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For this Special Thursday Cinema Night, first up is The Earrings of Madame de… (1953), a French melodrama about an aristocratic woman who sells a wedding gift from her husband (Charles Boyer), a pair of earrings, to pay off her secret debts, and claims she lost them at the opera. Cue a series of increasingly calamitous misunderstandings, all deriving from this failure to communicate, leading to her eventual downfall. This is generally considered one of the best French films of the 1950s, so let’s check it out. Director Max Ophuls also helmed Letters from an Unknown Woman (1948), which we previously watched.

BONUS: Between the features, we will watch the 18-minute Soviet cartoon On the Trail of the Bremen Town Musician (1973), the sequel to The Bremen Town Musicians (1969), which we watched on Sunday. The King from the first film is not pleased that his daughter has run off with some musician, and hires a detective to find her and bring her back. Hilarity ensues, with a whole lot of song and dance packed into 18 minutes, too. This is generally considered the magnum opus of director Vasiliy Livanov, and a high point of Eastern Block animation in general.

Next is The Best Little Wh*rehouse in Texas (1982), a musical starring the lady herself, Dolly Partson, along with sentient ball of hair Burt Reynolds. Parton plays the madam of the eponymous brothel, which is threatened with closure when a conservative TV talk show host crusades against it. The ladies will have to band together to defend their livelihoods, with the surprising assistance of the local sheriff, played by Reynolds, who romances Parton’s character. Director Colin Higgins also did Parton’s even more popular comedy 9 to 5 (1980), which we previously watched. This was a big hit at the box office in 1982; let’s see if the masses were right.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Blorptube, right here:

blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

Doesthedogdie.com links:

CWs for The Earrings of Madame de…:

  • Misogyny.
  • Infidelity.
  • Nervous breakdown.
  • Shaky cam.
  • Babies.
  • Sad ending.

CWs for The Best Little Wh*rehouse in Texas:

  • Prostitution.
  • Misogyny.
  • Objectification of female characters.
  • Cheating.
  • Shower scene.
  • Copaganda.
  • Fat jokes.
  • Hate speech against sex workers.
  • Sex.
  • Nudity.
  • Sexual assault: the movie is about a brothel; consent is dubious at the best of times.
  • Shaving.
  • Sad ending.

Links to movies: