Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Thursday, April 5, 2012
A Holiday Musical Interlude...
Louis Armstrong jazzes it up a little, but reverence can still be heard in that horn. Please scroll down to the bottom of the blog to mute the music so you can hear these videos.
Below, we have Jeannette MacDonald in “San Francisco” (1936) and “The Holy City”.
A blessed Passover, Easter, and Orthodox Easter to all who celebrate them.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Jessie Ralph
Jessie Ralph was born during the American Civil War and died during World War II. She appeared on Broadway in many of George M. Cohan’s shows, and came to Hollywood as an elderly woman. During the 1930s, when her most famous work was done, she was in her 70s.
Ms. Ralph plays the feisty Mrs. Burley in “San Francisco,” and W. C. Fields unbearable mother-in-law in “The Bank Dick” (1940), Greta Garbo’s maid in “Camille” (1936), and Aunt Katherine in “After the Thin Man” (1936). She was adept at comedy and drama, and was one of those charismatic actors who seem to draw all the attention when the camera was on her. She appeared in some 52 movies in a just seven-year span between 1933 and 1940, when she retired. I keep wondering if there’s some secret to longevity in these character actors. Maybe it’s just to keep working.
Sponsored Link:
Jessie Ralph Movies
Ms. Ralph plays the feisty Mrs. Burley in “San Francisco,” and W. C. Fields unbearable mother-in-law in “The Bank Dick” (1940), Greta Garbo’s maid in “Camille” (1936), and Aunt Katherine in “After the Thin Man” (1936). She was adept at comedy and drama, and was one of those charismatic actors who seem to draw all the attention when the camera was on her. She appeared in some 52 movies in a just seven-year span between 1933 and 1940, when she retired. I keep wondering if there’s some secret to longevity in these character actors. Maybe it’s just to keep working.
Sponsored Link:
Jessie Ralph Movies
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
San Francisco (1936) - Part 2
See Part 1 of "San Francisco" here.
MacDonald spends much of the movie torn between a choice of Gable or Holt, and it is Burley’s Irish mother, played by the delightful character actress Jessie Ralph who gives us a history, a background for this fascinating San Francisco of theirs, describing how she came to this place in 1851, sailing around the Horn, and who once loved a blackguard like Blackie but gave him up for a respectable marriage to a respectable man. She looks out from the magnificent windows of her colossal Nob Hill mansion and proclaims of her city, “Deep down underneath all our evil and sin we’ve got right here in San Francisco the finest set of human beings that was ever rounded up in one spot.”
But, she admonishes, “We can’t go on like this, sinful and blasphemous with no fear of God in our hearts.” She could be warning her of Blackie, but it is a portent of things to come, as if the coming earthquake might be divine retribution on a careless humanity. Up until this moment, it’s easy to forget that this is a movie about an earthquake because the buildup of human drama to it is so well done.
At the pivotal “Chicken’s Ball” where MacDonald is escorted by Burley, Della, one of Blackie’s many former girlfriends, played by Margaret Irving, tosses a five-dollar piece to Burley and delivers one of my favorite lines, “There’s a five spot, Brother. I’m buying back me introduction to you.”
With Blackie facing jail because of Burley, MacDonald wins the prize for Blackie with a spirited rendition of “San Francisco” vamping it coquettishly in a splendid rendition, making us believe San Francisco is indeed, the “heart of the golden west.”
Then the earthquake. Oh, yes, there was going to be an earthquake in this movie, too. The initial tremor lasts only a couple of minutes, but seems much longer, and the rest of the movie deals with vivid scenes of destruction and aftershocks, fire and terror, and the inevitable slow, dazed march of refugees out of the city.
The special effects of the film are quite good, but what is really excellent about the film is that the chaos is made more human than in what usually occurs in modern films. With our superior technology and computer graphics, we tend to lean more heavily on the razzle-dazzle and pay short shrift to the human emotion.
A dust-covered woman sits in shock at the only standing table in a room full of debris. A hand protrudes, searching, from a pile of rubble, then stiffens and falls limp. People try to help each other, others run away. There are happy reunions, and final partings. The city of which they were so proud and sang an anthem about moments before becomes their trap and tries to kill them.
Gable spends the rest of the movie in a panic trying to find MacDonald. An affecting scene occurs when he must tell old Mrs. Burley that her son has been found dead, and he can only hug her, and behind them, her magnificent Nob Hill mansion is dynamited to create a firebreak.
