Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 4: MY LADY OF WHIMS (1925) & THE PLASTIC AGE (1925)

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This week, we get closer to Clara Bow’s Mature Period with her first big hit, the college movie The Plastic Age (1925). But first, another 1925 pairing with the stalwart Donald Keith. My Lady of Whims. The two films show the flexibility of the flapper archetype, with Clara as a socialite-turned-bohemian in the first and as a hard-partying college girl in the second. Frustratingly, Keith is our protagonist, but the two films give Bow a chance to show off her comedic and dramatic skills, respectively, and pave the way for more complex versions of similar plots in future vehicles.  

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                  My Lady of Whims (1925) [dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald]

0h 28m 41s:                  The Plastic Age (1925) [dir. Wesley Ruggles]

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Schedule – now projected to the end of our Lilli Palmer series in 2024

*Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Find Elise’s latest film piece on Billy Wilder and 1930s Romantic Comedy

*And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

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Valentine’s Day 2021 – A Very Cassavetes Valentine – MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971) & LOVE STREAMS (1984)

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Our Valentine’s 2021 episode has something for everyone, couples and singles. Something to make everyone feel deeply unsettled, that is. The subject of these two John Cassavetes movies, Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) and Love Streams (1984), is the difficulty of making any kind of meaningful human connection. Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes’ wife and frequent collaborator, plays a woman who’s having trouble feeling in the first, and a woman who feels more than is good for her in the second. We try to describe the experience of watching Cassavetes’ visceral, emotional, frightening, and frequently very funny films. But who is that naked man? 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      Cassavetes preamble

0h 09m 31s:      MINNIE & MOSKOWITZ (1971) 

1h 01m 01s:      LOVE STREAMS (1984)

               

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Schedule – now projected to the end of our Lilli Palmer series in 2024

*Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Find Elise’s latest film piece on Billy Wilder and 1930s Romantic Comedy

*And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1935: DAVID COPPERFIELD & TALE OF TWO CITIES

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MGM, 1935, and two David O. Selznick Dickens adaptations: George Cukor’s David Copperfield and Jack Conway’s A Tale of Two Cities. Hollywood invents a cinematic language for Dickens, using a mixture of American and British actors, and miraculously pulls it off, in what Dave considers Selznick’s finest hour as a producer. (We know he means with the exception of Portrait of Jennie.) We discuss the complex psychology of Copperfield and the simplistic history of Tale of Two Cities.

Also discussed in the episode: Kate Corbelay, head of the story department at MGM.

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      David Copperfield [dir. George Cukor]                         

1h 00m 015s:    A Tale of Two Cities [dir. Jack Conway]

1h 49m 08s:      Listener correspondence from Adam          

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Schedule – now projected to the end of our Lilli Palmer series in 2024

*Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Find Elise’s latest film piece on Billy Wilder and 1930s Romantic Comedy

*And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »