Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Eleven

Since it’s been almost a year since I last mentioned Barbara Stanwyck’s name, I figured that my Stanwyck ban can come to an end. As mentioned in one of my previous posts about Stanwyck, she starred in multiple Christmas movies. I’ve already talked about Christmas in Connecticuit (1945) and I’ve made brief mention of Meet John Doe (1941), but I have not spoke about her first, most obscure, Christmas film.
Remember the Night ( directed by Mitchell Liesen in 1940) finds Stanywyck playing Lee Leander, a shoplifter who gets picked up right before the Christmas holiday. During her preliminary hearing for the crime she meets prosecuting lawyer John Sargent, played by Fred MacMurray. While as a lawyer John is known to be a killer, he turns out to be a pretty nice guy and offers to give Lee a ride home to her family home in Indiana while on the way to his own family's Christmas. Of course, the pair meet up with misadventure on their way from New York to Indiana, and when Lee’s mother rejects her upon her return John offers to take her home to his mother’s for Christmas. All of the warm hospitality of the Sargent family soften Lee and she and John soon fall in love. However, the specter of Lee's post-holiday court date loom heavy.  Will John take a dive in the courtroom to help Lee get off? Will Lee let him jepordize his carreer to do it?

The reason that Remember the Night has remained fairly obscure is due to the fact that it does have such a bittersweet finale.  MacMurray's character is such a good guy and Stanwyck's has such a jaded past that it is inevitable that a union between the two of them would have more than its share of difficulties.  Yet, the scenes of the Sargent family Christmas are quite lovely, and the misadventures that the two expereince on the way home are pretty enduring.  It's funny that a few years later Stanwyck and MacMurray would be play cold-blooded killers in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944).  Mind you, you can see where their chemistry began.  It's also interesting to note that the screenplay was written by Preston Sturges who would go on to direct Stanwyck in The Lady Eve a year later.

Here's the trailer...

Tweleve Days of Christmas: Day Five

Have yourself a merry little suicide? For Frank Capra, the holidays were the perfect time for dejected men to find redemption after being snapped from the brink.  This occurs in two of his classic movies.  The obvious Capra film that falls into this category is the Christmas standby It's a Wonderful Life (1946), where Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey reconsiders suicide with some help from his guardian angel Clarence.  The second is Capra's 1941film, Meet John Doe, where the titular character (played by Gary Cooper) almost jumps form the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve, after being used by a scheming political magnate to be the spokesperson for the common man.  Instead of an angel, John Doe finds the will to live when common men everywhere come to his rescue to show that men can triumph over society's evils. In the end both men learn that there's something worthwhile in life, but the suicide angle seems a little extreme...

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Four

Bogie and Bacall

What is it about vintage Christmas trees and tinsel?  It seems like all Christmas trees of a certain era were considered outcasts if their boughs aren't dripping with long luscious tinsel tendrils.  Let's commemorate some of the glorious firs of yesteryear...

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day One

Although I'm not a huge fan of the film, White Christmas (1954) consistently comes up as one of those perennial Christmas favorites.  I don't think that I would have a such a problem with the film if it had a different name.  But, as it is, for a film with the word Christmas in the title, there's barely any scenes that involve Christmas.  Sure, in many of the musical numbers the performers are wearing red, and there's the requisite singing of White Christmas by Bing Crosby, but ultimately had the studio that produced White Christmas had not wanted to bank on the popularity of the song, the film could have easily been released as a regular old, let's put on a show, musical. 

The film revolves around a showbiz duo (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) who team up with a sister act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) to help save their former general's Vermont Inn.  Of course, romance blooms between the four leads, and by the end the inn is saved and the group puts on a magnificent show.

If you're looking for an old fashioned Christmas extravaganza, you're bound to be disappointed by the five to ten minutes of the run time that is actually devoted to yuletide revelry.  If you're looking for a delightful technicolor musical, you could do worse.  To save you from watching the entire film and being disappointed by the lack of Christmas, here's one of the two Christmas scenes... enjoy!

Musical Madness: Show Boat

There are two types of Hollywood musicals.  There are those that take a number of songs from a composer's catalogue and cobble a film around them, or there are those based on an original stage musical.  Today's selection is in the later group.  Show Boat (1951) is based on the 1927 Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's musical of the same name and was previously adapted for the screen in 1936.  As a result much of the sensibilities that are on display in this version are very much influenced by it's previous existence on the stage.

Directed by George Sidney, the main story in Show Boat is that of 18 year old Magnolia Hawks (Kathryn Grayson), the daughter of Cotton Blossom (the name of the titular show boat) captain Andy Hawks (Joe E. Brown) and her marriage to gambler and milquetoast river scoundrel Gaylord (yup) Ravenal (played by 50s musical mainstay and Dallas alumn Howard Keel). The trajectory of this storyline is typical: they meet, fall in love, her parents don't approve, they run off together and get married, he abandons her, and eventually they are reunited. It's probably the most uninteresting part of the film. The film's other major plot thread concerns the character of Julie Laverne (Ava Gardner), the lead actress on the show boat who is hiding the fact that she is mulatto from everyone, but her white husband Steve (in the late nineteenth century it was illegal for African Americans to appear on stage and to be married to a white man). A jealous former suitor reveals Julie's secret and she and Steve are forced from the Showboat, eventually causing their marriage to break up and Julie to develop a serious drinking problem and fade into obscurity.

As far as film musicals go, Show Boat is not particularly great.  With the exception of the musical numbers sung by Julie (which I will get to in a moment) and William Warfield's show stopping rendition of Old Man River, the musical numbers fall incredibly short.  Because both Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson were both trained operatic singers their numbers are sung in this manner, which makes them somewhat inaccessible to modern audiences.  The songs they do sing are unmemorable and so little to sell the core storyline.  There are also a couple of number performed by the Cotton Blossom's hoofer duo, played by Marge and Gower Champion.  But while charming do little for the film other than extend its run time.

At this point you are probably wondering why I am bothering to talk about this film?  While I think this is  one of the weakest film musicals I will talk about in this series, I think some of the backstage machinations illustrate the politics of the studio era.  For the part of Julie, MGM considered Judy Garland (who was on contract to another studio), Dinah Shore (not famous enough), and most interestingly Lena Horne. Lena Horne was especially interested in playing Julie, and actively campaigned for the part.  As the only African-American actress of the candidates and a famed vocalist, she would have been the ideal choice.  However, because it was against the production codes of the ages to show African Americans to be shown kissing or in romantic scenes with white actors, she was ruled out (much like Julie is cast off of the Cotton Blossom for her relationship with Steve).  In the end Ava Gardner was cast as Julie, who was on contract to MGM and was famous enough).

Just as Lena Horne was considered unsuitable for the role of Julie, Ava Gardner also experienced her own issues with regards to her musical numbers.  While not a famed vocalist like Horne, Gardner was more than a respectable vocalist in her own right, and practiced extensively for the role.  Though she originally sang along to the vocal tracks she recorded for her sequences, it was decided in post-production that her voice did not fit the overall tone of the film and vocalist Annette Warren's renditions of Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man and Bill were added to the final film.  The likely reason is to match the Julie vocals to the operatic singing style of Keel and Grayson.  Unfortunate, seeing as in the play Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man is described as a 'coloured' song and as such should be performed more like a bluesy torch song.  Situations like this were very typical in Hollywood musicals, with many of the major actors and actresses of the day being dubbed by professional vocalists.  If you do a search on YouTube you can find a number of these musical sequences with the actress' original vocals re-dubbed onto the film sequences.  Ava Gardner's lost Show Boat sequences just happen to be my favourite of this phenomena.

So, without further adieu,  you can compare the original film version of Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man to the Ava Gardner version and see what you think.

Annette Warren:

Ava Gardner:

My Latest New Favorite Book: Edith Head

I'm extremely excited to have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Edith Head: The Fifty Year Career of Hollywood's Greatest Costume Designer by Jay Jorgensen.

For those who are unfamiliar with the name, Edith Head was the costume designer for innumerable films from the nineteen-thirties through to the nineteen eighties.  She designed costumes for practically every major Hollywood star of the classic Hollywood era, including Barbara Stanwyck, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, and a host of others.  She was a favorite of Hitchcock who used her designs for the iconic costumes worn by Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954) and Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958)... and this is just me scratching at a VERY wide surface

So far, I've spent most of my time with the book ogling the various studio costume shots of the various actresses dressed in her frocks so I cannot vouch for the quality of the text.  I can say that with photos like this who needs text?

I'm Officially Excited About The Artist!

How cool is the trailer for Michel Hazanavicius' film The Artist?  Not only does it look to classic cinema for it's art direction.  It follows suit with it's sound design, mimicking pre-talkie soundtrack (it's silent!).  The film has been receiving rave reviews at all the film festivals that it has been presented at (it won a best actor award for lead actor Jean Dujardin at Cannes).  The unfortunate thing is that because it's considered to be a bit of an "arty" film, there won't be a set nationwide release and those interested will have to wait for their local art house cinemas to get a print.  Here's the trailer.  Try to see how many classic cinema references it makes.

Musical Madness: On the Town

Moving further into the musical abyss, I find myself five years later than my first entry into this series.  While there were many musicals made in-between Meet Me in St. Louis and today's feature, On the Town, many are difficult to find on DVD, Blue Ray, or by other conventional means, the ones that are don't really do it for me.  On the bright side, On the Town happens to ranks as one of my all time favourite movie musicals.  Co-directed by Stanley Donan and Gene Kelly and with a cast featuring Kelly and Frank Sinatra, On the Town (1949) represents the Technicolor musical at its most fun.

On the Town revolves around three sailors, Gabey, Chip, and Ozzie (Kelly, Sinatra, and Jules Munshin respectively), who are on 24 hour shore leave in New York City.  It's their first time in the Big Apple and they want to pack in all the sites and dames that they can, and as you would expect misadventures abound.  The main plot thread that extends throughout the picture is Kelly's pursuit of Miss. Turnstiles, aka. Ivy Smith (played by Vera Ellen), the New York Subway's flavour of the month pin-up.  As the sailors search the city for Miss Turnstiles, each picks up a lady friend to aid in their quest.  First, female cabby Brunhilde (the incredibly underrated comedian Betty Garrett) takes a shine to Chip and decided to give them access to her cab.  Then while searching the Museum of Natural History they happen upon anthropologist Claire (Ann Miller) who declares Ozzie to be a perfect specimen of prehistoric man;  unfortunately a lively song and dance number brings down an entire dinosaur skeleton, and puts the heat on our growing group.  They decide to split up with the two newly formed couples taking off with each other and Gabey left to search on his own.  Of course, he just happens to meet up with Ivy again and after melting her seemingly haughty veneer gets her to meet up with he and the group for a night on the town.  The rest of the film is devoted to their night on the town and the continued hijinks of the three sailors and their gals as they try to do it all and avoid the cops. 

On the Town is one of the more successful musicals in the fact that it does not sacrifice story for the musical numbers (a crime that many other musicals of the era are guilty of).  While the story is pretty light and fluffy, it is always enjoyable and the enthusiasm of the performers shine through and infect the viewer with joy.  The film never takes itself too seriously.  I also can't think of a bad musical number in the whole film.  The introductory number New York, New York might be one of the most fun musical numbers put on film (the song is also an incredible earworm) and the film's centrepiece On the Town is similarly enjoyable with the six main player singing and dancing their hearts out.

Where the film falters (only slightly!) is the five minute A Day in New York ballet number where Gene Kelly, Vera Ellen and four other dancers representing the other character in the group pantomime the exact story we've just seen (the group on their night on the town).  It's a bit redundant, but of the extended dance sequences in Kelly's movies (there is usually one per picture in the films where he has some creative control) it is probably the shortest and least jarring.  It's also the least visually interesting.  I'll get into Gene Kelly's obsessive devotion to the art of dance and the demands that he made of the actresses appearing opposite his in future musical madness articles (there are more interesting tales to be told with regards to other films).  Of these films this one suffers the least under these creative demands.

On the Town is a wonderful film that doesn't demand much of the viewer.  It is light and airy and presents the talents involved at their best.  Noteable also is that this the first Hollywood musical to film on location.  Just to infect you with a little bit of the fun, and show off some of those great on location shots, here's the great New York, New York opening...

Musical Madness: Meet Me in St. Louis

For some reason I've had the urge to re-examine some of my favourite Hollywood musicals of yesteryear.  I don't know if it's the summer, or that it seems like a lot of them have been turning up on TCM lately, but I just feel like doing a feature on them.  There are a lot of great musicals from the thirties, but for my money's worth nothing tops the Technicolour masterpieces came out during the forties and fifties.  This era of movie musicals was helmed by some of the greatest singers and dancers of all time, and not co-incidentally most will come up in more than one film.  But, enough about the genre, let's start a look at our first feature... which as the title espouses is Vincente Minnelli's charming musical on family life in turn of the century St. Louis, Meet Me In St. Louis (1944). 

Meet Me in St. Louis is most famous for the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which the incomparable Judy Garland sings towards the end of the film.  As a result it is often unjustly labelled as a Christmas film (much like It's a Wonderful Life), even though only a quarter of the film takes place during the Christmas season.  It could just as easily be labelled a Halloween film or a summer film, or even a turn of the century party film by that assumption.  In truth, the film tells the story of a year in the life of the Smith family as St. Louis gears up for the 1904 World Fair.  We see them first in summer, then in fall (Halloween to be exact), in winter (Christmas), and then in Spring when the fair finally begins. It stars Judy Garland as second born daughter Esther Smith who is trying to win the affections of John Truett (Tom Drake), the cute boy next door.  Older sister Rose ( Lucille Bremer ) is trying to get her long distance beau Warren to propose to her.  Only son Lon (Henry H. Daniels Jr.) is longs to be with Rose's rival .  Second youngest sister Agnes (Joan Carroll) is the picture of a know-it-all kid.  Youngest sister Tootie (Margaret O'Brian in a particularly irritating performance) obsesses about death.  Crotchety father Alonzo (Leon Ames) is trying to get ahead at the office.  Equally crotchety housekeeper Katie (Marjorie Main) is constantly antagonizing Alonzo. Mother Anna (Mary Astor) tries to appease her cranky husband and keep the peace.  Kind-hearted Grandfather (Harry Davenport) is always there with wise words for all. 

Instead of a grand sweeping story involving all the characters we are entertained with several vignettes which show each character's arch throughout.  Towards the end a plot twist arises that involves the entire family, and indeed it is the only real crisis of the film.  But, being a Hollywood musical it is resolved and all is happy again by the end.  As I have previously mentioned both Christmas and Halloween are highlighted in the film.  What a treat it is to get a picture of what those holidays were like back in the "good old days"  when people danced the reel at Christmas balls and Halloween was more about tricks than treats.  Despite the charm and the wholesome family values espoused in this film it has it's eyebrow raising moments.  The most shocking of which being the Halloween sequence, which starts out cute enough but by the end it is revealed that the two youngest Smith girls have committed a serious crime,  which probably resulted in several people getting injured and serious property damage.  What do you think the punishment is?  No ice cream with their cake and Esther scolding them! Whatever happened to the strap?  Or, forcing kids to spend a day in prison?  Esther doesn't even do it because of the people they probably hurt or the thousands of dollars of property damage.  It's because Tootie accused John Truett of trying to kill her.

Like most musical the story is secondary to the musical numbers, and there are definitely some memorable ones in this one.  Other than have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas the standouts in this film with have to be the Trolley Song, Skip-to-my Lou, and Under the Bamboo Tree (probably the only time Margaret O'Brian is partially tolerable on screen).  It also has its share of schmaltzy numbers that kind of throw the momentum off track a bit (there's at least one in the majority of the films I'm about to talk about).  In the case of Meet Me In St. Louis the two offenders are The Boy Next Door (too syrupy for my tastes) and You and I (a duet between Ames and Astor which brings the film's momentum to a screeching halt). 

Please don't let a couple of lacklustre songs and an annoying child star keep you from watching this film.  Even though the quaint wholesome quality of the era portrayed here can be off putting to someone used to modern films, it is well worth the time and effort.  Judy Garland gives one of her greatest performances and is a joy to watch during the musical sequences, and the charms of the film shine through.  I haven't even started on the magnificent Victorian art design, especially the Smith home which is a character in itself.  If you have't seen this film, do yourself a favour and watch it.  It's a family friendly starting point for classic musicals.

