James Cagney Blogathon: Johnny Come Lately (1943)

It's here! It's here! The James Cagney Blogathon hosted by R.D. Finch, The Movie Projector is here! A week of love for the one and only Cagney.

Do I seem a wee bit excited? It can't be helped. I'm a Cagney fan in a world filled with Cagney fans. Some of us are of an age where his films were seen first run in theatres. I fall into the category of people who discovered the actor's brilliance seeing movies as they were meant to be seen - late at night on television with commercials.

Whether he was roughing up a guy or dancing with him, the compelling Mr. Cagney stole our hearts with his screen presence. In a business based on publicity, Cagney was an introvert who shunned public displays with the exception of good causes such as the War effort. He preferred the company of family and a few close friends to the noise and rush of the Hollywood scene. He enjoyed the comforts his lifestyle afforded by purchasing his beloved farm on Martha's Vineyard fulfilling a childhood dream, but he avoided the trappings of stardom. His friend  and frequent co-star Pat O'Brien, who loved Jim dearly, nicknamed him "the faraway fella" for his quiet, thoughtful demeanor.

John Larroquette hosted a show on the A&E network in 2001 called The Incurable Collector. One segment of the entertaining program featured respectful and happy fans from around the world bidding on items from the Cagney estate including a film script, a guitar, and some of Cagney's paintings. Not a Tommy gun in sight from one of the screen's greatest gangsters. The fans spoke about how these things brought them a sense of closeness to their favourite actor. While most of us cannot share in that opportunity, we do have his movies and what they mean to us.

Cagney chaffed at the autocratic leadership of the Warner Brothers. He did his job and did it well, but wanted respect and more control over the direction of his artistic life. One of the Cagney legends is his tendency to flub a scene at the end of a long day's shoot if it required extras returning for more work the next day. A subtle rebel who looked out for the little guy. Cagney first tried life as an independent producer in the early 1930s and through Grand National released the adorable Hollywood spoof Something to Sing About and the good tough guy flick Great Guy. Neither film was successful and he returned to the WB fold for Angels With Dirty Faces, his first Academy Award nomination.

In 1943 after winning the Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy, Cagney along with his brother William as producer and physician brothers Harry and Ed as executives formed William Cagney Productions and their first production under that banner was Johnny Come Lately. In an era of exciting propaganda based action films and brittle comedies, the Cagney brothers returned to a simpler time in a film bathed in a nostalgic glow.  

Johnny Come Lately is an adaptation of Louis Bromfield's novel McLeod's Folly. Bromfield was a journalist (original staff of Time), an innovative farmer, and noted conservationist. It was at his Ohio farm that Bogie and Bacall were famously wed. Bromfield won the Pulitzer Prize in 1926 for Early Autumn. Other of his works adapted for the screen include The Rains Came and Mrs. Parkington.

In McLeod's Folly Bromfield wrote against the prejudice and hypocrisy he felt was the result of the industrialization of America. The screenplay is by John Van Druten, the playwright and short story writer had already contributed to the films Gone With the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, and Forever and a Day. Soon to come would be I Remember Mama, Voice of the Turtle, I Am a Camera, and Bell Book and Candle. Johnny Come Lately would be among the last films for director William K. Howard whose career reached back to silent westerns and included The Power and the Glory and Fire Over England.

Set in 1906, McLeod's Folly tells the story of Vinnie McLeod, an elderly widow in a small city who runs her late husband's newspaper. The wide-open town of her youth has become a crowded, graft-ridden despot run by a man called Dougherty. The town is particularly inhospitable to the vagrants to whom Mrs. McLeod offers rest and food in her basement until they can get safely out of town. She is assisted at home by her housekeeper Aida and at work by her niece Jane and her dusty, old-fashioned staff. With her limited means Vinnie McLeod takes on the town boss to the extent that she becomes more than nuisance and Dougherty takes to bullying.

