Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell setting their handprints in ‘stone’ at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on June 26, 1953 during Imprint Ceremony #104
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And the imprints now (photo taken at the TCM Film Festival April 2013)
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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
More posts about Marilyn Monroe at CMH BlogHub.
More posts about Jane Russell at CMH BlogHub.
Well, it’s been over a month now since our Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching
PS: If you didn’t win the book, you may want to do yourself a favor and buy a copy It really is a wonderful read 🙂
And now for the interview…
CMH: What inspired you to write BEYOND CASABLANCA?
Jennifer: I have been teaching film units and courses for quite a few years, and my students were always asking me what they should watch next. I realized that a lot of people are interested in watching classic films but don’t necessarily know where to go once they have seen the really big “must-see” pictures that everyone always talks about. Most movie guide books are either all-inclusive or not really focused on classic movies as their core topic. It seemed like a niche that needed to be filled.
CMH: How did you become interested in classic movies?
Jennifer: I have been a moviegoer, to borrow Walker Percy’s term, all my life. As a kid I loved to watch old movies with my father and my grandfather, and they were big fans of the old Westerns, which I still adore. I became a lot more serious about film when I was studying English Literature in college and graduate school; if I hadn’t majored in English I probably would have gone to film school, although I don’t think either is likely to pay the rent these days. Teaching film was a way to get students to think about narrative concepts and conventions in lower level classes, but it eventually became an end unto itself. These days my academic work tends to occur in the intersections of literature, film, and popular culture, which explains why you’ll find me writing about Jane Austen, the Muppets, and classic movie musicals all at the same time.
CMH: What was the hardest part about creating the book?
Jennifer: Limiting the collection to just 100 films was absolutely the hardest part of the process. I revised and weeded my list so many times, and I hated to leave out personal favorites. Still, I had to reach a balance in terms of genres, decades, stars, directors, and other elements, so I eventually let some great movies go. I also chose to include some more obscure films because I think they deserve the attention and don’t usually get it, like CHARLEY’S AUNT and HOBSON’S CHOICE.
CMH: Do you have a favorite classic movie or star?
Jennifer: That is such a hard question! I can probably give you a top ten list, but narrowing it down to one is just torture. I do particularly enjoy BRINGING UP BABY, RIO BRAVO, and FORBIDDEN PLANET; that tells you something about how eclectic my tastes are. As for stars, I love all of the A-listers but have a real soft spot for character actors. I’ll watch anything with Marjorie Main, Spring Byington, Charles Laughton, or Elsa Lanchester, just to name a few.
CMH: Is there going to be a follow-up book?
Jennifer: Maybe. I’m continuing to write and post reviews of films to my blog all the time, but there are a lot of really excellent pictures that I’d love to include in a second book. I’m giving the first book a year or so to see how it goes. If people like it, then I might do another one. A lot of people have already given me advice about what the focus of the next one should be!
Jennifer Garlen is an independent scholar, writer and speaker in Huntsville, Alabama. She teaches courses on literature, popular culture and film for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UAH and LearningQuest. You can visit Jennifer at Virtual Virago, Examiner.com or follow her at Twitter via @garlengirl.
Jennifer Garlen’s Pop Culture Books available on Amazon:
Plus Exclusive Barnes and Noble Classics – with Introductions by Jennifer:
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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
Visit CMH’s BlogHub for more posts from Virtual Virago.
Bette Davis was strong, stubborn and fiercely independent. For this, she will forever be a beloved Gay Icon.
Bette Davis at her sassy best in All About Eve (1950, Joseph. L. Mankiewicz)
Bette Davis lived in a different era. Women, for the most part, were expected to be demure, submissive creatures – always polite, always accommodating. And this may have worked for some woman but not for Davis. Davis had different ideas, her own ideas. She wouldn’t be content waiting on the sidelines, letting others make her life decisions for her. You see, Davis wanted to become something more than just an actress. Davis wanted to become a star. And to do that, Davis had to be her own woman.
