WHAT MUSICALS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[knitwit45]

Nando, Damsel is my least favorite of Fred's movies! I read somewhere (probably written by 'they') that Joanie couldn't dance a step, and Fred had to literally dance circles around her. The most obvious time is when they're walking by the river. He dances & sings, she 'strolls'. The songs are lovely, and Fred tries hard...

Love that we can cheerfully agree to disagree!!!!

[feaito]

HI Knitty...Certainly Joan was no hoofer, but I liked that Fred's solo dancing was higlighted during his RKO period, for a change. Joan only danced once with Fred and with quite decent results IMO. Certainly SSO is one of the nicest places to agree to disagree

[charliechaplinfan]

I've never watched Damsel in Distress, I'd love too despite me not quite being able to picture Fred and Joan together. I can't imagine Joan being able to dance very well but I'm quite happy to watch Fred dance around anyone.

[feaito]

Do it Ali...the plot is based on a work by P.G. Wodehouse.

[Gary J.]

It wouldn't be the last time that Hollywood would pair up Astaire with a lovely young starlet who couldn't dance if her life depended on it. But sometimes those pairings become Astaire's most interesting films because he could concentrate on his solo work with numbers that interested him. In this case it gave him the opportunity to recreate a portion of his stage act with his sister Adele. It was called "the Runaround" - or "Run about" - and the two of them would begin trotting together in a circle to the sound of a German oom-pah-pah band. No dance steps. Just a robotic, mindless trot that would go on and on until the audience began cheering (or perhaps, yelling to stop!). It was a continual 'showstopper' for the team that they developed in vaudeville and even carried over to the Broadway stage.

Here he re-enacts it during the "fun house number" with Gracie subbing for his sister. While it may not have the same impact on the big screen as it did on stage, it demonstrates the quirky humor that Astaire possessed when it came to dance (he was choreographing the teams numbers even back then) and it's nice to have some visual representation to his unseen stage work.

[feaito]

That's a very interesting point of view Gary, I agree with you.

[Uncle Stevie]

I watched "The Girl Next Door" (1953) starring June Haver and Dan Dailey is a delightful light musical featuring the acrobatics of June Haver. She is a very petite girl and dances have her thrown around like a bunny rabbit. She is always in the air and performs some uplifting dance sequences with Dan Dailey. I liked this fluff musical love story which also featured Dennis Day and Cara Williams. It was love at first sight.

Dan Dailey is a favorite of mine and my most favorite movie with him is "Meet Me In Las Vegas" costarring Cyd Charisse. Cyd was marvelous in this flick and another great love story.

[Fossy]

June Haver is also a favourite of mine. This was the last of her sixteen movies ( I have them all) before retiring to become a nun. She left the convent after only a short time and married Fred MacMurray. The couple adopted twin daughters, and the marriage ended with his death thirty seven years later.

She was smaller than and bore a striking resemblance to Betty Grable, with whom she appeared in The Dolly Sisters (1945). She was listed as the star in seven of her movies.

[Uncle Stevie]

Last night I watched TCM presentation of "New Moon" with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. I also own the Grace Moore version and will watch that tonight. I love these old movies.

[Fossy]

Some films I have watched this week.

There`s Magic In Music aka The Hard Boiled Canary (1944)

Toodles La Verne (Susanna Foster) is an escapee from reform school who is hiding out in vaudeville. She is recued from a police raid by Michael Maddy (Allan Jones)and taken to a camp for young virtuosi musicians and singers. A brilliant musical with young teenagers as themselves.

One of the virtuosi, Dolly Loehr ( who later became Diana Lynn) was a dead ringer for my wife at the same age. She was introduced at the start of the movie and the first couple of times I saw it I wept.

The Climax (1944)

Soprano Marcellina ( June Vincent) has disappeared. Dr.Hohner ( Boris Karloff), mad with jealousy has murdered her, and hidden her preserved body in a private mausoleum at his home.

Ten years later young soprano Angela Klatt (Susanna Foster) is practising and is heard by the mad doctor. He thinks she has stolen the voice of Marcellina. Susanna debuts and is a great success. She is drugged and hypnotised by the doctor to stop her singing.

Angela is rescued by her fiance Franz ( Turhan Bey), The mad doctor, pursued by police perishes with the body of Marcellina.

The set used for this movie was used for The Phantom Of The Opera, (1925) and (1943)

This was Boris Karloff`s first colour movie.

Stowaway (1936)

The missionary parents of Barbara aka Ching Ching (Shirley Temple), have been killed by bandits. She is living with an uncle and Aunt, also missionaries when bandits attack. Ching Ching is rescued by a servant, befriends Tommy (Robert Young )

Ching Ching falls asleep in Tommy`s Car and accidentally becomes a stowaway when the car is hoisted onto the ship. Also on board is Susan (Alice Faye) and her future mother in law Mrs Hope ( Helen Westley). Tommy suggests that susan and her new husband adopt Ching Ching to save her from the orphanage. On instruction from his mother the fiance refuses So she marries Tommy on the understanding that they will divorce when they reach America. Ching Ching plays match maker.

