Tonight's movie was "Night Nurse" (1931), starring Barbara Stanwyck, coming again from my recently acquired "Forbidden Hollywood Vol.2" collection. You might have noticed that a lot of these pre-code movies have titles that refer in a suggestive manner to women, such as "Night Nurse", or last night's "Female", or "Baby Face" and "Red Headed Woman" from the Vol.1 collection. There are many others named in this way. The reasoning was simple and had to do with the "racy" nature of the pictures. If you had a title like "Night Nurse" and a fiery star like Stanwyck, who was only 24 here, you'd have a built-in audience who'd know, in general, what to expect for their 25 cent admission price.
Director William Wellman delivers on the racy quotient, by having nurse trainee Stanwyck and her roomie Joan Blondell doff their nursing duds over and over again during the first half of the 72 minute movie. The gals keep undressing, down to their skivvies, in order to change from their uniforms to street clothes, and in the morning they change back again. The first half hour is devoted to this aspect (and nominally to the training of Barbara and Joan, at the hands of a Nurse Ratched type of housemistress), but mostly they just keep changing their clothes. Being that the year was 1931, the undergarments the ladies are wearing contain much more fabric than you would see nowdays, but still......
For early 30s audiences, it was all about the titillation. Ergo, the time devoted in the first act to constant wardrobe change.
One male character, a tall, thin orderly - a wise guy who likes to shock the nurses - keeps knocking on the door of their dorm room just as these "changes" are occurring. He always has a wisecrack to offer, slightly sexual in nature, and this too adds to the racy formula that a movie of this type was striving for.
Pre-code movies are fun, and though the sexual content is very mild in comparison to anything that was released after 1967 or so, they still present the sensation that the 1930s were a pretty swinging time. As I have previously remarked, it is the innuendo in these films that is so effective.
Most of the pre-code flicks I've seen also have a plot. At first I was worried that "Night Nurse" wasn't going to develop one, but by the 35 minute mark, a story began to form. After completing her training, Barbara Stanwyck goes to work as a private duty nurse for two little girls whom she had previously attended to at the hospital. Now she is on night duty, caring for them at the palatial home of their wealthy mother, who is plastered drunk much of the time. Stanwyck notices that the girls have gotten worse, not better, since they left the hospital. It looks like they are being starved. Their mother is drunk and partying with gowned and tuxedoed guests at what seems to be an Endless Party inside the mansion. Night Nurse Stanwyck tries to sort some order out of this chaos and finds a doctor who is supposed to be in charge of the daughters care.
Pretty quickly, however, she sees that he is ineffective at best. Worse, he might be complicit in an attempt to slowly kill the two young girls, who are heirs to a trust fund left to them by their deceased father.
Nurse Barbara uncovers the plot, but then runs into the family chauffeur, Clark Gable, tall, lean and scary in this role, bedecked in a form-fitting, flared black drivers uniform. He looks like an assassin, and he is, though he hides behind the scenes. His size and threatening manner would suggest that Nurse Barbara Stanwyck would be no match for him......but then she is the Night Nurse, dedicated to her charges, the two children, and she will stop at nothing to save them from the evil scheme of Gable and the family doctor.
The movie goes from frilly/racy in the first half to a crime thriller conclusion in the second, with a little girly-girl and nerd male comedy thrown in for good measure. Nurses and Orderlies, you know....
The director was William Wellman, who won the first Best Picture Oscar ever with "Wings" in 1929. He sure knew how to draw a performance out of young Stanwyck, who lets loose her anger in a very realistic way at the children's mother and their phoney doctor, both of whom will do nothing to save the little girls. Her performance is quite a social statement for it's time, considering that it has to do with extreme child abuse, and she gives it the force and urgency the situation demands. Her effort to save the girls is relentless and fearless, even coming up against the cold and frightening Clark Gable in his black chauffeur's uniform. In this way the movie is ultimately of great substance, after a trivial start.
Because of the last half, in which the story is fully developed, and because of the lead performance of Barbara Stanwyck (and also her supporting cast, which includes many great characters I have not mentioned), I will give "Night Nurse" Two Thumbs Up.
See it for Barbara's performance, and for it's 1930s style, and for the changing of the lingerie...
And for the plot, which, in a movie only two years into the advent of sound is not as technically proficient as would be a movie made decades later, but which tackles a subject that would likewise not be taken on for years to come, and does so without flinching.
Here's to the Pre-Code once again, in all it's raciness and truth-telling glory (and it's pure entertainment value).
That's all I know for tonight. My day was otherwise routine. I hope yours was good.
Much love until tomorrow, then more to come. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Monday, January 21, 2019
Lunar Eclipse + Rams Game Evaluation + "Female" starring Ruth Chatterton (Pre-Code)
Did you see the Lunar Eclipse this evening? I didn't see the entire thing (and didn't know it was gonna be hours long), but I did see about 30 minutes worth and I couldn't take my eyes off it. The moon before the eclipse was as bright as I've ever seen it - I mean, wow!, it looked like a jewel in the sky. And when the shadow began to cross over it, it looked like the dark side of the moon (cue Pink Floyd). I thought it was really amazing to see. Usually the eclipses, solar or lunar, that we get here in Los Angeles aren't that great, but this one was spectacular, especially with the wispy clouds passing overhead that gave it a ghostly effect. I hope you got to see it, too. :)
I usually only mention sports in passing, here at the blog, but tonight I feel the need to comment on the terrible non-call of pass interference against the Rams which, it is said, cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. As a Rams fan, I readily admit - as do we all - that pass interference was definitely committed and should have been called. But I think that even more important than that issue, was the question of why Saints coach Sean Payton did not simply run the clock down prior to that play. He had his team first-and-ten on the Rams 13 yard line with 1:58 to play. He could have run a truckload of time off the clock without ever having to have faced that game changing non-call by the refs. If he had called for Drew Brees just to take a knee for three downs, instead of trying to force passes, he could have almost run out the clock in the first place, which is what everyone was bitching about when the pass interference was not called a few plays later. But if you really look at it, Coach Sean Payton is the one who cost the Saints the Super Bowl. And even so, one blown call does not a game make. Just ask Brady, who will be going to his ninth Super Bowl, even though he benefited himself from many controversial calls over the years to get to play in so many.
So there you have it. Yeah, it was a terrible mistake by the ref, and it could have cost the Saints the game (although it may not have been a catchable ball, either). But the bottom line is that the Saints could have iced the game anyway, if Coach Sean Peyton had just run the clock out in the first place, with first down and 1:58 left. He failed to do that, and he cost his team the game. End of story.
Sorry, but I had to mention all of that because some pundits and fans are trying to bag on the Rams for getting into the Super Bowl because of that one non-call, and I wanted to point out that there was a lot more to the game than that. So there you have it, and now Rams will beat Brady in two weeks and we will come full circle since 2002, in the football scheme of things at any rate. ///
I am super tired, but I will briefly tell you about tonight's movie : "Female" (1932), starring an early Hollywood actress I had heard of but had never seen, named Ruth Chatterton. She was born in 1892, and starred in Broadway plays before making the transition to film. Boy was she a good actress, at least in this one movie, which was part of the five film dvd set of "Forbidden Hollywood Volume Two" that I recently received from Amazon (I don't like to give Bezos any publicity, but I've gotta give ya some background).
