2nd Annual SEX! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon – Da Big Finish

Well, it’s been fantastic, bloggers — but let’s just be friends. I’m here to present

If you happened to miss the first two days of the ‘thon, click below for the respective recap:

Day 1 Recap * Day 2 Recap

Our last few entrants struggled to the finish line of our blogathon of suggestively sexy movies, but they gave it everything they had and made it. (Click on the appropriate blog’s name to read his or her entry.)

The Flapper Dame wonders how Tom Ewell can possibly keep his cool around Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch.

Outspoken & Freckled conclusively proves why silent-screen siren Clara Bow is It.

Flickers in Time says God only knows how Robert Mitchum got washed up on the same island as nun Deborah Kerr in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.

Pop Culture Reverie echoes the sentiments of Patty O’Neill (Maggie McNamara) in The Moon Is Blue: “Don’t you think it’s better to be preoccupied with sex than occupied?”

Another sexy silent film, Ernst Lubitsch’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, is herein examined by Silent Wierdness.

Serendipitous Anachronisms finds surprisng sexiness in Edwardian Britain in A Room with a View.

And last but hardly least, Dell on Movies found his inner soundtrack playing Salt-n-Pepa as he watched the film-noir classic Double Indemnity.

Thanks to all of our wonderful blog guests for their time and contributions, and thanks to the readers who pored over the entries. May everyone have a summer that is sizzling in only the best way! And that wraps things up! (Now, Adrienne, the show’s over. Don’t think you can sneak in on us that way…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd Annual SEX! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon – Day 2 Recap

Apparently, everyone was drenched in afterglow from the first day of our blogathon, because we received only two entries today. Hopefully, things will pick up tomorrow for the finale. In the meantime, we invite you to come hither and enjoy

If you missed the first day’s entries, click here: Day 1 Recap. And now, here are today’s sex-symbol bloggers. (Click on the blogs’ names to link to their blogathon entries.)

Love Letters to Old Hollywood examines the intricate intimacy between Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief.

And Reelweegiemidget examines what happens when friends become lovers in Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally.

Come back to this blog, because we supposedly still have nine bloggers left to submit their entries for the last day! Raquel, would you please drop your arm to signal the race to the finish? Raquel? No, no, the other arm…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd Annual SEX! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon – Day 1 Recap

Summer is starting off with a bang (ahem), as we get our first round of blogs featuring movies that suggest sex rather than overtly depicting it. Tap into our bloggers’ psyches as we present

(If you want to read any of the entries listed below, click on the name of the respective blog to link to their entry.)

Moon in Gemini discusses how sexual chemistry makes Montgomery Clift take a turn for the worst (and for Elizabeth Taylor) in A Place in the Sun.

B Noir Detour details how Edward G. Robinson’s desire for Joan Bennett ends up bringing a dark shade into his life in the film noir Scarlett Street.

Vivien Leigh’s sudden appearance in the lives of Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter adds to their sexual (and other) tensions, as Defiant Success points out in her critique of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Thoughts All Sorts bypasses film criticism and just lovingly states why the passion between Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice gives a “tingly” feeling to moviegoers.

Meredy.com shows us why Jean Harlow believes that, while blondes might have more fun, she’ll get further up the social scale as a Red-Headed Woman.

Even high-society people can’t always get what they want, as Pfeiffer Pfilms and Meg Movies points out in his take on Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis’ doomed romance in The Age of Innocence.

And lastly, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are unapologetic in their lust for, respectively, diamonds and muscular men, as your faithful correspondent points out in my genuflection to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

And we still have two more days of fun, sexy movies to go! Keep this blog bookmarked and check back with us, as further entertaining reviews shake up the blog world!

 

 

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) – Fun feminism

The following is my entry in this (my) blog’s 2nd Annual SEX! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon, being hosted here from June 19-21, 2016. Click on the above banner, and read bloggers’ critiques of movies that subtly suggest sexuality rather than graphically depicting it!

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(The following blog entry is dedicated to former USA TODAY film critic Mike Clark — who, one day when he tried to switch the TV channel from a showing of Jane Russell’s The French Line, was chastized by his crying two-year-old son, who told him, “I want to see the big lady!”)

I am married to a newspaper publisher and editor, so I’d be a fool not to believe that women are the equal of, and in many ways far superior to, their male counterparts. What I don’t believe is that women can’t be feminist and sexy at the same time.

Unfortunately, women are so often forced to loudly confirm my first statement (in order to shout over the yahoos who try to drown them out) that the second statement gets lost in the confusion. But I think that director Howard Hawks — whose filmography is filled with bold, assertive women (see His Girl Friday and Ball of Fire) — was trying to make this point, however subtextually, when he directed my all-time favorite movie musical, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

The movie stars Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell as Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, two American showgirls en route to France. The story makes it abundantly clear that these women want what they want, with no apologies, and each is given her own musical number to spell it out.

Dorothy is attracted to brawny, ripply men, and she lusts over acres of them in the hilarious “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?” (Naive moviegoer that I am, it took me years of sexual politicism to realize that there might be a reason why this roomful of muscle-bound males never give a second glance to buxom Dorothy.)

Lorelei adores anything with a dollar sign attached to it, particularly diamonds, and she makes this feeling explicit in the iconic “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Luckily, Lorelei happens to be engaged to Gus (Tommy Noonan), a rich, milquetoast man who is only too happy to appease her. Unfortunately, Gus’ father completely distrusts Lorelei and hires Ernie Malone (Elliott Reid), a private detective, to tail Lorelei on her cruise to France. Too bad Ernie has a thing for women who look like Jane Russell.

At this point, I must make a full confession: I am not gaga over Marilyn Monroe as most red-blooded American males are. I can easily see why she became a star and the fantasy figure for so many people, but for me, she just sells “it” a little too hard. However, she does win me over for, at least, the duration of this movie. If you doubt the movie’s support of feminism, listen to Lorelei’s beautiful speech to Gus’ father near movie’s end — where basically, she upends the viewpoint of male chauvinists by saying, If you guys can have it both ways, why can’t we women have it, too?

Nevertheless, my heart — and let’s face it, my hormones — go out to Jane Russell. She is thoroughly winning as Dorothy — strong, brassy, and yet willing to let her heart melt when the right guy comes along. And for a woman who spent a large part of her autobiography apologizing for the skin she displayed in The Outlaw and The French Line, she has zero qualms about showing off her absolutely bitchin’ bod here — particularly in a short reprise of Marilyn’s “Diamonds” number that, for me at least, has it all over the original.

That’s right, Operator, I said “absolutely bitchin’ bod.”

Wouldn’t the world be a whole lot better off if each gender admitted to and embraced its weaknesses and strengths? One wonders how many moviegoers, if any, caught the feminist broadside of this smashing musical when it was first released in 1953. Six decades later, it’s still a message worth taking in, even if you have to root around in the subtext to find it.

 

Make way! The 2nd Annual “SEX! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon” is here!

Ready to usher in summer with some major hotness? Join us at this blog for the next three days, as bloggers chime in about movies that cleverly suggest sexuality rather than graphically depicting it.

If you are one of the blogathon entrants, please post the URL to your blog entry in the “Comments” section below, and I will link to it as soon as possible. Please have your entry posted by the end of the day on Tues., June 21 (and if I may, the sooner the better!).

If you are just stopping by for some great reading, please give this blog bookmarked, as entries will continue coming in for the next three days. Enjoy, and be sure to have a fan directed at you while you’re reading — you might get a little hot under the collar!

Here are the blogathon’s entrants:

Movie Movie Blog Blog – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Serendipitous Anachronisms – A Room with a View (1985)

Moon in Gemini – A Place in the Sun (1951)

BNoirDetour – Scarlet Street (1945)

The Flapper Dame – The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Outspoken & Freckled – It (1927)

Love Letters to Old Hollywood – To Catch a Thief (1955)

Defiant Success – A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Thoughts All Sorts – Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Flickers in Time – Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)

Meredy.com – Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Pop Culture Reverie – The Moon Is Blue (1953)

Realweegiemidget – When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Silent Wierdness – Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925)

Pfeiffer Pfilms and Meg Movies – The Age of Innocence (1993)

Dell on Movies – Double Indemnity (1944)

Only one week until our “2nd Annual SEX! Blogathon”

The 2nd Annual “SEX (now that I have your attention) BLOGATHON” is only one month away!

Announcing “The 2nd Annual SEX! (now that I have your attention) BLOGATHON”!

It’s never too early to start planning for a summer vay-cay, now, is it? Having struck quite the touchy nerve with my previous SEX! (now that I have your attention) BLOGATHON last year, I thought I’d do it again for this summer.

If you’re unfamiliar with last year’s ‘thon, the idea is to blog about movies that are a turn-on in the way that they suggest sex rather than graphically depicting it. Movies from the Production Code era are ideal examples, but you don’t have to limit yourself to that time period. If you’re stuck for ideas, click here to link to last year’s SEX! Blogathon, and read some of the entries.

The rules for this year’s SEX! Blogathon are the same as last year’s, as follows.

The Rules

Your blog entry can be about any single movie, as long as it fits the following criteria.

1. You need to write about an entire movie that you find sexy, not just a single scene. The upside-down kiss in the 2001 Spider-Man movie was undeniably sexy, but unless you can make a case for the entire movie being a turn-on, please don’t write about it.

2. The movie you choose can be from any era (even silent), but it needs to be a movie that subtly suggests sex. No writhing, naked bodies, and no explicit dialogue about how much one person wants to go to bed with another.

That’s not to say that your choice can’t be a modern movie with adult dialogue. If you can make a solid case for something like, say, Body Heat (which was a modern homage to 1940’s-style movie sex), I’ll accept it.

3. Explain why you think the movie is sexy. Your explanation does not have to be lurid or explicit, just a simple description of why the movie “does something” for you.

How Do I Join the Blogathon?

In the “Comments” section at the bottom of this blog, please leave your name, the URL of your blog, and the movie you are choosing to blog about. At the end of this blog entry are banners for the ‘thon. Grab a banner, display it on your blog, and link it back to this blog.

The blogathon will take place from Sunday, June 19, through Tuesday, June 21 (the first day of summer). When the opening date of the blogathon arrives, leave a comment here with a link to your post, and I will display it in the list of entries (which I will continually update up to the beginning of the ‘thon, so keep checking back!).

I will not be assigning particular dates to any blog posts. As long as you get your entry in by the end of the day on June 21, I will be satisfied. (That said, the earlier the better!) Duplicate entries about the same movie are welcome as well.

Again, be sure to leave me a comment and grab a banner, and have fun with your blog entry!

Here’s the line-up so far:

Movie Movie Blog Blog – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Serendipitous Anachronisms – A Room with a View (1985)

Moon in Gemini – A Place in the Sun (1951)

BNoirDetour – Scarlet Street (1945)

The Flapper Dame – The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Outspoken & Freckled – It (1927)

Love Letters to Old Hollywood – To Catch a Thief (1955)

Defiant Success – A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Thoughts All Sorts – Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Flickers in Time – Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)

Meredy.com – Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Pop Culture Reverie – The Moon Is Blue (1953)

Realweegiemidget – When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Silent Wierdness – Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925)

Pfeiffer Films and Meg Movies – The Age of Innocence (1993)

Dell on Movies – Double Indemnity (1944)

 

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