list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around The Man With the Golden Arm on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/The_Man_With_the_Golden_Arm/21709/default.aspx Title: The Man With the Golden Arm
Year: 1955
Director: Otto Preminger
Plot: When Otto Preminger was willing to release his drug-addiction drama Man With the Golden Arm without the sanction of a Production Code seal, it proved to be yet another nail in the coffin of that censorial dinosaur. Based on the novel by Nelson Algren, the film stars Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine, expert card dealer (hence the title). Recently released from prison, Frankie is determined to set his life in order-and that means divesting himself of his drug habit. He dreams of becoming a jazz drummer, but his greedy wife Eleanor Parker wants him to continue his lucrative gambling activities. Since Parker is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident caused by Frankie, he's in no position to refuse. Only the audience knows that Parker is not crippled, but is faking her invalid status to keep Frankie under her thumb. Gambling boss Robert Strauss wants Frankie to deal at a high-stakes poker game; terrified that he's lost his touch, Frankie asks dope pusher Darren McGavin to supply him with narcotics. When McGavin discovers that Parker is not an invalid, she kills him, and Frankie (who is elsewhere at the time) is accused of the murder. He is willing to go to the cops, but he doesn't want to show up with drugs in his system. So with the help of sympathetic B-girl Kim Novak, Sinatra locks himself up and goes "cold turkey"-a still-harrowing sequence, despite the glut of "doper" films that followed in the wake of this picture. After Parker herself is killed in a suicidal fall, the path is cleared for Frankie to pursue a clean new life with Novak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Number of Lists: 4
Number of blog posts: 4
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:01:28 GMTThe Man With the Golden Arm1955Otto PremingerWhen <a href="/players/P___107025/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Otto Preminger</a> was willing to release his drug-addiction drama <a href=/films/21709/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Man With the Golden Arm</a> without the sanction of a Production Code seal, it proved to be yet another nail in the coffin of that censorial dinosaur. Based on the novel by Nelson Algren, the film stars <a href="/players/P___111632/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Frank Sinatra</a> as Frankie Machine, expert card dealer (hence the title). Recently released from prison, Frankie is determined to set his life in order-and that means divesting himself of his drug habit. He dreams of becoming a jazz drummer, but his greedy wife <a href="/players/P____55087/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Eleanor Parker</a> wants him to continue his lucrative gambling activities. Since Parker is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident caused by Frankie, he's in no position to refuse. Only the audience knows that Parker is not crippled, but is faking her invalid status to keep Frankie under her thumb. Gambling boss <a href="/players/P____68664/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Robert Strauss</a> wants Frankie to deal at a high-stakes poker game; terrified that he's lost his touch, Frankie asks dope pusher <a href="/players/P___102103/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Darren McGavin</a> to supply him with narcotics. When McGavin discovers that Parker is not an invalid, she kills him, and Frankie (who is elsewhere at the time) is accused of the murder. He is willing to go to the cops, but he doesn't want to show up with drugs in his system. So with the help of sympathetic B-girl <a href="/players/P____53120/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Kim Novak</a>, Sinatra locks himself up and goes "cold turkey"-a still-harrowing sequence, despite the glut of "doper" films that followed in the wake of this picture. After Parker herself is killed in a suicidal fall, the path is cleared for Frankie to pursue a clean new life with Novak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide443http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t66609vqzpj.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/The_Man_With_the_Golden_Arm/21709/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/1/8/39245.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 1/8/2009 11:01:28 AM
