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aliypop · 6 months

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Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me: Chapter 4

Word Count: 2,209

Writers Note: Tis the season well near it, so I decided to get a head start. Also finally let me introduce you to Cecelia's parents! Finally.

Warning: None so far except for language and historic language

Pairing: OC x Elvis

Plot: Christmas is around the corner at the Valmos mansion where there's love and a bit of arguing and the Presleys are here can Elvis and Cecelia spread the holiday cheer?

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Taglist: If you wanna be tagged let me know!

@darkmoviesquotespizza

@sissylittlefeather

@richardslady121

@thegettingbyp2

@presleyenterprise

@sissylittlefeather

@dkayfixates

@rjmartin11

@thetaoofzoe

Nashville, Tennessee, December 24th,1957

Paradise Record's Official Christmas Party was the highlight of the music world, with the biggest names of the entertainment industry all under one roof. It was an achievement of Denise Camila Valmos. Who she hoped to one day pass off to her daughter. "Midge... the food." Denise sighed, watching her team finish the final touches of decorating the studio. "You need any help?" Alfonso asked as Denise shot him a glare. It was the age-all question that every man tended to ask, knowing when a woman needed help with something. Cheryl, Midge's wife, was outside directing where all the trees should go. The sharp cold of the wind felt like tiny razor blades cutting into her face. The things she did for Midge,

"You know I think it's gonna snow tonight..."

"Don't say that." Ruby shook her head,

"Why not?"

"When you say the S word... Denise gets touchy." Eleanor chuckled,

"It feels like it's gonna Snow..." Cecelia said. Her rollers were in her hair still as she was bringing in and setting more decorations.

"CECELIA SHANEL VALMOS!"

"I said it felt... not that it would..." Fluffing out the bows her mother made for each chair,

"Denise, if you hated snow, why'd you move to Nashville..." Alfonso questioned, "Don't say the music."

"Don't start with me..." Denise hissed at him.

Midge had been watching the two bicker as Cecelia and her aunts were still decorating.

"So Cece, how's the movies going?" Ruby asked as Cecelia humed a tune, putting the flowers in a vase.

"They're great." she shrugged, "I mean, the latest is with MGM, and it's about this girl. She's a princess, and she falls in love with this rockin' guy, who she thinks is a prince, but really he's a lounge singer." Cecelia giggled, thinking of who would play the love interest.

"Who's the fella you get to kiss," Ruby asked.

"Well... They're banking on Elvis." both her aunts watched her swoon when she said his name. She was all dimples and smiles,

"Honey, it's 57. I doubt if they get Elvis..." Ruby sighed,

"Well, if they don't, I at least get to kiss him and make love-" Cecelia caught herself as both her aunts glanced at her.

"Nel, you didn't..." Eleanor gasped as if she'd die and tell God,

"I did... I have a few times, but don't tell my mother!" Cecelia blushed hard,

"What about saving yourself for marriage?"

"Have you seen Elvis Aaron Presley..." Cecelia smirked, "And his blue eyes and his lips an-"

"Cecelia, go dressed."

"Yes, Mother," she responded as she went to change for the party, fanning herself from her thoughts.

"E, you got this," Rosa said, walking him into the now super crowded and star-studded studio lobby. Things like this always made him wonder how a boy from Tupelo made his way in places like this. In one corner of the room was BB King, who was talking to Ella Fitzgerald, and in the other corner was Little Richard, who found his way straight to the piano,

"Rosa, I...I don't think I got this." he sighed,

"Your parents are having a great time over there, and-" she felt Elvis try to leave the building as she pulled him back in,

"Those are legends in there. There's Louis Armstrong talkin to Dean Martin!" He could feel his stomach flip in knots.

"Okay, and you're Elvis the Pelvis, who can sing the panties off anyone's girl." Rosa shrugged, pushing him into the crowd. Rosa might have been trouble, but she was good trouble.

"Have you seen Elvis?" Scotty asked as Rosa held his hand,

"Nope... But, hey, isn't that Johnny Cash!" she waved him down, swooning after him.

"Wonderful Party again, Denise." Cab Calloway said as he kissed her on the hand. Alfonso had a jealous look on his face watching the woman he loved, no hated, no loved, be charmed by his competition. "It's always nice to see you again, Cab." Denise blushed a little. Her French red satin tule-trained mermaid gown was a snug fit on her body, and it only made Alfonso want to pull her in close and kiss her til the cows came home.

"Nessa, you look bellissima." Dean was kissing up her Opera glove to the skin of her shoulder.

"Oh, Dean." Denise blushed at the Italian lover, " They'll think we're in love." she joked as Alfonso got even more red in the face.

"Vernon..." Alfonso sat next to him,

"My advice... tell her how ya feel or damn it, suffer to that."

"Hey Rich..."

"Yeah, Cece?"

"Have you seen Elvis by chance?"

"Nope, been woop baba loo-ing honey." he winked at her and kept playing,

"Thanks..." she sighed, picking up the hem of her off-white dress, holding onto her white fur shaw. Cecelia had hoped the poor thing didn't get so nervous that he backed out of coming and left her to suffer a night of celebrities who'd ask her the same old questions,

"So tell me, Mr. Presley, what makes you good enough for our niece," Ruby said as she cornered the young man, Eleanor on the other side, with a glass of champagne.

"Well... A- aside from being Elvis, I-I'm an honest man I try to be." another thing he hated was interviews. He could talk til his face turned blue if you asked him to tell you a story, but an interview heck no, he could barely bear it.

"What about all those other girls you've had..." Eleanor asked,

"I love, love, but I love..." His eyes caught the prettiest sight he'd ever seen. A cream-colored gown, a white fur shawl, a garnet necklace hanging perfectly between her breasts, her white opera gloves up to nearly her shoulders, and her dark brown hair curled into the style of the infamous poodle.

"You love who..."

"Cece..." He had the face of a man who'd just seen an angel. Cecelia was now talking to Dean Martin, and by talking gawking at him like a little schoolgirl, the two had been discussing Jazz, knowing that Cecelia had the idea of doing at least one album to please her parent's pallet. "I like to think you rollers are crooners, especially that Elvis guy." Dean smirked a little, "I mean, without us Crooners, there's no Rollers."

"I'd simply agree." Cecelia smiled, "And Elvis, he's such a crooner, charming, sensitive, sweet, and..."

"He's comin this way, kid."

"Sensational..." black hair with a slightly curled cowlick and those piercing blue eyes like Superman, she was in love as she saw him walk her way with his tuxedo on and his bowtie, a look he didn't too much admire, but for Cecelia, he'd do anything.

"You look..."

"You go first," Elvis said,

"No, you," Cecelia took his hand,

"Well, you look like a dream." He kissed her hand,

"You look like my forever." Cecelia blushed at the kiss, "Have you met Dean?" she gestured as he laughed at the two lovebirds.

"Nice to meet you, sir."

"Please call me Dean," he winked, "Ya know Frankie was supposed to be here, but he got busy." Cecelia gasped at the mention of his name, and Elvis found it quite cute.

"Well, if it ain't Cece and E."

"Johnny!" the two both greeted Johnny Cash, who had a cigarette in his mouth and a slice of cake on a plate.

"What'cha two getting up two."

"Well-"

"YOU CAN'T EVER JUST APOLOGIZE HUH, ALFONSO!"

"SAYS THE ONE WHO'S GOT EVERY MAN KISSIN UP ON HER!"

"MAYBE I WOULDN'T IF YOU HAD PAID ATTENTION TO ME! LOVED ME EVEN!"

The room fell silent. All eyes were on them. Cecelia took a deep breath. Elvis grabbed her by the hand, trying to calm her down. Until Midge walked over,

"You two need to do something..."

"Why us..." Cecelia whispered,

"Well, those are your parents, and Presley's a voice of a generation. Good luck." Cecelia looked around for anything that could be a distraction until she saw the grand piano,

"Follow my lead..." Cecelia grabbed his hand,

"Godspeed Cece..." Midge smiled,

"Maybe we should just tell everyone the truth..." Denise sighed,

"The truth about-"

Heaven, I'm in heaven

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak

And I seem to find the happiness I seek

When we're out together dancing cheek-to-cheek

Cecelia sang as she sat on the grand piano. Elvis looked up at her like he'd sometimes look at a cheeseburger. Or his beloved sandwich,

Oh, I love to climb a mountain

And reach the highest peak

But it doesn't thrill me half as much

As dancing cheek to cheek

Elvis winked at Cecelia as they both continued the song. From the corner of her eye, she could see the guests dancing with each other, couples in love, some even humming the song. But the couple she wanted wasn't dancing, they weren't found until she heard.

Now Mama dance with me

I want my arms about you

That charm about you

Will carry me through

Standing beside her and Elvis were Alfonso and Denise, who were dueting their hit single from back in the 30s. They had looked so in love, like there was only room in the universe for them. When the song had finished, Alfonso and Denise embraced in passionate kisses. The two locked eyes as he got on his knees, took her hand, and said,

"Denise, I know... I ain't been the best husband or daddy, but I've been one hell of a manager, " he chuckled as Denise blushed, "But that's not what I wanna ask."

"What are you asking me, Alfonso." Denise.

"Will you be my Sapphire and set my soul on fire, marry me again?" he asked.

"Yes..." Denise blushed as she kissed her husband. There were cheers and claps and singing. It was a romantic affair, but Cecelia needed air. She needed to have a break from it all. Sitting outside, Cecelia had begun to tear up. She thought about how happy her parents seemed. And how happy Gladys and Vernon were dancing along to the singing, all the happy couples that could be together publicly in love.

"This stair taken..."

"N...No." Cecelia turned her head away from Elvis. Taking off his suit jacket, he put it around her shoulders as he kissed her cheek.

"Angel, are you cryin'?"

"I'm fine.."

"Are you sure-" he felt her body press into his chest as he held her. She was going to sob. In which he'd kiss her cheek and listen to her. After all, she'd been there when he needed a good sob.

"I-I-I wish we could hold hands, kiss how we want to, love how we want to outside those walls outside from our homes, I-" she sniffled, looking into his eyes,

"I wish the world knew how much I love you."

"I don't..."

"Whys that..." There was a deep sadness in her eyes as he said that. Elvis had her smaller hands in his as he kissed them, then he had his hands on her cheeks,

"Because the world already knows, and she's the most beautiful world I did ever see." he leaned in to kiss her soft lips. Her skin was cold, but the kiss between them was passionate, sweet, and simple. It said everything the other was trying to say. Suddenly, from the air, snow flurries were falling into their hair. And lashes, and on the ground as he picked her up, their lips never detaching from one another. Her arms were around his neck as he was holding her bridal style.

"Well, shit, finally..." Johnny said, watching the two.

Later that night, Elvis was in the guest room fiddling with a box he had with him. He knew the next day was Christmas, and it had to be perfect. After all, it wasn't every day a man found the woman of his dreams at 22 years old. Pacing, he'd been practicing his words until he heard.

"OH, ALFONSO, YES!"

Walking down the creaking floor, Elvis heard the fireplace crackle to a low fire as the lights from the Christmas tree. Illuminating the large living room like an annoying leg lamp, presents were under the tree, and a plate of half-eaten sugar cookies and a glass of milk beside it, sitting there with her legs crossed in her nightgown eating cookies.

"Cecelia..."

"Hmmm?" she looked back at Elvis. Over the fireplace was a picture of her and her parents and more awards, but he only had his eyes on one award, his sweet, beautiful girlfriend with crumbs on her lips that he could taste with his tongue, "Elvis..." her hands pulling at his hair, the two would break for air as they'd find other places to kiss and bite and lick,

"What's gotten into ya, sugar..."

"Love." He smirked, that smile on his face as he got up from being on top of her. Elvis took her by the hand as he beckoned her with his finger to follow.

"Where are we going..."

"To unwrap you like a bow."

"What if Santa finds out..."

"What he won't know won't kill him, mama." he kissed her neck again as she shivered,

"Then I suppose you can have this gift early."

#oc #fanfiction #new stuff #new #romance #new series #elvis presley #elvis fanfiction #elvis x oc #elvis the pelvis #50s elvis #poc oc x elvis #cecelia valmos #christmas fic #Spotify

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dweemeister · 4 days

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“MGM Jubilee Overture” – performed by the MGM Symphony Orchestra; conducted by Johnny Green

This medley overture was performed in 1954 for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 30th anniversary. In the days of the old Hollywood Studio System, all of the major studios* – MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia, RKO, and Universal – had their own symphony orchestras. These orchestras recorded every film score that each studio churned out (feature films and short films alike). As the studio best known for their musicals, the MGM Symphony Orchestra was arguably the best of them all, boasting world-class instrumentalists that rivaled all but the very finest orchestras in the world.

Needless to say, these studio orchestras took on a lot of work and the studios wanted only the best musicians they could get. The composers, lyricists, orchestrators, and musicians were all under contract to the studio. This set-up no longer exists in Hollywood as studios dealt with tighter profit margins in the 1960s, changing musical tastes during that decade, and the fact that modern Hollywood studios produce far fewer movies every year than they did during Hollywood's Golden Age. These days, studios prefer to hire composers/lyricists/orchestrators and musicians on an individual basis.

Almost all of the original conductors' and instrumental sectional scores to all of this music were destroyed in the early 1970s when then-MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian decided to slowly convert MGM into a real estate company. To save costs, he approved of the near-complete disposal of the studio’s music library – thrown into a landfill now underneath a golf course. Kerkorian, for copyright purposes, allowed MGM musicians to jot down piano reductions of one piece of music for every MGM movie before the original scores were to be disposed.

The songs featured in this overture are listed below along with the films they featured in: 1:20-2:09: “Singin’ in the Rain” from various films; first introduced in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), best known for its use in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 2:09-3:19: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” from Born to Dance (1936) 3:19-3:49: “Broadway Rhythm” from The Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) 3:49-4:30: “The Last Time I Saw Paris” from Lady Be Good (1941) 4:30-5:11: “Temptation” from Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 5:11-5:47: “Baby It’s Cold Outside” from Neptune’s Daughter (1949) 5:47-6:37: “Be My Love” from The Toast of New Orleans (1950) 6:37-7:03: “The Trolley Song” from Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) 7:04-7:30: “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from The Harvey Girls (1946) 7:30-7:58: “The Donkey Serenade” from The Firefly (1937) 7:58-8:57: “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz (1939) 8:57-9:24: Conclusion

Composers: Nacio Herb Brown, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Frank Loesser, Nicholas Brodszky, Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, Harry Warren, Rudolf Friml, Herbert Stothart, and Harold Arlen

* For those wondering where Disney is among the listed major studios, RKO distributed many of Disney’s films until the 1950s and Disney would not be a major studio until the late ‘80s/early ‘90s.

#MGM #MGM Symphony Orchestra #Johnny Green #The Hollywood Revue of 1929 #Singin' in the Rain #Born to Dance #The Broadway Melody of 1936 #Lady Be Good #Neptune's Daughter #The Toast of New Orleans #Meet Me in St. Louis #The Harvey Girls #The Firefly #The Wizard of Oz #film score #OST #great film scores #nightcap #MGM100

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llpodcast · 1 year

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(Literary License Podcast)

BATMAN: The Animated Series

Robin’s Reckoning Part 1

During a fight with some gangsters at a construction yard, Batman and Robin learn the name of their boss: Billy Marin. While Robin looks forward to going up against Marin, Batman becomes distant, and after a falling out at the Batcave, Batman doesn't allow Robin to accompany him on the search for Marin. Robin investigates on the Batcomputer, and soon realizes that Billy Marin is not the boss' real name. Rather, it is an alias of Tony Zucco, the man who killed his parents (which Batman already knew, but chose not to tell Robin).

Robin’s Reckoning Part 2

Angered by Batman's deceit, Robin sets out to find Tony Zucco on his own, all the while plagued by the memories of his parents' death and how Bruce took him in as his own son. Eventually, Batman manages to find Zucco at an old amusement park, but breaks his leg during the fight. Robin finally arrives and prepares to kill Zucco in revenge.

