← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Howard Campbell, Jr.
Thread ID: 17134 | Posts: 57 | Started: 2005-03-06
2005-03-06 04:10 | User Profile
A few friends and me were discussing this topic earlier today--it seemed like worthwhile OD fodder, too. :D
Lugosi's 1931 take won out--Max Shreck's [I]Nosferatu[/I] and Christopher Lee's [I]Horror of Dracula[/I] were close seconds with the women in the group favoring Langella and Gary Oldman...
One guy liked Kinski's quirky rendition. Y'all?
2005-03-06 04:38 | User Profile
Put me down for Lugosi.
Tangential question, which is better: Martin Landau's portrayal of Lugosi in Ed Wood, or Willem Dafoe's portrayal of Shreck in Shadow of the Vampire?
2005-03-06 04:44 | User Profile
I'd say Landau--though he's not at all Lugosi's physical type his mannerisms and vocal quality were emphatically Bela's.
The premise of [I]Shadow[/I] was deeply intriguing--and not improbable in Murnau's Weimar...
2005-03-06 04:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Howard Campbell, Jr.]One guy liked Kinski's quirky rendition. Y'all?[/QUOTE]
Yes, Kinski's rendition was creepy, though the film overall seemed a bit esoterically foreign, if that makes any sense. But Oldman was just flat-out scary. What a great actor he is, bringing to life every role he plays. He's one of the few actors that pass my criteria of what makes a good actor. That is whether or not the character comes across as the character, as opposed to the actor playing the character. Actors like Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt, to name a few, are always themselves simply playing a role. Actors like Oldman and Bobby Duvall don't overpower the character roles they play. I think of Oldman in 'Chattahoochee' or Duvall in 'The Apostle' or 'Tender Mercies'.
2005-03-06 04:58 | User Profile
Yes, Kinski's [I]Nosferatu[/I] has been arguably the most other-worldly and bizarre Count. Wonder who director Herzog got to wrangle those 100,000 white rats? :D
Oldman [I]is[/I] an actor's actor...and Bobby Duvall is the finest actor in today's American cinema.
2005-03-06 06:52 | User Profile
Now this [I]is [/I] heartening. Other people here think highly of Gary Oldman, too!
But as one of those actors who prefers to immerse himself in the role instead of stamping an already-established persona on it, he's doomed to dwindle away in whatever Hollywitz chooses to waste him on. (His DRACULA was awful. Five words, ok? [I]Keanu Reeves is in it[/I]. For top-shelf Oldman see STATE OF GRACE instead.)
I've seen almost all the Draculas, including some memorably awful versions...Jack Palance (acting through his nostrils like always), anyone? How about the one starring freeze-dried Continental rent-boy Louis Jourdan? Or ageless, forever-impotent David Niven?
I gotta go with Lugosi simply because no other actor cast in the role credibly embodies Transylvanian nobility. An Englishman like Chris Lee brings physical presence, but we need centuries-old, mittel-European ambience and he's just too 'modern'. That goes double for Oldman's DRACULA, who, with his long hair and John Lennon glasses (and Keanu 'n' Winona, and the single worst Van Helsing in memory - Anthony Hopkins at his most shameless) apparently was being aimed at the same jaded youth market that was fuelling the 'grunge' fad. Max Schreck and Kinski are simply too bizarrely ugly to be remotely credible as Dracula, seducer of women (the real reason for the character's longevity) - you might as well put a velvet cape on Verne Troyer. And - even though he did pretty well in the role - Lon Chaney Jr is far too much of a Midwestern lunkhead to ever make the role his. John Carradine walked through the role a few times, too, cleverly adding a top hat which did most of the acting for him.
Creaky and stagebound it may be, but only Lugosi's DRACULA convinces me that this is a 500-year-old aristocrat from the Carpathian mountains, cursed to walk the night seeking the blood of others. The great art direction of Dracula's castle in the early scenes helps, a lot. And time has taught me never to argue with a movie from 1931, when 'musical soundtrack' meant haunting snatches of [I]Swan Lake [/I] establishing the proper mood....instead of a Busta Rhymes jam boomin' over the end credits, yo.
2005-03-06 07:25 | User Profile
'Rachnid,
I take it you've glommed the Universal "Legacy" DVD set for Dracula...though it's fashionable to praise the Spanish-language version which was made on the same sets as Lugosi's (Tod Browning's) after the U.S. crew knocked off for the day, I found that version lacking in sheer [I]presence[/I]--though it made better use of sets; models; lights; mattes and even camera work in places.
It didn't have Lugosi.
And yes, Hopkins sucked as the Dutch Doctor. Gimme Ed van Sloan's curtain speech anyday...
2005-03-06 10:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE]It didn't have Lugosi. [/QUOTE]
Yeah - who [I]was [/I] that guy, anyway? Ponce?
2005-03-06 18:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Yeah - who [I]was [/I] that guy, anyway? Ponce?[/QUOTE]
:D
Carlos Villarias--then billed as Carlos Villar.
[url]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021815/[/url]
He sported the same widow-peaked hairpiece that Lugosi wore and was the only cast member to view the daily rushes of the Lugosi/Browning version...which, ah--[I]influenced[/I] his interpretation.
