Good classic movies on TCM

I love Jezebel except for the ending. Critics apparently felt similarly.

"Contemporary reviews were generally positive and praised Davis' performance in particular, although some found her character's redemption at the end of the film to be unconvincing. Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times wrote that the film 'would have been considerably more effective ... if its heroine had remained unregenerate to the end. Miss Davis can be malignant when she chooses, and it is a shame to temper that gift for feminine spite ... It is still an interesting film, though, in spite of our sniffs at its climax.' Variety reported that the film was 'not without its charm' and 'even completely captivating' at times, but found it detracting that the main character 'suddenly metamorphoses into a figure of noble sacrifice and complete contriteness,' and described the ending as 'rather suspended and confusing.'"

No queens on here care about old Hollywood anymore.

If you enjoyed Jezebel, I'd recommend the other two movies William Wyler directed with Bette Davis as the lead. The Letter (1940) and The Little Foxes (1941). She was nominated for an Oscar for both of them and her character isn't watered down in either movie, unlike in Jezebel.

2 of William Wyler's best: The Heiress (1949) with Olivia deHaviland and Montgomery Cliff and The Collector (1965) with Terrence Stamp and Saantha Eggar

^Samantha Eggar in her only Oscar-nominated performance

Thanks R3?

What are some good movies with likeable male characters?

I second The Heiress that R4 mentioned.

OP/R6 I don't think you'll find many recommendations for movies with great parts for men on DL. If you liked Henry Fonda as the co-lead in Jezebel, you might enjoy some of his other movies with popular actresses. He did Daisy Kenyon with Joan Crawford, Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck, and On Golden Pond with Katharine Hepburn. Some of his best movies without a female lead would be 12 Angry Men and The Grapes of Wrath (which he should have won an Oscar for). He didn't really do many period dramas like Jezebel except for War and Peace with Audrey Hepburn but I've never heard any good things about that movie and he regretted taking the role.

OP Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953) with a very charming Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn's Oscar winning performance

R3 I loved The Letter!

And if you want other good movies with male characters, I'd recommend checking out the biggest male stars of the time like Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, and Humphrey Bogart.

Gable of course did Gone with the Wind. It Happened One Night is the basis for every romantic comedy movie that came afterwards. Mutiny on the Bounty is an adventure movie also featuring Charles Laughton and Mr. Joan Crawford II (Franchot Tone). All three of these movies won Best Picture at the Oscars and Gable was nominated for all three of them, winning for It Happened One Night. His movies with Joan Crawford, who was his most frequent co-star, are also great.

Cary Grant's romantic comedies with Irene Dunne and Katharine Hepburn are his most iconic, like The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and Bringing Up Baby. His dramatic roles aren't as remembered but he's especially good in Penny Serenade and None but the Lonely Heart, both of which are his only Oscar nominated roles. He did some great Hitchcock thrillers like Suspicion, Notorious, and North by Northwest. An Affair to Remember is also a great romantic movie with Deborah Kerr and was the basis for Sleepless in Seattle.

Gary Cooper did mostly westerns, especially by the 40s and 50s. I don't care that much for that genre but I enjoyed Friendly Persuasion, where he's playing against type as a Quaker family man who is a pacifist. He's good in some of his early comedies like Design for Living (which is a pre-code film about a ménage a trois) and Ball of Fire with Barbara Stanwyck. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is also one of his most famous roles if you like socially aware movies.

Spencer Tracy is best known for his movies with Katharine Hepburn, particularly the comedies like Woman of the Year and Adam's Rib (although they're all a bit dated now). In the 30s/early 40s, he frequently co-starred with Clark Gable if you like that duo. By the end of his career, he did many left-leaning movies like Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (his last movie also starring Hepburn).

Jimmy Stewart's most famous roles are Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life (both directed by Frank Capra). His Hitchcock movies like Rear Window and Vertigo are also super iconic. If you like legal dramas, you'll enjoy Anatomy of a Murder. His best romantic movie would be The Shop Around the Corner.

Humphrey Bogart's most iconic movie is Casablanca but he has several other great movies as well. All four of the movies he did with Lauren Bacall are great. To Have and Have Not (which was Bacall's debut) is basically Casablanca 2.0 but it sparked the public's fascination with the pairing. The Big Sleep is their best known movie but I prefer Dark Passage and Key Largo. The African Queen co-starred Katharine Hepburn in their only pairing. The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of Sierra Madre are considered two of his best roles.

If you like musicals, I would check out Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly's movies. Any of Fred's movies with Ginger Rogers or Rita Hayworth are great, as well as Easter Parade with Judy Garland. Gene Kelly did three movies with Judy Garland, but his most famous movies are An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain. I also like Cover Girl which he did with Rita Hayworth and the three movies he did with Frank Sinatra.

If you want a likeable male lead - To Kill a Mockingbird.

[quote] What are some good movies with likeable male characters?

I love all the William Powell movies. He's handsome, suave, witty and has a warm presence onscreen. My favorites movies of his that are on TCM are My Man Godfrey with Carole Lombard, Libeled Lady with Jean Harlow , The Great Zeigfield, Fashions of 1934 (with a very young Bette Davis) and The Thin Man series.

Interestingly, he didn't get famous until his mid-40s, by then he'd married and divorced Carole Lombard and was about to marry Jean Harlow before she died.

Great stuff on lately. Lolita last night, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, all About Eve. It has become my favorite channel lately. Tired of Amazon and Netflix junk. TCM has great stuff.

