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Charles Jackson’s ‘Lost Weekend’ In Hollywood.

Apr26
2013 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys


Although it may surprise our readers under the age of 40, there once was a time when the big Hollywood studios fell all over themselves to attract successful novelists and playwrights and turn them into commercial screenwriters.

To be a literary lion wasn’t a bad thing as long as your work could be translated at the box office. And in the mid-Forties, one of the most fawned-over novelists was Charles Jackson, who wrote the wrenching hit novel of the day, The Lost Weekend, based on a alcoholic character very much like himself.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, delving a bit into Forties Hollywood as seen from an outsider’s view. 

Author Jackson, in fact a balding deep-in-the-closet homosexual (he had married and had had two daughters) and who had coped with a drinking problem in the mid-Thirties, was suddenly a sought-after commodity with MGM summoning him from the East Coast to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter.

Jackson is hardly a household name today but he is currently enjoying something of a revival thanks to the publication of author Blake Bailey’s new biography, Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson, which includes a most readable chapter recording the novelist’s wide-eyed impressions of Hollywood in the mid-Forties.

Sitting with other scriptwriters in the studio commissary, Jackson was impressed by the “effortless repartee” of the wordsmiths (Whitfield Cook, Robert Nathan and Donald Ogden Stewart) and by Clark Gable, who “just like that” sat down opposite him and began chatting away.  “I still can’t get over it… it is something that’s happening to somebody else , not me.”

Spencer Tracy “hounded” Jackson for days on end to find out his ” secret.” Replied the novelist:  “I just stopped drinking.”

Jackson was surprised to find himself romantically linked with actress Phyllis Thaxter, who had accompanied him to a party and called him, “sir” all night. He admits that he fell “like a ton of bricks” for a “scared shy little girl” of 21 named Judy Garland.

To Jackson’s astonishment, Garland agreed to accompany him to the premier of 1944′s The White Cliffs of Dover at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. He described the scene that June night as akin to a “Nazi demonstration” complete with searchlights panning the skies and screaming fans jammed into bleachers.

Recalled Jackson: Your heart would have been touched (as mine was) if you could have seen how Judy turned to the crowd and gave a tiny little wave…though all the while her hand on my arm was trembling and shaking against me…Judy kept saying, “For God’s sake, Charlie, smile!”

Each time the flash went off, Judy’s face was turned toward mine, looking up at me in a charming smile, as though I were The Only Man In The World….My legs knocked together, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world: a real experience.

Alas, Jackson’s mid-Forties Hollywood adventure soon ended with no scripts produced and the movie rights to his by now famous novel sold for the low ball figure of $35,000, not the six-figures conjured up in a Louella Parsons column. Although one must remember that was still a great deal of money.  The average man made less than $3000 a year.

Jackson’s novel, of course, became director Billy Wilder’s movie version, which stars Ray Milland, who was  a real workhorse — appearing in more than 70 productions of all stripes at MGM and at Paramount (his home for two decades) by the mid-Forties when Wilder, in partnership with Charles Brackett, cast him as dipsomaniac writer Don Birnam. By this time Milland began to take himself more seriously as an actor, a wise move since he won the best-actor Oscar in 1946 for his work in The Lost Weekend.

Milland was actually Wilder-Brackett’s third choice for the movie’s lead, after Cary Grant and Alan Ladd. Novelist Jackson’s first preference was Robert Montgomery.

The Lost Weekend’s promotional blurb on the one-sheet theater advertisement read: The screen dares to open the strange and savage pages of a shocking best seller. Alcoholism had rarely, if ever, been treated onscreen as clinically and as explicitly.

 

 

 

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Another Opera Star in the Movies.

Apr05
2013 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

She was a star on the Opera stages of Europe. Composers Franz Lehar, Oscar Straus, and Fritz Kreisler wrote works for her. She then made dozens of films in five languages before she married Polish tenor Jan Kiepura and came to America with him. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in N. Y. in 1938.

