Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to introduce a new periodic feature of Classicmoviechat.com – our picks of the best titles in various movie genres.

A few words of caution.  We certainly don’t consider ourselves critics, and our selections reflect highly personal biases, which we not only admit to but relish.  And, unlike the Pope, we do NOT speak Ex-Cathedra.

We’ll cover American westerns, spaghetti westerns, musicals, comedies — you name it. We will pan across all genres and periodically deliver our “best-of” choices. We hope most of our selections will surprise you. We aim to avoid the obvious.

You may not agree with what we write, and that’s why we’d love to hear back from YOU about your favorites in each category. And, exactly why they are your favorites.

We’ll start tomorrow with our choices, kicking off with the first of our film noir “best-ofs.”

Frank is a huge fan of film noir, and has been tracking the genre, which flourished largely in the Forties, for some time.  In compiling tomorrow’s blog, he was determined to avoid the obvious choices in favor of worthy noir gems that are much lesser known.

In other words, we concede at the outset that such titles as Out of the Past, Mildred Pierce, The Maltese Falcon (John Huston version), Gilda, Gun Crazy, Laura, The Asphalt Jungle,  Force of Evil,  Sunset Boulevard, The Big Heat, Double Indemnity and The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers warrant at least a shot atop the “best of” list.

It’s a given that these films are indispensable part of the film noir canon.

And let’s not forget a quartet of Orson Welles movies that are among Frank’s top favorites including Journey Into Fear, the delightful foreign adventure costarring Joseph Cotten and a stylishly cynical Delores Del Rio, launched just after Welles completed The Magnificent Ambersons.

Then, of course, there is The Lady From Shanghai, starring the then estranged Mrs. Welles (Rita Hayworth). And Mr. Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report), which costarred another Mrs. Welles (Paola Mori), to which Frank plans to devote an entire future blog (about the film, that is).

Finally, of course, there is the indispensable Touch of Evil with one of our favorite producer names –Albert Zugsmith – attached and Marlene Dietrich dispensing gritty, pessimistic insights. Welles isn’t immediately identified as a noir director, but these titles show he was much at home in the genre.

Ok, enough of the preliminaries.  Tomorrow we’ll get going in earnest.  So stay tuned.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to reveal that — mirabile dictu — we do NOT always agree about the merits of a particular movie or a particular star. (Gadzooks!  Can that be true?) 

For example, we are fully in accord about Audrey Hepburn — big fans, we are — but part ways on which of her some 25 to 30 movies is her best.  Joe leans towards director Blake Edwards’ Breakfast At Tiffany’s, calling the 1961 comedy “everything a Hollywood film of that era should be — Glossy, Romantic, Magical, and Uplifting.”

Frank, on the other hand, maintains that “this piece of fluff,” based on a Truman Capote story about a girl from the sticks conquering New York City, is spared only by excellent musical contributions composed by Henry Mancini, including the song “Moon River.” The music is unforgettable, as is Hepburn.  The picture less so. 

Adding insult to injury, Frank goes on to note Breakfast At Tiffany’s whore-with-a-heart-of-gold sub theme and claims that Barbara Stanwyck could get away with this conceit, not the cultivated charmer that was Audrey Hepburn.  Even her character’s name, Holly Golightly, reeks of pseudo-literary preciousness.

Ok, I think we get the point. Well, then, what IS Audrey Hepburn’s best movie?

Was it director George Cukor’s 1964 adaptation of My Fair Lady (with Audrey spelling Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle)?  How about Billy Wilder’s agreeable romantic comedy, 1954′s Sabrina, with the actress being pursued by both William Holden and Humphrey Bogart?

The less-remembered title The Unforgiven, a 1960 western from director John Huston, presented Hepburn opposite Burt Lancaster as an Indian girl kidnapped by white settlers.

Author-critic David Thomson believes this is her most interesting performance. The picture was not an easy one to make. (Huston revealed that while we were shooting in Durango in Mexico, Audrey Hepburn fell off a horse and fractured a vertebra in her back…It delayed shooting for three weeks.)

We must not forget to mention Audrey’s turns in 1957′s Funny Face from director Stanley Donen, as well as in the same director’s Charade in 1963. And what about the still scary Wait Until Dark in 1967 with Audrey playing a helpless blind woman beset by Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna? Later in her career, when she was approaching 50, Hepburn costarred with Sean Connery in 1976′s Robin and Marian. 

