rosebette

Rathbone plays a concert pianist and serial seducer. I think you'll enjoy his performance. Kay is excellent, but he's irresistible, a man I truly loved to hate in this one.

As a film buff with a feminist bent, I would say The Quiet Man is a problematic film. It's visually beautiful, well-directed, and has some spirited performances, O'Hara's being one of them. However, I can't lay the character of Mary Kate at her door, so to speak, because this is a character based on the screenwriter's and director's vision, not hers. The story is about a strong woman who is "humbled," and within its context was probably accepted at its time. I don't find John Ford a director whose films are especially kind to women; his movies tend to be very "male" in perspective. I actually find O'Hara's character in How Green Was My Valley and Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath anomalies, rather than typical of Ford, and of course he had to be relatively faithful to his source material in those two films. (I find early Ford preferable to later Ford. The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are the only later movies that I really enjoy.) I certainly wouldn't interpret O'Hara as being a "feminist" actress, although she often played strong women, and even women in action roles, as in Against All Flags. These roles may have been given to her as much as for her physical ability to play them (she's called a "tomboy" in her interview with Osborne). Also, she photographed beautifully in technicolor, which made her ideal for action films which were often made in color. As much as I like O'Hara, I still see her as primarily within the confines of the studio system where others had control over her films scripts, etc.; whereas, I might call someone like Bette Davis a feminist because not only did she choose strong roles, she actually tried to command a great deal of creative control of her career at a time when this was difficult for a woman.

I think She Done Him Wrong needs to be added to the "Pre-Codes that Pushed the Envelope" thread. Here's Diamond Lil, who (spoiler) kills a character, the body gets dumped off somewhere, and she ends up in a cab with Cary Grant, who is offering to marry her. She's also been two-timing her convict boyfriend with the saloon owner. Talk about no bad deed going unpunished. Then, there are the double entendres. I especially like the one when Grant puts the cuffs on her. She says something like "You don't need your hands for everything."

After the Fox is one of my favorite 60s comedies; Mature steals the picture from Peter Sellers -- no mean feat!

Not surprising. He had a reputation for being quite a ladies' man in the 20s and 30s.

Who is the actress in this picture? It looks like Lombard, but I don't think Coop made a picture with her.

Good thing I put my air conditioner on.

I have a tree in my yard that's a better actor than Nelson Eddy. Yeah, Coop in uniform in Lives of a Bengal Lancer.... Or partly out of it in the shaving scene. One forgets that he was so handsome in his younger days.

No, I prefer Howard Keel. He was a dead ringer for a choir director I had a crush on. I come from a long line of dark-eyed people with high cheekbones. A few of them even had the almond-shaped eyes and acquiline nose. When my dad was in the Pacific during WWII, he was often mistaken for the "enemy." If I had my choice of movie mounties, it would be Flynn or Coop, though.

Great Mountie montage! I'm of French Canadian descent and had to tolerate uncles singing "Rosemarie" (my given name) for years. However, my heritage is more likely heavily metis (like Paulette Goddard's character?), as I did my genealogy a few years back and found 3 lines of my family descended from the Micmaq tribe. However, my family tree did not experience any of these adventures. They spent most of their time "rock farming," doing bad carpentry, and eating tons of tourtiere and gouton. Somehow, I never see any French Canadian cuisine in these movies.

Tomjh, you must be related to my family. My younger brother had several similarly traumatizing experiences with clowns. My first drive-in experience was Cleopatra. The soundtrack coming out of the little box was awful, like a screech. We used to play in the basement with an old wagon, and its wheels made exactly that sound, so we "played" at Cleopatra and her barge.

Another Dawn is not a very good film, either for Flynn or Francis. I recommend Confession, with Basil Rathbone, which is excellent. I also like her precode work. Mandalay is a delicious piece of precode trash.

