Monday 8 July 2013

Late 4th July Greeting plus 'The Castle's are Coming'...

I seem to be running late for everything at the moment, but hope everyone in the US enjoyed the 4th July! I did watch 'Lets Say It With Fire Crackers' from Holiday Inn more times than most people may watch it in a year but it is one of Fred's best solo numbers out of the Astaire-Rogers movies, the whole number is actually pretty good including Bing singing, the 'video' in the background really puts into perspective that 'WW2 ' started for the US during the filming of the movie and they slotted it in quite nicely (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVAUdb-3aq0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlgAj_29Z7U) On a completely seperate note Holiday Inn was in my own opinion the only movie that looked as good colourised as it did in b&w, although had i not watched the documentary on how the colourisation was done and the research put into it I probably wouldn't be so keen!

I don't know if anyone is in the NYC area but this came up on my facebook page the other day

http://www.castlewalkmusical.com/

It sounds interesting but i had a rant into the empty room (as one does) about how Irene Castle was never fair to Ginger right from the offset :( On the otherhand i'd still like to see it, although the synopsis makes no mention of how RKO got Irene 'out of their hair...
Also to be completely honest if it wasn't for RKO, Fred and Ginger i doubt very much i'd even know who Vernon and Irene Castle were!











The 'Real' Vernon and Irene Castle
 I will say that whenever i'm in NYC i make a point of paying my respects to Vernon and Irene at Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx (on a side note Irving Berlin is also interred there) and on my first visit met a guy who remembered Irene visiting Vernon's grave reguarly before her death :)

Apologies for the gaps between posting, life seems to be rushing at high speed around here, probably because we're on the last couple of weeks before schools get out for the summer and I have so much to do before then! I finally got my degree results and graduate on the 19th July :) So now when I fill out application forms I no longer have to write result pending which may i guess not have helped much with job applications. On a mission to find a job! As my degree is in Youth Work I am hoping to work with young people but the government seems to like hitting budgets for that first :(

The summer vacation looks like it's gonna be one long garage sale, but we do get a vacation at the end of August, 8 days in New York and Washington, Anneliese's first trip to the US since 2011, she's already got her eye on a few trips to American Girl, Ian's coming with us, so a first family vacation!

9 comments:

  1. Congratulation on your degree, Kat! It's quite an accomplishment! Thank you for the heads up on the Castle musical! Some of those pics I've never seen before - lovely!

    Enjoy your summer,

    KiG - Peachy

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    1. Cheers :-)
      Now we've finally got a summer (in terms of weather!) will do best to make most of it!

      KIG

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  2. ...great to have ya back, Kat!!! thanks for the info regarding the Castles musical...would be neat to see, but... the GandF version is pretty hard to beat, right?

    Hope your final weeks of school wrap up, and you snag a job asap - I'm sure you will!

    Hope Annaliese is doing better...


    KIG, Kat!!!

    Hu
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    1. From the Synopsis I thought of it more as a 'fly on the wall' documentary type and seeing as my time machine seems to be broke i wouldn't mind catching it just once! But even having seen clips of Vernon and Irene dancing i'll still take Ginger and Fred's version!

      Anneliese is doing much better, back at school today :) I do think its the sudden change in temp, its cool compared to Independence but last month we were averaging temps of 50 and suddenly its jumped to 77! And humid with it..

      KIG!!

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    2. great to hear she's better! Kids are pretty resilient, which is a good thing, but it's still very nerve-wracking when you have a sick one.

      We've had a good bit of rain the last week or so... which has kept it somewhat cool - in the low 80s...yes, a bit better than triple digits!!!

      Well, as to the Castles, it probably would be interesting to see how much they 'draw' from the film... which of course would parallel quite a bit...

      KIG, Kat!!!

      Hu
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  3. I was listening to some of the Castle show songs and I'll be skipping that show. It is quite negative and one sided. It paints Irene as this great innocent, Ginger as a fame and award-focused, Hollywood know-nothing and H.C. Potter as a pill popping, near-a-nervous breakdown director. :( The singing is pretty bad too. Too bad.

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    1. oh good lord, does no one do any research for anything anymore :( this is why experts/all-rounders should be hired, the only reason to see it would be to protest it sounds, wonder if Roberta Olden was consulted at all..

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    2. hmmm...this doesn't sound good... must have been bankrolled by that Christopher Morley chump...

      ...something tells me Roberta wouldn't be amused... :-)

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    3. I think you mean Sheridan Morley, the guy we should all boycott for writing a mean book about Ginger. Christopher Morley wrote "Kitty Foyle".

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