The 56th Birthday of My Dearest Vanessa Marquez

There are those people who enter our lives and leave us forever changed. That was Vanessa Marquez for me. For many years we were in nearly constant contact, through social media, text messages, and phone calls. We had many things in common, from a love of classic movies and television to being fans of Star Wars and Star Trek. We grew very close. I worried about her when she was sick and, in turn, she worried about me. I confided in her things I told no one else. Quite simply, with Vanessa Marquez, I could be myself. I honestly think she found something even I could not find, the real me. Ultimately, Vanessa was the most important person in my life aside from my parents and my siblings. I certainly love her more than anyone else I knew.

It is because of this that December 21 is a difficult day for me. On the one hand, I am happy because it is the birthday of Vanessa Marquez, the one woman I love more than anyone else. She enriched my life more than anybody else and so the day is certainly one to celebrate. On the other hand, Vanessa has been dead for over six years. I can't wish her a "Happy Birthday" as I once did, nor can I make an electronic birthday card for her. To a degree, December 21 serves as a reminder that my Vanessa is gone, and that does cause me pain.

It is perhaps a mark of how important Vanessa is to me that as an actress she made an impression on me, often out of proportion to the roles she played. Vanessa appeared in the only episode of the obscure sitcom Nurses that I can clearly remember, "The One After the Earthquake." I could not only remember the plot of the episode and that Vanessa was remarkably pretty, but the circumstances under which I saw the episode. Nurse Wendy Goldman was my favourite character on ER and I noticed when she disappeared after the fourth season. I can only think that I picked up on something about Vanessa in the various roles she played, something that made me realize we might have a lot in common, that she could be a kindred spirit.

Regardless, the plain truth is that I cannot adequately say how special Vanessa was and still is to me. To me she was the most remarkable person I have ever known, and not because she was a famous actress. She was not simply talented and beautiful. Vanessa was very intelligent, much more so than I have ever been. Not only did she have an excellent memory, but her reasoning ability could often be remarkable. Vanessa was also warm, loving, and caring. She could remember the most trivial things about her friends, things that others might well forget. She worried about her friends when they were sick, and she was always the first one to take up for her friends if one of them was attacked. Vanessa also had an excellent sense of humour. Obviously one can see her gift for comedy in the television shows and movies in which she appeared, but she was also capable of making jokes spontaneously during conversations. She had the most beautiful laugh, and when talking with Vanessa, she laughed often. Even if Vanessa had never been a famous actress, regardless of what job she may have done in her life, Vanessa Marquez would have been a remarkable human being.

Vanessa certainly had her problems, but I could never have asked for a better friend than her. And I loved her more than anyone else I have ever known. I have missed her ever since she died, but on her birthday, today, I always find myself missing her a little more. One of the things I have always regretted about my friendship with Vanessa is that I never told her I loved her, how very much I loved her. I only hope that somehow, some way, she knows that now. I never loved anyone as much as Vanessa Marquez.

TCM Remembers 2024

Today Turner Classic Movies released their 2024 edition of TCM Remembers, their annual in memoriam for those who have died in the past year. In some ways TCM Remembers 2024 is one of the more dififcult to watch, given how many beloved stars died this year. In fact, I only made it to Barbara Rush, fairly early in the video, before I began to tear up. So many of my favourites died this year. In addition to Barbara Rush, we lost Roger Corman, Donald Sutherland, Bob Newhart, James Earl Jones, Mitzi Gaynor, and Teri Garr. I suspect there aren't many, if any, classic film buffs who will make it through this year's edition without shedding a few tears.

The 60th Anniversary of the TV Special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was not the first animated Christmas special, but it has aired longer than any other on broadcast network television. It has aired every single year on a broadcast network since its debut on December 6 1964, over sixty years ago. So popular is the special that. I imagine there are a few who think Rudolph originated with the TV special. Still more might think that he originated with the classic song written by Johnny Marks. In truth, Rudolph's origins go back to a Montgomery Ward advertising campaign.

