Monthly archives for April, 2011

« Older Entries

NEVER PUBLISHED PHOTO OF BETTY GRABLE

Apr29
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys


Hello again.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers back to share another photo from the Donald Gordon Collection.

This illustrates that off screen, while just as beautiful as they were on film many stars were not THAT recognizable.  Without their makeup (and in the case of many male stars like Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart, their toupees) alot of stars could do their own grocery shopping without being spotted.

Have you, or your parents or grandparents, any candid photos of film stars?  We’d love to share them. Or hear any tales you might have to tell about stars or film companies visiting your home town.

The other day we pondered about stars of today who might rival stars of the 40′s or 60′s. The song lyric says “Keep Audrey Hepburn and keep Liz Taylor, Nancy’s the feature, they’re just the trailer.”  Set us to thinking about that term, “trailer”  It originated back in the silent days, when after the feature was shown there would be a short promoting the next film due at that theater.  It trailed the feature.  You can just hear people say, “Let’s wait and see the trailer.”  When the studios became more powerful and homogonized and controlled distribution they started using the term “Coming Attractions.” We’ll bet few people, if any,  ever said “Let’s go early and see the coming attractions.”

Here’s a thought for DVD producers.  Why have the previews before the main feature. Most people are anxious to see the film they’ve rented and skip them.  Why not show previews after the movie? And let the public call them “trailers.”

 

YESTERDAY’S PIC:

That was Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in “A Place in the Sun.” It was their first film together and they became great pals.  Their on screen chemistry has rarely been matched by other actors.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Never Before Seen Photos - Tagged , , , , ,

THINKING ABOUT LIZ TAYLOR

Apr28
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here.

That song lyric, about Audrey Hepburn and Liz Taylor set us to thinking.  And, since her death, awhile back, friends have been asking when we were going to devote a blog to Elizabeth Taylor.  While she wasn’t a favorite of Frank’s. Joe remembers her fondly for one of her earlier movies.

Of course she won two Academy Awards for Best Actress. One for “Butterfield 8,” which today seems a hopelessly dated film.  Almost everyone agrees that the award that year was really for her previous work in films such as “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Suddenly Last Summer.” when she’d been nominated and lost. Her second Oscar, for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe,” seemed more deserved. However Joe feels are best films were earlier ones.”Father of the Bride” and “Father’s Little Dividend,” where in effect she was a supporting actress to Spencer Tracy, come to mind.

Joe thinks her best work was in the true classic film “A Place in the Sun” opposite her pal, Montgomery Clift.  The two had incredible chemistry on screen.  There’s a story told by Geogre Stevens Jr. that when he and his famous father were driving home after the Oscar presentations where Stevens had won Best Director for the film, the young boy remarked on how the film was the best film he’d ever seen, and how his wise father said something to the effect: “let’s wait 20 years and see if you still think so.”  Well, the film has endured for over 60 years and indeed is a classic.  We relate the story only because it we agree wholeheartedly. Let’s wait 20 or 30 years before we declare a movie a classic. Only time will tell if a film becomes part of the history of the industry.

One thing is indisputable.  It was the film that catapulted Elizabeth Taylor to stardom.

But Joe’s favorite movie  in which Elizabeth Taylor appeared is not a true classic,  just a fun old film.  It’s  ”A Date With Judy.” which stars Jane Powell in the title role and Taylor in one of her first grown up, semi sexy parts, opposite Robert Stack.  The billed star of the film was Wallace Beery, believe it or not.  Jane was 19 at the time, but playing a wide-eyed high school girl. Taylor was only 16, but already playing a sophisticated beauty.  And, of course, it was a musical with other players  such as Xavier Cugat and the unique Carmen Miranda. Imagine! Carmen Miranda and Elizabeth Taylor in the same movie?  ( It reminds us of an old parlor game we used to play  –”Name a film with______ and_____ in the cast.”)

