MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Psycho and October

Psycho and October

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
59 replies | jump to latest

With only a few days left to October 31 and Halloween, I write to "adjunct" my recent post about the movie "Halloween" and its offspring to muse about October in general and Psycho as part of that month.

In today's media saturated world, a number of cable TV channels devote October to horror movies. The reason is obvious -- Halloween is the anchor holiday of the month, and coming as it does at the end of the month -- these channels can run horror movies all month long, at least once a night, maybe in marathons.

Back in the 90s' I think, American Movie Classics ran a weekend marathon called "MonsterVision" which was backed with a lot of the 50s B's of my 60's childhood -- from the "greats" like House on Haunted Hill to the lesser-knowns like "The Cyclops" and "Attack of the Crab Monsters" and such. Eventually, these nostalgic old horror movies on MonsterVision gave way to the more gory and less nostalgic 80's/90's horror(like the Hellraiser series) and I, for one, dropped out of watching the newer stuff. (Interesting to me: I KNOW the Hellraiser and Pinhead series -- I've just never watched a one of them. Not my bag.)

TCM tends to run Universal monster movies in October, or Hammer Dracula stuff. (And what OF Hammer Horror? Its own world, yes? Technicolor, blood and Huge Cleavage.)

But October is also -- sometimes -- the month for Psycho. I recall Turner Classic Movies running it a few times in October, in a couple of years. I'm pretty sure that the Cinemark Classics Series ran Psycho at local cineplexes in October. I know that I saw Psycho advertised as playing at a local college campus on Halloween Day some years ago, and I took the time to go see it ON Halloween Day there. And I'm pretty sure that Psycho actually played on Halloween Day on cable a time or two. As I recall, Psycho II premiered on CBS in the 80's in October -- head to head with a World Series game. I was at a Halloween party where they switched to Psycho II on the TV right when the series game ended.

In short, if Psycho is your "taste" for horror(and it certainly is mine), then October may well be the month you're most likely to find it broadcast, or screened at a theater. And it may be the month you're most likely to watch it yourself as a fan. I have in the past, but with only a few days left, I might not this month. We will see.

As I noted elsewhere, last year I made a point of showing Psycho to a group of teenagers gathering for a party elsewhere. It was like a "pre party" with food and Psycho. Well, I think I showed it from Marion's arrival at the Bates Motel on. They had heard of the film, they were aware of the sequels, but they had an interest in seeing the original, and I complied. There seemed to be genuine regard for it("that was REALLY good! Who was that Anthony Perkins guy? He was good!") and I felt like I'd done my civic duty.

Of course, October is also famous for earlier darkness, crisper weather, a general step-away from summer -- and Psycho seems to fit that, too. Even though it was, famously, a blockbuster all SUMMER long in 1960, and even though the story is, famously , set in December at Xmastime, with but one Xmas reference in the whole movie(the decorations on the Phoenix street.)

Still, I can't think of a more fitting month to honor Psycho than October, the officially designated month of horror, at least in this country.

As we all know, all it will take is November 1 to arrive for the Christmas season to kick in. Two full months of music and decorations and Xmas specials(Only Charlie Brown and the '66 Grinch do it for me) and Xmas movies(Surprise! National Lampoon Xmas Vacation is now a classic) to kick in. It will be daunting. (Poor ol' Thanksgiving just sort of gets sandwiched in there nowadays as the "undercard to Christmas.")

But the powers that be leave October sacrosanct for "the dark side." And I'll bet you that sometime, somewhere, in this October of 2018, Psycho was shown. Its that haunted house (of sorts) that ties the film most into Halloween. And the swamp. And Mother's face in the fruit cellar.

Happy Halloween!

PS. In my microfiche newspaper research on Psycho, I went to check to see if there were any Halloween Night screenings of the movie in 1960 itself -- I checked NYC and LA papers. The answer: no. Though it was still running in a few theaters in October. What I DID find...in summer 1960, were some advertisements for Psycho that said "Have a Psycho Party! Bring your friends in a group and scream together!" FELT like Halloween.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

I was downtown the other day and my local theater has Beetlejuice and Army of Darkness on two separate nights. Meh. Not a horror-comedy fan when I want horror. I'm kicking off my Halloween fest with Halloween III - Season of the Witch now at 2 am. No Michael Myers, but has a scientist (Dan O'Herilhy) as psycho killer who creates a brand of satanic Halloween masks which kill children who wear them. Probably will catch the new John Carpenter Halloween tonight. Mwahahaha.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"Tis the season."

I did a little checking on the Internet, and Psycho IS playing at a few theaters in the US on Halloween night, 2018. Art houses, it looks like.

Psycho abides.

And I went ahead last night and gave it my annual Halloween week watch. I really try to limit "all the way through" showings to once a year, maybe two (always October and then...one more, usually summer.) It sure holds up.

I suppose since I tend to see "one new thing" every time I see Psycho, I will note that this time I noticed this:

After Norman has put Marion and the money and the other stuff in the trunk(including the icky old mop bucket!) We get two shots to get Norman driving the car around the back to the swamp(a swamp that audiences at this point have no idea exists -- it will be a surprise.) One shot with the camera in front of the car as Norman starts it and drives it (and interesting: all that footage of Marion driving this particular car -- and now it is NORMAN behind the wheel; and somehow it seems weird that Norman CAN drive). One shot of the side of the building as the car circles round the OTHER SIDE of the motel(the second wing of the "L") and the car crosses close in front of the camera, with the camera following the car as it disappears around the corner of the motel in this area of the motel we otherwise never spend much time at in the film(we're usually over in or in front of the office.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And then -- and this is nifty -- SUDDENLY we are looking at a close-up of the famous "NFB" license plate, and its a little disorienting. Where are we? And just as suddenly, the camera pulls back to show that the car is at the edge of the swamp. Norman stops the car, gets out alongside it, and pushes it forward -- it glides forward with great smoothness , sudden DIVES DOWN at an angle into the swamp, and then flattens out to "float" a little before starting its famous sinking action -- with the comedy/suspense of it stopping for awhile(Norman's expression and head movements are priceless, and Hitchcock deadpan) and then sinking in a weird sucking/gurgling finale.

The "new" part to me is this: how Hitchcock uses a very modern "cut" to take us from the car driving around the side of the motel to the car SUDDENLY being AT the swamp. Its like he removed any footage(or didn't shoot it) of the car actually being driven towards the swamp, and stopping there. Rather, suddenly, we're just THERE. I assume Hitch did it this way because the actual swamp(Falls Lake on the Universal backlot) was some distance from the Bates Motel set. (The OUTDOOR set; an indoor Bates Motel was built on a soundstage, too.) Anyway, its a weird "jump cut" for a 1960 film, but boy does it work.

I think I noticed this shot before on another showing, but it is what stuck out watching the film last night. There is such a precision to how every shot in Psycho follows the last. Van Sant may have tried to remake the film "shot by shot" -- but Hitchocck made it to FLOW "shot by shot."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I was downtown the other day and my local theater has Beetlejuice and Army of Darkness on two separate nights. Meh. Not a horror-comedy fan when I want horror.

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Interesting. Those are two fun pictures, though. Beetlejuice is lighter and established Tim Burton(after PeeWee's Big Adventure) as having some kind of vision. Army of Darkness is its own cult, isn't it? Movies before it, TV series after it?

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I'm kicking off my Halloween fest with Halloween III - Season of the Witch now at 2 am. No Michael Myers, but has a scientist (Dan O'Herilhy) as psycho killer who creates a brand of satanic Halloween masks which kill children who wear them.

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I have never seen Halloween III, but I was always interested in how totally it veered away from the first two pictures. I think the idea was to create a franchise in which the word "Halloween" could be applied to any number of DIFFERENT thriller stories. Didn't pan out.

