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Movie Profiles & Premiums Newsletter Vol.4 #6
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Cliff Aliperti
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Jun 17, 2006 04:21 PDT
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Movie Profiles & Premiums Volume 4, Number 6. June 15, 2006
Brought to you by http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com
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This is the plain text version of the newsletter. Read this online in
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http://things-and-other-stuff.com/issues/movie-newsletter-04-06.htm
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Been swamped this week, but very glad to be able to get this together
because of all of the new additions to the site.
I've been slacking off on my Classic DVD List, but did do a write-up for
Stagecoach, which was recently released as part of the the John Ford -
John Wayne collection that I'm sure a few of you have already bought.
I didn't buy the set, but I've actually picked-up and watched Fort
Apache as well, though I'll need to watch that one again because I did
it on no sleep the first time and am pretty sure a half hour or so
disappeared from the second half of the movie when I nodded off.
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/cliffs-dvd-list.htm
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/dvd-list/stagecoach.htm
I also picked up The Man Who Came to Dinner recently, but haven't had a
chance to watch it yet (I've seen that one a few times before though).
This is another single I purchased from a set, but to be honest this
Monty Woolley picture was the only movie in the latest Bette Davis
collection that I was interested in. Also backed-up on my list and
waiting for both a viewing and a review is Kurosawa's Seven Samurai,
which I actually have not seen before but need to find a nice block of
free time to do so. And this Tuesday marks the release of the Clark
Gable Signature Collection, which is a set a definitely will buy -- this
one includes Dancing Lady, China Seas, San Francisco, Wife vs.
Secretary, Boom Town and Mogambo, and retails for $59.98 but is on sale
at Amazon.com for the first week for just $41.78. I had all of these,
except Mogambo I think, on VHS, but sold them off, so I'll be anxious to
grab this one ASAP.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=thingsandothe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB000F7CMRC%2Fqid%3D1150536988%2Fsr%3D1-1%2Fref%3Dpd_bbs_1%3F%255Fencoding%3DUTF8%26s%3Ddvd%26v%3Dglance%26n%3D130
One last note on the movies themselves, I also just bought a couple of
out-of-print films copied to DVD from Brad Lang of ClassicMovies.org.
Brad runs the Your Movie Finder service, which for either a small
individual or even lower annual fee, you can have Brad hunt down classic
out-of-print titles for you (note: the fee is for the search, not the
movies themselves), but he is also offering several rare titles for
immediate sale at $8.95 per title. So, I ordered up both Between Two
Worlds (1944) and Zoo in Budapest (1933), neither of which I have seen
before. I just wanted to give a little plug in advance of receipt,
because knowing Brad (well, knowing him online at least), I'd be shocked
to be anything other than extremely pleased with these movies. I've
noticed his list of titles growing a little with each visit (I've got my
eyes on Arsene Lupin for next time!), which is hopefully a trend.
Anyway, those two flicks will eventually make their way to my DVD List
as well.
http://yourmoviefinder.classicmovies.org/
http://www.freemoviesondvd.com/
So, back over here, Stagecoach is new, and based on those few paragraphs
there will be plenty of other titles soon reviewed, or at least talked
about, on my Classic DVD List page.
Oh, final DVD note, I had an extra set of the Hammer Horror Collection,
that I placed on eBay available for immediate purchase at $49.99 plus
shipping. It may not come up as the cheapest offering, but since I'm
actually charging real shipping rather than the $10-$15 that several
other sellers are applying (ahem, I do think that may be about to
change), it's a pretty fair deal. This is the Region 1 set containing
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the classics The Curse of
Frankenstein, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Frankenstein Must Be
Destroyed, Horror of Dracula, The Mummy, and Taste the Blood of Dracula.
It's brand new as received and still sealed in shrink wrap. Here's the
listing if you're interested.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Hammer-Horror-Collection-Lee-Cushing-New-Sealed_W0QQitemZ9148277547QQihZ011QQcategoryZ617QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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I need to read up on all of the occurrences and proposals myself, but
that little shipping aside refers to the happenings and announcements
coming from last week's eBay Live event. If you were there, good for
you, hope you had fun. My feet stay on the ground, so until they move
one east to New York or Atlantic City, I won't be there, but it always
looks like a great time.
