Princess of Tap

Swiithin - - Where did you get the information that Michael was not credited on those two movies I always saw his name on the list. Plus he was always mentioned in any kind of publicity or commentary that I read about those movies In fact in discussing Hello Dolly at the time people were gossiping about how difficult it was for him to choreograph it while Gene Kelly was breathing down his neck as director. I saw that in Life Magazine. So my question to you would be, if he wasn't credited with it who was? Michael Kidd also choreographed The Bandwagon.

Miles-- I can always count on you. I wrote this question just so you would feature Mr. Monotony. I knew that you would pick it out from the crowd. I only saw this maybe 15 or 20 years ago on That's Entertainment 3, Though I'd read about it for years. Also, I had Bran New Suit on my Fred Astaire MGM tape. I had some stills of it too. I think Mr. Monotony is the most perfect Garland number I've ever seen. It's a perfect example of great singing coordinated with choreography--Judy is a performer who really sings and dances at the same time-- the dancing is unobtrusive-- this is what you get when the director is also Judy's personal choreographer. But, I have always wondered why Judy had her current husband at the time, Vincente Minnelli, replaced by Walters as director of Easter Parade. Many thanks & well-done! Miles is up--

9) Henry Mancini had scored music for director Blake Edwards for several of his television series and movies, but his association with Edwards for Breakfast at Tiffany's brought him two Academy Awards: one for the song Moon River, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and another one for the original score for Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Tom - -. Thank you for this delightful summary of one of Preston Sturges' best comedies. When you see this movie it reminds you of how important casting is. Maybe the most important work is done before the shooting ever starts. Very few people ever think of Rudy Vallée as a great comedic actor. He shows exactly what he can do in this movie. I'm just not so sure if he's imitating John D Rockefeller Jr or John D Rockefeller III. Whichever one it was supposed to be, this famous singer steals the movie from the Hollywood movie stars. The character actors cast in this movie were so good that I forgot to list Franklin Pangborn as one of my supporting favorites. There was just too much competition in this one.

So many superlatives describe Lucille Ball - - the Queen of television the Queen of the sitcom, the Queen of comediennes, America and the world's favorite redhead. Why did Lucy ever give up being a Hollywood actress in the first place to become a Radio Star, which propelled her into TV history? Well this Boxed Set should answer that very question -- It's the: Hollywood didn't know what to do with Lucy so they put her into every mediocre and bad movie there was at almost a half dozen Studios until she didn't have a movie career anymore that was worth salvaging so that she had nothing else to do but to get into radio and/or television to reinvent herself if she wanted to stay in Show Business. This boxed set title can be shortened to - - Lucy's Chutzpah Hollywood Career-- Lucy McGillicuddy take notes: 1) 1940--Dance, Girl, Dance This movie is best remembered as Hollywood's only female director, Dorothy Arzner's, penultimate film. Aside from that it's best forgotten. Lucy shimmies in the burlesque. Maureen O'Hara tries to shimmy in the burlesque. Then they both fight over the darling Louis Hayward. In the middle of all this hopefully the audience shimmies out of the theater. 2)1949, Easy Living-- Jacques Tourneur This is a football drama starring Victor Manure and Lizabeth Scott, I married couple who don't see eye-to-eye. Mature is the top football player of the team and Lucy is the team secretary who pines for him. Full disclosure - - I hate football but this movie is so bad that the football scenes were the only part that I enjoyed. But with or without a decent script, Liz Scott never disappoints. During halftime, pretend it's intermission and don't go to the concession stand for a Coke, go home for a real drink. --now we've saved the worst for last-- 3)1942, The Big Street-- Irving Reis Lucy co-stars in this movie with Henry Fonda. Reportedly during the making of this film, Desi Arnaz hung around the set sneering at Henry Fonda, for whatever reason I can't imagine. Too bad Desi didn't sneer at the director and make him stop shooting this movie. The plot is so maudlin, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you or prevent you from having a miserable time like I had when I had to watch the whole thing, all the way through. We're throwing in The Magic Carpet (1951, Lew Landers) as a bonus movie-- This is Lucy's last movie before television immortality. She co-starred with Raymond Burr who was also on the brink of something big. Lucy plays an Arabian princess-- I know that sounds like an episode of I Love Lucy, doesn't it?

Columbo - you drive a hard bargain-- but not really Jeremy Brett - - I can play hardball too-- Next: Montalbano, Luca Zingaretti or Henri Leclair, Grégory Fitoussi

2 things-- 1) I like Lon Chaney Jr in Dr. Death. He gives a very dramatic, believable performance. (But then, I like Lon Chaney in just about everything he ever did.) 2) And why didn't Brolin shoot out the tires the first time he saw the car? I couldn't believe how many good actors and actresses were in that movie. It must have been a slow year. That RG Armstrong is not so well-known, but he's in a league with Chuck Connors and Claude Akins -- he really knew his stuff as an American outback character actor.

With the blonde hair she looks a little bit like her sister-- Joan Bennett

This question is about musical numbers that are not in musicals. These numbers were cut for whatever reason from these famous musicals. 1) What Judy Garland number was cut from Easter Parade? 2) What Fred Astaire number was cut from The Bandwagon? 3) What number did Fred Astaire get cut out of in The Ziegfeld Follies? 4) What Cyd Charisse number was cut from The Bandwagon? Please answer in totality.

