I wanted some Americana this Fourth of July, and what could be more Red, White and Blue than "State Fair"(1945)? I've seen the movie umpteen times, going back to when I lived with Mom, so by now I break it out for tradition. But it's also great as romantic wish fulfillment, and it represents the rural American Dream we all long for. And yeah - you got me - it stars Jeanne Crain, who appears in the film at her loveliest.
The Frakes are a farm family in Iowa. The State Fair is coming up and all of them are excited about going. Dad (Charles Winninger) is preparing to enter his hog Blue Boy in the swine competition. Mom is making mincemeat for the cook-off. Dad does a taste test. "Say, it doesn't have any brandy. You can't have mincemeat without brandy, the judges expect it".
Mom : "I don't believe in it".
Dad : "You can plan to lose, then". When Mom is out of the room, Dad grabs some brandy from the cupboard and pours half the bottle into the mixture. Mom re-enters and considers Dad's advice. He's gone, so she pours in the rest. The double-strength mincemeat is now ready for the judges. Later on, Mom will be awarded first prize.
The Frakes have two grown children, Margy and Wayne (Crain and Dick Haymes). Margy's looking forward to the fair just for something to do. She's at that restless age where romance preoccupies a girl's heart. If nothing else, maybe she'll meet a boy there. Whoever he might be, he'll be a lot more exciting than "Harry Ware", her supposed fiance, a science nerd who's duller than dishwater. Harry is the only guy Margy has ever known. Their "engagement" was arranged by her mother. As for Wayne, he's looking for revenge on a carny (Harry Morgan) who cheated him on the ring-toss a year earlier. He's been practicing with Mom's embroidery hoops. He's gonna get his eight bucks back, guaranteed.
Margy meets "Pat Gilbert" (Dana Andrews) by accident, when he's seated in her cabin on the Ferris Wheel. The next thing you know, he's talking her up. "Hey, whattaya say we spend the rest of the fair together? We can decide if we like each other's company, and if we don't, no harm done. We'll go our separate ways and be no worse off than we started". Gilbert is a newspaper reporter from Chicago. He's handsome, charming and seems worldly to Margy, who agrees to his proposal. But his editor is there, too, and presses him for a story. "You came here to work". Gilbert is distracted. He and Margy separate for a while.
Meanwhile, on the midway, brother Wayne is acing the ring-toss. Harry Morgan is pulling his usual schtick, i.e. making trouble (I think it's in his contract). He doesn't wanna give Wayne his prize money. "I know you came back here to try and show me up". Wayne : "The rules say you've gotta let me keep playing". Then a pretty redhead steps forth from the crowd. "My father's the police chief in this town", she tells Morgan. "He's here tonight, so if you want to stay open you better pay this man what you owe him". Morgan reluctantly hands Wayne his winnings, grumbling "here ya go, now we're even. Don't come back ever again".
It turns out the gal is a singer at the fair, the star attraction actually, with her band. She's "Emily Edwards" (Vivian Blaine), a vivacious dame with a thousand watt smile. Her Dad's not really the police chief; she was just making that up. "I don't like that guy (Harry Morgan) and I wanted to get you your money". Like Margy and Pat, Wayne and Emily hit it off. Each sibling has a budding romance in the works.
Back in the Swine Shed, Dad is prepping Blue Boy, who suddenly lies down. It's the worst time for him to quit, the championship is about to be awarded . Luckily for Dad, another farmer brings in his hog at that moment. She's "Esmeralda", a female Hampshire. Blue Boy is back on his feet in an instant. In "State Fair", everyone wants romance. As long as Esmeralda is in the next pen, Blue Boy is raring to go.
The fair is a backdrop for escape from everyday life, but it's also a celebration of small town simplicity. And isn't that what we yearn for nowdays in America? I mean, who gives a hoot about "progress" anymore? The only real progress is fixing what progress has led to. Well, I shant go on a tirade, but there's too many electrons coursing through every fiber of modern life. That's why State Fair has such an appeal. It could be a David Lynch movie without the DL dark side.
