Having been tagged by J. C. Loophole over at The Shelf (and bearing the angry red dodgeball welts on my forehead) to partake of a little favorite Christmas musical performances meme, mine are as follows:
When it comes to Christmas music in general, I’m partial to any performance, TV, CD, in person or otherwise by soprano Kathleen Battle accompanied by classical guitarist Christopher Parkening. But, since this is Another OLD MOVE Blog, I’m going to sort through only those performances you can find in old movies.
1. “I’ll Be Seeing You” (1945). Joseph Cotten, Ginger Rogers, Tom Tully, Spring Byington, and Shirley Temple all sit around the dining room table singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” It is homey, amateur night, and I like the way Cotten sings a little off the others. He is the stranger in the house trying to fit in, and he makes a game try with his touchingly pathetic warbling.
2. “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944). Judy Garland pacifying little sister Margaret O’Brien after little Margaret freaks out and attempts a mass murder on the snowmen in the yard. Judy sings the really more-sad-than-cheerful “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which says so much more about Christmas during wartime when the film was made than it does about St. Louis in 1904.
3. “White Christmas” (1954). Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen’s singing double singing “Snow”. I like it because it is staged like a Busbee Berkeley chorus number, yet nobody gets out of his seat. I also like it because it takes place on a train, and I love trains more than I love people. (Oh dear. That sounds a bit mentally unbalanced. It’s not true. I only love trains more than I love some people. Better?)
4. “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) discussed here, I like this moment with the Mitchell Boys Choir coming together bit by bit as each boy arrives to take the individual parts and meld them into a choir. We should all work so well together.
5. “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946). At the very end of the movie, James Stewart and gang sing “Auld Lang Synge” and by this time, I am usually sobbing and singing with them. The sobbing almost always starts when his brother Harry raises his glass and says, “To my brother George, the richest man in town.” Cue sob.
6. “Holiday Inn” (1942). Where Bing gives us “White Christmas” for the first time, tapping his pipe on the bell decorations on the tree.
7. “White Christmas” (1954). Where Bing gives us “White Christmas” for the second time, at the very end of the movie where the camera pans back and we see all the soldiers at the reunion table hopping, raising glasses, and little girls hugging their daddies.
8. “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945), discussed here, when James Dunn helps his kids lug the Christmas Tree up several flights of their tenement building, his wavering tenor leading everybody in “Silent Night” while the neighbors come out to enjoy the sight, and Peggy Ann Garner’s face lights up. I’m not sure I could sing while lugging a large tree up several flights of stairs, but I would give it my best try if somebody really needed me to.
9. “Meet John Doe” (1941), discussed here, in which rapacious and power hungry would-be despot Edward Arnold listens morosely, but perhaps pensively, to the soft chorus of Christmas carolers outside his mansion on Christmas Eve, and he puts a tip for them on his butler’s grog tray. The music is brief, but feels like a benediction. If only he would take it that way, rather than an annoyance.
10. “Christmas in Connecticut” (1945), in which Dennis Morgan sings "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" at the piano while Barbara Stanwyck decorates the tree, but concentrating more on Morgan. It is the perfect Christmas scene, and it’s being fake to trick Morgan and Sydney Greenstreet, who are willing participants in this “Christmas play” only makes the scene more loveable.
People who celebrate Christmas should sing, no matter how lousy our voices, no matter if there’s no piano or Dennis Morgan. It is perhaps the only time anymore that many of us know the words to the same songs.
“Popular” music is no longer universal. There was a time when singalongs were easy because everybody knew the same songs. Now with so many types of popular music catering to different tastes, we’re not on the same page anymore, unless we happen to be in a room with people our age group, with our exact same musical preferences.
Christmas songs cater to neither young or old, city or rural. If you know some, you learned them as a child. For the rest of your life, you’ll fit into any makeshift street carolers or living room chorus, just like Joseph Cotten, who has a hard time fitting in any place after his bad war experience.
Just like James Stewart, who finds his way back to his community after a frightening “Twilight Zone” nightmare, and celebrates both his victory and his gratitude with a song.
Just like the old soldiers who sing at their reunion at Dean Jagger’s Vermont inn, who are far away from their homes this Christmas Eve, but the song “White Christmas”, sung anywhere, can instantly bring us home again.
Thanks to J. C. for tagging me for this fun meme. Off to pick up some salve for the dodgeball welts. I won’t tag anyone, because I’m still in the middle of wrapping presents and I ran out of tags.
