Caught a cold: sick people in classic films

Guys, just a quick post to apologize! The day of THE auction of the century I stayed up late and caught a cold. I was in bed since then, today is the first day I'm feeling a bit better. So, I decided to make a post of classic movies showing sick people...but people that recovers, not dying people like Camille or Beth in Little Women.

Just press play to go to the interesting part!

The Apartment: poor C. C. Baxter caught a cold!



The Shop Around the Corner: Mr. Kralik (James Stewart) visits sick Klara...


The Nun's Story: Audrey has TB and a cute monkey + Peter Finch to take care of her...

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison: Drunk Mr. Allison scared Sister Angela and now he needs to save her...

I remember mama: One of the kids of a poor Norwegian family is sick and the hospital doesn't allow visitors...Mama Irene Dunne won't take no for an answer...


Sullivan's Travels: Joel McCrea caught a cold and is pissed off...

Which scene featuring sick people do you remember the most?

3 movies about marriage (part 1): "Next time we love" (1936)

Uhm, how are you guys? I hope you had and continue having a wonderful time. I practically ate candies for breakfast, chocolates for lunch and gumdrops for dinner the past few days, so I really feel guilty right now. Oh, I almost crashed the jeep into a fence the other day with the 60% of my family in it. It seems that every time that I have to do something extra while driving, like adjusting the mirrors or move the gearstick I completely lose control of the vehicle. Anyway...

In the past few days I also saw three movies, and without knowing it, the three of them were about marriage, only with very different approaches. They were Next time we love (1936; Edward H. Griffith), Dodsworth (1936; William Wyler) and Third finger, left hand (1940; Robert Z. Leonard). This is the review of the first film, I'll publish the others in the next days, becoming my last reviews of 2010 :)

The way things ended for both actors is more dramatic than this movie.

Reading Leading couples, I learned that James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan worked in four movies together. I had seen and liked The Shop around the corner so I wanted to see more from them. Next time we love sounded interesting so I watched it. It's about a young married couple that has problems because their jobs keep them apart. And Ray Milland, a friend of the couple, is always around. The end. 

No, seriously. The first problem with this movie is its very slow beginning. They tried to show that they were really in love, but it becomes repetitive and boring. It's like, "yeah, we get it, they are madly in love with each other!". Then, there's the script. It was written by Melville Baker (author of another average movie with great actors, Now and Forever), Ursula Parrott (story) and has an uncredited collaboration by Preston Sturges. The story didn't convince me because I felt it was kind of mechanical (their attitudes changed too abruptly) and I didn't find that their problems were really terrible. I mean, they choose to be apart: he wanted to work in Europe as a reporter and she wanted to stay in the US and become a famous actress.

I think they had more possible solutions to their problems, so all their drama about becoming two strangers, having a kid that practically doesn't know his father and Ray Milland being all supportive just because he's in love with his friend's wife, wasn't really effective. Oh, and the end. Too soppy and abrupt. According to Wikipedia (click if you want to read about Margaret's SAD personal life), even she had "strong reservations" about the story, but she had to "work off the damned contract" :)

With Ernst Lubistch during the filming of The Shop around the corner.

I think that it's more interesting and dramatic the info Leading Couples contains about the main actors. They met in 1931 an dated briefly. Some years later, Sullavan requested him as her leading man in Next time we love, boosting his career.  Seems that James always loved Margaret, and even his wife Gloria assumed this as a fact, saying: "I always knew he was madly in love with Margaret Sullavan, and she was with him. But she was more in love with her career." The story doesn't end well at all:

Even though they were now living on different coasts, the two remained close. When Sullavan began suffering from hearing loss, Stewart, whose hearing started to decline in the late 1940s, offered his support. Just as she taught him how to act in movies years before, he tried to teach her how to act in a world of silence. It could been a moment from one of their movies --two kindred spirits brought together by the pain of life.

Margaret Sullavan died really young, on January 1, 1960, of drug overdose. She was 51. 

