Stars Caricatured in Christmas Television Cartoons

Classic film stars have been caricatured in many animated cartoons, even Christmas cartoons as noted in this previous post of Toyland Premiere (1934).  But the made-for-television holiday cartoons of Rankin/Bass utilized caricatures of stars of Hollywood’s heyday not for satire or even humor, but to lend cachet to their well-scrubbed retellings of pop Christmas folklore.

While not all classic film stars who voiced animated characters had their likenesses caricatured in the cartoon – Mickey Rooney, for instance, in the several times he voiced Santa Claus (The Year Without a Santa Claus – 1974, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – 1970, and Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July – 1979) Santa never looked like Mickey Rooney.  I suppose Santa Claus is too well-known (or perhaps, trademarked?) to look like Mickey Rooney.

But Fred Astaire, playing a generic mailman character in Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town is okay to look like a caricature of Fred Astaire, likewise Red Buttons as the ice cream man in Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July – which also gave us a stupendously (or perhaps stupefying is the word) over-the-top Ethel Merman who runs a carnival show.  It’s a lumbering feature cartoon with no discernable point, but Hal Peary has his last role as a whale, with a Great Gildersleeve giggle.  I find that endearing.

These cartoons were all animated with the mesmerizing stop-motion photography of jerky movements and stiff portrayals, literally.

There were two Christmas cartoons of my childhood which were especially profound for me, first Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962), which I’ve mentioned before in this previous post. Definitely NOT stop-motion photography here. Jim Backus owned the role of Mr. Magoo so thoroughly and was my introduction to Dickens at the tender age of probably three. 

The second cartoon that was really meaningful to me was The Little Drummer Boy (1968).  Like the other Rankin/Bass cartoons mentioned above, this also featured stop-motion photography (and all the cartoons are musicals) and told the story of an orphaned boy during the time of the Nativity who hates people because his parents were killed by bandits, and finds healing with the power of love.  I was fascinated by the scenes of ancient Judea, of narrow streets, endless desert dunes, and the people who came to their ancestral cities to be taxed by the Roman emperor.  Even as a six or seven-year-old, stories about real people interested me more than fairy tales about snowmen or Heat Miser (though I still know the words to that song).

Jose Ferrer (not caricatured) plays a rogue, a carnival showman who enslaves the orphan boy when he discovers the boy can sing and play a drum and charm animals into dancing.  The showman thinks he can make a bundle off the kid.  (Painting a phony smile on the kid's face horrified me as a child.) He even sells the boy’s cherished camel to one of the Wise Men, and the boy is even more furious and heartbroken.  

The boy follows the Star as the Three Kings are doing so that he can catch up to them and get his camel.  But then a Roman centurion charges by on his chariot like an ICE thug and runs over the boy’s other little friend, a lamb.  We suspect if he’d had a Taser, he’d have used it just for the thrill of cruelty.  Authoritarian governments haven’t changed in thousands of years.  This boy has suffered so much in this cartoon, we can barely take any more at this point.

One of the Three Kings tells the boy to appeal to the Baby Jesus for help, and here we have our opening to the song (cue Vienna Boys Choir) “The Little Drummer Boy” and “I have to no gift to bring…shall I play for him?”  Though the stop-motion photography is just as jerky and crude as in the other cartoons, the story here is deeper, and the thoughtful, contemplative telling of it leaves a greater impression.  This cartoon, for me, was also notable for introducing me to Greer Garson.

Miss Garson is an unseen narrator and is credited as “Our Storyteller.”  Her rich, cultured voice is soothing and enchanting, and we are carried through time and space in her opening, “And it came to pass that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…”

When the boy’s heart is touched by the pure love of the Infant, and his lamb is healed, Greer tells us, “He realized the hate he carried there was wrong, as all hatred will ever be wrong.”

It would be many years before I discovered Mrs. Miniver or Pride and Prejudice, so The Little Drummer Boy was my introduction to Greer Garson, or at least her beautiful speaking voice.

Perhaps a cartoon Greer in caricature would have lessened the gravitas of the story, but I think I would have liked to have seen Our Storyteller.  A woman in such a serious, venerable role would have been inspiring.

But to depict her in caricature or not?  Hmm.

Wishing a peaceful and happy Christmas to all who celebrate.

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GIFTS FOR THE CLASSIC FILM FAN!!!!!!!

Christmas in Classic Films provides a roster of old movies with scenes to conjure Christmas of days gone by.  Makes a nice gift, if you know an old movie buff, or if you just like to give presents to yourself.  

The paperback is available at Amazon, but also here at Barnes & Noble.

The hardcover, so far, is available only at Amazon.

Here are a few other classic movie books I've written for your gift-giving pleasure:

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. - for sale in paperback and hardcover at Amazon,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Ingram,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Barnes & Noble.

And in paperback here at Walmart.

Hollywood Fights Fascism -  here in paperback at Amazon.

Movies in Our Time - here in paperback at Amazon.

And all of these books are available as well at my page on Bookshop.org, which helps support independent bookstores.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Requiescat in pace - Janis Paige

Recently, we bid farewell to Janis Paige, after an extraordinary 101-year run.  Her career may have spanned only 60 of those years (“only” 60, she says), but a life of many experiences and accomplishments, as we know, is not left on the soundstage or the stage door.  One suspects she made the centenarian club because she finally did everything she wanted to do and wasn't leaving the party before she was finished.