In 1939 Montgomery Ward asked copywriter Robert L. May to develop a a holiday tale that they could give away to shoppers. May came up with the idea of a reindeer named Rudolph who was an outcast because of his red nose. May's story differed considerably from both Johnny Marks's song and the Rankin Bass TV special. Rudolph was not one of Santa's herd of reindeer and did not grow up at the north pole. Since Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer, he did not pick Rudolph out from his herd on that foggy Christmas Eve. Instead Santa found Rudolph when he was delivering presents at Rudolph's home. Santa thought that the nose could help him finish his deliveries in the thickening fog and adopted the reindeer. Regardless, Rudolph the Reindeer was a hit. Unfortunately, May saw none of the money from the merchandising of the character, whose copyright belonged to Montgomery Ward.

Eventually, in 1947, Montgomery Ward's president Sewell Avery gave May the copyright to his creation. May had copies of the original story printed in 1947 and 1948 saw a 9 minute theatrical cartoon based on the tale, produced by the great Max Fleischer. It was 1949 that really brought the Red Nosed Reindeer to fame. May's brother in law, songwriter Johnny Marks, wrote the famous song based on the story, changing it considerably in the process. After being turned down by a number of artists, the song was finally recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. It became Autry's biggest hit and the 2nd best selling song at the time (only to "White Christmas").

This brings us to the Sixties and the TV special. In 1955 Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass founded Videocraft International, later renamed Rankin/Bass. Initially they produced television commercials, although they wanted to expand into both feature films and TV shows. In 1960 they did exactly that, producing a series of 130 stop motion cartoon shorts under the title The New Adventures of Pinocchio. They followed this in 1961 with a series of limited animation shorts entitled Tales of the Wizard of Oz, based on the works of L. Frank Baum.

As it so happened, Arthur Rankin Jr. was a neighbour of Johnny Marks. It was Rankin who suggested to Marks that the song could be adapted as a TV special produced using stop motion animation. Marks was reluctant, fearing that the special could endanger the success of his biggest hit song, but eventually Rankin won him over. In fact, Marks even wrote new songs for the special, including "We Are Santa's Elves," "Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Silver and Gold."An instrumental version of Johnny Marks's hit "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," originally recorded by Brenda Lee, even appears in the special.  The script, written by Romeo Muller, drew upon Marks's song for inspiration, and expanded on the story considerably.

The hour long Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special took a year to make, with many hours devoted even to the shortest of sequences. While still in production, Rankin pitched the special to sponsor General Electric. General Electric bought time on NBC. It debuted on NBC in 1964 under the title The General Electric Fantasy Hour: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The special was an immediate hit and aired on NBC every year until 1972, when it moved to CBS. This year Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer returned to NBC for the first time in 53 years.

Considerable changes would be made to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer over the years. The original version that aired in 1964 included a scene towards the end of the special in which Yukon Cornelius discovers a mining vein of peppermint. At the same time the original version of the special did not include the sequence in which Santa rescues the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys. A writing campaign convinced Rankin-Bass to change the ending and it was altered so that Santa did indeed save the Misfit Toys. As result, the scene in which Yukon Cornelius discovers a peppermint mine was cut from the special due to time constraints.

This would not be the only change made to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for its airing in 1965. The song "We're a Couple of Misfits," sang by Rudolph and Hermey the Elf, was replaced with the song "Fame and Fortune," although it still used much of the same animation. Over the years, snippets of the special would be cut to make room for commercials, including the instrumental bridge for the song "We are Santa's Elves" and some of Sam the Snowman's dialogue. It was in 1998 that many of these cuts were restored and "We're a Couple of Misfits" replaced "Fame and Fortune" in the special. While it still aired on CBS, in 2019 the cable channel Freeform also began airing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Freeform reintroduced even more of the material that had been cut or changed over the years, including the scene in which Yukon Cornelius finds peppermint. When Freeform first aired it in 2019, it was then the first time in 55 years that the peppermint mine scene was seen on television. This year NBC would follow Freeform's lead in including the scene in which Yukon Cornelius discovers peppermint.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has aired on broadcast network television every year since its debut in 1964. Along with Frosty the Snowman, it is the only Christmas special to have aired each year on a broadcast network without interruption. I have to think people will still be watching it sixty years from now.

The Thin Man (1934) Turned 90

Dashiell Hammett's best known work may be The Maltese Falcon, but his most successful work could well be The Thin Man. The 1933 novel The Thin Man led to the 1934 movie of the same name. The Thin Man (1934) would prove to be a hit at the box office and would lead to five sequels, a radio show, and still later a television show. The Thin Man (1934) was released on May 25 1934, so that the movie is now ninety years old.

