New discussions about old movies and classic movie stars.

Posts tagged Brando

Marlon Brando’s Obscure Horse Opera? (Here’s The Answer.)

Sep13
2013 1 Comment Written by Joe Morella and Frank Segers

As incongruous as it may sound today, Marlon Brando actually starred in some pretty decent westerns.

Hello, everybody.  Your classic movie guys here to say that on Sept. 6, we discussed (in Think You Know Your Westerns? Are You Sure?) some of them including a little-known Brando title that we asked you identify.

To recap, Brando made Elia Kazan’s Viva Zapata in 1952, and One Eyed Jacks (which he also directed) nine years later — five years before our unidentified film was made. Much later (in 1976) the actor made Arthur Penn’s The Missouri Breaks with Jack Nicholson.

But the unidentified movie we asked you to name is Joe’s favorite Brando Western.

Joe was working at Universal at the time the film was made. He had read the script, and thought it was one of the best he’d ever encountered. Then he saw the movie! Director Sidney Furie (who was “Hot” at that time) and star Marlon Brando had turned the film into something VERY unlike the original script.

Did you come up with the title of this film?

Answer: The western is 1966′s The Appaloosa, released by Universal Pictures.

Brando costars with John Saxon and Anjanette Comer in a tale of a buffalo hunter whose horse is stolen by a group of bandit nasties. Special bonus: the cast also includes the always reliable Mexican actor, Emilio Fernandez, who would later play the corrupt Mexican general “Mapache” in Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 western The Wild Bunch.

When Appaloosa opened, here’s some of what The New York Times’ critic Bosley Crowther had to say:

An odd sort of Western movie—the sort that consciously combines a fairly conventional he-man story within a format of decorative art—

To be quite blunt about it, it is on the bold, pretentious side. It does radiate rather strongly the kind of glossy pictorial style and the taste for elaborate camera angles that Mr. Furie, born and raised in Canada, used so effectively in his first hit, the London-made “The Ipcress File.” And he does permit Mr. Brando to play an aging saddle tramp with something of the same ostentation he showed in his own previous Western, “One-Eyed Jacks.”

But for all that, there is a fascination — a certain mounting magnetism—in this film about a cowboy whose horse is stolen by a Mexican ranchero and who dares to go alone to get it back, and in doing so gets the fellow’s wife.

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Think You Know Your Westerns? Are you Sure?

Sep06
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Joe Morella and Frank Segers

 

Above is a photo of John Saxon holding Marlon Brando at gunpoint.  The shot is from an offbeat Western film than Brando made in the mid 1960s.

Hello, everybody.  Your classic movie guys here again, and since we’ve been writing about Gregory Peck’s Western films, we thought we’d look at other major stars not really identified with Westerns but who gave the genre a try.

Brando made Elia Kazan’s Viva Zapata in 1952, and One Eyed Jacks (which he also directed) nine years later — five years before this film. Much later (in 1976) the actor made Arthur Penn’s The Missouri Breaks with Jack Nicholson.

But the movie we are talking about now is Joe’s favorite Brando Western.

Joe was working at Universal at the time the film was made. He had read the script, and thought it was one of the best he’d ever encountered.

Then he saw the movie! Director Sidney Furie (who was “Hot” at that time) and star Marlon Brando had turned the film into something VERY unlike the original script.

Can you name the title of this film?  (Hint from generous Frank:  a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.)

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All Four Categories Covered

Feb22
2013 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

This year for the first time in many years four actors from the same film have been nominated in all four of the acting categories for the Oscars.

From the film Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper has been nominated for best actor,  Jennifer Lawrence for best actress, Robert DeNiro for best supporting actor and Jacki Weaver for best supporting actress.

Hello Everybody. MR. Joe Morella and MR. Frank Segers here again. MRS. Norman Maine is out getting her hair done for the Oscar telecast.

We’ve been talking of late of Oscar winners and losers.  Not since 1981 have all four categories of acting been represented from one movie.

This first happened in 1936 when William Powell and Carole Lombard were nominated for Oscars for My Man Godfrey and Misha Auer and Alice Brady garnered best supporting actor nominations for the same film. None of them won.

Through the years 12 more films captured nominations in all four categories. And in eleven of those years at least one of the four nominees won.

Sometimes two of the four won, as was the case with Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed, both supporting for From Here to Eternity, while Burt Lancaster, Monty Clift and Deborah Kerr were overlooked.

In two cases three of the four actually won.  That happened in 1951 when Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter won for Streetcar Named Desire. Marlon Brando lost that year to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. And again in 1976 when Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight won their Oscars for Network.  Ned Beatty lost best supporting Oscar to Jason Robards in All The President’s Men.

But NEVER, NEVER have all four actors from the same film captured all four Oscars in the acting categories.  Will this year make history? Doubtful.

Still the chances of at least one actor nominated from SilverLinings Playbook winning are quite high.  We’re not Nate Silver, but we’d guess the chance is 84%.

But we mustn’t forget that in 1936 NONE of those nominated won.  In fact My Man Godfrey was nominated in six categories and won zip.

And remember 1950 and the classic Sunset Boulevard. William Holden and Gloria Swanson were nominated for Best Actor Awards — Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olsen nominated for best supporting actor Awards.  All four lost.

