A streetcar named desire

Year: 1951.

Director: Elia Kazan.

Stars:

Marlon Brando (Stanley).

Vivien Leigh (Blanche).

Kim Hunter (Stella).

Karl Malden (Mitch).

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Marlon Brando’s debut couldn’t have been been better. The actor is colossal in his role of a lower-class brute and arrogant chauvinist. He also is challenging, disobedient and his only motivation is to be recognized by his strength and sexual appealing.

His strong personality has been marked by alcohol. To be honest, I started hating this man after a few minutes. His slight for his wife and sister in law’s fragility and vulnerability is totally merciless.

Marlon fights Vivien Leigh, an unstable, weak, fragile and liar woman. Her performance is shocking. She plays the role of a southern lady who lives in a happy past and looks around all the time in need of friendlinss, admiring the beauty of life. The fear in her eyes every time Marlon Brando walks near her seems to be so real that you’ll only feel an inmense pity for her all the movie long.

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The battle between the two of them becomes in an interpretative duel covered in a non-comparable magnetism. This way Vivian Leigh is the perfect half for Brando. They both make an impressive couple.

A Streetcar Named Desire is hard, very hard… The two-hours film won’t let you remain indifferent.

It’s imposible to actually see it without feeling a lump in your throat.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1) Curiosities:

  • Vivien Leigh who suffered in real life from a bipolar disorder had problems trying to distinguish her real life of her character’s.
  • During the film Kowalski appartment is getting more and more tiny, just to enphasize Blanche’s claustrophobia.
  • Censorship removed 68 sentences and then the Legion of Christ will add some more cuts related to homosexuality and a rape.
  • Blanche’s role was first offered to Jessica Tandy and Olivia of Havilland.
  • The phrase “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” is in the 75 position in the Top of best movie phrases. By the way, the movie is the 47th best one in the history.
  • Marlon Brando hated his character.
  • Vivien Leigh only was 36 years old.
  • The film was shot in just 36 working days.
  • William Wyler would’ve preferred to do the film with Bette Davis as main character.

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Awards:

The movie won 4 Oscars:

  •   Best Actress in a Leading Role (Vivien Leigh)
  •  Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Karl Malden)
  •  Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Kim Hunter)
  • Best Art Direction – Set Decoration, Black and White

It also won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress (Kim Hunter)

The film was nominated and actually won many others awards that you can check in Wikipedia.

Highlithted sequences:

Images:

http://cinedelamorgue.blogspot.com.es

http://peliculas.film-cine.com

http://unapizcadecmha.blogspot.com.es

http://clementinelagranpantalla.blogspot.com.es

http://popcorn-moloko.blogspot.com.es

http://elrincondeloseruditos.blogspot.com.es

http://elsimagico.wordpress.com

Royal Wedding

Year: 1951.

Director: Stanley Donen.

Stars:

Fred Astaire (Tom Bowen).

Jane Powell (Ellen Bowen).

Peter Lawford (Lord John Brindale).

Sarah Churchill (Anne Ashmond).

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Awards:

Nominated for one Oscar in 1952: Best Music, Original Song.

Curiosities:

  • The scene where Fred Astair dances in a room it was shot by placing the camera and operator in a 10 metres long rotatory container.
  • According to an interview, Fred Astair tried to dance with more than 30             coat stands before the Productor made one just for him, at a cost of around 4000 dollars (nowadays). The coat stand disappeared not long after the release day.
  • Both Fred Astair and Jane Powell sing together the longest song title in a Hollywood film: How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life
  • June Allyson and Judy Garland were candidates to play the main role.
  • In England the title was changed to Wedding Bells just to avoid a confusion with the recent Royal Wedding of Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II)
  • The store Harridge´s is a mix between Harrod’s and Claridge’s, both very well-known shopping mall and 5-star Hotel in London, respectively.
  • The scene dancing over the roof seems to have been taken in just one shot. However if you pay closer attention there are three, maybe up to four very sutile cuts.
  • The plot reminds a bit what really happend to Fred Astaire’s sister Adele, who got married to Lord Charles Cavendish, son of the Duke of Devonshire.

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In my opinion it’s a classic music with an impressive production.

It’s probably the movie that pushed Fred Astaire up in fame worldwide. He was claimed as the best dancer ever in Hollywood. Actually there was people who even believed he was able to fly.

The scene I’m referring to it’s the mitic momento when Fred Astaire, who starts dancing down in the floor ends walking through the ceiling like a magician. The whole scene was perfectly developed and edited, specially taking into account the moment it was shot, when visual effects were not easy at all.

Fred Astaire convinced everyone that cinema from the mid 20th century is the kind of spectacle everyone wants to enjoy in a film. He also shows again he has a special skill for dancing with an exquisite elegance. He did so not only in the famouse scene we’ve been talking about but in the boat addressing England. Or, why not? That scene where Fred Astaire dances with the famous coat stand, almost as famous as the rotating room.

If you like musicals and dance, those three scenes are really worth it so is the movie itself.

In this video I’ve found for you it’s easier to understand the way they shot the scene in the rotating room.

Images:

Cineclasic.com

Wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Astaire

The Killers

Year: 1946

Director: Robert Siodmack

Stars:

Burt Lancaster (Ole ‘Swede’ Andreson)

Ava Gardner (Kitty Collins)

Edmon O´Brien (Jim Riordan)

Albert Decker (Big Jim Colfax)

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Awards:

Nominated to 4 Oscars in 1947 for Best Director, Best Writing, Best Film Editing and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. The film didn’t get any of these awards.

It did win the Edgar Allan Poe Award to Best Motion Picture in 1947

In 1946 won the Prize of the National Board of Review in the USA to the Top Ten Films.

The film also won the award from the National Film Preservation Board in the US.

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Curiosities:

  • It was the first movie of a very young Burt Lancaster who had been an acrobat for a circus until then.
  • Burt Lancaster had to train for two months with a Boxing Champion to act in the scenes with boxing. Those scenes were shot with a real boxer joining Burt Lancaster. He happened to do it really well.
  • The film is a Hemingway’s short novel adaptation.

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The high quality film work is unquestionable, that’s probably why It’s considered by many like the best film within the “black movies” of all times. The 10 first minutes of the tape, when the plot is told are specially good.

The Director uses flashbacks to take us from the past to the present showing us the thread of the story. I love how the movie is directed. I like suspense and crime films and The Killers is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

If I should take out a scene, I’d choose the Burt Lancaster’s face the moment he sees the celestial and beautiful Ava Gardner. She is a Venus. This was the movie where she started building the character of a “femme fatale” that always was her most famous cinema feature.

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Burt Lancaster is superb in his role as a boxer and a “white glove thief”. By the way, he was even more handsome than I could remember.

It’s not fair we only can admire the beauty in women in classic cinema… Sometimes actors are better in attraction!

If you like black movies, based on crime novels this film will be one of you favourite. I’m pretty sure!

Trailer:

 

IMAGES:

http://elcollardehampstead.blogspot.com.es.

http://www.filmoteca.cat.

http://uraniaenberlin.com.

http://johannes-esculpiendoeltiempo.blogspot.com.es.

Adam’s Rib

Year: 1949

Director: George Cukor

Stars:

Spencer Tracy (Adam Bonner)

Katharine Hepburn (Amanda Bonner)

Judy Halliday (Doris Attinger)

Tom Ewell (Warren Attinger)

David Wayne (Kip Lurie)

03_cukor Awards:

Nominated for the Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Oscar in 1951.

Nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe in 1951.

It won the award of the National Film Preservation Board in 1992.

Nominated for the Best Written American Comedy award by the Writers Guild of America, USA in 1950 and 1951.

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Curiosities:

  • One of the first scenes with Judy Halliday talking to Katharine Hepburn she seems to be shaking. She was not acting that moment. Since she was inexperienced at acting she was very nervous of performing close to Hepburn.
  • Back in 2008 the American Film Institute described the film as one of the 10 greatest romantic comedies of all times.
  • One of the most famous quotes of the movie was: “It’s the hilarious answer to who wears pants”
  • It’s based on a true story of the divorce of two cinema actors: Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen.
  • Spencer Tracy always insisted to appear within the end credits close to Katharine Hepburn. The scriptwriter Garson Kanin told him once: “She is a lady, you are a gentleman… Should ladies go first?” Tracy answered: “This is a movie you fool, not a lifeboat”.
  • The script was entirely written thinking of the main couple of actors.
  • The film was shot in New York and like in the rest of the movies where Tracy and Hepburn appeared together, both slept in separate buildings to avoid rumours.

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I couldn’t wait to watch it again!

You’ll have the feeling of floating after watching this film. The taste in your mouth will be so good that you won’t want it to finish. At least, that is what happens to me each time I see this couple acting together. In this film they are sublime!

They are funny, ironic, racy and over all clever.