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys here to note that we started the week with a story about Opera stars in films, so we thought we’d end the week with a bit of information about one of the longest Opera/Operetta/Film careers ever.

Marta Eggerth (above), still with us, will be 101 on April 17th.

Although a couple of her European films had been released in the States, it wasn’t until MGM signed her in the early 40s and co-starred her in two of Judy Garland’s films that she became familiar to American audiences.

After her roles in For Me and My Gal and Presenting Lily Mars, Eggerth returned to the stage.

Joe had the pleasure of meeting Marta Eggerth back in the 1980s when she was trying to help her son, Jan Kiepura Jr. launch his singing career. Her other son, Marjan Kiepura, is a concert pianist.

At the time Marta told Joe she had left Hollywood and returned to New York because the separations from her husband were too long. They decided they wanted to work together.

During World War II she and her husband starred on Broadway in a revival of The Merry Widow which ran on Broadway and in touring companies for over 2000 performances.

After the war ended the couple returned to Europe and made several more films. They continued their careers in concert, and although she stopped singing for a few years after Kiepura’s death in 1966, by the 70s she’d returned to acting and singing.

Even in her late 80s she was on stage in London and back in Vienna at the Vienna State Opera. She performed concerts with interviews at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2006 at the age of 94.  And she has never “officially” retired.

We wish Madame Eggerth the Happiest of Birthdays.

 

 

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BIG CHILD STARS OF THE 1940′s — They are…….

Nov14
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to show and tell about the two child performers discussed in our “Who Are They…” quiz.

We gave them the benefit of considerable doubt in qualifying them as “big child stars.” (They weren’t all that big.) And we gave you, faithful readers, the benefit of several clues as to their identities. Like so many network television programmers past and present, we underestimated the smarts of our audience.

Almost as soon as our blog went up, in came this from Patricia Nolan-Hall, aka Caftan Woman: “The boy is Skip Homeier.  I believe the little girl is Joan Carroll. She’s big around here at Christmas what with The Bells of St. Mary’s and Meet Me In St. Louis, perennial faves.”

There you have it. Patricia, we award you our honorary child-star-sleuth-of-the-year citation. For those of you still scratching your heads, some backround on these two — not necessarily household names even back in their days. (And, yes, that is the young couple in the above photo.)

Both began their professional careers at the age of six (isn’t there a law against that somewhere?).

Joan Felt — changed to Joan Carroll later on — was born in 1932 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and made her movie debut in Fox’s 1938 show biz drama Walking Down Broadway starring Claire Trevor. 

George Vincent Homeier (the “Skip” also came later) was born in Chicago in 1930, and began his career in the daytime radio soap, Portia Faces Life.

At 14, he recreated a role he’d played on Broadway, a former Hitler youth member, in his first movie, United Artists’ 1944 drama Tomorrow, The World.  Frederic March, the star, portrayed a kindly American uncle who tries to reform the ideologically misguided youth who has come to live with his family. It was in Tomorrow, The World, that the paths of the two child stars crossed for it was Carroll who wound up playing March’s very young daughter. 

In 1940, Carroll garnered attention as Ginger Rogers’ younger sister in director Gregory La Cava’s melodrama, Primrose Path costarring Joel McCrea. In 1942, she played the key role of the young daughter caught in the crossfire of her divorcing parents in RKO’s Obliging Young Lady, costarring Edmond O’Brien and Ruth Warrick.

Carroll had the rare good sense for a child performer to get out of movies while she was still way ahead.

In 1944, she played the middle sister, younger than Judy Garland but older than Margaret O’Brien, in Vincente Minnelli’s musical classic, Meet Me In St. Louis. The next year saw her in another classic, director Leo McCarey’s The Bells of St. Mary’s, costarring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. After those two films, Carroll was gone.

Homeier’s career has lasted longer, although most of his later work has been in television. He logged solid supporting parts in westerns — eg. 1956′s Stranger At My Door starring Macdonald Carey opposite Patricia Medina — and in crime dramas, including 1954′s Cry Vengeance, directed and starring Mark Stevens as an ex-con seeking to right old scores.

