MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
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Hibi
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Hibi »

Swithin wrote: January 25th, 2023, 10:02 pm Although I mentioned that I'd like to have seen Kate instead of Babs in The Lady Eve, I'm afraid I wouldn't want to get involved in a "Kate vs. Babs" conversation, because I don't think Babs is on Kate's level, and to frame a discussion that way elevates Babs too much.

Kate and Bette are on the same level, but not Babs (though I enjoy many of her movies.)

Here are Andrew Sarris's famous categories for film directors working in America. I think these categories can be used for actors as well. I would place Kate and Bette in the Pantheon; and Babs in Lightly Likable (giving her the benefit of the doubt, because she does do a reasonable job in many important and enjoyable movies, I've decided not to place her in Less Than Meets the Eye.)

Pantheon
Expressive Esoterica
Fringe Benefits
Less Than Meets the Eye
Lightly Likable
Strained Seriousness
Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers
Subjects for Further Research
Make Way for the Clowns!
Miscellany


(FYI, here's a link to Sarris's categories and the directors he places in each of them. I certainly don't agree with many of his choices, but at least he's taking a serious and important approach to directors and movies with his rankings.)

https://www.theyshootpictures.com/sarriscategories.htm
Couldn't disagree more about your views about Stanwyck.Lightly Likeable?? LMREO!!!!
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Swithin
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Swithin »

Hibi wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:14 am
Swithin wrote: January 25th, 2023, 10:02 pm Although I mentioned that I'd like to have seen Kate instead of Babs in The Lady Eve, I'm afraid I wouldn't want to get involved in a "Kate vs. Babs" conversation, because I don't think Babs is on Kate's level, and to frame a discussion that way elevates Babs too much.

Kate and Bette are on the same level, but not Babs (though I enjoy many of her movies.)

Here are Andrew Sarris's famous categories for film directors working in America. I think these categories can be used for actors as well. I would place Kate and Bette in the Pantheon; and Babs in Lightly Likable (giving her the benefit of the doubt, because she does do a reasonable job in many important and enjoyable movies, I've decided not to place her in Less Than Meets the Eye.)

Pantheon
Expressive Esoterica
Fringe Benefits
Less Than Meets the Eye
Lightly Likable
Strained Seriousness
Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers
Subjects for Further Research
Make Way for the Clowns!
Miscellany


(FYI, here's a link to Sarris's categories and the directors he places in each of them. I certainly don't agree with many of his choices, but at least he's taking a serious and important approach to directors and movies with his rankings.)

https://www.theyshootpictures.com/sarriscategories.htm
Couldn't disagree more about your views about Stanwyck.Lightly Likeable?? LMREO!!!!
OK, so I guess you mean that she should be in "Less Than Meets the Eye" or "Strained Seriousness?" I won't argue about that! :)
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Hibi
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Hibi »

Nope. Much higher.
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

kingrat wrote: January 26th, 2023, 7:39 pm
Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 1:12 pm Did Maria Schell ever not smile?
No. The inappropriate smile is her trademark. In Cimarron she even smiles while giving birth.



I skipped CIMARRON (mainly because late-career Glenn Ford always gives me the heebie-jeebies for some reason) but can just about picture a grinning Maria in labor.

She may have frowned for a nanosecond in THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV but if one blinked they probably missed it.
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Dargo wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:30 pm
Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 12:42 pm For some reason many Europeans (except the Brits, who refer to them as "the continent") whenever they meet an American (on-screen), their response is "Do you live in Chicago? Al Capone, rat-a-tat-tat!" complete with machine gun body language.
This reminds me of the time my wife and I had purchased BritRail passes and did a big loop through the U.K. back in 1996.

While in Stratford-upon-Avon, we happened upon a street performer with a strong Cockney accent whose routine consisted of juggling and jokes.

