We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
Fritz’s movie career spanned 47 years from 1916 Until 1963 and his earliest films were 27 silent ones. Indeed many movie historians and critics seem to best know Fritz for the 1927 silent Metropolis and his 1931 first-talkie M starring Peter Lorre as a child serial killer.
My own personal favorite Lang films are though the pair or noirs that he made in 1956, both of which starred Dana Andrews: While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
However M in particular was considered by Lang personally to be his magnum opus and film historians have labelled it a “timeless classic”. The British Film Institute have dubbed Lang himself The Master of Darkness.
In 4 separate polls ranking the greatest all-time directors Fritz is listed 3,12, 15 and 23, an average of approx 13th place. At the time of his death in 1976 he had a net worth equivalent to $11 million today.
Your video has much magical material in it and I rate it 99%. In Part 2 is my pick of it.
FL=foreign language and LC=lobby card
Best POSTERS 1/American Guerrilla [aka I Shall Return] 2/all the material for – (1)Journey to the Lost City (2) Indian Tomb (3)Secret beyond the Door 3/FL Cloak and Dagger 4/FL Human Desire 5/Liliom 6/FL Blue Gardenia 7/FL Return of Frank James 8/1st one for While the City Sleeps 9/raunchy FL for 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse 10/a very raunchy pair for Rancho Notorious – one of the few movies in which the wonderful Arthur Kennedy was the male lead. 11/two for Clash by Night 12/The Spiders 13/Dr Mabuse Gambler 14/Destiny 15/Spies 16/the whole set for Die Nibelungen 17/all material for – (1) Big Heat (2) Metropolis (3) M.
Top notch STILLS are 1/LC Secret Beyont the Door 2/Charlie Bill Stuart 3/LC You and Me 4/Fonda and Tierney 5/Woman in the Moon 6/Rancho Notorious 7/Clash by Night 8/Woman in the Window 9/Fury 10/Die Nibelungen 11/Metropolis 12/Metropolis 13/M – stunning.
As a matter of interest here in chronological order is a recently published selection of what are perceived to be 10 of Lang’s greatest films:
1922/Dr Mabuse The Gambler
1924/Die Nibelungen
1931/M
1936/Fury
1937/You Only Live Once
1944/Woman in the Window
1950/House by the River
1952/Rancho Notorious
1956/While the City Sleeps
1956/Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
The final 2 films are of course my own personal faves among Lang’s films as I have said in Part 1 so it’s good to see they made the cut.
Hey Bob…good information on Fritz Lang….it accomplishes two things….entertaining and educational.. I have not seen either of your favorites…While The City Sleeps or Beyond A Reasonable Doubt. I will make a better effort to track those movies down. Good stuff…as always…and now work calls.
HI BRUCE:
Glad you liked my stuff on Fritz.
Both directly and indirectly we who follow this site owe a lot to Steve’s videos.
You gave While the City Sleeps and Beyond e a Reasonable doubt respectable enough ratings: 66 and 67% respectively.
As far as I know of all the stars who were in each of those films Rhonda Fleming is the only one still alive, at 96 – amazing! She was married 6 times and has survived all her husbands, the final one dying in 2017.
She is in a kind of a way a ‘kindred spirit’ of yours, campaigning in her prime for compulsory religious prayer in schools [with the support of celebs like The Duke and her old co-star Ronnie Reagan before he became President]. Rhonda enjoys her own Cogerson page [which I treasure], one of the relatively few old B movie/supporting actresses
Take care.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooh), info, trivia, much appreciated.
Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Your list of Fritz Lang’s best films is interesting, but it’s missing possibly his most famous movie – Metropolis – a milestone movie if ever there was one, even people who have never seen it recognise images from that film. And The Big Heat which some consider his best American film.
Five films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – M, Metropolis, The Big Heat, You Only Live Once and Die Nibelungen.
Seven films scored 9 out of 10 including – Fury, The Woman in the Window, Spies and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.
“To begin with I should say that I am a visual person. I experience with my eyes and never, or only rarely, with my ear–to my constant regret.”
