ON THIS DAY in 1894, in France, the Dreyfus affair begins when Captain Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason. This event was dramatized in the 1899 Georges Méliès film, L’AFFAIRE DREYFUS.
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Good evening. Some movie exit lines are unforgettable. “Louis, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Which, of course, is from… um… well, we all remember that movie. But how about the last lines from films created by our person of interest, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock?
(This, quiz number 30, will conclude our little series. We hope you have enjoyed testing your Alfred Hitchcock knowledge. As Scotty said to Madeleine: “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”)
Good luck, Mr. Thornhill, wherever you are…
Take the Quiz!(*The quiz title was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest: “Something wrong with your eyes?” “Yes”, says the sunglass-clad Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant), “They’re sensitive to questions”. After Roger narrowly avoids death by cropduster, Eve attempts to save him from further harm: “So please, good bye…”.)
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
LITTLE WOMEN (1933; Katherine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, Jean Parker; directed by George Cukor)
LITTLE WOMEN (1994; Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst, Trini Alvarado, Clair Danes; directed by Gillian Armstrong)
The 12 Days of Christmas Movies: A Partridge in a Pear Tree | Two Turtle Doves | Three French Hens | Four Calling Birds | Five Golden Rings | Six Geese a-Laying | Seven Swans a-Swimming | Eight Maids a-Milking | Nine Ladies Dancing | Ten Lords a-Leaping | Eleven Pipers Piping | Twelve Drummers Drumming
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
movies.wikia.com
We can’t escape the news. Tomorrow — December 21, 2012 — marks the end of the 5,125-year-old Mayan calendar. Is this a portent for the end of days or just another day like any other? NASA is issuing rebuttals: There are no planetary collisions on the radar.
But what if we were indeed headed toward a grand cosmic accident?
Lars Van Trier’s MELANCHOLIA (2011), starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, was, well, melancholic. Riveting to watch, the film is full of memorable, dreamlike images, albeit self-absorbed (and pretentious?), a drama of depression and other end-of-the-world maladies. Spoiler alert: Everyone explodes.
But for my end of the world movie, I would pick SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (2012) starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. Carell shines as the regular guy who, like everyone else, has learned that an asteroid will slam into Mother Earth and destroy the planet in 21 days.
As the world prepares to meet its doom in assorted and various ways, Carell keeps going to work selling insurance.
He is numb, dutiful, and regretful — trudging on because that’s what he’s done his whole life. His wife leaves him. His friends have parties featuring heroine (why not?) and indiscriminate sex (“The apocalypse levels the playing field,” his less-than-attractive friend tells him, quite pleased that the end of the world has increased his opportunities for casual interludes). People do things here that make perfect sense, including wearing improbable outfits. A woman in a crazy getup tells him, “It’s everything I never wore.” That sounds like something many women would do when one’s days are limited, including me.
But it’s not all fun and games. There are riots in the streets. People jump from buildings. Carell stares blankly at the television screen as the announcer counts down the days. There is no hope.
Carell, too, loses his hope and drinks a bottle of Windex. But he doesn’t die. Nothing happens at all. All those label warnings about life were meaningless. He has no choice but to get on with what’s left. He wants to find an old love, “the one that got away.”
He gets a dog and a traveling companion in Keira Knightley. A road trip ensues.
Knightley’s performance is flat and doesn’t add a lick of soul to the movie. (If only she could have conjured a performance like Liza’s in THE STERILE CUCKOO or Diane Keaton in ANNIE HALL.) But Carell is so good that you don’t even notice Knightley’s flawed performance. The best thing she does is carry a Herb Alpert record around with her.
And records are important to the story here. Vinyl gets pulled out of paper sleeves for pitch-perfect songs like “This Girl’s in Love With You,” “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” and “All I Need Is the Air That I Breathe.” Of course, we would all play our favorite records if an asteroid was heading our way.
SEEKING A FRIEND is the first for writer and director Lorene Scafaria. It looks like a made-for-tv movie and doesn’t always hit the mark with the plot, but there are also some absolutely brilliant moments filed under “hilarious” and “remarkably poignant” that kept me believing in and loving this film.
