As 2013 departs, 2014 arrives with flair - courtesy of elegant and stylish Mr. Fred Astaire...
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Friday, December 27, 2013
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| Marlene Dietrich, photograph by Edward Steichen |
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| As a child, Dietrich contracted her first name, added her nickname (pronounced Layna) and became "Marlene" |
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| The Devil is a Woman (1935) |
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| Dietrich in Travis Banton, from her personal wardrobe |
- Marlene Dietrich
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| Marlene Dietrich by David Downton |
Sunday, December 22, 2013
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| Marc Platt (shown here, in the purple shirt, in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) turned 100 on December 2 |
He left the troupe in 1942 and, as Marc Platt, alternated between the New York stage and the Hollywood soundstage for many years. On Broadway, he was part of the original 1943 cast of the Rogers & Hammerstein classic, Oklahoma!, creating the role of "Dream Curly."
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| Marc Platt and Katharine Sergava in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! |
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| Tonight and Every Night (1945), starring Rita Hayworth |
Here's Marc, in the purple shirt again, and "his brothers" in the legendary "barn raising" dance number (Note: the occasional hiss heard at the clip's beginning doesn't last)...
A year later, in 1955, he would appear in a speaking and dancing role in Fred Zinnemann's film adaptation of Oklahoma! starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae.
Marc Platt would enjoy a multifaceted career. He acted on series TV from the 1950s into the early 1990s, served as dance director for Radio City Music Hall and went on to open his own dance studio in Florida, with his wife, dancer Jane Goodall.
As of this writing, Mr. Platt will have at least one more credit coming his way. He is set to appear in a documentary now in post-production, Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age, a sequel to Broadway: The Golden Age (2003).
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| Marc Platt at the party celebrating his 100th birthday in Mill Valley, California, on December 8 (photo by Sarah Rice) |
Monday, December 16, 2013
BOOKS AND DVDS IN YOUR STOCKING THIS YEAR?
One of the things I love most about the holidays is giving gifts. This year I happen to have presents for a few classic film buffs and I'll be giving them this week.
Literally the biggest gift to be given - at 1,000+ pages - is Victoria Wilson's long-awaited, long in-process biography, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907 - 1940. Detailed, thorough and fascinating, Wilson traces Stanwyck's family history back to long before the future star came into the world as Ruby Stevens. The hefty tome also covers Stanwyck's show business beginnings, at a very tender age, as a dancer, her rapid rise to Broadway and Hollywood stardom, two marriages and 88 films. As well-written as it is meticulously researched, Steel-True is impossible to put down once picked up. Fifteen years in the writing, this reader only hopes Wilson's volume covering the rest of Stanwyck's life and career, from 1941 to 1990, won't take quite so long to make its way to print.
Here, Victoria Wilson talks about Stanwyck's appeal for her and the writing of Steel-True:
Here, Victoria Wilson talks about Stanwyck's appeal for her and the writing of Steel-True:
The by-invitation-only funeral of Orson Welles, who died in October 1985, took place in a downtown Los Angeles slum. His eldest daughter, Chris, who flew in from New York to attend, thought the rundown building seemed more like a "hot-sheets motel" than a funeral parlor. She was told by her stepmother, Welles's last wife from whom he had been long separated, that there was "no money" for anything more.
The Jaglom/Welles-"unplugged" chats are intriguing and quite often dishy. And then there's the "dancing bear show," the larger-than-life persona Welles donned as occasion required. Jaglom must've felt, at times, like he was front row/center for the greatest show on earth...
Two of the most celebrated leading ladies/movie stars of the 1950s were Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly. Very different types - one dark, voluptuous and mercurial, the other a cool and stunning blonde - they are nonetheless considered two of the most beautiful and talented actresses of their era.
My final gift is a celebration, in two parts, of these mid-century icons. First, TCM's Greatest Classic Legends: Elizabeth Taylor DVD collection. The set features Vincente Minnelli's sparkling romantic comedy, Father of the Bride (1950), with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett; the Richard Brooks production of the Tennessee Williams classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), co-starring Paul Newman; Butterfield 8 (1960), the drama that brought Taylor her first Oscar, directed by Daniel Mann and co-starring Laurence Harvey; and Vincente Minnelli's 1965 melodrama set in Big Sur, The Sandpiper, co-starring Richard Burton and Eva Marie Saint. Paired with the Taylor DVD collection is Gina McKinnon's recently published What Would Grace Do?, a style guide/mini-biography of Grace Kelly (aka/Princess Grace). Lots of pointers here - useful in a world some would find lacking in classic taste and timeless style.
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A random drawing will be held Saturday, December 21, at 5:00pm PST. I will select three winners from the names entered and the first chosen will have first pick, the second name drawn will choose next and the third winner will receive the remaining gift. All winners will be notified immediately.
UPDATE: The random drawing was held, winners were selected and congratulations to Bob in Illinois (Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True), Christina in Ontario, Canada (My Lunches with Orson) and Lindsey in Michigan (TCM's Classic Legends: Elizabeth Taylor DVD collection and What Would Grace Do?). Thanks to all who entered and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
(Congratulations to Marsha in New York, winner of the recent random drawing for TCM's Greatest Classic Films: Astaire & Rogers, Vol. 1, DVD collection - she tells me the set has already arrived)
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
The latest edition of the Film Noir Foundation's Noir City e-magazine is out and, along with major features on Dan Duryea and Peter Lorre, it brings news of Noir City XII, the FNFs annual film noir festival in San Francisco.
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| Olga Zubarry |
The full schedule for Noir City XII will be released as part of the FNF's 4th annual Noir City Xmas, a double feature event set for next Wednesday night, December 18, at the Castro Theatre; Blast of Silence (1961) and Christmas Eve (1947) will be screened.
The San Francisco festival kicks off the Noir City season, with "satellite" festivals to follow later in the year in Seattle, Austin, L.A., Chicago, Portland (OR) and Washington, D.C.
For information on Noir City and Noir City Xmas, click here.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Watching a console TV for long stretches from the living room floor and a distance of not more than a few feet was a good part of a typical day for most tots of my era. Much of what we watched was “old movies,” because, for many years, the films of what we now call "The Golden Age" aired morning, noon and night on local stations in need of hours of not-too-expensive programming. On top of this, I grew up in a movie-loving home. Mother, a child of the ‘30s and young woman of the ‘40s, had been one of the countless kids who was terrorized by King Kong when it was a first-run release and she was among the many teenagers who lined up to see Gone with the Wind when it was breaking box office records. Later, after she came to live in Southern California during World War II, she had chance encounters with one or two movie stars that she never forgot. Dad wasn't a movie fan in the same way, but he did love Cagney. And he favored Westerns. One night, when my brother and I were in his charge, he took us to see Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It was the only night out at the movies we ever had with just dad.
Since movies were a part of my life from the beginning, is it any mystery that I knew who Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Tyrone Power were before I knew the names of some of my relatives? I recall noting in my diary when I was about nine that I had watched The Great Lie, “starring Bette Davis.” I remember first being enchanted by Tyrone Power when he smiled at Dorothy Lamour just after they met on a staircase in Johnny Apollo. And there was the time I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder every night, five nights in a row, on a channel that ran the same feature film every week, all through the week.
But as I got older my interests multipied to include music and boys and so many other things. And time continued to pass...
Since movies were a part of my life from the beginning, is it any mystery that I knew who Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Tyrone Power were before I knew the names of some of my relatives? I recall noting in my diary when I was about nine that I had watched The Great Lie, “starring Bette Davis.” I remember first being enchanted by Tyrone Power when he smiled at Dorothy Lamour just after they met on a staircase in Johnny Apollo. And there was the time I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder every night, five nights in a row, on a channel that ran the same feature film every week, all through the week.
