Fiddlesticks is noteworthy for being the first synchronized-sound two-strip Technicolor cartoon (it’s interesting to note that, when the three-strip color process was perfected a couple of years later, Disney produced the first cartoon in that mode, 1932′s Flowers and Trees–which would go on to win the first Academy Award for Animated Short Subject). Fiddlesticks also appears to feature a thumb to the nose of Disney, as one of Flip’s animal co-stars is a violin-playing mouse who strongly resembles the early concept sketches of Mickey Mouse.

After the success of Fiddlesticks, most of Flip’s future adventures were shot in black-and-white as opposed to the costly, time-consuming Technicolor process. And over time, at the behest of MGM, Flip’s design changed from amphibious to a more obviously human-like characterization, all in an effort to challenge the notably more human-like qualities of Mickey Mouse and crew. In all, Flip the Frog cavorted his way through just over three dozen shorts in the period between 1930 and 1933. When the public (and MGM) grew tired of the character, Iwerks retired Flip and debuted a new creation, Willie Whopper.

As his name implies, young Willie is a big fat liar, spinning tall tales for anyone who will listen. In his first appearance, 1933′s The Air Race, Willie tells his schoolyard chums the story of “the time I won the National Air Race.” The short even features a brief animated cameo by aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who crowns Willie the winner at the end. However, The Air Race was never released in public because MGM did not care for the final version. The story was reworked as Spite Flight, which would become the second Willie Whopper short distributed to theaters.

As with his predecessor, Flip, Willie Whopper went through several design changes over the course of the production of the shorts. Whereas in The Air Race Willie is a relatively thin young boy, in later cartoons he is drawn as much more rotund. Still, the changes did not result in longevity for Willie Whopper: while the character enjoyed a brief moment of popularity, ultimately only fourteen shorts were produced between 1933 and 1934.

Iwerks’ next endeavor was a series of shorts called ComiColor Cartoons, which his studio produced between 1933 and 1936. The ComiColor series ultimately represented the best of the Iwerks Studio’s output in the 1930s. The shorts were based on fairy tales and classic stories from literature ranging from Jack and the Beanstalk (the first ComiColor produced in 1933) to Don Quixote to the controversial Little Black Sambo cartoon (which was eventually banned). One particular short, 1935′s Balloon Land, gained a new audience in the 1980s after being featured on the popular children’s show Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

The ComiColor series was created using the Cinecolor process. Throughout most of the 1930s, Walt Disney held an exclusive contract with Technicolor, and no other studio could use that (infinitely better) process to make their own cartoon shorts. Cinecolor was the next best option, and was widely utilized by the lower-budget Hollywood studios. Many of the shorts were filmed by Iwerks himself using a multi-plane camera he had built from random parts of an old Chevrolet. The use of this camera allowed Iwerks to implement a sort of three-dimensional effect in some of the ComiColor cartoons–an impressive technique for the time (and one that would soon be replicated by Disney for the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs).

As innovative as some of the ComiColor shorts were, they marked the end of the Iwerks Studio. After MGM declined to continue distributing Iwerks’ products in 1934, distribution of the shorts fell to Celebrity Pictures. The arrangement would only last until 1936, and Iwerks was forced to close the studio that bore his name. For the next couple of years, Iwerks was a sort of freelance animator, producing several Looney Tunes shorts at Warner Bros. and working briefly for Columbia Pictures’ animation division.

It’s doubtful that the loss of the studio was particularly heartbreaking for Iwerks. Despite the initial success of the Iwerks Studio, the animator was never particularly happy in his new venture. By the end of the decade, he had to acknowledge to himself that his interests lay not in crafting new characters and stories, but in experimentation with the technology of the time, trying new, heretofore unseen tricks with the camera to better enhance the illusion at play. In 1940, Iwerks once again joined the Disney studio, albeit in a new capacity: as a special effects wizard.

Iwerks was more than up to the challenge. Within the first decade of his return to Disney, he invented a multi-head optical printer, a device which allowed for the realistic-looking combination of live-action and animation in 1940s package films such as The Three Caballeros and Song of the South. Never satisfied, Iwerks continued to tinker with his printer, improving its capabilities exponentially (and eventually winning the first of two technical Academy Awards for his efforts). Iwerks also conceived the idea of color traveling matte composite photography, the technology that made possible such sophisticated live-action/animation scenes as the penguin dance in 1964′s Mary Poppins.

Another innovation used in Mary Poppins that Iwerks helped to develop was the use of yellowscreen technology, in which actors were filmed in front of a white screen while being lit with sodium vapor lights. This process allowed for matte shots to be inserted into live-action shots, permitting live-action elements and animated scenes to blend together almost seamlessly. When Iwerks worked on the production of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds in 1963, he used the yellowscreen technology to compose the shots of the attacking birds (for his efforts, Iwerks was nominated once more for the Oscar for Special Effects, though he ultimately lost to Cleopatra, for some reason unbeknownst to yours truly).

