The Silver Screen Oasis

Ann Harding wrote:Now, Alison, you should watch the documentary about Merian C. Cooper. He had such an adventurous life! You'll learn plenty about the shooting of both films.

Not to mention the making of the greatest film, ever. (King Kong, he writes redundantly.)
I'd also highly recommend the biography Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Copper by Mark Cotta Vaz. Even Hollywood couldn't make his bio up.

I think I'll be watching the documentary shortly and revisiting King Kong.

I watched Tom Sawyer (1917) and enjoyed it very much. The film takes various vignettes from the first half of Twain's novel about the adventures (and misadventures) of the rapscallion and his friends. Jack Pickford is quite good as Tom, especially in his scenes with Becky Thatcher (Clara Horton). Robert Gordon looks too old to play Huck Finn (and his wig and blacked-out tooth doesn't help), but the rest of the cast is fine. Director William Desmond Taylor keeps things moving, although didn't exploit the humor inherent in the whitewashing sequence.

Fun film.

Ann Harding wrote:Now, Alison, you should watch the documentary about Merian C. Cooper. He had such an adventurous life! You'll learn plenty about the shooting of both films.

I watched it yesterday, I though it very interesting (what documentary isn't that Kevin Brownlow makes) Merian C Cooper was a very special film maker and his story makes for an interesting tale. I'm reading a book about David Selznick at the moment where Cooper is mentioned frequently. I say what a hero the man was, it made me appreciate what he was trying to do more even if I can't watch the killing scenes in Chang I appreciate the skill and bravery that brought them to the screen.

Now I'm going to have to watch King Kong.

I watched Thirteen Women today, what a hoot of a precode. I thoroughly enojyed the story of women who had been at school together being sent horoscopes that tell of their demise. Behind this is the lovely Myrna Loy playing a half breed Hindu, this bit doesn't play well to our modern sensibilites, this aside it's a fast moving star studded movie, along with Myrna there is Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond, Florence Eldridge and Mary Duncan.

I LOVE Thirteen Women, in spite of modern sensibilities. But I always find myself on Myrna's side.

Yes, Irene is a little too goody goody, everything in life has come to easy to her and besides Myrna has been bullied by them and I hate bullies, so I kinda like Myrna's character best, she has the best role but she's not top billed.

She's not quite Myrna Loy the star here yet, but I love that speech, at the end I think it is, where she talks about WHY she came after them.

I have her autobiography here, by all accounts it's one of the best books written by a star, one day, I'll do it justice.

I watched Spitfire today starring Katharine Hepburn with Ralph Bellamy and Robert Young in support. Kate plays a hillbilly, quite well but nevertheless her mannerisms and accent don't give her the edge that Mary Pickford would have had, perhaps Mary had the benefit of silence whereas Kate partly had the accent but too often her own came through. The script wasn't wonderful, it's not convincing when she steals a baby because it isn't being looked after correctly and remains on the run with it even when the village is tracking the baby down. Thankfully she has a friend in Ralph Bellamy the chief architect building a dam nearby. The film partly seems a waste of Kate's talent. Robert Young is completely wasted in his role.

charliechaplinfan wrote: The film partly seems a waste of Kate's talent. Robert Young is completely wasted in his role.

I watched Spitfire about 3-4 months ago in Canada, CCF ... and I agree with you 110% that this film isn't all that good and waste of everyone talents that you mentioned before. It was so bad (In my opinion) that I walked out the theater when its was halfway through. They have a ticket refund policy in case you didn't like the movie and I got my money back. I was terribly disappointed in this film charliechaplinfan.

I like Spitfire, I think it's definitely worth watching, even if the end product doesn't come out quite right... the idea of the story is good, and I find that Kate has enough differentness to pull off the role, even when her accent is off.

I'm probably the only one though.

I'm mixed, it's worth seeing once, I think in someone else's hands other than Hepburn's the film would have suffered more, Kate does at least have the tomboyish off beat qualities that are Trigger. I think the men were deadly dull though, even Robert Young who was playing fast and loose with her feelings was a square kind of a guy and Ralph Bellamy was playing his famous type and was too staid for Trigger. Finally the name, Trigger will always be a horse to me.

I don't blame you for leaving and getting your money back Kingme and saving it for another show.

If I Had a Million 1932, a pleasant picture directed by 8 directors. A dying tycoon, Richard Bennett decides to give his fortune to strangers picked out of the city directory with a medicine dropper, the film is made up of episodes about each lucky recipient. I don't know which director directed which scene, Ernst Lubtisch is the first credited but some segments are far superior and have more time spent on them than others. My favorites, Charlie Ruggles a henpecked, china dropping salesman who gets to leave his job courtesy of the millionaires largesse, Alison Skipworth and WC Fields, running all the road hogs off the road in a series of motor vehicles bought for the purpose and more chillingly, George Raft as a fraudster who can't make good on his cheque, he can't cash it or else he will be picked up and imprisoned for life and he can't trade it either because no one believes him, Gene Raymond, facing the death sentence thinks his sentence will be commuted after his windfall. Finally the segment with May Robson, living out her days in an old people's home, starved of any of life's little luxuries inherits and takes over the home and turns it on it's head. The segment with Gary Cooper was dissappointing and the one with Charles Laughton was blink and you'll miss it, one presumes he was only available for a few days. It's an interesting film to say the least.

I believe Lubitsch directed the Laughton segment, which is my favorite, followed by the George Raft one, which is heartbreaking. Anyone who thinks Raft couldn't act should watch this one.