No Longer Need to Plead the Fifth...
...Fifth Avenue Girl, that is! The good folks over at Warner Archives have just released "Fifth Avenue Girl", from RKO Radio Pictures in 1939, on DVD! Here is the link to it:
http://www.wbshop.com/Fifth-Avenue-Girl/1000148008,default,pd.html?cgid=ARCHIVENEW
...for those of you unfamiliar with the WB Archive Series, it is well
worth a look...they have hundreds of old movies from all genres, and the
ones I have purchased (all involving Ginger, natch) have been pretty
clean copies, the same general quality as one would see on TCM. The only
'down' side to this collection is there are NO special features or
other general info...in other words, it is not unlike recording it
directly off of TCM, except for maybe a bit better overall quality. So
far, other Ginger movies in the WB Archive series are "Once Upon a
Honeymoon", "Having Wonderful Time", "Weekend at the Waldorf", "Tom,
Dick and Harry", and "Perfect Strangers".
As for this movie...it's great! Directed by Gregory La Cava, who also directed two other Ginger films, "Stage Door" and "Primrose Path", Ginger plays the role of Mary Grey, a struggling blue-collar girl who just happens to run into disgruntled millionare Alfred Borden (Walter Connolly) in Central Park one day. He has all but given up on his self-centered family, none of which have anything to do with him, but have plenty to do with his money. He befriends Mary, who is out of work, thus giving him an idea to try to get his family back. Mary becomes his 'personal assistant', among other things...or at least that is what he wants the family to think, in order to make them take notice. I'll leave the rest for you to watch... it really is a cool movie, and worth checking out!
Again HUGE props to WB for releasing this one, along with all of the archive series they have been releasing over the past year or so...GREAT!!!
VKMfan
http://www.wbshop.com/Fifth-Avenue-Girl/1000148008,default,pd.html?cgid=ARCHIVENEW
...for those of you unfamiliar with the WB Archive Series, it is well
worth a look...they have hundreds of old movies from all genres, and the
ones I have purchased (all involving Ginger, natch) have been pretty
clean copies, the same general quality as one would see on TCM. The only
'down' side to this collection is there are NO special features or
other general info...in other words, it is not unlike recording it
directly off of TCM, except for maybe a bit better overall quality. So
far, other Ginger movies in the WB Archive series are "Once Upon a
Honeymoon", "Having Wonderful Time", "Weekend at the Waldorf", "Tom,
Dick and Harry", and "Perfect Strangers".As for this movie...it's great! Directed by Gregory La Cava, who also directed two other Ginger films, "Stage Door" and "Primrose Path", Ginger plays the role of Mary Grey, a struggling blue-collar girl who just happens to run into disgruntled millionare Alfred Borden (Walter Connolly) in Central Park one day. He has all but given up on his self-centered family, none of which have anything to do with him, but have plenty to do with his money. He befriends Mary, who is out of work, thus giving him an idea to try to get his family back. Mary becomes his 'personal assistant', among other things...or at least that is what he wants the family to think, in order to make them take notice. I'll leave the rest for you to watch... it really is a cool movie, and worth checking out!
Again HUGE props to WB for releasing this one, along with all of the archive series they have been releasing over the past year or so...GREAT!!!
VKMfan
22 comments:
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Gingerfan11January 20, 2010 at 7:05 AMOh ya!!! I think it's neat! I saw that last night. I found one on ebay and thought if it was a fake. Then I checked TCM and they didn't have it, but I decided to check the WB website and I found it!!! I made my dad buy it for my bday. It's just neat though because the tape is so rare. I've only seen it once and it was $150!!! Hopefully WB come out with more.
GF11 - glad you are getting it - pretty cool these are being released...I will probably purchase it, even tho I already have a 'copy' of it...if anything it 'supports' the WB effort, thus maybe resulting in more Ginger movies!
Katie - I LOVE the second one, too...that is in her biography, and is kinda 'grainy'...wish I could find an 'original print' or whatever of it...it would actually make a killer poster! and yeah, she is really cute in the first one...
