My Christmas Dreaming by Katie Richardson

Hot damn, I love Christmas. The snow, the lights, the songs, the presents. Especially the presents.

I got the best gift last night at about 6 pm when our power, which had been out since Friday, came back on. But that’s not classic movie related, so let’s move on.

I happen to be getting the one thing I wanted most this year, the Murnau, Borzage, and Fox DVD set with a bazillion movies and books. I know I’m getting. It’s the only thing I asked for. And I ordered it myself. With my mom’s credit card. So, technically it’s a present from her. That I bought myself.

The DVD set might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. From Murnau, it has Sunrise and City Girl. From Borzage, it has Seventh Heaven, Street Angel, Lazybones, Lucky Star, They Had to See Paris, Liliom, Song o’ My Heart, Bad Girl, After Tomorrow, Young America. It also has a documentary. And on those DVDs is also a reconstruction of Murnau’s 4 Devils and the surviving footage of Borzage’s The River. AND it comes with two books. My god.

Really, that’s all I want. I know I’m getting other stuff, because my mom has the guilt thing where she thinks we need to have a bazillion presents under the tree. But that’s all I want.

But…. in the hypothetical Christmas list…. I got one wish this year already when TCM finally aired Man’s Castle. Now I want it on DVD. Special edition DVD. With extras and commentaries (hey… I could do the commentary… just sayin’….) Maybe a Criterion release….

Christmas is also about more than presents. It’s also about Christmas movies. I adore Christmas movies. There are the old favorites. A Christmas Story, Muppet Christmas Carol. But there are those lesser known pieces of lovely.

We discussed Bachelor Mother on the Christmas podcast. Ginger Rogers give an excellent performance opposite David Niven and an adorable baby. It draws some parallels to the story of the virgin birth, so it’s kind of a Christmas movie more in theme then in time setting (though it does take place during the holiday season).

Another Ginger Rogers Christmas movie, I’ll Be Seeing You, is a little darker in tone, but it’s a really beautiful movie. Rogers plays a convict on furlough for Christmas, and Joseph Cotten plays a soldier suffering from post traumatic stress. They meet, and mend their broken spirits together over the holiday season.

Finally, I love the hell out of the Barbara Stanwyck/Fred MacMurray film Remember the Night. It is technically a comedy, but like I’ll Be Seeing You, it’s more serious in tone. Stanwyck and MacMurray shared such steamy chemistry in Double Indemnity, and their chemistry translates very sweetly to this film.

So, if you have time tonight and tomorrow, seek these movies out. They’re really great for the holiday season. Have a great Christmas!

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Youtube Movie of the Week: Bachelor Mother (Kanin, 1939)

Cast: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Alberton

Polly Parish (Rogers) is a sales girl at Merlin’s Department store. She’s fired just a few days before Christmas. On her way home, she finds a baby on the steps of the orphange and picks it up, so the people at the orphanage think the baby is hers. Thinking she abandoned the baby because she had lost her job, the orphanage convinces David Merlin (Niven) to give Polly her job back. Polly takes care of the baby that isn’t really hers, and begins to love him as though her were her own. As does David, who also begins to love Polly.

Bachelor Mother is a really terrific Christmas movie. It’s one of those movies that’s a clever take on the virgin birth, making the subject matter perfect for the holiday. It also slyly slides past the censors and the Production Code with the subject manner. There’s a tiny bit of a subversive undertone to the family comedy that’s delightful.

This is one of Ginger Rogers’ best performances. As always, she handles both the comedy and the drama with tremendous skill, and helps to make the growing romance between Polly and David very convincing. But what makes her performance great is her work with the baby. Rogers never had any children of her own, but you’d never guess that by the way she behaves with the baby. She grows to love the baby that’s not really her’s, and it’s one of the most convincing performances I’ve ever seen, and it also makes for one of the most touching mother/son relationships in film.

It definitely is, without a doubt, Ginger’s movie. But David Niven gives a very solid performance. He has some great moments of humor, like when he’s reading the baby book and the pages get stuck together, and when he tries to return the toy duck to his own department store. He really is wonderful with Rogers, and the development of their romance is quite lovely.

Bachelor Mother is simply one of the funniest, sweetest movies to come out in the 1930s.

