Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1941: THE FLAME OF NEW ORLEANS & UNFINISHED BUSINESS

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For our Universal 1941 Studios Year by Year episode we looked at two films about love and sex by a couple of master filmmakers, Rene Clair’s The Flame of New Orleans, a terrific Bruce Cabot vehicle (Marlene Dietrich is also in it), and Gregory La Cava’s Unfinished Business, a sexually daring romantic drama (with some screwball elements) starring Irene Dunne that manages to seem like a Pre-Code despite the year in which it was made. We dig into the presentation of Theresa Harris’s scheming maid in The Flame of New Orleans, whose aims are much clearer than the ostensible heroine’s; and into the painful adult emotions of the brilliant and constantly surprising Unfinished Business, which get into areas that most people don’t want to discuss in real life, let alone see in movies. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      THE FLAME OF NEW ORLEANS [dir Rene Clair]

0h 33m 08s:      UNFINISHED BUSINESS [dir. Gregory LaCava]

 

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

                                   

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* 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! 

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Christmas 2022 Special Subject – REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940) and I’LL BE SEEING YOU (1944)

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The movies we discussed for our 2022 Christmas Special Subject are a little on the dark side, as all great Christmas movies are, but these one perhaps more obviously than ever. We paired Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night (1940), with a screenplay by Preston Sturges, with William Dieterle’s I’ll Be Seeing You (1944), two movies about women who’ve fallen afoul of the law, and whose experience of falling out of step with society is contrasted with the comforts that bourgeois family life can offer. We zero in on the complexity of Barbara Stanwyck’s relationship with her own morality in Remember the Night and the relationship that develops between Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten’s traumatized soldier, who struggles with a different kind of alienation, in I’ll Be Seeing You. We also discuss the way that the two movies associate the holiday season and spirit with the material and emotional comforts of bourgeois family life even while showing that the empathy fostered by the latter has limitations. 

Time Codes:

0h 1m 00s:        REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940) [dir. Mitchell Leisen]

0h 46m 37s:      I’LL BE SEEING YOU (1944) [dir. William Dieterle]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s 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! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

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Acteurist oeuvre-view – Jean Arthur – Part 11: THE MORE THE MERRIER (1943) and A LADY TAKES A CHANCE (1943)

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Our penultimate Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode features a couple of sexy romantic comedies, George Stevens’ The More the Merrier and William A. Seiter’s The Lady Takes a Chance (both 1943), that Arthur made at the height of her stardom and glamour, when she was in her early 40s – at which point she retired from movies. (Though not quite yet, or permanently, as we’ll see in the final episode.) We discuss the different ways Arthur smolders with co-stars Joe McCrea and John Wayne; George Stevens’ way with smutty comedy; the effect of the Production Code on onscreen eroticism; and Arthur’s particular brand of comedic sex appeal. How did we end up talking about sex so much in a Jean Arthur episode, after establishing that she’s “not that kind” of star? That’s one of the mysteries of her persona! 

Time Codes:

0h 1m 00s:        THE MORE THE MERRIER (1943) [dir. George Stevens]

0h 53m 33s:      A LADY TAKES A CHANCE (1943) [dir. William A. Seiter]

+++

* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s 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! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

Check out this episode!

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1941: CITIZEN KANE & DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER + 2022 Sight and Sound Poll

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Our RKO 1941 episode turns out to be well-timed, giving us an opportunity to weigh in on the 2022 Sight & Sound Critics’ Poll, canon formation, and the uses (if any) of canons. From there we segue into a discussion of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and its place in the cinematic canon, and then into a discussion of the film itself, and especially Kane’s relationship with Susan Alexander Kane. Our second film, another unique work of art from the brief period when RKO’s motto was Genius Over Showmanship, is William Dieterle’s The Devil and Daniel Webster. We talk about it as a Popular Front movie, and how it may succeed and fail in that regard, as well as about the way it presents human nature and the concept of evil. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      2022 Sight and Sound Poll 

0h 23m 13s:      CITIZEN KANE [dir. Orson Welles]

1h 08m 49s:      THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER [dir. William Dieterle]

 

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

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

                                   

+++

* 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! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

 

 

 

 

Check out this episode!

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Acteurist oeuvre-view – Jean Arthur – Part 10: THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941) and THE TALK OF THE TOWN (1942)

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This episode of our Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view provides us with two examples of Hollywood leftism to discuss: a Norman Krasna department store comedy directed by Sam Wood, The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), and a comedy of ideas directed by George Stevens, The Talk of the Town (1942). We discuss the way The Devil and Miss Jones portrays political radicalism and the difficulty of labor organizing within the framework of a Hollywood fairy tale; and the marriage of moral and intellectual debate to an unconventional, utopic household arrangement in The Talk of the Town. 

Time Codes:

0h 1m 00s:        THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941) [dir. Sam Wood]

0h 43m 27s:      THE TALK OF THE TOWN (1942) [dir. George Stevens]

 

 

+++

* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s 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! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »