coopsgirl

*With Cardinals, the male is the pretty one. In humans it is usually the other way around.* Not always. Oooh, I just love a man in high water britches .

Hey Chris, I'm glad you got to see *Bluebeard's Eighth Wife*, I really like that one. It's very clever and funny with Claudette trying to land Gary for good by playing hard to get. Once she proves to him she still wants him even after she gets his money, they live happily ever after . This one didn't too well even though it got good reviews and the consensus seems to be that people didn't like seeing Gary as a man who was so flippant about marriage. The only part that bothers me is when they are trying to take their wedding portrait and Gary is explaining why he marries and divorces so much and he says he can't help falling for these other girls and instead of cheating on his wives he divorces them instead. He goes off on a speech about how cheating is wrong and it's a real shame it took him so long in his own marriage to take that advice. I love it when he and Claudette are having dinner in their apartment and he's doing everything he can to get her to give in. He fixes them some strong cocktails and then fixes a salty dinner so she'll drink lots of champagne and then when they are dancing he just starts spinning her around. How pathetic is it that you have to get your wife drunk to get a little loving? Ha! Claudette doesn't fall for it though and she takes a big bite of onions right before she kissed him and he just freaks out!! I love it when she tells him "I'll fight you with every vegetable at my disposal!" That is a great line and really the whole movie is very funny. I'm glad you liked it.

Here's a video I made about Barbara Stanwyck and it's got some Gary stuff in it . I'm kinda embarassed about the song though. I was never a Ricky Martin fan but I have always loved this song. It fits her perfectly too. http://www.youtube.com/user/coopsgirl07

I love to collect old movie mags and also I have four big scrapbooks I have put together just with Gary stuff and most of that I have gotten from those clipping packets on ebay. There are a few things I have in the mags that are also in the clipping packets (articles, pics) that I know they took out of a magazine and it bothers me too that they have torn it up and sold it in pieces. I guess it doesn?t bother me enough though b/c I keep buying it. I wish I could find more Clara Bow stuff. I do have a lot of movie mags with her in it (I usually look for Gary or Clara stuff when I buy one of those) but I never see clipping packets for her . Collecting all that stuff is such a fun way to learn about what they were like and how their image was presented to the public and also what the fans and their contemporaries thought of them. I'm really surprised by how frank and honest the articles about the stars usually are. Sure, they sugar coated some things (like glossing over Gary's multiple affairs with his costars) but for the most part they are pretty frank and revealing. *For Whom the Bell Tolls* *This is from some kind of Halloween promotion* *Saratoga Trunk* *The Virginian*

These pics from *The Texan* are from the keybook of over 100 promo pics that I was bidding on a few months ago during a big Hollywood memorabilia auction. I lost by a couple hundred bucks and I had a feeling these would show up on ebay eventually. They are going for $450 a piece, far more than what the total for the entire keybook was if you add them all up. They are making some serious profit if they can actually sell any of them (which I doubt at that price). *The Texan*

The film was released in '56 but I believe it was filmed in '55 so he would have been in the 54/55 age range depending on the exact production dates. Being born in 1901 makes it easy to figure out his age based on the year of the movie. Jean Arthur, born in 1900 is another easy one to figure. I can also easily get Ronald Colman's age in any film b/c he was born 10 years before Gary so I just add 10 years to whatever Gary's age would have been. I'm so weird sometimes, but hey my system works .

That was spot on Wendy . I love how they seem like a real family. Like you said, they are all unique individuals unlike the Cleavers. I love old TV shows but I never warmed up to *Leave it to Beaver*. I don?t have any kids (still not sure if I want any or not) but I can imagine it?s very hard to let them go off on their own. I went to grad school in London when I was 23 and my parents were very supportive. I still lived at home (okay I still live there but I have my own space and it works for us even though I know most people think it?s weird ) and hadn?t been on my own too much at that point, just short trips away to visit my dad and one study abroad trip to England three years ealier with a group for about six weeks. I?m sure my parents were terrified to see my move to another country by myself for a year but I wasn?t afraid and was raring to go. It was a wonderful experience and I?m grateful to them for it . Also, *Friendly Persuasion* is available on dvd if anyone missed it or wants a copy.

Their first film together was *For Whom the Bell Tolls* in 1943 and they had quite a steamy affair while filming it and *Saratoga Trunk* which was also filmed the same year but not released until ?45. They remained friends after the sparks died and were actually going to be in *The African Queen* together but it didn?t work out and was made years later with Bogart and Hepburn instead. I?ve never liked that one but I bet I would have if it would have been Gary and Ingrid.

I totally agree about Gary?s character?s name, it?s terrible! Well, the Maginnis isn?t that bad but ?Spinal? has got to go!! I like Delmer Daves work in westerns like *The Hanging Tree* and *3:10 to Yuma* so I would pick him to direct. I can see Madeleine Carroll as Louise since she played a similar character in *Northwest Mounted Police* also with Gary. Technically she would have been too old at that point to play her but I?m not as familiar with actors who were young in the late 50s/60s so I?m going with her. Maria Schell who was in *The Hanging Tree* with Gary in ?59 and would have been young enough would also have been a good choice now that I think about it. A young Merle Oberon (same situation as Madeleine) might have been a good fit too. Each of these actresses had foreign accents though and Louise is American so they?d have to do something about that . I?m not really sure who I would pick for Buck, Spencer, and Amy but I?ll tell you how I picture them. Buck is tall, but not quite as tall as Gary and has a muscular build but not too beefy. He?s got sandy blonde hair and is a nice looking man. He?s got a pretty high opinion of himself which gets him into trouble later when he tries to take over as sheriff to no avail. Spencer is also around 6? but he?s a little slimmer and has dark brown hair, glasses and is also handsome (no ugly guys in my dream world). He looks like a smart, academic type and is more laid back than Buck. His character is in Silver Valley recuperating from TB so my idea of him being pretty mellow fits in with his character who is there for rest and relaxation. Amy is very cute and petite and her hair is always a mess from running around playing. I picture her as a blonde with fair skin and maybe just a few freckles.

Flicker Alley has a new dvd set called *Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema of the High Seas* available now for $25. It includes: *The Yankee Clipper (1927)* *Around the Horn in a Square Rigger (1933)* *The Square Rigger (1932)* *Ship Ahoy (1928)* *Down to the Sea in Ships (1922)* About *Down to the Sea in Ships*, they are only including a 10 minute whale hunting sequence so it?s not the entire film. I was very disappointed about this as it was Clara Bow?s second film (the first one she was seen in though as her scenes in *Beyond the Rainbow* were cut out). I have a pretty good copy of this but it would have been nice to get a real dvd release of it. Here?s the link for more info. http://www.flickeralley.com/fa_fullsail.html

I was happy TCM showed this one as it is a great movie, especially for families. What I like the most is how Gary?s character (and the rest of his family for that matter) was put together. He wasn?t portrayed as a holier than thou perfect Christian. None of us are perfect, no matter how hard we try or how much faith we have . He bought that organ at the fair and dunked that one rabble rouser in the water barrel and to some of his fellow Quakers he seemed not to truly be one of them and he wasn?t seen as trying hard enough to be what they thought of as a ?true Quaker?. We later see however that while he may be weak in some areas he was very strong in other?s when it really counted and he stuck to what he believed in even as other ?pious? church members turned hypocritical. Like others have said I think Perkins did a good job too and really portrayed how conflicted you can be on some serious life issues; especially when you are still young. He wasn?t sure if he would fight or not when the soldier asked him about it in church, and as the war inched ever closer to them he did what he thought was right (very reminiscent of Alvin York?s struggle as well). I?m not sure if this has been mentioned or not but Gary wanted Ingrid Bergman to play his wife and this was during the time when she was blacklisted from Hollywood. She was very moved by the offer, but turned it down not wanting to hurt his career by her association with the film. I also love the scenes with Marjorie Main and Gary; what a great team they made . My favorite part is when they decide to swap horses and she puts out her hand for him to shake and he hesitates at first and she says ?well, don?t just leave my hanging out there.? Gary was originally going to sing the theme song for this one but the studio changed its mind deciding it would be too distracting to the audience if the star (who was not known for his singing ability, which he did have) was heard warbling the theme at the beginning. Usually when you hear him singing, he?s doing a pretty poor job for comedic effect but if you listen closely while he and Marjorie?s daughters are singing together, you can hear how good a singer he was. To totally go on a fangirl rant here, the sight of Gary doing farm chores just sets my pulse racing . I dream about him quite a bit and a lot of the time, he looks like he did in this movie, Quaker clothes and all :x.

