Pawsome Pet Pictures: Irene Dunne

Since Irene Dunne just won a spot in my Final Four Classic movie Actress tournament over at All Good Things, I decided to post a pawsome pet picture with her and her friend.

Great On Screen Couples: Irene Dunne and Cary Grant

You know Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time and he has paired with some of the most legendary actresses of all time. And they all usually have great chemistry with the debonair chap. But for me, his best on screen partner has to be Irene Dunne. They made three films together, 2 screwball comedies and 1 drama. The first film they made together was 1937's wonderfully wicked comedy, The Awful Truth which cast the twosome as a married couple going through a divorce. This is one of the earliest of the screwball comedies and while it  may be rough around the edges in some scenes, it's one of the funniest films I have ever seen. And Grant and Dunne are perfect together in their first outing. Their constant plans to sabotage each other's chances at remarriage will have you gasping and laughing the whole time. And check out Irene's wonderfully screwy performance. I believe the great Katherine Hepburn must have saw this film and had to base her performance in Bringing Up Baby on Irene's terrific role of Lucy Warriner. Or is it just me?

Cary and Irene worked so well in The Awful Truth, they had to be paired up for another wonderful screwball comedy in 1940's My Favorite Wife, which I enjoyed even more than I did The Awful Truth. Once again the two play a married couple, with a slight difference. After being lost at sea for 7 years and declared dead Ellen Arden (Irene) returns home to find her husband Nick (Cary) remarried to Bianca (the wonderfully underrated Gail Patrick). So Nick has a huge problem to deal with. Who to choose: Ellen or Bianca? Once again Irene Dunne steals the show but her chemistry with Cary is also once again perfect. Their comic timing by now is a match made in heaven.

For their third and final film together, Irene and Cary made the tearjerker/comedy Penny Serenade (1941) which gave the twosome an opportunity to flex their dramatic muscles as a couple who faces one crisis after another once they get married after a short courtship. There is some humor in this film to keep things from getting too dark and depressing and Cary gets to give one of his best screen performances ever. His scene with the judge arguing to keep his adopted daughter in his care is heartbreaking and touching. Serenade was the last film Irene and Cary would do together and they go out with another great film. I know Cary had several other wonderful screen pairings beside Irene like with Myrna Loy, Grace Kelly, and Deborah Kerr. But for me, it's his pairings with Irene that were the best of his team ups. And I would say the same for Irene as she never had a better partner than Cary Grant.

But Most Of All, I Remember Mama

I watched I Remember Mama (1948) yesterday for the second time and it was just as wonderful as I remembered it, and it seemed the perfect topic for today's review. I also just finished "Home" by Julie Andrews and really liked it. I love Julie Andrews in films such as:

• The Sound Of Music
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (One of my all-time favourite movie-musicals!)
• Star! (Contrary to comments previously)
• Mary Poppins
• The Princess Diaries, 1 and 2 (Cheesy but I love them!)

It was a very well written autobiography, nice and informative as well as really showing what a sweet person she was. I may post a review at a later date. Before you read my review, if you are feeling like a rebel today, you can watch the whole film on youtube in little parts.  Here is the first part, but it has links to the others there too. I have embedded part one in the plot section of the review, and you could watch the whole thing from there if you wanted! Sorry, this plot summary is quite long.

I Remember mama
Cast: (Directed by George Stevens)

• Irene Dunne as Marta 'Mama' Hanson
• Barbara Bel Geddes as Katrin Hanson
• Oskar Homolka as Uncle Chris Halvorsen
• Philip Dorn as Lars 'Papa' Hanson

Plot:
Katrin Hanson is writing a book about her childhood memories about her life in 1910 as part of a family of Norwegians in San Francisco, and she tells us how she remembers everything very vividly, but most of all, she "remembers Mama."