“There was a time when all I looked for was a good story, but nowadays everything has to look like the size of Mount Rushmore, and the actors in close-up look as though they belong there.”
HI STEVE
Thanks for the usual comprehensive feedback.
I have never seen Metropolis but like you I was surprised at its exclusion from the list. However the authors cover their a** by emphasizing that Fritz made so many classics that no selection of any 10 Lang films would be all-inclusive of his greatest movies.
In other words they [unlike Hirsch] don’t insist that their choices are definitive. Still I agree with you that Metropolis [and M] should be MUSTS for a Lang All time Greats list.
I love the quotes – and if Fritz thought it was bad back in his time he should be around now to see Jason, The Meg and The Rock!
I’m sure though that you can remember the promotional tagline on the posters for 1998’s Godzilla “Size DOES matter!” [See Wikipedia reproduction for example.]
New Steve video added to the page. My thoughts on Lewis’ career and movies…that are found on Steve’s channel are here:
Good video. Voted up. And shared. Ok…now that fluff is over…let’s talk Lewis Milestone. My first match is #20 The Red Pony…a good film…but the cinematography always seemed off to me. #12 Ocean’s Eleven…fun movie with a great ending…that ending was one my dad talked about all the time. #10 Halls of Montezuma….good movie! #8 Pork Chop Hill…another good movie but so bleak. #6 Mutiny on the Bounty…the movie that really frustrated him…thank you Marlon. #3 Strange Loves of Ivor…one of the first movies I watched that Flora suggested for me….that was about 8 years ago. #1 All Quiet on the Western Front…his masterpiece. So that is only 7 seen or 28%…one day I will do an UMR page on him.
Hi Bruce, your tally 7, mine 5 and Flora 12.
The Mutiny of 62 drove everyone crazy but it’s still my favorite of the Bounty films.
I can’t remember if I saw Pork Chop Hill or not. I did see Hamburger Hill, does that count? Thanks for the comment, share and vote, mucho apreciado.
Glad to share your videos Steve. Hmmmmm…seen Hamburger Hill….but can’t remember Pork Chop Hill…..very interesting…as Spock would say. How about Connery’s The Hill?….or the horror classics The Hills Have Eyes or Silent Hill? The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain? You have to have seen A Hill In Korea…which stars young pups Michael Caine and Robert Shaw. What about Home From The Hill? House on Haunted Hill? Inquiring minds want to know!
Lewis Milestone’s career lasted nearly half a century, from 1918 until 1964. Many people remember him most positively for the classic 1930 All Quiet on the Western Front, and maybe negatively for the highly publicized commercial failure of the Brando 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty [Lewis’ final film]but before All Quiet, he had directed and/or script-written around 20 silent films
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Lewis directed several television productions including two 1958 episodes of the cult western series Have Gun Will Travel starring Richard Boone. Boone got his own TV show in 1963 and 1964 and Lewis directed one episode of it in 1964. According to Wikipedia Lewis also directed an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957 but I can find no further details of that.
Lewis’ net worth at the time of his death was equivalent to $8 million in today’s money. In 4 separate polls of the greatest directors of all time that I have seen Lewis is ranked 1, 17, 22 and 23 – an average placing of 15.75. It seems though that WH prioritizes for example drooling over a subliminal cut of Willis in Split against profiling an acclaimed class act like Lewis.
Despite its relative [by your standards] 25-entry brevity this video got one of the highest marks for your work under my scoring system:99%. Part 2 will give you some idea why. Indeed to avoid my appraisals being too long I had to leave out some of the many superlatives that I had jotted down in my notes.
The best in my view of the many impressive POSTERS in your Milestone Video: 1/They Who Dare – the first is one of the very best posters I have ever seen of the ‘bread and butter’ films made in the heyday of my 2nd fave Brit actor after Sir Maurice: Derek Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogarde aka Sir Dirk 2/No Minor Vices. Until now although a big Dana Andrews fan in the 1950s I was totally unaware of this movie and the fact that Andrews could do comedy 3/Armored Attack 4/The Red Pony. The poster should be admitted to the Cogerson memorabilia collection as it reflects one of the very few movies in which Miss Loy got top billing 5/foreign language one for Arc of Triumph 6/Lamppost poster for latter film 7/Anything Goes 8/The Racket 9/ iconic Joan in Rain – stupendous for any Crawford fan.