A native of the state of Washington, she moved to Los Angeles after high school, did some modeling, and was discovered as a singer at the famed Hollywood Canteen during World War II.  Warner Bros., snapped her up (she had a brief role as a studio guide in the movie, Hollywood Canteen—see this previous post), and she appeared in a number of musicals with Dennis Morgan or Jack Carson, but left in 1951, dissatisfied with Hollywood, to work in theatre.  She came back for a bit in the 1950s, but enjoyed a long and varied career on stage, and television, where she had her own sitcom for one season, and appeared as a guest in many shows over many decades.

Here below is one of my favorite clips.  I never tire of it.  Janis holds her old with Fred Astaire and despite the workout she’s getting, seems to get a kick out of it.

Here's Janis and Fred Astaire from Silk Stockings (1957) "Stereophonic Sound."

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Our greatest gift from the Greatest Generation was freedom from fascism. Relive, and celebrate, how evil was faced, discussed, dramatized...and fought. Classic films were Hollywood's weapon.

Get your copy of my book Hollywood Fights Fascism here at Amazon in print or eBook, or FREE here for a limited time at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a variety of other online shops.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

 

Halloween -- Musicals and Monsters

Halloween is missing from the roster of holidays celebrated in musical numbers from Holiday Inn (1942).  At the time the film was made, Halloween was barely clawing its way out of the era of time-honored street urchin vandalism of petty theft and streetcar derailment to something different – an adult-supervised, tamer holiday of parties, party favors, and treats.  By the time the Boomers were kids, trick-or-treating exploded across suburbia.

Today, it’s the second-largest holiday of consumer spending in United States, with the National Retail Federation predicting that this year Americans will spend more than $10 billion on Halloween.  This is amazing considering the economy’s fragility while still dealing with a pandemic, and even more so that this is an increase of some $8 billion over last year.  So far, consumer spending on Halloween is still behind the level of Christmas—but for how long?

The single day of Halloween has become a season of a month or even more of decorating indoors—and most dramatically—outdoors.  One wonders if this is merely yet another example of the arrested emotional development of Boomers, Gen-X-ers, and Millennials not so much yearning for the fun times of childhood, but being oblivious to the fact that they might have to actually grow up at all. 

I confess a monstrous craving for candy corn this time of year (similar to the unaccountable monstrous craving I get for candy conversation hearts as Valentine’s Day approaches), so perhaps, like most of us, I have become well trained by the retailers. Though we joke about pumpkin-spice everything this time of year, at least that’s innocuous compared to the severed heads and skeletal displays of sometimes questionable taste on the neighbor’s lawn.

For classic film buffs, society’s growing enthusiasm for Halloween has led to that transfer of movies-as-holiday props such as we see during the approach of Christmas.  Christmas is a holiday wrapped up in nostalgia as much as consumerism, and for fans of old movies, this means dragging out not only decorations, Christmas music, and favorite recipes—but also the retrieval from our own vaults of Christmas movies to watch during December.  To be sure, Turner Classic Movies is there for a reliable backup, but we who have amassed our private stock of movies without which Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas really don’t rely on it, do we?

Holiday Inn is a teasing, tantalizing hybrid of holidays as Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Louise Beavers, Marjorie Reynolds, and Walter Abel parade through the calendar.  Most classic film buffs watch it during Christmastime, and are familiar with the tale that the song “White Christmas” was created for the movie and become an almost instant hit, now a national treasure.  Other songs written specifically for the movie include “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” for Valentine’s Day, “Happy Holidays” (for those smug, hypocritical fools who think saying “Happy Holidays” is somehow a sacrilegious insult to Christmas, a Bing Crosby recording should be played over and over as an answer to their foolishness), and “You’re Easy to Dance With,” which has no holiday connotation at all.

If precious filmstock was being devoted to non-holiday musical numbers, then why, we might wonder, could they not have filled that gap in the movie between Independence Day and Thanksgiving with a Halloween song?  Irving Berlin actually did write a couple that might serve:  “Down Where the Jack O’ Lanterns Grow” written sometime around World War I about a rural love nest and not particularly spooky.  I would vote for “The Haunted House,” a really cute ragtime ditty you can listen to here on YouTube:

As for giving September a little attention, perhaps a Labor Day sequence could have been thrown in with Berlin’s song “And Father Wanted Me to Learn a Trade” written sometime in the middle 19-teens.  We do have that burst of industrial war worker footage montage during the Independence Day sequence, so factory work had achieved a nobility not seen since. 

Also for the war, Irving Berlin wrote the pleasant if unintentionally comical “I Paid My Income Tax Today” which you can listen to here:

Maybe Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire would have a tougher time putting across Income Tax Day in their musical romp.

But it is on the calendar.

It does feel like something of a wrench for us these days to have no Halloween in Holiday Inn, but likely nobody missed it in 1942.  Halloween was strictly for kids.  For the grownups, there were scarier monsters afoot, and they came home to us when as partway through the filming of the movie, Pearl Harbor was bombed.

But classic movie fans, partly as a celebration of Halloween, have revived the popularity of the Universal monsters: Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, et al.  Because of Halloween and our movies-as-holiday props habit, monsters walk the earth again, at least once a year.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.

Independence Day

Independence Day always seems more nostalgic and sentimental when viewed through the perspective of classic films.   Perhaps because, as with Christmas movies, we are transported to our own childhoods, and the weight of the world lifts from our shoulders for a few moments, a world where freedom and civil rights were attainable surely by the second chorus, or if we bought enough bonds.  

