24 thoughts on “Burl Ives Movies”

1. I have seen 6 Burl Ives movies. Five of these are in the top 10.

   The HIGHEST rated movie I have seen is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

   The highest rated movie I have NOT seen is Smoky.

   The LOWEST rated movie I have seen is Ensign Pulver.

   Favourite Burl Ives Movies:

   The Big Country
   Our Man in Havana

   Other Burl Ives Movies I Have Seen:

   Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – strong film but not a favourite
   East on Eden – strong film but not a favourite
   Station West
   Ensign Pulver

   Reply

   1. Hey Flora. There is a three way tie with 6 Burl Ives movies watched…as you, me and Steve all sit at that tally. I have seen 3 of the Top 10….but they are all in the Top 3. I am right there with you on The Big Country. The Big Country is starting to gather a nice collection of UMR pages….as we now have 10 UMR pages that feature the great western. 5 actor pages, 1 director, 1 titles expert, 1 yearly review, 1 western and a Best Supporting Actor page (thanks to Mr. Ives).

      I agree with you on East of Eden and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof…both good movies…but not fun movies to watch. Thanks for sharing your movie knowledge…it is always appreciated.

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2. HI STEVE Attack of the 50 ft Woman grossed only a paltry inflation-adjusted $20 million according to WH’s 1958 annual review. I suppose the title encapsulates Bruce’s perception of the status of Myrna Loy.

   WH’s 1958 chart shows that the top six inflation adjusted grosses in the US that year were earned by the following films:

   South Pacific/$420 million
   Cat on Hot Tin Roof/$375 million [$530 worldwide as shown above]
   Auntie Mame/$363 million
   Gigi/$313 million
   No Time for Sergeants/$308 million
   The Vikings/$269 million.

   No Time for Sergeants starred Andy Griffith. I and other members of my small movie buffs group are currently watching him in the TV series Matlock [1986-1995] so I’m well ensconced in my comfort zone – now why on earth did I admit that to you?

   I always like being involved in discussions about grosses, so thanks for providing the opportunity. Hope you’re enjoying your break.

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   1. Hey Bob…..good stats for Steve. Even though he claims to not be interested….he seems to know a lot about movie grosses….lol. Good thoughts on Andy Griffith’s No Time For Sergeants. That is one of WoC’s mom’s favorite movies. She tried to get the grandkids to watch it…..they were not too impressed….as it has not aged well. Good stuff….even with the Loy dig….lol.

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      1. HI BRUCE: “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s a** EVERY DAY, but Mister you ain’t seen a good day since you got here,” said Fern Persons as Opal Fleener in Hackman’s 1986 Hoosiers/aka Best Shot. And so it has come to pass that The Big Three, with 6 ‘have seen’ Burl Ives movies each, have not done as well for once as have I who have watched 9 Ives flicks:

         Big Country
         Cat on a Hot Tin Roof [aka Blood on a Hot Tin Roof on Cogerson site]
         East of Eden
         Sierra
         Station West
         Desire under the Elms
         The Power and the Prize
         Day of the Outlaw
         Our Man in Manchester.

         NB: Regarding my opening paragraph, the sun sure shone on Fern Person’s a** for quite a long time: she lived until 101 [in 2012] subsequently appearing for example as Costner’s mother-in-law in 1989’s Field of Dreams.

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         1. Regarding your remark about Steve being a closet “grosses” fan, he reminds me of my father in that respect. As you know Dad hated Brando [pity when Dad was alive, I wasn’t able to tell him he had a kindred spirit in Hirsch whom of course I had never heard about back then] and Richard Harris is on record as saying Brando was hopeless at comedy.

            Overall I would agree that comedy was not Brando’s forte [and I am sure Joel would too!] though Marlon did get some good reviews for 1990’s The Freshman. However there was a 15 minute sequence of scenes in Bedtime Story in which Marlon very un-subtilty was so over the top that my 4 brothers and I [who along with dad watched it on TV together] were in stiches all the while. But dad sat struggling to keep a stony face as he didn’t want to please us by demonstrating that he found Brando entertaingly funny – when all of a sudden, tears started to run down his cheeks! As Burl Ives sang: “It’s just my funny way of laughing.”