Body: I’ll never forget the first time I heard the Sinatra standard “My Way”, while sitting in the balcony of an art house in Denver, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges ultra-light menthols, staring nearly hypnotized by the sight of sexy Gary Oldman transforming himself into the swaggering embodiment of punk rock, tearing through both cover song and screen. Sid and Nancy (along with Howard Deutch’s Pretty In Pink which also came out in 1986, and Martha Coolidge’s 1983 Valley Girl) was nothing less than a revelation to this teenager with Aqua-netted hair, Doc Martins and ripped fishnets, because it actually portrayed “my people,” spoke to me in my own musical language. And my feeling of identification probably was not unlike that experienced by a certain segment of the movie-going public 31 years before Alex Cox paid tribute to the junkie romance of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, who witnessed another tale of fucked-up love, possible homicide, and enduring heroin chic. Heartthrob Frank Sinatra would not sing “My Way” in Otto Preminger’s groundbreaking 1955 The Man With The Golden Arm, but he would play the fictional Frankie Machine, another lean and hungry musician of dubious talent weighed down by both a needy blonde and a monkey on his back. With a sizzling jazz score by Elmer Bernstein as perfectly wedded to image as Joe Strummer’s powerful sound is in Cox’s film, and with production design every bit as hyper-real as the addict’s hallucination style of Sid and Nancy, Preminger’s movie, like Cox’s, uses its sleek, feline, magnetic lead to shed light on a hapless guy unwittingly the helpless victim of his own charm, a plaything to both ruthless women and greedy men who take advantage of his naïve nature. Sinatra’s Frankie is a kindhearted, charismatic card dealer just out of rehab, trying to follow his dream of being a drummer, but he’s stuck with a scheming wife in a wheelchair (Eleanor Parker, who seems to be doing a camp version of a Tennessee Williams heroine) and a sometime employer/drug dealer (the appropriately slimy Darren McGavin) who uses heroin as an ace in the hole to control the fragile Frankie. Sid likewise was just a young, working class punk who suddenly found himself stuck with a scheming groupie/junkie/drug dealer (played by Chloe Webb who manages to make Nancy both annoying and endearing), a bass he could barely play, and a Machiavellian manager in the form of Malcolm McLaren who used all the Sex Pistols band members as his own personal puppets. Sid never wanted to be a nihilist icon any more than Frankie wants to deal cards; they’re just so damn alluring, so good at what they do, that others demand it! And pretty soon the lifestyle – including heroin – they’ve nodded into becomes all they know. Tellingly, the most sexually fraught scenes in The Man With The Golden Arm occur not between Frankie and his mistress Molly, played by va-va-voom Kim Novak, but between Frankie and his dealer Louie. It’s Louie who is forever massaging Frankie’s back when he’s tired, intimately cooing in his ear like a lover, taking him arm in arm back to his flat as Frankie swivels his head like a two-timing spouse, for he’s more nervous being seen alone with Louie than with Molly. In one scene a tired Louie begins to relax and get undressed, even takes off his shirt before shooting up that golden arm. Neither Molly nor Frankie’s wife Zosch ever show that much skin in front of Frankie! Indeed, towards the end of Sid and Nancy the bond between the couple isn’t sex, isn’t love, so much as a shared insatiable lust for the drug, the third party in their fatal ménage a trois. For the pursuit of the fix is sexual in itself. And yet the most painful truth in Sid and Nancy is laid bare in that one scene in which Sid destroys everything around him, slaughters that old Sinatra standard in a big ironic “fuck you.” For in a world where outside forces like sex, drugs and rock and roll can determine an individual’s fate there is no such thing as “My Way.” SEX SCENES is a weekly column in which Lauren Wissot watches old films, new films, indies and blockbusters, and tells us what turns her on. If you’ve got a film, a star, a genre or an issue that you’d like Lauren to tackle, let us know in the comments. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:01:28 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog1/8/2009 11:01:28 AMI’ll never forget the first time I heard the Sinatra standard “My Way”, while sitting in the balcony of an art house in Denver, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges ultra-light menthols, staring nearly hypnotized by the sight of sexy Gary Oldman transforming himself into the swaggering embodiment of punk rock, tearing through both cover song and screen. Sid and Nancy (along with Howard Deutch’s Pretty In Pink which also came out in 1986, and Martha Coolidge’s 1983 Valley Girl) was nothing less than a revelation to this teenager with Aqua-netted hair, Doc Martins and ripped fishnets, because it actually portrayed “my people,” spoke to me in my own musical language. And my feeling of identification probably was not unlike that experienced by