Head in one direction, Heart in the other

So this week has been a bear, as they say. I've been working hard to finish stuff up at my place of gainful employment before hitting the road for business. Ugh. So later today I will be in transit and then for the next three days I will be, let's be honest here, BORED OUT OF MY MIND! And not just bored, but occupied all day, every day, so I won't have a chance to check in to the blog until nightfall, at which point everyone is home from work and the commenting fun is over. Ugh again. But I'll provide some updates on my laptop nonetheless and hope to find happy go lucky comments to read when I return from the Land that Excitement Forgot each night.

And all of this is another reason I have put off writing many of the pieces I want to so far this month because of the limits of time. I have several things I want to report on, including two magnificent experiences at the A.F.I in October as well as some truly rare and unique book finds I have come into recently. One of them is a collection of pics and bios... from 1934! There are "stars" in there completely unknown to me but what a fascinating glimpse into who was considered a keeper then and who wasn't. So for today I bid you adieu. I'll check in later tonight from my undisclosed location. Happy commenting.

P.S. Someone keep an eye on Fox in my absence. Thanks.

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Pictured above is No More Ladies from 1935 with Joan Crawford (yes, I have a tons of Crawford scans), Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone. Currently, as expected, unavailable on DVD.

Ain't Got Nothin' but Time

Chester Morris gets ready to go to the dungeon, the name for solitary confinement in this fantastic still from The Big House, 1930.* Chester Morris never impressed me as a great actor but I always found him likable in movies like the Boston Blackie series and early sound soap operas like The Divorcee. Alas, The Big House is another early thirties film I've yet to see and not carried by Netflix. Curses! One day I will see every film made in the early thirties that isn't lost. But for now I must wait.

The movie also stars Wallace Beery, nominated for Best Actor for his role as the convict chum of Morris, and Robert Montgomery as the un-hardened criminal, killing someone while drunk driving. It seems like just last week I was looking for Hell Below with Montgomery and couldn't find it, now this. Oh wait, it was last week.

*Scanned from The MGM Story, c 1975.

Before Das Boot...

... there was Hell Below with Robert Montgomery and Walter Huston. Made in 1933, the film was about submarine warfare in World War I. It's credited with setting most of the standard plot and action elements of submarine movies to follow, from Run Silent, Run Deep to, yes, Das Boot. I've never seen it myself but would like to. Alas, it does not appear to be available on DVD. An old thirties flick I'd love to see that's not yet on DVD? What else is new?

Joan Crawfords End Up in the Strangest Places

In fanzine ads waiting for a new name.

Pushing down the burgers on the beach for studio publicity.

Breaking Bobby's heart with a ukulele and a song!

Saving the Ice Follies!

And barefootin' it in Mountain Dew Commercials!

When I was a petulant teen I would have called the publicity stunts, the Ice Follies and the Mountain Dew commercial nothing more than a series of sellouts, voluntary or not. Now I call it something else: Hard working. Joan, like so many of the older Hollywood professionals, worked her butt off til the day she died. Or at least it seemed that way. Maybe that's why I like them (and Joan) so much.

Speaking of which, I've been working pretty hard myself (though not as hard as Joan). Sorry for the delay in posting (well, delay for this blog at least. I usually have something each day or every other day) but I've been a tad obsessive lately with some movies I'm working on and when the editing and creative juices combine it's a chemically deadly combination of "I cannot focus on anything else. Kids? We have kids?" I'm kidding about the last part of course. I received a very beautifully done hand-drawn card yesterday and then... worked on my movie some more. Anyway, I finished one of them up so it's back to normal for the time being. So that's it for now. And yes, that is Matt Helm (Dino) in the banner? You got a problem with that?

Blondie of the Follies

A great still from the 1932 production Blondie of the Follies. Blondie, the stern looking one on the left with the incredibly tall hat, was played by none other than Susan Alexander Marion Davies. Her friend Lurline, the other stern looking one, on the right, was played by Billie Dove.

Blondie joins the cast of Lurline's stage show and quickly gets the attention of Lurline's man, Larry Aydlette Belmont, played by Robert Montgomery. I've never seen it but I assume hijinks ensue. Perhaps even madcap hijinks. Oh, that's probably chasing too big a dream, I'm sure it's just ordinary hijinks. Nevertheless, I really like the still, scanned from A Pictorial History of Film Musicals by John Kobal, published in 1972.

I have seen the other movie done in 1932 by Blondie's director Edmund Goulding, Grand Hotel. Goulding himself was never nominated for Best Director (no, not even for Grand Hotel) and does not have much of rep as far as cinephiles are concerned but he did tackle Dark Victory, The Great Lie, The Razor's Edge and Nightmare Alley, the last one considered one of the finest noirs ever made.

Still, I'd like to see Blondie of the Follies. I have a fascination with the early sound period and the ever so slight musicals the period produced. I'm positive that it's no match for the other films listed above but we're talking hijinks here folks, hijinks. And there's just no substitute for hijinks.

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Click above picture to enlarge.