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.
Enough about Ladd [well at least almost enough!] as here is my pick of the very-best POSTERS in Steve’s magnificent 1949 film noir video which I rate personally at 98% – 2 views already so far:
1/1st for Jigsaw
2/1st for Port of NY
3/A Woman’s Secret
4/FL for I Married a Red
5/1st for Crooked Way
6/1st 2 for Scene of the Crime
7/FL for Undertow
8/Shockproof
9/Both for Impact
10/FL for Rope of Sand
11/FL for Undercover Man
12/FL for The Bribe
13/ALL for The Accused
14/1st for Tension – wow!
15/Great Batch of FL for Knock on Any Door
16/2 for Flamingo Road
17/Both for Thieves Highway
18/ALL for Champion
19/ALL for Criss X – simply marvelous!
20/1st & FL for The Setup- good to see Stave rating this highly.
21/1st for All the Kings Men
22/FL for White Heat
23/Both for Chicago Deadline – very iconic by most standards; but tame for a Ladd poster as they used to have aggressive taglines like “Reds look out! Ladd’s about!” and “Reds! – Ladd’s guns and Ladd’s fists say you gotta get outa town or you’re gonners!”
Holmes is of course English but according to one reviewer THEY aren’t too highly thought-of in the TV sitcom Frasier:
“The show seems to have an axe to grind when it comes to the British. When talking about England in many episodes, Frasier always, albeit at times patronizingly or tongue-in cheek, speaks highly of the culture and history of the country itself but almost every Brit character on the show is a drunken lout.”
If you are irked by that STEVE I know the feeling. In the past week I have watched reruns of Perry Mason and The Work Horse’s old customer and pal Matlock [both American series] and in each case the “stage Irishman” duly appeared: traditionally we are depicted as not just drunks but also nincompoops who spout the most ridiculous blarney.
There is an Irishwoman who keeps appearing in Matlock and speaks such nonsense that I always fast-forward during her scenes. John Ford’s The Quiet Man will give you a flavour of what I mean.
I never try to paint all people of a country or culture with the same brush. For example it would never have occurred to me that Bruce might sound like Myrna Loy. I have noticed though that often when there is an oddity in a movie he/she is made to speak with an English accent. That character C-3PO in Star Wars is a case in point.
Mind you, you English yourselves have had some ‘beauties’ down the years. For example Gilbert Harding an obnoxious confrontational English TV celebrity in the 1950s once on his show asked a guest Irishman “Is it true that over in Ireland you all keep pigs in your living rooms?” Many of your fellow countrymen actually believed that THAT was indeed the case: WE are a primitive people!
IMDB: Probably the most famous personality on British TV in the 1950s, Gilbert Harding was notorious for his rudeness and short temper as a panel member on the genteel parlour game What’s My Line (1951) a program he occasionally presented. When American film legend John Wayne was on the show Gilbert told him that he looked silly in “that ridiculous coon-skinned hat” as Davy Crockett in The Alamo.
HI STEVE: Thanks once more for an interesting and informative feedback. Good background info about The Naked City. One of the few films in which Barry Fitz was the top-billed lead; another was the 1945 film version of Agatha Christie’s 1945 classic And Then there were None-though I saw it when it had a title that today would be politically incorrect!
Your reasonably questioning whether The Work Horse ever reads our posts nowadays reminded me of a work colleague years ago who was very introvert and kept well in the background and another colleague made a quip about him which I will paraphrase here as “When there’s silence you know Bruce is around somewhere!”
Anyway you will recall that a while back you and I exchanged some enjoyable quotes from the Sherlock Holmes stories when you were running your brilliant Great Authors series .
Last night I watched 1965’s A Study in Terror starring John Neville as Holmes who is on the trail of the notorious Joel the Ripper through the fogs and darkness of the streets of the famous Whitechapel in London [or was it Manchester?].
Anyway the film contained another of the ‘modest’ claims by Holmes which I thought would amuse you if you have not already come across it:
SALLY [Played by the very young Dame Judy Dench] “How did you know that I had come to this house Mr Holmes?
HOLMES: Elementary – I followed you here!
SALLY: But I saw nobody following me.
HOLMES: That’s what you WOULD see when I follow you!
BEST STILLS/LOBBY CARDS IN STEVE’s 1948 FILM NOIR VIDEO
1/1st one for The Naked City – stunning!
2/Race Street
3/Bodyguard
4/Dark Past
5/Kiss Blood off My Hands
6/3 for Canon City -riveting!
7/Secret Beyond the Door – enticing title!
8/Night has 1000 Eyes
9/Cry of the City
10/Raw Deal
11/ALL for Sorry Wrong Number -2nd one a collector’s item
12/ALL for The Big Clock
13/He Walked by Night
14/Street With No Name-a kind of cult film from the 1940s
15/Force of Evil. ALL of them are wonderful. One of the bleakest movies EVER!
