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492,620 | 3,280,905 | 38,114 | 7 | The Doctor Who Treated The Insane Like Human Beings | I actually saw this short on television back in the 1960s , and never forgot about it . Dr . Philippe Pinel was an early doctor ( from France ) who handled the inmates of asylums . In the 18th Century the average mental doctor or alienist ( one did not call them psychologists or psychiatrists yet - there was no real ps... |
492,246 | 3,280,905 | 909,702 | 7 | The One Show of the series " The Partners " that I saw | I have always been a little leery about the tendency of popular television stars to leave one popular series and then try to repeat it almost immediately afterward . In 1968 GET SMART ended it's wonderful run on television , and Don Adams was known as one of the funniest dead pan comic actors on television . Within two... |
492,811 | 3,280,905 | 34,248 | 7 | Hitch's sacrifice for acceptance in Hollywood | The story of Lina " Monkey - face " Aysgard and her husband Johnny is from a novel by Francis Iles called BEFORE THE FACT . Hitchcock liked Iles ' novels , which were unusual because the heroes were actually anti-heroes . Johnny is an upper class wastrel who is not unwilling to swindle or kill if it benefits himself . ... |
492,432 | 3,280,905 | 62,038 | 7 | Murders within Murders within Murders | When the novel THE NIGHT OF THE GENERALS ( by Hans Helmut Kirst ) was published in the 1960s , it was a best seller . It has a very clever ( devilishly clever ) theme - when is a murder considered heinous ? The plot is basically three levels or intertwined murder . 1 ) The organized murder ( both normal and war crime )... |
493,219 | 3,280,905 | 49,471 | 7 | To Fool The Axis . . . | This film is an example that occasionally truth can be stranger than fiction . Ewen Montague , an officer in the British military intelligence in World War II , was aware that unless something was done to reduce the defenses that the German and their Italian allies set up in Sicily the Allied assault on the island ( wh... |
493,050 | 3,280,905 | 38,104 | 7 | The First Celebrity Super Couple ? | There is a trick about movies concerning great or even good composers . Few of them have lives that ( outside of musicologists or curious people ) are worth talking about . Also , as their music is the reason for their greatness , the music is going to dominate the film - any activity on screen is going to be less inte... |
493,080 | 3,280,905 | 748,569 | 7 | Two Fifths of the " Rat Pack " Meet Agents West and Gordon | When the Will Smith - Kenneth Branagh - Kevin Kline film of THE WILD WILD WEST was made a few years ago , one of the interesting changes was that Will Smith , an African-American , was playing James West . The role of the hero of the original series ( and the two television movies of the late 1970s ) was Robert Conrad ... |
493,094 | 3,280,905 | 34,274 | 7 | Good Second Level Lubitsch | THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING is based on a French play by Victorien Sardou . He was the leading French dramatist for most of the 19th Century , but his specialty of " the well made play " was lampooned into oblivion by later writers ( most notably George Bernard Shaw , who labeled such carefully plotted works as " Sardoodled... |
492,114 | 3,280,905 | 53,351 | 7 | Wilson's Mexican Misadventure | I have to agree that this is a film that is not as good as it should be . Robert Rossen is a fine director ( " All The King's Men " , " Alexander The Great " , " The Hustler " ) , but he is not a popular one . His films do tackle weighty themes and characters , but too frequently he gets talky and loses his audience . ... |
491,906 | 3,280,905 | 639,971 | 7 | An innovated pilot | MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY was a highly successful television series in the 1950s and 1960s starring Danny Thomas , detailing his career and family problems . It became so successful that it made Thomas a successful television producer ( as it did for his show's director - producer Sheldon Leonard ) . One of the reasons for t... |
492,368 | 3,280,905 | 53,371 | 7 | Pity a poor wartime hero who needs money . | It is , I believe , the only time that those two silkiest voiced movie villains George Sanders and James Mason appeared together . Both occasionally played good guys ( Sanders was Simon Templar , " the Saint " , Mason was " Norman Main " in the Judy Garland A STAR IS BORN ) . Sanders would eventually win a deserved Osc... |
493,447 | 3,280,905 | 89,034 | 7 | Mel Brooks One Attempt at Producing a Serious Film | For my money THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS is a worthy horror film for several reasons . It has a good cast , including Timothy Bottoms , Jonathan Pryce , Twiggy , Sean Rea , Patrick Stewart , Sian Phillips , Beryl Reid , and Patricia Neal ( whose name I did not note in the cast - she was the mother-in-law of Dr . Rock ) .... |
