Femmes Fatales | Feb 15 2022 |
Not only is Monica Bannister precariously positioned on her pedestal, but her gown is precariously positioned on her body. One wobble and she'll end up on the floor showing plenty more than planned, but it just so happens she's too graceful for that because her show business career was based on coordination. As dancer and actress she appeared in more than thirty films, including 1933's Mystery at the Wax Museum, 1941's Moon over Miami, and 1945's The Picture of Dorian Gray. All her film appearances save two were uncredited, but she went on to open a dance school and teach others how to be graceful too. This photo came out of the studio of famed lensman Murray Korman, who photographed thousands of famous and would-be famous people from the 1920s into the 1950s. There's no exact date on this, but it's from the mid-1930s.
Vintage Pulp | Jul 4 2015 |
There’s some confusion online about whether this promo poster for Moon over Miami was painted by Alberto Vargas. Jan-Christopher Horak’s book Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design states: “Virtually all movie poster design work remained anonymous, although a few well-known designers received contracts, including Alberto Vargas for Moon over Miami.” On the other hand, several auction sites claim Vargas only worked on the print ads, and that the artist who painted the poster was charged with emulating the Vargas style. So there you go—cleared that right up, no? Well, we tend to believe Vargas would not have received a contract simply for print ads. What would the point of that be? So we think this piece is his.
In any case, we’ve always loved the poster and it prompted us to finally watch the film. Guess what? It’s just what you’d expect from looking at the art—goofy, gooey, and terminally good-natured. None of that is particularly pulp, but hey, crazy as it sounds, some filmmakers actually prefer to downplay death and mayhem. Betty Grable stars here as a woman determined to marry a millionaire. She sets up at a Miami hotel with her sister and aunt, and pretends to be rich herself, with the aim attracting the proper suitors. Confusion ensues, enlivened by musical numbers. Grable proves in this movie why she was a star, as does the object of her destiny Don Ameche, and excellent support comes from Carole Landis and Charlotte Greenwood. We don’t generally go for this sort of film, but we liked this one, as did our girlfriends. Now back to death and mayhem. Moon over Miami premiered in the U.S. today in 1941.