Turner Classic Movies

[Matt]

These are usually so tasteful, I wonder whose idea it was to feature an acrobat this time around.

[fdm]

Must be to keep the kids from getting bored.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I guess you could say they soared too high and missed the other trapeze.

(I'm sorry that was terrible, you should never speak ill of the dead).

[FrauBlucher]

I just watched Impact (1949) which I had DVR'd over the summer that was on Noir Alley. It was a tale of two halves. The first half was solid. Helen Walker was playing Brian Donlevy like a fiddle in typical femme fatale fashion. And everything was playing out with suspense and nourish dread. Then the second half rolls around and it gets a bit preposterous. Brian Donleavy's character unnecessarily lies to police to set up his arrest. Ella Raines' character turns into Nancy Drew and Charles Coburn becomes her Dr. Watson. Then the final scene is anti climatic. It seems like the screenwriting duo ran out of steam. Oh well. It's too bad. I was enjoying it.

[therewillbeblus]

A few of us have written it up - and I believe domino is a much more fervent champion of it than I am - but at about twice the length of some noirs, it's bound to frustrate! I've come around to seeing that temporal elasticity as a strength, and finding pleasures in watching characters responding to various stimuli in real time, but this was my first reaction to the last stretch:

The last act was peculiar in how the film could have ended sooner, and more tightly, but was drawn out by meditating on the consequences from the femme fatale’s manipulations through standard courtroom and detective processes a bit more banal than usual. However, surprisingly the banality made the narrative choice more effective and fit with the spacious climate and doses of reality established already in the small-town scenes.

[Black Hat]

It happens occasionally but, the digital image breakup on TCM the past few days has been non-stop, never been this bad. Anybody know what's going on?

[bottlesofsmoke]

I don’t know what’s going on with them. The app has been a mess the last couple of days. I’ve had the audio go out of synch every couple of minutes on some movies, some won’t play at all, others will play a few minutes before stopping. Movies are “added” to the library already expired and the usual banner posters on the front page are blank. Maybe they are in the process of updating or relaunching the app, hopefully it’s not because they laid off the people who make it work.

[Matt]

I’ve seen a few screen freezes using the app where the image stops but the audio keeps playing, but the audio simply going out of sync with the image is what’s been plaguing me.

I’ve also noticed that films are just missing from the schedule. The printable calendar lists everything, but you’ll open up the app and it just says “TCM East Live Feed” instead of the title of the movie. And if you look it up on the online schedule, it’s just not listed at all, like the schedule just jumps from 10 pm to 2 am.

[FrauBlucher]

I've been watching via regular cable (Fios) and haven't seen any issues

[Matt]

TCM’s annual 31 Days of Oscarstarts tomorrow, February 9. Timed this year to end when the Oscars air instead of stretching out beyond that date as usual.

[FrauBlucher]

My least favorite TCM ritual

[FrauBlucher]

I watched another Noir Alley sitting in my DVR queue from last year. Flamingo Road was entertaining if somewhat flawed. Sydney Greenstreet was deliciously sinister. He made the film. Joan Crawford on the other hand tried to do a Barbara Stanwyck impersonation. The part wasn't really up Joan Crawford's usual alley. Every time Crawford seems to become that evil, strong Crawford she was known for she steps back into the unassuming character that was Lane Bellamy. Crawford just doesn't do soft well

[Black Hat]

Flaming Road is really good! On its face, you'd think Greenstreet would be ridiculous playing that character, but he's amazing! I get what you're saying about Crawford, but I think she was surprisingly vulnerable in this role, I bought in. My bigger issue was buying into Crawford's intoxicating sexuality, but still, this is a gem of a film.

[FrauBlucher]

That's it! Her vulnerability to me just doesn't resonate. I feel like she can never be vulnerable enough without her edginess sticking out. Barbara Stanwyck on the other hand always feels like whatever her emotion is is full on. And I'm not saying I don't like Crawford. I love her. Mildred Pierce is one of my faves from that era. There is no one on a par with her when she's in full bitchiness mode

[Black Hat]

ha, and I never completely buy into Stanwyck being vulnerable. What's a good example you'd recommend I see?

[Morgan Creek]

Remember the Night, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Stella Dallas, There's Always Tomorrow, The Lady Eve, for starters

[TechnicolorAcid]

Also at the climax of Double Indemnity, which is otherwise one of her more sinister roles.

[bottlesofsmoke]

Remember the Night, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Stella Dallas, There's Always Tomorrow, The Lady Eve, for starters

These, plus Ladies of Leisure and All I Desire. Early Capra and Sirk definitely brought out that side of her very well. Her performance in The Bitter Tea of General Yen is really something remarkable.

[therewillbeblus]

ha, and I never completely buy into Stanwyck being vulnerable. What's a good example you'd recommend I see?

I can see what you mean, but Remember the Night might be an exception, at least within the artifice of the studio-era holiday dramedy. Or maybe it's because I never completely buy Fred MacMurray being decent, so her humanity shines through more smoothly simply by contrast

[Jonathan S]

Sorry, Wrong Number is probably the most explicit and prolonged example of Stanwyck at her most psychologically and physically vulnerable, yet still preserving that gritty defiance she did so well. I think the most electrifying Stanwyck moments are when she simultaneously breaks down while hurling out invective, e.g. her angry, tearful speech that gradually ascends into near-hysteria at the opening of The Miracle Woman. She understood very early in her career that emotions don't come in tidy discrete packages. These moments are like an orchestral symphony where competing themes synthesise into an overwhelming climax.

[DeprongMori]

My favorite “strong and centered, but emotionally open and vulnerable” role for Stanwyck is another pairing with Fred MacMurray — Douglas Sirk’s There’s Always Tomorrow (1956).

[Black Hat]

I've seen all those, minus Sorry, Wrong Number, and either don't see those roles as playing vulnerability (The Lady Eve) or don't buy her character's vulnerability. It always feels a bit put on because her characters want something (There's Always Tomorrow) or are so hysterically melodramatic (Stella Dallas) that you don't buy it. The more believable one, as TWB pointed out, is Remember the Night but, again, her character is desperate.

[FrauBlucher]

Remember the Night was one of them that I was going to suggest. Because she was desperate for acceptance that doesn't count for being vulnerable? I also think Ball of Fire and Christmas in Connecticut are films where her characters are tough broads but she shows a softness that opens up to a vulnerability that does seem genuine. I don't see Joan Crawford in neither one of these roles. It just wouldn't be believable. She is a one trick pony. It's a wonderful one trick. But it's one trick. And that was my problem with Flamingo Road even though I enjoyed the film.

[FrauBlucher]

Pulp Fiction is the opening night film for the festival. I can't wait till they program it on the channel where it's sandwiched between National Velvet and Please Don't Eat the Daisies

[FrauBlucher]

Le Samourai is on Noir Alley tonight. It'll be interesting to see if the new restoration is used