493,403 | 3,280,905 | 27,311 | 7 | All The World's A Stage . . . . | AS YOU LIKE IT is an odd duck among the major plays of Shakespeare that have been filmed . It is one of the three top romantic comedies ( with MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and TWELFTH NIGHT ) that Shakespeare wrote , but none of them have been favorites for film ( not like A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ) . MUCH ADO recently was ... |
492,688 | 3,280,905 | 73,480 | 7 | A Novel That Outlasted It's Time . | The late 1960s into the 1970s saw a spurt of musical films based on Dickens ' works . The best of them was " Oliver " , based on " Oliver Twist " , which won the best film Oscar . But " Oliver " had a first rate score , and ( truth be told ) an interesting story about thieves and crime in early 19th Century London . In... |
491,767 | 3,280,905 | 322,504 | 7 | The Warren Musical Songbook | This short was shown on Turner Classic Film Network at 7 : 40 P . M . today , and I watched it . It is not so unusual from other shorts from other studios . MASTER OF MELODY was a short from Paramount in 1930 starring Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart . But Harry Warren is intriguing . He is now recognized as the equal (... |
492,306 | 3,280,905 | 36,057 | 7 | A Fine Film From A Forgotten Literary Master | JOHNNY COME LATELY is an example of an underrated work that makes a good , atypical film . The Jimmy Cagney that we think of is the anti-hero of THE PUBLIC ENEMY or WHITE HEAT , who we fear but feel sorry for . He also is recalled for his exciting performances in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY and 13 RUE MADELEINE . He was a huma... |
492,510 | 3,280,905 | 20,666 | 7 | Barnacle Bill the Sailor | An early Betty Boop cartoon , with Betty as the girlfriend of Bimbo ( as Barnacle Bill ) determined to flee his ship to have a tryst with her . Betty was drawn as a dog at this time - cut , sexy body and flapper hairdo - but dog ears . Since Bimbo was a dog too it did not matter , but this does lead to an interesting (... |
492,102 | 3,280,905 | 41,855 | 8 | A Good Example of MGM Ensemble Acting | This is a wonderful movie about how children can occasionally see things more clearly than adults . Herbert Marshall is Mr . Craven ( great name ) the owner of a country estate . His son ( Dean Stockwell ) is bedridden . Marshall is aware that his son is paralyzed , and knows the reason for it . It is the secret that h... |
493,305 | 3,280,905 | 36,912 | 8 | Look out for Mr . In - Between ! . | Bing Crosby was highly capable of really memorable acting jobs , but many of his musicals were good for just sheer entertainment . This is a good example of a Crosby film with sheer entertainment value . Crosby is a very popular singer - entertainer named Johnny Cabot . Cabot has been drafted into the navy . He is cons... |
493,123 | 3,280,905 | 142,990 | 8 | Stan directs Finn and Ted Healy | Frequently one has to wonder about how certain careers would have panned out but for luck or re-direction . Fidel Castro has ( for better or worse ) written his name in history books as the Dictator of Cuba since 1959 , and yet he seriously was scouted as a baseball prospect for the United States once ( he just missed ... |
493,125 | 3,280,905 | 15,343 | 8 | Another Find On " You Tube " : Stan with Finn and Charley , but not Ollie | Buster Keaton did a very funny short about the dangers of mislabeled prefabricated houses called ONE WEEK . There his love rival , Al St . John , purposely renumbers the various crates of Pre-cut timber and plumbing fixtures that Buster and his girlfriend are putting together . They create possibly the movies ' ugliest... |
493,229 | 3,280,905 | 26,245 | 8 | Lili and Esmond take on the Merrick Gang | The situation was this . In 1927 ( according to Robert Osborne in introducing this and two other films on TCM ) a British law insisted that British casts and crews had to be used in films shown in the U . K . by foreign distributors . Warner Brothers - First National got around this by doing films at a British studio t... |
492,189 | 3,280,905 | 39,066 | 8 | Sinister Probabilities amidst a theme from Brahm's Third Symphony | Dum de dum . . . DUM DUM DUM . Da de dum . . . DUM DUM DUM , Da de da , Da da dah , Dum de dum . . . de da dum da dum ! ! The third movement of Brahm's Third Symphony is quite a moody sound to the listener . It suggests hidden secrets and dangers . And it is fit as the main theme of UNDERCURRENT . This is a very specia... |
492,291 | 3,280,905 | 35,244 | 8 | The Closest that DeMille Gets to a " Shakespearean Tragedy " Conclusion | After the financial flopping of THE CRUSADES , Cecil B . DeMille concentrated on films dealing with different aspects of American history from 1760 to 1942 . THE PLAINSMAN dealt with Wild Bill Hickok , Buffalo Bill , Calamity Jane , and even Custer . THE BUCCANEER dealt with the Battle of New Orleans , Jean Lafitte , a... |
492,085 | 3,280,905 | 221,399 | 8 | Groucho finds G & S | I have only heard this production , as a record of the show has been sold in the 1970s ( and I purchased a copy ) . Since I have not seen the actual production I have to base my enthusiasm on the recording , which suggests it was a good production , if heavily cut . Certain comedians fit certain great dramatists . John... |
492,623 | 3,280,905 | 19,563 | 8 | Crippled body , Crippled Mind | West of Zanzibar was based on one of those torrid dramas that were big on Broadway in the 1920s , set in some distant rain forest or jungle . The best recalled is WHITE CARGO , in which a half-breed ( as they were called in the 1920s ) named Tondelayo manipulates one man into marrying her , and later tries to poison hi... |
492,984 | 3,280,905 | 734,651 | 8 | A Hint of Georges Guynemer | I always liked the convoluted logic that transcends whatever we are used to in the THE TWILIGHT ZONE . This episode is not one of the best known of the episodes , but it is interesting on several levels . Kenneth Haigh is seen landing a vintage 1917 British plane into an American air base in France in 1959 . His initia... |
492,813 | 3,280,905 | 66,054 | 8 | A Sinister Philanthropist ? | This television movie appeared in 1970 , and fits an odd series of film roles that were part of the career of Burl Ives . Usually thought of as playing southern or western types , frequently Ives played characters who were millionaires or large land owners . " Big Daddy " in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF owns 10 , 000 acres of... |
491,924 | 3,280,905 | 33,117 | 8 | Lightning almost struck twice | 1939 is usually credited as the greatest year for first rate memorable Hollywood classic films ( something between a dozen and twenty five ) . But 1940 had several notably great ones : " The Grapes Of Wrath " and " The Philadelphia Story " were among them . The latter has been called the " wisest " fairy tale from Holl... |
493,296 | 3,280,905 | 70,472 | 8 | Black gold - " Oklahoma " tea | In 1973 I saw this film when it first came out accompanied with my father . We saw it in a movie house out in the Coney Island section in Brooklyn , and it was on a rarity these days - a double bill with a film from France ( I believe it was TRAFFIC by Jacques Tati ) . The movies were entertaining for a change . OKLAHO... |
491,815 | 3,280,905 | 43,949 | 8 | How we missed having the city of " Neropolis " | Henryk Sienkiewicz was one of Poland's great historical novelists , and one of the first recipients of the Nobel Prize for literature ( 1905 ) . It has only been in the last decade or so that translations of other novels by him have appeared in English , but his major work , QUO VADIS ? , has been known since it appear... |
492,188 | 3,280,905 | 87,954 | 8 | Mark Twain's Last Great Mississippi Novel | The four best known novels of Samuel Clemens are " Tom Sawyer " , " Huckleberry Finn " , " The Prince and the Pauper " , and " A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court " . All four were turned into films on several occasions . His fifth best novel is " Pudd'nhead Wilson " , written in 1894 , which is his last novel ... |
491,768 | 3,280,905 | 33,149 | 8 | The Doors Made Me Do It ! | My father had certain movies that he liked to refer to with real or imagined quotes . MILDRED PIERCE was one ( " Vita you slut ! " , he'd say as though it was said by Joan Crawford ) . But another one was the statement " The doors made me do it ! The doors made me do it ! " . He was actually quoting ( correctly , as it... |
492,093 | 3,280,905 | 39,110 | 8 | An unusual Wayne flick - but a pretty good comedy . | The plot of WITHOUT RESERVATIONS is about how popular novelist Claudette Colbert is traveling to Hollywood to assist in the screenplay of her best selling novel . The producer is Thurston Hall . But his ideas are typically grandiose - get well known Hollywood stars for the film ( the names of Cary Grant and Lana Turner... |
492,809 | 3,280,905 | 45,631 | 8 | Night and the CIty | CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS tries hard to be a major film noir , and does not quite make it . If THE RACKET had a promising central figure at sixes and sevens with the legal and illegal authorities , but no character development to explain how he got the way he did , CITY tries to be a film noir variant of those films like ... |
491,661 | 3,280,905 | 21,890 | 8 | Not as Good as the 1940 Remake , But Has Good Moments | Most of the fans of the Hecht - MacArthur stage play THE FRONT PAGE probably think that the 1940 version with Cary Grant , Rosalind Russell , and Ralph Bellamy is the best . It certainly has a spunky approach that is due to the sexual tension of the the female lead with her two male partners . But the play originally h... |
491,727 | 3,280,905 | 23,825 | 8 | Why Did You Have To Wake Me Up . . . He Was About To Do Something Cute ! | This is an interesting change of pace comedy for Jean Harlow . She is not playing a lower class shop girl or even a prostitute like in THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI or RED DUST , nor a slumming upper class girl ( as in THE PUBLIC ENEMY ) . Instead she is playing a very popular film star with a very sexy body and screen person... |
492,454 | 3,280,905 | 33,175 | 8 | A kind of friendly valentine to a foe | George Tobias is best remembered by my generation for a wonderful comic " cameo-supporting " role he had in the series BEWITCHED , opposite Alice Pearce . He was the immortal Abner Kravitz , neighbor of Samantha and Darren Stevens , who was married to the overly snoopy Gladys Kravitz ( Pearce ) , who was always certain... |