2005-03-06 21:11 | User Profile
Spider is right. I think the Oldman Dracula had promise, but two things ruined it: one, the presence of Keanu Reeves, who is undoubtedly the worst actor alive (he carries his stupid, mumbling MTV adolescent tone of voice and facial expression to every role, and they add insult to injury by casting the moron opposite real actors and in real movies vs. the teenage fare where he belongs), and hammy acting by Anthony Hopkins.
The latter was all the more disappointing, because unlike Keanu, who can't help being a moron without talent, Hopkins actually could act, or rather, years ago he could act. Take a look at some of his work before he did Hannibal Lecter: i.e. Richard in the O'Toole/Hepburn Lion in Winter, the doctor in Elephant Man, the split personality ventriloquist in Magic, etc. After Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins went from being an actor to being a performer. From 1991 on every role he did was basically a Hannibal Lecter re-enactment (and even his Hannibal Lecter was too over the top and cartoonish to be very good, never mind "great." For a much better realization of the character, check out Brian Cox in Manhunter).
I also have to agree with the distinction between a real actor and a Hollywood star/performer. The latter takes a familiar, stereotyped persona to every role rather than shaping the performance to suit the character. Such "stars" as Humphrey Bogart, Harrison Ford, etc. never actually acted at any point, they just took the same mannerisms and gestures from one movie to the next. In contrast, a real actor imerses himself so completely in every role that there is no Robert Duvall when you're watching a movie, only a Jackson Fentry, a Bull Meechum, a Colonel Kilgore, a Dr. Caspary, a Detective Pendergast, or a Sonny the Preacher. Gary Oldman shows promise in the same direction, unfortunately the quality of the films he gets cast in aren't worthy of his talent.
2005-03-06 22:18 | User Profile
Though this thread has focused on the film versions of Stoker's Dracula another performance worth mentioning is Orson Welles's radio adaptation (and portrayal of the Count) for the Mercury Theatre's airing on the CBS Network.
This version also evidently inspired Coppola:
"Another of Welles' celebrated radio productions from this period, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, used a similar, polyphonic structure of diverse narrating voices derived from the novel (rather than the simplified play version often used for as the basis for its screen adaptations) ââ¬â an experiment revived when another Welles admirer, Francis Ford Coppola, constructed his cinematic version of the same book (Bram Stoker's Dracula [1992]) on the basis of an audio recording made 'blind' with the cast..."
2005-03-07 15:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]The latter was all the more disappointing, because unlike Keanu, who can't help being a moron without talent, Hopkins actually could act, or rather, years ago he could act. Take a look at some of his work before he did Hannibal Lecter: i.e. Richard in the O'Toole/Hepburn Lion in Winter, the doctor in Elephant Man, the split personality ventriloquist in Magic, etc. After Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins went from being an actor to being a performer. From 1991 on [ every role he did was basically a Hannibal Lecter re-enactment (and even his Hannibal Lecter was too over the top and cartoonish to be very good, never mind "great." For a much better realization of the character, check out Brian Cox in Manhunter).[/QUOTE] Remains of the Day(1993) contains a flawless performance by Hopkins in a movie that absolutely required it to deliver the requisite emotional impact. However the praise heaped upon him for his Lecter roles will always remain a mystery to me and itââ¬â¢s certainly a damning indictment of his Van Helsing performance when its failings are significant enough to be considered remarkable next to the yawning black hole of ineptitude which is Keanu Reeves.
I loath the Bram Stoker's Dracula ââ¬Ëinterpretationââ¬â¢ of the source material, not least because they had the arrogance to claim it true to the authorââ¬â¢s vision. Why the love story? Perhaps they thought the tale of a God hating eastern European immigrant, engaged in dodgy property deals whilst in league with alien elements such as gypsies and possessed of a desire to drink Christian childrenââ¬â¢s blood was just too far-fetched to stand alone.
2005-03-07 17:29 | User Profile
the presence of Keanu Reeves, who is undoubtedly the worst actor alive...
Quite.
"Dude, like I totally know where Dracula like lives and stuff. Carfax Abbey!"
Gary Oldman is indeed very talented and doesn't get the roles worthy him. I think the French director Besson must like him, because Oldman's been in a couple of his otherwise-average films, where he shone.
Speaking of Dracula movies, I actually liked Shadow of the Vampire that came out a few years ago, with Willem Dafoe (another pretty good actor) who played a Vampire hired to be the "pretend" vampire in Nosferatu. There was a little hammy overacting in the film, mostly by Carey Eweles (sp?) but I thought the concept was pretty interesting.
Manhunter with William Petersen in it was I thought far better than the cut-and-paste job Red Dragon in spite of being handicapped by a stupid title.
Before Petersen hit the big-time with CSI (and I won't go there regarding that crappy show) he was in an underrated flick called To Live and Die in L.A. with Dafoe. Directed by William Friedkin, but the movie was a blip on an uninterrupted downward spiral for Friedkin after he did The French Connection.
Oh, and Duvall is, pound for pound, my favorite actor and one of the most versatile I've ever seen.
2005-03-07 23:16 | User Profile
I think the best Dracula would be Richard Perle, the Neo-con schemer.
BTW, I think Bela Lugosi was an associate of Bela Kuhn, the Jewish Communist Leader of Hungary for 18 months. No wonder he was scary!
2005-03-08 04:10 | User Profile
Y'know, I actually don't mind the 'personality' actors, so long as they actually [I]have [/I] personalities. (But even if I didn't, they're who sell tickets and they always have.)
