The Show, Tod Browning’s 1927 semi-salicious silent drama starring John Gilbert, is both a great bit of fun as well as a great example of Browning’s skill in visual storytelling. It’s a gorgeously shot film with plenty of the offbeat elements that have made Browning a lasting figure in cult cinema.
The creatures of the night claimed the New Beverly for their own yesterday, as monster fans packed the house for two Frankenstein films, and a chance to see Karloff and Lugosi in person. It wasn’t the famous actors themselves who were appearing, of course, but rather, their offspring–Sara Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Jr. Ms. Karloff sported an elegant white streak in her hair that evoked the monster’s Bride, while the younger Lugosi dressed all in black, enhancing the already uncanny likeness of his father. Both children shared stories about their fathers and their opinions on the films that were playing that night, which were Son of Frankenstein (1939), celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and House of Frankenstein (1944), celebrating its 70th.
Judging by its lofty pedigree on paper, For Me and My Gal should really be one of cinema’s most enduring and classic musicals. Not only was it directed by Busby Berkeley and produced by Arthur Freed, but it was Judy Garland’s first “adult” role, and, furthermore, Gene Kelly’s film debut. And yet it remains one of the more underseen Garland and/or Kelly and/or Berkeley pictures of the era, in part because, well… it’s a bit dark.
Bachelor Mother is another one of those great time-capsule movies that communicates much more to a modern viewer than just its plot. It’s a light, charming comedy from 1939, starring Ginger Rogers, and pretty much right from the start, the concept of the situation completely and utterly reflects its era. Rogers plays a shopgirl at Merlin’s department store …
Holiday Inn, the 1942 musical that teamed up Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire for the first time, is… mostly a Christmas movie. It begins and ends at Christmas, of course, and won an Oscar for spawning the classic song, “White Christmas”–which later became a star on its own, in the sort-of-sequel, sort-of-remake, White Christmas, as well as holding the record as the best-selling song for over 50 years. But Holiday Inn was never designed to be a vehicle for delivering Christmas songs unto a willing audience. Rather, the point was to cover a whole range of holidays throughout the year, from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve, and allow people to accent nearly every moment of their life with a specialized Irving Berlin song. (People at this time already had “God Bless America,” but were sadly lacking any Berlin tunes to play for Thanksgiving, Washington’s Birthday, or many other holidays.) So, though I’m comfortable calling it a Christmas movie, it is a bit of an accidental Christmas movie.
This marks my first film watched as a new subscriber of Warner Archive’s Instant service! If you’re not familiar, Warner Archive Instant is similar to Netflix in that it gives you digital access to a range of their catalogue of classic movie selections. After a somewhat overwhelming selection process and the truly awful situation of having …