I liked the ending of "Jezebel." Julie, who has behaved abominably, resulting in the death of a man, realizes the consequences of her actions and wants to redeem herself. So she makes the ultimate sacrifice, accompanying her true love (she realizes she's never going to get him back, he's too committed to his wife) to a dreadful island where people afflicted with yellow fever have to fight for survival. She realizes that chances are neither of them will come back alive, but she's determined to do whatever she can for him (she still loves him)> I thought the ending was stunning, very powerful.

Kubrick's Lolita (1962) a wonderful comedy-drama with terrific performances by Peter Sellers, James Mason, Sue Lyon and Shelley Winters

I wish I could get TCM without having to subscribe to some shitty cable service. HBO Max has a TCM hub which is okay but not the same as TCM live.

In This Our Life is another great movie about a southern dysfunctional family also starring Bette Davis with Olivia de Havilland as her sister.

I miss TCM so much. Loved it for years, but I went Roku and cut major cable costs. For anyone else in my shoes, I found the Movieland TV app for Roku which is a classic film channel. Has lots of great films like GWTW, 10 Comm, Aunt Mame, Gigi, Anne Thousand Days, Giant, SS Boil among many more.

There are many excellent movies on TCM. They may not be all camp, some of the WWII era ones are clearly propaganda, but they're good stories, well told.

They're starting "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" right now. It isn't camp, but it's a hell of a yarn and well worth watching.

I really enjoyed the recent thread about The Third Man's closing scene.

Even the frothy comedies that don't get press are often very good.

I love TCM.

You're welcome.

I ended up watching a couple of black and white movies of 1930s and 1940s over the weekend because it's just stress-free filler. You don't have to closely follow the storyline or use your brain too much. The storyline is simple and obvious and you don't have to figure things out, especially if you're under a lot of stress, overworked and just want to escape.

Jezebel is my favorite BD movie.

You're awfully sweet, R20! One good turn deserves another.

Does anyone know where I can free stream Glenda Jackson, Elizabeth R, 1971?

^ DL is giving me problems posting links. HDbest dot net is a very good source. Try it.

Now, Voyager is my favorite of Bette's (with DL icon Mary Wickes), and third for The Heiress. Olivia is great, and while Monty isn't likeable his acting is fabulous.

"No queens on here care about old Hollywood anymore."

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

R25, another vote for The Heiress. I was never a fan of deHavilland. Her pairings with Errol Flynn, and her simpering Melanie in GWTW always left me cold. But she really is great in Heiress. It's hard to play someone who's main trait is their lack of smarts and charm, and later coldness, but she pulls it off beautifully.

"Kubrick's Lolita:'

...is awful and a travesty of the novel. Adrian Lyne's 1997 film is superior in every way.

The Heiress is a masterpiece of American cinema in every department.

"You don't have to closely follow the storyline or use your brain too much. The storyline is simple and obvious and you don't have to figure things out, especially if you're under a lot of stress, overworked and just want to escape."

You poor dear, I pity you. Truly.

Of the nine or ten movies Clark Gable did with Joan Crawford, my two favorite are "Dance, Fools, Dance", and "Strange Cargo". Both are very entertaining.

Crawford and Gable did 8 movies together. Strange Cargo is also one of my favorites along with Possessed and Dancing Lady.

"Dancing Lady" is a hoot!

It was incredibly popular at the box office that year, plus it has Fred Astaire, Joan giving the dancefloor a beating and the Three Stooges!

R28 you do know that Vladimir Nabakov wrote the screenplay for Lolita (1962)

R6, try The Palm Beach Story with Joel McCrea.

Queen Bee is probably the closest to Joan Crawford's version of Jezebel.

R33 Sullivan's Travels is also a great Joel McCrea movie.

Anyone who can claim that de Havilland and Flynn's parting scene (in the film and as a screen couple) in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON isn't moving ("Walking through life, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing.")...well...being a Christian woman I can't say it!

Four classics every gay man should know by heart:

Mildred Pierce -- Joan Crawford proves she can act, and win an Oscar too.

All About Eve -- Bette Davis' greatest triumph, and that's saying a lot.

The Women -- MGM's greatest female stars go at it with each other, literally tooth (biting) and nail (jungle red).

Sunset Blvd -- Gloria Swanson's amazing performance anchors a dark tale of Hollywood that borders on horror but somehow has comical moments.

R34 Queen Bee is closest to Mommie Dearest's portrait of Joan

I never really took Joan seriously, and don't think she's all that in Mildred Pierce. But I gotta say she's excellent in Sudden Fear. That scene where she accidentally hears Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame plotting her murder is Crawford at her best.

R21 not unlike Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Bad Boys 4, The Lost City . . .

I love old movies. And am getting back into watching. They give such a glimpse of the old days. The clothes, the manners, the way character speak. Threads like this give me ideas of ones I don't know. And I LOVE the little facts and stories that are posted here from true historians.

Mildred Pierce might be the role that got Joan an Oscar, but I think she had a better performance one year later in Humoresque. A Woman's Face is also one of her greatest roles. That's one she felt contributed to why she won for Mildred Pierce, since her earlier work had been unrecognized at first.

R37, I'm a lesbian -- and I know them too.

"Zips up the back -- and no bone!"

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) perhaps the best and most realistic courtroom drama and Preminger's finest film with an outstanding cast: Lee Remick, Jimmy Stewart, George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara and Kathryn Grant aka Mrs. Bing Crosby.

R21 try The Big Sleep.