Somebody like Harrison Ford barely qualifies, anyway: he's too bland, too enervated to leave a real impression. On the other hand, Bogart - who had been typecast for a decade as low-level villains (he never had a name in those movies, only a nickname, like "Lefty" or "Gloves") - had to be cast against type to land his breakthrough role, and 65 years later, his Sam Spade is still great work, a whole level up from what passed for acting in cops-and-crooks policiers back then.
I'm not trying to equate a Bogart and a Duvall, but it has to be understood that the entire mechanics of filmmaking is different - there's no more studio system, no more Breen Office or Production Code, no more Hedda and Louella running interference on behalf of the Hearsts and the Louis B Mayers: you don't have to show married couples in twin beds any longer. There is no artificially level playing field on which to compare an actor of today with one of two generations past.
In fact, one could ask - since the institutionalized censorship is now a thing of the past - why are so many current films so friggin' awful? The type of actor being praised here - the chameleon who inhabits the scripted role rather than having the role scaled to his persona - only held sway for a brief period of time, somewhere between the late 60s and the very early 80s. This was the brief window between the passing of the moguls and the age of the corporate special-effects blockbuster in which guys like Duvall and DeNiro and Nicholson and Hoffman and Donald Sutherland and Gene Hackman first flowered. But what's generally forgotten is that none of these actors were box-office, even then. Who were the kings of box-office during the legendary 70s? Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson: actors who always played the same part the same way and had every project 'refitted' down to their limitations. So even in their purported 'heyday', the chameleons never held the whip. There simply was never - can never - be a Golden Age in a pop medium where advertising and promotion are the oil that keeps the hinges supple.
The biggest ticket-sellers of the 30s and 40s were similarly ultra-limitred talents: Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, Alan Ladd, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis. (Hey, compared to Mickey Rooney, Bogart [I]was [/I] Robert Duvall!)
And in defense of the 'personality' actors, let's also point out that a few of them hung around long enough to work in that period between the absolute tyranny of the studios and the absolute tyranny of the opening-weekend grosses and - not surprisingly - turned in some of their best work. Melvyn Douglas in HUD, William Holden in NETWORK, Lee Tracy in THE BEST MAN, Mitchum in CAPE FEAR and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, even Henry Fonda's villainous Frank in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. It's hardly likely that they suddenly learned how to act 30 and 40 years into their careers, so it had to be the less-restrictive environment.
2005-03-08 04:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE=CornCod]I think the best Dracula would be Richard Perle, the Neo-con schemer.
BTW, I think Bela Lugosi was an associate of Bela Kuhn, the Jewish Communist Leader of Hungary for 18 months. No wonder he was scary![/QUOTE]
Dude,
Bela Lugosi was Magyar--not Tribal. He fled the Reds...
[url]http://www.seeing-stars.com/ImagePages/BelaLugosiGravePhoto.shtml[/url]
2005-03-08 04:32 | User Profile
Ooops! I stand corrected on Lugosi.
2005-03-08 04:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=CornCod]Ooops! I stand corrected on Lugosi.[/QUOTE]
:D
Next to Chaplin & Karloff, Lugosi is probably the golden-age film actor most frequently falsely named as Jewish.
2005-03-08 04:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Y'know, I actually don't mind the 'personality' actors, so long as they actually [I]have [/I] personalities. (But even if I didn't, they're who sell tickets and they always have.)
Somebody like Harrison Ford barely qualifies, anyway: he's too bland, too enervated to leave a real impression. On the other hand, Bogart - who had been typecast for a decade as low-level villains (he never had a name in those movies, only a nickname, like "Lefty" or "Gloves") - had to be cast against type to land his breakthrough role, and 65 years later, his Sam Spade is still great work, a whole level up from what passed for acting in cops-and-crooks policiers back then.
I'm not trying to equate a Bogart and a Duvall, but it has to be understood that the entire mechanics of filmmaking is different - there's no more studio system, no more Breen Office or Production Code, no more Hedda and Louella running interference on behalf of the Hearsts and the Louis B Mayers: you don't have to show married couples in twin beds any longer. There is no artificially level playing field on which to compare an actor of today with one of two generations past.
In fact, one could ask - since the institutionalized censorship is now a thing of the past - why are so many current films so friggin' awful? The type of actor being praised here - the chameleon who inhabits the scripted role rather than having the role scaled to his persona - only held sway for a brief period of time, somewhere between the late 60s and the very early 80s. This was the brief window between the passing of the moguls and the age of the corporate special-effects blockbuster in which guys like Duvall and DeNiro and Nicholson and Hoffman and Donald Sutherland and Gene Hackman first flowered. But what's generally forgotten is that none of these actors were box-office, even then. Who were the kings of box-office during the legendary 70s? Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson: actors who always played the same part the same way and had every project 'refitted' down to their limitations. So even in their purported 'heyday', the chameleons never held the whip. There simply was never - can never - be a Golden Age in a pop medium where advertising and promotion are the oil that keeps the hinges supple.
The biggest ticket-sellers of the 30s and 40s were similarly ultra-limitred talents: Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, Alan Ladd, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis. (Hey, compared to Mickey Rooney, Bogart [I]was [/I] Robert Duvall!)
And in defense of the 'personality' actors, let's also point out that a few of them hung around long enough to work in that period between the absolute tyranny of the studios and the absolute tyranny of the opening-weekend grosses and - not surprisingly - turned in some of their best work. Melvyn Douglas in HUD, William Holden in NETWORK, Lee Tracy in THE BEST MAN, Mitchum in CAPE FEAR and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, even Henry Fonda's villainous Frank in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. It's hardly likely that they suddenly learned how to act 30 and 40 years into their careers, so it had to be the less-restrictive environment.[/QUOTE]
Ronyo,
No film thread discussing both Bogart and vampires would be complete without at least one reference to Bogie's single venture into the Horror genre: [url]http://www.geocities.com/bigfatpav2000/returnofdrx.html[/url]
2005-03-08 05:12 | User Profile
I've never seen it, but I can still recall that crazy shock of white hair Bogart sported in that from old FAMOUS MONSTERS stills...probably in the Mystery Photo feature.
2005-03-08 05:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]I've never seen it, but I can still recall that crazy shock of white hair Bogart sported in that from old FAMOUS MONSTERS stills...probably in the Mystery Photo feature.[/QUOTE]
Ah, God Bless Forry Ackerman! :D
"X" ran on Turner during a Bogart birthday bash a couple years ago--HB wasn't shabby...though Warners' never quite matched Universal in Horror.
Bogart's own least favorite movie was the Hillbilly woman wrestler epic Swing Your Partner...
2005-03-08 19:55 | User Profile
In fact, one could ask - since the institutionalized censorship is now a thing of the past - why are so many current films so friggin' awful? The type of actor being praised here - the chameleon who inhabits the scripted role rather than having the role scaled to his persona - only held sway for a brief period of time, somewhere between the late 60s and the very early 80s. This was the brief window between the passing of the moguls and the age of the corporate special-effects blockbuster in which guys like Duvall and DeNiro and Nicholson and Hoffman and Donald Sutherland and Gene Hackman first flowered. But what's generally forgotten is that none of these actors were box-office, even then. Who were the kings of box-office during the legendary 70s? Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson: actors who always played the same part the same way and had every project 'refitted' down to their limitations. So even in their purported 'heyday', the chameleons never held the whip. There simply was never - can never - be a Golden Age in a pop medium where advertising and promotion are the oil that keeps the hinges supple.
You mostly get method and character actors in the independent films today. "Personality" actors like Eastwood and Reynolds always managed to rake in more big budget film roles than the method actors. It's interesting that you mentioned Nicholson, as he's an example of a onetime promising method actor who decided to play the game and become a personality actor instead, thus making a full transformation to stardom (just as Hopkins went from serious character actor to hammy star). He still can act and play something other than his stereotyped wise-ass persona (e.g. he played an interesting part in The Pledge), but roles like that aren't what buy you your mansion. Rubbish like As Good as it Gets will.
Returning to Dracula, I always liked Olivier's version of Professor van Helsing, though I can't recall who played Dracula opposite him.
2005-03-08 20:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]It's interesting that you mentioned Nicholson, as he's an example of a onetime promising method actor who decided to play the game and become a personality actor instead, thus making a full transformation to stardom (just as Hopkins went from serious character actor to hammy star).[/QUOTE] I would put Deniro in this category as well. He can act, but the last decade or so has mostly seen him sleepwalking his way through a parade of cookie-cutter mobster roles.
2005-03-09 04:26 | User Profile
Returning to Dracula, I always liked Olivier's version of Professor van Helsing, though I can't recall who played Dracula opposite him.
AntiYuppie,
That would have been the langourous Frank Langella in the 1979 version--it stuck very close to Balderston's adaptation of the novel...
[url]http://www.geocities.com/nansee_2000/portrayers.html[/url]
2005-03-09 08:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]I would put Deniro in this category as well. He can act, but the last decade or so has mostly seen him sleepwalking his way through a parade of cookie-cutter mobster roles.[/QUOTE]...and Pacino, and Hoffman, etc. Duvall seems to be the only one who hasn't sold out, and I admire him for that. He has remained an actor's actor in spite of Hollywood pressure to become a caricature "personality" instead. Not that he hasn't done some low-grade Hollywood crap, but unlike Nicholson or Pacino, he always reprieves himself with something sincere afterwards.
2005-03-09 16:25 | User Profile
Lest we forget...
[url]http://www.movietome.com/movietome/servlet/MovieMain/movieid-677/Blacula/[/url]
:afro:
2005-03-13 16:26 | User Profile
A lurker reminded me of this 1965 Horror-Western hybrid--not even Carradine's top hat could save it:
BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA Rating: *
USA. 1965. Director - William Beaudine, Screenplay - Carl Hittleman, Producer - Carroll Case, Photography - Lothorp Worth, Music - Raoul Kraushaar, Photographic Effects - Cinema Research Corp, Makeup - Ted Coodley, Art Direction - Paul Sylos. Production Company - Circle Productions Inc. Cast: John Carradine (Count Dracula), Chuck Courtney (Billy the Kid), Melinda Plowman (Betty Bentley), Virginia Christine (Eva Oster), Walter Janowitz (Franz Oster), Olive Carey (Dr Henrietta Hull), Roy Barcroft (Sheriff Marshall Griffin), Bing Russell (Dan Thorpe)
Plot: While travelling through the American West by stagecoach, Count Dracula meets landowner James Underhill and becomes captivated with a picture of Underhill's niece Betty Bentley. After Dracula drinks the blood of an Indian girl, Indians attack the coach, killing all. Dracula then poses as Underhill and takes over his Double Bar B ranch. But as Dracula moves in on Betty to drink her blood, two European immigrants realize that Dracula is really a vampire. It is up to the reformed Billy the Kid, who is working as Double Bar Bââ¬â¢s foreman and in love with Betty, to stop Dracula.
