I missed all the good stuff
Big news! If you're in the Chicagoland area, the Hollywood Blvd. theater in Woodridge will be showing Oklahoma! and The Music Man next weekend, March 2-4! On top of all that, Shirley Jones herself will be there to introduce the movies and sign autographs in the lobby. It's pretty exciting. I can't wait.
Click here for some info.
The Parent Trap is definitely one of my favorite movies ever. Mostly because Maureen O'Hara is in it. But also because it's hilarious.
And now, a few recent observations about this film:
Susan is really not too bright. I've seen this movie hundreds of times, but never noticed this until recently. She really is an airhead. Particularly when the girls are discussing the fact that they're the same age and have the same birthday. Right away, Sharon realizes something strange is going on, but Susan passes it off as just a coincidence despite the fact that they HAPPEN TO BE IDENTICAL. Then when Susan sees Sharon's picture of Maureen O'Hara, her only reaction is "I don't understand." Susan, if you haven't figured it out by now, there's really no hope for you.
Mitch has too many bathrobes. When he first sees Maureen O'Hara, she's in one of his bathrobes. Then, before he takes his shower, he's wearing another bathrobe. How many bathrobes does one man need?!
They recently discontinued this DVD and replaced it with this version that has The Parent Trap 1 and 2. It apparently has all the same special features, minus the audio commentary by Hayley Mills and David Swift, but I think we all know the commentary should have been done by Maureen O'Hara in the first place.
I fell asleep last night while gazing at the Houseboat soundtrack LP on my wall and was inspired.
10. His Girl Friday
9. The Philadelphia Story
8. Dream Wife - a part of my Deborah Kerr stage
7. That Touch of Mink - I do love Doris Day
6. Arsenic and Old Lace - how can you not love two old ladies murdering people?
5. Bringing Up Baby
4. Houseboat
3. The Awful Truth - these Irene Dunn ones are really amazing. Very hilarious.
2. My Favorite Wife
1. An Affair to Remember - my favorite part is at the end when Deborah Kerr's helper lady opens the door and Cary Grant is in the doorway. Oh my goodness.
What did I learn while putting together this list? There are a ton of Cary Grant movies! I'm going to have to go rent some now.
If you haven't seen Cactus Flower
Walter Matthau plays a dentist who enjoys the company of the younger ladies. Goldie Hawn plays his young girlfriend and Ingrid Bergman plays his kind of boring nurse. They get mixed up in a bit of a love triangle. Actually, it's a love hexagon. Goldie Hawn works in a record shop which is kind of cool, since I've never actually gotten to see a real record shop! Meanwhile, this is the first movie I've seen with a very young Goldie Hawn, and she's hilarious! She even won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
This is by far the most 60's looking movie I have ever seen. There are lots of bell bottoms, and Goldie Hawn wears quite an array of interesting outfits. The best part of the movie by far, is a fabulous scene in a very retro nightclub where they incessantly play 60's elevator music. Ingrid Bergman's character is starting to loosen up and she finds herself at this nightclub on a date. Things get a little out of hand and she proceeds to the dance floor where she invents a very special dance called "the dentist". It's worth seeing the movie for "the dentist" alone. I'm telling you, there is nothing that compares to some "trendy" dancing in a 60's movie.
I have a small obsession with purchasing records. Real vinyl ones. It's really a lot of fun, and many of them are currently adorning the walls of my bedroom. I'm not sure what it is about them, but they're so much more fun than cds and quite a bit cheaper. I never spend more than $1 on a record which makes it even more exciting when I find a fabulous one that certainly should be worth more. 
The first one I ever purchased, and the one that set off my obsession, was Judy Garland Live at Carnegie Hall. I was overjoyed, and despite the fact that I had nothing to play it on at the time, I could not pass it up. This led me to the local Goodwill hoping to find a turntable. Which I did. It was huge and ugly, but it did the job. It also had an 8-track player. Sweet!
This Christmas, I upgraded to a nice wood turntable that looks very old fashioned and most adorable. I've also grown my record collection quite a bit. I've picked up some good old stuff...Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Nat King Cole and so on. I've also gotten some good classic rock...The Beatles (donated by my mother, I can't take credit), Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel and my latest addition of ABBA. I never thought I'd like ABBA, but for $1, I had to check them out. Cheezy, but enjoyable.