Here's a sample of the Trolley Song...

A Bombshell for the Ages: Esther Williams

Today's Bombshell for the Ages made waves in Hollywood as the first lady of the aqua-musical.  Esther Williams rose to fame in the forties and fifties through a series of films which featured her either performing in a wide variety of synchronized swimming routines or underwater ballet sequences, swimming the English channel, or even taking part in the odd water skiing number; essentially any sort of aquatic spectacle creative brass at MGM could come up with.  There was no other actress in Hollywood did what she did.  Let's take a closer look MGM's Million Dollar Mermaid.

Esther Williams was born in Inglewood California in 1922 to Louis and Bula Williams.  She was the youngest of five children.  As a young girl her older sister took her to the beach and swimming pools where she discovered her love for the water.  When she got older she began working as a towel counter at the pool in exchange for the five cent entry fee.  There she began taking lessons from the male lifeguard in proper stroke technique.  In those days strokes like Breaststroke and the Butterfly were only taught to men, however young Esther convinced the lifeguard to impart his knowledge on these strokes.  Before long Esther was setting  national records in freestyle an breaststroke.  She set the national AAU record in the 100m freestyle in 1939 and would have competed in the 1940 Olympics, had the second world war not broken out.

Once she graduated high school, Esther began attending Los Angeles Community college and working at a department store where she started as a stock girl, and eventually moved into modelling for the store.  While working at the department store she was contacted by an agent about appearing in the Billy Rose's Aquacade show (basically a big synchronized swimming extravaganza).  While performing with the Aquacade Esther was spotted by MGM scouts who were looking for a female athlete to mould into the next Sonja Henie (a 1930s Olympic figure skater turned Hollywood star).  She signed with MGM in exchange for a guarantee that she could swim in the Beverly Hills Hotel pool everyday.   She took part in studio training to mould her into a singing, dancing, and acting superstar.  As with most burgeoning starlets of the era much of her early time with the studio involved taking plenty of pin-up photos and visiting wounded soldiers in army hospitals as a part of the war effort.

Esther's first film role was opposite Mickey Rooney's eponymous character in Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942).  Her first aquatic role would occur two years later in Bathing Beauty (1944).  She went on star in several other aquatic themed films, each with a bigger better aquatic set piece to outdo the last.  Among her most popular include The Thrill of Romance (1945), Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949),  Neptune's Daughter (1949), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), Easy to Love (1953), and Dangerous When Wet (1953).  In spite of her athleticism and skill in the water the underwater feats performed by Esther in her films often took their toll on this aquatic bombshell.  She almost drowned on more than one occasions, once due to improper swimming attire (a heavy flannel bathing suit that became so heavy that it dragged Esther to the bottom of the pool) and from not being able to find the trap door to exit an enclosed water tank.  She also ruptured her eardrums on several occasions and even broke her neck after attempting an 115 ft drive for the movie Million Dollar Mermaid (1952).  This spinal injury left her in a body cast of 7 months.  By the mid-fifties she had fallen out of favour with MGM and left the studio.  She signed with Universal International, and made a few non-musical dramatic films.  None of the Universal films came close to the success that her films with MGM, and by the sixties she retired from acting.

In the years since her retirement, Ms. Williams has been anything but idle.  She is the namesake of both a retro swimwear company and pool manufacturer.  She has also created a series of Mom and Tot swimming instructional videos.  She currently lives in Beverly Hills with her fourth husband of 16 years.

Here's a little taste of an Esther Williams aqua-musical:

The Women is a Pretty Entertaning Film

I've never been much of a girly, girl.  Truth be told, I would rather get into a discussion about the fine art of cheese-making than gossiping about the exploits of some girl I barely knew ten years ago.  Mind you, if the women who moved in and out of my life were anything like the women or George Cukor's 1939 classic, The Women, I might be willing to pull up a seat at the beauty salon to listen to their exploits whilst the manicurist paints my fingernails jungle red.     

The Women stars Norma Sheerer as Mary Haines, a blissfully married women who is completely unaware that her husband Steven has been carrying-on with Crystal, the predatory perfume-counter girl played with snide glee by Joan Crawford.  Her cousin, and notorious gossip, Sylvia Fowler (played by Rosalind Russell at her shrill best) finds out and delights in informing everyone in their social circle, while cruelly arranging for Mary to find out from her manicurist.  A devestated Mary decends first into denile, and then eventually defeat, deciding to get a quicky Reno divorce.  While in Reno, she befriends an asortment of divorcees including the unquenchably romantic Countess De Lave (Mary Boland), tough-cookie showgirl Miriam Aarons (Paulette Goddard), and the timid Peggy (Joan Fontaine) who is part of Mary's social circle back in New York.  They all settle in a Reno ranch owned by salt-of-the earth Lucy (Marjorie Main) to wait out their divorces. A cat-fight breaks out, duplicitous Sylvia is knocked off her high horse, and Mary realizes that she was a fool to lie down so easily and let Crystal make off with her man.  Fortuantely, as in all Hollywood comedies of the era, Mary ulitmately triumphs and everyone gets their just desserts. 

Notice that I haven't pointed out any noteworthy actors from this film?  That's because there are none. No man ever appears on camera in this film, and the filmmakers went to great pains to make sure that everything up to the animals on the ranch were female.  When it was originally released the tagline of the film was It's all about men, as a tongue-and-cheek way of juxtaposing the fact that there are no men in the film with the fact that the film is all about the joys and woes of hertosexual relationships.  Pretty cute.

