Lawrence Tierney played tough guys and apparently was one in real life, too. Start with Born to Kill and Dillinger.
Category: Film
Ronald Reagan and Grover Cleveland Alexander
Ronald Reagan played Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander in the 1952 film The Winning Team. TCM will broadcast it on March 16 at 6:30 am. I’ve never seen it and I’m going to record it.
Apparently, Reagan confused Alexander with Grover Cleveland who the pitcher was named after.
Grover Cleveland Birthplace Memorial Association has this in their article on baseball:
The Speaker pointed out that a desk the new President was using belonged to Grover Cleveland. O’Neill wrote that Reagan was thrilled and stated, “Hey, Grover Cleveland! I played him in the movies!”. Reagan was referring to Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1952’s The Winning Team. O’ Neill stated, “No, no, Mr. President. You played Grover Cleveland Alexander, the baseball player”.
Great thread on classical music in cartoons
In addition to these, I remember old black and white cartoons on TV that had no dialogue but had classical musical as the audio part. They must have been silent films.
The Exterminating Angel on TCM
Luis Bunuel’s 1962 film The Exterminating Angel will be on TCM on Thursday February 25th at 6:00 am. It’s one of his last Mexican films and one of his best overall. It’s also available from the Criterion Collection. It’s about of a group of high society people in a house who suddenly find they can’t leave.
Film: We Are Little Zombies
One of the best films I have seen recently is We Are Little Zombies. It’s the story of four emotionally dead children who have lost their parents. They form a band and have a popular record. Here’s the trailer and music video for their record. The 2019 film from Japan is now available on Blu-ray and streaming services.
A couple of the other excellent but strange Japanese films are One Cut of the Dead and The Happiness of the Katakuris.
Columbia Pictures logo
Scorsese on the movie business, Fellini and English films
Scorsese’s essay is excellent. He points out what is lost when film is reduced to “content”. The essay focuses on Fellini. There’s a great new box set of most of his films from the Criterion Collection. I have also included this link to an IndieWire article on Scorsese’s favorite English films. It’s a fine list but doesn’t include the Ealing comedies such as Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Man in the White Suit. It does have Hammer horror films. Maybe he assumed the recipients had seen them since they are better known than most of the films on the list.
Scorsese’s list of essential foreign films which is referred to in the thread above
100 Best British Films: The full list – Time Out London (archive.org)
Lola (Fassbinder film)
Lola is one of my favorite films and is available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection as part of the BRD Trilogy with two other excellent films – The Marriage of Maria Braun and Veronika Voss. The film is roughly modeled after The Blue Angel and the novel is was based on. Lola takes place in the 1950s and is beautifully photographed in bright candy colors. Barbara Sukowa gives an amazing performance as Lola. The film’s ending is incredibly cynical.
Sad! 