“FanFare Guests” Archive
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Guest blogger Kimberly Clay writes:
Every month I show an old movie to a bunch of twentysomethings (like me). Sometimes it goes over well and other times...not so well. So I thought I'd put together a list of the movies that have been well received by my friends who share my generation in case you're ever in this situation. Granted, your pals may still make fun of these films and not fully understand their brilliance, but some movies are so good that even the hippest young adults can forgive their corniness.
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Guest blogger Watching Hammer writes:
"See why you never break down in the woods! See why you never stay at the creepy inn! See why you never, ever, go up to the castle! See..." Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
Who? Director: Don Sharp.
Producer: Anthony Hinds.
Screenplay: John Elder.
Cast: Clifford Evans, Edward de Souza, Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Barry Warren, Brian Oulton, Noel Howlett, Jacquie Wallis, Peter Madden, Isobel Black, Vera Cook, John Harvey.
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Victoria Balloon | FanFare Guests
Guest contributor Victoria Balloon writes:
Combine outrageous scenarios with slapstick humor, then add witty, fast-paced dialogue and light romantic situations and you have that wonderful cinematic treasure called the screwball comedy -- or as film critic Andrew Sarris describes it, "a sex comedy without the sex." The basic elements of the screwball comedy were not particularly new; director Ernst Lubitsch had made sophisticated comedies such as Trouble in Paradise and slapstick was integral to the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, while Hollywood already had tough-talking blondes like Mae West and Broadway had light comedies by Noel Coward.
What made screwballs a completely new genre was the combination of these elements against the backdrop of three events in Hollywood history: the transition to sound in film, stricter enforcement of the Production Code and the Great Depression.
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Guest blogger Alyson Krier writes:
A Star Is Born (1937)
Before inventions like reality TV and YouTube, Hollywood hopefuls would have to pack up and actually move to Hollywood to have any chance at stardom. With the aid and well wishes from her grandmother, Esther Victoria Blogett (Janet Gaynor) ventures to Hollywood, convinced that she can become a great actress. Things look pretty bleak when she’s told over and over again that there’s no work, not even as an extra. With the help of an out of work director, Danny (Andy Devine), she gets a job as a waitress serving orderves at parties for celebrities. She sees this as a chance to act in front of directors, a pretty funny scene. When the famous actor, Norman Maine (Fredric March) gets drunk at the party, he takes an interest in Esther and whisks her away from her waitress job. At first, it’s not quite clear whether Norman is looking for a new actress or a girlfriend, but he ends up with both. He gets Esther her first leading role and she’s an instant star. The problem is that she is getting all the limelight while Norman is slowly being forgotten. After they marry, this problem only grows and eventually Norman turns back to the bottle.
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Guest blogger Ted Brown writes:
Skull Heads
Plot: For generations, the strange, inbred Arkoff family has lived in their creepy Italian castle undisturbed by the outside world.
Until one night when their sanctuary is invaded by a trio of treacherous art thieves and the Arkoffs must fight for their lives, aided only by the ancient protectors of the castle. The deadly Skullheads !
Review: Skull Heads much like Demonic Toys 2 is a nice reminder of my horror roots, and also a reminder of some of the best years of my life growing up. I remember every weekend running to the local video store and renting as many Horror movies as I could possibly watch over the span of two days. When I got this film in the mail it gave me the same feeling I got as a child when I would stumble upon a possible hidden gem that I had not had the pleasure of viewing before.
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Fanfare Guest blogger Jessica Pickens writes:
Ginger Rogers is a triple threat. She can sing, act and dance. She even won an Oscar for her 1941 performance in Kitty Foyle.
I taped several of her films that I haven’t seen (I’m trying to see all of her movies). One of these movies that I taped was Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934). The movie features Ginger Rogers and Dick Powell with a supporting cast of Allen Jenkins and Pat O’Brien.
Ginger Rogers is best known for the 10 films that she made with Fred Astaire. The screen team is recognized for their singing and dancing, but Astaire is generally the only one who gets to sing. Rogers only had the chance to sing solo in two of their 10 films together. These rare times occurred when Astaire refused to sing a song that was originally written for him. An example of this is “The Yam” in Carefree (1938).
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Out of the Past: A Film Noir Masterpiece
Guest blogger Sarkoffagus writes:
Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is living a quiet life, running a gas station in a small town. But then a stranger drives his car into town, and everything changes. It seems that someone from Jeff's past wants something from him, and so Jeff tells his girlfriend, Ann (Virginia Huston), about his shady past. Years ago, Jeff had been hired by Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) to find his lady friend, Kathie (Jane Greer), who had shot him and ran away with 40,000 of his dollars. Jeff tracks Kathie to Mexico, meets her in a bar, and the beautiful lady helps him forget all about bringing her back to the States. The two lovers are eventually forced to part ways, and Jeff soon learns that Kathie had returned to Sterling. Now, Sterling wants Jeff to do one simple job, so that they're square, but Jeff suspects that it might be a frame.
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Fanfare Guest blogger Angela Petteys writes:
One Saturday morning, Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell), and Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern), get together to take a bunch of children on a boat trip and a picnic. Only problem is, there was supposed to be a fourth woman with them, Addie Ross (played by a never-seen, only heard, Celeste Holm). Just before Deborah, Lora, and Rita leave on the boat, a messenger delivers a letter from Addie in which she says that she has run off with one of their husbands, but doesn’t say which one. As the day progresses, each woman thinks back to an incident that could have made their husband want to leave them and how Addie Ross plays into each scenario.
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Guest blogger Meaghan Couture writes:
True to form, when offered the opportunity to go and see Mary Poppins: The Musical live at our performing arts center here in the city, I jumped at the chance! Not only do I love live theatre, but I adore Mary Poppins. Tuesday evening rolled around and I went around doing all the things adults do nowadays: closing up work, getting in my car, racing around in rush hour traffic, narrowly escaping being hit by a bus and finally finding a parking garage to deposit my car for the evening. Getting out, I took a deep breath and looked up at the theatre much like a child would look at their first Christmas tree. Now, I've been to the theatre many times but every single time I feel giddy and excited! There is little in life more satisfying than a live production.
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Guest blogger Lolita Kane writes:
Dark Victory
Director: Edmund Goulding
USA 1939
104 min.
Starring: Bette Davis (article), George Brent, Humphrey Bogart , Geraldine Fitzgerald and Ronald Reagan, among others.
A spoiled 23 year old heiress, Judith (Davis), is faced with the fact that she is dying of a brain tumour. When Judith falls in love with her brain surgeon, she is afraid that he proposes to her out of pity.
Since we know from the beginning that Judith sooner or later has to die, the film focuses on the environment's inconvenient feelings toward the tragedy and how Judith tries to make the best out of the time she has left, rather than focusing on the question "Will they find a cure?" or "Will she really die?" A brilliant plot direction.
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Bob Campbell | FanFare Guests
Guest contributor Bob Campbell writes:
Who knew that Lou Gehrig, the great NY Yankees first baseman, moonlighted as a cowboy movie star in 1938?
And what’s more curious: sports legend Lou Gehrig as a B-movie cowboy star, or that the baseball great also sings in the movie?
Gehrig’s was a genuine American success story. From a family of poor German immigrants, he attended Columbia University, ironically on a football scholarship, and rose to prominence over a 15-season span and 2,130 consecutive games with the NY Yankees - setting several Major League and American League records along the way.
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Guest blogger R.D. Finch writes:
Bigger Than Life
***½
Country: US
Director: Nicholas Ray
As Bigger Than Life opens, we see the long horizontal façade of a school building stretched across the huge CinemaScope screen. A bell rings, and elementary school students come pouring through the doorway, walk toward the camera, and separate to the left and right as they reach it. Among the last children to leave are three sets of twins—two boys, two girls, and finally a boy and girl—who walk toward the camera without separating. What an appropriate beginning for a movie that is essentially Nicholas Ray's 1950s suburban version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic doppelgänger tale Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, beautifully restored and newly released by Criterion.
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Guest blogger Kimberly Clay writes:
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