With "Female", we are talking serious Pre-Code sexual feminism. Ruth Chatterton is the CEO of the Drake Automobile Corporation, which she inherited from her late father. She is a dynamo who can multi-task with the best of them, chairing company meetings, handling endless phone calls and delegating manufacturing matters to subordinate executives, all from behind her desk. There is no doubt she is in charge of the company. The all-male board of directors fear her.
But she has another side, her "off work" side, which she indulges by choosing attractive male employees to invite to her house for dinner, on the pretense of talking about innovative plans for the company.
But when the gentlemen arrive, they discover that Miss Drake has other plans in mind.
In short, she is a man-eater. The problem for the guys is that they think, once they have spent the night with her, that she will thereafter treat them as equals. Back at work, however, she is The CEO and doesn't even want to hear from them. She only invited them to her house for one purpose. The guys all make the mistake of falling in love with her. She eats them up and shuts them down, exiling one guy to a company dealership in Hawaii because he got too mushy.
I have thought, through my viewing of pre-code films, that the 1930s were a time of early women's lib, and that it was a decade ahead of it's time in many ways. If you were to watch "Female", you would see a character that the powerful women of today would champion, and would see as not only a predecessor, but also a contemporary. In the movie, she is a Corporate Powerhouse who you could substitute for any woman in the news today, almost 90 years later.
The movie itself, as a dramatic story, is almost played as a comedy, but not quite because Chatterton really means business. I will have to look for more movies in which she stars.
The ending of the film might not be considered PC today, but I loved it, and it figured into my choice to give the film Two Big Thumbs Up. I don't wanna tell you any more, of course, but the ending arises out of a conflict between this woman's natural brilliance as a company CEO and what her role in society is considered to be. The ending is up for grabs, so see it for yourself.
Pre-Code Hollywood went to the heart of these matters, in the battle of the sexes at that time. ///
That's all I know for tonight. We had good singing in church this morning. I hope you had a great day, too. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I usually only mention sports in passing, here at the blog, but tonight I feel the need to comment on the terrible non-call of pass interference against the Rams which, it is said, cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. As a Rams fan, I readily admit - as do we all - that pass interference was definitely committed and should have been called. But I think that even more important than that issue, was the question of why Saints coach Sean Payton did not simply run the clock down prior to that play. He had his team first-and-ten on the Rams 13 yard line with 1:58 to play. He could have run a truckload of time off the clock without ever having to have faced that game changing non-call by the refs. If he had called for Drew Brees just to take a knee for three downs, instead of trying to force passes, he could have almost run out the clock in the first place, which is what everyone was bitching about when the pass interference was not called a few plays later. But if you really look at it, Coach Sean Payton is the one who cost the Saints the Super Bowl. And even so, one blown call does not a game make. Just ask Brady, who will be going to his ninth Super Bowl, even though he benefited himself from many controversial calls over the years to get to play in so many.
So there you have it. Yeah, it was a terrible mistake by the ref, and it could have cost the Saints the game (although it may not have been a catchable ball, either). But the bottom line is that the Saints could have iced the game anyway, if Coach Sean Peyton had just run the clock out in the first place, with first down and 1:58 left. He failed to do that, and he cost his team the game. End of story.
Sorry, but I had to mention all of that because some pundits and fans are trying to bag on the Rams for getting into the Super Bowl because of that one non-call, and I wanted to point out that there was a lot more to the game than that. So there you have it, and now Rams will beat Brady in two weeks and we will come full circle since 2002, in the football scheme of things at any rate. ///
I am super tired, but I will briefly tell you about tonight's movie : "Female" (1932), starring an early Hollywood actress I had heard of but had never seen, named Ruth Chatterton. She was born in 1892, and starred in Broadway plays before making the transition to film. Boy was she a good actress, at least in this one movie, which was part of the five film dvd set of "Forbidden Hollywood Volume Two" that I recently received from Amazon (I don't like to give Bezos any publicity, but I've gotta give ya some background).
With "Female", we are talking serious Pre-Code sexual feminism. Ruth Chatterton is the CEO of the Drake Automobile Corporation, which she inherited from her late father. She is a dynamo who can multi-task with the best of them, chairing company meetings, handling endless phone calls and delegating manufacturing matters to subordinate executives, all from behind her desk. There is no doubt she is in charge of the company. The all-male board of directors fear her.
But she has another side, her "off work" side, which she indulges by choosing attractive male employees to invite to her house for dinner, on the pretense of talking about innovative plans for the company.
But when the gentlemen arrive, they discover that Miss Drake has other plans in mind.
In short, she is a man-eater. The problem for the guys is that they think, once they have spent the night with her, that she will thereafter treat them as equals. Back at work, however, she is The CEO and doesn't even want to hear from them. She only invited them to her house for one purpose. The guys all make the mistake of falling in love with her. She eats them up and shuts them down, exiling one guy to a company dealership in Hawaii because he got too mushy.
I have thought, through my viewing of pre-code films, that the 1930s were a time of early women's lib, and that it was a decade ahead of it's time in many ways. If you were to watch "Female", you would see a character that the powerful women of today would champion, and would see as not only a predecessor, but also a contemporary. In the movie, she is a Corporate Powerhouse who you could substitute for any woman in the news today, almost 90 years later.
The movie itself, as a dramatic story, is almost played as a comedy, but not quite because Chatterton really means business. I will have to look for more movies in which she stars.
The ending of the film might not be considered PC today, but I loved it, and it figured into my choice to give the film Two Big Thumbs Up. I don't wanna tell you any more, of course, but the ending arises out of a conflict between this woman's natural brilliance as a company CEO and what her role in society is considered to be. The ending is up for grabs, so see it for yourself.
Pre-Code Hollywood went to the heart of these matters, in the battle of the sexes at that time. ///
That's all I know for tonight. We had good singing in church this morning. I hope you had a great day, too. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Mueller's Got Nothing (?) + Trump Is A Criminal + "The Falcon's Adventure" + Prismacolors
I'm back. Last night Grimsley came over, so you know the drill. No movie no blog. He wanted to go for a CSUN walk and then show me some Seth Myers/Trump stuff which was pretty funny I must admit. I have to add, though, that I was extremely disheartened by Mueller's rebuke of the Buzzfeed story. My immediate reaction was to think that after nearly two years of thinking "Trump is toast", that I was now forced to conclude that Mueller has no proof of what we all know Trump did, which was to conspire with his Russian pals to steal the election. We all know it. Mueller knows it too, but apparently he cannot prove it, which is just so depressing that I'd better stop writing about it because I'll end up depressing myself.
I feel like I've been on a roller coaster ride, because here at Pearl's we watch MSNBC every weeknight, where Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow nail Trump to the Wall (pun intended) every night, and they always have on panels full of high level former national security experts, former CIA directors and expert reporters, and each night they report a new development that is certain to see Trump impeached.
But then it never happens.
It never happens, and this terrible man who is destroying our country and it's Constitution and it's values, skates away yet again.
Any other man who had done what this man has done would have long ago been removed from office and put in prison.
So what is it with this person, that he is able to get away with his deeds unceasingly without having to face the music?
I don't have the answer to that question, but after the Mueller denial of Buzzfeed, I will watch MSNBC with a more cynical eye. Also, on a side note for anyone who has closely followed left wing news reporting in recent years, the name of reporter Jason Leopold on the Buzzfeed byline should have been a Red Flag from the beginning, when the story was first reported. He is a hack journalist who has been called out previously for rushing to publish stories that later turned out to be unconfirmed (i.e. meaning unproveable).
Look, here's the bottom line : we all know that Trump is the biggest a-hole who ever came down the pike. We all know that he is guilty of every single thing he's been accused of. He belongs in prison, in my opinion for the remainder of his life, because he tried to take down an American presidential election, and he succeeded.
But apparently Mueller cannot prove it, and that, my friends, is pretty sad. I find myself wondering what George Washington would think......
Let us pray for America tonight before we continue on with other subjects, and I will again make a note not to get too excited about anything reported by MSNBC and the liberal news media. And on the other side, it goes without saying that Fox News is pure unadulterated BS. ////
Well.......other than that bit of unpleasantry, I did watch a movie tonight : "The Falcon's Adventure" (1946), in which Tom Conway as "The Falcon" finds himself down in Miami trying to untangle a web of intrigue involving a scientist's formula for making "industrial diamonds". No mention is made as to whether or not these diamonds are jewels or if they are used in manufacturing (i.e. for cutting), but at any rate, the formula for making them is so valuable that several parties are trying to get hold of an envelope containing the written down formula. The scientist himself is deceased. His niece, the B-Movie Beauty Madge Meredith, recruits The Falcon to help her deliver the secret, formula containing envelope to a legitimate investor in Miami, knowing that many crooked players will attempt to derail the delivery. Much of the action takes place on a sleek 1940s art deco looking choo-choo train.
The Falcon's sidekick, "Goldie" Locke (played by classic Hollywood "Mook" Edward Brophy) began the movie preparing to go on a fishing trip with his buddy the suave detective. He went so far as to make The Falcon promise that he would not try to pick up on any women during their male-bonding vacation. But at the train station, Conway - looking very Errol Flynn like - cannot help but come to the rescue of Miss Meredith, and so there you have it - another Falcon movie, only 63 minutes long, but exactly what you need when you are short on time.
I did some good time management today, because I took Pearl for a neighborhood w/chair push on a sunny afternoon, and this eve in addition to watching the movie I managed to work on my latest drawing for 45 minutes. I am loving my set of colored pencils from Prismacolor, and I am attempting to make representative drawings this year instead of abstract.
I'll tell ya later what I'm drawing, but you can probably guess it's gonna be Something Weird rather than a bowl of fruit or an otherwise typical still life.....(not that I could draw a bowl of fruit anyhow).
Gotta get up early for church so I'd better sign off. See you there. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I feel like I've been on a roller coaster ride, because here at Pearl's we watch MSNBC every weeknight, where Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow nail Trump to the Wall (pun intended) every night, and they always have on panels full of high level former national security experts, former CIA directors and expert reporters, and each night they report a new development that is certain to see Trump impeached.
But then it never happens.
It never happens, and this terrible man who is destroying our country and it's Constitution and it's values, skates away yet again.
Any other man who had done what this man has done would have long ago been removed from office and put in prison.
So what is it with this person, that he is able to get away with his deeds unceasingly without having to face the music?
I don't have the answer to that question, but after the Mueller denial of Buzzfeed, I will watch MSNBC with a more cynical eye. Also, on a side note for anyone who has closely followed left wing news reporting in recent years, the name of reporter Jason Leopold on the Buzzfeed byline should have been a Red Flag from the beginning, when the story was first reported. He is a hack journalist who has been called out previously for rushing to publish stories that later turned out to be unconfirmed (i.e. meaning unproveable).
Look, here's the bottom line : we all know that Trump is the biggest a-hole who ever came down the pike. We all know that he is guilty of every single thing he's been accused of. He belongs in prison, in my opinion for the remainder of his life, because he tried to take down an American presidential election, and he succeeded.
But apparently Mueller cannot prove it, and that, my friends, is pretty sad. I find myself wondering what George Washington would think......
Let us pray for America tonight before we continue on with other subjects, and I will again make a note not to get too excited about anything reported by MSNBC and the liberal news media. And on the other side, it goes without saying that Fox News is pure unadulterated BS. ////
Well.......other than that bit of unpleasantry, I did watch a movie tonight : "The Falcon's Adventure" (1946), in which Tom Conway as "The Falcon" finds himself down in Miami trying to untangle a web of intrigue involving a scientist's formula for making "industrial diamonds". No mention is made as to whether or not these diamonds are jewels or if they are used in manufacturing (i.e. for cutting), but at any rate, the formula for making them is so valuable that several parties are trying to get hold of an envelope containing the written down formula. The scientist himself is deceased. His niece, the B-Movie Beauty Madge Meredith, recruits The Falcon to help her deliver the secret, formula containing envelope to a legitimate investor in Miami, knowing that many crooked players will attempt to derail the delivery. Much of the action takes place on a sleek 1940s art deco looking choo-choo train.
The Falcon's sidekick, "Goldie" Locke (played by classic Hollywood "Mook" Edward Brophy) began the movie preparing to go on a fishing trip with his buddy the suave detective. He went so far as to make The Falcon promise that he would not try to pick up on any women during their male-bonding vacation. But at the train station, Conway - looking very Errol Flynn like - cannot help but come to the rescue of Miss Meredith, and so there you have it - another Falcon movie, only 63 minutes long, but exactly what you need when you are short on time.
I did some good time management today, because I took Pearl for a neighborhood w/chair push on a sunny afternoon, and this eve in addition to watching the movie I managed to work on my latest drawing for 45 minutes. I am loving my set of colored pencils from Prismacolor, and I am attempting to make representative drawings this year instead of abstract.
I'll tell ya later what I'm drawing, but you can probably guess it's gonna be Something Weird rather than a bowl of fruit or an otherwise typical still life.....(not that I could draw a bowl of fruit anyhow).
Gotta get up early for church so I'd better sign off. See you there. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, January 18, 2019
"Cheaper By The Dozen" with Clifton Webb and Jeanne Crain
Tonight I wrapped up my Clifton Webb mini-marathon with "Cheaper By The Dozen" (1950), in which Webb stars as an efficiency expert for a major corporation. His specialty is the study of time and motion, and though he is never shown at his workplace, he studies every detail of the domestic tasks at home also, so that he can improve the efficiency of his family, consisting of his wife Myrna Loy and their twelve children (hence the title). Webb is a bit of a prig, he has a stopwatch and times his children on how long it takes them all to come downstairs for dinner. He also times himself on things like buttoning his sweater. This obsession with time management is a carryover from his job, but his kids love him anyway because he is more or less a jolly sort.
His eldest daughters (Jeanne Crain, one of my favorites, and the lovely but tragic Barbara Bates) do not love that he insists upon keeping them old fashioned and out of style. The year is 1921. The Bob haircut is all the rage. Flappers are daring girls to show their knees. Older teenage girls are wearing makeup. Dad Webb will have none of this. He wants his daughters to remain as they were, with long Victorian hair, faces "unpainted" (his term), and black bathing suits for the beach that look almost like a full set of clothes. The daughters have a crush on one of the young lifeguards (we are in Montclair, New Jersey), but he doesn't notice them in their 19th century swim trunks. He is busy serenading three girls who are up to date in form fitting one piece suits, legs showing (but still a far cry from bikinis, lol).