Showing posts with label The Bishop's Wife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Bishop's Wife. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
In this season of Hanukkah and Christmas, though miracles are commemorated, they are seldom looked for anymore, or at least seldom recognized. “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) presents the intriguing Christmas card type setting awash in post-war cynicism. Cary Grant is the suave and charming angel with the California tan, whose presence is by turns eerily threatening as it is comforting.
David Niven plays the Episcopalian bishop who has turned from parish vicar to corporate CEO in his drive to build a new cathedral. He matches Cary Grant perfectly in his comic timing, since the sight of a dignified man struggling to maintain his dignity under absurd circumstances is frequently hysterical. Niven’s scenes in the wealthy lady’s mansion with the wealthy lady’s expensive chair inexplicably stuck to his bottom are among his best. His embarrassment and distress grow acutely each time the butler makes an entrance.
An interesting aspect to the character is that maintaining his dignity has become more important to him than maintaining his faith, and both dignity and faith have been pushed aside for ambition as he obsesses so much over obtaining donations for his new cathedral. He is willing to sell out his principles to court the golden pocketbook of the always magnificent Gladys Cooper.
When she asks that the a depiction of St. George resemble her late husband in the new cathedral icon of St. George and the Dragon, Niven asks her quite seriously, “Who do you see as the dragon?”
Loretta Young plays his radiant wife, and though as appealing as ever, Miss Young hasn’t much to do in this film except enjoy Cary Grant’s company, which must have been easy.
The character actors, as always in any film, make this one come alive and by the end of the film seem like our extended family: Elsa Lanchester as the maid, whose precise intonation and crisp consonants alone endear her to me; James Gleason as Sylvester the cab driver, and the lovably crusty Monty Woolley as the professor of antiquities who claims to have no faith, but who keeps a Charlie Brown tree in his flat to remind him of his boyhood.
That’s the kind of faith a lot of people fall back on this season, not so much faith in a divine presence or in the miracles these holidays represent, but a comforting memory of childhood. “It gives me the illusion of peace on earth, good will to men,” Woolley tells Grant of his tree. A tree gives him this sensation, not faith, not hope, and it is not a real sensation of peace anyway, it is only to him, an illusion.
Mr. Grant’s penetrating gaze and implacable, insinuating smile are priceless, both funny and edgy. Though he enchants the ladies, his is a sly smile, not beatific. When Niven doubts Grant’s being an angel, Grant offers, “As you’re walking through the streets of the city, you may suddenly look into a strange face. It may be the face of a murderer. Or, it may be the face of an angel.”
It’s the kind of remark and delivery you might see in a Hitchcock film, so challenging and so chilling. Mr. Niven demands Mr. Grant perform miracles that he might believe in him, and Grant teasingly shames Niven, a bishop, for his lack of faith without the miracles.
As it is, his angel character does pull off a few party tricks as miracles in the film: Monty Woolley’s wine that never depletes, the instantly decorated Christmas tree, the skating party where Loretta Young and James Gleason could quit their jobs as cab driver and bishop’s wife and go join the Ice Capades. He can also make a typewriter type by itself without Dragon Naturally Speaking computer software.
The biggest miracle is one that Grant pulls off with the help of David Niven, giving Niven the push he needed to do the miracle himself, which is to give up his notion of erecting a cathedral that would only be a monument to wealth, and instead returning to his roots as a shepherd of his flock and helping the poor.
One needs two things to perform miracles it seems. One is the determination to do so. Second, is a sense of wonder. As we see with the professor, who Grant inspires to finish his lifelong work of writing a text on ancient history, a sense of wonder is fertile ground for miracles. Perhaps that’s why he, and many of us, prefer to use the holidays as an opportunity to re-live our childhoods. There is no greater sense of wonder felt than when one is a child. Miracles are possible then.
Grant’s last miracle is to un-bewitch Loretta Young, driving her back to her husband simply by forcing her to choose her husband’s love when Grant comes close to declaring his love for her. He has also, by this time, made Niven so jealous, that Niven is forced to fight for his wife, and their marriage is strengthened simply by deciding themselves that they want to be married to each other.
When Cary Grant bows out, gracefully, he bids goodbye to Niven and steps, surprisingly, into the camera instead of away from it. As if he is stepping right into us. It’s a nice effect, making the final, and inevitable, shot of Grant walking away in the snow a bit of a letdown. Ending with the previous shot would have been more powerful, if less poetic. But no one sees him but us, and none of these people whose lives he has touched will remember his presence among them. He wanders off to his next assignment, never to return lest he become too attached to these mortals. Are all angels so lonely?
