Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[kvnbhovis]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

I like all these posts people are making and I'm glad to read we are mostly on the same page, and excuse me for not being able to express myself as well as the rest of you, I'm not that well read.

I do want to say, in this particular case: why criticize system and actors that went along with it? I was 60 years ago. What is the point? You're not really going to accomplish anything as it's too much in the past. It would make more sense to question or criticize more recent examples because the movie world in the USA until the end of the 60s (at least) was a bubble. And sure you could say, they had a Chinese character in the movie but no famous Chinese actor that fit the bill they wanted because Hollywood and society at large did not allow other races to rise to the same level of fame and English acting skills as caucasians (and so on) but you just need to accept that that's how it was back then. Things have changed a bit now, so maybe i makes more sense to focus on the recent.

That said, I don't like Scarlet Johansson at all, nor am I familiar with that movie she played mention a page earlier, but if the situation was that the movie got made because she wanted to play the role and had the right cards, or it was in her hands, why should she not be allowed to play it? Is it better to make the movie with her and be it a big success because she's a famous actress and celebrity (and it appears a good actress - I'm going by fame here) or is it better if it got made with an actress of the same ethnicity/race that very few people know and would go and see and remain a small indie movie?

I would like to make the point that Sessue Hayakawa was a major star in Hollywood during the silent era. My belief as to why white actors were used to portray other races for the most part was because movies were a new form and the studios had a much smaller talent pool than they do today. Most actors came from the stage back then and for the most part they would be white and they would get the juiciest roles whether the character portrayed was white, black, Asian etc. As time went by and more people trained to become actors, the talent pool got larger and the appropriate race could be cast in starring roles.

Yes, there were some horrible stereotypes perpetuated in some films. Stepin Fetchit is an example of that and he was playing a stereotype of his own race.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by jshaide

Looking at one last order from TT---can anybody vouch for THE GLORY GUYS?

“Why, those recruits can’t ride, can’t shoot, can’t fight – can’t even get on their pants twice the same way. But for General ‘Glory’ McCabe we can all do one thing superbly – we can die.”

These days The Glory Guys is one of the few films better remembered for its screenwriter credit than anyone on screen (though an up and coming James Caan certainly makes his presence felt in the lower ranks). Sam Peckinpah had been hired by Arnold Laven, his producer on The Rifleman series, to adapt Herman Hoffman Birney’s The Dice of God, a thinly veiled retelling of Custer’s Last Stand, back in November 1956, but by the time it finally reached the screen in 1965 Peckinpah had moved onto bigger things with Major Dundee. Indeed, it’s even been argued that the anticipated success of the ill-fated Dundee was the reason his script was dusted off and finally given the greenlight with Laven directing, something the casting of Senta Berger, Michael Anderson Jr and Slim Pickens from Peckinpah’s film in supporting roles – the first two, as widow pursued by both male leads and fresh-faced rookie, even playing pretty much the same characters - gives some credence to.

With 20th Century Fox planning to revive their own $18m epic, The Day Custer Fell (the original title of Peckinpah’s script), to be directed by Fred Zinnemann with Robert Shaw as Custer and Toshiro Mifune as Sitting Bull, Custer became Brevet General McCabe and the Seventh Cavalry became the Third Cavalry, and what Peckinpah initially saw it as his Fort Apache became a more conventional Hollywood cavalry picture than a Peckinpah one, although elements that would reappear in his later work survive in embryonic form or at least were shot before being cut. The latter was the fate of the film’s brutal but now lost original opening with Harve Presnell’s scout guiding the kind of obnoxiously self-righteous Bible bashing preacher that R.G. Armstrong cornered the market in playing in Peckinpah’s own films but was here played by Claudio Brook (still billed on the credits) to a Sioux camp, where his arrogant behaviour as he tries to convert them so outrages the tribe that they torture him to death (something of a relief to his wife and daughter, we later were to discover). As Presnell rides away, hearing his screams in the distance, the film was going to cut to a new recruit screaming as he woke from a nightmare.

