Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

Honor Among Lovers (1931): Ginger Rogers in her smallest role

From my Facebook archives, July 31, 2015:

Honor Among Lovers (1931) was the fifth of Ginger Rogers' 73 films and the one with her smallest role. But it is a very entertaining film nonetheless, starring Claudette Colbert and Fredric March and directed by Dorothy Arzner.

I just watched it tonight for the first time--on a copy with very deteriorated video quality such that it was frequently hard to make out the actors' faces.

Given that it's a very good film, I was happy to discover that it has apparently been restored by UCLA and is being shown there in September as part of an Arzner retrospective.

I've found older news items about similar Arzner retrospectives in other locations, so hopefully we can get the chance to see the restored version ourselves at some point.

Honor Among Lovers / Merrily We Go To Hell -- UCLA Film & Television Archive

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Update in September 2018: Good news! Universal, which owns the old Paramount library, release a restored version of this film on DVD earlier this summer.

Professional Sweetheart (1933): Early Ginger Rogers in a starring role

From my Facebook archives, July 8, 2015:

Professional Sweetheart. RKO, 1933. A young Ginger Rogers stars in this comedy about a star radio singer trying to break out of the confines of her image as the 'Purity Girl'.

There are several excellent actors and comedians in supporting roles in this film--notably Frank McHugh, Zasu Pitts, and Franklin Pangborn. And they all all great. Yet Ginger dominates the film in the role of the spoiled, manipulative, overgrown adolescent celebrity radio singer.

Alas, for those of us who thoroughly enjoy Ginger's singing, her voice is dubbed by someone with a very different style (Etta Moten). This is fortunately the only film where that was done.

The vast majority of the film is extremely funny and entertaining. Alas, the last few minutes don't make much sense. Ginger's character undergoes a sudden personality transplant. The script suggests that she suddenly becomes a "good woman" after getting punched in the face by her new husband (played by Norman Foster).

But the film up until then is so fun that the off-kilter finale can't spoil it. 

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Perfect Strangers (1950): Ginger Rogers' romantic drama in a courtroom

From my Facebook archives, June 29, 2015:

Perfect Strangers. Warner Brothers, 1950. Ginger Rogers stars with Dennis Morgan in this drama about a clandestine romance between two jury members who are married to other people. Morgan was also Ginger's love interest in her Academy Award-winning performance in Kitty Foyle a decade earlier.

The supporting cast includes Thelma Ritter and Alan Reed. I don't know Alan Reed as an actor aside from this film, but he later was the voice of Fred Flintstone. The director has the fabulous name of Bretaigne Windust. He is most well-known for his Broadway work in the 1940s.

I really enjoyed the complicated dynamics of the love story between Ginger and Dennis Morgan. The film also focused on the interpersonal dynamics of a sequestered jury in a highly-publicized murder case, which leads to a number of very amusing situations. The character played Anthony Ross, who keeps hitting on Ginger unsuccessfully, was particularly entertaining. The courtroom protocol stuff could have been cut down substantially.

After seeing this movie a few weeks ago, I read reviews on IMDB and was surprised at how unenthusiastic many were. Much of the negativity concerned the love story allegedly distracting from the courtroom story. I find that interpretation backwards. The love story *is* the movie. The rest is amusing and moderately interesting, but just background.

So if you want a courtroom drama uninterrupted by messy romance, this movie isn't for you. But if you care to watch a romantic drama that just happens to be set in a courtroom, then you may well enjoy this film after all!

Queen High (1930): Very early Ginger Rogers

From my Facebook archives, May 23, 2015:

When she was still a teenager and working on Broadway in Top Speed and Girl Crazy, Ginger Rogers made five films at Paramount's Astoria studios on Long Island. Young Man of Manhattan, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, was the first. Queen High, which we just watched this week, was the second. (Some sources say it's the third.)

Ginger is the female lead and gets to sing and dance a little, but the real stars are Charles Ruggles and Frank Morgan, who are very amusing actors. (Morgan would become immortalized nine years later as the Wizard of Oz.)

Ginger's character, once again with a high-pitched voice, though not so exaggerated as in Young Man, is referred to early on by Ruggles as a "half-baked flapper." But the plot reveals her to be far more baked than that as she works to get her way this time around, unlike in the earlier film.

The film starts off great. It gets erratic in the second half, though, when some of the comedy gets a bit mean-spirited. Still, it is a fun movie -- primarily a comedic farce with some short musical bits thrown in. The copy I have suffers a bit in quality, but was still watchable.

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I'll Be Seeing You (1944)

From my Facebook archives, May 11, 2015:

I'll Be Seeing You. Selznick, 1944. This wartime romantic drama, starring Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten, is yet another of Ginger's films that deserves to be more widely recognized as a classic. Yet it clearly has a fair number of devoted fans. I had heard virtually universally positive things about this movie since learning about it last year. And I was not disappointed when we finally watched it last week.

It certainly is a tear-jerker. But not in an manipulative way. Ginger plays a woman on a Christmas furlough from prison, while Joseph Cotten plays a traumatized soldier on a similar furlough from a psychiatric hospital. They meet and then the story unfolds.

The supporting cast, including a teenage Shirley Temple and the always-welcome Spring Byington, is excellent. With the Christmas and New Years setting, this has deservedly become a favorite holiday film of many of those who have been fortunate enough to discover it.

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Young Man of Manhattan (1930): Ginger Rogers' first movie

From my Facebook archives, April 22, 2015:

Last week we watched a Paramount film from 1930 that may well be the oldest movie I've yet seen in full (as I haven't yet gotten into silents). It was called Young Man of Manhattan and starred Claudette Colbert and Norman Foster.

