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.
William Wellman’s career began with an acting role in 1919; he made his first film as a director in 1920 followed by at least 15 more silent movies [filmographies I have seen are only partial]; then proceeded to direct droves of talkies On his death in 1975 he left a net worth equivalent to $11 million in today’s money.
Best POSTERS in your video/FL=foreign language. 1/Stingaree 2/Legion of Condemned 3/two for Young Eagles 4/FL for Iron Curtain 5/two FL for Across the Wide Missouri 6/1st one for Track of Cat 7/the entire lavish set for Buffalo Bill 8/first one for Call f the Wild 9/two FL for High and Mighty 10/two for Yellow Sky [Peck + Widmark – wow!] 11/first one for GI Joe [aka War Correspondence] 12/two FL for Blood Alley 13/ 1st saucy one for Lady of Burlesque 14/two for Wings 15/2nd one for Ox Bow Incident 16/1st one for Public Enemy 17/Lafayette Escadrille [aka (1) Hell Bent for Glory (2) With You in my Arms.
Best STILLS/LC=lobby card. 1/Derby’s Rangers 2/LC for Across Wide Muri 3/Buffalo Bill 4/LC Light that Failed 5/two LCs for Night Nurse – very racy! 6/LC for High and Mighty 7/a snowbound Duke! 8/LC for Yellow Sky 9/still and LC for Nothing Sacred 10/Battleground 11/still and LC for Wings 12/LC for Beau Geste 13/LC for Ox Bow Incident 14/Harlow and her “rat”! 15/the Cowboy of the Century and his “Westward Women”
And indeed many more! I have often tended to confuse William Wellman, William Wyler and Billy Wilder so your posters and stills have familiarised me with some movies of Wellman that I hadn’t previously associated with him and I rate your video 99% for excellence especially because of the glut of vintage posters etc which are collector’s items. Fly in the ointment: once again “No love from Brucie!”
Brexit Brexit wherefore art thou Brexit? oh sorry where was I? Oh yeah hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooo) and trivia, much appreciated.
Happy you liked the stills, posters and lobby cards.
A good variety of titles from old WW. I noticed a few had airplanes as their subject including the first ever Best Picture Oscar Winner – Wings.
Looking at my files it’s three films with John Wayne and three with Clark Gable.
I’ve added a whole bunch of Bruce’s critics scores to my database so I can compare his top 5 with mine – Bruce’s top 5:
Beau Geste 8.6
The Ox-Bow Incident 8.5
The Public Enemy 8.3
A Star is Born (1937) 8.1
Wings 8.1
And my top 5:
The Public Enemy 8.5
The Ox-Bow Incident 8.4
Beau Geste 8.3
A Star is Born (1937) 7.9
Wings 7.9
We have the same top 5 but in different order, nice.
There are 3 films scoring 10 out of 10 from my sources – Public Enemy, Ox-Bow Incident and Beau Geste. Three more scored 9 out of 10 – Nothing Sacred, Story of GI Joe and A Star is Born.
Ox Bow Incident is tops at IMDB and Public Enemy no.1 at Rotten Tomatoes.
Wellman on Ray Milland – “He’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever known in my life, believe it or not. He is an Englishman, you know, but he is a rugged guy. If I got into any trouble, I’d be glad to have Milland with me. And I’ve had some pros with me.”
Wellman on Robert Taylor – “I have never gotten along with actors but I was crazy about Bob Taylor. I think he’s one of the finest men I’ve ever known. He was probably handsomest of them all. I had no trouble with him at all. He did everything I asked him to; he was wonderful.”
Wellman on Clark Gable- “Never have I known a man who loved to live, to live well, as he did.”
Three more classic directors next week.
HI STEVE
Thanks for the detailed response. Interesting comparison of your scores with those of WH and good trivia about Milland and The Cowboy of the Century.
It’s true that the latter at his peak was exceptionally handsome, but some movie historians have observed that he didn’t age as well as other Hollywood “heart throbs” [Ty Power was one name mentioned]. Taylor was a heavy smoker.
Regarding Milland, I will be settling into my “comfort zone” later tonight and watching him as murderous Uncle Jarvis in a repeat 1972 TV episode of Columbo
Brexit gets “curiouser” and “curiouser” as I think someone said about events in Myrna in Wonderland. Yesterday some guy dressed up as Boris [blonde wig etc] climbed up the scaffolding around Big Ben with the police screaming at him to come down . It wasn’t you, was it?
