Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on March 8, 2013

Because it's her birthday today (she's 77, and still I'm sure a spritely presence), let's spend a moment thinking about Sue Ane Langdon. Who? Exactly. I'm always interested in the kind of performer who can work for years, and steadily, and even in high-profile vehicles (she made two Elvis pictures   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on February 18, 2013

For no reason at all, except that she is superb, and rarely more so than here. Colbert is one of those '30s ladies (along with Myrna Loy, among others) whose career took an unexpected turn. We remember her as the durable Great Lady, full of a kind of high-mid-Atlantic sophistication,...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on February 18, 2013

For no reason at all, except that she is superb, and rarely more so than here. Colbert is one of those '30s ladies (along with Myrna Loy, among others) whose career took an unexpected turn. We remember her as the durable Great Lady, full of a kind of high-mid-Atlantic sophistication,...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on February 16, 2013

Successful Camp... even when it reveals self-parody, reeks of self-love - Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp" "Yvette Mimieux as herself"* - this is the kind of phrase that real camp-film aficionados - me, of course, among them - live for. And poor Paula, just a ditto... This movie appears to...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on February 16, 2013

Successful Camp... even when it reveals self-parody, reeks of self-love - Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp" "Yvette Mimieux as herself"* - this is the kind of phrase that real camp-film aficionados - me, of course, among them - live for. And poor Paula, just a ditto... This movie appears to...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on February 4, 2013

Oh, I know, other people's dreams really are dull, and mine are no exception. Even so, I'm going to beg your indulgence and hope that you gentle readers might help me parse out one I've been having lately. Maybe it's just a delayed reaction to reading her obituaries last summer,...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on February 4, 2013

Oh, I know, other people's dreams really are dull, and mine are no exception. Even so, I'm going to beg your indulgence and hope that you gentle readers might help me parse out one I've been having lately. Maybe it's just a delayed reaction to reading her obituaries last summer,...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 30, 2013

In honor of the lady's 88th birthday, let's spend a moment celebrating Dorothy Malone's fabulously demented performance in a rather fabulously demented picture, 1956's Douglas Sirk epic Written on the Wind. She's a heedless young Texas heiress who mesmerizes the boys with the wild abandon of her ma   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 30, 2013

In honor of the lady's 88th birthday, let's spend a moment celebrating Dorothy Malone's fabulously demented performance in a rather fabulously demented picture, 1956's Douglas Sirk epic Written on the Wind. She's a heedless young Texas heiress who mesmerizes the boys with the wild abandon of her ma   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 22, 2013

Let's wish a happy birthday (her 104th, believe it or not, were she here to celebrate it) to Hollywood stalwart Ann Sothern. Sothern's career is a bit of an anomaly; thanks to a combination of longevity (she worked steadily from the late '20s to the late '70s), versatility (she did...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 22, 2013

Let's wish a happy birthday (her 104th, believe it or not, were she here to celebrate it) to Hollywood stalwart Ann Sothern. Sothern's career is a bit of an anomaly; thanks to a combination of longevity (she worked steadily from the late '20s to the late '70s), versatility (she did...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 16, 2013

It's a big day at the Café, kids - the 105th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest showpeople who ever lived, the brass-lunged, foul-mouthed, great-hearted self-creation that was - deep breath - Ethel Merman. Let's give it up. The stage was her medium and the movies didn't...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 16, 2013

It's a big day at the Café, kids - the 105th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest showpeople who ever lived, the brass-lunged, foul-mouthed, great-hearted self-creation that was - deep breath - Ethel Merman. Let's give it up. The stage was her medium and the movies didn't...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 14, 2013

Caught up in that little shopping frenzy yesterday, I missed a landmark birthday, that of longtime Café patroness and mascot, the magnificent Miss Kay Francis. We see her here at the height of her glory, superb in all the trappings of stardom in the Golden Age: turban, stole, plunging décolletage,   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 14, 2013

Caught up in that little shopping frenzy yesterday, I missed a landmark birthday, that of longtime Café patroness and mascot, the magnificent Miss Kay Francis. We see her here at the height of her glory, superb in all the trappings of stardom in the Golden Age: turban, stole, plunging décolletage,   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 2, 2013

I'm reading a biography of Lena Horne at the moment, marveling at the enormous strength of character it must have taken to have made for herself the life that she did, faced as she was at every turn by the most unpromising circumstances you can imagine, from a spectacularly unhelpful...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on January 2, 2013

I'm reading a biography of Lena Horne at the moment, marveling at the enormous strength of character it must have taken to have made for herself the life that she did, faced as she was at every turn by the most unpromising circumstances you can imagine, from a spectacularly unhelpful...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on December 30, 2012

Trust dear Miss Ann Miller to be the one to lead us on our way out of this old year - if there were anyone from Olde Hollywood with whom I think it would be a kick to spend New Year's Eve, I suspect it would be she. Katharine Hepburn...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on December 30, 2012

Trust dear Miss Ann Miller to be the one to lead us on our way out of this old year - if there were anyone from Olde Hollywood with whom I think it would be a kick to spend New Year's Eve, I suspect it would be she. Katharine Hepburn...   read more

Café Muscato Posted by Muscato on December 20, 2012

While the President is in the spotlight for nabbing the cover of Time this week, 69 years ago today that honor went to Miss Greer Garson, MGM's post-Shearer doyenne of prestige pictures and Great Lady parts. It's funny, for I was thinking of her earlier today; I'm home sick with...   read more