1) Today, January 22, is National Polka Dot Day (I ask you), so of course there must be a viewing of Busby Berkeley’s deranged tribute, “The Polka Dot Polka.” This comes at the end of that aggressively Technicolor wartime extravaganza The Gang’s All Here, led by Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda with Edward Everett Horton, foghorn-voiced Eugene Pallette, and my beloved Charlotte Greenwood along for the ride.
1a) The entire movie is here. It’s more well known for Carmen Miranda’s show-stopping “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat.”
2) As if that wasn’t enough Old Movie excitement for one day, January 22 also happens to be the birthday of Hollywood’s Favorite **z*, Conrad Veidt. Rather than bring out Casablanca again (“Perhaps you have already observed that in Casablanca human life is cheap”), why not view Dark Journey instead? This World War I espionage thriller, costumed in 1937 chic, pits Swiss couturiere Vivien Leigh against German baron Veidt — but is everyone really who they seem to be? This was the movie Vivien made just before going to Hollywood and making GWTW, which changed everything. There’s also a passel of British character actors I recognize from The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Private Live of Henry VIII, but I won’t bore you with that.
Conrad Veidt and Vivien Leigh in Dark Journey. Set in 1918, costumed for 1937.
3) If you prefer a Hollywood film, tune in instead of Joan Crawford’s A Woman’s Face, in which Veidt plays her evil lover to perfection. That said, A Woman’s Face is no one’s best work (especially poor Marjorie Main and Donald Meek), but I’m fond of this movie for Albert Bassermann, Melvyn Douglas, and especially Osa Massen.
Conrad Veidt and Joan Crawford in A Woman’s Face.