On 11 May 1937, Captains Courageous premiered. The great classic starred Spencer Tracy, who won an Oscar for the role, alongside another of Ava Gardner's husbands: Mickey Rooney.
Spencer Tracy was a very complicated person. I highly recommend watching his films and reading about him, especially Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with none other than Ingrid Bergman.
Spencer also had a very complicated "relationship" with Katharine Hepburn, one of my favorite actresses of all time and starring in one of the three films I've seen most often in my life: Bringing Up Baby translated as La fiera de mi niña.
It is an essential comedy.
That same day, the year's highest-grossing film in the United States was Pick a Star, starring Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy.
The LZ 129 Hindenburg in New Jersey, a zeppelin that was the largest aircraft ever built, had been set on fire for only five days. The accident came out in all the newspapers and caused us to never live all those science fiction films with future dystopics, in which airships float in the air.
However, none of this seemed to matter to thousands of people, because for them the world had stopped... And I'm sure for you too, if you'd been in Harlem that day.
That same May 11 would be the "musical event of the century": the mythical battle of bands in the Savoy, between Chick Webb's resident band and Benny Goodman's band, who had dared to challenge him.
Four thousand people entered the Savoy that day and five thousand stayed outside trying to enter.
It was riot control because they refused to move from there. It must have been an epic moment.
Someone said that “history is written by the victors.” However, in this case it was not so. Chick Webb was almost forgotten and Benny Goodman, who was already a star, continued to be so, although the almost unanimous opinion is that Webb’s band won that day.
Even Benny Goodman's drummer, Gene Krupa, stated that Chick Webb had razed him.
Maybe if Chick Webb had lived longer, the story would be otherwise...
I could write a lot more about this event, but I think a video of Frankie Manning and Norma Miller explaining it is much better.
We also attach the posters of the films cited and a video of Pick a Star.
Live, play, dance... but above all don't get bored.See you at Spirit if you want.