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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 2, 2018 1:29:23 GMT
Doghouse6 maybe I could stomach Vic just this once ... as long as he isn't in a toga or a loincloth ! I seem to remember seeing David Nelson in a circus picture and he cannot have been in all that many so I probably saw this at some point ! Peter Lorre ? Price ? maybe watchable ! and a dawg recommend ... OK !
edit to mention that I just noticed that Vic and Kathryn both have the same little spit-curl on their fore heads in those pictures you posted !  That just struck me as funny, is all. 
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Post by jervistetch on Aug 2, 2018 1:45:46 GMT
Late career Joan Crawford in BERSERK.
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 2:01:27 GMT
This is a runaway thread. I cannot keep up with comments and "likes", especially as here on Devil's Island I am suffering horrendous internet outages. I owe BAT a humble apology, but he will (hopefully) get it tomorrow. So I will just play Solitaire on my local drive until bedtime.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 2, 2018 3:50:39 GMT
Doghouse6 maybe I could stomach Vic just this once ... as long as he isn't in a toga or a loincloth ! I seem to remember seeing David Nelson in a circus picture and he cannot have been in all that many ! Peter Lorre ? Price ? maybe watchable ! and a dawg recommend ... OK ! I won't try to kid you, m'good friend. TBC is very much a TGSOE knock off: in place of determined, emphatic Heston confronting all obstacles, you get determined, imperious Mature doing the same; in place of physically-crippled aerialist Wilde, you get emotionally-crippled aerialist Roland; in place of Stewart's guilt-ridden clown, Lorre's hard-drinking one; in place of DeMille's onscreen train wreck, an offscreen one (although very effectively handled, in a what-you-don't-see-is-as-good-as-what-you-do kind of way). But you also get Roland walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope, a fire, an escaped lion, a whodunit, and credible touches like Buttons and Fleming playing, respectively, bank-enforced financial supervisor and press agent as conditions of financing for the season, and all the professional friction and sexual tension that goes with them, all in CinemaScope. And a cameo by Steve Allen...because, why not? And I promise: you won't see any more of Mature than what's visible above his collar or past the ends of his sleeves. |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 2, 2018 3:54:48 GMT
edit to mention that I just noticed that Vic and Kathryn both have the same little spit-curl on their fore heads in those pictures you posted ! That just struck me as funny, is all. Yup, they sure do, don't they? Grant's was sort of a trademark, and Mature still had his years later, parodying himself in After the Fox. And yup: funny. |
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Aug 2, 2018 6:37:04 GMT
Although Batman Forever (1995) isn't really about the circus, a scene that's set there plays a rather important part in the film. |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 14:43:13 GMT
London777 wrote To be fair, it was not a vintage year for American movies. Better films were :and then listed several from 1953. SHOW was pitted against fantastic competition from its release year of 1952. This is my third attempt to respond to BAT's post. I "sent" my reply twice yesterday but both got lost when my internet connection cut out, as tends to happen on this damned island. In my haste to savage BAT's cinematic taste, I somehow thought Greatest Show won in 1953 and I listed films which I thought were better, as well as other stupid comments like "From Here to Eternity should have won", when of course it did win in 1953. Not my finest moment and I apologize to all, with thanks to BAT for putting me down so gently. I deserved worse. In 1952 the "fantastic" competition came from: The Bad and the Beautiful dir: Vincente Minnelli High Noon dir: Fred Zinnemann Members have speculated why High Noon did not win in the recent thread on that movie, but I do not know why TBATB did not win. A much superior film which has stood up well with time, and, although it pretends to be a biting critique of Hollywood, is deep down a love letter to the glamor and romance of Tinseltown (unlike, for example, The Big Knife or The Day of the Locust which really do put the boot in). The Oscars voters like to be flattered (The Artist, Argo, even Shakespeare in Love, etc) so why was it not chosen? |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 15:50:52 GMT
Does anyone remember CARNY? I feel like I saw it but I can't remember anything about it. Maybe I didn't. It seems to be nonexistent now.  Thanks for posting this. It is available from Amazon and looks interesting. For me, that is the main value of these threads, to suggest interesting (and sometimes great) movies of which less knowledgeable punters like me have never heard. |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 15:55:35 GMT
Everyone should visit the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Would be delighted. Please mail return flight tickets (economy class is fine) from the Caribbean and hotel (two star is fine) reservation for two nights. Or did you really mean "Everyone in the Mid-West of the USA"? |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 16:21:41 GMT
