Category Archives: kiddie faves

SUtS: Maureen O’Hara

Posted on by under classic disney, kiddie faves, loving lucy, summer under the stars

Brandie’s choice: Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Airing at 6:00AM EST

Seriously … how frickin’ gorgeous is Maureen O’Hara? It’s almost sickening.

I’m just going to tell you up front: Dance, Girl, Dance is not the best movie on Maureen O’Hara’s Summer Under the Stars celebration today. It’s not as innocently fun as The Parent Trap (Carrie’s selection; see below), or as suspenseful as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), or as … well, grand, as Rio Grande (1950).

What it does have is an interesting plot revolving around class struggle and feminine relationships, a couple of great associated anecdotes, and a rare female director. For these things alone, it’s worth a viewing. Plus, you’ll get to see O’Hara and Lucille Ball engage in a slapstick catfight, so if that stirs your cup of tea, I think you’ll enjoy this picture.

In Dance, Girl, Dance, O’Hara plays an aspiring ballerina, Judy, who performs with a troupe of young dancers that includes sexy chorus girl Bubbles (Ball). Though Judy longs to be a “legitimate” dancer, she is unable to find work and soon joins Bubbles, now called Tiger Lily, in her nightly burlesque show, where Judy’s serious balletic performances serve as the comedic foil to Bubbles’ gyrations. When both women fall for the same man, Jimmy (Louis Hayward), who is in turn still in love with his ex-wife, their friendship turns to rivalry. Further complicating matters, Judy doesn’t realize that the man (Ralph Bellamy) who could make all of her ballet dreams comes true is the same one she keeps rejecting!

Though O’Hara does a lovely job as the conflicted Judy, this movie really does belong to Lucy. Along with Stage Door (1937), The Big Street (1942), DuBarry Was a Lady (1943), and Without Love (1945), this is one of her better film performances. And this movie would turn out to be significant for Lucy; it was while making this film that she met future husband Desi Arnaz. In fact, Lucy was still in her makeup and slinky burlesque costume after having filmed the catfight scene with O’Hara, looking, Desi would later say, like a “two-dollar whore beaten by her pimp, with her hair all over her face and a black eye … in a cheap costume.” When Lucy was introduced to Desi while still in this get-up, he was horrified to realize that this woman was to be the leading lady in his first Hollywood picture, the upcoming Too Many Girls. But when Desi later saw Lucy cleaned up and dolled up on set, his first response was, “What a hunk o’ woman!” (in true Latin fashion).

Dance, Girls, Dance was directed by one of the rare female directors in classic Hollywood, Dorothy Arzner. She was unique not only because of her gender, but because she was an “out” lesbian who was unwilling to hide it. The better-known of her films–1929′s The Wild Party (significant for being Clara Bow’s first talkie), 1933′s Christopher Strong (with Katharine Hepburn), and 1937′s The Bride Wore Red (with Joan Crawford)–share strong female characterizations and similar thematic elements, leading feminist critics to assess Arzner’s work as representative of early lesbian authorship and influence in the world of classic film.

Author and feminist film scholar Judith Mayne, in her 1994 book Directed by Dorothy Arzner, particularly focuses on Dance, Girl, Dance as “a stunning exploration of women among women, particularly insofar as the pleasures of looking are concerned.” She specifically cites the scene in which Judy, fed up with the heckling of the burlesque-show audience, rears back and lets them have it:

“Go on. Laugh! Get your money’s worth. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I know you want me to tear my clothes off so’s you can look your fifty cents’ worth. Fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a girl the way your wives won’t let you. What do you suppose we think of you up here–with your silly smirks your mothers would be ashamed of?”

By turning the looking-glass around, Judy focuses the bright light of scrutiny on her audience, and though the reaction she gets–applause–is somewhat unrealistic–given the male audience’s behavior up until that point in time–it functions a bit as a feminist fairy tale, handcrafted by Arzner herself (whom Mayne labels, interestingly enough, the “Cinderella Girl of the Movies”). It’s a nice thought; after all, Judy has, for all intents and purposes, slain her own dragon. There’s only one problem: now she needs Ralph Bellamy to come and finish the whole rescuing job.