Perhaps Homeier’s movie high water mark came in 1951′s Halls of Montezuma, about U.S. marines exploits in the Pacific in World War II.

The cast was star laden — Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Jack Palance, Reginald Gardiner, Robert Wagner, Richard Boone, Jack Webb — and Homeier played “Pretty Boy “ Lewis Milestone, who five years before helmed A Walk In The Sun (another World War II movie, which we like a lot), was the director.

Montezuma was one of Fox’s bigger releases that year. When we last checked, both Carroll and Homeier are still with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DEANNA DURBIN — Rival to Judy?

Nov11
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

     

Hi, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here again with our THIRD blog devoted exclusively to Deanna Durbin.

As with yesterday’s dispatch, we are inspired by a wonderful communication from Mark, one of our regular readers and a Durbin fan par excellance.  Today, he sheds renewed light on how commercially important the star’s career was to Universal Pictures.  He also provides a new look at the supposed Deanna Durbin-Judy Garland faceoff at MGM. (Don’t you love the photo above of the soda-sipping pair as verry young women.)

You might be surprised that after all these years, Durbin would provoke such sustained interest and strong reaction. After all, the former Edna May Durbin – the belle of Winnepeg, Alberta (her Canadian birthplace in 1921)  – had a movie career that was over in 13 years, a relatively moderate span for a big juvenile star of the period.

And since Deanna hung it all up more than 60 years ago — and has been living in a small village in north central France ever since — it’s somewhat surprising that she’s remembered today as the more than a historical footnote.

Correspondent Mark has lots to say, beginning with the subject of Durbin’s match-up with Garland in 1936′s EVERY SUNDAY, in which both amply display their vocal wares. Some say the MGM short was effectively a studio audition of the two teenagers — won by Judy who remained at MGM, and lost by Deanna, who flourished at rival studio Universal.

Mark disagrees with this interpretation.  Here he is:

“Contrary to longstanding reports , EVERY SUNDAY was never produced as a “video audition” to help Metro executives decide whether to keep Durbin or Garland under contract. By the time the short was filmed in late June/early July 1936, Deanna had already been under contract to Universal for about a month and cast in THREE SMART GIRLS, and her fate was out of Metro’s hands. As reported in a blurb in the June 1, 1936 edition of the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, it was Universal, not MGM, who gave “Edna May Durbin” her professional name of “Deanna.”

– However, a provision in Deanna’s Metro contract, allowed MGM to call on her services for up to 90 days following its’ termination providing she wasn’t working on a new film/stage production. As production for THREE SMART GIRLS wasn’t scheduled to begin until September, Deanna found herself back on the Metro lot appearing in a short that was always (rightly) conceived primarily as a vehicle for long-term MGM contractee Judy Garland.

– Durbin became an immediate film star and worldwide phenomenon when THREE SMART GIRLS was released in early 1937. In fact, most major newspapers and periodicals proclaimed her an instant star based on previews of the film. She had been a superstar for several years by the time she turned 18 in December 1939.

– A FORTUNE magazine article on her career, published in October 1939, credited her films with 17 percent of Universal’s total profit margin in the late 1930s.

– Although her popularity did decline in the late 1940s with the poor reception accorded her last vehicles for Universal-International, Deanna remained a top worldwide attraction until well into the 1940s. She was not only the top star in Britain for several years, but, as late as 1945, was Number 4 at the British Box Office. She was the top star in Japan and Russia and a “Top Five” attraction in the rest of Europe and South America and much of Asia.

– Her 1943 film, HIS BUTLER’S SISTER, was a top grosser of the year in Australia and was specifically chosen by General Douglas MacArthur, head of the U.S. Occupational Forces in Japan, as the first American film to be shown to Japanese audiences following the Japanese surrender. It played to packed houses despite the exorbitant admission prices, which were three times higher than those for other films.

