Auntie Mame

Auntie Mame
December 27, 1958
Warner Bros.
Comedy, Historical
DVD
B-

This is based on the Patrick Dennis novel, by way of the hit stageplay that Rosalind Russell starred in.  (My review of the book is here
http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/auntie-mame-irreverent-escapade.html.)  It's much more sentimental, and much more of a star vehicle than the book, with Patrick often offscreen and the focus, sometimes literal, on Mame.  (Many scenes end theatrically, with the spotlight on Mame.)  The movie also isn't as racy as the book, as seen with the most outrageous word on Patrick's vocabulary list being "heterosexual."  Still, for its time it's pretty out there, and it's interesting to contrast the almost casual "unwed" pregnancy of Agnes Gooch with the coyness of the handling of Trudy Kockenlocker's dilemma in Miracle of Morgan's Creek about fifteen years earlier.  The timeline is somewhat different in AM-the-movie than AM-the book, including mistakenly starting things off in 1928 and having the Crash happen a few weeks later.  Still it's a reasonably faithful adaptation and author Patrick Dennis himself approved.  (His good friend Cris Alexander has a small role in the film and apparently played many roles in the stage production.)

I will admit to sometimes finding the 1974 movie musical Mame, with an offkey too old Lucille Ball, more fun because of it's so-bad-it's-goodness, but I'll discuss that when we get there.

Adolph Faylauer, who plays the sleeping audience member at the play, was part of an onscreen audience more than twenty years earlier, in A Night at the Opera.  Margaret Dumont allegedly plays the noblewoman in the play, but I didn't notice her.  (And IMDB is sometimes wrong.)  Frank McClure was in His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane.  Sam Harris was also in Citizen Kane.  Thomas Martin was in All About Eve.  Rand Harper was in Sabrina.  Lee Patrick (Mrs. Upson) was in There's No Business Like Show Business.  I'm pretty sure Colin Kenny and Carl M. Leviness were in some of my earlier movies, although I don't know which ones offhand.

Bert Stevens was in Citizen Kane and would appear in Some Like It Hot.  Harold Miller would be in Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Willard Waterman (Mr. Upson) in The Apartment, Peter Bourne in I'll Take Sweden, and Louise Land in Dear Brigitte.  Fred Clark was in Sunset Blvd. and would do Sgt. Deadhead, among other movies.  Peggy Cass, who plays scene-stealing Agnes, would be a very different mother in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.

The Band Wagon

The Band Wagon
August 7, 1953
MGM
Musical, Comedy, Romance
DVD
C-

This is the last of the movies on the four-pack I bought only for Singin' in the Rain.  (Hereafter, abbreviated as SitR.)  I found The Band Wagon alternately irritating and boring, if not so bad as Minelli's Meet Me in St. Louis.  Cyd and Fred have no chemistry, except maybe as friends.  (The 22-year age difference is alluded to in the movie, but it doesn't help that Fred always looks older than he is.  The 20-year age difference between Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in SitR is much less obvious.)  The supporting cast doesn't really contribute anything.  The play-within-the-movie (also called The Band Wagon, for unclear reasons in both cases) fails to be so-bad-it's-fun, in the way that The Dueling Cavalier is in SitR.  (Or much later, Elephant! in The Tall Guy.)  The revamped play isn't any better, although I sort of like the "Triplets" song, the only memorable tune besides "That's Entertainment."  (Not only is the latter a classic, but I thought it was noteworthy that Nanette Fabray could sing the word "sex.")  The romance aside, the plot makes no sense, including why they want the dramatic (in every sense) director to take charge of a musical.  The use of color is mostly good, even if one of the rooms is so red it would be a bit much in a brothel.  The eleven-minute "Girl Hunt Ballet" is much better than the "Broadway Melody Ballet" in SitR, but then there's no momentum for it to break up.

While this is far from the worst imaginable movie Astaire could've made, it is a letdown.  Luckily, his reputation doesn't rest on this (or Easter Parade).  Maybe in the '50s the Astairish character he's playing was a has-been and his movie costumes were being sold off for pennies, but time would be kind to Astaire's reputation.  He's certainly more of a legend than Ava Gardner, who has a cameo as herself.  (And by the '80s, movie props and costumes were doing much better at auctions.)

Helen McAllister also danced in Flying Down to Rio, twenty years earlier.  Judy Matson also sang in The Big Store.  Al Hill was in The Bank Dick.  Frank McClure was in His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane.  Jack Gargan and Harlan Hoagland were also in Citizen Kane.  Herschel Graham was in It's a Wonderful Life.  James Conaty was in All About Eve.  Fred Aldrich was in Sunset Blvd.  Manuel Paris was in Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation.  Brick Sullivan was in a few of my earlier movies, most recently Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.  Donald Kerr also appeared in Go to Mars.

Dee Turnell was in Copacabana and SitR.  Bobby Watson was the diction coach in SitR (and often portrayed Hitler in movies).  Madge Blake played Dora Bailey (and is probably best known for her TV role as Aunt Harriet on Batman).  Jimmy Thompson was the singer of "Beautiful Girl" in SitR, while Fred Datig, Jr., played an usher, as he does here.  Lyle Clark, Marion Gray, Peggy Murray, Charles Regan, and Joette Robinson were also in SitR.  

Judy Landon and Shirley Lopez were in SitR and would be in Gentlemen Prefer.  Herman Boden, Joan Collenete, Jack Dodds, Colin Kenny, Matt Mattox, Frank Radcliffe, Jack Regas, Roberta Stevenson, and Marc Wilder would all be in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Helen Dickson was in It's a Wonderful and would be in Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki.  Ann McCrea was in SitR and would be in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?  Bert Stevens was in Citizen Kane and would go on to Mary Poppins.

Herb Vigran, one of the men Astaire eavesdrops on on the train, would go on to a bunch of TV guest shots, as well as the voice of Lurvy in Charlotte's Web (1973).  The other man is Emory Parnell, who's Billy Reed in many of the Ma and Pa movies.  Loulie Jean Norman would be part of the chorus for Heidi's Song.  Sue Casey would be in A Very Brady Sequel.  (She'd have a larger role in Catalina Caper, as Anne Duval, but I'm saving that movie for when I do MST3K on my eventual television blog.)

We swear, it's entertainment!

Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain
April 11, 1952
MGM
Musical, Comedy, Historical
DVD
B

A sometimes joyous musical, as well as a funny look at the transition from silents to talkies.  You could quibble that the rich Technicolor (my first color movie without Judy Garland, although of course it's MGM) is wasted in the scenes that are purporting to be moments in black & white movies.  (After all, if in real life Harpo Marx had to change his red wig to a blond-looking one, why would someone bother to dye a fur pink?)  I have a more serious problem with the "Broadway Melody Ballet" sequence (hereafter referred to as BMB), which, although only thirteen minutes long, brings things to a crashing halt, being not only a bore but stylistically an anomaly.  (It's "modern," i.e. supposed to be 1920s American rather than pre-revolutionary French, but it looks like the sort of bloated 1950s Hollywood/Broadway number that has not aged well.)  The rest of the numbers are much better, with my favorite being the playful, zippy "Good Morning."  In that number as well as many others, such as "Fit as a Fiddle," I like how two or three people (Gene Kelly with Donald O'Connor and/or Debbie Reynolds) are doing the same or similar steps, but with individual touches.

Without BMB, I still probably would give the movie only a B+, because it doesn't cross over into the lovability of such different movies as The Wizard of Oz and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.  It's very entertaining, and I can see why Reynolds became a big star, but I don't feel I want to stay in this world after the movie ends.

Kay Deslys was in The Big Store.  Julius Tannen, who's in the sound demo short, was Mr. Rafferty in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.  Brick Sullivan was in It's a Wonderful Life.  Mike Lally was in Citizen Kane and Wonderful Life.  Angi O. Poulos was a peddler in Easter Parade, too.  Jimmy Bates, Patricia Jackson, and Joi Lansing were also in Easter Parade.  Gloria Moore was Rosie Kettle in the earliest Ma and Pa movies.

Rita Moreno, then about 20, is almost unrecognizable as red-haired Zelda.  She would appear in Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation the next year.  Cyd Charisse, who's the seductress in BMB, would have a much larger role in The Band Wagon.  Paul Maxey and Joseph Mell would go on to Monkey Business.  Dee Turnell, who was in Copacabana and Easter Parade, would go on to The Band Wagon.  Lyle Clark, Fred Datig, Jr., Peggy Murray, Charles Regan, Joette Robinson, and Jimmy Thompson would all also be in The Band Wagon.  Shirley Wilson would do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as well as The Band Wagon.  A. Cameron Grant and Judy Landon would be in Gentlemen Prefer, too.  Margaret Bert and Kenner G. Kemp would be in Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair, while Jon Gardner and Timmy Hawkins would be Benjamin and Teddy Kettle in Ma and Pa Kettle in Waikiki.  Tommy Walker would go on to There's No Business Like Show Business, Ann McCrea to Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and John Logan to Some Like It Hot.  Robert Fortier, who plays a gangster in BMB, would turn up almost three decades later as the town drunk in Popeye.  Sue Allen would be a voice in the chorus of Heidi's Song.