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.
It could be said of Stanley Kramer that “he was in at the beginning and he was in at the end”: he produced Brando’s FIRST movie The Men and he produced and directed Tracy’s FINAL one Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
I have seen 7 of the movies directed by Stanley: Not as a Stranger, Pride and the Passion, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Mad Mad World and Judgment at Nuremberg.
Stanley has always been associated with movies of original, high drama and even controversial content. In 1947 he founded his own production company which made among others the following films of which Stanley was producer but not director and many of which are still considered important ones and even classics:
The Men [one of the first, and perhaps even THE first of, movies to deal with human incontinence brought on by war experience] Champion, The Wild One, Cyrano De Bergerac, Death of a Salesman, High Noon, Member of the Wedding, Caine Mutiny, Defiant ones and A Child is Waiting. I have personally seen 6 of these movies.
On his death in 2001 Stanley was said to be worth the equivalent of just under $30 million in 2019 dollars. IMDB credits him with 22 acting awards and 34 nominations. You might be interested in the exchanges between WH and me on Kristen Stewart’s page about awards/noms back in the classic era and how it is misleading to compare them with such accolades nowadays.
In a poll of major Hollywood personalities of ALL disciplines who NEVER won an Oscar Kramer is 3rd behind Chaplin 1st and Hitch 2nd and ahead of Al Leach 12th and Judy Garland 19th
Best material in your video is as follows. FL=foreign language poster. POSTERS: 1/The Domino Principle [“I don’t care how smart your lawyer is. If he insults me again I’ll crush him like a bug!” – hitman Hackman to my Richard, great as always] 2/The Runner Stumbles 3/the whole set for Pride & Passion FL one for Oklahoma Crude 6/1st one for Not as a Stranger 7/the set for On the Beach 8/It’s a Mad Mad World [Note the billing; Tracy first and then everyone else in alphabetical order. 9/the set for The Defiant Ones 10/two FL ones for ‘Dinner’ 11/all for Inherit the Wind.
CLASSY STILLS: 1/Domino Principle 2/Pride &; Passion [ Frankie didn’t suit that hair style and Al Leach looked stilly running around in that uniform] 3/Ship of Joels 4/still of Ava & Greg 5/On the Beach lobby card 6/Mad Mad World 7/Kelly & Tracy 8/March & Tracy 9/Captain Kirk and Tracy [as a friend of mind said when I showed him a batch of movie star stills and several were of Chuck whom he didn’t like “What’s the big deal about that c*** Heston?]10/Defiant ones 11/’Dinner’ 12/excellent closing one of Bernie and Sidney.
ADDED TRIVIA: Note that in Inherit your Eugene was consigned to 3rd billing – surely he was a bigger star than Freddie March? Inherit the Wind was remade several times as a TV movie: for example (1) in 1988 with Kirk Douglas in the March role, Jason Robards in the Cantankerous role and Darren McGavin playing Eugene’s part (2) 1999 with George C Scott in the March role and Jack Lemmon in Tracy’s part; I forget who played Kelly’s role. Lemmon & George C were both in ill health while making the film. Scott played the March role several times on stage.
. Your presentation though unavoidably very short is well worth a 97.5% personal satisfaction rating from me. Indeed as film historians have said of Richard Fleischer turning the low budget, relatively short 1952’s The Narrow Margin into a minor classic: YOU have shown how much can be done with so little. Take a bow. Pity though that you didn’t include a few producer-only Kramer ones – take The Men and The Wild One for instance!
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my Stanley Kramer video, the generous rating, info and trivia is much appreciated.
Happy you enjoyed the picture gallery.
If I had included some of Kramer’s producer only movies the top 5 would have been a bit different, with High Noon at no.1. The Caine Mutiny would have been up there too. Which wouldn’t be fair to the films Kramer had gone to the trouble of directing himself.