– Such was Deanna Durbin’s fame in Italy that Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini wrote an open letter to her in his personal newspaper, IL POPOLO, in essence begging her to act as a model for American Youth in rejecting President Roosevelt’s efforts to bring America into what became World War II.

– Such was Deanna’s fame throughout Europe and Asia that the rumor that she had died a horrible death in childbirth, begun by the Axis powers as a means of demoralizing Allied POWS and troops, was among the most widely circulated of World War II. Contemporary articles in periodicals like TIME Magazine, cite questions about the status of her health as being among the first asked by liberated Allied POWS and troops.

As you can tell, there is a good deal of inaccurate information that has been disseminated about Deanna Durbin through the years. I think her career and her talent, and the significant impact she had on Hollywood and popular culture in general, is ripe for re-evaluation and re-appraisal.

It was, in many ways, an absolutely unique career, and a remarkable one. The lady would have quite a story to tell if she ever chose to do so.”

Our profuse thanks to Mark.  Keep reading and writing us.

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BIG CHILD STARS OF THE 1940′s — Who are They?

Oct31
2011 2 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

Hello everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, back again to report that Ms. Norman Maine is STILL Missing.

Today, we pose a REAL challenge.

If you can identify the two subjects above, you will be awarded our informal child-star-sleuth-of-the-year award. (That and a token will get you on a New York subway.)

Because of their limited professional spans, child stars are sometimes tough to remember. Frank could NOT name the two pictured above if his life or the contents of his wallet depended on it.  Joe has a warmer appreciation of child performers, and therefore regards our mystery couple as familiar faces.

In any case, you’re probably going to need help here, so check out the following hints:

– She starred opposite Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman and Judy Garland.  Before entering films he was a child star on Broadway at age 13, playing a nasty Nazi youth.

– Both are still living.

– She changed her real surname to Carroll because “it sounded musical.”

– He costarred with some heavy hitters including Gregory Peck and Randolph Scott. He also played “Billy Jack” in a 1957 film directed by Budd Boetticher.  This was many years before actor-writer-director Tom Laughlin created his Seventies screen version of the tough law enforcer of the same name.

– His shortened first name is the same as a famous brand of peanut butter.

– (This may give the whole ballgame away.)  She had a sisterly tie onscreen with Garland and Margaret O’Brien.

– He developed into a convincing bad guy in westerns and crime dramas.

– She won a West Coast ice skating competition in 1938, three years after Sonja Henie won her Gold Medal in the Olympic Games in Germany. She also was a pretty good piano player.

– He did a lot of tv.

– She has been retired since her last movie in 1944.

So, there you have it.  To provide more hints would make things a tad too easy.  But never let it be said we aren’t willing to help, at least a little.

So, OK, who are these two?  E-mail as soon as you can.  

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WHO WAS DEANNA DURBIN?

Oct07
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys here again to declare without reservation that we love reader comments, the more informed and passionate the better.

A passing mention of Thirties child star Deanna Durbin in our “More Child Stars” blog in late August drew a pair of reader responses that are so interesting on both counts — information and passion — that we’ve decided to share them with you.

You might be surprised that after all these years, Durbin would provoke such sustained interest and strong reaction. After all, the former Edna May Durbin — the belle of Winnepeg, Alberta (her Canadian birthplace in 1921)  – had a movie career that was over in 13 years, a relatively moderate span for a big juvenile star of the period. (Mickey Rooney’s career is still going.)

And since Deanna hung it all up more than 60 years ago — and has been living in a small village in north central France ever since — it’s somewhat surprising that she’s remembered today as the more than a historical footnote.

Having said that, we hastily mention that Deanna was an exceptionally gifted and hugely popular child star of her period. By the age of 15, Durbin had been signed by MGM,  By 18, she was a star at Universal making about a quarter-million (in 1939 dollars) per year.

