I Just Watched...

[kingrat]

oh wow, I didn't know they ever showed GERTIE on the show (PERRY MASON)
I always thought she was a "MARIS"- shows you what happens when you only have access to syndication.

I always pictured GERTIE as working out of THE BROOM CLOSET and looking more or less like this:

Gertie was in one of the earliest episodes of the series. In the books, Gertie is a gum-chewing gal who reads movie magazines and swoons over the good-looking men.

A shout-out to Alice Drummond, whose picture you posted here. She got stuck playing nosy neighbors with New Yawk accents and at least got the nice supporting role in AWAKENINGS. She had played an intelligent educated woman with a normal accent in WHERE THE HEART IS. Alice was smart and talented and underutilized, like many actors.

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Collectors (2000) Youtube 6/10

A documentary about collectors of art work by serial killers.

I saw this when first released and I wanted to revisit it. It's at times disturbing look at a very unusual hobby. It is short (78 min) so it does not wear out it's welcome. It focuses on two guys who collect and sell art works by killers like John Wayne Gacy and Wayne Henley who was an accomplice of killer Dean Corll. Corll killed dozens of young men in the 1970s, Henley helped get the boys into Corll's clutches, Henley later killed Corll.
There are some interviews with families of the crime victims and Henley's mother.
The most striking scene is the last, taking place in an art gallery showing Henley's work. A man who is offended by this buys a sketch of a nude person shown from behind. He takes the picture into the parking lot and sets fire to it. One of the collectors picks up the ashes as a "souvenir".

[Hibi]

(she is of course chained to the table and DELLA pays her in cigarette nubs, of which there are plenty)

EDIT: and yeah, she gets high on the correction fluid- who THE HELL are YOU to JUDGE?

LMREO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everyone lights up on this show! Did Della ever puff? I don't remember her smoking.

I'm reasonably sure DELLA smoked here and there in episodes and JUDGING FROM HER VOICE, so did BARBARA HALE in real life- from about (I'd say) AGE 8 up to the filming of the show.

She's HUSKY.

LOL! I've always liked her voice. Kind of sultry but demure at the same time.

[Hibi]

i was always bummed we never got to see ADELE.
Would've been an EPIC GUEST ARC for MARY WURONOV**.

**Who, yes, I know- appeared in the season 2 episode JESSICA BEHIND BARS.

LOL! I just saw JESSICA BEHIND BARS over the wknd! Which role did she play? I always kept hoping Adele would put in an appearance before the show ended, but it was not to be! It came to be a running joke, I guess they wanted to keep it that way.

[Hibi]

oh wow, I didn't know they ever showed GERTIE on the show (PERRY MASON)
I always thought she was a "MARIS"- shows you what happens when you only have access to syndication.

I always pictured GERTIE as working out of THE BROOM CLOSET and looking more or less like this:

Gertie was in one of the earliest episodes of the series. In the books, Gertie is a gum-chewing gal who reads movie magazines and swoons over the good-looking men.

A shout-out to Alice Drummond, whose picture you posted here. She got stuck playing nosy neighbors with New Yawk accents and at least got the nice supporting role in AWAKENINGS. She had played an intelligent educated woman with a normal accent in WHERE THE HEART IS. Alice was smart and talented and underutilized, like many actors.

It's too bad they didn't portray her like that in the series or give her more to do. But I guess they had enough going on in the show.

[Lorna]

i was always bummed we never got to see ADELE.
Would've been an EPIC GUEST ARC for MARY WURONOV**.

**Who, yes, I know- appeared in the season 2 episode JESSICA BEHIND BARS.

LOL! I just saw JESSICA BEHIND BARS over the wknd! Which role did [MARY WURONOV] play?

ONE OF THE GUARDS, I mean, c'mon, that's spot-on casting.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THE ONLY PIC I COULD FIND OF HER IN THE PART ONLINE HAS GERMAN (?) SUBTITLES BUT HERE YOU GO:

[Hibi]

i was always bummed we never got to see ADELE.
Would've been an EPIC GUEST ARC for MARY WURONOV**.

**Who, yes, I know- appeared in the season 2 episode JESSICA BEHIND BARS.

LOL! I just saw JESSICA BEHIND BARS over the wknd! Which role did [MARY WURONOV] play?

ONE OF THE GUARDS, I mean, c'mon, that's spot-on casting.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THE ONLY PIC I COULD FIND OF HER IN THE PART ONLINE HAS GERMAN (?) SUBTITLES BUT HERE YOU GO:

OH, HER!!!!!!!! Yeah, type casting! Thanks.

I bet she sounds great in German, LOL.

[CinemaInternational]

Rewatched a large portion of Victor/Victoria last night. Still holds up very well, and it is one of Blake Edwards' finest hours. Robert Preston and Lesley Ann Warren should have won the supporting Oscars that year.

[jimimac71]

Rewatched a large portion of Victor/Victoria last night. Still holds up very well, and it is one of Blake Edwards' finest hours. Robert Preston and Lesley Ann Warren should have won the supporting Oscars that year.

I watched the whole thing. A lot happens in a film that is just 2 hours and 13 minutes. I know very little about Lesley Ann Warren. I love her performance of "Chicago, Illinois." I believe Robert Preston was even better in Victor/Victoria than The Music Man. Then again, this is my favorite movie!
The movie is classic Blake Edwards. I could watch it again tonight.
I did record it but also watched live.

[HoldenIsHere]

Let's see. I was too young to have seen it at the time, but I felt that way when I caught up with American Beauty.

I am totally with you on AMERICAN BEAUTY.
I didn't see it when it was in theaters, but when I did see it, I was like YUCK!
I gave the movie a half star on Letterboxd.

