Rush, rush, rush.

No real time to post a new blog, suffice it to say that, in thinking about "No Way Out" and "Fallen Angel", reminded me of stories about Linda Darnell (especially re: Joseph L. Mankiewicz) and that brought to mind the whole issue of casting, i.e., the famous instances of how someone winds up in a movie (even though someone else was cast first). Famous instance: Claudette Colbert getting signed to play Margo Channing, then hurting her back and they had to get Bette Davis (just released from her Warners contract, so freelancing for the first time in her career) as a fast replacement.

Watched "Dark Command" on TCM, very intriguing Republic Western from 1940. More ND/NF, and digital is driving people nuts. The Scandinavian film "A Soap" was very well-done, but felt contrived and hollow. The subject matter (woman meets neighbor who is a pre-op transexual prostitute) was (at this point) so "deja-vu all over again": the woman and male hustler romance ("The Blue Hour"), the transexual "trauma" ("Transamerica")... oh, well, that's the problem with seeing too many movies, they all start to seem the same....