So, earlier this week, a new series of channels showed up on my DirectTV - MGM: MGM+ and a few others, with MGM in their name. The MGM channel used to be OK - good movies (yes), but with commercials (no!). Then Amazon bought MGM. And announced some streamer channels. But they have put the streamers on TV also!
Hitchcock movies are my favorites. North by Northwest and Rear Window to name a few. The photography, human expression and emotion, and the subtleties that speak so loudly are amazing. Most movies today scream at us with violence, sex and stupidity. I am looking forward to reading your screenplay. I am sorry to hear about your difficult days Tom. Please take care and know how much we all care.
Well, not trying to sound bigger than my britches, but I was in 'NxNW'!
I was an extra, and in a few scenes inUnion Station in Chicago. I was a child model and was called for those scenes. I was only 5, so my mom was in the movie as well! As my husband is fond of saying, 'I had my 15 minutes and was washed up at 6!
Hitchcock remains my favorite filmmaker, and I'm not prejudiced!😌
Fun fact.... when they filmed the Mr.Rushmore scene, the faces in the mountains were actually paper mache, and flat on the ground, the actors crawled around on them and the resulting footage was turned 90 degrees so they appeared to be hanging by their fingers in a nose or whatever!
When Cary Grant walks out of the men's restroom where he had been shaving, I am walking past the doorway, with another little girl, I'm the shorter one! : )
for Hitchcock, there are a bunch of good, fun movies and then there's "Vertigo," which my dad took me to see when it came out (I was 9, but a very seasoned moviegoer), and it did something to me that I couldn't forget. I don't think he knew what it was going to be like, otherwise, he probably would have brought me to see a western (like "The Searchers," which I'd dragged him to see more than a year before, after I'd already seen it three times...he couldn't stand John Wayne). I watch "Vertigo" at least once a year. at least.
it's also certainly Bernhard Herrmann's greatest moment, the shrieking violins in the "Psycho" shower scene notwithstanding.
I also love "North By Northwest" and "Rear Window" remains great fun (and there IS the Grace Kelly thing to recommend it), even if you've seen it a lot (the first time, I was so terrified when Raymond Burr kept creeping up on Jimmy in the wheelchair I came pretty close to puking). "Notorious" is still really sexy (there's Hitchcock's famous extended-kiss-that-wasn't-really-extended-but-sure-fucked-with-the-code gambit). but "Vertigo" is both sexy and very, very disturbing, every time.
I saw "Strangers On a Train" again a few weeks back and it's still fabulous. for anyone who went to high school in Forest Hills, the real star is the tennis stadium half a block from a little bar called "Sebastian's" where you could get drunk at sixteen without being carded. it's also the scene of the famous Dylan concert in the Summer of '65 in which I didn't think there was nearly as much booing as people like to say there was.
but I can't wait for your screenplay, Tom.
about whatever the more personal stuff is, I figured something was happening and you KNOW how I feel.
I always loved Ernie Lehman's story of how he and Hitchcock came up with the ending of North by Northwest: they had the two of them on George Washington's face, and Grant's hand was stepped on, and how did they get them off the monument and end the movie? They argued for weeks, and all their solutions added 20 minutes to the movie that would wreck it.
Finally Ernie says "It's a movie! They get off there!" And so you have him pull Eva Marie Saint up to him....
I always thought there was some real "wickedness" in the way they absolutely finessed the ending with that one cut, so the story makes perfect sense.
this past week, I was listening to an audiobook about the making of Hitchcock's Selznick- produced movies and discovered the surprising fact that in "Notorious," through pretty much every draft, Devlin (Cary Grant) was supposed to get killed at the end. and in one draft, the Ingrid Bergman character goes back to her drunken party-girl ways. that ending was obviously the one Ben Hecht wanted, because he was extremely cynical about most things (check out Hecht's autobiography, "A Child of the Century" if you haven't read it...it's terrific). but the story is a romance as much as it is a thriller, and the happy ending is just more appropriate.
"Vertigo" might be my favorite, but it has holes in the plot you could drive a tank through. they're explained in the French novel the movie claims to be based on, but it turns out that the book was sort of written to order FOR the movie, almost like a novelization-of-the-screenplay-prior-to-the-screenplay. actually, forget that "almost like." that's what it was.
I saw a lot of Hitchcock as a kid, Vertigo still bothers me. I don't think there's a Hitchcock that I don't like, but I haven't seen any of them for awhile. Watching Hitchcock was one thing I enjoyed about time with my Mom, I gifted her a collection of his movies, but they disappeared after she died, family can be so heartless.
I read your screenplay ( which I loved) before this one! Looking forward to the next one.......
Have been thinking of you all and this time you are going through. You have a load of support here. Do what you need to do for yourself to get through it, mind and heart intact.
Love all the great "old" movies! Will have to look up MGM on my streaming TV. Looking forward to reading your screenplay! Sending hugs to help you with those hard days.
Hoping all is calm for you now, Tom. If you can stream Apple TV, you would love watching Ted Lasso. Tears and laughter done so well. I read somewhere there will be new episodes coming out in the spring!
