Wind in the Wires

"It Came From Outer Space" - Richard Carlson and Joe Sawyer

Duck Soup - Barking Dog Tattoo Gag - How did they do that?

The live shot of a barking dog coming out of the doghouse tattoo seemed technologically sophisticated for 1933 - how did they do that?  When I tried to find out how they did, I ran across an article on TCM's site (http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/122431%7C0/Trivia.html)  that claims the tattoo was originally an outhouse but it didn't make it by the censors.

How does the song about women choosing choosing between her husband and a lover make it through, but not an outhouse? Because one is visual and the other is obscured in dialogue/lyrics?  Never did find out how or how long it took them to do that sight gag though.

TOP HAT (1935)

Most of the earliest musicals are pretty much boring affairs.  Long shots of chorus lines and stiff vocalists seem to be more a documentary record of vaudeville and burlesque than the “all talking, all singing, all dancing” entertainments they purported to be.  Sound had just come in and many filmmakers seemed to have no idea how to re-mobilize a camera that had become a prisoner of the sound proof booth.  Post-sync techniques were soon to be developed but early musical performances were largely stage bound, wooden and far from spectacular. 

"42nd Street"

Enter Busby Berkeley at Warner Bros.  Suddenly the musical opened up with numbers edited into increasingly outrageous close ups of beautiful faces, bare legs, tapping feet, luminescent pianos, waterfalls and the kaleidoscopic overhead vibrations of scantily clad chorines.  Starting with “42^nd Street” in 1933, Berkeley moved from a choreographer credit to the director’s chair and churned out such crowd pleasers as “Gold Diggers of 1933”, “Dames”, and his greatest of all, “Footlight Parade”. 

"Footlight Parade"

Something different was happening over at RKO.  The man Rudolph Nureyev once called the greatest American dancer of all time, Fred Astaire, had partnered with Ginger Rogers, a young supporting actress and chorine from the Berkeley casts.  They had starred as a secondary love interest couple in “Flying Down to Rio” in 1933.  Stealing the show with their dancing, the studio moved them to a headlining position with “The Gay Divorcee” the next year, then back to supporting roles in “Roberta”.

“Top Hat” was their fourth film together and their second at the top of the bill.  It was RKO’s biggest hit of the year and held onto that title for the team during their career together.

What had changed from the beginning was Astaire’s insistence on the camera moving with the performers and holding the editing to a minimum.  What we get as a result are full-bodied shots of great dance numbers, photographed from a distance that allowed the viewer to see the dancers in detail and to marvel at the sometimes intricate and always demanding routines that they put themselves through.  If Busby Berkeley had pioneered the breathtaking production number spinning into the fantastic, Astaire was responsible for the spotlight being trained on the very real talent of the performers, anchored firmly in the atmosphere of a world turned fantastic by their artistry.

Astaire & Rogers

Another convention that the Astaire-Rogers production team adopted that helped the musical to become one of the great American genres was the pacing of the numbers themselves.  Where the Warner’s films were often backstage musicals with most of the singing and dancing crammed into a spectacular but short final 20 minutes, the RKO productions spaced the interludes evenly throughout the film.  Also, there was the insistence that the songs and dances reflect and further the storyline; that every number have a dramatic purpose as well as a musical one.

In selecting the best example of a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical, it really comes down to two movies.  The team felt their best film was “Swing Time” directed in 1936 by George Stevens.  Rogers said she believed he brought something different to the formula.  I would agree with that.  It also contains what most critics think is the pair’s greatest performance on film, “Never Gonna Dance”.  No argument there either, although “Cheek to Cheek” in “Top Hat” is one memorable number and a close contender for the title.

Cheek to Cheek from "Top Hat"

“Top Hat” is the most iconic of the Astaire-Rogers pairings.  It gets my nod due to the consistent excellence of the aforementioned innovations that arrive fully formed with this film, the great Irving Berlin score, the smart comedy script (Dwight Taylor and Allen Scott) performed by an ensemble of classic character actors (Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore and Helen Broderick) at the top of their craft, the no-holds-barred Art Deco production design (Carroll Clark and Van Nest Polglase), Fred Astaire’s underestimated singing talent and the wonderful dancing of the greatest musical team in history.

Arsenic and Old Lace - Screwball or Dark Comedy?

While researching my genre paper, I kept coming across Arsenic and Old Lace (a film I love), but sometimes it is classified as a screwball comedy and other sites call it a dark comedy.  I can see where both could be appropriate, but it seems more dark comedy than screwball. And now I wish I chose to write about dark comedies.

 It seems like you could make a valid argument for both sub-genres. Anyone else have any thoughts?

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Delightful is the best word I can best describe the movie. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has drama, comedy, romance, fantasy, good acting, and a good ending. 

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

This film was so true, because if anyone ever watched the movie Lincoln it show how polictics was played and how it was play years later in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  It also let us know nothing has changed.

Genre Paper Guidelines

Select a genre.

Drama is not a genre. 

If you pick comedy, please narrow your discussion to a specific type of comedy: romantic comedy, screwball comedy, etc.

You may select a sub-genre such as zombie films (a sub-genre of horror).

Some standard genres are sci-fi, horror, musical, crime, war, western, biblical epic, historical epic, mystery, etc.

What to write about.

These are possible areas.  You don’t have to cover all of them.  You may find more.

Discuss the background of the genre, history and origins.

How has literature and art dealt with this category?

How active is this genre in today’s entertainment world?

How influential is it now and how important has it been in the past?

What films are good examples, past and present?

What are the conventions of this genre?

What films in this category have gone against convention?

Were there certain directors who specialized in this genre?