…and not so faithful.   Hi! It’s Carrie the-not-consistent half of the blog team.  Better late than never, now that you’ve had time to go through Brandie’s holiday picks, I thought I’d give you mine. First, I have to concur with Brandie on Christmas in Connecticut.  It’s fantastically entertaining and just far enough over the top to be perfect for gift wrapping or enjoying a Christmas toddy- whatever that means for you.

Secondly, my Christmas isn’t complete until I have watched at least ten different versions of A Christmas Carol. Brandie, feel free to go to sleep now- I know you’re thrilled. It’s true, though. I’m no Dickens fan, but I love this story. I love all the movie versions, although many of them are pretty weak. I do prefer the “bigger” renditions. I recommend watching at least one of them each year. It’s like baking Christmas cookies- it may be the same over and over, but it isn’t Christmas otherwise. Find one. Watch it. Be joyful.

One of my longtime Christmas classic favourites is White Christmas. It’s a must for me each year. Bing Crosby, ’nuff said. Add Danny Kaye and you can’t go wrong. If you haven’t seen it (and you should; it’s widely available and AMC has been playing it quite a bit this year), it follows the story of two WWII vets who meet doing a Christmas program during their tour of duty. They team up and take show biz by storm, making quite a name for themselves. Then, they meet two sisters trying to break into the business.  Thanks to Danny Kaye, they end up joining them in Vermont where there is no snow, but lo and behold, the retired General Waverly has set up  a ski lodge. In addition to many other little schemes, they decide to pull together a big Christmas surprise for their former commander- and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Lots of  music, plenty of talent, and of course, Bing Crosby singing White Christmas- a holiday must. This movie goes down smoothly with hot chocolate or cider, and also suitable for gift wrapping.

My last pick is a rather obvious holiday favourite, but who can deny that Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown is an instant classic?  Nothing prepares you for the Christmas season like a precocious little beagle and Linus’ beautiful monologue about the meaning of Christmas.  In 25 minutes, the children, Snoopy, and Woodstock manage to summarize all the facets of Christmas from the commercial to the spiritual to the core of that warm fuzzy feeling we’re all seeking- and not just the one that sits in a steaming mug. I recommend pairing this one with peppermint, cookies and milk, or chocolate. And by curling up with a puppy, if one’s available.

Merry Christmas!

Strangely for something with as much sentimental potential as Christmas, there is only a handful of really classic Christmas movies. Yet, every year, this buff draws up a list of Christmas movies to watch in the run-up to the big day – and every year she fails miserably to get through them all.

The viewing itinerary usually kicks off with a little-known 1945 comedy called The Cheaters, which is getting a rare screening on Channel 4 this weekend. With a screwball cast that includes the elephantine Eugene Pallette and the twittery Billie Burke (best remembered as Glinda from The Wizard of Oz), it’s about a family of hard-up socialites who – in order to impress their daughter’s rich suitor – take in the down-and-out Joseph Schildkraut over Christmas, and learn a thing or two about dignity from him.

The Cheaters makes a nice double bill with Christmas in Connecticut (pictured), another rarely shown 1945 comedy, this time about a sophisticated magazine columnist (Barbara Stanwyck) forced to live up to her phoney reputation as a Nigella-style domestic goddess when her editor decides to spend the holidays at her country cottage.

Continuing the unwelcome guest theme, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) is one I always manage to squeeze in to the viewing schedule. A gloriously funny comedy, it stars Monty Woolley as the obnoxious “idol of the airwaves” Sheridan Whiteside (a character based on the humorist Alexander Woollcott) who, during a lecture tour, breaks his leg and has to spend his recovery – and Christmas – at the home of the unlucky mid-west family outside whose house he slipped.

“Christmas may be postponed this year,” says one gossip column reporting the accident which has left the Stanley family confined to the upstairs quarters of their own home. The snazzy script, packed with one-liners, is a joy and the performances – by Billie Burke (again), Bette Davis, chic glamourpuss Ann Sheridan (my Christmas style icon), the wonderful character actress Mary Wickes and Jimmy Durante (playing a character based on Harpo Marx) – are as sparkling as a glass of Christmas bubbly.

Versions – live and animated – of A Christmas Carol abound, but the most atmospheric and haunting of all is the 1951 British classic, Scrooge, with the peerless Scots actor Alastair Sim gloriously dour as the miser who claims that “Christmas is a humbug” until he is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve and realises that friendship and love are worth more than money.

Wash that one down with the gentler The Bishop’s Wife (1947), a grown-up romantic fantasy in which Cary Grant stars as a particularly debonair and charming angel named Dudley, who answers the prayers of a stressed-out clergyman (David Niven)and his neglected wife (Loretta Young) at Christmas-time, and leaves a trail of swooning ladies in his wake.

Or settle down with family favourite Miracle on 34th Street (1947 – a vintage year for Christmas movies) in which department store Santa Edmund Gwenn has to prove that he’s the real McCoy to a non-believing seven-year-old (Natalie Wood).

Heartwarming Christmas scenes feature in plenty of movies, but the ones worth digging out in the run-up to midnight are Little Women (any of the three versions will do, as long as you have your hankies handy) and Meet Me In St Louis (1944).

Although it covers a whole year in the lives of the characters it depicts, Meet Me In St Louis easily qualifies as a festive film: not only does it embody all the sentiments of the season, but it also features Judy Garland introducing the beautiful song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas which is guaranteed to jerk a few buckets’ worth of tears.

