I Just Watched...

[speedracer5]

I watched two new-to-me Fred MacMurray movies recently.

1930s Fred MacMurray was hot.

With that out of the way, the first MacMurray film I watched was "The Princess Came Across" (1936) with Carole Lombard. This is the third Lombard/MacMurray pairing I've seen. I believe that they made four films together. "Swing High, Swing Low" is the only film of theirs that I have left. TCM aired it back in October for Lombard's birthday and I recorded it. Unfortunately, the quality was so bad that it was unwatchable. The images were so washed out that I could barely see anyone's faces and the sound was poor, which made the film difficult to hear. Anyway, I digress.

In "The Princess Comes Across," Lombard plays actress, Wanda Nash, who boards an ocean liner in Europe, which is destined for New York City. Wanda is not having any luck as an actress and decides that she's going to masquerade as the Swedish Princess Olga, hoping that the publicity of having royalty onboard will bring her the career break she desires. Alison Skipworth plays Olga's lady-in-waiting, Gertie. I missed if Gertie had a different role in Wanda's life prior to her coronation as "Princess Olga." At the beginning of the film, musician King Mantell (MacMurray) is being booted from the "royalty suite" in favor of Princess Olga. He ends up being moved to a cabin down the hall. Wanda channels her inner Greta Garbo to bring Princess Olga to life in front of the crew and other passengers on the ship.

Also traveling are a group of international detectives, one being Mischa Auer, who are searching for a murderer. There's also a blackmailer played by "Medford Man" Porter Hall. The blackmailer learns about Princess Olga's true identity as well as King Mantell's previous criminal activity and opts to blackmail them in exchange for cash and Olga's emerald ring. Wanda and King end up joining the investigation.

This was a fun film. MacMurray's character plays the concertina. Prior to this film, I had no idea that the small accordion was called a "concertina." I thought it was called "little accordion" or "squeeze box." You learn something new every day. Skipworth's character is funny as she constantly expresses disdain for the concertina and the people who play the concertina throughout the film. William "Fred Mertz" Frawley has a decent sized role as "Benton," MacMurray's traveling companion. I don't really know if he was his valet, or his manager, or what. But he was funny and always seems to be Fred Mertz. "The Princess Comes Across" has a somewhat convoluted plot, and I didn't find it as good as the previous two films of Lombard's and MacMurray's that I watched--"Hands Across the Table" and "True Confession." I think 'Hands' is my favorite so far.

---

"The Gilded Lily" (1935). I watched this film last night. It features Fred MacMurray in his breakthrough role as well as his first collaboration with Claudette Colbert. This movie also features Ray Milland, Donald Meek, and C Aubrey Smith. In this film, MacMurray plays reporter Peter Dawes who has been thoroughly "friend-zoned" by Marilyn David (Colbert) a Stenographer. Every Thursday night, the two friends meet on a secluded bench in Manhattan. They eat popcorn, tell each other about their life, and "watch the world go by." It's obvious that Peter has a crush on Marilyn, but she's set on his being her good friend. Later, she meets Charles Gray (Milland), a young man with whom Marilyn is instantly smitten. One day, Charles announces that he is going to England for business and will return. Marilyn is sad, but understanding. Later, Peter learns that Charles was hiding a secret and he's actually part of the British aristocracy. He and his father (C Aubrey Smith) were traveling in New York City incognito. Marilyn also learns that Charles was actually engaged, when she was led to believe that they would be married. Marilyn ends up giving Charles the heave ho.

All while this is going on, Peter is in the background looking out for his friend, Marilyn. He learns about Charles' deception and later does not care for how he treats his friend. Peter uses his position at the newspaper to plant some stories about Marilyn, whom he nicknames the "No Girl," and how she dumped Charles. The publicity blows up and turns Marilyn into an overnight celebrity. Her celebrity grows to the point that she's even headlining a nightclub act even though she cannot sing or dance.

This was a really sweet movie. I loved the rapport between Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert's characters. I didn't expect the twist with Milland's character and I always love to be surprised by a movie. The ending of the film came as no surprise, but it honestly was the only ending this film could have. I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a sweet romantic comedy.

[txfilmfan]

I watched two new-to-me Fred MacMurray movies recently.

1930s Fred MacMurray was hot.

Not quite the wholesome image from My Three Sons here...

[Swithin]

Black Robe (1991)
Directed by Bruce Beresford
Source: Amazon Prime

About 30 years ago I saw this sad but beautiful film. I didn’t see it again until this week. On the grand scale, it’s about the clash of cultures. On the personal level, it's about Father LaForgue (Lothaire Bluteau), a decent, devout Jesuit from a wealthy French family, who goes to New France (Canada) to bring Christ to the Huron people. The year is 1634, a time of conflict between the French and Huron on one side and the Iroquois on the other. The film opens in the settlement of what would become Quebec. Father LaForgue is sent by Samuel de Champlain to a distant village, with his French assistant Daniel (Aden Young) and a few accompanying Huron guides, led by Chomina (August Schellenberg). Along their journey, they meet with great hardships as well as brutality, first from the Montagnais, a tribe whose hostile shaman Mestigoit (Yvan Labelle) calls Laforgue a demon and encourages the Huron guides to abandon him, which many do. An attack by the Iroquois leads to scenes of brutality. LaForgue finally arrives at the distant mission alone, only to find that all but one of the French inhabitants have died, either of violence or smallpox. The leader of the Hurons in that remote region asks LaForgue if he loves them. LaForgue answers yes, remembering the faces of all the Indians he has met. The Hurons, suffering from smallpox, are baptized, and the film ends with a sunrise. A title card states that 15 years later, the Huron, having accepted Christianity, were attacked and killed by the Iroquois, and that the mission was abandoned, the Jesuits returning to France.

Black Robe is a complex and deeply moving film that touches on many issues that are current today. Performance, production, and music are all excellent. I liked it as much as I did when I first saw it in 1991; maybe more.




Chomina, who continues to guide LaForgue because he has promised Champlain that he would do so. Later, Chomina, wounded by the Iroquois, chooses to die in the snow, to await the She-Manitou.


The Montagnais shaman Mestigoit


As the film draws to a conclusion, Father LaForgue begins to realize that perhaps the religion of the Huron and his own religion, though totally different, are all part of the same divine plan. As he walks alone to the Huron Mission, he says: "What can we say to people who think dreams are the real world, and this world is an illusion? Perhaps they’re right. The forests speak. The dead talk at night.”


Black Robe is staggeringly beautiful, shot in the Canadian wilderness of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, with some scenes shot in Rouen, France. The film has been praised for its accuracy in the depiction of the Indians of the time.

[HoldenIsHere]

Last night I finished A SUMMER PLACE '59

Those are the conventional high points of the movie. Then add a sprinkling of over the top drama (not unlike Mildred Pierce movie) for some delightful LOL moments. Of course, this was my favorite-

Ah yes, the Christmas tree scene!
The plastic Christmas tree that Constance Ford's character says should last ten years . . .

I'm a big fan of Sandra Dee. I especially love her in GIDGET and TAMMY, TELL ME TRUE. She's very good in her first movie UNTIL THEY SAIL, where she holds her own with Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine and Piper Laurie (who play her older sisters in the movie).
I also love her in A SUMMER PLACE even though her hairstyle in that movie is not very flattering.

The Christmas tree scene is hilarious. It's so dramatic. I cannot believe that Sandra Dee made "A Summer Place" and "Gidget" in the same year. Talk about two extreme characters. I love Sandra Dee. Much like Doris Day, she's maligned as a goody two shoes, a reputation further cemented by Rizzo's song "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee" in "Grease." I don't know why she was given this reputation.

Speaking of "Grease," I once had to convince a co-worker that Sandra Dee was a real person and was not in fact, the name of Olivia Newton-John's character. She thought Olivia was named "Sandy Dee" and I had to explain that 1) No. That's not who the song is referring to; and 2) Sandy's last name in the film is Olsson. I'm pretty sure they even say it in the film.

In the stage musical GREASE Sandy's last name is Dombrowski, but you are correct that it is Olsson in the movie adaptation (they actually say it in the movie). The change was likely made to accommodate the casting of Australian Olivia Newton-John, whose character in in the movie is said to have moved to the US from Australia. In the stage play, Sandy is an American who has just transferred to another high school. I guess it was thought that movie audiences would more easily accept "Olsson" as the surname for an Australian than "Dombrowski."

Rydell High is actually based on William Taft High School in Chicago, and in the the original Chicago production the story was explicitly set in Chicago with numerous references to actual Chicago locations. All Chicago references were dropped when the play was adapted for the off-Broadway/Broadway production.

In the movie GREASE, the Rydell High seems to be somewhere in southern California, although many of the students inexplicably have New York City accents.

[Fedya]

Hollywood Revue Of 1929 TCM 6/10

Thanks. I recorded this and plan to view it. I have seen that Joan Crawford dance and didn't care for it. There was no art but she sure seemed to enjoy it. Your post reminds me of The Show of Shows from '29 I think. Always loved that. O man, I want to see that again!

You don't like Joan Crawford's dancing?

[Fedya]

Life Begins (1932).

[...]

I did not enjoy this. Part of why is that Loretta's character spends a lot of time in a hospital bed. The charm has been quashed between sheets. Story wise there is a sense of morbidity about the whole business I couldn't shake. This does not mean that I am insensitive to the rigors women go through when entering into this new world of imminent motherhood. And yet what would I know about it? Truly identifying with the women is impossible. Maybe that distance informs my impression. At least I can identify with the men. Is this a woman’s movie? Probably, but I didn't give up. I am a notorious chick-flick fan, not by design or by predisposition, I find myself liking them after the fact. But I did not like this one. I don’t like to think of myself as a moralist but I wonder if I thought that childbirth was being too coarsely represented here. And yet maybe the occasional comedy that invokes itself here and there is the palliative to that. Que sais-je?

I enjoyed Life Begins, even if it does have flaws. Glenda Farrell is great fun to watch as always.

[laffite]

Hollywood Revue Of 1929 TCM 6/10

Thanks. I recorded this and plan to view it. I have seen that Joan Crawford dance and didn't care for it. There was no art but she sure seemed to enjoy it. Your post reminds me of The Show of Shows from '29 I think. Always loved that. O man, I want to see that again!

You don't like Joan Crawford's dancing?

Yes, I did. Thanks for posting that. When you mentioned her dancing my mind jumped to a different movie (don't know which one off hand, probably earlier) where she dances, not so disciplined as this one. In the other, she seemed to jump around haphazardly while wearing an unbecoming outfit.

[laffite]

[snip]
I cannot believe that Sandra Dee made "A Summer Place" and "Gidget" in the same year. Talk about two extreme characters. I love Sandra Dee. Much like Doris Day, she's maligned as a goody two shoes, a reputation further cemented by Rizzo's song "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee" in "Grease." I don't know why she was given this reputation. In "A Summer Place," she's a teenager who gets pregnant, in "Gidget," she's upset because she can't seem to score a boyfriend and laments to her mother that she "came home pure as the driven snow," in "Take Her, She's Mine," she writes home to father Jimmy Stewart that she's "still a virgin" and the tone of her letter says that she's not happy about it. Then in "Doctor, You Must Be Kidding," she's trying to figure out who the father of her baby is and there are three potential baby daddies!

[snip]

Impressive summary of Sandra in those movies.

