The movie apparently did have Code problems but they related to her "relationship" with Sandor!
I recall reading Production code memos (in FILMFAX?) about the ... er ... seduction scene of Nan Grey. Apparently the PD wasn't all that dense as to the implications of that scene.
... but of course I love him in just about everything he did. Even nonsense like The Phantom Creeps.
You continue to surprise me, Herr S...
Speaking of Leisen, has anyone else realized the Universal SE of Meet Joe Black (now OOP I think) also includes - as an extra - a very good print source of Death takes a Holiday!! R1 only.
Yup. I didn't pick up JOE BLACK to watch Brad Pitt savor peanut butter. (Not that there's anything wrong with that ...)
david hare wrote:Speaking of Leisen, has anyone else realized the Universal SE of Meet Joe Black (now OOP I think) also includes - as an extra - a very good print source of Death takes a Holiday!! R1 only.
The only trouble is that I would have needed to actually buy Meet Joe Black, so unfortunately I'm still without the original!
Yes, that was a fad a few years ago with Region 1 DVDs of terrible Universal remakes. I seem to remember that they even threw in a poor quality 'freebie' version of Charade in with The Truth About Charlie - I wonder if that upset Criterion since it was a couple of years into their licensing of the film (but before they went back and anamorphically upgraded their disc) when it happened.
colinr0380 wrote:I seem to remember that they even threw in a poor quality 'freebie' version of Charade in with The Truth About Charlie - I wonder if that upset Criterion since it was a couple of years into their licensing of the film (but before they went back and anamorphically upgraded their disc) when it happened.
Actually, Universal had Criterion pull their disc out of print just so that they could release that 2-fer. The consolation was that Criterion got to use the new anamorphic transfer for their eventual re-release.
david hare wrote:She's impossible to find in anything else. Among her miniscule credits is a bit as "party guest" in Auntie Mame - if you can stomach sitting through it. I confess I can't find hide nor hair of the woman. In the first "Party scene" there IS an elderly Lesbian couple (sans dialogue of course) in the background with one brief medium shot, but they're both wearing tweeds.
Glore would NEVER wear tweeds - in fact I always think of her, along with Talullah as the Dykonic lipstick Lesbians.
The movie apparently did have Code problems but they related to her "relationship" with Sandor! I thought the real problem in that relationship was that Irving seems to be more interested in slapping on Gloria's pancake and lippy than he is in Madam herself.
Another note - the piano piece she's playing in that sublime pre-cruising scene is the Chopin Nocturne Opus 15 No 2 (F sharp minor.) This is the very Noctune La Crawford plays when first visiting Connie Veidt in Cukor's A Woman's Face. This is the unforgettable moment in which Connie says -
"Quite a girl, you wirte poetry and play the piano! SO you like music my dear?"
"Oh, yes - some Symphonies, most Concertos.."
Some credit for the Drac Daughter atmospherics should go to Lambert Hillyer, whose later Invisible Ray with Karloof as really VERY nice and shows considerable nuance in the relationship between Karloff and the Daughter.
