Movie Impresssions

Comfy, Cozy Christmas: Meet Me In St. Louis and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

A vlogger I watch recently suggested watching Meet Me In St. Louis as a Christmas movie, mainly because of the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, which is sung toward the end of the movie.

I had never watched the movie because I’ve never felt like I was a big fan of Judy Garland, even though I haven’t seen her in much other than The Wizard of Oz.

I decided to give the movie a try a couple of weeks ago, though, and it turns out I don’t mind Judy as much as I thought and the movie does have a few Christmas-themed scenes (including a Christas Eve dance at the end), but it is much more than a Christmas movie.

The movie is funny, fun, warmhearted, and full of really sweet or fun songs. The dresses worn by the young women are gorgeous and it was shot in technicolor which makes all the beautiful dresses even more captivating.

The movie is a musical, which I didn’t know when I started it. I didn’t even know that this is where the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas came from. I also didn’t know this is where The Trolly Song (which I thought was just called Clang, Clang, Clang Goes the Trolly) came from. (That’s the song my husband always sings when he pretends he’s looped out from a knock on the head or when he is super tired. I’d say when he is drinking, but he doesn’t drink enough to get that drunk. I told him this movie is where the song he sings is from and he said he thought it was from The Simpsons. Ha! I think Homer does sing part of it in an episode.)

Yes, I have been living under a rock for my entire life.

If you’ve seen this movie you can skip over the next paragraph where I share what the movie is about.

The movie follows the Smith family, primarily Esther Smith (Judy) and her siblings as they grow up in St. Louis. The movie shows a year in the life of the family and there isn’t really a deep plot to the movie other than Judy trying to catch the eye of the college boy next door — John Pruitt — and her sister trying to get married. I don’t find the lack of a plot a detriment of the movie, by the way. The majority of the movie follows the different situations the youngest girls get themselves in, as well as the love life of Esther and her sister, and it is a fun journey.

The movie takes place in 1903.

The parents, grandfather, and housemaid are really all secondary characters but still very fun additions.

The youngest sisters, played by Margaret O’Brien (Tootie) and Joan Carroll (Agnes), are absolutely hilarious. The scenes with them are the funniest scenes in the movie. There is one that takes place on Halloween that is so insanely crazy I found myself gasping at the verbal “brutality” of these kids. (Written with a laugh, just to explain.)



If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen the movie, you’ll need to watch and find out.

In addition to Judy, the movie also stars Lucille Bremmer, Mary Astor, Leon Ames, and Harry Davenport.

The musical was released in 1944 and based on a series of short stories by Sally Benson.

Her stories story first appeared in the New Yorker magazine between June 21, 1941 and May 23, 1942. The twelve installments were published under at The Kensington Stories with Kensington referring to the fictional street address of the “Smiths’s” house.

Benson sold the rights to MGM in 1942 and was hired to work on the screenplay, which was ultimately written by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe with her help.

Benson published the stories as a novel of the same name with each chapter covering one month of the year the same year the movie came out.

According to AFI.com, Benson’s story was based on her own experiences growing up in St. Louis. “Tootie” was based on Benson, while “Esther” was inspired by her older sister.

The movie, incidentally, was directed by Vincent Morelli, who married Judy a year later. That marriage is a whole crazy story for another day.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane who originally wrote it to be about celebrating Christmas during wartime. At the request of Judy, though, the lyrics were tweaked and the mood of the song was uplifted a bit. Judy, who was supposed to be 17 in the movie, is singing the song to her younger (5-year-old sister) in the movie and didn’t feel it was appropriate to sing a sad song at Christmastime to a little girl.

Meet Me In St. Louis was the second-highest grossing film that year behind the Bing Crosby movie Going My Way (the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary).

The movie produced three “standards” or songs that became very popular and well-known even years later: “The Trolley Song“, “The Boy Next Door” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas“, all written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane for the film.

According to TCM.com, Meet Me in St. Louis received a very large amount of awards in 1944 and beyond. Here are some of those:

  • It was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Cinematography, Best Original Song (for “The Trolley Song”), Best Musical Score and Best Writing, Screenplay.


  • In 1989 it won an ASCAP Award for the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” which they named the Most Performed Feature Film Standard.
  • The National Board of Review named it one of the top ten films of 1944.


  • In 1945 the Library of Congress selected it as one of 7 films to be the first inclusions in the library’s film collection.


  • In 2005 the American Film Institute ranked it the 10th Greatest Movie Musical of All Time.


  • In 2004 the American Film Institute ranked “The Trolley Song” from it as the 26th Greatest Movie Song of All Time.
  • In 2005 Time Magazine named it as one of the Top 100 All-Time Movies.

An interesting story I read while researching this movie was that Margaret O’Brien’s juvenile Oscar was stolen by a former maid of her family’s. The Academy gave her a replacement Oscar, but she still hoped to one day have her original Oscar returned to her. She used to search flea markets and collector auctions for it.

The story is a bit long, but the Oscar was eventually found and returned to her during a special ceremony held by the Academy.

At the time she said, “For all those people who have lost or misplaced something that was dear to them, as I have, never give up the dream of searching—never let go of the hope that you’ll find it because after all these many years, at last, my Oscar has been returned to me.”

There is plenty more information about the movie online, including on the TCM.com website: https://www.tcm.com/articles/musical/18523/meet-me-in-st-louis-1944

Have you ever seen this one?

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Resources:

American Film Institute: https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/24066

TCM.com: https://www.tcm.com/articles/musical/18523/meet-me-in-st-louis-1944

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you have a blog post that you would like to share as part of this annual link-up, please find out more here.

