The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
• /Film Exciting project alert: Viola Davis will headline 19th century drama The Woman King from Old Guard director Gina Prince Blythewood • Deadline Paul Thomas Anderson's 1970s high school drama is shifting studios from Focus to MGM
More after the jump including Hamilton, Nine Perfect Strangers, a streaming stage recommendation, a reboot of the Chevy Chase franchise Fletch, and that 10 most watched Netflix list
Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...
Sometimes, surprises happen. And sometimes those surprises are planted. I'm referring in this case to both the reappearance of Episode 9 on this series, and the "unplanned" appearance of Ethel Merman on the already-iconic show guest-starring Barbra Streisand. Though Merman's big reveal was first suggested as a way to placate both the surprise guest and her not-so-gracious host. Judy may have originally balked at the idea of her Tea for Two guest skipping the tea for some titanic trilling, but when the producers roped Barbra into the skit as well, it went from a battle of egos to a mammoth moment in musical history.
The Show: The Judy Garland Show Episode 9 The Songwriters: Various, arranged by Mel Torme The Cast: Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, The Smothers Brothers, surprise guest Ethel Merman directed by Norman Jewison
The Story: So, here's the thing. I've never been a great lover of Ethel Merman. I understand her importance in the musical canon, and some of the shows written for her rank in my Top 5 Favorite Musicals, but the Hostess with the Mostest tends to leave me cold. But even I am swayed by the sheer power of seeing the three greatest American Belting Broads belting out a song together. It's not even a passing of the torch as the Judy/Liza sketch had been. Instead, this feels very much like three old pros - well, two old pros and one new pro - sizing each other up, celebrating what they see, and cooperating. Though Merman would return later for a proper guest spot, nothing would capture the weird wonder of this trio scene. It's improvised, it's lively, and it's unlike anything else on The Judy Garland Show.
Because we're having fun with this little feature we'll continue. On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1881 Ahead of her time Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross. She doesn't get a biopic because Hollywood is only interested in "Great Man" biopics 1916 Happy Centennial to author Harold Robbins who penned 25 best-sellers some of which became famous movies like The Carpetbaggers (1964), the Elvis flick King Creole (1958), and the notorious Pia Zadora Razzie winner The Lonely Lady (1983)
Rope (1949) and Swoon (1992) - two great movies inspired by the Leopold & Loeb case
1924 Chicago college students Leopold & Loeb murder a teenage boy in a "thrill killing." Their crime inspires the story of the gay deviants in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1949), the Cannes Best Actor winning Compulsion (1958) and is recreated in the New Queer Cinema classic Swoon (1992) 1926 Kay Kendall of Les Girls (1957) fame is born 1952 Two time Oscar nominee John Garfield (best known for The Postman Always Rings Twice and Gentlemen's Agreement though those were not his nominated films) dies unexpectedly at the age of 39. The stress from the blacklist and Communist witch hunts (he'd refused to name names) were said to cause his heart attack. 1959Gypsy opens on Broadway starring Ethel Merman. Mama Rose becomes the defining female role of musical theater, as Hamlet is to male drama thespians. Dozens of divas play her thereafter on stage, tv, and film. The best of them is Imelda Staunton, no joke.
1960 Jeffrey Dahmer is born in Wisconsin. Becomes an infamous gay serial killer in the early 90s just in time for America's obsession with serial killers to go truly perverse and mainstream. Within a decade or two they're the heroes on television shows for f***'s sake (This has always bothered me about showbiz - assassins and serial killers are professions as popular as being a doctor or a waitress.) Jeremy Renner plays Dahmer in the eponymous movie which yours truly has never seen. Have you? the general critical consensus is that Renner was very very good in it. But nobody was annoyed by his total franchise sellout-ness back then because it hadn't happened yet.
1970 FINALLY some role-model gayness for May 22nd, redeeming the day from infamy. Harvey Milk picks up Scott Smith in a subway station as a 40th birthday present to himself, as lovingly reenacted by Sean Penn & James Franco in Milk (2008) 1974 Fairuza Balk is born. As soon as she can speak she calls the four corners to insure that no other actresses gets her signature role in The Craft years 22 years later. 1979 "White Night Riots" in San Francisco because the gays are rightfully furious about the "manslaughter" conviction in the assassination of Harvey Milk 1980Star War: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) released in theaters. It's still the best one.
1992 Johnny Carson welcomes his last guest on "The Tonight Show," Bette Midler, after 30 seasons on air. She wins the Outstanding Individual Performance Emmy for this performance. Two years later she is nominated for Gypsy and loses. 1999 Susan Lucci spoils her fame-boosting status as the ultimate awards show loser by winning on her 19th consecutive Daytime Emmy nomination
After Ellen "Return of the Lesbian Villain" /Film Sharon Stone does Mrs Robinson at The Graduate live-read KCRW Tilda Swinton guest DJ special. She's a fan of Marilyn Manson, Björk & Bowie. We could have guessed as much! Vanity Fair Daniel Radcliffe does the Proust Questionnaire
What is your greatest regret? I’m 24! I think it’s a little early for all that
Pajiba Cameron Diaz vs Kiki Dunst in the battle of the vapid remarks AV Club Tony Kushner working on another Steven Spielberg project The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. Sounds intriguing but anything that keeps Tony away from writing that Viola Davis as a politician movie is a problem for me Judgmental Maps NYC by stereotype Variety a new memoir on Ethel Merman. When is she getting a biopic for chrissakes? i09 Why were there so many giant insect movies in the 1950s? /Film on potential superhero crossover movies. Only when the mega-corporations are out of ideas/money
Today's Watch The Normal Heart trailer. Will this be yet another TV movie that we have to wonder how it would have fared at the Oscars had it been released theatrically? At the very least the doctor role would've resulted in a nomination no matter who played it. That's the part once slated for Barbra Streisand decades ago with Julia Roberts taking over for Ellen Barkin who won the Tony on Broadway (why wasn't she asked to reprise it given her connections to Ryan Murphy?) so expect Julia at least to be up for the Emmy.
Exit Question: Is it just me or does the type here inadvertently imply or perhaps subliminally predict that Matt Bomer and Taylor Kitsch will one day be Oscar nominated actors?
Saturday, July 18, 2020 at 8:16PM 