One of those vagrants Vinnie helps is Tom Richards (Cagney), who proves to be an experienced newspaperman. Circumstances conspire to keep him in the town of Plattsville and admiration for Mrs. McLeod returns him to his recently abandoned life of a crusading reporter. With the energetic Richards at Vinnie's side, can right fail to prevail? Johnny Come Lately is very sweet and very sentimental. Some cynical souls may call it corny, but I think Johnny Come Lately has too much heart to be so derided.

Johnny Come Lately received one Oscar nomination for Leigh Harline for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. It is one of five career nominations for Harline, who shared the 1941 Oscar for Original Score for Pinocchio with Paul J. Smith and Ned Washington and the Best Song Award for When You Wish Upon a Star with Ned Washington. Vinnie's theme in the score is Balfe's Then You'll Remember Me from The Bohemian Girl. The use of that tender old ballad tells all you need to know about the tone of the movie.

The movie gave Cagney the chance to spotlight the people he felt were most responsible for Hollywood's Golden Age, the character actor. There were plenty of quirky roles to go around and lots of talented familiar faces to play them. 

James Cagney, Grace George

A newcomer was brought to the screen to play Vinnie McLeod. Grace George (1879-1961) performed in almost 50 Broadway productions between the years 1898 and 1951. Dramas such as Kind Lady, classic revivals including School for Scandal, and leading roles in comedies created a theatre legend. Her husband was the producer and theatre owner/operator William A. Brady (1863-1950) whose first Broadway play After Dark was in 1889 and who was still going strong in the 1940s with Harvey. His daughter, Grace's stepdaughter, was the Oscar-winning star of In Old Chicago, Alice Brady (1892-1939).  

Johnny Come Lately was the only film for Miss Grace George, as she is billed. She returned to the stage until retiring in 1953. I imagine it was her preference as her easy, natural performance should have led to more screen roles. She looks just as if Vinnie McLeod at stepped out of Bromfield's book:

...She was tall and thin and very straight. In her youth she had been a beauty, famous in Calamos County and the Southwest, and now in old age, despite all of her worries, her untidiness and her distraction, she remained a handsome woman, although now the beauty remained more in the voice, the eyes and the expression than in the body. Although the face was wrinkled, the cheeks sagged, and the hair hung in wisps from beneath a worn and dowdy hat there was something about her that arrested a stranger and made him think, "That must have been a fine, handsome woman."

 

Hattie McDaniel (1892-1952) plays Aida, Mrs. McLeod's "keeper". It is yet another maid for Hattie, but none of her roles in service ever felt subservient. She is always the smartest person in the room from Gone With the Wind to TVs Beulah. Johnny Come Lately is no exception where her big heart and common sense keep everyone on the right track.

Marjorie Main (1890-1975) plays "Gashouse" Mary who runs a straight joint - as the audience is constantly reminded. She's sick of paying into Dougherty's protection racket and ready for action. Main just about steals the picture. Like Marie Dressler of an earlier decade, Marjorie Main is a character gal who became a popular leading lady in films like Tish, Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone and her signature role of Ma Kettle. Audiences loved her and producers/directors always found a spot for her despite her eccentricities such as wearing multiple gloves and surgical masks to ward off germs and sometimes stopping in mid-scene to set lunch or have a conversation with her husband who had passed away in 1935. I imagine he said what she wanted to hear.

Edward McNamara (1884-1944) was a Cagney crony whose booming voice was his most recognizable feature. Once a cop becomes known as a singing cop, he just naturally has to get into the show business. As Dougherty, McNamara warbles tunes between dastardly deeds. McNamara had been the only private student ever taken on by Enrico Caruso at the behest of famed contralto Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink. Madame's third husband named McNamara in a 1914 divorce suit. Madame denied all, "Me, in love with that boy?" His last film was as Officer Brophy in Arsenic and Old Lace (above). He had a heart attack while delivering some of neighbour Cagney's racehorses to the coast. Of his performance of Dougherty you can say that he really looked the part.

Pretty Marjorie Lord was the ingenue in the piece showing her own share of spunk and the appeal that would make her a television staple on Make Room for Daddy. Ms. Lord was in attendance at a recent screening of the film as noted in March on Laura's Miscellaneous Musings.

George Cleveland (1885-1957) was a vaudeville veteran who played in close to 200 movies including serials, westerns, and splashy musicals. The Cape Breton born Cleveland found himself a welcome spot on television in 1954 as Gramps Miller on the beloved Lassie. In Johnny Come Lately he plays the sweetly soused reporter Willie Ferguson.

Robert Barrat (1889-1970) plays a political boss with a penchant for ketchup. Wait until you see what he does regarding that condiment! Barrat is a chameleon of an actor who never disappoints in roles such as the anarchist turned capitalist in Heroes for Sale, Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans, and Wolverstone in Captain Blood. Keep your eyes peeled for Barrat. You never know when he'll show up.

Margaret Hamilton (1902-1985) was a former teacher and single mother who worked in films from the 1930s to television starting in the 1950s and toured with A Little Night Music in the 1970s. She is an actress beloved by generations for frightening us The Wizard of Oz and a welcome sight in movies as diverse as These Three and Broadway Bill. Cagney admired her work tremendously and was thrilled to have her in Johnny Come Lately as reporter Willie's "dragon lady" sister.

Finally in charge of his own image and legacy, Cagney chose to give us the very definition of a feel-good picture. Perhaps that tells us all we need to know about "the faraway fella".

Caftan Woman's Choice: One for April on TCM

The word "genius" is flung around a lot in the entertainment industry.  I use it most often when speaking of the people who make me laugh.  Surely there is no more apt description of writer/director Preston Sturges who had an unparalleled string of genuine comedy classics in the 1940s.

Who else, in the middle of wartime, could poke fun at motherhood, patriotism and heroism in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero and make us like it.  Sturges took on his own profession in Sullivan's Travels and no one felt the one-two punch because they were laughing so hard.  In The Palm Beach Story and, most especially, in The Lady Eve Preston Sturges took the romantic comedy, turned it inside out, stood it on its head and kicked it in the pants.  Genius.

Unfaithfully Yours is a Sturges film that I both adore and ignore.  Years go between viewings because I am afraid it won't be as funny as I recall.  However, each viewing proves my fears are groundless.  After all, we're dealing with a genius.

"A thousand poets dreamed a thousand years, then you were born, my love."

Sir Alfred De Carter (Rex Harrison) is a baronet, a wealthy and internationally famous symphony conductor who is devoted to his young and beautiful wife.  Lady Daphne De Carter is the American girl he swept off her feet.  She is devoted to her husband.  They are the picture of overindulgent romance.  Depending on your constitution, you will find their devotion either inspiring or revolting.

"Well, August, what happy updraft wafts you hither?"

Lady Daphne has a sister Barbara (Barbara Lawrence) who also married well, at least she married well-to-do.  Barbara's husband is the stuffy and unimaginative August Henshler (Rudy Vallee).  August is a practical and literal man.  When Sir Alfred travels he asks August to keep an eye on Daphne as in not letting her fret in his absence.  August takes this request to the level of placing a private eye on the case.

"You handle Handel like nobody handles Handel. And your Delius - delirious!"

Private eye Sweeney (Edgar Kennedy) is a great fan of Sir Alfred's.  He is also a man of a philosophical bent when it comes to beautiful young wives and handsome secretaries (Kurt Kreuger). Sir Alfred is not a man of such pragmatism.  Sir Alfred is a man of emotion.  To whatever height his devotion to Daphne reaches, it is to that height his jealousy rages at the suspicion aroused by the detective's report.

"I doubt that you played Russian Roulette all the time with your father!"

Visiting conductor Sir Alfred brings the orchestra to its zenith and the audience to its feet with his conducting of Rossini and Wagner and Tchaikovsky.  All the while he moves the audience to the depths of their soul, Sir Alfred is imagining the perfect murder plot.  With split-second timing and an ease of manner wondrous to behold he dispatches his disloyal wife and frames the duplicitous secretary.