Iwerks also took the existing technology of xerography and adapted it to the field of animation. He tinkered with a Xerox camera and eventually was able to design a device that would transfer animators’ drawings directly onto the animation cels as opposed to having each one individually hand-inked. This process was first used for the production of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and it reportedly saved the Disney studios quite a bit of money that would have been spent trying to animate all of those multi-spotted dogs!

Not all of Iwerks’ time was spent working on films, however. In the 1960s, he joined what would later become the Disney Imagineering department, working on Disney theme park attractions such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “It’s a Small World.”

From animator to studio head to technical wizard, Ub Iwerks had a long, productive, and innovative career. By the time he passed away in 1971, at the age of seventy, he had secured his position as one of the true pioneers of modern animation. In recent years, his contributions have become even more well-known, and his role in elevating the House of Mouse to its storied heights has been recognized by the Disney company itself, which inducted Iwerks into its “Legends” hall of fame in 1989. Ub’s son, Don Iwerks, followed in his footsteps as a technical wizard in his own right, working for Disney for more than thirty-five years (and becoming a Legend himself in 2009).

The young innovators, Disney and Iwerks

Even though Walt and Ub’s friendship never recovered from Ub’s move towards independence in 1930, the two men truly comprised a partnership that was made in cinematic heaven. Each respected the other for what he could do, and each allowed the other to aspire to greatness. Though Iwerks was content to remain in the background in his later years, leaving the showmanship to Disney, his contributions were nonetheless vitally important to the development of the Walt Disney Company as a force to be reckoned with.

So begins the directorial debut of Preston Sturges … and so begins a five-year run of unparalleled comedic cinematic brilliance.

By 1940, Sturges had become one of the most celebrated screenwriters in Hollywood. Sturges-scripted films such as 1933′s The Power and the Glory (recognized as a major inspiration for Orson Welles’ and Herman Mankiewicz’s script for Citizen Kane), Easy Living (1937), and Remember the Night (1940) were greatly successful. But Sturges was displeased with the way his scripts were being filmed by other directors, and he remained unhappy with the final on-screen results.

In 1940, Sturges approached Paramount with an intriguing offer: he would sell them the script for a political satire called The Great McGinty for a bargain price–one dollar–if they allowed him to direct the picture himself. In the end, Paramount paid him ten dollars and gave him a small budget of $350,000 and a mere three weeks to shoot the film.

Despite any qualms the studio may have had about their new, untried director, their money was well-spent. McGinty became a smash hit, and Sturges went on to win the first-ever Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The movie was also the first in a string of hit comedies for the writer/director, including such screwball classics as The Lady Eve (1941) and The Palm Beach Story (1942), the controversial comedy The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), and the film that is arguably Sturges’ masterpiece, Sullivan’s Travels (1941).

It’s hard to classify McGinty as a straight comedy; its underlying themes are too dark for that. But Sturges deftly combines those less savory (and slightly uncomfortable) elements with witty dialogue, incisive observation of human foibles, and a dash of slapstick. In the process, the film pokes fun at the theatrical nature of the political machine in this country in a way that seems almost prophetic.

The film begins in a rundown bar in the tropics. Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy), the scruffy, gruff bartender, prevents drunken patron Tommy from shooting himself. Tommy is despondent because, in his previous incarnation as the cashier of a bank, he had been tempted to steal money and had subsequently derailed his plans for the future. After saving Tommy, McGinty sits him down at the bar and flashes back to the story of his own ignominious downfall: after spending much of his life as a bum, he had risen through the ranks to become the governor of a state (implied to be Illinois), before corruption and his conscience got the best of him.

McGinty’s rise to political power begins when he figures out a way to milk the voter fraud system set up by the city’s political machine in support of Mayor Wilfred Tillinghast. At two bucks a pop, he travels across the city, voting at various polling stations under a series of false names. To the utter surprise of the man running the scam (William Demarest, known only as The Politician throughout the film), McGinty votes thirty-seven different times without getting caught. The head of the machine, known only as The Boss (Akim Tamiroff), is impressed by McGinty’s initiative and bravado—despite the fact that McGinty had disrespected him—and offers him a job as an enforcer, of sorts, collecting protection money from businesses around the city. McGinty shows a flair for the task, by turns sweet-talking and rough-housing his way into collecting the funds.

