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Yesterday I posted the following on Arthur Grant's long-running thread about the many films not yet on DVD/BluRay but which should be. One of the many films discussed on and off on the thread was the James Stewart suspense tale, FOOLS' PARADE, based on a novel by Davis (THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) Grubb, so I thought this alert might interest some of those who had expressed an interest in the movie. Now, I'm thinking that, under the circumstances, the news would be conveyed more effectively in a separate thread. As Finian would say, QUOTE MESELF -- QUOTE:
You get TV -- but do you get GetTV? If you do have that channel, which apparently shows films complete but with commercials, then Sunday night 7PM EST you can catch a broadcast of FOOLS' PARADE. Haven't been watching the channel enough to guess whether this might be in widescreen. I could very well be wrong, (as I often am), but, Bob D. to the contrary notwithstanding, I very much doubt that TCM has shown FOOLS' PARADE, widescreen or otherwise, in recent years. Personally, I haven't caught it for over a decade or two, in a theater or on the tube. As I may have mentioned before, when the American Cinematheque wanted to screen PARADE some years ago, they were unable to locate a useable print.
(In my book about THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, I discuss FOOLS' PARADE as well as another movie mentioned in this thread, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD -- PARADE because of its Davis Grubb source novel, and DEAD because it was originally going to be Laughton's follow-up to directing HUNTER.)
UNQUOTE
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Posted: |
Oct 12, 2014 - 3:59 AM
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By: |
riotengine
(Member)
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Yesterday I posted the following on Arthur Grant's long-running thread about the many films not yet on DVD/BluRay but which should be. One of the many films discussed on and off on the thread was the James Stewart suspense tale, FOOLS' PARADE, based on a novel by Davis (THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) Grubb, so I thought this alert might interest some of those who had expressed an interest in the movie. Now, I'm thinking that, under the circumstances, the news would be conveyed more effectively in a separate thread. As Finian would say, QUOTE MESELF -- QUOTE:
You get TV -- but do you get GetTV? If you do have that channel, which apparently shows films complete but with commercials, then Sunday night 7PM EST you can catch a broadcast of FOOLS' PARADE. Haven't been watching the channel enough to guess whether this might be in widescreen. I could very well be wrong, (as I often am), but, Bob D. to the contrary notwithstanding, I very much doubt that TCM has shown FOOLS' PARADE, widescreen or otherwise, in recent years. Personally, I haven't caught it for over a decade or two, in a theater or on the tube. As I may have mentioned before, when the American Cinematheque wanted to screen PARADE some years ago, they were unable to locate a useable print.
(In my book about THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, I discuss FOOLS' PARADE as well as another movie mentioned in this thread, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD -- PARADE because of its Davis Grubb source novel, and DEAD because it was originally going to be Laughton's follow-up to directing HUNTER.)
UNQUOTE
As we previously discussed in those threads, Preston, this is long sought after holy grail of mine. Damn, I don't have GetTV. It will be interesting to see how it's presented.
Greg Espinoza
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Some time last year I caught FOOL'S PARADE on Milwaukee's feed of GetTV, the sub-station of Fox-6.
Somehow I don't think Andrew V. Mclaglen was the director to translate Grubb's novel to the screen.
Let's put it this way--McLaglen was no Charles Laughton.
Grubb's Depression era story has a lot of basic audience interest and the strong cast does their best but they are left high and dry by McLaglen's flatfooted approach to the film. Visually, the film is one step away from a made-for-TV effort, and Henry Vars' score brings absolutely nothing to the table.
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Greg --
Right you are. After posting this thread I discovered that they'll reprise the film immediately, starting at 9:15 PM EST. What's more, turns out they'll also be running this two-fer at exactly the same time(s) on Wednesday evening.
(FWIW, GetTV seems to be the Columbia Pictures version of Fox TV and MGMTV, though there are exceptions in the form of rare non-Columbia and independent features, and a few regular TV shows.)
Vinyl --
If you've read "Heaven and Hell To Play With," you'll know I happen to agree with you overall in your eloquent and spot-on critique, and you even express a specific thought or two I've always had about FOOLS' PARADE which I didn't happen to include in my book. Grubb's writing in the novel, as in everything he ever wrote, is rich in mood, atmosphere and poetry, the qualities which Laughton captured and which eluded Mr. McLaglen. This said, I do think that this should-have-been great film nevertheless has enough virtues and strengths, (such as you enumerate), to make it worthwhile, (let's say, three *** out of four ****), starting with the strength of the story and characters provided by the author. I'd say that the first act of the movie, everything to do with the train, comes closest of anything else in the picture to capturing the powerful, Grubbian sense of evil. After this fine beginning, these heights, alas, are never quite reached again.
(It does have the distinction of being the last James Stewart film in which he played the central character.)
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Nu, did any of you watch?