 

 

 

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HAPPILY DIVORCED–from Star Status, yet a Big Award Winner

Aug01
2011 3 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

 

Rita Moreno has continued to make the show biz history books, and yet she has never become a full fledged star.

Moreno, who is currently playing Fran Drescher’s MOTHER on a TV sit com, “Happily Divorced,” is the recipient of an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy for her past performances.

Hello everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again. It could be argued that Rita Moreno is at an age where she ought to be playing character roles. (she’s 79).  And that she has, in effect, played character roles all through her career. This is true.

Moreno is a very rare breed– the WORKING actor.  She’s been at it since she was 13. Born in Puerto Rico, but raised mainly in New York, she was on the stage as a teen then in films.  She has a small but memorable role in the classic “Singing In the Rain.” But one of Joe’s favorite Moreno roles is as a teen in reform school in “So Young, So Bad,” when she was billed as Rosita Moreno.

After paying her dues in a dozen programmers, including one of the Ma and Pa Kettle flicks, Moreno’s big break was when she was cast as Tuptim in the film version of “The King and I.” (It was a part that Dorothy Dandridge had turned down)

Then, the big one. She played Anita in “West Side Story.“(pictured above) –Chita Rivera had originated the role on Broadway, but Rita made it her own on screen.  She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and became only the second Hispanic-American to win an Oscar.

(Can you name the first?  We’ll give you a few days to come up with that answer.)

But the Oscar did not propel Moreno to star status.  She worked through the 60′s and 70′s turning out very good performances opposite top stars, such as Marlon Brando in “Night of the Following Day,” and James Garner in “Marlowe.”  She had a good supporting role in director Mike Nichol’s 1971 “Carnal Knowledge” costarring Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel and Ann-Margret.

And Moreno continued getting recognition from her peers, if not the public.  She won a Grammy in 1972, a Tony in 1975 (for “The Ritz”) and Emmys in 1977 and 1978.  In fact she’s garnered dozens of awards, from the Golden Globe to the Sarah Siddons Award.

And she’s continued to work.  Perhaps not being a big star allowed Moreno the freedom to accept acting challenges and forge a career unrivaled by her contemporaries. We salute Rita, a durable working actress of great distinction.

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Rare Photo:Two Emperors–Brando and ????

Apr04
2011 3 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everybody. This is MISTER Joe Morella — and –along with me, my pal Frank Segers (age before beauty in this billing).

Welcome to our Classic Movie Chat, and to your personal classic movie forum as well.

We have a lot to give. So get ready to enjoy yourself.

We will be featuring brand new chats five days each week. As a special bonus, each of our electronic conversations will be accompanied by a fascinating
photo or two, either a rarely seen vintage photograph from our personal collection or a photograph never before seen anywhere. (today’s is just rare)

It’s our goal to have our daily chats referred to as a great classic movie source, a friendly and congenial place where we can all get together often and share our enjoyment of the incomparable array of great films and the stars who made them classics.

As you can tell by our opening line (calling Norman Maine!), we are passionate movie buffs who enjoy nothing more than having fun with the lines and images
that jump forth from so many wonderful movies of, let’s say, a certain age.

So, fasten your seat belts … yeah, yeah, yeah .… and join us here as often as you can. We’ll be here five times a week, and we would love to hear from you.

Did you ever wonder what truly makes a movie a classic?

We think about that a lot, and have come up with a credo of our own. That is, if a movie is good, will it be good five years from now and even better 10 years
from now. A movie classic is impervious to time – it was good when it first came out and even better now.

So many times it pays to avoid rushing out to catch the latest new release. Our advice – consider waiting a while to let the cinematic wheat separate itself
from the chaff. It will be easier on your pocketbook and your eyeballs.

Another way to look at this is to ask yourself how many times you’ve seen a film you remember was so terrific when you first saw it — but is now a total snore.
Aren’t you amazed to find that was once so great is 10 years later a dated bore.

That’s not to say that such a film can’t have an incredible impact on the public when it first comes out, sometimes changing the ways movies are made and even
the movie business itself. Our favorite example of this is 1969’s “Easy Rider,” which is dated to the point of being un-watchable today. However, the movie’s
place in Hollywood history is secure as a groundbreaking film. But that hardly makes it a classic.

A classic is a movie you can see over and over and over again, always finding something new and interesting about it, always marveling at its ability to
“hook” you. Sure, the film may be a period piece but it is never dated. It lacks references caught in time. It has instead universal themes (passion,
greed, hubris) representing universal human emotions reflecting the universal human condition.

“Sunset Boulevard” came out 60 years ago, but its representation of Hollywood ambition and delusion is as relevant today as it was then. (Frank’s favorite
line: desperately broke screenwriter William Holden calls for a loan to “a yes-man at Metro. To me, he said no.”)

Both of us have prints of Sunset Boulevard. A must in any collection.

There is just no question that it is so much easier to be a vintage film buff and film collector these days. But like a lot of you we are old enough to recall the days in the 40’s, 50’s and even the 60’s when it was difficult to view old films. Unless you lived in a big city, which sported a revival theater, you were out in the cold.

How did you get to see your favorite classic before it was released on video?

Let’s hear from you.

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