Night of the Ninja

A mysterious ninja is robbing Wayne Enterprises subsidiaries, and Batman discovers that the ninja is actually his equal in combat. A grudge against Bruce Wayne and skills to match him can only mean one person: Kyodai Ken, an old rival of Wayne's teacher from his days in Japan, and who was thrown out of the dojo after attempting to rob it, only to be stopped by Wayne. Ken, it turns out, wants revenge.

Cat Scratch Fever

Batman must stop Roland Daggett's plan to release a viral plague designed by Professor Milo into Gotham by way of its stray cat population. The case gains new urgency when Catwoman becomes infected with the virus during her search for her missing cat, Isis. Now, Batman must find an antidote to save the woman who loves him most.

Opening Credits; Introduction (1.29); Episode One Robin’s Reckoning Part 1 & 2 (22.52); Episode Two: Night of the Ninja (42.33); Episode Three: Cat Scratch Fever (53.20); Favourite Character (1:06.58); Favourite Episode (1;13.41);Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel (1:20.08); Closing Credits (1:21.00)

Original Music copyrighted 2020 Dan Hughes Music and the Literary License Podcast.

All songs available through Amazon Music.

#SoundCloud #music #Literary License Podcast #Entertainment

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tcm · 3 years

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The Golden Boy, John Garfield By Susan King

Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire was Marlon Brando’s signature role. It made the then 23-year-old Brando an overnight Broadway sensation in 1947, and he electrified movie audiences and earned his first Oscar nomination for the classic 1951 film version. But he wasn’t the first choice to play Blanche’s earthy brother-in-law. Producer Irene Selznick had her eyes on Hollywood star John Garfield, who frequently took time out from movies to return to the Great White Way for limited runs.

In fact, writer John Lahr reported in 2014 that on July 19, 1947, Selznick drew up a contract for the 34-year-old actor, “one of the few sexy Hollywood stars with a proletarian pedigree. The Selznick office leaked the big news to the press. The contract was never signed. On August 18 the deal with Garfield collapsed.”

One of the reasons bandied about was that Garfield turned down the role because the contract would have kept him away from Hollywood for too long. Though Brando is considered the performer who ushered in the more naturalistic style of acting (known as “the Method”) both on stage and in film, truth be told it was Garfield who was the catalyst for Brando, as well as Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman, James Dean and Steve McQueen.

Just look at Garfield’s first feature film, FOUR DAUGHTERS (’38). Directed by Michael Curtiz, the cast includes Lane sisters Lola, Rosemary and Priscilla, in addition to Gale Page as the four musically inclined daughters of a widower music professor (Claude Rains). Enter handsome boy-next-door Jeffrey Lynn as a budding composer named Felix who endears himself with all the daughters, especially peppy Ann (Priscilla Lane).

The household is put in an uproar with the arrival of Garfield’s Mickey Borden, the original rebel anti-hero. Unkempt, slovenly and possessing a massive chip on his shoulder, Mickey is an orchestrator who has arrived at the house to work with Felix. You can’t keep your eyes off him especially in this early monologue where he explains his anger to Ann:

“They’ve been at me now nearly a quarter of a century. No let-up. First, they said, ‘Let him do without parents. He’ll get along.’ Then they decided, ‘He doesn’t need education. That’s for sissies.’ Then right at the beginning, they tossed a coin, ‘Heads he’s poor, tail’s he’s rich.’ So, they tossed a coin…with two heads. Then for the finale, they got together on talent. ‘Sure, they said, let him have talent. Not enough to let him do anything on this own, anything good or great Just enough to let him help people. It’s all he deserves.’”

There was a sexuality and eroticism to Garfield’s performance that was 180 degrees different from Lynn’s durable and safe leading man. He was so natural; it was almost like someone found Garfield walking down the street in the Bronx and asked him to star in the movie. “He was the prototypical Depression rebellion youth,” actor Norman Lloyd told me about Garfield for the L.A. Times in 2003. They first met in 1937 and worked together on Garfield’s final film HE RAN ALL THE WAY (’51).

“He combined all of these elements of darkness and rebelliousness with the charm and the poignancy and he became the prototypical actor of that time. He never changed as a person. He remained just as a wonderful guy. He was a man of great charm, a good fellow, very likable.”

There was a lot of Mickey in Garfield, who was born Jacob Julius Garfinkle in 1913 on the Lower East Side of New York to poor Russian immigrants. Julie, as he was called, had a rough and tumble upbringing. His mother died when he was seven. “He hated his father,” his daughter Julie Garfield noted in 2003. “His father was awful to him. He was torn away from his brother.” In fact, Garfield once said that if he hadn’t become an actor, he would have been “Public Enemy No. 1.”

Unlike Mickey, the fates and destiny were looking after him. First, it was educator Angelo Patri, who became a surrogate dad to Julie at P.S. 45, a high school for troubled students. With Patri’s encouragement, he joined the debate team where he discovered he had a gift for acting. That was further nurtured when he received a scholarship to Maria Ouspenskaya’s acting school. He was all of 18 when he made his Broadway debut in 1932 in Lost Boy and became the youngest member of the progressive and influential Group Theatre, appearing in Clifford Odets’ early masterpieces Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing.

Odets wrote the play Golden Boy for Garfield in 1937, but director Harold Clurman decided to give the lead role of boxer Joe Bonaparte to Luther Adler and cast Garfield in a minor role. His unhappiness with Clurman’s decision pushed Garfield into signing a contract with Warner Bros. And FOUR DAUGHTERS made him an overnight sensation. He earned a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, but lost to Walter Brennan who picked up his second Academy Award in that category for Kentucky (‘38).

The following year, Garfield, Rains, the Lane siblings, Page and Curtiz reunited for DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS, in which the actors played different characters from the prior film. It was probably the best film Garfield made that year. But Warner Brothers put him in a lot of movies that were unworthy of his talent including BLACKWELL’S ISLAND (’39) where he was typecast as a gangster. He made some good movies in 1941, including THE SEA WOLF, which also starred Edward G. Robinson and Ida Lupino and reunited him with Curtiz, and also Anatole Litvak’s atmospheric noir OUT OF THE FOG also with Lupino.

Because he suffered heart damage from scarlet fever, Garfield couldn’t serve during World War II. But he entertained the troops on USO tours and opened the famous Hollywood Canteen with Bette Davis so the troops could be entertained and be served by some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Both Davis and Garfield appeared as themselves in the hit 1944 film HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN. Garfield also fought the global conflict on screen, giving one of his strongest and grittiest performances in PRIDE OF THE MARINES (’45), a poignant drama based on the life Al Schmid who was blinded by a grenade during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He returns home to his wife (Eleanor Powell) a bitter, doubting man who has a difficult time trying to deal with his new life.

The year 1946 saw the release of two of Garfield’s most enjoyable films HUMORESQUE and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. HUMORESQUE was his last film under his Warner Bros. contract. It’s a delicious melodramatic wallow with Garfield playing a poor New York kid who becomes a famous concert violinist. Joan Crawford, coming off her Oscar-winning triumph in Mildred Pierce (’45), plays a wealthy patroness who sets her sights on Garfield. Garfield went to MGM for POSTMAN, which was based on James M. Cain’s best-selling thriller. Garfield turns up the heat with Lana Turner as illicit lovers who brutally murder her husband only to turn on each other when they are caught.

The actor teamed up with Bob Roberts to form an independent production company, Enterprise Productions, and their first feature was the boxing classic BODY AND SOUL (’47), for which he earned his second Oscar nomination as Charley Davis, a boxer who loses his way when he gets involved with an unscrupulous promoter. Not only does he have a strong chemistry with leading lady Lilli Palmer, but also African American actor Canada Lee as Ben, a boxer with brain damage. And Garfield gets to utter one of his greatest lines in BODY AND SOUL: “What are you going to do? Kill me? Everybody dies.”

Though his next Enterprise production wasn’t a hit, FORCE OF EVIL (’48), co-written and directed by Abraham Polonsky, is a terrific film noir with a hard-hitting Garfield as a corrupt attorney trying to save his numbers-racket brother (Thomas Gomez) from his gangster boss. Garfield returned to Warner Bros. and Curtiz in 1950 for THE BREAKING POINT, which was based on Hemingway’s 1937 novel, To Have and Have Not. It’s an outstanding film noir with a superb performance from Garfield as well as from Black actor Juano Hernandez who plays his partner on the fishing boat.

THE BREAKING POINT was Garfield’s penultimate film and was not a hit because The Blacklist was engulfing Hollywood and the actor, despite the fact he wasn’t a Communist. His film career was over in 1951 when he refused to cooperate with HUAC at his hearing. Before his death of a heart attack in 1952 at the age of 39, Garfield did appear in a short-lived Broadway revival of Golden Boy, which also starred Lee J. Cobb, a young Jack Klugman and Joseph Wiseman.

Though she was only 6 ½ when he died, Julie Garfield recalls seeing her father on stage in Golden Boy where he introduced her during the curtain call. “When he smiled at you it was like being in the sun,” she noted. “He was funny and sometimes he would like to dance and kick up his legs. I remember him adoring me. He used to take me to the merry-go-round a lot in New York. He was so strong, so handsome and he loved to kid me. He would give me this mischievous smile. I wish I remembered more about him…”

#John Garfield #Method Acting #Marlon Brando #Golden Boy #theatre acting #The Sea Wolf #Body and Soul #Four Daughters #Susan King #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Huac #blacklist

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Tex Avery Birthday Spectacular!

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a celebration of the only cartoon director I knew as a kid and one of the finest whose ever lived, Mr. Tex Avery.

Avery is a legend in the animation industry and rightly so. Starting out at a few other studios, and loosing sight in one of his eyes due to some tomfoolery at one, Tex was annoyed with the restrctive enviorment and eventually found his way to Termite Terrace, the animated shorts wing of Leon Schislenger Productions, aka the future Warner Brothers Studios and the makers of Looney Tunes. And his impact on the franchise is vast, cannot be overstated and I only learned about just how much recently: The man created Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, created the prototype for Elmer Fudd, and created the design for Porky we’re all far more familiar with.

Eventually though while he was happy there, his career when ended when he eventually got into a squabble with Leon schsinger over the ending of “The Heckling Hare” and left soon after. Given he got a four week unpaid suspension for it , a bit extreme given all he’d given the studio, I can’t blame him. He instead went over to MGM who badly needed his wacky energy, and thus got to go as nuts as he wanted, with creative control a better budget and the result was his peak and classic characters like Red and my personal faviorite and personal boy: Droopy. I will try and do a birthday thing for him next month, we’ll see if my rather packed schedule will allow for it. Point is I watched the guys cartoons a lot as a kid between looney tunes and his shorts being repacked for the Tex Avery show in the late 90′s, and until recently I had no idea the depth and scope of his career: The guy gave looney tunes it’s standard fourth walll breaking and made it a huge part of the industry, and he was the one to hlep htem break out of being a Disney knockoff and into what we know today. The guy has my utmost respect so today I honor him as the first animator to get one of my birthday specials: As is my standard ten shorts, my patreons get to pick one each (I now have two but she start’s next month so her benefits will too) if they so choose (Kev opted out of the porky pig one next week) and I went to my friend blah for a recomendation as he’s an avid fan of the golden age of animation and thus usually has a really good choice up his sleeve. Now that’s out of hte way join me under the cut for some shenanigans as old tex would want it that way.

1. The Gold Diggers of 49 (1935)

This was Tex Avery’s first short with warner and the first of his I could find, not ot mention his first time working with Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, who he’d mentor and go on to be the heart and soul of Looney Tunes and define the characters Tex created. And since this is more significant than his earlier work i’m coutning it as his first. And as a start it’s.. ehhhhhhh.

I don’t blame him for it though. Most don’t hit it out of hte park their first time up to bat, and frankly the deck was stacked against him. He was saddled with Beans the Cat...

No one brak no one. He was part of an attempt by warner to create a new star as part of a Little Rascals/Our Gang style group of kids debuting in the short “I Haven’t Got a Hat”. This short is notable not for Beans, who no one cares about, but for the debut of Looney Tunes first star: Porky Pig. Porky was just one of the various characters but the only one audiences really liked. It took some time for Warner to get the hint though, hence Beans starring here and Porky playing his girlfriend’s father.. and also now being much older than him for some reason.

So instead of being a Little Rascals ripoff bean is now a mickey mouse ripoff, as the short gives me mickey mouse vibes.. but without the things that made those shorts actually good and feels mostly built on studios trying to make what they think audiences will like. There’s sparks of waht Tex would become.. but just not enough wiggle room for him to make something special. Also porky looks and sounds weird in this one and Bean’s girlfriend has a REALLY annoying voice. Oh and two horrible Asian stereotypes, because it was acceptable at the time but lord was it never okay. Then again I should be at least mildly greatful none of the shorts had blackface.. because tex apparently REALLY had a problem with that, something I obviously didn’t know as a kid as they edited it out but given most of his MGM shorts have “blackface edited out of x version”, yeahhh.... I may like the guy, quite a bit and feel those gags weren’t done out of malice.. but it dosen’t make them okay, they were never okay and he should’ve done better.

2. I Love to Singa (1936) Thankfully our next entry is 800% better, as we get a classic from my childhood and probably multiple childhoods. Admittedly part of the reason this one stuck in my head is the title song, sung by a young jazz singing owl whose dad doesn’t like that he sings Jazz instead of classical, enters a contest and nearly looses singing classical to please his dad only for his dad to intervene and finally accept his son. It’s a wonderful story of acceptance with some decent gags, beautiful animation and one hell of a title track that will probably never leave my head. The song is really what makes this short and sometimes that’s okay. Also just to note so someone else doesn’t: This short was a parody of the Jazz Singer one of the first talkie’s.. and also a film that uses blackface and whose 80′s remake bafflingly also uses blackface for some reason. Yes really.

3. Tortoise Beats Hare (1941)

One of Tex’s only four Bugs Shorts.. but given 3/4 of them are certified classics, and one of them involving a horrible stereotype.. to the point it’s part of the rightfully infamous “Censored 11″ and the ONLY one involving Bugs Bunny.

So as I said, Tex has a bad history with casual racism, and while it was the style at the time and I don’t THINK he was actively malicious towards black people.. it doesn’t make some of his work any less harmful. The rest of his bugs work though is remembered for the right reasons: his first appearance, and early classic we’ll get to next.. and this standout everyone who saw it as a kid or an adult fondly remembers.

You all know the premise: Bugs finds out, in an utterly brilliant wall shattering bit at the start where he reads off the crew names and then the title, that this picture will have him beaten by a turtle and taking offense to that challenges the guy. This is honestly one of the few Bugs shorts where he’s the out and out villain of the picture. He’s doing this race purely out of ego, yells at Cecil whose perfectly nice in this one, and in general is the bully set up for a fall he’d later be famous for taking on. But it works, both because this si early in bugs career so it’s entirely in character, and because Mel just really sells the obnoxiousness while still being funny.

This short also has one of Tex’s trademark setups as this is essentially a prototypical droopy cartoon: A meek, goofy voiced protagonist whose shorter than his large obnoxious enemy and who torments him by showing up every where he’s going to be and casually doing it. Cecil even does so using an army of fellow turtles with Droopy later using a similar trick in one of his shorts. As a big Droopy fan i’m clearly not complaining and while Droopy would do it better, this short’s still a classic for a reason with tons of great bits and is a fun break from the usual bugs setup, though in full fairness the usual bugs setup is still solid gold so take that how you will.