a certain segment of the movie-going public 31 years before Alex Cox paid tribute to the junkie romance of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, who witnessed another tale of fucked-up love, possible homicide, and enduring heroin chic. Heartthrob Frank Sinatra would not sing “My Way” in Otto Preminger’s groundbreaking 1955 The Man With The Golden Arm, but he would play the fictional Frankie Machine, another lean and hungry musician of dubious talent weighed down by both a needy blonde and a monkey on his back. With a sizzling jazz score by Elmer Bernstein as perfectly wedded to image as Joe Strummer’s powerful sound is in Cox’s film, and with production design every bit as hyper-real as the addict’s hallucination style of Sid and Nancy, Preminger’s movie, like Cox’s, uses its sleek, feline, magnetic lead to shed light on a hapless guy unwittingly the helpless victim of his own charm, a plaything to both ruthless women and greedy men who take advantage of his naïve nature. Sinatra’s Frankie is a kindhearted, charismatic card dealer just out of rehab, trying to follow his dream of being a drummer, but he’s stuck with a scheming wife in a wheelchair (Eleanor Parker, who seems to be doing a camp version of a Tennessee Williams heroine) and a sometime employer/drug dealer (the appropriately slimy Darren McGavin) who uses heroin as an ace in the hole to control the fragile Frankie. Sid likewise was just a young, working class punk who suddenly found himself stuck with a scheming groupie/junkie/drug dealer (played by Chloe Webb who manages to make Nancy both annoying and endearing), a bass he could barely play, and a Machiavellian manager in the form of Malcolm McLaren who used all the Sex Pistols band members as his own personal puppets. Sid never wanted to be a nihilist icon any more than Frankie wants to deal cards; they’re just so damn alluring, so good at what they do, that others demand it! And pretty soon the lifestyle – including heroin – they’ve nodded into becomes all they know. Tellingly, the most sexually fraught scenes in The Man With The Golden Arm occur not between Frankie and his mistress Molly, played by va-va-voom Kim Novak, but between Frankie and his dealer Louie. It’s Louie who is forever massaging Frankie’s back when he’s tired, intimately cooing in his ear like a lover, taking him arm in arm back to his flat as Frankie swivels his head like a two-timing spouse, for he’s more nervous being seen alone with Louie than with Molly. In one scene a tired Louie begins to relax and get undressed, even takes off his shirt before shooting up that golden arm. Neither Molly nor Frankie’s wife Zosch ever show that much skin in front of Frankie! Indeed, towards the end of Sid and Nancy the bond between the couple isn’t sex, isn’t love, so much as a shared insatiable lust for the drug, the third party in their fatal ménage a trois. For the pursuit of the fix is sexual in itself. And yet the most painful truth in Sid and Nancy is laid bare in that one scene in which Sid destroys everything around him, slaughters that old Sinatra standard in a big ironic “fuck you.” For in a world where outside forces like sex, drugs and rock and roll can determine an individual’s fate there is no such thing as “My Way.” SEX SCENES is a weekly column in which Lauren Wissot watches old films, new films, indies and blockbusters, and tells us what turns her on. If you’ve got a film, a star, a genre or an issue that you’d like Lauren to tackle, let us know in the comments. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/8/39244.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/8/2009 11:01:12 AM
Body: I’ll never forget the first time I heard the Sinatra standard “My Way”, while sitting in the balcony of an art house in Denver, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges ultra-light menthols, staring nearly hypnotized by the sight of sexy Gary Oldman transforming himself into the swaggering embodiment of punk rock, tearing through both cover song and screen. Sid and Nancy (along with Howard Deutch’s Pretty In Pink which also came out in 1986, and Martha Coolidge’s 1983 Valley Girl) was nothing less than a revelation to this teenager with Aqua-netted hair, Doc Martins and ripped fishnets, because it actually portrayed “my people,” spoke to me in my own musical language. And my feeling of identification probably was not unlike that experienced by a certain segment of the movie-going public 31 years before Alex Cox paid tribute to the junkie romance of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, who witnessed another tale of fucked-up love, possible homicide, and enduring heroin chic. Heartthrob Frank Sinatra would not sing “My Way” in Otto Preminger’s groundbreaking 1955 The Man With The Golden Arm, but he would play the fictional Frankie Machine, another lean and hungry musician of dubious talent