The Silver Screen Oasis

charliechaplinfan wrote:I recently saw Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride and saw him in a new light, he seems to have such a light touch with comedy, he's hardly trying and he steals all the scenes. I like all the later Tracy films I've seen. I haven't watched GWCTD yet.

Another actor I'm growing to love and one of his most famous performances yet one I'd never seen, James Mason in The Desert Fox playing Erwin Rommel. I really liked the movie, I'm not always keen on war movies but this is more of a biopic and I think Mason did a good job portraying this man only a few years after his death. My one quibble, which I found quite amusing, is that for a film about Germans it felt like a film about English men, I don't think it captured the spirit of the Germans but perhaps this was intentional so soon after WW2. I'm glad they finished the film off with the quote from Winston Churchill.

CCFan: Father of the Bride to me is my most favorite Spencer Tracy comedy of all time!
CCFan: I glad you liked it! ... The Desert Fox starring James Mason

I did enjoy them both, Kingme.

Last night I watched Carve Her Name With Pride, the true story of Violet Szabo starring Virginia McKenna and Paul Scolfield. I wish I hadn't known of Violet's end as I'd have been more on the edge of my seat but nevertheless it was a highly entertaining film, well acted by Virginia McKenna who I could really believe as the secret agent parachuted into France. Definetly a watch again.

I watched "The Bad and the Beautiful" last night for the first time.

I liked it. I didn't love it. I liked the "roman a clef" stuff sprinkled here and there. I loved the "Cat People" costume scene and the speech about darkness that followed it. I guess if Douglas was Selznick, then Leo G. Carroll was Hitchcock.

Kirk Douglas was terrific. The movie would have crashed without him. Gloria Grahame was a lot of fun as well. Dick Powell just got on my nerves.

I did see "Two Weeks in Another Town" years ago, and "The Bad and the Beautiful" is a much, much better movie.

It is the better movie but watching the two films back to back is an interesting exercise in changing styles in film-making. A decade separates the same team, same studio and the same subject manner. The first film is done in the classic Hollywood studio style while the second apes the European New Wave look.
(Which is the reason it is not as successful. Minnelli was definitely a classic studio director.)

Now see, Kirk Douglas gets on my nerves, but I love Dick Powell in this one. In fact, if it weren't for Dick Powell and Gloria Grahame, and especially Powell's wit, I probably wouldn't watch the movie as many times as I do.

This is one of the few Kirk Douglas movies I can watch, maybe because he is such a big ham in this one and it fits the role.

Holy ****ing Wow! I envy the poster who watched THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL for the first time. As it happens, MikeBSG didn't care for it as much as I do. But this makes me recall my own first viewing of this fine movie. This is one of those sheer delights I watch again and again. Maybe a little bit of a guilty pleasure. It's nothing but a big soap opera. Whatever it is, it's done exceptionally well. It may be the finest melodrama to come out of the classic era.

I like all the characters. Lana is probably the least interesting. Gloria is a cardboard cutout, but cute as the dickens! I love the format. Three stories, more or less seperate, connected by their relation to Jonathan Shields. This is a very well written movie.

I don't know the later film that was mentioned. Good? Not so much? I'd like to see it.

Last night I watched Preminger's BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING for the first, and let me assure you, the last time! A couple of years ago, poster Ann Harding had this to say:

Alas, after this great beginning, the story started to disintegrate into some kind of 'supermarket psychology' that made it quite silly

Ms. Harding is too generous. BATMAN is silly. The cartoon about the singing frog is silly. This embarrassing attempt at Willam Castle meets Norman Bates by the talented Viennese filmmaker is insulting. Maybe in 1964 audiences found the material shocking. Maybe the territory was as yet unexplored to most viewers. Now it's simply laughable.

In fact, might the writers have intended this story as bizarre, cerebral comedy? Even so, it's not funny. But I'd be more inclined to give credit to that effort than to a drama that offends my intelligence.

Preminger has done some moody, sensual work. ANATOMY OF A MURDER, ANGEL FACE, the wonderful ADVISE AND CONSENT. But if Bunny Lake should turn up missing again, please, don't look for her!

I watched Mr. Arkadin for the first time yesterday! I liked it far more than I was expecting to, considering it's history. The hand of Welles could not be eradicated by the studio completely, no matter how hard they tried.

What a ride... it's almost impossible to think that Welles could make this movie with no budget. I loved the way it criss-crossed the globe....the PERFECT backdrops for each scene, the camera angles, the way he used faces and shadow, and I especially loved Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Katina Paxinou and Mischa Auer, in that order. I thought the ending was a bit of a let down, somehow the timing seemed off, but then who am I to criticize a true genius? I'll blame the studio.

If only they had trusted him this could have been great movie, I still think it is. Extremely entertaining and with a Beat the Devil feel. I found it Fellini-esque, although I don't think Fellini had made anything like this yet, so I guess that's a misnomer. There is such robust humor involved in this story, and also a deep melancholy cynicism, both of which would serve Fellini later on, I think, but not Welles. What can you do but laugh in a world like this?

Can someone point the way to a thread on either Welles or Mr. Arkadin? The search mechanism has revealed nothing to me, and I've gone through pages and pages of thread names, all the way from Vienna to London to South America and back to find a place where I can read and talk about this movie. Now after all this searching, I'm afraid I will end up back where I started, framed for a murder I didn't commit.

JackFAvell said
Can someone point the way to a thread on either Welles or Mr. Arkadin? The search mechanism has revealed nothing to me, and I've gone through pages and pages of thread names, all the way from Vienna to London to South America and back to find a place where I can read and talk about this movie. Now after all this searching, I'm afraid I will end up back where I started, framed for a murder I didn't commit.

I can't find one either. The only Welles thread has to do with "War of The Worlds." I hereby bestow on you the power to start one. (But then you've always had the power.)

At least you've done me a favor. I just might go to the WAR OF THE WORLDS thread!

It seems impossible that there is no Orson Welles thread on this site! I'll wait a little while longer and start one up if no one can find one... thanks very much or taking the time to look, Chris!

JackFavell wrote:I watched Mr. Arkadin for the first time yesterday! I liked it far more than I was expecting to, considering it's history. The hand of Welles could not be eradicated by the studio completely, no matter how hard they tried.

What a ride... it's almost impossible to think that Welles could make this movie with no budget. I loved the way it criss-crossed the globe....the PERFECT backdrops for each scene, the camera angles, the way he used faces and shadow, and I especially loved Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Katina Paxinou and Mischa Auer, in that order. I thought the ending was a bit of a let down, somehow the timing seemed off, but then who am I to criticize a true genius? I'll blame the studio.

If only they had trusted him this could have been great movie, I still think it is. Extremely entertaining and with a Beat the Devil feel. I found it Fellini-esque, although I don't think Fellini had made anything like this yet, so I guess that's a misnomer. There is such robust humor involved in this story, and also a deep melancholy cynicism, both of which would serve Fellini later on, I think, but not Welles. What can you do but laugh in a world like this?

Can someone point the way to a thread on either Welles or Mr. Arkadin? The search mechanism has revealed nothing to me, and I've gone through pages and pages of thread names, all the way from Vienna to London to South America and back to find a place where I can read and talk about this movie. Now after all this searching, I'm afraid I will end up back where I started, framed for a murder I didn't commit.

Someone once called Mr. Arkadin a cartoon version, or parody of Citizen Kane, an assessment I definitely relate to. You need to check out the Criterion package of this film, which includes three versions; the print you saw, a Euro cut, and a new version recut to Welles specific notes and direction, which is the one I recommend. Another interesting tidbit: Welles could not reach many of the actors to re-record their dialogue in post production, so he overdubbed around twenty voices himself!

I didn't know how many of the voices he dubbed! One person on a blog I just read said he was obsessed with overdubbing as a technique for creating a messed up atmosphere.... I took that theory with a big grain of salt.

I was looking online in the first place to see if I could find out which version I saw yesterday on TCM... thanks for letting me know that this was NOT the new version. Now I have something to look forward to.