Summer Under the Stars - Norma Shearer on TCM

This starts tomorrow. Here are the Raquelle-approved reasons why you should watch each and everyone (except for one). And if you are not a Norma Shearer fan there is something wrong with you. Watching TCM Summer Under the Stars tribute to Norma Shearer can cure you of your atrocious malady.

Lady of the Night (1924) - Joan Crawford absolutely despised and envied Norma Shearer. Especially because Shearer had an established career and dated and then married MGM bigwig Irving Thalberg. Crawford had to play Norma's double in this picture. I bet that got Crawford's goat! Plus Norma Shearer wears a wicked feather headpiece and dons a busca-novio. Excellent!

A Lady of Chance (1928) - A late silent watches like an early silent. It's Art Deco splendor and by far my favorite Norma Shearer film of them all. Read my previous post about it.

Their Own Desire (1929) - It's even more Art Deco splendor. The film was shot on location at the Norconian Resort which is now a rotting Art Deco relic. It's also the first film in which Robert Montgomery and Norma Shearer co-star. They went on to make several films together.

Complicated Women (2005) - It's a documentary which features Norma Shearer but mostly discusses actresses and films from the Pre-Code era. It's worth watching.

The Divorcee (1930) - Norma Shearer's husband Chester Morris cheats on her with some tramp. So Shearer cheats on Morris with Robert Montgomery. Morris can't take it so he divorces Shearer. Then Shearer goes and nails every rich guy she can get her hands on including Conrad Nagel. Heck yeah! Plus I dressed up as Norma Shearer in The Divorcee for Kevin's Birthday party.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) - The start of Norma Shearer's prestige film career (period pieces with costumes and big productions). Charles Laughton co-stars as her tyrant father.

Riptide (1934) - A Montgomery-Shearer vehicle. Watch it for the adult-sized bug Halloween costumes. Excellent!

Escape (1940) - This is one of my least favorite Shearer films mostly because it's very depressing. But if you like depressing WWII movies, this is right up your alley.

Idiot's Delight (1939) - Norma's outrageous wig, canned oyster soup and Clark Gable singing and dancing to Puttin' on the Ritz.

The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg (1929) - Classic story of reluctant prince falling in love with a peasant girl (civilian). Shearer & Novarro's chemistry is sweet and playful, not passionate.

Private Lives (1931) - Watching a bickering couple go from hot and cold was never this fun, especially a couple on their honeymoon, WITH OTHER PEOPLE!

Romeo and Juliet (1936) - I would actually say pass on this one. Shearer and Leslie Howard are far too old to be playing Juliet and Romeo respectively.

Marie Antoinette (1938) - The pinnacle of Norma Shearer's prestige films. Thalberg's final gift to her. It's grandiose and over-the-top just as it should be.

Strangers May Kiss (1931) - Football, men in fur coats, airplanes, awesome. And why can't a girl have fun and not have to worry about her reputation?

Out of the Past, Into the Now - Celebrate Norma Shearer's Birthday, Ke$ha style

Today is Queen Norma Shearer's Birthday. I wasn't going to do a post but I just couldn't help myself. Jennifer, avid Norma Shearer devotee and curator of the official Norma Shearer Facebook fan page, posted this very enjoyable mash-up of Ke$ha's song Tik-Tok along with clips of Norma Shearer in motion and dancing from various films. It's superb. The timing is excellent. What better way to celebrate the Queen's birthday by watching this over and over again?

Summer Movie Blog-a-Thon ~ I was NOT a movie-watching child

That's right. I admit it. As a child I did not watch movies. It was a pretty rare occasion. And when I did, it usually meant a trip to the Cinema 1 and 2 back in the old Shoppers World in Framingham, MA.

(sidenote: check out Brandon Schaefer's fabulous art work, especially the art work based on the long lost structures on the Golden Mile in Framingham/Natick, MA at his Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonschaefer/)

I remember seeing E.T - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Cinderella (1950) (re-release) and a handful of other movies at that theater. My mother rented some movies from Blockbuster and the local Star Market. For some strange reason, I loved horror films as a kid. Anything with killing, blood & guts I was all for. Then I saw Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss (1990) and in one scene a person is electrocuted and in another a person's fingers are cut off by scissors. Don't ask me why, but I was put off of horror films permanently afterwards. 20 years later, I still can't stomach them.

