Golden Age of Hollywood Book Club discussion

Your little treatise on sound was quite interesting, Feliks. The voices of Orson Welles, James Earl Jones ,Olivier,Gielgud, and Richardson are so very effective and can give the listener a chill, especially when they speak the words/verses of classic literature. But there is one actor who is noted for his voice which I really don't understand.....Ronald Coleman. It doesn't have the resonance of the ones mentioned above and athough he is a fine actor, I don't think he belongs in the same category. Just my opinion.

Thanks! Now, Coleman ...h'mm, well if you don't hear any charm in his tone of voice, you don't hear it --and there's nothing wrong with your ears. To each his own.

I admit I don't often give very much thought to Ronald Coleman; though I've enjoyed him in plenty of flicks. Not sure why this is. Seems to have been a decent gob.

He did have a popular career in radio however on the strength of that voice of his. I think most folks did find it appealing; he was a regular target of impersonators as was Cary Grant.

His own show 'Halls of Ivy' (with his wife) was an unrelated spin-off from his successful bit-part on the Jack Benny Program, where he was hilarious playing himself as Jack's neighbor and barely able to conceal his disgust residing next to him.

He was also a regular on something called. 'The Big Show' --a rigorously scripted variety fest with Groucho, Tallulah, Cary, and Carole Lombard. I dunno; I like him and I think his voice was found by most to be rather sonorous. But this isn't to say that we all must think so.

I agree he wasn't in the top tier of English talent --wouldn't we agree he's rather like a British version of Clark Gable?--but he could be very good on occasion. What's that Hitch film where he plays a Shakespearian actor losing his mind. I thought that was an effective vehicle for him.

The film was A Double Life. Don't get me wrong....I liked his acting and his voice had that crystal cut edge to it but I just can't put in the same category as the ones we mentioned.

I really like Ronald Coleman. He was terrific in 'Random Harvest.'

re: audio and visual stimuli; I've seen John Huston and Walter Murch both speak on this in interviews and in books. Murch is a famous film editor, relied on by Coppola and others.

Directors are keen on what the human eye does; but they're usually intent on the values of composition to hold and literally lead the eye to where they want it to go. These principles go all the way back to Renaissance discoveries.

Murch and other editors are aware of how the eye behaves too; and there's a lot to it. Our eye darts around in certain ways when receiving information; this reflects psychological impulses. For instance, we look 'down' when we lie; we look 'up' when we call on memory. But this mental linkage is also why the idea of the 'Ludivoco Treatment' is so terrifying. If you were forced to look at horrible images without being allowed to blink, you would suffer severe mental trauma.

But there's a physical aspect, too. Conservation of energy. The muscles of the eye constantly strive for economy. Eye muscles automatically blink for us (fast or slow depending on different circumstances) but they also 'sneak in' extra blinks whenever they can.

John Huston demonstrated this to Bill Moyers once by holding up his right-hand forefinger in front of his face, making sure he focused on it, and then raising his left-hand forefinger out a few feet away. As Moyer's eyes roved to his right to register the new composition, Huston observed his inbetween-blink which Moyers himself, couldn't detect. Basically, anytime our eyes focus on a compositional change we reflexively blink as the eye moves in the socket.

And there's all sorts of additional 'one-off' instances where it happens. For example, when we understand an idea, we blink when our brain 'stores' that understanding. When someone 'teaches you something', you blink as you 'sock it away'.

Murch says he cuts a scene whenever the protagonist blinks; that's the point at which the idea we have about the character shifts. We watch the strong play of emotion on Hackman's face (in 'The Conversation') as he is immersed in his character, but as soon as he blinks Murch will cut away. Because the character's mind moved on to something else; and so must we. We 'got' the idea; and then it's time to move on to the next (which will be the next time Hackman's face goes 'still' as he registers a mood).

