Bracket 1 of the Favorite Classic TV Comedy Shows Tourney results

The first 4 matches in the bracket 1 of the Favorite Classic TV comedy shows Tourney are now complete and here are the results:
Top seed I Love Lucy crushed Hogan's Heroes 14-1, My Three Sons edged out The Jack Benny Program 8-6, The Beverly Hillbillies doubled up on Ozzie and Harriet 10-5 while Leave It to Beaver had no problem with The Life of Riley 11-3. Thanks to all those who voted and I will have the next bracket of matches up by noon today.

I LOVE LUCY 14-1 over HOGAN'S HEROES
MY THREE SONS 8-6 over THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM
THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10-5 over OZZIE AND HARRIET
LEAVE IT TO BEAVER 11-3 over LIFE OF RILEY

The Favorite Classic TV Shows Tourney is now underway...cast your votes for your faves!

I decided to go ahead and start the Favorite Classic TV Shows tourney a day early with the first four matches in the first bracket. But first let me explain the tourney to those who may be new to my page.  Based upon the excellent book, Sitcoms: The 101 Greatest TV Comedies of All Time, I selected 32 classic TV series to compete for favorite show as voted on by all the followers out there in blog land. I broke them down into four brackets with the top seeds being I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The George Burns/Gracie Allen Show. Then I chose the match-ups by randomly selecting the names out of my trusty easter basket which I have used for many tourneys before. I begin with bracket one featuring I Love Lucy and these match-ups:

1 I LOVE LUCY
8 HOGAN'S HEROES

4 THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES
5 OZZIE AND HARRIET

2 THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM
7 MY THREE SONS

3 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER
6 THE LIFE OF RILEY

Polls are on the right hand side bar and it's one vote per match through Wednesday. After those matches are concluded I will  post the second bracket matches with top seed The Andy Griffith and 7 more classic series. I will keep going until we get down to the final four shows in a winner take all two match set up. This should be very fun and exciting and hope I got most of everyone's favorites competing. Stay tuned! 

A new tourney begins next month....

It’s been awhile since I have blogged anything so I thought about doing one of my favorite things. A tourney. This upcoming tourney will be called The Favorite Classic TV Comedies Tournament and will feature 32 classic comedies competing for favorite TV comedy of all time. Why 32? Because with that format, things will break down evenly. To do more, I would have had to use 64 comedies which would have been a lot for one person to do. So I settled in on 32 and used this great book called the 101 Best TV Sitcoms as a reference to choose the 32 series that will be competing. I will post more details and the list of all 32 series that will participating in this tourney over the next few days with the tourney scheduled to begin on Monday, November 30^th. I for one can’t wait!

Happy 6th Anniversary to blogging!

I am proud to announce the 6th anniversary of me blogging here on All Good Things. Time has just flown by but it has been fun and memorable. Thanks to everyone who has been with me for the ride. As you can tell by the photo below that my favorite actress Carole Lombard can't contain her excitement for my anniversary. Here's to many more years to come!

THE BIG SLEEP (1946) - my contribution for The Lauren Bacall Blogathon

Here is my contribution to the Lauren Bacall Blogathon!

Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Elisha Cook Jr, John Ridgely, Charles Waldron. 1946. Running time 114 minutes. Directed by Howard Hawks.

Classic film noir with Bogart as Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe, who is hired by General Sternwood (Waldron) to deal with several problems involving his family. Mainly blackmail toward the younger daughter Carmen (a terrific Martha Vickers). But this is just the beginning as Marlowe is dragged deeper and deeper into a sordid world of criminals and murder. Along the way Marlowe finds himself falling for the eldest daughter Vivian (played by Lauren Bacall). The Big Sleep is a very complicated movie that is still very entertaining. Featuring crisp dialogue and crackerjack performances. Bogart is cool as Marlowe in what I think is his best role. Bacall exudes enough sex appeal for 100 women. Vickers is delightfully seductive and droll in her child-like performance. And Dorothy Malone shines in her brief scene as a shapely bookstore clerk who flirts with Marlowe. An outstanding film and one of my all time favorites.


https://crystalkalyana.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/the-lauren-bacall-blogathon-a-big-thank-you-to-all-participants/

PINKY (1949)

Here is my contribution to The Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon as hosted by In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood

I had never seen this film before TCM aired it the other night and was completely blown away by it. The story follows a young light skinned black woman who passes for white, leaves her home in Mississippi and goes north to attend nursing school. Pinky as she is called and played by Jeanne Crain, returns home after graduation to see her grandmother (Ethel Waters). Once there Pinky finds out that Granny has been caring for the ailing Ms. Em (Ethel Barrymore) and doesn't like it too much. Granny's little shack house sits on Ms. Em very large plantation estate. Pink recalls how she was treated badly by Ms. Em when Pinky was a child and has issues with her when Granny asks her to take care of Ms. Em as her nurse. At first Pinky wants no part of it but changes her mind once Granny tells her of how Ms. Em cared for her when she was sick. So their first meeting is tense as expected but over the next few days Pinky and Ms. Em come to understand each other. The rest of the film deals with Pinky dating a white doctor who finds out later on about Pinky's heritage and a legal battle over Ms. Em's estate between Pinky and Ms. Em's sister. This is a strong and emotional film, expertly directed by Elia Kazan, who gets three remarkable performances from his three women. Ethel Waters is just effortless in her part as Granny, that you don't even view her acting, but as a person trying to deal with a headstrong granddaughter and race relations. The great Ethel Barrymore is superb as usual and gets the most of her performance via scenes with Ms. Crain. Her character may have been a fixture of the old South and their traditions and views, but she is willing to accept the new way of thinking by her interaction with Pinky. And finally Jeanne Crain who gives probably the best performance of her career. She plays Pinky perfectly which is amazing, because this type of role could have easily been either over the top or not strong enough. She is white but has to play a black woman and she pulls it off with grace and class. I was genuinely moved by her performance that had several scenes where she said that she should be treated as a person and not judged by the color of  her skin. She should have won the Academy Award that year but alas did not. But regardless, Pinky is a great film that needs to be seen by everyone. It ranks right up there with To Kill A Mockingbird in my opinion.
B+

