Holiday Inn on the Radio with Gordon MacRae

Wishing you here in the U.S. a very peaceful and pleasant Thanksgiving, and to you, our neighbors in Canada, Mexico, and around the world...a more hopeful and happy beginning to the holiday season with Gordon MacRae's delightful radio show The Railroad Hour.  

The ambitious musical program, sponsored by the Association of American Railroads (in pre-Amtrak America, there were bushels of independent railroads in this country, passenger and freight) presented cut-down versions of stage and movie musicals and operettas. 

This episode is a version of the movie Holiday Inn (1942), starring Gordon in the Bing Crosby role, and Dorothy Warenskjold, lyric soprano for the San Francisco Opera, in the Marjorie Reynolds role.

I hope you have a chance to sit back and relax today or sometime this weekend with this cozy performance.  Blessings to you all.

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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 next book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.

Happy Thanksgiving - and a SALE!

If watching this movie is part of your Thanksgiving tradition, you might just be an old movie buff.  Wishing all our American readers a Happy Thanksgiving.

As long as I have you on the phone, I'll take this opportunity to mention as well that for the next several days, through Monday, November 27th, the eBook version of my book on the career of Ann Blyth -- Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. will be available at Amazon for half price. Because black Friday and cyber Monday are Thanksgiving traditions, too.  I guess.

Amazon has also included my book in its new "X-Ray" function which will allow for descriptions and explanations of names, places, and events by holding down on a highlighted word, to enhance your reading experience. In case you didn't know what the Copacabana was.

Happy Thanksgiving

To our American readers:  Happy Thanksgiving.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.  (As they say in Plymouth, Mass.)

Turkeys and Starlets - Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving brought out some weird impulses from Hollywood studio publicity departments. We often see among classic film blogs examples of this "art" this time of year. Here is a gallery of examples below -- and I am inevitably reminded of the prescient wisdom of young Teresa Wright, who had stipulated in her contract that she should not be required to pose in a publicity photo, "... looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving." We discussed her unique contract in this previous post.

And now, for a Thanksgiving roll call:

Judy Garland as a male Pilgrim.  She looks like she is befriending this bird, rather than stalking it.

Bette Davis as a female Pilgrim, who appears to be employing this turkey as a draft animal to pull the kiddie wagon full of bounty from the fields.  Or the prop department.

Barbara Bates, as a sexy Pilgrim who appears to be dressing up the turkey because they are going out on a date to have Thanksgiving dinner at the Mocambo.

Marilyn Monroe as a cutie pie sexy Pilgrim who does not appear particularly threatening to that turkey.  

Doris Day, with no cutie pie Pilgrim nonsense, appears ready to get down to business.  I can't think of a more grim publicity photo for Thanksgiving, and I suppose for that reason it just makes me laugh more than the others.  It's as if Alfred Hitchcock directed the photo shoot.

Ann Blyth managed to get a more dignified and pleasant-looking Thanksgiving photo shoot here at my other bog.

Though there could have been an ax hidden somewhere among the props, I suppose.

Recently, I had to stop my car only about a mile from my home to let a flock of wild turkeys half-fly, half-stumble across the road.  Doris Day was not chasing them, so I'm pretty sure they got away.

To all our American readers: Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving 101

For those of us in the U.S. about to celebrate Thanksgiving, we here at Another Old Movie Blog would like to help make your holiday preparations more successful. Last Thanksgiving was long time ago, and you’ve probably forgotten a lot about what to do.

Here is an informational film from our good friends at Instructional Films, Inc. to help you create the perfect feast and a most pleasant holiday. It was made in 1950. Take notes.

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

Now Playing - Shadow of the Thin Man

Before we leave the holiday of Thanksgiving entirely behind us, here is a look at an ad for “Shadow of the Thin Man”, which opened in many theaters on Thanksgiving Day, 1941. In the days before watching football on TV (or watching hours and hours of TCM), the movie theaters were packed on holidays, and Thanksgiving was an opportune release date for a new movie. Probably a lot of sleeping in the theater, with all that tryptophan.