Also, it was remade as a musical in the 1950s with Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher as Bundle of Joy. It’s not nearly as good as Bachelor Mother, but it is a really cute movie, and Debbie Reynolds is adorable.

Unfortunately, the version on Youtube is the colorized one, but it’s a good movie whether it’s bastardized by color or not.

Part 1, Part 1 continued, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14

And just so you know, after part 4, they’re incorrectly labeled on youtube. I believe I got them all in the right order.

 

Ginger without Fred

Ginger Rogers is my favorite actress. She’s mostly remembered today for being Fred Astaire’s dance partner throughout the 1930s. But Rogers had an acting talent that went beyond that. She was a fantastic and graceful dancer, but she should be remembered as so much more. Her range was unbelievable. She could make a fantastic screwball comedy, and then turn around and make a melodrama, giving great performances in both. Rogers stopped dancing with Astaire in 1939 with The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (they’d re-team just once more, ten years later, for The Barkleys of Broadway) to focus on a career in non-musical films. Almost immediately her talent was recognized and she won an Academy Award for her performance in the 1940 film Kitty Foyle. Unfortunately, though, so many of her sans-Fred films aren’t remembered today. Here are some of the best.

Primrose Path (Gregory La Cava, 1940)

The same year she gave her award winning performance in Kitty Foyle, she gave an even better performance in Primrose Path, as the daughter of a prostitute who tries to escape her life by marrying Joel McCrea. This is one of the most beautiful love stories put out by the studio system. It’s about the importance of honesty in a marriage. It’s surprising that this film got past the Production Code, not just because it featured characters who were clearly prostitutes, but because these characters were sympathetic. Marjorie Rambeau (who received an Oscar nomination for the role) played Rogers’ mother and a basically good woman simply doing what she was taught in order to support her family. Her relationship with Rogers is gentle. She only wants the best for her children. Primrose Path is a really brave film for the time it was made, and it’s just one of the best romance films I’ve ever seen.

Rafter Romance (William A. Seiter, 1933)

Rafter Romance is actually a pre-Fred film. It’s a simple but incredible sweet and pretty funny romance. Rogers and Norman Foster play two people who share an apartment – he lives there during the day, she lives there at night. They never meet, but they still can’t stand each other. Of course, they meet outside of the apartment, not realizing the other is the person they believe they can’t stand, and they fall in love. This is definitely one of the most original romantic comedies of the early 1930s. Rogers is completely charming, and Norman Foster is a good match for her. They’re both just so endlessly cute.

Romance In Manhattan (Stephen Roberts, 1935)

It’s amazing that such a simple romantic dramady can be so moving. Francis Lederer plays an immigrant who is in the country illegally. He’s taken in by Rogers and her kid brother. It’s really as simple as that. The three just try to make a living and stay afloat while Lederer and Rogers fall in love. But it’s such a sincere and genuine romance. It’s made with so much heart from all involved. And it has one of the funniest finales ever.

Star of Midnight (Stephen Roberts, 1935)

Star of Midnight is my favorite Thin Man knockoff. It’s central mystery is really very interesting, and it has a certain “strange” feeling that I think sets it apart from other screwball mysteries. Powell stars in this (and he’s great, as always) with Rogers as his much younger and very eager love interest. She goes after everything with determination and vigor, whether it’s trying to solve the case or trying to get Powell to marry her. I really wish these two had made more movies together. They were a perfect fit.

Vivacious Lady (George Stevens, 1938)

Vivacious Lady is a sweet romantic comedy made great by the brilliant pairing of Ginger Rogers and James Stewart. They both had an “everyman” feel to them, which made them an incredibly relatable couple. You want so badly for them to be happy together because they’re so normal and remind you of yourself. I also like that it’s not really a movie about two people falling in love. They get married early on in the film. The movie is about them trying to break the news to his family, and staying together while they do it. It’s just an adorable movie.

Bachelor Mother (Garson Kanin, 1939)

This is one of Rogers’ very best performances. She plays a woman who has to raise an orphaned baby she finds on her own because nobody believes it’s not hers. In the meantime, she begins to fall in love with David Niven, her boss’s son who takes an interest in caring for the baby as well. This movie is so great because, in addition to the great romance between Rogers and Niven, it’s wonderful to watch Rogers’ love for the baby, that’s not even hers, grow. It’s one of the most interesting and beautiful relationships in film.

