Swithin

I see Julia Treadway in Executive Suite as the old version of Lily from Baby Face. You remember at the end of Baby Face, George Brent loses all his dough, but Lily goes with him anyway? Well in the intervening clamour (i.e. between 1933 and 1954), they got their fortune back, Brent died, and Lily became Julia Treadway (after having become Martha Ivers). Or as William Demerest so aptly put it in The Lady Eve, "It's the same dame!"

Now I'm really confused as all get out!

Thanks, I knew what it meant, but I wondered about the derivation. I did google further, one option is that maybe it was invented to substitute for "hell," or something like that. I guess we just never used it in my part of the 'hood.

Very amusing thread! But along those lines, please let me know: Where does the expression "...as all get out..." come from? I've heard it, but I've never used it. Is it meant to replace something profane?

Who suffered more than *Ruth Chatterton* in Frisco Jenny ? The Madame X theme turned on its head made the suffering even worse, since her son (not knowing Chattertown was his mother), was the DA who sent his mother to her death. But our Ruthie was mum (and Mum) until the end.

Maybe it's just as well that Bette never got a tv series. One wants to remember her for the great films. It was different for someone like Lucille Ball, who never had a huge, starry film career. But even if she had, we'd still remember her as Lucy! Bette Davis did do an unsuccessful Broadway musical, Two's Company, sort of as a spur of the moment lark. The music is very good. Bette had two particularly good songs: "Turn Me Loose on Broadway," and "Just Like a Man." You can here a tiny clip of Bette singing those songs on the Amazon link (tracks nos. 3 and 12): http://www.amazon.com/Twos-Company-Original-Broadway-Cast/dp/B0007X9URY

*Lady E wrote: I think the reason Stanwyck is not such a pop-culture figure like Bette, Joan Crawford, or Hepburn, is because of her low profile off-screen, especially in her late years.* Lady E, I wasn't really addressing -- nor do I find it particularly important -- whether or not BS was a pop-culture figure. My minority argument is that I don't think she was a great actress. But in terms of your pop-culture comment, in fact she embraced, more than any of the other really big name film actresses, that medium which is closest to pop culture: television, regularaly appearing on series and also having her own series! That visibility would have certainly transcended the occasional interviews done by Bette or Kate. I don't know much about Davis's private life; I know something about Kate's, because I worked on a project with her friends and niece; but, knowing nothing about BS, I just looked her up and found that she was a devotee of Ayn Rand. I make no value judgments about that, but it is fascinating, particularly since we recently had a vice-presidential candidate who was also a Rand devotee -- Mr. Ryan. In any case, in terms of the awards, the New York Film Critics were famous for going against the Hollywood choice, if there was good reason to do so, and they never went for Stanwyck.

Another hint: think the shape of the table.

Westley was also great in The Age of Innocence. Her theater career includes many classics. She originated the role of Mme. Arkadina in the original Broadway production of Chekhov's The Seagull; was in the original B'way production of Strange Interlude; appeared in many plays by Shaw; as well as in the original productions of Liliom and Green Grown the Lilacs, the plays which later became musicalized by R&H to Carousel and Oklahoma!.

Thanks for the photos SueSue! She was also great as Mme. LeMaire, Bette Davis' confidante, in All this and Heaven, too; and as Mama Rothschild in House of Rothschild. And she was one of the founders of the Theater Guild.

One of the great survivors of Roman tradition may be the Furry (aka Flora) Dance, which takes place every year in Helston, Cornwall, on May 8, to mark the passing of the winter and arrival of Spring. The natives of Helston dance around the town all day, to an ancient tune -- I have an audio recording of it, but of course these days everything is on the Internet, including the actual dance, which is thought to be related to the Roman Floralia. Here's an excerpt of all age groups in the village participating in the 2010 Furry Dance.

*Helen Westley,* who played Grandma in Banjo on My Knee, is one of my favorite actresses. She had a major theater career before entering films. I notice in her credits a film called The Smiling Ghost. Does anyone know it? I've never seen it, it sounds like fun. Westley was a descendant of two venerable Brooklyn families. Her real name was Henrietta Remsen Meserole Manney, Remsen and Meserole being two Brooklyn streets named for her ancestors.

LadyE, welcome to the board! I know I am in the minority of not worshipping at the BS alter, but I do love many of her films and enjoy her performances. Perhaps I should keep my comments to myself. As the great Eric Blore says in my favorite BS film The Lady Eve: "Silence to the grave...and even beyond!" I don't think I expressed my comments about Douglas Sirk very well. What I meant was, I do like his work very much. But he is not an actors' director, I don't think. He excels in creating scenes, working with lighting, image, etc., to create meaning -- almost like a visual artist. Brecht, who tended to believe in a more overwrought sense of acting, is one of Sirk's influences. So what I meant was, although I love Sirk's work, his comments about actors/acting cannot be taken (at least by me) very seriously. Also, if critics of the time called BS a "great natural actress," that could be a kind of damning with faint praise!

