She Done Him Wrong (1933)

When we first meet Lou (Mae West) she is wearing a hat that looks like a giant Wooly Bear caterpillar. She is crass, she likes to invite men to "come up and see me anytime," and all the men want her. And she gives people the scariest looks.

This movie has it all: a saloon, an omnibus, giant hats, puffy petticoats, a whole lot of crooks, a very young Cary Grant with lots of eye make-up, and hard to understand accents. Lou sings in a saloon. She's having an affair with the owner, but Chick, a dangerous crook in prison, thinks she's waiting for him. Lou seems vaguely interested in every man who crosses her path, but she is becoming especially interested in Captain Cummings (CG), the mission director from next door. He's a different sort of man. Why he has any interest in Lou is more confusing. But he does.

When Chick breaks out of prison we get to worry momentarily about who Chick will knock off for revenge.   And we also wonder what has happened to the sweet young woman who tried to kill herself in the saloon because of a failed love affair. Last time we saw her the lady crook Rita was asking her, "Can you sing and dance? Have you ever heard of the Barbary Coast?" And who and where is the Hawk, a new detective in town everyone is worried about? And what do these crooks do? After 49 minutes I still wasn't sure what they were all trying to pull off. Lucky for me, someone else had more of an attention span for this movie and was able to decipher the intricacies of the plot:
http://www.doctormacro1.info/Movie%20Summaries/S/She%20Done%20Him%20Wrong.htm

Anyways, once I understood the plot points I'd missed, I was able to enjoy it when Rita caught her man assistant giving her diamond brooch to Lou and declaring his love...
...leading to more drama.

But do I really believe a Cary Grant character would fall for a Mae West character? Sorry. One star for brave hat wearing and drama. But I don't think I can give more stars to a movie that couldn't hold my attention or belief. Sorry again.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)

Having loved On the Town, I needed to see more Kelly & Sinatra films. A baseball musical turned out to be a great choice. Not only did it have the same two main characters, but it had a number of the same character actors as well. Oh, joy!

Eddie (Kelly) and Denny (Sinatra) are baseball players and vaudeville performers. At the beginning of the movie we get to see their last act of the vaudeville season before they rush off to Florida for spring training with the Wolves. Once back with the team, they sing the strangest song about their fake exploits while on the road with the vaudeville troop, featuring a verse about a college girl who was so love struck that she stopped studying and...
"Her teachers wouldn't pass her
so she just turned on the gasser
now the sweetest girl at Vasser's
in the cold cold ground."
And oddly enough, because Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelley can sing anything, it sounds nice.

Right after being welcomed back to the team, the men find out that a new owner, K.C. Higgins, will be arriving shortly to take over management of the team. Everyone is angry to the idea of being put under tighter control by a new owner. Of course in a comedic twist of fate, K.C. Higgins turns out to be a Katherine (Esther Williams). I have only ever seen one Esther Williams musical before (and loved it), so I did not recognize Katherine as Williams when she first showed up. It wasn't until the guys watched Katherine swimming in the pool as she sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" that I realized who I was watching.

Katherine plans to clamp down on the players, giving them fines for coming in late and even offering them baseball advice. Eddie can't stand this, and the movie goes on to follow the familiar plot of woo the woman and pretend to love her so that you can get her to do what you want. Denny is assigned the job of wooing Katherine, which he does quite easily by singing a song. Unfortunately for him he goes off to bed, and Eddie rushes off to finish the wooing job, also by singing to Katherine. Denny watches horrified as Eddie appears to be stealing his new girl, not believing his pal Goldberg that Eddie is only wooing in his name. "Then what, I suppose she'll kiss him, and he'll come back and kiss me." I started to get a little worried about how easily Katherine was fooled by Eddie's act. Then Katherine charged Eddie the $50 fine for breaking curfew, and I felt much better.

Then of course much hilarity ensues. Shirley (Betty Garrett) falls for Denny at a game and stalks him mercilessly, Eddie and Katherine appear to fall for each other, all as they dance, sing, play baseball, start fist fights, have clam bakes, lie to each other, get into trouble with gamblers, try to protect each other in all the wrong ways, have a great chase scene around the bases, and dance and sing some more.

Next time I go to a game, forget the Red Sox hat... it is finally time to break out my grandmother's old hats.

