slaytonf

Prophylactic modesty.

The Ex Mrs. Bradford (1936) is on this Wednesday the 17th at 9:15 AM Pacific.

Not bad, but if I had to have something running around in my head, I'd prefer it to be Ray Charles.

True, that's TCM's go-to pic for Ms. Davies. I like her in Blondie of the Follies (1932)

I completely forgot about commercials. Make that: each song will be heard six times a day. To get rid of that theme, try substituting it with Ray Charles' "You Don't Know Me." That's the best one on the list.

40 songs. +/- three minutes each. 120 minutes. 60 minutes in an hour. 24 hours a day. 1440 minutes a day. Each song will be heard twelve times a day.

I thought that was what radio did then. AM at least.

That would be my guess, except it's not on this month. My only other suggestion would be The Face of Fu Manchu (1965).

I suggest that is why Mr. Lucas looked elsewhen for song material.

So what were the songs playing in '62?

Of the funny ladies up for acknowledgement tomorrow night, all of whom I admire, I have to say Jean Arthur is my favorite. But if I were king of the movie programming world, I would choose a different movie than the one being shown. The More the Merrier (1943) is a good movie. Can't fault the cast, the script, the director, and forgive me for descending to the crass, Jean Arthur was as hot in that movie as any actress was in any movie at any time--not a shabby feat, considering this was a pre-bikini world. (It just occurred to me what pictures a jokester would post in response. Oh well.) But there are one or two other of her movies I like better, like seeing her better in, and are underappreciated. The first is Too Many Husbands (1940). An outing in the spouse-gets-marooned-long-enough-so-other-spouse-gets-on-with-his/her-life genre of movie. This time it's the husband (Fred MacMurray) that disappears, and the wifey (Ms. Arthur) marries his publishing partner and longtime friend (Melvyn Douglas). Return the husband, hijinks ensue. It's cleverly written, and the two men do a fine turn as newly discovered frenemies. But it's Jean Arthur who sparkles, playing the long-neglected wife first of a globe-trotting adventurer (MacMurray), and then of a company-obssessed publisher (Douglas). Suddenly she's a princess with two knights tilting for her favor. She relishes the situation so wantonly it's a surprise it got by the censors. And the ending!--Wasn't it Preston Sturges who said you could get away with anything in a movie so long as it was a comedy? Must've been right. The other, and the one I think I'd choose to show is The Devil and Miss Jones (1941--and I know what a jokester would do with that.) I guess it's due to sentiment, as this is the first movie I recognized Jean Arthur in. The story revolves around labor unrest at a department store where Mary (Ms. Arthur) works, and whose main squeeze Joe (Robert Cummings) used to, until he was fired for organizing. The owner, impatient with the incompetence of his hirelings, goes under cover as an employee to seek out and destroy unionizers. Okay, I know it's an absurd premise, but it's a comedy, okay? There are plenty of great scenes, including one at an organizing meeting where the clandestine nabob is portrayed as a used, abused, screwed, and tattooed worker; one at a police beach substation where Joe turns the tables on the cops practicing their intimidation techniques; and one in a shoe stockroom where Mary, thinking the nabob is a detective, struggles with herself and some shoes in trying to disable him to get a list of union sympathizers. As good as the rest of the movie is, from the delightful and sometimes affecting writing, the witty direction that aptly complements it, to the supporting cast with familiar faces that form a line around the block--as good as that is, I say, it's Jean Arthur who mesmerizes and preoccupies the attention. And she has one scene near the end where she performs a feat of acrobatics, leaping over a desk, that is jaw-dropping. I've never seen an actress equal it--not even in today's super-heroine-studded movieland. And I've never laughed harder at a movie, not even Monty Python.

Yeah, I hear that from a lot of people. I don't buy it.

We're not done with Rohmer yet this month.

TCM adds to its growing list of movies by Eric Rohmer with this light comedy. Another of his explorations of relationships, how people complicate them, what people tell themselves and others about them, and how they resolve them, or don't. All at the beach. It's not a landmark movie, but people who like Rohmer will like this. On Sunday, 11:00 pm, Pacific time.

That's a big bus.

Dang! Missed it!

Demon Seed is still listed on the month schedule. Perhaps Swamp Thing was mistakenly submitted to cable and satellite providers.

A Place of One's Own can be seen on YouTube.

And A Place of One's Own (1945).

On my list of favourite actresses. I like her also in Man of the Moment (1935), Highly Dangerous (1950).

That's what we like about ya, man.

1956 MG MkI in The Horse's Mouth (1958). In the picture you see the front of the MG, and the back of Alec Guinness:

I think more than most directors, you could see his movies as "Kubrick." And for the hilarious fascination, it's called black comedy. You could also call it bleak satire. Don't worry too much about it, a lot of it was a product of the times it was made in.

This is a longer list than I expected. I wonder if any of these directors ever discussed why they revisited their previous work.

Another one where the earlier effort is definitely the better one.