BEFORE: It's Day 2 of musicals with Howard Keel, as he carries over from "Annie Get Your Gun". I still have the dreaded link in the chain coming up in just 3 days, but I think I've found a way to deal with it. Also, I've blocked out the schedule for March, April and early May, taking me all the way from Easter to Mother's Day, working in both "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War". Now I have to try to plan to reach the film "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and then maybe Memorial Day and Father's Day. I promise not to think about a July 4 film until then. Just kidding, I already have one picked out.
It's occurred to me that having access to Netflix now (in addition to iTunes), and a pile of Academy screeners from the past few years, has simultaneously made my linking both more difficult and a lot easier. It's more difficult because I have to pay attention to what's available on each platform, plus keep a working list of what I have on DVD that I haven't watch, scan the cable guide not only weekly but also DAILY to see if anything new has popped up, and then also keep one eye on the release schedule for the theaters, so that when something like "Black Panther" rolls around, I've already saved a slot for it. (As it is, I'm going to see this film on Wednesday, but I don't have a space to review it in February or March, so I can't post my thoughts until April.)
As it is, I can't plan more than two or three months ahead, because things keep changing - even the Hollywood release schedule, like "The New Mutants" just got pushed back from this April to February 2018 - so I'm glad I hadn't worked out a way to link to it. But my collection is also changing, so there may be films that I record off cable in 2 weeks that could play a part in the linking in June or July, and there's no way to know now what will be of use to me then. BUT, I think that having access to more titles now does also make linking easier - in addition to the watchlist, I now have a second list of films that I know are on Netflix, or coming up in theaters, or available to me on a screener. So if I want to check if an actor or actress is in more than one film that I want to see, it's just a quick search of two lists I'm maintaining on the IMDB.
It's a bit like traveling across the country, let's say from New York to the West Coast, and I've given myself several months to see everything interesting along the way. The starting point is fixed, I've got an endpoint in mind, let's say the Pacific Ocean, only I'm not too picky about exactly where or when I reach it. The different platforms available to me (DVD, premium cable, Netflix, iTunes, screeners) are just like different ways of getting to the next city or town - sometimes I may take a train, or a bus, or rent a car, or even walk to the next town, depending on the circumstances. As long as I'm making continuous progress, and I stay on track to reach the destination by the target date, it doesn't matter how I get there.
Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 19, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and they're bouncing back to more nominees and winners for Best Supporting Actress.
7:00 am "None But the Lonely Heart" (1944) - Ethel Barrymore, winner
9:00 am "Key Largo" (1948) - Claire Trevor, winner
11:00 am "The Little Foxes" (1941) - Patricia Collinge and Teresa Wright
1:15 pm "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946) - Gale Sondergaard
3:45 pm "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952) - Gloria Grahame, winner
6:00 pm "California Suite" (1978) - Maggie Smith, winner
8:00 pm "The Great Lie" (1941) - Mary Astor, winner
10:00 pm "The V.I.P.s" (1963) - Margaret Rutherford, winner
12:15 am "Separate Tables" (1958) - Wendy Hiller, winner
2:15 am "The Last Picture Show" (1971) - Cloris Leachman, winner
4:30 am "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982) - Linda Hunt, winner
I've seen 3 of these: "California Suite", "The Last Picture Show" and "The Year of Living Dangerously", plus I'm going to watch "The V.I.Ps" in early March, so I'm counting that. I'm also recording "The Last Picture Show" because even though I've seen it, I don't have a copy in my collection. Another 4 out of 11 brings my total up to 79 out of 210. Score stays flat at 37.6%, but I still expect to do better in the last 2 weeks.
THE PLOT: The daughter of a riverboat captain falls in love with a charming gambler, but their fairytale romance is threatened when his luck turns sour.
AFTER: I didn't realize that these musicals with Howard Keel would share so much DNA with the Fred Astaire films - not just from sharing actors, but also their stories' framing devices. Having the characters put on a show is the easiest, best way to get a lot of musical numbers into the film, even if that show is a traveling Wild West Show, or a revue on a riverboat going up and down the Mississippi.
Of course, in all cases some of the song and dances take place on the stage, and some don't. It seems that once you're in the show business life you may break into song at any time, when you're with your sweetheart on a train, or even when you're by yourself. (Annie Oakley mused that "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun" when there was nobody else around! Was she trying to convince herself?). And in "Show Boat" we're treated to people singing Jerome Kern classics like "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" as people just muse about life on the river when they're all alone.
Oddly, this is the third romance film this month where people are concerned about interracial romance (again, this was a different time, made in 1951, based on a stage play from the 1920's and set in the 1880's) and the second to bring up laws against interracial marriage. In "Show Boat", after a crewman is denied attention from the show's married leading lady, he exposes her as being half-black and married to a white man, which was illegal. And though her husband tries to cover with a weird half-truth, claiming to be part black himself, they still have to leave their jobs, because blacks weren't allowed to perform on stage, either. (I'd argue that if the performance is taking place on the river, then they're technically not IN the state of Mississippi, but what do I know?).
This creates two openings in the cast, which a riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, takes advantage of by claiming to be an actor to get free passage to New Orleans. (But, if he's pretending to be an actor, doesn't that MAKE him an actor, by default?). He's been smitten by Magnolia, the boat captain's daughter and suggests that she step up to the leading lady position, with the side benefit that he then gets to kiss her during the course of each performance. And while her stern mother is against this at first, it still takes place, and the leading lady falls for the leading man. The "show within the show" affects the reality it takes place in, yet again.
Eventually the deception is revealed, but the damage is done - the young girl is now in love with a gambler, and leaves the ship for a life on the road. (I'm not sure why he couldn't just stay in place, I mean, don't people gamble on the riverboat?). And when his luck turns bad, this turns them into the kind of people who have to sneak out of hotels in the middle of the night to avoid paying the bill. When she finally tells him off, he leaves her in a one-room furnished rental in Chicago. From there it's a long road back to the riverboat, filled with coincidences like the old dance team from the boat just "happening" to get a job in Chicago, and just "happening" to end up at the same boarding-house. Yeah, right.
Further coincidences allow Magnolia to audition for the same club that Julie (the half-black woman from before) is singing in, and then put Magnolia's father in the club during his daughter's first performance. And a final coincidence puts Julie and Gaylord in the same place, which allows for him to be updated on Magnolia's life, so he can consider going back to her. That's an awful lot of coincidences for one dance-hall circuit.
It turns out that this is really the THIRD filmed adaptation of the "Show Boat" musical, prior versions were released in 1929 and 1936. There are substantial differences in the plot for this third one, but since it's the only one I've seen, I won't get into them here. But I wonder if audiences in 1951 wondered how many times Hollywood was going to re-make this film, in the same way that I wondered why "Spider-Man" needed to be re-booted a third time.
Also starring Kathryn Grayson (last seen in "Rio Rita"), Ava Gardner (last seen in "The Band Wagon"), Joe E. Brown (last seen in "Around the World in Eighty Days"), Gower Champion, Marge Champion, Agnes Moorehead (last seen in "The Swan"), Leif Erickson (last seen in "Kiss Them For Me"), Robert Sterling, William Warfield, Norman Leavitt (last seen in "Harvey"), Sheila Clark, Frances E. Williams, Regis Toomey (last seen in "Meet John Doe"), Emory Parnell (last seen in "You're Never Too Young"), Owen McGiveney.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pawned diamonds
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