Oh for God's sake, there are a million good "classic movies" out there. Do a little research, OP. It's not hard to find out about classic films.

I love classic films, always have.

I watched THE RAZORS EDGE on Sunday, just fantastic. Melodramatic but great. Gene Tierney is great and it's Anne Baxter's Oscar.

Gene was wonderful as the amoral heroine who kills DL favorite Anne Baxter. Her role is a wonderful successor to her Ellen in Leave Her to Heaven.

And was there ever a more beautiful onscreen couple than Gene and Tyrone Power?

OP, I'd like to promote two of my favorite actors:

Van Heflin won an Oscar playing a coded gay man in love with Robert Taylor in Johnny Eager (1941), then went on to star in some great films: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck and Kirk Douglas; Possessed (1947) with Joan Crawford; Green Dolphin Street (1947) with Lana Turner; Madame Bovary (1949) with Jennifer Jones; East Side, West Side (1949) with Stanwyck, Ava Gardner, and James Mason; Shane (1953) with Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur; 3:10 to Yuma (1957) with Glenn Ford; Gunman's Walk (1958) with Tab Hunter; and his final film, the all-star disaster classic Airport (1970).

Dana Andrews was a huge star in the 1940s, but alcoholism pretty much wrecked his career by the early 50s; still, he appeared in several classics, beginning with great supporting roles in Ball of Fire (1941) starring Stanwyck and Gary Cooper and The Ox-bow Incident (1943) starring Henry Fonda before bumping up to lead in: Laura (1944) with Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb; Fallen Angel (1945) with Alice Faye and Linda Darnell; The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) with Fredric March and Myrna Loy; Daisy Kenyon (1947) with Crawford and Fonda; My Foolish Heart (1949) with Susan Hayward; and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) again with Tierney.

I love Dana Andrews and all those movies you mentioned were great. Eliza Kazan's Boomerang is also a good movie with him. By the 50s he was appearing strictly in B-list movies but he did get to star alongside Joan Fontaine in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

I always thought it was interesting how he started off as a supporting actor for Henry Fonda but by Daisy Kenyon, he had billing over Fonda.

R7 Loved Henry Fonda.

Loved how he say homey-cide in Grapes of Wrath.

Treat yourself and search out "Midnight" starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore and Mary Astor. Completely sparkling comedy. It's harder to find, but "Kitty" starring Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland is also time well spent.

[quote][R28] you do know that Vladimir Nabakov wrote the screenplay for Lolita (1962)

Yes, but he had little interest in casting. Peter Sellers (as great as he was in other roles) brought the film down a few notches with an over the top performance as Quilty. James Mason, Shelley Winters, and Sue Lyon were great. Kubrick insisted on Sellers as Quilty.

As good as that 1962 version was, Frank Langella was the perfect Quilty in the later version. Too bad the two films couldn't be melded together...

love this thread! I'm taking notes!

R53 nonetheless the film works splendidly on its own terms and Sellers is brilliant and the film is head and shoulders above most of the coy insipid Hollywood comedies of the period i.e. Send Me No Flowers, The Great Race, The Pink Panther, Good Neighbor Sam, Sex and the Single Girl, Kiss Me, Stupid, How to Murder Your Wife, What a Way to Go! . ..

Stand by your klan

We had a "choose your five favorite things in any category" activity at my workplace. I chose these five classic films as personal favorites I thought everyone should see: These Three (1936), The Women (1939), Mildred Pierce (1945), All About Eve (1950), Kiss Me Deadly (1955). Out of the thirty or so employees, most in their twenties, one guy had heard of Mildred Pierce and had seen All About Eve. NONE of the others had ever heard of any of them!

R57 not everyone is as old or as gay as you are.

Kiss Me Deadly is the ultimate film noir directed by the undervalued Robert Aldrich whose best-known film is probably Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

These Three is a wonderful movie. My favorite Miriam Hopkins movie, also starring Merle Oberon and Joel McCrea. Much better than the remake Wyler later on did with overrated Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. Even though the remake didn't censor the original gay storyline, it ironically enough turned out to be a weaker movie even with the more explicit material (which ends with the typical kill your gays ending). The 1936 movie, even censored as it was, was far more powerful and an indictment on intolerance.

Old people

Asphalt Jungle is on right ow (5/4). Sterling Hayden is beautiful plus it's a great story!

Sterling Hayden was a horrible man. He was not kind at all to Miss Crawford.

This is a delightful thread, so many films I've seen and agree are unique, often imitated, never duplicated. Much of that of course is because they were the first of their kind or close to being 'the' original. Keep sharing titles, could make for an excellent list for a watch party.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Leslie Howard is the undercover hero called the pimpernel and he is married to Merle Oberon. He is secretly saving innocent people (mostly upper class) from the guillotine in France. The authorities are trying to find the pimpernel and in order to escape suspicion and spare his wife, he acts like a flaming homosexual, more interested in his wife's clothing than her. Merle Oberon is in despair because she doesn't recognize the man she married. He continues to act swishy until he is almost captured and Merle uncovers the truth. I found it very entertaining but I don't think a movie like this would be made today.

Another great Leslie Howard movie is The Petrified Forest also starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. It's one of the few roles in Bette's career which she played an ingenue (and could actually pull it off). This is also the movie that made the public aware of Bogie and gave him his big break. He was so grateful to Leslie Howard that his daughter was named after him.

