#Willard Robertson

[mariocki]

Doctor X (1932)

"If you ask me, I think Dr. Xavier is using very unethical methods."

"Necessity has no ethics, sir."

[letterboxd-loggd]

Torchy Gets Her Man (1938) William Beaudine

December 20th 2023

[theoscarchallenge]

This film was really hard to find, but I finally did it! I had fairly low expectations of Skippy, but it’s actually not that bad. Skippy received the Oscar for Best Director for Norman Taurog.

[byneddiedingo]

Gambling Lady (Archie Mayo, 1934) Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Pat O'Brien, C. Aubrey Smith, Claire Dodd, Robert Barrat, Arthur Vinton, Phillip Reed, Philip Faversham, Robert Elliott, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Willard Robertson, Huey White. Screenplay: Ralph Block, Doris Malloy. Cinematography: George Barnes. Art direction: Anton Grot. Film editing: Harold McLernon. Music: Bernhard Kaun. Costume design: Orry-Kelly. Barbara Stanwyck is invariably the best reason to watch any of her movies, and never more so than in Gambling Lady. Oh, her supporting cast is just fine: Joel McCrea is her reliable leading man and Claire Dodd makes the most of her rich-bitch foe. And the story, though familiar enough in its outlines and predictable enough in its resolution, keeps your attention, partly because the Production Code hadn't yet put a choke hold on depictions of the seamier side of life. Stanwyck plays Jennifer "Lady" Lee, an honest woman in a shady milieu: She's a professional gambler who refuses to cheat. It's a familiar Stanwyck character: tough but vulnerable, and she gets many chances to show both sides throughout the film. Her best moment, perhaps, comes at the film's climax, when the rich bitch triumphs, forcing Lady to lie to save McCrea's character, the wealthy Garry Madison, whom Lady has married, from jail. So we get Stanwyck putting on a façade of cynical laughter as she pretends she has never really loved Madison but was just in it for the money. We who know the truth can see the tears welling up inside Lady, but Stanwyck successfully keeps up the front before she makes her exit and collapses in grief. This is screen acting at its best, so that even if the plotting is contrived and the situation trite, Stanwyck wins us over, making more of the scene, in fact of the whole movie, than it really deserves.

[ulkaralakbarova]

It’s the 1970s and San Diego anchorman Ron Burgundy is the top dog in local TV, but that’s all about to change when ambitious reporter Veronica Corningstone arrives as a new employee at his station. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Ron Burgundy: Will Ferrell Veronica Corningstone: Christina Applegate Brian Fantana: Paul Rudd Brick Tamland: Steve Carell Champ Kind: David Koechner Ed Harken: Fred Willard Garth Holliday: Chris Parnell Helen: Kathryn Hahn Tino: Fred Armisen Eager Cameraman: Seth Rogen MC: Paul F. Tompkins Bartender: Danny Trejo Waiter at Tino’s: Scot Robinson Stage Manager: Ian Roberts Hot Blonde: Darcy Donavan Petite Brunette: Renee Weldon Tino’s Bassist: Jerry Minor Director: Holmes Osborne Security Guard: Charles Walker Biker Guy: Thomas E. Mastrolia Eyewitness News Member: Jay Johnston Man in Kitchen: Peter A. Hulne Donna: Laura Kightlinger Custodian: Adam McKay Custodian: Joseph T. Mastrolia News Station Employee: Judd Apatow News Station Employee: Debra McGuire Network Reporter: Kent Shocknek Yelling Woman: Monique McIntyre Bum: Bob Rummler Announcer: Chuck Poynter Middle Class Mother: Esmerelda McQuillan Elderly Woman: Angela Grillo Wealthy Family Father: Lionel Allen Wealthy Family Mother: Trina D. Johnson Doctor: Fred Dresch Middle Class Dad: Glen Hambly Nursing Room Resident: Stuart Gold Bill Lawson – Narrator (voice): Bill Kurtis Motorcyclist: Jack Black Arturo Mendes: Ben Stiller Frank Vitchard: Luke Wilson Frank the Bartender (uncredited): Frank Gorgie Zoo Keeper (uncredited): Missi Pyle Public TV News Anchor (uncredited): Tim Robbins Wes Mantooth (uncredited): Vince Vaughn Man in Bar (uncredited): Jerry Stiller Secretary (uncredited): Holly Traister Zoologist with Panda in Doug or Glen scene (uncredited): Matthew Vlahakis Reporter / Anchor (uncredited): Richard Yett Film Crew: Supervising Sound Editor: Mark A. Mangini Casting: Jeanne McCarthy Sound Effects Editor: Richard L. Anderson Stunts: Jack Gill Hair Department Head: Toni-Ann Walker Location Manager: Jeremy Alter Casting: Juel Bestrop Set Decoration: Jan Pascale Music Editor: Ellen Segal Writer: Will Ferrell Executive Producer: David O. Russell Art Direction: Virginia Randolph-Weaver Set Designer: Sally Thornton Director of Photography: Thomas E. Ackerman Music: Alex Wurman Producer: Judd Apatow Executive Producer: Shauna Robertson Editor: Brent White Costume Design: Debra McGuire Stunts: Joe Bucaro III Production Design: Clayton R. Hartley Writer: Adam McKay Co-Producer: David B. Householter Casting: Blythe Cappello Second Assistant Director: Basil Grillo First Assistant Director: Matt Rebenkoff Second Unit Director: Rick Avery Construction Coordinator: John R. Elliott Foley Artist: Joan Rowe Foley Artist: Sean Rowe Stunt Double: Sophia M. Crawford Property Master: Scott Maginnis Color Timer: David Orr Makeup Department Head: Kimberly Greene Script Supervisor: Rebecca Asher Sound Effects Editor: Mike Chock Sound Effects Editor: Donald Flick Key Hair Stylist: Joy Zapata Dialogue Editor: Ralph Osborn Sound Effects Editor: Piero Mura Set Designer: Randall D. Wilkins Set Designer: Barbara Mesney Still Photographer: Frank Masi Visual Effects Supervisor: Ray McIntyre Jr. Key Grip: Lloyd Moriarity Leadman: Louise Del Araujo Production Supervisor: Diane L. Sabatini Video Assist Operator: Paul Murphey Dialogue Editor: Thomas Jones Transportation Coordinator: Michael Menapace CG Supervisor: David Alexander Smith Dialogue Editor: Solange S. Schwalbe Digital Effects Supervisor: Reid Paul Still Photographer: Darren Michaels Additional Editing: Melissa Bretherton Art Department Coordinator: Jeanne Bueche Makeup Artist: Erin Wooldridge Music Editor: Erica Weis Visual Effects Supervisor: Richard R. Hoover Production Sound Mixer: Jim Stuebe First Assistant Camera: Baird Steptoe “A” Camera Operator: Harry K. Garvin Orchestrator: Tom Calderaro Visual Effects Producer: Diana Stulic Ibanez Stunts: Lisa Hoyle ADR Mixer: Jeff Gomillion “B” Camera Operator: Steven Hiller Stunts: Joni Avery Sound Recordist: Philip Rogers Assistant Art Di...

[thatscrewyballyhooeyhollywood]

Maritime Films #4

Tugboat Annie (1933)

Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy

Starring: Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Robert Young, Maureen O’Sullivan, and Willard Robertson

Guess what? Marie Dressler is the GOAT. I absolutely adore her, and knew going into this 1933 comedy I was going to love it because she is in it. And the film (and Marie) did not disappoint! 

In this romp, Marie plays Annie, the skilled captain of her beloved tugboat, Narcissus, the rather impatient wife to her drunken lout of a husband, Terry (Beery), and the proud and doting mother to her ambitious son, Alec (Young). Annie’s days are happily spent tugging ships in and out of Puget Sound, and making sure Terry doesn’t get into too much trouble. But things change for her when Alec comes home, the captain of a snazzy and swanky ocean liner, and engaged to his childhood playmate, Pat (O’Sullivan). 

Annie is prouder than ever of her successful son, but Alec is weary of his father’s drunken escapades, and the strain his lifestyle is putting on his wife. Alec encourages Annie to give up the Narcissus and leave Puget Sound, an offer made all the more tantalizing when one of Beery’s drunken episodes results in the Narcissus getting repossessed by a rival tugboat company owned by Severn (Robertson). But, will Annie leave her husband - a lout he may be but the only one who has captured her heart - and her beloved tugboat life forever?

This movie was pure fun from start to finish. Not only was Dressler amazing, as expected, but Beery was her comedic equal in every scene. I know the two worked together a few times, and it is obvious why: they have amazing chemistry, and know how to ham it up with each other in truly delightful ways.

I also enjoyed the slant of this movie in portraying life aboard an ocean liner as elite, exquisite, and snobbish, and the achievement of merchant marine captain as an envious accomplishment, while working the tugboat service is salty, coarse, rough, and low-brow. An interesting social commentary on the class system of maritime life...

But, on the whole, I couldn’t recommend this one enough! 3 out of 3 masts!

[ozu-teapot]

Doctor X | Michael Curtiz | 1932

Robert Warwick, Willard Robertson, Lionel Atwill, et al.

[oldshowbiz]

A man in a million movies, character actor Willard Robertson.

[michigandrifter]

The Ox Box Incident 1943

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Roman Scandals 1933  This has Eddie Cantor in Black Face

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Famous Ferguson Case (1932) Lloyd Bacon

December 31st 2022

[almanyalilar]

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang / Prangalı Hapishane Kaçağıyım

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang / Prangalı Hapishane Kaçağıyım

Sinemaya kendi içinde bir derya diyenler az demişler, bence sinema koca evrenin koca bir yansıması gibi düşünülmeli. Yok, yok içinde, arasanız da, aramasanız da bir gün karşınıza böylesi sürprizler çıkıveriyor. Hem de 1932 yılında yapılmış bir film. Toplumsal gerçekçi güçlü izler mi dersiniz, sistem eleştirisi mi, sinema tekniği mi, oyunculuk mu? Ne derseniz deyin, hepsinden bolca, yeteri kadar,…

[byneddiedingo]

Lionel Atwill in Doctor X (Michael Curtiz, 1932)

Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster, John Wray, Harry Beresford, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Leila Bennett, Robert Warwick, George Rosener, Willard Robertson, Thomas E. Jackson, Harry Holman, Mae Busch, Tom Dugan. Screenplay: Robert Taskner, Earl Baldwin, based on a play by Howard Warren Comstock and Allen C. Miller. Cinematography: Ray Rennahan. Art direction: Anton Grot. Film editing: George Amy.