“A Date with Judy.”  Catch it.  It’s 40′s Technicolor Escapist fair at its best.  And it was the first film Morella saw at New York’s famed Radio City Music Hall. So his reminisce of Elizabeth Taylor radiates from  that MGM  feature.

What’s your favorite Liz Taylor film? and Why?

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , ,

KEEP BETTY GRABLE

Apr27
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

“Keep Betty Grable, Lamour and Turner.”

Hello Everybody.  Back again with a quiz or two.

Many of you recognized that line opening today’s blog as a lyric from the Frank Sinatra hit song “Nancy with the Laughing Face.”  It goes, “keep Betty Grable, Lamour and Turner, she makes my heart a charcoal burner, no angel could replace my Nancy with the laughing face.”  In the early 1940′s everyone knew the pin ups he referred to. Grable, Dorothy Lamour and Lana Turner.

The song was written for Sinatra’s daughter who was then his only daughter. (the lyric says “sorry for you, she has no sister.”) Pop Quiz. One of the song’s lyricists was a famous eye glass wearing comic and good friend, who was a second banana in films but later a star on television.

The song remained one of Sinatra’s standards and in the early 60′s he re-recorded it and the famous lyric was updated.  “keep Audrey Hepburn, and keep Liz Taylor, Nancy’s the feature, they’re just the trailer.”  Note they kept the movie reference. And note that they used the two biggest stars of the period.

Today’s big question.  If we were updating the lyric for 2011 what would it be.  We await your inspired contributions.

An aside:  Grable wasn’t the only pin up of World War II, although she starred in “Pin-up Girl.” There were Lamour and Turner.  But also Rita Hayworth,  Jane Russell, -even Paulette Goddard and Ginger Rogers (and others.)  Who is your favorite?

 

YP: That was, of course, Nancy Sinatra.  Posed with Peter Fonda.  Nancy was about 5 when the song was first released.

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in children of stars, Rare Photos - Tagged , , , , ,

Second Generation–Star’s Kids

Apr26
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello Everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, here with a photo of two children of stars of the past who went on to have careers of their own.  Recognize them?

The purpose of this blog, as we’ve said before, is to share photos, stories and thoughts with you. We’re hoping that you’ll check in with us on a daily basis and let us know the material you like and the kind of subjects you’d like us to cover.  More Classic Movies?  Movie about Classic Stars of the Past?  More gossip?  What’s Your Pleasure?

 

YESTERDAY’S PIC:  The classic Pin up girl of World War II –Betty Grable.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in children of stars, Rare Photos - Tagged , , ,

BETTY GRABLE — the classic Pin Up

Apr25
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers again.

Take a good long look at the photo today.

You may not know it but you are peering at a pair of “million dollar legs.” They belonged to one Elizabeth Ruth Grable, born in St. Louis in 1916.

No kidding.  That’s what Betty Grable’s  gams were said to be worth to her employer, Twentieth Century-Fox, and to the world at large when this posed studio shot was taken in the early 1940s.

A Hollywood veteran of nearly 15 years (she had a pushy stage mother and made her first movie at 14, lying about her age) Grable was in her late 20s when this shot was taken, and rapidly on her way to becoming the most famous pinup of the World War II years.

This photo stoked GI libidos from Alaska to the Fiji Islands.

After a dead-end start at RKO and Paramount, Grable came to Fox at the behest of studio chieftain Darryl F. Zanuck as the intended replacement for the fading Alice Faye. Grable quickly supplanted Faye, and began a long a profitable reign as Fox’s official blond and musical star until Marilyn Monroe took over in the 1950′s.

This photo was carefully designed to capitalize on Grable’s wholesome sex appeal. Throughout her career, she was known as a more-or-less clean living straight shooter more devoted to family than to scandal.  That made her a likable figure (pun intended) to mainstream movie audiences.

