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Joel McCr______ Joel McCr______ Please don't spell it 'a-e' Spell it 'e-a'

This must've been my day for movies that showed officers of the law failing to apprehend fugitives. Encore aired THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS this morning. In the film (directed by Steven Spielberg), Goldie Hawn and William Atherton kidnap a cop and run from the feds. It's played for laughs but has a few serious moments. Of course, whenever we see a sheriff, it's a comedy sequence. Then, I watched CRAZY MAMA on Netflix streaming. This was good fun. Jonathan Demme directs Cloris Leachman and Ann Sothern, portraying two desperate gals who go on a shooting spree across the country before they have a climactic face-off with police in Arkansas. This, too, was played for laughs. The law was seen as ineffective and silly throughout much of the movie. I am sure there are plenty of other examples like this, made in the 70s after BONNIE & CLYDE, but done in a humorous vein. They typically show anti-heroes on the lam with bumbling officials unable to catch them. Both SUGARLAND EXPRESS and CRAZY MAMA had me giggling at the antics of the characters and such broadly played farce, especially by such excellent comediennes like Hawn, Leachman and Sothern.

*48 HOURS/WENT THE DAY WELL? (1944)* From Agee on July 15, 1944: 48 HOURS is a story by Graham Greene. It has some very good professional and unprofessional actors. The film is not a fanged masterpiece like Hitchcock might have made, but it falls on a very solid ground. The village types are remarkably lifelike. They are charming dolls which not only Greene but Coward and Waugh so often create instead of characters: a dear-old-boy rector; his passionate but constricted daughter; the merry old woman who handles the switchboard and the mail; the robinlike lady of the manor; etc. Beautifully played, these characters are not to be scorned, namely because there is poetic force in this puppetry though it lacks complexity and depth. I think the best part of 48 HOURS is neither in its people nor in their exciting, melodramatically plausible actions. It is instead how it relates its people and their actions to their homes, their town and their tender lucid countryside. When invaders prowl through the placid gardens of the barricaded manor in the neat morning light, the film has a sinister freezing quality.

*GEORGE M. COHAN* THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT (1932) with Claudette Colbert & Jimmy Durante GAMBLING (1934) with Wynne Gibson & Dorothy Burgess

I'd agree about Eugene Pallette. He began as a leading man. I would like to see him in an early role as a romantic lead, that would be a trip! Your mention of ZaSu makes me think of Patsy Kelly.

I think John Derek had other outside interests in addition to acting. He would of course become a director. Both his parents were actors, so it was definitely in his blood. David Selznick certainly felt in the beginning that he could become a huge star. He was billed as Dare Harris back then.

Yes, lz, I think you have posted that before. Those are samples of Hedda's columns from that particular year. If I start a thread posting her columns, it will cover the years 1938 through 1965. I do not think she was published daily in the beginning. One interesting thing about her is she never had others sub for her when she was away. She usually filed reports on the road. The columns she wrote while attending premieres in foreign locales, or the time she went to see Rita Hayworth marry Prince Aly Khan, she still managed to hit her deadlines. Again, Hedda was not Shakespeare with her prose, but she was no dummy either and had many intelligent insights about an industry where she had long worked as an actress and where her son continued to work as an actor for many years.

Thank you! You have had some good contributions of your own, too...

The problem with gathering Hedda's columns is that I would have to go through a lot of old newspapers online. There is no single collection of her works, like there is for Agee, already published. Also, Agee was active in this regard for about ten years. Hedda did a daily column for over 25 years, so it would require more time to sort out the better columns. I think it would be a rewarding venture, and I will probably do it, time-permitting.

Thanks. The James Agee thread will run till the end of the year. I've posted around a hundred so far, and there are approximately 400 reviews that he wrote in the 1940s. Next year, I may post Hedda Hopper's columns. Those would be much less academic, but probably just as enjoyable!

Some actors are groomed into 'stars' because of their looks and they have to learn to act along the way. Then, there are others who are definitely not sexy or conventionally attractive that because of their acting skill, do defy the odds of Hollywood and become major stars (though this happens more on television than in films). As for Palance, it could be said that he had the looks to go with the talent and was able to take opportunities and capitalize on them. Of course, he was often typecast in his early roles.

