Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Nora's Nite
Pasta with tomatos & pine nuts, Ice cream, Apple Tortes

"James Hilton later said it took only four days to write Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

He had promised a short story to a British magazine -- but hadn't a notion what to write about. So he went off on a bicycle tour and the idea for a tale about a schoolmaster came to him as he wheeled through Epping Forest.

After four days at the typewriter Hilton had over seventeen thousand words, far too much for a short story, but his editors knew they had something special and published it anyhow as a special supplement in their magazine. Has any writer ever had a more profitable four days work?" LINK

Author James Hilton

"While best known for creating Mr. Chips, the quintessential English schoolteacher, James Hilton was less a Lancashire lad than a Hollywood insider. After early success as a novelist, he made his mark during the golden age of the movies, penning scripts for Frank Capra and Greer Garson and collaborating with Frances Marion, the most successful female screenwriter of her day.

In 1935, after the success of Goodbye Mr. Chips, Hilton was invited to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter. Before leaving, he married his live-in girlfriend, Alice Brown, a secretary at the BBC. As Hilton was by now becoming a public figure, they traveled to Eastbourne to avoid any scandal over their previous illicit living arrangement. The American press awaited their arrival in New York, where husband and wife gave interviews before continuing on to Los Angeles, where again they were given a tremendous reception. The glittering Hollywood lifestyle would prove disastrous for Hilton's marriage, which ended in divorce in 1937. Only seven days later he married Galina Kopineck, a young starlet (who he would also divorce eight years later).

While Hollywood undid Hilton's personal life, his career thrived there. He won the Best Screenplay Oscar for Mrs. Miniver (1942); actress Greer Garson also earned a Best Actress Oscar in the title role. Directed by William Wyler, the film depicts a middle-class English family's life during first months of World War II. Hilton also wrote screenplays for Camille (1936), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Forever and a Day (1943), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1943), The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942) and We Are Not Alone (1939). Other screenwriters adapted his novels Knight Without Armour (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), Rage in Heaven (1941), and Random Harvest (1942). Robert Donat won a Best Actor Oscar for the title role in Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939), but Hilton could not entirely take credit for the success of this film; Eric Maschwitz, C. Sherriff, and Claudine West had adapted his novel for the screen." LINK

Director Sam Wood

"When American director Sam Wood first reported to Cecil B. De Mille as an assistant in 1915, Wood had already dabbled in real estate and acted on-stage under the name of Chad Applegate. A solo director by 1919, Wood worked throughout the '20s directing some of Paramount's biggest stars, among them Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid. He began his long association with MGM in 1927, working with personalities as varied as Marion Davies, Clark Gable, Marie Dressler, and Jimmy Durante. He guided the Marx Brothers through their two most profitable films, A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937), and turned out one of the most accomplished sentimental dramas ever made in Hollywood, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939).

Hopping from studio to studio in the '40s, Wood directed Ginger Rogers through her Oscar-winning performance in Kitty Foyle (1940), successfully transferred Thornton Wilder's highly theatrical Our Town (1940) to the screen (even the studio-imposed happy ending worked), and assembled the quintessential baseball biopic, The Pride of the Yankees (1942).

The list of Wood's successes would seem to assure him a niche in the ranks of all-time best Hollywood directors, yet his reputation has tarnished since his death in 1949. Most detractors insist that Wood was a hack, citing his habit of shooting each scene an average of 20 times, his only verbal direction in each instance being "Go out there and sell 'em a load of clams."

In truth, this technique was invaluable in wearing down such mannered performers as Walter Brennan, Dan Duryea, Frank Morgan, and Wallace Beery, until they were tired enough to behave like human beings instead of play-actors. The 20-take habit also enabled the more limited actors to re-think their interpretations until they'd found nuances that they would never have considered on the first take: Ronald Reagan, who was certainly no Olivier, was never better than in Wood's Kings Row (1942).

Taking into consideration all the complaints about Sam Wood, the biggest bone of contention seems to be his reactionary politics. Wood was active in a number of right-wing organizations, and in 1947 he virulently condemned Hollywood's "left" before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Those whose politics are diametrically opposite to Wood's dwell incessantly upon this aspect of his life, embellishing the facts by painting him as a bigot and (in the words of Groucho Marx) a "fascist." But just as it is fitting and proper to separate the performances of a Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, or Paul Newman from their political agendas, so too would it be fair to extend the same courtesy to Wood. No matter what sort of man Sam Wood was personally, his string of Hollywood hits should be his true legacy." LINK

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Peter's Nite
Salad, Pizza, Ice Cream

"John Huston was the son of famed actor Walter Huston, born August 5, 1906, in Missouri. While he tried his hand at some acting and writing early on, mostly through his father's contacts, he didn't really begin to devote himself to films until 1938, when he began writing or contributing to scripts for various films. In 1941, he convinced Warner Bros. to let him direct a third version of Dashiell Hammett's detective story, and made the most of the opportunity. After WWII, he won his first and only pair of Oscars, for directing and writing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1949), also starring Humphrey Bogart. The collaboration between Huston and Bogart was legendary; in fact, of the five films generally considered Huston's best, only The Man Who Would Be King (1975) doesn't include Humphrey Bogart in its cast."

