My favorite Tyrone Power flick...
Posted on 07/28/2019 8:25:35 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Weirdly for such a pagan – possibly even accursed — place, Hollywood has always produced movies that take the existence of God as a given.
Merely to fleece the "rubes"? Because the Bible is a bottomless well of conveniently copyright-free material? Regardless of the studios' questionable motives and morality, George Bailey (to cite just one example) prays desperately, an angel gets his wings, and a secular, cinematic Midnight Mass is begotten.
It's one I skip every year: It's a Wonderful Life (or, as I call it, Uncle Billy Must Die!) gives me hives. I'd rather re-watch The Song of Bernadette, the best Catholic movie ever made by two Jews. (Why be surprised? Everybody knows they wrote half the good Christmas songs, too.)
In these and almost every other "religious" Hollywood movie, the spiritual is sacramental, the "outward signs of inward grace" are set helpfully before our eyes: Bailey's homely corporeal guardian angel, or the unavoidably awkward "Virgin-Mary-as-Glinda-the-Good-Witch" in ...Bernadette. Special effects predominate: Moses' parting of the Red Sea is no mere metaphor in The Ten Commandments.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
My favorite Tyrone Power flick...
Just watched this movie for the first time this past week. Great film
Side note: I had the closed captioning on, and evertime someone said “spook” business (referring to seances, fortune telling, etc.), the text read “xxxxx”.
It never would have occurred to me, in the context of the film, to imagine any other meaning of the word, but the censoring had the opposite of the effect intended.
You can’t refer to CIA agents?
Saying “Frau Blücher” would xxxxx the horses?
Love is kinda crazy with a xxxxxy little girl like you?
It's a pretty good exploration of the theme "What would make a man sink so low?" Also a good exposé of how con men and hustlers have been around forever - - they just adapt their tools and techniques for the times.
A great movie......all the actors skillfully played their parts.
It's surprising to see George Jessel produced; he was later tossed out of Hollywood for producing so many bombs.
Nightmare Alley also lost money------but it was later deemed a classic.
Based on a really good book, too. Oh, what a good book. Also written by a Jewish man.
Oh, noes, we must not offend them there deaf Black folks! /sarc
I wonder if Steyn can explain why so many of these hustlers apparently moved to Nigeria
Love Tyrone Power!
In the comments after the article, the reviewer mentions that she dislikes the film "The Night of the Hunter", directed by Charles Laughton (his only film as a director). I wonder why? It's always been a favorite of mine.
My favorite Power flicks:
Nightmare Alley
Prince of Foxes
The Razor's Edge
BTW, our old neighbor in California served with Power in the Marines during WWII. He described the stares they would get when traveling .....And said he was a great guy.
He - Power - had a bad ticker and died young.
Nice to hear that Power was a decent chap, in addition to being a patriot. He'd probably have trouble getting work in today's Hollywood.
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