“There were two actors who managed to perform in The Ten Commandments without disgracing themselves — Yul Brynner and Edward G. Robinson. He realized the perverse comedy in the part of Dathan. DeMille was completely baffled by what Robinson was doing, and wanted to fire him. if it hadn’t been location shooting I suspect he would have.” — John Ellis on Facebook, recently.

HE comment #1: Every Robinson scene was shot on the Paramount lot — zero location work. HE comment #2: Charlton Heston didn’t embarass hiumself — he obviously knew a lot of what he was called upon to perform was swill, but he got through it with dignity. HE comment #3: Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Vincent Price also played their lines with perverse humor.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to stream Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance. A streaming bootleg will probably be available before too long, but I’d love to catch it in a nice theatre somewhere. Alas, the #MeToo Stalinists won’t permit it.

How does it feel to suppress art, guys? To still the beating of a pulse? I’ll bet it burns your ass that Woody is alive and thriving.

The new #WoodyAllen film #CoupDeChance opens in France Sept. 27th. Great poster. pic.twitter.com/r43o5gjrDt

— Whit Stillman (@WhitStillman) September 24, 2023

Apologies for only just reading Leah Reich’s 9.11 N.Y. Times profile of HE’s own Kristi Coulter and her book, “EXIT INTERVIEW: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career.”

Amazon: “A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon.com, from the author of Nothing Good Can Come from This.”

Kristi’s brand was completely respectful and admirable before I read this, but now I’m feeling the fervor. If any veteran of the HE threads (particularly “George”) ever says anything unkind or disrespectful about Kristi I will dedicate myself to their HE termination, even if I have to do it manually on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis.

Here’s a fast and blunt assessment of Scott Feinberg’s handicapping of Best Actor and Actress hotties, posted on 9.21.23.

BEST ACTOR FRONTRUNNERS:

Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer — HE: I realize he’s a likely nominee, but he wears the same chilly, cold-eyed, alien-from-Betelguese expression in every scene.

Colman Domingo, Rustin — HE: A spirited channelling of an iconic, live-wire activist that conveys nothing except Domingo’s idea of a spirited performance. He’s so full of love and tingling energy that he almost puts you to sleep.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon — HE: As Ernest Burkhart, Leo is essentially playing a weak-willed, none-too-bright cockroach. He’s completely invested and believable, but who wants to concentrate upon, much less celebrate, the moral writhings of an Oklahoma yokel?

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers — HE: A masterful, onion-peeled, drop-by-drop performance of an unhappy older fellow with a snappy tongue…a history professor humming with resentment…sad and smart and as honest as performances of this type get.

Bradley Cooper, Maestro — I haven’t seen it, but the word on the street is that Carey Mulligan blows Cooper off the screen.

Haven’t yet seen Adam Driver in Ferrari or Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon, but if you ask me it’s Giamatti’s Oscar to lose. He should have won for Sideways — nobody with a brain disputes this,

BEST ACTRESS FRONTRUNNERS:

Annette Bening, Nyad — haven’t seen it but given the prickly reactions I heard in Telluride it’ll be quite the triumph for Bening to land a nomination,

Emma Stone, Poor Things — HE: Definitely the front-runner as we speak.

Margot Robbie, Barbie — HE: A likely nomination but think of Robbie’s exaggerated, chirpy-robot manner…do we really want to celebrate this kind of wind-up-doll acting?

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon — HE: Gladstone’s intention to go for Best Actress may result in a nomination, but it’s a tactical mistake. She should go for supporting. Her campaign is strictly an identity pitch. Gladstone performs decently as Mollie Burkhart, but she has no (i.e., wasn’t given any) big moments. Most of the time she just glares at the bad guys and lies dying in bed.

Carey Mulligan, Maestro – haven’t seen it,

Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall — HE: A genuine, fully-lived-in performance — diary of a survivor of a fraught marriage.

Greta Lee, Past Lives — HE: Nope.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Origin — haven’t seen it.

As we speak it’s Stone’s Oscar to lose. If Gladstone wins it’ll be another equity-over-quality joke, thanks to the fanatical New Academy Kidz.

William Freidkin’s The Caine Mutiny Court Martial begins streaming on Paramount + / Showtime between 10.6 and 10.8. Boomers and GenXers will be watching but not many under-45s, I suspect. Am I wrong?

A great many people took notice when Edward Dmytryk‘s The Caine Mutiny opened exclusively at Loew’s Capitol (B’way between 50th and 51st, directly across from the still-in-existence Winter Garden) on Friday, 6.25.54.

It was a much bigger deal to see Dmytryk’s Technicolor WW2-era film inside the cavernous Capitol (a deluxe 5000-seater where the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity had premiered ten months earlier) than it will be for older viewers to flop on the couch and “watch” Freidkin’s film, paying sporadic attention while surfing-and-texting, feeding the pets, taking out the garbage, etc.

The Caine Mutiny’s biggest first-run competitor was Demetrius and the Gladiators, which had opened a week or so earlier at the nearby Roxy (153 West 50th, corner of 7th Avenue).

Roughly a month later Elia Kazan‘s On The Waterfront — a gritty, black-and-white, working-class drama set in wintry, down-at-the-heels Hoboken — would open at Loews Astor (1141 seats) on Wednesday, 7.28.54.

Jean Negulesco‘s Three Coins in the Fountain, a schmaltzy Rome travelogue romance, had opened on 5.20.54.

According to The Ankler’s Peter Kiefer, a jolting text message was sent last night to several writers from their agents.

It said that producers and writers “are truly on the one yard line…no deal on Thursday night but [almost certainly] by Sunday evening, or earlier. Down to two points.”

“The text also alluded to former WGA chief negotiator David Young: “Turns out the WGA negotiating committee called David and ran everything by him…last night at 5 pm they agreed to a deal. It was David who told them to go back and ask for those other two points and ‘squeeze their nuts the same way we did the agents’. That’s what happened and that’s who’s been behind the scenes this entire time, hence why it’s taking so long.”

HE friendo: “Due to the unreasonable duration of this strike, as well as considerable collateral damage heaped upon below the line personnel and outlying businesses, the WGA is trying to come back to its membership with a full victory lap on all issues.

“I’m hearing an extension of health benefits is also a sticking point for the AMPTP… they won’t relinquish [this in order] to discourage future strikes, but the WGA is being insistent.

“The AMPTP felt they’d closed a deal in principle on Thursday night, but the WGA came back with more caveats and it’s very convenient to attribute those to the hardliner not in the room: David Young. As I’ve said before, if Young had been the lead negotiator, he most likely would have advocated staying at the table, but the Guild was hellbent on this strike.”

…except there are two performances that push too hard.

I’m speaking of Monica Raymund (playing lead prosecutor Katherine Challee**) and Lance Reddick (as head judge Luther Blakely). You can spot the histrionics immediately, and I’m sorry but the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of the late director William Freidkin.

Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Clarke and Jake Lacy respectively portray Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queen, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (defense attorney) and Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (defendant).

The 109-minute Showtime pic will debut on 10.6.23.

Dmytryk’s film ran 125 minutes. The court-martial climax lasted around…what, 25 or 30 minutes including the confrontational after-party?