Frank Borzage

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HerrSchreck
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Re: Frank Borzage

#51 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jan 14, 2009 9:10 am

So YO! What was the verdict on Street Angel's image? Squisho or nonsquisho? I didn't notice anything, and I haven't heard anything mentioned in any reviews. Can you guys post a very representative cap of what you're talking about?

evillights
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Re: Frank Borzage

#52 Post by evillights » Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:09 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:So YO! What was the verdict on Street Angel's image? Squisho or nonsquisho? I didn't notice anything, and I haven't heard anything mentioned in any reviews. Can you guys post a very representative cap of what you're talking about?
I just posted a piece about the issue, with copious frame comparisons, over at my blog.

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HerrSchreck
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Re:

#53 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Feb 04, 2009 3:54 pm

jonah.77 wrote:Re. MAN'S CASTLE, does anyone else sense that the plot line with the blonde torch singer was truncated? The film is unusually short for an "A" feature, so it stands to reason that something was cut out.
I finally was fortunate enough to catch this-- and although the Fay La Rue (Fay of the streets?) story itself in terms of plot points may not have been truncated, there is definitely a series of blipping breaks/edits that felt like missing footage. Conversations jump unnaturally, and Tracy is one moment speaking from a few feet away, and the next he's in her arms (and christ Glenda Farrell, who I get a kick out of, can NOT sing to save her life, not to mention her Elmer Fudding of R's into W's-- this is most pronounced in Little Caesar, watch it for true hilarity), etc.

Good film though. Tracy hams into Jamon land.

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colinr0380
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Re: Re:

#54 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:56 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Good film though. Tracy hams into Jamon land.
Your comments on this make it sound like that short film The Hard Guy that was included on the Little Caesar disc! That's an amazingly hammy performance but managable at around five minutes!

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tojoed
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Re: Frank Borzage

#55 Post by tojoed » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:40 pm

The BFI are releasing Seventh Heaven on 18th May 2009.

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Tommaso
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Re: Frank Borzage

#56 Post by Tommaso » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:47 pm

Nice, though of course it now comes a little too late. The rather low RRP makes me assume that this will be pretty barebones, probably even compared to the Fox disc, which at least has an audiocommentary. But I assume those who have the box will surely let the BFI pass by anyway, unless the BFI provides a new alternative soundtrack to that Movietone score...

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tojoed
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Re: Frank Borzage

#57 Post by tojoed » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:55 pm

They are also doing "Lucky Star" on the same day and at the same price. Pity they're not doing a box set.

Can anyone suggest the best version of A Farewell to Arms on DVD? All the ones on Amazon UK seem to be rubbish. Thanks in advance.

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Scharphedin2
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Re: Frank Borzage

#58 Post by Scharphedin2 » Sat May 30, 2009 7:24 am

tojoed wrote:Can anyone suggest the best version of A Farewell to Arms on DVD? All the ones on Amazon UK seem to be rubbish. Thanks in advance.
The Image Entertainment release is fine.

I believe I posed the same question back when I was looking to purchase the film, and this edition was suggested. That was a couple of years ago at least, so something better may have surfaced, although I doubt it.

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tojoed
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Re: Frank Borzage

#59 Post by tojoed » Sat May 30, 2009 7:36 am

Thankyou, that's very helpful.

Jonathan S
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Re: Frank Borzage

#60 Post by Jonathan S » Sat May 30, 2009 8:29 am

Presumably, then, the Image edition of A Farewell to Arms is definitely uncut? If so, Amazon.com are in error when they describe it as 80 minutes (both 1999 and 2004 Image editions), which would be the heavily censored reissue - the one BBC always run beginning with a Warner Bros. logo.

I have the Dynamic edition (bought from a UK supermarket bin for £1!) which I can confirm is the full 89 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality for a cheap PD release, though the Image may be even better if it's also uncut.

I wouldn't recommend ordering the OOP Dynamic online, as you'll probably get the wrong version from "used & new" sellers. It only gets one star ratings, but at least two of the reviews in the Dynamic listing refer to other editions. I previously had a Hollywood Classics one which was terrible, with out-of-sync sound.

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Ann Harding
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Re: Frank Borzage

#61 Post by Ann Harding » Sat May 30, 2009 8:55 am

I also have the Dynamic UK DVD edition of A Farewell to Arms. This is the uncut version lasting 89 min (exactly like the US Image Entertainment one). As far as I can gather from Hervé Dumont's book, this version seems to complete (the love scene in the cemetery for example). I discovered the film years ago on a 78 min VHS of very poor quality. The Dynamic Edition offers a much better image, but, still don't expect a brand new remastering or restoration.
If you saw the WB logo, it's because the film was owned for a while by Warner (before turning PD) as a result of the DO Selznick produced remake in 1957.

Anyway, this shouldn't prevent you from discovering this masterpiece!