Just don't get The Petrified Forest mixed up with Bette's other movie Beyond the Forest.

early 70s: unknown but very good

'Little Murders' (1971) directed by Allan Arkin. Based on Jules Feiffer's play about random urban violence set in NYC

Milos Forman's first American film 'Taking Off' (1971) very funny

from the UK 'Deep End' (1971) 15-year-old boy takes a job in a seedy London bathhouse

Fuck you!

The Star (1952) with Bette Davis as a washed-up movie queen down on her luck in a role originally intended for Crawford. Natalie Wood plays her daughter and Sterling Hayden is a love interest. Bette was nominated for Best Actress and was in competition with Crawford who was nominated for Sudden Fear.

God, R68... did you really have to infest this thread with that post? Seriously, what was the point? ** sigh ** The swill of the internet.

Back to the point, swashbuckling pictures were also part of the 1930s and 1940s. I love "The Prisoner of Zenda." It's so much fun and has terrific performances from Ronald Colman (in a dual role), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (swoon), Mary Astor (Maltese Falcon, Meet Me in St. Louis), David Niven.

The castle set! The shadows! The dashing young men with curly hair and moustaches. The sword fight! The witty banter!

The Petrified Florist

R48, Yes, Loretta Young and Tyrone Power.

Though it's been mentioned on other threads due to the remake with Bradley Cooper, the original Nightmare Alley (1947) with Tyronne Power is a memorable and compelling film

R69 The Star isn't even bad enough to be good. It's not even a camp classic. One of Bette's worst roles and I have no idea how she scored an Oscar nomination for this.

I love Greta Garbo but they don't have enough Garbo movies on TCM. The silent films of hers were so intense especially Flesh and the Devil, the one she made with her ex-lover John Gilbert. Then there's Queen Christina, where she acts like a true dyke and Mata Hari, where she flaunts her huge sex appeal.

Here's a few that are classics to me - they're great filmmaking and I never get tired of watching them: The Little Foxes, The Heiress, Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, Cool Hand Luke, East of Eden, Rear Window, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Midnight Cowboy, Apocalypse Now.

Light in the Piazza on now. OMG - George Hamilton falls in love with and autistic girl. Beautiful Italian sights. - before the hordes of tourists of today.

George Hamilton was so attractive in his youth. He's also great in Home from the Hill, which, while not a gay movie, always seemed very homoerotic to me.

R74 but Bette is eminently watchable. Love the scene where she's working a counter at a department store and 2 women recognize the former star and talk about her, and Bette tells them off and quits.

It's probably not shown on TCM (maybe it is), but one of my favorite classic films is an eight minute short.

I showed it to my niece and nephew when they were small kids and they loved it, truly a classic in my book!

R63 Receipts please.

"This is 1852, dumplin', 1852". I miss TCM

[quote]Does anyone know where I can free stream Glenda Jackson, Elizabeth R, 1971?

"Elizabeth R" is currently available for free on Hoopla; you plug in your local library card number (or get an "e-card") and borrow digital audio and movies for a few days. Hoopla doesn't have that many movies to offer, however. Kanopy, on the other hand, works the same way and has thousands of movies/tv shows available, including many classics.

For 1940's Hitchcock, I would say Notorious and Shadow of a Doubt.

If you want a taste of the swinging 60s around the time of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, I recommend Blow-Up. Stars a stunning young Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemming. It captures Mod England at the time. A Taste of Honey is also good and around the same time.

The Servant (1963) with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and directed by Joseph Losey. Brilliant

I basically keep TCM on all day since I work from home. I find it so soothing and commercial TV feels so jarring after a long TCM stint.

Regarding The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it’s worth a watch for Walter Huston as the old prospector - he won an Oscar for best supporting actor and it is well deserved. Also, Tim Holt - who is usually pretty stiff if his generic westerns - actually keeps up with Bogart and Huston fairly well.

Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) based on Patricia Highsmith's novel with screenplay by Raymond Chandler

If you like serious films and don't mind feeling existential as you contemplate life and art, watch any Ingmar Bergman films like The Seventh Seal. Then there's French cinema like Jules and Jim, Belle De Jour and Breathless; Italian cinema, mostly Fellini films = 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita.

Is the Seventh Seal that Demi Moore movie?

The 60s:

The Battle of Algiers (1966) Italy/French

Woman in the Dunes (1964) Japan

Onibaba (1963) Japan

The Naked Kiss (1964) US

The Miracle Worker (1962) US

The Innocents (1961) UK

The Haunting (1963) US

Rosemary's Baby (1968) US

The Hill (1964) UK

No, R90, different title, google is your friend.

One of my favorite oldies is In Name Only, with Cary Grant and Carole Lombard. Cary and Carole fall in love, foiled at every turn by Cary's wretched wife Kay Francis.

Witness for the Prosecution for this scene alone.

R85: And The Yardbirds by Jimmy Page.

The Innocents with Deborah Kerr, then you can skip the Netflix series.

[quote] Asphalt Jungle is on right ow (5/4). Sterling Hayden is beautiful plus it's a great story!

That was a very good year for movies. Shame it's become a lost art.

All about Eve

Sunset Blvd.

Born Yesterday

Samson and Delilah

Annie Get Your Gun

The Asphalt Jungle

Broken Arrow

Caged

Cinderella

Father of the Bride

King Solomon’s Mines

The Third Man

Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) and Ace in the Hole (1951) aka The Big Carnival

Almost a decade ago, I created a list on IMDb of films featuring gay characters -- either as text or subtext. The first two pages offer up films from the classic (pre-1970s) era.

