kingrat
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Posts posted by kingrat
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My top ten for 1948 includes four of the five films nominated for the Oscar, all except the one that won (Hamlet). As usual, English language films only. A good year, if not quite so many favorites as 1947. #10 is there mostly for the cinematography.
Top 10 for 1948:
1. The Red Shoes
2. Letter from an Unknown Woman
3. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
4. Act of Violence
5. The Fallen Idol
6. Raw Deal
7. Johnny Belinda
8. The Snake Pit
9. The Lady from Shanghai
10. Secret Beyond the Door
Honorable mention:
The Search
Silver River
Red River
Saraband for Dead Lovers
So Evil My Love
Portrait of Jennie
Best Actor: Ralph Richardson, The Fallen Idol
Best Supporting Actor: Walter Huston, Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Best Supporting Actress: Flora Robson, Saraband for Dead Lovers
Best Actress: Not that Jane Wyman wasn't very good, but what if there had been a tie between Olivia De Havilland for The Snake Pit and Joan Fontaine for Letter from an Unknown Woman?
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1947: is this my favorite year for Hollywood movies? In the past I’ve thought it might be 1950 or 1962—both exceptional years—but I keep finding more 1947 films that connect with me on a deep emotional, as well as intellectual, level. Because some of these films are less well known, I'm including the fuller notes I made about some of them. The National Film Registry has a different view, with only Miracle on 34th Street and Out of the Past on their preservation list.
What 1947 does have is film noir, lots of good ones, and to leave so many favorite noirs off the top ten list just seems wrong. If you like women’s films, you’re in luck, and this is an exceptional year for romantic dramas. There are several good offbeat dramas, too. This is perhaps the finest year ever in Hollywood for performances by women, although none of my favorites earned even a nomination for an Oscar.
The top eight films on the list seemed inevitable, with a near dead-heat among twelve or fifteen possibilities for the last two spots.
Top 10 for 1947:
1. BLACK NARCISSUS – Jack Cardiff’s cinematography is among the most gorgeous in all of cinema. Every shot of the film is simply packed with information. Who but Powell & Pressburger would have those stunning frescoes on the wall which are only part of the background? You could easily believe that most of the film was shot on location in India, not on a set in an English field. Black Narcissus makes us feel the atmosphere which unsettles all of the nuns, and makes one of them go mad. Possibly Deborah Kerr’s best work, and Kathleen Byron is unforgettable as the unhinged Sister Ruth. Everything we notice makes us feel even more. An abundance of riches, a sense of wonder, and yet absolute control.
2. DEEP VALLEY – Elements of film noir, women’s film, psychological drama like The Glass Menagerie, Romeo and Juliet, and location shooting combine (almost) harmoniously. The painfully shy heroine gives Ida Lupino her greatest role. Fay Bainter and Henry Hull are perfect as the parents who no longer speak to each other, and Dane Clark is at his best as the sympathetic ex-con who awakens the girl’s need for love. The bittersweet ending is heart-rending and yet ultimately perfect in a way we hadn’t expected or wanted. Jean Negulesco’s directing is so fine that on second viewing you could turn down the sound and just watch the images.
3. THE LONG NIGHT – This remake of LE JOUR SE LEVE is as fine as the original, despite the softenings demanded by the Code. Director Anatole Litvak and cinematographer Sol Polito capture just the right atmosphere. The script successfully changes the scene to an American city and makes Henry Fonda a returning vet. The built-up role of the innocent girl (Barbara Bel Geddes) is the most welcome change of all, as we can now see how the sleazy magician (Vincent Price) plays on her interest in culture and the arts. Ann Dvorak has one of her best roles as the experienced girl whom Fonda doesn’t love. Dvorak’s biographer mentioned that she found little information about this film. Economic realism and doomed romanticism; innocence which a corrupt experience yearns to despoil.
4. THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR – How subtly the gentle comedy finds deeper waters. The romantic reunion brings a tear to my eye, which doesn’t happen often. Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, and George Sanders (the despicable cad) are perfectly cast. Bernard Herrmann’s score was his personal favorite.
5. NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Again, despite any restrictions forced by the Code, what a satisfying film. Tyrone Power shows the dark side of the charming, handsome character he often played. Helen Walker turns out to be his match, and more, in her greatest role. Darkness and corruption, and not even on a grand scale. This is more like a European art film than a Hollywood star vehicle, and only in the best way.
6. HIGH BARBAREE – What is more romantic than falling in love with the person you were closest to in childhood? This film could have gone wrong in so many ways, but everything turns out right. I was hooked from the moment the boy and the girl climb a water tower. The child actors, who are good, even look like Van Johnson and June Allyson, who play them as adults. I love the scenes where the boy runs away to join the circus. Henry Hull and especially the little known Geraldine Wall add fine touches of realism as Van’s parents. I love how the woman he almost marries (Marilyn Maxwell) would be a perfectly good choice if there weren’t an even better one available. The film offers us, in effect, three possible endings: tragic; reunion in the afterlife; and happy. The three of them sound together like a chord.
7. THE MACOMBER AFFAIR – Excellent adaptation of a Hemingway short story. Gregory Peck may not be the top choice as the great white hunter, but he’ll certainly do. Joan Bennett as the bitter and frustrated wife could hardly be sharper. Whenever Joan had the opportunity to work with a top director (Zoltan Korda, in this instance) she gives a first-rate performance. Robert Preston has the toughest role, of the husband who shows himself to be a coward and then strikes one of the natives in frustration. Usually, this kind of part ends up as a caricature, not a three-dimensional character, but Preston has the necessary skill. The script adds a part for Jean Gillie as a woman in love with Peck, and this is a welcome extra.
8. NIGHT SONG – Merle Oberon plays a rich girl who pretends to be blind to get closer to a blind pianist and composer (Dana Andrews). Ack, that sounds awful! But it isn’t. Andrews plays bitterness and self-loathing as well as anyone, and Merle Oberon, always beautiful, rises to the occasion. Ethel Barrymore as her aunt and Hoagy Carmichael as his friend provide first-rate support. Can you become a better person pretending to be someone else? If someone you love does fall for you, do you want him to love the person you really are or the person you’re pretending to be? The situation isn’t confined to romantic films of the 1940s. A deep love of classical music infuses this film—the entire decade, really—and Rubinstein plays and Ormandy conducts the concerto our composer writes.
9. OUT OF THE PAST – After much debate over which film noir should have this spot, I went with the obvious choice. I tend to prefer noirs which don’t adhere as strictly to the formula as this one, but when you have Robert Mitchum as the guy running away from his past and Jane Greer as the woman he can’t resist, why should I resist, either? Another plus is Dickie Moore as the deaf kid who has a crush on Mitchum and mourns him for us at the end.
10. THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI – Not Albert Lewin’s best film—that would be PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN—but darn close, despite all compromises forced by the Code. If there’s such a thing as a tragic cad, George Sanders plays him in this film, for how else do you describe a man who knowingly rejects both a sweet woman (Angela Lansbury) who would be a good wife and mother and a woman who is his intellectual equal (Ann Dvorak)? The set design is outstanding.
The second ten would be a top ten (OK, thirteen) for an ordinary year. Grouped by genre, movies in alphabetical order:
Film noir: Born to Kill, Brute Force, Crossfire, Dead Reckoning, The Lady from Shanghai, Secret Beyond the Door
Brit noir: Brighton Rock, It Always Rains on Sunday, Odd Man Out, So Well Remembered
Others: Miracle on 34th Street, The Unfinished Dance, Gentleman's Agreement
If I were including foreign films, Les Maudits would probably be on the list. Available on DVD.