Hepburn’s personal favorite was 1959′s The Nun’s Story, directed by Fred Zinneman and costarring Peter Finch. The “prestige” title really resonated with Audrey and won her a New York Film Critics best-actress award.  Her character was born in Belgium, was determined to lead her own life from an early age, and possessed spiritual depth — all aspects that applied to Hepburn herself. To top it all off, the movie was made in her favorite city, Rome.

Well, Frank begs to differ not only with Joe but Audrey herself.

His pick as her best movie?  Director William Wyler’s 1953 classic, Roman Holiday. Not only was it made in Rome but it featured Audrey as a princess in disguise let loose on a  romantic lark in the Eternal City in the company of a journalist (Gregory Peck) and news photographer (Eddie Albert.)

Roman Holiday drew the best from a young Audrey (24 at the time she made the picture).  And she actually transformed the usually wooden Peck (pictured with Audrey above) into an actor of emotional depth.  Audrey was the complete charmer. She won the Academy Award. Frank thinks this is her best film. And Joe somewhat agrees. For him it’s a toss up between Roman Holiday, Charade and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  What’s your pick?

Hello, everybody. Your classic movie guys, Joe Morella and Frank Segers, here today to introduce our friend and guest blogger Lewis Barton, who has some things of interest to say about how Marty relates to Italian-American family life in the Fifties.

As we pointed out in our yesterday’s blog about television’s “golden age” of the 1950s, Marty is based on the Paddy Cheyefsky teleplay about a Bronx butcher, who finds love with a plane-Jane schoolteacher. In the movie version, Ernest Borgine (above) was Marty and Betsy Blair portrayed the teacher.

The picture is many things: a touching human drama, a first-class vehicle for a superb cast of actors (directed by Delbert Mann) and, most important, a powerful love story. At 1956′s Academy Award ceremonies, the picture won six Oscars including a Best Picture citation and a best-actor nod for Borgnine.

Lew knows a bit about the character of Marty and his family setting since he is of Italian-American heritage (his surname was Anglicized), grew up in New York City, and spent his life as a successful entrepreneur-turned-tyro-novelist (his latest manuscript, The Iceman, tracks the upward rise in America of a wily Italian immigrant). He and we have a special reverence for Marty, one of our all-time favorite movies.

So, here’s Lew:

Paddy Chayefsky was raised in the Bronx and when he wrote Marty in the “”slice of life” style, he used his experience of life in the Bronx as a platform for the story. He shot the film on location, in the streets of the Bronx and the realism of the production pours out of the celluloid all over the audience like sweat off a pig.

Marty is the quintessential Bronx Italian-American young man, except in his case he didn’t marry young, which was the exception in that community. He was a conflicted fellow, single and living home with his widowed mother (portrayed by Esther Minciotti) who spent her time and expressed her love in taking care of her son, yet she constantly goaded him about finding a nice young woman to marry.

Marty was not comfortable around girls, and had suffered rejection many times making him even more reluctant to put himself in the position of more rejection. On the other hand he was tired of the loneliness of his life, and frustrated enough to the point of finally visiting the Starlight Ballroom one night in hopes of finding a nice girl to dance with.

After being rejected he finally sees a girl who, herself, was rejected and they make a pair. They dance and laugh and have a good time and Marty brings Clara home to get some cigarettes on the way to taking her home…that’s where she meets mama!

Be careful what you wish for… Mama sees her future in this plain young woman. Worse than that, her bitchy widowed sister (Augusta Ciolli) tells her what to expect. Her son will marry and leave her and her daughter-in-law will not give her the attention, love, respect and honor she deserves. She will have nothing! She will have no one to cook for or to keep house for and she will live a life of a lonely old woman.

Interesting to note, this being 1955, these two “old ladies” are in their mid-fifties. Today they would be club hopping and not sitting around knitting and waiting for grandchildren. Also typical of productions of this era there are no nuances here; everything is delivered with the subtlety of a jackhammer.

Being an Italo-American I recognize many of these characters. They could have been plucked from the Sunday dining room table at my nonna’s. They are my aunts, uncles and cousins.

The next morning, after she meets Clara, mama decides she has no choice except to attempt to subvert this attempt to disrupt her life. She reaches into her arsenal and launches the powerful weapon, the “Is she an Italian girl? She doesn’t look like an Italian girl,” torpedo. It hits its target and the ship starts listing. Marty doesn’t call Clara at 3:00 as he promised he would.