The romance plays out in the typical dramatic arc. Margy and Wayne find their Dream Dates, then lose them, then.........get them back? Of course I can't tell you cause that would spoil the fun, but it's interesting that both Pat the reporter and Emily the big band singer are city people. They represent an even bigger escape for the siblings. Pat wants Margy to move to Chicago and Emily asks Wayne to go on the road with her. As mentioned, Wayne is played by Dick Haymes, a top crooner in real life. He gets to show off his pipes in a song or two, but that doesn't mean he wants to leave the farm.
"State Fair" has several Rogers & Hammerstein production numbers, but I wouldn't say it qualifies as a musical. It kind of exists in it's own realm as an All American Fantasy, and in that sense it's a 10 in every way. Deserving of a mention is Donald Meek as the cook-off judge who gets hammered on Mom's mincemeat and awards her the Blue Ribbon in return. Mom, Dad and Meek provide comic relief amidst the romance (oh, and let's not forget Blue Boy and Esmeralda, too).
It's a classic in the same way as "Meet Me in St. Louis" or "Showboat", giving us an America we wish still existed. If you've never seen it, Summer is the perfect time. It's one of my favorite movies. /////
The previous night I watched "The Kiss of the Vampire"(1963), a spooker from Hammer Studios. This sumptuous looking film turned out to be hidden classic, at least for me. I'd never even heard of it, but it's as good as anything Hammer has done. It begins with a couple driving through the English countryside in their old fashioned motorcar, just past the turn of the century. They run out of gas and the man goes to look for help. "Wait here til I return", he tells his fiance. I paused for a moment to wonder "have I seen this film before"? I was pretty sure I had, because I remembered a similar scenario. I let the movie run to make sure this was different, and it turned out that it was; I hadn't seen this film, but I checked my movie list to discover the discrepancy, and found that the movie in question - with almost the exact same scene - was "The Ghoul"(1975) starring Peter Cushing and John Hurt, which we watched about a year ago when we started doing Youtube. The folks at Hammer must've thought "running out of petrol......that's a great opening"!, and used it again for good measure.
In "Kiss", the woman's boyfriend returns with a tow truck, in the form of an ox and his driver. They tow the couple to an old hotel that appears in the middle of nowhere. It looks closed down. "You can stay here until the petrol arrives", the driver informs them. The owners, an older man and wife, aren't expecting guests, but offer a room to the travelers anyway. They act put-upon, scared of something. The wife seems close to tears. But why?
Could it be that there's a Vampire nearby, living in the castle on the hill? Yes indeed, and he's a suave son-of-a-bee, handsome and and well mannered. But aren't they all? Vampires, I mean. Aren't all of them courtly until they get their teeth in you? Well yes, but this one's a little different. For one thing, he's got a Liberace hairdo piled high on his head. For another, he's got a son who's a pianist.
That evening, at the desolate hotel, the young couple receive an invitation to a dinner, being hosted by Liberace himself. "But how did you know we were staying there", asks the young man. "I see everything with my telescope", comes the answer. Lib is constantly peering down the road through his spyglass, looking for potential victims. At the dinner, the young lady is transfixed by sonny's pianism. The son is a grim sort, but fluent in Chopin and Brahms. Soon a ruse is put forth, to separate the lady from the man. Once Lib gets her locked away upstairs, he breaks out the fangs. Now she's one of his minions.
It turns out that old Liberace has a basement full of junior Vampires that he calls his "family". Really they're the daughters of neighboring townsfolk. One was taken from the hoteliers. Another from a certain Professor Zimmer. She's now deceased (you'll see how and why) and her death has turned the Professor into a Vampire Hunter.
No one does vampire movies better than Hammer Horror, and that's because they usually add satanism to the mix. Silver bullets and garlic won't do the trick on English Vamps, apparently, so in this case the Professor breaks out the full ritual : pentagrams, candles, incense and an incantation. The white robed Liberace huddles in his basement, exhorting his "children" to resist, but an army of bats are materialised. They crash the windows and swarm through the castle, draining the Vampires of their blood.
Of all the irony, right? It's an undiscovered Hammer classic.
And in all seriousness, it's that good. On production design alone, it ranks with "The Devil Rides Out" and "Plague of the Zombies". The story's a little thinner than the ones in those films, but there's more than enough weirdness to go around (not to mention sharp teeth). "The Kiss of the Vampire" gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The Youtube print is widescreen Bluray. Don't wait til Halloween to see it. ////
That's all for the moment. Hope you had a great day. I send you tons of love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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