Well, it’s still progress, however slow.

Carrie’s choice: The Parent Trap (1961)
Airing at 5:45PM EST


Hooray! Maureen O’Hara Day! Any woman who can make a living out of pure attitude has my love and respect, and MO’H definitely qualifies. That said, am I disappointed not to see McLintock! not in this list? Yes, yes I am. Surely an oversight or an issue with the rights to show it or something. It’s my favourite John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara is classic in it. But, moving along….

Oddly, for all my praise for Maureen O’Hara’s feistiness and spunk, my recommendation goes back to my childhood and a rather calm, sedate-ish Maureen O’Hara (as MO’H goes, anyway). The Parent Trap. Hayley Mills. Times two. Classic Disney. It’s part of the collection that remains a gold standard for children’s film.

If you haven’t seen this one (shame on you. Go DVR it NOW and continue reading later), Hayley Mills plays a set of twin girls separated at infancy by divorcing parents. Each parent took one child. As fate would have it, they meet again, not knowing each other, at summer camp. They realize what has happened, switch places and conspire to bring their parents back together.

In this film, Maureen O’Hara plays their mom Maggie. Wealthy family. Boston family. Somewhat dreamy-eyed. After finding out that her “Sharon” is actually her sister Susan, she goes to California, and to her ex-husband Mitch, to get Sharon back.

Up to this point, Maggie is pretty straight-laced. It was a source of contention with Mitch when they were married that she was too uptight. (This argument falls a little flat when you consider her temper- if you know Maureen O’Hara, I don’t have to describe this one.) However, as the girls plot to get rid of Dad’s new girlfriend Vicki, we can see the glimmer and “subtle” sabotage from Maggie (very a la Katherine Hepburn or Irene Dunne). She passively discourages Vicki and Mitch by encouraging them, with that little mischievous glint. Don’t worry- she gets what she wants. This is, after all, Maureen O’Hara.

Carrie’s Childhood Summer Nostalgia: Shirley Temple

Posted on by under blogathon, carrie's faves, kiddie faves

Taking a short break from Summer Under the Stars to reminisce about some of my favourite childhood films: Shirley Temple.

Shirley Temple

I’ve seen quite of them at one time or another, but certainly not all.  Around the middle of her career, she was a very prolific actress, performing in movies at rates that would astound even the most often used of current actors.  She made 11 movies in 1933 and 12 in 1934. That said,  I’m only going to talk about a couple of favourites.

My fanship of Shirley Temple probably started (i.e. my first favourite was…) Heidi. Heidi is just classic. Based on the children’s book of the same name, Shirley Temple plays the orphan Heidi who, after being passed around to various relatives, goes to live with “the grandfather,” a rather gruff man who almost never speaks. [Why did I love this? Probably because I was very close to my own grandfather. My best guess.]  However, they develop a very close relationship, until she is taken to stay with the wealthy by infirm Clara.

Her culture shock there leads to one of my favourite movie quotes, when presented with their elegant dinner, Heidi replies: “I think I’ll just have some cheese.”  I loved watching Heidi help Clara gain her independence and the strength they found in each other- even when I was little. The cruel coldness of her aunt and her developing relationship with Clara are very similar to the dynamics in the children’s novel The Secret Garden and reflect, albeit more distantly,  A Little Princess (another she portrayed on film, that I love, but will not review in this post).

A few years after Heidi, however, my tastes turned to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. They have some striking similarities. [So I have a shameless pattern.] The cold aunt who understands nothing except her own opinions. Rebecca comes to stay with her aunt, who refuses friends’ attempts to put Rebecca’s singing talent on the radio. Eventually, they sneak her out and she becomes a public sensation. Shirley Temple endearing herself to everyone else. The music routines in this are some of my personal favourite examples of what made her the famous child star. Rebecca is the kind of young character that explains how Shirley Temple movies were able to light up the Depression era. Clearly, my love of musicals started at an early age.

