Hallowe'en Approaches!

I know I've got over a month, but I'm in a very autumnal mood and am especially excited for Halloween this year as well. The Bride of Frankenstein came on tv and I decided to watch it for the first time (I was on a role since I also watched Citizen Kane for the first time, today). I really love the way Elsa Lanchester is made up in the film. The 1930s make up, the crazy fingerwave-fro with the white streaks. I'm strongly considering being her for Halloween as the costume would be easy and the look is mainly about strong make up and hair which would be super fun to experiment with (mwa ha ha ha).

See for yourself:

Party like it's 1939

My mother's non-profit had an event at a vintage car show, so I dressed up as 1937 (not 1939 as this post title might hint) as possible, to match this 1937 Alpenrose milk truck and even did my hair in finger waves. To my shock, the wave setting worked wonders this time (I now see the light-the hair MUST be soaking, not just damp, etc). I had a lovely time taking pictures with folks and just looking at all the pretty. On a side note, I realize that the next time I have money that isn't needed for Responsible things, I'm going to invest in some vintage-y shape wear as this garter-belt-showing-through-my-dress look isn't Quite as sophisticated as I would like.

A couple owners let me sit in their cars too!

I met this adorable lady named Dijon (just like the mustard) whilst looking at this big gorgeous, silly-fantastic car. She was dressed completely 1920s style along with her beau who wore a boater and suspenders.

Crime doesn't pay, but Hollywood does!

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty vs. the real Bonnie and Clyde.

A couple weeks ago I watched Bonnie and Clyde (1967), directed by Arthur Penn, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. I saw this film when I was a wee prepubescent (I'm guessing about ten or eleven) and had forgotten most of it. I mean, I didn't even remember that Gene Hackman had a substantial role (who doesn't love that guy?). I've been on a massive 1930s kick for the past year or more, and I put this movie on (thanks, Netflix) while I cleaned my bedroom. It's not one of my top favorites but it's another sinking ship story and I have a special place in my heart for those. I think the tragic criminal hero is one that draws people because we all feel like that a little bit, deep deep down. We make mistakes, we crave an escape from a world that isn't easy. Most of us don't go risking our necks for some idealized freedom, and we don't go ballistic when we get the urge. Movies about bank robbers during the Great Depression are very romantic in a sense. Desperate people doing horribly desperate things. It's like watching an addiction from the beginning to the end, a web that can't be un-spun. There's something I love about that. The characters are nutty, but you care about them, and when they die, it's more of a good feeling, like how I assume I was supposed to feel at the end of Thelma and Louise (1991). In conclusion, Bonnie and Clyde is a film I can get behind (at least once a decade).

In other Great Depression gangster movie news, I managed to see the new film about John Dillinger, Public Enemies (2009) directed by Michael Mann, starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale. I feel this film loses some of the 1960s warm and fuzziness of say, a Paul Newman-type criminal hero film. The only glamour can be found in the gorgeous costumes (oh baby those suits and hats and SUNGLASSES). The film lacks something, and I can't even tell you what. I felt it was well acted but maybe the more modern, attempted realism of the film made it lose a little heart. I read about John Dillinger here and it seems like the older ladies sitting behind me in the theatre were quite correct in whispering that the film was getting some facts wrong (as it happens, I read a little on the Barrow Gang, and there are many details missing from Bonnie and Clyde as well). The film was interesting, and very violent, and maybe the fact that I didn't care quite as much for it simply proves that it reminds the audiencethat (most?) people who kill other people are scary and dangerous....

Look at his SUNGLASSES! Oh, and there's the real Dillinger.

I also have to include the following picture for one reason and one reason alone: Look at the expression on this adorable man's face. There he is on set with his gigantic pretend killing machine and he has the face of a person who wouldn't hurt a fly. Le sigh....oh and that suit.

