"Va Va Voom" Star of the Day

Grace Kelly
Today let us highlight the Princess of Monaco.

Grace struck out on her own after high school, heading to New York's bright lights to try her luck. Grace worked as a model but made her acting debut on Broadway in 1949. She also had a brief stint in television. Not content with the work in New York, Grace moved to Southern California for the more prestigious part of acting -- motion pictures.

In 1951, she appeared in her first film Fourteen Hours when she was 22. It was a small part, but a start nonetheless. The following year she landed the role of Amy Kane in High Noon, a western starring Gary Cooper and Lloyd Bridges which turned out to be very popular. In 1953, Grace appeared in only one film, but it was another popular one, Mogambo. The film was a jungle drama in which fellow cast members, Clark Gable and Ava Gardner turned in masterful performances. It was also one of the best films ever released by MGM.

Must-See Movie: High Society

High Society (1956)
With a stellar cast and some catchy tunes, this is a no-brainer to see...but there are still some cons that go with the pros of how "must-see" this movie is.

Here's the story:  Jazz musician C.K. Dexter Haven (Bing Crosby) still holds a torch for his ex-wife, Rhode Island socialite Tracy Samantha Lord (Grace Kelly). He stays at a neighbor's house, bringing his full jazz band (including Louis Armstrong) to disrupt Tracy's upcoming nuptials to to a boring but wealthy man (John Lund).  But that's not the only conflict.  Reporter Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) from Spy Magazine, a fictional tabloid newspaper, are there to cover the wedding.  They are essentially blackmailing their way in, holding on to some embarrassing information about Tracy's father.  So to prevent the tabloid from getting the true story, Tracy begins an elaborate charade, pretending to be overly snobbish and frivolous, as well as introducing the tabloid to the wrong people.  To make matters even more confusing, Mike falls in love with Tracy, and she wakes up on the day of her wedding confused and unsure of what to do.

Crushing on Cary Grant

One of those that aged quite gracefully, we're crushing today on Cary Grant.

Happy Birthday, Cary!

Cary's birthday is this Friday, January 16.

Must-See Movie: Teacher's Pet

Teacher's Pet (1958)
I got the chance to watch this movie over the weekend (as Dyno watched football). It's yet another Doris Day comedy where a man pretends to be someone else after he finds out she hates him, although she's never met him.

James Gannon (played by Clark Gable), the gruff city editor of a newspaper, believes that the only way to learn the business is by doing, and so thinks college education is superfluous. Thus he's not pleased when he's invited to lecture at a college journalism class. He turns down the invitation and writes a nasty letter to the instructor. Yet his editor-in-chief orders him to go. When Gannon shows up to confront Professor Erica Stone (played by Doris Day), he finds her attractive. Before he is able to introduce himself and apologize for the letter, Erica reads it aloud and mocks Gannon before the entire class.

Humiliated, he decides to join the class to show her up, posing as a wallpaper salesman named Jim Gallagher. As they circle around their mutual attraction, they both begin to gain respect for each other's approaches to reporting news.

I found myself laughing out loud many times during the movie. Especially whenever the character of Dr. Pine was on-screen. Played by Gig Young, the character is the successful doctor that Gannon sees as his competition for Erica's affections. Young has played these types of characters before (especially in Doris Day movies), and he's always hilarious. His role in this film, however is different in that we don't know what kind of relationship he has with Erica.

Gable is great in this comedic role (much like his gruff It Happened One Night character), and his reactions are priceless. The only thing distracting is the obvious age difference between Gable and Day. Apparently the movie was deliberately filmed in black & white in an attempt to disguise Clark Gable's age and weight. And other actors turned down the role, seeing that there was such a huge age difference (Cary Grant and James Stewart, allegedly -- although it didn't seem to bother Grant in That Touch of Mink). But all in all it was a fun movie to watch and laugh along with.

Monday's This & That

Things are really ramping up around here... I'm getting ready for a well-deserved 2 1/2-week vacation, and that means cranking away at work to get all my shtuff done so I can get the hell outta Dodge! As a result, I haven't found much time to do anything fun lately, but I have found a few choice tidbits of frivolity here and there...

Lighters, handbags, coasters, and other goodies featuring pin-up girls, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, and more retro characters are for sale at PinupgirlLighters.com. They're enough to make smoking cool again!

Go back in time by checking out these WWII posters...

And Wired provides us with Air Hostesses of Yesteryear. Fly the friendly skies with an air of nostalgia!

Well, back to my march... And remember, VOTES FOR WOMEN!

Crushing on Cary Grant

Adorable (and hysterical) in "Arsenic and Old Lace"
and "My Favorite Wife."

