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When Blanche Sweet sang “there’s a tear for every smile in Hollywood” in Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), she wasn’t wrong. Movie people have long been warning starry eyed wannabes to tread carefully if there were coming to Tinseltown full of hopes and dreams. In The Truth About the Movies by the Stars (1924), screenwriter Frank Butler wrote that “From every corner of the earth they come and across the Seven Seas – borne on the tireless wings of youthful optimism. Pathetic pilgrims these, struggling on to ultimate disillusion.”

A large part of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022) explores the dark side of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The twenties roared in Hollywood, but there was also something larger at stake for characters in Babylon. Like any audience in front of a film, they were chasing that magic on the screen. They were chasing an idea.

The world was at war 80 years ago. The United States was grieving over the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 by the Japanese military and the defeat of our forces that month at Wake Island. And then the beloved Carole Lombard, her mother, servicemen and the crew perished in a plane crash west of Las Vegas on January 16, 1942. She was returning to Hollywood after raising 2 million in a war bond drive in Indianapolis.

How would Hollywood and audiences respond to World War II? They certainly didn’t shy away from the war. If you look at the top 10 films of the year, there are some escapist films but also movies dealing with the global conflict.

In fact, the No. 1 film of the year William Wyler’s “Mrs. Miniver” broke records at Radio City Music Hall in New York playing 10 weeks. Production began on the stirring, sentimental drama about a British...

MGM’s old-fashioned Irving Berlin musical has superior songs and powerful performances, especially that of Betty Hutton. She gets plenty loud and rambunctious, but it fits the ‘big’ Annie Oakley character. And the talented, under-appreciated Howard Keel really fires up the screen with her in songs like ‘Anything You Can Do.’ The Wac disc contains plenty of George Feltenstein- rescued unused audio material, plus footage … depressing footage … of Judy Garland’s attempt in the leading role. Yep, the show may be PC minefield begging for a Cancel Culture intervention, but if it goes we’ll have to put most of Hollywood film history in a landfill.

Annie Get Your Gun

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1950 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 107 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date April 10, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern, J. Carrol Naish, Edward Arnold, Keenan Wynn, Benay Venuta, Clinton Sundberg, Mae Clarke, John Mylong, Chief Yowlachie, Evelyn Beresford.

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“I’Ve Given Up Kissing Strange Women”

By Raymond Benson

Bob Hope had a stellar career that stretched from the late 1930s through the 1960s, with subsequent star power appearances in his senior years on television in variety and awards shows. His efforts to entertain troops overseas for decades are highly commendable. What many punters today don’t realize, unless one is a Hope aficionado, is that his early solo comedies (or the duos with Bing Crosby) are absolute comic gems. Woody Allen has gone on the record to say that he based much of his early 1970s screen persona on Bob Hope, and one can easily see that nebbish, albeit here decidedly non-Jewish, “character” in My Favorite Blonde.

The story of this 1942 outing is credited to longtime Hope collaborators Melvin Frank and Norman Panama (the screenplay is by Don Hartman and Frank Butler...

Never heard of Wake Island? Its fall terrified Americans at Christmas of 1941. The war’s just begun, we’re definitely not winning, and the assignment was to make a movie about a tragic defeat that might be the first of many tragic defeats for the U.S.A.. Paramount’s careful morale-builder doesn’t exaggerate or sentimentalize the brutal fall of a tiny atoll in the Pacific, and stands as an example of filmmaking reaching for hope in the face of disaster.

Wake Island

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1942 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 88 min. / Street Date August 18, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, William Bendix, Albert Dekker, Walter Abel, Mikhail Rasumny, Rod Cameron, Bill Goodwin, Damian O’Flynn, Frank Albertson, Hugh Beaumont, Barbara Britton, Hillary Brooke, Dane Clark, Frank Faylen, Mary Field, Alan Hale Jr., Richard Loo, James Millican, Jack Mulhall, Keith Richards, Phillip Terry, Mary Thomas,...

