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.
Magnificent Obsession, All that Heaven Allows and to a lesser extent Written on the Wind are among my all-time favourite films. Their adjusted Cogerson US grosses are $290 million, $153 million and $205 million respectively so Magnificent Obsession was the greatest commercia success of the three and All that Heaven Allows, whilst a solid box office hit, was the least successful of the trio commercially.
However All that Heaven Allows is considered by many critics as the masterpiece of the three, dealing as it does with reactionary social attitudes such as snobbery and hypocrisy in small-town America of the 1950s. “Heaven’ is my own top pick of the 3.
Cogerson Review Ratings: All that Heaven Allows 84%/Magnificent Obsession 78%/Written on the Wind 78%
Lensman Review Ratings: 79%,77% and 78% respectively
Made it once more among The Big Boys Ma! Cogerson and Lensman both seem to substantially agree with me.
Those 3 films came out in the 1950s which were my formative years as a film buff so the posters and stills for them and many other of Sirk’s films like Imitation of Life and The Tarnished Angels hold great nostalgic appeal for me.
I know that guys like you regard Sirk’s films as ‘women’s pictures’ and even “mush” and YOU have laughed at me for finding a “comfort zone” in them; but many discerning film historians and critics -forget about Joel!- have identified beneath the surface gloss of Sirks’ film some of the most observant social commentary in the history of Hollywood movies
I don’t know what he did with all the money that he earned but when he died in 1987 Douglas left behind a relatively small net worth of about 6 million in today’s dollars. Another fly in the ointment is that he has never gotten any Work Horse love. However in 5 separate lists of “highbrow” directors he is ranked 20, 22, 26, 26 and 41 a reasonable average of 27th.
IMDB suggests that Douglas’ reputation most “blossomed in the generation after his retirement from Hollywood films in 1959,” though in that post-1959 period he made no feature films but only 3 short films for the West German film industry in 1976, 1978 and 1979.
Your Sirk video is short – but sweet and well worth a 97.5% rating in my book. My pick of the POSTERS is as follows. FL=foreign language poster. 1/Mystery Submarine 2/Slightly French [I am not sure that you should be showing this poster giving the way they are treating us over Brexit!] 3/1st one Weekend with Father 4/FL Sign of the Pagan 5/set for Summer Storm 6/1st one for Capt Lightfoot 7/Shockproof 8/FL Battle Hymn.
9/FL All I desire 10/Sleep my Love – one of the first films I ever saw 11/two for Time to Love and Time to die. That film was one of Universal’s few big budget movies in the 1950s and was designed to launch John Gavin as the new Rock Hudson, but despite being in Psycho John never came near to making the Hudson level of stardom 12/FL Magnificent Obsession 13/entire set for Written on the Wind 14/two for All that Heaven Allows 15/FL for Imitation of Life 16/saucy one for Take Me to Town. I saw that one back in 1953 on a double bill with Jeff Chandler’s East of Sumatra, a movie which got me into trouble with WH just recently.
Great STILLS in my opinion: 1/Rock as Taza [Son of Cochise, who was played by Chandler in Broken Arrow 1950 and Battle at Apache Pass 1952. That was the role that made Jeff a star and he guested in Taza as the dying great chief handing over to his son Rock] 2/Palance as Attila the Hun 3/Young Bernie Swartz 4/sexy Linda Darnell 5/A Time to Love/a Time too Die 6/Rock and Jane in Magnificent Obsession 7/two of Rock and Dorothy Malone 8/Lana.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, info and trivia, much appreciated.
Happy you enjoyed the picture gallery.
When compiling data for this video I was curious to see what other films Douglas Sirk directed besides the famous five at the top of the chart. Sign of the Pagan and Taza Son of Cochise were surprises, Hitler’s Madman? Interesting.
I was replying to Flora’s comment on the video channel saying that I hadn’t seen any of Douglas Sirk’s films, which is unusual. Maybe Taza when I was a kid. So if Bruce was to create a page for Sirk my tally would be 0. [Bob gasps]
The only Sirk film scoring 10 out of 10 from my sources is Imitation of Life, there is one scoring 9 out of 10 – The Tarnished Angels. Ten films scored 8 out of 10 including – Written on the Wind, All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and A Time to Live and a Time to Die.