The crush of Jeanne Crain for the lifeguard leads her to rebel and cut her hair into a fashionably short "do". She also goes out and spends her own money to buy high heels, makeup and a negligee. Dad is horrified at first, but he comes around quickly because this movie is not about dramatic conflict, really, or even plot. It's about this slightly eccentric and very large family and their day to day life. It's really Clifton Webb's show. As the uptight but jovial father, his word is law. His kids are exasperated by him but can't wait for him to get home because he is so much fun. Wife Myrna Loy wears no makeup as per her husband's wishes, but gives him little extra ground where the children are concerned. She loves having a million kids (so does Webb), and one of the prime comedic scenes in the movie arrives when a prim-and-proper early feminist organiser visits their home. This woman is from the local branch of Planned Parenthood (I did not know they existed in 1921), and when Webb calls his brood downstairs, stopwatch in hand, she sees that she has come to the wrong house.
"Cheaper By The Dozen" is all about spending time with this family, the older daughters with their crushes and hopeful desires, the littler kids with their goofy reasoning at "family council meetings" : "Hey Dad, why should I have to wash my hands? They're just gonna get dirty again"!
It's all very 1920s America, when the country was first becoming modern with the inventions of the automobile, the airplane, radio, refrigeration, etc. Clifton Webb wants to be at the forefront of all of this modernization, at least in his professional life, and he is one step ahead of the competition with his well developed techniques for saving time in the manufacturing process. But at home, he is still stuck in the 1890s, and his daughters have to pull him out of that era.
This happens at a local dance for the teenagers (although it must be noted that there was no such thing as "teenagers", officially, until Elvis Presley came along)....but we'll call them teenagers anyway. His two eldest daughters want to attend the high school prom dance. At this point, Webb can't stop them from dressing modern, but he can and does insist on being their chaperone. And wouldn't you know it, because of Hollywood screenwriting, and because Clifton Webb was a versatile star, he winds up being a big hit at the dance with all the schoolgirls, who think he is cute.
In real life, Clifton Webb (born 1889) got his start in showbiz as a ballroom dancer, so the director of the movie made use of his ability in this penultimate scene.
"Cheaper By The Dozen" is a tale of a bygone America that you wish you could revisit, because things were less crude and more genteel.
Now, it turns out that the story of this family is a real one. The father's name was Frank Bunker Gilbreth, he really was an engineer and a motion study experimenter, and he and his wife really did have twelve children. In it's old fashioned way it is an entertaining and enjoyable movie. You can't go wrong with Webb, he is like Bogey (our other recent marathoner) in that regard. Both of those guys are "money" in whatever they do. Ditto Myrna Loy, who was so far ahead of her time in portraying today's woman. She is more traditional in this film, but you can see that she still holds the reins in the family.
"Cheaper By The Dozen" could be described as a light family film with comedic elements, a slice of 1920s America as seen through the lens of this offbeat family.
I am a sucker for films of this nature, so you know I am gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up.
I don't mean to place a downer on things, but America sucks right now - really, really badly! - and we've got to fix it. And the way to fix it is just to return to our roots, of being nice people.
You can see examples of this in so many of the old movies.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
His eldest daughters (Jeanne Crain, one of my favorites, and the lovely but tragic Barbara Bates) do not love that he insists upon keeping them old fashioned and out of style. The year is 1921. The Bob haircut is all the rage. Flappers are daring girls to show their knees. Older teenage girls are wearing makeup. Dad Webb will have none of this. He wants his daughters to remain as they were, with long Victorian hair, faces "unpainted" (his term), and black bathing suits for the beach that look almost like a full set of clothes. The daughters have a crush on one of the young lifeguards (we are in Montclair, New Jersey), but he doesn't notice them in their 19th century swim trunks. He is busy serenading three girls who are up to date in form fitting one piece suits, legs showing (but still a far cry from bikinis, lol).
The crush of Jeanne Crain for the lifeguard leads her to rebel and cut her hair into a fashionably short "do". She also goes out and spends her own money to buy high heels, makeup and a negligee. Dad is horrified at first, but he comes around quickly because this movie is not about dramatic conflict, really, or even plot. It's about this slightly eccentric and very large family and their day to day life. It's really Clifton Webb's show. As the uptight but jovial father, his word is law. His kids are exasperated by him but can't wait for him to get home because he is so much fun. Wife Myrna Loy wears no makeup as per her husband's wishes, but gives him little extra ground where the children are concerned. She loves having a million kids (so does Webb), and one of the prime comedic scenes in the movie arrives when a prim-and-proper early feminist organiser visits their home. This woman is from the local branch of Planned Parenthood (I did not know they existed in 1921), and when Webb calls his brood downstairs, stopwatch in hand, she sees that she has come to the wrong house.
"Cheaper By The Dozen" is all about spending time with this family, the older daughters with their crushes and hopeful desires, the littler kids with their goofy reasoning at "family council meetings" : "Hey Dad, why should I have to wash my hands? They're just gonna get dirty again"!
It's all very 1920s America, when the country was first becoming modern with the inventions of the automobile, the airplane, radio, refrigeration, etc. Clifton Webb wants to be at the forefront of all of this modernization, at least in his professional life, and he is one step ahead of the competition with his well developed techniques for saving time in the manufacturing process. But at home, he is still stuck in the 1890s, and his daughters have to pull him out of that era.
This happens at a local dance for the teenagers (although it must be noted that there was no such thing as "teenagers", officially, until Elvis Presley came along)....but we'll call them teenagers anyway. His two eldest daughters want to attend the high school prom dance. At this point, Webb can't stop them from dressing modern, but he can and does insist on being their chaperone. And wouldn't you know it, because of Hollywood screenwriting, and because Clifton Webb was a versatile star, he winds up being a big hit at the dance with all the schoolgirls, who think he is cute.
In real life, Clifton Webb (born 1889) got his start in showbiz as a ballroom dancer, so the director of the movie made use of his ability in this penultimate scene.
"Cheaper By The Dozen" is a tale of a bygone America that you wish you could revisit, because things were less crude and more genteel.
Now, it turns out that the story of this family is a real one. The father's name was Frank Bunker Gilbreth, he really was an engineer and a motion study experimenter, and he and his wife really did have twelve children. In it's old fashioned way it is an entertaining and enjoyable movie. You can't go wrong with Webb, he is like Bogey (our other recent marathoner) in that regard. Both of those guys are "money" in whatever they do. Ditto Myrna Loy, who was so far ahead of her time in portraying today's woman. She is more traditional in this film, but you can see that she still holds the reins in the family.
"Cheaper By The Dozen" could be described as a light family film with comedic elements, a slice of 1920s America as seen through the lens of this offbeat family.
I am a sucker for films of this nature, so you know I am gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up.
I don't mean to place a downer on things, but America sucks right now - really, really badly! - and we've got to fix it. And the way to fix it is just to return to our roots, of being nice people.
