Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

Tom, Dick, and Harry (1941)

From my Facebook archives, January 8, 2015:

[The photo below is] Ginger Rogers and Garson Kanin, the star and director of 'Tom, Dick, and Harry' from 1941 -- a very fun romantic comedy. George Murphy, Burgess Meredith, and Alan Marshal play the title characters. I loved the movie and Ginger's performance.

After posting that photo of Ginger and Garson Kanin, I realized that I've read a book by each of them in the last few months: Ginger's autobiography and Garson's "Hollywood", a collection of amusing essays.

As successful a director as he was, Garson Kanin appears to have been even more successful as a writer. He co-wrote, with his wife Ruth Gordon, several notable screenplays, including the Hepburn-Tracy films 'Adam's Rib' and 'Pat and Mike'. He also wrote the story on which 'The More The Merrier' was based. I posted about that excellent Jean Arthur comedy just a couple weeks back.

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Primrose Path (1940)

From my Facebook archives, December 17, 2014:

Primrose Path 1940. Ginger Rogers and Joel McCrea. Three word review: Very Highly Recommended!

This is relatively unusual amongst the 26 films of Ginger Rogers that we've seen so far in being a drama rather than a comedy. And it continues the unbroken string of highly enjoyable films of hers. Why her non-Astaire movies aren't more widely known and appreciated, I cannot say. (Is the fact that it's hard to get very many of them through Netflix a cause or a symptom?)

Ginger did Primrose Path a year after her ninth and last RKO pairing with Fred Astaire. And it was for this role, as a young girl from a poor family, that she decided to die her hair dark, after becoming so famous as a glamorous blonde. Then she went even darker for Lucky Partners, immediately afterwards--which was our previous Ginger film.

The supporting cast in this film is excellent. Particularly noteworthy to me were Henry Travers (the guardian angel from It's a Wonderful Life), who had many amusing lines, and Queenie Vassar, who nearly stole the show in her role as the mean grandma. And this was apparently her first film appearance--at 70 years old!

The scenes in her family's small house are more "play-like" then typical in films. That setting dominates the latter half of the film. The first half seems more open, with the location shots of the shantytown and the road and the beach, in particular.

Gregory LaCava is a fascinating director. I think that's the fourth film of his I've seen: My Man Godfrey, Stage Door, 5th Ave Girl, Primrose Path. All excellent, but each different.

Lucky Partners (1940)

From my Facebook archives, December 2, 2014:

 

Lucky Partners is the movie I posted the still from a couple nights ago (or 'Double Chance' in the French poster below). It's an extremely charming 1940 film starring Ginger Rogers and Ronald Colman. I am into comedies from the '30s and '40s and this is up there with the best of them. It started fun and just got better and better as it went along.

I've seen many of Ginger's films by now, but this was the first time I recall seeing Ronald Colman, though he was also a big star. (Of course, until last year I hadn't seen any of Ginger Rogers' films either.) Colman generally did more serious fare it seems, and we just don't watch dramas nearly as much as comedies. I also wasn't familiar with the director, Lewis Milestone, but he too was apparently very accomplished at dramas, including 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (which I haven't seen yet but really should). Jack Carson and Spring Byington in supporting roles are more familiar faces to me -- and they are always welcome. 

Having Wonderful Time (1938)

From my Facebook archives, November 7, 2014:

We're watching Having Wonderful Time tonight, a Ginger Rogers comedy from 1938. If I've counted right, this will be the 24th of her movies that we'll have seen. That only leaves nearly 50 more to go!

Note some of the names in smaller roles in this film: Ann Miller, Red Skelton, and Lucille Ball. Very early in each of their careers.

The first time I heard of this movie was early in the year while reading the bio of Hermes Pan.  Apparently he did some work on this movie, though the several musical numbers that apparently spent weeks in rehearsal are not in the final film. Later he helped George Stevens, who was directing some re-shoots, to stage some "energetically unobtrusive background dancing"  to liven up a "particularly dull dialogue scene". This was all right after he won an academy award for his work on Fred Astaire's 'Damsel in Distress'.

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In response to a question about how many Ginger Rogers films we planned to watch, I wrote: "Planning to watch as many as we can get our hands on. The same goes for all Fred Astaire's movies. And Judy Garland too. We haven't seen any Esther Williams films yet except for her routine in Ziegfeld Follies, but we have some our list to try out."

The next day: "We finished the movie last night and I thought it was an enjoyable and funny movie, with a rather unique and interesting setting -- a vacation camp that resembles a singles club. Some of the comments by the male camp employees about the women customers left us with our mouths agape. Unfortunately such blatantly disrespectful attitudes are not as out-of-date as many would like to believe.

"I also enjoyed the location shots in the mountains outside Los Angeles. A couple decades ago, I spent quite some time tramping about those landscapes. Seeing that scenery brought back pleasant memories."