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There are any number of movies from Hollywood's Golden Era that are now considered holiday classics: It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn, and White Christmas are probably the best known, while pictures such as The Bishop's Wife, Christmas in Connecticut, and The Shop Around the Corner make up the second tier.
One very worthy title has undeservedly been denied Holiday Classic status to date, however, and that's a shame.
Before he began his meteoric rise to fame as a masterful director of classic comedies, Preston Sturges was one of Hollywood's most in-demand screenwriters, penning such classic films as Easy Living, If I Were King, and The Good Fairy.
But the last film Sturges wrote before demanding that Paramount Studios give him his first shot at directing was a lovely picture entitled Remember the Night.
With terrific performances by Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and a script that is alternately sassy and sentimental, Remember the Night deserves to be in the pantheon of holiday movies, but somehow it remains lesser known than the titles cited above.
Remember the Night concerns a Manhattan DA (MacMurray), who is hesitant to rest his case against a streetwise shoplifter (Stanwyck) in the days just before Christmas, lest she benefit from the seasonal good will of the jury and get off lightly.
So the DA asks for a continuance and ends up, through some entertaining machinations on the part of Sturges, taking the shoplifter with him to spend the holidays with his family in Indiana.
Remember the Night is a very funny, terribly sweet, and plenty smart romantic comedy (or is it a drama? That's the genius of Sturges at work -- it's not a pictures that's easily labeled) that will brighten your holiday season, if you'll only give it a chance.
It's not available on DVD, but Turner Classic Movies is airing it this Sunday, Dec. 17, at 8 p.m. eastern. If you've never seen this lovely film, you owe it to yourself to cancel all plans and plant yourself before the television set (or, at the very least, program your Tivo to record it).
And though Remember the Night manages to avoid the saccharine qualities that can afflict some holiday programming, it's not nearly so tough as the movie that follows it on TCM at 10 p.m. -- the noir classic Double Indemnity, which was directed by the great Billy Wilder and co-written by the equally great Raymond Chandler and which perhaps not so coincidentally also stars Stanwyck and MacMurray.
I heartily recommend this double bill: a little -- but not too much -- holiday humor and romance in Remember the Night leavened thereafter by the gritty dirty dealings of Double Indmentity. TCM rarely screens Remember the Night in December -- I check the listings every year -- and that's exactly when it should be shown.
So here's your chance.
From the Working Assets website:
Veterans Administration (VA) budget cuts in recent years have left many of our nation's veterans at VA hospitals without the means to call their families over the holidays. These long distance calls are generally not covered by the VA, and many vets just don't have the financial resources to call all their loved ones.So Working Assets, Veterans for Peace, CODEPINK, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Gold Star Families for Peace have teamed up on a project to thank our veterans by sending them phone cards loaded with 125 minutes of domestic long-distance calling time. We'll purchase these cards and deliver them to VA Medical Facilities all over the country on December 18th....
You can learn more and contribute to the cause here.
Wrapping up the LA trip...
I won't lie to you, Flo and I were both a little sorry to see our trip come to an end. But that's the mark of a good vacation, I guess.
We resolved to spend our last day in LA visiting a few sites we'd meant to get to during the first five days of the trip.
For the last six years, I've intended to go visit the long, long staircase depicted in Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box.
You remember The Music Box -- it's the classic short that finds our boys hired to deliver a piano, and when they arrive at the address, they are faced with endless cement steps standing between them and the Silverlake-area house that is the piano's destination.
Back in the day, the area around those steps was wide open, but it's quite developed now -- you could never achieve the camera angles necessary to shoot a remake of The Music Box. But the steps themselves are still there, and, bless her heart, Flo, though she's never even seen the classic comedy in which they appear, was game for climbing them.
Am I a lucky guy, or what?
From the Silverlake area, we headed downtown to visit the jewel of Los Angeles' downtown, the Bradbury Building, the masterwork of a one-hit-wonder of an architect named George Wyman.
The Bradbury Building's served as a location in countless movies, including the film noir classic D.O.A. (Edmund O'Brien, one of Flo's favorites, takes a spill as he comes running into the Bradbury Building, so naturally I had to replicate his clumsiness when we paid the building a visit -- Flo loved it, the other people in the lobby, of course, didn't get it), the neo-noir classic Chinatown, Wolf, and Blade Runner and on any number of TV shows, too.
