Netflix new release roundup for February ‘21

I’ll have a major announcement on March 9 that you’re gonna want to be here for. I probably should spill the beans now, but I’ll wait. In the meantime, not a lot of new stuff on Netflix that I watched...

—Malcolm & Marie. Up-and-coming filmmaker and his girlfriend come home from the premiere of his film only to hash out lingering issues pertaining to his worth as a director and her value to him as a muse. You probably know by now that writer-director Sam Levinson made this during the quarantine period last year, which is a story unto itself, and lately it became a lightning rod for other issues of the moment, but honestly, I didn’t think of or care about any of that when I saw it. It’s been called a Millennial Virginia Woolf: bickering couple, one long night, black and white. Some of it was excruciating to sit through, I admit: the language, the wandering narrative, but the acting from John David Washington and Zendaya was fine, especially given the difficult circumstances they must have gone through to make this film. Good not great.

BONUS! I had the opportunity to watch One Night in Miami on Amazon Prime last month. The feature film directing debut of Oscar-winning actress Regina King, it’s a fictionalized account of the night in 1964 when four legendary black men—Cassius Clay (before he became Muhammad Ali), Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown—hung out together, after Clay defeated Sonny Liston to become the heavyweight boxing champion. It’s based on a play. 

I remember King from her days as a child actress on television and it’s wonderful to see how much she’s progressed as a filmmaker. This film is basically just four guys in a room but, as you can imagine, they have some important things to say to each other, things that speak as loudly to us today as they did then. The only name among the stars I’m familiar with is Leslie Odom Jr. (the guy from Hamilton) as Cooke, but all the stars—Eli Goree (Clay), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Malcolm) and Aldis Hodge (Brown) are exquisite. A solid film debut from director King.

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The reopening here in NYC: on the local level, Cinemart in Forest Hills posted on their Facebook page that they thought they wouldn’t be ready to go until April 1. The Kew Gardens Cinema also said they’d need a little time to get ready.

Also, Jersey City mayor Stephen Fulop announced last month that more money is going into the Loews Jersey theater’s upgrade and a commercial operator for the redevelopment plan was conditionally named. They’ll have to close for eighteen months beginning next year, but when they reopen, look out. Booking national acts to play there is on the long-term agenda, but Friends of the Loews will still be the non-profit partner and movies will still have a place there.

Unrelated but worth checking out: the 50 most beautiful cinemas in the world.

More on the other side.

Netflix new release roundup for November ‘20

I’m watching much more Netflix now than before, and not just for the new releases. I think I’ve come to depend on it a bit, as a way of coping. A movie a day, plus two or three TV episodes, isn’t too much, is it? At least I’m not bingeing.

—The Trial of the Chicago Seven. The anti-Vietnam protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and the violence that resulted as a result of the confrontation with the Chicago police, gets revisited in this film from writer-director Aaron Sorkin. Specifically, it’s about the trial of an unconnected group of individuals at the heart of the protests, including irreverent activist Abbie Hoffman, memorably played by Sacha Baron Cohen. He’ll get Oscar nominated for certain. Sorkin uses cross-cutting between places and times to bring life to a very talky but riveting screenplay, in addition to actual television footage from the late 60s. In a time when Americans have been agitating for more drastic change in society than ever before, this movie leaves a deep impression.

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So Death on the Nile and Free Guy moved to next year and Wonder Woman 1984 will debut in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously. The Tom Hanks western News of the World and the video game adaptation Monster Hunter are still expected to play theatrically in 2020... for the moment. This Slate article goes into streaming amidst the current status quo and how unsatisfying it can ultimately feel in a world with diminished theatrical distribution.

More on the other side.

Loews JC to get $40M renovation!

...Under the new plan, Friends of the Loew’s will be involved in the renovation plans, and oversee community programming, while the commercial operator will be charged with finding national and international acts to perform at the 3,000-seat theater.

UPDATE 6.15: I had thought Friends of the Loews would have made a statement by now, but they haven’t yet, so I’ll chime in with my thoughts. First, all due credit for this victory, in a battle that had gone on at least since 2014, goes to Colin Egan and everyone at FoL for keeping this special place viable and functional for decades. They are the real heroes here.

