Between 2018 and 2022 (or so) I hosted my podcast, ‘Movies Til Dawn’, which consisted of me and veteran directors having conversations about…well…lots of different stuff. There was no specific formula to these conversations–I usually told the subject beforehand that we could talk about anything they felt like. Thus my
We move from the previous two posts featuring Marilyn’s delightfully polished and alluring musical numbers in ‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘Let’s Make Love’, to her nadir. It too is from ‘Lets Make Love’, but there are multiple issues with it that frankly make it something of an embarrassment to
Last Friday I posted the terrific ‘Running Wild’ sequence from ‘Some Like It Hot’, featuring a wildly sensuous vocal/dance performance by Marilyn and way too many cutaways to Jack Lemmon. In spite of the great praise she received in that incredibly successful film, there appear to have been those who
All week we’ve been looking at some of the extraordinary all-female orchestras of the 20s/30/40s. Let’s finish thing off with a band that never existed, ‘Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters’, from Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamonds masterful comedy ‘Some Like It Hot’. Clearly Wilder and Diamond were inspired by
Without a doubt the most famous of the 1930s/40s all girl orchestras was ‘Phil Spitalni’s Hour Of Charm All-Girl Orchestra.’ Typically, though, the most famous is somehow the least interesting. It’s not that the players aren’t terrific. It’s the choice of material–much more conservative and a silly combination of mickey-mouse
This week we’ve been taking a look at all-girl jazz bands of the 1930s and 1940s. Today we’re going to back to the 1920s where we will meet ‘The Ingenues’, a most adventurous and impressive ‘girl group’ that toured the United States and other countries from 1925 to 1937. They
Yesterday I posted about the hard-kicking all-female big band Francis Carroll and Her Coquettes. Today we take a look at ‘The International Sweethearts of Rhythm’, who were believed to be the first racially-integrated all-female big band in the United States. Though they’ve been more or less lost to history–and that’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhhZqKlO6wEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1aKNy7hBV4 Airplane pilots are always quick to tell you that 99 percent of all aviation accidents are due to pilot error. This is almost a religious incantation with them–they believe firmly in ‘trusting the machine’, which I imagine is the only way to get over the insane fact that they’re
Apropos of this weeks posts on non-French, non-Greek director Jules Dassin, here’s a lovely scene from his 1960 hit “Never On Sunday’, starring his wife Melina Mercouri. In an act of immense chutzpah, Dassin–who was essentially a non-actor–cast himself as the co-lead–an American who’s visiting Greece. He’s the gray haired
Apropos of yesterday’s post about the great non-French non-Greek but somehow French and Greek American director Jules Dassin, I though I’d post the legendary twenty-five (or so) minutes silent sequence of the heist scene in ‘Rififi’. Imagine my surprise when it failed to turn up on YouTube. Instead only tidbits