The Bradbury is the oldest commercial building in downtown Los Angeles and is a true must-see. Flo, bless her, was as impressed by the beautiful old structure as I always have been.
Then we were off to The Way We Wore, a great vintage clothing shop on La Brea. It's an elegant shop (and it's no flea market -- the clothes offered here are, you can rest assured, in good condition and top quality). Two summers ago, I bought a great two-piece suit from the 1950s and a short-sleeved sport shirt from the '50s that remains one of my favorites.
Sadly, they don't sell men's clothes anymore (believe me, I am not happy about this), and I knew that going in, but I wanted Flo to see the place. And heck, I'd have stopped by even if Flo hadn't been with me. The shop is that much of a pleasure to visit.
Owner Doris Raymond wasn't on hand, unfortunately, but her staff is so helpful and warm that she wasn't missed so very much. One of the gals even remembered me from my previous visit, which pleased me no end (it takes so little, really, to make me happy).
I didn't convince Flo, who also has an eye for vintage wear, to try on anything (and I didn't want to be so pushy as to come off like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, forcing a makeover on Kim Novak). Next time, perhaps.
From there, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to 180 S. McCadden, where Judy Garland once lived with her mother.
Flo is a huge Garland fan (I'm a pretty ardent admirer, myself) and I'd done enough research to come up with the addresses of eight or ten of Judy's residences. That was overkill in Flo's eyes (and she was no doubt right, as usual), but I was adamant that we visit at least one of Garland's homes, so we settled on this one, the house Judy purchased just after signing her first contract with MGM.
It's a lovely home, one I could happily settle into in a heartbeat (alas, there was no "for sale" sign out front, and there's a pretty good chance that even if there were, it'd be just, er, slightly out of my price range).
But I think Flo was happy to visit the house, even though she protested mildly against including it on our day's itinerary. I think she looks as though she fits right in there, don't you?
Nearby is the house that is depicted in the cover photo on Jackson Browne's album Late for the Sky.
Why did I care about visiting the house that appeared on the cover of a Jackson Browne album? Well, just because I could, I guess. It's probably my favorite Jackson Browne record (though it admittedly doesn't have all that much competition for that honor), and I always liked that cover image, even before I knew that it was an homage to Magritte.
The next three stops on the itinerary we either failed to photograph or perhaps the shots just didn't come out well (I left that end of things entirely in Flo's hands, and she certainly delivered). From the "Late for the Sky" house, we headed over to 1300 N. Hopper, a block or two below Sunset, to see an bungalow-style apartment house that served as the location for some of the shots in Bogart's classic noir In a Lonely Place. We crept up and peeked in the gate and were tiptoeing away when we realized that a couple of the residents were sitting on their terrace just to our left, smiling knowingly. They must receive occasional visits from film geeks like me (and their patient, accommodating girlfriends).
Next up was the building that housed The Players, a 1940s nightspot on the Sunset Strip that was owned by the late, great Preston Sturges. The building, which now houses a Chinese restaurant, hasn't changed so very much, and I got a kick out of imagining the great man strolling in and out of his popular establishment.
I only today learned that Sturges' widow, Sandy, who worked hard to complete his posthumous autobiography, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges, died earlier this month. It was at the Players that she met Sturges, quite by accident, and the sad news of her passing makes me even more glad I stopped by to get a look at the old building. If you've ever seen and enjoyed (if you've done the former, you've surely done the latter) a Preston Sturges comedy, you owe it to yourself to read the Sturges' book. It's delightful. Sturges' life was every bit as entertaining and outrageous as his movies are.
I met Ms. Sturges at Film Forum some years ago and got to chat briefly with her about her remarkable husband. She struck me as a very kind and generous woman, may she rest in peace
A bit north and east of former site of The Players, at 1712 North Stanley, is the former home of William Haines. Haines is not so well remembered today, but he was a pretty big star in the late silent/early talkies era.