When he got to his grand finale, an escape from a straitjacket, he told the crowd surrounding him that he needed an assistant to help buckle all its buckles and straps and to make sure he was actually secured within it. For whatever reason, he picked me out of his audience. (my wife has always said it was because of my "big face")

And so while I was performing this function for him, he asked loud enough for everyone to hear, where I hailed from. "Los Angeles", I replied.

He then got a big laugh from those surrounding us when he in turn quickly replied, "So, is this the largest number of people standing around in a circle you've ever seen that doesn't have a chalk line of a body in the middle of it?"




The nerve (and ignorance) of that guy! You should have shot back with something like "Don't you miss the good old days of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper?"
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Andree wrote: January 26th, 2023, 11:41 pm
Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 6:58 pm

Capone is so iconic you can have virtually anybody portray him. I'm thinking of Jason Robards, Jr. in THE ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE. There's probably not a less appropriate looking actor to do so unless maybe it's Wally Cox.
Or Franklin Pangborn. Don't make me use my feather duster. Robards certainly doesn't look like Al Capone or have his
heft. The only ones I can think of offhand who looked like Capone were Rod Steiger in......Al Capone and Robert
De Niro in The Untouchables. Very menacing.



Then of course we have Al Pacino. ("She can't even be a mother because her womb is so POLLUTED!")
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Dargo
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Dargo »

Hibi wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:14 am
Swithin wrote: January 25th, 2023, 10:02 pm Although I mentioned that I'd like to have seen Kate instead of Babs in The Lady Eve, I'm afraid I wouldn't want to get involved in a "Kate vs. Babs" conversation, because I don't think Babs is on Kate's level, and to frame a discussion that way elevates Babs too much.

Kate and Bette are on the same level, but not Babs (though I enjoy many of her movies.)

Here are Andrew Sarris's famous categories for film directors working in America. I think these categories can be used for actors as well. I would place Kate and Bette in the Pantheon; and Babs in Lightly Likable (giving her the benefit of the doubt, because she does do a reasonable job in many important and enjoyable movies, I've decided not to place her in Less Than Meets the Eye.)

Pantheon
Expressive Esoterica
Fringe Benefits
Less Than Meets the Eye
Lightly Likable
Strained Seriousness
Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers
Subjects for Further Research
Make Way for the Clowns!
Miscellany


(FYI, here's a link to Sarris's categories and the directors he places in each of them. I certainly don't agree with many of his choices, but at least he's taking a serious and important approach to directors and movies with his rankings.)

https://www.theyshootpictures.com/sarriscategories.htm
Couldn't disagree more about your views about Stanwyck.Lightly Likeable?? LMREO!!!!
Ya know Hibi, you might as well just give up trying to ever convince our resident anglophile Swithin here that Babs was a great film actress, don't ya?!

Uh-huh, ya see, while his beloved Kate and Bette could pull off playing some hoiy-toity pseudo-Brit in the movies, Babs was always much better at playing the more rough-hewn and less "sophisticated" and earthy American type of woman.

(...in fact, I'll bet Kate and Bette probably spelled certain words using that oh-so unnecessary 'u' whenever they fired off a letter to someone, but I'll ALSO bet Babs NEVER stooped to such pretensions when she composed HER correspondence!)

LOL
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Kate and Bette have (unfortunately) something else in common -- they both played Asian women, Hepburn in DRAGON SEED and Davis in MADAME SIN.

Just try envisioning Brooklyn-born Stanwyck in yellow face.
Last edited by Bronxgirl48 on January 27th, 2023, 12:55 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Dargo
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Dargo »

Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 11:43 am
Dargo wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:30 pm
Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 12:42 pm For some reason many Europeans (except the Brits, who refer to them as "the continent") whenever they meet an American (on-screen), their response is "Do you live in Chicago? Al Capone, rat-a-tat-tat!" complete with machine gun body language.
This reminds me of the time my wife and I had purchased BritRail passes and did a big loop through the U.K. back in 1996.

