CineMaven
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Posts posted by CineMaven
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"And now, my dear, remove your dress. I'll see you with only a doctor's eye." I'll have to try that one out!?
Happy Thanksgiving Dr. Love: ?I like all kinds of flirtation, actually. I love femmes fatale but I also I love repressed women. I tend to like the silly flirts more than the overly serious ones.?
Repression can be sexy. While other girls might be more obvious: (Jayne, Marilyn, Rita, Sophia et al), there?s something very...je ne sais quoi about Deborah Kerr and peeling back her layers of Upright Lady-ness. I think of her in "Black Narcissus.?
?I find femmes fatales to be entertaining to watch because of how they use sex as a weapon. But the ones I personally like are the softer flirts who have sex on their mind but love in their heart. That's someone like Grace Kelly.?
Aaaah yes, that's right...you?re a Kelly man. See, with her you can be nurtured and get some lovin? up too. Sounds like the best of both worlds. The word sexy doesn?t quite come to my mind when I think of her. The closeup Hitch gave her kissing James Stewart was hot though. And she is gor-geous to look at. I did see her as sexy in the shot...the film clip they show of her walking through the hotel with Cary Grant in ?To Catch A Thief.? Or...hmmm...maybe it's just that she exuded confi-dence. I thought Kim Novak was Hitch?s sexiest blonde. (Sorry Jackaaaaaaay).
?Do you think I would have ever watched a film like ?Love Me Tonight? before this board? I think it's more enjoyable to find out about yourself with the help of others. They can take you places that you would never go on your own.?
I?m with you there. I might go kicking and screaming into the frontier...but once I?m there and I have the guide posts of many posters' posts...I settle down and am okay.
?I think Myrna is all three. But, like Carole, I think Myrna is more about sweet and silly than sexy. She started off as sexy but ended up being sweet and silly. Still, I think she possesses all three.?
In ?THE RAINS CAME? Myrna was very sexy. I remember being a little shocked at her being sexy, becuz I normally don't think of her as sexy. Look at her with George Brent...how she leans in to get her cigarette lit and the look she gives him. (They're on a veranda and then there's lightning). Later on she?s busy trying to be noble enough for Tyrone Power, but before that... hotcha!
?That's a very interesting story. Actually, I think Myrna looks better in white than black. But, then again, I personally prefer women in lighter colors.?
And this brings to mind LANA in ?The Postman Always Rings Twice? She wore WHITE like a mere mortal woman would wear RED. (?Jungle Red!!!!?)
?Clownish" is something that I really like in a guy. Cary Grant was one of the biggest clowns around.?
< Sigh! > My dream man. He could do anything: comedy, drama, even clowning. But I?m not crazy about buffoonery. That?s what kills Fred MacMurray for me. But Cary...aaaah: he?s with Katharine, with Myrna, with Irene, with Lombard, with Doris...and with Ingrid.
?...I want a sexy Quaker girl.?
Don?t they grow ?em that way in Pennsylvania? Just stay away from the pre-teens.
?Wow! This is amazing! I think of Ingrid as being one of the sweetest of all but not that sexy.?
See...that?s a good thing. So when you and Molo go out on the town tomcatting around...you won?t get in each other?s way liking the same type of girl.
I find Ingrid Bergman incredibly sexy... she?s from Sweden...land of the Ekberg.
?Sexy? I just don't find her to be this. She's generally a girl who is leading with her heart, wanting a man, even pleading for a man's love. Sexy usually talks for you. Marilyn didn't have to plead for a guy. Her sex appeal did that for her. She rarely begged. I think every single film I have seen Ingrid in, she's desperately pleading with a man for his love. And this is why I love Ingrid Bergman. Lots of want in her.?