This picture does no justice to the technicolor pink in the movie. And this is just one of the many wonderful hats that Katherine and Shirley wear throughout the movie.
Four stars! Four stars! Yes, it's silly and sexist, but four stars! Must see again!

The Wild and the Innocent (1959)

This is a pretty corny little movie, yet very watchable. In technicolor or maybe colorized, it's way too bright and yellow-ish.

The gist of the story is this: Yancy, a young man raised by his trapper uncle and the uncle's Native American wife gets his first chance to go to town when his uncle is mauled by a bear. The boy shoots the bear and we learn that he is a great shot. This of course factors in later.

It's one of those pleasant movies when you watch an unaware person encounter dangerous situations but never be overcome by them. Entirely unrealistic - there is a touch of reality in the ending - but it doesn't really interfere with the lovely unreality.



On his way to town, Yancy meets a thief who tries to trade his own daughter to Yancy. Yancy won't take her, but she runs away and convinces him not to send her back to her father. After that she follows him around like a lost puppy. Sandra Dee is an adorable puppy.

Of course when they get to town, they are immediately caught up in the town drama - the saloon keeper, the cooch dancer, the madam, the sheriff - oh wait, the sheriff and the saloon keeper are the same slimy guy.

Anyhow, poor little puppy gets caught up in the evil saloon life and at first Yancy could care less as he chases the cooch dancer. It takes a long time before Yancy learns to appreciate that innocence, once lost, can never be regained. Of course by then it is almost too late for him and the poor little puppy.

It's really a very pleasant corny little movie, although I think I would have enjoyed it more if Yancy wasn't quite such a rube. Puppy is almost smarter than him, except that she can't see past her own affection for him to think for herself.

Anyhow it all comes out all right in the end - it's 1959 after all! Three stars - although I really shouldn't give so many stars to something so corny, there is just something charming about the whole thing. Also, I really should take a star away for Sandra Dee's messy hair, which is very carelessly messed and looks too obviously like it is trying to be messy without cutting any hair.

The Harvey Girls (1946)

"When Fred Harvey pushed his chain of restaurants
farther and farther west along the lengthening
tracks of the Santa Fe, he brought with him one of
the first civilizing forces this land had known - - - -
THE HARVEY GIRLS.

These winsome waitresses conquered the west as
surely as the Davy Crocketts and the Kit Carsons
- - - not with powder horn and rifle,
but with a beefsteak and a cup of coffee.

To these unsung pioneers, whose successors today
still carry on in the same tradition, we sincerely ded-
icate this motion picture."



There is some truth in this grandiose introduction to the film. (The real mystery to me is why they have to run a word off the end of a line on a title card? Was kerning not invented yet?)

I really liked this movie, better than Oklahoma. Maybe it's because Judy Garlands character plays a tough girl who dreams bigs, takes risks, stands up to armed men, and can handle disappointment. Unlike simpering Laury from Oklahoma who has half-hour-long dance-number nightmares. I guess that's not fair to Laury, she does have her fiesty moments. I just like Judy Garland's I guess.



Judy plays a girl who answers an ad for a mail-order bride and on the strength of some beautifully-written letters heads west. On the train she meets a bunch of Harvey Girls - waitresses for a new Harvey Restaurant. After a number or two on the train, she arrives with the girls in bumfu- I mean Sand Rock - only to discover that it's no a humble rancher that has written her letters, but a saloon owner. The probably illiterate and goofy-looking rancher comes clean and they call off the wedding, so Judy becomes a Harvey Girl.



There are a couple of great songs, like the "Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" which is very reminiscent of the Trolley song in "Meet Me in St. Louis" (wild singing romp around a train with Judy Garland? I'm in!)

I like the bit characters. There is the ornery old maid cook who I think was a regular on I Love Lucy, too, because she is very familiar.




Angela Lansbury plays a cooch dancer in love with the saloon owner. She does a number "Oh You Kid" in which she is like Mae West only smoother and slicker. It's awesome. She's a buxom blonde. Kim had to be given a fairly good clue before she guessed that this was the star of "Murder She Wrote". (Me: Guess who that is? Kim: I don't know, Merle Oberon? Me: No Kim: I don't know Me: I'll give you a clue, she plays a detective Kim: Murder She Wrote!)

I'm really fond of this movie. Four stars. I only planned to skim through it since I watched it once last year, but I'm happily watching it again.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Four stars for sure - this is one of those movies that is well made and really moving and has a complexity that really makes you reflect on serious themes - and yet at the same time, you don't stop just enjoying wondering what's going to happen next.



