Her Easter Bonnet

Marilyn Miller, Clifton Webb, Helen Broderick
A successful 1933 - 1934 Broadway season

Broadway was in the dumps in 1933, as was a good portion of the world dealing with the Great Depression. Irving Berlin wasn't having the best of times either with the failure of Face the Music the previous season. All that was about to change. Irving and Moss Hart fashioned themselves a major hit with As Thousands Cheer. Their satirical revue spoofed the tabloid journalists and their society targets. It was, by contemporary accounts, a funny, biting show with Berlin's best songs as he once again climbed to the top of the show business heap.

Ethel Waters scored big time with Heat Wave and Supper Time. Marilyn Miller's beauty and a knack for comic impersonation won over the critics. Helen Broderick stole scenes with her sass and style. Clifton Webb sang the hit of the revue.

Irving rightly predicted that the hit of the show would be one of his trunk songs. Fifteen years earlier, Irving came up with Smile and Show Your Dimple that went nowhere. Retaining a fondness for the melody he refashioned the lyric and as each skit in the show revolved around some aspect of the newspaper game, Her Easter Bonnet brought to life the rotogravure or Sunday photo feature. The effect was spectacular and a standard was born.

Never saw you look quite so pretty before
Never saw you look quite so lovely what's more
I could hardly wait to keep our date this lovely Easter morning
And my heart beat fast as I came through the door, for
In your Easter Bonnet with all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade
I'll be all in clover and when they look you over
I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter Parade
On the Avenue, 5th Avenue, the photographers will snap us
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet
And of the gal I'm taking to the Easter Parade

Happy 92nd Birthday!

R.G. Armstrong

Born in Alabama in 1917 and the possesser of a Masters in English from the University of Northern Carolina (Chapel Hill), Robert Golden Armstrong left behind his early writing ambitions when he studied at The Actors Studio. Broadway claimed his talent in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Orpheus Descending, but Hollywood gave him steady work for four decades and a special place in the hearts of movie and television viewers.

He possessed the ability to bring a natural realism to a variety of roles, sometimes menacing and sometimes friendly. Is your favourite the religous zealot in Ride the High Country, the straight-thinking blacksmith in No Name on the Bullet or maybe Pruneface in Dick Tracy? Does one of his many television roles on Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, War and Remembrance, Quantum Leap or L.A. Law stand out for you? Maybe it's Farmer Flint who has trouble recognizing his daughter's needs in the episode Ellie Saves a Female from The Andy Griffith Show. Maybe it's every time you see R.G. Armstrong on screen that you appreciate his talent and the longevity of his career.

Speaking of The Andy Griffith Show, here is an R.G. Armstrong contribution to the cookbook, Aunt Bee's Delightful Deserts. It's a winner. Trust me.

Robert Golden's Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 C butter
1C brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 C flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1-1/2 C oats
1/2 C nuts (your choice)
1/2 C coconut
1/2 C raisins
A whole lot of chocolate chips

Cream butter/sugars. Add vanilla/eggs. Sift dry ingrediants & add to creamed mixture. Combine remaining ingrediates. Drop by teaspoonful about 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes in a pre-heated 350 degree oven.

Wouldn't some of those cookies and a western with that familiar face go good about now?

Happy Birthday, Mr. Armstrong.

Guiding Light (1937 - 2009)

Irna Phillip's The Guiding Light premiered on radio in 1937. My mother listened to the program with her grandmother. I remember watching the program on television in its 15-minute format in the early 60s. I remember when the show went to a half hour format and then an hour. I remember the Bauer family. I remember hospitals, churches, kitchen tables, Christmas trees. I remember secrets, sorrows, lies, traumas. I remember doctors, lawyers, millionaires, housewives, secretaries, veterans, grandparents. I remember heartbreak, marriages, divorces, deaths. I remember accidents, murders, trials, mystery. I remember proms, boarding houses, daydreams, princes, mobsters, clones. I remember when St. Nick would visit Springfield with a yearly miracle.

Guiding Light is something of a miracle having survived so long in the competitive media industry. It is a show spanning and entertaining generations. Serialized stories have delighted and enthralled audiences for centuries and the loss of this landmark series is cause for mixed emotions. Joy at the longevity and melancholy at the loss.

