I Just Watched...

[Sukhov]

Stanwyck seems very full of herself in that exchange but still I think she would have been good in the role.

[LornaHansonForbes]

5 minutes ago, Gershwin fan said:

Stanwyck seems very full of herself in that exchange but still I think she would have been good in the role.

You HAVE TO BE if you wanna be A STAR, BABY!

[Roy Cronin]

Can you picture Stanwyck's reaction when she read the morning news?  Patricia Neal?  Who the hell is Patricia Neal? (Throws coffee pot out window.)

[speedracer5]

I can see why Babs would be upset if she thought she was responsible for bringing the vehicle to the attention of Jack Warner. Warner's response was basically "b---- please." 

[speedracer5]

41 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

You HAVE TO BE if you wanna be A STAR, BABY!

This reminds me of that Family Guy episode where Walt Disney is drawing Minnie Mouse and he wants her to take her dress off:

MINNIE: Do I have to?

WALT: You wanna be a star, don't you?

[misswonderly3]

Since we're talking about Patricia Neal,  I think it's interesting that no one has as yet brought up the fact that she was married to children's author Roald Dahl.  (She met him a couple of years or so after her affair with Cooper.)  She experienced more than her share of tragedy in her life  (things that happened to her children, for one.)  I really like this actress. My favourite  movies featuring Neal are  The Breaking Point,  The Day the Earth Stood Still,  A Face in the Crowd,  and Hud.

I always thought she seemed very different from most of her contemporaries. She had her own looks, she looked strong. And I liked her voice.

[speedracer5]

33 minutes ago, misswonderly3 said:

Since we're talking about Patricia Neal,  I think it's interesting that no one has as yet brought up the fact that she was married to children's author Roald Dahl.  (She met him a couple of years or so after her affair with Cooper.)  She experienced more than her share of tragedy in her life  (things that happened to her children, for one.)  I really like this actress. My favourite  movies featuring Neal are  The Breaking Point,  The Day the Earth Stood Still,  A Face in the Crowd,  and Hud.

I always thought she seemed very different from most of her contemporaries. She had her own looks, she looked strong. And I liked her voice.

I really enjoy Patricia Neal.  I haven't seen Hud yet (I think it's on my DVR), but she was fantastic in all the films you mentioned.  I love A Face in the Crowd.  I also thought she was great in her small, but important role in Breakfast at Tiffany's. 

She had a near-fatal stroke in the 60s and basically had to re-learn how to walk and talk, then went on to an Oscar nomination.  I think her daughter died of measles at the age of 7.

I  just read this interesting tidbit about Neal.  Prior to her death in 2010, she had recently converted to Catholicism.  She was buried in the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut where her friend, Dolores Hart, is a nun.  Neal was a big supporter of the Abbey's theater program. 

[TomJH]

Haunting imagery

[EricJ]

8 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

Since we're talking about Patricia Neal,  I think it's interesting that no one has as yet brought up the fact that she was married to children's author Roald Dahl.  (She met him a couple of years or so after her affair with Cooper.)  She experienced more than her share of tragedy in her life  (things that happened to her children, for one.) 

I remember a TV-movie bio with Glenda Jackson as Neal and Dirk Bogarde as Dahl, detailing Dahl's contentiously tough-love program for Neal's recovery after brain surgery/stroke in the late 60's:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082887/

I had heard that the Willy Wonka author was not the warmest or most likable individual in person, back then, but knew little of the details.

[TikiSoo]

15 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

Since we're talking about Patricia Neal,

I first saw her here:

As a typically rude child I said, "She's got a weird voice" to which my Mother retorted that Neal was once a great movie actress- a stroke took her voice "away" and she had to completely re-learn how to talk again, like a baby. She then said we should admire her for her strength & tenacity at being able work again, even in commercials.

I remember feeling ashamed and obviously never forgot this important "lesson" about ridicule/judgement. In my 20's I started seeing Neal's wonderful film performances. Thanks Mom!

Re: Dahl....most successful solitary artists are not very well socialized people. They have to constantly self-motivate and push themselves to work hard hoping to reach their goal. 

[Roy Cronin]

I recommend this small, forgotten movie, An Unremarkable Life (1989)  with Pat Neal and Shelley Winters as sisters.  The acting is wonderful.

