watching The Philadelphia Story
I put a boatload of links on this post - I highly doubt any of you readers know any of these movies and I am attaching links for information purposes. the opinions are solely mine.
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I think the old cinematic movies are the best. The plots were usually lightweight, sometimes serious, like Sink the Bismark or totally off the wall like Bringing up Baby.
In 1940 Katherine Hepburn was in movie straights. She was on the Box Office Poison list and she needed a hit. The Philadelphia Story rights were bought for her by her current boyfriend Howard Hughes. This play was a hit on Broadway and Katherine really wanted it for a movie. The studios weren't sure she would be appropriate as Tracy Lord although Katherine had been playing Tracy in the theaters.
Putting Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart as 2 of the primary male leads was a coup by the merchandising office. Both men were adored by the general public and they could make manure smell great.
With this movie the guys had it easy., George Cukor directed and he put out the best possible performances from his team. His abilities were renowned and it was well known that Katherine loved working with him. Hepburn and Grant worked well together. Another one that I love was Holiday. Johnny Case (Grant) was going to make enough money to take a terrific holiday and he was engaged to Julia Seaton (Doris Nolin) Case was not aware that the girl he met in Lake Placid was from an extremely wealthy family and she was about as interesting as an old shoe. Case then met Linda (Hepburn), She was funny, and she had the same kind of ideas he did. Julia and Linda's little brother Ned was quickly turning into an alcoholic, as he was miserable working for his father and being overrun by the iron grip of his parent This movie ended with Linda and Johnny running off to have a great trip. There is a line in that movie, that is something like this\, "If he ends up selling peanuts on the street I won;t care but how I will believe in those peanuts." They did a number of movies together and their comedic timing was classic. Even in Bringing up Baby they could crack each other up and the movie ended up completely overdue and over budget because of the cast hijinks.
So where am I going with this?
No where in particular really.
There is a bunch of stuff I want to write about and cannot so I am doing a classic movie review. I think this is a safer tool to turn to. I remember as a child my mother was horrified when I told here I wanted to be like Katherine Hepburn. Mom/s memories were of the years Katherine had made a slew of flop movies and living with a married man, Spencer Tracy, she may have had questionable morals.
Each of Katherine's characters were multi-faceted and layered. Some to an extreme. In the Philadelphia Story Tracy Lord-Dexter-Haven was a divorce who was getting married to a man who was not clear on their personality differences. Tracy's character was one of privilege and too much money and not enough compassion. She was considered cold, arrogant, snobbish and cruel but as it turns out she was just as guilty of making enormous mistakes as any normal person For example, Tracy getting plastered on champagne with Macally (Jimmy Stewart) was the beginning of her turn around and how she had made a plethora of mistakes that were corrected eventually. Linda Seaton on the other hand was stifled and essentially the "mad sister" she was the one left of center and a square peg being forced into the round hole.
Think on this, in that era divorce, the Tracy character divorce, was almost like being a leper. It wasn't done and if it was it was only tolerated by the movie industry and read about in old magazines. Even in more recent times when a friend of mine got separated and later divorced she told me that there were older people at her parents church that told her she was going to hell and that God did not allow divorce d people into heaven.
Even now, people judging things by today's narrow minded mores were nothing on those years with the harsh judgements made on single parents, divorce, abuse, pornography and homosexuality. There was still almost a Victorian era view that things were not discussed in the open. In an era now of TMI I sometimes wonder which was the better way to go? There are some things I just DO NOT WANT TO KNOW what people do in the bathroom, bedroom and the like.
Going back to the manners of Jimmy Stewart's character in The Philadelphia Story, his character deposited a completely inebriated Tracy to her bed and turned around and left the room To summarize his character's retort "There are times and places for things but this was not one of them as our judgement was impaired and we both had too much to drink" Don't you think that is a better way to go than a modern movie that would have the guy pawing all over the drunk woman? It was called good manners. Being brought up to say Please, Thank you and May I help you with that? Not taking advantage of others when they are not able to make an informed decision for themselves, as Tracy's character was completely out of bounds after she was almost pass-out drunk. I wonder if there are other times people are not able to make informed decisions. and at those times if people attempt to take advantage of them? I would like to think that doesn't happen but I am all too afraid it could.
Honestly, I remember not even knowing such lifestyle choices existed. My parents were very strict. When the cute one and I were engaged our realtor was a neighbor. This man told me that he did not know I even lived down the street. He swore he never saw me before. Which didn't really shock me; as a kid my parents only allowed me out on certain nights and with a certain crowd. I was not allowed out otherwise- even if I pleaded. So I did use that to my advantage especially if I knew they would say no anyway.
It was at this old black and white movies were my friends. I would watch them on channel 32, 11 or whatever channel was available with old movies. Many evenings I would sit there and just watch these formal people act their way through an hour or so of whatever plot was tossed at them. I was a shy kid and I kept to myself but I could turn a wicked sarcastic phrase and I was pretty much on my own most of the time and frankly at that time I was good with that.
