Showing posts with label prohibition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prohibition. Show all posts

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Bedtime Story (1941)



Frederic March plays the leading man in this and I think the movie was hurt just a little by that - he's funny - so funny that I didn't really recognize him from The Best Years of Our Lives (that and no mustache) - and he's not particularly handsome or charming, even when he's supposed to be trying to be.



(This is the only picture I could find that MIGHT be from the movie - it's the female lead, but it's probably NOT from the movie...some movies are not popular enough to make fan sites, I guess)

In this movie a husband and wife get divorced and then end up together again in the end, a favorite theme for movies in this era.

I'm giving this movie one star, despite it being so promising. It had several things that really annoyed me.

1) the husband unilaterally changes plans on the woman and expects her to just go along with him, when she doesn't, he still doesn't come around. So it's basically a movie about how he forces her to compromise on what she wants. In the end he convinces her it's what she really wants, too, but it's pretty aggravating.

2) The wife is always catching on to the husband's tricks, but she never gets to play any tricks of her own.

3) you know what he's up to, so you're always waiting for the character you sympathize to get duped. I hate that.

Two stars, I guess, just because it has its comic moments.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

These days it isn't hard to have an award-winning film. Since every two-horse town has a film festival and only industry insiders know which town's festivals really matter, just about every film released since 2000 has multiple awards to its credit.

So that got me thinking - why shouldn't I start giving out awards of my own?

Let me kick off the awards with this one:

* ~ * ~ * Silliest Costumes * ~ * ~ *



What is so amazing about this movie is that THIS is the most conservative and simple costume in it. This movie makes Bjork's swan dress look tame when I woman walks out wearing a full-sized stuffed flamingo on her shoulder.

However, I cannot begin to do justice in print to the insanity of these costumes, but I urge you not to blink while watching this movie, because to miss just one insane costume, is to miss the point.

What is so amazing is that a real, simple love story - no three of them! - survives this insanity intact.

This is a movie about the girls who prance and parade in the costumes - but the larger-than-life quality of their stage life acts like a magnifying glass intensifying their personalities, their foibles, and their - well their follies.

Honorable mention to Eve Arden as Patsy "the best bad example you could have" and Jimmy Stewart as Gil the truck driver with lines like "Dames are like traffic, sometimes you've gotta stop, and sometimes you've gotta go!"

Oh my god! The last musical number is outdoing itself in insanity!

Will watch again!

Four Stars!