The Boss eventually makes McGinty an alderman. In the meantime, an outcry by the Civic Purity League leads to a shakeup at City Hall. The Boss (who is secretly in cahoots with the leader of the League) proposes that McGinty, a supposed “clean, typical American,” run for mayor against Tillinghast, and tells McGinty to get married right away (because “women got the vote now” and “they don’t like bachelors”). McGinty initially refuses to run under that condition, but after his secretary, Catherine (Muriel Angelus), tells him she’d be willing to enter an “in name only” marriage to further his career, he finally agrees … though Catherine waits until after the wedding to reveal that she has two children from her first marriage.

McGinty wins the election and institutes a series of civic improvements while continuing the same level of graft that had gotten his predecessor into trouble. McGinty and Catherine begin to fall in love, and he takes on a more fatherly role with her children. But when Catherine professes her unease at his business practices, telling him that she hopes that one day he’ll be “strong enough” to stand up to The Boss and “do some good” for his constituents, McGinty begins to think that perhaps he can pull away from the political machine, if only to make Catherine happy. McGinty campaigns for governor and wins and, upon reciting his oath at the inauguration, seems to take the words to heart. But this sudden change in perspective leads to a rather ignominious downfall, and his newfound lofty ideals ultimately become his undoing.

McGinty’s story is the prototypical tale of the bad-man-gone-good-thanks-to-the-love-of-a-good-woman. Still, McGinty is not an altogether “bad” guy to start with, and this is what ultimately makes him an appealing sort of anti-hero. He’s more opportunistic than outright deceitful; his movement up the political ladder comes not from his own ambition, but more from a kind of “go with the flow” attitude. When The Boss asks him if he wants to run for mayor, his response is, “Well, sure, I guess so,” delivered with an implied shrug.

Like his cronies, McGinty initially shows little remorse for his actions, nonchalantly explaining at one point, “You gotta crawl before you creep, don’t ya?” But later in the film, he begins to feel the pangs of conscience. In one notable scene, Catherine’s children stand in the doorway to his bedroom on election night and watch their mother put their drunken stepfather to bed. While Catherine apologizes for the children bothering him, McGinty’s only concern is that “they had to see me like this.” And for all of his aggressive worldliness, there is an endearing sort of innocence to the man, embodied in the scene in which McGinty reads a bedtime story to the children and, even though they have fallen asleep, insists on finishing so he can find out the ending of the tale.

The film takes an ultimately cynical and yet hilarious stance on the issue of political corruption. The idea of buying votes from down-on-their-luck bums doesn’t even cause a momentary pang of conscience on the part of The Boss: it’s just good business. Note the scene in which The Politician explains the voting scam to McGinty:

“Some people is too lazy to vote, that’s all. They don’t like this kind of weather. Some of them is sick in bed and can’t vote. Maybe a couple of ‘em croaked recently. That ain’t no reason why Mayor Tillinghast should get cheated out of their support! All we’re doing is getting out the vote!”

McGinty and The Boss are a match made in corruption heaven. They work well together because they understand one another. Both are physical beings, willing to duke it out in the heat of the moment, as they do several times throughout the film. Neither really has an overt conscience or any qualms about the illegal things they are doing. It’s only when McGinty begins to assert honesty that the partnership is broken. And even when The Boss goes into a rage and tries to shoot him, McGinty is unwilling to press charges, because he understands his former partner in crime so well, explaining to Catherine, “He ain’t a bad guy, honey, according to his way of looking at things. You got to remember, he took me off a breadline.” He knows how The Boss feels after everything they’ve been through together: “Why shouldn’t he [try to kill me]? Don’t you think I’d take a pop at a guy that slipped me the triple-cross?”

The movie presents an interesting twist on the Horatio Alger-esque idea of the “American dream,” wherein traditionally a boy makes good through hard work and virtuous honesty. When The Boss explains to McGinty the joys of living in America, the irony of his lauding of the “land of the free” is apparent:

“Yesterday you was a hobo on the breadline. Today you got a thousand berries and a new suit. I wonder where you’ll be tomorrow. This is a land of great opportunity!”

Of course, the only way McGinty is able to secure his garish new plaid suit and a thousand dollars in cash is through underhanded means. But neither The Boss nor McGinty see the (somewhat disturbing) humor in their particular situation.

There are scenes of slapstick and visual humor amidst the darker backdrop of the tale: McGinty and The Boss wrestling in the backseat of The Boss’ armored car, tumbling out onto the street when a valet pulls open the door; McGinty checking out Catherine’s legs before he’ll agree to marry her (“What’s that got to do with it?” she asks indignantly as he takes a peek); McGinty meandering drunkenly through his own election-night victory party and stumbling clumsily through his pitch-dark apartment afterwards, shattering glass and knocking over furniture. These moments serve to lighten the tone of the film, but also underscore the idea that politicians are little more than thugs, driven by the same impulses that drive most human beings. The story of McGinty is a twisted Pygmalion-like tale in which the final, shiny product remains unchanged underneath: in other words, once a bum, always a bum.

