John Ford - S/D

I tried to watch How the West Was Won on TCM last night just to get to the Ford sequence but had to bail after about 15 minutes.

oh, you

On Twitter a couple days ago I saw a quote by some international arthouse auteur that The Long Gray Line is a "great experimental film," but now I can't find it.

I just don't think it works on a flat screen, a four-square western epic whose every frame looks like Seconds.

I tried to watch How the West Was Won on TCM last night just to get to the Ford sequence but had to bail after about 15 minutes.

― coronoshebettadontvirus (Eric H.),

Congrats! You beat me!

oh, you

On Twitter a couple days ago I saw a quote by some international arthouse auteur that The Long Gray Line is a "great experimental film," but now I can't find it.

thx

Been digging into my Ford At Fox box... recommend both the silent Four Sons and 1933's Pilgrimage as very different motherhood tales centered on World War I.

haven't seen "how the west was won" yet, but dave kehr raves about ford's sequence:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/movies/homevideo/09dvds.html

It's the best segment in the film, for sure.

The lead actress in Pilgrimage, Henrietta Crosman, gives a very strong and detailed performance as a Bad Mother who gets her son drafted and killed rather than see him marry. The film's about her redemption, of course, but to ultimately touching effect.

how's The Horse Soldiers? got the blu ray for $6 at a pharmacy

Watched his What Price Glory recently, a weaker one with a handful of really beautiful moments (the girl singing to the soldier). the opening is particularly striking and nightmarish, a garish set of the aftermath of a horrible battle with a haunted, minor key military crew singing in the deep distance. again, it doesn't really come together as a movie, but even in these whiffs there is often a bit of the sublime.

yay/nay on The Horse Soldiers (1959) ?

uploaded less than 2 months ago, I think recorded this year? PB looking OK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weHUnrrmpnM

Bird: THE HORSE SOLDIERS is wonderful. I've seen it about 4 times on TV. Probably one of my favourite Westerns and one of the Ford films I most admire. Curiously serious about war, and curiously packed with distinct scenes and set-pieces.

Yes it is! I didn't know it came right before Sergeant Rutledge. You can see it coming, sort of.

THE LAST HURRAH: yay / nay?

ah, yay!

two months pass...
ok, nobody reads my Spencer Tracy thread, but The Last Hurrah is worth it for the lead and its conviction as an old Irish machine-pol wake, in spite of Jeffrey Hunter and any scenes featuring actors born after 1905.

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 24, 2014 2:50 PM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

from TCM.com:

Pat O'Brien recalled that on the set... Ford "would never talk the part you were playing, he'd just tell you what he wanted. 'I hope you can get it,' he'd say, chewing on that handkerchief he always had. When you failed, he'd say, 'That wasn't what I wanted. Try to get what I wanted. We're going to take another whack at it and it better be good.' And after you finally got it he'd come over and put his arms around you. 'Why the hell didn't you get it in the first place?' he'd say. Ford was the genius of them all. He was an artist drawing a portrait in oil."

The only potentially disruptive incident that occurred during the filming was when someone showed up with a case of whiskey in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Ford, who was a heavy drinker like most of the Irish cast and crew members, exploded in anger, "Jesus Christ, what do you want to do, shut down the picture?" and the booze was carted off.

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 24, 2014 3:12 PM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I find it REALLY weird that he only made ONE movie about/set during the Civil War (the horse soldiers)

A tremendous film!

plus his segment in How the West Was Won

TOBACCO ROAD! such a great B-side to Grapes. Amusing Gene Tierney performance as a very dirty, near feral young woman with only one line at the very end--"Yes, ma'am!"

Reader in the "Hey Bill" section of Bill James' website:

After the recent discussion here on "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," I wrote a letter to Vera Miles, who played Hallie, asking her about the points raised about her feelings for Tom Doniphon. She wrote back: "Never occurred to me to wonder if Hallie was going to hitch up with Tom in the absence of Ransom. In retrospect, I believe Tom (Duke) was the man of choice. (He didn’t care if she could read or not.)"

So if you have any questions on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, you can write Vera Miles directly. Actual letter, please--no e-mail.

Holy shit

Started Scott Nyman's massive PRINT THE LEGEND bio recently, trying to pace myself because it's so good (his SPEED OF SOUND is one of the best film books I've ever read).

I've been leafing thru the Ford bio for months now tho. I didn't know about April Morning, or the extent of his alcoholism, or the bucket he started having with him on set in his last years...

Thank you, Bill.

was coming here to post that

Young Mr. Lincoln - 7/10
Clouds of Sils Maria - 9/10
Leningrad Cowboys Go America - 10/10
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses - 10/10

i'm not sure you get John Ford, flapp

― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Sunday, June 10, 2018 12:53 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

He was right. I'm glad I listened.

<3

Love ya 4ever, Morbs aka Pappy <3

Just watched Riley the Cop (1928). A slight farce heavily dependent on Irish-American stereotypes, but the slight farce of a master. RIP Morbz.

the best moment in Mister Roberts is the dolly in on Jack Lemmon as he's reading the letter that says that Fonda is dead--going in and out of focus--was directed by Mervyn Le Roy (a retake, requested by Lemmon. Ford upbraided him some months later: "Thought you could do it better, EHHHH??")