Take care and I hope your weekend is going well.
Thanks Bob, that guy was nuts climbing that thing. Was he protesting about climate change? can’t remember. They’re all nutcases, lock em up.
Mondays video contains 3 Crawfords, 3 Gables & 8 Myrna’s! (whoa busy gal) 🙂
HI STEVE
I’m looking forward to that. In preparation I’ll have to brush up on my Myrna put-down jokes.
Also I’ll be climbing into my “comfort zone mush” again next week as All That Heaven Allows is being given a rerun on TV. Viewing your Sirk video has given me the inclination to watch
‘Heaven’ for the 101st time so you have to accept SOME responsibility for my addiction to reruns.
Yeah – that was a climate change protest. You’ve all kinds of protests going on at the moment. Jacob Rees Mogg had to be given a police escort today to get him safely away from the Houses of Parliament when he was going home [he lives nearby].
Congrats to Steve and his You Tube channel…as he just published his 900th video…..the subject? Mr. Preston Sturges. CONGRATS! That video is shared on this page….with our comments, that are found on Steve’s channel.
“Congrats on 900 videos. Preston Sturges was a huge success as the beginning of his career….and then slowly faded away. Was he the first M.Night? I have seen 11 of the 25 movies shown…including 7 of the Top 10. Favorites would include #2 The Lady Eve…..Fonda is good in the lead role…though he is pretty much the straight man. #7 Easy Living…..could have been a Frank Capra movie. #1 Sullivan’s Travels…a cult classic….but I like the others better. Just recently saw #3 The Miracle Of Morgan Creek…has not aged well. My question with that movie is the plot…and how it got by the censors. In that one…the lead actress….goes out with a bunch of soldiers…..got drunk….got married….had sex…..got pregnant…..and then does not remember the guy in the morning. A one night stand was ok back then? Voted up and shared.”
Thanks Bruce, 900 videos is a lot, did I produce so many? When? There are about 300 videos dealing with box office grosses here, most of them need updating.
You’ve seen more Preston Sturges than I have, your tally 11, Flora 11 and I only managed 5.
Thanks for the comment, share and vote, much appreciated.
Preston Sturges was a director, playwright and screenwriter regarded as a specialist in screwball comedy for which he wrote dialogue that with hindsight today is seen to have been ahead of its time for sheer originality.
I am not a fan of screwball genre which in fact irritates me, so I have seen just one of his movies: Christmas in July. However I admire talent in the movies so I welcome your video.
On his death in 1959 Preston left a fortune amounting to the equivalent of around $22 million in today’s money according to Celebrity Net Worth site. In each of 5 polls of directors and director/screenwriters Preston is ranked 5, 9, 14 23, 23 – an average placing of approx 15th.
Preston also fleetingly over the years turned his hand to acting and is credited with appearances in 4 movies-
1940/Christmas in July/uncredited cameo
1941/Sullivan’s Travels/uncredited cameo
1942/Star Spangled Rhythm/himself
1958/Paris Holiday/credited supporting role to Bob Hope and Fernandel
I haves seen Paris Holiday and as said above Xmas in July.
I have said in Part One that Christmas in July is the only one among all of Preston’s DIRECTED movies that I have seen. Also that movie is very short [just 67 mins long] although it is today regarded by some critics as a minor classic and attracts a 79% review rating from WH, 76% from you and 75,% from IMDB.
Because of those factors and because I have as stated many times before a bias against screwball comedy I am not in a position to evaluate Preston’s overall work. However, in an amateurish way, to paraphrase Clint Eastwood’s repeated saying in 1993’s In the Line of Fire “I do know something about posters and stills Stevie,” and I am therefore confident of my 98% rating for your video. The following is my own pick of the best material. FL=foreign language/LC=lobby card.
POSTERS 1/two for Big Pond 2/Port of Seven Seas 3/saucy one for Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend 4/FL for 30 Day Princess 5/Strictly Dishonourable 6/Never Say Die 7/1st one for Good Fairy 8/2nd one for Unfaithfully Yours 9/1st one for Hail the Conquering Hero 10/first one for Miracle at Morgan’s Creek 11/FL for The Lady Eve 12/FL for Sullivan’s Travels.
