Arturo
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Posts posted by Arturo
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*I've always felt that Berman's performance in "Gaslight" is one of the greatest ever put on the screen. I was blown away the first time I saw it, and as many times as I've seen it since then, my opinion has not changed. I just can't imagine anyone else in that role.*
I think Bergman was great in GASLIGHT (nor can I imagine the originally scheduled Hedy Lamarr doing a comparable job), but I think she was better in FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLL. In early 1945, when the Academy voted, she was just about the hottest property in Hollywood. So it wasn't a stretch to vote for her, although I too think that Stanwyck should have Finally been given her due for one of her greatest performances.
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*As great as Tallu is in LIFEBOAT, she is sort of fighting for screen time with the rest of the ensemble. I think she is much more queen bee in A ROYAL SCANDAL...plus she has all those fabulous outfits and the excellent mise-en-scene to show off her gorgeous figure as she prances around the palace.*
Yes, but prancing around the palace and showing off her gorgeouse figure in all those fabulous outfits does not an Oscar-nominated performance make. She was much better acting in LIFEBOAT, even if it WAS Tallulah being herself (or her stage self) it was still a great performance, and her best by far on film IMHO.
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A close second would be Ginger Rogers in KITTY FOYLE. Although she was good in it, several of the others were more deserving IMHO, but I believe Ginger got it due to what was seen as a rather courgeous attempt at drama.
This caused a domino effect for the following year, when the overlooked Joan Fontaine got it over better deserving rivals as a consolation.
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*It's the most inexplicable Oscar choice for Best Actress of the 1940s -- perhaps of all time?*
It was a sort of lifetime achievement award. Loretta had many better performances, especially in the 30s.
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*Didn't have the fame of a Bardot, Loren or Deneuve, but I think she had more natural talent and a greater body of work than those other European stars.*
Moreau had worldwide fame, but did not get the same recognition in the States as some of these other more conventionally sexy and/or beautiful women, who also made headlines more often.
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*I disagree about the Nancy Olson subplot. It, or something like it, was needed to maintain a contact for Gillis with the outside world. Without it, the film would have been strident, "one-noted", and limited.*
I agree that the "nancy olson subplot" is necessary; however, the problem for me also is Nancy Olson. I too find her bland, and feel that this storyline would have worked better with another actress. Interestingly, Paramount (and others) saw Olson and Holden as a viable team, and costarred them a few times. -
*It was probably a condition of her loan out contract. (Scott) Maybe she was considered a bigger star at the time. Odd, though as her role was subordinate to Greer's.....*
I think the billing reflects that Jane was on the outs with Howard Hughes, since she had repudiated his (sexual?, romantic? both?) advances. She would soon leave RKO in disgust.
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*Special mention should be given to Gene Tierney who truly had the best role of her career in 1945's LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN.*
Not to take away from her performance in LHTH, but I think her role as Isobel in THE RAZOR'S EDGE was better, and she was better in it IMHO.
Of all the injustices and omissions over the years on the part of the Academy, one of the biggest is Tallulah Bankhead NOT EVEN getting nominated for LIFEBOAT.
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*Too bad she didn't do a film musical without Fred, as it would've been interesting to see that.*
This is incorrect. Besides those she did pre-Astaire (42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, etc.) she did LADY IN THE DARK in 1943, well after the Astaire series was over.
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*Plus, the other actresses you name were in other types of film too, but Joan was almost exclusively in melodramas ( ok, "women's pictures", if you will.)*
What happens is people focus on the films she made for Warner Bros. and later (mid-40s on), when the large majority of her movies were melodramas. However, while under contract at MGM, especially in the 1930s, she did all types of movies. She did make a number of comedies (i've posted the names of some), plus westerns, as well as musicals, mostly in the 30s but TORCH SONG is from the 50s (she became a star intially as a dancing flapper). So I don't know that I would find it accurate to say she was more exclusively doing melodramas compared to Davis, Stanwyck, etc.
