By David in TN
saturday, october 11, 2025 at 1:27:00 a.m. edt
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Russell Rouse's New York Confidential (1955) with Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Marilyn Maxwell, Anne Bancroft, J. Carroll Naish and Onslow Stevens.
Film Noir Guide: "When an underling makes an unauthorized hit in his territory, the New York syndicate boss (Crawford) borrows a hit man (Conte) from his Chicago counterpart (Stevens) to take care of the upstart. The vicious Conte does such a good job that Crawford arranges a 'transfer' for him and hires him as his bodyguard.
"Eventually, Conte climbs the ladder to take over the number two spot formerly held by Naish, who's facing deportation to Italy. Conte is so loyal to his new boss that he even rejects advances by Crawford's lover (Maxwell) and independent daughter (Bancroft).
"However, his loyalty is put to the ultimate test when a hit against a corrupt political figure goes bad, and a crime commission gets closer to putting the syndicate out of business."
"Conte gives a chillingly realistic performance as the expert hit man, and Crawford is excellent as the organized crime lord, who like his modern day TV counterpart, Tony Soprano, has his share of personal family problems, including caring for his elderly mother."
N.S.: FNG should have said, Crawford is excellent as the organized crime lord, and may have inspired his modern-day TV counterpart, Tony Soprano. He has his share of personal family problems, including caring for his elderly mother.
It reminds me of brain-dead youtube commenters, who act as if something earlier were inspired by something later.
By the way, why didn't Richard Conte become a bigger star? He had the talent, and certainly had the looks.
For years, Marilyn Maxwell was known as "Mrs. Bob Hope," as she was Hope's favorite of his many mistresses.
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HERE'S A SHOCKER--DIANE KEATON DOESN'T MAKE IT TO 80--OUTLIVED BY WOODY ALLEN,JACK NICHOLSON,AL PACINO AND WARREN BEATTY;NO CAUSE OF,OR DATE OF DEATH YET
(NY times)
Diane Keaton, the vibrant, sometimes unconventional, always charmingly self-deprecating actress who won an Oscar for Woody Allen’s comedy “Annie Hall” and appeared in some 100 movie and television roles, an almost equal balance of them in comedies like “Sleeper” and “The First Wives Club” and dramas like “The Godfather” and “Marvin’s Room,” has died. She was 79.
Her death was confirmed by Dori Rath, who produced a number of Ms. Keaton’s most recent films. She did not say where or when Ms. Keaton died or cite a cause.
Ms. Keaton was 31 and a veteran of eight films, most of them comedies, when she starred as the title character in “Annie Hall” (1977).
“Annie Hall,” which won three other Oscars including best picture, brought Ms. Keaton a shower of additional honors, including acting awards from the National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle and the British Academy of Film and Television Artists.
Ms. Keaton received three other Oscar nominations. One was for the sweeping Oscar-winning drama “Reds” (1981), in which she played Louise Bryant, an intense 1910s writer hanging out with Greenwich Village socialists and Bolshevik revolutionaries, notably the activist journalist Jack Reed (Warren Beatty, who directed).
Ms. Keaton with Woody Allen in “Annie Hall.” Mr. Allen, who cast Ms. Keaton in many of his films, said that “with the exception of Judy Holliday, she’s the finest screen comedienne we’ve ever seen.”
The third was for “Something’s Gotta Give” (2003), a comedy about a successful playwright who turns an extremely tearful breakup into a new hit comedy. She attracts the attentions of a handsome, much younger doctor (Keanu Reeves) and inspires a sexist man in his 60s (Jack Nicholson) to fall in love with a woman his own age.
Ms. Keaton was also a director. Her first film was “Heaven” (1987), a documentary on beliefs about the afterlife. In her last, she directed herself, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow in the comic drama “Hanging Up” (2000), based on a novel by Delia Ephron.
“
A film career was always Ms. Keaton’s goal. She explained her aversion to theater as a lifelong pursuit on “CBS Sunday Morning” in 2010. “Night after night? Doing a play?” she said, putting an imaginary gun to her head. “That’s my idea of hell.”
She was the eldest of four children of John Newton Ignatius Hall, known as Jack, a civil engineer, and Dorothy Deanne (Keaton) Hall, an amateur photographer who was also crowned Mrs. Los Angeles in a beauty pageant for homemakers.
She grew up in Santa Ana, Calif., near Los Angeles, and briefly attended community colleges, first Santa Ana and then Orange Coast. At 19, she dropped out and moved to New York to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
She made her Broadway debut in the hit musical “Hair,” first as a member of the ensemble and then as Sheila, the female lead. (She turned down the $50 bonus offered to actors who were willing to appear nude in one scene.)
Her Broadway career continued and her partnership with Mr. Allen began with “Play It Again, Sam” (1969), in which she played a romantically desirable married woman opposite Mr. Allen as a nebbishy divorced friend. That performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for best featured actress in a play.
Her film debut came the next year, when she played an unhappy young wife at a suburban wedding in “Lovers and Other Strangers” (1970). Then, after a handful of television appearances, she played Kay Adams, the clearly non-Sicilian girlfriend turned trusting wife of Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino), in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” (1972). (She and Mr. Pacino began dating in 1974, the year “The Godfather, Part II” was released.)
GRA:I thought she was sexy and adorable. Tremendous in the Woody Allen movies and just about anything else too.
--GRA
DIANE KEATON OBIT PART 2
(ny times)But her talent for sophisticated farce didn’t go to waste. Before “Something’s Gotta Give,” she appeared in three other comedies directed by Nancy Meyers: “Baby Boom” (1987), opposite Sam Shepard, as a big-city executive who inherits a baby and moves to Vermont; and “Father of the Bride” (1991) and its 1995 sequel, opposite Steve Martin.