DAVID!! I'm over here watching Bud Boetticher's ESCAPE IN THE FOG, and I'm confirming in imdb that the guy I'm looking at onscreen is indeed Otto Krueger-- and it was-- so it's just a click over to Drac's Daughter, and on a lark I clicked on Gloria Holden's imdb listing--
Actress:
1950s
1940s
1930s
Auntie Mame (1958) (uncredited) .... Guest at garden party
This Happy Feeling (1958) .... Mrs. Dover
The Eddy Duchin Story (1956) .... Mrs. Duchin
Dream Wife (1953) .... Mrs. Landwell
Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) .... Mrs. Pennock
A Kiss for Corliss (1949) .... Mrs. Janet Archer
... aka Almost a Bride (USA: reissue title)
... aka Dangerous Visitor (USA: reissue title)
The Sickle or the Cross (1949) .... Louise Cannon
... aka Seeds of Destruction (USA: reissue title)
"Your Show Time" (1 episode, 1949)
- Birthday of the Infants (1949) TV episode
"The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre" .... Wife (1 episode, 1948)
... aka "Chevrolet Television Theatre" (USA)
... aka "The Broadway Playhouse"
- A Study in Triangles (1948) TV episode .... Wife
Perilous Waters (1948) .... Mrs. Ferris
Killer McCoy (1947) .... Mrs. Laura McCoy
The Hucksters (1947) .... Mrs. Kimberly
Undercover Maisie (1947) .... Mrs. Guy Canford
... aka Undercover Girl (UK)
Sister Kenny (1946) (uncredited) .... Mrs. McDonnell
Hit the Hay (1945) .... Mimi Valdez
The Girl of the Limberlost (1945) .... Miss Nelson
Adventures of Rusty (1945) .... Louise Hover
Having Wonderful Crime (1945) (as Anje Berens) .... Phyllis Gray
Strange Holiday (1945) .... Mrs. Jean Stevenson
... aka Terror on Main Street (USA)
... aka The Day After Tomorrow (USA: alternative title)
Behind the Rising Sun (1943) .... Sara Braden
Apache Trail (1942) .... Mrs. James V. Thorne
Miss Annie Rooney (1942) .... Mrs. White
A Gentleman After Dark (1942) .... Miss Clark
... aka Heliotrope Harry (USA: review title)
Don't Talk (1942) .... Beulah Anderson
... aka A Crime Does Not Pay Subject: 'Don't Talk' (USA: series title)
The Corsican Brothers (1941) .... Countess Franchi
Passage from Hong Kong (1941) .... Madame Wrangel
This Thing Called Love (1940) .... Genevieve Hooper
... aka Married But Single (UK)
A Child Is Born (1939) .... Mrs. Kempner
Miracles for Sale (1939) .... Madame Rapport
Dodge City (1939) .... Mrs. Cole
Girls' School (1938) .... Miss Laurel
Test Pilot (1938) .... Mrs. Benson
Hawaii Calls (1938) .... Mrs. Milburn
The Man Without a Country (1937) .... Marian Morgan
The Life of Emile Zola (1937) .... Alexandrine Zola
Dracula's Daughter (1936) .... Countess Marya Zaleska - Dracula's Daughter
... aka Daughter of Dracula
Wife vs. Secretary (1936) .... Joan Carstairs
The Return of Chandu (1934/I) (uncredited) .... Party Guest [Ch. 1]
... aka Chandu's Return
... aka The Return of Chandu the Magician (video title)
Archive Footage:
The Celluloid Closet (1995) (uncredited) .... Countess Marya Zaleska
The Horror Show (1979)
She's nowhere near as obscure as was thought. She should be quite easy to find in these films..
Ok, so I've seen 4 of the films in the set, and though none has convinced me to buy it outright, I'd be tempted to pick it up at the right price.
Thoughts on what I've seen:
Torch Singer - I watched this a couple years ago, and was very impressed. I adore Claudette and I think she's one of the few actresses along with Barbara Stanwyck who could carry a film on personality alone. It's solid stuff through and through, and it's nice to see a great actress get a chance to hold her own.
Hot Saturday - well it had the potential to be both terrible and predictable, but the twist ending really made the film worthwhile. Long live pre-code simply for endings like this.
Merrily We Go To Hell - I'd be hard pressed to criticize a film featuring two of my all-time faves in Fred March and Sylvia Sidney. It's not a great movie by any means, but seriously does a movie need anything more than Freddie acting drunk and Sylvia looking sad?
Search For Beauty - Not a great film either, but fascinating due to content, and the brilliance of Gertrude Michael as a mega-bitch. Seriously she's one of the great forgotten talents of the age.
I'm looking forward to checking out Murder at the Vanities for her and for "Sweet Marihuana".
As for The Cheat, well I'm definitely interested, but I'm wondering how it compares to the original, which is one of the great silent features...and in my opinion De Mille's best film.
It's "Rhapsody, Rape, and Revenge." For those unfamiliar, Duke Ellington's band (and dancers dressed as black maids) take over the stage, "raping" Liszt's performance of one of his rhapsodies, prompting Liszt to mow down the jazz performers with a stage machine gun.
David, I have the Kino disc you mention, as well as another DVD, "Duke Ellington: Early Tracks from the Master of Swing." So I'm a little surprised I'd never had the chance to see "Ebony Rhapsody" before.