I think I’ve already produced a Fred Zinnnemannn video. High Noon must have been no.1 surely? Or was it From Here to Eternity? Let me check…. yep High Noon no.1 and From Here to Eternity no.2, A Man for all Seasons in 3rd place, oooh any one of those could have been no.1. What do Bruce’s charts say? 🙂
Okay… there are 5 films scoring 10 out of 10 in Stanley Kramer’s filmography – On the Beach, Ship of Fools, The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremberg.
Bruce’s top 6 (critics chart) –
Judgement at Nuremberg 8.6
Inherit the Wind 8.6
The Defiant Ones 7.7
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 7.6
Ship of Fools 7.6
Secret of Santa Vittoria 7.5
My video top 6 –
Judgement at Nuremberg 8.6
Inherit the Wind 8.3
The Defiant Ones 8.1
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner 7.8
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 7.7
Ship of Fools 7.6
Kramer on Sidney Poitier – “Sidney has a greatness and professionalism and a deep, deep sensitivity. He’s an absolutely beautiful man inside and out.”
“If I am to be remembered for anything I have done in this profession, I would like it to be for the four films in which I directed Spencer Tracy.”
“During the filming of Mad World with all the comedians, I think Spencer Tracy was in poorer health than I believed: he had bad colour and no stamina whatever. But then, even though this lack of energy showed, I think he had his best time ever during the making of a film. The comedians worshipped him. Never before or since has a king had a court full of jesters who strove only to entertain him so that his majesty might say, ‘That was funny,’ or just laugh and smile. Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar – crowded about him and vied for his affection. They had it. And he talked about them to the very last; he loved them all.”
HI STEVE Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, additional information and quotes. I was especially interested in the quotes about Tracy; again thanks for sharing them. My own view of Tracy was that he was a good but overrated actor. I normally do not allow a star’s private persona to prejudice me against his/her on-screen work – heck I can even live with Russell Crowe.
However Tracy was seemingly such a nasty and unpleasant character to even people who were doing him no harm, and apparently used his star status to bully professionally less secure co-workers and others that I got to the point where I didn’t find him entertaining to watch.
Producers rarely get credit for ‘artistic’ input to movies and can be seen as simply organizers/administrators or money men. I can understand that but they still have a crucial role to pay in the movie business: it is often suggested for example that we might not have had the Godfather films had the late Robert Evans not been the Head of Production at Paramount at the time as there was initially resistance within the studio to making the first one because Kirk Douglas’ film 1968 The Brotherhood about The Mafia had seriously flopped for Paramount [adjusted US Cogerson gross of a mere $17 million].
Keep safe and have a good weekend
Added Steve’s Lloyd Bacon video to this page. Our thoughts found on his video channel found below.
“Digging deep for this video subject? Not sure I am even aware of the name…though suspect I will know his movies. First match is #28 San Quentin…an ok movie…with Bogie in a supporting role. #12 The Oklahoma Kid…a gangster movie on horses. #6 Knute Rockne…one of Ronald Reagan’s better movies. #2 Footlight Parade….Cagney’s first musical hit. #1 42nd Street…Oscar winning movie…very very dated. So that is 5 of 40…not too impressive. Looking at the titles…I think we have most of them in our database…so maybe we will have a page on Kevin’s granddad Lloyd in the future. Good video. Voted up and shared.”
Hi Bruce, ‘Kevin’s granddad Lloyd’ hoho I like it! The name might not be familiar but the films should be, you should have the stats on most of the directors I’ve uploaded so far, so if you’re running out of actor pages for the UMR there are plenty of directors to choose from.
Your tally 5, mine 10, Flora out there with 25. Thanks for the comment, share and vote, it is appreciated.
Bacon had 2 careers which overlapped (1) as an ACTOR in the silent era from 1915 until 1927 and all told he made over 75 silent films as a thespian and was known mainly for supporting Chaplin in silent classics such as The Tramp, The Vagabond and Easy Street.
(2) DIRECTOR: Lloyd apparently DIRECTED around 130 films between 1922 and 1953. and between 1933 and 1943 he directed Warner Bros 4 most iconic gangster stars in a continuous stream of movies: Bogie, Cagney, Raft and Robinson.