            Similarly as I think you are suggesting Steve likes to sit on a lofty moral plain feigning to look down on grosses until like dad in my example Steve suddenly snaps when you quote some figure that impresses him [like Cat’s over half a million adjusted worldwide gross] and then he starts asking you a lot of questions such as what the competing grosses were in the year concerned. Otherwise when the subject of grosses arises, he seems to adopt the reproving attitude of the character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Excelsior

            “His brow was grim; his eye beneath,
            Flashed like a falchion from its sheath”

            So well done Work Horse for luring Steve out of the closet on this occasion.

            Reply

         2. BRUCE: Regarding your remark about Steve being a closet “grosses” fan, he reminds me of my father in that respect. As you know Dad hated Brando [pity when Dad was alive, I wasn’t able to tell him he had a kindred spirit in Hirsch whom of course I had never heard about back then] and Richard Harris is on record as saying Brando was hopeless at comedy.

            Marlon did though get some good reviews for the crime comedy The Freshman [1990]: (1)Janet Maslin describing it in The New York Times as “witty and enchanted” (2) in his review, Roger Ebert wrote, “There have been a lot of movies where stars have repeated the triumphs of their parts—but has any star ever done it more triumphantly than Marlon Brando does in The Freshman?”

            Overall however I would agree that comedy was not Brando’s forte [and I am sure Joel, if not Ebert, would have agreed too!] However there was a 15 minute sequence of scenes in Bedtime Story in which Marlon very was so over the top that my 4 brothers and I [who along with dad watched it on TV together] were in stitches all the while. But dad sat struggling to keep a stony face as he didn’t want to please us by demonstrating that he found Brando funny – when all of a sudden, tears started to run down dad’s cheeks! As Burl Ives sang: “It’s just my funny way of laughing.”

            Similarly as I think you are suggesting Steve likes to sit on a lofty moral plane feigning to look down on grosses until like dad in my example Steve suddenly snaps when you quote some figure that impresses him [like Cat’s over half a million adjusted worldwide gross] and then he starts asking you a lot of questions such as what the competing grosses were in the year concerned. Otherwise when the subject of grosses arises, he seems to adopt the reproving attitude of the character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic poem “Excelsior”

            “His brow was grim; his eye beneath,
            Flashed like a falchion from its sheath”

            So well done Work Horse for luring Steve out of the closet on this occasion.

            Reply

3. I’ve seen 6 of Burl Ives films from the chart, they are – The Big Country, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, East of Eden, The Brass Bottle, Those Fantastic Flying Fools and Our Man in Havana.

   My favorite by far being The Big Country.

   “I’m stuck in your craw, Henry Terrill, and you can’t spit me out! You hear me now! You rode into my place and beat my men for the last time and I give you warnin’. You set foot in Blanco Canyon once more and this country’s gonna run red with blood ’til there ain’t one of us left! Now I don’t hold mine so precious, so if you want to start, here, start now! What’s the matter? Can’t you shoot a man a-facin’ ya? I’ll make it easy fer ya. Here’s my back.”

   He deserved winning the Oscar for that role.

   Whoa I wasn’t expecting Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to be that popular, half a billion dollars adjusted worldwide. What was bigger in 1958? Gigi? The Vikings? Attack of the 50ft Woman?

   Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!

   Reply

   1. Hey Steve. Thanks for the visit, comment and tally count. Hope you are enjoying your video break. Amazingly…..the original three of tally counts…you, me and Flora (who actually started this activity) tied with 6 movies each. I have seen 3 of the 6 you have seen. East of Eden there is Cat On A Hot Tin Roof in The Big Country. The Big Country is my favorite of the three. I have also seen Two Moon Junction (do not really remember him in the movie), Just You and Me Kid (saw in theaters..the pull of Brooke Shields?) and Desire Under The Elms (a dark but decent movie).

      Yep Cat was a huge hit….pretty much sealed the deal with Paul Newman….he was known before that movie….but that movie made him a superstar. I have always thought if James Dean had lived….that would have been his part. I agree 100%….he desired his Oscar for The Big Country. Good stuff!

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4. When I was growing up in the 1950s Burl gave what were possibly two of his most powerful performances, in The Big Country and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Yet to me he was almost like a ‘guest star’ in movies [in the way that I considered Lee Marvin an ‘interloper’ in the musical business with his hit record Wandering Star from Paint Your Wagon] my associating as I did Burl not with films but more with his recordings which were featured continually on the radio record request programs that I listened to regularly throughout the 1950s and sixties [often curling up in my bed on cold winter nights to listen to those shows!].