 Two things, not including than the cleaver writing and delivery of all the catty lines, stood out to me the most aabout this film during my last viewing: the fashion and Paulette Goddard.  During the film the viewer is treated to a ten minute sequence of a late thirties high society fashion show, featuring the most dazzling array of the era's haute couture.  Similarly, the ladies spend the entire film in some truly jaw dropping numbers- my favourites being Paulette Goddard's riding outfit, which makes her look like she's in some sort of Wild West cheerleading revue and the intergalactic hat and tulle number that Rosalind Russell dons in the final climax.  On the subject of Ms. Goddard, why have I never noticed her before? She plays the street-wise girl brilliantly, ranking up there along with some of Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Arthur's best tough talking dames.  I smell a future bombshell for the ages subject.

I recommend this film for anyone who enjoys some good catty fun.  Oh... and please do not go anywhere near the dismal 2008 remake.  Here's the trailer.

A Bombshell for the Ages: Pam Grier - A Whole 'Lotta Bombshell

If you were to look up amazonian beauty in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of Pam Grier.  The first lady of seventies blaxploitation films and one of cinema's all-time badasses, Ms. Grier has led a remarkable life and has left an indelible legacy on the world of film.

An army brat, born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on May 26, 1949, Pamela Suzette Grier spent most of her childhood on the move, living in various locales in the United States and spending some time in England.  At the age of 6 she was raped by two boys while left unattended at her aunt's house.  She spent many years dealing with the pain and it could be argued that her anger this experience helped her to form the take no-prisoners attitude that many of the characters she would go on to play in her films exhibit.  Her family finally settled in Denver, Colorado during her high school years, and she spent much of this time taking part in various stage productions.  She also took part in a beauty pageant to help raise tuition money for college.

In 1967, Pam decided to try her luck in Hollywood.  She found a job as a receptionist at American International Pictures (AIP), a production company that focused primarily on the production of low budget drive-in movies, B-movies, and exploitation films.  While working for AIP, she was soon discovered by director Jack Hill, who cast Grier in his women-in-prison flicks, The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972).  With the emergence of blaxploitation films, Ms. Grier soon became of staple of the genre.  Her larger-than-life statuesque beauty combined with her bold, assertive persona made her a natural for the titular role in Coffy (1973) where she played a vengeful nurse trying to take out a crew of drug dealers.  She would go on to play similar roles in Foxy Brown (1974), Friday Foster (1975), and Sheba Baby (1975).

With the demise of the blaxploitation genre in the second half of the seventies, Ms. Grier moved on to play a number of one-off character roles in various films (such as 1981's Fort Apache the Bronx, 1988's Above the Law, and 1991's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and television series (The Cosby Show, Miami Vice, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air to name a few).

It was Quentin Tarantino who launched Pam Grier back into the spotlight when he cast her as the lead in his low-key (for Tarantino) crime thriller Jackie Brown (1997).  Since this resurgence Ms. Grier has worked steadily in film and television.  Though she has had dalliances with many notable men including Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Richard Pryor, she never married and has no children.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a Pretty Awesome Film!

With the recent death of Jane Russell, I decided to revisit her best film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and was struck by the charm of this screwball comedy/musical.  Not that I have ever had any ill-will towards the film, but I forgot how genuinely entertaining it is, and what a great portrayal of female camaraderie it demonstrates.

Directed by Howard Hawkes and released in 1953, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes stars Russell and Marilyn Monroe as Dorothy Shaw and Lorelei Lee, two showgirls who are best friends with very different preferences in men.  Lorelei (Monroe) plays her typical ditzy blonde who is obsessed with millionaires and diamonds, while Russell's Dorothy despises men with money and is basically out to find a guy who can show her a good time.  Lorelei has captured the heart of a nerdy millionaire whose father disapproves of their union, and is going abroad to France to elope with her intended; Dorothy tags along to play chaperon and have a good time with the men's Olympic team who are travelling on the same ocean liner.

Their trip hits a snag when Lorelei's fiance's father hires a private eye to get some dirt on the blonde man-trap.  While trying to get to Lorelei he starts romancing Dorothy, and soon he and Dorothy fall of each other.  Meanwhile, Lorelei discovers that diamond mine owner Sir Frances "Piggy" Beekman (played by the always wonderful Charles Coburn) is on the ocean liner and starts plotting to seduce the old man into giving her his wife's diamond tiara.  The private dick gets the dirt on Lorelei and the girls have to hatch a plot to get it back from him.  Several misadventures and misunderstandings follow before the girls get their men and the happy ending they desire.

As mentioned before, the film really is all about the relationship between these two women and the way they constantly put their heads on the line for each other in difficult times.  The chemistry between Russell and Monroe is undeniable and the film is at its best when the two are playing off each other.  Other than Piggy, the male characters are pretty unremarkable and serve more as plot devices to explain the hijinks these girls get into.

As with the plot of the film, the musical numbers that work best are also the ones where both Monroe and Russell are together.  To most people who are familiar with the film, the number that immediately comes to mind is Monroe's often imitated, indelible  Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend.   Russell does a similar number with the Olympic team dancing along in flesh coloured shorts when she performs Ain't There Anyone Here For Love, and both numbers are great but together the ladies bring down the house.  Unlike many other musicals every song works in the film and pretty much every number is memorable.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ranks pretty high on my list of favourite movie musicals.  It's light, doesn't take itself too seriously, and is a lot of fun to watch.  I really recommend that people who have never seen it take a look.  Here's a sample of the Russell/Monroe magic.

