#H. Bruce Humberstone

[gatutor]

Sonja Henie-John Payne "Bodas de hielo" (Iceland) 1942, de H. Bruce Humberstone.

[ibleachednirvana]

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

[letterboxd-loggd]

Merry Wives of Reno (1934) H. Bruce Humberstone

October 20th 2024

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[rwpohl]

i wake up screaming, h. bruce humberstone 1941

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blow up: peeping tom, michael powell 1960

dune, meek's cutoff: fury at furnace creek, h. bruce humberstone 1948

[directorsnarrative]

I Wake Up Screaming • Director H. Bruce Humberstone

[citizenscreen]

Caesar Romero aboard the Cunard liner 'Queen Mary' on arrival in Southampton before appearing in H. Bruce Humberstone’s HAPPY GO LOVELY (1951)

[dr-archeville]

This weekend (Friday, June 23rd to Sunday, June 25th, 2023) at the Carolina Theatre of Durham, it’s RetroNoir!

WHAT IS FILM NOIR?

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the early 1960s. The term film noir (French for “black film”) was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the classic era. Cinema historians and critics defined the noir canon in retrospect; before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic film and crime noirs were referred to as melodramas. Latter-day works such as “LA Confidential” and “Seven” are often referred to as neo-noirs.  

Featuring

John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

John Farrow's The Big Clock (1948)

Rudolph Mate's D.O.A. (1949)

Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945)

Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963)

Raoul Walsh's High Sierra (1941)

H. Bruce Humberstone's I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946)

Otto Preminger's Laura (1944)

Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear (1944)

Jules Dassin's The Naked City (1948)

Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) 

Raoul Walsh's White Heat (1949)

Movie tickets are $10.00 each, or you can get a 10-pack for $80.  Check here for schedule.

“Along with the City of Durham, we have made major investments in the Carolina Theatre for the comfort and safety of our guests during our closure,” says Randy McKay, the Carolina Theatre’s President & CEO. “That includes tens of thousands of dollars in new state of the art HVAC upgrades from Global Plasma Solutions (GPS) that remove biohazards, pollen, and other contaminants to make our air as pure — and sometimes purer — than outdoor air.”  The theater has also earned a Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC) STAR™ accreditation for its cleaning practices to ensure that guests have a safe and enjoyable experience.  “Together, these cleaning practices and advanced air filtration make the Carolina Theatre one of the safest spaces to attend a film or live event in the region,” says McKay.  [source]

Carolina Theatre of Durham 309 W. Morgan St., Durham, NC http://www.carolinatheatre.org/

[gatutor]

Sonja Henie-John Payne "Tú serás mi marido" (Sun valley serenade) 1941, de H. Bruce Humberstone.

[project1939]

200 Films of 1952

Film number 185: She's Working Her Way Through College

Release date: July 12th, 1952 

Studio: Warner Bros 

Genre: musical 

Director: H. Bruce Humberstone 

Producer: William Jacobs 

Actors: Virginia Mayo, Gene Nelson, Ronald Reagan 

Plot Summary: Angela has been saving up for college by working as a Burlesque Queen named Hot Garters Gertie. She is accepted to Midwest State where she hopes to learn to be a playwright and impress a professor she loves. Immediately popular on campus because of her beauty, she fears what might happen if anyone discovers her salacious past. 

My Rating (out of 5 stars): **¾  

So here we have our second Warner Brothers musical in as many days, and god do I have feelings. It was certainly better than About Face- it had more life and sparkle to it, and it had the breathtaking dancing talent of Gene Nelson. It was a bit infuriating, however, because of its political blind spots- made exponentially worse by the fact that Ronald Reagan had a prominent role in the cast! I was intrigued by the premise, having just watched real burlesque, but virtually everything about the plot of this film and the character of Angela was a letdown.  

