For Memorial Day

In honor of the holiday, I thought I'd list some of my favorite classic war movies. I haven't been watching many movies lately, hence the lack of updates, so this will have to do.

• Objective, Burma!
• Destination Tokyo
• Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
• They Were Expendable
• Blood On The Sun
• 13 Rue Madeleine
• Mister Roberts
• Run Silent, Run Deep
• The Gallant Hours
• Europa, Europa
• Der Untergang (The Downfall)
• Sophie Scholl - Die Letzten Tage (The Final Days)
• The Fighting 69th
• Captains of the Clouds
• The Dawn Patrol
• Dive Bomber
• You, John Jones! (one reel short)

On an unrelated note, I'd also like to salute my family members who have served in the armed forces: Charles Kissinger, Jack Lehr, Richard Burroughs, Harry Maurer, and Buddy Sarvis.

IMDB's Top 10!

As I noted once before, IMDB numbers each star as part of the URL, and #1 is Mr. Fred Astaire. I was curious to see who the "top 10" would be.

1. Fred Astaire
2. Lauren Bacall
3. Brigitte Bardot
4. John Belushi (toga! toga! toga!)
5. Ingmar Bergman
6. Ingrid Bergman
7. Humphrey Bogart
8. Marlon Brando
9. Richard Burton
10. James Cagney (I was just thinking, he must be in the top 10)

I'm surprised. I never would have expected Belushi to be in the top 10. I assumed they'd start with all the "classic" stars first. I wonder how they came up with the "pecking order" in the first place.

A sensible review...

...of Gone With the Wind. I came across this on Amazon today and thought it made some good points.

Movie Poster Art

I love movie posters from the 1930's. They have a style, half photographic and half painted, that visually appeals to me. I have been tempted to buy certain posters, even when I think the movie is only so-so, just because I love the artwork. Some examples:

One of my favorite Harlow posters. Not my favorite Harlow movie.

My all time favorite Crawford poster. I thought the movie was blah. Look at that hair! And I like the script at the top.

I love the look of her face, although not the skin tone.

I love the poster and the movie in this case. Ann Sheridan is just beautiful.

A little over the top, but still gorgeous.

I just like the yellow, and the heads of the cast members.

Snow day = movie day!

What with all the snow and layers of ice that decorated the world this morning, I chickened out and stayed home, which translated into vegging in front of the TV, watching the last of my Christmas DVDs. It was a lovely day.

Hellooooooo, ladies!

First up was San Antonio, the case for which notes, "Despite his Tasmanian roots and elegant British accent, Flynn made an ideal all-American cowboy. With his steely gaze, lean frame, and understated humor, he tamed the West in eight thrilling sagebrush sagas." Amen to that. He is a wonderful cowboy, basically because he is a wonderful anything. Pirate, pilot, boxer, George Armstrong Custer, I don't care, as long as he smiles that smile at me. Yum.

I worked my way through my Flynn Westerns box set this weekend, also viewing Montana, Rocky Mountain, and Virginia City. Flynn's sidekick in two of these films was S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall, and I'm of two minds about that. On the one hand, "Cuddles" is absolutely adorable in everything he does, which usually includes a lot of bumbling (and how awesome is it that he always had his nickname in the credits?). On the other hand, there's few things more out of place in a Western than a chubby guy with a thick Hungarian accent. Alan Hale is my preferred Flynn buddy, but Sakall turned out to be an acceptable, if somewhat unsuitable, substitute. My all time favorite Flynn western, though, is Dodge City.

I also polished off the last of my Warners Gangsters Vol. 4 set with Invisible Stripes, and Kid Galahad. We'll talk about those next time.

Snuggly blankets and hot chocolate in front of a cozy fire

That's what the Andy Hardy movies are to me. When TCM shows them, they usually do a chunk of them in a row in one day. I think I've seen most of them now, the most recent block being shown over Christmas, which was the perfect time for them, what with the gooey family feelings and all.

They are, of course, a completely unrealistic picture of family life -- even more so now than when they were made. And yet, I love them, and watching them is so relaxing. For one thing, you always know what to expect -- Andy falls for girl, gets in some kind of (totally harmless) trouble, has man-to-man talk with Dad -- and yet the details of the story are different each time, so there's a combination of old and new which keeps my interest.

