A deep dive into Hollywood's early years
Directed by Wesley Ruggles, No Man Of Her Own is a fantastic and often overlooked pre-code about the unlikely romance between Clark Gable’s unscrupulous cardsharp Babe Stewart, and small-town librarian Connie Randall, played by Carole Lombard. It has no relation to the 1950 Barbara Stanwyck film of the same name.
This post is part of the Carole Lombard Memorial Blogathon hosted by In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood and Carole & Co.
Directed by Mark Sandrich, Top Hat is a screwball musical comedy starring Fred Astaire as Jerry Travers, a dancer newly arrived in London to star in a major show, and Ginger Rogers as Dale Tremont, the woman who Jerry falls desperately in love with.
This post is part of The Second Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Blogathon hosted by Love Letters To Old Hollywood and In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood
Directed by Jean Negulesco, Woman’s World is a corporate drama featuring Clifford Webb as automobile tycoon Ernest Gifford, who is searching for a new second-in-command after the recent death of his company’s general manager. In order to fill the role he brings three of the best men in the company to Gifford Motors’ New York headquarters, with a plan to select his successor after close observation of not only the men, but also their wives. The cast includes June Allyson and Cornel Wilde as Katie and Bill Baxter, Arlene Dahl and Van Heflin as Carol and Jerry Talbot, and Lauren Bacall and Fred MacMurray and Elizabeth and Sidney Burns.
This post is part of the Lauren Bacall Blogathon hosted by In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, To Catch A Thief stars Cary Grant as former cat burglar John Robie, now retired in the French Riviera, who comes under suspicion when a thief impersonating his modus operandi begins stealing the jewels of wealthy tourists. Grace Kelly is Frances Stevens, a nouveau riche American heiress, in her third and final collaboration with the famed director.
This post is part of the Fifth Wonderful Grace Kelly Blogathon, hosted by Musings of a Classic Film Addict, The Flapper Dame, and The Wonderful World of Cinema
Image: BFI
And that’s a wrap! Much like the previous month, September was largely spent in NFT1-3 at the BFI, ignoring all the big releases at the end of summer in favour of more of Grant’s back catalogue. The second half of the BFI’s Cary Grant season features films from the mid-1940s until the end of his career in the 1960s.
On February 5th 1919, four of the most powerful players in the movie business officially joined together to form the United Artists Corporation. D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were unparalleled in terms of their creative and financial successes, and they’d decided that the time had finally come for them to seize control of their own creative destinies.
This post is part of the Classic Movie Blog Association 10th Anniversary Blogathon
Woman of the Year is a romantic comedy directed by George Stevens, featuring the first on-screen pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. They star as Tess Harding and Sam Craig, rival reporters at the New York Chronicle, who fall and love and rush into marriage despite the marked differences in their lifestyles.
This post is part of the the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn Blogathon hosted by In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Love Letters To Old Hollywood
Image: BFI
Throughout August and September the BFI has been hosting a season called Cary Grant: Britain’s Greatest Export. This means that I’ve been spending even more time there than usual, and I’ve watched a lot of his movies over the past few weeks (with even more to come over the next few!). The season is divided into two parts, so I wanted to talk about the films I’ve seen so far in the first part, which spans from the beginning of his career in the early 1930s until the mid-1940s, when he was fully established as a major Hollywood star.
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, Queen Christina is a pre-code historical biopic which stars Greta Garbo as the eponymous monarch, who struggles to balance the wishes of her subjects and advisors with her own desires. John Gilbert plays Antonio, a handsome Spanish envoy who becomes the queen’s great love.
This post is part of The Costume Drama Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard (with un-credited assistance from Buster Keaton), In The Good Old Summertime is a Technicolour musical reworking of Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around The Corner (1940), starring Judy Garland as Veronica Fisher, and Van Johnson as Andrew Larkin, the shop workers who do not realise they are each other’s anonymous pen pal.
This post is part of the Van Johnson Blogathon hosted by Love Letters To Old Hollywood