Imitation of Life is tops at both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
Bruce’s critics scores on my video top 5 – my scores in brackets –
All That Heaven Allows 8.4 (7.9)
Imitation of Life 8.0 (8.5)
Written on the Wind 7.8 (7.8)
Magnificent Obsession 7.8 (7.6)
The Tarnished Angels 6.9 (7.7)
Magnificent Obsession, All that Heaven Allows and to a lesser extent Written on the Wind are among my all-time favourite films. Their adjusted Cogerson US grosses are $290 million, $153 million and $205 million respectively so Magnificent Obsession was the greatest commercial success of the three and All that Heaven Allows, whilst a solid box office hit, was the least successful of the trio at the box office.
However All that Heaven Allows is considered by many critics as the masterpiece of the three, dealing as it does with reactionary social attitudes such as snobbery and hypocrisy in small-town America of the 1950s. “Heaven’ is my own top pick of the 3.
Cogerson Review Ratings:
All that Heaven Allows 84%/Magnificent Obsession 78%/Written on the Wind 78%
Lensman Review Ratings: 77%-19%
Made it once more among The Big Boys Ma! Cogerson and Lensman both seem to agree with me.
Those 3 films came out in the 1950s which were my formative years as a film buff so the posters and stills for them and many other of Sirk’s films like Imitation of Life and The Tarnished Angels hold great nostalgic appeal for me.
I know that guys like you regard Sirk’s films as ‘women’s pictures’ and even “mush” and YOU have laughed at me for finding a “comfort zone” in them; but many discerning film historians and critics -forget about Joel!-have identified beneath the surface gloss of Sirks’ film some of the most observant social commentary in the history of Hollywood movies.
Movies seen….#28 Anzio..an ok war movie…not a favorite. #24 Alvarez Kelly…fun western…Widmark is fun to watch in this one. #20 The Mountain…are Tracy and Wagner the strangest on screen brothers of all-time? #14 Back To Bataan…Wayne at his youth superstardom #7 Broken Lance….good underrated western #6 Warlock…another good Widmark performance. #4 The Young Lions…great cast…ok movie. Seen and enjoyed all of the Top 3. I would give Crossfire the edge for best of the trio…though The Caine Mutiny and Murder My Sweet get re-watched more by me. So that is a total of 10 of the 35…..I guess that is a decent total…but small compared to Flora. Voted up and shared.
Steve’s Edward Dmytryk video is now added to this page.
Hi Bruce, How the West Was Won is one of my favorites too, I don’t think Flora was happy to see True Grit at no.1 but that’s the way the scores went for Henry Hathaway.
On my John Wayne Top 100 video True Grit only made it to 16th position.
Thanks again for the comment, vote and share, always appreciated. Good to see you had a Hathaway page at the UMR.
Hi Bruce, I want to see Alvarez Kelly, can’t remember if I’ve watched it or not.
The Mountain looks interesting. Tracy not playing Wagner’s father, whaaat?
The Michael Caine Mutiny is an old favorite of mine, Bogart was great as the unstable captain.
Your tally, 10, mine 13 and Flora wins again with 22. Thanks for the comment, vote and share, much appreciated.
Hmm I think I’ve posted one of these comments in the wrong section, so it’s not just Bob. [Bob shakes head] 🙂
Edward has gone down in movie folklore for what he said to Brando when they were filming The Young Lions together with Montgomery Clift in 1957/58. Brando was making a meal out of his final death scene in the film and Edward reportedly finally snapped and said to him “For goodness sake Marlon, don’t you realise that when Monty’s in a movie there is room for only one Jesus Christ in it!” Sort of like the Pope’s “When will you make an end to it?” [ie the work on the Sistine Chapel] in Chuck’s Agony and the Ecstasy. WH and I have discussed that quote before.
Monty had played a victimised Jew in From Here to Eternity and was doing the same again in The Young Lions. However Brit comedian the late Max Bygraves, who had undertaken some dramatic screen roles himself, said after watching the final cut “I just wish that I could act like Marlon Brando.” Obviously Max gave us that quote before Joel’s 1983 book was published!
At the time of his death in 1999 Canuck-born Eddie Dmytryk is said to have been worth the equivalent of almost $4 million in today’s money. My fave Dmytryk films are Widmark’s Warlock and then in no particular order: Caine Mutiny, Left Hand of God, Young Lions, Mirage, Laddie’s final film The Carpetbaggers and Raintree County.