Classic Movie Impression: It Happened On Fifth Avenue

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I’ve been watching less popular Christmas-themed movies around Christmas for the last couple of years. One of those movies was It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947).

I truly thought I’d written about this movie in previous years, but I can’t find it when I search so I am writing about it now.

The movie is about a group of people who are sort of thrown together but it starts with a man named Alyosius T. McKeever (Victor Moore) who sneaks in the mansion of businessman Michael O’Connor (Charlie Ruggles) in New York City early in November when O’Connor goes to his home in Virginia for the winter.

McKeever is a “vagabond” or homeless man.

He lives in the home, wearing O’Connor’s clothes, and eating any food left at the house in the pantry.

The movie opens with him sneaking inside through the back fence and will later learn that he’s been doing this for some twenty years.

I, of course, am surprised that no one has ever seen him or seen the lights on in the house but, it’s a movie. Let’s suspend belief.

There are police who patrol the grounds, but McKeever has a system where he hides in the icebox (or a room they call the icebox) until the police have passed by. He also has the lights hooked up so they will shut off as soon as someone opens the front door.

One day McKeever meets Jim Bullock played by Don DeFore, sleeping on a park bench. Jim, a veteran, has been evicted from his apartment building because it is being torn down. Michael O’Connor is putting up an 80-story building in its place.

When Jim gets to the mansion and is settling in, he sees an award shaped like a boat with the name Michael O’Connor on it and accuses McKeever of taking over homes of people who can’t afford to live in family homes like his.

McKeever tells Jim he’s not really O’Connor, but a friend of his. Jim accepts this explanation easily

Jim isn’t sure what to think of this arrangement, but he needs a place to stay so he accepts it.

Soon we see Michael O’Connor, who is in Virgina having a board meeting. During the board meeting he gets a call from his daughter Trudy’s school and been told that it’s possible she’s run away.

Michael looks at a photo of two women and asks his assistant if he thinks that she has run off to her mother in Florida.

The man doesn’t know so Michael orders him to hire a private investigator and find his daughter (played by … get this name…Gale Storm).

His daughter, though, is already found for us viewers. She is at her father’s mansion looking for her clothes when Jim finds her. He demands to know what she’s doing there and suggests she is stealing from the mansion. He threatens to call the police.

Trudy, apparently smitten with Jim merely based on his appearance, decides not to tell him who she really is and tells him to go ahead and call the police.

McKeever pulls Jim aside and confesses all. He is not a friend of O’Connor, but is, instead, simply someone who takes advantage of the home being empty for a few months out of the year. When O’Connor leaves, he moves in and when O’Connor leaves Virginia, McKeever hitches his way to Virginia and moves in that house until it’s time to come back to New York.

(Again…suspend belief).

Jim isn’t sure what to make of the arrangement, but is amused and impressed that McKeever hasn’t been caught yet.

Trudy listens in and overhears what McKeever has been doing and smiles in an amused way. She decides she will find a way to stay on with the men since it will be a way to hide from her father for a while. She tells the men the truth, which is that she’s going to get a job at a music store so she can get back on her feet again. She then says she only broke into the house because she was hungry and desperate and then does a lovely fake faint to add to her story.

The men agree that she can stay. From here the movie will start to get a bit more complicated as more people are invited to stay at the mansion, including a family with small children. What could make all of this even more chaotic? Add in Michael O’Connor returning to New York to try to find his daughter and planning to return to the mansion.

One little thing that bothered me about this movie was how young Gale Storm looked and was supposed to be. She was supposed to be 18 but a romance develops between her and Jim and he seems considerably older than her. That was…awkward at times. However, I’m not sure how old Jim is actually supposed to be so maybe it isn’t so awkward. Gale was 22 at the time the film was made.

The screenplay for this movie was written by Everett Freeman. The original story was created by Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani.

Harry Revel wrote the songs “It’s A Wonderful, Wonderful Feeling.” “That’s What Christmas Means to Me” and “Speak My Heart” for the movie, according to the opening credits, but I wouldn’t call this movie a musical. One of the main characters simply sings a bit.

Gale Storm thought she’d be singing the parts in the film, but, unfortunately, she was told her voice would be dubbed over.

She later wrote in her memoir: “I couldn’t believe it. I thought that maybe the director didn’t know I’d been singing and dancing in films, and that if I spoke to him he’d let me do my own numbers. Well, I asked him, and he said no. I asked him to look at some of my musicals, and he said no. I asked him if I could sing for him, and he said no. His theory was that if you were a dancer, you didn’t sing; if you were a singer, you didn’t dance; and if you were an actor, you didn’t sing or dance. It was humiliating.”

Another song in the movie is “You’re Everywhere” sung by The King’s Men at 1930s/1940s barbershop quartet.

According to TCM.com, Frank Capra originally acquired the rights to the movie but passed it on to Allied Artists, a new subsidiary of Monogram Pictures, which used to develop B movies. It Happened on Fifth Avenue was the companies first major motion picture and was developed by Roy Del Ruth.

Not only was Gale upset about not being able to sing in the film, but she also was disappointed Capra didn’t direct it, according to the TCM.com article. She felt the movie was decidedly “Capra-esque” — “a warmhearted human story about the little guy with underlying social and political commetary. She said that she felt Del Ruth didn’t make the most of the story’s potential, but she may have been holding a grudge since he didn’t let her do her own singing.

Gale said Del Ruth wasn’t easy on anyone.

