Saturday, October 2, 2010
Throroughly Modern Millie
Friday, September 17, 2010
FNAC IT! Vintage Lovers
Discover Fnac it! VINTAGE LOVERS, the second collection, rendez-vous for all vintage lovers: with its section dedicated to High-Tech and all kind of vintage objects. Go back to the “happy days”, nostalgie…
Where:
Fnac de La Défense, Montpanasse, Ternes and of course Fnac.com
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Luxury Liner
As these days I am dedicated to discover movies where George Brent played in, yesterday I saw "Luxury Liner", a 1948 MGM Technicolor movie starring Brent, Jane Powell, singer/actor Lauritz Melchior, Frances Gifford, and among others, my dear Xavier Cugat, who seldom speaks but is great with his orchestra and didn't forget to bear his chihuahua.. In his late years, Cugat would live in a room for himself at the Ritz hotel in Barcelona. He died years ago, but he is so remembered here. I would see him getting out from the Ritz sometimes when I went to my father's school near the hotel, and some months ago, I went to have a drink to a bar which had lots of his photos, near The Ritz as well. I asked the owner, a young girl, and she told me that her grandmother used to guest Cugat at that bar years ago. It was like travelling through time and being with Cugat himself there, he loved speaking about his adventures, his career, his ups and downs, and women.
When I started seeing the "Luxury Liner", I remembered the tv series "Love Boat" and asked myself if this movie was the inspiration for the tv series. I have no idea, but it looks quite similar.
Jane Powell sings so beautiful and mixing opera with cha cha cha, how could this be? Cugat made it possible:-)
Regarding Brent, the story has reminiscences of something that happened to me some years ago with someone. But in this case he says "if you love someone you must tell him/her", not that person's case, although this was the only difference.
If you want to spend a time with nice songs, some silly jokes, and feel the glamour of old times's travel by cruise, then perhaps you will like this movie very much. I have to say it made me feel very good after it ended, leaving me a sensation of gaiety.
Had I choose a character to play myself, without doubt I would loved to play Zita Romanka's, hahaha.
Also posted to
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame
Billy Bartholomew's „Delphians"-Jazzband Grammophon 21658 mx. 744 br II Berlin, 1928
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
This makes me travel through time…
There is a secret in this kind of music. I love just caressing its fragrance, trying to unfold it… never guessing what kind of sacred ingredient makes it unique.
Béla Bartók Rumanian folk Dances
Tanz-Sinfonie-Orchester Peter Kreuder - Easy to love (1937)
By Peter Kreuder.
I really love so much this kind of music. Magical, makes you daydream and imagine.
"Easy to love" is perhaps one of Cole Porter's most beautiful compositions. The song was featured in the MGM musical "Born to dance" starring Eleanor Powell, James Stewart and Virginia Bruse. It is James Stewart who serenades Eleanor Powell with "Easy to love..." read more
Lillian Russell Film in Colour (1913)
Small fragment of a lost film in Kinemacolor, "How to Live 100 Years" (1913), starring Lillian Russell. This appears to be the only surviving footage of Russell in colour.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Belated Scrapbooking Day
Using this lovely by VanillaDesignz Scrap, I have chosen this image of the violoncellist Fritz Kreisler. There is his Poor Butterfly (1917) I so much like. It is on YouTube by the way:
Fritz Kreisler
Born Feb. 2, 1875, Vienna, Austria
Died Jan. 29, 1962, New York, N.Y
At age seven Kreisler entered the Vienna Conservatory, and from 1885 to 1887 he studied composition and violin at the Paris Conservatory. After a successful concert tour of the United States (1888-89), he returned to Vienna to study medicine. He subsequently studied art in Paris and Rome and served as an officer in the Austrian army. In 1899 he returned to the stage as a concert violinist and became one of the most successful virtuosos of his time.
After 1915 he lived mainly in the United States but continued to tour widely in Europe. His concert programs frequently included many short pieces by him, among them "Caprice viennois" ("Viennese Caprice") and "Schön Rosmarin" ("Pretty Rosemary Plant"). His Classical Manuscripts, published as his arrangements of works by Antonio Vivaldi, François Couperin, Johann Stamitz, Padre Martini, and others, were admitted in 1935 to be works of his own.
In 1936 Paramount asked Dorothy Fields to set lyrics to four Kreisler melodies for the Grace Moore film The King Steps Out. One song Stars In My Eyes became a hit. Dorothy did not actually meet Kreisler at this time; the only contact between them was the briefest of appreciations – a note saying Thank you, Miss Fields.
Kreisler
by Carl Sandburg
SELL me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood.
Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead
where men kiss sisters they love.
Sell me dried wood that has ached with passion
clutching the knees and arms of a storm.
Sell me horsehair and rosin that has sucked at the breasts
of the morning sun for milk.
Sell me something crushed in the hearts blood of pain
readier than ever for one more song.
Carl Sandburg 1918. Cornhuskers.
The 103 poems that form this early collection won Sandburg the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry of 1919.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Haitian Folklore
Have you heard of Martha Jean Claude? I heard a few of her songs, in Creole and also in Spanish. But especially one that I cannot recall its title where she speaks about a group of people who go in the night with a candle following a pilgrimage or some sort of voodoo festivity. I just loved so much this song. And no way to find it without knowing first its title…









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