Eventually Gable locates Father Tim, who leads him to MacDonald at a makeshift tent city, singing “Nearer My God, To Thee” at the death of a child. Blackie has found Mary and then he finds God, and drops to his knees to give thanks.
There is a triumphant note at the end when the fire is out and all march up the hill to observe their city in ruins, singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and pledging to rebuild. It’s easy to look upon the faces of the younger extras, knowing that rebuilding to the young is an easy thing. It is far more affecting to see hope in the eyes of the elderly actors. Having to begin over and over again is the toughest thing we have to do. People who have lived a long life know that. People who’ve suffered earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes know that all too well.
MacDonald spends much of the movie torn between a choice of Gable or Holt, and it is Burley’s Irish mother, played by the delightful character actress Jessie Ralph who gives us a history, a background for this fascinating San Francisco of theirs, describing how she came to this place in 1851, sailing around the Horn, and who once loved a blackguard like Blackie but gave him up for a respectable marriage to a respectable man. She looks out from the magnificent windows of her colossal Nob Hill mansion and proclaims of her city, “Deep down underneath all our evil and sin we’ve got right here in San Francisco the finest set of human beings that was ever rounded up in one spot.”
But, she admonishes, “We can’t go on like this, sinful and blasphemous with no fear of God in our hearts.” She could be warning her of Blackie, but it is a portent of things to come, as if the coming earthquake might be divine retribution on a careless humanity. Up until this moment, it’s easy to forget that this is a movie about an earthquake because the buildup of human drama to it is so well done.
At the pivotal “Chicken’s Ball” where MacDonald is escorted by Burley, Della, one of Blackie’s many former girlfriends, played by Margaret Irving, tosses a five-dollar piece to Burley and delivers one of my favorite lines, “There’s a five spot, Brother. I’m buying back me introduction to you.”
With Blackie facing jail because of Burley, MacDonald wins the prize for Blackie with a spirited rendition of “San Francisco” vamping it coquettishly in a splendid rendition, making us believe San Francisco is indeed, the “heart of the golden west.”
Then the earthquake. Oh, yes, there was going to be an earthquake in this movie, too. The initial tremor lasts only a couple of minutes, but seems much longer, and the rest of the movie deals with vivid scenes of destruction and aftershocks, fire and terror, and the inevitable slow, dazed march of refugees out of the city.
The special effects of the film are quite good, but what is really excellent about the film is that the chaos is made more human than in what usually occurs in modern films. With our superior technology and computer graphics, we tend to lean more heavily on the razzle-dazzle and pay short shrift to the human emotion.
A dust-covered woman sits in shock at the only standing table in a room full of debris. A hand protrudes, searching, from a pile of rubble, then stiffens and falls limp. People try to help each other, others run away. There are happy reunions, and final partings. The city of which they were so proud and sang an anthem about moments before becomes their trap and tries to kill them.
Gable spends the rest of the movie in a panic trying to find MacDonald. An affecting scene occurs when he must tell old Mrs. Burley that her son has been found dead, and he can only hug her, and behind them, her magnificent Nob Hill mansion is dynamited to create a firebreak.
Eventually Gable locates Father Tim, who leads him to MacDonald at a makeshift tent city, singing “Nearer My God, To Thee” at the death of a child. Blackie has found Mary and then he finds God, and drops to his knees to give thanks.
There is a triumphant note at the end when the fire is out and all march up the hill to observe their city in ruins, singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and pledging to rebuild. It’s easy to look upon the faces of the younger extras, knowing that rebuilding to the young is an easy thing. It is far more affecting to see hope in the eyes of the elderly actors. Having to begin over and over again is the toughest thing we have to do. People who have lived a long life know that. People who’ve suffered earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes know that all too well.
Monday, August 27, 2007
San Francisco (1936) - Part 1
“San Francisco” (1936) recreates the raucous turn-of-the-20th Century Barbary Coast before our eyes with affectionate detail, and then destroys it before our eyes with the sudden shock of an earthquake.
The film takes us back to the months preceding the April 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the attention to detail of that period is worth noting. The sets, the embellishments of architecture and set dressing, the costumes are all wonderfully evocative. The film was made 30 years after the quake. One wonders if a film made today about a period of time 30 years ago, of the late 1970s, could be done with such accuracy without the temptation of caricature or mocking parody.
The film uses to extraordinary lengths an army of extras efficiently and realistically placed and choreographed. One never gets the sense that these are cattle waiting for the director to yell, “Action!” but rather citizens going about the minutiae of everyday life, and we have stumbled upon their private world.
