Once upon a time, I contributed work to an interrupted venue called SPEAK WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. Two of my departed contributions from that limited engagement included film clips of legendary actors doing things they rarely did in their movies: James Stewart and Errol Flynn singing. I recently came across an even more surprising (if not astonishing) sight: a scene from the 1944 film THE FIGHTING SEABEES in which John Wayne dances The Jitterbug:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjEJTbf7mWQ
While I’m at it, I might as well bring back the Stewart and Flynn clips and make this another THREE-FOR-ONE post, so here is Stewart singing Cole Porter’s “Easy To Love” in BORN TO DANCE (1938), followed by Flynn singing “That’s What You Jolly Well Get” from THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS (1943):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd7mvzG8bV4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf-igYR-Z0
I seem to recall accompanying the above two clips in my dead SWI posts with a few hundred well-chosen (?) words, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they were. I guess that’s what I jolly well get.
Great post and a great clip. I’ve seen this movie but I didn’t remember this part. But The Fighting Seabees is one the few in fact I think one of only four movies where the John Wayne character dies. Can you name the other three?
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You’ve got me on that one, Don, but if I had to guess, I’d guess ROOSTER COGBURN might be one of them. I know he didn’t die in either of my two favorite John Wayne movies (THE QUIET MAN and NORTH TO ALASKA).
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Muse you could have googled it but you didn’t and I like that. The other three I”m thinking of are The Sands of Iwo Jima, The Cowboys and The Shootist. I don’t count The Alamo as he plays Davey Crockett not one of his own characters. He might have died in some of those old black and whites before he was a star and I don’t count those either. His character is dead in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance but the movie opens with that so he doesn’t die on screen.
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Enjoyed the videos. And I had the same uninspiring experience with SWI.
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Thanks.
I now recall part of what I wrote in my vanished SWI post in which Stewart sang Cole Porter’s “Easy To Love”: Jimmy quipped re his singing voice, “That song was so good that not even I could spoil it.” He was right, though he needn’t have apologized – he pulled it off just fine.
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