“I wasn’t trying to set the world on fire”: Remembering Ernest Borgnine

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Jnpickens

The heavens gained several stars this year as classic film stars passed away in 2012.

Since Comet Over Hollywood did not give several of them the full attention they deserved, the first few days of 2013 will be dedicated to some of the notable celebrities who left us.

Ernest Borgnine in 1956 with his Oscar for “Marty”

His rough mug may fool you into thinking he was a gruff individual until he smiled.

Though Ernest Borgnine could play an evil villain in films, Borgnine broke hearts playing the gentle butcher with his Academy Award winning performance in “Marty” (1955).

Borgnine wasn’t your typical movie star: slightly heavy, not handsome and gapped teeth.

“The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you’re in front of a camera or when you’re on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time,” he said about his career. “That, to me, is not acting. What you’ve gotta do is find out what the writer wrote about and put it into your mind. This is acting. Not going out and researching what the writer has already written. This is crazy.”

His acting career started when his mother suggested acting as a possible line of work when he left the Navy after 10 years of service, according to a USA Today article.

“She said, ‘Have you ever thought of becoming an actor,” Borgnine was quoted in the article. “You always like to make a damn fool of yourself in front of people. Why don’t you give it a try?’ ”

My first encounter with Borgnine was in “From Here to Eternity,” as he played the mean spirited Fatso Judson, who kills Frank Sinatras character. His performance was frightening and stuck with me.

Borgnine could be rough, like in the “Emperor of North Poll” (1973) as he strangles Lee Marvin.

Over the years, the more I saw of Borgnine, the more I was impressed.

His role as Debbie Reynolds father and Bette Davis’s husband in the “The Catered Affair” is sympathetic, as he tries to pay for a wedding that is more than his family can afford.

And he could be completely adorable, like here with Jimmy Durante in 1956.

But even after his heyday, Borgnine stayed involved in Hollywood with, recently going on the Turner Classic Movie Cruises, showing up at film festivals and even doing voices on “Spongebob Square Pants.”

Borgnine’s Private Screenings interview with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies was one of my favorites. He is like a regular old man you may meet in the grocery store.

“I wasn’t trying to set the world on fire; I was just trying to keep my nuts warm,” Borgnine chuckled to Osborne as he related a sign on a street vendor’s cart to his life philosophy.

After six decades of entertaining us with his gap-toothed grin, Borgnine left us on July 8.

“I was a character actor. Do I look like a good-looking man? No,” USA Today quoted him saying from a 2011 interview. “But, see, I keep working when the rest of the boys are retired.”

Ernest Borgnine in 2011 after being given his Lifetime Achievement award at the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

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Classics in the Carolinas: Remembering Andy Griffith

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Jnpickens

This post is a mix of remembering stars who died during 2012 and an addition to the Comet Over Hollywood mini-series, “Classics in the Carolinas”-which highlights classics movie related topics in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Opie’s Candy Store, Mayberry Embroidery, Floyd’s City Barber Shop, Barney’s Restaurant.

These are stores you would see as you walked in downtown Mount Airy, North Carolina while the “Andy Griffith Show” theme song echos from many of the stores.

Andy Griffith related stores in downtown Mount Airy, NC. Comet Over Hollywood photos by Jessica Pickens

Squad car tours are given around the town and there is even an Andy Griffith Bypass and Andy Griffith Mall. Every September the Mayberry Days festival brings fans from all over the world to the small town to celebrate the show with barbecue, musical performances and golf tournaments.

The quaint Surry County, North Carolina town was home to television icon Andy Griffith and was the model for the fictional television town of Mayberry.

Working in Elkin, NC, I lived 30 minutes away from Mount Airy, and while fans all over the world mourned the death of Griffith on July 3, 2012, I knew his death would be an even bigger deal in Surry County.

Andy Griffith is the main tourism draw in Mount Airy. In September 2011, the Mayberry Days festival brought in 70,000 visitors, I learned while writing an article at the Tribune for the 2011-2012 Surry County Directory.

“Mayberry is the hook for 90 percent of our visitors,” said tourism director, Jennifer Eisenhower. “A lot of people come here for the small town, Mayberry experience.”