Like the novel upon which it is based, The Thin Man (1934) is set at Christmastime. It centres on retired private detective Nick Charles, who is hired by Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O'Sullivan) to investigate the disappearance of her father, Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis). Nick finds himself, sometimes unwillingly, assisted by his wife Nora (Myrna Loy), a socialite who finds Nick's detective work exciting. Also helping Nick is the Charles's wire terrier Asta (Skippy).

As mentioned earlier, The Thin Man (1934) was based on the novel of the same name. The novel's beginning go back to 1930, when Dashiell Hammett started a manuscript that he abandoned. In that original manuscript, the hero was a private eye called John Guild, who is searching for a missing scientist in a small community in San Francisco. The style of the manuscript was hard-boiled, much like his work for the pulp magazine Black Mask. When Dashiell Hammett returned to the book, he had decided to move away from the hard-boiled style. The West Coast setting was tossed out in a favour of Manhattan. John Guild was no longer the novel's protagonist (although Hammett kept the name for a homicide detective in the novel), but instead retired private detective Nick Charles and his socialite wife Nora. The project had gone from another hard-boiled work to a sophisticated comedy of manners. As to Nick and Nora, they were based on Dashielll Hammett himself and Lillian Hellman, with whom he was then in a relationship.

The Thin Man was published in a condensed form in the December 1933 issue of Redbook (which was not yet a women's magazine). It was in January 1934 that the book was published by Alfred A. Knopf. While Hammett never wrote a follow up to The Thin Man, the novel would not be the last time that people saw Nick and Nora Charles. It was nearly as soon as the novel was published that MGM bought the film rights for $21,000 (which would be $501,920.68 today).

MGM did not have to look far for a director for The Thin Man. Director W. S. Van Dyke was a fan of murder mysteries and conceived a film version of The Thin Man as soon as he learned MGM had bought the rights to the novel. It was W.S,. Van Dyke who was responsible for the inspired idea of casting William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. He had just directed the two actors in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). Despite this, MGM had their doubts about William Powell and Myrna Loy. MGM thought that William Powell might be too old and too strait laced to play Nick Charles. As to Myrna Loy, prior to The Thin Man she had primarily played "exotics" and femme fatales.

Producer Hunt Stromberg hired husband and wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett to write the screenplay. W.S. Van Dyke's instructions to the screenwriters was to concentrate on the witty banter and Nick and Nora more than the murder mystery itself. While The Thin Man was made before the MPAA began more strictly enforcing the Production Code on July 1 1934, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett still had to clean up some of the book's content for the film adaptation.

MGM apparently regarded The Thin Man simply as another programmer. Not only did it only have a budget of $231,000, but it was shot over eighteen days. As it turned out, The Thin Man proved to be a roaring success. It was released on May 25 1934 to positive notices. Variety liked the film, noting, "What appears to have been the most successful part of the Hackett-Goorich team's adaptation is that they captured the spirit of the jovial, companionable relationship of the characters, Nick, retired detective, and Nora, his wife." Film Daily also gave a positive review, writing, "The screen seldom presents a more thoroughly interesting piece of entertainment than this adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's popular novel. The rapid fire dialogue is about the best heard since talkies, and it is delivered by Powell and Miss Loy to perfection." The New York Times included The Thin Man on their list of the ten best films of 1934 at the end of the year. Audiences loved The Thin Man as well. It made $1.4 million at the box office.

The success of The Thin Man would lead to five sequels, the first being After the Thin Man in 1936 and the last being Song of the Thin Man in 1947. The success of the "Thin Man" films would also lead to a radio show.The Adventures of the Thin Man debuted on NBC on July 2 1941. Les Damon was the original voice of Nick Charles, and was followed by Les Tremayne, Joseph Curtin David Gothard, and Bill Smith. Claudia Mrogan voiced Nora for the whole of the run. The radio show ultimately ran until September 1 1950. The success of the movies would also lead to a television series, The Thin Man, starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk. It ran for two seasons on NBC.

While The Thin Man is often counted among the greatest movies ever made, it is not often counted among the greatest Christmas movies ever made. Despite this, it is very much a Christmas movie. Nick makes reference to waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping. The movie features a Christmas Eve party and the next day we get to see Nick and Nora celebrate Christmas morning together, with the two exchanging presents and giving Asta one. The Thin Man also takes place for nearly the whole of the Christmas season, starting not long before Christmas and climaxing on New Year's Eve.

