tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post7931721990200127387..comments2024-03-27T14:57:37.031+05:30Comments on Jabberwock: Film classics: Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South StreetJabberwockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-22552647229323667352009-07-10T17:33:15.932+05:302009-07-10T17:33:15.932+05:30You really should stop posting blogs about movies ...You really should stop posting blogs about movies from now on...<br /><br />They are really distract me from my work (I just spent 3 hours on my office computer reading your blogs on various movies and the links from those) and make me ask uncomfortable questions of myself.<br /><br />Seriously, stop!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-12571257939681278162009-07-08T11:50:52.889+05:302009-07-08T11:50:52.889+05:30Jai:
If TCM did that, I'd die too. Hopefully, ...Jai:<br />If TCM did that, I'd die too. Hopefully, sense prevails.<br /><br />I'm thinking of having a Widmarkometer - that's how you judge if the self-confessed Hollywood classics fan really is one.??!noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-38814460087259967462009-07-08T01:12:57.135+05:302009-07-08T01:12:57.135+05:30"Richard Widmark was one of his favorite acto..."Richard Widmark was one of his favorite actors in the whole world, he told her, because of the way in which Widmark was able to convey, what was the word, resilience. You could knock Richard Widmark down, he said, you could even knock Richard Widmark down repeatedly, but you had better bear in mind while knocking Richard Widmark down that Richard Widmark was pretty damn sure going to bounce back up and batter your conk--"<br /><br />"Redford is the one I like", she says. <br /><br />- Donald Barthelme 'Visitors'.Falstaffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09791162324919462038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-29721720122854535482009-07-07T19:10:18.168+05:302009-07-07T19:10:18.168+05:30Jabberwock, I agree with you re: Widmark.Its just ...Jabberwock, I agree with you re: Widmark.Its just that I saw KOD and Public Enemy at around the same time,so I remember Cagney and Widmark together.In fact in his role in another noir Panic on the Streets, in which Palance and Widmark costarred, he couldn't be further away from the Tommy Udo persona.<br />I don't remember seeing any artificially colored movie on TCM.Anyway there are three channels of classic movies to choose from in Canada: TCM, Silver Screen Classics and AMC.These and the imdb, every day one can get at least one really good movie! If only there was a channel subscribing exclusively to non-English movies,my course would be made.<br />--------------------------------<br />I have this theory on the greatness of the noir and western movies.These genres were so polished by repetition that every new movie besides being an entity in itself was a new layer in the interpretation of the genre, and that enhanced its flavor.A genre movie automatically inherits the rich metaphors and then it only has to give its own take on it.You don't have to spend time and effort establishing the basic premises of the story.Rahulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08600228969911790479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-47647378604925791552009-07-07T11:44:26.620+05:302009-07-07T11:44:26.620+05:30"Also, many of the more overtly 'artistic..."Also, many of the more overtly 'artistic' directors in the 60s and 70s (the likes of Godard, Truffaut, Scorsese) were heavily inspired by the countless films churned out by studio factories in the 40s/50s."<br /><br />There are many such examples throughout movie history. As we know, many American and British critics were aghast when the French started championing Hitchcock and calling him one of the great auteurs. When Orson Welles called John Ford's <i>Stagecoach</i> his movie textbook and said he had seen it dozens of times, many people (for whom Welles was a True Artist but Ford was a trader in sentimental, narrative-driven, assembly-line entertainers) couldn't believe it.<br /><br />And of course, the revival of interest in the work of directors like Sirk, Fuller and Nicolas Ray (many of whose films were derided in their own time) owes to the French critics as well as to the American "kids with beards" - Scorsese, DePalma, Coppola etc. Personally I think Scorsese's contributions as a movie historian/teacher/interest-reviver are nearly as important as his own body of work.Jabberwockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-4893900161088603912009-07-07T11:19:12.360+05:302009-07-07T11:19:12.360+05:30@J'wock: I'm reminded of Orson Welles'...@J'wock: I'm reminded of Orson Welles' quote - 'The absence of limitations is the enemy of art'. Maybe the production code forced filmmakers to work harder on writing more intelligent, subtler scripts instead of wooing audiences by including superfluous scenes of sex and violence.<br /><br />Also, many of the more overtly "artistic" directors in the 60s and 70s (the likes of Godard, Truffaut, Scorsese) were heavily inspired by the countless films churned out by studio factories in the 40s/50s. Godard for instance regards B pictures like Ray's Bigger than Life among the great films of the past century!shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-15206513337402489252009-07-07T09:54:50.625+05:302009-07-07T09:54:50.625+05:30??!: I hope TCM hasn't kept up its deplorable ...??!: I hope TCM hasn't kept up its deplorable practice of computer-colourising films? Because if anyone were to show me a colourised version of <i>Pickup on South Street</i> (or any other noir film) I'd hang myself immediately.Jabberwockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-49480408950487661142009-07-07T09:52:43.858+05:302009-07-07T09:52:43.858+05:30Interesting point you made about great movies comi...