The comedy is a sparkling approach to the eternal battle of genres. Maybe no other movie in the history has represented so well the women fight to achieve a position into society the same way men always had.

Over 50 years have already past and the film is still fresh like back then. It’s possible that in the moment it was shot didn’t get as many prizes as deserved precisely because of that, because of how delicate was the matter.

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The quality of the script and the extreme importance of the subject still today make it a movie that you’ll never be fed up of.

The main couple, maybe the most solid and convincing one in the history of cinema will lead you from one scene to another very comfortably. Then you’ll be looking forward seeing them acting together again. You’ll wish being part of the complicity between them once again.

Because the most remarkable thing about this film is, with no doubt, the final fight, where no one loses but all win.

A magnificent comedy….

Official Trailer:

Unforgettable scenes:

Images:

Doctor Macro, Movie Classics, Emelab.

The Swan

Year: 1956

Director: Charles Vidor.

Stars:

Grace Kelly (Princess Alexandra).

Alec Guinness (Prince Albert).

Louis Jourdan (Dr. Nicholas Agi).

Agnes Moorehead (Queen Maria Dominika).

Jessie Royce Landis (Princess Beatrix)

No awards or nominations.

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Curiosities:

  • In the movie, princess Alejaxandra is seduced by the prince Albert. After not too long, her first son for real was called Albert… Was it a coincidence?
  • Jessie Roy Landis has the role of the Grace Kelly’s mother. Exactly the same role as in To Catch a Thief.
  • Other names were suggested for the role of Prince Albert, like Rex Harrison or Joseph Cotten.
  • The film was released the same day that Grace Kelly got married with prince Rainier III.
  • It was the first American movie for Alec Guinness.
  • It also was the second-to-last Grace Kelly’s film before her Royal wedding. The last one actually was High Society.
  • Grace Kelly learnt fencing and she refused to be replaced by a double.
  • Helen Rose did the whole custome design. The next year she also designed Grace Kelly’s bridal gown.

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Exactly. The movie was released just two days after the royal wedding in Monaco. The purpose was to get the most out of the ceremony to make the film successful in theatres.

Like in a fairy tale, the film producer MGM predicted the royal position that the future princess of Monaco would actually be performing a year later.

The movie introduces Grace Kelly to the world as the princess of America. She had just won an Oscar and the producer was very proud of her. That’s why she was extremely pampered by MGM.

With the tone of a romantic comedy, the movie is about the many attempts of the Queen Maria Dominika in order to get her beautiful daughter (Grace Kelly) married with the future King Albert (Alec Guinnes)

I have to admit I laughed out of load while watching it, specially during the first half of the movie thanks to the enjoyable character Princess Beatrix. Her role of an adorable but also distracted unmarried uncle is really lovable and funny at once.

No need to say Grace Kelly makes a wonderful performance in her role of the future princess… A cheerful, well-mannered, sweet and refined princess-to-be. Although her character is over all smart and distinguish.

I’ve included below the funniest scenes of the movie along with a picture taken by the photograph Charles Vidor who, at least to me, perfectly achieved to show Grace Kelly’s elegance to the world.

Unforgettable scenes:

http://youtu.be/b2DiKva4plo

Images:

El Criticon.esCon Algo de estiloRenato Felix.com 

 

Notorious

NOTORIOUS

Year: 1946

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Stars:

Ingrid Bergmam (Alicia Huberman)

Cary Grant (Devlin)

Claude Rains (Alexander Sebastian)

Louise Calhern (Paul Prescott)

Leopoldine Konstantine (MneSebastian)

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Awards:

Nominated back in 1947 to the Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Claude Rains) and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Bambi Awards in 1952 to Ingrid Bergman as the Best Actress – International.

Nominated in 1946 to the Grand Prize of the Cannes Film Festival (Alfred Hitchcock).

National Film Registry in 2006 at the National Film Preservation Board, USA.

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Curiosities:

  • The scenes where Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman play to “kissing without kissing” were designed that way in order to avoid the Hayes code (a kiss shouldn’t last over 3 seconds).
  • Hitchcock said once he was watched for 3 months after the release date since the movie showed uranium commerce.
  • The actress who performed the role as Claude Rains’ mother only was 3 years older than the French actor.
  • The scene over the balcony with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman was almost entirely improvised.
  • The original screenplay showed Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) as a prostitute.
  • David O. Selznick (producer) actually preferred Vivien Leigh in the role of Alicia (to be honest, it would have been great!).
  • Alfred Hitchcock asked to the Nobel Prize in Physics how to make an atomic bomb. However, the winner didn’t want to answer. Although he did tell Hitchcock it could be kept in a bottle.
  • Claude Rains did many shots over a box in order to look like as tall as Cary Grant. That fact was far from reality though. Claude Rains actually was 1,69 cm tall while Cary Grant was 1,87 and Ingrid Bergman was 1,75 cm tall.
  • This one was the only performance in an American movie by Leopoldine Konstantine (Mme. Sebastian).
  • You’ll find Hitchcock himself (who usually appears in all his movies) in a party celebrated in the house, holding a glass of champaign.

