I Just Watched...

[CinemaInternational]

HOLY ****, this episode has a TOP TEN ENTRY in the MURDER, SHE HAIR HALL OF SHAME- the character of THE RECEPTIONIST (not pictured) sports a coiffure that I can find no images of (and I looked)- and I actually decided it's for the best.

Trish Garland is credited as: Secretary

Looks like a brunette/auburn version of Catherine Oxenberg's hair on Dynasty

[txfilmfan]

HOLY ****, this episode has a TOP TEN ENTRY in the MURDER, SHE HAIR HALL OF SHAME- the character of THE RECEPTIONIST (not pictured) sports a coiffure that I can find no images of (and I looked)- and I actually decided it's for the best.

Trish Garland is credited as: Secretary

Looks like a brunette/auburn version of Catherine Oxenberg's hair on Dynasty

I thought it looked like a poofier version of David Bowie's hair.

[j.lunatic]

I watched The Scarlet Letter (1934), which got its TCM premiere this past Sunday. By 1934 standards it is sadly static, even allowing for Hays Code enforcement, Poverty Row production values, and fading silent stars in several of the lead roles. Yet in spite of this, its gets to the essence of the Hester-Arthur-Roger triangle (especially the antagonistic bond between Arthur and Roger). I haven't seen the 1926 Liilian Gish version of TSL recently, but I don't remember it being so strong in this aspect.

The 1934 film also features a secondary triangle: friends Bartholomew and Sampson, and the widowed Abigail, who Sampson has been courting but who prefers Bartholomew. The filmmakers probably intended it as (ill-judged) comic relief, but I found it a funhouse mirror reflection of the primary triangle. As for the ending....is there a good recent biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne? In my limited knowledge of the author and his life, he seems so proto-Goth he makes Edgar Allen Poe look almost square.

5.7/10; currently available on WatchTCM and after that via YouTube and other public domain film sources.

[Lorna]

Trish Garland is credited as: Secretary

1. Oh my Lord, my sweet Lord.
2. I don't know where you found this, but thank you.
3. for the record, she is a very pretty lady with lovely eyes.
4. forgive me for not mentioning THE STUDDED ACID WASH which contributes to 50% of the FASHION CRIME being perpetrated here, the hair is usually what stays with me long after THE HORROR of the ENTIRE LOOK (and accessories) has passed.
5. Bless her heart, she looks like she was at her data entry job one morning, when she heard a rumble, she looked up and there was ZZ-TOPP and their entourage who then SNATCHED her off to the mall and had her try on frilly ankle socks while someone stood by with a rag soaked in ether and a couple jumper cables at the ready.
6. that necklace is too understated for that look. she needs some WILMA FLINTSTONE PEARLS, but in BUBBLE GUM PINK...or possibly A TURQUOISE CRUCIFIX

[Hibi]

I watched the MURDER SHE WROTE episode MURDER, SHE SPOKE which was the season finale (remember those?) of SEASON THREE- had forgotten what a cheerfully OUTLANDISH EPISODE this one is- the premise being that JESSICA is recording an AUDIBLE VERSION of one of her books "for the blind" (SIDE NOTE: A plot point about how the AUDIBLE BOOK INDUSTRY has no future ca. 1987 has aged about as well as that sweater WILLIAM ATHERTON has on in the above picture.)
**his character is blind, so at least he had that excuse

there is OF COURSE a MUHHHHDUH during a POWER OUTAGE, so BLIND MAN ATHERTON is the chief suspect.

GW BAILEY- who I think played MOUSER in THE POLICE ACADEMY SERIES pretty much reprises the same role here and honestly- it's one of the more refreshing instances where JESSICA butted heads with an investigator

CHARLIE DANIELS (????!!!!!!!!!) is SERIOUSLY IN THIS as a COUNTRY STAR recording a pretty decent song in the studio next to JESSICA. He has some singularly misogynistic dialogue relating to the character of his niece who is not played by TINA YOTHERS, but the actress playing her brings TINA YOTHERS to mind.

there is a guy in this who looks a lot like JOE DON BAKER but thankfully is not.

HOLY ****, this episode has a TOP TEN ENTRY in the MURDER, SHE HAIR HALL OF SHAME- the character of THE RECEPTIONIST (not pictured) sports a coiffure that I can find no images of (and I looked)- and I actually decided it's for the best.

I have no idea who this actress is, if she is still alive or dead, and either way it's entirely possible- nee even likely- that she wants that time she showed up on national television with hair that would make DEE SNYDER burst into a fit of laughter to be AS OBSCURE and UNDOCUMENTED BY PHOTO EVIDENCE as possible.

WILLIAM ATHERTON is soooooooooooooooooooo OVER THE TOP in the episode. I want to say he appeared more than once on MURDER SHE WROTE and he was probably one of those ACTOR FRIENDS who ANGELA LANSBURY was LOOKING OUT FOR- it almost seems as if they wrote in a couple of BIG DRAMATIC SCENES FOR HIM as per his request. guess he was having a hard time finding work after playing the villain so effectively in GHOSTBUSTERS.