You can see examples of this in so many of the old movies.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Earthquake Memories, A Quarter Century Ago
No movie tonight. Grim came over to hang out, we went on a CSUN walk, but it was rainy and cold so we only made it halfway before heading back to the pad. Just around the corner from my apartment, on Reseda Boulevard there was an NBC news van parked in front of the building where The Meadows used to be. In just a few hours, at 4:31 this morning, it will be twenty five years since we were hit by the Northridge Earthquake.
A quarter century has gone by, can you even believe it?
Three days before on January 14, 1994 - it would have been a Friday evening - it was Chris' 30th birthday. I remember him sitting at a table that night, playing cards with two of his friends. Just a memory that has stuck with me in retrospect. One's 30th is a fairly big deal, and so I remember the guys playing cards...... but who knew what was coming?
Saturday the 15th of January holds no memories, but Sunday the 16th does. My friends and I had a tradition in the early 1990s of playing football on Sunday afternoons. This day, however, only Ryan, John B. and myself showed up at the CSUN front lawn, which is now the location of the Valley Performing Arts Center. The lawn was our football field. Usually, at the very least we had enough friends to play a three-on-three game of touch. On this day, though, we only had three total, so we had to recruit some kids we saw who were riding their bikes nearby. We played a three-on-three with those kids for an hour or so. This would have been sometime between 2 and 4 o'clock. We loved our Sunday football in those days.
There was a weird vibe in the air, though, and later we would remark on it. It was like an ozone smell or an almost imperceptible charge. Just a strange tension, noticeable but not something to remark on until afterward, because the next day that physical tension in the air became a tangible thing.
I remember that after the football game, John B. went home, and Ryan and I walked back to 9032 Rathburn, the house my family and I had lived in since 1970. There's a weird time trip for you. We know how elastic time can be; the quake was 25 years ago but it feels like it was yesterday. But in 1994, the twenty four years that had passed since my family moved into 9032 in 1970 would have seemed like an eternity. Time moves much slower when you are young, of course, so a quarter century between the ages of 10 and 35 feels different than a quarter century between 35 and 60.
But yeah, we had lived at 9032 since June 1970, and over the years it had become the hangout house for all of our friends.
That afternoon, Ryan and I walked back to the house. In January the sun goes down by 5:30 or so. My next memory is of walking with Ryan over to Taco Bell on Nordhoff Street, right next to my beloved Northridge Libe (which I wasn't to frequent until many years later). Ryan was headed home. He had asked me to walk with him to the bus stop at Reseda and Nordhoff, and we stopped at Taco Bell on the way. Perhaps he only bought a drink. I know that we didn't stay there or sit down.
I waited with Ryan for the bus, and then he was gone, on his way home. That was the end of our football afternoon, so I walked back home myself, just a couple of blocks away. By now it was around 6 o'clock in the evening.
My next memory is that Pat came by the house around 9 o'clock. This memory is a big one, because he had an advance copy of the new King's X album "Dogman". KX was the greatest band in the world in those days (check out their first six albums to see why), so a new advance listen, courtesy of Pat who worked at Sony, was a Big Deal.
We went out to the garage of 9032 to listen. At the time, Terry and his girlfriend (now wife) Kelly were living in our garage. Terry had his stereo out there, so we played Pat's record company copy of "Dogman" as loud as we could. Right off the bat it sounded different from their other meticulous releases. Beyond heavy, tuned way down. Determined and driven. On first listen, Pat and Terry didn't care for it. Me, I loved it. Every song sounded incredible (and to this day it is a Top Five All Time Album for me).
We finished our King's X "Dogman" listening party at around 10 pm, and I guess we might have hung out and chatted for an hour or so after that.
My final memory is of watching an old episode of "Dragnet" on TV. I had an old black and white television set up in my bedroom that I had slept in since I was ten years old. It was a small, portable tv, on the floor next to my bed. I have been a late night person since adulthood, and I recall watching Jack Webb bust some criminals or hippies or whomever. I was watching "Dragnet", a rerun on one of the local channels, and then I went to bed. If I remember correctly, I left the tv on, with the sound low. The time was probably around 2am.
One last thing : I got up to go to the bathroom at around 4am, maybe 4:15.
And then a few minutes later, I was back in bed, half asleep, and WHAMMO!!!
It felt like a giant fist was pounding the floor beneath me. There were two sonic booms a split second before the quake hit, and then the sound of a nuclear powered freight train running right through the house. I wound up on the floor of my bedroom, holding on to the foot of my bed with one hand, and pinning the other against my bookcase to keep it from toppling upon me. Framed photographs on the wall flew about the room. Glass broke. Outside my window I saw an electrical drum on a power pole arc and emit blue sparks, then blow out. The house and street went pitch black. The shaking felt like an atomic bomb had gone off, no joke. We were near the epicenter and it was horrendous.
The immediate aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake was chaotic, but soon, with the help of friends and neighbors, we got organized and settled in to our new mode of emergency. FEMA services and the Red Cross were incredible, and we made it though.
For me, the quake and the year 1994 were only the beginning of an odyssey that has lasted to this day, for reasons that have to do with the year 1989. You know a lot about that year, too, because I have reported it to you.
It is important to remember things, I think, and just just to brush the past aside. Many people I have known have taken that approach, and have just breezed past unpleasant events and in some cases have pretended that something unpleasant never happened.
Me, I have remembered everything. And I have written down everything I can remember.
The earthquake changed my life, not only by shaking my house and my town, but by shaking up my spirit, in a manner of speaking.
My soul came alive, and I remembered my life. It took a few years afterwards, but eventually I remembered what had happened to me, and I have never forgotten it. /////
That's all I know for tonight. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
A quarter century has gone by, can you even believe it?
Three days before on January 14, 1994 - it would have been a Friday evening - it was Chris' 30th birthday. I remember him sitting at a table that night, playing cards with two of his friends. Just a memory that has stuck with me in retrospect. One's 30th is a fairly big deal, and so I remember the guys playing cards...... but who knew what was coming?
Saturday the 15th of January holds no memories, but Sunday the 16th does. My friends and I had a tradition in the early 1990s of playing football on Sunday afternoons. This day, however, only Ryan, John B. and myself showed up at the CSUN front lawn, which is now the location of the Valley Performing Arts Center. The lawn was our football field. Usually, at the very least we had enough friends to play a three-on-three game of touch. On this day, though, we only had three total, so we had to recruit some kids we saw who were riding their bikes nearby. We played a three-on-three with those kids for an hour or so. This would have been sometime between 2 and 4 o'clock. We loved our Sunday football in those days.
There was a weird vibe in the air, though, and later we would remark on it. It was like an ozone smell or an almost imperceptible charge. Just a strange tension, noticeable but not something to remark on until afterward, because the next day that physical tension in the air became a tangible thing.
I remember that after the football game, John B. went home, and Ryan and I walked back to 9032 Rathburn, the house my family and I had lived in since 1970. There's a weird time trip for you. We know how elastic time can be; the quake was 25 years ago but it feels like it was yesterday. But in 1994, the twenty four years that had passed since my family moved into 9032 in 1970 would have seemed like an eternity. Time moves much slower when you are young, of course, so a quarter century between the ages of 10 and 35 feels different than a quarter century between 35 and 60.
But yeah, we had lived at 9032 since June 1970, and over the years it had become the hangout house for all of our friends.