“I wasn’t the only one Del Ruth humiliated,” continued Storm in her biography. “Victor Moore was a dear, sweet old man who was kind to everyone; we all loved him. Except Del Ruth. Whatever Victor did, the director made him redo it — again and again. And Del Ruth never told the old man what he might have been doing wrong.”

Despite these complaints from Gale, the movie did well when it was released, with the actors receiving praise by reviewers and critics. It has now become a beloved classic as well.

Is this one you’ve ever seen? What did you think about it?

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you have a blog post that you would like to share as part of this annual link-up, please find out more here.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Movie impression : The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched movies again this year for Comfy, Cozy Cinema

For our last movie we watched The Storied Life of AJ Fikry (2022).

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Gabrielle Zevin.

The story follows AJ Fikry (Kunal Nayyar), the owner of a small bookstore who lost his wife years earlier. He now lives a lonely existence and drinks himself into a stupor at least once a week. He’s also quite grumpy to everyone around him.

A book seller named Amelia and played by Lucy Hale, stops to sell him books and he brushes her off, overcome with depression.

Later that night he drinks himself into a stupor while looking at a collectible Edgar Allan Poe pamphlet/book that he hopes to one day sell to keep himself afloat.

When he wakes up in the morning the book is gone so he runs to the police station where he meets Chief Lambaisse (David Arquette). He has a panic attack in the police station and is sent to the hospital where the doctor suggests he exercise more. He does start running again, which he used to do before.

After awhile it is determined that the book cannot be found and AJ is distraught but moves on with his life. One day he comes home from a run and finds a toddler in his shop with a note pinned to her shirt, asking for him to take care of her.

Later the child’s mother is found dead, so AJ adopts her and his life begins to change.

The movie will eventually come full circle in many ways and the mystery of where the little girl, Maya, came from weaves in and out of the plot.

The movie also starts Scott Foley and Christina Hendricks.

I didn’t find this movie comfy or cozy in some parts, but in others it was those things because it showed friendships being formed, romantic love blooming, and new love coming alive for a man who felt his life had ended and he had no future.

The acting was outstanding and there was a ton of deep thinking produced by almost every scene.

Disclaimer: there were a few difficult subjects in this movie and I am only sharing this just to give a heads up to anyone who is uncomfortable with subjects like infidelity, miscarriages, suicide and cancer deaths (none of these are focused on extensively or in great detail). This movie was much less cozy to me than other movies we’ve watched in the past and I share that just so my blog readers are not totally blindsided.

I found a few facts and trivia I enjoyed reading about the movie, but did not find as many as I did for other movies. Maybe because this was a quieter movie that wasn’t a huge “blockbuster”? I’m not sure.

  • Kunal Nayyar also played Raj Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory where he and Howard Wolowitz discuss the correct pronunciation of “Halley’s comet”, which is talked about in this movie. (Source IMdb)
  • This was David Arquette and Scott Foley’s second time working with each other. They previously worked together on Scream 3 (2000).(Source IMdb)
  • This story is called by some a modern retelling of the classic “Silas Marner” by George Eliot.

Erin expresses the message and feel of this movie in a much better way than I am able to so please check out her post here:.

This brings us to the end of our Comfy, Cozy Cinema. I hope you all had fun following us along!

You can find my impressions of the other movies here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 12 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting the Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year.

Our movie this week was The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain.

There are three things to know about this movie: It is based on a Welsh legend (but not actually true), it a romantic comedy, and it has the longest title of any movie I have ever watched.

First, let’s have a little description from online:

During the days of World War I, a small Welsh town relies on its local mountain as a source of pride. When two English cartographers, Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrad (Ian McNeice), arrive to measure the mountain, they discover the landmark is 16 feet short of achieving the official mountain classification. Disheartened that their mountain has been deemed a hill, the townsfolk devise a plan to make up those 16 feet. Meanwhile, Anson falls for a local woman (Tara Fitzgerald).

This movie has all the things I like — Quirky characters and story, beautiful views, dry British humor, and a bit of romance.

 Hugh Grant is adorable in it and Colm Meany ads a bit of humor (even if he is a dirty scoundrel).

It is free of bad language, sex, or violence.

Well, let’s talk about the sex a bit. There are suggestions of it being engaged in, but none is shown.

The movie starts with the narrator explaining that a lot of people in Wales, where the movie takes place, have the same last name so people began to attach their occupation to their name. This is why a little boy wants to know why one man had a very long occupation attached to his name. He asks his grandfather and the grandfather begins to tell the story.

We then switch to Hugh Grant’s character, Reginald Anson (there is no way to say that name without using a British accent by the way. Try it. I dare you. It doesn’t sound right in an American accent) riding into a small village with another man, George Garrad, portrayed by Ian McNeice.

They pull up to a barn and inn, looking for a place to stay. The bar is owned by Colm Meany’s character.

Colm Meany is called Morgan the Goat. Why is he called this? Well, Morgan is taking advantage of the fact that man of the men of this village are in France fighting in the war. He’s keeping the wives of these men company, shall we say. This is why the church is full of babies that look a lot like Morgan, which absolutely infuriates the minister, Rev. Jones, portrayed by Kenneth Griffith.

So, Reginald and George explain to Morgan that they are there to conduct some surveys to record the topography of the area for the war effort because it is important to know the lay of the land in case the enemy invades.

If they are going to be checking out the local topography, Morgan suggests they check out the only mountain in Wales —  Ffynnon Garw.

George a bit of a laugh but eventually they agree they will check the “mountain” out as part of their effort. The only problem is that they don’t really think it is a mountain. See, to be considered a mountain in the UK, the elevation has to be at least 1,000 feet. The cartagrophes don’t think that will be the case when they measure. This upsets the people of the town who have pride in the fact they have the only mountain in their country.