Haggai
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Re: Frank Borzage

#62 Post by Haggai » Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:15 pm

I saw a screening yesterday of HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT, as part of a Jean Arthur series. Looking back to the beginning of this thread, it seems this is a tough movie to see, so I'm glad I got the chance. The print was scratched up in parts and had several vertical marks running through it for the last few reels, but generally it was of pretty decent quality.

The romance is nice and appealing, with good chemistry between the leads and a particularly strong performance from Arthur. The over-the-top bad guy husband and the broadly accented chef sidekick are a bit much at times, but when the focus is on the lovers, as it usually is through most of the film, it's very good. The whole gag with taking over an ineptly "American" restaurant in New York and turning it into a huge success with just the right "European" flair is kind of dumb, but the payoff more than makes up for it. Reserving that one special table for when she finally shows up is a good hook, and the reunion scene is terrific: Arthur lighting up with joy and relief when she realizes he's safe and that they can be together, while Boyer seethes because he thinks she's really gone back to her husband. Those two angles playing off each other in that scene was wonderful.

But the final sequence...huh? It's not just the implausibility of the husband's attempt to get the ocean liner to wreck, since not much else in the movie up to that point had been any less ridiculous in terms of straightforward believability. The problem was switching the focus from the two lovers into a huge disaster movie with thousands of lives at stake. We see the ship's crew debating whether to take the chance of trying to set the crossing record in the dangerous waters, but what do we care about them? And the final rescue scene cuts to a dozen celebrating faces in an Eisensteinian climax, which dissipates the desired reaction to the fate of the lovers. Yeah, it's nice that all these other people have been saved, but...who cares?

It's a bizarre turn that makes no dramatic sense. If things had to continue post-reunion with the trial in France and the husband trying to undermine them, then OK, come up with some other situations that could keep the focus on those few characters. But why wreck an ocean liner? Maybe it was pressure from the producers or financers to go out with a bang? It was a Wanger/UA production, so I'm not sure who would have been calling for that much of the budget to go into a shipwreck sequence.

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lubitsch
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Re: Frank Borzage

#63 Post by lubitsch » Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:38 pm

Haggai wrote:But why wreck an ocean liner? Maybe it was pressure from the producers or financers to go out with a bang? It was a Wanger/UA production, so I'm not sure who would have been calling for that much of the budget to go into a shipwreck sequence.
The script was written while the movie was shot and Wanger shocked the whole team including Borzage when he announced that he would include a ship disaster into the story. He apparently wanted a big ending and he got it.
I think it's nevertheless very much possible to interpret the ending in comparison to other Borzage films like Seventh Heaven and A Farewell to Arms where the apotheosis of love is reflected by a miraculous restoration of the worldly order by the declaration of peace or here by the survival of a doomed ship. and the story is so completely nuts that I would have accepted the Enterprise beaming the love couple out of the sinking ship without any hesitation.
All told I don't like the film, because Borzage's films are very much marked by a lack of melodramatic plotting, in fact of any elaborate plotting and this is the exact, lurid opposite.

HarryLong
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Re: Frank Borzage

#64 Post by HarryLong » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:30 pm

The script was written while the movie was shot
Maybe someone with a better knowledge of Wanger can address whether this was common with him. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (I think that's the Hitchcock he produced) was being rewritten & revised while it was being filmed and of course CLEOPATRA was rewritten while it was being shot (which might have been more to do with changing directors). Admittedly I can't recall offhand (from the Bogdanovich interviews) that this was the case with any of the Lang's he produced.
Or is it just a case that in any Hollywood career of any longevity such things are bound to occur...?

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Finch
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Re: Frank Borzage

#65 Post by Finch » Fri Aug 20, 2010 2:03 pm

Man's Castle can be bought on DVD here but I can't vouch for the quality and I can't find any reviews of it online.

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ambrose
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Re: Frank Borzage

#66 Post by ambrose » Mon Dec 20, 2010 8:55 am

This article filters the films of Frank Borzage through a suitably Roman Catholic perspective!.

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ambrose
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Re: Frank Borzage

#67 Post by ambrose » Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:31 am

Glenn Kenny on two of the Carlotta Blu-ray releases!.

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knives
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Re: Frank Borzage

#68 Post by knives » Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:59 pm

I finally got to watching Lucky Star and it's convinced me that Borzage is the best the US ever produced. If just for their second meeting here this has immediately become a favorite. Gaynor really amazed me too. She's really different from from her usual performances. I don't know why, but the egg bathing scene is the one that stood out the most for me on her performance. she's not really doing anything, yet her face produced such a strong response from me. Farrell was unbelievable too in an other totally different role. Story wise this might not be entirely true, but personality wise it seems they have switched from their typical roles in the Borzage films.

I also loved how much more mellow the film is. It doesn't make it better or worse than the two more popular films, but I really was rocking how turned down the melodrama was. Everything is still explicitly poetic, but there's a nonchalance to the events that's lovely and rare. Nothing really happens(on screen at least) but it still cuts like a knife. I could hang out with these two forever.