Sir Alfred's vision of himself includes that of a generous and forgiving husband and of a despondent suicide.  Alas, real life even for a baronet and wealthy and internationally famous symphony conductor is rarely as uncomplicated as our imaginings.  Rex Harrison is not only hysterically funny with the glib lines offered Sir Alfred, he proves himself a master mime as well as he attempts to put his murderous plot into action.

Unfaithfully Yours was based on a story and film treatment that Preston Sturges wrote in 1933 entitled The Symphony Story.  A studio critique at that time was impressed with the originality of the story but felt it wasn't the sort of picture audiences would go for.  Lamentably, this proved to be the case in 1948 when this delightful bonbon of a movie flopped.  Sturges' streak had come to an end. 

TCM is screening Unfaithfully Yours on Saturday, April 13th at 10:15 pm as part of The Essentials:  Linda Darnell.

Such News!

Self portrait - Janet Hall

Not everyday news.  Garry and I are incredibly proud of our daughter Janet who is pursuing her dream of becoming an animator.  She has been accepted into the Bachelor of Animation program at Sheridan College.  Janet has popped up a few times in these pages in the five years since I started this blog.  There's Janet and her brother Gavin.  Janet winning a writing award in high school.  Janet and her prom dress.  Janet meeting the Daleks.  I know I bring her up quite often when commenting on blogs if she has a perspective to the subject at hand.  So, for those of you who may have wondered, she does exist.  Click here for an illustration she did for this blog.

Last year Janet took an Art Fundamentals course at Sheridan to test her talent and commitment, and to get that all important post-secondary art credit.  All of her family and friends were certain that she would be able to attain this next goal.  However, the time period between the portfolio submission and the admissions offer will always be known to me as the Pepto Bismol era.

Janet has been surrounded by artistic people.  Her Aunt Paula's sketches have been the pride of the family for years.  Her Aunt Maureen is a former professional photographer who brings that standard to her annual photos from the Toronto International Film Festival which are garnering online fans.  Her Aunt Tracey is an award-nominated photographer who runs Tracey Nolan Studios along with other enterprises.  Tracey also worked in production in animation with the likes of Derek Lamb and Kaj Pindal.  I can boast no such beneficit influence.  However, a close examination of my "parenting plan" reveals a concerted effort and no little expense toward the happy goal of spending as much time as possible just sitting around the house watching cartoons with my kids.  Aha, bragging rights!

Fashion in Film Blogathon: Born to Kill (1947)

Robert Wise's 1947 crime picture Born to Kill is noir right down to its very soul.  Based on James Gunn's novel Deadlier Than the Male, photographed in unflinching starkness by Robert De Grasse with gowns by Edward Stevenson.  Wait.  "Gowns by Edward Stevenson", the guy that made Lucille Ball such a fashion-forward and timelessly snazzy dresser in all of her TV shows?  That guy?  Yes indeed, the Texas born Stevenson had been making Hollywood's leading ladies look their best since the 1920s and helped RKO gain respectability in the looks department.  His one Oscar win was shared with Edith Head for 1960s The Facts of Life starring, you guessed it, Lucille Ball.

Born to Kill is a lurid tale of murder, lust, secrets and twisted loyalties.  As the viewer is taken on the journey of violence and, shall we say poor choices, the viewer is also shown what their closet would look like if they had money or their best friend was Edward Stevenson.  Claire Trevor as Helen Brent is obsessed with murderer Sam Wild played by Lawrence Tierney.  Her other obsession is money.  She doesn't have any of her own, but she's around it and, boy, she dresses it.

 Claire Trevor as Helen Brent

Here's Helen at the courthouse in Reno where she has just divorced some poor schmuck.  He probably didn't have enough money.  He probably was sane.  All is perfection.  Note the hat and gloves, and there's a surprise.

