Classic Movie Hub Blog

Monsters and Matinees: B-Movie or Kids’ Film? ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’ is Both

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Toni Ruberto

B Movie or Kids’ Film?
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is Both

This is tough to admit, but sometimes horror and sci-fi B-movies don’t have a particularly scary monster. Sometimes, they are just … bizarre.

That’s true in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Until I saw this infamous 1964 B-movie, I equated Martians with that creepy three-fingered hand with suction-cup tips on aliens in George Pal’s The War of the Worlds.

But in SCCM, the Martians wear green tights, matching capes and a football helmet with weird metal protrusions that give the appearance of a Halloween costume gone wrong. I can deal with that.

Wouldn’t you be grumpy like Voldar (Vincent Beck) if you had to wear that outfit? That’s probably why he doesn’t want Santa Claus (John Call) and his holiday cheer on Mars in *Santa Claus Conquers the Martians*.

SCCM is the seasonal equivalent of Plan 9 From Outer Space. Both were made with little money (and look it), both were panned on their release, yet both have persevered to gain “legendary” status as cult classics.

It almost didn’t happen, though, until SCCM was pulled from obscurity with an appearance on The Canned Film Festival, a 1986 late-night TV series, and the Mystery Science Theatre 3,000 Christmas special in 1991. In 2011, it “won” a Fandango poll when it topped the list of the 10 worst Christmas movies.

Since then, the movie is frequently shown around the country and has had multiple stage versions, including a recent one in Denver. And why not? In a time when holiday fare has the same “boy/girl meet in a small town and discover the meaning of Christmas,” a strange sci-fi seasonal film just might provide some holiday cheer – unusual as it may be. Let’s start with the story.

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Martian parents are worried. Their kids are depressed. They’ve lost their appetites, don’t rest without sleep spray, and blankly stare for hours at the “video set.” (Ah, too much screen time is not just a problem on Earth.)

Like all Martian children, King Kimar’s kids are glued to KID-TV, broadcasting Santa Claus from the North Pole all the way to Mars. That’s Pia Zadora at right as young Girmar.

Even King Kimar (Leonard Hicks), the Martian leader, is having trouble with his son (Bomar) and daughter (Girmar) who binge-watch “ridiculous Earth programs” broadcast from KID-TV where it’s Santa Claus all the time. (Note the cleverness of “mar” for Martians in their names: Kimar for King Martian, Bomar for Boy Martin and Girmar for Girl Martian.)

The king and his council seek advice from the 800-year-old wise one who identifies the problem immediately: the Martian kids were never kids! They never played, laughed or had fun. So while Earth children are joyfully anticipating Santa’s arrival, the kids on Mars are pouting and asking questions like “What’s a doll” and “What’s tender loving care?”

Martian kids see Santa Claus show off his Martian toys in a broadcast from Earth’s KID-TV.

So what’s a Martian King to do? Kidnap Santa Claus to bring holiday cheer to Mars, of course.

But not everyone is into the idea – namely council member Voldar (he has a handlebar mustache, so we know he’s evil).

“All this trouble over a fat little man in a red suit,” Voldar grumbles.

Wait until he sees all the fat little men in red suits on Earth. Who is the real Santa? Well, little Earthlings, Billy and Betty can help with that, especially if it involves a trip to the North Pole.

Martians, led by King Kimar, center, stumble upon Billy and Betty on Earth. Although the king is kind, Voldar (left) has other plans for Santa and the kids.

But these kids quickly realize Voldar has it in for them. And once the Martians find Santa (who charms their most evil weapon, Torg, a tin foil robot, they’re all on a road trip to Mars for equal doses of peril, laughs and weirdness.

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Santa Claus Conquers the Martians sprung from the imagination of producer and writer Paul Jacobson who wanted to create family entertainment. He later called it “a yuletide science-fiction fantasy.” I don’t know how the film played on its original release since it’s such a mish-mash of oddities. Most of the Martians are kind, but there are children in peril scenes, which are always uncomfortable at best – even if it involves an attacking polar bear who is clearly just a guy in a furry suit.

Our villain Voldar is a bit goofy despite trying to kill Santa and the kids (there’s that peril again). When he leads a group to sabotage Santa’s factory and stop the “toy nonsense,” it plays out like a comedy bit with The Three Stooges.

The first meeting between the Earth kids and their frowny Martian counterparts doesn’t go as well as the cheerful King hoped. Luckily, Santa is about to make an appearance.

But I do love the excitable script that is packed with statements that demand an exclamation point: “Something is happening to the children of Mars!” …. “We need Santa Claus on Mars!”… “Now you belong to Mars!”

How does Santa Claus conquer the Martians? Let’s just say the big finale isn’t as much a battle for survival as it is a kids’ fight with bubbles. Terrifying? No. High drama? Not even close. But is it a Yuletide science-fiction fantasy B-movie? Absolutely.

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Trivia

This was the first film to feature Mrs. Claus.

The Martian King’s daughter, Girmar, was played by 8-year-old Pia Zadora – best remembered as the Golden Globe winner for the incest film Butterfly.

The wonderful actor playing Santa Claus is John Call, who was appearing on Broadway in Oliver!

It’s widely reported that SCCM used the same military stock footage seen in the opening of Dr. Strangelove.

* * * * *

One last note. If you’ve seen Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, you’ll notice it bears more than a striking resemblance to SCCM (although Nightmare is far superior in all ways). Both have a leader (King Kimar on Mars, Jack Skellington in Halloweentown) who wants to do good by his people. Each kidnaps Santa Claus (pronounced Santy Claus on Mars, Sandy Claws in Halloween Town) to bring Christmas home with disastrous results. Each film has a ridiculously catchy theme song, too. I can’t help but think that Burton has seen SCCM and it influenced his creativity in some way.

Where to watch SCCM

It’s available for sale; to rent on such services such as Google Play and iTunes; and to stream on Amazon Prime.

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–Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.

Posted in Monsters and Matinees, Posts by Toni Ruberto | Tagged B-movies, Classic Movies, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Sci-Fi Movies, science-fiction | 6 Comments

The Bridge on the River Kwai: Honor, Duty, and Madness

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Annmarie Gatti

The Bridge on the River Kwai: Honor, Duty and Madness – an Unforgettable Film even 62 Years Later…

In honor of the anniversary of the US theatrical release of The Bridge on the River Kwai on December 14, 1957, a mere 62 years ago today, I am reprinting an article that I wrote for Sony GetTV a few years ago about the film… This movie left such an indelible impression on me, I was compelled to write about it, and I’d like to share it with you now. If you haven’t seen the film, I strongly recommend it, but brace yourself for a powerful and quite unforgettable film. Here is my article in its entirety, with some images added for good measure…

The Bridge on the River Kwai, winner of 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Alec Guinness)

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I’ve been a classic movie fan for as long as I can remember. Whether watching screwball comedies or romantic dramas with my mother, or learning all about The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, and W.C. Fields courtesy of my father, some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around enjoying these wonderful films. As time went on, it became second nature for me to watch these films over and over again. I sought out new classics to enjoy, but it was only on rare occasion when I would step out of my genre ‘comfort zone’ and purposely watch a war film.

That said, I distinctly remember the first time I watched The Bridge On The River Kwai. It just so happened to be on television one night as I was flipping through the channels, so I dutifully decided to watch it for no other reason than to simply cross if off the list of movies that I hadn’t seen yet. I was fully aware of the film’s reputation and accolades, so I was relatively sure that I’d appreciate it in some capacity – but I really wasn’t prepared at all for the impact it would have on me. It’s hard for me to put it into words except to say that I still think about the conflicts and implications of the film, and I was absolutely stunned by the unfolding of the final events. Perhaps The New York Times said it best in their original review of the film on December 19, 1957: “Brilliant is the word, and no other.”

Alec Guinness as Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson

Directed by the now-legendary David Lean, The Bridge On The River Kwai is an epic WWII war film starring Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, and William Holden. The 1957 movie was adapted from the 1952 best-selling novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai by Pierre Boulle, which, although largely fictitious, was based on Boulle’s own war experiences. It also pulls historical context from the construction of the POW-built 1942-43 Burma-Siam railway.