FoL has said in the past the future of the Loews was as a non-profit venue that caters to the headliners as well as the local acts, so when I see statements regarding “national and international acts,” I got a bit concerned, so I hope they will publicly renew their commitment to this path soon, a plan which is in the city’s best interests as well as the theater’s. To his credit, mayor Steven Fulop specifically mentioned the diverse communities within JC in Thursday‘a press conference, so I remain hopeful for the moment. Also, I believe old movies will continue to have a place at the Loews, at an affordable price, that everyone can enjoy.

Fulop and JC would be wise to continue to emphasize the Loews’ convenient location across the street from the PATH train, only minutes from midtown Manhattan. While not the same thing, I believe lessons can and must be learned from the fustercluck that resulted from transportation from the Super Bowl at the Meadowlands a few years ago, and support mass transit during major events, such as a concert at the Loews.

Plus, I hope the Loews’ renewal will mean downtown JC’s renewal. I’ve walked around the area surrounding the theater; it’s not terrible, but it could be better—and “better” does not necessarily mean homogenized and made to look like everyplace else while stripping it of its cultural identity. There can and should be a balance.

And all of this, of course, is contingent on a solution to our Much Bigger Problem coming as soon as possible. Still, this news gives us a future to which we can look forward.

The Time Machine (1960)

The Time Machine (1960)
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theater, Jersey City NJ

Last year I bought a used anthology of HG Wells stories: The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, and today's subject, The Time Machine.  I haven't finished it; I started Time but other things distracted me, as they tend to do.

Wells' writing is different from modern fiction. It's sparser, but a bit more florid also. Time the book didn't necessarily bore me, but it didn't quite suck me in either. Maybe that was because I had seen the time travel genre to death, in many forms (especially recently), and he was practically inventing the genre when this was written.

Herbert George Wells, born in England in 1866, started out as a teacher and later a journalist and even an artist before he got into short story and novel writing, and not just SF. Of course, it is SF for which he's best remembered.

In Wells' day, science fiction was called "scientific romance," a term associated with writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne, as well as the filmmaker George Melies. Wells' approach to the genre revolved around grounding the reader in credibility, so that the incredible elements could be more easily accepted. He felt one crazy assumption, such as the possibility of time travel, was all you needed on which to build.

Time was not Wells' first time travel story. In 1888, seven years before Time, he wrote a short story called "The Chronic Argonauts," which was also about an inventor of a time travel apparatus. (Some say Wells was inspired by Thomas Edison.) Before even that, in 1881, a short with a different kind of time machine, "The Clock That Went Backward" by Edward Page Mitchell, ran in the New York Sun.

Did you know there's a deleted scene from Time? Wells wrote it at his editor's suggestion. The nameless protagonist goes even further into the future, past the era of the Eloi and Morlocks, and discovers a new species that resembles them both. Wells didn't like it, though.

I had seen the 1960 film adaptation before, but I had forgotten how entertaining it was. Screenwriter David Duncan, in adapting the book, fleshed out the protagonist's 19th-century buddies and his relationships with them in a way that really humanizes him.

Rod Taylor, under George Pal's direction, portrays the idealistic humanist well, in a way that made me think he might have been an influence in shaping Star Trek's Captain Kirk. And speaking of Trek, Wah Chang, one of the Oscar winners for the film's special effects, went on to work on the show as a prop man, designing the original tricorder and communicator.

I saw Time with Virginia. It was her first time at the Loews JC and she loved it, taking pictures on the mezzanine level and digging the Wonder Organ. I was thrilled to have her there in a place that means so much to me.

The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theater, Jersey City NJ

I think part of the reason The Silence of the Lambs is as unsettling as it is has to do with the cinematography. Jonathan Demme (and his DP, Tak Fujimoto) used so many tight close-ups, which in another film, might feel different, but here I found them claustrophobic, as if Jodie Foster was trapped in the frame with Anthony Hopkins — which, in a way, she was.

Apparently, this was a motif of the late Demme's work, although I don't remember for sure because it's been a long time since I've seen his films (Married to the Mob, Stop Making Sense, Philadelphia, Beloved, Rachel Getting Married, etc.).

Usually we welcome seeing our favorite stars' faces twenty feet high, but in Silence, I longed for room to breathe, metaphorically speaking, to get away from Hannibal Lecter. And of course, Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill was so revolting, you wouldn't want to look at him up close, but we get that too.

At the time of Demme's death last year, this article by a gay writer went up on Slate, discussing Silence and Philadelphia in a gay context. You may recall the Buffalo Bill character was the focus of controversy from gay groups, and the latter film was believed to be Demme's apology for it.

