Georgie Minafer's Dark Secret

[Jeff Wilson]

I just received my copy of Fantomas' box set of Educational Archives DVDs, spread over four discs, covering topics like Sex & Drugs, Social Engineering 101, and more. For fans of vintage classroom/educational films, this set is a real treat. The discs have previously been available seperately.

As to the title of the thread, I popped in the Sex & Drugs disc and watched the riotous syphillis piece "Know For Sure," made in 1941, and starring Tim Holt among its cast (along with J. Carroll Naish and Ward Bond). Holt plays a college student visiting the doctor because he has "a sore -- down there." Upon learning it's syphillis, Holt starts talking about moving away and starting a new life, since his rep is now shot. The doctor comforts him, telling Holt that he can be cured (if he sticks to the regimen), and no one need ever know. I somehow doubt this got Holt the Ambersons gig, but it's an amusing piece all on its own.

[Harvey Chartrand]

I wonder why Tim Holt's career tanked. It's as if he got his comeuppance three times over. After starring in John Huston's classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Holt made a few dusters for RKO and quit acting after playing an army type in The Monster That Challenged the World (1957). Then nothing until 1963, when he plays a cop in the time travel story The Yesterday Machine (1963), a low-budgeter shot in Texas. After that, one guest appearance on The Virginian in 1969 and a supporting role as a G-Man in Herschell Gordon Lewis' moonshine madness drive-in fodder This Stuff'll Kill Ya! (1971), aka The Devil Wore Clodhoppers. Holt died of cancer in Oklahoma in 1973. He was 55 years old. Around this time, Welles announced on The Tonight Show that he would be reshooting scenes for The Magnificent Ambersons, but Holt's death (quickly followed by Agnes Moorehead's death in 1974) put the kibosh on those plans.

[Cole]

A couple weeks ago I thought I’d give John Ford one more chance (forgive me, Harvey) so I picked up a copy of MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. While watching the movie, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Tim Holt having to accept such a minor role in it. AMBERSONS certainly didn’t do much for his career. Some people thought Holt was too “stiff” in his role as George Minafer. I may have felt that way the first time I watched AMBERSONS, but not on subsequent viewings. After I read the novel, I was firmly convinced that Holt was a good choice as Georgie Minafer (and so was Anne Baxter as Lucy Morgan), but Georgie was a very complex character, and maybe the range of Holt’s acting abilities was not fully adequate for the task. If the movie wasn’t severely edited, I think it would have been the high point in the careers of all the actors involved, not only Tim Holt’s.

[jaime marzol]

but what did you think of MY DARLING CLEMENTINE?

and at the end before the shootout, when it cuts from the sherrif's office to the ok corral, is the first shot at the ok corral a closeup of walter brennan raising his head, his hat allowing the first light of dusk to hit his face?

if it is, that is the release version. if there is some mongoloid drunk behavior by the clantons, then that is the original ending. would love to find a copy of the original ending.

[Cole]

I put my comments re: CLEMENTINE in the "cool movies I've seen" thread.