John Wickliff Shawnessey [Monty again] is “The fastest man in Raintree County,” said Lee Marvin’s character in the film [Flash Perkins]. It was during the shooting of Raintree County that Monty was in the serious car accident that smashed up his face and ultimately his career. Half of the movie’s scenes had been shot before the accident so the “two faces of Montgomery” are plain to be seen in the movie and were much commented on at the time to Clift’s great annoyance.
Video comments. FL= foreign Language. LC=lobby card Best POSTERS 1/Set for Shalako [right into old age Brando and Bardot socialised a lot together] 2/Human Factor 3/two for Captive Wild Woman 4/a saucy Blue Angel 5/FL for Anzio 6/a non-dancing but still leggy Ginger in Tender Comrade 7/1st one for Joel Commands 8/1st one for Hitler’s Children 9/two for The Mountain [during the filming Tracy told co-star Anna Kashfi the then Mrs Mumbles “Acting doesn’t take brains – look at your husband!”]
10/Two for Left Hand of God [Bogie’s final film but two] 11/first one for Cornered 12/FL for Till the End of Time 13/superb racy first one for Carpetbaggers 14/FL ones for Raintree County [its box office was so disappointing that many at the time thought it spelt the end of the Hollywood epic, but Chuck ultimately saved the day again with his Ben Hur 15/All for Dickie’s Warlock [one of my own all time fave movies] 16/two for Greg’s Hitchcock-like Mirage 17/a great 1st FL one for The Young Stathams 18/FL for Murder my Sweet 19/entire set for Caine Mutiny – with a monster Cogerson adjusted US gross of $400 million this was maybe Eddie’s highest earning movie.
My pick of the run of almost completely-great STILLS is 1/Sir Sean and BB 2/LC for Anzio 3/Million Dollar Legs 4/Larry Harvey and Jane 5/Gable and Hayward – how old the 54 year-old King looked in 1955 6/LC for Bataan 7/Sexy one for Carpetbaggers [ fly in ointment no Laddie material provided] 8/Liz and Monty 9/Broken Lance [western remake of Eddie Robinson’s 1949 film noir House of Strangers] 10/LC for Warlock 11/Greg in Mirage 12The 3 Roberts – Young, Mitchum and Ryan. 13/The Caine Quartet 14/wonderful solo of Mr Mumbles in Young Lions.
The tagline on the initial release posters was “The Young Lions- the wars they fought and the women they loved.” I vividly remember being at the head of the queue on the afternoon that The Young Lions premiered in Belfast back in 1958: I was first into the cinema when the doors opened. It was for me all happening that year.
On the strength of Young Lions and the monster hit Sayonara still doing the rounds Quigley proclaimed The Great Mumbler the 4th greatest box office star at the time and better still Quigley had Charlie Bill Stuart ranked as the Number One box office star in the world that year. A further icing on the cake was Greg and Chuck packing audiences in with The Big Country and Joel wasn’t around to spoil the party – did it ever get any better?
But that’s back then, and maybe a good idea TODAY would be Sly, Arnie and Indie teaming up for a contemporary remake. “THE OLD LIONS Tagline: All action remake. This time the Lions don’t act!” Anyway excellent presentation from you, well worth repeat viewings for those interested in film promotional material and 98% rated under my scoring system. Definitely “Voted Up!”
Hey Bob….good breakdown on Mr. Dmytryk’s career and Steve’s video. Good stuff.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info and trivia, always appreciated.
Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
For those readers wondering who ‘Charlie Bill Stewart’ is that Bob mentions in his reviews, it’s his nickname for Glenn Ford. ‘The Great Mumbler’ is Brando of course. ‘The King’ is either Clark Gable or Elvis Presley. ‘Dickie’ is Richard Widmark. ‘Monty’ is Montgomery Clift. ‘My Greg’ is Gregory Peck. ‘My Joan’ is Joan Crawford. ‘Chuck’ is Charlton Heston. And The Necronomicon is Joel Hirschhorn’s Movie Guide.
Have I missed any? 😉
Two films scored 10 out of 10 – The Caine Mutiny and Murder My Sweet. Three more scored 9 out of 10 – Crossfire, The Young Lions and Broken Lance.
Twelve films scored 8 out of 10.
“My lifelong ambition has been to spend my money as soon as I can get it.”