If you like musicals, Calamity Jane, starring Doris Day, is surprisingly entertaining.

If you like ghost stories, The Uninvited (1944) starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey, is very atmospheric and watchable.

Cat People (1942) and Curse if the Cat People (1944) are also atmospheric and fabulous.

You can’t go wrong with any Bette Davis movie. My favorites are A Stolen Life, Dark Victory, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and All This and Heaven Too, but an oddity called Winter Meeting is worth watching and never gets any mentions.

TCM shows all of these fairly regularly.

R83, thank you so much for that! You're a gem!

- R23

Very few comedies here. The Bank Dick. Opens with a typical WC Fields family. Free on Internet Archive.

"You'd like to have a nose like that full of nickels, wouldn't you?"

I saw "The Canterville Ghost" when I was a kid and I still enjoy it today.

Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932) A romantic comedy about a pair of cons. Perfection

[quote][R83], thank you so much for that! You're a gem!

😘😘😘

Forgive me, R83/R105, but I must also tell you that I was pleased to find Hoopla has Ebooks for borrowing. Incredibly, your suggestion brought me to books I have been wanting to read for quite some time, but I was unable to find for free borrowing -the Darwin Porter bullshit biographicals. I'm looking for amusement in this regard, and not historical accuracy! Thanks again, pal!

-R23

More classic movies that every gay man should know by heart:

Auntie Mame -- Perhaps the best comedy of the 1950s, with lavish costumes and art direction, and a polished satirical style that's lost today.

Rear Window -- Hitchcock at his best, full of suspense and humor that even a tired-looking Jimmy Stewart can't spoil.

The Awful Truth -- Cary Grant never was better, looking young and gay, and gets able assistance from Irene Dunne who appears happily in on the joke.

Strangers on a Train -- A Hitchcock masterpiece with gay overtones about an impromptu meeting between two young men that goes bad, with a deranged performance by Robert Walker.

R107 Excuse me. The best comedy of the 50s would be Some Like It Hot

R100, good choices, but did you ever wonder why Curse of the Cat People (despite having the original cast as the same characters) had nothing to do with Cat People?

r108 Perhaps you're right. Nobody's perfect.

R109, yes, I wonder about that every time I watch it!

"Van Heflin won an Oscar playing a coded gay man in love with Robert Taylor in Johnny Eager"

And how brilliant he is! I saw it for the first time a few months back and Heflin's performance is astounding in its bravery and emotional power.

"Witness for the Prosecution for this scene alone."

Wanna kiss me, ducky?

"while not a gay movie, always seemed very homoerotic to me."

As are the male friendships in two throwaway but COMPLETELY enjoyable movies I discovered on TCM, if memory serves (I now own both!) SO THIS IS COLLEGE, with Robert Montgomery DUDES ARE PRETTY PEOPLE (the title alone!), one of the Jimmy Rodgers/Noah Beery "bromances" in the STREAMLINERS COLLECTION (The Westerns)

R80

I like to singa about the moons in the Juna in the springa I like to singa I like to sing.

The Story of Louis Pasteur with Paul Muni who won best actor oscar for it.

Rope

Bette Davis and Mary Astor in "The Great Lie."

For comedy, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

Another great Leslie Howard film is Gone With the Wind. In it he plays a young handsome scion of a wealthy southern family who is loved by a an Irish girl. But he loves his cousin and because she is such a dear person nobody objects. They have a child together who is born in difficult circumstances during the civil war and her desire to have another one compromises her health and she dies leaving him bereft.

A snorter of a story from the Humoresque set is that Joan knitted incessantly during breaks. Oscar Levant inquired “Joan, do you knit when you fuck”. This created an icy environment for the rest of filming .

Hey R100, I love WINTER MEETING. Very obscure but a smart, mature film.

Here's the one film everybody needs to watch:

ELMER GANTRY. Burt Lancaster won his Oscar for this and he is so charismatic. His performance is beyond brilliant and Jean Simmons, who should have won, equals and even surpasses Burt. Shirley Jones won an Oscar as well. The film is just terrific too, and in many ways it is very much ahead of its time.

I just watched Elmer Gantry a couple of months ago and it has aged well.

I read a summary of the book online. One of those cases where it really is an adaption where they took small slices of the book to make a movie and combined certain characters and fates etc. Sounds like a true adaption of the book would need to be a miniseries.

"Humoresque" is fascinating.

Firstly, it is a classic Clifford Odets play, then after about an hour it morphs from a WPA kitchen sink drama to a lurid Joan Crawford hybrid noir/woman's picture melodrama. The whole thing just works and seemed to find its true appreciation as years went by.

Duel in the Sun is a camp classic with Jennifer Jones as a sex-starved half-breed, Gregory Peck in a negative role, and Joseph Cotten as the good brother.

What an ending.

"The Macomber Affair" (1947) with Gregory Peck and Joan Bennett would be on every DL'ers favorite list if it was ever shown. I don't think it's in the TCM library. Excellent movie, but I don't want to give anything away!

TCM really camps it up today with Trog, What's the Matter with Helen?, A Taste of Honey, and several parodies from GGRC (Gay Girls Riding Club), including What Really Happened to Baby Jane!

The trailer to What Really Happened to Baby Jane....

[italic]Heaven Can Wait[/italic] (1943), starring Don Ameche as a cad who takes stock of his life after dying and going to Hell, is a charming comedy. It co-stars Gene Tierney as his saintly wife and Laird Cregar as a suave Prince of Darkness.

