TCM Classic Movie Alert 3/5/14

TCM ^ | 3/5/14 | vision

[Vision]

This is your Turner Classic Movie channel alert!

Tonight...one of the best films ever made(the description below doesn't do the film justice)...Dodsworth(1936), 8pm est

"A husband whose wife left him looks for new love in Europe."

Overview & Cast

[greene66]

I remember first noticing the connection between the music in old WB cartoons and some 78rpm Raymond Scott Quintet records I had. The cartoons used to utilize a riff from the Scott tune “Powerhouse” quite often, as I recall.

[NFHale]

Here’s a compilation with that theme running through it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3FLN0iQ9SQ

[NFHale]

RE Powerhouse:

THANK YOU! Because I NEVER knew what that tune was called!!!

The band Rush did an interpolation of it too in “La Via Strangiato” on the album “Hemispheres”...

[Charles Martel]

You ever just listen to the old Loony Tunes cartoons? They are mostly set to classical music. Introduced my kids to that kind of music that way.

Yep - my nieces all love "Rhapsody Rabbit". They were a bit surprised, though, by my "unedited" copy, where Bugs pulls out a revolver and shoots the coughing guy in the audience. Their response was spasms of laughter, followed by questions about why that scene had been cut. :-)

BTW, there's quite a bit of classical music used in Japanese anime, too.

[WXRGina]

That’s a very good picture! We enjoyed in the last year or so when we watched it streaming online.

[greene66]

The flip side to Scott’s “Powerhouse” on that 78rpm I had was “The Toy Trumpet,” which I also think might have showed up in some of the WB cartoons. Actually I still have the old record (as well as several others), but their material has long since been re-issued on a few CD compilations, which I got.

Fun, eccentric music!

[NFHale]

The Warner Brothers cartoonists had a zany sense of humor, and they made us laugh for decades.

We’ll not see their like again in our lifetime - but we CAN make sure successive generations get to see those gems.

[Vision]

The film beautifully, almost spiritually grips you from the start.

When you watch, notice how American this movie is. It's masculine and American. Look for the lines about industry and clean hospitals and clever people.

Also, the score. What a score.

This film brings tears to my eyes. Dodsworth built America and we need more of him. I'm so glad you all enjoy it.

[BykrBayb]

He’s gone ashore! He’s gone ASHORE!!!

:)

[Vision]

Yea.

A line I didn't hear before, when the wife is talking about how high life her Parisian friends are...

Dodsworth says (in reference to his life's work)...”Somebody’s got to let men be more than waiters”. Wow. What a movie.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Interesting that such an American movie is largely set in Europe. Allows you to see the contrast between the two continents.

I always love the scene with Fran, Kurt, and Kurt’s mother. Maria Ouspenskaya is really something—especially when she tells Fran that she will be an “old wife married to a young husband.” Ouch! But she did her son a great favor.

[BykrBayb]

Thank you. I half-heard that line and wondered what he said about waiters

[re_nortex]

Dodsworth built America and we need more of him.

And near the opening when he's walking through the workers after selling his automotive business, you can tell that were not union men. The respect that both employer and employee had in those days before the Big Labor thugs became entrenched (thanks to FDR and his evil handmaiden Frances Perkins) is evident. It was scourge of unionism that divided owner/management from the workers.

And on a lighter note, Vision, I watched this classic film on an equally classic, old television I still have. The brand of that set? Well, take a look:

[Vision]

Great scene. The Baroness/Maria Ouspenskaya was one serious actress.

She did Fran a favor too. In Europe older men chased younger women. The Baron would probably stray at some point.

[Vision]

Well said. That opening scene is so powerful.