In 1943 Betty was named the number one star by movie exhibitors and theater owners, the first woman to be so designated. 1943 was a big year for Grable since it also marked the beginning of a 22-year-marriage to her second and final husband, trumpeter-band leader Harry James.  Grable’s first husband was former child actor Jackie Coogan to whom she was married from 1937 to 1940.

After the above photo came out, Grable was no longer a mere movie star.  She was a national icon.  She remained Hollywood’s number one box office phenomenon all through the World War II years.

Thrilled by it all, Zanuck in 1944 rushed into production a piece of musical fluff titled, naturally enough, “Pin Up Girl,” teaming Betty with Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown and the Charlie Spivak Orchestra.  This concoction was supervised by one of our favorite director names, H. Bruce Humberstone. And, yes, it was a hit.

By the time the war ended, Grable was such a big a star that she achieved the lofty status as the highest-paid woman in the country, earning anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000 a year.  And that was back in the day when you could easily buy a very comfortable house for under $3,000.

And those “million dollar legs” were a considerable bargain.  Grable remained among the top 10 box office draws for a total of 13 years, a record unmatched by any other actress. At her career peak, she was said to have brought in at least $5 million annually to Fox coffers.

Her career at Fox was a lot more diverse that her pinup image suggests.  She was very good in the gritty 1941 film noir classic, “I Wake Up Screaming,” playing the wholesome sister of a shady murdered model. In the movie, Betty gives the cold shoulder to Victor Mature. (“I Wake Up Screaming” was also directed by none other than our H. Bruce Humberstone, and includes a marvelously creepy performance from one of our favorite character actors, Laird Cregar.)

Betty’s expensive legs also got a workout in one of two “How To…” capers she appeared in: Jean Negulesco 1953 comedy “How To Marry A Millionaire” alongside Lauren Bacall and Monroe, her eventual replacement as Fox’s studio blond.  She also appear in 1955′s “How To Be Be Very, Very Popular” with Sheree North (a lightweight Monroe clone) and Robert Cummings. In all, she appeared in more than 75 movies plus multiple tv appearances and stage work.

She and Harry James had two children.  After their divorce in 1965, Grable remained single until the day she died of lung cancer on July 2, 1973, five months shy of her 57th birthday.

For us she will always be the girl with the “million dollar legs.”

LAST FRIDAY’S PIC:  A scene from “The Breaking Point,” the 1950 drama from Warners based on a Hemingway story. Pictured were Victor Sen Yung, Wallace Ford, and John Garfield.

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , ,

SHARING PHOTOS–HERE’S DIETRICH

Apr23
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello Everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again. And our first posting on Saturday.  We’re committed to coming to you Monday through Friday and hope you’ll look to us each day as you would your favorite columnist.  This week we’re adding a sixth entry.

Today we are thrilled to begin what we hope will be a regular feature of this blog– readers sharing their own personal pix of stars with all of us.  Patricia Williamson of Tucson has generously sent us the above photo of herself with screen legend Marlene Dietrich. The shot was taken at Los Angeles’ Union Station as Marlene was leaving on a tour to sell War Bonds. Pat wasn’t the only one wishing her a “Bon Voyage.” Naturally, Dietrich had a military escort.

In 1943 Pat, then Patricia Nanette Hawkins, fresh out of high school, had been signed up by the Standard Oil Company of California to be a “Chevronette.”  These young women were part of the company’s war effort.  Pat, (who was born on St Patrick’s day when her mother had to leave a production of “No, No, Nanette) and a few other girls were set up in a booth in downtown L.A. and every afternoon at 4:30 a movie star would arrive to help sell war bonds and stamps.

Pat and the other “Chevronettes” were photographed with stars and other dignitaries and the pictures were circulated nationwide.

Thanks for sharing the photo Pat.  It must be great to have such fond memories.

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Never Before Seen Photos, Reader's Photos - Tagged , , , , ,

MORE HEMINGWAY–This time with Bacall

Apr22
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello Everybody,  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again with more musings on Hemingway books to Movies from Larry Michie.