In Doctor X, Lee Tracy is called on to do two incompatible things: serve as comic relief and play the romantic lead. He succeeds at the former more than he does at the latter, which is not saying much.  (The comic shtick involves things like joy buzzers and exploding cigars, which gives you a sense of the level of humor Tracy is asked to participate in.) The film is a whodunit horror about a serial killer who strikes at the full moon and who leaves his victims mutilated. (The movie calls it cannibalism, but I don't recall any evidence that the killer actually ate the people he murdered.) The chief forensic clue is that the victims were sliced up with a particular kind of scalpel, used only by one facility in the city: a research institute headed by Dr. Jerry Xavier (Lionel Atwill). When the police detectives call on Xavier, they are introduced to his research staff, each of whom becomes a suspect in the killings. Meanwhile, Lee Taylor (Tracy), one of those anything-for-a-story reporters Hollywood was fond of, is snooping around too, trying to uncover the Full Moon Killer before the police do. This involves Taylor breaking and entering at not only the institute but also Dr. Xavier's creepy gothic mansion on a cliff in Long Island, where he lurks around in some skeleton-filled closets. (Cue the obvious gags.) He also meets Dr. Xavier's lovely daughter, Joanne (Fay Wray), and they inexplicably (at least where she's concerned) hit it off. Naturally, Joanne has to be put in jeopardy and Taylor has to rescue her. Doctor X is mostly remembered for its experiment with two-strip Technicolor, which yields some interesting if washed-out looking images, but also seems inappropriate for the film's sinister old dark house setting. There are a few nice scares among all the goofiness and pseudo-scientific poppycock -- the usual foaming and smoking beakers and flasks and some sparking and arcing electric apparatus -- but in a golden age for horror movies, Doctor X is decidedly second-tier.  

[likeafolkssong]

