The Silver Screen Oasis

Here are a whole bunch that I love (rendered in no particular order): 1. Night and Day—Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. For me, the apotheosis of romance 2. The Jumpin’ Jive—The Nicholas Brothers in Stormy Weather. Unbelievable 3. Over the Rainbow—Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz is my version of cho...

I don't know much about Buster Crabbe, but my guess is that women went for the sort of rough, he-man quality that Gable immediately showed. Never the biggest Gable fan, I always thought that I didn't tend to like that quality, myself. But I remember reading an excellent essay once in which the write...

You'll sometimes see this with photographs, too. Isn't there a sequence in On Golden Pond in which Jane Fonda (or someone) is viewing old photos of her parents in the movie, and you see a young Kate Hepburn and a young Hank Fonda together, thanks to photo retouching (no Photoshop, then!). I know tha...

What an utterly terrific writeup, Jack. I agree completely that there is a magical quality to this movie. Someone here said there was real rapport among the three pals who "Make Way for Tomorrow," and that it shows--I certainly agree with that, too. I haven't seen Cover Girl for a while, but I can n...

Watching this movie this morning, I was positively astounded at Gene Kelly's acrobatic athleticism. It was obvious he did most of his own stunts, and there were things he did that I hadn't realized he could do! On the whole, although I thought most of the acting OTT, The Three Musketeers was great f...

My husband and I are hoping to live long enough to see everything in our collection. : )

I've always found it interesting that the only dancers who can come close to the style of Astaire and Rogers are people who are gliding over ice! Watching a Sonja Henie picture recently, I was startled. She was cute, and skated beautifully, but the skill levels of ice skaters have risen so steadily ...

Right--that was an intro for musical movies once shown in a regular time slot on TCM. I used to seethe whenever I saw that otherwise very well-constructed and clever montage of film clips, because there is a shot of Ginger dancing alone that is actually from a duet she does with Fred ("Bouncin' the ...

Anytime, pal!

Only Virginia and Groucho can sing it.

Mongo, to this day Ms. Weidler is the foremost reason that I try to catch The Philadelphia Story every time it's broadcast; she cracks me up throughout the film, small though her part was - and Dinah's exchange with her Mom about what's sticking up "in the back" never fails to slay me! :P :P :P :P ...

Stole this history of Puttin' on the Ritz (which Clark certainly did sing himself) from Wikipedia: "Puttin' on the Ritz" is a popular song written and published in 1929 by Irving Berlin and introduced by Harry Richman in the musical film Puttin' on the Ritz (1930). The title derives from the slang e...

The thing that intrigues me about this movie is that FA's character in this movie is truly unusual for him. The movie contains lots of froth, no doubt--and I think great chunks of it are embarrassingly silly--but Astaire plays a more complex person than he usually does, and for the most part I think...

[quote="Moraldo Rubini"]Oh! I didn't know December was posted yet. That calls for a link!

Thanks for that! Welcoming in the New Year with Astaire and Rogers...'atsa nice!

Oops. Guess you'll have to treat me rough, then.

Off to Hollywood tomorrow, kids! Will report upon return.

Girl Crazy is kinda western.