A New Year's Moment

As 2013 departs, 2014 arrives with flair - courtesy of elegant and stylish Mr. Fred Astaire...

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Happy Birthday, Marlene Dietrich!

Marlene Dietrich, photograph by Edward Steichen

Marie Magdalene Dietrich was born 112 years ago today in Schöneberg, Germany. She died well into her 90th year, in Paris, in 1992, and was by then known the world over as Marlene Dietrich, archetypal superstar of the silver screen as well as the cabaret and concert stage.

As a child, Dietrich contracted her first name, added her nickname (pronounced Layna) and became "Marlene"

I've long been fascinated by the Dietrich persona and have extravagantly enjoyed and admired the seven films she made with Josef von Sternberg, the first for UFA in Germany, the rest for Paramount in the U.S.: The Blue Angel (1930), Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil is a Woman (1935). She has been the subject of several blog entries here.

The Devil is a Woman (1935)

My earliest Dietrich posts for Reel Life were published in a series on the von Sternberg/Dietrich partnership - Light, Shadow and Synergy, Part I, Part II and Part III - a reflection on the films they made together and the nature of their collaboration. I am regularly tempted to revise the whole thing but fear that if I do the series might grow to four, five or even six parts. Recently, though, I came upon this piece by Anne Helen Peterson, a wise, witty and wicked assessment of the fabulous star, and decided to leave well enough alone.

Dietrich in Travis Banton, from her personal wardrobe

"I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men."

- Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich by David Downton

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As the year ends and we remember many who are now gone, one man celebrates 100 years...

Marc Platt (shown here, in the purple shirt, in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) turned 100 on December 2

He was born Marcel LePlat in Pasadena, California on December 2, 1913, but was raised in Seattle, Washington. His training as a dancer began at age 11 at the local dance studio of Mary Ann Wells. In his early 20s, he auditioned and was selected for the chorus of the newly formed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo by the company's famed choreographer, Léonide Massine (The Red Shoes). His last name was changed to "Platoff" because so many of the group's dancers (as well as the company's roots) were Russian. Working his way up to become a soloist who premiered several roles as well as choreographing his own works, he remained with the the company for six years. His (uncredited) film debut came with the Jean Negulesco-directed short, The Gay Parisian (1941), a showcase for the Ballet Russe.

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."

Marc Platt and Katharine Sergava in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma!

Tonight and Every Night (1945), starring Rita Hayworth

In 1945, he co-starred with Rita Hayworth and Janet Blair in the Technicolor musical, Tonight and Every Night, but the film role for which he is best known came nine years later with Stanley Donen's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). Platt portrayed the fourth of the brawny "seven brothers," Daniel Pontipee. 

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.

At 91, Platt appeared as himself in the enchanting 2005 documentary, Ballets Russes, a film that traces the beginnings of the original Ballets Russes under Serge Diaghelev through its transformation, following Diaghelev's death in 1929, into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo under Léonide Massine. Many of the company's dancers - in their 70s, 80s and 90s in 2005 - including Platt, are interviewed, and performance footage illustrates the company's history.

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).

Marc Platt at the party celebrating his 100th birthday in Mill Valley, California, on December 8 (photo by Sarah Rice)

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'TIS THE SEASON - OF GIVING...AND IT'S HAPPENING HERE!

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:

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 one-time wunderkind's career as a filmmaker had collapsed years earlier, though he never stopped working - writing and struggling to get financing for his projects.  In his final years, one friend who stood by him and tried to both help find support for his work and bolster his confidence was independent filmmaker Henry Jaglom. The two lunched often at Hollywood's fabled Ma Maison (the bistro that made Wolfgang Puck's name) and one day Welles suggested Jaglom record their mealtime conversations. From 1983 until 1985, Jaglom did just that. Film historian Peter Biskind (Easy Riders, Raging Bulls) learned of the tapes Jaglom had made with Welles and eventually edited the content - published earlier this year as My Lunches With Orson.

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)

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Noir City News

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.

Olga Zubarry

The festival will again take place at San Francisco's movie palace, the Castro Theatre, and run from January 24 - February 2. The festival theme for 2014 is "It's a Bitter Little World" and it will spotlight classic film noir from around the world: France, Mexico, Japan, Argentina, Germany, Spain, Norway and Great Britain as well, of course, as the good old U.S.A. 27 films will screen and two from Argentina will be making their theatrical debut in the U.S.:  No abras nunca esa puerta/Never Open That Door (1952), an anthology adapted from stories by Cornell Woolrich (Rear Window, Deadline at Dawn, The Window, Mississippi Mermaid) and El vampiro negro/The Black Vampire (1953), a remake of Fritz Lang's M starring "The Argentine Marilyn Monroe," Olga Zubarry. Both are newly restored and subtitled 35mm prints. 

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.

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Film Passion 101: Falling in Love Again

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...

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).

Without complaint I slipped away from the casual, au naturel 1970s and tumbled, headlong, into a fantasy realm of early 1930s glamour, style and romance. There, for the next 107 minutes, I was in a world that was all music, music, music and dancing, dancing, dancing offered up on stylized sets of enormous white Art Deco buildings and rooms glossy and plush. The intense contrast of dark and light, with accents of chrome and gleam, was everywhere - and eye-popping. This was a universe of pure elegance where even the conversation sparkled.

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..."

A collection of eccentric screwball types surrounds the pair. Alice Brady prattles madly as Mimi's (Ginger Rogers) Aunt Hortense, a many-times-married-and-divorced scatterbrain who was once engaged to Egbert. Married Mimi is desperate to divorce her absentee husband and Hortense enlists inept Egbert to serve as her attorney; this, of course, has mixed results.

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.

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:

Headed for matrimony in the end, Guy and Mimi prepare to leave the resort together by taking one last turn in her hotel room to strains of "The Continental." And when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced up and over the dining table and chairs and out the door, my heart went with them.

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.

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.
 

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This is my contribution to the Classic Movie Blog Association's Film Passion 101 Blogathon. Click here for links to participating blogs!

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