weighed down by both a needy blonde and a monkey on his back. With a sizzling jazz score by Elmer Bernstein as perfectly wedded to image as Joe Strummer’s powerful sound is in Cox’s film, and with production design every bit as hyper-real as the addict’s hallucination style of Sid and Nancy, Preminger’s movie, like Cox’s, uses its sleek, feline, magnetic lead to shed light on a hapless guy unwittingly the helpless victim of his own charm, a plaything to both ruthless women and greedy men who take advantage of his naïve nature. Sinatra’s Frankie is a kindhearted, charismatic card dealer just out of rehab, trying to follow his dream of being a drummer, but he’s stuck with a scheming wife in a wheelchair (Eleanor Parker, who seems to be doing a camp version of a Tennessee Williams heroine) and a sometime employer/drug dealer (the appropriately slimy Darren McGavin) who uses heroin as an ace in the hole to control the fragile Frankie. Sid likewise was just a young, working class punk who suddenly found himself stuck with a scheming groupie/junkie/drug dealer (played by Chloe Webb who manages to make Nancy both annoying and endearing), a bass he could barely play, and a Machiavellian manager in the form of Malcolm McLaren who used all the Sex Pistols band members as his own personal puppets. Sid never wanted to be a nihilist icon any more than Frankie wants to deal cards; they’re just so damn alluring, so good at what they do, that others demand it! And pretty soon the lifestyle – including heroin – they’ve nodded into becomes all they know. Tellingly, the most sexually fraught scenes in The Man With The Golden Arm occur not between Frankie and his mistress Molly, played by va-va-voom Kim Novak, but between Frankie and his dealer Louie. It’s Louie who is forever massaging Frankie’s back when he’s tired, intimately cooing in his ear like a lover, taking him arm in arm back to his flat as Frankie swivels his head like a two-timing spouse, for he’s more nervous being seen alone with Louie than with Molly. In one scene a tired Louie begins to relax and get undressed, even takes off his shirt before shooting up that golden arm. Neither Molly nor Frankie’s wife Zosch ever show that much skin in front of Frankie! Indeed, towards the end of Sid and Nancy the bond between the couple isn’t sex, isn’t love, so much as a shared insatiable lust for the drug, the third party in their fatal ménage a trois. For the pursuit of the fix is sexual in itself. And yet the most painful truth in Sid and Nancy is laid bare in that one scene in which Sid destroys everything around him, slaughters that old Sinatra standard in a big ironic “fuck you.” For in a world where outside forces like sex, drugs and rock and roll can determine an individual’s fate there is no such thing as “My Way.” SEX SCENES is a weekly column in which Lauren Wissot watches old films, new films, indies and blockbusters, and tells us what turns her on. If you’ve got a film, a star, a genre or an issue that you’d like Lauren to tackle, let us know in the comments. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:01:12 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/8/2009 11:01:12 AMI’ll never forget the first time I heard the Sinatra standard “My Way”, while sitting in the balcony of an art house in Denver, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges ultra-light menthols, staring nearly hypnotized by the sight of sexy Gary Oldman transforming himself into the swaggering embodiment of punk rock, tearing through both cover song and screen. Sid and Nancy (along with Howard Deutch’s Pretty In Pink which also came out in 1986, and Martha Coolidge’s 1983 Valley Girl) was nothing less than a revelation to this teenager with Aqua-netted hair, Doc Martins and ripped fishnets, because it actually portrayed “my people,” spoke to me in my own musical language. And my feeling of identification probably was not unlike that experienced by a certain segment of the movie-going public 31 years before Alex Cox paid tribute to the junkie romance of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, who witnessed another tale of fucked-up love, possible homicide, and enduring heroin chic. Heartthrob Frank Sinatra would not sing “My Way” in Otto Preminger’s groundbreaking 1955 The Man With The Golden Arm, but he would play the fictional Frankie Machine, another lean and hungry musician of dubious talent weighed down by both a needy blonde and a monkey on his back. With a sizzling jazz score by Elmer Bernstein as perfectly wedded to image as Joe Strummer’s powerful sound is in Cox’s film, and with production design every bit as hyper-real as the addict’s hallucination style of Sid and Nancy, Preminger’s movie, like Cox’s, uses its sleek, feline, magnetic lead to shed light on a hapless guy unwittingly the helpless victim of his own charm, a plaything to both ruthless women