Regardless of whether one thinks of The Thin Man as a Christmas movie, it is certainly one of the most influential films of all time. It established both William Powell and Myrna Loy as stars. It also started an entire franchise, that included movies, a radio show, and a TV show. It was added to the United States National Film Registry in 1997. Even today Nick and Nora Charles are still many people's favourite movie couple.

The 70th Anniversary of White Christmas (1954)

For many people the movie musical White Christmas (1954), starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, has become a holiday tradition. Not only does the film air regularly on such TV outlets as AMC, but it is also widely available on streaming. There can be no doubt that many families make a point of watching White Christmas (1954) at least once during the Yuletide. White Christmas (1954) premiered on October 14 1954 in New York City, making the film seventy years old.

White Christmas (1954) owes its existence to another movie or, more precisely, a song from another movie. The film takes its title from the hit song "White Christmas"from the movie Holiday Inn (1942). According to columnist Erskine Johnson in the December 21 1954 issue of the Los Angeles Mirror, Irving Berlin wrote the melody for what would become "White Christmas" in August and then shelved it until he was signed to compose the songs for Holiday Inn. According to Irving Berlin in the December 14 1954 issue of the Los Angeles Examiner, he wrote "White Christmas" for a revue he was considered producing, changed his mind, and then shelved it until it was used in Holiday Inn (1942).

Bing Crosby performed the song well before the release of Holiday Inn, first performing it on Christmas Day on The Kraft Music Hall. He later recorded  the song on May 18 1942 at Radio Recorders, Inc. in Los Angeles with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers. It was released on July 30 1942 as part of a set of six 78 rpm discs titled Song Hits from Holiday Inn. Neither Irving Berlin nor Bing Crosby initially had high hopes for the song. In fact, it was generally believed that "Be Careful, It's My Heart (the Valentine's Day song from Holiday Inn) would be the big hit from the movie. Despite this, "White Christmas" started to take off. It reached the top spot on Your Hit Parade in October 1943. It spent eleven weeks at no. 1 on the Billboard charts. In the end it proved to be the biggest selling single of all time.

Such success did not go unnoticed, and it was as early as 1948 thar composer Irving Berlin suggested a movie based on the song "White Christmas." Paramount, which had produced and distributed Holiday Inn, liked the idea and the studio was preparing White Christmas (1954) as early as 1949.  The plan in the beginning was reunite the stars of Holiday Inn (Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire) for another musical with songs by Irving Berlin. From Holiday Inn Irving Berlin took the idea of an inn as a setting for White Christmas (1954). For other inspiration Irving Berlin drew upon an unproduced musical, Stars on My Shoulders, that he had written with Norman Krasna.

Paramount's hopes for a Holiday Inn reunion would be dashed. Fred Astaire turned down the film. The role of Phil Davis (which would have been played by Fred Astaire) then went to Donald O'Connor. It was not long before production was set to begin, that Donald O'Conner fell ill and had to quit the film. He was then replaced by Danny Kaye. Initially Bing Crosby turned down the role of Bob Wallace in White Christmas as well, as he was mourning the death of his wife Dixie Lee, although he relented after only a few weeks. It was Bing Crosby who  suggested singer Rosemary Clooney for the role of Betty Haynes. She had already had several hits, including "Come On-a My House" and "Half as Much." It was choreographer Bob Alton who suggested Vera-Ellen be cast. She had already demonstrated her talent as a dancer in movies from The Kid from Brooklyn (1946) to On the Town (1949).

The opening titles announces White Christmas (1954) as the first film shot in VistaVision, a widescreen format that Paramount had developed. VistaVision was not an anamorphic process like CinemaScope and some other widescreen formats, but instead used a flat widescreen system. Paramount would follow White Christmas with several more films shot in VistaVision, including Artists and Models (1955), The Court Jester (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Vertigo (1958), and others. Vistavision would decline in the late fifties and Paramount's last movie shot in VistaVision would be One-Eye Jacks (1961).

White Christmas (1954) premiered at Radio City Musical Hall on October 14 1954 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. It opened in Los Angeles on October 27 1954 and went into wide release in November. It became the highest grossing movie of 1954. Made for $2 million, it made $12 million at the box office. It also became the highest grossing musical at the time. When it was re-released in 1961 it also performed very well.