At the time, I understood very little of the whole thing, and I'm probably not the one to address it now; I only bring it up here to note how the conversation about Demme and Silence has evolved, however slowly, in the past quarter century.

I was pleasantly surprised to see who else was in this movie. I knew about Kasi Lemmons, who went on to become a filmmaker. Demme's former mentor, Roger Corman, has a brief cameo as the FBI director; Charles Napier is the guard Hannibal kills when he escapes; singer Chris Isaak is a SWAT officer; even George Romero has an uncredited bit as a fed (though that one I found out about later, on IMDB).

Going to the Loews JC was a last-minute decision, but as usual, I'm glad I did it. Nothing particularly special to report this time; just another fun night out at the best place to see a film in the tri-state area.

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2017

Again, not a whole lot of rare or unusual things happened at the movies this year, but there were some rare and unusual movies.

5. Talk of the Town at the Astoria Historical Society. It wasn't exactly a large crowd - it wasn't even a crowd - but Sandi and I enjoyed the movie nonetheless, we made a new friend, and the day on the whole was pleasant. I think the Society gets more people at screenings when they're tied to a major event of some sort. This wasn't. It's okay, though.

4. Rebecca at Vija's place. Also more for that entire day, pouring rain, donuts, and all, although the situation with the malfunctioning DVD player was certainly an event in itself. I would've hated to have lost that DVD. In fact, I wrote a short story inspired by that incident. Gonna shop it around next year.

3. Island of Lost Souls at the Loews JC. Once again, Halloween at the Loews means party time; I got to hang with Aurora, plus I finally met Monstergirl (along with her girlfriend). Wish I could've stayed for all three movies in the triple bill, but I had a good time anyway.

2. Loving Vincent. One of the rare occasions I've loved a movie more for its looks than its story. The plot was good; it's just I wanted to bask in the visuals more - and every single frame of this extraordinary film literally is a work of art. It's a singular achievement that needs to be seen to be believed.

1. Mother! Full stop. I'm still not sure how I feel about this movie, but I do know it took brass balls to make, and Darren Aronofsky has got 'em. Maybe if I had gone into it knowing everything, I might not have been as freaked out by it as I was, but it seems to me this is why we go to the movies in the first place: for the possibility of seeing something you've never seen before that will shake you up in some way, even if you don't understand how or why. This may not make my top 10 for the year, but damn if it wasn't the craziest two hours I've spent in a movie theater in a long time.

Happy new year to you all. Barring any news about the future of the Lincoln Plaza, I'll return January 9.

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Previously:
2016 top five
2015 top five
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Island of Lost Souls

Island of Lost Souls
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theater, Jersey City, NJ

One wouldn't associate Charles Laughton exclusively with the horror genre, but the few films he has done are keepers: he was the hunchback of Notre Dame, for starters. I've never seen Lon Chaney's version, so I don't know how Laughton's version compares, but damn, was he good. He was one of the guests in The Old Dark House, though his role in that wasn't anywhere near as showy. He directed Night of the Hunter which, although it's not traditional horror, it's scary in places - such as every time Robert Mitchum is on screen. Plus, Laughton was married to the bride of Frankenstein!

Island of Lost Souls was in keeping with what would become a long tradition of Laughton playing scoundrels, outsiders and villains, and few were better in his time. Souls, of course, is H. G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau by another name, nor was this Laughton's first association with the famed SF writer. In 1928, he appeared in three shorts featuring wife Elsa Lanchester, written by Wells. (Here's one of them, Blue Bottles.) Wells allegedly didn't like Souls; too much horror, not enough philosophy.

The Moreau story has been redone and parodied enough times where you probably know the basics: mad scientist creates humanoid life forms out of animals; dude trapped on the island has to escape. Laughton is terrific, as you would expect him to be. After this film, he would take on larger-than-life roles: Henry the VIII (twice), Inspector Javert, Captain Bligh. Here you can sense the evolution of his on-screen persona: walking around whipping his animal-men; manipulating people, playing them like chess pieces; even the style of his dress and his goatee are suggestive of somebody different from other mortal men.

The credits list "the Panther Woman" in the part of the vampish were-woman Lota. In reality, she was former dental assistant Kathleen Burke, who won a national contest held by Paramount for the part. She went on to do some other stuff throughout the 30s. Also, an unrecognizable Bela Lugosi plays the leader of the animal-men, though if you listen to his voice, I think you can make him out.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover this was where the band Devo cribbed the "Are we not men?" line. In fact, several bands have paid tribute to this film in song, including Van Halen and Oingo Boingo; plus, there was a hip hop group called House of Pain.