One specific scene in the film seems to sum up Sturges’ point of view in one pointed, definitive stroke. It is a particularly brilliant montage of two political rallies, one headed by The Politician in support of McGinty, and the other for his opponent, in which the two different perspectives of McGinty’s political career are relayed in a nutshell. For supporters, his spending of the city’s treasury money means more jobs, more money in circulation, and more prosperity for the majority of the citizens; for opponents, that same action means the construction of useless buildings and the proliferation of graft.

In the end, the election comes down to a single question of performance. Who presents the most appealing case? The Politician, a firebrand shouting rallying cries, or his opponent, who attempts to offer reason and facts in a more subdued display? It’s ultimately not surprising that McGinty wins the election. Watching such scenes some seventy-odd years after the film’s release (and in an election year, no less), it only goes to show that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Look at the theatrical nature of the recent proliferation of Republican debates. Listen to the rhetoric of the President’s annual State of the Union address. The entire electoral process is a matter of histrionics. Who speaks loudest? Whose message can be presented in the most appealing light? Facts? What are those?

Politics, as Sturges has basically foretold in The Great McGinty, is an animal that will likely never change. The cynicism behind Sturges’ portrait of the American political system is just as prevalent today. It’s enough to make one want to move to his own banana republic and escape the whole thing.

But at least we can derive some laughs from the process.

No matter how uncomfortable they may be.

This post is our contribution to the CMBA Comedy Classics Blogathon. Check out the CMBA website for the full schedule of participants.

Disney is, of course, a legendary name in the history of animation, having arguably done more for the field than any other figure in the history of film. But Iwerks’ contributions to the very foundations of the Walt Disney Company are not as well-known. Iwerks was, for many years, Walt’s closest friend and confidant, and he was instrumental to the creation of Disney’s most beloved character.

Disney and Iwerks met when both were teenagers, working for an art studio in Kansas City, Iwerks’ hometown. The two young men had been greatly impressed by Winsor McCay’s groundbreaking 1914 animated short, Gertie the Dinosaur, and in 1920 formed their own short-lived company, Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. When that failed, first Disney and then Iwerks took up work at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where the aspiring animators began to study the process of film animation.

Two years later, Disney formed the Laugh-O-Gram Studio and signed a contract to produce six short animated fairy tales. Iwerks was hired to assist on the animation, but soon went back to the ad company, as Disney barely had enough money to keep the studio open, let alone pay his animators (on that note, Laugh-O-Gram employed several animators who would later find their own measure of fame, including Rudy Ising and Hugh Harman, eventual founders of both Warner Bros. and MGM’s animation divisions, and Looney Tunes stalwart Friz Freleng). Still, Iwerks continued to work on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts, often for little or no pay.

Laugh-O-Gram only lasted for a little over a year before Disney was forced to file for bankruptcy. The company had produced ten short films (all of which have since fallen into the public domain). The first of these, Little Red Riding Hood (1922), was lost for decades and only rediscovered and restored in 1998.

The only credited name on Red Riding Hood is Disney’s own, though Iwerks was the chief animator for this and other Laugh-O-Gram productions.

When Laugh-O-Gram failed, Disney decided to try his luck in California, leaving Iwerks behind in Kansas City. But in 1924, Disney offered Iwerks a position in his new company, Disney Brothers Productions. Disney gave Iwerks 20% ownership of the new company, and the two embarked on the creation of a series of short films inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice in Wonderland.

These “Alice comedies” had gotten their start at Laugh-O-Gram, where in 1923, the first short, Alice’s Wonderland, had been produced. The Alice shorts were notable for featuring live-action combined with animation, much in the same vein as Gertie the Dinosaur. In 57 shorts, Alice, initially played by young Virginia Davis (and later played by Margie Gay, Lois Hardwick, and a young Dawn O’Day–who would eventually rechristen herself Anne Shirley), interacted with the animated creatures on screen in various adventures.

Disney directed the shorts, while Iwerks took charge of the animation. The Alice comedies were popular, and the pair continued to produce them through 1927. By then, the conceit had grown tired, and Disney and Iwerks had moved on to the creation of new character: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who made his premiere in the 1927 short Trolley Troubles.

The first two dozen Oswald shorts were, by and large, animated by Iwerks, with contributions from other animators like Harman and Freleng (who, like Iwerks, had been brought to California by Disney after the failure of Laugh-O-Gram). Sadly, many of those initial Oswald cartoons have been lost over time, and the original versions of many of the existing shorts are missing.