12 favorite things from "It's a wonderful life" including the board game

Sally from the great blog Flying Down To Rio organized a Christmas movie blogathon, called 12 Days of Christmas movies. I wanted to review It's a wonderful life, but soon I noticed it was pointless. This is a cathartic movie that everybody has seen and loved and I couldn't possibly add something new about it. A more personal post occurred to me, so I give you my picks of 12 favorite things from the film (hope you don't mind, Sally!): 

1. A quote
I know there are like 1,000 quotable lines, but here's one of my faves. Simple and cute:

2. A song
I love this song. You can hear the Buffalo Gals sung by James Stewart and Donna Reed pressing the black button (wait until it appears above the vid) and then hear a really nice version with lyrics from Youtube:

3. A scene
Again, many great scenes. I love when Mary prepares a dinner in the house that's falling apart but she loves anyway; or when she and George do the Charleston near in the pool; or when George asks God for help, or well, all the sequence at the end when he realizes his life was so worthy...BUT, I think the next scene is really dramatic and pivotal, because it shows George's good nature (just press play to go to the chosen scene):

4. A picture from the movie:

5. A behind the scenes pic:

6. A fact:

For the scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock into the window of the Granville House, Frank Capra hired a marksman to shoot it out for her on cue. To everyone's amazement, Donna Reed broke the window with true aim and heft without the assistance of the hired marksman! (Imdb)

7. A promo shot:

8. A gif:

tocaptureyou

9. An actor
Everyone did a superb job in this film. But this time I'm picking Bobby Anderson, who plays young George. Why? Did you see the #3 scene?

10. A movie poster

11. A related item:

It's a wonderful life - the game. This time it's not invented by me, it's the 1996 Pressman board game based on the movie. I was lucky to find it last year at the flee market. Because it was in English nobody bought it, so I got it for a very low price :) As you can see, it contains cards with questions about the movie, cards with George's family and friends plus two 8 thousand dollars cards. The board let's you "Answer one" (question), " Take a card" (from the other players' hands), "Draw any card" (from the deck), "Lose a card" (boo!), "Wait here" and gives you the possibility of getting the $8,000. When you collect one money card, 5 different family and friends cards and correctly answer a final question, you win :)

Did you know the answers from the question above? Yeah, some of them are really specific, that's why it's better if you play right after watching the movie. Interested in buying the game? It's on Ebay.  

12. A quote from the crew about the movie

urbanrecord

"(...) By the end of 1947 the film was quietly put on the shelf.

But a curious thing happened. The movie simply refused to stay on the shelf. Those who loved it loved it a lot, and they must have told others. They wouldn't let it die any more than the angel Clarence would let George Bailey die. When it began to be shown on televison, a whole new audience fell in love with it.

Today I've heard the filmed called "an American cultural phenomenon". Well, maybe so, but it seems to me there is nothing phenomenal about the movie itself. It's simply about an ordinary man who discovers that living each ordinary day honorably, with faith in God and selfless concern for others, can make for a truly wonderful life."

(James Stewart |Source)

Hope you enjoyed!

My Top 10 Average|Bad Movies with Terrific Actors

After watching "The proud and the profane" the other day I thought: "with these actors they could have done a better movie". And then I thought: "hey, that's a good idea for a list!". I don't usually see movies that have low ratings and bad reviews, but I dared to watch some of these just because of the casting. Last thing: I would say that the top 3 qualifies as "bad" the rest is just "average":

10. Undercurrent (1946: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum): This movie starts OK (I got very interested), but ends ridiculously. Kate Hepburn marries an important guy (Taylor) with issues with a "bad" and missing brother (Mitchum). He talks about him so much that Kate gets interested. Finally, nothing is like it seemed and things get violent and creepy. The best of this film is this lovely theme by Brahms played all over the film.

9. Made for each other (1939: Carole Lombard, James Stewart, Charles Coburn): A couple marries the day after they met; Carole has problems with her mother-in-law because she disapproves her lack of housewife skills; then the couple has a baby that sleeps in the living room because the apartment is too small, etc. A not very well constructed movie, the main genre isn't properly suggested from the beginning which is disconcerting; the story is very basic (I mean, before the last 10 minutes their problems are not really that dramatic); the main actors are totally wasted, playing characters that don't have real chemistry. Has its moments though.

8. Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers): One of the two opportunities these two had to work together... in a film that doesn't make justice for such event. Ginger wants to have a better social position so she marries a German Baron. Cary, a reporter, is investigating this Baron because he's probably a Nazi. Ginger and Cary fall in love. There are some interesting and tense scenes, but overall this a forgettable movie.

7. Green Mansions (1959: Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Perkins): This movie was directed by Mel Ferrer, Audrey's husband at the time. The things you do for love. Audrey plays Rimma, the Bird Girl that lives in the jungle. Some natives believe she killed the son of the chief, so she has to hide with her "grandparent". She falls in love with Anthony Perkins, a prisoner of this tribe that was sent to kill her. They start a trip to visit the remains of her town, something that the grandpa was avoiding since always. It's not very well edited, the distances they cover don't feel right; most importantly, the story is not convincing and the ending is weird. Great song though.

