Hindsight

Classic Kids, or 100 films that the kids in your life have to see by 13 or else!

Day 97:  The Strawberry Blonde (1941)

Directed by Raoul Walsh, this movie is silly, nostalgic, and just a joy to watch.  Kids will get a glimpse into Hollywood renderings of turn of the century New York, with barbershop quartets, horse and buggy rides and second generation immigrants trying to make good.  Everything from the costumes, to the set are just perfect.  How about this for a cast, Jimmy Cagney (who is pure perfection), Olivia de Havilland (a year after Gone With The Wind) and Rita Hayworth, (just starting her career.  The Oscar nominated song is corny but fun, "The Band Played On"  The plot follows Biff Grimes (Cagney) who fall for a society girl, with strawberry blond hair, Virginia Brush (Hayworth).  Biff eventually loses Virginia to his more dishonest 'friend' Hugo Barnstead.  Feeling like he settled, Biff marries a friend of Virginia, Amy Lind (Olivia de Havilland), but after they spend their life together, he not only falls in love with her, her realizes that she was the ideal partner for him, and that he was lucky to have married her all along.  

Film critic, Bosley Crowther  had high regard for this film, saying it was "lusty, affectionate, and altogether winning." Part of its "amiable, infectious quality", he wrote, came from its cast: "James Cagney, true to form, is excellent as the pugnacious and proud little guy who 'don't take nothing from nobody' cause that's the kind of hairpin he is. Olivia de Havilland is sweet and sympathetic as the girl he marries and Rita Hayworth makes a classic 'flirt' of the one who got away." 

*Interesting footnote, the cinematographer for this film was James Wong Howe, who would go on shoot a bunch of films from Citizen Kane to Hud.  

Themes:  NYC, 1890s, Competition, Work Ethics.

Media Literacy Questions for Kids:  What did the filmmakers do to get the audience to sing along with "The Band Played On"?  How were issues of class, gender and ethnicity intertwined?

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