The Frog's Eyebrows

Cinema Tuesdays {Thoroughly Modern Millie}

2011-12-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

I've loved this movie since I first saw it when I was six. It's truly delightful! Thoroughly Modern Millie is a 1967 light hearted spoof of the Twenties, complete with slang, speakeasies, flappers and title cards. I love the title cards! Julie Andrews plays Millie, a Modern who's determined to be an equal of men and marry her boss, regardless of love. Mary Tyler Moore plays Miss Dorothy, a rich orphan who's determined to keep her curls and write cheques for cab fare. James Fox (who's brother Edward stars in The Day of the Jackal. Watch it, you'll never look at a melon the same way) plays the adorable and carefree Jimmy Smith, who is more concerned with climbing buildings and getting Millie in his "employer's" red roadster than with actually working. And Carol Channing plays Muzzy, I wanted to be her when I grew up, but alas, I have yet to find a multimillionaire. And in her last movie, Beatrice Lillie plays the unforgettable Mrs. Meers.

Millie is a girl from a small town, trying to make it in the big city as a "stenog" and decide whether she should keep pursuing her swell boss Trevor Graydon who calls her John or if she should be poor but loved with her beau Jimmy Smith. Helping her on her adventure is her new best friend Miss Dorothy, who never carries any change with her. And along the way the girls get mixed up in a white slavery ring. But there's a happy ending for all.

This isn't really a cross-dressing comedy, but James Fox does wear a dress near the end and Carol Channing is a gay icon.

Okay, I just wanted to screen cap the fantastic costumes.

(borrowed from Andi since I have no idea how to stick images together)

"Sad to be all alone in the world"

Best elevator ever!

I love the top half of this dress, it's too bad we never get to see it in full

"Raspberry!"

Can you say Safety Last! reference boys and girls?

Cinema Tuesdays {Victor Victoria}

2011-12-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have not seen it, Victor Victoria is Blake Edwards' 1982 remake of a little known 1933 German film of the same name wherein a struggling light opera singer named Victoria (Julie Andrews) meets up with Toddy (Robert Preston) a struggling gay cabaret singer who comes up with a brilliant money making idea. Turn Victoria into Victor, the world's greatest female impersonator and "he" becomes the toast of Paris, provided no one finds out that "he's" a phoney. Matters are of course complicated when James Garner shows up, falls in love with Victoria and doesn't approve of her "woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman" lifestyle.

I love this movie! It's hilarious, the suits are gorgeous and the interiors are stylish. Plus, I love the character of Norma, pretending to be Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight.

Daily Outfit

2011-12-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

In continuation of my tradition of wearing seasonally inappropriate garments, I'm wearing an embroidered peasant top with split sleeves in December. Who cares if it's 2 below out and it gets dark in the middle of the afternoon, it's pretty damn it! And that's what tights and a fur coat are for, right ladies?

Outfit Details:

Top: thrifted

Skirt: vintage, the label says "Mister Leonard" and it has a hip pocket!

Snood: Arthelia's Attic

Hair Flower: I made it myself

Tights: Hue

Belt: thrifted

Shoes: Bloch, the perfect ballet flat!

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm now 23. I went to the staff holiday party last night and wore a fabulous black dress from Stop Staring! but alas, I forgot to take pictures. I will the next time that I wear it.

I've decided that this month's theme for Cinema Tuesdays shall be Cross Dressing Comedies. The first post will be up sometime tomorrow night.

I'm starting to prepare my themes for 2012 already. My, how the year has flown by. Are there any suggestions?

Cinema Tuesdays {An Affair to Remember}

2011-11-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

An Affair To Remember is Leo McCarey's 1957 remake of his 1939 film Love Affair, which starred Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne an is in public domain. In general, the only remakes that I find acceptable are ones in which the director is remaking their own work and this is an almost scene-by-scene remake. But in colour and with Cary Grant.

You probably already know the story, either from watching it or from Sleepless in Seattle. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet on an ocean liner but both are involved with other people. The first half of the movie is a romantic comedy with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr falling in love amidst witty dialogue. They agree to sort their lives out and meet on the top of the Empire State Building in six months. The second half is more of a romantic drama, but with a happy ending.

I love the Grandmother.

Cary Grant: Style Icon

Cinema Tuesdays {Harold and Maude}

2011-11-26T23:30:00.000-08:00

I once got talking to one of the shop assistants in my favourite vintage store about Harold and Maude and we both agreed that it was one of the most optimistic films ever made and that the daisies speech is quite profound. If you haven't seen this 1971 cult classic, then you are truly missing out on a cinematic treat.

Framed by a fantastic soundtrack by Cat Stevens, Harold and Maude tells the story of two funeral crashers who form an unlikely bond. Harold is an 18-year-old who is obsessed with death and is looking to gain some form of meaning and purpose in his life. Maude is a wise, carefree and quirky 79-year-old who lives a life rich with meaning and purpose. Harold is part of a generation that can see no purpose in life and therefore cannot see the meaning of life. Maude contrasts Harold's nihilism by having endured and survive the horrors of the first half of the century and sees the meaning and purpose of her life is to enjoy each and every day and to seek out new experiences in the short time that we all have on earth.

Did I also mention that Maude lives in an old train carriage? Wouldn't that be an awesome place to live in?

Despite it being a cult movie, Harold and Maude is quite hard to find. There is a torrent out there. The Region 1 DVD appears to be out of print and therefore expensive. However, the Region 2 is quite cheap. But I really think that it deserves to be re-mastered and issued by Critereon. I'd buy it, wouldn't you?

Classic Television {Maverick}

2011-11-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure you're aware, the most popular American television shows in the '50's and '60's were Westerns. I'd never been a big fan of the classic period of Western films from the '30's-'50's until I took a course in the Appreciation of Westerns, which was my favourite class in university. However, I've never liked Westerns as a TV genre. I find them to be dull and predictable as they always seem to involve the self-righteous cowboy/lawman having a shoot out at the end with the guys in the black hats.

But there is one Western show that I love, mostly because it has as it's basis the one aspect that is sorely lacking in Westerns -a sense of humour.

Maverick (1957-1962) tells the story of two wandering poker players/occasional con men/jack-of-all-trades named Bret and Bart Maverick, played by James Garner and Jack Kelly. The Maverick brothers, more so Bret rather than Bart, are not the typical Western protagonists. They aren't heroes, nor are they anti-heroes and they certainly aren't villains, although they occasionally break the law. They are very definitely reluctant heroes. They usually save the day for someone, even though they were just in the random town because they were looking for a poker game.

Bret and Bart do not look or act like typical Western heroes. They wear snazzy waistcoats, clean suits and ruffled shirts. They rarely sport a gun because both are terrible shots and it would ruin the line of their suits. And Bret always wears a black hat, and we all know that's what the bad guy usually wears. They actively avoid getting into fisticuffs wherever possible, because they're cautious rather than cowardly. Plus, it's dashed difficult to get a suit cleaned and pressed in the Wild West. Not to mention a frilly shirt!

Maverick was originally supposed to be about Bret, who is the funnier brother. Remember when I did Comic Western month and I said that the characters that James Garner played in Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter were Bret Maverick, but with different names? Well, that's because James Garner has brilliant comedic timing and facial expressions and is so good at playing this character that he kept reviving it. Anyway, Maverick proved to be instantly popular as soon as it aired and since filming a TV Western episode every week is so gruelling on an actor, the producers decided to give Bret a brother named Bart so that production could alternate between James Garner episodes and Jack Kelly episodes every week.

Bart is the slightly more serious brother and acts a bit more like the traditional Western hero, especially when it comes to women. The best episodes are when both Bret and Bart are both on screen, either working together or in competition with each other and you can see just how marvellous and funny the chemistry between James Garner and Jack Kelly is.

Every week, Bret or Bart usually find themselves in a situation where either their money has been stolen or they feel obligated to help someone (usually a pretty, but troubled young lady) or they find themselves stranded in a random town and need to come up with a scheme in or to raise some money to play in a high stakes poker game. The funniest episodes are when all three occur in the first act. Bret and Bart often find themselves in a moral dilemma where their desire to help someone with a worthy cause (or who's blackmailing them) gets in the way of their plans to a) make a profit and b) not get killed. They try to ensure that both will be the outcome of their plan, but they will always put part b ahead of part a. They aren't cowards, but "As my Pappy always said 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one. A thousand to one is pretty good odds'".

Out of all of the reoccurring characters on Maverick, the most famous but least seen is Pappy, Bret and Bart's father Beau Maverick, the original wandering professional poker player. He taught his sons everything he knew about life and they are always quoting his aphorisms at opportune moments, "As my Pappy used to say..." For example: "faint heart never filled a flush" or "work is fine for killing time, but it's a shaky way to make a living" or "never play in a rigged game, unless you rig it yourself" or my favourite, "never cry over spilled milk... it could've been whiskey".