 

6. The proud and the profane (1956: William Holden, Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter):  A disperse melodrama based on a novel that wants to be epic like "From here to eternity" and fails. Deborah Kerr is widower of a soldier. She wants to know all about his last minutes of life so she enlists to help. An aggressive Colonel with issues with his origins arrives to the base. Thelma Ritter, Deb's superior, founds the Colonel despicable but she manages to show him Deborah sunbathing on the beach. The editing is not very good and it loses tension half way trough the movie. The character of a chaplain is used to explain what's happening with the main characters and important info is given trough little characters that talk a lot. Everything gets more and more soppy and tragic. The end.

5. Dance, Girl, Dance (1940: Maureen O'Hara, Louis Hayward, Lucille Ball,  Ralph Bellamy): I didn't get it. Maureen wants to be a ballet dancer but she's stuck with a group of girls that dance in clubs. One of these girls, Sassy Lucille becomes famous and invites serious Maureen to dance ballet in her comical number just to laugh at her. Since her opportunity to meet an important ballet guy is lost after her teacher is run over (really), Maureen accepts. There are some characters that are not very well defined, at the point you don't know who they are. The ending is ludicrous.

4. Man of the World (1931: William Powell, Carole Lombard):  A con man (Powell)  falls in love with the nephew of one of the man he defrauded. This could have been great, but Carole's character was too good, simple and nice (and boring) for her and you forget the whole film after "The End" can be read on the screen.

3. Paris Blues (1961: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong): Boring, boring, boring. Two girls go to Paris and fall in love with two musicians. They go to some endless jam sessions and talk a lot.

2. Man-Proof (1938: Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, Walter Pidgeon): Use it in case of insomnia. Myrna is in love with a terribly dull guy that marries Rosalind Russell playing an awfully plain character.

1. Bloodline (1979: Audrey Hepburn,Omar Sharif, James Mason, Romy Schneider): The worst movie I've ever seen. Avoid it. After Audrey's dad is killed, she becomes the president of a great company and the new target of...I don't know, some killer. I never liked Ben Gazzara as a “romantic” lead, he's so unattractive. The whole movie is awfully edited, it looks like a trailer: some scenes don't seem to have a real connection. It even has a flashback to early XX century that seems out of place. There are a lot of shocking scenes (sex and murder) that weren't really needed, and what's more stupid, they are repeated along the movie, when they could have been suggested. The story is really badly developed, at some points you really don't understand where it is going. Most of the characters are despicable and there are some plot holes (if you think that someone wants to kill you, and you have escaped from death in several occasions, would you go alone to dark and solitary places and expose yourself?). Well, the worst (and saddest) thing is to see great actors like Audrey and Omar Sharif in this... thing.

What do you think?  Do I need to re-watch any of these?

Classic Films Comics

Since the post I was preparing this morning didn't turn out as I expected, here are some really funny comics I found yesterday. These were made by James Clayton from Reel Disappointing (you should check it):

LOL. Also, today I found this guest post over Kate Beatton's site (you should also check it: Hark! A Vagrant; her comics are about History, Literature and her life):

Do you know more comics about Classic Films?

Rear Window's Guide to Properly Spying on your Neighbors

There are probably a lot of grammar mistakes, sorry for that. Anyway, it was fun to make :)

Hitchcock or how I became a classic movie lover

I just finished watching "Rear Window" for the umpteenth time and I had to comment something about it. I started writing about how cool Hitchcock's movies are, but I realized that what I really wanted to say is how grateful I am to Hitch and how nostalgic watching his films makes me.

I think the first time I heard about Hitchcock was at high school. Our philosophy teacher made a test in which you had to interpret some drawings and write what it was. I was a very good student but when this thing came up I just didn't know what to answer. I mean, really, what the heck is this?

No one at my class knew. I was very angry with my teacher. She said: "well, that's Hitchcock, you really haven't heard about him?? Ever??". Of course not!

He made his second apparition at university, second journalism year, when we had to watch a movie called "Rear Window" for our weekly media test. Like pretty much all our homework it was just that, another thing to do. So maybe that's why I don't remember the first time I watched a Hitchcock film. Or maybe I didn't watch it at all and I just asked a friend what was it about. Yeah, that's what happened. 

Then I took a course called "Audiovisual Review". Since I was a child, I watched with my family classics like "The Sound of Music" & "Gone with the wind". But I preferred modern movies and I thought I knew a lot about cinema. In that class I learned I didn't.

We had this teacher who was talking about many films, things and people I hadn't heard about. Like Billy Wilder and a French magazine called Cahiers du Cinema. We saw an old movie starring some guy called Cary Grant and a lady called Ginger Rogers. And Marilyn Monroe was there too. At least I knew who she was. Kind of. We saw "Ace in the hole" and we had to review it. I really liked it, but I remember I wrote an awful text, kind of "the movie is in black and white, so that reflects its mood" or something***. 

