December 1931: Frankenstein Takes Manhattan!
Eighty-three years ago this week, on a stormy December night in 1931, James Whale’s Frankenstein came ali-i-i-ve at the Mayfair Theatre in New York City—pulling in a record-breaking 76,360 fans in the first week alone. According to the NY Times‘ rave review, “the stirring grand giugnol type of picture aroused so much excitement that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings.” The film opened to wider release a few days later, with equally eye-popping numbers at the box office.
The good doctor himself, Colin Clive, had already sailed back to England by then, but not before giving the Times an interview in which he praised the movie for remaining faithful to the book by killing off his character at the end. He found it refreshing that the producers didn’t opt to have the leading man and his ladylove “clasped in each other’s arms” at the fade-out…
Little did he know that, after preview audiences hated the ending in which Dr. Frankenstein was killed by his creation, the studio re-shot it—over Whale’s violent objections—with stand-ins for both Clive and Mae Clarke clasping each other quite nicely, thank you. (Robert Livingston, who went on to be a semi-successful Western actor, reportedly subbed for Clive.)
Much to Whale’s frustration, the same thing happened with The Bride of Frankenstein: Clive was supposed to be blown up by the monster at the end, but preview audiences rebelled, and Universal gave him yet another reprieve. By then, however, the disgusted director had moved on to his next project, and the studio never bothered to re-shoot the final few frames. So in my screencaps below, you can clearly see Clive still pinned to the left wall of the tower even after he is seen escaping into the arms of Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson):
Such was the fate of Dr. Frankenstein when played by the fabulous Colin Clive. Sure, he created a monster that terrorized a town and killed a few folks, but lordy, those eyes, those cheekbones! And he and Elizabeth—they’re so darn cute together! What are a few bodies in the face of true romance?
What’s Your “Green Eggs and Ham” Movie?
Has there ever been a movie you’ve avoided every time it was on, sure it wasn’t your cup of tea, and then bam! You finally watched it and fell in love?
It happened to me recently with Lassie Come Home. For some silly reason I always thought it would be a bit on the clichéd and maudlin side, so although it was on pretty much constantly, I managed to sidestep it every time. For decades. And the weirdest part is I love dogs to pieces. I’ve had them all my life. And I’m on the board of directors of my local animal sanctuary.
Well the last time it was on, I sat down and watched it. Afterward, as I mopped the tears from my face, one thought ran through my mind:
What the hell was wrong with me all these years?
I mean you’ve got the beautiful, soulful Lassie, played by an amazing collie named Pal, and to say he seems almost human is frankly an insult to dogs. He’s absolutely transcendent. Add a supporting cast of Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty and Edmund Gwenn, any of whom I would hang out with any time, anywhere, in any movie. And of course Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor, two of the oldest souls ever seen on film. Okay I really need to say it again:
What the hell was wrong with me?
My only real gripe is that at in one scene, a small, beloved dog is killed, which pretty much made the next few minutes a total sobfest for me, so don’t ask me to recount that part of the plot. Also I couldn’t understand how Joe’s parents could sell his dog in the first place, since my parents would have moved us all into a storage locker before they would have sent my dog away. Of course if Joe’s folks hadn’t sold Lassie, there would have been no storyline, so there’s that.
Anyway, here’s my question: What’s your “Green Eggs and Ham” movie? What movie did you finally watch after avoiding for years, and fall in love (or at least in like) with? Please let us know in Comments!
As W.C. Fields’ Wife, Kathleen Howard Took Henpecking to Operatic Heights
Some movie-loving girls toss around lines by ladies like Lauren Bacall (“You just put your lips together and blow.“), Vivien Leigh (“I’ll think about it tomorrow…”) or Bette Davis (“Fasten your seats belts—it’s going to be a bumpy night!”)
I grew up quoting Kathleen Howard.
“Those were my mother’s feathers!” I’d roar to my Dad, out of nowhere, across the breakfast table on the odd Tuesday morning. That would get us rolling on some routine or other from It’s a Gift—maybe the scene on the porch, or the one at the picnic, where he got to mutter like W.C. Fields and I got to howl like Howard.
When Fields needed an imposing comic foil who could boom and bellow at him from the opening credits to the final fade-out, he wisely tapped a former opera singer he’d first met, and hit it off with, during his days in vaudeville. You see, acting in films wasn’t Howard’s first career, or even her second. It was her third—and it didn’t start until she was 54.
Born in 1880 on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, Howard had such a spirit of adventure it’s a wonder she didn’t go over them in a barrel. “Nine-tenths of me were the normal characteristics of a well-brought-up, bright, good-looking girl,” she recalled in her 1918 memoir, Confessions of an Opera Singer. “But the last tenth was an unknown quantity, a great big powerful something which I vaguely felt, even then, to be the master of all the other tenths, a force which was capable of having its way with the rest of me if I should ever give it a chance. My voice was the agent of this great power.”
As a teenager, Howard longed to sing opera, but her parents—who had recently “lost all our money in dramatic fashion”—reluctantly discouraged her dreams, lacking the funds to support them. Not one to give up that easily, she left home for New York City, where she lived in a rundown boarding house and took a job as a church singer to pay for her lessons. Eventually she sailed for Europe to study with famed tenor Jean de Reszke and began touring with small companies. Soon the larger ones beckoned: Howard became the top contralto at the Municipal Opera in Metz, Germany, where she sang the lead in Carmen, which won her a personal invitation from the Grand Duke of Hesse to join the Royal Opera at Darmstadt.
Other offers, including London’s Covent Garden, eventually followed, and by the end of 1913, Howard had sung the principal contralto parts in 65 operas in French, German, English and Italian all across the continent. She then returned to New York to join the Century Opera, where she promptly married its president, Edward Kellogg Baird. “I worked with him for the success of the opera, which lay very near our hearts,” she remembered. “But the war and other unfortunate circumstances proved too much to overcome and we were forced to suspend.” Ahem. After running up debts of $18,000, Baird was drummed out of the company and fled the country, resettling in Bermuda.
Following three seasons at the Century, the poor girl from the little Canadian border town “finally attained the Metropolitan Opera, the most absorbingly interesting house with which I have ever been connected, and which is the greatest school of all.” As the Met’s leading character contralto, she sang the kind of roles she’d later create on film, including the pompous and greedy Aunt Zita in the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s only outright comedy, Gianni Schicchi, in December 1918. (The New York Times critic James Huneker hailed her portrayal of “the horrid hag.”) She spent 12 seasons at the Met, where her co-stars included a guy named Enrico Caruso, who fondly captured her in caricature:
Howard retired from opera at age 48 to embark on a new adventure. But she left behind more than 30 albums, some of which are archived here.
Her second act began in 1928, at the height of the Art Deco era, when she parlayed her cultural connections into a fashion editorship at Harper’s Bazaar. There she worked daily with designers such as Erté and George Barbier, while also writing pieces for The Saturday Evening Post and The Ladies Home Journal.
Heeding the old adage that if you want something done, you should ask a busy person, Howard’s new colleagues quickly elected her president of the influential Fashion Group, one of the first nonprofits to support professional women. According to its charter, “each member holds a job of consequence in the business of fashion and a belief that fashion needs a forum, a stage, or a force to enhance a widening awareness of the American fashion business and of women’s roles in that business.”
Founding members included Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubenstein and Edith Head. Oh and Eleanor Roosevelt—who remained active even after becoming First Lady, although she resigned her membership in all other clubs.
Howard spent most of her spare hours on the group even after her term was up. But by 1934, she was ready for another leap of faith—and hopped a train for Hollywood to try her hand at acting. While making the rounds of the studios, she was spotted by director Mitchell Leisen, who snapped her up for the plum role of Princess Maria in Death Takes a Holiday before she’d even finished unpacking.
“My livelihood is to me a great adventure, and I change my line of work whenever it shows signs of growing dull,” she told an interviewer as she prepped for her film debut at age 54. “Confidence in my ability as an opera singer gave me the courage to write, edit and lecture, and success in those enabled me to try motion pictures without a shade of skepticism as to the outcome.”
She then shifted back to a more sympathetic role as a kindly dowager in James Whale’s One More River. But the white gloves came off for It’s a Gift. Howard plays Amelia Bissonette (“pronounced Bisson-AY,” she says airily), the long and loudly suffering wife of Harold, a grocery store owner (W.C. Fields) who wants nothing more than to be left alone but never is. By anyone. (Click the link for perhaps the funniest scene in movie history, which for some reason WordPress isn’t letting me import.)
While henpecking her husband within an inch of his life, Howard almost never actually yells at him—but with her booming voice rising constantly in exasperation, it feels like she’s yelling at him all the time. And her sarcasm is so withering it could be weaponized. (“Yes, the sun is wrong but your watch is right of course!”) She speaks with such authority that even when she makes no sense (“Norman don’t eat any more sandwiches, you’ve had enough today! Harold give him half of yours.”), her beaten-down better half just reflexively goes along.
But this is no one-dimensional shrew. You can feel her regrets—that nagging sensation that she should have and could have done better—and her frustration at being married to a man with so little ambition. You sense that she almost wishes he’d fight back. When everything works out for these two in the end, you’re just as happy for her as you are for him.
Oddly enough—or maybe not—the actress Howard is most often compared to in these roles, Margaret Dumont of Marx Brothers fame, also trained in opera. (But Fields loved and respected Howard, never suggesting that her skill at playing it straight meant that she didn’t get the joke—a claim Groucho falsely made about Dumont for decades.)
Howard’s other memorable roles include Miss Bragg, the haughty, huffy housekeeper in Howard Hawks’ screwball classic Ball of Fire. And here, for once, her impeccable timing failed her: when Barbara Stanwyck delivered what was supposed to be a mock punch, Howard didn’t bob out of the way quickly enough and wound up flat on the canvas with a fractured jaw. Stanwyck was horrified to have sent her 61-year-old co-star to the hospital.
But Howard bounced back to appear in five films the following year and 27 more movies in all, including Take a Letter Darling, You Were Never Lovelier, Reckless Age, and Laura. She made her last film, Born to Be Bad, in 1950, racking up 52 credits in just 16 years.
Whew. What a life this lady had. And what confidence! “If a person has succeeded in one profession, it takes nothing more than courage and a bit of common sense to succeed in any other calling,” she once told a reporter. “And it makes no difference how remotely related the two lines of endeavor may be.”
If you’d like to read more about this amazing woman, her opera memoir is available here for free on Gutenberg. I only wish she’d written a follow-up covering her film career—perhaps called Those Were My Mother’s Feathers.
And the Winner Is…
…Lindsay Edmunds!
The first (but far from last) Sister Celluloid contest has concluded, and the name pulled out of the vintage hat was lindsayedmunds.com, the home of the fabulous blog Writer’s Rest.
Lindsay wins the sealed DVD of William Wyler’s classic, Dodsworth. Walter Huston will be on his way to your house this week, my dear!
Thank you so much to everyone who took part, and please keep your comments coming! As I’ve said since I started Sister Celluloid, it’s not a website, it’s a conversation!
And by the way, Contest #2 starts very soon…
Finally! Maureen O’Hara Gets Her Oscar
At last.
After more than 6o films in eight decades—and thousands of unforgettable moments—actress Maureen O’Hara finally received her Honorary Academy Award last night in Hollywood.
The 94-year-old actress was introduced by Liam Neeson and Clint Eastwood, who both admitted they’d been a bit in love with the Irish beauty since boyhood.
“I’ll never forget the moment… I was 12 years old at home, watching television on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and they were showing John Ford’s The Quiet Man,” recalled Neeson, clearly speaking from the heart. “The first time the Duke’s Sean Thornton saw her in that film was also the first moment I had laid eyes on her. His character had never seen beauty like that, and neither had I.
