Watched The Petrified Forest last night on TCM. What a lovely film it is. So matter-of-fact yet shining with innocence. Leslie Howard, already prefiguring Ashley Wilkes' nostalgia for a more beautiful past but with less weariness and more charm; Bogey not yet Bogey, exchanging gratefulness with Howard (if Howard is grateful to be shot in the film, Bogey was eternally grateful to Howard for getting him the career-making role in the first place); and Bette Davis luminous (in those days they had faces).
Someone should show Johar et al the film. On second thoughts, better not. They'd make a Kurbaan out of it, one way or another.
I think I should now go watch Revolutionary Road once again.
Friday, November 27, 2009
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4 comments:
TCM in Hyderabad? As it happens, my father (here in Los Angeles) watches a lot of old films on same . . . hence I do too, these days.
cheers,
d.i.
TPF is one of my favorite films of all time! Funny how it looks and sounds so "stage-y" but somehow works like film. Or maybe it's just my obsession with Davis and Bogart.
(Please tell me you've watched "The Little Foxes"? Bette Davis *rules*.)
dri: oh yes, we do - if i let myself, i could be watching these movie channels on tv all day!
km: unfortunately, no. i have to say, the first bette davis film i ever watched was dark victory and it took a few years to get rid of the martyred-weepy association.
but the really disconcerting thing about petrified forest was to hear someone being called Slim and find it's *not* Bacall!
Yo, what? TCM is back? When did this happen?
And Petrified Forest. One of the first five films I saw on that channel, and I was like, whoooo I love this place. College seriously suffered thanks to all those 1am classics.
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