I know we've talked about it before, but The Great Race is on TCM again.

I wonder if there's Professor Fate fic.

It's such a weirdly long movie. There's all the early stuff where Fate is trying to beat or blow up Leslie before the race even starts. That's more than half an hour.

Then the suffragette satire. Then the long Western sequence.

The arctic sequence is like a whole separate movie (probably my favorite part). And then the whole Prisoner of Zenda bit at the end could've been another entire movie on its own.

Alan Arkin and Peter Falk had curiously parallel careers. They both had successful supporting roles through much of the sixties and then continued on to do amazing work for decades without a lot of acclaim until people ran down their filmographies and realized the quality of their body of work.

With Arkin you've got The Russians Are Coming, Wait Until Dark, Freebie and the Bean, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Little Miss Sunshine. Falk you've got The Great Race, all the Cassavetes movies in the early seventies, Columbo, Wings of Desire.

Push the button, Max!

I've already gone on record here on professing my Great Race love. More than once, I think. I know I definitely mentioned it when Tony Curtis passed away.

It's such a weirdly long movie.

I don't know if it got sucked into "bigger, more Spectacular, BIGGER" trend of it's day, or if it was meant to be a parody of that. It certainly works as one if you look at it that way.

I am such a Jack Lemmon fan, for all his fabulous roles in fabulous movies. But goodness I love Prince Frederick to itty bitty pieces. Helpless adoration, really.

But goodness I love Prince Frederick to itty bitty pieces. Helpless adoration, really.

I love that shot of him completely soused with all his little dogs all over him.

Hey, it's on Netflix instant. I'm watching it now for the first time. It's an Overture movie!

Aww Tony Curtis is so cute I can hardly stand it. And in bondage!

I watched Trapeze last weekend. Burt Lancaster and Curtis in the prime of their beefcake days! But, actually, the movie was so awful about women & their roles in life that it was hard work to enjoy.

I see where Marion Zimmer Bradley got the inspiration for The Catch Trap, though. Didn't realize it was practically a fanfic rewrite of the movie....

I can only see RZ and think of her as a "sweaty, puffy coke whore" courtesy of Kathy Griffin.

We saw Tangled this weekend. It was OK. I kind of wish they hadn't gone the "blonde hair is better than brown hair" route, but there you are.

Unlike The Princess and the Frog, I think all the scenes from other Disney movies were supposed to be recognized as loving homage, and a farewell to the "princess movie." (Rather than the cheap-out recycled animation from TPATF). And there may have been a Blade Runner reference in it.

I reeeally wanted to love Trapeze. But I'm with Theo. Actually I think it would have been a better movie with no women in it at all, because at least then one wouldn't be cringing so much and often and could just enjoy the, um, plot.