HOLLYWOOD ON HOLLYWOOD BLOGATHON: GOING HOLLYWOOD

Many people love films about Hollywood like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Singin In The Rain (1952) and rightfully so. However, there are some hidden film gems about Hollywood that I really love to watch. One such film is a 1933 offering from MGM - Going Hollywood.

Going Hollywood was primarily a starring vehicle for rising crooner Bing Crosby. Bing had become a superstar a year earlier with a popular radio show and his first feature film for Paramount Studios, The Big Broadcast (1932). However, the studio was still unsure what to do with their instantly hot product. Was Bing a singer who acted or an actor that could sing? Paramount loaned Bing to MGM, which is something they would really not do much in the future. This film would be Bing's first film for MGM studios, which at the time was the biggest film studio in the world. Bing would not make another film at MGM for 20 years and the only other movies he made for the studio would be: High Society (1956), Man On Fire (1957), and That's Entertainment (1974).

Back to Going Hollywood, the film was also a vehicle for actress Marion Davies. Despite a lifelong relationship with paper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, Davies was a star who was becoming more famous for her relationship with Hearst than for her movies. This film did little for Davies' career, but she did look beautiful in the film. Rounding out the cast were great supporting stars as Stuart Erwin, Fifi D'Orsay, Ned Sparks, and Patsy Kelly. 

The plot of the movie has Bing basically playing Bing Crosby. He is a crooner going to Hollywood for his first starring role. Fifi D'Orsay is his girlfriend and uptight French leading lady. When I first saw the movie as a teenager I really hated her, but that is a sign of a good actress. Her role in the film was to make you hate her. Marion Davies, basically plays a stalker. She plays a school teacher at an uptight private girl's school who dreams of a relationship with the crooner. When she quits the school, she hitches a train to Hollywood to meet Crosby. She gets a small role in the film Bing is working on with D'Orsay, and as the relationship between Bing and Fifi disintegrates, the career and love life of Marion Davies looks up as she makes Bing realize that she is the woman of his dreams. 

Despite a great opening in Grand Central Station, not much of the "real" Hollywood is used, which is unfortunate. The music is written by the great Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, and the film shows the debut of the popular torch song "Temptation". Other musical highlights include Bing singing "Beautiful Girl" to a young Sterling Holloway (of Winnie The Pooh fame), the bizarre Busby Berkeley-like number "We'll Make Hay While The Sun Shines", and the underrated "Our Big Love Scene". Bing and Marion Davies both looked great in the movie, and the film holds up well 72 years after it was made.

The Hollywood plot of stars going to Hollywood for fame and fortune is a plot line that is still used to do this day. Also the storyline about a failing production, an out of touch director (Ned Sparks), a naive producer (Stuart Erwin), and an uptight prima donna (Fifi D'Orsay) is again something that is a part of modern Hollywood as well as this vintage 1933 Hollywood. The movie is about Hollywood, but like in many movies, the personality of Bing Crosby overshadows the whole film...

FABULOUS FILMS OF THE FIFTIES BLOGATHON: LIMELIGHT

This blog post is part of the Fabulous Films of the 1950s Blogathon,,hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA)...

I have written and reviewed the 1952 comedy/drama Limelight numerous times. It stars one of all-time favorite actors, Charlie Chaplin, and it is just a wonderful film. It is the most autobiographical of any Chaplin film, and I had to pick it for a 1950s blogathon. The film was not a success in 1952, and it got lost in the 1950s movies of Cinemascope, lavish musicals, and Hitchcock masterpieces. However, Limelight is a wonderful modest film that tells a story simplistically with no Chariot races or 3D gimmicks.

Chaplin's final American film tells the story of a fading music hall comedian's effort to help a despondent ballet dancer learn both to walk and feel confident about life again. The highlight of the film is the classic duet with Chaplin's only real artistic film comedy rival, Buster Keaton. It was a great pairing seeing Chaplin and Keaton on the screen together.

Haunting and unforgettable piece from Charles Chaplin that was nearly lost in the American cinema all together. It played in very few cities within the U.S. in 1952 and was never shown in Los Angeles due to the suspicion that the House of Un-American Acts Committee had concerning Chaplin (making no sense to me as Chaplin, who was British, was the polar opposite of a Communist from all indications). The film disappeared from U.S. soil and did not re-surface until some 20 years later in 1972 and Chaplin actually won an Oscar, with fellow scorers Raymond Rasch and Larry Russell, for this movie's original dramatic score (this was the only competitive Oscar Chaplin ever won).

