Neptune's Daughter (1949).

Neptune's Daughter (1949). Musical/ romantic/ comedy Cast: Esther Williams, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban, Betty Garrett, Keenan Wynn, Xavier Cugat and Mel Blanc. Directer: Edward Buzzell. Features the Academy Award winning song Baby, It's Cold Outside by Frank Loesser. Neptune's Daughter was the third movie that paired Williams and Ricardo Montalbán together, the other two being Fiesta (1947) and On an Island with You (1948), and the second to co-star Red Skelton (1944's Bathing Beauty).

At first aquatic ballet dancer Eve Barrett, rejects the offer by Joe Backett to become his business partner at the Neptune swimming suit design company, but changes her mind when she thinks about the publicity she will get out of the partnership.

When Joe learns that a South American polo team will be playing a big match in town, he and Eve begin planning a swim number for the event. Eve tells her love starved sister Betty about the South American team coming to town, Betty comes up with a plan to find herself a husband.

After practice, Jose O'Rourke, the captain of the polo team, goes to see Jack Spratt, a masseur, who tells Jose that he has never been on with a date woman. During the massage, Jose gives Jack advice on how to talk to women. Jack, now believes women can not resits him when he speaks to them in Spanish, which he calls the "language of love."

While looking for the South American team captain, Betty accidentally mistakes Jack for Jose. Jack keeps his true identity secret and accepts her invitation to have dinner at her house. On their date, Jack secretly plays a Spanish language instruction record while pretending that he is speaking to Betty.

Later, Betty tells Eve about her date and Eve tries to talk her out of dating any of the visiting polo players.

The next day, while giving a tour of the Neptune bathing suit factory, Eve meets Jose and warns him to stay away from her sister. Jose is attracted to Eve, and pretends to understand and agrees to break his date with Betty.

Jose asks Eve to go on the date with him, she says "yes" only to prevent him from dating her sister. Eve finds him attractive and begins to fall in love with him. Now, she thinks that she must find a way to break the news to her sister.

The mistaken identities and romantic complications turn this film into a great mix of fun. Garrett and Skelton's on screen chemistry was wonderful. I'm surprised that they did not do more films together..

 

Betty Garrett (May 23, 1919 – February 12, 2011). After graduating from grammar school, Garrett enrolled at the Annie Wright School in Tacoma, with a full scholarship. There was no drama department, so she organized musical productions and plays on her own.

Following her senior year performance in Twelfth Night, the bishop urged her to pursue a career on the stage. At the same time, her mother's friend arranged an interview with Martha Graham, who was in Seattle for a concert tour and the dancer recommended her for a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Garrett and her mother moved to Manhattan in the summer of 1936 and Garrett began classes in September. Her teachers included Graham and Anna Sokolow for dance, Sandy Meisner for drama, Lehman Engel for music, and Margaret Webster for the Shakespearean classics.

She felt she was destined to be a dramatic actress and shied away from playing comedic roles. During the summer months, Garrett performed in the Borscht Belt, where she had the opportunity to work with Danny Kaye, Jerome Robbins, Carol Channing, Imogene Coca, and Jules Munshin, and she was encouraged to work on her singing and dancing skills.

She joined Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre as an understudy in what was to be its last stage performance, a short-lived production of Danton's Death that gave her the opportunity to work with Joseph Cotten, Ruth Ford, Martin Gabel, and Arlene Francis.

She performed with Martha Graham's dance company at Carnegie Hall and the Alvin Theatre, sang at the Village Vanguard, and appeared in satirical and political revues staged by the Brooklyn-based Flatbush Arts Theatre, which eventually changed its name to the American Youth Theatre and relocated to Manhattan. It was during this period she joined the Communist Party and began performing at fundraisers for progressive causes.

