on โ21-12-2013 01:24 AM
โ21-12-2013 02:59 AM - edited โ21-12-2013 03:02 AM
โ21-12-2013 03:04 AM - edited โ21-12-2013 03:06 AM
I agree with your list but I'm in a conflict over Cary Grant. I never used to like him but a few months ago I bought North by Northwest as I got sick of everybody telling me what a great movie it was and I wanted to prove them wrong. Unfortunately, I couldn't - it was brilliant and so was Grant. I didn't think much of Eva Marie Saint - I think Hitch was trying too hard to turn her into Grace Kelly but I thought Mason was incredible - I completely forgot who he was as an actor and found him truly menacing. The movie almost made my top 100 list but I like a little time to pasts so I can judge a film in retrospect.
on โ21-12-2013 03:05 AM
Gregory Peck was so sexy in Spellbound and a real DILF in Mockingbird...
on โ21-12-2013 03:07 AM
on โ21-12-2013 03:11 AM
on โ21-12-2013 03:26 AM
Lucky, I'd like to see it on the big screen. I lived in Melbourne in the 90s and loved visiting The Astor and The Westgarth, saw so many classics there: Giant, Mildred Pierce, The Misfits, Lady from Shanghai... it's a whole different experience seeing these movies the way an audience back then did. In 1999, I went to The Regent Theatre with my sister to see a 60th Anniversary restored showing of Gone With The Wind (I still have the ticket). It was exhilarating but I must say the movie didn't look much better than a VHS copy at the time. The last decade advancement in digital restoration and being able to watch them on widescreen plasmas (I have a 60 inch so I can watch my old movies in bed) is so much better than what we had to put up with in the 80's. Remember those scratchy copies we'd borrow from the video store, watching them on fuzzy screens and we thought it was wonderful. I love the preservation that has been achieved but it's a shame so many silent films were lost. Also, I don't understand why some movies aren't released on DVD - I really want to see Beyond the Forest and I want a good US copy (not a Korean import) of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I bought a Korean copy of The Little Foxes and I regretted it as I had never seen it before and now my first impression will always be that horrible quality.
on โ21-12-2013 03:35 AM
on โ21-12-2013 03:40 AM
Bye amber, lovely chatting! Perhaps years ago we shared an arm-rest at one of those long forgotten cinema showings? I wonder if they had only one showing of GWTW at The Regent, I can't remember...
Sleep well and dream of Bogie patting Gene Tierney's back as he makes Audrey Hepburn cry.
on โ21-12-2013 03:49 AM
@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
and I was just thinking...
Elizabeth Taylor. She could be terrible and she could be magnificent.
Amazing in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer, and A Place in The Sun
Yes, and terrible in Boom, Secret Ceremony and most of the movies that came after. I was just telling a family member today how upset I am with Richard Burton: he helped turn Elizabeth into Liz: an alcoholic, beautiful donut who sounded like a shrill fishwife.
Under his tutelage, she became totally unprofessional; fat, pill-popping, vulgar, late to work. True, in the 50's she was under the studio system and could dictate her own terms in the 60's but it amazes me when people think Liz Taylor was at her peak in the 60s.
Her performances were often uneven (apart from Virgina Woolf and Taming of the Shrew, great films and performances) and the movies were often made in Europe (to save her on taxes) without the polish Hollywood once gave her. To me, Elizabeth reached her creative and star-quality peak in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. Afterwards, she said "To hell with it", took the money and let it all hang out.
on โ21-12-2013 04:27 AM
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