Oswald presented Disney with his first true animated success. Whatever joy Disney felt at this, however, was soon tempered by the realization that his contract with the distributor of the cartoons, Universal, dictated that the studio now owned the rights to the Oswald character. When Disney asked for a budget increase for the Oswald shorts, he was told that he would instead have to accept a drastic pay cut himself, and was further informed that most of his animators had signed with Universal, something Disney saw as a horrible betrayal. In the end, Universal went on to produce several dozen Oswald shorts under the auspices of Walter Lantz (who would go on to create Woody the Woodpecker in 1940). Disney and Iwerks lost control of their creation, and found themselves without an animated star for Disney Brothers Studio.

In the wake of the Oswald fiasco, Disney was determined to protect his future characters. He turned to Iwerks to create a new face for the Disney company. Iwerks was inspired by some sketches of mice that fellow animator Harman had jotted on a photograph of Disney in 1925 (Walt had had a pet mouse in Kansas City of which he was particularly fond). Iwerks modified the original Oswald design (so as to avoid any accusations of copyright infringement) and created a simplistic, rounded body design for the new mouse character, featuring the iconic rounded ears that even today remain an instantly recognizable symbol of the Walt Disney Company. Walt originally intended to name the new character “Mortimer Mouse,” but his wife Lillian thought “Mortimer” to be too pretentious a name, and the new creation was instead christened “Mickey” (incidentally, the name “Mortimer” would reappear about a decade later, used as the name for Mickey’s rival for Minnie Mouse’s affection).

Iwerks served as the main animator for the first two years of Mickey’s existence, a daunting job that was made no easier by the shared sense of perfectionism between Iwerks and Disney. While Walt composed the stories for the Mickey shorts, Iwerks was almost solely responsible for the animation, which required his producing an average of seven hundred drawings every day before each short could be completed. With this unheard-of level of production, the first Mickey cartoon was completed in a mere three weeks.

That first cartoon, the 1928 silent short Plane Crazy, did not manage to attract a distributor, much to Disney’s disappointment. A second silent short, The Gallopin’ Gaucho, also failed to attract notice from studios. But the third time was the charm: in November 1928, Disney secured a distribution deal with Celebrity Productions, and Steamboat Willie was released to almost instant acclaim.

Steamboat Willie is often credited as the first sound cartoon, but this is not exactly true: several sound cartoons had been released by Fleischer Studios earlier in the decade under the Song Car-Tunes title (these shorts are notable for the innovation of a “bouncing ball” to help audiences keep track of the melody). But the sound on these shorts was not fully synchronized to the action onscreen. To avoid this problem in his own cartoons, Disney utilized a click track, which helped the studio musicians maintain exact timing during recording. Because of this, Willie is widely considered to be the first commercially successful animated short to feature precisely synchronized sound. After its warm reception, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho were both synchronized to sound and released on their own, again to much praise.

While Mickey became a huge hit, the friendship between Disney and Iwerks began to disintegrate under Disney’s growing demands. Iwerks believed that he was not receiving all of the credit he should have gotten as Disney’s proverbial right-hand man, and he chafed at Disney’s notoriously temperamental attitude. Disney, for his part, was frustrated by his distribution deal with Pat Powers, the owner of Celebrity Pictures, who was not paying Disney everything he was owed through the deal. Walt took out his frustration on his animators, and Iwerks bore the brunt of his displeasure. Angry and tired of the fractious working relationship, Iwerks signed a deal with Powers to leave Disney Brothers Studios and found an animation company under his own name.

It was the end of an era. Walt was infuriated at Iwerks’ perceived betrayal. Their friendship–and the prolific partnership that had given the world one of its most beloved animated creations–was over … at least for the time being.

Next week: the continuation of Ub Iwerks’ contributions to the history of animation.

Today, my contribution to The Lady Eve’s Month of Vertigo celebration is up at TLE’s Reel Life–all about Kim Novak’s sometimes underestimated contributions to the film. Thanks again, Eve, for inviting me to participate and allowing me the chance to revisit this film!

And for more things Vertigo, here are some thoughts about the film that I posted back in 2010.

Make sure to catch all of the entertaining and insightful posts that have been posted thus far–and will continue to be posted throughout the month–by the incomparable Lady Eve.

TCM’s annual “Remembers” video is, as always, extremely well done–evocative, heartfelt, and beautiful (and, as always, putting the efforts of the annual Academy Awards “in memoriam” tribute to shame). This video is a marvelous tribute to the talented folks who have left us … and can be hard to watch without tears and lumpy throats all around.

As we move into the new year tonight, here’s hoping your 2012 brings all of the joys, blessings, good luck, and glad tidings you desire.

Without further ado …

1. What is your all-time favorite Grace Kelly costume?

That would be this much-lauded beauty from Rear Window. I’ve said it before and I’ll say again: I want this dress, and I want it now.