Yes you?re sooo right. You?ve pegged her eloquently. She expresses Desire (with a capital D) very very well. She is soft and needs protection like you said. Does that translate into sexiness? Maybe yes...maybe no. I can?t watch her tortured. She was sexy to me in Tracy?s ?Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.? She?s not afraid to touch her leading men. I?ve seen her stroke their face with the back of her hand, probably surprising them. She?s touchy feely, she?s luminous, you can break her with a mean glance (when she?s soft...she?s a little more worldly in later years). Her smile and openness is sexy to me. It?s a different type of sexiness...a sexiness from within instead of using her outer accoutre-ments. You'd die for her to smile at you. If she?s standing up close and personal to you...I doubt you'd have a chance.
Check this out:
You'll get many different women (cynical, shy, loving, desirous, contemptuous, longing) all in one woman. I find that to be very sexy. Ohhhhhkay, wait. I'll concede the point. She's very sensuous... and there is a difference.
Edited by: CineMaven on Nov 24, 2010 6:16 PM...oh boy, many mea culpas for NOT mentioning Woody Strode. Now that was just plain silly of me.
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G?morning MadHat: ...?No good reasons, just plain irrational fear of Jeanette MacDonald movies. I actually like her as an actress and a concept, but I don't particularly care for the operetta type films she made or her operatic singing style. Though I respect the talent, I guess I'm just low-brow that way. I have always said that I like all types of movies except for operettas, and I want to like those. I just don't and I consider it a fault.
It's the same reason I avoid Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell (when she's in her high tone style) movies.?It?s your low-brow sistuh under the mink or flannel here, Molo. I had a period of eating up everything Nelson & Eddy years ago. Operettas are not my cuppa tea, either. I, on the other hand, have an irrational fear and aversion to Claudette Colbert.
?You ask a difficult question and I always seem to end up with Alice Faye! It's the sweet that is harder than the sexy. Alice Faye was sweet and sexy, Betty Hutton was sweet and sexy but theirs is an apple pie wholesome sexy, not a Rita Hayworth everything else be damned kind of sexy. Then again, Faye had her moments.?
I agree with Miss G. about there being something manic about Hutton. But I like her raucousness. I have, at times, had to give her a double take in the sexy department and just figured her rowdy, barrelhousiness came from tamping down the sexiness. Sexy girls were a dime-a-dozen. What niche could Betty carve to make herself a financial commodity...oh, "HE SAYS MURDER HE SAYS..."
I believe I?ve heard you wax on about Alice Faye before...and I have to agree with you. I know her swan song was ?Fallen Angel? before she came back about 20 years later with ?State Fair.? But I bring up ?Fallen Angel? b?cuz I thought she was very sexy in it. Her cascading thick blonde hair (after she escaped her sister and took her hair out of those godawful milkmaid braids), her full lips...and husky voice, big moist eyes lookin? up at a fella. In fact, I?ll go so far as to say when I watch ?Fallen Angel? she and Linda Darnell seem to be the dark and the light of each other. They looked alike to me in that film; I guess career-wise, Darnell was played up to be the Vamp and Faye was a bit of the Girl Next Door. Faye in her Gay Nineties Lillian Russell gear wasn?t too shabby though. I marvel at the ability of all these actresses to heat it up and to cool it down. Look at Darnell in ?Blood and Sand.? Nice ?n sweet. You don?t even see her when Rita comes blazing on the screen.
?Janet Gaynor was sweet. Ava Gardner was sexy. Does the sexy necessarily have to taint the sweetness??
I?d say it wouldn?t taint it, but it'd probably be the cherry on top of the sweetness.
"Harlow could be sweet and sexy, and Monroe, but so could Donna Reed and Doris Day. There was a sex appeal to Lombard and Irene Dunne but are they sexy in the sense of an Ingrid Bergman, who I think exuded real sex appeal, but was Ingrid ever really sweet? Are you sorry you asked??