Garrett made her Broadway debut in 1942 in the revue Of V We Sing, which closed after 76 performances but led to her being cast in the Harold Rome revue Let Freedom Sing later that year. It closed after only eight performances, but producer Mike Todd saw it and signed her to understudy Ethel Merman and play a small role in the 1943 Cole Porter musical Something for the Boys. Merman became ill allowing Garrett to play the lead for a week. During this time she was seen by producer Vinton Freedley, who cast her in Jackpot, a Vernon Duke/Howard Dietz musical also starring Nanette Fabray and Allan Jones. The show closed quickly, and Garrett began touring the country with her nightclub act.

After Laffing Room Only another production Garrett appeared in on Broadway closed there she traveled with the show as it played extended runs in Detroit and Chicago, after which she returned to New York and was cast in Call Me Mister. She won critical acclaim and the Donaldson Award for her performance. It led to her being signed to a one-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer.

Garrett arrived at the studio in January 1947 and made her film debut portraying nightclub performer Shoo Shoo O'Grady in Big City. Mayer renewed her contract where she performed in the musicals Words and Music, On the Town, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and Neptune's Daughter.

The Jolson Story had been a huge hit in the United Kingdom, and Garrett and husband Larry Parks decided to capitalize on its popularity by appearing in at the London Palladium and then touring the UK with their nightclub act. But, the increasing popularity of television led to the decline of music hall entertainment.

Then Garrett was cast opposite Janet Leigh and Jack Lemmon in My Sister Eileen, a 1955 musical remake of a 1942 film starring Rosalind Russell, when Judy Holliday dropped out of the project due to a contract dispute.

The following year, she and Parks replaced Holliday and Sydney Chaplin in the Broadway production of Bells Are Ringing during their vacation from the show.

Over the next two decades, she performed on Broadway in two short-lived plays (Beg, Borrow or Steal with Parks and A Girl Could Get Lucky with Pat Hingle) and a musical adaptation of Spoon River Anthology, and making guest appearances on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Lloyd Bridges Show, and The Fugitive.

In the fall of 1973, All in the Family added two new neighbors to the neighborhood, Frank Lorenzo and his feisty Irish American wife, Irene. Lear had been the publicity man for Call Me Mister, All in the Family writers Bernard West and Mickey West knew Garrett from her days with the American Youth Theatre, and Jean Stapleton had been in the cast of Bells Are Ringing, so Garrett appeared to be a front runner for the role of Irene. It went instead to Sada Thompson, but, unhappy after filming one episode, Thompson asked to be released from her commitment, freeing the role for Garrett, who remained with the series from 1973 through 1975.

The following year, Garrett was performing her one-woman show Betty Garrett and Other Songs in Westwood when she was offered the role of landlady Edna Babish in Laverne and Shirley. The character was a five-time divorcee who married Laverne's father Frank. Although Garrett reportedly felt she was never given enough to do on the show, she appreciated the fact that her musical talents occasionally were incorporated into the plot, and she won a Golden Globe for her performance. When the series was extended beyond what had been intended to be its final season, Garrett was forced to drop out because she already had committed to performing with Sandy Dennis, Jack Gilford, Hope Lange, and Joyce Van Patten in The Supporting Cast on Broadway. The play closed after only eight performances, but returning to Laverne and Shirley was not an option, as the writers had explained Edna's disappearance by having her divorce Frank.

Garrett appeared on television in Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, Harts of the West, Union Square, Boston Public, Becker (for which she was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series), and Grey's Anatomy, among others, and on stage in Plaza Suite (with Parks), And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little, and the 2001 Broadway revival of Follies.

At Theatre West, which she co-founded, she directed Arthur Miller's The Price and appeared in the play Waiting in the Wings. She won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award twice, for Spoon River Anthology and Betty Garrett and Other Songs.

Garrett received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2003. On her 90th birthday in 2009, she was honored at a celebration sponsored by Theatre West at the Music Box Theatre in Hollywood.

In 2010, Garrett appeared alongside former two-time co-star Esther Williams during Turner Classic Movies' first annual Classic Film Festival. Their film Neptune's Daughter was screened at the pool of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, while a Williams-inspired synchronized swimming troop, The Aqualilies, performed.

The Law in Her Hands (1936).