and greedy men who take advantage of his naïve nature. Sinatra’s Frankie is a kindhearted, charismatic card dealer just out of rehab, trying to follow his dream of being a drummer, but he’s stuck with a scheming wife in a wheelchair (Eleanor Parker, who seems to be doing a camp version of a Tennessee Williams heroine) and a sometime employer/drug dealer (the appropriately slimy Darren McGavin) who uses heroin as an ace in the hole to control the fragile Frankie. Sid likewise was just a young, working class punk who suddenly found himself stuck with a scheming groupie/junkie/drug dealer (played by Chloe Webb who manages to make Nancy both annoying and endearing), a bass he could barely play, and a Machiavellian manager in the form of Malcolm McLaren who used all the Sex Pistols band members as his own personal puppets. Sid never wanted to be a nihilist icon any more than Frankie wants to deal cards; they’re just so damn alluring, so good at what they do, that others demand it! And pretty soon the lifestyle – including heroin – they’ve nodded into becomes all they know. Tellingly, the most sexually fraught scenes in The Man With The Golden Arm occur not between Frankie and his mistress Molly, played by va-va-voom Kim Novak, but between Frankie and his dealer Louie. It’s Louie who is forever massaging Frankie’s back when he’s tired, intimately cooing in his ear like a lover, taking him arm in arm back to his flat as Frankie swivels his head like a two-timing spouse, for he’s more nervous being seen alone with Louie than with Molly. In one scene a tired Louie begins to relax and get undressed, even takes off his shirt before shooting up that golden arm. Neither Molly nor Frankie’s wife Zosch ever show that much skin in front of Frankie! Indeed, towards the end of Sid and Nancy the bond between the couple isn’t sex, isn’t love, so much as a shared insatiable lust for the drug, the third party in their fatal ménage a trois. For the pursuit of the fix is sexual in itself. And yet the most painful truth in Sid and Nancy is laid bare in that one scene in which Sid destroys everything around him, slaughters that old Sinatra standard in a big ironic “fuck you.” For in a world where outside forces like sex, drugs and rock and roll can determine an individual’s fate there is no such thing as “My Way.” SEX SCENES is a weekly column in which Lauren Wissot watches old films, new films, indies and blockbusters, and tells us what turns her on. If you’ve got a film, a star, a genre or an issue that you’d like Lauren to tackle, let us know in the comments. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/cinemarian/archive/2008/5/14/29124.aspx Post By: CinemaRian
Post To: CinemaRian Blog
Post Date: 5/14/2008 1:15:35 AM
Body: The Man With the Golden Arm was the beginning of the end for the production code. The code wouldn't allow Preminger to make the film at all, so he made it anyway and United Artists released it with the code approval. It was a box-office sucess, so it proved the code was not neccessary to make money. The first two acts of this film are brillant, showing why people become addicted to drugs and why it's so hard to quit without cheesy speeches. These parts of the film as relevant then as they were today. But Preminger chooses to close the film with a last act that is melodramtic and redicoulus. Every plot element is perfecty resolved. It's his own fault to, as he changed the ending of the novel (which I have not read) to make it more uplifting. He just made it stupid. It stars Frank Sinatra as Frankie, who has just been released from a court-orderd drug rehabiltiation program to kick his herion addiction. While in rehab he discoverd that he had musical talent, and made the goal for himself to become a proffesional jazz drummer. He misses his first audition because the local gang leader forces him to retrun to his job as an illegal card dealer. On a personal level, Frankie is conflicted over relationships- he loves and feels protective about his wife (Eleanor Parker), who is in a wheelchair, but is really pationate about Molly (hottie Kim Novak), a cigarret girl at a local strip club. There is nothing Frankie wants more than to have a fresh start and make good with his life, but situations beyond his control keep pulling him back in to gambling, and eventually, heroin. The movie is shows just why it's so hard it is for people who get out prison or rehab to stay on track. It would be much easier if they could just move to a new city, but going back right where they were means it's so easy to fall back into old habits. In this film, Frank Sinatra is not a singer playing himself- he's playing a part, and doing it very, very well. Frankie is an three deminsional character- not well educated, but meaning well and too easily willing to submit to weakness of the flesh. All this would seem to adding up to a great film but