They celebrated Independence Day during a brutal and terrifying time of war, yet they managed to convey a silliness that was perhaps necessary to maintain courage.

Peace in our time is a lovely ambition.  

To this end, I would prefer neighbors not shoot off home fireworks (which they have obtained illegally in my state), or firecrackers.  The town fireworks are better, and do not leave burning bits of wood and paper in my yard, or disrupt my old movie on TV with stomach-turning explosions.  James Cagney, and Bugs, and Fred, and Bing, and a bunch of others are waiting in the wings to celebrate this day in a gentler fashion.  

And I like Fred's socks.

I wish all American readers a Happy Independence Day.  Pass the mustard.

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Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. 

The eBook and paperback are available from Amazon and CreateSpace, which is the printer.  You can also order it from my Etsy shop. It is also available at the Broadside Bookshop, 247 Main Street, Northampton, Massachusetts.

If you wish a signed copy, then email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with the details.

Happy Presidents Day

Happy Presidents Day, for those of us in the U.S.   Happy retail sales.  Happy day off. 

Others are more reverent.  Here, Connie Milligan, clearly a Lincoln groupie, celebrates her favorite Commander-in-Chief all year long with a modest shrine.  Below. Fred, Majorie, and a resentful Bing, pay homage to One Number in a pastiche of Washington clichés and American history via Irving Berlin.

(Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page to mute the music so you can hear the video.)

Abraham

Lincoln’s Birthday, having been usurped by the all-purpose Presidents Day, is no longer the block on the calendar it once was, but with the many references to President Abraham Lincoln during the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Honest Abe seems to be more in the news than ever.

The connection between Lincoln’s legacy in popular history as it pertains particularly to African-Americans remains at the front of his memory. Today on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, we have this clip below from “Holiday Inn” (1942) to examine one Hollywood interpretation of that relationship.

The clip is cringeworthy camp. I can remember broadcast television showings where this scene was omitted, and not just to fit in more commercials. It is, after all, a bit uncomfortable to watch. Leaving it out may make watching this otherwise lighthearted froth of a movie less offensive, but leaving it out is a lie. By watching the scene carefully, we can learn a bit more about a wartime era when our armed forces were still segregated, when popular entertainment leaned heavily on exaggerated stereotypes.

The song is pleasant, another one of Irving Berlin’s patriotic tributes to his adopted country that make up this movie. As illustrated by the photo above, it was also released on a 78rpm. Listen only to the song and you have a stirring tribute in a big band flourish, and Bing Crosby’s steady baritone.

Open your eyes to watch the film clip, and you must really open your eyes to some other things. The stars in blackface, giving it their all as it once was performed in hokey minstrel shows from the 19th century up through the middle 20th century in vaudeville. The chorus in “mulatto” makeup and costumes meant to turn Holiday Inn into a cartoon plantation setting where happy slaves evoke the name of their savior, Abraham.

The only thing more ridiculous looking than Bing Crosby in this scene is the unfortunate Marjorie Reynolds, who bounds out like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Topsy” having just ingested some mind-altering substance. It may be laughable, but becomes all the more embarrassing when one realizes this performance is not meant as an insult, but intended as good-natured parody. The condescension in this scene does not seem to be apparent to Bing or Marjorie, the chorus, or the director or studio.

We see it. Many others saw it as well in the era when the film was made; not everyone was so blind. This kind of entertainment was already on its way out. The explanation in the plot for the use of blackface was to hide Marjorie Reynolds from being recognized by Fred Astaire, but the “cover story” if you will, is just to give credence to a typical Lincoln’s Birthday minstrel routine that was now becoming passé. This scene is a museum piece in more ways than one. The “Abraham” number was reused as an instrumental piece in “White Christmas” (1954) some 12 years later, for a fast-paced dance featuring Vera-Ellen. A big production number in “White Christmas” also salutes the days of minstrel shows. Nobody wears blackface.

But keep watching the original “Abraham”. Louise Beavers turns the scene on its ear. The warmth and sincerity she exudes singing to her children is what makes Bing and Marjorie all the more silly. She has dignity, and this was Abraham Lincoln’s great gesture to his fellow Americans of every race, the idea that human beings were born with innate dignity, and nobody could take it away from them, even if they took away their freedom. People can only give up their dignity willingly, which is what Bing and Marjorie are doing in this scene.

No matter that Miss Beavers has only a couple lines to sing in a movie that is a musical; no matter that one line includes the word “darky.” She’s got dignity to spare, which is good because Bing and Marjorie can really use some help to save this number.

I like to think that director Mark Sandrich saw that too, and that was his intention, this striking and moving comparison between the black lady and the white stars in blackface. Perhaps not, perhaps he was as blind to the dignity as he was to the indignation. But the studio left the scene in, and now so does cable television.

Have a look at the clip of “Abraham” below. Enjoy the song, but don’t close your eyes.

A Guy, A Girl, and a Typewriter

The romantic triangle of a guy, a girl, and a typewriter is perhaps a little less discussed than the erotic symbolism of smoking in old movies, but should not be avoided due to prudery. We’re all adults here. Unless you’re a kid. Then, young sir or young lady, you are to leave the room immediately.

The typewriter and shapely hands above belong to Barbara Stanwyck, one of film’s most prolific typists. We see her here in “Christmas in Connecticut” (1945) as she bangs out her magazine column.