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Probably will catch the new John Carpenter Halloween tonight. Mwahahaha

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I don't have much time left to catch it BEFORE Halloween is over. I will try. And here I gave two hours to Psycho one more time. Well, I didn't have to leave home...

Please let us know what you think of the new film.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

I think you'll either like Halloween III: Season of the Witch or hate it. It's a bi-polar film for the audience from the reviews. Maybe it's better now because it's more believable today than during 1982. I thought it started out in No Cal like "The Thing" which came out in the summer the same year. Very suspenseful opening. I saw The Thing in a theater, but didn't go see this movie as it got panned. As for a Psycho reference by me, there is a motel where the couple stays and a shower scene. I'll leave it that because there's more. Maybe what happens at the end could be an off-the-wall Psycho reference.

I like it. Gave it a 7/10. A lot of people probably didn't like it because they didn't get the dialogue. It explains how a witch is involved.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I thought it started out in No Cal like "The Thing" which came out in the summer the same year.

The Thing now seems clearly to be Carpenter's masterpiece - a near perfect horror-thriller, exactly the movie Clouzot or Hawks would have made if they'd been born 20-30 years later. At the time, however, it not only got swamped by ET commercially, cool people at the time much preferred Blade Runner, Fitzcarraldo, Fanny and Alexander, One Night at Varennes, and the like. The *exact* knock on The Thing that I remember stopping me and my friends from seeing The Thing was the idea that it was yet another lousy retread of Alien ('Alien on ice') and a gore-fest.

Anyhow, with a few decades perspective what's striking about 1982 is the number of very well-executed Studio films: all of ET, Poltergeist, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Tootsie, Diner, Road Warrior (in the US),48 hrs, Blade Runner, Missing, Wrath of Khan and The Thing are very good to superb entertainments and each has had a long after-life on TV/VHS/DVD etc. and had time to soak into the culture, to find its audience in those cases where it missed on release. The 1980s weren't Hollywood's finest hour, but in 1982 studios made ~10 cultural touchstones including 3 comedies and one racially raw action-comedy. We'd kill for that these days.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

The gore and blood in Carpenter's The Thing was a bit creepy in the beginning with the dog cage, but after a while you realize it's part of the shapeshifter so to be expected. The practical effects were over-the-top in this regard and probably why it has become a horror classic. The Alien was suppose to be different from Star Wars and it hit the nail on the head. The opening scenes (and music) of the Nostradamo was like 2001 and top notch. Actually, the gore wasn't that bad except for the breakfast scene. The egg scene was creepy and atmospheric.

Too much blood and gore in the 80s were from the cheap films that Psycho and Hitchcock introduced as being the first slasher flick such as Maniac and My Bloody Valentine (only two I've seen on video). They were typical drive-in or cheap double-bill fodder. Grindhouse movies. I agree you can skip those.

The 60s and 70s had more classic horro like Psycho, The Exorcist, The Omen, Suspiria, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House on the Left. The 80s also had some good ones such as Alien (already mentioned), The Shining, Poltergeist, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Pet Sematary. It's gotten worse over the years. The one that left me numb for blood and gore was Natural Born Killers. I would not recommend that one besides the cheap knock-offs and exploitation movies.

ETA: The new Halloween wasn't that bad. It may not be for those who are looking for the bloodiest and goriest horror flicks. It is Halloween from 1978 getting older.

I changed my mind. It's okay to skip the new one. Not much different from the 1978 one unless it's for Halloween and nostalgia. The Halloween series is too convoluted. There should be a better boogeyman or monster for Halloween.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Thing now seems clearly to be Carpenter's masterpiece - a near perfect horror-thriller,

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Agreed. He had to make Halloween to get access to a bigger Hollywood budget, but here was a remake that went in entirely new directions while maintaining terror of the original film -- and bringing in the terrors of the original novel, which could not be filmed in 1951.

The idea of all these men(and its cool and understandable that they would be ONLY men), trapped in an Antarctic(or was it Arctic?) station with this creature was spectacular. Its not only in space you can hear no one scream.

In fact, though I still find the Psycho motel/house combo to be the greatest setting for horror in history, let's add a few more:

The isolated hotel in The Shining.
The isolated Antarctic station in The Thing.
The empty and isolated summer camp buildings in Friday the 13th(how grotty and rotted and "woodsy" this setting was; a summer camp is ALWAYS a bit creepy.)
A spaceship with nowhere to run in Alien(as borrowed from It! The Terror Beyond Space.)

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

Isolation is a big deal with Edward Hopper. He painted the house which inspired the Psycho house as you know.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Isolation is a big deal with Edward Hopper. He painted the house which inspired the Psycho house as you know.

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Yep. And that famous painting of diner customers late at night...that someone photoshopped to put James Dean and Marilyn Monroe et al in there.

Film critic David Thomson published in one of his books a Hopper painting of a forties female movie usher(in uniform and cap) lounging against a wall, flashlight in hand, while a barely seen movie screens in the theater beyond her. Another "capture" of isolation.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

I think all of his paintings are about isolation and loneliness. Some like the Psycho house (the railroad tracks (?)) don't have people in it, but reflect isolation.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

exactly the movie Clouzot or Hawks would have made if they'd been born 20-30 years later.

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Hawks I can see, given that he "shadow directed" the 1951 original and it had his "men in groups" ethos(plus one requisite woman in the Jean Arthur, Angie Dickenson tradition); Clouzot, I suppose in his macho "Wages of Fear" mode. (Interesting, Hitchcock couldn't buy that book though he tried, could he have done macho in the fifties? And with what Hollywood cast? How about James Stewart AND Cary Grant leading the team? Or Bill Holden -- who Hitchcock always wanted but couldn't get? Hitchcock and Robert Mitchum? I expect Mitchum would have said yes, he said yes to everything.)

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At the time, however, it not only got swamped by ET commercially, cool people at the time much preferred Blade Runner, Fitzcarraldo, Fanny and Alexander, One Night at Varennes, and the like.

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Hah, swanstep. That's the upscale stuff. Mainstream Man here remembers 1982 as the year of ET, The Thing, The Road Warrior, Blade Runner(too arty and bleak for my taste) Star Trek II(action and pathos after a boring first one), and, later on indeed 48 HRS.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The *exact* knock on The Thing that I remember stopping me and my friends from seeing The Thing was the idea that it was yet another lousy retread of Alien ('Alien on ice') and a gore-fest.

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"I confess": I liked The Thing better than Alien right from the first viewing. I always felt that Alien took too long to get started and rather botched the kills after the first stomach buster(and less Tom Skeritt...great.) And then it took too long to finish. The Thing , on the other hand, got going fast, stayed tense all the way through, and retained a certain Hawksian Men in Groups thing I liked. Also: Kurt Russell(one forgets just how many cult classics this guy was in!

I saw this with a group of guys(fitting), and one guy had the best review of The Thing I've ever heard: "That movie gave me a headache!" He meant the claustrophobic tension.

I love the scene where the men are tied to the couch and one of them turns out to be The Thing in a certain gruesome form.

I love the scene where the one guy left on the couch talks real quietly and then yells about wanting not to spend the whole winter on this f'ing couch! (Fade to black makes the scene funnier.)

I love the scene where infected Wilford Brimley(with no moustache, which makes him look creepy), kills a man by sticking his fingers into the man's cheeks and evidently fingering the man to death from the sides of his cheekbones -- then dragging the dead man by a ton of skin stretched from his face. Gruesome. Creative!

I love Kurt Russell's final retort to the creature: "F you, too!"

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Anyhow, with a few decades perspective what's striking about 1982 is the number of very well-executed Studio films: all of ET, Poltergeist, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Tootsie, Diner, Road Warrior (in the US),48 hrs, Blade Runner, Missing, Wrath of Khan and The Thing are very good to superb entertainments and each has had a long after-life on TV/VHS/DVD etc. and had time to soak into the culture, to find its audience in those cases where it missed on release.

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A number of them DID become classics "after the fact," didn't they. Well, 1982 was around the time that VHS tapes got cheaper to rent, and more a part of people's lives. And I sure do love most of those titles you list above.

And yet...I still have some sort of trouble with the 80's in general. It felt like the time that the corporations took over, and , worse yet, when TV executives took over: Lethal Weapon I, II, III, IV. Psycho I, II, III, IV. The Thing was a remake. The Fly was a remake. Some critics complained about the "infantilism" of the entire Lucas/Spielberg output (before Spielberg tried to go straight with The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun.)

And this: The Untouchables is my favorite movie of the 80's; LA Confidential is my favorite movie of the 90's and...while they are pretty much the same movie(cops group together to fight the mob), the 80's one is sheeny shiny and "pop"; the 90s one has substance on its mind.

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The 1980s weren't Hollywood's finest hour,

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I guess it SEEMS that way, but I once attacked the 80's and you produced a nice list of art/indie film. I suppose my beef is with the "TV-based product" and the emphasis on PG films.

I do feel that the 80's went out strong, summer-wise: The Untouchables, Die Hard, Batman. All great entertainments , generally anchored by stars (Connery, DeNiro, Nicholson...Willis? Rickman?

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but in 1982 studios made ~10 cultural touchstones including 3 comedies and one racially raw action-comedy. We'd kill for that these days.

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Agreed. ET was my favorite of 1982 -- the film seemed like Vertigo in its sacrifice of plot for pure emotion, I used to cry just listening to the soundtrack album -- but 48 HRS was a fun night out. Murphy exploding as a star, My Man Nick Nolte(a favorite) finally getting a hit again.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I think you'll either like Halloween III: Season of the Witch or hate it. It's a bi-polar film

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An interesting concept!

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. Maybe it's better now because it's more believable today than during 1982. I thought it started out in No Cal like "The Thing" which came out in the summer the same year. Very suspenseful opening. I saw The Thing in a theater, but didn't go see this movie as it got panned. As for a Psycho reference by me, there is a motel where the couple stays and a shower scene. I'll leave it that because there's more. Maybe what happens at the end could be an off-the-wall Psycho reference.

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Psycho references -- on the wall or off the wall -- are always welcome.

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I like it. Gave it a 7/10. A lot of people probably didn't like it because they didn't get the dialogue. It explains how a witch is involved.

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Well, I passed when it came out...it seemed sacrilegious to make a Halloween film without Michael Myers. But I should broaden my horizons...

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

Halloween movies with Michael Myers have gotten worse with time. The 2018 looks good in terms of film quality, but once you break down the story it doesn't make sense in terms of continuity. The movie kind of tricks you into thinking it's a better movie than it is. It doesn't fit what's happened before in John Carpenter's versions. How Myers is "killed" at the end has been done before by Carpenter, so there's really not much new. Instead of Dr. Loomis, we have Dr. Sartain. Since the movie made money, there will be another sequel with the new director and writer David Gordon Green. He's taken advantage of the nostalgia and the start of the Christmas season. Even if you think the characters, including Michael, all have aged and get the nostalgic feeling that the originals have returned there isn't the payoff in the film during its conclusion. Even the nostalgia was done already with Halloween H20 and Halloween Resurrection. The franchise has become so convoluted that people do not remember what's been done before.

I'm not going to become a fan of the new Halloween franchise. I rather see something new and fresh come out to scare the pants off the kids and adults. Michael Myers has added some weight with age, so his mask is starting to look like William Shatner as he aged and gained weight.

Maybe the idea of Irish folklore of a witch and her sacrifice of young children to the devil would make a better story. Just the thought of it made for a strange, but colorful story in the one Halloween with the witch, but she's never seen in the film.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The franchise has become so convoluted that people do not remember what's been done before.

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That's a great point. "Convoluted" is exactly how to describe it. I tell ya, I've lost track of exactly how the franchise mutated -- I mean, didn't Rob Zombie(a cult director who doesn't seem to get much mainstream respect) remake the original, but with different plot points? And H20 had Jamie Lee AND Janet Leigh. Sequel?
And now the new movie is a sequel that disavows the plots of other sequels(but then Psycho IV did that, too.)

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I'm not going to become a fan of the new Halloween franchise. I rather see something new and fresh come out to scare the pants off the kids and adults.

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Well, maybe its out there. Scream was new, once upon a time(with that classic Drew Barrymore opening scene.)

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Michael Myers has added some weight with age, so his mask is starting to look like William Shatner as he aged and gained weight.

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Great point!

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

>>I tell ya, I've lost track of exactly how the franchise mutated<<

None of them make sense. Even the new 2018 doesn't fit Halloween I and II nicely by Carpenter because it's been done before. How does Dr. Sartain not know about Dr. Loomis' writings on Myers? If Michael is supernatural, then you do not transfer him on a bus with other prisoners. The new story becomes plot holes if you follow Carpenter's first two story lines. BTW it's more reason to like Halloween III since it has nothing to do with Michael Myers and Halloween II was so bad haha.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

None of them make sense

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But the new one made $70 million! 90% of the time, that's what the studio cares about. Script be damned. It feels downright quaint how Hitchcock and his writers could spend up to a year making a script at least SEEM logical.

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If Michael is supernatural, then you do not transfer him on a bus with other prisoners.

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They really should have nailed down this supernatural thing. Either you can shoot him, or you can't.

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The new story becomes plot holes if you follow Carpenter's first two story lines.

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Interesting -- we're told that Halloween II doesn't fit in this universe -- but Halloween does (I can't call it Halloween 1, anymore than I can call Psycho...Psycho i)

Which reminds me: Carpenter lived to see other people sequel and remake his Halloween. Spielberg lived to see Jaws II, III, and IV ruin the original. Friedkin lived to see Exorcist II and the Exorcist TV series.

But Hitchcock was dead two years before Psycho II went before the cameras, and three before it was released to theaters. Hitch had no inkling there would BE a Psycho II.

I always kinda felt like Universal decided they had to wait for Hitchcock to die before they could mess with his biggest hit and one of his greatest masterpieces.

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BTW it's more reason to like Halloween III since it has nothing to do with Michael Myers and Halloween II was so bad haha.

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An anthology idea that tanked. Alas.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

Which of the John Carpenter's versions of Halloween have you seen? I would not include the 2018 version even though he's the producer. The 2018 film is a "strange" sequel-reboot type story.

Unless... we eliminate Halloween II. However, that's near impossible to do because it takes place right after Halloween.

Heh. As for Halloween III, I'm trying to get you to watch Halloween III if you haven't already. While it's probably not a homage to Psycho, it does have a funny motel scene for Psycho fans. Should be rated higher than Halloween II and closer to Halloween 1978.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Which of the John Carpenter's versions of Halloween have you seen?

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Of all of the Halloweens, I have only seen:

Halloween (1978)
Halloween II (1981)

Both of which I saw at the theater, with friends(not dates.)

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I would not include the 2018 version even though he's the producer. The 2018 film is a "strange" sequel-reboot type story.

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I thought I was going to see Halloween 2018, but I couldn't get the time free. Others in my circle saw it(my YOUNG circle, teenagers) and thought it was OK.

I have not seen the Rob Zombie version.

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Unless... we eliminate Halloween II. However, that's near impossible to do because it takes place right after Halloween.

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In some ways, I think I liked Halloween II a little better than the first one -- it moved faster, more kills, the use of the hospital equipment and tools for murder, the IDEA of a teeny-tiny small town hospital existing at all.

I suppose that's blasphemy -- like liking Psycho II over Psycho -- but I never felt that the original Halloween was quite "up there" in prestige.

