By David in TN
friday, september 12, 2025 at 4:26:00 p.m. edt
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 and 10 a.m. ET is David Miller's (Lonely are the Brave) Sudden Fear (1952) with Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame and Bruce Bennett
Film Noir Guide: "Playwright Crawford believes that Palance isn't good-looking enough to play the lead in her new Broadway play and has him replaced with a more appealing actor."
"Letting bygones be bygones, Palance romances her on a train trip to San Francisco and settles the question once and for all --- he's romantic all right, romantic enough to bed and wed her in record time. Crawford is deliriously happy, but Palance, when he's not counting his bride's money, is committing adultery with his old flame (femme fatale Gloria Grahame), who's arrived in town to share his good fortune.
"When Palance discovers that Crawford is updating her will, he mistakenly believes that he is going to be shortchanged and decides to kill her before her attorney (Bennett) returns from a business trip to finalize things. While Palance discusses his plans with Grahame, their conversation is accidently recorded on Crawford's newfangled dictating machine.
"The next day, with the proof of their criminal intent in her fidgety little hands, Crawford drops the record, shattering it. She's then forced to come up with her own plan to turn the tables on the scheming couple. And does she!
"Downright lethargic for the first 60 minutes, the film eventually gains momentum before finally exploding in one of film noir's most exciting climaxes. Crawford and Palance received Oscar nominations for their performances."
Right after Sudden Fear, at 2:15 a.m. ET, TCM shows Suddenly (1954) with Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden. A hit man (Sinatra) and company plan to shoot the president when he gets off his train in Suddenly, California.
Friday, September 12, 2025
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9 comments:
Kash Patel is a DEI hire.
Well, yes; so is Vance with his mixed-blood family. The thing with "Kash" (besides his silly name) is that he's ugly and stupid-looking, and...
WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE MOVIE??? I feel like I'm back in the bad old days of the revival houses, where someone behind me is talking constantly and I have to tell them, "SHUT UP AND WATCH THE MOVIE!"
"Film Guide" correct in this instance- SUDDEN FEAR on the dull side, but has a terrific extended chase (Palance hunting Crawford) at the end; SUDDENLY excellent, with Sinatra in his element as the cold-blooded killer, all live-wire energy pitted against stone -faced Sterling Hayden. I believe Sinatra held the rights to this and had it pulled after JFK was shot; it ended up in the public domain as a result.
-RM
PS- Why didn't they add SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER as a third feature? I think that's the one about cannibalism- maybe they could pass it off as a "noir"!
"noir" or "gnaw"?
--GRA
Cute idea, maybe for April Fool's Day on TCM- a "film gnaw" festival. They could show WILLARD, NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (giant killer bunny rabbits), CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST....
Nah, they have no imagination. If I were programming them, different story!
-RM
UNDERAPPRECIATED SONGWRITER/PERFORMER OF THE 60S--BOBBY HART--DEAD AT 86
(Parade)The last surviving member of The Monkees shared a tribute to a beloved colleague who has died. Micky Dolenz shared, “Another great is gone,” after learning that songwriter Bobby Hart died at the age of 86.
A post on The Monkees Instagram page initially shared the news with fans of the iconic ’60s band. The caption read, “Very sad news to report: Bobby Hart, the songwriting dynamo who was half of the duo responsible for so many Monkees songs, has died.”
The caption continued, “With partner Tommy Boyce, Bobby penned tracks like ‘I Wanna Be Free,’ ‘Last Train to Clarksville,’ the iconic ‘Monkees’ theme, and so many more.” In addition, the caption noted, Hart wrote the Little Anthony & the Imperials hit “Hurts So Bad.”
GRA:Hart and fellow songwriter Tommy Boyce made 1968 a great year for MY youthful ears with two songs,"I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight"(#1) and a basically unknown follow-up,"Alice Long"(#27) that I consider one of the great 45s of all time. "Out and About"(#39)in 1967 was a pretty well done foray into pop/psychedelia.
Very few remember them these days,but their songs had a style that defined pop music for about 4 years.