Bette Davis in the film that solidified her status as camp icon, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962, Robert Aldrich director)
The Bette Davis the world remembers and loves was a larger than life, quick witted, almost brutal woman whose will to stardom knew no bounds…and that’s just her on screen persona. In reality, while the real Bette Davis still displayed the before mentioned traits, she was incredibly vulnerable while showing great strength through adversity. She was a woman who made her own decisions, and her own mistakes, on her own terms. She wasn’t going to live by a societal code that kept her from getting what she wanted. She was the type of star that gay men at the time could both idolize and identify with. Today, she is remembered by the gay community as a pillar of personal strength in a time of great societal strife. For this, Bette Davis is a Screen Queen.
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Minoo Allen for Classic Movie Hub
Visit CMH’s BlogHub for more posts about Bette Davis by Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Bloggers.
As an unemployed engineer looking for work, Mark Thackeray takes a temporary position as a teacher in the tough East End of London.
Thackeray’s students come from disruptive homes, so the one place where they take control is in the classroom. As an unruly mob, their goal is to ride roughshod over the teachers.
Photo: Sidney Poitier as Mark Thackeray in To Sir With Love (1967, James Clavell director)Mark Thackeray wins this battle of wills by taking a new approach: treat the students as adults. He throws out all the textbooks and allows the students to ask questions about real life. He also teaches survival skills, such as preparing an easy and inexpensive meal.
Thackeray gets high marks for kickass confidence, not only for his own ability to adapt and thrive in the world, but in passing these same skills on to a new generation, too.
His focus outside himself on the needs of his students earns trust, respect and, without doubt, their love.
–Michelle Kerrigan for Classic Movie Hub
Michelle Kerrigan is an expert in workplace performance who helps clients achieve success by developing the skills they need to increase their confidence. She shares “Classic Movie Characters with Kickass Confidence” because each of them has inspired her. She hopes that they inspire you too. For more about Michelle, visit www.workplaceconfidence.com.
Character Actress Mary Wickes appeared in over 130 roles, playing lots of busybodies, nurses, housekeepers and nuns. Some of my favorite Mary Wickes roles? Well there’s lots, but for a start: Nurse Pickford in Now Voyager, Nurse Preen in The Man Who Came to Dinner and the wonderful Sister Clarissa in The Trouble with Angels and Where Angels Go Trouble Follows!
Bette Davis and Mary Wickes in Now Voyager (1942, director Irving Rapper)
“My name’s Pickford — Dora, not Mary.”
-Mary Wickes as Nurse Pickford in Now Voyager
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Mary Wickes as Nurse Preen in The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942, director William Keighley)
“I am not only walking out on this case, Mr. Whiteside, I am leaving the nursing profession.”
-Mary Wickes as Nurse Preen in The Man Who Came to Dinner
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Mary Wickes as Sister Clarissa in Where Angels Go Trouble Follows
$12.40! My old bus wouldn’t use that much gas in a month!
-Mary Wickes as Sister Clarissa in Where Angels Go Trouble Follows
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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
Lois Weber was the first American woman director of note, directing over 135 films between 1911 and 1934. She pioneered split screen technique in 1913 , was the first woman director to own her own film studio, and was one of the first directors to experiment with sound.
In 1916, Weber directed 10 feature films for Universal (nine of which she also wrote) — and she became Universal Studios’ highest-paid director, earning $5,000 a week.
“She knows the motion-picture business as few people know it, and can drive as hard as anyone I’ve ever known.”
– Carl Laemmle, Liberty Magazine May 14, 1927
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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
Visit CMH’s BlogHub for more posts about Lois Weber by Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Bloggers.
Marlene Dietrich is a woman of many titles. International movie star, cabaret artist extraordinaire, Allied power’s most valuable cheerleader and, of course, gay icon.
No-one pulls off a suit quite like Marlene Dietrich.
Considering she was a familiar face in the famed Weimar drag balls of pre-war Berlin, Dietrich’s place in the gay community should come as no surprise Like fellow gay icon Mae West, Dietrich’s career as an entertainer was deeply influenced by the gay cabaret and vaudeville acts that offered her that first chance of stardom. And again, like West, she was influenced by the sexual freedom offered by the gay circles of her time. And while West would use her work to explore themes of sex and male/female sexual relationships, Dietrich would use her career to explore themes of sexuality as it applies to gender.
