Classic Movie Mania

Dancing Lady -Was She Really?

Posted on May 17th, 2007 by Flick Chick.
Categories: Motion Picture Stars.

The 1933 movie Dancing Lady was tough watching.  I stayed with it because it was Fred Astaire’s first film and I noticed that Nelson Eddy had a small part.  The stars of the film were Joan Crawford and Clark Gable.  Watching Joan Crawford dance was almost embarrassing as she seemed awkward and graceless.  In this production Crawford escapes performing in burlesque through the efforts of a rich playboy played by Franchot Tone.  Clark Gable gives a satisfactory performance as the tough director of the uptown stage production.  Joan manages to secure a role through an introduction by Franchot Tone.  The film is more of a curiosity because of the other performers.  At the beginning there is a brief glimpseof a blonde Eve Arden.  The Three Stooges have roles and there is a song done by Nelson Eddy.  It was hard to believe that the costumes Miss Crawford wore were designed by Adrian.  In two of her major numbers she seemed to be drowning in ostrich feathers.  The choreography lacked imagination and looked like it had been done by a Busby Berkeley wannabe.  Although the movie as a whole was pretty boring, the early days of some major performers made watching it worthwhile.

             Joan Crawford and Fred Astaire in Dancing Lady

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Night People - A Cold War Movie

Posted on May 3rd, 2007 by Flick Chick.
Categories: history of movies, Memories.

A movie that doesn’t make the television scene very often is Night People.  It takes place during the Allied occupation of Berlin which took place from 1945 to 1990.  Today we are more worried about terrorists than Communists, but before the fall of the Berlin Wall it was a major concern.  This movie was made in West Berlin.  I still remember the anxiety I felt as we went through Check Point Charlie to enter into a Communist city.   I went into East Berlin from West Berlin in 1973.  There was a fearful feeling in East Berlin compared to the carefree spirit in West Berlin.  During my travels in Europe I had never been scrutinized as closely as I was when I went into East Berlin.  This movie portrays the grimness of life there.

                                                                                                       Gregory Peck

  The picture shows the efforts of Gregory Peck, as Colonel Steve Van Dyke to recover a young GI that has been abducted by the East Germans.  His efforts at the start are hampered by the boy’s father who is a wealthy industralist.  The film depicts the difficulty of negotiating with the East Germans.  A fascinating scene in the movie was the moving elevator that Buddy Ebsen kept getting the run around on.  It looked like a revolving dumb waiter.    The shot of Check Point Charie in the film brought back the anxiety that I felt on entering the East from the West.    Several people had been shot a week earlier trying to escape from East Berlin into West Berlin.  Despite my fears,  I desperately wanted to visit the Pergamun Museum and I especially wanted to see the Ishtar Gate.   The trip was worthwhile even though it was a little nerve racking being in a totalitarian city.   

The reconstructed Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin - 604-562 B.C.

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Rita Hayworth - Trials and Triumphs

Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Flick Chick.
Categories: Motion Picture Stars.

After watching a series of movies with Rita Hayworth, I became fascinated with the length and variety of her career.  In her early years of making movies she paid her dues by being in a series of “B” movies and finally hit the big time as a major star after playing in Only Angels Have Wings with Cary Grant.  After that she was in Strawberry Blonde with James Cagney followed  by films where she co-starred with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and other major stars.  She is best remembered for her role in Gilda with Glenn Ford.   In a classic example of film noir, her dancing and singing of put the “Blame on Mame Boys” gave her the title of “love goddess.”  In later years when I saw Marilyn Monroe sing and dance “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” I couldn’t help but notice that the dress she wore and her dance seemed reminiscent of Rita’s dress and her rendition of “Put The Blame on Mame.”

Rita as Gilda              Rita and Glenn Ford in Lady in Question 

Of her five marriages, her two most prominent husbands were Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan.  Rita made the comment that men fell in love with Gilda and wakened with her.  I was startled to read in David Thomson’s book that Rita was a cousin of Ginger Rogers.  I had never seen that in print any place else.  In the Wickipeda I discovered that they were not related by blood but that they did share an aunt and uncle in common by marriage.  After her marriage to Aly Khan ended she returned to movies after a three year absence.  Colombia decided to star her in Affair In Trinidad, again with Glenn Ford.  The picture according to Robert Osborne (TCM host) was very similar to the plot of Notorious.  After watching the movie I agree.  There were a lot of parallels in the Rita Hayworth character and the woman played by Ingrid Bergman .  The dancing in Affair in Trinidad was certaianly the old Rita Hayworth, but the magnetic performance she gave in Gilda had lost its luster.  Six years earlier Rita and Glenn shared their first role together in The Lady in Question.  She and Glenn were very young, and while they were not the dynamic actors they would become in Gilda, they did give a youthful and poignant performance.  The Money Trap was shown after The Lady in Question.  It was a real contrast as both actors had lost their earlier vitality.  Rita’s later films never attained the stature of her prior movies and eventually she had to give up her career due to alcoholism and Alzheimer’s disease.  Her daughter Princess Yasmin took care of her until her death.  Even though the end of her life was sad, you can still see her light up the screen with most of the major leading men of her day such as Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemon, Stewart Granger, Frank Sinatra, Rex Harrison, Burt Lancaster, Gary Cooper and even John Wayne.

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From Gone With The Wind to Superman

Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Flick Chick.
Categories: history of movies.

After watching a documentary on George Reeves, I became aware that he played Brent Tarleton, one of the twins in Gone With The Wind.  I became interested in learning more about him.  It seemed such a leap from starting out in GWTW to ending up on a television program of Superman.  He apparently started his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse along with Victor Mature and Robert Preston.  Getting a part in GWTW must have been a heady experience for a young actor.  William Pratt related in his book Scarlet Fever that the opening scene with the twins and Vivien Leigh was shot five different times before it was acceptable.  He added to his movie experience in some Hopalong Cassidy films with Robert Mitchum.  His big break came when he was cast with Claudette Colbert in So Proudly We Hail in 1942.  After the film he went into the service and when he returned the movie roles had dried up due to the return of major stars that had been in the service.  Television at that time was considered a lowly place for actors but he took the role of Superman.

Tarleton Twins               As Superman

I watched the movie Hollywoodland which was about the life of George Reeves.  Although it received fairly good reviews from the critics, I found the story being told by the investigator (played by Adrien Brody) to flashbacks of Reeves’ life (played by Ben Affleck) distracting.  I found the referrals to the investigator’s private life somewhat tedious and it did not add to the picture about Reeves.  It would appear that George Reeves in spite of his fortunate beginnings, couldn’t face the difficulties of a struggling actor and allowed himself to be supporte by a married woman and did a lot of extensive partying and drinking.  He apparently felt that Superman was a loss of status, but didn’t do anything positive to change his circumstances.  There were circumstances about his death that has made it unclear as to whether or not he was murdered or killed himself.

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George Melies- Lucky Accident or Brilliant Inventor

Posted on March 30th, 2007 by Flick Chick.
Categories: history of movies.

 As this is my first attempt to write a blog I decided on old movies as this is an area I am somewhat knowledgeable about.  I can’t promise that I won’t stray into current movies from time to time.  As a start I want to acknowledge George Melies.  He was a popular illusionist and became intrigued with movie cameras just prior to the 1900s.  He set about filming anything that moved.  While he was filming his camera kept jamming.  When he went to project the film on a screen he discovered that because of the camera difficulties he had scenes where a truck would turn into a hearse.   He immediately realized the possibilities that could be achieved with the movie camera.   Within a few years Melies invented double exposure, stop motion, fast and slow motion, animation, fades, dissolves, almost all the film effects that were in use up until computer graphics came into being.  

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