MAYTIME 1937

If you love old movies, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU! If you don't like old movies but think you should give them a try, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU!If you don't like old movies and don't want to give them a try, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU! If you like opera singing, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU! If you love eternal romance, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU!

What I am trying to say is, this movie is for absolutely everybody. I know that not everybody will love it, but if you don't, then i'm sorry to tell you this, but you're dead inside. I have never felt so emotional by the end of a movie then I have by the end of this one.

Now that's all fine and dandy, but how do you know that i'm not just making this all up? You don't even know what the movie is ABOUT yet! Well, i'm going to try and give a little overview.

Way out across the Atlantic in Europe there is an opera singer named Marcia. She sings at Napoleon's court and blows everybody away with her dazzling voice. A famous opera composer even promises to write her her very own opera. After the performance, when she is back in her hotel, her voice coach, Nicolai, proposes to her. With all the excitement of just performing in such an important place, and having an opera written just for her, she says yes.

Nicolai tells Marcia to sleep, then he leaves. But Marcia can't sleep. She is too excited! She runs outside and hops into a carriage and tells the the coachman to drive straight down the street until she tells him to turn back. Marcia falls asleep. And when she wakes up she finds herself in a strange, distant town. The horse attached to the coach becomes unattached and runs away, buying Marcia time to explore the town. She hears singing coming from a small restaurant, and inside, she meets Paul. He constantly tries to get her to come to his house the next morning for breakfast, but with her big opera career, she believes that it is impossible for them to ever meet again. BUT THEY DO! The next morning, she goes to his humble home, where they sing a duet at the piano and fall in love. Later, at a maytime celebration, Paul confesses his love for Marcia. Marcia loves Paul right back, but she is engaged to Nicolai. She tells Paul that she is engaged and that they can never meet again. And they part. They never see each other again. UNTIL, SEVEN YEARS LATER WHEN...

Marcia and Nicolai are married, and they have been traveling all over the world, staying in all sorts of hotels. Marcia, performing in dozens and dozens of operas. Nicolai tells Marcia that he is unhappy with their marriage. He thinks that Marcia does not love him the way he loves her. Of course we know this is true. MARCIA LOVES PAUL! Both Marcia and Nicolai are unhappy in their marriage. But what can they do?

Marcia is to have a big, magnificent, triumphant, return to America. She is to appear in a GINORMOUS opera in NEW YORK CITY! When she gets to rehearsal, she meets the man who is going to co-star in the opera with her. And who do you think this man is? It's Paul! They have finally met again! But they must hide their feelings. They must forget about their love for each other. They must! But will they?

I don't want to ruin the movie for anybody. But let me just say this, the climax of the movie happens after this return to America. I won't say anything more. Let me just tell you, I have never cried so much at a movie. If you want to feel true, pure love in your heart, watch this movie! You won't regret it.

But what is a movie without the stars? The stars of this movie, although long dead by now, surely won't ever be forgotten.

                                                       
                                         This is Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald.


Nelson Eddy played Paul
Jeannette MacDonald played Marcia
John Barrymore played Nicolai

MORE PICTURES!!!

Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald have starred in many movies together. In each one, they sing beautifully together. Sort of like they were meant to sing together. Like it was their destiny to sing together. 

One of Hollywood's biggest rumors/celebrity affairs in history. Both Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald were married to other people. But many people believe that they were truly in love with each other. You can really see the love in their eyes when they look at each other I think. 

I'm not one for super gushy lovey dovey stories, but Maytime truly is a wonderful movie, made for everyone. 

I'm sure you will love this movie. Leave a comment and tell me what you think! 

<3

MARY PICKFORD

Do you like movies? Do you want to be an actor? Do you ever loooong to be in the spotlight? Adored by millions? Swimming in cash? Well, I know I do. Have you ever thought of WHO the world's first celebrity was? Aren't you curious? Well, Let me share my knowledge with all  of you.

MARY PICKFORD WAS THE WORLD'S FIRST WORLD WIDE CELEBRITY SUPER STAR!!! She was given the title "America's Sweetheart" by the billions of people around the world who were her whole hearted loyal fans.

