Bonnie Blue Butler

I just read that the actress playing the ill-fated (and quite spoiled) daughter of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler in my favorite lying-in-the-sofa-being-sick-and-feeling-sorry-for-yourself classic film Gone With the Wind (1939), Cammie King, has died aged 76.

I read a cute quote from her, about working with Clark "The Hunk" Gable:

"He was such a warm, friendly man. When he kissed me, his mustache tickled. I'd tell that to my mother's friends and they'd swoon."

No wonder! By the way: I just realized how sad it is to first realize that there still are some people alive having experienced immortal classics like GWTW, only when they have died. A quite disturbing paradox. Anyway - R.I.P.

I will keep this post short only for the one reason that so many found my Fred-Ginger-crossbreeding photo so disturbing, that I want it to still be the first thing visible when visiting my blog. Just for a little while.

And yeah, I feel terrible for STILL not having come back full time, blogging with that 110% energy that I always do. (Ha! Hope I trick at least some of you that I put any thought what so ever in my writing.) Here's why:

The school has, finally, started again - the current subject is Television History. Enormously fascinating, since it is mostly crap with a few glimpses of potential every now and then. Just enough glimpses of hope that you become devastated over and over again of the pure shit that drowns it. If you want an angry Briton to spew all over it instead of a narcissistic Swede, check out Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. I give you the first third of the first episode of the first season. (That was a confusing sentence. But I bet nobody reads it too close anyway.)

The second reason why I am so neglecting, is that it's a quite crazy situation politically in Sweden now. The election is September 17, and until then I just have to keep up to date with all rotten vegetables the politicians throw at each other to respectfully win the confidence of the voters. Aren't politics just nice?

Anyway, to sooth your anger you can see the following evidence of me being the most glamorous bride this summer. Crown Princess Victoria is nothing compared to my awesomeness. See you soon!

About the wedding dress (I got a question in the comment section): I bought it on Forever21, and the standard wedding dress in Sweden is the princess-of-a-day white silky ones, which I wouldn't feel comfortable in.


And yes, my maids of honor are that beautiful. In fact, all Swedish women are beautiful, so come here on your next vacation.

The Women (1939)

The Women
Director: George Cukor
USA 1939
133 min
Starring: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, Mary Boland, Ruth Hussey, Hedda Hopper and Muriel Hutchison, among others.

An all-female cast in a snappy Anita Loos play under the direction of George Cukor.

The Band Wagon (1953)

The Band Wagon
Director: Vincente Minnelli
USA 1953
111 min
Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan, among others.

Can you believe that I actually saw this film for the first time just yesterday? I have trouble believing that myself. Well, anyway I had to write something about this crazy Technicolor delight!

The year before The Band Wagon, Singin' in the Rain (1952) became a box-office success. There are some interesting likenesses between the two movies:

• Adolph Green and Betty Comden are the persons behind both the films' scripts.
• Both films take place in the world of entertainment during eras of extensive changes: Singin' in the Rain takes place in Hollywood during the change from silent films to talkies, The Band Wagon on the stage, where the audience now wants more than top hats and tap dancing.
• In both movies the first attempt of trying something new becomes a great failure, and only when the persons involved go for something they can and like does it become a success at a second attempt.

Now, do not misunderstand me: Both movies manages on their own, and The Band Wagon is not a blatant copy of Singin' in the Rain. Oh no. I just find comparisons very interesting. No that I finished that off, I can go on with the rest of the film!

The film begins with an auction, where the top hat of the once popular Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire's alter ego: his career was beginning to fade at this time) is sold on auction - no bidders. In the next scene we see a couple of men in a train discussing celebrities, and how they remember the glory days of Tony Hunter. Behind a newspaper is Tony Hunter himself, joining the discussion by stating that he wouldn't go to see Tony Hunter even if he was given $5 for the effort. (That is called self-distance, my friends.)

After having sung the sad "By Myself" (mostly sad because he looks so jolly while singing it) he meets his friends on the platform, the scriptwriting couple Lester and Lily Marton (Betty Comden and Adolph Green's alter egos) played by Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray. I instantly loved Fabray for her exploding energy, Jesus! Oh, and Ava Gardner makes a cameo!

That shoe shining routine is wonderful, but I can't see that it would have made it into a film today...

Lester and Lily has an idea for a Broadway show that they want Tony Hunter to star in to bring his career back on tracks. They also have a popular ballet dancer in mind, Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse, complete with her fabulous legs), and a famous director/actor by the name of Jeffrey Cordova (Buchanan). Cyd Charisse as a ballerina can only look right when wearing a dress red as sin.

I read somewhere that Cordova is a parody of Orson Welles, but I feel that he is a general spoof on all over ambitious directors. He is without a doubt the most hilarious character in the film, and the scene where he imagines Lester and Lily's play as a sort of modern interpretation of Faust is painfully hysterical.

