I've seen "The Strawberry Blonde" (I believe that was actually one of Cagney's singing roles, come to think of it) and liked it. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it even has a bouncing-ball singalong (period 'karaoke') screen at the end for the audience to join in the title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaIBGEVUFHQ
I don't remember it as being particularly great, but it's good enjoyable entertainment.
David Niven was a contemporary, friend and sometime housemate of Errol Flynn: you can see them acting together in "The Dawn Patrol" (an excellent WW1 film) and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (a bit generic but still enjoyable). Unlike Flynn he had a long and successful career over forty years or more; he doesn't have Flynn's high-wattage charisma or looks, but he has the unmistakable debonair charm of a 1930s Englishman in Hollywood. He starred as a straight actor in "Raffles" and "A Matter of Life and Death" and was hilarious (really, really, hilarious) in "Bachelor Mother" and "The Moon is Blue". He plays Fritz von Tarlenheim in the Roanld Colman/Douglas Fairbanks Jr "Prisoner of Zenda" and an uninspiring Edgar Linton in the Laurence Olivier "Wuthering Heights", and supports Doris Day in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (amusing) and won an Oscar alongside Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in "Separate Tables" (devastating). He is memorable as the playboy father in the award-winning "Bonjour Tristesse"; not so memorable as Percy Blakeney in "The Elusive Pimpernel" (a Powell & Pressburger film that should have been great but somehow wasn't).
He wrote two highly entertaining although not necessarily accurate memoirs ("The Moon's a Balloon" and "Bring on the Empty Horses") which are well worth a read, and he is generally worth looking out for when you spot him in the credits of a film in a supporting part; he was never really a first-rank Hollywood star (a few leading roles aside), but he was a pretty good actor and a charming comedian.
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Date: 2018-06-19 01:01 am (UTC)I don't remember it as being particularly great, but it's good enjoyable entertainment.
David Niven was a contemporary, friend and sometime housemate of Errol Flynn: you can see them acting together in "The Dawn Patrol" (an excellent WW1 film) and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (a bit generic but still enjoyable). Unlike Flynn he had a long and successful career over forty years or more; he doesn't have Flynn's high-wattage charisma or looks, but he has the unmistakable debonair charm of a 1930s Englishman in Hollywood. He starred as a straight actor in "Raffles" and "A Matter of Life and Death" and was hilarious (really, really, hilarious) in "Bachelor Mother" and "The Moon is Blue". He plays Fritz von Tarlenheim in the Roanld Colman/Douglas Fairbanks Jr "Prisoner of Zenda" and an uninspiring Edgar Linton in the Laurence Olivier "Wuthering Heights", and supports Doris Day in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (amusing) and won an Oscar alongside Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in "Separate Tables" (devastating). He is memorable as the playboy father in the award-winning "Bonjour Tristesse"; not so memorable as Percy Blakeney in "The Elusive Pimpernel" (a Powell & Pressburger film that should have been great but somehow wasn't).
He wrote two highly entertaining although not necessarily accurate memoirs ("The Moon's a Balloon" and "Bring on the Empty Horses") which are well worth a read, and he is generally worth looking out for when you spot him in the credits of a film in a supporting part; he was never really a first-rank Hollywood star (a few leading roles aside), but he was a pretty good actor and a charming comedian.