The Law in Her Hands (1936)Directed by William Clemens. Cast: Margaret Lindsay, Glenda Farrell, Warren Hull and Lyle Talbot.

Two best friends Mary Wentworth and Dorothy Davis, work as waitress to pay their way through law school. After, passing the bar exam the girls open their own practice. Their friend, Franz, has a picture of the girls taken, just as gangster Angie Simelli, is throwing a smoke bomb in Franz's restaurant. In hopes to scare Franz in paying racketeer Frank Gordon, protection fees. Simelli, is then arrested and prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Robert Mitchell.

Gordon, finds witnesses to swear that Simelli was not at the restaurant at the time of the incident, but.. Mary and Dorothy have the photo as prove. Gordon, impressed by Mary, offers her a job as his lawyer, but.. she turns him down.

Also impressed, Robert.. who, will do and say anything to make her to quit and marry him. She asks him for a year to try and build her law practice. Mary, loses her first case in court when a dishonest lawyer plants a bottle of liquor in a coat she was planning on using as evidence in an important court case.

Robert, wants her to represent a man who has already signed a confession. Mary decides to use the same kind of trick that defeated her in her last case and wins her case. She is then forced to take Gordon's case with a surprise twist ending.

 Glenda Farrell

 The film, The Law In Her Hands, seems to make fun of women who want careers. The heroine's boyfriend, who is also district attorney, is such a jerk that you wont believe what he does to get his own way. The teaming of Margaret Lindsay and Glenda Farrell, is what makes this a fun film. If you are into the clothes of the 30's, you will enjoy the girls beautiful suits.

Margaret Lindsay (September 19, 1910 - May 9, 1981)  After attending National Park Seminary in Washington, D.C., Lindsay convinced her parents to enroll her at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. She then went abroad to England to make her stage debut. She performed in plays: Escape, Death Takes a Holiday and The Romantic Age.

Lindsay was often mistaken as being British due to her convincing English accent, which impressed Universal Studios enough to sign her for their 1932 version of, The Old Dark House.

After some minor roles in Pre-Code films such as Christopher Strong and Baby Face, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, Lindsay was cast in the award-winning, Cavalcade. Later, Lindsay performed in a small but memorable role as Edith Harris, a doomed English bride whose honeymoon voyage takes place on the Titanic.

Her work in Cavalcade earned her a contract at Warner Bros. where she became a  supporting player, working with Paul Muni, Errol Flynn, Henry Fonda, Warren William, Leslie Howard, George Arliss, Humphrey Bogart, Boris Karloff and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Lindsay was cast four times as the love interest of James Cagney, from 1933-1935. She performed with Cagney in four films: Frisco Kid, Devil Dogs of the Air, G-Men and Lady Killer.

Lindsay co-starred with Bette Davis in four films: 1934's Fog Over Frisco; in 1935's Dangerous (for which Davis won her first Best Actress Academy Award); in Bordertown, co-starring Paul Muni, and as Davis's rival for Henry Fonda's affections in Jezebel (1938), which earned Davis her second Best Actress Academy Award.

The Law in Her Hands (1936), she performed a leading role as a mob lawyer. It was rare among gangster films of the 30's to have a female in such a male-dominated role. Made after the Motion Picture Production Code came into effect, The Law in Her Hands was forced into a reactionary stance towards the gender switch and concluded with a plot twist that was the complete opposite of the Pre-Code period (1929–1934), when "female characters on the screen could say, do and be whatever they wanted".

Lindsay's best known film role was, The House of the Seven Gables in 1940, with George Sanders and Vincent Price. Her 1940s film series work in Hollywood included: Ellery Queen series from 1940-1942.

Lindsay, performed in a supporting role in the 1942 film, The Spoilers, starring John Wayne and in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street in 1945. While her work in the late 1940s would occasionally involve a supporting role in MGM films like Cass Timberlane with Spencer Tracy, her film career faded, soon after.

She returned to the stage and co-starred with Franchot Tone, in The Second Man. 1950s and 1960s She made her television debut in 1950 in, The Importance of Being Earnest. More television work soon followed. Lindsay performed in only four films during the 1950s and two in the 1960s. Her final feature film was, Tammy and the Doctor (1963).