Okay, so this is three hours long and it took us two nights to finish because we started it kind of late on Memorial Day (TCM was running a bunch of war/veteran-themed movies in honor of Memorial Day, while we were mostly drinking margaritas -I had the day off - my network always airs a COPS marathon in honor of three-day-weekends and all the drunk driving that goes on I guess). On Tuesday while I was at work, I found myself looking forward to going home to watch the second half, so that's always a good sign.

I remember in college studying about this movie and how it showed the true impact of the war, through the eyes of three returning veterans, whereas the wartime movies were all upbeat and positive. It's clear of course that this movie aims to tell the harsh truth about the effects of war, but it's still got a lot of all those things movie-goers love: two and a half love stories, a fist-fight, a cooch dancer, a dash of humor, and Myrna Loy.



I adore Myrna Loy because of the Thin Man movies so of course that's how this movie came to be on my Tivo Monday night. And she does a great job playing the mother and wife who can handle it all with a smile. In fact so does her daughter. You could probably subtitle this movie "hey guys, women are tough, too".

The story follows three men: Al, Fred and Butch, all returning from the war to the same fictional home town, Boone City - at least, I assume it's fictional...where's my research department when I need them? Al is middle-aged and I guess was an officer in the army, hard to be sure they don't talk much about the war in the movie. Fred was a pilot, a bomber, and Butch was in the Navy and lost both his hands.


Left to right: Butch, Al's daughter Peggy, Fred, Al's wife Milly, Al.

Butch is like the sweetest character ever, Fred is troubled by nightmares about the war, and Al is returning to a wife and two almost-grown children, and a job at the bank. Al's just having a hard time remembering how to be a civilian. Fred doesn't have a job, but he does have a ditzy wife who he married in a hurry before he shipped off to war, and she seems to have been working as a cooch dancer while he was away. Butch has the most trouble re-adjusting, although he seems at first completely relaxed about his hooks-instead-of-hands - making jokes and showing off tricks he has taught himself - this belies a deep uneasiness.


Cooch Dancer? Couldn't find a picture of her in character, but the part is played by Christina Applegate-ish Virginia Mayo.

The movie is full of fun things to look at - the side characters are excellent - from Butch's uncle who owns the bar in town to the drug-store assistant manager who bosses Fred around, to Fred's poor down-on-their-luck parents. Myrna Loy herself is really just a side character, but she is so great she steals every scene she is in - God, if anyone could really be a wife and mother like that - taking everything in stride and with a sense of humor and kindness - well - there would a lot of out-of-work therapists for one thing.



I also have to say I really loved watching Butch - who in real life lost his hands - grapple with things - no pun intended, really - it was Freudian, I guess. He won two Oscars for the role, according to Robert Osbourne, and in my opinion they were well deserved. Normally I would say two Oscars for one role is excessive...but what other leading role are you going to play as a guy with no hands? Right. Therefore, totally fair.

Great movie, awesome ending - thankfully a Hollywood ending despite the serious themes (I don't think you have to have a sad ending to make a point). Will definitely watch again. Would make a great double-header next Memorial Day with "Till They Sail" - ooh - that's an idea so good I might just have to host a party!

Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

A remake of Capra's Lady for a Day. In color, with a lot more money, as far as I can tell...same story: a woman has somehow managed to convince her daughter that she is a well-bred society lady while at the same time maintaining a life as an apple-seller on the streets of New York City.



Things to love...
1. It's a Christmas Movie. Are all Preston Sturges movies Christmas movies secretly?
2. There is a theme song sung by children.
3. Bette Davis is playing Apple Annie.



4. There is a new angle with the Dude's girlfriend who wants to settle down and live a quiet life.
5. Columbo is in it.
6. Columbo suddenly starts narrating about half an hour into the movie.
7. Annie is secretly classy and you can tell this because she listens to classical music.



8. There are dozens of little details that catch your attention like the argument between two crooks pretending to be gentlemen over who gets to be the Postmaster General versus the Secretary of the interior.
9. You have this simple story of rags to fake riches at the center of the movie so even when you lose track of the Dave the Dude story or the story with the reporters in the closet or the story of the Count and the Consul General, you get the big picture.

The plot pieces fit together so nicely, it's like a puzzle solving itself.

Couldn't give it less than 4 stars.

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!

