Back to Golden Days

In honour of Norma Shearer's 114th birthday, which was on Wednesday, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you what is arguably one of her most iconic pictures. Directed by George Cukor, The Women (1939) begins when Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell) learns from her manicurist, Olga (Dennie Moore), that Stephen Haines, the husband of her cousin Mary (Norma Shearer), is having an affair with a predatory perfume clerk named Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford). A notorious gossip, Sylvia shares the news with her Park Avenue friends and then sends Mary for a manicure with Olga so that she hears the rumour herself. Mary's mother, Mrs. Morehead (Lucile Watson) urges her to ignore the gossip, but she cannot control herself when she encounters Crystal at a fashion show. To Sylvia's delight, the meeting between the two rivals makes the front page of the society columns, which leads Mary to ask for a divorce.   Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Joan Fontaine, Mary Boland and Pau...

This week on «Film Friday» I am celebrating Jeanette MacDonald's 113th birthday, which happens to be tomorrow. While I have only seen three of her films so far, one of them — this one — also features two of my favourite actors of the classic Hollywood era, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, hence why I have decided to write about it today. Directed by W. S. Van Dyke, San Francisco (1936) follows Blackie Norton (Clark Gable), the rough-and-tumble owner of the Paradise , a saloon in the notorious Barbary Coast in 1906. He hires down-on-her-luck singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald), who soon becomes a sensation at the Paradise . Angered by the consequences of a recent fire, a group of citizens urge Blackie to run for city supervisor and attempt to get a fire ordinance passed that would condemn many businesses, but would save lives. Encouraged by his childhood friend, Father Tim Mullin (Spencer Tracy), Blackie decides to run for office. He is opposed by crooked landlord Jack Burley (Ja...