Back to La La Land

A return visit to LA LA LAND was nice this week, for a rainy afternoon, as my partner had not seen it, and yes, he loved it - the music and dancing and the jazz and all those bright colours. I liked it a lot too again, but it seemed a tad too long, and maybe shallow. 

But hey, we like Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone is a big discovery for me and some sequences just sang for me, recalling moments from the Cukor 1954 A STAR IS BORN (walking around the movie sound stages), AN AMERICAN IN PARIS,  SINGING IN THE RAIN, THE BANDWAGON's "Dancing In The Dark"- Minnelli is a big influence here as is French director Jacques Demy - echoes of UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and particuarly THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, that 1967 delight and of course Scorsese's NEW YORK NEW YORK with that other driven, more intense couple both finding their individual careers but having to separate to do so - LA LA LAND is not quite in that league, but has so many blissful moments we don't care, thanks to Damien Chazelle's flair. He captures the spirit of those films and recreates it in present day Los Angeles - Joni's "city of the fallen angels", taking in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE's Griffith Park Observatory along the way. 
More on Scorsese, Demy, Minnelli and Ryan at labels. 

La La Land

Finally, LA LA LAND. See the hit movie, sure, but don't think it's the best musical ever just because you've never seen a musical.

The Oracle, my friend Martin says:

Believe the hype! Damien Chazelle's gorgeous, bitter-sweet new musical LA LA LAND filters both Demy and Minnelli through Chazelle's own post-modern vision of a 21st century LA that's steeped in a mythical musical past. This is a movie the way I sometimes remember movies used to be; big, bold, innovative and totally unafraid to take chances. It begins with a genuinely entrancing homage to the kind of fifties song-and-dance films that Gene Kelly might have dreamed up before launching into a boy-meets-girl love affair that isn't afraid to threaten to turn sour a la NEW YORK NEW YORK, (another musical it pays homage to with its jazz inflected score), but never really does. 

This is a truly uplifting experience. unashamedly romantic and blessed with a couple of sublime performances from Ryan Gosling and especially Emma Stone who together make falling in love seem like the most natural thing in the world. LA LA LAND recently picked up seven Golden Globes and is virtually guaranteed to sweep the boards at next month's Oscars. Who says they don't make 'em like this anymore.

I agree with most of that, but I do not regard it a a muscial as such - apart from the astonishing opening scene on the freeway, and some nice moments with the two leads dancing. Anyone who knows Jacques Demy's UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG or, especially, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT from 1967 with its candy colours and the whole cast dancing - and yes, an older Gene Kelly is there too - will find much to enjoy here. It is certainly the film of the season, let's see how the rest of the awards pile up ...

Friday treat

With thanks to Martin. I really must watch Vincente's under-cherished BELLS ARE RINGING again ("I have the dvd/blu-ray so can watch it anytime" as Martin always says), with the heartbreakingly wonderful Judy Holliday. 

A Matter of Time, 1976

Finally, thanks to rare-movie-hound Jerry, a look at Vincente Minnelli's last feature, A MATTER OF TIME, from 1976. This one always eluded us here in London, though the BFI did screen it once. I can always happily sit down in front of a Minnelli musical like THE BANDWAGON or a Minnelli drama like TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN or a delicious Minnelli comedy like THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, but this last feature (like Wilder's equally problematic FEDORA) is a different story. Perhaps only Hitchcock had a happy last film in FAMILY PLOT, which delighted us that year, while Howard Hawks happily remade his films over and over ...

A simple young woman helps eccentric old countess deal with her old age and she introduces the young woman to a world of upper class society.

The shock here is getting used to Ingrid Bergman's almost Kabuki-style makeup, with that odd make-up and grey wig. Liza ramps up the gauche quality she often indulged in; it seems now only Pakula, Fosse and Scorsese were able to rein her in for those effective performances in THE STERILE CUCKOO (aka POOKIE) in 1969, CABARET and NEW YORK NEW YORK. 

The simple story is overdone, but great to see Ingrid again, with Boyer (shades of GASLIGHT) and her daughter Isabella Rossellini plays a nun, nice to see mother and daughter (briefly) here. Tina Aumount, Fernando Rey and Gabrielle Ferzetti are also involved. It kind of harks back to GIGI - that period obviously appeals to Minnelli. 

