Film’s Title: Theodora Goes Wild
Cast: Irene Dunne (Theodora Lynn), Melvyn Douglas (Michael Grant), Elisabeth Risdon (Aunt Mary), Margaret McWade (Aunt Elsie), Robert Greig (Uncle John), Thomas Mitchell (Jed Waterbury), Thurston Hall (Arthur Stevenson), etc. Director: Richard Boleslawski Genre: Romantic Comedy (original story by Mary McCarthy) Theodora Goes Wild is the story of Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne) from Lynnfield, Connecticut - a successful writer writing under the pen name Caroline Adams. Theodora traveled to New York to have a meeting with her publisher and, on this occasion, she met Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas)—a son of a banker who went against his father’s career will and he was a painter; a lovely and outspoken young man who was surprised to meet the Caroline Adams, to whom she replied: ‘What did you expect to see? A tattooed woman?’ Michael traced her back to Lynnfield, where Theodora lived with her Aunt Mary (Elisabeth Risdon) and Aunt Elsie (Margaret McWade). In order to stay, Michael took the job of a gardener despite both aunts’ objections, and Theodora and Michael developed feelings for each other. Michael thought that writer’s life was dull, that Theodora was a nice girl with normal desires that were strangled, and encouraged her to be free and happy by having the courage to leave Lynnfield. ‘Everything Lynnfield doesn’t want you to feel about, you write about it,’ said Michael. When Michael learned Theodora loved him, and the feeling was mutual, he returned to New York. Theodora found the courage to leave Lynnfield and found Michael in New York where she discovered he wasn’t living ‘free and happy’ but trapped in a marriage he didn’t want but was supposed to stay married until his father was reelected governor. In New York, Theodora grew as a character, wanted more publicity to sell more books, and she fought for love. I let you discover why Theodora went wild and the way this romantic comedy ended. Enjoy the movie!
0 Comments
In 1933, the American Film Academy introduced the awards category for animated cartoons. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, an animated cartoon is ‘a movie that is made from a series of drawings, computer graphics, or photographs of inanimate objects (as puppets) and that gives the appearance of motion by small changes in each frame.’
The Collins Dictionary defines the ‘animated cartoon’ as ‘a film produced by photographing a series of gradually changing drawings which give the illusion of movement when the series is projected rapidly.’ And the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English states that an animated cartoon is ‘a film or program that shows pictures, clay models etc. that seems to be really moving.’ In 1934, the 8-minute animated cartoon The Three Little Pigs won the Academy Award for the best animated cartoon. The Building a Building and the Merry Old Soul were nominees. 1. THE THREE LITTLE PIGS Producer: WALT DISNEY The Three Little Pigs is the story of three pigs (possibly brothers) who are each building a house for itself. The first made it of straw. It finished it in the shortest delay and enjoyed playing its flute. The second made it of wood. It was the second to finish and enjoyed playing its violin. The third of them took most of the time working on its house out of bricks. It did not forget music either: it built a piano in bricks. It constantly warns the other two that they need to build more solid establishment for the time the wolf will come, but the others are always laughing at him, dis-considering the danger, and enjoying singing and dancing. The premise of this animated cartoon seems to be that prevention is better than any cure. When the wolf came, it could easily destroy the first two houses, but not the third one. And it is in the third one that all three pigs reunited and enjoyed music and dance in total safety. 2. BUILDING A BUILDING Producer: WALT DISNEY In Building a Building, Mickey Mouse is a worker building a skyscraper. Minnie is delivering lunch at 15 cents (1934 prices!) and led by Pluto, she brings lunch to Mickey, but she is caught in a love triangle when a colleague of Mickey wants to take his place in Minnie’s heart. The cartoon abounds in working tools that are creatively employed and in funny circumstances. 3. THE MERRY OLD SOUL Producer: WALTER LANTZ The Merry Old Soul is a lovely story in a story, and that is in a story that starts on the dentist chair. The protagonist goes to the dentist for an extraction and he is very much afraid of it, but so is his tooth—that’s the first story. He’s given an anesthetic (through a creative mechanism) that takes the protagonist in a different world—that’s the second story. It starts with radio news and he is imagining Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, a bored king, etc. To the bored king, the protagonist is telling a story—that’s the third story. Therefore, behind the simplicity appearance, the story of the cartoon is complex. It exploits children’s fear of dentist. It makes art out of this fear with a funny personification of the teeth. And the entire cartoon puts a big smile on people’s faces. Enjoy the cartoons! OTHER LINKS: The 6th Academy Awards (Oscars) 1934, https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1934 The Animated Cartoons Review Series. 1933 Oscar Cartoons https://lauralai.weebly.com/review/animated-cartoons-review-series-1933-oscar-cartoons The 5th Academy Awards (Oscars) 1933, https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1933 |
AUTHOR
|