PHOTOS OF THE DAY: CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD AND THEIR VINYL

I still have some vinyl. No a lot of vinyl but some vinyl. I love looking at the classic Hollywood stars as they listened to their record collections. Some great picures here...

Rita Hayworth

Marlene Dietrich 

James Stewart

Gene Tierney

Marlon Brando

Carmen Miranda    

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: A CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD HALLOWEEN

One of my favorite holidays is Halloween, and throughout my blog's history I have spotlighted some of the great costumes and poses that have been captured of classic Hollywood throughout the years. Here is another addition with some more great pics...

Bing Crosby

Alfred Hitchcock

Ann Miller

Pinky Tomlin & Rita Hayworth

Jackie Cooper

Elizabeth Montgomery

Past "A Classic Hollywood Halloween"...

2012

2014

2019

HOLLYWOOD BEAUTY: RITA HAYWORTH

This feature, spotlighting Hollywood beauty, has not appeared on my blog since 2015 so I figured I would revive it with one of the most beautiful women of the 1940s - Rita Hayworth. Rita had a sad life, but these pictures show her at her most beautiful...

COVER GIRL: A 1944 REVIEW

Here is a review of the 1944 film Cover Girl. This was published in the NY Times on March 31, 1944...

' Cover Girl,' With Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly, at the Music Hall -- 'Her Primitve Man' Is Seen at Loew's State Theatre
By BOSLEY CROWTHER

If there were still such a thing in existence as the proverbial "tired business man," then we'd say that the picture made just for him is at the Radio City Music Hall. For Columbia's expensive production (in Technicolor, of course), "Cover Girl," which came to the showplace yesterday as the cream of its Easter program, is precisely the sort of entertainment that used to fill his Broadway bill. Everything happens in it just when you most expect it to. The script is so frankly familiar that it must have come from the public domain. And the characters are as sleekly mechanical as only musical comedy characters dare to be. But it rainbows the screen with dazzling décor. It has Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth to sing and dance. And virtually every nook and corner is draped with beautiful girls.

Further, this gaudy obeisance to divine femininity has some rather nice music in it from the tune-shop of Jerome Kern. Best of the numbers, both for listening and for watching a dance done thereto, is a rhythm entitled "Tomorrow," to which the principals and Phil Silvers cut a rug. The idea is that they are playmates associated in a Brooklyn night club, and this dance that they do along the quiet streets on their way home in the small hours is a pip. Another pleasant number to which Miss Hayworth and Mr. Kelly nip around is "Put Me to the Test"—an invitation which the script, unfortunately, does.

For this undistinguished fiction about a Brooklyn night-club girl who wins a "cover contest" conducted by a glamorous magazine is so handicapped with clichés that it looks like an obstacle course. What do you think happens when Miss Hayworth wins the contest? She becomes sensationally famous and quarrels with Mr. Kelly, her nice boy friend. And what do you think is her decision after she has been in a big Broadway show (just long enough to do one splurge number)? Go back to Mr. Kelly, of course!

To be sure, Mr. Kelly is a sweet guy and a delightfully able dancer, too, and Miss Hayworth does better with him than with any dancing partner she's had yet. (That comment includes Fred Astaire, whom Mr. Kelly is pushing for top rung.) Miss Hayworth even acts with an enchantment which she has never so capably turned on. But you would think that something better could be found for them to play than this script. You would think that more fun could be worked in than merely Mr. Silvers' corny gags. And, above all, you'd think that the producer, Arthur Schwartz, whose first picture this is, would have tried for something more original and cinematic than a straight "t. b. m. show"...

SOURCE

GUEST REVIEW: PAL JOEY

To celebrate 100 years of Frank Sinatra, guest reviewer Bruce Kogan is back to take a look at one of my favorite Sinatra musicals - 1957's Pal Joey...

In his career Frank Sinatra did two film adaptions of Rodgers and Hart musicals. The first was Higher and Higher which was his first feature film speaking part. Pal Joey was the second and it is probably the greatest show Rodgers and Hart ever did.

When it debuted on Broadway in 1941 it got good, but not great reviews. But everyone loved the Rodgers and Hart score. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and I Could Write a Book were the big hits of the show and were retained for the film.

Pal Joey may have been ahead of its times. It was revived in 1951 and ran twice as long as it did in its original production. The reviews were far better. To say this is unusual is putting it mildly.

On Broadway, Joey Evans who we would now call a lounge lizard was played by Gene Kelly and in the revival by Harold Lang. The part really fit Sinatra perfectly. But the role had to be changed from a dancing part to a singing part. I believe that was the reason for the interpolation of other Rodgers and Hart songs in the film.

And Sinatra sings some good ones in Pal Joey. Added in for the filmgoers listening pleasure are There's A Small Hotel, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, and The Lady is a Tramp, the last one becoming a Sinatra standard in his live concerts. Movie singing don't get too much better than this.

Frank is an ambitious man of rather low morals who is caught between rich widow Rita Hayworth and ingenue Kim Novak. He loves Kim, but Rita can give him financial security. These are the kind of people that populate the John O'Hara world, very real and not too noble.

Although a few years later Frank Sinatra sang a concert version of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered with a hundred piece orchestra for his Reprise record label, it is in fact a woman's song as is My Funny Valentine. Rita does Bewitched as well as Zip. The latter song is a tribute number to Gypsy Rose Lee as Rita plays an ex-stripper. My Funny Valentine is done by Kim Novak.

When I say done, both ladies mouthed the words, but the vocals were dubbed as they always were for Ms. Hayworth. And I guess that had to be because both Hayworth and Novak could never have had the parts done by the best of vocalists.

As Pal Joey came to the screen in 1957 along with The Joker is Wild, my favorite Sinatra film, I've always picked that year as the year Old Blue Eyes was at the height of his career. His acting is impeccable and his singing, some of the best he ever did on screen...

BRUCE'S RATING: 9 OUT OF 10
MY RATING: 10 OUT OF 10

WORLD WAR II, THE US, AND CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Here is a great article I discovered to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. It is much better than anything I could ever write...

World War II, the US, and Classical Hollywood
by Charles Livingston

Wartime U.S.A. 1941-1945; the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, Uncle Sam recruits his troops, and nonetheless, Hollywood manages to sustain its dominant prowess. Certainly Hollywood experiences its much anticipated, yet seemingly nominal setbacks at the box office (following the U.S.’s involvement in WWII), but by 1943, Hollywood is undoubtedly recognized as “the worlds cinema.” This is courtesy of Humphrey Bogart,Casablanca, and most of all: The Second World War.

The catastrophic destruction of Pearl Harbor ultimately led to the United States participation in the war. Our contribution to the Worlds War effort s inevitably led to the deaths of countless valiant American men. This also meant America would become unified by way of Immense Patriotism, and no media outlet of the era triggered a more severe emotional response than the cinema. While Pearl Harbor and the War loomed over seas, an abundant of proud yet weary Americans elected to visit the movies on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. Several modes/ styles of cinema may have been accessible at the time, but no variation of film remained more paramount to Hollywood cinema (Post the U.S. joining the war) than the incessant method of Realism, Classical Hollywood’s proudest accomplishment.

Some of these films consisted of Casablanca, Once upon a Honeymoon, and The Best Years of Our Lives. A.O. Scott states, alluding to Casablanca, “The basic storyline would become the staple of wartime American Cinema.” All of these films would fervently communicate to, and connect American film viewers to the war that was physically distant, yet emotionally imbedded within them.

Another way, in which Hollywood managed to maintain its corporate dominance over any other media outlet, was due to the halt in production and mass distribution of the Television. The period between 1941 and 1945 could have very well witnessed the birth of TV; a legitimate form of competition meant to combat Hollywood and the studio system. Logically, resources during wartime should focus predominately on the war effort (Man power, materials, etc.), this proved to be one of the principal reasons behind Hollywood’s continued prominence during that specific period.