Liza plays Nina, a naive young chambermaid who starts work at a once-grand hotel in Rome, and Ingrid is the ageing countless, a long-time resident whose money is starting to run out. The countess retreats to her dreams and helps Nina to face the world .....  Unfortunately Minnelli's vision was ruined by American-International Films who financed and then re-edited it, so Minnelli disowned it. Perhaps its a miscalculated masterwork, but in the era of TAXI DRIVER and ROCKY it just did not work, but 40 years later it is an intriguing campy mess of what could have been, there's even  couple of Kander & Ebb songs. More on Ingrid, Liza and Minnelli at labels. (Below: Ingrid and Isabella).

Kismet, 1955

MGM's 1955 musical by Vincente Minnelli is actually rather wonderful, I hadn't realised - I enjoyed it enormously early today, and I have the dvd filed away too. Its lush, opulent, MGM at its best and Minnelli's wonderful eye for colour and movement are well to the fore here - unlike his previous one, the moribund BRIGADOON which only comes to life intermittently. 
Howard Keel is terrific here, as he was in KISS ME KATE, CALAMITY JANE, and as Hannibal in that other favourite of mine JUPITER'S DARLING, while stupendous Dolores Gray matches him .... 

The fifties were an odd decade for Vincente, starting with those enormous hits AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and my personal favourite THE BANDWAGON in 1953 (see label).  His '53 comedy with Lucy and Desi THE LONG LONG TRAILER is an enduring childhood memory, but THE COBWEB is dreary, after KISMET came TEA AND SYMPATHY in 1956 and the wonderful DESIGNING WOMAN, a 1957 favourite where Peck, Bacall and Dolores Gray are all bliss - and Jack Cole too - Cole does the choreography in KISMET with his usual pizazz and chorus boys.   

Minnelli was big again in 1958: the Oscar-winning GIGI, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (Kay, Rex and Angela =  certified bliss) and SOME CAME RUNNING - could he have been busier? followed by his string of melodramas; HOME FROM THE HILL, TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and the tedious GOODBYE CHARLIE - his 1970 ON A CLEAR DAY is a mixed pleasure, Barbra as Daisy Gamble annoys, apart from the Beaton Regency flashbacks in Brighton, while Montand' s accent is as impenetrable as it was in LETS MAKE LOVE a decade earlier. 

I now though have a Minnelli rarity lined up to see sometime soon: that 1976 oddity and his last film A MATTER OF TIME with Liza and Ingrid Bergman, its meant to be so terrible it was never released, we will soon see why ... more on Minnelli and his films at label. 

Fathers

Some of our favourite fathers, seeing as its Father's Day ....   (for Dad) 

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, 1962 - Has there been a more fundamentally decent father than Atticus Finch?, the widower and small-town lawyer expertly played by Gregory Peck, in Robert Mulligan's classic from the perennially loved book by Harper Lee. I loved the book, and then I loved the film ... as we spend time with Scout and Jem and Boo Radley, while Atticus has his day in court, in this Deep South Gothic drama with the spellbinding images. It all works perfectly, particularly that ending as Atticus watches over the children ....

BICYCLE THIEVES, 1948 - In broken post-war Rome, a father struggles to provide for his family. He gets a job sticking posters on walls but his bicycle gets stolen. Father and son scour the city looking for it, and then the unthinkable happens - the father is reduced to stealing a bicycle and gets caught and we see it all through his son's eyes ..... Since its release in 1948 Vittorio Se Sica's masterpiece has come to define the Italian New-Realistic movement, but it is a timeless classic, acted by non-professionals and De Sica finds the humanity in all of them, as we share the father's desperation to provide for the family when the world is conspiring against him. There is that stunning moment when the family sheets are pawned, and the pawnbroker places them on top of a pile of other families' sheets, all waiting to be reclaimed .... (see De Sica label for review).

FINDING NEMO, 2003 - One of Pixar's most enduringly popular animated features which one can enjoy time and time again, as we follow Nemo's worried father (a clown fish voiced by Albert Brooks) who seems to go half way round the planet to find his lost son, the only survivor when his family are destroyed .... Andrew Stanton's film captures the father's helplessness as he wants the best for his offspring and then allowing him to discover whats best for himself, as I suppose all our fathers had to ....

MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, 1944 - Before the 1904 World Fair in St Louis, the Smith family learn lessons about life and love as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York, as the paterfamilias Mr Smith (Leon Ames) think it is best for them. He had not reckoned though on Tootie and her snowmen, the boy next door, and daughters Esther (Judy Garland) and Rose (Lucille Bremer) and their romantic complications. Add in Marjorie Main's cook and Henry Davenport's grandpa, as well as Mary Astor's perfect mother who will stand by her husband, no matter what, and poor Mr Smith (who vetoes having dinner an hour early so Rose can get her call from her beau in New York without all the family listening) does not stand a chance of moving ..... A Golden Age (and Minnelli) Classic and the ultimate dream factory movie made at that crucial point in the Second World War, when dreadful things were happening in Europe ....

Some Minnelli's for Easter ....

We have been enjoying some prime 1950s Minnelli films: musicals, dramas, comedies ..... THE BANDWAGON remains our favourite musical - see separate label. We recently covered TEA AND SYMPATHY, and also reviewed TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN a while back, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE and DESIGNING WOMAN are particular favourites, very stylish entertainments which find Minnelli in his element, as per previous posts on them - check all at Minnelli label. I may have to go back to SOME CAME RUNNING and GIGI again (we did not care forthe 1955 THE COBWEB at all though) ..... and those other dramas like HOME FROM THE HILL (1960) ..... I actually like 1954's BRIGADOON, that studio-bound Scottish highlands musical, a childhood favourite, though it has its very obvious limitations - but Minnelli makes the most of the glittering New York interlude. For today, its BELLS ARE RINGING and KISMET, and back to the DESIGNING DEBUTANTE.

The get-up in New York's get-up-and-go comes from the switchboard operators of 'Susanswerphone'. Need a wakeup call? Your appointments? Encouragement from 'Mom'? A racetrack bet? It all comes from that dutiful nerve - or naive - centre that keeps enterprises enterprising and maybe wedding bells ringing.

Judy Holliday reprises her Tony-winning Broadway role of irrepressible switchboard girl Ella in a jubilant adaptation that marked her final movie and the final teaming of movie-musical titans Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli. Dean Martin co-stars as a struggling playwright in for a surprise when he learns 'Mom's' identity. The sparkling Jule Styne/Betty Comden/Adolph Green score includes Holliday's heartfelt "The Party's Over" and the Martin/Holliday duet "Just In Time". You've dialled the right numer, musical fans!

So goes the nice blurb for this 1960 Minnelli musical, it starts with nice Scope views of New York (rather like THE BEST OF EVERYTHING or BUT NOT FOR ME) as we look in on that telephone service. Telephones play an important role (as in PILLOW TALK where Rock and Doris have to share a line, and of course that telephone service in SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY which relays messages to its users...).

BELLS ARE RINGING is a pleasant view but lacks the pizazz of THE PAJAMA GAME or FUNNY FACE or MY SISTER EILEEN or KISS ME KATE or ..... It is marvellous seeing Judy Holliday one more time, sadly in her final film, she is the whole show here as the telephone operator who meddles in the affairs of clients, with nice support from Dino, Jean Stapleton and Frank Gorshin doing a Brando. Minnelli seems rather subdued here but creates some nice colour schemes and decors, but the subplot about racketeers seems tedious. The score is conducted by Andre Previn. Holliday also sings up a storm when she tells us she is "going back to be me, at the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Company". Judy Holliday died aged 43 in 1965, but was marvellous in her movies ever since ADAM'S RIB in 1949.

