daddysprimadonna

Myrna Loy was a great friend of Joan Crawford's , and seemed to be the soul of integrity and class- and I saw or read an interview with her where she said Joan never did the things that Cristina Crawford said, or at least some were taken out of context, and that Christina was a sly manipulative willful child who gave Joan much heartache. I guess know one can truly know but those two, but I'm inclined to with a grain of salt things said by a daughter who would write them about her dead mother and publish them for all the world to see. It smacks to much of spite and revenge.

I saw that movie last night, it was good in the campiest way!

In regard to the 1900-1923 movies, I suppose like Theda Bara? I have that movie" A Fool There Was" and she's definitely fleshy in it, but it's in a different way than the Fifties women-not so "real" or something.

But they ALL seemed smaller than the late Forties and beyond women:) I REALLY REALLY think it had something to do with the film or lighting, as well as the fashion and popular aesthetic. I wish someone could tell me if things changed in that respect.

I mean the very EARLY Thirties still had that baby-faced look, then maybe the European stars started to influence things more. It's like the difference between the "Flaming Youth" of the Twenties and the early Thirties , then the more sophisticated Thirties "cafe society" look.

That's true, they looked more "matronly" then, but I guess at that time the Edwardian ideal was still in effect. And rounder faces were still in vogue(although actually, a somewhat rounded face seemed to remain in style after that-you know, like the girl in the "I'm Young and Healthy" routine with Dick Powell, in "Gold Diggers of 1933" (I think)-the women all seemed to be Lolitas. That didn't seem to last long, except in a niche, then the more chiseled sophisticated look started to vie with the teen look.Maybe things are not as categorised as I thought, after a deeper look at it all!

I STILL think it must have something to do with the film or the lighting:)

Do you know, I've noticed that in a lot of the earlier picturs, especially the pre-codes, the women aren't wearing bras, and they don't seem to mind that they have no cleavage or support, in fact, it seems to be a look they went for. They all SEEM to be small-breasted, and if things go different ways, that seemed to be fine. As if they were all adolescent.I suppose many of the actresses we're familiar with WERE much younger then also, so they WOULD look more girlish,LOL. But they still looked different beyond all of that, gosh darnit! I just can't seem to explain myself.

I can really see a difference (just a beginning of the difference) in Norma Shearer in "The Divorcee) and "A Free Soul", and Norma in "The Women"-it's not a full-blown difference yet, but it's beginning. Norma seems more "real" (appearence, I mean), in "The Women", not so elusive as in the earlier movies.

I can see what you mean about the clothes, but it's not just height and weight that I notice as being different-I mean they even seem smaller -boned. Maybe I'm putting too fine a point on it. Jane Powell was a small woman, and Debbie Reynolds, and even they seem somehow more "substantial" and three-dimensional in their movies. Something really makes me think it was the film or the lighting. Was it different from the Thirties to the Fifties? I know the aesthetic ideal was different also. I remeber reading in F Scott Fitzgerald's stories how the heroine is always ideally "dainty", in her dress, her grooming, her mind-set(but not her actions-in that,she was ideally a free spirit-just like his ideal flapper, Joan Crawford).Then in the late Forties-Fifties, the curves become more blatant, the women seem bigger-boned(even the petite women, when seen next to almost any Thirties heroine), they seem "meatier" and fleshier. When I see them in Technicolor, it seems REALLY obviuosly different to me. The Ginger Rogers in "Barkleys of Broadway" seems to have a different shape altogether from the one in "Follow The Fleet"- and look at the difference in Harriet-oh my gosh, I can't remember her last name!-from how she looks in "Ozzie and Harriet". It's not JUST the clothes. The women don't seem as glamourously unreal and kind of "silvery" and ethereal.

LOL, you're right-and I'll do some contacting:) Sorry, can't help it, we're fanatics, we have tunnel vision when it comes to our faves, especially since we can't see so much of these anywhere but TCM-see, no good deed goes unpunished:), and we're always left wanting more! See what you did TCM, you've created monsters for silents and pre-codes and...

I know it's not quite the same thing, but I love the film noir bad girls-whether they're bad through-and-through or have a heart of gold beneath it all. I'm just now getting into those movies so I can't name names yet, but I love those women, especially in the B-movie film noir.