STILLS 1/two of my Deanna looking beautiful in her heyday 2/Child of Manhattan 3/the young Al Leach at his silliest 4/LC for a young “Old Cantankerous” deceptively looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!5/Diamond Joel 6/Xmas in July 7/LC for If I were King 8/Remember the Night 9/still and LC for Easy Living 10/Palm Beach Story 11/LC for Hail the Conquering Hero 12/LC for Sullivan’s Travels
Like Christmas in July the video is short but very sweet because of the many collector’s items among those old posters, stills and lobby cards which are consistently racy throughout your presentation. Accordingly as said above your video is well worth its 98% review rating from me. In 1961 Peter Finch made a movie called “No Lover for Johnnie”. I can paraphrase that title in stating in relation to Preston as “No Love from Brucie”. Keep safe.
Thanks Bob, the review, generous rating, info and trivia are very much appreciated. Glad you liked the picture gallery.
I was going to pick just one of two stills featuring warbling lassie Deanna Durbin pawing at Tom Drake for the video but couldn’t decide which one, than I thought Bob’s a big Durbin fan he won’t complain and I included both. 🙂
I’ve only seen 5 Preston Sturges films, the top 5 on the video. I’m not a huge fan (otherwise I’d have watched the rest), but I did enjoy Sullivan’s Travels, Palm Beach Story and The Lady Eve.
There are a few screwball comedies I’ve enjoyed a lot, Bringing Up Baby is my favorite of the bunch and one I watch almost yearly, usually about midnight during Xmas. The first time I saw that film decades ago Hepburn’s character really annoyed the heck out of me but I’ve grown to love her crazy persona over the years.
Four of Sturges films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources –
Sullivan’s Travels
The Lady Eve
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Hail the Conquering Hero
And four scored 9 out of 10 –
The Palm Beach Story
Unfaithfully Yours
Remember the Night
Christmas in July
Sullivan’s Travels tops both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes charts.
The Lady Eve tops Bruce’s chart for Sturges with Sullivan’s Travels at no.2.
“Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, destroying slowly, but without pity, that which yesterday was young. Alone our memories resist this disintegration and grow more lovely with the passing years.”
Sturges was asked by a writer to compose his own epitaph – “Now I’ve laid me down to die / I pray my neighbors not to pry / too deeply into sins that I / not only cannot here deny / but much enjoyed as time flew by.”
HI STEVE: Thanks for the enjoyable feedback. Here is some extra trivia.
1/ “Never judge a book by its cover,” is an old saying. Deanna looked innocent in those stills of yours with her girl-next-door Miss Goody Two Shoes act that was her bag of tricks. But at that time [1947] she was an experienced “woman of the world” with a first marriage from 1941-1943 behind her and was in the middle of her second one which lasted from 1945-1949. Her 1945 wedding was a shotgun affair and in-between the two marriages she was apparently the lover of Joseph Cotton who was married at the time and apparently enjoyed what they call an “open marriage” with which his wife went along.
Deanna loved talking about sex in public and in interviews, and told the great movies author and historian David Shipman that she hated those teenage/young girls’ clothes that they dressed her up in for her movies and longed to wear racy gear, such as plunging necklines. Some of the intimate details about herself that she revealed to Shipman in that 1983 interview [when she was 61] surprised me. Shipman was the ‘real deal’ a critic, not like the ‘pretend’ ones that we can get on this site!
2/The Durbin film that you included [I’ll Be Yours] was the start of Deanna’s serious and terminal decline as a box office Queen. It was one of 4 final films that she made in 1947/48, after which she retired. According to Bruce those 4 movies had a lowly adjusted total US gross of around $200 million, a miserable average of approx $50 million compared with the average of the other 17 films that she had previously made, which was over $135 million per movie. Sad.
3/I love those two quotes that you gave us. They are a bit morbid admittedly and Oscar Wilde as was his habit tended to treat such subjects more lightly – “Youth is everything. I would do anything to get it back except get up early and take exercise!”
Another classic director. Good pick. I have seen 13 of this movies….less than I was expecting. Favorites would be #1 Mister Roberts…a movie I can watch over and over. #17 Three on a Match….talk about being outdated…the saying is long gone…but I liked the movie…plus you get the young Davis and Bogart to boot. #31 East Side West Side…great cast….good story….good movie. As for the rest of his Top 5…seen them all…but known are ones on my re-watch list. Liked, voted up and shared.