Best Actor: Tyrone Power, Nightmare Alley or Henry Fonda, The Long Night
Best Actress: Ida Lupino, Deep Valley
Best Supporting Actor: Robert Preston, The Macomber Affair
Best Supporting Actress: Helen Walker, Nightmare Alley
Consider the performances by women from this year:
Ida Lupino and Fay Bainter in Deep Valley
Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron in Black Narcissus
Barbara Bel Geddes and Ann Dvorak in The Long Night
Ann Dvorak in The Private Affairs of Bel Ami
Helen Walker and Joan Blondell in Nightmare Alley
Gene Tierney in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Joan Bennett in The Macomber Affair
Jane Greer in Out of the Past
Rosalind Russell in The Guilt of Janet Ames
Merle Oberon and Ethel Barrymore in Night Song
Janis Carter in FramedAnne Revere, Celeste Holm, and Dorothy McGuire in Gentleman's Agreement
And then there are these movies, too:
Golden Earrings - lots of fun, with Marlene as a gypsy
Hungry Hill - one great scene: the formal ball which becomes a wild jig
They Won't Believe Me - another good nightmare noir
Smash-Up - Susan Hayward drinks and suffers, just as we want her to
Green Dolphin Street - my guilty pleasure for this year; love the wild plot twist
Daisy Kenyon - a solid women's film
Forever Amber - beautiful Linda Darnell in a good costume drama
Captain from Castile - Technicolor, Korngold music, handsome Tyrone Power
An Ideal Husband - Great sets and costumes, Wilde's wit, beautiful Paulette Goddard
Escape Me Never - the flip side of The Constant Nymph
The Bishop's Wife - charming fantasy with Cary, Loretta, and David Niven
When films like these don't even make my top twenty, you know how much outstanding work was being done this year.-
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DARLING is a remarkable and still valuable film for two separate reasons.
1) As far as I can tell, this is the first film which treats gay and straight characters equally, just as we might expect in 2015. There is no homosexual problem, there is no psychological explanation. There are only people. That, of course, is exactly what John Schlesinger intended fifty years ago.
2) This is one of the most acute studies of adultery in any movie of any era, made the more powerful because the effect of the husband's adultery on his wife and child is only obliquely shown. What is shown is how something entered into casually, because he can, and because Julie Christie is gorgeous, turns out to be devastating for the character played by Dirk Bogarde. Bogarde is nothing short of brilliant in this role, and won the BAFTA for Best Actor.
The tale of the model's rise and fall is not profound, though it could certainly happen exactly that way today. As for Christie's performance, she achieved sudden prominence with two hit movies, DARLING and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, a classic formula for Oscar success. She's fine, and has the beauty and charisma the role requires, but given the Oscar choices, I'd go with Elizabeth Hartman in A PATCH OF BLUE.
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1946 is one of my favorite years ever:
1. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
2. NOTORIOUS
3. A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
4. HENRY V
5. THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS
6. THREE STRANGERS
7. THE YEARLING
8. THE LOCKET
9. GILDA
10. TILL THE END OF TIME
But this means that so many wonderful films have to be left off, such as:
CLUNY BROWN
THE BIG SLEEP
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
DECEPTION
THE RAZOR'S EDGE
THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE
DEADLINE AT DAWN
I SEE A DARK STRANGER
NOBODY LIVES FOREVER
A SCANDAL IN PARIS
MY REPUTATION
CANYON PASSAGE
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
GREEN FOR DANGER
DUEL IN THE SUN
So many good films in different genres.
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1965 isn't a bad choice for the last year of the classic era, although I would use 1966, the last year that Oscars were given for black & white cinematography and black & white art direction. By the way, the late Haskell Wexler won the last Oscar for B&W cinematography, for WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
My list for the 10 best of 1965 is limited to English-language films, with honorable mention to SIMON OF THE DESERT and RED BEARD in the foreign film category. I've included THE TRAIN as a 1965 film (year of Oscar eligibility and American release; shown in France in 1964, which is the date imdb shows for it).
Hm, everyone seems to have forgotten the best film of all:
1. KING RAT
2. THE HILL
3. THE TRAIN
4. MIRAGE
5. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
6. A PATCH OF BLUE
7. DARLING
8. THE PAWNBROKER
9. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
10. OTHELLO
Honorable mention to THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, THE COLLECTOR, REPULSION, and RETURN FROM THE ASHES.
All in all, a solid year. Interesting that my top eight choices and two of the honorable mentions are in black and white.