The film is set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma (filmed in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) where camp commandant Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and newly-arrived prisoner, British officer Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), clash over Saito’s insistence that POW officers work as laborers to build a railway bridge. This begins an intense battle of wills that ultimately leads to an ironic outcome as Nicholson tasks himself and his men (officers included) with building the bridge – not only a bridge, but a ‘proper bridge’ – to raise morale and showcase British superiority to the Japanese. Meanwhile, American prisoner Commander Shears (William Holden) manages to escape the un-escapable camp, but is later coerced into joining a British-led commando team that must return to the camp and destroy the bridge. Now, I don’t want to spoil the ending of this exquisite and powerful film for you, so I’ll just say that the iconic last line of the movie captures it all: “Madness! Madness!”

Sessue Hayakawa as camp commandant Colonel Saito

So what is it that draws me to this film? Yes, it’s the masterful direction of David Lean. Yes, it’s the dynamic performances of the stellar cast. Yes, it’s the beautiful cinematography. Yes, it’s the scale and scope of it all. And, yes, it’s even more. But what really sets this film apart for me is the tremendous battle of wills that plays out between Saito and Nicholson. Each man is bound by a strict moral code of honor and duty that compels him to win at all costs. If Saito fails to complete the bridge on time, he is bound to perform ritual suicide; Nicholson would rather risk death than yield to Saito’s commands which violate wartime law. And, although Saito and Nicholson are stubbornly and diametrically opposed, they are essentially operating under the same code of honor. As the conflict evolves, honor and duty are again taken to extremes as Nicholson becomes obsessed with building the bridge as a testament to British ingenuity – seemingly oblivious to the fact that he will now be aiding the enemy, a potentially treasonous act. It is this dynamic that makes me wonder… Is it honor and duty that eventually drive these men to ‘madness’? Or is it honor and duty that help these men stay sane under extreme and extraordinary circumstances? How could I not thoroughly enjoy a movie that can immerse me in questions like these?

Hayakawa and Guinness are each magnificent in their roles. Although playing disciplined and unyielding officers, their performances are laced with nuances that allow us to understand and appreciate their characters’ mindsets, dilemmas, and subsequent choices, painting compelling portraits of honor and duty that are inherently and tragically flawed.

Box office draw William Holden plays the cynical but pragmatic Shears whose storyline adds an action/adventure aspect to the film and, more importantly, provides the ultimate conflict that propels us to the spectacularly ‘mad’ finale of the film.

David Lean, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa on set of The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge On The River Kwai was the first of David Lean’s five epic films and the third of six movies that he made with Alec Guinness. It was released in the US on December 14, 1957, taking in a reported $17M+, which made it the highest-grossing film of 1957. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, wining seven — including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Music, Scoring. It won Best Screenplay for author Pierre Boulle, although the actual screenwriters were Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson who unfortunately were blacklisted at the time; however, they were both awarded their Oscars posthumously in December 1984 and their screenwriting credits were restored by the WGA in 2000. Sessue Hayakawa received his only Academy Award nomination for this film (for Best Supporting Actor), but lost out to Red Buttons for Sayonara. In 1997, the film was inducted into the National Film Registry by the US Library of Congress.

As much as I love this film, I am sure I am grossly understating its impact on film history and artistry. I will simply sum things up by, once again, quoting that New York Times review (and I couldn’t agree more): “Here is a film we guarantee you’ll not forget.”

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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub

PS: I would be remiss if I didn’t add this gif from the iconic ending scene…

Posted in Films, Posts by Annmarie Gatti | Tagged alec guinness, david lean, sessue hayakawa, the bridge on the river kwai, william holden | 3 Comments

Silver Screen Standards: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Jennifer Garlen

Silver Screen Standards: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Our new house got a surprise addition last month when a neighbor showed up with a little stray kitten in her arms. Mojo Jinx Mephisto is now an official member of the family, bringing the total number of cats up to three, and I spend a lot of time with at least one fuzzy companion asleep on my lap. That gives me ample opportunity to contemplate cats in classic movies, but the one that I think about most is the kitten in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), a film noir gem starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and Kirk Douglas. Directed by Lewis Milestone, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is a terrific noir picture with powerful performances from some of the genre’s biggest stars, but its opening stands out for its focus on the childhood of a femme fatale and the process by which she becomes a dangerous woman whose love is both strange and fatal to those around her.

Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, and newcomer Kirk Douglas star as the adult characters in the 1946 film noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.

While Barbara Stanwyck plays the adult Martha through most of the film, Janis Wilson tackles the role of the young Martha during the dramatic opening sequence, in which we first see Martha trying for the fourth time to run away from her wealthy but vindictively cruel aunt (Judith Anderson). Wilson, who only appeared in seven films during her brief acting career, is a provocative choice for the teenaged version of Martha because she looks quite a lot like Judith Anderson, with sharp angles to her face and eyes narrowed in calculation. She’s no angel even at thirteen, but we get enough of her backstory in the opening to understand that Mrs. Ivers has already been hard at work destroying her niece’s innocence and capacity for simple happiness. Mrs. Ivers insults Martha’s parents, saving particular scorn for the penniless young man, Mr. Smith, who married Martha’s mother and carried her away from the Ivers family home. Determined to eliminate every tie between Martha and her dead father, Mrs. Ivers has even had Martha’s surname legally changed to Ivers instead of Smith. It’s no wonder that Martha keeps trying to escape her aunt’s clutches, but the Ivers family is so powerful in Iverstown that only Martha’s young friend, Sam (Darryl Hickman), is brave enough to help her.

Throughout this first act of the story, Martha’s kitten functions as both a plot device and symbol. The film opens with Martha and Sam hiding out on a train as they hatch their latest escape plan, with Martha clutching a tabby kitten named Bundles close to her. Like Martha, the kitten is half-grown, not a cute little ball of fur anymore but clearly so beloved by Martha that she cannot bear to leave it behind. We soon find out that Mrs. Ivers, of course, hates the cat, and Martha has to keep it well away from the vicious old lady. Like Martha’s father and Sam, the cat is viewed by Mrs. Ivers as a worthless interloper, but the cat is also like Sam and the late Mr. Smith because Martha truly loves them. We can read the kitten as a symbolic stand-in for both Martha and her father and friend. It’s inevitable, then, that Mrs. Ivers takes the first opportunity to beat the kitten mercilessly with her cane. The camera doesn’t show us the harm inflicted on the kitten, but we hear Bundles yowling in agony as Mrs. Ivers strikes with an expression of pure hatred on her pinched face.

Back at her aunt’s house after her latest attempt to run away, Martha holds her beloved kitten while talking to Walter, who might or might not have told the adults where Martha and Sam had gone.

This act of extreme cruelty finally sends Martha over the edge; she snatches the cane from her aunt’s grip and strikes the old woman with it, causing Mrs. Ivers to tumble to her death at the bottom of the stairs. Act One ends with Martha, now the sole heir to the Ivers fortune, freed from her aunt but controlled by her opportunistic tutor, Mr. O’Neil (Roman Bohnen), who helps to cover up the truth about Mrs. Ivers’ death so that he can marry his son, Walter, to Martha and thus gain access to the Ivers wealth.

This opening sequence gives us a lot to ponder about the creation of a femme fatale. At thirteen, Martha is already hardened, manipulative, and rebellious, but she’s still a child capable of deep, pure love for her kitten. Her bad qualities are partly her aunt’s influence making her more like her aunt and partly her attempts to resist that influence. If you’ve ever held a kitten, you know that kittens are curious, contrary, vulnerable, and full of wide-eyed life, very much like an adolescent human. They’re so easily hurt but are recklessly brave in spite of it, eager to experience everything life has to offer. Martha’s kitten embodies those qualities in Martha as well as her ability to love something for its own sake. Mrs. Ivers wants to destroy everything alive and good about Martha, qualities symbolized by the kitten, but Martha’s ultimate act of defiance ironically signals the death of everything Martha was really trying to protect.

All grown up, Martha has become a destructive femme fatale with a deadly hold over her alcoholic husband, Walter.

