They Call It A Sin(1932).

They Call It A Sin(1932). Cast: Loretta Young, George Brent and Una Merkel.

Traveling salesman Jimmy Decker falls in love with Marion Cullen, even though he is engaged to Enid Hollister, his boss's daughter. Marion is a talented composer, after a confrontation with her foster mother, who tells her that she is really the illegitimate daughter of a showgirl, she leaves for New York.

After, she soon realizes that he is not going to break off his engagement with Enid, she and dancer Dixie Dare interview with talent agent, Ford Humphries, who offers Marion a job as a rehearsal pianist. When Marion plays one of her own songs for Humphries, he suggests that she write a song for his show.

One evening at the club, Marion meets, Dr. Tony and they begin to see each other and when Jimmy finds out, he becomes upset. He goes looking for her at one of Humphries' parties and tell Marion, that he still loves her. Humphries, sees them kissing uses her songs without credit to get even with her and Jimmy goes to see Humphries, in her defence. Drunk, Humphries falls off his balcony and later dies. To save Jimmy, Marion takes the blame. Will she ever reveal the truth?

This a wonderful fluffy romance movie, that becomes a little racy at the end.

Helen Vinson (September 17, 1907 – October 7, 1999). Performed in 40 films between 1932 and 1945.

Vinson's screen career often featured her in roles in which she played the other woman or (pre-Code) women with active romantic lives. Her first film role was, Jewel Robbery (1932). She performed in the film, The Kennel Murder Case, The Wedding Night (1935). She played the wife of Gary Cooper, in a story about the tobacco fields. Another performance was in the film, In Name Only (1939), in which she was cast as the treacherous friend of Carole Lombard, Kay Francis and Cary Grant. Another stand-out role for Vinson was as an undercover federal agent posing as a femme fatale opposite Richard Cromwell in the film, Enemy Agent(1940),The Thin Man Goes Home.

My Top 5 On Screen Couples

Here is a list of my all time top 6 on screen couples, in reverse order.
6. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy:
One of the most tragic off screen romances as well as one of the most heartwarming on screen ones. tracy was married to a strict catholic, and a catholic himself, she refused to divorce his wife even though it was well known by the public and his wife that he and Katharine were involved in an affair for most of his marraige.

Favourite On Screen Pairing: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)

5. Bette Davis and George Brent:
Dispite brent's not-quite-amazing performances in all of the films that he and Bette starred in (11), the chemistry between them is very good. Perhaps that was helped by the Hollywood legend that they were always in a constant on-off relationship. The chemistry between Bette and a man is only equaled perhaps by Paul Henried (Now, Voyager, Deception), and Gary Merril (All About Eve, Another Man's Poison, and some other English movie I can never remember the name of).

Favourite On Screen Pairing: Dark Victory (1939)

4. Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant:
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman were only paired together in two films, Notorious and Indiscreet. A big mistake in my opinion. They have some strange on screen relationship that is caused by her laid back beauty and his akward charm that you can't force.

Favourite On Screen Pairing: Notorious (1946)

3. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon:
My only fear with the pairings of these two is that they will be soooo cute that I will be forced to go into a coma and never come out. How can you get sweeter? Greer's lovely warmth and Walter's soft lovely speaking voice, create a couple that will have you in tears in minutes, provided that that is what the film is attempting.

Favourite On Screen Pairing: Mrs. Miniver (1942)

2. Judy Garland and Fred Astaire:
I have only seen one film with them in it (Easter Parade, is that all?), and they are so good together that it made me want to cry! Judy crying over the fact that she thinks Ann Miller has run away with Fred Astaire singing "Better Luck Next Time" is soooooo moving.

Favourite On Screen Pairing: Easter Parade (1948)

1. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton:
The first film that I saw with them was Cleopatra, and was so entranced by them (and Richard Burton :D) that me and my mum got my dad "The Taylor And Burton Collection" as a sort of "Thank you in advance for letting us watch these" present, and I have been hooked ever since. When I watch The VIPs and see Richard Burton so upset and Elizabeth trying to show that she is not upset but is really devastated it the saddest thing i've ever seen! They are just romantic beyond words, and their charisma is so wonderful. Definately my tope couple EVAH!

Favourite On Screen Pairing: The VIPs (1963) and The Sandpiper (1965)

Well, that was a hard descision, but in my mind no one beats Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. Here is a funny "Lets prove Joan Crawford wrong" thing that I discovered on Tumblr.

On the set of “Baby Jane” Joan was asked about the differences between herself and Bette Davis, Joan stated: “Bette likes to rant and rave. I just sit and knit. She yelled and I knitted a scarf from Hollywood to Malibu.”

 I rest my case.

~Bette

"She's just a sour old maid who hates me because I'm young and attractive and in love!"

I come to you, dear reader, after watching my Dad stress-fully try to clean the cages of the family stick insects. My sister brought one back from a school friend a few months ago, and left me with the eggs. They all hatched. I am petrified of them. I was telling this to someone on the phone earlier today, and he said "Come on, I'm sure Bette wouldn't have been scared of a stick insect!" I could only reply with "Grrrrrr." My dad came into the living room with a tree's worth of Ivy from the garden and set about his work.

This isn't actually my stickie, but in the words of Debbie Reynolds, "you seen one, you seen em' all!'

But with all that sorted out me and my sister are about to sit down and watch The Old Maid together for the 10th time.

The Old Maid

Cast:

• Bette Davis ..... Charlotte Lovell
• Miriam Hopkins ..... Delia Lovell Ralston
• George Brent ..... Clem Spender
•  Donald Crisp ..... Dr. Lanskell

Plot:

Two young cousins, Delia (Miriam Hopkins) and Charlotte (Bette Davis), are preparing for Delia's wedding to the rich and powerful Mr. Rallston, when she is interrupted by her old fiance, Clem (George Brent, again) who is back from war. She refuses to elope with him and he is heartbroken. Charlotte ends up missing the wedding while trying to console Clem. They become involved in a passionate love affair, but he is called away again for another war and is killed. She tells everyone she is going away for her "health" but she is really going away to have Clem's baby in secret. She comes back and starts an orphanage for children and hides her own child, Clementina, among them.

Charlotte is all set to marry Delia's husband's brother, but just before the wedding she confesses to Delia that she can never give up the orphanage because her own child is there. She comes back with a vicious "You! You and Clem!" Charlotte tells her to tell the young Mr. Rallston what happened and see if he will still accept her. Delia instead tells him that he could not possibly marry her because she will be dead soon because of her "health". Delia lets on that he couldn't accept her if she had another man's child. Her chances ruined forever, she and her daughter move in with Delia and Charlotte lets Delia raise Clementina as her own as well as having her own children. She is doomed to only be known by her daughter as "a sour old maid who hates me." When Delia's husband dies, the whole situation gets even more interesting.


The Review:
Bette Davis is enchanting as the wide-eyed young girl,

And the old spinster.

Directed again by Edmund Goulding, a nasty British-director who hated Bette Davis (it probably didn't help that she used to bring a large yellow jotting pad to the sets and re-write the script, but if I was a star of her stature and had a really bad script, I would re-write it!) but he is, in the words of Bette herself, "A genius movie-maker." Another great all around film. Which, to quote the DVD cover is "A brilliant example of melodrama as art" It is pretty racy for a film made in 1939, but that is one of the things that you definitely admire about the film.

~Bette

Thats Our Victory, Our Victory Over The Dark!

There's no place like home! I am back after a stay at my friend's house, and we watched Hachi. from Blockbuster's. But only after 45 minutes did we find out how sad it was, and my sister insisted on turning it off. It was really good though. I am totally preoccupied thinking about the vaccine jab I have to have tomorrow morning, and I have film-reviewer block, so the best thing I can offer you today is a review of one of my favourite Bette Davis films.

I have to acknowledge Bette Davis' yet again spectacular performance as the terminally ill society girl in Dark Victory. It is about a society girl/horse rider, Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) who discovers that she is terminally ill with a brain tumour. They operate on her, but she is still "prognosis negative". The doctor, Frederick Steele (George Brent) and her best friend (Geraldine Fitzgerald) decide it would be best not to tell her. Judith falls in love with the doctor and while packing up for him before they move to Vermont, she discovers her file and finds out that she only has a few months to live. She then meets him for dinner very incensed and orders a "big order of prognosis negative". She starts to waste her life away, and only when her sensitive horseman (Humphrey Bogart) knocks some sense into her, does she go back with Dr. Steele. They Marry and agree not to talk about her condition. But one day when he is about to go to very important meeting in New York, her vision starts to go when she says to her best friend "its starting to cloud up. Why, its getting darker every minute! Funny, I can still see the sun on my hands (wretch and sob)". She decides not to tell the doctor so he can still excel at his career, but there is a very moving goodbye speech, because he knows she could die while he is away, starting with "Dahilng, have I been a good wife?" And ending with "I have been more happy this last month than I could have been in a lifetime. That's our victory, our victory over the dark!"

Here is one sentence to sum up this film. By the time Bette is half blind, I am on the verge of deciding to dedicate my life to discovering a cure to brain Tumours. LOVE IT!!!!!

~Bette

The Ever Present George Brent.

Is it just me, or have you ever realized that most of George Brent's career was spent supporting Bette Davis in her Woman's Pictures? He was actually in 11 of her films! They do work well as a sort of forties Hollywood couple. It is said that during the filming of Front Page Woman (which I have never seen.) they were deeply in love and were in a serious love affair for one year, although neither of them have ever confirmed the rumors.  At the time of the said affair, Bette was married to Harmon Nelson, a trumpet player who she had met at school. It is also rumored that during the filming of Dangerous, for which she won an Oscar, she was having an affair with her costar Franchot Tone. He was married to Joan Crawford at the time, and it seems that the friction between the two stars had started long before filming Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?. I digress. I think that even if he never did anything else, costarring with Bette Davis in films couldn't have been such a hardship. Or could it?

Bette and George

~Bette