The reverend is especially riled up at the prospect of the mountain being classified as a hill.

When it is discovered that Ffynnon Garw isn’t a mountain, well, all hell breaks loose and many touching, ridiculous, and heartbreaking moments unfold as Morgan decides to delay Reginald and George from leaving while the town’s people find a way to make the hill a mountain.

The reverend and Morgan don’t get along at all but the reverend agrees that it is important to make the hill a mountain to boost morale of the village during the war.

Some of the fun or interesting characters in this movie are the twins with the same name, Johnny Shellshocked (who suffered PTSD in the war), William the Petroleum Man, and Davies the School.

One con of this movie, for me, though, I loved it, was the romance. It was late in the movie, no time for development and I felt like it was just thrown in as a last-minute idea. The posters for this movie with the actress and Hugh Grant on the front are baffling to me because she really wasn’t that important of a part of the movie for me.

Some trivia/facts about the movie:

  • This movie was written by  Ifor David Monger, the grandfather of the director Christopher Monger who told his son about the real village of Taff’s Well, in the old county of Glamorgan, and its neighboring Garth Hill.
  • Due to 20th century urbanisation of the area, it was filmed in the more rural Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and Llansilin in Powys.
  • The narrator begins by remarking that “For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there’s an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales.” Actually there is a known reason: as part of their increased domination of Wales in the 16th century, the English abolished the Welsh system of patronymics and introduced surnames arbitrarily. (source IMbd)
  • “Despite the implication in the film, and the real-life local legend, the story is fiction. Historians have determined that the mound at the summit of Garth Mountain (the inspiration for the movie) is a Bronze Age burial mound. In 1999, local officials and the History Society placed a sign on the mountain, telling the many climbers who’ve been coming there because of the movie’s popularity of the site’s real significance – and warning that they face two years in prison if they disturb the burial mound.” (source IMbd)
  • When Williams the Petroleum breaks a piece of the Englishmen’s car and pretends to discover it, he says he doesn’t know the English name for it, but in Welsh it’s called a “beth-yn-galw.” “Beth-yn-galw” translates more or less to “whatchamacallit”. (source IMbd)

To read what Erin thought about the movie, visit her blog:

Have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

You can see the rest of the list of movies in this cool graphic that Erin made:

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Mummy (1999)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Mummy!

The Mummy (1999) was a perfect watch for Halloween, though maybe not super comfy or cozy? I don’t know but we slip some creepier ones in for Halloweeeen too so it all evens out! This one isn’t super creepy all the way through, though, and oneee thing you should know is that The Mummy does not take itself too seriously.

Even though it isn’t really a horror film, it deals with the dead and ancient curses, gross bugs, the undead, and bringing people back from the dead and…., etc., etc.

And we also get to see when Brendan Frasier had a career. Ha! I kid. I kid. I know his career has been resurrected like some of the characters in this movie. I just thought it was a funny line.

This movie has become a cult classic after performing well in the theaters, but even better for video/DVD sales which raked in $1 billion for Universal in 2000. The movie’s success even led to a sequel, The Mummy Returns, which was must less successful and then yet another sequel, which was not a huge success either, if I remember right..

Even though I have seen this movie a couple of times, it’s been a long time since the last rewatch, so I rewatched it with my kids to remind myself of specific scenes, plot, etc.

Etc. is the word for today, by the way. I’m going to keep using it throughout this post just to be annoying, obnoxious, belligerent, etc. etc.

(I’m kidding about that too. I can’t keep that up for an entire post…..or can I?)

This movie starts with the affair between Imhotep and  Anck-su-namun, the mistress of the Pharoah. No one was to touch  Anck-su-namun  other than the Pharaoh but I guess Imhotep missed that memo because he started an affair with her.

The two are caught by the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh is killed, the Pharaoh’s men come in, Imhotep escapes while  Anck-su-namun reminds him that only he can resurrect her later so she kills herself before the Pharaoh’s men can.

Imhotep then steals  Anck-su-namun  body and tries to resurrect her but is interrupted by the pharaoh’s guard and is intombed with a bunch of creepy beetle things and buried alive “for all eternity.”

Ha. As if that line is going to stick. Of course, we know something is going to happen to disturb this dude’s resting place.

The Medjai, by the way, are sworn to prevent Imhotep’s return, as his resurrection would grant him immense power. They are guarding over him when Rick O’Connell (Brenden Frasier) is in the French Foreign Legion, fighting against an Arab Army, and finds the tomb, but runs away when the sand begins trying to attack him.

The Medjai decide not to kill him, but instead to “let the desert kill him instead.”

Bad idea because Rick lives and discovers an intricate box, which he takes home with him and has stolen by Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah) who gives it to his sister, Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) a librarian and very green Egyptologist.

Evelyn finds a map inside the box that will lead them to buried Egyptian treasure but it is in the city of the dead. She takes it to her boss at the ancient library but he — oops — sets in it on fire. Was that an accident? Hmm…not so sure there.

Now Evelyn wants to know where Jonathan got it so they set off to find the man who Jonathan stole the box from.

Rick is in jail and actually looks way too clean to have been in jail and he agrees to help Evelyn get to the lost city of death if she will get him out of jail. She figures out a way, but the jailer says he is going to come along to keep an eye on his prisoner.

From there, hijinks ensue, especially when the group runs into a rival team also looking for the city and treasure and Rick runs into an old “friend” who always abandoned him at the most inopportune moments. That friend is Benji and he provides a lot of humor throughout the film, including an iconic scene where he uses symbols from several different religions to keep the mummy from attacking him.

