Saturday 11 July 2009

The elusive 14... also LAST CHANCE TO VOTE!!

Since the start of this blog in early June... I've begged, borrowed, bought and (I suppose technically) stolen my way to having 62 Ginger movies either on DVD, on VHS or on my hard drive. Despite crawling through numerous online auctions and sites of questionable reputation, there are 14 movies (including 3 shorts) which I simply cannot find. Very annoying!!

What makes it worse is that in many cases of the 14, I've found fragments on youtube, convincing me even more thoroughly that I do want them, and that they must exist somewhere! Hence this post is a roundup of those 14 failures of my search (so far :P), and a plea to anyone whose great aunt may have an ancient VHS in a box in her attic! Also, not having access to TCM, it's possible I'm just suffering from living in the UK! Most of these missing films are either very early, or late in her career.

So here we go (chronologically!!)

1. A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929)[short]- Ginger's first official film! She would have been 18,the same age as me!!

2. Campus Sweethearts (1930)[short] Second movie, I'd imagine these will be the hardest to find!

3. A Night in A Dormitory (1930) [short] - Ginger playing.... Ginger!! There are clips of this on YT but I dont know if it's the whole thing! Its so cute, and shows Ginger when she was playing the Betty Boop style flapper that she began as, before she developed in to the Ginger we know and love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C96KI1cq034

4. The Sap from Syracuse (1930) - Also known as the Sap from Abroad. - I know this one exists as again there are clips on youtube, and someone has the whole film but wants a trade that I cant provide :(

5. Queen High (1930) - Ditto the above sob story! But even worse as there are large chunks of this on youtube to torture me!! For your enjoyment though!!



6. Follow the Leader (1930) - Yet again, the first 9 minutes to torture me....
Having said this, I just realised I havent actually messaged the uploader to ask about the rest of it :P

7. Hat Check Girl (1932) - Here begins the small number of random early/mid career films which just aren't to be found anywhere!

8. Sitting Pretty (1933) - Has apparently Ginger in a gorgeous sequinned get up, and the lovely song, "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking"

and now we skip all the way through the wonders of Kitty Foyle and the Fred and Ginger lot to....

9. Perfect Strangers (1950) - I have literally found no part of this film anywhere outside the IMDB, maybe because there are better know films with the same title... but who knows!

10. Forever Female (1953) - Drawn a complete blank here - all I can remember is I can't find it!!

11. The First Travelling Saleslady (1956)- Is reportedly a hoot! The trailer is on YT and you can see Carol Channing making her screen debut! This was also Ginger's last movie at RKO and I believe, the last picture made at RKO prior to it changing hands/name etc. I know from the trailer that it's been on TCM so anyone who has a copy...I will do most anything to lay hands on it!!



12. Oh Men! Oh Women! (1957) - The closest I've come to a video of this is a passing reference on What's My Line where GInger is mystery guest! This also applies to...


13. The Confession (1964) - Where Ginger herself speaks briefly of her ill-fated foray in to production with husband number 5. Incidentally this is the only film made by their company, and Ginger stars as Madame Rinaldi...brothel owner!!


14. Harlow (1965) - By all accounts, this is a fairly poor film, but it's Ginger's final one, and I need it, if only for the sake of completion, you'd think being more recent, it'd be easier to find!

Apologies to anyone who'd waded through this entire post! I wasnt anticipating the length it'd become, but somehow a list of titles seemed a little dry.

11 comments:

  1. Beth darling! I gave you a shout out on my blog!

    xoxo

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  2. Beth,

    Believe it or not, The Confession - or 'Quick, Let's Get Married' is one I have - got it from Movies Unlimited.com - see link below...

    http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/product.asp?sku=D69570&loc=actor

    ...unfortunately, it IS, as Ginger describes it, 'a disaster'...Her 'reunion' with Ray Miland (Major and the Minor) has a few 'cute' moments, and a early-fifties Ginger still has some 'spunk', although she is really mis-cast as a 'Madam' - a 'wine-loving' one, at that... but overall the whole production is just BAD...not even Ginger could salvage it... it does have one of the early apperances of Barbara Eden - not sure if you know her, was in 'I Dream of Jeanie', a silly (but popular) late 60's U.S. sitcom - she is quite pretty, but this vehicle did not help her out much, either. Ginger covers the gory details of this movie in her book, as I am sure you know...
    I'll put it this way... only REAL Ginger fans need apply for this one...which applies here...but don't expect much...

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  3. BTW... a few 'general' notes which you are probably aware of, but just in case -
    Warner Brothers has a new 'promotion' called 'Warner Archives' - Every first and third Tuesday of the month they are bringing out new 'archive' titles - so far, Ginger titles include 'Having Wonderful Time', 'Tom, Dick and Harry', 'Once Upon a Honeymoon', and 'Weekend at the Waldorf' I received the middle two last week, and are pretty fair copies - sad to see there are no 'extras', tho...looks like you have all those, but since Warner Brothers has the RKO library, and possibly others, they could be coming out with some of the 'oldies'... they have already released a bunch of 'silent' movies, so 1930 should be 'do-able'.
    Amazon.com has a few entries under a 'Ginger' search which states to 'sign up to be notified when this title becomes available', one of them being 'Oh Men! Oh Women!', as well as 'Bachelor Mother' (one of my favorites) and 'Tales of Manhattan'.
    It is a bit frustrating on Amazon, tho, because they have a lot of Ginger titles for 'Region 0 or 2' DVD - which I guess is Europe - but not available for U.S.(Region 1) - so you are lucky in that respect...amazing there are so many Ginger movies not availbale here...yet (hopefully soon...)
    Hope the info helps some...

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  4. damn, i cant help ya on any of those, sorry Beth! btw i sure as heck know who Barbara Eden is, i have the complete I Dream of Jeannie on DVD, so i can relive my childhood when i used to watch the reruns and imagine how totally awesome it would be to have a gorgeous blonde bombshell in the house, who called me 'master' and could give me anything i wanted by folding her arms and blinking ;)
    *sigh* those are the precious times arent they?

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  5. Thanks for all the info and interest. I've bookmarked "The Confession" which I will watch and then try and forget! Yeah I'm waiting on Amazon to find a copy of "Oh Men, Oh Women", I already have 2 DVD copies of Bachelor mother, is it hard to get in the States, it cost be about £1! The only problem with the Warner archive movies, is that they wont ship to the UK, so to get them, I'd have to arrange to have them delivered to someone else and then pay for postage, and then they'd be in region 1 format! SO wouldnt be able to watch em anyway :(

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  6. ...After I started thinking about it, the 'region' thing affects you in the 'opposite' manner - (I posted late last night, after a long day...) sorry - I just wish they would drop all the region stuff - I know it is to discourage piracy, but heck, if they show a completely uncut version of something on TCM w/o commercials, or on any 'premium' movie channel for that matter, you can 'burn' a disc of it, so, what's the difference... but we all have heard this before... I've even wondered if there is such a thing as a 'multi-region' DVD player - probably so, but it wouldn't have the major studio's blessing :-]
    Anyway, hope the info helped out in some manner... maybe YT will turn up some more movies - I have looked over a few of her older ones on YT (Upperworld, Honor Among Lovers), as well as Cinderella, which appears to be out of print...
    P.S. - To Artman - 'Jeannie' was one of the first ladies I 'fell' for - back when I was 6 or so (a LONG time ago..even before I knew about Ginger...) ..she was quite the stunner. She is almost always blonde, but in this movie, she is red-headed, which still works quite well, not unlike with Ginger.

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  7. OOOH BETH DO I HAVE SOME SURPRISES FOR YOU!

    Lauren

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  8. BTW concerning Follow the Leader,
    "Having said this, I just realised I havent actually messaged the uploader to ask about the rest of it :P"
    I did that a day or so ago, but they haven't responded yet :'(
    I KNOW it's out there! The only movie of her's that I haven't heard a soul finding is "Hat Check Girl."

    Lauren

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  9. Man, I suppose this means it's official that no one knows the whereabouts of Hat Check Girl or Perfect Strangers. Makes me sad...I've been looking for these for ages.

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  10. Juliette, I know a couple people that have found Perfect Strangers. It's just Hat Check Girl... :( I guess I'll have to try to find the actual film of it, but how on earth to get that to DVD, I don't know!

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  11. Really? Swell, I've been searching forever. Could you perhaps tell me which site they used?
    I know Movies Unlimited has quite a few, like "The Confession," and "Having Wonderful Time," but you're right..."Hat Check Girl" seems to have vanished. Ah well, one can hope.

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