His final 5 movies were all in 1953 and that year I saw two of them on the same Universal International double bill: The Great Sioux Uprising starring Jeff Chandler, and Walking my Baby Back Home featuring Donald O’Connor and Janet Leigh.
22 years later i watched a 1975 episode of TV’s Columbo called Forgotten Lady in which Janet Leigh [then 48] plays Grace Willis a has-been important movie dancing star who spends a lot of her time watching her old movies; and one of the movies that you see Grace watching is Bacon’s Walking my Baby Back Home with the young 26 year old Janet, supposedly the Grace of Forgotten Lady as her stock screen character “Rosie” doing a dance act . Ointment fly: no poster/still from U.
Gee, it’s great after being out late
Walking my baby back home
Arm in arm over meadow and farm
Walking my baby back home.
We stop for a while; she gives me a smile
And snuggles her head on my chest.
We start in to pet and that’s when I get
Her talcum all over my vest,
When walking my baby back home.
I see you’re back to mega entries again; and there is so much fine vintage material on display that overall the presentation is worth 99%. Tip of the iceberg of Best POSTERS in your video. FL=foreign language 2 saucy openers for The French Line 2/Gold Diggers 1937 3/1st one for San Quentin 4/Here Comes the Navy 5/two for Devil Dogs of Air 6/1st and FL one for Frogmen 7/FL for Cain and Gable 8/FL for Invisible Stripes 9/2 for Picture Snatcher 10/Action in North Atlantic 11/Miss Loy Takes Richmond 12/set for Oklahoma Kid 13/1st one for Brother Orchid [one of my fave Bacon pictures] FL for Marked Woman 14/two for Footlight Parade [my notes record the 2nd one was particularly naughty -Santa won’t be bringing you presents if you keep that up! 15/42nd Street. AND MANY MORE!! [Film historians agree that your No 1 and No 2 are Lloyd’s two greatest classics.]
STILLS & LOBBY CARDS: 1/Ann Sheridan 2/The English in Us 3/Frisco Kid 4/Great Sioux Uprising 5/Wings of the Navy 6/Moby Dick 7/Miss Grant Takes Richmond 8/The Singing Fool 9/The Frogmen 10/Invisible Stripes 11/Action in North Atlantic [the only movie in which Bacon directed Bogie as THE STAR] 12/Brother Orchid 13/Mr President!! 14/Marked Woman 15/42nd Street.
And last but not least The Dirty Rat and Bogie squaring off in The Oklahoma Kid. “I’m Whip McCord from the Panhandle!” – How my father loved that line! Actually I thought that neither Cagney nor Bogie was exactly the ideal template for a western. Humph’s grinning Whip McCord looked to me more like a gigolo in fancy dress than a menacing bad guy; and for some reason Cagney insisted on wearing big cowboy hats that dwarfed him [Laddie always wore low-sitting soft hats in his westerns].
After I kinda straighten my tie
She has to borrow my comb
Once kiss then I continue again
Walking my Myrna back home
Hey Bob….I bow to your movie knowledge. I struggled finding 5 of his movies that I had seen….much less even knowing his name…..and you are able to produce a well thought out and informative comment on Lloyd Bacon. You are the man! Good stuff as always.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (yo!), info, trivia and song lyrics, much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Sorry I left out another of your favorites, I had 50 films on the master list and wanted to prune it down to 40, as luck would have it one of the pruned was your favorite. ‘Walking my Baby Back Home’ must have been fairly obscure, apart from IMDB I could only find ratings for it at one other source – Leonard Maltin’s classic movie guide. He gave it 2.5 out of 4.
One big advantage Bruce has over my ratings system is that he can list every single movie, heck he even ‘adds’ movies that really shouldn’t be there! 😉
I like to prune and shape my videos, give them form. I don’t want viewers yawning thru them. The bit I hate is adding music afterwards, there is plenty of copyright free music at youtube but only a small percentage fits in with the theme of my videos. I don’t really want to add a bop bop bop electronic jingle, too distracting.