HOLIDAY - 1938
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the old cinematic movies are the best. The plots were usually lightweight, sometimes serious, like Sink the Bismark or totally off the wall like Bringing up Baby.
In 1940 Katherine Hepburn was in movie straights. She was on the Box Office Poison list and she needed a hit. The Philadelphia Story rights were bought for her by her current boyfriend Howard Hughes. This play was a hit on Broadway and Katherine really wanted it for a movie. The studios weren't sure she would be appropriate as Tracy Lord although Katherine had been playing Tracy in the theaters.
Putting Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart as 2 of the primary male leads was a coup by the merchandising office. Both men were adored by the general public and they could make manure smell great.
With this movie the guys had it easy., George Cukor directed and he put out the best possible performances from his team. His abilities were renowned and it was well known that Katherine loved working with him. Hepburn and Grant worked well together. Another one that I love was Holiday. Johnny Case (Grant) was going to make enough money to take a terrific holiday and he was engaged to Julia Seaton (Doris Nolin) Case was not aware that the girl he met in Lake Placid was from an extremely wealthy family and she was about as interesting as an old shoe. Case then met Linda (Hepburn), She was funny, and she had the same kind of ideas he did. Julia and Linda's little brother Ned was quickly turning into an alcoholic, as he was miserable working for his father and being overrun by the iron grip of his parent This movie ended with Linda and Johnny running off to have a great trip. There is a line in that movie, that is something like this\, "If he ends up selling peanuts on the street I won;t care but how I will believe in those peanuts." They did a number of movies together and their comedic timing was classic. Even in Bringing up Baby they could crack each other up and the movie ended up completely overdue and over budget because of the cast hijinks.
So where am I going with this?
No where in particular really.
There is a bunch of stuff I want to write about and cannot so I am doing a classic movie review. I think this is a safer tool to turn to. I remember as a child my mother was horrified when I told here I wanted to be like Katherine Hepburn. Mom/s memories were of the years Katherine had made a slew of flop movies and living with a married man, Spencer Tracy, she may have had questionable morals.
Each of Katherine's characters were multi-faceted and layered. Some to an extreme. In the Philadelphia Story Tracy Lord-Dexter-Haven was a divorce who was getting married to a man who was not clear on their personality differences. Tracy's character was one of privilege and too much money and not enough compassion. She was considered cold, arrogant, snobbish and cruel but as it turns out she was just as guilty of making enormous mistakes as any normal person For example, Tracy getting plastered on champagne with Macally (Jimmy Stewart) was the beginning of her turn around and how she had made a plethora of mistakes that were corrected eventually. Linda Seaton on the other hand was stifled and essentially the "mad sister" she was the one left of center and a square peg being forced into the round hole.
Think on this, in that era divorce, the Tracy character divorce, was almost like being a leper. It wasn't done and if it was it was only tolerated by the movie industry and read about in old magazines. Even in more recent times when a friend of mine got separated and later divorced she told me that there were older people at her parents church that told her she was going to hell and that God did not allow divorce d people into heaven.
Even now, people judging things by today's narrow minded mores were nothing on those years with the harsh judgements made on single parents, divorce, abuse, pornography and homosexuality. There was still almost a Victorian era view that things were not discussed in the open. In an era now of TMI I sometimes wonder which was the better way to go? There are some things I just DO NOT WANT TO KNOW what people do in the bathroom, bedroom and the like.
Going back to the manners of Jimmy Stewart's character in The Philadelphia Story, his character deposited a completely inebriated Tracy to her bed and turned around and left the room To summarize his character's retort "There are times and places for things but this was not one of them as our judgement was impaired and we both had too much to drink" Don't you think that is a better way to go than a modern movie that would have the guy pawing all over the drunk woman? It was called good manners. Being brought up to say Please, Thank you and May I help you with that? Not taking advantage of others when they are not able to make an informed decision for themselves, as Tracy's character was completely out of bounds after she was almost pass-out drunk. I wonder if there are other times people are not able to make informed decisions. and at those times if people attempt to take advantage of them? I would like to think that doesn't happen but I am all too afraid it could.
Honestly, I remember not even knowing such lifestyle choices existed. My parents were very strict. When the cute one and I were engaged our realtor was a neighbor. This man told me that he did not know I even lived down the street. He swore he never saw me before. Which didn't really shock me; as a kid my parents only allowed me out on certain nights and with a certain crowd. I was not allowed out otherwise- even if I pleaded. So I did use that to my advantage especially if I knew they would say no anyway.
It was at this old black and white movies were my friends. I would watch them on channel 32, 11 or whatever channel was available with old movies. Many evenings I would sit there and just watch these formal people act their way through an hour or so of whatever plot was tossed at them. I was a shy kid and I kept to myself but I could turn a wicked sarcastic phrase and I was pretty much on my own most of the time and frankly at that time I was good with that.
HOLIDAY - 1938
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY -1940
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