There's a lot of love for Olivia's The Heiress but what about some love for her sister's magnum opus Letter from an Unknown Woman?

I always found that film incredibly overrated- and also derivative of another film I saw starring Margart Sullivan.

My favorite Fontaine is Rebecca, and favorite Ophuls is The Earrings of Madame De.

I loved Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver.

r131, which film are you referring to, The Heiress or Letter from an Unknown Woman? And what is the Margaret Sullavan movie?

The Earrings of Madame De... is one of the great films. Is it shown on TCM?

R134, the film I am referencing is Letter From An Unknown Woman. The Margaret Sullavan film is Only Yesterday, which although made in 1933 and based on a different book, was so much like the then-still popular1922 novel Letter From An Unknown Woman that moviegoers noted the similarity to the Stefan Zweig novel and it definitely was discussed at the time.

I unfortunately saw Only Yesterday first and then saw Letter From An Unknown Woman shortly thereafter, however it's been decades, so maybe Letter needs another viewing. I may have been too young to fully grasp it.

Interestingly enough, Marie Antoinette and The Grand Bufapest Hotel were also based on Stefan Zweig books.

I love LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN. Underrated love story. Love Joan Fontaine in REBECCA and THE CONSTANT NYMPH too.

Her sister Olivia was the stronger actress but she lacked sex appeal and personality. I do enjoy IN THIS OUR LIFE but Bette Davis was in it too.

This and C-SPAN are the only reasons I keep my cable subscription.

Just saw Morocco. The love story between Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich was not too unconvincing. The ending where she leaves everything to follow her lover into the desert was ridiculous. However, Cooper was such a beautiful man onscreen, he made it watchable. I always thought Dietrich was overrated when it came to looks although she's a good actress.

She was good looking older lady.

Maria Riva's book about her mother is a great read. A really good observer and writer about the Hollywood of her girlhood and her mother's stardom. Her lifelong deep anger at her mother is totally unforgiving.

Marlene---what a woman! AND person!

Marlene was a terrible person. Never got her or Garbo.

R143

Garbo fascinates me. When she's onscreen, I just want to look at her only. She has a commanding presence, I guess. The famous ending from Queen Christina below.

Finally watched DODSWORTH. Holy moley, Walter Huston is great in that film. Astonishingly modern--feels like it was made yesterday. Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor are both great, too. Astor fascinates me--that deep voice. Those close-ups at the end when Huston and Chatterton fight and he storms off the boat--WOW. An early William Wyler effort that shows his brilliance.

Amen, r146, every word of it. Now I have to dig out the DVD and watch it again!

A friend flitted into and out of the room while we were watching DODSWORTH in a group, asking which guy Ruth Chatterton's character was with now and saying "You're a whore darling!". Great movie!

Back to the Henry Fonda films, Mr Roberts (1955), (wow had no idea it was directed by John Ford). During WWII, Fonda is the 2nd in command on a supply vessel in the Pacific whose transfer to a fighting ship keeps getting thwarted by the captain (Jimmy Cagney) who doesn’t want to lose a very competent officer. William Powell plays the sympathetic ship’s doctor, he retired after this role. Jack Lemmon stars too.

Even now I’m surprised at how handsome Fonda was. He didn’t play on it though. Loved him with Barbara Stanwyck in THE LADY EVE.

Saw an interesting choice in the prime 8:00 spot tonight, "The Half-Naked Truth", from the early Thirties. The stars were Lee Tracy and Lupe Velez, but probably the only name people today might recognize was Frank Morgan, about six years before he played The Wizard of Oz. It's a shame people don't recognize Tracy, because he had a commanding screen presence with some of the snappiest , wittiest one -liners ever. And Lupe seems to only be remembered for two things...her relationship with Gary Cooper, and her manner of suicide, which Roz explained to her boss in the very first episode of "Frasier".

Lee Tracy is fabulous in Blond Bombshell. He really does have a terrific way with one-liners. Love when he says, 'Looks like an athlete to me.'

Does TCM ever show "Employee's Entrance" with a very young and pretty Loretta Young, and the studly Warren William? If so it's worth a look for a slightly lurid Pre-Code workplace story.

Lee Tracy is also terrific in Gore Vidal's THE BEST MAN as the dying President who remains mum about which candidate he will back, Handsome Hank Fonda or Crafty Cliff Robertson.

Not to turn this into a "Lee Tracy" thread, but he's also great in "Dinner at Eight" which is saying a lot, because of the terrific cast and dialogue. I love the scene where he tears John Barrymore apart.

Bette never looked better. I loved Jezabel

Just watched the Americanization of Emily today. I had not seen it in decades. Great antiwar film predating the increasing antiwar movement that grew out of the Vietnam war. Shows the military scheming which is timely, given the military antics of today and of the last couple of decades.

Also watched Absence of Malice, which is relevant considering the news coverage and cynicism in political coverage since at least 2015. The abortion angle and DOJ antics are timely as well. Paul Newman, 55 at the time of the film is still gorgeous and Sally Field is earnest and eager.

BTW, did anyone watch the Tab Hunter documentary? I thought it was very good. The documentary was made by his husband a few years prior to his death in 2018. He was a good juxtaposition with Anthony Perkins, who was featured in parts.

R157, I saw that documentary about Tab Hunter. It was very entertaining. He came across as likable, and not one to trash others. One question I had concerned his notorious agent Henry Wilsson. Everything I've ever read about Wilsson said that he tried to seduce every young guy trying to make it in Hollywood. Yet all his clients say they knew this, but they never gave in ... it was always everyone else.