The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer (1947)

I watched the WHOLE MOVIE without realizing that the teenage girl is played by Shirley Temple!

She's great. Only very rarely when she says something with a lot of S's, can you detect little curly-head in this pretty, sophisticated and oddly precocious young woman. She makes a good little sister to Myrna Loy, which is high praise in my book.

Myrna Loy and Cary Grant and a great script full of quips and high-speed conversations full of misunderstandings and assumptions and underhanded accusations. Great stuff!

Seven More things to love:
1. stuffed-shirt Assistant District Attorney in a sack race
2. Myrna Loy in outfits with TONS of sequins
3. lovable old uncle who also happens to be a psychiatrist manipulating everyone
4. vocabulary words "sklonklish" and "klunk"
5. lyrics from Labyrinth the movie happen to come up in dialogue
6. cooch dancers get their day in court
7. latin jokes

Do not miss this one! Four stars. Am watching again right now!

Okay and if you must have a plot summary here goes: affable charmer and playful artist Richard Nugent can't keep out of trouble - mostly because of the women who swoon over him wherever he goes. Only levelheaded judge Margaret Turner is unmoved by his charm. Judge Turner's little sister is another story, however, and when she falls for the artist, she falls MADLY in love.

In steps kooky Uncle and court psychiatrist Matt to iron things out - but he has an ulterior motive: to get the emotional artist and the logical judge together and get rid of the stuffy Assistant District Attorney who is Judge Turner's steady beau.

Signed,

A Moderen Singer of Moderen Songs

The Awful Truth (1937)

Cary Grant wishlist again! I've seen this one so I only watched half of it and then Jess and I fast-forwarded through the end to remind ourselves how it ended. She remembered the weird cuckoo-clock and the door that factors into the happy reunion of the couple.



Basically, this is one of those movies where a married couple starts the movie off with a hasty divorce and we wait for them to get reunited (and remarried) at the end.

Cary Grant also does this in The Philadelphia Story, doesn't he? He's often divorced. In House Boat, too, he's about to get a divorce when his wife dies.

Anyhow, they are supposedly sharing custody of the dog, who is played by Asta again! In the movie his name is Mr. Smith.

I have to say, though, I love Irene Dunne's outfits, even her cooky hats are kind of entertaining more than annoying, but I HATE her hair.

I feel too sorry for the characters (especially Ralph Bellamy's Oklahoma Oilman) to give it more than three stars, but it's a great romantic comedy.

Will definitely watch again, sometime.
Three stars.

On the Town (1949)

New York, New York! Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra! Gene Kelly, Gene Kelly! Vera-Ellen, Vera-Ellen!


This is the YOUNG Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly

I discovered the list of movies for the month of July on TCM site and Tivoed this in expectation of my best friend Jessica's visit.

Jess can't be credited with introducing me to musicals, since I was already crazy for Sound of Music by the age of three and we didn't become friends until I was five. However Jess and her family definitely fostered my love of musicals. Her dad was one of the first people ever to record video tapes and he created a large personal library which introduced me to many musicals: Damn Yankees, Bye-Bye Birdie, Oklahoma to name a few.

Anyhow this is the movie about three sailors on shore leave for 24 hours finding girls and adventures in New York City...and hilarity ensues. And musical numbers ensue. Including the famous New York, New York!

Love the costumes, the short chartreuse dress jacket over the black-and-white striped dress that Frank Sinatra's very friendly taxi driver, Brunhilde Estherhazy wears for the big Empire State Building dance number reminded me of the chic wedding colors of our friends Cindy and Erin.

Jessica's choice quote is a line of the awkward roommate Lucy Shmeeler who's nasal voice reminded us of Jan from Grease. The line: "I'm just a streetcar named impulsive!"

There's also the cop who hears that the dinosaur collapsed and says "Oh no! She's my favorite singing star, Dinah Shore!"

I think my favorite is when the female anthropology student is caught kissing the third sailor (the one that's not Frank or Gene) and she says she's making a study of men. The taxi driver quips "Dr. Kinsey, I presume?" Who knew Kinsey would be so well known and current enough to be a funny joke in 1949?

Singing, dancing, great colorful costumes, great songs, adorable young Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelley. Tap dancing. A good time was had by all.

In spite of the long expressionist dance number in the second act which we were tempted to fast-forward, it's perfect.

Will most definitely watch again, perhaps this week.
Four stars.