Andy Griffith in the 1960s.

Griffith was born in Mount Airy in 1926 and graduated from Mount Airy High School 1944.

He was popular in high school and took trombone lessons from a local reverend, remembered Mount Airy News lifestyles editor, Eleanor Powell.

After graduation, Griffith attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill- also the alma mater of Kay Kyser– with hopes to become a Moravian minister. However he changed his major to music, according to a UNC article by Patrick Winn.

Griffith was homesick when he first went to UNC but ended up becoming popular, acting in several Playmaker’s performances such as “The Mikado,” and joining Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity.

At Chapel Hill, Griffith met his first wife Barbara Edwards, married from 1949 to 1971.

After graduating in 1949, Griffith taught high school music in Goldsboro, NC.

Griffith worked his way up in the business while performing in plays and comedic radio monologues. He made his breakthrough performance in Hollywood with the 1957 film “A Face in the Crowd” and his television show “Andy Griffith Show” in 1960.

“The Andy Griffith Show” was said to be based on Griffith’s memories of growing up in Mount Airy, which he has both confirmed and denied throughout he years.

The television show mentions nearby “Mount Pilot”-which in reality it Pilot Mountain– and that Mayberry is north of Winston-Salem, which is all true for Mount Airy.

I remember sitting at my computer at the Elkin Tribune and seeing the news pop up about Griffith’s deaths.

All I could think was “Uh oh,” as I called my editor to tell him our front page stories would be different for the next day’s paper.

The Elkin Tribune’s sister paper was the Mount Airy News, where our newspaper was laid out and printed. I remember talking to one of the paginaters and asking how she felt about Griffith’s death and how people in the town were reacting. It seemed a huge thunder storm that came through town was a bigger deal to most of the citizens.

“It’s been pretty quiet. I don’t really care,” she said. “He didn’t treat the town well and even asked for us to pay him when he dedicated the Andy Griffith Bypass a few years ago.”

Regardless of the bitterness of locals, Griffith has brought millions of tourism dollars to the town.

“Tourism has really saved us, Andy is the hook. He is the reason people come to Mount Airy,” Tanya Jones, executive director of the Surry Arts Council, told CNN.

Visitors from Spain, Germany, Peru, India, the United Kingdom, Guatemala and Canada have all traveled to take part in the Mayberry atmosphere.

“Some months we see guests from all 50 states,” Eisenhower said. “A lot of people come here for one reason: to see all the Mayberry attractions, and they continue to come back.”

February 2012 during one of my visits to Mount Airy with the Andy Griffith statue.

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Our Polly Benedict: Remembering Ann Rutherford

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Jnpickens

The heavens gained several stars this year as classic film stars passed away in 2012.

Since Comet Over Hollywood did not give several of them the full attention they deserved, the first few days of 2013 will be dedicated to some of the notable celebrities who left us.

Ann Rutherford in 1940

At first glance, Ann Rutherford was just merely a young, pretty teen star who played Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend in the 1930s and 1940s Andy Hardy film series.

But Miss Rutherford was so much more.

Seemingly an all-American teen, Rutherford was actually born in Vancouver, Canada. Though the attractive brunette was in several lower budget MGM films, Ann always brought something special to the screen.

From performing as Scarlett O’Hara’s sister Careen in one of the biggest films of all time, “Gone with the Wind” (1939) to Andy Hardy’s selfish girlfriend Polly Benedict, Rutherford was a well-rounded young actress.

Rutherford decided to become an actress after she had to stay after school for disobeying a teacher, according to a 2010 Los Angeles Times article.

“I thought if I had a job I wouldn’t have to go to that crummy school anymore. That would liberate me,” she said.

She passed KFAC and applied for a job as an actor and got a job a month later, according to the article.

Rutherford lied about her age when she got into films, saying she was 18 instead of 15, according to the Los Angeles Times article.

“What did I know,” she said. “I stuffed a lot of Kleenex in my bra and went out and said, I’m a leading lady.”

She was even a leading lady in westerns at age 16, with leading men like Gene Autry and Walter Huston.

Young MGM stars gather for Judy Garland’s 16th birthday party : Mickey Rooney, Ann Rutherford, Judy Garland, Jackie Cooper and Marjorie Gestring.