POSTERS continued: 10/a magnificent full set for Ocean’s 11/two super ones for Dickie’s Halls of Montezuma [he wouldn’t like me referring to him by that name. He insisted that even The Duke address him as Richard during the filming of The Alamo] 12/Heart of Manchester 13/1st one for Pork Chop Hill 14/two foreign language ones for Mutiny on the Bounty 15/1st one for Walk in the Sun -Lewis certainly liked working with Dana 16/Of Joels and Men 17/two absolutely splendid ones for All Quiet, the first of the two even incorporating a bit of sex! 18/The Front Page.
The latter film was remade as His Girl Friday starring Al Leach in 1940 and as The Front Page again in 1974 with the Lemmon/Matthau screen team. I never saw Lewis’ version; decided to skip the Leach offering when I saw that it contained a lot of Archie’s to me silly and boring screwball comedy antics; and therefore much preferred Jack and Walt. One thing all 3 versions had in common was a great director: Milestone, Hawks and Wilder respectively.
My pick of the STILLS are as follows [LC=lobby card] 1/Ronnie and Ginger 2/LC Anything Goes 3/Purple Heart 4/iconic photo of a young Joan at her loveliest – no wonder both genders idolized her as YOU suggested previously 5/Coop at his most early-days wooden 6/my Richard at his iconic best in his heyday 7/one of Greg 8/a very young Kirk in Strange Love of Myrna Ivers, his debut movie. Mind-boggling to think that he was 30 then but still had a further 72 years ahead of him as of today. I don’t know whether you have noticed a current sick Internet spoof about his death? 9/LC Of Joels and Men 10/Great LC for All Quiet 11/lobby card of the Great Jolson 12/Edge of Darkness 13/And saving the finest wine for the last!-absolutely the best and most scrumptious solo photo that I have seen to date of Mr Mumbles in Mutiny on the Bounty
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my Lewis Milestone video, the generous rating (ooh), info and trivia are very much appreciated.
Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
These videos are longer and more jam-packed with posters and stills than they would have been a couple of years ago, when I tried to limit the running time to about 8mins or less. I was thinking viewers would get bored if they went on for too long. There are nearly 900 videos on my channel containing well over 20,000 posters and stills. Crazy!
Three films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Martha Ivers, Of Mice and Men and All Quiet on the Western Front. Four more scored 9 out of 10 including Edge of Darkness and A Walk in the Sun.
Milestone on Mutiny on the Bounty – “I thought, “This is one way of getting rich quick–I get the salary and, at most, it couldn’t take two or three months”. After I’d signed the contract I found out that in the previous year all they’d had on screen was about seven minutes of film. I spent a year on it.”
“Everything went off fine for a couple of weeks, and then suddenly we were doing a scene and Brando spoke to the cameraman, right past me. He said, “Look, I’ll tell you, when I go like this, it means roll it, and this gesture means you stop the camera. You don’t stop the camera until I give you the signal”. Well, I was amazed, but I didn’t say anything about it.”
HI STEVE Thanks for the interesting feedback. Milestone’s quote about The Great Mumbler is par for the course: a big star throwing his weight about and in effect bullying his associates on the set of a movie. Sinatra used to swear at directors and kick chairs and tables about to show his disapproval at times.
I’m not like WH who seems to think that because his idols are great up there on the screen, they must be wonderful people in real life too, so I have long disapproved of a lot of Brando’s private behavior. According to James Garner, when he and Marlon were making Sayonara together Jim had to take him aside and tell him to stop bullying director Joshua Logan. Garner was one person to whom Mr Mumbles would listen to for some reason.
Before my father would support any celebrity, his No 1 priority was to ensure that the celeb was as dad put it “A good citizen.”; dad detested Russell Crowe in particular because of his behaviour and dad hated Brando simply because he WAS Brando and didn’t debut in the 30s or 40s.
I have never found any of your videos too long, but I can understand that as you are catering to a wide audience you want to make sure you don’t go on to the extent that you put off “the lowest common denominator”.
I split my comments on your videos into 2 parts as a rule so that any one part is not over-long and even then, I could usually say more than I do as there is a great deal of content in your work that interests me.
Bruce will of course hang onto every word that I say but I am sure that other persons who come across a post of mine do not want to read pages and pages about how wonderful I think your material is and even you might become bored with it! Anyway take care and I hope all is well with you.
King Vidor received 8 prestigious international awards and was nominated 5 times for a Hollywood Best Director Oscar as well as receiving 5 other nominations. At the age of 85 he was finally awarded an Honorary Oscar in 1979, three years before his death.
In one respect King will always remain unique: he was the last ever person to direct the great Tyrone Power. Under Vidor’s direction Power shot a number of scenes for Solomon and Sheba released in 1959, the year after Power’s sad premature death. Power died mid shooting of course and most of his scenes were abandoned and re-shot with Yul Brynner as Solomon.
However in the completed movie a keen eye [such as that belonging to someone like Joel Hirschhorn] can apparently still spot Tyrone in the background of some residual battle scenes from his involvement with the movie. Indeed Wikipedia and IMDB [unlike those tight-wads Lensman and Cogerson] credit Ty with that film in their Power filmographies.
King’s career spanned 7 decades from 1913-1980 and at the time of his death in 1982 his net worth is said to have been equivalent to $50 million in today’s money. My own faves among his films are Duel in the Sun [Peck] Ruby Gentry [Chuck] and Man without a Star [Kirk Douglas].
Your video is not one of your ‘epics’ in length but is a solid 30 entry presentation which earned a 98% rating under my scoring system. To an extent the rating was due to some of the very old posters and stills being eye-boggling collector’s items. Your resurrecting them for us is much appreciated.
FL=Foreign Language poster/LC = Lobby Card.
1/ALL material for Solomon and Sheba. Your posters are a bit confusing though – didn’t Angela Lansbury play Sheba?
2/ Other best POSTERS for me are 1/FL for Wedding Night 2/two racy ones for Bird of Paradise 3/Billy the Kid 4/two for Comrade X [always good to see sexy Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler] 5/first one for Ruby Gentry [aka Ruby – Chuck on the way up the star ladder. I vividly recall going to see it back in 1953-ah nostalgia!] 6/Stranger’s Return 7/FL Beyond the Forest 8/FL-The Fountainhead – “The man who works for nothing is a fool” Cooper’s architect Howard Roark when he blows up his own building because its owners have stolen his design without paying him. 8/FL ones for War and Peace – stupendous! 9/FL Duel in the Sun 10/The Patsy 11/The Citadel 12/1st one for Myrna Dallas 13/Street Scene 14/the set for The Champ 15/The Big Parade 16/The Champ 17/Mancunian War Bride 18/Man without a Star-
Who knows, who knows?
Who knows which-away the right way goes?
The night is dark, the way is far
For a man without a star. [Sung over the credits by Frankie Laine]
3/My pick of the other STILLS/LOBBY CARDS 1/LC Cynara – sexy! 2/LC Wedding Night 3/the sexy Bird of Paradise again! 4/LC for Comrade X 5/solo of the great Bette! 6/behind the scenes for La Boheme – breathtaking for the movie buff 7/War and Peace 8/Stanwyck solo 9/Greg and Jen 10/The Citadel 11/The Champ! 12/two stunners for The Big Parade 13/Young Fred in Texas Rangers [remade as Streets of Laredo in 1949 starring Golden Holden 14/North West Passage with Tracy and Robert Young [Young replaced The Cowboy of the Century in the cast] 15/Kirk and Jeanne again in Man without s Star-
I was under a prairie moon
Whistling a lonesome tune
When my roving eye came to sight her
And my heart growed lighter and lighter
And the Moon grew brighter and brighter. [Sung in film by Douglas as he serenades Jeanne]
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info, trivia and song lyrics. much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Making videos and reading about these lesser known (to ordinary folk) Hollywood directors has been educational for me. I wasn’t expecting King Vidor’s top rated movies to be silent movies. The Crowd (1928) is considered his masterpiece and I’ve read about it, it’s not my idea of a ‘crowd’ pleaser. I’d rather watch Duel in the Sun, an overblown western which had film critics laughing their heads off at the wrong moments. But it was a huge hit.