“For anyone anywhere around the world who loves movies, she is more than just an Irish movie star—she is one of the true legends of cinema,” he went on. “A self-described tomboy, she was a pioneer in doing her own stunts in film after film, mastering complex fencing and fighting routines. Our eyes were riveted to her every moment she was on the silver screen.
“She started out in black and white and later became the Queen of Technicolor, leaving us mesmerized not only by her performances, but by her fiery red hair and gorgeous green eyes…” Then, in one of the evening’s most charming moments, Neeson sighed, paused a moment to catch his breath, and murmured, “Oh God… sorry, just got lost thinking about my first crush…”
“For the entire Academy, tonight is the chance to present her with an honor richly deserved. For me, it is a chance to thank her for giving hope to a kid from the town of Ballymena, County Antrim, that maybe one day, we too could end up in motion pictures,” he said, clearing a catch in his throat. “And it’s a chance to say to the woman who has long had a place in my heart, and in the heart of everyone from our Ireland, six thousand miles across the sea, I love you, Maureen. We all do.”
“Well, I guess everyone is in love with Maureen O’Hara,” agreed Eastwood. “She’s the ultimate Irish lass, and I would love to have been the guy who dragged her across the countryside and got her to the church…”
Then, as everyone in Dolby Ballroom, including many current Hollywood notables, rose to applaud, Neeson gently presented O’Hara with her long-overdue Oscar. “What’s this?” she teased. “I only hope it’s silver or gold and not like a spoon out of the kitchen!”
She fought back tears (and we Irish always lose that fight) as she paid tribute to the three movie men who meant the most to her: Charles Laughton, who tapped her for The Hunchback of Notre Dame while she was still a teenager, whom she called “totally responsible for my career”; John Wayne, one of her dearest friends and her co-star in five films; and “that old divil himself, the great John Ford,” who directed her in five movies, including How Green Was My Valley as well as Rio Grande and The Quiet Man with Wayne. Looking heavenward, she cried, “Pappy, we finally got an Oscar!”
“I’m honored beyond words. Thank you with all my heart,” O’Hara said in closing, as she blinked away tears. “I’ll leave you with an old Irish saying. May the road rise to meet you. The wind be always at your back. And, may the sun shine warm upon your face. Good night.” Swept away by another thunderous standing ovation, O’Hara, now wheelchair-bound, rose and bowed to the crowd, with help from the gallant Neeson. (And look at his face, and Eastwood’s, in the pic below. Pure love.)
O’Hara became only the second performer to win an Honorary Oscar after never having been nominated for a competitive one; the other was Myrna Loy. (Honestly, Oscar: What is wrong with you?!?)
In the months leading up to last night’s ceremony, O’Hara told interviewers she cried when she learned of the award: “It’s just absolutely wonderful… I keep thinking, ‘Oh, this is a league of baloney. They’re not telling me the truth… [It’s like] having a hug, having somebody put their arms around you and say ‘Congratulations’ and say you are wonderful.”
Cinderella Finally Settles a Few Scores in THE GLASS SLIPPER
In just about every version of Cinderella, our heroine reacts the same way to the vicious abuse heaped upon her by her evil step-family: She hides away in her little corner. And she dreams. And she aches. And she yearns.
But here’s the thing: why doesn’t she ever get really mad?
Enter Leslie Caron, in The Glass Slipper. In her memoir, Thank Heaven, Caron confides that when she made the film in 1955, “I was, like everyone else in Hollywood, under the influence of Marlon Brando’s performance in On the Waterfront… I used to see it several times a week—I bought my ticket, with the rest of America, at least twenty times. Yes, I admit it, ridiculous as it may be, my inspiration for Cinderella was… Marlon Brando.”
Yes!
