Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Movie Clip Wednesday - Favorite Movie from the 1940s


That Movie Clip Wednesday haiku extraordinaire, Boxer is far too busy composing winning haiku rants to return as hostess. So it's the Milk River Madman that continues to take up the mantle that is MCW, the Meme where everyone picks a clip from their favorite movies based on a weekly theme and tries to keep the clip or clips to around 3 minutes long. This week's theme is FAVORITE MOVIE FROM THE 1940s. After having favorite movies from the 1950s, I can just cut and paste and fill in the blanks.

There were a lot of good movies made in the 50s 40s like The Bridge on the River Kwai, Rebel Without a Cause and 12 Angry Men Citizen Kane, Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life and classic kid's movies like Pinocchio, Dumbo and National Velvet, just to name a few. Alright, enough of the strike out crap.

The last couple of weeks we've been talking (well some of us have been talking) about that master of horror, Alfred Hitchcock. But he did some petty descent non-horror type movies. One I like (from 1944, coincidentally) is Lifeboat. It starred wild party-girl Tallulah Bankhead who gave an outstanding performance (it was nominated for 3 Oscars) as the stuck-up journalist. It's the story about a ship and a German U-boat involved in a battle and both are sunk. The survivors from the ship gather in one of the boats and then they pull a man out of the water who turns out to be from the U-boat. It also features a very young Hume Cronyn. I say young because I only remember him in his later years being married to Jessica Tandy.

An interesting tidbit about Tallulah Bankhead was that she was infamous for not wearing underwear. According to Hume Cronyn, during the filming of Lifeboat the crew complained about her flashing them when she had to climb a ladder to go into the mock-up of a lifeboat. When their objections reached Alfred Hitchcock, he reportedly quipped that he didn't know if it was a matter for wardrobe or hairdressing. Bwahahaha - oh that Hitchcock.



This once again is Karl's category to lose. Bwahahaha Go on over to the Madman's and see what other Black and White flicks he can drum up.

13 comments:

Jenny said...

We both picked Hitchcock! But I went for the girlie movie and you went (as usual) more "Karl". Hume Cronyn was a great actor and this is a fabulous movie to have picked. Well done. It's complelety erases COCOON. The guy was a good actor. Happy MCW!

pam said...

Oh this is good stuff indeed. Happy MCW!

Joanna Cake said...

As soon as you said Hume Cronyn, I thought Cocoon and it's so great to see him in his prime!

moi said...

Great choice! Tallulah Bankhead was a fascinating gal, albeit out of her freakin' mind—a real wild child. In those days, Hollyweird was one of the few places of refuge for iconoclastic women and she made the most of it. Today, there's also rock and roll, and I have a feeling that had Bankhead been born in the 1960s, she'd have given Courtney Love a good run for her money.

Milk River Madman said...

Interesting clip and very entertaining. I love the guy who wont trust the German. He'll kill everyone in the boat to prove his point. Aaaaaah spite. How many lives have your ruined? Happy MCW

Anonymous said...

I think they showed this for a college class I slept through. Maybe I should see it sober!

P.S. I bet $2 on the Phillies to win the World Series in 2011. Go Phillies!

Karl said...

Good afternoon Buzz Kill,

Man, this was a good movie. The producer was the same one that did Boxers movie. And the cameo in this one was really clever. He appeared in a newspaper ad.

Hitchcock's quip about Ms. Bankheads manner of dress, proves what are rare talent he really was.

Happy clip day. You may want a battened down the hatches were getting thunder and lightning here and it's coming your way.

Buzz Kill said...

Boxer
Is that what picking a guy movie will be known as - going Karl? And it's weird to see Hume Cronyn as a young man.

Pam
If you liked Titanic, you will probably like this.

Joanna
I guess because of our age, certain actors are always old to us. Wilford Brimley and even Sean Connery are like that for me.

Moi
She had that Marlene Dietrich look with a Lindsay Lohan lifestyle. Now that I know this about her, I'm going back to look at this movie again. It will be a whole new perspective.

Troll
Money in the bank pal, money in the bank.

Phillies in haiku (Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports)

Inhaling cheesesteaks
And watching Doc, Cliff, Cole, Roy
Is heaven on earth

Buzz Kill said...

Karl
I had another clip that showed the newspaper add with Hitchcock's cameo but I didn't like it. I think the hairdresser comment proves that he was a lecher, but a brilliant one. Bwahahaha

We're suppose to end up with 7" - 10" of snow stating about now.

Milk River Madman said...

Buzz,
Dress warm for that snow removal. Dont want you getting frostbite. It was 38 here today. I love global warming.

chickory said...

i dont what can be expected if you have the sad misfortune of being named tallulah. ive gone insane just saying it. Its a good movie. stressful.

happy MCW buzz!!

chickory said...

i dont know what ....


i cant think sorry

Buzz Kill said...

Madman
Well we got about 10" but it was in the mid 30s, so it was very wet and very heavy. Took me 3 1/2 hours to shovel and snow blow. The blower really struggled with this type of snow and I'm very sore from pushing it.

Ccchcky
Well, it's certainly an attention getter. So is Bankhead.