Immediately when Tony and Gabrielle meet they get on the wrong foot with each other because of either ones insecurities if they can live up to the other one's talent. A little dance in Central Park later, they do however come to the conclusion that they can meet half ways and make it a success.

Cordova's Faust play becomes a huge failure as the audience look like they have had a seizure after leaving the theatre. The gang re-writes the whole thing, and the rest of the film contains of a series of entertaining song and dance numbers, including the famous and weird "Triplets" act.

But my absolute favorite scene in the entire film is, as anyone probably could guess, the film noir spoof "The Girl Hunt". It starts of in a black alley with a cool-as-ice Fred Astaire and a cynical narration. Out of nowhere a lady in distress pops out, some gang members beat him senseless and leaving clues behind them. And of course, Cyd Charisse as the femme fatale who is "selling hard, but I wasn't buying". Oh, can it get more perfect than this? Pure joy, all through the scene. Charisse must be Astaire's best dance partner after the Ginger Rogers era, such delight to watch.

I guess all this comes down to this: I adored this film after the first viewing. I will put it in my perfect-films-to-watch-when-I'm-sick-or-when-just-generally-feeling-sorry-for-myself-list, among Gone With the Wind and Singin' in the Rain. But the latter one is a little overused for the moment, I know everything in and out in that film. The Band Wagon simply gets to take it's place for a while.

Now - pic spam! (I want her legs!)

The Terminator (1984)

Poster from Pakistan. Notice the typos!

The Terminator

Director: James Cameron

USA 1984

108 min

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn and Paul Winfield, among others.

This post will probably be more popular among my male readers than the females. But I've said it before, and I say it again - "a classic" is a diffuse expression, and I do want to include classic movies from all different genres and eras in this blog. The Terminator sure is a typical example of a "modern classic". Well, it's a quarter of a century old... But it's anyway just four years older than I am - so if I'm considered young and fresh (I certainly hope so), so should The Terminator be in classic movie terms (and relatively speaking, of course).

So here it is: 1980's science fiction!

It was ages ago since I saw this movie, and I remember it as being totally ridiculous. However, my opinion has completely changed. I don't know if I perhaps never saw the entire movie then, but only about the last third of it. In that case I can't blame myself for thinking that half a robot crawling around on the floor seemed laughable. But maybe I just wasn't mature enough to appreciate The Terminator's cinematic strengths.

So, what are the strengths of the film? For one thing, we almost immediately get to see Schwarzenegger's naked butt. It's really cute. But it doesn't really look proportional in comparison to his Belgian Blue upper body. (Just a trifle.) Luckily enough, the movie is filmed in widescreen, so all his muscles fit on the screen. Phuh.

More seriously, though:

• The film is obviously well planned - the more you analyze the facts and try to figure out the time travelling and the other technical stuff, the more they makes sense. You get the feeling that there lies a lot of hard work behind the script.
• The camera work is great. The most impressive angles and compositions are interestingly enough often of the more unimportant details - like the aerial view of a little barking dog, or an iguana climbing around on kitchen shelves. In short, I felt pleased with the cinematography - and that is quite admirable when we consider the fact that this is one of those dark, dirty 1980's action movies.
• The actors are convincing, even when delivering embarrassing clichés. If they at all were clichés back then, it's possible that the actors didn't need to force themselves to keep from laughter.
• Even Scharzenegger is immaculate. This is that kind of a role that fits him like a glove. How the hell can he look so blank, so... without any facial expression at all? And his Austrian accent is awesome. But I do wonder: If Ricardo Cortez could arrive to Hollywood from Austria and eliminate his foreign accent, why couldn't Scharzenegger? Does it need mental efforts, perhaps? (Oh, that was just low. Sorry.)

Well, I can at least offer a quick explanation about the plot (even though it's probably not necessary):

In the future, 2029, the world is ruled by machines who want to eliminate the human race. (Anyone making a connection to the Holocaust? Anyone..?) The humans do however start to fight back, lead and inspired by a man with the name of John Connor.

The Terminator (Schwarzenegger) arrives in present time, 1984, with the mission to kill Sarah Connor (Hamilton), who will become the mother of the future leader of the human revolt. If she dies before giving birth to him, he will never exist. Like that last sentence was necessary.

Also going back to 1984 from the future is Kyle Reese (Biehn), who belongs to the revolutionists. He needs to save Sarah Connor from the Terminator.

The comic relief is brought in the form of the cynical, tired but substantial Lieutenant Ed Traxler (Winfield), the head of the investigation of several murder victims by the name of Sarah Connor. Oh, and that horrible psychiatrist Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), who must be the most unsympathetic jackass of a doctor I've seen since The Snake Pit (1948) [post]! Was the psychiatric ward that unprofessional still, in the 1980's? He makes me want to strangle someone. Slowly.

