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Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys winding up today our series on the show biz canteens of World War II. Since it was two of Warner Brothers’ biggest stars, Bette Davis and John Garfield (pictured above), who were the inspiration behind The Hollywood Canteen, it seemed only natural that that […]
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys here again to ponder what the Tinseltown version of a World War II “canteen” was like. Yesterday we told of the glories of the 1943 film “Stage Door Canteen — A Soldier’s Story,” and how it’s not to be missed by anyone who wants […]
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, back again with another meditation about the amazing show biz “canteens” of World War II. The 1943 film “Stage Door Canteen — A Soldier’s Story” not only provided entertainment for the troops and folks back home, but it captured some of the best entertainers […]
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys reflecting today on that singular show biz phenomenon of World War II — the “good war” — called the “Canteens.” In strictly military parlance, canteens were post exchanges where soldiers could buy refreshments and provisions at sharply discounted prices. The show biz canteens […]
If this photo (above) looks familiar, that’s because if you are a regular reader it is. It’s marvelous still from the 1943 musical comedy romance distributed by United Artists, “Stage Door Canteen.” We just had to share it with you again. There they are — a svelte, smiling Ethel Waters standing at the microphone in […]
We at Classic Movie Chat repeatedly make references to “the studio” as in “so-and-so studio head did this or that” or “so and so was under a studio contract” or “the studio system.” Well, what exactly was “the studio,” and how did it operate? And what did a studio look like? Hello, everybody. Joe Morella […]
Few Hollywood stars of any era have posthumously endured as long and as persistently as James Dean. Here we are more than a half century after the actor’s death (at the age of just 24), and his chiseled but oh, so vulnerable good looks still crop up regularly in photos, ads and images. People are […]
They Got an Oscar for THAT? Not really. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, reflecting on the Academy’s quirk of casting, in what in effect are, sympathy votes. And, please, enjoy today’s great photos of two stars at their physical peaks. Ain’t they gorgeous? In the history of Academy Awards there are […]
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, admiring the photo above. Once again we went to the vaults, and plucked a never-been-seen snapshot from The Donald Gordon Collection. That’s a young and casually dapper Donald to the left, and our mystery man in the center. And, please, don’t overlook that period […]
Hello Everybody. Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers with more on the Oscars and black actresses. (Mrs. Norman Maine is in the living room polishing her statuette.) In a perfect world, we shouldn’t really care about skin color when it comes to Academy […]