Acteurist oeuvre-view – Season 4 – Margaret Sullavan – Part 1: ONLY YESTERDAY (1933) & LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW? (1934)

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This week on the pod, we get started with our new Acteurist Oeuvre-View series: Margaret Sullavan. We were expecting solid entries from the selective Sullavan, but weren’t fully prepared for John Stahl to match his Back Street achievement with Sullavan’s screen debut, Only Yesterday (1933). We discuss its relationship to Opühls’ Letter from an Unknown Woman, with which it shares a source, while concluding that it has more in common with Mervyn LeRoy’s Random Harvest. We also posit Stahl-Sullavan as the American Ozu-Hara… if only they’d worked together more than once. Next, another Universal movie set against a backdrop of social chaos, Frank Borzage’s Little Man, What Now? (1934), where Sullavan is tasked with the burden of being the entire meaning of a man’s life in a bewildering hell-world. Spoiler: we think she’s up to the job. We talk differences and similarities between the social outlooks of the Two Franks (Borzage and Capra) and their depictions of grace. This is going to be a long one, so make some popcorn! 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                  Brief introduction to Margaret Sullavan

0h 15m 54s:                  ONLY YESTERDAY (1933) [dir. John M. Stahl]

1h 03m 09s:                  LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW? (1934) [dir. Frank Borzage]

 

Referenced This Episode:

Elise Moore on Waterloo Bridge & Little Man, What Now?

The Call of the Heart: John M. Stahl and Hollywood Melodrama –  Bruce Babbington and Charles Barr                  

                                               

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

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

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

*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 – RKO – 1936: MAKE WAY FOR A LADY & A WOMAN REBELS

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RKO, 1936: Anne Shirley and Katharine Hepburn have father trouble. In Make Way for a Lady (directed by David Burton), Shirley gets hysterical at the thought of indulgent 20th century dad Herbert Marshall developing a sex life; while in A Woman Rebels (directed by Mark Sandrich), Hepburn blames stern Victorian dad Donald Crisp for her sexual aberrance. We discuss the careers of the source novelists, Elizabeth Jordan and Netta Syrett, both born in 1865, in America and England respectively; find reason to compare Make Way for a Lady to Ozu’s Late Spring, Henry James’s The Sacred Fount, and Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt; and generally make sure that we’ve got our Freud goggles in place. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                  MAKE WAY FOR A LADY [dir. David Burton]

0h 42m 05s:                  A WOMAN REBELS [dir. Mark Sandrich]

           

Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell and Vernon Harbin

                                   

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

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

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

*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!

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Acteur/Auteur Special Subject– Max Ophuls & Edwige Feuillère – SANS LENDEMAIN (1939) & DE MAYERLING A SARAJEVO (1940)

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Dave’s first Summer in France Special Subject is devoted to two lesser-known Max Ophüls movies starring Edwige Feuillère that were made just before the Nazis occupied France and Ophüls fled to Hollywood, Sans lendemain (1939) and De Mayerling à Sarajevo (1940). We consider the two films in light of those dire circumstances and Ophüls’ oeuvre, arguing that they deserve more attention–especially the beautifully shot, noirish Sans lendemain (There’s No Tomorrow), with its creatively suicidal heroine.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                  SANS LENDEMAIN (1939) [dir. Max Ophuls]

0h 44m 28s:                  DE MAYERLING A SARAJEVO (1940) [dir. Max Ophuls]                                

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

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

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

*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!

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Acteurist oeuvre-view – Clara Bow – Part 12: CALL HER SAVAGE (1932) & HOOPLA (1933)

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Clara Bow gets a wonderful finale to her (unfortunately foreshortened) career in our final Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode devoted to her. Fox comes through with two excellent vehicles: Call Her Savage (1932), directed by John Francis Dillon and brilliantly shot by Lee Garmes, a delightfully lurid Pre-Code that nevertheless contains a critique of white supremacy; and Hoop-La (1933), a sweet-natured romantic comedy with a circus setting and a hard-boiled veneer. We review, one last time, why Clara Bow is the Ultimate Protagonist, and wrap up the series with our Top 10s from the Bow canon. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                  CALL HER SAVAGE (1932) [dir. John Francis Dillon]

0h 42m 57s:                  HOOPLA (1933) [dir. Frank Lloyd]      

1H 17m 49s :                Elise and Dave’s Top 10 Clara Bow films

                                               

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

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

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

*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!

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century Fox – 1936: RAMONA & THE COUNTRY DOCTOR

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Our studio this week is 20th Century Fox, the year is 1936; two fascinating movies of dubious historicity (in the details, at least) by the ever-reliable Henry King, possibly Fox’s most characteristic director. First up, Ramona, a sympathetic depiction of North American settler colonialism from the perspective of Native Americans (unfortunately, as ever, with white actors–Loretta Young and Don Ameche–playing the leads). Then, the surprisingly engrossing The Country Doctor, starring Jean Hersholt in his career defining role. We discuss the bizarre and tragic real-life story of the Ontario government’s exhibition of the Dionne Quintuplets and what the movie gets right about Canadian society. Elise speculates on what Preston Sturges learned about small-town America from two Fox movies directed by Henry King that aren’t even set in America, and Dave argues about the progressive influence of Darryl Zanuck on this phase of the studio. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                  RAMONA [dir. Henry King]

0h 37m 52s:                  THE COUNTRY DOCTOR [dir. Henry King]

1h 11m 45s:                  Listener mail from Jeff (on Clara Bow series)  

 

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of 20th Century Fox by Tony Thomas & Aubrey Solomon

                                   

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

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

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  

*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 »