Haiku # 7: "Bringing up baby"

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

"I hope you don't mind,
dear David Huxley, the fact
I own a leopard."

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Haiku # 6: "From here to eternity"

I wanted to try a funny haiku today (although, for Deborah, it wasn't fun to shoot)...Oh, don't forget to check who's who in The Scarlett O'Hara War...

From here to eternity (1953)

"Wait, dear, I'm drowning
and the sand is all over;
let's kiss on a bench"

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980): guess who's who

I finally watched this movie! I was so curious to find out how was it like and how close were the actors playing Classic Stars. Well, one of the few good things about this movie --based on the novel Moviola by Garson Kanin-- is that at least it gives you an idea about the great crusade that meant looking for the perfect Scarlett O'Hara. The main characters are David O. Selznick --played by Tony Curtis-- and his brother, Myron Selznick.

The main events shown are: the conversations with Crawford and Paulette Goddard who really wanted the role (the other actresses are just shown briefly); parties given by David to promote the movie; castings in several cities; two random guys who made a parallel fake casting to get girls; screen test with many performers, including Tallulah Bankhead; a party were David reunited all the possible actresses to play Scarlett; Myron noticing Vivien and then the burning of Atlanta. 

I don't know too much about old Hollywood gossips, hope you can help me out here, but according to this movie Joan Crawford slept with David Selznick to try to get the role. I don't think that this is a good movie; I didn't like, for example, the way they made fun of Chaplin, showing him always doing exercises and looking stupid. Most of the characters were really a caricature, all their dialogs were unidimensional. There are also dialogs that sounds fake, like Mayer explaining Gable what happened when he showed his t-shirt in It happened one night. 

But it was fun to spot someone that was supposedly a Classic Star and to hear people mentioning famous movies, like at some point someone laughs about Mayer doing a crazy musical called The Wizard of Oz. Then they mention Rebecca (at the end Myron is looking the screen test and notices Vivien). Also Cukor talks with Crawford and other actresses about the idea of The Women. Chaplin would be doing a movie about Hitler (The great dictator).

I know, I know, you want to see famous people. Some of them are OK, the actress playing Joan Crawford for example had something; but there are some that are not remotely alike. My least favorite is Carole Lombard, gosh, did they see a picture of her before the casting?? Oh, I can't say if they talked like the original actors, because the only copy I got was dubbed in Spanish. Well, try to guess who's who before reading the caption:

David O. Selznick

Myron Selznick

Louella Parsons

Charles Chaplin

George Cukor

Louis B. Mayer

Katharine Hepburn

Paulette Goddard

Tallulah Bankhead

Joan Crawford

Joan Bennett and Margaret Sullavan

Miriam Hopkins and Jean Arthur

Lucille Ball

Carole Lombard...really.

Yeah...really. Carole Lombard and Clark Gable.

Laurence Olivier...I think.

Clark Gable

Vivien Leigh. The actress, Morgan Britanny, had played Vivien in Gable and Lombard. 

What do you think? Who's your favorite? And your least favorite?

PS: 101 people have decided to follow my blog so far. That means that I'll be celebrating this weekend, stay tuned!

Haiku # 5: "Dinner at eight"

I'm a bit late with today's haiku, but I just arrived home (waiting to see the royal wedding)....

Dinner at Eight (1933)

"You're invited to
dinner. Bring broken dreams and
new hopes. 8pm."

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Still haven't picked your nominees for the LAMMYs?

Well, guys, me neither. And it seems that a lot of people are in the same situation. It's not easy to pick a few blogs when the LAMB has like 900 members. But because I follow mostly Classic Movie Blogs, I browsed the complete table of members and here are the Classic Movie blogs I found that I actually know/follow, so maybe this list would be helpful to you too to narrow down your options (or at least it will help you to choose your nominees for Best Classic Film Blog) . Oh, there's an item in the poll for Best New Site, so I divided this list in "old" and "new":

