The 120 Screwball Years of Jean Arthur Blogathon is an event celebrating the life and career of the actress, hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema. For more information on participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

A Lady Takes a Chance

YouTube viewing 

Well, this movie sure has an unusual pairing: 30s romcom girl Jean Arthur, she of the squeaky voice and slightly-odd-but-still-cute looks, and John Wayne, on the verge of becoming the iconic superstar of the great John Ford westerns, together in a romantic comedy. Huh?

A Lady Takes a Chance realizes they’re an odd couple—from the perspective of a 21st century cinephile, she belongs with Jimmy Stewart and he belongs with Maureen O’Hara—but here they are. Can they believably fall in love with each other despite coming from not only different worlds but different genres?

The film begins with a message on title cards that has a surprising amount of resonance in 2020, a year that has made us all nostalgic for 2019:

“Once upon a time... It was so long ago that people drove sixty miles an hour, and skidded their tires, and drank three cups of coffee all at once, and ate big gobs of butter, and there were more fellows around than there were girls, and everybody was having a good time without knowing it, that’s when our story happened. Away back then... in 1938.

“And here’s hoping that ‘once upon a time’ goes on again some quick tomorrow. 

“Only better.”

Double Harness
TCM viewing

Often with old Hollywood movies, one gets a glimpse into the morality of the times they were made in, which were dramatically different from today. For one who never lived in those times, who only knows of them secondhand, it can drive one crazy to see—and by “one,” of course, I’m talking about Yours Truly, but it sounds fancier and more highfalutin’ if I phrase it that way, don’t you think?

I have trouble imagining real people acting the way they do in Double Harness, partly because it’s about rich white people who apparently have nothing better to do than play head games with each other over love and marriage, but also because the rules of the game, the implied moral code that defines their privileged and rarefied world, has little bearing on the 21st century world from which I’m observing. Most of the time, I can play along, accept this sort of thing at face value and say okay, I get it, this is how people acted back then and I just have to accept it. Sometimes, I can’t.

As I write this, it occurs to me that tone helps. If this was an Ernst Lubitsch comedy, it would’ve gone down much, much easier—but the women and men in this movie are so earnest about how they should behave towards each other, even when they do things they probably shouldn’t, it makes me wanna say “Get over yourselves!” to the lot of them. Are these the kinds of things worth occupying your time?


Ann Harding is a single high-society dame whose little sister is getting married and, perhaps hearing her own biological clock ticking, starts getting Ideas about what it takes to grab a man. She hypothesizes love is unnecessary in a marriage because Reasons. Platonic pal William Powell is a playboy heir who likes to run around. She launches a scheme to trap him into marriage and make an honest man out of him. It works, but complications, as they often do, ensue.

At the start, Harding is convinced she doesn’t have much to offer a potential husband, though it’s not like she’s down and out, especially given that Harness acknowledges the Great Depression as a fact of everyday life, more than once. She’s not standing on any bread lines. She can afford to go to the theater in the evenings in fancy dress, and she’s easy on the eyes. But I guess none of that is enough.

Her scheme depends on the notion that it’s improper for her to be alone with Powell in his pad, given his reputation—because it’s not like her family and acquaintances know him and her to be good friends who treat each other well, or more importantly, like she was a grown-ass woman and who she chooses to spend time alone with is her own damn business.


But her father catches the two of them talking like the consenting adults they are and concludes Powell must be putting the make on her, and she must be letting him (a much worse crime, of course)—therefore Powell must do “the honorable thing” and marry her, something he’s not eager to do, though not necessarily because of her. No one questions any of this because these are the rules of the game. Harding counts on her father’s reaction because she’s playing a game of her own, but the whole thing, the father’s attitude and Harding’s scheme alike, does not sound like normal human behavior.

Powell warns Harding that he’ll make a lousy husband, and sure enough, he chases around an old flame who also got recently married but still carries a torch for Powell. Meanwhile, little sister spends so much of her husband’s money she gets in debt. And how sure is Harding about this whole marriage-without-love plan anyway? This stuff was more interesting, but getting there was the hard part, because none of this felt like it mattered.

TCM played Harness as part of a TCM Film Festival “greatest hits” weekend, in lieu of the canceled actual fest. Karen singled Harness out as worth watching, so I gave it a try. It wasn’t terrible—Powell is always worth watching—I just felt uncomfortable with the triviality of the plot.

Algiers
YouTube viewing

In Jeanine Basinger’s book about the Old Hollywood approach to creating movie stardom, The Star Machine, she says that Charles Boyer “was every American moviegoer’s idea of Big-time French.” I imagine he came across as pretty exotic and cosmopolitan to audiences back then, like Maurice Chevalier and Jean Gabin. These days, when I think of French thespians, I tend to think of the ladies—Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Tatou, Juliette Binoche—before any fellas.

Even before the actors, though, I associate French cinema with the directors who came out of the New Wave era: Godard, Truffaut, etc. Call it a cultural shift, one where who makes a film became as important, if not more so, than who’s in it. The French were greatly responsible for that. Now that’s big-time.

I can’t say I know a great deal about Boyer beyond what I’ve read. MGM originally wanted him to do foreign-language versions of their English language hits, but once dubbing was used, duplicates became unnecessary. Hollywood still wanted Boyer, but he had to improve his English first (he could speak five other languages and made movies not only in France, but Germany too). He came back to Hollywood in 1934 and once it was determined the ladies in the audience responded to him, that’s when his stardom in America took off.


Algiers was the film that put him over the top. Set in the North African city in Algeria, it focuses on a French criminal who, after pulling off a major jewelry heist, set up shop in the seedy criminal quarter known as the Casbah and became a big-shot there for years. The cops could never touch him because he was so well-protected, but now they have a plan, which comes right as Boyer feels restless and is ready to leave the neighborhood he may rule like a king, but which has also become a prison to him.

The Casbah was in pretty bad shape even before this year. UNESCO declared it a “world heritage site” and efforts have been made to preserve it, despite the political upheavals of recent decades. This New York Times article goes into more detail. Plus, here are some first-hand accounts of the current state of the neighborhood.


It was hard to not look at Algiers through 21st-century eyes. I didn’t completely buy the cliche of glamor-girl Hedy Lamarr falling for bad-boy Boyer, though I did accept him falling for her. She represented the France he missed after being away for so long and believed he could recapture again—the movie hammers this point home pretty well. (I liked the line about how she reminded him of the subway.) I was reminded of Casablanca: foreigner in a foreign country he has learned to call home gets hung up over a girl who reminds him of the past but represents danger. Setting plays a vital role; as does local law and order.

Basinger discusses what made Boyer a star in his day:

To American audiences, Charles Boyer seemed the perfect lover for many reasons, Algiers chief among them. But women also thought he was a gentleman.... he had that gentlemanly quality, that elegance, that sense that he was offering his arm to a lady. He was an exotic French lover Americanized, democratized, and because of that, he seemed to be perfect to play in support of female movie stars.

Boyer seemed like a cliche to me only because his type had been imitated and parodied many times since Algiers. Sometimes it really is necessary to attempt to see an old movie the way audiences of its time saw it in order to appreciate it better. I haven’t mastered that ability yet.

Sigrid Gurie (second-billed over Lamarr) plays this local chick totally hung up on Boyer for reasons I couldn’t exactly fathom. He, of course, takes her completely for granted.

A brief word about Lamarr. Much has been written about her prowess as a scientist and her contributions to inventions that still impact modern society. This was the first time I had seen her as an actress, and I can’t say I was bowled over by her. She wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t distinctive in the way a Garbo or a Dietrich were. She was gorgeous, but that was the extent of it. I probably need to see more of her films. If it weren’t for her, though, I couldn’t write this post for you to read on the Internet, so there’s that. Last year, Deadline announced that Gal Gadot would star in a biopic of Lamarr.

The Astonished Heart
YouTube viewing

I can’t say I knew much about Noel Coward beyond the fact that he wrote one of my favorite movies, Brief Encounter, but then I was enticed to see another movie of his. Sister Celluloid did a post about The Astonished Heart, a film Coward also wrote that not only has actresses from Encounter in it, but it can be looked upon as the flip side to Encounter; at least, that’s how SC pitched it. And as if that wasn’t enough, Coward himself stars in it and even wrote the score!

Encounter was about a married woman, Celia Johnson, tempted to carry out an affair but doesn’t do it in the end. Heart, made five years later and based on one of Coward’s plays, is about a married man, Coward, who does go through with an affair, but it doesn’t work out the way he hopes it should. Johnson is his wife in the film. SC goes into more detail about the film (and even embeds it in her post), but I wanna talk about Coward.