I just watched Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte for the first time. It is no Baby Jane. It reminded me more of an old Bette Davis movie with a middling plot. But my God, Agnes Moorehead was amazing. However, based on her dialogue, I feel like the scriptwriter must have meant her part to have been played by a black woman.

I like a lot of films on TCM. Lately I've been watching those Saturday night film noirs they run.

One of the very things about this thread is that I can go off to Wikipedia and read about some of the films I haven't seen.

I'd never heard of Dodsworth until now and after several clicks through Wiki, learned that a) it's originally a Sinclair Lewis novel, the b) a stage play (starring Walter Huston), and later c) a film (as discussed upthread.

If you love the film, read the Wiki descriptions of the novel and play. the play and film cover the same story, but differently, seeming to retain the same story and ending. Very interesting to read what was always included and what was excluded or rewritten for the next production.

I read all of Sinclair Lewis' novels in my early twenties and recommend them highly. In general, I find the books superior to their movie versions, but Walter Huston makes "Dodsworth" stand out.

Tab Hunter was really, really cute. I was struck -- he was quite beautiful.

Still cannot get Walter Huston out of my head. That film and that performance is really sticking with me.

R163, Walter Huston made a lot of mediocre movies and always rose above his material. In "Dodsworth", he and the film deserved each other. So glad you've been able to appreciate them both!

Does TCM have broadcast rights to the Helen Lawson oeurve?

Tab Hunter was Adonis-like gorgeous but what was interesting was his lovers were kinda nerdy and smaller men, the exception being Perkins.

There's terribly sad moment when he comes so close to meeting his father yet his father wants nothing to do with him. It especially touches me because my father had 4 children and at the end of his life he regretted having us.

R159 Moorehead played a great Velma Cruther, but her accent in that role is sometimes criticized.

Olivia De Havilland, playing the beautiful but menacing cousin, makes that film for me. She offers Bette Davis’ character a pretty impressive bitch slap and growls “Damnnnnnn you! NOW will you shut your mouth!”. That was just awesome. Mary Astor makes a lot of her small but pivotal role. She was an excellent actress.

Until recently, I've never been much of a fan of old movies. Now, I love them.

The most recent ones:

1. Splendor in the Grass. Warren Beatty's first movie. What a hunk back in the day!!!

2. The Best Years of Our LIves. Never even heard of it until last week, but the 1946 best picture of the year, best actor and best supporting actor. The guy who won the supporting award wasn't even an actor. But watching these three guys trying to get reacclimated to civilian life after serving in WWII is sad. And the scene where the guy finally lets his girlfriend remove his prosthesis is a real tear jerker.

How Green Was My Valley is a gem. It's a bit corny by today's standards but the story and acting are terrific.

R168 I thought Moorehead's accent sounded a lot more authentic than Davis's did. I am well used to the midatlantic Old Hollywood accent, but layer a strange impression of an exaggerated, generic southern US accent on top of it, and it's a little trippy to my ears.

I am from Virginia and my dad is from NC, and I hear distinct differences among North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas accents. They don't really sound alike to me aside from being twangy, but it seems as if to this day, Hollywood actors and directors think there is only one southern US accent. It's funny sometimes but also weird to hear.

I once saw a small production of a Tennessee Williams play in London. It was hilarious just because of how the actors thought the accent should sound.

Even Orson Welles acknowledged there was a touch of Mother Machree in everything John Ford directed, but IMHO there ain't nuthin' corny about HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY. Incredibly moving (when Master McDowell demands his father's attention at the dinner table), the playing superb, the cinematography gorgeous, the score outstanding. Classic after classic from the genius who was John Ford...

...and scene after beautiful scene in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. Frederic March's homecoming welcome (Dear GOD!), any scene with Harold Russell, Willie Wyler direction and Gregg Toland deep focus cinematography, and that aching, arching Friedhofer score!!!

Btw R168, when I say Moorehead's accent sounded more authentic than Davis's, I mean to say the way she spoke, not what she said.

Her dialogue definitely sounded to me like the character was meant to be a 'mammy' type. I have never heard a white character speak like she did—"Oh, yas ma'am, I's goan fix um right up, ah shoah is!" That was weird. It had me wondering if Moorehead's character should have been black or was meant to be seen as mixed race, which might explain her dedicated servitude. Kind of strange casting based on how it was written, but her charactetization was really strong. She had none of the proud and grand body language or haughty expression of Endora.

(Or maybe it was just poor writing in the sense that the writer didn't understand that manner of speaking is specific to African American people and not just representative of anyone poor in the US South? Maybe the writer was just imitating Gone with the Wind or something.)

I would not be surprised if James Cameron lifted certain plot elements from this underrated movie with Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer and put them in The Film That Shall Not Be Named…there’s more than a couple of similarities…

Great to see some love for HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES on here. I watched VALLEY for the first time during quarantine and it really knocked me out. Every shot was perfect, the staging, everything. Gorgeous film, sentimental in a good way. I wept several times.

TBYOOL is an incredible movie, William Wyler again! Of DODSWORTH fame! He was so good with actors, and also letting a certain dryness, a "let the material speak for itself" approach. I have deep respect for Wyler that only grows as I see more of his films.

Wyler was notorious for many many takes. I don't know if this is apocryphal or not but there was a shot of the family entering the front doors of the church in Mrs. Miniver. They did it time and time again with Wyler saying nothing but to do it again. It turns out when it was first rehearsed the little boy without any direction flipped up the knocker on the door as he was entering. Wyler liked it and wanted it in the movie. The thing is he didn't tell anybody including the boy. So they kept shooting it over and over again and nobody knew why until the boy just did it instinctively again. Wyler got he shot exactly as he wanted it. It's nice being a top director at the Tiffany of Hollywood studios and you could do stuff like that.

The Vincente Minnelli/Jennifer Jones version of MADAME BOVARY is still my favorite. I’ve seen the Isabelle Huppert version but it doesn’t have that romantic feeling of the 1949 version.

The scene in How Green Was My Valley where Maureen O'Hara (Angharad) has her wedding veil blowing in the wind....she was so beautiful in this.

Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise's The Haunting are the two best haunted house movies I've ever seen.

R175 he did. Also from A Night to Remember as well.

He cribbed directly because he wanted to make a movie which would allow him to explore underwater.

Also lifted from the 1953 film. A bumpkin of humble origins falls for the snooty rich girl in light speed time.

Cameron claimed he was trying to do a Doctor Zhivago, but he lifted the scenario from History is Made at Night, and the thematic structure from The Wizard of Oz.

R146 He steals Treasure of the Sierra Madre from Bogart. I’m a huge Walter Huston and Dodsworth fan, too.

Loved Huston in DODSWORTH. His last film was an uneven western film with Barbara Stanwyck, THE FURIES. Their father-daughter relationship is almost Donald and Ivanka levels of inappropriateness and their scenes sizzle. Judith Anderson is also great and the widowed adventuress, whom Barbara dispatches, the scene with the scissors is campy good. And Gilbert Roland as Barbara’s FWB.

The weakest link is the inept Wendell Corey. He’s so mismatched with Barbara; she needed someone like Van Heflin or Joel McCrea. Corey was more in the vein of bland leading men like Bob Cummings or George Brent.

Man, The Furies should have been the basis for a really good nighttime soap. I've got to see that film!

For r186…there’s several versions on YouTube…

I kind of got the impression that Agnes Moorehead's Velma was supposed to be a Cajun.

George Brent is peerless in Jezebel. A great peformance.

Huston had been lauded for playing DODSWORTH on stage, so it was great that he got to do the film. But it's Ruth Chatterton who really gets to me in the film. (and mostly because of Wyler. She saw Fran as a villian, but he pushed her to be sympathetic, and she becomes a truly fascinating 3 dimensional character. )

I liked ordinary people. Any more like that?

Today is the last day of Summer Under The Stars. Tomorrow, it's back to normal.

Two underrated Joan Crawford films of the forties-DAISY KENYON and POSSESSED.

I think the ending worked well in "Jezebel" because she wasn't actually homicidally spiteful when she encouraged the duel, but she did assume that she could work her wiles on them to get them to cancel the duel, only to find out that she'd started something she lost control over. She should have realized this already, since she asked Preston for forgiveness only to find out she'd lost control of THAT situation, too. In both cases, however, she was written as not being completely, irredeemably evil, but selfish and manipulative with moments of trying to fix the problems she'd caused. The ending is her third and final attempt to actually become that unselfish person she'd half-heartedly tried to become twice before. That's why the ending works.

I'm on a 30s tear -- Stella Dallas with Miss Barbara Stanwyck. and Dodsworth with John Huston, Myrna Loy, David Niven

Would it KILL OP to type out "recommendations"??

Yessss R195, I was there earlier this summer. Love '30s movies. I hope you've done the Hitchcock run of masterpieces from that era:

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH ('34) THE 39 STEPS ('35) SECRET AGENT ('36) SABOTAGE ('36) YOUNG AND INNOCENT ('37) THE LADY VANISHES ('38)

What a run!

[quote] ... Dodsworth with John Huston, Myrna Loy, David Niven

R195, Myrna Loy wasn't in "Dodsworth" -- the 2 leading ladies were Ruth Chatterton (Mrs. D) and Mary Astor (Mrs. D's replacement). And Mr. D was played by John Huston's dad, Walter. It is an outstanding movie, I agree.

You right! Thank you

I watched Feud on Hulu. It's just ok.

It Should Happen To You is on TCM right now, it is very prescient and entertaining!

The best Abbott and Costello film The Time of Their Lives (MCA, 1946)

Abbott and Costello in a thoroughly charming, almost sophisticated supernatural comedy? Believe it or not, yes. Lou (and sexy costar Marjorie Reynolds) a a Revolutionary War ghosts setting out to prove they weren’t really traitors; Bud is a nervous psychiatrist they wind up haunting while they search. There’s hardly any A&C shtick; the boys actually get to act for a change and they’re priceless. They’re also very well supported by a funny ensemble cast including Gale Sondergaard (”Didn’t I miss you in Rebecca?” somebody asks), slick special effects, and a surprisingly well-written script. A genuine pleasure, this is the Abbott and Costello movie for people who generally hate Abbott and Costello pictures. In black and white. A-ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

I just watched Arrival and the aliens were named Abbott and Costello. I want to watch a classic movie now.

I like The Great Lie with Bette Davis, Mary Astor and George Brent.

[quote]Sullivan's Travels is also a great Joel McCrea movie.

And a great Preston Sturges movie.

Bette Davis in the The Man Who Came to Dinner.

It’s my fave classic Xmas movie. Also starring Mary Wickes!

R206 That's a good one.