TopBilled

>It's a little disconcerting, of course, recalling , once again, that macho strut of much of his earlier work, to then see him portraying the physical vulnerability in a character that comes with old age. It's a truly beautiful performance. You're right. Lancaster's range is very broad as an actor. I think he gives another magnificent performance in THE SWIMMER. The ending is truly heartbreaking, and on a personal note, it reminds me of my dad who has had several divorces and lost a few homes along the way. The way Burt can capture the excesses of character as well as play the subtleties is what makes him great.

Yeah, I was just reading about Kate Reid. Her parents were from Ontario, and they lived briefly in London (where she was born), but she spent most of her childhood in Canada. Supposedly, she played all the major Shakespearean roles for women (would loved to have seen her do Lady MacBeth). I had forgotten that she did the TV-version of Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman. I am going to have to hunt down a copy of it. She is very good in ATLANTIC CITY. She's good in everything she does. Makes acting look easy...which it isn't.

Thanks for posting these great photos of Dick Foran in his hey-day. This thread is part of an on-going celebration of the star's motion picture career.

After several failed attempts (due to other goings-on), I finally had the chance last night to watch Louis Malle's ATLANTIC CITY from 1980. What took me so long to enjoy this masterpiece...? First, I love a movie like this...you know, the kind that is filmed on-location and full of atmosphere and intriguing, ambitious (and ambiguous) characters. Malle makes good use of the many exteriors available to him and his crew. Second, I like to see a young actress really break out of the pack, and that's what Susan Sarandon does here, years before finally getting the Oscar. Susan nails a casino scene where she is so angry and disruptive that she eventually gets tossed out on the street. Leading up to this sequence, I was not too impressed by her, thinking she was still not polished enough as an actress, but her brilliance truly comes through about mid-way into the movie. Next, the real reason I had this film on my to-watch list was because I am a huge fan of Kate Reid. Quite frankly, she did not make enough films. After seeing her nearly steal A DELICATE BALANCE out from under Kate Hepburn and Paul Scofield (she plays the troubled younger sister), I decided the time had finally come to watch ATLANTIC CITY. She is also great as Natalie Wood's vicious mother in THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. This time, she has a great part as a fading beauty queen with a tyrannical hold over her aging bodyguard, played by Burt Lancaster. And that leads me to inspiration for this thread. My God. Burt Lancaster is fantastic in this movie. I know that I have hit on something good when a film and a performance like this resonates with me a full day after viewing. I really think this is Burt's best late career performance. And it is right there on par with his work in ELMER GANTRY and BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ. In fact, I think this character he plays under Malle's direction is a direct descendant of the character from ELMER GANTRY. Here he looms large in this colorful environment with all these assorted shady underworld figures, and he is supposed to be one of the good guys, but it is obvious that he has been corrupted. Burt plays it just right. We are not sure how corrupted he is, and as the story unfolds, we see that his petty crimes are promises of a greater, more imminent evil. He has the dignity and grace that comes with surviving the world and its dangers, but he is willing to tap into his own evil in order to defeat the demons that surround him. I won't give the ending away. Ultimately, it's a character piece, with plot secondary to the changes that Lancaster, Sarandon and Reid all undergo, sometimes in tandem, sometimes separately. But they are all in unison when it comes to delivering an exciting, excellent film experience under Louis Malle's more than capable direction.

Charles Lane is quite memorable. What a long career he had.

*Sophia Loren Directed by Anthony Mann* Italian beauty dominates the action of EL CID and THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

*DAYS OF GLORY (1944)* From Agee on July 1, 1944: In DAYS OF GLORY, I have an unhappy feeling that Casey Robinson, who wrote and produced it, wanted to do something artistically first-rate about the guerrillas. But the film interests only a possibly accurate image of the Russia which may exist in the minds of the more fatuous contributors to Russian War Relief. Aside from Robinson's sincere intentions, I can speak courteously only of Tamara Toumanova's anachronistic beauty, which I imagine might have wrung dithyrambs out of Lord Byron.

*Lucile Watson* To Carole Lombard in MADE FOR EACH OTHER: I wasn't always a bitter old woman...I wasn't always a pest and a nuisance.

*BONZO* BEDTIME FOR BONZO (1951) with Ronald Reagan, Diana Lynn & Walter Slezak BONZO GOES TO COLLEGE (1952) with Maureen O'Sullivan, Edmund Gwenn & Gigi Perreau

I really thought *Doris Day* and *Jack Lemmon* played well off each other in IT HAPPENED TO JANE. Cute comedy, cute couple. No sequel, no other projects together.

>Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman.................... Yes. She did not make many films, unfortunately.

>Hey TopBilled, what about Phyllis Thaxter - do you have a list of her movies? I really like her. Hey Caty, Tomorrow I am featuring Bonzo, but I will gladly post Phyllis Thaxter the following day. Check back.

*H.B. Warner* To Gary Cooper in MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN: In the opinion of this court, you are not only sane, you're the sanest man who ever walked into this courtroom.

*OLD ACQUAINTANCE (1943)* From Agee on November 13, 1943: OLD ACQUAINTANCE is a typical woman's duet. What perplexes me is that I could sit through it with some interest. The two chief characters seem to represent, between them, all that a suburban housewife at her worst likes to think she is and thanks God she is not (honorable, realistic and self-denying like Bette Davis), and all that she thanks God she is not, but is (Miriam Hopkins as a frenzied tea-cosy sheltering the opposite characteristics). Miss Davis loses two lovers in this picture for the sake of Miss Hopkins and her daughter. Miss Hopkins loses everything except Miss Davis. Miss Davis is noble enough and Miss Hopkins ignoble enough to make it unnecessary for any housewife to take the morality play personally, beyond comfortably checking on what she knew already, that virtue's peculiar rewards are hardly worth the candle. The odd thing is that the two ladies and Vincent Sherman, directing, make the whole business look fairly intelligent, detailed and plausible. And that on the screen such trash can seem, even, mature and adventurous.

*ROSALIND CASH* THE OMEGA MAN (1971) with Charlton Heston THE NEW CENTURIONS (1972) with George C. Scott & Stacy Keach MELINDA (1972) with Calvin Lockhart & Vonetta McGee HICKEY & BOGGS (1972) with Bill Cosby & Robert Culp UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT (1974) with Sidney Poitier & Bill Cosby DR. BLACK AND MR. HYDE (1975) with Bernie Casey CORNBREAD, EARL AND ME (1975) with Moses Gunn & Bernie Casey SISTER, SISTER (1982) with Diahann Carroll & Irene Cara

*Dean Jones Produced by Walt Disney* Who can forget his adventures with Herbie THE LOVE BUG, or with THE MILLION DOLLAR DUCK...?

But obviously Olivier & Leigh did work together (more than once) on film, and we have those performances to enjoy.

They were Rattigan's original choice but never did it. Eric Portman and Margaret Leighton had considerable success in London with the stage version and also brought it to Broadway where it had another successful run. So SEPARATE TABLES enjoyed a great deal of acclaim and was a commercial hit, on both stage and film (on both sides of the Atlantic), without the participation of Olivier and Leigh.

Yes, the original play, written by Terence Rattigan, is divided into two acts with one set of actors playing both couples. It works on stage, but in a film, it might seem too gimmicky. The idea was revised so that one couple would now be played by American actors, while the other couple would be played by British actors. Due to a scheduling conflict, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier did not perform these roles on stage. However, they did have a success with Rattigan's other play The Sleeping Prince, which Olivier filmed later with Marilyn Monroe. Eric Portman and Margaret Leighton appeared in the original stage production of SEPARATE TABLES in England. When it came time to adapt Terence Rattigan's play into a movie, Leigh and Olivier were now available and subsequently hired. Oliver was set to costar with Leigh and direct the picture as well. Leigh had previously appeared in the film version of Rattigan's play THE DEEP BLUE SEA. However, problems soon occurred while bringing SEPARATE TABLES to the big screen. Oliver was suddenly dropped from the cast when the producers felt Burt Lancaster, a co-producer in the venture, was more bankable. Olivier continued in the capacity of director but began to clash with Lancaster and withdrew. Leigh then vacated her role. Rita Hayworth stepped in (she was engaged to Lancaster's producing buddy James Hill, whom she soon married). One can only imagine how a Leigh-Olivier version would have turned out, though the finished product as it stands today is definitely a four-star effort. Much of the cast, with the ironic exception of Lancaster and Hayworth, had been nominated for Oscars. David Niven and Wendy Hiller would receive awards for their work. In 1983, a made-for-television remake was produced starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates. As for Olivier and Lancaster, they apparently patched up their differences in order to make another film. Five months after production ended on SEPARATE TABLES, they would start filming THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE with Kirk Douglas. Rita Hayworth would remain married to James Hill for three years, and he would be her final husband. They did another film project together. It was THE HAPPY THIEVES, made in England, which costarred her with Rex Harrison.

Excellent original post. I am a fan of Ida, too. My favorite performance of hers is in JENNIFER, where she plays a very ambiguously shaded woman who may or may not be insane (the narrative is set up like a dream, so we don't really know if she imagined it all or if she experienced it). She is very good at doing those kinds of roles where the character can go both ways. She pulls me in every time, and that sheer class she exudes makes her experimental form of acting and directing always engaging, timeless and stylish.

>Wasn't there a problem with some of these stars making a big stink about who would get top billing? It's the billing _and_ the salary. A lot of deals could not be reached because of these two issues. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster. That came about because at the time Rita was married to Burt's producing partner. Vivien Leigh pulled out of the project at the last minute, and Rita substituted in the role. In that case, it was more about helping to save her husband's investment.

Yes, Lori, I think Garfield and Turner should have made another film...maybe something in a different genre, like a comedy, where they could have covered new ground together. They oozed chemistry.

>Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan: They even discussed doing another film, as their chemistry worked very well in one of the top hits of 1949, I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE Completely agree. They worked very well together. As for Mitchum and Hayworth they reteamed for 1972's THE WRATH OF GOD. It was her last feature film.

>Of course a year later in THE WIZARD OF OZ she'd prove that not to be true at all. Clever!

Great replies everyone. Yesterday I watched A DELICATE BALANCE with *Paul Scofield* and *Katharine Hepburn* in the lead roles. Kate could easily have done this filmization of Albee's play with Peter O'Toole or with Spence if he was still around (it was produced in 1973). But these two are an excellent match. They have such an easy natural chemistry that I couldn't help but wish they had done other movies together.