Edward Dmytryk on director Henry Hathaway, for whom Dmytryk worked as an editor at the beginning of his career – “He was an experience–like a case of smallpox. If you get it you either die or get over it. Once over it, you’re immune forever. People hated him and quit, or grew to love him . . . I’ve seen him stop a carpenter to show him how to carry a plank.”
“Dog whistle(s)” is the term given nowadays to [normally controversial or inflammatory] speeches and other utterances from politicians, the meaning of which is picked up by the politicians’ own ‘cult’ followers but may well be lost on the rest of the population.
I like to think that among Bruce and others on this site I have accumulated a cult following who understand my personal ‘dog whistles’. However thanks for explaining a few of my regular nicknames for others; and for fun I have from my best recollections expanded your list and the result is in Part 2.
I should add that many thespians have well-known nicknames within the acting profession. Elia Kazan for example was called “Gadge”; Brando was known as “Bud”; Deanna Durban was known [for some reason] as “The Mortgage Lifter”; and the great Noel Coward was nicknamed among the Brit thespian set such as John Mills as “The Master”.
As usual your feedback is comprehensive and interesting and in particular I liked the quote about Hathaway. It seems that many of the greatest directors like DeMille, John Ford and Hitch were petty tyrants to one degree or another. Alfred for example humiliated Paul Newman in front of cast and crew, Hitch telling Paul in effect to learn how to act, when they made Torn Curtain together in 1966; and Ford apparently used to regularly embarrass The Duke on set by scolding him for “dodging the draft” and not “serving his country” Ford even had the nerve to angrily dress down my Jimmy when they made Liberty Valance in 1961/62.
Conversely often directors who have relatively less clout than the 3 mentioned seem to allow their stars to bully them, with Brando for example making life miserable on set for Lewis Milestone [Mutiny on the Bounty] and Joshua Logan [Sayonara]. The Great Mumbler summarily dismissed Kubrick from the direction of One Eyed Jacks and took over direction himself; and Marlon also near the end of 1969’s Night of the Following Day rowed with Hubert Cornfield and unilaterally replaced him as director with co-star Richard Boone.
I actually find it distasteful how the likes of Mr Mumbles -Sinatra was another one – get carried away with a sense of their own importance simply because guys like Bruce buy tickets for their films. I also find the sense of entitlement disproportionate when one considers that working without fuss away from the spotlight of fame are the likes of great surgeons who actually perform essential community service by saving lives. Anyway I look forward to your next offering. Meanwhile take care.
MY NICKNAMES FOR STARS AND SOME OTHERS
CARY GRANT: Al Leach, Archie Leach, Alexander Archibald Leach [ his birth name.
SIR MICHAEL CAINE: Sir Maurice Micklewhite [his own birth name]
SPENCER TRACY: Old Cantankerous.
MYRNA LOY: The Thin Woman, The Cogerson Queen
WILLIAM HOLDEN: Golden Holden [his nickname among historians/journalists in the 50s].
JOHN WAYNE: The Duke [his general nickname of course]
DEANNA DURBIN: Little Miss Fix It or my Deanna
GLENN FORD: Charlie Bill Stuart, Charles William Stuart.
CHARLTON HESTON: Chuck. Tweedie [ private nickname my boyhood friends and I used].
CLARK GABLE: The King of Hollywood
ELVIS: The King of Rock n Roll
RICHARD WIDMARK: Dickie, my Richard
GREGORY PECK: my Greg
JAMES STEWART: my Jimmy
DORIS DAY: my Doris
BARBRA STREISAND: Babs or my Babs
JAMES CAGNEY: The Dirty Rat [for obvious reasons]
JOAN CRAWFORD: my Joan
MORGAN FREEMAN: Morg
ALAN LADD: Laddie
JASON STATHAM: Jace.
MARLON BRANDO: Bud [his own nickname] Mr Mumbles, The Great Mumbler. The King of Method
JOEL HIRSCHHORN: Hirsch, The Master, The Oracle, The Great One.
NECRONOMICON: Joel’s 1983 Book of Terror that skinned thespians alive.
Probably 2 names that ‘old timers’ on this site like Flora would consider the MOST important
STEVE LENSMAN: Mr Posters. In my quick private jotting of points I wish to remember to include in posts about Steve’s videos I can refer to him as MK [The Mancunian Kid] or Brex as he and I are both supporters of the current British Brexit political process.
BRUCE COGERSON: The Work Horse or abbreviated as WH. Also “Teach” as Bruce is a lecturer/teacher and in 1955’s The Blackboard Jungle the character of my idol Glenn Ford [aka Charlie Bill Stuart] was also a teacher nicknamed Teach.
Great posts Bob, enjoyed reading them. I liked your glossary of nicknames. Very useful for the uninitiated. The Mancunian Kid eh, nice. 🙂
As for Brexit, looks like we’re leaving without a deal. Blame the EU and the Irish backstop.
Btw my next video subject might be a magnificent obsession of yours, yep I’d say it’s written on the wind, if heaven allows.
COMMENTS ON VIDEO – FL=foreign language LC= lobby card
Best POSTERS 1/The Last Safari 2/Two for the Racers [aka Such Men are Dangerous] 3/two for Legend of the Lost [“Wayne never looked older.”-review] 4/1st one for Circus World [note the decline of Rita -she’s 3rd billed after The Duke and Claudia Cardinale] 5/Manchester Girl 6/Brigham Young 7/FL You’re in the Navy Now [Lee Marvin’s debut though he was uncredited] 8/ a brilliant entire set for The Black Rose 9/2nd one for The Real Glory 10/two for Wing and a Prayer 11/the set for Garden of Evil 12/first one for Trail of Lonesome Pine.
13/Dark Corner 14/Fourteen Hours [Princess Grace’s debut] 14/Rawhide [I watched that one on TV way back in 1976 while I waited for the 1st results of the US Presidential election that year which saw Jimmy Carter elected] 15/Down to the Sea in Ships 16/two for Call Northside 777 17/the set for Niagara 18/FL Kiss of Death 19/FL Lives of a Bengal Lancer 20/magnificent FL for True Grit 21/White Witch Doctor.
My pick of the STILLS 1/Prince Valiant 2/Tierney and Georg Montgomery who became a prolific B movie 1950s cowboy star 3/Cooper and Patricia Neal 4/The Real Glory 5/Coop with the young Shirley 6/Widmark and Coop 7/Randy and Mae 8/The Desert Fox 9/Ty and Neal 10/Ty and Lamour 11/sexy one of MM 12/Angela Lansbury’s Cogerson screen husband with my Richard 13/sumptuous one for How the West Was Won 14/two splendid opening LCs for the young Randy 15/Kirk and Bela Darvi 16/Big Bob in White Witch Doctor 17/ALL stills and LCs involving the Duke.
98% rated.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info and trivia, much appreciated.
Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Well we tried to convince Bruce to do a Henry Hathaway page for us over a week ago, we failed. We got a William Dieterle page instead. That’s okay. 🙂
Bob looks like I missed one of your favorites again – 23 Paces to Baker Street – I’m not doing it on purpose I swear! No one can predict your favorites. Looking at my files… I didn’t even include that film on my Van Johnson video [Bob gasps in horror] But wait.. come back! It does make an appearance on my Vera Miles video. [a faint smile crosses Bobs lips] 😉
One Henry Hathaway film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources and that was Lives of a Bengal Lancer. Two scored 9 – Call Northside 777 and How the West Was Won.
Topping the chart at IMDB is Kiss of Death and True Grit is no.1 at Rotten Tomatoes.
“To be a good director, you’ve got to be a bastard. I’m a bastard and I know it.”
Hathaway on Gary Cooper – “Cooper was the first actor to believe you didn’t have to mug to act, if you thought of what you were doing, it showed–and he proved he was right.”
Hathaway on Seven Thieves (1960) – “Christ, it was supposed to be a fun film, and Rod Steiger is far, far from having a sense of humor.”
Hathaway on Dana Andrews – “He had a quality. I’ll tell you one thing he had like nobody I’ve ever seen in my life. Drunk or sober, he comes in in the morning and they’re making him up and he would say, “What do I do today?” And you say, “Do this.” And he would look at the script and he goes out and he’s a district attorney and he pleads the case to the jury and he never misses a word. Pages of it.”
Hathaway on Richard Burton – “He was always very professional. None of the behavior I was warned about. He was sober throughout, and always early on the set.”
HI STEVE
Thanks for the comprehensive feedback.
Those were interesting quotes.I always like reading about Dana Andrews. I gather he had alcohol problems at the end of his life.
Looks like we are heading for another extension unless The Hulk can break us all free by 31 Oct. What we need is some guy like that Pope in Chuck’s Agony and the Ecstasy who repeatedly demanded of Chuck “When will you make an end to it?”