feaito
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Posts posted by feaito
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Stoney, sorry if did not make myself clear, "Wonderful Movie" is the title of the review I wrote when I bought the VHS of "History is Made At Night", a United Artists release from 1937. I post it upon Shaina's comments.
I don't know if TCM has ever shown it, but it would be great if they would schedule it.
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In The Major and the Minor?
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I also posted a comment on this movie a couple of years ago. Sorry Path, I don't want to "overcrowd" your thread:
"Wonderful Movie"
Upon knowing this movie featured Charles Boyer and, especially, Jean Arthur, I expected a light romantic comedy, but what I got was much more...
First of all, this is a powerful romantic film, directed by one of Hollywood's masters of Romance, Frank Borzage. Jean Arthur stars as Irene Veil, in a role different from the usual stuff we expect from her.... she portrays this character, sensitively, luminously, almost with an ethereal quality, but at the same time very humanly. She's simply terrific.
Charles Boyer, is great as Paul Dumond, a headwaiter who falls madly in love with her, and after watching him in this 1937 film, one understands why he became the continental lover per-se, the epitome of the romantic and sensitive hearthrob.
There's wonderful chemistry between the two leads, sadly they never worked together again.
The picture also features outstanding performances by Colin Clive (star of "Frankenstein" and "The Bride of Frankenstein"), who plays Bruce Veil, Arthur's megalomaniac husband, and Leo Carrillo, who impersonates wonderfully a Chef who's Boyer's best friend.
Apart from being a romantic film, this movie has very dramatic moments indeed, but at the same time has fine lightweit comic touches, here and there.
In all a great poetic & ultimately romantic melodrama, with comedy touches, featuring a very warm and credible love story, between two human beings, who meet by chance. Great!!!
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Thanks pgms! You are right, sadly most of Arthur's best films were produced by Columbia, and the Sony-Columbia Classic DVD's are very pricey (26-30 bucks)-compared to Time Warner DVD's, for example.
I can recommend to you absolutely "Mr. Deeds..." (the first edition with the cover in black and white, not sure about the new one in color), "Mr. Smith..." and "Only Angels...", 'cos all of these belong to the first editions of classics issued by Columbia-Sony (along with "Lost Horizon", "It Happened one Night", "Gilda", "His Girl Friday",etc.), and all of these were really restored & "remastered in high definition", and besides, most of them, come with fine bonus: commentaries and/or mini-documentaries, which make them worth the price.
I cannot say the same for "You Can't Take it With You", "Talk of the Town" & "The More the Merrier", all edited and issued when Sony-Columbia Classics didn't care anymore about the restoring or the extras (only some trailers come), all of uneven quality...one of the most dreadful must be "The Awful Truth"...shame, shame, shame, and all are equally expensive. But then, as I've said before they are the only editions of those films, available on DVD. I bought them anyway, but I'm not satisfied with the transfers, at all.
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Yes indeed, Jean Arthur is a personal favorite and although she has a made a LOT of excellent films, which I've all bought 'cos they're all great: "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington", "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town", "You Can't Take it with You", "Only Angels Have Wings", "The Plainsman",..."The More the Merrier" has became my very favorite of hers.
Another EXCELLENT film of Jean, which is not as widely known as it should be is "History is Made at Night".
I liked very much too "Talk of the Town", although it is not for all people's tastes.
I'd love to see her in "Too Many Husbands", "Easy Living", "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford", "If You Could Only Cook" and "The Devil and Miss Jones".
I've been on the verge of buying the DVD edition of "A Lady Takes a Chance", anyone seen it?
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Just a guess: His right one?
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Spencer1964,
If I can get hold of those pictures I'll let you know, of course, being a huge Spencer Tracy fan, I'm almost sure they are "jewels" for you.
BTW, it seems to me that both "The Power on the Glory" and "A Man's Castle" (from 1933), must rank among Spencer's best films, I'd love to see them.
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BTW Marshal, Claudette's first movie was a silent, the 1927 Frank Capra film "For the Love of Mike" (First National) with Ben Lyon (they met again in 1934, at Columbia Studios, when she was teamed with Gable in Capra's "It Happened One Night")...her first talkie was "The Hole in the Wall" (1929) directed by Robert Florey, opposite Edward G. Robinson. "The Big Pond" (1930) was the first film in which she was teamed with Maurice Chevalier, and also it seems, her first musical.
