Dancing Legs Quiz ~ Nov 2016 Edition

Take a look at the following partial pictures. Each pair belongs to a dancer whose birthday is this month. Name the dancer. Then give yourself a bonus point if you can name the movie.

1)

2)

Good luck!

Dancing Legs Quiz ~ Sept 2016 Edition

Take a look at the following partial pictures. Each pair belongs to a dancer whose birthday is this month. Name the dancer. Then give yourself a bonus point if you can name the movie.

1)

2)

3)

4)

Good luck!

Dancing Legs Quiz ~ Aug 2016 Edition

Take a look at the following partial pictures. Each pair belongs to a dancer whose birthday is this month. Name the dancer. Then give yourself a bonus point if you can name the movie.

1)

2) 

3) 

4)

5)

Good luck!

Film Clip Find: "Black Music from 1940s"

Film Clip Find posts - a place to archive discoveries while going down the rabbit hole of research

Description: a collection of film shorts featuring African-American singers of the 1940s

Why I like this clip: beautiful singing from many artists I have not been exposed to; African-American performers get to be themselves, not exaggerated caricatures--so refreshing!

Length - 28:05

Unable to view? Click here. 

Ciao til next time!

Dancers in the Dark (1932)

This is part of Hot and Bothered: The Films of 1932 Blogathon hosted by Aurora at Once Upon a Screen and Theresa at CineMaven's Essays from the Couch. For more steamy posts, click Day 1 and Day 2.

The Task

*To write about a film from 1932
*I chose Dancers in the Dark sight unseen because of the topic (dancers!) and Miriam Hopkins.

The Film

In the film, taxi dancer Gloria (Miriam Hopkins) and saxophone player Floyd (William Collier Jr.) are in love and want to get married. He is willing to forgive her past, which may be worse than he thinks, but he insists he doesn't need to know. Bandleader Duke (Jack Oakie) grew up with Floyd and sees him as a brother. He believes Floyd deserves better than the fallen Gloria. Duke arranges for Floyd to take a four-week out-of-town job, hoping his absence will cause Gloria to reveal her true colors. Side note: At one time, Duke was also in love with Gloria, and she had a crush on him.

Miriam Hopkins, William Collier Jr., Jack Oakie

Battleground (1949)

Freedom is not free.

On this Independence Day, I would like to remember all those who fought for the freedom we enjoy by sharing Battleground (1949), a World War II film with authentic details and realistic characters.

The movie is further fitting because one of its stars is George Murphy, today's birthday boy.

Murphy is bottom right.

Dancing Legs Quiz ~ July 2016 Edition

Take a look at the following partial pictures. Each pair belongs to a dancer whose birthday is this month. Name the dancer. Then give yourself a bonus point if you can name the movie.

1)

2)

3)

4)

Good luck!

April & May 2016 Viewing: Garland, Brunettes, and Secrets

How I feel by the end of May....

April and May are busy months in my neck of the woods. While my tweeps are gathering at the annual TCM Film Festival, I am readying students for state testing and our end of the year drama production. May sees me furiously grading papers to meet deadlines and calling or meeting with parents about kiddos who may not make it to the next grade unless assignments get turned in. For the most part, I am on island far away from Tinseltown and its movies, but even the hardest worker is entitled to a brief respite. Here are a few of the movies I caught.

Post covers: Pigskin Parade (1936), For Me and My Gal (1942), Little Nellie Kelly (1940), Presenting Lily Mars (1943), Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), The Secret Garden (1949)

2016 Liebster Award

A little late, but I finally made it to the Liebster Ball to accept my awards.

Thank you to Ginie from Wonderful World of Cinema and Christina Wehner for the kind nominations. In turn I would like to nominate the following blogs:

• Back to Golden Days
• Define Dancing
• Sister Celluloid

If you decide to join the ball, you will need to:

• Nominate up to 11 blogs for the award
• Give the bloggers you nominated 11 questions to answer
• Answer 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you
• Share 11 details about yourself (optional - one Liebster required it, the other did not)

Questions for the bloggers I nominated can be found here. 

Reel Infatuation: Dennis Riordan

This post is part of the Reel Infatuation Blogathon hosted by Font and Frock and Silver Screenings. To read about more cinematic crushes, click here. 

The Task

*To share a crush you have on a character 

*The difficult part of this task was picking a character as opposed to an actor crush. (Sorry, Cary!)

My Reel Infatuation

Blame it on the political season, but my crush goes to a character who has strong convictions yet can listen to the other side of the story and--gasp!--change his course of action if it benefits the whole.

Brian Aherne's Dennis Riordan in Beloved Enemy (1936)

People Will Talk (1951)

This post is part of the Order in the Court! Blogathon hosted by Theresa at CineMaven's Essays from the Couch and Lesley at Second Sight Cinema. To read more judicial posts, click here.

The Task

To write about a classic film that brings the audience into the courtroom.


The Film

People Will Talk (1951) is the first movie Joseph L. Mankiewicz took on following his Academy Award-winning film, All About Eve (1950). The film is based on a 1934 German play written by Curt Goetz, which was later made into a German film, Frauenarzt Dr. Pratorius (1950). According to film critics, Mankiewicz maintained that People Will Talk was a response to an unpleasant medical experience although parallels have been made between Praetorius' hearing and the House Un-American Acts Committee (HUAC) hearings, which resulted in the blacklisting of hundreds of Hollywood artists.  

Dancing Legs Quiz ~ June 2016 Edition

Take a look at the following partial pictures. Each pair belongs to a dancer whose birthday is this month. Name the dancer. Then give yourself a bonus point if you can name the movie.

1)

2)

3)

4)

Good luck!

2016 Gotta Dance! Blogathon

Get your dancing shoes ready because the Gotta Dance! Blogathon has arrived!

The Task

Celebrate #NationalTapDanceDay and the great Bill Robinson and Fred Astaire with a post that celebrates dance in film. Everything is game: choreography, dancers, music, partnerships, style. The important ingredient is fun!

The Menu

Sit back and let us razzle dazzle you with these copasetic posts:

Classic Reel Girl - Everything's Copasetic when Bill Robinson Dances

Old Hollywood Films - Ballet Sequences in Old Hollywood Films

Moon in Gemini - The Turning Point (1977)

Love Letters to Old Hollywood - Scattered thoughts on An American in Paris (1951)

Define Dancing - The hypnotic magic of Girl Hunt Ballet

Realweegiemidget - Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)

Cinema Cities - The Barn-Raising Dance in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

 Wonderful World of Cinema - Put your Dance Shoes and Watch "Footloose"!

In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood - Dancing Lady (1933) Joan Crawford Dances with Fred Astaire

Christina Wehner - Cyd Charisse

The Flapper Dame - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

 Cinema Gadfly - The Red Shoes

Critica Retro - Gene Kelly

 Back to the Golden Days - Gene Kelly and Judy Garland

 Phyllis Loves Classic Movies - The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing..Especially If You're Vera-Ellen!

Pop Culture Reverie - Dirty Dancing

Sometimes the best things happen while you're reading about dancing.

 ~  ~  ~

Thank you for stopping by and reading our posts, and a big thanks to all the wonderful bloggers who were able to participate this year!

Happy National Tap Dance Day!