Golden Age of Hollywood Book Club discussion

I used to watch Barney Miller all the time. The ensemble acting was great and what characters!

The marijuana episode. Historic.

Yeah! and it wasn't 'forced' feeling ...or 'required' multi-culturalism. That's simply the way any adequate New York-based story setting is. Everyone is from somewhere else; everyone is an immigrant. It's a given, it doesn't have to be 'mandated'.

the other thing I saw in this brief scene was that Gregory Sierra (whom, I assume, is/was in real life, Hispanic?) plays his Latino detective with Latino mindset and Latino mannerisms.

The citizen who sits down with some weirdo problem, Sierra types up the info --but as the guy unravels and shows he is nutty; Sierra pulls long faces, grows more astonished, waves his hands about, rolls his eyes, and then speaks rapid-fire back at him and tries to show the New Yorker how silly he is; reminds the befuddled nut of basic life-sense. What I mean is, common sense which comes from knowing who you are, having an identity.

We can infer from the way Sierra's character is written, that he loves his mama ('Tu madre') and he has a big family and a crazy girlfriend is just a normal, typical Latino male in New York apart from his being a detective. The writers keep that in the show. The 'cultural' aspect is in the forefront, Sierra's detective basically challenges the guy, ("oy! where is your sense, man?")

Whereas today's TV, programs will cast 'ethnic actors' sure ...but they play 'white character' parts. All their ethnicity is removed. Totally the wrong way around.

Omigod. I just chatted with someone who did not know that 'From Here to Eternity' was a movie. They had to look it up to find this out. It was, 'some movie, that was pretty heavily-awarded in the fifties or sometime like that'.

Just think..they missed Lancaster and Kerr giving their all in the surf!

they stole that scene from the Pacific Ocean! not easy to do

The film that saved Francis's career.

It did indeed, Spencer even though he had to get killed to save it!


I never thought that Deborah Kerr was sexy enough for the part of the cheating wife.

Feliks wrote: "Omigod. I just chatted with someone who did not know that 'From Here to Eternity' was a movie. They had to look it up to find this out. It was, 'some movie, that was pretty heavily-awarded in the f..."

I wonder if they even know about the book.

Jill wrote: "It did indeed, Spencer even though he had to get killed to save it!


I never thought that Deborah Kerr was sexy enough for the part of the cheating wife."


The whole story of Frank and that part is amazing. He read the book and said "that's me. That's the people I grew up with. I have to play this." Nobody believed him until he screen tested the bar scene.

She wasn't sexy enough, but she was spot-on in the scenes where she's irked at Warden. Burning eyes.

I wonder who would've been better cast in that flick?

Another plot question: why was Warden keen on being with her at all, since the rumors around camp were that she was easy meat, always wanting a man at every base Holmes was posted to? That's a lot of men. Even Warden's best buddy confirmed he had been with her at least once.

And then, once she confessed to him that Holmes had given her VD resulting in a stillbirth and infertility --why did he still want her? Sorry to be blunt. I've read the book (like Brandon de Wilde did in 'Hud') but I can't recall if author James Jones really asserted that Warden was in love with her? Despite all these negatives?

I guess every base had one and Jones, who never minced words, added the VD aspect for a little extra punch. She and Warden looked like a mismatch to me and I could never buy into their relationship. I don't think that the author ever stated that Warden was in love with her, just maybe in lust. (It has been a while since I read the book).

As far as Kerr in the part, I think Ava Gardner would have been more believable as "used goods". She oozed infidelity and bad girl vibes. When she walked into the film, you would have known immediately that there was trouble ahead. But maybe they thought that since Kerr was being cast against type, it would be more effective. Don't get me wrong.....she was good in the part and it was certainly different seeing her play it.

I like Kerr's portrayal because it did indeed seem as if she was (inwardly) writhing with disgust at herself, her cheated dreams, and the unexpected turns her life had taken. She looked as if she was 'beyond scandalized' with her own wanton behavior.

Question: How many films can you name featuring a plot where people search for lost / missing pets?

Hmm. That's pretty much the whole plot of For the Love of Benji. Plus the underlying 007 thing. And a little bit of Italian uber-realism.

There's just so many scenes of Benji walking around European streets looking pathetic. It could be Bicycle Thrives or Pickpocket.

Spencer wrote: "Jill wrote: "It did indeed, Spencer even though he had to get killed to save it!


I never thought that Deborah Kerr was sexy enough for the part of the cheating wife."


The whole story of Frank a..."

Definitely one of my favorite Hollywood stories. But I just love Frank. He and Ella are simply the best interpreters of the Great American Songbook.

Yes, I thought of Benji. But I need stories of humans looking for their pets; not pet-centric stories where the pet is searching for their human. Therefore, no Disney's 'Incredible Journey'.

Like, 'Come Back Little Sheba'.

Did the deer get lost in 'The Yearling'?

Did 'Ole Yeller' get lost?

Well, For the Love of Benji is an interesting and somewhat bizarre seqqel that deserved a mention. And just because I am that sick, I am also going to bring up Vacation.

I saw 'Ole Yellerand never watched another film about animals. Why is it that I can watch people get killed or die in films and don't keep thinking about it for months? When animals are involved, I am a weeping mess.

Well that particular flick is one that can make a grown man break down and weep ...

One movie like that is worth the entire career of someone like Q. Tarantino, bleh!

"So they call me, 'Concentration-Camp' Ernhardt, eh??"

H'mmm

To Be Or Not To Be???????

Why certainly. But this isn't the photo quiz thread

:>(

trivia assist!

We all know the bits in Bugs Bunny shorts where he gets pinned by some menacing, hulking villain and what he does to escape is bat his eyelashes (like Groucho Marx?) and coos:

"You mad impetuous boy you! Why, this is so sudden! I didn't know you cared....we really have to stop meeting this way, people will begin to talk..."

