Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness: Dance

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November 22, 2015

Dance Mashup: Characters From Golden Era Of Movies Dance To ‘Uptown Funk’

I think I have seen all of these movies. And many more similar ones.

Michael Binder is what you would call a “movie aficionado” through and through. He’s probably watched just about every single movie you’ve ever heard of, twice. In fact, Binder loves movies so much that he’s managed to make a career writing about them and talking about them for his hundreds of followers.

But when he saw the mega viral hit that featured a bunch of dance scenes from popular movies matched up to the incredibly popular song, “Uptown Funk,” he was instantly inspired to do a similar mashup, only he wanted to use dance scenes from movies that only came out of the Golden Age of cinema.

It took him a long while to find the perfect clips which properly conveyed the energy and passion, but after he scanned through hundreds and hundreds of movies from 1953 and earlier, he finally edited together an absolutely stunning video featuring some of our favorite dancers and singers.

It’s pretty amazing to watch legends like, Gene Kelly, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, and Fred Astaire dance to one of the catchiest songs ever!

The amount of time it must have taken to edit this whole piece together is truly astounding. Not only did Binder have to be aware of the dance sequence in his head, but he had to time it properly with the music without speeding up or slowing down the original footage.

In the end he created a video that is really fun to watch. He really put a lot of thought into this whole project, and just about everyone loves the final result!

Please SHARE this fantastic video if you love the old classics and wish they made movies like they used to!

By Paul Morris
With many thanks to Little Things

Big thanks to Annie who sent me this.

Here are some more good ones:

Top 10 Movie Dance Scenes Of All Time:

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A Look at a Legend: Rita Hayworth

Anne Miller – My Favourite Dancing Queen

June 11, 2015

A Look at a Legend: Rita Hayworth

A name and a face synonymous with controversial cinema of the 1930s and 1940s, Rita Hayworth is a legend who has continued to capture the hearts and imaginations of movie lovers from across the world following her death in 1987.

An icon who pushed the boundaries of the big screen and prompted the domination of Hollywood by strong female stars, Hayworth was a screen legend who was seemingly born into show business. Billionaires has explored her life and film career to discover the secrets behind her success and the rocky personal life that eventually led to her departure from the movie industry altogether.

Early Career
Rita Hayworth, formerly Margarita Carmen Cansino, was born in New York City on 17 October 1918. Born to dancers, Rita had the show business bug from a young age and by the time she reached her 12th birthday she was dancing professionally. During her teen years, Rita moved with her family to Los Angeles where she joined her father on the stage in nightclubs. Travelling across the US and Mexico, she was soon spotted by Fox Film Company producer and was offered a contract, still aged just 16.

A star before she’d reached adulthood, Rita starred in a string of films in her first year in the limelight, including her 1935 debut Under the Pampas Moon and Dante’s Inferno, in which she acted alongside Spencer Tracy. In the next two years she also featured in many other Fox movies including Charlie Chan in Egypt, Meet Nero Wolfe and Human Cargo, which was released in 1936.

It was the next year, however, that marked the beginning of Hayworth’s success and her launch into the Hollywood limelight for good.

Into the Limelight
In 1937, Rita married Judson, a man 22 years her senior, who was the catalyst for change in her life. After convincing Rita to change her name to Hayworth and dye her hair auburn, Judson took on a managerial role and was successful in achieving enough newspaper and magazine coverage for the star to attract the offer of a seven-year contract from Columbia Pictures.

Although this new contract initially began with a series of disappointing roles, Hayworth soon landed the part as a faithful wife opposite Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings in 1939, which earned her critical acclaim and a stream of movie offers that saw her into the 1940s.

Within the next two years, Hayworth became a star in her own right, earning the title of ‘The Great American Love Goddess’ from Life magazine and winning the hearts of men all over the world. In 1941, Hayworth secured her name when she took to the screen opposite James Cagney in Strawberry Blonde, before becoming the “favourite dance partner” of Fred Astaire following the filming of You’ll Never Get Rich.

These successes only furthered the infatuation that had spread across the nation’s males, with a 1944 black lace photograph of the star quickly becoming the unofficial pin-up photo for American servicemen serving during World War II.

