Holiday Inn!!

One of my all-time favorite holiday movies is Holiday Inn (1942) with Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds, and Virginia Dale. The 4 of them are absolutely delightful together, and I think I love just about every song in the movie. My family has owned the movie on VHS for years, but it's pretty worn out by now and last time I checked the old VCR only half works, so I've been meaning to look for Holiday Inn on dvd for years. Finally this year I am feeling enough in the Christmas spirit already to look for it, and I feel like I hit the jackpot. :D On Amazon, I found a 3-disc collector's edition which includes what is described as a "spotless" black and white edition, color edition (YAY!!!), aaaaaand a cd of the soundtrack. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. And of course I ended up doing the free super-saver shipping, so I have to wait 5-9 days for it to be sent out - but OH the anticipation. It's like Christmas is already here, I can't stand it, I feel all bouncy & antsy (or is that the coffee I just drank?). :)

I've especially always loved Marjorie Reynolds as Linda Mason in Holiday Inn. She's just got that classic 40's beauty and plays the part so well. I guess I'm also intrigued because she seems to be so obscure - I don't think I've ever seen her in anything else. I was reading about her on IMDB, and it looks like she mostly appeared in B films after Holiday Inn, which kind of sucks. But here's some fun trivia - she was an extra in another one of my favorites, Gone With the Wind, as a guest at Twelve Oaks. I'll have to try to look for her next time I watch it!

(The image above is huge and makes a beautiful wallpaper. Get it here.)

And how cool is this! Holiday Inn paper dolls (reprinted) - I would LOVE to have this for my collection. I have some Vivien Leigh and Shirley Temple paper dolls I received as a kid too, and my mom was smart enough not to allow me to cut them out and play with them. I was just thinking I need to like vacuum seal them in plastic or something in order to try to keep them in tact.


Here are a few photos of Marjorie I found.


Here's Marjorie post-Holiday Inn era, in His Kind of Woman (1951) with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, and Vincent Price. Sounds like a pretty heavy drama, maybe noir-ish, but it's neat to see her 10 years later.

So, in the spirit of helping me usher in this holiday season, I'd love to read your comments about your favorite holiday films & why you love them. Doesn't even have to be old, just classic. As for me, another one of my favorites is A Christmas Story, about Ralphie and his Red Rider BB gun. I just recently visited the restored house used in the film in Cleveland, Ohio, so I'll talk about it and post pics on my next post. It takes place in 1940, so it's almost classic.

Gorgeous wallpapers

Ginger will make you crazy, originally uploaded by joflc.

gor⋅geous
  /ˈgɔrdʒəs/ [gawr-juhs]
–adjective
1. splendid or sumptuous in appearance, coloring, etc.; magnificent: a gorgeous gown; a gorgeous sunset.

While browsing flickr.com, I came across some splendid, sumptuous, magnificent Fred & Ginger wallpapers put together by user joflc. They did a beautiful job on these, there is a whole set of about 20 - they were too good not to share! You can view them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joflc/sets/72157617299663830/

Enjoy!

This is old hat for me...

It's Day 2 of my blogging adventure, and since I'm still early on in this thing, I've decided to share the story of why I love Classic Hollywood.

I was actually raised on classic films while growing up in the 80's & 90's. My parents are great lovers of Classic Hollywood, and they definitely instilled that love and appreciation in me! I grew up singing and dancing right along with Ginger & Fred, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and the like right in my living room - and even got made fun of for it by other kids! Around elementary age, I used to hold my little portable tape recorder up to the tv and record the songs from the movies I loved, then walk around listening to my prized tapes in my Walkman - could never understand why I couldn't get the other kids to like "my" music. Why would any kid in 1989 choose to listen to New Kids on The Block over my Meet Me In St. Louis home-recorded soundtrack? Even in high school, one of my favorite things to do was fake sick to stay home from school, lay on the couch, and watch TCM all day. :)

Now that I am old and wise, my admiration for the abundant talent evident during the golden days of Hollywood just keeps growing. It should be obvious that I'm slightly obsessed with Ginger Rogers, and oddly enough, it didn't come about through watching the Astaire/Rogers films. It happened one night several years ago when I caught Bachelor Mother on TCM, and was really struck by Ginger's acting ability in a movie which I was frankly quite surprised made it past the censors of the late 30's! I mean come on, the very idea that a single woman could even consider giving the appearance of having gotten knocked up and raising a child on her own in 1939 is pushing the envelope - hence the appeal of this movie for me! I thought Ginger (alongside David Niven) was adorable and spunky, and I feel this film really gave her an opportunity to show her "humaness."

Here's the trailer for Bachelor Mother (1939).



After being so impressed by her acting, I started watching every Ginger film I could get my hands (or remote control?) on. Just read a quote from Astaire the other day in which he graciously gave Ginger much of the credit for their partnership's success -

"Ginger was brilliantly effective. She made everything work for her. Actually she made things very fine for both of us and she deserves most of the credit for our success."

That was modest of him of course, because it was the magic & chemistry between both of them that was superb - but at the same time, I'm so glad he gave her props for her incredible talent and contribution to their pairing. There's just nothing like it.

As quoted from an August 14, 2009 New York Times article entitled They Seem to Find the Happiness They Seek, “You have this pretty girl and this far from handsome yet smoothly attractive guy, and the two of them join together to dance like nobody else, before or since, and some terrific music is playing much of the time, so what the hell, but wouldn’t it be great if life had more such moments: glamorous, romantic, elegant, yes, and uncomplicatedly happy.”

It all came down to this...

Well, it seems something has finally come of all the talk. I've been saying for years that I was going to start a blog, and here I am really doing it. Way to follow through, self.

I've spent the evening browsing Blogger and have come across some really wonderful classic film blogs that I'm looking forward to linking up here soon. I'm especially happy to have found a handful of Ginger Rogers fans who have dug up some rare photos to share - I hope to be able to contribute to that treasure trove myself! I've had a great time watching some of the more rare Ginger films they've linked to - especially an early 1930 short called Office Blues from Finding Ginger's blog.



Ginger is so cute in this with that almost Betty Boop-ish late 20's/early 30's-style singing; she must've been about 18-years-old here. The ending would obviously not have made it past the censors later in the decade, those are my favorite to watch! Great find. A co-worker and I shared a good laugh over it at the office today - and then the song got stuck in our heads for a while. Catchy little tune.

Tonight, I will leave off with one of my favorite scenes from Swing Time, as Fred (Lucky) and Ginger (Penny) dance to keep Penny's job after Lucky has just feigned terrible ineptitude at dancing in order to get the lovely dance instructor Penny to consider him as a pupil in need of her tutelage. Too cute! The video is found here.