The Minnellium: Yolanda and the Thief (1945)Vincente Minnelli had been interested in making a surrealist musical since his days as a Broadway set designer and director. After he saw successful stagings of “Four Saints in Three Acts” (with libretto by Gertrude Stein) and “Pins and Needles” (starring members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union), he was convinced he could make it work. In 1938, he tried to woo musical comedy star Bea Lillie to take the lead role in a “surrealist revue” he titled “The Light Fantastic”. In a letter to Lillie, quoted in Minnelli’s autobiography, he wrote, “It sets out to prove that the world today is completely screwy. A surrealist fantasy set in jig time.” The project was shelved, and he moved on to direct “Very Warm For May”, the first Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein collaboration in eight years. Once in Hollywood, and flush with studio goodwill off the hits Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) and The Clock (1945) (he had also directed the majority of the revue-style Ziegfeld Follies, which the studio tinkered with until ’46), he finally put his “Light Fantastic” inspiration into action, resulting in Yolanda and the Thief (1945), one of the strangest and most enchanting films ever released by a Hollywood studio. Released earlier this year on DVD by the Warner Archive, Yolanda and the Thief is also screening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October, as part of a complete retrospective of the director’s work (presented along with the Locarno Film Festival). Life on Mars
Sailors fighting in the dance hall In a 1997 interview David Bowie was asked what his song “Life On Mars” was about and he said, “A sensitive young girl’s reaction to the media. I think she finds herself disappointed with reality … although she’s living in the doldrums of reality, she’s being told that there’s a far greater life somewhere, and she’s bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t have access to it.” John Barry 1933-2011: The Beat Goes On
In Praise of Pee-weeProbably everybody’s heard by now about the resurgence of Pee-wee Herman, actor Paul Reubens’ singular creation, who’s now enjoying a joyous renaissance on the Broadway stage after wowing audiences in L.A. with a new version of his classic stage show of the 1980s. As a super fan of Pee-wee and Reuben I’ve been following the latest reviews since his show opened the other day. While the Los Angeles critics seemed to be totally into the revivial, the NYC press is an interesting mix of reactions, from the adoring to the “Huh?”, which suggests to me that the latter reviewers simply never got into Pee-wee and his particular brand of absurdist amusement. Not to say that everybody has to like the character or the show, but to not “get” Pee-wee…well, if you don’t buy into the premise, there’s no way his world view is going to make any sense, or more importantly, make you laugh. But for those of us who love Pee-wee, and maybe even for people who don’t, 1985′s big screen success Pee-wee’s Big Adventure should provide enough evidence that Paul Reubens’ character of the child-man Pee-Wee Herman is a classic of movie comedy. Eddie Cantor, Ali Baba, and the New Deal: Reading History in Film
Movies can be used as a tool to help teach history but not in such a simplistic manner. Instead, character types, plot events, themes, genre conventions, and bits of dialogue must be interpreted to understand how they recreate, reflect, or recast the issues, problems, concerns, and preoccupations of the era that produced the film. In other words, instead of showing Pearl Harbor (2001) to show the attitudes and concerns of America at the outbreak of World War II, teachers should be showing Casablanca (1942) and explaining the anti-isolationist position that is part of the film’s subtext. Unfortunately, as Ms. Walker pointed out in her article, the vast majority of teachers and schools associate “literacy” only with print media, and their methodologies and teaching models are all geared toward print literacy. These ideas were still swirling around in my head when I attended the classic movie series at the Bank of America Theater that evening to see Eddie Cantor in Ali Baba Goes to Town, a vehicle tailor-made for the musical comedy star that turned out to be a perfect example of history via the movies. Released in 1937, Ali Baba Goes to Town is a snapshot of Depression-era America, offering jokes, wisecracks, characters, and musical styles reflective of the politics, tastes, and culture of the time. READ MORE Do You Dig “The Mole People”?
There’s nothing like a monster movie from your childhood to keep hold of your imagination LONG after you’ve grown up — waaay up! Though it isn’t a horror movie per se – not a mummy or a ghost in sight — Universal’s 1956 feature The Mole People has some creepy scaly reptilian underground monsters that give the Morlocks of The Time Machine a run for their money. Vinyl is Dead, Long Live VinylI grew up with parents who loved music and many of their favorite records were film soundtracks. On any given evening you could hear popular songs from movie musicals like West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), Hello Dolly! (1969) and Camelot (1967) coming from my home. Ennio Morricone’s score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) was one of my father’s favorites while my mother loved listening to Maurice Jarre’s score for Doctor Zhivago (1965). Title tracks like Gene Pitney’s’ (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance (recorded after the film was released) also got a lot of play at my house and both of my parents were big fans of Simon and Garfunkel’s soundtrack for The Graduate (1967). When I was a kid we didn’t have access to videos or DVDs so records provided my parents with a wonderful way to share some of their favorite movies with me. I heard the soundtrack recordings for many of these films long before I ever saw them. Elvis on Tour: Split Screen Fit for a King
The Many Roles of Mick Jagger“The only performance that makes it…that really makes it…that makes it all the way…is the one that achieves madness.” Performance (1970) If someone asked me the proverbial question: “The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?” I’d pledge my allegiance to the bad boys of rock ‘n’ roll in an instant. The first concert I ever attended was a Rolling Stones show at Candlestick Park in San Francisco during the band’s American Tour in ’81. And one of the first records I ever bought for myself was Some Girls; their controversial 1978 album featuring hit songs like “Beast of Burden,” “Shattered” and “Miss You.” Some Girls inevitably lost some of its luster when I discovered the band’s earlier recordings but it was the record that introduced me to The Rolling Stones and thanks to repeated listenings I started to understand just how raunchy and rebellious rock ‘n’ roll was supposed to be. Discovering the band at any age can be a thrilling experience but when you’re going through puberty The Rolling Stones seem positively electric. Their music was the perfect conduit for all my teenage daydreams and nightmares. John Carpenter’s Elvis (1979)After completing production on Halloween, which had yet to make him a household name, John Carpenter moved on to direct one of his career curiosities, a massive 3 hour TV bio-pic of Elvis Presley. Produced by Dick Clark two years after the King’s death, it was a prestige project slotted for ratings, Emmys and an overseas theatrical run, not really an item suited to Carpenter’s talents. Up until this point, he had made the no-budget sci-fi comedy Dark Star (1974), the violent siege film Assault on Precinct 13, and the ur-slasher Halloween. All are self-reflexive genre pieces with mordant humor, slow-burn set-pieces, and a good deal of blood. So how did he land this straight-faced gig? On the rambunctious audio commentary track for Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter claims that when the suits heard he composed his own score for Halloween, they said, “he knows music, so he should know about Elvis.” |
Archives
Of those silent von Sternbergs-THE DO... - jdhcinehistoryresearch
Featured Sites
Popular terms
3-D
Action Films
Actors
Actors' Endorsements
animal stars
Animation
Anime
Anthology Films
Autobiography
Awards
B-movies
Best of the Year lists
Biography
Biopics
Blu-Ray
Books on Film
Boxing films
British Cinema
Canadian Cinema
Character Actors
Chicago Film History
Cinematography
Classic Films
College Life on Film
Comedy
Comic Book Movies
Czech Film
Dance on Film
Digital Cinema
Directors
Disaster Films
Documentary
Drama
DVD
Early Talkies
Editing
Educational Films
European Influence on American Cinema
Experimental
Exploitation
Fairy Tales on Film
Faith or Christian-based Films
Family Films
Film Composers
film festivals
Film History in Florida
Film Noir
Film Scholars
Film titles
Filmmaking Techniques
Food in Film
Foreign Film
French Film
Gangster films
Genre
Genre spoofs
Guest Programmers
HD & Blu-Ray
Holiday Movies
Hollywood lifestyles
Horror
Horror Movies
Icons
independent film
Italian Film
Japanese Film
Korean Film
Leadership
Literary Adaptations
Martial Arts
Melodramas
Method Acting
Mexican Cinema
Moguls
Monster Movies
Movie Books
Movie Costumes
Movie locations
Movie lovers
Movie Reviewers
Movie settings
Movie Stars
Music in Film
Musicals
New Releases
Outdoor Cinema
Paranoid Thrillers
Parenting on film
Polish film industry
political thrillers
Politics in Film
Pornography
Pre-Code
Producers
Race in American Film
Remakes
Road Movies
Romance
Romantic Comedies
Russian Film Industry
Satire
Scandals
Science Fiction
Screenwriters
Semi-documentaries
Serials
Short Films
Silent Film
silent films
Social Problem Film
Sports
Sports on Film
Stereotypes
Straight-to-DVD
Studio Politics
Suspense thriller
Swashbucklers
TCM Classic Film Festival
Television
The British in Hollywood
The Germans in Hollywood
The Hungarians in Hollywood
The Irish in Hollywood
The Russians in Hollywood
Theaters
Trains in movies
Underground Cinema
VOD
War film
Westerns
Women in the Film Industry
Women's Weepies |