For cat lovers like myself, it might be deeply gratifying to see brutal Mrs. Ivers beaten with her own cane – it’s poetic justice, after all – but it seems like Martha is doomed no matter what she does. If she lets the old lady kill her kitten, she loses, but if she strikes back to protect or avenge it, she still loses. That’s the kind of world film-noir presents, where you can’t save your kitten and you can’t save your soul, even if you try. Martha learns that lesson early in life, and it explains her behavior as an adult. Everything she does later stems from that night when seeing her aunt’s cruelty to an innocent kitten changed her from a victim to a killer with no way back. When her old friend, Sam (Van Heflin), turns back up in Iverstown many years later, the consequences of that night catch up with Martha in dramatic fashion, but something in her has already been dead for a very long time.

Because The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is in the public domain, you can easily watch it online or find it on a streaming service. The film marked the silver screen debut of Kirk Douglas and earned an Oscar nomination for its original story by John Patrick. You can see more of Janis Wilson in Now, Voyager (1942), Watch on the Rhine (1943), and My Reputation (1946). For more cats in classic film noir, check out This Gun for Hire (1942) and The Third Man (1949), or delve into horror noir with Jacques Tourneur’s iconic Cat People (1942).

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Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.

Jennifer is a former college professor with a Ph.D. in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.

Posted in Posts by Jennifer Garlen, Silver Screen Standards | Tagged barbara stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Lewis Milestone, lizabeth scott, the strange love of barbara Ivers, van heflin | 4 Comments

Classic Movie Travels: Burl Ives

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Annette Bochenek

Classic Movie Travels: Burl Ives – Illinois, Los Angeles and Valley Forge

Burl Ives

In reflecting upon the many stars who entertained audiences throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood, it is easy to notice that the vast majority of these individuals were multi-talented. Their combination of many skills made them highly employable and delightful to audiences all over the world. Though Burl Ives did not initially intend to pursue a career in entertainment, he would soon explore this creative path and prove himself to be a man of many endearing talents.

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was born in Hunt City, Illinois, an unincorporated town in Jasper County. His father, Levi, was a farmer and contractor for the county. His mother, Cordelia, worked on the farm, in addition to tending to each of the seven children in the Ives family. As a boy, Ives was a Lone Scout until the group merged with the Boy Scouts of America. Ives and his mother enjoyed singing while Ives played the banjo. The duo was once overheard singing in the garden by Ives’s uncle; charmed, Ives’s uncle invited Ives to sing at a soldiers’ reunion, with the young Ives performing a moving rendition of “Barbara Allen”.

As the years went on, Ives enrolled at the Eastern Illinois State Teachers College in Charleston, Illinois. He was an active player on the school football team and a member of the Charleston Chapter of The Order of DeMolay but soon left the school during his junior year. While attending his English class lecture on Beowulf, he felt that he was wasting his time and walked out the door. The story goes that his professor made a curt remark as Ives was leaving and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the glass on the way out.

A young Ives with his guitar

Throughout the 1930s, Ives traveled all over the country as a musician. He worked many odd jobs and played his banjo during his travels, essentially living as a 20th-century troubadour. While in Richmond, Indiana, Ives recorded “Behind the Clouds”, though it was rejected and destroyed by the Starr Piano Company’s Gennett label. Later, he was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing the bawdy “Foggy Dew”.

By 1931, he was performing regularly on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. Around the same time, he returned to school, attending the Indiana State Teachers College. Soon after, his education continued at the Julliard School in New York.

While in New York, Ives made his Broadway debut in The Boys from Syracuse. He and his fellow actor friend, Eddie Albert, both left the show for Los Angeles and shared an apartment in Hollywood’s Beachwood Canyon community.

In 1940, Ives had his own radio show called The Wayfaring Stranger. He popularized many traditional folk songs, including “The Blue Tail Fly”, “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, and numerous others. He also sang regularly with the Almanacs, a folk-singing group.

By 1942, Ives found himself drafted into the U.S. Army, spending time at Camp Dix and Camp Upton. While at Camp Upton, he became part of the cast of Irving Berlin’s musical, This Is the Army. During his service, Ives achieved the rank of corporal and transferred to the Army Air Force once the show went to Hollywood. After an honorable discharge, Ives traveled to New York to work for CBS radio.

In 1950, Ives was blacklisted as an entertainer due to supposed ties to the Communist Party. Having cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, his blacklisting was ended and he appeared in movies. Some of his film credits include his role as Sam the Sheriff in East of Eden (1955), Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and The Big Country (1958). Ives would win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Big Country.

Ives’ Oscar win for The Big Country (1958)

Over the next few decades, Ives would continue to record music in addition to appearing in film and television roles. For more contemporary audiences, he is likely best remembered for providing the speaking and singing voice to Sam the Snowman in the Rankin/Bass NBC-TV stop-motion animated special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 1964. Ives would also provide the voice for Sam Eagle, an audio-animatronic host to former America Sings attraction at Disneyland in 1974.

Ives was the voice of Sam the Snowman in the 1964 holiday movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

In 1989, Ives announced his retirement, though he continued to perform as part of benefit concerts. He passed away from oral cancer on April 14, 1995, in his Washington home at age 85 and was buried at Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Illinois.

Today, there are many tributes and places of relevance to Ives in his home state and beyond.

At the corner of Jourdan and Van Buren in Newton, IL, visitors will find the town’s key tribute to Ives: a statue featuring Ives on a bench with his guitar. While the key feature of the memorial plaza is Ives, other Jasper County notables are also memorialized as part of this tribute.

Statue of Burl Ives in Newton, IL

Eastern Illinois University, from which Ives famously dropped out, now has a building named after Ives. The building in question is the Burl Ives Studio Hall. The school is located at 600 Lincoln Ave, Charleston, IL 61920.

The Burl Ives Art Studio Hall on the campus of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois.

Thanks to his many achievements, Ives was also inducted into the DeMolay Hall of Fame.

In 1948, Ives was listed as living at 14716 Nordhoff St. in Los Angeles, California. Here is a shot of the property today:

Ives’ Los Angeles residence

Ives continued his ties with the Boy Scouts of America and the organization inducted him in 1966. They granted him their highest honor—the Silver Buffalo Award, which is on display at the Scouting Museum in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The museum stands at 1601 Valley Forge Rd, Valley Forge, PA.

The Boy Scouts of America Museum

Though Ives continues to remain relevant to fans of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, his filmography, and strong contributions to the folk genre, he is also remembered through many other tributes in his honor.

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–Annette Bochenek for Classic Movie Hub

Annette Bochenek pens our monthly Classic Movie Travels column. You can read all of Annette’s Classic Movie Travel articles here.

Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.

Posted in Classic Movie Travels, Posts by Annette Bochenek | Tagged burl ives, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, classic movie travels, east of eden, Eddie Albert, rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, the big country | 5 Comments

Cooking with the Stars: Lucille Ball’s Apple John

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Samantha Ellis

Cooking with the Stars: Lucille Ball’s Apple John

Lucille Ball cooking

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! As the temperature drops, I’ve begun thinking about where Cooking with the Stars was at this time last year. I had decided to turn the concept into a column, but on my own blog, and I had just purchased an edition of Good Housekeeping magazine dated December of 1964. The magazine contains a mini-cookbook with a wide array of celebrity recipes perfect for the holiday season, and while last year I whipped up some delicious batches of Gina Lollobrigida‘s Christmas Wreath Cookies to send to family members, I also knew as soon as I first opened the pages that this cookbook would make a wonderful Cooking with the Stars tradition to revisit every December. So, this month I’m doing exactly that, combining this fantastic vintage find with the delightful seasonal flavors of apples in the wintertime to make an intriguing dessert originally made my an even more intriguing star: Lucille Ball!

Lucille Ball as a toddler, c. 1910s.

