Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Or vice versa: TT didn't want to release as many titles per month as MGM/UA wanted, especially since they had to pass on so many titles because of poor master material.

It's probably a combination of both; I'd say the feeling is mutual. Of the MGM titles I own from TT: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and The Train are the ones that really impressed me the most with their presentations.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Even in the vast majority of his "serious" roles, Marvin had a wryness and affability to him, not to mention the bevy of outright comedic performances (The Comancheros, Donovan's Reef, Shout at the Devil and his Oscar-winning turn in Cat Ballou) he was responsible for.

I think the main difference is that Marvin had leading man charisma in spades while Coburn was often better-suited in supporting parts. I confess to not having seen the Flint movies though, so I'll try to be on the lookout. For the longest time they were nothing more than a vague Austin Powers reference to me.

I agree with the other user (and many like him) though, you simply don't get that caliber of leading man anymore. I would have loved to have seen Marvin and McQueen share the screen, what pyrotechnics!

I was just going mainly on overall personality. Coburn seemed more like a laidback kind of guy. The Flint movies as well as the President's Analyst were perfectly geared for him. They're very tongue in cheek and a lot of fun.

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by mja345

No worries bro the Flint films are worth every penny. James Coburn is IMO maybe the coolest cat to ever be in film. He was like McQueen or Bronson with comedy chops. He's one of my favorite actors of all-time.

Steve McQueen could do comedy, as he did in Soldier in the Rain and The Reivers, as well as some lesser movies. Charles Bronson, now there was a humorless bastard.

Agree with you about Coburn, though. One of the greats who doesn't get the recognition these days that others do.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by belcherman

Steve McQueen could do comedy, as he did in Soldier in the Rain and The Reivers, as well as some lesser movies. Charles Bronson, now there was a humorless bastard.

Agree with you about Coburn, though. One of the greats who doesn't get the recognition these days that others do.

I've never seen Soldier in the Rain but I recently watched the Reivers and thought it was awful. I personally don't think McQueen could do comedy very well other than the odd quip here or there. As for Bronson, another film I recently watched was From Noon Till Three and thought it was wonderful and hilarious. It threw me for a loop because I did not expect it to be the type of movie it was.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by belcherman

Charles Bronson, now there was a humorless bastard.

He has a couple of deadpan jokes in The Great Escape and he's surprisingly charming and funny in From Noon Til Three in the kind of role that a decade earlier Burt Lancaster would have played:



For many, Charles Bronson has a reputation as a rather monolithic screen presence that’s not entirely undeserved considering how lazy many of his 80s and 90s films were, but in the mid-70s when his star was still riding high he could still challenge people’s perceptions with a much more engaged performance in an unexpected gem like From Noon Till Three only to see it ignored by both his action movie fanbase disappointed by the lack of a body count and more upmarket audiences who weren’t convinced by the star’s presence in a surprisingly sophisticated black comedy romance alike. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning writer-director Frank D. Gilroy’s own novel From Noon Till Three: The Possibly True and Certainly Tragic Story of an Outlaw and a Lady Whose Love Knew No Bounds, it’s a shame the film is so little known and so rarely revived.

Bronson is (perhaps) a former colonel who has fallen on hard times since the Civil War and is now riding with Douglas Fowley’s motley band of outlaws en route to the biggest bank robbery of their lives, but a troubling nightmare that an ambush lies in wait leads him to take advantage of an injury to his horse to sit out the raid at refined widow Jill Ireland’s remote mansion. In the three hours that he spends waiting for their return a relationship gradually blossoms as her haughty exterior melts and his own true character emerges only for the law to put an abrupt end to things. Escaping only to be jailed for another man’s crimes, he emerges from prison a year later eager to rekindle their romance to find that in the interim she has turned it into an international best-selling novel, play and song, the mansion becoming a shrine for tourists and the story so elaborately over-romanticised that she doesn’t recognize the real man anymore – and when she finally does, she doesn’t want the unvarnished truth destroying the legend that the whole world has taken to its heart…

The film was never going to be an easy sell, shifting from Western to romance to black comedy with a resolution that makes perfect sense but certainly left many enchanted by the love story and hoping for a more Hollywood ending disappointed. The presence of the usually stiff-as-a-board Mrs Bronson in a demanding role probably didn’t help any more than the cartoonish Mad Magazine-style posters a desperate studio used to market it. Yet it’s a quirky little delight of a movie that has fun subverting expectations, not least of its leading man. Bronson is quite the revelation here, clearly having a ball in the kind of part that Burt Lancaster would have played only a few years earlier, delivering writer-director Gilroy’s occasionally elegant dialogue as if it were second nature and taking advantage of the script’s ample opportunities to show a range that was rarely asked of him as he’s forced to adopt multiple disguises and identities in the second half of the film as he finds himself cast out of his own legend even by his former friends. While Ireland isn’t as effortlessly natural, that works in her favour in the early scenes and she certainly ups her usual game this time round and has moments where she’s refreshingly natural and unforced, possibly because it’s one of the few times in her husband’s films that she was working with a director who actually wanted her in his picture. The two really do light up in some of their scenes together for the only time in their 18 films together.

There’s also an excellent score from Elmer Bernstein: more a gentle wistful romantic one than a boots and saddles one, with a particularly beautiful love theme, Hello and Goodbye, that even Jill Ireland's vocal rendition can't ruin, it's closer to his work on 'smaller' films like To Kill a Mockingbird than his more robust scores, and just as effective in its own way. (Bernstein and co-lyricist Alan Bergman even cameo in the film as a pair of song pluggers.)

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by belcherman

Agree with you about Coburn, though. One of the greats who doesn't get the recognition these days that others do.

In addition to From Noon Till Three, already mentioned by other users, Farewell, Friend and Red Sun are also pretty breezy and do a great job of showcasing another side of Bronson.

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I've never seen Soldier in the Rain but I recently watched the Reivers and thought it was awful. I personally don't think McQueen could do comedy very well other than the odd quip here or there. As for Bronson, another film I recently watched was From Noon Till Three and thought it was wonderful and hilarious. It threw me for a loop because I did not expect it to be the type of movie it was.

Gee, I rather enjoyed The Reivers. Soldier in the Rain is kind of a dramedy, with McQueen playing a country doofus opposite Jackie Gleason's scheming vet. It's a movie I am really fond of.

It has been a while since I've seen From Noon Til Three, but I recall Bronson's performance as more of an instance of Charles Bronson being in a comedy than as an instance of Charles Bronson doing comedy. In any event, the fact that he did this movie at all is evidence I guess that he wasn't entirely humorless, so I take that back.

[antennahead]

Originally Posted by mja345

I have the German digibook of "Deadfall". Really insane film, even aside from Cage's bizarre performance.

I wish we'd get a region A Blu ray of this for us non region free guys

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by antennahead

I wish we'd get a region A Blu ray of this for us non region free guys

Best 90 bucks I ever spent, a region free player that is, though I still prefer to buy Region A or region free discs. Getting titles like Paper Moon, Ice Cold in Alex, The Lost Weekend, The Naked City and an actual good version of "Ran" that doesn't make me want to gauge my eyes out is satisfying.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by antennahead

I wish we'd get a region A Blu ray of this for us non region free guys

It's with LG my man, so it probably won't get released in the US. It's one of those films that you truly wonder what drugs everyone was on during the making of it. I had a blast re-watching it.

[antennahead]

Originally Posted by mja345

It's with LG my man, so it probably won't get released in the US. It's one of those films that you truly wonder what drugs everyone was on during the making of it. I had a blast re-watching it.

Yes, unfortunately I'm aware it with Lionsgate I have the really crappy DVD. Nic Cage was just insane wasn't he

[mja345]

Originally Posted by antennahead

Yes, unfortunately I'm aware it with Lionsgate I have the really crappy DVD. Nic Cage was just insane wasn't he

Cage is just incredible. Where he came up with that performance is probably a question that is impossible to answer. My theory is that he was big at the time and they told him, "If you choose to act in this film, do whatever you want." It's the only explanation.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by mja345

Cage is just incredible. Where he came up with that performance is probably a question that is impossible to answer. My theory is that he was big at the time and they told him, "If you choose to act in this film, do whatever you want." It's the only explanation.

The fact it was directed by his brother may have something to do with it.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

The fact it was directed by his brother may have something to do with it.

True. Nonetheless, it allowed an actor to be completely unhinged, which is very rare.

[plateoshrimp]

Originally Posted by mja345

True. Nonetheless, it allowed an actor to be completely unhinged, which is very rare.

Somehow Nicolas Cage makes the phrase "completely unhinged" appealing.

[Aclea]

You could probably compile a graph of how unhinged his performances are based purely on his hairstyles.

[Dailyan]

I've been going through my Fox sale order and watched "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" yesterday...what a creepy, atmospheric, somewhat campy, psychological thriller. Excellent black and white cinematography and a haunting score.

[BagheeraMcGee]

Originally Posted by mja345

Cage is just incredible. Where he came up with that performance is probably a question that is impossible to answer. My theory is that he was big at the time and they told him, "If you choose to act in this film, do whatever you want." It's the only explanation.

That's the impression I get with a lot of his straight-to-video stuff. He probably gets carte blanche in terms of how he wants to play those. For example, I can picture this conversation he probably had with the producers and director of Arsenal:

CAGE: So you want me to play the heavy?
FILMMAKERS: Yes, Nicolas, we'd love to have you play that role.
CAGE: What do you guys say to me playing this part looking like Tony Clifton?
FILMMAKERS: Sure! Sign right here.

[Aclea]

Surprisingly he was offered the Willem Dafoe role in Dog Eat Dog but turned it down because he was tired of playing crazy. Though if the bizarre last scene where he does the world's worst Bogart impersonation is his idea of playing it straight these days it's probably just a case of degree...

[noirjunkie]

Originally Posted by mja345

True. Nonetheless, it allowed an actor to be completely unhinged, which is very rare.

There are plenty of bad Nicolas Cage movies, but there are no bad Nicolas Cage performances.

He looks like he's going for broke (again) in Mandy, which pairs his over-the-top insanity with the director of Beyond the Black Rainbow. It should be the craziest film of 2018.