Sure enough, no letterboxing. I was expecting the commercials, of course, but I was also amused to note the choices that networks make in censoring their broadcast material. No problem with violence, (of course). And "Bastard" is apparently okay, but, in a world where TV is chock full of T and A, you still can't say T__ and you still can't say A__. Ditto G__D___. I hope that some day TCM will show the film again, their last go 'round apparently being in April of 2008.
As to FOOLS' PARADE itself, its virtues and weaknesses struck me as pretty much the way I've always remembered them. However... I'd like to think that it's because of current culture, and not that I'm turning into a fuddy-duddy in my dotage, but I find that these days, with ever fewer new movies being aimed at grown-ups, let alone evincing the Hollywood craftsmanship we all used to take for granted, I enjoy the virtues in older movies much more than I deplore their shortcomings. I appreciate more than ever that FOOLS' PARADE is pretty faithful to Davis Grubb's unusual story and that, even more, it strives to replicate the author's unique characterizations and his darkly comic vision of Good and Evil. The great cast, the period detail, the location shooting in genuine Davis Grubb territory -- something that even THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER didn't do, outside of a few second unit shots -- these are things that help me find much to admire in this far from perfect motion picture.
This time around, I even appreciated Henry Vars's score more than I used to. I still think that his suspense and action cues are negligible, (or, as one of us said above, adds nothing), but I found his folk-like main theme, heard at the outset and sparingly thereafter, has a really touching quality.
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Posted: |
Oct 14, 2014 - 5:05 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Originally, producer George Englund (DARK OF THE SUN, THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN) acquired Davis Grubb's novel in August 1968 for a price estimated to be between $175,000 and $300,000. Englund was in negotiations with several major studios, and in October 1968 it was announced that he had reached an agreement with M-G-M to produce the film. But by April 1970, for reasons unstated, M-G-M had dropped the project, for which Horton Foote had written a script. The project was put into turnaround, and a few months later, Hollywood Reporter announced that director Andrew McLaglen, writer James Lee Barrett, and Columbia would be jointly producing FOOLS' PARADE.
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A Horton Foote version?!
Damn.
I do hope and pray someone has preserved the manuscript, although no future re-make of FOOLS' PARADE could ever have a better embodiment of Mattie Appleyard and his friend than James Stewart and Strother Martin. (Often, when a project goes into turnaround, the whole package remains intact; I wonder why the Foote script didn't follow FOOLS' from MGM to Columbia). But I'd purely love to read what the man who so poetically translated Harper Lee onto the screen did with Davis Grubb.
Thanks, Bob.
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Makes sense. I knew about the strong, long Stewart/Barrett connection; I just never knew about the pre-existing Foote script. It'd still be interesting to know just how the Englund property became the McLaglen/Barrett property.
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Incidentally, I don't know why I didn't think to mention it before, but you may get a kick out of knowing that I met and interviewed prop master "Ace" Holmes many years ago, and on that occasion he gave me as a keepsake "Tige" -- the glass eye that Jimmy Stewart as Mattie Appleyard finds so useful.
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I thought I'd already dealt with this old wive's (whore's?) tale, but I guess that must have been in another thread. If you read the story on another thread, presumably that was it, and you didn't read or don't recall my debunking it. Simply put, the story doesn't make any sense if you think about it. If she didn't like he way she looked, (her motivation for trying to suppress the film, according to the rumor), she would have said so during filming, and if they ignored her objections on the shoot, they certainly would have ignored her wishes after the fact. At that stage of her career, Miss Baxter no longer had the clout -- if she'd ever had it -- to put the kibosh on a whole movie release.
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Posted: |
Feb 24, 2015 - 12:53 PM
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By: |
riotengine
(Member)
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I thought I'd already dealt with this old wive's (whore's?) tale, but I guess that must have been in another thread. If you read the story on another thread, presumably that was it, and you didn't read or don't recall my debunking it. Simply put, the story doesn't make any sense if you think about it. If she didn't like he way she looked, (her motivation for trying to suppress the film, according to the rumor), she would have said so during filming, and if they ignored her objections on the shoot, they certainly would have ignored her wishes after the fact. At that stage of her career, Miss Baxter no longer had the clout -- if she'd ever had it -- to put the kibosh on a whole movie release.
Yeah, that didn't make any sense to me, but I had to ask since you're the expert. 
I didn't see the other thread, the FSM search engine isn't working so well these days. I just saw your IMDB post about the matter a few minutes ago. I should have kept reading and I would have seen it sooner.
In any event, I think Fools' Parade is playing till May 1st.
http://www.movieplex.com/movies/titles/foolsparade/23039
Greg Espinoza
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I had completely forgotten about that IMDB post! That's the one I was thinking of above. (I post so damn much at FSM that I find it hard to realize I occasionally do post on other boards.) It's found under the thread title, "WHY IS THIS A FORGOTTEN MOVIE?" or words to that effect. I said pretty much what I said above a little more pithily, and I added parenthetically that I once met Anne Baxter at Raymond Massey's memorial.)
Thanks for the memory.
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