Oh Those Crazy Eights!

Thanks to Kate Gabrielle and Nicole for tagging me!

8 Things I look forward to:

1. Getting my first paycheck of the summer, not the whole working for the paycheck part though 2. One of my best friends coming back from France (she’s been there since January)
3. The annual trip to the lake with my mom’s side of the family
4. Shopping for a new swimsuit for said trip to the lake
5. Warm weather and no more rain!
6. Laying out at the pool and at least trying to get a tan
7. Motivating myself to go to the gym
8. Shopping for vintage jewelry on eBay

8 Things I did yesterday…Well, I didn’t do much yesterday so let’s go with 8 Things I did this week:

1. Saw the musical Wicked with my mom!
2. Watched May Robson get drunk in Lady by Choice and Lady for a Day
3. Unpacked all of my stuff and de-cluttered my room, thanks to my clean freak mom (I’m more of a packrat)
4. Went crazy researching my family tree and traced them all the way to eighteenth century Germany.
5. Sent an email to a nonprofit theatre that shows classic films so that I can become a volunteer!
6. Watched way too many movies and absolutely loved it
7. Had cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory : )
8. Attempted to do the Dancing with the Stars Cardio Workout video…and quit after 20 minutes

8 Things I wish I could do:

1. Spend the summer watching movies instead of working
2. Study abroad in England
3. Afford to buy all the classic movies my heart desires
4. Grow a few more inches – I was supposed to be 5’7”!
5. Visit my best friend in California and see Hollywood
6. Dance like Ginger Rogers and look just as glamorous
7. Find Prince Charming
8. Be a famous writer of some sort, hopefully a screenwriter

8 TV Shows I watch:

1. Survivor
2. American Idol
3. So You Think You Can Dance
4. Ugly Betty
5. Greek
6. Gossip Girl
7. Project Runway
8. Lost

8 People to tag:

Hmmm….I don’t know who hasn’t been tagged yet. Being the lazy person that I am, if you are reading this right now, consider yourself tagged!

Coming Soon!

I swear I'm still alive! School ended last Friday and I have been a lazy pile ever since. My first night at home, I slept for thirteen hours! I'm taking a week break before I have to go back to my horrible job at the grocery store on Monday. I have a wedding post in the works that I hope to have up soon. Unfortunately, I lost most of my work because the wireless internet has been down in my house all week and I haven't been able to use my laptop! I promise to stop being such a slacker. I have a lot to write about since I actually have time to watch movies now so stay tuned : )

P.S. If you haven't already checked out the newest movies in the WB Archives, you should! There are two Ginger Roger movies, Having Wonderful Time and Tom, Dick, and Harry which was featured in this month's Great Films Not on DVD! I'm so excited!

Great Films Not on DVD: May

So, it’s dead week and I’m officially dead. The funny thing is, I’m not even worried about my finals. My main concern is getting everything done for this week. Not to mention I have to skip all of my classes on Friday because my older brother is getting married. I’m not saying I’m mad that I have to go to the wedding; it’s just that this is the worst possible time for him to get married. I’m leaving Thursday and getting back Sunday and you can bet I won’t be doing any studying during that time. Although I should be working on homework right now, I’m going to take a little time to bring you my list of Great Films Not on DVD for May!

Bullfighter and the Lady (1951)
Starring Robert Stack, Joy Page, and Gilbert Roland
Airs May 2 on TCM

A reckless young American (Stack) travels to Mexico and falls in love with a local beauty (Page). To catch her eye, he decides to pursue bullfighting under the mentorship of a respected veteran (Roland). The film is jam-packed with real bullfighting scenes and one stuntman actually died during filming. It’s pretty hardcore.

Remember the Night (1940)
Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray
Airs May 14 on TCM

During the Christmas shopping season, shoplifter Lee Leander (Stanwyck) is caught and put on trial. However, the trial is postponed so she doesn’t have to spend Christmas in jail. Instead, she ends up driving home to Indiana with the district attorney (MacMurray) who is prosecuting her. Sparks fly both literally and figuratively.

I watched this for the first time this past Christmas and it has quickly become one of my favorite holiday movies.

Tom, Dick, and Harry (1941)
Starring Ginger Rogers, George Murphy, and Burgess Meredith
Airs May 31 on TCM

How could I possibly resist having a Ginger Rogers movie on the list?

Telephone operator Janie (Rogers) has trouble deciding between three men who are vying for her affection. To help her decide, she dreams about what her life would be like with each of the guys. Which one will she choose? Tom, Dick, or Harry? It may be one of Rogers’ lighter films but its quite fun to watch.

