Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Good Morning, Gratuitous Gary Cooper

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If you ever wondered to yourself -- "Hey self. Is there a movie where Gary Cooper takes his shirt off to shave and then waves a gun around?" -- I am here to tell you to pass the message along to your self that he or she can rest easy, there totally is. Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1935 flick from the director of the original True Grit; it's about a trio of Brit soldiers who're stationed in India and, according to IMDb's description, "struggle against invaders... and themselves." (Groan.) 

The trio's played by Coop, Franchot Tone and Richard Cromwell, seen above being adorable together. (There are a lot of pictures of them being adorable together, which you'll see down below.) I've had a copy of this movie for ages thanks to this handy boxed-set of Coop's early movies (Design For Living, you guys - watch Design For Living) but I've never watched it, even though it features what is in my estimation perhaps Coop in his finest vintage. He was looking really, really good in the early to mid-1930s, you guys.

And there's that shirtless shaving pistol scene. So why haven't I watched it yet? I think there's been a little hesitation on my part to be over and done with it - there are only so many Gary Cooper movies from this period for me to experience the first time, and I'm saving it for a special occasion. Is there an argument to be made that maybe today, what could have been Coop's 113th birthday if people lived forever (and I feel like nature should have made an exception for Gary fuckin' Cooper), is that special occasion? I could probably convince myself. I mean...

... come on. Alright so thanks to this glorious Gary Cooper website here I gathered up a metric shit-ton of pictures from this specific film and I've placed them all after the jump for our communal perusal. Hit it, yo.
























2 comments:

scrumrob said...

Damn! He was such a handsome man.

Anonymous said...

I was watching a bio of Judy Garland and they were showing the MGM lot in the 1930s with Coop walking with someone when he turned and looked at the camera and smiled and I swear it blew me to the back of the room. Haven’t seen any of his early movies but Wow!