• http://www.noiroftheweek.com/
• http://moirasthread.blogspot.com/
• http://twentyfourframes.wordpress.com/
• http://themovieprojector.blogspot.com/
• http://talkieking.blogspot.com/ (All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!)
• http://silentstanzas.blogspot.com/
• http://operator_99.blogspot.com/ (Allure)
• http://wheredangerlives.blogspot.com/
• http://carole-and-co.livejournal.com/
• http://lolitasclassics.blogspot.com/
• http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.com/
• http://www.vivandlarry.com/
• http://www.moviefanfare.com/
• http://avalon76.blogspot.com/ (Flappers and Flickers)
• http://movienut14.blogspot.com/ (Defiant Succes, former 'Life of a Cinephile and Bibliophile')
• http://classicforever.blogspot.com/
• http://outofthepastcfb.blogspot.com/

NEW (516-900)

• http://byjingobygee.blogspot.com/ (Oh By Jingo! Oh By Gee!)
• http://kittypackard.wordpress.com/
• http://ingridbergmanfilms.blogspot.com/
• http://jnpickens.wordpress.com/ (Comet over Hollywood)
• http://hollywoodrevue.wordpress.com/ (The Hollywood Revue)
• http://flickchick1953.blogspot.com/
• http://trueclassics.wordpress.com/
• http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/
• http://macguffinmovies.wordpress.com/
• http://sophie-waitinonasunnyday.blogspot.com/
• http://javabeanrush.blogspot.com/
• http://ishootthepictures.blogspot.com/
• http://thebestpictureproject.wordpress.com/
• http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/ (Immortal Ephemera)
• oh, and: via-51.blogspot.com :)

I know, it's still very difficult to choose just some of these, even when you can pick 3 sites per award and 5 for Best Blog.

 Nominate your favorite blogs here BEFORE MAY 9TH.

PS: If you have a Classic Film Blog part of the LAMB that I didn't add, please, leave a comment.

Haiku # 4: Morocco

As I promised this morning in the review of Marlene...

Morocco (1930)

"He: loved her, left her.
And she: loved him, followed him.
Footsteps in the sand. "

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Book Review: "Marlene" by Charlotte Chandler

Disclosure: People at Simon & Schuster contacted me & sent me a copy of Marlene two weeks ago. Thank you guys!

Charlotte Chandler talked with Marlene Dietrich in 1977. That's a big deal, for starters. I mean, you just have to watch this great documentary by Maximilian Schell to notice how difficult it was to talk with her and even more, to discuss personal matters. After retirement, Marlene pretty much didn't want to see anybody. She didn't want to appear in the media looking old. She wanted to keep the mystery, the light of the Blue Angel untouched. And she was disciplined, like her mother taught her to be. I can imagine how much she wanted at some points talk with some old friends anxious to meet her. I guess she had to made an effort to restrain herself, fake a voice and say that Miss Dietrich wasn't there. 

But Charlotte Chandler visited her in Paris and talked to her. And surprisingly, Marlene was very cooperative, very open, funny at times, wise and direct. I'm a fan of direct quotes. You can imagine how the person pronounced a sentence, certain word. Where she made a pause. You can follow their train of thoughts and that way, know them a bit more. The strongest point of this book is precisely direct quotes.

"I'm not surprised you want to hear about my life. I've had an interesting life. I found it interesting. That's the important thing. Wouldn't be terrible if you didn't find your own life interesting?"

And, in Marlene's own words, you can read about her life in Berlin, about diets, her love for cooking, her parents. You read, believe it or not, about her sister, the one she always denied, because she wanted to protect her. Her friend Ernest Hemingway. Her movies, Hollywood, her dear husband Rudi (the love of her life) and his mistress, her lovers ('Douggie' Fairbanks Jr, Jean Gabin, James Stewart, John Wayne, Joseph AND John Kennedy, etc). Her sentiment about Germany and her role in the war. Her directors. Her dolls collection. A page about her "bohemian" life ("I didn't believe in rejecting anything until I knew what it was"). Music and songs. Her pregnancy and how it affected her physically and mentally.

But there are more direct quotes. Unexpected, interesting direct quotes. You turn a page, and guess what, Bette Davis remembers the time when they participated in the Hollywood Canteen and how Dietrich cooked or scrubbed the floor in the kitchen ("I have a lot of admiration for Marlene Dietrich"), or maybe Douglas Fairbanks Jr. remembers very vividly, very openly his relationship with her and the things she said to him, including her plan to kill Hitler (oh, he also tells a very interesting fact about Laurence Olivier). Joan Crawford was also interviewed by the author and shared what she knew about von Sternberg. Burt Bacharach explains how great and professional Marlene was on stage. The daughter of John Gilbert says she's very grateful with the actress because she was very good to her father and herself ("It was like having a beautiful fairy godmother"). That passage was very moving. 