The network cites low ratings for the cancellation thus blaming a changing or fickle audience. The audience blames executives who alienated core fans with a disregard for a solid storytelling legacy. Daytime audiences are a savvy lot. They understand the machinations of the industry and the styles of different producers and writers. Daytime audiences are a loyal and hearty lot. If you have touched them emotionally, they will put up with a lot. They understand that every episode of a daily program cannot be a gem. They enjoy and praise a top-flight storyline, and put up with the inevitable lulls with the certain hope that things will improve.

Just over a year ago Guiding Light celebrated its history with a marvelous episode drawing on the radio beginnings of the series. They "found their light" through charitable works in Katrina ravaged New Orleans. They excitedly touted a new production format.

The new format included digital filming on location in a New Jersey town and it sounded good on paper, but how it looked on screen was another matter. Poor lighting and shaky camera work could almost be overlooked as the hearty Daytime fan waited out the transition period, and tried to ignore their churning stomachs. Ill-concieved, poorly executed storylines and callous manipulation of characters could perhaps be put up with for a while in that long-held hope that eventually the writers would find their footing with the new format.

The reality hoped for with the location actually led to a disconnect with the audience as characters spent their time in tacky salons or outside of buildings in all kinds of weather. Most disturbing to me was the overuse of annoying and badly sung pop ballads to create emotion. A technique which can work if used sparingly. I once counted three different songs in a ten minute period! The mainstay of a well-done serial is casting and trusting the actors. They can make a good storyline soar, and can take less than stellar dialogue and make you believe it.

Whether it was budget constraints, fear of the changing face of television, disregard for history or lack of true understanding of the serial and its fans, decisions were made from which there could be no turning back. Guiding Light burned brightly for decades and, for some of us, the memories will still glow. It is bitter to lose something so integral to the fabric of popular culture, that has been a daily part of so many lives through our own births, deaths, secrets, sorrows and triumphs.

Crazy about Marsha Hunt!

There is so much to discover and rediscover about the movies from Hollywood's classic studio era. Sometimes it's those performers who are so good that it is easy to take them for granted. Marsha Hunt is such an actress. A beautiful woman with talent, I would describe Marsha Hunt as a character actress trapped inside a leading lady.

Born in Chicago in 1917 and showing an early aptitude for theatre Marsha was signed by Paramount Pictures in 1938 and made her debut in The Virginia Judge co-starring Robert Cummings. She would be very busy for the next ten years appearing in over 50 movies of varying quality though the quality of her work never varied.

Throughout the 1950s work slowed down for Marsha and her husband screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr. due to the short-sighted and unnecessary blacklist. Such things don't touch true talent or a vibrant marriage that lasted 40 years until Presnell's death in 1986.

As those bad days faded she returned to the small screen appearing in everything from The Twilight Zone: Spur of the Moment (pictured above with Diana Hyland) to Zane Grey Theatre (four times), Ben Casey, Gunsmoke, The Defenders, Marcus Welby, MD, Ironside, Police Story and Murder, She Wrote.

Broadway also claimed some of her time with six plays during the 1950s and 1960s including Shaw's The Devil's Disciple in 1950 co-starring Maurice Evans, Victor Jory and Dennis King, and replacing Nancy Olson in the mega-hit The Tunnel of Love in 1958.

Let's look at some of my all-time favourite Marsha Hunt performances.

Marsha sparkles, as Mrs. Bennett (Mary Boland) puts it, as the awkward Bennett girl, Mary in 1940s Pride and Prejudice. It is an absolutely delightful comic turn from the 23-year-old that almost steals the show in a film cast with veteran thieves such as Boland, Edmund Gwenn and Edna Mae Oliver.

Libbers take note that in 1942's Kid Glove Killer directed by Fred Zinnemann Marsha is assistant to forensic detective Van Heflin in a tightly paced, fun-for-all thriller.

None Shall Escape directed by Andre de Toth in 1944 is a timely story of Nazi responsibility co-starring Alexander Knox, and is not to be missed.

The Valley of Decision from 1945 is a glorious soaper starring Greer Garson and Gregory Peck. Marsha embodies the role of a spoiled heiress with a feather-head and a big heart. She's wonderful.

Jules Dassin's delightful A Letter for Evie from 1946 is a war-time love story with a letter at the crux of the plot, and Hume Cronyn and John Carroll vying for her hand. On my wish list is Mary Ryan, Detective made in 1949, purely because I love the title. Keeping my fingers crossed that TCM will find it in their stash from Columbia.