For the most part White Christmas (1954) received mixed reviews. There were several positive reviews. Kate Cameron in the New York Daily News called it, "...first class entertainment." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times also gave White Christmas (1954) a good review, referring to it as a "great, big, physically glittering, two-hour Technicolor musical that sounds like a dream production with a dream cast." Harrison's Reports gave White Christmas a more mixed review, noting that it was",,a pleasing entertainment," while at the same time noting there were "...spots where it becomes quite slow and boresome." The notorious New York Times critic Bosley Crowther gave White Christmas (1954) an overly negative review, writing, ""s. Director Michael Curtiz has made his picture look good. It is too bad that it doesn't hit the eardrums and the funnybone with equal force."

Of course, White Christmas (1954) would eventually find its way to television. It made its television premiere on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies on December 19 1964. For the remainder of the Sixties it became a nearly annual event on NBC's movie anthologies. Afterwards White Christmas would enter syndication and would air on many local television stations every holiday season. It has since aired on such cable channels as the Family Channel, WGN, and AMC (which still airs it). White Christmas was first released on VHS in 1986 and then first released on DVD in 2000. It is currently widely available on streaming.

The continued popularity of White Christmas (1954) would result in a stage version of the film, which premiered at the Muny in St. Louis in 2000. It retains Irving Berlin's songs, with a book by David Ives and Paul Blake.

Some have called White Christmas (1954) a remake of Holiday Inn (1942), although I do not think that is necessarily the case. Among the few things White Christmas has in common with Holiday Inn are an inn as a setting, songs written by Irving Berlin, and star Bing Crosby. Sadly, one thing that White Christmas (1954) has in common with Holiday Inn is a degree of racism. Holiday Inn features the notorious "Abraham" segment, performed by Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds in blackface. White Christmas (1954) lacks anything that blatant, although it includes what is known as "the Minstrel Number," including the songs ""I'd Rather see a Minstrel Show" and "Mister. Bones." While the number is not performed in blackface, expressing nostalgia for minstrel shows is culturally insensitive nonetheless. Of course, it must be kept in mind that both Holiday Inn (1942) and White Christmas (1954) are very much movies of their times.

Regardless, White Christmas (1954) remains one of the highest grossing films of all time and has come to be regarded as a Christmas classic. It may not have as high a profile as such holiday classics as It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or Miracle on 34th Street (1947), but it remains a beloved Yuletide movie for many.

The 80th Anniversary of Glenn Miller's Disappearance

It was eighty years ago today that the plane on which Glenn Miller flew, a single-engine UC-64 Norseman,, disappeared over the English Channel. To this day his disappearance remains a mystery. While there have been plenty of conspiracy theories (none of which are worth considering), given the weather that day and the type of plane in which Major Miller was flying, the most likely explanation is that the fuel intakes simply froze, leading to the plane's crash.

Today many do not realize how huge Glenn Miller was as a musical artist. He had more top ten singles than either Elvis Presley or The Beatles. In 1942 he was making anywhere from $15,000 a week (that would be $301,426.43 today) to $20,000 a week (that would be $401,901.91 today). With the United States' entrance into World War II, Glenn Miller decided that he wanted to serve his country. At 38 he was too old to be drafted and so he volunteered for the U.S. Navy. They told them that they had no need of him. Fortunately the Navy's loss would be the Army's gain. He convinced the United States Army to take him so that he could "...be placed in charge of a modernized Army band."

He entered the Army with the rank of Captain. Eventually he would form the 50-piece Army Air Force Band. He would also be promoted to the rank of Major. It was then in 1944 that Major Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force Band were sent to England. There they not only gave several performances, but they also made propaganda recordings for the Office of War Information at Abbey Road Studios in London. Glenn Miller's music would be broadcast on the Armed Forces Network, which used the BBC's facilities. Major Miller's contributions to the war effort should not be underestimated, as they helped the troop's morale as well as countered any German propaganda. No less than General Jimmy Doolittle of the United States Army Air Force told Glenn Miller, "Next to a letter from home, Captain Miller, your organization is the greatest morale builder in the European Theatre of Operations."

To this day Glenn Miller remains remembered for both his music an the sacrifice he made for his country. Here is one of Glenn Miller's biggest hits, his version of "Stairway to the Stars,"