795 thoughts on “Site Index”

1. STEVE/BRUCE The Directors’ Guild of America which represents the interests of US Film and TV directors celebrated its 80th anniversary last year and to mark the occasion it polled its member on which films they thought had been best directed over the years. In today’s Guardian newspaper the list of 80 films [one for each year of the Guild] is published and I have reproduced the Top 30 in rank order. This list differs from others in that it is the world’s top American DIRECTORS voting for what have been the best DIRECTED films of all time. If you haven’t already seen it I thought the list might interest you both as a pair who rank films for your own sites. I should add that the chief criticism of the list is that there is only one female in the entire 80 selections – Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is ranked 56th.
   Title Director Year
   1. The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola 1972
   2. Citizen Kane Orson Welles 1941
   3. Lawrence of Arabia David Lean 1962
   4. 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick 1968
   5. Casablanca Michael Curtiz 1942
   6. The Godfather: Part II Francis Ford Coppola 1974
   7. Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola 1979
   8. Schindler’s List Steven Spielberg 1993
   9. Gone With the Wind Victor Fleming 1939
   10. Goodfellas Martin Scorsese 1990
   11. Chinatown Roman Polanski 1974
   12. The Wizard of Oz Victor Fleming 1939
   13. Raging Bull Martin Scorsese 1980
   14. Jaws Steven Spielberg 1975
   15. It’s a Wonderful Life Frank Capra 1946
   16. Dr. Strangelove or: How I
   Learned to Stop Worrying
   and Love the Bomb Stanley Kubrick 1964
   17. The Shawshank Redemption Frank Darabont 1994
   18. The Graduate Mike Nichols 1967
   19. Star Wars: Episode IV —
   A New Hope George Lucas 1977
   20. Blade Runner Ridley Scott 1982
   21. On the Waterfront Elia Kazan 1954
   22. Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino 1994
   23. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Steven Spielberg 1982
   24. Annie Hall Woody Allen 1977
   25. Saving Private Ryan Steven Spielberg 1998
   26. Seven Samurai Akira Kurosawa 1954
   27. A Clockwork Orange Stanley Kubrick 1971
   28. Raiders of the Lost Ark Steven Spielberg 1981
   29. Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock 1958
   30. Sunset Boulevard Billy Wilder 1950

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   1. Hey Bob…that is an awesome list of some great movies. Hard to argue against any of them being at the top. Thanks for sharing the information . Good stuff.

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2. HI STEVE I remember writing some months back about the fact that Bruce had done pages on most of the great stars of the Hollywood musical era but that for me the main outstanding exceptions were Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell and Howard Keel. Bruce has since given us a fine comprehensive page on Kathryn but hasn’t yet got round to Howard or Jane. In the meantime I’m delighted that you have profiled Howard.

   2 You’ve no doubt heard the expression “Always the bridesmaid but never the bride.” Well my recollection of Howard was that he was the reliable leading man to many of the great musical actresses of his day – Betty Hutton, Doris Day, Esther Williams, Jane Powell, Ann Blyth – but never got to be the top-billed star himself except in the 1955 Kismet which was a flop. Your fine array of colourful posters do indeed bear out that recollection. My favourite posters among the musicals were Texas Carnival, Rose Marie and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and elsewhere Day of the Triffids was exceptional. I loved the stills from Jupiter’s Darling [very sexy!] and Kismet though BOTH those were flops and appealing to me as well was the obviously posed ensemble one of Keel, Gardner, Quinn and Robert Taylor in Ride Vaquero! The one of Doris in her underwear was quite amusing.

   3 Your first batch of posters include 3 from the cheapie westerns that Howard made for A C Lyles and Bruce at least knows what I think of Lyles’ stuff so I agree with your very low markings for those movies. The posters themselves are though quite good and I see that on 2 of them Lyles himself actually gets quite prominent billing. As said no Keel page yet from the Work Horse for direct comparisons but he has on existing pages given critic/audience approval ratings to each of you Top 5 and his average score for the 5 is approx. 75% compared with your own average of around 80%. What this profile lacked in length it sure made up for in content and style so 9.3/10. A lovely treat.

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   1. Hey Bob….good feedback on Steve’s Howard Keel video. I have the numbers for most of Keel’s movies ready to go…..but just have not gotten around to it. Currently working on something new….so it might take a bit before I get my now…”second fiddle” Keel page completed. On my way to Steve’s You Tube channel right now.

