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Post by kijii on Dec 28, 2017 18:48:02 GMT
I've never been able to sit through this movie completely--until this week. Now that I have seen if from beginning to end, I love it!!! 
There are a lot of interesting beginnings and endings with this last-of-Frank Capra's-movies--a lavish and fun-loving remake of his Lady for a Day (1933) with Warren William (as Dave the Dude) and May Robson (as Apple Annie). And, for anyone wanting to get a feeling for a great Damon Runyon story on film, this would be my pick. Lasts Frank Capra-directed movie Paring of Thomas Mitchell with Edward Everett Horton on screen--remember that they were sort of buddies in Capra's Lost Horizon (1937)--24 year previously. Almost the last acting performance for Sheldon Leonard who made his fortune as a TV producer. But, just as with his performance in Guys and Dolls (1955), he seems to be a perfect character for a Damon Runyon story. I mean you almost got to have him--right? Firsts Two-time Oscar nominee Ann-Margret. This was almost immediately followed by State Fair (1962), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), and Viva Las Vegas (1964). During the making of later movie, Elvis thought of marrying her but chose Priscilla instead. But, not to worry about Ann-Margret. She married Roger Smith, a marriage that lasted until his death this year. Awards Peter Falk was nominated for his first Oscar (as Joy Boy). Glenn Ford won a Golden Globe (as Dave the Dude). Ann-Margret won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer - Female (as Louise) Bette Davis was nominated for Golden Globe for Best Actress - Comedy or Musical---sure, sure another Bette Davis award nomination, but for Comedy or Musical!!!  I will leave the cast lists from the two versions here: Lady for a Day (1933) www.imdb.com/title/tt0024240/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_smPocketful of Miracles (1961) www.imdb.com/title/tt0055312/?ref_=ttawd_awd_ttWhat are your thoughts and ideas about this on these movies and the comparison of cast members? In any case, I am now an official fan of Pocketful of Miracles (1961) with fun, music, and madcap situations galore. It's so good, you might want to buy it for re-streaming. It is hard to take in all the magical mix ups and fun from only one viewing.  |
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 28, 2017 21:19:38 GMT
I am now an official fan of Pocketful of Miracles Welcome to the Club, kijii. I was drawn to it by the presence of Glenn Ford and Peter Falk and have loved it ever since. Cast and crew cannot be beat !  |
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🎄😷🎄 on Dec 28, 2017 23:30:39 GMT
I actually just watched this yesterday for the first time. I'd just seen The Man Who Came To Dinner and All This, And Heaven Too (I was on one of my Bette Davis film quests), and Pocketful of Miracles sounded like a film I might enjoy around Christmas time.
For me, this was Bette's show, she shines all around, especially as the movie progresses. Hard for me to understand she had to make a "comeback" later on in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? What was wrong with movie audiences back then?
Peter Falk really stands out here, no wonder he went on to stardom, and nice to see lovely Ann-Margret in her film debut.
This movie has made me very curious to see Capra's original, Lady For a Day. I wonder why he wanted to remake his own movie, that's a rarity in films.