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Asta's favorite director is William Rottwyler. Here are 10 of Asta's favorites:
10. THE COLLAR PURPLE - Some owners have no taste.
9. HOW THE WESTIE WAS WON - Gentle romantic comedy.
8. NEW YORKIE, NEW YORKIE - This stud couldn't be true to one female.
7. BICHON BLANKET BINGO - Just a romp on Dog Beach.
6. ALSATIAN ON THE WESTERN FRONT - No one dared call him a German shepherd.
5. GREAT DANE IN THE MORNING - Starring Randolph Scottie.
4. SAMOYED CAME RUNNING - Sequel to SAMOYEDS LIKE IT HOT.
3. A LITTLE BITE MUSIC - Asta's favorite date movie.
2. LITTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN - Where did those pups come from?
1. THE CAIRN MUTINY - Was Toto a loyal doggie or a little *****?
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THE CHAPMAN REPORT: Claire Bloom gives an excellent performance in a bad movie. This is not easy to do. The state of sexual knowledge and liberation is not great here--and that's only the doctors, not the patients. Jane Fonda's late husband is known as "Boy." Whether she married into the Tarzan family is not made clear. Glynis Johns' husband seems to be gay, though this is never stated, and Glynis plays her woman-awakening-to-possibility-of-sex-with-hot-younger-man role more subtly than Carol Channing would have, though not by much. Shelley Winters plays an aspiring actress, and seems miscast. Yes, this one is officially in the BAD MOVIES WE LOVE book.
COME TO THE STABLE: I didn't have high expectations for this one, but liked it very much. Yes, Loretta Young plays a nun. Yes, Celeste Holm plays a tennis-playing nun. Yes, this is like a Frank Capra fable. And yet . . . . World War II is the background, and the way Hugh Marlowe's experience in France works into the film is most satisfying. The scenes with Marlowe, who plays a composer, and his artistic friends ring true. Elsa Lanchester is quite good as a primitive painter, obviously based on Grandma Moses. Marlowe is just fine as the leading man, and Young and Holm give good performances, too. Henry Koster is a somewhat underrated director, and this is one of his best films. To my mind, this is much better than GOING MY WAY, a film I can't stomach.
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Another fine film in this genre is Kon Ichikawa's ODD OBSESSION. The Japanese title, KAGI, means THE KEY, but ODD OBSESSION catches the quality of the film very well indeed. Not available on DVD, I think, but you might find a VHS copy. Splendidly done, another Ichikawa masterpiece.
Dirk Bogarde and James Fox are both great in THE SERVANT.
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I've always wished there had been a contemporary British remake of LES COUSINS with, say, Terence Stamp, Tom Courtenay, and Julie Christie. It's understandable why LES COUSINS was a big hit in its day, but I think Chabrol went on to make much better films.
LE BEAU SERGE is sort of a "road not taken" for Chabrol. Not much influence of Hitchcock here; it's the kind of realistic drama, not all that far removed from neorealism, that Chabrol will not be making in the future.
I'd love for TCM to do a Chabrol month the way they did a Truffaut month a couple of years ago. Apparently not many of his titles are readily available to TCM. LE BOUCHER and THIS MAN MUST DIE are good first films to get to know his work; if you like LES BONNES FEMMES and LES BICHES, and I do, you are a true Claudeaholic.
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I got off to a bad start with Gary Cooper films. MOROCCO is entertaining and Cooper is handsome, but, to my mind, very wooden. His acting will improve. The other Cooper film I saw was LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, and my sentiments are exactly the same as speedracer's. Cooper's too old and sick for the part (he died of cancer not long after), and altogether unsuitable as a romantic partner for Audrey Hepburn.
The film which changed my mind was BALL OF FIRE. Cooper handles the romantic comedy very well, and he and Barbara Stanwyck are great together.
I also liked the older, wearier Cooper in the underrated western THEY CAME TO CORDURA. THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE is another interesting film from this period.
As for SERGEANT YORK, Cooper is a decade too old and way too experienced to play the innocent from rural Tennessee. He tries very hard, and does his best, but this is not one of Howard Hawks' best films.
DESIGN FOR LIVING has a handsome Cooper, Fredric March looking better than he ever did before or since in films, and Miriam Hopkins, a sexy delight as she usually is in her mid-1930s films. This adaptation of a Noel Coward play (junking most of Coward's lines, however) holds up very well.
