You know you're obsessed with "I Love Lucy" when...

So, today was my first day of school. It was only a half day, which is just what it sounds like, and you come home from school before lunch. Tomorrow is another half day but by Thursday I'll be getting back into "the swing of things" with my first full day and classes and all of that. I think I was truly depressed when I changed back into that usual plaid skirt and blouse (yep, I go to a private school) and my new school shoes (with little bows at the toe - oh! Something to get excited about!).

Over all, though, this is going to be my last year in a school which I have pretty much been going to forever, so I guess I ought to enjoy it (and with all the perks that come from being on the top of the heap). I have a really nice homeroom teacher (she was my teacher last year and I was thrilled to pieces when I found out I'd have her for homeroom again), and even the same classroom because of that reason. My class is really tiny (just twelve of us.  The Destructive Dozen??? The Dangerous Dozen??) , which I really like because we all know each other quite well and it's more of a little family then a class.

So, yeah. I'm not all that thrilled about going back, but if there is one good thing about back to school it is that FALL IS COMING! Okay, don't think ill of me, and and you'll probably be all, "Wow, Rianna's so weird" but fall (and winter - yes, winter too) are my favorite seasons. You may call me partial for liking the cold weather so much because I'm a February baby, but I don't do it to be different or anything - I actually love the fall and winter. I love all the sweaters and all the warm, fashionable coats and not to mention I have an obsession with boots. I love staying in on cold days with the leaves turning golden-red and watching an old movie or curling up with a book (and a cup of hot chocolate). Most of all, I love snow and I love Christmastime, which is my favorite time of the year (another reason for me to love fall/winter - all the holidays! Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's... and my birthday, of course. ;]).

Well, call me crazy, but I love it. And so despite the fact it's still August, it's nearly September, which means only two weeks until fall, and yes I really do <3 it that much!

***

So, you've probably seen those kind of lists like "You know you're obsessed with Harry Potter" or insert any other kind of culture phenomenon like "Twilight" or whatever. I was disappointed to find that I could not find a list like that applying to "I Love Lucy" (hmph. Well. of course. What would you expect?).

But since I know so much about the show, I'm like why not write one myself? Brilliant! So... here it is. If you have watched all the episodes you ought to understand all of them, if you're more of a casual fan you'll understand most but perhaps not all. Anyway, I hope it makes sense... and I hope you enjoy ;)

YOU KNOW YOU'RE OBSESSED WITH "I LOVE LUCY" WHEN...

• Whenever you see a golf game or someone watching golf you feel the great urge to tell out, "Dormie!"
• You randomly find yourself saying "dun't" instead of "don't."
• You often find yourself sawing "dawnsy" when someone asks you, "How are you feeling?"
• The word "Tropicana" does not evoke thoughts of orange juice,  but more appropriately, a nightclub.
• You find that you can sing along to every Ricky Ricardo song word for word.
• Whenever you hear a saxophone playing it sounds like "Glo Worm" to you, even if it isn't.
• "I tippy tippy toed through my garden..."
• You keep waiting for "Real Gone With the Wind" to come out.
• The last name "McGuilicuddy" holds a special place in your heart.
• The names "Flo Pauline Lopos", "Marian Strong", "Carlotta Romero" and "Joe Harris" all sound familiar to you.
• You teared up when Lucy and Ricky cried at the end of  Ricky's "We're Having a Baby, My Baby and Me".
• You have always wanted to stomp grapes with your feet.
• You have ever wanted a bottle of "Vitavetavegamin."
• Forget about Tennessee Williams; it's Tennessee Ernie.
• "623 East 68th Street, Apartment 3D" is more than just an address to you. (If this address was real, then the Ricardos and Mertzes would be living in the East River!)
• You know how to speak Martian.
• "The time has come" sounds really familiar.
• You always wonder who the real Madame X was.
• Lucy Ricardo wasn't born in Jamestown, New York. She was born in West Jamestown (which, in reality, does not exist).
• The words "hatchet" and "water cress" go together.
• Stealing John Wayne's footprints from Grumman's Chinese Theater makes a lot of sense to you.
• When you think of a nightclub, you do not think of dimly lit lounges with techno music pulsing through it, but Club Babalu.
• "Black lace blue jeans" rings a bell.
• You know all the lyrics and the dance steps to Lucy and Van Johnson's "How About You?"
• You stopped subscribing to TV Guide when they put "I Love Lucy" second on their list of "The Greatest TV Shows of All Time."