Lucille Désirée Ball was born on August 6, 1911, in Jamestown, New York to Désirée “DeDe” Evelyn Ball and Henry Durrell Ball, a lineman for the Bell Telephone Company. Henry was transferred often in his job, which forced the Ball family to travel place to place during Lucy’s formative years. When she was only three years old, however, Henry died of typhoid fever at the age of twenty-seven, while DeDe was pregnant with Lucy’s younger brother Fred. After her father’s passing, Lucy and her family moved in with her maternal grandparents two miles from Jamestown in a town called Celoron, NY, which at the time was a famed resort spot with a theme park by the water and lots of entertainment in the form of vaudeville and theatre.

Four years after Henry’s passing, DeDe married Edward Peterson and Lucy and Fred lived with Peterson’s strict puritan parents while the couple searched for work. When Lucy was caught admiring herself in the house’s only mirror, she was scolded and considered vain, which harmed her self-esteem for years afterward. Her stepfather saw her potential, however, and urged her to audition as a chorus girl.

Lucille Ball in a scene from Five Came Back (1939), one of my favorite film performances of hers.

The applause and feeling of gratitude that her audience gave her made Lucy hungry for a life of performing. Around the same time, she became romantically involved with a local beau who was far older than her and someone who her mother considered to be a bad influence, so DeDe decided to send Lucy to the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts, which boasted alumni like Bette Davis, in an effort to end her relationship.

Lucy took the bait, but later claimed that “All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened.” Her teachers were harsh and saw no potential for her in show business, but their criticism only lit a flame underneath her, and she began work as a model and in the chorus on stage in shows produced by the likes of Earl Carroll and Florenz Ziegfeld. She landed her fair share of bit parts in the film too, first appearing as an extra in a variety of comedies and shorts in the early thirties and eventually working her way up to substantial scenes in some of the Astaire and Rogers features like Roberta (1935) and Follow the Fleet (1936).

Two years later, Lucy landed a supporting role in yet another film alongside her distant relative Ginger Rogers in Stage Door (1937), and she even tested for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), but as far as her early work goes, I always treasure her in her role in Five Came Back (1939).

Lucille Ball and Gene Kelly in a gorgeous publicity photo for Du Barry Was a Lady (1943). Technicolor did her wonders!

After that film, Lucy’s career was somewhat stagnant; despite starring in some notable pictures like Dance, Girl Dance (1939) with Maureen O’Hara, Too Many Girls (1940), where she met the love of her life, Desi Arnaz, and The Big Street (1942) with Henry Fonda, audiences still weren’t taking notice of her in a big way just yet. It wasn’t until Ann Sothern passed on the leading role in Du Barry Was A Lady (1943) that Lucy really got the chance to shine in a Technicolor MGM production that was worthy of her larger-than-life persona.

Throughout the decade she became a bonafide movie star, appearing in a multitude of quality productions from MGM and beyond in features like Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Easy to Wed (1946), and Lured (1947).

In 1948, Ball joined the cast of My Favorite Husband, a successful radio series in which she portrayed a zany housewife. When asked to develop it for television, she was receptive to the idea, but only if she could work with her real-life husband Desi Arnaz. Their marriage was rocky at the time due to his infidelity, her jealous streak, and their demanding work schedules, and at first, the network wasn’t sure how well American viewers would handle an interracial marriage on television. It wasn’t until the couple tested the idea in a traveling stage show that CBS decided to produce I Love Lucy (1951-57).

I Love Lucy was a groundbreaking television series for its time and is still considered one of the greatest sitcoms even today.

I Love Lucy, spearheaded by Lucille Ball’s own production company Desilu Studios, proved early on that it was incredibly before its time. Not only was Desilu Studios the first TV production company helmed by a woman, it was also one of the first television shows to be filmed in front of a live studio audience, on reused adjacent sets, and most importantly, it was one of the first shows to be filmed on actual film reels rather than kinescope. Kinescope was more commonly used in the early days of television, especially for live shows such as What’s My Line? (1950-75), but the quality of these productions resulted in a far inferior print; it was Lucy’s astute decision to film her show on reels that allowed it to live on in the pristine condition that it’s in today.

After I Love Lucy reached its end, Lucille Ball continued to star in a variety of spinoffs like The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-60), The Lucy Show (1962-68), and Here’s Lucy (1968-74), while also producing shows like Star Trek (1966-70) and Mission: Impossible (1966-75), and she even starred in a few more critically acclaimed movies such as Critic’s Choice (1963) and Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968). In the final years of her life, Ball mentored other funny ladies of the small screen like Barbara Eden and Carol Burnett and starred in one final television show of her own, Life With Lucy (1986).

She passed away on April 26, 1989, at the age of seventy-seven of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. She was cremated and initially interred at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, but in 2002 her children moved her remains to her family plot at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown, New York.

Lucille Ball’s Apple John

For the filling:

2 ¾ pounds cooking apples, thinly sliced and peeled (I used Pink Lady apples)
½ cup of sugar
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup of water

For the biscuits:

2 cups Bisquick
2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons melted butter
½ cup milk

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish.
Fill casserole with apples, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon peel, lemon juice, and water. Toss together with a fork.
Bake, covered, 1 hour or until apples are tender.
Turn oven heat up to 450 degrees F.
In a bowl, combine Bisquick and sugar. Quickly stir in melted butter and milk.
Drop, by rounded tablespoonfuls, around the top edge of casserole, and one in the center of the biscuit ring.
Bake, uncovered, 12 to 15 minutes or until biscuits are golden and done.
Cool slightly. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream on top of each serving.

Makes 9 servings.

My take on Lucille Ball’s Apple John!

As soon as I read this recipe in its entirety, I believed that I had a hit on my hands. To me, it basically looks like apple pie filling with biscuits on top instead of a top and bottom pie crust, and I thought that this recipe was essentially fool-proof for that reason. Everything started out great with the preparation as I listened to Nat King Cole Christmas tunes and thinly sliced the apples, but as I poured the lemon juice into the mixture and added the lemon rind, my mind flashed back to a horrible experience that I had in my early days of making classic movie star recipes. It was another holiday season a few years ago not too unlike this one, and I spent what felt like half the day preparing Jimmy Stewart’s Apple Pie recipe. I had never made an apple pie recipe before, and as I painstakingly sliced each apple, I was so scared of the apples browning that I added more and more lemon juice, not thinking anything of how this would affect the end result. As I proudly presented and served my pie to my family, what I hoped would be a bunch of happy faces were actually sour ones, for obvious reasons!

Ultimately, I think the lemon juice did this recipe in as well, though not quite as terrible as my first apple dessert! While the vanilla ice cream balanced the sour flavor out well, I would halve the amount of lemon juice and zest, or even just omit it altogether. Who really needs lemon juice in a dessert like this, anyway? My other issue with this dish was the use of Bisquick. I had never used it before, and at the start, the biscuits seemed to mold together nicely, but the smell and taste were just strange to me, especially paired with the over-lemoned filling. I definitely enjoy the idea of a biscuit-topped apple john, but I think handmade is the best way to go here. All in all, I’m so glad that I tried Lucy’s recipe out for the holiday season, and I give it four Vincents! Her cranberry sauce recipe is still my favorite (and honestly one of my favorite Old Hollywood recipes of all time), but I think with a few adjustments, this could be a slam dunk!

Ball’s Apple John gets 4 Vincents!

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–Samantha Ellis for Classic Movie Hub

Samantha resides in West Chester, Pennsylvania and is the author of Musings of a Classic Film Addict, a blog that sheds light on Hollywood films and filmmakers from the 1930s through the 1960s. Her favorite column that she pens for her blog is Cooking with the Stars, for which she tests and reviews the personal recipes of stars from Hollywood’s golden age. When she isn’t in the kitchen, Samantha also lends her voice and classic film knowledge as cohost of the Ticklish Business podcast alongside Kristen Lopez and Drea Clark, and proudly serves as President of TCM Backlot’s Philadelphia Chapter. You can catch up with her work by following her @classicfilmgeek on Twitter.

Posted in Cooking with the Stars, Posts by Samantha Ellis | Tagged Classic Movie Recipes, cooking with the stars, Dezi Arnaz, I love Lucy, Lucille Ball | 2 Comments

A Big Thank You from CMH: The 3rd Annual “Give a Gift, Get a Gift” Promotion

Posted on November 29, 2019 by Annmarie Gatti

That’s Right, We’re Doin’ It Again!
The Give A Gift, Get a Gift Holiday Contest.