Larry says, “Before weighing the last two Hemingway-based motion pictures, one of which was both worthy and popular, the other scorned but with a lot of freight that often gets overlooked, it’s appropriate to scan some of the other Hemingway offshoots.

A famous Papa short story is ‘The Killers,’ featuring a couple of mob guys come to rub out a boxer who didn’t box like the palooka he was supposed to be. The 1946 film starred Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, with Edmund O’Brien, Sam Levine and William Conrad.

In 1964, Don Siegel put together a new version with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Calude Akins and – Special Bonus for all you fans out there in filmland – Ronald Reagan.

There were other Hemingway adaptations, both for the screen and for television, but nothing that will cause your knees to wobble with delight.

Among all the broken dreams, however, there was one notably successful Hemingway movie, and another motion picture that although a creative disaster is forever redeemed by the most sensational flirting in the history of cinema.

We’ll get to that in a bit, but for now, it needs only be said that both the successful movie and the sensational creative disaster were redeemed by women – two of the most gorgeous and influential women ever to grace the silver screen.

Exactly why most of the movies based on the novels of a literary giant turned out to have the impact of a stale potato chip could only be explained by the gods of art, and none of them are giving interviews these days

The successful movie that had merit was 1943’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ With Gary Cooper as an American in Spain fighting fascism, the film carried weight during the war years. And Cooper again was perfect casting for the role. It wasn’t the best that filmland has to offer, but it had strong underpinnings – and it had Ingrid Bergman as the love interest, not to wholly neglect the presence of Akim Tamiroff.

Bergman was gorgeous, and she and Cooper made the screen come alive. Score one for Hollywood. The movie didn’t have the power and complexity of the novel, but it was a winning effort. Hooray for Coop. Two or three hoorays for the close-cropped golden curls of Bergman.

Okay, we’re down to the last marriage of Hemingway and celluloid. Hold onto your hats, because it’s a doozie.

The 1944 movie is Howard Hawks’ justifiably classic ‘To Have and Have Not.’ Chances are that many of those who have seen the movie have no idea about the very different novel on which it was allegedly, sort of, kind of, based.

In fact, the movie used only parts of the first chapter of the novel. The rest was foo-foo.

Humphrey Bogart plays a charter boat captain named Steve who takes rich folks out fishing. He’s based in Martinique, and his all-purpose handyman and helper is none other than Walter Brennan, who is most assuredly an alcoholic, although played a bit more humorously than would be considered politically correct today.

Steve turns down the earnest good guy who wants to pay him to pick up and transport some Free French leaders (this being World War II, and the Germans being the bad guys). Steve refuses, but when his latest fishing customer stiffs him, he decides to take the job so he can pay his debts.

While Steve is mulling over his options in his favorite bar, he notes a pick-pocketing young woman, and sparks begin to fly. The young beauty, just out of her teens, is none other than Lauren Bacall, and man, does she make the screen come alive.

Her famous line inviting Steve to whistle if he needs anything – ‘You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? Just put your lips together and blow’ – must have kept a whole generation of men and boys awake at night. Women and girls, too, for that matter.

Well, despite the bullying of the fascist agents in Martinique, Steve and his rummy sidekick save the good guys, confound the bad guys, and so forth. Hoagy Carmichael plays a tune, Lauren sings along, and Sheldon Leonard is frustrated as the bad guy.

Oh, yeah, and eventually, off-screen, Lauren and Bogie got married.

Well, as a movie it had its charms, but aside from borrowing a couple of ideas and the title of the novel, ‘To Have and Have Not,’ the movie, had nothing to do with ‘To Have and Have Not,’ the novel by Ernest Hemingway.

If you want to get a sobering shock or two, read the novel. It ain’t great literature. ‘To Have and Have Not,’ was published in 1937. The people in the novel weren’t noble, and on its own the book never would have made a movie. There was nothing nice about it.”