But as I got older my interests multipied to include music and boys and so many other things. And time continued to pass...
It was summertime and I was living in a beach town where I’d taken a part-time job at a veterinary clinic until the fall term began. I usually listened to records or sometimes watched TV when I got home from work an hour two before dinner. Channel surfing one day, I tuned in to an L.A. TV station that aired "old movies" in the afternoon. I hadn’t seen any of the musicals of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at that point and was curious, so I sat down to watch when it turned out the movie of the day would be The Gay Divorcee(1934).
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| Resort set |
The Gay Divorcee was the first in a string of musicals Astaire and Rogers headlined together and it set the mold for the greatest of their classics. In this one, he's Guy Holden, a cocky Broadway hoofer on holiday in Europe, traveling with his dim and dizzy sidekick, Egbert (Edward Everett Horton), a British attorney of sorts. Astaire is up and dancing within the film's first minutes: pressed into service to pay for dinner at a Paris nightclub, Guy puts on a floor show of his own, improvising a slapdash dance routine on the spot. The prototypical Astaire/Rogers meet-cute takes place dockside in London. He is instantly smitten, she is promptly put off. When he later begins to pine for her (though he protests, "girls pine...men just suffer"), he warbles a lovesick tune, "Needle in a Haystack," and breaks into a nifty dance around his hotel room as he gets dressed. Irving Berlin was on the money when he said, "As a dancer he stands alone, and no singer knows his way around a song like Fred Astaire."  |
| "It's just like looking for a needle in a haystack...still I've got to find you..." |
Also on hand lending comic support are Eric Blore as an unctuous waiter with an eye and ear for detail and Erik Rhodes as an enthusiastic, if hare-brained, professional "co-respondent" ("Your wife is safe with Tonetti, he prefers spaghetti"). Briefly featured is 18-year-old Betty Grable as a bit of platinum strudel intent on k-knocking k-knees with Egbert.
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| Betty Grable to Edward Everett Horton: "Let's K-knock K-knees" |
Most of The Gay Divorcee is set at a lavish resort on the faux English seaside - the Bella Vista, a glittering monument to Art Deco. When Guy spies Mimi at the hotel, he pursues and coaxes her into dancing with him in an empty ballroom overlooking a moonlit sea. He sings Cole Porter's glorious "Night and Day," they dance, and as the heat between them builds, her resistance begins to melt. It's a palpably seductive moment and he literally dances his way into her heart. The expression on Mimi's face when the music ends says it all...
Naturally, there's a cleverly contrived identity mix-up that derails the romance for a while. It centers on time and place and the phrase, "chance is the fool's name for fate" (repeated variously as "chance is the foolish name for fate," "fate is a foolish thing to take chances with," "chances are that fate is foolish," etc.). But Guy and Mimi unravel the misunderstanding and it isn't long before they're dancing again, this time in the musical centerpiece of The Gay Divorcee, "The Continental," a many-phased, grand-scale, 22-minute production number. Here are excerpts from the finale:
It was then that my dormant affection for "old movies" reawakened and became a full-blown passion. Soon it was more than classics on TV and keeping up with the latest new movies (many of them now legends of the New Hollywood) for me. I began to haunt "revival houses," where retrospectives of Hollywood classics were shown, and "art houses" that screened foreign films old and new. And that was just the beginning.
Thinking back on it, the experience of reconnecting with classic movies and recognizing, consciously, what they meant to me wasn't too unlike what had happened when I returned to my hometown for the first time after many months away. It was springtime and as the car descended into the valley where I'd grown up, the scent of orange blossoms drifted up, growing stronger and stronger. Tears suddenly sprang into my eyes. The smell was so powerful and exotic...and yet so intimately familiar. That beautiful scent had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember but I'm not sure I fully appreciated it until that instant.
