Catching up a bit.
Victoria, I'm assuming Paul Frees stood in for Walter Winchell, who did a similar narrative shtick over the old TV show, "The Untouchables." With his voice, I'd think he'd be even more effective than Winchell.
I still remember Paul Frees as the narrator saying something about various doomed characters,
on the last day of his life, or words to that effect.
This guy was Boris Badenov & Poppin Fresh, too. What a range!
Frees' voice was everywhere. I recall having viewer whiplash the first time I heard his voice from an actual person on screen: He played one of the Arctic scientists in
The Thing (From Another World). "Wait! That's Boris!/Santa Claus!/John Lennon!/George Harrison!/etc.!" (Yup. The mid-'60s Beatles cartoon series didn't have the boys doing their own voices; Ringo and Paul were voiced by another actor.)
Over the weekend saw two movies:
Poltergeist (1982), dir. Tobe Hooper; starring Jobeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight; scenes stolen from everyone by Zelda Rubinstein
Haven't seen this in over 20 years and I'd forgotten how efficient a narrative machine this was. There's no waste, characters shown and sketched in quickly, almost too quickly and so nearly one-dimensional, but over the course of the movie the actors carry the load well. Seems there's poltergeist activity of an intensity heretofore unknown, but really what's most important is the family dynamic, how the parents who initially seem a bit goofy and self-involved react to the threat to their children and each other. Supposedly it's directed by Hooper, but the producer's thumbprint is all over it: Spielbergian camera angles and the bright California colors of his early movies. Still the success of this one contributed to Hooper getting the financing for
Lifeforce which I mocked earlier this year.
Inherit the Wind (1960) dir. Stanley Kramer; starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, and several faces familiar from my TV set in the '60s
First time I've ever seen the entire movie. I've wanted to for years, and I'm glad I finally did. Excellent movie based on the play based on the Scopes Trial from the 1920s, among the first of the "Trials of the Century". March might over-act a bit in spots, but he's one of the few in the Hollywood of the time who could stand toe-to-toe with Tracy and give as good as he got. (See
Bad Day at Black Rock for another example, that time with Robert Ryan.)
Tangentially, I'm always a bit taken aback by how quickly the stars of that generation aged. It might be partly make-up, but Tracy would have been 59 or 60 shooting the film, but easily looks 10 years older. Cagney and Gable held up decently (though Gable only had another 3 years), but Cooper didn't and Bogart, Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power were dead by then. But only Cary Grant looked his age and not a decade older. Drinking, smoking and poor diet were all contributing factors, but even the next generation or so -- Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman -- fared significantly better with aging.
Randy M.