COFFEE TIME!

Although Vincente Minnelli's 1945 musical Yolanda and the Thief is not one of his or Fred Astaire's most popular films, it contains a jewel of a musical number that has earned raves from day one...Coffee Time...

When the film was released, none other than stuffy Bosley Crowther, critic for The New York Times, was impressed: "...a rhythm dance, done to the melody of Mr. Freed's Coffee-Time, puts movement and color to such uses as you seldom behold on screen."

More recently, Stuart Klawans of The Nation was even more enthusiastic: "Minnelli puts Astaire and Lucille Bremer into the midst of a mad pulsation of dancers in mocha and cafe au lait costumes...the chorus swirls; the camera swirls; the gringo-Latin rhythms shift giddily...Coffee Time  is heaven itself, and a warm-up for the 18-minute ballet that Minnelli and Gene Kelly would create in An American in Paris."

Coffee Time is the reworking of an earlier tune by composer Harry Warren called Java Junction. His collaborator, producer/songwriter Arthur Freed, created new lyrics for the updated melody. In the film, the routine begins as a captivating contrast in rhythms, with the orchestra playing in 4/4 time while the dancers dance in 5/4 time. The number goes through a series of variations and ends up a full-blown swing number showcasing Astaire and Bremer.

The Coffee Time sequence is a fiesta for the eyes. Costumer Irene Sharaff developed the stylized combo of costumes and decor. She created coffee-colored outfits for the extras and, to set off the costumes, devised a pattern of rolling black and white lines on the dance floor that form an optical illusion. With Fred Astaire, choreographer Eugene Loring came up with a dance based on slow jazz rhythms. Minnelli's lighting and camera work added the finishing touches.

Watch Coffee Time here -

1st Film Noir Xmas coming to San Francisco…9th Noir Festival set for January

The San Francisco Film Noir Foundation has set its first-ever Noir City Xmas for Wed., December 15, at the Castro Theatre, and extends an invitation to “enjoy a Cruel Yule...”

The double feature pairs Remember the Night (1940) and Mr. Soft Touch (1949).

TCM has been airing Remember the Night regularly in recent years, and that's where I first saw it. The film stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as an assistant DA and a thief who share a memorable and affecting holiday before she is set to serve her  jail sentence. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges.  A classic.

Mr. Soft Touch stars Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. A combination of “tight-lipped noir and broad comedy," it was shot on location in San Francisco. The film tells the story of a WW II veteran (Ford) out for revenge when he falls in with a kindly social worker (Keyes).  My first viewing of Mr. Soft Touch will be this “freshly struck 35mm print.”

San Francisco’s 9^th annual Noir City Film Festival will run from January 21 – 30, 2011, also at the Castro Theatre; I'll post the screening schedule and ticket information as soon as it's available. Film noir fans should try hard to attend this festival, it's a chance to see both classics and rare "B" gems on the big screen in an old-style movie palace. 

Van Nest Polglase ~ Architect Of Cinematic Dreams, Part II

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

The emergence of those stylistic elements in American films later termed noir by critics is often debated and open to interpretation.

Five years before the films that captivated French critics for their “dark” plots and visual style, John Ford directed an equally dark film for RKO Studios. The Informer (1935) was based on the novel by Liam O’Flaherty and tells the story of an increasingly desperate man. Whether John Ford had the stylistic treatment of German expressionism in mind when making the film seems unlikely, but Gypo Nolan’s (Victor McLaglen) flight through Dublin’s fog wreathed streets suggests these atmospheric elements as an archetype of noir essentials. Through the effective use of black velvet drapery and fog, to disguise the minimal budget for art direction, Polglase and assistant art director Charles Kirk created an atmosphere that is alternately brooding and menacing, dark, claustrophobic and bleak. Setting the story over the course of one night gives immediacy to Nolan’s frantic race to outrun his conscience and his pursuers. This small film would proved an artistic triumph, surprising studio executives, and won four Academy Awards, one for John Ford’s direction and Victor McLaglen’s portrayal of the lead character.

Van Nest Polglase ~ Architect Of Cinematic Dreams, Part I

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

The artistry of classic films reveals a cinematic alchemy in melding talent both before and behind the camera. The actor/actress and director are the two most visibly recognizable artists who created the image on screen. A careful viewer can also learn to recognize the names of the creative individuals who labored behind the scenes. Van Nest Polglase was one of these individuals who created the world in which our favorite characters move and have their lives.

ROSEMARY'S BABY...Roman Polanski's Horror Classic

A landmark film of the horror genre, Rosemary's Baby (1968) also marked Roman Polanski's directorial debut in the US. The film, a runaway hit on release, was the prototype that inspired the onslaught of big-budget "A" horror films that followed: The Exorcist, The Omen, etc.

In the tradition of Hitchcock, Polanski achieves his effects with little explicit violence but with maximum finesse. Like Hitchcock, Polanski assiduously maneuvers the emotions of his audience. Drawn into Rosemary's point of view and her growing alarm, the viewer becomes ever more aware that something is amiss but, like Rosemary, doesn't grasp exactly what has happened until the final scenes.

The House That Jack Built




John Gilbert

  Estate was Home to Hollywood Notables for 55 Years

In the mid-1920s, when he was a top star at MGM, leading man John Gilbert built a house at 1400 Tower Grove Road in the Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills. A two-story Spanish-colonial with tennis court and swimming pool, the estate was on a narrow road that curled up a hill behind the Beverly Hills Hotel.


Gilbert’s daughter, Leatrice, then a young girl, remembered her father greeting her from the top of a long, red-tiled stairway when she arrived for her first visit to his home in the early 1930s. She recalled soft light filtering through high, leaded windowpanes as she climbed the steps.

During one of her visits, he showed her a secret panel in an alcove adjacent to the living room and a button hidden under one of the bookshelves. The button opened a door to a stairway that led to the basement. He told her there had been a bar in the basement before Prohibition was repealed.

Light, Shadow and Synergy ~ von Sternberg and Dietrich, Part III

Scroll down for Parts I and II of Light, Shadow and Synergy...

In 1933, during a hiatus between studio contracts and filmmaking, Josef von Sternberg traveled to Germany to explore establishing Marlene Dietrich and himself at UFA, the studio where the two had made The Blue Angel three years earlier. Just as the director was returning to the U.S., recently appointed Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler suspended the German constitution and soon began revoking the citizenship of Jewish artists and scholars; not much later came the burning of books. Back in America, von Sternberg, an Austrian Jew, and his star signed on once more with Paramount where the director's new contract gave him almost complete autonomy over his films.

He later wryly reflected on his next (and last) two productions with Dietrich, “I completely subjugated my bird of paradise to my peculiar tendency to prove that a film might well be an art medium…”

For a Liddypol Lad...

 
John Lennon would be turning 70 right about now, a disconcerting thought for some baby-boomers, especially those who took to heart certain lyrics of the Who's "My Generation" - "hope I die before I get old." As fate would have it, John Lennon did die before he got old, he had just turned 40 when he was killed in 1980. But the years he lived were incredible, most of all the last 17, when he, as a Beatle and after, reigned as one the great and beloved icons of popular music and culture.

Most who are reading this are familiar with the story of the Beatles and I'm not going down that well-worn path, nor will I review/critique/analyze them or their astonishing music...this is about what I remember...

Light, Shadow and Synergy ~ von Sternberg and Dietrich, Part II

1931 began spectacularly for director Josef von Sternberg and actress Marlene Dietrich. Their first two films together, Morocco and the English language version of The Blue Angel, had both just opened in the U.S., creating a sensation...and big box office.