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This week was time for Notorious, a Hitchcock’s film. I have to admit I couldn’t wait to see Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant together once again. I love them acting!

I can say it’s with no doubt one of the best Hitchcock’s movies. The “cursed director” never won an Oscar, even though he was considered the best director of thrillers in the history of cinema.

Within this story, you’ll enjoy the mix of love and intrigue, with Cary Grant performing an amazing role as an American spy. The actor knows exactly how to stop his feelings towards Ingrid Bergman, almost a prostitute who accepts being blackmailed in order to unmask the German spy (casted by Claude Rains).

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Grant is smart and elegant along the entire movie. I loved those shots the director took of the actor’s back. His elegance invades the whole screen. I could say it’s the only film out of all I’ve already seen and share in our Film of the Week where the main actor rules most of the scenes, instead of the actress. He almost eclipses Bergman in some scenes!

Ingrid Bergman was fascinating over the second half of the film. Her performance as an obedient wife as well as spy is just sensational.

The Master of Thrillers shows once again how to keep watchers stuck to their seats. He succeeded with me at least!  He got my close attention all the time looking forward to the ending. I didn’t  move! I even got nervous in a few scenes.

I totally recommend it to you!

See the whole movie on YouTube:

Images:

http://www.canaltcm.com

http://www.filmaffinity.com

http://arandinosblog.wordpress.com

http://telondecine.blogspot.com.es

http://notodoeskippel.blogspot.com.es/

The Big Sleep

Release date: 1946

Director: Howard Hawks

Stars:

Humphrey Bogart (Phillip Marlowe)

Lauren Bacall (Vivien Rutledge)

John Ridgley (Eddie Mars)

Martha Vickers (Carmen Sternwood)

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Awards:

National Film Preservation Board (1997)

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Did you know?:

  • It was the second film Bogart and Bacall performed together. After three months, they got married.
  • The scene where Bogart and Bacall chatted about horses was added after the film was edited, in order to introduce a slyness atmosphere. Howard had already done this previously in To have and have not.
  • Lauren Bacall herself sings the song in one of the scenes. That is her voice, unlike some rumours that said it was doubled.
  • Sternwood’s mansion is exactly the same one as in Mildred Pierce.
  • The scene where Eddie Mars is murdered by his own men was reused by the director in his last western El Dorado.
  • William Faulkner helped Hawks to write the plot. When the author of the book, Raymond Chandler was asked who murdered the driver, he didn’t know what to answer.

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The movie was a success in theatres. However reviews said that it was an inmoral and violent film.

It’s full of contradictions, cynical talks, irony and hard men. The mystery starts the moment Marlowe chats with the General Sternwood in a dark and sad atmosphere, almost stifling where nobody gives anything away and everyone search their own benefit. It’s a pessimist and grey world.

The detective seems to know everything about the story. And the woman, even though she’s a secondary actress and the love story is also underground, makes the plot explode in sparks every time she has a scene with the main character. The scene at General’s house, where Vivien – Lauren Bacall – tries to find out why his father hired him is just brilliant. The following day, at Marlowe’s office, when they are laughing at the police on the phone is almost an icon to the comedy genre. Same happens with the unforgettable scene at the bar while they are talking about horses. Bogart and Bacall connect totally and seem to be an exceptional couple.

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When the plot is about to be in depths of despair, Bogart and Bacall know what joke to tell in order to make you have some fun. It’s not that the plot is difficult to understand (although I have to admit I thought I missed something when it finished) but that I’m sure it’s a movie made exclusively for the two of the main characters.

Bogart makes a sensational performance and Lauren Bacall, with her inimitable voice and her seductive glance shows she has learnt all about the profession, even though she was only 20 years old by then.

The argument – although confusing sometimes – is brilliantly directed by Hawks. He makes viewers follow Marlowe wherever he goes. Public know no more than the main character himself. That way Hawks gets you totally into the plot.