Speaking at a comedy festival in Aspen, Colo., in 2004, Ms. Meyers compared Ms. Keaton’s comedic skills to those of two big stars of an earlier generation, Katharine Hepburn and Jean Arthur. And Mr. Allen himself went even further. “My opinion is that with the exception of Judy Holliday, she’s the finest screen comedienne we’ve ever seen,” he told The Times.
Ms. Keaton’s other comedy films included “Harry and Walter Go to New York” (1975), set in the 1890s, with James Caan and Elliott Gould; “The Family Stone” (2005), with an ensemble cast including Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker and Craig T. Nelson; “5 Flights Up” (2014), opposite Morgan Freeman; and “Poms” (2019), about retirement-age cheerleaders.
“The First Wives Club” (1996), in which she starred with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler, was a major box-office hit, a comedy of revenge — or justice, depending on your point of view. Ms. Keaton’s character, for instance, learns that the therapist she has come to trust is actually having an affair with her estranged husband.
Her final film was “Summer Camp” (2024), a comedy about three old friends at an eventful reunion.
Ms. Keaton’s personal life could be fodder at times for the gossip pages as they tracked her romantic relationships, including with Mr. Beatty and Mr. Allen in addition to Mr. Pacino. She never married and adopted two children, a son, Duke Keaton, and a daughter, Dexter Keaton. Complete information on her survivors was not immediately available.
“Getting older hasn’t made me wiser,” she told People magazine, with a typically self-critical eye, in 2019, insisting cheerfully, “I don’t know anything, and I haven’t learned.”
GRA:You have to like that quality in a celebrity who can say something so blissfully honest. A TRUE icon.
--GRA
"PLAY IT AGAIN,DIANE KEATON(starring Diane and Woody Allen)
There needs to be a movie called,"Play it Again,Diane Keaton"--similar to Woody's "Play it Again,Sam" film. I don't know what actresses Ms.Keaton could give romantic advice to--Jennifer Lawrence,maybe. Woody could play Lawrence's grandfather(he lives with her). Here,he sees Keaton talking to Lawrence.
Woody(playing 89 year old Alvy Singer from "Annie Hall"):Jennifer,I'm home from my jazz gig--great Caesar's ghost--Annie Hall,is that you?How did you get into my grand-daughter's apartment?
Diane(as Annie Hall)::Why yes,Alvy--it's me. You're still alive--how?
Alvy:I have no idea,though it could possibly be a combination of being despised by movie critics and 99% of the rest of humanity the last 30 years.
Annie:You're talking out of character,Woody. They don't hate ALVY SINGER,they hate Woody Allen.
Alvy:You're right. What are you doing here-after all,you're recently deceased.
Annie:I'm here to give your grand-daughter,Jennifer,romantic advice. Somehow,she thought I was an expert--or something--about the subject,given my past relationships--and well,if WE could make a movie about Bogie being a love guru maybe this could fly too.
Alvy:But I could have given her plenty of sage advice about relationships. You should have asked me,honey.
Jennifer:I...
Annie:She made the right choice,Alvy.Just between you and me,Alvy/Woody,she came to the right person. At least I didn't marry my adopted asian daughter.
Alvy:But I didn't seriously date Woody Allen either--like you did.
Annie:But I DID go steady with Al.Pacino and Warren Beatty.
Alvy:Yeah,like the Fonz would "go steady" with an extra on "Happy Days".So you played the field,is that your advice to Jennifer?
Annie:To tell you the truth,I have no idea,Woody--even now. Stuff happens..men happen...women happen...kids happen--and then you appear as a ghost in a sequel to a movie from almost 60 years ago.
Alvy:That's show biz.
Annie:That's show biz,Alvy.
Jennifer:Hey,I have one question:Isn't Warren Beatty too old for me,Diane?
Annie:Oh oh--I'm fading out...I'll talk to you in the future--if this movie has good box office numbers--I'll tell you thennnn...
END
--GRA
Batya Ungar Sargon has a show on News Nation on Saturday ay 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. She was born in 1981 (older than she looks) in Philadelphia though some claim she was born in Israel. She did go to high school in Israel and college in the United States.
Batya Ungar Sargon was a fairly typical media liberal until about two years ago when she declared her support for Donald Trump. Her show is called "Batya!"
I've seen the ads for her show. They don't provoke any interest for me.
--GRA
Final jeopardy today:The first two men to refuse Academy awards for best actor were in movies written by what person?
--GRA
Francis Ford Coppola(who is?)
--GRA
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Hugo Fregonese's Black Tuesday (1955) with Edward G. Robinson, Peter Graves, Jean Parker, Milburn Stone, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Sylvia Findley, Vic Perrin, Hal Baylor.
Film Noir Guide: "Convicted Murderer Robinson, with help from his moll (Parker) and gang member (Stevens), escapes from death row minutes before his scheduled execution, taking along fellow inmate (Graves), who has two undred Gs stashed away from a bank heist."
"They take hostages--the prison chaplain (Stone), a newspaper reporter (Kelly), a guard (Baylor), a prison guard's daughter (Findley) and a doctor (Perrin) to treat the wounded Graves--and hole up in a warehouse, where they try to fend off cops."
"A throwback to the 1930s gangster genre, Black Tuesday is fast-moving and exciting, with Robinson giving a volatile performance as the psychopathic rackets czar with seventeen murders to his credit."
TCM has one rarely shown Saturday evening at 6:15 p.m. ET, The Last Run (1971) with George C. Scott as a former mob driver living in exile in Portugal who decides to do one more job. It was Scott's first film after Patton.
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