101 Dalmatians, when it was first released. I was about 2 at the time. My father took me to give my mom, who was home with my baby sister, a break. He said I sat through it like an angel. He then got ambitious and took me to The Music Man, which I also sat through, apparently rapt in awe. I never lost my love for movies, and that love was a bond between us that lasted until his death. We used to watch movies together on a portable DVD player in the nursing home. I still tear up when I see Funny Face, which was one of the last films we watched together before he died.

Damn, but Kline is "spot on"! I always thought there was a resemblance between the two actors. Many years ago, I saw Kline in a TV production of Hamlet, and when he walked around with a sword, I thought -- there's someone else with that walk... Actually, Kline's in better shape at 65 than Errol was at 48, sad to say (for Flynn).

An interesting "seditious" precode entry is "Gabriel Over the White House," in which pleasure-love W.G. Harding style president, played by Walter Huston, gets into an automobile accident, and experiences a personality change. The new "president" becomes concerned with social issues, the national debt, etc.; he also becomes dictatorial. An interesting and disturbing film...

Mandalay with Kay Francis, who is discarded by lover Ricardo Cortez (so what else is new?) and becomes a prostitute called "White Spot." Michael Curtiz directs with great use of expressionism and atmosphere. The thing is fascinating in an awful way and I can't tell you the end, but many evil deeds go unpunished. Ann Vickers with Irene Dunne, apparently made before she was the virginal Magnolia Hawkes in Showboat.. She has an affair with soldier Bruce Cabot, an out of wedlock pregnancy that mysteriously ends after she takes a trip to Havana, and then she takes up with married judge Walter Huston, which leads to another out of wedlock pregnancy. Ann is a prison reformer and journalist, and both Irene Dunne and Walter Huston give strong performances. Somehow, the strength of their characters and the performances make you forget that they are breaking every rule in the book.

I adore Warren William, that seedy scoundrel. Even when he plays someone respectable, there's an undertone of the subdued seducer. Cagney's kind of a sexy pre-coder -- love his rapid fire dialogue. Overall, though, I think pre-Code presented more interesting women than men.

My favorite pre-code women are Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Kay Francis. I'll watch Kay just for the wardrobe.

If you are a Flynn fan, Matzen's Errol and Olivia is a must. This the Amazon link. http://www.amazon.com/Errol-Olivia-Obsession-Golden-Hollywood/dp/097116858X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403800461&sr=8-1&keywords=errol+and+olivia It's worth it just for the pictures. I wasn't able to put it down the first time I read it. The difference between an autobiography and a memoir is that an autobiography usually tells the entire story of the person's life, while a memoir is more a collection of reminiscences. I would categorize Rathbone's book as a memoir, although he calls it an autobiography. There are very many missing pieces in his book, such as much about his first marriage, his relationship with his son, etc.

I really enjoyed Robert Matzen's Errol and Olivia. He's the author of Fireball, which is the story of Carole Lombard and the plane crash that took her life; that book is currently offered on the TCM site. In Errol and Olivia, Matzen uses studio notes and memos of the shooting of the Warner films with Flynn and DeHavilland to reconstruct a narrative of their early careers and relationship. He also writes a good deal about their early lives. While some may disagree with how he sometimes gets into the characters' heads and writes from their point of view, I found the book insightful and entertaining. Some of the stills are beautiful; there are candids that I've never seen anywhere else. I'm partial to Basil Rathbone's In and Out of Character. It's more of a memoir than an autobiography, but it's full of wonderful anecdotes about his early life, his war experience, and his film and theater career, as well as his reflections on art, music, and culture in general.. The writing and tone are more articulate than the average "star" autobiography. If you're looking for dirt, though, you won't find it, as he comes off as an extremely gracious man. I have a copy of John Kobal's People Will Talk, which contains interviews with actors, directors, and other film folk. It's an older book, but I still enjoy reading chapters of it now and then. Bette Davis' Mother Goddam is great fun. I managed to get it for a $1.00 at a library book sale in Andover, MA. As luck would have it, it was autographed by Bette herself and I'm sure would fetch more than that.

