Journeys of an Old Hollywood Dreamer

They say it’s your birthday!

alannahoffy — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:37:30 +0000

Happy 85th birthday to Hollywood and Broadway great Lauren Bacall! Bacall was just chosen to be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for her outstanding work in the nearing seven decades she has been working in the entertainment business.

Born in 1924, Bacall got her start at 19 years old when Nancy “Slim” Hawks saw a young Bacall on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and suggested to her husband, director Howard Hawks, that he use her in a movie. He flew Bacall from New York to Hollywood and gave her her start in the film industry with the role of Marie “Slim” Browning in 1944′s To Have and Have Not, opposite Humphrey Bogart. She and Bogart fell in love and as soon as his divorce from third wife Mayo Methot became final, they married in Ohio on friend Louis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm in May 1945. They had two children and lived happily until his death in 1957.

Bacall continued working in Hollywood but eventually moved back to New York and returned to the Broadway stage to great acclaim in many plays and musicals such as “Goodbye Charlie”, “Cactus Flower”, “Applause”, and “Woman of the Year”, continuing to do films. In fact, she is still continuing to do films, with three films “Wide Blue Yonder”, “Carmel”, and “Firedog” slated to premiere in 2010. She has also written two autobiographies, By Myself and Then Some (updated with and Then Some in 2005) and Now, both with great reviews. She has received many awards, including two Tony awards for the musicals “Applause” and “Woman of the Year”.

I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next! Happy birthday!

It’s about damn time…

alannahoffy — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:29:33 +0000

After almost seven decades in the acting business, Lauren Bacall is finally getting the Oscar she deserves. Along with director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis, Bacall will be receiving an Honorary Oscar to honor her “extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement”.

Bacall, who has been making movies since her debut in 1944′s “To Have and Have Not”, is still in show business with three new movies (“Wide Blue Yonder”, “Carmel”, and “Firedog”) slated to come out in 2010.

The downside is that the public might not be able to see the awards, as the honorary Oscars will be awarded at an “inaugural Governor’s Ball gala” on November 14. Hopefully we will be able to see the ceremony. Otherwise the public will miss out on seeing a montage containing countless and priceless Bacall clips from such greats as “To Have and Have Not”, “The Big Sleep”, “Designing Woman”, “Key Largo”, “How to Marry A Millionaire”, and “The Mirror Has Two Faces”, in which her role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

We would also miss what is sure to be a great acceptance speech from Bacall. With her wit I can only imagine what she’ll come up with. Of course I hope I won’t have to imagine it and that I’ll be able to watch it.

The honorary awards have been separated from the March broadcast to minimize the “time crunch” of the telecast. The Academy seems to be most concerned with fitting everything into a time block (understandable) but seems to be forgetting the importance of classic films and their amazing actors. The Oscars are all about the current movies, which is understandable, but when a honorary Oscar is awarded to someone from the Golden Era of film and film montages are shown, it seems to remind everyone of how the business used to be. The montages are also a chance for a new generation to become interested in classic films. Taking them away would be depriving the telecast, and it’s viewers, of something essential to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: the golden history of film.

Let’s hope the Academy puts things together in time for us to view the talented and successful Bacall accepting the award that she has deserved for so long. I, for one, am looking forward to it immensely.

The Apartment

alannahoffy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:03:21 +0000

Well, I’m one step closer to finishing AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list. This weekend I watched The Apartment (1960) with Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. I loved The Apartment and now I love Jack Lemmon. How anyone could prefer (even for a short time) an old Fred MacMurray to Jack Lemmon is beyond me. He is so funny and cute and adorable, especially in this movie. The movie centers on C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) who lends out his apartment to colleagues, for them to use as a place to spend time with their girlfriends (unbeknownst to their wives, obviously). These colleagues all have a part in his promotion, especially his boss J.D. Sheldrake (MacMurray) who starts to use Baxter’s apartment to spend time with elevator girl Fran Kubelik (MacLaine) whom, incidentally, Baxter likes. It’s a great classic movie directed by Billy Wilder that everyone should see.

Fun Times at the Highline

alannahoffy — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:18:43 +0000

Well, I am not in New York anymore, which is a very depressing thought. I had an amazing time in New York, I mean I always do. Continued from my last post, I went to the Highline Park with my friend Lukas. The Highline is an old set of railroad tracks that has been re-made into a park in the Meatpacking District. It sits right below The Standard Hotel. It’s a really cool place with a great view. I miss New York so much. I really feel so at home there, you’ve got the big city to play in and then when you need a break you can go to the beautiful Gramercy Park or Central Park. It’s strange but it’s almost as if when you enter Central Park the noise of the city disappears, it’s so quiet, calm, and peaceful. To me, at least. It’s beautiful.