This movie is a fun ride. My husband and I had seen this years ago in the theater when we were first dating — we think anyhow. Our memories are so fuzzy because we are so old.

The Boy said during this movie, “This movie is so fun. I’m really liking this.”

I could have sworn he’d seen this movie before, but he had not, and wanted to, so the timing was perfect, great, impeccable, etc. etc.

The movie is full of eye-candy for all with Rachel Weisz being pretty and Brenden and Oded Fehr and even Arnold Vosloo for those who like bald men.

As I mentioned above, The Mummy is not necessarily a “horror” film but there is a lot of grotesque scenes and moments involving — a bit of a spoiler here — the mummy trying to piece himself back together, which involves pulling other pieces off living humans.

The film was shot in Morocco and The United Kingdom. I found it interesting when I read that Universal took out kidnapping insurance on the crew and cast but didn’t tell them until filming was over. Yikes.

This is the movie where we almost lost Brendan Fraser to by the way

According to an interview with Brendan on The Kelly Clarkson Show, in the scene where Brendan is being hung, the director told him it wasn’t looking believable. Brendan pushed up on his tiptoes while the man who was holding the rope lifted up and Brendan had nowhere to go but try to push down.

“So he was pulling up and I was going down. And then the next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways and there was gravel in my teeth.”

He said the stunt coordinator was leaning over him clapping his hands and calling, “Brendan. Come on, Brendan.”

When he did, the coordinator told the actor, “‘Congratulations, you’re in the club — same thing happened to Mel Gibson on ‘Braveheart.’”

The Mummy became such a hit that there were two sequels and a spinoff. Yes, I saw the spinoff with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, The Scorpion King. No, I do not recommend it.

I never saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor but I probably wouldn’t recommend it either.

This movie did get positive reviews when it came out, with most calling it lot of fun.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a positive review, writing, “There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased.”[

Trivia and facts:

*Disclaimer: always make sure to double check these as what I report is only as good as the sites I pull it from and they are not always accurate.

  • The library disaster in the beginning of the film was done in one take. It would have taken an entire day to re-shoot if a mistake had been made. (source IMdb)
  • The effects team was told “no gore” when designing the look of the Mummy. They actually did tests for “grossness threshold.” (source IMdb)
  • Erick Avari who portrayed Dr. Terence Bey now portrays Nicodemus on The Chosen. (source: me!)
  • With the exception of a loin cloth, a few pieces of jewelry, and pasties, Patricia Velasquez as  Anck-su-namun, was nude except for body paint, which took four hours to apply. (source IMdb)
  • This movie is a remake of the 1932 film of the same name. (various sources, including my husband.)
  • The white nightgown Evelyn wore when the ship was attacked became transparent when it got wet and had to be digitally painted white during post production so the film could keep its PG-13 rating. (source IMdb)
  • The Medjai were originally supposed to be tattooed from head to toe, but Stephen Sommers vetoed it because he thought Oded Fehr was “too good-looking” to be covered up. (source IMdb)
  • The crew could not shoot in Egypt because of the unstable political conditions. (source IMdb)
  • To avoid dehydration in the scorching heat of the Sahara, the production’s medical team created a drink that the cast and crew had to consume every two hours. (source IMdb)
  • Sandstorms were daily inconveniences. Snakes, spiders and scorpions were a major problem, with many crew members having to be airlifted out after being bitten. (source IMdb)
  • When Evelyn reads the inscription “He who shall not be named” on Imhotep’s sarcophagus, the hieroglyphs used are accurate. The inscription actually translates literally as “the one without a name.” (source IMdb)
  • The film is called The Mummy everywhere except Japan where it is called Hamunaptra: The Capital City of the Lost Desert. (source, TVTrops.org)
  • “John Hannah claimed in interviews that he didn’t have the best time shooting the film because he felt the character of Jonathan was pretty redundant: he had been hired as a comedic actor but Beni was far more prevalent as the comedy relief and he didn’t work as a sidekick either since Evy fulfilled that role as well. Whenever Hannah tried bringing this up to Stephen Sommers, the latter would just tell him to make something up. Luckily, later films in the series would give Jonathan a more focused role as the comic relief and give him more stuff to do.” (source, TVTrops.org)
  • “The original script’s opening had a number of edits. Imhotep was originally supposed to narrate, and following Seti’s murder Imhotep was supposed to lead the ritual to curse Anak-su-namun’s mummified body for her crime of regicide, only for Imhotep and his priests to dug up the body as soon as all the other witnesses were either dead or had left; in a scene mirroring Imhotep’s origin story in the original film, the diggers were to be killed by the soldiers after burying Anak-su-namun, and for the Med-jai to kill the soldiers afterwards in order to keep her grave a secret. During the ritual at Hamunaptra, Imhotep explains the ritual didn’t require a human sacrifice since Anak-su-namun’s organs were still fresh. When the Med-jai arrive to stop Imhotep, one of them smashes the jar containing Anak-su-namun’s heart, explaining why it it’s intact in one shot, and broken in the shot where her soul flees back to the underworld. Lastly, Imhotep explains how part of the Hom Dai works: the sacred scarabs would be able to enter his now tongue-free mouth and he’d be forced to consume them, cursing him, while the scarabs would become cursed as well upon consuming his flesh, creating a perversion of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Yes, the scarab swarms that plague our heroes later are all undead insects.”  (source, TVTrops.org)

 If you want to read Erin’s impressions of the movie, you can find it here

So, have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

Up next in our Comfy, Cozy Cinema will be The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

You can read my impressions of past movies in this year’s Comfy Cozy Cinema and past years here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

Our full list of movies is here:

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Young In Heart

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Young In Heart.