I've long admired Haines because he refused to play the games that the studios asked of so many of their stars. Haines was openly gay -- everyone in Hollywood knew it -- and in a relationship that would prove to be a lifelong one. When the morality police began to put the pressure on the Hollywood studios in the early 1930s, Haines, whose star was admittedly already somewhat on the descent, refused to play along when the studio asked him to be seen out and about in the company of various beautiful young starlets. He was open about his lifestyle and wouldn't put on an act, even to save his already somewhat tenuous career.
Instead, with the encouragement of his pal Joan Crawford, he turned to a career as an interior decorator, and a very successful one at that. He was Decorator to the Stars for decades and did quite well for himself.
A side note: Haines and his partner were good friends with Ronald and Nancy Reagan, which makes Reagan's refusal to address the AIDS crisis in its early stages -- to even utter the word "AIDS" in public -- while thousands of gay men were dying around him that much more shameful. Like Republicans today, Reagan was perfectly happy to associate with gay men -- he was just wasn't man enough to embrace them publicly.
Wrapping up our final afternoon of putting around Hollywood and its environs were my favorite two stops of the day.
The first was in Hollywood Hills, just a few sharp turns off Highland. Movie buffs will recall the early scenes in Billy wilder's film noir classic Double Indemnity, when insurance salesman Fred MacMurray pays an unannounced call on a client, only to encounter for the first time the client's femme fatale of a spouse, played by the great Barbara Stanwyck. That meeting marked the beginning of the end for MacMurray's Walter Neff.
The interiors for that scene were shot at the studio, but the exteriors were shot at an actual house, located at 6301 Quebec Drive. It's a private residence, and the roads surrounding it are so narrow and winding that it's not at all easy to find, but a true buff won't be swayed. Flo and I had gone to see Double Indemnity in July -- it was her first viewing, my umpteenth -- and I think she might just have been nearly as excited as I was to stand before the house.
We saw no sign of Phyllis Dietrichson, though, and let's face it, it's probably just as well. I'm no surely less a sucker than Walter Neff, and that surely wouldn't have turned out well.
From there, we set out for another highlight -- the very spot on which a memorable Buster Keaton gag was filmed.
A few years ago, I dated a woman who was a huge Keaton fan, and though she didn't stick around terribly long and there were, at the time, some of the hurt feelings that typically accompany break-ups, I've long since forgiven her, if only because she introduced me to Buster.
Keaton's by far my favorite silent comic filmmaker (though I'm fond of Harold Lloyd, too), and his status as such was only confirmed by the recent Keaton festival Flo and I faithfully attended every Monday night for eight consecutive weeks at Film Forum. Flo had never seen any Keaton, but she's now as big a convert as I am.
We picked up a book called Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton by John Bengtson, which is filled with then-and-now shots of the locations in Buster's pictures.
Sadly, we didn't have much time left in LA by the time we tracked down the book, but we did manage to make one pilgrimage, and I was tickled pink to do so.
Perhaps my favorite single moment in any Keaton movie occurs in Cops, a silent short from 1922. In it, Buster's being chased by dozens, if not hundreds, of policemen, and at one point, he pauses in the middle of the street, seemingly trapped with no way of escape, and, as a car motors by, he calmly reaches out, grab the back end of the car, and, extended horizontally, is whisked away.
It's a magic moment, like something from a cartoon, but Keaton performed the stunt in real life, not in an animated alternate reality. (To view a short clip of the sequence, click on the image on the right.)
And Bengtson's exhaustively researched book pinpoints the exact spot -- on Cahuenga south of Hollywood Boulevard -- where that sequence was filmed. And Flo, bless her heart, snapped this shot of me standing where Buster once stood -- all the while keeping an eye out for traffic so that blissful moment was not my last one.
I ask you again, am I not a lucky so-and-so?
We spent an hour or two resting back at the motel before heading out for our final night on the town.
For our final meal, we returned to Astro Burger (mmm-mmm, those onion rings!) before heading over to Hollywood Boulevard, where we intended to catch the 7:30 screening of Casino Royale at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. I've never been much of a James Bond buff, but with the word that this new installment kind of reset the series and returned to the roots of the character by hewing more closely to the original novel, I was newly intrigued, and the movie didn't disappoint.