*YVONNE LIME FEDDERSON* I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957) with Michael Landon DRAGSTRIP RIOT (1958) with Gary Clarke, Fay Wray & Connie Stevens HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS (1958) with Brett Halsey SPEED CRAZY (1959) with Brett Halsey

*THE LONG NIGHT (1947)* From Agee on August 30, 1947: A loud, long, ambitious film. It is Anatole Litvak's first since the war. It is about a simple man (Henry Fonda) who is driven to murder by the calculated confusions of a very corrupt man (Vincent Price). It would be interesting to see it on a double bill with its original version, the French film DAYBREAK. Both films obviously rate themselves as tragedies; both are merely intelligent trash. The old one is much more discreet with its self pity and is much more sharply edged. The new one depends too heavily on crowd-commotion; noise (there are gruesome distortions of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony); huge close-ups of Fonda looking adenoidal; and class-angling. It is, however, much better than the run of contemporary movies.

Yes, the former lead actors have built-in audiences and can more easily command a scene (even when they are hired to just provide support). Susan Hayward is sort of fighting for control, pitted against Bette Davis in WHERE LOVE HAS GONE. Plus, she has juvenile star Joey Heatherton flanking her on the other side.

I like how you're thinking outside the box, referencing international film artists. Good job!

Anna Sten:

*RAY MALA* ESKIMO (1934) with Lotus Long LAST OF THE PAGANS (1935) with Lotus Long JUNGLE PRINCESS (1936) with Dorothy Lamour & Ray Milland CALL OF THE YUKON (1938) with Richard Arlen, Beverly Roberts & Lyle Talbot GIRL FROM GOD'S COUNTRY (1940) with Chester Morris, Jane Wyatt & Charles Bickford RED SNOW (1952) with Guy Madison

Anna Sten was in THE WEDDING NIGHT with Gary Cooper:

THE COMMON LAW is also airing on March 20th.

I don't think it has to be a supporting actor or a character actor/actress. What about ensemble movies like TALES OF MANHATTAN, THE GROUP or THE BIG CHILL where they are all fairly equal in screen time. Still, someone always manages to wrestle the film away from the others and excite the audience more.

I cannot believe nobody commented on Anna Sten. I guess people do not appreciate beauty. Who else photographs so flawlessly?

*THE JOLSON STORY (1946)* From Agee on November 9, 1946: I have always liked Jolson and his style and most of his songs. I still like hearing them on the soundtrack. I suppose Larry Parks does about as well as the visual Jolson, as anyone except the original would be likely to. Evelyn Keyes has always seemed to me one of the more attractive and capable girls in Hollywood, and one of the most neglected, and it is good to see her again, even in a role which can use so little of what she has, and which misuses most of that. I have nothing in the world against this picture except that at least half of it seemed to me enormously tiresome. The other half is pleasant enough, but no more. The trouble is, it is here nearly as hard to separate the pleasant from the boring as to get the cream out of homogenized milk.

It's nice to see a Deanna Durbin film pop up.

Sometimes it helps to look at birthdays to figure out which stars get airplay on TCM. _M A Y_ 1 Glenn Ford, Dan O'Herlihy, Rose Hobart 2 Brian Aherne, Hedda Hopper 3 Bing Crosby, Mary Astor, Beulah Bondi, Aline MacMahon, Walter Slezak 4 Audrey Hepburn 5 Alice Faye, Tyrone Power 6 Orson Welles, Rudolph Valentino, Stewart Granger 7 Gary Cooper, Anne Baxter, George "Gabby" Hayes 8 Rick Nelson 9 Richard Barthelmess 10 Fred Astaire, Charles MacGraw 11 12 Katharine Hepburn 13 Paul Stewart 14 Billie Dove 15 Joseph Cotten, James Mason 16 Henry Fonda, Harry Carey Jr. 17 18 19 20 James Stewart 21 Robert Montgomery, Raymond Burr 22 Laurence Olivier, Alla Nazimova 23 Herbert Marshall, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., James Gleason, Joan Collins 24 25 Jeanne Crain 26 John Wayne, John Dall, Al Jolson, Norma Talmadge, Paul Lukas, Robert Morley 27 Vincent Price, Lucille Watson 28 29 Bob Hope 30 Keir Dullea 31 Alida Valli, Don Ameche, Margalo Gillmore, Clint Eastwood

I've tried to figure out who stole the most scenes in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE...maybe it was a tie.