Dothery
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Posts posted by Dothery
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My guess is that if there was such a marriage, it was quickly annulled.
There was never any implication in the articles I read of its being annulled. I'm 84, and at the time I'm speaking of I LIVED surrounded by movie magazines such as Photoplay and Movie Mirror and other publications like Life, Look and Collier's. They were all we had in the way of learning about movies, and I was a teenager addicted to movies. It wasn't like now, when you can get information about them through TV and computer web sites ...
When The Corn Is Green came out I read everything I could find about John Dall and learned about his former marriage.
Angela Lansbury's marriage to Richard Cromwell was also very short-lived.
Angela herself has commented on that marriage, just a year or two ago. She said she was married to Cromwell for a year before she discovered he was bisexual. She divorced him then. Later she married Peter Shaw and had a very happy and successful marriage until his death.
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I looked this up on the IMDB, and Nancy Walker is listed as having had two husbands, but John Dall is not one of them.
I know. I looked it up myself. Her first husband is never mentioned by namein any of the articles about her. But Dall was married to her, for about two years. She was the bigger star when they were married. It was when they were in New York, and she at least was working on Broadway, in Best Foot Forward, as I recall. I don't know if he was working then. I remember wondering at the time how those two ever got together; they were so different. When he got into the movies they referred to the marriage in articles about him in film magazines, but usually in the past tense.
It may have been mentioned in Life magazine as well. I remember they did a story on him and The Corn Is Green when he hit big with that movie.
Nancy never talked about him herself. Maybe she hoped that marriage would just go away. Her second marriage to David Craig was very satisfactory, apparently.
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Dall never married ...
Dall was married to Nancy Walker for some time. He's not mentioned in her autobiographies but he was her first husband. I remember their marriage.
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Not to be snide, but I'm sure she doesn't care one way or the other. When Judy Garland went to visit her in France years ago, she said, "Are you still in that ****** business?" When she got out of it, she really got out of it. I doubt she gives it a thought. (She is still alive, isn't she?)
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I love Ronald Colman. Just love him. He's sweet and gentle and lovable and I just love him. I even loved him in this, when he was just the leeeeeeast little bit unfaithful to his ever-devoted wife, just because she went away with her ditzy sister to Venice for five weeks and left him alone.
What I couldn't understand was how Kay Francis could get packed to go to South Africa in half an hour and make it to the boat on time. It would have taken me six weeks, and then I would have been late.
Edited by: Dothery on Dec 4, 2012 12:27 AM
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Thanks for posting that great Paul Newman interview. He was always a favorite of mine, and such an honest man. I'm sure he had his faults, like all of us, but his generosity was so great it beat everything else in his life, I think.
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One more anecdote about loos ... I was at the aquarium in London and saw a dolphin go by trailing a string of excrement behind it, as they will. A little boy asked his mother what that was, and she replied, "He's having the loo, dear."
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Last night during DRACULA'S DAUGHTER, one cop said to the other "OK, I'll take a look" but the caption read "I'll take a loo."
Considering that they were British cops, the error takes on a whole new meaning.
I'll say it does ...
Concerning that, have you seen an old Bill Murray movie called "The Man Who Knew Too Little?" It's one of my favorites, and I rerun it from time to time just to hear him saying to the captive heroine, "Off to the loo with ya," when she asks if she can go. There's much mixup about the loo and about flushing. He plays a visiting American who gets mixed up in a real spy plot when he thinks he's in live theater, moving around London to get clues, find letters, etc. A hilarious picture, very well done. Everyone should see it. Provided they like Bill Murray, that is.
Edited by: Dothery on Dec 2, 2012 12:08 AM
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I don't think TCM has shown MIRACLE OF THE BELLS since Frank was Star of the Month several years ago for his birthday one December.
I liked that movie. I know it was considered pretty hokey by some people, but it was such a different story and had such unusual casting that it caught me. I particularly thought the performances were excellent, given the material.
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There, now, see what I mean? I was watching "Murder Ahoy" a while ago, with Margaret Rutherford doing her usual masterful job as Miss Marple, when I was jarred by a caption referring to the background music as "Jig playing," when any fool could tell it was "The Sailor's Hornpipe." Jig, indeed!
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To Joan Fontaine in REBECCA:
The trouble is, with me laid up like this, you haven't had enough to do.
How I loved Florence Bates. She of the huge dimples and the great acting ability. I loved the scene where she finds out her little companion is going to marry Mr. DeWinter. That face falls so fast and she recovers so quickly. And how fast her ugliness returns when he's out of the room.
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Oh, and I forgot to mention that several times whilst watching A Woman's Secret I thought to meself: "wow, this is just the kind of trifling dreck that Ray and Co. skewer so delightfully at the beginning of In a Lonely Place. "
I guess they knew from where they were coming.
I've been wondering just when it was she began the trick of stuffing her upper lip with cotton. I remember reading that directors used to tell her not to do it, but as soon as their backs were turned in it went again. Watching the classic stuff I don't see it, but I noticed it in some of her later pictures. She looks as though she's trying not to open her mouth too far.
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Good TCM be improved? Of course, but overall, I get more 'bang for the buck' from TCM than I get from any of the other stations I get with my cable package.
Agreed. It's my starter channel for both my TVs. Nights I record a good bit of on the DVR. I don't bother with any other television except for a few favorites, which nobody agrees with, so I won't mention them. Oh, all right, "The Nanny" and "The Jack Benny Program." The latter mostly because I keep hoping Iris Adrian will be on.
I remember when Biography had decent biographies and wasn't full of ghost hunters with green film. I remember the History channel and the Discovery channel and all those fun ones before they disintegrated. I'm in mourning for those, and now I'm down to TCM and the aforementioned faves.
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I forgot to comment that Astaire nixed doing any more films with her (too bad) From what I remember he was afraid she would outshine him in the tapping dept. I'm glad at least we have those 2 wonderful numbers from Melody of 40 on film..........
Sorry to seem contentious, but I think, with respect, that you may be wrong in your assessment of Fred's possible jealousy of Powell, if she's the one you're talking about. I say may be, because I can't be sure, but I can't imagine Fred being worried about Eleanor outshining him, especially considering her words about him at the AFI awards, when she said she'd like to do it all over again ... that tap number from Melody ... and that at one point he gave his approval (which apparently he hadn't before), when he picked her up in the air and said "NOW you're dancing!" This was the acme of compliments to her. "In his autobiography Steps in Time, Astaire remarked, "She 'put 'em down like a man', no ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself." (Wikipedia)
He had a definite future in mind for himself when he refused offers to dance with Ginger any more. He'd made nine movies with her and didn't want to be stuck in that mold forever. Also he was changing his style of dancing a lot. He was doing things he'd never done before. When he did his TV specials they were immensely different from his early work.
From what I've read, I believe in a book by Hermes Pan (it was a lot of years ago, so I can't quote exactly), he and his wife Phyllis vetted the scenes in his pictures, including anything with a kiss involved. Their word was law. They'd sit there on the set going over every scene with the director and deciding what stayed in and what went out. I have no doubt that his career was her career, and when he turned down any further teaming with Ginger it was probably her decision as well.
I must say I've heard a lot of rumors about Fred and Ginger, most of which I've discounted because they were pretty silly, such as one by the DJ I heard discussing them on radio and saying the reason she wore the long dresses was that she couldn't dance and they didn't want anyone to know it (of all the ridiculous claims, that was the silliest), and so I've learned to pay attention only to their autobiographies or bios done by people close to them, such as Hermes Pan.
By the way, that DJ didn't know much about a lot of things. He thought the chariot jump in "Ben Hur" where Judah falls out of the chariot going over the other wreck was an accident, when it was planned for weeks and special ramps built for it, etc. I loved the part in Yakima Canutt's autobiography where he described it in detail. His son did the stunt and didn't do it the way Yak had told him to, with one hand on the front of the chariot and the other on the side bar, but had both hands in front, which made him fly over the bar and almost get killed. But I digress.