Maverick hasn't been released on DVD, but there are a few episodes floating around on legal DVDs. There are some episodes available on YouTube and as torrents, if you dig hard enough. And you can see it on repeats on certain channels. If you've heard of or seen the 1994 movie, James Garner is playing the exact same character of Bret Maverick, only older.

Here are some of the best episodes:

-"Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" -the most famous and most ripped off episode in which all of the reoccurring characters appear. The first half of The Sting is a reworking of this episode.

-"Pappy" -in which we meet the famous Beau Maverick, who looks an awful lots like James Garner.

-"According to Hoyle" -in which we meet a strong female gambler named Samantha, who is reoccurring and an equal match for Bret and Bart.

-"Duel at Sundown" -see a young Clint Eastwood fight with James Garner

-"Two Beggars on Horseback" -Jack Kelly's favourite and a superb Bret and Bart episode.

-"Gun-Shy" -a hilarious spoof of Gunsmoke

-"Maverick and Juliet" -in which Bret and Bart act out Romeo and Juliet over a poker game.

I found it very hard to find some clips of Maverick, so here are the best ones that I could find.

Here is a clip from a new PBS documentary series that I forgot to watch called Pioneers of Television: Westerns where it talks about James Garner and Maverick.

Here is a clip of Bret getting information in his own style.

This is one of Bart being forced to look for someone in "Hadley's Hunters" where the stars of other Westerns make cameo appearances.

This is Bart and a lady friend/con woman trying to work together in "The Jewelled Gun"

This is James Garner getting into a fight with Clint Eastwood.

This is the only clip that I could find with Bret and Bart together.

Cinema Tuesdays {All That Heaven Allows}

2011-11-19T22:57:00.000-08:00

From 1955 and directed by Douglas Sirk, All That Heaven Allows tells the story of a widow with two grown children who finds romance with a handsome, younger gardener, despite the objections of her two dull children and the gossip and bitchiness of her small, New England town, which is ruled by the country club.

I was a bit surprised to find that Criterion had restored and released this film on DVD. It is, after all, a romantic melodrama and not an award winner. After watching it, I understand why. As with most of Douglas Sirk's films, the sets are fantastic and the colours are stunning. However, it also encapsulates the 1950's obsession (particularly among the suburban, WASP-y, upper middle class communities) with conforming to the status quo, despite personal desires. Jane Wyman breaks off her romance with Rock Hudson because of the rumours spread by the town gossip and her friends, and by him not "fitting in" with the country club set, even though that is what first attracted her to him. And of course, by her dull, small-minded children, who wanted everything to stay just as it was, even though they now live in New York and are building their own lives, away from a mother and a hometown they rarely visit. And of course, Rock Hudson is not interested in making money (shocking!), he just wants to do what he loves and he's younger than Jane Wyman. Actually, Rock Hudson was only eight years younger, but still, shocking for 1955.

Classic Scents {Shalimar}

2011-11-18T23:25:00.000-08:00

(source)

Given the number of articles I've been reading of late about the regrettable change that the perfume world is undertaking by replacing natural notes in timeless fragrances with synthetic substitutions and thereby destroying the complex blend of the symphony of notes that make up classic perfumes (and by perfumes, I mean actual perfumes not those candy scented "celebrity" perfumes that you see advertised today) I thought it was high time that I start a series on Classic Scents, before they are forever altered.

I love vintage perfumes. Yes, I did start wearing a scent daily in high school. A classic perfume is the easiest way to embrace a bit of vintage style everyday, regardless of what you might be doing. Yes, I still do wear perfume everyday, even at the grocery store where I work.

Although you should own a wide variety of perfumes in order to mix it up everyday (whether you buy them yourself or you get them as gifts -a bottle of eau de toilette makes a timeless and much loved gift) you will, as I have done, gravitate to one in particular as a signature scent, because you should have a favourite perfume.

Shalimar is not a daily perfume. Although, if you are brave enough to wear it everyday, I applaud you.

(source)

Shalimar was created in 1925 by Jacques Guerlain for the House of Guerlain. The name "Shalimar" means "abode of love" in Sanskrit and was inspired by the gardens of the Taj Mahal.

Shalimar is described as an Oriental and exotic fragrance.

The three notes that make it what it is are the zesty bergamot, the unexpected civet and the sensual base note of vanilla.

Famous wearers of Shalimar include Gina Lollobrigida and Rita Hayworth.

Shalimar is a complex, powerful and yet warm scent. It's feminine, powdery, opulent, soft, striking, sweet, spicy and above all, mysterious. It smells overwhelming at first, but as it's symphony is revealed as it is exposed to skin and air overtime, it becomes warm and inviting, while still maintaining it's complexity.

This is the perfume one should wear for a night out on the town. Or to spice up an ordinary day of running errands.

(source)

What are you're thoughts on perfume, vintage or otherwise?

Cinema Tuesdays {Now, Voyager}

2011-11-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

"The untold want by life and land ne'er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find."
~ Walt Whitman

This 1942 romantic drama (which I'm sure you've already seen or at least heard of) was the biggest hit of Bette Davis' career. She plays a spinster who's life has been dominated by her wealthy mother, who's a real bitch. She had Charlotte in her forties and never wanted her in the first place, reminding her of this fact at every opportunity, and has treated her like a servant for her entire life. Not surprisingly, poor Charlotte finally has a nervous breakdown and is sent to recover at Claude Rains' (and his velvet voice) sanatorium. Away from the control of her mother, Charlotte loses weight and gets a makeover. As a final test of her new found independence, she goes on a cruise to South America, where she meets her fellow passenger, Paul Henreid, who's married to a manipulative, jealous and a real bitch of a wife. He can't get a divorce because of his devotion to his two daughters, the younger of whom is also an unwanted child and has some serious emotional issues from being unwanted and unloved by her mother.

Naturally, Bette Davis and Paul Henreid bond and fall in love and have one of the sexiest sex scenes where Paul Henreid lights two cigarettes on a moonlit balcony and gives one to Bette Davis. Fade Out. Cut to the next morning.

Of course they can't be together, but Bette Davis does expertly develop Charlotte as a character throughout the movie, gaining her independence, going against her tyrannical mother's will and eventually "adopting" Paul Henreid's daughter and by the end of the picture, they finally reach an understanding regarding the state of their relationship.

The Man Who Never Was

2011-11-08T23:36:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a tale.

In April 1943, a body of a young Royal Marines officer washed up on the coast of Spain. Amongst his possessions were two letters from two very high up commanders, hand written and on authentic stationary, casually mentioning the cleaver rouge that they would pretend that they would invade Sicily from Africa, but they would really be sending the Allied forces into Greece and Sardinia. The body was properly buried by the "neutral" Spanish and the letters were carefully copied by the Spanish and passed onto the Nazis before the corpse's personal effects were returned to the British.

Sounds like someone majorly fucked up in allowing such sensitive information to be placed in the hands of Nazis. Or like something out of a work of fiction.

Wrong.

This was actually a very careful and methodic plan, concocted by the Department of Spying and Cleverness in order to deliberately mislead the Nazis into thinking that the Allies would not attack so obvious a target as Sicily.

It was called Operation Mincemeat and it was the single most successful act of deception in the entire war. It made Operation Husky (the invasion of Sicily) a success and saved thousands of lives and is one of the major factors that helped us to win the war.

Sixty years after the plan was thought up of in the secret Rooms 13 and 39 of the Admiralty, the whole truth and the extent of preparation for Operation Mincemeat was carried out successfully, not to mention how much Churchill was relaying on it, has finally been revealed through declassified documents and meticulous research by Ben McIntyre in last year's book Operation Mincemeat.

The book itself is a fascinating and thrilling read and I do highly recommend that you read it. On several occasions as I was reading it at work, coworkers would ask me what the book was about. When I told them, they either said "Oh, so it's fiction, eh?". But it's not. Or, at least, not entirely.

Operation Mincemeat was the brain child of an intelligence officer called Cholmondeley (who went off the hunt locusts in Arabia after the war) and he got the idea from a memo by Ian Fleming (who did intelligence work during the war and got the idea for creating James Bond there) who in turn got the idea from a forgotten 1930's detective novel. So, you see, Operation Mincemeat is not a work of fiction. It is a deliberate work of fiction, to cover up reality, and was based on a work of fiction.

