AllenW
Auditioning
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2012
- Messages
- 12
- Real Name
- Allen Wiener
No, Moe! And I plead "guilty" of that and throw myself on the mercy of the court! Apparently, I had originally failed to click the box that gets me automatic emails every time a new post is added to this thread. I've just read the backlog of posts and feel pretty much up to date. Not good. Looks like the film is simply being allowed to rot in a place that doesn't even provide temperature control. RAH seems to have hit the nub of the issue in pointing out that MGM simply doesn't give a damn.
I gather that the "full" version that I have on the VHS so-called "Director's Cut" edition is the complete film (or, as complete as we are ever likely to get), and represents the state of the film at the time the VHS was made, meaning quite noticeably faded. The truncated original that was used to make the current DVD edition does have better color, but is the shortened version that does serious disservice to the film. Although it is a seriously flawed film, it actually works better in its original, full form than in the shortened version. From this discussion, I gather that "full" version that Turner Classic Movies was showing for a while is the same as that found on the VHS "Director's Cut" and the older laser disc editions. I'd still like to know why TCM stopped showing the film a year or so ago; lord knows they re-rerun many great classics virtually every month, some of which could really use a rest!
As to Wayne and his career, as well as the relative merits of "The Alamo" and other films, there are books and books about all that. It's pretty much in the eye of the beholder. Some of us are Wayne fans and can watch him in nearly anything short of the most awful shlock or worst mis-castings of his career ("Barbarian and the Geisha," "The Conqueror"). I actually enjoy "The Comancheros" almost as much as any other Wayne film; great fun and catches Duke at a great moment in his career. When evaluating what films stand out among the countless ones Hollywood has produced, lionized, awarded, ballyhooed, etc., remember how awful old Oscar's record is (or extremely "spotty" at best); I don't think "The Searchers" got a single nomination, while a film I regard as virtually unwatchable, "Around the World in 80 Days," received a pile of awards. Somewhere I've got a list of people and films that received NO Oscar recognition and some of the real duds that did; reading it from time to time is both eye-opening and a form of self torment. "The Searchers" was not only Wayne's best performance ever, it was one of Hollywood's most memorable films. It was also the peak of Ford's career for me, and that's saying a lot considering the other classics in his resume. You don't have to even like Wayne or Ford to appreciate what a great film that is.
"The Alamo" is another story. It's too long, its script is awful, some of the scenes and dialog are painful to watch (I agree with whoever commented on what a downer Chill Wills is), and (sorry to say) suffers too much from Ford's lesser influences. Yet it is a very interesting film in other ways. If you're as interested in the Alamo as I am, or that period of U.S. history, it's an interesting take on that era and also the Cold War era in which it was made. The photography is often breathtaking, especially when the film was originally seen on big theater screens, and the battle scenes are real doozies. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is a classic in my book and I can enjoy that on CD anytime. Moreover, the film was the one that Wayne himself cared about most in his entire career. He wanted to make it most of his life, spent years planning it and raising the money to make it, built one of the greatest sets ever constructed, which still stands, sunk all of his own money, sweat and blood into it, and nearly killed himself making it. If it could be done over somehow, I think Wayne should have hired a different director and stuck with acting and producing duties. The script should have been given a real enema and there were any number of Hollywood writers who could have done that, but then it wouldn't really have been what Wayne envisioned. As the wonderful film historian Frank Thompson has said, "The Alamo" probably doesn't have a single correct factual detail in it, but it is one vision of what the Alamo means; it's John Wayne's vision, but it IS a vision. "BIrth of a Nation" is D.W. Griffiths' warped vision of the "lost cause" and the old South during Reconstruction. The film's message is reprehensible, but would anyone argue that it shouldn't be preserved? I wouldn't.
I gather that the "full" version that I have on the VHS so-called "Director's Cut" edition is the complete film (or, as complete as we are ever likely to get), and represents the state of the film at the time the VHS was made, meaning quite noticeably faded. The truncated original that was used to make the current DVD edition does have better color, but is the shortened version that does serious disservice to the film. Although it is a seriously flawed film, it actually works better in its original, full form than in the shortened version. From this discussion, I gather that "full" version that Turner Classic Movies was showing for a while is the same as that found on the VHS "Director's Cut" and the older laser disc editions. I'd still like to know why TCM stopped showing the film a year or so ago; lord knows they re-rerun many great classics virtually every month, some of which could really use a rest!
As to Wayne and his career, as well as the relative merits of "The Alamo" and other films, there are books and books about all that. It's pretty much in the eye of the beholder. Some of us are Wayne fans and can watch him in nearly anything short of the most awful shlock or worst mis-castings of his career ("Barbarian and the Geisha," "The Conqueror"). I actually enjoy "The Comancheros" almost as much as any other Wayne film; great fun and catches Duke at a great moment in his career. When evaluating what films stand out among the countless ones Hollywood has produced, lionized, awarded, ballyhooed, etc., remember how awful old Oscar's record is (or extremely "spotty" at best); I don't think "The Searchers" got a single nomination, while a film I regard as virtually unwatchable, "Around the World in 80 Days," received a pile of awards. Somewhere I've got a list of people and films that received NO Oscar recognition and some of the real duds that did; reading it from time to time is both eye-opening and a form of self torment. "The Searchers" was not only Wayne's best performance ever, it was one of Hollywood's most memorable films. It was also the peak of Ford's career for me, and that's saying a lot considering the other classics in his resume. You don't have to even like Wayne or Ford to appreciate what a great film that is.
"The Alamo" is another story. It's too long, its script is awful, some of the scenes and dialog are painful to watch (I agree with whoever commented on what a downer Chill Wills is), and (sorry to say) suffers too much from Ford's lesser influences. Yet it is a very interesting film in other ways. If you're as interested in the Alamo as I am, or that period of U.S. history, it's an interesting take on that era and also the Cold War era in which it was made. The photography is often breathtaking, especially when the film was originally seen on big theater screens, and the battle scenes are real doozies. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is a classic in my book and I can enjoy that on CD anytime. Moreover, the film was the one that Wayne himself cared about most in his entire career. He wanted to make it most of his life, spent years planning it and raising the money to make it, built one of the greatest sets ever constructed, which still stands, sunk all of his own money, sweat and blood into it, and nearly killed himself making it. If it could be done over somehow, I think Wayne should have hired a different director and stuck with acting and producing duties. The script should have been given a real enema and there were any number of Hollywood writers who could have done that, but then it wouldn't really have been what Wayne envisioned. As the wonderful film historian Frank Thompson has said, "The Alamo" probably doesn't have a single correct factual detail in it, but it is one vision of what the Alamo means; it's John Wayne's vision, but it IS a vision. "BIrth of a Nation" is D.W. Griffiths' warped vision of the "lost cause" and the old South during Reconstruction. The film's message is reprehensible, but would anyone argue that it shouldn't be preserved? I wouldn't.
In fact I think Never on Sunday proved to be the far more popular song, being recorded by many artists worldwide.
