MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

[CinemaInternational]

Dargo and Hibi -- thanks, guys for that info! Boyd imo wasn't much of an actor but sure looked good....

Who wouldn't want to see more of Joan in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING? What a shame....She probably would have been just as effective in her drunk scenes there as in HUMORESQUE.

Self-correction by moi: Her character's last name is Farrow, not Farrell as I mistakenly wrote.

Boyd was quite good though in a film he made with Dolores Hart called Lisa. They worked very well together. And there were a few other films he was good in, although The Oscar was definitely not one of them. Now that's a film that would have been abysmally bad no matter who was in it. Poor Eleanor Parker was the only one who halfway tried in that wretched film.

Also was the movie proving once and for all that while Tony Bennett could in real life croon with the best of 'em and rival even Sinatra in this regard...

(...well, I think you know where I'm goin' with this here, don't ya)

Oh, absolutely. Performance wise he was stiff as a board. But then again in that film, Jilly St. John came across as fatally scatty, and Ernest Borgnine came across as more of a blustering individual that he did in any of his other films. Borgnine didn't learn his lesson about dark side of Hollywood films.... two years later he did Lylah Clare, which might have been a considerably better film than The Oscar, but that's not saying too much since the Oscar is among the ten worst movies ever made.

[Bronxgirl48]

Hey Hibi, you'll finally be able (if you can stay up late or record) to catch SUSAN SLEPT HERE since it's Debbie's month on TCM. Check their March schedule -- I think that movie airs on the 27th.

[CinemaInternational]

And not that anyone asked, but my own little hall of infamy for the 50 worst movies I have ever seen is as follows:
(The ones in bold are the bottom 10)


Trader Horn (1931)
The Prodigal (1955)
Desire Under the Elms (1958)
Two Loves (1961)
The Secret of my Success (1965)
The Oscar (1966)
An American Dream (1966)
Hurry Sundown (1967)
Boom! (1968)
A Place for Lovers (1968)
Skidoo (1968)
The night of the Following Day (1969)
Zabriskie Point (1970)
Bless the Beasts and Children (1971)
Lucky Lady (1975)
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
The Other Side of Midnight (1977)
The Swarm (1978)
1941 (1979)
Raise the Titanic (1980)
Under the Rainbow (1981)
Deal of the Century (1983)
The Survivors (1983)
Blame It on Rio (1984)
Red Sonja (1985)
St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)
Wicked Stepmother (1989)
Where the Heart Is (1990)
The Doors (1991)
The Last Boy Scout (1991)
A Stranger Among Us (1992)
Consenting Adults (1992)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
Disclosure (1994)
The End of Violence (1997)
American Beauty (1999)
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Crash (2004)
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005)
Easy A (2010)
Birdman (2014)
The Revenant (2015)
Green Room (2015)
Captain Fantastic (2016)
The Florida Project (2017)
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Don't Look Up (2021)
Spenser (2021)

[CinemaInternational]

Hey Hibi, you'll finally be able (if you can stay up late or record) to catch SUSAN SLEPT HERE since it's Debbie's month on TCM. Check their March schedule -- I think that movie airs on the 27th.

Another heads up. One of the Debbie Reynolds nights has two rare Paramonts: The Rat Race with Tony Curtis and The Pleasure of His Company with Fred Astaire and Lili Palmer. Neither received a VHS or DVD release and the latter is making its first appearance on TCM since 1996!

[txfilmfan]

I've only seen TBOE once, but it's what I'd imagine a mash-up of Peyton Place, Three Coins in the Fountain and Valley of the Dolls would be, with maybe a splash of Where the Boys Are, due to the "should I or shouldn't I" aspect of premarital sex.

[Swithin]

And not that anyone asked, but my own little hall of infamy for the 50 worst movies I have ever seen is as follows:
(The ones in bold are the bottom 10)



Zabriskie Point (1970)

I still have Zabriskie Point in my TiVo queue, recorded from TCM. I remember how vilified it was, when it came out. I had limited funds in those days and couldn't go to everything, so I missed it. I was hoping that time had been kind to it, but perhaps not.

Surprisingly, I haven't seen any of the others on your list. I remember trying to watch Trader Horn many years ago, thinking it was just my kind of movie, but I couldn't get into it. Though I do have a DVD of Ingagi (1930), which I'm embarrassed to own.

[kingrat]

Dargo and Hibi -- thanks, guys for that info! Boyd imo wasn't much of an actor but sure looked good....

Who wouldn't want to see more of Joan in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING? What a shame....She probably would have been just as effective in her drunk scenes there as in HUMORESQUE.

Self-correction by moi: Her character's last name is Farrow, not Farrell as I mistakenly wrote.

Boyd was quite good though in a film he made with Dolores Hart called Lisa. They worked very well together. And there were a few other films he was good in, although The Oscar was definitely not one of them. Now that's a film that would have been abysmally bad no matter who was in it. Poor Eleanor Parker was the only one who halfway tried in that wretched film.

You beat me to it! I was also going to recommend LISA as a film where Stephen Boyd is actually quite good.

[kingrat]

The Amusement Park Show was the only one Sebak convinced me to speak on camera. At the time, everyone thought I looked just like Sandra Bullock (even our high school pics look alike!) Sadly, we have aged differently & now I look more like George Washington.

LOL

So Tiki, are we talkin' pre- or post- The French and Indian War here??? Ya know, back when he was fightin' off those Frogs and Injuns, it was said he was a pretty good lookin' guy!

Oh and re Sandra and your resemblance to her...I'll bet if you'd had had as many Botox injections to YOUR face as it looks as if SHE'S had recently, you'd probably still look a hell of lot like how she looks now days too! I say this because the last time her lovely face graced my TV a few months back and while she guested on Colbert's show, I noticed what looked to be her inability to use her facial muscles while expressing herself.