I forgot, I also asked this movie-buff-pal to copy for me "The Love Parade", "Monte Carlo" and "Moulin Rouge" (1934). What a great collection he has!
I
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The More The Merrier is a must Path! I bought it last December, 'cos I had seen it in 2002, I borrowed from Sunnyvale's (California) public Library and I fell in love with the movie, So I promised myself I'd buy it when it was released on DVD. I posted a review on another site, and I will share it with you:
"Damn the Torpedoes!...Full speed ahead"
The line that serves as title for my review is spoken by the great Charles Coburn all through the movie, and at the end of the film it is used as a "subtle" innuendo of what's going on...you'll know what I'm talking about when you see this great film.
I am a fan of pre-codes, in other words, films that were released before the Production Code was fully enforced (1930-1934), but this does not mean I do not love too, films produced during its full enforcement, because it never ceases to amaze me how certain masters of the American Cinema (Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, Lubitsch, etc.) found ways of subtly insinuating what could not be fully showed or directly told onscren.
This film takes place during the severe house (and men) shortage in World War II Washington D.C. and tells us the story of how the funny cupid-mister-fix-it character played by Coburn (Mr. Dingle) gets "clean-cut" Joel McCrea (Joe Carter) into Jean Arthur's (Miss Milligan) small Apartment. Previously, he has managed to get inside of it himself.
I had seen McCrea and Arthur together in the screen for the first time in the Early Talkie "The Silver Horde" (1930), a nice and entertaing adventure yarn (she plays his spoiled rich fianc?e), but neither Arthur had yet blossomed into the excellent actress and deft comediene she was yet to become in the mid 1930's, nor had the great chemistry between both stars developed the way it did in this gem of a movie.
As I said before, in spite of censorship's shortcomings and the Code's restrictions, great directors such as George Stevens (the man who gave us Kate Hepburn's "Alice Adams" or Liz Taylor's "A Place in the Sun") knew how to handle the scenes and show us, insinuating it in a subtle way, in this case, the sexual tension between Connie Milligan and Joe Carter. In fact, never I had seen McCrea or Arthur in such sexy-romantic-"physical" scenes (by 40's standards), showing the love and desire they feel for each other, all the longing for "more".
McCrea seems so much "passionate" in his romantic secenes, than usual, and Arthur looks sexy to the hoot. What a fine figure this lady had! She surely looks much younger than the 43 years old she was when she made this movie and gets to wear some sexy-outfits (I liked her especially with her hair "loose") and even a translucid (or look-through) black nightgown.
Trust me, this is one of the most engaging, romantic, amusing, comedies from Hollywood's Golden Era, that you can get.
Now, one more time Columbia-Sony leads us into mistake, with its statement on the back-cover of the DVD Case, that this film was "remastered in high definition". The quality of the transfer is so-so, pretty uneven I'd dare to say, with many imperfections. But then, it's the only DVD edition available of this masterpiece, so buy it anyway! You won't regret it.
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It would be great, but we have to admit that TCM has already made all kinds of efforts to get the best movies (that not belong to their Library) for its monthly schedule. e.g.: Judex (1916), Portrait of Jennie (1948), Midnight (1939), The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), Design for Living (1933), Love Me Tonight(1932), Garden of Eden (1928), Dodsworth (1936), "Torch Singer" (1933), "Trouble in Paradise" (1932), "Cleopatra" (1934), "The Sign of the Cross" (1932), etc.
By the way, since Universal owns the rights of the Paramount catalog of films from the thirties, does anyone know if the Universal channel has aired any of Claudette Colbert's 1930's Paramount films?
I was lucky enough to contact by e-mail, a film buff who has copies of such films as "The Big Pond", "Playboy of Paris", "Paramount on Parade", "Glorifying the American Girl", "One Hour With You"...and he has agreed to copy them for me.
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I would guess: Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights and Stagecoach.
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The Thirty-Nine Steps?
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I was between Red Harvest and Dain Curse...was on tne verge of answering the latter!!
The actual question..did she endorse a lipstick?
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Limelight?
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Glad to read you're better Lolite. Hope you'll be soon 100% cured. Best Regards. We all miss you.
Fernando
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Great insight Coffeedan!
Was it Red Harvest?
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Irene Dunne's "Never a Dull Moment"
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David Lean's Great Expectations is a masterpiece...John Mills is just great. Enjoy it!
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Cliff "Ukelele" Edwards?
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You're right Path, I had the luck of taping "A Midsummer's Night Dream", Max Reinhardt's only film venture in Hollywood, a film which I longed to see, and it lived up to my expectations absolutely.
Excellent Music Score of Mendelssohn's work by the great Erich Wolfgang Korngold, great portrayals by Mickey Rooney, Jimmy Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Anita Louise, Verree Teasdale, Ross Alexander, Jean Muir, Ian Hunter...It is such a sumptuous production....it seems more like a MGM than a WB!!
Don't pay attention to some critics and scholars who say that most of these Hollywood actors weren't right & didn't do well in Shakespearen roles (especially they criticize Joe E. Brown, Rooney, Dick Powell...) it's vintage Hollywood at its best, and one of the greatest ensemble-casts ever. Thrities Lovers will have a field day. The scenes featuring King and Queen of the Fairies are fantastically done.
I'll vote for it Path!!!
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MovieJoe, as always we have the same tastes...I read and own "Ginger, Loretta and Irene Who?" by George Eells, which discusses the lives, careers and films of Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Ruth Etting, Loretta Young, Ginger Rogers and Irene Bentley. A great reading by all counts. Hard to find, but it's worth the "search".
Another books worthy to have for 1930's admirers are: "Hollywood Players-The Thirties", by James Robert Parish, with mini-biographies (5-6 pages each), plus stills, and full filmographies of such pros. as Elissa Landi, Arline Judge, Kay Johnson, Robt. Armstrong, John Beal, Anna May Wong, Sally Eilers, Glenda Farrell, Gail Patrick and many, many more.
Excellent too: "At the Center of the Frame-Leading Ladies of the '20s and '30s", which contains extensive interviews by William M. Drew, of Annabella, Billie Dove, Fay Wray, Marian Marsh, Anita Page, Dorothy Lee, Constance Cummings, Evelyn Venable, Jean Muir and Claire Trevor.
'30s fans...look for both Citadel Press (Carol Publishing Group) Books of Jerry Vermilye "The Films of the '30s" and "More Films of the Thirties" which analyze films by year, such as "Safe in Hell", "Make Way For Tomorrow", "The Bad One", "Gambling Lady", "Hot Saturday", etc. etc.
Another grrreaat one, and not at all expensive second-hand is from "Scarface to Scarlett" by Roger Dooley, which analyzes almost every film from the 1930s. Simply spectacular.
And also, three great books by James R. Parish which analyze extensively the careers and films of actresses, with full detailed filmographies: "The RKO Gals" (Ann Harding, Constance Bennett, Irene Dunne, Kate Hepburn, Anne Shirley, Lupe Velez, Joan Fontaine, Wendy Barrie, ...); "The Paramount Pretties" (CLAUDETTE COLBERT, Carole Lombard, Sylvia Sidney, Miriam Hopkins, Clara Bow, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, ...) and "The Fox Girls" (Loretta Young, Janet Gaynor, Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Sonja Henie, ...).
For sure I'm gonna buy "Lady For a Day", it seems it has been re-released, and I do own "Pocketful of Miracles" which I LOVE. Guess I'm gonna like even more Warren William-May Robson's version.
MovieJoe, I'm sure "The Gilded Lily" is not lost, Universal has not released it, as thousands of other '30s Paramounts, maybe because they think there's no market for them. Shame!
"Tovarich" is one of the GREATEST comedies ever, Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer are JUST MAGNIFICENT in it. Unjustly underrated and overlooked film (by critics).
"Night after Night" is another little gem of a film, simply dismissed as Mae West's debut film in which she stole "everything but the camera"...George Raft, Wynne Gibson, Alison Skipworth and Constance Cummings are all uniformly very good.
And trust me, Pre-Code and Early thirties Lovers, both "Dangerous Men" and "Complicated Women" are highly entertaining, fast reading, written in a very easy-to-understand-way (not in that usually obscure-very dense style that many films scholars utilize...they may think sophisticated and high brow, but which IMHO gets very boring indeed)...analyzing lots of films, actors and personaes...such as Richard Barthelmess, Warren William, Shearer, Garbo, Ruth Chatterton, Crawford, Mae Clarke, Jimmy Cagney...et al. You'll devour both!