Her movies, such as her portrayals of matchmaker Penny Craig in 1936′s “Three Smart Girls” and 1937′s “One Hundred Men and a Girl” (both directed by her Universal mentor Henry Koster), generated enough box office cash to spare the studio bankruptcy.

Durbin’s first screen kiss sparked national headlines. Like Shirley Temple at Fox, Durbin at Universal inspired a line of dolls and dresses. She shared with Rooney 1939′s “Juvenile Award” Oscar. A vocalist of talent, she made a “Madame Butterfly” aria into a popular hit. She was, in fact, considered the most popular performer of her day, and was ranked the No. 1 star in Great Britain in the years 1939 through 1942.

Supposedly, Durbin underwhelmed MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer. After viewing her in 1936′s “Every Sunday,” a short co-starring 14-year-old Judy Garland, Mayer couldn’t make up his mind about which to sign.  By the time he decided to sign both the studio had let the option on Deanna’s contract drop. Universal then stepped in and the rest is……….

“I often wonder how Deanna Durbin’s career would have been different if Mayer had picked her over Garland,” writes Jessica P. (Comet Over Hollywood). “He liked Durbin better, just didn’t think she would sell as well. Might be blasphemous, but I think I like Durbin better too, ha ha.”

It’s interesting to speculate on that, Jessica, on the prospect of Durban flourishing at MGM instead of Universal, and what effect that might have had on Garland’s Hollywood career. (We invite reader feedback on that one.)

Joe, who along with co-author, Edward Z. Epstein, wrote the first book ever published about Judy Garland, personally believes that if Deanna were under contract to MGM during the time it would have had NO effect on Judy’s illustrious career.  But that Durbin’s career at MGM might not have been as big as the one she earned at Universal.

Our second correspondent, Mark, says point blank: “Deanna Durbin’s career fascinates me.

“From her first feature film, she was THE star of every film in which she appeared: the majority of which were vehicles specially tailored for her that didn’t have the prior name recognition a film adaptation of a literary classic like THE WIZARD OF OZ or a film adaptation of a Broadway hit like FUNNY GIRL, to generate audience interest.

“The few Durbin films that did originate from recognizable prior sources like CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY and UP IN CENTRAL PARK, were produced long after she’d become a star.

“She also never appeared opposite a comparably popular box office star, and, though she was one of the greatest musical stars of the 1930s and 1940s, she almost never appeared in a film musical. In fact, she was almost always the sole musical presence in her films.

“Are there any other stars of that era, musical or non-musical, who were so singularly responsible for the success of their films? Offhand I can’t think of any…

“I think she also may be the only enduring child star of that era who didn’t come to films from a professional/performing background. Unlike Temple, Garland, Rooney and her other peers, she didn’t become a movie star after years of Vaudeville/Professional Children’s School/Film shorts training and experience, but had to learn her craft and develop her talent as the whole world watched her grow up onscreen.

“It’s amazing that she didn’t crack under all that pressure, and a testament to her talent and appeal that she scored such a remarkable success, and continues to attract new fans to this day.”

Again, Joe agrees with Mark.  Although at MGM she might have made musicals and in Technicolor, at Universal the films where built around HER and as she grew into adulthood the studio fashioned vehicles for her and let her grow.

Joe thinks it’s fascinating that she’s one of the few stars in Hollywood who made ALL her features for ONE studio. Universal never lent her out. And after she left them she refused all requests from other studios to return to films.

Durbin spent one season on radio as a regular on Eddie Cantor’s program. But soon her work at Universal occupied all her time.  By the late 40s her stardom was fading but she was one of the highest paid people in America, reportedly earning $400,000 a year.

Between 1938 and 1942 however she was world famous.  Anne Frank had a picture of Deanna on the wall of her room in her Amsterdam hideaway ! Durbin’s fans (including Winston Churchill) were legion and loyal.

Thanks for your thoughts, Jessica and Mark.  Keep reading us.    

