BRONXGIRL'S MOTHER, HENRY FONDA'S HIRSUTENESS, ETC.

[Bronxgirl48]

I'm in a nostalgic frame of mind, thinking about my first love, the Hungarian Valentino. Bela even played a sheik of Araby!

 

 

 

Edited by: Bronxgirl48 on Apr 13, 2012 2:21 PM

[Bronxgirl48]

Forgive me folks, for indulging in this flagrant wistfulness!

 

 

[Bronxgirl48]

Let me post this one more time.

 

It's up there with the Rudy "All I Wanna Do Is Touch You" video in my estimation; i.e., I can't stop playing it!

 

 

[JackFavell]

Wow! Bela was very very expressive. We really don't know how great he could have been, because most of his potential seems to have remained untapped.

 

You know, I can see a clear connection between him and Rudy, and also Conrad Veidt. All three extremely expressive, emotional actors. And fond of Chinese pyjamas.

[Bronxgirl48]

Ah yes, the exotic p.j.'s! You are so perceptive, Jackie, about the connections between these three passionate performers, and why Rudy and Connie follow in Lugosi's charismatically "Other" wake for me. Their screen personas also had more than a touch of melancholy and romantic yearning; they moved uneasily about in a world not of their own making, desperate to love and belong but being constantly rejected by conventional society. This outsider status many times "forced" them to take the most drastic measures (conquest and power regardless of consequence) in order to achieve self-respect and acceptance.

[JackFavell]

You put that so well! I couldn't really put my finger on what the connection was, but I definitely think you are right, it is that longing, melancholy nature.

 

I can't get over how open the youthful Bela looked. Later on, starting about the time of Dracula, or just before, his brows knitted together and his brow became more pronounced. I wonder if he changed his browline to enhance a more thoughtful, stronger appearance, or if this was just the ravages of time, pain and melancholy starting to work on his inner being?

[SansFin]

Bela is a very attractive man.

 

It is part of me to like intensity in a man's face.

 

Yuriy Yakovlev

 

Eugen Sandow

I am sure he has a face. It always takes for me a while to look up that far.

[Bronxgirl48]

Actually, Bela apparently was just born intense. Look at him as a toddler in that one video where he's with his older sister. His brows are knitted and the stare is mesmerizing, even at that age, lol. And watch the Deerslayer video; his expressions and body language presage the Dracula movements, and this was only 1920.

 

I had the extreme pleasure of catching THE DEVIL WITHIN HER last night. Oh, mama. London nightclub performance-art stripper Joan Collins is cursed by a randy dwarf and subsequently gives birth to the "Day-vil". More later.

[Bronxgirl48]

I know what you mean about Eugene Sandow, ha! But he's blessed with a good face, too!

 

I remember liking the Russian actor who played Alexander Nevsky in the 1938 Eisenstein film. But my expertise on that country's leading men is practically nil.

 

Edited by: Bronxgirl48 on Apr 15, 2012 7:20 PM

[Bronxgirl48]

 

 

Edited by: Bronxgirl48 on Apr 15, 2012 6:46 PM

[Bronxgirl48]

THE DEVIL WITHIN HER is on YouTube.

 

Experience the supreme pleasure of a horrible movie!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83atTcfuEU

[Bronxgirl48]

This laughable Joan Collins "fright"-fest is known by several titles -- THE DEVIL WITHIN HER, I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN, and THE MONSTER.

 

Location shooting of 1970's London might help you get through this, but just barely, lol.

 

This is what I love about TCM -- one minute a deliciously absurd British horror movie, then the great FORBIDDEN GAMES. "Michel! Michel!" Brigitte Fossey breaks my heart.

[Bronxgirl48]

The Joan Collins schlock-fest also goes by SHARON'S BABY, even though no one by that name in the movie gives birth to the evil spawn.

 

The strange thing is I saw the spitting image of that baby in Michael's Craft Store the other day, and made a joke of it to the parents. I'm not sure how I determined they had a sense of humor, but luckily they laughed their heads off when I told them he looked just like Joan Collin's demonic offspring.

