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Friday 27 July 2012

High Society


I AM WATCHING High Society. I wasn't well enough to watch it yesterday, so it spent all night on pause. Somehow I have managed to lose my DVD remote control. Being as the player cost only £17 and has its foibles, I might as well get a new machine as pay £10 for a new remote.

I was in a strange mood yesterday. The type of mood where the thud of doors, the clatter of pans, forms words, so that inanimate objects speak to me. They never say anything particularly interesting, by the way, apart from the odd obscenity. So much for quetiapine 300mg. All it does is make my mouth as dry as the bottom of a birdcage.

Oh by the way that film has just finished while I was writing and I still don't know who ends up marrying whom. The picture quality was absolutely amazing. And the colours. How come 1950s films had such brilliant colour? Is it to do with the Technicolor process?

By the way, I notice by reading the DVD cover that Ted Turner owns the rights. The only truly successful bipolar person I can think of. He bought the entire back catalogue of MGM Pictures for $1.5 billion in the 80s. Exactly what I would have done, if only I'd had the money.

Grace Kelly was like a more glamorous Audrey Hepburn. She's the only woman I can think of who managed to get drunk on screen in a ladylike way. No wonder she became a princess.

Apart from Fank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong and Grace Kelly, the best thing about this film is the Technicolor interiors. If you get bored of the dialogue you can always just gaze at the background.

By the way I bet Louis Armstrong got paid less than the white actors. Racist bastards. Hey I'm jut watching the extra features. Did you know High Society cost $2.7 million to make in 1956. That's a lot of money. (It grossed $12 million later that year.)

And I'm still in a funny mood...


 
 

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HERE are the two stand-out numbers from the movie. If you get bored of the songs, just bathe in those brilliant collours...

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE
FRANK SINATRA and CELESTE HOLM



TRUE LOVE
BING CROSBY and GRACE KELLY

15 comments:

Bev said...

Frank Sinatra oh boy what a guy.I never seen High Society.Whose your all time favoirte glamour girl,Grace,Audrey?I loooove Marilyn Monroe.I can relate more to her cause she had a horrible childhood and a mentaly ill mom.And the only one she can really trust to get her out of the usylum is her ex hubby joe Dimagio.Poor Marilyn at least she had 1 person she can trust.

Gledwood said...

Marylin Monroe, definitely.

Only my local record shop, where I get most of the DVDs from never has her films, let alone any box sets. EEJUTS. They don't even have Madonna videos on DVD, which is ridiculous. I had to get Michael Jackson instead!! (None of the younger generation of pop stars are superior enough to warrant my attention...)

Bev said...

Im not crazy about the younger music niether.I dont like all the jumping around or rap.I miss Michael Jackson badly.He had all the original ideas for songs and dancing.I dont know how 1 man can invent so much!The way Marilyn died and the way Dorothy Killgallen died.It cant all be a co incidents.I hope there all in peace now.

Gledwood said...

Who's Dorothy Kigallen..?

Anonymous said...

Gledwood,
Thanks for finding me earlier on today... I've been on Blogger in the past, but can't seem to be able to follow you... Do they screen the WordPress folks?
Le Clown

Akelamalu said...

Grace Kelly was a true star!

Gledwood said...

ClownOnFire: you should be able to follow me through Blogger if Wordpress won't do it...

Akelamalu: righton!

Bev said...

Gledwood Im glad you asked me.Kilgallen was the only reporter to interview to interview Jack Ruby all the guys in the Kennedy asasination. She knew to much just like Marilyn and died as mysteriously as Marilyn.Marilyn and Dorothy to close to the Kennedys both died strangly .Marilyn had no drugs found in stomache and is belived to have been murdered not suicide althouh she did have prior suicide history.From what I read Sinatra was involved in Marilyns death.He even pimped her off to friends thats why Joe Dimaggio never spoke to him again.

Gledwood said...

Re Dorothy Kigallen:~~~~~~~~ Bloody hell!
So what WAS the Kennedy conspiracy about then? I don't get it..?? He and she must have seriously been treading on somebody's toes... but whose toes and in what way and Why?..Why?..Why???

I read a Sinatra biog. and though he did hang out with kingpins in the Maf, like the lousy Sam Giancana, who sounded like a truly nasty individual, nobody in the Mob actually trusted him, saying he had a big mouth on him. And obviously he attracted probably deeply unwanted publicity... true gangsters never want to be "known"... it's only Big Kids like East London's old Kray Twins ~~Ronnie and Reggie~~ who seemed more interested in the image of being a gangster than the actual reality... know what I mean?