Billed as “MGM’s Musical Salute to Springtime,” the movie is more March than May, honing the old fairy tale to a pretty sharp edge. When we first meet Ella, she’s struggling desperately to mix in with a small clique of snooty townsfolk, who reject the smudge-nosed waif in the dirty dress, taunting her with cries of “Cinder-Ella!” Clearly wounded, she lashes out rather than retreating—working up such a rebellious head of steam you half-expect her to burst into a chorus of “When you’re a Waif, you’re a Waif all the way…”
This girl will not go quietly. But the narrator (Walter Pidgeon) warns, “The little spirit is still defiant and defensive and still unbroken, but give them time, and they will break it…” This is not a gossamer creature who can blithely glide above adversity. This is a real human being who can bear only so much pain before she’ll collapse under the weight of it.
Meanwhile at the palace, Prince Charles (Michael Wilding) is explaining to his friend Kovin (Keenan Wynn) why he’s always such a soft touch. It seems that once, years ago, his carriage was stranded in the middle of the town, when suddenly out of a doorway ran “a little girl of about five, crying in a sort of tragic frenzy… I don’t know what it was all about… one thing I remember: she had great, agonized, rebellious eyes, the most tragic face I ever saw… I’d never known sorrow, not really, but ever since then I felt like I’ve had some knowledge of what it was like. And ever since then I find it almost impossible to resist a weeping woman!”
Of course you know where all this is going. But oh, the way it gets there…
For starters, Ella’s evil stepsisters aren’t the hags they’re usually depicted as. In another cold blast of reality—that life sometimes well and truly sucks—both of them are gorgeous. The narrator pegs Birdina (Amanda Blake) as “beautiful as a rose and poisonous as a toadstool” and Serafina (Linda Daniels) as “effortlessly alluring and cold as a cobra.” Even their mother, the Widow Sonder (Elsa Lanchester), isn’t too tough on the eyes.
Ella seeks sanctuary from these shrews in a soft, green meadow by a gentle little brook, “her home place, a place all by itself…” And one day, who should pop along but Mrs. Toquet (Estelle Winwood), the town eccentric by day and a bit of a klepto by night. These outcasts see in each other a kindred soul, and the older woman senses how much Ella needs to be loved and looked after. “We’ll talk and tell each other things and we’ll be friends!” Ella all but pleads. Mrs. Toquet looks at her so lovingly, you almost don’t care if she ever finds her prince. At least she’s found a mother—or in this case, a highly unorthodox fairy godmother.
They agree to meet again the next day, but when Ella arrives, her little spot is already taken by Charles and Kovin. “This is my place!” she spits at them. In the rare moment he’s not being shooed away, the prince manages to squeeze out a whopping lie, telling Ella that he works in the palace as a cook. She fires back that someday she’ll live in the palace—and when he responds with amusement, she takes it as ridicule. She beats her fists against him, sending him flying into the brook. And suddenly, as she runs away in tears, something about her seems awfully familiar…
Shaking himself dry, Charles chases after Ella and cajoles her into another rendezvous—and this time, he arrives with an invitation to the Palace Ball.
“B-but I don’t know how to dance!” she sputters. The prince gently takes her by the arm and shows her a few steps… and a few more… and soon they’re swirling all over the glen. She glides home in a near-trance, falls into bed and dreams. And because this is Leslie Caron we’re dealing with, her dream features the entire company of Roland Petit’s Ballet de Paris.
But even Ella’s fantasies are tinged with realism. In her memoir, Caron recalls: “Roland’s concept for the ballet was delightfully original. In her dreams, instead of imagining the ballet numbers in the ornate ballroom, which Cinderella, being a simple girl, couldn’t likely visualize, they take place in the depth of the palace kitchens—Cinderella’s world. Pots and pans steam in rhythm, while lovely kitchen maids and scullions brandish wooden spoons and huge ladles. The pas de quatre between the four cooks is a very witty takeoff on the Rose Adagio in the ballet Sleeping Beauty. As for my performance, I was in very good training after many months on the stage, and I think that I did my best classical dancing in this film and in Daddy Long Legs, which was to follow immediately after.”
When Ella awakens from her dream, nothing has changed. Yes, she’s holding tight to her invitation to the ball, and she’s mastered a step or two. But she still has nothing to wear—and everything to fear from her family if she strays from the role of servant. As she bitterly helps them primp and prepare for the evening, she doesn’t merely long to go to the ball; she flat-out envies those who are on their way there.