The hours spanning Christmas Eve and Christmas morning should be spent in the company of Clarence the Angel, Zuzu, George, Uncle Billy and everyone else in Frank Capra’s evergreen It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – the definitive Christmas movie.

And, if by December 27, I feel that I’ve overdosed on the old Christmas spirit, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) will provide just the right amount of cynicism to prepare me for the horrors of Hogmanay…

Here we have a rare discussion of an A Western at “Charles Starrett – One Fan’s Journey.”  The reason?  Mainly, I was interested to see what a bigger budget Western from 1935 looked like.

It looked good.

The differences between this film and “Gallant Defender”, Charles’ first Western made that same year on a considerably smaller budget, are many.  RKO’s “Annie Oakley” has an accomplished director, George Stevens, and star, Barbara Stanwyk.  It has scenes featuring lots of people — crowd scenes and wild west shows.   It is painted on a bigger historical canvas, involving real people and real events.

Also, the love story is central to the story, rather than, in “Gallant Defender” and most other films from Charles Starrett’s western period, treated as an afterthought or, more often, an unwanted intruder on the plot.

“Gallant Defender” follows Johnny Flagg (Starrett), a wandering cowboy, as he throws in with a group of Homesteaders in their struggle with the evil Cattleranchers.  “Annie Oakley” tells the (mostly) true story of the sharpshooter and her life in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.  Toby Walker (Preston Foster) is the crack shot she bests and later replaces and loves all the while.

These films also have a lot in common.  Mainly (besides Ms. Stanwyck), it’s wooden acting.  Preston Foster lurches through the film.   I know him primarily from his role in the previous year’s “Last Days of Pompeii” (which I’m sure our loyal reader from New Zealand will point out is a Gladiator flick. )  In 1939, he would appear in “Geronimo” playing Capt. Bill Starrett.  Perhaps the brother of Joe Starrett from “Shane”?

The writing often sucks as well.  Check out this scene set at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.  Sitting Bull is a guest at the performance.  After Annie Oakley does some impressive shooting, an audience member nudges the great Indian Chief and says, “Bet you don’t have any squaws that can shoot like Annie Oakley.”  To which Sitting Bull responds, “Don’t want squaws who shoot, only cook!”

I’d also say that neither film was making any great leaps in cinematic history.

An unexpected discovery from viewing “Annie Oakley” was how many bit players from this film were featured in Charles Starrett vehicles.

(WARNING:  The following paragraphs are for HARDCORE Starrett completists only.)

Richard Alexander appeared in four of Charles’ films between 1937-1951.  He has the fun, if tiny, role of Prince Wilhelm during Annie’s European tour.  Annie shoots a cigarette out of his mouth while her handler warns that one slip and she could “change history.”

The Judge in the shooting match between Annie and Toby Walker is played by Stanley Blystone, an actor who appeared as Charles’ Uncle Marvin in Starrett’s debut as a cowboy star “Gallant Defender” AND as a detective in the pre-cowboy Starrett starrer “Silver Streak.”(“Annie Oakley” cinematographer J. Roy Hunt shot that film.)

Another pre-Western co-star makes a small appearance in the crowd of that shooting match.  It’s Eddie Borden who played Charles’ cut-up buddy in “Jungle Bride.”

The actor playing Sheriff Bixby, Robert McKenzie, also straddles the line, as a policeman in the 1935 mystery “Shot in the Dark” and a telegraph operator in the next year’s Western “Mysterious Avenger.”

Speaking of obscure Starrett vehicles, Harry Bowen was in two of them — 1934’s “Murder on Campus” and 1935’s “Make a Million.” Donald Kerr was also in the latter, there as a radio announcer, here as a shooting gallery barker.  And Charlie Hall was billed above Starrett in “Call It Luck”.  Anyone remember “Return Of Casey Jones”?  Theodore Lorch played Dr. Wallace in that one.

The winner of the Most Films With Charley goes to Ernie Adams who appeared with Starrett in fifteen films between 1936 and 1952, including Charles’ swan song, “The Kid From Broken Gun”.  Here he plays a wrangler in Bill Cody’s show.

Perhaps most memorable is Si Jenks in a small role here, who played comic relief to Starrett in a number of early Westerns, including the crusty coot Buckshot in “Cowboy Star.” The little brat Sammy in that film?  Why, it’s Sammy McKim who plays a kid begging turns at the shooting gallery where Toby Walker retires in shame.

The bartender Frank Mills probably goes back the furthest with Charles, playing a mechanic in 1932 Paramount prodution, “Sky Bride.” Or is it E. Alyn Warren from 1932’s “The Mask of Fu Manchu”?

The list goes on and on.  Frank Austin in 1937’s “Outlaws of the Prairie”;  Dick Elliot in two films, “Start Cheering” (1938) and “Across The Badlands” (1950);  Jim Mason playing “Henchman” in two films; and Bud Geary also playing Henchmen and assorted other bad guys in four Starrett westerns.   Lew Meehan was in nine.

Perhaps this is the connective tissue between the A and the B Westerns.  The supporting cast.

By Gert Thaler

SAN DIEGO–As time goes by.

Tick tock.  Tick tock.   Not just minutes, days.  Years.  And more years.

