Swithin

Of course I knew about the honorary Oscar, I almost put it in my post, just to save someone mentioning it! Not the same as the real thing, of course. Despite the studio backing her up issue, there were actors without that backing who won Oscars. And besides -- Luise Rainer won for The Good Earth in a year when MGM had two best actress nominees -- the other being Garbo for Camille. BS was pretty good in Stella Dallas that year. But I do understand that this is just my opinion. I just don't think BS is as good as people on this board do. But I love many of her movies and enjoy her performances!

I did not know about Jack Benny and Gisele MacKenzie! But I guess, as the lady herself sings here, "That's Amore!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwjst_pkRTI

Flamingo Road

Speaking of Victor Hugo, might one put in a plug for a film based on the life of his youngest daughter? *The Story of Adele H*. is a tragic film about Adele Hugo's obsession; an obsession so intense that by the end, it's just pure obsession without object. Isabelle Adjani gives a towering performance in one of Truffaut's best films.

LOL! If by earth you mean this board, then yes, I'm just about the only one (though actually there are a few others). Not that this is a measure of excellence, but she never won an Oscar, so presumably the voters during the years she was nominated didn't think she was the best (though I repeat, that's really not a good measure of excellence). BS played a fairly wide variety of roles, yes; but I don't necessarily think she played many of them that well, or that there was much variety in her interpretations. But I enjoy her performances and LOVE many of her movies!

I like Roz Russell in Gypsy, it works for me. I knew Arthur Laurents pretty well. He wrote the book for the musical Gypsy and later directed three of the Broadway revivals -- with Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, and Patti LuPone. I remember sitting with Arthur in the Green Room one time, I had just heard that Bernadette Peters was going to play Mama Rose, which I thought odd. I said to him, "What do you think of Bernadette Peters as Mama Rose?" "It was my idea," he responded. He said she was most like the real Mama Rose. Arthur was a man of very strongly held opinions. He hated the film of Summertime, which was based on his play, The Time of the Cuckoo. He said they took the plain, dowdy Brooklyn woman, played so well by Shirley Booth in the play, and glamorized her into the part Katharine Hepburn played in the film, thus changing the whole theme, he felt. Two of his books are worth reading. His autobiography, Original Story By... is his totally outrageous memoir. More to the point of this thread, his 2009 book Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story, and Other Musicals, contains many fascinating stories about Gypsy and Merman.

Well that about covers it, Addison! For me, and I'm in the minority here, Babs is a showgirl who made good. I like so many of her films, but I don't think she's a great actress. I watched her most recently in Golden Boy -- I found many of her gestures false and her performance merely adequate. But I know, I know, she is queen of this board!

My local cinema is having a 70mm festival later this month. I hope to go to *Ryan's Daughter*, which (despite its initial reception) I like alot and haven't seen since its release. The film will be shown with Swedish subtitles! So, I will be watching a British film about Irish people, shot in Ireland, directed by a Brit, with many American actors, at a movie theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with Swedish subtitles! All the other films in the series (apart from one East German entry) are in English without subtitles.

Not sure if this has been covered (and it's slightly O.T. anyway), but Rodgers and Hart and Kaufman and Hart wrote a stage musical, I'd Rather Be Right, in which George M. Cohan played The President of the United States, which was clearly FDR. In Yankee Doodle Dandy, Cohan thinks FDR will scold him for that portrayal. The show wasn't a success, but it gave us some good songs, including "Have You Met Miss Jones," There is also a song, sung by The President and Cabinet, called "We are Going to Balance the Budget."

So sorry I didn't notice it was on until I saw this thread! I caught part of the ending, it looks great. Mady Christians is in it -- she was the original Mama in I Remember Mama on B'way. Guess who played her son Nels: Marlon Brando, in his stage debut.

Maybe the studio bosses were sensitive about depicting FDR because he was President during the classic film era. I guess one might also ask, how many films which do depict presidents do so while they're in office? Perhaps it's not likely that scripts would feature them so soon.

Forgive my answering this question -- it was directed at Sepia. But I particularly love the end of the film, because it is FDR standing at the podium at the convention, ready to nominate Governor Al Smith, while the band plays that best of NYC songs, "The Sidewalks of New York." He was not yet President. FDR nominated Al Smith for President in 1924 and 1928. FDR himself was nominated in 1932.

The female lead -- Lorna (played by Frances Farmer in the original B'way production) -- is much more fully drawn in the play. She's got alot of baggage, which is a big part of the plot as well. They're both kind of hopeless, which seems to make their deaths more logical at the end, I guess.

