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July 30 movie: Fashions of 1934. Friday must have been "William Powell Day" on TCM or something. Maybe they started "Summer Under the Stars" a few days early. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Summer Under the Stars? (In case you're not an obsessive TCM viewer like I am, every day in August is devoted to a different actor.) Georg doesn't like that they take a month off from the interesting themes (such as Mexican cinema, pre-code movies, tearjerkers, etc) that can yield unusual movies we wouldn't otherwise get to see.

I see his point, but I love Summer Under the Stars because it gives me the chance to fill in my viewing of particular actors. For instance I was just saying that I wanted to see more George Brent. Well, all I have to do is wait for George Brent day, and I'll have a dozen movies to choose from. The downside, of course, is if they do a run of days on actors I'm not that interested in (James Cagney), have seen a lot of lately (Katherine Hepburn), or actively avoid (John Wayne). Next week Joel McCrea is the only day I'm interested in, but I'll be traveling anyway so it's for the best.

Anyway, back to this movie. Fashions of 1934. This was a very silly film starring William Powell as a fashion pirate and and very young, very hot Bette Davis as his partner in crime. (I never, ever thought I would use the word "hot" to describe Bette Davis, but she was.) Powell snatches photos of Paris fashions, Davis sketches them, and they sell the sketches to knock-off manufacturers in the US. Plus a Busby Berkeley number featuring ostrich features! Silly good fun.

I especially liked Bette Davis in this movie. I love her movies, all of them, but after a point she mainly did serious and important roles, if you know what I mean. It was great to see her kicking back and having fun, not taking it all so seriously.