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MORE CHILD STARS

Aug31
2011 2 Comments Written by Joe Morella and Frank Segers

If one is good, then three are better. Hello everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers back with more info on the MGM child stars of the 1930s.

Every studio back in the Golden Era had a child star or two under contract.  And at MGM, which boasted as being the biggest and the best, ( “More stars than there are in the heavens.”) they naturally had the most.

FOX may have had Shirley Temple in the 1930s, but Metro had Jackie Cooper, Freddie Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney. (That’s them above.) Not to mention Judy Garland!

Then there were the lesser lights, Ann Rutherford, Tom Brown, Cora Sue Collins, Robert Sinclair.

And the one that got away, Deanna Durbin.

The teenager, once under contract to MGM (she and Garland had made a short film together, Durbin singing “sweet,” Judy singing “hot”) did not have her option renewed and was dropped by the studio.

Universal snapped her up and Durbin became a top star there. Some contend she actually “saved” that studio in the middle of the Great Depression with her handful of family oriented film musicals.

And who can readily forget Margaret O’Brien, who followed Temple as perhaps Hollywood’s biggest child star of the Forties at MGM.

 

 

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ENCORE: ANOTHER NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED PHOTO OF VAN JOHNSON

Aug11
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Van Johnson was one of the heart throb matinee idols of the 1940′s, and few of his fans at the time suspected that he was gay. And Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer boss Louis B. Mayer moved heaven and earth to make sure the movie going public never found out.

We have gotten so much feedback about our two previous blogs about Van that we’ve dug out another snapshot of the guy. (Isn’t he the idealization of  your typical sunny, amiable suburban high school principal?) The photo comes from our collection of revealing Hollywood personality shots taken in the early Forties taken by our late pal, Donald Gordon.

Hello, everybody.  Your classic movie guys, Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers, back again while Mrs. Norman Maine is downstairs listening to Judy Garland records.

It wasn’t until late in life that Johnson more or less came out of the closet. (He died in 2008, at age 92.)

Had Van declared himself much earlier, his movie career certainly would have lasted nowhere near as long as it did. On the other hand, had he been able to out himself in today’s more tolerant social climate, Johnson might have snared a perch as host of a nationally syndicated TV talk show.

The MGM slice of his live began in 1942 when Van played “Agent Pritchard” in one of those 22-minute crime-does-not-pay shorts the studio churned out. It ended in the late Fifties when Van set out as an independent and, incidentally, embarked on some of the best movies of his career.

At MGM, Johnson was part of the second big wave of “more stars than there are in heaven” responsible for the studio’s soaring success. Mayer biographer Scott Eyman notes that “for 1944-45 season, twenty-six of the studio’s twenty-nine releases were profitable.” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer marked its 20th anniversary in 1944, celebrating the event nation-wide.

Hedy Lamarr biographer Stephen Michael Shearer writes that “between June 22 and June 28 (1944), Metro pictures, newsreals, and film shorts were played at all but eight of (parent company) Loew’s, Inc.’s 16,493 movie houses in America and 1,204 out of 1,285 movie houses in Canada — and unheard-of accomplishment. (MGM) was truly at its peak.”

Gone from the studio were Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jeanette MacDonald and Clark Gable – “all the great stars of the 1930s either released from contract or serving in the war (as was Gable; he returned to the studio after World War II),” writes Shearer, author of the recently published “Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr.” The next wave of big stars included Lamarr, Lana Turner, Garland, June Allyson — and Van Johnson.

His time at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (at the same time Donald Gordon took the photo you are seeing here) is concisely summed up by British-born author-critic David Thomson. “Inescapably baby-faced, Johnson was for many years under contract to MGM for musicals, romances and routine military parts.”

Projecting to a vast movie audience that boy-next-door charm was no mean feat. It helped that Johnson was a pretty nice guy off-screen, and actually had a sense of humor about himself.

Another MGM star of the time, Esther Williams, recalled that Johnson had “a unique quality, part strong man, part eager boy.” She first met the actor shortly after he had recovered from serious head injuries sustained in a car (or, say some, motorcyle) accident that required steel plates to be implanted in his head.

