Favorite Films (lists up to participating site members)

[Robert]

Jeff, Stan born in Scotland?

[Steadmund Brand]

Except for Chaplin. Stan Laurel, and Keaton (the first born in England, the second in Scotland, the third with English antecedents) and Jacques Tati I was too U.S. Centered on my choices. And I should have included Carlin - thanks for reminding me.

The following could be added from Britain:

Will Hay
Tony Hancock
Peter Sellers
the Boulting Brothers
the Monty Python Troup
Hugh Laurie and Stephen Frye

Also the female partners on television whose names I can't recall - one is (or was) fat and subsequently played a female vicar, and the other was teamed in "Absolutely Marvelous".

Jeff

Ahhh French (Dawn) and Saunders (Jennifer) good pick...very funny..

I would also add Spike Milligan to that list...and as a tip of the hat to my neighbors to the north... if the Pythons make the list so do The Kids in the Hall...also think that the late Harold Ramis should get a mention.. people tend to forget the many comic masterpieces he wrote and or directed.. seriously take a peek at his list of credits again...it's more impressive then Mel Brooks who's name pops in everyone’s head right away.

re-thinking this, not sure I would put some of these folks as comic "genius", funny, yes, hysterical, often.. but very rare for true genius.....

Steadmund Brand

[Mayerling]

Jeff, Stan born in Scotland?

Robert, ya caught me! I shouldn't be such a damned smarty!! I checked Wikipedia, and Stan is from Lancashire. He was born there in 1890, his name being "Arthur Stanley Jefferson". Still he is English, so he does fit in with Chaplin and the English descended Keaton.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Ahhh French (Dawn) and Saunders (Jennifer) good pick...very funny..

I would also add Spike Milligan to that list...and as a tip of the hat to my neighbors to the north... if the Pythons make the list so do The Kids in the Hall...also think that the late Harold Ramis should get a mention.. people tend to forget the many comic masterpieces he wrote and or directed.. seriously take a peek at his list of credits again...it's more impressive then Mel Brooks who's name pops in everyone’s head right away.

re-thinking this, not sure I would put some of these folks as comic "genius", funny, yes, hysterical, often.. but very rare for true genius.....

Steadmund Brand

You are right about Milligan. I have not seen "The Kids in the Hall". Right about Ramis (I tend to dismiss people who are better but seem to have it easy - that old "William Powell looks good, so it must have been routine for him to do", when it was damned hard for him to do.

I was also thinking of Marty Feldman too, but I just don't know if he was a comic genius or not. Many of his skits are really hysterical. And how does one treat Benny Hill, a comic who specialized but had a real hand in his material.

Jeff

[Steadmund Brand]

Benny Hill... now that’s a hard one for me, I would say it's like the Three Stooges.. I find them all hysterical, as I do Benny Hill... but others will complain they are one trick ponies...but they are soooooooooo good at what they do I would say yes, see many comics have tried to do the Benny Hill shtick (both before and after he did) but none did it as well....and the Stooges.. well....why is it funny to watch guys get slapped and hurt over and over again.. it's not.. other people who try to do it have proved that it's not funny... yet.. when they do it.. HYSTERICAL.. so that is the GENIUS of them (or I should say of Moe Howard as he was the creative element there)

Then there are those performers who are very uniquely special.. Harpo Marx comes to mind...you could put him in the worst of the worst low budget poorly directed piece of garbage and he would still come off brilliant, even as an old man, when he was doing pathetic TV commercials for Labatt’s beer, there was something special, a certain magic about him...very few performers have that... I know that Chaplin, Marcel Marceau had both said Harpo was the best pantomime they ever saw.. that's pretty high praise....

I also recall Buster Keaton saying the Red Skelton was the greatest comic he ever saw...funny... I like Skelton but never thought he was that good..so it's all subjective I guess


Steadmund Brand

[Mayerling]

Benny Hill... now that’s a hard one for me, I would say it's like the Three Stooges.. I find them all hysterical, as I do Benny Hill... but others will complain they are one trick ponies...but they are soooooooooo good at what they do I would say yes, see many comics have tried to do the Benny Hill shtick (both before and after he did) but none did it as well....and the Stooges.. well....why is it funny to watch guys get slapped and hurt over and over again.. it's not.. other people who try to do it have proved that it's not funny... yet.. when they do it.. HYSTERICAL.. so that is the GENIUS of them (or I should say of Moe Howard as he was the creative element there)

I know what you mean. Both Hill and the Stooges (especially when they had Curley) were terrific at what they did. With the Stooges it helped that their shorts were steered by director Jules White, who had a good disciplined sense of timing that matched theirs. Hill apparently really was involved in the skits he put on. Occasionally, for example, instead of his normal "silly oriented sex" skits, Benny did a quieter specialty he probably thought up. In one case, I recall, he had come across a poorly transcribed sermon from some pastor, where the printer had not noticed one or two letters were not coming out. The result was unintentionally very amusing, and Benny told the audience it was not written for the show but he felt they'd enjoy hearing it. He was right - it was so preposterous due to unforeseen errors in vocabulary and diction.

As for the Stooges, your comment about the "artistry" of the slaps and bops and blows is quite original. But the proof is that they outgrew the person who was responsible for organizing the Stooges as an act: Ted Healy. Healy is one of these one time well liked comics (El Brendel is another one) whom when you see today you wish would leave the film as quickly as possible. He is a brash loud talking "side-kick" to the main figure (Clark Gable in "Dancing Lady" and "San Francisco") or a pest type (a nosy reporter in Peter Lorre's "Mad Love" or Jean Harlow's low-life, drunken brother, in "Bombshell"). I can't stand watching him (I hate to say this, considering Healy's fate is a possible murder mystery, but the scene I liked him best in was when he is dying in "San Francisco" after the earthquake - terrible of me to be sure). When Healy was "Ted Healy and his Racketeers" or "Ted Healy and His Gentlemen" or "Ted Healy and his Stooges", he was the one who slapped the other three and bullied them. You can see this in a forgotten film "Meet the Baron" dealing with several comedians in a plot about radio's "Baron Munchausen"/Jack Pearl ("Was you dere Sharlie?"). Healy (who had a serious drinking problem - which Moe, Larry, Shemp, and Curley all resented) did not mind really being rough. When they broke with him he tried to assemble a new set of Stooges, and failed. Yet when he died in 1936 the Stooges did attend his funeral out of respect.

Then there are those performers who are very uniquely special.. Harpo Marx comes to mind...you could put him in the worst of the worst low budget poorly directed piece of garbage and he would still come off brilliant, even as an old man, when he was doing pathetic TV commercials for Labatt’s beer, there was something special, a certain magic about him...very few performers have that... I know that Chaplin, Marcel Marceau had both said Harpo was the best pantomime they ever saw.. that's pretty high praise....

I also recall Buster Keaton saying the Red Skelton was the greatest comic he ever saw...funny... I like Skelton but never thought he was that good..so it's all subjective I guess


Steadmund Brand

Actually I could have included both Harpo and Groucho in my list and failed to. My problem is I wonder how much their inspired insanity (and Chico's) were due to themselves or writers like S.J. Perelman or George Kaufman. Hard to say, but they certainly kept going for years.

Keaton knew Skelton well - he worked closely with Skelton as a gag-man and advisor in films like "A Southern Yankee", so his opinion here is worthy of consideration.

Jeff

[Steadmund Brand]

Your question about the Marx brothers is a valid point, especially when it refers to Groucho and Chico.. .but as for Harpo...everything you ever read was what Harpo did Harpo came up with.. all that would be written many times was things like " Harpo enters, causes problems, Harpo leaves", in his own book ( and on a few books written by Groucho) he states that he never felt as much a part of the team, because when they would be creating routines and skits, he was not included, he was off on his own because nobody could come up with stuff for him to do...

I loved your point about Ted Healy.. makes you wonder why some people were thought of as so funny by one generation and the next several just don't get it....another good example of that might be The Ritz Brothers.. a wildly popular team for many years... that are all but forgotten.. seriously, when is the last time even a station like Turner Classic Movies played a Ritz Brother film...and when they do, I'm sorry but does anyone laugh?

Steadmund Brand

[Mayerling]

Your question about the Marx brothers is a valid point, especially when it refers to Groucho and Chico.. .but as for Harpo...everything you ever read was what Harpo did Harpo came up with.. all that would be written many times was things like " Harpo enters, causes problems, Harpo leaves", in his own book ( and on a few books written by Groucho) he states that he never felt as much a part of the team, because when they would be creating routines and skits, he was not included, he was off on his own because nobody could come up with stuff for him to do...

Even though Harpo is a gifted mime in their films (even to the point that the unfortunate "Love Happy" is dominated by his performance over Groucho and Chico), most people only think of him as one of the three or four brothers (if you include Zeppo) as part of a unified act. Ironically, if they ever found that "lost film" "Humorisk", it might enhance his isolated position in the group - because it was a silent film (the vocal enhancements for Groucho and Chico would be gone). There is a Richard Barthalmess movie that Harpo appeared in that shows him at home in the world of silent films, but he only has a small role in it. Maybe, had he branched out in 1921 or so on his own his solo reputation would be up there with Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. But I bet his mother Minnie would have talked him out of it (it would have meant breaking up the act).

I loved your point about Ted Healy.. makes you wonder why some people were thought of as so funny by one generation and the next several just don't get it....another good example of that might be The Ritz Brothers.. a wildly popular team for many years... that are all but forgotten.. seriously, when is the last time even a station like Turner Classic Movies played a Ritz Brother film...and when they do, I'm sorry but does anyone laugh?

Steadmund Brand

Oh God, Steadmund, don't get me started on the Ritz Brothers. They almost make me hate the crackers. I never understood why they were so popular - and not only with the public, but with some well known comedians like Danny Kaye and Mel Brooks among others. The Ritz Brothers are striving to be funny, and become tedious very quickly. Not too many of their comedies show up these days ("The Three Musketeers" and "The Goldwyn Follies" come to mind). Neither is really worth watching (the latter does have some of George Gershwin's last tunes in it). The last person to try to make a learned (if you consider it so because it is in a book) case for them was Leonard Maltin in his book "Movie Comedy Teams". Maltin is an interesting writer, but comes a cropper regarding them, though he admits that one either hates them or loves them. Another team he deals with is Wheeler and Woolsey, but curiously he thought the last film they did together in 1939 (the year Robert Woolsey died) was terrible. I watched it one day on the Turner Classic film network, and it actually was quite amusing (about two wealthy pill manufacturers, who could not have succeeded without each other's ideas, but can't stand each other).

Jeff

[Robert]

I know nothing of the Ritz Brothers, but I do remember someone once saying that when they were on their way up they had to play some rather dangerous dives, with the result that whenever you see them, they are never physically far apart from one another. I don't know whether that's true.

[Mayerling]

"April is the Saddest Month"

A bit of a switch for us - This month has a concurrence of three tragedies whose anniversaries occur between April 14th and April 18th: Lincoln's Assassination; the sinking of RMS Titanic; the San Francisco Earthquake. There's a fourth tragedy I can think of off hand - the explosion and sinking of the steamboat/troop transport "Sultana" on the Mississippi on April 26th, 1865, but no movie has never been made about it. Also, if you are a proud white Southerner you might include the surrender of General Lee, but that too has never been the central incident of a film, nor has the surrender of General Joe Johnston in North Carolina to his later friend General William Sherman. Oddly enough, the anniversary of Johnston's Surrender (April 26th) has appeared as an important date in at least one television movie on an historical event (the date was called, I believe, "Confederate Memorial Day" for many decades).

So I have put these titles down for one to consider:

Lincoln/Booth:

1) Prince of Players (Biopic about Edwin Booth (Richard Burton) and his father Junius Brutus Booth Sr. (Raymond Massey) and brother John Wilkes Booth (John Derek).).
2) The Prisoner of Shark Island (Warner Baxter in a stand-out performance directed by John Ford, and note the sadistic Yankee guard who adored Lincoln played by John Carridine.)
3) The Conspirator (Robert Redford's attempt to do an careful review on the case against Mary Surratt)
4) The Lincoln Conspiracy (highly speculative reinterpretation)
5) Abraham Lincoln (1930 - biopic that was one of two "talkies" by D. W. Griffith, and ended with Lincoln (Walter Huston) being assassinated by (Booth) Ian Keith).
6) Birth of a Nation (1915 - Griffith's Civil War/Reconstruction - his interpretation of the latter - film had the assassination of Lincoln (Joseph Hennabery) by Booth (Raoul Walsh) as a highpoint).
7) The People v. Dr. Mudd (I think this was the title) - a very good television movie with Dennis Weaver as the physician/conspirator (?))

Although it is not dealing with the Ford's Theatre tragedy, another film deals with the first attempt (the "Baltimore Plot of 1861") against Lincoln: "The Tall Target" (1951) with Dick Powell (as a New York Detective named John Kennedy, of all things!), Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson, and Ruby Dee in an early role). I included it because when the earlier plot begins to fall apart Menjou makes the comment, "Well "Old Abe" is a tall target - there'll be other days!"

RMS Titanic:

1) Saved From the Titanic (1912 - if you have recently seen this, let us know. The first film made about the tragedy it is now considered a lost film.)
2) Atlantic (1929/30) - The first notable recreation of the tragedy that we still have.
3) Cavalcade (1933) - Remember the two young people on their honeymoon, looking out at the sea and thinking of their future and how happy they are together, and as they leave the section of the deck, the husband takes the wife's wrap (it has become icily chilly for some reason) and removes it from it's perch over a life preserver so that we see the ship's name!! How ironic. From Noel Coward.).
4) Titanic (1943) - Joe Goebbels gives us another propaganda slice against "perfidious Albion" (of course, his regime would have killed the former dictator genius who invented that phrase if they had had their mitts on him). Oddly enough, given the crap about English aristocracy and Jews (yeah, even here) it's a well made film. Ironically it was partly shot on the cruise ship "Cap Arcona" which was blasted to bits in an air raid in 1945 by the British, who did not know Jewish Death Camp refugees were crowded into it - so over 5,000 died, which is more than on the "Titanic".).
5) Titanic (1953) - Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb fight their domestic squabbles, while Robert Wagner courts their daughter, and Thelma Ritter (playing a renamed Molly Brown) has her deep suspicions of Allan Joslyn - who leaves the ship in a disgraceful, and mythical, manner.).
6) A Night to Remember (1958) - the definitive version of the story, based on the then recent runaway best seller by Walter Lord - which is still in print - about the actual events of the sinking. It utilized some of the sequences from the Goebbels propaganda movie, which only shows how well made that film really was. Also some old movies of the Titanic moving away from it's pier were included, thus making RMS Titanic a star of it's first film.
7) The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) - A closer look at the life of the heroine of the Titanic Disaster, here played by Debbie Reynolds, and co-starring Harve Presnell as her husband John. It's score, while not up to "The Music Man" is by Meredith Wilson. Reynolds does a great job, and was nominated for an "Oscar" for her performance. With Ed Begley Sr.
8) Time-Bandits (1981) - This comedy fantasy about dwarfs and the Devil (David Warner) going through time, has a sequence with Michael Palin reminiscent of the business in "Cavalcade" (see above) where he is propsing marriage (badly) on the ship. It also includes the old joke, here of one of the dwarfs asking for "More ice" from a waiter, just before the collision occurs (followed by us seeing the bow go under!).
9) Titanic (1997) - the most detailed version of the story, and up to date in that unlike earlier versions the ship does split in half before her final sinking. It did win the best picture Oscar for James Cameron. Is it the best version? I still stick to "A Night to Remember" which concentrates on the sinking, not on the love affair of it's doomed hero and the heroine.

There were also at least three television versions of the disaster: A television version of "A Night to Remember" made in the 1950s, that had one of the largest casts for a live performance in memory, and was considered quite good; a pair of television versions in the 1970s and 1980s, the latter with George C. Scott playing Captain E. J. Smith. The disaster was also the subject of an episode of "One Step Beyond" with Patrick Macnee as a passenger/newlywed husband, and which brought in the curious story of Morgan Robertson's novelette: "Futility, or the Wreck of the 'Titan'" (1898) which predicted many details of the disaster fourteen years before - John Newland, the host mentions it at the end. The 1960s science fiction series, "Time Tunnel" used the "Titanic" for it's introductory episode, with Michael Rennie as "Captain Smith" (but curiously renamed "Captain Malcolm Smith"). In an episode of Rod Sterling's later successful series, "Night Gallery" there was an interesting episode entitled, "Sole Survivor" when a Titanic lifeboat is picked up with one man inside it, three years after the sinking (of course, if you quickly figure out this is 1915, you can guess what ship has stopped to pick up the lifeboat - Torin Thatcher played the Captain - who is unnamed - but based on William Turner of Cunard lines).

A film which has internal references (including the first name of a demonic, villainous shipping line owner: Bruce) to Titanic, and a similar conclusion was "History is Made at Night" with Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carillo, and Colin Clive (as looney here as in "Frankenstein") as the shipping line owner.

San Francisco Earthquake:

1) San Francisco (1936) - Jeanette MacDonald, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Jack Holt, Ted Healy (groan!), and Jessie Ralph, in a good fictional story about political rivalries, old San Francisco economics (rents and proper housing), singing and culture, and love triangles (Gable - MacDonald - and Holt; and note the odd seesaw of good guy/bad guy between Gable and Holt regarding everything: it's not always true that Gable is the good guy). The climactic scenes of the earthquake and the fire and dynamiting of the buildings remain good movie making to this day.
2) The Sisters (1938) - First pairing of Bette Davis and Errol Flynn in a film together, here in relatively modern dress (compared to the later "Elizabeth the Queen" in 16th Century dress). Flynn actually has a combination wanderlust and drinking problem which conflicts with his responsibility as a husband to Davis, and he is on a boat to China when the earthquake strikes (and she's pregnant). With Lee Patrick, Ian Hunter, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale Sr.). Davis has two other sisters in the story, and the ups and downs of their lives are chronicled as well.

Special Mention: Confederate Memorial Day (April 26th)

Two films that happen to touch on this anniversary - because the actual event occurred on it. The event (in 1913) was the rape and murder of Mary Phagan in Atlanta, Georgia - when she went to collect some wages at her job site in a local pencil factor run by Mr. Leo Frank (a Northern Jew), where the janitor was one Jim Conley, an African-American. The tragedy would lead to an outbreak of anti-Semitism spurred on by political demagogue Tom Watson through his newspaper, and lead to Frank's conviction in a marred trial (at which the chief witness against him was Conley, the alternative suspect). Frank would have his death penalty reduced to life imprisonment by Governor John Slaton (thus effectively destroying Slaton's political career), and would be lynched in two years.

I won't suggest my own take on this case - which was not resolved by belated testimony in the 1980s by an old man of what he claimed to see as a boy in 1913 (there was no way of adequately testing this well meant effort at telling some vital information too late). But the story is involving the death of Mary on April 26th, and that too did not help matters:

1) They'll Never Forget (1937) - Claude Rains, Allan Joslyn - a very good fictional account of the killing and what happened afterwards (Frank's name was changed, and it is his Northern antecedents, not his Judaism, that is emphasized. Lana Turner played the "Mary Phagan" part in her first notable role.

2) The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988) - Jack Lemmon (as Slayton), Kevin Spacely, Paul Dooley. A retelling in two parts of the story - takes a definite anti-Conley point of view, but is a pretty decent television movie.

On the 1960s television series, "Profiles in Courage", there was an episode about Governor Slaton and the pardon - and (interestingly enough) Walter Matthau was Slaton.

Jeff

[GUT]

Jeff

Also in April 1915

ANZAC day.

[Mayerling]

Jeff

Also in April 1915

ANZAC day.

Right again GUT.

[Steadmund Brand]

April does have its fair share of tragedy...along with your list (between the dates of 14th and 18th) we also had assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King (04-04-1968), the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine meltdown (04-26-1986) and on April 30th 1967 Muhammad Ali was stripped of his championship after refusing to be inducted into the American military…

On the lighter side of April , Charles Chaplin was born April 16th 1889

Steadmund Brand

[Mayerling]

April does have its fair share of tragedy...along with your list (between the dates of 14th and 18th) we also had assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King (04-04-1968), the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine meltdown (04-26-1986) and on April 30th 1967 Muhammad Ali was stripped of his championship after refusing to be inducted into the American military…

On the lighter side of April , Charles Chaplin was born April 16th 1889

Steadmund Brand

True about Charlie. Unfortunately, four days exactly after Charlie is born Adolf is.

On a brighter note - Harold Lloyd was also born on April 20th (as was this writer - though in far later years).

Jeff

[Robert]

On April 26th 1889, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was born.