"Life Between Takes"

Right now I'm reading a great book, Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes. I've long thought that she was an underrated and underappreciated star, and it's great to see a full-length book about her. It was written with the participation of her children, Ellen and Norman Powell, so it's full of all kinds of wonderful personal details. I highly recommend it.

Check out the banner!

Is that awesome, or what? Thanks to Harry's Beef Trust for the banner.

Aw, yeah!

By a lucky accident, I have discovered the following new/about to be released DVD sets:

The Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection

The Myrna Loy & William Powell Collection

Barbara Stanwyck Signature Collection

I don't know what to say, except...I'm just so happy! I have to do serious Amazon browsing more often.

Go vote! Now, right now! Now!

Turner Classic Movies does an ongoing poll of the most requested classic movies not currently on DVD. Go vote for your favorites now. Way to go, Ted Turner. This is an awesome idea.

Boys Town

I usually don't cry at movies. Sure, I'm moved by them, and tears will often come to my eyes. I can count on one hand the number of movies that have actually turned on the waterworks. Today I saw another one: Boys Town, the 1938 classic with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Oh, man. When Mickey started bawling after Pee-Wee was run over by the car...the tears began to fall. Actually, every time Mickey started bawling, I shed a few sympathy tears myself. Way to act, kiddo.

The story in and of itself is great, not in small part because it's true. Boys Town (now known as Girls and Boys Town) is still in operation today. The real Father Flanagan is buried in the school chapel. A very moving story. This DVD is going on the Amazon wish list, for sure.

Happy Birthday to me, and this blog

It was two years ago this month that I started this blog. That's a lot of Netflix and TCM ago. ;) Time got away from me, hence the lack of posts last year. I'm going to do better this year.

My birthday last month was a classic movie bonanza. Thanks, family! Here's a rundown of the loot:

Yankee Doodle Dandy (we're going to have a lengthy Cagney entry, if I ever get it done)
Lullaby Of Broadway: The Best Of Busby Berkeley At Warner Bros.: Motion Picture Soundtrack Anthology

I also bought myself the Yankee Doodle soundtrack, and Cagney's autobiography. Sensing a theme, here?

Classic film website

I just discovered this site today, and I'm in love with it already: Ravin' Maven of Classic Film. Check out the awesome "If I Had A Talking Picture of You."

Also well worth watching: an excerpt from James Cagney's AFI Lifetime Achievement acceptance speech. "I'm a wreck!" Hee.

I have a sneaking suspicion this great site also sells bootlegs, though. Boo! On the other hand, I would love to see some of these movies...no, no, I'll resist temptation.

"You've got the cutest little...holy crap!"

"Babyface." This is the movie I'm currently mini-obsessed with. I got the Turner Classic Movies "Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 1" DVD set for Christmas (thanks, Dad!) and I watched all three movies within a few days.

"Waterloo Bridge" kind of grew on me; I liked it well enough from the beginning, although I wasn't wowed by it. "Red Headed Woman" was very good. I had never seen Chester Morris before, and I liked him right away. I can see why the movie was shocking in its time (and helped promote the wrath of the censors) and it's even kind of shocking today, in some ways. In one scene, Morris slaps Jean Harlow across the face, and she gasps, "Do it again! I like it! Do it again!" Yeah...I don't think you'd see that, even today. And the cuts between Una Merkel (she's always funny) and Harlow as Una sheds Jean's pajamas to give them back to her...very well done; racy without being at all explicit. Ah, being subtle is a lost art in today's films, what with boobs and butts flying out all over the place.

But "Babyface"...that took the cake. Ted Turner, bless his heart, put both versions on the DVD set: the theatrical release, and the pre-cut version. One is shocking enough; the other blows right off the chart. TCM's review of the movie talks about the differences between the two here. When they say the cuts change the whole tone of the film, they're not kidding. The character of Adolf Cragg does a complete 180, from a "Nietzsche-quoting local cobbler" to a "spokesman of morality." His scenes with Barbara Stanwyck make a lot more sense in the original form; when he's being all preachy to her, you wonder why she's agreeing with him, because she obviously has other (less savory) ideas. In his original form, Cragg and Lily are of the same mind, and so her attitude feels much more natural. I watched the theatrical version first, then the pre-cut. I found the pre-cut version superior. I've watched it a couple times since then, and it just gets better. I don't think they'd remake this movie even today; at least not with the same level of cynicism. Which is sort a shame, and yet a good thing, because no remake could top the original.

TCM ends their review by saying, "In all, this is an excellent, entertaining movie, and comparing the two versions is tremendously interesting. This DVD is one of the most notable of 2006 and belongs on every collector's shelf." I couldn't agree more.