Much more brash is Vincente's 1955 KISMET, a gaudy Arabian Nights fantasia, with that score adapted from Borodin, which thankfully provides good roles for Howard Keel and Dolores Gray - while Ann Blyth scores as Keel's daughter and Vic Damone as the Caliph. The convoluted plot features begger/poet Hajj (Keel) wanting a better life for his daughter, meanwhile she and the Caliph meet and fall in love, then Dolores Gray comes as as Lalume and she and Hajj end up together ..... the nice score includes "Stranger in Paradise", "This is my beloved", "Baubles, Bangles and Beads", "Night of my Night" and "Not Since Nineveh" as the wicked Wazir wants the Caliph to marry one of his choices, while the bandit chief is looking for his long lost son who turns ou to be the Wazir, who promptly has his father killed. This is all delirious fun as the various strands come together and the Wazir gets his just deserts. Minnelli makes it all look great too. Dolores Gray shines too as she does in her other MGM mid-50s movies (Dolores Gray label). We also liked Blyth in THE STUDENT PRINCE, 1954 and of course her immortal Veda in MILDRED PIERCE! 

The supporting cast has a nice bevy of old-timers with Monty Wooley, Sebastian Cabot, Jack Elam, Jay C Flippen and Mike Mazurki, This was another Sunday afternoon matinee favourite when I was young, and would b e a delicious double bill with the 1956 JUPITER'S DARLING another MGM extravaganza, with Esther Williams in her last musical, with Keel as Hannibal, with all those elephants ....

THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, 1958, is all about Kay Kendall's Balmain wardrobe: Kay in champagne coloured Balmain chiffon and feathers, or that red suit with matching hat for her first scene, Rex looks bemused by it all and their apartment is a joy too - with those lovely green lamps and sofas, and yellow and red furnishings all very Minnelli. Angela Lansbury plays another bitch mother who wants that chinless wonder for her own deb daughter, while Americans Sandra Dee and John Saxon are the young couple. There is a lot more on this at the various Minnelli/Kendall labels. 

DESIGNING WOMAN is delicious fun too and so very 1957, another childhood favourite. Greg and Bacall are perfectly matched here and the plot is a joy. 

Tea and sympathy for a midnight cowboy

MIDNIGHT COWBOY was on television again and I had to go back to it, after not seeing it in decades, and I have been reading about the 1956 TEA AND SYMPATHY in those old "Films and Filming" magazines I got a batch of recently which led to digging out the dvd of that .... both are very 'gay interest' titles and maybe time to re-evaluate them ...

MIDNIGHT COWBOY, 1969 -The streets of New York are mean and dirty and paved with broken dreams in this Oscar-winning (the first X-rated film to win Best Picture Oscar) tale about the friendship between Jon Voight's rather dumb Texan gigolo/hustler and Dustin Hoffman's ratty grifter. The performances are so good you find yourself truly caring about this poor, luckless pair, and the film's late '60s period detail has its own charm too, as we take in that scuzzy New York of the time, and the Warhol crowd (Viva and others are here).

This was a hugely important movie at the time, and we all loved it. I liked the book too, by James Leo Herlihy (author of ALL FALL DOWN), and Schlesinger's film is a good adaptation, if a bit confusing in the flashbacks to what happened in Texas, setting dumb stud Joe Buck on his odyssey to New York where he finds all manner of lowlife as his dreams of becoming a stud to rich ladies is soon in tatters. 

There is that amusing scene with pickup Sylvia Miles in a scene-stealing few moments, as well as Brenda Vaccaro as the rich girl in a fur coat, and preacher John McGiver, and that poor kid in the cinema ..... The ending is suitably affecting as the greyhound bus arrives in Florida. Voight was probably never as good again (though he won the Oscar for COMING HOME in 1977) and of course Ratso is one of Hoffman's defining roles. Waldo Salt's screenplay and Schlesinger's direction are first rate as is the music score by John Barry and that song "Everybody's Talkin'" by Nilsson. It all defines the late Sixties.

TEA AND SYMPATHY probably defines the mid-Fifties too, a successful play by Robert Anderson, filmed by Vincente Minnelli in 1956, with the Kerrs - Deborah and John (no relation) recreating their stage roles, along with Leif Ericson as Kerr's husband and sports coach. 

