My Favorite Things - Amendment #1

So here I am, ready to retract some of my thoughts from yesterday - last night, Chris and I watched The Quiet Man. Although I had seen this movie many years ago, I forgot a lot more of it than I thought. We LOVED it! We were laughing hysterically the whole time - between Ward Bond fishing in the river, the hysterical Michaleen as the chaperone and the back and forth relationship between Mary Kate and Sean, there just were no bad moments!! So although I did not care for other John Wayne / John Ford movies, I have to say that this one was nothing short of brilliant. John Wayne has NEVER looked that good, my God. What on Earth? Haha. The last half hour of this movie is right up there with some of the greatest moments in film history.

I read a great piece of trivia about The Quiet Man. At the end of the movie, you can see Sean and Mary Kate standing in their garden. Mary Kate leans over to Sean and whispers something in his ear, which generates a great response of shock from him. Apparently, John Ford told Maureen O'Hara something to whisper, and she said "no way", she could never say that to the Duke. He talked to her into it, promising her that between the three of them, no one would ever reveal what was said. To this day, the line is a mystery. :)

My Favorite Things :)

I can't tell you how excited I am to make this post - it's something I have talked about ever since I started working and stopped blogging - a list of favorites, surprises and debunked assumptions. During the course of my blog I watched just under 90 new movies - and since then I have watched dozens more as the blog really just fueled my love for movies. TCM consistently takes over our DVR and Netflix queue. What can I say...I'm in love.

So here you have it...a summation of my experience :)

Who did I watch the most?

Spencer Tracy - 7

Katharine Hepburn - 7

Jimmy Stewart - 5

....and for directors, I saw 6 of Billy Wilder's movies :)

Who surprised me the most - in a good way?

This one is easy. Spencer Tracy. Before I started the blog, I had never seen Spencer Tracy in anything - all I really knew of him was that he was in a relationship with Katharine Hepburn while married and that he was a drunk. I expected him to be cocky and brash and I was prepared to not care for him at all. Well, I was right about the relationship and about him being a drunk, but the cocky and brash - I could not have been more wrong, at least about him as an actor. Within 10 minutes of seeing him on screen (my first viewing was I believe...Adam's Rib) I was in love. I found him to be so charming and subtle - I could never picture him reading lines from a page. By the end of the blog I had seen 5 of his movies - Adam's Rib, Woman of the Year, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Pat and Mike and Captains Courageous - and since then I have added Judgement at Nuremberg and Boy's Town. I can say without a doubt that he is my favorite actor of all time - and for those of you who know me well, you know I take that very seriously :)

Another surprise to me was Billy Wilder. As a self proclaimed movie buff, I am simply ashamed to say that I had never even heard of Billy Wilder before the blog - honestly now I can't even imagine how I didn't know him. He's quite an interesting character - so interesting, in fact, that I read a book about him called "Conversations with Wilder" by Cameron Crowe...very good read. He's a great storyteller and storycrafter - I love how he puts shots together - the light and shadow, etc...I saw six of his movies during blogtime - let's see if I can remember them from memory - Some Like it Hot, Sabrina, Sunset Boulevard, Love in the Afternoon, The Apartment....and.....and .....oh yes, Stalag 17 (had to look that one up). Post blog, I watched The Lost Weekend - one of his most well known movies. I highly recommend all of them...except Love in the Afternoon, haha :)

One more...Bette Davis. When she's onscreen, I just can't take my eyes off of her. Plus her list of quotes about Joan Crawford are reason enough to love her. She just has PRESENCE.

Did anyone meet the exact expectations I had for them?

I love this question because I only wrote it so that I could talk about Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra. One of the reasons I started this blog was because I felt that, as a movie buff, I really needed to learn more about the classic movies and actors. I would say "Well, Jimmy Stewart is my favorite actor" but let's be honest...he's everyone's favorite :) So, just like I can't say Hey Jude is my favorite Beatles song because it's too obvious, I felt like I needed a different answer. Well, I'm sorry folks, but no one in this world amuses me more onscreen than Jimmy Stewart - I just love every second of everything he does (well, minus some seconds from Harvey). You would think his on screen "aw shucks" demeanor was just a show but it wasn't - I read his biography too and no one ever refuted what a great person he was - friendly, humble. .....and Frank Capra, come on. The guy just doesn't make bad movies - It's a Wonderful Life, You Can't Take it With You, It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Classics. (Julie I know you wanted me to add Arsenic and Old Lace - haha). A great pair of men.

Any other surprises?

