So Kiss Me Kate!

Well, I am now home after a grade 5 piano/aural lesson. After playing my grade five pieces and struggling through a page of echo singing (listening to a piece and then singing it, eeeek!), My teacher told me that in the exam a small section of a piece would be played, and I would have to describe things about it. She then proceeded to ask me if I knew all of my composers and periods of music; I have to say that most of my knowledge came from Mary Astor's dramatic outbursts of Rachmaninov in The Great Lie.

My sister, (who is eight, and her third favourite film is All About Eve) happens to be extremely hilarious, but right now she has pretty bad mouth ulcers so all she wanted to do was snuggle down with me and watch Kiss Me Kate for the zillionth time. Me being the understanding sister that I am, (plus the fact that I "lurve" Kiss Me Kate) replied something vaguely like "Of course dahling". So with us both sitting on the kitchen sofa, we watched one and a half hours of Anne Miller, Howard Keel, and Cole Porter Songs.

It is a pretty fab musical. And it features a young Bob Fosse who, unfortunately didn't choreograph it, but does steal the show from his other supporting male actors. It is about a broadway musical that is based on The Taming Of The Shrew by William Shakespeare, and has an amazing balance of on-stage songs and back-stage ones, such as Brush Up Your Shakespeare, which has great lyrics like "If your blond won't respond when ya' flatter her, tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer." I would strongly recomend this to all readers, it really brightens your day (and no, its not just because its filmed in early eye popping colour). It was origianally filmed in 3D, and my honorary uncles were lucky enough to see a 3D screening of it. Try to spot the 3D bits in the movie if you see it. Its not hard, they are pretty obvious ;-D.

~Bette

PAGAN LOVE SONG (1950)

Pagan Love Song (1950), A beautiful south seas musical, where everyone lives in the sun and looks out for each other. This is one of my favorites films from the Esther Williams DVD volume II collection. A tanned Esther Williams plays a Half-Tahitian Half- American woman.( Mimi Bennett), who lives with her rich aunt. Bored of the easy life of Tahiti and longs for the excitement of the United States. But when (Hazard Endicott) played by Howard Keel, arrives to take over his late uncle's coconut plantation, she has a change of heart. At first Hazard mistakes Mimi for one of natives, and instead of correcting Hazard, Mimi playfully pretends to know just a little bit of English. Later.. Mimi stops by to invite Hazard to a party at her house. Hazard accepts the invitation. Expecting the guests to be natives, Hazard comes dressed in a sarong. When he finds the guests are dressed in suits and evening dresses. He leaves the party , and Mimi, realizing that her joke has gone to far, catches up with him and tells him the truth. After a short time they become engaged. Everything is going well until one day when Mimi witnesses Hazard lose his temper with one of his workers Tavae. Mimi does not like Hazard's harsh treatment of Tavae and breaks off their engagement. Will Mimi ever forgive Hazard?

This is a gorgeous film. Scenery of the island of Tahiti was beautiful. A cute story line with some wonderful songs and one amazing coral sea ballet. I also enjoyed seeing the native dances. One that really stood out in my mind was the SIMONE knife dance. Rita Moreno plays a feature role, in sarong and long beautiful hair.

Esther Williams, was 6 months pregnant while filming PAGAN LOVE SONG.

http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=74492&titleId=3499
Click to movie trailer

Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse were the first choices for the leads, but Charisse was pregnant at the time. A new screenplay was then written for Esther Williams to star in.