Tom Lee is a sensitive boy of 17 whose lack of interest in the "manly" pursuits of sports, mountain climbing and girls labels him "sister-boy" at the college he is attending. Head master Bill Reynold's wife Laura sees Tom's suffering at the hands of his school mates (and her husband), and tries to help him find himself.

No wonder the play is not revived these days, it is excruciating to today's sensibilities, and the film never gets screened either - I don't recall it ever playing in Ireland either during my time there - it may have been banned!. I have been planning to return to Minnelli and his musicals and dramas, and have several lined up: THE BELLS ARE RINGING in 1960, KISMET, BRIGADOON and his comedy that I like a lot (purely for the Harrisons, Rex and Kay) 1958's THE RELUCTANT DEUBTANTE and his 1957 DESIGNING WOMAN - so there will be more on these soon - see Minnelli label for THE BANDWAGON  (maybe my favourite musical ever) and others like his 1962 drama TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. Of course his other dramas include SOME CAME RUNNING, HOME FROM THE HILL, that remake of FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and his delightful comedy THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, all during his great period of the 1950s and early 60s. We caught up with GOODBYE CHARLIE too a year or so ago, as per preview, again- Minnelli label.

Back to TEA AND SYMPATHY: Vaguely effeminate boy (sensitive features, wavy hair, bouncy walk) with 'unmanly' interests (poetry, classical and folk music) and 'unmanly' accomplishments (sewing, gardening, playing the guitar) is believed to be "not a regular sort of fellow" by his father, his bruiser of a housemaster, and his fellow college students, every single one of whom sport crewcuts, and enjoy mountaineering, swimming, ball games, horsing around, strength contests, boasting about non-existent sexual conquests and smashing their tennis shots.... It is very easy to laugh at this sort of thing,of course, and years on TEA AND SYPMATHY is a laughable antique, its characters being so blatantly contrived to suit the author's ends.

Of course the censorship problems of the time (Homosexuality was a taboo subject in '50s Hollywood) required the film to be bracketed by a new start and end showing that Laura regretted her "sacrifice" of giving herself to Tom to prove that he was normal and not homosexual (gay was hardly the word here). Tom is now married as he revisits his old school, and gets that letter from Laura from her ex-husband .... and we flash back to how it all began, of course a lot of the boys and the coach seem more gay than poor "sister boy" Tom who is happy sewing with the women and listening to music, rather than playing sports and being one of the gang. It is all deliciously quaint now, but Minnelli gives it his usual gloss and makes it look good with good scope compositions and his usual flair for decor. 

Deborah is as one would expect sensitive, stong and understanding as Laura. Edward Andrews is at his most venal as Tom's father (a narrow-minded crude character) who is disappointed in him and has a horror of him "being different" and wants the coach to make a man of him! Perhaps the play (and Minnelli's movie) can be seen as a ruthless portrayal of the "straights" - Tom's father is a really dumb man, and most of the boys and the other women are insensitive types. There's Jacqueline De Wit again (obnoxious Mona Plash in Sirk's critique of small town American society: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS) horrified at the idea of a boy sewing. 
A problem for me is that John Kerr is just not very interesting as an actor, here he is 25 playing 17, and he is all wrong (he was also wrong in SOUTH PACIFIC) - he often comes across as sullen and obnoxious, no wonder the other guys don't want him around and tease him by calling him "sister boy", he also has an annoying monotone voice. I would rather have seen Joan Fontaine and Anthony Perkins (who replaced the Kerrs on stage) in the roles. Its certainly a fascinating oddity now proving that Tom cannot possibly be gay if he slept with Deborah Kerr, as her adultery (for which she must pay) cures him of worries about his masculinity. On, those Fifties ! 

I suppose the film has historical importance. It provides a good perspective for comparing gaylife now to the mid-1950s - when this movie was made. Of course a generation ago the subject could not be hinted at - here in the TEA AND SYMPATHY era gayness is a problem to be avoided, in the early 60s ADVISE AND CONSENT era only the bad guy was gay or queer and of course in VICTIM the good guy had been gay once, was sorry about it, and hoped he would never do it again .... ADVISE AND CONSENT review at gay interest label, or May 2012 Archive.
The film is representative of people's sentiments then as the success of the play showed - apart from Deborah Kerr and Joan Fontaine playing it in New York, Ingrid Bergman did it in Paris. 

