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Post by topbilled on Dec 7, 2022 17:05:42 GMT
Sounds fun...the kind of place I'd enjoy visiting!
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 7, 2022 17:12:59 GMT
I love all of that "old" technology. The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI has an incredible amount of historical technology. My girlfriend and I have spent days at that museum over the years as her parents live reasonably nearby. Also, we own a 1928 coop, which, when we bought it, still had its original intercom phone that we had restored. I'd show you guys a pic, but I have no idea how to post a picture that I have downloaded to my computer, but that isn't posted to a webpage (hence, I can't post it here by using a link).
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Post by topbilled on Dec 7, 2022 19:02:58 GMT
Here is the intercom phone Fading Fast mentioned:
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Post by sagebrush on Dec 8, 2022 12:33:47 GMT
Here is the intercom phone Fading Fast mentioned:
Very cool! In that telephone museum I mentioned in my earlier post, the highlight for me was a museum employee demonstrating how the telegraph worked. He had a few of us write down a message and he would send it by Morse Code! One little boy who was with his family at the museum said to the employee "Why don't you just send a text message?"  |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 8, 2022 15:06:10 GMT
Here is the intercom phone Fading Fast mentioned:
Very cool! In that telephone museum I mentioned in my earlier post, the highlight for me was a museum employee demonstrating how the telegraph worked. He had a few of us write down a message and he would send it by Morse Code! One little boy who was with his family at the museum said to the employee "Why don't you just send a text message?" |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 11, 2022 15:14:19 GMT
This neglected film is from 1955.
Becoming Lady Raleigh
Sometimes with historical biographies, the filmmakers take dramatic liberties and it’s fairly obvious that this has happened. Other times the creative license is a bit more imaginative, and the tale is easier to accept. This exquisitely produced picture from 20th Century Fox falls into the second category. THE VIRGIN QUEEN is so competently made, it doesn’t need to be a total work of nonfiction to be seen as genuine. Instead one is happy to look upon it as a product inspired by the legends of Queen Elizabeth I and her Irish knight Sir Walter Raleigh.
There is considerable melodrama at play and considerable court intrigue. While there is not an over abundance of action scenes, there are still the requisite fencing scenes to keep it all from feeling a bit stagey. Helping pull it off is smart acting by people in well-tailored costumes. So it satisfies on nearly every level.
Sixteen years earlier Bette Davis had played the bald-headed monarch at Warner Brothers in THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX. In that version she was joined by fellow studio contractees Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. In the role of Raleigh, Vincent Price had a minor role. Here, Fox has shifted the focus to the queen and her relationship with the Irish rogue sailor (Richard Todd) who is eager to explore new worlds and conquer them for her majesty. She commands him to bring back ships rich with North American treasures.
A significant conflict occurs when Raleigh falls for, secretly marries and impregnates one of the ladies of the court (Joan Collins). This all transpires without Elizabeth’s immediate knowledge. When she discovers the betrayal, she is blinded by rage and threatens to behead Raleigh and his wench, until she has a last-minute change of heart.
There’s a particularly effective moment when Davis tells Collins how she lost her hair due to fever, how she was unable to have children of her own (England became her baby); but that she still captured men’s hearts with her spirit.
The spirited aspects of the character are brought to life by Miss Davis’ intense acting style. Some of her line deliveries are over the top and borderline camp, but she’s continually entertaining. Herbert Marshall is on hand as a trusted earl and confidante. It’s fun to see the man that Bette cheated on in THE LETTER and drove to his death in THE LITTLE FOXES as a true friend here in this picture. Naturally, he’s been through the wars with her.
At least Richard Todd’s character gets a reprieve and will sail off with the lovely Miss Collins.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 11, 2022 16:25:36 GMT
...It’s fun to see the man that Bette cheated on in THE LETTER and drove to his death in THE LITTLE FOXES as a true friend here in this picture. Naturally, he’s been through the wars with her....
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Post by topbilled on Dec 16, 2022 14:48:39 GMT
This neglected film is from 1942.
