Last night, we saw Jeanne Crain in "Take Care of My Little Girl"(1951), a look at the dark side of college sorority life. Crain is "Liz Erickson", who is off to Midwestern University with her heart set on joining the prestigious Tri-U sorority. Her Mom was a member, which gives her a leg up on acceptance as a Legacy Pledge. Before she leaves, Mom extols the lifelong benefits of being a Tri-U alum. Liz arrives and meets the sisters and the house mother, Mrs. Howell, who was her Mom's best friend in Tri-U (we've seen a lot of Mr. and Mrs. Howell recently). Right away, Liz - a nice girl - can see that the sorority president "Dallas" (Jean Peters) is pretentious and dictatorial. After the first few days, she knows she'll be accepted, not only as a Legacy Pledge but because she fits in; she's beautiful and outgoing.
The difference between Liz and Dallas is that Liz isn't a phony. Dallas and her lieutenant "Marge Colby" (Betty Lynn) decide in private which pledges "deserve" to be Tri-U members, and which don't, and their choices don't include girls who can't afford fancy clothes, or who come from the wrong towns. You get the idea: their sorority is based on status. Oh yes, they do charity work, we've seen a lot of that in our recent movies, but they do it because it's good to be seen doing it. Liz, a sincere girl, takes all of this in. Her roommate "Adelaide" (MItzi Gaynor), a tennis protege from Arizona, opts out of Tri-U early on. She's from the country - a ranch girl - and even though she'd be accepted based on her looks and charm, it's all too fake for her. She just wants to study and play tennis.
Liz meets a student counselor named "Joe Blake" (Dale Robt-sn for Carp-teria). Joe offers advice on her selection of a major. Liz chooses languages. They hit it off, and go out for lunch. Joe is older, 28, his education deferred by six years of military service. He thinks sororities and fraternities are silly, not because of the brotherhood/sisterhood experience, but because of the juvenile games that are played for acceptance. Nowdays it's called hazing. This will get serious later on. There is never any question that Liz will be accepted. Other sororities are courting her, too, she's a prize catch. But she sees how some of the other girls are treated, the ones less beautiful or not from well-known families. One girl, "Ruth" (Lenka Peterson) stands out in this way and gets talked about behind her back. She's so nice and tries so hard to be liked, but she's a mousy girl who wears old baggy dresses. Dallas and Marge (the Tri-U president and vice president) have a system of blackballing a pledge anonymously, and they do this to Ruth, who wants more than anything to be accepted.
Meanwhile, Liz is wooed by "Chad Carnes" (Jeffery Hunter), a BMOC fraternity boy who takes her attention away from Joe Blake for a while. Chad is the male equivalent of the Tri-U girls, a guy from the "right" family, who got into Northwestern on connections, but who in reality can't make the grade. He's a F student and wants Liz (who has an A in French) to help him cheat on the final exam. She agrees to do it and then feels guilty. All of this is turning her off to sorority life.
Then comes Hell Week, in which the pledges are demeaned and made to do exhausting, ridiculous tasks. Dallas and Marge single Ruth out for particularly rough treatment with the idea that she'll wash out, which will save them the trouble of rejecting her. But she's so determined to become a Tri-U member that she stays awake for three days running to complete her Hell Week assignment. I can't tell you any more than that, but it's the climax of the movie. The question is how Liz will react to all of this, especially after seeing what happens to Ruth. Jean Peters is very good as the arrogant sorority leader Dallas. In real life, she was the girlfriend of Howard Hughes, and in a coincidence, we have in our next movie Terry Moore, who was secretly married to him for the last years of his life. Our favorite Movie Dad - John Litel - has a small role as Liz's father. But the best supporting role goes to Betty Lynn as Marge, the sorority vice-president who is caught in between Dallas and the blackballing of "unapproved" girls, and her guilt feelings for doing so. It's Jeanne Crain's movie, she's in every scene, and besides being an outstanding beauty, she was also a very good actress in movies like "A Letter to Three Wives" and "Pinky". She also stars in one of our perennial favorites, "State Fair". Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Take Care of My Little Girl", which was once again found on a Christmas Movie list, though it has just the briefest holiday scene. The picture is in color (a tad muted) and is very good. ////
The previous night, we watched "The Great Rupert"(1950), about a squirrel who doles out manna from heaven. Wait a sec; make that money instead of manna. As the movie opens, Rupert is living with his trainer and sidekick "Joe Mahoney" (Jimmy Conlin), a vaudeville performer who is too broke to pay his rent. Joe has to leave his little apartment, so he sets Rupert free in a park. But Rupert runs right back to their former abode to live rent-free in the attic. Meanwhile, Joe runs into his old pal "Louie Amendola" (Jimmy Durante) on the street. Louie and his family, also vaudevillians known as the Triple Pyramid, are looking for a place to live. Joe suggests his former building, but warns Louie that the landlord, "Mr. Dingle" (Frank Orth) is a tightwad who demands his money up front and grants no favors. Mr. Dingle has a son named "Pete" (Tom Drake) who's a composer. He has an artistic spirit and is more forgiving, especially when he meets Louie's young daughter "Rosalinda" (Terry Moore), who plays the harp. Pete talks his Dad into letting the Amendolas live there, in the basement apartment, even though they don't have the rent money. Louie promises him they'll pay it by the end of the week.
