Dothery

I've always thought Mifune was heart-stoppingly handsome, as Ty Power was here. Those eyes ... Richard Chamberlain talked about how gracious Mifune was when they worked together. A class act.

Mine is "Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood." It ran once a year or more ago and I didn't record it, not knowing how great it was. It ran again recently and I managed to catch it on the DVR, where it will remain. I fell in love with him in that little movie and will never fall out. He also has a long interview on TV Archives which is a joy. That's a great place to find out about your television idols. http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/all-interviewees

With Hollywood legends, you pays your money and you takes your choice ... there are enough versions out there to satisfy everybody.

Even dead, who could miss that profile? (Or as he said, "What's left of it," when asked to turn for a picture.)

This was told to a friend of mine by Henry Ephron, the writer. He and his wife Phoebe wrote "Desk Set," the Hepburn/Tracy movie about a giant computer. One day Spencer was talking to Phoebe, a little flirtatiously, leaning against the wall and chatting, when Hepburn came click-clicking over and said frostily, "Spencer, you're wanted on the set." She turned and left, click-clicking away. He watched her go, sighed, and said to Phoebe, "She's never forgiven me for Ingrid Bergman."

Mine too ... I remember that wonderful series, "Empty Nest," where Dinah Maniff says, thinking of a terrible punishment for someone, "He should be made to see Cinema Paradiso dubbed!" Another favorite line of mine in that series was when they were going around thinking of the most awful thing they could find out, and Manoff says, "That there's no such thing as PMS, and this is who I really am."

I know. Part of the fun is never having it resolved. Wiles says they were at George Burns' house when they got the news of Barrymore's death, and that's where they began talking about the possibility of stealing the body, and some were eager to go and do it. But Wiles figured it would be nothing but trouble, since the churches would all come down on Warner Brothers and it could cost them a lot of money and problems, so they abandoned the idea. There are enough real scandals that made Hollywood infamous. You might get a book called "Love, Laughter and Tears" by Adela Rogers St. John, which is one of my favorite sources of what-really-happened information. She knew these people in the old days, and says, for example, that Rudolph Valentino's dreamy looks at his leading ladies were a result of his nearsightedness ... he could barely see across the set. Her story of William Powell and Jean Harlow is heart-rending. She was desperately in love with him, but he wouldn't marry her because he'd already been married to one blond bombshell and didn't want to repeat the experience. He wanted a hausfrau, and eventually he did marry one. The scene of their parting at the Hearst Castle is really a tear-jerker. Garbo and John Gilbert were another story ... the other way around. She wanted to live on a farm and have a gang of children, according to Gilbert, and he wanted the star lifestyle.

Mine was "Kwaidan," the Japanese film made in about 1964. It won awards at the French film festivals, as I recall. The tale begins in Tokyo, when I saw a movie which had a friend in it, an American girl who spoke fluent Japanese. She'd been hired by the producer to play a gun moll. It was a pretty silly picture, but we sat through it just to see her. A couple of years later we were posted to London. I was at the Tower of London, alone (my husband was home babysitting so I could go). I looked up to see the actor who had been in that movie. It was pretty unexpected ... out of context, so to speak. I spoke to a man who was with his party and asked if that were Tetsuro Tamba. He said yes, and introduced me. We spent most of the afternoon chatting and touring. Pleasant time. At one point we were talking about a Japanese story called "Hoichi, the Earless One," concerning a blind biwa player who had been brought to a cemetery to play for the spirits, unbeknownst to himself. We talked at length about the story. Later the movie "Kwaidan" hit the screens, and lo and behold there was Tamba, playing the ghost who comes to take Hoichi to the cemetery. I don't think he knew he was going to be in it at the time we talked in London. The timeline is difficult to figure, but he was there looping dialogue for "The Seventh Dawn" with William Holden and Capucine. They had finished photography and were in post-production. Later he played Tiger Tanaka in a James Bond movie. "Kwaidan" is such a beautiful movie, so touching, so delicately done. Great acting, great sets, great costuming. The credits alone are worth the price of admission.

One day I was going around a roundabout in Kent, England. It would have been about 1963 or thereabouts. I looked over at a van with an open side door, like a milk float, and thought to myself, "That's the ugliest girl I ever saw driving that thing." Then as it came around, I saw the lettering on the side that said, "THE ROLLING STONES."

