COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER - Page 5

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Yeah I went into Amazon to order the Newman and Cooper boxsets and found they were gone. I thought I was going nuts!! But went to a couple of other online stores and found that they had the pre-orders and artwork up and running.

Thanks for the info guys.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Just going on to pre-order the Newman boxset, what does GIFT SLIM mean for the uneducated (such as myself)

Here is the link:

http://www.dvdpacific.com/item.asp?ID=750273

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Slim case packaging (as opposed to keepcase) one would assume..

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I never saw the box sets announced anywhere on any retailer's site I frequent. The individual titles begin to show up though.

But I hesitate to order the indivdual titles if the word is still that box sets will appear.

Anyone who knows more about it?


Edit: Correction, just found the Paul Newman (11/14/06) and the Gary Cooper (11/07/06) Collections. No trace of the Brando Set (yet?).


Cees

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

http://www.dvdpacific.com/item.asp?ID=750229

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Thanks, Frank! The Marlon Brando Collection indeed, due 11/07/2006.

I'm not a member there, but I'm particularly glad I have the product id. now and the UPC #.

Thanks again!


Cees

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I read down this very old thread, but it doesn't seem like anyone on this forum actually challenged this claim that Sergeant York was just a bunch of propaganda, so I will let the actual real life story of Sergeant York below explain in detail just how accurate this movie was on his life. Alvin York was on the WB set every day seeing to it that they kept to the facts on his story and did not try to make it into a fictional Hollywood movie in any way. I would guess that a german as yourself would be a person that would not like this movie very much. I am nearly 100 percent German myself but as I was born in the United States as was my parents and grandparents, I don't particularly like any movies that were made out of the good old United States.

You state you are a Howard Hawks fan, which I am as well. I would like to bring to your attention that Sergeant York has been the number 1 or number 2 best selling movie of ALL the Howard Hawks movies being sold on Amazon ever since it was released in Nov of 2006. Today it is second only to another Gary Cooper movie Ball of Fire. It would seem that the two favorite Howard Hawks movies outside of this small crowd that posts here that are mostly proffessional film critics believe these to be Hawks two best movies over all the John Wayne movies and the like.

Amazon.com Movies & TV Bestsellers: The most popular items in Hawks, Howard. Updated hourly.

True account of Alvin York for the record:

York was inducted into the United States Army and served in Company G, 328th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Infantry Division at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Discussion of the Biblical stance on war with his company commander, Captain Edward Courtney Bullock Danforth (1894–1974) of Augusta, Georgia and his battalion commander, Major Gonzalo Edward Buxton (1880–1949) of Providence, Rhode Island, eventually convinced York that warfare could be justified.[1]

During a mission to secure the German Decauville rail-line on October 8, 1918, York's actions earned him the Medal of Honor. He recalled:

"The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. They just stopped us dead in our tracks. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn’t tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from… And I'm telling you they were shooting straight. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home. Our attack just faded out… And there we were, lying down, about halfway across [the valley] and those German machine guns and big shells getting us hard."[3]

The German fire took a heavy toll on the regiment. Seventeen men under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early (which included York) infiltrated behind the German lines to take out the machine guns. The group worked their way behind the Germans and overran the headquarters of a German unit, capturing a large group of German soldiers who were preparing to counter-attack against the US troops. Early’s men were contending with the prisoners when machine gun fire suddenly peppered the area, killing six Americans, Corp. Murray Savage, and Pvts. Maryan E. Dymowski, Ralph E. Weiler, Fred Waring, William Wins and Walter E. Swanson, and wounding three others, Sgt. Early, Corp. William S. Cutting (AKA Otis B. Merrithew) and Pvt. Mario Muzzi. The fire came from German machine guns on the ridge, which turned their weapons on the US soldiers. The loss of the nine put Corporal York in charge of the seven remaining U.S. soldiers, Privates Joseph Konotski (Kornacki), Percy Beardsley, Feodor Sok, Thomas C. Johnson, Michael A. Saccina, Patrick Donohue and George W. Wills. As his men remained under cover, and guarding the prisoners, York worked his way into position to silence the German machine guns. York recalled:

"And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush… As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I was sharp shooting… All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. I didn't want to kill any more than I had to. But it was they or I. And I was giving them the best I had."[4]

One of York’s prisoners, German First Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer, emptied his pistol trying to kill York while he was contending with the machine guns. Failing to injure York, and seeing his mounting losses, he offered to surrender the unit to York, which was gladly accepted. By the end of the engagement, York and his seven men marched 132 German prisoners back to the American lines. His actions silenced the German machine guns and were responsible for enabling the 328th Infantry Regiment to renew the offensive to capture the Decauville Railroad.[5]

York was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism, but this was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, which was presented to York by the commanding general of the American Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing. The French Republic awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor. Italy and Montenegro awarded him the Croce di Guerra and War Medal, respectively.

