Film Festival: Cruise Ship Romance Shall We Dance (1937) is the seventh pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This time he is the star of a Russian ballet troupe and Ginger is the famous tap and jazz dancer he admires. Traveling on a cruise ship is a huge piece of the plot. I’ve always…
1937
Stella Dallas ever-giving mom: Lisa’s Home Bijou
Film Festival: Three Hankies In the 1937 version of Stella Dallas, Barbara Stanwyck turns in an Academy award-nominated performance as a devoted mother. Get out those handkerchiefs! The tearjerker has long been a staple of storytelling in the 20th century, with novelists such as Olive Higgins Prouty, Lloyd C. Douglas and Fannie Hurst combining elements…
That Certain Woman Bette Davis: Lisa’s Home Bijou
Film Festival: Three Hankies THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE of members of Bugs Moran’s gang is one of the most notorious events in Chicago’s gangland history. As That Certain Woman, Bette Davis has to overcome her past as the widow of one of the massacre victims. Trying to become a respectable lady living down her…