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Post by kijii on Dec 29, 2017 3:13:56 GMT
I actually just watched this yesterday for the first time. I'd just seen The Man Who Came To Dinner and All This, And Heaven Too (I was on one of my Bette Davis film quests), and Pocketful of Miracles sounded like a film I might enjoy around Christmas time. For me, this was Bette's show, she shines all around, especially as the movie progresses. Hard for me to understand she had to make a "comeback" later on in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? What was wrong with movie audiences back then? Peter Falk really stands out here, no wonder he went on to stardom, and nice to see lovely Ann-Margret in her film debut. This movie has made me very curious to see Capra's original, Lady For a Day. I wonder why he wanted to remake his own movie, that's a rarity in films. Lebowskidoo-- I love Bette Davis. Just about everything she made is good to great for me!! In a way, I never thought of her as making a "comeback" since she seems to have so many of them--- OR never left in the first place.  There are so many facets and/or phase to her career that it boggles the mind to think of them all. I guess I will always think of her as a Warner Brothers regular since she made so many of her really great movies with that studio and starred with so many Warner Brothers regulars during the 30s and 40s helping many to get Oscar nominations of their own. --Fay Bainter Jezebel (1938) which gave them both an Oscar! --Mary Astor The Great Lie (1941). --Claude Rains Mr. Skeffington (1944) --John Dall and Joan Lorring The Corn Is Green (1945) --Paul Lukas and Lucile Watson Watch on the Rhine (1943) --Gladys Cooper Now, Voyager (1942) --Barbara O'Neil All This, and Heaven Too (1940) --Brian Aherne Juarez (1939) --Patricia Collinge & Teresa Wright The Little Foxes (1941) --Victor Buono What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), etc. If you want to see a great Bette Davis movie on TCM next week, look into Payment on Demand (1951). This is a gem to me. |
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Post by petrolino on Dec 29, 2017 4:27:51 GMT
I've not seen 'Pocketful Of Miracles' but I love Frank Capra's 'Lady For A Day'.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 29, 2017 4:36:29 GMT
I've not seen 'Pocketful Of Miracles' but I love Frank Capra's 'Lady For A Day'.  lends petro a pen to add it to the "gotta see it" list ! Peter Falk alone is worth the price of admission ! |
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Post by petrolino on Dec 29, 2017 4:44:53 GMT
I've not seen 'Pocketful Of Miracles' but I love Frank Capra's 'Lady For A Day'. lends petro a pen to add it to the "gotta see it" list ! Peter Falk alone is worth the price of admission ! If there are two American actresses currently working who will become legends that everybody knows their name 'Cheers' style, it's Natalie Portman who's joined Natalie Wood in this regard (generational), and Scarlett Johansson who's this generation's Scarlett O'Hara and so much more. I can tell you, Scarlett loves Peter Falk and would echo your sentiments ...
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 29, 2017 4:56:02 GMT
petrolinoThat's so funny hearing Scarlett talking about babble-ing when she met Peter Falk. That's exactly what I did when I encountered him waiting for someone in London ages ago. I figure he was there making Husbands. He was so kind as he listened to me telling him how I had seen him in his first show on Broadway and watched him in his films etc etc.... it seemed to me I was just going on and on ... must have taken less than a minute, in real time ! I have the treasured photo he let me take of him. He was wearing the same style raincoat that later became his trademark in that detective show he was on... what was it called again ? 
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Post by them1ghtyhumph on Dec 29, 2017 5:02:18 GMT
Absolutely one of my favorite movies
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Post by kijii on Dec 29, 2017 7:33:20 GMT
This movie has made me very curious to see Capra's original, Lady For a Day. I wonder why he wanted to remake his own movie, that's a rarity in films. Lebowskidoo-- I think several directors may have done remakes of their own original movies. Two more that come to mind are: William Wyler who remade his own These Three (1936) into The Children's Hour (1961) and Leo McCarey who remade his own Love Affair (1939) into An Affair to Remember (1957) I am sure others may be able to think of more cases. It may be that they felt newer audiences should see the originals or that mores and technology warrented a remake. For example, Pocketful of Miracles (1961) offered more than than Lady for a Day (1933)--[color, length, cast variety, wider screen, and original music too] ...but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go back and see the original movie versions for contrast and comparison. |
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Post by claudius on Dec 29, 2017 10:00:48 GMT
As well as:
Alfred Hitchcock The Man Who Knew Too Much
Sidney Franklin The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Stephen Weeks Gawain and the Green Knight and The Sword and the Valiant.
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Post by mattgarth on Dec 29, 2017 10:59:10 GMT
Adding THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by Cecil B. DeMille. Also Howard Hawks remade BALL OF FIRE as the 1948 musical A SONG IS BORN with Danny Kaye.
Capra did another remake -- his 1934 horseracing picture BROADWAY BILL used about one-fourth of its footage in the 1950 film with Bing Crosby entitled RIDING HIGH.
