{"id":205,"date":"2013-02-26T20:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T01:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tr10023.com\/?p=205"},"modified":"2018-01-07T11:44:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T16:44:06","slug":"other-notable-movies-for-better-or-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tr10023.com\/?p=205","title":{"rendered":"Other Notable Movies (for Better or Worse)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mildred Pierce<\/span><\/h1>\n
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\"Ann<\/a>

Ann Blyth, Zachary Scott, Joan Crawford — Toxic Triangle: “How long has this been going on?”<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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“Mildred\u00a0Pierce” is a superbly balanced blend of\u00a0Woman’s Picture conventions (single mother struggling to find success, love and happiness in a man’s world),\u00a0Film Noir elements (e.g., flashbacks, Dutch-tilt angles, dark shadows and silhouettes) and Camp (e.g., Ann Blyth as the Daughter from Hell: the nastiest, cattiest, most quotable little bitch of all time; Eve Arden at her most Ardenesque (i.e., a proto-drag queen), cracking wise and lighting matches off the sole of her shoe). Michael Curtiz somehow makes these three seemingly antagonistic styles work together to create a completely satisfying whole. \u00a0It’s quite amazing, when you think about it: \u00a0Camp and film noir in the same picture? \u00a0Shouldn’t they cancel each other out? \u00a0But they don’t — they invigorate each other. \u00a0It’s not the greatest picture I ever saw, but it’s one of the most fun. \u00a0If I happen across it when it’s on TV, I find it quite impossible to change the channel or leave the room before the end.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Alice Faye (in “The Gang’s All Here”)<\/h1>\n
\"Alice<\/a>

Alice Faye: Round the block, but not through the mill.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

I confess to having a fondness for “The Gang’s All Here,” which many people I respect abominate.\u00a0 It’s a terrible picture — terrible.\u00a0 And it’s ugly.\u00a0 And there’s a lot of music in it that I don’t like.\u00a0 But I love the ingenious staging of the opening number (even though I’ve never liked the song “Brazil” and don’t like Carmen Miranda), and I like the bizarro stuff that pops up every 15 minutes or so.\u00a0 In fact, it was one of my younger brothers who first called the\u00a0picture to my attention — specifically, the last number, called “The Polka Dot Polka.”\u00a0 It is damned strange — almost nightmarish, in a way that Busby Berkeley’s black\u00a0and white pictures weren’t.\u00a0 (By the way, “The Gang’s All Here” is the\u00a0first color picture — and the last big-budget picture — that Berkeley ever\u00a0was allowed to direct.\u00a0 One can see why.)\u00a0 I like the picture because of its awfulness.\u00a0 I wouldn’t dream of trying to talk anyone into sharing my enjoyment of a picture that is inferior in so many ways.\u00a0 Oh, but there is one song smack in the middle of it — Chapter 15 on the DVD — that, for my money, is one of the two or three best songs that\u00a0Alice\u00a0Faye\u00a0ever sang.\u00a0 It’s “No Love, No Nothin’ ” and she sings it beautifully.\u00a0 (I think the only other song of hers I like more is “You’ll Never Know,” which she sang so exquisitely that it seems foolish for anyone else to bother singing it.\u00a0 She owns that song the way Garland owned “Over the Rainbow” and Streisand owns “People.”)<\/p>\n