Polly of the Precodes

The Patent Leather Kid (1927). A couple of years ago it was announced as part of 31 Days of Oscar programming, only to be pulled from the schedule. The schedule has also announced Lilac Time (1928) at least twice, only for the programmers to pull it with no explanation.

I keep telling myself that because it is different from the 1932 version does not mean it is worse...not that I've convinced myself yet. Interesting that a William Castle-Hammer collaboration produced a Carry On film in all but name.

The people you WISH would make such movies are never the ones who want to take off their clothes in front of a camera. 😪

I normally don't get bothered at attempts to whitewash history, but the pose just looks bizarre with the cigarette erased.

Also see Milland in Rhubarb (1951), a comedy about a cat to whom an eccentric millionaire has willed a major league baseball team.

After the Thin Man is scheduled for New Year's Eve...daytime...in the U.S. at least....

Alice White made a brief and colorful career of being cute, as opposed to acting. But in The Widow From Chicago (1930) she steals the show from Edward G. Robinson (although he wasn't exactly putting up a fight).

Dang. If I'd known about this I could have gotten it as a present for my mother....

Ah, but Cary Grant...Actually I think he was one of the all-time beneficiaries of the "British accent = quality" fallacy.

Marion Davies is an excellent comedienne (although she almost certainly wouldn't have done as well as she did without Hearst's influence). Some time around the coming in of sound Gary Cooper became plainer than a dirt road, and his strong and silent mode always did wear thin pretty quickly. Between Jimmy Stewart's face and voice, I can't believe anyone ever honestly found him attractive. Between Clark Gable's jug ears and monkey face, why did anyone think him good-looking in his early career? (Age and that mustache did help somewhat.) How did Katharine Hepburn turn that affected voice and handful of tics into a film career? Frank Capra's early films with Barbara Stanwyck are electric; the rest of his filmography is middling mush. I like many of Lubitsch's films, but The Shop Around the Corner is inexplicably overrated.

After Die Another Day (2002), there was talk of spinning off Halle Berry's character (Jinx Johnson of the NSA) into a series of her own. Pity nothing ever came of that.

Which reminds me... George O'Brien. There are pictures of him in...even less...but I remember the moderator's warning.

Buster Keaton. Seriously, I swooned the first time I saw him shirtless in one of his silent films.

I have two simple rules: I will watch anything from 1934 or earlier. (And yes, I have seen some serious stinkers as a result. Sometimes I pass on watching something I've seen and liked, because I want to see something I haven't seen before.) I will watch anything from 1935 onward if--for whatever reason--it gets my attention. (A director or actor I like? Some sort of historic significance? A free screening at the National Gallery of Art?) Otherwise I apply no particular method to my watching. And in the event anyone is interested in my movie watching and reactions, I maintain a Letterboxd account (https://letterboxd.com/PollyPrecoder/).

Orangey, best known for Breakfast at Tiffany's (but do check him out in Rhubarb (1951)).