Category: Television (Page 17 of 23)

This 1942 film was our least favorite of Cher's four TCM choices. Cher called it a woman’s film and said she cried when she saw it. Lucille Ball plays Gloria Lyons, one mean bitch throughout the whole movie. As Cher says, she came up the hard way. Cher calls "Little Pinks" played by Henry Fonda sweet and also said she loves Eugene Pallette who plays a man named Nicely Nicely. He was indeed a very nice fellow. Robert Osbourne called the movie "offbeat" and noted that it's hard to care what happens to Lucille's character. It is.

The movie started with a competitive eating scene. Great, I thought. My husband loves competitive eating contests. But it went wacky from there. Gloria plays a bitchy coming-up Diva who is sporadically nice to Pinks, her number one fan. She pushes her mobster boyfriend too far and he pushes her down a flight of stairs. She suffers a mysterious old-Hollywood movie illness after that. Is it a spinal injury?

She lays in bed for many scenes and then talks Henry Fonda into walking her wheelchair from NYC to Florida. That must be the big street. John and I found it hard to care about either Gloria or Pinks (or their enabling friends). But our one disagreement was over the Lucy Issue. I feel that Lucille Ball plays nasty like an artist, a natural. Which is what has always made her sitcom I Love Lucy so maddening for me to watch. I don't really like the bumbling ditz character to begin with (see Gomer Pyle). But many Gen X gals find Lucy Ricardo hard to identify with as she was so dependent on Ricky and he treated her more like a child than a wife. It's a generational thing. I can’t see myself rewatching those old shows again unless it’s to try to catch Cher’s Mom in the Paris episode where Cher noted she played one of the models. Cher said she played extras in other episodes as well. 

Cher knew Lucille from these times and from running into her at a club or Jack Benny party (the famous Johnny-Carson-bans-Cher-into-another-room story, in this TCM version she elaborates about meeting Rosalind Russell in the other room and Roselind telling her she could be an actress someday).

So for Lucy, I love her in her small movie parts (Stage Door especially). She deserved more movie vehicles in which to shine. But she was too mean in this one. Not enough moments of reformation. For this kind of character, Jack Nicholson nailed it in As Good As it Gets. You can see the character working through it.

John however does not like Lucille Ball in any capacity. Period. He also finds writer Damon Runyon’s penchant for creating quirky and quaint crooks annoyingly naive and old-fashioned. He also complained not a little bit about the fantastical premise.

Then there's the celebrity obsession issue. Even as a person who has been often caught up in a celebrity obsession or two, I wanted to slap Henry Fonda and tell him to snap out of it. He abandons and exploits a hellofalotta friends for his questionable star. He needs to question where he finds value in his life. And re-evaluate his on-the-ground relationships. At least they could have made him a waiter.

The star-wannabie Gloria is herself stalking a rich guy all the way to Florida; they even kidnap him for the final scene (creepy). Kidnapping a man she claimed she didn’t even love early on in the movie. She just saw him as a ticket from poverty.

Then there's the Henry Fonda Issue. He's not my favorite actor. He was always so serious. That said, I loved him in the sentimental On Golden Pond and in the very heady 12 Angry Men. It is great to see how that jury works. Inspired by it, I used its tactics on the one jury trial I was on. And it worked! Miraculously! We moved from most votes guilty to one hold-out guilty in just three voting rounds. That last guy held out for two more rounds. There was no evidence in our trial but the hold-out-guy felt the guy “seemed guilty.”

The Big Street is also about failed dreams and class issues in the way that stardom can take you out of the yucky class. It's also a story about not having health insurance. Gloria has to sell off all her jewelry to pay her hospital bills and then must move in with her number one fan.

The wheelchair-bound Lucy reminded me of the Cher character in Faithful…it was a prop that inhibited their performances. Which brings me back to the old-hollywood movie mystery illness, where all the gals die of heartbreak. Gloria falls down the stairs and the doctors label her "very sick" not "injured." She slowly dies of it. In the final death throes, the doctor says she has delusions of grandeur (maybe Fonda exacerbated that by getting everyone to call her Your Highness). The doctor's final diagnosis is paranoia, which he says means "she believes she’s something she’s not." (The Princess Bride character Inigo Montoya would say: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.")

Gloria does not believe in love and her switch-to-sweet at the end is a little too little, a little too late. Early on she says, “Love is something that gives you one room, two chins and three kids." On the other hand, no love gets you wheelchairs and paranoia.

