kingrat wrote:My mother had a set of fur with animal heads almost exactly like the one in the photo of Doris. I can guarantee you it wasn't fox or any expensive fur, though. There was a special name for those which I can't remember. As a child I thought they were the height of elegance and called them her "kitty cats."
JackFavell wrote:My mom had those little foxes that bit their tails too, but I think they were out of fashion by the time I came around, so she let us have them to play dress up with. I loved them, played with them all the time and thought they were so cool with the little clamp fitted into those tiny little jaws.
I'm glad we weren't the only ones who thought those furs were once "swelegant"--but I loved playing with them when Mom wasn't looking. I still remember their strange fixed eyes, their glorious softness, and the way that they smelled like Chanel No. 5--just like Mommy.
Cine, I thought that Janis was supposed to be the height of chic and a humorous contrast to the star--but Paige was so over-dressed she was meant to look shellacked next to the relatively fresh-faced Doris, who was definitely being given the big studio build-up. I actually liked those "I've got it all together" outfits worn by JP's take-charge character. They were pretty funny. I've always loved Janis Paige, who was just a really talented kid in those Warner movies, but was capable of belting out a song, sizzling on screen or breaking your heart--if only she'd been nurtured more carefully back then. I wish she could sit down for a Private Screening with Robert Osborne or make an appearance at the TCM Festival.
Pictures, please, Miss Harlequin Pants! I got that "they're just jealous" routine from Mom too when she had me wear a sun dress that was way too fancy to day camp one summer. Man, the razzings never stopped. Being stylish in certain circles really doesn't pay.
To those who spoke up in defense of Jimmy Stewart's character in
The Man Who Knew Too Much:
Normally, I love Stewart in his post-WWII movies when he was capable of great depth and a fantastic range as an actor. I do think his character in the Hitchcock movie was trying to do what he believed was best for his wife, but I can't help feeling that he never completely accepted her as an adult and used his power as a doctor to keep her under control. Then again, her own self-image was not entirely formed by her marriage, since she had a life before her marriage, lending her a bit of mystery and giving the couple's relationship a dramatically interesting tension that was heightened by the film's danger.
kingrat wrote:I'd like to thank Moira and everyone else who recommended I'll See You in My Dreams, which I would otherwise have overlooked. Gus Kahn wrote the lyrics to many songs which were among my parents' favorites. Doris Day gives an unmannered performance which delivers every emotion called for in the script, and she makes it look so easy and natural. Her singing has those qualities, too. She and Danny Thomas make a charming couple. James Gleason and Mary Wickes don't disappoint their fans, either. Patrice Wymore, best known for marrying Errol Flynn, plays a Broadway diva who looks and acts like a cross between Lauren Bacall and a deranged whippet. But don't they all?
LeRoy Prinz staged the musical numbers--Doris and Danny singing "Makin' Whoopee" in a train compartment was a favorite, but director Michael Curtiz deserves a lot of credit for blending romance, comedy, tears, and music into a satisfying whole. Look at how he films the scene backstage when Danny finally proposes. Several people who post here consider Curtiz a much underrated director, and here is yet another case in point.
I'm so glad that you liked
I'll See You in My Dreams too.
I have a soft spot for Danny Thomas but after seeing him recently in this movie and the very well done remake of
The Jazz Singer (1952)--another forgotten, late career film from Michael Curtiz--wonder if Thomas might have had more chances to make movies if he'd come along ten or twenty years earlier. I love your description of Patrice Wymore as "a cross between Lauren Bacall and a deranged whippet." I think the scene when Thomas sings "It Had to Be You" to Day is a killer. Yeah, the movie is schmaltzy (with a twist of zest provided by Mary Wickes), but Doris was exceptionally fine (and not cutesy) as the woman who gave the outsider his grounding in life. I think that "outsider looking in" motif is one of Curtiz's recurring themes--though the director was too talented to be easily categorized as an auteur. I've always thought that in his movies characters are sometimes separated from others by cultural differences, war, poverty, and education, but sometimes they are also isolated by their own bitterness, egoism or ferocious need to succeed and work in a society that is never truly home for them. In this movie, it is the central character's own life that passes by as he becomes involved in his own creative pursuits, enabled by his wife-partner's efficiency. Though I wouldn't look for biographical accuracy in such a movie, I like the way that the film's resolution includes a recognition of his own mortality and his need for others while acknowledging the enduring quality of Gus Kahn's music.