Cholomondeley and his colleague Ewan Montagu (who's brother was the top British spy working for the Soviets) worked deligently for months in order to create "Major William Martin" and make him into a real person. Their work included obtaining a suitable body from a coroner named Bentley Purchase (that's his real name), planting false personal letters, bills and theatre stubs on him (all real and authentic), giving him a personality, girlfriend, photographs and a stuffy father. They also outfitted him with a uniform that had been broken in by Montagu and some underwear that had belonged to a dead Oxford don and finding a submarine to transport the body to a specific point off the coast of Spain where a major Nazi spy just happened to be living and they then announced the death of "Major William Martin" in the Times, ironically in the same edition that also carried the news of the tragic death of Leslie Howard.

All they had to do was sit back and wait to see if the Germans had bought the story and letters hook, line and sinker.

Which they did.

Operation Mincemeat was a success for two reasons.

First, it just so happened that the head of German Intelligence Analysis was a secret anti-Nazi and he probably did see through the web of deception but supported it in his report.

Second, and most importantly, the Nazis did not have a sense of humour. They simply were unable to see the fact that a dead body with some very important information about the Allies' next move had so conveniently dropped into their laps was really a macabre joke told by the British. Indeed, it was the Nazis not having a sense of humour that played a major part in us winning the war.

After the war, Ewan Montagu wrote a book called The Man Who Never Was about the parts of Operation Mincemeat that the government would let him reveal. It was made into a film, which has a few added subplots to make it more entertaining.

There is also a documentary made to tie in with the book Operation Mincemeat. I haven't seen it yet, but it was done by the BBC, so it must be good.

Cinema Tuesdays {Indiscreet}

2011-11-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

This 1958 Stanley Donen film stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in their second pairing together as two older and somewhat wiser lovers. She is a famous stage actress, who is depressed over the thought that she might be alone for the rest of her life. Enter her sister and brother-in-law, who introduce her to a successful businessman turned diplomat. It's love at first sight.

Only Cary Grant says that he's separated and can't possibly get a divorce.

But no matter, and the couple enter into a few months of happy romance, while being careful to retain their reputations. He takes the flat downstairs and uses the services stairs rather than the elevator. Isn't that nice of him.

But then the brother-in-law reveals that Cary Grant is not married at all! In fact, he's determined to be a lifelong bachelor!

"How dare he make love to me and NOT be a married man!"

What will Ingrid Bergman do to get back at Cary Grant?

I think that Cary Grant is at his most charming and understated comedic best in this role and according to the IMDb trivia section, this was his favourite film of his, which is reason enough to watch it.

See Cary Grant do the Duck Walk

My favourite part of this film (aside from Cary Grant) is Ingrid Bergman's absolutely gorgeous apartment! Just look at the design, the mix of old and new and the colours. And the doors. I love the doors!

Here is a clip of the famous bed scene to get around the censors. What is odd for a Code film is that it's made completely obvious and referred to multiple times that the characters were sleeping together but there were no consequences that came of it.

All Hallows' Eve

2011-11-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone had a happy and safe Hallowe'en this past weekend.

This being the first year since I got too old to go trick or treating (or rather I didn't get too old, my brother got too tall) that I didn't have a paper to write, I thought that I simply must do something.

So, on Friday, I went out to the Halloween Special of the Taboo Revue, which is Vancouver's longest running burlesque show. It was beyond brilliant! So many great performances, a lot of them featuring zombies and voodoo, because zombies are just so much awesomer than sparkly vampires. Can't wait for next year's show.

As for Hallowe'en itself, I went to work and I did wear a costume. And by costume, I mean I went for a Land Girl look and wore my snood and new wool trousers from Heyday. And by costume, I mean I wore my normal clothes.

I then changed into my fabulous record skirt and biggest petticoat, which is the only day of the year where I don't get strange looks while wearing it, actually a lot of people wanted to have their picture taken with me as I was waiting in the train station downtown. I only wore it because it was warm enough to not wear a coat over top and I was refusing to spend any money on a costume this year. Why buy a costume when I can wear my normal clothes? I went with my friend Courtney on the Haunted Trolley Tour, which is a tour on a trolley that goes around downtown, through Stanley Park, then up to this cemetery and then back to downtown, finishing off at the Police Museum (which used to be the morgue and the coroner's court) and pointing out houses were hauntings and gruesome murders have taken place. Because hanging out in a graveyard and an old morgue on Hallowe'en night is what cool people do.

Apart from a couple of snaps for the Facebook, I don't have any pictures to share on the old blog. But I should probably go back during the day sometime and take some photos of the Police Museum with my proper camera, since it is my favourite museum in Vancouver.

What did you do for Hallowe'en?

The theme for this month's Cinema Tuesdays shall be An Affair to Remember. Expect the first movie pick shortly.

Cinema Tuesdays {Hairspray}

2011-10-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

Hairspray (in case you didn't already know) is the story of "pleasantly plump" Tracy Turnblatt who joins The Corny Collins Show as a keen teen dancer and successfully manages to integrate it in 1962's Baltimore. Hairspray is a parody of shows like American Bandstand and Baltimore's local version The Buddy Deane Show and it also shows the problem that Americans had when faced with the issue of segregation or integration.

I've gone with the original 1988 John Waters' (this was his first PG rated film) movie instead of the recent Broadway musical version, mostly because I find the sets here to be far more realistic. And this one has Ruth Brown and Debbie Harry. Plus I find Divine's version of Edna to be far more believable than John Travolta's turn, mostly because I kept expecting him to start singing "Summer Nights" in drag.

Also, the hair is much more hilarious in this version and it shows girls actually ironing their hair, which was done though an incredibly stupid thing to do.

I want that dress!

Cinema Tuesdays {Cry-Baby}

2011-10-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

From 1990 and starring a young Johnny Depp, Cry-Baby is probably John Waters' most mainstream film to date. This is a parody of the juvenile delinquent films of the Fifties and teen musical films, like Grease, which I hate, there, I've said it.

In this film the delinquents, called Drapes, win out over the Squares, who don't understand the meanings of popular song lyrics (like Sh-Boom) and wear plaid cummerbunds and therefore had no chance.

Polly Bergen (who may remember her in Move Over, Darling) plays Allison's grandmother.

David Nelson (son of Ozzie and Harriet) and the infamous Patty Hearst play Wanda's oblivious parents.

Cinema Tuesdays {Little Shop of Horrors}

2011-10-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

This 1986 Frank Oz musical comedy is an adaptation of the successful Off-Broadway musical, which itself was an adaptation of the 1960 cult classic The Little Shop of Horrors, which is famous for being shot in two days. Did you get that?

Little Shop of Horrors is the traditional story of Boy Meets Girl Meets Man-Eating Plant. Rick Moranis plays Seymour, the nebbishy assistant in the flower shop who's in love, from afar, with Audrey, the floral arranger with no self-esteem who is dating a sadistic dentist and she is played by Ellen Greene (a.k.a. Aunt Vivian on Pushing Daisies) who is reprising her Broadway role.

Seymour becomes famous for his strange and peculiar plant named Audrey II, who appeared during a total eclipse of the sun. Eventually Audrey II (voiced by Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops)reveals itself to be a Mean Green Mother from Outer Space, although anyone who has seen this version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers will know that all pods from outer space are bent on world domination.

I love the Motown Greek Chorus! I think that the vast majority of movies could be improved by adding a Motown Greek Chorus.

Love John Candy's hair style!

I think that Orin Schrivello, DDS is Steve Martin's best role ever! Discuss.

Fun Fact: Bill Murray is playing the character that a very young Jack Nicholson played in the original movie.

This is not the original ending to either the musical or the original movie. You can read about the original ending here, but I like this ending better, because you can't have a Boy Meets Girl musical comedy if they both die at the end.

Bottom Line: It's such a fun movie, you'll love it! Besides, where else are you going to see a singing, swearing and dancing giant plant?

My Favourite Summer Dress

2011-10-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

This was my new favourite dress this past summer. It's cotton, easy to wear, from the Fifties, machine washable and I picked it up for only $15 from Red Light when I went to Portland. Clearly it's perfect and I can't wait to wear it next year and hopefully next year the West Coast will have a proper spring and summer. Right now the weather here is distinctly fall-like and has been for about a month, but it's still in that period where you can get away with just wearing tights and a cardigan and no jacket. I never realized how much I loved spring until we didn't get one this year. I was still having to wear my fur coats occasionally in May for crying out loud! *shakes tiny angry fist at Nature*.

So, where have I been for the past fortnight? Well, two weeks ago both my poor old kitty and my Grandma died quite suddenly. I haven't really felt like blogging or embroidering with the sinking realization that I no longer had any grandparents sooner than I had expected. This isn't my first death, but it is my first as an adult and there is so much more to do than I thought. I had considered shutting down ye olde blog, but I've decided against that since my Grandma was the only member of my family who actually read my blog and she loved it. So I'm pressing on with it. There will be a small giveaway sometime next month and I've just finished a terrific TV series that I know you'll just love, once I get some screen caps of it. And there are some books that I've been meaning to write about. Does anyone have any suggestions for types of books you'd like me to read and review? Or Musical Guests you'd like to see?

