For our December 2023 Special Subject, we're having ourselves a Monty Woolley Christmas! We look at three Christmas-adjacent movies from the 1940s featuring the anti-Santa in roles big and small: The Man Who Came to Dinner, in which he stars as waspish radio personality Sheridan Whiteside, who takes over the home of a bourgeois Middle American couple; Life Begins at Eight-Thirty, in which he plays a great actor who's been broken by alcoholism; and The Bishop's Wife, in which he adds some New York Bohemian intellectual colour to the holiday classic. We discuss the cultural and political implications of The Man Who Came to Dinner and the uncanniness of Cary Grant and debate the appeal of alcoholism. Then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we briefly discuss Ernst Lubitsch's Cluny Brown (fully discussed in our Jennifer Jones series) and a new release, a Christmas movie even darker than our Monty Woolleys, William Oldroyd's Eileen, starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway (a rare spoiler-free exchange of impressions from us). And as a bonus, we become possessed by the spirit of Monty Woolley and rant about how much we hate contemporary movie trailers. (No analysis, just invective.)
Happy Holidays!
Time Codes:
0h 00m 45s: Extremely brief Introduction to Monty Woolley
0h 04m 38s: THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942) [William Keighley]
0h 31m 24s: LIFE BEGINS AT EIGHT-THIRTY (1942) [Irving Pichel]
0h 42m 47s: THE BISHOP’S WIFE (1947) [Henry Koster]
0h 54m 37s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Ernst Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown (1946) and William Oldroyd’s Eileen (2023)
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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring
* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s
* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)
* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”
* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!
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July Special Subject – Duels in Max Ophüls – LIEBELEI (1933); LETTER FROM AN UNKOWN WOMAN (1948); and THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… (1953)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1940: THE LETTER & ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Jean Arthur – Part 2: THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING (1935) and PARTY WIRE (1935)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1940: NORTHWEST PASSAGE & STRANGE CARGO
June Special Subject – Silent Dreyer Sampler – MICHAEL (1924) & MASTER OF THE HOUSE (1925)
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Jean Arthur – Part 1 – WHIRLPOOL (1934) and THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN LIFE (1934)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1940: THE GREAT MCGINTY & THE WAY OF ALL FLESH + Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 8: NINE (2009) & LINCOLN (2012) + Daniel Acteur Top 10s
May Special Subject – Jacques Becker Sampler - ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947); RENDEZ-VOUS DE JUILLET (1949); CASQUE D’OR (1952) and TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1939: WHEN TOMORROW COMES & THE HOUSE OF FEAR
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 7: GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) & THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1939: BACHELOR MOTHER & THE GREAT MAN VOTES
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 6: THE CRUCIBLE (1996) & THE BOXER (1997)
April Special Subject – Sex, Satire and American Culture – ARTISTS AND MODELS (1955) & KISS ME, STUPID (1964)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century Fox – 1939: YOUNG MR. LINCOLN & DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 5: IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993) & THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1939: THE ROARING TWENTIES and DUST BE MY DESTINY [Plus: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto]
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 4: EVERSMILE, NEW JERSEY (1989) & THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1939: BABES IN ARMS and MIRACLES FOR SALE
March Special Subject – Henry James Book Club – THE HEIRESS (1949) & THE INNOCENTS (1961) + reading Washington Square (1880) and The Turn of the Screw (1898)
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