Charming character-driven picture
This isn’t exactly a holiday film, though the initial scenes do take place at Christmastime. Monty Woolley plays a washed up actor who dons a Santa suit and listens to kids’ wishes in a department store. He is no lovable Kris Kringle– he is an incorrigible drunk who takes one too many sips from a flask hidden inside his costume. Too intoxicated to know better, he starts to become a very disagreeable representative of the North Pole and is promptly fired.
It’s a memorable way to start the story. As we learn in the next part, he and his daughter (Ida Lupino) needed him to hold on to that job, since money has been hard to come by. The daughter is mostly homebound and unable to work full-time, since she is a cripple.
I find it interesting that actress Ida Lupino would take this type of role on loan-out from home studio Warner Brothers– mostly because she was playing sexy bad girls during this time. She had suffered from polio when she was younger and knew what it was like to have difficulty walking. Kudos to her for stepping outside her comfort zone…I guess this is what we call acting.
The two leads share good rapport on screen. The script is based on a hit London play by Emlyn Williams that had a short run on Broadway. The Broadway version was presented with a different title, ‘Yesterday’s Magic,’ and featured Paul Muni as the out-of-work father, along with Jessica Tandy as the afflicted daughter.
While dear old dad is trying to get off the sauce for good and back on his feet financially, the daughter falls for a new tenant in their apartment building. This role is played by Cornel Wilde at the start of his Hollywood career.
Miss Lupino and Mr. Wilde would re-team at Fox a few years later for the noir thriller ROAD HOUSE. Here Wilde’s character is somewhat subdued though very much excited by the prospect of getting to know Lupino better, despite her obvious handicap.
There is a good subplot involving Wilde’s aunt (Sara Allgood). She comes to visit her nephew and reveals that she had a past with Woolley’s character. They both had been in a hit touring production when they were younger, and as a young actress she not only idolized Woolley but secretly loved him. She’s been carrying a torch for him all these years.
The relationships between the two couples in the story progress when Woolley has been offered a role in a new play. This is his chance to make a big comeback, and he will succeed if he is able to remain sober.
The mysterious benefactor of the play turns out to be Allgood…and after Woolley swallows his pride, he admits he needs her in his life and that they should be married. At the same time, Lupino and Wilde have realized their feelings and are also slated to spend the long haul together.
LIFE BEGINS AT EIGHT-THIRTY– so named because that is when actors get ready for the curtain to go up– is a charming character-driven picture that has a lot to offer the audience. It is not a well known movie, but hopefully some of you reading this review will check it out!
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Post by topbilled on Dec 29, 2022 15:25:20 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
Symbol of peace
This was James Stewart’s second western, made ten years after DESTRY RIDES AGAIN. It was the beginning of a wave of outdoor action pictures he made during the postwar era. What’s interesting is that Stewart was already in his 40s and wasn’t exactly a rugged type.
Probably Stewart identified with the values that a film like BROKEN ARROW represents. America was in the middle of a difficult period in the 1870s…the government wanted to ensure that whites be able to settle the southwest, but it also had to take into account the history of the Apaches who were about to be displaced from their Arizona lands.
Before Cochise and his people surrendered peacefully and were relocated to a reservation, there had been over a decade of warring. Apaches had many notable skirmishes with the U.S. Army under Cochise’s command. At one point he had been taken captive by military forces but managed to escape, which only intensified the ongoing conflicts.
This story takes place before the end of those battles. Cochise is now older, though costar Jeff Chandler is playing the role at a younger age. He meets a former army scout, Tom Jeffords, portrayed by Stewart, who wants to find a way to bring the two sides together. Jeffords was a real-life historical figure who learned the tribe’s language and customs.
In fact he was so adept at getting to know the Apaches and in associating with them, he was often derisively called an “Indian lover” by the whites who disliked him.
The film adds a love interest, a teenaged Apache maiden that Jeffords supposedly falls for and marries. She is played by Debra Paget, who was only 15 during production, considerably much younger than Stewart.
Their kissing scenes have a sort of ick factor and remind me of James Mason and Sue Lyon in LOLITA. Stewart overdoes some of these moments, especially when his bride is killed in an ambush sequence, and he is meant to grieve her.