I have recovered nicely from a pneumonia bout which necessitated having full time semi-nursing household support and I was lucky enough to be blessed with a delightful 23 year old who cared for my every whim.  The closeness allowed us to become more than patient/caretaker, employer/employee.  Warm friendship seems a better expression.

We talk.  She cooks. I eat.  Born in New Delhi, India but educated in California, the daughter of a now retired New Delhi Policeman, she has matriculated and almost finished nursing school.  We compare our cultures since I know very little of her people and their beliefs, their foods, their family lifestyle.

In comparison, she has never known a Jewish woman.

So we do not lack for conversation.

I spend a good deal of my recuperating snuggled into a large easy chair with my time divided between reading my favorite author, Daniel Silva, through my Kindle, plus newspapers and magazines and crossing my bedroom to my computer which has just been moved for easier access,  plus a lot of time watching movies.

I have a tendency to favor older movies.  And thus, today’s story.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and, more importantly, Sidney Poitier, was the featured movie and a film I have watched several times.

My friend was serving me a cold drink as the picture opened and I casually asked her if she had seen the movie lately.

“Lately?” she answered. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Do you know who those three actors are on the screen?”

“No”.

“No!! Not even one of them?”

I restarted the conversation by explaining that this movie was an ice breaker for the theme of a love affair between a black man and a white woman, the black actor being a star and retaining that status for a long period of years and a man who commands great admiration.

Sitting down to join me she watched in fascination as the story unfolded until its ending.

I asked her what would happen if she should bring home someone other than a man of her own culture and she said it would be unacceptable.  No discussion.

We talked about acceptance in a Jewish home and inter-religious dating and marriage.  A Pandora’s box was opened.

We continued talking about the movie and its theme all of which filled the air with questions about who Hepburn and Tracy were and a review of their past work.

A couple of days later, I was feeling better so my friend Doreen Casuto took me out for a movie and dinner at which her 21 year old son, Simon, joined us.   I asked if he had seen Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and in return I got a blank look.  Only Spencer Tracy was no stranger to him, until I mentioned that Poitier was also the star of the “Mr. Tibbs” movies. He vaguely recalled the character.

I looked in my mirror.  Has so much time gone by that such screen gems are like clouds floating out in space?  Am I and others of my generation the only ones left as fans of the era of Gigi; Stella Dallas;  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town;  Auntie Mame;  and Bus Stop?

Most major stars of those movies have gone to movie star heaven. Maurice Chevalier, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Rosalind Russell, Clark Gable.  Marilyn Monroe, too, except that with continuous publicity today’s youngsters are aware of her image.

There’s some wonderful, well produced and well acted work on our screens today.  But yesterday’s features gave most everybody great pleasure.  I know it will be hard for any 20 something person to believe but when I was 21 years old it cost 35 cents to see a movie, we brought our own candy bars, and popcorn had yet to make an appearance.

Last week’s night out cost $10.50 for a movie.  I don’t eat popcorn but if I had it would have been an additional $4.00 plus more than $2 for a drink.  The refreshment counter line is almost as long as the one at the  box office.

My heart does flip flops when I read of the millions raked in at the box office these days for movies starring total strangers to me.

Maybe that is supposed to be the way things go.

Yesterday’s stars no longer light up the sky and the twinkle is left in the hands of newcomers, so if a 21-year-old asks me if I can name three of today’s hottest box office draws I may very well fail their test.  Will I have missed much?

I doubt it.  Other than Meryl Streep and a couple of others, there will never be another Hepburn, Stanwyck or Russell.  For sure gone are the guys like Tracy, Brando and Cooper.  And those who never got to know them on screen are for sure the losers.

Furthermore, please don’t get me started on Paul Newman or Steve McQueen.

*
Thaler is a longtime columnist of San Diego’s Jewish community.

Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder will never be mistaken as optimists.

In fact, their movies reflect the thoughts of famous crime writer
Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep author was a fan of writers that “gave murder back to the people who committed the crime.”

He respected writers like Dashiell Hammett because they created a
world without hope and without elements of synthetic uplift. He probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the screenplay to Freedom Writers. But an era of film grew out these ideas and began to represent a darker image of the great depression: film noir.

The genre lasted roughly from 1940 and 1960 and was synonymous with murder, passion, revenge, sex, cigars and fedoras (think Humphrey
Bogart and not Jason Mraz).

Here are my top 10 favorite film noir pictures.

1. Double Indemnity (1944) — This might be the best fast-paced screenplay ever written. Chandler and Wilder wrote the script together, and even though they hated working with each other, they created a timeless piece. Fred McMurray delivers his lines with sexual arrogance that wasn’t seen in his family pictures prior to the film, Barbara Stanwyck is the perfect femme fatale and Edward G. Robinson is phenomenal. The unsubtle sexuality in this film is awesome, and it’s surprising that Wilder got away with the shot of McMurry and Stanwyck ready to get busy.

2. Strangers On A Train (1951) — This is my favorite Hitchcock picture. Robert Walker is very creepy and awesome. The homosexual undertones of his character probably went over everyone’s head in 1951. Farley Granger is very good, but not as good as in Rope — and some might argue his adult films in the late 70s. I’d give to much away if I gave plot details. This is a must-see.

3. Sunset Boulevard (1950) — I know, it’s boring to have two Wilder films in the top three, but what other movie starts with William Holden floating in a swimming pool? Exactly.
Aging Gloria Swanson is perfect for the role of a psychotic movie star who is … well, aging.
Also, it’s a great film for one liners like “Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” and “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small.”