Thanks Larry.

Joe adds that the book was also used as the basis for the John Garfield film, “The Breaking Point” which costarred Phyllis Thaxter as his wife and Patricia Neal as the vamp.  Warner Bros. had stolen from the novel on several occasions but this film was closest to Hemingway’s original. But without all the racial slurs in the novel.

 

YESTERDAY’S PIC:

That was Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”  Do you know the Greek actress with them?

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , ,

HEMINGWAY ON SCREEN

Apr21
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and  Frank Segers here.  With our pal Larry Michie.

Larry further muses on Hemingway Novels to screen.

“In 1957 came a film version of Hemingway’s first novel, a classic that enraptured millions of readers and defined what came to be known as ‘The Lost Generation.’

Unfortunately, on the big screen ‘The Sun Also Rises’ seemed to set before rising, despite a glittering cast that included Tyrone Power and Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer and Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert and Juliette Greco. But fugetaboutit. Floppsville.

‘The Sun Also Rises’ was revived in a 1984 made-for-tv creation starring Jane Seymour, Robert Carradine, Leonard Nimoy, Stephane Audran and the young Bob Evans as a matador. (Yes, THAT Bob Evans, Darryl Zanuck’s ‘the kid stays in the picture’ protégé). So far as is known, the effort didn’t dazzle audiences around the world.

Decades earlier there was 1952’s ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro.’ The casting sounds perfect – Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Hildegard Neff and Leo G. Carroll. The film simply didn’t work – no chemistry, nothing to grab the audience.

1958 finally brought a winner: ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ directed by John Sturges. Its success was attributed to the popularity of the solo star, Spencer Tracy. There was a 1999 remake with Anthony Quinn doing the solo turn. There was even a Japanese cartoon version.

So, alright already, the Hemingway movies are mostly terrible. But don’t give up. You might consider reading/re-reading the novels. There are reasons why Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Thanks for your take on it Larry..

Yesterday’s Pic:

That was Gary Cooper with Clara Bow in one of his early silent films, “Children of Divorce.”  The studio soon learned to take him out of the drawing room and put him into uniform for such films as “Morocco” and “A Farewell to Arms.”

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , , ,

HEMINGWAY AND ROCK HUDSON

Apr20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

The importance of Being Ernest.

Hello everybody.  This is Mister Joe Morella and Mister Frank Segers here again at the Classic Movie Blog. without MRS Norman Maine.

Today we welcome our regular guest contributor, Larry Michie, literary man of the world and former television editor of Variety.

Larry muses most on a most puzzling classic movie fact – why most film versions of Hemingway books are hard to digest today. We urge you to read on and find out why.

Here’s Larry:

Ernest Hemingway has long been acknowledged as one of the most influential – and popular – writers of the twentieth century.

His distinctive style and gripping tales of love, war, honor, manliness, and loss were read, absorbed and acclaimed by generations.

As might be expected, Hemingway’s various works of fiction were turned into motion pictures by some of the leading masters of Hollywood. For reasons that could be argued eternally, most of those motion pictures have been embarrassing flops.  Somehow the genius of his prose didn’t translate to film very well.

Oddly enough, one of the better films was the first – 1932’s “A Farewell to Arms,” a later version of which is discussed below.

The 1932 “Farewell” starred Helen Hayes as Catherine Barkley, billed over the young Gary Cooper as Lieutenant Henry. Adolphe Menjou supplied both humor and, eventually, considerable menace.

Hayes was good, but Cooper was outstanding. He owned the screen. No surprise that a decade later Cooper was tapped to play another Hemingway hero in “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

The Hayes/Cooper movie is remarkably true to the novel, and the World War I scenes are handled well by director Frank Borzage (there was an Academy Award for cinematography).

