Let’s see if I can describe the disquieting effect of The Unfinished Dance adequately for those who haven’t been exposed to it. The formula for The Unfinished Dance (1947-Henry Koster), a rarely seen film that will be aired at 1:15pm on January 15th, is a heady brew, composed of mysterious elements blended from this:

Noel Coward pointed out a long time ago that it was “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is”. I think that most of us have felt the same bittersweet pull of moments in popular films as well, even if we think we know better or believe we might be too jaded or sophisticated to acknowledge their power. While reading the heartfelt blog posted here by High Hurdler, I was admiring his economy of emotion and touching description of the unexpected impact of the minor motion picture Michael (1996-Nora Ephron) on him some years ago. As I read that piece, a light came on in that ramshackle house called my memory once more. Transported back to other Decembers over 25 years ago, a door opened on experiences similar to the one explored by my fellow Morlock.

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A holiday movie, like the raised expectations of the festive season, can be burdened with some pretty extravagant hopes. Like the day itself, we always seem to hope for a cinematic experience that might transcend the reality of an enjoyable if sometimes stressful day such as Thanksgiving. This year we got lucky. After rejecting family votes for some familiar films, including Avalon (1990-Barry Levinson), with its cri de coeur line, “you cut the too-key without me?!” spoken by with the now immortal Lou Jacobi; any hopes for those who wanted to see The Searchers (1956-John Ford) for the umpteenth time were also dashed; as was one l-tryptophan induced vote for Pulp Fiction (1994-Quentin Tarantino). We finally settled on a movie with little obvious connection to the holidays, The Straight Story (1999) on DVD.

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I suppose to the eyes of the world, we were a motley looking crew as the capacity crowd flowed eagerly into George Eastman House‘s Dryden Theatre in Rochester, New York last month. Unlike the first Hollywood premiere of Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1923) at Sid Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre on October 18, 1922, there were no limos, no gowns, no red carpets, no klieg lights searching the sky, and certainly no hint of a “Day of the Locust” style mob scene. However, there were about five hundred not very glam but expectantly eager people gathered on an October evening for the “World Premiere” of this restored version of the tale in the 21st century starring Douglas Fairbanks in one of his classic roles.

So, who were these people who came out to see this 87 year old film version of the English bandit’s adventures?  Among the crowd at this movie were a few who might have been just old enough to have seen a later Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. film in a movie theater, a generous sprinkling of younger cinephiles, middle aged academics, and a delightful gaggle of children of about nine years of age in the audience that Saturday.  Once thought lost until it was rediscovered in the 1960s, this film’s “premiere” was a highlight of the seventh biennial conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies at the University of Rochester, where the historical and literary permutations of the appealing errant figure of lore were analyzed and, frankly, reveled in by the participants. Accredited scholars and hard core Robin buffs from around the world spent three days discussing the evergreen legend of this “Robin Hood: Media Creature”, trying to discern if the 700 year old hero of Sherwood Forest even existed, while enjoying an extravaganza of multi-media exhibits (including Douglas Fairbanks boots, seen below), early manuscripts, songs, and presentations discussing all aspects of the tale.

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Cecil B. DeMille’s spectacle-style cinema with its clear-cut morality does not seem to mesh with Gloria Grahame’s image as the sympathetic tart who tends to bring out the violence in men. She was best suited to the smoky atmosphere and hazy morality of film noir where her characters took their hits and rolled with the punches. Yet, Grahame acquitted herself nicely in DeMille’s circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth, playing the trampy-around-the-edges elephant girl called Angel. Greatest Show was released in 1952, which marked the beginning of Grahame’s most successful period as an actress, but this sentimental circus tale is often overlooked in favor of Macao (1952), The Bad and Beautiful (1952), and The Big Heat (1953) when scholars write of this period.

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Who can resist the exotic notion of the magical genie, emerging smokily from its pent-up quarters (probably a magic lamp) to grudgingly do one’s bidding?  Though Disney’s genie from the animated Aladdin seems to have superceded many other cinematic genies in the minds of the younger generation at least, it’s the old-fashioned kind that appeal to me.  With a colorful background grounded in history and literature and the kind of pizazz that moviemakers couldn’t resist, the genie has made more than a few interesting appearances on movie screens.  One of the most iconic — and scariest — has to be actor Rex Ingram’s starring role as Djinn (another word for genie) in 1940′s elaborate Arabian fantasy The Thief of Bagdad, from the Korda Brothers.

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“What do you know about love? I think love is watching your child go off to school for the first time alone… sitting beside a sick kid’s bed waiting for the doctor, praying it isn’t polio… or that cold chill you get when you hear the screech of brakes, and know your kid’s outside on the street some place… and a lot of other things you get can’t get out of books, ’cause nobody knows how to write ‘em down.”

~John Wayne as Steve Aloysius Williams in Trouble Along the Way (1953)
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I was all set to write up Part 2 of my German movie star postcard research when I noticed that one of my favorite MGM movies is playing tonight at midnight!  It’s the 1948 all-star version of Alexandre  Dumas’ classic adventure novel The Three Musketeers, a boisterous, color-saturated, ornate, probably over-produced but immensely entertaining MGM extravaganza, starring the studio’s reigning musical star Gene Kelly as the wanna-be musketeer D’Artagnan.   I’m sure everybody has their own favorite cinematic interpretation of Dumas’ story — whether you like Oliver Reed, Keifer Sutherland or even the Ritz Brothers, you can find something suitable — but the zippy and good-natured MGM version does it for me.  Literary accuracy aside, I don’t think you can beat Kelly’s hilarious interpretation for pure fun.

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No interviews, please. That’s always been one of the blessings of animals in movies. These stoic creatures don’t complain and they don’t explain in public, no matter how much we anthropomorphize their reactions to the world. Nor do they ever tell us their views on life, love or politics. They just are, enduring our endless attempts to project onto them our longing to understand and bridge the gulf that inevitably lies between us.

Since the upcoming Oscar award ceremony has yet to feature a Best Animal Actor Award, I started to muse about which of the warm blooded mammals found in the movies who’ve beguiled me over the years might be a prime candidate for an Oscar–if they gave one. There are horses, (Flicka, Trigger, and Black Beauty, for instance), cats, (Thomasina, Pyewacket, Rhubarb), pigs, (Babe, Wilbur), lions, sheep, pumas, deer, and even wild boars to choose from, ( the latter make great villains, as anyone who’s seen Home From the Hill and The Yearling will testify).

Since a merger between the PATSY Awards and those given by AMPAS each year is highly unlikely, I’d like to make a case for at least one Academy Award worthy creature whose charismatic presence in the popular imagination has continued to this day. (The PATSYs are the Picture Animal Top Star of the Year given by the American Humane Association, an award created to prevent animal cruelty on movie sets after a notorious accident on the set of Jesse James (1939) finally got the public’s attention about the treatment of animals during filming).

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