Mickey Rooney Week: Girl Crazy

Welcome back kiddies to Day 4 of Mickey Rooney Week.  As you already know. Mr. Rooney could do physical comedy, deep seeded drama and had a rather impressive pace of dialogue but, did you know he could sing and dance too?  NOoOoOOo???   Well, shame on the load of you.  Ahem, this particular flick is a musical that showcases both Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland's comedy, song and dance numbers featured by none other than Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.  This is Girl Crazy.

HelloooOoOoO Debutante!!

Ginger Gray: Were you always out of your spoiler?
Danny Churchill, Jr. : No, no just lately.





Our story begins with disappointed father Danny Churchill, Sr. (Henry O' Neill of The Life of Emile Zola, Jezebel, Santa Fe Train and Anchors Aweigh) reading the latest headlines about his scandalous playboy son Danny Churchill, Jr. (Mickey Rooney of Mickey's Big Broadcast, The Big Chance, Broadway to Hollywood, Beloved, I Like It That Way, Hide-Out and Reckless) gadding it up on Broadway and how it makes him look.  With the lad's head filled with fun and girls, Senior decides to ship Danny off to a college away from the hustle and bustle distractions of New York and to a remote mining town in the desert called Cody. This way there are no girls to distract him and he can knuckle down on his studies.  Careful Dad, he could be a liberal arts major just to spite you.

Silly hobo!  Never get in front of Judy's ride!

His bus drops him out in the desert and Danny is forced to walk no less than 8 miles to his impeding doom and/or college.  He bumps into a dish with car trouble by the name of Ginger (Judy Garland of Everybody Sing, The Wizard of Oz, Babes in Arms, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Strike Up the Band, Meet Me in St. Louis and A Star is Born) who is aware of Danny's reputation via newspaper and brushes him off after he tends to her engine.  Danny thoroughly exhausted makes his way to the dorm and meets his roommate Bud (Gil Stratton of Dangerous Years, Tuscon, Hot Rod, Army Bound, Waldo, Stalag 17 and Dismembered) who explains the rigorous scholastic Danny is to endure.

After some horseback riding all day to a wilderness camp, Danny is probably cursing God, his father and all that is mouth breathers when he runs into a former NYC hack driver Rags (Rags Ragland of Born to Sing, Sunday Punch, Whistling in Dixie, 3 Men in White and Meet the People) who tries to assist our poor tenderfoot East Coaster.

Tempted to leave, Danny preps to go home when he realizes that Ginger is the girl to end all girls.  The one if you will and decides he will buckle down, pass his classes and woo this dame with all his might can muster.   Ginger seemingly impressed will see if Danny can be true to his boasts and gives him the benefit of the doubt.

I had just a bit of trivia about the flick now.  Being this is an MGM musical, composer  George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess) wrote I Got Rhythm for the play Crazy For You which has had covers by Ethel Waters, Charlie Parker's saxophone and even Ella Fitzgerald's pipes has made its way into cinema and the small screen for decades to come.
The play Girl Crazy was performed by Ginger Rogers and Allen Kearns and included Ethel Merman singing "I Got Rhythm" as her very first Broadway production.

Little lady, my dog seems to have wandered to that cheap hotel across the way. Accompany me?

Mickey Rooney Week: Quicksand

Hey there all and greetings to Day 3 of Mickey Rooney Week.  Y'know for a change I think we will review a Mickey Rooney movie where he has lead role and would be his first time challenging his goody two shoes persona he had been known for.   Hows-about a story where a lad gets in over his head with debt, criminals and the law and all for a shallow girl?   Sounds like quite the caper I agree, but I think I can sweeten the pot with a Peter Lorre sighting as well.  Did I mention it is film noir?   This is Quicksand.

Jeepers, boobies!

Daniel 'Dan' Brady: I feel like I'm bein' shoved into a spoiler, and if I don't get out soon, it'll be too late. Maybe it's too late already!



How much trouble can one guy get into? Oh brother you got no clue at all.    A struggling auto mechanic Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney of The Black Stallion, Donovan's Kid, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, Arabian Adventure and One of the Boys) just bragged to his co-worker about dropping his squeaky clean girlfriend as he goes ga ga for an obvious femme fatale Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney of Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Time of Your Life, Don't Bother to Knock,  A Lion Is in the Streets and Town Tamer) who wants to be adored and fawned after.  Dan strapped for cash boosts 20 clams from the till because he can just get the money back from his buddy who he hasn't ran into yet.

