Remembering S. Z. ‘Cuddles’ Sakall on his birthday #botd

Barbara Stanwyck and S.Z. Sakall in Christmas in Connecticut, 1945

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945)

dir. Peter Godfrey

Bonus:

Ball of Fire (1941) Howard Hawks

February 18th 2023

Round 2, Match 4

Mischa Auer vs S.Z. Sakall

Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid

Bad movie I have Casablanca 1942 This is a Box set come with a book , movie card, a leather wallet and some production notes

@tcmparty live tweet schedule for the week beginning Monday, April 24, 2023. Look for us on Twitter…watch and tweet along…remember to add #TCMParty to your tweets so everyone can find them :) All times are Eastern.

Tuesday, April 25 — 8:00 p.m. ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (1948) A singer on a Caribbean cruise gets mixed up in a series of romantic problems.

Thank Your Lucky Stars

During World War II, most of the major studios produced all-star musicals, usually built around some kind of benefit performance, to raise money for the war effort. David Butler’s THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS (1943, TCM) was the first of two such films Warner Bros. made to support the Hollywood Canteen, which is natural as it was founded by two of their biggest stars, Bette Davis and John Garfield.  Early on, aspiring composer Joan Leslie says of a makeshift community of show-biz hopefuls, “It’s either very quaint or very corny.” I wasn’t feeling well last night, so I leaned toward the former as a cure for what ailed me. The plot is negligible. Producer Edward Everett Horton and composer S.Z. Sakall want to do a benefit with Dinah Shore, but since she works for Eddie Cantor, they can’t find a way to get her without letting him take over the show. Meanwhile, aspiring singer Dennis Morgan tries to get into the show with help from Leslie and an actor who can’t get work because he looks too much like Cantor. Yes, it’s Cantor in a double role, though the joke is that Cantor as Cantor plays a nightmarish egomaniac while his double is more like Cantor’s real image. Arthur Schwartz and Frank Loesser wrote some catchy upbeat songs — including the title number, impeccably sung by Shore, and Davis’ “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old” — and some soupy ballads. Part of the film’s charm is seeing performers not noted for musical skills sing and dance, with special honors to Garfield for doing a version of “Blues in the Night” that spoofs his screen image. Choreographer Leroy Prinze deserves a lot of credit for coming up with a dancing style to suit Errol Flynn’s image, throwing Davis into a jitterbug number, turning Olivia de Havilland (dubbed) and Ida Lupino into bobbysoxers and staging a bang-up number headed by Hattie McDaniel, who should have done more musicals. Watch closely and you’ll catch Ruth Donnelly as a surgical nurse, Henry Armetta as a barber, Frank Faylen as a sailor, Mike Mazurki as Cantor’s trainer, Mary Treen as an autograph hound and Butler and producer Mark Hellinger as themselves. As icing on the cake, you get to see Spike Jones and his City Slickers do “Otchi Chornya.”

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle Dandy – the classic musical biography of George M. Cohan, starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Richard Whorf Continue reading Yankee Doodle Dandy

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Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, S.Z. Sakall and Florence Bates in "San Antonio" (1945)

S Z Sakall (February 2, 1883 – February 12, 1955)

Barbara Stanwyck and S.Z. Sakall - Christmas in Connecticut

What happens when one of the neighbors brings you the wrong baby for your fake family.

BARBARA STANWYCK & S.Z. SAKALL in Christmas in Connecticut (1945), dir. Peter Godfrey

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) Sam Wood

November 21st 2022

Round 1, match 8

S.Z. Sakall vs Tom Dugan