Mr. Dingle reads Pete the riot act about giving out free rent, but soon forgets the transgression when he receives a letter from his bank, telling him a gold investment is set to pay off, to the tune of 1500 bucks a week. He forgets all about the Amendolas' rent, and every week when he receives his gold dividend check, he cashes it at the bank and stuffs the bills through a hole in the wall at home because he's a "money under the mattress" kind of guy. He doesn't trust banks or institutions. Well, right about this time, Christmas is coming up. The Amendolas have no money for Rosalinda's shoes, let alone presents. Mrs. Amendola (Queenie Smith) starts praying for money, with the words "Rosalinda needs shoes". Suddenly, hundred dollar bills begin floating from the ceiling! Where are they coming from? Why, from heaven of course. Momma's prayer has been answered. Only we the audience know that Rupert, the little squirrel who made his home in the Dingles' attic, is pushing the money out of a hole in the ceiling to get at his winter store of walnuts.
Momma tells Louie about the money from heaven; not knowing about Rupert, she has no other explanation. "I prayed and the money came down!" Louie is thrilled. He pays three moths rent in advance, now all is good with Mr. Dingle. Meanwhile, Rosalinda and Pete are falling in love. He composes a suite for the two of them, but then Rosalinda meets an agent who wants to use her looks to advance her career, and a romantic subplot ensues, based on the theme of artistic integrity versus advantageous opportunism. It appears to Pete that Rosalina has chosen the latter, as she runs off with the fast-talking agent. Pete has no use for the status of showbiz, he's all about his music. If it makes money, fine, if it doesn't, he'll keep composing regardless. However, he does have one chance to invest in an oil scheme, if he can come up with two thousand dollars. Who else to ask but Mr. Amendola, whose wife seems to have a barrel of money all of a sudden. Every time she prays for money for "Rosalina's shoes", sitting in her rocking chair on Thursdays at 3 o clock, Rupert pushes 1500 bucks out of the hole in the roof. All of a sudden the Amendolas are rich, and the Dingles are getting poor, though Mr. Dingle doesn't know it yet because he hasn't seen how Rupert has redistributed his wealth. Then one day Dingle learns that his gold mine will be paying no more dividends. That's when he decides to remove his stash of cash from the wall, and finds that it's all gone.
"The Great Rupert" is once again ostensibly a Christmas movie; in truth there is only a single scene near the holiday where a brass band plays carols on the street. There is a lament about not being able to afford presents, but that's it. Still, it has that "greed" message, Mr. Scrooge. But the best parts are when Rupert dishes out the dough. These scenes are staged by George Pal (who produced), and he was of course the special effects wizard behind the use of models and stop-motion. It's a hoot to watch Rupert throw hundred dollar bills out the hole in the roof while looking for his walnuts. Jimmy Durante sings and plays a couple songs on piano, and we very much like Terry Moore, who is a sweetheart as Rosalinda. Tom Drake, who plays Pete Dingle, was Judy Garland's boyfriend in the Christmas Classic "Meet Me in St. Louis". Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Great Rupert". The picture is very good. That will be all for our Christmas movies this year. We tried, with varying success, to find ones we'd never seen. Mostly we got films with minimal holiday themes, but the good part was that they were all excellent (except "Magic Christmas Tree"), and many of them scored Two Huge Thumbs Up. I'm sorry we didn't have a Dickens mini-series this year, it kind of slipped my attention, but we'll make up for it next Christmas, and we'll double up on our holiday movies. ////
And that's all I know. I hope you had a Merry Christmas today. On my two walks this evening, I was amazed to see all five visible planets. I saw Mercury for the first time ever, at 5:30 when the sky darkened. I was blown off the map by seeing it, as Mercury doesn't appear often, and when it does, it's only up for a little while. I saw a tip on an astronomy website last night, saying that Christmas night would be a chance to observe it (near Venus, the brightest planet in the sky), and so I made a point to look for it. I saw Mercury and Venus on my early walk, then on my 10 pm walk (just now), I saw Venus again, Mars (straight overhead), and Jupiter and Saturn in the southeast. To have it happen on Christmas night made it especially amazing. I also have a bonus movie, "The Fabelmans," which I saw this afternoon in Encino. I'm not gonna review it, because you're gonna want to see it for yourself, but I will say it's an eye-opener. As you probably know, it's the life story of Steven Spielberg, who we've tried to de-mythologize here at the blog (all of that business about him "walking on to the lot at Universal" was a made-up PR story). The movie gives you what I assume is the real deal of how he became a filmmaker, and his family life, and it's a revelation and shocking in places. The ending is classic Hollywood, featuring an appearance by someone entirely unexpected. It's a long movie, two and a half hours, but I thought it was one of Spielberg's best.
My blogging music tonight is various Christmas music on KUSC, my late night is the "Christmas Oratorio". Merry Christmas once again, and let's look forward to a Happy New Year and all good things in 2023. I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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