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The Gay Divorcee was a box office smash and established the Astaire/Rogers formula for the best of their films at RKO. The picture was nominated for five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Art Direction (Van Nest Polglase and Carroll Clark) Best Music/Score (Max Steiner), Best Sound Recording (Carl Dreher) and the first Best Music/Original Song award, which it won, for "The Continental" by Con Conrad and Herb Magidson.
The film was based on a 1932 Broadway hit, Gay Divorce, in which Astaire had starred with Claire Luce. Only "Night and Day," of the thirteen songs Cole Porter had written for the original stage production, was kept in the film version, but the plot remained intact and both Eric Blore and Erik Rhodes reprised their Broadway roles onscreen. The original title of the musical was changed at the insistence of the Hays Office in the belief that suggesting a divorcee could be happy was safer than implying divorce might be a cause for frivolity.
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| Erik Rhodes and Fred Astaire, "Chance is the fool's name for fate..." |
Turner Classic Movies is honoring Fred Astaire as Star of the Month in December. For more about him and the line-up of his films this month, Click here.
~This is my contribution to the Classic Movie Blog Association's Film Passion 101 Blogathon. Click here for links to participating blogs!
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
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| Clockwise from top left: Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson and Louise Brooks |
Fashion in Film
Film and costume design history expert Kimberly Truhler, one of the presenting hosts at TCM’s 2013 Classic Film Festival, launched her new webinar series The History of Fashion in Filmwith The 1920s - The Jazz Age on November 17 - and I was there!
Kimberly certainly knows her stuff - she’s an adjunct professor at L.A.’s Woodbury University where she teaches a course on the history of fashion in film, she serves as a film and costume design historian for Christies of London, curates a private vintage fashion collection, manages her own website, GlamAmor (dedicated to preserving and sharing the history and legacy of fashion in film), and much more. Her impressive experience and knowledge were clearly evident throughout the nearly two-hour inaugural webinar session. And what an education I got…
Kimberly touched on the history of American film itself, from its invention to the advent of the studio system, from its beginnings on the East Coast to its move to the West Coast, from the age of the nickelodeon to the production of full-length feature films, from the silent era to the dawn of sound and from a time when costumes were often homemade to the use of European couture to the emergence of American couture.
Kimberly certainly knows her stuff - she’s an adjunct professor at L.A.’s Woodbury University where she teaches a course on the history of fashion in film, she serves as a film and costume design historian for Christies of London, curates a private vintage fashion collection, manages her own website, GlamAmor (dedicated to preserving and sharing the history and legacy of fashion in film), and much more. Her impressive experience and knowledge were clearly evident throughout the nearly two-hour inaugural webinar session. And what an education I got…
Kimberly touched on the history of American film itself, from its invention to the advent of the studio system, from its beginnings on the East Coast to its move to the West Coast, from the age of the nickelodeon to the production of full-length feature films, from the silent era to the dawn of sound and from a time when costumes were often homemade to the use of European couture to the emergence of American couture.
Kimberly narrowed her focus to four films of the ‘20s that she considers essential to film fashion history because of their immediate as well as long-lasting impact on style on and offscreen. Here is a snapshot of just some of what we learned:
Cecil B. DeMille’s Why Change Your Wife? (1920), starring Gloria Swanson with costumes by Clare West
Clare West, as was the practice of the time, did not actually design costumes but traveled to Europe where she spent lavishly on clothing from couture houses. Swanson’s opulent wardrobe and signature style was created out of West’s selections – and DeMille spared no expense to dress his great star.
It (1927), from Paramount, starring Clara Bow with costumes by Travis Banton
Banton made a daring decision when he chose to showcase the “little black dress” look on Clara Bow in It only a few months after Coco Chanel unveiled her “Ford dress,” the first lbddesigned for conventional wear. Until then, women wore black only at funerals - but the look was popularized with It.
MGM’s Our Dancing Daughters (1928), starring Joan Crawford with costumes credited to David Cox (though Kimberly suggests that Adrian may well have been involved)
This film made a star of Joan Crawford and popularized the Art Deco look. The movie also promoted “women wearing pants” (a huge taboo at the time) with an equestrian look that was famously mirrored decades later in Diane Keaton’s legendary Annie Hall style.