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My spouse and friends liked SPECTRE better than I did. Lots of good set pieces, but to my mind no rhythm or flow, and that seems to be a problem of the writing and directing as well as the editing. It's thirty or forty minutes too long, and I thought it was going to end four or five times before it actually did.
On the plus side, the opening sequence is brilliant, including a long continuous shot that has the wow factor. I did like Daniel Craig better than in his previous Bond outings. The women are attractive, no surprise; Naomie Harris makes an adorable Moneypenny. A friend of ours needs to see the film just for the shot of the Rolls Royce Silver Wraith which appears in the desert.
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You could add CHARADE, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, GOODBYE AGAIN, FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT, ANASTASIA, NINOTCHKA, HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT, MIDNIGHT, not to mention all the French films set in Paris.
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Rondo Hatton had a condition called acromegaly which affected his looks.
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Showing I AM CUBA and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL back to back would be interesting because the split between style and subject matter is so extreme in both cases. I would say that Kalatazov is only marginally interested in the propaganda aspects of his film, although the propaganda is what allowed him to make the film. Kalatazov's heart is in the first and third sections of I AM CUBA, the city sections with the spectacular shots, and not in the noble peasant second and fourth sections. It's not surprising that the authorities weren't happy with the finished film.
I would say that Riefenstahl is less divided against herself, but her stylistic preoccupations ultimately overwhelm even the rantings of Hitler.
Both films are more for specialists than for the general audience, and are especially for budding directors and for those who appreciate brilliant camerawork.
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Having grown up in the South, I find WISE BLOOD one of the films which best reflects the South I knew, which had nothing to do with plantations and winding staircases. Add WILD RIVER, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, and the Holly Hunter character in BROADCAST NEWS, and there's the South I grew up in. Her characters may be grotesques, but to some of us they are the grotesques next door.
Flannery O'Connor may have been born in Savannah, but she grew up in Milledgeville, a much smaller town in central Georgia, with none of the glamor and history of Savannah. She was Catholic, which made her an outsider, but she was fascinated by the world of the God-obsessed Protestant fundamentalists, where starting your own church is always an option.
WISE BLOOD isn't one of Huston's very best films, but of all the establlished directors of the pre-EASY RIDER generation, he did the best work in the strange new world, with THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (perhaps his best film?), FAT CITY, WISE BLOOD, PRIZZI'S HONOR, and, though I'm not a big fan of it, THE DEAD.
Brad Dourif is perfectly cast, and the movie might not work without him. WISE BLOOD isn't to everyone's taste, but it's a good adaptation of O'Connor's novel.
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DARK WATERS is a very entertaining film, well directed by Andre de Toth. If you like this kind of Gothic, "damsel in distress" film, it's worth seeking out. You can probably find VHS tapes, if you still have a VCR to play them.
Fay Bainter and Thomas Mitchell get to play villainous parts. It's a good cast, and Merle is, of course, lovely.
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Skimpole, I find the ending of PARIS, TEXAS horrific, as an innocent boy is taken from a stable home at the beginning to be given to a woman who has shown no signs of interest in him, or in being a mother.
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PAWN SACRIFICE (2014) may be of interest to the TCM fans who like the kind of serious dramas that are rarely seen on the big screen any more. This movie isn't doing well at the box office but will probably be available on Netflix soon. Some of you will remember the excitement about the chess duel between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. It's a well-made film with a good script, generally capable direction by Edward Zwick, and some outstanding performances.
Tobey Maguire is shorter than Bobby Fischer, but he's very convincing as the brilliant and unstable American genius. Liev Schreiber makes a strong antagonist as Spassky. We begin to realize that Fischer's paranoia about the Russians' eavesdropping isn't entirely unjustified; they're spying on Spassky, too. Michael Schulbarg makes a great deal of one of those parts which seem unpromising, the bureaucrat with connections whose task it is to get Fischer where he needs to go. Peter Sarsgaard is brilliant in the much showier role of the chess-playing, whiskey-drinking, cigarette-smoking priest who has more influence on Fischer than anyone else.