Raising Kane: Orson Welles is as bad as they come in the extremely underrated Touch Of Evil.

4. Touch Of Evil (1958) — Orson Welles at it again. This movie goes in about 20 different plot directions much like The Big Sleep, which makes it chaoticly cool. Janet Leigh is hot, which is somewhat awkward to say. Charlton Heston rocks a classic ’stache and plays a Mexican (I’m not making this up). Supposedly, there was a lot of tension between Heston and Welles behind the scenes.

5. The Maltese Falcon (1941) — This is just a movie where Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) walks around San Francisco and says cool things. It’s also a film where it’s as good as the book. Anyone who says otherwise is the type of person who wants Hooper to die at the end of Jaws. John Huston did a great job recreating Hammett’s novel.

6. Notorious (1946) — A classic Hitchock film where you see Cary Grant actually playing an unpleasant character. In fact, his character (T.R. Devlin) is kind of a dick. Personally, Ingrid Bergman has always annoyed me, but the movie is fantastic anyway. The Master of Suspense does is again.

7. The Big Sleep (1946) — This time Bogart walks around L.A. and says cool things. This is a great adaptation of Chandler’s novel by Howard Hawks. Bogart and Bacall have awesome chemistry here.

Here's Looking at You: Humphrey Bogart was a film noir icon

8. Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) — This is clichéd James Cagney here, but what else do you want from him? Don’t miss the ending of this one.

9. Out of the Past (1947) — This might be Robert Mitchum’s best role, and Jane Greer rivals Stanwyck for best noir femme fatale. The plot is Hitchcock, like where a gas-station owner has an extremely shady past. But if you think about it, isn’t that most gas-station workers?

10. The Killers (1946) — This classic noir flick is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway which is perfect for the genre’s bleak view — mainly because Hemmingway shot himself. This is the screen debut of Burt Lancaster, who is a personal fave.

In this job market, who hasn’t considered padding their resume? But resume padding can come back to haunt you as Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyk) discovers in the classic Christmas comedy of errors Christmas In Connecticut.

One moment Elizabeth Lane is at the top of her profession writing an enormously popular feature for the magazine Smart Housekeeping, the next she facing the prospect of unemployment all because her boss thinks she is a wonderful cook who has a husband, a farm, and a baby in Connecticut.  But Elizabeth Lane, America’s favorite homemaker, is really a single, New York career woman who can’t cook, doesn’t have a baby, and lives in a small apartment that doesn’t even have a window box. What she does have is a newly purchased mink coat, a true friend in her “Uncle” Felix (S.Z. Sakall), and a boring architect, would-be fiancé John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner) who keeps proposing despite her numerous rejections. But all that is about to change.

Who could have anticipated all the trouble and excitement that would enter Elizabeth’s orderly life when a nurse in a faraway naval hospital thinks that if her sailor hero fiancé could only spend Christmas with America’s favorite homemaker he will stop dragging his feet and set the date for their wedding? Unable to talk her overpowering boss, publishing giant Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet), out of sending her a sailor for Christmas, Elizabeth embarks on an elaborate, last-minute charade to protect her magazine editor and give this war hero his picture-perfect Christmas in Connecticut.

This charade, however, is not without cost. Elizabeth is finally persuaded to accept John Sloan and marry him on Christmas Eve at his farm in Connecticut. All that is needed to complete the illusion of domestic bliss is a borrowed baby, but when the handsome sailor, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan), lands on Elizabeth’s Connecticut doorstep—suddenly the prospect of marrying the stable but dull John Sloan is the last thing on Elizabeth’s mind. How does a girl win the man of her dreams when he thinks she’s married to another man? To find out, I suggest you spend your Christmas in Connecticut.

Random Facts:

Christmas in Connecticut

· In 1944 when Christmas in Connecticut was filmed, Barbara Stanwyck was so successful that she was the highest-paid woman in the United States.

· Stanwyck was a four-time Academy Award nominee but she didn’t take home Oscar until 1982 when she was given an Honorary Award.

· Sydney Greenstreet, who plays the indomitable publisher Alexander Yardley in Christmas in Connecticut, also appears in the films Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

· Budapest-born actor S.Z. Sakall who plays Felix Bassenak in Christmas in Connecticut was also known as S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall.

· Christmas in Connecticut was remade for television in 1991 starring Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Curtis, it was directed by Arnold Schwarzenagger.

· The movie set used to depict John Sloan’s country home in Christmas in Connecticut is the same set that was used in the 1938 comedy Bringing up Baby.

Christmas in Connecticut Party Plan

My fellow Starlet and I love this movie and have been known to watch it at all times of the year, but there are all sorts of fun ways you can tie this movie into your holiday party or as a special dinner-and-movie event.

· Flippin’ flapjacks. The menus Elizabeth Lane writes in her magazine feature are elaborate and gourmet, but it is flipping a single flapjack that nearly gets her caught. Take a page out of the movie and invite your friends over for a pancake and pajamas party before you watch Christmas in Connecticut. As host, you can provide the pancake batter, have your friends pitch in and bring their favorite toppings like strawberries, peaches, and whipped cream, then get cozy and watch Elizabeth Lane work her magic in the kitchen.