The Lady Eve is my favorite Stanwyck film. The role so fits the showgirl-type roles she excels in. And I particularly love the supporting cast -- Eugene Pallette, Eric Blore, Charles Coburn, etc. Favorite line: "The fish was a poem."

That's true. Even Easter is probably related to the pre-Christian spring awakening holiday celebrations.

Finance, There's truth to that, but Christmas too has been a relatively recent creation as a big celebrated holiday (19th century) and was originally not celebrated much more than Chanukah. And of course the date comes from the Roman Christians wanting to "compete" with the pagan winter festivals.

Hint: When did they meet? What was he playing then?

Jerome Robbins was famous for being difficult and in fact nasty to work with. Jo Van Fleet was also said to be difficult.

Nevertheless, IMHO, the best film won! (I think GWTW is wildly overrated, an example of parts being greater than the whole). Regarding what someone said about George Stevens: he elicited some very sensitive performances out of his actors. Irene Dunne's tour-de-force in I Remember Mama comes to mind. To me, the words "sensitive" and Stanwyck don't go together -- maybe that was the problem! I'm also not surprised at Sirk's comments -- he was a director of melodramas which verged on the surreal (and I like his work, particularly for its form). But his Brechtian style encouraged a somewhat over-the-top approach to acting.

In general, films with Jewish themes don't focus on the Jewish holidays, apart from The Jazz Singer (Yom Kippur) and The Ten Commandments (origin of Passover). There must be other films which have a fleeting holiday scene of one of the many holidays. Jewish rituals (e.g. weddings) do turn up in Fiddler on the Roof, The Chosen, etc., perhaps because they present such cinematic possibilities. What about Woody Allen? Doesn't Crimes and Misdemeanors feature a Passover scene? The Museum of Modern Art did a brilliant festival of Yiddish cinema many years ago, where I saw some of the Joe Green and Edgar Ulmer Yiddish films for the first time, but I don't remember any explicit holiday scenes.

Ms. Redgrave's husband's character spends time in a Bronx movie theater.

Major highlight: *Beulah Bondi* as Aunt Martha Corinne Walton on two episodes of The Waltons. I think the most moving moment on any award show, EVER, was when Beulah Bondi won an Emmy for her appearance on The Waltons.

Infinite, as a member of your tribe (if you don't mind that phrase), I was thinking of chiming in, too. Chanukah (the spelling I am most familiar with) is an enjoyable holiday commemorating a historic event, but never (as far as I know) one with truly deep religious significance. But of course, the Jewish people are a people as well as a religion, so both sorts of celebrations (historical and religious) are important. The larger picture, of course, is that both holidays -- Chanukah and Christmas -- were probably superimposed on old pagan festivals. The date of Jesus' birth is not mentioned in the Bible and was not always as widely celebrated as is it today. Puritans actually forbade the celebration of Christmas at one time. Much of the current modes of celebration were influenced as much (if not more) by Dickens and the Victorians and other writers as by religion. (The Roman Christians were probably influenced by pagan holidays and selected the winter date to coincide with them). In any case, I hope none of this is offensive to anyone. I've always enjoyed Christmas, the one holiday dedicated to the celebration of the birth of a Jew! Also my degree is in Theology -- and I studied at a Jesuit University. If anyone is offended by anything I've said here, please let me know, and I'll delete this post. I've posted it only as my idea of a clarification related to the other posts in this thread. Happy Chanukah -- Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite guest appearances on a classic sitcom is the one-time appearance by *Betty Garde* on The Honeymooners. Ms. Garde may not have been a household name, but she was in some memorable films. It was she, in the pivotal role of Kitty Stark, who stabbed Hope Emerson with the fork in Caged; it was she, as Wanda Skutnik, who wouldn't spill the beans to James Stewart in Call Northside 777. On Broadway, she created the role of Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!, singing "The Farmer and the Cowman." But as Thelma the Maid on that episode of The Honeymooners ("A Woman's Work Is Never Done"), she has some of the best lines ever heard on the series, including: "Some guest and some employer. The simp and the blimp;" and "I don't clean up after any midnight snacks. And this boy looks like he has plenty of midnight snacks!"

A better gauge of excellence in awards-giving may be the New York Film Critics. Garbo won that twice, including in 1938, when Rainer won the Oscar for which Stanwyck and Garbo had also been nominated. Stanwyck never won a NYFC award. Check out this list of NYFC winners, which includes (in addition to Davis, et. al.), Agnes Moorehead, Ida Lupino, Margaret Sullavan, Deborah Kerr, and Celia Johnson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Film_Critics_Circle_Award_for_Best_Actress One big point in the NYFC's favor, in my VERY humble opinion: In 1939, they picked Wuthering Heights as best film, over GWTW. Now that took nerve!