Enough rambling from me – Only one Lloyd Bacon film scores 10 out of 10 from my sources and that is – 42nd Street. There are 4 films scoring 9 – Larceny inc, A Slight Case of Murder, The Fighting Sullivans and Footlight Parade.
Footlight Parade tops the charts at both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
Bruce’s top 5 (critics chart) –
Footlight Parade 8.2
The Fighting Sullivans 8.2
42nd Street 8.1
Ever Since Eve 8.1
Larceny Inc 7.6
My video top 5 –
42nd Street 8.9
Footlight Parade 8.2
The Fighting Sullivans 7.9
Marked Woman 7.6
Larceny Inc 7.5
From IMDB – “James Cagney illustrated how Bacon worked by telling a story about shooting Picture Snatcher, a Warner Bros. “quickie”. Before they were to shoot a particular scene, Bacon said, “Alright, let’s just do a quick run-through before we start shooting”. The cast and crew went through their paces, and Bacon yelled, “OK, cut”. Cagney then asked how long it would be before they actually shot the scene, and Bacon replied, “We just did. Let’s get on to the next one”
WH – 6/below really alarms me!
HI STEVE: Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful feedback including the rundown on how the Lensman “mind works its wonders to perform.”. My own further comments are:
1/It IS a pity you didn’t include a Walking My Myrna Back Home poster as the ones I’ve seen include the “Rosie” dancing scene that Janet/Grace was watching in the 1975 Forgotten Lady episode. See for example the IMDB page on the film.
2/You are right about ‘Walking’ being obscure today and it didn’t have much audience interest back in its own day according to The Work Horse who credits it with just an adjusted US gross of $23.8 million [though a slightly better than “good” review rating of 62%].
3/As I have said “Walking” was on the same bill as Bacon’s Great Sioux Uprising over here but the latter was just a supporting feature and yet ironically Bruce credits ‘Sioux’ with an adjusted US gross of $61.2 million.
4/This highlights the point that the practice in the 1950s of a movie sharing a bill and the joint income with another movie [however the split was arrived at] and then separate figures being published for each flick, can often give the man-in-the-street an underestimation of the number of people who actually saw each of those movies.
5/Bruce shows us that the combined income in the US of ‘Walking’ and ‘Sioux’ was $85 million, which was a respectable figure in the 50s for a routine movie which both those two were.
6/BOTTOM LINE: 4/ and 5/ raise the possibility that not only was Myrna Loy getting too much credit for say Gable/Powell/Asta/Leach movies; but she was always benefiting in her accredited Cogerson grosses from movies that she wasn’t even in!
7/I really laughed at your Picture Snatcher story- very funny. For some reason it reminds me of the title of a Doris Day film, “Where were You when the Lights Went Out?”
Don is best known to film historians and critics as the director of the original [1956] version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers and for 5 Eastwood flicks particularly Dirty Harry. I wonder why he didn’t get to direct the other 4 in the Inspector Callahan series?
Sudden Impact was of course directed by Clint himself. Big Bob’s brother John Mitchum was in Magnum Force which was the highest grossing [albeit by less than 2 million dollars!] of the series in the US [no worldwide figures]. Here are the adjusted domestic grosses [fractionally rounded] that Bruce has provided for the 5:
Magnum Force $224 million [1973]
The Enforcer $223 million [1976]
Dirty Harry $215 million – first one, released 1971. Don also produced.
Sudden Impact $193 million [1983]
The Dead Pool $83 million – final one, released 1988
I personally remember Don for also (1) B movies of mostly reasonable quality in the 1950s: Riot in Cell Block 11, Duel at Silver Creek, China Venture, Private Hell 36 and The Lineup (2) and John Wayne’s final film, 1976’s The Shootist.
Additional Trivia: Siegel’s Dirty Harry was only the 3rd highest grossing film in the 5 Harry Callahan films but it was by far the most profitable: its US gross was 9 times its modest cost; whereas the 4 succeeding Dirty Harry movies had massive budgets allocated to them so that their average ratio was US gross X just 2.5 times budget. 3 of the other 4 DH movies would have depended on healthy foreign grosses/DVDs to put them into profit whereas Dead Pool likely lost money unless its overseas revenues were relatively astronomical.