“That must have been some accident,” the actress commented. “I’ll say,” responded Johnson, as quoted in Williams’ autobiography “The Million Dollar Mermaid.”

Tapping the side of his head with a grin, Johnson added: “I’ve got service for twelve in here.  And it’s sterling not silver plate. Only the best for MGM.”

A newly-published and lavishly illustrated coffee table book — “MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot” by Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester and Michael Troyan — includes a delight photo (on page 267).  It’s one of those “more stars than there are in heaven” ensemble shots, taken in 1948, showing 56 studio stalwarts including Gable, Mary Astor, Williams, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Spencer Tracy and on and on.

There in the third row from the bottom, four actors from the left, sits Johnson cross-legged and looking relaxed.  He is smiling broadly.

 

 

 

 

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Movies IN Novels

Aug08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello everybody. This is Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again. Mrs. Norman Maine is outside walking the dachshund.

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

Larry has a special interest in how classic movies are handled in and by fiction, especially the always-fascinating process of converting good novels into great films.

Larry continues to weigh in on our Blog as subject and fancy strike him. We hope you enjoy his contributions as much as we do. So, here’s Larry:

Imagine Busby Berkeley splashing a parade of prancing showgirls across a theater screen as Japanese bombers flatten nearby buildings and zeros strafe beaches where terrified hordes are trying to escape in any boat that can be stolen or commandeered.

Well, not long after Pearl Harbor, that was the scene in Singapore as recreated in the novel “The Singapore Grip” by the celebrated British writer J.G. Farrell (1935-1979). The movie was “Ziegfeld Girl,” a 1941 release that hit the screens just as World War II erupted in flame and gore.

The greater part of Farrell’s novel portrays British imperialism in Singapore and the highly profitable rubber trade there as rival businessmen elbow their way to wealth and power. Vivid and often hilarious portraits of British overlords, their families and their social maneuvers are scathing but so deftly written that one might suspect that Evelyn Waugh lurked nearby.

When the Japanese mount their attack, the British military is woefully unprepared and the outcome predictably dire. As the Japanese approach Singapore, their bombing reduces the city to ruins. A band of volunteers organizes a fire brigade, dashing from one flame-engulfed disaster to another, snatching sleep at odd moments, searching out hydrants in a futile effort to extinguish raging fires, and saving lives when they can.

At last they are forced to admit defeat, as the bombing has completely destroyed the city’s water mains. As the firefighters stagger back through the streets, they come upon a motion-picture theater that unaccountably is open and showing a film called “Ziegfeld Girl.”

Farrell writes: “This seemed such a cause for wonder that they stopped and consulted each other. Why not? Just for a minute or two. They had such a craving for normality, even if only a glimpse of it … even if only for a few minutes. So they went inside, and once inside in the darkness they kept falling asleep and waking up, paralyzed by weariness and comfort.”

A young man named Matthew, a prominent character in the novel, a decent and likeable fellow with fervent though wildly naïve ideals, wakes from a doze to see Hedy Lamarr, “beautiful, grave and sad,” arguing with her violinist husband because she wants to make money as a showgirl. A scene or so later, “A breathless, manic Judy Garland” bursts into the room where the girls were getting ready for their performance.

Soon, the Busby Berkeley extravaganza begins — he staged the big musical numbers; director of record is Robert Z. Leonard — with Tony Martin crooning “You Stepped Out of a Dream” to a celestial Lana Turner descending a large staircase. (The Nacio Herb Brown-Gus Kahn tune soon became a Turner offscreen signature, and was often played as she entered a night club or a restaurant.)

Matthew dozes off again, only to awake to Lana Turner dumping a lover for a “stage-door johnny.” Soon Garland was singing “Minnie from Trinidad,” and in a waking moment Matthew leaves the theater in hopes of finding the Chinese woman with whom he had fallen in love.

One helluva way to catch a movie, you may well say. But what a movie! While not a true classic it still merits a view today.

The clouds of feathers surrounding the ravishing Hedy Lamarr as she steps down the stairs in the opening number might as well have had Busby Berkeley’s name in blinking neon lights on her forehead, so clearly was his style stamped on the scene.

Judy Garland, of course, was just two years past her performance in The Wizard of Oz. And speaking of Hedy’s looks, don’t forget Lana Turner, an eye-popping beauty who plays a Ziegfeld girl who crashed out of show-biz because of demon rum – even though she was still a lovely lush.

The list of stars in Ziegfeld Girl has barely begun. There was James Stewart, Jackie Cooper, Edward Everett Horton, Eve Arden (guess what? She cracks wise!), Dan Dailey, and a spectacular aggregation of uncredited Ziegfeld Girls.

(Yes, that’s Stewart huddling above with Turner.)

Incidentally, one quaint aspect of the movie is the various ways in which it is strongly suggested, although not exactly mentioned, that the show girls barter their pretty flesh for rewards of jewelry and other bonuses. In 1941, movies couldn’t use the verbiage so familiar on the screens today. But those girls grabbed the gold, make no mistake about it. Hubba-hubba.

And by the way, if you’ve a taste for the best of British writing, try J.G. Farrell. His three celebrated novels, collectively known as the Empire Trilogy, are “The Singapore Grip,” mentioned above; “Troubles,” about the conflict between Ireland and England, and “The Siege of Krishnapur,” the tale of an uprising in India.

Th-Th-That’s All, Folks

Thanks Larry– look forward to your next entry.  Meanwhile, if any of our followers have a particular Book To Film or Book inside a Film  you’d  like to tout… give us a holler.

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Rooney–The Longest Career in Show Business?

Jul28
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Mickey Rooney.  Too manic for Frank.  Very Talented for Joe. He’s been working in Show Business for over 90 years!

He has an honorary Oscar for his work in “Boy’s Town,” and has been nominated for Oscars three times. And, he still keeps working. (His best known mainstream commercial picture of the last few years was 2006′s “Night At The Museum,” starring Ben Stiller.)

Morella and Segers here again to muse about the phenomenon that is Mickey Rooney. Frank took some potshots in a yesterday’s blog.  Now its time for some Rooney compliments from Joe.  Who’s right?  Let us know what YOU think.

Joe loves Rooney’s impersonations of Gable, Lionel  Barrymore and Carmen Miranda performed in the Mickey/Judy Garland hit films, “Babes in Arms,” (an Oscar Nomination) “Babes on Broadway,” and “Strike Up the Band.”  Mickey and Judy (pictured together in yesterday’s photo) were great together on screen and in LIVE performances. After 1943′s  musical “Girl Crazy” they both went on to more dramatic work.

Rooney was superb in “The Human Comedy,” (pictured above) the William Saroyan story about a telegraph delivery boy in a small town having to deliver bad news to families during World War II. It  garnered him his second Academy Award Nomination.

He was also excellent in “National Velvet,” the charming MGM horse drama featuring a very young Elizabeth Taylor. Rooney played the talented horse trainer who propells Taylor into an equestrian championship.

The picture’s charm was enhanced inadvertently by comparison with MGM’s unfortunate 1978 remake, “International Velvet,” starring Tatum O’Neal sporting a fake English accent. (An aside:  Frank recalls visiting the set of the remake, and getting into an altercation with cast member Anthony Hopkins.  He’ll thankfully save the details of that encounter for another blog.)

Back to Mickey Rooney.  His career hit a rough patch after he served in the Army (mostly entertaining troops) and returned to Hollywood.  He was too old for Andy Hardy roles and at 5-feet-2 hardly the leading man type.

He entered radio and then television, but continued making films and hit his stride as a character actor with 1962′s boxing drama “Requium for a Heavyweight.”

Whatever our differences about his merits as an actor, we both salute the amazing durability of Mickey Rooney.

 

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