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Heh. As for Halloween III, I'm trying to get you to watch Halloween III if you haven't already.

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I haven't, but I will try. Unlike the very diligent swanstep here, I'm slow to watch things that are recommended to me. But I will try and I'll get a post out when I do.

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While it's probably not a homage to Psycho, it does have a funny motel scene for Psycho fans. Should be rated higher than Halloween II and closer to Halloween 1978.

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Got it -- and here I just rated Halloween II a bit higher than Halloween. Oh, well, we all have our individual taste....

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

I'm not a musical fan, but was going to see Bohemian Rhapsody except holiday stuff got in the way. Won't see La La Land, but will see both BR "and" A Star is Born if you see Halloween III haha (it's set in No Cal and Santa Mira, CA is famous in movies). BTW Lady Gaga is awesome, so can't complain.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Maybe a good time time to check in on how all those October/Early November releases are doing world-wide (as of Nov 19):

Winners:
Bohemian Rhapsody is closing in on $400 mill. (Big surprise - Queen are beloved, but this was a troubled production and critics were lukewarm)
A Star is Born is at around $350 mill. (With BRs success and Great Showman and Mamma Mia 2 both over $400 mill. worldwide musically-themed movies have grossed well over $1.5 Billion this year mostly on relatively low-budgets. It's *the* big, seemingly critic-proof profit center alongside superheroes & animation.)
Halloween (2018) is around $350 mill.

Losers:
First Man is just under $100 mill and will barely break even.
Suspiria (2018) is under $3 mill and will lose a lot of money. (These two under-performed - Suspiria chronically. Critics were divided about both, but audience and fanboy anti-word of mouth seems to have killed them.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Winners:
Bohemian Rhapsody is closing in on $400 mill. (Big surprise - Queen are beloved, but this was a troubled production and critics were lukewarm)

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Folks must just like the music...which is a good thing. Also, never underestimate the lasting influence of Wayne's World. (I understand that the reclusive Mike Myers does a cameo here...as a music exec who hates the song Bohemian Rhapsody. Ha. The best Myers cameo since he played the Brit military man in Inglorious Basterds?)

I see that an Elton John biopic(with some fantasy involved?) is coming next summer. The audience loved the trailer...because they love the songs. But also: Elton and Queen were "big show entertainers" -- showmen at heart, a lot of light and dazzle. And with Elton -- costumes!

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A Star is Born is at around $350 mill. (With BRs success and Great Showman and Mamma Mia 2 both over $400 mill. worldwide musically-themed movies have grossed well over $1.5 Billion this year mostly on relatively low-budgets. It's *the* big, seemingly critic-proof profit center alongside superheroes & animation.)

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Well, I like musicals. I miss musicals. And as i like to point out, I have a weird and total loyalty to the big budget, big star ones of the 60's/70's cusp: Finian's Rainbow, Paint Your Wagon, Hello, Dolly. Great stars, big budgets..great numbers.

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Halloween (2018) is around $350 mill.

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That particular cycle will never end. I would like to note in passing that my one big beef with the Psycho sequels is that they seemed so cheap and B-ish compared to the great original. They weren't A-list like the Alien sequels and the Lecter sequels. Meanwhile: Halloween kind of started cheap and has grown bigger over time.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Losers:
First Man is just under $100 mill and will barely break even.

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I can't see how that particular story was seen to be a big earner. Its pretty dry, really.

"Politics": one wonders if the beef over the lack of a scene of the American flag being planted hurt it. Ordinarily, I don't think any movie really suffers from boycott threats. But the entire POINT of Armstrong setting foot on the moon in 1969 was to get that job done "by the end of the sixties" as ordered by the martyred saint JFK. The USA just barely made the deadline, and as we know, there WAS a "space race" with the USSR. To not tell that story seems to be missing the point of the mission.

I'm reminded that police unions urged a boycott of The Hateful Eight over QT's BLM comments. As it turned out, The Hateful Eight was a very low-performing QT film(but not a flop.) Still, low performing. The police unions said "the facts speak for themselves" about the box office lassitude of the film . Was it really the boycott? Or just the story and lack of big stars? The facts don't speak for themselves.

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Suspiria (2018) is under $3 mill and will lose a lot of money. (These two under-performed - Suspiria chronically. Critics were divided about both, but audience and fanboy anti-word of mouth seems to have killed them.)

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Well, I just think very few people knew what Suspiria was about. I can't say that I did, without checking the reviews. Bad Times at the El Royale did about these numbers, too. These are really "rental movies" being given brief theatrical release, I think.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

We're in holiday season now. We got a Grinch movie (again.) I must admit I remain enthralled by the last 30 seconds(the star names, faces and music) of the "Mary Poppins Returns" trailer. Its my favorite trailer in that regard since the one for "Hail, Caesar" a few years back, which also had great music over shots of the stars faces and names. The problem: you overdo such a great trailer with such great music, and the movie suffers in comparison. I don't think so, this time. "Mary Poppins Returns" looks like a class act.

BTW: Will Farrell teamed with John C. Reilly are really for the pre-teen boys(this I know from experience) but I had to laugh at one line from the trailer for their upcoming "Holmes and Watson."

Farrell's Holmes makes some statement about his deduction on a case, and a pre-teen boy in a group of them answers:

"No s--t, Sherlock!"

Its as if the entire movie was made for that one joke. Its a good joke. I laughed.

I don't need to see the movie.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

"Politics": one wonders if the beef over the lack of a scene of the American flag being planted hurt it....there WAS a "space race" with the USSR. To not tell that story seems to be missing the point of the mission.

The Space Race is plenty acknowledged but the downplaying of the flag on the lunar surface is real and frankly a little bizarre. In my view, we didn't need to see the flag being planted but we *did* need to get at least a clear medium-shot of the flag on the surface. The decision to have the flag only visible in two identical ultra long shots, where the flag is so small in the frame that you can't really see its colors, is kind of perverse. One imagines a hard-head like Billy Wilder seeing this in the script (or in a preview) and telling Chazelle, 'You just lost twenty million dollars.'

The film's very 'interior' feeling, and it's the interior of Neil Armstrong's preternaturally calm head for the most part (but also the interior of his marriage) so the smallness of the flag in the frame is evidently supposed to convey Armstrong's cool rational, dispassionate (except for mourning his dead daughter - the 'tiny flag' shot occurs either side of a flashback shot to Armstrong romping in a park with his daughter), not especially nationalistic view of things.

Bottom line: First Man is subjective and a bit depressive, and is not at all comprehensive (we never even hear or read 3rd guy on the mission, Michael Collins's full name - this is a little infuriating if you grew up with these names in your head as I certainly did). It's not nearly as satisfying or as much fun as Apollo 13 from the '90s or Right Stuff from the '80s, and I don't see FM getting any significant Awards-love for that reason.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

THe great space race movie of the '10s was Hidden FIgures which told a great previously untold story.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

@movieghoul. I liked Hidden Figures too. Solid film, and I think it ended up getting a Best Picture nom. First Man will be lucky to equal that.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

What's weird is I skipped First Man because of the Rotten Tomatoes review and the hubub over not showing the planting of the flag. That's seared in my brain partly from seeing it on TV and MTV haha. Figured it was another film to bash the USA over even though it was a big deal in 1969 and became a big deal the 70s. If anything, it gave the US taxpayers a charge because of much of tax dollars going into space was being wasted on toilets (my memory is bad; if it wasn't toilets in the 60s, then it was some other waste in space like a time capsule for aliens to find). We did learn the moon isn't worth going back to even though it is so important to the Earth. Maybe it can be a refueling station for space stations in the future. I don't think we can live on the moon for long periods.

