I saw an obscure oldie called Dreamboat over the weekend. Very odd comedy, but very worthwhile.

Thornton Sayre (Clifton Webb) made some swashbuckling silent movies with Gloria Marlowe (Ginger Rogers) under the name Bruce Blair. Sayre leaves Hollywood, becomes stuffy professor of English at stuffy college (president played by Elsa Lanchester). Has a daughter (Anne Francis) who's even more stuffy and intellectual than he is.

Then television comes along. Marlowe hosts broadcasts of her old movies with "Dreamboat," as she calls him -- and the team becomes even more popular than ever. Someone realizes Professor Sayre (known as "Ironheart") is Dreamboat. University trustees worry about the effect on the school's reputation. It turns out university president is madly in love with Bruce Blair. And father and daughter go to New York, seeking an injunction to stop the broadcasts....

I'll only say that one scene in the hotel bar alone is worth the price of admission.

I'm having a hard time imagining Clifton Webb as any kind of "Dreamboat", but I've probably seen LAURA too many times.

Granted, I have a hard time with LAURA taking Vincent Price seriously as a gigilo, but I've also seen too many of his horror movies over the years.

I love Laura, although I do agree that the Price casting throws you out of the picture for a bit.

I love Laura, although I do agree that the Price casting throws you out of the picture for a bit.

Though he does make a superlative red herring in compensation for the seeming miscasting of the role (though I think that's only retrospective - at the time I don't think it was such odd casting).

Though he does make a superlative red herring in compensation for the seeming miscasting of the role (though I think that's only retrospective - at the time I don't think it was such odd casting).

I think I remember hearing commentary to this effect. Maybe on the "Out of the Past" film noir podcast?

Nate Silver predicts the Oscars: [link]

Interesting, but, having seen The Reader, he's so wrong about this:

Most of the major awards in the Supporting Actress category have been won by Kate Winslet for The Reader—a role the Academy misguidedly considers a lead.

I don't know how that role could ever be considered "supporting".

We had friends over this weekend who had never see The Princess Bride (or read it, but they don't read). Now, I realize I may be speaking blasphemy here, but there may be room for a remake.

The script is great, the performances ranged from really good to freaking awesome, the casting was good, the cheesy-fairy-tale look was good. But the pacing. Oh the pacing. Ponderous. Epochal. Like a drip of molasses caught in amber on the back of a narcoleptic tortoise.

Also, the Mark Knopfler soundtrack hasn't aged well.

Maybe the film just needs to be recut and re-scored.

Price got into the horror game relatively late. I remember him well for his role as a courtier in A Royal Scandal. Which should really be titled, Tallulah Bankhead Plays Catherine the Great, because that's what it's really about.

But the pacing. Oh the pacing. Ponderous. Epochal. Like a drip of molasses caught in amber on the back of a narcoleptic tortoise.

I blame our short-attention-span, MTV-music-video-quick-edit generation.

But seriously, I've never thought about the pacing of the movie....

Tallulah Bankhead Plays Catherine the Great

My two favorite Tallulah stories are Hitchcock's response to the studio's complaint that she wouldn't wear underwear during the filming of LIFEBOAT (He said he'd like to deal with it, but didn't know which department would handle it - wardrobe, makeup or hairdressing).

The other was her encounter with Chico Marx at a party that I think I've linked to an account of in this thread before (it's a bit too long to summarize).

I'm currently rewatching early 40s Hitchcock ( Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, etc.) and Lifeboat is up next.