<i>Interesting point you made about great movies coming out under highly controlled conditions...</i><br /><br />Shrikanth: that's one of the reasons for <i>Vertigo</i> having such an inflated reputation in the past couple of decades. Critics can't get their heads around the idea that Hitch could make such a deeply personal film within the constraints of the studio system and using contracted stars. In general, this also helps explain the renewed respect given to American cinema of the 1930s-1950s (after a lengthy period when no one took it very seriously).<br /><br />I think the enforced discipline - the knowledge that things simply <i>had to be done</i> the way they were in any other job, that there wasn't going to be much catering to artistic moodiness or ego hassles - also helped inherently talented directors, writers, cinematographers and performers to do some of their best work. Even when they weren't necessarily thinking of what they were doing as something that would have lasting value. (I remember William Wyler or John Ford - I forget who - responding to an interviewer's questions with a terse "Look, we weren't thinking about art when we were making those movies - we were just doing our job.")<br /><br />Not saying that's the way it was for <i>everyone</i> though - no doubt many great temperamental artists fell by the wayside because they simply couldn't work in controlled conditions, or because they didn't get the right backing for the work they wanted to do. We'll never know about that lot, alas.Jabberwockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-11427822443292990512009-07-07T09:39:10.743+05:302009-07-07T09:39:10.743+05:30Rahul: I think of Tommy Udo as being something of ...Rahul: I think of Tommy Udo as being something of an anomaly in Widmark's career, even though it was such a flamboyant role and brought him to everyone's attention. I haven't seen all his films, of course, but in everything else I've seen he's been quite low-key. (Apart from those occasional psycho-grins!) The first time I saw him, incidentally, was in <i>Judgement at Nuremberg</i>, where his fine workmanlike performance was drowned in a sea of star power.<br /><br />Interesting comparison with Jack Palance, whom I last saw as the egotistical and boorish American movie producer in Godard's <i>Contempt</i>.Jabberwockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-16280765257661251962009-07-07T08:53:31.142+05:302009-07-07T08:53:31.142+05:30Shrikanth, I used "like" very loosely. Y...Shrikanth, I used "like" very loosely. You know,Cagney's scene in Public Enemy earned as much notoriety as the Tommy Udo scene.Both of them played bad ass street smart characters etc.Rahulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08600228969911790479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-81065623477814351142009-07-07T08:25:38.696+05:302009-07-07T08:25:38.696+05:30Interesting point you made about great movies comi...Interesting point you made about great movies coming out under highly controlled conditions.<br /><br />Some of Hollywood's finest years were during an era when most directors and actors were salaried and also subject to a highly stringent censorship code.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-70906125754903210902009-07-07T07:59:25.319+05:302009-07-07T07:59:25.319+05:30Haven't checked any of Fuller's films. He ...Haven't checked any of Fuller's films. He appears to be in fashion these days going by imdb discussions.<br />Also want to check out Forty Guns - a Fuller western starring Barbara Stanwyck!<br /><br />@Rahul - Cagney, a Widmark-like actor?? I always thought of Cagney as one of the most flamboyant of all the great classic stars. Probably the first great star of the sound era.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-47184226996598436412009-07-06T20:23:58.001+05:302009-07-06T20:23:58.001+05:30I was not aware of this movie.I will check it out,...I was not aware of this movie.I will check it out,thanks.<br />Some other Widmark like actors who excelled in greyish roles - Jack Palance, Robert Ryan,James Cagney.<br />Speaking of Film Noir, there was this recent movie called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.An excellent example of the genre! Check it out.Rahulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08600228969911790479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-37952233083005579822009-07-06T15:40:44.783+05:302009-07-06T15:40:44.783+05:30This was the first film I'd seen Widmark in (o...This was the first film I'd seen Widmark in (oh TCM how I loved you!), and I was quite surprised I'd never heard of the guy - not even in random movie trivia conversations. <br /><br />This film hooked me on him, and I've never really been let down by films starring him - <i>Coma</i> and <i>Death of a Gunfighter</i> stand out in particular.<br /><br />I agree about most of his roles being that of a heel, but he also did a lot of anti-hero roles - they just never captured the imagination of the public the way Bogey's characters did.??!https://www.blogger.com/profile/03791417518093723373noreply@blogger.com