LMREO!!!!!!!! I love your Murder posts, Lorna!!! Murder really had some bad hair (but then it was the 80s). I think Atherton was in 3 episodes (and the murderer in 2 of them) I'd never noticed that ugly sweater before! (how could I not???) Wonder if that was a subtle joke from the writers? He had a promising film career in the 70s but by the 80s it had flatlined and was doing MSW gigs.

[Hibi]

I'm glad I'm not in a public place because I am laughing much too loud. Masha, thank you for the picture, and Lorna, thank you for your insights and for the picture of William Atherton's sweater. Having grown up in the South when bouffant hair was all the rage, and it remained the rage for a long time, I have seen many a head of womped-up hair. This one has a definite "waitress who yearns to be a country singer" vibe.

William Atherton was excellent in a TV movie or mini-series version of Edith Wharton's THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. This may not be available, but is worth seeking out. Geraldine Chaplin has exactly the right period look as the unfortunate heroine Lily Bart, and this is the best performance of hers I've seen. As in THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and other novels, Wharton writes about characters who can't bring themselves to cross the boundaries their social class has constructed. If a traditional happy ending isn't ever in sight, at least a happier ending might be achieved if the characters dared even a little. The character played by William Atherton is just smart enough, decent enough, and weak enough not to prevent what will happen. This is an ideal role for him. Lois Smith is the perfect antagonist, the one who has the coarse strength the others are afraid to attempt.

According to William Mann's biography of John Schlesinger, after Julie Christie and Jon Voight became stars after appearing in his films, Schlesinger tried to create stars in subsequent films, one being William Atherton in DAY OF THE LOCUST. He's in the mode of a Tony Perkins or a Keir Dullea, but the 70s did not favor this type.

Sadly, Day of the Locust could've been a breakout role for him but the film flopped. I don't think Atherton ever had a great lead movie role again.

[Hibi]

Trish Garland is credited as: Secretary

1. Oh my Lord, my sweet Lord.
2. I don't know where you found this, but thank you.
3. for the record, she is a very pretty lady with lovely eyes.
4. forgive me for not mentioning THE STUDDED ACID WASH which contributes to 50% of the FASHION CRIME being perpetrated here, the hair is usually what stays with me long after THE HORROR of the ENTIRE LOOK (and accessories) has passed.
5. Bless her heart, she looks like she was at her data entry job one morning, when she heard a rumble, she looked up and there was ZZ-TOPP and their entourage who then SNATCHED her off to the mall and had her try on frilly ankle socks while someone stood by with a rag soaked in ether and a couple jumper cables at the ready.
6. that necklace is too understated for that look. she needs some WILMA FLINTSTONE PEARLS, but in BUBBLE GUM PINK...or possibly A TURQUOISE CRUCIFIX

The earrings fit though!

[Lorna]

OH YEAH, THE EARRINGS ARE (CHEF'S KISS.)

[CinemaInternational]

I don't often deal with recent cable or streaming television even in spite of the ceaseless ballyhoo that is made about, largely preferring the days of inventive and pleasing series of decades past from the major networks (and speaking of recent viewings on that front, I highly recommend you search YouTube for the VHS-era uploads of the short-lived early 90s series Brooklyn Bridge, which is an absolute gem). But seven years ago, I made an exception with Feud on FX, because of the Davis/Crawford angle in that introductory season. It had a barrage of excessive foul language, but I otherwise was highly impressed, so I was always interested to see if it would come back with another saga to unfold.

It took seven years after the wrath of Olivia De Havilland, but Feud is back, this time focusing on the battle royale between Truman Capote and New York society circa 1975. This time though, the tone is a bit different. If the Davis/Crawford saga alternated sadness with dishy gossip, cattiness, and a degree of camp, this new season, based on the two episodes that started this off last night, strike a sustained note of saturnine melancholia. Regardless of what some of the ads look like, this isn't something dishy (even in spite of a plethora of foul language ,a brief graphic sex scene, a subliminal flash of male nudity, an explicit scene in a gay bathhouse, a death by shotgun shown multiple times, a beating, and a suicide); it is actually a pretty bleak affair. It shows a Truman Capote (Tom Hollander), once someone who could light up a room with his gossip, regressing into a fog of alcoholism, hateful comments directed at others, and intense self-destructive tendencies (to say nothing of his physically abusive lover), and it features a desperately hurt and lonely Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), stuck in a miserable marriage to the philandering head of CBS (Treat Williams, in his final role before his death), facing terminal cancer and dealing with the ultimate betrayal by the man she considered to be her closest confidant.

Regardless of the lengthy cast list (more about some of them in a moment), this is really a two-hander show at its core. In spite of other familiar actresses being used in the ads, most didn't appear in the first episode, and the ones that did only made brief appearances after the episode was half over (Two of them have much built up parts in the second episode). So, the show rests entirely on Hollander and Watts, and suffice it to say that Hollander entirely melts into the effete Capote persona right down to the unusual voice, and Watts gives a knockout performance. Of the supporting cast, Diane Lane is good as always as Slim Keith, the brittle former wife of Howard Hawks who is the chief creator of the revenge plan against Capote, Calista Flockhart is nearly unrecognizable as a bitter Lee Radziwill, and Chloë Sevigny seems to be emulating the vocal patterns of Lauren Bacall as a conflicted CZ Guest. Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald, mentioned in the opening credits, have very little to do however (Ringwald doesn't appear until late in the second episode, and Moore has a glorified cameo). Jessica Lange makes a surprise appearance in a dream sequence as the vitriolic mother of Capote.