This, along with its shot back-to-back companion piece Jesse James Meets Frankensteinââ¬â¢s Daughter (also 1965), is preceded by a reputation that places it up alongside the likes of all-time worsts such as Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and Robot Monster (1953). But seen for the first time Billy the Kid Versus Dracula disappoints somewhat on its reputation - ironically by not being bad enough. The film is not a particularly good one, but then neither is it a resoundingly bad one, it neither having the truly parsimonious cheapness nor the dialogue howlers that makes so many of these films alternately so horrendous and so perversely entertaining. It is certainly very cheap - there is a rather bad bat on a wire effect, and every time John Carradine changes from a bat to a person the bat conveniently flies off camera and then Carradine steps out - but then if cheapness were the only measure of truly bad films it is one most vampire movies would be guilty of. On the plus side the colour photography is a lot better than one would expect. One suspects that the filmââ¬â¢s reputation is something that has been derived from only a cursory glance at its title more than anything else. At most the film is down at the level of a Western B-programmer. The plot is rather dull and sedate and unsurprising. One supposes it may even have a subtext. In this case the vampire, traditionally a sexual predator, is seen to be undermining the traditional values that the Western codifies - invading the heroineââ¬â¢s ranch home from within in order to seduce her, and there being an unmistakable link wherein Draculaââ¬â¢s advances on the heroine are seen as disempowering the hero who has to regain his masculinity (which is equated with possession of the heroine) by staking the vampire.
On the whole though it doesnââ¬â¢t really come across as much of a horror film - Dracula is of little consequence to the plot - he could have been a conman attempting to steal the land and seduce Melinda Plowman with only the smallest amount of rewriting. The plot is not really interested in Dracula as a vampire either - he is allowed to walk about in daylight and no blood is ever shown. For that matter it isnââ¬â¢t interested either in the real Billy the Kid, who was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett while still an outlaw and only 22 years old. The earnestness of Chuck Courtneyââ¬â¢s handwringingly ââ¬Åyes maââ¬â¢amââ¬Â polite performance as Billy entirely fails to convince one that this is the same person who was a ruthless outlaw. Carradine plays it hammily, although does fittingly look the part with his cadaverous frame creeping about in a black suit and stovepipe hat, outfitted with a black goatee and his hair slicked back with a Satanic look. He seems to do all his acting by bulging out his gaunt eyes - whenever he is set upon drinking a victim the camera closes in on his face which is then illuminated with a hellish red glow.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1993
2005-03-13 17:08 | User Profile
Saw it on a double feature with JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER when I was around 7 years old.
2005-03-13 22:01 | User Profile
Lucky kid, Spidey!
One of my saddest childhood memories was having my father walk out (with me in tow) from that Harryhausen/Raquel Welch remake of [I]One Million Years B.C.[/I]...not that it changed my own love for film fantasy; Ray or stacked Venezuelan gals. :D
Regarding John Carradine, he's a curious case. Prior to tackling the Transylvanian Count he'd appeared in two uncredited bit parts in two of the masterworks of the Horror genre (which I'm heartened to see made your list for YGG): the cult organist in the Lugosi-Karloff occult masterpiece [I]The Black Cat[/I] and as one of the hunters in Whale's [I]Bride of Frankenstein[/I].
[url]http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001017/[/url]
John Carradines two most memorable roles (for me) were both performed for John Ford--and both in the '30s...the elegant and aristocratic ex-Confederate officer Hatfield n [I]Stagecoach[/I] (whose distain for the cowardly banker underscores the validity of my "sig" line) and as the mad preacher Casy who joins the Joad's sorrowful exodus in [I]Grapes of Wrath[/I].
He'd be memorable as one of our finest picture actors for those two performances alone...
2005-03-13 22:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE]John Carradines two most memorable roles (for me) were both performed for John Ford--and both in the '30s...the elegant and aristocratic ex-Confederate officer in Stagecoach (whose distain for the cowardly banker underscores the validity of my "sig" line) and as the mad preacher who joins the Joad's sorrowful exodus in Grapes of Wrath.[/QUOTE]
Agree 100%, Howard. For all the praise it's received, GRAPES is stil woefully underrated: a great, great film.
Btw, did you happen to catch the [I]100 Scariest Movie Moments [/I] series on the box yesterday? Ordinarily I avoid all such Top-100 countdowns but I caught a bit of this one's tail-end. Of course I was cracking wise at the set when confronted with some of the celebrity commentators (because when I think 'horror movies', of course I naturally think of the Coors Light Twins and Debbie Matonopoulos) but a few of the selections (pleasantly) shocked me. The last thing I expected - since really [I]nobody [/I] thinks of it when discussing horror flicks - was DON'T LOOK NOW to make the cut (#17). Nice to see THE HAUNTING, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and SUSPIRIA place near the top as well.
2005-03-13 23:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Agree 100%, Howard. For all the praise it's received, GRAPES is stil woefully underrated: a great, great film.