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rohmerin
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Re: Frank Borzage

#69 Post by rohmerin » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:39 am

Nothing really happens(on screen at least) but it still cuts like a knife
That sentence works for all Borzage's films I've seen. Definetely my film buff life is marked by Borzage, Dumont's book and first by the retrospective in San Sebastian festival and Madrid cinemateque (2001), second by the Spaniards that have worked his cinema, putting him at the top of Highbrow ilegal downloads in the classic cinema forums.

Borzage is an AUTEUR in capital letters. Both in Lucky star Bad girl nothing really happens, but they thrilled me, I was impressed by both of them. Imagine their plots, specially Bad girl in the hands of other director. It will be nothing and boring, but with Borzage's touch, oh God, Bad girl take me breath away and I broke all my nails suffering with the man protagonist. What a film !

I re-watched 7th heaven and it's beautiful. For 1st time I saw the films mentioned on firts paragraph and Street angel (beautiful film, excellent the BFI booklet), Moonrise (amazing, it starts as a film noir but goes on with a a 100% Borzage's love and redeption subjetcs with unhappy people who deserves happiness) and Humoresque. I loved the Negulesco version with Joan Crawford but Borzage's is totally different. As Dumont says, they are two fifferent films. Borzage talks us about poverty in a Jewish ghetto and it's excellent. It's like 7th heaven low Paris districts, with their love, dignity and very dark subjets off screen. The trouble is that the rest hour of the film is very B class when the fiddler and the girl re-meet in Europe after being rich and succesful. The Jewish portion is a masterpiece.

I've gotten new Borzage's films thank to Spaniards piratas and I'm going to enjoy them this spring. I'm going to buy the 2nd BFI volume because I don't know Lilliom. And I'll pray for a miracle. I want somebody to find the mising reels from The river.

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ArchCarrier
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Re: Frank Borzage

#70 Post by ArchCarrier » Wed May 11, 2011 3:43 am

Earlier this month, the Brussels Cinematek kicked off a two-month Borzage retrospective. For whoever's in the neighbourhood:

May 1 & May 5 Billy Jim (1922)
May 2 & May 4 Secrets (1924)
May 3 & May 7 Lazybones (1925)
May 6 Seventh Heaven (1927)
May 8 & May 11 Street Angel (1928)
May 10 A Farewell to Arms (1932)
May 11 Man's Castle (1933)
May 18 No Greater Glory (1934)
May 19 & May 22 Little Man, What Now? (1934)
May 21 & May 26 Flirtation Walk (1934)
May 25 & May 29 Living on Velvet (1935)
June 2 Desire (1936)
June 3 History Is Made at Night (1937)
June 5 Mannequin (1937)
June 7 & June 8 Three Comrades (1938)
June 9 The Shining Hour (1938)
June 10 & June 12 Disputed Passage (1939)
June 11 Strange Cargo (1940)
June 17 & June 19 His Butler's Sister (1943)
June 23 The Spanish Main (1945)
June 26 & June 28 China Doll (1958)

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rohmerin
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Re: Frank Borzage

#71 Post by rohmerin » Fri Sep 09, 2011 6:03 am


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perkizitore
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Re: Frank Borzage

#72 Post by perkizitore » Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:35 pm


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rohmerin
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Re: Frank Borzage

#73 Post by rohmerin » Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:18 pm

Borzage could made the miracle of 7th heaven in many parts of I've always loved you. I've just watched it for 1st time and it has thrilled me. Sublime amour you. Love in capital letters with the best, big, one, pure and unfinished adultery I've seen in my life. Sadly the sets are very Republic, chic and naff at the same time. This film deserves to be rediscovered: Scorsese, criterion or someone.

Heart's divided is an awful film with horrible cast (except Napoleon played by Claude Rains, he's brilliant). I didn't like Flirtation walk and Living on velvet (I can not stand Kay Frances except with Lubitsch).

The Spanish main was a good one. I did enjoy it all. This film was banned in Spain, of course, I'm talking about Franco and the Hollywood "wrong" vision of Spaniards and how US insult "our race" (The sea hawk -among others- was banned too for the same reason).

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George Kaplan
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Re: Frank Borzage

#74 Post by George Kaplan » Wed May 23, 2012 12:51 am

The magnificent MAN'S CASTLE (1933) is finally published on DVD from Sony Spain.
It's one in a series of titles, called "Columbia Essential Classics", apparently published in April 2012, and also including:
John Ford's THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING;
Frank Capra's THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN;
Nicholas Ray's HOT BLOOD;
among others such as THEODORA GOES WILD, LADIES IN RETIREMENT, IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU, THE STRANGER WORE A GUN, A GOOD DAY FOR A HANGING, MR. SARDONICUS, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, STRAIT-JACKET, MAROONED, I WALK THE LINE, HARDCORE, and SHEENA QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE.

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lubitsch
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Re: Frank Borzage

#75 Post by lubitsch » Wed May 23, 2012 5:03 am

Yikes, I'm just today doing the screenshots for my Borzage book, thanks for the post! Even more interesting is the 80 min running time which would indicate that we get the uncensored version. Anyone already has the disc and can confirm?

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