Dothery

I've heard her play the musical saw. She was pretty good, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5EZXewcL4

John Kerr! My choice for best-looking actor just on the strength of his part in "South Pacific." Did you know he quit the business to become a medical malpractice lawyer? Anyway we lost him just a little while ago and I was disappointed that I never had any medical malpractice business to bring him. Cute as a bug's ear, he was.

TomJH, thanks so much for the link to the Jack Carson article. I sort of thought that's what he was like. A delightful look at this nice man.

Mongo, thanks for the pix of Turhan Bey and Jack Carson. I remember that Jack didn't get much notice when he died because JFK was killed the same week. I've always liked Turhan Bey ... he had such a cheerful personality. He had a fascinating life, in and out of pictures. Jack did too ... he did everything ... sang, acted, led a band. Did you know him, by chance? I'd like to know more about him but there doesn't seem to be much out there.

True. I saw Joan not long ago in an interview saying that she had been the first to get married, the first to get an Academy Award, and it would just kill Olivia if she were the first to die. I'm pretty sure she wasn't kidding, either.

The production time for "The Thief of Baghdad" was pretty long, because the war intervened and shortages of materials and difficulties in traveling to locations made it a nightmare to produce. I remember reading that the sea scenes where Conrad Veidt whips up the wind and causes Abu and Ahmed to sail into a hurricane were shot in a field in Sussex. Hardly any of it was filmed at sea.

I woke up to "Random Harvest," and watched it to the end. What a darling picture it is, and how it never fails to soothe me out of a bad mood. It was nice to hear RO say both stars loved it as their favorite picture. One scene just ruins me ... when Smithy (Ronald Colman) is sick in the theater and just looks at her as she's speaking to him, so pathetic, so lost. And of course she can't resist taking him along with her.

It's always been my favorite movie, and just today I looked up the beautiful song sung in harmony by the men bedded down in the lobby of the apartment house. It's from World War I, and the name of it is "Don't Try to Steal the Sweetheart of a Soldier." When I located it in YouTube, I was delighted to see the WWI posters that were shown while they played the old 78 RPM records.

Looks like Allyson is in a trance thinking about her crush Ladd. True she had a crush on him; but his was the more serious love. According to both of them, it was she who broke off their "understanding," as he called it. They planned to leave their spouses and marry, but Dick Powell wouldn't go. He told her she could have her long talks and walks with Ladd, but she couldn't marry him. Ladd said he never knew what happened. It was just all over one day. I always thought they were compatible because they were the same size. I loved what Sue Ladd said about her: "I could drown her in a teaspoon."

The nun shoulda said oops! I can't understand how that nun managed to get up all those stairs without puffing and blowing loud enough to warn them she was there; or even to make it up there in the first place. She didn't look like a spring chicken.

"Dr. Doolittle" has one of the most beautiful songs ever written, "When I look in Your Eyes." Harrison sings it to a seal. I played it for 20 years in clubs and never failed to have people lost in a dream at the end. The words are so lovely: "When I look in your eyes I see the wisdom of the world in your eyes I see the sadness of a thousand goodbyes When I look in your eyes, And it is no surprise To see the softness of the moon in your eyes The gentle sparkle of the stars in the skies When I look in your eyes. In your eyes, I see the deepness of the sea I see the deepness of the love, The love I feel you feel for me, Autumn comes, summer dies I see the passing of the years in your eyes, And when we part, there'll be no tears, no goodbyes I'll just look into your eyes. Those eyes, so wise, so soft, so real, How I love the world your eyes reveal." I

... apparently none of his six wives "acquired his tastes" either ! I always remember one of them (I think it was Rachel Roberts) saying he was the only person she ever met who would send back a bottle of wine to his own cellar!

Handsome dude indeed! Hoo hoo HOOOOO!

I love old English movies. I watched "Storm in a Teacup" this morning, and was knocked sideways by some of the dialogue, even though it was said too fast for me to catch some of it. I loved Sara Allgood saying she'd been waiting "like Patience on a document." It was really Cecil Parker's movie, though. Villain though he was, the high-and-mighty keeper of law and order, he did it so well he almost had my sympathy, and he turned out well in the end. Rex Harrison and that odd-shaped head were present and skillful, and of course Vivien Leigh always was wonderful.

Wow. You get all the overnight gems at a decent viewing hour. Nice. Especially since I'm a night owl by nature, and can get up and see the crazy stuff that comes on at three and four ... a darlin' life.

Why the Aleutians? A Better idea methinks, are the warmer latitudes, like the Hawaiian Islands. Indeed! And I can give you another reason why the Hawaiian Islands are better for watching TCM ... the prime time pictures are on hours earlier. For example when it's ten p.m. in New York, it's four p.m. here. We do have some fun stuff on in the middle of the night as well. You never know what you'll find on at three a.m. David Janssen, by the way, was far more interesting for his personal life than his movie career. Everybody was fascinated as he went from wife to girl to other girl and back to somebody else's wife. He seemed to be a babe magnet like nobody else, too. Maybe it was because he didn't talk. I saw him on Johnny Carson getting an award and he accepted it, went to the last chair and sat down, and didn't say another word. It got funny after a minute or two and Johnny finally got tired of staring at him and said something. He still didn't talk. Jeanne Crain, on the other had, was a delightful guest, with a great sense of humor. She was 40 and had a few kids when I saw her on a talk show, and the host was commenting on how beautiful and young she looked for 40. "Oh, I KNOW," she said, and laughed. She ended up with seven kids. I enjoyed the whole day of her movies. I'd seen all of them when they first came out. She was a favorite of mine. I loved Bill Lundigan in "Pinky." Another favorite of mine. It was a terrible part, but he did his best.

I have never heard of Renee Adoree. She went running along behind John Gilbert to say goodbye to him as he went off to war in THE BIG PARADE.

My God, what a stunning movie. I turned it on because there wasn't anything else on, but I was pinned to the chair until it was over. And when it was I couldn't believe that was all there was. I never saw it before. I always liked Martin Balsam, but never saw him in anything where the part had such depth. Joanne Woodward, of course, was a different story. I have to admit the one thing I loved her best for was her voice-over of The Age of Innocence. I didn't know who was doing the narration until it was over, and when I looked it up I was surprised to see it was she. What a lovely voice. She was right on the money in this movie, the hard voice, the firm rejection of everything anyone said ... oh, boy, do I know people like that ... until something happens to crack the facade. The rest of the cast was great. Just a perfectly made picture.

I loved Wagner's description of her in the kitchen with the kids roller-skating through with their pets on their shoulders and all the chaos of a family going on around her, completely contented with their way of life. Her career gave pleasure to millions of people, and their home life made her kids and him happy. I liked the fact that he said they had never discussed those years when they were apart. They had put them aside and concentrated on their later happiness. You have to hand it to Natalie's second husband, too, for being classy enough to allow the girls to grow up together, even after Natalie's death.

Delete. Edited by: Dothery on Aug 27, 2013 4:01 PM

Really one way I determine if someone has gained wisdom is that they stop having such opinions. I'm with you, James. At 85, I'm at the stage of life where forming opinions of the unknown is foolish. Everyone wants to be the one who has the "right" opinion of happenings no one can be sure of. I've read R. J. Wagner's book, and I'm persuaded he knows nothing about what happened to her. I've watched and heard that crazy captain's statements and dismissed him as a drunken opportunist. But I know no more than anyone else what happened that night. God rest her soul. She was a good wife and mother. She did her best for her family. That's all I care to remember.

All my life I admired Don Ameche. I always thought he was vastly underrated. I remember so many bits in which he made me break up just by the look on his face, one of which was in a movie where he played an inventor named Maxim something. He was looking in the windows of his house when his wife (Myrna Loy, I think) was entertaining some dignified ladies, and she was pulling down the shades one after the other as his face appeared in the windows. He had a presence that couldn't be extinguished. Another scene had him jumping off the trolley car to go into the churchyard where a wedding party was coming out, grabbing some rice from someone and tossing it at the bride and groom, and jumping back on the trolley. When another passenger said, "You must like weddings," he said, "No, I just like to throw things at people." Marjorie Main, BTW, was really slightly off her head. Debbie Reynolds talks about it in her bio, saying Marjorie would talk to her deceased husband as though he were still there, waiting for him to get in the car first, chatting with him as they rode. She functioned perfectly in every other way, however. A marvelous actress.

Besides the excellent performances by Hepburn and Taylor, I enjoyed this picture because of the background. It wouldn't have been made with Montgomery Clift but for Taylor, who guaranteed his salary so the insurance company would go along with him in the cast. I've heard and read that she took care of him throughout the movie, waiting for the retakes until he got it right for a scene, helping him with his lines. She was the most loyal friend ever, according to those who witnessed her behavior after his terrible accident. That's nice. It's seldom we hear about people like that. Sinatra did that for people. Lee J. Cobb said after his heart attack Sinatra took him home and put him up while he recovered, although he had never met him before that. Sophie Tucker had people she supported for decades. Her checks would go out every night after her nightclub performances to this endless line of people waiting for them. Jimmy Durante was like that as well. He always had pockets full of cash for people he met when he was eating out or just walking in New York. They called him the softest touch in the business. Now, as for the picture: I always thought it was a horrible movie. Couldn't have been more ghastly, with the turtles and the boys and the people in the crazy house, so I always concentrate on how good ET was to Clift.

Which made him an odd choice to play Rochester in a TV production of Jane Eyre a few years ago. His frequent references to his homeliness were ridiculous. I almost couldn't suspend disbelief enough on that one, although the wig was pretty bad. I thought he did an amazing job of conveying a blind man toward the end. He's quite a remarkable actor. I've seen him in several British movies, one in which he was nude. All the way nude, along with (and this shocked me!) Jennifer Ehle, who played Lizzie in "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth. Ehle was nude, too. Interesting picture. Quite a leap from Lizzie to an upper-middle-class English girl gamboling with a good-looking young guy, without a blush.

I recently saw Maggie Smith's son (Toby Stephens) in Private Lives in London -- he's a great actor. ... and perfectly GORGEOUS!