TCM couldn’t have foreseen the death of actress Debbie Reynolds when they scheduled Singin’ in the Rain to kick off their 2017 Fathom Events series. Watching the film knowing Reynolds is gone was a bittersweet experience but made all the better by the raucous joy the film inspires to this day. I’ve seen this dozens of times…
“Murder starts in the heart, and its first weapon is a vicious tongue.” You can’t sum up the macabre lunacy of Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte any better. A film more well-known for what didn’t end up on-screen than what does, this concludes Robert Aldrich’s series of films created with Bette Davis (the other being What Ever Happened to Baby…
Often considered the outlier of the Mickey and Judy films, Girl Crazy is the rare feature adapted from a successful play (Babes in Arms was significantly changed from its original stage incarnation). With original Broadway stars Ginger Rogers and Allen Kearns replaced by our two crazy kids, Girl Crazy, by veering off the pre-set track wins…
After Babes in Arms’ (1939) rampant success MGM thought, “Hey, those crazy kids have something special.” The eventual follow-up, Strike Up the Band sees Mickey and Judy go bigger with a larger budget and runtime. Mickey and Judy move out of the barn and into the world of small-town America with a script that ironically lampoons…
The final week of the July Four gets musical with those lovable scamps Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. The third film the two musical dynamos made, Babes in Arms was Warner Bros. biggest moneymaker for the year, beating out the other Judy Garland movie out, a little film called The Wizard of Oz that was…
Doris Day tested her image’s bounds as Ms. Wholesome when she took on the role of torch singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me. We’ll never know for certain, but Day’s break from convention could explain why she wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award as this is Day’s finest film. Love Me or Leave Me…
Originally published January 28th, 2015 Second-wave feminism (you’ve already stopped reading, haven’t you?) wouldn’t crop up for another couple of years, but that’s not to say Hollywood wasn’t doing its part showing women were sick, tired, and unwilling to take it anymore! Okay, maybe things weren’t that militant, but director Norman Jewison (who went on to…
