This is most amusing. It’s an American fantasia of robotic Soviet women and naive Soviet men, and Garbo sells it.
Ah!
Billy Wilder. I should have guessed.
Fashion is hard.
This is very charming indeed. My main problem with the movie is the Count — the steps the Grand Duchess are taking to keep him from going off with Garbo are… they make no sense. Melvyn Douglas isn’t really a great catch now is he?
But it really is a lovely movie. Garbo is just perfect, of course, but there’s so many good performances. The three Soviet goofs are fantastic, and it’s perfectly paced.
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Michael Curtiz. 1939.
Oh, wow. I thought they were from two different movie generations, never to meet on screen.
Vincent Price!?!
Whatever colour process they were using in this early example looks good. But a bit off register, somehow? Perhaps it’s just this DVD transfer.
Looks less fuzzy in close-ups.
Wha… is that Bette Davis!? That’s a brave fashion choice for a young actress.
Oh! Errol Flynn is a year younger than Bette Davis!?
Herp derp I eat paste.
Davis is really all in here. Not a single part of the scenery remains unmasticated.
This is just bizarre. It’s so… I don’t even know how to describe it.
I’ve gotta google how this happened.
Oh, this was be a Bette Davis vehicle called “Elizabeth the Queen”, and she wanted Laurence Olivier to be her co-star. He wasn’t available, and neither were her next five choices, so the studio forced Errol Flynn on her, who she didn’t like. But he was a big star, so he insisted on his character being in the title.
The filming was an unhappy affair. Both Flynn and Davis had difficulties with director Michael Curtiz, resulting in Davis’ performance being ‘over-the-top’, and Flynn’s so underplayed that he failed to grasp Essex’s character, often appearing shallow.
It’s like Davis is trying to make the movie good by sheer force of will.
It’s not working so far.
“Is my ass on fire?”
Isn’t that what Ireland is for everybody!? I remember some oysters I got in Cork and the three days I spent on the toilet afterwards…
I am bored silly! I can’t remember being less engaged with a movie in decades. It’s just… what… why… who… Any scene here, and I’m sitting here “couldn’t they have filmed something interesting instead?”
There’s this series of CDs called Mort aux Vaches (probably named by somebody that either hates cows or really likes eating cows (metaphorically)).
It’s a series of recordings commissioned by the VPRO radio station, and it’s basically like the Peel Sessions: It’s a “live in the studio” thing, but for experimental music.
They’ve got pretty good taste in music, so it’s a good series, and I’ve been buying more of these lately. Like, catching up with the early noughts.
But the real attraction here is the packaging! The unifying theme is that every CD is packaged in a sleeve that has one of these split pins in the middle! How can you look at a sleeve with a split pin integrated and not wanting to own them all!
The earliest releases are pretty simple: Just a paper folded in three, with a CD in there, and a split pin.
But then it gets more elaborate, like this neoprene cover.
And this doily thing.
And this metallic, holey thing.
Plastic, shimmery.
And a hologram.
Cardboard!
Wood!
With hinges!
And… what the fuck is this!? Er… it’s… cardboard glued to some kind of cloth? And… can you even open it without cutting open those ribbons? I DON”T KNOW. I’m gonna try that now (I got it today)…
Phew! I didn’t have to. I just pulled out the pin and the CD slid out.
I shouldn’t have doubted the Staalplaat people. They must have had a lot of fun making these things.
Oh yeah. Mickey Rooney. I knew that he’d been a child star — he started in 27, when he was… 7… but looking over his imdb, I may never have seen any of his early movies?
He’s 19 here.
And hamming it up like a trooper.
This movie looks like an excuse to show a bunch of skits and play some songs… not that there’s anything wrong with that. So the storyline is about a bunch of kids that are putting on their own vaudeville show — after the time of vaudeville had passed.
It’s a good, wistful premise. The tunes, so far, have been kinda generic. But the “Good Morning” song was good. Is that original for this movie?
It’s amusing, but… it’s not actually, like, funny? It’s almost there? I’m surprised that Busby Berkeley would get things slightly wrong this way? I mean, he’s got all these great actors, and a classic set-up that allows them to do just about anything silly, and… instead the scenes just kinda sit there?
BABES IN ARMS was originally a Rogers and Hart show that proved a smash on the New York stage–a slightly satirical script with one of the most powerful scores of the 1930s. MGM specifically purchased the property for Rooney and Garland and then promptly threw out the script, most of the score, and transformed the thing into the tale of young teenagers who decide to put on a show in a barn.
Yeah, something went wrong somewhere. But it’s still enjoyable to watch.
It’s like winter out there or something.
It’s like the blackface minstrel show to end all blackface minstrel shows.
Is the entire show the kids are putting on like this? It’s very… it’s a concept?
I guess this is a trenchant commentary on this sort of thing is childish?
Yeah! That’s the ticket!
Oh deer.
Oh deer.
That’s Judy in light-skinned blackface. That somehow seems even worse somehow!
The Gods speaketh: By all that is sacred, this show must stop!
And then it ends with the most patriotic number ever… kinda out of the blue? I mean, it’s 1939, to it’s good that they’re preparing people to go to war, but it’s…