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Because of the high prices the out-of-print VHS of "Skyscraper Souls" has reached on the net, I bet it must be the "helluva-pre-code-movie"!! And from what I have read in one of the most interesting passages of Doherty's "Pre-Code Hollywood", William's portrayal of the ruthless businessman must be magnificent.
Another film featuring William I must buy someday is Capra's "Lady For a Day" (1933).
Never seen him as Philo Vance...BTW, Gotta see William Powell in "The Kennel Club Murder Case", which I got taped from TCM, he portrays Vance there, doesn't he?
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Warren William is widely discussed in some of these books, 'cos he really is one of the brightest male stars of Pre-Code Hollywood.
There are so many films of him I'd love to see: "The Match King", "Employees Entrance", "Upperworld", "Three on a Match", the great "Skyscraper Souls", "The Dark Horse", "The Mouthpiece", ...
Interestingly, two of the few films of his I've seen, are the only two? in which he co-starred with Colbert, the delightfully tongue-in-cheek 1934 DeMille version of "Cleopatra" (much sexier and amusing than Taylor's mammooth 1963 movie), in which he plays Julius Caesar and the Tearjerker Supreme "Imitation Of Life".
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Just a wild guess: 40 Little Mothers?
Claudette Colbert - Star of the Month
in General Discussions
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MovieJoe you can be sure I will review them for all of you at the Site. Thanks Pal!
BTW Thanks MovieJoe and Mongo for the further book recommendations. Excellent.."The MGM Stock Company" sounds great and the one about Character actors too, in-depth biographies...sounds great.
I've got Quinlan's "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Movie Character Actors", but it has no-indepth biographies, it has their full filmographies, a photo of each one, and their basic data. Just as its companion Quinlan's "Illustrated Registry of Film Stars".
If you like musicals "Gotta Sing Gotta Dance" by John Kobal and "The Hollywood Musical" by Clive Hirschhorn are definites musts, both!
"MGM When the Lion Roars" by Peter Hay is great too, as "MGM Posters" by Frank Miller and "Reel Art: Great Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen" by Stephen Rebello.
For great Stills: "C.S.Bull the man who shot Garbo" by Terence Pepper and John Kobal; "Hurrell's Hollywood" by Mark Vieira, "The Hurrell Style" by Geo.Hurrell and Styne, and Kobal's great "Movie Stars Portraits from the '40s", "Film Stars Portraits of the Fifties" and "Hollywood Glamor Portraits".
Talking 'bout Paramount, "The Astoria Studio and its Fabulous Films" by Richard Koszarski, a great, informative book about all the Silent and Early Talkies made by Paramounts in New York, with gorgeous stills...and more. Also wonderful is John Douglas Eames' "The Paramount Story" and Leslie Halliwell's "Mountain of Dreams"...and worthwhile too is Harry Waldman's "Paramount in Paris" which reviews one by one all the 300 films produced at the Joinville Studios in Paris, France between 1930-1933, by Paramount Studios, in many languages: french, spanish, italian, portuguese, polish, german....with credits and biographies.
Ethan Mordden's "The Hollywood Studios" is also great.
Another old Citadel Press book which is very, very good, and worth searching is William K.Everson's very unique "Love in Film", which reviews thoroughly and from a very unique point of view, such not well-known films (american, british and other european) from the teens, twenties, thirties, forties, like "Smouldering Fires", supposedly (it's lost it seems) a 1924 masterpiece by Clarence Brown with Pauline Frederick, Malcolm McGregor and Laura LaPlante; "Daddy Long Legs" (1931) with Janet Gaynor; "Waterloo Bridge" with Mae Clarke; "Hot Saturday" (1932) with Nancy Carroll, Cary Grant and Randy Scott; "Six Hours to Live" (1932) with Miriam Jordan and Warner Baxter; "Zoo in Budapest" (1933) with Loretta Young and Gene Raymond; "Berkeley Square" with Leslie Howard; "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" with Al Jolson; "Brief Ecstasy" with Paul Lukas and Linden Travers; "Return to Yesterday" with Clive Brook and Anna Lee; "First Love" with Deanna Durbin; "Remember the Night" (1940) with Stanwyck and MacMurray; "Madonna of the 7 Moons" with Phyllis Calvert, Pat Roc, Stewart Granger; "Letter from an Unknown Woman", etc..