then there is the redicoulous ending. (Spoiler alert). The novel ended with Frankie commiting suicide, the movie ends with him willing himself off heroin. It seems to argue that if drug users just try really, really hard, they can kick the habit in one night. Oh, and everyone who gets in the way of Frankie's happiness conviently dies in an extreamly melodramtic fashion by the end of the film. Preminger is one of the most underrated of all directors. He directed one of the greatest movies I have ever seen (Bunny Lake is Missing) and some of the most intelligent films ever made in Hollywood- Advise and Consent, Anotomy of a Murder. Even his lesser films are of great interest, such as Carman Jones. The Man with the Golden Arm is the only optimistic film by Preminger that I have seen. The optimisim at the end is so forced it almost ruins the rest of the movie. The fact that he did it of his own vollition and was not ordered to by the studio makes it all the more hard to beleieve. What was he thinking? The Man With the Golden Arm (1955)
]]>Wed, 14 May 2008 05:15:35 GMTCinemaRianCinemaRian Blog5/14/2008 1:15:35 AMThe Man With the Golden Arm was the beginning of the end for the production code. The code wouldn't allow Preminger to make the film at all, so he made it anyway and United Artists released it with the code approval. It was a box-office sucess, so it proved the code was not neccessary to make money. The first two acts of this film are brillant, showing why people become addicted to drugs and why it's so hard to quit without cheesy speeches. These parts of the film as relevant then as they were today. But Preminger chooses to close the film with a last act that is melodramtic and redicoulus. Every plot element is perfecty resolved. It's his own fault to, as he changed the ending of the novel (which I have not read) to make it more uplifting. He just made it stupid. It stars Frank Sinatra as Frankie, who has just been released from a court-orderd drug rehabiltiation program to kick his herion addiction. While in rehab he discoverd that he had musical talent, and made the goal for himself to become a proffesional jazz drummer. He misses his first audition because the local gang leader forces him to retrun to his job as an illegal card dealer. On a personal level, Frankie is conflicted over relationships- he loves and feels protective about his wife (Eleanor Parker), who is in a wheelchair, but is really pationate about Molly (hottie Kim Novak), a cigarret girl at a local strip club. There is nothing Frankie wants more than to have a fresh start and make good with his life, but situations beyond his control keep pulling him back in to gambling, and eventually, heroin. The movie is shows just why it's so hard it is for people who get out prison or rehab to stay on track. It would be much easier if they could just move to a new city, but going back right where they were means it's so easy to fall back into old habits. In this film, Frank Sinatra is not a singer playing himself- he's playing a part, and doing it very, very well. Frankie is an three deminsional character- not well educated, but meaning well and too easily willing to submit to weakness of the flesh. All this would seem to adding up to a great film but then there is the redicoulous ending. (Spoiler alert). The novel ended with Frankie commiting suicide, the movie ends with him willing himself off heroin. It seems to argue that if drug users just try really, really hard, they can kick the habit in one night. Oh, and everyone who gets in the way of Frankie's happiness conviently dies in an extreamly melodramtic fashion by the end of the film. Preminger is one of the most underrated of all directors. He directed one of the greatest movies I have ever seen (Bunny Lake is Missing) and some of the most intelligent films ever made in Hollywood- Advise and Consent, Anotomy of a Murder. Even his lesser films are of great interest, such as Carman Jones. The Man with the Golden Arm is the only optimistic film by Preminger that I have seen. The optimisim at the end is so forced it almost ruins the rest of the movie. The fact that he did it of his own vollition and was not ordered to by the studio makes it all the more hard to beleieve. What was he thinking? The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/3/25819.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/3/2008 3:00:42 PM
