Change Your Image
paghat
Reviews
That's My Baby! (1944)
Cast Correcton
There's nobody named "Peggy" in the cast, that's "Peppy" the tall jitterbug clown-dancer.
Plus, "Peanuts" is not playing "himself" but "herself," she's the tiny jitterbug dancer.
The team were called "Peppy and Peanuts" and they appear in a couple of soundies and two films, very obscure, but were once popular on the burlesque circuit as burlesque included comedy dance teams pretty regularly.
They had a really a charming act, and it's great to see part of it preserved in this little film. How sad they're so forgotten, and even miscredited.
The film also provides a chance to see part of the act of Mike Riley and His Musical Maniacs. The "Crying" routine was one of his best known. It's awful, but it reportedly made audiences hysterical in the burlesque houses.
Riley owned The Madhouse in Hollywood, a tavern never forgotten by anyone who ever saw the inside, designed to be packed with sight gags.
-paghat the ratgirl from the weird wild realm
That's the Spirit (1933)
Salutations Your Own Sweet Self
Greetings & Salutations your own sweet self. I'm glad to see someone praising Mantan. He and similar comics like Stepin Fetchit have been so demeaned for racist caricatures, but Mantan more than any other comic of the type gave rich character performances; he conveyed much more than the stereotype people seem to believe they're seeing when they're just not paying attention. He invented the "Feets don't fail me now" routine but underlying the comedic fear he's subtly brave. If I had to face danger I'd be glad to have Mantan as companion.
Noble Sissle has made this musical short one of the greatest of the 1930s. Cora La Redd's singing is great, but her dance routine just about sets the screen on fire. Imagine being alive during the Harlem Renaissance and being able to go to a club and see her show. Gadzooks!
-paghat the ratgirl
Sonezaki shinju (1978)
Kaji Meiko the epitome of beauty
This classic tale is the Japanese Romeo & Juliette. Kaji Meiko, best known in the west for her two revenge films where she plays Lady Snowblood, with a secondary following for her earliest films which are demeaning sexploitation films, her best work after Lady Snowblood remains practically unknown in the west. In Double Suicide of Sonezaki she is at the height of her physical beauty. When the starcrossed lovers get to the climactic suicide scene, it is stretched out & stretched out in lurid detail & their white garments are totally encrimsoned by the time they have finished the horrific chore. Yet it does not play out hammy or exploitative, it is the saddest most edge-of-the-seat intensity of emotion, a bloody tearjerker infused with aesthetic gorgeousness that leaves the viewer awed & drained. -paghat the ratgirl
Hiken (1963)
An Overlooked Gem in Samurai Cinema
As Tenzen wanders through the tale becoming increasingly cruel, Chojuro follows in his wake studying & analyzing the devilishly undefeatable sword style. When he believes he has cracked the secret of defeating Tenzen, the climactic duel is engaged. To say more gives away one of the most stunning conclusions ever seen in a samurai film, but never was a cry of "I won!" ever so ironic.
This is one of Inagaki's finest films, much more artful than his more famous Samurai Trilogy. A subtitled film print has rarely been shown, & the currently available DVD is not subtitled. One hopes one of the enterprising distributors of Japanse classics in America will eventually rectify the difficulty of viewing this film.