Chapter 22

2020 ◽  
pp. 295-310
Author(s):  
Mark Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Box Office ◽  
Political Drama ◽  
Screwball Comedy ◽  
Howard Hawks ◽  
War Bride

When Cary Grant coaxed Betsy Drake to join him in Hollywood in 1948, he did everything he could to kickstart her career as a film star. He used his own leverage with the powerful gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons to win favourable coverage for Drake, and he agreed to co-star with Drake in her first film, Every Girl Should Be Married (1948). He turned down several other promising films, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), to make this feeble comedy. His next film was Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy I Was a Male War Bride (1949). Filming began on location in Europe, but Grant developed hepatitis and nearly died. It was several months before he could complete filming in Hollywood. The film turned out to be a huge box-office success, but the grim political drama Crisis (1950), was a box-office disaster that marked the beginning of a downturn in his career fortunes. By this time, however, he had married Betsy Drake, in a ceremony arranged by Howard Hughes, and he was looking forward to his new life with her.

Chapter 27

2020 ◽  
pp. 376-392
Author(s):  
Mark Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Star Power ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Hallucinogenic Drug ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Screwball Comedy ◽  
Unconscious Mind

By the time Cary Grant and Betsy Drake announced their separation in 1958, Grant had followed Drake’s lead by embarking on an intensive form of psychotherapy using the hallucinogenic drug LSD. In clinically supervised sessions, he took the drug, which was not yet illegal, and explored his unconscious mind. This, he maintained, allowed him to peer into his past and overcome the childhood memories and experiences that haunted him. He revealed this to a prominent journalist, Joe Hyams, and then vehemently denied the story when it made headlines across the country. Yet the story did not dent his popularity with audiences. Operation Petticoat (1959), directed by Blake Edwards, became his biggest box-office success. Its humour is dated now, but it is still notable as the film that paired Grant with Tony Curtis, the actor who imitated him so memorably in Some Like It Hot (1959). The Grass is Greener (1960), directed by Stanley Donen, tried to repeat the success of the sophisticated comedy-romance Indiscreet (1958), but fell short of that mark. The screwball comedy A Touch of Mink (1962) paired Grant with Doris Day, the most popular screen actress of the period. They did not enjoy working together, but the film’s star power ensured that it was a hit. These successes, together with Grant’s lucrative contract with Universal-International Pictures, led the trade weekly Variety to declare that he was the “richest actor” and “most astute businessman” working in Hollywood.

Chapter 23

2020 ◽  
pp. 313-326
Author(s):  
Mark Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Marilyn Monroe ◽  
Screwball Comedy ◽  
Howard Hawks

To help Betsy Drake’s flagging career, Grant agreed to do a radio series with her. Mr and Mrs Blandings (1951) continued the comical adventures that began in Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), but the series was not well received. On screen, he took some risks in this period, playing an outspoken doctor in the politically charged People Will Talk (1952), and an ordinary family man in the gentle comedy Room for One More (1952). He also returned to the more familiar terrain of screwball comedy. Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business (1952), co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe, allowed him some fine comic moments, but Dream Wife (1953), co-starring Deborah Kerr, seemed tired and old-fashioned. None of these films scored with audiences. Seeing the rising popularity of young method actors such as Marlon Brando, Grant began to wonder if his own debonair image was out of date, and if it was time for him to retire.

Chapter 13

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-171
Author(s):  
Mark Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Performance Style ◽  
Exclusive Contract ◽  
Screwball Comedy ◽  
And Control ◽  
Howard Hawks

In 1937, Cary Grant’s career as a freelance star began with three screwball comedies that established him as the master of this genre. Topper (1937), made by the independent producer Hal Roach, initiated this sharp upturn in his career. This stylish screwball comedy brought out a new playful, wry, ironic dimension in Grant’s performance style. Improvisation on the set was key to his new screen persona, and he was given even greater reign to improvise in his first Columbia film, Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1937). Legend has it that he was uncomfortable working with McCarey, but McCarey helped him to mould the Cary Grant star persona, unique for combining debonair and slapstick qualities. He signed a contract with Columbia Pictures that gave him the power to choose which films he made, and control over both his publicity and his wardrobe, but it was a non-exclusive contract, allowing him to make his next film at RKO Pictures. In Bringing Up Baby (1938), director Howard Hawks encouraged a frenzied edge to his performance. This is perfectly exemplified in the famous scene in which Grant leaps in the air, shouting “I just went gay all of the sudden”—a line he improvised on the set and one that demonstrates the liberated, unconventional mores of screwball comedy. Bringing Up Baby had a mixed reception on first release in 1938, but in later years, through repeated revivals and screenings on television, it became one of his best known and most admired films.

