"This wig weighs a ton"

Editor's Note: We're celebrating Marie Antoinette at the movies each afternoon for a week

Gee this wig weighs a ton.

Singin' in the Rain is, of course, a beloved movie about our beloved movies. There's lots of broad goofing on Hollywood history for movie buff amusement. But sometimes the gentle ribbing is actually pointed jabs. When Lina Lamont enters the shot above to shoot The Dueling Cavaliers the joke is bigger than her constant whining...

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Debuts on this Day: Psycho, Spider-Man, Flatliners, Stardust

On this day in history at it relates to showbiz...

The Director and I

1787 Mozart competes his chamber piece "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" which has shown up in dozens of films over the years, many of which are classics. Here is but a small sampling of films that have used it in the past 40 years or so: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Alien, Sophie's Choice, The Bride, Hope & Glory, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, GI Jane, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Milk, and April and the Extraordinary World.
1896 Oscar nominated director Walter Lang (The King and I, 1956) is born
1897 Jack Haley is born. Enters screen immortality when he gets the part of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz when Buddy Ebsen has a terrible allergic reaction to the makeup...

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Norma?

So should we wish Norma Shearer a happy 114th in heaven or not? 

As I was prepping an "on this day..." post I discovered that the internet does not agree on the birth date of The First Lady of MGM, Norma Shearer. TCM and IMDb say August 10th while Biography and Wikipedia say August 11th. Biography goes one further and even says there's disagreement on the year with 1900, 1902, and 1904 all cited which is perhaps why the Encyclopeida Brittanica doesn't give her a birthdate, just a month. Didn't Canada keep records at the turn of the century? 

Nobody agrees on anything about Norma, including her Best Actress win for The Divorcée (1930) which I was alarmed to realize some time ago is not always held in high regard despite her being utterly fabulous in the movie.  Gotta love those Pre-Code movies. We should probably do a mini-series on them at some point.

Whatever her actual birthday, TFE often feels festive about her. Three cheers to Norma this morning (your Old Hollywood fix since Judy by the Numbers, our beloved Wednesday morning pick me up, is delayed for the time being).

Jennifer Lawrence & The Race to Break Oscar Records

Nine year-old Jacob Tremblay (Room), fourteen year-old Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation), and 21 year-old Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) are the youngest actors who appear to be in the mix for possible Oscar nominations this year. But none of them will be breaking any records if they are as younger actors have been nominated in their categories. It's actually Jennifer Lawrence, an old lady at 25 (Kidding, but she sure does like playing older women) who is the one to watch for trivia's sake. She is likely to break a record that is currently held by another Jennifer. 

Jennifer in Duel in the Sun (1946) / Jennifer in Joy (2015)

Do you think Jennifer Lawrence will take Jennifer Jones Oscar record?

Duh! JLaw will be gunning for Bette/Katharine/Meryl records

Yes. JLaw will get another Oscar and a few more nods.

We'll see. Enjoy it while it lasts Jennifer.

No. This JLaw obsession must stop!

Poll Maker

Should Lawrence be nominated for Joy (talk about the new trailer here), she will have amassed an incredible four acting nominations by the age of 25. I assumed that record was held by Elizabeth Taylor but the record is actually held by one of the more forgotten superstars of the 1940s, Jennifer Jones.

A HUGE TRIVIA LIST AFTER THE JUMP...

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Beauty vs Beast: Who's The Poo

Jason from MNPP here... wait, that's not much of an introduction. I should do better. Ahem. One, two, three -- I'm sexy, I'm cute, I'm popular to boot. I'm bitchin', great hair, the boys all love to stare... I'm major, I roar, I swear I'm not a whore! ROLL CALL. It's "B-b-b-Beauty vs B-b-b-Beast" time and seeing as how tomorrow marks the 15th anniversary of the little cheerleading-movie-that-could called Bring It On I figured we'd slip into our team-colors and take sides on the greatest Cheer-Off of our times.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we celebrated the anniversary of Norma Shearer and with a wade into George Cukor's The Women -- Joan Crawford's trampy shopgirl pulled out in front early on, and while the lead narrowed with time it just wasn't Norma's time; Crawford dug her heel into 53% of the vote. Said Someone:

"To those of you not voting for Crystal, as she herself would say, "There's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society... outside of a kennel. So long, ladies!""