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I'll start this thread off with 2 excellent yet overlooked Vietnam dramas of 1978: Boys in Company C and Go Tell the Spartans. Unfortunately for these films, 1978 also saw the release of The Deer Hunter and Coming Home!

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Caesar and Cleopatra (1946)-Claude Rains, Vivien Leigh, Stewart Granger

Two for the Road (1967)-Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney

Love Has Many Faces (1965) Lana Turner, Cliff Robertson, Stephanie Powers. Hugh O'Brian

The Carpetbaggers (1963) Carroll Baker, George Peppard, Leif Erickson

Gypsy (1963) Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden

The Misfits (1961) Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift

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"Perfectly Normal" (1991), from Canada. I suspect it opened in just a few US cities. It did get a very nice review in The New Yorker when it played in NYC, which was the first time I saw it, and it co-starred Robbie Coltrane, but a movie about an opera-loving hockey goalie was unlikely to appeal to the zeitgeist in the US.

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"Perfectly Normal" (1991), from Canada. I suspect it opened in just a few US cities. It did get a very nice review in The New Yorker when it played in NYC, which was the first time I saw it, and it co-starred Robbie Coltrane, but a movie about an opera-loving hockey goalie was unlikely to appeal to the zeitgeist in the US.

I don't think this example is exactly the 'underrated' definition, in that it--and others like it--never got a chance. although I sympathize with this sort of thing. I think these 'lost or unpublicized films' are really another category, but a few examples along this line for me are John Korty's 'Silence', which I saw only once on black-and-white television and have never forgotten (more famous is his 'Crazy Quilt', which was very much praised as a small film in the 60s or 70s, and is not even available on vhs or dvd, and so I've never gotten to see it), Patrick Keiller's 'London', a superb film which is well-known in the UK, but showed at Film Forum for only a week or two and is even harder to get than the sequel 'Robinson in Space'. Really, almost anything that goes to the Quad Cinema across the street from me from Tunisia or something else really remote, like the lovely 'Satin Rouge' about a beautiful belly dancer, is going to be unknown to almost anyone you mention it to. There are dozens in this category, but these films are not going to catch on whether or not they're worthy, so that I think they never even get to the underrated point, having never become known.

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"What's Eating Gilbert Grape." A totally lovely family drama and most people I've met have never even seen it.

I thought it was moving too, but this is one that did at least get plenty of publicity when it came up, and somebody even gave me tickets to screenings, etc. The kind Helene and I were listing could, of course, be called 'underrated' in that they are never mentioned, but people do know about 'Gilbert Grape' at least. I'd list several hundred of the totally unknown type, I'm sure, including almost anything that comes out of China except the Gong Li, et alia, things, anything from Iran, Africa, most of Asia, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, not to mention even most of Europe. Indies all over the place. I imagine 'Gilbert Grape' wouldn't have still attracted a sensation-oriented audience in the early 90s when it came out. That kind of thing of simple sincerity had already become pretty marginalized. I can't say I like it as much as classics like 'Member of the Wedding', but it was good to see something like that still surfacing, and there was some very good acting. Best example of a 00's family drama that I've seen is 'Les Temps Qui Changent' with Deneuve and Depardieu, and whose virtues I extol any time I get the chance. It gave me great hope that some basic and endangered attributes of humanity were not being certainly lost (I know that sounds a little extreme, but I'm not kidding. Some of the kids' interest in horror-concept sci-fi as being the 'true reality' at this point is driving me half-insane.)

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Nightmare Alley (1947)

I like Nightmare Alley, too, klingsor, and I agree it doesn’t get mentioned enough. I don’t know if it’s on DVD or VHS, either, but it does show up on cable from time to time. I saw it again not too long ago. As you probably know, Tyrone Power, hoping to get out of his big-star rut, pleaded with his studio to be able to do the film.

The Misfits (1961) Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift

If anything, critics have been overly respectful of it over the years. I’d put it in the ‘overrated’ thread.

Two for the Road

I think this one has received its fair share of praise. It’s good but I’d not call it underrated.