· Old fashioned Christmas. Christmas in Connecticut was released by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. in 1945 when World War II was just concluding. Get your viewing party into the spirit of the time with music from the 1940s like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Research menus and recipes from that era—maybe even find out what one of Elizabeth Lane’s recipes would cost. Mix up some retro cocktails.

· “The things a girl will do for a mink coat!” Elizabeth Lane has promised herself a mink coat all her life and, feeling confident in the success of her feature, she buys herself one. Have your guests arrive for your viewing party wearing fur or faux fur coats just like Elizabeth Lane.

Pancake Recipe

Introduced to the market in 1931, by 1945 when Elizabeth Lane is flipping her first flapjack Bisquick was a staple in American homes. Uncle Felix, true gourmet that he is, might have turned his nose up at using a mix, but for novice and busy cooks Bisquick was a handy convenience food. In keeping with that spirit, here is the pancake recipe from Betty Crocker’s Bisquick Cookbook.

Ingredients

2 cups Original Bisquick

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1. Heat griddle or skillet; grease if necessary.
2. Stir all ingredients until blended. Pour batter by a little less than ¼ cupfuls onto hot griddle.
3. Cook until edges are dry. Turn; cook until golden brown.

5 servings (three 4-inch pancakes each)

As Thanksgiving has passed us by, it is officially the holiday season, and that means TCM will be bursting at the seams with Christmas flicks in the upcoming month. The usual suspects (A Christmas Carol … yawn) abound on the schedule, but I want to direct your attention to a couple of particular gems that, though you may not have seen them or even heard of them yet, are well worth your time.

These two films feature one of my favorite actresses of all time, the lovely and clever Barbara Stanwyck, playing opposite two of her more effective male co-stars, Dennis Morgan and Fred MacMurray. Stanwyck, who began her career in Hollywood playing the vampish man-stealer in naughty (by 1930s standards, anyway) pre-Code films such as Night Nurse (1931) and Baby Face (1933), had graduated to leading-lady status in the latter part of the decade following an Oscar-nominated performance as the self-sacrificing titular mother in the 1937 melodrama Stella Dallas (Stanwyck lost the Academy Award to Luise Rainer, nominated for The Good Earth). But as the 1940s loomed, Stanwyck began to make broader strides into comedy, a genre that clicked with her natural quick wit and comic timing.

Indeed, in 1940 Stanwyck deftly straddles the line between drollery and pathos in Remember the Night, a comedy-drama written by future director Preston Sturges (for whom Stanwyck would make a splash the following year in the sharp screwball comedy The Lady Eve). Playing straight man to Stanwyck’s wily shoplifter is MacMurray, in the first of his four pairings with the actress (the most notable of which is likely 1944’s Double Indemnity, in which both play against type as conniving adulterers determined to kill Stanwyck’s husband for the insurance money). Also notable in a supporting role in the cast is Sterling Holloway, a prolific character actor who would become known in later years for his voiceover work in Disney films such as Bambi (as the adult version of the skunk, Flower), Alice in Wonderland (as one of my particular favorites, the Cheshire Cat), The Jungle Book (as the snake, Kaa), and as the original voice of the silly old bear himself, Winnie the Pooh.

The film revolves around a young woman, Lee Leander (Stanwyck), who comes before the New York district court just before Christmas, accused of shoplifting. D.A. MacMurray delays her case until after the holidays, thinking it will give him a better shot at a conviction, but in a fit of remorse, he bails Lee out of jail and takes her home with him to Indiana for Christmas. Through a series of farcical mishaps involving cows, fire, and heavy snowfall, the two fall in love, and Lee finds a typically sentimental holiday redemption in her relationship with the young, upright attorney.

Though this sentimentalism becomes a bit heavy in the film’s final moments, it befits the Christmas setting, and Sturges’ witty script and the performances of the two stars keep the movie on track and prevent the characters from completely drowning in schmaltzy tepidity.

This little gem is finally getting a new DVD treatment, which is being released today exclusively as a part of Turner Classic Movies’ Vault Collection (check out the other titles available through the Vault–they’ve released some really amazing rare films over the past year!). Remember the Night will also be showing on TCM on December 6th at 2PM, and again on Christmas Eve at 8PM. Make sure you tune in; you definitely don’t want to miss this classic holiday treat.

Nor do you want to miss 1945’s wonderful Christmas in Connecticut, a more screwball take on the holiday season. This film features supporting turns by two of my favorite character actors of all time, Sydney Greenstreet and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall. Some may disagree with terming Greenstreet as a “character” actor, considering his (literally) larger-than-life persona on the screen. Greenstreet, however, was far from a typical leading man; he did not make his screen debut until his appearance as the “Fat Man” Kaspar Guttman in 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, at which time he was a robust 61 years old! In his very short career (Greenstreet would die only 13 years after his film debut), the actor only appeared in 24 films. Yet, what films they were–among them, the aforementioned Falcon, Casablanca, and Passage to Marseille all paired Greenstreet with, arguably, the greatest film actor in history, Humphrey Bogart, and Greenstreet’s portrayals of wily criminals often outshone Bogart’s nuanced tough-guy persona on the screen. Greenstreet’s supporting roles in these films were the essence of what makes a good character actor: he embodied his characters, putting that melodious English accent and genuine bonhomie to solid use and drawing the audience to even the most reprehensible of figures.

