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drednm

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Posts posted by drednm

  1. Rewatched About Mrs. Leslie last night. Great film with super performance by Shirley Booth. Improbable on some levels, but it never gets mawkish. Booth and Robert Ryan turn in understated performances which balance nicely with the comic relief (poor Percy Helton and his wine glasses), and the "young" love story (Alex Nicol and Marjie Martin). Booth's 4 starring films could certainly have earned her 4 Oscar nominations.

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  2. In November 2014 TCM presented SILENT STARS OF THE MONTH and featured a bunch of stars who probably don't have enough films available for a month-long salute: Gloria Swanson, Marion Davies, Rudolph Valentino, Norma Talmadge, Constance Talmadge, Wallace Reid among them.

     

     

  3. As with Hot Spell and probably almost all of the films that were released years ago on VHS, there are copies of it floating around. Hysterically, there's a VHS on Amazon for only $99.95.

     

    My guess is that there are DVDs from the old VHS out there.

     

  4. No idea. I think it was out on VHS in the 70s or 80s because I've seen it. Booth appears as herself, along with a lot of the Broadway stars of the time. This was an indie production although released by MGM.

     

    Her other films are Paramount releases.

     

     

  5. Shirley Booth had an amazing stage career and won three Tony Awards for Best Actress. She played the lead (Leona Samish)  in Arthur Laurents' play The Time of the Cuckoo but did not get to play the role on screen. The working class Brooklyn woman of the play was made more glamorous and prosperous, given the name of Jane Hudson, and played by Katharine Hepburn in the film version, which was called Summertime. The author was not pleased with the result.

     

    It would have been interesting to see Ms. Booth play the role on screen, in the manner in which the character was originally created.

     

    Booth won two Tony Awards as best actress, for Come Back, Little Sheba and for The Time of the Cuckoo. Her first Tony award was for supporting actress in Goodbye, My Fancy.

     

    In Summertime, Hepburn plays a secretary from Ohio (Akron?), so I'm not sure where you get "more glamorous and prosperous."

  6. In some ways, Booth's performance is better in Hot Spell than in Sheba because she gets to do a little comic relief with Heckart, and yes the ending is excellent. The character she plays may be a little more realistic, but she's great in both. What a pity she didn't come to films earlier.

     

     

  7. Hot Spell is around. I just watched it the other night. No idea if TCM has ever aired it. Shirley Booth is excellent again as the silly wife who's always talking about going back to some town when they were all happy. Anthony Quinn is a philandering husband, the "kids" are all grown and ready to leave. She'll be alone. So there's this "Trip to Bountiful" thing going on. Of course, you can't go home again. Amid the drama there's this very funny scene when breezy Eileen Heckart drops by and tries to jazz up Booth by teaching her to flirt by smoking cigarettes and drinking booze. Hysterical. The kids are played by Shirley MacLaine, Earl Holliman, Clint Kimbrough.

     

    Maybe TCM can't get it because it was a Paramount release???

  8. Yup, the (bad) luck of the draw. She's basically remembered for her films with Fields, but she had a solid career aside from that. Had she been an MGM actress, she'd be better remembered today and her films would be seen more often on TCM.

  9. Has The Patent Leather Kid (1927) with Richard Bathelmess ever shown up anywhere, or on TCM?

    Barthelmess was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

     

    And yes, I would like to see The Barker too.

     

    Seems like The Patent Leather Kid was being restored a while back but I haven't heard anything more about that is ages. It's a terrific film and Richard Barthelmess is great in it, quite deserving of his Oscar nomination for best actor.

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