And Grauman's Chinese, of course, never disappoints. Surely, if movies are shown in heaven, they're screened at a theatre just like the Chinese. Flo was duly impressed by her visit to this grand old movie palace, and I feel confident in saying that a return trip will be on the docket the next time we go to Los Angeles.
Before the movie, we grabbed a beer at the Power House, a circa-1950 joint on Highland just off Hollywood Boulevard that had piqued my interest before. But it appeared just bedraggled enough to make me think I might be placing my life at risk by patronizing the place, so I'd never quite allowed myself to take the plunge.
There was no cause for concern, of course. It's not fancy, but it's certainly not unsafe (though the bartender didn't look like someone I'd want to get on the wrong side of) and the Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap was ice cold.
We called it an early night, since we had a 7:30 flight to catch the next morning. Our last day might have been our best, but it was a close contest, as we really had an amazing time the whole week.
We're already discussing what we'll do on our return trip, and it can't come soon enough for me. Flo, not at all surprisingly, proved a delightful travel partner, and I can't wait to spend another week in Los Angeles with her.
More on the LA trip...
Thursday, Nov. 23 -- Flo was so patient and accommodating, in the weeks leading up to our journey west and during our time away, that I was intent upon setting aside at least one day for her pleasure.
And that meant just one thing: Disney Land.
It's not that she's one of those types who are daffy for Disney -- she's not at all. Mickey Mouse means next to nothing to her, and she doesn't rush out to catch every Disney product ... er, picture that hits theatres.
But she's fascinated by the history of the Disney parks, by the idea of Walt giving his staff of engineers and creative types free rein to create a whole new world, an amusement like none seen before.
And the more she talked about it, the more interest I became. I'd never attended a Disney park before. Give me the old-style roadside attractions -- your alligator parks, your Dinosaur Lands, your world's largest ... well, world's largest anything at all.
But I always figured that, if I ever did indulge in a Disney park, I'd want to attend the original. And since Flo had visited Disney World but never Disney Land, it was decided we'd spend Thanksgiving there.
I kind of figured the place would be relatively empty on Thanksgiving, but think again. It was plenty crowded, with waits of thirty, forty-five, and even sixty minutes to ride the more popular rides.
But I didn't care. Flo was having a grand time, and that's all that I cared about.
The park was decked out in full holiday regalia, which just added to the fun, and the day turned out to be just about perfect.
I was a little surprised by the fact that so many of the rides are a little on the scary side. Given the wholesome nature of Disney movies and the fact that the park is meant to be such a family-friendly place, I sort of expected everything to be on the bland side.
But, in fact, most of the rides are pretty scary, if not in their twists and turns (like Space Mountain), then in their content -- in the atmosphere, in the characters and settings depicted.
I was also struck by the fact that there are basically two experiences to be had at Disney Land: scary rides and shopping.
Call me naive, but I somehow expected there to be more offerings that were educational or fanciful in nature -- walk-through exhibitions of some sort. But no, one is either being subjected to bone-jarring thrills and chills or you're being hawked Disney goods. It's pretty much one or the other.
But that all sounds a bit curmudgeonly, and that's not really how I felt while enjoying the park. We had a truly grand day, and it was a delight for me to see Flo so thoroughly enjoying herself. We stayed until well after dark, and I would happily have stayed even longer.
We rushed back to LA to try to enjoy a late Thanksgiving dinner with my friend Jim, who tends bar at Marie Callender's on Wilshire, only to find out that they didn't close at their usual time of 10 p.m., but instead at 8 p.m. It was a suprise to us, and to Jim, too, who had no idea they were closing early.
So, since it was already past 9:30, there was no dinner to be had, but we did get to chat with Jim a bit as he closed down the bar.
Desperate for even a tiny taste of the traditional Thanksgiving experience, we headed over to Canter's Deli, which opened in the Los Angeles area in 1931, and has been in its current location on Fairfax since 1953, and each enjoyed a tasty slice of pumpkin with whipped cream and a cup of joe.
Flo liked Canter's so much that she bought a t-shirt.
More to come...
On Friday night, I saw the actor who plays the corrupt city councilman on The Wire -- the one who repeatedly (and not very believably, to my ears) says, "Sheeee-it!" -- on the downtown #1 train.