492,788 | 3,280,905 | 33,173 | 8 | Young Men and Young Women on a Small Campus | Rodgers and Hart rarely were served well in the movies . A handful of classic musicals in the middle 1930s ( including LOVE ME TONIGHT and HALLELUJAH . I'M A BUM ) and an occasional partial success ( MISSISSIPPI , abetted by Bing Crosby's voice in two standards ) , but most of their best work was shelved . The fact was... |
492,793 | 3,280,905 | 35,078 | 8 | Maugham's Look at a Driven Artist . . . Gaughin ? | This film is a good one to add to MOULIN ROUGE , LUST FOR LIFE ( especially LUST FOR LIFE ) , THE NAKED MAJA , and THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY , as one of the few to tackle the great artist struggling to perfect his art ( interestingly none of the films look at female artists , such as Rosa Bonheur or Mary Cassatt ) . In... |
492,734 | 3,280,905 | 45,782 | 8 | All About Eve made palatable | This film was made in the shadow of ALL ABOUT EVE , and paints a more benign view of that film's central situation . Ginger Rogers plays a leading Broadway star , who retains a close relationship with her former husband ( Paul Douglas ) , and works closely with playwright William Holden ( possibly a softer build-up for... |
493,217 | 3,280,905 | 35,101 | 8 | Porky's bete noir | This is an amusing cartoon , which ( as was pointed out in another comment on this thread ) was taking a typical Bugs Bunny - Elmer Fudd situation ( " Peace and welaxation at wast ! " , said Elmer in one very similar earlier cartoon ) , using Daffy Duck and Porky Pig as the alternates . At this point in time ( 1942 ) E... |
491,668 | 3,280,905 | 52,700 | 8 | Orson Welles and Leopold and Loeb | In 1924 Nathan Leopold and his friend / lover Richard Loeb were two wealthy young Chicagoans , from Jewish American families , who were extremely well educated . Both were believers in the theories ( somewhat twisted ) of Friedrich Nietzche regarding the idea of the superman . They believed that supermen could regard c... |
492,574 | 3,280,905 | 30,465 | 8 | Shown completely on YOU TUBE . | Aside from a curious double edged piece of racism , this " Silly Symphony " Cartoon is pegged on the film stars of the 1930s . I suspect more people than we can think of actually can remember most of these stars . They include , Katherine Hepburn ( as " Little Bo Peep " - rallee she is ) ; Charles Laughton , Spencer Tr... |
491,866 | 3,280,905 | 80,212 | 8 | Baldwin's Crowning Achievement - Which We Should Thank Him For | There was a time that the abdication of King Edward VIII in December 1936 was considered one of the most romantic and beautiful gestures of modern times . After all , the ruler of the greatest empire in modern time gave it away willingly because he could not rule comfortably without the love and assistance of the woman... |
493,189 | 3,280,905 | 105,017 | 8 | The Fall and Rise of " Nothing's On ! " | I was lucky enough to catch the Broadway production of NOISES OFF in the 1980s with Dorothy Louden , Paxton Whitehead , and Linda Thornton ( yes , " Tara King " from THE AVENGERS ) , and enjoyed the weird construction of the deconstruction of a farce in three acts . I have to say that Michael Frayne's play was wonderfu... |
493,444 | 3,280,905 | 524,340 | 8 | Trapping a traitor | The plot of this episode of THE BIG VALLEY was a curious one , because it invented a piece of history which ( for ought we know ) may very well have happened - but nobody has ever found conclusive proof that it did . At the start we see Victoria Barkley ( Barbara Stanwyck ) taking a buggy ride with a family friend , Ge... |
492,840 | 3,280,905 | 37,094 | 8 | The Patience of Job | Mr . Skeffington is one of Bette Davis ' best performances , and the best of the four teaming with Claude Rains ( " Now Voyager " does not have as many sequences with both of them sharing scenes as " Skeffington " ) . It is the story of a silly , vain woman who marries a man for his money , and to protect her brother... |
491,823 | 3,280,905 | 39,037 | 8 | The Price of Patriotism in 1780 | Most fans of Abbott & Costello , if they don't consider THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES the best film they made consider it among the best films they made . It is an unusual film - their is some interplay between the two in the 18th Century sequences , where Abbott's Cuthbert plays his normal bossy and unscrupulous acquaintanc... |
492,430 | 3,280,905 | 19,607 | 8 | Itinerant Musicians | YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN ' was one of the last silent films Stan and Ollie appeared in - within a year they would be in UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE , where they demonstrated that they could handle talkie films with the best of their competition . Because of it's transitional nature , there is a major problem in the opening of the... |
492,334 | 3,280,905 | 45,699 | 8 | An evil marriage between science and capitalism | Lew Ayres had a long and distinguished career in motion pictures from the 1930s until his death in 1996 . It takes in plenty of territory , such as his lead in the original ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT to his alcoholic younger brother in HOLIDAY to his psychiatrist sleuth in THE DARK MIRROR to his doctor in JOHNNY BE... |
491,833 | 3,280,905 | 80,180 | 8 | A Good Look at a Military Debacle | Isandhlwana is to the Britain what Little Big Horn is to American colonialism , and they were only three years apart in time . It was like a pair of warnings that for all the benefits and advantages of civilization and science , the western powers could still be toppled or stopped by third world powers . The lesson has... |
491,790 | 3,280,905 | 50,456 | 8 | Alistair the Assassin | THE GREEN MAN is one of the funniest black comedies ever made , but it has been hidden from most movie fans because it came in a period of many films from Britain of equal value and with higher star quality ( i . e . , Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers as the star , rather than Alistair Sim , their equal in British cinema... |
491,735 | 3,280,905 | 751,917 | 8 | The Real Firebrand of our Revolution | He wasn't always contrary and ornery . Sam Adams was once Samuel Adams whose father was a leading figure in the Massachusetts political and social world . And with a bit better luck the senior Adams might have remained that way - but he did something which was farsighted and foolish at the same time . The senior Adams ... |
492,524 | 3,280,905 | 50,468 | 8 | When in doubt , print the legend . . . . | In 1893 an American history scholar named Frederick Jackson Turner announced that as of two years before the western frontier had closed . Turner created the theory of the frontier thesis - that the frontier was the safety valve of the U . S . , where people who failed in the established eastern U . S . found a last ch... |
492,316 | 3,280,905 | 66,249 | 8 | The Private Life of the Only Fictional Character Ever Given Honorary " Reality " | The wonderful thing about Sherlock Holmes is that Arthur Conan Doyle's abilities gave us so much information ( and lack of information ) about him that we can invent details all the time . For example , in 1886 Doyle wrote a manuscript which became A STUDY IN SCARLET , and initially was entitled " A TANGLED SKEIN " . H... |
492,329 | 3,280,905 | 87,864 | 8 | Jewish Travails in Brooklyn and Manhattan | OVER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE is probably not well recalled by most people today , but the film is only twenty two years old , and certainly captured a spirit that is rarely seen in American films . For all the so call liberalism of the American cinema , certain aspects of ethnicity are quietly buried . Anti - Semitism was ... |
492,949 | 3,280,905 | 99,288 | 8 | The Shadier Side of Presidential Politics | In the later group of Columbo episodes several previous villains were able to return for new confrontations with Peter Falk . William Shatner and Robert Culp ( actually in a comic bit ) were two of the returnees , but Patrick McGoohan made two return visits . The first was this one . McGoohan is a leading criminal tria... |
493,245 | 3,280,905 | 39,335 | 8 | The Tragedy of Anthony John , Actor of New York City | A DOUBLE LIFE has developed a mystique among film fans for two reasons : the plot idea of an actor getting so wrapped up into a role ( here Othello ) as to pick up the great flaw of that character and put it into his life ; and that this is the film that won Ronald Colman the Academy Award ( as well as the Golden Globe... |
491,652 | 3,280,905 | 68,527 | 8 | A Grab-Bag Look at the Celebrities Who Made Up Edwardian England , 1901 - 1910 | The series was only shown once in the U . S . , and not in 1972 , but more likely 1975 or so . It was shown on " Masterpiece Theatre " but not the entire eight episodes . Only a few of the episodes were shown , such as one about a strike that threatened the British Music Halls , that involved Marie Lloyd ( Georgia Brow... |
493,009 | 3,280,905 | 80,120 | 8 | Believe it or not , a piece of classical Greek history transposed | I remember seeing this when it came out in 1979 . It upset many people for it's nod at the idea of street gangs as good guys . Actually , it is a bit more than that - and the street gangs are definitely not all good guys . If you study ancient Greek literature , there are three classic Greek historians . We met a bit w... |
492,670 | 3,280,905 | 97,336 | 8 | The Biggest Damn Stick in the Play Yard ! | I find it remarkable that so little was actually done with the story of the a-bomb and it's development for decades after the Manhattan Project was completed . My suspicion is that this was due to serious fears in the movie and entertainment industries ( in the 1950s through the 1970s ) with " McCarthyism " and related... |
493,378 | 3,280,905 | 32,258 | 8 | Stanley Ridges Makes The Most of It . | There are a lot of aspects about this fine film which are odd . Coming at the end of the first horror film cycle , it re-teamed Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi , but they never shared a scene in the film . The character who was most interesting ( actually two characters , literally welded into one ) was Professor George ... |
491,928 | 3,280,905 | 37,158 | 8 | Delightful , Sweet Comedy | In the late 1920s Cornelia Otis Skinner and her friend Emily Kimborough decided to travel to England and France for a vacation . It was the first time they went abroad . Cornelia was the daughter of the notable stage star character actor Otis Skinner , and he agreed to their plans because he would be going to England w... |
491,932 | 3,280,905 | 34,998 | 8 | The Theory of Degrees of Evil - Wartime Style | After THIS GUN FOR HIRE , Paramount realized they had a popular star and leading man in Alan Ladd . Good looking , and with camera angles and tricks to disguise his short height , he was soon a leading star at the studio . But like so many other good ideas , Paramounts production heads thought only of image in making L... |
492,525 | 3,280,905 | 97,289 | 8 | A Nice Sense of Period and One or Two Moments of Interesting Logic | Terry Jones wonderful examination of the mess of Viking life and legend is a funny film - almost as good as MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL . His intelligence is at work here . Jones wrote a book version of the story first , and in it examined some of the odd concepts of that remarkable period of rapine and violence . ... |
492,517 | 3,280,905 | 39,306 | 8 | A Sympathetic Viper and his Viperish Wife | A day or so ago I commented on the film ( made only a few years after wards ) that somehow resembles this one : FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG . The basic story is of two ill-matched people who are in a marriage from hell . FOOTSTEPS was about a Victorian gentleman who murders his first wife , only to be blackmailed into marryin... |
493,032 | 3,280,905 | 122,748 | 8 | Nice acting and directing job - Poe shown as Poe | I finally saw this tonight on Turner Classic Movies . Edgar Allan Poe's stories are always " expanded " for the movies , be they films by Roger Corman or films that are older ( even by D . W . Griffith , whose silent movie " The Avenging Conscience " is also based on " The Tell-Tale Heart " . The effects are mixed . Co... |
492,159 | 3,280,905 | 113,117 | 8 | Trading Timothy For Kevin | Meg Ryan , until fairly recently , had a lock on the role of adorable , " gamin " urban types , be they opposite Billy Crystal or Tom Hanks ( except in JOE VS THE VOLCANO ) . Here she played the part opposite Kevin Kline , who demonstrated his acting abilities by doing a " French accent " in his character of " Luc " . ... |
493,075 | 3,280,905 | 63,415 | 8 | Blake and Peter do one together without Insp . Jacques | It is a little uneven , but if you stick to it you end up liking this warm and fuzzy little film , the only Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers comedy without Chief Inspector Jacques Clousseau . Sellers had played an Indian before . In THE MILLIONAIRESS ( 1960 ) he was an Indian doctor working for the poor in London who at... |
492,612 | 3,280,905 | 21,709 | 8 | When George Stevens was not directing Stan and Ollie | Although slow at spots , this entry in " The Boy Friends " Series of Hal Roach shorts is quite good . It was one of several shown this morning on the Turner Classic Network as examples of shorts directed by George Stevens , George Marshall , and others , many for Roach's studios . I suppose that few of the comedy short... |
492,020 | 3,280,905 | 50,405 | 8 | Arson Case and Old Masters | This film was shown tonight on TURNER CLASSIC FILMS channel under it's American title , SHE PLAYED WITH FIRE . The title ( to be honest ) is misleading , but understandably so - Arlene Dahl's character is innocent of anything connected with fire , but for her American fans it suggested sexual promiscuity , which transl... |
491,771 | 3,280,905 | 52,323 | 8 | Seen frequently on television c . 1960 - 1976 , and hardly since then . | This review is going to be a little lop-sided . I really enjoyed this film when I was younger - and when it was frequently available on television ( usually on Channel 9 or 11 on New York City television ) . It is a " reminiscence " film : the central figure is using his ( sometimes her ) experiences to explain the way... |
492,690 | 3,280,905 | 98,831 | 8 | Allan and Rose - a forgotten love affair ? | There are a certain bunch of actors and actresses whose fates will always color our appreciation of their performances . When we watch Rock Hudson in all his sex comedies with or without Doris Day , our knowledge of his homosexuality and his death from the ravishes of A . I . D . S . will always interfere with watching... |
492,042 | 3,280,905 | 297,188 | 8 | A good , abbreviated version of the Lawrence - Lee Play | I saw this in 1965 and enjoyed it almost as much as the film version with Spencer Tracy and Frederic March . Melvyn Douglas portrayed Henry Drummond / Clarence Darrow in this version . He had briefly played the role on stage while Paul Muni was making a film or was on vacation . But more interesting was seeing Ed Begle... |
492,471 | 3,280,905 | 113,097 | 8 | You asked for it . . . . you got it . . . Toyota | FORGET Paris is a sweet romantic comedy which Billy Crystal made after his best romantic comedy , WHEN HARRY MET SALLY . This time , though , it is Debra Winger rather than Meg Ryan who is opposite him . But Winger does nicely in the Ryan part and Crystal does nicely too . Crystal is a basketball referee who is accompa... |
492,001 | 3,280,905 | 32,349 | 8 | Rivalries in a Communist " Utopia " | Ernst Lubtisch's classic comic statement about Communist Russia , NINOTCHKA , came out in 1939 . Whether it " influenced " the production ( also by MGM ) of COMRADE X or not I could not say . Certainly there are similarities between the comedies . Lubitsch set his comedy in Paris , where a Communist trade mission is li... |
492,869 | 3,280,905 | 50,307 | 8 | The First Warning of the Computer Age From Hollywood | It is hard to think that there is a road from this film to 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY . Yet there is . DESK SET was a Broadway play that was optioned by MGM , and turned in for what ( at the time ) seemed the last film co-starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy . For this purpose the role of Richard Sumner ( Tracy's ) w... |
492,888 | 3,280,905 | 41,507 | 8 | Lazslo's Valentine Now Put Back into 1890s America | In 1940 Ernst Lubitsch had done a film called THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER , based on the play PERFUMERIE by Miklos Lazslo . The comedy about two fellow employees in a store who fight all the time , and don't realize that the pen-pal they have grown to love is the same person opposite them became a film classic , and wou... |
493,172 | 3,280,905 | 26,605 | 8 | The Dangers of Reading a " Classic " Novel | I wonder how many of you read any of these novels : THE CAXTONS , THE LAST OF THE BARONS , MY NOVEL , PAUL CLIFFORD , EUGENE ARAM , THE COMING RACE . Any takers out there ? Well how about PELHAM ( which has nothing to do with an 18th Century British Prime Minister , nor an area of the Bronx near the Connecticut Border ... |
492,377 | 3,280,905 | 76,211 | 8 | Papa's Last Novel | I remember seeing this film when it came out in 1977 . The story of the publication of ISLANDS IN THE STREAM was a major literary story of the late 1970s , as Hemingway's widow found the unpublished novel , and got it published with much fanfare . Of course any time a major artist's work is rediscovered or found for th... |
492,103 | 3,280,905 | 32,373 | 8 | Hoist By Their Own Petard | Somehow I have to believe that Mel Brooks saw this film as a young man , and filed it's plot line away for future use . Basically it is an embryonic version of THE PRODUCERS , but unlike Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder - who produce a dreadful musical to score a windfall by Broadway accounting methods - Alan Mowbray and Do... |
492,163 | 3,280,905 | 17,836 | 8 | When something missing finally turns up | There are moments when scholars or specialists get really happy . When ( in the 1950s ) the play DYSKOLOS by Menander popped up ( in the hands of a Swiss bibliophile ) , the world finally had a complete play by the only other extant Greek Comic Dramatist after Aristophanes . Archeologists saw the discovery of Tutankham... |
492,647 | 3,280,905 | 39,211 | 8 | The Scoundrels We Barely Notice | I watched this last year on the Turner Network . When talking about film noir BORN TO KILL somehow manages to escape the notice of most film viewers who find meatier , better known titles ( THE BIG SLEEP , CROSSFIRE , DOUBLE INDEMNITY , THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE , even DETOUR ) more worthy of discussion . Yet it i... |
492,184 | 3,280,905 | 46,034 | 8 | A Georges Simenon Treat | Most people think of the name " Georges Simenon " and can only recall Inspector Maigret . Even Agatha Christie has two detectives to her credit ( Poirot and Miss Marple ) , and Conan Doyle did create the science fiction hero Professor Challenger besides Holmes . But Maigret is forever linked to the psychological / soci... |
492,595 | 3,280,905 | 54,651 | 8 | It's Raining In California ! | The line in the " Summary Line " is one of the last in this film - uttered by that consummate Englishman Terry-Thomas . Throughout the film he is usually carrying his brolly , but at this last moment it finally becomes useful . This nice little film came out in 1962 , but failed to do for Terry-Thomas what LOLITA or DR... |
493,297 | 3,280,905 | 32,926 | 8 | Popeye Aids Switzerland's Hero | I find this an amusing cartoon , and it does show some of the things to expect in the Fleisher studio . There is the " in-joke " of the photo of the son of William Tell ( a former star at Paramount , which produced the Fleisher cartoons ) , and the way the characters are developed . The cruel despotic governor actually... |
493,254 | 3,280,905 | 795,421 | 8 | Entertaining enough and fun , but ultimately forgettable . | Meryl Streep has actually sung in several films . She sang a great spoof of opening musical numbers in DEATH BECOMES HER , and also sang a country western tune in POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE at the end of that film . She has a good voice and can carry a tune . But this film is the first one where she is center stage in a m... |