2. What classic film would you nominate for a remake?

I’m not really a fan of remakes, to be honest, but I’m generally interested in seeing new versions of literary adaptations (the upcoming Baz Luhrmann 3D “why-God-why” take on The Great Gatsby notwithstanding).

3. Name your favorite femme fatale.

Rita Hayworth as Gilda (1946). To quote Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption (1995), I love when “she does that shit with her hair.”

4. Name the best movie with the word “heaven” in its title.

Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Gene Tierney’s performance is perfection.

5. Describe the worst performance by a child actor that you’ve ever seen (since Laura gave me the idea).

The annoying little moppet who plays Jane in Room for One More (1952). Actually, to be fair, all of the kids in that movie annoyed the crap out of me. Actually, to be really fair, the movie in general annoyed me (though my poor Cary did the best he could).

6. Who gets your vote for most tragic movie monster?

King Kong.

7. What is the one Western that you would recommend to anybody?

The Searchers (1956). I’m not a Western fan, but it’s a powerful film regardless of genre.

8. Who is your ideal movie-viewing partner?

Anyone who doesn’t mind my geeky pre- and post-film Robert Osborne-lite commentary!

9. Has a film ever made you want to change your life? If so, what was the film?

I don’t know if this would be considered “life-changing,” but as I’ve explained before, Cinderella Jones (1946) actually inspired Carrie and I to start this blog. It’s not life-changing in the traditional sense, but it’s been one of the most rewarding “hobbies” I’ve ever undertaken, so I’m grateful for that!

10. Think of one performer that you truly love. Now think of one scene/movie/performance of theirs that is too uncomfortable for you to watch.

I adore Barbara Stanwyck, but ye gods, I sometimes have to close my eyes when confronted with her terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad wig in Double Indemnity (1944). That’s not to detract from Stanwyck’s performance in ANY way, because she is brilliant in the role. But while I realize that part of the justification for Phyllis having the bad hair is that it reveals the innate trashiness of her character, it’s so distracting in some scenes that I can hardly focus on anything else. I just keep staring at that blond helmet on her otherwise gorgeous head!

11. On the flip side, think of one really good scene/performance/movie from a performer that you truly loathe.

I personally can’t stand Miriam Hopkins, but I love watching her opposite Bette Davis in The Old Maid and Old Acquaintance. I think playing off someone like Bette (especially considering they reportedly loathed one another) makes Hopkins a much more appealing performer.

12. And finally, since it will be New Year’s soon, do you have any movie or blogging-related resolutions for 2012?

Be more diligent about posting comments on other blogs and responding to comments here! I subscribe to three dozen classic movie blogs and read every single post, but usually don’t have time to comment on all of them. And it generally takes me a week or so to respond to comments here, which makes me feel all sorts of awful.

Also (I tell myself this every year), I’m going to be more consistent with posting here, especially considering the (personally) appalling dearth of posts in the past month!

Make sure to take some time this weekend to eat, drink, and be merry (and maybe catch up on your reading, like our good pal Snoopy here).

We hope your day is filled with love, warmth, family, friends, and all the joys this time of year can bring!

It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) has become a recent favorite of mine, as I only saw it for the first time two years ago. But now it doesn’t feel quite like Christmas until I sit down and enjoy the holiday adventures of the film’s motley crew of misfits.

Aloysius T. McKeever, or “Mac” (Victor Moore), is an itinerant bum who lives the high life by occupying millionaires’ houses while they are out of town. His frequent target is Michael O’Connor (Charlie Ruggles), the second-richest man in the world. Every year, O’Connor spends his winters in Virginia, at which point Mac moves into his New York townhouse for the season. But in the midst of the post-World War II housing shortage in the city, Mac reluctantly begins to amass a series of “houseguests” over the Christmas holidays. He first meets Jim Bullock (Don DeFore), a veteran who has been thrown out of his apartment after the owner, O’Connor, decides to tear it down to build a skyscraper. After inviting Jim to stay, the two discover O’Connor’s daughter, Trudy (Gale Storm), who has returned home and is mistaken for a thief by the squatters. Rather than turn them in, she hides her identity after falling in love with Jim and bunks with them. Jim later invites two army buddies and their wives and children to come stay in the house, much to Mac’s growing dismay. Eventually, when O’Connor shows up, Trudy convinces him to play along in order to get to know Jim, and even invites her mother–and O’Connor’s ex-wife–Mary (Ann Harding) to join in the ruse. Needless to say, things begin to unravel rather quickly, and it’s up to Mac to play peacekeeper, confidant, and sage in order to keep their new little “family” together.