Mary Pickford was born in Toronto Canada in the year 1892. She had a little sister Lottie, and a little brother Jack. Her Father died when she was very young and her mother worked very hard to support the family. They ended up having to rent out one of the rooms in their house to strangers to bring in a couple extra dollars for food. And it just so happened that one of the people who they rented their room to was a man from one of Canada's theater stock companies and he suggested that she Mary Pickford, then named Gladys Smith, and her siblings be actors in a play called The Silver King. She grew in skill and in fame as she began traveling around Canada performing in small plays. But she soon grew tired of the constant travel and the terrible conditions she was forced to live in.

While she was in New York with her family for a short visit she found the courage to talk to David Belasco, who at the time was THE BEST STAGE DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME. She convinced him to let her be in one of his plays, and she became known all across the country from her parts in numerous plays put on by David Belasco.

But, she was soon forced to go to work for Biograph Studios because the family wasn't bringing in enough money to support them. Biograph Studios was one of the first movie studios in America. It was stationed in Manhattan, New York. She acted in hundreds of short ten to twenty minute films for Biograph Studios and became known as the Biograph Girl.

After a few years with Biograph Studios, she signed a contract with other studios and made more and more short films until she signed her contract with Famous Players Movie Company. With this company she made feature length or full length films and her fame SKYROCKETED!!! After switching and traveling around to many other movie Studios and gaining more and more fame, she was named America's Sweetheart.

Mary Pickford is what was known as a Character Actress. In each of her movies, she played a character very similar to her last. Her signature character was a young angelic girl. Her characters were always sweet and well behaved young girls. Even at the age of 30 she was still playing little girls. She made many attempts to escape her signature role as a little girl and tried to move into more adult roles, but none of her fans agreed with her and wanted her to stay a little girl forever.

One of the ways she tried to escape her little girl roles was by cutting off her signature gold curls. Everybody was shocked at this new hair cut, and once the curls were off, her career quickly faded away.

Mary Pickford was a pioneer in the film industry. Hollywood wouldn't be what it is today without her. And that may not seem like such a good thing today since hollywood is sort of down in the dumps. But the film industry, not only hollwood, has Mary Pickford to thank.

Sadly, during her last few years alive, Mary Pickford became sad and people thought her very lonely, because she never left her house and always stayed indoors. Mary Pickford believed that she was forgotten and uncared for. She tried to destroy all her films thinking that once she was gone nobody would care about them. But thankfully she was convinced not to. If she had, we wouldn't be talking about her today.

Here's a bunch of pictures...

Mary Pickford on a Poster for the play A Good Little Devil 

As  a little girl in The Poor Little Rich Girl 

As a young girl in Daddy Long-Legs

As a young girl  in Suds

Before and after her haircut

She was one of the first actors to put their prints in cement at the Grauman's Chinese Theater. She WAS the first actress though. 

A family picture with her third husband "Buddy" Rogers and their two adopted children Roxanne and Ronald. 

I of course did not give a very great biography of her in this short post. There is soooo much more that I could talk about and so many more pictures that I could put here. If you are interested in her definitely search her up on google.com. 

A list of my favorite of her movies...

1. Pollyanna

2. The Poor Little Rich Girl

3. Sparrows

4. The Little Princess

5. The Little American

6. Stella Maris

7. The Love Light

8. Through the Back Door

AND THERE ARE SO MANY MORE WONDERFUL MOVIES TO WATCH! 

If you have any questions, just leave a comment and i'll get back to you. Or just look it up on the internet. 

Thanks for reading. 

JO STAFFORD

So, i've been listening to a lot of cool music lately. And one of my newest favorite singers is Jo Stafford. She was mostly singing during the 1940s and 1950s, which is a little bit later music than I usually listen to, but it still has that perfect refreshing feeling to it. And also, a lot of her songs really can just bring tears to my eyes. They are so beautiful.

The first song I ever heard of hers was You Belong To Me. That song is super good, but it isn't as good as I thought it was the first few times I heard it. It was one of the first songs I ever bought on iTunes. Now, when I listen to it, it is a little bit boring, but that's only because I have heard it so many many many times.

Jo Stafford did a whooooole lot of singing. She was in a few singing groups. One i'm pretty sure was called the Stafford Sisters. And another the Pied Pipers. I love when she sings with other groups. But she also sounds absolutely beautiful singing alone too. Now, no matter how much i'd like to keep the joy and perfection you feel when you hear her sweet voice to myself, i'm going to share it with all of you. If you want to be blown away by the most beautiful singing in all the history of Earth itself, listen to this list of songs sung by Jo Stafford... (This doesn't at all make me like Annette Hanshaw and Ruth Etting any less.)