Marlene Dietrich, forever the winner of Most glamourous
Much of Dietrich’s career, especially in her early Weimar Berlin days, was an exploration in sexual ambiguity. On Monday morning she’d be dressed in the pinnacle of feminine fashion, and by Monday night she would perform donning a three-piece suit, complete with a top hat and tail. For Dietrich, the idea of gender and identity was something fluid and she enjoyed using the stage to experiment with those notions. She was able to both be a woman, yet dress and strut about like a man, inhabiting both genders at once – creating something completely new in the process. This form of entertainment casts aside any preconceived notions of the gender binary, opening Dietrich to an entirely new world of aesthetics and performance. Although seen as scandalous at the time, the idea of gender performativity, the idea that is gender is essentially a form of acting and not necessarily the sex you are born, has since become a hot topic in the world of academia. So, like all the greats, Dietrich was simply ahead of her time and for that reason she is a Screen Queen.
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Minoo Allen for Classic Movie Hub
“Ah Lydia, she was the most gloooorious creature under the sun!”
I remember loving this clip ever since I was a little kid… just one of many magical musical moments from the Marx Brothers… Groucho Marx singing “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” from At the Circus.
Lydia the Tattooed Lady (music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by E.Y. Harburg) from At the Circus (1939, director Edward Buzzell)
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“Oh Lydia oh Lydia that encyclopedia. Oh Lydia the champ of them all. She once swept an admiral clear off his feet. The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat. And now the old boy’s in command of the fleet — for he went and married Lydia!”
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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
Mae West, owner of her sexuality (and plenty others)
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Mae West became a staple in the gay community. While coming into her own as a performer, she looked towards female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge as inspiration. Heck, she even had a short stint as a male impersonator during her vaudeville days. Though this obviously had an impact on the development of her career, it’s not exactly why she is remembered as a gay icon. It wasn’t the sex that she played on stage, but rather her attitude towards it that made her a gay icon. Basically, she was ally before it cool to be an ally.
You see, Mae West was something of a sexual rebel at a time when sex wasn’t talked about on stage. Her plays, rampant with double-entendres and swaying hips, bucked the sexual norms of her time. By pushing the envelope of “polite entertainment,” she was changing the metaphorical terrain of sexual acceptance. Of course, not everyone was quick to accept her, and her bawdy, brash stage persona managed to land her in jail when the cops raided her Broadway play subtly titled, Sex. During this period she also penned The Drag, a comedy focusing on the (hilarious) every dramas of the gay life. So, at a time when being gay was still considered a mental illness, West was an unabashed supporter of gay rights, proudly writing, performing and working with the LGBTQ community. And it is because of this, as well as her extravagant style and sexual freedom, that she is considered a Screen Queen.
Mae West’s wardrobe: The envy of every Drag Queen ever.
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Minoo Allen for Classic Movie Hub
Visit CMH’s BlogHub for more posts about Mae West by Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Bloggers.
When I think of Norma Rae, I think of the incredibly powerful scene where she stands up on her work table at the cotton mill and holds up a sign that says one word on it–“UNION”. As she turns slowly around the room to be sure that every single worker sees her, the camera captures that unmistakable mark of confidence: the unshakable belief in yourself and your cause.
Photo: Sally Field in Norma Rae (1979, Martin Ritt director)
Kickass confidence often comes to us when we believe deeply that what we are about to do can help others. That kind of compassion moves us out our shell of shyness to take that next difficult step forward. It can be powerfully infectious, as it was in Norma Rae, creating what I call ‘collective courage”—strong enough to build great unions and teams.
When you fear doing anything you know in your heart to be true, ask yourself: ‘”If I do this, how many people can I help?” And then do it, and see what amazing things happen. Stand up on the table if you have to.
–Michelle Kerrigan for Classic Movie Hub
Michelle Kerrigan is an expert in workplace performance who helps clients achieve success by developing the skills they need to increase their confidence. She shares “Classic Movie Characters with Kickass Confidence” because each of them has inspired her. She hopes that they inspire you too. For more about Michelle, visit www.workplaceconfidence.com.