Top of the heap for we noir fans is Anthony Mann's Raw Deal from 1948. Dennis O'Keefe is sorely wronged by mob boss Raymond Burr, but finds solace with old girlfriend Claire Trevor and lovelorn social worker Marsha. Wow!

Marsha plays the sensible, as she sees herself, mother of the eccentric Bonnard family of 1920s Ottawa in 1952s The Happy Time starring Charles Boyer and directed by Richard Fleischer. I encourage everyone to seek out this charming film.

Along with the love and creativity Marsha shared in her theatrical/film career, she carried that same dedication into a life of activism and service for humanitarian causes; a truly inspiring woman.

I mentioned that discovery and rediscovery is at the core of my fondness for classic movies. I'm looking forward to discovering more treasures from the incredible Marsha Hunt. I'm crazy about her!

More Broadway to Hollywood Trivia

Victor Moore
1876 - 1962

Victor Moore was a stage and screen star with a lengthy and successful Broadway career. Movie fans recall him best as Fred Astaire's pal in Swing Time. Among his original characterizations was the role of Moonface in Cole Porter's Anything Goes which ran on Broadway for 420 performances in the 1934 - 1935 season.

Charles Ruggles
1886 - 1970

Charles Ruggles was familiar to Broadway fans for 30 years and a familiar face to classic movie fans from Bringing Up Baby to The Parent Trap. As is a seeming tradition with Hollywood, when they buy the rights to film a Broadway show they never seem to want to cast the original stars. Charlie Ruggles played the role of Moonface in the 1936 movie based on Anything Goes.

In 1947 Roy Del Ruth directed a delightful holiday film called It Happened on 5th Avenue. It is the story of a millionaire played by Ruggles whose deserted mansion is taken over by a hobo played by Moore. Two Moonfaces for the price of one! What could be more fun?

A Christmas treat.

What's say let's be buddies?

George Chandler

1898 - 1985

William Wellman

1896 - 1975

In the annals of great Hollywood director/actor teams, a few names spring immediately to mind - John Ford/John Wayne, John Huston/Humphrey Bogart, Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon. Perhaps George Cukor/Katharine Hepburn. Some of us may even bring up Henry King/Tyrone Power. Not that it gets us anywhere, but we bring them up anyway. Rarely is the felicitous teaming of William Wellman and character actor George Chandler mentioned. Well, we're going to change that right now.

Wellman, the WWI pilot and Hollywood bad boy started out as an actor and became a director who wanted to make every sort of picture there was and created such bona fide classics as Beau Geste, The Ox-Bow Incident, A Star is Born, Wild Boys of the Road, The Story of GI Joe and Wings.

Chandler was born in Waukegan, Illinois and put himself through the University of Illinois by playing violin in orchestras. As a teenager he played the Vaudeville circuit billed as "The Musical Nut". He started working in movies in the silent era and is one of those fellows who worked constantly.

George is billed as a reporter/newspaperman/photographer in over 25 pictures from 1931's Sob Sisters to his 1961 television series Ichabod and Me. Watch for George as a journalist the next time you watch The Beast of the City, The Kennel Murder Case or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. If you need a taxi driver, doorman, stagehand or telegrapher - why, George is your man. His is a familiar face to Boomers as Uncle Petrie from Lassie and guest appearances on everything from Wagon Train to Dragnet. He played Jonathan Kent in the 1975 TV Musical It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman.

George Chandler as the radio operator in
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)

Between 1936 to 1951 George worked with his pal Wellman on 22 pictures. He had some great roles too. Amos Hart in 1942's Roxie Hart (I see you nodding your head sagely. You must have seen Chicago.) He was a stagehand in the terrific backstage murder mystery Lady of Burlesque in 1943. Hubby commented before watching this movie that it didn't seem like a Wild Bill sort of movie until he saw all the gals strutting their stuff!

My favourite Chandler role is probably "Mackeral Face" in Westward the Women in 1951, as an anxious potential bridegroom. In the recently blogged about Battleground, the Academy Award winner from 1949, George plays a walking wounded mess sergeant.

Wellman spoke about George in his 1974 autobiography, A Short Time for Insanity:

"I had different techniques to gain time to gather my so-called directional forces together. George Chandler was technique number one. George was not only my pal but a great actor as well. He had played everything for me, from the dumb messenger boy in A Star is Born to the screwball husband of Ginger Rogers in Roxie Hart. George had been in close to forty of my pictures, and he developed a second sight of my moments of uncertainty. If he happened to be in the scene that was bothering me, he would find some way of buggering it up, forgetting his lines, sneezing, not once or twice, a seizure, or whispering while I was talking - then the roof blew off, and believe me I could blow it a mile. When I had put George and all his relatives and ancestors where they belonged, I called off work for ten minutes, stormed into my dressing room office, slammed the door shut and sat down quietly, and always worked out my problem. It was like magic."