scholarly journals La guerra de sexos en las comedias románticas de Howard Hawks: La fiera de mi niña (Brining Up Baby, 1938), Luna Nueva (His Girl Friday, 1940), La novia era él (I was a Male War Bride, 1949) y Su juego favorito (Man´s favorite Sport, 1964)

2021 ◽  
pp. 247
Author(s):  
Begoña Montesinos Ladrón de Guevara
Keyword(s):  
Howard Hawks ◽  
War Bride

Howard Hawks, plantea el enfrentamiento entre los sexos en buena parte de su filmografía. Comedias románticas, western o cine de aventuras comparten esta guerra de sexos que se inicia con una antipatia mutua entre los protagonistas que va evolucionando a medida que la pareja se ve inmersa en sus aventuras para transformarse en amistad, atracción, y finalmente amor. Cuatro de sus comedias La fiera de mi niña (Brining Up Baby, 1938), Luna Nueva (His Girl Friday, 1940), La novia era él ( I Was a Male War Bride, 1949) y Su juego favorito (Man´s Favorite Sport, 1964) plantean la guerra de sexos a través de una inversión de roles sexuales; mujer-activo /varón-pasivo que finalmente revierte a modelos más tradicionales.

Chapter 20

2020 ◽  
pp. 263-279
Author(s):  
Mark Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Michael Curtiz ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Night And Day ◽  
Post War ◽  
Screwball Comedy ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

The immediate post-war years saw Cary Grant’s box-office drawing power stronger than ever before. Jack Warner had bought out his contract with Columbia so that Grant could play the songwriter Cole Porter in the musical biopic Night and Day (1946). His first Technicolor film, Night and Day is bright and breezy, and it is filled with popular songs. The production, however, was troubled. Grant and director Michael Curtiz were in constant conflict. Grant was much happier working with Alfred Hitchcock and co-star Ingrid Bergman on the next film, Notorious (1946). These three became lifelong friends while making this wonderfully dark, gothic, spy story. Hitchcock was so keen on the darker side of the Cary Grant star persona that he proposed making a film of Hamlet with him, but legal complications prevented this. Grant then had a hiatus from filmmaking that allowed him to travel to Bristol for the first time since 1939. There, he saw his mother and also the terrible damage the city suffered during the blitz. He returned to make one of his most frivolous films, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), with Myrna Loy and the child-star turned teenager Shirley Temple. This light-as-a-feather screwball comedy continued his box-office winning streak.

Chapter 15

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-200
Author(s):  
Mark Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Relationship ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Screwball Comedy ◽  
Howard Hawks ◽  
Critical Reviews ◽  
Woman's Film

In 1938 and 1939, Cary Grant enjoyed a close, romantic relationship with the actress Phyllis Brooks. They travelled together through Europe in the summer of 1939 and they very nearly married on their return to the USA. Brooks’ mother, however, disliked Grant, and this proved fatal to their relationship. Professionally, Grant continued to branch out as an actor, making the tough aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Howard Hawks directed Grant alongside co-stars Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth, both of whom found the director difficult to work with. Grant branched out further by making the melodramatic “woman’s film” In Name Only (1939) with co-star Carole Lombard. These films were well received by critics and the public, but his next film, His Girl Friday (1940), was a much more significant hit. In this quintessential screwball comedy, director Howard Hawks encouraged Grant and co-star Rosalind Russell to adlib lines, speaking over one another to build a frenzied comic atmosphere. Although critical reviews were mixed in 1940, the film’s reputation has grown over the years, and His Girl Friday now stands among his very best films.