“I told them I was 18; otherwise they wouldn’t have used me. I did about 15 pictures for Mascot within ten months, until my mother took one good look at me in daylight and broke my contract. I had circles under my circles,” she said. “In those days, you shot a six-day week, and if you were on location, you shot a seven-day week; and most of those pictures were made in eleven days. If it was a big feature, they made it in fourteen days.”

While obituaries read “Gone with the Wind actress dies,” that isn’t the only reason I love Ann.

Ann Rutherford as Polly Benedict and Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy in 1938.

Naturally you also remember Andy Hardy and “Pride and Prejudice” (1940), where she plays Lydia, the foolish sister who runs away with a soldier.

But my favorite films of hers include the “Whistling” detective films with Red Skelton and “Keeping Company” (1940) where she plays a young newlywed. In these two films, Ann has the opportunity to grow up and perform as an adult woman.

Ann’s career ended in the late 1940s and she made occasional television appearances in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953 she married director William Dozier until his death in 1991. She retired from acting to be a mother to her daughter and stepdaughter.

Ann’s days as an adolescent actor weren’t as bad as Natalie Woods or Judy Garland but she once said you have to know when to quit.

One day she got home early from the studio and her four-year-old daughter Gloria was playing with her nurse and didn’t want to stop to play with her mother.

“I thought, ‘What am I doing, letting a strange woman raise my daughter?’ So I quit acting,” she said.

Rutherford passed away on June 11, 2012, at the age of 94, one of the last living stars of “Gone with the Wind.”

But her legacy won’t just live in her role as Scarlett’s younger sister. She will be remembered for her fresh face and sparkling smile.

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My first celebrity crush: Remembering Davy Jones

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jnpickens

The heavens gained several stars this year as classic film stars passed away in 2012.

Since Comet Over Hollywood did not give several of them the full attention they deserved, the first few days of 2013 will be dedicated to some of the notable celebrities who left us.

Davy Jones

Though I didn’t grow up in the 1960s, Davy Jones was my first real celebrity crush.

I always liked the Monkees when I was little; it was a treat for my sisters and me when my dad would play my mom’s old Monkee’s records.

But in the sixth grade, while most girls swooned over N*Sync and O-Town, I was crushing on Davy Jones.

The shaggy brown hair, the adorable English accent and always playing five maracas at once. Who can resist that?

It all began when I discovered “The Monkees” television show on WGN over the summer. I then bought the band’s greatest hits album, anthology CDs and a model car of the Monkee-mobile. I was a obsessed.

Though I loved the band as a whole, Davy Jones was the one who I swooned for. My heart would flutter as he sang “I Want to Be Free” and “Look out Here Comes Tomorrow” (songs that now at the age of 24 I realize are a bit jerky, but I still enjoy them.)

My mother always made a point to record the episode of “Scooby-Doo” where Davy is a cartoon character or “The Brady Bunch” episode where he guest stars and asks Marsha for a kiss “on the flip side.”

And yes, yes I watched the 1969 Monkees film “Head” at the age of 12.

But on Feb. 29, 2012, I cried at my desk like I had lost a family member.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. I had a great day as two eighth grade students shadowed me while I was working at the Elkin Tribune. When I hopped on Twitter at the end of the day, it was blowing up with other Monkees fans mourning Davy Jones’ death.

Davy Jones was taken from us much too soon at the age of 66 from an unexpected heart attack.

His death was even more heartbreaking as stories of his philanthropy in Beavertown, PA where he lived.

Interviews in local news channel CBS21 shared that Jones was down to Earth, shopping at the Dollar General and giving people around town cold remedies.

Jones also renovated a historical Lutheran church in Beavertown, changing it from an “eyesore to an asset,” said Mayor of Beavertown, Bill Wagner.

The Monkees performing, and Davy with a ton of maracas.

His death shook up Monkees band members Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith, who hasn’t been associated with the Monkees since 1970.

Dolenz posted on Facebook that he was in a state of shock and that Jones was the brother he never had.

“This is an enormous event in my world,” Tork told USA Today. ” What is the saddest thing in the world is that not everyone was able to see the range and depth of his heart. He was about as heartfelt a man as anyone I have ever met in my life.”