Books Read in 2021

1. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

2. My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

3. Maybe This Time by Kasie West

4. Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace

5. Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth

6. The Fates Divide by Veronica Roth

7. The Enneagram Type 2 by Beth McCord

8. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

9. Trade Your Cares for Calm by Max Lucado

10. Everybody, Always by Bob Goff

11. Villette by Charlotte Brontë

12. Dream Big by Bob Goff

13. Chasing Lucky by Jenn Bennett

14. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

15. The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo

16. The Attentive Life by Leighton Ford

17. I’ll Go Home Then, It’s Warm and Has Chairs by David Thorne

18. A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

19. Killing November - Adriana Mather

20. The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis

21. Hunting November - Adriana Mather

22. You’ll Get Through This - Max Lucado

23. The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz - Jeremy Dronfield

24. The 5 Love Languages of Children - Gary Chapman & Ross Campbell

25. Always Never Yours - Emily Wibberly

26. The Stranger Inside - Lisa Unger

27. The Inheritance Games - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

28. Be the Bridge - LaTasha Morrison

29. The Pieces of Ourselves - Maggie Harcourt

30. Something in the Water - Catherine Steadman

31. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood - Fred Rogers

32. The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

33. Live Fearless - Sadie Robertson

34. The More of Less - Joshua Becker

35. Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid

36. Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins

37. The Flight Girls - Noelle Salazar

38. The Woman in the Window - A.J. Finn

39. Gentle and Lowly - Dane Ortlund

40. The Spirit of the Disciplines - Dallas Willard (read 56% then quit)

41. Nine Perfect Strangers - Liane Moriarty

42. Throw Like a Girl - Sarah Henning

43. The Last Summer of Us - Maggie Harcourt

44. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

45. How Happiness Happens - Max Lucado

46. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab

47. A Gathering of Shadows - V.E. Schwab

48. A Conjuring of Light - V.E. Schwab

49. Hunt, Gather, Parent - Michaeleen Doucleff

50. Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid

51. The Last Letter From Your Lover - Jojo Moyes

52. The Road Back to You - Ian Morgan Crone & Suzanne Stabile

53. August and Everything After - Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

54. You Have a Match - Emma Lord

55. The Guest List - Lucy Foley

56. Jesus - Max Lucado

57. Field Notes on Love - Jennifer E. Smith

58. Rhythms of Renewal - Rebekah Lyons

59. The Book of Two Ways - Jodi Picoult

60. The Firekeeper’s Daughter - Angeline Boulley

61. My Life with the Walter Boys - Ali Novak

62. The Enneagram of Belonging - Christopher L. Heuertz

63. The Chain - Adrian McKinty

64. The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead

65. Satisfied - Alyssa Joy Bethke

66. Say You’ll Remember Me - Katie McGarry

67. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton

68. Girl Defined - Kristen Clark & Bethany Baird

69. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton

70. The Alice Network - Kate Quinn

71. Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid

72. Why Suffering - Ravi Zacharias & Vince Vitale

73. 5 Love Languages Singles Edition - Gary Chapman

74. The Final Girls Support Group - Grady Hendrix

75. The Hawthorne Legacy - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

76. More Than We Can Tell - Brigid Kemmerer

77. Confessions on the 7:45 - Lisa Unger

78. The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers - Maxwell King

79. Truly Devious - Maureen Johnson

80. The Meaning of Marriage - Timothy & Kathy Keller

81. The Vanishing Stair - Maureen Johnson

82. The Hand on the Wall - Maureen Johnson

83. The Box in the Woods - Maureen Johnson

84. Animal Farm - George Orwell

85. Alex, Approximately - Jenn Bennett

86. Live No Lies - John Mark Comer

87. God and the Pandemic - N.T. Wright

88. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

89. Peter Pan and Wendy - J.M. Barrie

90. One Day in December - Josie Silver

91. Daring to Hope - Katie Davis Majors

92. The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman

93. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas - Agatha Christie

94. A Castle in the Clouds - Kerstin Gier

95. Take Back Your Family - Jefferson Bethke

[doubleattitude]

Radix Dance Convention, Atlanta, GA: RESULTS

High Scores by Age:

Rookie Solo

1st: MIla Simunic-’Never Enough’

2nd: Brenna Ferrell-’Showstopper’

2nd: Alaina Chadbourne-’Walk The Dinosaur’

Mini Solo

1st: Ellie Melchior-’Function’

2nd: Barrett Robison-’Ping’

3rd: Spencer Parnell-’The Return’

3rd: AnaKate Danner-’Unleashed’

3rd: Paislyn Schroeder-’Vibin’

4th: Kaylee Schwamb-’See Me Now’

4th: Lily Planck-’She’s A Lady’

5th: Georgia Beth Peters-’Come Together’

5th: Ava Grace Merritt-’Love Me’

5th: Anslee LeBlanc-’Take Care Of Yourself’

6th: Bella Smith-’Against The Music’

6th: Clare Gibbons-’Baby I’m A Star’

7th: Xin Lee-’Finding Home’

7th: Avery St John-’Tomorrow’s Song’

8th: Londyn Knox-’Without You’

9th: Lauren Fenton-’Boogie Shoes’

9th: Madelyn Laken-’Surprise’

10th: Penelope Thomas-’Love Shack’

10th: Lila Morath-’Miss Velour’

Junior Solo

1st: Amaya Llewellyn-’Must’

1st: Leila Winker-’Takt’

2nd: Emme James Anderson-’Resume’

3rd: Riley Fiorello-’Crippled Bird’

3rd: Estella Guzman-’No Contamination’

3rd: Ally Reuter-’Stagma’

4th: Mia Doyle-’Designated Harmony’

4th: Brinkley Pittman-’Gravity’

4th: Addison Cullather-’Tangent’

5th: Morgan Belyeu-’Older’

5th: Kalli Ramet-’Rock Me Baby’

5th: Roberta Marcos-’Torn’

6th: Luna Powell-’1977′

6th: Ella Paige Moore-’Breaking Point’

6th: Zella Wentz-’Fearless’

7th: Addison ?-’How Does A Moment Last Forever’

7th: Collier McLain-’Love Has No Limits’

7th: Mia Mondok-’Music Box’

7th: Gabriela Miller-’Sinking’

8th: Mia Narvaez-’Destinations’

8th: Amanda Fenton-’Devil In Disguise’

8th: Annabel Ellis-’The Forest’

8th: Sidney Hill-’The Moon’

9th: Zoe Kappler-’Changeling’

9th: Callie Ludtke-’Impossible’

9th: Leah Midgett-’Mirror Mirror’

10th: Kinley Andrews-’All That Jazz’

10th: Meredith Lee-’Especially A Woman’

Teen Solo

1st: Harlow Ganz-’End of Love’

1st: Preslie Rosamond-’Possibly Maybe’

2nd: Emery Sousley-’Birds of Paradise’

3rd: Olivia Taylor-’Closure’

3rd: Oliver Keane-’Electric Pulse’

4th: Kenzie Robertson-’1977′

4th: Josh Stephens-’Fires’

4th: Johanna Jessen-’Party’

4th: Gabriella Kennedy-’Ritz’

4th: Rianna Weck-’Sensory Overload’

5th: Delaney Lorenz-’Creep’

5th: Haley Midgett-’Smile to Me’

5th: Sydney Tam-’Touch’

6th: Natalie Bumgarner-’Maybe This Time’

6th: Kate Higginbotham-’Polly’

7th: Kennedi Washington-’Epilogue’

7th: Kayla Pierce-’Fire Speak’

7th: Kayla Montgomery-’Lalia’

8th: Cady Cropper-’Godspeed’

8th: Maddie Laine Callaway-’Piece by Piece’