16/I Walk Alone. Burt and Kirk: their 1st teaming so this fine set of stills reflects movie history in the making.
17/Saigon – Steve’s vintage stills and his iconic posters for this movie are a fine tribute in my view to the final Ladd/Lake pairing.
18/Sleep My Love. The very first movie I can recall seeing and can still identify. My dad took me to see it when I was about 9 years of age.
19/Larceny. Good to see a shot of Payne: he became a cowboy star in the late 1940’s/early 1950s and was one of my B movies boyhood idols.
20/Whiplash – Dane Clark was promoted as a tough guy icon in the 1940s to “keep Bogart from getting too big for his boots” and his movies had what were considered appropriate titles for his macho image such as ‘The Toughest Man Alive’. However he never quite made it to the top . He was physically pint-sized like Ladd and Cagney [and in fact had an uncredited role in Ladd’s 1942 Glass Key]. He was though one of a handful of stars to be made a life-member of the prestigious Actors’ Studio!
Steve’s 1948 film noirs video is so good throughout that I almost gave up trying to select the VERY best pictorials and just content myself with assessing it at 99% for review. But that wouldn’t have been fair considering the effort that he has put into it so here are -on balance – the pictorials that most pleased me starting with the POSTERS [FL = foreign language version of poster]
1/Race Street – wow!
2/1st one for Bodyguard
3/1st and FL ones for Kiss the Blood off my Hands
4/1st for Dark Past – Golden Holden before making The Big Time
5/1st for Canon City
6/ALL for Hollow Triumph
7/ALL for Secret Beyond the Door
8/Both for Night has a Thousand Eyes
9/FL for He Walked by Night
10/FL for Moonrise
11/All for Sorry Wrong Number
12/FL for Call Northside 777
13/1st for The Big Clock
14/ALL for Larceny
15/1st for All my Sons
16/ALL for I Walk Alone
17/Street with No Name – Widmark consolidating his stardom
18/ALL for Saigon. Who is that muscular guy dominating the posters? At first glance I thought it was Statham only on reflection Jace’s not tall enough!!
19/Key Largo. Possibly my own fave Bogie film. “My agents said to me ‘Sorry Eddie but we could get you only 2nd billing’ to which I replied that at my age I was lucky to be even in a major picture with Bogie. He was very courteous to me throughout and regardless of his billing being top he deferentially referred to me as Mr Robinson on set.” – Edward G in his biography ‘And then the roof fell in’ in which he also said of Brando in The Godfather “This guy is MY offspring in gangster movies but he can do anything: he’s part-proof.”
20/Raw Deal. For a while in the 1940s Dennis O’Keefe who made droves of movies looked like the could be a reasonably big star in film noirs; but when the 1950s dawned he drifted int B movies/supporting roles and eventually career oblivion. I always thought he looked a bit like William Holden.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooer), info and quotes, much appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
A few years ago my Top 30 videos were about 7 to 8 mins in length, not anymore, they’ve doubled in size.
Your favorite Bogart film might be Key Largo? It’s one of my favorites, I like the atmospheric setting and the relaxed pace. They should remake it with Statham, in Bogart’s role of course. and Tom Hardy as Eddie G’s baddie. [Bob winces]
My favorite Bogart film? Has to be Casablanca, probably the most quotable film of all time. “I stick my neck out for nobody.”, “Round up the usual suspects.”, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” etc etc
Surprisingly only one film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources and that was The Naked City. Key Largo and four others scored 9 out of 10.
My Video Top 6 –
Key Largo 8.55
The Naked City 8.1
The Big Clock 7.9
They Live By Night 7.8
Force of Evil 7.6
Call Northside 777 7.6
The UMR Critics Top 6 –
Key Largo 8.8
The Naked City 8.1
The Big Clock 8.1
They Live By Night 8.1
Force of Evil 8.1
Sorry Wrong Number 8.0
Bruce and I have the same top 5, nice. I wonder if he reads our posts, Bob?
The Naked City IMDB Trivia
Most of the street scenes were shot on location in New York without the public’s knowledge. Photographer William H. Daniels and his uncredited assistant Roy Tripp filmed people on the streets using a hidden camera from the back of an old moving van. Occasionally, a fake newsstand with a hidden camera inside was also set up on the sidewalk to secretly film the actors. Director Jules Dassin hired a juggler to distract the crowds and also hired a man to occasionally climb up on a light post and give a patriotic speech, while waving an American flag to get the crowd’s attention. A young Stanley Kubrick was sometimes present on the set taking photographs for Look magazine. The film made history for its use of over 100 exterior locations. Barry Fitzgerald was 5′ 3″ tall. The minimum height for a NYC police officer was 5’8″