We were in one of the last classes, we had seen movies like "The Royal Tenenbaums" (I liked it), "Raging Bull" (too violent for me...says the girl who loves "Kill Bill") and "Dead Ringers" (too gross for me).

Then, we saw "Vertigo".

Wow.

The class was quiet, it was a winter afternoon.

It was dark.

I was immersed in Hitch's oneiric world. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. 

I'd never seen Jim Stewart or Kim Novak before. But their performances trapped me. 

And that was it. 

I think I bought like 20 of his movies to a guy who also loved Hitchcock. I liked them all.

I also remember this fan said "I think the girls in classic movies are much prettier and classier than modern actresses". Now I now what he meant. And that goes, of course, for the boys.

Then came Audrey to finish what Hitchcok had started. 

But that's another story.

*** I've been looking for that class notepad, but I haven't found it. I wish I could read the things I wrote 4 years ago and how I probably misspelled all these names that now are so familiar to me.

Top 25 actores clásicos favoritos (parte 1)

25. Melvyn Douglas 
(Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg)

Papel favorito:  el del atento caballero que le enseña a reír a la Garbo en "Ninotchka".

24. Christopher Plummer 
(Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer)

Papel favorito: el estricto Capitán Von Trapp en "The sound of music".

23. Marlon Brando 
(Marlon Brando, Jr.)

Papeles favoritos:  quien pudo haber sido un contendiente en "On the Waterfront" & el polaco abusivo de " A Streetcar Named Desire"

 22. Laurence Olivier 
(Laurence Kerr Olivier)

Papeles favoritos: Heathcliff de "Wuthering Heights", el marido que esconde un secreto a la inocente Joan Fontaine de "Rebecca", Hamlet de "Hamlet" & el del escritor dado a juegos mentales en "Sleuth".

21. Rex Harrison 
(Reginald Carey Harrison a.k.a. 'Sexy Rexy')

Papeles favoritos: el del fantasma de un marinero en "The ghost and Mrs. Muir" & el de Henry Higgins en "My fair lady".

20. Richard Burton 
(Richard Walter Jenkins)

Papeles favoritos:  el del apasionado ex religioso y guía turístico en "The night of the iguana", el chalado (ya, en verdad estas personas no estaban bien) marido de Liz Taylor en "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", el del ángel de la muerte en "Boom" (yo debo ser una de las pocas personas a la que le interesó esta película) & Marco Antonio en "Cleopatra".

19. Albert Finney

Papeles favoritos:  el del esposo a punto de divorciarse de Audrey Hepburn en "Two for the road" & el del detective en "Murder on the Orient Express".

18. Burt Lancaster 
(Burton Stephen Lancaster)

Papeles favoritos: el del estafador con suerte en "The Rainmaker" & el del "familiar" texano de Audrey Hepburn-de-origen-indio en "The Unforgiven".

17. Jack Lemmon 
(John Uhler Lemmon III)

Papeles favoritos: el del noble empleado enamorado en "The apartment", el del empresario que se enamora en medio de un funeral en "Avanti!" & el del noble policía enamorado de una prostituta en "Irma La Douce".

16. William Holden 

(William Franklin Beedle, Jr.)

Papeles favoritos: el del joven acompañante de una antigua estrella en "Sunset Boulevard", el del soldado sospechoso de ser infiltrado en "Stalag 17", el del aventurero que llega a revolucionar un vecindario en "Picnic" & el del guionista cabreado de la vida en "Paris when it sizzles".

15. Fred MacMurray
(Fredrick Martin MacMurray)
Papeles favoritos: el de pretendiente comprensivo en "Alice Adams", el del abogado compasivo con la Stanwyck en "Remember the night", el de enamorado de la Lombard manicurista en "Hands across the table", el de secretario de Rosalind Russell en "Take a letter darling", el de pediatra que se casa con la Dietrich en "The lady is willing", el de vendedor de seguros con plan malévolo junto a la Stanwyck en "Double indemnity".

 14. James Stewart 

(James Maitland Stewart)

Papeles favoritos:  el del fotógrafo copuchento de "Rear window", el del buen hombre al borde del suicidio en "It's a wonderful life", el del empleado abnegado en "The shop around the corner", el del joven de familia conservadora que se casa con una bailarina en "Vivacious lady", el del padre que busca a su hijo raptado en "The Man Who Knew Too Much" &  el buen hombre que tiene un amigo conejo gigante invisible en "Harvey".

(continúa aquí)