A Bombshell for the Ages: Maureen O'Hara

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day we turn our eyes to the Emerald Isle to find a classic Irish bombshell: Ms. Maureen O'Hara.  Born Maureen FitzSimons in Dublin Ireland in 1920, Maureen always had aspirations towards the stage and screen.  As a child she trained in dance, drama, and music at the Abbey Theatre.  At the age of 10 she joined Rathmines Theatre Company for further training and took part in amateur theatre productions in evenings after her studies.  In spite of her determination to become a working actress her father insisted that she learn some practical skill in case her performing career did not take off, so she enrolled in business school and became a proficient typist and book keeper.  

Fortunately, her business school training turned out to be unnecessary when a London studio asked her to film a screen test.  Though the test was initially dismissed by studio heads, famed British actor Charles Laughton saw something in it and encouraged the studio to sign Maureen.  She was soon signed to a seven year contract, with her first screen appearance starring opposite Laughton in Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1938).  Laughton was so impressed by Maureen that they co-starred in a second picture, The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1939, which was filmed in Hollywood.  This and the outbreak of the second world war was the turning point in bringing and keeping her in the United States.  

Because it was unsafe to shoot films in London, Maureen's London contract was sold to RKO studios soon after shooting on the Hunchback was completed.  She spent her first few years in Hollywood starring in low budget films and would have kept doing so had she not caught the attention of director John Ford, who cast her in his Academy Award winning film, How Green Was My Valley (1941).  She would go on to partner with John Ford and one of his favourite actors John Wayne in Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Wings of Eagles (1957).  Her chemistry with Wayne offscreen was indicative of the easy friendship between the two in real life.  While her work with Ford and Wayne were important milestones for Maureen, her two most recognizable roles playing firry independent mothers in family favourites Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and The Parent Trap (1961).  

Though best known for her acting, Ms. O'Hara has often said that singing is her first love, a talent she displayed in film and television appearances during the late fifties and sixties.  She has released two albums of music.  

She married three times, her third husband transatlantic aviator Charles F. Blair Jr. passing away in an air accident in 1978.  Though she retired a few years after her 1968 marriage to Blair, she made a small comeback in 1991's Only The Lonely, starring as John Candy's domineering mother.  She went on to make several small appearances in made-for-tv movies during the nineties.  She has since slowed down her acting again and now splits her time between homes in Arizona, The Virgin Islands, and Cork Ireland.  

Xmas in Film: Bell, Book, and Candle

Witches, jazz clubs, drunken writers- not words traditionally associated with the holidays.  They do make for a unique take on the Christmas season, which is why today's film selection is such a Christmas treat.  Released in 1958, and starring the electrifying Kim Novak and her Vertigo leading man (and later day Christmas icon) James Stewart, Bell, Book, and Candle is an unusual film which sees that first act taking place on a very unusual Christmas Eve.

Directed by Novak paramour Richard Quine, Bell, Book, and Candle stars Novak as Gillian Holroyd, a bored, beautiful witch who owns a New York based African Art Store.  In the apartments above live her Aunt Queenie (famed character actress and former Bride of Frankenstein, Elsa Lanchester) and publisher Shep Henderson (Stewart).   Gil is fascinated by Shep, and when she discovers that Shep is engaged to a former college nemesis she decides to steal his heart for herself.  Using her magical Siamese cat, Pyewacket, she casts a spell on Shep to fall in love with her.  Shep is instantly smitten with her, dumps the evil fiance, and takes up with Gil.  The remainder of the film centres around Gil's brother, Nicky (played by the great Jack Lemmon) helping drunken writer Sidney Redlitch (played by comedy legend Ernie Kovacs) write a book about the New York witch community, Shep eventually discovering Gil's true identity, and Shep's attempt at breaking the spell that's Gil's put him under.  To be honest, none of these plots compare to the first forty minutes of the film.  I don't even bother with the final ten minutes which, like many films with a strong female lead, destroys everything about the character that makes her interesting.

Check out that awesome tree!

In spite of this film's shortcomings let's highlight what makes this film worth talking about - the Christmas scenes.  If you're looking for sleigh rides, people dancing the Reel, and turkey dinners look elsewhere.  If you're a witch you don't go in for that traditional Christmas stuff.  In the universe of this film, witches get dressed to the nines and go to the local jazz bar to hear songs about corpses at the bottom of the river.  I haven't even mentioned Gil's Christmas tree, yet.  Yes, witches have Christmas trees, and Gil's is a marvellous piece of modern art design.  Gil's wardrobe, designed by Jean Louis, is probably my favourite wardrobe in any film.  Seriously, the costume design of in this film is phenomenal.

As previously mentioned, this is not a great film.  It is a visual marvel with some creative details which make it something beyond the ordinary.  Here's a clip featuring the jazz club scene...

What's Your Favorite Flavor of Retro Christmas Party?

There are some awesome scenes in classic films that display the chaos and debauchery of Christmas parties.  While I doubt that most Christmas parties of the era ever reached the level of drunken craziness that the ones in these three clips do, but it's fun to pretend that they did. 

Our first clip comes from the classic detective film The Thin Man (1935), in which the film's two protagonists,  Nick and Nora Charles hold an impromptu Christmas party for Nick's old cop friends (from when he used to be on the force).  Considering that Nick and Nora both consider themselves professional drinkers, it is no surprise that their party is teeming with booze, dancing, and one sad drunk desperately trying to call his dear old sweet, Ma.  Here's the clip...