It's such a common gag in comedy, I never really tried to trace where it began. Similar to a phrase like, 'the butler did it' in the mystery genre. Except in that case, I know that came from Mary Roberts Rhineheart, if memory serves.

I bet it probably is taken from a Marx Bros movie ...but even if it is found in Marx Bros, where are they spoofing it from?

I think Daffy Duck was good at that as well, wouldn't surprise me one bit if it came from the Marx Brothers, but I'm sure some silents in the early years of the 20th century some damsels in distress did that.

But it must have been played as a 'straight' line somewhere, somehow, some long time ago ...maybe on the dramatic stage? Before it became self-conscious and mawkish; before wags began aping it. That's what I need to hear. Where was the original.

Probably goes further back that Cleopatra.

Well Cleopatra didn't spikka de Engleze... but it could be a line by Theda Bara perhaps. Ulp! She didn't speak either!

unrelated item: someone was asking around today for 'relationship' movies.

We don't often talk of romance around here but in doing so, we overlook a sore issue in today's modern American movie scene. Namely that we've practically witnessed the extermination of 'relationship' movies. Remember those? Not romances, but movies about coping couples. How many are there anymore? One or maybe two per year? Even if you dislike romance flicks, this is a momentous occasion.

It seems like today's audience is just too flip and snarky, too smug and preoccupied. Too busy to 'feel'.

Anyway I did my best to rattle off some titles to satisfy the inquiry.
What do you think?


'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' (Mike Nichols)
'Islands in the Stream' (George C. Scott)
'Two for the Road' (Albert Finney)
'The Gin Game (filmed stage play)'
'Painting Churches (filmed stage play)'
'A Streetcar Named Desire' (Tennessee Williams)
'The Fugitive Kind' (Tennessee Williams)
'Too Far To Go' (Michael Moriarty, Blythe Danner)
'The Great Santini' (Blythe Danner, Robert Duvall)
'The Seduction of Joe Tynan' (Alan Alda)
'The Four Seasons' (Alan Alda, Carol Burnett)
'Modern Love' (Albert Brooks)
'Tomorrow' (from W. Faulkner, stars Robert Duvall)
'Brideshead Revisited' (Jeremy Irons)
'The French Lieutenant's Woman' (Jeremy Irons)
'The Ebony Tower' (Olivier)
'Atlantic City' (Louis Malle)
'Far from the Madding Crowd' (Alan Bates)
'The Lion in Winter' (Hepburn & O'Toole')

I know the Marx Brothers films fairly well and that is not in them as far as I can remember. Maybe it was Mae West.....sounds like something she would say cynically.

Your list of 'relationship' films are interesting, but many are troubled relationships, not exactly the kind you might want in your own family. Just look at Henry II and his little group. I wouldn't trust his children or wife. Robin Hood makes Richard I look like a hero, but that was hardly true.

Agreed. As I hoped I said above, they are films about people trying to cope with their relationships.

It just strikes me that this is something we don't see at all anymore; when once they were commonplace. Think of the filmography of say, George Segal, or Elliott Gould.

Yeah, a lot of those romances ain't too romantic. I am particularly thinking about Two for the Road and Who's Afraid...
I think I might disagree with your belief about the number of romance films though. Though I suppose in sheer volume, it's a lot more teen romance. But there's still some quality adult romance in the indie world.

Here is my list of romance films I've rated in order of quality first and by chronology within each rating.

https://rateyourmusic.com/film_collec...

can you name the first movie which made you keen on a particular star?

I'm thinking tonight of Marlene Dietrich. I knew her name and her rep before I actually saw her in anything.

If the first couple movies of hers I saw were things like 'Destry Rides Again' then she didn't impress me.

It was not until I saw her in 'The Garden of Allah' that I started to sense how 'big' a star she really was. Yep. That flick and then, 'Catherine the Great'. Whew.

Since I think I may have only seen her in 'Witness for the Prosecution', I would say that was quite impressive.

She was terrific in that film, Betsy and it was an atypical role for her. She actually could act although in her early Hollywood career she was usually cast as "the mysterious woman" of loose morals.

I've been listening to Katrina Longworth's podcasts You Must Remember This, Make Me Over, the one about Molly O'Day, Hollywoods first weight loss surgery in 1929 was like a horror movie.

Tell us more about that, 99.99

Her contract kept her at a certain unrealistic weight for her, she was always fighting with the studio heads or mangers to get her weight down before doing a picture, some times they cut her slack other times she didn't, the weight loss operation she went thur was actually cutting fat/muscle from her legs, that didn't do her any good at all. Almost like her doctor was out Frankenstein.

http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast...

Thanks for the information and the link.

I highly recommend Longworth's, You Must Remember This, for her podcasts on the early days of Hollywood. Good stuff.

Sounds like idea of 'acceptable torture' to be thin and beautiful has always been part of the Hollywood scene.

the one about Molly was the first episode of the beauty treatment for the Star's.
Yea it has I didn't realize that it could be so devastating to some. I've read some horror storied from the modeling world, looks like Hollywood is not far behind.

There certainly is a difference between thin and emaciated which seems to be the new "thin".

Difference in intellect as well. Can you imagine someone like Bette Davis allowing herself to be turned into such a lap dog for anyone?

The whole cosmetic surgery thing is out of hand. Look at someone like Melanie Griffith with those huge lips and slanted eyes. It is not attractive, it is just creepy. And then some actors make a simple mistake which kills their career. An example is Jennifer Gray, who had a bit of a big nose which gave her that really cute look......she had surgery and didn't even look like the same person. Bye, bye, career. There is such a thing as aging gracefully.....look at Lillian Gish, who had a long and successful career by adapting her roles to her age.