4. The Heckling Hare (1941)

Originally I was going to have Daffy in Hollywood in this spot as I thought it was on Max, it was not, so I swapped it out with his final bugs cartoon. For the record his first, and Bugs, is being saved for Bugs birthday this summer. And honestly i’m glad I did because this was 7 mintues of pure joy that has another setup that Tex himself and other Looney Tunes animators would resuuse: Bugs being pitted up against a far dumber antagonist. One who often still fully deserves it but allows him to just have fun for several minutes at this dumb bastard’s expense. It works well here, with tons of clever gags, my faviorite being the two doing dumb faces with each other only for bugs to stop and pull out a sign as seen right above.

It’s also an approriate capper to our warner made Tex shorts for the day, as this would be the one that got him fired. He and Schisnger argued over it and he got suspended as I mentioned and I found it again a bit fucking extreme. So did Tex and after a handful of shorts elsewhere, he’d move over to MGM, whose cartoons would ironically be bought up by warner. They needed a shot in the arm to compete with Disney and Warner and Tex was happy to provide hte needle filled with nonsense. And the results.. are pure gold.

5. Dumb Hounded (1943)

I’ll admit as a kid I didn’t know Tex’s MGM shorts were theatrical, or any shorts but somehow I knew they weren’t looney tunes. Besidds obviously having hteir own show they just had their own tone and pacing and style. While the Looney Tunes aren’t bad, at all honestly, Tex’s work here was in a class by itself with MGM gladly giving him a higher budget and even more creative freedom. And the results speak for themselves and one of those results is one of if not my faviorite classic cartoon character. And since I might not be able to get to his birthday with one of these next month, though i’m certainly going to try march is just VERY VERY FULL. Anyways point is our happy hero was introduced here. And given i’m frequently depressed and often withdrawn, not that you could tell from my reviews here, I related to this depressed bulldog who always won anyway despite being an outsider, finding love, sucess and always beating a much larger, much more assholish antagonist. But Droopy is good on his own merits as his shorts are just that funny.

This was true from Day One as dumb hounded is fucking perfect: The Wolf that Avery always used in his cartoons escapes from jail and is hunted by bloodhounds including our boy, who charmingly introduces himself with “You know what, i’m the hero”. From there it’s a simple setup but a great one as Droopy finds the guy.. then chases him from here to enternity with one amazing gag after another. Simple, utterly hilarious and the dawn of a legend, with the ending having Droopy go a bit nuts after getting his reward money before returning to his usual demeanor “You know what? I’m happy” So am I bud, so am I.

6. Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)

Yup same year. Tex hit the ground sprinting. This one is his signature MGM toon and for good reason. Using his usual forth wall breaking style, both the wolf and red riding hood rebel when it opens with a typical telling, so it changes to a 40′s nightlife setting: Grandma lives in a penthouse and is man hungry, Red is a fanservicey night club act and the Wolf is a sexually harassing asshole who chases after here and has some over the top reactions to her that are iconic in some’s mind.

The short is gorgeously animated with Red’s dance sequence and Wolfie’s reactions being the highlight and the short isn’t as bad as it could be as the wolf is treated as a scumbag for hitting on her and generally being a creep. SO the first two thirds aren’t bad with nice touches like the narrator clearly improvising the new story. It’s just badly hampered by the last half where Grandma sexually harasses Wolfie and it just doesn’t work. This double standard stuff annoys me and “haha get it it’s funny when a woman stalks a man” isn’t funny. Wolfie stalking her really isn’t that funny either it’s just not you know an entire third of the film. So a classic for a reason.. but one that really has degraded with time. Still worth analyzing and what not, just not great.

7. Who Killed Who? (1943)

Yes still. It was a good year. This is another one off like Red Hot Riding Hood and as is tradition since the Tom and Jerry one, my patreons each get to pick one and Kev selected this one. And this.. was a great choice.

Seriously I could not stop laughing with a great gag a minute, WAY too many to mention, a classic ending, and just nothing but net the whole time. I don’t have much to say really.. but because this one’s just good. The whodunnit genre hasn’t really gone away, it’s cliches are welll known even today and this is a lovely parody of it that hits the ground running after a live action intro and runs right through the wall across a lake and straight into droopy “You moved.”.

The only real observation I have other than “This is fucking awesome watch it immediately” is that the villian looks exactly like the Phantom Blot. Who knew the Phantom Blot was a live action guy with a weird haircut the whole time huh? Seriously this one is a masterpiece, an instant faviorite, and I highly recommend it.

8. Screwball Squirrel (1944)

As you can probably guess by how I lead it in this one is not very good. It is tex TRYING to make a bugs or daffy type character again and somehow failing at it. He created them, he did plenty of shorts like theirs with other characters and got how the cat and mouse antics of the old theatrical shorts worked.. so I have no idea how this one happened.

I’m really not overselling it: The short is about Screwy, who hyjacks it from a cute widdle bunny clearly parodying bambi.. who he beats the shit out of, then decides to get things going asks a dumb dog to hunt him, then insults him to provoke him to attacking him. He then spends the entire short tormenting the poor dumb bastard who again HE PROVOKED. It feels like a poor imitation of dumb hounded, as while Bugs clearly outclassed the dog there, he’d die if he lost, so while he was punching down, he clearly didn’t have a choice and you can’t honestly blame him. Here, Screwy is fine, he just wants someone’s head to fuck with and spends a whole short torturing him. We don’t even get catarsis as while the dog does catch him at the end via weird gag, they end up deciding to beat up the bunny instead.

His voice is also just the worst, just utterly grating and making me wish an anvil woudl fall on HIM instead. Screwy would return for some other shorts but I have no idea why. This was easily the weakest of these ten shorts and I will probably not return to the guy next year.

9. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)

This is one i’d forgotten till I got a ways in. It’s also weirdly one of the only MGM Tex shorts on HBO Max as this was included in the Tom and Jerry collection for some reason, the dog in it clearly isn’t the tom and Jerry verison of spike... though the dog Droopy fought a lot was indeed called spike. Yes that is confusing, no I don’t know why MGM thought this was a good idea.

As a result though I have been saving giving out about this till now but seirously , put the tex avery shorts on HBO Max. Their on Blu-Ray, their on boomerang, especially Droopys. I do not get why they aren’t on here. I’m tired of them holding things out for the boomerang app when not everyone subscirbes to that. Let me have my morose dog dammit.

That giving out aside i’m glad this one caught my eye via i’ts weird name as it’s another masterpiece. It also does what one Tom and Jerry short I reviewed, the one where tom’s a millionare, earlier this month failed to: properly make it’s antagonist loathsome enough to deserve the parade of abuse he gets. With that one Tom is tourturning jerry for like 30 seconds, but Jerry torments him for most of 5 minutes.

Here we get about two minutes of our lead kitten getting torremnted by a mean bulldog. It’s not only still a bit entertaining to lessen the horror just enough to be watchable but not enough to make the bulldog likeable, but it makes what happens for the rest of the short oh so fucking satsifying. While the previous short today really didn’t get the karmic ballance neded for a good classic screwball comedy short this one overwhelmingly does.

Our kitten gets some help in the form of Blackie, a professional black cat who agrees to turn the tables, sauntring across to a wonderfully catchy tune. any time the little guy whistles. The result from there is 5-6 nonstop minutes of comedy genius, as Tex finds new and creative ways for the cat to come out of nowhere, and even shakes things up to keep it intresting towards the end iwth the dog getting the whistle.. only for it to still not work out, and for our little kitten to get his revenge at last by painting himself black after the bulldog paints blackie white. As should be obvious by now, it’s really good, showing Screwball Squirrel was the exception not the rule. In general Tex was this good during his mgm and when he was at his peak we got gems like this. Truly sensational, watch it if you have max it’s under the tom and jerry section for some reason.

10. T.V. of Tommorow A decent one I remember seeing as a kid. Not much to say though, it’s mostly a bunch of gags about “future” tv’s based on their viewer’s needs. Some good stuff.. not as good as most of what was here today but still better than the worst of it and still very memorable and part of a memorable tetralogy i’ll probably come back to when I do Tex’s birthday again next year. Not a bad note to end on though.

Overall these shorts show just how strong a creator tex was, gleefully taking convention and ripping it to tiny pieces. As i’ve mentioned many times i’ll be coming back to his work next year.. and probably be watching a hell ofa lot more in the time between. Might even do a second special on him in between birthday ones. We’ll see how this does. The Tom and Jerry one sadly wasn’t quite the hit I hoped.

Until then I have many other reviews. And since Today (This review is late) was supposed to be the 90′s tom and jerry movie but that turned out not to be on Max for some reason. I still plan to cover it some day i’ll just have to find it and buy it first. But tommorow if I have the time i’ll be continuing the Lena retrospective with an intresting little side trip. So until then, i’ts been a pleasure and you know what? Thanks for reading.

#tex avery #droopy #bugs bunny #porky pig #the gold diggers of 49 #cecil turtle #tortoise beats hare #the heckling hare #tv of tommorow #dumb hounded #red hot riding hood #who killed who #red #spike #bad luck blackie #screwy squirrel #screwball squirrel #owl jolson #I love to singa

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Andy Weir on Writing a Buddy Cop Story… Set in Space

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Andy Weir is all about survival. His first novel, The Martian, centers upon the attempts of astronaut Mark Watney to survive long enough on the Red Planet for a rescue mission to reach him. His sophomore book, Artemis, is a fast-paced survival story of a different kind, set among various criminal factions on the Moon. His latest novel, Project Hail Mary, raises the stakes even higher— it’s about the survival of our entire species, and all life on Earth.

In Project Hail Mary, the Sun is getting dimmer, thanks to a mysterious substance known as Astrophage, a type of interstellar infection. Humanity is facing a ticking ecological time bomb; unless the secret of the Astrophage can be discovered and the planet-wide cooling process reversed, it’s goodnight for life as we know it. There’s just one long shot left for humankind: send a starship to make contact with whoever – or whatever – is behind it all.

Project Hail Mary is as much a mystery novel as it is an SF survival tale. The book opens with our protagonist, Ryland Grace, waking up in a medical bay with two corpses and no memory of how he got there. What follows is a constant peeling back of layer after layer of this mystery, until finally, the truth is revealed. It’s a deeply satisfying ride, made even more so for those readers who share Weir’s obvious passion for science. Surprisingly, at its heart, Project Hail Mary is also a buddy road trip story, which kicks into high gear when Grace connects with an alien partner he names Rocky.

After bonding over a shared love of Terry Pratchett, Andy and I talked about the influences behind Project Hail Mary, and what it took to bring the world of the Astrophage to life.

Den of Geek: Project Hail Mary evokes similar feelings to the Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama books. Were those influences for you?

Andy Weir: Oh, big time. I grew up reading my dad’s science fiction collection, Heinlein and Asimov and Clarke, they’re my Holy Trinity. And yeah, that sense of optimism I feel has kind of vanished from sci-fi, and a lot of science fiction ends up being this bleak, dystopian misery-scape where a teenager doing weird stuff is the only thing that’ll save the day. I just don’t buy into that. I have a firm belief that the future is almost always better than the past. I mean, 2020 kind of sucked, we can all agree, but I would rather live through 2020 again than 1920.

Speaking of 2020, let’s talk about the Astrophage, which is basically Project Hail Mary’s nemesis. It’s a stellar virus, an infection transmitted from star to star. Did you plot the book during the Covid-19 pandemic, or was it just a fluke of timing? It seems like a very timely concept.

It does, but it’s pure coincidence. I actually finished the entire book before COVID-19 happened. This is the longest I’ve ever had a book done, but not yet published, because COVID messed with the print production pipelines. I actually finished the book in January of 2019. Astrophage was originally a technology called black matter, not a life form. It would absorb all electromagnetic radiation that hit it, and turn that energy into mass, in the form of more black matter. I thought, this is the perfect spacecraft fuel, because it mass converts. Then I thought, “Well, we have no way of creating that technology, I could not make that take place in the modern day… what if it wasn’t a technology? What if it was a life form?” Black matter takes energy and makes more black matter, but that’s kind of what life does, right? Humans take energy and make more humans out of it. That’s what we do. Cats take energy to make kittens.

It’s the ultimate double-edged sword. It has the power to wipe us out, but if we were smart enough to harness it, Astrophage could become humanity’s gateway to the stars.

That was my…kind of “shower epiphany.” I was thinking, “Oh, but we’d need to be really careful, because we wouldn’t want to let this shit get in our sun, because it would start breeding out of control. That’d be a disaster. We can’t have that.” Then I was like: “Wait a minute, disasters are where books come from. We can have that. We will have that!” Astrophage was… I can’t say handed to humanity on a silver platter, it was really more handed to humanity on a spiky, poisoned platter.

That’s how the Big Three – Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke – saw atomic power, wasn’t it?

Yeah, they did, and they’re not wrong. I still think that in the real world, our best bet for regular interplanetary travel is going to be ion propulsion, which requires a huge amount of energy, and so that’ll be reactors. This isn’t weird, way off in the middle of nowhere, made up science; this is real stuff. Humanity has put ion propulsion craft into space and used it, but if you scale that up big enough that you can have a passenger spacecraft, then you’re going to need to scale up the energy production. So, pretty much nuclear reactors are the only way to get that much energy out of such a small amount of weight.

The novel has a very non-traditional structure, essentially starting at two different time points, and unfolding from there in tandem. Was Project Hail Mary a difficult book to plot?

It wasn’t difficult to plot once I decided to use that structure, but it was a very difficult decision to go for that structure. I hate flashbacks. I always tell aspiring writers: “Don’t use flashbacks. Nobody likes them.” One of my main problems with flashbacks is, I’ll be really invested and interested in a story that’s going on, then suddenly we’re off somewhere else. We were over here doing neat stuff, now you’re over here doing boring stuff. This is a book, it’s entertainment, not a lesson. So, flashbacks often feel to me like you’re out playing with your friends and your mom tells you to come in and clean your room.

But I realized that this story, if told linearly, would be really weird. The whole scientific mystery which leads to the creation of the Hail Mary, and then the launch, is interesting, but it’s not a book… and so the flashbacks skip over the years. There’s this scene, and then the very next flashback you see will be two years later after that. The whole book would be really disjointed. From the second act on, it’s a completely different book. And so, I couldn’t think of any way to do this other than flashbacks. I’m like, “If I neat out the backstory bit by bit so that the stories kind of converge, and I’m constantly revealing new information in the flashbacks, then the flashbacks are compelling as well,” and just had the two stories come together at the end.

If this had been poorly executed, it would have been a very difficult read, but I felt no jarring at all due to the jumping backward and forward in time. I found myself looking forward to the next flashback, then getting back to the Rocky and Ryland show. I was also delighted to find there’s a lot of humor in there.

People don’t know it when they start the book, but it’s a buddy cop movie, basically. I don’t know if you watched those road movies from the ‘40s. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby will be on the road to something. There’s a bunch of movies that start with Road to…and then a location. It’s always the same principal plot, these two guys are trying to get somewhere, and all the funky, comedic things that happen along the way. It’s kind of like that.

So, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the team behind The Lego Movie among many others, have been tapped to direct the Project Hail Mary Movie.

MGM bought the rights, and they bought them outright, not an option, which is neat, because it implies they’re much more serious about making the movie. Ryan Gosling is attached to play the lead, so that’s pretty cool.

Wonderful! Who’s your dream casting for Rocky, Grace’s alien partner?

I have some ideas for that, but I don’t want to give them away, because there’s been a lot of discussion on how do we portray the [alien] language situation on screen. In the book, after a while, I just start using italics to indicate what Rocky’s saying, and either Grace is looking it up on his computer, or later in the book has just learned Rocky’s language, learned how to understand what Rocky’s saying. We have an idea, and I think it’s a really solid idea. Ryan Gosling came up with it, and so I think that’s what we’re going to do. But films are so security conscious, I can’t really talk about it.

It was great talking with you, Andy, and I wish you the very best of luck with Project Hail Mary.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

You too. Bye-bye.

Project Hail Mary hits the shelves on Tuesday, May 3rd.