Tony Allen, the pioneering drummer who helped define Afrobeat during his tenure with Fela Kuti, died Thursday evening. He was 79.

Allen’s manager, Eric Trosser, confirmed the musician’s death to Rolling Stone, adding that Allen was taken to Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, where he died of abdominal aortic aneurysm. “He was in great shape,” Trosser added to France 24. “It was quite sudden.” Sahara Reporters first reported Allen’s death.

As a member of Kuti’s band Africa 70, Allen helped revolutionize the art of drumming, simultaneously anchoring...

The Road to Singapore, Zanzibar,

Morocco and Utopia

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1940, 41, 42, 43, 46 / 1:33:1 / 85, 91, 82, 90 Min. / Street Date – March 26, 2019

Starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour

Written by Frank Butler, Don Hartman, Melvin Frank

Cinematography by William C. Mellor, Ted Tetzlaff

Directed by Victor Schertzinger, David Butler, Hal Walker

Between 1940 and 1962, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby starred in seven “Road” pictures directed by such distinct talents as David Butler, Norman McLeod and Hope’s own gag-writer Norman Panama who would lead the comedian kicking and screaming into the sixties with How to Commit Marriage, a poison pen letter to the counterculture released in 1969.

Though produced during a World War, the first four Road films avoided the cynicism of that late 60’s farce – instead they were the essence of disposable fun – populist entertainments peppered with topical wisecracks, potshots at company brass and the occasional talking fish. Beginning with Road to Singapore, a...

Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) and Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) joined an elite group of filmmakers who received Oscar nominations for writing, directing and producing the same film. In the academy’s 90-year history, only 26 other people pulled off this hat trick. Peele is the first black filmmaker to do so, while del Toro is only the second Latin American after his filmmaking amigo Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

Now del Toro and Peele are hoping to join the even more exclusive club of seven filmmakers who won all three prizes in one night. Considering they’re in direct competition with each other for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (where del Toro competes alongside co-writer Vanessa Taylor), it’ll be an especially tricky feat to pull off.

Leo McCarey was the first person to win the big three for “Going My Way” (1944), a lighthearted comedy starring Bing...

Neurotic coward Eddie Cantor decides to defend an amusement park against gangsters, and nothing but fun ensues! Ethel Merman has a small role here, but we're more than entertained by Parkyakarkus, Brian Donlevy, William Frawley, Jack Larue. Plus Sally Eilers, the Goldwyn Girls and a terrific forgotten talent, billed in this movie as Rita Rio. Strike Me Pink DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. / Street Date August 4,, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Eddie Cantor, Ethel Merman, Sally Eilers, Parkyakarkus, Rita Rio (Dona Drake), Brian Donlevy, William Frawley, Jack Larue, Gordon Jones, Helen Lowell The Goldwyn Girls. Cinematography Merritt Gerstad, Gregg Toland Film Editor Sherman Todd Original Music (Alfred Newman) Dance Director Robert Alton Special Effects Gilbert Pratt, Ray Binger, Paul Eagler Written by Francis Martin, Frank Butler, Walter Deleon from the story and novel Dreamland by Clarence Buddington Kelland Produced by Samuel Goldwyn Directed by...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1999, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Marquis Theatre, where it ran for 1045 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1966, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Broadway Theatre, where it ran for 77 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1999, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Marquis Theatre, where it ran for 1045 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1966, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Broadway Theatre, where it ran for 77 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1966, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Broadway Theatre, where it ran for 77 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1999, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Marquis Theatre, where it ran for 1045 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include 'There's No Business Like Show Business', 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'You Can't Get a Man with a Gun', 'They Say It's Wonderful', and 'Anything You Can Do.'...

Today in 1966, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Broadway Theatre, where it ran for 77 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include There's No Business Like Show Business, Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, You Can't Get a Man with a Gun, They Say It's Wonderful, and Anything You Can Do.

Today in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for 1147 performances. Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include There's No Business Like Show Business, Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, You Can't Get a Man with a Gun, They Say It's Wonderful, and Anything You Can Do.