Then his friends begin attacking with the “isn’t life as a single guy great” bombshells and the ship is going down fast. But, suddenly, the sun breaks through the clouds and Marty sees the future for what it is and what it should be. He calls Clara.

Now, the only piece of subtlety in the entire production. Marty calls Clara at 8:00. How do we know it’s 8:00? No simple clock on a wall here. It’s 1955 and the most popular TV show is Ed Sullivan. Clara is home watching Sullivan, weeping silently, when the phone rings and she answers it. Everybody knows what time it is. Sullivan was on.

Marty says, “Hello…Clara…”

Thanks, Lew. If anyone out there hasn’t seen this special movie, check out Marty.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here to say that for readers of a certain age, our reference to TV’s “Golden Age” needs little explanation.

Lasting just 10 years and beginning way back in the late Forties, viewers at home were treated to some of America’s finest dramas, directed by first-rate talent and starring America’s finest actors. For free.  Just for tuning on the living room TV box.

These dramas were broadcast LIVE, production warts and all.  If an actor blew a line or  tripped over set furniture, so be it.  The goof went out unfiltered over national TV.

For example, actor William Shatner recalled an awkward moment in a mid-Fifties, one-hour television production of Billy Budd, based on Herman Melville’s novel about an innocent sailor who is hanged. Veteran Hollywood star Basil Rathbone, then in his mid-Sixties, was also cast in the teleplay, which was broadcast in Canada.

I’d grown up watching (Rathbone) play Sherlock Holmes in the movies. He was a very well-respected stage and movie actor, but this was one of his first, if not his very first, live television appearances, Shatner recalled.

We went on the air and the first act was progressing very well, right until (Rathbone) walked onboard the ship and stepped into a bucket.

His foot got caught in the bucket and he couldn’t get it off. The camera shot only his upper body so none of the viewers could see him madly shaking his leg, trying to get his foot out of that bucket.  He was working so hard to get his foot free that he forgot his lines. And when he forgot his lines he began to sweat.

The rest of us tried to feed him his lines … It was a disaster.  

The big Hollywood studios back then were spooked by TV’s commercial introduction on a mass level, and decided to piggy back on the excellent material being developed during the “golden age” — represented by such venerable corporate sponsors as the Philco and Goodyear Playhouses, Studio One, the U.S. Steel Hour, Kraft Television Theater, Robert Montgomery Presents, Omnibus, General Electric Theater, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Desilu Playhouse, Lux Video Theater and Motorola TV.

The result: solid movie versions surfaced covering “golden age” titles that originated on the tube, including: JP Miller’s Days of Wine and Roses (aired in 1958 and made into a great film in 1962), Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men (1954), William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker (1957), Paddy Chayefsky’s The Bachelor Party (1955) and Middle of the Night (1954), Rod Serling’s Patterns (1955) and Requiem For A Heavyweight (1962) and Mac Hyman’s No Time For Sergeants (1955).

Some of the performers in these dramas: George C. Scott, James Dean, Kim Stanley, Julie Harris, Eva Marie Saint, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Grace Kelly, Lee Remick, E.G. Marshall, Jack Palance, Jack Lemmon, John Cassavetes, Eli Wallach and Lee J. Cobb, among many others.

But, alas, by the end of the Fifties, TV changed.  Most of the live drama shows went off their air giving away to filmed series and quiz shows. But the “golden age” left its mark in many ways, not least in Hollywood.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at one of our favorite “golden age” dramas, Chayefsky’s Marty (1953), which starred Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchant (above) on tv.  It was made into the most famous of all the transitions from TV to the big screen.  So, don’t touch that dial.

Sydney Greenstreet is perhaps the greatest character actor in Hollywood history and, Frank argues in this blog, one of the Hollywood’s greatest actors, period. (How many of you out there agree?)

Greenstreet was born in England (Sandwich, Kent) in 1879, one of eight children of a leather merchant.  At 18, he went abroad to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to try his hand at running a tea plantation.  Back in England Greenstreet tried managing a brewery and other jobs before hitting on the idea of attending acting school. He made his London stage debut in 1902, assaying the role of a villain in Sherlock Homes.