The post Andy Weir on Writing a Buddy Cop Story… Set in Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

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celmation-gibson · 4 years

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The First Drawing to post for this New Decade, and it's the Best of the Movies that I've seen in the Cinemas, and one I've heard of for a while. So here are some Favorite Characters of mine that were fun to Draw, along with the Reviews for the Films.

Missing Link - My First movie to see in the Cinemas of this Year, and it's another Laika Classic, and despite being a Box Office flop, It did receive some very Good Reviews from Critics, and even my Foodtown Boss' Grandchildren saw the Film on a Thursday(?) and they Loved it, so I figured I give this film a watch, and I was amazed at the Final result, An Amazing sight to see that some Folks out there don't know what their Missing. It was directed by Chris Butler, who was co-Director of Laika's other projects 'ParaNorman', and it had an Amazing cast such as Mr. Zach Galifianakis (Felix of 'Bob's Burgers' & Lego Joker of 'the Lego Batman Movie'), Zoe Saldana(Avatar, Gaurdians of the Galaxy), & Hugh Jackman (Van Helsing & Wolverine of the live-Action 'X-Men' films). And once again, the Folks of Laika really did some good Work & Commitment in Making this Film, especially when I loved the Film's settings & Landscaping, and the Action Sequences are Phenomenal, especially in those Action sequences when the Ship rotates with the People in it when it was Struck with the Storm's Big Wave, and How Suspenseful it was when the Characters are dangled into Ice blocks or big icicles, and how shocking on how the Villains' defeat of Lord Piggot-Dunceby, his neurotic right-hand man Mr. Collick, and Bounty Hunter Willard Stenk were killed in Cold Blood, cuz I knew that that Ice Bridge in the Film was gonna Break in a Sequence. Plus there were some Cute Humor in the Film as well, especially after when Mr. Link/Susan Roared at a Dog during a Bar Fight, and after a Moment of Silence, the Dog just attacked on of his Men and the Bar Fight continues (that's when most kids in the Auditorium laughed at that part), and how Susan literally thrown some Objects over the Wall. And I'm always fascinated with Cryptozoology creatures such as Bigfoot, Abominable Snowmen, & the Loch Ness Monster, even when they make me think about that 1970's film entitled 'the Mysterious Monsters'. And even if the film was Distributed by United Artists (a Subsidiary of MGM I suppose), it's kinda Weird now now that it was released on DVD and Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox, even after Disney's Conquest, but can we still call ML a Non-Disney film, even if some MGM films are being released by FOX under a Contract?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters - Well me and my dad certainly love Giant Monster movies when we were Young, and I certainly remember renting every Godzilla movie on VHS back when Blockbuster was still around, and we certainly enjoyed that one 2014 'Godzilla' movie, unlike the 1998 Matthew Broderick one, so we decided to give this new kaiju movie 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' a viewing pleasure, not to be confused with the 1956 Americanized 'Gojira' movie starring Raymond Burr. And i gotta say that it was an Epic Thrill-ride of our Lives, even the monsters we were familiar with were Amazing, Godzilla being all greatly Huge and Buffed-up as always in the USA, Rodan looking a-little Sinister lookin', Mothra playing out like the original 'Mothra' movie, starting off as a larva hatching from her Egg, then Evolving into a beautiful Butterfly-like Moth, then King Ghidorah was so Menacing in this one, and being like Lizzie in 'Rampage', he was such a "Pain-in-the-Ass" character, even once being Nicknamed 'Monster Zero', either that Nickname was also used in Japan, or used for one of Ghidorah's old film appearances in the US, that was double-billed with 'War of the Gargantuas'. I even like how they referenced some stuff from Warner Bros. & Legendary Films' 'Kong: Skull Island', as that films along with the 2014 Godzilla, and this Film are all in the same Universe, Monsterverse that is. And how surprising that there are other Kaijus in this Movie that I'm not even certainly familiar about, like that one Arachnid-like featured titan, or the Giant Ape Body/Mammoth Trunk beast, or another Muto(?), and I am wondering if the Demolished Boston at the end of the movie is gonna be the new 'Monster Island'. The human characters were good, I mostly like every member on the character Dr. Mark Russell's team, they seem likable, and the Cast was great, even after looking at the film's Poster befor we went inside the theater, I saw the familiar name of Thomas Middleditch, the same man who did voices in 'Captain Underpants' & 'Bob's Burgers', doing a Live-action role, and while writing this review, I've discovered some other actress who starred in this film include Sally Hawkins, who starred in the previous 2014 Godzilla movie, and also in Guillermo del Toro's 'the Shape of Water, and the woman playing the daughter in this film, also played in 'Stranger Things' as Eleven. And also I love on how the film as a Newer Version of Godzilla's approach-like film that was used in the old films, and even the end Credits have Cover version of Blue Oyester Cult's classic hit 'Godzilla'. And one of the Film's story plot is Fascinating, like how this Earth was once ruled by Giant Titans, until us small Humans have taken over while most of those Titans went Extinct and hiding in the Earth's Spirit.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 - Well, Illumination has done it again, as it Amuses me once before with 'the Grinch', 'Despicable Me 2', 'the Secret Life of Pets', & 'Sing', they have released a Sequel to my Favorite Secret Life of Pets movie that I saw in theaters back in 2016, and now have it on DVD. And when I heard that the Original voice for Max got replaced with a Guy I know of who has a Great Career in Animation, I was like "Whuuut?", but even after reading what Happened to that one Guy, i figured I'd give this Movie a Watch, since I'll like Patton even more. And I gotta say, this Sequel does have some Cute and Lovable moments in the Film, and those Subplots in the Film are Wonderful, leading up to a Story on how to save a White Tiger cub from a Wicked Ringmaster (voiced by Funny voice man, Mr. Nick Kroll(Sausage Party, Sing, Captain Underpants). And Snowball is more luvable in this one as he is in the first Film (Kevin Hart is so Wonderful!), even teaming up with a Cute/Funny character such as Daisy, a Shih Tzu voiced by Tiffany Haddish (who just did a guest voice role in 'Bob's Burgers'). Also with a Cute story on how Max & Duke's owner fall in Love with a Fun Gentleman and have a Kid together, and I love how the Dogs raised the Boy up, by helping him to Crawl & walk, and have Good Animal Instincts, which makes me think that what if my Sister & her Husband had a Pet Puppy that could be a good a Good Companion to my Little Layla niece. And some of the Parts in the Film have Good humor in it, like did I just heard a Cow say "Rat Turd" in front of an auditorium full of Young children? Plus Mr. Harrison Ford(Han Solo in 'Star Wars' & Indiana Jones) was great as a character named Rooster, who tries to Man/Brave up Max and a few characters, after Max has devoted his Life to Little Liam, which led to the Funny Collar on his head. And I'd figured there was something Familiar about that Young Lamb Cotton's voice in the Movie, as he is voiced by Mr. Sean Giambrone, the voice of Jeff in 'Clarence' & Shermy in the 'Adventure Time' series Finale.

Abominable - Well, Dreamworks has done it again, a new film from a Creative Team was made and about to be released soon, and when I saw the Previews of it for the First time, I thought I wasn't too interested in it, especially with the humorous Blueberry gag parts. But after a while, and see that if it looked cuter as Dreamworks' previous film 'Home(2015)', I thought I give it a go, and hopefully it look way better than that one Weird-Looking film in 1995 called 'to catch a Yeti' starring Meatloaf. But for the 'Abominable' film, since the Movie was getting Good Feedback from Reviewers and Viewers, I was Lucky to watch the Film for myself. The Characters were Cute and Funny, almost like the ones from 'Home', especially with Ethnic Protagonists. And the settings and Designs of Asia in the Open Fields, Forests, and Cities are really nice, wishing I could visit and/or live there. And the Great story is like an E.T. Extra Terrestrial thing, expect that the Heroes goes with the Creatures on an Adventure of a lifetime to bring back the Creature to his Beloved Family that they Tried to protect from any threats what's-so-ever. And there are some Amazing plot Twist among the Villainous Characters, like just when you thought the villain was actually an elderly Man who has been hunting Mythical creatures for rewards, but it turns out that the True Villain was actually a Nerdy Woman who thought was a seemingly-gentle Scientist just doing what's right for the World, who almost Barely looks like a geeky version of Kari McKeen of Disney/Pixar's 'the Incredibles', and when she let down her Hair, she may look like a Devious version of Merida of Disney/Pixar's 'Brave'. The Effects in the Movie is Super Nice & Super Awesome, especially in the Yeti's Humming effects, some Action Sequences, and that one moment when the Heroine's Father's Violin broke, the Yeti fixes it by using his own Hair for the String replacements, and I know from that Moment, with Yi's Musical skills and the Yeti's Powers combined, and when the Hearts are Full, and the Heavens are listening, Magic is bound to happen. And for the one other part when the Heroes are Gazing into the Stars, they say that the Stars could be our Ancestors watching over us, and that if we don't see any Stars in the Sky, there will be always there for us, almost like even if for some Folks lost their Love ones, they will always be there, even if we can't see them. But I'm glad i enjoyed the Movie, and I know that some Tween kid group enjoyed it as well, laughing at some Funny Parts in which i enjoyed, sometimes with the Woofing Snakes, "WOOF, there it is, WOOF, there it is".

the Addams Family - Well, a another Fantastic new Animated feature has been made, and it's based off of what I remember from my Childhood, cuz I do remember watching the early 1990's Live-Action movies of the Creepy Family starrring Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci, before I knew who some of the Actors were, and I remember the Animated Hanna-Barbera Kooky series on Cartoon Network a while back, even making a Spooky Guest appearance in 'the New Scooby-Doo Movies', but I haven't watched much of their old Ookie Live-action series, and the Family I'm talking about is 'the Addams Family'. And I've read a while back that an Animated CGI feature is gonna be released soon, and I knew back there that that would be interesting for me to see, so I've waited several months for the to be released in Cinemas, and I finally got a chance to do so. It was a Fun and Entertaining movie, and surprising it was made Directed and made by the same team who did the 2016 R-rated Animated film 'Sausage Party' starring Seth Rogan & Kristen Wiig, and the Character designs for the Film were to be based off the old design from the Original Addams Family comics in the old days, and with modern help from Mr. Craig Kellman(Hotel Transylvania, Madagascar). And the voice cast is amazing, we got Mr. Nick Kroll(Captain Underpants) voicing Uncle Fester, Chloe Grace Moretz(Kick-Ass) as Wednesday Addams, Finn Wilfhard(IT, "Beep, Beep, Richie") as Pugsley Addams, Charlize Theron(Kubo and the Two Strings) as Morticia Addams, Bette Midler(Hocus Pocus) as Grandmama, Snoop Dogg as Cousin Itt, Elsie Fisher(Despicable Me) as Parker Needler, even the film's co-director Mr. Conrad Vernon as Lurch ("YYYOOOOOOUUUUUUU RRRAAAAANNNGGGG?!", LOL!!!), a priest that presides over Gomez and Mortica's wedding, the spirit that haunted the abandoned asylum that Gomez and Morticia move into (who often threatened them to get out, much to the family's delight, which i find those Parts to be entirely Hilarious, even in the Theater's Booming Stereo), and Dr. Flambe, a Devil-like relative of the Addams family with fire-like abilities. And the Film's Story is very cute, even with the Film's Opening Scenes on the Origin story of the Addams Family and their "Creative Differences" with other Societies, and it gives me some Good comparisons with Sony's 'Hotel Transylvania' as Creepy Creatures who have lived through the Centuries and Years soon get into Modern times and how other people dealt with Beings like the Monsters of HT and the Addams Family and their Clan. And it would be nice if my Parents were watching the Film with me in the Theaters, cuz during the Film's Ending, me and the people in the Auditorium got a chance to sing-along with the Film's Theme Song, and everyone was Snapping their Fingers to the tune. So If you wanna celebrate Halloween in a Great and Wonderful way, I think that this film is for you, and for all you Goth, Emo, and Young-at-Heart Artists out their who would love a Creepy Treat, and just can't wait to get it on DVD. Klaus - To come clear, I've heard about this movie, and I've even seen some Pencil Tests of it way back then, but I've actually never seen the whole thing, or catch it in a Selected Theater, but I really did see the Film's Trailer. And I would say for a 2D, Hand-Drawn, Frame-by-Frame, Animated feature, these people tried to Improve something for the Classic Animation with their Coloring and Shading type Technique, and even though It's a wonderful Improvement, I wouldn't expect some folks to use this kind of thing more often for Future Celmated Features. As for the Voice cast, I already know who Mr. J.K. Simmons is, but I was surprised to read that the voice man for Mr. Jesper Johansson, is also the guy who played the Villianous Gideon Graves of 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' movie.

And sorry if I didn't catch 'IT: Chapter 2' like I did with the first one, But I'm hoping o see some more clips of it online. And I Never had interest in seeing the 2019 'Child's Play', though I still like Ms. Aubrey Plaza & Mr. Mark Hamill. And I had no interest in seeing 'the Angry Birds Movie 2' since I'm never a Big Fan of Thurop Van Orman's creativity. And lastly, I didn't felt like seeing the 'Spies in Disguise' movie ever since Disney's Horrible Conquest of the whole 20th Century Fox media.

#2019 #movies #best of #the addams family #wednesday addams #mothra #godzilla king of the monsters #klaus #susan link #the missing link #everest #abominable #the secret life of pets 2 #snowball #daisy #my artwork #drawing

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towingserlas541 · 3 years

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Mobile RV Repair Service near Las Vegas NV: One thing we love about RVs is the fact that most repairs can be made quickly and easily by the owner. That said, there are times when you might need a little help with a repair. When these bigger issues arise, many people take their RV into the shop to be fixed. However, some people prefer to turn to mobile RV repair.

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As you might imagine, mobile RV repair service is a type of repair service that comes to you. This might mean that a mobile RV tech visits you in your campground or at your home.

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Some RV dealerships and repair shops will make house calls on request. This is typically done only on an emergency basis, and you will likely pay a huge sum to have a tech from one of these places visit you. For this reason, we don’t recommend going this route if it can be helped.

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There are some repair techs out there who specialize in a certain type of repair. These specialists often work out of their trucks, and if not that, they tend to be more willing to visit customers due to having a niche customer base. That said, because these repair people are specialists, you can also expect to pay well for their services.

3: General RV Repair Techs

Finally, there is the general mobile RV tech. This guy tends to be a jack of all trades, with a bit of experience fixing pretty much everything that can go wrong on an RV. They rarely have a shop to work out of, meaning mobile work is all they do. In most instances, this is the person you want to call in when you want mobile repair work done.

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Mobile RV Repair Service near Las Vegas NV: Unfortunately, because the general mobile tech (option #3) tends to work from his or her truck, you can’t expect them to have every RV part you could possibly need on hand. This means the parts might need to be ordered online or picked up at a local store.

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You might find that it’s best to talk to the repair person beforehand to find out what you should order, and have it ready to go when they arrive. This will save everyone time and will likely save you some money.

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Mobile RV Repair Service near Las Vegas NV: The obvious benefit to hiring a mobile RV tech is the fact that you don’t have to move your RV at all. If you’re already all set up at your favorite campground, there is no need for you to unplug and hitch up to have repairs done.

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How often should I have my RV serviced?

This typically depends on how often you use your RV. If you’re a full-time RV enthusiast, you’re going to want to have certain systems, including your air conditioning and furnace looked at and cleaned at least once a year. You should also have your brakes checked and bearings repacked once a year, or every 10,000 miles whichever comes first. If you’re living in your RV at a park full-time, just make sure you get your brakes and bearings checked and serviced before you set out on the road again. Bearing grease will break down over time, and brake parts will rust-up, so it’s best to be proactive.

There are other items to check routinely, including your RV’s roof and exterior wall sealants, overall roof condition, jack systems, and any other systems that you frequently use. These need to be checked or operated and lubricated every six months or so in order to ensure that they’re functional and keeping the elements out of water is an RV’s WORST enemy!