Good for you for giving it half a star on Letterboxd. I think I gave it 1 and a half, mostly because I did like Annette Bening's perfromance in spite of the rest. I've always been lousy at rating films though, rating too high, etc. I hope you don't mind, but I went searching for you on Letterboxd (among all the people who gave American Beauty half a star), and I think I gave you a follow over there just now. I hope you don't mind (Meanwhile my account over there is a mess because there are hundreds of films I still have to track down and log, since I got out of the habit last year)

I don't mind the follow on Letterboxd at all. I followed you as well and posted a comment on one of your reviews.
I had an earlier account there, but it was linked to an email address I no longer have and I kind of wanted to start fresh anyway.
I also tend to have high ratings, probably because I mostly rate movies that I like (so 4 or 5 star ratings).
AMERICAN BEAUTY was definitely an exception.
I watched that one expecting to love it because of Sam Menes's stage work (he directed the revivals of CABARET and OLIVER! in the 1990s and I love those cast recordings).
But I really, really *hated* AMERICAN BEAUTY, probably more than I would have if I wasn't expecting to like it.

[Andree]

Interesting. My on-screen guide provides the season and episode information almost always. Sometimes it doesn't match IMDb's data, though, but that's usually on British shows, or sometimes on M*A*S*H, when they had the odd hour-long episode that's chopped into two episodes for syndication.

The old guide just gave the year of the TV show, so one couldn't be sure which
season it was from. Not really that important to know, but it's nice to be able
to have the info. LITBeaver made it easy because each season had a different opening.

[CinemaInternational]

I am totally with you on AMERICAN BEAUTY.
I didn't see it when it was in theaters, but when I did see it, I was like YUCK!
I gave the movie a half star on Letterboxd.

Good for you for giving it half a star on Letterboxd. I think I gave it 1 and a half, mostly because I did like Annette Bening's perfromance in spite of the rest. I've always been lousy at rating films though, rating too high, etc. I hope you don't mind, but I went searching for you on Letterboxd (among all the people who gave American Beauty half a star), and I think I gave you a follow over there just now. I hope you don't mind (Meanwhile my account over there is a mess because there are hundreds of films I still have to track down and log, since I got out of the habit last year)

I don't mind the follow on Letterboxd at all. I followed you as well and posted a comment on one of your reviews.
I had an earlier account there, but it was linked to an email address I no longer have and I kind of wanted to start fresh anyway.
I also tend to have high ratings, probably because I mostly rate movies that I like (so 4 or 5 star ratings).
AMERICAN BEAUTY was definitely an exception.
I watched that one expecting to love it because of Sam Menes's stage work (he directed the revivals of CABARET and OLIVER! in the 1990s and I love those cast recordings).
But I really, really *hated* AMERICAN BEAUTY, probably more than I would have if I wasn't expecting to like it.

And I commented you back on that review. Glad to have you as a new friend over there....

Anyway, I think with American Beauty, I think much of my general distaste with it had to deal with the subject matter and also the way that I didn't feel that there was any real fondness for any of the characters in the plot handling. Now, Sam Mendes has proven himself to be a good director on movies since like Road to Perdition and 1917, but it just didn't work here. And yet, it was thought of as a new cinematic masterpiece by many in 1999.... which seems especially odd given that the caustic script was written by an ex-sitcom writer at a time when TV was largely mentioned dismissively (the writer had worked on Grace Under Fire and Cybill). It's probably that inflated reputation as well that increased my displeasure. I wrote a review about it a while back....

https://letterboxd.com/bcarr95/film/american-beauty/

[Andree]

LOL! Hopper was good casting as Drake. I don't think he could've carried the show as Perry. I don't think it would've been the long running hit it became. Perry needed someone with gravitas. "Star Quality". Burr had it. Hopper was a good supporting actor.

I never realized they ever showed Gertie! Blink, I guess, and you miss her. I'll be watching for her appearances now! I don't think my cable lists the year of the tv episodes. I know it does for movies. I'll have to check next time. Also has the main cast list and pictures (often different than how they appear in the film or episode!)

He was terrific as Drake. Of course we're so used to seeing him that way it's hard
to imagine him as Perry. I can't remember Perry wearing anything other than a dark
suit, whereas Paul had more jazzy ones.

Considering how few people actually come to Perry's office over the course of an
episode Gertie must have had it easy. And she was a pretty blonde with big eyes
a la Bette Davis. I read she was once a stand-in on a Bette Davis movie.

I'm having so much fun getting into my pjs to watch AHP late at night with a yummy
snack at hand. Good evening.

[Hibi]

LOL! Hopper was good casting as Drake. I don't think he could've carried the show as Perry. I don't think it would've been the long running hit it became. Perry needed someone with gravitas. "Star Quality". Burr had it. Hopper was a good supporting actor.

I never realized they ever showed Gertie! Blink, I guess, and you miss her. I'll be watching for her appearances now! I don't think my cable lists the year of the tv episodes. I know it does for movies. I'll have to check next time. Also has the main cast list and pictures (often different than how they appear in the film or episode!)

He was terrific as Drake. Of course we're so used to seeing him that way it's hard
to imagine him as Perry. I can't remember Perry wearing anything other than a dark
suit, whereas Paul had more jazzy ones.

Considering how few people actually come to Perry's office over the course of an
episode Gertie must have had it easy. And she was a pretty blonde with big eyes
a la Bette Davis. I read she was once a stand-in on a Bette Davis movie.

I'm having so much fun getting into my pjs to watch AHP late at night with a yummy
snack at hand. Good evening.

I didn't know she was a stand in for Bette Davis. What was her name? I hope I see her soon. I'm intrigued.

[Fedya]

Truthfully, Shearer and Howard both give marvelous performances in the 1936 version.

What about Andy Devine and Edna May Oliver?