Some eye-catching posters - an occasional series

All projection rooms should be like this:

From of course, Minnelli's torrid drama TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, 1962. 
(See Minnelli label...) Yes, that's Kirk Douglas, Claire Trevor, Daliah Lavi, George Hamilton.

'60s comedies: the witty and the witless ...

Two long-unseen '60s comedies were interesting viewings now. GOODBYE CHARLIE from 1964 I did not remember at all, though I did see it at the time, but being 18 or so then, it seems to have made no impression on me. However, it turned out to be a pleasant surprise, as I will return to.

PRUDENCE AND THE PILL, on the other hand, from 1968, I remembered well, and pals and I saw it on its general release. I dare say a comedy about the (then new) contraceptive pill seemed a daring idea at the time, but couldn't it have been funnier?

Prudence is on the pill; so is her sister-in-law, but someone has been swapping aspirin for their pills. Is it the teen-age niece, the maid, the chauffeur, a lover, Prudence's husband, or all of the above?

Available for the first time for home viewing, Prudence and the Pill serves up a comic slice of sixties permissiveness from the days when the oral contraceptive was an exotic and legendary device that few people had any experience of using. Made in Britain by 20th Century Fox, and starring the debonair David Niven and the luminous Deborah Kerr, with vivacious support from 'It' girl Judy Geeson, this film takes us back to 1967's "summer of love", when established morality and codes of sexual behaviour where being turned upside down by new ideas and technology. So grab a gonk (a gonk was a 60s cuddly toy), straighten your mini-skirt and prepare yourself for a bumpy ride courtesy of the imprudent Prudence. 
(so went the hopeful dvd cover blurb, trying to make this feeble comedy into something important...)

This is so dated now, created by middle aged squares who imagined they were being hip and daring, but in fact creating a worthless, unfunny, snobby look at how Americans perceived the English back in that swinging decade. It is a film about posh people - David Niven and Deborah Kerr are frightfully posh and in fact just frightful. 

Their posh house is full of rooms in bilious colours (one longs for Minnelli and those decors and that sure comedy touch in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE) and Kerr is unflatteringly photographed and costumed (she was getting rather matronly as the '60s progressed and her film career was winding down). She is Prudence and Niven is the husband, both are fed up with each other and having affairs - she with her doctor Keith Michell, and he has his professional mistress, played (amusingly) by professional mistress Irina Demick (Darryl F Zanuck's latest at the time, he put her in several Fox films of the era). The lower classes are represented by their maid Vickery Turner and the chauffeur, they are an item too. Then there is Niven's brother, silly ass Robert Coote, (being very silly ass here) and his wife, Joyce Redman (a rare movie role for her after that scene with Albert Finney in TOM JONES), and their mini-skirted daughter Judy Geeson, who is having it off with boyfriend David Dundas when mum and dad go to the cinema every week, however they return early this time and catch the two of them, in scenes which are painfully unfully and over the top. 

It turns out daughter (god, this is tedious to unfold) was swopping her mother's contraceptive pills with aspirins, and it soon turns out that everyone is swopping pills (which are conveniently sold in bottles and not individually bubble wrapped as now). Niven wants Prudence to get pregnant by her lover, so he swops her pills, the maid though swops Prudence's with the vitamin tablets her boyfriend gives her, and so on.

Dame Edith Evans then makes a few pointless appearances as a dotty aunt - thankfully she is not on the pills or forced to wear a mini-skirt. This farrago was directed by one Fielder Cook and must have appeared dated even before it was shown, back in the groovy decade, its a very square view of London too, where people meet for dinner at The Ritz. The mystery is did either Niven or Kerr, in what, their fifth teaming, really think this material was funny or worthy of them? Deborah did this kind of thing so much better in items like 1960's THE GRASS IS GREENER before the Sixties began to swing. Poor PRUDENCE isn't even campy enough to quality as a Trash Classic.

