Films
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Gossip Friday: On the set of Gone with the Wind
From May 1939: We said we didn’t believe it. “Tell us,” we said, “that Greta Garbo is hunting autographs; that Shirley Temple has been sent to reform school; that Jimmy Cagney is baking a cake. Tell us anything. But don’t tell us ‘Gone with the Wind’ is actually shooting!” “Come over and see for yourself,” said the Selznick-International man. How could we resist making “The Wind”, as Hollywood knows it, our first stop on the monthly set circuit? After these months of waiting and waiting–false hopes, phony Scarletts, reluctant Rhetts and so forth–a mere peep at the champion never-never movie in actual production is like a preview of the millennium.…
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Remembering Bonnie Blue
On Sunday, I attended the memorial service for Cammie King Conlon, or as we all know her, Bonnie Blue Butler, in Marietta, Georgia. Filled with both tears and laughter, it was a touching tribute to a woman who always claimed she “peaked at age five”. It began with a video tribute, including all of her scenes from GWTW and also a scene from Bambi (she was the voice of young Faline). Speakers included Cammie’s son Matt Conlon, Chris Sullivan, a long time Gone with the Wind enthusiast and collector (whose collection is housed at the GWTW Museum in Marietta), and Mickey Kuhn, who portrayed Beau as a child in GWTW.…
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Movie of the Month: No Man of Her Own
No surprise, since we’re having Carole Lombard month, that this month’s movie is the only Clark and Carole film, No Man of Her Own, from 1932. Thanks to the legendary romance of Clark and Carole that would begin about four years later, this film has now become a fan favorite, whereas maybe if Clark’s co-star hadn’t been Carole it would be dismissed as another soapy melodrama. But actually there is some substance in it, and even overlooking the Clark and Carole legend, it’s a good little pre-code. Clark is Babe Stewart, a womanizing card cheat. As he says to a pining Dorothy Mackaill early on, “You know I’m a hit…
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Movie of the Month: Teacher’s Pet
************************ Note: The gallery is currently not working. I am hard at work on it and I hope it will be back up soon! Sorry for the inconvienence! ************************* School’s back in, so what better time to select Teacher’s Pet as the Movie of the Month! Teacher’s Pet, made in 1958, was one of the best of Clark’s final years on screen. Unlike some of his previous films, he seems at ease, at peace and, dare we say it, actually having fun with is role (should we thank Kay Gable for all of that? I think so..) Clark is Jim Gannon, a hard-nosed editor of a New York newspaper. When he receives…
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Gossip Friday: Silent Scarlett
Since TCM has selected Vivien Leigh as their Star of the Month this month (set your DVRs!), here’s some gossip on her from September 1940: …of all Hollywood’s femmes fatales, we call your attention first to Vivien Leigh. If you lived in Hollywood this wouldn’t be necessary. You’d be aware of her–with reason! It looks as if there’d be no liomit to Vivien’s conquests when–a little less enthralled by her Romeo, Laurence Olivier–she becomes aware that other men walk the earth, too. For those men who’ve managed to impress themselves on the Leigh consciousness, usually through working with her, are quick to admit her natural attraction. “There’s always something more…
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Gossip Friday: Boom Town Pranks
From August 1940: You may have read about Clark Gable getting a split lip in a fight scene for “Boom Town” and how the studio had to give him a few days to let it heal. Here’s the sequel to the story, which contains a typical Hollywood chuckle. Gable was called on for the closeups after the fight some time later, and after a fake blow at close quarters, when the scene was in the can, he grinned and carelessly spit out a tooth! Everyone saw the blank space in his front row of teeth and consternation reigned. When Clark had enjoyed his joke, he revealed that he had painted…
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Movie of the Month: Never Let Me Go
This month, we’re skipping ahead to 1953… Never Let Me Go pairs aging Gable with one of the top stars of the late 1940’s/early 1950’s, Gene Tierney. A simple, rather old-hat storyline: Gable is an American newsman stationed in Russia. He pursues and falls in love with Marya (Tierney), a Russian ballerina. American/Russian relations being what they were in those days, their marriage is frowned upon. Even more frowned upon? Gable’s idea of taking Marya home to the U.S. Efforts to get her passport are stalled and then altogether stopped. Gable is tricked into getting on a plane without her and is refused admission back into Russia. Back in the States, he…
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Movie of the Month: Wife vs. Secretary
This month, fittingly our one year anniversary, I am starting a new blog feature. I am going to be featuring one of Clark’s films every month, as the “Movie of the Month”. In no particular order really. Hopefully it will showcase some movies that Clark fans have yet to see and will pique their interest. So, for the inaugural month, I am selecting one of my very favorites: Wife vs. Secretary, from 1936. This film is pretty much everything you would want from a fluffy 1930’s comedy/drama. The cast is stellar: Clark, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, May Robson and a young Jimmy Stewart in a supporting role. 1936 begins what I…
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“It Happened” at the Movies
I recently saw Sex and the City 2 and imagine my surprise to see Clark on the big screen with Chris Noth and Sarah Jessica Parker–I literally almost choked on my popcorn! “Carrie” and “Big” are in bed in their hotel room trying to find something to watch on TV. Big changes the channel and, lo and behold, It Happened One Night appears– the famous hitch hiking scene. He exclaims, “Here we go!” Carrie seems uninterested but comments that Claudette Colbert is pretty. Big tells her what a classic the film is and she says, “Oh, so you saw it when it was originally released?” The scene ends with them…
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Gossip Friday: On the set of Boom Town
From September 1940: Here’s mud in your eye! Being a movie star does have its unpleasant moments, too. For example, in “Boom Town”, Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable do a sequence in which they meet in a wooden plank stretched over a mud-hole. Each tries to make the other get out of the way. In the course of this scuffling, someone starts shooting down the street and both, for safety’s sake, dive headlong into the mud. Coming up first, Clark good naturedly tries to shake hands with Spencer, who says, “Aw nuts!” and walks away. Mud-holes are nothing new to Clark. He did a nosedive into one in “Too Hot…