Classic Film : What You Always Wanted to Know About… But Were Afraid to Ask

Since the CFB-Titanic will sink anyway in less than two weeks and 99% (99.99% in my case) of us will never meet again, I think we could explain why we chose the monikers and avatars we have. I am really curious about some of them, but was "afraid" to ask.

Mine:

MONIKER

Aloysius. Not my real name. I chose it because of:

1) A nickname I used when I was 16 years old to write a couple of letters (no e-mail then) to a cinema magazine. They published my comments and I was SO happy

2) Thomas Aloysius 'Boats' Gilhooley, Lee Marvin in Donovan's Reef.

3) John Ford's more or less invented name, John Sean Aloysius O'Feeny O'Fearna.

4) Dr. Aloysius "Alois" Alzheimer (1864-1915). Yes, THAT Alzheimer, I still can remember that ;-)



von der Trenck. Not my real surname either. I chose it because of Franz and Friedrich von der Trenck, who were cousins. If you want to know more about them, I started two threads (no replies) last year, the same day I took my IMDb nine-month sabbatical holiday.

http://www.imdb.com/board/10033184/board/nest/254266673?d=254266673#254266673

http://www.imdb.com/board/10162819/board/nest/254267122?d=254267122#254267122

On 20 February they will disappear, like all the others. Thousands and thousands. Millions? A posticide, a commenticide, a threadicide and a boardicide. What a pity.



AVATAR

A poster of Hans Albers in Trenck, der Pandur (1940)



I would really like to know the reason and origin of your monikers and avatars. Even of the obvious ones, but why did you choose them? I bet many other people here would like to know that as well, I just took the initiative. I seem to remember that someone (bigkingtut?) did something similar quite a few years ago. But now, right before the ship sinks, it's even more significant. Like a farewell





Aloysius von der Trenck

Boomer, as in "boomerang", because I always come back.

The avatar is more than obvious. And he looked so handsome and young!!

The best compliment you could ever give a person is to say that they had "mettle", and he had it, in abundance.

In abundance. Indeed.

Love your avatar boomer -

I will never let you part, for you are always in my heart: MJ
turn to page 394: Snape (nasty woman)

Thank you; it is a very special photograph, isn't it?

One thing I do remember was all fans on the Michael Jackson board whenever he died. I've never seen such an outpouring.. A new post every second. The boards served a great service for healing, for his fans.

Boomer: I always thought this was Alan Rickman's best photo, his death shocked me just as much, maybe more than MJ's death.

Yes the MJ board actually shut down IMDb for a short time after his death because there were posts every second. The board eventually died except for mostly trolls over the past few years, after all what more can the fans post about plus there are many other MJ boards.

Have you tried any of the new IMDb style boards that have cropped up?

I will never let you part, for you are always in my heart: MJ
turn to page 394: Snape (nasty woman)

I don't have any plans to join a new group. I was still quite ill when I joined IMDb 11 1/2 years ago. It's taken this long for me to get completely well. (I do have a little pain in one foot if I twist it, or misuse it in some way. Yes, I'm planning on getting back in the world full time. But I am going to want to find a good site, to read only, and take film recommendations.

As you can see I have a lot to make up for.

Thank you for asking.

I am so sorry you were ill, I hope you have fully recovered, 11 1/2 years is a long time.
I usually hang out on the Food & Drink board and a lot of us have exchanged e-mails to keep in touch, until a few months ago it was a very pleasant board until a troll caused a lot of havoc. I've signed up on a few boards but I don't know how much I'll post, my age is starting to catch up with me. I think those of us that are baby boomers from the early part are aging quicker than our parents. IMDb was an easy way to make contact with people of similar interests, I guess we'll still be able to access information but will not be able to post.

Good luck for your future endeavors. I wish the best for you.

I will never let you part, for you are always in my heart: MJ
turn to page 394: Snape (nasty woman)

I know what you mean. The idea of casually meeting someone who is passionate about older films by chance seems astronomical. I hope you do keep in touch with your friends, and you find a nice spot to light.