Let me finish this review with this curious image for you to understand the mess there’s in the movie, and the amount of different character performing in it.

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Don’t stop paying attention every second in the movie, I recommend.

Images:

2 Bp. Blogspot.com, Uraniaenberlin.com, Lo-bueno-si-breve, Ciclos-decine.blogspot.com.

Memorable scenes:

Gilda

Year: 1946

Director: Charles Vidor.

Cast:

Rita Hayworth (Gilda Mundson Farrell)

Glenn Ford (Johnny Farrell)

George MacReady (Ballin Mundson)

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“Gilda” is Rita Hayworth and Rita Hayworth is “Gilda”. Independently from the film’s plot, more or less attractively, Rita Hayworth completely absorbs and takes over the leading role.  The entire film revolves around her, and her ability to captivate men in the film filters through the big screen and leaves all of us in love with her beauty, her sensuality and her character.

“Gilda” is a melodrama with a masterful structure. It contains some bitter, cynical, and wonderful dialogues which make it an essential work piece in black and white cinema.

This masterpiece hasn’t lost anything over the years. It speaks to us of solitude, friendship, greed, love and violence.

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Glenn Ford, who had us accustomed to his roles as a good, trustworthy and honest man, becomes a wild animal absorbed by jealousy.

Without a doubt, the most famous scene in the film is the “strip-tease”. This “strip-tease” is the scene in which Hayworth takes off her glove whilst performing the unforgettable song “Put the Blame on me Mame” which, incidentally, was not sung by her. This scene reminds us once again how Hollywood knew exactly how to create eroticism and sex, simply by showing a naked arm.

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Although perhaps it isn’t one of the best films in history, Gilda is, without a doubt, an indispensable film in cinema’s history, and within the film, Rita Hayworth depicts one of the most beautiful and seductive women of all time.

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It was awarded by the National Film Preservation Board in 2013.

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Curious Facts:

  • The truth is that when Rita Hayworth slapped Glenn Ford; she broke two of his teeth.  Glenn Ford did not move until he finished the scene.
  • The photograph of Johnny Farrell as a child is, in reality, a photo of Glenn Ford’s son.
  • Rita Hayworth had to wear a corset during the filming “Put the blame on Mame”, as she had just given birth to her first daughter.
  • Rita Hayworth’s songs are dubbed. Unfortunately her voice seemed too weak, something that made the actress bitter for the rest of her life.
  • Rita Hayworth’s strapless dress, designed by Jean Louis, is based on a dress in the painting of “Madame X” (a famous Parisian character from the nineteenth century), painted in 1884 by John Singer Sargent. It cost 60,000 dollars, a barbaric amount of money for the time. In April 2009 it was put in auction, but it was withdrawn due to a lack of bids. It mysteriously appeared on eBay in September in the same year at a starting price of 30,000 dollars. However, I am unable to tell you what happened to the painting.
  • The famous glove scene from Gilda has been parodied in a number of films, highlighting above all the one of Jessica Rabbit in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”.
  • The film participated in the first edition of the Cannes Film Festival together with “Notorious“, by Hitchcock which, curiously, has many similarities in the plot (South America, Nazis, a woman torn between two men).

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GILDA, (THE ENTIRE FILM):

Memorable scenes:

Images:

Isabel MJ.Wordpress, Tiendas Fnac.es, Vipareaforcows.Blorgspot, Diario de una Cinefila. WordPress, Desvario Me Causa El Apetito. 

 

Mildred Pierce

Year: 1945

Director: Michael Curtiz

Cast:

Joan Crawford (Mildred Pierce)

Jack Carson (Wally Fay)

Zachary Scott (Monte Beragon)

Eve Arden (Ida Corwin)

Ann Blyth (Veda Pierce)

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Awards:

  • Oscar in 1945 for the best actress (Joan Crawford). Nominated for the best film, best supporting actress (Ann Blyth and Eve Arden), best script and best photography.
  • Awarded by the National Board of Review in 1945 for the best actress. (Joan Crawford).
  • Second award for the best actress in 1946 to Joan Crawford by the National Film Critics Circle Awards.

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Curious Facts:

  • However strange it may sound with the film career she already had, Joan Crawford had to make several screen tests in order to do the film.
  • Shirley Temple and Virginia Wedler were considered for the part of Vera Pierce.
  • The House of Monte was owned by Michael Curtiz.
  • Michael Curtiz did not want to work with Joan Crawford because of her reputation as a difficult actress. Due to the actress’s hard work and dedication, it did not take him long to realize his mistake.
  • Before she became an actress, Joan Crawford was a waitress and sales assistant.
  • Warner did not want to work with Ann Blyth, who had a contract with Universal. However, Joan Crawford insisted, and showed Ann in her previous screen tests so that they would contract her.
  • Joan Crawford, who won an Oscar for best actress, did not attend the ceremony because of a supposed case of pneumonia. Some people say this was not true as the actress just did not want to feel humiliated at not winning the award. When she found out, she jumped out of bed and got ready to receive the press.

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I had not seen this film before. I think it’s one of the few titles from the list of 52 films I have prepared of which I had no reference whatsoever.

I have read in numerous specialized blogs that this is Joan Crawford’s best film, her best interpretation and the climax of her acting career, without belittling her other titles such as, A Woman’s Face or Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. I think they have a point. It is certainly my favorite Joan Crawford performance until now. It is, therefore, with good reason that she was awarded the Oscar from the Hollywood Academy.

The film is a profound reflection of how bad family upbringing can affect a person’s formation, destroy them for life and make them a miserable human being. The interpretive duel between a mature Crawford and her perverse young daughter, played by Ann Blyth, is impressive. Theirs is a destructive relationship between a suffering mother and her devouring, selfish and blood-sucking young girl.

Ann Blyth gives life to a beautiful but hateful young girl, and her interpretation is so fabulous that on more than one occasion you feel like going through the screen and punching her, something which her mother fails to do.

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The film tells us a tale of women, and of their lonely struggle to move forward after a divorce.  It also shows their tireless fight alone, and their quest to push their children through any hardship whilst ensuring they have everything they need. The women forever think about their children both before and after they think about themselves.

This is a film, like no other, that represents the hard sacrifice forced upon the majority of American women in a time in which the war took, and in many cases never returned, their husbands, thus loading them with all the responsibilities of taking care of the whole family’s survival. A very well-deserved Oscar.

Mildred Pierce is a film which stops you and makes you think about how we are raising our children…

Crawford Receives Oscar In Bed

 

SCENES:

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/316587/Mildred-Pierce-Movie-Clip-Take-A-Swim.html

IMAGES:

 True Classic, Cornel1801.comFilm Actually. com, Felicelog. Blogspot.comAcertain Cinema.com

To be, or not to be

Year: 1942

Director: Ernst Lubitsch.

Cast:

Carole Lombard (Maria Tura).

Jack Benny (Joseph Tura).

Robert Stack (Teniente Sobinski).

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Awards:

Nominated an Oscar for the best soundtrack (1942).

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Curious Facts:

  • It was Carole Lombard’s last film. Due to the fact that she died in a plane crash, the phrase “what can happen on a plane?” was eliminated.
  • Miriam Hopkins was chosen for the role of Maria Tura, but she turned it down as she thought the part wasn’t funny.
  • Premiere magazine qualified it as one of the 50 best comedies of all time in 2006.
  • Clark Gable didn’t want his wife to play the part of Maria Tura. Carole Lombard said that she had never felt so happy in her life.

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Together with Chaplin’s The Dictator, nobody had dared to parody the most ruthless dictator in the history of humanity. In this case, Lubitsch, with all his usual elegance, ridicules the man that did so much harm to mankind. He makes the theatre company venture into the lion’s den, collaborating with the resistance to help fight against the Nazis.

As always Carole Lombard plays a part that fits her like a glove. There are many extremely fun and enjoyable scenes, especially the one which is repeated at the beginning and end of the film when Robert Stack gets up from his seat and starts his Shakespeare monologue. It is a memorable scene which I hope to find for you on Youtube.

It is a very daring comedy for the period. It was released in February 1942 in the middle of the Second World War, and was instantly a huge success with both the critics and the public.

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It was Carole Lombard’s last film as she died on the 16th January 1942 when she returned from Indiana, her home state, where she had gone to support the military actions against the Nazi army and sell warbonds. Carole lost her life together with her mother, her attorney and 20 others in a plane crash.

She was 33 years old and left behind a desolate and widowed Clark Gable, who would soon join the American troops deployed in Europe.

President Roosevelt stated that she was the first woman to fall in the Second World War, and they awarded her with the Medal of Freedom. This fact meant that some of the dialogues were changed, in post-production, when she asked: What can happen on a plane?

I can assure you that you will enjoy your time with her.

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Memorable scenes from the film:

 

Images:

Bandeja de Plata, Josito Montez Blogspot , Es Globedia , Wikipedia