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  • Hans Christian Andersen

    Hans Christian Andersen is a splendiferous technicolor wonder. Fairy tales, cute kids, ballet, bergermasters, and 19th century Copenhagen. I’m not sure you could ask for more.

    You have already learned of my childhood switch to technicolor. It probably broke your heart. Here we have another staple in my musical roster. If it was safety and security I was after, Hans was the jackpot. The 1952 film is not a biography of Hans Christian Andersen, but rather a “fairytale about this great spinner of fairy tales.” In the film, Hans is a cobbler played by the angel voiced Danny Kaye. Stodgy grown ups have Hans banished from town for filling the children’s heads with joy and laughter, and he and his teen assistant Peter (Joseph Walsh) voyage to Copenhagen to begin anew. Once there, Hans is employed by the Royal Danish Ballet, falls in love with Doro the ballerina (Zizi Jeanmarie), hates the ballerina’s husband (Farley Granger), and is all around totally naive about adult relationships. But that doesn’t matter, because he’s wonderful.

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  • Baby Doll

    Oh Elia. Elia, Elia, Elia.

    This is Elia Kazan’s 1956 film Baby Doll written by Tennessee Williams (based on his short plays 27 Wagons Fulls of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short). The film stars* Carroll Baker as Baby Doll, a 19 year old girl married to the middle aged Archie Leigh Meighan, a cotton gin owner played by Karl Malden. In order to marry her, Archie Leigh promised Baby Doll’s now deceased father that she would remain a virgin until her 20th birthday (now two days away!). Baby Doll is utterly unexcited about the prospect of having to consummate her marriage with such a soggy excuse for a man and treats her husband with the utmost contempt. Crazed, sex starved, and broke, Archie Leigh sets fire to the gin of his main competitor in the cotton trade, Silva Vaccaro, a sicillian played by Eli Wallach. Vaccaro sets out for revenge and the delicious seduction of Baby Doll begins.

    If you watch this movie late at night in the middle of summer, you will walk directly into a dream.
    A hot, thick, wet, dream.
    Your legs will become very heavy, you will throw off the sheets and open the window.
    You will lean against the windowsill and look into the night. Look at the streetlight on the leaves on the oak tree. You will return to bed (your bare feet will be damp with sweat and they will stick to the wood floor).
    You will lie on your back.
    You will look at the ceiling.
    You will be very, very, very horny.

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  • Race in Film: Paisá (Paisan)

    Paisá directed in 1946 by Roberto Rossellini is, in my most humble opinion, one of the greatest films ever made. After watching neo realist films I often wonder how different American movies would have been then and now, had WWII been fought on US soil. I’m not saying Best Years of Our Lives (released the same year) isn’t good, but it’s certainly no Paisá.

    Paisá is the second film in Rossellini’s “War trilogy”, films made during and after the war (preceded by Open City, followed by Germany Year Zero). Though Open City is generally more critically acclaimed, I find Paisá to be more moving.

    The film consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of WWII.Though all the episodes are powerfully moving, I shall focus on the second, for it is in this episode that I saw something I had never seen before in a European movie from the 40s-50s. Something I had rarely seen in any Hollywood movies of the same era.

    It was a black man. An American black man.

    A soldier. Not a butler or janitor.

    I was startled, I was amazed, I was impressed.

    I was filled with a greater love for Rossellini that I suspect is similar to seeing your baby walk for the first time.

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  • Alice in Wonderland: A Little Suggestion

    There will be days when you feel very, very sorry for yourself.

    You will wear your socks into the bathroom and step in a puddle.

    You will pour yourself a bowl of cereal and realize there is no more milk.

    No. Nothing will go your way.

    You will lie in bed and sigh the deepest and darkest sighs.

    You will be sad. Yes. You will cry.

    Here is a suggestion. Go deeper into the blue.

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  • Badlands

    Malick, you son of a bitch. If you’re only going to make 1 film every 500 years, at least make them crappy so I’m not thirsting for more.

