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{Photos} Dancing Lady (1933)
This week’s Movie of the Week, Dancing Lady, being the big all-star MGM musical that is was, had quite the plethora of publicity photos taken for it. There are some lovely shots of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford together: Most of the publicity shots are of Joan alone. There’s a whole set of her in this beaded dress, and they are beautiful: But then there are several of these of her half-naked in this odd outfit: And a bunch of her in the gym, even though it’s only a brief scene: This one is cute: Clark and Joan were friendly on set, not as friendly as they had been in…
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Movie of the Week: Dancing Lady (1933)
This week, Clark Gable’s a grumpy Broadway director in Dancing Lady. Clark made no qualms about which film of his was his least favorite out of all of them–this one. In 1957, he recalled, “MGM assigned me to do a bad part in Dancing Lady with Joan Crawford—a picture I didn’t like. But as bad as the part was, it wasn’t as bad as my health…I’d lost a lot of weight. They’d been working me hard and I was tired. I told myself, ‘If I have a few operations, that will take care of my health and the part in Dancing Lady too.’ I had my appendix and tonsils out,…
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Gossip Friday: Two Worried Mothers
Letter to the editor, February 1935: We are two young mothers who feel it our duty to not let the evil influence of our cinema contaminate the innocent young minds of our children. You can imagine our distress when we found out that our little Freddie, aged ten, and Johnnie, aged eleven, had wandered into the neighborhood theater during the showing of “Dancing Lady.” We feel that such pictures are a menace to civilizaton and that they should be abolished. Our little ones now prefer to attend an evening show instead of hearing bedtime stories. “Peter Rabbit” and “Bunny Brown” are being sadly neglected these days. We wonder if such…
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Nutshell Reviews: Dancing Lady (1933)
In a Nutshell: Dancing Lady (1933) Directed by: Robert Z. Leonard Co-stars: Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Fred Astaire Synopsis: Gable is Patch Gallagher, a short-fused Broadway producer who hires down-on-her-luck ex-burlesque dancer Janie Barlow (Joan Crawford) for the chorus line of his latest show. Janie is constantly pursued by a rich playboy admirer, Tod Newton (Franchot Tone). Patch begins to have feelings for plucky Janie, but grows bitter as it becomes obvious she is wrapped up with Tod. When he promotes her to the lead in the production, Tod becomes impatient (Janie said she’d marry him if the play fell through) and pays off the Broadway powers-that-be to shut the…
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September Movie of the Month: Dancing Lady (1933)
In 1933, Clark was in a musical–but no singing and dancing for him…just brooding and yelling. In Dancing Lady, Clark is Patch Gallagher, a short-fused Broadway producer who hires down-on-her-luck ex-burlesque dancer Janie Barlow (Joan Crawford) for the chorus line of his latest show. Janie is constantly pursued by a rich playboy admirer, Tod Newton (Franchot Tone). Patch begins to have feelings for plucky Janie, but grows bitter as it becomes obvious she is wrapped up with Tod. When he promotes her to the lead in the production, Tod becomes impatient (Janie said she’d marry him if the play fell through) and pays off the Broadway powers-that-be to shut the play…
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{Moustaches for Movember Blogathon} Clark Gable: Evolution of a Moustache
This post is part of Bette Classic Movie Blog’s Moustaches for Movember Blogathon. Movember is a campaign in which men grow moustaches over the month of November to raise funds for prostate cancer. You can learn more about the cause here. You think of Clark Gable and you think of that familiar moustache (well, that and maybe the ears…) It’s funny that the mustache has become so synonomous with the image of Clark Gable, considering he didn’t want one to begin with. Clark was a clean freak, the kind who took showers multiple times a day and who reportedly shaved his chest hair because he considered all that extra…