Movies I Watched in January

Detail of Edith Head gown worn by Rosemary Clooney 

in "Sisters" number of White Christmas (1954).

This month I watched more movies than normal as I had purchased a month of HBO Max and wanted to get my money's worth :) Notable this month: I watched my first Mae West movie, then kept going "mmm" to myself lol. I finally rewatched Twentieth Century - I thought it was ok the first time I saw it but a little too zany. I still think it's too much ;) Hamlette's Soliloquy will be happy to see I watched two Alan Ladd movies. The only parts of The Glass Key I remembered were the ones with Bendix, mainly the scene where Ladd gets beat to a pulp. I also noticed that the country house is the same set as Holiday Inn (1942)!! Parts of the set were also used in White Christmas (see this article on Hooked on Houses). 

The bottom images show the same wallpaper and grandfather clock. The stairs may be the same as in the main room of the lodge but in a different configuration. 

UPDATE DECEMBER 2021: I also spotted the wallpaper in Adam Had Four Sons (1941).

TCM showed several movies for Elvis Presley's birthday so already he's going to be on my most watched list this year. I also FINALLY watched Born Yesterday. My favorite Judy Holliday movie is still It Should Happen to You (which I also rewatched. See the end of the post for a note on that). I went to see an exhibit of White Christmas costumes (post on that coming soon) so when we got home we of course had to watch the movie again. 

Read Blonde Venus: A Life of Marlene Dietrich by Leslie Frewin. 

1. Their Own Desire (1929) - Norma Shearer & Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone
2. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins 
3. Design for Living (1933) - Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton
4. I’m No Angel (1933) - Mae West & Cary Grant, Edward Arnold 
5. *Twentieth Century (1934) - John Barrymore & Carole Lombard 
6. The Price of Wisdom (1935) - Roger Livesey
7. Woman Chases Man (1937) - Miriam Hopkins & Joel McCrea, Charles Winninger, Broderick Crawford, (watched twice)
8. Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938) - Robert Young & Ruth Hussey, Lew Ayres, Lana Turner
9. When Were You Born (1938) - Anna May Wong, Margaret Lindsey, Lola Lane
10. Down Argentine Way (1940) - Betty Grable & Don Ameche 
11. The Great Mr. Nobody (1941) - Eddie Albert & Joan Leslie, Alan Hale, John Litel, Dickie Moore
12. Major Barbara (1941) - Wendy Hiller & Rex Harrison, Robert Morley 
13. Lydia (1941) - Merle Oberon, Joseph Cotten, Alan Marshal, Edna May Oliver, George Reeves
14. *The Glass Key (1942) - Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake, Brian Donlevy, Bonita Granville, Dane Clark
15. Bride by Mistake (1944) - Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt
16. Along Came Jones (1945) - Gary Cooper & Loretta Young, William Demerest, Dan Duryea 
17. *I Know Where I’m Going (1945) - Wendy Hiller & Roger Livesey
18. The Blue Dahlia (1946) - Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard de Silva, Hugh Beaumont 
19. Criss Cross  (1949) - Burt Lancaster & Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea
20. Born Yesterday (1950) - Judy Holliday & William Holden, Broderick Crawford 
21. *It Should Happen to You (1954) - Judy Holliday & Jack Lemmon, Peter Lawford
22. *White Christmas (1954) - Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Dean Jagger, Mary Wickes 
23. Flaming Star (1960) - Elvis Presley, Dolores Del Rio, Barbara Eden
24. *Blue Hawaii (1961) - Elvis Presley & Joan Blackman, Angela Lansbury 
25. It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963) - Elvis Presley 
26. Girl Happy (1965) - Elvis Presley & Shelley Fabares
27. Harum Scarum (1965) - Elvis Presley 
28. Spinout (1966) - Elvis Presley, Shelley Fabares, Deborah Walley, Cecil Kellaway & Una Merkel 
29. Stay Away, Joe (1968) - Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith, Katy Jurado, Joan Blondell
30. The Trouble with Girls (1969) - Elvis Presley, Vincent Price
31. The Towering Inferno (1974) - Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Wagner, Jennifer Jones, Fred Astaire 
32. Death on the Nile (1978) - Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Jack Warden
33. Murphy’s Romance (1985) - Sally Field & James Garner
34. *Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) - Steve Martin, John Candy
35. Overboard (1987) - Goldie Hawn & Kurt Russell, Roddy McDowall
36. My Blue Heaven (1990) - Steve Martin, Rick Moranis
37. Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) - Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston
38. The Pentagon Wars (1998) - Cary Elwes, Kelsey Grammar  
39. *Ocean’s Eleven (2001) - George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner
40. Spy Game (2001) - Robert Redford, Brad Pitt
41. A Good Year (2006) - Russell Crowe & Marion Cotilliard 
42. *Tangled (2010) - Mandy Moore & Zachary Levi
43. Victoria & Abdul (2017) - Dame Judi Dench
44. Ad Astra (2019) - Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler

God is the Bigger Elvis (2012) - Mother Dolores Hart 

Andre the Giant (2018)

Elvis Presley: The Searcher (2018)

Least Favorite Film: I thought Harum Scarum was bad, but Stay Away, Joe was painful to watch. The Great Mr. Nobody was not as good as I thought it would be and was therefore a letdown. It was the first movie I watched this year. Ad Astra was depressing. Brad Pitt was good in it though. 

Favorite Movie: Woman Chases Man was so good I watched it again the next day with my family. They loved it too. Manhattan Murder Mystery was also really funny and the end was absolutely brilliant!

The stairs to Holliday's apartment are marked with an X. Behind them is an identical set. In the image below you can see they are no longer there. They also appear in When Harry Met Sally (1989), as the steps to Carrie Fisher's apartment. Harry(Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) have an argument here. The identical steps behind them were apparently painted off-white at the time.

Detail of the stonework under the window. It is different under each set of windows. It is circled in the Google Maps screenshot above. I wanted to visit this apartment when I was in NY in 2019 but it was a little out of the way. If I had I would have taken pictures on the wrong set of steps!