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      1. BRUCE
         Look forward to your Keel stats which should have some juicy worldwide figures as Keel was an MGM contract player for most of his musicals.

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         1. Hey Bob ….was doing some research and found a great photo on Keel….that should motivate me to do a page on him. And yes plenty of worldwide grosses coming. 🙂

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   2. Thanks Bob, appreciate the review, rating and observation. Glad you liked the video.

      Bruce, presents us with a page on Tim Conway, I still don’t know who that is, and has barely heard of Howard Keel. Has he never watched Dallas? I thought Americans worshipped Dallas and Dynasty and other classics like TJ Hooker and Magnum PI. 🙂

      When I was quite young I hated musicals and I only knew Keel as the hero of the sci-fi movie The Day of the Triffids, I was shocked to discover later he was famous in Hollywood musicals not alien invasion movies.

      Singin’ in the Rain was the only musical I could tolerate back then, slowly slowly I became quite fond of the genre but that Gene Kelly classic remains my favorite musical.

      My favorite Keel musical? I like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers quite a bit “Bless your beautiful hide wherever you may be….” But I’ve watched Calamity Jane a lot more, it’s funnier and more enjoyable and it’s my favorite Doris Day role, she is superb as ‘Calam’, really underrated.

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3. lots of subjects but were is jamie foxx?

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   1. Hey Zach….I will add Jamie Foxx to our request list…thanks for the suggestion.

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4. Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my Fairbanks Jr video, much appreciated.

   I was going to do a video on his famous father but decided to delay it for a while, maybe have a short series of videos on the silent greats like Doug, Mary, Lon, Lillian and Rudy at a later date.

   Glad you liked the posters and stills. I wonder how many movie posters I must have uploaded onto more than 500 videos in the past two years? A lot. 🙂

   Looking at my datafiles I’ve done box office and ratings videos on 395 different people so far. Have I beaten Bruce on movie people? Is Bruce still way ahead? I dunno. Only way to find out is to count all the names in the UMR site index.

   I’ll stop when I reach 1000 names. [wink]

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5. STEVE/YOUR FAIRBANKS JR VIDEO
   1 I liked the deference Doug showed to his father in your opening quote and Doug being the son of the swashbuckling Great does make more interesting any profile of Douglas Jr whose 1947 Sinbad the Sailor is my favourite pirate movie along with Power’s 1942 The Black Swan.

   2 The standard of artwork here was again so high throughout the video that I didn’t try to make many distinctions so I’ll mention at random Green Hell, Rulers of the Sea, Sinbad the Sailor and The Lady in Ermine with those Grable legs on display! Excellent black and white stills of Doug/Hayworth, him and Davis, Fairbanks and Colman and the dancing one from Gunga Din. Gorgeous colour shot too of Doug and his spitfire leading lady in Sinbad the Sailor. WH has not yet done a Fairbanks page but I did compare some of your Fairbanks ratings with those Bruce has provided on the pages of Doug’s co-stars and WH too gives your Top 4 high markings with an average critic/audience approval of 80% compared with your close average of 82.5%

   3 Some cynics used to refer to Doug Jr as Mr Joan Crawford but your posters did a good job of illustrating how prolific a stand-alone career Doug Jr had and this consideration combined with the uniformly high artwork place this video in your top 9.5/10 bracket in my estimation Super Easter treat. How soon I get to comment on your very latest video depends on whether or not it Rains today!

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   1. Thanks for the mini-review on Steve’s latest video. This is the link….which Steve currently can no longer share here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5gscvjyFlE&t=2s

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      1. Thanks for the video link Bruce, much appreciated amigo.

         Oh and Happy Easter!

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         1. Glad to help. You can still do your links…..the comment will just go to my “pending” comments…which I will then make them visible. Since putting in the “no link” rule…the spammers have really really slowed. Still I like being able to get your video links out there.

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   2. Hey Bob…I will have to check out Sinbad the Sailor because I really liked The Black Swan. Good to know my Fairbanks’ numbers match Steve’s numbers. I actually collected a decent amount of Fairbanks numbers from my Warner Brother Ledgers trip. Good review on Steve’s video.

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