Also, didn't kids grow up to wanting to be astronauts then? The producers missed the boat in hiring this director just because he was a hot AA winner from 2017. What's also weird was I was set to see his La La Land, i.e. musical, chick flick :p, but things came up and got in the way ;). I'm sure I'll have to see it eventually, but will skip it as long as possible because of First Man now. Is the director Damian Chazelle American or Canadian? Maybe if the Russians nuke Canada, we'll just ignore.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Figured it was another film to bash the USA over

FM doesn't 'bash' the US, it just focuses on Neil Armstrong and his wife - their mental states - rather than on the wider project of national significance. In my view this is a bit of a dopey focus to have. It's also an uncommercial focus to have. I suspect that Chazelle has been attracted by the novelty of taking such an internal approach rather as recent Spielberg films often seem attracted to some novel approach to some underlying material regardless of how uncinematic that approach may be, e.g., tackling the Pentagon papers/Nixon/watergate via Kay Graham or tackling Lincoln/emancipation via legislative wrangling. I've joked that modern Spielberg would remake Jaws focussing on the Mayor's fretful decision to hire Quint! Chazelle and modern Spielberg have both got a bit cute with their basic script concepts in my view. It's a riskier move for Chazelle of course.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Space Race is plenty acknowledged

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Good, I can't see how it couldn't be. There was a certain "arc" to the goal being set by JFK at the beginning of the decade, his death and the race to meet his goal.

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but the downplaying of the flag on the lunar surface is real and frankly a little bizarre. In my view, we didn't need to see the flag being planted but we *did* need to get at least a clear medium-shot of the flag on the surface. The decision to have the flag only visible in two identical ultra long shots, where the flag is so small in the frame that you can't really see its colors, is kind of perverse. One imagines a hard-head like Billy Wilder seeing this in the script (or in a preview) and telling Chazelle, 'You just lost twenty million dollars.'

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Years ago in 1981, I saw Superman II . Full house. It is a faster, punchier movie than its famous first one. At the end, there is a wide screen shot of Superman flying the American flag that has been stolen from the White House through the sky, to return it.

My audience cheered, and applauded, and a lot of them stood up. I recall being surprised by the show of patriotism in an American theater. It is there(or perhaps it WAS. 1981 and all.)

My point is that this matters to some people and the 'outrage machine" that drew attention to its absence might have had a point. In America.

But we are told that the movie marketplace is international now, and America-centric movies must be downplayed. I guess so.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It's not nearly as satisfying or as much fun as Apollo 13 from the '90s or Right Stuff from the '80s, and I don't see FM getting any significant Awards-love for that reason.

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Its kind of damning to realize that Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff could take the rather dry material of NASA and become such big hits. Yes, Apollo 13 was about a crisis and the near-death of the astronauts, but it was a "known fact" that everybody survived, and it STILL drew audiences who were held in suspsense. Those movies will mildly shame First Man for not hitting bigger(especially with the reviews it got.)

But as the recently deceased William Goldman reminded us "Nobody knows anything" in Hollywood about what will hit or miss, and why. (Except evidently MCU movies.)

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The film's very 'interior' feeling, and it's the interior of Neil Armstrong's preternaturally calm head for the most part (but also the interior of his marriage) so the smallness of the flag in the frame is evidently supposed to convey Armstrong's cool rational, dispassionate (except for mourning his dead daughter - the 'tiny flag' shot occurs either side of a flashback shot to Armstrong romping in a park with his daughter), not especially nationalistic view of things.

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Fair enough -- that's the movie the director and writer wanted to make.

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Bottom line: First Man is subjective and a bit depressive, and is not at all comprehensive (we never even hear or read 3rd guy on the mission, Michael Collins's full name - this is a little infuriating if you grew up with these names in your head as I certainly did).

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No mention of Michael Collins? That's like calling the Beatles "John, Paul, and George." Blasphemy.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Yes, we did just barely make the deadline, but my understanding is that JFK was advised by NASA scientists that a moon landing could be viable as early as 1967 (ie, during his second term as President). As it happens, the fire that killed the crew of Apollo 1 caused a 2 year setback but the deadline was still made, although it was Nixon, not JFK or LBJ who got to make the phone call to the moon.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Yes, we did just barely make the deadline, but my understanding is that JFK was advised by NASA scientists that a moon landing could be viable as early as 1967 (ie, during his second term as President).

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Interesting! Given that we don't (hopefully) assassinate our Presidents anymore in the US(its just too hard to do), JFK's murder remains one of the great "what if" set-ups in history. He personally had projected a full two terms of office, and all the things that might have happened, we will never know.

Though I guess the same NASA crew would still die on that platform, even if JFK had lived...

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As it happens, the fire that killed the crew of Apollo 1 caused a 2 year setback

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That remained the dark irony of the space program -- the only deaths(for awhile) were on the ground. Of course, Challenger would change that tune(with even darker irony: the one time they put a regular person on the ship -- a female teacher! -- it blew up.)

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but the deadline was still made, although it was Nixon, not JFK or LBJ who got to make the phone call to the moon.

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"Luck of the draw" for Nixon. That was a time when a lot of people hated the President personally but still respected the history of the phone call being made.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Well, I like musicals. I miss musicals. And as i like to point out, I have a weird and total loyalty to the big budget, big star ones of the 60's/70's cusp: Finian's Rainbow, Paint Your Wagon, Hello, Dolly. Great stars, big budgets..great numbers.

@ecarle. I finally got around to seeing Hello, Dolly. It didn't do that much for me I'm afraid. On one level I just never understood why Dolly obsessively wanted to marry Horace Vandergelder. Sure he's got money but he's a curmudgeon and country bumpkin compared to her. The life she wants is in the city at her old cafe/restaurant/stomping ground (i.e., what she evidently had with her first husband), where *he's* a lost soul. At the very least I expected a big song explaining Dolly's feelings about all she'll be giving up to live in Yonkers, why it's worth it to her. But none comes. There seemed to be a whole backstory missing - is Dolly desperately in debt? or has she somehow ruined her prospects with all the rich guys in the city, as it were?

And of course Horace V. should run a mile from Dolly's bullying too, but instead he turns on a dime to loving her etc.. This is almost treated as a joke. So is the point that the whole thing is a big joke? The treatment of the other two main couples is pretty threadbare and unconvincing too I'm afraid (e.g., Irene Molloy is established as an ultra cynic and materialist so that we root against her as a match for Vandergelder, but then she turns on a dime to become a sentimental sweetie for Michael Crawford's clerk. What?). And since the film has no plot beyond getting these couples together the whole thing just felt hollow to me.

What's left is very *show* - the songs and dancing don't advance the plot or deepen character they're just big show razzle-dazzlers. Maybe that's enough if one is in just the right mood, but I had to watch most of Fiddler On The Roof (1971) as a palate-cleanser!

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

p.s. I really enjoyed reading your (preserved at moviechat) IMDb Hello Dolly stories about your Grandma. I feel like HD is the sort of film that needs a bit of help from personal connections and perhaps from being young. HD did remind me a little both of The Greatest Showman and The Music Man and of 1930s musicals like Gold Diggers of 1935 and The Gay Divorcee. In all these cases there's something purely fun and fluffy going on, and characters kind of mug their way through en route to the next slam-bam number. I need more than that but there's a place for this tier of put-on-a-show musicals. They often do make good profits, and of course HD would have made good money too if they hadn't spent the equiv. of $170 million making it!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

swanstep, I appreciate that you took the time not only to view Hello Dolly..but to check out the old posts about my grandmother and that particular movie.

All of that made Hello Dolly more meaningful to me that I expect it would ever have been otherwise. Though I did have a taste for the big musicals of that time, and with Dolly, it had Walter Matthau in it (in a rather forced, wry way) and I was a big fan of his over time.

So MANY of the "movies of my life" come with some great memories of who and when I saw them. I still feel it is unfair to recommend these movies without citing that somebody special made them special for me.