The inverse to all this though --something I've never seen anyone report on --is what makes (not just our eyes) but our brains, 'tired' and 'bored'? As stated above, our eye muscles blink anytime they can spare our eyes from getting weary or dry. But what's the level atop that?

Think about anytime you've done drudgery. Treadmill workout, or maybe some tedious visual task at work. Filing papers or sorting photographs. Sometimes, chores can be very mind-numbing. Visual repetition quickly becomes intolerable. What saves the day? Audio. If we can listen to music as we work, we get through it. Same thing when driving long distances. There's an unchanging view in the windshield. So we must have the variety of the open window, or the radio to compensate for the monotony.

But what about situations where the visual is constant/unchanging; but the audio is discordant? Have you ever been sat down by a parent or a coach, or a teacher and lectured to? You can't rise to leave until they are finished railing at you. They 'get in your face', not allowing you to glance around the room. Eyeball to eyeball. These are withering experiences because you weren't allowed to choose: you got a barrage of mind-numbing audio and a static visual at the same time. You sat there squirming until they were through. This is the last thing we ever want, right?

Or even simpler: why is a 'boring high school English class' so 'boring'? For the same reasons. 'Static' visual (an unchanging room you've sat in all semester) and added to this, the 'drone' of a teacher presenting dull English lessons.

My point in this case is this: we can always tolerate dull visuals if we have varietal audio to stimulate our attention. Some art movies have scenes of 'dead visual' space --but as long as there's a soundtrack, we will stay interested, we can sit there with a different blink-rate and get through it.

Some movies have rapid, fascinating sequences of images and we temporarily forget about audio unless the audio jars or conflicts. Then we say 'good movie, but totally ruined by the music'(!)

Most scenes in most movies though, possess flat / unchanging imagery (talking heads, faces with lips moving, clothed people standing around eating, drinking) yet are still great --and why? Because of great dialogue. 'Twelve Angry Men' is not a visually great film. It's just a bland, sweaty room. But the dialogue makes us want to be there in that room.

A great movie is when images are supported by unobtrusive audio. Similarly, an effective lecture happens when a lecturer is complemented by visual aids. (That's why charts, maps, diagrams, and slideshows all came about, right?)

What about books? Easy. First: can you read in a noisy environment? Noises of machinery or traffic? No. We can read at the seashore though; we enjoy a novel if we can 'tune out' all background noise. Why is this? Cuz we read for imagery. Whether Gandalf or Gatsby. If a book doesn't excite our visual sense, then we are bored and our eyes drift off the page and look desperately around the room for 'something else to look at'.

Final proof: what happens when you enjoy amazing audio? What happens when you experience a symphony or a concerto? We close our eyes, yes? Certainly. We close our eyes to reduce distraction.

Even when we smell something wonderful or taste some exotic food --we usually squeeze our eyes shut to clear off the extra, unnecessary stimuli and concentrate on the really exciting input.

I guess what I'm stating is that although we are tremendously visual creatures, most of the visual world is inherently boring. It rather shows why directors and editors must exert so much effort. To make a film vivid is to make it concise.

The bottom line is that even though we fill our modern lives with imagery, audio has a much more powerful effect on our nervous system. Jarring audio disrupts our concentration immediately unless we can tune-it-out. But we can adjust to unpalatable visuals anytime our aural environment is on our side.

"The '41 boat's been hoggin' all the good jobs, sir!'


'The '41 boat can't handle this job alone, sir!'


'Hey Rusty --who are you fighting for? Yourself?'

Very interesting post, Feliks. The slam, bang visuals of many films do not make it a good film if the dialogue is inane or uninteresting. You made a great point re; Twelve Angry Men - basically a one set film with great dialogue. And I'm sure there are many films that fit into that category...limited physical settings but excellent words. The cult film Detour which was made on the cheap and could only use basically two sets still holds the attention due to the dialogue. Inherit The Wind also comes to mind as a visually static film which is made great due to its script.

It has been proven that "white noise" is soothing to the brain and is a wonderful sleep aid. And think how you feel when you listen to great classical music....relaxed and content (unless it is the 1812 Overture!!) Flashing lights and rapid action on film has the opposite effect.....it makes the viewer less attentive to the words being spoken by the actors

This discussion brings up a conundrum. I would wager that if you ask people if they would have to be either blind or deaf, 99% would choose deaf.

Jill wrote: "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 role her age...."

It's a strange situation when our media has become so filled with perfect faces that someone with simple, natural, uncorrected, Midwestern features stands out in the first place as extraordinary. I say again that in the 1930s, there were more variety than just glamorous actresses and hunksome leading men.

Lilian Gish: would probably have been an inwardly strong, self-reliant woman in any industry she worked in. Her wisdom in acting her age reflects a kind of confidence that most modern-day Hollywood people seem to lack. They're 'lost' without their looks.

I despise these primadonnas lately that --whenever they're on a set --they insist on elaborate 'advance handling of their presence'. No one on the crew is even allowed to gaze at them, much less address them with a question or a comment. You're not allowed to go up to them at all. They have exotic food and drugs flown in for them while they work --special privileges galore --and even then, are still apt to spazz out, go berserk, or get someone fired because their lofty eminence wasn't respected enough.

Well-known offenders? Brad Pitt. Christian Bale. 'A cat may look at a king' (Cervantes) --they don't get it.

But the whole landscape today is just wrong because so many people simply pander and play along with this BS. It undercuts the entire principle. Used to be, if a humble gaffer or grip was spat on by a hoity-toity starlet, I'd be outraged.

But heck ..these days, if that lowly nitwit coolie has a smartphone or tablet and 'follows' these celebs on Facebook (and consequently allows themselves be spat on), then I lose my indignation over it.

The Slender Thread is another good film with almost no change of set. In fact, Anne Bancroft is the voice on the other line for most of it.

I just thought of another one which really concentrates on one set only........Sorry, Wrong Number with an exemplary performance by Barbara Stanwyck. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and almost the whole film is made up of telephone conversations. Beautifully done.

Yes indeed. And any number of stage-plays as well. The principle applies in all our communication and media.

You can sure see it anytime you take a movie and 'fast-forward' through it on your screen. Unless its a genre (slapstick, SF, or thriller), you can clearly detect that there is hardly any real change in the settings depicted in a movie. Whenever characters are in a room or set for a significant plot point, that environment is maintained quite a good long while as far as the eye is concerned. We rove our pupils over it in the first few instants and take it all in. After that, our interest must be charmed with audio. Thus, most of a story in a film is 'told' to us.

So it's a mark of how deft silent films were that they kept people from squirming. There's a certain point at which we all feel a wave of disappointment as a 'talky' scene goes on too long. The duty of good dialogue is to prevent that.

You are so right about silent films........view The Wind with the talented Lillian Gish. Although there is no audio obviously, the story is beautifully told through the direction of the scenes which speak volumes. I actually don't think it would have made a good "talkie". There are some films which were better made as silents. Once talkies came along, some directors learned quickly that dialogue had to be carefully crafted to hold interest. Some of the very early talkies were so boring since they were all made up of practically meaningless talk, talk, talk.

That's a very good point, Jill. Even the hilarious scene when Don Lockwood in 'Singin' in the Rain' goes on and on with 'I love you' showed how important real dialogue was.

It can happen (and still does happen) even in the very latest films made this week, this month. this year. There's no way any production team can ever --or should ever --whiff on dialog, not unless they enjoy losing money and reputation. Moviegoers still wrinkle their noses immediately at the first trace of a 'talky' scene.

Bland, pointless visuals alone don't cut it either. Our brain is so deft at pattern prediction that it will race ahead of any series of images. What we want is meaning.

You might go so far as to say that all this is why the whole 'Hollywood style' of tight close-ups evolved; as we see in 'Casablanca'.