The rivets appear to be part of the suit jacket, but they actually belong to the strap of the bag which blends seamlessly with the ensemble.  Imagine having a purse that you can only wear with one outfit!

Isabel Jewell as Laury Palmer

Laury is a gal who likes a good time and likes men.  Her clothes give no doubt as to her intentions.  Currently she likes a guy named Sam.  Laury likes 'em tough.  It won't last.

Helen meets Sam.  Sam meets Helen.  I guess he was able to see something beyond this chapeau.  The fact that Claire Trevor can actually carry this thing off says a lot about character.  I have one question for ladies of the 1940s - why?

Now, this is quite the fetching travel outfit.  The hat matches the scarf.  The bag is ueber stylish and the fur coat is flung carelessly around the shoulders - looking like it doesn't care.

Audrey Long as Georgia Staples

This is Helen's half sister Georgia.  Georgia is the moneyed one in the family.  She always looks nicely put together and at ease.  She's a good kid.  Helen should look out for her.

Now, that's a hat a gal can be jealous of.  Helen spangles up and sparkles as much as she can edging close to over-the-top, but somehow staying true to her character.

Georgia on her wedding day.  I haven't quite made up my mind about the loops, but she looks demure without being prissy.  She's a lovely bride.  Too bad the bridegroom is a murderer with the hots for her half-sister.

Too bad Georgia's Matron of Honour can't get her mind off the bridegroom.  Her bridal like veil silently speaks her intentions as she stands in front of the minister and can't take her eyes off the groom.  Too bad Helen can't see that the rest of the world, including her nice guy fiance Fred Grover played by Philip Terry, aren't as blind and dumb as she thinks they are.

This silky number is what Helen wears around the mansion late at night to make warm milk or her new brother-in-law.

As Helen becomes further embroiled with the unpredictable Sam, her look begins to soften.  She's getting what she wants, but she's losing herself.

Esther Howard as Mrs. Kraft

This is Laury Palmer's friend Mrs. Kraft.  She's on a dangerous quest, but she's dressed for it.  A hat that size just has to come with a handy hat pin.

This robe seems more like something Georgia would wear.  Helen seems to be trying to hang on to some sense of normalcy.

Not a spangle to be seen in Helen's desperate final act to save Sam for herself.

Stripped of the hat and coat, the "Mother Superior" vibe of this dress is cheekily at odds with a woman who realizes she's lost her soul.

Helen may be one messed up, misguided gal but, thanks to Edward Stevenson, she looks good every step of her downward spiral.

I'm thrilled to be participating in Angela of The Hollywood Revue's Fashion in Film Blogathon featuring many eye-opening and fascinating posts.

He should have been bigger: Craig Reynolds

Craig Reynolds

(1907 - 1949)

I couldn't sleep and TCM was showing The Man from Colorado, a fairly interesting psychological western that I remembered as the movie where Glenn Ford killed Edgar Buchanan. I waited all night for the scene where Glenn Ford killed Edgar Buchanan and it didn't happen. Perhaps there is no such scene in any of the films they appeared in together. I'm pretty sure it wasn't an episode of Cade's County. While I waited for a scene that never came there was a scene with a masked James Millican robbing the crooked mine owner's safe. As the camera moved around three guards playing cards at a table I recognized Craig Reynold's left eye. Later I confirmed on the IMDb that Reynolds was indeed uncredited as "Parry" but it wasn't necessary. I would know Craig Reynold's left eye anywhere.

It was a rather sad sighting. This may be the fangirl talking, but there was any number of roles in the film that Reynolds could have handled masterfully without breaking a sweat - the Confederate officer, a disgruntled miner, Millican's gang leader or even Ford's psycho colonel. How had his career come to this state? Was he a difficult personality? Did he inadvertently or willfully rile someone in power? Bad timing? Bad choices? The luck of the draw?