Chaplin stars as a washed-up vaudeville performer. He is now an elderly man (in his 60s when the film was made) and the spotlight is gone forever, even though he still secretly yearns for it. Chaplin discovers a very young ballet dancer (Claire Bloom) who has attempted suicide because she cannot handle being a performer. Naturally Chaplin cannot believe that this young, beautiful and talented woman would rather take her life than be a ballet performer (the fact that Chaplin yearns for her youth and the ability to be an entertainer again makes him bound and determined to get her back on her feet). He tries with all his might to get her performance-ready again, all the while he is also trying to resurrect the career that he lost long ago. Chaplin has a dream of a stunning performance he has on the stage, but when his act ends there is no one there to acknowledge him (one of, if not the saddest sequences I have ever seen on film). Soon it becomes obvious that Chaplin's time is running out and his desperation to have that one last piece of action engulfs his mind, body, heart and soul.

Although the film is set in London, it was entirely filmed in Hollywood, mostly at the Chaplin Studios. The street where Calvero lives was a redressed set at Paramount Studios, the music hall scenes were filmed at RKO, and some exterior scenes use back-projected footage of London. Chaplin prominently featured members of his family in the film, including five of his children and his half-brother Wheeler Dryden. Chaplin chose stage actress Claire Bloom for the role of Terry, her first major role in films.

Chaplin told his older sons he expected Limelight to be his last film. By all accounts he was very happy and energized during production, a fact often attributed to the joy of recreating his early career in the Music Hall. Most people who have studied the life of Chaplin would assume that his character in the film was based on his father Charles Chaplin Sr who had also lost his audience and had turned to alcohol which led to his death in 1901. In both his 1964 autobiography, and his 1974 book My Life in Pictures, however, Chaplin insists that Calvero is based on the life of stage actor Frank Tierney. Then, in contrast, Limelight was made during a time where Chaplin himself was starting to lose his audience. In many ways, the movie remains highly autobiographical.

Whether or not the movie I about Chaplin is really beside the point. If you want to lose yourself in another time and really feel the emotions of a film's characters then please view Limelight. This film marked an end of an era for Chaplin. It marked a time of sadness being kicked out of the United States, a country he had called home for almost fifty years, but it also marked a change in Chaplin. He no longer longed to make a perfect movie, he learned to enjoy his family and the finer things in life. When you thing of movies of the 1950s, you do not really think of a Charlie Chaplin movie, but I think of Limelight...

JIMMY STEWART BLOGATHON: THE MUSICAL SIDE OF JIMMY STEWART

When you think of the wealth of movies that Jimmy Stewart made in his career, you do not consider him a musical star. Anyone who has ever heard him sing would agree with me. However, Jimmy Stewart dimake a handful of musicals during his long and illustrious career which spanned decades. Most of them however we not that well received.

After debuting in a forgotten Spencer Tracy film The Murder Man in 1935, Stewart's next movie was a musical - Rose Marie (1936). The movie was an adaptation of the stage operetta and a starring vehicle for Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Stewart plays the second male lead that tries to steal MacDonald away from Eddy. Jimmy did not sing in this film, but Nelson and Jeanette would introduce the song "Indian Love Call" in the movie. It would be the duo's signature song.

MGM still had no clue what to do with Stewart so they stuck him in another musical right after. In Born To Dance (1936) he was paired with the beautiful Eleanor Powell. The musical score was done by the great Cole Porter, and Stewart was even given the task of introducing the Porter classic "Easy To Love". His voice brought tears to my eyes and not in a good way. Even in the 1974 documentary That's Entertainment Stewart poked fun and his attempt at singing. Thank goodness Eleanor Powell's tap dancing and the Cole Porter score took made audiences forget Stewart's vocal inadequacy.