New sort of role, amazing film quote

When she was older, Shirley Temple continued to work in a few films, but not as many. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer was one such film. To her credit, she gave an excellent performance as a young girl who has fallen in love, somewhat inappropriately, with Cary Grant. Overall, the movie is really very funny. It probably could not have been made today, even though the theory used to push the plot forward (by having Cary Grant “date” her, to encourage her to spend time with boys her own age) is technically quite sound. The notion is not at all accepted today, and for very good reason. However, all works well in the end, particularly because Cary Grant ends up with Shirley Temple’s much older sister. Though a bit disturbing for me to see Shirley Temple in this particular role (I mean, this is Heidi!), I enjoyed the movie, and has another one of my favourite lines, that is much too long to type here. Watch the movie if you get a chance–keep watch for her tirade to Cary Grant about school and people her own age and how they don’t understand and what a sad plight her life has become.

Well, I’m going to conclude my reminiscing for now, and take some time this summer to re-watch some of my Shirley Temple favourites. I’d love to hear about yours, so please feel free to comment!

The “fantasmagorical” wonder of Fantasia.

Posted on by under 5-star films, animation, blogathon, brandie's faves, classic disney, kiddie faves

Growing up, I was the very definition of a latch-key kid. And, as the oldest child, I spent many summers looking after my two younger brothers. We weren’t allowed to go outside when we were home alone, so much of our time was spent in front of the television, watching the scores of videotaped movies our parents would rent for us to allay inevitable boredom. My love for film was born from those summers, when I would watch at least one movie a day, sometimes perched in my childhood rocking chair, and other times curled up on the living room floor with pillows and a full contingent of stuffed animals (including my favorite, a gigantic stuffed Fievel Mousekewitz from An American Tail).

The early days: my rocking chair, Monchichi, and me.

My brothers and I didn’t share many of the same interests growing up, but we all agreed–nothing beat a good movie, enjoyed in the air conditioning with a Little Debbie snack cake or a bowl of piping-hot popcorn. We loved the Indiana Jones trilogy (though Temple of Doom gave me nightmares the first couple of times I saw it). E.T. was a favorite, as were the Back to the Future and Crocodile Dundee movies. We especially enjoyed sneaking views of our parents’ more “adult” fare, like Raw Deal (an Arnold Schwarzenegger bloodbath that my brothers watched gleefully while I peeked through my fingers) and Trading Places (boobies! on the television!).

More than anything, though, we loved our Disney classics. We had the old “clamshell” videos of Bambi, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland … oh, tons of them–the list goes on and on. Our Disney obsession knew no bounds back then. Case in point: when I was ten, we got our first dog, a Sheltie we adopted from the local animal shelter. I insisted that we name her Lady, after Lady and the Tramp (another one we watched repeatedly), even though our Lady looked nothing like the dog on screen.

But back in those days, my favorite Disney flick, hands down, was always the one Nick and John hated–Fantasia. I remember watching it over and over again–by myself, since the boys found it to be boring. In fact, it was the best way to clear the living room if I wanted some alone time:

Brandie: “Hey, guys, I’m putting in Fantasia!”
Boys: “Um, we’ll be in our room.”

I never understood their attitude, really. I found Fantasia to be far from boring; I was fascinated by the music and the beautiful animation. In fact, it was this movie that first exposed me to classical music, for which I remain eternally grateful. And I will (somewhat sheepishly) admit that, on more than one occasion, I’d jump up and dance around the living room during some parts of this film, pretending I was one of the flower fairies or, at times, even a dancing ostrich (oh, shut up; you know you wanted to be a dancing ostrich, too).

Who WOULDN’T want to be a dancing ostrich??

The one section my brothers would actually sit through was, of course, Mickey in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. And yes, the image of Mickey Mouse in the star-spangled magic hat, directing the broomsticks and buckets to do his lowly chores, is an iconic one. And yes, this clip, set to the unmistakable strains of Paul Dukas’ immortal symphonic poem (which is itself based on a work by Goethe of the same name) is adorable and amusing and altogether entertaining.