Here Reginald Gardiner is just about to swoop down and give her a kiss, because he’s nuts about her and because her typing is driving him wild. Understandable, for there are few things more sensual than typing, few physical attributes more desirable than the strong yet supple fingers of the typist.

In the Sherlock Holmes story “The Solitary Cyclist”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has Holmes appraise a woman’s hands, noting that she is either a typist or a pianist, "I nearly fell into the error of supposing that you were typewriting. Of course, it is obvious that it is music. You observe the spatulate finger-ends, Watson, which is common to both professions? There is a spirituality about the face, however" -- she gently turned it towards the light -- "which the typewriter does not generate. This lady is a musician."


How wrong he is, that typing on the QWERTY keyboard does not convey a certain spirituality, even passion. If he could see this close-up of Stanwyck’s eyes from “Meet John Doe” (1941), Sherlock would know just how wrong he was.



But passion through typing is not solely the province of ladies in film. Here Gregory Peck in “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947) shows us what virility looks like: a handsome man brooding in front of a typewriter. Below we have the picture of motherly pride as Anne Revere fondly thinks to herself, “That’s my boy who can type.” Medical school? Bah! She sacrificed everything to put him through two semesters of Typing 101.



Here we have Rhonda Fleming in “The Spiral Staircase” (1945) showing that Edwardian ladies were every bit as sexy as the modern girls at a typewriter.

Here Gordon Oliver can’t resist planting a kiss on her. One of the first things he tells her when he enters the scene is to plead, “Don’t stop typing.”

Here the ménage à trois is complete as Rhonda attempts to dance with her typewriter and Gordon Oliver cuts in.


Typewriter passion is easily transferable to musicals, seen here in “Silk Stockings” (1957) where Fred Astaire’s immediate attraction to Cyd Charisse is due to her ability to type.


And even less glamorous couples find romance if left to themselves in a small secluded corner with a typewriter, as is the case here in “The Band Wagon” (1953) with Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant. There is nothing like a typewriter to bring new life to a marriage in a rut.


Amid all the froth of “Three Coins in a Fountain” (1957), the only genuine passion comes from the unlikely duo of Dorothy McGuire and Clifton Webb, again because of the typewriter. He is a writer who dictates, and she is a typist who receives his words and produces the pages. Their relationship is interdependent. How many such lovers have thrilled to the ping that warns of the approaching right margin, and the grinding crank of the carriage return? Their need for each other is occasionally accompanied by a need for carbon paper and Wite-Out.

Film noir also explored the relationship between typing and sex, in “A Lonely Place” (1950) when Humphrey Bogart, a screenwriter, begins a relationship with Gloria Grahame that becomes more steamy when she starts to do his typing for him. I’d put up a screen capture for that, but I hear those kids coming back into the room. Everybody shut up.

Cyd Charisse - Dancing in the Dark

Cyd Charisse, who recently passed away and is justly lauded as Hollywood’s best, and certainly sexiest, dancer, conveys another intriguing quality in “The Band Wagon” (1953) when she goes “Dancing in the Dark.”

Teamed here with Fred Astaire, the brief number is a courtship dance. The two characters, a well-known hoofer and a rising ballet star, must sort out their differences to make their Broadway show in the works a success.

Miss Charisse, a classically trained ballet dancer in the Russian tradition, joined the Ballet Russe when she was still in her teens. Reportedly she was encouraged by her father to take up ballet lessons as a child in part because she had been frail after contracting polio. It was thought that ballet would strengthen her.

Her strength is one of the most remarkable qualities exhibited in the lovely “Dancing in the Dark” number, a slow and romantic pas de deux. Here her trademark long, sexy legs are mostly covered by the mid-calf white dress, whose accordion pleats swish every now and then to give us the briefest glimpse of thigh. No high heels in this number; she dances in flats, gray ballet slippers. No draping her slinky body over her partner; it is nearly a full minute into the dance before she and Astaire even touch each other. No jazz beat, no revealing costume, yet it is one of the most sensual dances she has ever performed.

And though we see less of her body, we seem to see more of Cyd. We see her self-contained world where dance is a most revealing self-expression. Her confidence is riveting. She does not seem to be playing to the audience as much as she seems to be pleasing herself. It’s one of those rare moments were we get to watch a person doing what that person was born to do.

Perhaps because her legs are covered, our attention is diverted more to the straight line of her back, and her broad shoulders as her arms are extended wide in a kind of yoga “warrior” pose. It is a picture of strength. Her white sleeves are rolled up at the elbow, like a person who has work to do. There is power in her movements as much as grace, and in a of the few moves it almost appears as if she is leading Astaire in the dance, holding his arm extended in her hand clasp, and bringing him forward. It is feminine strength, displayed as it never was by any other female dancer of the era. The frail child is gone. The physically strong woman remains.

Their movement together is precise, flowing, and self-controlled. One can see the athleticism of the ballet dancer, a strength and control of the body an Olympic decathlon athlete would admire.

They have created one of the most intimate, and most lovely moments in film. Watch it again here on YouTube.

Fred and Ginger - Four Dances

Fred and Ginger. Not Astaire and Rogers or Rogers and Astaire for that matter, but always Fred and Ginger, as if we know them. Ironically, the romance that occurs between their characters in the dance, the thing that draws these two rather aloof characters together and draws us to them, does not really make Fred and Ginger more approachable. They are still a world apart from us, their own world, perhaps.

“Top Hat” (1935) gives us the quintessential Fred and Ginger routine, Fred in white tie and tails, and Ginger in a flowing gown, in this case the famous ostrich feather number. Her blonde hair is tightly pinned up, and sophisticated seduction is the order of the day as the song they dance to is, of course “Cheek to Cheek.”

They begin first as only another pair of dancers on a crowded floor, and she is at first cold to him because of the customary plot device of mistaken identity, but soon they ascend stairs, and then a garden terrace and they are alone, dancing slowly, closely, with gentle swirls and twirls, a slight ruffling of the ostrich feathers. They are filmed in a full body shot always, never close-ups, because their expression of attraction is in their body movements and we’re not supposed to miss it with a distracting quick shot to the eyes.

The sweeping dips, the light-as-air steps, and the dance finally finishing as they lean upon the garden wall, calm and quiet as a lake on a summer evening.

“Cheek to Cheek” is so ethereal it is practically a dream sequence, but it is delightfully contrasted by another dance number earlier in the film, when Fred and Ginger dance in a gazebo taking refuge from a thunderstorm. The song, “Isn’t It a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain,” and this time Ginger is in riding jodhpurs and tweed coat, and Fred in a suit. This has more taps to it. The customary aloofness is ratcheted up a notch in this dance, as they barely touch each other. They face off, a challenge, a dare. She puts her hands in her pockets and mimics his movements. This part of the dance was ad-libbed by Ginger Rogers. As she notes in her autobiography, “Ginger, My Story” (Harper Collins, 1991), and as also noted elsewhere by director Mark Sandrich, Ginger contributed a great deal to the choreography of their dances together. Fred would work out the basics with choreographer Hermes Pan, and then Ginger would come in and put in a few finishing touches.

As Miss Rogers notes in her autobiography, “I had more fun rehearsing than in actually performing. Inspiration comes during the preparation as you seek a better turn, step, or jump. In performance, you do it once and that’s it. The time for improving is over.”

The two would rehearse their dance numbers for eight hours a day, for six weeks, prior to filming. You had to love it.

According to Miss Rogers, it was her suggestion that they do the “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” number in “Shall We Dance” (1937) on roller skates. This is a remarkable dance routine. The scene it set in New York’s Central Park (obviously a set), and they enter the scene with somewhat weary attitudes on roller skates. Again, they are not quite a couple, and the strain of avoiding publicity hounds who think they are a couple is getting to them. They stumble to a bench, sit, and begin to sing “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”

At first we might think they will spend the whole number on the bench, but without warning they stand, with a long glide into a dance that is quite amazing. The roller skates, incidentally, are the kind you used to clamp onto your shoes, so there’s no supportive safety boot here. Arm in arm at first, they stroll, and tap a little, and fake a stumble, and recover with panache. Then in unison, then in tandem, there are Olympic ice dancers who aren’t this good. The dance ends with a kind of Roller Derby bit where Ginger skates behind Fred who leads them around in a circle, picking up speed, when finally they end by stumbling off the walk and throwing themselves onto a grassy embankment.

All Ginger remarks in her book is, “The roller skating number was a ball to do.” In his autobiography, “Steps in Time” (Harper and Brothers, 1959) Mr. Astaire says even less. Neither describes in detail about the rigors of their dance choreography, and yet their dances were all about detail. Astaire was known in particular for being a perfectionist. Perhaps like some artists who shy away from analyzing their work too much, they feel it loses some of its magic if you pick it apart.

Finally, we have the “Bouncing the Blues” number from “The Barkleys of Broadway” (1949), Fred and Ginger’s last film together after not having made a film together for a decade. As Miss Rogers notes, “to get back into your dancing shoes after ten years is not the simplest thing to do.” And yet, she remarks, “Once Fred and I began rehearsing in earnest, the ten years melted away.”

In this number, Ginger is wearing black slacks, a white blouse, and appears to be a copy of Fred, who wears grey slacks and a pink shirt; both are wearing scarves around their waists and at their necks.

In the weeks when they used to rehearse their numbers, Ginger would wear pants for their ease of movement in the rehearsal stage, and switch to the dress and shoes she would wear for the film only at the end. This number, “Bouncing the Blues” gives us a look at how Fred and Ginger might have appeared while rehearsing, not only by their casual clothes, but by their casual attitudes. There is no aloofness here. Nor is there especially romance. There is a sweet camaraderie, a perfect timing between two people who have a long history of knowing each other moves.

The jazz piece begins with rippling cymbals and then gushes into a flood of taps and twirls, all in unison. They are smiling, and we are allowed for once, or perhaps just finally noticing, their expressions. They are grinning like fools. Her loose hair bounces on her shoulders as they throw themselves into a high-stepping trot, their arms about each other’s waists. They really look like they are having a ball, in their own little world.

New Year's Eve at "Holiday Inn" (1942)

“Holiday Inn” (1942) gives us a brief New Year’s Eve scene, which though released during the first year of our involvement in World War II, gives us no indication of any war theme or trouble brewing for the new year.

Except for the Independence Day scene where a musical montage shows us fighting men, factory war production, Douglas MacArthur, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, most of this film is blissfully unaware of the war overseas, or gas rationing, food ration stamps and points. Among the inn’s guests, there is conspicuously not a uniform in sight.

