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Post by marianne48 on Jul 8, 2021 16:47:39 GMT
When a character in an old movie or TV show talks about the future and his/her older self, or portrays an older version of himself/herself in the movie/show, do you stop to think about when the actor playing that character passed away before they reached that age, or check their bios to see if they made it?
Examples: In the film Mother Wore Tights, an elderly, white-haired Betty Grable and Dan Dailey are briefly depicted at the beginning and end of the movie, waiting for their grandchildren to come visit. In reality, Grable passed away in her mid-50s and never reached senior citizen status.
In The Sterile Cuckoo, Liza Minnelli muses about fellow college student Wendell Burton's character and what he'll feel like when he's seventy. Burton passed away at the age of 69 (I was compelled to check this).
Antenna TV has been airing reruns of the 1970s sitcom One Day at a Time. One multi-episode story concerns Julie, Bonnie Franklin's impulsive teenage daughter, wanting to marry her 42-year-old boss. Everyone tries to discourage her because of the age difference, how he'll be collecting Social Security while she's in her 40s, how their children will have a father old enough to be a grandfather, etc. Jim Hutton played the boss; the actor died about two years after these episodes originally aired, when he was in his mid-forties.
On the same sitcom, Bonnie Franklin's character frets about being ancient at the age of 36 (yeah, really); her other daughter tries to reassure her that she's not really middle-aged, since the average lifespan at the time was 72--which means she actually is. Franklin passed away at 69 (I had to go look this one up, too).
Rod Serling also seemed to be obsessed with middle age; several of the burned-out male characters in episodes of The Twilight Zone are specifically
mentioned as being 35 years old, as if to suggest that this age was the beginning of a downhill slide to decrepitude. Serling himself only made it to age 50.
On a lighter note, both Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton lived longer than their characters' projected lifespans on All in the Family (Edith Bunker passed away on the spinoff, while Archie took a longevity test in one episode that suggested he would not live into his seventies).
Does anyone else ever take note of this kind of thing, or am I just being weird (or more weird than usual)?
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Post by marshamae on Jul 8, 2021 17:49:57 GMT
Marianne I love love this!
I do not do this but when people play an older version of themselves, as ORSON Welles in Citizen Kane played the older Kane with a huge bald dome , I usually go look at how they really looked as they aged
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Post by phantomparticle on Jul 9, 2021 0:37:30 GMT
Not the way you put it, marianne48, but it occasionally crosses my mind when I'm watching a classic film, and especially a silent, that I'm looking at a movie in which dead people are talking to other dead people.
Now, that IS weird.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Jul 9, 2021 1:05:35 GMT
I don`t really think about it.
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Post by marianne48 on Jul 9, 2021 1:20:44 GMT
Not the way you put it, marianne48, but it occasionally crosses my mind when I'm watching a classic film, and especially a silent, that I'm looking at a movie in which dead people are talking to other dead people. Now, that IS weird. When I see a child in an old movie, I try to find out if they're still living and if so, how old they would be today. I recently discovered that the infant in Charlie Chaplin's The Kid passed away in 2017 (some sites were reporting that he was still alive at 102); his name was Silas Hathaway and it must have been odd to see himself in that film, especially as he likely had no memory of appearing in it. It was sad to find out that the little girl in Grand Illusion died from an illness before the movie was even released. I wonder about all the other kids, some uncredited, some having only very brief careers, who appeared in small roles in films, and whether they consider themselves fortunate that they never became "child stars," since many of the children who did become stars had issues with that experience. Also, when I see an animal in an old (or not so old) movie, it's sad to realize that the animal is dead by now (except for those two turtles who appeared in Rocky and are reportedly still alive and residing with Sylvester Stallone).
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 9, 2021 2:18:20 GMT
I do think about someone playing an older self and then what they looked like when they were actually that age or some child or cat/dog etc in a very old movie and thinking they aren't alive.
What I tend to do is think about a movie--like one made in 1970 or 71 and wonder about where I was--when this was filmed--or what my parents were doing or what certain celebrity was doing at that moment.
I think about the people you see on streets in movies many of them are just extras being filmed by chance --it's weird to think they went off to their various lives.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jul 9, 2021 4:16:31 GMT
What I tend to do is think about a movie--like one made in 1970 or 71 and wonder about where I was--when this was filmed--or what my parents were doing or what certain celebrity was doing at that moment. I do that very thing, not only about myself or family, but about people I didn't yet know...but would. And I do that too. I even wrote something about it on a four-years-ago thread: I think you're the only person I've ever encountered who expressed similar thoughts. And as usual with those who express thoughts similar to mine, you've done so much more succinctly, stating in one sentence what took me a paragraph.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 9, 2021 6:35:22 GMT
Speaking of Buster Keaton--one of his very last films--in fact it may be his last--THE RAILRODDER--was shot in Canada and the final scene ends in my hometown at the beach! In fact, I was astonished to see the coastline of the area where we eventually lived--a few years later--and it's weird to see a place that has changed so much-it brought back memories-and yet seeing it captured in time like that--especially as it is a place that is not often depicted in film.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jul 9, 2021 12:35:28 GMT
Speaking of Buster Keaton--one of his very last films--in fact it may be his last--THE RAILRODDER--was shot in Canada and the final scene ends in my hometown at the beach! In fact, I was astonished to see the coastline of the area where we eventually lived--a few years later--and it's weird to see a place that has changed so much-it brought back memories-and yet seeing it captured in time like that--especially as it is a place that is not often depicted in film. Peter Bogdanovich did an excellent documentary a few years back, The Great Buster, that featured among many other things footage involving the making of The Railrodder, including debates Keaton had with the director over specific gags, and later on venting to wife Eleanor about being overruled on a particular bit involving a large, unwieldy map while traveling across a high, narrow bridge. When Eleanor gently suggested it might have been too dangerous, Keaton crabbed, "It's child's play. I've been at this for over 50 years and I generally know what I'm doin.'"
