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Day 4 of Carole & Co.'s Great Silent Recasting Blogathon.
Today: a silent take on one of my favorite guilty pleasures (although I don't feel even remotely guilty about it), Tom Selleck's High Road To China, a romantic adventure about a guy, a girl and an airplane. Here, I've re-imagined it as William Wellman's follow-up to the first Oscar-winning picture Wings, with return performances by two of that film's biggest stars, Clara Bow and Gary Cooper. Frankly, I don't know why Cooper and Bow didn't make another movie together except that the head of the studio, B.P. Schulberg, was something of an idiot.
With Ernest Torrence as "Struts," Sessue Hayakawa as Suleman Khan, Anna May Wong as Alessa and Gustav von Seyferrtitz as Bentik.
Credit where credit is due: the painting of Clara Bow is by Paul Petro, the one of Gary Cooper is by Toby Thane, and the Sopwith Camels are by Steve Heyen.
As always, click on the picture to see full size.
Day 3 of Carole & Co.'s Great Silent Recasting Blogathon.
Today: An Ernst Lubitsh pre-make of Woody Allen's 1994 film and current Broadway musical, Bullets over Broadway. Ronald Colman gets the John Cusack role as a talentless playwright, Gloria Swanson Dianne Wiest's Oscar-winning role as an over-the-hill Broadway diva, a young Jean Harlow plays the brainless gangster's moll, Louis Wolheim the gangster, George Bancroft the bodyguard with a hidden talent, Theodore Roberts the harried manager, Fay Wray the long-suffering wife. Also with Anna May Wong, Claude Allister and Zasu Pitts.
Tomorrow: Clara Bow and Gary Cooper.
Day 2 of Carole & Co.'s Great Silent Recasting Blogathon.
Today: Douglas Fairbanks, history's greatest swashbuckler as history's greatest swashbuckler, Indiana Jones.
Tomorrow: Ernst Lubitsch.
Carole & Co., the great site devoted to all things Carole Lombard, is hosting The Great Silent Recasting Blogathon, today through the 4th. The rules are simple enough:
[S]elect a film from 1965 onward ... then re-imagine it with silent-era actors and a director, as well as a studio and year of release. ... If an actor or actress appeared in a silent, even in bit parts, he or she is eligible as long as the fictional fllm is made at a time when he or she was actually working.
Four days, four posts—at least that's how we're playing it here at the Monkey. First up: Mary Pickford and Mary Pickford as mother and daughter in a silent era pre-make of the Disney classic Freaky Friday.
Tomorrow: Douglas Fairbanks.
I've been busy working on the Great American Novel lately, so very little blogging, but here are two blogathons upcoming in November I can't resist: the Great Silent Recasting Blogathon (November 1-4) hosted by Carole & Co.; and the What A Character Blogathon (November 9-11) hosted by Outspoken & Freckled, Paula's Cinema Club, and Once Upon a Screen. In honor of the former, I'll be serving up posters for four modern movies I'd like to have seen made during the silent era; for the latter, three days of lists pertaining to my favorite silent character actors.
A couple of teasers, the first a movie I didn't include in the blogathon, Lillian Gish in Carrie, the second, my favorite silent actor who was quite a character but not a character actor:
The painting of Lillian Gish is by Paul Lovering. I added the drop of blood. The latter is Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., of course.
See you in November.
"I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else."—Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn), Charade (1963)
From time to time, we here at the Monkey receive e-mails requesting that we (I) (there's just one of me) carry some particular advertisement, presumably in exchange for money or services. But the fact is, this is an ad-free blog. Not, mind you, because I believe art should be free (any more than I believe soup should be free), or because I don't believe in corporate America, man (I own s#!t-loads of stock in corporate America, man), but because (1) carrying ads would also, I assume, require me to carry content, which I am too lazy to do; (2) I'd feel obligated to make sure all the pictures I post are in the public domain, which I try to do anyway but don't always succeed (see: lazy); and (3) I'm lazy.
I'd reply with an e-mail saying as much, but I'm (4) anti-social and (5) lazy. So (6) don't take it personally.
As for all you faithful monks and monkettes hungry for that good Monkey writing, I'll have content for you in November. Probably.
The Metzinger Sisters over at Silver Scenes are hosting the Great Imaginary Film Blogathon this week, from October 1st to the 3rd. The rules are simple enough: imagine a movie you wish had been made and then blog about it.
Here's mine, a movie that not only has never been made, but I can practically guarantee you will never be made—Model Railroader Magazine: The Movie, directed and written by and starring the ultimate movie train guy, Buster Keaton:
If you're a regular reader of the Mythical Monkey, Keaton's connection to trains should require no explanation—The General, about a locomotive chase during the Civil War, is the greatest silent movie ever made. He loved trains, big and small. Here's a picture of him with his own model railroad:
"Music & Lyrics by Rod Stewart" probably does require an explanation. Maybe you didn't know this, but Stewart doesn't just sing for his supper—after the show, he sits quietly in his hotel room and builds museum-quality structures for his model train layout. He's twice been featured on the cover of Model Railroader, and deservedly so.
As for Keaton's co-stars, John Astin as Gomez Addams has blown up more trains than Lawrence of Arabia. He also teaches acting just up the road from here. Great man, funny man. I'd happily have him in any movie I was making.
The others on the list starred in some of the greatest train movies of all time—I'll leave it to you to match them to their movies—except possibly for Orson Welles (did he make a train movie?). He did once call RKO studios "the biggest electric train set a boy ever had!" so close enough. Here's Welles speaking in favor of train travel:
Boy, with a testimonial like that, no wonder everybody drives!
And how would a Buster Keaton movie about a man with a hobby play? About like this, I imagine:
As a bonus for fans of NCIS, that should answer how Gibbs gets the boat he's building out of his basement. As always, click on the photos to see them full size.
Am I the only person here who stopped the Blu-Ray player while watching Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained when Christoph Waltz introduced his two horses as "Fritz and Tony" and said, "Hey, William S. Hart and Tom Mix!" For it is a fact that the names of the horses belonging to the silent era's two greatest cowboys were Fritz the Pinto Pony and Tony the Wonder Horse.
That Tom and Tony on top, Bill and Fritz down below. (Do you suppose Tony signed his own name?)
From a recent post on Tom Sutpen's Gunslinger site.
The 2013 Library of Congress National Book Festival is this weekend down on the National Mall. Among those authors present will be one of the Monkey's favorites, Christel Schmidt whose book Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies is indispensable for fans of Mary Pickford, silent cinema or movies generally.
She'll be making some sort of speech (no doubt a good one) on Saturday at 10:55 a.m. in the History & Biography tent (near the Smithsonian Metro stop) and then signing copies of her book between Noon and 1 p.m.
Here's a picture of Christel. If you don't have an autographed copy of her book (I've got mine!), toddle on down there and tell her the Monkey sent you. That'll put you in solid!
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