    In every way, shape and form, Malick’s 1973 film Badlands is a perfect dream.

    Everything is magical about the film. Nothing fits. Everything is a tad off (things that are a little “off” are inherently magical you know):

    The strange dialogue (Kit and Holly make childlike observations about simple things. This intensifies the surreality of the two. They are more than surreal, almost omnipotent in some way. As insane as he is, Kit seems to have a greater awareness of the world. Nothing slips by him),

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  • Bringing Up Baby: Susan’s laugh


    *Two lame disclaimers: 1) The audio is doing something weird, 2) I sound like I’m barely alive

    This clip is from a chunk of perfection disguised as the 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby directed by Howard Hawks.  This was the second of four films that Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant would star in together (the first being the incredible Sylvia Scarlett which I’ll have to do a post on soon. The others being the under appreciated Holiday and the over appreciated The Philadelphia Story ).

    In the film Hepburn plays perhaps the greatest woman cinema has ever seen: Susan Vance, the whimsical, crazy, fearless, and unbelievably fun girl you wish was your best friend. Susan sets her sights on David Huxley (Cary Grant), a timid paleontologist who is trying his damndest to secure a million dollar donation to his museum from Susan’s stodgy old rich lady aunt, Mrs. Carlton Random. Lots of things happen,  a leopard named Baby is involved, some Brontosaurus bones, a dog named George, yadayadayada, and a masterpiece of screwball comedy is born. Slapstick perfection with dialogue by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde to rival my love Garson Kanin. Every line is golden.

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  • Race in Film: Meet Me in St. Louis

    As you have learned in the previous post, I adore Meet Me in St. Louis.

    I adore the Trolley Song and I adore many of the other musical numbers the film offers. This is one of them. Margaret O’Brien plays Tootie, the mischievous baby of the Smith family, who wishes to show off for her sister Esther’s (Judy Garland) party guests.
    The song, “Under the Bamboo Tree” is fabulous and allows the audience to fawn all over O’Brien. This is her scene. Garland is simply supporting. However, if we listen closely to the lyrics of the song they sing, we may pause in our enjoyment:

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  • Meet Me in St. Louis

    This clip is from the 1944 MGM technicolor smorgasbord Meet Me in St. Louis directed by total genius Vincente Minnelli and produced by that musical making powerhouse Arthur Freed. I know I normally don’t mention producers, but if we’re talking about musicals of the 40s and 50s, and we are, we’ve got to include the Freed.

    The film follows a family’s adventures, trials, and minor tribulations in St. Louis, Missouri before the 1904 World’s Fair. It stars Judy Garland, Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames, the lovely Mary Astor, the always comforting even when prickly Harry Davenport, and child star Margaret O’Brien.

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  • An Unmarried Woman


    (Ok the audio aint so hot. I SAID THIS WAS A WORK IN PROGRESS DIDN’T I?)

    Hold on to your pants.
    This is An Unmarried Woman directed by Paul Mazurksky in 1978.

    (You might remember Paul from his fairly recent cameo on Curb Your Enthusiasm where he played one of the anti Larry David producers of…The Producers)

    Though it was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay), An Unmarried Woman does not seem to get much attention. At least as far as I know.
    I stumbled across the movie pretty much by accident. By that I mean I was not looking to expand my Mazursky knowledge, and the film did not star actors I was particularly excited about. Basically, there was no reason the film shouldn’t have continued to fly under my radar.
    I’m grateful that it didn’t.

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  • Love With The Proper Stranger

    (Video quality ain’t great. I’m working on it, im working on it)

    This clip is from the 1963 film Love With the Proper Stranger directed by Robert Mulligan. The film stars Natalie Wood as Angie a working girl from an Italian-American family that discovers she is pregnant following a one night stand with Rocky, a musician played by Steve McQueen. The film follows Angie and Rocky as they decide what to do about the pregnancy, and each other.

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