9th: Mia Lott-’Flawless’

9th: Jordan Stevener-’Ghosts’

9th: Ally Organo-’Like You’ll Never See Me Again’

10th: Julia Deana-’Hate You’

10th: Madison marshall-’Icon’

10th: Dempsey Foxson-’Vain’

Senior Solo

1st: Seth Gibson-’Identity’

1st: Dai Boyd-’Try A Little Tenderness’

2nd: Libby Wiley-’By Thy Light’

3rd: Brittany Willard-’Unchained Melody’

4th: Raven Rutledge-’A Pale’

5th: Rebecca Lewyn-’Devil I Know’

5th: Anna Goodman-’Fallen Alien’

5th: Alexandra Jinglov-’Take It Easy’

6th: Belle Mason-’Drones’

6th: Katelynn Midgett-’Georgia’

6th: Ayana Davis-’Progressing’

7th: Kaili Tam-’Malamente’

7th: Elaina Samady-’Loving Ghosts’

7th: Ally Pereira-’Daring to Love’

7th: CJ Parker-’A Letter From France’

7th: Madison Phelps-’A Feeling Felt’

7th: Avery Ferguson-’When You Sleep’

8th: Izzie Bringle-’Hush’

8th: Molly Fisher-’Moved’

8th: Lexi Elias-’The Weight’

9th: Gracie Avalos-’A Body’

9th: Kirsten Brown-’Asylum’

9th: Julia Hale-’Cellophane’

10th: Brooke Manchester-’Go’

10th: Ainsley Wharton-’These hands’

10th: Sophie Hooker-’We’ll Meet Again’

Mini Duo/Trio

1st: Academy for The Performing Arts-’Fall For You’

2nd: Milele Academy-’Miami’

3rd: Studio 413-’Party Planners’

3rd: Milele Academy-’Vibology’

Junior Duo/Trio

1st: Milele Academy-’Fiyah Speak’

1st: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Oceania’

2nd: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’The Mess We’re In’

3rd: Dance Productions Unlimited-’Superpowers’

Teen Duo/Trio

1st: The Royal Dance Academy-’Greiving’

2nd: Milele Academy-’Down We Go’

2nd: Accolades Movement Project-’I Remember Her’

3rd: Studio 413-’Distortion’

3rd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Fledglings’

3rd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Rebuild’

3rd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Tiny Cities’

Senior Duo/Trio

1st: Studio 413-’Black Flies’

2nd: Milele Academy-’Darkest Hour’

3rd: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’Heartbeat’

Rookie Group

1st: Elite Studio-’I Don’t Want to Show Off’

2nd: Elite Studios-’90′s Babies’

Mini Group

1st: Encore Studio-’Uptown Girl’

2nd: Encore Studio-’Windowdipper’

3rd: Encore Studio-’Turn to Stone’

Junior Group

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’All I Want’

1st: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’Down The Line’

1st: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’History In The Making’

2nd: Milele Academy-’Save a Horse’

3rd: Elite Studio-’Collective Breath’

Teen Group

1st: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Don’t Forget Me’

1st: Encore Studio-’Kinjabang’

2nd: Studio 413-’Social Media Overload’

3rd: Milele Academy-’Close Up’

Senior Group

1st: Elite Studios-’I Still Remain’

2nd: Milele Academy-’Get It’

3rd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Holdin Out’

Rookie Line

1st: Encore Studio-’Conga’

Mini Line

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Jailhouse Rock’

2nd: Encore Studio-’Truth’

3rd: Elite Studio-’Get Busy’

3rd: Elite Studios-’What You Did To Me’

Junior Line

1st: Milele Academy-’Missy’

2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’It’s About That Walk’

3rd: Studio 413-’Into the Night’

Teen Line

1st: Studio 413-’Hold On Tight’

2nd: Encore Studio-’Yikes’

3rd: Encore Studio-’Just Say’

Senior Line

1st: Studio 413-’Rumors’

2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Lost’

3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Who You Are’

Mini Extended Line

1st: Encore Studio-’Vibeology’

2nd: Studio 413-’Critical Level’

3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’I’m Alive’

Junior Extended Line

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Covergirl’

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Footloose’

1st: Studio 413-’Goodbye’

2nd: Studio 413-’Girl Boss’

Teen Extended Line

1st: Studio 413-’No One’

2nd: Studio Powers-’BLACK’

3rd: Studio 413-’Ready or Not’

Senior Extended Line

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Shut It Down’

2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Trust Me Again’

3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Resolution’

Junior Production

1st: Studio 413-’Electricity’

Teen Production

1st: Encore Studio-’Cardi’

2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’JLo’

3rd: Elite Studio-’That 70′s Show’

High Scores by Performance Division:

Rookie Jazz

1st: Encore Studio-’Conga’ 2nd: Elite Studio-’I Don’t Want to Show Off’

Rookie Tap

Elite Studios-’90′s Babies’

Mini Jazz

1st: Encore Studio-’Uptown Girl’ 2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Jailhouse Rock’ 3rd: Milele Academy-’Move Your Body’