Greetings CMH Fans and Followers!

For the past 2 years, we’ve run a special holiday giveaway contest to express my sincere gratitude to our followers and our columnists. That said, I am very happy to say that the Give A Gift, Get a Gift Giveaway Contest returns again this year!

As you may know, Classic Movie Hub is a labor of love for me, one that I launched several years ago. It started out as my final project for a website development course I was taking at NYU (it was just a one-page site at that time) – and has since grown quite a bit (may I say that’s an understatement?). For me, it’s been an extremely exciting adventure that has allowed me to pursue my passion, learn an awful lot — and (truly) meet wonderful like-minded fans and bloggers, many of which I now count among my friends! Not to mention the fact that it’s mind-boggling to think that we now have over 1.1M Facebook fans, 78K Twitter fans and 45K Pinterest fans — wow — and that’s all thanks to you – the wonderful and passionate Classic Movie Community! (I know, I know… I said ‘wonderful’ too many times, but that’s how I feel…)

So here we go… Please think of this contest as my way of extending a Big Thank You to everyone who supports Classic Movie Hub… I appreciate it VERY MUCH!

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Here’s how the giveaway works:

Our monthly columns, each with a niche classic film theme, are authored by some of the best writers in the classic film community. To better acquaint you with these fabulous writers and to show them some fan love in return, this contest asks you to read as many of these featured posts as you like and leave a comment of feedback for each of those you’ve read. For every comment submitted, you get an entry into our contest. The more comments you give, the more chances you have to win!

We call the contest Give a Gift, Get a Gift… The gift you’re giving is the gift of time by reading and commenting on the post(s)… The gift you’re getting is an entry (or entries) into the contest… As for me, to show my appreciation for your participation, I have tried to put together some nice prize packages — and all of the DVDs have been purchased by me (they were not supplied by any outside company)…

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The Weekly and Grand Prize drawings:

The contest will run from now through December 28, 2019, 8PM EST. In order to qualify to win one of these prizes via this contest giveaway, you must read and comment on any of the featured posts listed below (as many as you want). For each comment submitted, you will gain one entry into the contest. However, the sooner you get started, the more chances you will have to win – because in addition to the Grand Prizes awarded at the end of the contest, we will also be giving away one DVD a week (as listed below). And, if you win a DVD during one of the weekly drawings, you are STILL ELIGIBLE to win one of the Grand or Runner Up Prizes at the end of the contest! United States (all 50 states) and Canadian residents are eligible this time. All prizes will be awarded via random drawings. Prizes will be shipped to our winners in mid-January.

Dec 7: Christmas in Connecticut DVD (1 winner announced Dec 8 at 8PM)
Dec 14: Christmas in Connecticut DVD (1 winner announced Dec 15 at 8PM)
Dec 21: Christmas in Connecticut DVD (1 winner announced Dec 22 at 8PM)
Dec 28: Christmas in Connecticut DVD (1 winner announced Dec 29 at 8PM)
Dec 31: Grand Prize Packages (a total of 5 winners… each winner will be announced around midnight on Dec 31, to help ring in the New Year)
- Grand Prize #1: winner’s choice of 4 DVDs (listed below) + one surprise gift
- Grand Prize #2: winner’s choice of 4 DVDs (listed below) + one surprise gift
- Grand Prize #3: winner’s choice of 4 DVDs (listed below) + one surprise gift
- Runner Up Prize #1: winner’s choice of 3 DVDs (listed below)
- Runner Up Prize #2: winner’s choice of 3 DVDs (listed below)

We will announce each week’s winner on Twitter @ClassicMovieHub or this blog, depending how you entered, as noted above.

See full rules below.

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Here are the DVDs up for grabs (winner’s choice of 3 or 4, as noted above, and while supplies last):

Alfred Hitchcock: 20 Films (The Lady Vanishes 1938, The Farmer’s Wife 1928, The Manxman 1926, Easy Virtue 1926, Jamaica Inn 1939, The Lodger 1926, The Ring 1927, Young and Innocent 1937, Rich and Strange 1932, The Thirty-Nine Steps 1935, Secret Agent 1936, Champagne 1928, Blackmail 1929, Juno and the Paycock 1930, Sabotage 1936, The Skin Game 1931, Number Seventeen 1932, The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Cheney Vase, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, trailers)
An Affair to Remember
An American in Paris
The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (39 episodes, 4 films) (includes TV episodes starring Ronald Howard, as well as films including The Woman in Green starring Basil Rathbone)
The Apartment
Barefoot in the Park
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Bullitt
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Cabaret
Carousel
Casablanca
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Father of the Bride
Fiddler on the Roof
Funny Face
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly / Hang ‘Em High
Hello Dolly
Heroes of the Old West (20 TV episodes, 10 films) (includes McLintock and Santa Fe Trail, plus some episodes of The Lone Ranger)
House Boat
How to Marry a Millionaire
The Incredible Mr. Limpet
John Wayne Tribute Collection (25 films plus documentary) (includes Angel and the Badman McLintock and Sagebrush Trail plus a documentary called The American West of John Ford)
The King and I
Life with Father / Father’s Little Dividend
Ma and Pa Kettle, Vol 2. (Four Films: At the Fair, On Vacation, At Home, At Wakiki)
The Music Man
North by Northwest
Oklahoma
Paris When It Sizzles
Penny Serenade
Rio Bravo
The Roaring Twenties
Roman Holiday
Sabrina
Second Hand Lions
Send Me No Flowers
Singin’ in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
Spellbound
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
True Grit
West Side Story

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Here are the links to the blog articles…
(enter as many times as you like… 1 comment on 1 post = 1 entry):

NOTE: if for any reason you encounter a problem commenting on any of the blog posts, please feel free to tweet or DM us, or send an email to clas…@gmail.com and we will be happy to create the entry for you.

ALSO: Please allow us 48 hours to approve your comments. Sorry about that, but we are overwhelmed with spam, and must sort through 100s of comments every day.

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Last but not least, the Rules:

Contest will run from Nov 29, 2019 to Dec 28, 2019 at 8pm EST.
Limited to United States (yes, all 50 states can enter this time!) and Canadian residents only.
Every time you read a column article (from the list above) and leave an eligible feedback comment, you will receive one entry into the Contest.
Only one comment per post/article is counted as an entry.
Each comment must be positive, and must be more detailed than simply “great post!” Some good examples:
- “Karen, I really enjoyed learning about the noir gem, WICKED WOMAN. Who knew the writing/directing duo behind that film created the story of Doris Day/Rock Hudson classic PILLOW TALK?? Thanks for teaching me something new about classic film!”
- “Laura, I learned so much about Hopalong Cassidy and other western greats in WESTERN FILM BOOK LIBRARY- Part 2. That was a fascinating list of recommendations. Thanks!”
Yes, you can win the weekly DVD giveaway, and still be eligible to win a Grand Prize or Runner Up Prize package.
Spammers (i.e. using bots to make generic comments) are ineligible.
Updates will be posted on CMH social media channels on a regular basis.
Each winner will be notified by email or Twitter and will have 48 hours to respond with their shipping information or a new winner may be chosen. If any Prize or Prize notification is returned as undeliverable, the winner may be disqualified, and an alternate winner may be selected.
Prizes will ship after the contest period is over. Please allow up to 2 to 4 weeks for prize delivery. Classic Movie Hub is not responsible for prizes lost or stolen.
Family of Classic Movie Hub is not eligible for entry……

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The more feedback comments you give, the more chances to win. See? Give a Gift, Get a Gift! We hope you enjoy participating in our Holiday Contest to honor this season for giving.

A Big Thank your for participating! And a Happy and Healthy Holidays to All,

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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub

Posted in Contests & Giveaways, Posts by Annmarie Gatti | Tagged give a gift get a gift | Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving… A Macy’s Day Parade Vintage Pictorial

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Annmarie Gatti

Celebrating Thanksgiving with Fond Memories!

