GetTV kicked off the holiday season earlier this month with “Happy Holidays from Bing and Frank,” the 1957 Christmas episode from the “Frank Sinatra Show”—airing again tonight in celebration of Sinatra’s 99th birthday. It’s a charming, if slightly bizarre, holiday special… as I think many classic holiday specials are. The boys certainly encourage—and partake in—some holiday libations throughout the show, …
Few other performers can claim the title of “triple threat” so handily as Gene Kelly did with MGM in the 1940s and ’50s as an actor, a singer, and, of course, a dancer. But his career wasn’t limited to only those three titles; throughout the course of his professional life, he was also a producer, a director, a writer, a choreographer, and, all the while, an athlete. For a studio that claimed “more stars than there are in heaven,” Kelly was one of their brightest, an indelible association with the genre MGM took to new heights: the movie musical.
The late 1960s were a turbulent time of new cultures, changing norms, and shifting values, and one place that was immediately obvious was in Hollywood. With the downfall of the studio system, the impending doom of the Code, and the radical growth of political cinema around the world, the American movie industry was working hard to alter its …
The Manchurian Candidate is a heady, political thriller from a heady, political time. Released in 1962, the film is set a decade prior, in 1952, yet still manages to tell a tale that rings recognizable for the past, present, and future; often prophetically ahead of its time, it dealt with political anxiety, conflicting ideologies, individual free-will, assassination, and conspiracy, creating a lasting …
Baseball’s back in full swing, and as part of Forgotten Films‘ baseball blogathon, I’ve chosen to cover a very fun baseball movie that, admittedly, is perhaps not the most stellar example of actual gameplay: 1949’s Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It’s a fun, somewhat historical counterpoint to many baseball movies that choose to focus on real ball players or, you know, real ball games. But no matter, because what this one may lack in authenticity of sport, it more than makes up for in movie musical cred: it’s directed by Busby Berkeley, produced by Arthur Freed, with a story by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and choreography by Gene himself. It’s also one of three glorious instances where we see Gene teamed up with Frank Sinatra, so, really, there’s not too much to complain about.
It’s funny how, no matter what year a movie actually came out, it can only take a few lines to cement its place as a timeless classic–or damn it as a dated time capsule. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with a movie being “dated,” but it can be yet another barrier for modern viewers trying to enjoy a film in as much of its original context as possible.