Ah, that sounds fun. I sometimes imagine the characters in a book I'm reading as being various specific people rather than composites, often with "actors" across time. One now elderly actor "in his 40s" and another who is currently 40 comfortably sitting across from him, as contemporaries. Why not?
I was actually thinking that (I read lots of science fiction as well), but decided not to say so as it might be a sensitive subject as it bears on issues of rights of dead actors and compositing actors just as AI bears on use of visual artists' works.
So sorry you've had hard days. Sending light and peace to you. I love the 'old' films. When I worked the evening shift as a young nurse (hundred years ago 😊, I'd get home around midnight and flip on the local TV station in Boston which played all the classics (long before cable TV and AMC). Suggestion: do not watch "Klute" by yourself in the dark after midnight, scared the beejeebers out of me!! Must have rechecked the locks on my apartment a dozen times that night. On a lighter note, my favorites were the "Nick and Nora' series. I have a thing for snappy repartee!
They dressed well, had style, engaged in dialog, clever and careful, and took us to interesting-pictureasque places in search of something that stimulates and satisfies a curious mind. Food for thought, if not candy for a hungry mind. Crap. I'm hearing a Grant soliloquy as I write. One of my favorite movies.
TCM has proved that what were considered B-movies in the last century are actually better than the majority of mindless flash and dash stuff being cranked out for the streaming business, including the pitiable exploitation of Bruce Willis just to get a name on a lame make. Jeez, even Frank Capra's propaganda films were interesting at their core.
I share the concerns of fellow commenters regarding your current life issues. Be well, sir.
This has really been a tough week. I cannot imagine the difficulty of juggling the responsibilities of a Substack, keeping cats happy, along with personal challenges and just getting through each day.
Hitchcock movies are my favorites. North by Northwest and Rear Window to name a few. The photography, human expression and emotion, and the subtleties that speak so loudly are amazing. Most movies today scream at us with violence, sex and stupidity. I am looking forward to reading your screenplay. I am sorry to hear about your difficult days Tom. Please take care and know how much we all care.
Well, not trying to sound bigger than my britches, but I was in 'NxNW'!
I was an extra, and in a few scenes inUnion Station in Chicago. I was a child model and was called for those scenes. I was only 5, so my mom was in the movie as well! As my husband is fond of saying, 'I had my 15 minutes and was washed up at 6!
Hitchcock remains my favorite filmmaker, and I'm not prejudiced!😌
That is totally cool.
Fun fact.... when they filmed the Mr.Rushmore scene, the faces in the mountains were actually paper mache, and flat on the ground, the actors crawled around on them and the resulting footage was turned 90 degrees so they appeared to be hanging by their fingers in a nose or whatever!
I read about that. "Movie magic."
That sounds exciting, getting to see how the magic was made.
thanks!
Wow! That is so cool. Now I am going to watch for you when I see it again. I watch it at least yearly. Definitely one of my favorites
When Cary Grant walks out of the men's restroom where he had been shaving, I am walking past the doorway, with another little girl, I'm the shorter one! : )
Cary Grant shaving, short little girl, got it.
I would post a still photograph but I don't think it's doable on Substack?
Yeah, unfortunately that's not an option, but if you hit "reply" to the next TAFM email, and attach your photo, it can show up here.
Copy and paste didn't work.
Thanks Cynthia! now I can’t wait to watch it again.
I'll bring the popcorn!
Wow, how cool!
for Hitchcock, there are a bunch of good, fun movies and then there's "Vertigo," which my dad took me to see when it came out (I was 9, but a very seasoned moviegoer), and it did something to me that I couldn't forget. I don't think he knew what it was going to be like, otherwise, he probably would have brought me to see a western (like "The Searchers," which I'd dragged him to see more than a year before, after I'd already seen it three times...he couldn't stand John Wayne). I watch "Vertigo" at least once a year. at least.
it's also certainly Bernhard Herrmann's greatest moment, the shrieking violins in the "Psycho" shower scene notwithstanding.
I also love "North By Northwest" and "Rear Window" remains great fun (and there IS the Grace Kelly thing to recommend it), even if you've seen it a lot (the first time, I was so terrified when Raymond Burr kept creeping up on Jimmy in the wheelchair I came pretty close to puking). "Notorious" is still really sexy (there's Hitchcock's famous extended-kiss-that-wasn't-really-extended-but-sure-fucked-with-the-code gambit). but "Vertigo" is both sexy and very, very disturbing, every time.
I saw "Strangers On a Train" again a few weeks back and it's still fabulous. for anyone who went to high school in Forest Hills, the real star is the tennis stadium half a block from a little bar called "Sebastian's" where you could get drunk at sixteen without being carded. it's also the scene of the famous Dylan concert in the Summer of '65 in which I didn't think there was nearly as much booing as people like to say there was.
but I can't wait for your screenplay, Tom.
about whatever the more personal stuff is, I figured something was happening and you KNOW how I feel.