Devo's debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! included the song "Jocko Homo", which can be read to be about the evolution/creation divide, I suppose, but honestly, it's hard to pay attention to the lyrics when you're watching that video. Seriously, take a look at it; this was back when bands made videos that were more like short films, and while this one has nothing to do with the Moreau story per se, it's still got its fair share of Nightmare Fuel.

The Loews JC showed Souls as part of a Halloween triple feature that also included House on Haunted Hill and Halloween, which brought out the biggest crowd, as you can imagine. A dude in a Michael Myers mask played the piano in the lobby. Regrettably, I could only stay for Souls, the second film, but at least I had company...

You're familiar with Aurora, of course. To her left is Monstergirl (AKA Jo) from The Last Drive In and her girlfriend Wendy, both of whom I met for the first time. It will come as little surprise, I'm sure, when I say all of them were there for all three movies. I remember chatting a bit with Jo by email a few years ago when I found out she was local. Sadly, she hasn't posted in awhile. Here's hoping she comes back to her blog soon.

Key Largo

Key Largo
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theater, Jersey City, NJ

When I think of Florida, my grandmother comes to mind. This was very long ago, so my memories are dim and fragmented. She was nice, though I can't picture her face. My mother always encouraged me to write to her, but I didn't need much prompting; she always sent me money.

She lived in St. Augustine. We might have visited her at least a couple of times that I recall. I have a vivid image of the street she lived on, if not her house. It was a sandy road, unpaved, with no sidewalks. While in Florida, we also went to Disney World at least once. No memories of that.

We did not visit the Florida Keys. I have no burning desire to do so, though I'm sure they're beautiful, based on what we see of them in Key Largo. John Huston gave us a few location shots, of the Seven Mile Bridge and the piers. I wouldn't want to live down there, though. I'd be too afraid of the damage hurricanes can do. They're enough of a problem here in the northeast.

Largo was based on a play, and as I watched it I tried to imagine how certain scenes would be staged. I imagine it's not too hard to provide sound effects for a hurricane. Maybe you could rattle the sets backstage to simulate the blowing wind. Could you have a tree smashing through a window on stage? Maybe that was for the movie. The climax on the boat probably plays much better on a movie screen.

When Jacqueline wrote about seeing Largo on a big screen, she pointed out how it almost seemed like a different movie because everything's magnified. Absolutely true. Every word. I didn't have the bad experience with the audience she had. The Loews JC crowd was totally respectful, as they almost always are. Going there for this movie was a spur of the moment decision. I'm glad I did it. I feel at home watching a movie there like I do no place else.

Let's talk about Claire Trevor for a minute. Did you know there's a Claire Trevor School of the Arts? It's part of the University of California-Irvine. Jon Lovitz went there, among other notables. They offer programs for visual as well as performing arts.

Largo was Trevor's Oscar-winning role. She had appeared with Bogey before, in the movie Dead End, another Oscar-nominated performance, plus she had done radio work with Eddie G in the late 30s. Her role here may not seem important at first, but it provides depth to the overall story, as well as a contrast to Lauren Bacall's more virtuous lead role. Plus, she ends up doing something very important late in the story. She's quite good as the sympathetic bad girl, a role she specialized at throughout her career.

Largo is a great movie, but you already knew that. It's Eddie G's swan song as a cinematic gangster, just as White Heat was for Jimmy Cagney a year later. When Lionel Barrymore tells Eddie "Your kind has no place in the world anymore," or something like that, the effect is doubly felt because it's being said to someone famous for playing gangsters. Very canny bit of casting there. Indeed, the gangster picture did fall into decline for awhile, until a film school brat named Coppola adapted a certain bestselling novel about the mafia... but that is another story.

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2016

So the most eagerly awaited movie-going moment of the year for me - the grand opening of the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn - turned out to be less than I had hoped due to the high cost of the theater, at least in comparison to its Yonkers location. I'd be willing to go back there, but it would have to be for something super-special, not on a semi-regular basis as I had hoped. Still, all movie lovers should see a movie at the Alamo at least once. I have no problem recommending it to the uninitiated. Just be prepared to unload some dough.