I was hoping there would be a post on the back-to-back Flynn pirate fest. I had seen Against All Flags only once before, as a teen, and was rather turned off by the older and more tired-looking Flynn. Now that I'm an old broad, I think he looks pretty good, not what he was, but there is still something irresistably watchable about him, and he has good chemistry with Maureen O'Hara. He still has a way with a line (and there were a number of comic ones and double entendres) that is enviable. The production values are pretty poor. It's interesting to watch Captain Blood afterwards, where there were also more limited resources in terms of sets, etc., but what a great director like Curtiz can do with lighting, set-up, etc. Captain Blood is my favorite Flynn pirate movie, although without a doubt, The Sea Hawk is probably a better-made film. As I watched the early scenes of Captain Blood, all I could think was, "Wow, he was really good." Even in the courtroom scene, he comes across, and the archaic dialogue trips easily from his tongue. People alway criticized him as an actor, but what 26-year-old could say some of those lines and be completely believable? Also, Captain Blood is a better story, I think. It's about a young man's journey from indifference to rebellion and even outlawry, and then back to morality. What surprised me on this viewing is that he is a fully developed character who changes, makes mistakes (that deal with Levasseur -- and oh, 10 minutes of delightfully hammy Rathbone is worth an hour and a half of Anthony Quinn), sometimes behaves badly (with Olivia), feels compassion, anger, sadness, love. The deHavilland character is a spoiled brat who also changes, and the chemistry between them is dynamite. The Sea Hawk is a beautiful film, but it's really just the dashing, handsome hero being noble, serving his queen. The production values are outstanding, but there's a gritty freshness to Captain Blood that I find infinitely watchable.

While I'm a big Flynn fan, I feel that Power had better roles than Flynn over his career. If Power had lived, he may have been recognized as having real stature as an actor. I enjoy Power in swashbucklers such as Mark of Zorro, Son of Fury, The Black Swan, Prince of Foxes, Captain from Castille, but I think Flynn excels in that genre. However, I appreciate Power's performances in The Razor's Edge (I've read the novel and can't' imagine anyone else in that role), Nightmare Alley, The Eddy Duchin Story, the underappreciated The Long Gray Line, Witness for the Prosecution, and the excellent Abandon Ship. His early death was a terrible loss, and unlike Flynn, who I feel was pretty much burned out by the late 50s, if Power had lived, I think he would have gradually received even better roles and received recognition for his fine performances, rather than just his looks. That being said, if Warners had given Flynn the opportunities earlier on that Fox and other studios gave Power, who knows? Perhaps the dissolution would have been forestalled.

I saw All That Heaven Allows for the first time Thursday, and I think it's Jane's picture, although I like Hudson in it. I was surprised at how "feminist" the movie was -- it's really about the heroine choosing her own happiness instead of constantly acquiescing to the expectations of others. I also like Rock in Giant. I think he's better than James Dean in it. I find Dean's dialogue mostly unintelligble throughout the film, and the Hudson character does change. However, I also agree with TomJH earlier about the early 60s films; James Garner, who was a similar "type", had much more charm and a greater gift for comedy. I had a guilty crush on him during my late teen and early adult years when he was in The Rockford Files.

Then, after playing Melanie in Gone with the Wind, DeHavilland should have been "happy" being the "girl" in Flynn films and not aspiring to any thing else? And not going on suspension, fighting the studio, and getting the deHavillland decision passed, which allowed actors freedom from oppressive studio contracts? So, her legacy would have been Errol Flynn's love interest, and not as an academy award winning actress.

Olivia was especially unhappy in her professional life while making some of the films with Flynn, particularly Dodge City, Elizabeth and Essex (during which she was also playing Melanie in Gone with the Wind), and Santa Fe Trail. Robert Matzen's book Errol and Olivia does a good job documenting this. She felt her teaming with him was keeping her from moving ahead in her career, and Warner's seemed to have little regard for her as an actress outside of her pairings with Flynn. However, she recalled her last film with Flynn, They Died with Their Boots On, fondly, and felt bittersweet about the parting scene between Custer and Libby.