Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 23

Megan McGurk introduces five stellar woman’s pictures from the 1940s each Thursday in March.

Tickets are available from Eventbrite.

Third Finger, Left Hand (1940)

Screens 2 March, 7.00

Myrna Loy plays a successful magazine editor who pretends to be married. She wears a gold wedding band for protection against wolves and sexual harassment on the job. But then suddenly, Melvyn Douglas shows up and claims to be her husband. What’s a busy editor to do? Art director Cedric Gibbons understood the appeal of seeing a woman seated behind a very big desk. And costume designer Dolly Tree combines a glorious wardrobe for Loy’s career woman, including sobersides tweed and a whimsical cherry basket hat.

Moon over Miami (1941)

Screens 9 March, 7.00

Shot in gorgeous, sweet-shop Technicolor, director Walter Lang styles a durable feel-good premise: How will three ambitious dames snare a man with deep pockets? Betty Grable, Carole Landis, and Charlotte Greenwood pool their resources to hunt for a millionaire in a fashionable Miami resort. Costumes by Travis Banton and choreography by Hermes Pan embellish a breezy romantic comedy musical. Betty Grable leading a conga line has the cure for what ails you.

The Gay Sisters (1943)

Screens 16 March, 7.00

Wicklow-born Geraldine Fitzgerald belongs to an elite quartet of co-stars who managed to upstage Barbara Stanwyck, alongside Joan Blondell, Gary Cooper, and Walter Huston. Stanwyck, an emotional firebrand in front of a camera, usually dominated every scene. In Irving Rapper’s film about orphaned heiresses, Fitzgerald plays the horny adventuress sister and steals more than one scene from the star. Three poor little rich gals (Nancy Coleman plays the nice one) are beset by a greedy developer (George Brent) who tries to win their familial property in court. As Fiona, the eldest, Stanwyck figures she knows all the angles to fix the legal ties that bind the Gaylord sisters.

Nocturne (1946)

Screens 23 March, 7.00

When a skirt-chasing composer is murdered, the prime suspects are all brunettes named Dolores. George Raft would no more have stepped on a star’s line of dialogue than he would a dance partner’s feet, which makes him ideal in the role of a police detective who leads the investigation. Raft questions a glamorous rogue’s gallery of hardworking women trying to catch a break in Hollywood, including platinum sex bomb Myrna Dell (playing a maid!) and Lynn Bari, a film studio extra. Producer Joan Harrison, who also contributed to the script, began her career as screenwriter for Hitchcock before she became an executive in RKO.

Forever Amber (1948)

Screens 30 March, 7.00

Linda Darnell shines in the screen adaptation of Kathleen Winsor’s bestselling bonkbuster. Darnell’s character is a ruthless mercenary, a Restoration-era Baby Face who sleeps her way to the top. Amber juggles demands from many men in return for a life of luxury, much like Darnell did in real life. René Hubert’s lavish designs set the stage for Twentieth Century Fox’s epic bodice-ripper costume drama that was fiercely condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency.

House of the Seven Garbos

House of the Seven Garbos was a real boarding house in Hollywood that catered to aspiring starlets. Notable residents included Ruth Roman and Linda Christian. The new podcast show was inspired by the place and is set in the Garbo House during 1936.

Can a $100-a-week gal climb the ladder to stardom in MGM?

What can a group of women do to get even with a Hollywood wolf who plays dirty tricks?

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

House of the Seven Garbos is a Sass Mouth Dames production, written and directed by Megan McGurk.

Meet the cast:

CLARA HIGGINS PLAYS PAT MORRISON

Clara is an Irish artist and writer perhaps better known as her pseudonym Mot Collins. Under this moniker, she creates illustrations, zines, and tattoos. Mot is interested in subversive expressions of femininity, sexuality, occultism, and comedy. She is highly influenced by pulp and punk culture. She can be found on Twitter as @heavydutywoman and @motcollinsart on Instagram.

OLYMPIA KIRIAKOU PLAYS GLORIA DOUGLAS

Dr. Olympia Kiriakou is a film historian based in south Florida. Her research focuses on stardom, gender, and genre in classical Hollywood cinema, as well as contemporary fan cultures. She is
the author of Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy, an exploration of the star persona and career of the late star. Her work has also been published in Transformative Works and Cultures, Journal of Fandom Studies, In Media Res, and Film Matters. She has a website and is @thescrewballgrl on Twitter.

You can find Olympia’s book here: Becoming Carole Lombard

M. SHAWN PLAYS BUNNY ST JAMES AND ODETTE MCBRIDE

M. is a former television news producer, a writer, a researcher, an accidental homemaker, and a full-time Jean Harlow fan. After a year in quarantine, her blood type is banana bread, and if people were allowed to be fictional characters in a past life, she’d be Blondie Johnson.

SAVANNAH MONROE PLAYS NAN POTTER

Savannah Monroe is a film writer and historian based in Colorado. Her focus is in the films and women of the classical Hollywood period. She has been researching and writing about Anne Bancroft, her life and legacy, since 2018. Her work can be found through her website Garbo Talks (http://garbo-talks.com).

LAURA MAWSON PLAYS FLORENCE CROZIER AND FERN

Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Laura is now living in the North of England with beloved husband and rescue lurcher, Roman. She has worked as a ceramics instructor, graphic designer, and in communications. Life-long Old Hollywood fan, going through a Charles Boyer and Veronica Lake phase. Currently learning to play the guitar, badly. On Twitter @Romanpbone1 and Mastodon Romanpbone@masto.ai

RENEE SMITH PLAYS CYNTHIA LATTIMER

Whenever Renee spent a weekend at her grandmother’s house, Nanna, who was a the best seamstress in town, would call Renee to her side to watch “the black and white movies” and point out all the great style. Renee and her sisters loved to play in Nanna’s closet with its furs, hats, lucite pumps and bejewelled bags. So of course she was drawn to Sass Mouth Dames and became a huge fan. Her mildly sardonic spouse and cheeky kids have accepted her recent insistence on wearing classic hats, big wrap shawls and gloves when she walks their muzzled dog, as she struts through the un-classic streets of her neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada.

SHANE MCCORMACK PLAYS JACK STEWARD (AND VARIOUS MEN)

Shane McCormack is a freelance illustrator specializing in movie and pop culture subjects.Recent licensed work includes Halloween and Ghostbusters. When not drawing he collects physical media especially 1930/40s movies and any Barbara Stanwyck film. He also enjoys photography and has a BA in Visual Art.

You can see his work at www.mrharrylime.com

MEGAN MCGURK PLAYS MADAME VIOLA

Megan carries a torch for studio era woman’s pictures. She is the host of Sass Mouth Dames podcast and film club. She has written and directed five original radio plays set in the 1930s (Salon Devine, Mannequins, Stenographers, A Star Was Born, House of the Seven Garbos). Megan is on Twitter @MeganMcGurk and @SassMouthDames and sometimes remembers to use Instagram @sassmouthdames

ART DESIGN BY MOT COLLINS.

SOUND EDITING AND SPECIAL EFFECTS BY THOMAS O’MAHONY

Thomas O’Mahony is a London based Irish Podcast Producer who specialises in storytelling and audio design. He hosts a tattoo history show called Beneath the Skin, and is passionate about how we can use audio to tell new and innovative stories.
You can find Thomas on all social media @gotitatguineys or contact him for business related inquiries at thomasomahony.media

Tom’s podcast is here

A Star Was Born

Stardom. Love. Censorship.

Listen back to the new original series and meet the cast!

Part One:

In 1931, Warner Bros. star Cleo Longe tops the box office in pictures where she gets away with it: no strings sex or sending men to the morgue. One night at a party, she meets Richard Tulliver, a new contract player who is cast as the juvenile in her next production. Cleo coaches him through the part and suggests a new name for his screen billing.

Part Two:

Cleo finds a story for her next picture from an unlikely source. From the ground up, she builds the plot, takes a chance on a new screenwriter, casts the picture, and presents creative opportunities for her crew. Meanwhile, Cleo’s romance with Tully takes a serious turn.

Part Three:

Despite her success, Cleo discovers that having script approval in her contract is meaningless once the Production Code is enforced. Under the new rules, Cleo must argue over every page and justify her artistic choices to men who don’t care about the integrity of woman’s pictures. At the same time, Tully’s star rises.

A Star Was Born is a Sass Mouth Dames production written and directed by Megan McGurk.

Art design by Mot Collins.

Sound editing and special effects by Thomas O’Mahony

Meet the cast:

Clara Higgins plays box office star Cleo Longe. Clara is an Irish artist and writer perhaps better known as her pseudonym Mot Collins. Under this moniker, she creates illustrations, zines, and tattoos. Mot is interested in subversive expressions of femininity, sexuality, occultism, and comedy. She is highly influenced by pulp and punk culture. She can be found on Twitter as @heavydutywoman and @motcollinsart on Instagram.

Danny Reid plays actor Rick Tully. Danny is a librarian who lives in Western Germany with his yappy dog, adorable children, and perfectly splendid wife. He spent most of his adult life working in videostores and movie theaters, watching any movie he could get his hands on, eventually writing about old Hollywood at pre-code.com. He is also fond of potatoes. Danny is @PreCodeDotCom on Twitter and Instagram

Jeanne Sutton plays hair and makeup artist Babe Dempsey. Jeanne is a former journalist and occasional writer who has been published in Banshee, IMAGE, STELLAR and The Gloss. Her favourite movie scene is Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea sitting on that stoop in The More the Merrier. She publishes a newsletter and is @jeannedesutun on Instagram.

Olympia Kiriakou plays press agent Phyllis Blake.

You can find Olympia’s book here: Becoming Carole Lombard

M. Shawn plays starlet Maxine Raymond. M. is a former television news producer, a writer, a researcher, an accidental homemaker, and a full-time Jean Harlow fan. After a year in quarantine, her blood type is banana bread, and if people were allowed to be fictional characters in a past life, she’d be Blondie Johnson.

Peter Bryant plays agent/manager Hank Webber. Peter’s interest in classic Hollywood started—later in life than he would have liked—with the discovery of Preston Sturges comedies. This soon led to the Astaire-Rogers and Busby Berkeley musicals and much more. His latest avocation is writing about the career of Ida Lupino at his blog Let Yourself Go … To Old Hollywood and is @pmbryant on Twitter and @pmbryant_oldhollywood on Instagram

Matt Harris plays film director Carter Hilary. Matt is a Joan Crawford superfan and talented TV news archivist who lives in London. You can find Matt on Twitter (@Glamorous_Matt)

Megan McGurk plays wardrobe woman Edel Geary. Megan carries a torch for studio era woman’s pictures. She is the host of Sass Mouth Dames podcast and film club. In the past year, she has written and directed four original radio plays set in the 1930s (Salon Devine, Mannequins, Stenographers, and A Star Was Born). Megan is on Twitter @MeganMcGurk and @SassMouthDames and sometimes remembers to use Instagram @sassmouthdames

Tom’s podcast is here

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 19

Each Thursday in May, Megan McGurk presents four classic melodramas from the 1940s.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

IN THIS OUR LIFE (1942)

Benjamin Franklin kept a checklist of 13 virtues that he monitored each day to reflect on his growth as an upstanding citizen. By contrast, Stanley Timberlake, played by Bette Davis, keeps a scorecard of vice. She runs off with her sister’s fiancé then drives him to commit suicide. She’s manipulative, greedy, reckless. For the coup de grâce, she pins a homicide on an innocent Black man. Olivia de Havilland, as Stanley’s unfortunate sister Roy, holds her own with a steady underplay. In one scene, Olivia takes her time putting on a hat, which is enough to tell the audience she’s no doormat. John Huston’s Southern Gothic melodrama reaches a steady boil.

MY REPUTATION (1946)

Before Douglas Sirk exposed narrow-minded views about widowhood in vivid Technicolor with All That Heaven Allows, Curtis Bernhardt painted a stark monochrome portrait of a community who expects a woman to put herself in mothballs once she loses her husband. Barbara Stanwyck’s character shares the same fate as many other women after the war. Should Jessica wear black, stay single, and avoid gossip? Or should she follow the advice of wing woman Eve Arden and see what happens with George Brent?

THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR (1947)

Gene Tierney takes her adorable daughter (Natalie Wood) and trusty housekeeper (Edna Best) to live in a cottage by the sea. Unlike past occupants, she refuses to leave when she learns it has a resident ghost, a former ship’s captain played by Rex Harrison. Instead of rattling chains or disturbing her sleep with a repertoire of sea shanties, the mariner allows the women to stay and even strikes a bargain: Gene can write his salty memoirs and make herself financially independent.

DAISY KENYON (1947)

Joan Crawford stars in a three-cornered romance, caught between a cynical married man (Dana Andrews), who has strung her along for years and a battle-scarred veteran (Henry Fonda), who rushes to commitment one minute and disappears the next. Otto Preminger fashions a postwar melodrama about hot-and-bothered men who upset the placid life of a successful career gal.

Mannequins

Catch up with a three-part original podcast series about ambitious women in Hollywood.

Set in January 1934, the story opens in a dress shop on Sunset Boulevard. Designer Claire Delahunt has been asked by Frances Goldwyn to apply for a new role as head of the wardrobe department in her husband’s studio. Frances believes Claire will bring glamour to productions, which is sorely lacking, after she witnessed the Goldwyn Girls dressed in nothing but wigs for a scene in Roman Scandals. The only problem is Sam’s first choice is Dmitri Cosmo, a costumer in Monogram Pictures. Backed by her fitter Lois, and mannequins Helen, Gail, and Cash, Claire plans on beating the competition.

Listen back to Mannequins: Part One

Part two opens three days before the screen test. Claire designed twenty costumes for the adaptation of the Broadway show It Pays to Sin. While the ladies take a lunch break, the costumes disappear from the shop. Claire is ready to throw in the towel, until loyal client Lilyan Tashman arrives and offers her wardrobe. Over the years, Lilyan has bought at least one of everything Claire designed. Meanwhile, Helen suggests they find out what Dmitri’s costumes look like for the Goldwyn test. Cash volunteers to pick him up. Lois and Gail help her look the part.

Listen back to Mannequins: Part Two

In the podcast series finale, set the following day, Claire recalls the first time she dressed showgirls for a nightclub act to create a glamorous ensemble for the screen test in Goldwyn’s. Helen and Gail sign up as extras in Monogram to get a look in the wardrobe department. A surprise visitor shakes things up in the dress shop. Lois wears a disguise to sneak on the lot over in Monogram. Will the cloak and dagger spy tactics help Claire win the contract?

Listen back to Mannequins: Part Three

Mannequins is a. Sass Mouth Dames production, written and directed by Megan McGurk.

Starring:

Clara Higgins and Claire Delahunt and Lilyan Tashman

Jennifer O’Meara as Lois Kenny

Jeanne Sutton as Helen Flaherty

Olympia Kiriakou as Gail Lindstrom

M. Shawn as Princess Casimir (Cash)

Megan McGurk as Frances Goldwyn and Miriam Thorndyke

Art design by Clara Higgins

Sound editing and special effects by Dan McAuley