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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Jul 9, 2021 15:07:30 GMT
Oh I think about everything when I see an older movie. I look at the actors, think how they died. Once a long time ago, my mom told me she saw some of Rebel Without A Cause, and it occurred to her that James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo all died young, and violently.
I look at actors and think "this guy had a long, good life" or "she had a lot of heartache". Or "this little girl grew up and had 5 kids!"
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Post by Gubbio on Jul 9, 2021 18:02:53 GMT
In a similar vein, I have trouble watching the young, vibrant, JUDY GARLAND, when I think of what the future held for her. And, that it was her very talent (and MGM's greed) which put her on a forever downward spiral. It's very sad.  |
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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Jul 15, 2021 13:52:42 GMT
Last night I rewatched Stand By Me, a classic. It has 2 of my favorite kid performances, Wil Wheaton's and River Phoenix's.
Did this question ever come to mind as I watched! In the movie, River's character Chris Chambers is the one who dies first as an adult. He has a line "he'll probably be dead before he's 20" said about another character but it set me thinking, of course. River was 23 when he died.
Still a great movie.
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Post by lune7000 on Jul 15, 2021 18:31:45 GMT
I don't have the morbid habit described here but a couple of days back I watched Don't Bother to Knock (1952) in which there is a scene where Richard Widmark looks at the healed marks of two slashed wrists on Marilyn Monroe and it felt sad knowing how she died.
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Post by marianne48 on Aug 2, 2021 16:29:12 GMT
I just watched the 1937 film History is Made at Night, in which a character in the U.S. travels on the Hindenburg zeppelin on its flight back to Europe. The aircraft never did fly back to Europe, as it exploded in NJ about two months after this film was released. (and Colin Clive, the passenger on the airship in the film,, died about a month later). Another morbid bit of trivia.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 3, 2021 2:52:51 GMT
I just watched the 1937 film History is Made at Night, in which a character in the U.S. travels on the Hindenburg zeppelin on its flight back to Europe. The aircraft never did fly back to Europe, as it exploded in NJ about two months after this film was released. (and Colin Clive, the passenger on the airship in the film,, died about a month later). Another morbid bit of trivia. Morbid connotations are well nigh inescapable when the Hindenburg is seen or mentioned in any film preceding the disaster. In Charlie Chan At the Olympics, the detective takes the airship to Berlin for the '36 games; the film was released in May '37, only a couple weeks after the tragic event. In addition, in the film's surviving print and preprint materials, the swastikas on the ship's tail fins have been crudely obscured.
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Post by Prime etc. on Aug 3, 2021 5:50:28 GMT
In The Fearless Vampire Killers, Sharon Tate enters a room with Brueghel's The Triumph of Death painted on a wall-and the king figure behind her looks a lot like Charles Manson.
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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Aug 10, 2021 18:28:45 GMT
Seeing that actor Alex Cord died yesterday, made me think of the movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. His then-wife Joanna Pettet was played in the movie by Rumer Willis. Joanna was one of the last people to see Sharon Tate alive. She visited Sharon that afternoon, and later that evening, Sharon was murdered.
The baby in the movie would have been Joanna & Alex Cord's son.
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Post by snsurone on Aug 10, 2021 19:59:48 GMT
It's true with TV shows as well.
One of my guilty pleasures is watching MATCH GAME on the Game Show Network, but it's a bittersweet experience, knowing that most of the celebrities on that show (including host Gene Rayburn) have died.
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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Aug 11, 2021 14:56:19 GMT
It's true with TV shows as well. One of my guilty pleasures is watching MATCH GAME on the Game Show Network, but it's a bittersweet experience, knowing that most of the celebrities on that show (including host Gene Rayburn) have died. Do you say "dead, dead, alive..."? Sounds morbid but I do it too.
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Post by snsurone on Aug 11, 2021 19:45:47 GMT
It's true with TV shows as well. One of my guilty pleasures is watching MATCH GAME on the Game Show Network, but it's a bittersweet experience, knowing that most of the celebrities on that show (including host Gene Rayburn) have died. Do you say "dead, dead, alive..."? Sounds morbid but I do it too. Yes, I do. And it's even morbid when a celebrity, like Orson Bean, died in a grisley way.
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