BK, I am also a fan of BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL...discovered mainly through the great song of the same title sung by Glenn Yarborough. It's a nice simple film. One of those films that couldn't get made today because someone would look at it and say, "Nothing happens in it", when, of course, all kinds of things are happening.
GUILTY PLEASURES:
I actually mentioned my guilty pleasure film last week, TAPEHEADS starring John Cusak & Tim Robbins, along with Jessica Walters, Mary Crosby, Clu Gulager, Doug McClure, Connie Stevens, and Susan Tyrrell...surreally silly with a great R & B song called ANY ORDINARY MAN WOULD HAVE GIVEN IT UP BY NOW sung by Sam Moore of Sam & Dave and Junior Walker of Junior Walker and the All-stars, playing a singing duo called The Swanky Modes.
So, since I mentioned this a week ago, I'm picking a new one:
THE FOUNTAINHEAD...Even the director King Vidor disses this film. It's based on Ayn Rand's novel, adapted by her, whole chunks of dialogue from the book are uplifted...not so much dialogue as dogma, doctrine, and philosophy masquerading as dialogue. It's all very florid and over-the-top with great scenery- chewing performances by Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Robert Douglas, and even Gary Cooper gets in his licks. In fact, I was asked King Vidor about this film and he felt that Cooper was miscast...he always felt Howard Roarke, the uncompromising architect, should have been played by someone like Bogie. He was wrong. There was no one who represented uncorruptible integrity better than Cary Cooper. I love this film! I had an agent who used to refer to me as the Howard Roarke of screenwriters. Not true, but flattering, nonetheless.
My guilty pleasure play would be:
MOVE OVER, MRS. MARKHAM, a silly British sex farce by Ray Cooney and John Chapman. I did it in dinner theatre years ago with Cyd Charisse and a wonderful Aussie farceur, called Peter Pagan (maybe Tomovoz remembers him. He made is mark in a movie called The Overlanders). The sucker just rips along like a house afire.
TV guilty pleasure: MEN BEHAVING BADLY (called BRITISH MEN BEHAVING BADLY on BBC over here). Not to be confused with the bad American version that played on network over here. This is the original British series...rude, raunchy, raucous, and fall down funny.
Guilty-pleasure Musical: KEAN. Not a success, but Ilove the music, the story and theme, the love the lead performer: the great Alfred Drake.
Gulity-pleasure Books: The Jules DeGrandin stories by Seabury Quinn. They are about a French occult detective, Jules De Grandin, and his cohort and companion, Dr. Trowbridge. Sort of a supernatural Holmes and Watson. All their cases take place in a New Jersey town which, given the incidences of supernatural occurence, must be the most haunted city in the world. They originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine and were very popular. Popular Library published a bunch of the stories in 6 paperbacks, back in the 70's. They're hoary little tales, but great fun.