WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

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Vienna
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Vienna »

I think Melvyn Douglas was ideal as leading man to Garbo, Irene Dunne, Joan Crawford,Grace Moore. Urbane,charming, with a smile ever present.A relaxed manner perfect for romantic comedies.
Tonight I watched WICKED AS THEY COME which has the most surprising father and daughter duo I have ever seen - Arlene Dahl, tall, elegant , and cockney Sid James - though he was Arlene's stepfather!
Worth watching just to see the ever sophisticated Arlene pretend to be a factory worker at the start of the film. Chewing on gum didnt help, Arlene just has class and she wasn't convincing.Of course she soon works her way up to beautiful clothes and a better life - by using all the men she meets. Phil Carey costars. It's rather sad to see Herbert Marshall in a supporting role , though he gets third billing.
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CineMaven
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

[u][color=#4040BF]CHARLIE[/color][/u] [u][color=#4040BF]CHAPLIN[/color][/u] [u][color=#4040BF]FAN[/color][/u] wrote:Theresa, Melvyn Douglas, I recently watched him in Sea of Grass with Tracy and Hepburn, he hadn't been my favourite in screwball comedies but I did like him in this drama. I like your photos of him though.
Thanx Alison, glad you liked the pix I chose; ha...guess I'm trying to make a case for him too. I skipped "Sea of Grass" in its recent airing. But really, after reading that article Wendy suggested ( have you read it here?? ) it totally changed my opinion of him. I now can't wait to see him in a movie. Maybe I just have a susceptible mind like a five-year old ( most likely. ) Or maybe writer Danusha Goska made a totally convincing argument for me. :-)

* * * * *

P.S. JackaaAaay, Miss Goddess., your recent incarnations as Simone Simon and Kim Novak are FANTASTIC. ( I'm going to miss Marilyn!! ) A hundred years from now when "Generation Z" looks at the Silver Screen Oasis and see what your last avatars were, they won't know what I'm talking about. So...I'll post 'em here:

Dear Generation Z,

ImageImage

Here are the fantastic avatars I was referring to. By the way, is there still Social Security?

From out of the past...signed,

CineMaven
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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charliechaplinfan
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I read Wendy's article, let's say I could be converted. It wouldn't take much.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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movieman1957
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

The theater never got their print of "Young Frankenstein." The storm got in the way. Tonight we did the next best thing. We watched it at home. Got to give Maureen a few lessons in old movie direction too. All the while "Frankenstein" is recording upstairs on TCM. That is for next week.
Chris

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RedRiver
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by RedRiver »

Even if one didn't like this wonderful parody, and I do, he'd have to admire the love Brooks must have felt for the classics. His film is simply saturated with affection!
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movieman1957
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

That is one of the reasons I want my daughter to see those old Frankenstein movies. Brooks's film is funny enough in its own right but there is more to be appreciated just on the look and feel of the film.
Chris

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CineMaven
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

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Well...if I've said it once, I'll say it again...the bench ran deep in the thirties and forties. "BRUTE FORCE" - one of the greatest prison movies ever made, is peopled with convicts that were some of the best character actors of the 30's and 40's and here they get the leads. Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, Jeff Corey, John Hoyt, Roman Bohnen, Vince Barnett, Whit Bissell, Jay C. Flippen, our favorite Art Smith. They all carve out their own little niche as men in prison, whether they're behind bars or part of the Administration. I love watching each & ev'ry one of 'em. I bet each of them enjoyed figuring out how they could play their character. Familiar faces, all. Funny how our movie prisoners are rarely put in prison for some really dastardly crime that warrants their separation from polite society. ( "Ooh, I embezzled some money." "Yeah, I was left holding the bag." "It was self-defense, I swear it!" "I drove a getaway car but I didn't know they wuz gonna rob a bank." ) Burt Lancaster underplays it ( for those who thinks he overplays things...wait, or is that Kirk Douglas? ) as the leader of the gang. He seethes. And he's definitely the alpha male. Wouldn't you follow him down a drain pipe?

...But it's Hume Cronyn's film all the way.

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"Control them? You mean torture them. Why you're Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Caesar. Look at you in the warden's chair. Caesar trying out his throne. You've cheated, you've lied, you've murdered. You're worse than the worst psychopath here. Not clever. Not imaginative. Just force. Brute force."

He can join the annals of sadism along with this guy:

ImageImage

In my worst nightmare, I wouldn't want to be caught with either one of them.

