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Paul that is exactly what I recall and I'm glad someone finally showed up with some FACTS, which is all we ever want. Not people's "memories", facts. 221 minutes IS four hours, but at least ten to fifteen minutes of that four hours is overture, intermission and exit music, which if you subtract, leaves you about three forty-five, which is, I believe, absolutely correct. All I've been saying is that the film never ever ran four hours and twenty minutes in any theatrical engagement, and these running times as listed by two major NY papers finally confirm that.
Will anyone acknowledge this, or will they stick to their "memories"? We shall see.
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Paul that is exactly what I recall and I'm glad someone finally showed up with some FACTS, which is all we ever want. Not people's "memories", facts. 221 minutes IS four hours, but at least ten to fifteen minutes of that four hours is overture, intermission and exit music, which if you subtract, leaves you about three forty-five, which is, I believe, absolutely correct. All I've been saying is that the film never ever ran four hours and twenty minutes in any theatrical engagement, and these running times as listed by two major NY papers finally confirm that.
Will anyone acknowledge this, or will they stick to their "memories"? We shall see.
Apparently not. As per usual everyone has left the room.
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Aside from the Newman score, the one thing in GSET that still abides with me is Max Von Sydow's performance, a portrayal of what I can only describe as "muscular" Christianity. He had an ascetic look; you believed he had fasted in the desert for 40 days. And his eyes kept staring in an almost hypnotic gaze. I remember reading somewhere that it was believed he never blinks during the film. I beleieve it.
This kind of a being has always seemed to me like a man who could work miracles.
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Dahlink, I SAW the film. Shameful only applies if you haven't seen the film or heard the score. :-)
You'll have to provide sources for your astonishing claim.
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Posted: |
Dec 25, 2004 - 4:19 PM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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Paul that is exactly what I recall and I'm glad someone finally showed up with some FACTS, which is all we ever want. Not people's "memories", facts. 221 minutes IS four hours, but at least ten to fifteen minutes of that four hours is overture, intermission and exit music, which if you subtract, leaves you about three forty-five, which is, I believe, absolutely correct. All I've been saying is that the film never ever ran four hours and twenty minutes in any theatrical engagement, and these running times as listed by two major NY papers finally confirm that.
Will anyone acknowledge this, or will they stick to their "memories"? We shall see.
Last I heard there were 60 minutes in an hour, so that 221 minutes is NOT 4 hours (unless you're counting those visits to the psychiatrist). One can only wonder from the character of your responses to Joe's postings what fuels your obvious venom -- professional jealousy? Bitterness about being disagreed with? The presence of someone on the board who has as strong an insider's knowledge base as you? Please tell us! Whatever the reasons, your ugly attacks on Joe do not lend much credibility to your positions in this or any of your other childish arguments with him.
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My arguments were not with Joe at all in this thread. Joe has stated that the film ran three hours and forty minutes or so. Someone else (who has never returned to the thread) made the astonishing claim that this film ran 260 minutes in its roadshow premiere. I disagreed. Someone finally showed up with proof of the 221 minute running time. The End.
I certainly have had my arguments with Joe, and though you may find them childish, that's your problem. I find Joe's presentation of "facts" to be often-times incorrect, and rather than let them stand, I correct them or, at the very least question them. While some of Joe's facts are fine, some of Joe's other facts are not fine, and I have posted the correct factual information. Do you suppose, Dana, that we should all just sit back and have these bogus facts stand, so that when people do searches they come upon these unrefuted bogus facts and believe them? Not just Joe, anyone.
Was it "childish" to question the 260 minute running time that was presented in this thread as a FACT? If so, color me childish.
And a very merry Christmas to you.
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Posted: |
Dec 26, 2004 - 12:28 AM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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My arguments were not with Joe at all in this thread. Joe has stated that the film ran three hours and forty minutes or so. Someone else (who has never returned to the thread) made the astonishing claim that this film ran 260 minutes in its roadshow premiere. I disagreed. Someone finally showed up with proof of the 221 minute running time. The End.
I certainly have had my arguments with Joe, and though you may find them childish, that's your problem. I find Joe's presentation of "facts" to be often-times incorrect, and rather than let them stand, I correct them or, at the very least question them. While some of Joe's facts are fine, some of Joe's other facts are not fine, and I have posted the correct factual information. Do you suppose, Dana, that we should all just sit back and have these bogus facts stand, so that when people do searches they come upon these unrefuted bogus facts and believe them? Not just Joe, anyone.
Was it "childish" to question the 260 minute running time that was presented in this thread as a FACT? If so, color me childish.
And a very merry Christmas to you.
My apologies for the transposition -- I am so accustomed to your responses to Joe's postings that I must have just made that leap. I have no reason personally to argue with you, but if I may make an observation: I find myself wondering, frequently, after you've "refuted" one of Joe's comments or that of another poster, "where's the beef?" From the standpoint of most of us, i.e., folks who were NOT there to see whatever it is you're discussing, your "facts" seem to be no more substantiated than those stated by the other person. HE was there. YOU were there. HE says this. YOU say that. YOUR recollections are facts. HIS recollections are not, COULD not be correct because YOU know what YOU know. Sorry, perhaps you guys should just have a duel at dawn or something, because your observations are no more convincing or well-supported than his. Obviously I do not and cannot agree or disagree with either of you from personal knowledge. You both have insider's knowledge, and I respect that. The only difference I can see between the two of you is that you are always ripping him up, and he responds by and large in a much less combative fashion.
And a Merry Christmas to you also...
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Why don't the two of you just get a room and get it over with!
This continual sniping becomes debilitating to have to wade through, if I want to figure out what's actually being discussed on these threads!
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Dana, I think he's talking about Joe and I, since this is our first set-to (if you can call it that). And let me tell you, John, as long as mis-information or faulty memories are printed here, I will be here to correct it or at least question it if I'm not certain. When I do this it is always on topic and has to do with the information being posted. If that debilitates you, oh well.
In other words - in this very thread someone posted that GSET ran 260 minutes in its roadshow engagement. I posted that I thought that was malarky and that my memories were completely different. Someone then posted the running time as listed in several reviews written when the film opened in roadshow, all of which stated the same running time of 224 minutes or whatever it was. So, certain memories are better than other memories, I guess. My memories of films and where I saw them back then is fairly impeccable.
To give you but one simple example: Last week I had the treat of seeing what basically is a lost film. This film showed in only five theaters, I believe, where it flopped miserably and was removed from distribution. I saw it its opening week and never forgot it (in fact, I can sing you its title song right now, every word of it, despite not having heard it since the early sixties). Once the film was pulled, it was shorn of its gimmick, cut by twenty minutes and released as both a Cinemiracle and a Cinerama feature (under a different title). The film has only been shown once since then, in a seventy-minute version on TV, filmed with a video camera aimed at the center of a 70mm screen (possibly the worst TV broadcast in history).
So, there I was, seeing this film again for the first time since 1960. It was clearly the cut Cinerama version. There was narration throughout, which I informed everyone hadn't been there originally. Then the intermission came on half-way through the film. And this is how good my memory is - I turned to my friend and said, that is NOT the intermission - it's when this and this happens, and the shot I remember is this. Twenty minutes later exactly what I had described - shot for shot, and word for word - occured on the screen. That memory is from one viewing of one film in 1960. And that is why I trust my memory over certain other people who have repeatedly been proven wrong here.
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So, to be very clear - I agree with Joe that the film opened in roadshow at 221 minutes or thereabouts. The gentleman who posted that it opened at 260 minutes in roadshow is ocmpletely in error - of course, he hasn't been back since he posted that, so there you are.
My long-term memory IS fairly infallible. I wish I could say the same for my short term memory. When I was writing my little trilogy of novels which are basically about my childhood growing up in LA and which are loaded with movies and where and when I saw them, I didn't trust anything, and I spent several very long days at the downtown library going through microfiche, checking every single film against when and where I remembered seeing it, and I was never, not once, wrong. That's why I trust my long-term memory. That's why during that whole sorry Valley of the Dolls episode, where Joe was just "convinced" that he was right, I would not let go, because I knew he was mis-remembering, and we finally found the proof to show him he was mis-remembering.
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You see, Joe, this is why I don't let up on you. It doesn't matter if they agreed with you on VOTD. You were wrong - you ADMITTED you were wrong after checking your own sources (even though we provided you with irrefutable proof that you were wrong in the form of a newspaper advertisement), so now you seem to be back saying you weren't wrong. You admitted it - you may bring up other things but not this thing. This thing is done. And you know what, I'm done. If you admitted you were in error, and now can't admit you admitted you were in error, then you are simply hopeless. Sorry, but there you are. Exeunt.
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Hainshisway, please, tell us what is the lost film you're talking about. Thank you.
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