I love Lucille Ball

I have soon watched the whole first season of I Love Lucy (1951-1952). I am so going as Lucille Ball this Halloween! How I will manage that hairdo is a future problem.

The Swedish election finishes this Sunday (even NYT have written about the election drama), and then I will probably be able to concentrate once again on my classic movie passion. I'm even too distracted to study.  Even my mother complains about me talking more politics than television and radio unitized. I guess I'm black or white: either throwing up in the gutter outside Blue Oyster, or boring people to death with unemployment issues.

Until then: lo and behold my Photoshop skills. I look like a hot emo girl! I experimented with some Clara Bow lips, between television debates.

Claude Chabrol dead at 80

Once again, this thing about honoring the icons first after they have passed away...

Claude Chabrol died this morning, Sunday, in Paris at the age of 80. He was among Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Jacques Rivette one of the most prominent directors ("auteurs") of the French New Wave. Like most of them, he also was a film critic in the famous Cahiers du Cinéma.

Chabrol in 1959.

Chabrol with a pipe. The perfect grandfather.

Although known as making more "mainstream New Wave" films (how that is even possible, I have no idea), he was among the first to kick start that movement. In 1958 he made his directorial debut with Le Beau Serge, a Hitchcock-influenced crime drama that paved the way for his upcoming films, a style sometimes referred to as "Chabrolesque". Next year he made the celebrated Les Cousins (1959) and the Jean-Paul Belmondo vehicle À double tour (Leda, 1959). He continued making almost one film a year until the day he died.

About something completely else: don't mix too many kinds of alcohol. You will end up like me, the night between Friday and Saturday - thrown out of a gay pub, lying in the gutter helplessly throwing up more liquid than your stomach possibly could ever hold.

God bless the homosexuals, by the way. Never have I had so many kind men to hold my hand while puking in a toilet, all the while being told to be perfectly comfortable since I'm not the least attractive. The nicest one told me that he liked his men masculine and rich, and that he thought he was at least as handsome as not to have to pay the entrance fee himself. I think I fell a little in love. He went on:

- Now honey, what the hell is a married woman doing at a place like this?

- *sob* Socializing... buuuaaaahhhh!

Viva glamour boys, I love you. But I will never drink alcohol again. Also, I will never ask gay men for cigarettes again - I hate mint flavored cigarettes. Now I will sleep a bit more with a bucket nearby.

Picture from Friday night.

Pre-glamour Greta Garbo

The picture above is obviously Greta Garbo after her Hollywood make over. But how did she look as a curvaceous Greta Gustafsson appearing in Swedish commercials, early 1920's? The answer to that is to be found in the archives of Swedish Television.

If you have trouble recognizing her among the other models, she is the one with eyebrows painted with a piece of charcoal. Hideous. Sometimes a physical make over half a world away, obviously, can bring out the inner beauty of the Scandinavian womanhood.

In this 2:45 long (or short) clip, we see Greta "Garbo" Gustafsson in three different milieus: As a fashion model for the brand PUB, at the terrace of the Strand Hotel and at a picnic in the sweet green grass of the North.

The clip is silent, so you can always hum "Yes, We Have No Bananas" to yourself to liven it up a bit.

And yes: the Swedish word for "The End" really is "Slut"... It has amused many an international audience since the beginning of time. Or the beginning of  Swedish film, that is.

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.