While in Stratford-upon-Avon, we happened upon a street performer with a strong Cockney accent whose routine consisted of juggling and jokes.

When he got to his grand finale, an escape from a straitjacket, he told the crowd surrounding him that he needed an assistant to help buckle all its buckles and straps and to make sure he was actually secured within it. For whatever reason, he picked me out of his audience. (my wife has always said it was because of my "big face")

And so while I was performing this function for him, he asked loud enough for everyone to hear, where I hailed from. "Los Angeles", I replied.

He then got a big laugh from those surrounding us when he in turn quickly replied, "So, is this the largest number of people standing around in a circle you've ever seen that doesn't have a chalk line of a body in the middle of it?"




The nerve (and ignorance) of that guy! You should have shot back with something like "Don't you miss the good old days of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper?"
Actually Bronxie, I thought the guy's sharp-tongued little gibe at my hometown was rather clever, and especially considering the thought that the murder rate of L.A. and/or for that matter in every large American city has historically been quite a bit higher than that of London.

However, what I DID reply to him with was, "Yeah, but the weather I have there sure beats anything you have here in this wet and dreary little island of yours, ya know!"

(...okay, no, I really didn't reply to him with that...didn't think of it at the time...sure wish I HAD, though!)
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Or you could have slowly walked away and then returned, telling him "Oh, just one more thing...."
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Hibi, you were right about CRY WOLF.
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Dargo
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Dargo »

Btw Bronxie...

Nice to see you've re-started this fun and entertaining thread here from the old TCM forum. Was always a lot of fun over there.

(...and so now that you have, what say we further investigate this thing you have for Slim Summerville and Barton MacLane???) ;)

LOL
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CinemaInternational
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by CinemaInternational »

Some rambling thoughts about posts on page 6....

Maria Schell smiled her way through The Brothers Karamazov. I think that says enough right there. I think Marilyn Monroe wanted that part to change her image, but she was told that the only way she would appear in it was if the brothers were played by Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. At least Marilyn didn't smile constantly.

Martin Scorsese runs hot and cold with me. I greatly respect his love of films, but I never liked films like Mean Streets, Raging Bull, The Departed, The Aviator, and GoodFellas as much as the general consensus, the Cape Fear remake was dreadful, and the very source material of Last Temptation of Christ makes me uncomfortable. But I do greatly admire Taxi Driver, The Age of Innocence, Bringing Out the Dead, Hugo, and Silence, After Hours is a lively dark comedy, and The Color of Money is a great star vehicle. I also liked Wolf of Wall Street far more than I expected to.


Showgirls really does start as a so-bad-its-good hoot, but the farther it went, the more I was willing to take it seriously. Elizabeth Berkley won me over, and Gina Gershon was actually incredibly good in her role. While the Oscars would never have had anything to do with the film, Gershon was more memorable that at least one of the actual supporting actress nominees.

One thing I remember is that my brain was a bit on holiday the day I watched the 1931 version of An American Tragedy. For some reason, I thought that Sylvia Sidney had the role Elizabeth Taylor would later play, not the doomed Shelley Winters one, so I kept looking more for Sylvia long after her lamentable exit. I don't know why I got confused. Do Sylvia and Frances Dee look much alike? I can easily picture Sylvia in the 30s, not so much Frances.

Cry Wolf is pretty dull considering the high-wattage stars....

Frenzy was just far too nasty for me. I don't think I have every fully gotten over the scene where the character of Brenda Blaney is raped then strangled by the killer, finishing with a shot of the dead Brenda with her tounge sticking out. I expected Hitchcock to have some more resraint than that. That said, the rest of the film is odd with staccato, old-fashioned diologue against an early 70s setting. I did love the inedible dinner scenes between Alec McCowan and Vivien Merchant though. Anna Massey was pretty good as I recall. I also remember getting a mordant laugh out of the old IMDb boards for Frenzy where oune user wrote a post which called Miley Cyrus' stick out tounge action at one 2010s music awards a "tribute to Brenda Blaney"

I was born a little too late to be familiar with much of Sarris' writings. I do have a copy of The American Cinema, but his reviews were never compiled in book form like Pauline Kael's were. I love Kael's reviews, even when I disagree with her on a film, she just writes so well.