 

[TikiSoo]

I couldn't find that, Roy. But a library search yielded these two unknown-to-me movies:

[LornaHansonForbes]

THE NIGHT DIGGER is a film that ROALD DAHL wrote for PATRICIA NEAL.

it's a BRITISH SUSPENSE THRILLER, NIGHT MUST FALL meets GREY GARDENS sort of thing- costarring NICOLAS CLAY (sp?)

I have only seen it once, and I missed it during her SOTM, but I remember it as being EXCELLENT.

the actress who plays her blind mother is terrific.

[kingrat]

2 hours ago, TikiSoo said:

I couldn't find that, Roy. But a library search yielded these two unknown-to-me movies:

I haven't seen Three Secrets, but would like to, given the three lead actresses. The Hasty Heart is definitely worth seeing. Fine performances by Patricia Neal and Richard Todd. Neal plays a nurse who works to rehabilitate soldiers who have been injured and are not yet able to return home, even though WWII is over. The most difficult patient is a Scotsman, played by Todd, who insists on being stoical and reserved, afraid of "the hasty heart."

[speedracer5]

I would like to see Three Secrets too, but unfortunately, my library doesn't have it

If I really want it, it seems I can request it through Inter-Library Loan.

[LawrenceA]

10 minutes ago, kingrat said:

I haven't seen Three Secrets, but would like to, given the three lead actresses. The Hasty Heart is definitely worth seeing. Fine performances by Patricia Neal and Richard Todd. Neal plays a nurse who works to rehabilitate soldiers who have been injured and are not yet able to return home, even though WWII is over. The most difficult patient is a Scotsman, played by Todd, who insists on being stoical and reserved, afraid of "the hasty heart."

I also enjoyed The Hasty Heart, which earned Richard Todd an Oscar nomination.

Oddly enough, just yesterday I watched Todd's final movie performance in 1992's Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls. 

[Hibi]

3 hours ago, TikiSoo said:

I couldn't find that, Roy. But a library search yielded these two unknown-to-me movies:

3 Secrets has been in rights hell for many years. TCM has never shown it (and I've never seen it either!)  I have seen The Hasty Heart. It pops up on TCM once in a great while.......

[Hibi]

3 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

THE NIGHT DIGGER is a film that ROALD DAHL wrote for PATRICIA NEAL.

it's a BRITISH SUSPENSE THRILLER, NIGHT MUST FALL meets GREY GARDENS sort of thing- costarring NICOLAS CLAY (sp?)

I have only seen it once, and I missed it during her SOTM, but I remember it as being EXCELLENT.

the actress who plays her blind mother is terrific.

Pamela Brown.

[LornaHansonForbes]

3 hours ago, Hibi said:

Pamela Brown.

thank you. i am getting too lazy to imdb search in my old age.

[TomJH]

There's nothing quite so inspirational as hearing someone half my age refer to himself as "old." It makes me feel I'm lucky the dirt wasn't thrown over my head a long time ago.

[Fedya]

8 hours ago, TikiSoo said:

I first saw her here:

[coffee commercial snipped]

Not selling Anacin:

 

[txfilmfan]

22 minutes ago, Fedya said:

Not selling Anacin:

 

Or Vitajex?

 

[TomJH]

For anyone interested in Patricia Neal this is a remarkable read about a life of pain and forgiveness, and the most unexpected friendships that can form

Patricia Neal's Dramatic Journey of Love, Healing & Forgiveness

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryclairekendall/2013/08/08/patricia-neals-dramatic-journey-of-love-healing-forgiveness/#9551983783bd

 

[sewhite2000]

Wait, this is still I Just Watched thread, right? With all the Patricia Neal talk, I was getting confused. Seems likely somebody may have already reviewed the film I'm about to discuss. I haven't looked past this page recently.

Anyway, I will never get back on track if I don't do at least some very cursory reviews. So, here's one ...

January 7
Bright Leaf (Warner Bros., 1950)
Source: TCM

I remember turning on TCM one Saturday afternoon some years ago, and an MGM movie with young Janet Leigh was just starting where she was a housewife who'd just discovered she was pregnant, and her doctor advised her to eat meat. Lots and lots of meat, which she didn't seem to particularly care for. It felt almost like a promotional film for the meat industry back in the day when they took up at least 25 per cent of the Food Pyramid. I only hung with it for about 30 minutes.