I have such fond memories of the Macy’s Day Parade from when I was a little kid… waking up early in the morning, running downstairs to the living room, and turning on the TV to see what awesome and fun balloons would be making their way down the packed streets of NYC. What a thrill it was for me to see Snoopy or Bullwinkle or Woody Woodpecker – larger than life – floating way over the heads of the crowds huddled together along the parade route. I can almost hear the marching bands playing right now

That said, in celebration of Thanksgiving Day, I thought I’d share some vintage Macy’s Day Parade photos from years gone by…

A Happy Thanksgiving to All!

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Felix the Cat, the wonderful wonderful cat

In 1927 (or 1931, depending on the source), Felix the Cat made his debut in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… That said, Felix was either the first or second-ever balloon to be featured in the parade… Discrepancy aside, I think it’s fair to say that the iconic cat was a cool sight to see!

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In 1934, at the tender age of six, Mickey Mouse made his debut appearance at the parade, the first of many Disney balloons to ‘march’ in the parade.

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Well, can’t say that I would have recognized this balloon… but it’s Eddie Cantor – one of the very few balloons based on a real person. The balloon appeared in the parade in 1934 (or 1940, depending on the source).

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Follow, follow, follow, follow — follow the Macy’s paved road…
Image: © Bettmann/CORBIS

Well, maybe it’s not the Yellow Brick Road, but it only seems fitting that the Tin Man would be marching down the parade road in 1939, a few month’s after The Wizard of Oz‘s theatrical release.

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It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no — it’s Superman — making his Macy’s Day Parade debut in 1940. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman originally debuted in comic books (1938), followed by a daily comic strip (1939), a series of animated theatrical shorts (1941-1943), and of course the radio show (1940-1951) and the iconic TV series The Adventures of Superman (1952 to 1958)… and that, of course, was just the beginning

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Here I come to save the day!
Image: Nick Petersen/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

Not to be outdone by Mickey — Mighty Mouse made his first appearance at the parade in 1951. Created as a Superman parody by Paul Terry, Mighty Mouse (originally Super Mouse) made his screen debut in theatrical animated shorts (1942-1961), which were later shown on TV (1955-1967) … Fun Fact: Paul Terry also created Heckle and Jeckle a few years later (in 1946).

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Who gets stuck with all the bad luck?
No one… but Donald Duck!

Donald Duck doesn’t look too happy here, following Mickey’s debut last year. Donald made his debut at the 1935 parade.

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Hi-diddle-dee-dee…. an actor’s life for me…

Clearly Pinocchio lied (and lied and lied) to make his way into the 1939 parade. Created by writer Carlo Collodi via the 1883 book The Adventures of Pinocchio, Pinocchio’s Disney feature film debut (in which he looks MUCH better) will only be a few months away in Feb 1940…

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I’m strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach…

Popeye the Sailor Man made his balloon debut in the 1957 parade, decades after his original comic strip debut… First appearing in 1929 as a minor character in the Thimble Theatre comic strips, he catapulted to fame in the 1930s. In 1933, Max Fleischer released a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount, and well, as they say, the rest is history…

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat…

Hokey Smoke, now it’s time for my favorite! Bullwinkle J. Moose made his debut at the parade in 1961… Bullwinkle first hit the small screen, with best friend Rocky the Flying Squirrel, in the 1959 animated series Rocky and Bullwinkle (and/or other variants of that title). The series ran through 1964, first on ABC and then on NBC… not to mention LOTs of repeats throughout the years (thankfully for me, who couldn’t watch them when they first aired)!

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Speed of lightning, roar of thunder,
Fighting all who rob or plunder

There’s no need to fear –Underdog is here — at the 1965 Macy’s Day Parade. Originally created as a cartoon series by General Mill’s ad agency to sell GM’s breakfast cereals, Underdog ‘saved the day’ on TV from 1964-1973.

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‘Joe Cool’ soars high over the streets of NYC
Image: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Everyone’s favorite beagle, Snoopy, made his parade debut in 1968 as Aviator Snoopy… In the following years, Snoopy would appear again as an astronaut, ice skater, in a Macy’s sweater, as a Flying Ace and with friend Woodstock, among others…

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And it’s nothing to him, on the tiniest whim, to peck a few holes in your head…

Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Woody Woodpecker made his first balloon parade appearance, believe it or not, in 1982, four-plus decades after his screen debut in an Andy Panda short in 1940. Woody’s own cartoon series, The Woody Woodpecker Show, would run on ABC from 1957-1958, continuing for years after in syndication. Fun Fact: Kay Kyser‘s 1948 recording of “The Woody Woodpecker Song” was a bit hit single in 1948.

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He will sleep till noon but before it’s dark,
he’ll have every picnic basket that’s in Jellystone Park.

Although smarter than the average bear, it took Yogi Bear a few decades as well to make it to the parade, debuting as a balloon in 1983, oddly enough sans picnic basket … Yogi made his small screen debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show and graduated to his own show, yes, The Yogi Bear Show, which ran from 1961-1962, with various iterations on TV and in film throughout the years…

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Another latecomer, iconic flapper sex symbol Betty Boop, sashayed her way into the parade in 1985, a full 55 years after her 1930 cartoon debut in Max Fleischer’s Dizzy Dishes, part of his Talkartoon series.

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If you look deep into the stone, you will perceive the tiniest discoloration. It resembles an animal…

The Pink Panther made his grand entrance into the parade in 1988 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Pink Panther’s original film release in 1963. Of course, later came the other films in the franchise, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series featuring the sly pink fellow in 1969…

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Well, we’ll close this pictorial of classic-era cartoon icons who ‘marched’ in the Macy’s Day Parade — with one of the most beloved animated celebrities of all time — everybody’s favorite wascally wabbit (mine too) — the inimitable Bugs Bunny ‘Born’ in 1940 via his first official cartoon, A Wild Hare, Bugs was slated for his debut march in 1989 (to pre-promote his 50th birthday) but, according to some sources, his balloon was torn and could not float, so, he instead made his debut march in 1990, his actual 50th birthday year… so all’s well that ends well

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Would love to hear about your favorite Macy’s Day Parade balloons and Thanksgiving memories… mine always includes watching the parade AND THEN watching The March of the Wooden Soldiers on Thanksgiving Day afternoon!

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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub

Posted in Holiday Tributes, Posts by Annmarie Gatti | Tagged iconic cartoon characters, Macy's Day Balloons, Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade, thanksgiving | 9 Comments

Monsters and Matinees: ‘Tarantula’ – Or why I’m afraid to look out my bedroom window

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Toni Ruberto

Tarantula – Or why I’m afraid to look out my bedroom window

My childhood bedroom had two windows: one by the headboard and one near the other end of the bed. They were great to let a cool breeze in the room, but they also held a darker side where my overactive imagination freely roamed.

It was a smaller room I shared with my sister that had just enough space for a full bed and a dresser so there was no place to hide from those windows – and whatever lurked outside of them. (That would be the creature in the latest horror movie I was watching or sci-fi novel I was reading.) Sure, many of those monsters have disappeared with the years – except for two.

I vividly remember reading H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on my bed and freaking out because I thought those spindly alien fingers were coming into the bedroom. That was before I saw the 1953 George Pal film, so you can imagine it got worse from there.

But while there are reasons to believe in aliens, there’s nothing to back up the idea that tarantulas can grow to be 100 feet tall. Yet that’s what I saw in my window many a night as a kid. (OK, and adult.)

The giant tarantula approaching a bedroom window in “Tarantula” has haunted me since I was a kid. I still keep my curtains closed.

Blame Jack Arnold’s 1955 big bug film “Tarantula,” a movie from that glorious decade of B-movie creature features. In it, a well-meaning scientist trying to solve world hunger, instead creates a nutrient with dramatic and deadly side effects.

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A bit of a back story. In 1954, Warner Bros. found unexpected success with its giant ant movie Them! Other studios took notice, spawning a subgenre of horror. Universal, home to some of the greatest horror films ever made, was now Universal International and found a renewed energy with creature feature and sci-fi films such as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), This Island Earth (1955), The Mole People (1956) and The Deadly Mantis (1957).

Good or bad, these films remain entertaining because they work our imaginations. This was especially true in kids, hence the designation from decades ago of the “Monster Kid Generation.”

There are so many great creature features and big-bug movies, but it’s Tarantula that holds a spell over me. I never quite figured out why until I learned that real tarantulas were used in the movie, with rear-screen projection making them appear larger-than-life. That’s why they were so terrifying – there was nothing fake about them and you could feel it.

If the way the spider moves its legs feels too real to you – that’s because it is. With the help of some movie magic, real spiders were used in scenes like this throughout “Tarantula.”

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Tarantula opens in the desert where a man in his pajamas stumbles into the frame and drops to the ground. As vultures loom overhead, we see his skin is deformed, he has giant lumps across his body and his outstretched hand is hideous. Something isn’t right.

Cut to a two-seater plane landing in a desert “airport.” Out jumps a handsome, well-dressed man (Dr. Matt Hastings, played by B-movie favorite John Agar) who quickly drives off in his sports car to a town called Desert Rock. There, he’s immediately summoned by the sheriff for help with a dead body.

“What does it look like?” Doc Matt asks.

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Sheriff Jack responds. Cue the music – and my interest.

The face of the corpse is too misshapen for Doc Matt and Sheriff Jack to identify – but we know it’s our Deformed PJ guy from the desert. When Professor Gerald Deemer (played by the great character actor Leo J. Carroll, which ups the film cred immediately) arrives, he says it’s his friend and co-worker Eric Jacobs. Eric suffered from a pituitary gland disease (called acromegaly in the real world), and only days earlier complained of muscular pain as his body rapidly worsened. Eric hadn’t been seen since he ran off into the desert (a familiar theme here).

Professor Deemer (Leo J. Carroll) is studying the effects of his nutrient on his lab experiments. It seems to be working a bit too well.

Later, Professor Deemer is in his laboratory and we literally see the big picture: There are syringes and, in glass cages, are an oversized rat, guinea pig and tarantula. (This also is done with rear projection that again uses real animals that lend to the authenticity.) It’s easy for even the youngest viewer to start putting the pieces together.

But wait – another hideous hand appears and Deformed Guy No. 2 attacks the professor, who is yelling “I tried to help you.” They fight, breaking the glass in the tarantula’s cage, allowing it to crawl through an open door into the desert. The Professor is knocked unconscious and DG#2 injects him with the syringe. A fire rages, the ceiling falls and DG#2 is killed. (Of note: the actor playing both Deformed Guys, as well as the airport attendant, is stuntman Eddie Parker whose work includes Mr. Hyde in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)

Stephanie “Steve” Clayton (Mara Corday) and Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar) are getting to know each other. They wouldn’t be smiling if they knew a giant tarantula was behind them.

Cut to town where an impeccably dressed young woman (suit, matching hat and pearls) steps out of a bus. Stephanie “Steve” Clayton (Mara Corday) arrives to do graduate work with Eric, now Dead Deformed Guy #1. Learning the news, Steve still wants to honor her contract. Handsome Doc Matt happily drives Lovely Student Steve to the Professor’s house through the desert where a tarantula, now the size of a car, walks across the road behind them.

At the house, the Professor (who’s not looking too good) explains his work is to combat a “disease of hunger” in an overcrowded world. His plan: feeding everyone with a nutrient made from radioactive isotopes. If you’ve seen enough big bug movies, you know where this is leading.

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That’s the setup. Now let’s get to the good stuff. Our tarantula is visiting fields and farms, leaving behind carcasses and big white pools of goo (“venom pools”). Despite the fact it is exponentially larger each time we see it and makes a loud, high-pitched noise, the tarantula continues to move unnoticed through the desert countryside.

Dr. Matt (John Agar) and Sheriff Jack (Nestor Paiva) discover pools of a thick white substance near bones – and yes, the doctor will do a taste test.

Then we get to the most awful scene in the film – especially for animal lovers.

It’s night, horses are in their corral at the foot of a mountain. They grow restless, then panic. The tarantula looms at the top of the mountain looking down at its next meal. Thankfully, the scene happens quite fast as the poor trapped horses cry out in fear. Although we don’t “see” anything happen, it’s still terrible and makes me feel much worse, I’m ashamed to say, than watching the farmer meet the same fate as his horses.

Everything speeds up from here – the size of the tarantula, its brazen kills, the growing deformity of the kind professor who only wanted to help people.

It leads to the traumatic scene of my nightmares with the tarantula at the Professor’s house. As it approaches, the tarantula can be seen outside Steve’s second-floor bedroom window, getting closer and closer and closer until its face fills the window. (Ugh! Try to erase that image.) Now larger than the house, the tarantula’s legs creepily crawl over the home, crushing it like it’s a toy.

The scene of the tarantula standing over a two-story house still freaks me out.

Steve escapes just as Doc Matt arrives and they hurry toward town to tell others. Where the movie goes from there doesn’t matter much, since I’m still inside Steve’s bedroom frozen in place by the tarantula at the window.

I’ve watched Tarantula countless times since I was a kid. Occasionally, I’ll wonder why the tarantula doesn’t catch the car, or how the mammoth arachnid is walking unseen in the wide-open spaces of a desert. But I never think too hard: that would take the fun out of it. And if I’m honest, fun is the real reason why Tarantula resonates with me. My lifelong fear of a giant tarantula is just a bonus.

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Where you’ve seen them before:

John Agar (Doctor Matt):The Mole People (1956), Revenge of the Creature (’55), Fort Apache (’48), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (’49). He was the first husband of Shirley Temple.

Nestor Paiva (Sheriff Jack Andrews): You know his face as Lucas the boat captain in Creature from the Black Lagoon (’54) and Revenge of the Creature (’55) and from the TV shows Zorro and The Lone Ranger.M

Mara Corday (Steve):The Black Scorpion (’57), The Giant Claw (’57), The Gauntlet (’77) and Sudden Impact (’83).H

Hank Patterson (Josh, the clerk):Beginning of the End (’57), Earth vs. the Spider (’58) and Mr. Ziffle on the TV shows Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.

Don’t blink or you’ll miss an early role by Clint Eastwood as a fighter pilot in “Tarantula.”

Fighter pilot: That’s Clint Eastwood in one of his first film roles. Through his friendship with Mara Corday, he later cast her in some of his films.

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– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

Posted in Monsters and Matinees, Posts by Toni Ruberto | Tagged B-movies, big bug movies, creature feature, horror, horror movie, monster movies, tarantula, Universal Pictures | 6 Comments

Western Roundup: Western Film Book Library – Part 2

Posted on November 26, 2019 by Laura Grieve

Western Film Book Library – Part 2

Last summer I shared a few of the favorite books on Westerns in my library. Some of the books I wrote about encouraged my love of Westerns from an early age, while other titles were fairly recent.

At the time I promised there would be a “Part 2,” and here it is, just in time for Christmas shopping for the Western film fans on your list…or perhaps for yourself!

While I’ve owned some of the older titles on this list for decades, I was able to track others down thanks to used book dealers. The more recently described below are easily available online.

Last time I around I mentioned the influence of The Western Films of John Ford by J.A. Place. Another early Ford book I loved was the simply titled John Ford, by Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington. It was originally published in 1974; my paperback dates from the following year.

John Ford by Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington

John Ford doesn’t confine itself to Westerns, but it was McBride and Wilmington’s descriptions of films such as Stagecoach and Wagon Master which helped spark my interest in seeing them. With films considerably less available to me as a kid of the ’70s than they are today, very often my first acquaintance with many movies was through the written word, rather than on the screen. The positive aspect of this was that my combined reading and watching made for many especially rich viewing experiences.

Last year I had the thrill of meeting Joseph McBride and having him sign my copy of this book, over 40 years after I first read it!

Another important early read for me was John Wayne and the Movies by Allen Eyles; my copy dates from 1976.

John Wayne and The Movies by Allen Eyles

This book has well-chosen photos and in some cases more extensive analysis than a comparable book in Citadel’s The Films of… series of the same era. I remember reading about Angel and the Badman (1947) and thinking it sounded wonderful — and indeed, it would eventually become one of my favorite Wayne movies!