Lindsay lived with her sister Helen in Hollywood. Later in life, she lived with her youngest sister Mickie. Despite being romantically linked to actors such as William Gargan and Edward Norris, she never married.

Margaret Lindsay's sister, Jane Kies (1909–1985), was also an actress under the name of Jane Gilbert. In 1940, Jane married the son of Hedda Hopper, actor William Hopper, best known for his role as Paul Drake in the Perry Mason television series. Their daughter Joan was born in 1942, and the couple divorced in the early 1960s. Lindsay's niece Peggy Kenline and great-nephew Brad Yates were also actors.

Pawsome Pet Pictures: Hedy Lamarr.

Personal Quote:

 (speaking in the 1960s) "It would be wrong of me to say so, but in this country (USA) money is more important than love. Most people here betray you and that's why there is so much chaos. I want to get away from here. I am homesick for Vienna ... because my home is Vienna and Austria, not America...never!"

Riffraff (1936).

Riffraff(1936). Cast: Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. The movie was written by Frances Marion, Anita Loos, and H. W. Hannaford. Directed by J. Walter Ruben.

As the fishermen are all about to strike against tuna cannery boss Nick Lewis, Dutch Muller talks them out of it, realizing that Nick wants them to break their contract with him so he can hire cheaper labor.

On the day of Dutch's and Hattie's wedding, Dutch shows her their new home and tells her that he will be the new union head because Brains, is going to be replaced. As his first official act, Dutch calls for a strike.

Weeks after the strike Brains tries to work a settlement with Nick and replaces Dutch. Now broke, Dutch watches as their furniture is repossessed and refuses Brains's offer to take him back into the union. "Flytrap," arrives with Hattie's repossessed fur. Because Nick is in love with Hattie, he has paid all of her bills. Dutch, becomes angry with Brains when he tells him to give up his conceit. When Hattie agrees with Brains, Nick walks out.

Nick convinces Hattie to get a divorce, but.. she still refuses to marry him. When Dutch's friend Lew tells her that Dutch is sick and has been living in a hobo camp, she asks Nick for money, but he refuses. She takes it, leaving a note promising to pay him back, but at the hobo camp, Dutch jumps a freight to avoid seeing her. Nick then presses charges against her and she goes to prison, even though she is pregnant.

After the baby is born, Hattie's sister Lil takes care of him. Hearing that Hattie has been jailed, but not knowing about the baby, Dutch goes to Nick for help, but he refuses and the union also does not want him back. Dutch then goes to see Hattie with an escape plan, but.. she says she never wants to see him again.

She tells two other inmates about Dutch's escape plan and they convince her that it will work.

Meanwhile, Dutch goes to Brains begging for a job to help Hattie, and Brains gets him a job as a night watchman.

One rainy night, Hattie and two other women escape from prison through a drain pipe, but one of the women is killed. That same night, while Dutch is standing guard, his friend Belcher and some other men come to him with a plan about sabotaging the docks, but Dutch refuses to go through with it and stops their plans.

Hattie has arrived at Lil's and asks Jimmy to find Dutch, who has just heard about Hattie's escape. Jimmy tries to talk to him, but Dutch sends him away because, the police are there asking him questions. Will Jimmy ever return to Hattie and their baby?

 I'm a huge Jean Harlow fan and she looks wonderful in this movie. Spencer Tracy, plays a immature and bull headed character. Who, is always getting in arguments or fights at every opportunity. Not one of my favorite Spencer Tracy characters. Una Merkel, plays the sister and a very young Mickey Rooney, plays the brother.

Dorothy Appleby (January 6, 1906 – August 9, 1990) , performed in over 50 films between 1931 and 1943. Appleby was seen in many supporting roles and never progressed to leading roles in important pictures because of her height, which made her difficult to cast. The trim brunette stood just over five feet tall, and her early leading men (like comedian Charley Chase) towered over her.

She soon found steady if not prestigious work in Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedies. She appeared frequently with The Three Stooges, who were only a few inches taller than she was, and in 1940 she became Buster Keaton's leading lady, for the same reason: her height complemented his. She also worked with Columbia comics Andy Clyde, El Brendel, and Hugh Herbert.

Some of her Stooge comedies were Loco Boy Makes Good, So Long Mr. Chumps, and In the Sweet Pie and Pie. One memorable appearance was as Rosita in 1940's Cookoo Cavaliers. In the film, Appleby gets hit by the Stooges when a facial "mud pack" made of cement dries on her face.

One of her last screen roles was a one-line bit (playing a college co-ed at age 35) in the 1941 Jane Withers feature Small Town Deb. Appleby left Hollywood in 1943 and married musician Paul Drake soon after. They remained married until her death August 9, 1990.

And the Winners of the 2012 CiMBAs Are....

BEST FILM REVIEW (DRAMA) Movie Review: The Gunfighter, The Girl with the White Parasol, http://www.thegirlwiththewhiteparasol.blogspot.com/2012/01/movie-review-gunfighter.html

 BEST CLASSIC MOVIE ARTICLE Minority Opinion: The Magnificent Ambersons, Jim Lane’s Cinedrome [6 parts]: Part 1: http://jimlanescinedrome.blogspot.com/2012/01/minority-opinion-magnificent-ambersons.html

BEST BLOG EVENT A Month of Vertigo, The Lady Eve’s Reel Life, http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/p/a-month-of-vertigo-bloggers-their-posts.html

 BEST FILM REVIEW, MUSICAL OR COMEDY Grift Tips from the Lady Eve (1941), 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, http://1001moviesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/grift-tips-from-lady-eve-1941.html

 BEST PROFILE OF A CLASSIC MOVIE PERFORMER OR FILMMAKER Thelma Todd Profile, Part 1 and 2, My Love of Old Hollywood, http://myloveofoldhollywood.blogspot.com/2012/03/gone-too-soon-blogathon-thelma-todd.html http://myloveofoldhollywood.blogspot.com/2012/03/gone-too-soon-blogathon-thelma-todd_11.html

BEST CLASSIC MOVIE BLOG DESIGN Sittin' On a Backyard Fence, http://sittinonabackyardfence.com/

BEST CLASSIC MOVIE DISCUSSION Interview with Stunt Double Martha Crawford Cantarini (Parts 1 and 2), Twenty Four Frames, http://twentyfourframes.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/interview-with-stunt-woman-martha-crawford-cantarini-part-one/Part 2 http://twentyfourframes.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/interview-with-stunt-double-martha-crawford-canterini-part-two/

Congratulations to everyone! Please stop by their blog sites and check them out..

Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942).

Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942). Adventure film. Director: John Cromwell. Cast: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Elsa Lanchester, John Carradine and Roddy Mc Dowell. This period swashbuckler film is based on the adventure novel Benjamin Blake by Edison Marshall, who also wrote The Vikings (1958).

In England, a kindly gunsmith Amos Kidder takes responsibility for his grandson, Benjamin Blake, after both his unwed parents died.. Their lives are turned upside down, when Benjamin's uncle, Sir Arthur Blake, who inherited title and lands from his brother,forces him to live with him as a servant.

Ten years pass and Benjamin vows to avenge himself against his cruel a uncle. During this time, Benjamin, works as a grooms man and falls in love with his cousin Isabel. On the evening, Benjamin tells Isabel that he is running away, he makes her promise to wait for him. Arthur catches them together and he beats Benjamin.

Later that night, Benjamin confronts Arthur, who holds a gun on him. Benjamin escapes with his life and stows away aboard the Tropic Star. Benjamin is befriended by Caleb Green, who tells him about a tropical island where they can find pearls.

Later, they both desert ship and swim to the island. My favorite part of the movie is when, Benjamin and Caleb enjoy their peaceful lives while they collect pearls with a native woman, called Eve by Benjamin.