Mini Hip-Hop

Studio 413-’Lose Control’

Mini Tap

Studio 413-’Critical Level’

Mini Contemporary

1st: Encore Studio-’Windowdipper’ 2nd: Encore Studio-’Turn to Stone’ 3rd: Encore Studio-���Truth’

Mini Lyrical

1st: Elite Studios-’Every Single Thing I Have’ 2nd: Vermont Ballet Theater-’Build It Up’

Mini Specialty

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’I’m Alive’

Junior Jazz

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Covergirl’ 2nd: Studio 413-’Electricity’ 3rd: Milele Academy-’Save a Horse’ 3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’It’s About That Walk’

Junior Hip-Hop

1st: Milele Academy-’Missy’ 2nd: Studio 413-’Girl Boss’ 3rd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’New Skool’

Junior Tap

1st: Studio 413-’Into the Night’ 2nd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’You Can Feel It’

Junior Contemporary

1st: Studio 413-’Goodbye’ 2nd: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’Down The Line’ 3rd: Elite Studio-’Collective Breath’

Junior Lyrical

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’All I Want’

Junior Musical Theatre

1st: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Guns and Ships’ 2nd: Vermont Ballet Theater-’We Go Together’

Junior Specialty

1st: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Footloose’ 2nd: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’History In The Making’

Teen Jazz

1st: Encore Studio-’Just Say’ 2nd: Studio 413-’Body Language’ 3rd: Studio 413-’Social Media Overload’

Teen Hip-Hop

1st: Encore Studio-’Yikes’ 2nd: Studio Powers-’BLACK’ 3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Fire Emoji’

Teen Tap

1st: Studio 413-’No One’ 2nd: Encore Studio-’Cardi’

Teen Contemporary

1st: Studio 413-’Hold on Tight’ 2nd: Encore Studio-’Kinjabang’ 2nd: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Don’t Forget Me’ 2nd: Encore Studio-’Sadness’ 3rd: Milele Academy-’Hurting You’

Teen Lyrical

Vermont Ballet Theater-’Gravity’

Teen Musical Theatre

1st: Elite Studios-’Take Off With Us’ 1st: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Wait For Me’

Teen Specialty

1st: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’Cage of Bones’ 2nd: Studio Powers-’Area 51′

Senior Jazz

1st: Studio 413-’Rumors’ 2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Shut It Down’ 3rd: Elite Studios-’Sleep’

Senior Hip-Hop

Academy for the Performing Arts-’Welcome to Our Hood’

Senior Tap

Academy for the Performing Arts-’Holdin’ Out’

Senior Contemporary

1st: Elite Studios-’I Still Remain’ 2nd: Milele Academy-’Get It’ 2nd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Lost’ 3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Who You Are’ 3rd: Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Trust Me Again’

Senior Lyrical

1st: Elite Studios-’Kissing You’ 2nd: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’Came Here For Love’

Senior Specialty

1st: Academy for the Performing Arts-’Still Smiling’ 2nd: B-viBe The Dance Movement-’For This You Were Born’

Best of Radix:

Rookie

Elite Studio-’I Don’t Want to Show Off’

Encore Studio-’Conga’

Mini

Milele Academy-’Move Your Body’

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Jailhouse Rock’

Encore Studio-’Uptown Girl’

Junior

Elite Studio-’Collective Breath’

Milele Academy-’Missy’

B-viBe The Dance Movement-’History In The Making’

Studio 413-’Goodbye’

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Covergirl’

Teen

Academy for the Performing Arts-’Don’t Forget Me’

Studio 413-’Hold On Tight’

Studio Powers-’BLACK’

Milele Academy-’Hurting You’

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Fire Emoji’

Encore Studio-’Yikes’

Senior

Milele Academy-’Get It’

Elite Studios-’I Still Remain’

Studio 413-’Rumors’

Academy for the Performing Arts-’Holdin Out’

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Lost’

Studio Standout:

Elite Studios-’I Still Remain’

Academy for the Performing Arts-’Holdin Out’

B-viBe The Dance Movement-’History In The Making’

Encore Studio-’Yikes’

Jill’s Studio of Dance-’Lost’

Milele Academy-’Get It’

Studio 413-’Hold On Tight’

[chiseler]

TWO ALONE: A Noir Pastoral

It gets darker in the country than in the city.

Urban areas are thought to teem with crime and vice, but for city dwellers used to crowded, well-lit streets there’s a special terror about lonely rural roads at night. To the wary urbanite, the country—while it may be pretty for a Sunday outing—is a place of isolation, ignorance, backwardness and intolerance. This distrust feeds a strain of the rural gothic that trickles through Hollywood movies, always marginal and often subversive. Less common than the swampy, overripe Southern gothic, this genre of bucolic noir portrays farm life as mean, hard-bitten, joyless, and rife with exploitation—less salt-of-the-earth than salt-in-the-wounds.

