Saturday, July 24, 2021 at 12:31:00 A.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 and 10 a.m. ET is Tay Garnett’s Cause for Alarm (1951), with Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling, Irving Bacon, and Art Baker.
Film Noir Guide: “A dashing, young naval officer (Sullivan) sweeps a beautiful volunteer hospital worker (Young) off her feet and steals her away from her doctor boyfriend (Cowling). After they settle down into a fairy tale, Ward-and-June Cleaver existence, things go horribly awry.
“Sullivan, suffering from heart disease, begins exhibiting paranoid- schizophrenic behavior and writes a letter to the District Attorney claiming that Young and Cowling are trying to kill him by tampering with his medication. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the letter gets mailed just before Sullivan suffers a fatal heart attack.
“The frantic housewife desperately tries to retrieve the incriminating letter from an obstinate postman (Bacon) and a by-the-book postal superintendent (Baker). This is a suspenseful and well-acted noir with an enjoyable surprise ending. Keep an eye out for former Little Rascal Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer, sans the hair lick, as a jalopy mechanic.”
When was Barry Sullivan,"dashing and young?"
ReplyDeleteI didn't think film was around then.
--GRA
JACKIE MASON DIES AT 93
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (AP) — Jackie Mason, a rabbi-turned-comedian whose feisty brand of standup comedy led him to Catskills nightclubs, West Coast talk shows and Broadway stages, has died. He was 93.
Mason died Saturday at 6 p.m. ET at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan after being hospitalized for over two weeks, the celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder told The Associated Press.
The irascible Mason was known for his sharp wit and piercing social commentary, often about being Jewish, men and women and his own inadequacies. His typical style was amused outrage.
“Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe,” he once joked. Another Mason line was: “Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows, marriage does.” About himself, he once said: “I was so self-conscious, every time football players went into a huddle; I thought they were talking about me.”
His death was mourned far and wide, from fellow comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who called him “one of the best,” to Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity, who hailed Mason as “irreverent, iconoclastic, funny, smart and a great American patriot.” Henry Winkler tweeted: “Now you get to make heaven laugh.”
Mason was born Jacob Maza, the son of a rabbi. His three brothers became rabbis. So did Mason, who at one time had congregations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Comedy eventually proved to be a more persistent calling than God.
“A person has to feel emotionally barren or empty or frustrated in order to become a comedian,” he told The Associated Press in 1987. “I don’t think people who feel comfortable or happy are motivated to become comedians. You’re searching for something and you’re willing to pay a high price to get that attention.”
GRA:Reports say,after his death,God gave Mason a choice of suffering in hell for eternity or going back to New York City--he chose hell.
I'm kidding...but it might be true if God is Ed Sullivan.Personally not a big fan,but I don't remember seeing him much.Good jokes in the write-up here.
--GRA
OLYMPICS RATINGS ARE THE WORST SINCE 1988
ReplyDelete(Breitbart)Empty seats, zero atmosphere, diminished team numbers, local protests and a world distracted by coronavirus all combined to deliver just 16.7 million viewers for NBC’s four-hour long broadcast of the Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday. It was the smallest U.S. television audience for the event in the past 33 years.
Keen Olympic watchers would have to go back to the opening ceremony for the 1988 Seoul Games, which attracted 22.7 million TV viewers, to see numbers like it.
It was also lower than the 1992 Barcelona Games, when 21.6 million people tuned in, according to Nielsen data supplied to Reuters.
GRA:"They" have totally ruined sports--you know who you are.But I'm sure "they" don't care a bit,since most wokesters are some form of LGTBQ and hate sports anyways.The rest are negroes--and I'd go out on a limb to guess that THEY don't watch the Olympics either in significant numbers.
--GRA
TCM shows Confidential Agent (1945) based on a Graham Greene novel with Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall, Victor Francen, Wanda Hendrix, Peter Lorre, Katina Paxinou at 3:45 pm ET Friday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteFilm Noir Guide: "A Spanish patriot (Boyer) travels secretly to England to purchase coal for the Loyalist cause in Spain, but his every move is thwarted by his Fascist nemesis (Francen). Fortunately for Boyer, he meets up with the coal mining company owner's daughter (Bacall); she falls hard for him and helps him elude police, who wrongly suspect he's a murderer. Hendrix is the 14-year old girl whose crush on Boyer leads to tragedy, and Lorre and Paxinou are the Spanish quislings who are interested more in gold than coal. Bacall, who made no attempt to disguise her American accent, isn't believable as the aristocratic English girl who falls for the Spaniard. Boyer gives an enjoyable low-key performance, but Lorre and Paxinou, both of whom brazenly ham it up, are the top attractions."
Confidential Agent is better than most of what Eddie Muller has been showing on Noir Alley in recent months.
Warner Brothers held back The Big Sleep and shot new scenes for it to make Bacall look good because they feared bad reviews for her poor portrayal of an English upper class girl could destroy her career.
Boyer seems more like the Frenchman he was than the Spaniard he plays but is very good. Wanda Hendrix was Audie Murphy's first wife.
Confidential Agent has a dark and brooding atmosphere, with most of the action taking place at night.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 am ET (only) is Steve Sekely's Hollow Triumph (1948) with Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett, John Qualen.
ReplyDeleteFilm Noir Guide: "Henreid plays a criminal just released from jail and already in deep trouble. He and his gang rob a gambling joint owned by Qualen, but only Henreid survives the heist. Knowing that he's being hunted by the vengeful mobster, he goes into hiding, taking on menial jobs and eventually concocting a plan to assume the identity of a psychiatrist who's his exact look-alike (except for the scar on his cheek). But the plan has some major flaws, which result in a wonderfully ironic twist ending. Bennett, the psychiatrist's secretary and mistress, falls in love with his impersonator. Also known as The Scar."
TCM has a bonus with Marked Woman (1937) early Sunday Morning at 6 am ET. Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart star in one of the first "Ripped From the Headlines" film dramas. Marked Woman was based on the Lucky Luciano case. In the movie, the gangster is tried for murder. In real life, it was for prostitution. Bette Davis plays the main female character. She and the other women are called "clip-joint hostesses."
Humphrey Bogart plays a "crusading" prosecutor based on Thomas E. Dewey. Bogart was being cast against type, usually he played gangster types in the 1930s.