As an actor, he was alright—he talks in a very clipped, rushed manner that sounds unnatural to modern ears. I actually thought he got better the deeper into the story he went and the worse his situation got. SC said she disagreed with those who thought he was miscast; I thought the character, in a twisted kind of way, was miscast. He should’ve been in a Fatal Attraction-style, crime-of-passion thriller. His ultimate fate is grim enough, but I thought it would’ve been cooler if he just went berserk and stalked and attacked Margaret Leighton, the chick he falls for.


Coward was what people used to call a “Renaissance man.” Guy wrote plays, you probably already know that much, but he also wrote screenplays, poetry, short stories, songs (including songs for theater productions), a novel and an autobiography that actually took up three volumes. He trained in dance as a kid, he sung, he acted of course, and he also directed. He won an honorary Oscar during WW2, and you better believe he was knighted.

He was a bit of a character; he had a public image as a dandy with an acerbic wit. Yes, he was gay; in fact his lover, Graham Payn, appears in Heart as his business assistant. Apparently, Coward talked the way he did because as a kid, that made it easier to communicate with his deaf mother. As for his cultural influence as a playwright, composer, etc.... well, just read this.


I prefer Encounter to Heart in the end, though, because I felt like I understood Johnson’s character in the former better than Coward’s in the latter. At first I didn’t believe Coward had the hots for Leighton like he kept claiming. It wasn’t until tension arose between them that I was more convinced—and he’s so straightlaced for much of the film it was hard to feel the depth of his love for her. Johnson in Encounter, on the other hand, is an open book. She narrated the story, but even if she didn’t, her feelings were closer to the surface, even beneath her own layer of British propriety. Maybe it’s those eyes of hers... Plus, Heart, as SC also pointed out, had the annoying habit of jetting us from scene to scene too abruptly.

Joyce Carey, the lady at the train station cafe from Encounter, is also in Heart. She, like Payn, also works for Coward. She was so convincing as a cheeky working-class lady, I admit I didn’t recognize her as a dignified upper-class woman. Liked her.

Waterloo Bridge (1931)

Brittany Runs a Marathon
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens NY

This was my first movie at the Kew Gardens since a driver backed into the front doors last Friday, knocking them down but causing no other damage, to people or property. When I heard the news, and after I was assured no one was hurt, I was scared, I admit it. I’m glad the damage was not extensive, because I do not wanna lose this place—and certainly not because of an incompetent driver, of all things. So now that that’s out of the way...

I’m a fan of the New York City Marathon. When I was younger, I’d go to other boroughs every year to watch the race but now I stick to Queens. The course goes over the Pulaski Bridge from Greenpoint, Brooklyn into Long Island City for a brief spell before the runners take the Queensborough Bridge into midtown Manhattan. Queens Plaza is closed off to vehicle traffic for a change and it’s great to walk the streets there.

I have fantasized about what it would be like to run in the Marathon. One year, my friend Bill (not the  guy from the video store; someone different) ran in it and I waited for him at the Manhattan end of the Queensborough Bridge, but I don’t recall seeing him. It’s been my observation in the past that you don’t have to be built like Usain Bolt to run a marathon; I have seen runners, male and female, with figures close to mine, running with everyone else, which always amazes me—but I never imagined it as anything other than a pipe dream.

Last Thanksgiving, I ran a 5K for the first time, and while it was exhilarating, I do not feel ready to upgrade to a full 26.2 miles yet—but that pipe dream of running a marathon—any marathon, not necessarily the big one here in New York—feels a bit more possible. A tiny bit.


So when I saw the trailer for the movie Brittany Runs a Marathon, I knew I had to check it out, because I saw a whole lot of myself in it. Based on a true story, it’s pretty much what it says on the tin—the story of a... let’s call her pleasingly plump young woman desperate to lose weight for health reasons (and improve her overall life in the process) by taking up running. There’s a romantic subplot, of course, and it all takes place in a New York I recognize as mine.

Mad props to star Jillian Bell for losing forty pounds and actually running the Marathon for this movie (though she didn’t actually run the entire course), but that aside, she’s very likable. Brittany is self-depreciating about her weight, yet she uses her humor to keep people at arms length—she doesn’t always do what you think she should, which factors into the plot late in the film. Writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo is friends with the real Brittany, so he knows her well enough to translate her story to film.