P.S. Here's the link to some Bonnie Parker poems. There's even a picture of a page from her notebook with her handwriting.

il fait chaud

It is so hot. It is so very hot that the only thing I can do is sit inside with the air conditioning going and think.... Lately, all I've been up to is looking at pretty things online, watching 1930s movies, doing yoga and listening to music. In regards to the 1930s, I am extremely drawn to the styles, looks and sounds of those days. I know I tend to be the type to romanticize the past, but I find it hard to stop myself. Sometimes I even wish I could know what it would be like to live in an America where there weren't gigantic supermarkets every couple of miles, where a Coca Cola was a novelty, never something you'd buy in bulk from Costco....where I'd really suffer a bit...not be so insulated, cushioned and sheltered. I watch way too many films for my own good. The Great Depression was no joke, and I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it, nor would I enjoy WWII rationing. But people were in better shape because they didn't spend so much money on things they didn't need. They cooked for themselves, and they had to make most things from scratch. I feel that life was harder, life took time, but in a way, the simplicity, the joy that comes with a little hard work, a little DIY, can be somehow blissful. I put off cleaning sometimes, but cooking and cleaning is very therapeutic. I'm not saying I want to do it every day, and be a full-time house maid to a husband whose slippers I bring out at five till six o'clock every night. However, I wish the world could have slowed WAY down seventy years ago. I wish we could've paused a little longer, there. I wish my senses weren't constantly overloaded.

The latest 1930s film I've seen!

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) is the first Busby Berkeley musical I have seen. It seems ridiculous that this is so, since I consider myself if not a queen of old movies, at the very least a viscountess. The film is dripping with the era. It's a delicious morsel of 1930s Hollywood glamour mixed with strong, comical female characters, silly music, lavishly rich production numbers and costumes. The film stars Aline MacMahon, RubyKeeler, Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers. There is some (how do I put this? ah yes) bad acting from certain souls here and there (though, I think the main ladies are spot on). I don't care for Dick Powell. His character was bland, sweet and snore-inducing, but he's really only there to play Romeo and sing, anyway. What's great about this film is that it talks about the Great Depression. While most films I see from this era might hint at it, none of them (especially not the glamorous musicals) really delves into it.

Fun fact: Ruby Keeler's career was launched by Florenz Ziegfeld and she was married to Al Jolson for a time.

Here's a great number from the movie, the only number that has a serious note. Joan Blondell sings/speaks.


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CAROLE LOMBARD EXPLOSION!!!

My plan was to simply promote the film, No Man of Her Own starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. It's a romantic comedy from 1932 and the only film the famous couple acted in together. Clark is at his utmost adorable (of course, he's pretty much always adorable, isn't he?) and the chemistry between the two is delicious, as one might expect. Hollywood's depiction of the nineteen-thirties! Love conquers all the silly fiascoes! A "bad" man becomes "good"! Top hats! Flirting in the library! What more could I ask for? Anyway, my plan became interrupted when I saw all these marvelous photos of Carole Lombard when I was web surfing. Sorry if the photos bore you but I just think they're fascinating. I'm tempted to bob my hair all of the sudden!


Yeah, did I mention how yum Mr. Gable is in this film, yet?

Because he is very yum...

If your daughter works at the library, look out.  She will not be able to say "no."

On the set of It Happened One Night!

Lombard with Robert Montgomery on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Here's a nice little TCM article about No Man of Her Own.

Stephen Fry, the Thirties, and an Empty Living Room.

If you don't know me Very well you may be dumb to the fact that I Adore Stephen Fry. I quite like Hugh Laurie as well, of course, but for some reason, Stephen is the one I am most in love with. It's like how out of the Flight of the Conchords, I prefer Jemaine. It's just my natural, instinctual inclination. I could be all wrong. Maybe in real life, I'd fall in love with Bret and Hugh. Who can say? I ramble.

I am viewing "Bright Young Things" which is an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel, "Vile Bodies." Stephen Fry wrote the screenplay and directed and I must say I am enjoying it. I always enjoy well-written, wealthy, frivolous, made-up, well-dressed English people smoking and drinking and quick-stepping and tragically spoiling their lives and so on and so forth.

Jim Broadbent plays the drunken, infuriatingly incompetent, dastardly major and does his usual lovely job. Stephen Campbell Moore plays the hardworking, well-intentioned writer (Adam) with terrible luck who Only wants to get money so he can marry his girl, Nina (Emily Mortimer). Oh and Peter O' Toole and Stockard Channing have small roles, of course.



I've only read one Evelyn Waugh, that being the short novel, "The Loved One." I really enjoyed it back in high school and I think I'd probably enjoy it even more now. Anyway, I'm inspired to read even more now.

Hmmmm. What just happened?? This is getting depressing. Oh Waugh. Waugh Waaaaaaugh.