Or do we project our loneliness onto them? In this season of miracles, the irony is that though we take such elaborate preparations this time of year to remind ourselves that they exist, we still have a hard time accepting that they do. How ironic that these Christmas movies often do not really remind us of a miracle of peace on earth, good will to men, as much as they do to remind us of our own cynicism.
David Niven plays the Episcopalian bishop who has turned from parish vicar to corporate CEO in his drive to build a new cathedral. He matches Cary Grant perfectly in his comic timing, since the sight of a dignified man struggling to maintain his dignity under absurd circumstances is frequently hysterical. Niven’s scenes in the wealthy lady’s mansion with the wealthy lady’s expensive chair inexplicably stuck to his bottom are among his best. His embarrassment and distress grow acutely each time the butler makes an entrance.
An interesting aspect to the character is that maintaining his dignity has become more important to him than maintaining his faith, and both dignity and faith have been pushed aside for ambition as he obsesses so much over obtaining donations for his new cathedral. He is willing to sell out his principles to court the golden pocketbook of the always magnificent Gladys Cooper.
When she asks that the a depiction of St. George resemble her late husband in the new cathedral icon of St. George and the Dragon, Niven asks her quite seriously, “Who do you see as the dragon?”
Loretta Young plays his radiant wife, and though as appealing as ever, Miss Young hasn’t much to do in this film except enjoy Cary Grant’s company, which must have been easy.
The character actors, as always in any film, make this one come alive and by the end of the film seem like our extended family: Elsa Lanchester as the maid, whose precise intonation and crisp consonants alone endear her to me; James Gleason as Sylvester the cab driver, and the lovably crusty Monty Woolley as the professor of antiquities who claims to have no faith, but who keeps a Charlie Brown tree in his flat to remind him of his boyhood.
That’s the kind of faith a lot of people fall back on this season, not so much faith in a divine presence or in the miracles these holidays represent, but a comforting memory of childhood. “It gives me the illusion of peace on earth, good will to men,” Woolley tells Grant of his tree. A tree gives him this sensation, not faith, not hope, and it is not a real sensation of peace anyway, it is only to him, an illusion.
Mr. Grant’s penetrating gaze and implacable, insinuating smile are priceless, both funny and edgy. Though he enchants the ladies, his is a sly smile, not beatific. When Niven doubts Grant’s being an angel, Grant offers, “As you’re walking through the streets of the city, you may suddenly look into a strange face. It may be the face of a murderer. Or, it may be the face of an angel.”
It’s the kind of remark and delivery you might see in a Hitchcock film, so challenging and so chilling. Mr. Niven demands Mr. Grant perform miracles that he might believe in him, and Grant teasingly shames Niven, a bishop, for his lack of faith without the miracles.
As it is, his angel character does pull off a few party tricks as miracles in the film: Monty Woolley’s wine that never depletes, the instantly decorated Christmas tree, the skating party where Loretta Young and James Gleason could quit their jobs as cab driver and bishop’s wife and go join the Ice Capades. He can also make a typewriter type by itself without Dragon Naturally Speaking computer software.
The biggest miracle is one that Grant pulls off with the help of David Niven, giving Niven the push he needed to do the miracle himself, which is to give up his notion of erecting a cathedral that would only be a monument to wealth, and instead returning to his roots as a shepherd of his flock and helping the poor.
One needs two things to perform miracles it seems. One is the determination to do so. Second, is a sense of wonder. As we see with the professor, who Grant inspires to finish his lifelong work of writing a text on ancient history, a sense of wonder is fertile ground for miracles. Perhaps that’s why he, and many of us, prefer to use the holidays as an opportunity to re-live our childhoods. There is no greater sense of wonder felt than when one is a child. Miracles are possible then.
Grant’s last miracle is to un-bewitch Loretta Young, driving her back to her husband simply by forcing her to choose her husband’s love when Grant comes close to declaring his love for her. He has also, by this time, made Niven so jealous, that Niven is forced to fight for his wife, and their marriage is strengthened simply by deciding themselves that they want to be married to each other.
When Cary Grant bows out, gracefully, he bids goodbye to Niven and steps, surprisingly, into the camera instead of away from it. As if he is stepping right into us. It’s a nice effect, making the final, and inevitable, shot of Grant walking away in the snow a bit of a letdown. Ending with the previous shot would have been more powerful, if less poetic. But no one sees him but us, and none of these people whose lives he has touched will remember his presence among them. He wanders off to his next assignment, never to return lest he become too attached to these mortals. Are all angels so lonely?