Body: Star Wars may have the most famous opening title sequence in film history, but in terms of influence it’s got nothing on the work of Saul Bass. He’s the brilliant graphic designer who gave us the animated credits for Hitchcock’s Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho and Scorsese’s Casino, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence and Goodfellas and most of Otto Preminger’s work, including Exodus, Anatomy of a Murder and The Man With the Golden Arm. You’ve also seen his work at the beginning of West Side Story and Alien and Big and The Seven Year Itch and Spartacus. But what if he had designed the opening credits to Star Wars? Well, it might have looked something like this video, which was created for a school project. Interesting, yes. Creative, yes. Entertaining, yes. Memorable, no. It just goes to show how significant some credit sequences can be, because this is hardly appropriate for George Lucas’ film. And I don’t just mean because the music is all wrong. If this student wanted to go with a jazz score for the titles, he should have gone with a jazz cover of the Star Wars theme. And if he wanted something more upbeat, he could have used a jazz cover of the Cantina Band song (both covers can be heard on this album). If I was this guy’s professor, I’d give him a B+, mostly for effort and the fact that I love the lazer blasts and the zoom in on the Death Star at the end. For the A, though, he’d need to resubmit with something more suitable than a Buddy Rich soundtrack. [via Fraktastic] Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:00:42 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/3/2008 3:00:42 PM Star Wars may have the most famous opening title sequence in film history, but in terms of influence it’s got nothing on the work of Saul Bass. He’s the brilliant graphic designer who gave us the animated credits for Hitchcock’s Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho and Scorsese’s Casino, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence and Goodfellas and most of Otto Preminger’s work, including Exodus, Anatomy of a Murder and The Man With the Golden Arm. You’ve also seen his work at the beginning of West Side Story and Alien and Big and The Seven Year Itch and Spartacus. But what if he had designed the opening credits to Star Wars? Well, it might have looked something like this video, which was created for a school project. Interesting, yes. Creative, yes. Entertaining, yes. Memorable, no. It just goes to show how significant some credit sequences can be, because this is hardly appropriate for George Lucas’ film. And I don’t just mean because the music is all wrong. If this student wanted to go with a jazz score for the titles, he should have gone with a jazz cover of the Star Wars theme. And if he wanted something more upbeat, he could have used a jazz cover of the Cantina Band song (both covers can be heard on this album). If I was this guy’s professor, I’d give him a B+, mostly for effort and the fact that I love the lazer blasts and the zoom in on the Death Star at the end. For the A, though, he’d need to resubmit with something more suitable than a Buddy Rich soundtrack. [via Fraktastic] Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/music/MemberTagFilms.aspxmusic
Number of films tagged: 4341

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]]>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:51:44 GMT4341144481Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/death/MemberTagFilms.aspxdeath
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]]>Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:27:13 GMT4306140526Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/drugs/MemberTagFilms.aspxdrugs
Number of films tagged: 1643

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]]>Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:42:19 GMT1643130489Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/suicide/MemberTagFilms.aspxsuicide
Number of films tagged: 1828

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]]>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:40:50 GMT182880185Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/addiction/MemberTagFilms.aspxaddiction
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]]>Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:57:35 GMT55359117Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/abuse/MemberTagFilms.aspxabuse
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]]>Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:13:22 GMT31211831Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/poker/MemberTagFilms.aspxpoker
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]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:20:32 GMT1441821Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/wheelchair/MemberTagFilms.aspxwheelchair
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]]>Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:39:58 GMT1251619Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/nightclub/MemberTagFilms.aspxnightclub
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]]>Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:48:06 GMT7471525Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/career/MemberTagFilms.aspxcareer
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