When I started blogging, there was a whole genre of movies that I knew little about but really wanted to explore - westerns. I thought, you know, I have seen almost no old westerns, maybe I could really love them? The answer to that, in short, is no. I wanted desperately, and I mean really desperately, to love John Wayne and John Ford....and although I have a great respect for them, I just couldn't force myself to love them. I was really surprised that I couldn't - I thought for sure John Wayne would become a favorite. ....an icon, yes...a man's man, absolutely...a hollywood legend, no doubt. I also love how respected he was in Hollywood - women loved him and men wanted to be him.

Who were Hollywood's hottest leading men?
Again, an easy question - and I have three easy answers. Paul Newman. William Holden. Clark Gable. Done. There are no words.

Who were Hollywood's hottest leading women?

Ah, yes. I must give this one to Joan Crawford - talk about presence, my God, when she appears in The Women you think no wonder Norma Shearer's husband cheated on her. To me, she is the quintessential movie star.

What movies would I add to my favorite movies of all time?

The Women

Some Like it Hot - one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Jack Lemmon. Classic.

How Green was my Valley

Sunset Boulevard - Gloria Swanson=perfection.

...and just one parting thought. Perhaps I should have put Lionel Barrymore on my list of surprises - I've only even seen two of his movies - It's a Wonderful Life and You Can't Take it With You - but he won my heart in You Can't Take it With You - just seeing him onscreen makes me smile. His speech in the jail cell at the end of You Can't Take it With You is one of my favorite moments of all the movies I've seen.

I hope I didn't forget anything :)

AFI's Top 100 Movies!

So far I have seen 69/100! Only 31 more to go...

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941
2. "Casablanca," 1942
3. "The Godfather," 1972
4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939
5. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962
6. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939
7. "The Graduate," 1967
8. "On the Waterfront," 1954
9. "Schindler's List," 1993
10. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952
11. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946
12. "Sunset Boulevard," 1950
13. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957
14. "Some Like it Hot," 1959
15. "Star Wars," 1977
16. "All About Eve," 1950
17. "The African Queen," 1951
18. "Psycho," 1960
19. "Chinatown," 1974
20. "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975
21. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940
22. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968
23. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941
24. "Raging Bull," 1980
25. "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial," 1982
26. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964
27. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967
28. "Apocalypse Now," 1979
29. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939
30. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948
31. "Annie Hall," 1977
32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974
33. "High Noon," 1952
34. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962
35. "It Happened One Night," 1934
36. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946
38. "Double Indemnity," 1944
39. "Doctor Zhivago," 1965
40. "North by Northwest," 1959
41. "West Side Story," 1961
42. "Rear Window," 1954
43. "King Kong," 1933
44. "The Birth of a Nation," 1915
45. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951
46. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971
47. "Taxi Driver," 1976
48. "Jaws," 1975
49. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937
50. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969
51. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940
52. "From Here to Eternity," 1953
53. "Amadeus," 1984
54. "All Quiet on the Western Front," 1930
55. "The Sound of Music," 1965
56. "M*A*S*H," 1970
57. "The Third Man," 1949
58. "Fantasia," 1940
59. "Rebel Without a Cause," 1955
60. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981
61. "Vertigo," 1958
62. "Tootsie," 1982
63. "Stagecoach," 1939
64. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," 1977
65. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991
66. "Network," 1976
67. "The Manchurian Candidate," 1962
68. "An American in Paris," 1951
69. "Shane," 1953
70. "The French Connection," 1971
71. "Forrest Gump," 1994
72. "Ben-Hur," 1959
73. "Wuthering Heights," 1939
74. "The Gold Rush," 1925
75. "Dances With Wolves," 1990
76. "City Lights," 1931
77. "American Graffiti," 1973
78. "Rocky," 1976
79. "The Deer Hunter," 1978
80. "The Wild Bunch," 1969
81. "Modern Times," 1936
82. "Giant," 1956
83. "Platoon," 1986
84. "Fargo," 1996
85. "Duck Soup," 1933
86. "Mutiny on the Bounty," 1935
87. "Frankenstein," 1931
88. "Easy Rider," 1969
89. "Patton," 1970
90. "The Jazz Singer," 1927
91. "My Fair Lady," 1964
92. "A Place in the Sun," 1951
93. "The Apartment," 1960
94. "Goodfellas," 1990
95. "Pulp Fiction," 1994
96. "The Searchers," 1956
97. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938
98. "Unforgiven," 1992
99. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," 1967
100. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942