By the time he showed up in 1941 (at the age of 61) on director John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon set at Warner Bros., Greenstreet had logged 40 years as a stage actor on both sides of the pond.  In his 1980 memoir, An Open Book, Huston wrote: The English actor Sydney Greenstreet had worked on Broadway but this was, I believe, his first film.

There’s always talk about the difficulty of making the transition from stage to screen, but you wouldn’t know it to watch Greenstreet; he was perfect from the word go, the Fat Man, inside out.  I had only to sit back and take delight in him and his performance.

Greenstreet was nominated for an Academy Award in the best supporting actor category for his screen debut as “the fat man.” (Remember whom he lost to that year, in 1942?  Hint: he was a fellow Brit.)

To its credit, Warner Brothers knew what it had in the 300-pound-plus Greenstreet and kept him busy over the next nine years  – 25 features from 1941 through 1950, averaging more than two pictures per year.

Greenstreet’s girth became something of his signature.  As the slender Sam Spade, Humphrey Bogart wore his own clothes in character. Greenstreet’s outfits, on the other hand, had to be specially tailored by the studio costume department. Nothing less would fit.

Greenstreet used size to great advantage, playing erudite spies, a sleazy tycoons, Nazi agents, a corrupt Southern sheriff, among other juicy roles. He always executed his parts with panache and a delicious appreciation of evil that often outshone the histrionics of the top-billed star.

In 1942’s Across the Pacific, starring Bogart and Mary Astor, Greenstreet found himself portraying a Japanese-speaking academic, a specialist in Philippine economics who holds “the chair of sociology at the university there” and who freely spouts politically incorrect observations about Asians.

In 1943’s Backround to Danger, director Raoul Walsh’s treatment of a spy thriller from the reliable Eric Ambler, the mustache-sporting Greenstreet has to cope with star George Raft and a daffy plot about Nazis supposedly enticing the then USSR to invade Turkey in order to destabilize the region. Greenstreet oozes evil in the role of “Colonel Robinson,” another Nazi mastermind in disguise. In this film he spoke German.

His voice was unique, and it was inevitable that he would also become a star on radio and perhaps inevitable that he would be cast as a portly detective. One of the most famous and successful characters in mystery novels is Nero Wolfe and for radio, Greenstreet and Wolfe were the perfect match.

Nero Wolfe had been on radio throughout the 1940s with various actors in the role, but in the early 1950s Greenstreet was cast in a new series based on the famed detective and Wolfe creator Rex Stout declared him a splendid choice.

You can hear Greenstreet as Wolfe by ordering the radio broadcasts: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF NERO WOLFE – Old Time Radio 

Greenstreet died in 1954, at the age of 74, felled by kidney disease and diabetes among other ailments.  His career was short and fruitful. As long as there are those of use who prize classic movies, he will never be forgotten.

“America’s Mermaid” Esther Williams, who passed away last Thursday (June 6) at the age of 91, built a glittering movie career in the Forties and Fifties by looking relentlessly cheerful on-screen and just plain gorgeous in a bathing suit. 

The great news is that off-camera, Esther turned out to be a lusty, outspoken woman who seemed to have a weakness for generously endowed men.

Hi, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, here with the second half of our Esther Williams tribute.  Yesterday, we covered career highlights.  Today, some of the personal “good stuff.”

Esther’s down-to-earth intelligence is prominently on display in The Million Dollar Mermaid, her excellent 1999 autobiography coauthored by Digby Diehl. It’s a great read, highly recommended.

In it, Esther cheerfully broke the stereotype of most movie star memoirs — never saying anything bad about anyone. So, strap it up and here we go:

JOHNNY WEISSMULLER (Esther’s swimming partner in a 1940 San Francisco Acquacade):  Esther notes that Mr. Tarzan had remarkable genitalia that he loved to exhibit. After their swimming act at the Acquacade was completed, he’d whip off his trunks and go after young Esther. I would swim for (the exit) as though I was swimming for my life.

VICTOR MATURE (Williams’ lover in 1952′s Million Dollar Mermaid): Here is Esther at her lustiest. Despite her marriage at the time to second husband, the hard-drinking Ben Gage, she confessed to a powerful attraction to Victor Mature. I knew that he wanted me, and I wanted him…One night, after doing a steamy love scene that was more than adequate foreplay, we went to my dressing room ….That first night, we made love over and over into exhaustion.