This was my first Agnes Moorehead movie (that I know of). And I’ve decided I really like Agnes Moorehead.

At the end of the four films, Robert and Cher talked about Cher's favorite films: Gaslight, On Borrowed Time. Cher says she has movies playing in the background when getting ready to work. She says it's calming. She likes Moon Over Miami, Road to Morrocco…all Road movies, Fred & Ginger movies, Gene Kelly movies, Meet Me in St. Louis, which she says has a perfect story and actors (growing up in STL, I loved this movie,especially Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." This is one of my favorite movie scenes AND favorite Christmas song performances. It's so heart-hurting. I love the sad Xmas songs. Cher also loves Now Voyager, All Through the Night with Bogart. Cher asks "Where is Lionel Barrymore when you need him?" They end talking about Casablanca and Cher calls this TMC hosting project “my holiday from myself.”

I loved this very Cher-like holiday from Cher. It was great fun. And I thought it took some balls to pick some imperfect but rarely-shown movies instead of the Classics with a big C. It shows she is really in the trenches of classic-movie-fandom.

This is not how we're used to seeing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, without his top hat and her glamour gown.

But that didn't bother me because I've never seen a Fred and Ginger movie. And this 1936 tale has grown on me.

I thought Fred was cute as a sailor with his odd-shaped head hidden under that white sailor's hat. His awesome sailor's bell bottoms, which pre-dated Cher's by 30 years, moved nicely through the choreography, which we see soon in the first scene on the naval ship, which reminds you uncontrollably of the "Turn Back Time" video.

In Cher's intro, she mentions Fred and Ginger's elegance and how they "rise above the material." The story is a bit fluffy but Ginger and Fred are captivating together with their fussin' and a sparin'.

Cher mentions that her favorite song in the movie is "Get Behind Me Satan" and I guess it's my husband's favorite song too because he sang it to me at the Buffalo Thunder buffet last weekend when I talked him into eating a bite of my cheese cake.

I keep missing the Betty Grable appearance but I cannot miss the Lucille Ball appearance. As Osbourne and Cher agree, she always stands out in her cameos.

This is another movie about stage performers trying to make a living. Ginger is a struggling singer and dancer trying to go solo after success in a duo act with Fred. Fred has been in the Navy for a few years since their relationship faltered.

I appreciated the song "I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" because that's exactly what the supporting actress, Harriet Hilliard, does throughout her plot thread. She  plays Ginger's sister who has suddenly blossomed with a makeover. She's stuck on the first man she meets, Bilge, a lout who only shows signs of humanity when he's made to understand there's a ship in it for him. But Harriet's character is dim in the love department. She wears her ball gown to cook for her man and talks marriage on the first date.

In these old movies, the girls cry with glassy eyes and no tears. But they also say funny things to each other like Ginger says to her sister: "You look too darn intelligent. Girls gotta be dolled up nowdays. It takes a lotta brains to be dumb."

I did get somewhat tired of Irving Berlin's score, which used the same song ("Let Yourself Go") over and over. But this was the depression after all; maybe they were trying to save money and recycle a theme.

The movie slightly touches on class issues as it has in the other Cher TCM picks. For example, in Hobson's Choice there was a class divide between Willie (a laborer) and Maggie's family (business owners). Here there is an official naval class divide between the crew (Fred Astaire and company) and the officers. Ginger plays off this tension to get back at Fred during the party scene.

Fred and Ginger as you are used to seeing them (to the left).

Of course the movie provides a great ballroom dance and these are always worth your attention.

I loved the ship backdrop in this scene. It reminds me of dining out in Long Beach.

The second favorite movie from Cher’s TCM session was Hobson’s Choice. John actually watched this one with me and this was his favorite. (He watched all of them except Lady of Burlesque.)

The movie was directed by David Lean, famous for his big epics like Lawrence of Arabia, A Passage to India and The Bridge on the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago….all of which I’m ashamed to say I have not seen.

Robert Osbourne labels Hobson’s Choice one of Lean's least known films. Lean made “this small overlooked film” in 1954, the year before he directed Katharine Hepburn in the very colorful Summertime, which I did see. That was the movie where Hepburn fell into that Venetian water and got an eye infection that made her eyes look very watery forever after.

In the TCM introduction, Cher talks about her favorite actresses: Ginger Rodgers, Ingrid Bergman, the Hepburn girls, both whom she met, saying Katharine was “tough.” She felt Bette Davis was transfixing but "so stylized."