What's better than being only inches away from a face like Bergman's as her eyes start to get dewy?

Telly Savalas, Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. At the peak of their powers. Excellent to be reminded of a fine film like 'Slender Thread' again.

Slender Thread and 12 Angry Men and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf are very stage-y. But there's still some great subtle cinematography.

Been watching a lot of 60's and 70's non-holiday Charlie Brown. Though most were made for TV, because they were specials and not weeklies, the quality was as good as Warner in the 50's.

the whole 'ration card' system for food which they had during WWII is incredible

can you imagine the uproar if this were in place today?

I have my parent's war ration card covers and I framed one for me and one for my sister for display. They make a great talking point!

Spencer wrote: "Slender Thread and 12 Angry Men and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf are very stage-y. But there's still some great subtle cinematography."

You hit on an important point, Spencer. Even if a film has great dialogue, the cinematography is equally important as long as it is done to highlight the scene and not take away from the words. It takes some talent to film a enclosed jury room to enhance the dialogue and keep it interesting.

That kind of scene, I would still wind up broadly designating as 'too talky' --but for different reasons than we cited earlier.

I mean, I can just faintly conceive that someone, somewhere out there, might find 'Twelve Angry Men' too talky.

Even when it comes to a movie with superb, thoughtful, provocative, one-on-one dialogue (such as 'My Dinner With Andre') some viewers will still label it 'too talky'. But 'too talky' in this case really means, 'too erudite, too esoteric'.

Their standpoint is really this: 'anytime there's too much talk, its automatically bad'. Becket? Bad. Hamlet's speech? Bad. They will get bored with any kind of dialogue no matter how rich and complex.

Yes, a viewer wilting at 'Twelve Angry Men' might mean that the photography could've been better. Far-fetched, but possible.

I've heard people slur 'Dinner with Andre' and I'm willing to concede that in that case, Louis Malle might just not have been able to pull off his plan as envisioned.

It might just be that Sidney Lumet is sharper than Louis Malle with his camera ....or,it might just be (dare we say it?) that an individual audience member couldn't hang with pure-dialogue movie no matter how good it is and so the blame is really theirs.

But some viewers are so attuned to visuals --they're still in the cartoon-mindset they grew up on --that they just aren't going to grasp a 100% 'talking head' flick full of adult themes and no spoon-fed action at all.

Admittedly, 'Twelve Angry Men' seems to have variety, seems to have 'tension', seems to have 'suspense', seems to have 'stakes'. 'Dinner with Andre' lacks those qualities. This might be another factor. Eh.

Can't remember if it was Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes, but there was a strip where it was just two characters with talk balloons over their heads complaining about how comics weren't really art anymore--they were just characters with talk balloons over their heads.

The whole dang USA moves too fast these days for any kind of art or craft. Fleeting, split-second glances --no matter what they happen to see --that's all anyone seems able to spare.

Ivor Novello is another type similar to Rudolf Valentino.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_No...

Quite a character. He was the figure that young Noel Coward looked up to as an idol.

Starred in 'The Lodger' (silent) by Hitchcock; but when he hit Hollywood all he was able to find for work was 'writing dialogue for 'Tarzan the Ape Man', (ha)

He was also a playwright in England and quite successful. He was called the "most beautiful man in the movies" in the UK. I never knew he tried his hand at Hollywood.

Suffice to say that he was not 'just another pretty face'. He actually possessed theatrical talent.

Here is that face, nonetheless

Hoot! I love that classic war movie trope where the men are either POWs, or just privates gathered around the chow line in camp.

Either an officer or a noncom strides over to taste the 'soup' being prepared by one of the men. He wants to throw his weight around or otherwise show off his authority.

The joke is always the same but it never fails to make me guffaw.

He dunks a ladle in the pot, draws it to his mouth, and sucks down a mouthful.

'Soldier! You call this soup?!'

'No sir. I call that our dishwater...'