And, yes, that title is the actual title: The Young IN Heart.

I feel like I cheated a little bit this week because not only have I watched this movie, but I also wrote about it when I watched it for the Winter of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. That means   I had an advantage to Erin when it came to writing this week’s post because I am going to quote a lot of my original post.

 This is part of what I wrote in that post: “I absolutely loved Douglas in this one. He played a more prominent role than in Gunga Din and was simply … shall I sound completely cheesy? Yes, I shall. He was completely delightful.

At one point, I texted my friend Erin that a drunk Douglas is adorable.”

Yes, I did text Erin this past January to tell her he was adorable. Yes, I am weird.

Before I forget, I found this one for free on YouTube.

So, let’s get to the movie.

The Carlton family, of which Douglas is a part of in this movie, are not a family you would want to know in real life. They are swindlers and grifters. They mooch off and manipulate people to scrape by in life.

We open the movie in the French Riviera with Douglas’s character (Rick) ready to marry a young woman whose father is rich.

Everything falls apart, though, when the police find out about the family and reveal their conniving ways to the family of Rick’s future wife. The family is told to get out of France and end up on a train where they meet a ridiculously sweet woman (Minnie Dupree) who has only recently come into a great sum of money.

Ironically, her last name is Fortune. George-Anne sets out to swindle the woman out of paying for their lunch, but the plan expands as the woman explains she lives alone in a big mansion left to her by a former suitor. She is saying how lovely it would be if all of them came to stay with her when there is a train derailment. Their car tips and at first Rick and George-Anne believe the old woman has died. She’s still breathing so the siblings carry her from the car and George-Anne covers her with her own coat.

We begin to wonder if the family is rotten through and through and are still playing things up as the woman later recovers and invites the family to come live with her.

George-Anne suggests to the family that if Miss Fortune believes they are a respectable family she will be more willing to let them live there and maybe even leave them money when she leaves. To play up this ruse she suggests the men get actual jobs and she and her mother act like caretakers and women who don’t swindle people out of money.

This is all very baffling to the family who has always cheated and stole for a living. When the men decide George-Anne’s plan might work and go to look for jobs, the scenes that follow are some of the most hilarious tongue-in-cheek moments I’ve seen in a movie.

Spinning around in the background of the family’s drama is the romance between George-Anne and Duncan Macrae (Richard Carlson), who she originally considered marrying when she thought he was rich. Duncan learned she was a con-artist along with everyone else and was shattered but still ends up chasing her down on the train back to London to tell her he still loves her.

The rest of Rick’s family — father, Col. Anthony “Sahib” Carleton (Roland Young), mother Marmey Carlton (Billie Burke), and daughter George-Anne (Janet Gaynor) — are thrilled with this plan because they know it will also set them all up for a rich life. George Anne might be even more thrilled because then she can marry a poor Scottish man who she’s fallen in love with, and the rest of her family will support her financially.

She tells him to get lost, believing he’s much too good for her and . . . well, you’ll have to see where all that ends up.

Rick is also having his own romance with Leslie Saunders (Paulette Goddard), a secretary and the engineering business he applies at for a job.

This is the second – or shall I say third – movie I’ve watched in recent months with Billie Burke and there is no mistaking that voice if you have seen The Wizard of Oz.

Yes, she is Glenda the Good Witch.

The screenplay for this movie was written by Paul Osborn and adapted by Charles Bennett from the serialized novel, The Gay Banditti by I. A. R. Wylie. That title certainly would have had a different connotation in the modern day, eh?

Anyhow, the novel appeared in parts in The Saturday Evening Post from February 26 to March 26, 1938.

The movie was released in November of the same year. They certainly worked fast back then.

I found it interesting when I read that Broadway actresses Maude Adams and Laurette Taylor screen-tested for the role of Miss Fortune and that the footage is the only audio-visual samples that existed of both of them.

The movie was produced by – can you guess? Because it feels like every movie I write about lately is produced by him.

Yes. David Selznick. The man who produced what is considered one of the biggest movie triumphs in the world — Gone with the Wind.

This movie was one of many he produced leading up to Gone With The Wind. The Prisoner of Zenda, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, was another. Goddard was actually rumored to be being considered to play Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, which later, of course, went to Vivien Leigh.

While I was watching the part of the movie where Mr. Carleton goes to apply for a job, I was fascinated by the fancy car they showed. It was spinning like a pig on a spit at the front of the building and it was a very modern looking car and a very modern looking set up altogether.

According to Ultimate Car Page and Wikipedia,  https://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/1905/Phantom-Corsair.html

The six-passenger 2-door sedan Flying Wombat featured in that scene was actually the one-of-a-kind prototype Phantom Corsair. The Phantom Corsair concept car was built in 1938 and designed by Rust Heinz of the H. J. Heinz family and Maurice Schwartz of the Bohman & Schwartz coachbuilding company in Pasadena, California.”

I also found it interesting that this was Gaynor’s last movie before retiring while she was at the top of her career. She made one last movie in 1957 called Bernardine.

Like I said above, I loved this movie. It was just what I needed to watch this week with so much sadness going on in the world. There was a lot of humor from all the cast, but Douglas really had me smiling throughout. Not only because he is my latest old Hollywood star crush (watch out Paul Newman!).

Have you seen this one? What did you think of it?

You can read Erin’s impression of the movie on her blog.

Next week we will move into a bit of spooky with Coraline.

