Past that, however, is sometimes bright comedy
and music/dance of a sort we'd figure for uptown cabarets in final days of
thrive. Trailer-bait Julie Wilson isn't remembered much, at least by me, but
was a Manhattan
rage and thrush with Ray Anthony's orchestra, latter also appearing in This
Could Be The Night as himself. Dancing Neile Adams came close
to Broadway brass rings, does striking numbers here, but chucked it to marry
Steve McQueen, endure quietly his stardom and infidelities, her second career a
memoir of their life together and non-stop reminiscence of McQueen for documentary
profiles. Nibbling round edges is Joan Blondell, her character a long-ago headliner, whose
apartment with daughter Adams is splayed with
stills of Blondell at Warner Bros. peak. Of veterans aboard, ZaSu Pitts is
in/out as concerned landlady for Simmons. Maltin Reviews called This Could Be
The Night "forced ... frantic" --- opening up of intended
B&W-Cinemascope relieves at least some of that, but there is lots of
shouting and running about, a hazard when characters are drawn along
Runyonesque lines. This Could Be The Night is available on DVD from Warner
Archive.
This title played quite a lot on TNT Latin America before it disposed all of the MGM, Warner, and RKO titles. At first, it was shown in English with Spanish subtitles for a while before they switched to a dubbed version (people with television sets with a SAP feature were still able to listen to the original soundtrack instead). The presentation was always a pan and scanned version.
I can easily understand why this title lost money since the whole story is basically unremarkable despite a terrific cast. I can never forget Joan Blondell constantly stating "this could be the night" from the beginning to the end of the film, and that is what I mostly remembered about this movie until you wrote about the proceedings.
I love Julie Wilson's casual sexiness in this film. She was sort of a big deal in nightclubs in the 1950s. She put out a few albums including "Live at the St. Regis," which is a great document of a real 50s nightclub act, and demonstrates that her "gimmick" was that she was both sexy and self-deprecatingly funny. She retired to Omaha for a couple of decades to raise a family but made a major comeback in the 1980s, and become something of the reigning diva of NYC cabaret (albeit with a much-reduced voice that is for some an acquired taste, which can be heard on her 80s albums of Kurt Weill, Sondheim, etc. as well as, of course, YouTube.)
3 Comments:
This title played quite a lot on TNT Latin America before it disposed all of the MGM, Warner, and RKO titles. At first, it was shown in English with Spanish subtitles for a while before they switched to a dubbed version (people with television sets with a SAP feature were still able to listen to the original soundtrack instead). The presentation was always a pan and scanned version.
I can easily understand why this title lost money since the whole story is basically unremarkable despite a terrific cast. I can never forget Joan Blondell constantly stating "this could be the night" from the beginning to the end of the film, and that is what I mostly remembered about this movie until you wrote about the proceedings.
Don't sell Neile Adams short, she managed Steve McQueen's career over the next decade or so.
I love Julie Wilson's casual sexiness in this film. She was sort of a big deal in nightclubs in the 1950s. She put out a few albums including "Live at the St. Regis," which is a great document of a real 50s nightclub act, and demonstrates that her "gimmick" was that she was both sexy and self-deprecatingly funny. She retired to Omaha for a couple of decades to raise a family but made a major comeback in the 1980s, and become something of the reigning diva of NYC cabaret (albeit with a much-reduced voice that is for some an acquired taste, which can be heard on her 80s albums of Kurt Weill, Sondheim, etc. as well as, of course, YouTube.)
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