G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929), a German silent film starring American actress Louise Brooks with costumes by French designer Jean Patou
Would anyone remember Louise Brooks if not for this film? Her pared-down, low-cut, back-revealing wardrobe by French fashion icon Jean Patou signaled the direction style would take in the 1930s. And Brooks’ iconic “bob” became a haircut du jour that never went out of style.
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| Clockwise from top left: Clare West, Jean Patou, Adrian and Travis Banton |
I have barely scratched the surface of Kimberly‘s fascinating webinar but a recording of the session is now available online. Click here for information on access to the recording and for more on the remaining History of Fashion in Film webinars:
Sun., December 15: The 1930s – Art Deco Elegance
Sun., Janaury 19: The 1940s – Film Noir Style
Sun., February 16: The 1950s – Opposites Attract
Sun., March 16: The 1960s – Revolution
Sun., April 20: The 1970s – Everybody’s All American
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| Cary Grant and Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus (1932), costume design by Travis Banton |
The Hollywood Costume
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| Deborah Nadoolman-Landis |
Meanwhile, beginning on the 6th of December, Turner Classic Movies will shine its Friday Night Spotlight on The Hollywood Costume all through the month. Costume designer (Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and author Deborah Nadoolman Landis will host, and every Friday evening viewers will be treated to three double features, each showcasing the work of a different top Hollywood costume designer. Here’s what we can look forward to:
December 6
Designer: Travis Banton
Films: Blonde Venus (1932), starring Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant, and Cleopatra (1934), starring Claudette Colbert
Designer: Orry-Kelly
Films: Casablanca(1942), starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, and Auntie Mame (1958), starring Rosalind Russell
Designer: Adrian
Films: The Women (1939), starring Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, and Anna Karenina (1935), starring Greta Garbo
December 13
Designer: Irene Sharaff
Films: Funny Girl (1968), starring Barbra Streisand, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
Designer: Anthea Sylbert
Films: Chinatown (1974), starring Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson, and Carnal Knowledge (1971), starring Jack Nicholson and Ann-Margret
Designer: Walter Plunkett
Films: Adam’s Rib (1949), starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and Forbidden Planet (1956), starring Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis
December 20
Designer: Jean Louis
Films: Send Me No Flowers (1964), starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson, and The Big Heat (1953), starring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame
Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone
Films: Dog Day Afternoon (1975), starring Al Pacino, and The Stepford Wives (1975), starring Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss and Tina Louise
Designer: Edith Head
Films: Sullivan’s Travels (1941), starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, and The Seven Little Foys (1955), starring Bob Hope
December 27
Designer: Edward Stevenson
Films: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), starring Joseph Cotten and Tim Holt, and Out of the Past (1947), starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer
Designer: Ann Roth
Films: Silkwood (1983), starring Meryl Streep, and Klute (1971), starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland
Designer: Helen Rose
Films: The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), starring Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas, and Annie Get Your Gun (1950), starring Betty Hutton.
(check your local TV listings for times)
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| Faye Dunaway in Chinatown (1974), costume design by Anthea Sylbert |
Saturday, November 23, 2013
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| Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo at Davies Hall, San Francisco, November 1, 2013 |
A few months ago the San Francisco Symphony announced that it would kick off a season-long classic film series with Hitchcock Week, October 30 - November 2. Each night a different Hitchcock movie was to be presented with its music track scrubbed and the score performed live by the symphony orchestra. Psycho launched the series on the 30th, followed by The Lodger on Halloween, Vertigo on November 1st and, on the 2nd, a night of 'greatest hits' excerpts (To Catch a Thief, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, North by Northwest) hosted by Eva Marie Saint. Most appealing to me among these events was the Vertigo program, not only because Vertigo is one of my favorite films of all time, but also because the symphony's musical accompaniment would be the world premiere live performance of Bernard Herrmann's full score. But the event was sold out by the time I found out about it. Only due to my good fortune in making a connection with a very considerate symphony representative did a pair of orchestra section seats come my way. And so it was that on the first Friday night in November my dear friend, Mike, and I, filled with anticipation and excitement, set off for Davies Symphony Hall to see Vertigo and hear its luscious score live. Once there, we sampled the special cocktail concocted for the evening, "The Voyeur" (sparkling wine, Grand Marnier, cognac), had a quick bite to eat, took our seats and waited for the lights to dim.
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| "Voyeur" |
The presentation started with an informal talk by Bernard Herrmann biographer Steven Smith, an expert on the composer's music, who contends that "the pairing of a master visualist like Alfred Hitchcock and a composer like Bernard Herrmann, who set out to pull viewers 'into the drama,' remains the greatest director-composer partnership in cinema." Many consider Vertigo's score the ultimate of the composer's seven scores for the director (The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, Marnie), and Bernard Herrmann himself acknowledged that the music he composed for Vertigo was his favorite of his Hitchcock works.
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| James Stewart and Kim Novak, Vertigo |
Within Herrmann's heady score is a deliberate nod to composer Richard Wagner, particularly the "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde - what biographer Smith refers to as Vertigo's "Wagner-tinged love theme." Wagner described Tristan und Isolde as "a tale of endless yearning, longing, the bliss and wretchedness of love...a yearning, a hunger and anguishing forever renewing itself." I can't think of a better description of Scottie Ferguson's never-ending, obsessive love for Madeleine Elster, so flawlessly accentuated by Bernard Herrmann's heart-piercing theme.
I have seen Vertigo on many screens large and small over the years, from its re-release into theaters in 1983, to countless in-home viewings, to a screening last year at Oakland's movie palace, the Paramount Theatre. As I watched Hitchcock's dreamscape unfold onscreen at Davies Hall and listened to the live performance of Herrmann's score, I thought of Diane Ackerman's poetic Natural History of the Senses and her descriptions of the visual image as a "tripwire for the emotions" and of music that "like pure emotions...frees us from the elaborate nuisance and inaccuracy of words." My experience of Vertigo with orchestra was as profoundly moving as it was unique.
My friend Mike, who was once a sound engineer for CBS Records, remarked that the symphony was so perfectly in synch with the film that he found himself forgetting that an orchestra was onstage performing the score. When he did take a moment to watch the orchestra, he said he noticed that conductor Joshua Gersen was "playing to time," keeping a close eye on a clock as well as the sheet music and musicians.
In 2011 I attended my first film with live accompaniment at the San Francisco Symphony when Casablanca was screened and the orchestra performed Max Steiner's memorable score. It was exhilarating and I hoped there would be more such events to come. When I learned the Symphony had scheduled a film series to run through its entire 2013/2014 concert season I was thrilled. The Hitchcock Week launch was a great success and four more film-with-orchestra events are still ahead. Classic film buffs in or near the San Francisco Bay Area (or who may be headed this way for business or holiday) shouldn't miss the chance to experience an evening of great cinema backed with live orchestral accompaniment - a pleasure that nearly defies description.
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| Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca |
Coming to the symphony on Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7, is the film classic voted the greatest musical of all time by the American Film Institute. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain (1952), featuring Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed's music, will be presented at 7:30 pm both nights. Conductor Sarah Hicks will lead the orchestra.
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| Gene Kelly, Singin' in the Rain |
On Saturday, February 15, Valentine's Day weekend, the symphony will present A Night at the Oscars. The program will begin at 8:00 pm, and conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos and the symphony will accompany excerpts from The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Citizen Kane (1941) and Ben-Hur (1959) with the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Herbert Stothart, Bernard Herrmann and Miklós Rózsa.
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| Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn, The Adventures of Robin Hood |
Saturday April 12, brings Charlie Chaplin's silent masterpiece, City Lights (1931), to Davies Hall. Conductor Richard Kaufman and the symphony orchestra will perform Chaplin's score, its main theme based on José Padilla's song, "La Violetera."