F.W. Murnau’s City Girl (1929) set the template. Here Murnau inverted the pattern of Sunrise (1928), in which George O’Brien’s restless farmer is corrupted by an immoral city vixen and redeemed by a his wholesome, pure-hearted peasant wife. In City Girl, the eponymous heroine spends her days slinging hash in a Chicago lunch counter, sweating and footsore, batting away passes from endless hordes of male customers. At night she goes home to the roar of the El outside her cramped little room, blows the dust off her pitiful potted flower, listens to the chirping of a mechanical bird toy, and dreams of a better life outside the city. But when she marries a naive farm boy and goes home with him to the wheat fields, she’s briskly disillusioned. She has to contend with her harshly disapproving, bible-thumping father-in-law, who dominates her spineless husband; with a crowd of lecherous hired hands whose leering and pawing are worse than anything at the lunch counter; with thankless toil and her in-laws’ grim obsession with profit.

City Girl was caught in the changeover to sound, made as a silent but released in a mangled form with added musical and dialogue scenes. (The silent version has since been recovered and is now the only version available.) Among the changes that came with the adoption of sound was an intense urbanization of Hollywood’s output. The difficulty of location shooting and the influx of actors and writers from New York may have been the causes, but the whole tone of pre-Code movies is urban: wised-up, fast-paced, slangy.

Even when someone tried to make a film extolling the virtues of rural life, it seems they just couldn’t stop sneering and shuddering. The Purchase Price (1933), a total mis-fire by William Wellman, follows the basic trajectory of City Girl but is made with complete disregard for narrative logic or credibility. Barbara Stanwyck plays a nightclub singer so fed up with life on the Big Street, and with her seemingly amiable racketeer boyfriend, that she decides to flee to North Dakota as a mail-order bride. There she behaves like a brainwashed gulag inmate, cheerfully undergoing her re-education-through-labor: waking at dawn in a room so cold the water in her pitcher is frozen, and slogging through back-breaking toil in support of a churlish ingrate husband. (Played by the charmless George Brent, he pounces on her without preamble on their wedding night, and is so deeply offended by her rejection that he refuses ever to give her a second chance.) Of course, who would want to earn a cushy living warbling a song or two in a silver lamé gown when she could don an unflattering apron and a pair of galoshes and tote heavy pails of water along muddy paths while fending off cretinous rustics and suffering the scorn of a man with a chronic sniffle? Umm....

Somehow I imagine that the men who wrote The Purchase Price (the screenplay was by Warner Brothers regular Robert Lord, having an off day) were about as fond of clean country living as Oscar Levant, whose freak-out upon finding himself on the remote Neshobe Island is memorably recorded in Harpo Marx’s sublime autobiography, Harpo Speaks. He describes how Levant dissolved into panic when dragged off to this idyllic spot: “‘Birds!’ he wailed. ‘There are birds here! The sickest creatures on God’s earth! Trees! Even the trees are psychotic! Bugs! Don’t tell me there aren’t any insects here because I know there are!’ He grabbed my arm. ‘Harpo,’ he said, ‘What have you done to me? Take me away from here. Take me away from here!’”

Rural gothic films succeed where they avoid Purchase Price-style hypocrisy and are unapologetic in their antagonism. The completely unexpected Two Alone (1934) is such a triumph. It is unexpected both because this kind of dark, brooding, romantic, Borzagean tale was out of fashion in 1934, and because no one involved in the film had a distinguished record elsewhere. Director Elliott Nugent started as an unpreposessing actor (he’s the wimpy love interest in the talkie version of The Unholy Three, and had his best role as an emotionally damaged ex-pilot in The Last Flight) and as a director churned out mainly lightweight fare and earnest mediocrities like the 1949 Great Gatsby. The cast is headed by bland B leads—lovely Jean Parker, whose acting is rudimentary, and perennial kid-brother Tom Brown—and by a crew of usually predictable character actors. But nothing about this film is predictable.

It opens with barnyard footage that prepares you for a quaint rustic comedy (an expectation encouraged by the presence of ZaSu Pitts’s name in the credits). But the scenes of farmer Slag (Arthur Byron) rousting his family out of bed for another workday have a nasty edge: he’s a mean bastard, his wife (Beulah Bondi) is a sour-faced shrew, and their daughter is all one would expect from such a love match. The next shock is our first view of Mazie (Parker), bathing naked in a stream, her fully exposed rear ogled by Slag in a creepy Suzanna-and-the-Elders scene.

Mazie is an orphan and essentially a slave to her foster family, who exploit her powerlessness to the full. When the stingy, iron-fisted Slag growls self-righteously that “No one ever gave me anything,” one can hear the echo from today’s G.O.P. candidates. The protestant work ethic has drained this family of the last drop of humanity; they’re more miserly with compassion than with coin, and their flinty obsession with squeezing every penny from their workers and their land is related to Slag’s predatory lust and his wife’s barren prudishness. (When a hired man quits, Mrs. Slag confronts him with a shotgun and goes through his suitcase to make sure he didn’t steal any spoons; he jokes unkindly that she doesn’t need the shotgun to protect herself from him.) When Mazie falls in love with Adam (Brown), a reform school runaway who becomes another de facto slave, their romantic and sexual union is the ultimate threat to the Slags: a combined threat of rebellion, of idleness, of emotional warmth, of fertility, of freedom.