Forecasting US movies box office performances in Turkey using machine learning algorithms

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 6579-6590
Author(s):  
Sandy Çağlıyor ◽  
Başar Öztayşi ◽  
Selime Sezgin
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Learning Algorithms ◽  
Forecast Model ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Gradient Boosting ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Industry Forecast ◽  
The Impact

The motion picture industry is one of the largest industries worldwide and has significant importance in the global economy. Considering the high stakes and high risks in the industry, forecast models and decision support systems are gaining importance. Several attempts have been made to estimate the theatrical performance of a movie before or at the early stages of its release. Nevertheless, these models are mostly used for predicting domestic performances and the industry still struggles to predict box office performances in overseas markets. In this study, the aim is to design a forecast model using different machine learning algorithms to estimate the theatrical success of US movies in Turkey. From various sources, a dataset of 1559 movies is constructed. Firstly, independent variables are grouped as pre-release, distributor type, and international distribution based on their characteristic. The number of attendances is discretized into three classes. Four popular machine learning algorithms, artificial neural networks, decision tree regression and gradient boosting tree and random forest are employed, and the impact of each group is observed by compared by the performance models. Then the number of target classes is increased into five and eight and results are compared with the previously developed models in the literature.

Dancing in Early Productions of The Beggar's Opera

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-158
Author(s):  
Jeremy Barlow ◽  
Moira Goff
Keyword(s):  
Political Corruption ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Box Office ◽  
The Many

John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was accepted for production by John Rich, manager at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and received its premiere in January 1728. With its twin satirical targets of Italian opera and political corruption, and its fresh approach to musical entertainment, the opera had an unprecedented success during its first season and continued to be performed every year in London for the remainder of the century. Alongside the many songs, the libretto indicates three contrasting ensemble dances, introduced at key moments of the drama. These dances have been overlooked in most studies of The Beggar's Opera. The article investigates the significance of the dances within the ballad opera, the dancers who may have performed them and what they may have been dancing. Each dance and its music is analysed in detail, and placed within the context of the dance repertoire and wider theatrical background at Lincoln's Inn Fields. The authors also demonstrate the importance of dance in attracting audiences at Lincoln's Inn Fields; and show how, as box office receipts for The Beggar's Opera eventually declined, Rich stimulated demand by introducing divertissements and entr'acte dances unrelated to the show.

‘A war film with a difference’: Adrian Brunel's Blighty and Negotiation within the British Studio System of the Late Silent Period

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine Botting
Keyword(s):  
Silent Period ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
War Films ◽  
Box Office ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Studio System ◽  
To Come ◽  
First World ◽  
War Film

The creation and viewing of war films was one of the elements in the process by which Britain attempted to come to terms with the horrors of the First World War. During the interwar period, war films took two main forms: those which reconstructed famous battles and melodramas set against a wartime backdrop. However, the film Blighty, directed by Adrian Brunel in 1927, took a slightly different approach, focusing not on military action but on those who stayed behind on the Home Front. As a director during the silent period, Brunel trod a stony path, operating largely on the fringes of the industry and never really getting a firm foothold in the developing studio structure. He remains well regarded for his independent productions yet also directed five features for Gainsborough at the end of the silent period. Of these film, his first, Blighty, is perhaps his most successful production within the studio system in terms of managing a compromise between his desire to maintain control while also fulfilling the studio's aims and requirement for box office success. Brunel's aversion to the war film as a genre meant that from the start of the project, he was engaged in a process of negotiation with the studio in order to preserve as far as possible what he regarded as a certain creative and moral imperative.

Beautiful Beach Bodies and Muscle Heads

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
John D. Fair
Keyword(s):  
Juvenile Delinquency ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Guise Of The Good ◽  
Beach Boys ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Age Of Aquarius

Uneasily situated between counterculture images projected by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” a decade later, there emerged a motion picture interlude of innocence on the beaches of Southern California. It was fostered by Gidget (1959) and then thirty “surf and sex” movies that focused on young, attractive bodies and beach escapades rather than serious social causes.The films, argues Kirse May, “created an ideal teenage existence, marked by consumption, leisure, and little else.” Stephen Tropiano explains how their popularity helped shape “the archetypal image of the American teenager” and, reinforced by the surfin' sounds of Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, and other recording groups, “turned America's attention to the Southern California coastline,” where “those who never set foot on its sandy shores were led to believe that life on the West Coast was a twenty-four-hour beach party.” This study examines a notable film of this genre to determine how musclemen were exploited to exhibit this playful spirit and how their negative reception reinforced an existing disregard toward physical culture. Muscle Beach Party illustrates how physical culture served other agendas, namely the need to address American fears of juvenile delinquency and to revive sagging box-office receipts within the guise of the “good life” of California.

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