Today I send a great, big thank you to The Old Hollywood Garden for bestowing upon TMP another Liebster Award! This is my fifth time being nominated for the Liebster, which is pretty exciting. Most of my regular readers are fellow bloggers, the majority being classic film bloggers more specifically, and it just warms my icy little heart when we express appreciation for one another’s blogs.

With that sentimental rambling out of the way, here are the rules of the award:

  • Answer the 11 questions provided by the blogger who nominated you.
  • Share 11 facts about yourself.
  • Nominate 11 blogs.
  • List 11 questions to be answered by the blogs you nominate.

So, that’s exactly what I’m going to do today… minus the 11 facts. The “facts about myself” list is always the most difficult part of the Liebster for me, as I struggle to come up with 11 interesting tidbits that I haven’t already shared (not necessarily shared in another Liebster post, but shared on the blog at some point). So I’ll be skipping that, but answering my nominator’s questions, nominating 11 blogs, and providing questions for my nominees.

On to the good stuff!

Questions from The Old Hollywood Garden:

  1. What was the first classic film you ever saw?
    The Wizard of Oz, and it remains a favorite. I’ve been watching it since childhood and, to repeat a story I’ve shared about 500,000 times, even learned to tie my shoes while watching it with my grandpa!
  2. Who do you think is the queen of screwball comedies?
    Screwball comedy is one of my favorite genres and I love many of its leading ladies, so this is a tough choice to make. I think I’ll have to go with Carole Lombard. True Confession, Nothing Sacred, Hands Across the Table… the list goes on. She made so many great films, and several of my favorite screwball comedies feature her. I also love a Stanwyck screwball, anything with Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night and Midnight, and of course Irene Dunne (who many regard as the one true queen of the genre) — They were all heavy contenders for this question!
  3. And who’s the king?
    CARY GRANT. Who else? (Clearly, I had a much easier time with this question than the “queen” question!)
  4. If you could go back in time to a specific year in Hollywood history, what year would that be and why?
    I would choose 1937. It has solidified itself as one of my favorite years in film ever since I covered it for the Classic Movie History Project blogathon in 2014.
  5. Which two stars do you wish had worked together in a movie?
    Barbara Stanwyck and Cary Grant! My two favorites, so naturally it would have been a dream for me to see them share the screen. Since we’ve just discussed screwball comedy, can you imagine one with those two starring? Or Cary playing a suave-but-doomed leading man in a Stanwyck noir?
  6. All about Eve (1950) or Sunset Boulevard (1950)?
    It’s All About Eve for me!
  7. Have you ever been on the TCM cruise? If so, how was it?
    I haven’t, due to the prohibitive demon known as student loans, but I would love to go some day. I’ve also never been to TCMFF, sadly. Someone send me a winning lottery ticket!
  8. Does anybody in your family share your love of the classics?
    I would classify both of my parents as casual classic film fans. They enjoy watching old movies but really only recognize the big-name stars and a few of my favorites. My sister has been the most difficult family member to convert. Her favorite film is a classic, and she loves several others, but she’s reluctant to discover unfamiliar titles.
  9. What is your favorite decade in terms of movies and why?
    After much internal debate throughout the past four years of blogging I’ve settled on the 1930s as my favorite decade. The pre-codes, the musicals, the epic hits of ’39… there’s just so much to love about the ’30s. The ’20s and ’40s are tied for second place, with the ’50s coming in third.
  10. What is your favorite book about Hollywood?
    Again, I find myself unable to pick just one: Lauren Bacall’s By Myself and Then Some and Whitney Stine’s “I’d Love to Kiss You”: Conversations with Bette Davis.
  11. If you could have witnessed the shooting of any movie, which movie would you choose?
    On the Town. Because who doesn’t want to hang out with Sinatra and Gene Kelly in NYC?

And the nominees are…

The Blonde at the Film
Cary Grant Won’t Eat You
Cinema Crossroads
The Cinema Dilettante
Cinema Monolith
CineMaven’s Essays from the Couch
Grand Old Movies
In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood
Noirish
Now Voyaging
Silents, Please!

Note: You are not obligated to pass the award along if you don’t have the time/your blog schedule is full/you don’t feel like answering questions today/whatever the reason. The nominations are just my way of showing appreciation for some of the blogs I love reading!

Questions to the nominees:

  1. Who is your favorite underrated director?
  2. What are your favorite films from that underrated director?
  3. If you were given the task of curating a classic film festival, what would the theme be?
  4. Name your favorite film starting with the letter “L.” (You may include titles beginning with “The,” like The Letter.)
  5. What is your preferred way to watch classic movies? (DVD, streaming, digital download, Blu-ray, revival theater? On your laptop, on your phone, on the largest screen possible?)
  6. If you were an actor/actress in the classic era, what character type would you most often play?
  7. Related to question 6: Which studio would you sign a contract with?
  8. Slapstick, screwball, black, satire, or stand-up: Which is your favorite type of comedy?
  9. What is your most fond memory of discovering a classic film for the first time?
  10. What is the greatest number of films you’ve ever watched in a day?
  11. Name your favorite film released in 1947.

Once again, many thanks to Carol of The Old Hollywood Garden for thinking of TMP for this award!