Like MELANCHOLIA, there is a big explosion at the end. But there is also salvation right before the white light.
After seeing this movie, I thought about some of of the records I would play at the end of the world. One of them would be Todd Rundgren’s “Love Is the Answer” — with lines like “Who knows why? Someday we all must die.” Check out his 1980 performance on the Mike Douglas Show.
In the end, yes, love is the answer. SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD makes that point very clear. 
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
ON THIS DAY in 1606, settlers departed England to found Jamestown, Virginia–the first, permanent English settlement in the Americas. The story of this colonization was told in the 2005 Terrence Malick film, THE NEW WORLD.
ON THIS DAY in 1878, John Kehoe, the last member of the secret society of coal workers known as the “Molly Maguires,” was executed in Pennsylvania. Kehoe was portrayed by Sean Connery in the 1970 Martin Ritt film, THE MOLLY MAGUIRES, also starring Richard Harris.
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING (1995; Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman; directed by Jon Turteltaub)
The 12 Days of Christmas Movies: A Partridge in a Pear Tree | Two Turtle Doves | Three French Hens | Four Calling Birds |
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
I can’t help myself: I tear out articles from the newspaper. Relentlessly.
I sometimes wonder if this is a genetic behavior disorder and think of my aunt. She kept scrapbooks, stashed away in old Lytton’s Department Store dress boxes, documenting the news of her younger days, mostly about FDR and WWII.
She also kept an in-depth archive on the Dionne Quintuplets, Canadian superstars born in 1934, the first known quints to survive infancy.
When I discovered that there was a movie actually starring this famous fivesome, I had to see it. Maybe it would unlock some of the mystery of why my aunt was so seemingly obsessed by these miracle babies.
I have to say that THE COUNTRY DOCTOR (1936) delivered. Part promotional piece — the Dionne Quintuplets get top billing — and part well-crafted drama, this Darryl Zanuck production deserves a little more love.
Out of circulation for almost 50 years, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR was recently released by Fox Cinema Archives. According to New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick, this charmer has never even been shown on TCM “despite my lobbying,” and “no entry in Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide either.” (I’m pleased to know that at least one other person besides me is a fan of this movie.) Lumenick also writes in a Post article, “According to the AFI Catalogue, the March 4, 1936, opening of “The Country Doctor,” was ‘one of the largest day-and-date engagements in motion picture history.’”
Directed by the prolific Henry King, who would later bring us THE OLD MAN & THE SEA, LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING, and THE SNOWS OF KILAMANJARO, to name a few, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR is full of compelling drama and memorable scenes.
The action starts in Moosetown, Canada, where the populace of the timber mill town is readying for its annual closing of operations and pilgrimage to less harsher climates to wait out the long, cold, and brutal winter. A shocking number of the mill workers are missing limbs. Soon you know why. Within the opening seconds, there is a crushing injury in the timber mill. Life is hard in these parts. A man begs to die rather than lose his leg.
While the townspeople who are able to leave Moosetown climb aboard the last ferry, a few must stay behind. Not only does the country doctor have to tend the injured mill worker, there is a diptheria epidemic to deal with. Thirty children are piled up in a makeshift hospital, and the necessary medicine is in short supply. One of the saddest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie is of one of the children succumbing to the epidemic, while her mother, desperate and helpless, looks in from the outside through a window covered in ice and snow.
So the story goes, not a feel-good tale about babies. The narrative traces the dedication of the country doctor, beautifully played by Jean Hersholt (the grandfather from HEIDI), treating his patients with goodwill, generosity, and makeshift solutions. At the doctor’s right hand is Dorothy Peterson as his loyal and ever-faithful nurse (and subtle love interest). You root for them all of the way. Our country doctor warms new babies in ovens or pushed up against roaring fireplaces. In the big city hospitals, they have something new called incubators.