Whudda mean no Laser Tag??!!! Gyp!

That night on the Santa Monica pier Vera and Dan have a swell time in spite of her old boss of the penny arcade Nick (Peter Lorre of M, The Maltese Falcon, My Favorite Brunette and Arsenic and Old Lace) but sorry fellas no action shown in this 50's film so fade to black.   Dan never runs into Chuck to get his funds and finds out the shop's book keeper arrived two days earlier than expected so Dan hatches a brillant scheme that he will buy an expensive watch and pawn it for the money he could get from it then sneaks the scratch into the till.  That is a minor felony but hey no worries, he is bound to get into crazier circumstances.

 A day later Dan forgot he put the auto shop down as his work address and an investigator for the store tells Dan he has 24 hours to pay the money to avoid grand larceny charges.  Dan also seem to space the concept of serial numbers.    On a binder at the local bar, Dan spots the local bingo caller Shorty, clearly tanked and a wallet full of cash.   Dan gets Shorty (heh) and swipes the cash.  He runs into Vera and Nick squabbling and Dan gives him a licking but leaves his handkerchief behind.  The same one he used in the robbery.
Nick meets with Dan about the robbery and demands a car for himself or this goes to the cops, see?  Without no choice in sight, Dan swipes a car off the lot only to be spotted by his sleazebag boss who in turn blackmails the lad for the marked up price of the car or this goes to the cops.   Anyone seeing a pattern with the people Dan interacts with?

I had just a few comments about the film.  This role was meat and potatoes for Rooney allowing him to step out of the goody goody image and gives an amazing performance.  Sadly the ladies Cagney and Barbara Bates don't have anything new to the table and didn't grant the same moral quagmire that Rooney and Lorre's executions on screen.  The dolls of the flick got the typical good girl and bad girl bird cage with no wiggle room in between.   I have to say while there was a fair amount of product placement in the film, for the most part it was low key and most of this film was shot on Santa Monica with almost all exterior scenes on the old pier.  Low cost, great pace and spectacular showmanship is all these ingredients found in Quicksand.  Well at least the film that is.

Don't forget tomorrow, yer givin' me a sponge bath.

Mickey Rooney Week: Captain Courageous

Hiya kids and welcome back for Day 2 of Mickey Rooney Week.  I thought I would bring us back a bit yet again.  Very few actors have a career spanning more than 7 decades worth.  From child star of the silent films to voice work for The Fox and the Hound, Rooney has been in this racket for more years than few could survive.  How about a sea faring adventure?  Let's take a spoiled near-do-well and see if he can stay afloat. from the pages of acclaimed novelist Ruyard Kipling (The Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King, Baa Baa Black Shep and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) This is Captain Courageous.

The good news boy, is we aren't cannibals.

Manuel Fidello: Wake up, Little Spoiler. Hey, wake up, wake up!  Somebody think you dead, they have celebrations.



This is the story of Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew of Anna Karenina, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Lloyd's of London and The Town Went Wild), a spoiled brat that only wants his absent father's attention and approval so clearly one should misbehave and get thrown out of private boarding school.  Yeah that trick always works.  Burton Cheyne(Melvyn Douglas of The Vampire Bat, Woman in the Dark, Ninotchka, This Thing Called Love, Hud, Being There and The Changeling) takes the lad on one of his business trips via steam ship.   In a fit of arrogance and misbehavior, Harvey falls overboard in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Saved and brought aboard the fishing vessel "We're Here" by Portuguese fisherman Manuel Fidello (Spencer Tracy of Dante's Inferno, Adam's Rib,  Judgment at Nuremberg, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner)  and takes him before Captain Disko (Lionel Barrymore of Brooding Eyes, The Temptress, Body and Soul, The Thirteenth Hour, You Can't Take It with You and Key Largo) who Harvey fails to convince has wealth and needs to get back to land.  Disko offers him a job to earn his wages back to mainland in 3 months.  Harvey quickly learns that his whining, conniving and temper tantrums will not get him his way and sets out to work for a living.

Not sure I like the title "Salty Dog".

He finds mentor ship in Manuel and a father figure that he never saw in his own father. Thankfully the Captain's son, Dan (Mickey Rooney of Killing Midnight, Boys Will Be Boys, The First of May, Chicken Soup for the Soul and Phantom of the Megaplex) is roughly his age and the two do have fun after work.
Will Harvey ever find his way back to his father and if so, would that life mean anything to him after the sweating and toiling of his new one?