I don't even think that it's so much that they WERE built differently, I know Greta Garbo was a big woman(not fat-at least not when Louis B Mayer got through with her), and in her later pictures Myrna Loy seems full-figured(not fat, just tall and womanly), and Ginger Rogers, the same-to name a few. But in those Thirties and early Forties films, they seem different. Sort of insubstantial and ethereal. I mean, Garbo in "Camille"-she has that look. It always makes me think maybe the film used was different, or the lighting techniques, or SOMEthing. Not neccesarily the women themselves. I'm not explaining this too well.Lolmsted, I agree with you that the women from the Thirties movies would look right at home today, they seem more "classic", in spite of marcelled hair and all. You know, I LOVE that movie"The Glenn Miller Story", and I love June Allyson, but it always peeves me that they June in full circle skirts when it's supposed to be the Thirties and Forties. A lot of Fifties movies did that. I guess the Thirties movies did it too(especially with hair styles, in the period movies), but I like the Thirties better, so I don't care,LOL:)

Same here! I hear that music and prepare to be transported in the time machine-I'm a movie fan, not a "film buff"(there's a fine distinction there:))-I love the silents on the same merits that the people going to see them in their day loved them for.

That's true, but I also mean, their faces for instance look smaller and finer-boned, and their bodies seem smaller-boned and more petite-a lot of them seem like little bird-women---really petite and cute and dainty, more girlish.

I saw her in Sadie Thompson, and I don't have that tape, so it must've been on TCM-they also showed "Queen Kelly" a while back-I have "Why Change Your Wife" on tape, I don't think TCM has shown it-it's really good and funny

Student Prince In Old Heidelburg, Way Down East, anything with Joan Crawford as a rich flapper,Gloria Swanson in "Why Change Your Wife" and "Male and Female", and many more

Is it just me, or do the ladies in the films up to approximately the early-mid forties SEEM to be built differently? Is it that a different kind of film was used, or what? The ladies in the earlier pictures all seem to be more petite and small-boned and streamlined or something,"daintier", maybe, and the ladies in the later pictures seem more full-figured and bigger-boned. I can't explain it exactly, and it's more than the difference in style. Does anyone have a possible explanation, oif you've ever noticed this?

I agree with you, "Classic Hollywood" to me is more than a time frame, it's a frame of mind, and to me it means the Silver Screen era, and the silents. For goodness' sake, you can see the movies from the Sixties and Seventies everywhere, why mess with a good thing, and the ONLY place to see many of the REALLY TRULY classic films, TCM? I personally only like the movies up to the Fifties, the end of WW2 to be precise, but I'll tolerate just a FEW movies from later than that if I MUST,LOL.

I wish with all my heart that that would happen, I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven! I'd do it myself if I could!I wonder if there are enough silent films in existence to have a year-round all-silent movie channel,without repeating too much? Who cares, I'd watch what there is over and over-you see something you missed before everytime, anyway!

I loved her in "Gaslight" too, and "The Harvey Girls", also. She made a wonderful "bad girl" she had the swagger, the pout, and the figure for it:)

Thanks!

No, I'm afraid I don't know how to see the schedule for August-maybe someone can tell us both:) On the Silent Sundays matter, I TOTALLY agree. Geez, it's ONE movie, every Sunday night,late,like you said-why mess with THAT one time block,and ALL THE TIME, for goodness' sake! It's like there's not really a Silent Sunday really, it's more like once in a while, if you're lucky, they'll remember that Sundays nights, oops, there aren't any "landmark" movies from "the first real actors" like Marlon Brando or James Dean to show(PUH-LEEZE!!!),so we'll just show a silent. I wish we could just see a variety of silents, even the ones that aren't "important"-the stuff everyday people went to see then, even if the plots were a litlle thin, or the acting just ordinary. I like to see them for the same reasons people did back then-to see the stars,the clothes, the sets, the love scenes-not just for historical or educational reasons. Why don't we see more Mary Pickford or Gloria Swanson? Or even Theda Bara? Sorry for such a rant. It's just frustrating when this is the only way for many of us to see these films. Don't mean to be an ingrate:)

Myrna Loy's early roles have always intrigued me-it's hard to beleive that she was a villianess-Myrna Loy, the quintessential companionate,understanding(yet always fun and sophisticated) wife! I've only seen her in a few roles of this type-Fu Manchu's evil daughter, the murderess in "Thirteen Women"-but she was fascinating, especially because I knew her from her other roles. I'd like to see more of her early "bad girl" movies.

I always wanted to be a guest for the weekend in the Norma Shearer version of "The Last Of Mrs Cheney"-I love that fantasy of high life in Thirties England-"Bright Young Things", Noel Coward, and all that,you know