Sidekick: Elsa Lanchester

I’m sorry it’s been awhile since I last posted. Life has been extremely hectic for me. Classes are winding down which means all those giant papers I learned about at the beginning of the semester will be due soon. Being the procrastinator that I am, I’ve barely even started any of them. I’ve pretty much been doing homework from the time I get out of class until I go to bed. This means I have absolutely no time to work on my little blog here which makes me sad. I’m sick of homework so I’m taking a little bit of a study break to write this. It might be quite a while before I can get another post out.

Anyways, I’ve been kind of neglecting my sidekick series so I thought it was time for a new sidekick to spotlight. A really long time ago, I had a poll which was won by Ralph Bellamy. Second place went to Elsa Lanchester so I think she deserves a post as well. If you have any suggestions please let me know!

Elsa Lanchester

The daughter of James Sullivan and Edith Lanchester, Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born on October 28, 1902 in London, England. Her parents were rather unconventional and refused to give in to societal expectations that said they should get married. Because of this, her mother was placed in an asylum for a while.

At the age of ten, she began studying dance under the famous Isadora Duncan, but left after a few years to become a dance teacher. After World War I, she founded the Children’s Theater and began dabbling in acting. While performing in a play, she met another actor by the name of Charles Laughton, who she married a few years later.

Around the time that she met her husband, she began working in films. One of her best known early performances was as Anne of Cleves in The Private Life of Henry VIII which starred her husband Laughton. However, in 1935 she starred in The Bride of Frankenstein, which has become her best remembered film. Although she played the title role in the film, she was denied top billing.

The remainder of Lanchester’s career was spent in small supporting roles or in her own words, her career consisted of “large parts in lousy pictures and small parts in big pictures”. With large, expressive eyes and a lilting voice, she could play a myriad of characters, from a simple maid to a ditzy witch and everything in between.

As the 1960’s rolled in, her film roles decreased so she worked mostly in television. On December 26, 1986, Lanchester died of pneumonia and her ashes were scattered at sea.

Recommended Films:

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Spiral Staircase (1945)

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

The Secret Garden (1949)

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Bell, Book, and Candle (1958)

That Darn Cat! (1965)

The Magic of Re-Cutting

You know that realization I came to last week about only having five weeks of school left? Well, I ran straight into that realization like a brick wall. It wasn’t just a nice, easy stop in front of the wall so that I could admire its magnitude. Nope, I crashed directly into that wall and fell flat on my back. Now, what does this little wall metaphor mean for this blog, you may ask? It means I don’t have time for an entire post this week.

For those of you who have also run into a brick wall lately, I have decided to post a few of my favorite youtube videos. They are all trailers for well-known movies, except that they have been completely chopped up so that the movies are not what they seem. I hope they bring a smile to your face like they did to mine and I promise to try to get a full post out as soon as I can!


Mary Poppins



The Shining



Jaws



There are so many other of these funny trailers on youtube, but these are my personal favorites : )

Great Films Not on DVD: April

Despite the craziness of signing up for classes this week and the sudden realization that I have five weeks left of school, I have managed to actually get this post out on time! I felt really bad for posting my March list so late that you may not have had time to catch some of the films.

Looking forward to the multitude of great films in April has really brightened my mood, considering that its ungodly cold here and actually snowed a bit today. Winter seems to be holding on for dear life and I’m trying as hard as I can to be patient for spring to finally take over. Well, enough about the weather, let’s get to the movies!

Bundle of Joy (1956)
Starring Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, and Adolphe Menjou
Airs April 1 on TCM

A cute little musical remake of Bachelor Mother. Debbie Reynolds is pretty decent as salesgirl Polly Parrish, but she is definitely no Ginger Rogers. It’s worth watching if you like the original. Click here for a short synopsis from a previous post.

The Actress (1953)
Starring Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, and Teresa Wright
Airs April 6 on TCM

Even though this film is now available for order from the Warner Bros. website, I’m still including it as a “Great Film Not on DVD”.

It’s based off of Ruth Gordon’s autobiographical play “Years Ago”. After seeing actress Hazel Dawn in a play, young Ruth dreams of becoming an actress to the dismay of her factory worker father. However, when her dream is suddenly crushed, her father steps in to help her build it up again.

Interesting fact: Anthony Perkins, in his film debut, plays Simmons’ love interest.

So Long at the Fair (1950)
Starring Jean Simmons and Dirk Borgarde
Airs April 17 on TCM

Yes, it’s another Jean Simmons film. If you didn’t know all ready, I’m a really big fan of hers and many of her films are still not on DVD.

The plot of this movie is very similar to that of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes. Siblings Vicky and Johnny Barton travel to Paris for the Exposition Universelle in 1899. The morning after a trip to the Moulin Rouge, Vicky finds that Johnny is missing. After asking everyone at her hotel about her brother’s whereabouts, she realizes something fishy is going on. Everybody tells her she arrived at the hotel by herself. The only person who believes her is a young artist (Bogarde) staying at the hotel. Together, they unravel the mystery.

The Blue Dahlia (1946)
Starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake
Airs April 27 on TCM

In this third pairing of Ladd and Lake, Johnny (Ladd) returns from the war to find his wife with another man. After a dramatic fight, Johnny decides to take a road trip that is mistaken as running from the law when his wife is found dead. Once he learns what happened, he teams up with Joyce (Lake) to try and clear his name.

Interesting fact: This movie is rumored to be the inspiration for murdered actress Elizabeth Short’s nickname “The Black Dahlia”.

Also, if you are a Ginger Rogers fan like me, make sure your DVR is ready to go on April 8. TCM will be showing several of Ginger’s early films, most of which are not on DVD. I’m extremely excited because I haven’t seen a few of them and one of my goals in life is to see all of her films. Currently, I’ve seen forty of her seventy-five films.

TCM will be showing the following:

Suicide Fleet (1931)
Carnival Boat (1932)
The Tip-Off (1932)
You Said a Mouthful (1932)
Professional Sweetheart (1933)
In Person (1935)
Star of Midnight (1935)

Peg Entwistle: The Hollywood Sign Girl

Several days ago, I finally had a chance to watch Thirteen Women, which had been on my DVR for a few days. It was a very interesting little Pre-Code film starring the always lovely Irene Dunne and a vampy pre-Thin Man Myrna Loy. Dunne plays a former sorority girl, who along with 11 of her fellow sorority sisters, is being menaced by a girl they kicked out for being half Indian.

As usual, I looked up the movie on IMDb and noticed that one of the thirteen women was Peg Entwistle. Never heard of her? I hadn’t either until last summer, when I stumbled upon on a page about some of the most mysterious and tragic deaths in Hollywood. One of the reasons many film fans have never heard of Peg Entwistle is because Thirteen Women was the first and last film she made.

Born in Wales on February 5, 1908, Millicent Lillian Entwistle (later known as Peg) was the daughter of Robert and Emily Entwistle. In 1912, she moved to America with her uncle and her father, who subsequently remarried after the death of his wife in 1910. However, by 1922 both Peg’s father and stepmother were dead so she and her two brothers were adopted by their aunt and uncle.

After showing an interest in acting, she was enrolled in Henry Jewett’s Repertory School in 1925. Under the direction of her acting teacher Blanche Yurka, Entwistle gained attention in the role of Hedvig in Ibsen’s The Wild Duck. The story goes that during one of Entwistle’s performances as Hedvig, a young woman who was the same age as Entwistle told her mother “I want to be exactly like Peg Entwistle”. It was this performance that inspired this young woman, known as Bette Davis today, to pursue acting.

After her success at Jewett’s Repertory School, Entwistle gained even more attention by becoming the youngest actress ever to be recruited by the New York Theatre Guild. She was usually placed in major supporting roles and garnered many outstanding reviews, even for plays that were not well received. In 1932, she found herself in Los Angeles doing a few performances when she got a call from RKO Pictures. After a successful screen test, she was chosen to play the part of Hazel Cousins in David O. Selznick’s Thirteen women. In its first test screenings, the film received poor reviews from the critics and Entwistle’s role was cut down quite a bit.

On the night of September 16, 1932, Entwistle climbed up the hill where the Hollywood sign (Hollywoodland at the time ) is. After placing her belongings, including a suicide note, at the base of the sign, she climbed a ladder to the top of the H and jumped to her death. She was only 24 years old. It was not until September 18 that her body was discovered by a hiker. When the police arrived on the scene, it was obvious what had occurred. In Entwistle’s purse, they found the suicide note that said “I'm afraid I'm a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this thing a long time ago it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E." The exact details as to why she committed suicide and many other aspects of her death are still a mystery. Not long after her death, her final film appearance in Thirteen premiered in a few theaters. The film contains several suicides. There are also reports that a few days after her body was discovered, a letter arrived for her offering her the lead in a new play. The character was to commit suicide at the end of the play.

Unfortunately for Peg Entwistle, all of her work prior to coming to Hollywood has been forgotten. All she is remembered for today is her infamous death. If you would like to learn more about Peg Entwistle check out The Hollywood Sign Girl. It’s a really great site devoted to her and the man who created is currently writing a book about her. Most of the information I found about Peg was from his website and her IMDb page.