I hope it won?t be (too) wrong of me to qualify the word sexy with my very own dictionary of adjectives. Out of all you mentioned in this segment of your post, Ingrid and Irene and Doris and Donna in general weren?t the plunging neckline/tight dress sexy type of gals. Doris is very sexy. It was hidden behind her freckles and sunshininess and her California blondness. (Yes, I know she?s a German Kappelhoff from Cincinnati). She had a wholesome sexiness. (?So that?s what?s at the other end of my party-line.?) I think Irene is intelligently sexy. You know...not the va-va-va voom type, but her toothy smile and that throaty laugh...I found her very sexy in ?The Awful Truth? (or was it the fact that Cary wanted her back so badly that made her sexy?) Nope...her knowing laugh while waiting for him in bed at the end of ?...Truth? clinches it. I thought she was very sexy in ?A Guy Named Joe.? Tracy?s no Cary or no Gable...but you knew he had a grown up woman on his hands in that film. And I enjoyed her with sweet young Van Johnson. I didn?t find Donna Reed sexy, but sweet (like Teresa Wright) yes...and maybe sweet IS sexy for some men. Ha...it was so shocking to see her in that Hawaiian ?house? in "From Here to Eternity.? But I don?t know if my sensibilities said: S-E-X-Y!
"Also Ingrid had an earthy sexuality about her, similar to what I have seen in Ava...I agree that ?sexy usually talks for you? and I can see what you are saying. I guess I just find her innately sexy. I don't find the wanting in her character canceling that out. This is obviously a rather complex topic for me. I think the term ?sexy? can apply to different women in different ways. I'm going GREY here. What I find sexy about Bergman, doesn't necessarily crossover to Gloria Grahame and certainly is different than the wide open sex appeal of Marilyn.?
INGRID-GLORIA-MARILYN. Whew! WHat a lovely crayon box you've opened covering the rainbow spectrum of sexiness. Marilyn...very vulnerable but the most obvious. I go to my favorite Village bar every Friday night and am allowed to occasionally bring a movie. Two weeks ago I brought ?Niagara.? First and foremost its in color...and any movie in color will be more receptive to that drunken lot. Secondly, it has Marilyn. I love Marilyn in it ?cuz she wasn't the clueless blonde she later played. She was blazingly sexy here, while Jean Peters tamped down her hotness to play a housewife; whether in her red dress singing to the record player, or her black suit with white blouse...Marilyn is simply Mt. Vesuvius. GLO-LO's sexy is a tad quieter. She?s no buxom blonde. She?s very feline...she purrs. Remember her dancing with the soldier in ?Crossfire?? Whew, no? In "The Bad and the Beautiful? I?d say not nerdy, but bargaining with sex. Playfully teasing with it. I?ve seen many pictures on the Gloria Grahame thread where she?s looking dead in the camera practically saying ?I.Dare.You.?
INGRID BERGMAN...Well. Now that?s a whole different kettle of fish for me. Yes, even with all my talk of AvaAvaAva...and with getting some folks? thoughts about the difference between Ava and Rita...Bergman is my Achilles Heel.
"I told you I haven't been sleeping for the past few days. I can't ponder without a clear head. Alice and I are going home now.?
Oh really? You with Alice? Well, I?m telling Glo-lo you?re being unfaithful. You?ll have hell to pay then, bub. She may purr you silly!
And if you guys ever venture into sexiness of the Gables, Peck, Cochran, Mason, Sanders, Raft, LaRue, Errol, Cary, Tyrone, Randolph, Brent, Mitchum, Ryan, Troy, Redford, Rock Hudson, Dana Andrews, Coop, Newman or Clinton Sundberg I?ll be ready.
Apparently, I can talk out of both sides of my mouth.
More on sexiness later. I'm being driven from Worcester to Leominster now.
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Better moderation of this Message Board.
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Even with the patch...I'm sure Raoul Walsh could see the Oomph of Ann Sheridan. Thanx for the photo, Mongo.
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Ollie Ollie Oxen-Free. How ya doin' boy? My sister & I used to fight over the tv in our bedroom. My mother's stint as "U Thant" of our household did the best mediation job in my life's history on the tv front. She asked me (first) what day did my favorite show come on? I told her "Monday, 'The Big Valley.' So I had Monday, Wednesday and Fridays...my sister had Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and my mother said "Sunday you can kill each other."
