The Guilty Pleasure Syndrome or: How I Learned to Not Care If People Know I'm a Mickey Rooney Fan

I’ve never had any use for the term Guilty Pleasure. Well, except for the purposes of this post…A Guilty Pleasure is usually defined as something of dubious quality or reputation that one enjoys ashamedly. In classic movie parlance, it’s often a critically reviled, poorly made, or widely despised film. But even then the term requires further clarification; as certain movies become cult favorites and earn “cool” status, such as Reefer Madness or Plan 9 from Outer Space. Everyone knows those films are "bad", but they’re "good" in that they’re unintentionally hilarious. Those cinematic masterworks have an infamous reputation and thrive because of it. Therefore, they can freely be declared guilty pleasures without fear of ridicule.

The true guilty pleasure consists of movies that are largely unknown or formerly popular movies whose reputations haven’t aged well because they represent either an “antiquated” viewpoint or lack the “edginess” that every friggin’ thing in pop culture must have these days. These “shameful” or “lame” films haven’t received critical or cultish rehabilitation, either, so you can rest assured that you’ll blush if you dare admit to liking, say, anything with Mickey Rooney in it. As a matter of fact, Rooney’s films are the so-called “Guilty Pleasure” that inspired this very post.

I love Rooney’s Andy Hardy films, a wildly popular and hugely profitable movie series produced by MGM in the 1930s and ‘40s. Despite being made during the heart of the Great Depression, the delightful Hardy movies embody an idealized America and were everything that MGM studio honcho Louis B. Mayer thought represented the best of America. The movies have a naïve charm, wit and sense of optimism that the times required. Seen now, they’re probably laughably “lame” or “saccharine”, and worse than that, “Disneyesque”, which has become another pejorative term. Andy’s father, the stern, patrician but understanding Judge Hardy, was a wonderful counterbalance to Andy’s kooky and youthful zeal. Today’s kids aren’t kooky, or ebullient; in fact, they’re often self-absorbed teen vampires; kind of a Party of Five with fangs.

Rooney aka The Mick, was once the biggest box-office draw in the US of A. And despite a (up and down) career that’s lasted some seventy-five years, Oscar nominations, an honorary Oscar, and praise from no less than Laurence Olivier (Rooney was “the single best film actor America.”), Rooney’s reputation pretty much lies in tatters, so to claim to be a Mickey Rooney fan is tantamount to being a Boy Named Sue. The whole idiocy of the Guilty Pleasure is based on some sort of “cool” taste. In fact, I'm conviced that the term Guilty Pleasure was brought to you by the same people who use the term “They say…” when dispensing advice or “facts.”

The Bottom Line: I don’t believe in Guilty Pleasures. All of my movie interests are present and accounted for. There is no boundary line between what I like that is hailed as a masterpiece or what is routinely reviled by my fellow classic movie aficionados. In this age of revisionism and retro-themed interests, most every film can receive a critical and popular—as defined within classic film circles—reappraisal, thus freeing it from perdition.

So be proud about your less-popular classic film interests and fer cryin' out loud, write about them! The world doesn't need another review of Casablanca but it could sure use a well-thought-out analysis of Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.

Poll Results: Cary Grant

My, how history has changed! The results of last month's poll question, "With whom did Katharine Hepburn have the best onscreen chemistry?" has given Cary Grant a narrow victory over Spencer Tracy. Of the 62 votes cast:


Cary Grant 32 (51%)

Spencer Tracy 30 (48%)

It's easy to understand why Cary won--he's better looking! Isn't that why he won? No? Okay, I'll maintain the position that his looks had nothing to do with his narrow victory. Grant's four films with Hepburn are all comedies and are well-regarded, even the cult favorite Sylvia Scarlett (1936), which was a critical and commercial flop upon its initial release but has now been credited with being the movie where Cary Grant "found his Cary Grantness"--let's all pause to thank director George Cukor--and the duo's other three movies: Bringing up Baby; Holiday; and The Philadelphia Story are out and out brilliant---another pause to thank George Cukor for those last two movies. There are very few duos who've collaborated on movies in which the films themselves, not just the onscreen chemistry, are regarded as masterworks.

What I've noticed about Kate and Cary's films together is that the Hepburn we get in those films is an actress who had yet to develop into the headbutting career woman, an onscreen characterization present in her movies with Spencer. The 1930s Hepburn was, in my view, more apt to play a wounded or fragile character more often than she did post-Philadelphia Story. The Kate of the 1930s is my favorite as her variety and the scope of her roles makes her endlessly fascinating. Her collaborations with Grant rank among my favorite movies of all time, and while I adore Spencer Tracy, his onscreen work with Hepburn is often too combative and I have to be in a tremendously good mood in order to get into the spirit of their movies.

The New Golden Age

I've thought long and hard--it's time for a change. The Golden Age, as I now define it, shall include early-'70s movies and if there happens to be any old-time stars in said films, then that's fine, too. What's better than seeing John Wayne in a dried-out gray toupee and emptying a MAC-10 submachinegun into Al "The Turk" Lettieri and his polyester-suited goons? Wayne was offered the role of Dirty Harry first but turned it down. So to compensate for his boneheaded judgement, he made McQ (1974), the movie that features The Duke rollin' down the mean streets of Seattle to Elmer Bernstein's funky score, lookin' to bend his badge over some drug peddler's skull. McQ is John Wayne at his vigilante best!

Glamour is best defined by how good members of the pimping community think you look, so a plaid, ginormous-lapeled Sears suit with white shoes and necktie as wide as the berth you'd give a Great White shark *is* the new definition of glam. Besides, if the 1930s were so great, then why did we abandon those styles? Who needs Carole Lombard when you have Glenda Jackson? Who needs William Powell when there's Tiny Tim? Laugh-In says more about our lives than Robert Benchley ever could! And why would women ever need support garments? "Ms." is a perfectly fine way to address a newly-libererated woman wearing ten-inch-tall cork souled shoes and hot pants, right? I say to heck with the '30s and '40s and huzzah to the Charles Bronson Deathwish 'stache, and the Lucille Ball Mame vaseline cheesecloth filter! Forget "happy days are here again" and let's embrace "Power to the People!" Now the question is...can you all dig it?

It's Ginger Rogers They Come to See, Part II

I guess I'd better thank Turner Classic Movies for making Ginger Rogers their March Star of the Month! This, my own miserable corner of the bloggosphere, has received maybe four times the amount of visitors--and spammers--since Ginger's movies started being shown on Wednesdays. As mentioned before, the most popular search term is "Ginger Rogers [sans clothing]", with "Gloria Grahame [sans clothing]" hanging on to second place; they won't find that stuf here, though, this is a family-friendly blog. Star of Midnight (our April, 2009 review has new screen caps--take a look), a delightful Thin Man-esque mystery starring Ginger and William Powell, also gets searched a lot, and of course Ginger Rogers Swing Time Dress, which has been lifted from here more than any other photo that *I've* nipped from other sites!

I'm thrilled that Ginger still wows 'em! I like to think that she's gaining legions of new fans with every re-airing of Swing Time, and that some drably-attired "T-Shirt and Jeans Girl" will discover the glamour that is the Golden Age of Hollywood.