York was a Corporal during the action. His promotion to sergeant was part of the honor for his valor. Of his deeds York said to his division commander, General Duncan, in 1919: "A higher power than man power guided and watched over me and told me what to do."

Sergeant York was selected to be a pallbearer for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier when it was created.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

On his early life there is this documentation posted:

"Alvin Collum York was born to an impoverished farming family in Tennessee on December 13, 1887, the third of eleven children.[1] Up until a few years before the war, York was hard drinking and prone to fighting in saloons. His mother, a member of a pacifist Christian denomination, tried to convince York to change his ways to no avail. However, during a night of heavy drinking when he and a friend got into a fight with other saloon patrons, York's friend was killed. The event shook York so much that he finally followed his mother and became a Christian, no longer fighting or drinking. On June 5, 1917, at the age of 29, Alvin York received a notice to register for the draft. From that day until he arrived back from the War on May 29, 1919, he kept a diary of his activities.[2] There is some controversy on whether he was an official conscientious objector. Most people agreed that York was a pacifist after the death of his friend, but whether he was an official conscientious objector for draft is debatable. According to documentation, York applied to be a conscientious objector for the draft but was never approved. Whether this is because York withdrew the application or there was simply not enough time is not entirely clear."

However, this so called controversy on him being a consciencous objector is clearly refuted simply by looking at his original registration card that clearly states "don't want to fight".

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...tionforwar.jpg

So to sum it up I would say that Sergeant York just may be the most accurate movie ever made on a person's life. The only detail that I know of from the movie that was not accurate is that he was not struck by a bolt of Lighting that caused his conversion. He stated that his conversion to Christianity was a more gradual process brought on from conversations with Gracie, but for the sake of time of a 2 hour plus movie they added that quicker scene into it.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Just because a film sells well on Amazon.com doesn't mean it is good!

My favourite Hawks film is The Big Sleep, which is currently 23rd! :-)

Moreover, if someone just doesn't like a film, it is very hard to convince them that it is actually a good film, and it is them that is mistaken. I think Sergent York is OK, but there are heaps of Hawks films I like better.

Only Angels Have Wings, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, Red River, Rio Bravo, Ball of Fire, El Dorado, Hatari, Land of the Pharoahs, To Have and Have Not are all superior films in my book.

Regarding historical accuracy, I couldn't care less about how historically accurate a film is or isn't. For me the job of a film is to entertain, not to be a perfect rendition of a true event. But people with different evaluative criteria will differ, and thus consider Sergent York a better or worse film because of it.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I disagree somewhat because if you ask most filmmakers present or who have left us over the years what is it that they tried to accomplish with their films, I believe their answer would be to tell a story that would entertain people. So if a film sells well that means people are willing to spend their money in order to watch it over and over again because it entertains them. In my opinion, a film that entertains its audience is a good film because it achieve the filmmaker's desired effect, no matter what academia, film historians or critics have to say about it. Most films are made for the masses in order to entertain them, not for some individual(s) to dissect it like it was some lab experiment as to it's virtues or lack of them as an example in the art of filmmaking.






Crawdaddy

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I've loved Sergent York since I was a child, and the foremost reason is simple - Coop. And I'm another that couldn't give a hoot about whether a movie is historically accurate or not.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I can't agree that looking at Amazon.com is a good way to determine if a film is good. I do that by WATCHING the film!

Different people apply different criteria to determine what they consider entertaining. So it is an extremely subjective judgment that each viewer figures out after watching a film. I don't think this is bad at all, in fact, I think it is kind of pointless saying that a film is a GOOD FILM that everybody MUST like! If someone doesn't like the film, then the entire theory is screwed.

For example, DanMel feels that historical accuracy is a very important criteria when judging a film, which leads him to conclude that Sergent York is an excellent film, and a particularly good example of the war film and bio-pic genres. However, Armin and I just didn't feel entertained by Sergent York as much as other films by the same director, perhaps because we don't consider historical accuracy as important when judging films. (EDIT: John also doesn't consider historical accuracy important, but he likes the film because of the presence of a star actor).