The film could almost be called a musical as well, because there are several pieces of music heard throughout the movie, many popular songs, and most notably operatic scenes from “Faust” and “La Traviata” and the fabulous title song, “San Francisco.” Introduced in this film, the song is now one of the two designated official songs of the City of San Francisco, and has to be one of the very best love songs to a city ever written.
Clark Gable, the owner of a seedy club and his boyhood pal, Father Tim, played by Spencer Tracy, star along with Jeannette MacDonald, a woman all alone in the big city trying to pursue a career as a singer. When Gable interviews her for his club, all he cares about are her legs, and we see right off that Gable is incorrigible, selfish, and irresistibly virile.
His habit of flaunting his new girlfriends in front of old ones and a cocky habit of referring to himself in the third person could make Gable’s character Blackie unlikable, except that he has his charming moments of redemption. He donates an organ to Fr. Tim’s mission. He releases Mary, played by Miss MacDonald, from her contract to him to realize her dream of performing opera at the Tivoli Opera House. We see the endearing change come over him as he watches her perform beautifully in a life she was meant to live.
This is short-lived, however, and the plot takes many twists in the triangle relationship of MacDonald, Gable, and Jack Burley, played by Jack Holt, who wants to marry her. There is another triangle between Gable, MacDonald and Mr. Tracy, when Father Tim, fearing for MacDonald’s happiness and for her soul with scoundrel like Gable, interferes. Miss MacDonald does not make it easy for watchdog Father Tim, as she is the one who proposes to Gable, who bemusedly, if not insultingly agrees to let her “harpoon” him.
On the side we have a political election, a contest between Gable and Holt for control of the Barbary, and Gable postpones the marriage because, as he tells his bride to be, he doesn’t want to look foolish before his tough friends. On a side note, we see a cameo by young Tommy Bupp, who we last saw in “Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts” ( see entry August 22nd) and also a small part by Ted Healy, former ringleader of The Three Stooges as Mat, one of Gable’s performers.
Part 2 of “San Francisco” here.
The film takes us back to the months preceding the April 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the attention to detail of that period is worth noting. The sets, the embellishments of architecture and set dressing, the costumes are all wonderfully evocative. The film was made 30 years after the quake. One wonders if a film made today about a period of time 30 years ago, of the late 1970s, could be done with such accuracy without the temptation of caricature or mocking parody.
The film uses to extraordinary lengths an army of extras efficiently and realistically placed and choreographed. One never gets the sense that these are cattle waiting for the director to yell, “Action!” but rather citizens going about the minutiae of everyday life, and we have stumbled upon their private world.
The film could almost be called a musical as well, because there are several pieces of music heard throughout the movie, many popular songs, and most notably operatic scenes from “Faust” and “La Traviata” and the fabulous title song, “San Francisco.” Introduced in this film, the song is now one of the two designated official songs of the City of San Francisco, and has to be one of the very best love songs to a city ever written.
Clark Gable, the owner of a seedy club and his boyhood pal, Father Tim, played by Spencer Tracy, star along with Jeannette MacDonald, a woman all alone in the big city trying to pursue a career as a singer. When Gable interviews her for his club, all he cares about are her legs, and we see right off that Gable is incorrigible, selfish, and irresistibly virile.
His habit of flaunting his new girlfriends in front of old ones and a cocky habit of referring to himself in the third person could make Gable’s character Blackie unlikable, except that he has his charming moments of redemption. He donates an organ to Fr. Tim’s mission. He releases Mary, played by Miss MacDonald, from her contract to him to realize her dream of performing opera at the Tivoli Opera House. We see the endearing change come over him as he watches her perform beautifully in a life she was meant to live.
This is short-lived, however, and the plot takes many twists in the triangle relationship of MacDonald, Gable, and Jack Burley, played by Jack Holt, who wants to marry her. There is another triangle between Gable, MacDonald and Mr. Tracy, when Father Tim, fearing for MacDonald’s happiness and for her soul with scoundrel like Gable, interferes. Miss MacDonald does not make it easy for watchdog Father Tim, as she is the one who proposes to Gable, who bemusedly, if not insultingly agrees to let her “harpoon” him.
On the side we have a political election, a contest between Gable and Holt for control of the Barbary, and Gable postpones the marriage because, as he tells his bride to be, he doesn’t want to look foolish before his tough friends. On a side note, we see a cameo by young Tommy Bupp, who we last saw in “Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts” ( see entry August 22nd) and also a small part by Ted Healy, former ringleader of The Three Stooges as Mat, one of Gable’s performers.
Part 2 of “San Francisco” here.
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