Hollywood Uncensored

Hollywood Uncensored
1987 [exact release date unknown]
Caidin Film
Documentary
VHS
B-

No pun intended, but this documentary on Hollywood censorship is unfocused.  However, the clips and the interviews are interesting.  I think with tighter editing and writing, as well as sticking with one "host" throughout (rather than Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and then Peter Fonda), this could've been more on a level with Celluloid Closet.  I would  still recommend it for not only its '80s perspective (Silent Night, Deadly Night is the most recent movie discussed), but also for interviews with celebrities who are no longer with us, including Jane Russell (who's quite funny as she discusses the bra she was supposed to wear for the Outlaw), as well as Hal Roach, then 95.  (He died five years later.)  I just wish that the questions had been better, but (except in the case of Baby Doll), no one seems to have wanted to dig deeper.  Fairbanks might be expected to talk about his father's films a little, but he doesn't even seem to remember much about his own 1930 sex drama we see a clip from.  HU is not a bad introduction to the Hays code and all, but I would definitely recommend watching more documentaries, and reading some books on the topic.  (This book, for instance, gives a much better sense of context:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/08/see-no-evil-life-inside-hollywood-censor.html)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
August 1953
Fox
Comedy, Musical, Romance
DVD
A-

A sometimes giddy, always fun, musical that has little to do with the book it's based on (it's probably more like the intervening stageplay), and improves on it in every respect.  (My review of Loos's novel is here http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/04/gentlemen-prefer-blondes.html)  The movie is chockful of people who'd done other movies (see below), but basically I watch it for the two leads, smart-when-she-wants-to-be Lorelei played by Marilyn Monroe and cynical-but-romantic Dorothy played by Jane Russell.  They both look gorgeous in Technicolor, but they're also screamingly hilarious.  And it's hard for me to think of another musical with such a great soundtrack.  My favorite number is "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?", where Russell sings of her sexual frustration to a bunch of Code-teasing possibly gay athletes.  She also becomes one of the first Marilyn impersonators when she does a burlesque (in a double sense) of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend."  Marilyn's own version is fabulous, although the set there does contain a very BDSM chandelier.  (It's the most twisted thing I've seen done to chorus girls since Flying Down to Rio.) 

Charles Coburn comes across as more harmless-seeming but more actually more dangerous (in the sense of getting the girls in trouble with the law) than his dirty old man character in Monkey Business, while seven-year-old George Winslow has much better lines as Henry Spofford III than he did as one of the kids in MB.  Tommy Noonan (he fitting what Marilyn's Sugar would say about men with glasses in Some Like It Hot) and Elliott Reid are OK as the romantic interests, but it's really a girl-buddy movie (a sismance?), with Russell and Monroe loyal, if bickering, friends throughout.

Rolfe Sedan was in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.  George Dee, Arthur Dulac, and Leo Mostovoy appeared in Casablanca.  Steven Geray was in All About Eve.  Harry Carey, Jr., Henri Letondal, Ray Montgomery, Roger Moore (still not that Roger Moore), and Robert Nichols were in Hawks's Monkey Business.  Ed Fury played a muscleman in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars as well.  Jack Chefe and Alphonse Martell were in Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation.  Jean De Briac was in both Casablanca and MaPK on Vacation.  A. Cameron Grant was in Singin' in the Rain.  Herman Boden, Joan Collenette, Jack Dodds, Colin Kenny, Matt Mattox, Frank Radcliffe, Jack Regas, Roberta Stevenson, and Marc Wilder were all in The Band Wagon.  Judy Landon and Shirley Lopez were in both.

Aladdin (no, not that Aladdin), George Chakiris, Stanley Hall, Alvy Moore, and Charles Tannen would be in There's No Business Like Show Business with Marilyn.