Movies, Then and Now

 

Deciding on watching something new, we rented the latest version of “A Star is Born,” released in 2018, the 3rd remake. I had seen the original 1937 version with Frederick March and Janet Gaynor on TV and the 1954 version with Judy Garland and James Mason, but missed the 1976 one with Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. Of those I saw, my favorite is the 1954 version. Being 23 years old when I saw it in 1954 at a theater at Augusta, Georgia — I was serving in an Army band at Fort Gordon then — the music in it was the popular music of my youth. That’s probably one reason I liked it best.

Another would be the different shooting techniques. The 2018 version was shot in cinema verity style, which is all right for documentaries, but, for me, not in dramas. Cinema verity uses handheld unstable cameras, which makes the audience aware of the camera. Millions of feet of World War II combat films were shot by U.S. Army Signal Corps photographers using 16mm handheld cameras. Most dramatic films are shot in the direct style, which uses stable cameras with the idea being that it’s best that the audience is unaware of the camera. In the direct style, actors are instructed to never look directly at the camera lens. The 1937 and 1954 versions were shot in the direct style

How does Lady Gaga compare with Judy Garland and Janet Gaynor and Bradley Cooper with James Mason and Frederick March? Stay tuned for part two of Movies , Then and Now.

Mickey Rooney Memories

Though he wasn’t among the movie stars I interviewed over the years, I feel as though I lost a buddy when I learned that Mickey Rooney died.  That’s because I saw his Andy Hardy movies when they were first-run.  The first one, A Family Affair,  was shot in 1937.  Mickey was 17-years-old, and  I was 6 at the time.  There was no question about it. When an Andy Hardy movie  played between 1937 and 1946,  somebody in my family – sometimes my mom and dad took me, but there were others when either my older sister Betty or Brother Elbert would take me – and I went to  see it.

Judy Garland not only starred with him in three of the fourteen Andy Hardy films, but in some smash hit musicals.  They were never reported as being romantically involved, but Mickey said their love ran deeper than that.  Maybe that’s why they played so well in movies together.

Those movies catapulted him to  being the top box-office draw in 1939. Time magazine put his face on the cover of a 1940 edition, saying, according to Wikipedia, “Hollywood’s No. 1 box office bait in 1939 was not Clark Gable, Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power, but a rope-haired, kazoo-voiced kid with a comic-strip face, who until this week had never appeared in a picture without mugging or overacting it. His name (assumed) was Mickey Rooney, and to a large part of the more articulate U. S. cinema audience, his name was becoming a frequently used synonym for brat.”

He proved he could also act in a serious role,  starring as “Young Tom Edison” for MGM in 1940.  He won a bunch of awards over the years, including a Jspecial juvenile Academy Award when the Academy was giving those and a Honoirary Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a few Emmys.

He continued to work in movies, radio  and TV right up until his death, April 6, 2014.  He was married 8 times.  He was surrounded by his family when he died in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.  He was survived by his wife of 37 years,  Jan Chamberlain, eight surviving children, nineteen grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.  He was 93-years-old.  As Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley sang, he did his way.  He did it very well “his way.