Like Greenstreet, “Cuddles” Sakall also created a niche for himself in Hollywood, impressive considering his sometimes indiscernible accent. But that was most assuredly part of his charm. His “hunky dunky” attitude and warm, open smile populated many notable films of the 1940s, including Casablanca (though he shared no scenes with his future Connecticut co-star Greenstreet), The Devil and Miss Jones, Ball of Fire (another gem starring Stanwyck), and Yankee Doodle Dandy. In the fifteen years between his American debut in 1940’s It’s a Date until his death in 1955, Sakall appeared in over 40 Hollywood films, making his mark in every one.

In the film, Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a writer who poses as a Connecticut farmwife in her monthly magazine column, though in real life she has very little aptitude for the domestic duties she espouses (particularly cooking). Stanwyck’s publisher (Greenstreet) sends Jefferson Jones (Morgan), a young sailor who had recently been rescued from his sunken ship, to Elizabeth’s “farm” for a Christmas visit, and decides to join them at the last minute. In order to keep her job, Elizabeth agrees to marry an old friend and use his farm as the backdrop for the visit. But borrowed babies, a wayward cow, a runaway sleigh, and a budding romance with the sailor continually get in the way of her upcoming nuptials …

The screwball comedy in Christmas in Connecticut flies fast and furious, aided by a well-paced script by romantic comedy veterans Lionel Houser and Adele Commandini (from an original story by Aileen Hamilton). The ensemble cast works really well together, resulting in a truly warm and familial sense of camaraderie that shines through the screen.

Christmas in Connecticut has been available on DVD for several years now (and is currently selling for an extremely low price of $5.79 on Amazon.com–go buy it!). I own this edition and, while it lacks any insightful extras, it’s still a wonderful transfer of the film–no noticeable glitches or scratches in the film itself, and the sound is wonderful. Plus, this is the original black and white–no icky, unnecessary colorization of this amazing little film!

TCM will be showing Christmas in Connecticut three times this month: December 6th at 12PM; December 17th at 8PM; and Christmas Day at 12:15PM. This is one you’ll want to watch with the whole family, so gather ’round!

I hope you enjoy both of these wonderful holiday films. And now that I’ve had my say, tell me: what are YOUR favorite little-known holiday delights? Post your comments below, and let us know what makes those films so special!

The complacent 1950s in the United States were the wee-est bit rattled by some questioning of American materialism, part of the fallout of enormous American prosperity. Based on Cameron Hawley’s 1952 novel, which Ernest Lehman adapted and Robert Wise roomily and entertainingly directed, Executive Suite essays corporate boardroom contentiousness as five men vie for the position of president of Tredway, a huge manufacturer of furniture, which Avery Bullard’s death has unexpectedly vacated. The race comes down to one between idealistic young engineer McDonald Walling and conniving, somewhat paranoid controller Loren Shaw; “Don” wants to maintain the company’s tradition of quality, while Shaw is all about cost containment. (The company has embarked on a line of cheap, flimsy furniture aimed at boosting stockholder dividends.) Fredric March’s brilliant performance as Shaw suggests the possibility that he is partially modeled on nervous Tricky Dick Nixon, the nation’s vice president much as Shaw is one of the company’s vice presidents, although Shaw’s middle name, Phineas, also links the character to Phineas T. Bluster, the crabby banker and nasty mayor—the open, warm hero’s nemesis—on radio and television’s children’s program The Howdy Doody Show. Indeed, with his selfconscious semi-staccato movements March’s Shaw sometimes almost seems like a marionette.
     Plainly, Lehman and Wise do not really confront capitalism, instead more or less giving it a pass by squaring off “good capitalism” and “bad capitalism,” although worker insecurity lends credibility to the background. It is important that workers feel pride in their work.
     William Holden is excellent as Don, and Barbara Stanwyck is terrific as major stockholder Julia Tredway, daughter of the company’s founder and Bullard’s bereaved longtime mistress. The entire cast, which also includes Louis Calhern, Walter Pidgeon, Nina Foch and Shelley Winters, took an ensemble acting prize at Venice.

“I wonder if you wonder.”

Great layers of inuendo and connotation in an exchange of wits between Barbara Stanwyck and Jimmy Stewart in the film noir classic, Double Indemnity (1944):

And here’s another great example of insinuation in a different genre:

Until last night, I’d never seen Christmas in Connecticut (1945), but my wife got me to sit down and watch it with her—and what a great holiday movie! Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan have smoldering chemistry (it’s surprising that they don’t melt the snow). Anyway, it’s a great Christmas film that, if you’ve managed to have missed it over the years (as I had), you might want to locate. Here it is at Amazon, and here’s the original trailer for the film:

