Meet cute Monday #18

On By EstherIn Actors, Actresses, At the moviesLeave a comment

This week it’s Danny Kaye’s turn to feature in a meet cute Monday. I have only ever seen a handful of Danny Kaye movies but there was always such a joy and warmth to him that I always loved him. I think my first memory of seeing Danny Kaye is from the early 1980’s when he directed the New York Philharmonic, despite him reportedly not being able to read music (I believe it was for Unicef, correct me if I’m wrong as I don’t really have time to research this now). My parents loved this and so did we kids. We must have watched this at every repeat on TV at the time.

Anyway, one of the Danny Kaye films that really touched me was his 1959 film The Five Pennies, about jazz cornet player and bandleader Loring “Red” Nichols. The movie follows Red through his career as a great jazz musician who gives up music for his family as his daughter faces medical challenges. In this clip he meets singer Willa Stutsman, a.k.a. “Bobbie Meredith” (Barbara Bel Geddes, later well known as Miss Ellie from the TV series Dallas).

Those two really play such a beautifully loving couple and parents to their daughter Dorothy (Susan Gordon as little Dorothy and Tuesday Weld as the teenage Dorothy). Danny Kaye is always so good with kids too.

Kaye also plays with Louis Armstrong in this, and those scenes are just magic. Here’s one, where he even imitates Satchmo’s singing style at one point…

This movie is well worth a watch, should you ever come across it.

Meet cute Monday #17

On By EstherIn At the movies1 Comment

For those who have been reading here for longer, you will possibly have seen me mention The Slipper and the Rose before, a sugary sweet Cinderella movie from 1976 starring Gemma Craven as Cinderella and Richard Chamberlain as the prince. It’s the first movie I remember seeing in the cinema and, despite it’s sugary sweetness and Cinderella being a bit of a sap, I still love it to this day.

So, here it is, a clip with virtually no dialogue: love at first sight at the ball for Prince Edward (Richard Chamberlain) when he first sets eyes on Cinderella (Gemma Craven).

The movie was filmed in and around Salzburg in Austria and they must have hired a lot of Austrian extras. At the ball, the fine ladies are piqued at the prince for only having eyes for Cinderella and near the end of the clip you can see one fine lady put her hands on her hips in annoyance as she mouths “unerhört” in German (which translates literally to “unheard of” but means something more like “outrageous”).

This is just pure escapist fun with a lot of really enjoyable songs in there too. My father, not a film lover in any way, used to love the Protocoligorically Correct song…

His nostrils would just quiver with amusement when he watched that scene. For that memory alone this movie holds a very special place in my heart.

In a bit of a lull

On By EstherIn Real life6 Comments

In recent months I find I have not been blogging much. Mostly it’s meet cute Mondays and not that much else. I constantly think of things to blog about, I have a big one sitting in the back of my head right now as I type this, but somehow I can not find the motivation to deep dive and make the time and effort to type it all out. I’m sure it’s got to do with some private family worries that I’ve had but now that everything seems to be settling down again, the blogging bug still hasn’t returned. I find that I miss it on the one hand, but can’t make myself do much on my blog on the other hand. Well, today I’m making myself do something by typing this post. Not that much to type about, but I’ll give it a go.

The weather today has been glorious and we decided to watch mini me play a football match as the end of the season is nearing. Alas, they lost by 3-2 but it was fun to see her in action and also really nice to catch up with another couple (parents of mini me’s team mate) who we’ve known for a long time before mini me even joined the team.

Mr E and I then biked to one of the lakes near where we live for a bite to eat and a glass of wine/beer outside in the sun. When we got home late in the afternoon, our cat was all too eager to find a spot on my lap! She misses her people when they are gone during the day…

Mini me hung out at the football club all afternoon. When she popped in this evening before heading out again she showed us a trophy she had been given: her team mates had chosen her as MVP of the team for this past year! We’re very proud.

As Junior is out all day as well (at a music festival), Mr E and I had a nice takeaway Thai dinner together and our neighbour’s cat also came by for a visit. He used to be the best friend of our old cat who died last winter and it’s always nice to see him around.

His colour even reminds us of our old cat, so occasionally, for a moment, our hearts will skip a beat when we see neighbour cat in our garden. Alas, it never is our old Effoh but neighbour cat has a special place in our hearts because he and Effoh used to be good friends…

Now the evening is here and Mr E and I are still in our garden (it’s after 9 pm). It’s gotten a little chillier so we are wearing sweaters now, but it’s still light out and nice and peaceful…

The house is still a friggin’ mess (we had initially planned a cleaning day today) but we can’t be too bothered by that after the lovely day we had today. We must make the most of good days while we can, mustn’t we?

Meet cute Monday #16

On By EstherIn Actors, At the movies2 Comments

On May 20th it was James Stewart’s birthday. I rediscovered him a few years ago and was reminded of how good he really was. So, in honour of Jimmy’s 115th birthday (two days late), this week’s meet cute is dedicated to him.

I picked what has now become one of his most famous movies, usually shown around Christmas, but really, it’s good all year round: It’s a Wonderful Life from 1946. For those of you who have ever watched a Hallmark Christmas movie, you’ll know that this is cited in almost every one of them as a favourite Christmas movie.

Jimmy Stewart had just been through a war when he filmed this, he’d been a WWII fighter pilot with the RAF, and I think this life experience gave him more gravitas than he ever had before. The story is about the desperately frustrated small town businessman George Bailey (James Stewart), disheartened with his ‘small’ life, despite deeply loving his wife Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) and his kids. His breaking point comes when his little business is threatening to go under and he considers jumping off a bridge. He is rescued by an angel who shows him what the town and people would have been like if he had never existed.

Here’s the scene at the beginning of the movie where George re-meets Mary. They knew each other as kids but now meet as adults for the first time…

I know it’s a cliché to like this movie, but I really do and Jimmy is excellent in it. It beats any Hallmark Christmas movie, hands down.

Meet cute Monday #15

On By EstherIn TV & media1 Comment

I was flipping through channels this past weekend and came across an episode of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I love Miss Fisher and made some fan videos for the show a few years ago. I even helped crowdfund the final Miss Fisher film a few years ago.

So, when I came across that Miss Fisher episode today, I figured it would be lovely to post the meet cute between lady sleuth Phryne Fisher (Essie Davis) and Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page) at a crime scene in 1920s Melbourne…

This show is so much fun! It may be time for a re-visit.