![]() Shadows and Fog (1991) written and directed by, and starring, Woody Allen is a pastiche expressionist film and brilliantly done, because it does not reproduce the features of silent films which make them look dated today and is an easy watch with "modern" acting. It was Allen's most expensive effort to date, made when he was still very bankable. Most of the plot resembles Lang's M (1931) and Kafka's novel "The Trial" but there is a sizable sub-plot featuring Mia Farrow and John Malkovitch as bickering circus artists. These scenes are an homage to Bergman's "Sawdust and Tinsel" discussed above. Here the circus, though squalid, seems a better option than the town, which has commenced a pogrom while gripped by paranoia about the serial killer named "The Strangler" (really a personification of Death). The film was a critical and commercial failure which hurried the demise of Orion Pictures. Though not one of Allen's best (the plot is too formulaic), it is still one of the best pastiches around and will become more esteemed with time. Great cast (everyone wanted to work for Woody in those days) and the many star cameos do not seem contrived but simply casting the best actor for the job (such as Madonna as tightrope walker).  |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 17:24:42 GMT
![]() Shadows and Fog (1991) Here the circus, though squalid, seems a better option than the town The Brazilian director Walter Salles directed the brilliant movie "Central Station" (1998). See it if you can, if only for the Oscar nominated role of Fernanda Montenegro. She is superb. (And I need to add it to our current "trains" thread). Salles also directed The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) and Behind the Sun (2001), both well worth a watch. The latter is about the family blood-feud culture in Northern Brazil (though curiously it is based on a novel from Albania, where much the same fun and games went on). To break the deadly chain, our hero (Rodrigo Santoro) runs away with a travelling mini-circus. To be fair it is the pretty artiste (Flavia Marco Antonio) which is the main attraction. There are many films where the circus is a sinister venue for dark and life-denying deeds. Here, as In Shadows and Fog, it is the better option. The difference is that, in Shadows and Fog, the circus is a metaphor for taking refuge from the real world in art whereas, in Behind the Sun, it is the murderous vendettas which seem a pointless and unreal pantomime, and the circus, which is welcomed by the villagers for bringing joy to their grinding poverty, is the bright side of real life.  |
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Aug 2, 2018 17:47:06 GMT
The Dark Tower
Million Dollar Mermaid
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Post by teleadm on Aug 2, 2018 18:08:38 GMT
 Merry Andrew 1958, Danny at the circus |
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Post by teleadm on Aug 2, 2018 19:35:41 GMT
 The East-German circus in Octopussy 1983 |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 22:15:29 GMT
No doubt about whether the circus in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983 dir: Jack Clayton) is a force for good or evil. It is a demonic production from the start, as its name "Mr. Dark's Pandemonium Carnival" suggests. It was based on a novel by Ray Bradbury, although that novel started life as a screenplay for Gene Kelly to produce. Mr Dark (Jonathan Pryce) brings his Carnival to a small town in Illinois and corrupts the inhabitants by granting them what they think they need (a traditional ploy by the Devil, as I explain to my three-year-old when refusing to buy him an ice-cream). Only the pure in heart resist and save the town. Clayton has a short resume as a director but it includes such excellent movies as Room at the Top (1959), The Pumpkin Eater (1964) which won Anne Bancroft an Oscar, and The Innocents (1961) a psychological probe into the nature of evil. It was probably this last which caused Disney to entrust him with the present film. It is worth a watch, but fails to live up to its promise. I suspect that Disney studio interference dumbed it down, for example Georges Delerue's creepy score was replaced by a more family-friendly one by James Horner. The film was a commercial flop. It failed to convey Bradbury's and Clayton's sombre and adult original concept but, on the other hand, many scenes would be incomprehensible or too scary for children. The finished film had extra scenes in CGI by a different director added before release, to Bradbury and Clayton's chagrin. A missed opportunity, but some aspects are very good.  |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 22:44:56 GMT
Joseph H Lewis was a prolific director of forgotten B-pictures. He did direct "The Big Combo" (1955) which was quite good, but his sole masterpiece was Gun Crazy (1950), starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins as sharpshooters who first meet in a carnival shooting gallery where she is working her Belle Starr act and embark on a Bonny and Clyde career. They offend the carney boss and, if I remember correctly, he identifies them much later when they are on the run. Lewis used a number of clever tricks to overcome his low budget and keep the movie fresh, though I think it fails to nail the sad ending. Dalton Trumbo co-wrote it while blacklisted using a "front".  |
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Post by london777 on Aug 2, 2018 23:00:23 GMT
I watched the first 15 mins of Water for Elephants (2011) dir: Francis Lawrence, then gave up. It seemed too derivative and bland and Robert Pattinson's flat face is a turn-off. If anyone else cares to write about it, please do so. It is certainly all about circus life and contains our theme of a love triangle involving a brutal ring-master (Christopher Waltz)'s wife.  |
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Post by kijii on Aug 2, 2018 23:14:16 GMT
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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 2, 2018 23:24:37 GMT
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Aug 3, 2018 9:53:06 GMT
Another memorable scene at a carnival from the film Darkman (1990).
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