JEFF CHANDLER (Esther’s costar in 1958′s Raw Wind in Eden and later her lover, in an off-camera “romantic” rendezvous): This is an especially memorable moment described in Esther’s book. I froze at the bedroom door and started screaming. I couldn’t stop myself…I just stood there in the center of the doorway and screamed. What was all the fuss about? Well, Esther had just stumbled not only into Chandler’s boudoir but also into the realization that her lover was a cross dresser. “He was standing in the middle of the bedroom in a red wig, a flowered chiffon dress, expensive high-heeled shoes and lots of makeup.” (Since Chandler stood 6-feet-4 inches, it must have been quite a sight.) ’Take that off! Take that off now!’ I yelled.” (Chandler’s death from in a botched back operation in June of 1961, sent Esther into mourning “for that good lovable man who almost had been my husband.”)

BEN GAGE ( “Fun-loving” former big band singer and Esther’s second husband): “An idiot, a moron, an asshole,” was MGM boss Louis B. Mayer’s assessment of Gage, who drank heavily and overspent Esther’s money. In front of young women guests at their Los Angeles home, the extraordinarily hung Ben would doff his bathing suit in the pool to show off his erection and wave it about like a banner. Esther would fend off guest complaints with, Get over it. It’s nothing.  Gage left Esther deeply in hock when their marriage of nearly 14 years ended in 1959. Her high-flying MGM days behind her, she struggled for a while to pay things off, often by appearing on various tv series (“Zane Grey Theater,” ” The Donna Reed Show”) in the 1960′s to get back on her feet.

FERNANDO LAMAS (the Argentine-born actor-athlete who was Esther’s third husband, to whom she was married for nearly 13 years until his death in 1982 of cancer): Fernando was a bit self-centered and macho, so Esther had occasional misgivings. In his self-centered way, he loved me very much….His sexy reputation was well deserved and I was the sole beneficiary.  Esther was fascinated by the way Fernando thrust his hips forward to make it very obvious what was in those pants, which was very substantial.

VAN JOHNSON (Esther’s costar in five movies; one, Easy to Wed, co-starred Lucille Ball who is pictured above tugging at Van’s ear):  Through the years, I swam with Van, married him, fought with him and made to love with him — all on camera. Esther and Van shared knowledge of their private secrets (in Johnson’s case there were quite a few). Together they were a sweetheart couple who had that MGM look that was so ‘American,’ with no ethnic traces whatsoever.

JOHNNY JOHNSTON (Former night club and radio crooner who was Esther’s costar in 1947′s This Time For Keeps):  Johnston isn’t widely know today but he had his moments of co-stardom at MGM. He was carrying on a torrid affair with actress-singer Kathryn Grayson (they married in 1947) while he and Esther were making their movie on location in upper Michigan. To amuse his dewy-eyed groupies on location, Johnnie would read aloud Kathryn’s intimate letters including the all-too-graphic details concerning what she liked about his love-making. I was appalled.” (So, apparently was Grayson; she was one of Johnston’s half dozen wives.)

GENE KELLY (Esther’s costar in 1949′s Take Me Out To The Ballgame.)  Esther disliked Kelly, one of the most the most winning and likable men on-screen, (who) was nothing less than a tyrant behind the camera — at least with me.” He resented Esther’s height (5-feet-8-1/2 inches). There was no hiding that I was half a head taller than he was.

FRANK SINATRA (Esther’s other costar in Take Me Out To The Ball Game.) Williams liked Sinatra. I not only adored the way he sang, but admired his underrated natural approach to acting….He told me that both of us approached acting the same way, speaking like you talk to a friend, as if the camera wasn’t there. Esther also noted that Sinatra loved to party. As soon as the day’s filming was done, he went rushing off to one bash or another. As a result, he sometimes showed up on the set “fighting a hangover.” The picture’s unit manager reported this to studio higher-ups. When Frank told me that he had heard the rumor that he was getting bounced off the picture, I tried to reassure him. (As it turned out, Sinatra had nothing to be concerned about.  He stayed in the picture.)

A really wonderful collection of Williams’ films is available. Click here and check them out.

As you probably know by now, Esther Williams died on June 6 at the age of 91.

She was not only the one of the last classic stars — the centerpiece of all those watery MGM extravaganzas of the Forties and Fifties — but an extraordinary combination of all-American sexiness and sharp intellect (yes, you read that last correctly).

As the saying goes, she called them as she saw them.

