The weather is gray, with light dustings of snow. The iciness is not quite as bad as it was earlier, but the roads are far from safe.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!

Charity Alert: Make a resolution as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Nice opening reception at the Hockaday Museum of Art last night! The portrait show is very good, and it was fun seeing painter/gallery owner Marshall Noice and his family. He has always supported the museum, but this is the first show featuring his colorful semi-abstracted landscapes that we've done together for most of a decade. We have shown individual paintings in group shows, and hung his famous black-and-white photos of Glacier National Park, though. His daughter Rachel, who used to volunteer for us, showed up as well. We're going to host another reception for the general public tonight.
One of our new buildings at Flathead Valley Community College is still in a near-completion state as the semester begins next week -- my crew will be installing some multimedia equipment in two of the classrooms then.

Media Watch: There were so many movies with Harry Warren's music -- TCM was showing some of the more obscure ones last night. I mentioned Colleen in a previous blog entry -- the last teaming of Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell. It featured Joan Blondell and Hugh Herbert doing their crazy schtick, with some other good WB stock character actors, including ex-Mack Sennett foil Louise Fazenda and Goldie Hawn-precursor Marie Wilson. Stars on Broadway, the very lame Broadway Goldolier, and low-comedy In Caliente preceeded Colleen on the cable/satellite. All three had Busby Berkeley sequences of uneven quality, with specialties by the generally prosaic Bobby Connolly here and there. Hal Wallis -- who later gave the public what they thought they wanted with Beach Party movies, Elvis Presley movies, and Jerry Lewis movies -- started showing his homogenizing hand about this time. I don't think the public really wanted their favorite entertainers wearing out their welcome by repeatedly doing the drivel Wallis produced for them, though.
On a positive note, fans of excellent actors might appreciate seeing Frank McHugh, Dolores del Rio, Pat O'Brien, Edward Everett Horton, Adolphe Menjou, Joan Blondell, and then-husband Dick Powell, Leo Carrillo, and Glenda Farrell interacting with one another in these obscure flicks -- I sure do!


Dolores Del Rio (center) was the star of In Caliente. Winifred Shaw (upper left) led off singing The Lady In Red during Busby Berkeley's production number, before Judy Canova ruined it. Ms. Del Rio wasn't in the floor show at all, but I've fixed that oversight in this transformative collage.