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| Charlie Chaplin, City Lights |
The season's classic film series will end with Fantasia on Saturday, May 31, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, June 1, at 4:00 pm. These presentations will feature a mix of elements from Disney's original Fantasia (1940) and Fantasia 2000. Sarah Hicks will conduct the symphony in selections including Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, Debussy's Claire de lune, Beethoven's Pastorale, Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice and more.
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| Fantasia |
For detailed information on the San Francisco Symphony's classic film series and its "Compose Your Own" special pricing package, click here or call (415) 864-6000.
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| Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco |
Friday, November 22, 2013
Personal Memories of John F. Kennedy
At 43, he was the youngest man to be elected and the only Catholic President of the United States. His youth and religion were issues in 1960 when he won the office by quite a bit less than a landslide. After his assassination in 1963, at age 46, those issues became irrelevant - and 64% of those polled at the time claimed to have voted for him when he was elected, though his margin of victory was just over 50%.
Yes, John F. Kennedy was charismatic and handsome, but as impressive and more important were his intelligence and cool head, major assets as he was drawn into intense Cold War world politics during his three years in office.
I was very young then. I remember reading in My Weekly Reader, a newspaper for grammar-schoolers, about him and other Democratic candidates in an article on presidential primaries. Little did I know that his candidacy would actually make primaries relevant to election politics. Later, when he’d won the nomination and was campaigning in Southern California, my parents took us to Lindbergh Field, San Diego’s airport, where Kennedy was to land and say a few words before delivering a major speech downtown. Dad had gotten a pass of some sort through political contacts that gave us admittance to the area on the tarmac where Kennedy would arrive. The enthusiastic airport audience was contained within a small fenced area where we awaited the candidate. Kennedy landed in a private plane and spoke briefly from a raised podium nearby. Then he began shaking hands with the crowd. I’d already moved from the back of the crowd, where my family was standing, to the front so I could hear better and get a good look. As the handshaking began, I climbed on top of a fallen papier mache donkey in front of the podium and reached for his hand. Success! I was thrilled. I’d been captivated by his eloquent words and magnetic presence. Now I’d shaken his hand.
Two months later he was elected. His iconic inaugural address and the grand inaugural ball (partly orchestrated by Frank Sinatra) followed in January. Soon came the Bay of Pigs fiasco, for which Kennedy took full responsibility – while learning just how much to trust the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was a triumphant trip to Paris with Jackie – and it seemed the U.S. had at last attained a stature in the world that, until then, had seemed the sole province of Europe. The Peace Corps was established and ‘physical fitness’ (the 50-mile hike!) was promoted. Kennedy’s frequent televised press conferences and speeches proved him to be the true ‘great communicator’ among modern American presidents. He spoke out and proposed a bill on civil rights, he signed the first limited nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union and the UK…
And then he was gone.
It was the morning of November 22, 1963, sometime between 10:00 and 11:00am, Pacific Standard Time. I was in the language lab which was in the school's library building. I began to hear what sounded like a radio or TV at loud volume coming from the library. I wondered what was going on. My next class was gym and while I was changing clothes I began to hear rumors that shots had been fired at President Kennedy. I knew that someone had tried to shoot Harry Truman when he was in office and assumed this was the same kind of thing – an attempt. It was basketball season and we girls were on the court when the school principal’s voice suddenly came over the public address system and announced that President Kennedy was dead. My best friend was in the class with me and I remember that we sat on the court, hugging each other and sobbing.
That night, mother didn’t feel like cooking, so we went to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was packed with families like ours. Apparently a lot of other mothers didn’t feel like cooking that night either. The eerie thing was that as we sat there in that restaurant full of people, no one spoke, not anyone at any table. The room was completely silent and it stayed silent.