1.  (You Belong To Me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5lVIaM_jBE            
2.  (Smilin' Through)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEEfCkFvnmY        
3. (No Other Love)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjDqMftHbKI            
4.  (Blue Moon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz_x-Yu15Bw                  
5. (Haunted Heart)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZYsBN6NRyM          
6. (Begin the Beguine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6BS4TrfFOI                  
7.  (The Best Things In Life Are Free)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6raAdR-1s0o                  
8. (I'll Never Smile Again)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ8COLbG5wA            

Please look her up on youtube and listen to as many songs of hers as you can. She is such a good singer. So much better than all the singers of today. If you don't believe me, take a listen to one of these songs and you'll know what I mean.

Here's a few pictures...

MORE PUBLIC SCHOOL PROBLEMS

Hi everybody. So, I know I haven't posted something in a long time. But honestly, I don't think anybody reads this blog except me... so nobody cares. If you do read this... please leave some sort of comment so that I know that i'm not just talking to myself.

So, I am almost 100% certain that I have already written some sort of post similar to this one... so I may or may not repeat myself a couple times. But, I just have to get this off my chest. So, here goes nothing.

I think that public school is a job. It is a job that children are forced to do for free. I would call it child labor if I didn't think some people would take some sort of offense from this. But let me tell you something. In the olden days, like 100 years ago or 150 or so there was all those child labor and factory worker protests and what not. Those kids had work every day about 15 hours a day. They sometimes lost fingers and got diseased and died on the job, so obviously child labor (Then) is worse than public schools (Now) but i'm still going to compare them. I don't know about you, but my school starts at 8 am. I live in Brooklyn. Way on the East side of it too. My trip to school takes about 50 minutes to an hour every morning. So, I have to wake up at 6 am every day. 6 am! I'm 14 years old. I need my sleep. I have spoken to other students at my school who wake up at 4:30. What kind of "good" education forces their students to wake up at 4:30am every morning?

So, I wake up at 6, I get home at 5 (approximately). That is 11 hours of my day outside of home. Then at home I have about 4 or so hours of homework and school related things. Leaving me finally free of school at 9pm. If I do the math, (That I learned in the 2nd grade. elementary school math is the only math you ever need. Middle school and high school are wastes of time and just try and teach you stupid things so that they can have "genius" students and brag to other states and countries about it, when really they are only making a few "Geniuses" while the rest of us fail at every class and cry ourselves to sleep every night), that is 15 hours of school a day. Now, if you have after school class or some sort of extra curricular activities that you need to work on, for example, piano like me, then you are going to want to practice that every day too. But sometimes you don't feel like playing the piano after 15 hours of constant boredom. Then, your piano teacher starts getting annoyed with you because you are slowly working less and less on the piano music while your school work piles higher and higher until you feel like you could rip out your hair and die. Then, you take 3 hours to yourself, doing whatever it is you like to do, of course never including anything outside unless you have a backyard or deck, because by the time you are even ready to take a step outside it is dark and your parents won't allow you outside. Then at 11 you get into bed and try to sleep through those horrible school related nightmares until 6 when you are woken up and have to do the whole cycle over again.

Not only are the days too long and the work too heavy a load, but school itself is a horrible place. According to many people LaGuardia happens to be one of the best high schools in New York. Well, let me tell you. I go to LaGuardia so I can say this truthfully. Not once have I ever truly felt welcome to the school except in one class in 9th grade which was Social Studies (Global). The teachers do nothing but barf up random information that you don't care about into your lap and expect you to somehow be able to remember all this stuff for a test every two weeks or so. The very first day of school my teachers always mention some gigantic test we are going to have at the end of the year, an they say, don't ever think it is too early to start studying for that. LISTEN TEACHERS!! I was sent here to learn useful things for my future, not to stress out about some stupid test that was created by some stupid phoney who was trying to scare kids into pulling out their hair and stressing out over absolutely nothing. Never in high school has a teacher asked me anything personal or friendly. Never once has a teacher asked me, how are your parents? Are they doing alright? How is your sister? How's your dog? How's your writing coming along? How was your evening? NOTHING!! They don't ask me those things because they don't know anything about me. They can't ask me how my siblings are because they don't know I have a sibling. I go to a building every day filled with a thousand absolute strangers! I didn't figure out who the principal was until the third month of 10th grade. The principal should personally introduce themselves to all of their students. I don't care if that takes too long. Maybe you should have less students in one school so that each student can actually get help from the teacher when they need it and don't have to be forced to sit in the back and learn nothing.