We never killed each other...(though I almost bought the farm when I borrowed her sweater without permission) but I got to see Stanwyck in "The Big Valley." I appreciated her when I was in junior high school, and I appreciate her now as my AARP mail rolls in. (There's some mix-up... I think my folks put the wrong year on my birth certificate).
"No one in God's Good Set..." cracked me up man.
HEY BRONXIE!!!! How's the luau prep coming along? Are you up to your ears in pineapple? Ooh, or was that you, Ollie....
Oy!
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"What are you asking for...permission?!!!"
You know, as I'm watching "East Side, West Side" a horrifying thought just came to my head: what if Barbara Stanwyck had been acting like a tough girl in all those roles in all those years when what she was really doing was hiding the sweet vulnerable hurt girl she is inside?
When she's in the kitchen with Heflin, her arms behind her back and the apron...and the Brooklyn way she speaks Italian and her easy way she was with him and the way she properly enunciates her words, I saw such a sweetness in Barbara Stanwyck (and not just as her character in "ES,WS." Her own marriage to Robert Taylor fell or would soon be falling apart.
So far Mason has come home from a tryst with Ava, The Temptress. I pretty much want to smash his face in.
Oh and by the way...when husbands or wives in movies ask: "Why don't we go down to______ for a few weeks, just the two of us..lets get away...alone, the two of us, the way it should be..." spouses should really go.
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Don't tell me Fredric March is in spandex walking the rope in a circus, is he??? I know of this film, and seeing La Grahame is always worth at least one visit. I'm out and about now...but knowing FMC, this flick should be repeated.
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Go back to that trailer I cited for you a couple of posts down:
(http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3940615705/)
I love the shot of the bell. I love the shot of the bullfighter. James Mason has one of the great voices as I think we talked about in another thread from long long ago.
But listen to Ava at 1:09 when she says:
"I'd die for you without the least hesitation."
Your description is soooooo on the money, Jax. No wonder Frankie"s and Mickey's brain cells exploded and they never recovered.
Oh...and your pictures are worth a thousand words!
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Hi there Jackaaaaaaaaay. I agree with you. Rita might be a name that might more readily come to mind thanxx to the studio push...but Ava, well Ava seemed to be in charge of her life.
I've started to re-visit "East Side, West Side." One question...wasn't it inhumanly possible to have the figure that Ava had? That black cocktail dress when we first see her was WoW!!! She had a waist like a wasp!!!
And yet I can envision when the director yelled "CUT!" Ava walking off the set with shoes in hand, to go to her trailer, putting a bathrobe over the dress, and eating some good down home fried chicken.
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I don't think my friend was saying the studios "manufactured a star." What he was saying was that the studios did give Rita a makeover...but Ava's look wasn't really touched by the studios. He'd agree with you that the PUBLIC made the stars. Look at, who was it now...Anna Sten? Didn't they try to create the next Garbo with her...give her the big build-up? Or am I thinking of Sigrid Gurie? Or was it Valli?
I've been checking out Frances Gifford. I really like her...liked the way about her in films. She did some M-G-M too ("Cry Havoc"). But she (I guess) did lack some indefinable " IT " that would make the public flock to her films, let the studios see their coffers fill up when her films screened hence making studio heads take notice and give her bigger films, better scripts, top-notch "A" list leading men and directors that deliver Oscars.
You're right (and Bob would agree with you)..."in the end each actor/actress had to face that camera alone."
Yes, like you said...we're still talking about them now. And Bob agrees that they are remembered, and loved.
No worries, Marco. I don't hate you. Now Doodles Weaver...aye yi yi...that's another story.
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:-)
Well if I do say so myself Ro, I taught Eleanora Duse, Lynn Fontanne, Helen Hayes, Sarah Bernhardt and Eva LaGallienne all they knew. And the Merm sat at the feet of my shiny pa-
tent leather shoes as well.