I'm planning on posting as good new ones come along. I can't wait for garage sale season!
Today, my friend and I watched The Quiet Man, one of my favorite movies ever. I highly recommend watching this movie with the audio commentary by Maureen O'Hara. Maureen is wonderful and lovely and a great time to listen to. She's actually watching the movie while commenting on it, so it's a lot of fun. We also noticed that she likes to repeat certain things that she feels very strongly about. This is what I learned, and probably will never forget, about The Quiet Man, having heard it repeated numerous times.
1. Two of her brothers were in it - she makes sure we know who they are every time they're on screen. She also thinks they're rather handsome.
2. Every book written about it was wrong - apparently many people have written books on this movie, and apparently, they all lie. She was there, so she would know. I suspect it may be because...
3. John Ford made up stories about the filming, just for fun - he told someone that it rained every single day of the filming but Maureen says...
4. It never rained - I think I believe her
5. John Ford had serious issues - I'm pretty sure he needed to see a psychiatrist
6. Cohan is pronounced Coh'n instead of Co-han - John Ford insisted that it be pronounced Co-han for the American audiences. This greatly upset Maureen as it was not how it would have actually been pronounced in Ireland.
7. She got dragged through sheep poo - during the scene where John Wayne drags her through the fields. Gross.
8. John Ford hated everyone - see #5
9. All the love scenes in movies today are pretty inappropriate - she's mostly right on this one.
10. John Wayne smokes too much - it's true. I don't think there's a scene in the movie where he's not smoking
11. Everyone's dead - Maureen doesn't really repeat this one over and over, but she does go through a nice list of people who are dead and it turns out to be everyone involved in the movie.
This is really one of the best movies ever. It's hilarious and Maureen O'Hara is the best!
This is a very difficult list to make. I think every one of these movies has been my favorite at one point. But this is where it stands right now.
Most of these have been released on DVD in the last couple years, so I've included links to Amazon. Many of them have pretty good special features, so they're definitely worth checking out.
10. Girl Crazy
9. Babes on Broadway
8. A Star is Born
7. Presenting Lily Mars
6. Easter Parade
5. For Me and My Gal
4. The Harvey Girls
3. In the Good Old Summertime
2. Meet Me In St. Louis
Personally, I wouldn't marry a man who proposed to me over an invention." "It'll take me at least a week to dig up all my dolls in the cemetery."
1. Summer Stock
It's rare that my love for classic films and my life at work collide, but one fateful day, they did.
To make a long story short, I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and now we may be going to see Meet Me In St. Louis on stage for our company Christmas party.
For the last couple Christmas parties, (since I've been working there) we've gone to a nice hotel for dinner, followed by a musical guest and some fun work related skits. They've been enjoyable, but I was always jealous when I heard that prior to that, many of the parties had been at one of my favorite dinner theaters, for dinner and a show.
A few weeks ago, the vice president of our department took an informal poll, asking if we prefer the hotel, or the dinner theater. There were some mixed opinions, but I, of course, picked the theater. He couldn't remember the name of the show that would be playing there in December, and I couldn't stand such mystery, so I looked it up. I was elated to find that it would be Meet Me In St. Louis and I had to march into his office to tell him how great it was. So I did. And now my coworkers think I'm weird. Not so out of the everyday, I guess. They had to find out sometime.
Top Ten things I missed as a result of being born in 1983.
10. Elvis
9. The Ed Sullivan Show
8. Andy Williams Christmas Specials
7. Rotary phones
6. The moon walk - the real one, not the dance
5. Not being the only person my age who purchases vinyl records
4. Judy Garland - Live at Carnegie Hall
3. Beatles Concerts
2. Seeing most of my favorite movies in the theater
1. Judy Garland alive
This blog is mostly an homage to the movies and music I love so dearly. It's also a bitter descent into my dark and painful world where everything I like has already come and gone, and I'm stuck with the sad "art" of my generation.
God played some kind of crazy joke on me. He clearly messed up my birth year. I can only imagine he mixed me up with someone else, and that there was a chick born in 1933 that was completely ahead of her time.
But then God invented DVDs, and they almost made everything better. Almost.
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