I’m digging further into the mass of Busby Berkeleys I accumulated last week, and I’ve run into another odd, very un-“Berkeley”-like picture: I Live for Love. It’s very interesting to look at these smaller films as a kind of career in and of itself, moving parallel to his more well-known musical spectacles. Here we see another highly melodramatic piece with little evidence of the signatures and trademarks he developed in his musical works.
I hadn’t actually planned on watching this movie–though it is directed by Busby Berkeley, it’s not actually a musical, so it didn’t cross on my radar while I was plotting this month’s Rare Musicals post. TCM had given us the gift of a whole day of rare Berkeleys, so while I was flipping through my …
As is happily typical with their programming, the New Beverly delivered unto me a long-awaited, yet previously unavailable, movie interest of mine: Looking for Mr. Goodbar. The 1977 not-on-DVD classic stars Diane Keaton and baby versions of Tom Berenger, Richard Gere, and LeVar Burton, and is based on the real-life 1973 murder of Roseann Quinn.
The Mystery of the Wax Museum, a two-tone Technicolor mystery from 1933, was a great scheduling pick from the New Beverly theater on this week of creeps leading up to Halloween. Directed by Michael Curtiz–who would later win an Oscar for helming a little film called Casablanca–the film is a curious mixture of Vincent Price spooks, quick screwball comedy …
I was delighted to spot this one coming up on my Rare Musicals list for October, as the sailor musical has quickly become one of my shortcuts to making my movie selections. I was particularly interested in Hit the Deck because of the stellar cast, as well as the fact that it’s both a late-stage MGM musical and late-stage for sailor musicals in general–coming nearly 10 years after the end of WWII.
I’m taking a step back from a somewhat overwhelming stockpile of musicals in my DVR to get back to the basics, continuing on my “That’s Entertainment” list and just generally being open to watching new things, without the threat of Warning! Your DVR is currently 98% full!. That’s not the most conducive environment for watching films, so I’m going to go through my list and identify those that are most important to my overall education.