MovieChat Forums > All Night Long (1963) Discussion > On Turner Classic Movies last night...

On Turner Classic Movies last night...

posted 15 years ago by JohnnyStaccato
16 replies | jump to latest

Nobody watched this on TCM last night? I was expecting a slew of comments in the wake after this "TCM Underground" feature (as I found on other IMDb message board in response to other cult films featured). This board is dullsville...

Anyhow, interesting take on Shakespeare's Othello, however it was worth a viewing for the musical performances alone--Brubeck & Mingus(!), who I might add were competent actors for the few lines they were given, not like say Shorty Rogers' in "The Man With the Golden Arm".

It's a pity there are so few films actually about jazz, especially films made in that era c. 1920s to the early 1960s, this was one of those rare treats.
_____
Suddenly, thud! My mind tottered like a jinkyboard in a windstorm...

[–] AnAmateur 15 years ago

I watched it with some friends, it was amazing!

[–] abchulett 15 years ago

I loved it too, absolutely. Like an episode of "Playboy After Dark," all the hep cats gathered around groovin' on some really hot jazz AND some really cool jazz. The translation of "Othello" into this modern society worked really very well, I thought. I may never record over this one.

[–] redram91 15 years ago

I watched it for McGoohan, my favorite television actor of all time (Secret Agent, The Prisoner). It's a unique and interesting movie. Not sure it's great though.

[–] verbusen 15 years ago

Its on again April 3 2009 on TCM if anyone is looking to watch it. I have not seen it but will definitely dvr it for McGoohan (and Dave Brubek sounds cool also)!

[–] jshoaf 15 years ago

I saw last night that it was going to be on so I set my alarm for 2 a.m. as I had always been curious to see it--as a McGoohan fan. I enjoyed the jazz a lot (which I gather from the comments means I am no jazz expert), esp. Brubeck, and also the plays on Othello: Roderigo transformed into the Hon. Rod, a wealthy jazz fan, Bianca into (groupie?) Benny, Cassio into sax player/manager Cass, the handkerchief into a cigarette case, and Cassio's drinking problem into a fondness for "funny cigarettes." (Though I don't know what was in them that sharpened Iago's wits and Cass's aggressiveness....) Poor Emily was an ex-groupie whom Iago/Johnny married under threat of the Mann Act. The script gave Iago a strong motivation for his manipulations but at the end just let him explode into nihilism, as Iago does in the play. I liked the Othello and Desdemona characters, too, and the way they played out the tension in the marriage--which was not that she defied her father but that she gave up her singing career. The dialogue was mostly awful--full of slang that rarely sounded natural (I kept thinking of Maynard G. Krebs). However, McGoohan kept things interesting with his nervous mannerisms, which were wonderfully integrated into his character as a drummer. And I thought it was an unusually sincere homage to the musicians present.

[–] HAMMERTHROW 15 years ago

Unusual to see McGoohan play a weasel!!!

Triple Irons-"I could have easily have beaten you, if I had three swords"

[–] LPurch6636 14 years ago

Regarding the "Othello"-thing: Isn't it interesting that this British-made movie that was so "modern" for it's time (especially for American audiences) had "Rex" and his wife renig at the end and not show the true "Othello"-ending? After he attempts to kill her, they just walk off in the night together. I thought about if my husband had attempted to kill me, would I be so instantly forgiving? NOT... Was there some British law that kept them from showing murder in their movies at that time???

Flanagan

[–] lebiglebowski 14 years ago

I agree is was very modern for its time. Oh and as for whether they had a production code holding them back I am not sure, I know that in the US there was a production code and it was so heavily enforced during the 40s and 50s to the point where filmmakers had to get more creative about the way they made movies. The writers and directors still got their point across and alot of times the restraint of the production code made the action and the dialogue so much more creative that the films were better. I would imagine that the UK had a production code as well and it could have even been more strict, but I am not sure, I would have to do some research. I would do a search for "British Film Code of the 1960s" or 1950s etc. and that would tell you more.

So did you like the ending the way it was? I thought it was a good movie, I caught it late at night on cable the other night and was suprised at how good it was. Just wondering if some peeps would have rather seen the Othello ending?

[–] carolv_brady 15 years ago

Wow, I never realised this had EVER benenshown on tv at all! I don't get TCM but it's nice to know ANL was shown. I am crazy about this movie because of the great music and the wonderful Patrick McGoohan!

"Find Casey! Get Connor!"

[–] paultbaker 15 years ago

We have a rare VHS copy of this film at the video store I manage. It's probably one of, if not the, best retelling of a Shakespeare play.

Fantastic acting, and holy s, great jazz!

"Film is a mosaic of Time."
-A. Tarkovsky

[–] CaperGuy 14 years ago

I'm watching "All Night Long" right now on the 'this' network on DTV. Since I don't have cable anymore due to my recessionary cost savings, I can still catch these gems on secondary networks like 'this' and 'RTV'. I have seen pieces of this film before but now I'm going to enjoy it from start to finish.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. - Proverbs 23:7

[–] lebiglebowski 14 years ago

I just finished watching "All Night Long" on "THIS" network on basic digital tv, I have caught a lot of good movies and shows on "THIS" and "RTV" since I also had to cut the cost of cable tv. WOW what a nice early 60s jazz noir! I won't even judge it in regards to other adaptations etc. I will merely say WOW, and I like to think with something like a couple thousand dvds and now brdvds of every classic film that has been released from Warner, Fox, MGM/UA, Universal, Columbia, Sony, Paramount, Image, Criterion, Kino, Republic etc. and with some of my fav films being Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", Hitchcock's "Vertigo", Wilder's "Double Indemnity", Welles' "Citizen Kane", Curtiz's "Casablanca", Bergman's "Seventh Seal", Reed's "The Third Man", Truffaut's "400 Blows", Renoir's "Grand Illusion", Ford's "The Informer" & "The Searchers" and well so many Ford movies.. And some of my favorite directors being - Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Powell & Pressburger, Billy Wilder, Ingmar Bergman, John Ford, Carol Reed, John Houston, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Donen, Michael Curtiz, George Cukor, Elia Kazan, Jean Renoir, Frank Capra, Martin Scorsese, Victor Flemming, Jean Vigo, Howard Hawks, Francois Truffaut, Preston Sturges ... I really hope that I have opened myself up to one of my favorite art forms and also hope that when I say "WOW" I say it with some base knowledge of what a "wow" movie is. However I guess it all boils down to what we the viewer likes. I mean I feel like Citizen Kane is probably the best film ever made and that Alfred Hitchcock is the greatest director that ever made a movie, but some people, who have just as large a collection and love movies just as much as I do think that Kane is overrated and disagree that studying Alfred Hitchcock's library of movies can be just as good if not better than spending time in film school.

Anyway I would highly recommend "All Night Long" to anyone who likes classic cinema from 1929-1969, and especially to anyone who likes Film Noir or Jazz.. and if you like Film Noir I recommend that you check out the list below if you haven't already seen them.

Must See Film Noir-
-Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder (1944)
-The Big Heat - Fritz Lang (1953)
-Touch of Evil - Orson Welles (1958)
-The Big Combo - Joseph H. Lewis (1955)
-Sunset Blvd. - Billy Wilder (1950)
-Murder, My Sweet - Edward Dmytryk (1944)
-Out of the Past - Jacques Tourneur (1947)
-The Killers - Robert Siodmak (1946)
-In A Lonely Place - Nicholas Ray (1950)
-Detour - Edward G. Ulmer (1945)

and a few masterpieces that are sometimes billed as just "mystery dramas" and contain many elements of Film Noir are-
-Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
-The Third Man - Carol Reed (1949)
-Mildred Pierce - Michael Curtiz (1945)

"I'm not bitter about Hollywood's treatment of me, but over its treatment of D.W. Griffith, Josef Von Sternberg, Erich Von Stroheim, Buster Keaton and a hundred others." - Orson Welles

[–] zeggman 12 years ago

I caught the last bit of it on This in October, 2012 (also recently dropped cable to save money). Looks like I missed all the jazz, so it's good to know it's re-broadcast periodically. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

[–] d-letta-1 13 years ago

Excellent Shakespeare interpretation, and even better music...what a treat! It drove me to distraction, where I'd seen Keith Michel before...or since. Then I remembered the semi-recurring character Dennis Sanford on Murder She Wrote.

[–] activista 12 years ago

This flick popped up on the THIS channel last night---I thought maybe it might be like a British answer to PARIS BLUES, but it turned out to be something different. It was pretty cool seeing jazz greats Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck (whose classic tune "Take Five" was the first jazz tune I ever liked,period---I'm more familiar with his music than Charlie Mingus---the only Mingus tune I know and like was called "Goodbye Pork Pie.) Even cooler than that was seeing a black actor (Paul Harris,who showed some real presence,but his career seems not to have taken off until the blaxploitation era) and a black actress (Maria Velasco,who's such a spunky,get-up-go presence with a large, lovely smile in her few but memorable scenes, it's surprising that she did so few films after this one) in non-stereotypical main character roles for that era. Also, Richard Attenborough was so young here, I didn't even recognize him until halfway thru the film! I'm a jazz fan, and I liked how some of the characters seemed hip,open and free, just liked the music itself. First time seeing a jazz version of OTHELLO, of all things.

Also notable was its matter-of-fact depiction of not just one but two interracial relationships (one of them a marriage) something rarely seen in most movies of that era. And last, but not least, it was cool just seeing a pre-DANGER MAN/PRISONER Patrick McGoohan play a hep cat who's also a two-faced backstabbing lowlife--it's watching how his machinations unravel the fabric of everyone's else relationships that was interesting to see played out. Wish I'd known it was coming on, but I'd never seen it before---hope THIS shows it again.

[–] BrandNewPoster (7034) 2 months ago

It's currently streaming on Criterion Channel.