Favorite Films (lists up to participating site members)

[Mayerling]

William Gillette on "You Tube"

There is an interesting find on "You Tube". About 1935 (a few years before he died) William Gillette was talking to some students at Yale, and reminiscing about his youth in Hartford, Connecticut where he was a neighbor of Mark Twain. Gillette is talking about knowing Twain, and how Twain never made any recording (or any that survived), so Gillette tries to demonstrate what Twain sounded like. It is an interesting curiosity, linking two figures that I find fascinating.

Jeff

[GUT]

There is an interesting find on "You Tube". About 1935 (a few years before he died) William Gillette was talking to some students at Yale, and reminiscing about his youth in Hartford, Connecticut where he was a neighbor of Mark Twain. Gillette is talking about knowing Twain, and how Twain never made any recording (or any that survived), so Gillette tries to demonstrate what Twain sounded like. It is an interesting curiosity, linking two figures that I find fascinating.

Jeff

Cool so off to you tube I go to try and find it.

[Mayerling]

I decided to revitalize the thread - nothing on it since the beginning of the month.

Last year at this time was the one hundred year anniversary of World War I beginning. The last few months saw the centennial of the torpedoing of the Lusitania, and the two hundredth anniversary of Napoleon's last chance end at the battle of Waterloo.

So, I am going to make a list of those films I can think of regarding Napoleon's career. If you see I missed any feel free to add to it.

1. Napoleon (Abel Gance's silent classic)
2. Conquest (Charles Boyer as the Emperor, with Greta Garbo as his Polish lover)
3. Desiree (Marlon Brando as the Emperor, with Jean Simmons as Desiree Clary Bernadotte, future Queen of Spain - Merle Oberon played Josephine)
4. Austerlitz (French film of 1962 vintage - among it's stars was Orson Welles as American artist/inventor Robert Fulton - trying to market his submarine!)
5. Young Mr. Pitt (Robert Donat as William Pitt the Younger trying to defeat the French, with the opposition leader Charles Fox played by Robert Morley. Bonaparte played by Herbert Lom)
6. War and Peace (1956) - Herbert Lom (in a better written screenplay) again as Napoleon. With Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, John Mills.
7. Waterloo (Rod Steiger as Napoleon, Christopher Plummer as Wellington, and Orson Welles as the Bourbon King Louis XVIII).
8. Scaramouche (1951) - with Stewart Granger, Mel Ferrer, Eleanor Powell. At the end an unknown actor makes a comic cameo as Napoleon.

As for the "Lusitania" there have been some British and Canadian films on television dealing with the disaster, but no commercial film (on the level of James Cameron's epic "Titanic" or the 1958 "A Night to Remember") most likely because the White Star liner sank after two and a half hours of flooding, and the Cunarder went down (from WHATEVER cause) in only 18 minutes.

These films mentoned the disaster, although the first (an early cartoon) does a nice job showing the sinking.

1) The Sinking of the Lusitania (Winsor McCay - 1916 / it is on You Tube)
2) 'Til the Clouds Role By (pseudo-biography of Jerome Kern - Robert Walker Sr. - which shows the "Lusy" leaving NYC with Charles Frohman on board - he drowned in the disaster)
3) Night and Day (pseudo - biography of Cole Porter - Cary Grant. He and a friend are discussing the probable death of an acquaintance on the ship).
4) Yankee Doodle Dandy - (pseudo - biography of George M. Cohan - Jimmy Cagney - in which he hears of the news on the night his serious play "Popularity" flops. Interestingly enough, the photograph of the "Lusy" in the newspaper that is being hawked by a newsboy and looked at by Cagney is of the wrong ship - it is a photo of a two funnel vessel, not a four funnel vessel).

[Interesting that of the four films I could think of three are supposed biographical movies of popular song composers.]

Jeff

[Rosella]

I think you have covered all the films made of Napoleon's career. Would 'Love and Death' with Woody Allen qualify? I've never seen the French classic 'Napoleon,' made in 1927. I believe it is available through Amazon though I don't know what the print quality is like.

[Mayerling]

I think you have covered all the films made of Napoleon's career. Would 'Love and Death' with Woody Allen qualify? I've never seen the French classic 'Napoleon,' made in 1927. I believe it is available through Amazon though I don't know what the print quality is like.

Actually "Love and Death" would qualify, even though it is a comedy. In fact it is a spoof of Tolstoi's "War and Peace". But Bonaparte is a character (and is hoping to create the "Napoleon" pastry before Wellington creates 'Beef Wellington").

Actually I have only seen some scenes from Gance's masterpiece. It has a strange editing history (including once by Gance himself) so that copies varied when found. In the 1980s, when Gance was till alived, a version that was as close to what it originally had been like was shown in New York City (Gance attended the viewing). It is a curious film because by tricks of multiple screens the actions at the conclusion of the film were visually in advance of the time (1927) when it came out.