 

Then I had a Simone Signoret lookalike as the cashier at my local Italian deli. Not only was this woman a dead ringer, but spoke with a French accent and told me she came to America from Paris in 1972. Unfortunately Rudy hasn't shown his face again at the counter.

 

I haven't seen Vivian Leigh in Walgreens for quite some time.

 

Edited by: Bronxgirl48 on Apr 15, 2012 7:18 PM

[pandorainmay]

Jeez, Bronxie,

Before I got glasses I once thought that I saw Samuel Beckett driving a bread delivery van, but you have me beat by a mile, finding Signoret and Demon Babes lurking amid the glue sticks and silk flowers in Michael's Store. I'm glad you're posting, though Bela's appeal also eludes me, I'm afraid.

 

I did like seeing him in the silents despite my lack of insight into his intensity. How do you feel about Boris Karloff?

 

[JackFavell]

Sandow has such a wonderful face, you are right, but he always reminds me of the Marx Bros.

 

That movie looks hilarious! ! From watching the preview, it seems like something akin to Night of the Lepus - scenes of absolute terror, and then a cut to the baby, who does not look in the least demonic. In fact, I think the baby looks even less evil than those cute --little-- big bunnies.

 

Joan Collins is enough to make me scream, and that's just watching her in regular films.

[MissGoddess]

> {quote:title=Bronxgirl48 wrote:}{quote}This laughable Joan Collins "fright"-fest is known by several titles -- THE DEVIL WITHIN HER, I DON'T WANT TO BE BORN, and THE MONSTER.

>

> Location shooting of 1970's London might help you get through this, but just barely, lol.

>

 

How funny, I just recently watched two horror movies that featured Joan Collins. One was called *Dark Places* and the other was called *Fear in the Night* I believe.

 

> This is what I love about TCM -- one minute a deliciously absurd British horror movie, then the great FORBIDDEN GAMES. "Michel! Michel!" Brigitte Fossey breaks my heart.

 

Oh, that movie was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo distressing (the puppy!!!!) and sad (Brigitte). It had to be one of the saddest endings I have ever seen...because you know it is repeated over and over and over again in every war.

 

Edited by: MissGoddess on Apr 16, 2012 9:35 AM

[JackFavell]

I agree, I meant to record Forbidden Games but missed the first five minutes. At the end, I was sitting here, trying not to wake the family with my sobs.

[MissGoddess]

FORBIDDEN GAMES spoiler!

 

Oh dear, the first five minutes were just as hard for me to handle as the last five. First her parents, then----I swear that puppy _really_ died. That wasn't a toy.

[JackFavell]

Oh no! I was going to go back and watch to see what I missed. I don't know... I had sort of avoided this movie for years, because I knew it would get to me, but somehow during it, I was just sitting there with my mouth open, taking it in, not as upset as I thought I would be. Till the end. I don't know which was worse, the lie, or seeing all those people at the station or whatever that building was at the end. That's the power of it, knowing that there were probably thousands of Brigitte Fosseys out there.....

[MissGoddess]

I never even heard of this movie before! The reason I watched is I saw that the director was Rene Clement, who made one of my very favorite (off-beat) thrillers, *Rider on the Rain*. And I had never seen any other movie by him, so I was curious to see *Forbidden Games*. Nothing really prepared me for it. Those first five or however many minutes...they seemed an eternity they were so horrific...be prepared. Did you get as far as the peasant lady in the cart and the river? I squeaked with horror at what she did. I understand it, but poor Brigitte.

 

I keep hoping the film makers just happened to find a litter of identical puppies, one of which just happened to expire of natural causes. But I don't know...

 

Anyway, I could see the same delicate touches combined with harsh human (adult) behavior on the director's part...both movies sort of depict what adults do to children, how their weaknesses can trigger a pattern of fear and hiding. Fascinating. A pity he made so few films.

