Back to Golden Days

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and the Old Hollywood era. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of, and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses that graced the silver screen. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. Yesterday I posted part one ; here i...

This week on «Film Friday,» I bring you a film that had its unofficial premiere exactly 74 years and 2 days ago. This also happens to be one of the greatest comedies of all time. Theatrical release poster Directed by Howard Ha wks, Ball of Fire (1941) tells the story of Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper), a young linguistics professor who is overseeing the writing of an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, which he and his seven older colleagues have been working on for years. Realizing that his section on modern American slang is outdated and requires further research, Bertram invites several people from different backgrounds to take part in a slang seminar, including a sexy nightclub performer named «Sugarpuss» O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck). Unbeknownst to Bertram, Sugarpuss is on the run from the police, who wanted to question her about her her gangster boyfriend, Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews). Looking  for a place to hide, Sugarpuss takes refuge in the house where the professors li...

The most attractive man who has ever lived, otherwise known as Gary Cooper , was born Frank James Cooper, in Helena, Montana on May 7, 1901. He was the youngest of two sons of English immigrants Alice (née Brazier), a homemaker, and Charles Henry Cooper, a prominent lawyer, rancher and eventually a Montana Supreme Court justice.   Wanting her sons to have an English education, Alice enrolled Frank and his brother Arthur in Dunstable Grammar School in Berdfordshire, their father's birthplace, where they where educated from 1910 to 1912. At Dunstable, Frank studied Latin and French, in addition to taking several courses in English history. While he readily accepted the school's «conservative political beliefs and code of dutiful self-sacrifice as well as it admirable emphasis on discipline, loyalty, patriotism, honor and pluck,» Frank never adjusted to its formal uniforms and constricted landscape.   I didn't like England, particularly, although I did admire the extraordi...