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Post by james on Jul 21, 2010 19:32:19 GMT -5
I tried watching the Dick Tracy serial when TCM was running on Saturday mornings, but I gave up - not because it wasn't good, but because the quality of the print was so horrible I couldn't watch it.
James
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Post by Derrick on Jul 21, 2010 19:33:08 GMT -5
I really liked it for a while when TCM had themes on Saturday morning, first Westerns and then for a while they'd go through a whole B-movie detective series. Often now, they'll play a whole series in one day, which taxes one's DVR -- once a week is more manageable. My two favorite series they showed were, of course, The Falcon -- which I loved as a kid, and I think they hold up pretty well. And -- especially -- the Crime Doctor series with Warner Baxter. These were from Columbia and are a bit higher budget than most, throw-away programers, but he's incredibly commanding but low-key. Effortlessly naturalistic. It's like he's just running his lines while these B actors are acting up a storm. A great actor. Oh, yeah...every couple of months they'll run the entire FALCON series, which as you say can really eat up a lot of time on one's DVR. Even though most of them were less than 90 minutes long, they made a whole lot of them. The Falcon is really nothing more than a imitation of The Saint and since both George Sanders and Tom Conway played both The Saint and The Falcon, I used to get those two film series mixed up all the time. But two FALCON movies really stand out for me: THE FALCON'S BROTHER: where The Falcon is actually killed off and his brother takes over his title and his adventures. The really remarkable thing about this movie is that George Sanders and Tom Conway were real life brothers. George Sanders was quitting the series and turned it over to his brother Tom Conway. THE FALCON IN HOLLYWOOD: Should be watched for the performance of Veda Ann Borg who plays The Falcon's sidekick in this movie, the stuntwoman/cab driver Billie. Not only is she funny as hell but she's mad smokin' hot as well. They should have kept her as The Falcon's sidekick permanently as she was far more helpful and competent than most of The Falcon's male sidekicks who got in the way most of the time.
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Post by Derrick on Jul 21, 2010 19:33:46 GMT -5
I tried watching the Dick Tracy serial when TCM was running on Saturday mornings, but I gave up - not because it wasn't good, but because the quality of the print was so horrible I couldn't watch it. James Same here.
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Post by Eddie Love on Jul 21, 2010 20:02:36 GMT -5
THE FALCON IN HOLLYWOOD: Should be watched for the performance of Veda Ann Borg who plays The Falcon's sidekick in this movie, the stuntwoman/cab driver Billie. Not only is she funny as hell but she's mad smokin' hot as well. They should have kept her as The Falcon's sidekick permanently as she was far more helpful and competent than most of The Falcon's male sidekicks who got in the way most of the time. Conway wasn't as good an actor as Sanders, but he is good. He did a radio series as Holmes that's also good. The Falcon and Saint series tended to have pretty good female characters, like his fiancee played by Wendy Barrie. But, yeah -- the convention of the stupid sidekick, a necessity for the detective explaining things for the audience -- mars a lot of these series as well as Old Time Radio. You're lucky if these are played by reasonably good comic talents like Nigel Bruce. Otherwise you get lots of these "dem" and "does" type cabbies / coppers / reporters etc. That's why I like the Mr Moto pictures, which I recall, avoided this for the most part. And I like the Philo Vance pictures, which had so many different actors in the role. They have a plausible Manhattan mystique to them -- but when Philo explains how the killer did it -- it's usually hilariously convoluted. That's true too of the Perry Mason film series, where the Mason character is pretty goofy.
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Post by tombitd on Jul 21, 2010 20:54:32 GMT -5
The Falcon is really nothing more than a imitation of The Saint and since both George Sanders and Tom Conway played both The Saint and The Falcon, I used to get those two film series mixed up all the time. But two FALCON movies really stand out for me: I had read somewhere--but then, this could by my old grey head continuing to march toward senility--that The Falcon was created when the studio had lost the rights to Simon Templar, but had a number of scripts still lying around...
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Post by Eddie Love on Jul 21, 2010 21:04:36 GMT -5
I think it's something like that. I know Leslie Charteris didn't like the Saint movies, then later sued the same studio, claiming that The Falcon was clearly a rip-off
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Post by Derrick on Jul 22, 2010 8:29:09 GMT -5
I remember one Philo Vance movie that starred my man William Powell in which the solution of the murder was so convoluted that in order to properly explain how and who dunnit, Philo Vance had a model of the house the murder was committed in built. The damn thing even broke apart into sections that Philo Vance shuffled around like a three-card-monte expert to explain exactly who was where and who was doing what when the murder happened.
Regarding The Falcon series: did they ever explain exactly WHY he was called The Falcon?