As I said, I do need to read a little more, so this next opinion is
written somewhat out of ignorance, but I'm not a big fan of the new blog
and wiki features that eBay will be adding, especially the wiki. Yes,
I'm sure if you create these things for eBay you'll get some extra
customers, and you'll help some people out, but quite honestly I see no
possible incentive to create content for eBay. Again, maybe I'm missing
something here, but if you're feeling antsy and want to run your mouth
like me, why not just start your own site? I'm sure I'll read all of
the FAQ soon enough and then there's a good chance that I end up
retracting this opinion next issue because I'm missing something really
neat, but as a general idea I'm not on board yet.
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Returning to the new content on things-and-other-stuff.com, next up is a
new Photo ID Guide. It's more or less eye candy, as I'm not really
ID'ing anything, rather just showing off some covers and inside pages to
the recent group of Picture Show from 1923-24 that I picked up. These
are actually up at auction this week, but please be sure to read the
condition notes carefully if you decide to bid, as these are pretty old,
on newsprint, and as might be expected not holding together too well in
a few cases.
http://search.stores.ebay.com/Collecting-Old-Magazines_picture-show_W0QQfciZ0QQfclZ3QQfsnZCollectingQ20OldQ20MagazinesQQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQsaselZ15227644QQsatitleZQ22pictureQ20showQ22QQsofpZ0
Each cover, and a few of the really neat inside pages featuring stars
such as Our Gang and a 13-year-old Douglas Fairbanks Jr., is shown on
the Picture Show page. I think my favorite cover is the one with Erich
Von Stroheim and Zasu Pitts at the time of Greed's release. Just click
on any thumbnail to open up a larger version of the cover where you can
actually make out who the actors and actresses are. Go here to view the
Picture Show Photo ID Guide:
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/ephemera/picture-show.htm
Sticking with magazines, I recently won a December 1911 issue of Motion
Picture Story Magazine on eBay with my main thoughts being how useful
such an issue can be for both of my sites (at least until I look to make
a few dollars on it, heh heh). Motion Picture Story is the first of the
fan magazines and its first issue was dated February of 1911, so this is
early stuff! Well, I've scanned the photo gallery page that it opens
with and created pages on the site for those scans. You can find the
names listed to the right near the top of the Profiles Contents page.
My plan was to write-up the profiles for these old-time stars myself,
but I stalled as soon as I Googled Yale Boss and then came up even
emptier when trying to mine info on him from my book shelves. Sure,
Florence Lawrence, Alice Joyce and one or two others won't be a problem
and I'll detail them when I find the time. For now it's basically just
the photos of these early stars for you to look at, with a little text
written by yours truly under the first two entries, Anne Schafer and
Anna Nichols...and I do mean just a little bit.
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/contents.htm
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/1911-motion-picture-magazine/december-1911.htm
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/1911-motion-picture-magazine/anne-schafer.htm
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/1911-motion-picture-magazine/anna-nichols.htm
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Finally, for new content, our profile fits the season for a change, what
with Independence Day fast approaching for us here in the U.S.A., as we
take a look at Jimmy Cagney -- and I had saved my old Cagney images so
there's an accompanying slide show as well! Have a look and I dare you
not to hum "Yankee Doodle Dandy" at some point, if you haven't already:
James Cagney by Susan M. Kelly can be found complete at the bottom of
this issue or by clicking over to the page at
things-and-other-stuff.com:
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/james-cagney.htm
James Cagney Collectible Slide Show
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/collectibles-slide-shows/james-cagney.htm
Now when you finish reading Susan's excellent profile of Cagney, keep
scrolling down past the Google ads and past the other links and you'll
find another new feature. This is pretty cool I think, it's called a
Swicki and it's populated with terms related to Jimmy Cagney that I
found relevant. If you click a term the Swicki searches the entire
internet, and since I created it all of my links come up first, but all
of the other sites are there too following me. I didn't block out any
sites because I wanted this to be as useful to you as possible. After
you click the term and launch the search, you actually leave
things-and-other-stuff.com, but because of their templates it should
look like you're still here. The search is interactive, meaning you can
type in your own related terms (which with my approval will be
permanently added to the search cloud) and tag your favorite sites to
move them up the list. If you're already familiar with all of this I
apologize, as it's all pretty new to me, but I had fun putting it
together.