We’ll always have Manhattan.

alannahoffy — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:47:13 +0000

So here I am in the great New York, New York and, as always, I don’t want to leave. I’ve been here for about a week and a half- the first couple of days just hanging around NY– seeing shows, shopping, adventuring in Central Park, and hanging out with my friend, Lukas, who’s at Parsons. And now I’m here for an Acting for the Camera workshop at the Atlantic Theater Company. So much has happened in the past week and a half, it may take more than one post to explain, especially since I have to wake up at 6:45 am and I still need to pack…

SHOWS: God of Carnage was amazing. Simply amazing. The actors are fantastic and it is some of the best acting I have seen. Marcia Gay Harden specifically was amazing, she deserved the Tony award she won for her role. I also saw The 39 Steps with Lukas. 39 Steps was hilarious and very well done- everything looked so real, even when the actors were “on a train”. I do so love the theatre.

TO BE CONTINUED…. Coming Up: Fun Times at the Highline and MORE!

Oh how I love this city…

Frankly My Dear…

alannahoffy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:08:00 +0000

Woahmygod.

Most. Epic. Book/Movie Experience. EVER.

I cannot think of a better book that has been turned into a better movie. Gone With The Wind is simply amazing and epic. There are no other words for it. I had started reading GWTW during the school year until I realized that I would not get any studying done while trying to finish it, so I put it on my summer shelf until this weekend when I brought the book along with me up north. I was only about 100-150 pages in (it’s 959-1054 pages, depending on if you read the hard cover or paperback) and in two days, I was done and renting the movie on dvd.

The movie adaption is possibly one of the best “movie-based-on-a-book” movies out there. Even when I was reading the book I had no trouble whatsoever picturing Clark Gable as Rhett Butler (who I am now in love with, Gable too).I could relate to Scarlett O’Hara in some of her ways, such as the “I’ll think about that later” way of thinking. And Ashley. Ugh, Ashley. Yes, he’s charming and attractive but he just cannot compare to Rhett and I started getting really sick of Ashley. I probably shouldn’t say anymore on the Ashley-Rhett plotline since I don’t want to ruin the book/movie.

While the movie is amazing and is a classic, the book needs to be read before seeing the movie since it is also fantastic. There are many things that are in the book that are not in the movie, seeing as they couldn’t write a 900+ page screenplay, even though the movie is four hours long. Maybe it’s just me but the movie did not seem terribly long to me. Maybe that’s because I knew what would happen, from reading the book, or maybe it’s because I was just enjoying it so much that I didn’t realize how much time had actually passed.

I just wish that Gone With The Wind was available on dvd right now. It’s only available through Ebay and Amazon’s “Used and New” sellers because there is a GWTW Special 70th Anniversary (1939) Collector’s Edition coming out on December 1st (just in time for the holiday season) and apparently they’ve taken the old Special Collector’s Edition out of stores until the new one comes out in 5 months. I will, of course, be buying it and until then- who knows? Maybe I will get one from an Amazon seller although I do have my recorded version from Turner Classic Movies on my DVR, but it’s such a great movie that who knows, I might just have to have two copies….

And a little old movie trivia (and I know this because I read the book as well as saw the movie and I happen to love TCM): The line “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” appears in the book as “My dear, I don’t give a damn”, Clark Gable added on the “Frankly” and created a line that is No.1 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes list. Oh Clark and Rhett…

A bientot.

You know how to whistle don’t you?

alannahoffy — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:22:00 +0000

May 21, 1945.

It was on this day (which was today about 15 minutes ago) Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married on Malabar Farm in Ohio. I know this because I, as already stated, love anything to do with Old Hollywood and Bacall and Bogart are basically my favorites. Bacall was Bogie’s fourth wife and started courting her while he was still married to Wife No. 3, notorious drunk Mayo Methot, who once stabbed him in the back (literally) while she was drunk. Needless to say, it was not a very happy marriage and many called them the Battling Bogarts. Then Bogie met Lauren Bacall on the set of To Have and Have Not in 1944 while he was 44 and she 19. It wasn’t love at first sight, as Bacall explains in her autobiography, but they fell in love gradually as the movie went on filming. it’s one of the elements that make To Have and Have Not the great movie that is; you can literally see the two stars falling in love as the movie progresses.

After admitting Mayo to rehab in Reno and obtaining a divorce, Bogie decided to marry Betty (Bacall’s vraiment first name) and the two entered into a love filled marriage exactly 64 years ago today (yesterday, really). More on the Bogarts later, and that was a random fun fact about May 21.

I think this blog is coming along well so far, for the two posts I’ve made, if you ask me. I might actually stick with it, it is kind of fun.

Au revoir, a bientot!

Welcome to the Golden Era.

alannahoffy — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:11:31 +0000

So here I am, starting a blog.

I have never actually blogged before and I still don’t know exactly why I’m starting now. Maybe because I wanted to share my dreams and aspirations, maybe because I wanted to spread my love of old movies and old Hollywood, maybe just because I have a math test tomorrow and I am a fan of procrastinating. The reason why doesn’t really matter, what matters is that I am doing it now.

And with that, I am ending this short, inaugural post because I really should study for that math test. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m actually pretty excited to start this blog. I already have some ideas but they will be put on hold until tomorrow afternoon…

A demain.