We shouldn't be learning stupid geometry or even most of algebra or chemistry or living environment! At least not before we even learn about street smarts or social skills or actual life skills. I am going to graduate high school and think to myself... "Okay. I just finished my 14th (For some it could be 15th) year of school. What have I learned? Well.... I learned how to add. I think. I learned how to subtract. I can't divide anything without a calculator... I can't multiply double digits without a calculator either. George Washington was the first president... Who was the 5th president? Who knows?? How many days are there in March? Beats me. What are taxes and how do you pay them? I have no idea. I guess i'm just gonna have to ask my parents, who are then going to say, didn't you learn this in school?"

The answer is NO! WE DON"T LEARN ANYTHING IN SCHOOL! WH AM I GOING TO SCHOOL?? because my parents force me to. because it is a law that you have to send your kid to some sort of schooling system. What kind of law is that? Why can't some people just not have their brain filled with useless facts that nobody cares about?

Anyways, if you agree with me leave a comment and maybe we can start some kind of revolt where every kid in new York high schools and middle schools just walk out of school and fill the streets and start chanting things and throwing rocks at the windows and stuff.

PETER PAN 1924

Everybody knows the story of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, but if you haven't seen the 1924 movie version of Peter Pan then you only know half of it. I watched this movie for the first time only a few months ago, but since then I have watched it about three times.

If you don't already know, the plot of this movie is,
the Darling children (Michael, John, and Wendy) are tucked into bed by their parents. Their parents then go across the street to a small dinner party. In the night while the parents are away Peter Pan comes in through the window with Tinker Bell his fairy friend to find his shadow. They find it and Peter Pan tries to stick his shadow back on by rubbing his feet with soap. Haha. He realizes that the soap won't work and he begins crying. His crying wakes Wendy up and she helps him attach his shadow to his feet. Skip forwards a little bit and Peter Pan is leading the three children to the second star to the right and straight on 'till morning to Neverland. When they are there they meet the lost boys and the indians and the pirates and the mermaids and have a wonderful adventure. Wendy acts as the lost boys mother for a few days until she begins getting homesick and wants to go home. But, she, and the lost boys get kidnapped by Captain Hook, Peter Pan's arch enemy. Just as they are about to be thrown overboard by the pirates Peter Pan comes in and saves the day. or does he?

I recommend this movie for EVERYBODY! I give it five out of five stars. The actors are all wonderful and the story is of course a story that will never be forgotten. If you know what I mean. There is this one moment of the movie where Tinker Bell is about to die after she saves peter Pan's life. Peter Pan starts crying and freaking out over Tinker Bell, and then he looks straight into the camera and tells us that the only way to save Tinker Bell's life is if we tell him that we believe in fairies. And then he tells us to clap and it's just such a perfect moment. It's bound to make anybody smile.


                                                    

                                           

Peter Pan played by Betty Bronson
Wendy played by Mary Brian
John played by Philippe De Lacy
Mrs. Darling played by Esther Ralston
Mr. Darling played by Cyril Chadwick
etc. There are a lot more people in this movie obviously. Here's a link to the movie (it's on youtube by the way)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdnZUszqGOY

SEVENTH HEAVEN

The movie Seventh Heaven is about a girl who is abused by her sister who thinks that her life is over but with the hep of a very kind swage worker she finds that life is good and all that. I am not going to give the full summary cause I don't want to ruin anything, but I will give a short summary. 

The movie starts with a conversation between Chico, the sewage worker and his friend (who's name I forgot). During this conversation, Chico reveals that he wishes that he was street cleaner instead of being a sewage worker. Meanwhile, two sisters are having a more physical conversation in their small apartment home. There is a good sister, played by Janet Gaynor and an evil sister, played by Gladys Brockwell. A bunch of stuff happens and eventually the good sister, Diane, ends up looking dead in the street and Chico finds her and tells the police that Diane is his wife. The police tells Chico that he is going to be checking in on Chico to make sure that he isn't lying about being married. So... Diane comes up with the idea to stay with Chico until the police come to his house and then she will leave and Chico agrees. A whole lot happens, including Chico going to war and all that. It is a very exciting movie, kind of, and it has one of the best endings of any movie i've ever seen. 