The film begins on Christmas Eve, in what is evidently the year 1940, and there are actually three Christmas Eves that occur before the conclusion. In the New Year’s Eve scenes, which must be as 1941 turns into 1942, there is not a mention of the catastrophic Pearl Harbor bombing with brought us into the war only some three weeks previously to the donning of paper hats.

But paper hats there are galore in Bing Crosby’s new Holiday Inn which celebrates its grand opening in this New Year’s Eve party. There are a few tuxedos among the guests, a few furs, but most of the men are dressed in suits, and among the women there are even knit tops with skirts, as if the more austere war years have indeed made their presence known even if not openly discussed in the movie. Fred Astaire, who makes a drunken arrival after being left by his dance partner and fiancée, looks overdressed in his top hat, white tie and tails. The similar absence of elegant Easter finery in the Easter sequence of this film was discussed last April in this entry.

The New Year’s Eve scene begins with newspaper clippings that tell of the opening of the Inn, and Bing and Marjorie Reynolds sing “Come to Holiday Inn” to a full house.

If the traffic noise affects you
Like a squeaky violin,
Kick your cares down the stairs
And come to Holiday Inn.

The Inn’s cook, Mamie, played by Louise Beavers wears an enormous chef’s hat, and when her poker-faced kids are not taking part in the floor show dressed as Father Time and Baby New Year, they are shadowing her wherever she goes. Miss Beavers in real life did not like to cook, despite playing cooks and servants throughout her film career, and very prudently married a man who was a chef.

Bing and Marjorie, along with Mamie and the kids, and a few hired waitresses, hide out in the kitchen, help themselves to some food, and sing “Kissing the Old Year Out.” They do not actually kiss the old year out, in fact, nobody does. We hear the shouts of Happy New Year from the other room, and Bing and Marjorie get back out onto the dance floor, where everybody is dancing and Fred shows up a little drunk and despondent. When he dances with Marjorie, he decides she is his new dance partner and his new love. Bing and Fred spend the rest of the movie stealing her away from each other.

The drunken dance number Fred Astaire performs with Marjorie Reynolds is quite stunning in its athleticism. To continually stumble, wobble, and nearly collapse but not quite would likely take more energy than to do the dance properly. He does fall spectacularly on the floor at the end, perhaps helped by what is reported as his having taken several drinks of bourbon before each take of this number to help him play it convincingly.

No one says, “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” Everybody says “Happy New Year!”

End of the Movie Musical Era

It is an interesting paradox that just as movie musicals were coming into their own in terms of technology (Technicolor, VistaVision, etc.), and achieving an art form status, such as “An American in Paris” (1951), the era folded like a house of cards.

When “White Christmas” (1954) was released, Rosemary Clooney was predicted to have a successful career in movie musicals ahead of her, but instead that movie was the pinnacle of her film career, and she found her success instead in television, recording, and live performances. Vera-Ellen, an astonishingly talented dancer, would make only a couple more films before her career ended, in part due to personal circumstances, and in part due to film coming of age with more realistic styles and themes.

“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) is lauded as the best movie musical ever made, and though Gene Kelly did some of his best work in the 1950s, the sand was running out of the hourglass. Fred Astaire’s career may have become reborn after his retirement, with films like “The Band Wagon” (1953) and “Funny Face” (1957), but it was also the era of “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951), “Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957), “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) and “On the Waterfront” (1954).

Rather like a Fourth of July sparkler bursting forth its last white-hot light before abruptly puffing out and leaving only smoke and darkness, the era of Hollywood musicals was ostensibly over after the 1950s. Blockbuster musicals of the 1960s tended to be Broadway shows transferred to film, with big names for the box office.

“White Christmas” is reported to be one of the most-watched films of the Christmas season. I’m not sure how many people gather annually to watch “On the Waterfront,” as good as it was. Even poor old Blanche DuBois of “Streetcar Named Desire” remarked, “I don’t want realism. I want magic.”

"Franksgiving"

In the Thanksgiving scene in “Holiday Inn,” Bing Crosby plays a recording of himself singing “I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For” while he dejectedly plays with his food, an enormous turkey and all the trimmings. Louise Beavers, who plays his cook, Mamie, sets the feast before him, and then berates him for letting Fred Astaire steal Marjorie Reynolds away.

Wondering if he is really going to eat all that food by himself, and wondering if Mamie and her tagalong children are going to get to eat any of it, is only part of the viewer’s preoccupation with this scene. The other distracting mystery is the brief black and white animation which prefaces this scene, wherein a cartoon turkey sitting on a calendar page suddenly hoists himself up and walks over to the highlighted Thursday the week before. No sooner has he settled himself down, that the box marking the fourth Thursday in November is highlighted as Thanksgiving, and he must hoist himself up again, with no small ruffling of the feathers, to waddle down to the Thursday he had previously occupied. The turkey is repeatedly teased in this manner, and so are we, until he finally shrugs denoting his confusion.

Younger viewers may think that Thanksgiving is all about the Pilgrims and all that, but modern Thanksgiving is also about commerce, in so far as it leads into the holiday shopping season. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, still trying to jump start us out of the Depression, in one of his many grab you by the socks legislative moves, pushed Thanksgiving 1939 up a week, to the third Thursday of November. This was intended to extend the holiday shopping season. Most Americans followed the President’s lead, but interestingly, many New Englanders refused to follow suit and continued to celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday. They called the Thursday before “Franksgiving.” New Englanders, particularly those residing in Massachusetts, always took a rather proprietary view of Thanksgiving, and until roughly about the late 1940s it was a much bigger holiday in New England than Christmas ever was.