Linda Hamilton with director James Cameron.

All in all, this is a really decent action and science fiction. It's far from mindless and idiotic (which many movies in this genre tend to be), and I have few things to complain about. We even have a damn cool heroine, who doesn't whine and bitch like the typical 1980's female leads. And she's not overdoing the I-can-manage-myself-thing neither, like Hilary Swank does. (Yuck.)

Another interesting thing is that I, for once, felt like this movie would do good with a sequel. I want to know more about the fate of the Connors, not to mention how the future will turn out. (Parallel dimensions and all that jazz.) And this opinion comes from one of the most skeptical persons there is when talking about sequels and, God help me, re-makes.

So, what did I not like about The Terminator?

• Some of the special effects. I know it isn't fair to judge a 25 year old film too harsh on that point, but that is actually one of the very few things about the film that hasn't aged well. When the Terminator fixes himself up after getting smashed up in a car crash, they should have just faked his eye with make up. That rubber head looks ridiculous. But I did like the stop motion in the climax scene - old-fashioned and timeless.
• That f*cking 1980's pop music! Gaah!
• And of course, the rest of the over-all horrible taste of that decade.

So that's about it. One thought that struck me while watching one of the future sequences though:

Did anyone else feel like the whole thing with Reese falling in love with a photograph of Sarah Connor was a tribute to Laura (1944)? He gets almost obsessed by the idea of a perfect, admirable woman in a picture - change the photograph to a painting, and there you have it. Tinkling piano music included.

Since I have mostly male friends, I will soon see the rest of The Terminator series. (That's why I saw this one today, by the way.) I will probably not write about them, though. I have high expectations on re-watching T2 (1991), but very low (if even existing) expectations on the other two.

In any case - I'll be back! (Blame my lame sense of humor on me not going to bed early enough...)

Now, a Polish film poster! What would the world do without Poland?

Penelope (1966)

Penelope

Director: Arthur Hiller

USA 1966

97 min

Starring: Natalie Wood, Ian Bannen, Dick Shawn and Peter Falk, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

Penelope might not be a milestone in motion picture history, but it sure is a great example of the charming mainstream movies that were made in the 1960's, and one of the better ones in that category too. Think How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole from the same year.

This Natalie Wood vehicle beghins with the opening of James B. Elcott's (Bannen) bank, who proudly claims that money is more safe within the walls of his bank than if the Loch Ness monster itself had guarded it. Within a few minutes, the bank is being robbed by an old woman, who is soon revealed to us being Elcott's wife Penelope (Wood) in disguise.

Why did she rob the bank? Being the bank managers wife she certainly don't have any financial troubles. Penelope seems awefully pleased and relaxed about the robbery, changing outfits and wigs during taxi rides as if it was a childhood game of hers. During psychology sessions, with the eccentric and rather nutty Dr. Gregory Mannix (Shawn), Penelope's past is revealed through flashbacks, and an explaination to why she likes to steal begins to reach the surface.

Funny how hard it is to find anything but
black and white photos from a color film...

There isn't much to say about this film when it comes to analysis. This is pure entertainment, and it succeeds in its purpose. If you want to see Natalie Wood in different gorgeous 1960's outfits (what man or woman wouldn't?), watch it. Want an hour and a half light, but not stupid, entertainment? Watch it. But if you want Citizen Kane, look somewhere else.

As a little sidenote, I just realized something I actually like better in newer films than in older ones (!) - the development of entertaining introductions to films. Penelope is a lovely example of that. Even before the film has started, you have the film's theme stuck in your head.

"This... is... Penelope..."

See them for yourself, and tell me you don't feel like making a cup of tea, wrap yourself up in a cosy blankett and depart from this world for a little while!

And since I want to use some of the pictures filling my computer, here's Miss Wood!

A journey from despair to hysteria

Just let me sleep it off...

Some movie recommendations from Elizabeth [Oh By Jingo! Oh By Gee!] caused me an emotional roller coaster yesterday. I know that I have a tendency to sink into the world of film, especially when I watch them alone and with a headset - there's nothing from the outside world that can reach me. But to go from inconsolable crying to almost choking to death with laughter (by now I sound like Jean Arthur) is something out of the ordinary, even for me. (Oh well, it doesn't happen every day...)

And for once, I will try to hold my promise to keep the blog post short. (Sure, no one has complained about them being too long, but personally I admire people who can express themselves in a short and concise way, and not, to directly translate a Swedish expression, "word poo".)