Still, I could never make my brothers understand that there’s so much more to Fantasia than this brief ten-minute gem. Yet it’s important to note that, if not for this section, the film as a whole would likely not even exist.

Fantasia was the third full-length animated feature released by Walt Disney, following Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940), and for all intents and purposes, it was an unintentional movie. Disney had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars producing The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, an obscene amount of money for what was initially intended to be a stand-alone cartoon short. In order to recoup what would likely be heavy financial losses, Disney decided to string together a series of musical vignettes into a feature-length production, focusing on animation and music in favor of dialogue.

Though the film was made in an attempt to avoid losing money, Fantasia did just that. Simply put, it was not initially successful in theaters–far from it, in fact. Part of this was likely due to its two-plus hour length, and perhaps part of it was that moviegoers, who had come to expect a certain kind of heartfelt, fully-realized, beginning-to-ending story from a Disney film, found themselves unable to accept or enjoy a loosely-connected series of individual shorts instead. Whatever the reason, though the film was edited down and re-released several times in the first thirty years after its initial opening, it did not find a wider audience (or even turn a profit) until 1969, when college students and young adults “rediscovered” its joys (with the help of a psychedelic drug or two).

Personally, I’ve never watched Fantasia with the aid of hallucinogenics, but I can only imagine it’s quite an experience.

Eight individual pieces make up the whole of Fantasia, blending live-action elements and animation in clever ways. We get to see a representation of the talented musicians who bring the soundtrack to life, including famed conductor Leopold Stokowski, whose orchestrations add so much to the final product (and he gets to shake hands with Mr. Mouse himself!). We get to hear music from some of the most famed composers of all time: Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Stravinsky, Ponchielli, and Mussorgsky. And we’re gifted with some gorgeously-rendered animation sequences: from fairies to dancing hippos to evil creatures of the night, each and every piece of flora, fauna, and backdrop looks lush and downright magical.

Why did I love this film so much, and why does it continue to fascinate me to this day? There are too many reasons to enumerate without writing a book, so let me just focus on a few …

The most adorable anthropomorphic mushroom you will ever see (“Chinese Dance,” Nutcracker Suite segment).

Gorgeous images like the winter fairies’ ice dance (“Watz of the Flowers,” Nutcracker Suite segment).

Pegasuses. Pegasi. Pegasae. However you spell the plural (The Pastoral Symphony).

Chernabog, the original Disney bad-ass MF … sorry, Wicked Queen (Night on Bald Mountain).

Interspecies cooperation. If an alligator and a hippo can put aside their differences and dance the dance of life, doesn’t that mean that there’s some measure of hope for the rest of us? (Dance of the Hours)

DINOSAURS!!!! (The Rite of Spring)

And music, music, music … always that wonderful, moving, simply awe-inspiring musical score.

I, for one, am seriously looking forward to the upcoming Diamond Edition Blu-Ray/DVD being released in January. Fantasia in high-definition. I can hardly stand the wait.

In the meantime, I look back on this film with a profound sense of nostalgia and more than a little fondness. I still love many of the old Disney classics, and having re-watched it recently, I’m glad to realize that, even after all of these years, Fantasia continues to hold a particular place in my heart.

It may sound odd, but I’m fairly relieved by that, to be honest. It’s kind of a perilous exercise, revisiting a movie that you knew so well as a child and seeing how it may have changed in your perception. Sometimes you get lucky, and in watching that film you recover even a small semblance of innocence you may not have realized that you had lost somewhere along the way. And sometimes, you sadly realize that the things you once loved so much are quite a bit more dingy or worn than you remember.

Looking at it through the somewhat cynical lens of adulthood, it’s remarkable to me that I can still view Fantasia with some of the same pure, unadulterated enjoyment as I did so many years ago. I still laugh at some of the crazier antics in Dance of the Hours; I still smile and bob my head along with the dancing thistles and orchids during the “Russian Dance” (Nutcracker Suite); I still shudder a bit as the ghouls and goblins come out to play at Chernabog’s command; and I still tap my feet in time with Mickey’s enchanted broomsticks.

And yes, a part of me still wants to be a dancing ostrich.