By the late 1930s, Jimmy Stewart was making a mark for himself as the "every man" of film. His films like You Can't Take It With You and Mr Smith Goes To Washington cemented Stewart's place as a great leading man. However, in 1941 Stewart appeared in two musicals. For the horrible film Pot O Gold, Jimmy was loaned out to United Artists, a studio not known for great musicals. The movie was an adaptation of a popular radio show of the time. The film tells of a couple (Stewart and Paulette Goddard) romantically involved despite family feuds. Stewart and Goddard both were not singers so the musical part of the movie came from Horace Heidt and His Orchestra. Pot O Gold was a bomb, and Stewart later referred to the film as the worst one he ever appeared in.

The other musical Stewart appeared in in 1941 was MGM's lavish musical Ziegfeld Girl. Set in the 1920s, the film tells the parallel stories of three women who become performers in the renowned Broadway show the Ziegfeld Follies. Stewart had no musical numbers in the film. He was the main male lead, playing the boyfriend of a tortured Ziegfeld girl (Lana Turner). Stewart did not need to sing in this film, because it also had the talented musical stars Judy Garland and Tony Martin to make the film one of the best musicals of 1941.

In the 1940s Jimmy steered clear of the musical genre. Other than a humorous song he sang on Bing Crosby's radio show in the late 1940s, Jimmy stayed away from the musical. However, he did make one more musical of note. Not only was it his most profitable musical, but it was one of the greatest musicals of the 1950s. Stewart portrayed big band leader Glenn Miller in The Glenn Miller Story (1954). The film follows big band leader Glenn Miller (1904–1944) (James Stewart) from his early days in the music business in 1929 through to his 1944 death when the airplane he was flying in was lost over the English Channel during World War II. Prominent placement in the film is given to Miller's courtship and marriage to Helen Burger (June Allyson), and various cameos by actual musicians who were colleagues of Miller. Upon release in 1954, The Glenn Miller Story was massively successful at the box office.

In 1954, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay (by Valentine Davies and Oscar Brodney) and Best Score (by Henry Mancini and Joseph Gershenson). The film won the Oscar for Best Sound Recording, by Leslie I. Carey. Jimmy Stewart was definitely no rival to Bing Crosby or Fred Astaire in the musical genre, but it is interesting to look at the musicals the non-musical Stewart made during his career. His acting ability as America's "every man" is what made him one of the biggest stars of classic Hollywood. Again, it was definitely his acting ability and not his musical talent or lack of...

DIAMONDS & GOLD BLOGATHON: BING CROSBY AS DR. COOK

Bing Crosby was one of the biggest movie stars of all-time. He was the number one box office draw from 1945 to 1949. After his contract with Paramount Studios was over in 1956, Bing moved away from making movies and concentrated on raising his second family. However, even in Bing's "golden years" he did make an occasional movie. One of his last screen appearances was in the television movie Dr Cook's Garden on ABC television in 1971. Bing was 68 at the time the movie came out.

Dr. Cook's Garden was originally a Broadway play written by Ira Levin. It premiered on Broadway in 1967 with a cast including Burl Ives and Keir Dullea. George C. Scott was meant to direct but was replaced during rehearsals by Levin. When the play was made for television Bing took over the Burl Ives roles as a seemingly friendly elderly doctor. Frank Converse plays the young doctor that looks up to Bing, and a young Blythe Danner plays Bing's secretary and Converse's love interest. Originally airing as the ABC "Movie of the Week", Dr. Cook's Garden seems more relevant with the passage of time with the real world bringing us Doctor Kevorkian types in the decades since.

Der Bingle is a kindly G.P. in a Greenfield, arguably the most beloved person in this idyllic area. How idyllic? The town boats a very low crime rate and few unpleasant citizens. Greenfield is about to host recent medical school graduate Converse, returning to visit high school sweetheart Danner and mentor Crosby. The budding young doctor is pleasantly surprised by his home town's evolution into a paradise---and increasingly concerned about the number of abrupt, mysterious deaths occuring in heavenly Greenfield. Crosby's Dr. Cook is calm and rationalizing as his describes the thought he puts into his decisions, and admits that marking the "R" is always difficult for him. His unfailing composure adds creepiness that helps make up for the missing uncertainty and almost raises this otherwise average tale into the must-see category.

Two decades before Alec Baldwin brazenly declared himself God in Malice, Crosby let actions speak louder than his downright humble words possibly could, giving us a thriller more than interesting enough to watch despite its deficiencies. By 1971, Bing was no longer the leading man who made Dorothy Lamour or Mary Carlisle swoon with the notes of his beautiful voice. At an age now when many people were retired, Bing could pick and choose what movies he wanted to make. I am glad he picked the role of Dr. Cook. Some of the dialogue is as dated as a 1971 television movie, but I think Bing should have done more dramas. He definitely had the acting chops to do so. The ending of the movie is completely different than the ending of any other Bing Crosby movie, and Dr. Cook's Garden proved that Bing still had "IT" at the age of 68...

MAME: LUCILLE BALL'S FOLLY

When Broadway shows are adapted to film a lot of consideration takes place. Even though they are just transferring an existing production to the screen, countless things need to be reworked. For every Broadway hit that becomes a movie smash, there are countless other movies that just don't seem to work. One such movie was the ill fated Mame in 1974.

Mame was based on the 1966 Broadway musical of the same name, directed by Gene Saks, written by Paul Zindel, and starring Lucille Ball and Beatrice Arthur. Warner Bros. heads were concerned that Angela Lansbury, who had originated the title role on Broadway, had not yet captured the attention of the general public since she was mainly a Broadway star at this point (although she had starred in Disney's live-action/animated musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks in 1971). Her popular television series Murder, She Wrote, which would make Angela Lansbury a household name, would not debut for another ten years.

The film focuses on eccentric Mame Dennis, whose madcap life is disrupted when her deceased brother's son Patrick is entrusted to her care. Rather than bow to convention, Mame introduces the boy to her free-wheeling lifestyle, which includes his nanny Agnes Gooch and Mame's husband Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, a Southern aristocrat with a Georgia plantation called Peckerwood.

Filming, scheduled to begin in early 1972, was postponed when Lucille Ball broke her leg in a skiing accident. Owing to the delay, original director George Cukor was forced to withdraw from the project. The assignment went to Gene Saks, who had helmed the Broadway production, and his influence resulted in his then-wife Beatrice Arthur reprising the role of Vera Charles she had created on stage, a role that had been actively sought by Bette Davis.

Production began in January 1973. Ball, who had casting approval, was dissatisfied with Madeline Kahn's interpretation of Gooch and had her replaced by Jane Connell, another member of the original Broadway cast. Cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop made a valiant effort to draw attention from Ball's age by filming her with special lens filters, but the contrast between her soft-focus close-ups and the clarity of everyone and everything else was noticeable and jarring. Furthermore, despite extensive rehearsal sessions with Jerry Herman, who had composed the score, there was nothing that could be done to disguise her lack of singing ability. Herman held a grudge over Lucille Ball being cast in the main role. Not only could Ball not sing, but Herman had written the role especially for his friend Angela Lansbury.

It was originally planned to have Lucille Ball's singing voice dubbed if her vocals were not good enough to use in the film. Alternate vocals were rumored to have been recorded by Lisa Kirk, but at any rate Ball intervened and her vocals (a point of contention for many critics) were ultimately used. While, Ball's voice was adequate during many of the musical numbers like her superb duet with Bea Arthur on "Bosom Buddies", Lucille Ball just did not have the voice to pull off a musical. Earlier in her career Ball starred in a musical DuBarry Was A Lady, and her vocals were dubbed in - so how could Lucy be expected to sing some thirty years later!

Jerry Herman disliked this film so much (and was also unhappy with the film of his prior musical Hello, Dolly!) that no film of his musicals can be made again without his direct involvement and approval. Bea Arthur has confessed that she had reservations about making this film, but agreed to do so in order to work with her husband, director Gene Saks. In a 2008 interview, she called the film "a disaster." Even the star of this opus, Lucille Ball later regretted the movie. She would later say that "making the movie was about as much fun as watching your house burn down." Mame would be Lucille Ball's last theatricial movie.

Some parts of the movie do work. There was a definite chemistry between Lucille Ball and the actor Kirby Furlong, who portrayed her nephew in the film. That chemistry made the movie both touching and heart warming at times. Despite the lack of Lucille Ball's musical ability, she was surrounded by great musical stars like Bea Arthur and Robert Preston. That alone makes Mame worth seeing.

It is a movie that as a youth I saw on a lazy Sunday with nothing better to do. Lucille Ball does her best, and even Ball in a horrible movie is worth watching. Mame is not Lucy's proudest moment on screen, but some 100 years after her birth, it is still an example of Ball never being afraid to attack a project and give it her all...