I don't mean this critically, but objectively: What I always wonder is if there might EVER be a return to fashion from before the 1920s. Maybe not a skirt that flows over the floor, but one that nearly touches it. The Gibson Girl look, maybe. Or a renaissance of the preppiness that I was startled to...

Rogers has said that when she and Astaire first started working together (rehearsing as a team before their first film, and this was shortly before Astaire got married) they "dated." Maybe that would account in part for their particular rapport -- a little crush; a special personal affect...

He made some fabulous musicals with fabulous dances and fabulous leading ladies after Ginger but I haven't seen one where he captured the romantic essence he had with Ginger. Have you ever seen his two films with Rita Hayworth? In my opinion, the two dancers burn up the screen--though (as in his mo...

I do find something new every time. Especially if I watch with someone--either someone who has seen it many times and points their favorite aspects out to me, or someone who never has seen it, and reacts with delight or sorrow to what's going on. That's a vicarious thrill of first-timedness. That's ...

charliechaplinfan wrote:Robert De Niro was very good in Godfather Part 2 I can't argue with that one.

Agreed.

[quote="charliechaplinfan"] When it comes to the Oscars I'm extremely sceptical. In 1940 Charlie Chaplin was nominated, there's no way he would have been handed an acting Oscar. Cary Grant wasn't attached to any studio, like Carole Lombard and a few others. He got an honorary Oscar when he...

Reading his autobiography, What's it All About? right now. Most enjoyable--I've laughed out loud a couple of times. Kept me from going insane when British Airways decided to bump us off an international flight for which we already had confirmed seating.

Sure was lovely seeing Joan Leslie in color, though! An interesting role for her, too--she was convincingly playing a rather hardened person, in contrast to the sweet young roles she usually played (beautifully) at Warners.

I've always thought Ava gorgeous, especially singing "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" from Show Boat. (And I know that's not her singing, but she didn't do at all badly in her preserved attempts, and her lip synching was fine.) But for perfect beauty of face and body: Cyd Charisse. If I were a...

This one is rather gentle, but it has a movie theme, and of course I like it! Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and George Murphy were sharing a limousine to a party. A short distance from their destination, however, they found to their dismay that a bridge they needed to cross had collapsed, leaving them ac...

This is a fascinating discussion. To shine a slightly more optimistic light on things: Remember the scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy , in which a few teenagers come ask a retired George M. Cohan (James Cagney) if they can get some water from his well for their jalopy? They're mid-1930s teens, by the tim...

One of my all-time faves. I think the most delightful scene is the one in which Ginger impersonates Ray Milland's girlfriend (Rita Johnson) on the telephone, using to the hilt Rita's favorite word, "beguiling," and generally convincing the person on the other end of the line. Throughout al...

I've never felt that Fred ultimately requires the presence of Ginger in order to be sexy, but perhaps the point of Kate's remark is that Ginge, with her way of looking at him as if he could move mountains, got him started being viewed as a heartthrob. What's amazing and amusing to me is how well he ...

Fred Astaire and just about every partner he ever had.

(Well, I think he's good-looking, but he's definitely unconventionally so!)

My husband is one, too, though he has this quirk of not being willing to watch anything more than once. Oh well, gets me out of too much repeating... My parents both think I'm nuts (on this score), and they always have. It was my grandmother who started it all--we'd sit up watching them half the nig...