And while watching that, I was reminded of who SHE is beginning to resemble, and so I'll now post the following graphic I found on the internet after Googling what my thought was...



(...the left half being her, and the right half being Michael Jackson after all of his plastic surgery)

Dargo, I had just decided that the right half was Sandra and the left half was Michael Jackson. I think you've proved your point!

[HoldenIsHere]

And not that anyone asked, but my own little hall of infamy for the 50 worst movies I have ever seen is as follows:
(The ones in bold are the bottom 10)


Boom! (1968)

American Beauty (1999)

CI, most of the movies in your 50 worst movies list have not seen.
I've probably seen less than 5% of them.
I've avoided most of them purposely.

But, I do have a soft spot for BOOM!
Elizabeth Taylor is too young for for her role, and Richard Burton is too old for his, but I think the movie is a lot of fun to watch.




I do agree with you about AMERICAN BEAUTY though.
HATE HATE HATE that movie!

[Bronxgirl48]

CI, I've got a lot of catching up to do with your list! I've only seen THE OSCAR, SKIDOO, THE SWARM, and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF PIPPI LONGSTOCKING, all truly terrible.

[Bronxgirl48]

Hey Hibi, you'll finally be able (if you can stay up late or record) to catch SUSAN SLEPT HERE since it's Debbie's month on TCM. Check their March schedule -- I think that movie airs on the 27th.

Another heads up. One of the Debbie Reynolds nights has two rare Paramonts: The Rat Race with Tony Curtis and The Pleasure of His Company with Fred Astaire and Lili Palmer. Neither received a VHS or DVD release and the latter is making its first appearance on TCM since 1996!

I've seen THE RAT RACE and THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY but oddly don't really remember them all that well.

On the Reynolds schedule is one of my favorites that nobody seems to appreciate -- GOODBYE CHARLIE. I really enjoy it. The whole cast is delightful -- Tony Curtis as Charlie's loyal friend, Walter Matthau's scheming, lecherous Hungarian producer Leo Sartori, Pat Boone deftly spoofing his vanilla screen image, and of course Debbie expertly hamming things up portraying...well, you'll find out!

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Folks! Folks! THE BEST OF EVERYTHING this evening!!

Do not miss!!

The original Sex and the City!!

The (sob!) lost glamour of 1950's white-gloved New York! Hope Lange, Diane Baker, Suzy Parker as three secretaries looking for love in The Big Apple! Plus -- Joan Crawford as bitchy editor Amanda Farrell!

It doesn't get any better!!

I saw this for the first time last night, it was OK I rate it 6/10.

It was one of those Cinemascope color melodramas that was so popular in the late 1950s, it continued into the early 60s but petered out about mid decade. I liked the workplace setting and the time period, probably inspired Mad Men years later.
The cast keeps it interesting, both Hope Lange (Peyton Place) and Martha Hyer (Some Came Running[/b]) were recent Oscar nominees. Louis Jourdan was in the multi Oscar winning Gigi the prior year. The same year as this film, Stephen Boyd was in Ben Hur and Diane Baker appeared in The Diary Of Anne Frank.
Joan Crawford accepted this smaller role because she needed it. She would only make 6 more films:

The first was one of her best, and the rest, (except for the last one) were enjoyable in their own way.
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane (1962)
Th Caretakers (1963)
Strait Jacket (1964)
I Saw What You Did (1965)
Berserk (1967)
Trog (1970)

[Hibi]

Dargo and Hibi -- thanks, guys for that info! Boyd imo wasn't much of an actor but sure looked good....

Who wouldn't want to see more of Joan in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING? What a shame.

Self-correction by moi: Her character's last name is Farrow, not Farrell as I mistakenly wrote.

I know. They could've cut some of Aherne's pinching scenes! Not funny and yuck! I wonder if Joan's paramour was shown? A few more minutes wouldn't have hurt the film (and livened it up considerably! Are a lot of slow parts). Martha Hyer's part seems to have wound up on the cutting room floor also. I've heard she was more prominent in the book (along with a less upbeat ending to the film).

[Hibi]

Dargo and Hibi -- thanks, guys for that info! Boyd imo wasn't much of an actor but sure looked good....

Who wouldn't want to see more of Joan in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING? What a shame.

Self-correction by moi: Her character's last name is Farrow, not Farrell as I mistakenly wrote.

I agree about Boyd, but he looked great. And he was great as Messala in Ben-Hur. His death scene was the best scene he ever did. I can't imagine how grueling that was to film knowing Wyler's penchant for dozens of takes. He also had the great idea of playing him as a spurned lover in the film. Watching it now you can see it in his performance.(Wyler told him not to let on to Heston!!) It works.

[Hibi]

Dargo and Hibi -- thanks, guys for that info! Boyd imo wasn't much of an actor but sure looked good....

Who wouldn't want to see more of Joan in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING? What a shame....She probably would have been just as effective in her drunk scenes there as in HUMORESQUE.

Self-correction by moi: Her character's last name is Farrow, not Farrell as I mistakenly wrote.

Boyd was quite good though in a film he made with Dolores Hart called Lisa. They worked very well together. And there were a few other films he was good in, although The Oscar was definitely not one of them. Now that's a film that would have been abysmally bad no matter who was in it. Poor Eleanor Parker was the only one who halfway tried in that wretched film.

Yes. He and Hart were both good in that. I hadn't seen it until they showed it when Sister Delores was a guest programmer a decade or so ago. And she picked it as one of her films! I agree, no one could've saved The Oscar, but Boyd's over the top performance is one for the ages! LOL.