Filming the West of Zane Grey was a find a couple of years ago in the gift shop of the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine, California. It’s by the esteemed historian Ed Hulse, who often appears at the Lone Pine Film Festival, and was published by the museum in 2007.

Filming the West of Zayne Grey by Ed Hulse

I’ve found this book an invaluable resource, as so many Zane Grey stories were made and remade over many decades, beginning in the silent era. The stories were often re-filmed under the same name — for instance, The Border Legion was filmed in 1918, 1924, and 1940 — so the book has helped enormously in my understanding of the history of each title. Some of the entries are fairly short, while others discuss the film more extensively; all entries feature cast and other production information. The book also features excellent illustrations!

Hopalong Cassidy: On the Page, On the Screen by Francis M. Nevins was a Christmas gift for my husband a couple of years ago, but with my growing interest in the topic I’ve been turning to it frequently myself!

Hopalong Cassidy on The Page and on The Screen by Francis M. Nevins

Hopalong Cassidy was originally published in 2008; our copy is a 2016 reprint from the Museum of Western Film History. It’s a thick, heavy softcover, over 500 pages in length. The book delves into the history of Hopalong Cassidy creator Clarence Mulford and the Hoppy books before turning to the series’ long history in movies and television. The author offers both production history and critical insights in the first half of the book; the second section of the book consists of individual entries for each film. There are also useful appendixes including “Hopalong Cassidy on Radio” and “Hopalong Cassidy Television.”

My favorite section is a chapter in which various Western experts, including Ed Hulse and Boyd Magers, each describe their Top 10 favorite Hoppy titles. It just doesn’t get any better for me than experts who love the genre and the series writing at some length about what makes some of these films their favorites.

Tim Holt by David Rothel was originally published in 1994. It recent years it has been republished in softcover.

Tim Holt by David Rothel

This book on the beloved “B” Western star has nearly 300 glossy pages filled with family photos, an extensive look at his films, and interviews with family and colleagues including his sister, actress Jennifer Holt, and several costars including Richard Martin and Nan Leslie, who discusses her romance with Tim.

The end of the book has reprints of comic book covers and movie magazine articles, which are great fun for a fan who wasn’t around at the time the articles originally appeared!

Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy was written in 2002 by Douglas B. Green, also known as “Ranger Doug” in the Western singing group Riders in the Sky.

Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy by Douglas B. Green

The book has nearly 400 glossy pages chronicling Western music, including its history on radio and then extensively discussing singing cowboys on film. Single chapters are devoted to the biggest stars, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, but there’s also a good deal of information on Tex Ritter, Dick Foran, Ray Whitley, and more.

It’s a densely written “deep dive” into the subject which is invaluable to those who are interested in the topic, and it’s also got great photos.

Each year the Museum of Western Film History publishes an annual, originally titled Lone Pine in the Movies; more recent editions are titled Lone Pine and the Movies.

Lone Pine and The Movies

These books are available at Amazon and are well worth the investment. Historians such as Ed Hulse, Richard Bann, and many more cover a wide variety of topics, with a special (though not exclusive) emphasis on Westerns filmed in Lone Pine.

Subject matter of the last few years includes “Tim Holt: RKO Star Goes to Lone Pine,” “On the Oregon Trail: Tracking the Lost John Wayne Film,” “George Sherman: The Republic Years,” “The Real McCoy: U.S. Military History According to Tim McCoy‘s Movies,” and “Lovely Ladies of Lone Pine: Grace Bradley Boyd.”

The annuals are both enjoyable reads and valuable history; I look forward to picking up the latest publication each year at the Lone Pine Film Festival, and this year I made a special effort to collect all the back issues missing from my collection!

This is such a rich topic that I may well return to it again in the future. As always, additional suggestions in the comments are most welcome.

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– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub

Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.

Posted in Posts by Laura Grieve, Western RoundUp | Tagged book review, dick foran, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, john ford, john wayne, Lone Pine Film Festival, Roy Rogers, tex ritter, Tim Holt, western movies, Western Roundup, westerns, zane grey | 19 Comments

Silver Screen Standards: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Jennifer Garlen

Silver Screen Standards: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

I’m in the process of moving houses this fall, and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) is one of the reasons. Faced with the terrifying prospect of completely remodeling our old house, I thought of the expression of pure misery that constantly appears on Cary Grant’s face throughout the film and realized that I would not see the humor in enduring that experience myself. No dream-house-turned-nightmare-ordeal for me, thanks! We’re moving to a much newer house where all of the latest features are already present. It even has four bathrooms, which would make Muriel Blandings happy, and we’ve had a thorough inspection done to head off any nasty surprises.

Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas contemplate the Blandings’ dream house.

Every time I watch Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House I think it ought to be required viewing for anyone contemplating a major home remodel or a new build from scratch. This classic comedy, directed by H.C. Potter, offers us a front-row seat as the Blandings, played by Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, encounter every possible setback and crisis as they attempt to relocate from a cramped Manhattan apartment to a dream home in the Connecticut suburbs.

It’s not that the Blandings don’t need more space; we see how uncomfortable they are in the tiny apartment, especially with one bathroom shared by the couple and their two daughters. Even Marie Kondo would have a hard time making that space livable for four people. No, the problem is that Jim and Muriel Blandings absolutely lose their minds somewhere along the way. They make terrible decisions from the start. They buy a dilapidated old farmhouse because it’s cheap but soon find out it’s a complete teardown, which opens the floodgates on insanity as they build a completely new home. Every aspect of the project is plagued with problems, which the Blandings inevitably make worse, and the result realistically ought to be bankruptcy and divorce rather than a happy ending. Luckily for the viewer and the Blandings family, this is a comedy, so it all works out in the end.

The movie is an adaptation of the novel by Eric Hodgins, who based the story on his own experience building a house in Connecticut in the 1930s. Unfortunately for Hodgins, the final cost of the house was so extravagant that he had to sell it, but he later made enough money on the film rights to make up for the loss. Hodgins wrote a sequel, called Blandings’ Way, after the success of the 1948 film, but it didn’t enjoy the runaway success of the original. The house itself passed to other owners and eventually ended up being the residence of writers Stephen Citron and Anne Edwards, who talked about its history in a 1992 New York Times article. According to the New England Historical Society, the house sold in 2004 for $1.2 million.

Thanks to Kellogg’s All-Bran, fans of the movie could even get their own kit model of the Blandings’ dream house.

Ironically for a film that satirizes the modern American urge to build dream houses in the suburbs, RKO promoted the release by doing just that. They built 73 full-scale replicas of the Blandings house around the country, in addition to the actual movie set built in California, and sold them through raffle contests. The Bella Online article, “RKO’s Dream House for Mr. Blandings,” discusses the publicity stunt in detail. Dozens of families in different states got to move into the Blandings’ dream house without the hassle of having to build it themselves, although one hopes that the similarities did not extend to the self-locking dressing room door. The house used in the actual film is still standing and is now part of Malibu Creek State Park, where it serves as the administrative office for California State Parks.

Hodgins’ novel and the film adaptation offer a comical warning to homeowners and those foolish enough to jump headfirst into building a new house, but the number of houses being torn down in my neighborhood to make way for massive new dream homes shows that such advice hasn’t been heeded. It also explains why remakes of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House appear every few decades. In 1986, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long fell into The Money Pit of disastrous home renovation, and in 2007 Ice Cube and Nia Long asked Are We Done Yet? as their suburban dream home turned into a nightmare. Every generation repeats the errors of its predecessors, it seems, but at least we get funny movies out of it.

Cramped quarters in their Manhattan apartment cause the Blandings family to dream of a large home in the suburbs, but they soon find out that it’s not so easy to get what they want.

By the time this column appears, I should be comfortably settled in my new house and looking forward to the holidays, but just at this moment, I’m enduring the sound of the plumber sawing away under our old house to repair a bathroom leak that must be fixed before we can sell. By the end of the day, I might be wearing Cary Grant’s expression of horror after all, especially when the plumber hands me the bill. I’ll remind myself that it’s still better than remodeling.

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Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.