And tomorrow there will be two slightly belated Cinema Tuesdays posts for this month's theme of Retro Spoof Musicals. That'll will make more sense when you see which films I've picked, but you're welcome to guess.

I also have November and December's themes and movies selected, but does anyone have any suggestions for 2012's Cinema Tuesdays? I do pick themes several months in advance, since it sometimes takes me awhile to find copies of movies I want to screen cap, so suggest away.

That's all for now.

Cinema Tuesdays {Stand-In}

2011-09-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

Truly one of the greatest forgotten comedies from the Golden Age is Stand-In from 1937. It's a marvellous satire about the film industry and about all of the takeover of Hollywood studios that occurred during the Great Depression. It's also one of the rare occasions of Humphrey Bogart (before he was Bogart) being hilarious in a comedy. He was cast in the role of the alcoholic, dog loving producer Douglas Quintain who calls everyone "sweetheart" (an unusual role since he typically played heavies during the Thirties) because his friend Leslie Howard insisted on it. You can really see their friendship better he than in The Petrified Forrest.

Leslie Howard plays Atterbury Dodd, a banker who is sent to act as the new head of Colossal Pictures to ensure that it makes a profit or else his bank will sell it and their stock holders (who are average working people) will be out of their investment.

Faced with the realization that a press agent, an eccentric foreign director and a star named Thelma Cheri, who can't act her way out of a paper bag, are deliberately running up costs of Quintain's picture Sex and Satan because the guy who wants to buy the studio and run it into the ground has bribed them, Dodd turns to Joan Blondell, who plays Lester Plum, a former child star who now works as a stand-in for Miss Cheri in order to help him in his task of saving the studio. The explanation given to poor Mr. Dodd, who has no knowledge of movies, whenever he questions the weird thing that go on in Hollywood is "That's the picture business".

Leslie Howard was a comedic genius at the art of subtle timing and should have made more comedies.

The is a rare Region 1 DVD of Stand-In and you can buy it from Amazon, if you have a spare $100. TCM does show it once in a million years, I taped it last month during Joan Blondell day but I don't remember them showing it before that. There is no torrent, however a nice person just uploaded it to YouTube last week in nine parts.

Here is a funny clip and just look at the way that Leslie Howard underplays his reactions.

Cinema Tuesdays {It's Love I'm After}

2011-09-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

From 1937, It's Love I'm After marks the third and final pairing between Leslie Howard and Bette Davis, who are just wonderful together and really ought to have done more comedies.

He plays Basil Underwood, an egotistical ham actor and she plays Joyce Arden, his equally egotistical, long-suffering girlfriend and co-star. And a very young Olivia de Havilland (who's still alive along with her sister) plays the crazy fan girl heiress. Eric Blore is also terrific as Basil's valet/friend.

The plot is one of those slamming doors and swapping partners Thirties screwballs that are such a joy to watch.

"I was in love with Clark Gable last year"

"Who's Clark Gable?"

It's Love I'm After is available on Region 1 as part of the Warner Archive overpriced DVD Collection and is occasionally shown on TCM. There is a torrent of it, but don't download it because it cuts off the last five minutes.

Here is the best quality clip that I could find:

The Perils of Our Dependency on Our Modern Technological Marvels

2011-09-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

My, it has been a while, hasn't it.

I've been here, just not here.

My internet service provider has been making such a huge fuss about improving their service. These "improvements" have made my connecting to the web either non existent or so painfully slow that I'd give up and read a book instead of waiting for a site to eventually load, if it felt like it. It's like the late Nineties all over again. But they've appeared to have fixed whatever problem and my internet appears to be functioning normally again. Hopefully.

Speaking of the Nineties, that's where this dress is from. I'd been looking for a polka dot dress for ages and I've finally found one. I would rather have found one with slightly larger dots, but at least I've found one and it's perfect for summer, or at least what's left of it. It seems like only yesterday that summer made an appearance, and here we are on the cusp of fall again. This year seems to have gone by rather quickly, but that's mostly because the West Coast didn't have a spring this year, so we went right from a long winter to a late summer. Hopefully next year, we'll get a spring.

As most of you Leslie Howard fans are aware, it can be dashed difficult trying to find copies of his films. I have had trouble tracking down the four films that I wanted to show for Leslie Howard month, mostly due to the fact that my independent video store is closing (boo!) and the lack of Mr. Howard's films being available on DVD for no reason. But I have managed to find copies of the films that I wanted to screen cap and I've written two posts this week to make up for not being able to publish last week's movie. The two movies of Mr. Howard's that are readily available I can't show because I've already screen capped Pygmalion and I absolutely loath Gone With The Wind. Nothing against GWTW fans, I just can't stand watching the movie and Mr. Howard clearly couldn't stand making it. However, I do have two delightful comedies starring Leslie Howard this month.

Speaking of the difficulty in finding obscure films, here is a clip from We'll Meet Again starring Vera Lynn that I really want to see. I wanted to screen cap it for last month's World War Two Musicals theme, but was unable to find a copy anywhere, aside from the Region 2 DVD, which I obviously can't watch. If anyone knows where I can find a copy of it, do please let me know.

Are there any films that you desperately want to watch but can't find a copy of?

Cinema Tuesdays {A Free Soul}

2011-09-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

From 1931 A Free Soul is one of the most Pre Code of all Pre Code films. It was based on the book of the same name that I previously wrote about, but usually for adaptations, the film is more scandalous than the original novel. I prefer the novel in that it has more character development than the film and it explains why Jan is the free spirit that she is and more importantly it goes into the reason as to why Lionel Barrymore's character is an alcoholic. Plus, in the novel it's actually Ace who turns out to be the good guy and not the violent gangster that the film portrays him to be. However, the film does expand Leslie Howard's character of Dwight the polo player who's madly in love with Jan and will do anything for her, even kill to protect her sullied reputation.

A bra-less Norma Shearer plays Jan who meets the young Clark Gable, who plays Ace, a gambler, gangster and murderer. Ace sidles up to Jan and basically says "Hey baby, I think you're swell. Why don't you forget your boyfriend and come up to my place and spend the night. Sure, I'm no good for you and you're family hates me and I might knock you around a bit, but you like being pushed around and having me take advantage of your obvious Daddy issues and besides I haven't grown my Clark Gable moustache yet". The film goes on from there, but there's a happy ending, sort of.

"C'mon. Put 'em around me"

A Free Soul is available as a torrent and is only on DVD in Region 1 as part of the Forbidden Hollywood Collection Part 2

Cinema Tuesdays {Intermezzo}

2011-09-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

Intermezzo from 1939 (clearly the greatest year ever for motion pictures) is quite a sad film and I find it hard to watch simply because you know from the start that Leslie Howard and Ingrid Bergman can't end up together in the end. Leslie Howard plays a famous and respected concert violinist who leaves his wife, son and adoring daughter in order to run off with his daughter's piano teacher, played by Ingrid Bergman in her first American film and reprising her role from the original Swedish movie.

That's all I have to say, aside from the fact that it's a beautiful film and you can see the great debt of human emotions flicker across Leslie Howard's face in it's short runtime. He was such a great and underrated actor.

You may notice that Leslie Howard's hair is blonder than usual. That's because he filmed it at the same time as GWTW, for which he had to dye it blonde in order for it to show up in Technicolor. He actually hated having to do GWTW and Selznick let him make this picture in return for playing Ashley. I think this is the better film, but you are welcome to disagree with me.

Intermezzo is available as a torrent and on DVD in Regions 1 and 2, I couldn't find out about Region 4.

Here's the trailer for the re-release after Ingrid Bergman became a major Hollywood star.

Cinema Tuesdays {Pin Up Girl}

2011-08-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

In this short 1944 musical, America's favourite pin up, Betty Grable, plays Lorry, a sweet but compulsive liar from a small town who by the end of the picture ends up as a big night club singer and wins the heart of a war hero while maintaining some impressive hair styles that could only be achieved with the help of several studio hairdressers. It also stars Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown. The film itself is rather fluffy and silly, but it has lots of peppy musical numbers and Miss Grable showing off her morale-boosting million dollar legs.

My favourite outfit from the movie

Forties Streetwalker Chic!

Here is a deleted number that I found. I prefer her embroidered dress and the song to the "Don't Carry Tales" number from the finished movie.

Don't Blink

2011-08-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

As you may know from this post last year, my Pappy and I like hanging out in graveyards slightly more than the average person. Cause that's what cool people do.

Last week we went to Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver's oldest and only cemetery as founded in 1887. I wore the Hawaiian dress I bought at The Red Light in Portland and shortened. Also my boater hat (to prevent sun burn) and my sunglasses that I have no idea where I got them but remember that I paid $10 for them.

