VistaVision--film by film chat and vote (1 Viewer)

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by benbess
Wild is the Wind is another Western I've never heard of. It was nominated for some major awards:



Awards


Won



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_Berlin_International_Film_Festival

Another thinking man's western. What can go wrong with George Cukor's direction, Music by Dimitri Tiomkin with Johnny Mathis singing the title song. I am getting nostalgic for those Vista Vision westerns from Paramount. I don't think this as ever been on Home Video and is rarely seen on cable. Come on a ranch owner falls in love and marries his sister-in-law after his wife dies and she in turn falls in love with the ranch hand. Perfect Cukor.

 

[JoHud]

Never knew about Williamsburg. It appears to have been co-produced by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which is why it has been released on DVD under a different label (and why it flew under my radar)

Wild is the Wind should have been released by now (c'mon, Cukor!). Never saw it, but great to hear that it's good.

 

[benbess]

ahollis: Thanks for that great report. Makes me really want to see this one. Think of what the director of The Women, Philadelphia Story, Adam's Rib, A Star is Born, etc., etc., could do with a Western. Sounds fascinating...

And how about this one, Lana Turner starring with Sean Connery in his very first role. I don't know if it's any good, but there's an interesting story from the set I found on wikipedia...

During the shooting of the movie in England, Connery was confronted by gangster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Stompanato

 

[benbess]

Has anyone seen The Black Orchid? Here's the basic set up from wikipedia:

Rose Bianco, (Sophia Loren) a florist widowed from a famous gangster, looks for happiness with widower Frank Valente (Anthony Quinn).

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by benbess
ahollis: Thanks for that great report. Makes me really want to see this one. Think of what the director of The Women, Philadelphia Story, Adam's Rib, A Star is Born, etc., etc., could do with a Western. Sounds fascinating...

And how about this one, Lana Turner starring with Sean Connery in his very first role. I don't know if it's any good, but there's an interesting story from the set I found on wikipedia...

During the shooting of the movie in England, Connery was confronted by gangster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Stompanato

As everyone here probably knows, Stompanato came to a bloody end quite soon at the hands of Lana's daughter, who stabbed him to death.... I don't know about this film, but Imitation of LIfe is, I think, a really strong film in the tradition of All About Eve, Mildred Pierce, etc....I would like to see Imitation on blu-ray.

From wikipedia


Lana Turner (February 8, 1921 – June 29, 1995) was an American actress.
Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget (1937). She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). During the early 1940s she established herself as a leading actress in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Somewhere I'll Find You (1942), and her reputation as a glamorous femme fatale was enhanced by her performance in the film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Her popularity continued through the 1950s, in such films as The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 1958, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner's lover Johnny Stompanato to death. A coroner's inquest brought considerable media attention to Turner and concluded that Crane had acted in self defense. Turner's next film, Imitation of Life (1959), proved to be one of the greatest successes of her career, but from the early 1960s, her roles were fewer...

 

[John Skoda]

Originally Posted by benbess

• 
  Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot (1957) (first documentary shot in VistaVision)

It's more accurately a short subject (38 min.) rather than a documentary. It's a costume drama of colonial Williamsburg, and the film has been continuously shown as an introduction for visitors to colonial Williamsburg, VA, since 1957 or so. George Seaton directed, the cast includes Jack Lord, and Bernard Herrmann composed the score.

It's available from http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/ in a very nice DVD (anamorphic, stereo). Robert Harris had a large hand in the recent restoration of the film.

 

[benbess]

John S: Thanks for the interesting note on the Williamsburg short.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_Under_the_Elms_(film)

 

[benbess]

This list has that giant of a title, Vertigo, but unfortunately Paramount no longer owns it. I think St. Louis Blues, as a one-of-a-kind movie with many of the top black singers of the 50s is worthy of a release. Eartha Kitt is electric. And if the script is far from the life of the real WC Handy, well most bio pics are almost equally fictional. And it's true that Nat King Cole isn't a great actor, or maybe even a very good one, but his singing in the movie is sublime. I think that one is worth it. I appreciate that Paramount was willing to roll the dice on that one in 1958, and I don't think it should be quite so obscure. Teacher's Pet sounds like a promising romantic comedy about journalism with Clark Gable and Doris Day. It gets pretty good reviews, but I've never seen it or the others on this list.

[*]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Blues_(1958_film)

 

[benbess]

I've never seen The Five Pennies, but the reviews seem to suggest that it's a good bio pic musical with the great Danny Kaye. It might be his last classic role. And we're also almost getting to the swan song of VistaVision. What started with such high hopes in 1953 and 1954, and arguably reached its peak with the Hitchcock classics and The Ten Commandments, was already puttering out by the late 50s. Paramount had a series of moderately expensive films that underperformed at the box office. And even their own internal documents started showing that VistaVision was adding to the costs of these films that weren't making much (or any) money for the studio on initial release (although after decades of tv showings and home video probably most of them have made a profit in the long run...). Anyway, remember how large those VistaVision letters were for White Christmas. Now, just 5 years later, I can't find any mention at all in the poster for The Five Pennies that this is a VistaVision production...

 

[benbess]

Another obscure Western. This one is so rare I couldn't find a single review of it. But it does star Fess Parker between his roles as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone....This one might not be much good, but it seems like thanks to people here we've found at least three "lost" Westerns of good quality on this amazing VistaVision format--Wild Is the Wind, The Lonely Man, and The Tin Star....The Tin Star is pretty well known, I suppose, but still I wonder if Paramount is going to have time to do anything more than a few of these VistaVision titles. Maybe Criterion could pick up some of the better VistaVision titles that Paramount doesn't have the time or the resources for?