Brittany runs a 5K first, and I was glad to see that, but the film doesn’t go enough into her eating habits, which she would have also had to change to help her lose weight. It certainly doesn’t address how difficult it is to resist temptation after a lifetime of eating whatever one wants without care of the consequences, or of how much nicer it can be to cook for oneself instead of eating takeout all the time—but maybe Brittany didn’t cook much. Dunno.


As for public perception and dating when you’re fat, well, yeah, I get that it’s different for girls, and the movie addresses that aspect, but us guys have to deal with that too. We see Brittany try to date as she loses weight, and we even see her diss a fat woman (with a boyfriend) during Brittany’s lowest point before she recovers.

I doubt I would’ve gotten as far as I have in my own personal battle of the bulge without Virginia. It was her who took me seriously when I expressed what I thought was an off-the-cuff comment about running the Marathon and it has been her who has encouraged me to run a 5K and motivated me into getting in better shape, in part by setting an example. She too has lost a bunch of weight (I met her after she did it), mostly through dieting and weightlifting. She doesn’t care for running. When I finished my 5K last year, I got a little medal, among other things. I gave it to her, because she made it possible.

Do I worry about my looks in relation to her? All the time. I’m no longer a spring chicken. The day my parts won’t work anymore is never far from my mind, and I worry whatever I do to make myself presentable for her is never enough... but after a year and a half, she’s stuck with me. You can’t imagine what that means to someone like me.


This Sunday, I’m gonna run my second 5K. I’m trying to be cool, since I’ve done one already, but a part of me is still on tenterhooks, thinking something might happen to me and I won’t be able to finish or whatever. I’m gonna do it, though. Will I ever run a marathon? Eh... ask me again in five years. These things take time.

Patel and James in Yesterday

Recently I had a burst of inspiration regarding my novel. Those of you who have been following WSW for a long time know this book has frustrated and challenged me in almost equal measure, but I had believed in the vision for my story, a baseball tale with a romantic subplot. One day, after reading a post about the need to declutter one’s manuscript, I asked myself: do I need the romance? I like it, I think it’s compelling, and it ties directly into the baseball stuff, but the more I’ve developed it, the more I’ve had the feeling it competed for attention with the baseball plot—and because it doesn’t have a happy ending, I can’t really call it a traditional romance (the romance book market has very strict guidelines for this sort of thing).

And here’s the kicker: when I first plotted this novel, I never thought twice about including a love story. My attitude came down to nothing more than “why not?” I think I even believed it was the sort of thing an audience expected. But is it really? And if so, why?

Marty
TCM viewing

I don’t think it matters who you are or where you’re from; on some level, everybody can relate to Marty: coming up short in certain people’s eyes, feeling pressured to be something you’re not, fearing your luck will never change. If you wanna talk romance, I have a friend in his sixties who got married a few years ago. Sweetest guy you’d ever wanna meet: witty, smart, extremely talented.

When I learned, secondhand, that he was lonely, I wished I could hook him up with someone, but he doesn’t live in the New York area. Several years ago, he began posting pictures of himself and his new girlfriend on Facebook, and I was pleasantly surprised. When they got married, I was thrilled for him, in part because if he could find love at his age, there was hope for me, right? And then I met Virginia and here we are.

- If Beale Street Could Talk. I read the James Baldwin book many years ago and thought about rereading it before seeing this adaptation from Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. I changed my mind because I had read there were some differences. Virginia said she found it tough to sit through. It's not, not really; it's just intense. Jenkins emphasizes the love story at its heart, and does a good job of retaining Baldwin's literary voice. Strong performances, lush cinematography. Jenkins did it again, folks. There's no stopping this guy.

- Glass. I honestly didn't think this was as bad as the critics made it out to be, though there were more than a few head-scratching moments. Give Night credit for keeping this character-based as well as not making the final battle a CGI cartoon fest full of rubbery figures. (For the record, I saw Split on cable months ago, so I knew what to expect.) James MacAvoy is scary as hell in a role both physically and mentally demanding; I can't begin to imagine how one would prepare for such a role once, much less twice.

- Stan and Ollie. A nice tribute to one of the all-time greatest comedy teams in their twilight years. While I'm not a huge Laurel & Hardy fan, I could tell Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly captured the feel of their routines down well. Jeanine Basinger called L&H "a married couple, without the marriage," and this film captures that, the bickering as well as the love and respect. Virginia liked it too (we have yet to seriously disagree on a movie).

