Saturday Showtime: The Great Gatsby

image via Wikiedia

The classic American story, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous book, The Great Gatsby  is set in the year 1922, just 2 years after the American Prohibition against alcohol created fortunes and made rich men out of paupers. Hence the term the Roaring Twenties. Though written in 1923, publication was not until 1925.

In 1926, a silent version of the film was made, but lost.

Movie Poster for the 1926 Silent Film (image via Wikipedia)

The movie was made again in 1949, starring  Alan Ladd. By this time, the book would have been all but forgotten, had not World War II rolled and rumbled around. The United States war department ordered up 150,000 prints of the Great Gatsby to distribute as reading material for servicemen, and those books were shared, creating a rediscovered popularity. By the time the troops came home from war, the books newfound readership encouraged the 1949 remake of the film.

image via wikipedia

1974 saw yet another remake, this time starring Robert Redford.    

And next year, a new 2013 edition of the Great Gatsby will be released, starring Leo DiCaprio.

If you haven’t read this book… just go read it.

In fact, click here and you can read it for free!

This version is the 1949 film starring Alan Ladd – my personal favorite. It is marginally mid-century-related, because of the year of its release. But really, I just snuck it in here because it rocks. It appears here in 6 parts, so you can either scroll down to the next screen after each approximately 15 minute segment, or when the part 1 is over, just scan the screen of choices that pops up until you find part 2, until you are finished.

Grab your popcorn and scotch, slip into your favorite silk smoking jacket, and enjoy your night in with this classic heart-wrencher.

Cary Grant in Penny Serenade (1941)

In this emotional 1941 drama, for which Grant was nominated for an Academy award, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play a married couple who endure emotional hardships in their marriage. During a trip to Japan, they are caught in an earthquake which causes Julie Adams (Dunne) to have a miscarriage. When they learn she can no longer have children, the couple then adopt a little girl. They struggle with money issues, keeping their parental rights, and Roger Adams (Grant) losing his job. Further tragedy with their adopted child threatens their marriage with collapse.

Presented by Columbia Pictures, directed and produced by George Stevens, written by Martha Cheavens and Morrie Ryskind.

 Running time: 119 minutes

Dead Hollywood: Actors Who Died Young (documentary-video)

There has been a slew of Hollywood personalities dying young in recent few years: Heath  Ledger, Brittany Murphy, Anna Nicole Smith,  Princess Diana, John F. Kennedy Jr., Kurt Cobain, Chris Farley, River Pheonix, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Tupac Shapur, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston to name some of the better known celebrities who checked out before their time. But this is by no means a new phenomenon.

Mid-Century personalities such as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Jane Mansfield, Elvis Presley, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Nick Adams all passed from this world too soon, some from tortured sentiments, others from drug or alcohol related addictions, still others from tragic accidents. The following film documents these individuals, Americans who were successful and usually beautiful, often rich and indeed well-known, while still young and adventurous, in the prime of their lives.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbuZYb2N8w4&feature=player_detailpage

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Dick Tracy: The Original Detective Movie, Black and White,1945

                    

September 14, 1949 appearance of Spike Dyke, modeled on Spike Jones, in Chester Gould's Dick Tracy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dick Tracy  , arguably the most famous detective of all time, a “hard-hitting, fast-talking and intelligent police detective” (according to Wikipedia) began his life in October 1931 in the Detroit Mirror as a comic strip, and his character developed into feature film status in 1945. A series of films followed – follow the above link to learn more – but here is the original film.

Expect film noir drama, over-acted scenes and excessively dramatic character, PLUS great suits and women in man-tailored suits, as this was during World War II, when women first entered the industrial workplace en masse. Shoulder pads, double-breasted jackets and a stiff walk all allowed women a feeling of manly independence, which is taken for granted, seemingly, in this era film. I love the stiff, jilted acting, the hard, heavy quips and cemented lips in this feature film. Plus it’s free.

So, take off your pants, roll down your nylons and slip into your coziest flannel. The night is yours with this Saturday Night Feature film. Please feel free to comment below to let us all know how you felt about it 😉

 

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Jackie Kennedy: The Quiet Moments of Her Life

There is a lot out there about Jackie Kennedy, her marriage to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of The United States of America, his assassination, and her quiet doom and desperation following those fateful moments in Dallas. We can find fashion photos of Jackie, both in the White House, and more in her New York years following that fateful day, when she eventually began work as an editor for a publishing house.

What is difficult to find about Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy are the wistful, gleeful, carefree and quieter moments in her life – the moments which define most of our lives, out of public view.

Here is a link to a brief video with some of her precious moments, featuring her daughter, Caroline. The video can also be watched at the bottom of this post, right here.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUACxbLdU4M

And a few photos to help us remember her, in the quieter moments of her very public life.

Selling Cars in America: Documentary

Cars.

 

Where would we be without them? This documentary begins with the appearance of that annoying, agitating character you loathe sitting down with: a modern day salesman. Getting the run-around you fear just to aquire a horseless carriage, to get to work and play, is only a small part of the greater clock-work of the car business.This documentary delves into the history of cars, and how salesmanship figured into the purveying of cars as general merchandise, and the growth of a Great American Industry.

Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days (documentary)

I just located this documentary today about Marilyn’s final period. From all of the searching I have done in the past, to just be finding this now seems like a diamond hunt that came up well. Or Trout fishing that suddenly caught a Marlin.

Enjoy this film and feel free to let me know what you think of it in the comments sections at the end of this post.

Thank You Kindly,

Mister Dibbles

The Painted Desert – 1931 With Clark Gable

Here’s an old movie, a 1931 low-budget Black and White, about an unclaimed baby and some old western miners. Clark Gable’s early work can be read more about here.

The Painted Desert
DVD cover for the film
Directed by	Howard Higgin
Produced by	E. B. Derr
Written by	Tom Buckingham
Starring	William Boyd Clark Gable
Music by	Francis Gromon
Cinematography	Edward Snyder
Editing by	Clarence Kolster
Distributed by	Pathé Exchange
Release date(s)	March 7, 1931
Country	United States
Language	English

The Painted Desert (1931) is a film released by RKO Radio Pictures which marks the debut of Clark Gable in a talkie. Gable’s performance as Rance Brett, an unshaven former criminal who does not feel sorry about the crimes he has committed, made him an important supporting actor overnight as the result of an avalanche of unexpected fan mail and opened the door for him to become “The King of Hollywood” during the 1930s. Another actor with an extraordinarily powerful voice, Robert Mitchum, also started out playing a bearded villain in a William Boyd Western film twelve years later and drew a similarly huge quantity of fan mail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfk8Y753qh8&feature=fvsr

Saturday Showtime: Shirley Booth & Burt Lancaster in ‘Come Back, Little Sheba

It’s barely dawn. Doc Delaney’s brutality enters the room before he does. Lola is roused from her sleep on the sofa, still wearing the printed dress that she’d cheerfully worn the night before, when her husband disappeared and left her to put on her little dinner party alone. When Lola hears Doc enter, she is startled awake, and goes to him. He sneers at her, filled with disgust –

DOC: Where’s the paper. I wanna see the morning paper.

LOLA: We don’t get any morning paper, Doc. You know that –

DOC:  Then I suppose I’m drunk or something. Is that what you’re tryin’ to say?

LOLA: Oh, no, Doc. 

DOC: (demanding) Then get me the morning paper.

~     ~     ~     ~

Lola asks Doc where he’s been, and why did he miss the special dinner she made for Marie and her fiance – but Doc goes on a rampage about the young girl –

DOC: I suppose you peeked in the keyhole and applauded it. Like you did with Marie and Turk.

LOLA:  Aw, Daddy, don’t say things like that. He’s a nice boy, Daddy. They’re going to be married

DOC: (reminiscing) – probably has to marry her – jus’ ’cause she’s pretty an’ he got amorous one day. Just like I had to marry YOU! (lurching towards her) You and Marie are a couple of sluts. Whadda’ya good for? You can’t even get up in the morning and cook my breakfast.

