Sweet dreams are made of brie.

Bathing Beauty. George Sidney. 1944. ⚄

I continue my er blog series of “movies directed by people named George”. This time it’s Sidney.

George Sidney. His name isn’t really that familiar? Hm… Oh, he did Show Boat!

Anyway, this is from a box set of Esther Williams movies, and it’s called “Bathing Beauty”, so I’m assuming there’s going to be some swimming in here…

Heh heh… that’s a good start.

I recognise Red Skelton’s name, and he does look familiar… but looking at his IMDB, I don’t think I can have seen more than a couple of his movies. Like Ziegfeld Follies. But wasn’t everybody in that one?

[fifteen minutes pass]

Oh, this is the most delightfully contrived pieced of silliness I’ve seen in quite a while. Must have been exactly the right thing to show a depressed audience in 1944: Lots of skimpily clad young people, some nice tunes, and a totally nonsensical easy-on-the brain drama.

[an hour passes]

I’m still plenty amused. This reminds me of B-movies a decade earlier: The plot is just there to fill time between music numbers and vaudeville acts. But the musical numbers are filmed with such panache: It’s like watching a deranged MTV video director out of time… It’s not like Busby Berkeley where everything is meticulous and spectacular; instead it’s just these odd ideas vaguely strung together.

But the fun bits are fun and the musical bits are good, so while I think it totally succeeds on its own terms.

I mean… how could you not like repartee like “We do not waddle like a duck!” “That’s the only way I know how to waddle.”?

[the end]

THERE”S A FLAME THROWER IN THE SWIMMING POOL ENDING.

Man, that’s value for money.

Anyway, I laughed, I didn’t cry… it’s a perfect little nonsensical movie.

La chambre. Chantal Akerman. 1972. ⚄

Oh, right, this is a short. That explains why it ended so fast.

I’m really clever aren’t I?

Anyway, it’s a silent short, and it’s a camera swivelling around a room 360 degrees (for half of the short), and there’s a woman in the bed. Eating apples.

It’s oddly intriguing. Much of the interest comes from the captivatingly cluttered room itself, and the gorgeous colours…

Holiday. George Cukor. 1938. ⚄

We continue the “George” series with another Cukor movie…

… which also features Hepburn and Grant! Yay! The previous one was a bit of a disaster, but I have great hopes for this one.

Hm… so… preserved… but this DVD doesn’t look very good. It’s like they concentrated on restoring all the grain, so it looks like a swarm of bees is constantly flying in the background. Very badly done.

TSK, UCLA! TSK!!!

[two minutes pass]

Edward Everett Horton! Yay! The movie is saved!

[fifteen minutes pass]

Oh, this is delightful. Everybody’s on top form; repartee is flowing faster than should be possible. I can’t believe I haven’t seen this already — it seems like such a classic screwball comedy. Unless it goes awry or something.

[the end]

I really, really enjoyed watching this movie — it’s got scenes that are beyond delightful — but it’s not perfect. The main plot element here, where the Grant character is hot for one sister, but then it turns out the other sister is more fun (I’m slightly condensing here)… is a bit… icky? But everybody pretends not to notice?

And there’s also huge pacing problems. The first two thirds of this movie is just one amazing scene after another, but then everything gets bogged down in the third part. The drama is way more dramatic than it needs to be, really: We get where this movie is going, and the hand-wringing could have been cut down by at least ten minutes without any loss off cohesion.

Still! It’s fun. And the performances are everything.