But perhaps the King of self remakes was Raoul Walsh, 3 of them in a span of just 10 years:
HIGH SIERRA in 1941 became the 1949 Western COLORADO TERRITORY
THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE in 1941 was remade as ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON in 1948
THE 1945 war film OBJECTIVE BURMA was retooled as THE 1951 Western DISTANT DRUMS
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 29, 2017 15:17:33 GMT
I actually just watched this yesterday for the first time. I'd just seen The Man Who Came To Dinner and All This, And Heaven Too (I was on one of my Bette Davis film quests), and Pocketful of Miracles sounded like a film I might enjoy around Christmas time. For me, this was Bette's show, she shines all around, especially as the movie progresses. Hard for me to understand she had to make a "comeback" later on in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? What was wrong with movie audiences back then? Peter Falk really stands out here, no wonder he went on to stardom, and nice to see lovely Ann-Margret in her film debut. This movie has made me very curious to see Capra's original, Lady For a Day. I wonder why he wanted to remake his own movie, that's a rarity in films. Not wishing to rain on anyone's parade, I'd hesitated to opine on the film, but your dual curiosity about the original and Capra's reason(s) for remaking it encouraged me to weigh in. As uncommon as it is for a director to remake one of his own pictures, my feeling is that there can be only two worthy reasons for any director to undertake remaking any picture: the original can be improved upon (example: 1941's The Maltese Falcon); something fresh and original can be brought to the story (example: 1954's A Star Is Born or 1978's Invasion Of the Body Snatchers). New technologies like color and widescreen, or newer faces to appeal to contemporary audiences or even "new" for its own sake don't make the grade in my book. In his autobiography, Capra quoted himself from a 1960 interview: "I had had such good luck putting my style of heart and humor into A Hole In the Head, a story of contemporary non-heroes, that I wanted to experiment with retelling Damon Runyon's fairy tale." Reflecting on the harder-edged candor he observed in films of the time, he described his mindset: "I'll be the maverick. A nonconformist. I'll make sentimental films until my audience cries, 'No more.'" But that came with provisos in "the new Hollywood." As Capra wrote, "My 'one man, one film' Hollywood had ceased to exist. Actors had sliced it up into capital gains." And from both United Artists and Capra's own agent came an edict: "No way you can make a picture today except with a star as your partner," a proposition with which Glenn Ford himself approached the director, so Pocketful got the green light as a co-venture of Frank Capra Productions and Ford's Newton Productions. This arrangement soon led to authoritarian and creative friction between them, as well as to personal resentment between the team of Ford and his hand-picked leading lady Hope Lange, and Bette Davis. To complicate matters, Capra's cluster headaches, which had abated for many years, recurred during production. Peter Falk emerged as Capra's saving grace both on and offscreen; his "anchor to reality," he wrote. "Introducing that remarkable talent to the techniques of comedy made me forget pains, tired blood and maniacal hankerings to murder Glenn Ford. Thank you, Peter Falk." Small wonder Falk was rewarded by Capra with such a showcase. I give Capra credit for mixing the newer faces with old pros like Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton and Davis but, production problems aside, POF doesn't generate the charm and warmth of LFAD. While pleasant and entertaining enough, it's overlong and rather sluggishly-paced at times. To be fair, a film produced within the period it depicts generally has a built-in advantage over one attempting to recreate that period thirty years after the fact, but there's also a brisk snappiness to LFAD I find lacking in POF.
My biggest personal disappointment is in Glenn Ford himself. The progressively flustered comedic style he employed had served him well in 1959's The Gazebo, but it renders his Dave the Dude abrasive in place of Warren William's LFAD smoothie. All in all, I can recommend the earlier film as the more sincere of the two efforts. |
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Post by teleadm on Dec 29, 2017 17:45:05 GMT
I must admit that I was dissapointed with this movie, it felt too studiobound for a movie from 1961.
I lked the Edward Everett Horton/Thomas Mitchell connection though, that I hadn't thought about.
I was also surpriced about the scene when a car drives onto another car, and it looked real, and if so it predated a similiar scen from The Italian Job 1969.
