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Charlie Ruggles profile – Jeanette and Nelson mentioned

If you enjoy actor Charlie Ruggles you will enjoy this interesting biography about him:

Whether appearing in an elegantly crafted Ernst Lubitsch film such as Trouble in Paradise (1932) or Rouben Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight (1932) or Howard Hawks’ brilliant Bringing Up Baby (1938) or in a series of fourteen fitfully funny domestic comedies with Mary Boland (seen below at the right with Charlie), the actor delivered his neatly polished performances with a captivatingly casual air. His versatility as a supporting player lightened everything from a 1939 pastiche of a Russian musical in Balalaika with Nelson Eddy to an early ’60s sex farce with Sandra Dee, called I’d Rather Be Rich (1964)–all made more palatably entertaining by his honeyed voice and gentle presence. He was often asked to play put upon, hapless and occasionally beaten men, (a character that probably evoked a feeling of sympathy among struggling audiences in the ’30s). Yet there was invariably a remarkably consistent equanimity to his portrayals. Playing henpecked husbands, butlers, valets, rejected suitors, or occasionally lecherous fellows, he remained a man who hung onto his civilized identity–sometimes by a thread. Ruggles seemed to derive real pleasure from his portrayals of would-be lotharios the most; gently mocking the unprepossessing, not so rampant male of the species.

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Nelson Eddy remembered…still a Mountie!

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Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald may have made the Royal Canadian Mounties famous but the plaudits for the horsemen are fading away. The rigid standards that an aspiring recruit had to reach to become a Mountie once upon a time have long gone, sadly diminished by the many concessions made to meet recruitment goals.

In the writer’s opinion, this once elite force no longer ranks as such. Consider the shameful action of the Mounties at a major airport in 2007 when a poor, Polish immigrant, waiting in the International Arrival area for his mother, unable to speak English, confused and agitated after a long wait was tasered and jumped on by no less than 3-4 officers. He died.

And news reports about the recent atrocity that occured on a Greyhound Bus travelling in Western Canada indicates that a witness who sat next to the accused killer and was a friend of the victim, could only be later identifed by the Mounties as ” Stacey”.

And no, they didn’t know her name, address or where she was.

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Ft. Worth, Texas, August 16: Theater screening of Jeanette MacDonald in “The Love Parade”

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Still Moving: Classic Films from MoMA, Aug. 14–24 at Fort Worth’s Modern, draws upon the permanent collections of NYC’s Museum of Modern Art — a vital archive of more than 21,000 theatrical prints. MoMA established its film division in 1935 with a dedication to what MoMA founder Alfred Barr had called “the only great art form peculiar to the 20th century.”

In New York, MoMA’s Still Moving series is a weekly filmgoing attraction. The Fort Worth version will deploy 35-millimeter primary-source prints. The box-office tariff for each showing is $8.50 ($6.50 for members of the Modern).

The schedule follows:

• 7 p.m. Aug. 14: Frank Borzage’s Street Angel (1928) boasts an Oscar-winning performance from Janet Gaynor as a “good girl forced to go bad.?

• 6 p.m. Aug. 15: The Iron Mask, with Douglas Fairbanks, holds up stunningly well as an adaptation of Dumas? novel.

• 8 p.m. Aug. 15: John Wayne, at 23, stars in Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930), which will play in its original widescreen edition — a pioneering ancestor of Cinemascope, called the Grandeur process.

• 4 p.m. Aug. 16: Robert Flaherty’s Moana (1926) is a dramatized documentary filmed in Samoa.

• 5 p.m. Aug. 16: Ernst Lubitsch? The Love Parade (1932) provides a musical-screen début for Jeanette MacDonald.

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Auction for actress Ruth Roland’s diary includes Jeanette MacDonald, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard’s Autographs

Interesting live auction – Jeanette MacDonald is one of the celebrities who wrote in actress silent film actress Ruth Roland’s diary. Roland, along with Pearl White, was the queen of early film serials. She pretty much retired in 1925 (apparently made only 3 films after that) and died in 1937. Here’s some information about her diary:

http://community.livejournal.com/carole_and_co

and the auction itself is here:

http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=52933&item=260257431944

It’s a live Ebay auction that ends on Friday. No data as to whether Jeanette personalized her autograph. Bidding is at about $3000 as of today. It’ll be interesting to see what this diary brings!

Special microphone was built for the film “Naughty Marietta”

Earlier, microphones were known as transmitters. In 1878, Thomas Alva Edison made the first commercial microphone. It was a type of carbon microphone. Later, in Bell Laboratories in 1962, a new type of capacitor microphone was invented.

There were a number of microphones which have made their marks over the last few decades. Some of the names went on to create history but now they are a part of the vintage microphones.

-Altec model 647
-American model D76
-RCA KB-1A, MI-11000
-RCA KN-3A, MI-3045
-RCA carbon type 1
-RCA model BK-7, MI-11016
-Amperite model R80L
-Bruno labs RV-3
-General Electric or Westinghouse carbon or condenser microphones
-Remler, Turner, or Jenkins-Adair condenser microphones
-Western Electric carbon transmitter model 369
-Western Electric condenser housing model 9-A
-Turner model 51D
-Western Electric carbon transmitter model 273

The History & Development of Vintage Microphones

The early 1930s saw the movie industry trying out new technology to record musical scores. However, the range of microphones offered was low. In came the MGM Studios, in Culver City, CA, to try out the newly invented cardioid mic made by the Siemens Co, Germany. It was used to make “Naughty Marietta” with the likes of Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy.

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