Or do we project our loneliness onto them? In this season of miracles, the irony is that though we take such elaborate preparations this time of year to remind ourselves that they exist, we still have a hard time accepting that they do. How ironic that these Christmas movies often do not really remind us of a miracle of peace on earth, good will to men, as much as they do to remind us of our own cynicism.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Bob Anderson - Young George Bailey
It was announced over the weekend that Mr. Bob Anderson died, who you will remember as Bobby Anderson, the boy who played young George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
Mr. Anderson had bit parts in other notable films of the era, including “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945), “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) and “Samson and Delilah” (1949). According to the IMDb website, his last role on camera was in the Disney serial “The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty” (1956). Those of you who remember the “Triple R” song (“Way up there on the Triple R, Yippee-ay, Yippeeo/The horses there are the best by far, Yippee-ay, Yippeeo”) may now sing.
In after years Bob Anderson worked in production behind the camera, but because of that role as young George, who saved a family from getting the wrong medicine at the hands of the distraught druggist, Mr. Gower, and getting slapped around for it, Anderson enjoys a sentimental immortality. It’s true what our teachers told us. Things we do at 12 years old remain on our Permanent Record.
For more on the life and career of Bob Anderson, see this obituary.
Mr. Anderson had bit parts in other notable films of the era, including “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945), “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) and “Samson and Delilah” (1949). According to the IMDb website, his last role on camera was in the Disney serial “The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty” (1956). Those of you who remember the “Triple R” song (“Way up there on the Triple R, Yippee-ay, Yippeeo/The horses there are the best by far, Yippee-ay, Yippeeo”) may now sing.
In after years Bob Anderson worked in production behind the camera, but because of that role as young George, who saved a family from getting the wrong medicine at the hands of the distraught druggist, Mr. Gower, and getting slapped around for it, Anderson enjoys a sentimental immortality. It’s true what our teachers told us. Things we do at 12 years old remain on our Permanent Record.
For more on the life and career of Bob Anderson, see this obituary.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Regis Toomey
Regis Toomey started his film career as a lead, who very quickly drifted into character roles. He previously did musical stage work as well, before laryngitis took that option away from him.
He played romantic leads against the reigning actresses of the early 1930s, but by 1941 we see him in smaller roles, like Bert Hansen the soda jerk in “Meet John Doe.” Though he plays a minor role, Toomey seems more the everyman character in that movie than that demonstrated by lead Gary Cooper’s John Willoughby character, more the small-town yokel struggling to get by. He seems more genuine if only because he is less romantic, has less of that aura of mystery. We think we already know him, and maybe we do.
Regis Toomey is also one of the remorseless ambulance-chasing reporters in “His Girl Friday,” and he played a string of detectives and reporters, and a few uncredited roles as his career progressed through the 1940s and 1950s, until television gave him, like so many character actors, new ground and new opportunities for work.
But you see him in the big ones, “The Big Sleep,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound,” “Sister Kenny,” and “The Bishop’s Wife,” as well as less memorable B-movies. There was an average Joe quality about him, but comparing the moral ambiguity of the reporter in “His Girl Friday” with the open-hearted and guileless Bert Hansen, we can see there really was more there than just the guy we think we know.
He played romantic leads against the reigning actresses of the early 1930s, but by 1941 we see him in smaller roles, like Bert Hansen the soda jerk in “Meet John Doe.” Though he plays a minor role, Toomey seems more the everyman character in that movie than that demonstrated by lead Gary Cooper’s John Willoughby character, more the small-town yokel struggling to get by. He seems more genuine if only because he is less romantic, has less of that aura of mystery. We think we already know him, and maybe we do.
Regis Toomey is also one of the remorseless ambulance-chasing reporters in “His Girl Friday,” and he played a string of detectives and reporters, and a few uncredited roles as his career progressed through the 1940s and 1950s, until television gave him, like so many character actors, new ground and new opportunities for work.
But you see him in the big ones, “The Big Sleep,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound,” “Sister Kenny,” and “The Bishop’s Wife,” as well as less memorable B-movies. There was an average Joe quality about him, but comparing the moral ambiguity of the reporter in “His Girl Friday” with the open-hearted and guileless Bert Hansen, we can see there really was more there than just the guy we think we know.
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