Bev said...

Yes.You mean that Frank liked the image more then being a mobster.He gave gorgous gifts to mob friends.He treated Marilyn rotten pimping her off on the Kennedy bros and actors.He was pissed by 1 of her suicide atempts but why didnt he help her?He was down and out a lots himself.And him and Magio got nabed for raiding an apartment they thouht she was having an affair with another woman in but it was the wrong place.Which Frank book did you read?I read 2 1 by his dauhter which gives a nice pix of him an the other by Kitty Kelly who gives both sides of him.

Gledwood said...

Frank Sinatra was down and out..? How so???

Gledwood said...

Bev, I can't remember exactly which biog I read, but J Randy Taraborelli rings a bell.

Taraborelli's Michael Jackson book is excellent by the way, but annoyingly they've cut loads of the old stuff out to make room for detailed investigation into the sex abuse cases. Eg his appearance at the Oscars with Madonna which got 2 pages before isn't even mentioned. Captain Eo isn't even mentioned. The ET Storybook isn't even mentioned. Annoying stuff like that and I'm not even a full-on fan but I noticed... know what I mean.

PS I read a biog of that Kennedy Onassis woman Jackie. WHY the fascination with someone so uptight and boring? The ONLY good bit in there is the section on Aristotle Onassis ~ and why he married her in preference to Maria Callas I'll never know. I SO wished the book could have been 100% about him, it would have been a million times more interesting...

Bev said...

I never read books about Jaquie.I never can hear her or understand what she talked about the voice is to soft.Frank was very down loosing Ava Gardner and cut his wrists and his pals took care of him but he had no symphony when Marilyn did it.Did you know in Marilyns will she wanted most of it to go to a place in London for way word girls but I dont know if it got there or not?

Bev said...

Where did my message go?Marilyn left lots of her will to London where you are?to a place for way word girls but I dont know if it got there or not.Strasbergs where left to carry out her plans but it seems like they kept it so far.Oh Kilgallen wrote that Marilyn was in an affair and hinted to the Kennedy bros and the very next day Dorothy was found dead.To co incindentals right?

Gledwood said...

Marilyn didn't have much money. I heard she was earning a TENTH the salary/bonuses that Elizabeth Taylor did... Also did you see her house? It was TINY, like a bungalow or chalet. Nothing at all like you'd expect of a movie star's house...

The message went into my comments for moderation because this post is more than 3 days old. If I don't moderate them then I never know if someone has commented on anything from the past & it looks like I'm ignoring it and I'm not, I just don't know it's there. The last 3 days worth I just keep on checking and checking so I know if a comment is new.

No I never heard about the home for wayward girls... why London though?

The book I read on Marilyn was titled Godess by Anthony Summers (I just googled it).

I can't remember if it was that one or another, but they uncritically mentioned eg that she ended up staying with her psychiatrist full-time as a houseguest... I mean how many other patients get this treatment. Then I read another much better book (maybe by Donald Spoto) that picks this up that it is seriously WEIRD for a patient to live with their doctor!

A ridiculous documentary I saw on TV alleged Marilyn was Bipolar! The girl was a barbiturate addict. Of course she had moodswings. If she had been bipolar it would have been really marked, everyone would have known (you cannot keep mania a secret, it is probably thee most obvious of all psychiatric states). Even if people hadn't clocked she was manic they would have thought her on cocaine or something like that. So no I don't think she was at all bipolar. She seemed to have nasty depression a lot of the time. Being an actress she was v good at putting on a brave face, however.

Re her murder I haven't a clue what the truth is. They say it was murder because the barbiturate overdose seemed to have been administered by enema, which just isn't the way you'd try and do it to top yourself. People tend to take the easiest possible way out when they are seriously down. Severe depression can actually stop a person committing suicide because they lack energy, concentration and volition to go through with it, no matter how much they want to die. But failing any other evidence I suppose I do believe she topped herself. How very sad. She was only about 36 and was young enough that she might even still be alive TODAY. It's very sad.

I was looking for a Marilyn Monroe DVD box set and have never seen one. Why on earth they don't make one I have no idea I LOVE her films. I love all good films of the Technicolor (1940s, 1950s, some 1960s) era.

I just googled Dorothy Kigallen. She had a 5-storey brownstone? Lucky cow! I'd love a house like that.