Born in Anaheim, Hugh Enfield took his good looks and his acting chops to Hollywood in 1933 and began his career, under his real name, at Universal Studios working in serials such as Phantom of the Air starring Tom Tyler and Gordon of Ghost City starring Buck Jones. He was billed as Robert Allen in 1933s Perils of Pauline starring Evelyn Knapp, a serial that ran on TCM a few months ago. "Allen" is a charmer as the hero who must be attractive enough for the leading lady, brave enough to save everyone from the baddie and personable enough for us to forgive him for always being one step behind that baddie.

In 1935 Craig Reynolds signed with Warner Brothers Studios and showed his mettle in a variety of roles and pictures. He was versatile at a lot which had Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson. He was energetic and tough in a landscape dotted with Cagney and Raft. He could be dashing and charming where they had Errol Flynn.

In 1936 Reynolds was at home on the range as the villain opposite Dick Foran in Treachery on the Range. He seemed born to the tuxedo in the Warren William comedy Times Square Playboy. Stage Struck in 1936 was a fine showcase for Reynolds as Gilmore Frost, a ham actor with a supposed way with the ladies. He had the opportunity to display his comedic talents along with his good looks.

You needed one of "those guys" for a mystery?  Check out the Torchy Blane flick Smart Blonde. My first vivid memory of Craig Reynolds is from 1937s Penrod and Sam, one of the films starring Billy Mauch as Booth Tarkington's young dreamer. Reynolds plays "Dude" Hanson, a gangster with a mean streak to equal any from that era. He is riveting.

Watch for the Perry Mason films from the 1930s when they are screened on TCM. You will find an extra helping of Craig Reynolds in those movies. Craig plays a variety of suspects, red herrings and victims in The Case of the Lucky Legs starring Warren William, The Case of the Black Cat starring Ricardo Cortez and The Case of the Stuttering Bishop starring Donald Woods (the first, but not the last Canadian to tackle "Perry"). It is obvious that the studio couldn't decide on the best way to present Erle Stanley Gardner's Mason or even who should play him. Did it not occur to anyone that Craig Reynolds had the spark and talent to play the courtroom orator and energetic go-getter who would let nothing stand his way to help a client?  

Perhaps the best opportunity that came Craig Reynold's way to show he had the goods for the big time was 1937s The Footloose Heiress, one of those improbable yet adorable comedy-romances that purports to show the lives of the rich. Ann Sheridan is our madcap heiress. She's about to marry not-good-enough-for-her William Hopper with his slick black hair and moustache. It would be 20 years before television's Perry Mason would make him a household name. This may be the fangirl talking again, but 1950s television would have been a good fit for Craig Reynolds. I can easily see him as a tough police captain or a powerful rancher.

At any rate, in The Footloose Heiress Reynolds is a hobo (or is he?) who tames and wins the fiery Miss Sheridan. His traveling costume of a leather jacket and fedora makes him the prototype of Indiana Jones, but if I may say so, 10 times more appealing. While Miss Sheridan moved on to more substantial fare such as Angels With Dirty Faces and They Drive by Night, Craig Reynolds continued in the round of sturdy westerns and B mysteries such as Wall Street Cowboy with Roy Rogers and The Mystery of Mr. Wong with Boris Karloff. Maybe if he'd been at another studio like 20th Century Fox there might have been more opportunity to mix the occasional Class A picture in with the programmers.

1940 brought about a major career change when Craig Reynolds enlisted in the Marine Corps. During WW2 he serves in Greenland and then in the Pacific. First Lieutenant Reynolds had a long road of recovery after a leg injury at Guadalcanal and during that time wrote an unpublished memoir of his experiences entitled "I Came Back". Reynolds receives the Purple Heart and two Presidential Citations before his release from the Service in 1944. 

Barbara Pepper

(1915 - 1969)

Craig Reynolds and actress Barbara Pepper married in 1943. During Barbara's movie career in the 1930s and 1940s she played the tough babe, the blonde cuties with an edge, in movies such as The Women and They Made Me a Criminal. The couple had two sons, Dennis born in 1944 and John in 1946. Film work for Craig was scarce with titles such as Queen of Burlesque starring Evelyn Ankers, Divorce with former Warner's queen Kay Francis, and as George Sanders's romantic rival in The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry.

In October of 1949, at the age of 42, Reynolds' scooter is sideswiped by a motorcyclist and within the week he passes away at a Los Angeles hospital. Depression and alcoholism, and the pressures of single parenthood derailed Barbara's career although her good friend Lucille Ball could always provide work. Eventually Barbara would gain fame with many of us as Doris Ziffel on Green Acres. She still had a way with a quip.

Meanwhile, back to The Man from Colorado. Ray Collins as the outraged mine owner is ranting about not getting the justice he is due. Minion "Parry" played by Craig Reynolds leans against the wall with his arms folded observing his boss with sardonic admiration, totally in the moment. He should have been bigger.

I've Been Liebstered!

Aurora of Once upon a screen... has forwarded the Liebster Award to the little corner of the blogosphere claimed by Caftan Woman.  I am suitably chuffed and hopelessly embarrassed.  The honour includes the answering of questions and the forwarding of the award.  Well, I don't mind so much talking about myself (Ha!), but I'm on the fence about the forwarding.  I rather feel like I do when putting off a phone call because it might not be the right time and you don't want to interrupt someone if they are busy with something else.  Also, there is that feeling of somehow slighting someone unintentionally.  I would like to sincerely thank Aurora for thinking of me, and to direct anyone clicking on this post to check my blog list to the right or click on the CMBA symbol wherein you will find bloggers of taste, intelligence, wit and style whom I liebe unconditionally.

AURORA'S QUESTIONS

1.  Why do you blog?

"It is to preserve a way of life that one knew and loved."

Mr. Fezziwig in the 1951 film of Dicken's A Christmas Carol when he answers Mr. Dorkin's query as to why you build up a business if it isn't for money expresses my feelings about blogging.

2.  What was your “best” filmgoing experience?

One of the best was seeing Sunset Blvd. on the big screen last year with my daughter.  It was her first viewing and she was enthralled.  I couldn't have been more thrilled if I'd been Billy Wilder. 

3.  What classic film would you absolutely love to watch on the big screen and why?

William Wyler's The Big Country is tops on my big screen wish list.  I have seen the movie many times, but I just know that I haven't really seen it until I can enjoy the grandeur and scope of the location combined with Jerome Moross' score in a theatre. 

4.  You’re having a dinner party and your list of guests include five classic film personalities/stars/directors – who’s on your list?

Composer Harry Warren doesn`t mind sitting at the piano after dinner so we can sing along to his Oscar winning and nominated songs such as You`ll Never Know, That`s Amore, I Only Have Eyes for You and We`re in the Money.

Keye Luke will share stories about the Charlie Chan movies.  I love the Charlie Chan movies.

Alice Faye will be there because Harry Warren loved her singing his songs and she seemed like a grand gal.

It would be a thrill to have screenwriter Frances Marion at my table.

It would be a pleasure to have Boris Karloff as a guest.

5.  What is your ideal day off?

A stroll by a lake.  Live music.  Good food.  Lots of laughs.  A favourite movie or two or three.  Like-minded companions.

6. You can have a half-hour conversation with any fictional character. Who do you choose? Why?

I would like to catch up with my childhood companion, Nancy Drew.

7.  Your favorite movie monster is?

The world's most incurable romantic, Imhotep.

8.  If you could choose to live in a house/apartment featured in a film or television show, which would it be?

The Greenwich Village apartment Loretta Young and Brian Aherne move into in 1942s A Night to Remember.  It used to be a speakeasy!

9.  Name one thing you would have on your bucket list.

Travel.  I haven't done enough.

10.  Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie?

I Dream of Jeannie.  Unremitting silliness.  I like that.

11.  Favorite film decade and why?

Probably the 1940s.  The films I return to most often are from that turbulent yet creative period.