As said in part one I could find no overseas figures for the 5 Dirty Harry movies [and WH has none published either]. Indeed Eastwood is one of the major stars for whom available overseas grosses figures GENERALLY are relatively sparse: I have seen global figures for only round about one quarter of his total movies output.
The following is my pick of the material in your video: LC=Lobby card; FL=foreign language. POSTERS 1/Rough Cut 2/ Count the hours 3/set for Sir Maurice’s Black Windmill 4/1st one for Duel at Silver Creek 5/FL for The Gun Runners [a cut-price remake of Bogie/Bacall classic To Have and Have Not] 6/FL for Telefon 7/Baby Face Nelson 8/FL for The Verdict 9/FL for The Lineup 10/FL for Coogan’s Bluff [I like the posters tagline: “Clint Eastwood gives New York 24 hours to get out of town.” It was shown over here on a double bill with Brando’s Night of the Following Day] 11/FL for 2 Mules for Sister Myrna 12/two for Riot in Cell Block 11 13/FL for The Killers [originally meant for TV but at the time considered so violent that it was released only in the cinema] 14/FL for The Shootist 15/magnificent set for Invasion of Body Snatchers [pity the brilliant Kevin McCarthy never became a major star] 16/Flaming Star. The King took over the lead from The Great Mumbler. That would have pleased Elvis as Mr M was one of his idols and The Wild One a fave often-watched movie of The King.
Classy STILLS 1/LC for Navy Air Patrol 2/LC for Hound Dog Man 3/LC for Telefon 4/Elvis 5/My Richard as Madigan 6/Big Bob with Jane Greer [after Mitch was jailed for drugs possession Jane was the only prestige actress who stood by him and agreed to be his leading lady] 7/ LC for Hell is for Action Heroes 8/Riot in Cell Block 11 9/Lee in The Killers 10/Escape from Alcatraz 11/Charley Varrick–saucy! 12/The Shootist 13/Invasion of Body Snatchers 14/Dirty Harry Callahan.
With 30 entries this is not one of your epics; but much of the material resonated with nostalgic memories of mine and generated a 99% satisfaction rating.
Hey Bob….welcome back…glad you safely returned. Good thoughts on Don Siegel.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for your welcome back greetings. Actually on the evening of my return I enjoyed a “labour of love” in responding to your excellent Richad Egan new page. My comments were substantial so it’s disappointing you seem to have missed that particular post; Steve will know what I mean!
I think I have now caught up with all of your new pages on stars and Steve’s videos.
Thanks also for amending whose to who’s. I note too that you have also fixed all of my Hirschhorn/Loy “errors”. It’s just a pity that Joe hadn’t been Asta and you weren’t around to ‘fix’ him too!
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my Don Siegel video, the generous rating (ooh), box office info and trivia are very much appreciated.
Glad you enjoyed the picture gallery.
So Magnum Force was the most popular of the 5 Dirty Harry films eh, just in front. The first Dirty Harry is the best in the series but I will confess to having watched Magnum Force the most times over the decades. I think it’s the most enjoyable. Directed by Ted Post, he also directed the first Planet of the Apes sequel.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a bona fide sci-fi classic, some label it the best of the 1950s cycle of science fiction films. I would rank it below Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Two Don Siegel films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Body Snatchers and Dirty Harry. Three more scored 9 – Charley Varrick, Madigan and The Shootist. Nine films scored 8 out of 10 including Flaming Star, Riot in Cell Block 11 and The Killers.
Body Snatchers & Dirty Harry tie at first place at IMDB, The Shootist is no.1 at RT.
Bruce’s top 5 (critics chart) –
Dirty Harry 8.6
Escape from Alcatraz 8.3
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 8.2
The Shootist 8.1
Charley Varrick 7.8
And my video top 5 –
Dirty Harry 8.8
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 8.7
The Shootist 8.2
Charley Varrick 7.8
Escape from Alcatraz 7.7
Not bad eh, the same top 5 but in different order.
