The reasoning behind the short lifespans of some of Oscar’s retired categories is obvious: Best Title Writing, for instance, required films to actually have written intertitles; Best Assistant Director, while a noble effort to reward the hardworking crew, probably wasn’t a sexy enough award for a black-tie gala; and the need for a Best Engineering …
Despite being readily available on pretty much every format out there, I admit I’d been avoiding Show Boat, the 1951 film version of the stage musical, until now, when I’m running low on titles for my That’s Entertainment quest. It’s partly because I haven’t really been drawn to the musicals I’ve seen so far that are set around that time period—I think they require a certain level of nostalgia to stretch back into that time, which I don’t quite have—and I’d also read the brief description of the film, which signaled that I should be expecting some vintage, 1951 racial politics. That’s not something I seek to expose myself to on a typical basis, but I mustered onward for the sake of completion.
Patricia Ward Kelly starts her one-woman show, “Gene Kelly: The Legacy,” by addressing a few pertinent questions about her late husband: he was 5′ 8″; he got his distinctive facial scar from a tricycle accident as a kid; and they met while filming a TV documentary series about the Smithsonian. She also candidly addresses the question perhaps most on the mind of curious audience members expecting to see a frail, 90-year-old woman, instead of the vibrant young speaker before them: when they met, she was 26 and Gene was 73.
Well, I figured this was going to happen at one point—due to TCM’s exceptional “31 Days of Oscar” scheduling, we arrive at this month with only one musical that isn’t widely available on DVD. So, I’m also putting together a list of my favorites that they’re airing this month, which are worth another watch even if you already own the blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo set.
American Cinematheque’s Retroformat began its series of early D.W. Griffith works at the Egyptian Theatre this past weekend with a handful of the films he produced for Biograph Films. This series will continue over the next few months and ultimately showcase more than 100 of Griffith’s films from 1908 to 1913, with this first night focusing on the period between 1908 and 1909.
The Little Tramp, the enduring, mustachioed character brought to life by Charlie Chaplin, is celebrating one heck of a birthday this year: 100. The character first appeared in a Keystone comedy short called “Kid Auto Races at Venice” in 1914, where he plays a bumbling spectator constantly getting in the way of the camera’s attempts to focus on the action. Another film, “Mabel Behind the Wheel,” was technically the first Tramp film shot, but “Kid Auto Races” was released first, so it gets the permanent claim to fame. Of course, this being 1914, that difference is only a matter of days, so it’s really only a distinction for the record books. Both films are very charming and recognizably set up the many iterations of the character that were to follow–and not just in costume, but the Tramp’s personality that we’d come to know as well.