Here's the link to go view other entries in this blogathon:

the-barrymore-trilogy-blogathon-has-now-arrived/

Third time's the charm for Natalie as she is crowned Favorite Classic Movie Actress of 2015

It took three Final Four trips but Natalie Wood finally won the Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tourney. She defeated Myrna Loy 323-173 to secure her place in the winners circle. She joins an elite company of Irene Dunne, Ginger Rogers, Carole Lombard and Bette Davis, who won previously. And Natalie set records while doing it. First she notched her 23rd victory, placing her #1 all-time most winning actress, one win above Grace Kelly who has 22. Next she accumulated 1416 votes in the 7 matches she competed in for this year's tourney. She blew away the previous record of 1093 votes set by Ginger back in 2012. Natalie also holds the records for most matches competed in with 28. So congratulations to Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko on becoming the Favorite Classic Movie Actress of 2015. Thanks to Desiree, Virginie and John for helping me with the tourney this year and hope everyone had a fun time! See you next March!

It will be Myrna Loy vs Natalie Wood for the crown of 2015 Favorite Classic Movie Actress

After falling behind in their respective matches earlier during the week, Myrna Loy and Natalie Wood stormed back to win and now will face each other in the championship match. Myrna Loy defeated Audrey Hepburn 305-234 while Natalie Wood defeated the red hot Greer Garson 543-318. Yep you read those final numbers right. The amount of votes logged were record-setting thanks to several fan-bases spreading the word about their favorites. From Blogger to Facebook to Tumblr to Twitter, word got around fast to produce some huge numbers. Now Natalie Wood after two previous final four trips, finally broke through to appear in her first championship match. While Myrna Loy will be trying to become the 4th actress from the 30's era to hoist the trophy as Favorite Classic Movie Actress. She would join Irene Dunne, Ginger Rogers and Carole Lombard in that achievement. Here are the stats for the two women that will start their match tomorrow morning.

#2 NATALIE WOOD  

60'S ERA CHAMPION 

Tourney record: 22-5

Number of final fours: 3

How she got here:

defeated Rita Moreno 94-20

defeated Paula Prentiss 92-10

defeated Julie Andrews 104-35

defeated Ann-Margret 119-25

defeated Shirley MacLaine 141-29

defeated Greer Garson 543-318

total votes accumulated so far 1093

What's at stake for her: Natalie has appeared in three final fours and

this is her first championship match. If she ever wanted to win the

crown, then this is it.

VS

#3 MYRNA LOY  

30'S ERA CHAMPION

Tourney record: 16-4

Number of final fours: 1st time

How she got here:

defeated Virginia Weidler 61-6

defeated Eleanor Powell 79-8

defeated Shirley Temple 57-18

defeated Barbara Stanwyck 79-58

defeated Jean Arthur 57-39

defeated Audrey Hepburn 305-234

total votes accumulated so far 638

What's at stake for her: to continue the dominance of 30's era actress champions,

as 3 of the 4 past tourney champions have come from the 

30's era

The championship match begins tomorrow morning and will

run through next Saturday! Good luck to both Natalie and Myrna!

The Final Four Matches are now underway...

Here are the two matches that have just begun....you can vote on the sidebar to the right.
Matches will run through Saturday afternoon! Good luck ladies! Please note that the records associated with each actress is their total wins/losses over the course of five tourneys. And that the seeds of the actresses are their overall ranking in their respective eras.

MATCH 1

#3 MYRNA LOY (15-4) 

Myrna's 1st Final Four appearance

VS

#1 AUDREY HEPBURN (18-5)

Audrey's 2nd Final Four appearance

*************

MATCH 2

#2 NATALIE WOOD (21-5)

Natalie's 3rd Final Four appearance

VS

#6 GREER GARSON (5-4)

Greer's 1st Final Four appearance

The FINAL FOUR is now set

The Elite Eight round is now complete and we have our finalists for this year's final four! In the 30's era, it was Myrna Loy defeating Jean Arthur 57-39, marking Myrna's first trip to a final four. In the 40's era, it was red hot Greer Garson staging a late rally to overtake Rosalind Russell and win 89-71. That gives Greer her 5th win this tourney, as previously she had no wins prior from the first four tourneys. In the 50's era, it was a rematch from last year between Audrey Hepburn and Doris Day with the same results as Audrey defeated Doris 35-20. Only difference was last year it ended on Doris Day's birthday. And finally in the 60's era, it was Natalie Wood crushing Shirley MacLaine 140-29, sending Natalie back to the final four for a 3rd time. So the match-ups in the final four as tradition states will be the 30's era winner vs the 50's era winner which is Myrna Loy vs Audrey Hepburn. And the 40's era winner vs the 60's era winner, Greer Garson vs Natalie Wood. Audrey is the only  #1 seed to make it to final four. And Audrey is only the 4th actress to be in consecutive final fours. She joins Bette Davis, Grace Kelly and Natalie Wood in that distinction. The other three # 1 seeds were Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland and Elizabeth Taylor that failed in their bid to reach the final four.Greer is the long shot, ranked #6. Matches will begin tomorrow morning and take place here on All Good Things.