 

Edited by: MissGoddess on Apr 16, 2012 10:21 AM

[JackFavell]

No I guess I missed more than I thought. You are right about the delicate mixed with the harsh... And yet, in some instances, you can see why the adults did what they did. It didn't make it any easier to watch them doing it, or make them less hypocritical and really horrible, it just makes it clear that adulthood is a tragedy. To put children in the hands of these monsters, who are us, is even more of a tragedy.

[MissGoddess]

> {quote:title=JackFavell wrote:}{quote}To put children in the hands of these monsters, who are us, is even more of a tragedy.

 

So true and very well stated. I loved how the director showed the lack of "loving your neighbor" between the two peasant families. They had their own war going on that seemed to mirror the larger one. People always find something to fight over.

[JackFavell]

They just seemed to have a grudge going against that neighbor - jealousy, I don't know. It seemed almost comic at times, if it hadn't had such deadly, stupid consequences.

 

The adults all acted as they wished to, cruelly, in fact, with little of the virtues that they were trying to force on the children. I used to see this at daycare all the time, with the words "They have to learn to fight for themselves sometime" blithely bandied as parents stood and watched kids bash each others brains out.

 

Sometimes, Michel's prayers caught the adults' vibes, and they needed him for that. He was a good boy. But somehow, the nicer he was, the more he was on their wrong side, and couldn't get back no matter what. I worry about this with my daughter so much, as she gets older. You see things in your kids - things that you might not like, but that reflect YOU and your faults and it's upsetting... so it's tempting to lash out, or make them try to re-learn whatever it is that you made the mistake about in the first place. Which ends up seeming like punishment. It's awful, being an adult and a parent. Seeing your mistakes right in front of you, concrete, is not a pretty thing - things that might make it harder for your children later - and all because you were lazy or didn't think at the time, or never saw it in yourself until now. It's easy to get upset over these things, when the child has no idea that you hate the thing in yourself, and the behavior, not them. Clement makes all this so clear, simply and with so few words.

 

The adults were hypocritical at best, gentle for no reason when it was easy, and downright nasty when they felt 'on show' or slighted in some petty way. What I loved was how Clement showed the adults' actions as almost nonsensical , they seemed crazy sometimes and the children the sane ones.

 

Generous? Ha, the adults had lost any kindness or generosity , they had sunk so far with work and hardship that they couldn't even understand the children. The children's innocence made them innately more than usually generous, and thoughtful if somewhat coldblooded. Their cold bloodedness did not rise out of hatred, but out of indifference to the things that adults deemed important. The older the adults were, the worse they acted, too far from innocence to even know it when they saw it. The adults, with age and hard work, became almost evil, definitely monstrous.

 

I found the references to religion and death and how confusing they are quite fascinating. You get a box on the ears for stealing a cross (oh, my gosh I almost jumped out of my seat when the priest HIT Michel, oh my! I wasn't expecting such violence out of him) for a friend to ease her anguish, putting into effect exactly what the grownups do at church only with the meaning actually intact, and yet, the adults don't get it. Michel is told every day to steal from the neighbor, but when he steals to help someone, with true Christ-like behavior, he's an outlaw. When you are dead, you are put in a hole in the ground and a cross over your hole - except that it is just a weird meaningless ritual when the adults do it. When the kids do it, mimicking, they somehow capture the real meaning, oddly enough. And how certain things are done by rote - a prayer is not so much a prayer as something to say very very fast over and over again. Then throw a complete innocent into the mix and the adults all felt like their little petty world was toppling, never thinking how Paulette's world had already toppled. They never really thought of her or Michel. They had to take their vindictiveness out on the children, because the adults saw their own guilt, and punishment was necessary somewhere, in order to pretend they were 'moral'. The children violated some unspoken rule that they did not even know existed. And Michel was learning every day to hate, to steal, to not care. They killed his soul, any goodness in him. Heartbreaking.

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Apr 18, 2012 3:05 PM

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Apr 18, 2012 3:08 PM

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Apr 18, 2012 3:11 PM

[SansFin]

I believe it is fair to warn all here that I have received the official decision on my status and I have been approved to stay here another year. You are not getting rid of me easily!

[JackFavell]

Yay! Congrats, Sansfin!