--GRA
"YOU GO FIRST,BUTCH"--AND PAUL NEWMAN DID(IN 2008);THIS MORNING,THE SUNDANCE KID--ROBERT REDFORD TOOK THE LEAP--HE DIES IN HIS SLEEP--AT 89
GRA:For a while,starting in 1969--until the 1980s,or thereabouts--Robert Redford was part of a group of new leading men types(with Nicholson,Pacino,Beatty,Ford,De Niro,Hoffman)who brought us some pretty good movies over the years.. Newman had been around for over ten years at that point. Their flicks were always worth a look.
(nbc noise)Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born Aug. 18, 1936, in the beachside community of Santa Monica, California, to Martha Hart and Charles Robert Redford Sr., a milkman turned oil company accountant.
The younger Redford described himself as a poor student who was more interested in the arts and athletics. He graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1954 and briefly attended the University of Colorado Boulder. He later ambled around Europe, soaking up the culture in France, Spain and Italy.
He eventually moved to New York City, enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut in the play “Tall Story” (1959) and went on to appear in several popular television shows of the early 1960s, including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Twilight Zone.”
Redford’s most high-profile theatrical performance from the period was opposite Elizabeth Ashley in the original Broadway run of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” (1963), playing the uptight newlywed Paul.
“Barefoot in the Park” catapulted Redford to supporting roles in movies, including the off-kilter Alec Guinness comedy “Situation Hopeless … But Not Serious” (1965) and the show business tale “Inside Daisy Clover” (1965), starring Natalie Wood.
“Inside Daisy Clover” handed Redford his first Golden Globe (for best new star), and the actor earned wider attention co-starring with Jane Fonda in both the prison break yarn “The Chase” (1966) and the 1967 big-screen version of “Barefoot in the Park.”
Redford reached a career turning point in 1969 with George Roy Hill’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” He was the sharp-shooting Sundance Kid to Paul Newman’s quick-witted Butch Cassidy, two charming Wild West outlaws trying to make their way to Bolivia.
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” anchored by one of the most electric star pairings in Hollywood history, conquered the box office and won over critics. Redford was suddenly a bankable leading man with his pick of projects — and legions of admirers across the country.
The same year, Redford starred as a relentless skier in “Downhill Racer” and a lawman in “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here.” He followed those parts with turns as a motorcyclist in “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” (1970) and a jewel thief in “The Hot Rock” (1972), but both movies fizzled at the box office.
“The Candidate,” a political satire starring Redford as a callow U.S. Senate aspirant, performed respectably and collected largely positive reviews.
Redford’s next several projects were among his most commercially successful, lighting up multiplex ticket booths and cementing his status as one of the key A-list performers of the era.
He captivated audiences as a rugged mountain man in Sydney Pollack’s “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972) and Barbra Streisand’s romantic partner in “The Way We Were” (1973). He teamed again with Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill for the light-hearted caper “The Sting” (1973).
--GRA
REDFORD WAS ALSO A CLIMATE CHANGE NUTJOB AND A DE NIRO-LIKE TRUMP HATER
September 16,2025(bbc)We've just briefly heard from US President Donald Trump, who was told of Robert Redford's death by reporters just before boarding Marine One to begin his trip to the UK.
"Robert Redford had a series of years where there was nobody better," Trump said. "There was a period of time when he was the hottest. I thought he was great."
Trump did not address Redford's previous criticism of Trump, who he described as "dictator-like" in a column written for NBC in 2019.
"Our shared tolerance and respect for the truth, our sacred rule of law, our essential freedom of the press and our precious freedoms of speech — all have been threatened by a single man," Redford wrote at the time, during Trump's first term as president.
GRA:He 100% believed in climate change as well. Personally,I would have probably argued with him non-stop,but he did star in some excellent movies.
--GRA
ABC finally got it right,by calling him an icon. Probably the 1000th time they've used the term on "World Noise Tonight" this year.
--GRA
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET is Wolfgang Staudt's The Murderers Are Among Us (1946) with Hildegard Knef and Arno Paulsen.
This week our host has chosen the first German film produced after World War II, made by the East Germans under the Soviets. It was the first of the "Rubble" films.
A Berlin doctor plans to kill a retired Nazi captain who ordered mass executions in Poland. It was Hildegard Knef's first starring role.
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