Really.
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The next time you folks come and check this Ava thread...I wanted you to read the thoughts
of my dear good friend, college classmate and classic films lover, R. R. I asked Bob to tell me
what he thought the difference was between Ava and Rita. Please read below. Thanxxxx for your time....
"Wow! That's a question and a half, my friend. I've been mulling it over for almost two hours.
First, though, there are similarities. They were close in age, they signed with major studios while still in their teens, their first notable films were made on loan when they were in their early twen-
ties, after that, their studios began to treat them as stars but most of their best pictures were made for other companies, they both considered studio employment as next to slavery.
Now, the differences between them, and let me stress that I love them both.
Ava was a natural beauty who projected an innate eroticism, without doing anything, not unlike Louise Brooks or Jean Harlow. She seems to have had a remarkable sense of humor which helped keep her on a more or less even keel throughout the ups and downs of her career and
her life. She was a survivor, and she projected this.
Rita was a graceful, sensitive, vulnerable girl and woman, always under the control of, and being shaped by, men: her father, studio personnel, husbands. In their hands, she became a manufac-tured commodity. They dyed her hair, raised her hairline, and taught her how to Act Sexy. She was, as Scottie says of Judy, 'a very apt pupil.' Her truest moments on screen were when she danced, and her natural grace flowered, and the few times, even in a 'typical' Hayworth role like 'Gilda', where she showed her vulnerability. This poor woman was not a survivor, and it's a mira-
cle that she lasted as long as she did.
Rest in peace, Ava and Rita. Thanks to the magic of movies, you are remembered, and you are loved."
I want to thank Bob...and all of you who have shared your thoughts. Sometimes I don't have the words for my thoughts and feelings about these great stars. I just have electrical impul-
ses, heart palpitations and rapt gaa-gaa goo-goo drooling attention for all my favorite actors and actresses. Your words help my brain explain things to my heart.
Thank you.
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Please tell me who is Criswell's hairstylist. I love his highlights and the little swirl of hair in front. The swirl reminds me of the water going down drain in "Psycho."
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Please tell me who is Criswell's hairstylist. I love his highlights and the little swirl of hair in front. The swirl reminds me of the drain in "Psycho."
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Did you get to see the exhibit?
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I think I am the only one here who portrayed a Dr. Seuss diva.
If you were one too...come out of the woodwork.
In the third grade "My Fair Lady" was the big hit of Broadway. And our school play was "HORTON HATCHES THE EGG." I played Maisie Bird (which might have been a portent of things to come in my real life).
The book was written as a play for school...a musical, in fact. I have no memory of anything else...
no triumphant reviews...no getting to stay up late. I remember performing it at assembly for the kids but getting the chicken pox and NOT getting to perform it for the PTA. I do remember a bit of my solo. Please sing this to the tune of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from "My Fair Lady."
"All I want
is a little rest
Someone else
to sit on my nest.
A chance
To fly down
South or West
Wouldn't it
be Loverly."
Thank you! Thank you! I was no threat to Mary Martin or Julie Andrews or Mitzi Gaynor or Carol Channing. But the applause still rings in my ears all these years later. Our dear Robert O. was lucky I didn't bust out with that while I was on his set.
:-)
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...Or vice versa.
I put that cryptic remark here, b'cuz I dare not lose the respect of any of you by putting it next to the straight line I read.
So...."EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE" a dud, ey? I thought it was your typical "woman's picture" from the "movies-fights-off-television" nineteen fifties. Oh well...you can't win 'em all. But if I go by some of the criteria you guys give, I might not like half the classics I see.
For old movies...I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. Okay...take "Two Girls and A Sailor" yester-
day, with June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven and Van Johnson. I could have been shocked with horror, or bowled over by derisive laughter at the thought of June and Gloria, picking up a slew of service-men on leave, to go back to their apartment to just eat sandwiches. Oh, there no other girls there... just June and pretty little Gloria handing out sandwiches.