In addition to the story of the country doctor, the film moves forward with subplots of romance, dysfunctional family dynamics, redemption, social consciousness, media frenzy, and the arrival of modernity.
The timber worker who loses his leg becomes a hero, fixing the broken telegraph equipment. A strict and unyielding father tries to deny his daughter her chance at happiness but she soars off in an airplane with her lover-to-be. The country doctor himself takes on his big city (and rich) bureaucrat dad. The Fat Cat logging boss says of his struggling workers, “Those people aren’t the company’s responsibility” and his days are numbered. There are daily heroics and political dilemmas. Modern times vs. the simplicity of country life. The adventure of air flight! The miracle of tonsillectomies! There’s even an impassioned plea for equitable health care.
According to film critic Lumenick, screenwriter Sonya Levien’s script “plays fast and loose with the facts” related to the Dionne Quintuplets. But does it really matter?
Finally, 75 minutes into this 95-minute movie, the Dionne Quintuplets appear. The story turns from a dramatic tale of hard life in the upcountry into a sort of home movie of the actual twins as they survive infancy and grow into their toddler glory. We meet Yvonne, Cecil, Marie, Annette, and Emelie, and watch them wander around doing the random things that toddlers do. This odd little segment of the film is actually too long and quite boring–and it completely changes the dramatic narrative of the movie–but gosh those kids are the really the cutest wonders of the world.
After the quints bumble around their playroom, each subplot gets a happy conclusion. Amidst the media circus that emerges, the young lovers embrace, Moosetown gets a real hospital, the doctor and the nurse seem ready (at last!) to be ready to admit their feelings for each other.
Only 75 years ago, the survival of multiple birth babies was considered a miracle. Now we have the Octomom. What a historic and heartwarming movie THE COUNTRY DOCTOR is. I’ll treasure my aunt’s scrapbook even more.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
ON THIS DAY in 1770, composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven was born* in Germany. Beethoven’s life was dramatized in the 1994 film, IMMORTAL BELOVED, starring Gary Oldman. (*Baptismal date)
ON THIS DAY in 1944, the Battle of the Bulge–a major German offensive against the Allies–began, in the Ardennes forest, Belgium. This event was depicted in the 1965 film THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE, starring Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan.
courtesy of Clara Bow Archive
So many vintage photos, so little time.
I stumbled upon Sergio Leeman’s “A Certain Cinema” site, which features more than 10,000 absolutely stunning photos of the stars of yesterday. In the spirit of the holiday season, start with his Deck the Halls gallery. Could there be anything cuter than Clara Bow waiting for Santa Claus? (Thanks to Clara Bow archive.)
In his “About” page, Leeman writes, “The casual browsing of a film book at age 13 was enough to turn assiduous moviegoing into a lifelong passion for every aspect of filmmaking… A Certain Cinema is a way of sharing all these many diverse experiences and an inexhaustible love of film.”
And for more photos of the stars celebrating Christmas, go to Comet Over Hollywood’s web site or the Comet’s Facebook page.
Hollywood style still mesmerizes. I’m dreaming of Christmases past….
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
HOLIDAY AFFAIR (1949; Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh; directed by Don Hartman)
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
Good evening. We’re seeing a lot of the Master of Suspense these days, what with his self-titled movie currently playing at theaters. But we have always had the opportunity to catch his familiar face and form often over the years, right there during his cameo appearances in the very pictures he directed. We can identify that distinctive shape easily in those movies, but can you name the movie’s title? (In case you missed them: part 1 & part 2.)
Good luck, Mr. Thornhill, wherever you are…
Take the Quiz!(*The quiz title was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest: “Something wrong with your eyes?” “Yes”, says the sunglass-clad Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant), “They’re sensitive to questions”. In the hotel room of the fictitious George Kaplan, Roger spots a photograph of his kidnapper, Philip Vandamm, and says, “Oh, well, look who’s here!”.)
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
ON THIS DAY in 1911, a team of explorers led by Norwegian Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole. Amundsen’s expedition was documented in THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH, a 1985 made-for-TV series.
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
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