The film is anchored by a talented cast, headed by the delightful Moore and the endearingly grumpy Ruggles. Moore’s treatment of “Mike” is particularly enjoyable, as he unknowingly–and sometimes obnoxiously–plays “lord of the manor” in front of the self-same “lord.” Ruggles’ reactions to this are utterly priceless, and some of my favorite moments in the film come from the interaction between the two men. That’s not to discount the contributions of the supporting players: Storm and Harding are lovely and effective as the mother and daughter who are trying to melt the heart of their gruff family patriarch, and DeFore brings welcome moments of levity that help offset any overwhelming sense of schmaltz. And I can’t let this post go by without a mention of Mac’s adorable dog, Sam, who just about steals every scene he’s in.

At times, as you might imagine considering the subject matter, Fifth Avenue virtually reeks of sentimentality. Thankfully, however, the movie doesn’t delve entirely into maudlin territory. And if the story feels Capra-esque in its composition and characterization, it’s not entirely a coincidence. Frank Capra was originally set to direct this film before deciding to direct another perennial holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), instead. Directing duties were turned over to Roy Del Ruth, best known for directing crime dramas (the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon) and musicals (the Broadway Melodies of 1936 and 1938, 1943′s DuBarry Was a Lady). The film was the first to be produced by Allied Artists, a division of low-rent “Poverty Row” B-studio Monogram, as part of an effort to legitimize Monogram and move into A-movie territory. Accordingly, the budget for Fifth Avenue far exceeded that of other Monogram pictures, topping out around $1.2 million by the time filming was completed. But the expense was worth it, for in the end, the move toward big-budget legitimization paid off for the studio, as Fifth Avenue was a success at the box office and went on to earn a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (it ultimately lost to fellow Christmas staple Miracle on 34th Street).

Unavailable for many years, Fifth Avenue has become a staple on Turner Classic Movies’ December schedule in the past couple of years, and is now widely available on DVD. And if you have the chance to catch it this afternoon (12:30PM) on TCM, by all means, take advantage of it! It’ll definitely sprinkle some holiday spirit on your Christmas Eve celebrations.

Arguably, the two biggest dancing female stars of the 1930s–at least on the silver screen–were a sharp-tongued witty dame with legs to there, and a precocious, pint-sized charmer with precisely fifty-six curls on her head.

While Ginger Rogers hoofed her way across the screen in nine well-received films with partner Fred Astaire throughout the decade, Shirley Temple danced and sang her own way through a series of feel-good “lovable moppet” roles, becoming the savior of Twentieth Century Fox in the process. Both actresses had (and continue to have) immense fan bases, and both are remembered and cherished by film fans today for their respective dancing prowess and winning screen presence.

As Temple moved into more adult roles in the 1940s, and Rogers forged a very successful career outside of her partnership with Astaire (winning an Oscar for Best Actress for 1940′s Kitty Foyle in the process), the two of them would come together for their first and only film together, a Christmas-themed wartime melodrama called I’ll Be Seeing You (1944).

Mary (Rogers) and Zach (Joseph Cotten) happen to sit across from one another on a train at Christmastime. Zach is on furlough from a military hospital in the wake of a debilitating injury and shell-shock. Mary is also on furlough–from prison, where she has been serving a six-year sentence for manslaughter. Neither knows the details of the other’s “Christmas vacation,” but feel an instant attraction to one another. Mary goes to stay with her uncle’s family for Christmas, while Zach lies about visiting his sister in the same town so that he can see her again. Their feelings continue to grow throughout the week, and Mary’s aunt (Spring Byington) urges Mary not to tell Zach about her troubles. But Mary’s young cousin, Barbara (Temple) inadvertently tells Zach the truth about Mary’s life. Can Zach overcome his trepidation for the sake of their new-found love?

There is a touch of the maudlin to this film, particularly in the scenes in which Mary explains to Barbara exactly why she has been sent to prison. But this does not detract from what is ultimately an enjoyable little movie. There is an interesting dynamic between Rogers’ and Temple’s characters in that their prototypical roles are somewhat reversed in the film. Rogers usually plays the quick, tart-tongued worldly woman, but here she is meek and downtrodden, plagued with regrets for the things she has lost because of her misfortune. On the other hand, Temple has more than enough sass for both of them as Mary’s suspicious cousin. As opposed to her typical screen performances as the eternal optimist, here Temple is (at least at first) the sharp one, the cynical teenager who cannot fully accept her cousin’s presence until the truth behind her imprisonment is revealed.

