Calendar: March 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of March

A London Morning

March 29, 1959 was the release date of the film “Some Like It Hot”, directed and produced by Billy Wilder and starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon.

“Some Like It Hot” was shot in California during the summer and autumn of 1958. Many scenes were shot at San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado which fit the look of the movie’s 1920s period and was near Hollywood. The soundtrack created by Adolph Deutsch has an authentic 1920s jazz feel using sharp, brassy strings to create tension.

For the cinematography, Billy Wilder chose to shoot the film in black and white as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dressed in full drag costume and make-up looked ‘unacceptably grotesque’ in early color tests. Despite Marilyn Monroe’s contract requiring color film, she agreed to film in black and white after seeing the early color tests of the make-up.

The film is notable for featuring cross dressing, and for playing with the idea of homosexuality, which led to its being produced without approval from the Motion Picture Production Code. The code had been gradually weakening in its scope during the early 1950s, due to increasing social tolerance for previously taboo topics in film, but it was still officially enforced. The overwhelming success of “Some Like It Hot” is considered one of the final nails in the coffin for the Hays Code, the moral guidelines that was in effect from 1930 to 1968.

It was voted as the top comedy film by the American Film Institute on their list ‘AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs’ in 2000. In 1989, this film became one of the first twenty-five films inducted into the United States National Film Registry. Though sometimes said to have been “condemned” by the Roman Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency, that body gave the film its less critical rating as “morally objectionable”. In 2017, the BBC conducted an international survey for the best comedy in film history among 253 film critics from 50 countries, which ranked “Some Like It Hot” as number one.

Note: The studio United Artists hired Barbette, a famous female impersonator, to coach Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on gender illusion for the film. Barbette, whose greatest fame came from his performances in Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s, may have been the inspiration for the 1933 German film, “Viktor und Viktoria”, which features a plot about a woman pretending to be a female impersonator, whose gimmick was removing her wig at the end of her act (Barbette’s signature gesture).

Calendar: February 27

A Year: Day to Day Men: 27th of February

Straw Hat

February 27, 1940, was the general release of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”.

The film “Rebecca” is a 1940 American romantic psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock’s first American project under contract with David O. Selznick. It was based on the book of the same name by Daphne du Maurier with an adaption by Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan. The film star Laurence Olivier played the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine played the young woman who became his second wife.

The film is a gothic tale shot in black and white. Maxim de Winter’s first wife Rebecca, who died before the events of the film, is never seen. Her reputation and recollections of her, however, are a constant presence in the lives of Maxim, the housekeeper Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson), and especially the new wife, Mrs. de Winter. The young bride’s first name is never mentioned in the film; she is always referred to as Mrs. de Winter.

At the 13th Academy Awards in 1941, “Rebecca” won two awards, ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Cinematography, Black and White’, out of a total 11 nominations. Olivier, Fontaine and Anderson also were Oscar-nominated for their respective roles as were Hitchcock and the screenwriters. It is the only film since 1936 (when awards for actors in supporting roles were first introduced) that, despite winning Best Picture, received no Academy Award for acting, directing or writing.

Selznick insisted that the film be faithful to the novel. According to the book “It’s Only a Movie”, Selznick wanted the smoke from the burning Manderley to spell out a huge “R”. Hitchcock thought the touch lacked subtlety. While Selznick was preoccupied by the production of “Gone with the Wind”, Hitchcock was able to replace the smoky “R” with the burning of a monogrammed négligée case lying atop a bed pillow.

According to Leonard J. Leff’s book “Hitchcock and Selznick”, Selznick took control of the film once Hitchcock had completed filming, reshooting many sequences and re-recording many performances. Some sources say this experience led Hitchcock to edit future pictures “in camera” -shooting only what he wanted to see in the final film, a method of filmmaking that restricts a producer’s power to re-edit the picture.