***

I hope you enjoyed my little list. I had fun making it, and if it gets a good response I may do more editions in the future or similar lists with different obsessions. ;)

"I only have eyes for you, dear."

Hi everyone,

This is just going to be a post with a few miscellaneous notes....

First things first, the voting for the film noir contest. Here is the link: Film Noir Contest Voting!. Please read everyone's blogs, and then vote for your favorite. :) I already know two of my other blogging buddies that have joined in on the fun and their entries look wonderful, so I'm in great company! :) Also, at the last moment I decided to enter the video competition as well with my 100th birthday tribute to Lucy. The video got a good reception on Youtube (a thousand views in one week, which I have to admit is pretty cool), and so I decided why not? Especially since I'm not all that confident in my film noir post. You can vote for the videos (and don't forget to watch the other ones, too) here: Video Contest Voting!. (I ironically discovered that the ''What Did Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck Do Last Friday Night'' video I shared a few weeks ago here is up against me... what a small world! :D) Voting is from today to September 10th, so you'll have plenty of time. And lastly, a quick thanks to David, the website's main host, for hosting this! :)

Here's some exciting news: I hit the twenty followers benchmark that I've been striving for! (Actually, it's twenty-three now. :D) Thanks a BILLION for following me, it really does mean a lot, and let's see if we can make it up to thirty now. ;)

Also, here's your poll results! I've been a little late with getting them in, but this is the way it turned out:

• The winner is Lauren's autobiography, By Myself and Then Some with five votes (50 percent!). It looks interesting and you all must think it's good, so I'm going to trust your judgement! ;)
• Tying for second place is Ava Gardner's biography, Love is Nothing, and Vivien's, with two votes (twenty percent) each.
• And in last place, with one vote (ten percent) is Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour, or the story of how Natalie Wood drowned and the murky circumstances surrounding it. 

So, I'm not very far at all in Jean Arthur's biography. It does look quite good, but maybe my mind is in other places and I'm not getting into it. -;) So, I think for the time being I'm going to go ahead and start reading Lauren's autobiography like you all have voted for me to do, and maybe come back to Jean another time. Thanks a bunch to all of you that voted and I'll be sure and review the book for you once I'm done!

I guess one natural disaster wasn't enough for us this week. Hurricane Irene (Dunne? :P) is on the way, and there's a possibility we may lose power for a little while, so I may not get a chance to write if it's going to be as bad as everyone says it is. In fact, we just got a call from our electricity company warning us. Let's hope not - I hate hurricanes, and we never get them either! And, to top it off, it's coming smack dab on my mom's birthday on Saturday. What a present!

I've made a couple changes to the blog, or I should say, additions. Some of you have already noticed and begun using it, but for those of you who haven't, or aren't sure what it's for, or whatever, I'd added a "reactions" bar:

Sorry for the awful circling job there

Basically, this is quicker way to tell me what you thought of the post (Don't let this discourage you from commenting, though - I LOVE comments!), and it helps me in writing future posts. Right now your options are "funny", "interesting", and "cool." They're not all that original (pre-written for me by Blogger), and I'm not so happy with them so I'll probably change them to something better in the near future. Ideas?

And, I have added a bunch of new songs to my playlist (or AKA, the pink iPod on the sidebar). It still opens with the Gone With the Wind theme (followed up by "Frankly, my dear..."), but I've added some other old timey songs so any newbies to this blog won't think this is just a blog about "Gone With the Wind." (What with the title and all). So, here's what I've added for your hearing pleasure:

