Movies I Watched in May

Victoria Shaw, The Crimson Kimono (1959).

This month I binged the rest of The Nanny before we cancelled our HBO Subscription so my movie numbers were down. I also watched a bunch of the TCM Film Festival extras on there. I especially enjoyed the footage from the premiere of A Star is Born (1954). Most of the festival movies I wanted to watch on the TCM app didn't show up there. Luckily the film I was most excited about, They Won't Believe Me, was on there.

* indicates a rewatch

1. Magnificent Obsession (1935) - Robert Taylor & Irene Dunne, Ralph Morgan, Sara Haden
2. Stand-In (1937) - Leslie Howard & Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart, Jack Carson 
3. The Falcon Takes Over (1942) - George Sanders, Allen Jenkins, James Gleason, Ward Bond
4. *They Won’t Believe Me (1947) - Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson
5. Skirts Ahoy! (1952) - Esther Williams, Joan Evans, Vivian Blaine, Barry Sullivan
6. Marty (1955) - Ernest Borgnine & Betsy Blair 
7. The Crimson Kimono (1959) - James Shigeti, Victoria Shaw, Glen Corbett, Anna Lee
8. *The Last Voyage (1960) - Robert Stack & Dorothy Malone, George Sanders, Woody Strode
9. West Side Story (1961) - Natalie Wood & Richard Beymer, George Chakiris, Rita Moreno, Russ Tamblyn
10. *Period of Adjustment (1962) - Anthony Franciosa, Jane Fonda, Jim Hutton, Lois Nettleton
11. The Brass Bottle (1964) - Tony Randall, Burl Ives, Barbara Eden
12. All the President’s Men (1976) - Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam 
13. *Dogfight (1991) - River Phoenix & Lili Taylor 
14. Autumn in New York (2000) - Richard Gere & Winona Ryder
15. Shall We Dance (2004) - Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci
16. *Star Trek (2009) - Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Simon Pegg 

Least Favorite Film: Probably Skirts Ahoy! It wasn't bad, but the story line didn't grab me and the leading man was boring. I had trouble getting into The Brass Bottle, which I've been meaning to watch for years, but I wasn't really in the mood for it.

Favorite Movie: I thought I wouldn't like West Side Story. I've never had any desire to watch it but, after watching the mini cast reunion that opened the TCMFF, I kept watching. It was nowhere near as bad as I expected. Some parts even shocked me! The worst part was Natalie Wood's phony accent.  The Crimson Kimono was really good and the editing was interesting. Anyone else think Victoria Shaw looks a little like Emily Blunt? They have the same nose. But my favorite was probably the original Magnificent Obsession. It didn't have a soap opera feel like the Rock Hudson version. 

Irene Dunne reading braille in Magnificent Obsession.

NEW BLOG SERIES ANNOUNCEMENTS

In June I will be starting several new series. The first one is the Royal Film Performance Series. At the beginning of each month I will look at a film that was selected to screen for the British Royal Family (my other passion). It will include film footage of the actual event, reviews, photos, and a few thoughts, posted in chronological order beginning with A Matter of Life and Death (1946). 

A few years ago I wrote a post titled Bette: Hats and Reviews for a blogathon that looked briefly at the many hats worn by Bette Davis in many of her films along with her review mentions in Variety and the NY Times.  Since then I have taken screenshots of Bette's hats in over 50 of her films. I thought it would be fun to share her hats and reviews from each film in separate posts, twice a month. 

I will also be bringing back my Cinema Wedding Gowns Series, sharing screenshots of wedding gowns that have appeared in Classic Films and doing my best to describe some of the details. These will be posted once at the end of the month (it's really hard to narrow down which screenshots to use!).

If you're wondering where this ambition came from (lol), I turned on my old laptop that stopped working five years ago (shortly after I had won an IPad) to see about getting it fixed and it works perfectly fine! I had turned it on a few times in previous years but it would never run properly. So while it's working I'm getting the next few months' posts prepared :)