At any rate, I still had some wonderful moments seeing movies at other venues this year. And here are the best:

5. Spaceballs at Syndicated Bar. Other venues are starting to replicate the Alamo experience, and Syndicated, also in Brooklyn, is one of them. It's a repertory house and not a first-run, but I enjoyed their food and drink, their seats are very comfortable, and they're a whole lot cheaper. Seeing a great movie like Spaceballs with my friend Alicia was the icing on the cake. I hope to go back there this year.

4. Lust for Life on video at Vija's place. If for no other reason than seeing her cat and Chris' dog interact, which was pretty funny. It would've been nicer to have had a DVD that didn't act up, too, but the company and the food more than made up for that. Also, Vija didn't find the DVD at first. I had told her that was okay, I'd watch something else, but she kept on looking until she found an available copy. This is why she has been my friend for over twenty years. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

3. Nosferatu/Dracula's Daughter at the Loews Jersey City. With Aurora, no less! Halloween at the Loews is always a special time. This wasn't on October 31 exactly, but it was close enough for another huge crowd to turn out for this sweet vampire twin bill.

2. Run Lola Run at Prospect Park. In case it wasn't apparent, none of the versions of the story I told about seeing this movie at Celebrate Brooklyn was 100% accurate. I was aping the storytelling style of the movie itself. The stuff about the music - the musical guest, Joan as Police Woman, and the band live-scoring the film, The Bays - that was true. Most of the time, CB makes excellent choices with the films they show, and this was no exception.

1. Star Trek Beyond in New Paltz with Bibi & Eric. Yeah, this is a pretty easy choice. A Trek movie, during the 50th anniversary year, in a slightly peculiar-shaped theater, outside of NYC, with two of my favorite people in the world. It simply does not get any better than this. And I got to hang out with them three times last year! Highly unusual for us. What luck!

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Previously:
2015 top five
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Dracula's Daughter

Dracula's Daughter
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre, Jersey City NJ

Dracula's Daughter is one of the few classic Universal horror movies with a female monster. I mean, seriously, how many can you think of? Everyone associates Halloween with witches, but the only truly iconic witch in cinema is a supporting character, not the star, and she got owned by a farm girl with a bucket of water.

Daughter begins immediately after the events of Dracula. Van Helsing is arrested for murder, but of course, no one believes the guy he just killed was a supernatural bloodsucker. He enlists a protégé of his, a psychiatrist, to help prove his innocence.

He becomes involved with a mysterious countess tormented, TORMENTED, I say, by evil compulsions from the man she claims is her father: ol' Drac himself. Can she be cured? Or will she just say screw it, there's no hope for me, I'm evil, I shall embrace my wicked heritage and kill kill evil crazy ha ha ha? Take one guess.

Gloria Holden makes this watchable. She's exotically beautiful - I thought she resembled Meryl Streep as a brunette - and she doesn't go for camp. Her Countess Zaleska has a magnetism different from Lugosi's, yet is her own. She's commanding when she has to be, but because she regards her vampiric nature as a curse, she's a tragic figure as well. You care about what happens to her.

I had never heard of Holden before. Looking through her IMDB page, I see she was in The Life of Emile Zola, a couple of Gable flicks, a few with Roz Russell, but I don't think she was considered a leading lady. That's too bad. I liked her in this.

The rest of the story is okay, but honestly, it's short on plot and shorter on scares. On the plus side, unlike Dracula, it has a score worth speaking of, and it even has some light humor. Plus, Hedda Hopper when she was still an actress!

The Countess could be a serial killer as opposed to a vampire for all we see of her sucking blood or turning into a bat or what have you. And if Drac's her dad, who's her mom? Mom gets one passing mention and that's all. Is the Countess an all-the-way vamp, or some manner of human-vamp hybrid, like Blade? Was she born human and made a vamp by her dad? We'll never know.

Halloween at the Loews JC is always a fun time. Daughter was part of a twin bill with Nosferatu (another huge, line-around-the-block crowd, like last time) that I saw with Aurora. She thought the Countess' mom was one of the women from Dracula. Maybe. She also tells me the organist for the silent horror pic was a teenager. You'd never know from listening to him. He was superb!

No pics of Aurora and me this time; you know what we look like by now. I was glad to have seen a movie with her again. We had planned to see It Happened One Night at Brooklyn Bridge Park this summer, but it got rained out and she had to cancel at the last minute anyway. This makes up for that.

Course plotted and laid in...