Three films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Show People, The Big Parade and The Crowd. Three more scored 9 – The Champ, The Citadel and Street Scene. What no love for Solomon and Delilah? tsk tsk
Darth Vidor on Frank Capra – “Very often I would see the wheels going around and the tricks coming up. It was probably useful, but I used to be aware of the mechanics of it and how you would work toward a gag to get a gag in. I’m sure he’d think the same thing about me. He’s a good filmmaker.”
King Vader on Gary Cooper – “He got a reputation as a great actor just by thinking hard about the next line.”
“In Hollywood, the cameraman lights the star. In Europe, he lights the set.”
Thanks for the feedback, additional information and 3 fine quotes. Please don’t be telling Flora that guys like Joel were laughing at our Greg in Duel in the Sun. WH never mentions that!
I used to get myself in trouble with your pal John over Cooper. I don’t like the younger Gary whom I though rather wooden and even silly at times. However I adored the older Cooper from High Noon onward and I thought that was a good compromise to put to John, but I guess he was a guy who didn’t ‘do’ compromise – a bit like a lot of those Brexiteers and Remainers alike whom you’ve got running around over there!
I’m trying to fashion a compromise with WH at the moment by pointing out on this site that (1) Hitch’s Notorious aside I never liked the younger Al Leach because for or one thing, Skippy apart, I absolutely detest those daft screwball comedies which were the Leach calling card in the 30s and 40s and comprise my least fave genre. Yes! – I would watch a Jace movie before a screwball comedy. Why Mae West ever wanted to boast about “owning” the young Leach is beyond me; but (2) I’m a big fan of the Archie from 1955 onward in movies like To Catch a Thief, Affair to Remember, N by NW, Charade and That Touch of Mink.
Often the release of your latest video is good timing for me personally and on this occasion, you have reacquainted me with my old fave Man without a Star when coincidentally I’m just about to watch a TV re-run what is probably my all-time best liked Kirk Douglas movie Last Train from Gun Hill. Ah, my comfort zone – how I love languishing there! Anyway take care.
MARSHALL MATT MORGAN [Kirk] Sheriff, I’m here to take the son of Craig Belden [Anthony Quinn] back with me to be tried for rape and murder.
TOWN SHERIFF BARTLETT [Walter Sande] You’ll get no help from me.
MATT: Aren’t you supposed to be the law around here? Are you scared?
SHERIFF: I always take the long view. Belden owns this town and 50 years from now the flowers will grow just as pretty on my grave as they do on yours. Nobody will remember that you got killed being brave and I was a coward. Always take the long view, that’s my advice to you.
MATT: I’m taking Belden’s son back with me and if you try to get in my way I’ll shoot you -THAT’s the long view!
Added Steve’s King Vidor video to this page. Our thoughts on his video and King’s movies.
Nice new video. King Vidor is a name I have known all of my life…though I have not seen too many of his movies. First match is #21 Ruby Gentry…decent movie. #20 Soloman and Sheba….epic scale but pretty average #14 The Fountainhead..has not aged well. #13 War Peace…same as #20..epic scale average movie. #11 Duel In The Sun….one of the biggest western box office hits of all-time. #8 Northwest Passage…one of my dad’s Top 5 movies. #4 The Champ….good movie. So a grand total of 7 of his movies and only 2 of his Top 10. Those are not stellar numbers. Voted up.
Hi Bruce, your tally of 7 still beats my 5, Flora is well ahead with 18 watched out of 30. King Vidor has directed some huge films but they were not as highly rated as his two silent masterpieces The Big Parade and The Crowd.
Selznick’s Duel in the Sun was a massive hit but was still unable to knock Gone With the Wind off it’s pedestal. Thanks for the comment, vote and share, always appreciated.