For most film historians, the “continental style” of Hollywood comedies in the Interwar period was represented by Ernst Lubitsch and his circle at Paramount Studios, and later by the Jeanette Macdonald-Nelson Eddy operetta kitschfests at MGM. What this received knowledge ignores are the Deanna Durbin musicals at Universal Studios, produced and written by the circleContinue reading “His Butler’s Sister (1943)”
Category Archives: Frank Borzage
Shipmates Forever (1935)
Shipmates Forever isn’t really a comedy but it was deceptively marketed as one by Warner Bros. It may even have been originally conceived as one. It stars Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler at the peak of their popularity. It has tunes by Warren and Dubin, Dick Powell’s regular providers of hits in his crooning comedies.Continue reading “Shipmates Forever (1935)”
Desire (1936)
I’m on the fence about Desire. I’m not sure whether I dislike it or I’ll think of it as really good sometime down the road. A lot of talent was involved in it. Frank Borzage, a romantic darling of the French cinéastes, directed it. Lubitsch, newly named as producer at Paramount Studios, produced it, choseContinue reading “Desire (1936)”