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.
Added in Steve’s Richard Thorpe You Tube Video. Our thoughts on that video that are found on Steve’s channel.
Another director I am not too aware of…it will be fun to see how many movies I have seen of his. Have not seen #27 Malaya….but read Stewart made the movie to hang out with Tracy..yet during filming Tracy barely spoke to Stewart. First match is the McQueen comedy misfire #26 Honeymoon Machine. #21 That Funny Feeling…an ok comedy. #20 Tarzan’s NY Adventure….when they seemed to run out of ideas for movies. #15 Tarzan and Son…amazing the son did not appear in many other Tarzan movies…I guess he got lost again. #13 Double Wedding…seen it…barely remember it. #6 The Thin Man Goes Home…an ok chapter in this franchise. #5 Zenda….good action movie. #4 Jailhouse Rock…one of the better Elvis movies. #2 Ivanhoe….the best of the Taylor/Thorpe movies. So that is a total of 9 of his movies seen. With only 3 coming from the Top 10. Good video. Nice posters. Voted up and shared
Hi Bruce, seems that Spencer Tracy rarely spoke to anyone except Katharine Hepburn when filming, Bob calls him ‘Old Cantankerous’. 🙂
Your tally 9, mine 15, Flora way ahead with 30. Thanks for the comment, vote and share, very much appreciated.
HI STEVE: Shrewd observations: Tracy was one of the most unpleasant, aggressive and self-absorbed actors whom I have ever read about. For example 1/When an interviewer jokingly said to him that maybe for once he could consider giving Katie top billing in their movies he nastily replied “It’s a movie not a lifeboat CHOWDERHEAD!”
2/During a break in the shooting of 1956’s The Mountain, Tracy had to bide time in a shack with other members of the cast and crew and a discussion opened up about acting and Anna Kashfi [married to the Great Mumbler at the time] said something about trying to make acting as intelligence as possible, to which Tracy retorted “Acting doesn’t take intelligence – look at your husband.” Anna should have retorted “It seems that acting doesn’t require good manners either,” because whatever Tracy thought of Brando, ANNA wasn’t doing Spence no harm.
Of course their star power permits people like Tracy [and Brando himself let it be said] to get away with displaying exceptional contempt for weak directors/co-stars, media personnel and other relatively powerless people like that interviewer and somebody of minor consequence such as Joel Hirschhorn.
There are bars that I know in areas of Belfast where roughnecks including past paramilitaries hang out and if Tracy/Brando et all spoke abrasively to them or their females as those thespians have spoken to others the actors would end up in hospital.
Few would take those barflies on [well maybe Laddie, but that’s about it] and they would put salt on Russell Crowe’s tail too if he started his rough house antics. That was demonstrated in 1959 OR 1960 when Mitchum and his then-pal Richard Harris tried to throw their weight about in a Dublin bar by starting to bully one harmless individual when the pair were in Ireland making A Terrible Beauty [aka The Night Fighters] about the Irish Republican Army – ie the IRA. A group of burly labouring men who regularly frequented the bar stepped in and told the thespians to leave – or else send for an ambulance. Wisely the two Hollywood ‘hellraisers’ quickly got off-side!
According to film historians Richard Thorpe’s main claim to fame is the exceptionally long period he spent at MGM. A low point in Richard’s career was being the first director to be signed for 1939’s The Wizard of Manchester but getting fired after 2 weeks because he made the mistake of, instead of dressing Judy’s Dorothy up as a conventional girl-next-door teenager, arranging for her to wear a blonde wig which made her look like a bit of a ‘tart’ – not the image required for THAT picture! In two polls of the greatest directors of all time Richard’ rankings are wildly contrasting at 1st and 40th. His net worth at the time of his death in 1991 was equivalent to $35 million today.
My pick of the Posters and stills in the Thorpe video [97.5% rated] is as follows. FL=Foreign Language version. ALL posters and stills for the Tarzan films plus the following POSTERS 1/1st one for the Prodigal 2/2nd one for Girl Who has Everything [a remake of 1931’s a Free Soul starring Gable and Shearer] 3/two for White Cargo 4/two for The Last Challenge 5/FL for On an island with You 6/The Crowd Roars 7/Malaya [aka East of the Rising Sun] 8/the set for Quentin Durward 9/FL for Carbine Williams 10/1st one for Jailhouse Rock 11/1st one for Ivanhoe 12/2nd one for Night Must fall 13/Vengeance Valley 14/Athena 15/Man Proof.
