Movie Monday: Cluny Brown

 

Movie Monday: Cluny Brown

“A free-spirited parlor maid and a Czech refugee surprise

an English village with their unconventional ways.”

~IMDb~

German American director Ernst Lubitsch was known and well-respected in Hollywood for his “comedy of manners” films – satirical comedies that question and comment upon the manners and social customs of a sophisticated, artificial society (Wikipedia) much like Jane Austen did with her novels. Cluny Brown is Lubitsch’s final film, and it’s a classic screwball comedy. Two sources referred to it as effervescent, a great description.

The movie features Jennifer Jones, a prolific actress who has been largely forgotten, as Cluny Brown, and Charles Boyer as Adam Belinski, a political refugee. Cluny’s uncle is not happy with her unladylike behaviors and arranges for her to work as a parlor maid in the country house of Sir Henry Carmel. It’s not long before she is attracted to Belinski, but she difficulties abound because

she is already seeing someone – a “stuffy chemist.” All sorts of shenanigans occur, including a scene during which Cluny fixes the plumbing at her boyfriend’s house, horrifying his mother, a social diva. More confusion and chaos before she gets her happily ever after with Adam.

Cluny Brown is based on the novel by English novelist Margery Sharp who also wrote The Rescuers.
An author of more than two dozen adult novels, fourteen children’s books, four plays, two mysteries, and many short stories, Margery got her start with pieces in Punch, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar and Ladies’ Home Journal. Cluny Brown was written in 1944 while she was working as an Army Education Lecturer.

Many of the actors in the film made the transition from stage or silent movies to “talkies,” and by the mid 1940s were doing well as character actors: Reginald Owens, C. Aubrey Smith, Ernest Cossart, Florence Bates, and Una O’Connor. The movie also stars a very young Peter Lawford. Critics gave high praise such as the New York Times that said, “a delectable and sprightly lampoon,” and “among the year’s most delightful comedies.” Variety was equally complimentary with “Cluny Brown is in the best Lubitsch tradition of subtle, punchy comedy, and his two stars make the most of it. It is a satire on British manners, with bite and relish.”

Have you seen this classic?

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Eye of the Beholder: An Apron Strings Tea Tale (Releasing June 30, 2026)

Shunned for his appearance, a disfigured veteran encounters acceptance and love where he least expects it.

Left with physical and emotional scars after the Great War, Hank Drake has been shunned by polite society as the Ugly Duckling. Fine by him. He’d much rather be alone. Until he meets the kind proprietress of a tea stand at New York’s World’s Fair who isn’t repulsed by his appearance. Can he hope for acceptance…or even love?

Grace Sutton has no interest in marrying and is tired of her parent’s snide comments that she’s still single on the eve of her 40th birthday. After she loses her job thanks to budget cuts, she decides it’s time to follow her dream of feeding others. Armed with Mrs. Canfield’s cookbook, she opens a refreshment stand at the World’s Fair unaware how one man will turn her life upside down and upset the apple…er, tea cart.

Pre-Order Link: https://amzn.to/3Pz88KO

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluny_Brown
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038419/
https://www.criterion.com/films/28564-cluny-brown
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cluny-brown-1946

Photo Credits:

Movie Poster: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12521988

Movie Still 1: Twentieth Century Fox

Movie Still 2: Twentieth Century Fox

Movie Monday: The African Queen

Movie Monday: African Queen

While growing up one of my favorite things to do was watch old (1930s and 1940s) movies with my dad. He was (and still is) a huge fan of Humphrey Bogart, so I’ve seen every film he ever made, one of which I watched countless times: The African Queen. Yet, despite my knowledge of the film, I didn’t remember it was set in 1914 or that it was based on the novel of the same name by C.S. Forester, a British author who wrote mostly adventure stories about naval warfare.

For those who haven’t seen it, the premise is that Samuel (Robert Morely) and Rose (Katharine Hepburn) Saylor are brother and sister English Methodist missionaries in German East Africa. Their mail and supplies are regularly delivered by the steamboat African Queen, captained by the Canadian Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart). After war breaks out between Germany and Britain, the siblings decide to stay in Kungdu. Tragically, German troops burn the village and take the villagers away to be pressed into serve. Samuel protests the action and is struck by a soldier which ultimately kills him. Charlie and Rose escape in the African Queen. The rest of the movie is the thrills and chills of their journey to safety and love.

Hepburn does a great job of playing the strait-laced missionary against Bogart’s “gin-swilling” rogue, a

character for which he would win his only Academy Award. According to one source “although the screenplay was written with little humor in mind, the chemistry between Bogart and Hepburn was so apparent that director John Huston advised his stars to improvise witty banter.”

The movie was filmed in the Belgian Congo, Uganda, and Turkey during which the rough conditions were difficult for the actors and the crew, many becoming ill over the course of the shooting. The same sight claims “Bogart later boasted that he was one of the few to stay healthy through the shoot, attributing the accomplishment to his drinking of whiskey instead of the local water.”

Here are few fun facts:

• The African Queen was actually the L.S. Livingston, which had been a working diesel boat for 40 years. The steam engine was a prop, and the real diesel engine was hidden under stacked crates of gin and other cargo. It is now docked next to the Holiday Inn in Key Largo, FL, just off US Highway 1.
• Lauren Bacall famously ventured along for the filming in Africa to be with husband Humphrey Bogar. She played den mother during the trip, making camp and cooking. This also marked the beginning of her life-long friendship with Katharine Hepburn.
• The movie was shot mostly on location in Africa, but the water scenes were shot in England - fearing it would be too dangerous to film those on location.
• John Huston wanted to put real leeches on Humphrey Bogart, but he refused. They compromised by using rubber leeches - with real ones on set with a breeder just to make him queasy. A shot using real leeches was filmed using a double.
• It has widely been believed that London's population of feral Ring-Necked Parakeets originated from birds who escaped the filming of this movie.

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYBDRAp4Or8

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Love and Chocolate

She just needs a job. He wants a career. Is there room in their hearts for love?

Ilsa Krause and her siblings are stunned to discover their father left massive debt behind upon his death. To help pay off their creditors and save the farm, she takes a job at Beck’s Chocolates, the company her father despised and refused to supply with milk. Then she discovers her boss is Ernst Webber, her high school love who unceremoniously dumped her via letter from college. Could life get any more difficult?

A freshly-minted university diploma in his hand, Ernst Webber lands his dream job at Beck’s Chocolates. His plans to work his way up the ladder don’t include romantic entanglements, then Ilsa Krause walks back into his life resurrecting feelings he thought long dead. However, her animosity makes it clear she has no interest in giving him a second chance. Can he get her to change her mind? Does he want to?

Purchase link: https://books2read.com/u/mdQerZ

Movie Monday: King Kong - 1976

Movie Monday: King Kong – 1976 Edition

As most of you know, I love movies and books from the 1930s and 1940s. Movies made prior to 1934 when the Motion Picture Association began to enforce the production code adopted in 1930 are especially entertaining. The 1933 movie King Kong was a box-office success and is now considered by some to be the greatest horror film of all time. Whether or not you agree, the Library of Congress has deemed it “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” which means it will be preserved in the National Film Registry.

As is typical of Hollywood when a film is highly successful, it is followed by remakes. Thus, there

have been two more King Kong movies; one in 1976 and the other in 2005. Today, I’m going to focus on Dino DeLaurentis’s 1976 production, which despite its ensemble of Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, Charles Grodin, and Rene Auberjonis, did not perform as well as anticipated with box office receipts of “only” $90M (compared to Rocky which came out that same year and earned more than $225M). DeLaurentis had boasted the movie would surpass the previous year’s Jaws, and Paramount executives expected gross revenues of at least $150M.

According to a quote from screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, “We made a very deliberate attempt not to be anything like the original movie in tone or mood. Dino wanted it to be light and amusing, rather than portentous. We thought times had changed so much that audiences were more sophisticated. We hoped to do sensational things with advanced special effects on a big screen.” At least a few people thought they succeeded as the movie won Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand were both considered for the female lead. Sources indicate DeLaurentis didn’t think Streep pretty enough, and Streisand turned down the role that eventually went to Jessica Lange, a fashion model with no previous acting experience. The male lead went to Jeff Bridges who by the time he was cast had made multiple appearances with his father on Sea Hunt and the Lloyd Bridges Show as well as nearly one dozen movies.

Have you seen either version?

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Dial S for Second Chances

Can years of hurt and misunderstanding be transformed into a second chance at love?

Jade Williams agrees to be on the high school reunion committee because the-one-that-got-away is out of the country and won’t be home in time to attend the festivities. Now, he’s not only home, but joined the committee. Is it too late to back out or can she set aside forty-five years of regret and pretend she isn’t to blame for her broken heart?

One of the downsides of being rich means fielding requests for money and favors. But when an old high school buddy contacts Derek Milligan to be on the reunion committee as just one of the gang, no strings attached, he can’t resist. At the first meeting, he’s dismayed to find himself sitting next to his former high school sweetheart. He should be angry. Instead, he’s attracted. Can he risk his heart a second time?

Pre-order Link: https://amzn.to/439GZ1F