For the first time in years I stopped by the Michael Jackson board. Oh my my. I can see why these boards had to end. What evil could lurk in people's hearts to write such things? I'm glad Amazon isn't giving them a platform for their particular brand of insanity.

I sincerely wish the best for you too. I remember how kind you were to me on the MJ board. One always remembers kindnesses.

All too easy -
Old - because I am
Aussie - because I am
Avatar - my favourite movie.


"He was a poet, a scholar and a mighty warrior."

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Avatar - my favourite movie.

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Excuse my ignorance, but I don't recognise it, even in a 250% image!!

PS. 300%. Wait Lawrence?

Yes, Lawrence!

For many years I wouldn't rate any other movie a 10 because Lawrence was miles ahead of my number 2.


"He was a poet, a scholar and a mighty warrior."

I must confess you something, OldAussie: whenever I read one of your posts and looked at your avatar (without augmenting it, obviously), I thought it was a Struthio camelus, an ostrich, and I thought: "Ostriches in Australia? Yes, why not!". I also tried to think of films with or about ostriches.

Now I know the truth, I feel much better,

Old? Never.

~~~~~
Proud to be Canadian!

Old Aussies never die, they just fade away

Framus - the first acoustic archtop guitar I ever owned and added a humbucker to and my first IMDb user name
Henry Valentine - main character in my (unpublished till after I die, if ever) fiction and my second IMDB user name
Avatar - Portrait of the author playing his A&L parlor guitar at his son`s wedding last May

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Liberty E Pluribus Unum In God We Trust

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I NEVER would have guessed any of the three!!

And mind, sometimes I wondered

speaking of Wanted to Know . what's a "humbucker" ?


and in "(unpublished till after I die, if ever)"

is that "if ever published" or "if ever die" ?


sorry .. it's the middle of the night and I am feeling silly !

A humbucker is a double coil electric guitar pickup that "gives a high output and minimizes hum from electrical interference." It is absolutely necessary when converting an acoustic guitar to an electric.

Sorry about the vague syntax. It should read: "unpublished, if ever, at least till after I die."

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Liberty E Pluribus Unum In God We Trust

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Cool .. thanks for the humbucker info techy talk about something you know nothing about is such fun to read.

I was kidding about the syntax . speaking of which .. need to get the taxes done before someone steals my refund.

I usually don`t file till April 14th and then I pay out in dribbles over the course of a year. I hate the idea of those bandits getting my money in huge chunks every two weeks and then giving a little of it back to me like it`s some kind of favor. So I claim as many as I can on my W-4 and get my money now rather than later then make them wait for the rest of my taxes.

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Liberty E Pluribus Unum In God We Trust

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BYRDZ because I like to watch and photograph umm. those critturs with feathers ??? . oh, yeah, birds.

I used to be SkiSix based on my old Prodigy SCHX67A identifyier and nickname ScheeZix but I dropped it after taking a break from being harassed and started over about a year ago. Lotta good that did. .. but I digress.

The avatar has been a series of bird portraits that I took. The current one is a Western Meadowlark taken in the Badlands of South Dakota but that could change at any time.


Nice idea for a thread. Thanks.


Edited to Bald Eagle Feb. 9. 2017

No idea either. Yes, your avatar is a bird (and a pretty one, I love yellow), but a "Western Meadowlark"??? Jesus, here you got me!!

You're welcome! Thanks to you for participating, and in such enlightening way!!

PS. You weren't in Alcatraz, were you?

You weren't in Alcatraz, were you?


Nope have been "to" Alcatraz but not "in" Alcatraz. I do have a copy of Stroud's book on bird care though and read an article about the real very un-Burt-Lancaster-ish Stroud (shudder).


https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/western-meadowlark

Thank you, I'll read that link later on, now I have to

An important grammatical clarification, no doubt. You never know

I just took a look at your Audubon link. Thank you, it's very colourful. I love the scientific name of the Western Meadowlark: Sturnella neglecta. Sounds like a Roman courtesan wearing a négligée

More seriously: I am a classical music lover. Do you know Olivier Messiaen? His birds are famous:







Etc.

Now there was something I would never have found by myself .. thanks for the share.


