DRAMATIC SCHOOL
Your April 2006 RMC Results Are In!Tagline: Glory for one! Oblivion for thousands! This was the world she dared to conquer!
The Preshow Entertainment was an episode from the second season (they made 70 episodes in 2 seasons...take that, CURB!) of THE MUNSTERS. I love THE MUNSTERS. Like William Wallace, "always have." In the great MUNSTERS VS. ADDAMS FAMILY debates, I'm always Pro-Munster. And it makes sense: intellectuals went for ADDAMS, dopes'n'dorks gravitated to MUNSTERS.
But this wasn't any episode from the Random Munster Club, it was THE FREGOSI EMERALD. Herman gets the emerald ring stuck on his finger, and he becomes cursed. First quarantined at home, the family finally finds the last living descendant of Prince Fregosi. They take Herman to Detroit (apparently the curse doesn't work on planes), and the curse is lifted. And that's that. You'd think.
BUT- it was the tag of the show that was the reason we watched this particular episode. Eddie comes down excitedly proclaiming "Hey! Look at this neat looking marble I found in the attic!" But when Grampa takes a closer look at it- "That's no Marble! That's the Nathanson Ruby!" What's that? "Compared to The Nathanson Ruby, The Fregosi Emerald is a good luck charm!" To protect his loved ones, Grampa tosses it out the front door and...right into Herman's mouth. When Grampa picks up the phone, Lily asks who he's calling. Grampa responds, "I guess I'll have to call Transylvania information and get the number for Prince Nathanson."
And that's me. Prince Nathanson.
An entry from the Hans Conried Collection (well over 70 movies and even more TV appearances, and this was his first), DRAMATIC SCHOOL (1938) is about acting school student Louise (Luise Rainer, who at 96 is the oldest living Oscar holder) who lies about her life outside the school. She claims she goes out every night with Andre, a theater backer, but instead works the graveyard shift in a factory. Her classmates catch her in the lie and set up a plan to have a party, invite her, and then have Andre show up. Well, you'd think it would bite her on the ass. But when Andre sees Louise, he falls hard and fast for her. And why not? She's creepy, crazy and a pathological liar, or as it's commonly called- an actress.
Are there even acting schools anymore? I mean, I know there are classes, but can you enroll in a full time school? I suppose there was a call for them when the Hollywood movie machine was young and different (contract players, cigar chomping Musso-ites, etc.). In this particular dramatic school, they actually had you walk with a book on your head. And there was a lot of Shakespeare, as if Hamlet's "To Be..." and Juliet's balcony were the only scenes around. Of course, it was 1938, so they couldn't study scenes from AQUAMARINE or BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2.
Directed by Robert Sinclair (who was murdered in 1970), DRAMATIC SCHOOL featured a good dose of up and comers, including Ann Rutherford (her 24th film, yet only her 4th year in the movies), Paulette Goddard, and Lana Turner. And Groucho-foil Margaret Dumont opened the show as a "pantomime teacher." Sadly, Hans Conried's part was tiny.
Sluggish yet busy, DRAMATIC SCHOOL teaches us that lying gets you everything you desire. It teaches us that as a headmaster of a school, it's okay to throw your own son out saying "You have no talent. Give up now." And it teaches us that, like Danny Bonaduce himself, you can fall in love and get married in a day.
At the end of the movie, poor Louise turns down Andre's marriage proposal for her new love- the theater. And you don't get more dramatic than that. I give this movie a C+. However I was wavering on that. To B or not to B?
Tags: random movie club, dramatic school, munsters, hans conried, nathanson ruby