The dispute over which was the real Thanksgiving Day continued in 1940 and 1941, and afterward Congress capitulated to tradition and voted to return Thanksgiving Day to the fourth Thursday of November. The reference to this in “Holiday Inn” is one of those small but interesting Zeitgeist moments to watch for in old Hollywood films.

Louise Beavers

Louise Beavers reportedly aspired to be a physician when she was a young woman, but opportunities were limited for women in the early part of the 20th century, especially if they were not well to do, and particularly if they were African-American. She trail-blazed in another way, becoming the first African-American actress to play a substantial role on film that showed a multi-dimensional character.

“Imitation of Life” (1934) was Miss Beavers’ most prominent role, sharing the spotlight and the storyline equally with star Claudette Colbert. The story of a woman whose light-skinned daughter callously rejects her mother in attempting to pass for a white woman cut to the heart of a racist Hollywood and a racist America, drawing controversy from both white and black commentators. It was also the story of a career woman, who begins as a simple cook but who becomes a famous entrepreneur and merchandiser not only of her own product but her own image. Many felt at the time that Miss Beavers was robbed when her performance was not acknowledged with an Academy Award nomination.

It was an important role in a potentially important film, but after that a string of the regular domestic servant roles became the mainstay of Louise Beavers’ career. However, she played opposite some of Hollywood’s most glamorous stars, including Mae West, Jean Harlow, with whom she appeared in “Bombshell,” and Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in “Holiday Inn.”

Later, Miss Beavers broke new ground again by starring in “Beulah,” the first TV sitcom to feature an African-American. Three other actresses also took turns at that character, one of them being her good friend, Hattie McDaniel, who also knew something about the trials of reaching for success in Hollywood while dressed in a maid’s costume. These two ladies were character actresses who could have been, and should have been, stars.

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Fred Astaire reprises his Broadway role in “The Gay Divorcée” (1934) as a rascally hoofer, who in this film wanders among night clubbers in Paris and London with his pal Edward Everett Horton, falls in love with an uninterested Ginger Rogers and spends most of the film trying to get her interested.

Ginger has her own predicament, stuck in a loveless marriage and turning to lawyer Horton to arrange a divorce. Mr. Horton arranges for her to be caught with a hired professional corespondent in order that her husband might be enraged into divorcing her.

Edward Everett Horton, who always seems somewhat like an upper class Gomer Pyle, has some fun scenes as a bumbling second banana, and even gets to sing and caper a bit with a young Betty Grable in the “Let’s Knock Knees” number. Alice Brady is the scatterbrained man-chasing aunt of Ginger who gets some good lines, and Erik Rhodes, who, like Fred Astaire, reprises his Broadway role as Rudolfo Tonetti, a gloriously absurd professional homewrecker and operatic tenor.

It is difficult to listen to the wonderfully precise intonations of Mr. Horton without being reminded of his narration of the “Fractured Fairy Tales” on “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

Though some smart aleck remarks by just about everybody keep the comic ball rolling, the film is a bit slow moving, particular at the beginning, and we see right off in the “Looking for a Needle in a Haystack” number an early example of Mr. Astaire’s agility and inventiveness in dancing all over furniture. The film is a time capsule of 1934, with platinum blondes with short, bouncy curls, bathing suits with belts, pleated trousers, architecture held together with chrome and black lacquer, and enough Art Deco accoutrements to choke a horse.

They end up at a seaside resort where the meridian lines painted on the shiny floor of an outdoor courtyard/dance floor are intended to give the set some depth. Here Ginger and the pseudo-suave Tonetti are to engage in a pretend tryst. No fear for Ginger, as Tonetti proudly exclaims his motto, “Your wife is safe with Tonetti. He prefers spaghetti.”

But Fred intervenes and there is a case of mistaken identity when Ginger thinks he is the hired corespondent. Ginger changes into a negligee with more doodads on it than a drum majorette’s costume, and Tonetti eventually arrives with his concertina and, all business, slips into a smoking jacket, the standard uniform of roués.

The big production number here is “The Continental,” which won the Academy Award for Best Music and Best Original Song. It is a very long staged number, where after Fred and Ginger get their turn, an army of dancers flows onto the set like locusts in an assortment of black and white evening attire. They form geometric patterns and eventually become increasingly acrobatic, like a Superbowl halftime show.

Eric Blore, in his typical oily, comic, but clever servant’s role, comes inadvertently to the rescue and Fred and Ginger leave us with another waltz over the furniture in her suite. It was their second of ten films together, and by now the pattern was as set as their remarkably precise and impeccably structured dancing.

Here is a bit of Fred and Ginger dancing “The Continental.”

A Question of Favortism

I have a question of favoritism, rather than favorites, in the old movies you watch. I’d like to know which movie or movies are the ones you watch most often. Old movie buffs, unlike people who just like to watch movies, tend to watch the same films over and over with anal fascination over already well-known details. We always manage to find something new we had not noticed before, or suck the life out of something we already knew was there. There is an eye for detail, and a childlike ability to hear the same favorite story now matter that you already know how it ends. It is a sickness, perhaps.