Nesmith has now joined Tork and Dolenz in the 2012 Monkees reunion tour.

I have to confess, of all the stars we lost in 2012, Davy Jones’ death is the one that still hurts my heart.

See you on the flip side, Mr. Jones.

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My gift to you: More Hollywood Christmas photos

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Jnpickens

As a reporter, sometimes you have to do things like work Christmas Day.

So as I am here at work, I will entertain all of you good people with more classic Hollywood Christmas photos.

Gloria Swanson

Mary Martin in 1940

Louise Brooks, sort of matching her Christmas tree

Jean Arthur and Lillian Roth fighting over toys by the tree

Joan Crawford with charity Christmas presents in 1943

eddie cantor christmas shelly winter lynn merrick maxine fifie leslie brooks

Eddie Cantor as Santa at the Hollywood Canteen with Service men and Shelly Winters, Lynn Merrick, Maxine Fifie and Leslie Brooks.

Diana Lynn with Frosty the Snowman. She’s always been a favorite of mine.

Peter Lorre dressed as Santa in between takes while playing Mr. Moto.

Bette Davis in “The Man Who Came to Dinner.”

Annette Funicello

Bela Lugosi, famous for playing Dracula, dressed as Santa Claus

Merry Christmas from Comet Over Hollywood

Me here at the Star being festive for all of you!

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Tyrone Power Santa: Merry Christmas from Comet

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Jnpickens

Merry Christmas!

A Christmas card from me to you. Screencapped from Summer Place by Me

With some help from my coworkers at the Shelby Star, I recorded a Christmas Eve video for everyone.

As my present to all of you, here is an anecdote I found from the official Tyrone Power page: King of 20th Century Fox. David Niven tells how Tyrone Power plays Santa at a children’s Christmas party (sadly I have no photos):

One Christmas I gave a party for my two small sons, and Tyrone Power offered to play Santa Claus. He lived a few blocks from me, and I went over to help him dress and brief him on the impending operation.

He was extremely nervous.

“This is worse than a first night on Broadway,” he said, helping himself liberally to the scotch bottle. “I’ve never performed for a bunch of kids before.”

I pushed and pulled him into the padded stomach, bulky red outfit, and high black boots rented from Western Costume Company and helped him fasten on a black belt, a huge white beard, and little red cap.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s all fixed. I’ve left the gate open at the bottom of the garden. I’ve rigged up some sleigh bells down there and stashed away the presents, and at exactly six o’clock we’ll give ’em the bells; then you pick up the sack and make it up the lawn to the house — they’re all expecting you.”

After discovering he would be entertaining 50 children- including the offspring of Gary Cooper, Rosalind Russell, the Fairbanks’, Deborah Kerr, Loretta Young, Charles Boyer, Edgar Bergen and Jerry Lewis- Ty was drinking a great deal of scotch.

During the five minute drive to the party Ty begged me to let him off the hook.

“Why don’t you do it? he asked. “It’s your party.”

“You suggested it,” I said firmly.

By six o’clock Santa Claus was loaded; sack on shoulder and hidden in some bushes at the bottom of my garden.

“Off you go,” I said to Ty. “Lots of luck!”

When he was spotted by the excited children, shrill shrieks and applause broke out. At that point I had intended to turn on the garden lights to illuminate the scene but for some reason I missed the switch and turned on the sprinklers. Ty fell down. He picked himself up, gave me a marked look and squelched on toward the shining, expectant faces in the windows.

Like all actors, once the curtain was up and the adrenaline had started pumping, Ty was relaxed and happy in his work.

“HO! HO! HO!” he boomed. “And who is this lovely woolly lamb for, eh? Candace Bergen. Come here, little girl. HO! HO! HO!”

He was doing beautifully by the time I had sneaked in by the back door, seated in a big chair in the hall with excited children climbing all over him.

“Maria Cooper! My, what a pretty girl! HO! HO! HO! You tell your daddy that old Santa thought he was just dandy in High Noon and ask him for Grace Kelly’s phone number while you’re about it. HO! HO! HO!”

Maria Cooper was a little more sophisticated than the other children. “Where did you see the picture, Santa?” she asked sweetly.

“Oh,” said Ty, pointing vaguely above him, “Up there!”

After a while Santa made his good-byes and staggered off down the lawn. Some of the children cried when he left.

Back at the bottom of the garden, I helped him out of his outfit. He was as excited as if he had just given a triumphant Broadway performance of King Lear.

“I really enjoyed that!” he said. “Weren’t the kids a great audience?”

And Merry Christmas from one of my favorites- Annette Funicello

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“Merry Christmas, Mama”: Christmas scenes in non-Christmas films

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Jnpickens

For me, it’s always a treat when there is a Christmas scene in a film that isn’t considered a holiday film.

Not only is it because I’m a lover of Christmas, but usually something important or climatic happens during Christmas related scenes.

Below are a few non-Christmas films with important holiday scenes:

1. Battleground (1949): “Battleground,” starring a plethora of stars such as Van Johnson, John Hodiak and George Murphy, is a World War II film set during the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. The Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 16 to Jan. 25) is when the Allies were surrounded by the Germans and were unable to get airborne assistance due to heavy fog and snow.

During one scene, a Lutheran Chaplain played by Leon Ames delivers a Christmas sermon for the men. It is a particularly moving scene, because he describes the importance of why they are fighting this war. It’s my favorite scene in the whole movie and still holds meaning today.

2. A Summer Place (1959): “Summer Place” is a stereotypical late-1950s sleezy melodrama. Already married Sylvia Hunter (Dorothy McGuire) and Ken Jorgenson (Richard Egan) were teenage sweet hearts and rekindle their romance one summer when their families meet on vacation in Maine. This breaks up their marriages with Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy) and Helen Jorgenson (Constance Ford). To complicate things further, Sylvia’s son Johnny (Troy Donahue) and Ken’s daughter Molly (Sandra Dee) fall in love.

While over-bearing Helen is decorating their Christmas tree, she discovers her daughter Molly has been writing and meeting up with Johnny.

In a rage, Helen slaps her daughter and sends her hurtling into their plastic Christmas tree which she earlier described as “solid plastic” and that it should “last for 10 years.”

Helen Jorgensen angrily slaps her daughter Molly in “A Summer Place” sending her into their plastic Christmas tree- Screen capped by Hollywood Comet

In this unintentionally hilarious scene, Molly looks up from behind the strewn Christmas tree branches, tinsel and ornaments and says, “Merry Christmas, Mama.”

Helen looks at 18 stockings in “Yours, Mine and Ours”

3. Yours, Mine and Ours (1968): Frank (Henry Fonda), who has 10 children, marries Helen (Lucille Ball), who has 8 children, putting entirely too many people into one home.

The comedy follows the adventures of how a family that large serves breakfast, gets to school and how the older children accept their new parents.

Christmas also gets complicated. Frank is up all night playing Santa trying to put toys together and is still working when the children get up in the morning. Christmas morning is chaos with one daughter eating candy canes off the Christmas tree and a bicycle breaking as a child rides it around the house.

But the real climax comes when Helen finds out that she is pregnant again…with their 19th child.

4. Since You Went Away (1944): A film that is my all-time favorite movie, “Since You Went Away” follows Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) and her two daughters Bridget (Shirley Temple) and Jane (Jennifer Jones) as they adjust to life on the home front during World War II. Though this film gets shown frequently during the Christmas season, it really isn’t a Christmas movie.

It begins when Anne’s husband leaves for war and goes through fall, summer, spring and ends at Christmas.

The last 20 minutes of the movie is Christmas making you laugh and cry. Jane has transformed from a selfish young teenager to a young lady, who has lost her boyfriend to the war and is now working as a nurse. Anne has come to terms that her husband is lost in action and is trying to have a normal Christmas with her family.

Christmas party scene in “Since You Went Away” with everyone playing charades. -screencapped by the Hollywood Comet

The Hiltons throw a Christmas party with a woman Anne met through her war work, a soldier Jane helped nurse, a family friend Lt. Tony Willet (Joseph Cotton) and his friend (Keenan Wynn) and their boarder Col. Smollett (Monty Woolley).