Even as the feminist in me kind of recoils from Mother Hardy's obvious belief that she's just a mere woman who can't even balance her checkbook, there is something comforting in watching her fuss over the children or bustle around in the kitchen -- and what dinners she makes! And the men always come to the table in coats and ties! It's hard to believe that people actually lived that way, although my dad tells stories of the days when men walked the boardwalk at the Jersey shores in coats and ties and hats, the women in dresses and pantyhose and gloves. There is a style about it (and classic films in general, from the manners to the decor) that seems so quaint today, but it's a style I enjoy.

My current box set dream is an Andy Hardy box set...and my birthday is next month, Ted Turner! Hear my cries! For your benefit, here's a list of the films (and in checking IMDB to create the list, I notice Mickey Rooney currently has 323 movies to his name...wow!):

• A Family Affair (Lionel Barrymore was the original Judge Hardy, but I like Lewis Stone much better)
• You're Only Young Once
• Judge Hardy's Children
• Love Finds Andy Hardy
• Out West with the Hardys
• The Hardys Ride High
• Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever
• Judge Hardy and Son
• Andy Hardy Meets Debutante
• Andy Hardy's Private Secretary
• Life Begins for Andy Hardy
• The Courtship of Andy Hardy
• Andy Hardy's Double Life
• Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble
• Love Laughs at Andy Hardy
• Andy Hardy Comes Home

Hmm. Maybe I haven't seen most of them after all.

Portraits of Hollywood's Golden Age

A nifty Newsweek photo gallery I discovered today. Say what you will about Joan Crawford, she could take am amazing picture (#5), and that's not even my favorite of her. The James Cagney picture (#8) is great, a wonderful example of what they did with light and shadow back then. The Hitchcock one (#14) is just plain funny.

Driven into exile by the Nazis, they changed Hollywood forever

I saw an excellent documentary over the weekend, Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood. The film documents the experiences of some well known (Fritz Lang, Peter Lorre) and less well known (Erich Pommer, Joseph Mai) Jews from Germany's film industry who escaped Hitler's Germany and wound up in Hollywood, with varying degress of success. Some of the history I knew, but most I didn't, and the documentary as a whole was fascinating.

Ah, bio pics!

How I love a good one from the 1930s. And there were so many interesting ones back then. Who cares if they played a little (okay, a lot) loose with the facts? If I want facts, I'll read a book! ;) When I watch a movie, I want to be entertained. And I certainly was by the movie I saw today, a bio pic of Florence Nightingale called The White Angel.

Robert Osbourne felt it necessary in one of his introductions to point out that Kay was known as "the Wavishing Kay Fwancis" around the studio due to her speech impediment. To be honest, I didn't notice it until he pointed out (introducing Mandalay), and then during that film all I could do was listen for it. I didn't think it was as bad as he makes it out, although it's definitely there. However, during The White Angel, I never once thought about it, in main part due to the great story and Kay's acting. I thought the story was well told without being overbearing, as old movies can sometimes be.

Last month was Kay Francis month on TCM, and as a result I've been watching a lot of her movies lately. I think I've found my new favorite pre-Code actress (formerly Barbara Stanwyck); I think Kay's films from the early 30s are some of the best examples of pre-Code. She's a doctor! In more than one movie! You didn't see that very often. Of course she's also lovely to look at and dressed beautifully, but I enjoyed her performances for more than that. I'll be doing a few more entries on her in the near future, I think. Her other films I've seen lately include:

Dr. Monica
Mary Stevens, M.D.
Jewel Robbery (with William Powell, yay!)
Confession
Another Dawn (with Errol Flynn, yum)
Guilty Hands
Mandalay

Do I see another box set request on the horizon? I think I do, Ted Turner! (You can leave out Guilty Hands, though. That was kind of meh. Lionel Barrymore sure can chew some scenery, though.)

Smell that? It's "The Women"

Thank you, Radar Online, for this handy summary of bad reviews. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(I don't think I've felt this strongly about a movie since Blues Brothers 2000, or as I like to call it, That Sound You Hear Is John Belushi Spinning In His Grave.)