Filmland Follies

              Long time, no see! As some of you may know, I'm a high school student, and as most of you may know, high school is busy . I realized I haven't written an article since October 2021 (yikes!) but, like Katharine Hepburn in 1940, I'm making a comeback. Here it is, everyone - a new blog article about the Great Kate!                          Katharine Hepburn skyrocketed to fame in 1932 after her film debut in A Bill of Divorcement . Suddenly all of Hollywood was curious about this polished society beauty from the East Coast who had made her way to the West. She won her first Oscar in 1933 for Morning Glory , and made a hit adaptation of Little Women the same year. Needless to say, she was a quickly-rising star. But Kate wanted to prove herself on the stage, where her acting career had gotten its start. She asked for leave from her contract at RKO Radio Pictu...

                One day in the early '50s, Howard Hawks woke up and thought "What if I made Bringing Up Baby but with monkeys and an actual baby?" And just like that, Monkey Business was born.               Well, I don't know if that's how it really went. But in the realm of animal-driven screwball comedies, Monkey Business tends to be overshadowed. Maybe it wasn't as influential as, say, Bringing Up Baby , but it's sure a barrel of laughs (and monkeys). Just take a look at the cast:                I may be biased, but that's a pretty incredible cast. There's Cary Grant - arguably one of Old Hollywood's top screwball comedy stars (see above). There's Ginger Rogers - a top-notch comedic actress, with a knack for screwball as seen in films like Carefree . And there's Marilyn Monroe in an early film appearance! Don't be misled by the advertisements ...

                If you know me, you know I love movie costumes. I recently watched Royal Wedding for the first time, and boy, oh boy, did it have amazing costumes. The movie was originally planned as a Fred Astaire/Judy Garland vehicle to capitalize on their smash success in Easter Parade . Costume designer Helen Rose began making costumes for Judy, but when Judy had to drop out of the film, Rose transferred those designs over to up-and-coming star Jane Powell.               I had to do a fair bit of research to figure out who designed Royal Wedding 's costumes. There wasn't a designer credited in the film, and the Wikipedia page doesn't list one. Eventually, thanks to handy-dandy IMDB, I found one little bullet point hidden in the Cast and Crew section: "Helen Rose (uncredited)." Uncredited??!?! was my general reaction to that. Helen Rose was an icon of costume design! She did On The Town ...