The Duke Ellington performances on the latter are a lot of fun to watch. I'm actually not sure whether they were shot with sync sound or not. Perhaps some of both. In some of the shorts it seems the musicians are having a bit of fun pantomiming with their instruments (as they do in Murder at the Vanities). Or maybe it's just really badly synced. I've noticed with some of the much-heralded Jazz Icons DVDs of actual performances that the syncing is sometimes very noticeably off. {Edit: It's only a problem on one or two I've seen, I should add; most of these releases are totally fine.]
Last edited by Gregory on Sun Aug 09, 2009 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Zumpano wrote:Lonely Are The Brave. Finally. One of my favorite westerns/revisionist-westerns. Great Kirk Douglas performance. Any other fans?
Just saw this for the first time and I'm a fan all right. What an unusual film - quite something else. A revisionist Western it may be, but might give people the wrong idea, since it's basically a contemporary police manhunt, except our man here never really came to terms with the 20th Century and happens to envision himself as an old-style cowboy with a self-destructive streak. But even then, it never really goes where you'd expect it to go with a generally off-beat sense of humor and (for the early '60s at least) great use of New Mexico locations that give the film a real local flavor. Kirk Douglas considered this his favorite role, but the rest of the cast are all ace with Gena Rowlands and Walter Matthau in prime form. Stunning black-and-white scope photography, some great writing and dialog by Dalton Trumbo, a great score by Jerry Goldsmith and one of the greatest (and funniest) barfights ever. So much too recommend here. This film needs all the attention and praise it can get.
If you value your DVD shelf space at all, you might want to steer clear of the Universal Claudette Colbert Collection. It's three discs, two films on each, and it comes in a fold-out digipak in a slipcase. Problem is, each of the three plastic digipak trays is 3/8 of an inch thick, so with the slipcase the whole package is just under 1 1/2" wide. That might not sound like much, but it's monstrous for a set with 3 discs. It's just a hair bigger than Criterion's Teshigahara and Varda sets, and those have 4 discs each and a fat booklet. It's bigger than my paperback of Ulysses (but then the cover of Ulysses isn't printed on pearlescent cardstock).
In this age of figure-8 double-DVD cases and ThinPAKs, what are they thinking? The only explanation I can come up with is that the deep trays make it easy for aged, arthritic fingers to pop the discs out, and who else would be watching Claudette Colbert films but lonely little grannies?
I've only watched Bluebeard's Eight Wife out of the set, but it looked very good, save for a couple of brief, minor wiggles in the image reminiscent of VHS.
The only explanation I can come up with is that the deep trays make it easy for aged, arthritic fingers to pop the discs out, and who else would be watching Claudette Colbert films but lonely little grannies?
Dave Kehr wrote:Rick K., you’ve put your finger on a consistent problem with Universal’s home video releases: there doesn’t seem to be anyone at the studio with even a freshman level knowledge of film history. I’ve just been watching the Barbara Stanwyck box they’ll be releasing in a couple of weeks, which pretty much contains ever Stanwyck title in the Universal/Paramount library that hasn’t been previously released or licensed to another company, and of course it is wildly uneven, ranging from a thrilling discovery — Alfred Santell’s distinctly Ophulsian “Internes Can’t Take Money” — to a particularly wretched Irving Pichel comedy, “The Bride Wore Boots.” But there’s no excuse, in this day and age, for presenting Douglas Sirk’s great “There’s Always Tomorrow” — by far the most important title in the bunch — in a muddy, full-frame transfer, particularly when MoC has pointed the way with their Criterion-quality edition of “Tomorrow” in England, presented of course in its proper 1.85 ratio. Is it that they don’t know any better, don’t care, or are too cheap to put it on a separate anamorphic disc?
Well Universal have fucked up.
I like how it's still considered the ultimate praise to call releases from other labels Criterion-quality in 2010.
So is it open-matte? I seem to remember someone (david hare maybe?) who posted VHS screencaps of the film that were full-frame but open-matte. Open-matte isn't a big deal, cropped is
If you look at the caps posted on Kehr's blog, it looks like both - i.e. open matte but with a little cropping on the sides. MoC has more information on the sides of both captures. Not a huge amount, but enough to further mess with the compositions. And to me it does look like open-and-shut open matte, with the images clearly composed for the narrower ratio and lots of empty space above and below - not one of those ambiguous instances that lead to pages and pages of tortuous debate. But anything's possible!