We see the side story of some of these men to find out how they wound up in this penitentiary. Captain Munsey, boy...he just IS. It's like he came on earth...fully formed in his sick twisted way. Sometimes evil just IS. There is no explanation. Like Bela Lugosi said in "The Raven" "I like to torture!" The prison break out sequence is exciting. Men are killed along the way. Jules Dassin directs this tough hardhitting movie. He doesn't blink, won't let you turn away. It's all right in your face. I don't mean to be sexist to think that it takes a real man's man to direct these men...to direct these events. Ha..it probably just takes a good director. Lancaster & Cronyn's fight up in the tower is a good one. You're just rooting for Captain Munsey to get his just desserts. With the tower smoking and on fire, with Lancaster & his men's plans for escape blown to pieces...all up in smoke and death, he lifts the Captain high up in the air for the crowd of convicts in the prison yard. Rosza's music rouses up the emotions...the whole scene is biblical and gives me chills. Lancaster tosses Munsey to the feeding crowd below.

So is it all for naught? Do the best laid plans of mice and men really always go astray? Jules Dassin gives my little Art Smith the last moment of this movie. He's been the perfect Greek chorus throughout, trying in vain to stand up to Evil...but with little success. Even as the prison doctor...he's imprisoned too.

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"There is no escape."

A classic movie.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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charliechaplinfan
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

You've got me interested Theresa, I'll have to look out for it :wink:
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

Alison, I hope you get to see "BRUTE FORCE." Everybody's so good. It's a hard tough movie. Thanxx for considering it. Hume Cronyn has got to be seen to be believed.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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mongoII
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by mongoII »

Theresa, I watched "Brute Force" today and it was delicious. Fine performances, especially by Lancaster and Cronyn.
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JackFavell
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WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

Oh my gosh, T, I missed this thread for a few days and I come back to find a treasure trove!

My favorite part of the Danusha V. Goska article on Melvyn Douglas is this section:
he is doing something that any female viewer might fall in love with him for. He is watching Theodora. He watches her from above as he stands and she sits. He watches her from up close, as he brings his face to hers, close enough to kiss, to offer her more scotch. He watches her from far away, as he stands there in his marvelous suit. He doesn’t show off his biceps, as Sly Stallone did once he got Talia Shire / Adrian to his apartment in Rocky. He doesn’t pounce, like Brando in the apartments of Streetcar or Waterfront or Tango. He watches so intently that he is witnessing her, with the distance, wisdom, benignity, and seen-it-all air of God, or Santa Claus.
I also like the part here:
But then, a few minutes into his first scene, Michael (Melvyn Douglas) smiles. And there is something there. Something you like that the other, bigger stars and their familiar archetypes simply couldn’t have delivered. What is it? He laughs at his own jokes, even if no one else in the room does; he laughs at what he finds humorous in others’ even deprecatory comments about him. There is something in his laugh that reveals that he has surrendered the hope, the expectation, or the demand that others laugh with him for him to find the world amusing. That quality—the ability to laugh alone—sounds very detached, even old, and it is both, and wise, as well, but, when Michael does laugh and then tries to speak, his voice cracks and shuttles back to boyhood, or minces across to a girlish soprano. A breaking voice in a man so well dressed—Michael is wearing a wonderful suit—endears. When Michael is caught doing something naughty—his hands are literally in a cookie jar; he’s eating Theodora’s homemade cookies—the whites of his eyes grow as large and prominent as the whites of sunny-side-up eggs, but he looks not at all guilty, just shocked, shocked! that he’s been reprimanded for anything as natural as enjoying her cookies. He makes an easily understood joke about growing boys needing their food, but he doesn’t laugh at this peanut-gallery humor; his face is grave, deadpan as Buster Keaton’s. In these few brief scenes, without “socking” anyone, he’s revealed that he has a personal sexuality, morality, and logic.
I have been holding on to that article for so long that I was surprised to find it out of date in it's descriptions of world events. But the way the author suddenly came to appreciate Douglas, who knows that life is a farce and is meant to be enjoyed, well, it just brought me around to appreciating him all over again. There's a place in the world for a suave man who can laugh at himself.

As for Brute Force, I just loved your post! How lovely too to end on Art Smith. What a face! And yes, I would follow Burt into a drainpipe knowing there was certain death waiting for me at the end.

How the heck did Sir Lancelot get into prison? He wouldn't hurt a fly.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by MikeBSG »

Great comments on "Brute Force." It is a terrific movie, one of Dassin's best. One of Lancaster's best. Hume Cronin is unforgettable as Munsey.
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I've got Brute Force, I'll watch it early next week when the kids are back in school, I'm looking forward to it.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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