Eva Marie Saint RIP -- October 7, 2026

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Actress Eva Marie Saint has died at 102 years old. My sympathy to her family and friends. 

Her character took the best train ride ever with Cary Grant in Alfrred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. She was completely different in On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando.I admired her performance in The Manchurian Candidate. 

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Paramount + Warner = Skydance?! -- October 6, 2026

ABC7 San Francisco

It looks as if Paramount has finally succeeded in taking over Warner Brothers. They have agreed to stay in California for some number of years and to spend some amount of money every year for a while. I worry about the Ellison family of oligarchs having control over so much of our media. They have already crippled CBS News. They seem to be working on Turner Classic Movies.

@officialdirtsheetradio

Tracy and Loy -- 05-October-2026

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We dialed by TCM and they were showing Libeled Lady. My wife liked the way Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy worked together. She asked if they had been in another movies together. I thought there was at least one, but I could not remember the title. The imdb told me they included Test Pilot, which I have seen and Whipsaw, which I don't think I have seen.

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The Flowers of Saint Francis -- October 4, 2026

www.listal.com

In honor of the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, here is a poster for Roberto Rosselini's Francesco, giullare di Dio (Francis, Jester of God, released in the US as The Flowers of Saint Francis).  Inspired by the Fioretti di San Francesco and La Vita di Frate Ginepro, Rosselini made a neo realist religious film.  Francis is played by Franciscan Brother Nazario Gerardi.  Rosselini was not a practicing Catholic, but he appreciated the church's ethical teachings and the anti-materialism of Francis.

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Sam Neill RIP -- July 16, 2026

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Actor Sam Neill has died. He was good in everything I have seen. I may be one of the few people who never saw any of the Jurassic Park movies, but I'll bet he was good there too.

Update 04-October-2026. I never hit publish.

Orphée -- July 15, 2026

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Thanks to TCM online, I finally got to see Jean Cocteau's Orphée. François Périer as the chauffeur, Heurtebise, gave a nice, understated performance, full of longing for Eurydice. Almost everything in the upper world and the underworld seemed mundane. Orphée's passage into the underworld was beautiful and troubling. And then the trial looked like a trial in the upper world, but the judges didn't have robes, hats or wigs. I was not impressed by the passing through the mirror effects, but I would watch it again.

Napoleon -- July 14, 2026

San Francisco Chronicle, 27-December-1981

In honor of Bastille Day, here is an ad for Francis Ford Coppola's 1981 revival of Napoléon vu par Abel Gance. We went to see Abel Gance's Napoleon, with a score by Coppola's father Carmine, at the Opera House. When I read Kevin Bownlow's The Parade's Gone By, I thought I would never get to see the Polyvision triptychs in a theater. Kevin Brownlow led the project to produce this restoration.