Isn't that a beautiful Art Deco building? It's actually the crematorium, the second one built in Canada!

This is the sign they put up to enforce the dogs on a leash bylaw. I told you cool people hang out in graveyards, although I am disappointed that I can't take my elephant for a walk in the cemetery anymore.

This is the granite storage area off in the corner, full of broken headstones.

We also spotted a few mild but still creepy Weeping Angels on our tour. Pappy ran away from them.

I, of course, have no fear of the Weeping Angels. Well, expect for this one.

Wasn't it cruel of the BBC to have spilt the season in half and leave us with a cliff hanger over the summer?

Some of the older graves didn't have anything other than a general marker. This one is cute and unique, but some of them just said "Mum" or "Dad" and they could belong to anyone's relatives at any point in the cemetery's hundred plus year history.

As with all cemeteries, there were thousands of soldiers graves from the two wars. Although some of them lived full lives, most of the ones in the three War Memorial sections were for soldiers who had survived and returned home, only to die within five years from the effects of being at the Front.

Of course, you know my favourite type of tombstone: the space left for the spouse who is obviously dead but didn't want to be buried there.

Cinema Tuesdays {Anchors Aweigh}

2011-08-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

In their first buddy picture, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra play sailors on a four day leave in Hollywood and both fall for Kathryn Grayson and her adorable nephew Dean Stockwell. They then pretend that they got her an audition with José Iturbi and spend the rest of their leave trying to meet Iturbi while fighting over "Aunt Susie". But everything turns out right in the end and they all live happily ever after and no one mentions the war.

I had forgotten how long Anchors Aweigh actually was. It's almost two and a half hours, which is epic for the traditional boy meets girl musical. However, there are sixteen numbers in the film, which is way more than just about every other musical. I think that MGM couldn't decide which star they could turn this into a vehicle for, so they gave Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Miss Grayson and Iturbi several numbers each. However, Sinatra got top billing, which isn't bad for his second role. Plus, MGM saved money by reusing sets and filming it entirely on location on the MGM studios. But the film does have some rare footage of the MGM studio building in colour and a location shoot at the Hollywood Bowl.

Anyway, lots of lovely costumes and colours and some morale boosting numbers to take your mind off the war for 2 and a half hours.

Also, I now want a sailor suit. Or at least the pants.

I love this dress! I think the sun flowers are painted on, can anyone tell for sure?

I want the chairs from the restaurant

And that lamp shade

His first experiment with mixing animation and dancing

Too bad they didn't have Betty Garrett playing this character like she did in the other two buddy films.

Buy Victory Bonds!

2011-08-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

Source

Since this month's Cinema Tuesdays theme is Second World War Musicals and I have been re-watching Foyle's War and reading a couple of war books to review, I thought that I would post some of the war posters that keep cropping up in any movie or TV show about the war. Clearly all of the posters are meant as propaganda, but they were and are still highly important to the war effort.

Victory Bonds (also known as War Bonds in America) were probably the single most important way the Allies had to finance the military operations.

A Victory Bond is a debt security issued by the government that would finance the war as well as making civilians feel that they were doing their bit to help those who were able to fight. The Bonds were also useful as a means of controlling inflation by removing excess money from circulation in return for using it as a stimulus for consumer spending after the war. Remember the huge economic boom and rise of consumer goods after WW2.

Bonds were readily available at rallies, banks, post offices and other public places, including occasionally at movie theatres and in a wide range of denominations so that everyone could afford them.

I've focused on Canadian Victory Bond posters from both wars because the was the most successful out of all of the Allied nations, given the relation between capital and population. It raised over $1.5 billion in the First World War and around half the cost of the Second World War was covered by selling Victory Bonds.

The images that were used in Canada, UK and US were clearly designed to appeal to everyone on a very basic level. Most of the posters that I looked at were obviously patriotic, but others appealed to the future and the conscience, usually involving fighting soldiers or small children. The also have large lettering and no small print since there was no need to explain what the poster was advertising for.

What do you think of them?

Would you still buy a Victory Bond?

Source

Here's a public service film that I found starring Bette Davis:

Cinema Tuesdays {Thousands Cheer}

2011-08-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

1943's Thousands Cheer is really two movies in one. First, Kathryn Grayson plays the colonel's daughter who can also sing operetta and Gene Kelly plays the doesn't like the army's rules private who has to learn that the most important job in the world right now is being a solider in the United States Army. After all, this is a morale-boosting propaganda musical, where would the Allies be if every American solider acted like Gene Kelly did in the beginning of the movie?

The second half of the movie is a series of sketches and musical number staged as an army show to entertain the troops (and home front audience) emceed by Mickey Rooney and starring just about every MGM contract player who wasn't busy that day.

Overall, it's not the greatest musical ever, although it does have Gene Kelly dancing with a mop. But it is worth watching just to see what propaganda as musical looks like and it was clearly made in order to show the new American soldier what sort of attitude was expected from them now that they had decided to finally join the war.

My favourite dress in the film. I don't like the colour, but I love the sunflower embroidery.

Eleanor Powell's first appearance in colour.

Gloria DeHaven, Virginia O'Brien (and her "frozen" face), June Allyson

Ann Sothern

Lucille Ball

Marsha Hunt

Frank Morgan

Two orchestras provide the music: Bob Crosby (I guess Bing was busy) and Kay Kyser.

No, I've never heard of them either.

I forget who she is, but she looks like she's advertising Ivory Soap.

Lena Horne

I've never found Red Skelton to be very funny, but that could just be me.

A very young Donna Reed

José Iturbi and Judy Garland have the best number.

Vintage Novels {Around the World in 80 Days}

2011-08-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for the classic tale of world travel and high adventure?

Of course you are!

And of course you've heard of M. Verne's famous travelogue, being that you are interesting, intelligent people. Perhaps you've even read it. How could anyone not have heard of Phileas Fogg and Passepartout's famous journey?

If you've never read it, then let me tell you -it's way better than any film version.

If by some bizarre twist of fate and you've never heard of this 1873 novel before, let me briefly tell you about it.

On the night of 2 October 1872, Phileas Fogg, the most punctual gentleman in London and mysteriously wealthy (as people from mysterious backgrounds usually are) is playing whist at the Reform Club (as he does every night) gets into a debate with his friends over world travel and makes a wager of £ 20,000 (about £ 1.3 million today) that he can travel around the world in eighty days or less. Shoving a couple of shirts and £ 20,000 in cash (English pounds were like having a Visa card, accepted everywhere) and dragging poor Passepartout along, he immediately sets off for Dover. What follows next is an exhilarating tale of ship wrecks, missed connections, drunkenness, elephants, mistaken identities, Cowboys and Indians, bribes, mutiny, Japanese circuses and of course train travel. However, there is no hot air balloon scene, that comes from the film. He even manages (or rather Passepartout does) to rescue the beautiful Princess Auoda from certain death in the Indian jungle and fall in love with her.

Does he manage to make it back in time?

Of course he does. After all, his honour is at stake, not to mention the money.

But point of the book is not the final outcome of Fogg's travels. It's the journey itself.

M. Verne wrote the book because it was finally possible to travel around the world as a tourist. Just think, within the space of three years before the book was published, the Suez Canal was created, the Americans finished their transcontinental railroad and all of the railways in India were finally linked up. This was the beginning of the tourism industry as we know it today and Around the World in 80 Days is the greatest travelogue ever written, fictional or otherwise.

For some reason this book has never been taken seriously. It is seen as just a Boys' Own adventure story rather than as a real novel with complex characters. We never hear Fogg's thoughts, we just know his character. We know what Passepartout is thinking and we learn bits and pieces of his life story throughout. Auoda is shown to be an intelligent and independent woman. After all, she was educated in Europe, which is why Fogg decided to rescue her and she can play whist. We are even shown poor Detective Fix's thoughts. But we never know much about Fogg, which makes him so interesting a character and the fact that he is the one character who has been completely altered by the journey. Yet for some reason there has never been a critical edition or a proper translation of the book. There aren't even any academic articles on the book, and there are articles on everything in literature that you could possibly think of.

Why do I love this book so much?

Because it's so much fun to read and imagine yourself right there with Fogg, Passepartout and Auoda.

Of course the 1956 film is the most famous adaptation, it did win Best Picture after all and it is littered with famous cameos. Around the World in 80 Days is not that true an adaptation, since Michael Todd made it as a grand spectacle and filmed it entirely on location. I found Cantinflas as Passepartout annoying after the first hour and didn't like that the film seemed to focus on him. Shirley MacLaine is clearly miscast as Auoda, you can see her makeup melting. However, David Niven is absolutely perfect as Fogg. David Niven is Phileas Fogg because he's David Niven and no one else but David Niven could play the character as M. Verne wrote it.