That scream now opens the picture, but the foreshadowing of the blundering pride that comes before a particularly nasty fall that might have added a bit more of an edge to the first half of the film is gone. Instead of any sense of mounting dread, the film puts more emphasis on its half-hearted romantic triangle between Presnell (struggling in the kind of role that Howard Keel could have done in his sleep) and Tom Tryon over Senta Berger’s gun shop owner than it does on the way Tryon and his far too raw recruits (“Mostly misfits, sir. Japes, louts, ragtags and bobtails.”) are being groomed as expendable decoys for Andrew Duggan’s vainglorious last shot at glory and immortality, a point that’s made early and then almost completely ignored for the next hour and a half. Not that much of Duggan’s vanity remains in the finished film as he politely avoids conflict with his junior officers rather than displaying any martinet tendencies – in fact, he’s barely even a character until the last half hour, with Jeanne Cooper registering much more strongly as his wife, who’s politically astute enough to know who to charm and who to shun to advance his career.

Duggan avoids caricature, but of the cast it’s Caan’s Golden Globe nominated turn as a mouthy Oirish recruit in the days before he mumbled every line as a point of professional pride and Slim Pickens who make the biggest impression while we’re waiting for the last stand. When the fatal battle comes it’s not the one we expected, nor is Duggan’s fate handled in the way you might expect in one of the film’s few moments of deviation from cliché. Elsewhere there’s little evidence of Peckinpah’s gift for flavourful dialogue here, with most of what there is going to Pickens though Presnell at least gets to express his philosophy in terms that sound like a rough draft from Ride the High Country (“Drink deep, ride hard, take a hold of everything that comes your way, only double. Don’t look over the horizon: that’s the Lord’s business”). The real standout star of the film is the great James Wong Howe’s excellent Scope photography, which gives the film an impressive sense of scale despite Laven’s TV background often leading to some unimaginative directorial choices.

Ultimately there’s not really enough meat left on the bones to justify the film’s 112-minute running time, turning what sounded like a flawed but intriguing project into a more conventional one that passes muster once the arrows start to fly, even if you do have to wait longer than you’d like for that to happen.

Still, Twilight Time’s Blu-ray disc offers an impressive package of extras to compliment the decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer. The company is run by a couple of Peckinpah enthusiasts, and it shows with an audio commentary with biographers David Weddle and Garner Simmons that doesn’t gloss over the film’s problems or those of Peckinpah’s original script, an extended version of the interview with Senta Berger conducted for Mike Siegel’s excellent Peckinpah documentary Passion and Poetry, a vintage TV featurette about Howe shooting the film and losing his temper (sadly only surviving in VHS quality), stills gallery, trailer and booklet.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by kvnbhovis

I would like to make the point that Sessue Hayakawa was a major star in Hollywood during the silent era.

Hayakawa ran into the same problem many silent stars did - his voice. Even by the time of Bridge on the River Kwai his English delivery wasn't great and his accent was very strong, which was the kiss of death at a time when early sound recording favoured classically trained actors with strong and clear enunciation that could be easily understood.

[hariseldon]

TwilightTime.com has now sold out of
THE INCIDENT
PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK

Plus:
Forever Amber 3 copies left at twilighttimemovies.com
Crimson Kimono 3 copies left
Edge of Eternity 13 copies left
Harlock Space Pirate 2D/35 15 copies left

SAE still says 50+ copies of all of these titles though I would take SAE Cart numbers with a huge grain of salt

[RCRochester]

So I put in another very small order from Screen Archives of a couple titles, but it was just to pad out my order as there was a 20% off code for CD selections from Nick Redman's personal collection that are being sold through SAE. So now his copy of Magnum Force is going to be mine. It was the only one of the 3 x 70s Dirty Harry flicks they had available (which is a shame because I love some of Jerry Fielding's fusion work on The Enforcer, particularly Rooftop Chase). The two 80s ones are still available last time I checked, but I couldn't bring myself to spend money on those as much as I love the hilariously dated Herbie Hancock-esque opening theme tune to Sudden Impact.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by kvnbhovis

I would like to make the point that Sessue Hayakawa was a major star in Hollywood during the silent era. My belief as to why white actors were used to portray other races for the most part was because movies were a new form and the studios had a much smaller talent pool than they do today. Most actors came from the stage back then and for the most part they would be white and they would get the juiciest roles whether the character portrayed was white, black, Asian etc. As time went by and more people trained to become actors, the talent pool got larger and the appropriate race could be cast in starring roles.

Interestingly enough, the first three actors to play Charlie Chan were of Asian descent. The first Chan movie was the 1926 silent serial adaptation of the Chan novel The House Without a Key, and starred George Kuwa (Keīchi Kuwahara). The second was the silent feature The Chinese Parrot, with Sōjin Kamiyama as Chan. The first sound feature (and first to be produced at Fox) was Behind That Curtain, with E.L. Park as Chan.