And the following STILLS: 1/sexy Lana 2/Saucy pose by Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler 3/Esther with Ricardo 4/lobby card for The Crowd Roars 5/Esther with Van 6/Date with Judy 7/The Thin Couple 8/Joan and Fred in lovely colour 9/The Prisoner of Zenda – the first foreign language lobby card I can recall seeing from you 10/Mario Lanza 11/Astaire and Skelton 12/ two of Robert and Elizabeth Taylor 13/two good ones of Elvis 14/Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger with Ann Blyth-
Bad guy Granger hijacking his brother Robert Taylor’s ship: “Remember when we were kids and played together and how I used to take all your toys away from you. Well now I’m taking your ship off you.”
Taylor later getting the drop on Granger and reclaiming the ship “I’m taking all my toys back now!”
According to film historians Richard Thorpe’s main claim to fame is the exceptionally long period he spent at MGM where some of his most noteworthy directorial projects were (1) Dean Martin’s first solo film, Ten Thousand Bedrooms in 1957 (2) the same year Elvis’ big hit Jailhouse Rock (3) back in the 1940s a run of 4 Esther Williams massive hits which according to WH grossed worldwide an adjusted $1.5 billion dollars [average of around $375 million per movie] (4) 1945’s The Thin Woman Goes Home, in which he had the pleasure of directing that cute Little Asta and [in an uncredited role] Joe Yule Jr who for that movie called himself “Joe Yule” without the junior and instead of being listed as Mickey Rooney.
A low point in Richard’s career was being the first director to be signed for 1939’s The Wizard of Manchester but getting fired after 2 weeks because he made the mistake of, instead of dressing Judy’s Dorothy up as a conventional girl-next-door teenager, arranging for her to wear a blonde wig which made her look like a bit of a ‘tart’ – not the image required for THAT picture!
Overall Richard’s career spanned 44 years from 1923 in the silent era until 1967, his final film being Charlie Bill Stuart’s western The Last Challenge, aka The Pistolero of Red River. The New York Times review said of the latter “A small picture-small, painless and pointless.”
In two polls of the greatest directors of all time Richard’ rankings are wildly contrasting at 1st and 40th. His net worth at the time of his death in 1991 was equivalent to $35 million today. My own faves among his films are The Great Caruso, The Prisoner of Zenda, Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock, Ivanhoe and All the Brother are Valiant, the latter two starring The Cowboy of the Century whom Richard directed several other times.
My pick of the Posters and stills in the Thorpe video [97.5% rated] is as follows. FL=Foreign Language version.
(1) ALL posters and stills for the Tarzan films.
(2) The following POSTERS 1/1st one for the Prodigal 2/2nd one for Girl Who has Everything [a remake of 1931’s a Free Soul starring Gable and Shearer] 3/two for White Cargo 4/two for The Last Challenge 5/FL for On an island with You 6/The Crowd Roars 7/Malaya [aka East of the Rising Sun] 8/the set for Quentin Durward 9/FL for Carbine Williams 10/1st one for Jailhouse Rock 11/1st one for Ivanhoe 12/2nd one for Night Must fall 13/Vengeance Valley 14/Athena 15/Man Proof
(3) The following STILLS: 1/sexy Lana 2/Saucy pose by Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler 3/Esther with Ricardo 4/lobby card for The Crowd Roars 5/Esther with Van 6/Date with Judy 7/The Thin Couple 8/Joan and Fred in lovely colour 9/The Prisoner of Zenda – the first foreign language lobby card I can recall seeing from you 10/Mario Lanza 11/Astaire and Skelton 12/ two of Robert and Elizabeth Taylor 13/two good ones of Elvis 14/Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger with Ann Blyth-
Bad guy Granger hijacking his brother Robert Taylor’s ship: “Remember when we were kids and played together and how I used to take all your toys away from you. Well now I’m taking your ship off you.”
Taylor later getting the drop on Granger and reclaiming the ship “I’m taking all my toys back now!”
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, info, trivia and quotes, much appreciated.
Glad you liked the lobby cards, stills and posters.
Richard Thorpe, like Michael Curtiz could handle any genre, from blockbusters like Ivanhoe to Tarzan, comedies, thrillers, musicals and Elvis Presley too.