Calendar: February 23

Year: Day to Day Men: February 23

Brown Cable Knit Sweater

The twenty-third of February in 1940 marks the theatrical release date of the American animated musical fantasy film “Pinocchio”. Based on Italian author Carlo Collodi’s 1883 children’s novel “The Adventures of Pinocchio”, it was Walt Disney Production’s second animated feature film. preceded by the 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

A translated version of Collodi’s novel was brought by animator Norman Ferguson to the attention of Walt Disney in September of 1937 during the studio’s production of “Snow White”. After reading the book, Disney commissioned storyboard artist Bianca Majolie to write a new story outline for the book; however, he found the outline too faithful to the original story. As “Pinocchio” was based on a novel with a very fixed, episodic story, the storyboard outline underwent major changes before its final form.

In the original novel, Pinocchio was presented as a cold, rude and ungrateful personality. The Disney writers modernized the character for the film and depicted him similar to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy Charlie McCarthy, a mischievous figure who made snide remarks and misbehaved. Originally drawn exactly like a real wooden puppet with pointed nose and bare wooden hands, animators slightly redesigned the figure of Pinocchio to make him more appealing. An animated test scene refined the final adjustments to Pinocchio’s appearance; he became a more innocent, naive, somewhat coy personality with a child’s Tyrolean hat and standard four fingered (three fingers and a thumb) gloved hands similar to those of Mickey Mouse.

In the summer of 1938, Walt Disney and the story team established the character of the cricket whom Disney named Jiminy. At first only a minor figure in the film outline, the cricket became the character who would guide Pinocchio into making the right decisions. Animator Ward Kimball, who had spent two months animating two unused sequences for “Snow White”, was promoted by Disney to the position of supervising animator for Jiminy Cricket. For the final design of the character, Kimball did not use the characteristic toothed-legs and waving antennae of a cricket. He instead designed a well-dressed little man who had an egg-shaped head with no ears, essentially a cricket in name only.

“Pinocchio” marks the first time an animated film used celebrities as voice actors. Due to the huge success of the 1937 “Snow White”, Disney wanted more famous voices for the second animated Disney production. Popular 1930s musician and singer Clifton Avon “Cliff” Edwards was cast as the voice of Jiminy Cricket. Clifton had in 1929 a number one hit with his “Singin’ in the Rain”. Disney did not want an adult actor for the voice of Pinocchio. He chose eleven-year old child-actor Richard “Dickie” Jones, a B-movie Western star who had just appeared in the 1939 “Nancy Drew..Reporter”.

Austrian-born character actor Christian Rub was chosen for the voice of Geppetto the wood-carver. Comedian and character actor Walter Catlett played the con artist Honest John the Fox and Honest John’s mute, dimwitted feline partner Gideon. Gideon’s hiccups were separately provided by veteran voice actor Mel Blanc. Actor Charles Judels voiced both the villainous Stromboli and The Coachman who takes all disobedient boys to Pleasure Island. The Blue Fairy who brings Pinocchio to life and transforms him into a real boy was played by actress Evelyn Venable.

Animation on “Pinocchio” began in January of 1938; supporting character animation began in April. After a brief hiatus on the project, revisions on Pinocchio’s character and the film’s narrative structure were completed in September and work resumed. “Pinocchio” took two years and required more than seven hundred and fifty artists and technicians to bring the animated characters to life. The film was a groundbreaker in animation effects. The team of artists gave realistic movement to vehicles and machinery as well as rain, water, lightning, smoke and shadows.

“Pinocchio” was initially premiered on the seventh of February in 1940 at New York City’s Center Theater on Sixth Avenue. The theatrical release through the nation occurred on the twenty-third of February. Though not initially a box-office success, “Pinocchio” won two Academy Awards in 1941: Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “When You Wish Upon a Star”. Many film historians consider “Pinocchio” to be the film of all the Disney animated features that most closely approaches technical perfection. In 1994, the film was added to the National Film Registry and the American Film Institute, in 2008, selected it the second best film in the medium of animation, after Disney’s “Snow White”.

Insert Images: Directors Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, “Pinocchio”, 1940, Film Scenes, Producer Walt Disney, Walt Disney Productions, RKO Radio Pictures