Dreams Almost Squashed

Clark Gable
Failed his first screen test at Warner Brothers because Darryl F. Zanuck thought his ears were too large.

Clint Eastwood
In his early days he was told his speech was too soft, he was too tall, he squinted too much, and his teeth needed capping. "That's all still true today," he says, "but the attitude is a little different now."

Cary Grant
A casting director once informed him that he was bowlegged and that his neck was too thick.

Fred Astaire
The report on an early audition read, "Can't sing, can't act. Dances a little."

[source]

Happy Birthday, Cary Grant!

Archibald Alexander Leach would be 104 tomorrow!
(Tomorrow is Cary's birthday, but the Lounge will be closed for MLK Day, so...)

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."

"I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until
finally I became that person. Or he became me.”

"I improve on misquotation."

"I think that making love is the best form of exercise."

"To succeed with the opposite sex, tell her you're impotent.
She can't wait to disprove it."

"Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."

Friday's This & That

Alrighty, let's see what going on in the world today...

Looks like GQ named their 50 Most Stylish Men in the Past 50 Years... among them is our beloved Steve McQueen...yummy. Also making the list are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Paul Newman, Tom Brady, Johnny Depp, and Cary Grant. Some I strongly disagree with: Woody Allen, for one! I know style is different than attractive, but gimme a break.

Also...Halloween is coming, and I think Disney is always one of the first to jump on it. Today Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure kickoff the holidays with decorations, food, and events surrounding Halloween. I'm ready for Halloween: I've already got my costume -- then again, I bought it back in February.

I'll be out on Monday coming back from a long weekend in S.F. See you on Tuesday!

"Va Va Voom" Star of the Day

Rita Hayworth
Yesterday was Rita's birthday, so I thought it only fitting to honor her today.

Born in to a family of professional dancers, Margarita Carmen Cansino danced on stage starting at the age of six. Attracting the attention of film producers at the age of 16, Hayworth was signed first by Fox Studios in 1935, then Columbia Pictures in 1937. After a name change from Rita Cansino to Rita Hayworth, two more years of working in B movies, and painful electrolysis to raise her hairline, Hollywood and the public began to take notice.

Rita turned heads when she starred with Cary Grant in Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings. Soon she was in great demand and was borrowed by other studios until her part in Rouben Mamoulian's Blood and Sand with Tyrone Power solidified her new-found stardom.

Incredibly photogenic, Rita was dazzling in Technicolor, and her head of long, flowing hair became her best remembered attribute. The "love goddess" image was cemented with Bob Landry's 1941 Life magazine photograph of her (kneeling on a bed in a silk and lace nightgown), which caused a sensation and became -- at over five million copies -- one of the most requested wartime pinups.

Naturally shy and reclusive, Hayworth was the antithesis of the characters she played. She once complained "Men go to bed with Gilda, but they wake up with me". But those who knew her best knew she was kind, loving, and enjoyed her solitude.

Must-See Movies: My Favorite Wife & Move Over Darling

For the first time in Lounge history (add pompous fanfare here) I'm endorsing two movies at once:

• My Favorite Wife (1940) with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, and
• Move Over Darling (1963) with Doris Day and James Garner.

If you mention one movie, you have to mention the other, because the the 1963 flick is a remake of the 1940 film -- and both are excellent.

In both movies, Ellen Arden (Dunne and Day) arrives 7 years after being given up for dead in a shipwreck, to find her husband Nick (Grant and Garner) just remarried. Ellen decides to crash the honeymoon before the marriage can be consummated (ah, the 40's and 60's!) and to surprise her husband. But that's not even the half of it. Nick finds out that while Ellen was stranded on an island for 7 years, she was not alone. As Ricky Ricardo says, "She's got some 'splaining to do!"


I do tend to lean towards the 1963 version of this story for three reasons: 1) the comedy is higher with more pratfalls and slapstick, 2) the supporting roles played by Don Knotts (the shoe salesman), Edgar Buchanan (the judge), and Thelma Ritter (the mother-in-law), and 3) I could watch James Garner in any movie he makes.

Some interesting trivia: The 1963 film was originally titled "Something's Got to Give" and was to star Marilyn Monroe in the lead role. Monroe died before completion and so the movie was reshot entirely and released a year later than originally planned. Also just a year before, Day and Grant starred together in That Touch of Mink. I wonder if in between takes she asked his advice about doing the remake?

Classic Movie Quote of the Day

"You can either be an honest old maid or a happy liar."

-- Audrey Meadows in Touch of Mink

to Doris Day, convincing her to play games
to get Cary Grant