There's no actual boxing in the play. There are gym scenes and warm-ups, but no actual bouts. They all take place off stage. The emotional interactions between the characters is much more powerful in the play. The play uses the themes of boxing and music to show how the character is torn and how he is being pulled from all sides by those around him, but it's not really a play about boxing.

Most people I know (myself included) prefer foreign films with subtitles. However, there are two exceptions: *Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow* -- I saw this when it came out. It was dubbed, and I really like the rhythms of the dubbed English dialogue. "She's got the belly, she's got the belly, ...." I miss that in the subtitled version. *The Black Pit of Dr. M.*, the great Mexican horror film, has a particularly wonderful dubbing job. ("Yes, it's me. I came back in Elmer's body!") It used to be on local television in NYC. The dubbed print is said to be lost, please someone find it! But apart from those two, of course I want subtitles.

*Island of Lost Souls* (1932) ("Are we not men?") Next: Fruit seeds

Good reviews for the 75th anniversary Broadway revival of *Golden Boy*, which opened tonight: http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/theater/reviews/golden-boy-directed-by-bartlett-sher.html http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/theater-review-golden-boy-article-1.1214871?localLinksEnabled=false http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948879

Mr. Muckerji -- Dan Seymour in *Confidential Agent* (1945)

Hi Lori, No, Phoebe's no longer with us, she died in 2004, a few months before her 97th birthday. I worked with her on a couple of events in April and October of 2002.

Thanks for that clip, Lori! Wonderful to see it. Garfield would have been perfect for the film. I don't think it was so much a case of Holden not being ready, I just don't think he was right for the role, apart from the fight scenes. He didn't have that NYC grit that Odets's characters require. Garfield of course did play Ralph Berger, another major Odets role, in the original production of Awake and Sing. I worked on a few projects with Phoebe Brand, who was with the Group Theater and was the original Anna in Golden Boy. She was 95 when I met her, I assume she'd been amply debriefed, by Foster Hirsch, among others. She was married to Morris Carnovsky. The guy who plays Joe Bonaparte in the current production (which opens tonight) is Seth Numrich. He's very good. The play is on at the Belasco Theater, which is where the original production played 75 years ago, and where many Odets plays got their start!

CRAZY video! Do you think the Nairobi Trio would make it on tv today?

I spoke with a friend today who also saw the current production. She feels that it was probably a car accident that killed them both at the end, not necessarily suicide. There's room for interpretation. But the play make Joe and Lorna both so much more angry, almost unhinged, and, at the end, they say something like, "there's nothing we can do but go for a very fast ride in the car at night..." So I think it's pretty obvious. Either way, I think that's a cheap way to end, and that the Hollywood ending is actually superior. Btw, the details of Lorna's relationship with Tom (the Menjou character in the film) are much more complex in the play, as are the references to her past as "a tramp from Newark."

You are right! I read the ibdb incorrectly -- I was looking at the credits for 1952. In any case, Garfield would have been perfect in the film! (And I'm sure he was perfect for Siggie, too).

It was perfect timing for me to watch Golden Boy on TCM this morning. Last night I saw Lincoln Center Theater's 75th anniversary production of the play. I think they both have their positive and negative features. The play was well performed, and a great production. The film, directed by one of the greats -- Mamoulian -- was pretty badly acted. William Holden was miscast, though he looked good in the ring. In the midst of all the NYC accents, his Wisconsin accent was way out of place. I guess the film cried out for John Garfield, who created the role on Broadway. There is more violin playing in the film -- it's easier to fake on screen. (In the play, there's only one offstage bit.) Also more fighting on screen, which looked good, though the gym scenes on stage were brilliant, all of the fights are offstage. We talked in the Gypsy thread about how Merman, said to be so good onstage, was never a great screen actress. Similarly with Lee J. Cobb -- you have to tone it down for the screen, which he didn't really do. (Tony Shalhoub plays the role brilliantly onstage). I don't think Stanwyck was very good. Most of the acting on screen seemed unnatural. But the print looked great, and Mamoulian did a great job in all respects, apart from with the actors. On the whole, though, the movie script, written by four screenwriters, was not very elegant, and of course way inferior to Odets play. Of course the plot changes for a screen adaptation. The movie is much more sentimental. But the Hollywood ending may actually be an improvement. In Odets play, Joe and Lorna drive to their deaths at the end -- presumed suicide, which is telegraphed earlier. In the film, the scene with the killed fighter's family and the speech from the father convinces Joe to carry on; that's followed by Stanwyck's speech, which leads to the scene with Joe's father at the end -- hugs, kisses, tears -- a real Hollywood ending. But it may be better than the suicides at the end of the play. Suicide as a script device is a copout.

I haven't seen it since I was a kid. I guess The She Creature also shares that fascination with hypnosis, to some extent.