Btw, did you happen to catch the [I]100 Scariest Movie Moments [/I] series on the box yesterday? Ordinarily I avoid all such Top-100 countdowns but I caught a bit of this one's tail-end. Of course I was cracking wise at the set when confronted with some of the celebrity commentators (because when I think 'horror movies', of course I naturally think of the Coors Light Twins and Debbie Matonopoulos) but a few of the selections (pleasantly) shocked me. The last thing I expected - since really [I]nobody [/I] thinks of it when discussing horror flicks - was DON'T LOOK NOW to make the cut (#17). Nice to see THE HAUNTING, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and SUSPIRIA place near the top as well.[/QUOTE]
No, missed it--but I'm glad to see some art among the artifice. Good to see Mr. Price among the contenders.
Yes, Ford's [I]Grapes[/I] deserves Top-10 ranking in American Cinema...you'd be surprised at how often I've seen reactionaries on neo-con boards and Usenet groups dismiss it as "Commie Propaganda"...
2005-03-13 23:29 | User Profile
[B][I] - "you'd be surprised at how often I've seen reactionaries on neo-con boards and Usenet groups dismiss it as "Commie Propaganda"[/I][/B]
John Steinbeck [U]did[/U] have some clear Commie tendencies - when Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939, Steinbeck was among those leftist intellectuals who approved it!
In the "Grapes", Steinbeck depicts religion as a mere opiate for masses, and blames Californians for oppressing not only "Okies" but Asian and Mexican migrant workers as well...
Petr
2005-03-13 23:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][B][I] - "you'd be surprised at how often I've seen reactionaries on neo-con boards and Usenet groups dismiss it as "Commie Propaganda"[/I][/B]
John Steinbeck [U]did[/U] have some clear Commie tendencies - when Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939, Steinbeck was among those leftist intellectuals who approved it...
Petr[/QUOTE]
Right...and that notorious bolshevik John Ford spent every free moment plotting a Red takeover of Burbank with Lionel Stander...
2005-03-13 23:35 | User Profile
Sorry, as a Finn myself I am a bit touchy with those people who would have liked to see us under the Stalinist yoke.
Petr
2005-03-13 23:41 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]Sorry, as a Finn myself I am a bit touchy with those people who would have liked to see us under the Stalinist yoke.
Petr[/QUOTE]
The "Free Market" yoke which forced thousands of midwestern American families to abandon their homes for the (often spurious) promise of work thousands of miles away was not a happy historical event, either.
Populist social critique of Plutocratic abuses should always be a part of our muckraking tradition...
2005-03-13 23:44 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed]"He wrote an anti-Nazi novel during the war and [U]wrote a partisan screenplay for a film (which starred Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn) about the Mexican peasant rebel leader, Emiliano Zapata[/U].
"When another Steinbeck war novel about survivors of a submarine attack was turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, [U]Steinbeck strongly criticised the film for containing “slurs against organised labor” [B]and racist stereotyping of a black sailor[/B][/U]. Hitchcock was “one of those incredible middle class snobs who really and truly despise working people”, said Steinbeck in fine fury. [U]Steinbeck opposed the McCarthyist witch-hunt[/U], and he always detested the nuclear bomb.
All this was compromised, however, by Steinbeck's liberal Democratic politics. He would hear no evil about Democrat presidents Kennedy and Johnson. [U]One of the key pillars of US imperialist foreign policy, Israel, was, for Steinbeck, “an incredible texture of human endurance and the tough inflexibility of human will power[/U]” -- literary babble obscuring a brutal, militaristic, racist state which was founded on the dispossession of a million Palestinians."[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1994/151/151p28.htm[/url]
Petr
2005-03-13 23:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][COLOR=DarkRed]"He wrote an anti-Nazi novel during the war and [U]wrote a partisan screenplay for a film (which starred Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn) about the Mexican peasant rebel leader, Emiliano Zapata[/U].
"When another Steinbeck war novel about survivors of a submarine attack was turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, [U]Steinbeck strongly criticised the film for containing ââ¬Åslurs against organised laborââ¬Â [B]and racist stereotyping of a black sailor[/B][/U]. Hitchcock was ââ¬Åone of those incredible middle class snobs who really and truly despise working peopleââ¬Â, said Steinbeck in fine fury. [U]Steinbeck opposed the McCarthyist witch-hunt[/U], and he always detested the nuclear bomb.
All this was compromised, however, by Steinbeck's liberal Democratic politics. He would hear no evil about Democrat presidents Kennedy and Johnson. [U]One of the key pillars of US imperialist foreign policy, Israel, was, for Steinbeck, ââ¬Åan incredible texture of human endurance and the tough inflexibility of human will power[/U]ââ¬Â -- literary babble obscuring a brutal, militaristic, racist state which was founded on the dispossession of a million Palestinians."[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1994/151/151p28.htm[/url]
Petr[/QUOTE]
What "communist propaganda" do you see in John Ford's film version of Steinbeck's [I]Grapes of Wrath[/I]--the topic under discussion here?
2005-03-13 23:51 | User Profile
I haven't properly seen the film, so I cannot comment on that one. I only say that it isn't any wonder that Steinbeck's Communist reputation would be attached to it...
Petr
2005-03-13 23:59 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]I haven't properly seen the film, so I cannot comment on that one. I only say that it isn't any wonder that Steinbeck's Communist reputation would be attached to it...