Myrna Loy and William Powell take another turn at Nick and Nora Charles, stylish and witty detectives and social inebriates. Donna Reed plays a receptionist in this film, in what was her second movie.

In less than two weeks, we would be at war. Nick and Nora Charles would soon come to represent not so much modern glitz as nostalgia for the good old days when the modern world was less scary.

Roast Turkey Recipe

On this most American feast of feasts, there are inevitably questions, concerns, if not downright panic over how to properly prepare a Thanksgiving Dinner.

As an aid to our readers, I will elicit the help of two well-known chefs, Barbara Stanwyck, and Alan Hale, who, from “Stella Dallas” (1937), demonstrate for us the proper way to cook a turkey.

Pay attention. Take notes.

First: choose one extremely large turkey that has been hanging in the window of the butcher shop by its feet. Always buy a bird with the feet still on it. That’s how you know you have a good one. Never buy a bird that has been sealed in plastic. They don’t cook as well as an unwrapped turkey that you carry in your arms. This way, bits of fiber from your woolen coat sleeves stick to the skin of the turkey, and they taste good roasted.

Second: Wrestle with the turkey (minimum of two people needed for this step) for a few minutes to loosen the giblets inside.

Third: Shove it into an oven. Never mind stuffing it. Never mind putting it in a roasting pan. Those tactics are for amateurs. Real professional chefs never use roasting pans.

Fourth: Wrestle with the bird some more, taking it in and out of the oven several times before you finally close the oven door. This does nothing to affect the taste of the turkey, but you work up an appetite.

Finally: Close the oven door, leaving the feet exposed. As Mr. Hale remarks, “Of course, the feet don’t get very well done, but then I never cared for feet anyway.”

Try it today, and let me know how your Thanksgiving Dinner turns out.

Now, I’m off to wrestle with my turkey. Must fetch sports bra from the roasting pan.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Boris Karloff in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Boris Karloff, dressed as a pirate, rode down Broadway on a blustery cold November morning, on a float designed to look like pirate ship. In honor of Frankenstenia's Boris Karloff Blogathon, and in honor of Thanksgiving, we have a look today at Boris Karloff's participation in the 1950 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The New York Times reported the scene in its Friday, November 24th edition the following day. The giant balloons in the sky were nothing that would be familiar to today's cartoon-watching, video-game playing children. Sailing above them, were the un-merchandised and generic Dachshund, a Gnome, a Clown, and a Fish. The St. Bernadette Cadet Corps “blared the approach” of Boris Karloff, “the ‘bad man’ of the films, who, this time, was garbed as the swashbuckling Captain Hook, in command of his pirate ship and flanked by his buccaneers.”

Then the reporter notes that the cheers for Karloff erupted into a huge “din” for Hopalong Cassidy, played by William Boyd, “in full regalia.” We’ll discuss a film that parodied the “Hoppy” phenomenon of the early 1950s at a later time. For now, we have the image of the aging icon Karloff perhaps surpassed by a newer hero. But only temporarily, for Hopalong Cassidy is remembered now only by older Baby Boomers, and Karloff has achieved immortality, curiously not only for the body of his work, but also for the single role of Frankenstein’s Monster that shot him to stardom in middle age.

That was the early ‘30s, but by the late 1940s Mr. Karloff’s career was seemingly on the wane. His last film in the previous year of 1949 was “Abbot and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.” Despite the honor of having one’s name actually in the title of the movie, Mr. Karloff’s monster image now was poked fun at, his eerie screen persona perhaps demystified, if not actually debunked. It wasn’t that hard to do, for Mr. Karloff, as many have noted, conveyed a gentleness that brought a depth of humanity to his roles. We discussed Boris Karloff’s humanity, despite his monster image, a few weeks ago in this post. He wasn’t just Frankenstein’s Monster, he was Pagliaccio, Cyrano, and Hamlet, playing Frankenstein’s Monster. If Pagliaccio, Cyrano, and Hamlet did not speak majestic passages but, rather, grunted and stumbled around a lot.

He could also convey, superbly, heartrending innocence.

