Sept-December

SEPTEMBER 1
DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY

Combining horror and romance, this movie stars Fredric March as Death personified, wondering why humans fear him so much. As he mingles with the mortals, most recoil in fear – but one woman finds herself strangely attracted. “Quite scary when it needs to be… It deals with its themes with subtlety, a quiet wit, an enduring sadness, and an everpresent tension.”—scifilm.org. 1934

“Can you conceive how lonely I am - when there is nothing that doesn't shrink from me?”—Death aching for someone to want to come to him

Fredric March portrays a very serious Death

FYI
Fredric March started in Hollywood in 1921, switched to Broadway in 1924, returned to the screen in 1929, and from then on kept moving from Los Angeles to New York. He appeared in 75 movies and 17 Broadway productions, including the original production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. He also appeared in several live early television shows.

He received two Tony awards for Best Actor (for his work in Journey and 1947’s Years Ago) and two Oscars for Best Actor – in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1932 and The Best Years of Our Lives in 1947.
"One of America's most respected stage and screen actors, who always projected intelligence and integrity."-- Halliwell's Moviegoer's Companion

The movie is based on the play La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella. It ran on Broadway for 180 performances in 1930, and then opened again for a brief revival in 1931.

OCTOBER 6
SAFETY LAST!

Befuddled and bespectacled Harold Lloyd convinces his girlfriend that that he’s a success in the big city. He must prove himself when she visits. So he climbs up the side of a skyscraper. With no net. And no rope. Silent, with live piano music. “Turning gasps into laughs is now called thrill comedy, and Lloyd pretty much invented the form.”—National Public Radio. 1923

He'll do anything to impress his girl!
(Image copyright 2011 Harold Lloyd Estate)

FYI

“He discovered his own comic identity when he saw a movie about a fighting parson: a hero who wore glasses,” writes the late critic James Agee. “He decided on horn rims because they were youthful, ultravisible on the screen and on the verge of becoming fashionable (he was to make them so).”

“If Lloyd’s trademark glasses made him seem more of a coward or a miquetoast, it was all the more reason to put him into dangerous scrapes, the likes of which had never been seen in silent film.”—Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, by Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor

After hundreds of one- and two-reelers, Lloyd started making feature-length movies in 1921. Safety Last! is his fourth silent feature – and after this success he made 14 more features, which include seven with sound. His last was The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, in 1947.

NOVEMBER 3
MURDER, MY SWEET

L.A. private eye Phil Marlowe (Dick Powell) must swim in the same water as his grubby clients – but he retains hope that someday somebody will tell him the truth. His hunt for an ex-con’s girlfriend leads to a complex web of deceit involving bribery, perjury, and murder. “Taut thriller… as smart as it is thrilling… suspense is built up sharply and quickly.”—Variety. 1944

“I caught the blackjack right behind my ear. A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom.”—Dick Powell’s Marlowe getting sapped, not for the last time

Dick Powell gets his first unwelcome look at his new client

FYI

Raymond Chandler, who wrote eight whodunits starring Philip Marlowe, reportedly commented that Dick Powell’s Marlowe was more what he had in mind – rather than Bogart’s Marlowe (two years later, in The Big Sleep). Either way, Bogart or Powell, Chandler gives us hard-boiled guys battling each other over hard-boiled dames.
And because this is film noir (noir is French for black – so expect a dark story), we get women who know more than is good for them, and no-good men who can’t resist them. They all get more than they bargained for.

After years of performing in light comedies and musicals, Powell took a different turn. In this shadowy role, he doesn’t sing, there’s no evidence he can dance, and he isn’t supposed to be funny or chirpy or charming. He gets beat up a lot, something that hadn’t happened before – and gives as good as he gets.

Also giving as good as she gets is Claire Trevor. “Her career is a classic case of an actress perpetually in support,” writes David Thomson in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. “[She took on] the whole range of blowsy molls and blasé dolls.”

DECEMBER 1
ON THE TOWN

Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin, rube sailors on leave in the Big Apple, don’t know what they’re looking for. The women they meet, sharp, citywise, and attractive, do. And are they right! “A nonstop musical comedy… It's a romp, it's a romance, it's a songfest… filled with songs and music with real melodies.”—dvdtown.com. 1949

“New York, New York, a wonderful town
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down

The people ride in a hole in the ground

New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!”—the three sailors enamored by New York… before they meet women

Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin, and Gene Kelly get ready to dance

FYI
Book and lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden. These two Tony Award-winners gave us Singin’ in the Rain, The Bandwagon, and Bells Are Ringing, just to name a few. Plus music by Leonard Bernstein. What a dynamite team!

The musical ran for over a year on Broadway, from the end of December, 1944, to February, 1946. So naturally MGM made it into a movie, and this being the late forties, they looked for Gene Kelly and found him. And they looked for Ann Miller and found her. Lucky us.

We also get long-legged Vera-Ellen (you remember her as Rosemary Clooney’s sister in White Christmas) and Betty Garrett, who before she died in 2011 appeared in many television shows. She also spent several years on Broadway.

Finally: certainly if you appear in the same movie with Sinatra, Kelly, and Ann Miller, that must mean you can hold your own. Jules Munshin spent years on Broadway as a song and dance man, and appeared in other Hollywood musicals – for example, Easter Parade, Silk Stockings, and Take Me Out to the Ball Game, which also starred Sinatra and Kelly.