Swithin

More visitors to Africa: Two great and nearly forgotten films. Mountains of the Moon (1990) The Sheltering Sky (1990)

I don't think they made many (or any) Hollywood films. Actually, the husband had an uncredited part in one of the most Oscar-winning Hollywood films of all time, but I don't think that's a helpful hint. Excerpts from the work of the couple -- particularly the wife -- have been used in many British documentaries about film, and specifically about the series she appeared in often. In addition, the BBC presented a docudrama focusing on the relationship of the husband and wife. The name of the film is the wife's first name. One of the wife's films is based on the same play that a Kander and Ebb musical is based on. The musical wasn't very successful, but it's a lot of fun. However, here's a Hollywood-related hint: The horror icon I alluded to was stuck in London without the funds to get back to America. The role he took in the film, in which our wife has a small part, earned him the money to return.

Les Feluettes (1996) The Effect of Gamma Rays in Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1971)

Leslie Howard was in Outward Bound with Beryl Mercer.

Hint: In one of the four films in which the wife plays the same type of character (i.e. same profession, title), she has one of her great lines. She's trying to seduce some guy who is resisting. He says: "You many not realize it, but I was once a weak man." She replies: "Once a week's enough for any man!"

I agree with you about the buddy aspect, which worked well. But the movie should have ended with the resolution, and not have had Best running out like a terrified lunatic.

The Smiling Ghost (1941) I tend to like this type of movie, a vaguely horror plot, set in a mysterious mansion populated with a lot of odd characters. This one is surprisingly posh for the genre, in terms of cast and production values, but it just gets too silly. Wayne Morris locks himself in his office, hiding from his creditors. His assistant (Willie Best) passes him milk over the transom. A phone call comes, inviting him for a job interview. Wayne and Willie go to the interview, where they are referred to Helen Westley, who is hiring a suitor for her granddaughter -- Alexis Smith -- whose boyfriends have been murdered, after each engagement. The family wants to stage a wedding to catch the murderer. Morris and Best go to the mansion, where they meet the usual gaggle of strange relatives. Charles Halton is probably the strangest. He takes a fancy to Willie Best's head and wants to shrink it for his collection. Lee Patrick is another strange one. She's obsessed with a string of pearls (a very red herring!). Alan Hale is not your usual butler. A few miles away, there is a man in an iron lung who was one of the previous suitors. Brenda Marshall is a busybody reporter. Warner Brothers gives us an A-list cast. It could have been a contender for a great film in its genre, but it just gets too crazy, and there are plot holes and confusing devices. How did the man in the iron lung (David Bruce) get inside the locked mausoleum? Why didn't Helen Westley know about all the secret passages in her house, which she has presumably lived in for decades? There are other silly and confusing issues that I won't go into. I love these movies, so I don't expect logical perfection (or perfect logic). The humour is over the top, and diminishes the movie. But you know what? Willie Best is an excellent actor, and he has some good lines. When he and Wayne Morris go to the job interview, the woman at the desk asks, "Which one of you is the applicant?" Best replies, "The light complected gentleman." Best's exchanges with the man who wants to shrink his head are also amusing. But then, they just get so into the stereotypical stuff, including fear of cemeteries; and the very end is embarrassing. For the first part of the movie, though, Best is a fairly equal sidekick to Morris. Despite my caveats, I guess I enjoyed it.

I'm just reading an excellent new biography of Tom Stoppard by Hermione Lee. It has a lot about the play and film. Here's a quote you may enjoy, related to that year's Venice festival: "The expected winner was Scorsese's Goodfellas. After Rosenkrantz was shown on 5 September, Stoppard flew back to London and asked, breaking the rules of the Festival, that he might be told the result in advance; he couldn't face going back to Venice to see Goodfellas win. "Please return to Venice," came the message... Gore Vidal, who was chairing the panel of judges (which included Omar Sharif), described Stoppard's film as "a tribute to the force of the mind, of wit and logic in human affairs." Stoppard himself thought Goodfellas was in another league altogether, and told Scorsese he would have voted for him - 'don't blame me!'"

"Long Ago and Far Away" -- sung by Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth (dubbed). I love the song; the movie, not so much. It lost to "Swinging on a Star," a decent song but certainly not as good as this: Next: An Oscar-winning song you hate (or at least really don't like)

I actually loved the production and thought it worked. I'd never seen WSS on stage, though I actually produced some programs related to it. My doctor, who loves musical theater and is a bit of a purist, was scheduled to see the new production. It was known that "I Feel Pretty" had been cut, and my doctor said that, when that point in the show arrives, he was going to stand up and boo. After he saw the show, I asked him how it went. He said he and his wife loved it with all the changes, that it totally worked, pared down and modernized. I was in the orchestra, but I think the video would have actually enhanced the experience for the balcony, since some of the projections were not canned footage, but consisted of showing the live stage, on which a camera was trained, thereby giving the balcony customers a clearer view of the actors and sets, which they would not have had with a traditional staging.