 

[Charles Smith]

This has been an overwhelming tour through a series of films of which I probably could have named half a dozen at best. Mouth watering.

 

[Matt Hough]

Teacher's Pet and The Five Pennies are both very entertaining films. The former is in black and white (as is The Matchmaker which is the nonmusical version of Hello Dolly with a super cast including Shirley Booth, Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Perkins, and Robert Morse). Day and Gable spar amusingly in Teacher's Pet, but naturally there are other VistaVision releases which should take precedence over this innocuous comedy.

The Five Pennies is a musical biography of Red Nichols, a famous trumpeter. I have the DVD release of this film, and as I recall it looked very nice.

 

[JoHud]

Originally Posted by benbess
Another obscure Western. This one is so rare I couldn't find a single review of it. But it does star Fess Parker between his roles as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone....This one might not be much good, but it seems like thanks to people here we've found at least three "lost" Westerns of good quality on this amazing VistaVision format--Wild Is the Wind, The Lonely Man, and The Tin Star....The Tin Star is pretty well known, I suppose, but still I wonder if Paramount is going to have time to do anything more than a few of these VistaVision titles. Maybe Criterion could pick up some of the better VistaVision titles that Paramount doesn't have the time or the resources for?

There are some reviews at imdb.com and the VHS release. I agree that I'd love to see some of these "lost" Paramount films that never made it to DVD. Criterion might pick up a couple, but I'm more hoping Olive films will be scooping up a second batch of Paramount films, which may include one of these.

 

[MLamarre]

Originally Posted by benbess
This one might not be much good, but it seems like thanks to people here we've found at least three "lost" Westerns of good quality on this amazing VistaVision format--Wild Is the Wind, The Lonely Man, and The Tin Star....

Don't forget RUN FOR COVER, THE RAINMAKER, and THREE VIOLENT PEOPLE.

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by MLamarre

Don't forget RUN FOR COVER, THE RAINMAKER, and THREE VIOLENT PEOPLE.

That's right. I'm losing track already....Thanks MLamarre. I wonder if it would be possible to do some of these as double features? Any chance you'd say which you might pair together since you seem to know these films?

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by JoHud
There are some reviews at imdb.com and the VHS release. I agree that I'd love to see some of these "lost" Paramount films that never made it to DVD. Criterion might pick up a couple, but I'm more hoping Olive films will be scooping up a second batch of Paramount films, which may include one of these.

By any chance do you recall if those reviews tended to like that film? Before you mentioned it I hadn't heard of Olive Films, but I looked them up and they do seem to have a few interesting upcoming releases. Do they do restorations, like Criterion? What blu-rays, if any, do they have out now?

 

[benbess]

One thing I like about the cover for The Searchers done by WB is that they highlighted the name VistaVision. That was classy, I thought, esp. since VistaVision wasn't a Warner or MGM process. As fab as the new release of The Ten Commandments is, however, (and it's a-m-a-z-i-n-g) I don't like their cover that much, and I couldn't find VistaVision anywhere on it, front or back...Same with White Christmas. I think Paramount should have more pride in what this process and brand name--that they invented--means to collectors of movies on blu-ray. Like the movies themselves, imho it's a valuable property that they should try to build up again for the blu-ray market.

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by MattH.
Teacher's Pet and The Five Pennies are both very entertaining films. The former is in black and white (as is The Matchmaker which is the nonmusical version of Hello Dolly with a super cast including Shirley Booth, Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Perkins, and Robert Morse). Day and Gable spar amusingly in Teacher's Pet, but naturally there are other VistaVision releases which should take precedence over this innocuous comedy.

The Five Pennies is a musical biography of Red Nichols, a famous trumpeter. I have the DVD release of this film, and as I recall it looked very nice.

So it sounds like of these you'd vote for The Five Pennies? Or The Matchmaker?

 

[JoHud]

Originally Posted by benbess
By any chance do you recall if those reviews tended to like that film? Before you mentioned it I hadn't heard of Olive Films, but I looked them up and they do seem to have a few interesting upcoming releases. Do they do restorations, like Criterion? What blu-rays, if any, do they have out now?

The reviews were mostly positive for The Jayhawkers. They don't do restorations, although the masters look very good. They have only recently started blu-rays, releasing Crack in the World with future confirmations of Hannie Caulder and Sands of the Kalahari. Of the VistaVision titles listed in this thread, the only one released so far by Olive has been The Mountain. These won't be Criterion quality, but on par with most of the DVDs Paramount had been releasing up to now.

 

[GMpasqua]

[COLOR= #ff0000]"Li'l Abner" 1959, color VistaVision[/COLOR]

"Stupify!"





[COLOR= #ff0000]Donna Douglas: "We wants to broaden our horizons"[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #ff8c00]Mammy: "Your horizons are broad enough......especially yours!"[/COLOR]

Daisy Mae and the Musclemen





[COLOR= #800000]Mammy: Out in the world they got this thing called engagement[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #ffa500]Moonbeam McSwine: Engagement, what's that?[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #800000]Mammy: That's the time between when a girl say "sure do" and the preacher say "go to"[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #ffa500]Moonbeam McSwine: How long's this engagement last?[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #800000]Mammy: Sometimes a whole month[/COLOR]

[COLOR= #ffa500]Moonbeam McSwine: a WHOLE Month? what are they, insecure?[/COLOR]



[COLOR= #800000]http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/558105/width/1000/height/800[/COLOR]