That afternoon, Ryan and I walked back to the house. In January the sun goes down by 5:30 or so. My next memory is of walking with Ryan over to Taco Bell on Nordhoff Street, right next to my beloved Northridge Libe (which I wasn't to frequent until many years later). Ryan was headed home. He had asked me to walk with him to the bus stop at Reseda and Nordhoff, and we stopped at Taco Bell on the way. Perhaps he only bought a drink. I know that we didn't stay there or sit down.
I waited with Ryan for the bus, and then he was gone, on his way home. That was the end of our football afternoon, so I walked back home myself, just a couple of blocks away. By now it was around 6 o'clock in the evening.
My next memory is that Pat came by the house around 9 o'clock. This memory is a big one, because he had an advance copy of the new King's X album "Dogman". KX was the greatest band in the world in those days (check out their first six albums to see why), so a new advance listen, courtesy of Pat who worked at Sony, was a Big Deal.
We went out to the garage of 9032 to listen. At the time, Terry and his girlfriend (now wife) Kelly were living in our garage. Terry had his stereo out there, so we played Pat's record company copy of "Dogman" as loud as we could. Right off the bat it sounded different from their other meticulous releases. Beyond heavy, tuned way down. Determined and driven. On first listen, Pat and Terry didn't care for it. Me, I loved it. Every song sounded incredible (and to this day it is a Top Five All Time Album for me).
We finished our King's X "Dogman" listening party at around 10 pm, and I guess we might have hung out and chatted for an hour or so after that.
My final memory is of watching an old episode of "Dragnet" on TV. I had an old black and white television set up in my bedroom that I had slept in since I was ten years old. It was a small, portable tv, on the floor next to my bed. I have been a late night person since adulthood, and I recall watching Jack Webb bust some criminals or hippies or whomever. I was watching "Dragnet", a rerun on one of the local channels, and then I went to bed. If I remember correctly, I left the tv on, with the sound low. The time was probably around 2am.
One last thing : I got up to go to the bathroom at around 4am, maybe 4:15.
And then a few minutes later, I was back in bed, half asleep, and WHAMMO!!!
It felt like a giant fist was pounding the floor beneath me. There were two sonic booms a split second before the quake hit, and then the sound of a nuclear powered freight train running right through the house. I wound up on the floor of my bedroom, holding on to the foot of my bed with one hand, and pinning the other against my bookcase to keep it from toppling upon me. Framed photographs on the wall flew about the room. Glass broke. Outside my window I saw an electrical drum on a power pole arc and emit blue sparks, then blow out. The house and street went pitch black. The shaking felt like an atomic bomb had gone off, no joke. We were near the epicenter and it was horrendous.
The immediate aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake was chaotic, but soon, with the help of friends and neighbors, we got organized and settled in to our new mode of emergency. FEMA services and the Red Cross were incredible, and we made it though.
For me, the quake and the year 1994 were only the beginning of an odyssey that has lasted to this day, for reasons that have to do with the year 1989. You know a lot about that year, too, because I have reported it to you.
It is important to remember things, I think, and just just to brush the past aside. Many people I have known have taken that approach, and have just breezed past unpleasant events and in some cases have pretended that something unpleasant never happened.
Me, I have remembered everything. And I have written down everything I can remember.
The earthquake changed my life, not only by shaking my house and my town, but by shaking up my spirit, in a manner of speaking.
My soul came alive, and I remembered my life. It took a few years afterwards, but eventually I remembered what had happened to me, and I have never forgotten it. /////
That's all I know for tonight. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Elizabeth + Great Pictures + "Woman's World" with Clifton Webb
Elizabeth, I really liked your snow photos today! You can feel the Winter in those pics, just through the texture of the snow and the way it envelops everything, like the old house. In one of the photos there is a walkway or bridge that I think I've seen before, maybe from one of your parks.
Well, I am glad as always to see your photographs. I take it that they were shot sometime in the past (?), because in your comments you are lamenting the lack of current snow. So, I wish you more snow so that you can take more snow pictures..... :):)
I hope you are able to find time for your real life during your working hours and days. Man, it must have been a shock for you to have such a change all of a sudden. I hope you are hanging in there, and as always I urge you to keep your mind focused on your artistry - your music, your photography, your filmmaking. They are separate arts, but all one entity as far as your life path is concerned.
Please keep posting. Don't let anything stop you or get you down. If you stick to your guns you will prevail, and I remind you once again of Your Name that was projected repeatedly for several weeks, less than six months ago, on the giant L.A. Live video screen, as part of Your Film.
Your Name, Your Film. Huge video screen over Staples Center.
Stay focused, 2019 is early yet. ////
This evening I gave The Falcon the night off, and went with another Clifton Webb movie I had reserved at the Libe. We've seen quite a few Webbs by now, almost enough for a Bogey-like mini marathon. The picture was called "Woman's World" (1954), and in it's own way it was kind of unique, or at least unusual, because of the script and subject matter. I guess you could call it an "issues" film, based on current events of the time, and the title gives away a little bit of what the issue was, in this case, the role of a middle class wife in a modernizing American society of the mid-1950s.
Clifton Webb is this time the owner and CEO of an independent automobile manufacturing company. This is pre-General Motors domination, so you still had companies like Studebaker, etc. Webb's company makes expensive, streamlined cars with a futuristic look. He is very successful, though his long time general manager has just passed away. So, he invites his top three regional managers to New York on the premise of a vacation getaway with The Boss, but in reality he will be scrutinizing each of them before choosing one man to become his new general manager. Each man must bring his wife, as wives were evaluated too. In the corporate scheme of things, a wife must fit a certain image in relation to her up-and-coming husband. She must know etiquette, how to entertain at parties, and how to dress for any occasion. She must know what to say and what not to say in polite company.
But it's all a sham, as the older sister of Clifton Webb lets these wives know. The wives only want marital happiness. They are tuned in to their hearts (well, two of them are). They really don't care if their husbands get the Big Promotion or not, and in fact they are rooting against it because it will mean that his job will become his entire life.
So this was quite a message to be delivering in a 1954 script, not anti-corporate America exactly, but certainly a denouncement of corporate ladder climbing ambition being more important than love and marriage.
While big chief Webb is hosting dinner parties and slyly evaluating the three men on his list (Van Heflin, Cornell Wilde and Fred McMurray), he is even more interested in the women, but not for the reason you might think.
One wife, Van Heflin's woman Arlene Dahl, spends the entire time in New York trying to impress Clifton Webb with her "assets". The other wives (Lauren Bacall and June Allyson) are less "forward" and more traditional. Allyson is her usual goofy self, and Bacall is tall, elegant and standoffish as always, but she warms up to the situation. She and Allyson become friends because neither one wants her husband to get the general manager job, because of the stress it entails, and more importantly, because the Company will become more important than the wife and family.
The third wife, statuesque Arlene Dahl, does not care about any of this. She has no children, only cares about her husband as a vehicle, so she tries to seduce Clifton Webb in order to secure Van Heflin the job. The actress Dahl, well suited for the part, portrays this type of bimbo to a tee.
I must leave the plot details here for the time being, while you see the film for yourself.