The rest of our movie list can be found on this graphic:

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Five Year Engagement

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Five-Year Engagement.

I am going to share right off the bat that this was not the movie for me. Erin enjoys it (though she had not watched in a long time and forgot some of the aspects of it) and you can find a more positive view of it on her blog.

Disclaimer: The fact I did not enjoy it is NOT an attack on anyone who did enjoy it. All views expressed here are my own opinions on the movie only. I don’t think anyone is awful for enjoying it. It simply was not my cup of tea. Everyone has different tastes.

I probably should have researched this one a little more when I agreed to watch it because it really wasn’t a movie I’d normally watch. It also was not cozy at all to me personally, but it probably has some sentimental value to others.

For my regular readers who know I usually recommend books and shows without a ton of swearing and crude “jokes” or references, you can know I don’t recommend this one because that’s the majority it.

When I did finally look up the movie this morning, I learned that it featured “more than 205 obscenities and profanities and lots of verbal sexual humor.”

Yeah. I really need to look this stuff up before I go into a movie. *wince*

I am  not going to sit here and say that I do not swear. I certainly do. I wish I didn’t, but I do. I’m in a deep depression this week and have sworn about ten times already today (and asked God to forgive me).

Despite that personal flaw confessional moment, movies that throw swear words in for no reason aren’t my thing. 

Here is a bit of a description of the movie from online:

“On their one-year anniversary, sous chef Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) plans to surprise his girlfriend, Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt), with an engagement ring. The lovers do end up engaged, but the fact that the proposal does not go exactly as planned proves to be a harbinger of things to come. Each time they try to set a date, various obstacles stand in their way. As more and more time passes, Tom and Violet begin to wonder if perhaps their marriage is not meant to be.”

The movie is rated R, so a lot of it the languag and sex scenes are to be expected but I just wasn’t comfortable with the level of crudeness or how many times I had to see Jason Segel having sex. Eek.

Also, Jason Segel plays pretty much the same character in every movie or TV show he has ever been in so if you like him in other movies or TV shows you should like this – just add a few more penis jokes, f-words, and views of his naked butt.

Again, Erin has more positive reasons she enjoyed the film (and I totally get her reasons!) so you can check out her views and more information on her blog here:


Next week we are writing about The Young In Heart (1938), starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The other movies we will be watching are on this list:

10 Classic Movies You Can Watch for Free on Tubi

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 14 Comments

I was surprised this past weekend to find a ton of classic movies for free on Tubi so I thought I’d share some of the better classic (before 1970) movies with my blog readers today. I have watched these and really enjoyed them! I’ll have a part two for this one down the road sometime.

Talk of the Town

Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant), who was wrongfully convicted of arson, manages to escape from prison. While on the lam, he finds the home of Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur), an old friend from school for whom he harbors a secret affection. Nora believes in Dilg’s innocence and lets him pose as her landscaper; meanwhile, Professor Lightcap (Ronald Colman), a legal expert, has just begun renting a room in Nora’s home. Lightcap, like Dilg, also has eyes for Nora, leading to a series of comic misadventures.

My Man Godfrey

Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a forgotten man to win a scavenger hunt, and no one fits that description more than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.

The Philadelphia Story

This classic romantic comedy focuses on Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), a Philadelphia socialite who has split from her husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), due both to his drinking and to her overly demanding nature. As Tracy prepares to wed the wealthy George Kittredge (John Howard), she crosses paths with both Dexter and prying reporter Macaulay Connor (James Stewart). Unclear about her feelings for all three men, Tracy must decide whom she truly loves.

The Third Man

Set in postwar Vienna, Austria, “The Third Man” stars Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, who arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find him dead. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, running into interference from British officer Maj. Calloway (Trevor Howard) and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover, Anna (Alida Valli).



The Manchurian Candidate

 Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.

Merrily We Live

The wealthy Kilbourne family is tired of Mrs. Kilbourne (Billie Burke) hiring ex-convicts as servants. After a servant steals the family’s silver, Mrs. Kilbourne agrees to never hire another drifter for help. But when a rough-looking man named Rawlins (Brian Aherne) arrives at her doorstep, she cannot help but hire him as the new chauffeur. As Rawlins catches the eye of their oldest daughter, Jerry (Constance Bennett), the Kilbournes realize that he may not be the vagrant he claims to be.

Bringing Up Baby

Harried paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) has to make a good impression on society matron Mrs. Random (May Robson), who is considering donating one million dollars to his museum. On the day before his wedding, Huxley meets Mrs. Random’s high-spirited young niece, Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a madcap adventuress who immediately falls for the straitlaced scientist. The ever-growing chaos — including a missing dinosaur bone and a pet leopard — threatens to swallow him whole.

Without Reservations

Famous author “Kit” Masterson (Claudette Colbert) needs an actor to portray the lead character, a soldier, in the upcoming movie version of her book. While on a train to California, she meets Marine Rusty Thomas (John Wayne) and his friend, Dink (Don DeFore). She begins to imagine the macho Rusty as the lead, and attempts to stay in his company. However, since Rusty did not like her book, Kit must conceal her identity, all the while growing more attracted to her potential actor.

It Happened One Night

In Frank Capra’s acclaimed romantic comedy, spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) impetuously marries the scheming King Westley, leading her tycoon father (Walter Connolly) to spirit her away on his yacht. After jumping ship, Ellie falls in with cynical newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who offers to help her reunite with her new husband in exchange for an exclusive story. But during their travels, the reporter finds himself falling for the feisty young heiress.

