Category: Film Page 27 of 101

TCM Film Fest 2015: Don’t Bet on Women

On April 27, 2015

Jeanette MacDonald is mostly remembered for her series of light operettas with Nelson Eddy, and for slightly more adventurous classic film fans, for her series of Pre-Code musical comedies with Maurice Chevalier and Ernst Lubitsch. That doesn’t always stand her in good stead, since her particular brand of coloratura soprano singing phased out of mainstream popularity by the 1960s. I’m still a fan of her musicals, but I’m the first to admit they aren’t for everyone. It was a particular joy, then, to hear of Don’t Bet on Women, which is one of MacDonald’s very few non-musical roles, and quite a rousing Pre-Code as well.

Pre-Codes fascinate me not only because they tend to be more risque and innuendo-filled than films either earlier or later, but because the combination of nearly unrestrained sexuality and a society still bound to a great degree by traditional mores often yields films with a very conflicted view of masculinity, femininity, and gender roles. Don’t Bet on Women, aka All Women Are Bad (you can see where we’re headed here), starts off with Roger Fallon (Edmund Lowe) swearing off women following a tender scene where his ex-wife convinces him to pay her a generous allowance since she doesn’t want to make her new husband go to the trouble of, like, working. He and his buddy Chip decide to take a boys-only cruise.

TCM Film Fest 2015: So Dear to My Heart

By Jandy

On April 23, 2015

In TCM Film Festival

I grew up watching this film, and just assumed that it was as much a part of everyone else’s childhood as it was mine, just like any other Disney movie, or other animal movies like Lassie Come Home or National Velvet. Apparently that’s far from the case, as only one other person I knew at the festival had seen it (and she’s a certified Disney fanatic who went to great lengths to obtain a copy), and most people had never heard of it until it was in the festival program. It has never been released on DVD except as a bonus through the Disney Rewards Program. I’m pretty sure we bought it on VHS when I was a kid, but it’s possible we taped it off the Disney Channel or something. As the sole person in my group who had nostalgia for the film, I found myself trying not to oversell it, fearing that it wouldn’t live up to my memories. Thankfully, while it’s definitely fairly minor Disney, its charm and winsomeness remain intact through some admittedly cornball plot development.

Young boy Jeremiah Kincaid wants nothing more than to own a prize racehorse someday (this being rural Indiana in 1903, it’s harness racing he’s thinking of, not Thoroughbred racing)…until one of the farm’s sheep has a black lamb and refuses to accept him, and Jeremiah convinces his granny (his parents are unmentioned) to let him raise the outcast. Soon Jeremiah has big dreams for the troublemaking lamb Danny, hoping to take him to the state fair and win a blue ribbon. Lots of other little vignettes fill out the story, notably a treacherous trip into the swamp for Jeremiah and his cousin Tildy seeking out a bee tree, and an overnight search for the lost Danny in a frog-drowner of a rainstorm.

TCM Film Fest 2015: Why Be Good?

By Jandy

On April 22, 2015

In TCM Film Festival

I have a new favorite film seen in 2015.

Colleen Moore is absolutely, unequivocally the most adorable thing ever as Pert Kelly, a young girl who goes out and parties every night, embodying the carefree flapper spirit. We catch up with her when she’s agreed to go out with a super smarmy guy because he’s rich, but she clearly has limits on how far she’s willing to go. Exactly where those limits are become a sticking point when she trades out smarmfest for cleancut young Winthrop Peabody Jr (played by a very handsome Neil Hamilton) enjoying his last evening out before taking the job as personnel manager for his father’s department store. Turns out Pert is a clerk in the store, and when Peabody Sr discovers the kind of girl his son is going with, he objects – not because she’s a working girl (he’s too progressive for that), but because he assumes such a party girl has “been around,” as they say.