Or that someTHING special that made it special for me. Psycho holds up great today; I would assume even someone seeing it the first time would be impressed by the cinematics of it, the tightness of the narrative, the performances of Perkins, Leigh, Balsam(especially) and the rest.

But for me, as I've related, Psycho was this whole other thing in the sixties: the movie I wasn't allowed to see that everyone talked about. The movie I saw for 30 minutes before I had to turn it off. The movie I chased over YEARS to see (with the murder pages in Hitchcock/Truffaut to fire up in their freeze-framed eternity, terror that doesn't play quite so brutal when they go so fast in the movie.)

Psycho comes attached with this dialogue I had with some kid after its weekend debut on LA TV in 1967:

Other kid: So I saw Psycho on Saturday night...
Me: You did? Your parents let you?
Other kid. Yes. Yes...I got to see it...and I wish I never DID. I can't sleep!

There was real terror in that kid's eyes...things like this make an impression and create a mystique.

I also recall the TV promo line for Psycho on that LA channel: "SEE ...the movie that gave a nation nightmares! Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO! Saturday night!") The way the announcer hit the word PSYCHO as hard and as scary as he could...goosebumps.

If you were of a certain pre-teen age in that more innocent era...

....And Hello, Dolly comes with my grandma attached -- surprisingly in both 1970(at the theater) and 1974(on TV), a two-fer of happy viewing experiences that I never would have expected with that stoic, old-fashioned old woman.

I saw Hello, Dolly, Paint Your Wagon, and Finian's Rainbow in the same gigantic domed theater "at reserved prices"(paid by parents back then)...it was that roadshow era, or something like it.

I like Paint Your Wagon for the wooded outdoor grandeur of it, the moodiness of the rainy scenes(the movie was filmed in Oregon) and most of the songs(most of which have a macho male chorus backing Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood -- as it should be.)

This particular musical was also quite saucy for a young pre-teen. They established a mining camp filled with men(who dance with each other at a Saturday night hoedown for non-gay entertainment), desperate for women. They hijack a coach with about 7 hookers -- for 100 men? Meanwhile, Marvin and Eastwood agree to share gorgeous non-hooker Jean Seberg as a wife. The rest is Disney-smutty 1969 history.

..including the bit where Lee Marvin introduces a strapping young farmboy to three things at a saloon, in this order: a drink, a cigar, and a hooker ("I give you the boy...give me back the man.")

As the young fellow later says:

"I liked all three of those things...but I liked the third one the best!"

This is a musical a young man could love. And Marvin's line reading earlier with the young man:

Marvin: Do you mean to tell me that you've never been with a woman?
Farmboy: No, sir.
Marvin: That's TERRIBLE!! (Marvin sells this line with hilarious head snapping horror.)

I like the songs, too.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Finian's Rainbow was actually made on the cheap -- mainly a Warners backlot job, bucked up with some location filming to recreate the American South via Northern California...after a credits sequence opening that director Francis Coppola negotiated to give the movie some scope -- Fred Astaire and daughter Petulia Clark(or their doubles) cross America on foot and drop by a few Hitchcock landmarks en route -- The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, The Golden Gate bridge....and the schoolhouse from The Birds(Coppola showing off his Hitchcock knowledge in a musical.)

I have the film on DVD. The "talk" sequences are way too many and way too long. I pretty much skip them nowadays. But when the songs come up -- especially sung with a pop-rock sexiness(Old Devil Moon) or sadness(How Are Things in Glocca Morra) by Petula Clark -- I'm hooked again. But ONLY if I attach the memory of seeing it in 1969(it was a '68 release) to the experience. (BTW, Clark duets on Old Devil Moon with a now forgotten TV actor named Don Francks, who landed Finian's Rainbow because I guess there wasn't a budget for a bigger male lead.) Coppola's "New Hollywood film school directorial touch" is apparent in the film; I remember catching that even back in '69.

But to repeat, these films are very personal memories, very personal experiences, and I can't believe that more than a handful of them would pass muster with most viewers today.

They are for my own private list, my own private collection. The one that doesn't have Casablanca, Psycho, The Godfather, Jaws, and other "usual suspects" in it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Weird note in passing: I recall seeing these movies in 1969 as grand roadshow attractions that had a certain "staid and over-polished" quality to them. They were prestige movie versions of what had been fast and loose at MGM in the forties.

I ALSO recall thinking, at one time, that North by Northwest had come out only a decade earlier -- 1959 -- but I have no real recollection of that year or how that movie played in theaters. I think it was "prestige" at only two theaters for awhile -- the Radio City Music Hall in LA and the Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard -- and then just went out "wide." How the movies had changed in a decade, I thought - with these over-expensive musical mastodons in 69 replacing the epic thriller exhilaration of North by Northwest in 59. The times had changed. I guess I blame The Sound of Music hitting so big in 1965 and spawning all those "mega musicals."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And of course Horace V. should run a mile from Dolly's bullying too, but instead he turns on a dime to loving her etc.. This is almost treated as a joke. So is the point that the whole thing is a big joke?

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Well, by the time Hello Dolly finally came out(about two years after its making, due to the play still being on Broadway, thus costing Fox interest), everybody knew that Streisand and Matthau hated each other on that film, so its funny to watch Walter finally sing a heartfelt acapella "Hello, Dolly" to Streisand at the end...and funnier still to see their final kiss in the film, at their wedding -- miles away from us, I don't think their lips actually touched.

The antipathy of the two stars actually made for some funny comedy between them, I thought: once at the parade("I came here to be alone," says Matthau, surrounded by hundreds, in an Ernest Lehman line) and once at dinner("I don't want my wings clipped!" "No man does, Horace, no man does")

And I always laugh at the outrageousness of the line, Matthau's delivery, and his facial expression when he looks at Streisand's bosom-baring dress and says:

"Miss Levi..are you sure that you have the figure for that kind of get up?"

Makes me laugh, every time.

Doesn't necessarily work as a romance though. And "widow woman" Dolly is like 25 or something. As someone wrote, "was she married at 13?"

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

And of course Horace V. should run a mile from Dolly's bullying too, but instead he turns on a dime to loving her etc..

I just watched The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and had the same core reaction/objection - it's simply impossible to believe that Doris (Streisand) and Felix (Segal) wouldn't run a mile from each other at every opportunity. I guess Bringing Up Baby (1938) and other screwballs like The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire have a lot to answer for because they basically laid down the template for rom coms built on extreme opposites (and in BuB's case, borderline insanity as romantic currency). The effervescence and giddiness of those '30s and '40s comedies is hard to recapture - certainly by 1970 the pull of the real is so much greater so that we just can't stop calculating the implausibility of the match on every level.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Hello Dolly is based on an earlier 50s play by THornton Wilder which in turn is based on a EUropean plan from the 30s, so that may explain or excuse the complete opposites attract concept.

Nothing, however, explains the casting a=of a 20-something actress as a widow returing for the first time in many years to a restaurant she frequented with her first husband!

I had even bigger problems with the ending of Pretty Woman.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Hello Dolly is based on an earlier 50s play by THornton Wilder which in turn is based on a EUropean plan from the 30s, so that may explain or excuse the complete opposites attract concept.

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Its funny how "European plays" seem to have influenced some of our All-American classics. Some Like It Hot is yet another.

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Nothing, however, explains the casting a=of a 20-something actress as a widow returing for the first time in many years to a restaurant she frequented with her first husband!

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It made no sense whatsoever, I think audiences went with Streisand and Matthau like they go with teenagers in a school play way past their ages. Well, Streisand. Matthau was age-appropriate.

As I recall, it was deemed that Carol Channing simply wasn't movie star enough for Dolly. Liz Taylor was considered, but singing was the issue. Doris Day was considered, but she was, sadly, "past it" in 1969. Shirley MacLaine was considered, but went into Sweet Charity. And that left La Streisand.