~ ~ ~ CURVY FADE INTO FLASHBACK ~ ~ ~

It is now 1910 and the Hanson family are gathering for their weekly budget count. Marta (Mama) puts a pile of large silver coins on one side for the landlord, then some for the grocer and so on. At the end Papa looks up at her and says, "Mama, is all?" To which she replies "Is good! We do not have to go to the bank."

This was a regular routine for the Hanson family. If there was not enough money they would go to the little 'bank' in a tin in the other room and select the needed amount. If there was any in there. The Hanson family were happeir than most. They are contented with what they have and if Mama is ever asked if she moved to America to get rich she simply replies "I came here because all of the family had already moved here. Family is where Mama fits best. Right in the heart of things." One day, Aunt Trina comes to tell Marta that she wants to get married, but doesn't have the guts to tell the other aunts or Uncle Chris. Marta ends up telling the aunts, but leaves telling Uncle Chris to Trina's fiance.

Uncle Chris decides to come for a visit from his farm in the north, much to everyone's surprise. On that very day, the youngest of the four children Dagmar, who calls her tom cat Uncle Elizabeth, gets a bad ear problem and has to go to the hospital to have an operation. Uncle Chris's presence doesn't help matters any, and neither does the fact that Mama is not allowed to see Dagmar after the operation. Devastated that she can't see Dagmar, Mama sneaks into the hospital dressed as a cleaner to get into Dagmar's room.

When Dagmar comes home fully recovered, they realize that Uncle Elizabeth is very ill. Despite everyone's belief that Mama can fix anything, Mama feels helpless and she and Papa send the eldest brother Niels to the drugstore to get something to put him to sleep. They are all astounded the next morning when Dagmar walks in with a sleepy but perfectly well Uncle Elizabeth in her arms.

Their lodger Mr. Hyde who always used to read them beautiful books, mysteriously leaves leaving them a large check. They are overjoyed at the financial miracle, but they soon find out that the check is worthless.
Katrin is boasting about getting a large dresser set for her graduation present, but she learns that she is to be given her mothers precious old family heirloom broach, and reacts in a very ungrateful and spoilt way. Mama wears the broach every day, but has traded it with the shop owner for the dresser set. Katrin is acting so smug that just before she goes to her school play (in which she is playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice) her sister Christina tells her that Mama traded her broach for the dresser set. Ashamed of her selfish behavior, and mortified by what she has made her mother do, she acts badly in the play and afterwards runs straight to the shop to get the broach back.

I won't tell you any more, for fear of spoiling the end for you :)
Review:
I remember the first time I watched this I was so moved by the way the family operated and made the most out of everything. I sat on my mum's lap and cried for ages completing the scene with a dramatic, "I will never be wasteful again Mum!!!" I think it's great when a film can make you feel that strongly about something. Funnily enough, this and Random Harvest are the films I cry the most at. It is unbelievably hard to choose a best performance, but Irene Dunne is amazing in her role and I just love her adorable Norwegian accent. But I also adore Oskar Homolka as Uncle Chris as well, he is pure genius. The direction is very unique - it really works well with the old fashioned structure of the film. One of my favourites, yet again!

I had the strangest dream the other day. It was all so weird. There was Greer Garson, and then for some reason completely unknown to me, Joan Crawford was her mother. (?) I was either Greer's daughter or watching the whole thing like god (so cool). Anyway. Greer Garson, Joan Crawford and me were all in this big hall and Greer and Joan were having a huge argument, and then, out of nowhere, the floor separated and the whole room turned into a giant swimming pool like in It's A Wonderful Life.

Then I woke up. I was so bemused by the experience I nearly walked into my bedroom wall. I have dreams involving classic movie stars before, but this was by far the craziest.

~Bette

The Shop Around The Corner (1940)

Brrrrr. It's so cold here! I'm starting to rekindle my love affair with snow today after it stopped me traveling to a wedding and various family gatherings yesterday. I have had some comments about my snow, and the general consensus is that there has been lots of it. Please be a white Christmas! I've never seen one in England before. I just remembered that The Shop Around The Corner (starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan) was a Christmas film! So I thought it would be nice to review.