What RV types do you work on?

Yours! We may not cover every system you have, some motorhomes are more complex than a 747 but we can repair most of it! We’ll be upfront and honest with you about which parts and systems we’ll be able to work on before we begin. We’re not going to waste your time or take any chance of damaging your RV or our reputation by taking on a project that we can’t handle.

What forms of payment do you accept?

Cash, check, Bitcoin, or credit card. I have even worked for food. It was worth it!

What RV manufacturers do you specialize in?

For the most part, all manufacturers build their RVs in a similar way, which makes RV service and repair fairly straightforward for any model. The same systems that are in a Forest River are also in a Highland Ridge or a Coachmen; the RV manufacturer doesn’t matter all that much, and we can repair them all.

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latenightcinephile · 4 years

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#729: ‘Gigi’, dir. Vincente Minnelli, 1958.

The Studio Era of the Hollywood musical is a strange time to write about - it contradicts itself in a lot of ways, and marries joyful escapism to some pretty dark interpretations of social norms. There aren’t many studio musicals I’ve liked better the second time around, and for most of them they get progressively worse with every screening (I watched Singin’ in the Rain yearly when I was teaching and it got harder and harder to sit through. I was very pleased that the stage production in the early 2010s added a musical number to redress some of the Lina Lamont character assassination. More on that another time!) Gigi, however, was a new experience for me. The first time I watched it, I was bored stiff. Usually when this happens, it’s because I’ve been paying it too little attention. I thought that by watching it again for this blog, I would understand it better.

I was right. I understand it better. Unfortunately, it’s just as bad as I thought it was; I just understand why it’s so bad now.

So, a bit of context: Gigi won the Best Picture Academy Award, a fact that struck me as impossible until I realised I’d never heard of most of its competitors. It also won enough other Oscars to set a record for the time, including Best Director for Minnelli, although none of its actors were even nominated. The film is set in early-twentieth-century Paris, and chronicles the developing romance between Gigi (Leslie Caron), who is training to follow in the family tradition of becoming a mistress to the wealthy, and Gaston (Louis Jourdan), a bon vivant who seems to be going through the motions of the wealthy lifestyle. The plot bounces between the traditional modes of the romantic musical: Gigi wants true love, rather than the meaningless dalliances that are proposed as all Parisians are after, and Gaston is looking for something interesting in life, but both are caught up in the social expectations that limit them in what they can accomplish on this front.

Let’s start with the main reason Gigi isn’t an enjoyable watch: it’s tasteless. The first major plot point of the film (and the closest thing we get to a conflict in the first hour) is when Gaston finds out that his current amour is flirting with her ice-skating instructor. He rejects her publicly, and she attempts - and apparently not for the first time - to commit suicide. The film treats this as a jolly affair, and a significant turning point in Gaston’s career as a womaniser: champagne corks pop and, despite Gaston’s refusal to take any joy in his former lover’s near-demise, the event is quickly forgotten. Honoré (Maurice Chevalier), who lays on the Frenchness so thick you’d need a truffle-hunting pig to find any real emotion, opens and closes the film with a somewhat skeezy song about how wonderful little girls are, and the big realisation moment for Gaston about his love for Gigi comes in the middle of a song that wobbles wildly between infantilising her and sexualising her. There are a lot of moments in the film that are just flat-out uncomfortable.

Most of this comes from the general inappropriateness of the source material for a musical in the first place. Colette’s novella had already been shopped around Hollywood when Arthur Freed came on the scene; most of the people involved were battling the Hays Code, which is unsurprising given that the protagonist of the novella is sixteen. The final film ‘gets around’ this by never mentioning Gigi’s age explicitly, but it’s clear from the fact that she’s still in school that this was one aspect of the book that wasn’t completely reconstructed.

Gigi was the last of the major Arthur Freed-produced MGM musicals, and although there is no published information that suggests there were problems during production, looking at the final film it’s hard to believe that anybody involved was doing more than the bare minimum. Bosley Crowther, reviewing the film in the New York Times, said that it “bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves.” He didn’t mean this as a criticism, but it’s absolutely damning when you look at the fine details. Both these musicals feature a grumpy man rescued from his misanthropic or ennui-filled worldview by a cheery and childlike woman whose age hovers uncomfortably on the line of legality, in both these musicals the man realises his love in a song that moves from spurning and insulting the woman to being patronisingly affectionate, and the last act of each revolves around each person trying to leave the other for perfectly legitimate reasons before eventually relenting. Both musicals have a chorus number, performed by the MGM Chorus, where they appear as upper-class commentary (’The Gossips’ and ‘Ascot Opening Race’).

And in every instance, Gigi is the inferior copy of the original. Even when dubbed, Gigi’s songs are gratingly simple and Louis Jourdan never rises above Rex-Harrison-style patter singing - although at least Harrison was capable of a tune. It’s clear that most of the memorable songs were written for other contexts: ‘The Night they Invented Champagne’ was written as a lover’s duet but here is handed to Gigi and Gaston before they’re even romantically linked, as well as Gigi’s grandmother (Hermione Gingold - once again, I have a lot of praise for older women in these films, who have the talent and the sense to treat the material with the borderline irreverence it needs). ‘I Remember it Well’ was written for My Fair Lady and then tacked in here, which is why the love affair it refers to between Gingold and Chevalier isn’t mentioned anywhere else.

Because of all this predictability in the writing of Gigi, the film drags far more than it ought to. There’s no real conflict between Gaston and Gigi for the first 90 minutes of the film: they’re platonic, then they have feelings for each other but there’s no reason for them to be together, but neither of them seem troubled by that development. The lyrics of ‘I Don’t Understand the Parisiennes’ are vague enough that it took a Wikipedia summary for me to really grasp what Gigi’s problem with romance specifically was.

If the film had been restructured around this central problem - that Gaston and Gigi want to be together but cannot - there would be real tension before the last half-hour of the film. When this tension happens, though, it comes in the form of an idiot-ball plot, where Gaston abruptly yanks Gigi away from their first public appearance together (because he can’t bear to expose her to the gossip of society), and literally drags her home crying without explaining his motivations to her at all. If this is the kind of ‘true romance’ that Gigi so ardently desires, she can have it, as far as I’m concerned. This lack of communication between them makes the whole relationship uncomfortable to witness. (I should mention that I see a difference between the screwball comedy plot, which these films clearly derive their structure from, and what the studio musical turns it into. In the screwball comedy, the chemistry predates the misunderstanding; in the musical, this is flipped, so the characters have no reason to be well-disposed to each other.)

There is one saving grace in the film - they co-opted Cecil Beaton to design the costumes, and that and the set design combine to inject Gigi with a sense of garish extremity that is at least fun to watch. I think this was my mistake the first time around with this film, and what I confirmed with the second viewing: Gigi is a pretty picture, and I kept digging looking for something of substance beneath it. If there is substance here, it’s not of a pleasant type. If you want a better musical, there are many others to look at, but I’d start with My Fair Lady - the same idea, the same team, but at least something approaching substance and structure.

#1001 movies #Vincente Minnelli #Gigi #avoid #studio musicals

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ducktracy · 4 years

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164. uncle tom’s bungalow (1937)

disclaimer: this is the fourth entry in the censored 11. there are dozens of cartoons not on the list that are just as vile and tasteless, if not moreso, yet this provides good insight into what we’re dealing with. with that said, this review entails racist content, imagery, stereotypes, and ideals. i do not in any way endorse these. i find them dehumanizing, gross, and wrong. and to act like they never existed in the first place would be just as insensitive. this needs to be talked about. PLEASE let me know if i say anything wrong. it’s never my intention to harm anyone, and i want my mistakes to be identified so i can own up to them. thank you for your patience and understanding.

release date: june 5th, 1937

series: merrie melodies

director: tex avery

starring: tedd pierce (narrator), billy bletcher (simon simon legree, excited little eva), lillian randolph (topsy, eliza), berneice hansell (little eva), mel blanc (dog)

this is a rather momentous occasion in tex avery’s career, a cartoon that would dictate the direction that the majority of his remaining cartoons at warner bros would take. uncle tom’s bungalow could be considered the first “travelogue” of avery’s. especially prevalent throughout 1939 and 1940, avery did a number of travelogue parodies—a narrator examines a setting as we interact with the characters, narrating what they’re up to, and learning about the area we’re exploring. this has more of a concrete storyline than many of the other travelogues, thus contributing to its quality, so to speak. tex would take another spin on uncle tom’s cabin with uncle tom’s cabana in 1947 over at MGM.

and, of course, the elephant in the room—this is tex’s first entry out of 3 in the censored 11, the other two being the isle of pingo pongo (1938) and all this and rabbit stew (1941). i don’t mean to sound like i’m making light of the impact these cartoons cast—that’s not at all my intention, but there are, undeniably, entries that are better than others. this cartoon is probably the best out of the remaining avery censored 11 entries, as well as one of the better entries in the censored 11 as a whole. that’s not in my power to decide, of course, but in terms of quality, technicalities, and polishing, this is one of the “better” ones.

a parody on the infamous novel by harriet beecher stowe, uncle tom’s bungalow illustrates the story of how little eva and topsy save uncle tom, but his refuge is threatened once the girls fall behind on their payments to the treacherous simon simon legree.

the cartoon opens with a long, beautiful pan of the rural countryside, complete with a beautiful, jaunty chorus of “swanee river/the old folks at home”. we truck in on a grandiose property, where we meet our narrator courtesy of tedd pierce as he asserts “that’s real swing, boys.”

next starts the first introduction of many, a highlight in the cartoon, if not THE highlight. we’re met with the stereotypical cute little avery blonde, vocals by the great berneice hansell as always. the narrator asks for her name, and, in a moment of greatness, she rambles on in that terminally amusing cutesy voice, giving everything BUT her name. she provides her age, her address, shows off how she can spell “cat” (”i can spell cat! uh, c-a... uh, cat. uh...c-a... uh, cat! c-a... well, anyway, i can spell dog! d-o-g, dog...”) and so forth. as both she and avery test our patience, she suddenly shows off the lace underneath her dress, getting both the narrator and audience in trouble as the narrator protests, insisting she cover herself back up. “now, all we want to know is your name!” a looney tunes staple, the girl’s outburst is surprisingly provided by billy bletcher as opposed to mel blanc when she barks “LITTLE EVA, YA DOPE!”

the narrator moves on to patronize his next subject, topsy. her introductory gag is seldom spared from being cringeworthy, but is undeniably clever. "hey, girly. step out of that shadow and introduce yourself to the folks here.” topsy makes her way out of the shadows and introduces herself, the narrator once more providing a patronizing chuckle and a “that’s cute.”

next is uncle tom himself, who, surprisingly, isn’t featured very much in this cartoon at all. the narrator comments on how feeble uncle tom is getting, remarking on the way his knees shake. uncle tom retorts how his knees aren’t shaking--he’s trucking. narrator has no response.

eliza is the next one to be introduced (obligatory comment about how we share the same name and how totally WEIRD it is to hear your name over and over and over again. how do you folks with common names survive??). as grotesque as these caricatures and stereotypes are, eliza’s banter with the narrator is very amusing. they’re both from the south, and go back and forth in jovial banter about the other being from the south. eliza’s animation is very loose, rubbery, and fun, all things considered. i know it seems i always pin him as the perpetrator for certain scenes, but i wonder if this is bob clampett animation? it seems very unlikely--he would have been working on porky’s badtime story at this time as a director. yet, chuck jones, who also moved to iwerks’ unit with clampett before clampett took over, also does animation in this cartoon, so it’s not completely out of the question. it is unlikely that this is clampett, though. just a guess. her movements are very reminiscent of daffy’s exit provided by clampett in porky’s duck hunt.

and, of course, every cartoon must have a villain. chuck jones animates simon simon legree, who you’ll recognize as the villain from milk and money. the name simon simon is a take on popular french actress at the time simone simone. very clever indeed. chuck jones’ animation is top notch as always--in fact, the introductory pieces for every character, gross and cringeworthy as some of the designs are, are very well animated and full of great character acting.

even the narrator is not immune from puns: “and last but not leashed is the hounds.” a skillful ear will note that the underscore is “my little buckaroo”, the name of a 1938 friz freleng merrie melody. daffy also sings it in the opening of the daffy duckaroo in 1942 (not to be confused with the 1954 chuck jones cartoon my little duckaroo). the dogs hardly display any signs of enthusiasm as they snooze on the porch--the gray dog troubles himself enough to lift his head up and give a gravelly “hello.” courtesy of mel blanc. that’s that.

the introductory portion, taking up half the cartoon, comes to a close as the narrator asks if all of the characters are ready. they all give the affirmative (perhaps most notably little eva responding “you said it, dark, tall, and bow-legged!”, as well as the apathetic dog grunting that there ain’t nothin’ else ta do). this whole entire scene is far from perfect--stereotypes are abound and caricatures are grotesque, yet this serves as a landmark in tex’s warner bros career. there isn’t even a fourth wall to break--there is no fourth wall. we are completely immersed with the characters, and the characters are completely immersed with us. they feel real, alive, and with us, all the while holding onto the notion that there is an underlying sense of performance. the most immersive of characters act like they’re putting on a show, coming from an actress herself (i use that loosely and coyly, i was the lead in my senior musical and was in quite a handful of other plays). broad movements, exaggerated dialogue. the more unbelievable, the more believable. cartoon acting is a strange world!

“here we go, camera!” the narrator announces as a warning. and a warning is right. it’s important to remember that this is a parody of the stage adaptations from harriet beecher stowe’s book, not the book itself. not that a parody makes it okay--it doesn’t. and that’s what we need to remember.

we are greeted with simon simon legree’s slave company, as well as billy bletcher’s haunting laugh and avery’s favorite theme for the villain. legree cracks his whip, and we are reminded just how treacherous and despicable this man is as we see the whip physically snapping its “fingers”. the next scene is a grotesque and racist (well, that’s a given) display of social commentary as we see slaves lined up against the fence, advertised with signs that liken them to a used car sale. absolutely brutal, commentary or not. but, again, it must be noted.

uncle tom is one of the slaves for sale, who the narrator desperately attempts to warn to escape. terrible as this sequence is, uncle tom provides a great one-liner as legree threatens him with his whip. “my body might belong to you, but my soul belongs to warner brothers!”

meanwhile, little eva and topsy hold hands, frolicking and skipping with deliberately annoying singing as they stumble across legree’s site (as the satirical signs help us remember). they hear the whip cracks, and both girls dart in front of uncle tom in an attempt to stop legree’s abuse. eva protests “stop! stop! we’ll buy the nice old man!”

very amusing is the next scene as we watch legree negotiate business deals with two 6 year old children. more wonderful chuck jones animation, of course. “here’s your contract! but remember, if you fall behind in your payments, i take him back!”

thus, the girls take uncle tom home, and all is well. for now, anyway. time marches on as we watch snowdrifts pile on the grandiose property from the beginning, even prompting the narrator to remark “my, my, how time does fly.”

“looks like bad news, folks,” the narrator ever so helpfully quips as we spot legree’s business. a wonderfully grotesque hand helps to further the entire sickening feeling that is inherent with legree as he peruses topsy and eva’s checking account: they’re three months behind on their payments. legree saunters through the snow with that delightfully absurd villain walk as the narrator frets, wishing to warn the kids.