Boris Karloff’s stint on the parade route as Captain Hook was a day off from his current gig, which was to play the dual role of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in the Broadway musical “Peter Pan”, opposite fellow Hollywood escapee Jean Arthur in the title role. “Peter Pan” opened at the Imperial Theater on April 24, 1950. In early October, the play moved over to the St. James Theater, where it remained until January 27, 1951, for a total of 321 performances.

Author Beverly Bare Buehrer in her Boris Karloff: a Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1993) notes that the role was exhausting for a man of Karloff’s age (he would be 63 years old on November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day), with six costume changes, and three makeup changes. When the show closed in 1951, he then toured in the road production.

The opening night notices raved in delight at the turnabout for the old monster. The New York Journal American coyly noted, “Boris Karloff’s Captain Hook is no more scary than Boris Karloff’s Mr. Darling, who is no more scary than Tinker Bell.”

The New York Herald Tribune called Karloff “captivating.”

And the New York Times announced, “This is Mr. Karloff’s day of triumph.”

Did the kiddies waving at Captain Hook on the passing float know that? Or, were they just craning their heads, waiting for Hopalong Cassidy, who they knew from TV, a more intimate friendship because Hoppy was in their living rooms and not down at the neighborhood movie house (where he used to be the previous generation).

“He is at the top of his bent,” the Times crowed.

Did the parents of the kiddies pay special attention to the grand old thespian in the pirate costume, batting away the burst of snow flurries with his hook, and whisper to their children, “That’s him! That’s Frankenstein! That’s the Mummy!” while they disbelieved?

“Mr. Karloff is an actor of tenderness and humor, with an instinct for exact inflection,” so the New York Times lovingly paid the old monster tribute on his opening night on Broadway.

At the end of the parade route, Santa Claus, and parade marshal Jimmy Durante, and Hopalong Cassidy, and Boris Karloff extended their holiday greetings to the crowd in front of Macy’s. Perhaps that was the moment Karloff entered the pantheon of giants in the world of children, standing shoulder to shoulder with Hoppy and Santa, in front of a store with an enormous toy department.

He had entertained children before, on the screen, and privately in hospital wards, and on the Broadway stage. The recordings would follow, and his famous turn as the “Grinch”, which is still shown on television where Hoppy once ruled the roost but now no more. Boris’ magnificent “exact inflection” is heard every December by children sitting in front of…the television.

Perhaps in a way, that Thanksgiving Parade, rather than his opening night, was his “day of triumph”.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Grinch, and the same to Captain Hook.

Jerky Turkey (1945)

“Jerky Turkey” tells us practically nothing about the Pilgrims or the origins of the American Thanksgiving, but it tells us a lot about 1945, the year in which this cartoon was made.

Directed by Tex Avery, we see several of Avery’s customary exaggerations and sight gags which propel the story of a hapless and somewhat dopy Pilgrim hunting a turkey that is too clever for him.

What is especially interesting are the topical references to World War II made in several of the gags, such as the “Mayflower” being a Henry Kaiser ship, complete with a World War II era cannon mounted in the rear, and being convoyed on the journey across the Atlantic by Destroyers and aircraft carriers. Finally arriving in the New World, the Pilgrims are greeted by the sign “Was this trip really necessary?” Younger viewers may not get this, or the references to long lines for cigarettes or the black market, but this makes an otherwise foolish cartoon educational. Throw in some American Indian stereotypes and you have a pretty good picture of what popular entertainment was like, and where the mindset was, in the US in 1945.

Bill Thompson, who does the voice for the Pilgrim, is well known to voice actor fans as Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore in several Disney cartoons, as the ever irritating Droopy, and a regular cast member who voice several characters in the old “Fibber McGee and Molly” radio show.

The cartoon was released in April of 1945. By Thanksgiving of that year, the war would be over, and it would be the first Thanksgiving home for many returning service personnel. Nothing like the real “first” Thanksgiving of course, though just as blessed, but then this cartoon is nothing like the real “first” Thanksgiving, either.

Watch “Jerky Turkey” here, and pass the cranberry sauce. Happy Thanksgiving.

"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.