Here are a couple pages that I scanned where Gary scratched stuff out and made some notes. I'm just including the links since the pages are big. http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t163/coopsgirl_30/proudsheriff023.jpg http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t163/coopsgirl_30/proudsheriff012.jpg

I think he would have played Joel McCrea's part. I haven't seen any of those though but if Gary would have been in them, I imagine I would like them.

Gary passed away before he could make it. There were several other westerns he was lined up to do as well including *The Comancheros*, *The Sundowners*, and *Ride the High Country* to name a few, but his worsening cancer caused him to bow out of them.

John Mulholland (film historian) recently sent me a copy of an extended treatment that Gary Cooper purchased for his Baroda production company in the late 50s. It was called *The Proud Sheriff* and was written by Alan Marcus and was based on the novel by Eugene Manlove Rhodes. It is 75 pages and is written like a short story and is very detailed for a treatment. This is gonna be a long post though so I just mainly hit the high points so you can get the gist of the story. The neatest thing though is this copy Johh made came from Gary's estate and you can see where he scratched stuff out and rewrote certain words/ lines. It?s really pretty neat . Principal characters: Spinal Maginnis ? Gary Cooper Buck Logan Spencer Allen Louise Bowman It was set in 1905 in a small settlement in New Mexico called Silver Valley. This was at one point a bustling place due to the silver mines. They were now beginning to dry up though and many people were out of work as they waited to hear some news from the mine owners as to what their plans were for the future. Similar to Hadleyville in *High Noon*, Silver Valley was kind of wild until Maginnis was elected sheriff and cleaned the town up. When the story begins, Maginnis has been sheriff for 11 years and while we are never given his age, Gary would have been in his late 50s or early 60s had he lived and made the film and I imagine his character would have been somewhere in the mid to late 50s age range. Buck Logan, his young deputy who is similar to Lloyd Bridges in *High Noon*, is acting sheriff since Maginnis is recovering from the flu. In the opening scene Maginnis and the town doctor who are old friends are bantering back and forth as the doc gives him a checkup. He is for the most part back to full health but it still taking a few more days to rest. He jokes about retiring and this will be a running theme throughout the story. Maginnis is single and he tries to get the doc to stay and eat dinner with him (beans, since that seems to be about all he knows how to cook) but the doc has other patients to see and he leaves. We get some exposition about how Maginnis is a pretty solitary man and while he is very much revered in the town, very few people feel like they really know him as he keeps to himself mostly but has a pleasant personality. We find out later that he was married once but his wife was killed in a wagon accident only a month after they got married. A bunch of young punks were riding towards her in their wagon and they shot off their guns in the air and it spooked her horses which is what caused the accident. It was after that he decided to run for sheriff and clean up the town. Buck Logan, Spencer Allen (another young man who recently moved to the town), and Louise Bowman (a young nurse who has been recently widowed and has been in town about 4 months) make up a love triangle as the two men vie for her affections. Louise has a young daughter Amy (seven years old), and she is not happy about her mother spending time with Buck and Spencer. She?s a pretty spirited girl and runs away quite a bit. She?s very fond of Maginnis and he is usually the one who finds her when she runs away. In one scene early on he is riding his horse back home and he spots Amy walking down the street with a knapsack over her shoulder. She tells him she?s going to El Paso and she?s either gonna get a job or get married. He offers to take her as far as he is going and once they get to his house he convinces her to come in and have dinner. While they are eating Maginnis gets his housekeeper to go fetch Louise and tell her he has Amy. The two of them have a cute conversation as Amy asks how old he is and he tries to change the subject. When Louise gets there she finds Maginnis sitting in a rocking chair on his back porch asleep with Amy also asleep on his lap. At this point she begins to have feelings for him and I can?t say as I blame her. The way the scenes are written between Maginnis and Amy are very sweet and they kind of remind of the scene in *The Hanging Tree* where Gary?s character is doctoring a sick young girl. He?s very sweet with her and it just makes me melt. Louise decides to go back in and wash up their dishes and this wakes up Maginnis and he?s surprised to see her doing that. He lays the sleeping Amy in Louise?s wagon and fills Louise in on the conversation they had. Amy got it set in her mind that her mother should marry Maginnis so he warns her to be prepared if Amy talks about that when she wakes up. Maginnis says something like ?crazy idea huh?? but Louise begins to flirt with him and says ?Is it?? and then drives off leaving him very confused. Meanwhile the main plot of the movie begins to unfold. A group of Apaches come in to town and they are carrying one man on a stretcher who looks very sick. The doctor has gone out of town to investigate a possible case of meningitis so the townspeople are trying to run the Apaches off before they contaminate everyone. Spencer feels sorry for them and tells them they can stay on his property. Buck thinks he is crazy for doing this and the animosity between