The autheur theory is a bit frustrating to me. On the one hand, there are great directors (Lubitsch, Wilder, Preminger, Hitchcock, Wyler)but oftentimes a film's worth is more typically due to a script. You can have a film with stodgy direction that is still wonderful if it has a good script and acting, but all the visual zing in the world from a great director cannot make up for a thin script. The autheur theory also devalues the offerings of many journeyman directors who might not have made a fixed type of film but typically turned in good, solid work.

It still has consequences to this day. Not as many films are as well known anymore, but if a film has a director that is well known, it is still talked about, whereas the ones with less recognizable names go unseen. So many directors at work in today's Hollywood go with so many hyper imagry, but because the scripts are inert, so are the films.

Another thing: in addition to the autheur theory, we now seemingly have the "Criterion theory" in which certain people only regard films covered by the Criterion Collection are worthy of discussion. That gets old and repetitive quickly, with the repeated emphases on certain directors, even though Criterion has put out copies of many good films (I will be forever greatful that they got Fox to finally do a DVD/Blu-Ray release of Cluny Brown, one rare classic that had never received a release in the VHS days of the 80s and 90s)

I don't know if I could ever apply levels to actual actors and actresses. Oh certainly I like some more than others, but there are very few, present or especially past, that I actively dislike.
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Dargo
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Dargo »

Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:16 pm Or you could have slowly walked away and then returned, telling him "Oh, just one more thing...."
Ya know, I CAN do a pretty good Peter Falk impression, come to think of it!

;)
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Hibi
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Hibi »

Dargo wrote: January 27th, 2023, 11:53 am
Hibi wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:14 am
Swithin wrote: January 25th, 2023, 10:02 pm Although I mentioned that I'd like to have seen Kate instead of Babs in The Lady Eve, I'm afraid I wouldn't want to get involved in a "Kate vs. Babs" conversation, because I don't think Babs is on Kate's level, and to frame a discussion that way elevates Babs too much.

Kate and Bette are on the same level, but not Babs (though I enjoy many of her movies.)

Here are Andrew Sarris's famous categories for film directors working in America. I think these categories can be used for actors as well. I would place Kate and Bette in the Pantheon; and Babs in Lightly Likable (giving her the benefit of the doubt, because she does do a reasonable job in many important and enjoyable movies, I've decided not to place her in Less Than Meets the Eye.)

Pantheon
Expressive Esoterica
Fringe Benefits
Less Than Meets the Eye
Lightly Likable
Strained Seriousness
Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers
Subjects for Further Research
Make Way for the Clowns!
Miscellany


(FYI, here's a link to Sarris's categories and the directors he places in each of them. I certainly don't agree with many of his choices, but at least he's taking a serious and important approach to directors and movies with his rankings.)

https://www.theyshootpictures.com/sarriscategories.htm
Couldn't disagree more about your views about Stanwyck.Lightly Likeable?? LMREO!!!!
Ya know Hibi, you might as well just give up trying to ever convince our resident anglophile Swithin here that Babs was a great film actress, don't ya?!

Uh-huh, ya see, while his beloved Kate and Bette could pull off playing some hoiy-toity pseudo-Brit in the movies, Babs was always much better at playing the more rough-hewn and less "sophisticated" and earthy American type of woman.

(...in fact, I'll bet Kate and Bette probably spelled certain words using that oh-so unnecessary 'u' whenever they fired off a letter to someone, but I'll ALSO bet Babs NEVER stooped to such pretensions when she composed HER correspondence!)

LOL

LOL. I know it's a lost cause, but I feel I have to defend Babs!!!
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