Good Morning, World

Forever Hunk William Holden was born 108 years ago today and hey somehow I managed to dig up these two beefcake-y photos of him I've never seen before -- a dive into our archives will show you we've pretty well drained this one dry (phrasing! And we wish!) but when you've been dead for 45 years that's bound to happen. Well I guess until recently -- I could go make some A.I. photos of Bill making out with Gregory Peck right now if I was an asshole. Thankfully I'm just an asshole of other sorts, and not that worst sort. Miss you, Bill! Maybe I'll watch Sunset Boulevard tonight for the billionth time...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Network (1976)

Arthur: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard: Why me?

Arthur: Because you're on television, dummy.

60 million people watch you every night of the week,
Monday through Friday.

Howard: I have seen the face of God.

Arthur: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Sidney Lumet's Network has been released on 4K blu-ray today thanks to the fine folks at Criterion -- watch it today and despair at how timely it remains. Everybody remembers Howard Beale's speech about getting up and screaming futilely out your windows that you're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, but it's what's done with that -- how the media and government collude to commodify and dull our rage itself -- that really makes Network tick, and stick. It's wild how long we've been driving off this cliff for y'all!

Man Not There, Woman Under Influence

If I was forced at gun-point (or perhaps in this instance umbrella-point is more apt) to list the ten most beautiful movies ever made, Jacques Tati's 1967 masterpiece Playtime would handily be on said list -- I've watched this sucker projected on the wall of the Museum of Modern Art, for goodness's ake. And I don't mean inside one of their movie theaters -- I mean in the actual art part of the museum they had this several minutes of this film projected on a wall right beside paintings for a few years and every time I walked past it I would sit down on the bench provided and re-watch the footage for the gazillionth time. It's about as perfect as such things go and so the news that Criterion is dropping the film onto 4K disc this upcoming February is some happy news indeed. (And obviously the folks at Criterion agree with me on this film's stature since this FOURTH release they've given it, after DVD, blu-ray, and their must-own Tati box-set.)

Indeed I don't usually start these monthly Criterion release announcement posts with one of their now constant 4K upgrades, but Playtime on 4K is obviously a most special ocassion. The rest of February's hardly a slouch though -- take for instance Sidney Lumet's 1976 media master-class Network, which is entering the esteemed Collection for the first time, and also in 4K. That movie turns 50 next year and feels as timely as ever -- and of course I speak of how we all would still have sex with Old William Holden even if we were hot young things like Faye Dunaway was. Obviously! Why -- what did you think I was talking about? 

Next up on February 3rd there's the 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma, which I must admit I've never seen -- I've seen the remake with Christian Bale but never the original with Glenn Ford. Should I? Tell me your opinion as if you're talking to someone who doesn't have a lot of patience with Westerns in general. Because you are. Nor do I have a lot of patience for John Cassavetes' much-beloved 1974 drama A Woman Under the Influence, which is getting what I believe is its first standalone release after being part of the Cassavetes box-set previously. I tend to agree with Pauline Kael's infamous opinion here -- that Rowlands is just doing Way Too Much in this movie. I understand why actors love the performance, but as a viewer I'm just not into it. (That said I'm sure this is getting this standalone drop because of Rowlands' recent passing and that's nice for her fans.)

February ain't stopping there, though -- you want a box-set of Ernst Lubitsch's musicals, you say? Well you got it! Their reinstated "Eclipse Series" is unloading four of the champagne-synonymous filmmaker's movies starting with The Love Parade in 1929 right through One Hour With You in 1932. I haven't seen a single one of these, but every time I have seen The Love Parade's title anywhere I think of that being the title of Tobey Maguire's book in Wonder Boys. (Is that weird? I'm weird. God I love Wonder Boys. Put Wonder Boys in the Criterion Collection dammit!) After that there's the great Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most recent thriller Cloud, which also happens to be streaming on Criterion Channel right now -- it's about an online reseller becoming unhinged as he tries to score questionable deals, and yes I related to it an awful lot. Which brings us to the last but hardly least February drop -- the Coen Brothers' 2001 black-and-white Noir-riff The Man Who Wasn't There, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Scarlett Johannson among many others. Here's where I admit I don't think I've seen this since it came out? Which is strange indeed because I remember liking it. Huh. Well now's my chance! 

What out of February 2026's releases has you most excited?

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... staring down Paul Newman's barrel.

Did you know that Paul Newman originated the role of the lead escaped convict in The Desperate Hours on stage in 1955? Humphrey Bogart went on to play the role in the (very good) film from William Wyler later that same year; Newman only had one film under his belt by that point (the sword-n-sandal epic The Silver Chalice) so Wyler aged the role up and put a seasoned movie star in the part instead. Which wasn't at all bad since...