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Post by kijii on Dec 29, 2017 18:11:59 GMT
As well as: Alfred Hitchcock The Man Who Knew Too MuchSidney Franklin The Barretts of Wimpole StreetStephen Weeks Gawain and the Green Knight and The Sword and the Valiant.See, I know there were others  Hitchcock's remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much is a prime example of why a director may want to take a good movie and make it even better (or different) by changing settings, adding color and a songstress, and even changing the story line. While I love his later version with Doris Day, one should NOT overlook the original 1934 version about a woman sharpshooter who is able to save her kidnapped daughter. There are just so many sharp Hitchcockian moments in this 1934 version that one should not want to miss it!! It also gives us an early view of the late Nova Pilbeam (1919–2015). She was only 15 in the 1934 version. Hitchcock liked her so much, he later used her in The Girl Was Young (1937). Both of these movies are examples of early across-the-country Hitchcock thrillers. |
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Post by kijii on Dec 29, 2017 18:36:19 GMT
Adding THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by Cecil B. DeMille. Also Howard Hawks remade BALL OF FIRE as the 1948 musical A SONG IS BORN with Danny Kaye. Capra did another remake -- his 1934 horseracing picture BROADWAY BILL used about one-fourth of its footage in the 1950 film with Bing Crosby entitled RIDING HIGH. But perhaps the King of self remakes was Raoul Walsh, 3 of them in a span of just 10 years: HIGH SIERRA in 1941 became the 1949 Western COLORADO TERRITORY THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE in 1941 was remade as ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON in 1948 THE 1945 war film OBJECTIVE BURMA was retooled as THE 1951 Western DISTANT DRUMS ...and the Garthman adds some more examples........ Matt, I want to ask you a hard question about your friend, Glenn Ford.... Which do you prefer more --his dramatic roles of his comedies? He was so natural in each, and he surely had his own style. I would love to get my hands on Trial (1955), but can't find it. I just re-saw The Big Heat (1953) during Christmas vacation and am wondering if it wasn't one of Fritz Lang's best later movies. I was very impressed with the top 3 actors here... Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin... ....Wow, anyone for a cup of coffee?  |
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Post by mattgarth on Dec 29, 2017 18:45:49 GMT
Although Ford's comedic talents are not always fully appreciated, I have to lean on the side of his dramatic roles -- in which he excelled. He was fortunate to work twice with Fritz Lang, who liked him. BLACKBOARD, TRIAL and RANSOM! -- all released in the mid-1950s within months of each other, solidly placed him near the top tier of dramatic actors. And at the same time he was also scoring in comedy roles (TEAHOUSE) and Westerns (JUBAL).
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Post by kijii on Dec 29, 2017 18:57:12 GMT
Some great and interesting thoughts here, Doghouse -- Whenever I think of Glenn Ford, my first thought runs to The Gazebo too--I loved it and loved his confusion there more than his take charge persona here (Pocketful). Were there any actors that appeared in both versions? --I can't find any myself |
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Post by kijii on Dec 29, 2017 19:45:58 GMT
Although Ford's comedic talents are not always fully appreciated, I have to lean on the side of his dramatic roles -- in which he excelled. He was fortunate to work twice with Fritz Lang, who liked him. BLACKBOARD, TRIAL and RANSOM! -- all released in the mid-1950s within months of each other, solidly placed him near the top tier of dramatic actors. And at the same time he was also scoring in comedy roles (TEAHOUSE) and Westerns (JUBAL). So, the other Fritz Lang movie is Human Desire (1954)? Wow, the cast looks good. (Based on Émile Zola novel) Is that the English version of La Bête Humaine?As good as it seems, it would have to go some distance before matching The Human Beast (1938) which comes close to being my favorite French movie....I love those gritty movies set in a mass of train tracks..I also love Jean Gabin. I remember people being interested in Cowboy (1958) when it was released. But, OMG, what a mess the re-make of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) was. There is a movie that should never have been remade---and certainly not by Vincente Minnelli with a huge André Previn soundtrack !!! It was so sad I had to laugh-- Imagine Paul Lukas playing a Nazi after making Watch on the Rhine (1943). Imagine Yvette Mimieux as a French resistance fighter.  Not only was the concept of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novel changed, but the movie even managed to change wars. All great actors and directors make a few mistakes (or have a few flops) --but Glenn Ford looked like he was trapped as a hostage in this dog of a movie. I rank The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) among my top silents-- I should NOT have even watched the re-make; it was only to complete my Vincente Minnelli-directed movies. |
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Post by mattgarth on Dec 29, 2017 20:23:37 GMT
And poor Paul Henreid -- a Nazi-fighting husband cuckolded again by his wife played by an Ingrid. Ford and Thulin will never have Paris (her dialogue was completely dubbed by Angela Lansbury).
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