The film doesn't shy away from Fischer's anti-Semitism, a result of his stormy relationship with his mother, a Jewish Communist.
My biggest complaint is the period pop songs slathered onto the sound track, always the obvious choices and always unnecessary and obtrusive. Zwick uses lots of giant close-ups, so that you may see more of Tobey Maguire's facial moles and Liev Schreiber's acne scars than you wanted to. But these are just quibbles. It's great to see Tobey Maguire playing this kind of dramatic role.
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Dang it, Lorna, you're still looking for the first person to share your feelings. I can only agree to the extent that Stevens drags out the resolution of the film way too long, by fifteen minutes or so. I feel the same way about THE TALK OF THE TOWN. By the time Arthur decides on her man, I just don't care. Stevens will in the future drag his films out quite a lot.
Though I like Jean Arthur, I can understand why others might not. I'd much rather read your honest reactions to the movie than just going along with everyone else.
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CaveGirl, thanks for pointing out what's most important in this kind of film: the clothes. One of the Morlocks has a cool post about Helen Lawson's bejeweled pantsuit. The orange outfit Sharon Tate was wearing as she watched her softcore film was gorgeous. Barbara Parkins looked really good in the offwhite outfits, too.
Some of you will love this: a former co-worker said in all seriousness that she thought Jackie Collins wasn't as good a stylist as Jacqueline Susann. (Yes, these comparisons can be made at an infinitely low level.)
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I had never seen VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and didn't want to miss it. The wig scene is justly famous. Thanks to everyone on the boards who alerted us to the weirdness that is "I'll Plant My Own Tree."
The authors of BAD MOVIES WE LOVE (an essential book for some of us) make the interesting point that VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is the rare box office hit that didn't help the career of its stars. If you compare the acting with THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, another three girls movie, Diane Baker is much better than the very pretty Barbara Parkins as the nice girl, Suzy Parker is much better than Sharon Tate as the beauty who comes to a sad fate (both are gorgeous), and Hope Lange is much more successful than Patty Duke in the big dramatic role. Duke is miscast as a Judy Garland-style singer; she's good in other parts, but lacks the warmth, charisma, and special relationship with the audience that is the essence of Judy Garland.
What the actors in VOTD also have to cope with is the overripe dialogue. "Ted Casablanca is not a ***, and I'm just the dame who can prove it!" Notice that the new freedom to mention homosexuality amounts to lots of repetitions of derogatory terms. Another wonderfully bad line--Patty seems to get a lot of them--is "Boobies, boobies, boobies!" Feel free to add your own favorites to the list.
Our star of the month, Susan Hayward, goes all out and a bit more, as the aging star.
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Wyler suffered significant hearing loss while filming THE MEMPHIS BELLE. I've been enjoying the FIVE CAME BACK series, based on a fine book.
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I'm all in favor of Joan Bennett as SOTM and like James' suggested programming. DISRAELI is another early film of interest, and she's very appealing in Fritz Lang's MAN HUNT. She was fortunate to work with some top directors. The fact that her films are split among a variety of studios makes it more difficult for TCM to arrange, though not impossible.
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The VHS of THE RAGING MOON did not look good--the usual 1970s Sepia Sludge. It would be interesting to see how much better the restoration looks.
The DVD of WARLOCK looked gorgeous, I thought, with superb cinematography by Joe McDonald. Almost every shot could be framed as a beautiful painting. To see a restored version on the big screen would be spectacular. It would be a great choice for the TCM Film Festival.
Bogie, thanks for the information about these restorations.
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1965-what are the best films of 50 years ago?
in General Discussions
Posted
SANDS OF THE KALAHARI is worth seeking out. It's available on DVD. Cy Endfield is a very good director--ZULU, TRY AND GET ME, HELL DRIVERS. Unfortunately, the financial failure of SANDS OF THE KALAHARI put an end to his career and made it impossible for him to direct ZULU DAWN, the prequel to the great ZULU.
The one negative about SANDS OF THE KALAHARI is that despite desert heat and an absence of hairspray, Susannah York's hair always looks perfect. This is a common problem in the movies.