ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Ellemeno]

From IMDb: College kids plead for an old alumnus (now a down and out producer) to help them put on their varsity show. It's an excuse for many songs and a much-acclaimed (but rather lame) Busby Berkeley Finale (Oscar nom for choreography - dance direction)in which the cast form a series of college letters in the now overly familiar shot from above kaleidoscope effect Berkeley wore into the ground. Dick Powell is charming but getting a bit long in the tooth already for this sort of thing. Rosemary Lane misses in her claim for stardom but sister Priscilla is starting a bright career in comedy here. Walter Catlett is amusing as a stuffy professor who wants a more cultured approach to the show material and John Alexander has an unbilled bit as the Mayor.

Also with the inimitable Sterling Holloway in a small role.


As Kaa the Snake in "The Jungle Book," singing "Trust in Me" to Mowgli (2:56)
(worth it for the hypnotizing animation too)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSVkY-01r5o[/youtube]

[dot-matrix]

[MaineWriter]

==comment==from IMDb

Director Gregory LaCava apparently liked to hit the bottle and so had a spotty career, but Stage Door is his masterpiece. Not in some personal, auteurist way, but in having achieved an almost ideal example of Depression-era movie entertainment. Its venue is the Footlights Club, a theatrical boarding house near Broadway, where lamb stew and broken dreams are the nightly staples. Among the gals with stiletto tongues but hearts of gold are Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller, Gail Patrick and formidable Constance Collier ("Could you see an older woman in the part?"). But the movie centers on the rivalry between roommates Katherine Hepburn, as a spoiled rich kid who tries acting as a lark, and Ginger Rogers, as a plucky thespian waiting for her break. Believe it or no, those diametrical opposites (aristocratic, ethereal Kate and tough, pragmatic Ginger) work like a dream together. The script negotiates a delicate path between pathos and bathos, and somehow keeps its balance, even when one of the troupers loses her grip on reality and...Well, enough said. Best of all: this is the movie in which Hepburn gets to elocute: "The calla lilies are in bloom again...." Sheerest heaven.

[Fran]

[dot-matrix]

[Ellemeno]

Placer for Leslie to use for the 1936 post.  Or delete.  I want to play, so I'm going to do a 1936 A. 

[Ellemeno]

From IMDb: Delightfully preposterous. 
Vastly entertaining mystery movie/1930s newspaper comedy about master criminal (Reginald Owen) who finances a World War I play with on-stage explosions to cover up below-ground explosions needed to break in to next door bank vault where the priceless Sunburst diamond he covets is locked up in the vaults. Thoroughly preposterous plot but who cares! Delightful hard-boiled, wise-cracky romantic comedy between ace-reporter/criminologist (Joel McCrea) and sassy but adorable actress (Jean Arthur). Thomas Mitchell rants and raves as the newspaper editor, and Herman Bing has a delightful cameo as the German owner of the club where newspapermen hang out. Suspend all disbelief and enjoy yourself.

[MaineWriter]

==comment==

The Little King was a cartoon strip character who meets Betty Boop during her vaudeville act. I like his candy cane sword!

[youtube=425,350]

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[Fran]

[Meryl]

Dodsworth is a 1936 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton.  Sidney Howard based the screenplay on his 1934 stage adaptation of the 1929 novel by Sinclair Lewis. Through the title character, it examines the differences between US and European intellect, manners, and morals.