Caesar and Cleopatra

This one got a bad reputation early on for costing too much, and there is a lot of unnecessary spectacle, but I agree that it’s not that bad. Rains isn’t quite up to the role of Caesar and Leigh is not at her best (she was in poor health during the filmmaking) but they are both good and it’s Shaw, after all, with Oliver Messel designs, so who’s complaining.

There are dozens in this category, but these films are not going to catch on whether or not they're worthy, so that I think they never even get to the underrated point

That’s right.

I'll start this thread off with 2 excellent yet overlooked Vietnam dramas of 1978: Boys in Company C and Go Tell the Spartans. Unfortunately for these films, 1978 also saw the release of The Deer Hunter and Coming Home!

Yes, they were made with no money and no stars, and Deer Hunter and Coming Home sucked up all the Vietnam oxygen. (I do recall, however, that Go Tell the Spartans got a fair amount of critical attention at the time. I could be wrong.)

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The Misfits (1961) Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift

If anything, critics have been overly respectful of it over the years. I’d put it in the ‘overrated’ thread.

They began to praise it after the stars died, if I'm not mistaken, but not when it came out. The film itself has never been touted especially highly, but with these actors and Thelma Ritter to boot, it cannot be overrated in a certain sense, because it has become an icon in which the usual rules don't apply. Somewhat like certain dancers whose techniques are no longer flawless, but their auras are more aggressive than ever.

This one got a bad reputation early on for costing too much, and there is a lot of unnecessary spectacle, but I agree that it’s not that bad. Rains isn’t quite up to the role of Caesar and Leigh is not at her best (she was in poor health during the filmmaking) but they are both good and it’s Shaw, after all, with Oliver Messel designs, so who’s complaining.

I'd disagree only about Leigh, who I think is perfection and, even though I know about the illness and miscarriage, is as beautiful of that sort once all the Cleopatra makeup goes on as almost any woman has ever been onscreen. I think, with her limited emotional range, with the obvious selfishness and kittnenishness, she is perfect in this kind of very surface and mannered role, which is also the case with Scarlett and Emma Hamilton. Selznick was right not to let her do 'Rebecca' and 'Pride and Prejudice' though--she's way too glamorous and vain for the 2nd Mrs. DeWynter, and way too glittering for Elizabeth Bennett. I've been studying her a bit recently, and saw 'St. Martin's Lane', in which she is not even sympathetic as a street urchin, because always a bit cold and artificial. I think that's why some critics thought of her as a 'small talent' compared to Olivier--and sometimes she is; but that's not quite right; it's just a very circumscribed talent. She's better at stage technique and hated Hollywood anyway. She had a tiresome attitude toward film stars, many of whom were actually better at films than she was. But I still want to see 'Waterloo Bridge' and also compare her 'Anna Karenina' with Garbo's (I doubt she can be that grand, that she can ever act on a heroic scale like Garbo.) She is not really lovable as a persona, which I find strange, but I nevertheless find her most admirable and rather singular (even if I often think I'm seeing either Jean Simmons or Liz Taylor).

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The film itself has never been touted especially highly, but with these actors and Thelma Ritter to boot, it cannot be overrated in a certain sense, because it has become an icon in which the usual rules don't apply.

The production received a great deal of favorable attention from the get-go, not surprising considering the credentials of the people involved. It did receive mixed reviews upon release, but they were respectful with one or two exceptions, and it is still highly praised in some quarters (I recall a long and glowing review in the SF Chronicle not that long ago) – there was a deferential PBS special about it recently, too. Every once in awhile somebody will point out that it isn’t really very good, but I’m not sure that makes it underrated.

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She's better at stage technique and hated Hollywood anyway. She had a tiresome attitude toward film stars, many of whom were actually better at films than she was.

That's not really true. Leigh was certainly sharp-tongued about Hollywood, but when she did commit to a film project, her devotion and professionalism were almost fanatical. She was one of the few people to ever get along with Marlon Brando, for instance.

Speaking of underrated movies, see "Waterloo Bridge" because it was Leigh's favorite film. And contains some of her best acting. It's a weepie in the best sense of the word, although Robert Taylor is very very wooden, as was his wont.

I say "Gilbert Grape" is underrated because it's the type of film that's really never made today in Hollywood, and wasn't even made back then. It had none of the self-conscious "cute quirkiness" of a Juno or Little Miss Sunshine.

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She's better at stage technique and hated Hollywood anyway. She had a tiresome attitude toward film stars, many of whom were actually better at films than she was.

That's not really true. Leigh was certainly sharp-tongued about Hollywood, but when she did commit to a film project, her devotion and professionalism were almost fanatical. She was one of the few people to ever get along with Marlon Brando, for instance.

Speaking of underrated movies, see "Waterloo Bridge" because it was Leigh's favorite film. And contains some of her best acting. It's a weepie in the best sense of the word, although Robert Taylor is very very wooden, as was his wont.

No argument about her professionalism (and DeHavilland stressed this a few years ago), but that's not the same as being primarily a movie star (or only one) as is Catherine DeNeuve, and although K. Hepburn did do some stage work, she's primarily a film star, so that you should see these quotes. I imagine she was looking down on some of the glamour queens like Crawford, Turner, Dietrich and even Garbo--but in some ways, even when less skilled as a disciplined actress (all that Shakespeare Leigh did with Olivier definitely made her great at what she was great at), they can prove to have a more effective movie talent, so she was being snobbish. This is no big deal, and easily understandable, but just for the record, these quotes:

"She wrote to Leigh Holman, "I loathe Hollywood.... I will never get used to this – how I hate film acting."

Gone with the Wind brought Leigh immediate attention and fame, but she was quoted as saying, "I'm not a film star – I'm an actress. Being a film star – just a film star – is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity.

I had read 'Waterloo Bridge' was Leigh's favourite film and am looking forward to it. And that 'that Hamilton Woman' was Churchill's, he showed it off, and was crazy about Leigh, thought she was delightul. Of course, she's a greater actress in the classical sense than, say, Joan Crawford, but that doesn't mean a B-movie like 'Flamingo Road' wasn't needed by the world, and that's one place where Ms. Crawford is doing something that nobody could have done better. My way of judging an artist of any kind is 'have they done at least ONE really good work?' Not that that should be anybody else's criterion, but I think Ms. Crawford made TWO whole good movies!

P.S. Haven't seen Juno or Little Miss Sunshine. I've done my quota of recent films for at least 6 months, they always get me in a mostly bad mood, but I did like 'No Country for Old Men'. Back to Siegfried and the Ring Cycle!

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That's not really true. Leigh was certainly sharp-tongued about Hollywood, but when she did commit to a film project, her devotion and professionalism were almost fanatical.

Yes, indeed. The critical consensus is that Leigh was better on film than on the stage. Her ‘tiresome attitude’ was a belief, shared with her second husband, that the true test of an actor’s mettle is performing the great theatrical roles onstage, although her own film career belies this to an extent: she gave two of the most memorable performances in the history of the medium and was a truly great movie star.

But I still want to see 'Waterloo Bridge' and also compare her 'Anna Karenina' with Garbo's (I doubt she can be that grand, that she can ever act on a heroic scale like Garbo.) She is not really lovable as a persona

She gives a beautiful performance in Waterloo Bridge and is beautiful in it, unexpectedly vulnerable and tender in one who was not in essence a sympathetic actor. Nature didn't cast her in the heroic mould, which held her back in classical roles onstage - she was too small in voice and stature, her beauty too Dresden-shepherdess. Her work ethic was beyond reproach and anything she could do to overcome her limitations she did.

I think her Anna Karenina qualifies as underrated. She’s not Garbo, but it’s a better performance than generally credited, IMO. Her scenes with Ralph Richardson as Karenin are very good.

I say "Gilbert Grape" is underrated because it's the type of film that's really never made today in Hollywood, and wasn't even made back then

It’s an interesting point, canbelto. I wouldn’t have thought of Gilbert Grape as an underrated movie, because I remember it as being well regarded, but you’re certainly correct that it didn’t get the attention that today’s ‘quirky’ independents do.

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I'll start this thread off with 2 excellent yet overlooked Vietnam dramas of 1978: Boys in Company C and Go Tell the Spartans. Unfortunately for these films, 1978 also saw the release of The Deer Hunter and Coming Home!

Yes, they were made with no money and no stars, and Deer Hunter and Coming Home sucked up all the Vietnam oxygen. (I do recall, however, that Go Tell the Spartans got a fair amount of critical attention at the time. I could be wrong.)

Actually, Spartans did have a star: Burt Lancaster.

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Clare Peploe did a movie several years ago called "Rough Magic" with Bridget Fonda and a pre-"LA Confidential" Russell Crowe. It never got much attention, but I always thought it was a really lovely blend of supernatural and noir.

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The critical consensus is that Leigh was better on film than on the stage.

dirac, I've only seen a bit of her on youtube recently, but I could say the opposite. Vivien Leigh, I think, was one of those astonishing beauties in the British Vogue / John Deakin style of the late forties early fifties--but I do find her too fussy on the screen: her gestures undermine her presence. I do remember her vaguely (unVoguely)--through the mists of childhood--on the stage with Mary Ure. One of them played Mary, Queen of Scots, and each of them took turns floating forward, delivering a paragraph of monologue and withdrawing. VL was quite impressive.

I think for Shaw (Anthony and Cleopatra mentioned above) you need Shaw actors who worked together for years for anything to work. Uta Hagen used to do Mrs Warren's Profession with a rag tag group and it seemed more Albee, at least on her part, than Shaw.

Underrated, under-the-radar movies:

Fabalas, Jacques Becker 1945. The first New Wave film I think, with shots of Paris opening and closing the film that could have come out of Four Hundred Blows or some Raoul Coutard / Traffaut collaboration. It's about a fashion house, light and tragic, obsessive in a Mizoguchi or Hitchcock way. Beautifully detailed. (The other great fashion house film--other than the Kay Thompson musical--is Tra Donne Sole of Pavese and Antonioni. It opens with an attempted suicide and has lots of hard-bitten, fifties existentialist lines. (from the book: "Febo told her that hunger wasn't enough to make you succeed: you had to know your trade like the starving know hunger and practice it like gentlemen."/"Maurizio always says you get what you want, but only after you have no more need for it."'/"The old are born old.")

(Ma Vie Sexuelle) and Kings and Queen by Arnaud Desplechin, with the charming but a bit overwhelming Mathieu Amalric. In tradition of Eric Rohmer and Jean Eustace. The examined life reexamined and cat scanned.

La Rayon Verte. Eric Rohmer. The French Vacation examined. Happy ending. Tears.

In the Street. American. Helen Levitt and James Agee documentary. Privileged shots (cameras hidden in briefcases of JA and HL) of children in Spanish Harlem playing mysterious chalk games. Women sitting at windows looking out. Haunting.

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La Rayon Verte. Eric Rohmer. The French Vacation examined. Happy ending. Tears.

I think this is wonderful, but could be said to be underrated only in the U.S., perhaps? I know British, French and Swiss who think it's great. Another in that series that is excellent is 'Tale of Winter'. He was very important in those old early-90s GATT negotiations in which the French held onto their own cultural power against pretty pushy odds (even Jeanne Moreau said 'I don't give a damn' as I recall), and I think there have been good results due to this strong defense. The kinds of things canbelto deplores in today's Hollywood films (as lost) have certainly continued in France through Techine, in Wild Reeds (1994) and perhaps even in the Italian Cinema Paradiso from about 1989. I've seen La Rayon Verte 2 or 3 times, and always loved it, especially the Biarritz part with the chattering Swedish girl. Although by and large I much prefer Techine to Rohmer, what I do like about Rohmer is that street sounds exactly as one hears in cities are always kept in the soundtrack during outdoor scenes, so you get an immediacy much keener than when you just see big crowds on the sidewalks, like in, say, that Pfeiffer/Clooney formula comedy 'One Fine Day', where these sounds are removed or diminished greatly. Maybe you're talking about something very refined, in which you think 'Claire's Knee' and 'Ma Nuit chez Maud' have been given their due, but not Le Rayon Vert (also called 'Summer' I believe, although there is also a later 'Conte d'Ete'.) Some of the other Rohmer things like 'Percival' and the 'Marquise of O' I don't care for quite as much, but that may have nothing to do with overrated or underrated.

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I've only seen a bit of her on youtube recently, but I could say the opposite. Vivien Leigh, I think, was one of those astonishing beauties in the British Vogue / John Deakin style of the late forties early fifties--but I do find her too fussy on the screen: her gestures undermine her presence.

For her stage work we mostly have to go by what was said and written at the time by witnesses and she was said to be better on film, although her Antigone was highly praised and she was excellent in Duel of Angels later on. She scored a great success in The Skin of Our Teeth. The fussiness you speak of could also be apparent in the theatre. Her work in Shakespeare was variable. She was scheduled to be in Albee's A Delicate Balance when her final illness overtook her - that would have been interesting. She can be mannered but I don't think she's too fussy in Waterloo Bridge or The Deep Blue Sea (she got panned for that one but I like her in it), and a certain amount of fuss is part of the feminine arsenal of Scarlett, Cleopatra, Emma, etc.

I think for Shaw (Anthony and Cleopatra mentioned above) you need Shaw actors who worked together for years for anything to work.

On film I think the Pygmalion with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller works well - the adaptations made to the play for that version wound up in My Fair Lady -- and I also like the Major Barbara with Hiller and Rex Harrison, although it's talk talk talk. The Caesar and Cleopatra is no masterpiece but it's not bad at all.

Fabalas, Jacques Becker 1945. The first New Wave film I think, with shots of Paris opening and closing the film that could have come out of Four Hundred Blows or some Raoul Coutard / Traffaut collaboration.

Thanks for the tip. I haven't seen it.

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One excellent documentary that was only shown on PBS and was in movies briefly was "Daughter from Danang." It's about a disastrous reunion between an Amerasian adopted by an American and her birth mother in Vietnam. Very sad movie.

Thanks for the heads up on this movie. I just put it in my Netfix queue.

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I am going to throw in a film that is often thought of as campy Hollywood soap opera but is really a searing portrait of a marriage and a woman trying to play a role she isn't emotionally suited for: "Harriet Craig" (1950) with Joan Crawford and Wendell Corey. It's based on a play called "Craig's Wife" about a selfish woman more in love with her home and possessions than her husband. There was an earlier version with Rosalind Russell that I am DVR-ing this week.

The Crawford movie is a fascinating domestic tragedy that is about a control freak who loves the house and possessions because she can arrange and manipulate them completely according to her needs. She tries the same with her husband until she goes way too far. Crawford is both repellent and in the final scene really heartbreaking as you realize that in her sick, selfish way, she really did love her husband in her fashion. The film has camp value because of Crawford and the "Mommie Dearest" image (No more wire hangers, ever!!!, etc.). But the movie isn't campy at all and the acting is first-rate and Crawford has never been better. I would call it a suburban domestic film noir. TCM is showing it in September.

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"Harriet Craig" (1950) with Joan Crawford and Wendell Corey. It's based on a play called "Craig's Wife" about a selfish woman more in love with her home and possessions than her husband. There was an earlier version with Rosalind Russell that I am DVR-ing this week.

That sounded familiar, so I looked it up. The earlier version with Rosalind Russell was directed by Dorothy Arzner, one of the only women who was able to continue working as a director in Hollywood after the coming of sound. (Pre-sound there were many women who worked very successfully in Hollywood as writers, directors and producers, but almost none afterwards). I'll have to find it on my DVR schedule as well.

Arzner's "Dance, Girl, Dance" is extremely interesting as well, and not terribly well-known to the general public. It starred Maureen O'Hara as a ballet dancer struggling to survive in a city of flashy chorus girls, and a young Lucille Ball as a dancer bartering her sexuality for success. It has some clunky moments, but Arzner does some very interesting things to say about male gaze and the arts. It has some very startling moments.

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