I always loved Ernie Lehman's story of how he and Hitchcock came up with the ending of North by Northwest: they had the two of them on George Washington's face, and Grant's hand was stepped on, and how did they get them off the monument and end the movie? They argued for weeks, and all their solutions added 20 minutes to the movie that would wreck it.
Finally Ernie says "It's a movie! They get off there!" And so you have him pull Eva Marie Saint up to him....
And into the upper bunk in the sleeper car.
I always thought there was some real "wickedness" in the way they absolutely finessed the ending with that one cut, so the story makes perfect sense.
this past week, I was listening to an audiobook about the making of Hitchcock's Selznick- produced movies and discovered the surprising fact that in "Notorious," through pretty much every draft, Devlin (Cary Grant) was supposed to get killed at the end. and in one draft, the Ingrid Bergman character goes back to her drunken party-girl ways. that ending was obviously the one Ben Hecht wanted, because he was extremely cynical about most things (check out Hecht's autobiography, "A Child of the Century" if you haven't read it...it's terrific). but the story is a romance as much as it is a thriller, and the happy ending is just more appropriate.
"Vertigo" might be my favorite, but it has holes in the plot you could drive a tank through. they're explained in the French novel the movie claims to be based on, but it turns out that the book was sort of written to order FOR the movie, almost like a novelization-of-the-screenplay-prior-to-the-screenplay. actually, forget that "almost like." that's what it was.
I saw a lot of Hitchcock as a kid, Vertigo still bothers me. I don't think there's a Hitchcock that I don't like, but I haven't seen any of them for awhile. Watching Hitchcock was one thing I enjoyed about time with my Mom, I gifted her a collection of his movies, but they disappeared after she died, family can be so heartless.
I'm sorry... : (
I am waiting with baited breath for the screenplay as well!
Hope you still have cat comfort, hang on for dear life, sanity, or whatever you can grab on to…
Thanks.
I read your screenplay ( which I loved) before this one! Looking forward to the next one.......
Have been thinking of you all and this time you are going through. You have a load of support here. Do what you need to do for yourself to get through it, mind and heart intact.
Love all the great "old" movies! Will have to look up MGM on my streaming TV. Looking forward to reading your screenplay! Sending hugs to help you with those hard days.
I hope you’re ok.
Take care of yourself!
Tom, Take care. Be well. H
Hoping all is calm for you now, Tom. If you can stream Apple TV, you would love watching Ted Lasso. Tears and laughter done so well. I read somewhere there will be new episodes coming out in the spring!
Sending care. I’m thinking of indulging in a little bit of escapism myself. Can’t wait to read your screenplay!
And we get to cast the movie in our heads as we read along. Question is do we pick our all time favorites or stick with the current available crop?
All-time faves. I'll be interested to see what you all come up with.
Ah, that sounds fun. I sometimes imagine the characters in a book I'm reading as being various specific people rather than composites, often with "actors" across time. One now elderly actor "in his 40s" and another who is currently 40 comfortably sitting across from him, as contemporaries. Why not?
and as AI continues to improve, there is every chance that you will see a movie "cast" like what you describe.
I was actually thinking that (I read lots of science fiction as well), but decided not to say so as it might be a sensitive subject as it bears on issues of rights of dead actors and compositing actors just as AI bears on use of visual artists' works.
You're right on all points, but trust me - if there's a way to make money, somebody in Hollywood will find a way to get it done.
Take good care of yourself.
I suspected you had been thrown a curveball this week. Hope all is well. Apollo and Artemis sent you good vibes on Feline Friday.
Thanks. Feline Friday will return - I promise!
Speaking of felines, Turtle is feeling so much better. She knows when it’s antibiotic time and we end up playing a cat and mouse game every time.
Awesome news! I was just thinking about her.
So sorry you've had hard days. Sending light and peace to you. I love the 'old' films. When I worked the evening shift as a young nurse (hundred years ago 😊, I'd get home around midnight and flip on the local TV station in Boston which played all the classics (long before cable TV and AMC). Suggestion: do not watch "Klute" by yourself in the dark after midnight, scared the beejeebers out of me!! Must have rechecked the locks on my apartment a dozen times that night. On a lighter note, my favorites were the "Nick and Nora' series. I have a thing for snappy repartee!
They dressed well, had style, engaged in dialog, clever and careful, and took us to interesting-pictureasque places in search of something that stimulates and satisfies a curious mind. Food for thought, if not candy for a hungry mind. Crap. I'm hearing a Grant soliloquy as I write. One of my favorite movies.
TCM has proved that what were considered B-movies in the last century are actually better than the majority of mindless flash and dash stuff being cranked out for the streaming business, including the pitiable exploitation of Bruce Willis just to get a name on a lame make. Jeez, even Frank Capra's propaganda films were interesting at their core.
I share the concerns of fellow commenters regarding your current life issues. Be well, sir.
I'm glad you find comforting diversion in watching old movies. Take care.
This has really been a tough week. I cannot imagine the difficulty of juggling the responsibilities of a Substack, keeping cats happy, along with personal challenges and just getting through each day.
BTW, your screenplays are terrific!
Thanks.