Swithin

"Cheaters" is mentioned in the song "Jeepers Creepers" (1938), from the film Going Places : Jeepers Creepers! Where'd ya get those peepers? Jeepers Creepers! Where'd ya get those eyes? Gosh all git up! How'd they get so lit up? Gosh all git up! How'd they get that size? Golly gee! When you turn those heaters on, Woe is me! Got to get my *cheaters* on, Jeepers Creepers! Where'd ya get those peepers? On! Those weepers! How they hypnotize! Wher'd ya get those eyes?

It's an interesting film. It has two election night scenes -- the opening and closing; boxing; a rocky romance; a really terrific cast; and the San Francisco Earthquake! And it is one of only two films in which Bette appeared with the great Beulah Bondi, who plays Bette's mother.

A Flynn (with Bette Davis) score I particularly like is Max Steiner's score for The Sisters, which I think is a fine film all 'round.

I wrote my earlier post quickly, in response to Tom's Flynn post. In addition to the Olivia films I already mentioned, there are more Korngold films, more Steiner, some Victor Young, and, most importantly, Aaron Copland's score for The Heiress. Plus much more, and then of course there's THIS:

Tom and Fred, get your swords out! I'll put on the Korngold sword fight music and watch!

Tom, I think probably no one likes Anthony Adverse as much as I do! It won a few Oscars that year, including Best Score, which was presented to Leo Forbstein, who was head of Warner's music department. At a later meeting, Korngold refused to accept the Oscar from Forbstein, so it sat in Jack Warner's office for several years, until Korngold eventually did accept it. The book I referred to, American Film Music, says: "The overall excellence of Korngold's work is, perhaps, best seen through an extended analysis of Anthony Adverse (1936), a score that stands out as highly complex for Hollywood..." There follows a 20-page analysis of the score, with a brief mention of Captain Blood: "The opening title music for Captain Blood shows Korngold at his most typical." But the analysis of Anthony Adverse is a serious and complex musicological look as one might examine at an opera, or a serious piece of classical music. The authors also note that AA doesn't feature many of Korngold's signature fanfares. It may be the latter that he's best known for, though.

Very interesting thread, Tom. Flynn is an obvious choice; however, I would tweak it a little and say *Olivia de Havilland*. With Olivia, you get many of Flynn's films and bring in other greats: Korngold's masterful score for Anthony Adverse, which I think is the best score ever (used as a model for discussion in the Darby/Du Bois book American Film Music ); and you also bring in Steiner's score for Gone with the Wind. And if you count music not written specifically for film, you also get A Midsummer Night's Dream, with that glorious Mendelssohn score.

Funny you should both bring up Moose and Squirrel. Just the other day, I was watching Crusader Rabbit cartoons! http://www.broadcastlegends.com/crusader.html

Brilliant! Maybe you can help me find Durwood Kirby playing Sophie Tucker on the "Garry Moore Show" (where Burnett really got her start in television).

Thanks for the heads up. It has a great cast, including Robert Emmett O'Connor, who slapped his daughter Jenny (Ruth Chatterton) in Frisco Jenny, thus causing the San Francisco Earthquake!

I like Edward Brophy and his "Hamburg" hat in *The Last Hurrah,* but I think my favorite may be the Fedora in this excerpt from *Make Mine Music* (1946), partly because the song is used in one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies, *Slaughterhouse Five* (1972): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3lAztMhIWI

Don't fall for the hype. There are millions of people in the United States who do not watch the superbowl. Auntie Mame is a perfect choice to go against the bowl, though I'm sure Gloria Upson and her parents will be watching the superbowl.

A great actor. I'm waiting to see The Creeper (1948), which I haven't seen in decades.

Yes, I agree! Hard for me to resist, though, as my degree is in Theology, from a Jesuit University! (But I'm not Catholic).

I guess one of my ten (maybe even five) favorite films is John Huston's The Dead, which takes place in Dublin in 1906. There's a great conversation in that film, with one elderly sister complaining that her older sister isn't allowed to sing in the church choir anymore. Here's the exchange from Joyce's short story; it's pretty much word for word in the film, as I recall: "No," continued Aunt Kate, "she (Julia) wouldn't be said or led by anyone, slaving there in that choir night and day, night and day. Six o'clock on Christmas morning! And all for what?" "Well, isn't it for the honour of God, Aunt Kate?" asked Mary Jane, twisting round on the piano-stool and smiling. Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said: "I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it's not at all honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved there all their lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their heads. I suppose it is for the good of the Church if the pope does it. But it's not just, Mary Jane, and it's not right."

With respect, I think threads like this are silly. (Sorry, I don't mean anyone who posts is silly, it's just the concept to me, IMHO). I may be (arguably) the biggest NYC liberal who posts to this board, but I don't think that it makes sense to go back and look at the relationships and characters in the classic films with latter day outrage. The things we don't like, many people worked to change; the things we still don't like, we ourselves work to change. I haven't seen any poster express outrage that in all the wars and battles in old films, it's men who go off to die in battle. By today's standards, that's as "sexist" in many ways as a woman who is forced gives up a career to stay at home, either explicity or because the society of the time expected it of her. And, it's "classist" for boys of old to be told they are expected to go down and work in the mines because their fathers did, and their fathers before them. Finally, just in the last few days, there has been some news about women fighting in battle. So progress continues, and will continue to continue.

Mrs. Pat was the very first Eliza Doolittle, on stage in London in 1914 and in NY the following year. Shaw actually wrote Pygmalion for her.

Right, Tom, your thread.

Those people passed shod.

And then of course there's Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, giving up a glittering career in Maghreb show business, taking off her high heels, and running into the Sahara, after Gary Cooper. Seriously, this comes up again and again. Everyone of every sex, class, and ethnicity in just about every classic film that we love is filling a role that the society of the time, sadly in many cases, has assigned to him/her. This extends even to the male coal miners in How Green Was My Valley. Times have changed; part of what we look at when we look at those films is a window to the past, for better or worse.

I tuned out of this thread when the subject turned to hockey, which I used to think was primarily a game for British schoolgirls: Has anyone mentioned Jason's hockey mask in Friday 13th Part III etc.? Does that have any Canadian significance? Since I have a large tv screen and HD now, I do find hockey games look almost interesting -- I guess that's ice hockey, though. We used to play a sort of primitive street hockey on the streets of NYC, when I was a lad.

*Wild Strawberries*

*The Reptile* is one of the more effective Hammer horrors. Interesting, creepy story. There is quite a moving moment in the film, when the reptile girl gets cold. (I find many Hammer films, particularly the remakes of the Universal classics, to be rather stodgy).

Who are the grammarians? Are they related to the Tralfamadorians?

May I recommend two books that feature zombies? The first is *The Magic Island*, by W.B. Seabrook. This 1929 book (written a few years before the film White Zombie was released) more or less introduced the concept to the U.S. It's fascinating and very sensationalized -- just read the Wikipedia bio of its author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Seabrook The second, a scholarly book, is *Voodoo in Haiti*, by Alfred Metraux. I studied religion in college; Voodoo in Haiti was one of the most interesting books I read, by a noted French anthropologist.