Thus we concluded that it isn't as good a film as DanMel thinks. Personally I still think it is a reasonable film, but I think Hawks made a lot of better films, some of them much lesser known. From memory, in the Bogdanovich book Who the Devil Made It? Hawks is extremely dismissive of the film, he considers is jut another film, neither better or worse than anything else he made. (this coming from the guy who said films definitely aren't art, they are just a way to have fun while making money).

Also, I don't think sales is a good criteria to judge the quality of a film. Because there are lots of films that didn't sell particularly well on initial release, that many (but not all!) now consider extremely good (Citizen Kane and Vertigo come to mind, or in my opinion any Wes Anderson film). Maybe reviewing as a measure of greatness is a better guide now, but what about the first ~60 years of filmmaking when it was impossible to buy a film to re-watch? Back then films were considered completely disposable, and came and went within a week or two. Of course there were lots of excellent films made then, including many that have now been lost or completely forgotten. They are still films, and shouldn't be omitted from evaluation just because they haven't entered a canon of 'good films', that have then been reissued on various home video formats half a dozen times. Again, different people will be entertained by different films. Lots of critics have argued that Sargent York is a good film, but there are at least two people in this thread who think that is wrong, which goes back to my belief that you just can't convince a person a film is good if they don't like it. There's other more productive ways to spend time.

Furthermore, consider that academics, historians, and critics have had a huge role to play in defining a "canon" of classic films. For example, excluding the French, hardly any critics cared about Vertigo before it was resurrected by U.S. and British critics (e.g Robin Wood) in the late 1960s and 1970s. The films of Jean Renoir, Orson Welles and William Wyler probably wouldn't be as revered today if it wasn't for the 1950s writings of Andre Bazin. Can we conclusively say that The Searchers is better than half a dozen other John Ford Westerns? One reason it is THE ONE that even non-Western fans are most familiar with is because it was championed by critic Jim Kitses, as well as a bunch of 1970s filmmakers who told us it is the definitive Ford / Wayne western. Or consider that Hawks made some good Westerns, but I don't know if they are OBVIOUSLY better than lesser known westerns by Anthony Mann or Delmer Daves.

On the other hand, sometimes critics shifted filmmakers into the canon who deserve to be there. Andrew Sarris helped us discover Samuel Fuller, Anthony Mann, and to a lesser extent Nicholas Ray. But since critics are ultimately just viewers like you or I, sometimes they champion films that on reflection aren't that good.

Perhaps my best example of this is the film The High and the Mighty, which was considered a classic John Wayne film, yet it had been out of circulation due to rights issues for years. It was released on DVD so I promptly bought it to see what all the talk was about, yet I find it to be an overlong and tedious proto-disaster film. Sure it had some things I liked in it, but over all I couldn't see how it was the same film that Leonard Maltin would have one believe. IN MY OPINION It is far inferior to another film William Wellman made in the same year called Track of the Cat.

I think The High and the Mighty has gained a reputation simply because hardly anyone was able to see it! But of course others will beg to differ, and that is fine, that's what keeps being a film fan interesting.

Personally I think the 'classic canon' of films that supposedly we all must like is actually quite arbitrary. Sure there are great films in the AFI top 100. But there are also many films that I and others would replace with other films we find more entertaining. It just depends on what criteria you apply, and different people will apply different criteria. I don't know what you mean. When someone says "I liked that film", doesn't that mean they think it is a better example of filmmaking than a film they didn't like?

Of course all films are made for a purpose - the first reason usually to make money - but other than that I don't think film has an essence. What is meant by "film" is constantly changing based on people making new and different films, along with the discovery of previously lost films. So all films are examples of filmmaking, be they good, bad or indifferent. Every viewer on their own determines which film goes in which category.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I like Sergeant York principally because of Cooper, but it's not the only factor; I think it's well written, acted and directed, I love Steiner's score. In short, I'm as entertained now as I was when I first saw the film maybe 40 plus years ago, and the basic reasons haven't changed much.

