Lawrence of Cinema

On TCM Friday 8/5/16 – I don’t like the country-the crickets get me nervous.”- In Elia Kazan’s masterpiece On the Waterfront (1954) city tough guy Terry Malloy (Oscar winner here Marlon Brando) fights to survive in a tough urban waterfront environment of the real life location of Hoboken, NJ just across the river from Manhattan. As a former resident during the 1980’s of this square mile city it was heartening to see Brando and the also Oscar winning here Eva Maria Saint get to know each other in the urban park in front of Our Lady Of Grace Church on Willow Ave and in Elysian Park on Hudson St. and for the action to unfold (which also included the Oscar nominated here Karl Malden as Father Barry) in front of that striking wrought iron fence bordering the New York cityscape. And note that in the early 1950’s there were only a handful of rooftop TV antennas so close to the Empire State building-there were more pigeons in those days!

In Larry Storch’s words : “Demond Wilson from Sanford and Sons. Such a nice man. And what a great show. What a day we had.”

Happy birthday Robert Fuller! Hope to see you soon pal. Larry and Robert used to take an acting class together decades ago along with June Carter Cash.

On TCM 8/3/16- George Seaton’s The Country Girl (1954) – Screen greats William Holden as the director of a play, Bing Crosby as the problem star, and Grace Kelly in an Oscar winning role as Bing’s down to earth strong wife all give great performances in one of my favorite backstage movies. The usually cool relaxed Bing Crosby is very convincing as Frank Elgin, an alcoholic has-been musical stage actor nervously trying to make a comeback-unlike the Bing we know there is tension at every note!

In viewing the 2015  TCM “Summer of Darkness” series- I found a key component to the success of Noir movies is the masterful artistic impact of three-time Oscar winner composer Miklos Rozsa’s scores.  Continue reading “Miklos Rozsa’s Noir Music”

On TCM Mon 8/1- Scarlet Street (1945)-Legendary director Fritz Lang and screen great Edward G. Robinson (ingenious at capturing many different screen personas without changing his outward appearance) introduce the great undiscovered to himself and the world class artist Christopher Cross-ironically a man of low self-esteem living in a sad Noir world with happiness only from his own art. It is very disturbing that he lets himself become a sap for lowlifes Kitty and Johnny (Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea in flawless performances) who lead Cross onto the Noir path to doom. Compare the cold manipulative Kitty captured by Lang’s camera with the Cross portrait-“painting is like falling in love.”

On TCM Sat  9/24/16 – Shane (1953) – Without much dialogue genius director George Stevens using a little movie technique magic catches the developing loving deep friendship between the homesteaders (The Starretts played by greats Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, and as their son in an Oscar nominated role Brandon De Wilde) with the trying to settle down gunfighter brilliantly played by Alan Ladd…Catch the precise use of the post-production process of a “dissolve” which is a gradual transition from a fade-out of one image to a fade-in of a new image employed to show when the Starretts realize that Shane is a sincere hardworking friend—just the continuous beautiful music of Victor Young on the soundtrack and the sound of the chopping axes along with this expressive dissolve tell us of the bond with Shane.