   His great songs like Big Rock Candy Mountains, Little Bitty Tear, My Funny way of Laughing and The Blue Tailed Fly seemed to be played almost every night back in those days of long ago; and apparently Ives’ 1965 Holly Jolly Christmas is one of the top 25 ‘holiday’ songs most played even today, reaching for example no 4 in the Holiday Season charts in 2017 and 2018 – Burl enjoying longevity as a performer even after his death

   I never liked Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and if Stallone had expressed intentions to appear in a remake of THAT film and Williams had advised him against it as he discouraged Stallone from appearing as Stanley in a Streetcar big screen remake, I wouldn’t have cared one jot if Sly had ignored Williams’ advice and ploughed ahead regardless.

   My favourite Ives movies are therefore Big Country, The Spiral Road, Sierra with Audie Murphy and Day of the Outlaw. In the latter Robert Ryan does one of his stints as the good guy and Burl was the baddie. As Wikipedia says in his heyday Ryan particularly specialised as “hardened cops” [as in On Dangerous Ground of 1951] and “ruthless villains” [for example the evil Sundance Kid in Randy Scott’s Return of the Badmen in 1948]. I like the miniature still of Day of the Outlaw above.

   As well as acting and making records Burl gave stage concerts and was prolific on both radio and television, appearing in 16 TV productions between 1957 and 1984]. So he was a bit of an entertainment all-rounder like our own Joel Hirschhorn, except that as far as I know Burl was a kindly soul who didn’t go around trashing other people’s work! I therefore welcome this excellent Ives profile with a “Vote Up!” Burl’s net worth at the time of his death in 1995 was just under $10 million in today’s money. Comprehensive stuff as always from the Work Horse.

   Reply

   1. Hey Bob.
      1. Thanks for sharing your movie thoughts on Burl Ives.
      2. Interesting point about his “guest star” thinking.
      3. You know a lot more about his singing career than I will ever know….Frosty is about the limit of what I know about that side of his career…so thanks for sharing that info.
      4. Stallone in a Williams play…bring it on….Rambo 6: Blood on a Hot Tin Roof..sounds promising….lol.
      5. Good information on his tv career and his net worth….and a Joel comparison too….all good stuff.

      Reply

5. “Burl Ives is a man of impressive stature in physical size and historical weight.”

   4 Star Movie Performances
   1955’s East of Eden
   1958’s The Big Country
   1958’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
   1959’s Our Man in Havana

   From Rating The Movie Stars

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   1. Good stuff from the Rating The Movie Stars book.

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   2. The subject of Joel comes up occasionally at meetings of my own small movie buffs’ club and it did so again last night when I mentioned that I had been reading that Bob Hope’s Joel like film critic in Critic’s Choice of 1963 almost got divorced for criticizing his own wife’s play. There were various jokes and comments in response and a few of the latter are probably worth repeating here:

      1/A fellow female Brando-lover of mine said “If I had been married to that Hirschhorn fella I’d have divorced HIM for what he said about Brando.”

      2/I added that if YOURS TRULYhad been female and married Hirsch I’d have also divorced him for his attitude to The Duke

      3/Somebody else joked that if Joel had been around in the McCarthy era he would have been before one of the Senator from Wisconsin’s committees and asked to explain how his attitude to Big John squared with being a “real American”

      4/Another young woman said that she had thought of Joel when she was watching a TV Rerun of a 1991 episode of the courtroom series Matlock starring Andy Griffith called The Critic. In that one a theater critic called John Bosley Hackett is murdered and the reason is that he had driven to suicide the murderer’s sister by savagely criticizing a performance of hers and ruing her career.

      5/Nevertheless everyone at the meeting agreed with me that despite imposing Joel on his long-suffering viewers Bruce Cogerson and his site were a Godsend to the film buff.

      Reply

      1. Hey Bob. That is awesome that Joel Hirschhorn has become a topic of conversation for you and your movie friends. I know…that there are many comments you disagree with that he made, but…..almost 40 years later….those thoughts are still around. Makes me heart proud. Thanks for the kind words in #5….they are appreciated.

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