I recently got into a bit of trouble with a joke I made in my review for Anchors Aweigh, in which I’d cheekily noted that my favorite film genre was “Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as girl-chasing sailors on leave.” Of course, this is a “genre” that spans exactly two films–Anchors Aweigh and On the Town–so I felt bad when someone eagerly commented seeking a watch-list of other films they thought they had overlooked.
Carmen Miranda cuts a curious figure in film history. You know those actors and characters you just can’t really picture smiling? The Buster Keatons, the James Bonds, and so on. Part of what I love about Carmen Miranda is that she’s completely the opposite–I have such a hard time picturing her with a straight, emotionless …
There’s a singular pleasure to watching an older movie and discovering there’s an actor you thought you knew–an actor you had pretty easily categorized as a Dad figure in your mind, someone who was surely born already 40 years old wearing slacks–was actually quite the dish at 23. I had this happy experience this weekend watching …