I've never been told what to like, though I've often sought out films on recommendation before coming to my own conclusion. I'm wary of the popular view, but that doesn't mean I set my face against it, and I'm not even sure what defines 'good film making', because surely every individual has their own definition. I love to be entertained, I love to have my perceptions challenged and I love films that provide both those stimuli. Two quotes, first from the recent Criterion Days of Heaven:

"It’s great fun to intellectualise Terry’s films…but it’s like a poem…” says Sam Shepherd in a interview filmed for the disc. “You can analyse it to death, but still it’s not going to get to what this poem is doing to your psyche, your body. You’re never going to solve that.”

Thank God - I love it, but I don't quite know why. And another from John Ford:

“For a director there are commercial rules that it is necessary to obey. In our profession, an artistic failure is nothing; a commercial failure is a sentence. The secret is to make films that please the public and also allow the director to reveal his personality…”

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I'm not going to be long-winded here so I'll keep my comments short. I think I made myself very clear and I stand by my comments that if a film is entertaining and people keep going back to it to watch it again and again then it is a good film whether certain film experts like it or not. Again, most films were made for the masses not for a select few to espound their view of it.




Crawdaddy

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I'm not saying that the movie Sergeant York or any other movie has to be historically accurate to be good. However, I did want to set the record straight that Sergeant York is quite historically accurate as far as the battle goes and it does happen to be quite enteraining as well. I tended to feel that some people may come off after seeing the quite fantastic battle scene as some fictional account that Hollywood came up with one man being responsible for capturing 132 Germans and many more killed by him. The movie for me has all the elements to make it great on it's own and I consider it the greatest movie to EVER be made. Then again, I am a war verteran, a Born again Christian, and a avid hunter so I guess it may put off some city people but not me. I find it just a riviting story. The film did also win the oscar for best film editing and I do believe it is the best edited movie I have ever seen. The filming of the movie was perfect as well. The camera angles used were far better than any John Ford movie in my opinion. My second favorite movie is another Christian war movie with Gary Cooper filmed by William Wyler titled Friendly Persuasion. I like both these movies a great deal more than High Noon although I do consider High Noon a near perfect movie as well.

I did use Amazon to show how well Sergeant York has and is selling. It is always the second best selling Gary Cooper movie behind only High Noon. On some days in fact it does out sell High Noon. I guess though for the small majority of film critics, some of which post here, it would be a better way of determining how popular a movie still is today than how well you like it. There may be some people that post here that do not like Gary Cooper or the movie Sergeant York and that is alright (different strokes for different folks), but would say that Amazon is a better cross section of how popular a movie is all over the coutry than what your likes and dislikes are. I guess you could look at Amazon as how well a movie is doing at the box office and your own view on it as what a film critic views are on it. I guess Sergeant York will always be a movie that it loved by millions of Americians and has noses turned up by it by film critics.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I didn't challenge any of what you wrote (nor do I see how it was anything different to what I initially wrote).

But there is still a problem, what if someone watches a 'good film' film once, and hates it so much they never want to watch it again!? Is it still a good film because other people say it is? Yep, and that's fair enough. If you consider it a good film, well then it is a good film. But that doesn't mean others will agree. People are different, and have different expectations which will lead them to make different judgments.

Let's remember there are (silly) people that are biased against any film that is black and white! But that is the ridiculous criteria they wish to apply, it is very difficult convincing them otherwise.
This makes sense to me, but different people will find different things entertaining.
Well there are lots of critics who think it is an excellent film, and there are probably millions of Americans who don't think it is a good film, but that still doesn't explain for those who haven't seen it if it is a good or bad film. This is because such subjective judementsl comes down to each individual viewer figuring out whether they like it or not. Past reputation doesn't count for much in my book, I figure out if I like a film or not by watching it with my own eyes.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

I thought it goes without saying that not everyone agrees on what is a good film, but I was wrong in making that assumption of reality.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

So that means it is impossible to definitively say whether something is a good or bad film.

Instead films just build reputations thanks to academics, critics, historians, and of course audiences.

My second point was that for better or worse, academics, historians and critics have had a huge role to play in resurrecting the reputations of some films, which has made them available to audiences to view.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

"So that means it is impossible to definitively say whether something is a good or bad film."

Well considering that I believe Sergeant York to be a great film and my personal favorite movie and others including yourself that think it is not, I would say that it is a subjective stand on what is a good movie and what is not. Yet I do believe that I am in the majority that think it is great and you are in the minority at least when taken in account only the United States population of which was the target audiance when it was filmed. For instance, It was not trying to be a great movie to people living in Germany during WW2. It has stood the test of time of which all great movies do and is far more popular than the European stye John Ford movie that beat it out for best picture in How Green Is My Valley. I could barely get through one viewing of that borefest. Yet I do know at least one lady of which that is her all time favorite John Ford movie. It is certainly not as popular on Amazon as Sergeant York. I think popularity at least to some extent does equate with greatness for a movie. I mean if the majority of people think a movie like Citizen Kane is a great movie then even if I don't like it, I will still consider it an all time classic movie. Just because I don't care for it, I am not going to stand in the way of AFI picking it as the best movie of all time. It is beating Sergeant York in total dvd sells on Amazon 697 to 757 (not all by that much though). One interesting statistic that is worth posting that out of ALL the war movies sold on Amazon Sergeant York 2 years after it was released on dvd is still ranked at number 6 with only two versions of Valley of Elah, Crimson Tide, Saving Private Ryan and The Cristmas Card in Front of it. There are no "classic" war films in front of it at the time of this posting.

Amazon.com Movies & TV Bestsellers: The most popular items in Drama. Updated hourly.

I would say that it is hard to dispute that the majority of people that buy on Amazon like myself think that Sergeant York is a great film. Of 108 reviews on Amazon 93 gave it 5 stars, 9 4 stars, 4 3 stars, 1 2 stars and 1 one star.

Actually the one star rating was from a rather confused person:

"I just can't understand why everyone liked this film so much? I HATED THIS FILM, This is one of the worst films I've ever seen. UGH! I don't think that the acting is good, It's stinks. The woman who played as York's wife is too old to play the part. I got confused and though that was his mother until someone tell me it wasn't."

As I stated He or she was a rather confused person.

The two star review gave it a low rating because it was in Black and White

"The reason for the rateing is that I thought that this movie came in color and when it arrived to my home it was in black and white. Cna someone there tell me does this come in color as while if so please give me a price. Other then that I really enjoyed the movie."

On imdb with 4,263 votes (I did not vote on this one) it got 8.1 out of 10

Here's an interesting review I will close my discussion of Sergeant York on that I just read on what defines a classic movie by someone in Tampa back in 2002:

"Garry Cooper + great script = Classic film, 19 August 2002
Author: Karl Miller from Tampa

How does one define a classic film? It has been over 50 years since Sergeant York was made and It is still a joy to watch. Gary Cooper is, well, Gary Cooper. A Hollywood Icon and arguably one of the best actors ever. He gives a memorable, true to life portrayal of this simple back woods man thrust into a situation seemingly beyond his ability to comprehend. Alvin York was not an educated man, not a worldly man and not a great student of philosophy. Armed only with his dog-eared Bible and his own beliefs of right and wrong he must somehow balance his religious faith, his patriotic duty and his duty to his comrades. The script is well written. The performances are superb. This movie has action and humor plus a warmth that touches one and all. Sergeant York stands the test of time. Whatever your definition, this is a classic."

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

One last note is that popularity does not always equate to greatness. With new releases, they may be very popular for six months to a year and then fade off to nothing. However, when a classic movie like Sergeant York (67 years old) can be as popular as newly released movies, I would say that it is a true mark of it's lasting greatness. I would say that it will be talked about in the highest regard even in another 67 years of passing perhaps even more so.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Yes, I completely agree with you. Just because a film has a reputation for being good, or even a "classic" doesn't mean that everyone will like it.

Reputation may be a good guide, and even help audiences choose what to watch or buy. But that reputation is just built up by what other viewers, filmmakers - and dare I say it - academics, historians and critics say are good films.

Citizen Kane is generally considered a classic film, but many young students can't handle having to watch it, because they can't see its aesthetic or technical significance. Excluding Germany, I imagine it would've been a popular film in lots of other English speaking countries, but that still doesn't mean everyone liked it. I prefer How Green Is My Valley. I don't know what you mean when you say that film has a "European Style". My problem with those lists is that the 'canon' of so called classic films is very arbitrary. It is heavily influenced by filmmakers, critics, historians, and academics championing a select few films that survived, in contrast to a whole sea of films that either didn't survive at all, or are sitting in vaults waiting to be rediscovered.

Writer / director / critic Paul Schrader tried to write a book listing a canon of great films, but he ultimately concluded that it was futile, because it is nigh on impossible constructing a canon that isn't just full of personal favourites. He wrote an article about his attempt for Film Quarterly that you can download from here.

I concede however that if someone got the AFI Top 100 list, and watched every film on that list, then they would gain a pretty good exposure to lots of different, and generally very good Hollywood films. But that still doesn't mean they are all unarguably classics that everyone MUST like. IMDB provides some evidence that it generally isn't considered Hawks' best film. His weighted ratings goes The Big Sleep, His Girl Friday, To Have and Have Not, then Sergent York.

I still think it is a bit high, but it demonstrates that generally Sergent York isn't considered Hawks' best film. Of course, that doesn't mean some people will think it is, and they are perfectly entitled to that opinion.
Excellent point. Surely if "classic film" is to mean anything then longevity should be important. I just hope we never reach the day that people are biased against films because they are silent, or black and white.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

That's not what I'm saying! I know when a classic film is good or bad by the input I receive in talking to people about various films. You don't consider Sergeant York a good film while I disagree due to the last ten years of discussing films on this forum as well as other forums. Furthermore, my conclusion is also based on my film discussions I had for decades talking with various people about film while living in every area of this country except the west coast. Whether the people were men or woman didn't matter nor did it matter what age bracket they were in or what economic group. Whether you accept my conclusions is of no concern to me because I'm comfortable that my conclusion is based on information I received over a long period of time and from a cross section of Americans. There are other resources on the internet to support my conclusion, but you already know of them.

As far as that group of people you have noted, they do serve a role in recording film history which I never suggested otherwise, but again, films were made to entertain the above group of people I've talked to over the last 40-50 years and not just for a select group of film intellects.




Crawdaddy

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Great. I know if a film is good, bad, or classic by watching it. Others can't sway me of my opinion. If it helps, I think it is a lot better than many films made today, but I still don't think it is great, a classic, or even one of Howard Hawks' or Gary Cooper's best. I appreciate you trying to convince me otherwise, but I can't agree. Excellent, but I still don't like the film as much as you obviously do. All the academic or critical essays, or historical analyses in the world couldn't convince me that it is a classic film that I should like more than I do. I watched it, thought it was OK, but it didn't do much more for me than that.

You can like or dislike any film you want however much you want, it is never my intention to convince someone who likes a film that it is actually bad, or someone who doesn't like a film to like it. That is pointless. Where did I suggest films are only made for critics, historians and academics!?

I just suggested that, to some degree, those people shape what the general public consider 'classic films' by championing some films and filmmakers at the expense of others. Often they get it right and champion great filmmakers and films. But sometimes they completely ignore some films that should be open to appreciation. That desire for connoisseurship, and broader appreciation was the entire purpose of Andrew Sarris' book on American Cinema, which is an example of American film criticism at its best.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

To be perfectly honest, I can careless what you think of "Sergeant York" and have no intention of trying to change your opinion about it. It's your opinion, I respect that, but I have no inclination to debate the good or the bad of this film with you at this time. By the way, it's people like those of us that post on this board that place the real value whether a film is great or not. Most of these same people that I know from my personal perspective don't even read Sarris or any of his collegues writings so they have no idea as to how they (film critics or historians) value one film over another. Though, I read such writings, I am a film nerd that is used by people I know as a film resource because I'm totally into films while people I know fall way short of having such interest in film. In short, film intellects have little value to the average film viewer as it pertains to which films the average Joe or Jane likes or dislikes.

Also, it is rather funny that you don't think "Sergeant York" isn't a classic when in America it's considered exactly that and furthermore, one of Hawks and Cooper's best especially considering the latter won his first AA for his performance in the film. You can dismiss that award if you want to, but that doesn't mean the general public has done the same.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

Well, as a relation to Alvin York I find this whole thing deeply upsetting! No, actually it's quite interesting.

For the record, Hawks, in Who the Devil Made It?, said Warners offered him the film or else they were going to do it as a 'B'. Jesse Lasky told him the story and Hawks called it "great" and knew he could get Cooper. He also brought in Huston to change whatever they had at that point. Hawks credited Huston with writing the whole finished screenplay. Further, Hawks called the picture "a pleasure to make". There is no indication in the interview whatsoever that he thought anything but highly of the film, and is certainly not "extremely dismissive" of it. This was the only time Hawks was nominated for an Oscar. When asked what he thought of the Academy Awards, Hawks said he "didn't think much of some of the pictures that have won so I don't think it would mean much to me", which maybe what you remember, Simon.

Re: COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER

This thread should go straight to the poolroom!!!

(no offence intended, I just felt like lightening the mood)