A Movie Scene Quiz

Yes, please.

All the movies I'm thinking of are oldies (the most recent is from 1944), which isn't surprising considering that this star -- who was a two-time Oscar winner -- was born in 1897.

I'm about to leave the office. I'll check in from home sometime this evening.

Thanks Bree. I was looking for a more recent actor, and getting nowhere.

Fredric March

Real-life artist - The Affairs of Celllini
Real-life writer - The Adventures of Mark Twain and
poet, Robert Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole St.?
Fictional actor - A Star Is Born
Reporter - Nothing Sacred

You got 'em all -- including Robert Browning, whom I was counting as a writer. When I was desperately searching for an answer to your Emma Thompson question last night (before the penny dropped), I looked at all the actors I could think of who have won two Oscars, and Fredric March came the closest because he was a real-life artist in The Affairs of Cellini, and a doctor/scientist in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When I couldn't come up with an FBI agent or an amnesiac for him, I went back to Dead Again (which your hint about the husband and wife playing dual roles had originally made me think of), and that's when I cracked it. But it's what made me think of Fredric March in the first place.

Oh, and I was thinking of The Royal Family of Broadway as the other movie in which he played an actor. I believe he was nominated for an Oscar (probably supporting) for that role.

That's funny because everytime you asked a question with a writer or a poet, I thought of Fredric March, except this time. The two writers threw me off. (lol)

I just looked up Royal Family of Broadway. I was surprised to see that Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman wrote it. And yes, March was nominated. I've never seen that one. Are you watching, TCM?

(Aside: Did you enjoy the music in Hilary and Jackie?)

New question (all movies were in the Fifties)

Real-life artist
Real-life composer
Real-life Army Captain
Missionary

I did like the music in Hilary and Jackie, but I was made a little uncomfortable by the way the movie depicted events in the lives of real people, many of whom are still alive (like Daniel Barenboim). I thought I'd probably feel the same way about Sylvia (the movie in which Gwyneth Paltrow played Sylvia Plath), which is why I didn't see it.

Thinking about your question...

Naturally, my first thought was Robert Morley, who was a missionary in The African Queen and a real-life composer (Oscar Hammerstein I) in Melba. (He was also W.S. Gilbert in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan, but I'm not sure I'd count that as a real-life composer, since I think Gilbert wrote the words while Sullivan wrote the music.) But I can't find a real-life artist or Army Captain for him.

Maybe something will occur to me overnight.

Not Robert Morley. I'm signing off too. We're expecting some rain tomorrow, but I don't have any special missions on my agenda and will be here in the A.M.

I won't be around until mid-morning (this will give me something to think about while I'm in the dentist's chair).

The dentist! I hope he doesn't find any teeth that are too loose.
Oh, and I was right about the rain, but mission accomplished, I'm here. My Aunt Sadie used to sing:
Rain, rain go away
Come again in another way.

I never would have guessed Jose Ferrer without that clue.

Real-life artist - Moulin Rouge (Toulouse-Lautrec)
Real-life composer - Deep in My Heart (Sigmund Romberg)
Real-life Army Captain - I Accuse! (Dreyfus)
Missionary - Miss Sadie Thompson

Unfortunately, the dentist found that I need root canal (I had a feeling this was coming), so I'm leaving the office in a little while to go to the endodontist, who amazingly had an opening this afternoon. As luck would have it, friends from San Francisco arrived in town this morning for a visit, and we're going to the Algonquin tonight to hear Andrea Marcovicci. I guess I'll be eating my dinner through a straw, but at least the music should make me feel better (she's doing a show called "Andrea Sings Astaire", which should be great). Then I'm taking the day off tomorrow to play with my friends, so I may not be around A2K much for the next few days.

And I hope you understood my gibberish about "rain". Miss Sadie Thompson was a remake of Rain.

Sorry about the root canal. But ,Andrea will be a real treat. If you see her, please ask her why it's taking so long for her CDs to arrive. It's been over 3 months. (Amazon has, however, notified me that they haven't forgotten.)

Have a great day tomorrow. My daughter's root canals healed in a day. Here's hoping your's will, too.

And yes, you got every movie correct. Oooh, I can't wait to hear about the concert.

Oh, I understood completely!

Here's my long-delayed report on Andrea Marcovicci's show. (Between running around all weekend, and not being able to get onto A2K this morning, I thought I'd never be able to post it!) The show -- which she's performing at the Oak Room at the Algonquin until January -- is called "Andrea Sings Astaire" and, as you might expect from the title, it's full of wonderful songs. She comes on carrying a framed photograph of Fred Astaire, announces that she's been in love with him ever since she was five years old, and proceeds to explore -- by singing songs he sang in movies, and telling stories about his life -- what made him so appealing.

She begins the show in a glamorous gown that Ginger Rogers might have worn in one of the Astaire-Rogers movies, and changes into tails for the last part of the show. She does this by beginning the song "Cheek to Cheek", and then -- as she leaves the room to make her quick costume change -- instructing the piano player to keep playing, and the audience to keep singing. Naturally, we all did, and naturally, we all knew all the words!

Andrea's mother, Helen Marcovicci, who is now in her 80's, was a singer before her marriage, and still occasionally performs duets with her daughter. At the end of last Thursday's show, we were treated to a solo performance by Helen of "It's Impossible". She gave a beautiful performance of it, and almost stole the show.

Wow! How wonderful. How big is the Oak Room? I mean, how many people were in the audience?

It's an intimate room -- I would say it probably doesn't hold more than about 100 people. It's an odd shape for a performance venue: it's a long, narrow rectangle (with the performing area in the middle of one of the long walls), which effectively means that there are very few really good seats in the house, unless you're sitting right in front of the performer. (The night I was there, Margaret Whiting and her party had the best table, which was only fitting.) However, Andrea does such a good job of looking around and making eye contact with just about everybody in the audience at some point, that you tend to forget how bad the view is.

You're really good at these descriptions, bree. I feel like I was there myself.

Were there any songs that were surprises? Or any that you expected to hear but didn't?

Thanks, mac! I can't think of any songs I wanted to hear that Andrea didn't do, but after the show was over, the man at the next table wondered aloud why she hadn't done "Puttin' on the Ritz" or "Easter Parade". Oh, well - you can't please everybody.

One somewhat unusual selection that was in the show was "The Piccolino", from Top Hat. Andrea introduced it by saying that, after the success of "The Carioca", in Flying Down to Rio, the studio insisted that the score for Top Hat had to include another Latin-themed novelty song. According to Andrea, Irving Berlin was so put out by this demand that he deliberately wrote the most inane lyrics he could come up with for "The Piccolino" - which seems like a plausible explanation for lyrics like these:

Come to the casino
And hear them play the Piccolino
Dance with your bambino
To the strains of the catchy Piccolino
Drink your glass of vino
And when you've had your plate of scalopino
Make them play the Piccolino
The catchy Piccolino
And dance to the strains of that new melody
The Piccolino