Don Siegel on Clint Eastwood – “Hardest thing in the world is to do nothing and he does it marvelously.”
Don Siegel on Charles Bronson – “He is a very helpful actor in planning or staging a scene. He’s patient when the work is difficult and he’s never satisfied until he’s convinced what’s been done is right. He’s my kind of actor, you might say. He’s a true loner.”
Don Siegel on Eli Wallach – “Eli is a great actor, but like all great actors–he has so much to give–he must be watched carefully by the director, or he’ll overact. This isn’t because he’s a bad actor, but because he can call on such reservoirs of talent.”
Don Siegel on Mickey Rooney – “I admired his skill and loathed his personality.”
Don Siegel on Editing – “If you shake a movie, ten minutes will fall out.”
Hey Steve. Good return comment to Bob. I especially enjoyed the comments on Siegel on Clint, Eli, Mickey and editing. Great minds thinking alike…as our Top 5 currently match…I wonder if it will stay that way “when” we do a Don UMR page. Good stuff as always.
Thanks Bruce, I’ve started adding your critics ratings to my film files so I can compare our averages. We’re not that far apart generally.
.HI STEVE: Thanks for the interesting feedback with some particularly telling quotes [especially unusual criticism of Joe Yule Junior] .When the novice Clint was under contract to Universal his first role was an uncredited outing in one of the types of movies that you drool over: 1955’s Revenge of the Creature. However Universal saw his greater potential so they sent him along to acting classes – Clint I mean: not The Creature!
On the internet is a photograph of Clint and fellow students sitting in a circle on the classroom floor at the feet of the guest lecturer standing in the middle of the circle; much in the way that one imagines WH’s students have to sit at his feet! That guest speaker was Mr Mumbles, fresh from Oscar glory in On the Waterfront. And the Dan-like connection in all of this?: both Mr M and Clint had Don Corleone and Don Siegel ahead of them in the distant future!!
Clint has often been compared with my other idol The Duke in terms of box office popularity and the westerns and tough guy roles that both are associated with; but Wayne became infuriated when the potential comparison was broached with him because he disapproved of some of the language of Clint’s characters and the anti-hero strain that was often in the latter.
A lot of those old classic era actors didn’t like the swearing and conduct of many modern stars in the latter’s movies: for example (1) I’ve mentioned before that my Jimmy turned down the Peter Finch Network part because of the bad language (2) Golden Holden later apologised on television for participating in bedroom scenes in the same film (3) just 2 years before his own death Bing publicly criticised some of Warren Beatty’s overt sexual antics [as Crosby saw them] in 1975’s Shampoo; and on the set of that film Debbie Reynolds rowed with Warren about his scripting of swear words for Debbie’s then teenage Carrie to say in the film.
Anyway I wonder if when making The Shootist Siegal ever raised the question with Big John about the Clint comparisons? In the riches of quotes you seem to be able to accumulate, you haven’t seen the issue come up, have you?
Steve’s latest video has been added to the page. See our comments found on his video channel.
“A video on one of Clint Eastwood’s mentors. Overall I have seen 17 of these movies. My favorites would be the Top 3. Dirty Harry, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Shootist. #5 Escape From Alcatraz is a close 4th among my favorites. So he directed Clint, The Duke and Elvis…I am willing to bet he was the only director to have that trifecta. I saw #21 Telefon in theaters with my dad. #8 Hell is for Heroes…gets better with each new viewing. Interesting subject for your latest video. Voted up and shared.”
Hi Bruce, yep Clint and Don Siegel were pretty close. Unforgiven had a dedication to Siegel and Sergio Leone in the end credits. We have similar favorites.
Body Snatchers is one of the best sci-fi films of the 1950s. Siegel had a cameo as a cab driver in the 1978 remake of Body Snatchers.
Thanks again for the vote, share and comment, always appreciated.