[HenryHill]

Originally Posted by kvnbhovis

Well said. I oppose destruction of anything historical and am 100% against censorship of any kind. I'm also open to a black James Bond though it has to be done right.

James Bond can be any race, but he must be British! Idris Elba or Colin Salmon would be fantastic.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by HenryHill

James Bond can be any race, but he must be British! Idris Elba or Colin Salmon would be fantastic.

I don't think he necessary has to be British. As long as he can convincingly portray someone who is British. There are plenty of Australian, Kiwi, Canadian and American actors who could manage it. I can't think of any younger actors at the moment, but you take a old guy like Christopher Plummer who many people actually assume is English, someone like that could easily and convincingly step into the role.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I don't think he necessary has to be British. As long as he can convincingly portray someone who is British. There are plenty of Australian, Kiwi, Canadian and American actors who could manage it. I can't think of any younger actors at the moment, but you take a old guy like Christopher Plummer who many people actually assume is English, someone like that could easily and convincingly step into the role.

You’d think so, but just wait. We are quickly deteriorating into a mindset where only British can play British, American can play American, etc. The rules are being rewritten everyday by people who don’t know any better and endorsed by people who should know better.

[Aclea]

I think one reason for the determination that Bond be British - or at least British Commonwealth (which criteria Lazenby, Plummer and one-time Bond frontrunner Sam Neill all qualify) - is because for years the lead actors in any British film with a halfway decent budget would be an imported American star (usually one whose career was on the rocks and couldn't even guarantee a theater booking the film in his home town, let alone get a nationwide US distribution deal), who would 99 times out of 100, explain in reel three that, no, he was actually born here but his parents moved to America/Canada when he was small. It's still pretty much de rigueur for anything that costs more than $5m. Even though the series was produced by Americans, it's something of a point of national pride that Bond should always be a Brit as the last line drawn in the sand. It's a bit like the British public sitting still for the selling off of all their other public services to foreign investors but never accepting the idea of selling off the NHS.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Aclea

I think one reason for the determination that Bond be British - or at least British Commonwealth (which both Lazenby, Plummer and one-time Bond frontrunner Sam Neill all fit in) - is because for years the lead actors in any British film with a halfway decent budget would be an imported American star (usually one whose career was on the rocks and couldn't even guarantee a theater booking the film in his home town, let alone get a nationwide US distribution deal), who would 99 times out of 100, explain in reel three that, no, he was actually born here but his parents moved to America/Canada when he was small. It's still pretty much de rigueur for anything that costs more than $5m. Even though the series was produced by Americans, it's something of a point of national pride that Bond should always be a Brit as the last line drawn in the sand. It's a bit like the British public sitting still for the selling off of all their other public services to foreign investors but never accepting the idea of selling off the NHS.

So does that mean that technically Pierce Brosnan shouldn't have been Bond?

[Aclea]

Ah, but his parents moved to Putney when he was a kid (he seems contractually obligated to mention seeing Goldfinger at the Putney ABC in every interview) and spent most of his life and career pretending to be a professional Englishman. Though considering what a pain in the ass EON thought he turned into, I'm sure the producers would more than just technically go along with your assessment.

[kvnbhovis]

Originally Posted by Aclea

I think one reason for the determination that Bond be British - or at least British Commonwealth (which criteria Lazenby, Plummer and one-time Bond frontrunner Sam Neill all qualify) - is because for years the lead actors in any British film with a halfway decent budget would be an imported American star (usually one whose career was on the rocks and couldn't even guarantee a theater booking the film in his home town, let alone get a nationwide US distribution deal), who would 99 times out of 100, explain in reel three that, no, he was actually born here but his parents moved to America/Canada when he was small.

First thing that came to my mind was the Hammer Noirs made in the 50's with fading stars like George Brent and Barbara Payton.

[jayembee]

There are a few US or Canadian actors who made a career for themselves in the UK. Shane Rimmer, for example, has appeared in probably every action film ever filmed at Shepperton. Sam Wanamaker is another, and his daughter Zoë who eventually became a British citizen.

One ingenious use of an American in a British production that I can recall is the BBC TV series Messiah, which was co-financed by Paramount, and therefore needed an American actor in a prominent role. The one they chose was Michelle Forbes, who played star Ken Stott's wife. Instead of having her try to affect a British accent, or make the excuse that the character was born in America or Canada, they made the character a deaf-mute.

