Around the Web

• Audrey Hepburn's Granddaughter Recreates Photos for Harper's Bazaar
• The Classic Film and TV Cafe interviews the director of the Ava Gardner Museum and speaks about the Gardner Festival.
• Artist Recreates Celebrity Diets in Still Life Photos
• Cinemark's Classic Series where film fans may watch the classics on the big screen is still on-going.
• Photographer matches scenes from movies with their real-life, present-day locations.
• Be sure to refer to the Classic Movie Hub Blog-a-thon page for blog-a-thons this month, including the Rita Hayworth tribute.

  

  Emma Ferrer for Harper's

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Newspaper Archives

Over the past few weeks, yours truly has gathered the internet version of classic movie newspaper and magazine clippings and sorted them into categories by decade.


In the 1930s section, you'll find news of a young Judy Garland at a fraternity and Mary Pickford directing.

In the 1940s, Ruby Dee is on Broadway.


  In the 1950s, We catch up with Marilyn Monroe's roommate, Ann Baxter rebels against social mores, Montgomery Clift baffles Hollywood and Tyrone Power marries for the third time.

  In the 1960s, Rita Moreno discusses her career, Ginger Rogers dislikes the latest dance craze, Marilyn Monroe has surgery.

In the 1970s, Ann Blyth renews vows and Jane Powell's career takes a new direction.

In the 1980s, DiMaggio stops sending flowers to Marilyn Monroe's grave and Howard Keel makes a comeback.


As we discover more, these archives will be updated. Enjoy!

A Moment of Confusion

Saul Bass has said that the title credits of a movie should set the "mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story."  Thus, when I saw water shadows under the credits of Good Girls Go to Paris (1939), I was slightly confused.

Water and Paris...
To what are they alluding?  The Seine River? No. -Spoiler alert- the "good girl" never arrives in Paris. The whole thing takes place in the U.S.


Then it hit me. If you were a young lady in the U. S. in 1939, desperate to visit Paris - as Joan Blondell is in this movie- you hop on a ship. Water was definitely associated with this journey, as opposed to the commercial passenger planes that I had forgotten didn't yet exist for transatlantic flight.
 
By the time this film was released, many firsts in aviation had been made (including Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927) or were about to be made. However, commercial transatlantic flights were still in the distance and wouldn't be available until after World War II.

Thus, a Paris-bound traveler would take a ship... or swim or something. I had to think through all of this before I understood the water shadows on the credit sequence. Whereas others - especially the audience contemporary with the film- would have understood in an instance.

Ah, classic movies - familiar yet foreign, which makes them endlessly fascinating.

Classic Fashion in Later Times

The more things change the more they stay the same. Even fashion-wise

The peplum skirt has made a comeback. On the left, Judy Garland wears a dress with peplum for the film The Clock in 1945. On the right, a pattern for a peplum blouse or skirted blouse from the 1960s. In the middle, peplum on the skirt, peplum on the blouse and peplum dress from runways of today.

Overalls were always functional. Deanna Durbin's tailored overalls with puffed sleeves on the right is comfortably stylish. And people still wear them around the house.

 

On the left, a publicity still of Tom Cruise for the film Top Gun in 1986. On the right, an anonymous riveter in 1942. Rolled up sleeves and a crew cut seem to be a timeless, work-a-day style.

People have basically worn different combination of the same thing for the past century. I wonder what styles will look like in movies in the coming hundred years.

How to Cope with Movie Remakes and Sequels

People often dislike change, especially when their favorite movies are involved. So when a movie company announced a sequel to the classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946), critics were outraged, including one blogger who says, "[maybe] George Bailey should have killed himself after all."

Perhaps a bit harsh, but you understand the sentiment. They will ruin something, or they are simply lazy, piggybacking off another film's success, goes the thought.


This is not a new thought. In September 10, 1947, producer Billy Rose railed against Hollywood's lack of originality, particularly in its musicals.

"Having hit on a couple of song-and-dance formulas which paid off at the box office, they keep remaking them until you can...holler out the lines before the actors say them..." 

 
Here's a solution that has helped me endure in a world filled with remakes:
  

Think of movie remakes and recycled plots as fan fiction. 

When fellow CMBA member, Kim Wilson, proffered her delightful and unique retelling of the The Lady Eve (1941) last year, she won the Best Film Review Award from the Classic Movie Blog Association. We were all enchanted. But let a big budget Hollywood type announce a reformulated Lady Eve and we'd grab pitchforks and torches demanding that they kill the beast. [I know I would.]

Why? The more I research and write about movies the more I see modern filmmakers as just movie fans with huge purses.

So if Jessica Alba is cast in a remake of Laura or when the Annie remake comes out and it-girl of the moment Miley Cyrus is cast as little orphan Annie's hip and with it great-great-granddaughter gyrating to the latest tunes of her hard-knock life, do not think of the filmmakers as malicious monsters who are out to destroy not just the original story, but also the very meaning of life. Instead, think of filmmakers as fellow fans who have a neat spin on some story that we enjoy.

Hope that helps.








hollywood needs original musicals
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oi0rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1ZgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2531,1730401&dq=billy-rose+horseshoes+movies&hl=en