Petr[/QUOTE]
You should know that John Ford is usually condemned by critics as a "right-wing" director.
One needn't be a Red to see a major failing of Plutocracy in the dustbowl tragedy.
2005-03-14 00:07 | User Profile
Ford was a liberal New Deal supporter when he made "Grapes", his politics changed after the war. This really wasn't uncommon at the time. There is passage in one of Jack Kerouac's books were he says something like "In the 30s we were all pro-Marx, pro-Lenin, pro-socialist", something close to that anyhow. Ford also saw the displacement of the midwestern farmers as analogous to the Irish Famine, and this meant a lot to him; he was of Irish ancestory himself.
2005-03-14 00:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=robinder]Ford was a liberal New Deal supporter when he made "Grapes", his politics changed after the war. This really wasn't uncommon at the time. There is passage in one of Jack Kerouac's books were he says something like "In the 30s we were all pro-Marx, pro-Lenin, pro-socialist", something close to that anyhow. Ford also saw the displacement of the midwestern farmers as analogous to the Irish Famine, and this meant a lot to him; he was of Irish ancestory himself.[/QUOTE] Steinbeck himself seemed to have gone through a similar transformation. In the 60's, he angered many of his leftist one-time admirers by supporting the Vietnam War.
[quote=Howard Campbell Jr.]One needn't be a Red to see a major failing of Plutocracy in the dustbowl tragedy.
Jack London was a staunch enemy of plutocracy and "free market" dogmas while at the same time believing in both racial and personal hierarchy in society. Perhaps Ford had a similar worldview?
2005-03-14 05:46 | User Profile
Ford (born Feeney) was always a staunch Catholic and a proud Irishman--his worldview was closer to G.K. Chesterton's traditionalist distributivism and the Social Justice encyclicals of the Church than to Marxism.
Not that the bankers; goons and corrupt agri-businessmen in "Grapes" would ever have been sympathetic figures outside of a Limbaugh broadcast.
But speaking of Jack London, I wonder why nobody's tackled a film version of The Iron Heel?
2005-03-14 11:18 | User Profile
I always get a kick out of people who cannot comprehend how anyone could have ever flirted with leftist ideology in the midst of a worldwide depression, surrounded by breadlines and Hoovertowns and destroyed families.
Authors [I]continually [/I] fail Petr's white-glove test. Then again, writers are essentially playing God when they sit down to type, so perhaps they never stood a chance of passing:
[QUOTE][url]http://www.phora.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5964&page=1&highlight=Oscar+Wilde[/url]
Mark Twain was Bolshevik symphatizer and an overall liberal puke, as can be seen here: [url]http://www.thephora.org/forum/showt...highlight=twain[/url]
Ambrose Bierce's tales were often unimaginably depraved and nihilistic and he died in Mexico fighting on the side of mestizo rebel Pancho Villa.
Oscar Wilde was an overrated elitistic faggot.
Don't know much about Mencken, but AntiYuppie says about him (in that Mark Twain link):
"[I]H.L. Mencken, you may recall, was a big supporter of the NAACP and an opponent of Jim Crow laws. On the other hand, he hated working-class whites (especially southerners and Irish Catholics).
Many WN's also praise Mencken to the skies for stating something to the effect of "anti-Semitism is disliking Jews more than is necessary," while forgetting that Mencken attacked Roosevelt for not pushing to liberalize immigration law to allow Jewish "refugees" into the US during WWII." [/I] [/QUOTE]
When I took issue with him, he defended his comments thusly:
[QUOTE]I could say that it's not just about my personal taste, but the effect I think these works would have on general morality. Plato would probably ban all these authors from his ideal state.
Wilde's works could encourage shallow aestheticism, elitism and smart-aleckiness. (Predecessor of liberal faggoty yuppies)
Bierce's works could produce sadists and nihilists with little respect for human life, and of course even less for God.
("My Favorite Murder" is stomach-turning)
Adoring Twain's works could give prestige and justification to Hollywood films that portray White southerners as dumb, violent, racist neanderthals ("Pa Finn," anyone?). Like AntiYuppie put it, he was essentially the Michael Moore of his times.
Like I said, I don't know much about Mencken, so I won't comment on him here.[/QUOTE]
2005-03-14 14:02 | User Profile
In the 1930s Ford described himself as a "socialistic Democrat". Interpret that as you may.
Petr, what authors do you like? So far the list of the objectionable ones is Twain, Bierce, Wilde, Celine, Steinbeck, and probably a few more I don't recall. I would be surprised, maybe even somewhat impressed if any yuppies derived any real sense of aesthetics (or anything else) from Wilde (or, again, anyone else), by the way.
2005-03-14 15:34 | User Profile
[B][I] - "I always get a kick out of people who cannot comprehend how anyone could have ever flirted with leftist ideology in the midst of a worldwide depression, surrounded by breadlines and Hoovertowns and destroyed families."[/I][/B]
American politics aren't all that my world consists. It's you who's being myopic here.
[B][I] - "Authors continually fail Petr's white-glove test. Then again, writers are essentially playing God when they sit down to type, so perhaps they never stood a chance of passing:"[/I][/B]
(impotent) WHIINIIING! (impotent) WHIINNIIING!