I saw both these films with Virginia and we liked them both. Why didn't I write full posts about them? Because I didn't.

-BlacKkKlansman. Spike Lee has been kinda so-so lately, so it's nice to see such a stylish and entertaining film from him again. John David Washington is the son of Denzel Washington; he had a small role in Malcolm X years ago, according to IMDB. He sounds a lot like his dad, too. The most memorable moment for me was when the "white power" rhetoric of the Klansmen was juxtaposed against the "black power" dogma of the black activists. Unexpected and unsettling — that's Spike at his best. Virginia was particularly interested in the true story angle.

- Juliet, Naked. The latest adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel got mediocre reviews, but I liked it — and not just because I'm a fan. The changes from the book didn't bother me much. As I told Virginia afterwards, Ethan Hawke's interpretation of his character's songs, good as they sounded, can never match the ones I imagined when I read the book. So while obviously we needed to hear his character's songs for the movie, a part of me almost wishes we didn't, if you know what I mean. A nice companion piece to High Fidelity.

Aargh. I was gonna do regular-sized posts on these movies, but I've been preoccupied with the novel, plus, y'know, procrastination, so I'll just do a quick summation here.


- The Post. Spielberg made the right movie at the right time. Amazing how so much of what we're seeing with the current presidential administration is just history repeating itself, which is exactly what happens when we forget the lessons of the past. Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham is a reluctant heroine who finds the strength within herself to take a stand against an oppressive regime, ultimately becoming a women's lib heroine as well. Oscar number four? Maybe! I would vote for it for Best Picture, but it's not as dominant a nominee as I had expected. We'll see.


- Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. Meanwhile, Annette Bening continues to do excellent work without racking up even one statuette. As former film noir bad girl Gloria Grahame, in a love affair with a much younger British actor, this seemed like a slightly unusual choice for her at first, but I totally bought the romance. Jamie Bell, the dancing Irish lad from Billy Elliot, now grown up, was quite good also. This was the last film I saw at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. It was close to a sellout, but I suspect that was more because of people wanting to say goodbye to the venerable theater than anything else.

The Shape of Water
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens NY

Even as a kid, I had the impression King Kong wanted to, um, do the horizontal mambo with the chick. Maybe it's not as obvious in the Fay Wray original, but it sure as hell is in the Jessica Lange version, the one I grew up with. I couldn't have articulated it then, but I distinctly remember having "that funny feeling" when he was alone with her, using his finger to tug at her clothes...

In all those old monster movies where the heroine is carried by the alien or the creature or the robot or whatever - a trope stolen from the covers of pulp SF books and magazines - I suspect the implication of sexual intent was there, but how often did we actually see it happen?

The Lucy & Desi Blogathon is an event honoring the television and film careers of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, hosted by Love Letters to Old Hollywood. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the links at the host site.

The Facts of Life
YouTube viewing

Everybody associates Lucille Ball with her husband Desi Arnaz, but she also had a professional and personal relationship with Bob Hope. The Facts of Life was one of four films the legendary comedians made together, along with Sorrowful Jones, Fancy Pants (before) and Critic's Choice (after).

Ball and Hope had a different rapport with each other. Hope was more of a natural comedian than Desi; in Hope's first extended scene in Facts, for example, he does stand-up. In watching I Love Lucy, or her movies with Desi, there's more of a sense of Lucy as the special one, even though the spotlight is on both of them. Lucy's the one doing the crazy things: stuffing eggs down her blouse, driving a lawnmower out of control, etc.

With Hope, it feels more like a match-up of equals, at least here; they both have so much experience, not just as comedic actors, but as actors, and it shows whenever they're on screen together. Desi was an actor, but he was also a musician and a producer, careers about which he was equally passionate.



In Facts, Ball and Hope are friends who cheat on their spouses with each other. Age plays a role, but for laughs: in one scene, they swim on the beach at night, but when they're about to kiss, she catches a cold; in another, they both squint at their playing cards until they both admit they need their glasses after all. It's not Brief Encounter.

Ball and Hope start their affair while on vacation; the problems arise when they go back home and attempt to recapture the magic. The moments are funny, but they're also tinged with a little sadness, too: in trying to evade their respective spouses, they're like teenagers sneaking out of their parents' houses to rendezvous at Lovers Lane.