The party scene is fun and happy, but after all the guests leave Anne sees their servant Fidelia (Hattie McDaniel) putting presents under the tree that Tim sent her both he was reported missing.

Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) receiving the cable gram that her husband is home safe. -screen capped by the Hollywood Comet

Anne opens her gift from her husband, a musical powder box that plays their song, and starts to cry. Then the phone rings and it’s a cable gram saying Tim has been found and is coming home.

The movie ends with happy tears, hugging and excitement.

What are some of your favorite non-Christmas movie holiday scenes? Share them below!

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The years Margaret O’Brien ruined Christmas

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Jnpickens

Though some people find 1940s child actress Margaret O’Brien cute and spunky, I think she is a nuisance. Particularly at Christmas time.

1940s child actress, Margaret O’Brien

O’Brien can really put a damper on the Christmas season from attacking snowmen to nearly killing her pregnant mother.

Her brattiness particularly shines through in two Christmas films, “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944) and “Tenth Avenue Angel” (1948):

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944):

“Meet Me in St. Louis,” a personal favorite, is simply the story of a family, set in the early 1900s when the World’s Fair is coming to St. Louis. The family has four daughters: Rose (Lucille Bremer), Esther (Judy Garland), Agnes (Joan Carroll) and Tootie (Margaret O’Brien)

Though Garland is the true star of this film, O’Brien steals several scenes by simply being a brat.

I’m fairly convinced that Tootie manipulates her family by being an obnoxious brat and turning on the waterworks in order to get what she wants.

O'Brien as Tootie telling lies to Mary Astor, playing her mother-saying that John Truitt tried to kill her on Halloween.

As Tootie telling lies to Mary Astor, O’Brien played her mother-saying that John Truitt tried to kill her on Halloween.

At the start of the film, Tootie tells the iceman (Chill Wills) that her doll has “four fatal diseases” and how she will bury her and have a funeral for a perfectly good doll (maybe this is just a ploy to get new toys?).

At Halloween, she really is a little hellion. She throws flour in the face of an unsuspecting neighbor and shouts, “I hate you!”-part of a turn-of-the-century Halloween tradition that we never should bring back.

Still, on Halloween, she nearly turns her sister Esther (Judy Garland) against her boyfriend, John Truitt (Tom Drake).

Tootie and Agnes stuff a dress and put it on the trolley tracks. John Truitt drags Agnes and Tootie out of the way, so they don’t get hurt or caught by police. As a result, Tootie splits her lip and loses a tooth.

She is carried into the house sobbing and saying, “John Truitt tried to kill me!” prompting Esther to go next door and beat him up. Her family comforts Tootie by letting her wear one of Esther’s nightgowns and giving her a gigantic piece of cake (has anyone else noticed the cake in classic films is HUGE?). Even after her mother (Mary Astor) discovers Tootie was lying, they let her keep the cake and nightgown because she was a “good girl when the doctor was there.”

But the real clincher is the Christmas scene.

O’Brien attacking snowmen early Christmas morning (screencapped by me)

Understandably, Tootie is upset about leaving their home in St. Louis to move to New York. Esther comforts her younger sister by singing, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Does this calm the child down? No! Inexplicably, she runs outside in the snow after midnight, starts attacking snowmen they worked so hard to build earlier that day.

Because of Tootie’s crazed snowman moment, their father (Leon Ames) changes his life plans to make his family happy, again Tootie getting her way.

Tenth Avenue Angel (1948):

In “Tenth Avenue Angel,” O’Brien plays Flavia, a little girl who lives with her pregnant mother Helen (Phyllis Thaxter) and Aunt Susan (Angela Lansbury).

Steve and Flavia wait to see if a cow will kneel for baby Jesus on Christmas morning. (screencapped by me)

Flavia was told that Susan’s boyfriend Steve (George Murphy) has been on a trip around the world, but really he has been in jail.

Other harmless white lies and old wives’ tales are told to Flavia, such as mice turn into money, cats all have nine lives, and wishes on stars come true. When Flavia finds out none of these are true- including that Steve really didn’t travel around the world- she is sent over the edge.

“If it isn’t the truth, then it’s a lie, isn’t it,” she says to her pregnant, bed-ridden mother. “I don’t know who to believe or what to believe. Everybody lies to me.”

