The Merry Widow, Cat and the Fiddle and Let Freedom Ring on DVD!
Three new films are being released on DVD: The Merry Widow, The Cat and the Fiddle and Let Freedom Ring.
They are available for pre-order at a special price at MoviesUnlimited.com.
Calling all fans in Brisbane – see Nelson Eddy’s “New Moon” coat!
Now until April 2013, you can see a wonderful collection of Hollywood costumes worn in classic films by legends like Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, Barbra Streisand…and Nelson Eddy! The exhibit is called All Dressed Up: From Broadway to Hollywood at the Tony Gould Gallery.
Pictured here is Nelson Eddy’s coat from New Moon.
For more information about the exhibit, click here.
And a good closeup of the coat here.
A short video about the exhibit here.
Thanks to Chris Herden for alerting us to this.
Gene Raymond – Buddy Rogers affair mentioned in Loretta Young biography!
Missed this book when it first came out, but interesting to see the author’s comments regarding Jeanette MacDonald’s husband Gene Raymond, who co-starred with Loretta Young in 1933’s Zoo in Budapest.
Here’s an excerpt:
In November, 1932, Jesse Lasky announced his intention to become an independent producer at the Fox Film Corporation, with Zoo in Budapest and Berkeley Square as his first productions….[Gene] Raymond gave a bravura performance as Zanni, and animal trainer….For those who only know Raymond as Jeanette MacDonald’s husband, his Zanni is a revelation. It is a strikingly athletic performance, requiring Raymond to jump over partitions, and in the terrifying climax, to hop on the back of an elephant with a young boy he has rescued. He must then grab on to a rope to hoist the boy and himself to safety…Loretta had relatively little to do in the film. The real stars were Raymond and director Rowland V. Lee, who kept a fragile script form splintering. Raymond fancied himself the successor to Douglas Fairbanks; however, it was Errol Flynn and then Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who buckled the swash and wielded a mean rapier. Still, Raymond’s performance was admirable. He did not need a double; like Burt Lancaster, he did his own climbing and swinging, in addition to exuding the kind of machismo that won over audiences. Raymond was probably one of the leading men Loretta developed a crush on, not knowing at the time that he was bisexual, more homosexually than heterosexually inclined. In fact, when he married Jeanette MacDonald in 1937, she was still in love with Nelson Eddy, her first and only love. Raymond’s lover at the time was Mary Pickford’s husband, Buddy Rogers….But at the time Zoo in Budapest was filmed, Raymond had not met MacDonald, and only a few kindred spirits knew his sexual preferences. As for Loretta, the crush ended when the shoot was over, and then it was on to another leading man and another crush.
The biography is available both in hardback and Kindle edition. You can order it/download it from Amazon.com here.
Thanks to Margo Slaughter for alerting me to this!
Jeanette and Nelson TCM schedule Feb-March 2013
It’s slim pickings for Jeanette and Nelson the next couple of months on Turner Classic Movies…but here’s the schedule:
Tuesday, February 19, 12 midnight eastern (that means midnight of Wednesday the 20th, or 9 PM Tuesday the 19th on the West Coast), The Love Parade
Thursday March 7, 10:15 PM, Love Me Tonight
Saturday March 9, 6 AM, Naughty Marietta
Thursday March 21, 5:45 PM, Cairo (Don’t forget that Nelson has a “cameo” in this – in the scene in which Jeanette, Ethel Waters and Robert Young are talking in a movie theater lobby, a large picture of Nelson Eddy is on hanging on the wall!)
Enjoy!
Watch the Technicolor Finale of Jeanette MacDonald’s 1930 film, “The Lottery Bride”
Back in the early 1970s, I was fortunate enough to see a complete print of this black-and-white movie with the color finale intact. Since then, only the black-and-white version has been available. Another print with tinted scenes and the color sequence was located a years ago and has been restored. I’m glad to see that this final sequence is available to view so we can see again how lovely Jeanette photographed in color.
Historical note: Jeanette MacDonald had only been in movies for one year but after this United Artists project hoped to start branching out as an independent producer. This was a novel and bold idea for a woman, particularly in 1930. The project seemed to have a lot going for it: Arthur Hammerstein (uncle of Oscar II) produced, Herbert Stothart wrote the story while his Rose Marie co-author Rudolf Friml wrote the score. Jeanette’s co-star John Garrick didn’t impress but baritone Robert Chisholm sang well. Comic actors included Joe E. Brown and Zasu Pitts. Why didn’t this film really come together? Because the script was so stagy, the acting hokey plus the sets looked cheap. The film’s pace was deadly slow and crippled by the novelty and restrictions of sound films – then only a year old. Jeanette was forced to drop (at least for the time being) her dream to play a more active role in movies than just acting. She considered she’d had two 1930 flops – both Technicolor – The Vagabond King and The Lottery Bride. She next moved to Fox to try her hand at straight acting – making 3 films with little or no singing – and when they didn’t pan out as she’d hoped she left Hollywood altogether and went to Europe where she triumphed with a concert tour. Afterwards she swallowed her pride and returned to Paramount in 1932 to recreate her original success with Ernst Lubitsch and Maurice Chevalier. In regards to billing she would still play second fiddle to Chevalier but at least her final two films for Paramount were big hits.
Here, then, is the color finale from The Lottery Bride. (Thanks to Darryl Winston for letting me know this was available.)