[Fedya]

Yes, I did. Thanks for posting that. When you mentioned her dancing my mind jumped to a different movie (don't know which one off hand, probably earlier) where she dances, not so disciplined as this one. In the other, she seemed to jump around haphazardly while wearing an unbecoming outfit.

Perhaps you were thinking of Dancing Lady?



She has a scene with the Three Stooges, too.

[Fedya]

I always enjoyed how Sandra was basically playing Gidget in Imitation of Life.

[jamesjazzguitar]

Yes, I did. Thanks for posting that. When you mentioned her dancing my mind jumped to a different movie (don't know which one off hand, probably earlier) where she dances, not so disciplined as this one. In the other, she seemed to jump around haphazardly while wearing an unbecoming outfit.

Perhaps you were thinking of Dancing Lady?



She has a scene with the Three Stooges, too.

I was thinking the same thing; This Dancing Lady scene is a classic; we have Crawford looking as thin as a rail doing some very odd dancing and the 3 Stooges, with Larry, playing the piano.

[laffite]

Yes, I did. Thanks for posting that. When you mentioned her dancing my mind jumped to a different movie (don't know which one off hand, probably earlier) where she dances, not so disciplined as this one. In the other, she seemed to jump around haphazardly while wearing an unbecoming outfit.

Perhaps you were thinking of Dancing Lady?



She has a scene with the Three Stooges, too.

No, not Dancing Lady. Go to 2:06 in the video below. I think that's it. I wonder if it's really as bad as I say. Hard to tell with this video, it's only 4-6 seconds. In the movie (what movie?), it goes on for at least a couple of minutes and I didn't like it much. I didn't know until now that she could dance so well. So maybe I would like it better now, who knows? I ve seen that first video a few times and it is knocking me out. At one point she swivels on one foot and maintains good balance that looks difficult and then executing a swift cut kick, I mean wow Joan.

[speedracer5]

Joan Crawford's "dancing" is horrendous in "Dancing Lady." She looks like my impression of tap dancing. I also cannot stand Ruby Keeler's dancing for the same reason.

[Swithin]

Metropolitan (1990)
Directed by Whit Stillman
TCM On Demand

This movie is on my ten-best list. It’s one of the great New York movies and is my favorite New York Christmas movie. Shot on location, it has the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, great shots of Manhattan neighbourhoods and buildings, and even a trip to the Hamptons. (Like two of the lead characters, I took a cab to the Hamptons once, in an extravagant mood.) It has the Plaza and Waldorf hotels, and the last Automat, which closed shortly after the movie was shot. It has Christmas Eve in Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, which I know well, because the only time in my life (what was I thinking?!) that I took communion was in Saint Thomas Church on Christmas Eve. But most of all it has a charming group of young people and one of the great scripts. Director/screenwriter Whit Stillman, who knew the milieu he was writing about, has a Rohmer-esque respect for the value of dialogue. His brilliant script was Oscar-nominated.

Tom Townsend, a middle-class Upper West Sider, accidentally falls in with a group of Upper East Side preppies, who call themselves UHB’s (Urban Haute Bourgeoisie). At the various dances and after parties in lovely New York apartments during the holiday break, they talk about philosophy (particularly Fourier), romance, literature (particularly Jane Austen) and what they see as the decline of the debutante society in which many of them were raised. Relationships develop, there is bitchiness, and there is real warmth and affection. I saw this movie when it was released, and later on TCM, when RO interviewed Whit Stillman. I just watched it on TCM On Demand. I love this movie.

Metropolitan was the first movie for most of the young cast members. Particularly noteworthy are Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols, who went on to work with Whit Stillman on his other movies.

(In 1998, I had dinner at the Old Town Bar, one of New York's oldest pubs, then went around the corner to see Stillman's The Last Days of Disco. The bar was in the film! We had no idea.)



Christmas Eve scene, Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street




Taylor Nichols and Edward Clements in the cab to the Hamptons


Chris Eigeman (center)