TCM Film Fest 2015: Chimes at Midnight

By Jandy

On April 16, 2015

In TCM Film Festival

Orson Welles’ career is the stuff of legend – wunderkind Hollywood golden boy with Citizen Kane, then losing most of his subsequent films to studio interference, and eventually finding it impossible to raise enough money to even complete the films he wanted to make. By 1965 when he made Chimes at Midnight, the funding came from Spain and Switzerland, and the film barely got a release in the US. Even before becoming a big shot Hollywood actor/writer/director, Welles was already a noted Shakespearean scholar and actor, and in the late 1940s, his film output shifted to Shakespeare as well, with versions of Macbeth and Othello. He’d long intended to do a Falstaff story, combining the five plays featuring the characters – a stage version called Five Kings hadn’t quite gotten off the ground as early as 1939, then he staged it in 1960, when it was also unsuccessful. Undaunted, he focused on a film version, which became Chimes at Midnight (sometimes known as just Falstaff). Unlike many of his projects during his later career, Chimes at Midnight was finished, and finished pretty much according to Welles’ wishes.

Upon initial release, the film was dismissed by critics, but it has since gained a reputation as one of Welles’ greatest films – Welles himself felt it was his best work. Rights issues have plagued the film, however, and it’s been very difficult to see in any kind of decent quality (it is watchable on YouTube). Rumor has it that the print screened at TCM Fest (courtesy of Filmoteca España) will soon make its way to DVD/Blu-ray, which would be great. As of now, though, the people who saw it at TCM Fest have probably seen the best version of it since its original release.

TCM Film Fest 2015: Another Great Experience

By Jandy

On March 30, 2015

In TCM Film Festival

There are plenty of great reasons to go to the TCM Classic Film Festival – seeing movies you love on the big screen, discovering forgotten and long-unavailable films, learning about film history firsthand, seeing some of the greatest actors, directors, and behind-the-scenes talent in the history of motion picture, etc. But one of the things that makes it so enjoyable year after year is getting to do all these things in the company of classic film fan friends old and new. Thanks to Twitter, I have a number of friends who come to the TCM Fest every year, and half of the fun is meeting up with them and flocking from film to film together.

Last year, I was only able to attend a few screenings and a lot of the friend magic wasn’t quite there. I still had a great time seeing the films, of course, but one thing I was determined to do this year was work harder to meet up with people I knew and enjoy the atmosphere of the festival, and I succeeded royally. Even when I happened not to be near friends in line, I chatted with a bunch of random cool people – because, I mean, you’re pretty much automatically cool if you come to TCM Fest, right? Right! I still only attended two days this year instead of all four, but they were two of the best fest days I’ve had.

I’ll do full posts on everything I saw later, so I’m going to focus on the festival experience here. Of course, I realized as I start putting this together that I didn’t take ANY photos during the fest, really, so I’ll still have to illustrate with film stills. Oops.

Friday

I spent Thursday evening with visiting family, and I worked Friday morning, so I missed a few notable programs, especially the Dawn of Technicolor program, but I got there in time for Chimes at Midnight. I’ve recently begun planning to complete a bunch of director’s filmographies, and when I checked up on Orson Welles to start sourcing his films, Chimes at Midnight was one that I simply couldn’t find anywhere, so when it showed up on the TCM Fest program, I had to get to it. I ended up pretty early in line, and chatted for a while with the lady in front of me. She and her daughter were there from the Seattle area, and they were returning festival fans. It’s great how many people come year after year, and not just local people – people who come from all over the country and beyond. The lady really loved Orson Welles, and was probably even more excited than I was to see this rarely screened film.

I’m not sure there was anyone I actually knew ahead of time at this screening, though – most of them seemed to pick Young Mr. Lincoln in this time slot (it was a TOUGH time slot; Chaplin’s Limelight was also playing at the same time) largely because it left more time to get in line for pre-Code Don’t Bet on Women in the following timeslot. Scheduling is everything, folks, especially when you’re trying to get into a film playing in Chinese 4, a tiny room that always, always, always sells out. I took my chances with a fifteen minute break between Chimes at Midnight and Don’t Bet on Women, but I hedged my bets a little by sitting on the aisle and skedaddling as soon as the credit started. It worked, I made it in, and my friends Kristen (@salesonfilm) and Marya (@oldfilmsflicker) had saved me a seat right in the center, and I got to meet Kaci (@kacik11) for the first time. Perfect!