For me, it is notable as it marked the on-screen debut of Ginger Rogers--who at age 18 was playing a rich 16-year old flapper with a Helen Kane/Betty Boop-like voice. It's actually a rather large role for a newcomer. She plays an important part in the plot, gets to sing a couple short songs (and this isn't even a musical), and has a line that apparently became a catch-phrase of that era: "Cigarette me, big boy!" It's a trip seeing her so early in her career, with a rather different appearance from when she became a huge star four years later, after about twenty more films.

This film itself is quite enjoyable, as a drama about the relationship between a talented, ambitious woman reporter (Colbert) and her insecure husband and colleague (Foster). These two were married in real life at the time.

Ginger is certainly fun to watch in this film, though I do think her character is meant to be somewhat annoying. She plays the one who gets 'in the way' of the happy marriage.

The sound quality of the print I have is not as good as films I've seen from 1933 on. I'm not sure if that's because this was so much earlier in sound movie history (3 years was a lot at that time) or because it was a lower budget film or because it needs some restoration work. But it was quite watchable fortunately.

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Kitty Foyle (1940)

From my Facebook archives, April 4, 2015:

Kitty Foyle. RKO, 1940. This is the film Ginger Rogers won her Academy award for. I've put off seeing it longer than I should have, perhaps because it's a serious drama while I have been mainly focused on comedies and fun musicals.

We finally watched it last week and it's an excellent movie all-around. Ginger dominates the picture and of course is superb. Her two male leads are also very good--Dennis Morgan and James Craig--neither of whom I'd been familiar with before. I particularly liked Craig and the amusing scenes where he first meets and "dates" Ginger-as-Kitty Foyle, spending the evening playing cards in the cramped apartment she shares with two other women.

Ginger's scene where she describes her expectant child as her "candidate for the year 2000" is haunting.

The only issue I have with the film is that it could have been a bit longer. This is an "epic" storyline that takes place over a number of years and involves plenty of twists and turns. I wouldn't have minded it being spread out over a longer playing time than its actual 108 minutes. (Of course that's easy for me to say watching from comfort of my own home with flexibility to shut it off and pick up again the next night.)

This film, as with so many of Ginger's movies, deserves to be more widely remembered today.

You Said A Mouthful (1932)

From my Facebook archives, March 1, 2015:

You Said A Mouthful. Warner Bros./First National, 1932.

This is a Joe E. Brown comedy with an early-career Ginger Rogers in a supporting role. It was filmed a few months before 42nd Street, making it the earliest of the 30 films of Ginger's that we've now seen. (There were 11 she made before this one according to the list in the back of her book.)

Brown was a big comedy star in the early '30s. This is the first vehicle of his that we've seen. (He had a supporting role in the 1944 Betty Grable film Pin Up Girl that we saw a few weeks ago.) I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy his style of physical comedy, but this film was hilarious. It is a quick-paced 70 minutes, making it seem even shorter than it was.

To simplify the amusing, convoluted plot a bit, Brown plays an aqua-phobic non-swimmer impersonating a swimming champion so he can impress the wealthy swimming-groupie character played by Ginger Rogers. Brown's character has a recently-adopted young black son, played by Allen Hoskins, who turns into Brown's coach and mentor. An allegedly unsinkable swimming suit also plays a significant role.

Hoskins is most famous as 'Farina' from numerous Our Gang shorts in the '20s and early '30s. By this point in his career, he had grown too old for that role and had been released. This was one of his last film appearances.

Ginger's role as the love interest is relatively modest, but she is always compelling to watch. She disliked her outfits in this film (designed by Orry-Kelly), which I can mostly understand. But the huge hat she wears during the beach scene was quite memorable.

Particularly neat for this former Los Angeles resident was seeing the numerous location shots on Catalina Island.

It Had To Be You (1947)

From my Facebook archives, February 15, 2015:

It Had To Be You. Columbia, 1947. This is a zany romantic comedy film, with an odd, surrealistic plot.

Ginger Rogers' character is a bit looney, but in a very funny and loveable way. She is portraying someone ten years younger than her actual age (26 versus 36), yet her appearance is youthful enough to make that quite plausible. Cornel Wilde, who I was not familiar with before, is appropriately amusing, obnoxious, and charming in his dual role. The supporting characters, which include Spring Byington, all do an excellent job. It's quite an enjoyable film if you're in the mood for an over-the-top outrageous goofball comedy. For Ginger Rogers fans, which of course includes me, it is a must-see.

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Broadway Bad (1933)

From my Facebook archives, January 25, 2015:

Broadway Bad, a Fox film from early 1933, is the latest Ginger Rogers film we've watched: number 28. Along with the near-simultaneous 42nd Street, this is the earliest in her career we've seen. Ginger's role is rather small; fortunately the star, Joan Blondell, is always enjoyable.

This is definitely pre-code, with single motherhood playing such a large role in the plot.

Here's a blog that shows what movies were playing in Milwaukee the week of March 12, 1933. Ginger was in three of them: 42nd Street (held over for being such a big hit), Broadway Bad, and The Thirteenth Guest (as the star).
http://mondo70.blogspot.com/2013/03/now-playing-march-12-1933.html?m=1

Ginger was very busy in 1933! It sure paid off. One of her last films that year was Flying Down to Rio, which launched her and Fred Astaire into superstardom.

In her book, Ginger calls Broadway Bad and one other of her many 1933 films (A Shriek in the Night) "bread-and-butter" pictures.

"They may have been B pictures, and not the most outstanding of the films I made, but they allowed me to pay the rent and put food on our table."