And even though movies were not my thing, I was a story-loving kind of a gal with a wild imagination. Being an only child, I used to create stories with my dolls and toys. None of them really made sense but it was just to please whatever notion popped into my head that I wanted to explore. My favorite doll Cricket had a built in tape player in her back and she would tell me stories and teach me new things (for an only child this was perfect!) I also read quite a bit as a child. My favorite stories involved animals, especially dogs. My mother would tell me stories about her life in the Dominican Republic and these would keep me entertained for hours. I made up stories with my friends and created my own biographical stories from my travels and adventures as a child.

Most of all, I loved television. And boy did I watch a lot of it. I had a very long laundry list of TV shows I watched on a regular basis. Cartoons, live-action kids shows, entertainment shows, classic shows, etc.

My favorites were a motley assortment including: JEM, Care Bears ,He-Man and the Masters of the Universe , She-Ra, The Monkees, Punky Brewster, Gidget, Clarissa Explains it All, The Jetsons, The Flinstones, My Little Pony, ALF, Golden Girls, Saved by the Bell, Underdog, Small Wonder, Popeye, Loony Toons, Tom and Jerry, Laverne and Shirley, Alvin and the Chipmunks, You Can't Do That on Television, Ducktales, TaleSpin, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Fifteen, Garfield, Jackson 5 (Animated series), Sesame Street, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Gummi Bears, Gumby, and on and on and on.

TV shows were really just fluffy time-filler for me. Otherwise, I'd rather be playing outside making my own stories.

My love for movies was a gradual process. It started when I saw Congo (1995) at the age of 14. It's not a terribly good movie but I felt really cool watching it at the theater and not being scared of a few of the scary scenes (maybe Congo made up for Prom Night 3?). In my teenage years, I started to develop an intense love for classic literature. I adored anything by Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and Henry James. I particularly gravitated to stories of repression and isolation because I was a very lonely and very religious teenager. Films like Sense and Sensibility (1995),Little Women (1994) , The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Emma (1996) and Jude (1996) really spoke to me. I started to develop an interest in period pieces. I wanted stories to take me away from reality and to a completely different time and place. I wanted contemporary reenvisionings of the past, I wasn't quite ready to travel into a more real representation of the past.

In college, I took a film course and I got hooked onto classic films. Out of the Past (1947) and Citizen Kane (1941) were mostly responsible for my new developed love for classic films and having TCM nurture it. I was almost derailed by watching The Quiet Man (1953) for an Irish Literature and Culture course I took in college before I took the film one. I still think that is one of the worst movies ever made and if all classic films were like that, I wanted no part of it. Lucky for me, Out of the Past (1947) came to the rescue. During the early part of the 2000s, I watched a whole lot of contemporary films but then I started watching more and more classic ones and fewer contemporary ones. My taste changed over the past few years and it will change in the future too.

Looking back on my childhood and teenage years, I ask myself the question: should I have been a movie-watching child? Not really. I don't regret not seeing all the classic 80s and 90s kid flicks that people my age seem to hold dear to their hearts. I just wasn't a movie watching kind of kid. I was perfectly happy with playing, making stories with my dolls and watching TV. And you know what, that's ok!

God Speed Patricia Neal (1926-2010)

(1926-2010)

and thank you for this scene in Fountainhead (1949). It's by far one of the sexiest scenes in film history.

Noir Bar and The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) Cocktail

After Kevin, Carlos and I saw The Lusty Men (1952) at the Harvard Film Archive, we headed off to Noir bar at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square. They were going to have a Mad Men Season 4 premiere event the following night which Carlos and I would have to miss but I had always been meaning to check out the place so off we went.

Noir bar is a classic film lover's dream come true. The bar has a cool, dark ambiance which makes it's name apropos. There is always a classic film playing on the wall. When we visited a Dick Tracy film was being shown (the waitress couldn't tell us which one). The film is shown on mute and against a wall with slats. It's not meant to watch, just to add to the mystique. Best of all, the Noir bar's menu has a selection of cocktails named after films.

To my surprise and utter delight, they had a drink named after one of my favorite films: The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938). What a random film to chose! The cocktail consists of Bombay dry gin, Green Chartreuse, Grapefruit Juice, Basil and Champagne. I almost didn't get the drink because I have an aversion to basil. However, where else in the entire world would I get a drink named after this movie? Probably no where. So that's what I ordered.

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) stars Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. Here is the trailer:

This film is a running joke because the name Clitterhouse suggests "clitoris". In fact, Humphrey Bogart was known to have pointed out the similarity between the surname of the character and the part of the female genitalia. 

As I suspected, the basil overpowered the otherwise delicious drink. I fished some of it out to make it more palatable for me. Kevin had a Black Dahlia cocktail which was delicious. 

Here we are at Noir bar!

I highly recommend The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. In fact, I've personally to several people including Kevin who is currently holding my VHS copy hostage. The film is available on DVD as part of Warner Gangsters Collection Vol. 4. It's shown on TCM on a semi-regular basis. Also, it's going to be part of the super sexy Humphrey Bogart set that's due out in the Fall.

The Lusty Men (1952) at the Harvard Film Archive

The Harvard Film Archive is currently doing a retrospective on the work of director Nicholas Ray. Lucky for me, one of the films they happen to be showing was The Lusty Men (1952) which stars my beloved Robert Mitchum. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to get a chance to see many of the films in the series, I made this one high priority. Kevin and Carlos came with me to the HFA to see it last week. 

Robert Mitchum plays Jeff McCloud, a rodeo star who suffers an injury that hurts him more emotionally than physically. He retires to ranch life and seeks out his old childhood home. The home is sought after by a couple, Wes Merritt (Arthur Kennedy) and Leslie Merritt (Susan Hayward) who want to start a ranch. Wes gets Jeff a job but soon gets enamored by the idea of being a big rodeo star like Jeff. Wes is tired of working for someone else and decides that playing the rodeo circuit will earn him quick cash  to buy and run his own ranch. Wes convinces Jeff to teach him all he knows about rodeo. Jeff becomes Wes' manager earning a percentage of Wes's earnings and off they go, much to the chagrin of Leslie whose tumultuous past has made her yearn for the stability that rodeo life doesn't have to offer. Wes gets more and more dazzled by the false glamour of rodeo life: the quick cash, the instant fame, the parties full of booze and dames. He quickly gives up the idea of going back to ranch life. Leslie fights against Jeff who got Wes into this situation in the first place but Jeff is falling in love with Leslie. This is where things get complicated.

Watching the film, I couldn't help drawing comparisons to The Misfits (1961) which is also about the rodeo scene but focuses more on various wayward characters and the dirty business of mustang hunting. The Lusty Men is a much quieter film, less focused on a message or showcasing a cast of big stars and more interested in telling a very linear story. The film is filled with lots of rodeo scenes. Calf-roping, bronc riding, steer wrestling, bull riding, etc. A good chunk of the film consists of these scenes but I don't feel like they overwhelmed the movie. Instead, I felt like a spectator watching both the stories of the people on screen and watching rodeo life circa 1950s. It added to the experience.

The programmer who introduced the film to us mentioned that Robert Mitchum was reported to have stolen the original last reel of the film and gave it to his secretary to burn. He hated the original ending so much he went to those lengths so that a new ending would have to be filmed. Many people don't realize how much Mitchum influenced movies he made. He gave a lot of input in acting, dialogue, script, directing and production whether it was wanted or not. In my opinion, a film was always better for having Robert Mitchum in it.

The Salon article which I linked to on the heckyeahrobertmitchum Tumblr (a heads up from KC of Classic Movie Blog) has the following anecdote about The Lusty Men:

On the rodeo film "The Lusty Men": "(Producers) Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna -- one or the other -- would call me at the office and ask for ideas. So I gave them one -- a modern Western. They reached into a drawer and came up with a title. They had titles to fit just about any type of movie. They were quite a team. One would walk up and down and cry while the other sat down to talk to you. Then they'd reverse. I always thought that the producer was The Producer. I didn't know I was makin' more money than they were and that if I sneak-talked to the boss (Howard Hughes), they'd be out. I didn't know that, no shit. So Howard called me one day and said, 'Bob, for God's sake tell me you don't want to do this picture so I can get this son-of-a-bitch Wald off my back.' But I told him I wanted to do the picture. He asked, 'Is the script that good?' I told him we didn't even have a script, but we'd whip one up. And I wanted Nick Ray to direct it. 

"The next day Wald called me to tell me in hushed tones that 'Howard's OK'd the story and guess who we have as director? Nick Ray.' Then he hired Niven Busch and the guy who wrote 'They Shoot Horses,' Horace McCoy, to do the writing. They were at opposite ends of the lot and they kept passing each other by. Finally they passed each other and went right out the gate. Nick and I , both stoned, worked out the script.

"So we get the picture finished and Wald had insisted on this ending that was impossible. We snuck into the editing room, made off with the end sequence and burned it. The production number was still active, so we went out and shot another ending, bang-bang-bang, like that. And Jerry Wald traveled to colleges around the county lecturing on the art of filmmaking."

Unfortunately, The Lusty Men isn't available on DVD. If you get a chance to see it, please do. It's a wonderful little film. And it doesn't hurt that Mitchum looked amazing in a cowboy hat and tight jeans that hugged him in all the right places (::biting finger coyly::).

If you have TCM, it's showing on September 28th at 6:00 am!

This is me outside of the HFA and in front of some posters of Nicholas Ray movies. I love having my photo taken here.

If you are in the Boston area, make sure you check out the series. It goes on until August 9th. Or just check out the listing on the HFA site. A lot of the films are on DVD. In fact, I'm hoping to do a short Nicholas Ray series here on the blog. Stay tuned.

Breathless (1960) 50th Anniversary Restoration at the Kendall

Rialto Pictures has been touring a 50th Anniversary Restoration of the classic French New Wave film Breathless (1960) across the United States. I managed to catch the very last showing that took place in the Boston area on Thursday evening. Good friends Kevin and Lisa as well as my beau Carlos came with me to a 9:40 pm showing of the film. A few weeks ago, Kevin had sent me a postcard (that boasted the illustration Yoko Kuomura on it. See above.) invited me to go see the film with him. For some unexplained reason, it passed my notice that two of my favorite theaters, The Brattle and The Coolidge Corner Theater, had both shown the film. Luckily, good ole standby Kendall Square Cinema (a local cinema known for showing Indie and Foreign films as well as the occassional classic) was the last Boston-based cinema to be showing Breathless. We got in just at the nick of time!

The entrance of the Kendall.

Any of you lucky bastards that got to see the US premiere of the restoration at the TCM Classic Film Festival back in April will be familiar with it. However, those of you who missed it have a chance to see the restoration as it tours the US. Rialto has a new 35mm print of the film which has been restored and newly revised English subtitles were added.

Visually, I couldn't tell much of a difference between the restored print I saw on the big screen and the Criterion Collection DVD that I watched with Kevin a while back (I never did do a post about that). Also, I didn't much care for the new subtitles. They were still a very loose translation of the French being spoken in the film. My friend Lisa, who knows some French, pointed out that in one scene Jean Paul Belmondo is actually cursing in French yet the English curse equivalent was not put into the subtitles. Was there perhaps some toning down of the language? Censorship of a film like Breathless is not a matter to be taken lightly. Also, the film was shown with very little fanfare. Not that it should have had an introduction, but I think information about the restoration or something to jazz it up would have been nice.

Still it was great to see Breathless on the big screen. From the little bits of information on the net that I've read, theatrical showings of Breathless have been limited in the past but now Rialto has US theatrical rights to the film. So this truly was a treat!

Kevin and I both love this film and it was Lisa's first time watching it. Carlos, who had seen it before some years ago, was not terribly impressed. In fact, he tried to take a nap during the movie and I threatened him with my classic "don't you dare". He told me afterwards that he couldn't see the genius of the film. I've found that he's not really been able to enjoy the avant-garde French films I've shown him. My recent attempts to get him to appreciate some quirky French fare such as 8 Women (2002) and Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) failed miserably. I tried to explain to Carlos why Breathless was genius but I don't think he got it. Oh well. No more French films for him!

The genius of Breathless (1960):

• openness of sexuality, including discussion of the past sexual partners of a single female
• jump cuts, which we take for granted today but were radically new back in 1960
• inaugural French New Wave film that has come to be a symbol that represents that genre
• gritty, in-your-face cinematography. Filming happened on the streets with a hand held camera.
• extras in the film are real-life bystandards
• no special lighting was used except for natural light, street lights and the lamps from a model shoot scene.
• spontaneity of the script development, the shooting and the acting
• homage to classic film stars and directors, especially Michel's (Jean Paul Belmondo) fascination with Humphrey Bogart

If you are interested in seeing the Restoration for yourself, check out the Rialto website for more information and to see if the print is coming to a city near you. http://www.rialtopictures.com/breathless.html

If you can't see the Restoration for whatever reason, watch it at home with the Criterion Collection set (I still need to buy this!).