...all systems are go for the #30DaysOfStarTrek, beginning this Thursday! This is another first for me. I've seen other bloggers post for 30 consecutive days and always marveled at the sight. Now I'm gonna try it myself. Of course, I've already started writing in advance. The trick will be in keeping to my schedule.

If you look at the sidebar, you'll notice the itinerary, which will include the people behind the scenes as well as the characters and episodes, all from my slightly skewed perspective. In addition: I MIGHT make it to the big Trek con here in New York for one day at least. Nothing definite yet, but if it happens, I'll write about it. I did make it to the Starfleet Academy Experience exhibit at the USS Intrepid. I went there with my pals Bibi and Eric; we had a great time, and I'll definitely tell you about that. I also hope to review Adam Nimoy's film For the Love of Spock, and who knows, maybe there will be one or two other surprises.

September will be an exciting time to celebrate 50 years of Trek, and I sincerely hope you'll share your opinions, memories and stories about Trek with me this month as well.

The image at the top is from the chalk art festival I went to in New Paltz last month. I had meant to use it in my post on Beyond, but I forgot, so here it is now.

We have time for a few links before we get started...

Raquel went to CapitolFest.

Le explores the acting career of a fellow Brazilian, whose career took him around the world.

Ryan thinks a redefinition of the term "classic film" is overdue.

Ivan reviews a book about film preservation.

Film Forum is starting a new series of double features.

Spotlight on pioneering black animator Floyd Norman.

The Loews Jersey City theater will be featured in a new short film starring Danny Aiello.

Suicide links

I was gonna write this month about the new Star Trek series, Discovery, but the news out of Comic-Con was less than I expected. Bryan Fuller says he wants to "strike new ground" with this show, and I believe him. I just wish he was doing it on regular TV and not some special subscription service. Bibi and I talked about Discovery briefly when I saw Beyond with her and Eric, and she's not thrilled about having to pay to see it either. No point in complaining about it now, I guess. I'll watch the free premiere episode and after that... I dunno.

In the meantime, we got the 30 Days of Star Trek coming up here next month. This is gonna be a real challenge, blogging 30 consecutive posts. I've already started writing the first week and a half's worth, and I'm trying to limit what I want to say, but sometimes it's hard. And now I just signed up for a blogathon that happens the first weekend of October, so I gotta make sure I leave time for that too. Oy! But at least I know you're out there reading. July's pageview count was the third-highest in WSW history. Thank you, again. I hope I can keep you guys interested.

Last Wednesday, the 27th, I saw Dog Day Afternoon at Riverside Park's Pier 1 (the hostess kept calling it Pier I as in eye), but I'm not gonna devote a post to it - too many other things I wanna get to before September - but I figure I'll mention it here. Still a great movie, as if there was any doubt. There was this European (I think) couple in front of me who must have thought this was a romantic comedy, because they couldn't stop kissing, before and during the movie. I had to move up front so I wouldn't have to look at them. Weird.

Your links:

Paddy connects the dots between two great Hollywood actresses and one great stage actress, Shirley Booth.

Le explains why she relates to the movie Freaks.

Danny reviews an interesting book about film marketing in the studio era.

Ivan writes about Gene Roddenberry's pre-Star Trek show, The Lieutenant.

And keeping the Trek theme going, Jennifer describes what Dr. McCoy means to her as a Southerner.

Pam digs Astoria's own Christopher Walken.

Check out this tag-team "jam" short story written by a number of notable film bloggers, starring Cary Grant, Mae West, and other Hollywood Golden Agers.

An update on the ongoing restoration of the Loew's Jersey City theater.

Footlight Parade

Are Ruby and Joanie supposed to be nude
in this poster? Sure looks like it!

Footlight Parade
seen @ Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre, Jersey City, NJ

A long time ago, when they used to be shown in venues opulent and lavish enough to be worthy of the name "palaces," movies used to be preceded by live stage shows called "prologues." As I understand it, they were the brainchildren of exhibitors, who put them on as a supplement to the movie, a kind of stage-setter, as it were. Imagine seeing Batman v. Superman at Radio City Music Hall, preceded by a wave of Rockettes parading around in capes and masks and flying around on wires, perhaps, singing an original paean to the American superhero, and you'll get some idea of what the experience was like.

Hollywood producers weren't crazy about prologues, and they did their best to get rid of them by the time sound came to the movies. Why? Money, of course: theaters and performers were getting the moolah that could've been going to the studios through film rentals.