Hello, everybody.  JoeMorella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here to honor Esther’s legacy today and tomorrow by recalling her career and some of her sharp-edged observations of life in classic Hollywood opposite a raft of the biggest stars in the MGM firmament.

Although a teenage swim champion in California, Esther’s initial break in movies came not in an aquatic setting but as Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend in 1942′s Andy Hardy’s Double Life. The fan mail streamed in, always a sure signing of a budding star at MGM.

By the time she played Caroline Brooks in 1944′s Bathing Beauty, she was in her element.  MGM had spent about $250,000 — a fortune at the time — to build an elaborate swimming pool set just to accommodate their future star.  She was not yet “America’s mermaid” but she was on her way.

It’s our opinion that Esther’s swimming movies — particularly 1949′s Neptune’s Daughter, 1952′s Million Dollar Mermaid, 1953′s Dangerous When Wet and 1955′s Jupiter’s Darling – hold up extremely well today.

For one thing, Williams looks gorgeous.  Tall for her time (she was about a half-inch under 5 foot 9), she had superbly toned legs that go on forever. In a bathing suit, Esther looked dazzling — something she later parleyed into lucrative off-screen business, creating a bathing suit fashion line, after her movie career ended in the early 1960′s.  The clean-cut athleticism she displays in abundance in her pictures wears particularly well today.

She played a cheerful knockout in her movies. Like Betty Grable, that slightly less cheerful knockout at at 20th Century Fox, Williams was a huge box office draw.

Her swimming films also boast of  rarely-matched visual mastery driven by elaborate production numbers choreographed by the likes of Busby Berkeley .  How did Esther stay under water for so long?

(She later confided that some of her more dangerous under water stunts nearly cost her her life.) She occasionally used doubles for some high dives especially after she sustained a broken back after taking a swan dive off a 50-foot platform during the making of Mermaid.

Williams fared less successfully in some of MGM’s non-aquatic titles. In 1949′s Take Me Out To The Ballgame, she was cast as the owner of a baseball team that included Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra on its roster.  Kelly and Sinatra are fine, but Esther looks a bit out of kilter in the movie although she more than holds her own in the singing and dancing sequences. (One reason for her apparent discomfort: she took an intense dislike to Kelly, who made her life difficult. Among other things, he resented Esther for being taller that he was.)

She was largely wasted in 1952′s Skirts Ahoy!, a song-and-dance version of navy WAC life. In all, Williams appeared in more than 25 films. Comedian-singer Fanny Brice is credited with the quip, “Wet, she’s a star, dry she ain’t.”

But critic-author David Thomson wrote that two of Esther’s later movies made after she departed MGM — 1956′s The Unguarded Moment and 1958′s Raw Wind In Eden – “show that she was worthy of drier things.” In the latter movie made in Italy, Esther turns in a very sexy performance opposite then paramour Jeff Chandler.

One of readers, Kathy, asks a fundamental and interesting question: How were they able to keep her hair in place and look perfect in water and when she surfaced?

Well, Kathy, Esther comes clean on this point in her excellent 1999 autobiography, The Million Dollar Mermaid (coauthored by Digby Diehl and published by Simon & Schuster:) The hairdressers poured warm baby oil and Vaseline into a bowl, patted the mixture into their hands and said, ‘Come here, Esther,’ she wrote.

They smeared this gooey mess …into my shoulder-length hair, and then maid tiny braids all over my head.  After that, they affixed artificial braids to the natural braids using two giant interlocking hairpins  that looked like crowbars….The pins created massive welts in my scalp, but even when I dove off a high platform, those braids stayed put.  They became my trademark underwater ‘do.’

Esther’s personal life always drew a lot of attention.  We’ll get into her private affairs in detail in tomorrow’s blog. We’ll also reveal how Esther really felt about some of her famous coworkers.

Ok, ok. You’ve heard this before.

Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here again to proclaim our love of reader email, tweets and facebooks notations, whatever.  We unabashedly enjoy hearing from you, and insist on commenting in our inimitable fashion on reader feedback.

Regular contributor Mike Sheridan weighed in on our May 22 blog (What’s A Classic?) extolling the 1941 RKO classic The Devil And Miss Jones, costarring Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings and Charles Coburn. Sayeth Mike:

One of my favorites. It truly will suck you in whenever its played. Bob Cummings and Jean Arthur are so good you wish you ran in their circle, and the way they accept CC (Coburn) gives you faith in youth. I hope our youngsters are still that way. This movie is truly a CLASSIC in every sense.