The pre-code should’ve-been classics Red-Headed Woman (1932) and Baby Face (1933) share the same basic narrative, revolving around a bad-girl woman who decides, hey screw it, I can make use of my goods and services to move up in the world. A novel idea in the 30s – at least novel-ish to feature it in a film – each of these stories ends with the woman getting punished and put back in her “rightful” place. This is to say nothing of the fact that the only way the women could ascend the social ladder at all was by means of men allowing it, one way or another. Ironic perhaps that these films gave birth to the Hays Code, in order to prevent undesirable ideologies from sprouting up in otherwise good American viewers. Films like His Girl Friday more subtly allow women a foot in the door of the business world without exploiting her body in the process. The reasons for suppression and censorship seem to be that the films put ideas in the viewers’ heads that were best kept swept under the rug (even if the ideas were punished), and that they created a basic world in which women could quite easily make men do whatever they wanted by means of sex. Interestingly, in this world it’s the men who have no power at all (at least none they can manage to hang on to) and become forced to stifle woman-power by appealing to their maternal instincts. In Baby Face, Barbara Stanwyck’s character only stands by her man rather than running off with her new-found wealth because he’s terribly injured and needs her help. Ironies infest these stories like maggots in garbage: while the filmmaker’s patriarchal intent seems to be to put the woman back in her place, after creating a narrative exposing the powerlessness of men, he can only reduce Woman back to her previous status by essentially re-castrating the man. This conveniently concludes the stories with both Man and Woman stripped of power; or, the man only has power by virtue of the woman’s unavoidable return to her self as maternal.

Red-Headed Woman should perhaps be distinguished from Baby Face. Red-Headed Woman lets its female protagonist escape from her suitors, taking their wealth with her. Not before being reduced to a hysterical, pathetic, and infantile brat, the woman gets away not in Thelma and Louise style but rather as a child on the lam. The only ingredient lending believability to her new independence is the dual presence of men with her in the car – one of them driving, of course – as the film ends. One man is a young, attractive plaything and the other an old, rich father figure. It may take two men to keep this unruly woman under control, but she is back in her place. And more than ever, she is still well-off only through feeding off of male power and capital. With no possibility of finding and submitting to her maternal nature, she instead is babysat – two men and a little lady. The unjust depictions of women in these films would be outdone only by the unjust depictions of men, except that the focus happens to be on women. (And also, aside from gender, people can be pretty wretched in reality.) If the women are just vixens, temptresses, and seductresses, the men are animals, puerile at best and like ravenous dogs at worst. Their complete and shameless inability to resist the slightest bit of attention or, as it were, legs, boils them down to something worse than biology. It’s really an insult to animals to call these guys “animals.”

Despite a less subtle ending, Baby Face is a better film than Red-Headed Woman. Not only does Stanwyck hold up better than Jean Harlow (she’s more coy, more premeditated), but cinematically Alfred Green directs Baby Face with an eye for cinema. It feels less like an exploitation film, even if the dialogue within it literally discusses the exploitation of women. Settings are staged prior to scenes, giving a context to them and giving the screen a more centrifugal nature, at least when Stanwyck isn’t at its center. Then there’s the racial element, apparently another reason why the film was suppressed by the Code. Lily’s African-American maid Chico is her best friend. They talk like peers, even if their social statuses aren’t allowed equality. As Lily moves up in the world, so does Chico. No drama is injected into their relationship (it would now be obligatory, though more realistic, to insert jealousy into it). The more cash Lily has on hand and spends on nice clothes and accessories, same with Chico. How all of this fits together – sexual liberation, willing female exploitation, racial equality (on a certain level) – is intriguing. These films may not have “intended” to break boundaries of class, race, and society, but as one boundary starts disintegrating, so do others. This happens not only within the film’s diegesis but to the film itself, through the Code. Now these films seem tame by movie standards, but at least some of them couldn’t be shown on broadcast television. The extra-diegetic element has been removed, but the intentional or unintentional – conscious or subconscious – gender dynamics and the assumptions that underlie them are still alive, well, and only sometimes challenged.

First, Red-Headed Woman:

Come and get me!

Look what I found!

I SAID kiss me!

Whaddayathink?

Come and get it!

"I've got 'im where I want 'im!"

Just me and my boys

Now, Baby Face:

Industrial context

Man's world

Getting bored

Violated

Nietzsche doth teach us...

Lowering the lights

Male innuendo

We can do it...together

Don't mind me

Whatcha doooin?

Know your enemy

For all you who missed it

Wealth destroyed

Order restored

FRANK FAY

“Of all the great vaudevillians, I admired Frank the most” — James Cagney.

Almost all of the great comedians speak with reverence about Frank Fay. He originated the stand-up comedy style we associate with Hope, Benny, Carson, Leno and Letterman, the extremely polished “American Institution” style, an unspoken confidence that says “an army of people made me possible.” You might call such performers “comc laureates”, almost branches of the U.S. government. As opposed to the more burlesquey Milton Berle-Henny Youngman-Rodney Dangerfield approach, these are not men who take or deliver a pie in the face, cross their eyes, or say “take my wife, please”. What they do is tell America the jokes they will repeat around the water cooler at work the next day. While there was no t.v. in Fay’s heyday, he was the king of the Palace, the flagship theatre of the top vaudeville chain in the nation.

There was much to set Fay apart. Unlike most vaudevillians, Fay was no populist. He cultivated the aloof arrogance of the aristocrat – his trademark was the barbed put-down delivered on the spot with dependable lethalness. That is what audiences prized him for.

He was charming, dashing, and impeccably dressed, with a broad handsome Irish face something like the actor Ralph Fiennes’. He had a very distinctive, swishy style of walking that was almost effeminate, but it was so effective that both Bob Hope and Jack Benny emulated it to their dying day. [Surely Hope will pass on by the time this goes to press].

He generally finished his act with a sardonic version of “Tea for Two”, wherein he would stop every few bars in order to tear the song apart:

Tea for two, and two for tea (spoken: ) Ain’t that rich! Here’s a guy that has enough tea for two. So he’s going to have tea for two. I notice that he doesn’t say a word about sugar!