It's really a woman's lib picture, for it's time, because it shows how these wives (two of them), with their knowledge of the heart and what really matters in life (love and family) are ahead of their husbands, who are already successful in their careers but are still being drawn in by meaningless ambition, when they already have all the material success they will ever need. The wives know what is best, both for their husbands and for their marriages. One husband is on the beam from the start. He will not compromise his life for his job. One wife, as noted, is going the other way. All she cares about is status and materialism. She tries to seduce her way to the top, by fronting for her low-key hubby, but Clifton Webb sees through her, and finally he must make his choice for the new GM of his company.
As I say, it is an unusual story for Hollywood, in that it does not feature much major drama or conflict. The story is all about the pressure that was put on couples in this situation. My own parents faced a similar dilemma in that Dad was expected to attend all the Hollywood functions and parties when he became an executive, and Mom was expected to be The Wife At The Party. And Mom really hated it.
When I was little, I was aware of the difficulty this presented in my parents' marriage. Neither one of my folks could stand the phoneyness of some aspects of Hollywood Show Business, but my Dad went ahead with his ambition because he loved his career, and Hollywood also had it's good aspects and people. But "Woman's World" was about the female perspective in corporate America of the postwar era, and my Mom did not like being a Hollywood wife, and by 1970, she didn't have to be one any longer.
Ambition, based on status and material aspirations, is a naive prospect. That is what "Woman's World" is all about. Though these wives are not the fully liberated women of today, there is something to be said for the film's message of Love and Family First. A message that the women know in their heart because it is the most obvious and important thing.
It has always been my message, too.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Well, I am glad as always to see your photographs. I take it that they were shot sometime in the past (?), because in your comments you are lamenting the lack of current snow. So, I wish you more snow so that you can take more snow pictures..... :):)
I hope you are able to find time for your real life during your working hours and days. Man, it must have been a shock for you to have such a change all of a sudden. I hope you are hanging in there, and as always I urge you to keep your mind focused on your artistry - your music, your photography, your filmmaking. They are separate arts, but all one entity as far as your life path is concerned.
Please keep posting. Don't let anything stop you or get you down. If you stick to your guns you will prevail, and I remind you once again of Your Name that was projected repeatedly for several weeks, less than six months ago, on the giant L.A. Live video screen, as part of Your Film.
Your Name, Your Film. Huge video screen over Staples Center.
Stay focused, 2019 is early yet. ////
This evening I gave The Falcon the night off, and went with another Clifton Webb movie I had reserved at the Libe. We've seen quite a few Webbs by now, almost enough for a Bogey-like mini marathon. The picture was called "Woman's World" (1954), and in it's own way it was kind of unique, or at least unusual, because of the script and subject matter. I guess you could call it an "issues" film, based on current events of the time, and the title gives away a little bit of what the issue was, in this case, the role of a middle class wife in a modernizing American society of the mid-1950s.
Clifton Webb is this time the owner and CEO of an independent automobile manufacturing company. This is pre-General Motors domination, so you still had companies like Studebaker, etc. Webb's company makes expensive, streamlined cars with a futuristic look. He is very successful, though his long time general manager has just passed away. So, he invites his top three regional managers to New York on the premise of a vacation getaway with The Boss, but in reality he will be scrutinizing each of them before choosing one man to become his new general manager. Each man must bring his wife, as wives were evaluated too. In the corporate scheme of things, a wife must fit a certain image in relation to her up-and-coming husband. She must know etiquette, how to entertain at parties, and how to dress for any occasion. She must know what to say and what not to say in polite company.
But it's all a sham, as the older sister of Clifton Webb lets these wives know. The wives only want marital happiness. They are tuned in to their hearts (well, two of them are). They really don't care if their husbands get the Big Promotion or not, and in fact they are rooting against it because it will mean that his job will become his entire life.
So this was quite a message to be delivering in a 1954 script, not anti-corporate America exactly, but certainly a denouncement of corporate ladder climbing ambition being more important than love and marriage.
While big chief Webb is hosting dinner parties and slyly evaluating the three men on his list (Van Heflin, Cornell Wilde and Fred McMurray), he is even more interested in the women, but not for the reason you might think.
One wife, Van Heflin's woman Arlene Dahl, spends the entire time in New York trying to impress Clifton Webb with her "assets". The other wives (Lauren Bacall and June Allyson) are less "forward" and more traditional. Allyson is her usual goofy self, and Bacall is tall, elegant and standoffish as always, but she warms up to the situation. She and Allyson become friends because neither one wants her husband to get the general manager job, because of the stress it entails, and more importantly, because the Company will become more important than the wife and family.
The third wife, statuesque Arlene Dahl, does not care about any of this. She has no children, only cares about her husband as a vehicle, so she tries to seduce Clifton Webb in order to secure Van Heflin the job. The actress Dahl, well suited for the part, portrays this type of bimbo to a tee.
I must leave the plot details here for the time being, while you see the film for yourself.
It's really a woman's lib picture, for it's time, because it shows how these wives (two of them), with their knowledge of the heart and what really matters in life (love and family) are ahead of their husbands, who are already successful in their careers but are still being drawn in by meaningless ambition, when they already have all the material success they will ever need. The wives know what is best, both for their husbands and for their marriages. One husband is on the beam from the start. He will not compromise his life for his job. One wife, as noted, is going the other way. All she cares about is status and materialism. She tries to seduce her way to the top, by fronting for her low-key hubby, but Clifton Webb sees through her, and finally he must make his choice for the new GM of his company.
As I say, it is an unusual story for Hollywood, in that it does not feature much major drama or conflict. The story is all about the pressure that was put on couples in this situation. My own parents faced a similar dilemma in that Dad was expected to attend all the Hollywood functions and parties when he became an executive, and Mom was expected to be The Wife At The Party. And Mom really hated it.
When I was little, I was aware of the difficulty this presented in my parents' marriage. Neither one of my folks could stand the phoneyness of some aspects of Hollywood Show Business, but my Dad went ahead with his ambition because he loved his career, and Hollywood also had it's good aspects and people. But "Woman's World" was about the female perspective in corporate America of the postwar era, and my Mom did not like being a Hollywood wife, and by 1970, she didn't have to be one any longer.
Ambition, based on status and material aspirations, is a naive prospect. That is what "Woman's World" is all about. Though these wives are not the fully liberated women of today, there is something to be said for the film's message of Love and Family First. A message that the women know in their heart because it is the most obvious and important thing.
It has always been my message, too.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
"The Falcon In Hollywood" with Tom Conway + 1940s Cool
I went with Tom Conway again tonight, in "The Falcon In Hollywood" (1944). This picture was made in the same year as last night's "The Falcon Out West", which took place almost entirely in Chatsworth, so maybe when The Falcon finished his Western caper, he took a taxi to Hollywood and the film crew followed.
The movie opens at Hollywood Park, the Inglewood horse racing track (actually fifteen miles from Hollywood), where The Falcon is approached by a well dressed damsel who asks him for betting advice. He obliges, but she seems to have an ulterior motive, because when his lady friend arrives to sit with him, the damsel does a quick switcheroo with their purses (which just so happen to be identical). She absconds with the girl's purse, and Conway is forced to leave the racetrack to chase the woman down.
In a "Thin Man" movie, or an equivalent big budget mystery, this would be a plot point. Here, it is just a red herring, a device to get Conway into a taxi (just as I predicted above) that will take him on a chase to Hollywood, where he will track the purse thief down to a movie studio.