My favorite story about Fred Astaire is that he came into the room at a party wearing tails, as all the men did at that party, and when he did, everyone looked drab compared to him. Bob Hope leaned over and said to some starstruck actor who was just staring at Fred, "I know just what you mean, kid."
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She had such longevity. I can't think of another star who looked as good as she did, white hair and all, from the beginning of her career in the 20's to her death. Bob Taylor wandered off with Ursula Theiss while he was making Quo Vadis, and she was on her own from then on, but she never stopped working, never despaired, kept her life going well and looked young until the end. Robert Wagner was insane about her, and their affair went on until she ended it. "My girl," he calls her in his book, "Pieces Of My Heart."
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It's a wasted career in some regards and we are shortchanged some more wonderful films that could've been made with her and Kelly and with her and Astaire.
I have to agree. She was shortchanged indeed, but she got her revenge later, when everyone thought she was washed up. Her son Peter was about 15, and couldn't understand why his mother had been so adulated and then disappeared from view and got fat and lazy. She went to work again on stage. She buckled down and lost the weight, and began dancing again in a revue that showcased her talents, and drew crowds wherever she went. It was a remarkable feat. Once she had shown she could do it, she settled back into being a normal lady with a normal life again. Her life from then on was very satisfying to her, at least.
Edited by: Dothery on Nov 29, 2012 1:51 PM
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Rick's a fine actor. And he did quite well in this movie. It's just that he looked so YOUNG. He seemed to look like a 15 year old trying to be tough. NOT the menacing homicidal maniac he was portraying.
Well, he WAS supposed to be playing a 17-year-old, same age as his girlfriend. You remember the references, one when he wanted to marry her to shut her up and one of the other mobsters said, "You're both under age." I couldn't visualize him as 17, with that hat on, however.
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Oh, my, I don't know if I can do it. It's from a W.C. Fields movie, and he's a bartender, talking to a customer about Chicago Molly, a lady of some reputation, with another bartender standing nearby. Here we go, from memory:
W.C.. "So I says to her, 'None of your peccadillos in here.'"
(He then describes the free lunch on the bar, which consists of asparagus mayonnaise, Philadelphia cream cheese, etc.)
"So she dips her mitt in this melange, and she lets me have it right in the moosh. So I jumped over the bar and began hitting her ..."
At this point the other bartender interrupts. "I was the one who was hitting her."
W.C.: "Well, I was the one started kicking her ... Did you ever kick a woman with tight corsets on? Very painful ... nearly broke my great toe."
Customer: "Did she ever come back?"
Other bartender: "You bet she came back. She came back and beat the two of us up."
W.C. "Yeah, but she had another woman with her ...
Edited by: Dothery on Nov 29, 2012 2:18 AM
Edited by: Dothery on Nov 29, 2012 2:19 AM
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My hackles rise when I hear someone say "ek cetera." It's et cetera. No ek. Unfortunately I haven't heard it pronounced correctly for so long I'm beginning to think I won't recognize it if it is.
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RMeingast, thanks for the information and the commentary. Sadly (or should I say malheureusement), I don't speak other languages, except a little Japanese, and I can't read that, so I do have to rely on subtitles.
I love Indian movies. They're silly sometimes but that's the attraction for me. All that singing and dancing in every situation, no matter how gloomy, cheers me up. I remember one Amitabh Bachchan movie where they even had music in a prison break! It was to cover the breakout and all the prisoners were singing and dancing all over the prison. Crazy. He got out, of course.
I love CC for the same reason you do. I had a bed and breakfast for a long time, and I'm a night owl too, so I had to have the captions so as to unwind quietly when I was trying to go to sleep and not annoy the guests.
Another of my interests is opera, so subtitles are essential there. I'm beginning to learn some Italian through following operas written in it, but I'm not very good yet. I can follow some of the French captions for movies made there, but again I'm not good at it yet. I haven't tried any German operas, since I really am not fond of them.
My dilemma with TVs is that they're not all the same, and sometimes you can't turn the captions OFF and are forced to have them on whether you like it or not. I'm on the horns of an unfixable dilemma there.
Aloha!
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A conversation in one of my favorite television programs is that a woman asks her sister if she is getting cold feet. The sister says with sarcasm: "I'm getting chilblains". The Closed Captioning is: "I'm getting chilled legs".