I did not think GOODBYE CHARLIE would be up to much, a forgotten 1964 comedy, but we are in the hands of experts here. Its from a George Axelrod comedy (which Lauren Bacall played on the stage - though that is no guartantee of quality - I saw, endured APPLAUSE, Bacall label), and directed by Vincente Minnelli - so it looks good. The music is by Andre Previn, and his then wife Dory co-wrote the title tune, its a zinger. I did not think Tony Curtis or Debbie Reynolds could surprise us, but they are nicely on form here - a decent role for Curtis and Debbie is a revelation, and not as grating as her UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN. 

Shot by a jealous husband, Charley falls out a porthole and is lost at sea only to find himself returned as an attractive blond woman. His best friend is staying at his house as he puts Charlie's affairs in order and after being convinced, finds himself an unwilling helper in Charlie's new plan to marry into money.

This is all quite amusing as womaniser Charlie is reincarnated as an attractive blonde, who soon gets a handle on his new situation and how to milk it to his advantage. Pat Boone is just right as the nice rich guy who falls for Charlie. Will Charlie for once do the right thing? Walter Mattheau is deliciously funny as the movie tycoon who shot Charlie, as nicely different here as he was in CHARADE. Joanna Barnes and Ellen Burstyn amuse as two of the wives Charlie dallied with, and now blackmails. It is all worked out quite nicely, as Charlie is reincarnated once again .... So, GOODBYE CHARLIE is a nice feelgood movie, with Tony and Debbie on top form - who knew? It fits nicely into Minnelli's '60s output too. It captures that early 60s grooviness and the showbiz shallowness before the swinging era got underway. The only jarring note is Tony's distaste at the idea of marrying his old pal Charlie, even if he is now a glamorous woman - which seemed unfunny compared to the brilliant "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?" similar scene in the classic SOME LIKE IT HOT.

Soon: another 1964 sex "comedy" - SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, I saw it but I don't remember it, was it that forgettable? Curtis again, and Natalie surely looking her best, and Dame Bacall ....  

R.I.P.

James Gandolfini (1961-2013) died aged 51, in Rome. best known of course as crime boss Tony Soprano in the long-running THE SOPRANOS, yes I too have a few box sets of the series still to see... movie roles included TRUE ROMANCE and I have just got THE MEXICAN to watch soon ...

Slim Whitman (1923-2013), aged 90. I remember Slim being very popular and on the radio a lot when I was a kid in '50s Ireland. Once known as America's favourite folk singer, he was very popular in the UK and Europe with those hits like "Rose Marie" (Number One in the charts for 11 weeks)  and "Indian Love Call". He was also quite useful in the film of MARS ATTACKS!

Diane Clare (1938-2013) charming British actress, has died aged 74. Her career just spanned a decade from 1958 to '68, her best known roles being the other nurse in ICE COLD IN ALEX and Angela Lansbury's debutante daughter in one of our favourite Minnelli's THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE - Lansbury was actually only 12 years older than her. Right with fellow debutante Sandra Dee, and Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison, and below with Angela Lansbury and cast. . She was also in THE HAUNTING, THE WRONG BOX, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES etc, and various tv roles in series like Z CARS. A second string female leading lady then, but she had retired when she married writer Barry England.

Bert Stern (1929-2013) - Photographer Bert Stern, most known for his library of Marilyn Monroe photographs, and who helped redefine advertising and fashion art in the 1950s and ’60, has died at age 83.

“It was a one-time-in-a-lifetime experience, to have Marilyn Monroe in a hotel room,” Mr. Stern said in the 2010 documentary “Bert Stern: Original Madman,” “even though it was turned into a studio, where I could do anything I wanted.”  
Many of the photos showed Monroe unclothed, or posing behind transparent scarves. “She was so beautiful at that time,” Mr. Stern told Newsday. Stern certainly packaged and re-packaged his Monroe photographs from that LAST SITTING. He also directed the marvellous jazz film JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S DAY, a record of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. His death and that of Eve Arnold last year leaves George Barris as the last great Monroe photographer ...(of course Arnold and Barris repackaged their Monroe prints several times too with those various books and posters I like). He also shot that iconic shot of Sue Lyon in the red sunglasses used to publicise Kubrick's LOLITA.