So, to recap : the scenes at Hollywood Park serve only to get The Falcon to Hollywood. The purse snatching is of no consequence thereafter. Conway's ride in the taxi is of consequence, though, because the gal who is driving doubles as a stunt driver for the movies. Conway sure can pick 'em. This blonde wisecracker not only takes him on a white knuckle ride to the studio where the purse thief has pulled in, but she chooses him for an Instant Boyfriend. Played by an actress named Veda Ann Borg, the Taxi Driver steals every scene she is in. She knows the ropes in Hollywood, and gets Conway past the security guard at "Sunset Studios" where she sometimes works.
Now he is inside a real live Hollywood Movie Studio, with his Taxi Girl sidekick in tow. She is a mile-a-minute type of gal, one with all the answers, and the jokes. Having recovered the stolen purse from the woman at the racetrack (Barbara Hale), who just so happens to also be an actress working at the studio, Conway and Borg discover a dead body as they wander through a nearby sound stage.
This sets the plot in motion (such as it is), and you have to be an attentive listener to keep up. The mystery is only half the fun, however. The other half is the locations (last night in rural Chatsworth and tonight on Hollywood Boulevard in 1944), and the charisma of Tom Conway and his B-Girls, all of whom seem to me to have been capable of working in A-List pictures, especially Barbara Hale.
These short 65 minute movies are all about 1940s persona. The high heeled rapid fire women and the laid back but highly focused Falcon, handsome in his pin-striped suit.
It makes you wish you had lived in the 1940s, which is why I watch so many movies from that era.
Of course, I love all decades........well, maybe not so much the current one......but you know what I mean.
I must make a quick correction to a detail in last night's post. Concerning Tom Conway and his brother George Sanders, I wrote that they were "Russian boys who grew up in England" and then became stars in Hollywood, and I had the first two facts mixed up. They were actually English boys who grew up in Russia, and then became stars in Hollywood. So there is the correction, in the name of accuracy.
I always IMDB the movies I watch, because I love the actors and want to know their history, and I am often saddened to discover that many of them did not live long lives. So many actors and actresses from the 1940s ended up dying relatively young, in their 50s and 60s. Some even in their 40s. I guess this was from rampant smoking and drinking, which is seen and promoted in many films of the era.
You don't see nearly as many people smoking nowdays, and the phenomenon known as "chain smoking" seems almost to be a thing of the past. Does anyone smoke three packs a day anymore? I hope not. I mean, I am not anti-cigarette because my Mom smoked and she enjoyed it, but my point is that, in the 40s and 50s you see people in the movies smoking and smoking. And in those days, "chain smoking" was common. My parents knew Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame, and Mom said he would have five cigarettes going at the same time in five different ashtrays.
I only mention all of this because of IMDBing actors and actresses and discovering that so many of them died young. Read about Humphrey Bogart, who - for all his fame and stardom - had a hard life, healthwise. Tom Conway only lived to be 62 himself.
Sorry to be grim, but the bigger point is the enjoyment these artists provided with their tireless creative work. I love the Movie Stars and I feel that they are like an extended family to me. They make me happy with their films that I like, and so in that way, because I am just one of millions of fans, they succeeded enormously.
Hooray for Hollywood. /////
Rain all day today, supposed to rain through Thursday. Reading books, working on a drawing.
See you in the morning, hope you had a good day.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The movie opens at Hollywood Park, the Inglewood horse racing track (actually fifteen miles from Hollywood), where The Falcon is approached by a well dressed damsel who asks him for betting advice. He obliges, but she seems to have an ulterior motive, because when his lady friend arrives to sit with him, the damsel does a quick switcheroo with their purses (which just so happen to be identical). She absconds with the girl's purse, and Conway is forced to leave the racetrack to chase the woman down.
In a "Thin Man" movie, or an equivalent big budget mystery, this would be a plot point. Here, it is just a red herring, a device to get Conway into a taxi (just as I predicted above) that will take him on a chase to Hollywood, where he will track the purse thief down to a movie studio.
So, to recap : the scenes at Hollywood Park serve only to get The Falcon to Hollywood. The purse snatching is of no consequence thereafter. Conway's ride in the taxi is of consequence, though, because the gal who is driving doubles as a stunt driver for the movies. Conway sure can pick 'em. This blonde wisecracker not only takes him on a white knuckle ride to the studio where the purse thief has pulled in, but she chooses him for an Instant Boyfriend. Played by an actress named Veda Ann Borg, the Taxi Driver steals every scene she is in. She knows the ropes in Hollywood, and gets Conway past the security guard at "Sunset Studios" where she sometimes works.
Now he is inside a real live Hollywood Movie Studio, with his Taxi Girl sidekick in tow. She is a mile-a-minute type of gal, one with all the answers, and the jokes. Having recovered the stolen purse from the woman at the racetrack (Barbara Hale), who just so happens to also be an actress working at the studio, Conway and Borg discover a dead body as they wander through a nearby sound stage.
This sets the plot in motion (such as it is), and you have to be an attentive listener to keep up. The mystery is only half the fun, however. The other half is the locations (last night in rural Chatsworth and tonight on Hollywood Boulevard in 1944), and the charisma of Tom Conway and his B-Girls, all of whom seem to me to have been capable of working in A-List pictures, especially Barbara Hale.
These short 65 minute movies are all about 1940s persona. The high heeled rapid fire women and the laid back but highly focused Falcon, handsome in his pin-striped suit.
It makes you wish you had lived in the 1940s, which is why I watch so many movies from that era.
Of course, I love all decades........well, maybe not so much the current one......but you know what I mean.
I must make a quick correction to a detail in last night's post. Concerning Tom Conway and his brother George Sanders, I wrote that they were "Russian boys who grew up in England" and then became stars in Hollywood, and I had the first two facts mixed up. They were actually English boys who grew up in Russia, and then became stars in Hollywood. So there is the correction, in the name of accuracy.
I always IMDB the movies I watch, because I love the actors and want to know their history, and I am often saddened to discover that many of them did not live long lives. So many actors and actresses from the 1940s ended up dying relatively young, in their 50s and 60s. Some even in their 40s. I guess this was from rampant smoking and drinking, which is seen and promoted in many films of the era.
You don't see nearly as many people smoking nowdays, and the phenomenon known as "chain smoking" seems almost to be a thing of the past. Does anyone smoke three packs a day anymore? I hope not. I mean, I am not anti-cigarette because my Mom smoked and she enjoyed it, but my point is that, in the 40s and 50s you see people in the movies smoking and smoking. And in those days, "chain smoking" was common. My parents knew Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame, and Mom said he would have five cigarettes going at the same time in five different ashtrays.
I only mention all of this because of IMDBing actors and actresses and discovering that so many of them died young. Read about Humphrey Bogart, who - for all his fame and stardom - had a hard life, healthwise. Tom Conway only lived to be 62 himself.
Sorry to be grim, but the bigger point is the enjoyment these artists provided with their tireless creative work. I love the Movie Stars and I feel that they are like an extended family to me. They make me happy with their films that I like, and so in that way, because I am just one of millions of fans, they succeeded enormously.
Hooray for Hollywood. /////
Rain all day today, supposed to rain through Thursday. Reading books, working on a drawing.
See you in the morning, hope you had a good day.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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