March 17

Happy Birthday to Nat “King” Cole and Maureen O'Sullivan.

TCM celebrated with a Birthday salute to Maureen O'Sullivan on Saturday night 19th and Sunday morning 20th. I watched Hannah & Her Sisters and Tarzan the Ape Man. I saw Hannah and Her Sisters when it was first released in 1986 as a teenager. At that time I did not know who Maureen O'Sullivan or Lloyd Nolan who played her husband. Maureen played Hannah's mother (who is also Mia Farrow's real mother) who is a performer. Maureen was only in a few scenes but her talent really shows. She and Lloyd were arguing but when Hannah came in over she calmed down. I like that scene. You see them as they are today, but they show photographs of what they looked like when they were younger. In 1986 I bought the soundtrack, vinyl form if I remember right. My favorite scene is when Allen finds out he is fine. The music swells he comes out of the office is a joyful mood and then walking down the street he stops, not really satisfied with life.

I have never seen Tarzan the Ape Man before. It is one of my friends favorite movie. Maureen plays a young British woman who goes to live with her father C Aubrey Smith, a trader. The father and the assistant plan to go to the Elephant grave yard to harvest the ivory tusks. Maureen goes along. It is a great adventure movie. I know that some of the animals weren't real, but some were, even if they were filmed separately so it was a little scary. In one scene they were crossing a river in tree rafts and the hippos surround the rafts. A big hippo destroys one of the rafts and then alligators go into the water and attack some of the people who fell in. Once they get to the other side and start to make camp, Tarzan makes his first appearance. I liked the elephants. They go to Tarzan for help when an elephant cub is trapped, one goes to his aid after he is shot and has just fought off 3 large animals and they stampede a native village.

Maureen has a really good role. She does most of the talking in the scenes when she is with Tarzan. She expresses joy of being with her father, fear when Tarzan takes her away (and several other occasions), hysteria when she thinks that Tarzan is going to rape her, heartache when she is first taken away, sadness when her father dies and love when she stays with Tarzan. I have to admit Johnny Weissmuller in a loin cloth is a good site to see. I know that when the production code came it there were issues due to Tarzan and Jane not being married and Maureen's skimpy costume, but I don't remember anything being mentioned about Johnny's loin cloth.