“jiggers, kids! ditch uncle tom--here comes legree!” with some quick thinking, the girls throw uncle tom through the portrait displayed so ornately on the wall.uncle tom places his face in the position of the face that was there just seconds before.

i didn’t mention this, but this is irv spence’s first scene in a tex avery cartoon. spence is a WONDERFUL animator and one of my favorites. the way his characters move is nothing less than tantalizing. legree bursts in and berates the kids on uncle tom’s whereabouts. eva protests “we don’t know, so THERE!” followed by a “so there!” from topsy. the way the girls push their bodies, how strong the line of action is, how defined the silhouettes are... absolutely beautiful animation, all things considered. they even make chuck jones’ next scene seem inferior, and that’s quite a feat. legree spits that he’ll find uncle tom, no matter what, as we see animation of him slithering across the ground, reused from milk and money.

he slithers across the floor to where the couch is, per the narrator’s guidance. “getting warm... warmer... warmer... warmer...” he’s getting warmer, alright--thanks to the narrator’s quick thinking, legree feels around underneath the couch, his fingers dangerously close to an electrical socket. all according to plan as legree is electrocuted, spasming and flailing around in a bright array of colors. as legree recovers, he does not at all fancy the narrator’s joke of “boy, you’re burning up!”

more irv spence animation as legree threatens to whip the girls within an inch of their lives, until another animator takes over and gives us this take that... speaks for itself how tasteless it is.

nevertheless, irv spence provides animation once more as the narrator recruits eliza into action. eliza scoops up the girls and runs out of the mansion, the narrator commentating on the chase like it’s a horse race. legree whistles, and we are reminded of the lazy dogs from the beginning, who are still snoozing on the porch, covered in snowdrifts. legree resorts to sniffing out eliza’s tracks like a dog himself, and in a twist of tex avery greatness, one of the footprints kicks legree right in the ass.

the chase persists as legree now has his hounds, the hounds chasing after eliza. eliza halts when she approaches a lake: it hasn’t frozen over, no way to cross. another frequent favorite used by tashlin, iwerks, and now avery as eliza panics, trying to think of a way to cross. the narrator croons “relax, eliza, now don’t get excited, don’t get excited...” eliza retaliates with the famous “EXCITED?? WHO’S EXCITED?? I’M NOT EXCITED!!!”

as legree gets closer, the narrator indicates a slot machine--an avery favorite used since his debut with gold diggers of ‘49--where eliza can get some ice. eliza slips a coin in, and hits the jackpot. giant bricks of ice tumble out of the machine, forming stepping stones across the lake. a long shot of eliza and the girls trying to escape from legree, who has also approached the ice blocks.

eliza lands on the shore, as does legree and the hounds. as the hounds bark at the victims, legree readying his whip, the narrator giving a dramatic “and the winner...!”, the suspense is broken by the sound of a car horn.

“...is uncle tom. looks like the old boy has collected on his social security!” an avery staple as we see the victorious old man triumphantly holding up his winnings in his grandiose car. a cut gag from daffy duck and egghead also has daffy crying about how he shouldn’t be killed, he still has to collect on his social security. definitely a trend in the avery-verse!

uncle tom forks over a bundle of cash to legree, who accepts it begrudgingly and stalks off. the girls are thrilled. eva asks “why, uncle tom! where did you get all that money?”

what better way to end a racist cartoon by perpetuating more stereotypes? uncle tom throws two dice on the ground, who land snake eyes. yet, lo and behold, the dice roll over to reveal a 7. another avery iris out gag as the iris closes, leaving the dice on the black screen. the iris opens to allow uncle tom to fish the dice back into the cartoon, ending the cartoon as the narrator sardonically croons “and there you have the story of uncle tom’s bungalow! ...or have you?”

i will give this cartoon credit: this is the best entry from the censored 11 we’ve seen yet. i don’t like to put it like that, because it’s not, and should not be a popularity contest, but the quality of work in this cartoon is undeniably superior in comparison to the other works we’ve seen. i will say that i personally like this better than the previous entry, clean pastures, despite its jolly music score. this cartoon has some wonderful animation by irv spence and chuck jones, and the entire first introductory half is pretty extraordinary, all things considered. in fact, the rest of the cartoon, in my opinion, doesn’t quite match the momentum brought on by the first half. the first half is slow, yes, but it’s filled with wonderful character acting and animation. the chase scene between eliza and legree doesn’t quite have the same avery snappiness as other previous chase scenes. it becomes rather droll, despite the narrator’s amusing, if not redundant at times commentary. frank tashlin would rival tex avery in terms of speed and quality, and that would serve as a great thing--those two would always play off each other as a result, and cartoons got better.

but, with all that said, this is still an abhorrent cartoon in many ways. stereotypes and caricatures are abound, and scenes are uncomfortable, if not plain cruel at times. of course historical context is important--one must always keep that in mind--but this still remains as an inexcusable display of racism, even if this is a parody. racism is racism. and, because of that, i still can’t recommend this cartoon, or really any of the cartoons on this list. this cartoon is more lighthearted than the previous entries, and i would never call it entirely innocent, but it doesn’t feel as nasty as previous entries like, say, sunday go to meetin’ time. this cartoon has quality, but it has many, many problems.

so, as always, i will provide a link--obviously view at your own discretion.

#lt #uncle tom’s bungalow #looney tunes #reviews #avery #long post #racism tw #blackface tw

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mamapriest · 4 years

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Behind The Scenes Secrets: The Wizard Of Oz

by Unfiltered Hooch PART II

TOTO MADE MORE MONEY THAN THE MUNCHKINS

Toto was a star performer played by Terry, a female Cairn terrier who appeared in an impressive 16 films. At the time The Wizard of Oz was being filmed, Terry had already starred in a film with Shirley Temple (1934’s Bright Eyes). It’s no wonder that this movie star of a dog got paid more than the munchkins – actual human actors.

Toto raked in $125 per week (equivalent to about $1,700 in 2017). The munchkins made between $50 and $100 a week, which is no small chunk of change for 1939, but hardly the movie star salary you’d imagine.

THE WICKED WITCH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TOTALLY DIFFERENT

Most of us know the Wicked Witch as a terrifying, hideous, bright green character – unless of course, you’re a fan of Wicked and see her more sympathetically. The Wicked Witch wasn’t always ugly and terrifying. She was originally going to be beautiful, sleek, and sexy. Of course, that doesn’t fit so well with the idea of evil witches being ugly, so producers changed the look to contrast more with the Good Witch.

Gale Sondergaard was not a fan of this new look. She was originally cast as the Wicked Witch, but when she saw the makeup, she bailed. Hamilton took the role instead.

THE WICKED WITCH WAS TOO SCARY, SO STUDIO EXECS CUT HER SCENES

Margaret Hamilton brilliantly played the Wicked Witch of the West – so brilliantly, the character now stars in her own Broadway musical, Wicked. Hamilton was undoubtedly terrifying, especially to the children watching what was supposed to be a meaningful but light-hearted story about family.

This concerned studio executives who feared that Hamilton’s utterly evil performance was a bit too scary for children. They ended up cutting down Hamilton’s screen time down to just a few bits – though, that didn’t make her character any less of an important presence in the movie.

MARGARET HAMILTON WAS BADLY INJURED ON SET

Not only did producers cut some of Margaret Hamilton’s scenes, but she was so badly injured on set that she had to be removed from the production for six entire weeks.

Hamilton’s injury occurred in the scene where the Wicked Witch of the West leaves Munchkinland in a puff of flames. She was meant to drop down safely into a trap door before the flames ever came out. The door malfunctioned and didn’t open fast enough, but the flames came out as they were supposed to. This left Hamilton’s hands and face with terrible burns that took weeks to heal.

JUDY GARLAND WAS DRUGGED TO GET THROUGH FILMING

In 2020, you’d probably be outraged and shocked to hear that child actors were being fed drugs to keep up with their often nerve-wracking and intense filming schedule; however, in the ’30s, this was common.

Judy Garland was given barbiturates and amphetamines to keep her skinny on set, and to keep her awake. This experience may have helped her during the filming process, but it left her an addict, which she could never shake. Filming The Wizard of Oz made Garland’s career, but it also ruined her life. She died from an overdose at age 47.

JUDY GARLAND WAS MOLESTED BY MUNCHKINS

According to Garland’s third husband, Sid Luft, the actress was repeatedly molested by the actors who played the munchkins. Luft revealed this information in his scandalous posthumous memoir Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland. He claimed that they made her life “miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress.” All of the men were 40 or more years old, and Garland was just sixteen.

There were many rumors about the munchkins that sort of back up this claim, saying that the actors were absolutely out of control on set. Various reports claim they were involved with prostitution and gambling while filming.

THERE WERE TONS OF CHANGES FROM THE BOOK

Anytime you have a movie adapted from a novel, some things are guaranteed to change; however, most people didn’t expect The Wizard of Oz to change as dramatically as it did from the original text. In the book, Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, not the North. Oz is a real place, too. It’s not just a dream like it was in the film.

One of the most iconic details of The Wizard of Oz film is Dorothy’s red slippers. In the book, Dorothy had silver slippers, but studio head Louis B. Mayer wanted to swap the color for something brighter so he could test out MGM’s new Technicolor technology. Dorothy’s shirt was also a light pink, rather than white because white was hard to shoot in color.

THE SCARECROW, COWARDLY LION, AND TIN MAN ALWAYS ATE LUNCH ALONE

Poor Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley. All they wanted to do was play their roles without being exiled from the rest of the cast. Unfortunately, the 1930s were a lot different than they are now. They didn’t have intense slasher films and they didn’t have CGI that could make anything happen on film.

In the 1930s, costumes like the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Tin Man were considered terrifying in real life. They were considered so frightening, that the whole gang was banned from MGM’s lunchroom and forced to eat alone in case they scared other MGM workers.

THE WIZARD OF OZ WAS INTENDED TO BE FEMINIST LITERATURE

In The Wizard of Oz film, Dorothy is pretty much a damsel in distress. She’s lost and completely in over her head in Oz, but that’s not the case in the actual book. Dorothy is a much stronger character, and Oz is a very real, credible place that she fits in.

Dorothy does the majority of the saving in the novel, not the other way around. She does not need to be rescued. L. Frank Baum admitted that he wanted Dorothy to come across as a strong role model for young female audiences.

*Sources: unfilteredhooch.net

MGM Studios/MGM Studios/Getty Images

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themcuhasruinedme · 5 years

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Vintage Film Fest (Pt. 4)(End)

[Summary]: You and Steve have been dating for a while and you surprise him with a pair of tickets to a vintage film festival as an anniversary date

[Pairing]: Steve x reader

[Word Count]: 3,795

Tagging: @theashhole @dividedwecantfall @peterman-parker @avengerofyourheart @nataliarxmanxva @metalarmproblems @queenbbarnes @carol-damn-vers @imagine-assembling-the-avengers @that-sokovian-bastard @hellomissmabel @abovethesmokestacks @peculiar-persephone @bellameys @beccaanne814 @hymnofthevalkyrie @buckys-shield @callamint @redgillan @angelicthor @iwillbeinmynest @theassetseyeliner @lilasiannerd @aubzylynn @sgtbxckybxrnes @iamwarrenspeace @marvelrevival @httpmcrvel @avengersnthings @feelmyroarrrr @girl-next-door-writes @honey-bee-holly @patzammit

A/N: Well, our vintage film fest has finally come to an end.. I hope you all enjoyed reading (and possibly watching) all these wonderful movies I mentioned, as they are all very near and dear to my heart in some way or another. And once again, I encourage you guys to watch the movies and shorts I mention in this as they are all wonderful and amazing (heads up though: some of them are silent!) and all can be found on YouTube.

Pt.1 | Pt.2 | Pt.3

You couldn’t believe that night four was here already. It seemed like just yesterday that the film fest started and you were looking forward to enjoying all these movies and shorts with Steve. But like anything and everything, all good things must come to an end.

When it was time for you and Steve to drive to the theater, you slowly walked to the car while Steve tried to rush you.

“Everything ok, [Y/N]?”

“Yea,” you sighed. “It’s just that I can’t believe that it’s our final night for this.”

Steve gave you a small smile and wrapped you in his arms as a tear slid down your cheek.

“Hey, it’s ok!” he said as he brushed the tear away with his thumb then lifting your chin up so your eyes met. “There will be other festivals to go to. I’ll make sure that we find more.” He gave you a kiss on your forehead and you hugged each other tightly for a couple minutes in the driveway.

“Alright, hun. Let’s go,” he whispered.

The drive over was a quiet one and when the two of you walked in to the theater, it was about half full already. Finding seats close to the middle, you let Steve go get the snacks while you played some games on your phone and patiently waited for him to come back.

Handing you a box of Reese’s Pieces again along with a king sized box of Sour Patch Kids, you looked at him with the biggest smile you could muster.

“Anything to make that smile happen,” he said as he sat down and placed the drinks in the cup holders.

He intertwined his fingers with yours and you placed your head on his shoulder which then prompted him to place a soft, delicate kiss to the top of your head. Your smile got a bit bigger as another tear slid down to the tip of your nose.

You wiped it away and sniffled a bit when the lights went down, it was time for the last night of movies to start. And what a way to start off the last night but with one of Harold Lloyd’s most notable short called An Eastern Westerner.

For you, it was always a delight watching Harold Lloyd, especially his glasses character that they call “The Boy”. There was just something about his all-American persona in that character that you couldn’t quite put your finger on but all you knew what that you loved that character nonetheless.

The theater was quiet until the second title card appeared: “H-o-m-e spells home, but the Boy never did care much for spelling.” which then made the whole audience roar with laughter. And the laughter continued as you all watched the Boy get in trouble over doing the shimmy in a dance hall that prohibited it.

It then became quiet again as you all watched him come home late, get in trouble with his father and get told that he needs to visit his uncle out West where it will get rid of his “wild shenanigans”.

Laughter filled the theater once more when the title card popped up for the town that the Boy was to go: “The little town of Piute Pass. It’s considered bad form to shoot the same man twice on the same day.” But it quickly turned to gasps from the kids as they showed a group of bandits hold up the towns saloon and then over-dramatically get bullied by the saloon owner.

Watching as they showed the Girl, the Boys soon to be sweetheart, get work in the saloon, the Boy chase his ride all the way into town and then try to impress the Girl with rope twirling and horse riding but failing miserably, there were laughs all around.

There were even more laughs when the Boy went into the saloon, almost got shot, got a little to flirty with a dancer, was forced to play a poker game, attempted to roll his own cigarette (and made five instead) and practically cheat at the poker game by disguising himself as a waiter.

(gif credit goes to @ren-field)

Gasps and laughter were mixed during the ending chase scene after the Boy had saved the Girl’s father and the saloon owner got upset over it. But when the ending came, there were aww’s from every corner of the theater as the Boy drew a line across the Girl’s left ring finger.

The first break happened and you and Steve waited patiently for the next one to start. Slowly eating more of your Reese’s Pieces, you decided to stick a few in Steve’s mouth which came with some laughs and much needed hugs.

As soon as the lights went down for the second movie to start and seeing the title card for it immediately put a smile on your face. Charlie’s most famous short called The Immigrant was one of your favorites. His Tramp character could always put a smile on your face no matter how bad you were feeling.

Laughs started right away seeing the Tramp hanging over the side of the boat, making it look like he was seasick until he brought a fish into view, smiling as he held on to his catch then losing it into a sleeping crowd. More laughs happened as he tried to walk on deck but swayed with the boat with each step he took.

Even more laughs came while the audience watched him try to eat dinner in the swaying dining room where he could hardly stand, lost his footing (along with his meal) and immediately fell for a pretty girl on the boat.

Suddenly gasps filled the theater from all the kids as they watched a man steal from a sleeping old lady but the cheers and aww’s rang out when they watched the Tramp give his money to the girl, who happened to be the old lady’s daughter.

Quietness filled the theater as the audience watched the boat sail into New York’s harbor and the Tramp say goodbye to the girl and her mother. But it was quickly filled with laughter again as the Tramp went to go eat, had a hat issue with the headwaiter, eat his bowl of beans one at a time and have the guy sitting next to him get irritated by it all.

(gif credit goes to @maudit)

Aww’s and smiles came again when the Tramp met the girl from the boat in the restaurant, sitting at the table next to him but quickly turned to gasps as the audience watched a customer get roughed up and thrown out of the place because he was short on his bill.