So, please let me know which films are the ones you’ve seen most often. Not your favorites, because we tend to shift in our moods from time to time and when a Fred Astaire movie will do for us one day, another time it will be only Alice Faye or nothing. Which films have you worn out the DVD or VHS tape, or never missed when you saw it in the TV listings, even if it meant missing work or your daughter’s wedding? Which films, and if you dare, how many times?

Easter Parade

“Easter Parade” (1948) set in 1911-1912, showcases Irving Berlin’s Tin Pan Alley hits, and one hit of the Great Depression, which was the song “Easter Parade.” The film opens on the day before Easter, and just as Fred Astaire’s spending spree to buy flowers, a hat, and a stuffed bunny for Ann Miller indicate, it once was really the busiest shopping day of the year.

When Ann dumps Fred for bigger things (just as the aforementioned lout Lee Bowman in “My Dream is Yours”) Fred snatches Judy Garland from the gutter pretty much as Jack Carson snatches Doris Day in “My Dream is Yours,” and pushes her to become his new singing and dancing partner.

They rehearse for the first time on Easter Sunday, and she gets a glimpse of the Easter Parade and the beautiful people strolling home from church to see and be seen.

Judy Garland is clearly Fred Astaire’s equal in dancing, and she makes one of his most delightful partners. Their “A Couple of Swells” routine is now classic. Two people in shabby clothes and blacked out teeth never looked so good. The rolling backdrop behind them as they sing “we’ll walk up the avenue” reprises the Easter Parade theme of strolling along with the swells.

Another fun number is “Girl On A Magazine Cover,” which displays elegant fashions and a riot of colors. It’s interesting to note how many of these old-time magazines (Redbook, Harper’s, etc.) are still being published.

Judy, his protégé, makes good and their act is a success. That they fall in love is of course inevitable, and she reverses the roles at the end of the film on the following Easter Sunday by presenting Fred with a top hat “bonnet”, flowers, candy, and a live rabbit, singing to him the song “Easter Parade.” The final shot is Judy and Fred strolling down Fifth Avenue with the wealthy fashion setters, in nice clothes and no blacked-out teeth.

Irving Berlin, responsible for this and all the songs in the film, emigrated to the US from Russia with his family in 1893. Jerome Kern, asked of his opinion of Berlin’s place in American music famously replied, “Irving Berlin IS American music.” Berlin was one of our most prolific, and most patriotic, songwriters. That he celebrated secular aspects of Christmas and Easter so successfully may be due to his realization that compromise, rather than exclusion, is the true American trait. Or, it may due to his being a Jewish man who was happily married to a Roman Catholic woman, which upset both their families, and he learned firsthand the benefits of compromise that sometimes leads to the development of a new, shared heritage. The American secular holiday created just such a new, shared heritage, including an Easter with flowers, fashions, candy, and songs, and movies which celebrated them.

That’s it for this week. See you next week, and Happy Easter.

Easter In Hollywood - 1949

Easter in the old movies comes to us in fashion, flowers, and songs. The two films, “Easter Parade” and “My Dream is Yours” give us plenty of these, along with colors of the rainbow like so much Easter egg dye.

Though Cecil B. DeMille may have tackled both the story of Christ and the story of Moses, a holiday like Easter was usually presented its most secular clothing. But, Hollywood did not create this new Easter, it merely exploited it.

As far back as the mid-1900s, Easter began a new secular role when New York City’s Fifth Avenue became the site of the so-called “Easter Parade,” when the wealthy classes strolled home from church in the latest European fashions, watched with fascination by the working class people who hovered on the edges of society. This is the world Judy Garland gets a glimpse of as a young, awkward hoofer in “Easter Parade.”

As the 20th Century dawned, other cities picked up this craze, and after World War I, when the boom of the 1920s put more money in the working man’s pockets, the idea of springtime fashions became possible for everyone. Amid the frenzied commercial cult of the 1920s, new clothes were requisite for the entire family. Milliners were as important to life then as the milkman. One didn’t leave home without a hat, and if a holiday required new clothes, then it also required new hats. The Easter bonnet was born.

The holiday spending spread to candy, flowers, and small toys in the shape of rabbits and chicks. In some cities, the biggest shopping day of the year, right through the Depression, was not the day after Thanksgiving as it is now, but Holy Saturday.

By 1948-49, which gave us “Easter Parade” and “My Dream is Yours” there were more families, more kiddies, and more money. Freddie, the little boy of single mom Doris Day in “My Dream is Yours” gets showered with presents of toy rabbits by all the adults.

The song Fred Astaire sings while chapeau shopping in “Easter Parade” is called “Happy Easter,” and on his radio show on April 17, 1949, Easter Sunday, Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone sing this song while they take their listeners on an imaginary Easter parade up Wiltshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, touting the movie. One of the passers by they “meet,” incidentally, is played by Sheldon Leonard, who has a minor role in “My Dream is Yours,” and also a character played by Mel Blanc, who does the voice of Bugs Bunny in the animated sequence in “My Dream is Yours.” Before we get into playing Six Degrees of Sheldon Leonard, let’s note that by the following year, 1950, Gene Autry released his hit, “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” and the American suburban Easter was firmly in place, planted by Hollywood. The “bunny trail” was the back yard.

The whole family may not get new Easter clothes anymore, but the candy makers still do a brisk business, and these two movies remain to tell us a lot about how things used to be.

More tomorrow on “Easter Parade” and “My Dream is Yours.”