More people talked: maybe a technician who remembered an anecdote with the star, maybe a then young guy who assisted to university and remembers how he managed to get the legend for a movie and shares all the feelings of a classic film fan who actually met Marlene Dietrich. Great stuff.

But Charlotte Chandler made a mistake. And that mistake has cost her a lot, in my opinion, more than her hard work deserved. She had wonderful material, terrific material, but the way she wrapped it up was wrong. We didn't need another biography, there are plenty, even one written by her own daughter, Maria Riva. We didn't need her to add a very boring description of each movie Marlene did between the marvelous direct quotes I'm telling you about. Because in most cases there are not related quotes to make a real contribution and the plot is left alone, disconnected. The problem is that people reading "a personal biography" in the cover may be disappointed. If she had focused the material as "unpublished interviews", "remembering Marlene", "a conversation with the Blue Angel", she would have nailed it. 

I really enjoyed the book. Now I admire more Marlene Dietrich and at the same time I feel more nostalgia and sadness of the way stars started to fade, their pressure of keeping the myth alive. I think that there is just a format problem that can be  overlooked if you want to read Marlene in her own words.


PS: I'll post today's haiku tonight and it will be about a movie from Marlene :)

Haiku # 3: Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

"A poor cat waiting
in the cold rain for someone
bringing him a name."

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Haiku # 2: "Laura"

Laura (1944)

"Dreaming of Laura
near her portrait; then, I swear...
 I swear she was there."

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Haiku # 1: "A star is born"

A Classic Movie Haiku a day, from now to May 20, part of the Hollywood Haikus Competition.

http://www.doctormacro.com/

A star is born

"A star was born and

another faded; wish they

weren't you and me"

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

7 creepy things from Dietrich's "The Scarlett Empress" (1934)

Gosh, I suffered watching this film. My brother says I'm a coward, but really, how can you stand this level of creepiness, especially when you're watching it alone at night? Of course, this is not a terror movie, but dark films with suffocating atmospheres make me even more unease. It happened to me, for example, with Orson Well's The Trial and Touch of Evil. For those who haven't seen this film, The Scarlett Empress (1934; Josef von Sternberg) is the story of Catherine the Great  and how she became Empress of Russia. And here are its 7 creepiest things:

7. Count Alexi (John Lodge): The first time we meet the guy is when he travels to Prussia to present the intentions of Peter III of Russia to marry young Sophie Friederike Auguste (soon to be Catherine). Well, until that moment we've seen a luminous scene of young Marlene swinging, so his presence is very dark and tough and presages something wrong. But at this point you don't know about the creepy things coming ahead that will make Count Alexi look lovely. 

6. The way Marlene looks at the beginning: I'm not talking about her appearance, but the way she chose to use her eyes when she's portraying young Catherine. She has them really wide open, and her pupils go from one side to the other really fast. She stopped doing that when her character became Empress.

5. The bedtime stories they told Catherine when she was a kid: I mean, how would you like go to sleep after hearing about massacres, decapitations and tortures performed by people like Ivan the Terrible? In that sequence, we see what Catherine is being told about: women being raped, women being burned at the stake, a guy tied by his feet and swinging inside a big bell, hitting his head with each side, etc. On a side note, the kid was played by Marlene's daughter, Maria Riva. Oh, and the doll she had in the picture above was from Marlene's collection.

"Well, lieutenant, you're fortunate...very fortunate"

4. The relationships: I know this is true, but it was really creepy to see how everyone behave at  in those times. Young Catherine has to marry, and more importantly, have a heir for the throne ASAP with a man she has never seen, Peter III. The guy has a crazy mistress. His old mother has a lover: Count Alexi. Catherine loves Alexi, but she's disappointed about his affair with the old woman. So he meets a random soldier in the yard and has the famous heir with him. Then she had like 436248723467845683475 lovers. The end.

3. The settings: This is one of the creepiest features of this film. Everything, everything in the old and dark Russian castle is creepy: check, for example, the candlesticks (1), the paintings (2), the statues (3), the chairs (4) and even the the ornaments at the dinner table (5). How would you like to put a skull in it when is not Halloween?

