Jimmy Fucking Stewart

Rear Window: Great Hitchcock or Greatest Hitchcock?

I've never gotten through Harvey, so I am slackjawed about this:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Steven Spielberg will soon be seeing imaginary rabbits.

The filmmaker will direct as his next film a contemporary adaptation of Mary Chase's play "Harvey," about a (DRUNK) man and his friendship with an invisible, six-foot tall rabbit.

20th Century Fox and DreamWorks will co produce the project. Novelist Jonathan Tropper ("The Book of Joe") has written the adaptation for the new version.

"Harvey" was first adapted for the screen in 1950 with James Stewart in the starring role as Elwood P. Dowd. He received an Oscar nomination, while Josephine Hull took the prize for her supporting role.

No casting for the remake is in place yet; filming is set to begin early next year. Spielberg was last in theaters with 2008's "Indiana Jones" sequel.

I bought a pristine copy of Anatomy of a Murder last week -- still underrated as an "exploration" of how Stewart manipulated his aw-shucks persona for selfish ends (i.e. overturning a murder conviction on specious grounds).

No casting for the remake is in place yet

Please got don't let it be Mike Myers or Jim Carrey (or even worse, Mike Myers WITH Jim Carrey as Harvey, made visible to the audience for added gurning hilarity!)

'the mortal storm' isn't that great except for margaret sullavan's death scene which is of course classic. he was always great with margaret sullavan.

'the mortal storm' isn't that great

As Trinere once sang, wrong!

yeah, mortal storm is pretty good iirc

is it really possible that Spielberg would have any Elwood P Dowd but Tom Hanks?

Yeah, when I read that it seemed pretty obvious to me the role is for Tom Hanks.

i dunno 'the mortal storm' ranks with anti-fascist things like '3 comrades' and is to be more applauded for its message than the finished product. but they both have margaret sullavan and i love margaret sullavan so they are both pretty good. i wonder what the rules were on the accents in these movies, some people have them, some don't, was it a case that if you couldn't quite fake it they just told you to skip it? frank morgan as doddering old "jewish" college professor is great.

Tom Hanks would be a fine choice, assuming the movie needs to be remade at all, which it does not.

Oh Jesus... a visible Harvey would be one of the worst butcherings of a movie I've even heard of.

eveR

I'm pretty sure Harvey didn't need to be made the first time. If you want funny drunks, WC Fields is the man, no rabbit crap.

You don't understand. Harvey has Jimmy Stewart.

we need a Margaret Sullavan poll!

xp And he's not funny in the same way at all. He's a little bit obviously insane. WC Fields is more like, you want to buy him another drink, instead of back slowly away.

Come to think of it, the real danger of a Harvey remake, even with Tom Hanks, and even with the very best intentions, is that it would make it all too sad.

Harvey pretty much IS a proto-Hanks movie, all "high concept," etc.

I don't know how high concept it is. He's a complete souse who has gone totally mad. Bu he does charm. Oh yes he does.

Oh. I see what you mean.

Worse thing about the remake will be the CGI rabbit.

NO NO NO if there's a rabbit it falls apart!

Jeff Wells' blog says Hanks rejected it; Will Smith next?

Re Anatomy: his trademark marblemouth pronunciation is used to maximum effect when he keeps on emphasizing a certain word not heard in movies up until then, the aural equivalent of holding up a piece of evidence with tweezers.

His reactions in The Shop Around the Corner as he watches Margaret Sullavan read his letter = classic.

You know, it's about time somebody started a Fuck You, Jimmy Stewart thread. That guy was just pure evil.

It's time I started a Suggest Ban Clemenza thread.

I'm kidding; hope you are too.

i'm pretty sure i have stated this elsewhere but love love love the man in philadelphia story and cannot stand him in anything else

If you've seen Harvey and still feel that way, my gob is smacked

did nobody mention that the guy was a friggin Brigadier General and kickass pilot who flew dozens of missions in WW2

I've always thought it's kinda interesting that Cary Grant, Stewart's co-star in Philadelphia Story, often played very sophisticated characters and Stewart often got the folksy roles, but in real life Stewart graduated from Princeton with an architecture degree, whereas Grant came from a working-class background.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQVAC-l4RCzOVRLcWQH4CVJE4uJ3Vz8kl4kiued0yEqcYjfvmOvog

Yeah, I know, but I just thought it was an interesting bit of persona/person discord, especially considering that Stewart the person was often conflated with his roles, like when Harry S. Truman said he would've wanted a son "just like Jimmy Stewart" after seeing It's a Wonderful Life.

Watched (again!) Anatomy of a Murder last night - with James Cagney (and for opposite reasons), Stewart is still for me the quintessential movie actor.

Cagney is not in AOAM.

I think he meant James Cagney and James Stewart are the two quintessential movie actors, not that they're both in it.

Oh ok.

we need a Margaret Sullavan poll!

― Anatomy of a Morbius (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

saw Bell Book and Candle for the first time last night, which is much more a Novak than Stewart film (tho he is very funny drinking Hermione Gongold's toxic brew that's sposed to lift the love spell KN has put on him). Elsa Lanchester and Ernie Kovacs are funniest, brightening the corners. And it is of course weird to see the two stars together looking as they did that year in Vertigo, only on the (studio-faked) roof of the Flatiron Building.

My dad adores BB&C and Novak in it.

"As a bachelor, Stewart dated some of the most beautiful and charming women in Hollywood, including Ginger Rogers and Olivia de Havilland. He also had a brief, red-hot love affair with Marlene Dietrich during the filming of Destry Rides Again (1939), and it shows; they seem like an odd couple only if you haven’t seen them in the movie. Fonda would claim that Stewart got all the pretty girls, but his friend always countered that Fonda 'had his share, and then some': Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, Lucille Ball."

https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/10/27/hollywoods-original-bffs-jimmy-stewart-and-henry-fonda-share-the-screen-at-last-in-film-forums-essential-retro/

Missing from this poll: Pot o' Gold Stewart called it his worst movie, but as far as B-grade wartime musicals go it's among my favorites.

I have an exceedingly irrational bias against Stewart. However, he will be the TCM November 2017 Star of the Month, so it is probably my best chance to catch up on certain titles I haven't seen.

Have seen and expect to revisit: The Shop Around the Corner, Rope
Have seen and see no need to revisit: The Philadelphia Story, Vertigo, After the Thin Man
Already planning to see: Anatomy of a Murder

Of the title I haven't seen, which ones would ILX recommend?

anything by Anthony Mann

Harvey is quite a thing.

i've avoided Harvey thus far out of "cutesy alcoholic" fears

his supposed aw-shucks persona kind of belied the fact that he was at his best playing unhinged and faintly dangerous men.

he's definitely more tolerable as the latter