No servicemen got out of line, no body got hurt, nobody lost their dignity. Servicemen...on leave... going off to fight the Axis powers...possibly NEVER coming home again...with just two young ladies.
And all they did was ate sandwiches.
Yeah right.
But hell, it's Hollywood. It's the forties. It's fantasy. I buy it and keep going. What percentage of our ol' faves can pass the fine-tooth comb of logic and reality.
By the by...I really disliked the women's hairstyles of the fifties. I liked hair longer. That Lollabrigida poodle cut was one I never favored.
"Man up???" Oooooh, I hope I NEVER hear that expression again. It reminds me of how close we came to disaster with that screaming banshee out west who ran every time she encountered a real journalist. (But it fer shure did make me chuckle out loud when I read it in reference to Missy). You know...these are the times when I think Stanwyck is 'acting' when she lets the guy get the best of her.
I recorded "EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE." I think I'll have it running in the background of the editing chores I have to do and see if I need some Pepto Bismol.
Whew! Tough crowd here in ZsaZsa land.
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"Saw EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE for the first time this afternoon. What was everybody thinking?"
Evening. Had a wonderful time.
Bronxie, when you see a plot go south like that...just focus on Ava. (The Naked Maja) is on YouTube. I'll probably catch it there.
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LOL!!!! Henry Daniell???? Awmigawd!!
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Swell. We're two intelligent gals. :-)
Now, what does anthropomorphic mean?
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"Rita seems more luxurious."
Hmmmm...luxurious. What a megaliciously delicious description.
You should have seen the greeting she gave James Craig this morning in her beautifully tailored riding habit. She sounded so...l dunno...like a real down home girl. But in her riding gear she truly looked to the manor born. The thought came to me (as I wrote earlier) that this girl from a little town in North Carolina, could become so European-like in her movies. (Though if I were to be totally truthful, her Spanish accent in "The Barefoot Contessa" was a little tough to take. But listen, I forgive her anything).
What films have you seen of Ava's and what films have you seen of Rita's?
Do you think Ava could have played the mighty "GILDA?" Could she be love-sick over Glenn Ford? Desperate? Tortured? Vulnerable? Masochistic??? Could you see her as Gilda?
WHEN GODDESSES COME TO EARTH
Ava and Rita are two, maybe the only two who made movies in the forties where they played goddesses who came down to Earth:
"Down to Earth" (1947)
"One Touch of Venus" (1948)
Not even the great Hedy Lamarr did that.
Edited by: CineMaven on Nov 19, 2010 1:14 PM
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Their promos should be anthropomorphized. They are living breathing organic things. The intelli-gence and knowledge behind TCM's promos stagger me, leave me breathless, stop me dead in my tracks.
The one on Ava did. The one Jeffrey Irons narrated is a total killer.
TCM, An Anthropomorphicist's Delight.
Oh god, does that even [/i]make[/i] any sense???
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I have to say I do miss the overhead shot of that young man running up the steps in slo-mo. :-(
It's the same reason I avoid Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell (when she's in her high tone style) movies.?
EARTHQUAKE -- "You've just rammed into Zsa Zsa Gabor's hedges!"
in Hot Topics
Posted
EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE has actors I like: Stanwyck (love her vulnerable), Mason, Sondergaard, Gardner, and Heflin. I just think the script could have been better.
So there, lol!
I hear ya.
Not to change the subject, but....we are plagued here in Boca by a new critter threat: a vicious, crazed, rabid OTTER that is menacing our community and is still at large. One
near-victim said that it bolted out of a canal and came running towards him with "dete-
rmination". The gent further explained: "That was no cute, playful Disney animal. It
wanted me dead".
Looks like you've got your own "Wild Kingdom" down in Florida. Be careful of otters and plaid-wearing men (though I always loved Tim Matheson).
Hope you had a wonderful Thanxxxxxxxxxxxxgiving, Bronxie.
C.M.