That's funny ... I actually like that better!
The one I absolutely abhorred was in a faked copy of a "Bollywood" movie. (I know Bollywood is a disgusting word to many Indian actors, but it does identify the genre.) In one adorable scene in "Mr. Natwarlal," Amitabh Bachchan, that perfectly marvelous man, is holding Rekha, the girl who has been chasing him and whose love he is finally accepting, and is rhapsodizing about how he will cover her with jewels, take her to London for their wedding and Tokyo for their honeymoon, have her hair done in America and turn her into a "stylish one" (that part in English). Then they will have a little house for his brother, his sister-in-law (customary in India to have the whole family live together), the two of them and their 40,000 kids. A beautiful bit. And the caption for most of it was "Hugging my love." I threw a (private) fit and returned the disk to the seller, telling him that I was pretty sure this was a knockoff and not the original film. He agreed and made good on it. I later got a copy of the movie with the correct subtitles.
Amitabh, BTW, is the cinematic icon of India. He has a blog which he's used for three years now to communicate with his fans, since he's too famous to go out among people (he'd be torn to pieces by fans, and that's not an exaggeration) and couldn't get to them any other way. He was also at the mercy of the press, which would make up stories about him just to please their editors, and he would correct them, but they wouldn't print his corrections, and would edit THOSE. So the blog answered many problems for him. He's very accessible privately to all of us, howeer, and people I know have been invited to his house to meet him. I would say he was the principal cinema star in India for about 30 years. He's still active in movies and TV, currently the host of the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" as well as being an semi-ambassador for the country in many capacities.
Scroll down and take a look at the mobs outside his house on Sunday afternoon. And this happens EVERY Sunday.
I have seen it also that changes are deliberate. There is a movie in German in which a character clearly says the 'f' word. The subtitle in English says: "Damn" and the Closed Captioning says: "Darn it".
I expect there are countries where they have to change a lot of words they wouldn't use there.
I have seen it also in several Japanese television programs that the English subtitles change some of the meaning and the Closed Captioning is different also so that a person has a choice of three different things being said.
Well, at least that's convenient. You can pick and choose.
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I Never Sang for My Father ...
That movie always makes me laugh, remembering my mother and her reaction to one line by Melvyn Douglas: "If you would only ENUCIATE!" She was always grumbling that we didn't talk clearly enough for her to understand, even though she realized her hearing wasnt what it had been. When she heard this line she said, "Yes! THAT's what I mean!"
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How about any role played by Charles Coburn - especially "Mr. Dingle" in *The More The Merrier*?
No no no no no ... that part is sacred to me! Nobody could do a bump like Coburn.
That movie is THE perfect film with THE perfect cast. It shouldn't ever be remade, although it has been once, as "Walk Don't Run" with Cary Grant and Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar. They changed it enough so it didn't offend me too much, setting it in Tokyo and doing the big love scene in a taxi.
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Possibly his beloved tisane? While other folks would have espresso, Hercule loved his tisane.
Which MOTOE were you watching? David Suchet is, imo, the greatest Poirot ever.
My understanding of tisane is that it's any herbal tea. So you were right. And I agree that Suchet was the best. I heard him talking in an interview about taking the accent home with him once, not thinking, and his kids went mad laughing at him. A very nice man.
I remember an episode of Poirot where he rode in an amphibious cart that took off from a beach and landed on an island. I got all excited becuse I knew that cart! I had seen it when we were on vacation in Devonshire. The tide is so fast there that if you're not careful you'll be caught by it and perhaps drowned. The cart sort of thing was tall and on wheels, and it drove from the beach to the island carrying people out to a night club for an evening of revelry. Not Poirot, of course, since he needed to get out there to solve a crime.
Why wasn't John Dall a bigger star?
in General Discussions
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Re: John Dall
Just out of curiosity, I've sent an e-mal to Lawrence J. Quirk, who is a film historian and author of several books about the movies and people therein ... if anyone would know about Dall and Walker, he would. I'll let you know what comes up, if I get an answer.