dirac

"A Free Soul" is horribly dated but it's of interest to buffs. It made Gable a star, although nobody expected that, and the studio was so eager to take advantage that he ended up making I believe it was eleven pictures in 1931. Ace the gangster is supposed to be the villain and the deck is stacked that way, but Gable earned a lot of audience sympathy - after all, the toffs treat him like dirt and as far as Shearer's concerned he's just a stud service. This was apparent in the rushes and Thalberg had Gable shove Shearer around in order to shift audience approval back to his lady wife, but it didn't work - the randy rich girl got what was coming to her, seems to have been the consensus of opinion. I like that look Shearer shoots Gable when they first meet - she doesn't leave a shred of clothing on him -- and she looks very sexy in the gowns of the period. L. Barrymore was a horrible old ham, not to be confused with John, who could give a good performance almost to the bitter end. I'm sure Lionel must have given a decent performance some time but offhand I can't recall one.

The update is appreciated, vagansmom. Thank you!

I did see the movie over the weekend and it’s certainly thought provoking, at least in comparison to some of the mainstream offerings out there. Good thing I don’t get my main information on civil rights progress from movies, because after seeing this and The Blind Side I might well come away with the impression that feisty girl graduates of Ole Miss, God bless ‘em, are in the vanguard of forward-thinking race relations. The movie is divided in interesting ways. There is a hint of nostalgia for the retro frocks, wide quiet streets, and beautifully presented home cooking lurking not too far beneath the overt acknowledgment of the oppression that made such a way of life possible. The period distancing makes the audience comfortable – racism as a problem for Them and not Us – and the movie makes it even easier by placing the onus for the worst manifestations of bigotry largely on one character, who dominates the other women by social position and force of personality, and in so doing suggests, however unintentionally, that things might not have been so bad if Hilly Holbrook wasn’t around to whip everyone else into line. (I pause to press the hand of Bryce Dallas Howard, trying hard to get some humanity into a caricature that would be overdone at a hundred yards.) There’s also the suggestion of a book club variation on “Atonement” – a story composed in the voice of white and black women about a crusading young reporter who takes risks to write a landmark of oral history giving voices to the voiceless, called “The Help” – which is not in fact such an oral history, but the piece of fiction we’re reading/watching. “The Help” is too long at two and a half hours, the writer-director, Tate Taylor, apparently having been loyal to a fault to the original book, and there are too many subplots. Still, the film didn’t have the longeurs I anticipated from the running time. There are some nice period details but otherwise little of visual interest and not much sense of place. The scenes swing back and forth metronomically between sentiment and comedy, some of them working, others not. The white actors are mostly hampered by seeming instructions to project to the cheap seats, with even the great Allison Janney overplaying, so the movie isn’t the feast of ensemble acting one might have hoped for. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer play stock characters, but fortunately no one told them that, and they fill the roles and then some. The movie does explore territory that hasn't been seen onscreen much since "Imitation of Life" and even its flaws add to its interest, so I'd have no trouble recommending it. Would be interested to hear more opinions.

I add my thanks to Bradan's, California. Bradan, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the production. Welcome to the forum!

Thanks, Cristian, that's really interesting to know. Here we still have a few smaller theaters in the cities, as you know and there's a revival of old revival houses,as you note, but in suburbia the multiplexes rule. I find them dehumanizing.

Your underwhelmed reaction isn't surprising, cubanmiamiboy. I felt something similar, althought not as strongly. The shock of the new doesn't always last forever. The big screen is always ideal, but it's not possible for many people, especially those not near urban centers, and even there the repertory theaters face challenges from DVD. I know from my own experience it's not necessary to inspire interest. When I was a kid, old movies were all over television. The networks used them in the afternoons and late night as cheap filler for off hours and they were hard to avoid. Now they're limited to cable and occasional evenings on public television and have to be sought out. Certainly it's nice to see them uncut, without commercials, and in restored prints, if you can afford cable, but without that early exposure I might never have seen any and I know I'm not alone in that.

Thanks again, innopac. This sounds like another good one.

Nice picture, and a nice gesture from Farrell.

It sounds grim, and grimmer still if a stroke caused the accident. Apparently there was serious damage in both head and chest.

That's a nice story, Drew, thank you for sharing it. Yes, it's been an up and down career, and this definitely looks like a down - according to this report, Licitra is in a coma.

Thank you for posting the news, Mme Hermine. I hope his recovery is a smooth and rapid one.

Thanks for posting, Tapfan. "Bit players" is overstating the matter somewhat, I'd suggest -- "supporting players" might be more accurate. (The principle is the same, of course.) That criticism has been made regularly in the past. However, would you say it's as true of "The Help" as it is of some of the older movies??

Lots of competition in both categories.

Thanks, JMcN. Sounds like an offbeat read.

An Adams bio is a fine idea. I recall an article by Arlene Croce where she related a few details of Adams' last days - I believe it was the long article on Pacific Northwest Ballet's "Agon." It is a pity she never wrote a memoir; she was obviously most thoughtful and intelligent.

The company heads to OC later this year for the first time in awhile (cross-posted in the Links).

Has anyone seen it yet? Would be particularly interested to hear from anyone who's read the book as well.

Thanks, Quiggin. I didn't know that.

Kenneth MacMillan and Ronald Hynd did pieces for Curry, as well. The results tended to be mixed. On the one hand the dance choreographers came to the ice without preconceptions and so came up with novel ideas that might not have immediately occurred to a choreographer with a background in skating, but by the same token the material produced was often constrained by their not having a real understanding of the technique, and the stuff Curry and other ice choreographers came up with on his/their own was as good if not better. The assessments of Curry’s troupe by dance critics were sometimes similarly limited, for that matter; they knew dance and movement, of course, but not necessarily a great deal about skating or the skating world, and it could show. Returning to the question raised in the original post, I don’t know offhand of any choreographers, distinguished or otherwise, with no dance training or background. It’s hard to see how such choreographers would develop outside the dance world. It’s true that there were/are choreographers who come to ballet from the world of modern dance and Broadway, but that doesn’t sound like what you meant, johnno.

Shearer gorgeous as usual. Nice to know our "U.S. Ballet Girls" had a hospitable reception.

...which she ordered of the same fabric she found Carla Fracci's skirt to be made of via sneaking on the Italian's dressing room in the middle of the night and cutting a piece from the underskirt... Oh Gelsey, Gelsey...too much Gelsey.. Maybe she was high at the time? Unlikely.

Thank you, cubanmiamiboy. I especially like hearing about local performing arts groups who don't necessarily have a major national profile.

puppytreats, there are a number of good figure skating forums, where you'll encounter a variety of strongly contrasting views, to put it mildly, some quite different from what you're reading here. It'll take you awhile to get your feet wet, but it'll pay off if you're genuinely interested. Healy didn't have the jumps. Not really that complicated nor particulary mysterious, IMO.

The complaint that the young folks are all technique with no soul is an old and perennial one. No doubt it is occasionally more true of some generations than others. I would say we are quite spoiled today with all the good dancing to be found away from the major international centers. That observation applies to sport and dance as well. Stephen Jay Gould's remarks on the decline of the .400 hitter have some relevance here. Nobody's batting.400 any more, but there are far fewer bottom-feeders as well, because the general level of accomplishment has risen.

Thanks, Helene. I hadn't heard of it.