Facts was released in 1960, the same year as Lucy's divorce from Desi, as well as the end of the I Love Lucy spin-off, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. According to the book, Desilu, by Coyne Steven Sanders & Tom Gilbert, Desi was charged with "extreme cruelty" and "grievous mental suffering" as a result of his drinking and womanizing. Lucy knew how their fans would react to the news:

..."I received eight thousand letters at the time of the divorce announcement and read most of them," Lucille said later.... "They said, 'Why isn't there something you can do?' They didn't know I had been trying to do it for years. I was painfully aware of the feeling the American public had for Lucy [Ricardo] and their need for Lucy and Ricky as a happy family. The awareness held up my decision for a long time, until I couldn't allow it to do so anymore. Lucy solved a lot of marital problems for our viewers, and the idea of finding a laugh in a hopeless situation worked for Desi and me for a long time, too."

Their separation was amicable, all things considered; in fact, Ball and Hope tried to get Desi to appear in Facts, but he said his TV production commitments left him with no time.

Lucy would go on to meet comedian Gary Morton and marry him a year later; they'd stay together until her death in 1989...but that is another story.

-------------------------
Related:
Desilu Studios
Books: Desilu

Other Lucy & Desi movies:
The Long Long Trailer
Forever Darling

Letter From an Unknown Woman
YouTube viewing

I met Ann Marie when I was seventeen. I was taking an afterschool art class in Greenwich Village. It was also the first time I had explored the Village on my own and I had fallen in love with what I perceived as the Bohemian romance of the neighborhood. I was discovering things about the Village, and New York, for the first time, such as street musicians.

I couldn't tell you what about her in particular made me stop and listen to her play, and talk to her, beyond the sheer novelty of seeing someone, anyone, performing on the street. Maybe that was enough.

Her perch was outside a bank a block from the Christopher Street subway station. Unlike most street musicians, she played original material, just her and her guitar. She wasn't bluesy like Joplin; she wasn't a poet like Patti Smith. The last time I described her here, I said she was more Melissa Etheridge than Suzanne Vega, but I think she was a combination of the two.

These days, I see street musicians and I may stop to listen or I may keep walking, but I almost never talk to them, not without a good reason. Back then, though, I was way too naive to know better. Ann Marie could have been a junkie, a pedophile, a racist, anything; there was no reason for her to indulge the curiosity of some punk kid who had nothing better to do than hang out on street corners talking to strangers... but she did.



For weeks afterward, I'd go see her after my art class. I wasn't in love with her; she was twice my age at least. If I was in love with anything, it was with the musician lifestyle she represented. I met her at a time when I was experimenting musically, and to do what she did seemed like the coolest thing in the world, even if she didn't make much more on a given night than money for a fancy dinner.

When I told her I played keyboard, she asked if I'd be interested in joining her in the studio on a track or two. You can imagine my reaction. She gave me photocopies of the sheet music to some of her tunes; I took them home and scrutinized them, hearing Ann Marie's voice and guitar in my head and doing my best to add my keyboard improvisations. No, I had never done anything like this before; like I said, I was too young and stupid to know better.



I can't imagine what her backing band thought of me: did they think I was some manner of prodigy Ann Marie had discovered out of the blue? I went to the "Fame school," after all; I must have something. Or more likely, did they know the truth: she was humoring this starstruck fan this one time, not expecting anything to come of this session.

From what I remember, I didn't embarrass myself, but I didn't distinguish myself either. Probably too nervous: wanting to do well, too afraid of messing up. I did not expect a return engagement, nor did I get one, but hey, I can say I once recorded with real musicians in a real studio.

So obviously, I thought of all this while watching Letter From an Unknown Woman, a movie about a groupie in passionate, let-me-be-your-dog monkey love with a turn-of-the-century Elton John who's totally clueless as to her true feelings, even when he can remember who the hell she is - which is not often.



Joan Fontaine tries, she really tries to live her own life; she knows Louis Jourdan ain't bringing chicks back to his pad to play Cards Against Humanity and watch 30 Rock reruns, but she simply CAHN'T, I tell you. When she finally does win her dream date with him, though, it leads to unforeseen complications.