There is an initial hint of rivalry between the cousins upon Zach’s arrival at the family’s home for dinner. Barbara stares at him longingly, shooting veiled, disapproving looks at Mary as though she feels her cousin is not good enough for the handsome soldier (as well she likely does). Of course, Barbara is far too young for Zach herself, but her obvious crush on him further colors her perception of her jailbird relation. Mary, for her part, strives to understand Barbara’s trepidation at having a convict for a temporary roommate, though it’s hard for her once she sees how Barbara has labeled all of the possessions in her room. But all indications of conflict are set aside once Mary explains the details behind her “crime.” And even though Barbara is ultimately responsible for driving Zach away by telling him about Mary’s past, it is the mistake of a child, born out of haste, not malice, and one that eventually leads to a positive denouement for the film.

I read an article several years ago that claimed that Rogers disliked Temple and loathed working with her on this movie, but I have not seen any evidence of that elsewhere. Who’s to say if the two really did have a fierce rivalry, or whether it was merely tabloidic speculation (yes, I’m aware I probably just made up a word)? Still, I thoroughly enjoy the combination of these two famous hoofers in this film–though, admittedly, real “hoofing” doesn’t play all that big a role in the movie. There is a YMCA ball near the end of the film, but neither actress gets a chance to really show off her skills.

Wouldn’t it have been beyond fascinating to see these two talents really hash out their perceived feud on the dance floor? I mean, seriously–it’s one of those interesting questions to ponder: who do you think would win in a head-to-head dance-off between Ginger and Shirley? Is that even a fair question?

(For the record, my money would be on Ginger, all the way. No offense, Shirls.)

This month marks the twenty-second anniversary of the debut of The Simpsons, forever and always one of my very favorite television shows. When I tell you I can quote entire blocks of dialogue from this show, I’m not joking. I tend to pepper random conversations with bon mots from the show. And just last night, I popped in a DVD from season eight and annoyed the folks around me by speaking along with the characters as we watched.

The two-decades-long-and-growing legacy of the yellow cartoon family started with a television special in 1989 called “Simpsons Roasting On an Open Fire.” As the title (and the month of its debut) indicates, it is a Christmas special centering around the family’s adoption of its beloved pooch, Santa’s Little Helper. “Roasting” was actually not intended to be the series premiere;  creator Matt Groening, along with fellow producers Sam Simon and James L. Brooks, were displeased with the animation of the intended first episode, “Some Enchanted Evening,” and thus “Roasting” was aired first.

In the end, though, this episode turned out to be the perfect introduction to the Simpson family. Though some viewers had already been exposed to Groening’s characters through a series of animated shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show, giving the family its own show allowed the characters to be fully fleshed-out as viable, entertaining, and ultimately relatable figures.

“Roasting” opens with a school pageant, where both Bart and Lisa perform (and Bart gets yanked off stage for substituting his own irreverent lyrics for “Jingle Bells”). On a shopping trip to the mall, Bart sneaks away to get a tattoo, and Marge must spend the Christmas fund to get it removed. When Homer finds out he’s not getting a Christmas bonus, and subsequently discovers that the family will have no money to spend on presents, he secretly takes a job as a mall Santa to earn money for the holidays, but doesn’t earn quite as much as he expected. A desperate, last-minute stop at the greyhound racing track provides the family with an unexpected yet delightfully appropriate gift.

The episode establishes many of the tropes that have recurred throughout the series’ run: Homer’s rivalry with and disdain for his neighbor, Ned Flanders; Mr. Burns’ greed; Bart’s mischievousness and unadulterated love for television; Lisa’s cautious, eight-year-old cynicism (juxtaposed with her constant desire for a pony); Marge’s trusting nature; Patty and Selma’s dislike of Homer; and Grandpa’s sometimes-pathetic, sometimes-hilarious senility. There are, of course, some distinct differences between this early adventure and the show’s more polished later episodes: Moe’s bar is a little cheerier than it would soon become, the rough edges of the animation are still evident here, and some of the iconic character voices have yet to be determined (most notably, Dan Castellaneta was still voicing Homer as a gravelly Walter Matthau-type at this early juncture), but the hallmarks for the show are well-established in this episode.

There is a sweet sentimentality to this episode, which is not to say that there are not some elements of the show’s trademark acerbic wit. Still, while “Roasting” is not nearly as satirically incisive as some subsequent episodes of the show (particularly during what I would argue is The Simpsons’ “golden age,” from season three through season eight), it certainly sets the proper mood for the series.

These days, nearly five hundred episodes later, The Simpsons catches a lot of flack for supposedly not being as “good” as it was during the 1990s. And though it may be true that the show has become … well, a little lazy in recent years, there is still enjoyment to be found in the adventures of the many denizens of Springfield.

“Simpsons Roasting On an Open Fire” can be found on the first disc of the Season One DVD (complete with commentary from creator Matt Groening, executive producer James L. Brooks, and the episode’s director, David Silverman), and was also included on the Simpsons Christmas DVD along with other classic episodes like “Mr. Plow” and “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace.”