Well, it ain’t exactly Duck Soup, but with his wavy hair, straight teeth and twinkling eyes, one gets the feeling that fay sold his jokes through charm.

He was born in San Fransisco in 1897 to vaudevillian parents. He played his first part at age three in a Chicago production of Quo Vadis? His first vaudeville act was the team of Dyer and Fay, but it must have been pretty awful: Fay later downplayed his involvement with it. By 1918 he had established himself as a monologist, and by 1919 he played the Palace. “The Great Faysie”, as he styled himself, was appallingly successful on the vaudeville stage. To play the Palace – at all — was the very highest aspiration of most vaudevillians. A select handful ran a week there. In 1925, Fay ran ten weeks. So he might be a little forgiven if it went to his head.

But there is something to the old adage that what lives longest are not words but deeds. Today Frank Fay lives on in the recorded memory as a notorious S.O.B. and a mean drunk, with nary a kind anecdotal word from anyone who knew him. Milton Berle once said, “Fay’s friends could be counted on the missing arm of a one-armed man.”

An early example of the arrogance that was to overshadow his reputation throughout his career occurred at this early stage. In the incident, which became notorious throughout theatrical circles, Fay let the audience wait several minutes while he struggled to tie his tie in the dressing room. “Let ‘em wait!” he apparently snapped at the stage manager, establishing a tradition that would not be revived until rock and roll was invented forty years later.

Fay didn’t go in for slapstick. He used to taunt Bert Lahr by saying  “Well, well, well, what’s the low comedian doing today?” Fay’s bag was verbal wit, and he pulled no punches, offtstage or on. To Berle’s challenge to a battle of wits on one occasion, Fay famously said, “I never attack an unarmed man.”

Apparently, Fay had one of those smirking faces that’s just itching to be smacked. On one occasion, he attempted to humiliate bert wheeler by dragging him onto the stage unprepared, and firing off a bunch of rehearsed lines at him to which he was supposed to attempt rejoinders. Tired of such treatment, Wheeler unnnerved him by remaining silent the whole time. when fay finally cracked and said “what’s the matter? why don’t you say something?” Wheeler said “You call these laughs? I can top these titters without saying a word” and smacked him on the face – to howls from the audience. Some riun-ins were far less light-hearted. Milton Berle recalled having watched Fay perform backstage from the wings, which is a real no-no with some performers. Berle heard him say “get that little jew bastard out of the wings” and something about “that little kike”, so (according to him) he grabbed a stage brace and busted open Fay’s nose with it. Lou Clayton also let him have it across the jaw for his smart mouth.

Even when fay meant to be nice he was rotten. Introducing Edgar Bergen for his first Palace date, he said: “The next young man never played here before, so let’s be nice to him.” As any performer can tell you, such an introduction is patronizing at best, sabotage at worst.

Bastard or not, Fay’s vaudeville success led to several Broadway shows during the years 1918-33. He even wrote and produced two starring vehicles for himself (a la Ed Wynn): Frank Fay’s Fables (1922) and Tattle Tales (1933).

Through his friend Oscar Levant, Fay met and married Barbara Stanwyck, then a young chorus girl who’d just gotten her first Broadway show (Burlesque, 1927) In 1929 they did a dramatic sketch, as “Fay and Stanwyck” at the Palace. Later that year, they were called to Hollywood, so Frank could star in the film Show of Shows. Fay and Stanwyck’s marriage and their experience in Hollywood later became the basis of a Hollywood movie – A Star is Born.

In Hollywood, as everywhere he went, Fay did not make a lot of friends. A standard joke of the time went “who’s got the biggest prick in Hollywood?” Answer: Barbara Stanwyck. The womanizing, alcoholic Fay’s career floundered, while Stanwyck’s flourished for decades. In 1935 the two were divorced, and Fay continued his downward spiral, until 1944, when he was chosen to play Elwood P. Dowd in the original Broadway production  of Harvey.

Fred Allen said: “The last time I saw Frank Fay he was walking down lover’s lane holding his own hand.” He passed away in 1961, a humbler, and, one hopes, a wiser man.

To find out more about these variety artists and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

Een tijd geleden zag ik op zondagnamiddag ‘The apartment’, één van de 26 films die regisseur Billy Wilder in zijn carrière ooit regisseerde. Gisteren zag ik alweer mijn zesde Wilderfilm. In zijn tijd werd deze film een beetje gezien als de blauwdruk van het ‘film noir genre’, vandaag de dag spreekt deze film alweer minder tot de verbeelding. Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray en Edward G. Robinson doen het nochtans niet slecht in hun rol.

De praatgrage verzekeringsagent Walter Neff ontmoet de aantrekkelijke Phyllis Dietrichson wanneer hij bij haar aanbelt om de autoverzekering van haar man te verlengen. Ze voelen zich meteen tot elkaar aangetrokken. Ze verzinnen een plan om Mr. Dietrichson te vermoorden en zo het geld van zijn levensverzekering op te strijken. Helaas gaat niet alles zoals gepland…

Deze film staat nochtans hoog genoteerd in diverse toplijstjes van de filmgeschiedenis (om een idee te krijgen: op 57 in de top 250 van imdb, op 66 in de top 250 van moviemeter). Voor de aardigheid krijg je van mij nog de trailer.