Added Steve’s latest video to this page. The above thoughts found on Steve’s channel.
Mervyn “Mel” LeRoy began his overall screen career an ACTOR only in at least 7 silent films which were made between 1922 and 1924.He made his directorial debut with the 1927 silent film No Place to Go starring Mary Astor and as the saying is he never looked back, producing along with directing numerous movies until his retirement in 1968 when his final assignment was as uncredited co-director of the Duke’s politically controversial Vietnam film The Green Berets. The credited directors were Ray Kellogg and Wayne himself. As your poster shows Mel’s final outing as a credited director [and producer] was in 1966’s Moment to Moment.
Celebrity Net Worth puts Mel’s net worth at the time of his death in 1987 at $8 million, equivalent to just under $20 million today according to the US Bureau of Labor Stats. I cannot see Mel on WH’s love index but in any poll that I have noticed he is up there among the greats such as Huston, John Ford and Hitch. In each of 5 polls for example he is ranked 5,7,9,11,11, a splendid average of 8.6.
I have never seen any formal assessments of his early acting capacities but rumour has it that, despite those early highly-mannerized silent acting techniques he was better than [for example] Jason Statham is today.
My own favourites among Mel’s films are Random Harvest, No Time for Sergeants, The Bad Seed, Quo Vadis and especially Home Before Dark. The latter film is one of the prides of my DVD collection and I have watched it many times. Set in New England it is hugely atmospheric and psychological and, to me, it is worth 20 Rambos or Rockys.
I rate your video 98% and my pick of the material is as follows – FL= foreign language/LC=lobby card.
POSTERS1/two for Rose Marie 2/Lovely to Look At 3/ first saucy one for Big City Blues 4/two for Hard to Handle 5/first one for Million Dollar Mermaid [aka One Piece Bathing Suit] 6/FL for Joel at 4 O’Clock 7/Any Number Can Play 8/FL for Without Reservations [Al Leach had a cameo and Duke the male lead as your posters show. The producers sure got the pecking order correct there!] 9/The World Changes 10/Blossoms in the Dust. 11/second one for Anthony Adverse 12/FL for FBI Story 13/The Bad Seed – a real shocker 14/first two for Quo Vadis 15/two for Waterloo Bridge 16/all for Gold Diggers of 1933 17/FL for Chain Gang 18/Mr Woberts [as Cagney seemed to pronounce it in the movie].
STILLS 1/LC for Ni Nellie! 2/Million Dollar Mermaid/One Bathing Suit 3/Homecoming 4/Joel at 4 O’Clock 5/an exceptionally sexy LC for 2 Seconds – pre-Code I presume? 6/Any Number can Play 7/East Side West Side 8/excellent one of The Duke and Colbert – it can be difficult to get good ones of Big John without cowboy outfit or battle gear! 9/Anthony Adverse. 10/LC for FBI Story – it was Psycho the following year for Jimmy’s leading lady Vera Miles11/Johnny Eager 12/a raunchy Gypsy!13/1949’s Little Women – Liz on the brink of adult stardom 14/Eddie G and Boris 15/Quo Vadis 16/Little Caesar 17/Chain Gang.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info and trivia, much appreciated.
Happy you liked the stills, lobby cards and posters.
I’m glad your favorites made the list this time. 🙂
I had to include Mister Roberts because LeRoy directed a big chunk of the film after John Ford and Henry Fonda started fighting. Ford even warned Cagney that they would ‘tangle asses’ during filming. Cagney later said “I would have kicked his brains out. He was so goddamned mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man.”
Anyway LeRoy was credited as co-director on the film and on the posters too.
According to his bio young Mervyn LeRoy and his family survived the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 but lost everything they had.
Two films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Mister Roberts and I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Four films scored 9 – Little Caesar, Random Harvest, Waterloo Bridge and Gold Diggers of 1933.
Chain Gang tops both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes charts for LeRoy.
8 of Mervyn LeRoy’s films were nominated for Best Picture but he was only nominated once for Best Director, for Random Harvest.
HI STEVE:
Thanks for the feedback and the raft of new information. Interesting story about Mel and the Frisco earthquake – I never knew that.