I’m curious to see Night Must Fall, I wasn’t expecting that to be Thorpe’s best film, according to some of my sources anyway.
There are no 10 or 9 scorers in Thorpe’s filmography but there are plenty of 8s, 16 of them, including the top 5 –
Night Must Fall
Ivanhoe
Three Little Words
Jailhouse Rock
The Prisoner of Zenda
Top rated at IMDB, would you believe, is The Thin Man Goes Home. No.1 at Rotten Tomatoes is Three Little Words.
I think Bruce can find stats for most if not all of Thorpe’s films in my top 40 and there’s more at IMDB. From what I can see Night Must Fall will probably top Bruce’s Thorpe chart too, unless little Asta gets there first. 🙂
HI STEVE Detailed feedback much appreciated. Asta has never got much Cogerson love. I once requested Asta get his own page but I was ignored [“So what’s new?” you might well ask.] I think maybe WH resents the fact that Asta out-acted both Al Leach and The Thin Woman. [I have been meaning to write to the Academy to press for an honorary Oscar for the cute little guy. He deserves it as much as Alexander Leach did.]
I agree with you that Thorpe was a very versatile director but even his harmless adventure films were fun. All the Bros were Valiant was a great favourite not just with me but also with my father, who used to talk about it regularly as he liked quoting the one-liners in it.
For example Granger sits down to play cards with James Whitmore and his fellow pirates and one of Whitmore’s henchmen [‘Asa’ I think he was called – sound like Asta doesn’t it? but there IS an Asa in IMDB’s cast list for the movie] starts to attack Granger when Stewart wins the pot. Whitmore restrains ‘Asa’ and laughingly says to Granger “We never let ‘Asa’ lose at cards!”
Later the group again plays cards and their pirates’ booty is the pot. Granger knows that if he wins Whitmore’s crowd will rob him so he lets Asa win [concluding that he will be the easiest of the pack to later retrieve the booty from] but as ‘Asa’ goes to pick up his winnings Whitmore knifes or shoots him and pointing the weapon at Granger says “I forgot to tell you we never let ‘Asa’ win at cards either!”
Anyway whoever played ‘Asa’ was terrific and I think he like Asta would have out-acted Archie and The Thin Woman had he appeared with them. Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
One day I will have a Douglas Sirk page….but congrats on beating me to the punch. I have not seen #21 Meet Me At The Fair…but recently did a page on Scatman Crothers…so glad to see him on the poster in the video. My first match is #7 There’s Always Tomorrow…..good movie…nice view of a marriage. #5 Magnificent Obsession…have not seen it…but my mom has this movie in her all-time Top 5. Seen #3 Written on the Wind and #1 Imitation of Life. Though Life is considered a cult classic…I like Written on the Wind more. So a small tally of 4 for me. Hiding my face in shame. Good trivia….about Sirk working with Hudson so much. Voted up and shared.
My comment to Steve’s new Douglas Sirk You Tube Video…which is now on this page.
Hi Bruce, well you did better than me I haven’t seen any of these films. Your tally 4, Flora 8 and me 0.0.
To be frank I’d rather watch The Magnificent Seven than The Magnificent Obsession, and Gone With the Wind instead of Written With the Wind. 😉
Thanks for the vote, share and comment, always appreciated.
HI STEVE: Thanks for the usual comprehensive feedback, this time for my Douglas Sirk posts.
As Rock seems to have been Sirk’s fave actor to work with, I looked up what the 1983 Necronomicon had to say about Hudson:
“Rock Hudson was never a critic’s favourite. No one could believe him in classical roles, but Hudson is a master of one thing – underplaying. Hudson is a more current version of Gregory Peck. Neither actor set the screen on fire, but both were comfortable and clean cut.”
Shame on you WORK HORSE for unleashing on your viewers the Dark God who wrote that. I find Rock a relaxing actor to watch, especially with my Doris, but Hudson in the same league as my Greg? – never!
Indeed on many occasions when watching a Peck movie I have had to momentarily avert my eyes because my eyebrows were becoming scorched from what I was seeing up there on the screen [and I am sure Flora too finds Greg dynamic as an actor.]
Just because a male thespian doesn’t run around yelling his head off and cursing and swearing in every scene, that doesn’t mean that he lacks powerful dramatic qualities – look at Hank Fonda for example.
Take care