These themes are woven cleverly through the film. There is an ambiguous scene at the beginning where the middle-aged hired hand George Marshall (Willard Robertson) talks to Mazie by the well as she’s fetching water. Robertson was a character actor distinguished by his hard slitty eyes, and he usually played cops and sheriffs—the kind you know won’t believe your story. Here, he’s kind to Mazie, but his interest seems suspicious, especially when they talk about her unknown father, and Marshall opines that “no substitute has been found yet” for a biological father. It later turns out that Marshall is her father, that he has sought her ought and plans to rescue her. Hence the well, where Mazie looks at her reflection and imagines she is seeing her mother’s face, becomes a symbol of revelation—truth emerging from the well, as in the old adage. Yet it remains an ominous image too: in the end Mazie will throw herself into the well as Slag attacks Adam, who is now the father of her unborn child.

We first see Adam literally falling off the back of a truck, where he has been hitching a ride, and tumbling down a dusty slope. Tom Brown has a baby face that usually shone with gee-whiz, schoolboy cockiness under slicked-back hair. Here, with his hair tousled and a look of wary bitterness on his dirt-streaked face, he’s surprisingly attractive and forceful. Adam was sent to reform school after beating up his father, who abused his mother; Slag sees a chance to benefit by concealing Adam and blackmailing him into working for no wages.

Mazie and Adam bond first like brother and sister. Their awakening to something more comes in a dark, weirdly sexy scene that suggests anything but innocent pastoral romance. Left behind while the Slags are off at their daughter’s wedding, the young couple sits around a fire outdoors with Sandy (Charley Grapewin), a harmlessly demented dipsomaniac whose daughter (Pitts, in a very minor role) locks him in the shed to keep him out of trouble. Sandy starts telling them about the customs of Indian weddings, in which the groom has to chase down the bride. As he beats hypnotically on an upturned bowl to imitate the tom-toms, Adam and Mazie are unnerved and then possessed by the drumming; they run off into the dark woods and kiss.

Later, after they run away together, they succumb again in a field full of cloyingly sweet night flowers. But their sexual passion leads them into a love as pure and faithful as anything in Borzage. Their position as outcast waifs who find salvation in one another recalls Lucky Star—where crippled Charles Farrell and ragged farm girl Janet Gaynor develop an achingly delicate love in a bleak, slovenly rural gothic setting. The loveliest moment in Two Alone comes when Mazie, who has just realized she’s pregnant, faints and is carried into the house by Slag, who shoos Adam away. Ordered back to her chores as soon as she revives, Mazie goes to the porch for firewood. Through the window, we see Adam standing outside in the lashing rain, waiting to find out if she’s all right. It’s a beautifully framed and lit image that illustrates, without mawkishness, Adam’s devotion and the forlorn yearning of the young lovers kept apart.

Perhaps it’s unlikely that this story would end well, that the one good father would win out over all the bad fathers. George Marshall shows up in the nick of time after Adam has brawled with and been shot by Slag, and Mazie has thrown herself in the well. Adam still has to go back to reform school, but it’s a generally hopeful ending—and it comes as a great relief. It’s a tribute to the small film’s emotional power that we really don’t want to see the the luckless young lovers suffer any more.

Two Alone feels out of place at the tail end of the pre-Code era; it looks both backward to silent melodramas and forward to rural gothic noirs like Borzage’s Moonrise (1948), Jean Negulesco’s Deep Valley (1947), and Delmer Daves’ The Red House (1947). In Deep Valley, Ida Lupino is an isolated girl whose parents’ frosty, sick, mutually punishing relationship has reduced her to timid, stammering neurosis. She blossoms after meeting another wounded soul (Dane Clark), a convict escaped from a chain gang that is building a road through the remote woods; but he can’t free himself from his compulsively violent nature, and finds escape only in death. Clark had his finest hour in the gorgeous and haunting Moonrise, as a young man ostracized by his nasty Southern backwater town because his father was hanged for murder.

The past lingers longer in small towns and lonely farmsteads than in cities, where anonymity and change constantly wash around the inhabitants. This makes rural noir a more natural phenomenon than is commonly assumed, since the fatal grip of the past is a central noir theme. The Red House is a psychological haunted-house tale, and if one is not too distracted by the incongruity of Edward G. Robinson and Judith Anderson playing both siblings and farmers, it achieves a dense atmosphere of decay and blight. One-legged Pete Morgan (Robinson) relies on both spooky rumors and a hired redneck with a shotgun to keep people out of the woods around a ruined farmhouse that harbors the macabre secret of the woman he loved and killed. The woman’s daughter, ignorant of her past, is Morgan’s adopted daughter, and as his mind crumbles he begins to mistake her for his long-lost love, a disturbingly incestuous delusion. There’s a campfire-story creepiness about this film, you can almost hear the twigs snapping and see the light flickering, making the woods beyond blacker.

Bring a flashlight. It gets dark out there in the country.

by Imogen. Sara Smith