Old movies sometimes remind you of.....

[Tropicana]

The one with Ava Gardner. I guess that would be the second. She spoke of the make-up in an interview I saw with her. I remembers it was Egyptian something and here is the conformation.


White Hollywood Had Lena Horne Wear Dark Make Up Because They Did Not Want Her To Appear Light Skin


In 1938, Lena was given one of the leads (Ethel) in The Duke is Tops at the suggestion of an agent who had seen her at the Cotton Club. She moved to Hollywood after her divorce from Lewis and was soon discovered by MGM. Lena stipulated in her contract that she would not get sterotypical black roles. In fact, MGM wanted her to look even darker on screen, so Max Factor invented "Little Egyptian" makeup for Lena to serve that purpose.


She sings one of the songs here in Till the Clouds go by. I think we can all agree she would have been perfect for the part. I love this song.

[Tropicana]

Compare it to what Ava Gardner did in the movie

[Tropicana]

No conversation about Show Boat would be complete without Paul Robeson. He was a very conscioius and progressive man and insisted that the words for the song be changd to remove the N word. This was 1936. Brave move on his part. It could have cost him the part I am sure.

Does this give anybody else goose bumps? LOVE it!

[Tropicana]

Still absolutely lovely until the end.

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

Lest we forget....here are more incredible artists including Hazel Scott from Trinidad who married Adam Clayton Powell.

Most of them were activists....it was a necessity....and they paid dearly for it.

[Tropicana]

Speaking of old movies...TCM is featuring the movies of Esther Williams tonight and for 24 hours in total as she recently passed away. She swam in her movies yet her bathing suits were always tasteful and the plots were always wholesome.

Esther Williams, 22, hazel-eyed, streamlined Hollywood aquabelle, became an unwitting accessory to crime last week when one Allen Artenchuck confessed the theft of six reels of Esther’s film, Bathing Beauty, from a Brooklyn theater on the grounds that “Esther Williams is the most gorgeous creature I have ever seen. When I could not have her, I made up my mind to get the film.”

—TIME, Dec. 11, 1944

Such was the effect of a pretty girl in a bathing suit, not just on a besotted Brooklynite but also on the mass of moviegoers at the American midcentury. In a popular series of MGM musicals from Bathing Beauty to the 1955 Jupiter’s Darling, Esther Williams would doff her robe, revealing a sleek one-piece swimming costume, dive into a pool and, as film critic James Agee wrote, go “lolloping in a friendly way before underwater cameras.” And, like Mickey Rooney — who, in Williams’ feature-film debut Andy Hardy’s Double Life, is so stirred by the girl’s charms that he falls twice into a swimming pool — movie fans got all wet over Esther.
Williams, who died Jun. 6 at 91 in Los Angeles, had set a national record for the 100-meeter freestyle as a teenager, but in movies her appeal wasn’t speed, or overt sexuality, but rather an easy, self-assured radiance, in or out of the water. Where a Rita Hayworth would stoke men’s lust with the allure of exotic danger, and Jane Russell was a sullen face over two bazookas, Esther suggested the pretty girl next door, if you were lucky enough to live in an Orange County or John Cheever suburb where everyone had a backyard pool. Sleek as a seal and imperiously tall (5’8½”), with gorgeously toned arms, a beachcomber’s tan and a lustrous smile, Williams exemplified the athletic young dazzler to a country weary of war. In the 1953 Easy to Love, Van Johnson rapturously defines Esther as “all that’s beautiful, clean, decent, desirable, wholesome and commercial” — the postwar dream of the all-American girl. She was Doris Day, underwater.
(READ: an Obit of 91-year-old Esther Williams by the AP’s 91-year-old Bob Thomas)

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/0...ies-at-age-91/
Tonight, you can apply 2013 eyes to this ’40s-’50s phenomenon, as Turner Classic Movies lavishes 24 hours, from 8 pm Thu. to 8 pm Fri., on 13 Esther Williams movies, 12 of them swimming musicals. (Unfortunately missing: the synoptic, modestly revealing interview that Williams sat for in 1996 with TCM host Robert Osborne.) None of her movies will displace The Godfather or Citizen Kane (or, sigh, Vertigo) from your list of perennials; they fit TIME’s definitions of an Esther Williams musical as “a pretty body of water surrounded by clichés” (1950) and “so much water over the dame” (1955). But they should amply demonstrate old Hollywood’s ingenuity in concocting vivacious variation on just about any subject, including what narrator Keenan Wynn in the 1949 Neptune’s Daughter calls “a story about a guy, a girl and a bathing suit.” The movies should also validate MGM production chief Louis B. Mayer’s investment in a 22-year-old who had never acted professionally before she came to the studio, and in a building that housed the 20-foot-deep, 90-foot-by-90-foot glass-walled pool she cavorted in. It was Stage 3 — the Esther Williams Stage.


Read more: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/0...#ixzz2W9GYc560

[Tropicana]

Very interesting and relevant to this thread. One of the movies, Million Dollar Mermaid, is about Annette Kellerman an Australian swimmer. She was taken to court for wearing the first 1 piece bathing suit in the US and she was charged with indecent exposure. Who knew?

In 1907, the swimmer Annette Kellerman from Australia visited the United States as an "underwater ballerina", a version of synchronized swimming involving diving into glass tanks. she was arrested for indecent exposure because her swimsuit showed arms, legs and the neck.

Kellerman changed the suit to have long arms and legs and a collar, still keeping the close fit that revealed the shapes underneath. She later starred in several movies, including one about her life. She marketed a line of bathing suits and her style of one-piece suits came to be known as "the Annette Kellerman". The Annette Kellerman was considered the most offensive style of swimsuit in the 1920s and became the focus of censorship efforts.

Despite opposition from some groups, the form-fitting style proved popular. It was not long before swimwear started to shrink further. At first arms were exposed and then legs up to mid-thigh. Necklines receded from around the neck down to around the top of the bosom. The development of new fabrics allowed for new varieties of more comfortable and practical swimwear.
Due to the figure-hugging nature of these garments, glamour photography since the 1940s and 1950s has often featured people wearing swimsuits. This type of glamour photography eventually evolved into swimsuit photography exemplified by the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Beauty contests also required contestants to wear form-fitting swimsuits

[Tropicana]

This story has a Jamaican connection. Coming with it soon.

[Tropicana]

Seeit deh:

A Daughter of the Gods, a silent film starring Annette Kellerman, was filmed in Kingston, Jamaica. It was controversial as there was a nude scene in which long, thick hair covered her body. A Daughter of the Gods, a silent film starring Annette Kellerman, was filmed in Kingston, Jamaica. It was controversial as there was a nude scene in which long, thick hair covered her body.


Great cost was afforded to make a sanitary of mosquito-proofing over a section of Kingston, Jamaica. Sets consumed 2,500 barrels (400 m3) of plaster, 500 barrels (79 m3) of cement, 2,000,000 board feet (5,000 m3) of lumber, and ten tons of paper. Director Herbert Brenon employed 20,000 people during the eight months of production and used 220,000 feet (67,000 m) of film to shoot the picture.

[RichD]

Great cost was afforded to make a sanitary of mosquito-proofing over a section of Kingston, Jamaica.

is dat some kinda chinese translation?

[Tropicana]

Don't know. The point is clear even if the English is not. This story is not of enough significance for me to waste hours looking for perfectly crafted material. It is a story of the fluffy "who knew" type.

This was apparently the first nude in films...shot in Jamaica.

[RichD]

Don't know. The point is clear even if the English is not. This story is not of enough significance for me to waste hours looking for perfectly crafted material. It is a story of the fluffy "who knew" type.

This was apparently the first nude in films...shot in Jamaica.

but i am intrigued to find out what exactly a "sanitary of mosquito proofing" is and how it covered a section of Kingston.

[Tropicana]

You going ave fe research dat youself boss...mi a go get ready fe watch polo...you wan' come join mi. Probably going to meet up with someone you know to. Mi wi PM you.