Fun with Movie Books

[from My Photo a Day Adventure blog]

June 9, 2021, Wednesday … What I’m Reading … history and movies, all in one … nice to have a stash at hand … the switch this past year, with libraries closed to in-person browsing, led to these purchases … details below …

Teeny Tuxedo says … “I’ve been practicing my dance moves … How ’bout it, West Side guys? … Can I join the gang??” …

• Saw Glenn Frankel discuss his books:
• The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend, 2013  … one of my favorite John Ford films … set me on the trail to Monument Valley, Navajo Nation … 6 times!
• High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic, 2017 … High Noon’s not a favorite, but intrigued to see the Hollywood Blacklist connection

• Saw Peter Fitzgerald’s documentary, West Side Stories, 1996 … great behind-the-scenes footage, interviews (both stage and film) … sadly, has been removed from you-know-where. This led me to:
• West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic, 2020, Richard Barrios, Turner Classic Movies … LOVE the soundtrack … first heard in high school English Lit class, vinyl LP record album (what a terrific teacher, Mr. Somebody, just out of college) … the only weakness of the 1961 film (10 Oscars!), Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer (Maria and Tony)

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Sunday, September 23, 2018, 9:15 pm — I have a new appreciation of Shakespeare! … excerpt  below, Eliot A. Cohen, “How Will This End,” The Atlantic, August 24, 2018 …

“But to really get the feel for the … administration’s end, we must turn to the finest political psychologist of them all, William Shakespeare. The text is in the final act of what superstitious actors only refer to as the “Scottish play.” One of the nobles who has turned on their murderous usurper king describes Macbeth’s predicament:”

Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

In a lighter vein, immediately thought of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”! … Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore, two non-musical mugs … singin’ and hoofin’ for Howard Keel … Kiss Me, Kate, 1953 …

That’s Entertainment TV Cat

[from Perkins and Teeny Tuxedo’s cat adventures blog]

Friday, December 29, 2017, 12:39 am — Hey, Perkins! … What’s that shiny comet on the … could it be … new tv?! … Ta-da! … twin of the 55″ 4K Ulta HD Samsung in the livingroom … replaced 50″ Samsung SmartTV (originally in livingroom) … new home with ZG … to replace the 46″ non-smart Samsung from me, April 2013 …

Perky has a decision … box vs. The Band Wagon, 1953 … she chose … the box!

Finale of the “That’s Entertainment!” number … Jack Buchanan, Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant (always on the verge of somnambulism) … Turner Classic Movies

Jack : Everything that happens in life
Can happen in a show
You can make ’em laugh
You can make ’em cry
Anything
Anything can go….

The clown with his pants falling down
Or the dance that’s a dream of romance
Or the scene where the villain is mean
That’s entertainment!

Nanette : The lights on the lady in tights
Oscar : Or the bride with the guy on the side
Jack : Or the ball where she gives him her all
All : That’s entertainment!

Nanette : The plot can be hot simply teeming with sex
Oscar : A gay divorcee who is after her ex
Fred : It could be Oedipus Rex
Jack : Where a chap kills his father
And causes a lot of bother

Nanette : The clerk who is thrown out of work
Oscar : By the boss who is thrown for a loss
Fred : By the skirt who is doing him dirt
All : The world is a stage,
The stage is a world of entertainment

The doubt while the jury is out
Or the thrill when they’re reading the will
Or the chase for the man with the face
That’s entertainment!

Nanette : The dame who is known as the flame
Jack : Of the king of an underworld ring
Oscar and Fred : He’s an ape
Who won’t let her escape
All : That’s entertainment!

It might be a fight like you see on the screen
A swain getting slain for the love of a queen
Some great Shakespearean scene
Where a ghost and a prince meet
And everyone ends in mincemeat

The gag may be waving the flag
That began with a Mr. Cohan
Hip hooray!
The American way
The world is a stage,
The stage is a world of entertainment

Bette Davis Sings

Sunday, February 29, 2016 — The glories of revisiting Bette Davis on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson … February 9, 1983 … now on AntennaTV … the Valentine rose is for Johnny … (her previous appearance was Valentine’s Day, 1972) … Bette as Bette, before her strokes later in 1983 …

Johnny brought out Bette’s 1976 album, Miss Bette Davis Sings! …

• Listen to the album, which later came out as a CD … First song, “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old”

Compare it to 33 years earlier … when Bette sings “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old” … in Thank Your Lucky Stars, 1943 …

• Above, “Bette Davis Cuts a Rug” from A Brassiest of Wartime Reviews, April 10, 2014, Greenbriar Picture Shows … with more ads and posters for Thank Your Lucky Stars

They’re Doing Choreography

September 4, 2014 –– Always liked this Danny Kaye song … Sang first 3 stanzas on a road trip or two with Glynnis (I taught it to her) …  Recently realized it’s from White Chirstmas, 1954 (ALL words and music by Irving Berlin) … Always seemed like it’s from one of Danny’s other films … No matter, it’s hep, man, hep!

The thea’tuh, the thea’tuh
What’s happened to the thea’tuh
Especially where dancing is concerned

Chaps
Who did taps
Aren’t tapping anymore
They’re doing choreography

Chicks
Who did kicks
Aren’t kicking anymore
They’re doing choreography

Heps
Who did steps
That would stop the show in days that used to be

Through the air they keep flying
Like a duck that is dying
Instead of dance
It’s choreography

• Choreography number, White Christmas … YouTube … Who’s the choreographer? … Bob Fosse … before he became annoying with his overused, repetitious Fosse-hatted style …

Meet Me After the Show

September 2, 2014 — Saturday was all Betty Grable‘s on TCM … The DVR was humming, recording 8 of her films … What a zingy revelation to wake up to her comedic song and dance, It’s a Hot Night in Alaska … THAT’S Betty Grable?? … I thought Meet Me After the Show, 1951, would be another lackluster theatrical … Wrong! … And then the lively, jazzy, tongue-in-cheek No Talent Joe number … Betty G! …  Most heartily concur with Ben Mankiewicz’s intro, Meet Me After the Show’s musical numbers are considered her best!

• Watch No Talent Joe in all its Latin hipster Roman glory! … Youtube

Why do the dance moves seem familiar? … Choreographer, Jack Cole, was Fosse, before Fosse was Fosse!

Happy 4th of July

Celebrate a belated 4th of July with some star spangled, red, white and blue, Fred and Ginger super-tapping in Follow the Fleet, 1936 …

All ‘er Nuthin’

June 25, 2014 — After watching “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” multiple times in preparation for our “Exlibris Song” last week, I now have an appreciation of Gene Nelson (1920-1996) … a name I could never put a face to …

I now see him singing and dancing “All ‘er Nuthin” with new eyes … What a charming guy!

“In the nimble work of Dancer Gene Nelson, one of the stars of Broadway’s successful revue Lend An Ear. Bored stiff with reading and a counting game he had invented to put his 2-year-old son Christopher to sleep, Nelson decided to dance out his version of Jack and the Beanstalk.

“In a 17 X 17-foot hotel bedroom this was not simple. But as the pictures show, Father Nelson’s nimble leaps from radiator to bed and from bureau to floor entranced young Christopher.” – Life, August 15, 1949, p. 14

Beulah Dances!

All eyes on Beulah Bondi! … Not James Ellison. Not Ginger Rogers.  It’s all about Beulah! Showing a bit of her Beulah gams … A moment of non-motherly hotcha-cha merriment! … Vivacious Lady, 1938

GIFMaker.me … free … and it really works! My first animated gif!  … Warning – continuous viewing may cause dizziness …