Life in the Public Eye
Hayworth’s stardom reached its peak in 1946 when she starred opposite Glenn Ford in Gilda, shocking US audiences with a controversial striptease. Rita also featured in The Lady From Shanghai the same year, which was directed by her second husband, Orson Welles.

ADVERTISING

Hayworth’s marriage to Welles, which began in 1943, only lasted until 1948 but still managed to garner a great deal of attention from the press, particularly following the birth of her first child, Rebecca. Reaching the pinnacle of its life in the public eye during the filming of The Lady From Shanghai, their marriage ended due to Welles’ apparent reluctance to settle down with the actress. In court documents, Hayworth stated: “Mr Welles told me he never should have married in the first place; that it interfered with his freedom in his way of life.”

Hayworth had also found herself another love interest towards the end of her marriage in the form of Prince Aly Khan, whose father was the head of the Ismaili Muslims at the time. Although the couple married in 1949 and had a daughter together, Rita quickly divorced the prince after just two years, before moving on to her fourth marriage with singer Dick Haymes.

Sadly, this also lasted just two years, as did her fifth and final marriage with movie producer James Hill. This emotional turmoil that was taking over her personal life was also reflected in her movie career, which had begun to dwindle following her 1940s successes. Despite once being one of the most well known names in Hollywood, Hayworth had become a shadow of her former self and decided to end her career in 1972 with her final film, The Wrath of God.

Appreciating an Icon
Over the next decade, Rita became known for her suspected alcohol abuse and battle with Alzheimer’s disease, with which she was diagnosed in 1980. Placed into the care of Princess Yasmin, her second daughter, Hayworth spent seven years struggling with her deterioration before succumbing to the disease on 14 May 1987.

Despite her lessening fame within the last three decades of her life, Hayworth’s passing prompted an outpouring of condolences and appreciation from her lifelong fans and those who had worked with her during her career. President Ronald Reagan was one of the most significant names to publicly comment on her death, describing the actress as one of the country’s “most beloved stars”. He continued: “Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on the stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl.”

By Joni Oneil

With many thanks to Billionaires Newswire

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April 07, 2015

Carlos Gardel And The Tango In Movies

It has often been acknowledged that Carlos Gardel is the King of the Tango.
It is very likely that you have heard his music in several movies.
Of course there have been several great tango scenes in many other movies.

On the streets of Buenos Aires, Carlos Gardel's image is everywhere: the suave singer who introduced tango, a symbol of Argentina's "Golden Age," to the world. His life and death are the stuff of legend.

"Gardel is the greatest, the greatest, the greatest," says taxi driver Miguel Angel Godinho, who drives through Buenos Aires blasting old recordings of the tango maestro. "Look, I have goosebumps talking about him. I never get tired of listening to him." Like many Portenos, as the people of Buenos Aires are known, Godinho continues to be extremely passionate about his idol, who died more than 75 years ago.

Gardel grew up singing in local bars, restaurants and markets in Abasto, once a neighborhood of Italian immigrants. The house where Gardel lived with his mother is now a museum filled with photos and artifacts: Gardel's sheet music and instruments, an old Victrola, newspaper clippings of his international travels and movie posters featuring the debonair crooner.

Horacio Torres, director of the Carlos Gardel Museum, says Gardel was a thoroughly modern figure who revolutionized tango and created a sensation in the 1920s and '30s.

"Gardel is a symbol of the immigrant who triumphs," he says. "He was a boy from the middle class, a neighborhood singer who captivated the world."

International scholars continue to argue over Gardel's origins; Uruguay also claims him as its own. But biographer Oswaldo Barsky says documents prove Gardel was born in Charles Romuald Gardes in Toulouse, France, to a single mother. They moved to Argentina's capital when he was a baby.

Gardel grew up working at opera houses — Buenos Aires had five at the time — as a professional applauder who roused the audiences. He learned to sing operas and Spanish operettas, or zarzuelas, in addition to criolla music, a folkloric style from the Argentine countryside. Then Gardel took it one step further and began singing tangos, like his first recorded hit from 1917, "Mi Noche Triste."

A Tango Revolutionary
"Mi Noche Triste," or "My Sad Night," is a now-classic tango story of a man pining for the woman who rejected him. The song was nostalgic and melodramatic, capturing the sentimentalism of Buenos Aires itself. Before Gardel's interpretation, almost all tangos had been purely instrumental.

