MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Dargo wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:33 pm 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



Oh Dargo, thank you. Much appreciated.

Don't get me all hot and bothered with Slim and Barton in the early afternoon! (I'll get back to you later with this, lol)
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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CinemaInternational wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:35 pm 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.




CinemaInternational, Hello! Thank you for that terrific post. I so agree about THAT scene in FRENZY but I suspect Hitch just loved getting away with it, and back at his old hometown stomping grounds too.
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laffite
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Maybe Hitch was expanding his horizons to keep up with the times. Time to get grisly. Psycho was a passage in this respect but less graphic. And was it after the rape, murder, and maiming, that the camera eye ever so slowly backs out of the building, from the door, down the stairs, out the front door, and unto the street, or was that before?
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CinemaInternational
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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laffite wrote: January 27th, 2023, 1:24 pm Maybe Hitch was expanding his horizons to keep up with the times. Time to get grisly. Psycho was a passage in this respect but less graphic. And was it after the rape, murder, and maiming, that the camera eye ever so slowly backs out of the building, from the door, down the stairs, out the front door, and unto the street, or was that before?
The camera shot came later in the film as the killer offscreen was claiming another victim. That second death was definitely not shown as much as the grisly first one. You're probably right, Hitch wanted to show he could still shock in the permissive early 70s. That said, I think the scene in Deliverance stole the thunder for the biggest screen shock of horror in 1972.
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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CinemaInternational wrote: January 27th, 2023, 1:27 pm
laffite wrote: January 27th, 2023, 1:24 pm Maybe Hitch was expanding his horizons to keep up with the times. Time to get grisly. Psycho was a passage in this respect but less graphic. And was it after the rape, murder, and maiming, that the camera eye ever so slowly backs out of the building, from the door, down the stairs, out the front door, and unto the street, or was that before?
The camera shot came later in the film as the killer offscreen was claiming another victim. That second death was definitely not shown as much as the grisly first one. You're probably right, Hitch wanted to show he could still shock in the permissive early 70s. That said, I think the scene in Deliverance stole the thunder for the biggest screen shock of horror in 1972.
I don't readily remember the film but I do recall a scene that was so disturbing I couldn't get it out my mind, and had trouble falling asleep. The fallen branch that pinned a character underwater. I'm guessing, however, that this is not the scene you have in mind. If you are referring to something more in the vein of Frenzy, some dreadful deed thrust upon one human being by another, I don't remember it. I was still drowning.
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Hitch was always straining at the bit. What were his directorial instructions during that marital rape scene in 1964's MARNIE -- (I have to clean it up) "I want a close-up of her face when he does it"
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laffite
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 25th, 2023, 9:19 pm I wonder if Missy screams in FLESH AND FANTASY. She does have a knack for raising her voice extremely well in many films although not sure they rise to shriek levels.
"...have a knack for raising her voice..." is a start (for proving my thesis). I am still holding out for full-throated screams but now I waver. What if I am insisting on what may be closer to your idea. It's dawning on me that the business of the scream factor may not be all that :shock: important. No comment, I am ready to drop the whole thing. :smiley_cheer:

By the way, Lady of the Bronx, you elicited a kind word on my new avatar somewhere recently and I can't find it now. It's San Diego, taken from the longest pier on the West Coast (1,971 feet) and with a few touches of Adobe Elements to make it look the beginning of a dark and gloomy night. The title mentioned in the signature section is mine. It seems so Hitch.
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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laffite, you are fickle with Hank!

But that new avatar is wonderfully surreal.

Stanwyck I do believe reaches near-shriek levels while simultaneously yelling and blubbering at her Golden Boy in EXECUTIVE SUITE.
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Swithin
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Bronxgirl48 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 2:19 pm Hitch was always straining at the bit. What were his directorial instructions during that marital rape scene in 1964's MARNIE -- (I have to clean it up) "I want a close-up of her face when he does it"
My teacher -- Donald Spoto -- felt that Psycho/The Birds/Marnie comprised a trilogy, with Marnie being the conclusion/resolution. But it was a long time ago, I don't remember his rationale. I have my notes somewhere... I did see the new opera Marnie a few years ago.

Hitchcock is all about vision, whether in Rear Window, Psycho, The Birds, etc. I remember Donald compared the mother's eyes in Psycho with the pecked out eyes of the farmer in The Birds.

And vision, of course, is how we watch movies.

Image

Image
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Delete duplicate (why do I always do this?)
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Very, very interesting, Swithin!

Hitchcock was the original Peeping Tom. (wonder what he thought of that movie)
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Deleted triplicate post! (I think I've been clicking the "quote" button instead of the "edit" button.)
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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Dargo wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:30 pm . . . 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 . . .
I detest entertainers like that! But then, I'm not the easy-going, affable fellow that you are, Dargo.

Were an entertainer to ask me to be a volunteer in his/her act, I'd snap, "If I'm going to be part of your act, slice me off a cut of the box office action! No free lunch! And for the record: You am De Entertainer! I am De Entertainee!"
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

Post by laffite »

EP Millstone wrote: January 27th, 2023, 3:44 pm
Dargo wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:30 pm . . . 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 . . .
I detest entertainers like that! But then, I'm not the easy-going, affable fellow that you are, Dargo.

Were an entertainer to ask me to be a volunteer in his/her act, I'd snap, "If I'm going to be part of your act, slice me off a cut of the box office action! No free lunch! And for the record: You am De Entertainer! I am De Entertainee!"
When living NYC they were annoying on account of being so ubiquitous. Then one day walking Bleeker Street I ran across a fellow who was playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, sans orchestra, first movement beginning to end. That didn't change anything in street entertaining chez moi but it was certainly a refreshing change of fare.
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EP Millstone
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Re: MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

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laffite wrote: January 27th, 2023, 4:24 pm When living NYC they were annoying on account of being so ubiquitous. Then one day walking Bleeker Street I ran across a fellow who was playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, sans orchestra, first movement beginning to end. That didn't change anything in street entertaining chez moi but it was certainly a refreshing change of fare.
Do street musicians in NYC often recruit passersby to accompany them? I might be willing to swing Beethoven's Fifth on the kazoo -- but, again, only for a piece of the action ($$$), Yehudi!
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." -- W.C. Fields
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