I'm still slightly frazzled from having introduced Gregory La Cava's Unfinished Business at the BFI last Friday for the Film on Film Festival. I can't thank Senior Curator of Fiction James Bell enough for giving me the opportunity to do so, and the great projectionist team for screening the film. I thought I'd write a… Continue reading Eagle eggs and Whizz-Booms: Unfinished Business (1941) at the BFI
The status of La Cava as one of the great forgotten artists of the Golden Age of Hollywood does, unfortunately, lend itself to being forgotten by his peers in memoirs and interview accounts, so when La Cava is remembered and discussed in detail it is always a wonderful surprise. I recently managed to get a… Continue reading “Before I knew what hit me, I was back in the midst of another La Cava mixmaster”: Morrie Ryskind on Gregory La Cava, My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937)
Gregory La Cava's last years as an animation director were pretty important to La Cava's transition to the live action world. His relationship with Educational Film Exchanges, Inc, started in around 1918 when his animation shorts began being distributed by them, and this lead to La Cava working at C.C Burr studios, where La Cava… Continue reading From Gag Man to Megaphone Man and Back Again – La Cava, C.C. Burr, and the two-reelers. (1920-1924)
The "La Cava Method" of improvisation and the alteration of dialogue to fit the actor's real personality became of particular interest following My Man Godfrey (1936), but there seemed to be a definite change in interested in the director's particular idiosyncrasies following the release of Stage Door (1937). It is possibly due to the popularity… Continue reading “Give Me Real People”: Stage Door (1937) and the Gregory La Cava Method for Collier’s, March 26, 1938
Delightful illustrative image of La Cava directing his Katzenjammer animations from the August 1918 issue of Picture Play magazine.1 It would be hard not to see the cartoonist in the films of Gregory La Cava; part of what makes his screwball comedies unique is that sense of human elasticity – a wonderful sense of cartoon reality… Continue reading “A cartoonist’s sense of humor”: Gregory La Cava the Animator
I started life with the ambition to become a master painter. I had the urge to use oils, to the exclusion of all else. And I was determined to be a real painter. There was no doubt in my mind but that eventually, I would succeed. With that goal in view, I worked, worked at… Continue reading The Master Painter: Gregory La Cava’s studies in fine art
Our Man Gregory La Cava 