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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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1936: WIFE VS SECRETARY & LIBELED LADY
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 9: THE WILD PARTY (1929) & DANGEROUS CURVES (1929)
Special Subject – Distributed by Eagle-Lion - WATERLOO ROAD (1945), I SEE A DARK STRANGER (1946), THE OCTOBER MAN (1947) & THE BLUE LAMP (1950)
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 8: HULA (1927) & GET YOUR MAN (1927)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1936: THE PLAINSMAN & THE GENERAL DIED AT DAWN
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 7: CHILDREN OF DIVORCE (1927) & WINGS (1927)
Special Subject – Produced By Joan Harrison, Part 1 - PHANTOM LADY (1944), THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY (1945), NOCTURNE (1946), THEY WON’T BELIEVE ME (1947). Also: Phantom Lady: Hollywood Pr
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1935: REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? & NIGHT LIFE OF THE GODS
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 6: KID BOOTS (1926) & IT (1927)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1935: CHASING YESTERDAY & BREAK OF HEARTS
Special Subject – Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire, Part One – THE GAY DVORCEE (1934), TOP HAT (1935), ROBERTA (1935) & SWING TIME (1936)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation/20th Century Fox – 1935: ONE MORE SPRING & STEAMBOAT ‘ROUND THE BEND
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 5: DANCING MOTHERS (1926) & MANTRAP (1926)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1935: STRANDED and LIVING ON VELVET
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 4: MY LADY OF WHIMS (1925) & THE PLASTIC AGE (1925)
Valentine’s Day 2021 - A Very Cassavetes Valentine – MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971) & LOVE STREAMS (1984)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1935: DAVID COPPERFIELD & TALE OF TWO CITIES
Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 3: THE PRIMROSE PATH (1925) & FREE TO LOVE (1925)
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1935: PRIVATE WORLDS & PETER IBBETSON
Special Subject – Imitations of Life – IMITATION OF LIFE (1934), IMITATION OF LIFE (1959) and Imitation of Life (1933 novel by Fannie Hurst)
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