Hi, Tom ... you would think that Buster's word would be suspect, wouldn't you? But the story has been denied before by those who claim to have been at the funeral home all night. "According to [Errol Flynn|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Flynn|Errol Flynn]'s memoirs, film director [Raoul Walsh|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Walsh|Raoul Walsh] "borrowed" Barrymore's body before burial, and left his corpse propped in a chair for a drunken Flynn to discover when he returned home from The **** and Bull Bar. This was re-created in the movie [W.C. Fields and Me|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.C._Fields_and_Me|W.C. Fields and Me]. Other accounts of this classic Hollywood tale substitute actor [Peter Lorre|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lorre|Peter Lorre] in the place of Walsh, but Walsh himself tells the story in Richard Schickel's 1973 documentary The Men Who Made the Movies. However, Barrymore's great friend Gene Fowler denied the story, stating that he and his son held vigil over the body at the funeral home until the funeral and burial.^[[7]|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barrymore#cite_note-Kobler.2C_John_1977.2C_p._364-6]^ He was buried in East Los Angeles, at Calvary Cemetery, on June 2. Surviving family members in attendance were his brother Lionel and his daughter Diana. Ex wife Elaine also attended. Among his active pallbearers were Gene Fowler, [John Decker|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Decker|John Decker], [W.C. Fields|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.C._Fields|W.C. Fields], [Herbert Marshall|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Marshall|Herbert Marshall], [Eddie Mannix|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Mannix|Eddie Mannix], [Louis B. Mayer|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_B._Mayer|Louis B. Mayer], and [David O. Selznick|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_O._Selznick|David O. Selznick].^[[7]|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barrymore#cite_note-Kobler.2C_John_1977.2C_p._364-6]^ Years later, Barrymore's son John had the body reinterred at Philadelphia's Mount Vernon Cemetery."

Here's a controversy laid to rest. Buster Wiles says in his book "My Days With Errol Flynn" that nobody ever took John Barrymore's body out of the funeral home. The story has been around forever, and both Errol Flynn and Raoul Walsh told it in their books as truthful, but Buster tells what really happened. He and the others were talking about it, but decided not to do it. Besides, Buster says Flynn wouldn't have been scared by 40 corpses in his dining room. He goes on to say that Raoul Walsh actually came to believe they did it, and was telling the story at Flynn's funeral. He didn't contradict him, out of politeness.

Mine tend to be country houses of the Westchester County variety, like the one Katharine Hepburn floated through in "Bringing Up Baby," the one the judge and her sister lived in in "The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer," but most of all the great big wonder in "Christmas in Connecticut," with all that white woodwork, the flowered sofas, the cute little kitchen (that still had plenty of room for a table and people to sit around it), the four poster beds all over the place and the fireplace you could roast an ox in. The only thing that disturbed me was the room that kept changing ... the den to the right of the stairway, that went from having a fireplace to not having one, from having a bar to not having a bar. The rest of the house pretty much stayed put, except for an extraneous clock that was only three feet from another one. I loved the picture of Stanwyck at the top of the ladder hanging Christmas ornaments and Dennis Morgan at the grand piano singing his little heart out. My kind of house.

Wasn't Stothart the musical genius behind the MacDonald/Eddy movies as well?

Those things occurred to me as well, but I could rationalize them with my memories of England. You didn't need to rent your house to keep it available, since most houses were all paid off (at least at the time the movie was set), and you could leave it as it was without having to get income from it, except to pay the taxes. Also, it might have been rented in the meantime. In either case, the key could still work. Probably a "daily" would have come in to keep the place in order, which was my first thought when he opened the door. What kind of shape is it in? The tree ... well, it was only a few years, and trees can remain in their shape for a long time. I can't remember exactly how long it was, but I did make a couple of calculations ... the girl graduated from college, which would have put her at about 22, and when he arrived home from Liverpool he had lost three years, and she was 15 then. He'd been married to Greer for three years after the girl broke off their engagement. So ten years, approximately, that he'd been away from the cottge and the tree. (I'm not much good at math, but that's the best I can do. If you can think of another formula, let's hear it.) We had apple trees in our yard which had been there for many years but weren't very different than when they first began bearing. Sooooo ... anyway I can suspend disbelief for Ronald Colman any time. Great picture.

