The Purple Rose of Cairo

The Purple Rose of Cairo
March 1, 1985
Orion
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Historical, Fantasy
VHS
B

Although this is not at all a sequel to Zelig, and Broadway Danny Rose (which I've never cared for) was released in the interval, this is in some ways Woody Allen's follow-up to the quirky 1983 movie.  It's set later in the '30s (Top Hat, which we see a clip from, was released in '35), and the grimness of the Depression real world contrasts with the shiny, sleek onscreen world.  The main character, Cecelia (Mia Farrow), who loses her job at a diner and has a jerk of a husband (well played, perhaps too well, by Danny Aiello), escapes to that film world as often as she can.  And then one day one of the characters on the screen wants to explore her world, because he's fallen in love with her.  What will this mean in her life, and in the two-dimensional black & white lives he leaves behind?

Allen does a good job working out the ramifications, including when the real (but essentially fake) actor who plays the straying character shows up in Cecelia's town to get his alter ego back where he belongs.  (Jeff Daniels does a fine job of distinguishing naive but heroic Tom from charming but two-faced Gil.)  Unlike some other good '80s movies (notably Tootsie), there aren't any loose ends.  I admit to hating the ending when I was 17, especially since I adored the movie-within-a-movie (a note perfect parody/tribute to '30s society comedies).  I wanted Cecelia to stay with Tom Baxter, and live onscreen.  My favorite scene was and is when Cecelia enters Tom's world and innocently creates as much chaos as he's created in her world.  There's a night-life montage that I now suspect that Down with Love (2003), which is set in 1962, is paying homage to as much as it is to similar montages in non-parodies.  (There's a reference there to Woody Allen as a stand-up comic.)

But Allen's point, admittedly bleak, is that no matter how out of touch Cecelia is with reality, she can't fully live in the world of fantasy.  If this meant Cecelia doing something constructive with her life, then I'd support that point.  But let's face it, Woody doesn't give her any good options.  Even if she were to stay onscreen, the film is about to be burned and she would, along with Tom and his friends, "die."  (Unless there's resurrection later, on television and eventually VHS, DVD, and Blue-Ray?)  Gil the actor would never take her to Hollywood, and even if he did, she wouldn't fit in there.  So she's left with her unemployed husband, who drinks, cheats, and beats her.  At best, she might be able to stay with her sister (Stephanie Farrow again typecast but very good), but her sister has kids and probably not much more money than Cecelia.

The thing is, Allen could've had Cecelia boarding a bus to somewhere else, starting a new life on her own.  But that's not who she is, and she wouldn't necessarily find happiness that way either.  Her only happiness in the end is watching Fred & Ginger light up the screen.  That I wish that she could step into that movie and never look back shows that at heart I'm just as much of a sentimental movie fan as Cecelia.

As always, Woody reuses actors and actresses.  Loretta Tupper, who plays the Music Store Owner, is recognizable at 78 as one of the old ladies giving Alvy advice in Annie Hall.  Ken Chapin was an interviewer in Zelig and a reporter here.  Deborah Rush, Lita Fox in Zelig, gives a solid Jean-Harlowish performance as brassy but soft-hearted blonde Rita.  Sydney Blake, who's the Variety Reporter, would be Miss Gordon in Radio Days.  Of the Penny Pitchers, Peter Castellotti and Paul Herman would in Radio Days be respectively Mr. Davis and a burglar, while Rick Petrucelli was one of the Italians bugging Alvy in Annie Hall.  Of the onscreen movie audience, Crystal Field would be half of the Abercrombie couple in Radio Days and George Hamlin was Experimental Drugs Doctor in Zelig.  Helen Miller and Leo Postrel would be Mickey's parents in Hannah and Her Sisters.  And of course Dianne Wiest, playing Emma the hooker here, would be Hannah's sister Holly.

Milo O'Shea, who has had many roles, including as Dr. Jameson in Digby, is Father Donnelly here.

"I just met a wonderful new man.  He's fictional, but you can't have everything."

Monkey Business (1952)

Monkey Business
November 7, 1952
Fox
Comedy, Sci-Fi
DVD
C-

At the time I reviewed the Marx Brothers' 1931 movie, I didn't yet own this one.  A friend gave it to me recently, and I just now watched it for the first time in about thirty years.  I consider the film a disappointment, and I won't be keeping it.  How did so many great talents produce such mediocre results?  I mostly blame the inane script by I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like It Hot), Charles Lederer (His Girl Friday, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), and Ben Hecht (Front Page, which inspired His Girl Friday), as it would've embarrassed Sherwood Schwartz.  At least Schwartz knew how to make crap fun, while Howard Hawks (the director and also opening narrator) just seems to have told everyone, especially leads Grant and Rogers, to act big and frantically, after the sedate beginning.  Poor Marilyn is stuck playing a simple (in every sense) curvy blonde, without the nuances she'd have in Gentlemen Prefer and Some Like, and none of the dizzy charm of her small plum of a role in All About Eve.  (As for Hugh Marlowe, he's no great shakes as an actor anyway, but at least in Eve he had more appealing things to do than get "scalped" by Grant and a gang of children.)  I'd recommend the Merlin Jones movies over this misfire, because even the monkey is pathetic here.  Still, I won't give it a lower grade, since it's not terrible, just meh.

Kathleen Freeman and Forbes Murray were in Singin' in the Rain.  Melinda Plowman was Susie Kettle in Ma and Pa Kettle.  George Eldredge was in MaPK at the Fair.  Esther Dale, here playing Ginger's mother, is Birdie Hicks in the MaPK series.  Faire Binney would be in MaPK at Waikiki.  Roger Moore (no, not that Roger Moore) would be in Gentlemen Prefer, as would Charles Coburn, Henri Letondal, and gravel-voiced little George Winslow.

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
March 29, 1939
RKO
Historical, Musical, Drama
DVD
C

Slow, corny, somewhat depressing movie that somehow ends up being proto-propaganda for U.S. involvement in World War II.  It's set 1911 to 1918 and patriotic Brit Vernon joins up when World War I breaks out.  (Astaire shows no trace of a British accent, although Vernon was nineteen when he emigrated to New York.  No New York accent either, for that matter.)  Before that, it's mostly a tale of the real-life celebrity dancers' rise and success.  Around the midpoint, when Edna May Oliver (Aunt March in Little Women) shows up, the movie sort of springs to life, and the montage sequence seems to have a better, livelier director.  Mostly though, Fred and more particularly Ginger are hamstrung by playing real roles, and ones they're not suited for.  (I really missed the sassy, brassy Ginger of Flying Down to Rio, as she played insecure, innocent Irene.)  I was getting so antsy that I started speculating on Walter Brennan as "Walter" having a threesome with the Castles.  (He does seem very taken with Vernon.)  Some of the dancing's pretty good of course, but you're not missing much if you skip this one.

William Worthington was in Duck Soup, Jean Stevens in Room Service, and Esther Muir was "Flo" in A Day at the Races, which also featured Max Lucke.  Leonid Kinskey, who plays the "bohemian" painter, was in Duck Soup as the agitator and would be in Casablanca as Sascha.  Kay Sutton appeared in Roberta, Brooks Benedict in Follow the Fleet.  Tiny Jones, who'd just done You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, shows how she got her nickname, here appearing as the small woman who goes through a revolving door.  Leyland Hodgson was also in Honest Man.  Donald "Jumping Butterballs" MacBride has a more leering, less angry role than in Room Service.  Douglas Walton was in Thank You, Jeeves!, and incidentally was Percy Bysshe Shelley in The Bride of Frankenstein.

Edmund Mortimer, George Irving, and Frank O'Connor were in previous movies of mine, and Mortimer would soon appear in At the Circus.  Rolfe Sedan would shortly be in The Wizard of Oz.  Jack Gargan would go on to The Bank Dick, Adrienne D'Ambricourt to Casablanca.  Eugene Borden plays a Frenchman in All About Eve as well as here.  Frank Faylen, who's an uncredited Adjutant here, would be much more memorable as not only Ernie in It's a Wonderful Life, but as Dobie Gillis's TV father.

Follow the Fleet

Follow the Fleet
February 20, 1936
RKO
Musical, Romance, Comedy
DVD
B+

Although Fred & Ginger are again sharing the bill and the screen with another couple, and the other man is played by Randolph Scott, this is far superior to 1935's Roberta.  It helps that the other woman, as Ginger's mouse-turned-knockout sister is Harriet Hilliard, AKA Ozzie Nelson's wife, and she sings in a likable, realistic way, unlike Irene Dunne.  True, she doesn't look all that much different after Lucille Ball gives her a makeover, but this isn't the most realistic movie.  (Lavish stage sets on a boat?  Which never rocks?)  Yes, Lucy has more to do here than in Roberta, and as "the tall blonde angel" puts a sailor in his place with a memorable putdown.  As for Scott, he's playing a bit of a heel here (as he admits), but he's not beyond redemption.  He has a fling with a rich divorcee, who's not presented as a bad girl, although a bit of a dumb blonde.  Also surprising, Ginger and Fred slip some naughtiness past the Code, as when Ginger, who sings in a dime-a-dance club, says she convoyed a fleet of sailors on the dance floor, "on my feet."  Fred even leads an all-male-couples dance lesson!