So much fun actually that I did the same thing for two of the other
popular stars on this site, Clara Bow and Louise Brooks. Again, you'll
find their Swickis at the very bottom of their profile pages. If I see
that you guys are using these, well, I'll keep on building them and
adding them to the bottom of the profile pages.
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/clara-bow.htm
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/louise-brooks.htm
I had also built one for general movie collectibles, you may have even
seen it on the home page for a day or two, but I honestly preferred a
more standard search from there. I did keep the general collectibles
Swicki on the site, it's now found on the Profile Contents Page, but as
I learn more about this toy I begin to think this may be too general a
topic to be worthwhile. If I keep working with these perhaps I'll
create some more specific collectibles Swicki's in the future.
http://things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/contents.htm
And now with my last mention of Swickis, I'll just say what a silly
word, I'm sorry I just used it so much!
But, speaking of silly words, I do want to announce that my blog is now
more relevant to you if you were never really interested in any of those
magazine notes that seemed to fill it recently. If you were interested
I do feel obliged to tell you the reason for this is that I've created a
separate Magazine Collecting and Auction Notes blog over at
collecting-old-magazines.com, and so while the Movie Profiles & Premiums
blog will see fewer postings on the whole, they will be much more
relevant to this site.
http://blog.things-and-other-stuff.com/
http://www.collecting-old-magazines.com/old-magazines-blog.html
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That's all for now, a bigger mouthful than anticipated as usual, but
always because it's so much fun to keep spitting it out. Please do be
sure to read Susan's piece on James Cagney below, check out the new
Photo ID Guide for early issues of Picture Show, and as always feel free
to buy any of my stuff!
http://stores.ebay.com/Collecting-Old-Magazines?refid=store
The next issue of The Movie Profiles and Premiums Newsletter is
scheduled for July 15 and will include a new entry into The Silent
Collection by Tammy Stone. Thanks, and have a great month!
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James Cagney by Susan M. Kelly
In a story line right out of a movie script, James Cagney, a street kid
from New York’s Lower East Side, would blossom into one of
Hollywood’s most unique and beloved talents. His New York beginnings
would give birth to many of the mannerisms that would make him famous,
from the hitching of the pants to his unusual clipped speech, but his
appeal would eventually extend far beyond those mean streets to the
silver screen, where he would launch a career that would last for an
astounding five decades.
Born to a lower class family in 1899, young Jimmy would take on a host
of odd jobs to help make ends meet, including his first foray into
performing, just after WWI, when he worked as a female impersonator.
While still in his early 20’s, he met and married the love of his
life, Frances, and began touring in vaudeville before eventually landing
on Broadway. His performance as a small time grifter in “Sinners’
Holiday” earned him a ticket to Hollywood to appear in the 1930 film
version by Warner Brothers. Signed to a term contract, Cagney started
off with supporting roles in films such as “Other Men’s Women”
(1930) and “Smart Money” (1931).
That same year he got his big break when he was cast as bootlegger Tom
Powers in “The Public Enemy”. Cagney’s performance, including the
now classic scene where he smashes a grapefruit into Mae Clark’s face,
instantly rocketed him to stardom, Early 1930's James Cagney Dixie
Premium Photowhile at the same time tagging him with a gritty, tough guy
image that would prove hard to shake. Warners kept their newest star
busy, rushing him into the back-to-back star vehicles “Taxi” (1932),
“The Mayor of Hell” and “Lady Killer” (both 1933). He broke
briefly from his tough guy image to portray a theatrical producer turned
performer in 1933’s “Footlight Parade”, a role which enabled him
to show off his dance skills.