5th Avenue Girl (Gregory La Cava, 1939)

5th Avenue Girl is such a good movie because it has so much going for it. First would be the relationship between Rogers and Walter Connolly. Connolly plays a wealthy man who is ignored by his family, she when he meets Rogers on a park bench he takes her in and the two pretend they’re having an affair in the hopes that the family will finally pay attention to what he’s doing. Rogers and Connolly bond and form a really nice father/daughter relationship that’s the heart of the movie. But the movie has three love stories going on. Throughout the film, Connolly and his wife eventually find their way back to each other. Connolly’s daughter is in love with the chauffer, who seems to be something of a communist. The best love story, though, you don’t realize is there until about halfway through the movie. Rogers and Connolly’s son, Tim Holt, fall in love. It’s a strangely done romance, I’m not even sure I can really describe it, but it’s a really strong film all together.

Tom, Dick, and Harry (Garson Kanin, 1941)

Rogers played a character in Tom, Dick, and Harry who was a little… simpler than most of her other characters. She dreams of romance and love, but can’t choose between three different guys: the regular guy who’s working his way up to management at a local store, the millionaire, and the poor guy. The best part about this movie is that each of the guys has their pros and their cons, and you really have no idea who she’ll choose in the end. She gives a really adorable performance, and this movie is just cute.

Tales of Manhattan (Julian Duvivier, 1942)

In this series of loosely connected vignettes, Ginger Rogers has one of the best stories. It’s a little, short, self contained story about Rogers finding out her fiancee is a cad and realizing his pal, Henry Fonda, is perfect for her. It’s short, sweet, and funny. And Rogers and Fonda are SO good together. Watching this, it’s hard to believe they never made any other films together. They were such a good pairing.

I’ll Be Seeing You (William Dieterle, 1944)

This movie is SO amazing. While there were a lot of movies being made to show how awesome soldiers were and to spread patriotic propaganda during the war, I’ll Be Seeing You was one of the first films to really take a look at the negative effects the war was having on the soldiers. This movie gives us two incredibly flawed, complicated, and damaged characters and allows them to fall in love. It’s just such a beautiful movie. You really didn’t see movies and characters like this too much in classic film.

By Katie Richardson

 

Happy Fathers Day…. Movie Fathers

Ah, father’s day. The day when you end up having to scrape together money you don’t have because your brother went ahead and bought a really expensive present that he just expected you to go in on with him even though he never asked you. Yes. It’s a wonderful day.

So… yeah… I think this list is pretty self explanatory. For the warm and fuzzy to the manipulative and terrible, movie dads come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some of my favorites from obscure classic film.

Florian Clement (C. Aubrey Smith) in But the Flesh is Weak

Robert Montgomery and C. Aubrey Smith play a father/son team of male gold diggers. Though the films focuses mostly on Montgomery and his relationships with Heather Thatcher and Nora Gregor, the best moments in the film are the quiet ones between father and son. Clement is a good father who taught his son to do bad things.

Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) in A Free Soul

Barrymore won an Academy Award for this performance. While the film is mostly memorable for the sizzling pre-code chemistry between Norma Shearer and Clark Gable, it’s Barrymore’s alcoholic lawyer father who gives the film its real heart.

Viktor Roth (Frank Morgan) in The Mortal Storm

Probably one of the best fathers in classic film. Roth is a father not just to his own children, but to his step sons, and their two best friends. Not only does he support the family and teach them to think for themselves, but he offers them the strongest kind of spiritual guidance after he sent to a concentration camp.

Eddie Collins (James Dunn) in Bad Girl

An expecting father. Much like director Frank Borzage’s similarly themed Little Man, What Now? Eddie’s story is about the sacrifices he’s willing to make for the child that he and his wife are expecting.

David Merlin (David Niven) in Bachelor Mother

Sort of an adoptive father. He falls for the son of Ginger Rogers (even though he’s not even really her’s either) just as much as he falls for Ginger. This is a lovely movie about how sometimes the best family is the one you make.

Sir Winterton (C. Aubrey Smith) in The Bachelor Father

This is definitely pre-code. It’s about a man who nailed a lot of different women when he was young, and now wants to gather all of his several children (all by different mothers) that he’s never met. This is one of my favorite movies from the early 1930s.

So who are some of your favorite dads from classic film?

By Katie Richardson