It's all so old-fashioned and romantic and bloody tragic, but dammit, it hooked me. I admit it. I certainly know what it's like to love someone who can't or won't match those feelings; it's no fun. Easy to say to Fontaine, "forget about him, move on with your life," but when you got it bad like she had it, nobody can tell you otherwise.

You can go all around the world and find mermaid stories. The earliest tales go as far back as around 1000 BC, in ancient Assyria. Christopher Columbus thought he saw some. PT Barnum claimed to have one, but it was just a hoax. And of course, millions of people see mermaids every day on their coffee cups!

A chance showing on TV of the Ron Howard romantic comedy Splash, a favorite from my childhood, reminded me of another mermaid movie, one I hadn't seen: Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. I doubted the latter was as good as the former, but I watched it on YouTube anyway, thinking it might be fun to compare the two. Well, I was right; Splash is better by a country mile.


I believed the romance in Splash more. Tom Hanks, a young man, is set up as a lovelorn guy, someone convinced true love was out of his reach. Darryl Hannah seems like a dream come true to him, but of course, she's got a secret: she's a fish. When he finds out, he has to learn to look past that, and with effort, he does.

In Peabody, William Powell meets Ann Blyth, the mermaid, as a much older man, a married one at that. For all his poetic waxing to her, he never struck me as going through anything more than a mid-life crisis, precipitated by his wife casually flirting with another man. Even when wifey goes conveniently missing, I never believed in Powell and Blyth as a couple; partly because of the age difference, which the movie, to its credit, doesn't ignore, but also because the wife, flirting aside, was a decent person, and Powell is not presented as a cad. Might've made for a more interesting movie if he was, but as it is, everything is milquetoast.

There's some talk in Peabody of the ruts marriages go through, which cause the eye to wander. As if a mermaid wasn't enough, there's another young chick who catches Powell's attention. She's not a mermaid, but she sings a song and swims a little. Powell actually implies at one point he prefers a woman he can feel superior to - and along comes Blyth, who can't speak, knows nothing of the world, and is totally reliant on him. Again, if his character began as more of a sleaze, and his dalliance with Blyth made him realize he really loved his wife after all, I could buy that, but this movie is too slight to go in that direction.

Hannah, by contrast, learns how to speak to Hanks on her own and was willing to give up her mermaid superpowers to be with him. She's a more active character than Blyth, and Hanks is way less paternalistic than Powell.
Peabody is a Blyth movie, so that means we gotta get Jacqueline's opinion:

...the 36-year difference between [Powell and Blyth] did not really make for any awkwardness in the crush the mermaid and the man had for each other on screen, mainly because the crush was so innocent and so was the mermaid. For his part, William Powell strolled through his character's midlife crisis with the panache and bemused sophistication of The Thin Man [movies], with that sly humor that uses discretion as a springboard to irony. He's perfect in the role.

She calls Peabody an "offbeat charmer." (Many behind-the-scenes pics at her post; take a look.) I was bored to death. It certainly wasn't as funny as Splash, which has lots of Noo Yawk character moments, plus it has the wonderful John Candy and Eugene Levy. Powell and Blyth fans should stick to his Thin Man movies and her musicals instead.

Sabrina (1954)
seen @ Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, Bryant Park, New York NY

I had always thought of Sabrina as a romantic comedy, but there's not a lot of comedy in the movie. For the most part, it plays like a straight love triangle story: very wistful, very angsty. Audrey pines for Holden, Bogey pines for Audrey. Why was it that Audrey's romantic leads were always so much older: Bogey, Peck, Cooper, Grant? I would've liked to have seen her with someone like Monty Clift, or Warren Beatty - but so it goes.

I find it a little hard to believe Audrey could be so dead set against going to Paris in the beginning, although it's not so much Paris as what it represents: two years away from Holden, living a life she didn't ask for. When she comes back, though, she's a changed woman, in looks and spirit. Old movies were fond of mystifying the City of Lights in this way. 

Andi talks about Paris, and Europe in general, so much. I know she had a boyfriend over there, learned the language, absorbed the culture, but try as I might, it's kinda tricky for me to imagine her as having undergone a Sabrina-like transformation. Maybe it's because I met her later in life, after she had readjusted to living in America again; maybe it's because she strikes me as more of a traditional, working class Noo Yawker than Sabrina - who for all of the class differences espoused in the movie between her and the Larrabee brothers, still can't help being Audrey Hepburn!