Only one of two movies he made in CinemaScope / 2:35:1. It doesn't look like a Ford film, unlike The Long Gray Line, although so much of it is stuck in that fucking ship, there isn't a lot to do, particularly with such a wide frame. Despite his dislike of the format, The Long Gray Line is a visually interesting and dynamic movie.

For a while, this was on MOVIES! everytime I had lunch. Still haven't seen all of it, but the liberty sequence is amazing, and above that, the stand off between Cagney and Fonda is two legends being legendary at each other in the best way.

A slight farce heavily dependent on Irish-American stereotype

One thing about Ford is that his embrace of all sorts of offensive ethnic caricatures for comic relief very much included his own ethnic background, which is weird considering how big of an issue it was for him.

my darling clementine great as ever but i can't stop scolding all the characters for standing too close to doc

ha! They'll be alright...

Got a nice poster of that in the mail the other day

Was shocked to realize, while reading Scott Eyman's Ford bio, that Walter Brennan only ever worked with Ford once, on My Darling Clementine. They did not get along...

Because Brennan keep asking Ford "you ever been bit by a dead bee?"

it’s a career performance too! his leaning thoughtfully over the reins in the first scene, framed so it’s just his head and the curve of a whip. his holding Walter Brennan Voice in quiet reserve until it’s time to say “marshal? in tombstone?!”

Lol, Aimless.

Walter Brennan plays the deputy BUGS in Fritz Lang's first US film, FURY (1936).

He's not a wicked character but his actions, arresting Spencer Tracy's protagonist, do lead to disaster.

got hold of that eyman bio on flappy's authority and lol @ this telegram from will rogers:

PUT THE NAME DR BULL ON OUR NEXT PICTURE. SOME HALFWIT SUGGESTED LIFE'S WORTH LIVING. NOW WE FIND THAT THEY HAVE TRIED TO HANG THAT TITLE ON EVERY FOX PICTURE SINCE OVER THE HILL. SO THEY FINALLY SAID GIVE IT TO ROGERS. LIFE'S WORTH LIVING SOUNDS LIKE A GRADUATION ESSAY. AS A MATTER OF FACT IF YOU DON'T MAKE SOME BETTER PICTURES LIFE WON'T BE WORTH LIVING

watched doctor bull the other day actually; ~resonance~ for sure

framed so it’s just his head and the curve of a whip

(subtle elegance of this moment in clementine compares v well to the late-career brechtian spectacle of lee marvin ripping jimmy stewart's law book literally in two and then dramatically hoisting a knout into its vacated position in the frame, not that both these modes don't have their pleasures)

So just read that Cheyenne Autumn was supposed to be a tribute to Native Americans and their abuse by the US govt and presumably also in Ford's earlier films. I was looking the film up since i heard teh book its partially based on and lifts its name from is actually an early book to be told from the indian perspective. I had thought on first seeing it come up in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's AN Indigienous People's History of the United States that it might be about to get criticised for being Eurocentirc. But looks like it is sympathetic . Not sure how well it stands up now but may give it a read.
Also hearing taht teh Navajos that replace the Cheyenne in the film were using their own native language and being very crude in what they were saying since it wouldn't be understood. There's apparently a treaty signing scene where the Indians are talking about the colonel having a very small penis throughout. & being able to get away with things like that in the film caused Native American scholars to talk further about misrepresentation in film, Ideas of not actually being remotely understood, probably teh extent to which they were played by European and Latin (or whatever the contemporary term would have been) actors portraying them to the exclusion of actual Indians. I think also that one tribe being used as another is extremely questionable.

Haven't seen the film i years. Did think it wasa bit questionable in who stood in for who in terms of ethnicity and think that had turned up in films or documehtaries on teh subject I'd seen. Possibly better to see it as a big budget came laden film of teh period possibly if it stands up at all.

The Quiet Man had been on my "haven't seen" list for so long that Morbs once gave me shit about it person. I had the same valid knee-jerk reasons the other Destroyers on this thread do: sentimentality, etc. that I'd just be echo chambering. A long ambling slog that felt way longer than two hours and mostly an adult Disney movie of stereotypes. Nevertheless, the flashback to Thornton in the ring and the aftermath might be one of the best scenes in American cinema. I've never seen Wayne become so haunted - he barely has any words and just acts with his face. Goddamn.

Anyway, I checked it off. My fave Ford is still Mister Roberts which IIRC Morbs said was a typical choice for someone like me.

Just watched Mister Roberts for the first time and enjoyed it. The Fonda/Powell/Lemmon axis was a thing of comedic beauty.

i love that one

IT IS I ENSIGN PULVER AND I JUST THREW YOUR STINKIN PALM TREE OVERBOARD

now whats all this crud about no movie tonight

The late, great David Bordwell writes some wonderful analysis on the physical acting during the scene where they concoct the booze (scroll down):

https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2012/01/18/hand-jive/

That was one of my grandpa’s favorite movies, very very fond memories. Jack Lemmon just on fire.

My Dad was a big fan of Mister Roberts and the sequel Ensign Pulver.

The sequel had Robert Walker Jr in Lemmon's role as Pulver and had a good cast with Berl Ives, Walter Matthau and early appearances by Larry Hagman and Jack Nicholson.