There is also the 1989 three part television version, starring Pierce Brosnan as Fogg, even though he's clearly too young to play him. Like the 1956 film, this one also adds bits that weren't in the book in order to make it more visually thrilling. However, Eric Idle is perfect as Passepartout and Peter Ustinov is brilliant as Detective Fix and I loved Henry Gibson's cameo as the conductor. Even though Pierce Brosnan is great at Fogg, I would have preferred to have seen David Niven as Fogg because he's perfect as the character. But I do recommend that you watch this version since you've probably never heard of it.

Michael Palin's travel programme (shot in 1988) is my favourite version. It's also the closest to the book. What makes this version the best (I'm saying it's the best, you can argue with me if you want) is that he's not only following in the footsteps of Fogg, but he's doing it more than 100 years after Fogg, using only surface transport and proving not only is it still just as difficult to travel the around in 80 days, but that if you choose to take up Fogg's wager, you too can have the same sort of adventures that he had.

Michael Palin is right when he says in the opening episode that we travel nowadays more than humans have ever travelled before, but we are seeing less and less of the world thanks to the "conveniences" of modern air travel. And that's what make undertaking a journey such as this so wonderful. It's a way of seeing this rapidly shrinking world for the truly vast beauty that it is.

Is it still possible to travel around the world in 80 days just by using surface transport?

I don't know, but I hope it is.

If you would like me to undertake this experiment, I will accept any donations, however large, through my PayPal account.

Cinema Tuesdays {The Gang's All Here}

2011-08-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

From 1943 it's The Gang's All Here, a gorgeous Technicolor morale boosting musical with the standard solider falls for a chorus girl and forgets to mention that he's already engaged to the girl in the mansion next door. It's stars Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda and appearing as himself, the great Benny Goodman, the King of Swing!

Directed by Busby Berekley, it features the suggestive and risqué "Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" number, "You Discover You're in New York" which lampoons rationing and a positively surreal finale that looks like polka-dots on an acid trip.

James Ellison who plays the solider is a bit of a heel and he ain't no Don Ameche.

Cinema Tuesdays {Cover Girl}

2011-08-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

For the month of August, I've decided to do Second World War Musicals, starting with Cover Girl from 1944, one of the most stunning Technicolor musicals ever! It's just filled with gorgeous Forties fashions and hair. The plot? Who cares. Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly will get together in the end and Phil Silvers will be funny throughout.

Actually, the war isn't mentioned that much in the film. Gene Kelly's character was wounded and that's why he's returned to running his night club and Phil Silvers' character has bad eyesight. But we're never told why that big shot Broadway producer isn't doing his bit.

The war is only mentioned in the musical numbers, which were clearly done in order to keep morale up, both at home and on the front so go back and listen to them again.

I just love Eve Arden's costumes throughout the film!

One of his first experimental dance routines.

Classic Television {The Man From U.N.C.L.E.}

2011-07-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was an immensely popular spy-fi show that ran for 105 episodes from 1964-1968 and was partly created by none other than Ian Fleming. It was also the last American show to premier in black and white.

UNCLE stood for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, the secret international organization responsible for maintaining world peace that everyone knows about. UNCLE is international and not governed or funded by any single governing power, rather like the UN but with guns, spies and secret offices worldwide.

The enemy and foe of UNCLE in almost every episode is THRUSH, a secret evil organization of wealthy evil criminal masterminds and henchmen bend on total world domination by any means. THRUSH has no political motivations, they just want power. Besides, someone has to employ evil masterminds.

UNCLE is headquartered in the basement of a tailor's shop in New York and is control by Mr. Waverly, who never seemed to go home and always sounded that he'd just been enjoying a three martini lunch.

Robert Vaughn plays Napoleon Solo, an American enforcement agent for UNCLE. He's your typical spy: the man about town, has an excellent tailor, lots of pretty girls and a good haircut. His role is that of James Bond; save the world, get the girl, look good in a tux and try not to cause too many explosions.

David McCallum plays Illya Kuryakin, a Russian enforcement agent. Illya is a more interesting character. He has several degrees, is an expert at just about everything, he quotes poetry, speaks several languages, is a master of martial arts and disguises and can blend into just about any setting. He also will occasionally get the girl, or at least the one's with actual personalities.

Originally, Illya was just a minor character (Napoleon was supposed to be The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) but he received such an overwhelming fan reaction from his one small scene in the pilot that he was made Napoleon's full partner halfway through the first season.

It's an equal partnership, although you will often see Napoleon hanging out at a party while Illya climbs to the second floor balcony, because David McCallum did most of his own stunts and was an actual gymnast whereas Robert Vaughn was a movie star.

Illya was the more popular of the two and David McCallum became known as the "blond Beatle" due to his huge following of fans. Illya is the epitome of Sixties Cool, particularly when he's wearing a turtleneck, sunglasses and hanging out with beatniks.

I've found it really hard to find any clips from the show, so here is a trailer that someone made that explains more about what UNCLE does every week. Plus you can hear the awesome theme music by Jerry Goldsmith and the famous bongo drums that played throughout every episode:

As to the format for the episodes, you can probably guess what it was: THRUSH is planning something nasty, Napoleon and Illya are send to find out what it is and stop it, thereby saving the world and getting the girl.

The slightly usual aspect about the show is that every week there was the innocent guest star, usually a girl but not always, who had some connection to the THRUSH threat of the week and Napoleon and Illya had to recruit them and use their assistance in order to save the world.

Although the show focuses on just those two characters, there are none of those moving character development episodes that modern television shows seem obsessed by. We know what they characters of Napoleon and Illya are like and that they're friends and are able to work well together and still get in a few wisecracks between the action. We cannot know about their personal backgrounds or what they do on their days off because they're spies and are too busy saving the world to get into any of that nonsense. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was made as pure escapism.

Since I couldn't find any clips, here is a clip show that someone made to "The Masochism Tango" by Tom Lehrer. This was also the first American TV show to use hand held cameras in some of the fight scenes.

UNCLE started out as an adventure series with bits of comedy mixed in. However, during the third season, with the rise in popularity of Batman, it became incredibly silly. Some of the episodes are so silly that they're almost unwatchable and the ratings sank. Even though they switched back to their old format for the fourth season, they were cancelled halfway through.

UNCLE was made by MGM for television and was filmed entirely on location on the MGM back lot, which is why you might recognize some of the sets or costumes from other MGM movies, or even just the sound stages which can fill in for just about any location in the world.

Aside from the merchandising profits from books, lunch boxes and replica gadgets, MGM also cashed in by releasing eight UNCLE movies, which were really just two episodes stuck together with some extra sex and violence footage thrown in. These films did extremely well overseas, where UNCLE wasn't shown, in some cases beating that year's James Bond film at the box office.

Just about anyone famous who was willing to appear on television guest stared on the show. Including Joan Crawford, Janet Leigh, Victor Borge, Nancy Sinatra, Sonny and Cher, Eve Arden, Joan Blondell, Cesar Romero, Anne Francis, Angela Lansbury and of course, Vincent Price.

But most famously in the ninth episode of the first season, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appeared on screen together for the first time and a full two years before Star Trek started! This is the only clip I could find of the entire series and it's from that episode. Shatner plays the innocent of the week and Nimoy plays a Russian. Also appearing are the guy who played Colonel Klink and Illya doing his impression of Trotsky

Click here to watch

So, what about the costumes. Well, since there are too many episodes to screen cap and I didn't know which ones to pick to screen cap since they all have great costumes, here is one of the special features videos from the DVD which is a clip show of all of the girls from UNCLE and shows their awesome Sixties fashions, big hair and even bigger eye makeup.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is available on DVD in Region 1 and five of the feature films are available on Region 2 DVD. Or you could just download them from the bay of pirates if the DVDs aren't available to you. And you should, it's a terrific series and such fun to watch!

Cinema Tuesdays {Lady of Burlesque}

2011-07-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

In an old house on Broadway that was covered in lights, lived fifty little girls in two chorus lines.

For my burlesque month, I wanted to do one of the movies that Gypsy Rose Lee starred in for Michael Todd, but I haven't been able to find a copy and I can find a copy of almost any movie. Why hasn't Dita been doing her job and pushing for them to be released?

So instead, I'm doing Lady of Burlesque, which is the 1943 adaptation of Miss Lee's novel The G-String Murders. Although a bit watered down, thanks to the Code, it's still quite daring and a mostly accurate portrayal of backstage burlesque, or at least according to Miss Lee it is, and who are we to question her.

Barbara Stanwyck plays Dixie Daisy, the headliner who spends her spare time fending off the advances of the cute comic Biff Brannigan with her quick wit. But then someone starts murdering her fellow strippers with their own g-strings, which is a horrible way to go and the cops suspect her! But despite cat fights, booze, comics, sabotage, broken sinks, police raids and general backstage bitchiness, Dixie still manages to solve the murders and get the guy by the end of the picture.

Also, Barbara Stanwyck is totally bad-ass!

This is the G-String song, which is quite daring for a Code film, if you use your imagination for when they cut away from her bumps. And yes, she is really singing. Sorry for the water mark, I couldn't find an alternative video.

You may have noticed that the quality of the screen caps is really crappy. That's because Lady of Burlesque is in public domain. Although this means that it is unlikely that it'll ever be restored, is does mean that you can download it completely legally here from the internet archive.

Musical Guest {Django Reinhardt}

2011-07-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

Remember a couple of months ago during my Woody Allen month for Cinema Tuesdays, I covered Sweet and Lowdown about a jazz guitarist who idolized Django Reinhardt so much that he would faint at the sight of him? Well, I thought it was high time that I write a little post about him. Not only is M. Reinhardt one of my favourite jazz musician, he is also, quite possibly the greatest guitarist ever.

M. Reinhardt is famous not only for his unique style of guitar playing, as a result of a fire which left part of his left hand paralysed (see photo) but also for inventing a new style of guitar technique called "hot jazz guitar".

M. Reinhardt was born into a family of French gypsies and began performing the guitar publicly at a young age. In 1934 he hooked up with the jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli and together they put together the Quintette du Hot Club de France, usually for a jazz band, it had no percussion instruments. The Quintette remains one of the most original and interesting in the history of jazz. If you're not a fan of them, or have never heard of their name before, you will have heard their recordings in countless movies and TV shows. The Quintette performed and recorded throughout Europe until 1948, with a hiatus during the war as M. Grappelli stayed in England but M. Reinhardt returned to France. During my extensive research for this post (Wikipedia) I could not find out exactly how a gypsy jazz musician managed to survive in occupied France but it might have something to do with the fact that some Nazi officers loved his music.

Unfortunately, M. Reinhardt dropped dead of a brain haemorrhage in 1953 at the age of 43 just as he was moving in a new musical direction with the electric guitar. Despite this, he lives on in his recordings and through modern musicians who have been influenced by his style.

What truly makes Django Reinhardt a unique jazz artist and a genius musician is that when listening to other musicians you can hear their personality through their music but when you hear a recording of Django Reinhardt, you can hear his soul.

"Minor Swing" is my favourite.

This is the only video I could find of the Quintette performing

This is an interview with him from the late Forties and the only example I could find of him speaking.

"Djangology" his last major composition.

Any suggestion for which musician you want covered next?

Cinema Tuesdays {Gypsy}

2011-07-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

1962's musical biography Gypsy is loosely based on Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs, which was in turn, loosely based on her own early life first in vaudeville and then in burlesque.

It stars Natalie Wood, who was coached by Miss Lee herself.

It tells the story of Gypsy and her younger sister, the actress June Havoc back when she was Baby June.

Gypsy was famous for Madame Rose, the determine monster of a stage mother. Rose wanted to be a star herself, but a teenage marriage and early motherhood forced her to focus her ambitions on her two young daughters, whether they liked it or not.

Rosalind Russell plays Madame Rose, who's more like Auntie Mame as stage mother rather than the monster that we've heard that Gypsy's mother actually was. Having read Gypsy's memoirs, I think that even she glossed over how terrible her mother actually was. As much as I love Miss Russell, I think that had Ethel Merman reprised her role from the Broadway version, Rose would have been shown as a monster, rather than a likeable character we feel sorry for.

Madame Rose is determined to turn Baby June into the star of vaudeville, regardless of how lousy the act is. And Baby June must always be Baby June, at least in the eyes of her mother.

And poor Louise must always be a forgotten tomboy and ten years old for years, since Louise has no talent, or at least Madame Rose hasn't figured out what her talent is yet.

And then Baby June, now being billed as Dainty June elopes with one of the boys from the act and leaves her family in the lurch, but that was how June Havoc was able to escape.

So, the act becomes Rose Louise and her Hollywood Blondes, only the act is still lousy and Louise doesn't have any talent, but Madame Rose isn't going to let that stop her career. I mean, Madame Rose isn't going to let that stop Louise's career.

The act is then accidentally booked into a second rate burlesque theatre as the act that's supposed to keep the cops out. This isn't exactly how Louise transformed herself into Gypsy, since they had to move into burlesque after vaudeville died.

And in real life, Madame Rose wasn't so vehemently against burlesque and Louise was the one who pushed herself into stripping since she wasn't going to be a child performer forever.

"Momma, I'm a pretty girl"

I absolutely love this dress!

Much to Madame Rose's chagrin, Louise does actually have a talent after all: the striptease and she is able to become a star all by herself and she no longer needs her mother.

Even though this is a Code movie, I would have liked to see Natalie Wood recreate some of Miss Lee's acts that show her as a classy and witty strip teaser, which the emphasis on the tease, since Miss Lee became famous for her humour and her gimmick was that she talked when she was stripping. But I suppose we should be grateful that the censors allowed bumps and grinds in the movie at all.

Poor Rose! What's she going to do now that she isn't wanted as a stage mother.

As terrible as Rose actually was, Lousie would never have become Gypsy Rose Lee in real life had it not been for her mother's drive and determination and inheriting her mother's talent for self promotion, which is what her memoirs are all about.

Cinema Tuesdays {Mrs. Henderson Presents}

2011-07-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

For July, I thought that I'd do movies about the art of burlesque starting with Mrs Henderson Presents from a few years ago.

Inspired by the true story of Mrs. Henderson, a rich and eccentric widow in her seventies who decides to get a hobby. She buys the Windmill Theatre and hires Vivian Van Damm to manage it. They put on a musical comedy revue called Revudeville with the novelty of continuous performances. When this fails to make money, Mrs Henderson takes a page from America when vaudeville was on the way out and burlesque was brought in and suggests that they have nudes on the stage. Now, this was unheard of in England, not to mention illegal. Fortunately, there is a loophole in which they can present nude tableaux, that is naked girls who don't move. This turns Revudeville into a smash hit. The Windmill was famous for their motto "We Never Closed" as it was the only theatre in the West End to have never closed, not even during the height of the Blitz.

Mrs Henderson Presents has everything you could want in a vintage inspired movie: gorgeous Thirties and Forties costumes, bright colours, nudity, wonderful lighting, beautiful sets, girls dressed as mermaids, enviable hair and hats, the tragedy of war, wit, dancing chorus girls, delightful title cards and Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins sparring with each other.

That's really all I have to say about the film. You've probably already seen it. If you haven't, what are you waiting for?

And now, on to the screen caps:

I'd love to be Mrs. Henderson when I'm in my seventies, right down to her wardrobe.

Portland, Oregon

2011-07-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

I had a week off of work and I thought very carefully about were I wanted to go, since I wanted to leave the country. Europe was definitely out due to time and budget constraints. Then I thought about maybe Vegas or San Francisco, but I couldn't afford both a plane ticket and food. Stupid airlines, why do they charge so much?

So, I finally settled on Portland, since it was the furthest city south that I could easily get to. And for a $150 round trip ticket from Amtrak, it was quite a deal.

I stayed at the hostel in the Hawthorne district, which was rather cozy and in a lovely century old house. I didn't know until the night before I left that there are a large number of vintage shops in Hawthorne, so I thought I was in trouble monetary wise, but more on that later.

I much prefer staying in hostels than in hotels. You meet such interesting fellow travellers there and the atmosphere is much more home-like and friendly. Plus you get to share tips and meals and wander off sight-seeing with new friends.

I only wish that the beds were more comfortable.

With the Canadian dollar actually worth slightly more than the American dollar these days, I found the prices to be the same as the ones in Vancouver. Although I was disappointed to discover that the Portland thrift stores were much more expensive, but I suppose that because thrifting has been "discovered" and the prices raised accordingly.

However, restaurants were so very much cheaper, especially in Hawthorne. And the portions were huge! That's probably the best thing about travelling in America, you can eat a cheap large breakfast and not have to eat again until a late supper. I don't even think that I finished one meal there, but I don't normally eat very much anyway.

What I was surprised by was just how much alcohol was readily available and it was so cheap. You could even get a drink in the breakfast places, so you can start your day off right with a beer. I never noticed this before, since I haven't been to the States since I turned 21 and could drink down there (seriously, what a stupid law).

The most touristy thing that I did was to order the local micro brew taster, although it came with larger glasses then I imagined. I really don't like beer, but Portland is very proud of their local brews and it seemed like the thing to try, even though I couldn't finish.

I met a girl at the hostel who was also from Vancouver and we went down to the local grocery store to check it out, cause that's what cool people do. We spent a good ten minutes laughing at finding beer and wine on offer there. Canadians are the only people who find the sight of a booze section next the the dairy section hilarious.

I only explored the Downtown/Chinatown and Hawthorne areas. I would have loved to explore Portland further, but I found the transit system to be infrequent, particularly the light rail and streetcar system that serve downtown and I didn't have access to a car. For a city that prides itself on being "green" they should have a light rail system that runs more frequently then every twenty minutes in the downtown area.

I also spent an entire morning and part of the afternoon in the Art Museum.

Here are some of my favourite shots that I took. I love that Portland has made an effort not only in restoring their old building and signs, but also not tearing them down in favour of walls of glass. Yay for Portland!

I prefer train travel to all other types of travel. Obviously it's more scenic, but it's also much more comfortable. There's leg room and you can get up and walk to the lounge car, have a coffee, read a book, look at the little towns whizzing past, chat with your neighbour and get out to stretch your legs on the platform.

The trip was eight hours each way and it was much easier to pass through customs and the border then by air or car. Plus, I got a window seat on the way back and was able to see the sun setting on the Pacific Ocean.

Ok, I can see that every day in Vancouver, but it looks so much more beautiful on a moving train.

I was pleased that vintage was the same price as it is here, since that meant that I wasn't tempted to buy even more clothes for full closets. But I did buy two dresses and a skirt from Red Light Vintage, which was the cheapest vintage store that I've ever come across. I also went into the Perfume House, which is a very dangerous store. I love wearing perfume and was so happy to find a big bottle of "Je Reviens", which is my favourite and dashed hard to find, for only $50 and a much better deal then buying more clothes.

Portland is of course famous for having Powell's, the largest independent book store possibly in the world. Fortunately, I was limited by what I could carrying. And I forgot the list of books that I wanted at home.

You can see more of my photos in this set on Flickr.

Cinema Tuesdays {The Wheeler Dealers}

2011-06-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

From 1963, The Wheeler Dealers is a prime example of the art of Gamesmanship, which is an essential skill to those who follow Stephen Potter's teachings of One-upmanship. What exactly is Gamesmanship? Well, it's the art of winning without actually cheating. Everyone would like to win when playing the game of life, but sometimes one can't do it by being entirely honest. And that's where Gamesmanship comes in.

James Garner plays Henry Tyroone, a wheeler dealer from Texas. Actually, he's from Boston and went to Yale but if he says he's from Texas and he has the accent then people naturally assume he has pots of money.

Henry is a very successful wheeler dealer, because he always thinks of a way for the taxman to take most of the loss of whatever business venture he thinks of. He believes that "you wheel and deal for fun, money's just the way you keep score".

Henry's had a string of bad luck with his oil wells this year and his accountant sends him to New York in order to pick up 1.2 million in "shopping money" or else he'll go broke. And rich men can't afford to go broke.

These are Henry's buddies: Ray Jay, Jay Ray and J.R. They live on an airplane and follow Henry around in order to get a piece of the action.

After raising some money from some investors that owe him a favour, Henry goes to see Mr. Bear on Wall Street in order to see about investing in the stock market. Now, it just so happens that Bear's firm is losing money and he has to let go of some of their worthless stocks and one of their analysts. He's decided to give the Universal Widget stock account to Molly (Lee Remick) and to give her a month to do something with Widget and then he'll have an excuse to fire her.

Molly is also practising gamesmanship, or at least trying to. Since she wants girls to be accepted on Wall Street, she wears boxy suits with bow ties in order to show that she's serious but she also wear pastel colours in order to show that she's still a girl.

Guess which analyst Mr. Bear introduces to Henry.

So now Henry has two missions in New York: raise the money and get together with Molly. Will he be able to do it?

He starts by giving Molly two dozen roses and she starts by taking him to one of those chic French restaurants where you spend three hours at the bar before you get a table.

Henry finds this set up interesting and he manages to get a table by speaking Italian to the head waiter. He then disappears for a few days.

He then takes Molly to the same restaurant, which he has now bought.

He also doubled the size of the bar, since it was more profitable then the restaurant.

Molly just can't quite make Henry out.

So she takes him to one of those pretentious post-modern art gallery openings.

Henry can't quite figure the paintings out. Until he sees the asking price.

He then meets the artist, who is also another wheeler dealer and the artist tells Henry that he can make a nice profit by investing in collecting paintings. Henry and the artist then disappear for a few days.

Check out the hair dryer that Molly's room mate is using to set her hair while vacuuming.

I like this robe, but you will have noticed that Molly's wardrobe is very business-like and not very revealing. That because she's working in the man's world and has to dress in order to blend in. Plus, she's not considering marriage and that's not normal for 1963.

Henry and the artist have been buzzing around Europe, picking up German Expressionists in order to display them in a museums and get a deduction on their taxes, until Henry thinks the time is right to sell.

Molly still can't figure Henry out.

Meanwhile the boys show up to get in on the action with the German Expressionists.

Henry and Molly finally decided to take a look at the Universal Widget site in order to see what kind of prospects an investment would have. It burned to the ground in the 19th century.

They go to see Mr. Wimple, the president of the Universal Widget company and he says that the only reason why they are still a company is in order to avoid paying taxes on the AT&T stock they bought in 1899.

Even in the country, Molly still has to wear boxy suits, of course she is in the country on business.

Henry tells Molly that he will help her sell the worthless Widget stock in order to make her a success on Wall Street and encourage other girls to become stock analysts if she agrees to come to Texas to be his assistant for six months.

They get started on the drive make to New York.

Henry then goes to see two P.R. men in order to get the word about Widget out. What exactly is a widget? Who cares.

The boys at the club are pleased to see that people are finally taking an interest in Widget.

John Astin (pre Gomez) works for the Federal Security Commission and he doesn't like the sudden rise that Widget has been making and he's going to investigate for fraud.

Meanwhile, Jay Ray, Ray Jay and J.R. go to see Mr. Bear in order to get Molly fired because they think she'll be happier in Texas and married to Henry.

So, Molly gets fired and her registration as an analyst revoked, for which she blames Henry. She then finds out that Henry is really from Boston and went to Yale.

Her room mate then suggests that she get her revenge.

Notice how once she's been removed from the man's world of business, she's allowed to wear something sexy.

So, what happens to Molly and Henry? And what does John Astin's investigation turn up?

The Wheeler Dealers used to only available on an old VHS copy, which is why my screen caps look washed out. However, The Wheeler Dealers was just released yesterday on a multi-region DVD as part of the expensive Warner Archive collection.

Convocation

2011-06-25T23:26:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, just before I went to Portland, I had my graduation ceremony which my university calls Convocation. My uni is on top of a mountain, which is why the ceremony took place six months after my last exams when the weather was nice and not raining. And I didn't trip over my robes like I did when I graduated from high school.

I now have a shiny new Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Humanities to call my own from the top comprehensive university in Canada! And I did not have to get any student loans. Huzzah!

Did you know that all four of my grandparents went to university? I'm always proud and impressed by this fact.

This wasn't the university I thought that I would go to when I graduated from high school five years ago, nor was it the subjects I thought I would get a major and minor in. My focus changed when I went to college and this is the degree that I'm so very happy with.

I should point out to any international readers that in Canada, universities are were you go to get actual degrees and colleges are were you go to get certificates or associate degrees or to transfer into universities. Does that make sense?

I would never have been able to get the math requirement to go to university straight from high school, so I did my first two years at college and then transferred for my third year. I'm glad that I went to college; it was a nice place to transition, I learned how to write a damn good essay and I changed my mind about which uni and major and minor I wanted because I had such good professors there.

This past spring, I've been thinking long and hard about what I want to do with my life now that I've finished university. I want a job that I love to do and that will allow me to wear whatever I want to. If I wanted a job that I could make a ton of money at, I would not that done a degree in English and Humanities. I have since come to the realization a few weeks ago that I have been genetically programmed to teach. I've always thought that I was born to be a teacher, but I've been in denial about it, because it is the hardest job ever and the pay is rubbish. However, it is also the most rewarding job ever, which is why I have to be one. It'll be a long, hard road in order to become qualified and get tenured at a high school. But if I decide to stay in Vancouver, then I'll be the fifth generation on my Dad's side to teach in this city. I just hope that I don't end up teaching at my old high school, that would be weird.

This is the dress that I was wearing under my robe. You may recognize it from this movie. I got it from Heart My Closet on Etsy. If it doesn't rain this week, I'll do a little photo shoot with it, since it's such a beautiful dress and for a $100 custom made dress, the quality is excellent and it fits perfectly!

I hope to have all of my Portland photos edited and uploaded for tomorrow night, so stay tuned.