Tag: Ralph Bellamy

Carefree (1938)

Carefree (1938). 83 minutes. Directed by Mark Sandrich. Starring Fred Astaire (as Tony Flagg), Ginger Rogers (as Amanda Cooper), Ralph Bellamy (as Stephen Arden), Luella Gear (as Aunt Cora), Jack Carson (as Thomas Connors), Clarence Kolb (as Judge Joe Travers), Franklin Pangborn (as Roland Hunter), Walter Kingsford (as Dr. Powers), Kay Sutton (as Miss Adams), and Hattie McDaniel (as Hattie). Choreography by Hermes Pan. Music by Irving Berlin.

Carefree is the seventh and shortest musical starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, featuring only four songs—all composed by master songwriter Irving Berlin. The plot follows a psychiatrist’s intervention in a woman’s lukewarm love life at the behest of her concerned partner, and the movie could easily be experienced as a comedy about therapy rather than as a standard Astaire-Rogers musical. The material is sexually offbeat, with a topsy-turvy master/subservient element: by analyzing intimate dreams and performing borderline-erotic hypnosis intended to remove his patient’s inhibitions, Astaire as the doctor in question mans … Read the rest

The Wolf Man (1941)

The Wolf Man (1941). 70 minutes. Directed by George Waggner. Starring Lon Chaney Jr. (as Lawrence “Larry” Talbot/the Wolf Man), Claude Rains (as Sir John Talbot), Warren William (as Dr. Lloyd), Ralph Bellamy (as Captain Paul Montford), Patric Knowles (as Frank Andrews), Bela Lugosi (as Bela), Maria Ouspenskaya (as Maleva), Evelyn Ankers (as Gwen Conliffe), J. M. Kerrigan (as Charles Conliffe), Fay Helm (as Jenny Williams), Doris Lloyd (as Mrs. Williams), Forrester Harvey (as Twiddle), and Harry Stubbs (as Reverend Norman). Screenplay by Curt Siodmak. Makeup effects by Jack Pierce.

Of all of the monsters that Universal depicted in its golden age, the Wolf Man has to be the least frightening. Although he is part wolf, he is still part man, after all, and he is not undead like other Universal antagonists such as Dracula, the mummy Ardath Bey, or Frankenstein’s monster; nor is he a homicidal maniac who delights in causing human suffering like the Invisible Man. … Read the rest