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I had even bigger problems with the ending of Pretty Woman.

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How so? Rich guy marries hooker?

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

CHanning was unfortunately one of those stage stars who couldn't adapt well to films, always playing to the second balcony instead of the camera. Her scenes in THoroughly Modern Millie were difficult to watch. Ginger ROgers and Betty Grable followed CHanning on Broadway and were certainly age appropriate but considered too ancient for a big budget film.

Didn't know about Maclaine, but I wonder if Debbie Reynolds was considered? Still iin her 30s but could probably play older convincingly. SHe had a big hit with Unsinkable Molly Brown, and I seem to recall she had worked before with director Gene Kelly.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Didn't know about Maclaine, but I wonder if Debbie Reynolds was considered? Still iin her 30s but could probably play older convincingly. SHe had a big hit with Unsinkable Molly Brown, and I seem to recall she had worked before with director Gene Kelly.

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She worked with Kelly? Hmm...in what? OH, that....yes. Hah.

I expect Reynolds was under consideration, but around the same time, she started a TV series(The Debbie Reynolds Show.) Devalued her. I don't know if Stresand landed Hello Dolly before winning her Oscar for Funny Girl, but she was HOT, and new. Its rather like how Paul Newman got cast in everything as an older generation of male stars aged suddenly and retired or died.

Plus, given that "the musical" was suddenly hot in the wake of The Sound of Music, Streisand seemed the perfect new star to use in such things: Funny Girl, Hello Dolly, On a Clear Day. But Streisand watched the musical collapse and moved on , for the most part: comedies and love stories.

I like, BTW, how Jack Nicholson has a small but significant role in On a Clear Day as Streisand's comparatively short-haired hippie half-brother. This was the same year as his breakthrough in Easy Rider. He's very strange and out of place in On Clear Day..and yet...very charismatic. The go-to-bed eyes are there, the smooth voice is there. You can see the movie star Nicholson was getting ready to be. Yves Montand is the romantic lead(he turned down Topaz to do this; too bad, he was the ONLY correct star for the Topaz lead), but we can add Jack Nicholson to the list of major male actors who acted in a Streisand movie.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I don't know if Streisand landed Hello Dolly before winning her Oscar for Funny Girl, but she was HOT, and new.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

What we're all really grappling with here is that at least since the incredible success of her first tv special My Name Is Barbra in 1965, Streisand was really one of the most famous people in the world - the sort of unique, larger than life (and funny and smart like Elaine May) multi-media talent that only comes along once in a generation if that: the heir to both Sinatra and Crosby. Movies were hers for the picking after that, and she picked pretty well.

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Yes to all of that; certainly the movie stars who were ALSO great singers(and almost always singers before they were movie stars) strode the land because they had that singing talent (and, it turned out, great voices FOR acting.)

I read a biography of Pauline Kael that said Streisand hit as a star around the time Kael hit as a critic -- and Kael made Streisand a kind of "pet" -- she liked Streisand very much, didn't always like her movies, but felt Streisand saved them. (Kael found The Way We Were to be "a ship full of torpedo holes that somehow makes it safely into port.)

I like Streisand's movies(for the men and her against them); I LOVE Streisand's great, unique singing voice. So there. However maudlin her vocal of "The Way We Were" may sound now, in '73 on the radio and records, it was emotion-plus, a soundtrack for lost love AND nostalgia. (It could have been the theme song for "Vertigo" -- same themes -- except that would have wrecked Vertigo. But it fit The Way We Were.)

But it was the better-written standards where Babs made - -and kept -- her name. And her Broadway albums.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

BTW, Streisand did a concert (with lots of at home-with-Barbra & backstage interludes) exclusive for Netflix this year. It was very well-reviewed and my mom loved it.

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I'll have to take a look. My mom is passed away -- I'm my own mom. She lives on in my musical taste. She played Sinatra and Tony Bennett albums every Saturday morning in our house growing up -- it gave me a very sophisticated upbringing(Mainstream Man style.) No Dino.

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Streisand's *still* a completely unique showbiz phenomenon with an unparalleled ability to feel like she's talking to *you* right through the camera and speaker system.

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Yes, she has that. Sinatra had it too, "man style." Dino sort of had it, but played things too funny to really connect. His act was NOT to connect with his audience.

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

Streisand won the Oscar in April, 1969 and I'm fairly sure that not only was she cast in DOlly but that most of the filming was complete. The studio had to sit on the film while negotiating a yearend release with David Merrick, the producer of the stage show. Merrick's contract when he sold the film rights stipulated that no movie version could be shown in the same city where the stage version was still playing, meaning that they couldn't book the film into a New York theater. In fact, Dolly was the first stage to screen where the movie opened while the Broadway run continued, since the assumption was that the release of the movie would hurt the BO for the show, but with the savvy casting of Ethel Merman, the show ran through most of 1970 very successfully. It also helped that Danny Lockin who was so great as Barnaby in the film joined the Boradway cast.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Streisand won the Oscar in April, 1969 and I'm fairly sure that not only was she cast in DOlly but that most of the filming was complete.

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Yes...my memory was fouled up...has to be the situation. But Funny Girl was in production (I would assume) around the time Hello Dolly was being prepped and -- as per swanstep nearby on the thread -- Streisand was clearly a superstar waiting for the moment to emerge FAST.

I always figured that one reason Walter Matthau had trouble working with Streisand is that it had been a long, hard 10 year haul to become a leading man, and to win an Oscar(Supporting) -- and here was Streisand in Hello Dolly a big star since her first movie(and soon to win that Oscar FOR that first movie.)

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The studio had to sit on the film while negotiating a yearend release with David Merrick, the producer of the stage show.

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Yes. I recall my family driving alongside the Fox lot -- in 1968 -- and seeing the Dolly NYC street set over the fences. Mid-1968 as I recall -- the movie was over a year away from release!

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Merrick's contract when he sold the film rights stipulated that no movie version could be shown in the same city where the stage version was still playing, meaning that they couldn't book the film into a New York theater. In fact, Dolly was the first stage to screen where the movie opened while the Broadway run continued,

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So how did that happen given the ban against the movie in the same city? I'm am easily confused...

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since the assumption was that the release of the movie would hurt the BO for the show, but with the savvy casting of Ethel Merman, the show ran through most of 1970 very successfully.

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Yeah, I'm not so sure how much the movie would hurt the play given a smaller audience.

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helped that Danny Lockin who was so great as Barnaby in the film joined the Boradway cast.

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He was fun in the movie -- am I correct in remembering that he was stabbed to death by a mugger not too long after?

[–] movieghoul (213) 6 years ago

I don't recall the details but Merrick stuck to his guns for a long time, and Fox eventually gave him a large settlement to open the film in New York.

Yes, Lockin did come to that tragic end.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I don't recall the details but Merrick stuck to his guns for a long time, and Fox eventually gave him a large settlement to open the film in New York.

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Merrick was a legendary Broadway figure in my youth -- I read about him in Time all the time.

I think he only dabbled in movies --- one was Rough Cut with Burt Reynolds, one of the lesser Don Siegel films (with a touch of To Catch a Thief and Reynolds briefly doing a full on Cary Grant impression.) Reynolds opined of the 1980 film by Clint Eastwood's favorite director(other than himself and Sergio Leone):

"I guess I got Don when he was too old and tired."

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Yes, Lockin did come to that tragic end.

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I'm sorry to have spoiled the party with that note, but I recall it was a very sad postscript given how charming and young he was....

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I just watched The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and had the same core reaction/objection - it's simply impossible to believe that Doris (Streisand) and Felix (Segal) wouldn't run a mile from each other at every opportunity. - certainly by 1970 the pull of the real is so much greater so that we just can't stop calculating the implausibility of the match on every level.