One aspect of the movie that is a bit startling, considering the time in which it was made, is that the film was true to the novel, which meant that the two lovers not only had sex but conceived a child – with no more sanction by society than the anguished blessing of a priest. Menjou plays a villain’s role, conspiring to keep them apart until Lt. Henry is forced to desert so he can be with his lover.

True to Hemingway’s tale, Catherine’s child is born dead, and she herself soon expires. Pretty strong stuff for 1932, especially since the Hays Office was in existence.  (The Motion Picture Production Code was set up in 1930.)

It’s only appropriate at this point to hold one’s nose and bring up the later incarnation of “Farewell to Arms,” the 1957 version starring Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones, with the stellar backing of Vittorio De Sica, Oscar Homolka, Mercedes McCambridge and Elaine Stritch.

Hudson was, in a word, unwatchable.

Scratch that film off your list, unless you actually enjoy pain. Not even Ben Hecht’s screenplay could rescue this turkey. Rock should have saved his energy for Doris Day.

Thanks Larry-

YP:  Lovely Linda Darnell

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Rare Photos - Tagged , , , ,

Never before Seen Photo of LINDA DARNELL

Apr19
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello again.  Morella and Segers here.

Captured in yesterday’s photo was Linda Darnell, one of Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck’s stable of promising young actresses in the early 1940’s. Some might say in retrospect that her life off-camera often was far more interesting than many of the movies she made.

Gorgeous from birth (in Dallas, Texas), Monetta Eloyse Darnell was relentlessly pushed by an aggressive stage mother – tap dance classes at five, talent competitions at 11, beauty contests at 14 (she developed early) and an RKO screen test at 16.

But a 20th Century Fox talent scout had brought her out to Hollywood a year before.  The studio realizing she was just 14 sent her home to age a bit.  When Fox’s Zanuck discovered she was about to sign with RKO he exercised his prior claim.  She was still underage but appeared quite mature and Zanuck launched her career in a starring role ( with co star billing)–opposite Tyrone Power.  She starred opposite him again in “The Mark of Zorro “ and “Blood and Sand”

She was Zanuck’s favorite until she angered him by marrying a man old enough to be her father. After that he cast her in supporting roles.

But it turned out in addition to being virginal she could be sultry.

Her career spanned some 50 films. “Summer Storm,” ( Danish-born director Douglas Sirk’s second Hollywood film. an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Shooting Party,”) showcased Darnell’s smoldering gaze and sexy physique in the role of a cunning, illiterate peasant girl who catches the eye of none other than George Sanders. (“Summer Storm” recently was reissued on DVD.)

She was superb in “Hangover Square” and “The Fallen Angel.” She wasn’t a bad comedienne (see “A Letter To Three Wives” or “Unfaithfully Yours”.) All four of these are classics.

Darnell had a torrid affair with “Three Wives” director Joe Mankiewicz,  which ruined her marriage.  He wouldn’t leave his wife and when he wrote the “Barefoot Contessa” while with Linda then cast Ava Gardner in the role Darnell was humiliated in front of all her peers.

After her Fox contract lapsed in the 1950’s, she appeared in an eclectic mix of American and European films. Darnell, who had problems with alcohol abuse, married and divorced three times Then she had to work in summer stock and dinner theatre to earn a living. Her comeback film was “Black Spurs,” a 1965 western released by Paramount and costarring Rory Calhoun and Scott Brady.  She might have had a career in character parts.  But tragedy struck.

While visiting her former secretary in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, a fire burned through the apartment while Darnell was sleeping. She died of burns at Cook County hospital in April 1965.  She was only 41.

Here’s the photo again (without Donald Gordon)  It was never published before yesterday. Donald said what most people who met her said, “she was even more beautiful in person than on film or in photographs.”

Remember, if you’d like to comment on any of the entries just hit the comment bar.  We’re relying on you to make this blog a real “chat” about our communal passion, Classic Movies.

 

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Never Before Seen Photos - Tagged , , , ,
« Older Entries