Edited by: Arturo on Jun 30, 2011 8:31 PM
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*Re: Columbia...*
*How about their atomic disaster flicks; always set in the desert, for some reason.*
The reason being that that's where the testing of atomic bombs, etc. went (goes?) on. So you get the mutant creatures that were affected by the close proximity.
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While not now known for her comedies, she made a few, especially in the mid-30s. Without going into the silent era, I could think of these right now:
Forsaking All Others - 1934
I Live My Life - 1935
No More Ladies - 1935
Love On The Run - 1936
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney - -1937
The Bride Wore Red -1937
(The aforementioned) The Women - 1939
They All Kissed the Bride - 1942
Goodbye My Fancy - 1951
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*I do not have a need to put a label on everything. In fact, I sometimes think it would be better if we ignored labels and just accepted each and every film on its own merits and style. Same with music, for that matter.*
This is what I'm talking about. Too many people here saying this film is a "western-noir' this, and a "joan o noir" that . . . the labeling thing is taken to ridiculous lengths. What really raised my hackles about your post, was when you stated that she invented a sub-genre; she did not.
*That said, you surely must agree that Joan Crawford was in a lot of melodramas, if we are going to talk genres, that was the kind of picture she acted in the most.*
Yes, but so did many other women back then. At Warner Brothers, Joan's berth from the mid 40s to the early 50s, other stars featured in similar melodramas during that period include Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Patricia Neal, even Lauren Bacall among the contract stars, and Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell among the free-lancers. So there was nothing unique in the type of film that Joan made there; in fact, we now know that the stars were interchangeable to an extent (insofar as a script meant for one might be offered to others there).
*So I just thought I'd play with her name a bit and came up with Joan-o-drama. It's not intended to be taken seriously, it doesn't mean I dislike Joan Crawford, and there's no need to be so poe-faced about it.*
I guess what really irks me about that label, besides the fact that the aforementioned stars all made "Joan-o-dramas", is that it preempts a perfectly acceptable, and long-accepted term (one of my pet peeves). I much prefer "Women's film". "women's picture", "women's melodrama"; (which, in point of fact, is what they were), to your term, or worse (to my sensibilities) applying something like 'chick flicks' to these older films.
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*Joan is what she is; like her or not, you can't dismiss her (like this thread, I guess). You have to credit her for inventing a whole sub-genre: the Joan-o-drama.*
Joan didn't invent anything. People here with a need to put a label on everything came up with that one.
Speaking of the reason this thread was revived, while Joan still had a nice shape and legs when she did TORCH SONG, I always wondered how much better, or different, it would have been if the originally scheduled, and younger, Lana Turner had done it. Interesting when Lana was getting her first star vehicles at MGM over a decade earlier, the studio saw in her as a sucessor to Crawford (updating the dancing flapper of her first hits), as well as Harlow (the sex goddess angle).
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*I don't think I have seen DREAMBOAT...is that the one she did with Clifton Webb?*
Yes. Webb is a staid college professor profoundly embarrassed when it is revealed that he was "Dreamboat" a silent screen lover, whose movies he costarred with Rogers are currently featured on TV. Quite funny.
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VIVACIOUS LADY, DREAMBOAT, BACHELOR MOTHER, LADY IN THE DARK, STAGE DOOR, ROXIE HART, THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, plus the Astaire pairings.
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AFFAIR WITH A STRANGER was on last week as part of Jean Simmons month.
YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR WIFE was on last week.
PAYMENT ON DEMAND was on a few weeks ago.
SECOND CHANCE (1953) and BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE will be on Aug. 27th, as part of Linda Darnell's SUTS day.
SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE- the 1930 version was on a few months ago.
Edited by: Arturo on Jun 27, 2011 4:48 PM
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*I just finished watching THE BIRDS which I had recorded from Cinemax earlier in the week. In my opinion this is by far the best horror film that Universal ever did.*
It is misleading to call this a Universal horror film. It is a Hitchcock film, made at and/or released by Universal. This is not the same thing as Universal's horror film franchises from the the 1930s and 1940s.