... it gave us that quite astonishing promotional photo. My god. Anyway Bogart's very good in the film, it might be my favorite performance of his (give or take a Casablanca), so I can't complain...

 ... and I mean it would have been a very different film with Prime Paul Newman as the bad guy taking everybody hostage. Wouldn't have been so bad with Paul! Lock me up with some of that and throw away all of the keys, basically.

In related news I also discovered today that Paul Newman's very first role on the stage was in the original production of William Inge's play Picnic in 1953. He didn't originate the William Holden leading man role of Hal, though - that part was originally played by Ralph Meeker. (Someone whose sexiness I have only just come to appreciate recently.) 

Newman played Meeker's college roommate at first - later on in the show's run Newman took over the role of Hal, but I can't find any pictures of that -- what a shame that is! That role is nothing but sex; just ask that lady glaring at Ralph here:

She gets it.
.

Good Morning, World

.

William Holden says boy, howdy.

.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1950

.

It's been a few weeks since our last dalliance with the little lady who lives inside of our phone and she's feeling neglected - my bad, baby. So let's see... gimme a number between one and one hundred... and the number is 50. Meaning today we'll give you a list of our favorite top five from The Movies of 1950. This is a year that saw some of the greatest movies of all-time come out and then... a lot of movies that weren't the greatest of all time come out. Oh but I'm sure y'all will let me on to what I'm missing in the comments - there are an awful lot I haven't seen. But for now I give you...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1950

Sunset Boulevard

(dir. Billy Wilder)

-- released on August 10th 1950 --

Stromboli

(dir. Roberto Rossellini)

-- released on February 15th 1950 --

Rashomon

(dir. Akira Kurosawa)

-- released on December 26th 1950 --
.

Orpheus

(dir. Jean Cocteau)

-- released on November 29th 1950 --
.

All About Eve

(dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

-- released on October 27th 1950 --

------------------------------------------

Runners-up: Cinderella (dir. Clyde Geronimi),
Harvey (dir. Henry Koster),

Stage Fright (dir. Hitchcock),
Born Yesterday (dir. George Cukor)

Never seen: Annie Get Your Gun (dir. Vincent J. Donehue), Cyrano de Bergerac (dir. Stanley Kramer), The Men (dir. Fred Zinneman), To Please a Lady (dir. Clarence Brown), The Asphalt Jungle (dir. John Huston), Caged! (dir. John Cromwell), Rio Grande (dir. John Ford), La Ronde (dir. Max Ophüls)

------------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1950?

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Born Yesterday (1950)

Paul: A world full of ignorant people
is too dangerous to live in.

The great William Holden was born 100 years ago today!
Check out the just-begun celebration over at The Film Experience.
.

Great Moments in Movie Shelves #142

.

I never noticed the beautiful shelves that line this apartment before! Anyway I always think about the "Supporting Actress Smackdown" at StinkyLulu's old site whenever I think about Beatrice Straight's Oscar-winning performance in Network - see the Smackdown itself right here (Straight loses to Piper Laurie in Carrie which I certainly can find no fault with) but also make sure you check out Lulu's longer-form piece on that specific performance, it's worth the read. 

I do think Straight is very fine in the brief few minutes of screen-time she has in the movie but I'm glad Lulu focuses in on an earlier scene in the movie where we first meet her character as she moves about her shared apartment with William Holden one morning happily, setting up the same space that will later turn sour in their famous confrontation scene, aka what won her the Oscar and what you see in these gifs here. Watch if you like:

.

.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1940

.

We're not dawdling in this here brand New Year - let's dive right in and continue our "Siri Says" series, in which we ask our telephone to give us a number between 1 and 100 and then choose a favorite list of films that correspond to whatever number she gives us. Today it was the number 40, and so we turn our eyes to The Movies of 1940. Glancing at the annual poll of Box Office Stars 1940 fell right square in the middle of Mickey Rooney's reign of cinematic terror, but no worries - no Mickey here! Well, there is one Mickey, but a different far better Mickey...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1940

Fantasia

(dir. James Algar etc.)

-- released on November 13th 1940 --

Rebecca

(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

-- released on April 12th 1940 --
.

My Favorite Wife

(dir. Garson Kanin)

-- released on May 17th 1940 --

His Girl Friday

(dir. Howard Hawks)

-- released on January 18th 1940 --

Pinocchio

(dir. Ben Sharpsteen etc)

-- released on February 23rd 1940 --

--------------------------------------

Runners-up: The Philadelphia Story (dir. Cukor), The Grapes of Wrath (dir. Ford), The Shop Around the Corner (dir. Lubitsch), Foreign Correspondent (dir. Hitchcock), Remember the Night (dir. Leisen), The Mark of Zorro (dir. Rouben Mamoulian)...