P.S. I'm slowing going back and adding tags to my previous posts. Thanks for the nifty feature, Google.

Golllllllllllllld Diiiiiiiiiiiggerrrrrrrrrrr

That's what happens when you watch "Goldfinger" immediately following "Gold Diggers of 1937." You keep singing the GF theme, but with the word digger instead of finger (yes, I am insane).

It's been so long since I posted, I had no idea Blogger had merged with Google. Oops.

Anyhow, I had recorded Gold Diggers on DVR, so I watched that last night. I love Dick Powell and Joan Blondell together, and this movie had the added bonus of no Ruby Keeler (not that I hate her...but I don't like her a lot, either). After seeing this one, though, I can see why they stopped with 1937. The plot is boring (when a movie opens with a song about insurance salesman, you know you're in for a slow ride), and you wait waaaaay too long for the Busby Berkeley musical number, which, face it, is pretty much the main reason to watch a movie like this anyway. (Well, the first GD is pretty funny, what with Aline MacMahon ("Oh, Fanny!") and Guy Kibbee; plus, you get a musical number right off the bat, and a famous one, at that: "We're In The Money.") One bright spot was Victor Moore as JJ Hobart; he was a total hoot. He along with Glenda Farrell have just been added to my Find A Grave What A Character! virtual cemetery.

After that Dad and I were channel surfing, and we came across Goldfinger, about half way through, so we watched that until the end. I've seen it a bunch of times, but never all the way through at once. I think it's my favorite Bond movie by default; it's the one I've seen the most times. Plus, I like Goldfinger. He's evil, but he has style. ;)

Gable vs. Gable

I received my Gable box set right on time, and I've been working my way through the movies since then. Some of them I had already seen: Dancing Lady, China Seas, and Wife vs. Secretary (now I can sell my VHS tapes on eBay). The other weekend was an action double feature with Boom Town and San Francisco. Last night was Mogambo, which of course I had to compare with its previos incarnation, Red Dust.

Mary Astor vs. Grace Kelly? Eh, I could take or leave either of them. Grace was a little too uptightly British, I thought. Mary Astor did the shooting scene better. It was easier to believe her outraged emotions. Grace just screamed and twirled around and hid her face in her hands in a cliched bit of overacting.

Jean Harlow vs. Ava Gardner? This one was closer, but I'm going to have to give it to Jean here, because I just adore her. Her character, as a prostitute, was tougher and in a way, more interesting, and therefore more of a contrast to the other woman (Grace/Mary) than Ava's society lady character was.

Gene Raymond vs. Donald Sinden? I guess we'll call this one a tie. I like Gene as an actor better mainly due to his role in Sadie McKee, but Donald did a good job as the husband. He seemed alittle less clueless than Gene Raymond sometimes. But only a little.

Philip Stainton was quite likeable as Gable's sidekick, Brownie. I don't remember the equivalent character in Red Dust, if there even was one (it's been a few years since I saw it) so Stainton wins by default. He was jolly and fun but also serious about his job and the dangers of the jungle.

As far as the love story goes, I'm about even with both versions of Gable pining away after the saintly English wife. Even though I prefer Harlow to Gardner, I did like Gable's relationship with the latter better. There seemed to be more fondness between the two. In RD I got the impression Gable thought of Harlow as little more than a warm body. He's so mean to her sometimes, you wonder how she can go on loving him. There was more genuine liking and tenderness between Gable and Gardner.

As it stands, the box set is an excellent one. I stand by my earlier thought that I would have substituted one of the Gable action movies with Spencer Tracy for the great gangster film Manhattan Melodrama. Since Jeanette MacDonald doesn't do much for me, I would have pulled San Francisco for MM.

So many of Jean Harlow's movies have now been released on DVD on their own and as part of other people's box sets, that there aren't a whole lot left (she only made 41, and that's generously including the bit parts) for a "signature collection" set of her own (and she absolutely should have one). Here's what I would include in her set:

Bombshell
The Girl From Missouri
Hold Your Man
Red-Headed Woman
Reckless (well, maybe not; not such a great film)
Suzy (I'm kind of lukewarm about this one; her undying love for cad Cary Grant kind of annoyed me)

A lot of her other movies I have never seen, so I can't really say for sure which ones I would include. Additional options include:

Saratoga
Personal Property
Riffraff

I'm only counting movies that aren't on DVD already (and there's more than I thought). Of course some could be rereleased, like they did with Mildred Pierce when they made the Joan Crawford box set.

Again I ask: Ted Turner, are you listening? ;)