Once they’ve all swept haughtily out the door, Ella drops off to sleep, only to be awakened by the light-fingered Mrs. Toquet, who’s lifted a gorgeous gown—a pink satin and crystal confection fit for a princess—from the Widow Sonder’s rich cousin Loulou’s house. Her fairy godmother fretfully helps her dress (“The corset was invented by the devil!”), places a pair of glass slippers on her feet, and leads her to a golden carriage with but one warning: she must leave the ball by midnight. It seems the cabbie has another fare he needs to pick up at 1:00.
Fearing that her family will see her in the stolen dress and drag her back to the scullery, Ella all but sneaks through the front door of the palace. Still, she’s set upon by just about every man in the place. As she dances with one after another, too afraid to speak, she’s forever trying to make her way to the kitchen to see Charles, the “cook.” Finally, Ella whirls away from one partner only to see another standing before her: the prince in all his finery.
Thoroughly bewildered and still desperate to avoid her family—and keeping one eye on the clock—Ella breaks away from Charles and flees to her carriage, stepping out of a glass slipper as she makes her escape. But not before creating quite a stir: the whole room’s buzzing about the strange, dark-haired girl in the lovely pink dress, who never uttered a word to her admirers. Is she an exotic royal visitor who doesn’t speak the language?
By the next day, the rumors have jelled into a single narrative: The girl is an Egyptian princess, betrothed to the prince. When the news reaches a heartbroken Ella, who has no idea that she’s the one they’re all gossiping about, she gathers up her pitiful few belongings—including the lone glass slipper, which is all that remains of her dreams—and runs away, no longer able to live in the shadow of the palace she once hoped to call her home.
As she grows weary on the journey, she falls asleep in her meadow, awakening to find Charles holding forth the errant glass slipper in search of its mate. “I have the other!” Ella cries. He fits the slipper onto her foot as the curious villagers, including her hideous family, look on. The prince embraces her tenderly and protectively, and she falls against him with such blessed relief, it’s as if she couldn’t have taken another step.
You get the feeling that after Charles and Ella marry, her anger and wariness may soften, but she’ll never be a serene princess—and he’ll be fine with that. Wilding himself was no slouch when it came to formidable women: he was married to Elizabeth Taylor when he made this film and later spent his happiest years with Margaret Leighton, a fabulous handful if ever there was one. And onscreen, the wryly adorable actor held his own with any number of strong actresses, including Jane Wyman in the criminally underrated Stage Fright. (One exception was the unintentionally hilarious Torch Song, where Joan Crawford mowed him down and left him by the side of the highway like so much leading-man roadkill. More on that, including Joan in blackface, here.)
In The Glass Slipper, Wilding is perfect as the prince on a rescue mission: gentle, romantic, sometimes bemused, but always sure, solid and sympathetic. Caron, who never really got her due as an actress, is just devastating as the girl who hungers to be loved and to belong. And both stars are clearly comfortable with director Charles Walters, who worked with Caron on Gigi and Lili and survived Torch Song alongside Wilding. Together they crafted a fairy tale with a real heart beating beneath its candy-colored surface.
Win DODSWORTH in the First Sister Celluloid Contest!
Sister Celluloid is now just about six months old (websites grow up so fast—sniff!), and I’ve made so many new friends and met wonderful kindred spirits, I honestly can’t tell you how thankful I am. As a token of appreciation, I’ll be running contests with prizes including DVDs, CDs, vintage jewelry and other fabulous stuff. And it all starts… now!
Welcome to the First Sister Celluloid giveaway!
This time around, the prize is a new, sealed DVD of William Wyler’s Dodsworth, starring Walter Huston, Mary Astor and Ruth Chatterton. If I could, I’d send you the actual Walter Huston. (Oh who am I kidding, I’d keep him locked in my apartment.)