I was reminded of that movie while watching this lengthy ad for the tobacco industry, another business less in favor these days like meat, only much more dramatically so. It's called Bright Leaf, because I guess a tobacco leaf is bright? Not sure I've ever seen one in real life. I do vaguely remember one being depicted in a Simpsons tobacco industry infomercial hosted by Troy McClure.

Looks like WB wanted to recreate all the heat generated between Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in their collaboration from the previous year, The Fountainhead, so much heat that they began a real-life affair. Then throw in Lauren Bacall and make it a romantic triangle.

Cooper plays Brant Royle, who at the beginning of the movie, set just before 1900, is returning to his North Carolina hometown for the first time in years to settle his uncle's estate. There's some kind of bad blood between him and the local tobacco kingpin who I think is just called "The Major" (Donald Crisp) most of the movie. If his character had a full name, I've forgotten. Also possibly the movie spelled out what the problem between these two men is. I've forgotten that too, but maybe The Major screwed the Royle family out of some kind of modest fortune? 

The Major, who's all about cigars, is rooted in the past, and Brant has an eye on the future. When a local inventor approaches Brant with an idea for an automated cigarette rolling machine, Brant stakes him and reaps the profits when cigarettes begin to crush cigars in marketplace sales. I'm sort of interested now to know if there was a real culture war between cigarette and cigar smokers back when well over 50 per cent of adults smoked. Someone will have to enliven me on that.

Anyway, in the process of becoming a financial success, Brant also becomes an insufferable horse's patootie. He ignores a nice lady who pines for him, played by Bacall, and pursues a bad girl who also happens to be the Major's daughter, played by Neal. Is he genuinely smitten with her, or is just looking for another way to rub the Major's face in his success? He manages to alienate everyone who was once his friend, and anybody who's ever watched a studio era  mainstream Hollywood film knows that a fall is a-comin'. But whether or not there's redemption and a new rise, I will leave for you to discover.

The three leads are all cast against type to at least some extent, and I enjoyed the results. Cooper is no paragon of virtue like in The Fountainhead, and I enjoyed seeing him mostly being an arse for once. Neal is the best thing about the movie as the wicked woman, the usually sultry Bacall is more of the wallflower in this one. Although it certainly appears she's a madame running a brothel, though under the Production Code, she's said to be the landlady of a boarding house, but I thought the implication was certainly there. It's all efficiently directed by Michael Curtiz, who just cranked out one highly watchable movie after another for decades. Warner regulars Gladys George and Jack Carson round out the fine cast.

To sum up, pretty cornpone Dixie-style plantation melodrama, but it kept my interest. This was my first time to see it.

Total Movies Watched in 2020: 10

[CinemaInternational]

9 hours ago, TikiSoo said:

I couldn't find that, Roy. But a library search yielded these two unknown-to-me movies:

Hasty Heart is such a wonderful little gem. Richard Todd was up for an Oscar for it, and I think he should have won. It's a tender, heartwarming film, and the acting is wonderful.

9 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

THE NIGHT DIGGER is a film that ROALD DAHL wrote for PATRICIA NEAL.

it's a BRITISH SUSPENSE THRILLER, NIGHT MUST FALL meets GREY GARDENS sort of thing- costarring NICOLAS CLAY (sp?)

I have only seen it once, and I missed it during her SOTM, but I remember it as being EXCELLENT.

the actress who plays her blind mother is terrific.

I saw The night Digger last month. It was one of those films that was swept under the rug during the MGM downsizing but it deserved better. Such an oddball but effective film, one part Night Must Fall, one part Frenzy (those rape/murder scenes were something else) and anchored by exceptional acting. When Patricia Neal had her makeover late in the film, it suddenly reminded me of how she was still only 45 when she made it, younger than some of today's top stars. It's Oscar worthy work, especially at the end where she doesn't even say a word but conveys just so much by her eyes and facial expression.

One of Neal's last theatrical films was in 1999's Cookie's Fortune where her character's suicide (no Spoiler since it happens before the movie is half over) causes a whole lot of scandal and intrigue in a small Southern town and an ending that reads like poetic justice. It was one of the later Robert Altman films and is worthy of rediscovery.