Showbiz History: CinemaScope, Recycled Comedy, and Jennifer Tilly

9 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history...

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1936: Henry Fonda (then 31 years old and a fresh new face at the movies) marries his second wife, socialite Francis Ford Seymour (then 28). Their marriage will be unhappy and end tragically in 1950 (with her suicide), but their union will produce one of the great inventions of the 20th century: Jane Fonda. 

1953: Biblical epic The Robe starring Richard Burton and Jean Simmons, world premieres in New York. It's the first movie shot in CinemaScope, "the new dimensional photographic marvel you can see without glasses"...

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Podcast (ICYMI) at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Have you had a chance to really bite in to the delicious Smackdown 1991 podcast yet? We know you read the article given the plentiful comments but there's so much to chat about within the podcast conversation. Nikki M James, Rory O'Malley, Nick Westrate, Mark Harris, and Katey Rich were all terrific guests, don'cha think? Dying to hear your thoughts on the specific things we discussed, but especially...

- Fried Green Tomatoes' 'food fight as lesbian sex' metaphor (!), the confusion over Ninny's identity, and its rose-colored lensing of race relations
- Whether Cape Fear's ending is confusingly botched or confusing on purpose... "my reminiscence"?
- Rambling Rose's Laura Dern / Lukas Haas sex scene driving mothers and spouses from the room!
- The camp of all the Barbra scenes in Prince of Tides. What word was Dr Lowenstein looking up in her Pocket Oxford Dictionary? 
- Michael Jeter's "sprinkling for fairy dust" ("Sprinking?!") in The Fisher King and the AIDS crisis just beginning to hit the movies

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Smackdown at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Meeting Streisand: A Miniature Comic Tragedy in 3 Acts

Thank you once more to Tom Mizer, one half of the songwriting team Mizer & Moore (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel), who has blessed us with funny, insightful guest blogs from the set, his childhood, and writing rooms all day! - Nathaniel

by Tom Mizer

I was raised on Barbra Streisand. My mother adored her. She owned The Way We Were and Yentl on VHS. She vacuumed to the “Guilty” album. Every birthday, she joyously opened Bab’s anual release like a Dickens’ orphan getting her yearly pair of shoes. And I was, step by step, initiated into the catechism of Our Lady of Funny Girl. (“Tom, THIS is 'Color Me Barbra'. Let us bow our heads in silence before we begin.”) 

So when I met her...Barbra, not my mother...it was brief but epic. And ridiculous. And wonderful. And bittersweet. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present, “Meeting Streisand: A Miniature Comic Tragedy in 3 Acts.”

PROLOGUE: Tom is performing in a small Off-Broadway show. (His acting career will consist of playing 15 until he is 30 and appearing in musicals that end in “Live!”) In order to make more money, he is spending days off from the play as an extra in film and TV. The agency calls. They need students for a classroom scene in a film called The Mirror Has Two Faces. Directed by Barbara Streisand...

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Curio: What's Up Doc?

by Nathaniel R

Illustration by Glen Hanson. His incredible shop is here.

After Claudio's article about Madeline Kahn in What's Up Doc? I was inspired to rewatch it (it had been a gazillion years). The movie was even better than I had vaguely remembered from childhood. And as great as Kahn was I was all about the incredibly sexy chaos/chemistry of Ryan O'Neal's stuffy geologist and Babs' over-educated troublemaker. Then on Streisand's birthday this week one of our favourite illustrators, Glen Hanson, posted some in progress What's Up Doc? (1972) drawings that are just super  and also sang to Babs on his Instagram.

This all led to missing the departed "Curio" column so let's revive it to celebrate movie-inspired art each week. After the jump more art inspired by What's Up Doc...

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Grammy Nominations for Movie People !

by Nathaniel R

The Grammy Awards aren’t really a crucial topic for The Film Experience. Except when they are. We do love to share the movie adjacent stuff that doesn’t get much press (‘hey, I didn’t know that actor ____ recorded a spoken word album’ etcetera). So herewith some key movie adjacent bits.

Beyonce’s efforts for The Lion King are up for a few pop prizes but that's no surprise since Queen B is a Grammy favourite. Former movie star and still legendary chanteuse Barbra Streisand, another Grammy favourite, has her presumably umpteenth nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her latest “Walls”... the one with the unexpected unintended Girl-in-the-pit Silence of the Lambs homage cover.  

But there are some less expected showings, too.

Iconic cult director John Waters is up for Best Spoken Word Album for “Mr Know-It-All” where he’s competing with Former First Lady Michelle Obama. That juxtaposition is insane and we couldn’t love it more...

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