I was about the same age as Sabrina when I went to Barcelona, but that was for only a month. If I had spent two years there, I imagine I'd be quite different. The one year I spent in Ohio changed me enough! Europe, though... We Americans fought a revolution to liberate ourselves from it and in a way, we've been longing to return to it ever since, in one form or another.


I went to Bryant Park to see Sabrina, although watching an outdoor movie there is not the best experience in the world, because I really wanted to watch this movie again. As before, I noticed a number of people videotaping scenes on their cell phones. Why? Is it only because it's an outdoor movie? If they were inside a theater, it would be a crime (I'm not entirely sure this is all that legal, either). What do they do with these recordings, besides post them on social media?


I can understand using your cell to record a minute or two of a concert. While that's probably illegal too, I get that it's a live, unique experience that can never be perfectly duplicated and some people want to preserve that moment. A movie isn't live, though. Granted, the novelty of a movie shown outdoors is special, but the movie itself is no different than if you were watching it on DVD at home. I could even get behind taking a photo of the outdoor screen to show that, y'know, you were there - but recording a minute or two of the film on video makes no sense to me.

I watched it on the rear perimeter of the lawn, standing up. I had a seat on the left-hand side of the perimeter, but by the time the movie started, too many people were standing in my line of sight; plus, too many others were coming and going in front of me. I think I may opt to stand at Bryant Park for a movie from now on. I had no obstructed views, and it kept me awake.

A United Kingdom
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

I just finished reading the memoir Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama, written back when he was still a senator. He's a very good writer. He's eloquent, of course, but he's also good at composing a narrative, with lively dialogue and distinguishable characters.

Anyway, as everyone knows, the (sigh) former president is the son of interracial parents, an American white woman and a Kenyan black man. The book is about his attempt to come to terms with their legacy and to establish an identity all his own. Early on, he speculates, based on his knowledge of them, about the first time his parents met his mother's parents:

...When my father arrived at the door, Gramps might have been immediately struck by the African's resemblance to Nat King Cole, one of his favorite singers; I imagine him asking my father if he can sing, not understanding the mortified look on my mother's face. Gramps is probably too busy telling one of his jokes or arguing with [Grandma] Toot over how to cook the steaks to notice my mother reach out and squeeze the smooth, sinewy hand beside hers. Toot notices, but she's polite enough to bite her lip and offer dessert; her instincts warn her against making a scene. When the evening is over, they'll both remark how intelligent the young man seems, so dignified, with the measured gestures, the graceful draping of one leg over another - and how about that accent? 

But would they let their daughter marry one?

It's easy to look upon someone from another culture with respect and admiration when they're not suddenly a family member. My sister's Japanese husband is enough like me, that is, American, that he doesn't come across as being that different, despite his not being black. Naturally, Lynne's life has changed; she eats more Asian food, and once, when they went to Japan, I saw a photo of her in a kimono; to pick two small examples. I suspect, though, they have more in common with each other than Obama's parents did...



...or, for that matter, the protagonists of A United Kingdom, the true story of an interracial Cinderella-like marriage that altered the course of two nations. This comes only a few months after Loving, but it seems a little more high-profile. Plus, the political aspect makes this very different from Jeff Nichols' more intimate portrait of Richard and Mildred Loving.

Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams have to deal with factions within both the British government and his native Bechuanaland (known today as Botswana) determined to keep them apart for political and economic reasons that seem bigger than the two of them alone. Their love for each other, however, sees them through. It's the backbone of this film, another hidden chapter of racial history brought to life by Belle director Amma Asante.



I sound like a broken record, but once again David Oyelowo turns in another great performance, in a role recalling his work in Selma, but with the added aspect of a tender, moving love affair, with Rosamund Pike. This was a labor of love for him; he himself is married to a white woman (she has a cameo in the film) and he's listed as a co-producer.

I arrived late again! I walked into the theater about a few minutes after the advertised start time, thinking I'd miss a trailer or two, but either the Cinemart played them before or they skipped them altogether. Could it be they actually stick to their start times, unlike other theaters that show fifteen minutes of ads and trailers first? If so, I'll have to remember that.

One final thing worth mentioning: when the Kingdom trailer played in front of La La Land, a woman in the audience, perhaps responding to the love story aspect, shouted afterward, "Every man should see that movie!" That got a laugh.