Could prologues work today? I could see them being done in select theaters in New York and L.A., but only in some kind of profit-sharing partnership between the studios and the exhibitors - and certainly not for every movie at every showing. The Force Awakens is a good example of the kind of modern movie a prologue could go well with: a big, mainstream extravaganza aimed at the widest possible audience. Make it part of a Wednesday-night world premiere at places like Radio City or Grauman's TCL Chinese, broadcast it live on YouTube as an hour-long program, complete with backstage interviews before and after the prologue, promote the hell out of it on social media, of course, and you're good to go. I can't see it working any other way in 21st century-Hollywood - but that's okay. Not every idea from the past would work well today.

A prologue would not have felt out of place last Saturday night at the Loew's Jersey, where I saw the movie Footlight Parade, a love letter to the era of prologues, made while they were going into decline (replaced by short subjects like cartoons and newsreels). The Loew's usually precedes their film screenings with a live performance on their Wonder Morton pipe organ, but wouldn't you know it, their usual organist had a gig somewhere else that night. (He did, however, make it to the Loew's in time for the second show, All About Eve. I heard the organ playing as the crowd for that show entered the auditorium.) 

Jimmy Cagney is a developer of prologues who sees the writing on the wall, or perhaps the marquee, when sound comes to the movies. He develops a scheme to keep his business afloat, though it means working his people harder than ever. Are they up to the challenge? Busby Berkeley did the choreography for this one, and as in other films he worked on, like Gold Diggers of 1933, his breathtaking, kaleidoscopic musical numbers are supposed to take place on a simple, ordinary stage within the reality of the movie, although they would have to be arranged in four-dimensional space to even begin to work for a live audience. 

I always find it hilarious whenever I see a movie like this, because no attempt is made to explain it away (and thank Zod for that!); they just cut to the audience in the theater applauding the spectacle they've somehow witnessed the same way we, the movie audience, did. Now that I think about it, though, I think the version we see is perhaps meant to be some kind of "dream" version of the "actual" performance. It's as if the filmmakers said well, filming it exactly as it would appear on a live stage would be boring, so let's jazz it up and make it fit for a movie audience instead. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the rationale.

FLP is a pre-code movie, and as such, there are moments that aren't exactly politically correct. Early in the film, Cagney gets an idea for a prologue called "Slaves of Africa" which would involve dancers in blackface in a jungle setting. Thankfully, we never get to see that, but the fact that he seriously considers that kinda made me squirm. Also, he gets inspired by seeing black kids playing in an open fire hydrant, saying something like (and I'm paraphrasing) "a waterfall on beautiful white bodies." Plus, Ruby Keeler in yellowface... I know stuff like this just reflects the era in which it was made, and I shouldn't take it so seriously - and the fact is, I like this picture a lot, despite moments like this - but it still gives me that nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling.

Fortunately, any casual racism in FLP is more than made up for by the joyous presence of Joan Blondell. She plays Cagney's secretary who crushes on him and keeps him on the straight and narrow throughout the story. She totally kicks ass in this film - literally, at one point! She has many of the best lines, and like in Night Nurse, we get to see her undress! In fact, we see lots of ladies dressing and undressing in buses during the climactic third act, when the prologue dancers have to hustle from one theater to another to do three prologues in a single night. (Sure, it's possible. Why not?)

Keeler and Dick Powell made for a cute beta couple, although the whole cliche of Keeler suddenly becoming sexy and desirable once she takes off her glasses was kinda lame. I was willing to buy it though, if it meant seeing her dance with Cagney. And oh yeah, I cannot get enough of seeing Cagney dance. Just can't. What's that you say about a new musical about Cagney...? Also, there was a brief reference in the film to Jersey City, which got a boisterous round of applause from the hometown crowd!

When I wrote about opening credits in movies last month, Le reminded me of credits in films during the pre-code era, some of which would introduce the cast with images of them from the movie. FLP had that, and they did it last in order, after the title card and below-the-line credits, and just before the start of the movie. I have to admit, it was nice. Given the theatrical nature of this movie in particular, it was almost like the cast was coming out on stage to take a curtain call before the movie began.

Ran into Aurora in-between shows. She was there with a friend to see Eve. I might've stayed for it too, but I've seen it at the Loew's before. Aurora was seeing it on the big screen for the fist time and she was mighty excited about it, as any fan of the film would be, I imagine. I'll have to write about that one sooner or later...