491,664 | 3,280,905 | 120,686 | 8 | Worthy expansion and remake of " No Sad Songs For Me " | Sometimes a great star is able to make a final screen appearance that his or her fans realize is fitting their stature . Spencer Tracy did it with his final screen speech to Katherine Hepburn and the cast of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER about the lingering passions in his elderly frame towards the woman he actually did... |
492,489 | 3,280,905 | 47,969 | 8 | Incredible dance sequence - where Fred Astaire does not dance ! | Daddy Long Legs was one of those movies that were made again and again in the teens up to the 1930s , sometimes under it's own original name ( the name of the novel it was based on ) and sometimes , like in a Shirley Temple version called " Curley Top " , under a different name . Although Mary Pickford was in a silen... |
493,061 | 3,280,905 | 19,946 | 8 | Before there was a Maxwell Freer . . . | Erich Von Stroheim will always have his champions - there was a great artist in him . When I reviewed the fragments of " Queen Kelly " a few days back , I said that his method is time consuming compared to what a normal film editing / directing job is like , but it does hold one's attention closely . " Queen Kelly " ha... |
492,108 | 3,280,905 | 46,072 | 8 | A Peculiarly Hard Bank Note to Spend | This is an amusing trifle , set at the turn of the century in England , but based on a story by Mark Twain of all people . Twain at his best could take a trifling idea and run off with it . He demolishes detectives in " The Stolen White Elephant " , which describes the ineptitude of detectives in finding a huge creatur... |
492,591 | 3,280,905 | 46,054 | 8 | The Curse of the Duries | It is generally conceded today that Robert Louis Stevenson's two greatest works are the unfinished novel WEIR OF HERMISTON , and the completed THE MASTER OF BALLENTRAE . The latter story ( published in 1889 ) is centered on a filial rivalry and hatred that lasts literally until the death of the two brothers involved . ... |
492,060 | 3,280,905 | 30,287 | 8 | It was 1852 - 53 " dumplins " , 1852-53 ; and women did not get suffrage until 1920 ! | Let's put the best features forward . JEZEBEL is a superbly acted film and well directed . Both Bette Davis and Fay Bainter deserved their Oscars for their performances in the film . Davis's Julie has a remarkably blind spot about how far womens rights have gone in the age of Millard Fillmore , for it is only four year... |
492,997 | 3,280,905 | 34,890 | 8 | A Film Slightly Ahead Of It's Time About Race Relations and Incest | IN THIS OUR LIFE is like the forgotten serious drama in Bette Davis ' best years at Warner Brothers . Reputedly she did not care for it , but I find that hard to believe . In here half-autobiography , MADAM GODDAMN , Bette mentions that she liked the positive image of Ernest Anderson's character of Parry Clay . For thi... |
492,088 | 3,280,905 | 11,071 | 8 | Golf and Prison Experiences : An odd combo | Buster Keaton's films will always be amusing , but that doesn't mean they are flawless . This is a good short comedy he was making on his way up , and shows he is learning his craft . But the key to this film is a little flaw that is not really resolved until the last shot . The short is really two shorts stitched toge... |
493,199 | 3,280,905 | 87,559 | 8 | The Isolated Shakespeare History Play | In the early 1980s the B . B . C . did the complete plays of William Shakespeare in a series that ran over five years . They played in the U . S . A . once , and then never played again . It's a pity , because some of the Shakespeare plays ( TIMON OF ATHENS , PERICLES , PRINCE OF TYRE , ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL , CYMBE... |
492,355 | 3,280,905 | 70,395 | 8 | Streamlined version of the 1947 Classic , but reasonably good | I watched this last night on television for the first time ( I did not see it when it came out in 1973 ) . It sticks to the basics of the story : a jolly , fat old man named Kris Kringle ( now Sebastian Cabot ) is hired by Karen Walker ( now Jane Alexander ) to replace a drunken Santa Clause at the Thanksgiving Day Par... |
492,426 | 3,280,905 | 14,903 | 8 | Finally seeing Harry Langdon in a decent comedy | Although one of the excerpts for Robert Youngson's WHEN COMEDY WAS KING , this short with Harry Langdon is very funny - and shows the comedian as he was advancing to that peak he shared for about a year in the 1920s with Chaplin , Keaton , and Lloyd . Harry and his wife ( Alice Day ) have just moved to a new home , and... |
492,878 | 3,280,905 | 89,767 | 8 | Clint Mixes Western and Allegory | In talking about COMES A HORSEMAN I discussed a curious switch in the stereotypes of the characters there - that Jason Robards was not the all powerful land baron that appears in say SHANE . Oddly enough the same thing happens with Richard Dysart in this film , but while COMES A HORSEMAN is set in the late 1940s , PALE... |
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