"She likes to shimmy with me and her mother does too." Jack Buchanan and 27 weeks.

Firstly, I have resolved henceforth to stop apologizing for missing a week here and there on my blog. I have been fairly successful in keeping up, and therefore believe that missing an odd week is natural, understandable, and forgivable. I hope you agree with me.

Secondly, I thought it was high time to mention a charming Scot, Jack Buchanan (though, ironically enough he was known for his image as an impeccable Englishman - gasp!). He was a big star in the 1920's. What put me in mind of Jack Buchanan was a 1920's musical Heather and I watched recently. It was a silly, delightful romp (French, actually, but I feel bold enough to mention it given the "Auld Alliance" and all that!) and it made me miss the old days when I had Twenties fever, and tried to live and dress as though that era had never passed.

Jack Buchanan got his big break in 1921, in the stage production A to Z, in which he sang the Ivor Novello song "And Her Mother Came Too" (Jeremy Northam does a charming performance of this in GOSFORD PARK, in which he plays Ivor Novello). I first heard the dulcet tones of Mr. Buchanan when my sister Morag brought back the "Pennies From Heaven" soundtrack from England, when I was just thirteen years old. On that he sings a comic song called "Sweet So-and-So". I wasn't hooked, however, until three years later, when I got a CD for Christmas of 1920's tunes, on which he sings "Who?" with Binnie Hale. I was enchanted, transfixed by the song. I didn't stop 'til I had a whole CD of just Jack Buchanan, with other gems such as "Dapper Dan" and "Weep No More, My Baby". He is best known in American circles, in his role in BAND WAGON(1953), but I like to think of him as he was in the 1920's and '30's singing songs worthy of Bertie Wooster, and exchanging delightful dialogue with Elsie Randolph, such as:
Jack: What are you doing here?
Elsie: I'm waiting for Bill.
Jack: Bill?!
Elsie: I rather think I'm just a tiny bit in love with him.
Jack: Don't be silly, you hardly know him.
Elsie: Darling, you don't have to know a millionaire to be in love with one.
Jack: Oh, I see, little wise bird. It's the money.
Elsie: No, my lamb, it's the weather!