Ohayo

June Bride

The "I Don't Know What You Call This Style of Dancing But It Sure Seems to Work" Award: James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy Being the resident tap dancer here, I guess it will be up to me to try and explain the style of tap dancing that James Cagney performs in Yankee Doodle Dandy. I'll do my best, but you gotta remember that tap dance is a jazz art form and everybody is allowed to do their own thing. (FYI--My personal tap dance style is what I call the Broadway or Studio style, which requires some knowledge of ballet - - very similar to what Gene Kelly does in Singin' in the Rain, with the Embellishments of Eleanor Powell tap turns.) Far as I can tell James Cagney is imitating George M Cohan who like him was an Irish-American. Irish-American tap dancers at that time seemed to derive their style from Irish step dancing. If you've ever seen it, you know that it's rather stiff without port Au bras-- arm movements that coordinate with the dance. Johnny Boyle, a tap dance instructor who had worked with Cohan on Broadway and along with Harland Dixon, a famous vaudevillian from the team of Doyle and Dixon were Jimmy Cagney's tap co-choreographers for Something To Sing About. There were several choreographers on Yankee Doodle Dandy, however, the Irish-American Boyle was Jimmy Cagney's personal instructor and co-choreographer for the movie. Cohan was very much alive at the time, though not in the best of health, however he was aware of what they were doing and lived to see the movie completed. The only other thing I can say is that the other general description would be it's a buck and a wing dance by a hoofer who is more less self-taught and doesn't have the benefit, or some tap dancers would say the disadvantage of ballet training. If you've ever seen the Footlight Parade's Shanghai Lil tap dance number, that Cagney does with Ruby Keeler, then you have seen two Buck and Wing hoofers, well suited to each other. Gene Kelly is the most famous Irish-American tap dancer in the movies. He studied ballet, so he has a style that is very much influenced by it. Gene Kelly also was a fine acrobat. However, I do know that he was a proponent of Irish step dancing. If you look at the ballet An American in Paris, when he enters with the other American tap dancers and they meet the French girl ballet dancers, they do a kind of a George M Cohan strut-- with a straight lower back, while shaking their hats in the air-- like you see James Cagney do in Yankee Doodle Dandy. When Gene does that, he's tipping his hat to his heritage as an Irish American tap dancer and the Irish heritage in American tap dancing, as demonstrated by the long career of George M Cohan on Broadway. This is one style of tap dancing, I don't believe I've seen very many people do anymore. But Tom, you're absolutely right,it works very well for Jimmy Cagney in this movie.

Rayban - - When I was a little girl, I was an Avid Reader of the movie star fan magazines. They only cost a quarter and you could read all about the new movies coming out and important facts about the stars. The publicists would make up stupid little stories with tantalizing headlines. But it never really mattered because the photos were what you bought the magazine for. They always had a lot of photos of those obligatory promotional parties in Hollywood where movie stars would appear with a date that was arranged by the studio. In the late fifties, I can recall seeing Rock Hudson repeatedly with a woman named Marilyn Maxwell. She was called his " gal pal",whatever that means. If you're not familiar with her, she was a very attractive blonde actress who wasn't young and wasn't old. Always in the captions they would say something like-- Marilyn and Rock are inseparable why don't they just hitch-up? I may have seen him at times with arranged dates with Connie Stevens or Debbie Reynolds - - but it seems like he was always with this Marilyn Maxwell. So you might find her interesting. PS -- I was fan of Troy Donahue's. He never really got the acclaim that he deserved for his dramatic abilities A Summer Place and Parrish. I'm assuming you're a fan of his. Have you been able to watch Surfside 6?

Top Favorite Supporting Acting Performances of 1942 Top 10 Male Supporting Acting Performances for 1942 1)** Peter Lorre**-- Casablanca 2) Rudy Vallée - - The Palm Beach Story 3) Thomas Mitchell--Moontide 4) Dooley Wilson - - Casablanca (Tie) 4) Charles Coburn - - In This Our Life 5) Sydney Greenstreet - - Casablanca (Tie) 5) Laird Cregar - - This Gun For Hire 6) Paul Henreid - - Casablanca 7) Claude Rains - - Casablanca 8) Robert Dudley- - The Palm Beach Story (The Wienie King) 9) Reginald Denny - - The Voice of Terror (Tie) 9) Otto Kruger - - Saboteur 10) Sig Arno-- The Palm Beach Story ("Toto") Honorable mention - - Franklin Pangborn - - Now, Voyager Frank Faylen - - The Palm Beach Story (Taxi Driver) Top 10 Female Supporting Acting Performances for 1942 1)** Gladys Cooper**-- Now, Voyager 2) Hattie McDaniel - - In This Our Life 3) Mary Astor - - The Palm Beach Story 4) Joy Page - - Casablanca 5) Faye Bainter - - Woman of the Year 6) Bonita Granville - - Now, Voyager 7) Madeleine LeBeau - - Casablanca 8) Diana Lynn- - The Major and The Minor 9) Rita Johnson - - The Major and The Minor 10) Norma Varden - - Casablanca Honorable mention - - Ilka Chase - - Now, Voyager Lela Rogers - - The Major and The Minor