... They Drive by Night (dir. Raoul Walsh), The Thief of Bagdad (dir. Michael Powell), All This, and Heaven Too (dir. Anatole Litvak),  Black Friday (dir. Arthur Lubin), The Letter (dir. William Wyler), The Great Dictator (dir. Chaplin)

Never seen: Arizona (dir. Wesley Ruggles), Kitty Foyle (dir. Sam Wood), The Sea Hawk (dir. Michael Curtiz), The Bank Dick (dir. Cline), The Invisible Man Returns (dir. James Whale), Night Train to Munich (dir. Carol Reed), Our Town (dir. Sam Wood)

--------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1940?

.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1939

.

When I did one of my "Siri Says" posts for the year 1938 I made mention that the following year (meaning 1939) is notorious for being one of the greatest years in all of cinema history. It's a big damn year. Cut to today and color me surprised when Siri's actually handed me The Movies of 1939 to evaluate and in doing so has gone and made me realize that I have seen a shockingly small number of this year's classics! I mean sure, yes, I've seen the biggies, the ones everybody thinks of when you say "1939!" (AKA the ones that Victor Fleming and/or George Cukor both directed.) But the list is short, and there are many from this year I'm clueless about. Huh. So while I ruminate on my cinematic phoniness, you ruminate on my list.

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1939

The Women

(dir. George Cukor)

-- released on September 1st 1939 --

Gone With the Wind

(dir. Victor Fleming)

-- released on December 15th 1939 --

Dark Victory

(dir. Edmund Goulding)

-- released on April 22 1939 --

The Wizard of Oz

(dir. Victor Fleming)

-- released on August 25th 1939 --

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

(dir. William Dieterle)

-- released on December 29th 1939 --

----------------------------------------

Runners-up: Golden Boy (dir. Gene Feldman),  Ninotchka (dir. Ernst Lubitsch), Intermezzo: A Love Story (dir. Gregory Ratoff), Union Pacific (dir. Cecil B. DeMille), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (dir. Chuck Jones), Mr Smith Goes to Washington (dir. Frank Capra), Wuthering Heights (dir. William Wyler)

Never seen: Stagecoach (dir. John Ford), Goodbye Mr Chips (dir. Sam Wood), The Spy in Black (dir. Powell / Pressburger), The Rules of the Game (dir. Jean Renoir), The Rains Came (dir. Clarence Brown), Love Affair (dir. Leo McCarey), Jesse James (dir. Henry King), Gunga Din (dir. George Stevens), Destry Rides Again (dir. George Marshall), Beau Geste (dir. William A. Wellman), Young Mr. Lincoln (dir. John Ford), Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee)

----------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1939?

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Born Yesterday (1950)

Paul: Nobody's born smart, Billie. Do you know 

what the stupidest thing on Earth is? An infant! 

Billie Dawn: Whadaya got against babies all of a sudden? 

The great Judy Holliday was born on this day in 1921.

.

Good Morning, Bill

.

Apropos of nothing (or is it apropos of EVERYTHING) here are a couple of pictures of William Holden on the beach in some terrifically skimpy swim-trunks in the 1955 romance Love is a Many Splendored Thing. I had never seen this movie until TCM played it a couple of weeks ago - I only caught about half an hour of it but Bill's looking good... but then there's the whole "Jennifer Jones in yellow face" thing that kind of puts a kibosh on getting too involved with the film emotionally at this point in time. Still I was looking at a really wonderful picture of Bill yesterday (that I posted on the Tumblr) and I figured I should share these too, and here we are.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1954

.

Well we've finally worked our way out of the late 60s this week - when asked to choose a number between 1 and 100 today Siri has sent us time-machining back to the year and the Movies of 1954. Coincidentally two weeks back when we did the year 1968 I offered up what I called "my favorite movie ever" Rosemary's Baby - well that wasn't exactly true, because I actually have two favorite movies of ever (I could never choose and you cannot make me) and the other one was released right here in 1954, and it also begins with the letter R, hmm whatever could it be...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1954

Rear Window

(dir. Hitchcock)

-- released on August 4th, 1954 --

Sabrina

(dir. Billy Wilder)

-- released on October 15th, 1954 --

A Star is Born

(dir. George Cukor)

-- released on October 16th, 1954--

La Strada

(dir. Federico Fellini)

-- released on September 23rd, 1954 --

 

Magnificent Obsession

(dir. Douglas Sirk)

-- released on August 7th, 1954 --

------------------------------------

Runners-up: Dial M For Murder (dir. Hitchcock), On the Waterfront (dir. Kazan), Gojira (dir. Ishirô Honda), Johnny Guitar (dir. Nicholas Ray), Seven Samurai (dir. Kurosawa), Journey to Italy (dir. Rossellini), Them! (dir. Gordon Douglas)

Never seen: Senso (dir. Luchino Visconti)

Fear (dir. Rossellini)

------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1954?

.