By the mid 30’s, Cagney was one of Hollywood’s hardest working and
most popular stars. Despite his new found fame, he had already grown
weary of his many tough guy parts and showed the first inklings of his
activist streak (he would later be among the founders of the Screen
Actors Guild), lobbying for better parts and more money. With the end
of Prohibition came a change in Hollywood’s focus. No longer were
tough guy criminals portrayed as the heroes, and Cagney was finally able
to break from the mold. He eagerly ventured into the forefront of the
new trend playing an FBI agent in “G Men” and an aviator in “Devil
Dogs of the Air”, both in 1935.
By the end of 1935, Cagney managed to escape from his Warners contract
and with his brother, William, set up his own production company, Grand
National Pictures. Unfortunately, the studio was short lived. After
completing just two offerings, 1936’s “Great Guy” and the 1937
musical “Something to Sing About”, Cagney folded up shop and
returned to Warners, duly shamed. He didn’t come empty handed,
though, bringing with him a third property which Warners would develop
into 1938’s “Angels With Dirty Faces”, catapulting Cagney back
into the spotlight and earning him an Oscar nomination.
1940 James Cagney Made in USA Arcard CardBack in the tough guy grind, he
spent the next few years appearing in such films as “The Roaring
Twenties” (1939), and “City for Conquest” (1940). By this time,
he was finally allowed to branch out and nabbed roles in westerns such
as 1939’s “The Oklahoma Kid”, lighthearted adventure films like
1940’s “Torrid Zone”, war films (1940’s “The Fighting 69th”)
and comedies (1941’s “The Strawberry Blonde”). His final role for
Warners would prove to be both Cagney’s personal favorite and his most
acclaimed. As pioneering Broadway showman George M. Cohan in 1942’s
“Yankee Doodle Dandy”, Cagney showed off his singing and dancing
abilities on the way to his only Academy Award.
Ever the restless soul, Cagney still yearned for professional
independence and he left Warners in 1943. It would prove to be a
fateful decision as he starred in only four films over the next five
years. He returned to Warners for one more gangster picture, 1949’s
“White Heat”, which returned some of the luster to his waning star
as well as introducing the classic line “Top o’the world, Ma!” to
film audiences.
1930's James Cagney Editorial Bruguera Card/PremiumThe 1950’s
weren’t quite as good to Cagney. He worked steadily, but with mixed
success, though there were some notable performances along the way,
including gangster Martin “the Gimp” Snyder in “Love Me or Leave
Me” (1955), which earned him another Oscar nomination. He continued
to show his great range, playing everything from the odious ship’s
captain in “Mister Roberts” (1955), to George M. Cohan again, for
one glorious scene in 1955’s “The Seven Little Foys”. He made his
only foray into directing with 1956’s “Short Cut to Hell” then
returned to acting with a memorable portrayal of silent-screen great Lon
Chaney in 1957’s “Man of a Thousand Faces”.
He appeared in a few more films in the late 50’s but after appearing
in Billy Wilder’s wonderful comedy “One, Two, Three” in 1961, he
declared that it was time to retire. He would disappear from the screen
for the next 20 years until 1981, when he enjoyed a triumphant return to
the screen as the crusty police commissioner in Milos Forman’s
“Ragtime”. He appeared before the cameras one last time, at the
tender age of 85, in the title role of the 1984 telefilm “Terrible Joe
Moran”.
He died just two years later, leaving behind a legacy unlike any in
Hollywood history. He had been honored by the American Film Institute
in 1974 with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and what a life it was! He
had worked his way up from humble beginnings and built up a remarkable
career, serving as an influence to younger actors from Clint Eastwood to
Malcom McDowell and an idol to millions of fans the world over.
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Susan M. Kelly is a freelance writer who lives and works in Dunellen,
New Jersey.
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