Our second clip comes from Billy Wilder's Oscar winning film The Apartment (1960).  Behold the wonder of the office Christmas party in the sixties.  Men and their mistress secretaries smooch in the open, women dance salaciously on the desk tops, and the alcohol never stops.  Dionysus himself would be proud.  Take a look...

We travel a decade later in our third and final clip, to another Academy Award winning film, Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977).  For this party we see our romantic leads Alvy and Annie (played by Allen and Diane Keaton) head off to a California Christmas party, with all the schmoozing.  There's groovy music, drinks, executives trying to get meetings, and Jeff Goldblum looking for his mantra.  Funny thing is, it seems to be the most sedate of all three parties.  Here's it is...

Xmas in Film: Christmas in Connecticut

All right... this is the last time I talk about Barbara Stanwyck for a while.  Promise!  As I previous mentioned, Stanwyck made multiple films that occur around the Christmas holiday.  Today, I'll be speaking about the most obvious of these films 1945's Christmas in Connecticut, directed by Peter Godfrey.  There's Christmas in the title and a Christmas movie is what you get, which is actually not as common as you would think with many of these classic films.  Don't believe me?  Just look at TCM's annual Christmas offerings - many with a single scene devoted to something Christmasy to tie it in with the theme (speaking of TCM, I'm rather disappointed that they have elected to leave Christmas in Connecticut off their schedule this year).

Christmas in Connecticut features Stanwyck as Elizabeth Lane, a Martha Stewart type columnist for a popular House and Home magazine.  To her publisher and loyal audience she owns a farm in Connecticut, has a husband and baby, and is an expert cook and homemaker.  In reality though she is a bachelor girl who lives in a small New York apartment who doesn't even know how to boil water.  With the help of her dear friend Felix (played by the ever-endearing S.Z. 'Cuddles' Skall) and would be man (he wants to marry her, but she doesn't love him) John Sloan's own farm as inspiration she has managed to keep her ruse under wraps (up until this this point).  Everything changes when her publisher Alexander Yardley (played by another great character actor Sydney Greenstreet) demands that she invites a war hero to her Connecticut farm for a traditional Christmas.  Things get worse when Yardley decides that he would also like to come to Elizabeth's farm.  To keep the truth from coming out, Elizabeth agrees to marry John Sloan and with the help of Felix, create the illusion that she is the woman that inhabits the world of her column.  The scheme is perfect until she falls in love with the war hero (played by Dennis Morgan).  Hijinks ensue as Elizabeth and Felix jump through hoops to save her job and avoid marrying John Sloan.

This film is a novelty in Stanwyck's filmography, being one of the few roles where she doesn't have it all together.  In fact, she's kind of a passive character who allows much of the action to happen around her, especially when being pushed around by her publisher.  Part of the reason Stanwyck agreed to play the role of Elizabeth Lane was because the film she completed right before this movie was Double Indemnity, where she plays a cold-blooded seductress and murderer.  Due to the dark nature of the role, Stanwyck really needed a nice light role, which she found in Christmas in Connecticut.  You know what, she makes it work, and in the end we get to see a little bit of the strong independent Stanwyck that we know and love.

Ultimately, this film is completely charming.  It really deserves to be put on the same pedestal as It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol as a perennial Christmas classic.  Here's the trailer to whet
your appetite.

A Bombshell for the Ages: Barbara Stanwyck

Yes, I'm going to force you all to listen to me gush about Barbara Stanwyck again.  Take comfort though, if you're not on the Stanwyck bandwagon, after this weekend I don't have any plans to talk about her in the near future.  Just allow me two more indulgences.

For me no actress makes me think of Christmas more than Barbara Stanwyck (her male counterpart would probably be Jimmy Stewart) as she has made multiple holiday themed films, making her a natural for December's Bombshell for the Ages.  It is a funny thing to associate Ms. Stanwyck with a happy time like Christmas, given her penchant for playing duplicitous femme fatales, scrappy hardboiled dames who climb their way to the top, and tragic maternal figures; however, she could also deftly play wisecracking showgirls, screwy socialites, and charming con-women with equal vigour.  The bottom line is she did it all extraordinarily well, which is why she often referred to as being the greatest actress who never won an Oscar.  

Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Stevens in 1907 to working class parents.  When Ruby was four her mother was killed in a streetcar accident and her father abandoned her along with her four siblings.  Spending her young life bouncing between her sister's care and various foster homes, she fell in love with show business at an early age and spent her teenage years working various odd jobs while trying to find a way into the business (she left school at a very young age with a string of fights and low grades to her name).  At the age of fifteen she got a job as a chorus girl and spent the next few years as a member of several New York choruses, including the legendary Ziegfeld follies.  In 1926 she was give a small role in the Broadway play The Noose.  It was initially a flop; however, after the play was retooled to give the newly re-christened Barbara Stanwyck a larger part, the play became a major hit.  Stanwyck soon was getting lead roles in Broadway plays and in 1928, Hollywood came calling.

Though her first films were not particularly successful, Stanwyck became a sought after actress during the thirties, playing a variety of tough dames who triumphed against adversity.  In the forties, as films grew darker, so too did the roles that she inhabited.  By the late nineteen-fifties film roles began to dry up and Barbara moved to television, where her career continued to flourish into her twilight years.