My brother and I were glued to the TV through the rest of the weekend and, on Sunday morning, watched together in disbelief as Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed while in police custody. Then, on Monday, there was no school – it was the day of the President’s state funeral – and with it came all those never to be forgotten images…a widow heavily draped in black, heads of state from all over the world walking in the street with the family behind the coffin-bearing caisson, a riderless horse, the doleful sound of the funeral march as it played on and on, a little boy saluting his father's casket.
As I've watched some of the 50th anniversary specials about JFK's life, presidency and death this past week and mulled over my own memories and all that has transpired since, I've realized that so much more than innocence was lost 50 years ago today.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
The What a Character! blogathon is in progress now, hosted by Once Upon a Screen, Outspoken and Freckled and Paula's Cinema Club. Click here for more information and links to participating blogs. My entry for the event follows...
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| Young Gladys |
Gladys Cooper and Alfred Hitchcock launched their careers in Hollywood at the same time on the same film - Rebecca (1940). Cooper's was the small role of a tweedy aristocrat, the sister of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), who offered warmth and kindness to the beleaguered second Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine). Rebecca, Selznick Pictures' follow up to Gone with the Wind, took the year's Best Picture Oscar and put Cooper (not to mention Hitchcock, Fontaine and Olivier) on the Hollywood map. Her obvious talent and commanding presence brought two less sympathetic roles next: Dennis Morgan's disapproving socialite mother in Kitty Foyle (1940) and the spurned wife of Laurence Olivier in That Hamilton
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| Gladys Cooper and Frank Morgan in Green Dolphin Street |
Typecast? Yes and no. Cooper was fortunate (and versatile) enough to be cast in sympathetic roles - in Mr. Lucky (1943), The White Cliffs of Dover (1944), The Valley of Decision (1945), Green Dolphin Street (1947) and other popular films - but she was as often cast as uppercrust autocrats. In 1947, she brought one of her most memorable wealthy dowagers to the screen as Mrs. Hamilton in the holiday fantasy The Bishop's Wife. This time, though, there was a twist; the imperious widow's hardened heart was melted by no less an angel than Cary Grant - giving Cooper the rare chance to render both harsh and tender facets of her character.
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| Gladys Cooper and Cary Grant, The Bishop's Wife |
Gladys Cooper's credits during TV's early, golden days are impressive. She appeared on two legendary drama anthologies, The Alcoa Hour and Playhouse 90; she was featured on both Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; she guested on The Ann Sothern Show, Naked City, The Outer Limits, Burkes Law, Ben Casey, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. (!) and was nominated for a
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| The Rogues |
Now in her mid-70s, Gladys Cooper still had a last good film or two ahead of her. She was a member of John Huston's illustrious cast in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) and earned her third and final Academy Award nomination for her performance as Mrs. Higgins, mother of Henry (Rex Harrison), in the Oscar-winning musical, My Fair Lady (1964).
And that's not all. Before she embarked on her Hollywood career, Cooper had starred on Broadway several times. She returned to the New York stage in her late career and earned Tony nominations in her final two roles. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Play in 1956 for her performance in The Chalk Garden and again in 1962 for her performance in A Passage to India (in a role that would bring an Oscar to Peggy Ashcroft 20+ years later).
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| Gladys Cooper (center) in a 1971 revival of The Chalk Garden |
At last, in 1967, as she approached 80, Gladys Cooper was named a Dame of the British Empire. Her life in the public eye had begun because of the great beauty with which she was naturally endowed; she was long considered the most beautiful woman in England. But Cooper was blessed with more than looks, she had striking talent and presence and profound devotion to her craft. The blush of youthful beauty would, as it always does, fade, but her power as an actress only matured and deepened through the years. Dame Gladys Cooper had been about to embark on a Canadian tour with a revival of The Chalk Garden in 1971 when she was stricken with pneumonia and died.
Bette Davis was set to tape a guest appearance on The Dick Cavett Show when she learned of Gladys Cooper's death; she shared her thoughts during the interview:
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