To enter, just do two simple things: After scrolling through the website, 1) comment on any post, and 2) share any post on Twitter and/or Facebook. That’s it. On November 15, I’ll jot down the names of everyone who did, put the slips of paper in a vintage hat, and pick one.
I’ll then announce and contact the winner, who can send their name and address to me at sistercelluloidwebsite@gmail.com. (And anyone else who wants to drop a line, please do!)
Good luck, and thank you so much for stopping by!
Bette and Joan, The Way It Should Have Been
The first pic is a publicity shot, for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. But the second one, it just kills you, doesn’t it? This is the way it should have been, always, with Bette and Joan: Smart, tough, gorgeous, crazy-talented comrades in arms against the big bosses in Hollywood, who nickel-and-dimed them while they brought in millions and then dumped them when they hit their forties. (When they teamed in their fifties for Baby Jane, Jack Warner sneered, “No one will pay to see those two old broads act.”)
It’s believed that the Davis-Crawford feud started over Franchot Tone, of all people, whom either one of them could’ve taken in two falls out of three. In the midst of a painful divorce, Bette had become smitten with Tone while they made Dangerous—but he and Joan were already involved and would soon marry. If he were free, who knows? Maybe he and Bette would have had a fling, maybe not, and it probably would have fizzled, the way most Hollywood romances did. But Joan had snatched him away, and that was that—the blood hatred was on. And it fed on itself and festered, on both sides (though a bit moreso on Bette’s), for dismal decades.
But boy, if they had joined forces, what a team they would have made. What a waste of their dazzling fire that they spent even a spark of it burning each other.
Thank You So Very Much!
I started this site late last spring, to share my love of classic movies, to connect with people who had that special spot in their souls that nothing else could fill.
And yesterday, Sister Celluloid reached a little bit of a milestone:
So before writing another post, I needed to say:
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!
Thank you for taking the time to visit.
Thank you for reaching out to a kindred spirit.
Thank you for your friendship.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your opinions and your love of classic movies.
Thank you for your kind, wonderful comments.
Thank you for your help and support.
Thank you for sharing the site with others.
I scoured YouTube (and boy does it need scouring!) for the right clip to dedicate to you. Something to do with thankfulness, and joy, and of course old movies. I kept coming back to this one, which is one of my favorites, from Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades of the early 1930s.
Thank you.
With love and gratitude,
Janet
Test Your Classic Film Knowledge! (Not!)
In the 1930s, lots of tobacco companies tucked little film-star photo cards into their packs of cigarettes. (By the way, if you’re looking for cheap, fabulous movie memorabilia, these cards, unlike the product they came with, are just what the doctor ordered: Just go to any auction site, type in your favorite star’s name and the word “card,” and see what pops up.)
In 1936, England’s Ardath Tobacco Company took things a step further with a series of 50 cards called “Who Is This?” asking fans to name the stars featured on the front.
I know—nobody told you there was gonna be a quiz.
But here’s the thing: the card showed you almost the whole face. So unless you were some sort of savant who identified people solely on the basis of their foreheads and chins, this was pretty easy sledding. (Don’t you wish your tests in school had been like this? “Name the 1815 battle where the Duke of Wellington beat Napoleon. It rhymes with ‘aterloo.'”)
For those who were still somehow stumped, the cards had little teasers under the “mystery” faces. Ann Harding has a “sweetly serious mein,” Garbo’s “cold serenity masks a depth of feeling,” Katharine Hepburn is “a red-haired tempestuous genius,” and Clark Gable has “firm lips and humorous eyes,” not to be confused with Herbert Marshall’s “sympathetic eyes and lips.”And amid the Garbos and Gables, they tucked in George Arliss, who “has made history live.” But somebody really phoned it in for the fabulous Kay Francis, calling her merely a “famous screen star.” I mean, come on! How about “divine deco diva” or “lush, limpid-eyed lover”?
Here’s a sampling of the cards; for the first one, I’ve shown the answer on the back (she “won the American 1934 Gold Medal” for It Happened One Night!), but for the rest, well, try to struggle through somehow:
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