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Post by Eddie Love on Jul 22, 2010 18:54:40 GMT -5
I remember one Philo Vance movie that starred my man William Powell in which the solution of the murder was so convoluted that in order to properly explain how and who dunnit, Philo Vance had a model of the house the murder was committed in built. The damn thing even broke apart into sections that Philo Vance shuffled around like a three-card-monte expert to explain exactly who was where and who was doing what when the murder happened. Yeah, I think that's THE KENNEL MURDER CASE, which TCM shows the most often of the series, and that's what I was referring to as the insanely complex solution. And William Powell is the man. I love it when they show other films of his, besides just the Thin Man series. He's an underrated star -- a great performer. Regarding The Falcon series: did they ever explain exactly WHY he was called The Falcon? Being that his first name was literally gay -- Gay Lawrence, in fact -- I'm guessing on about the third day of second grade, he came up with the snappy moniker of "the Falcon". I know in the radio show from the 50s his name was "Mike" something.
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Post by grubl on Jul 22, 2010 21:06:18 GMT -5
Just stepping back a bit to THE SAINT. When I was a lad I read several of the Leslie Charteris novels and was struck at how ruthless, even at times cruel, the character was. Quite dissimilar to Moore's interpretation and not in the same mold as any of the Falcon films that I have seen (I've only caught some of the George Saunders pictures).
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Post by Derrick on Jul 22, 2010 21:33:46 GMT -5
Just stepping back a bit to THE SAINT. When I was a lad I read several of the Leslie Charteris novels and was struck at how ruthless, even at times cruel, the character was. Quite dissimilar to Moore's interpretation and not in the same mold as any of the Falcon films that I have seen (I've only caught some of the George Saunders pictures). You ever seen THE SAINT IN NEW YORK? That movie is a jaw-dropper with The Saint, played by Louis Hayward literally given a license to kill by a band of NY businessmen who want a group of mobsters wiped out. The Saint works his way up the food chain, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. About as far as you can get from Roger Moore's interpretation of The Saint. And while we're on the subject, much as I detested Roger Moore's incarnation of James Bond, I thought his style perfectly suited Simon Templar. That was a great TV show. That, along with THE PERSUADERS are what I think of first when somebody mentions Roger Moore.
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Post by grubl on Jul 23, 2010 1:09:48 GMT -5
I will definitely look out for THE SAINT IN NEW YORK. I have never seen it. I also thought that Moore was excellent as The Saint, but when I finally read some of the books I realized he was playing quite a different character. As silly a Bond as Moore was, he had some great moments. I cannot bring myself to condemn him. When I was a kid I was torn between Moore and Connery and (as all of us know, I'm sure) those youthful passions and feelings don't wash away easily.
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Post by Eddie Love on Jul 23, 2010 5:55:44 GMT -5
You ever seen THE SAINT IN NEW YORK? That movie is a jaw-dropper with The Saint, played by Louis Hayward literally given a license to kill by a band of NY businessmen who want a group of mobsters wiped out. Yeah, that's a weird one. Hayward is very sinister in the role, he's kind of creepy in fact. Another incarnation of the Saint is the radio series starring Vincent Price. This one holds up really well, and unlike other such shows, the humor in it still works and Price is pretty funny.
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Post by Eddie Love on Jul 23, 2010 6:07:29 GMT -5
As silly a Bond as Moore was, he had some great moments. I cannot bring myself to condemn him. Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, I'm starting to find myself in a place where I'm ready to condemn a little. I recently re-watched THE WILD GEESE where Moore is clearly supposed to be playing an Irishman and makes no effort whatsoever to affect an accent of any kind. We've long known he was a lazy actor, but this borders on contempt for the audience. What's odd is, if you read his -- very enjoyable -- memoir, he's very ambitious, but in ways that seem to extend to getting roles, rather than doing much with them when he has them. ( ffOLKES and THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF aside.)
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Post by james on Jul 23, 2010 7:40:10 GMT -5
For anyone interested in obscure rock and roll movies, next Friday (the 30th) at 8:00PM (EST), TCM is screening Let the Good Times Roll. This is a fairly obscure 1973 movie of a 50's "20th anniversary*" revival rock and roll concert with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Shirelles, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino and others. 1973 was a big year for 50s nostalgia in America.
It's never been released on DVD and I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for one (given the music licensing it would need). Then again, The T.A.M.I. Show was just released on DVD by Shout Factory, so you never know. TCM ran this movie once before (as part of TCM Underground), but I missed it. I won't miss it this time.
James
(* the math doesn't exactly work here, but what the heck...)
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Post by grubl on Jul 24, 2010 12:19:02 GMT -5
Robert Wise's RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP is on now. Wonderful film. Burt Lancaster - dead. Clark Gable - dead. Brad Dexter - dead. Don Rickles - alive and funny (if you can find it, he gives a great interview talking about the contrasting acting advice he recieved from Gable and Lancaster).
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