Betsy! You're a WWII buff. I need the name of a common make/model of mortuary vehicle used in Great Britain in the 1930s. I know about 'Tillies' but I'd like a specific manufacturer. Halp!

This link has the best info so far, I'm thinking maybe they used a Humber Pullman?

https://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au...

I may be interested in WWII, but I know little to nothing about vehicles in the WWII period. If you like, I can ask some of the members of the group I belong to. Many of them are experts. Just write out your specific question, and I'll post it.

aww. I've already asked Aussie Rick and his boys ...thx,,,

If anybody will know it, it will be the guys in AR's club. They are students of the war(s).

That's what I thought too, Jill. Sorry that I can't help, Feliks. My interests settle more on battles.

Question: in Hitchcock's 'Foreign Correspondent' (1940) the chase scene early on in the film. Can someone summarize for me what goes on?

Sorry, I haven't seen it.

I'm guessing that you mean McCrea, Day, and Sanders chasing a car. They think that someone shot at the ambassador is in the car and they are after them.

Yes that's it but what kind of action is it?

If memory serves, its fairly rousing action but really, Joe McCrea merely perches on the outside of his chase-vehicle using the running-board; and he does this because otherwise his car would have pulled away to speed after the culprit's car without him. Right? Is that about the size of it?

How does the chase actually end, any details on that?

It leads them to a windmill where the ambassador, still alive, is being held by spies. It is just s set-up piece to the discovery that the ambassador is going to be spirited away to Germany(?) The ambassador is just a reason for McCrea and Sanders to find the leader of the spy ring who you can figure out pretty quickly. I think that's about it.......I haven't seen it for a while. The plane crash at the ending is the highlight of the film and very well done before the days of all the sfx of the present day.

I grasp all that yes, but I'm asking specifically about the stunt sequence.

McCrea (or his stunt double) hops on the outside of a car driven by ...an ally? Someone he knows? Or just a random car?

Its a busy London street with cars veering all over and he must hang on tight. The goal is simply for him to not lose sight of the vehicle in the distance ahead. When they reach ...the train station? Or where? He simply hops off. Then he pursues the car's passengers on foot, on the sidewalk or into a building.


Right? Is this correct?

It seems to me lately --and I wonder why it seems this way --but every dang American male I know --even close friends --seem to possess the personality of Paul Lazzaro.

You know that Kurt Vonnegut villain played by Oscar-winner Ron Leibman in George Roy Hill's 'Slaughterhouse-Five'.

Vengeful, spiteful, petty, hoarse, deranged.



Why is this?

Mildly surprised to discover I can't find a good picture of him on the 'net. What a coincidence. You'd think he'd be more of a cult hero these days.

p.s. and does Ron have any earlobes or no?

Feliks wrote: "I grasp all that yes, but I'm asking specifically about the stunt sequence.

McCrea (or his stunt double) hops on the outside of a car driven by ...an ally? Someone he knows? Or just a random car?
..."

The car that McCrea jumps on just happens to contain Day and Sanders. They follow the bad guys to the windmill and then they go for help, leaving McCrea there. Does that answer your question or am I misunderstanding you?

That helps yes.

So probably Sanders is behind the wheel, Day is in shotgun, McCrea hops on and Sanders threads his way through traffic to keep the lead car in sight and the thrill is that McCrea has to hug the side of the car to make sure he is not clipped by any other vehicle Sanders may be passing too narrowly. Agreed?

Makes sense. It is the airplane crash that sticks in my mind from that film. So well done.

Nice picture of Gloria Holden on the home page, Feliks!!!

Thanks! Just noticed that, did ye?

I have my computer set up to go straight to the topics and not the home page. I better start looking at the home page more often since I was very pleased to see that picture of Holden/

I try to change it once every three weeks or so; it happens at random I admit. Sometimes eight weeks or six months. Not a big priority on my to-do list

It's hard to find picture-purveyors out there on the net who possess the same skewed taste as I do