JackBurley

"Even though I love Vivian Leigh and thought she was very wonderful as Scarlett in Gone With The Wind, I almost wish Bette Davis could have played that part. She always struck me as the perfect personality for that role." Some considered that Miss Davis was playing Scarlett in Jezebel. GWTW producer David O. Selnick confronted Harry Warner about this in his December 1, 1937 memo: "... the publicity material from your studio goes so far as to say that around the studio Bette Davis is now known as 'Scarlett'." In March, 1938 Mr. Selznick wrote to Jack Warner: "...I think it would be a very great pity indeed from your own standpoint if so distinguished and costly a picture as Jezebel should be damned as an imitation by millions of readers and lovers of Gone With the Wind. And I am fearful that this is what may happen, due to a few completely unnecessary bits. The picture throughout is permeated with characterizations, attitudes, and scenes which unfortunately resemble Gone With the Wind, regardless of whether or not they were in the original material. But I am referring to a few specific things, such as the very-well remembered piece of business in which Scarlett pinched her cheeks to give them color. More importantly, there is the scene of the men around the dinner table, which actually is a slow spot in your picture, if you will forve my saying so. I refer to the dialogue scene dealing with the difference between the north and south, the discussion of an imminent war, and the prediction by the southerner that the north will win because of its superior machinery, et cetera [/i][the scene was later deleted from Jezebel]. This scene is lifted practically bodily out of Gone With the Wind, in which it is an important story point leading to Rhett Butler's entire behavior during the war..."

jakeev, Bette Davis: The Benevolent Volcano will be broadcast on TCM on May 18.

Sylvia Sidney was my father's favorite actress, and I love her too. "Bette Davis Eyes"? I always thought Blondie's song should have been "Sylvia Sidney Eyes". Even if Truffaut thought her eyes were reminiscent of Peter Lorre's! She was heartbreaking in An American Tragedy (the original version of 1951's A Place in the Sun) and Dead End, and "killed" Oscar Homolka in Hitchcock's Sabotage. I'd love to see her in Street Scene and as Madame Butterfly against Cary Grant's Pinkerton. I'm only sorry that her final movie was Tim Burton's disappointing Mars Attacks, but she was swell in Bettlejuice and Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.

Aw, you always know the quotable quotes, Mr. Write! But [next clue] Questioning Mona Lisa would have given it away too, right? It's your turn...

No, Mr. lab. Clue No. 4: "Does a man ever sing in the morning when he's alone?"

It's "McDaniel", though she was billed as "McDaniels" in many movies through the 1930's.

Sorry, vallo! Clue No. 3: Chocolat all over the floor

Alas, Sandy. Alack, Mr. Dobbs. Clue No. 2: Rebuffed proposal

Clue No. 1: Fox hunt

The Bad and the Beautiful

Here's what director George Sidney (on the audio commentary from The Harvey Girls ) had to say: "... That's a big argument about colorization. And people say 'how do you feel about?' And I say, 'Well, I wouldn't want my beautiful color pictures to be shown in black and white. But anyone who doesn't like colorization can just turn the dial and they get the picture in black and white. Oh I think there's a few pictures; my good friend Freddy Zinnemann -- High Noon -- he's fighting to have that always in black and white. It was designed for black and white. I had one picture that I designed for black and white, called Jeanne Eagles; and the girl -- Kim Novak, played one of our great stars -- she was pure white, white, white. I kept her so white. Well I don't think I would care to see rouge on her face and red lips. But that's just my way of thinking. Certainly a picture, Yankee Doodle Dandy, in color -- well it should be in color; it's about color... and some of the early musicals. And of course, ten years from now technology will be so no one can tell whether it's been colorized or what. It's like sound: when we had the 78rpm phonograph records, then we went into a thing called '45', and then we had 8-tracks, now we're into cds. And it keeps on going! And the cds, now they're putting whole movies on smaller cds. It'll keep going. It's like your computer today. In two years, you know, you'll not have a typewriting board; you'll just visually talk into your computer and do it. I mean, it's like 'future shock', when the man who wrote the book. He said, 'One day your secretary; you'll be in one city and your secretary... you'll never meet your secretary! She'll be in Dallas, Texas! You'll get in and you'll just press a button. And that's true. It's amazing the world that we've lived through. ..."

I could swear that director George Sidney says (on the audio commentary of The Harvey Girls) that Virgina O'Brien later became the sheriff of a town called Wildwood, California. I haven't been able to find any information on this. Anyone out there know anything about this? Mr. Mongo, perchance?

I thought his big screen debut was in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, which I believe came a decade after Glory Alley...

Can't we help her? What movies does she enjoy? Surely we can find a black and white movie of the same ilk and open her mind a little...

I seem to be on a Hitchcock string, but is it Foreign Correspondent?

Isn't this 1944's The Uninvited with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey?

Family Plot

I'm filled with envy; and pray, Mr. Sage, that you will report every detail of your evening at the LA County Museum's showing of The Heiress! Does Miss DeHavilland live in southern California now? I thought she was living in Paris...

As long as they remake and try to improve the banal rather than the classics, I'm fine with that. But when they're tempted to remake a classic, I wish they'd resist and instead strike a new print of the original and give it a wide release.

Actually, path's site is ClassicFILMguide. I'd been referring to it recently and had no idea that it belonged to our very own "path". Thanks. Oh, and here's the link: http://www.classicfilmguide.com/

Wow! One of my favorite Hollywood beauties -- Virginia Grey -- was amongst "Les Blondes". When watching The Women I always look forward to the close-ups and wisecracks of Miss Grey who works behind the perfume counter with Chrystal Allen.

Saratoga is the movie that Miss Harlow was making when she died. As shooting wasn't complete at the time of her demise, they had to film the rest with body doubles. It's one of the movie sports to watch this guess which scenes actually feature the real Miss Harlow and which ones feature a double (often with a big hat to block her face).

I just posted a similar message over in Hot Topics. I'd seen Idiot's Delight at San Francisco's Castro Theatre several years ago and loved it then, but had forgotten so many details of it. Seeing it again this morning certainly delighted this idiot. I was wishing that it were playing in rotation as I wanted to see it again -- immediately. Now I kneel here, praying for a DVD release. Miss Shearer was very sexy in those dresses. I've never seen her with so much allure.

That's "Mr. Grinch", to you.

William Wyler's The Heiress with Olivie DeHavilland and Montgomery Clift; based on the Goetz play, which was based on Henry James' novel Washington Square.