William ,'Conversations with Dead People'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Oh, Ghost Story was such a good, creepy book. My parents let me read it when I was 10!
I know where I was living when I saw it, and that I saw it in my local 99c theater, but I was pretty surprised when I saw the release date and realized what that must mean in terms of my viewing age.
If it helps any it only opened in one theater in 1974. It was re-released and came to public attention in 1977.
If it helps any it only opened in one theater in 1974. It was re-released and came to public attention in 1977.
Ah, that would make way more sense. Still too young but I was seeing more movies by that point at least.
Any one else seen This Property Is Condemned? It was made in the mid-'60s but set in Mississippi in the '30s. Mama Starr runs a boarding house for railroad men with the help of her daughters, the beautiful Alva and the tomboy Willie. One day, Owen Legate arrives at the boarding house and turns everything upside down -- he's a railroad man who has to make recommendations on who will and won't continue to work for the railroad during the Depression, and then Alva falls in love with him.
I was surprised that this one isn't better known. Natalie Wood and Robert Redford play Alva and Owen, with Mary Badham (she played Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird) as Willie. Charles Bronson plays Mama's boyfriend (Papa Starr is long gone before the movie starts), and Robert Blake has a minor role. Tennessee Williams wrote the one-act play that inspired the movie. Francis Ford Coppola has a writing credit, and Sidney Pollack directed.
Wood's performance as the Tennessee Williams heroine is amazing -- she clearly would have made a superior Blanche DuBois. Redford seems content to let Wood carry the movie, which was probably a wise decision even if it is hard to believe that he loves her as much as she loves him.
The plot has a few twists, even if most of them won't surprise anyone familiar with Williams' work -- imagine Amanda Wingfield and Blanche DuBois as mother and daughter, and you're halfway there. But it's far too well done to be forgotten as it has been.
Where did you see it, Fred? I've always meant to watch it -- I like Natalie Wood and Robert Redford together.
I remember seeing The Uninvited years ago ... would love to see it again. Not too long ago, I came across a DVD with Cat People and Curse of the Cat People (the Val Lewton versions). I'd seen both before, but was glad to watch them again.
I've seen This Property Is Condemned when it showed back on AMC in the long ago times. It's beautifully shot and Mississippi is so lush. Natalie is very good in it, and at the peak of her beauty.
It's one of Mary Badham's only credits aside from Mockingbird, though she did also appear in the very last episode of The Twilight Zone ("The Bewitchin' Pool").
for those who might be interested, the trailer for The Witches (from the Roald Dahl story of that name).
Oh! I forgot to mention last week that my next-door neighbor and I streamed Antebellum. It turned out not to be what I expected, but very good nonetheless. Likely surprising no one, Janelle Monáe is extremely good in the lead role.
I played the girl in the one act when I was in high school. Great play.
Where did you see it, Fred? I've always meant to watch it -- I like Natalie Wood and Robert Redford together.
I recorded it from TCM. They showed it last month in their tribute to Natalie Wood.