- Hmmm... I bought the reprint of her book last week and I just realized that picture isn't there! Odd.
- well, dang it...you know what? There are quite a few pix that were not placed in the reprint...I would say about 33 percent or so... heck, I bought my Ma a copy of the reprint for Christmas...see, now I'm going to have to get another 'original' print for her :-) ...well, honestly, most of the pix in the 'original' printing are floating around the net - and I think most all of them are on 'Ginger Rogers.com' - the 'official' (dormant...grrrr...) website...
Hi Huey!
Just wondering where you got that first picture of Ginger. It is SO sweet. You wouldn't happen to have it in a larger size, would you?- So Im not Huey but check out http://www.fanpix.net/picture-gallery/973/475973-ginger-rogers-picture.htm
Fanpix has literally a couple hundred Ginger pics! - Katie -- WOW! What a great gallery of Ginger pics. It was great fun looking through them and grabbing a bunch. Thanks for the tip!
- You know, I just don't know where that one was 'obtained' from, Fioraon...I just grab so many from here and there...but yep...that one is killer...I can imagine walking in after a hard day's work, Ginger sitting there saying, "How was your day, darling?"...dang, each of those dudes she married were all just GOOFY to mess it up!
Katie - FanPix is killer! I have pretty much grabbed everything in there... another cool one is called 'Picsearch'...it has over 3,000 entries for 'Ginger Rogers'...now, you do have to sort thru lots of 'non-VKM' pix - it pulls up anything concerning 'Ginger', as in root, spice, etc... but still gobs of pix there...it just 'redirects' you to whatever site the pic in question is on...a bit more time consuming, but if you are into 'hunting' for stuff, it's pretty cool...a lot of the pics are pretty small, tho - fanpix is good in that it is 'pre-sized' properly, if that makes sense...maybe Miss Lauren, the resident shutterbug, can shed light on this issue...
oof...I just went over to my 'VKM stuff' folder...over 700 items now...looks like I'm gonna need a bigger computer, y'all... :-) 
LOL you called them all GOOFY- for some reason that made me literally laugh out loud. Wish it would have worked out better with Cary Grant...sounds like in 1952 he was ready to pop the question at any moment. How much you wanna bet he was planning on boarding that ship with a ring in his pocket? But in the words of the Tootsie Pop commercial - "The world will never know"...but I can dream can't I?- CG should have been more persuasive... although SHE should have thought about it a bit better, too...but who knows? Many a great friendship has been totally ruined by marriage...that's not a quote, but it really should be, no?
Monkey Business...she is just so...HOT in that one - hate to use that word (sounds 'cheap'), but she just...IS - no other way to describe it. I really, REALLY am attacted to her in that phase of her career... I just wish she had made more movies in this time frame... again, GOOFY producers and execs thought she was 'past her prime' or whatever... dang it. - well yeah when shes running around in her slip for the first bit of the movie...okay okay she had an apron on too! (PS. Do you think this one is the same one? http://cgi.ebay.com/GINGER-ROGERS-1950S-BLACK-NET-CRINOLINE-SIZE-SMALL_W0QQitemZ400089600279QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5d2732d117#ht_500wt_1182 nah probably not wishful thinking but I have always loved that dress...even the way it sticks out!)
IM GONNA TELL HANK ENTWISTLE! (scene cracks me up!)
but how sweet is she with that kid? Watch the end when the other scientists get a hold of the formula and Oxley shoots Cary right in the face - its Ginger (and the kid) who get most of the shot! - ...I always crack up when Ginger drives...if her footage in movies over the years are any indication, she was a DANGEROUS driver! In Carefree, Gay Divorcee, and MB, she purt near runs over folks ('purt near' is a Southern way of saying 'almost' - ed.) (...BTW - why is 'ed' always such an expert at clarifications?) - the 'Hank' scene is classic...the 'Boardroom' scene is, too - Cary does ok acting 'young', but Ginger has it down to an art form...