[Jobla]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Hayakawa ran into the same problem many silent stars did - his voice. Even by the time of Bridge on the River Kwai his English delivery wasn't great and his accent was very strong, which was the kiss of death at a time when early sound recording favoured classically trained actors with strong and clear enunciation that could be easily understood.

I thought Hayakawa was superb in the sadly underrated FIVE CAME HOME.

[HaroldnMaude]

Last night I watched the TT blu-ray of Stanley Donen's "Two For The Road," which I purchased a couple years ago during another TT sale. This is movie I watched repeatedly on VHS during my teenage fixation with Audrey Hepburn. I bought the dvd when it was released in 2005, though I'm not sure if I ever watched it all the way through. So it has to be at least 15 years since I have watched the film all the way through - long enough that there were moments I had forgotten. The picture quality of this blu-ray release is so excellent, & the colours on some of Hepburn's outfits are just stunning. Simply sensational! I haven't considered upgrading to the blu-ray of Charade, since it is another film I know almost by heart, but after seeing this I think I may have to.
Is "Two For The Road" Stanley Donen's best picture? For myself maybe I would rate "Funny Face" higher, and some say "Seven Brides..." or "Singing in the Rain" are his masterpieces, but I think that "Two For The Road" may be his most beautiful film.
Although it has problems, it would be nice to see a better remaster onto a blu-ray of his 1975 film "Lucky Lady."

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Jobla

I thought Hayakawa was superb in the sadly underrated FIVE CAME HOME.

I think you mean Three Came Home. With Claudette Colbert?

You might have gotten that mixed up with Five Came Back, the one with John Carradine and Lucille Ball where their plane was trapped in cannibal country.

Which was one of those small group of films where the remake was made by the same director as the original. In this case, John Farrow, with the remake being Back from Eternity.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by Aclea

I think one reason for the determination that Bond be British - or at least British Commonwealth (which criteria Lazenby, Plummer and one-time Bond frontrunner Sam Neill all qualify) - is because for years the lead actors in any British film with a halfway decent budget would be an imported American star (usually one whose career was on the rocks and couldn't even guarantee a theater booking the film in his home town, let alone get a nationwide US distribution deal), who would 99 times out of 100, explain in reel three that, no, he was actually born here but his parents moved to America/Canada when he was small. It's still pretty much de rigueur for anything that costs more than $5m. Even though the series was produced by Americans, it's something of a point of national pride that Bond should always be a Brit as the last line drawn in the sand. It's a bit like the British public sitting still for the selling off of all their other public services to foreign investors but never accepting the idea of selling off the NHS.

Remember when American actor Robert Webber was rumored to be taking over for Connery after he had announced he was done with Bond? That was a news story when I was a little kid and when my older brother told me Webber was the idiot in THE SILENCERS and HARPER, both of which I had seen, I was confused and not just a little heartbroken that he might take over from Sean!

Webber is the only one who comes to mind at the moment because I remember it so well, but who else was rumored to be replacing Connery at that time? Aclea, you must know!

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

Remember when American actor Robert Webber was rumored to be taking over for Connery after he had announced he was done with Bond? That was a news story when I was a little kid and when my older brother told me Webber was the idiot in THE SILENCERS and HARPER, both of which I had seen, I was confused and not just a little heartbroken that he might take over from Sean!

Webber is the only one who comes to mind at the moment because I remember it so well, but who else was rumored to be replacing Connery at that time? Aclea, you must know!

John Gavin was actually signed on to star as Bond in Diamonds Are Forever before David Picker met Connery’s demands to return to the role. Gavin was paid in full without ever shooting a scene as Bond. That was the closest we’ve come yet to an American Bond.

James Brolin was also in the running to star in Octopussy until they decided that it would be crazy to introduce a new Bond who would then have to go head to head with Connery in Never Say Never Again, so Moore was brought back.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

John Gavin was actually signed on to star as Bond in Diamonds Are Forever before David Picker met Connery’s demands to return to the role. Gavin was paid in full without ever shooting a scene as Bond. That was the closest we’ve come yet to an American Bond.

James Brolin was also in the running to star in Octopussy until they decided that it would be crazy to introduce a new Bond who would then have to go head to head with Connery in Never Say Never Again, so Moore was brought back.

That's right, I forgot about John Gavin. He was ok as OSS 117, but was way too much of a walking 2x4 to play Bond.

Speaking of OSS 117, Frederick Stafford would have made a great Bond, but what to do with that fussy French accent?

As for an American Bond, we did indeed come closer than John Gavin. Let us all hail Barry Nelson!