Laughs came and went even more when the Tramp tried to pay for his and the girl’s food but the coin he had was a fake and he kept falling out of his seat from disbelief whenever the headwaiter tried to grab his shirt collar. But as luck would have it, someone “paid” the bill for them and then the Tramp and the girl got married later that day.

Cheers came as the screen went black and the lights went on. You and Steve each took turns going to the restroom to make sure no one took your spots, even though there wasn’t really an empty seat anywhere.

When the lights went down for the next movie to start, you were happy to see that they had one more Buster movie, called The Passionate Plumber, set up for the festival. This was another one of your favorite talking ones from him, even though it was another MGM film but this was another one of those that Buster fans considered to be good. In fact, some fans considered it to be his best of the talking movies and you certainly did as well.

The laughs were a plenty with this one, starting with Buster’s character, Elmer, going to fix a leaky shower in some fancy dames house but as things usually went, it didn’t go smoothly. The girl’s lover, Tony, caught Elmer in the bathroom and accused Patricia of her having a lover on the side, which caused Tony to get jealous, arrange a duel with Elmer and bring out his gloves, slapping Elmer across the face, which in turn Elmer slapped him using the only thing he had on him; his towel.

Laughs continued when the duel between Elmer and Tony happened, especially when Elmer kept bringing out his glove and slapping everyone. You could hear some sighs throughout the theater when it showed Buster in a polo shirt and one of those deadpan, yet astonishingly beautiful, expressions on his face. One of those sighs even came from you unknowingly and Steve quickly squeezed your hand to make you snap out of your dream state.

“Hey, I thought I was the only one that could make you swoon?” Steve teased. You nudged his arm and smiled, focusing your attention back to the screen. You heard a few gasps from the kids when it showed that Tony had another girl, named Nina, making it seem to her that he was married to Patricia and that he wanted to be with Nina.

But the laughs soon continued for the next 15 minutes as the audience watched Elmer try to show his new gun invention to the French Army General which made it seem like an assassination attempt because he kept having to bring the gun out, trying to get into the casino that the General was in and finally succeeding, causing chaos in the casino as only Buster can after waving his gun around yet agin to the General, then stealing someones car and smashing it, only to have the chauffeur come over screaming and yelling which made Elmer bring out his gloves once more.

The theater then became quiet as you all watched Patricia ask Elmer to help her get rid of Tony by becoming her “make believe” lover. But the laughter filled it yet again when Elmer silently grabbed Tony’s hat to make it look like he just came in and started kissing Patricia, making Tony upset and hitting the top of Elmer’s hat. The laughter got even harder when once again the gloves came out to do more slapping.

Laughs came and went throughout the rest of the movie as you watched Patricia try to leave and be with Tony but Elmer was constantly there making sure she wouldn't be able to go anywhere, Patricia’s aunt coming over for a surprised visit, a small cat fight breaking out between Nina and Patricia to only find out Tony was playing both of them and then Nina and Patricia taking their revenge out on him by throwing anything and everything they could get their hands on, while also Patricia finally telling Elmer that she loved him.

The lights came on and it was time for one more break. You sat quietly in your seat, holding on to Steve’s arm. You sighed which made him give you a kiss on the top of your head and rest his cheek there. He knew that this festival being over so soon was making you sad but he was determined to not make this the only time you two did one.

As the lights went off once more for the second to last film, a smile was quickly brought to your face as the famous intro song to any Laurel and Hardy flick started playing, along with seeing what movie it was; Way Out West, one of their most famous movies.

The audience sat quietly as they watched the owner of a saloon and his saloon-singer wife talk about how if they had enough money, they’d get out of town as fast as possible, then watched her sing and dance for all the people in the saloon.

The chuckles started as soon as Stan and Ollie’s theme played for the next scene as they were shown traveling down the road, Stan on foot leading a mule dragging a travois which Ollie was lying on. But laughter broke out when they came to a river and the travois detached from the mule leaving Ollie stranded in the river and Stan trying to help him out with comic complications as usual.

The audience watched as the boys hitched a ride into town and both flirted with the woman inside the stagecoach, only to then find out upon arrival that she was the sheriff’s wife and he threatened them to leave on the next coach or they’ll be leaving in a hearse.

The next scene really put a smile on your face as the song “At the Ball, That’s All” started being sung because the famous dance scene between Laurel and Hardy was about to happen. That scene never failed to put a smile on your face. It was one of your absolute favorite parts out of it.

After the audience whooped and cheered when the boys were done with the dance, it became quiet once more until they told the saloon owner that they needed to see Mary, a girl who worked there because her father died leaving her a goldmine and they were to deliver the deed to her in person, upon then gasps broke out from the kids when the saloon owner and his wife hatched a plan that they would take the deed from Mary and keep the gold for themselves.

Laughter broke out once again seeing that Stan had a hole in the bottom of his shoe and him sticking a piece of meat in it that another customer complained about being “tough as shoe leather” giving Stan the idea to use it for patching the hole, which in turn made Ollie give one of his famous exasperated camera stares.

Some gasps mixed with laugher followed as you all watched the saloon owner and his wife trick the boys into handing over the deed but not before comic complications ensued before handing it over, which included Ollie almost losing the deed and him and Stan taking almost every article of clothing off to find it.

After the boys handed over the deed to the fake Mary, another smile appeared on your face as you knew the next part was another one of your favorites and one that never failed to make you laugh; the boys singing “Trail of the Lonesome Pine” with lip-synched comedy effects from Laurel at one point and his delayed reaction to being knocked in the head with a hammer by Ollie. You loved it so much that you even had the song in one of your music playlists.

Gasps came again when the boys found out that the woman they just gave the deed to wasn’t the real Mary and that they were now determined to get the deed back from the swindlers and hand it over to the real Mary.

As the movie continued, bursts of laughter came and went between the boys trying to retrieve the deed with the first attempt ending up with Stan in massive giggle fits, more threats from the sheriff to get out of town, Ollie falling back into the sink hole in the river, Stan shockingly using his thumb as a lighter then having to eat Ollie’s hat from a bet he made earlier and more attempts to retrieve the deed from the safe at the saloon.

Cheers and applause happened during the end when the boys finally got the deed and escaped with it and the real Mary as well but quickly turned to laughs when once again they cross the river and Ollie fell into the sink hole.

The lights went on again and your heart sank a little deeper, for you knew that the last film of the night and the festival was going to be played right after the lights went down for the final time. It was a bittersweet feeling but you knew that Steve would want the two of you to enjoy something like this again. You sat patiently and waited for the final film.

And what a way to end it! When the lights went down and the last film lit up the screen, you were brought to happy tears seeing what movie they saved for last; Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, considered one of the greatest films of all time. It was your #1 favorite Chaplin film, one you could never tire of seeing and certainly one that got you emotional every time over the story and how beautifully it played out.

Laughs started almost immediately upon seeing the Tramp sleeping on a new statue that was being revealed to the public. Trying to get off the statue, he gets part of it caught in his pants while then also getting scolded by a police officer and failing miserably for several minutes of getting off of it but finally managing to get away. Chuckles were heard here and there while the Tramp wandered the city and two newsboys taunt him for his shabby appearance, which he rebukes them for and almost has a near-fatal encounter with a sidewalk elevator while admiring a statue in a store window.

The theater got quiet for a bit while seeing the Tramp meet a blind flower girl on the street corner and in the course of buying a flower realizes she’s blind. Quite a few aww’s sounded as the Tramp was instantly smitten. You could’nt help but sigh and smile yourself as you watched the Tramp fall for the girl, let alone the beautiful music that accompanied such a beautiful scene.

It became quiet again with chuckles here and there as the audience watched the Tramp save a drunken millionaire from suicide, the drunk millionaire then save him, the Tramp stop the millionaire’ second suicide attempt then go out for a night on the town and cause trouble in a restaurant till early morning.

You all watched as a now sober Tramp drove the millionaire home the next morning when then he sees the flower girl en route to her street corner. The Tramp gets some money from the millionaire and catches up to the girl, buying all her flowers and drives her home in the millionaire's car but then upon returning to a sober millionaire who remembers nothing of what took place the night before, the Tramp gets thrown out of the house.

Laughter, sighs, aww’s and gasps came throughout the rest of the film as the audience watched the Tramp meet up with the drunk millionaire again, get kicked out the next morning, desperately try helping the blind girl get money for her operation, get fired from his job, try to win prize money for her in a boxing match, encountering the drunk millionaire for a third time and getting money from him for the girl’s operation.

Gasps came from kids all around the theater as they watched two burglars steal the millionaires money while the police believe that the Tramp was the one who committed the crime because after being knocked unconscious the millionaire doesn’t remember giving the Tramp the money. Some yells happened as you all watched the police try to apprehend the Tramp but then get away with enough time to visit the girl and give her the money but quickly turned to whimpers seeing that he told her he was going away for awhile, then was imprisoned.

You squeezed Steve’s arm tightly and had the biggest smile on your face knowing full well that the best scene was about to happen. He looked down at you, smiled and wrapped his arm around you knowing that this was your favorite scene.

A few sniffles had started here and there in the theater as you all watched the Tramp wander around the city once again after being in jail for months. At this point, you all learn that the flower girl now owns her own flower shop and has had her sight restored but when an elegant man enters the shop she wonders for a moment if her mysterious benefactor, whom she imagines to be rich and handsome, has returned.

By this time, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Sniffles and a few full-on cries were being heard throughout the theater as the audience watched the Tramp walk by the shop, where the girl was arranging flowers in the window. Dabbing your eyes with the tip of your finger, you all watched as he stooped to retrieve a flower discarded in the gutter after a brief run-in with the newsboys from earlier, as he turns to the shop's window through which he suddenly sees the girl, who has been watching him without of course knowing who he is. At the sight of her he is frozen for a few seconds, then breaks into a broad smile. The girl is flattered and giggles then motioning through the glass, she kindly offers him a fresh flower to replace the crushed one he took from the gutter as well as a coin.

Suddenly embarrassed, the Tramp starts to shuffle away, but the girl steps to the shop door and again offers the flower, which he shyly accepts. She takes his hand and presses the coin into it, but abruptly she stops as her smile turns to a look of puzzlement. She runs her fingers along his arm, his shoulder, his lapels, then catches her breath.

"You?" the tile card reads.

The Tramp nods with an uncertain smile and another title card pops up with him asking, "You can see now?"

The girl replies, "Yes, I can see now" and tearfully pulls his hand to her chest. The uncertainty on the Tramp's face turns to joy as the screen faded to black.

Cheers, whoops, yells and whistles filled the theater as it stayed dark with the lights coming on a few seconds later. You and Steve looked at each other, noticing both of you had tear stains running down your cheeks.

“Looks like I’m not the only one to get emotional over that scene,” you playfully said and nudged his arm.

Steve pretended to clear his throat. “I don’t know what you're talking about, [Y/N],” he said as he quickly tried to wipe his face.

“Don’t try that with me, Steven Grant Rogers. I can see through that tough exterior at times.” You gave him a wink and a smile.

He smiled back at you then got up and stretched. Offering his arm, you got up and stretched as well then took his arm and the two of you walked out of the theater. You looked back at the room for a moment and smiled, knowing this was what brought you and Steve together in the first place; a theater playing a black and white movie.

#avengers imagine #marvel imagine #steve rogers #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader

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dweemeister · 3 years

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Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

About midway through Walt Disney Productions’ (now Walt Disney Animation Studios) run of package films, it is easy to see how the creative engines of the studio’s staff were beginning to fall apart. Walt’s studio remained deeply in debt even as World War II concluded and its propaganda commitments ended. As such, the low-budgeted but decently-grossing package films remained the studio’s focus, as these films helped the studio financially afloat and to keep the animators in passable artistic shape. The fourth of six films from that era, Fun and Fancy Free – with Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, and Bill Roberts directing the animation and William Morgan directing the live-action sequences – contains a poor pairing of two extended short segments and a connecting/framing segment devoid of inspiration. Upon release, the film was instantly the least artistically inspired feature that the studio had completed. Fun and Fancy Free’s nearly nonexistent legacy among other features in the Disney animated canon is no surprise.

Fun and Fancy Free is divided into three: two longer animated segments (the second far more famous than the first) with a transitional live-action segment in its center. Jiminy Cricket (voiced by Cliff Edwards) is present at the film’s beginning, transitional middle, and conclusion.

Jiminy introduces the audience to the story of Bongo, which tells the tale of the eponymous circus bear who want to break free of the circus and live as a wild bear. Bongo will escape, but is disillusioned on his first lonely night in the forest. That is all quelled when he stumbles into a female bear – Lulubelle – he is instantly attracted to. Lulubelle’s feminine charms work because she has eyelashes and a pink bow on top of her head. How could the viewer possibly tell otherwise? Dinah Shore, better known for her music career at this time, narrates Bongo. And the fact that Shore narrates the segment may be the only tolerable aspect to it. What follows is a 30-minute extended short that feels five times too long. As pleasant as Shore’s singing voice is for Bongo’s forgettable songs, this first half to the film will wear the stamina. We learn that the bears of the forest show affection for another by slapping them – not some light pat on the cheeks, mind you, but a full-bodied, potentially cheekbone-breaking wallop to the face.

Bongo’s tedious slapstick seems ripe for a decent Disney animated short film – goodness knows how meta Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) might have approached it or how suggestively Warner Bros. could have depicted the ursine wooing. As strange as the premise can be and as painterly as some of the backgrounds are (albeit not close to the standards set in Disney’s Golden Age), they cannot save Bongo from its narrative disinterest and tired romantic plotting. For readers with children who see this film, a conversation about the bears’ slapping habits is necessary. Fun and Fancy Free’s first half depicts what justifiably interpreted as a cheerful portrayal of domestic abuse – behavior that might rub off on impressionable youngsters. As part of the Disney animated canon, Bongo is like an animators’ calisthenics – a minor routine for more important exercises to come.

With Bongo out of the way, we now come to an interstitial before commencing with Mickey and the Beanstalk (Fun and Fancy Free’s primary claim to fame). This transition stars child actress Luanna Patten as herself attending her own birthday. Her birthday party is just across the street in the household of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. Bergen is there, along with his dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Bergen and his dummies were at the height of their popularity in the 1940s – instantly recognizable then, more likely to inspire quizzical glances from audiences in the early 2020s. These several minutes are a decent display of Bergen’s considerable talents, but they assume a familiarity with his work that feels quite dated in the present day (you never know, ventriloquists may someday return to mainstream American culture). They are here to begin telling the story of Mickey and the Beanstalk to Luanna Patten.

For Mickey and the Beanstalk (based on the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale), Mickey is joined by his friends Donald Duck and Goofy for yet another misadventure. The starving trio are living together – short on luck, short on money. Mickey makes a unilateral decision to sell their only cow for a container of magical beans. Donald, incensed as always, rages at Mickey, and throws the beans away. But the beans are indeed magical and, overnight, a beanstalk sprouts and carries their farmhouse skyward, to the domain of an ill-tempered giant. On occasion, one of Bergen’s dummies or Luana Patten herself will interject during the telling of this tale – an inconvenience, but not overly grating.

Like Bongo, Mickey and the Beanstalk, was a long-gestating plan that, before the United States’ entry into World War II, was planned as a feature (a feature-length Bongo might just make me croak). But the substitution of Jack for Mickey, Donald, and Goofy was not always part of the original plan. In 1940, when Walt first heard the pitch to have Mickey Mouse featured prominently in such a film, he found the idea hilarious. Despite his gut-bursting laughter, Walt told the pitching story writers (Bill Cottrell and T. Hee) that they, “murdered my characters,” and, “destroyed what I’ve been working years to build up.”