Jeff

[Steadmund Brand]

Not trying to be a jerk.... but you have to add to the Napoleon list Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure... I love how that film was made.. and then shelved for a few years by the studio.. then they decided to try and release it as a " teen summer film" which it did become, but from what I understand.. it was supposed to be a more adult geared comedy...making fun of the youth.. but showing what would happen if all there historical figures were put in modern times... and it really works on that level.. marketed a different way ( which worked for them) but I think it's original target audience missed it... and the original target audience would have gotten all the subtle jokes that I fell most younger audiences missed....

And thanks for bringing this thread back to life!!! and it's true purpose is realized yet again by you putting "Austerlitz" on your list... I'm not at all familiar with this film,...now I feel I should track it down... but I must ask... is it worth it? you didn't say how you felt about the films on your list

Thanks again

Steadmund Brand

[Pcdunn]

"Waterloo" was a movie my class got to see as a type of reward for winning some academic contest or other. We were all bussed down to Hollywood and saw it at the famous Chinese Theater in the 1970s, which only added to the reward. The film was pretty good, very much an old-style spectacular with battles and extras on horses and so forth. Possibly the best matinee I've ever been to in my life!

Didn't Armand Assante also play Napoleon Bonaparte, perhaps in a television film or miniseries?

[Mayerling]

Not trying to be a jerk.... but you have to add to the Napoleon list Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure... I love how that film was made.. and then shelved for a few years by the studio.. then they decided to try and release it as a " teen summer film" which it did become, but from what I understand.. it was supposed to be a more adult geared comedy...making fun of the youth.. but showing what would happen if all there historical figures were put in modern times... and it really works on that level.. marketed a different way ( which worked for them) but I think it's original target audience missed it... and the original target audience would have gotten all the subtle jokes that I fell most younger audiences missed....

And thanks for bringing this thread back to life!!! and it's true purpose is realized yet again by you putting "Austerlitz" on your list... I'm not at all familiar with this film,...now I feel I should track it down... but I must ask... is it worth it? you didn't say how you felt about the films on your list

Thanks again

Steadmund Brand

Hi Steadmund,

Glad to revitalize this thread.

I have never seen "Bob and Ted's Excellent Adventure", but it would not be the only film that was geared to one audience and then shown to another one. One of the best films of the 1950s, "Twelve Angry Men" did only moderately well (if at all) at the box office. Later it was realized it should have been shown not to the general public but at so-called "Art" Movie Houses, as it is an ensemble acting masterpiece and a thoughtful film - but slightly static as most of the action is in the jury room.

I haven't seen "Austerlitz" (the films have to be made available to be seen). Welles made many films in France and Europe in the 1950s through the
1970s that were for purposes of funding his own projects, or waiting for worthwhile movies (like his stint as "Cardinal Wolsey" in "A Man For All Seasons", or as "General Dreedle" in "Catch 22"). He wasn't alone doing basically hackwork or worse for paychecks. Henry Fonda, Yul Brynner, and even Kirk Douglas did the same as did others. Many of these films are like "Austerlitz" or "Lafayette" (one of two films in which Welles played Ben Franklin) - historical films of somewhat questionable accuracy. A really bad one would be "John Paul Jones" with Robert Stack, Charles Coburn (as Franklin), MacDonald Carey (as Patrick Henry - supposedly having a love rivalry with Jones that Henry wins), and Bette Davis playing Catherine the Great of Russia (Jones served as a Rear Admiral under Catherine's government in a naval campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the 1780s).

Actors in other countries played in such movies as well, like Robert Morley and Terry-Thomas. When asked once about being in some horror flick (not "Theatre of Blood" which was a good film), Morley smiled and said, "For the money, my dear boy!"

There was a film about Napoleon called "Napoleon" made in the 1950s that had an all-star cast mostly of French or France centered performers. Eric von Stroheim portrayed Beethoven in it. Welles was in this too as General Hudson Lowe, the commander at St. Helena who despised the defeated Napoleon.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

"Waterloo" was a movie my class got to see as a type of reward for winning some academic contest or other. We were all bussed down to Hollywood and saw it at the famous Chinese Theater in the 1970s, which only added to the reward. The film was pretty good, very much an old-style spectacular with battles and extras on horses and so forth. Possibly the best matinee I've ever been to in my life!

Didn't Armand Assante also play Napoleon Bonaparte, perhaps in a television film or miniseries?

Hi Pat,

Actually there was a pretty good two part television film in the 1980s with Assante as Napoleon, and Anthony Perkins was in it as Talleyrand.

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

Hi, Jeff,

thanks for the info, I think I've seen that one! Very good.

[Bridewell]

Was scary

It gets more scary with every viewing too.

[Bridewell]

Summer of 42
The Producers
Start The Revolution Without Me

It's a bit kitsch but I like the early Christopher Reeve weepy:

Somewhere In Time

[Bridewell]

The original version of All Quiet On The Western Front

Sliding Doors

[GUT]

Summer of 42
The Producers
Start The Revolution Without Me

It's a bit kitsch but I like the early Christopher Reeve weepy:

Somewhere In Time

Which one.

[GUT]

The original version of All Quiet On The Western Front

Sliding Doors

All quiet was a goody.