather inappropriate, dull offhand remark. He became normal to me and I realized that his mystery was completely due to his ability to shut up most of the time and let people gaze on him adoringly. Once he opened his mouth.... out came drivel. What can I say? I'm fickle, and I guess that's why I love the classic film stars, there's no moment where they can shatter my illusions about them.

[CineMaven]

...My crush on him ended that moment, my illusions shattered by his rather inappropriate, dull offhand remark. He became normal to me and I realized that his mystery was completely due to his ability to shut up most of the time and let people gaze on him adoringly.

Ouch! Wrong time, wrong place I guess.

Your description of him makes me think of the beautiful young boy in "DEATH IN VENICE" that Dirk Bogarde lusted after. The boy was beautiful...and became sort of an ideal b'cuz he didn't speak throughout the movie. I also think of what Lincoln said:

"Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

[charliechaplinfan]

It's so true, the studios kept a lid on the things we didn't want to hear and didn't want to know about but these days our actors and actresses often have their own motives or interests to promote, if done charitably it can be a very good thing but on the whole I wish they were more mysterious, I guess I'm not the only one. I feel the same about royalty too, I know all these people aren't perfect but I do like to believe in illusions.

Wendy, I completely see were you're coming from with the actor. It isn't just Sean Connery for me but he is from an older generation who, on the whole I like for their views and demeanour. This generation I don't keep up with because there is no illusion about them at all.

[JackFavell]

I agree, Alison. Today we are never let alone, they are touting this one or that one, in the fan magazines, it's reported on the news, which is ridiculous.

I just wish I hadn't been so foolish as to give that actor my copy of "Goodnight Sweet Prince", the bio of John Barrymore, as a parting gift before he made his big gaff... I often think back on the book fondly. The boy almost never, except in relation to the book.

[knitwit45]

I never watch any of the award ceremonies because I usually squirm all the way thru the acceptance speeches...I am totally embarrassed for those who have, as T quoted Mr. Lincoln, "removed all doubt". I would much rather read about the winners the next day.

[JackFavell]

You know, you are at an AWARDS SHOW...make an effort to get a speech together. Be witty, even if you have to get someone else to write it for you.

I miss seeing Michael Caine live on awards or talk shows. The man never disappointed.

[charliechaplinfan]

He never disappoints, I have to remember to get the second half of his memoirs, the first was a roaring read.

[charliechaplinfan]

Thanks to Nancy I can watch the movies from the Warren William day that was on TCM in August. Why do I like this man? I think it's because he's got the respectable upper class look that lends itself so easily to sleaze or singlemindedness, he can play the older man that should know better but still seduces someone young enough to be his daughter and a bit green around the ears or he can be the man high up in business who everyone depends on. In Skyscraper Souls he's both, yet he does hang on to a shred of warped morality. Skyscraper Souls has a roster of stars, including Maureen O'Sullivan as the secretary he seduces, Veree Teasdale his secretary of 14 years, Hedda Hopper his estranged wife, Jean Hersholt as a jeweller, Anita Page as a good time girl/hooker, Norman Foster as the Maureen's young beau (married to Claudette Colbert in real life) Gregory Ratoff and Helen Coburn complete the cast. William is the guy trying to get sole control of the 100 storey building and doesn't care how he does it, forcing the share price high by news of a merger and then staging a collapse, all of his management and a lot of the little guys lose what they have in staking their money on the shares. There's female intrigue too and a young couple who are starving and tragedy befalls them, there are one or two happy ending and some not so happy and lots of precode innuendo.

I'm looking forward to watching some of William's other films.

[charliechaplinfan]

My second Warren William film this week, The Match King in which he makes his way up from being a street sweeper at a baseball game to the head of an international corporation that makes matches, intriguing in each country as he goes and seducing women and having no scruples whatsoever. Not may actors could negotiate a paththat went from the gutter to the boardrooms like it was nothing at all, even though he is thoroughly ruthless one can't dislike him and even feels bad for him when things go wrong. Looking forward to watching more of his movies.

[JackFavell]

The Match King is my favorite William movie, I love the twists of the story, and WW is really good here.

[intothenitrate]

I love Warren William too, CCF. I'm glad you're getting to watch some of his films.

Skyscraper Souls is jaw-dropping (not gob-smacking mind you). The behaviors and fates of the characters are so outrageous that you don't know what's going to happen next as the various story lines are resolved at the end. This film, and Employee's Entrance really define William for me.

The Match King looks like it would be "of a piece" with these other two, but he ends up caving into his conscious (i.e. abandoning his code) at the end. I like him a little bit better unrepentant and incorrigible to the end.

[charliechaplinfan]

I like him better unrepentant, he can be odious and I still like him and I've just watched Employee's Entrance, I really think these films leave a social trail behind them, they way business and shops operated, I can watch them just for that. Warren William in this one is at his most disagreeable, apart from his first scene with Loretta, who I think is one of the freshest of all precode actresses, she has a great look of innocence about her yet gets cast in the raciest plots, here succumbing to William through hunger and then through drunkeness but the second time she's married. It's great to see Alice White again although she does seem to be cast as a certain comedy type by this time. There's just no sentiment at all to William, I wonder if it says anything about the big bosses of the time, did they have to be as ruthless as he? Nothing stops him not even the tragedy of his employees.

Of the 3 I've seen so far The Match King is the one I liked the least but they've all been fun. I can't imagine anyone else playing a cad so well.

[CineMaven]

What do you think of George Sanders?

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm not as keen, it seems that I prefer an American cad, they're more unpredictable and refreshing, cads like the type George Sanders portrays have been in literature for a good couple of hundred years but Warren William's type of cad is less correct, more up from the street than Sanders who's characters I imagine have come from a line of cads. I guess it's a case of what we're less fimiliar with, not that I know any Sanders type cads but I do know Englishmen