2. The lighting: When you mix all these elements with von Sternberg's photography their creepiness is maximized. He manages to visually concentrate the attention in what she's showing in each scene; he doesn't allow you to think that the real setting is wider than what he's showing you in the moment, and that creates a suffocating atmosphere.

1. Peter III: If it wasn't for this guy, maybe I could have tolerated this film a bit more. But the way he's presented is even more creepy, especially if you're watching the movie from Catherine's point of view. When the young woman is told by Count Alexi how her husband looks, she's anxious to meet him. I mean, seriously:

Would you like him to be better looking than all men, tall and gracious? Well, he is all that and more. He's the handsomest man in the Russian court, tall and formed like a Greek god, a model in fashion and deportment which all of us strive to follow. His eyes are like the blue sky, his hair the colour of ebony. He is stronger than a team of oxen, and sleepless because of his desire to receive you in his arms.

But the creepiness of the moment in which innocent, young Catherine finally meets him, while the old Empress Elizabeth accentuates the fact that they must have a son very soon, can't be explain with words. Watch:

Gosh.Marlene's shocked expression is priceless. LOL. Sam Jaffe portrays Peter showing his teeth like you just saw the whole movie, with his eyes looking in all direction like a crazy man, playing with soldiers, etc.

Well, at least now I can say I've seen 6/7 films starring Marlene and directed by von Sternberg. The Devil is a woman is the only one left :)

LAMMY awards: For your consideration

Guys, the Large Association of Movie Blogs (LAMB) soon will be giving a recognition to the best blogs that are part of it. Seems that you have to make a little campaign to convince people to vote for you, so here's my poster:

So, if you're a LAMB, please consider my site when you're choosing your nominees :) You can nominate 3 blogs for each award, save for Best Blog, where you may nominate up to 5 sites.

PS:Let me know if you're part of the LAMB, there are like 800 registered blogs, but I'd like to pick people I actually read/follow, and I'm too lazy to browse the list.

A site you should check: "Letters of Note"

Heya readers! I haven't seen many movies lately, yesterday I started the course to get a postgraduate certificate on Digital Journalism I told you about, so I won't be posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays (probably). But don't worry, I'm planning some new services for Via Margutta, a surprise and a new book review. Stay tuned!

Today I wanted to recommend you a very interesting site, which is getting more and more known and now it's even nominated for a Webby Award. Letters of Note publishes "correspondence deserving a wider audience", that means that you can find letters, postcards, telegrams, smoke signals, etc etc sent by famous/historical people. And of course, I wouldn't be talking about this site here, if it didn't share notes from classic actors and directors. Here are my favorites:

James Dean : Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world

Audrey Hepburn to Stanley Kubrick: I expect to make the best movie ever made

A drunken evening with Groucho Marx

Cary Grant: I cannot swagger out in these shirts

Marlon Brando to Marilyn Monroe: The best reappraisals are born in the worst crisis

To Billy Wilder: Respectfully yours, Clint Eastwood

Hope you enjoyed! Oh, don't forget that you can help Letters of Note to win a Webby Award. 

The Story of Audrey Hepburn's deer Pippin (aka "Ip")

Yesterday one of my lovely readers, DorianTB, asked me:  

How did Audrey Hepburn manage to tame her deer to the point that the critter was docile enough to lie on the couch with her? :-)  

Yes, she's referring to the fawn you see on my header right now (update: changed the header; the referred picture is the second in this post). Well, I had seen many pictures of Audrey and the little deer, but never quite thought about the special bond between them. So, guess what? Everything you always wanted to know about the fawn, next:

AUDREY MEETS PIPPIN

In 1958, Audrey was shooting Green Mansions, directed by her (then) husband, Mel Ferrer. In the film, Audrey plays Rima, a girl living in the Venezuelan jungle. This girl is really connected with nature and a fawn follows her everywhere. Well, in real life, the fawn was called Pippin and the trainer suggested that Audrey take the animal home with her to get to know each other. The actress nicknamed the baby fawn "Ip" and started taking care of her. For example, she mixed pabulum and milk and fed her with a baby bottle. Soon, the 3-foot-high pet was following her everywhere.

THE STORY IN THE MEDIA

The reporters of the time, covering the shooting of Green Mansions, noticed the bond between the famous actress and the little animal. Harrison Carrol wrote for the newspaper The Day:

"When I talked to her [Audrey] on the set, she was petting the fawn that will work with her in the film. It's a cute little thing. It lay contentedly in her arms, kept nuzzling her neck and trying to lick her cheek". (Sep 15, 1958)

Vernon Scott, UPI writer, even dedicated a whole article to the subject. The Bulletin, for example, entitled Scott's story as "Co-star wins heart of Audrey Hepburn" (Sep 10, 1958), but the Oxnard Press Courier printed the full article:

(...) The diminutive actress cuddles the animal as if it were a child. In return, "IP" (Audrey's name for the fawn) bathes her face with kisses and runs to her side when she calls. 

"I've fallen in love with her", Audrey said, holding IP in her lap between takes. "Lord knows what I'll do when the picture (Green Mansions) is over and they take her away".

Terrier Growls

Ip fell to chewing on Audrey's blouse. She set the fawn down on her dressing room floor and the 3-foot-high pet proceeded to dampen the rug.

Audrey wasn't fazed, but her Yorkshire terrier, Famous, growled from a neutral corner. His nose was definitely out of joint, but Audrey soothed him with a pat on the head.  

"They get along pretty well," she said. "And Mel is just as crazy about IP as I am."

Audrey referred to her husband Mel Ferrer who is directing his wife in the picture.

"At the end of the day we all ride home together," she continued, "We have a two-seat sports car. Mel drives, Famous sits between us and IP falls asleep in my lap. She has the run of the house and garden at home: I feed her with a baby bottle. IP doesn't have any teeth yet, but she loves to nibble on everything."

Learning from IP

Audrey drew a large plastic knitting needle from her purse and IP chomped on it contentedly. "I've been working for years and living in small apartments, so I could never own pets. Now I'd like to have dozens, but we still travel a great deal and Famous is as much as I can handle."

"Ip is a European deer. When she is fully grown she will stand only four feet high, and she'll be pure white. Fortunately Ip is a wonderful actress. In all our scenes she behaves beautifully -- never more than two takes and most of the times she comes through the very first time."

"I don't have any children of my own," Audrey said wistfully, "But I'm learning a lot from IP." It was time for the star to return to the set. When she left the dressing room she called "Here, IP, IP, IP" and the leggy little fawn trotted after her. 

THE PHOTOGRAPHER REMEMBERS

But we wouldn't picture this story if it wasn't for a man called Bob Willoughby, a photographer for LIFE magazine. He accompanied Audrey on the set of many films and Green Mansions was one of them. On 2008 The NY Daily News published an article about the book Remembering Audrey, which features Willoughby's work. And he remembered the little fawn. He wrote in the book that "It was truly amazing to see Audrey with that fawn" and:

  "While Audrey's maid had been told about the little deer, she could not believe her eyes seeing Ip sleeping with Audrey so calmly. She was shaking her head and just kept smiling." 

  "Beverly Hills habitués are fairly blasé about what they see, but Audrey being followed around town by this lovely creature stopped everyone in their tracks."

Beverly Hills, California, 1958: ‘Pippin, the little fawn deer, sleeping in Audrey Hepburn’s arms. It felt safe and secure with Audrey, whose natural inner calmness contributed to this unique relationship. The deer lived with Audrey for weeks before filming would begin on Green Mansions, so it would follow Audrey in the film.’  

So, DorianTB, in the last quote you have a marvelous explanation: Audrey's natural inner calmness contributed to this unique relationship :)

EPILOGUE

The information about how the story ended for the two friends is confusing. Some say they separated and some say that Audrey and Mel kept the fawn. My take is this: after Green Mansions was finished (end of 1958), Audrey and Pippin had to part ways. Audrey was heartbroken. 

She started shooting Huston's The Unforgiven, but on January 28, 1959, she was thrown of a horse and suffered two fractured vertebrae (read my post about Audrey and the horse Guipago). Sadly, two months after this accident, on May, she suffered a miscarriage and was confined to bed. She was feeling very depressed, so Mel Ferrer brought Ip to cheer her up and to keep as a pet. They made a bed for him out of a bathtub.

Hope you enjoyed this cute story! If you have more details to share, don't hesitate and leave a comment :)


More pictures of Audrey and Ip :

• Four pictures, two rare
• Sitting in the actress chair

Book Review: "Just Being Audrey" by Margaret Cardillo

I finally received my copy of the cutest book of the year. I already talked a bit about Just Being Audrey, so this review won't be long.

  Side by side with my cellphone so you can notice its size (yes, that's my modern cellphone).

Just as I opened the package, I noticed it was better than I expected: it has a lovely glossy cover and it was bigger than I imagined, so you can appreciate the marvelous illustrations by Julia Denos even more. Julia managed to capture Audrey's essence so well! Just by watching them you can tell that she did a very in-depth investigation...then you read at the end of the book that she watched most of her films and read lots of biographies. I would have bought Just being Audrey just because of the illustrations.

But then, the text by Margaret Cardillo is very well accomplished too. The book is intended for kids aged 4 - 8, so I think that the essential things, the things that could leave something meaningful for them, are covered. I liked the fact that Margaret emphasized Audrey's humanitarian work and I think that she was very clever to pick moments of her life that talk about the way Audrey dealt with difficult situations (for example, war and how she overcame the fact that she couldn't be a ballerina, etc). I know that little readers are going to admire her and learn from her by reading  Just being Audrey. 

(On a side note: when I read in the book that the UN soldiers gave her chocolates, I went: "And cigarettes, kids, cigarettes too!". LOL. And then when I read about her role in B@t, a "party girl", I went "That's a great euphemism!").

So, if you have little kids, I really recommend this book. It captures Audrey's essence. And if you don't have children, buy it anyway. It's so cute :)



PS: The book for my next review is one I wasn't expecting to read. I even had to press "pause" in Robert Mitchum's bio. I'll tell you the story in a few days.

"The flame & the arrow" or another reason to love Burt Lancaster

Remember when I recommended The crimson pirate because Burt Lancaster was awesomely acrobatic in it? Well, guess what, I found another movie in which you can appreciate his terrific physical skills. It's so cool to see a guy his size having such control and harmony with his body. Oh, wait, yes, the movie has a plot by the way and more actors. It's really entertaining.

In The flame and the arrow (1950; Jacques Torneur) Burt plays a guy named Dardo living in the forest in medieval Lombardy. He's an outlaw with a kid to look after...alone, because his...wife? girlfriend? left him several years ago and ran off with a noble man. The people in the town near the forest want him to fight to free Lombardy and he's only convinced to fight when his kid is taken away, etc. It's very Robin Hood-ish.

Super anecdote: Burt had an amazingly acrobatic partner, Nick Cravat, with whom he worked in nine films (The crimson pirate was one of them). They used to work together in the circus as "Lang & Cravat". According to Imdb, in the two movies I'm mentioning ad-nauseam Cravat's characters were mute because he had a strong Brooklyn accent he couldn't hide. LOL. The interesting thing is that Burt and Nick died the same year, 1994. Partners till the end, uh?

So yeah, this film is really awesome to watch because it has Burt and Nick in it. And they jump, run, ride really fast in horses, jump backwards, climb, walk over a joist, jump forward, etc etc.

Oh, just this week I started noticing Viriginia Mayo. I had seen her in The best years of our life, but on Monday I saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and she was really effective and fun in it (oh, bad news, Ben Stiller is making a remake of that film). In The Flame and the Arrow she plays a noble woman, Burt's prisoner and love interest. My favorite scene from her is when she tries to seduce Nick Cravat and then another guy so they can free her, but they don't pay attention to her.

One of the few things I didn't like, is the fact that they chained the prisoner (made me remember the case of Ingrid Betancourt). The problem is, IMO, the decision to make the scene in a festive mood. I'd prefer they used a tense music in the background in the first scene she's chained, denoting that this was like the dark side of the outlaws, that this wasn't a cool thing to do. A similar situation occurs in The black swan, when Tyrone Power beats Maureen O'Hara at the beginning, and directionally speaking, they don't seem to care. I don't know if details like this distract you too.

Oh, because my reviews are oh-so-serious, I want to end with a praise for Technicolor. I loved Virginia Mayo's red riding hood, it looked gorgeous.

The end. LOL. Thanks for reading!

Youtube Alert! : This movie is available to watch online, in one file.