In a Margaret O’Brien moment of hysterics complete with sobbing, she runs out of the apartment with her mother running behind her, who falls down the stairs and becomes ill…basically because of Flavia.

However, regardless of her bratty moment, Flavia finds a miracle in order to save her mother.

And the cow kneels. This scene is utterly ridiculous. (screencapped by me)

The movie ends ridiculously with Flavia and Steve waiting at the stroke of midnight on Christmas morning to see if a cow will kneel to honor the newborn king-another old wives’ tale her mother told her.

If the cow kneels, it will be a miracle to make her mother better and will restore Flavia’s faith in her family. Lo and behold, the cow kneels, and everyone lives happily ever after.

To review:

Maybe I’m unnecessarily harsh because I’m simply not a fan of Margaret O’Brien. I’m not sure if O’Brien is the brat or if it’s the characters, but regardless I can’t take the sobbing and would be really angry if a hysterical little girl knocked down my snowman.

**2020 edit: I don’t mind Margaret O’Brien as much these days, but I do still like to joke that she ruins Christmas in these films. I clearly understand that these are the roles MGM cast the child in.

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Classic Christmas Addiction

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Jnpickens

Part of why I love Christmas is getting to watch my favorite classic holiday films such as “Christmas in Connecticut”, “White Christmas” and “Remember the Night.”

But I also love looking at Christmas related photos with classic actors and actresses.

Every day since December 1, I’ve been posting a Christmas related photo on Comet Over Hollywood’s Facebook Page, and searching for the day’s photo can be an addicting task.

Even long after I find the photo of the day, I keep browsing-marveling at the ridiculousness of vintage Christmas photos.

I’ve found these classic photos can be divided into categories. Here are some examples:

Glamour: These photos show actors looking beautiful and wealthy at their homes during Christmas.

Gina Lollabrigida looking glamorous in her Christmas tree

Carole Lombard

Paulette Goddard

Jean Harlow

Anita Page in 1932

Jennifer Jones

Adorable and cute: These involve child actors or actresses looking sweet and angelic.

Jackie Cooper

The Bogart: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and their son Stephen.

Joan Leslie

Buster Keaton and Natalie Talmadge with Junior and Bob

The children of Our Gang

Little Natalie Wood

Shirley Temple in 1935

Priscilla Lane

Rita Hayworth

Ridiculous or funny: Photos that try way to hard to make a photo Christmasy or make it a sexy Christmas photo.

Dorothy Jordan and Gwenn Lee, I don’t even understand what’s happening.

Joan Crawford flirting with Santa in 1932

Janet Leigh with a Christmas tree hat

Esther Williams in unreasonable winter clothing

Maureen O’Sullivan…..dressed as a choir boy.

Margaret O’Brien…wrapped as a package?

Clifton Webb as the most unlikely Santa Claus

Visit Comet for more holiday fun this month!

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Classic films in Music Videos: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Kenny G

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Jnpickens

This is December’s edition of Comet Over Hollywood’s classic film references in music videos.

Going with the Christmas season, is the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” played by Kenny G in 1997.

Though I’m not a Kenny G fan, I have to admit this is a very heartwarming video.

It stars classic film star Burgess Meredith, who’s career ranged from “Idiot’s Delight” (1939) to his role of the Penguin in the 1960s Batman TV show.

Meredith appears to be a projectionist at a movie theater who is sad, lonely and missing his family at Christmas.

He reminisces on past Christmases by watching clips of classic holiday films such as “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944), “Miracle on 34th Street (1947), “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946), “Little Women” (1949), “A Christmas Carol” (1938) and “Bells of St. Mary’s” (1945).

Meredith was 90 when this video was filmed. He died that same year of melanoma and Alzheimer’s disease, making this video a little more heartbreaking than it already is.

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Merry Christmas from Comet Over Hollywood

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Merry Christmas!

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Glamour: These photos show actors looking beautiful and wealthy at their homes during Christmas.

Adorable and cute: These involve child actors or actresses looking sweet and angelic.

Ridiculous or funny: Photos that try way to hard to make a photo Christmasy or make it a sexy Christmas photo.

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