A Woman of Distinction

Reserved college dean Susan Middlecott (Rosalind Russell) is all business and can’t be bothered with love. However, when Susan meets charming British astronomy professor Alec Stevenson (Ray Milland), it seems that romance could be in the air. Though she resists being paired with Alec, things don’t go as planned — particularly when a publicity agent and even Susan’s amiable father (Edmund Gwenn) get involved. Soon, Susan may just be in love, whether she likes it or not.

Let me know if you check any of these out!

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: A Knight’s Tale (without spoilers)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 12 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week is A Knight’s Tale.

I remember watching this one shortly after it came out but not in the theater. It’s a fun one that I’ve watched more than once over the years.

I was not in the group of girls who fawned all over Heath Ledger when he was popular (and alive..his death was so sad) because I wasn’t into popular culture at the time. I was a nerd, I don’t know what to say.

I really didn’t discover Heath until he passed away.

Regardless, I enjoyed watching Heath when I finally watched this movie.

It should be noted, too, that Heath was actually not well-known when this movie was made. His breakout role was The Patriot and that had not yet been released when he was hired for A Knight’s Tale. Lucky for the director of A Knight’s Tale, Brian Hedgeland, and everyone else involved, The Patriot was hugely successful and made A Knight’s Tale more marketable once the movie when to DVD sales. It was through DVD sales that the movie made more money.

Okay, but let’s go back a bit and talk a bit about the plot of the movie for those who aren’t familiar with it.

Here is a Google description:  Peasant-born William Thatcher (Heath Ledger) begins a quest to change his stars, win the heart of an exceedingly fair maiden (Shanynn Sossamon) and rock his medieval world. With the help of friends (Mark Addy, Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk), he faces the ultimate test of medieval gallantry — tournament jousting — and tries to discover if he has the mettle to become a legend.

I read a review that called this movie whimsical and I think that is a good description.

It is full of adventure and fun and is just a perfect escape. The movie blends modern music with a story set in the medieval times.

We start with William being an assistant to a knight who, tragically, dies. William decides to become him so he can finish the tournament and he and the other serfs can get the money.

From there they decide to continue the ruse, training hard to make Will an actual jousting knight. Along the way they meet a young Geoffrey Chaucer (the writer) who is destitute and agrees to forge a patent of nobility so Wil can enter under the name Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein from Gelderland. Chaucer has a lot of problems, though, the main one being his gambling problem, which leads William to be brought before Simon the Summoner and Peter the Pardoner who demands payment from Chaucer. Will then demands Chaucer be released and promises payment.

Will’s armor is damaged and he must go to Kate, a female blacksmith, to repair it and she agrees to do so without payment. She is pulled into their circle of friends.

Will is also delighted to find that Jocelyn, a local noblewoman, is watching. He is infatuated with her and will spend most of the movie trying to get her attention.

There will be more jousting as William travels to the World Championships and those scenes are quite fun and exciting. There is, of course, a “bad guy” — Count Adhemar of Anjou portrayed by Rufus Sewell.

I love the mix of modern or semi-modern music with the medieval time period in this movie. Bettany is fantastic as Chaucer and Alan Tudyk is just always awesome and hilarious. If you want to know more about what he’s been in you can check him out on IMdb. You won’t even believe all the voices he’s done and movies he’s been in.

One of the more famous lines from this movie is “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.” You may have heard this before over the years since this movie, while it didn’t make a ton of money at the box office compared to some, became a cult classic of sorts. The movie did make $117 million after being made for $65 million so I don’t think that is too bad.

Trivia:

  • “The movie was filmed in the Czech Republic, mainly in Prague. When Chaucer first introduces “Sir Ulrich” in his speech, the crowd doesn’t react at first because the Czech extras didn’t understand it. Mark Addy‘s loud prompt tipped them off to start cheering. The awkward moment was left in because it made the scene funnier.”
  • “Plenty of effort was expended creating lances that would splinter convincingly without taking out the stunt riders as well. The body of each lance was scored so it would break easily, and the tips were made of balsa wood. Each was also hollowed out, and the hole filled with balsa chips and uncooked linguine to make convincing splinters.”
  • Paul Bettany’s nude scene was shot on his very first day in front of a crowd of extras.
  • There was a period of about a year in Geoffrey Chaucer’s life when historians have no records of what happened to him. This film is supposed to be set in that year.
  • The first scene of two knights jousting is actually footage of an accident involving Heath Ledger’s stunt double. While filming a later scene, the opponent’s lance moved off target. The stunt double was hit in the head, and fell to the ground unconscious. The entire scene was used for the introduction.

  • “Heath Ledger knocked out one of director Brian Helgeland’s front teeth with a broomstick when the two were demonstrating a jousting move. It was several months before Helgeland’s mouth had healed enough to repair the damage. He says it was the only jousting injury during filming.”
  • “Several of the named knights were, in fact, real, though many of them are from different time periods. Ulrich von Lichtenstein was a knight and author who was said to have invented the concept of chivalry and courtly love. He boasted that he would give a golden ring to any knight who could break a lance on his armour, giving away 271 in total, but remaining undefeated. Piers Courtenay was a descendant of Edward I, born in the 15th Century. Sir Thomas Colville was a knight from the 13th Century. Roger Mortimer was the name of several related noblemen in 13th- and 14-century England. One was the lover of King Edward II’s wife – Isabella of France – and was hanged, drawn, and quartered by the Black Prince’s father, King Edward III, for his complicity in Edward II’s death.”

(all trivia from IMdb)

You can read Erin’s impressions here on her blog.

Have you ever seen this movie? What did you think?

Up next in our Comfy, Cozy Cinema is The Five Year Engagement.

You can find our full movie list here: