{"id":685,"date":"2012-01-19T21:25:22","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/?p=685"},"modified":"2012-01-19T21:25:22","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:25:22","slug":"glen-husers-movie-and-book-picks-for-january-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/2012\/01\/19\/glen-husers-movie-and-book-picks-for-january-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Huser’s Movie and Book Picks for January, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My Book Pick: The Biograph Girl<\/h1>\n

My book pick for January is William J. Mann\u2019s The Biograph Girl<\/em> (Kensington Books, 2000). A pen-friend (or should I say a computer-keyboard friend) from Australia, Peter Bastian \u2013 knowing my fascination with Hollywood film history \u2013 recommended this to me. Already a fan of William Mann\u2019s movie star biographies (Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn)<\/em>, I fell into this heady mixture of fact and fiction and barely came up for air before finishing its 457 pages.<\/p>\n

The core of Mann\u2019s novel is the real-life saga of Florence Lawrence, a child star on the Vaudeville stage at the turn of the last century (\u201cBaby Flo, The Child Wonder Whistler\u201d) who became one of the first recognizable screen stars as film was just beginning to find its feet. Early movie producers at first felt it was in their best interest not to let the public know the names of the actors in their pictures (who knows? \u2013 they might ask for increased salaries) but the viewing public began to clamor for not only the name of the beautiful young woman appearing in so many movies, but for every detail about her life. Movie mogul Carl Laemmle even cooked up a fake death story to ramp up interest. The symbiotic relationship of \u201cmovie star\u201d and \u201cmovie fan\u201d came into being and Florence Lawrence found herself blinded by the flashbulbs of newshounds and mobbed by her admirers.<\/p>\n

In Hollywood the clich\u00e9 of the star who rises to dizzying heights and then plummets to dismal depths is sometimes true \u2013 and it was certainly true with Florence Lawrence. A fragile Lawrence found herself not only dealing with the unsettling mania of stardom but a number of failed relationships as well — and doubts about where she was headed with her life. She disappeared from the screen and then returned as a bit player in MGM movies of the 1930s. Shortly after Christmas in 1938, she committed suicide by ingesting ant poison.<\/p>\n

But Mann, in his novel, uses the power of the written word to bring her back to life. What if it wasn\u2019t Florence Lawrence who committed suicide? What if it was a housemate of hers who died and another friend \u2013 a doctor who had been one of her fans \u2013 falsified the death certificate? What if Florence Lawrence went on to live a full life and, in the early 2000s\u2014at the age of 107, was a star attraction of a different sort in a retirement home? Mann\u2019s re-creation of the star is a delightful chain-smoking old woman, quick with the one-liners and ready to tease those intent on sorting out her past with fragments of information that are like jigsaw-puzzle pieces.<\/p>\n

The puzzle-sorters are twin brothers, one\u2014Richard–a gay journalist who stumbles on Lawrence\u2019s story during a routine assignment and the other\u2014Ben–a film-maker in a stagnant relationship with a New York actress. Ben hasn\u2019t had a success since a documentary he created years back fresh out of film-school and a rediscovered Lawrence just might be his ticket for a movie comeback. Into this mix, Mann adds a savvy Nun from the catholic retirement home who is not about to let anyone take advantage of her elderly charge.<\/p>\n

Wisely, Mann keeps seeping the real story of Florence Lawrence into the unfolding fictional one. The result is spellbinding from start to finish \u2013 and not just for movie fanatics such as myself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

<\/h1>\n

My Movie Pick: I’ll See You in My Dreams<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>I think it was my love for movies that spawned, for me, a parallel love for the American songbook of tunes from the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century. Annie Get Your Gun <\/em>introduced me to the boisterous show music and sweet romantic songs of Irving Berlin; I fell in love with Jerome Kern\u2019s melodies in Show Boat; Arthur Freed\u2019s sassy tunes reprised in Singin\u2019 in the Rain <\/em>had me dancing on our living room furniture when I was twelve. I could go on.<\/p>\n

In this vein, a movie I\u2019ve had a special fondness for over the years is I\u2019ll see You in My Dreams,<\/em> a 1951 Warner Brothers film based loosely on the lives of songwriter Gus Kahn and his wife, Grace LeBoy. Kahn began writing the words for tin pan alley tunes in the 1910s, penned lyrics for Broadway show tunes in the 1920s, and went on to a career in movie musicals in the 1930s. He worked with most of the top popular-music composers of those decades, Al Jolson, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, George and Ira Gershwin \u2013 but particularly Walter Donaldson and Isham Jones. His hit songs included \u201cMemories\u201d, \u201cPretty Baby\u201d, \u201cCarolina in the Morning\u201d, \u201cToot, Toot, Tootsie\u201d, \u201cMy Buddy\u201d, \u201cIt Had to Be You\u201d, \u201cLove Me or Leave Me\u201d, \u201cMakin\u2019 Whoopee\u201d, and \u201cI\u2019ll See You in My Dreams\u201d \u2013 all of which are featured in the movie of Kahn\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

The film focuses on Grace LeBoy, played by Doris Day, a pianist and singer who wrote the music for some of Kahn\u2019s earlier songs. Danny Thomas portrays Kahn, with Warner Brothers\u2019 prolific director Michael Curtiz on board. While the result is often sentimental and biopic stereotypes are clearly in place, this is one of those movies in which the elements click and it\u2019s a sheer pleasure to view it. Day appears to be relishing the opportunity to play a character a cut above many of the musicals Warners forced her into in the 1950s. Her presentation of several of Kahn\u2019s songs gives us a taste of the former band songstress in top form (witness Day crooning \u201cThe One I Love\u201d in an audition scene \u2013 absolutely beautiful!). And Danny Thomas is a surprise and a delight as the cigar-chomping Kahn. He has a singing voice that is low-key, almost conversational. I was reminded of Harry Nilsson in one of my favourite albums \u2013 \u201cA Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night.\u201d Anyway \u2013 very nice chemistry between the two leads. Curtiz, despite his reputation as the studio curmudgeon, sensitively helms such scenes as the one in which Kahn, after a night working with the boys in a smoke-filled bar, tenderly picks up his sleepy, pregnant wife and carries her out (and reminds us that Curtiz, in earlier days, directed that most romantic of films \u2013 Casablanca<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The supporting cast is also excellent. Perennial housekeeper Mary Wickes is wickedly funny as the Kahn\u2019s maid, Anna — handy with a broom and a comeback. Frank Lovejoy portrays party-boy composer Walter Donaldson, looking very comfortable with a drink in one hand and a racing form in the other. Patrice Wymore as a showgirl who wouldn\u2019t mind getting her claws into Kahn has a good set of pipes (she sings \u201cLove Me or Leave Me\u201d over the phone to Day who\u2019s minding the house in Chicago while her husband is writing tunes for Ziegfeld in the New York). Interestingly, Day \u2013 a few years later \u2013 would portray singer Ruth Etting in another biopic, Love Me or Leave Me<\/em> that would garner her an Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n

So\u2026get out a bowl of popcorn, pour yourself a drink, sink back in the sofa and enjoy this nostalgic gem. You won\u2019t be disappointed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Book Pick: The Biograph Girl My book pick for January is William J. Mann\u2019s The Biograph Girl (Kensington Books, 2000). A pen-friend (or should I say a computer-keyboard friend) from Australia, Peter Bastian \u2013 knowing my fascination with Hollywood film history \u2013 recommended this to me. Already a fan of William Mann\u2019s movie star […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glen-huser-movie-and-book-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}