About Hobson’s Choice, Cher says fabulous a few times and is particularly mesmerized by David Lean’s unique shots…from the first shot of the boot shoe sign to the scene where Charles Laughton is drunk and entranced by the moon in a puddle. She says the movie is about hope and remarks on the cast. She quotes Robert Altman as saying if you get the cast, you are 80% there. She also says the movie is a story told through hairstyles. Maggie’s hair goes from severe to soft as she falls in love. She describes Willie as having Alfalfa hair until he goes through his Maggie makeover.

John said it was like a Fiddler on the Roof story where a father loses control of all of his daughters. The father, played by Charles Laughton, acts like an ass and looks strikingly like Humpty Dumpty. I saw his character as funny but vaguely threatening as severely controlling fathers can be. But Willie was 100% adorable. He gets the rare male-makeover in this movie and his lines gave us the most laughs as he  transformed from the messy and illiterate shoemaker into the sophisticated architect of his own business. Even his accent changes.

And the shots were beautiful to watch. I would also give a shout out to the lighting.

My only criticism would be that our heroine, Maggie, didn’t meet a single challenge until the final scene when Willie argues with her over the name on the store sign. Every single scheme of hers worked as planned. Am I too tainted by the formulaic movies since the 70s? Give that runner a hurdle please.

By Gum!

So you're aware Cher co-hosted Turner Classic Movies last week with Robert Osbourne. She, dressed in all black, curled up in one of the red chairs and talked about her favorite movies. She said she started out with list of 60 films that needed to be pared down to four.

I watched the first three movies that night. I had to catch this last one two days later, after going out with some friends of ours visiting from LA. But I want to start with this one because it was my favorite. Even Cher licked her lips when talking about it. Cher said this 1943 movie Lady of Burlesque was off the radar for many Barbara Stanwyck fans. Cher calls it hysterical and noted that it was written by Gypsy Rose Lee. Gypsy Rose Lee also wrote the movie TCM followed Cher’s set with, the musical Gypsy (a connection to both Cher and Rose Lee). I had never seen Gypsy and unfortunately my new Direct TV cut off the film half way through. After whining to John about it, he said "she grows up and becomes a stripper, her sister gets married and the mom gets pissed off."

Robert Osbourne and Cher talk about the “tootsie” aspect of Lady of Burlesque. I misunderstood this to mean there would be cross-dressing involved. Then they clarified this to mean “dolls and dames.” Oy, the generation gap. Cher calls the movie "fun…a perfect storm for happiness" and admires the Edith Head costumes for Stanwyck. Therefore, it's interesting to note here that Bob Mackie was once an assistant to Edith Head and you can see the line of influence.

Cher also enjoyed the movie as a story about strippers backstage, especially old tyme ones. Other Stanwyck films Cher likes: The Lady Eve and Christmas in Connecticut. 

Barbara Stanwyck plays the headline burlesque performer Dixie. The club is in New York, off "The Great White Way" and this is the second film in Cher's set with performers working toward or on Broadway, the third film in the set about stage performers.

The burlesque show lives in an old opera house and is soon bu sted by the cops. Then two murders are committed–a bitchy stripper named Lolita La Verne and a former employee named Princess Nirvena. Twice Dixie is targeted. The whole time you wonder if the comic who has a crush on Dixie, Biff played by Michael O’Shea, is the culprit. I was very distracted by Biff because he looked a lot like a piano player I dated back in 2005.

I love interrogation scenes. So I found this movie's two interrogation scenes hilarious; both times the detective interviewed all 30 show people in one room.

The four films Cher selected are very different but there is a small thread about upward mobility and chaffing class conflicts among them all. In this movie, Dixie startes out wanting to get outa this burlesque and move on to something better. She also feels she's too good for no-good comics. However, by the end of the movie she decides she’s “not so snooty anymore” and she stands by her burlesque show.

This movie held my interest and was full of Interesting and likable background characters. There's lots of stagy, show-biz stuff going on and Stanwyck walks around looking glamorous and acting feisty. Two things right up a Cher-fan's alley.

The movie also reminds me about the need for classic film preservation. When I freeze-framed a portion of the movie, I could see a tear in the film that had been spliced together. Other scenes had damages to the print as well. How sad that the best TCM copy of this film was left to decompose this much.

Spoiler alert: Mark Twain did it.