Hint: Early in her career, wife had a small part in a film with a horror icon, who was nearing the end of his career,

I know the Belmont/Mt. Carmel neighborhood well! When my family moved, I lived on the Fordham campus, but even before that (and after), a trip to Arthur Avenue for the restaurants and bakeries was among the pleasures of living in the Bronx. Btw, My Junior High School and High School graduations took place at the Loew's Paradise.

There was an excellent production of West Side Story on Broadway, which sadly had to close because of the pandemic. It was changed -- they cut "I Feel Pretty," for example -- but the whole thing thoroughly worked. Really beautiful and moving. Directed by Ivo van Hove. https://nypost.com/2020/02/20/west-side-story-broadway-review-radical-revival-is-a-triumph/ There were lots of projections which some people didn't like, but I thought they were great.

This English couple made many, many films. A few together, but most separately. He was a dependable supporting player. He was even happy with bit parts. She achieved her greatest fame for playing the same type of character in several movies. One of their sons was a guitarist with a pretty famous British rock star. Who are the couple? What roles was she most famous for? What rock star did their son play with? And for extra credit, how do you pronounce the husband's last name? And for that matter, how do you pronounce the wife's last name?

I knew Brooke Astor slightly. She was very kind to participate in a project I was working on, and I met her a few times after that. I did not know Malcolm Forbes, but someone I knew in the UK helped him with his toy soldier collection.

Not the "Fish" building, but I remember it well. A little north of there, and on the other side of the street. Where did you live? Btw, Herman, I occasionally popped into the Russian Tea Room in the days you worked there. But I don't think I ever dined there, just went for drinks, or to say "hi" to friends who were dining there.

The best films of the 1980s: 1980: Raging Bull 1981: Reds 1982: Veronika Voss 1983: Pauline at the Beach 1984: A Passage to India 1985: Out of Africa 1986: A Room with a View 1987: The Dead 1988: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown 1989: Enemies, A Love Story

I've worked with many stars, as I've dropped into conversations here over the years. But there's one "star" that I never actually met, though I could have. I grew up in a big, rather grand apartment building in the Bronx. When I was 15, one of our neighbors -- a woman named Dora Klein -- asked my mother if I'd be willing to take her granddaughter Barbara to the New York World's Fair. This was in 1965. My mother told Mrs. Klein to ask me. Mrs. Klein told me that her young granddaughter -- about the same age as me -- was coming in from California, and would I take her to the Fair. I said no. I was shy, partly because I'm gay, and in those far off closety days of my teen years, it made me uncomfortable if someone tried to fix me up with a girl. So I guess Dora Klein's granddaughter went to the Fair with someone else, perhaps her grandparents. In any case, the girl grew up to be Barbi Benton. I sometimes wonder whether, had I gone on that date, could I have saved Barbi from years of infamy with Hugh Hefner? Could she have made me straight? I think not, on both counts.

Gene Tierney (nominated for Leave Her to Heaven) and Oleg Cassini (who had plenty of aristocrats in his background) are the couple.He designed the costumes for her in The Razor's Edge and The Shanghai Gesture. He was engaged to Grace Kelly at one point. She (Ms. Tierney) had a romance with JFK. Oleg Cassini later designed for Jackie when she was First Lady.

I glimpsed the Oscar show from time to time. I haven't seen any of the movies. I actually liked the absence of banter. Quite honestly, I could have done with less politics, even though I generally agreed with the politics expressed. One thing comes to mind: The producers really DON'T know the winners in advance. If they arranged for Best Actor to end the evening, thinking that Chadwick Boseman would win, they could have easily switched back to the usual order, if they knew that Anthony Hopkins would win. So I guess the ballots are really secret!

Before he gets deified, let's remember that he was called (with some justification) the most racist man in Hollywood.

That's not a mistake. It's like the opposite of an MRI. You can take metallic objects with you, when you travel back in time the way Quintus does. You can't take your clothes, though. And besides, who are you calling witch? Livia doesn't like that: "No woman, man, or creature like yourself has dared to call her witch..."

Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer had really exceptional chemistry in History Is Made at Night (1937). I wish they had teamed up again.

"Rum and Coca-Cola" -- Sung by the Andrews Sisters; danced by Sissy Spacek in Raggedy Man (1981) Next: Another calypso or West Indian-type song in a movie

I'm delighted to see that my favorite House of Usher adaptation is scheduled for June 19 (The Fall of the House of Usher, 1949). This film used to be on a local New York horror film series ("Shock-o-Rama") when I was a kid, and it gave me nightmares. It's saddled with an odd opening (someone telling the story), but apart from that, it has some of the creepiest moments of any movie I've ever seen. Lucy Pavey as The Hag