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Maria Montez . . . need I say more?
Edited by: Arturo on Jun 27, 2011 2:31 PM
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The main difference is that Widmark quickly became a top star, and the studio tried to make him not so mean, even though he could still play no good or nasty characters: NO WAY OUT, NIGHT AND THE CITY.
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Dietrich was well on her way to earning her boxoffice poison tag in 1937. Sternberg having her increasingly posture in his lifeless later vehicles pretty much killed her following in this country. Even sophisticated comedies like DESIRE and ANGEL couldn't restore her following. Plus, as a British import, this film would have had spotty distribution, playing mostly in big cities.
I agree that it could have possibly done better in Europe, where Dietrich, like Garbo, had a bigger following than in the states from the mid-30s on.
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*I wouldn't dumb-down a view of the masses. Plenty of average movie viewers have seen KITTY FOYLE over the years or some of Ginger's Fox releases on FMC and home video.*
This has nothing to do with 'dumbing-down" the masses. "Average" movie viewers would NOT be renting/buying KITTY FOYLE; it's the 'CLASSIC" movie lovers that would. An "average" movie viewer would NOT normally watch FMC (or TCM or AMC back in the day, which is where they would be exposed to the vast majority of Ginger's films; she only made a handful of movies at Fox). We are talking about Average movie viewers, who are not necessarily interested in older films. Another thread here goes on about Marilyn Monroe's iconic status, and the widespread recognition of her name and image to this day-HOWEVER, many people could not name just ONE of her movies. The same with Ginger. It does not detract from her long versatile and successful career to state that the average movie viewer knows her only in conjunction with her musicals with Fred Astaire.
*Sometimes, the non-dance scenes of those pictures she made with Fred are a bit embarrassing due to the lack of plausible storyline and cheaper production values at RKO compared with Fox and MGM. In fact, after viewing BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY, it was my extreme wish that their earlier musicals had been done at MGM...how much more lavish they would have been! Some of the early ones if done by L.B. Mayer would probably have been in color like the Nelson-MacDonald ones were. RKO cheated us. LOL*
Your extreme wish would never have happened. MGM had Fred Astaire in 1933, and used him in a Joan Crawford vehicle, but they saw nothing special in him, and let him go. RKO picked him up, teamed him with Rogers as second leads in a Dolored Del Río starring vehicle, and realized that Astaire and Rogers worked well together AND *took the chance to star them*. MGM had no such vision; *they* are the ones that would have cheated us. RKO gave us a great gift with these musicals (and I see nothing wrong with the production values-I LOVE the deco sets-the movies are perfect AS IS), as well as securing stardom for Rogers, who was just a brassy blonde who was treading water before she hooked up with Fred.
Edited by: Arturo on Jun 27, 2011 2:00 PM -
I don't think that was *Arturo's *point. If you are posting on this message board, you aren't the "average" movie fan. The classic movie fan would know and either love, like, or dislike movies from all period of Ginger's career. The "average" fan would know what she is most famous for and that would be the films with Fred.
Thank You!
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ALERT: A couple of films coming up in a couple of days or so, featuring a pre-stardom Jane in small roles. One is THE BAMBOO BLONDE, can't think what the other one is offhand.
Worst Best Actress Oscar choice of the 1940s?
in General Discussions
Posted
*Lifetime Achievement at the age of 34? I'm not sure I could say that Loretta Young ever gave a great performance on film. Not one that I ever saw at least.*
Well what I meant was Recognition from her peers for her accomplishments. In 1947, Loretta Young had been a leading lady for approximately 20 years. That is over half of the time of the existence of the movie INDUSTRY at that time. She had been a STAR for nearly 15 years. That was considered a long career at that time, at the top, that only a few could compare.
Edited by: Arturo on Jul 5, 2011 1:37 PM