Mrs. Miniver

Director: William Wyler

USA 1942

134 min

Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Henry Travers, Dame May Whitty, Richard Ney and Henry Wilcoxon, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

When I am seriously curious about a film I haven't yet seen, I try to read as little about it as possible not to get it spoiled. Therefore I was quite shocked at finding Mrs. Miniver not being a sweet, cosy, utopian small town story (ey, I only judged by the title...), but rather a beautiful, smalltown nightmare. All the sweetness and sincere joy and appreciation for the fellow man only adds to the tragedy.

Mrs. Miniver (Garson) is the loving housewife of Clem Miniver (Pidgeon) in an English village anno 1939. The married couple's main problem by the beginning of the film is how to tell to one another that they both have too extravagant taste in their shopping for a middle class family (an expensive hat and a brand new car, guess who bought what), and their small children embarrassing the elder brother Vincent (Ney) and his love interest (Wright). This soon changes when Britain joins the World War II, and Vincent has to join the RAF, and Clem goes on a mission on the sea.

Just to further make this film crab ahold of the viewer, there is a sweet side story with a deer old station master, Mr. Ballard (Travers, who we recognize as the angel Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life, 1946), with a passion for roses. He names his most beautiful rose after Mrs. Miniver to enter the local flower contest. This makes it very hard to watch the scenes where the Germans start bombing England to pieces, not to mention the total loss of joy in the face of the otherwise so happy-go-lucky Vincent in the last scene. I frankly couldn't recognize him as the same actor at first.

Bombing of London, 1940.

This is such a beautiful and heart tearing film. Wyler admitted openly that he made the film for propaganda purposes, since he disliked America's isolationism from the ongoing war. The film helped the Americans to sympathize with their British equivalents. The last speech, held by Wilcoxon's vicar (supposedly re-written the night before shooting by Wyler and Wilcoxon), was used as war propaganda. It was translated into several languages and air-dropped in leaflets over Nazi occupied Europe on the request of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since then, the speech has gone to history as The Wilcoxon Speech, after the actor who first performed it.

The final scene in a bombed church.

Well, in short this is a terrific film. Judging by my reaction (in total loss of hope, drowned in tears, inconsolable), I can be your witness that it's an emotionally gripping film. It got about a billion Oscar statues:

Best Actress in Leading Role - Greer Garson

Best Actress in Supporting Role - Teresa Wright

Best Cinematography B/W - Joseph Ruttenberg

Best Director - William Wyler

Best Picture

Best Writing, Screenplay

A popular rumor is that Greer Garson's acceptance speech lasted for over an hour, something that is completely wrong. She did however speak for five and a half minutes, and broke the record anyway.
Isn't it funny that Greer Garson later went and married Richard Ney, who plays her son in the film?

Yeah, grow a mustache so you look a little older!

Favorite scene: Mr. and Mrs. Miniver in the basement with their youngest children during an air raid. As most children do, they at first sleep through bombings and shootings, but when the bombs comes so near that the basement almost falls in on them, they wake up and are scared to death. There was something horrible in watching a helpless mother trying to keep her calm while comforting her children, who for once really has something to be frightened about.

***

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Director: Norman Z. McLeod

USA 1947

110 min

Starring: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff, Fay Bainter, Ann Rutherford and Florence Bates, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

After "The Miniver Experience", I needed something to cheer me up before I went to bed. And now I made the right choice!

Walter Mitty (Kaye) is a terribly absent-minded man who too often lets himself slip away into an exciting dream world of his own, where he is the admired hero and has a beautiful, helpless blonde (Mayo) on his arm.

His reality is however somewhat different. His work contains of control reading trash novels with poorly dresses women in despair on the front covers. His boss constantly steals his ideas and takes the credit himself, and Mitty's frequent daydreaming puts his employment at stake. On top of all, he's engaged to a girl (Rutherford) with a horribly spoiled dog, and an equally horrible mother-in-law (Bates, who also plays an annoying mother-in-law in the Powell/Loy comedy Love Crazy, 1941).

One day his path crosses that of his dreamgirl's real life twin, Rosalind van Hoorn (Mayo, again), and soon he is drawn into a dime novel plot of his own - only with the difference that this is for real, and he can't just snap out of it like he can with his fantasies.

This is such a sweet, entertaining and insane movie. I can't believe that I hadn't seen it before, because it's exactly my kind of humour. I think I like Danny Kaye... Boris Karloff was really frightening in a role that kind of mocks his earlier horror performances. And I certainly admire how Virignia Mayo manages to act opposite Kaye and keep from laughing at lines like "Oh, Gaylord!". She should have been rewarded with some kind of reward for that.

By the way; I read on IMDb that Mike Myers is doing a remake of this film, probably finished in 2010. I don't usually like remakes, but if they are done as an homage to the original and with great respect it can be really interesting. And if there is one actor today that can do this role, I definitely think that Mike Myers is the one. I'm curious as heck!

Favorite scene: The dream sequence below. One of them, at least. It's so hard to decide, the whole film is totally hilarious.