Some words of wisdom from this movie.

May your shadow lengthen always in the sun of happiness.

May the bird of prosperity continie to nest in your rooftop.

Friendship is a tree of shelter from the rains of trouble.

I shall see you soon and until then the memory of you will bloom like a flower in my heart.

One cannot eat gold but one cannot eat without it.

Patience is like will, many think about it but few possess it.
If wishes were keys there would be no prisoners.

The strongest man cannot lift a heavy heart.

One minute away is a century to the hopeful.

Twice blessed is he who loves both bride and groom for their happiness is his.

A child without parents is like a ship without a rudder.

Sleep without dreams is given to children for their innocence and old men for their wisdom.

To greet one you love is better for you than medicine.

[Uncle Stevie]

Hi Fossy,

I had not heartd of the hard boiled canary but it sounds like my kind of movie. I was always in love with Diana Lynn and enjoyed her appearances. Your wife was very beautiful.

The other two movies you spoke of sound too sinister for my taste. Murder is not my category.

[Fossy]

Frisco Sal (1945)

Sally Warren has come to the Barbary Coast to search for her brother John. She meets and falls in love with Dude. Sally gets a job as a singer at Dude`s saloon

Dude Forante ( Turhan Bey) is a saloon owner who is in conflict with standover man Rio Jordan..

Rio Jordan ( Alan Curtis) runs a protection racket and Dude is resisting. He wants to send Sally back to where she came from and leads her to believe that her brother has been murdered.

Eventually Sally finds her brother, marries Dude. Rio and Dude are reconciled when it is discovered that he is Sally`s brother.

As I have indicated previously a soprano will win me every time, and Susanna was a great soprano.


It`s A Pleasure (1945)

Chris Linden (Sonja Henie) has a small part in an ice skating show. She loves Don Martin (Michael O`Shea), a champion Ice hockey player, who is also a drunken, brawling womaniser. Don is given a life suspension for striking a referee.

Chris and Don meet and marry, and Don reforms, but Chris`s star is rising. Don leaves, allowing Chris to believe that he has run off with the boss`s wife.Don reforms, Chris becomes a star and all ends well. Dance and skating scenes were great, as was the finale.

33 year old Sonja, although still beautiful was nearing the end of her movie career, and 39 year old Michael, who looked more like 50 was unbelievable as a top athlete or a love interest.

[Uncle Stevie]

I have the Sonja Henie pic and enjoy most of her trite movies. Have you noticed that Henie, as an Olympic Champion, performed skating moves way below the level of today's competition. She would never have been in the competition by today's standards. Her claim to fame was mostly ice dancing which she did very well but rotational air twists were not her thing.

[ChiO]

Moonlight and pretzels,
When the moon goes up and the beer goes down....
(or something like that)

I saw a very nice 35mm print of MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS (Karl Freund 1933) last night. It was the movie Freund directed immediately following THE MUMMY (1932).

If one were Universal and didn't have Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers, Joan Blondell or Busby Berkeley, but wanted to make a backstage Musical, what would one do? Why, use look-alikes, what else? (Or, in the case of Berkeley, choreograph-alike.) If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then this is one of the sincerest flattering movies ever made. It was pretty much ersatz 42nd STREET...except for the pageant to the common man finale (if one is going to imitate, one might as well be eclectic). At least there was William Frawley as the gruff stage manager and, portraying the Greek gambler, Nick Papacropolis, who saves the Big Show, was our favorite Greek musical-comedy performer, Leo Carillo (who was allowed to mangle every third word he uttered). Most of the song lyrics were written by Yip Harburg, and some of the music was composed by Sammy Fain, but I'm betting each left this movie off the ol' curriculum vitae.

It would nice to think something good came out of this. Maybe 18 or so years later, at Ciro's, after four cocktails and a couple of packs of cigarettes, Frawley said, "Dez, ya know, I worked with a guy named Freud or somethin' like that. Not much of a musical-comedy director, but I bet he could handle three cameras."

And I checked IMDb so you don't have to:

March 11, 1933: 42nd STREET released
May 27, 1933: GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 released
August 1, 1933: MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS released

Recommended for completists and curiosity-seekers only.

[feaito]

I've just watched "Lovely To Look At" (1952), a musical which I had long been wanting to revisit. I know it's inferior than the original 1935 "Roberta" with Scott, Dunne, Astaire and Rogers, but this movie brings memories of my younger days, when MGM films from the '40s and '50s were being constantly aired on the afternoons... I think that Ann Miller's sexy rendition of "I'll Be Hard to Handle" is very good and it's never mentioned. Marge and Gower Champion have a couple of attractive numbers and Jerome Kern's score is one of the greatest ever. Besides, "You're Devastating" and "The Touch of Your Hand" are being brought back! Zsa Zsa Gabor made her début in this film. The final fashion sequence was directed by Minnelli (uncredited) and this was Adrian's last colaboration with MGM and his last film credit. I had a pleasant evening.