Doc paces the room, leering at the scented light bulbs in the parlor, the flowers on the dining table. Then snatches up a small china plate –

DOC (continued):  The china…gold rimmed china my mother gave us. My mother didn’t buy these dishes for sluts to eat off!

Doc violently yanks at the table cover, throwing the dishes and flowers across the floor. He turns his rage back at Lola.

DOC (cont’d):  Now get me a drink.

LOLA: No, Daddy, No Daddy please don’t – Doc, you know what it does to you –

DOC:  (belligerently mimicking Lola) ‘You know what it does to me’ – Makes me wanna come home and look at you! YOU!

Doc pours himself a stiff shot from the new bottle he hid in the cupboard to replace the one he just drank down –

DOC (cont’d) I’m gonna have another. And another and another – GET AWAY FROM THAT PHONE!

LOLA (into phone) Ed, hurry! He’s drinking again –

DOC: Tell the whole world I’m drunk! Scream your head off you fat slut!

LOLA (screams into phone): Ed! He’s got a knife!

DOC: Go ‘head, holler! Holler so the neighbors will think I’m beatin’ ya!

Doc raises the knife to plunge into Lola, but loses his grip on it. It scuttles across the floor. He grabs her neck and begins choking her –

~     ~     ~          

This is the role for which Shirley Booth won the 1952 Academy Award. Also starring Burt Lancaster as the recovering alcoholic ‘Doc’ Delaney, a tormented man, and a cold-hearted husband, who had dropped out of medical school earlier in life, to marry Lola (Booth) when she became pregnant. The baby died, we learn, which also resulted in Lola becoming unable to have any further children. This led to Doc’s increased drinking and misery. Bouts of anger and violence eventually lead to Alcoholics Anonymous for him, and the past year of sobriety. But there is still one bottle of liquor stashed away in the kitchen cupboard, for company…

The past is seemingly thrown in his face when Marie, a young college girl, moves into their home, renting a spare room. She begins seeing Turk, a conceited, muscular blonde-haired athlete and track star – even though she  has become engaged to Bruce, who is working out-of-town.  Doc, who barely listens to his own lonely wife, becomes obsessed with the college girls infidelity to her fiancé. He fears she will become pregnant, and be forced to marry the wrong guy – just as he seems to think he married the wrong woman…

Late one night, when he sees Turk come in through the girls bedroom window (to unlock the front door for her) he again is enraged. By the next evening, when her fiance’ is expected to be coming for dinner, his anger his hit such a pitched fever of rage, that he goes to find his bottle of liquor, hides it in his coat and leaves the house. He spends the night away, drinking until dawn. Drunk and violent, he returns home, and attempts to strangle his wife. But she has already placed a call to his AA sponsors. This brutish tirade lands him in the sanitarium wing of the hospital…

And the title of the film, Come Back, Little Sheba…refers to the excruciatingly lonely Lola’s lost little dog (okay, that was seven l’s in a row – count ’em – and that’s enough alliteration for one movie review) , whom she is still hoping to find, and whom she dreams about and calls out to from her porch at night…

But I’ve already told you enough. 

SO pop yourself up a big bowl of popcorn, sprinkle it with a little hot sauce (it’s much better than it sounds!) and see the film that earned our Shirley that Oscar 😀

Monday Movie: Shirley Booth as Hazel

This is not a movie, but a group of 4 TV shows from the Hazel series, starring Shirley Booth. It’s “Hazel Week”, after all 😉

Hazel TV Show#101 – Luncheon with the Governor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLYruL3SIO0&feature=player_detailpage

Hazel TV Show# 87 – The Fashion Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnQ_BThSXwo&feature=player_detailpage

Hazel TV Show #85 – Scheherezade and Her Frying Pan, Part I

Hazel TV Show # 86 – Scheherazade and Her Frying Pan, Part II

Hazel show# 114 – Just 86 Minutes till Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgafUpMeBKI&feature=player_detailpage