The Good: 

Gene Nelson was the shining light of the whole film for me. He had heaps of charisma and an ability to act with a naturalism and effortless style... but it was his dancing that stole the show. He reminded me a lot of Gene Kelly- he was extremely athletic, able to make lightning fast moves with fluidity, and he had the same low center of gravity that Kelly did. His solo dance number where he moved from piece to piece of gym equipment was literally jaw dropping- I wrote that actual phrase out in my notes, along with “Jeeezus!” 

The Technicolor looked great. 

There was some good energy to the musical numbers, and there were a lot of them. It kept the film lively and bright. 

The dancing all around was really good. 

The premise was fun, even if the follow through wasn’t. 

The Bad: 

Virginia Mayo. I’m sorry to say I just didn’t succumb to her charms. She was pretty, yes, but I found her acting to be a little too dry and restrained. Her dancing was nice, though. 

Ronald Reagan. The dude was never known for being an especially good actor, and if you want proof, here it is. 

There was a painfully long drunk scene with Reagan, putting his lack of skill front and center. 

The coincidence of both Professor Palmer and Fred Copeland being at Angela’s New York show on the same night unbeknownst to one another when they lived hundreds of miles away was silly. 

Angela the character was probably the most disappointing part of the movie for me. On paper, she was supposed to be a scrappy girl who longed for a college education, worked hard in a sexually liberated job to earn the money for it, and in her free time wrote plays. But the Angela in the film was no different than any bland Hollywood beauty batting her eyes at boys. 

The side plot with Professor Palmer and his wife was needless and sleep inducing. 

The music wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly memorable either. 

The college campus set was so obviously a set it was hilarious. You could see the painted backdrop and even the places where it looked like there was some glass matte painting. The trees looked fake and carefully placed, and the “grass” was the turfiest stuff you could find. 

Angela had a black theater assistant who was a pretty racist stereotype, speaking in a Mammy dialect and constantly telling jokes that only she laughed at. 

The idea that college should be an inalienable right for everyone was reiterated multiple times, which was very ironic when the entire student body of this college was white. When Reagan gave a speech at the end warning about colleges barring students who “go to the wrong church, come from the wrong side of the tracks, or were born in the wrong country,” any explicit mention of race was removed. And again, he gave this speech in an auditorium filled with only white faces. I agree 100% that college should be an inalienable right, but how can you be serious about it while being this dishonest? 

This was based on a 1942 film called The Male Animal, which had a strong political message about free speech, civil liberties, and prejudice. That had to be completely gutted here, because those things were too dangerous to portray in the HUAC Red Scare days of 1952. Ah yes, right wing America. 

I know this was an early 1950s musical, but the sanitization of the subject matter, especially the portrayal of burlesque, was laughable. But of course, they could never even hint that Mayo got down to her pasties!

[braineyboxd]

Letterboxd List: Classic Films on YouTube (pt. 1)

Watching classic films these days can be tricky. There’s TCM if you have cable and Criterion if you stream, but where do those of us without access to either of those channels go for old favorites and new-to-us classics? The same place we get the rest of our entertainment these days: YouTube.

There’s an abundance of classic films available on YouTube, so I am working to create a comprehensive list of them on my Letterboxd. Included are links to each film and warning keys to inform you of any visual, audio, or runtime errors before you get started watching.

Today, I’m sharing small selection of great classic films on YouTube that I recently added to the list.

Easy Living (1937) - Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Ray Milland, dir. Mitchell Leisen

Merrily We Live (1938) - Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, dir. Norman Z. McLeod

Sun Valley Serenade (1941) - Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra, dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

The Farmer's Daughter (1947) - Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, dir. H.C. Potter

For more classic films on YouTube, check out my list on Letterboxd.

[rwpohl]

i wake up screaming, h. bruce humberstone 1941

[humanehumanities]

“Well, that’s the first time I ever had a bad dream with my eyes open.” I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

[citizenscreen]

Caption says this is Jackie the lion having lunch at Paramount with Buster Crabbe. The two were working in H. Bruce Humberstone’s KING OF THE JUNGLE (1933) at the time.