Directed by Victor Fleming (Reckless, Test Pilot, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde and Joan of Arc) this story does a bit of is now the cliche' backdrop at sea, rocking boat via rear projection shots and the Schufftan process (lens shot through plate glass at a 45 degree angle to provide depth) with floor and seat movement followed up with matte paintings of the area the imagination is captured well enough that the cast is at high sea.

You see son, big money is in oil, steel and land.  Look at these figures.

Mickey Rooney Week : A Midsummer Night's Dream

Hello there readers and welcome to Day 1 of Mickey Rooney Week.  Due to some oral surgery of which I shan't get into on I was delayed yesterday but today it is all steam ahead.  I thought we would tackle something we could all be fascinated with.  William Shakespeare and his amazing plays.  They have been beloved down the centuries from live performances to radio plays and even the silver screen.  This time is no exception as we will be looking at one of the earliest cinema productions.  This is A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Yes?! I am wooing over here!

Puck: Lord, what spoilers these mortals be!








Left in the very capable hands of directors Max Reinhardt (Die Insel der Seligen, A Venetian Night) and William Dieterle (The Life of Emile Zola, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Daniel Webster and Portrait of Jennie) our two maestros gently bring us to the events of star crossed lovers and forbidden temptations worthy of Shakespeare's tale of unrequited love in all its variants.  Young Hermia (Olivia de Havilland of The Adventures of Robin Hood, Gone with the Wind, The Heiress, The Snake Pit, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Airport '77) is head over heels for Lysander (Dick Powell of Hollywood Hotel, Going Places, Christmas in July, In the Navy, Murder, My Sweet, Pitfall and Right Cross) who in turn loves Hermia but her father Egeus forbids that union and has chosen her another suitor Demetrius (Ross Alexander of Captain Blood, Here Comes Carter, Flirtation Walk and Ready, Willing and Able).  When she refuses, Egeus points to the law stating a daughter will  adhere to her father's demands or be put to death.  And you thought you had a strict upbringing.  Duke Theseus of Athens offers Hermia another choice of which she will live a life of celibacy as a nun to the goddess Diana.  

MY PRECIOUS!!!!

Meanwhile the Duke is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta (Verree Teasdale of The Firebird, The Milky Way, 5th Ave Girl, I Take This Woman, Turnabout and Come Live with Me) so he is swamped enough as it is when the fairy court makes an appearance.  Lord Oberon (Victor Jory of Cat-Women of the Moon, Gone with the Wind, Manhunt, The Miracle Worker and Papillon) and Queen Titania (Anita Louise of The Story of Louis Pasteur, Marie Antoinette, The Little Princess,  Retreat, Hell!, My Friend Flicka and Ethel Barrymore Theater) are at odds with one another and seek to put each other in one's place with love potions and wicked deeds and poor Puck (Mickey Rooney of National Velvet, Pinocchio, Baby Face Nelson, The Last Mile, The Big Operator, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Pete's Dragon) is stuck in the middle of this insanity just following orders.  Pulling pranks on Bottom (James Cagney of Angels with Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Blood on the Sun, White Heat, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and These Wilder Years) not withstanding of course.

Just a few notes on the film itself at this time.  Shot on 35 mm Spherical and recorded in Mono, this film's musical score hails from composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Captain Blood,  The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Between Two Worlds and Of Human Bondage) which truly breathes life into this production and sets the tone every time.   The dance choreography alone is astounding and Mickey took it seriously at age 15, providing an eternal child beholden to his king and queen.

NO, I AM NOT ANDY DICK!!!

Mickey Rooney Week

Hello readers of the bizarre, goofy and serious nature and welcome.  This week we take time to honor a Hollywood legend that has worked with the likes of Spencer Tracy, Anthony Quinn, James Cagney, Eva Gardner, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn and many others.  A man that bright us tears of laughter, dazzled us with song and dance numbers and could even emote drama to the likes I would not have thought him capable of.  This cinema giant was all of 5 foot 2 inches and yet he towered over his co-stars.   I speak of the late Mickey Rooney.

Gosh, Mr. Fields let me have one of his Ceegars!

From musicals to shorts to voice acting in cartoons; this man has done it all and was still working up to the day he passed on.  With his substantial baby-face affliction, he portrayed a wily teenager up to his late twenties.   With over 338 acting credits to his name, 7 productions and 4 directorates our Mr. Rooney did his level best to bring entertainment to the world, so it is only fitting and fair we give him a worthy send off with a few choice titles for the week.   Join me now for Mickey Rooney Week, because there will never be another of his like.