I don't know the Latin names for the birds and am lucky if I recognize the birds themselves most of the time .. I do enjoy reading their names and learning about their habits and lifestyles.

You're welcome. Olivier Messiaen is one (well, there are many, actually) of my favourite composers, especially his 'Quatuor pour la fin du Temps' , his 'Fête des belles eaux' and, last but not least, his Catalogue of Birds, which is great.



I have a CD, Forests and mountains of Asia by Jean C.Roché I like very much. Those Asiatic birds singing are beautiful! Sittelle 34200 HD-806. Year 1989. Sittelle has other CDs: 'All the bird songs of Europe' (four CDs), 'The most beautiful bird songs of the world', etc

Skizziks spelled backwards is Skizziks and that`s about as obscure a reference as you can get these days. Rollo Treadway can explain it if you don`t get it.

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Liberty E Pluribus Unum In God We Trust

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I do like the name maybe in my next life.

I like palindromes.

Is the reference to a film ?

No, to a comic strip ("Gasoline Alley") after it has been satirized by Mad comics ("Gasoline Valley"). There were a couple of movies based on the strip released in the late 40s.

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Liberty E Pluribus Unum In God We Trust

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I have Mad Mag on an old disk set that still worked when I ran Win7 have not checked it out on Win10. Seems I will have more time to do that in less than a fortnight now.

My moniker had the Gasoline Alley character in mind but I never can remember how to spell his name.


btw in case we don't bump into each other again ,,, will take this opportunity to say that I have enjoyed our encounters and wish you all the music filled best.

MONIKER.

In Bud Boetticher's 1960 western COMANCHE STATION Jefferson Cody (played by a lean and leathery Randolph Scott) is a haunted westerner who spends 10 long years searching the wilderness for his beloved wife - who was taken by indians.

He never finds her, but he does manage to find and save Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates).

Obviously Nancy has been ravaged by the redskins, so she tentatively asks Jefferson Cody; "if you had a woman taken by the Comanche and-and you got her back how would you feel knowing"

Cody replies: "If I loved her, it wouldn't matter."

"Wouldn't it?" says Nancy.

"No ma'am. It wouldn't matter at all", replies Jefferson Cody.

Slowly, but surely Jefferson Cody opens his battered and bruised hurt as he finds himself attracted to Nancy, but Nancy has a husband to whom he must return her. However, he wonders why, if Nancy's husband loves her, he did not go looking for her himself and instead offered $5000 to any man who could find her and bring her home. At the end of the movie we discover why Nancy's husband didn't go searching for her himself. It is one of of the most moving moments in all of the western genre.

I love Randolph Scott and Bud Boetticher's Ranown westerns with a a passion deep and true, COMANCHE STATION is one hell of an oater and I admire the character of Jefferson Cody. He's my kind of hero.

AVATAR.

As for my avatar pic. The funny-looking middle aged dude with a twinkle in his eye and a wry smile is yours truly. Why did I choose to display myself?. Well, I had been under attack from a group of longtime CFB-ers who didn't like my no-holes-barred posting style, the content of some of my comments or find my sense of humor funny and were constantly reporting me en masse, trying to get my comments deleted, and me banned from the IMDB forums. Growing up in apartheid era South Africa I saw things so terrible and so cruel I can never forget them. I've seen it all and lived to tell. And I ain't afraid to look anyone in the eye and stand my ground. Also, I thought putting my real-life picture in my avatar would be a challenge to other folk on the board to do the same.

As you can see I (and if you have read my recent thread you will know why) I can no longer use the moniker of Jefferson Cody. But days are few, and you asked why.

I know the film and the name, of course, and Randoph Scott is almost like a saint for me (especially in Ride the High Country, his last film, a masterpiece), but thank you for all those additional details.

I always thought that your avatar and mine were cousins of something (yours apparently older than mine, but both with that tough expression)

And yes, I read some of your latest posts Grant!!

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But days are few, and you asked why.

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And I forgot that theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do & die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Oh yeah, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY is certainly a "masterpiece", one of the great films of my life.

I must tell you Aloysius, that for quite a while I thought your avatar pic was a grumpy, stern upper-middle aged Trevor Howard in pigtails, and it worried me that I couldn't work out what film it was from. One day I clicked onto your profile page and looked at the pic more closely. It finally dawned on me that it wasn't the late great British actor in pigtails in your avatar and I went to google and did a search on your user name.

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And I forgot that theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do & die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

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You give me Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I give you Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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Fiercely the red sun descending Burned his way along the heavens, Set the sky on fire behind him,

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I must tell you Aloysius, that for quite a while I thought your avatar pic was a grumpy, stern upper-middle aged Trevor Howard in pigtails,

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Thank you for the laugh, Jeff (sorry, I mean Grant). I always try to visualise things (probably a consequence of having seen more films than having read novels; the Queen of the Novels is my wife), and when I visualised this one I really laughed. Sounds like Lord Cardigan, which brings us again to the other lord, Tennyson

OK, but what is "aubin"? In French and in France it makes a lot of sense. Are you descended from the French Huguenots who emigrated to South Africa? And "03404"? Too high a number for an MI6 license to killalas, they don't have enough budget for that. A lottery number? An arch-404 Not Found? Your third Peugeot 404? (it was manufactured in SA as well).

Nothing in your post explains your unnatural fixation with Kris Kristofferson.

jj

Not much to explain here, but anyway

I'm using my real picture, not an avatar, and my name is Francisco. In the Hispanic world, most of us us are called affectionaly just "Fran", despite I'm aware it's mostly a female nickname in the States.

And, well, as for chosing my nickname, I wanted to express my huge admiration towards my beloved Bette Davis somehow, despite in the beginning, for a couple of months or so, I used to be simply FranLovesBette, then I remembered about Midler, so wanted to avoid any confussion and decided to add the final D.

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Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

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Hola, Fran. Gracias por participar y por poner tu verdadera foto, muy poca gente tiene la sinceridad y el aplomo de hacer eso. Me recuerdas un poco a Eric Bana.

Well, Francisco is a very well known name, mainly because of the Pope, who is a Spanish-speaking Argentine, and because of San Francisco, California, a city founded by Spaniards, as so many others in the New World. By the way, have you seen Fog Over Frisco (1934)?

What's your favourite Bette Davis film? Mine is 'The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex', one of the best portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, and there are scores of them.

And 'Jezebel', of course.

El placer es mío, y gracias por la comparación tan halagadora, jaja.

Haven't seen Fog Over Frisco yet. Actually, haven't seen most of Bette's early work, since it's hard to get despite it's been released via Warner Archives; however, those are not subtitled, which would make my viewing truly difficult. Fortunately, all of her most famous and acclaimed movies were officially released yon DVD years ago. But hey, I've seen Hello, Frisco, Hello, starring Alice Faye. Honestly, before that, I ignored that Frisco = San Francisco

I, too, love The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and it's been of my top ten of my favorites since the first time I watched it. Her performace in it was larger than life, just like herself. As for my most favorite of her movies, it changes from time to time. Sometimes it's Jezebel, or Of Human Bondage, Mr. Skeffington, The Old Maid, The Little Foxes Well, there's so much to chose from her amazing filmography! Currently, I'd say that the underrated Beyond the Forest is my #1. It's been a guilty pleasure for over 20 years now, and I fell for it all over again after getting a Region 2 DVD from Spain. Bette was truly captivating as Rosa Moline.

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Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

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De nada, la comparación ha sido sincera.

Yeah, that's the funny way some gringos have of avoiding or shortening Spanish names: San Francisco = Frisco; Los Ángeles = Los Angeles ("Los Anguéles" ) = L.A. = elei; Las Vegas = Vegas, &c.

You missed 'Fog Over Frisco' and I missed 'Beyond the Forest'. We are even.

I took a look: Beyond the Forest (1949). Gee, in that poster she looks almost like Jane Russell in 'The Outlaw'!!!

You are not going to find too many with a registration date as early as mine. As I explained on the "going down with the ship" thread: I have had one and only one user name the whole time. When I registered and the "User name" field needed to be filled out, I couldn't think of anything clever; I hadn't prepared ahead of time, so I just went with the prosaic Given Name + Family Name initial. The database added the "6". I never saw anything of the first 5 MikeFs.

The earliest review of mine that I can find posted on the CFB weekly thread was in August 2001. DFC-2 was the thread leader at the time.

I have changed my Avatar several times. Until January I had Peter Capaldi as The Doctor - one of my longest running avatars. Then I switched to Groucho but immediately started seeing a lot of other Grouchos, so within a hour or so, changed again to Zeppo, thinking there wouldn't be many others honoring who many think is the least of the Marxes.

mf

I know that, in spite of the poets, youth is not the happiest season"

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You are not going to find too many with a registration date as early as mine.

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Well, you found one. Hello, fellow '99-er!

And like you, my "-6" was involuntary. And I've never seen another "Doghouse" either, which is weird, because my first few choices were rejected as already in use, but they slapped the number onto the one they finally accepted anyway.

Go figure.



Poe! You areavenged!

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Hello, fellow '99-er!

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Greetings or maybe I should say Aloha which means both hello and goodbye.

The exact date of the Boards creation seems to be in doubt. Wikipedia says that the Soapbox came on line in 1999 as a general message board, but I remember the announcement of the Coming Of The Boards at a regular feature the IMDb used to have on, I think, Fridays. Users could ask questions about movies and the Admins would pick a couple to answer. One I remember was from someone asking the origin of a quote that he would use at work: "We have to protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen." (Do I have to answer that for anyone?) The announcement was that the feature would be discontinued but there would be a way such questions could be answered by other users. From what I remember, "I Need To Know" was the inspiration for the Message Boards. It happens that I left one job at the end of 1998 and started a new one in January 1999. I'm sure I read the board's announcement at the old job. I am also sure that I registered for the boards as soon as they appeared. I have often wondered if the December date is somehow an error - or my memories are slowly drifting out of my ears.

Anyhoo, congrats on the May 1999 date. Practically the Stone Age. To bad we couldn't make it to at least 20 years.

mf

I know that, in spite of the poets, youth is not the happiest season"

Hi, Mike. No, certanly not! 20th Century. You are almost prehistoric. It's remarkable
that your account has survived for seventeen years!

Where's that 'going down with the ship' thread? I missed it. I like the idea, for I 'compare' the 'sinking' of the IMDb Boards (especially the CFB) with the sinking of the Titanic. With a difference (well, many, including the most important one: we will not drown!!): those on the Titanic had just a few hours to prepare themselves, while the IMDb members had over two weeksjust twelve days now. I find that very interesting, and it's one of the reasons why I decided to start this thread.

And wait for the last week and the very last days: I expect heavy PMing, parting shots and other things, positive and negative.

mine is from the Lindsey Davis mystery books (set in ancient Rome)
Bureaucrats on the Emporer's staff are referred to as:
papyrus beetles (instead of paper-shufflers)

I thought that was hilarious.
So it became my nickname.

"We will bury you"-NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV

You're welcome. I am very interested in ancient Rome, I studied its History and I even use daily its old calendar (I have done it for the last thirty years), but I didn't read any of the books written by Lindsey Davis. Sounds interesting, I'll take a look. Thank you for the information.

One of the most original monikers, no doubt.

Hodié a.d. VII Id. Feb. MMDCCLXX a.u.c.

Today, the seventh day before the ides of February of the year 2770 of the foundation of the City [Rome]

s.v.b.e.e.v.

Hi papyrus,

I think I remember you mentioning you were a librarian in an old post. Anyway, I figured that was where you got your name. Or else I'm hallucinating.