So, if you don't hate romantic movies, and are looking for a good story and a touching ending... than watch this movie! 

There are two versions of this movie... one made in 1927, which is the version that I have been talking about, and another version made in 1937 with Simone Simon as Diane and James Stewart as Chico. I personally think that the 1927 version was much better than the 1937 version. I thought the acting was better and really just everything was better in the 1927 version. But, I suppose both movies tell the same story. If you really want the whole experience, watch the 1927 version.  If you aren't comfortable or whatever with silent movies, and you aren't so serious about this movie, than you can always watch the 1937 version. 

Now, I will give you some pictures...

This is a poster of the 1927 version

This is another poster of the 1927 version

This is a poster of the 1937 version

This is another poster of the 1937 version

I feel like if I give any other pictures I may spoil some of the good parts of this movie. If you want to see any more pictures... just search google, but!!!!!! before you do that, I recommend just taking the time to watch the movie. Either one... but the 1927 version is more... sophisticated I think. 

The 1927 version is rated 100% on rotten tomatoes, and the 1937 version is rated 55% on rotten tomatoes. I don't really understand what rotten tomato is really... but I know it rates movies and 100% is the best and 0% is the worst. Even though the second was only rated 55% it really doesn't mean everybody won't like it. 

Okay, watch this movie if you ever have the time. And leave a comment saying what you thought of the movie. 

PICTURES WATCHING ME

Do you ever feel like somebody in a picture is watching you? Because I can't help but feel like pictures are constantly staring at me. When I turn around their eyes stare straight into my back and whenever I turn back around and look at the picture, they are back in their original placement. I know that a whole lot of people feel this same way, but I feel like I may have this feeling much stronger than most people. For example, while many people, probably most people, can type some celebrities name into google images and scroll through all the images of the people without wincing or turning away their face. I can't scroll through a page of google images of a celebrity without wincing or feeling weird about doing what I'm doing.

 Maybe I didn't explain this so well, but I think you all kind of know what I mean.
Take a look at this picture.

I put this picture on my computer screen desk top about one or two years ago. And ever since then, whenever I use the computer, I make sure that a page of the internet or something is covering this picture. Why do I even have this picture if I feel so uncomfortable with it being where it is? Well, that's easy. Because I like the picture and I like Shirley Temple too. As i'm writing this i'm realizing that i've actually become quite used to this picture. But... lets say it was a different picture. One that I haven't seen before or at least haven't seen for such a long time as I have the first one...

I just feel like she is staring straight into my soul or something and I can't look into her eyes. I don't know if you feel the same way I do or if maybe you feel the exact same way but I just thought that maybe I should just write about this whole thing. 

Also, Whenever I am in the same room as a picture of somebody looking into the camera I can't act the same way I did when I was in the other room. For example, there is a picture of my grandfather on the mantle in the living room in my house and he is looking into the camera. So... if you look at his eyes, it seems like he is looking at you. When that picture was first put there I could barely even talk in front of the picture because I just felt like he was watching me. Eventually i got more used to it so it really isn't so bad anymore. Then, for christmas, my brother and his wife got me three movie posters. Two were Mary Pickford movies and one was a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movie. Both Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire were both looking in to the camera and the three posters were hung above the piano in my living room. I usually sing while playing the piano but when those posters were hung above the piano I couldn't sing at all because I was too nervous. The first few days they were there I was so self conscious of how I played the piano and how I sat down at the piano and walked to and from the piano. You can't even understand how free I felt when we took those posters down and replaced them with a bookshelf. I went straight back to singing like I did before the posters. 

SO, that's all I got to say. If you have the same feeling TELL ME! I want to know. Maybe you have a story to tell, kind of like mine... This was a little boring I think, but at least I wrote something. 

write a comment and I will most certainly read it and try to reply. I say try because lately I haven't been able to comment on things on the computer. I think maybe one of my friends reported me because she didn't realize that it was me when I left a creepy comment on a video.