Mobile Marilyn

"Now you can accessorize your mobile phone with all of the glamour, glitz and fun that is Marilyn. Be the first to enjoy this extensive collection of phone gems created from digitally re-mastered versions of your favorite Marilyn Monroe films including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How To Marry A Millionaire, Bus Stop, The Seven Year Itch and many more. Great movie scene moments, best loved lines, authentic poster art and new expressions of her famous wit can now flatter your phone as wallpapers, ringtones and video clips. You can even send a custom Marilyn picture or audio message to your friends and her fans."

Cactus Flower (1969)

Pamela's Nite
Pork Chops, Baked Tomatoes, Apple Crisp, Ice Cream

Abe Burrows: "Writer Abe Burrows penned many scripts for radio shows and for Broadway. Among his better known plays are How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Cactus Flower. He also wrote the screenplay for Solid Gold Cadillac in 1956."

More on Burrows: "After studying to be a doctor and an accountant, Abe Burrows had a career in sales before becoming a successful radio script writer and writer/performer of musical parody numbers. His first Broadway libretto was Guys and Dolls, co-written with Jo Swerling, with a score by Frank Loesser. Among the musicals for which he provided librettos are Make A Wish, Can-Can and Silk Stockings (both with scores by Cole Porter), Say, Darling, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (which he also directed; score by Frank Loesser). His non-musical plays include Cactus Flower (wrote and directed) and Forty Carats (directed)."

Jim Burrows, Abe's son, is a massively successful television director: "I get the work ethic from my father," he says, alluding to Abe Burrows, the late Broadway writer-director known for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and Guys and Dolls. For more than half a century, directing has been part of the Burrows DNA. For Jim Burrows--or Jimmy, as most friends and co-workers call him--that deeply embedded code has helped turn shows such as Taxi, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Caroline in the City, and Will & Grace into mega-hits and earned him nine Emmy Awards. Former NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield once said certain programs became known as "Jimmy Shows." He joked that network executives would eagerly mark pilots he was handling with the letters "JS."

"As my wife will tell you, I'm no good hanging around the house," Burrows says. "I could go play golf, I could go to the track, I could go to Vegas. But I choose to come here, where I have a good time."

By "here," Burrows means the Los Angeles studio where Will & Grace is about to close its third successful season. The sun-drenched San Fernando Valley setting seems a long way from overcast Oberlin, but the tight circles and sharp intellect of his Hollywood milieu--not to mention the political tinges of Will--often recall his college experience. During an hour-long interview, it didn't take much prodding to get the memories to tumble out--starting with the seed planted by his famous father.

"I would often meet all of my father's actor friends and the literati and the cognoscenti," Burrows says. "He was an intellectual who spoke with a mug-like voice--'der, duh'--but he was very smart. He asked me what school I wanted to go to, and I said Cornell, Brown, maybe NYU. He did some investigation and found Oberlin.

"I said, 'What's that school?' He said it was a small liberal-arts school in the Midwest, co-educational. He was smart enough to know that I grew up in the city and I should maybe go away to college."

New York Times Review: "And it comes as a pleasing jolt to find the youngster, Goldie Hawn, at the apex of the triangle, not only beautifully holding her own with the two veteran stars but also enhancing the content and flavor of the movie.
This is the movie debut of the young actress, plucked from the "Laugh-In" television show. The role has been wisely and considerably fattened from the original play. And it is mainly the emerging sweetness and perception of this girl's character, as an inquisitive Greenwich Village kook, that gives the picture its persuasive luster and substance."

Gilda (1946)

Nora's Nite
Homemade Pasta Sauce with Sun-Fired tomatoes, Creme boule

I can never get a zipper to close. Maybe that stands for something, what do you think? - Gilda (Rita Hayworth)

Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891–February 27, 1958) was the founder of Columbia Pictures.It is said, in the industry, that while Harry Cohn ruled Columbia Pictures, the studio never ended a production year in the red. He was the subject of the famous quote from Red Skelton, who remarked of his well-attended funeral: "Give the people what they want, and they'll come out."

RITA HAYWORTH:
Margarita Carmen Cansino was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 17, 1918 into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo was a dancer as was his father before him. He immigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's mother met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year.

Rita, herself, was trained as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was 8 when her family was filmed in a movie called LA FIESTA in 1926. It was her first film appearance, albeit uncredited, but by no means was it to be her last.

Rita was seen dancing by a Fox executive and was impressed enough to offer her a contract. Rita's 'second' debut was in the film CRAZY DIABLO in 1934 at the age of 16. She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of Rita Cansino until she played the second female lead in ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS in 1939 when she played Judy McPherson.

By this time she was at Columbia where she was getting top billing but it was Warner Brothers film THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE in 1941 that seemed to set her apart from the rest of what she had previously done. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in BLOOD AND SAND filmed in Technicolor.

She was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH with Fred Astaire, in 1941, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had trained all her life, was astounding.

After the hit GILDA in 1946, her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier work. The drought began between THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI in 1948 and CHAMPAGNE SAFARI in 1952. Then after 1953's SALOME she was not seen again until PAL JOEY in 1957.

Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by the new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.

After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960's her career was essentially over. Her final film was THE WRATH OF GOD in 1972. Her career was really never the same after GILDA. Her dancing had made the film and had made her. Perhaps Gene Ringold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally". Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him. Rita, herself, said, "Every man I have known has fallen in love with Gilda and wakened with me".

By 1980, Rita was, wracked with Alzheimer's Disease. It ravaged her so, that she finally died on May 14, 1987 in New York City. She was 68.