these two begins to show. At Buck?s insistence they recently got a telephone installed in the sheriff?s office but one of the old men in town who is kinda crazy has just cut down the phone poles so they cannot make or receive any calls. At first this is played for comedy but it will become more serious as hysteria grips the town and they are cut off from everyone. They cut to the group of Apaches doing a ceremonial dance around the sick one and then in contrast they cut to a dance in town. One of the older men in town has recently married a much younger woman and they have just arrived back home so the dance also doubles as a wedding celebration. Most of the other older men in town, including Maginnis, think it?s ridiculous for this man to have married such a young woman but Maginnis decides to go to the dance anyway to pay his respects. He gets all gussied up but as he walking towards the schoolhouse for the dance, he feels embarrassed and nearly goes back home. Louise had teased him earlier by asking if he was going and he had told her he wasn?t. He ends up dancing with Louise but he feels as ridiculous as the old man and his young bride look, so he leaves. Later on Amy and a couple other little girls are playing on Spencer?s land when they see the sick Apache. They got pretty close to him before they saw a group of townspeople coming and they hid behind a barn or some other building. They heard the adults talking about how bad he was and they got scared and ran back home. Later that day as the sick Apache got worse his fellow tribesmen leave and Spencer chases after them. Now one of the girls begins to think she is sick and the town becomes outraged that Spencer let those Apaches stay and they assume that when he saw how bad the man had gotten he also abandoned them. Louise examines the girl and tries to tell them there is nothing wrong with her but the older women in town who practice folk medicine don?t trust this young nurse and her new fangled ways. They are anxious for the doctor to get back and we find out that the meningitis scare was a false alarm and the doctor is casually making his way back since he is unaware of the emergency in town. He hitches a ride with the workers from the telephone company who are putting the poles back up so his progress back home is quite slow. Buck is letting the power of being the acting sheriff go to his head so Maginnis steps back in even though he was seriously beginning to contemplate retiring and leaving the town in Buck?s hands. Meanwhile the sick Apache has died and there are several of the men from town just standing around his body afraid to bury it. Louise knows it has to be done so she grabs a shovel and starts digging. Maginnis comes by in time to see this and he takes the shovel from her and does the job while the others just stand around feeling ashamed. His feelings are beginning to grow for her but he thinks that he is too old to get married again to anyone, let alone someone as young and pretty as Louise. I like how they put that doubt in his character instead of just putting the older man together with the younger woman automatically, which was (still is) typical for a lot of films. Maginnis goes back to town and begins to put up signs telling people not to congregate and to stay at home just in case something may be going around. He tries to get people to stay calm and tells them to just wait until the doctor gets back so he can examine the girls who believe they are sick. Many of the younger men ignore him as they are now lining up behind Buck who is trying to take power for himself. He shows his immaturity as he tries to incite the townspeople to turn back to the old ways and basically run around a mob dishing out justice as they see fit. Eventually Spencer rides back into town and Mr. Blackman, who is the father one of the girls who believes she is sick, chases after him and finally catches up with him in the sheriff?s office where they get in a terrible fight and Spencer manages to grab a gun and shoots Blackman in self defense, killing him. This causes even more of an uproar in the town with one group wanting Maginnis to smuggle Spencer away until he can be tried and another group ready to lynch him. So Maginnis comes up with a plan as he tries to avert further panic. He tells Spencer to pretend to be holding him at gunpoint and they?ll ride out of town to await his trial. Spencer refuses at first but eventually goes along with it. When they go outside they find Buck and his men waiting and as Maginnis and Spencer get on the wagon, Buck slowly walks towards them menacingly until Spencer fires. The gun was empty however and Spencer pushes Maginnis off the wagon and takes off. Louise has seen all this and she realizes that Maginnis was willing to risk his own career and reputation to help Spencer and the town. Buck and his men chase Spencer into one of the mines where Spencer crashes and dies. Finally the doctor arrives back in town as Buck is explaining what happened to Spencer and he pronounces all the girls healthy. Upon hearing that two men had died for nothing, Maginnis and Buck get into a fight in the street and Maginnis whoops his sorry butt. Next we cut to a man answering the phone in the sheriff?s office since the lines have been fixed. The caller asks for the sheriff and the man tells him he retired and they are temporarily without a sheriff. Then we cut to Maginnis, Louise and Amy riding off to their new home together. Amy asks if there will be any young people where they are going and Maginnis jokingly says ?aren?t I young enough for you?? Amy teases him saying nobody would call him young. Then he says ?Watch this!? as he grabs Louise and kisses her good while Amy laughs and their dog barks. Amy tells the dog to hush up and that newly married people always do crazy stuff like that.

I?m kinda disappointed that they are only showing four films (plus a doc) on the 7th for Coop?s birthday. Since they have been showing more Universal owned Paramount films lately I was hoping for some of his early films that have practically been forgotten and that I would love to have better copies of. The print they recently showed of *City Streets* on TCM France was pristine and while I was able to get a copy of it, it does have French subtitles. It would be wonderful to see that and some other of his early works on our TCM here. While I have a good copy of *One Sunday Afternoon*, I?m glad they are showing it again for people who haven?t seen it. I think the last time it aired was in Dec ?06. There are some good early 30s films though and also *The White Sister*, so it?s not a total bust . I know the TCM programmers work hard to bring us a wide variety of stars and films and I hope I don?t sound too complaining b/c TCM is the best channel on TV and I?d be very bored without it .

I have requested *Children of Divorce* several times and I?m gonna keep it up . With TCM showing more Paramount/Universal films lately and in the coming years, maybe we?ll get a screening of it one of these days. I guess everybody has that one film they desperately want and this one is mine. It was definitely a departure from Clara?s usual fare with a very dramatic plot. Given better material, I believe she really could have excelled as a dramatic actress and from what I?ve heard, her death scene in *Children of Divorce* was very well acted and beautifully filmed. I agree too that it is a great shame that silent films aren?t part of the public domain. While there is demand for them it isn?t always great enough for some studios (like Paramount and Universal especially) to release them on dvd. There are several companies out there now who specialize in releasing good quality public domain films so thanks to them we?d be able to see many more of these silent treasures if the law ever gets repealed/expires.

*did Gary Cooper ever go shirtless in his early career?* He went more than shirtless in *Wolf Song* (1929). Y'all know I just can't resist any excuse to post that pic .

*Olive Borden* *Corinne Griffith (1926)* *Norma Talmadge*

*Ad for Legion of the Condemned (1928)*

It?ll probably be another year and half before I say another bad thing about him too (if you disregard my rants about how awful *The Fountainhead* is) . About Elvis?s snacks, I grew up on peanut butter and banana sandwiches and it?s like eating a little bit of Heaven; provided of course you don?t get Salmonella from the PB!

Eating cheese with applie pie has been around a long time. I love cheese but the thought of eating those two together grosses me out too. In the scene in *Meet John Doe* where Gary is ordering room service he orders apple pie with cheese. I thought he had better taste than that . The only kinda weird thing I do food wise is putting salt on watermelon and I got that from my dad. If you put just a little on there it will bring out the sweetness. Too much though and you just get salty watermelon .

*bet you got all sorts of compliments when you were a kid* Yeah, then puberty hits and it's all downhill from there!!

I bet you were a cute kid . I certainly don't think of myself as model material (I guess I'm cute/pretty but not model good looking) so it's cool to see people that look like you doing stuff like that. It's weird to watch that movie b/c it's kinda like watching myself. Our eyes are exactly the same and it's just too freaky. What's weird though is I don't look like that same actress when she grew up. I guess we're just enough different to look different as adults.

When I was little I looked like the girl from *Curse of the Cat People*. Same hair and everything. You put glasses on her and it's me. I also have an ad that my mom found back in the mid 90s in a Better Homes and Garden magazine and the girl in it could have been my exact twin. We would have been the same age and we had the same hairstyle and everything. Clearly I missed my calling and should've been an actress/model instead of a social researcher .