Today in 1999, Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Marquis Theatre, where it ran for 1045 performances.Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley 1860-1926, who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler. Songs that became hits include There's No Business Like Show Business, Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, You Can't Get a Man with a Gun, They Say It's Wonderful, and Anything You Can Do.

Going My Way (1944) Direction: Leo McCarey Cast: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Risë Stevens, Frank McHugh, Gene Lockhart, James Brown, Jean Heather, Porter Hall, Fortunio Bonanova Screenplay: Frank Butler and Frank Cavett; from a story by Leo McCarey Oscar Movies Barry Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Going My Way Director Leo McCarey and screenwriters Frank Butler and Frank Cavett poured a whole bottle of syrup into their sentimental comedy-drama Going My Way. The fact that this "inspirational" tale with religious overtones became the year's biggest blockbuster and the winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, proves that McCarey, Butler, Cavett, and Paramount Pictures knew exactly what audiences wanted in 1944: the same sort of gooey star vehicle that continues to lure millions of moviegoers, e.g., Tom Hanks' Forrest Gump, Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness, Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side. In Going My Way, the goo is provided...

25 Days Of Christmas: Television Specials and Holiday Films

Throughout the month of December, TV Editor Kate Kulzick and Film Editor Ricky D will review classic Christmas adaptions, posting a total of 13 each, one a day, until the 25th of December.

The catch: They will swap roles as Rick will take on reviews of classic television Christmas specials and Kate will take on Christmas movies. Today is day 2.

Day 2: Babes in Toyland/March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934)

Written by Frank Butler and Nick Grinde

Directed by Gus Meins and Charley Rogers

What’s it about?

This Laurel and Hardy musical, originally titled Babes in Toyland but later retitled March of the Wooden Soldiers, follows the misadventures of several of the residents of Toyland. Mother Peep, the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, is about to be evicted by the evil Silas Barnaby, who is scheming to coerce the beautiful Bo-Peep into marrying him,...

On August 13, Ravinia opened its three-day run of Irving Berlin's hit-filled Broadway classic Annie Get Your Gun. Taking on her third Merman role, Patti LuPone stars as the sharp-shooter opposite Patrick Cassidy as Frank Butler and George Hearn as Buffalo Bill Cody. The production is directed by Lonny Price with Paul Gemignani leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The shows, Aug. 13 through 15, begin at 7:30 p.m.

Going My Way (1944) Direction: Leo McCarey Screenplay: Frank Butler and Frank Cavett; from a story by Leo McCarey Cast: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Risë Stevens, Frank McHugh, Gene Lockhart, James Brown, Jean Heather, Porter Hall, Fortunio Bonanova Barry Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby in Going My Way Synopsis: The new priest in parish, the jovial Father O’Malley (Bing Crosby), tries to befriend the local old-school priest, Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), and to reach out to a new generation of churchgoers. Will he succeed? (Just a rhetorical question.) The Pros: Barry Fitzgerald is fun as the feisty dark-robed curmudgeon with a heart of solid platinum. ("His performance is one of the half-dozen finer things seen in motion pictures as they complete their first fifty years," said [...]...

Veteran Guthrie actors Sally Wingert and Richard Ooms team with director Rob Melrose for Samuel Beckett's masterful two-character drama Happy Days. The production, which serves as the Dowling Studio debut for both actors, begins previews February 14, opens February 18 and plays through March 8, 2009. Single tickets are priced from $18 to $30, with opening night priced at $34. Tickets are now on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.Stage, 612.225.6244 (Group Sales) and online at http://www.guthrietheater.org/. This intense and strictly concentrated two-character drama features an eternally optimistic Winnie inexplicably buried waist-deep in a mound of earth, clinging to her life of arbitrary routines and rituals. Her husband, Willie, appears from time to time and replies only occasionally to her cheerful chatter, a source of comfort as she remains ever hopeful that "this is going to be a happy day." With its vivid sense of the bizarre and a blend of humor and compassion,...