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Back in August, TCM did its "a star a day" promotion("Summer Under the Stars") and I elected to watch three Streisand movies -- in a row! (Well, taped and in a row...there might have been other ones in there between these three.)

The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)
What's Up Doc(1972)
Funny Lady(1975)

The first thing I remembered, watching these three movies back to back, is that the reason I saw almost all of Streisand's movies when they first came out is because she usually managed to cast one of the more interesting male actors out there as her co-star, and usually in an interesting way.

Matthau was one. Segal in The Owl and the Pussycat was another. James Caan in Funny Lady was another -- he's great as Streisand's New Yawk scrappy fast tawkin' equal (and a returning Omar Sharif in that movie reminds us why he's one of the few actors who did NOT work well on screen with Babs.)

The biggest and the best of them was Robert Redford in The Way We Were(something about the gravitas he had achieved by then) but "second best" Ryan O'Neal never looked better nor acted funnier than he does in What's Up Doc? (he would return to Babs in The Main Event, but almost out of any star power.)

But its true...in so many of these movies, Streisand is playing(for drama with The Way We Were and for comedy with the rest) the basic incompatibility of Streisand with ANY man. She divorces Redford and Caan in those movies. And her "happy endings" with Matthau, Segal, and O'Neal seem...anything but. (Not to mention -- Kristofferson, not a great match for Babs -- in A Star is Born, and we know what happens to HIM.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

What intrigued me about The Owl and the Pussycat was Streisand evidently making the decision that...after being trapped with middle-aged Matthau and strapped mainly into the overdressed bustle of a middle aged matron -- Streisand went all hard-sex symbol in Owl and the Pussycat. Its her most sexualized role, by far.

Streisand plays a character who is "sometimes" a hooker and "sometimes" a porn star, and ...she's believable. Because she plays up her Bronx roots and her rawness. She had a good body in her youth - -she knew it -- and she plays it up in Owl and the Pussycat so that her less great facial looks are complimented.

Tell you the truth, I was pretty young when The Owl and the Pussycat came out, I wasn't allowed to see it, but I remember some photos of Streisand in her hooker lingerie er...had an effect on a young man. Streisand WAS a sex symbol. That one time.

George Segal was one of my favorites of the seventies. A handsome guy who wore the long hair of the decade well, he could look cool one way(with a moustache) and cool another way(without a moustache.) He seemed to use the moustache for comedy -- Where's Poppa and this. In both films: consummate exasperation and anger, done funny.

I don't know if Owl and the Pussycat is a good movie(its certainly not a great one.) But it merits consideration for how sexual it is -- Segal goes nearly nude a couple of times in it, too, "matching Streisand," and they have a couple of boisterous sex scenes. It also merits nostalgia for a certain kind of movie from a certain year -- 1970 in a gritty, dangerous NYC, with some Blood , Sweat and Tears on the soundtrack to create a certain kind of early seventies mood(Streisand doesn't sing in this movie -- it would detract from her sexual character; but David Clayton Thomas does.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Extra points for the very funny, very grotty scene in which Segal goes into a porn theater to see an (unseen) Streisand appearing in "Cycle Sluts." Great line:

Man: Overcoat?
Segal: Thanks, I already own one.
Man: You want to rent one?

And then Segal gets seated in the theater in front of a man who can only be described as "heavy breathing pervert perfected." Just how this creepy guy WATCHES the unseen movie, with a creepy smile, how he breathes. Its hilarious.

Meanwhile, Streisand voices(to comic effect) the dialogue of a porn movie with great humor. "The room? you're takin' me into THE ROOM?")

Its a great scene.

"The Owl and the Pussycat," in juxtaposition to What's Up Doc(with Bogdanovich not entirely in sophisticated control of his sometimes dumb screwball comedy) and Funny Lady(overproduced, Streisand seems like a Film God, rather than a person), at least stands as an ode to "Streisand, raw and sexy." Also, funny.

But no, I don't believe Segal and Streisand together, either. I doubt the relationship lasted. It was a function of sex.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Streisand WAS a sex symbol. That one time.

Streisand's body was a knockout at this time I agree. And the lustful energy she brings to the slightly bawdy role is admirable. Unfortunately her character's near constant shrieking (particularly in the first half hour of the movie) almost drove me round the bend. Really, I can't remember when I last felt so assaulted by some character's voice!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Streisand's body was a knockout at this time I agree. And the lustful energy she brings to the slightly bawdy role is admirable.

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Yes to both ...Streisand understood that a young movie actress's power is often sexual...Hello Dolly didn't allow for that, but many of her films in the 6 or so years after that did. She had a big sex scene with an unconscious(!) but responsive Redford in The Way We Were; she wears a very revealing gown in Funny Lady, and showed off a lot of upper chest in On a Clear Day. Etc.

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Unfortunately her character's near constant shrieking (particularly in the first half hour of the movie) almost drove me round the bend. Really, I can't remember when I last felt so assaulted by some character's voice!

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I recall a coupla of lines in reviews of Streisand at the time. I think Pauline Kael wrote (a few films in).."We've had time to get used to Barbra Streisand by now...." Idea being: Streisand's bombastic acting style(reminiscent of Groucho Marx in comedy moments) and overbearing personality were part of the deal with Streisand(in exchange, you got that exquisite singing voice." Another reviewer called Streisand, "Literally, a monster...in the mythological use of the term." (I still don't understand that one.)
Robert Redford, in at first resisting taking his Way We Were role, spoke of her as "Barbra Strident," and remarked "We're the same age, but not of the same generation."

Anyway, all of the downside to Streisand is indeed turned up to 11 in The Owl and the Pussycat. I still have it on my DVR and I looked at it again (partially) and yeah, BOY is she screaming (with a lot of gay insults at Segal's character -- 1970 wasn't THAT long ago; its pretty shocking.) I guess she decided that that was the character: Worst Case Streisand. Segal alternated yelling back at her and sheepishly getting out of the way. Oh, well. A period piece.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Streisand won(in a tie!) the Best Actress Oscar for Funny Girl, but for all her superstardom in the 70's, she turned out to be a pretty self-indulgent control freak with too much self-regard for her work in her rather surface-level films. Her version of A Star is Born is, pretty much, a bad movie. Funny Lady is a bad movie. What's Up Doc isn't as funny as it could be(not Streisand's fault, she does her part; Bogdo's fault). For Pete's Sake ---nobody remembers that movie --- she could only land Michael Sarrazin as a co-star. The Main Event -- centered on Streisand managing RYAN O'NEAL as a boxer? Big star. Bad movies. Great singer, though.

Frankly, in the 70's, Clint Eastwood in his macho man way, was as much of a control freak as Streisand(directing himself usually, firing one director to take over and thus creating Directors Guild "Eastwood rule" against doing that.) Warners tried to get Clint and Babs to work together on The Gauntlet(him as a cop, her as a hooker), but they only landed him(and his waifish girlfriend Sondra Locke in the role. She passed recently, at 74 -- while Clint soldiers on at 88.)

I dunno. I repeat that I saw almost all the Streisand movies in the 70's because of the male co-stars(and because these were good date movies). My favorite Streisand movie is The Way We Were.

The Way We Were works for me because of the Redford character and his good incisive lines. I related to him, not as weak, but as cynical ("When a fascist producer wants to hire a Commie writer to make a buck, he'll do it!") and ultimately unable to commit in the True Believer way that Streisand does ("Maybe comes the revolution, we'll all have a sense of humor."). But there's this -- when I saw The Way We Were, and who I saw it with, and how that theme song affected me emotionally accordingly -- my The Way We Were isn't your The Way We Were. Its a vehicle to a very emotional time. 1973. That I will likely never have again, emotionally. That's life.