Top Favorite Performances for 1942 Top 10 Male Acting Performances for 1942 1)** Humphrey Bogart**-- Casablanca 2 James Cagney--Yankee Doodle Dandy 3) Ronald Colman-- Random Harvest 4) Alan Ladd - - This Gun For Hire 5) Robert Cummings - - Saboteur 6) Jean Gabin - - Moontide 7) Spencer Tracy - - Woman of the Year 8) Ray Milland - - The Major and The Minor 9) Joel McCrea - - The Palm Beach Story 10) Basil Rathbone - - The Voice of Terror Top 10 Female Acting Performances 1)** Bette Davis** - - Now, Voyager 2) Ingrid Bergman - - Casablanca 3) Greer Garson - - Random Harvest 4) Bette Davis - - In This Our Life 5) Claudette Colbert - - The Palm Beach Story 6) Katharine Hepburn - - Woman of the Year 7) Ginger Rogers - - The Major and The Minor 8) Ida Lupino - - Moontide 9) Olivia de Havilland-- In This Our Life 10) Evelyn Ankers - - The Voice of Terror

KAMSAHAMNIDA!

Leastwise it's not in Korean.

Fred Astaire in The Bandwagon Next: a fight on a sailboat

Godzilla Next: A smart alec teenager

Earl Holliman

Lawrence, And what you said about Shall We Dance is so true for many people. They may have never seen either version, but it was so popular in the mainstream American culture that everyone has heard of it. And believe it or not Masayuki Suo started his career with pink or porno films.LOL His incredibly popular Shall We Dance,1996, featuring The Drifters song, Save the Last Dance For Me, was remade in 2004 by Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez in English. He continued his interest in filming dance with Dancing Chaplin-- this is the ballet by famed French choreographer Roland Petit, Chaplin Dances. Released in 2011, the film has been shown at the Montreal World Film Festival and the Pusan International Film Festival. Of course, Roland Petit is the ballet choreographer who trained Leslie Caron and choreographed her ballets in Fred Astaire's movie Daddy Long Legs. The 1984 Abnormal Family - - is a sexually provocative satire, if you will take off, on not just the subjects of Ozu's cinema, but also his unique camera techniques. The great success that Suo had with Shall We Dance in part comes from the great casting. He utilized some of the most gifted actors in Japanese cinema today-- Koji Yakuso,Naoto Takenaka,Erik Watanabe, Reiko Kusamura and Taiyo Kusakari, a real ballerina who later married Suo. His 2012 film, A Terminal Trust is based on a real story about a terminally ill person's desire to die. In giving Shall We Dance 3 1/2 stars, Roger Ebert suggested that maybe the success of this film has to do with how it captures all the qualities of a Hollywood hit, yet at the same time maintaining its basic social identification with Japanese culture, along with a " well-crafted character study" and"skillful script". It's a movie that a dance instructor could die for, yet at the same time it's going to entertain anyone, who would never even dream of taking dance classes, but could put themselves in the place of an ordinary middle class businessman who goes for it--initially for the beauty of the instructor and eventually finding the beauty of the dance. Lawrence, it is indeed that last movie-- And talking about popularity,I was referring to the original movie Shall We Dance and its popularity in the United States in Japanese with subtitles, that would be in theaters on VHS and in the mainstream culture, the last being, probably one of the main reasons that Richard Gere decided to remake it as an American movie-- your turn--

My Favorite Top 10 Films of 1942 are: 1) Casablanca - - Michael Curtiz 2) Yankee Doodle Dandy - - Michael Curtiz 3) Random Harvest - - Mervyn Leroy 4) Now, Voyager-- Irving Rapper 5) The Palm Beach Story - - Preston Sturges 6) Saboteur - - Alfred Hitchcock/ In This Our Life - - John Huston 7) Woman of the Year - - George Stevens 8) This Gun For Hire - - Frank Tuttle 9) The Major and The Minor - - Billy Wilder 10) Moontide-- Archie Mayo Honorable mention For Me and My Gal - - Busby Berkeley The Voice of Terror - -John Rawlins

Doris also said that when she was in the middle of the situation which I believe I recall was a miscarriage and had complications - - that the actress Charlotte Greenwood, who was a Christian Scientist, came to her bedside and read Christian Scientist prayers for her for hours on end.

Lawrence-- I think more than likely popular means the average moviegoer has either heard of this movie or has seen it. Lawrence, as much as I admire your taste in movies, I don't think you're an average moviegoer. Also the first hint means that this film was so popular in the Japanese version in America that it was remade into an American version in America. That's popular - -

Re: Doris Day Doris' Infamous husband/ manager Marty Melcher was a Christian Scientist and forced her into those beliefs. But she says in her autobiography that he was afraid of doctors - - she got into a situation where she needed medical attention and as a result of not getting that medical attention or getting it too late, she wasn't able to have any more children. And she really regretted that.