 

The couple live as husband and wife, over time Benjamin, becomes homesick and makes plans on returning home to claim his birthright.. What will he find when he returns to home to England?

SON OF FURY, is a wonderful classic adventure film. One of Tyrone Power's best films. Gene Tierney, although very beautiful.. really did not look like a native girl. Alfred Newman's score is also a big part of the movie..

John Carradine (February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. Was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history. He was married several times, had several children and was the patriarch of the Carradine family acting dynasty. It includes four of his sons and four of his grandchildren.

first film credit was Tol'able David (1930), but he claimed to have done 70 pictures before getting billing. Carradine tested, along with Conrad Veidt, William Courtenay, Paul Muni, and Ian Keith, for the title role in Dracula, but all contenders lost out to Bela Lugosi. Carradine would later play the Count in the Universal Studios Dracula sequels House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula.

Lugosi and Carradine both also tested for the monster role in Frankenstein (1931). By 1933, he was being credited as John Peter Richmond, perhaps in honor of his friend, John Barrymore. He adopted the stage name "John Carradine" in 1935 and legally took the name two years later.

By 1936, Carradine had become a member of John Ford's stock company and made 11 pictures with Ford, including his first important role, as Preacher Casy in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Other Ford films in which Carradine appeared include: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Stagecoach (1939), both with John Wayne.

He also portrayed Aaron in, The Ten Commandments (1956). Carradine did stage work, which provided him with the opportunity to work in dramas. He toured with his own Shakespearean company in the 1940s, playing Hamlet and Macbeth. His Broadway roles included: Ferdinand in a 1946 production of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the Ragpicker in a 13-month run of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, Lycus in a 15-month run of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and DeLacey in the expensive one-night flop Frankenstein in 1981.

He also toured in road companies of such shows: Tobacco Road and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which he was properly emaciated as the cancer-ridden Big Daddy, a part, he said, which Tennessee Williams wrote for him. Carradine claimed to have appeared in more than 450 movies, but only 225 movies can be documented (his count is closer to fact if theatrical movies, made-for-TV movies and TV shows combined).

He often played eccentric, insane or diabolical characters, especially in the horror genre with which he had become identified as a "star" by the mid-1940s. He occasionally played a heroic role, as in The Grapes of Wrath, in which he played Casy, the ill-fated "preacher", and he occasionally played a sympathetic role, as in Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, in which he played Blake's shipmate, who escapes with him to a tropical island full of riches.

He appeared in dozens of low-budget horror films from the 1940s to finance a touring classical theatre company. He sang the theme song to one film in which he appeared briefly, Red Zone Cuba. He also made more than 100 television appearances, including CBS's My Friend Flicka and Place the Face, NBC's Cimarron City as the foreboding Jared Tucker in the episode "Child of Fear" and on Overland Trail in the 1960 episode "The Reckoning," and on ABC's Harrigan and Son and The Legend of Jesse James.

Carradine also made recurring appearances as the mortician, Mr. Gateman, on CBS' The Munsters. In 1985, Carradine won a Daytime Emmy Award for his performance as an eccentric old man who lives by the railroad tracks in the Young People's Special, Umbrella Jack. In 1982, he supplied the voice of the Great Owl in the animated feature The Secret of NIMH.

One of Carradine's final film appearances was Peggy Sue Got Married in 1986. Carradine's last released film credit was Bikini Drive-In, released years after his death. Carradine's deep, voice earned him the nickname "The Voice". He was also known as the "Bard of the Boulevard," due to his idiosyncratic habit of strolling Hollywood streets while reciting Shakespearean soliloquies, something he always denied.

Pawsome Pet Pictures: Clara Bow.

Personal Quote: (On her poverty-stricken childhood in Brooklyn): No one wanted me in the first place. Often I was lonesome, frightened and miserable. I never had a doll in my life. I never had any clothes, and lots of times didn't have anything to eat. We just lived, and that'a about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed - the worst looking kid on the street. I decided that girls weren't any good, and being lonely and needing child friends, cast my lot with the neighborhood boys. I became a regular tomboy - played baseball, football and learned to box.