Walt’s most cutting criticism towards Cottrell and Hee concerned Mickey. The brash, mischievous Mickey Mouse of the 1920s and ‘30s would rarely be seen again – to Walt’s disappointment in his writing staff. With the studio’s financial situation, wartime commitments, and other projects commanding Walt’s attention, he became disenchanted with his creation, his studio’s mascot. Fun and Fancy Free is the last film in which Mickey is voiced by Walt Disney; he gave the role to sound effects artist Jimmy MacDonald in 1948 (a role MacDonald kept until 1976). And in Fun and Fancy Free, Donald runs roughshod over Mickey and Goofy. If Mickey, Donald, and Goofy had no reputation prior to this film, one might wonder why bother crediting Mickey as a title character in this segment. With Mickey and the Beanstalk, the studio’s mascot was cemented as a somewhat naïve, charming, romantic lead. Mickey’s characterization in this film has held to the present day.

Mickey and the Beanstalk – created in part because Walt’s staff wanted to have their boss voice Mickey once more – exemplifies greater effort than the work on Bongo. It may not be enough to counteract the aftertaste left by Bongo, but contains artistic inventiveness and sly humor that make it one of the better, but not among the best, pieces featuring Mickey and his friends. It closes a wildly uneven film – inessential to the Disney animated canon, but indispensable when pertaining to the history of Mickey Mouse.

Walt Disney Productions continued to make money with the package films, including Fun and Fancy Free, but critics and audiences were becoming impatient with the format and artistic decisions. Innovation in animated feature films had stalled at the Disney studios, as well as American animation at large. Disney’s domestic animation competitors were beholden to the cel animation the studio had standardized in the industry. Whatever artistic daring there was in animated cinema during the 1940s lied abroad, in Europe and Asia. In the immediate post-War years, films like Princess Iron Fan (1941, China); The Lost Letter (1945, Soviet Union); The Czech Year (1947, Czechoslovakia); The Humpbacked Horse (1947, Soviet Union); and others underlined the innovation coursing through animated cinema. The histories of these films and their filmmakers are mostly unwritten, due to Communist shenanigans and Disney’s modern stranglehold on preconceptions about animated cinema.

In an era where Walt Disney Productions was adrift, the likes of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940) were beginning to seem anomalous, rather than a standard by which the studio measured itself. In 1947 following Fun and Fancy Free’s release, the studio showed no public signs of returning to non-package animated features. Quietly, within the studio’s Burbank campus, the animators were assembling the pieces necessary for that very return.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the nineteenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include The Wizard of Oz (1939), Fantasia (1940), and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001).

#Fun and Fancy Free #Walt Disney #Jack Kinney #Bill Roberts #Hamilton Luske #William Morgan #Mickey Mouse #Edgar Bergen #Charlie McCarthy #Luana Patten #Dinah Shore #Jiminy Cricket #Donald Duck #Goofy #Clarence Nash #Pinto Colvig #Billy Gilbert #My Movie Odyssey

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carat82 · 4 years

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To my readers I ask a question- “What is the most important aspect you look for in a historical era heroine?”

Her wit? “Why should I be embarrassed I was fully clothed?”

Tenacious spirit? “My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

Intelligence? “It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do...or fail to do.”

Her ability to stand up for herself? “I have as much soul as you-and full as much heart!”

Hair?

Clothes?

“Wait what?!”

“I though we were discussing aspects of the heroines endearing qualities? Her hair? Isn’t that kinda superficial?” Yes,yes it is. Yet even in our day and age despite the need for us to see strong independent women portrayed on screen, some tend to nit pick the appearance of our heroine more then anything else. People have become experts about an era they never lived in or rely solely on what they have seen in portraits of that time period or perhaps read. Let’s face it we all have done this to a certain extent. But when such things as hair styles or perhaps even some costume choices in film or TV adaptations are different from what have been taught are indictative of that era, is this a valid enough reason to insist the story is no longer worthy to watch or to discourage or disparage others from entertaining themselves with that series or movie? To some the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. To others the answer is a resounding no. The purpose of this latest blog is to broaden our horizons as to why certain choices are made in regards to the outward appearance of our heroines - at perhaps the expense of “historical accuracy”. For those who stand by their views of 💯 accurate, this is in no way meant to offend or upset you. Just a different perspective.

So without further adui let’s begin shall we?

(*note- when I use the term “many” this does not imply that there there are not those who completely diagree with my assessment. I know the examples I’m using have some or perhaps many who do not regard such as good adaptions and even have issues with the acting. Again just using these examples as a whole)

Many adaptations of the Regency era have been done on film and TV over the past 80 years. One of the first was Pride and Prejudice with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier

This is regarded by many as a fine and worthy adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. But let’s face it anything with Sir Olivier is perfect in my book🥰. Both these actors do a fine job portraying these classic characters. But look closer....what is she wearing?? Wait is that dress from the 1830-1840’s. Yes it is. Isn’t this is supposed to be 1813? Yes, yes it is. So what happened? Well movie studios, back in the golden age, were known to reuse costumes in an attempt to save on the bottom line. Since MGM had produced several movies set in the middle to late 1800’s up to that point and had plenty of costumes to therefore reuse, we have Elizabeth Bennet wearing a full style dress that would come into fashion years from when the book was set. However, this in no way takes away from the performance of the actors and the movie as a whole. Even the most strict historical accurate fans still watch and enjoy this film for what it is. Yet, when other adaptations of novels come along and choices in costuming and hair are made that are more “modern” and deviate somewhat from that time period, those films and shows are chided for not following the rules. Why? How is what the studios did back in the in 40’s to Pride and Prejudice different from what is done now? Why the double standard? Let’s skip forward to the 80’s and 90’s. We saw costume dramas stick very closely to the correct rules of dress and grooming. Several adaptations were delivered to our TV and movie screens that are now considered the gold standard- Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensability, Emma,etc. Majority of us still enjoy and praise these adaptations 20-30 years later. But I must admit that when I rewatch these now, there is a dated feel about them. Now don’t get me wrong, they are still wonderful but it is quite obvious that they were produced 20-30 years ago. The musical score, if it had one, was fairly basic. Nothing that really stayed with you. The costumes were fine and the hair was... OK. Again most of these things stayed the same from one adaptation to the next . What stood out in these movies and series was the acting! Regardless of what they wore or how their hair was styled, we loved these adaptations because of how the actor embraced these roles and delivered to us the audience a memorable version of a beloved character.

So as we entered the 2000’s, filmmakers, who love these stories as much as we do, decided that it was time to “update” the look and feel of a period piece. They wanted to reach a younger more modern audience that perhaps had never watched a classic period piece before. And there was nothing wrong with that! These directors wanted others to enjoy the classics as much as they did. But they were wise and realized that a fresh take was needed to entice and draw a new audience in. This could not be a costume drama that their mothers and grandmothers watched. No, they needed to appeal to a younger audience. Which is what ALL filmmakers do, regardless of the genre. It’s how the big and small screen survive. So out went the hair and wigs with the historically accurate styles. The costumes had a few more modern cuts to them but all in all stayed relatively the same. Some of the dialog had a few updates so that an audience with not much experience in 1800’s literature ( which let’s face it is majority of us) could understand. Musical scores were updated so as to play on our emotions and draw us deeper in the story. And the result- some very fine and worthy adaptations- Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride and Prejudice. Andrew Davies 2008 Sense and Sensabilty. Jim Hanlon’s 2009 Emma. Let’s just focus on one of these adaptations- 2005’s Pride and Prejudice.

Kiera Knighly delivers to us the audience a fine portrayal of Elizabeth Bennett. But notice her hair. It’s down in some scenes.

We had not seen this before in other adaptations yet here we have Lizzy approaching Netherfield with long flowing hair. Why? We as the audience need to connect with Elizabeth. Again remember- new audience, younger demographic. This tells us that she really doesn’t care what the opinions are of a certain Mr. Darcy and the Bingleys. She is being herself-walking to the house alone and not caring about the state of her tresses. Does this detract from the story and Kiera’s acting? No. It gave me the audience a new fresh way to appreciate her character. Joe Wright wasn’t trying to mimic adaptations of years past. Why should he? His Pride and Prejudice was a much needed change from that we had seen before. And guess what? It paid off. A younger audience who had never seen Pride and Prejudice came to love this movie and 15 years later this is still their go to PP. After all isn’t that what we all want? For more people to experience Jane Austen’s stories? Who says that they have to be portrayed the same way each and every time. Isn’t that kinda... boring? Predictable?

Now let’s skip ahead to 2019. If you have read my other two blogs you know where this is going. So if you don’t want to hear about my defense of Sanditon I suggest you turn back now.

Andrew Davies introduces to us a character of Jane Austen that has never been portrayed on the screen before-Charlotte Heywood.

And as such we do not know who or what her character is like. We find out that at 22 she had never left home, having grown up on a farm with 12 siblings. That alone tells us that her appearance is going to be what some call “modern” and out of place but what I call practical and normal. Her father,while respectable and gentleman, is a farmer. She more and likely had chores like anyone else. Do you really think she had the time to care if her hair is pinned up. Uhh...nope. The first scene we see her in she is shooting rabbits! This tells us she is not Elizabeth Bennet or Marianne Dashwood or Anne Elliot. And Miss Austen wasn’t trying to write her as such. She is her own person. And as such will have things that set her apart from other Austen characters. As the series progresses we come to to learn she is practical, intelligent, sweet, but naive and inexperienced. Davies also decided to make a choice that would serve as her hallmark- her shoulder length hair that she wears down most of the time. Again, filmmakers have to appeal to their current audience. And again, like Joe Wright, he was hoping to get a younger more modern audience to tune in and enjoy a period piece or perhaps a Jane Austen adaptation for the first time. Frankly, this was a clever move on his part. He needed to show throughout the series that this adventure to Sanditon is truly unlike anything she has ever experienced. Charlotte is full of youthful exuberance with those doe-like eyes that are longing to experience life outside sleepy Willingdon. But remember, that while we love her, she has a lot to learn and is truly out of her depth at first around some of the situations and people she encounters. However, despite that she is true to herself- which is also a hallmark of all Jane Austen heroines. So as such there is no reason Charlotte needs to change her hairstyle when she comes to Sanditon. She is accepted as who she is by those around her. She is our Charlotte Heywood- using her ingenuity to help with the growth of Sanditon, trying to be a good friend, and exploring her new surroundings. Her hair is the least of anyone’s worries. And as an audience we find that Charlotte’s unpinned tresses make her approachable.Unpretentious. Human. More like us. Is there anything wrong with that? No. Being historically accurate is all and well, but when that is placed above all else in a series or movie it runs the risk of being just another adaptation. And that does not draw in a new, younger, more modern audience. Regardless of whether you agree with that statement or not, that is how the entertainment business is run today. So please if any readers are on the fence to watch this series because of some more modern uses in hair and grooming I ask that you to accept why the production crew made these choices and give it a try. As us fans wait on baited breath to see if another network will pick up our beloved Sanditon and continue with a second season-just remember you may get your heroine wearing her hair up. After all, Jane Austen characters usually go through a metamorphosis of some kind due to the need to adapt, grow, and perhaps even survive. Our Charlotte may find herself more grown up and guarded after a summer spent in Sanditon and this could well show in her appearance next time we see her... or not. I guess we will have to wait and see.

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tcm · 4 years

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Dick Powell: From Musicals to Noir by Susan King

In the fall of 1993, I got the plum assignment to interview Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, who were reuniting to make a series of Hart to Hart TV movies for NBC. So, I arrived one late afternoon in Bel-Air where the production was shooting exteriors at a vintage estate that had doubled as the Hart’s house in the original 1979-83 ABC series. The mansion was very Golden Age of Hollywood. The front “yard” was massive and beautifully manicured, and the house was equally impressive. The publicist took me aside to tell me it had been owned by Dick Powell and June Allyson.

The two were one of the power couples in Hollywood from 1945 until Powell’s death at 58 in 1963 (he died the same day as Jack Carson). I immediately remembered the first time I saw the couple in a movie. I was about six and the movie was the 1950 MGM boxing drama RIGHT CROSS, which also starred Ricardo Montalban.

When I was little, I thought Allyson was the bee’s knees. Powell didn’t interest me at all. It wasn’t until I entered USC film school in 1976 that I begin to realize just how good Powell was as an actor. But it took him a long time in his career to show this. He was under contract in the 1930s at Warner Bros., at a time when the moguls kept their stars on a tight leash casting them in roles that were variations of the same theme. Some actors were dutiful and did what they were told; others would turn down the roles and get put on suspension or loaned out to another studio. (Bette Davis actually sued the studio in 1937 to get out of her contract. She lost, but Olivia de Havilland won the battle in 1943.)

Powell became a star as the male ingenue in movies and comedies at Warners, usually romancing Ruby Keeler or his second wife Joan Blondell in such films as 1935’s BROADWAY GONDOLIER. He was cute, had a nice voice and could handle comedy. Very much the fresh-faced boy next door, Powell was the type of guy parents would be thrilled if their daughters dated. And a lot of those early pre-Code musical comedies in which he appeared, such as 1933’s 42nd STREET and 1933’s GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933, are wonderful fun and often subversively surreal thanks to Busby Berkeley’s innovative production numbers.

But, Powell wanted something more and Jack Warner threw him a bone: the lavish and fanciful all-star 1935 adaptation of Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, in which Powell plays Lysander who falls in love with the fair Hermia (de Havilland in her film debut). Though I’m sure Laurence Olivier wouldn’t have felt threatened by Powell’s performance, he’s not bad.

However, Powell went back to playing the same kind of ingenue parts in a series of forgettable films. After making 1939’s NAUGHTY BUT NICE with Ann Sheridan, he left Warner Bros. and went to Paramount. His stint at Paramount delivered a mixed bag, save for the delightful 1940 Preston Sturges’ comedy CHRISTMAS IN JULY.

But his career and his life turned upside down in 1944 when he turned 40. He divorced Blondell and fell in love with his MEET THE PEOPLE (’44) co-star Allyson. He also starred in the delightful Rene Clair comedy, IT HAPPENED TOMORROW, in which he played a newspaper man at the turn-of-the-century who magically gets the next day’s paper and he auditioned for the role of Walter Neff in Billy Wilder’s DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Though that role went to Fred MacMurray, another affable Paramount star looking to expand his image, Powell landed the role of world-weary gumshoe Philip Marlowe in RKO’s delicious film noir MURDER, MY SWEET.

Not only did Powell capture the Raymond Chandler character’s cynical sense of humor and smarts, but he looked like someone who had been beaten up one too many times for too little money. And there is a sort of a joy to his performance because he had been set free from playing the boy-next-door types. He was an adult male and along the way he became a noir icon.

Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times: “This is a new type of character for Mr. Powell. Though he may lack the steely coldness and cynicism of a Humphrey Bogart, Mr. Powell need not offer any apologies. He has definitely stepped out of the song-and-dance, pretty-boy league with this performance.” And he then made a string of terrific films including 1945’s CORNERED, 1947's JOHNNY O’CLOCK, 1948’s PITFALL, 1951’s CRY DANGER and 1952’s THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.

He turned to directing in the mid-1950s directing Allyson and Jack Lemmon in YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM IT (‘56), an ill-fated musical version of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (‘34). Powell also directed the well-stuffed 1956 box office turkey THE CONQUERER, with a woefully miscast John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Unfortunately, the film was shot near a former nuclear test site in Utah and numerous people involved in the production—including Powell, Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendariz—all died of cancer.

Powell’s last project was the 1961-1963 anthology series The Dick Powell Show, which he introduced each week and executive produced. The series was changed to The Dick Powell Theater on Jan. 8, 1963, just six days after his death at 58. Guest hosts filled out the rest of the season beginning with Gregory Peck.

UPI TV writer Rick Du Brow wrote that Peck’s brief remarks about Powell’s legacy avoided any “theatricality,” adding that Peck introduced the episode saying: “I’m speaking for a man who was a great and good friend to our industry” and that it was a privilege for the guest hosts to continue the series as “a memorial to Dick Powell.”

#Dick Powell #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Murder My Sweet #musicals #noir #gold diggers of 1933

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