The writing is a bit excessive and makes at least two glaring mistakes (a flashback scene set in the 1950s mentions 60 Minutes which did not premiere until 1968, and Family, a series not on until early 1976, is seen on a TV screen in a scene set several months earlier), but it does capture the devastating feeling of the incestuous nature of high society and the pain of a betrayal of a close friend very well. I think I will continue watching due to the performances and also out of curiosity to see what New York society was like a few decades ago.

[Hibi]

Wouldn't William Atherton have had a better chance for a big career if he had been English? He could easily play the Oxford or Cambridge grad or the titled lord. He's smart and polished and would probably have fit into the world of English theater and television.

Agreed!

[Hibi]

I don't often deal with recent cable or streaming television even in spite of the ceaseless ballyhoo that is made about, largely preferring the days of inventive and pleasing series of decades past from the major networks (and speaking of recent viewings on that front, I highly recommend you search YouTube for the VHS-era uploads of the short-lived early 90s series Brooklyn Bridge, which is an absolute gem). But seven years ago, I made an exception with Feud on FX, because of the Davis/Crawford angle in that introductory season. It had a barrage of excessive foul language, but I otherwise was highly impressed, so I was always interested to see if it would come back with another saga to unfold.

It took seven years after the wrath of Olivia De Havilland, but Feud is back, this time focusing on the battle royale between Truman Capote and New York society circa 1975. This time though, the tone is a bit different. If the Davis/Crawford saga alternated sadness with dishy gossip, cattiness, and a degree of camp, this new season, based on the two episodes that started this off last night, strike a sustained note of saturine melancholia. Regardless of what some of the ads look like, this isn't something dishy (even in spite of a plethora of foul language,a brief graphic sex scene, a subliminal flash of male nudity, an explicit scene in a gay bathhouse, a death by shotgun shown multiple times, a beating, and a suicide); it is actually a pretty bleak affair. It shows a Truman Capote (Tom Hollander), once someone who could light up a room with his gossip, regressing into a fog of alcoholism, hateful comments directed at others, and intense self-destructive tendencies (to say nothing of his physically abusive lover), and it features a desperately hurt and lonely Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), stuck in a miserable marriage to the philandering head of CBS (Treat Williams, in his final role before his death), facing terminal cancer and dealing with the ultimate betrayal by the man she considered to be her closest confidant.

Regardless of the lengthy cast list (more about some of them in a moment), this is really a two-hander show at its core. In spite of other familiar actresses being used in the ads, most didn't appear in the first episode, and the ones that did only made brief appearances after the episode was half over (Two of them have much built up parts in the second episode). So, the show rests entirely on Hollander and Watts, and suffice it to say that Hollander entirely melts into the effete Capote persona right down to the unusual voice, and Watts gives a knockout performance. Of the supporting cast, Diane Lane is good as always as Slim Keith, the brittle former wife of Howard Hawks who is the chief creator of the revenge plan against Capote, Calista Flockhart is nearly unrecognizable as a bitter Lee Radziwill, and Chloë Sevigny seems to be emulating the vocal patterns of Lauren Bacall as a conflicted CZ Guest. Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald, mentioned in the opening credits, have very little to do however (Ringwald doesn't appear in either opening episode, and Moore has a glorified cameo). Jessica Lange makes a surprise appearance in a dream sequence as the vitriolic mother of Capote.

The writing is a bit excessive and makes at least two glaring mistakes (a flashback scene set in the 1950s mentions 60 Minutes which did not premiere until 1968, and Family, a series not on until early 1976, is seen on a TV screen in a scene set several months earlier), but it does capture the devastating feeling of the incestuous nature of high society and the pain of a betrayal of a close friend very well. I think I will continue watching due to te performances and also out of curiosity to see what New York society was like a few decades ago.

I wasn't too thrilled with the first Feud (making up stuff that never happened). But so far (only saw the first episode) I'm liking this one. (though I'm sure plenty of liberties were taken). I did read the 3 finished chapters of Answered Prayers long after they were published and know all about the backstory. I thought Hollander and Watts were both very good. Diane Lane didn't have a lot to do, but registered also. How the series holds up remains to be seen, but I'll stick with it for now.

[CinemaInternational]

I have to make a correction to my post about the second season of Feud. Molly Ringwald does appear in the second episode but I didn't recognize her (its been a long time since her teenage heyday). She plays Joanne Carson, the flaky former wife of Johnny Carson, who was pretty much the only friend Capote had left by the end.

[Allhallowsday]

FEUD: Capote Vs. The Swans last night on FX. Great direction by GUS VAN SANT. Funny, creepy, disturbing.