Discover long hidden early 20th Century Films via Internet Archive!! OMG OMG OMG!!! Why do I love music? Why do I love music images? Cos of early musical films!!
People always wonder WHY I photographed punk rock. WHY photography? Why punk rock? COS I LOVE MUSICALS!!!
I can’t handle the cold NY weather, so live Broadway photography was not feasible. I’m not a collaborator, so moving pictures was out.
But my terrible childhood and youth and life was ONLY bearable cos of MUSIC, esp musical movies. And making art.
ALICE FAYE and DON AMECHE! via Internet Archive!!! OMG OMG OMG! I’ve longed to see Alice Faye musicals for years! (Sadly, this was an epic failure. No wonder I never came across it.)
I can’t stop crying with joy. I grew up watching 1930s and 1940s 20th Century Films. WHY they’ve buried those beats me.
Was listening to Broadway cast LPs via my iTunes/Music from CDs I purchased. Long time since I listened cos usually I can’t pay heed to words, just music when working, reading, writing. Was singing along and having a great time while working on Clash photos earlier today for earlier post.
Then I started singing along with Mack and Mabel by Jerry Herman starring the great Robert Preston and fave Bernadette Peters. Then read about Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett.
Read Hollywood Cavalcade was based on them. With of course a lot of fictional elements. (I wrote that before seeing the film. OMG, it’s awful! WHY didn’t they stick with THE real stories? Mabel was dead by 1930, nine years before this film!)
OH MY GAWD THE REAL MACK SENNETT is uncredited yet talking! I always think about the time he spoke at the Oscars. Except he didn’t have a mic or it wasn’t working. THE man who revolutionized silent films with his Bathing Beauty and many stars he discovered (CHAPLIN!!! amongst others). And there he was, SILENT.
This movie hired the great true early silent film star, writer, director, legendary Buster Keaton. Except he was seen for a few minutes then gone. Shameful!
Don Ameche later became a successful singing Broadway star. Cole Porter’s “Silk Stockings” being amongst his most famous show. He had a lovely deep voice.
I LOVE the art! So PINK!
NOW I am stunned to actually see ALICE FAYE!!! I loved hearing her sing and watching her act! And Don Ameche is always soooo good.
Wait, I hear HEBREW! Oh, Don Ameche entered a movie theater to hear the FIRST Talking Picture. THE JAZZ SINGER on youtube.
So they chose THIS scene? When Al Jolson, Lithuanian Jew like I, is portraying a cantor, like his father in the movie. They CHOSE THAT SCENE???
NOT his famous, “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet”?? I bought an Al Jolson CD from Rhino Records, started by three Jews. I LOVE that CD! Old fashioned fun that ROCKS!
Or THE famous song, “the sun shines east, the sun shines west, but I know where the sun shines best.” Channel 9 showed ONE film 9 times a week. Every night and twice on weekends. My faves were JIMMY CAGNEY in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
And Larry Parks in “The Jolson Story” with Al Jolson singing the songs.
THAT is how I learned some of the songs. Watching those films over and over. SO MUCH FUN!
(NOT gonna talk about his black face! THAT was the style. AND JOLSON was a HUGE supporter of Civil Rights. Cab Calloway and other Black entertainers were in his films as EQUALS. Calloway and others always talked about his support. He just lived in a time even Black entertainers wore blackface. Of course it’s wrong. And Jolson was an egotistical jerk. But he treated talented entertainers well.)
Alice played opposite MY FAVE, Tyrone Power, THE male sex icon from 20th Century in the 1930s and 1940.
TY POWER in “In Old Chicago.” Also with Don Ameche and Alice Faye. Also all in “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” OMG. Were they beautiful or what? Be still, my beating heart. TY POWER hubba hubba. HE is why I started buying and reading old movie history books.
Have you seen the original Nightmare Alley? (Or this Link via Internet Archive.) Ty Power is incredible in it! Studio head Darryl F Zanuck didn’t want HIS leading man playing in such a nasty film about unsavory character. Ty won the battle. Brilliant. WAY better than the newer version. He’s far more sexy than Bradley Cooper!
(I read the book and it’s AMAZING!!!! I wish someone would film the first part, about his upbringing, evangelicals in tents and Southern superstitions. Amazing, memorable, haunting book.)
Rose of Washington Square starring Alice and Ty was hard to see because Fannie Brice (Funny Girl based on her life) sued 20th Century Fox. It was too close to her life for her liking. But in the Internet Archive. OH WOW!
OF course I wished I WERE Alice Faye! Beautiful with a gorgeous singing voice, sensitive acting and opposite tall dark and handsome Ty Power, Don Ameche, and Henry Fonda (ALL in Lillian Russell, a film I forgot about) and often with one or two of them.
LILLIAN RUSSELL with Alice Faye AND Henry Fonda (OMG!) AND Don Ameche on YOUTUBE!
How lucky was SHE???
Name me three more sexy, handsome, talented men than Power, Fonda and Ameche. OMG.
My fave is Hello, Frisco, Hello. (She played against a very untalented man, John Payne. I dunno what he lacked but he didn’t have IT.) AND supporting cast included JUNE HAVOC.
June Havoc is dancing with Jack Oakie, top left and solo, top right, showing her gams aka legs.
Ever see GYPSY? Today, I saw Better Midler’s Rose’s Turn on Youtube and listened to Ethel Merman’s original Broadway version. AGAIN. In my early 20s, I read Gypsy Rose Lee’s autobio and a bio by her son, whose father was film director Otto Preminger!
BABY JUNE ran away to Hollywood. And became JUNE HAVOC! I grew up watching Gypsy’s Baby June in old 20th Century Fox films. Including Hello, Frisco, Hello.
Then I saw Gypsy Rose Lee on talk shows in mid to late 60s. Had NO idea who they were!
Bette Midler sings “You’ll Never Know” from that film based around the time of the 1906 SF earthquake in one of her records.
42 years later:
I started buying and reading Movie history books since I was 14. 61 years ago. I donated so many movie history books to USC Film Library they have a Jenny Lens movie history book section in their student film library!
And I still have too many to read and re-read. I LOVE show biz histories.
I grew up without a color TV. The most technicolor, over the top Alice Faye film in color in The Gang’s All Here.
Watch Carmen Miranda doing her famous Lady with the Tutti Frutti hat from That film was re-released during the late 1960s. Became a BIG hit with those of us who enjoyed acid! Whoopee!
Well, I only wanted to share my JOY finding Alice Faye in COLOR with Don Ameche about early show biz.
WHILE researching (mostly SWEARING) while researching how to make a Substack Landing Page. I read
FlakPhoto from Andy Adams.
He showed us his newly designed home page, I mean, landing page. Another task!
So I was looking for the folder with my logos.
Then fell into old Hollywood history. That’s how my brain works. Seriously, always music, old movies, art and tech. Ok, so where did I stick my logos?
Gimme 5 minutes and I’ll find that folder. IF I don’t get distracted by tracking down more 20th Century musicals (or any old musicals)!!
Thanks for reading Jenny Lens Punk Pioneers!