Throughout her career she was able to imbue all the characters she played with a world-weary grit cultivated in her own troubled childhood.  In day-to-day life she was known as being incredibly kind and friendly to everyone who worked with her, from the most powerful directors to the lowly crew members.  No one else in Hollywood could touch Barbara's reputation of being total class act.  Her own familial life included two failed marriages.  Her first to actor Frank Fay in 1928 ended in 1935 (there are rumours that their marriage was the basis for the multiple versions of A Star is Born).  Stanwyck married actor Robert Taylor in 1939, with their union ending in 1950 after Taylor's many infidelities became common knowledge.

While she never won a competitive Oscar, Stanwyck was nominated for the best actress Oscar four times for the films Double Indemnity (1944), Ball of Fire (1941), Stella Dallas (1937), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948).  She was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1982.  In spite of her lack of competitive Oscars, she did win a trio of Emmys for her television work as well as several other honours throughout her long career.

Stanwyck passed away in 1990, leaving a massive resume of film and television roles.  Her unusual beauty and sassy brand of tough intelligence has never been duplicated.  I've included a clip of a TCM tribute to Stanwyck narrated by Jennifer Jason Leigh, which describes the awesomeness that is Barbara Stanwyck far more eloquently than I ever could.

Xmas in Film: The Shop Around the Corner

It's hard to believe, but I've actually gone through the first four days of December without talking about anything film related (non-animated, that is).  Well, that ends here as does my moratorium on talking about romantic comedies (I did say that holiday themed ones didn't count) as we look at the first Christmas movie of the season.  It stars a man who is ubiquitous with the Christmas season, starring in one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time- Mr. James Stewart.  But, we're not talking about It's a Wonderful Life today- that would be way too obvious.  Instead, I wanted to highlight Jimmy's role in another great Christmas movie, 1940's The Shop Around The Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

The plot of The Shop Around The Corner is a very familiar (it was remade twice, as 1949's In The Good Old Summertime and 1998's You've Got Mail).  Two shop clerks who can't stand each other turn out to be each other's secret pen pals, with whom they are in each love with.  Stewart plays Alfred Kralik, a clerk at Matuschek & Company, a Budapest leather goods store and Margaret Sullivan plays Klara Novak, his fellow clerk/nemesis who turns out to be the woman of his dreams.  To be honest, their relationship doesn't really do much for me.  I find Margaret Sullivan's character to be incredibly histrionic and there are times when Stewart's character can be downright mean.  That been said, there are a couple scenes between the two that really shine - the scene where Stewart's character discovers that Sullavan's is his pen pal and toys with her while she nervously waits for her "pen pal" and the scene at the very end when Sullavan finally realizes that Stewart is her pen pal and they finally get together.  These scenes help make up for the rest of the film's lacklustre interactions between the two.

Now that I've taken care of the main plot of the film, I can focus on the reason that I really love this film- the subplots and the characters who inhabit them.  Like any retail establishment, this film is populated with an assortment of characters that give the film its life.  From the wise-ass delivery boy Peppy, to the kindhearted yet timid family-man Pirovitch, to the sleazy dandy Vadas - they all have their little backstories.  The biggest one involves the big man himself Mr. Matuschek (played by The Wizard of Oz himself Frank Morgan) who incorrectly suspects that Kralik is having an affair with his wife.  Prior to his suspicions he and Kralik had a relationship similar to that of a father and son, and this has a major effect on Stewart's employment and causes Matuschek to make an attempt suicide.  Not to worry though, this is a comedy and all turns out well in the end with everyone getting what's coming to him.

Everything culminates on Christmas Eve with one of my favourite Christmas scenes in any film.  Mr. Matuschek, who has just been released from the hospital has just given everyone their Christmas bonuses after a very successful Christmas Eve, looks to his staff (his one true family) for someone to spend Christmas with now that his marriage is over.  One by one they all tell them of their plans with friends and loved ones.  It looks like he's destined to be alone when he learns of the new delivery boy's situation (his family don't live in town) and he generously offers to take him for a wonderful Christmas dinner.  It's an unusually touching moment that makes the film for me.  Here it is...

Classic Holiday Animation Retrospective: Peace on Earth

I was thinking of talking about Hugh Harman's MGM short, Peace on Earth, around Remembrance Day, but I figured with its strong Christmas vibe that I would save it for December.  It's a pretty powerful short that nominated an Oscar for best animated short film way back in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, and it was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.  Peace on Earth features a Utopian earth that has been reconquered by the animals of the world after mankind has successfully obliterated himself from the face of the planet through modern warfare.  It starts with woodland squirrels singing a song that sounds suspiciously like Hark the Herald, but with the key lyrics replaced by the word, "Peace on Earth, good will to man."  A pair of young squirrels don't know what man is, so they ask their wise old Grand Pappy who relates the sad tale of how the race of man ceased to exist.  The short goes into dark territory as Grand Pappy relates the terrifying realities of war, with animated tanks, soldiers in gas masks brandishing bayonets take one and other out.  The animators used rotoscoping (drawing over live battle footage) to accurately portray what war really looked like in 1939.

The result is a harrowing piece of animation that I would imagine flooring audiences who were used to kinder, gentler animated short before and between their features-something from the Wonderful World of Disney, perhaps.  I have to say the ending is more than a little preachy as the animals take their cues from living in peace from the Bible.  It's a little heavy handed for a cynical gal like me... but the message of peace remains as topical as ever.  Little has changed in the world as we still teeter on the brink of complete annihilation.  I take comfort in the fact that in this post-apocalypse the animals survive.  This short was remade in 1955 by Hanna-Barbara, under the new name Good Will to Men.  Here's the original short in all its glory...