Mostly though, he's dancing on his own or with Ginger, and she gets a solo turn as well.  In their dance contest number in particular, they're remarkably fluid, helped by the bellbottoms they both wear, although it's back to gown and tux for the final production number, which is about renouncing suicide!  And there's a monkey in a sailor suit.  Maybe Flying Down to Rio isn't their most surreal film.  In any case, this has their best chemistry so far, and I loved how they banter about who's going to propose to whom.  They also work well with their best friends in the movie, she with Hilliard of course, and he with Scott.  While this is much less of a drama than Roberta, the emotions feel more genuine.  Plus the Irving Berlin et al. score is great, although there are probably too many reprises of "We Joined the Navy."  Overall, this film is a delight!

Mary Stewart and Eddie Tamblyn were in Flying Down to Rio.  Jane Hamilton, Maxine Jennings, and Kay Sutton were in Roberta.  James Pierce was in Horse Feathers as one of the "attempted kidnap victims" of Harpo and Chico.  Harry Beresford was the doctor in Little Women.  Allen Wood later appeared in Fred & Ginger's The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.  Billy Dooley would go on to A Day at the Races,  Lita Chevret to The Women, Frank Jenks to His Girl Friday, Tony Martin to The Big Store, and Russell Hicks and Dick Purcell to The Bank Dick.  I can't tag everyone, and most of these are minor roles, here and elsewhere, although Martin gets far too much screen time in Store.

Roberta

Roberta
March 8, 1935
RKO
Romance, Musical
DVD
C+

As with the W. C. Fields films, I got a package of four Fred & Ginger movies, in this case just for Flying Down to Rio.  This film is disappointing, considering one, it's based on a book by Alice Duer Miller (whose Come out of the Kitchen is a fun read:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/03/come-out-of-kitchen.html); two, it has some good songs, including the Oscar-nominated "Lovely to Look at"; and three, Fred & Ginger aren't as peripheral as they are in FDtR.  Unfortunately, they're still playing the supporting couple, and this time the main pair are both charm-free: Randolph Scott, coming across as a killjoy Joel McCrea, and Irene Dunne, who ruins "Lovely" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by singing in that horrific mid-'30s to early-'40s pseudo-operatic style that too many female singers used in the movies.  Watch this one with your hand on the remote, fast-forwarding till you get to any scene with Fred in it, and even then be prepared for too much Scott and Dunne.  (Ginger has much less to do than Fred.)

OK, and you can keep an eye out for various cameos.   Not only is one of the fashion models Lucille Ball, but William "Fred Mertz" Frawley plays a bartender!  And another fashion model, Wanda Perry, would have a small role in Ball's Mame.  Model Donna Mae Roberts would appear in 1943's The Gang's All Here.  Of the Wabash Indianians, Hal Borne was in Flying Down to Rio, while "tricky-voiced" Candy Candido would do a memorable voiceover as an apple tree in Wizard of Oz.  Rita Gould would appear in The Women.  No one plays Roberta; it's just the name of the design studio Scott's aunt owns.  The fashions range from forgettable to regrettable to acceptable.

Flying Down to Rio

Flying Down to Rio
Dec. 29, 1933
RKO
Musical, Comedy
DVD
B-

Released the same day as Design for Living, this is less obviously a pre-Code movie in its situation, but there is a lot of raciness in the dialogue, dancing, and costumes.  As for the dialogue, the line "What have these South Americans got below the equator that we haven't" is a good sample, and most of Ginger Roger's lines are suggestive, as is her song "Music Makes Me." She and Fred dance a less dirty-dancing version of the Carioca than the "Brazilians" do but it's still a very flirty number for them, and, yes, this is the movie that made them stars.  Unfortunately, we have to spend too much time on a love triangle that is "won" by the very unlikable Gene Raymond, when Raul Roulien's character Julio (pronounced by everybody with an American J) is much cuter, nicer, smarter, and nobler.  Oh well, Dolores del Rio is OK.  Pangborn once again works for a hotel, but only in the Miami scenes.

Watch this one not only for Fred & Ginger but for the chorus-girls-strapped-to-airplane-wings finale.  It's not only incredibly campy but the outfits are very scanty.  You're not hallucinating if you think you see nipples!  Also, the film is notable for mocking racism, when black "savages" turn out to be civilized hotel staff.