Petr
2005-03-14 15:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE]- [QUOTE]"Authors continually fail Petr's white-glove test. Then again, writers are essentially playing God when they sit down to type, so perhaps they never stood a chance of passing:"[/QUOTE]
(impotent) WHIINIIING! (impotent) WHIINNIIING![/QUOTE]
Which twin has the Toni? Who is adopting the screeching tone here, Petr - you or me?
It's not as if I've been pwn3d here; Bierce, Twain, Wilde, etc haven't exactly fallen off the charts because you've declared them unclean.
Need I add that by [I]your own [/I] preferred unit of measurement (what a book [U]might[/U] cause a reader to do) the Holy Bible tops the list of [I]dangerous literature[/I]?
2005-03-14 18:13 | User Profile
[I][B] - "Petr, what authors do you like?"[/B][/I]
Well, just to mention some names, J.R.R. Tolkien, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Zacharias Topelius (a big 19th-century writer in Finland), William Blake, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ...
Petr
2005-03-14 18:32 | User Profile
Most of those authors of which you have stated negative views I do count among those I enjoy, though I would say that what you do like is pretty good taste (I'm re-reading The Possessed at the moment, in fact, and if you can get an edition of Blake's Songs with reproductions of the original illustrations it is quite a treat), though I haven't read anything by Tolkien or Topelius, I have to admit to a relative ignorance of most Finnish literature, there doesn't seem to be much in English translation. Isn't there a Finnish national poet of sorts, whose first name may be Paavo, or something similar to that?
2005-03-15 00:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Well, just to mention some names, J.R.R. Tolkien, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Zacharias Topelius (a big 19th-century writer in Finland), William Blake, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ...[/QUOTE]
Topelius is new to me but there's certainly nothing untoward with the other authors listed.
But.
[B]I [/B] can say that since us Secular Hoomanists are used to separating the writer and his work. But for [I]Petr [/I] to admire Dostoevsky - a gambler, wastrel, family-abandoner and chronic tab-stiffer - while huffing that this one was a "puke" and that one "depraved" is some funny funny stuff.
2005-03-15 01:02 | User Profile
Dostoevsky's output was edifying to human spirit, Louis-Ferdinand Celine's was not. That's the difference.
And writers like Ambrose Bierce give me the same kind of de-humanising feeling that you get from H.R. Giger.
Petr
2005-03-15 17:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Topelius is new to me but there's certainly nothing untoward with the other authors listed.
But.
[B]I [/B] can say that since us Secular Hoomanists are used to separating the writer and his work. But for [I]Petr [/I] to admire Dostoevsky - a gambler, wastrel, family-abandoner and chronic tab-stiffer - while huffing that this one was a "puke" and that one "depraved" is some funny funny stuff.[/QUOTE]
Furthermore, Dostoevsky's "degenerate" nature is central to his fiction. All of the major characters in Brothers Karamazov embodied some characteristic or other of Dostoevsky's persona.
Fyodor Karamazov (with the same first name as Dostoevsky) embodies Dostoevsky's own lechery and drunkeness (like Fyodor Karamazov, the author admitte to raping a teenage vagrant girl while drunk). Ivan represents the nihilistic tendencies of Dostoevsky the young intellectual radical. Smerdyakov shares his epilepsy and tendency towards sadism, while Alyosha represents the author's search for religious transcendence.
If Dostoevsky were all Alyosha, he would never have become a writer, or if he did his books would not be read today.
2005-03-15 18:38 | User Profile
But, Dostoevsky was a Christian, and could therefore have forgiveness for his sins. The pagan worldview is unforgiving.
[I][B]- "(like Fyodor Karamazov, the author admitte to raping a teenage vagrant girl while drunk)." [/B] [/I]
There was some rumor-gossip of this sort going on, but I'm not sure whether it actually happened.
Petr
2005-03-15 19:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Which twin has the Toni? Who is adopting the screeching tone here, Petr - you or me?
It's not as if I've been pwn3d here; Bierce, Twain, Wilde, etc haven't exactly fallen off the charts because you've declared them unclean.
Need I add that by [I]your own [/I] preferred unit of measurement (what a book [U]might[/U] cause a reader to do) the Holy Bible tops the list of [I]dangerous literature[/I]?[/QUOTE]
Doubtful that Dracula's author, Bram Stoker, would evade this nutty index...
At least 144 films & TV series have been made about Stoker's Count: [url]http://www.imdb.com/find?q=dracula;tt=on;mx=20[/url]
Yep, Lugosi was the best of 'em!
2005-03-26 06:37 | User Profile
Lest we forget, Bela Lugosi's first acclaimed role was his depiction of Jesus Christ on the Budapest stage...
[img]http://members.austarmetro.com.au/~johben57/blaschrist.jpg[/img]
"The blood is the life,...Mr. Ren-Field..."
2005-04-16 17:25 | User Profile
[img]http://www.hammerfilms.com/vaults/images/films/horror/dracula_films/d_scars/d_scars_lee.jpg[/img]
Christopher Lee as the Count...
[img]http://www.space-debris.com/sci_christopherLee_ring.jpg[/img]
And as the White Wizard gone Black.
2005-04-17 05:11 | User Profile
[img]http://www.bredalsparken.dk/~conniekretzschmer/vlad_dracula01.jpg[/img]
Brutal, but effective Turk-repellent.
2005-04-17 10:31 | User Profile
It was from the Turks that he learned the habit of impaling in the first place, while being hostage in Constantinople...
Petr