• "I Only Have Eyes For You" sung by Frank Sinatra (hence the title of this post). A couple of days ago it was Joan Blondell day on TCM, and I had "Dames" playing on the TV. I wasn't actually paying attention (you know, when you leave the TV on for company... I do that always), but I did happen to hear this particular song play constantly in the movie, and it really grew to me. The only version I could get was Frank's, but it's Sinatra so it might as well be good!
• "That's All" sung by Edie Adams on the final episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour... I love this song, it's very pretty and Edie sings it beautifully - in fact, this is my favorite version of the song.
• "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" sung by Marlene Dietrich (yep, Marlene). I wanted to get the Doris Day version of this, but that wasn't available. Everyone remember it from "Bringing up Baby"? :)
• "Stardust" sung by Nat King Cole. I hear this was Bette Davis's personal favorite song, and I really like it. So, here's to Bette.
• "As Time Goes By" by Doolie Wilson, or, the one and only Sam! I don't have to tell you anymore, you know where it's from. INGRID: Play it, Sam. Play.... "As Time Goes By." SAM: Well, I'm a little rusty on it, Miss Ilsa INGRID: -- I'll hum it for you. Di-de-dee-du-dum....
• The theme from "An Affair to Remember." This movie is one of my favorites (it makes me cry every time), and the theme is so beautiful, too.
• A really awkward version of "Que Sera Sera" by Doris, but once again, it was the only one I could get. Oh, well - que sera sera!
• "Isn't it Romantic?" sung by Jeanette MacDonald. I LOVE this song, it's one of my favorites, but no offense to Jeanette, only I really wanted to get the Ella Fitzgerald version of this. I AH-DORE that version. This is nice, too... but Ella's just blows me away. Oh well, we'll have to settle for this.
• "Cheek to Cheek" ... I THINK sung by Ginger Rogers. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Because I could like, totally, be off like that. ;) Anyway, this is a nice version and I like it.
• ... And lastly, a little Vera Lynn for you: "We'll Meet Again." (Some sunny day!)

I may add some more into the future as they come into my mind.  ;)

Okay, so you're used to leaving you with some random kind of photo or something, but today I'm going to leave you with a clip from one of my favorite movies EVER, "Bringing Up Baby"... I'm sure most of you have already seen it. But, whatever. It's adorable, and it makes me smile. :)

Click THIS!

To my annoyance, I could not embed the video here but you can click that link just below the photo :)

That's all for now, and please don't forget to check out the film noir contest. Now that the polls are up, I've taken a look at the other three contestants and it's simply FABULOUS, dahhhlings. :)

Ciao! ;)

Photo of the Day || Lucy and Desi

Lucy and Desi on the tennis court. Lol, I love Desi's hat. :D

That's all for today.... the earthquake totally "shook me up", so to speak, yesterday and interrupted the momentum of my homework. So I've really got to make up for it today. ;) But, considering the due date for the Film Noir Contest is the 26th, I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with my post for the contest. If things go the way I want it to... otherwise I'll have to cut it close and swing the date to the 26th, but we'll see. And by the way, I'd like to quickly thank everyone for their lovely comments on yesterday's post about the earthquake. :) 

Celebrity Lookalikes. And why I hate Robert Wagner. and just rambling

When deciding what to write about today, I was kind of stuck. I had a lot of thoughts all clouded up into one, but I couldn't chose just which one to talk about. So, finally, I settled on a rambling post. It's been a while since I did one of those, so why the heck not?

You'll notice on my sidebar a new banner advertising the Film Noir Contest at Film Classics. I really hope you bloggers out there click the banner and decide to participate, because in the last contest there were only two competitors, and that makes it no fun, really. So... JOIN! JOIN! I like rivalry. ;)

Also, today is August 16th, which (drum roll please) marks the ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY OF MY BLOG! I can't believe it's already one month. This also marks exactly two weeks until I go back to school. Ew. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I totally LOVE blogging and all of that, so I'll be doing it for many more anniversaries to come. I'm not quitting anytime soon. :)

So last night I watched "Splendor in the Grass" for the first time. (Yeah, it's a part of my box set). It was kind of weird, but I did enjoy it. Anyway, I won't get into it because I'm saving it for my Sunday Movie Review, so you'll just have to wait until then to hear my complete opinion.

Anyway, I guess this is kind of random, but I was just thinking about how I really like most actors from the Golden Era, and up into the 60's and a little bit farther... there isn't really one I "hate." And then I thought of Robert Wagner.

Yes, this is quite random. But i always talk about the actors I love, so why not talk about the ones I don't - not really?

It's not the fact that I hate Robert Wagner as an actor, because I haven't seen enough of his movies, or "Hart to Hart" or whatever, to judge that.  (And maybe hate is an eensy bit of a strong word.) It's because of what he did with Natalie Wood that makes me upset.