Ol' Oxley...there's another trivia quetion - how many Ginger movies does Charles Coburn appear in? Three I can think of 3 off the bat, including this one... - Cary definately holds his own in that one "say terrified. Now say tissue. Now say it all together." But youre right Ginger is really in a class by herself - then again how many chances did she get to play "young"? Atleast 3.....another trivia question!
- ...time to get things going on GingerTrivia 8...dang... I could write a book of questions...
Think my next post - perhaps pretty soon - will just be more pix...and the 'reminder' for GoldDiggers of 33, coming on Friday morning...
Hey, received my 'KittyFoyle' cover LIFE magaine(12/9/40) today! COOL! Now I just need the one of her fishing, which is supposedly on the way... these mags are just a trip to thumb thru to look at the ads and stuff... - Its possible. For our last Disney trip my sister told me to build a site with trivia questions, etc to keep her excited. Some how I was able to come up with about 50 days of questions - the prize was fudge bought at Goofy's Candy Kitchen! It was fun but I was exhausted when it was over!
Thats funny I was just thumbing through my "Kitty Foyle' issue of LIFE this morning - needs more Ginger pics!
Gold Diggers one Ive never seen! My mom is very excited about The UnInvited (starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey - do I need start 6 degrees of Ginger again?) coming on tomorrow night - weve been waiting for it for 3 years although Im not sure how it fits into 31 days of Oscar... - ...yeah, noticed the article was about how the 'setup' of shooting movies works - not nearly as much Ginger inside...but the cover is worth the price alone! :-)
Gold Diggers is pretty good - not as much as 42nd Street, but close... of course Ginger's 'We're in the Money' is the opening scene, and really, where do you go from there? She actually has a 'minor' role after that number, which was quite disappointing...but I dig Joan Blondell, too, so that makes up for it.
six degrees of Ginger...never really tried it, but maybe could wing it... I will start thinking about it and maybe post one... in general, do you just name a random actor/actress and try to work back to Ginger by associations? or am I completely out of the loop, as usual? :-} - Yup pretty much. We could even go as far as some people who never appeared with Ginger but who appeared with someone else who worked with Ginger - Im sure there are a few of us around here who could work that one out!
Speaking of articles, Im sure youve read these but some good stuff here!
http://reeljewels.com/rogers/gingerarticle3.htm
http://www.reeljewels.com/rogers/gingerarticle.htm
Read em or not - enjoy! - ...nope, have not seen these! Thanks! You know, it's very cool to know how much stuff is out there concerning Ginger... well, it is only 'x' amount of stuff, but it is a pretty big 'X'!!! I am thinking of getting the 'movieMags' now...all 4 LIFES are on the shelf, and the 1938 TIME is en route (hopefully)... would love to have as comprehensive of a collection of Ginger articles as possible.
...being the 'founder' of Gingerology, folks expect no less!!! :-} - I thought the second article was pretty interesting - college? I could see that. She definitely was a student wasnt she with painting,sculpting,fishing and all the other things she learned to do. And a kid - I always thought Ginger was great with kids in her movies. The only time she ever looked uncomfortable to me with a kid was in Tender Comrade but that was a weird movie anyway and that kid was HUGE! But apparently you know all about big kids ;)
- ...my mom always wonders if Ginger did much in school, since she started 'show biz' so early...
I guess she did receive a pretty good education from SOMEWHERE...she seems quite well spoken. Maybe she had a tutor or something...Lela, perhaps? I know she WANTED to be a teacher, before glorious fate stepped in and sent her toes to tapping...
Sad she never had a child, but actresses have always had to struggle with that...with their schedules, it's pretty tough to also raise a child properly. But yeah, the scenes in Bachelor Mother just melt me every time..."Hey, get your finger outta your mouth!" She is dang near perfect in everything else, so yup, she would have been an Uber-Mom as well!!!
Tender Comrade...a beleagured movie - overall, yeah, pretty hard to get into - we had a big hash-out of that one a few months back... but can't really remember the baby size...
"Big Kids 'r' US"...most definitely! It's funny, my wife used to work in neo-natal ICU, taking care of 'preemies'...so when our daughter came out at 8 or so pounds, she said she won't know how to work a 'full-size' baby!