"One of the greatest revolutions of tango is that recording of 'Mi Noche Triste,' " Gardel aficionado Juan Carlos Apicella says. "That's when singing tango was born. After that, everyone began writing poetry for tangos."

In Argentina, the tango had begun as music and dance for men looking for work during the Great Depression. But Gardel helped popularize the style as it moved from the underground dance salons to the upper classes.

"He was the creator," says Oscar Del Priore, founder of the National Tango Academy. "Everything that came after Gardel is Gardeliano." Like many fans, he uses Gardel as a noun, an adjective and a verb.

In the 1930s, Gardel introduced tango to the rest of the world. With his ensemble of Argentina's best guitarists, he went on tour to South America, France and the U.S. His celebrity was catapulted even further when he began starring in Spanish-language movies. Gardel formed his own production company and distributed 10 films through Paramount Pictures.

An Argentine Icon
His first talkie movie role was in the 1931 film Las Luces de Buenos Aires ("The Lights of Buenos Aires"). Gardel portrayed a gaucho, or Argentine cowboy. Onscreen, he embodied the archetypal Latin lover with panache: an elegant gentleman with a fedora, suit and tie.

"How cool he was," recalls Argentine composer and producer Gustavo Santaolalla. "What a sense of style, as an artist and a gentleman. He always had that classy feel to whatever he did."

Santaolalla says Gardel's romantic music and graceful style are part of the genetic makeup of every tango musician that followed him.

"He's such an iconic figure and part of who we are as Argentineans," Santaolalla says. "He was one of the greatest voices, and he has written incredible music with great lyricism. 'El Dia Que Me Quieras' is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written."
Santaolalla calls Gardel's composition a masterpiece.

" 'El Dia Que Me Quieras,' 'The Day You Love Me' — that day, all these incredible, magical things are going to happen," he says.

Biographers say Gardel experimented with the electric microphone when it was first introduced, and was the first Argentine musician to star in the short musical clips played before movies.

"Gardel was a worldwide phenomenon," says Barsky, who notes that the singer inspired masses of groupies long before The Beatles.

The singer also spurred many legends, including the story of how he was once shot in the chest during a street brawl.

"The doctors decided it was too dangerous to operate, so the bullet stayed in his lung the rest of his life," street musician Juan Carlos Ivanhoff says. "On his recordings, you can hear him breathing with that bullet still in his lungs. It never bothered him."

Biographers say the story is true, though they dispute another part of the legend: that the gunman was related to another famous Argentine, the revolutionary Che Guevara.

'Cada Dia Canta Mejor'
In 1935, when he was just 45, Carlos Gardel was killed along with his entourage and longtime collaborator, Alfredo Le Pera, while touring South America. Their private plane crashed in Colombia, where he is still considered a hero.

"Gardel's death was a classic tragedy," says Del Priore, who notes that Gardel was a movie star struck down at the height of his career. "It was a fantastical death, like his life had been."

Newsreel accounts follow the huge outpouring of affection after his death: Gardel's casket was paraded through the streets of Medellin before hordes of mourners. His remains were carried across the mountains of Colombia, and by steamboat to New York, Rio de Janeiro, Uruguay and, finally, Buenos Aires — each stop inspiring massive street memorials.

Seventy-five years later, Gardel's fame lives on, in Buenos Aires and beyond. Tango cable networks continue to showcase his films. And every Sunday morning, local radio station Sensaciones broadcasts an hourlong show devoted to him.

"Gardel is our patrimony," says radio host Juan Carlos Apicella, who belongs to an association devoted to sharing Gardel's music. "There is only one Gardel."

There's a popular Latin American saying: "Cada dia canta mejor." It means every day, Gardel sings better; his music ages like a fine wine.

Carlos Gardel was buried at Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. His fans still visit to pay their respects, often lighting a cigarette that they put it in the hands of his elegant bronze statue and placing a rose in his lapel.

With Many thanks to NPR:

Here are a few other great Tango scenes:
The song is "Por Una Cabeza" and is featured in films below:

"True Lies"
"Scent Of A Woman"
"Easy Virtue"
"Schindler's List"

Another great Tango scene from "Zorro" but not by Carlos Gardel.
Picture Credit: Ace Show Biz.

Catherine Zeta-Jones also tangos in "Chicago" at link below.
The Cell Block, Spell Block Tango Django