The Shop Around The Corner

Cast:

• Margaret Sullavan – Klara Novak
• James Stewart – Alfred Kralik
• Frank Morgan – Hugo Matuschek

The Plot:

Klara Novak and Alfred Kralik work together the fine goods shop, "Matuschek and Company". They don't get along. They are complete opposites who are constantly disagreeing with one another. What they don't know is that they are also sending each other anonymous letters to an unknown "pen friend", each writing to the other without realizing. They fall in love through these letters, and arrange to meet at a restaurant each wearing a red flower. She will be reading a book that he has instructed her to read, and they will recognize each other by these things. Kralik has just been fired for no clear reason from Matuschek and Company and takes his best friend and colleague Pirovitch to walk with him to meet Klara. Too nervous to look for her, he asks Pirovitch to do it for him. His reply is "Oh she's pretty. Very pretty... In fact she bears an uncanny resemblance to our Klara." Realizing what has happened, Pirovitch turns to Kralik and says, "Well, you know Kralik, Klara's a very pretty girl, and a very good person -" Growing impatient, Kralik replies with "I don't want to talk about Klara." "What? You don't like Klara? The  you will definitely not like this girl, because this girl IS Klara!" Another story running alongside this one, is Matsuchek's suspicion of his wife having an affair with Kralik (for people who don't want to feel depressed by this, it is actually Kralik's evil colleague Vadas), which adds another layer of interest to the plot...

The Review:
I think that the plot for this film is really good. I like the twists and turns which are directed amazingly by Ernst Lubitsch. It doesn't get too serious though, because there is always Matsuchek's wise-cracking errand boy Pepi making everyone laugh. James Stewart is amazing yet again. I swear that there is nothing that man can't do. He's solved murders from his flat in a wheelchair; he's found his missing child in a strange country and almost won Katharine Hepburn over from Cary Grant. Lets face it, he is seriously awesome. Margaret Sullivan is good too, but all the time I watch I am wishing Klara was played by Irene Dunne. It would have been her birthday today so, happy birthday!

Just had to post this GIF with this quote from Singnin' In The Rain.

Kathy: “Oh, no offense. Movies are entertaining enough for the masses but the personalities on the screen just don’t impress me. I mean they don’t talk, they don’t act, the just make a lot of dumb show. Well, you know. Like that.”

I also found some cool "Now that's classic" TCM photos on Tumblr. I don't know who made them/scanned them, but they sure are great! (If you made them and have a problem with them being on my blog, post so in a comment and I will take them down.)

~Bette
P.S. The results came in a while ago from my "Favourite Cary Grant Film" poll. They are:

North By Northwest: 7 votes (1st place)

The Holiday (Holiday?) and Bringning Up Baby: 4 votes each (2nd place)

Arsenic And Old Lace: 2 votes (3rd place)

To Catch A Theif and My Favourite Wife: 1 vote each (4th place)

Happy Birthday: Irene Dunne!

Irene Dunne (December 20, 1898 - September 4, 1990), was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress,the first being:Cimarron (1931), Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. Despite America being in the Depression, RKO wanted to put together the big-budget picture. Filming began in the summer of 1930 at the Jasmin Quinn Ranch in California. More than 5,000 extras, twenty-eight cameramen, and numerous camera assistants and photographers were used to capture scenes of wagons racing across the prairie. Cinematographer Edward Cronjager spent overtime planning out every scene.

Theodora Goes Wild (1936), Theodora Lynn, does not want to live by the same rules as her literary circle that her aunts and most of the town's leading women belong. She is helps her friend Adelaide Perry, who is secretly married, but no one in her family approves of her marriage. Theodora, under the name Caroline Adams, has written a steamy book, which is scandalizing the town. Theodora has been able to keep these two parts of her life separate, only her Uncle John Lynn and her editor Arthur Stevenson know of her real identity. Her life becomes more complicated when the illustrator of her book, Michael Grant, finds out about her true identity. When Theodora learns a secret that Michael is keeping, she teaches him that what comes round goes round...

The Awful Truth (1937), screwball comedy. Cast: Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot is about the soon-to-be-divorced couple, who do everything they can to sabotage each other new relationships. The film was directed by Leo McCarey, who won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was written by Viña Delmar, with uncredited assistance from Sidney Buchman and Leo McCarey, from the 1922 play by Arthur Richman.

Love Affair (1939). A romantic comedy. French painter Michel Marnet meets American singer Terry McKay, aboard a liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean. They are both already engaged, they fall in love. The couple make an appointment to meet six months later on top of the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes. Not wanting to be a burden to Michel, she does not contact him, preferring to let him think the worst. They meet by accident at the theater, though Terry conceals her condition. Michel then visits her at her apartment and finally learns the truth.



I Remember Mama (1948), is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the fictionalized memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on the Hanson family, a family of Norwegian immigrants living in, San Francisco in the 1910s.

George Stevens originally offered the role of Mama to Greta Garbo, who did not want to play a motherly type. He then cast Irene Dunne, whom he had directed in, Penny Serenade (1941). Although she was 50 years old, the actress had a youthful appearance and had to be aged with makeup to play the part convincingly.

List of Irene Dunne Films:

1930 Leathernecking
1931 Cimarron
The Slippery Pearls
Bachelor Apartment
The Great Lover
Consolation Marriage
1932 Symphony of Six Million
Back Street
Thirteen Women
1933 No Other Woman
The Secret of Madame Blanche
The Silver Cord
Ann Vickers
1934 This Man Is Mine
Sweet Adeline Adeline
1935 Roberta
Magnificent Obsession 
1936 Show Boat
Theodora Goes Wild
1937 High, Wide, and Handsome 
The Awful Truth
1938 Joy of Living Margaret
1939 Love Affair
 When Tomorrow Comes
1940 My Favorite Wife
1941 Penny Serenade
1942 Lady in a Jam
1943 Show Business
A Guy Named Joe 
1944 The White Cliffs of Dover
1945 Over 21 Paula
1946 Anna and the King of Siam
1947 Life with Father
1948 I Remember Mama
1950 Never a Dull Moment
1951 You Can Change the World
1952 It Grows on Trees

My Favourite Wife And General Ramblings...

Today I really don't have time to write a full review, but I did just want to do a mini review of My Favourite Wife with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Before I do so, here I just wanted to tell you about my most recent awesome discovery. Wait For It......
DR. MACRO!!!
It is so stupendously cool and awesomesauce that words can not describe! I found a whole load of Bette Davis radio shows, and just listened to an hour-ish long radio adaptation of Jane Eyre with her as Jane. This is just so cool. Of course there is also her classics, like radio adaptations with her reprising her roles as Margo Channing in All About Eve, and others. Check it out! Today I had my second cervical cancer vaccine in a course of three. It kills, but it's just about ok. One of my friends said to me today that she saw All About Eve at the weekend and said "Is Bette Davis the one who smokes and has the curly hair?" I replied "Yes, did you like it?" She said, "She is so cool." I am proud to anounce my third convert to classic movies so far.

So, My favourite wife is a screw-ball comedy about a man (Cary Grant) who believes that his wife (Irene Dunne) was drowned at sea after she doesn't return after a boat trip. She comes back unexpectedly, to a household that don't recognise her, and a husband with a new wife. She has no trouble winning him back, but he has trouble letting go to his wife to be.

I loved this for all of its craziness. It is heart warming, in a screwball way. Irene is lovely and cute, as always, and Cary is so funny. There are some cute kids in it too.

I have to chose three objects that represent me for art. It is times like these when I wish I had more classic movie nonsense.

~Bette