Okay. This is my very favorite movie, which I can watch again and again, and not just for the soap opera aspect of the plot. It's a beautiful movie. The sets are perfect, the costumes as well. Susan Peters was such a delight as a young girl. For those of you who don't know her, she was shot in a hunting accident and paralyzed. She worked for a while longer, in wheelchair movies, but then eventually died, I believe of liver failure. At any rate, in RH she was young, beautiful and wonderfully talented. Class was what this picture was all about. Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, perfectly matched. Some pictures you want to see again just to be with those people. Sometimes it's to be in their houses and enjoy the ambiance. In this movie it was all of those things. I used to live in England, and I miss it and like being there again in movies like this. There are actually villages like the one where they lived, as fairytale as they seem in films. Friday Street is one (it's a town). The Terrace of Parliament is really there, and my neighbors were thrilled to be invited by their MP to have tea with him there. All wonderful sights and memories.

Yes! The Manchurian Candidate has always been a favorite of mine. Nobody dies like Angela Lansbury. She looked REAL when she was shot, her legs sprawling out. (She said she was complimented on her death.) She scared the daylights out of me in that picture. Everyone was good, John McIver particularly, Sinatra was at his best, Janet Leigh also. Everyone.

I'm re-reading it now. I got the book a year or two ago and couldn't put it down. You're right about the ego; but remember this was a driven man from the time he opened his eyes in this world. It wouldn't have mattered what field he went into, he would have succeeded and probably because of that massive confidence that he could do whatever he set his mind to. I love the anecdotes in it, but even more the stories of how he made his education pay off in his work.

Your list is great. May I comment on "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?" I have Frank Capra's autobiography, and surprisingly, he said after the movie came out he was persona non grata anywhere near Congress. They were offended, miffed, furious at their depiction in the picture. Eventually they came around to where he was invited, but it was much later. To think, they said, of the president of the Senate winking at a visitor in the gallery! Capra was stunned at its reception. Everybody else loved it.

Thanks. That's a very interesting piece of information. I have Frank Capra's book, "The Name Above the Title," and I would highly recommend it to any fan of his movies. It's fascinating. His knowledge and creativity were phenomenal. He had a chemical engineering background and had worked his way up in film, learning to cut film when he was quite young and moving on from there. His description of creating the underwater scenes in "Submarine" was awesome, done with a scratched-up aquarium, toy submarines and toy divers and creating the bubbles with sodium. He hated makeup and phony hairpieces on actors and wouldn't let them wear them, which was a huge departure for his time. One thing I remember well from the book is his saying that "It Happened One Night" was more fun than anything. He said Gable was exactly like that character in the movie. Brash, fun-loving, and very down to earth. His relationship with Harry Cohn is surprising. He insisted on having his, Capra's, name above the title on every movie, and Cohn caved on that, and dealt very fairly with him during their years together. He respected Cohn and didn't dislike him as so many did.

The only time I ever really liked Kent Smith was when he appeared as the husband in "My Foolish Heart," with Susan Hayward. She'd married him just to give her baby a father after her boyfriend (Dana Andrews) was killed in the war before they could be married. KS was good. I thought he did a remarkable job in a soppy part in a terribly tear-jerky film. I think sometimes the best performances come from lackluster movies when the actors are determined to make something of them. The song was the best thing about that picture, though.

Oops. Posted twice. Sorry. Edited by: Dothery on Sep 28, 2012 7:02 PM

I always liked Robert Stack; in this I thought he was wasted, but what the heck. He seemed to me (in interviews and doing commentary) to be always stifling laughter. He seemed to find the world really funny, and although he was perfectly professional, you could imagine him at parties telling stories that would paralyze you with giggles. A friend of mine met him many years ago doing a photo shoot at his home, and while he didn't say that about him, he did say he was a tremendously nice man with wonderful manners.

Advise and Consent will always be my favorite. I loved Gene Tierney with Walter Pidgeon in that. They seemed so companionable. Charles Laughton was his masterful self. Don Murray was great. Altogether a wonderful picture.

Here I go wandering off again ... but the Gloria Jean movie had Nan Grey in it, and I loved her. A beautiful girl, who married the singer Frankie Laine. They were married until her death. She was in some of the soap operas we listened to, and I remember her soft, mellifluous voice. These people became real to us. When we heard them we imagined their looks ... it was sometimes a shock to see their pictures, but Nan's was just what I had expected.

The rumor about Andy's voice being used for Bacall's singing had some basis. He did a recording of the song, but Bacall herself later said that they worked on her recordings and pieced together enough to use her own voice, which she said was not good at all. He was so young at the time (I figure about 16) and his voice so immature that it would have been possible to use his version, however. He was exactly my age, and I was 16 in 1944. (Isn't that depressing?)