George Chandler was married for 50 years to Catherine Ward and they had three sons. He was a Screen Actors Guild board member from 1946 - 1948, SAG's treasurer from 1948 - 1960 and in 1960 took over its presidency following Ronald Reagan. George Chandler is one of the reasons so many of us are fans of the movies of the classic Hollywood era.

Favourite movies: Battleground (1949)

Wild Bill Wellman
1896 - 1975

William Wellman is a director I have long admired. He was a rogue, a character and a man who made many, many fine films. I'm sentimental about the man and his work dating back to Tuesday, July 9, 1974. On that date The Ontario Film Insitute hosted An Evening With William A. Wellman that included two of his best, the thoughtful movie about a lynching based on Water Von Tilburg Clark's novel, The Ox-Bow Incident and a story of displaced youth during the Great Depression, Wild Boys of the Road. The highlight of the evening was the entertaining presence of the director. It was a free evening of entertainment. My Dad read about it in the paper and asked if I would like to go. Would I? Sixteen years old, absolutely mad for classic movies and a night out with my dad!

"Wild Bill" Wellman wanted to direct every kind of movie there was, and I believe he did. Westerns (Track of the Cat), comedies (Nothing Sacred), crime pictures (The Public Enemy), et cetera. A WWI veteran, he seemed to have an affinity for stories of people facing adversity. He directed Wings, the first picture to win the Academy Award. He directed the well-regarded story of war correspondent Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I. Joe. And he directed Battleground, a picture MGM didn't want to make in 1949. The reasoning was that nobody would want to see another war picture. If it's as good a picture as Battleground then, yes, people would want to see it. It was the idea of producer/writer Dore Schary and when the receipts and the awards piled up, he was made head of the studio.

Battleground is the story of one squad of the 101st Airborne Division. It is the epic Battle of the Bulge through the eyes of a few men - strangers, yet family. We see them through the eyes of rookie replacement Jim Layton (Marshall Thompson). The polished Sgt. Kinnie (James Whitmore), cocky Holley (Van Johnson), thoughtful Jarvess (John Hodiak), easy-going southerner Spudler (Jerome Courtland), all-round great guy Rodrigues (Ricardo Montalban), elder statesman "Pop" Stazak (George Murphy), whiner Kippton (Douglas Fowley) and others played by Richard Jaeckel, James Arness, Herbert Anderson and Don Taylor.

Layton grows up before our eyes. It is inevitable and not always pretty. Holley, too, for all his bravado grows through facing up to his own fears. James Whitmore was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Sgt. Kinnie. While we begin to see the emotional layers crack for the men, in Sgt. Kinnie we see this physically as the uniform becomes ragged and his boots are lost to rags. My feet hurt just thinking about him. Whitmore wanted his character to look like Pulitzer Prize Winner Bill Mauldin's Sadsack - and, does he ever!

Thanks. Just what we needed.

The script of Battleground is by Bastogne veteran Robert Pirosh, who won an Oscar for his work. It's one thing to write what you know, but another to write as well as Pirosh did. He would be Oscar-nominated a couple of years later for his work on another war picture, Go for Broke! the story of an all Japanese-American platoon. He would also develop the television series Combat (1962-1967) as well as writing for every show from The Waltons and A Family Affair to Ironside and Bonanza.

A favourite line which typifies the movie for me is spoken by Jarvess (John Hodiak), who ran a newspaper with his wife back home. "Only one thing gets me. When you work on a newspaper, I'd get those wire releases and know I was the first person in town who had the news, all the news. I guarantee you my wife knows what's going on in Bastogne. All I know is what is going on in the 2nd squad of the 3rd platoon of I Company."

Battleground is an enthralling story and a fine example of an ensemble cast. All the elements mesh perfectly to entertain, educate and move the viewer.

The final scene of the movie, with fresh troops moving to the front and "our guys", their ranks depleted and their bodies broken, proudly marching back to Sgt. Kinnie's cadence count is iconic among war pictures, and chokes me up every time.

Recent passings: Van Johnson (1916 - 2008), Ricardo Montalban (1920 - 2009) and James Whitmore (1921 - 2009).