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 …
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.
Orchestra Wives is a great example of a band fully integrated into the picture’s overall narrative. Glenn Miller and his orchestra are the object of affection of the titular spouses, and the characters to whom we’re introduced throughout are a mix of actors and real-life band members.