1946 proved to be Hollywood’s most successful year at the box office. This was not a coincidental occurrence by any stretch of the imagination. 1946 marked the end of World War II, therefore soldiers had come home from battle, the United Stated rejoiced as they recalled their countless military exploits, and families began to emerge. This also marked the era of the baby boomer (child born after World War II’s end). Americans were visiting their local cinema 5-6 time a week, sometimes merely a day off from the movies would seem foreign to the average American man and woman during 1946.

Hollywood has thrived throughout its vast existence, but no era is more indicative of its success than within the studio era, or most of all, throughout the four years before and four years following WWII. Weather it was the propaganda film, military drama, or gangster film, Americans seemed to visit the theaters not as a means of escape, but as a way of subconsciously connecting themselves with the realities of war...

SOURCE

BORN ON THIIS DAY: RITA HAYWORTH

Rita Hayworth, who is my opinion was one of the most beautiful women to ever be captured on film was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on this day - October 17, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the oldest child of two dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., was from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain. Her mother, Volga Hayworth, was an American of Irish-English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. The couple married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo Jr. and Vernon Cansino.

Margarita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her paternal grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer. He popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Hayworth later recalled, "From the time I was three and a half... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons." She noted "I didn't like it very much... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood". She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed publicly from the age of six. In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros.

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio, where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments as commercial interest in his dancing classes waned. He partnered with his daughter to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles. Due to her working Cansino never graduated from high school, but she had completed ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

Cansino (Hayworth) took a bit part in the film Cruz Diablo (1934) at age 16, which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with the Mexican actress, Dolores del Río. She danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of two name changes for her film career.

During her time at Fox, Hayworth appeared in five pictures in non-notable roles. By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Hayworth, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that she had screen potential, the salesman and promoter, Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures. The studio head Harry Cohn signed Hayworth to a long-term contract, and cast her in small roles in Columbia features. It was at this time that the Rita Hayworth that we all knew and loved would be born…

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: TONY MARTIN

On Christmas Day 2013, it will mark the 100th birthday of singer, actor, and entertainer Tony Martin. I was hoping Tony would make it to his 100th birthday, but unfortunately he died on July 27, 2012. Here are some great picture memories on this underrated crooner...



WITH 1ST WIFE ALICE FAYE (1915-1998)

WITH RITA HAYWORTH (1918-1987)

WITH  2ND WIFE CYD CHARISSE (1921-2008)

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: STARS AND THEIR FATHERS

Behind every great Hollywood star was probably a show business parent or two. To commemorate Father's Day, I wanted to put together some interesting pictures of classic Hollywood stars and their dear old dads. I was surprised to discover that it was harder to find classic Hollywood stars and their fathers than it was to find their mothers. I guess there are more stage mothers than stage fathers...

SHIRLEY TEMPLE AND HER FATHER

MICKEY ROONEY AND HIS FATHER

RITA HAYWORTH AND HER FATHER

ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND HER FATHER

AL JOLSON AND HIS FATHER

JERRY LEWIS WITH HIS FATHER AND HIS SON

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD MOTHERS

Not only does April showers bring May flowers but it also brings Mother's Day! In this modern age of the working mother, it is hard to get quality time with your children all of the time. However, classic Hollywood stars were doing it decades earlier. Thankfully not every Hollywood child turned out like Christina Crawford or Gary Crosby. Here are some of the happier pictrues of classic Hollywood mothers and their children...

DOROTHY LAMOUR AND SON

RITA HAYWORTH AND DAUGHTER

VERA LYNN AND DAUGHTER

DORIS DAY AND SON

BETTY GRABLE AND DAUGHTERS

BETTY HUTTON AND DAUGHTER