The better relationship on screen is the one depicted between Stewart and Chandler. The two actors have more chemistry than Stewart does with Paget. Chandler offers a thoughtful interpretation of the warrior chief. His scenes with members of the tribe are also good, including ones with Jay “Tonto” Silverheels as Geronimo. For his efforts Chandler received an Oscar nod.
Some of the dialogue in the film is a bit unrealistic. And while I think many of the ideas contained within the narrative are rather naive, it’s still nice to see Americans working towards unity.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 3, 2023 15:16:52 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Marlowe and the secretary
There is a lot of criticism online about George Montgomery playing Philip Marlowe. I will go out on a proverbial limb and say that I do not find him miscast. I think the problem with him in the role, if there is indeed a problem, is that he is not directed very well (and neither is his leading lady Nancy Guild). Honestly, it feels like John Brahm was in a hurry to get it done and collect a paycheck, and a lot of what wound up on screen feels like a first take and an only take. If they had done extensive retakes, or even rehearsed key scenes a bit more before filming, the uncertainty of some of the line deliveries would have been eliminated.
As I said I do not find as much fault in George Montgomery’s version of the character as others do. In fact, I think he is more believable than Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP and Robert Montgomery in LADY IN THE LAKE, because he oozes sex appeal. Sex appeal is something those other two gents do not really project in the later stages of their film careers. Raymond Chandler’s private eye character is extremely confident, arguably rather cocky. The guy is very sure of himself with women, and George Montgomery plays him like a dude in heat, which seems correct to me.
This is important because the film’s subplot involves Marlowe falling for a sexually repressed secretary (Guild). Not surprisingly he makes it a point to “solve” her issues when he’s hired by her boss on a case concerning a stolen Brasher doubloon.
What is a Brasher doubloon, you ask? Why it’s a rare coin, of course…a quick google search reveals that these gold coins go back to the late 1700s. In Chandler’s novel The High Window, which served as the basis for this motion picture, one such missing coin is valued at $10,000. However, just last year (in 2021), one of these coins sold at an auction for over $9 million!
Anyway, you get the idea that this is a valuable commodity. It is no wonder that Miss Guild’s boss (Florence Bates) is eager to get her stolen treasure back. As with most Chandler stories, there is an overabundance of villains and other criminal types that crawl out of the woodwork during Marlowe’s investigation. The most memorable of these is a blackmailer named Vannier (Fritz Kortner).
But in case we think Miss Bates is all sunshine and warmth, the final act of the story reveals her to be a cold-blooded killer. She has been blackmailed by Vannier and undermined by her own son (Conrad Janis) who each have designs on the rare coin and hope to use it for their own nefarious purposes. There is no happy ending for any of them.
Meanwhile, Guild’s character experiences her own emotional breakdown– at one point, she pulls a gun on Marlowe. But he quickly overpowers her. When she is suddenly out of a job at the end of the movie, because her boss has been arrested, Marlowe takes her on as his secretary. After all, he still he has to help her get to the root of her issues.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 10, 2023 14:18:31 GMT
This neglected film is from 1937.
Tonikins & Steviekins
The premise of this picture is rather absurd. It involves newspaper reporters hounding a D-list celebrity (Loretta Young). She is famous because she comes from a well-to-do and politically connected family. She has never done anything meaningful in her life until now. What prompts the about-face is her desire to stick it to the men who won’t let her conduct her affairs, of which there are many, in private.
During the ensuing pandemonium there are light-hearted jabs about people who earn a living from reporting the news. Some events are not very important but are splashed on the front page anyway, if it’s a slow news day.
We see how something “small” like an heiress’ engagement can become something big, magnified for the masses who find her personal business more interesting than their own. Ironically, the engagement that she announces is a deliberate lie. So the initial scoop is not really a scoop at all. But it triggers other more substantial scoops and realizations among the main characters.
In addition to Miss Young, the main players in this film consist of Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. This is Mr. Power’s first starring role at Fox, and he is cast as an eager beaver reporter. Mr. Ameche functions as a comic relief co-lead, playing Power’s very exasperated editor, a man whose wife doesn’t stop calling. There are other characters, meant to represent notions about the types of people– mostly men– who work in the news business during the late 1930s.
In the second part of the story, Slim Summerville appears as a rural judge. His version of law and order in a humble community clashes with the views of everyone else. Especially when a media circus overtakes his jail. In these scenes, justice is an absolute joke.
Several things make the film a screwball comedy. Mostly, its depiction of anarchy. There is plenty of defiance, particularly the kind exhibited by Miss Young’s character; various degrees of unlawfulness and disorder; as well as chaos that comes from challenging the status quo. Within the parameters of such cinematic craziness, there are gleeful and effective performances, aided and abetted by the satiric writing.
LOVE IS NEWS has a message which belongs on page one, not the funnies section. In a madcap world, remaining steadfast and true to one’s ideals is what counts. It’s the only thing that deserves a headline.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 16, 2023 14:59:30 GMT
This neglected film is from 1942.
Glenn, his orchestra and their wives
Glenn Miller and his orchestra had previously appeared in 20th Century Fox’s Sonja Henie vehicle SUN VALLEY SERENADE. Not surprisingly, they were hit a hit and the studio was eager to put them into another movie a year later. In ORCHESTRA WIVES, they have expanded roles, though it should be pointed out that Mr. Miller is playing a make-believe character this time around.
What we have for all intents and purposes is a Glenn Miller picture. Even if one of the studio’s handsomest actors (George Montgomery) and a starlet borrowed from MGM (Ann Rutherford) technically play the main story and are billed above him.
Fox executives probably didn’t feel Miller was leading man material. They used Montgomery to handle the love scenes with Rutherford. If Miller had survived the war and made other pictures, my bet is he would have continued to do roles like other bandleaders. He would’ve done films like Harry James, Phil Harris and Xavier Cugat did…as more than a specialty act, sometimes a key supporting player, but never quite the lead.
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I like the emphasis on the band members and their spouses without really losing the main love story. In addition to George Montgomery playing a fictional member of the band, we also have studio contractee Cesar Romero as a musician. During the performing of Miller’s hit tunes, Montgomery and Romero are tossed in on the side so we can see them “play” even if it is quite obvious they are being dubbed.
The actresses who play the catty wives are very good, especially Carole Landis. She steals the scenes she is in with the other gals, and while Rutherford is a decent enough actress she doesn’t have to carry all the domestic scenes on her own.
Part of the story involves a triangle that takes place between Rutherford, Montgomery and Lynn Bari. Miss Bari plays an ex-girlfriend of Montgomery’s who causes romantic complications.
It all comes to a head when the other wives (Virginia Gilmore, Mary Beth Hughes and Landis) start taking about Bari during a bridge game in one of the hotel rooms. Thus, we get an obstacle to put the question of “will they live happily ever after?” in doubt. Rutherford must deal with her jealousy, and decide if this is just part of being an orchestra wife. And if it is, and she can’t live with it, then she may need to bolt.
Some of Rutherford’s scenes are amusing. Clearly the character is immature and in way over her head. When the other wives make mincemeat out of her, her reactions seem very melodramatic.
The music is so exceptional and the overall energy of the picture is so good, especially an outdoor number in the park near the beginning, that I think it becomes more than just formulaic moviemaking. The performers seem to be having fun on screen, in many of the scenes. Not just the musical numbers, but all of it. Of course, I love Miller’s music and am glad it is prominently featured here.
By this point in Miller’s career, “At Last” had become his band’s signature tune. Therefore, it’s understandable that it is used as a theme song right from the start of the movie. Other numbers feature female vocalist Marion Hutton, sister of Betty, who does a great job.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 17, 2023 17:11:39 GMT
Did TCM show ORCHESTRA WIVES within the last year? I know I saw it, but maybe that was on MOVIES-TV.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 17, 2023 21:08:53 GMT
Did TCM show ORCHESTRA WIVES within the last year? I know I saw it, but maybe that was on MOVIES-TV. |
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Post by sagebrush on Jan 17, 2023 23:14:37 GMT
AMC used to show this film quite often back in the day, and I always watched it!
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