If you didn't know, Natalie and "RJ" were married twice. Once, in the early sixties, and then again from about 1972 to her death. He was with her that night on the boat - that night when she drowned. 


I'm not going to say he murdered her, but there's totally something fishy about the way he tells his side of the story. According to the book "Natasha" by Suzanne Finstad, he took about four hours to call the Coast Guard - four hours AFTER he noticed Natalie was missing. Apparently, he thought she "may have taken the dinghy out to the diner at the shore" or something. Natalie, who was terrified of water - especially water at night, dark water? Yeah, right!

Wagner will be back on the TV screens in the USA this fall with the new "Charlie's Angels" (I know, very disgusting). He voices Charlie.

It annoys me how he doesn't do much to keep Natalie's memory alive. She was such a Hollywood giant in her time, but today she doesn't have that legendary status that most movie stars (especially those died young) of Classic Hollywood hold. He could be doing a lot more. But he never talks about her death, and he never talks about her. Whenever he gives interviews, there is no mention of her whatsoever. It was like he wasn't even married to her.

Maybe he feels guilty - but that's evidence in itself, isn't it?

He's talking about his autobiography, "Pieces of My Heart" (HA! How clever) here. What annoys me is the way he glosses over Natalie's death: "She died, but life goes on." What the heck?

Well, yeah. I just wanted to say that. I happened to catch that video, and it annoyed me, so I thought I'd... talk about it here. I'm so random. Oh, well.

Also, last night when I was watching Warren Beatty, I got a great idea for an issue of celebrity lookalikes. I went all, "Doesn't Montgomery Clift look like Warren Beatty?" and my dad was, "WHAT? no way."

But I think so. So here's my lookalies, Montgomery and Warren included.

Montgomery Clift and Warren Beatty

Jean Simmons, Vivien Leigh, Hedy Lamarr, Elizabeth Taylor

seriously, these girls look SO alike. Jean, Vivien, and Hedy could be triplets and Elizabeth could be like, their little sister or something.

Anne Bancroft and This Chick Who Played Angelina in "Splendor in the Grass"

There was also this chick in "The Snake Pit" who looked a lot like her, but I couldn't find a picture of her.

Wow, this is a really random post. And really stupid...

Well, anyway, surprisingly I've got nothing left to ramble about... and this was probably a mindless post... and I don't blame you if you found this a waste of your time... and I promise something more substantial and worthwhile tomorrow. When I've got more brain energy.

Ciao.

Hi there:)

Well, this it... my first post!!


I'm excited to be writing this blog. A Blog like this is something I have been considering about doing for a while now, and now I'm glad I'm here, uhm, doing it!


I promise to update regularly. What will you see on this blog?? A lot of blogs about Old Hollywood stars, perhaps some trivia, surveys, etc. - we'll see what happens. You ask, "What about movie reviews?" I will feature movie reviews from time to time, but I already write a few on Netflix. As I write this, the website is being sort of screwy and I can't get an exact link to my reviews page. But once it's back to normal, I'll add the link here. 


Of course, If a movie is absolutely amazing or terribly awful, chances are I'll most likely feature it here with a review and lots of pictures. But I want to focus mostly on other articles, too.


I LOVE Lucille Ball, so you'll probably see a ton of posts about her. As some may know, her 100th birthday is coming up August 6th!! I am SO thrilled! I plan to write a huge blog about her before, though, so I can proudly say I'm a member of the "Loving Lucy Blogathon." More on that later. (For more of my favorite actors, see "My Favorite Actresses and Actors.")


Well, that's about it... I love fashion, too, so you might see a few blogs on 20th century fashion occasionally. You might also see posts here about Princess Diana or Jackie Kennedy from time to time because I think they were very wonderful and inspiring ladies... but they're not movie stars, so that's why it's a head's up. One thing you will very likely NOT see here is any blogs pertaining to modern day movies and actors. I'm just not a fan of them - most of them, anyway. I guess there are a few exceptions. But still.


I am working on what I hope will be a fabulous website dedicated to Old Hollywood actresses. But it's not finished yet, so I'll reveal it when it is.


Yep, well, that's basically it. I hope you enjoy my blog :)


Rianna

Just a random little photo!

I got this from everythinginspiring.com

and Picniked the "be lovely" and the heart myself!

I thought it was a little Old Hollywood inspired,

don't you?