Needless to say, Mike, we agree.

In response to our Feb. 13 blog Was Dana Andrews Ever Better? — praising his excellent performance in the 1945 World War II classic, A Walk In The Sun — James asks the following question:

A big fan of Dana Andrews.  Terrific actor.  Did he serve during WWII?  I thought I read his alcoholism kept him out.

No, James, it wasn’t his widely acknowledged alcoholism.  By the time World War II began, Andrews was 32 years old and the father of three.  His family status exempted him from the draft. By the way, Andrews’ younger brother, Steve Forrest, who did serve in the war, died recently at 87.

We really enjoyed the following missive from Jon, in response to our Dorothy Lamour blog (one of several) – Never Before Seen Photo of Dorothy Lamour — published way back on May 19, 2011:

Actually, I was a 17-year-old prop boy and assistant for Ms. Lamour at the Carousel Dinner Theatre in Ravenna, (Ohio) when she played the role of the mother in “Barefoot in the Park.” The year was 1979.  Spring.

I walked her dog, Coco, and warmed up her car. She smoked. She missed her husband, and talked fondly of her son as well and Bob and Bing!

Thanks, Jon.

Finally, Timster contributed the following, rather thoughtful missive in response to our  James Dean — The Final Debate. Finally! published on Feb. 13.  It was our last blog weighing the merits and demerits of Dean as an actor, which prompted lively (but never angry) exchanges with several readers.

 I’m going to have to disagree with both, the thrust of the article, and the angry comments that followed.

Of course the authors are correct in their observation that Dean did need to ‘grow up’. And he would have, I believe, had he not made so many Hollywood enemies. He did possess the (Rudolph) Valentino phenomenon as did (Marlon) Brando in his early films. They both attempted to speak for a generation bent on rebellion.

However, as Brando matured and took on more serious roles, so would have Dean. We see this in a few scenes dotted throughout his short career.

The scene that was mentioned from “East of Eden” with Julie Harris is such an example. So too are several scenes in “Giant,” in which he danced around stoic performances by (Rock) Hudson and (Elizabeth) Taylor.

To discount his acting as “method acting shtick” (both he and Brando discounted that training as BS later in their careers) is unfair.

I don’t believe you are seeing the abilities that he demonstrated. Take away the ‘rebel’ persona and the heart-throb aspect in which he was cast several times and you have an aspiring thespian that certainly DOES deserve all the erstwhile praise he received.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys so inspired by the introduction of the  recent movie version of The Great Gatsby that we at asked our BOOKS2MOVIES maven Larry Michie to re-examine F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 novel.

Larry is sometimes a contrarian, and you’ll be interested to read what he writes about the book that is the basis of not one but four separate films including the current one with Leonardo DiCaprio (above).

“Gatsby” is the saga of an ambitious young man of the 1920′s, a nouveau rich outsider of murky origin who tosses lavish parties on his Long Island estate, and nurses a life-long love for the aristocratic Daisy Buchanan — despite her marriage to the very rich and very boorish Tom Buchanan.

Fitzgerald’s novel isn’t lengthy, a crisp 180 pages or so in paperback, and here’s Larry’s assessment:

The first grumpy thing I have to say is that I have never liked “The Great Gatsby.” I’ve read it several times over many years, and it still makes me squirm. That said, the Fitzgerald novel is widely revered; perhaps taught in many university classes and seminars.

For me, the vile husband of Daisy is revolting, and Gatsby himself makes me want to throw up.

He calls every respectable male ‘Old Sport.’ Apparently he picked up that stupidity from some Englishman. Furthermore, Gatsby glibly tells Nick Carraway, the one sane character in the novel, that he was educated at Oxford, where all the men of his family were educated.

By Nick’s understanding, Gatsby was born as James Gatz, of North Dakota. At least there were some murmurs that Gatsby was importing liquor during prohibition, the one quality the man might have had that would have won my approval.

A few more bits and pieces, if you so desire: Nick Carraway is the character in the novel who is chums with Gatsby. The East Egg and West Egg houses are basically out at the end of Long Island. Nick Carraway commutes to Manhattan, where he, not very successfully in the midst of the depression, attempts to make a living by selling stocks and bonds. Good luck, Nick.

Also: Everyone knows that Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan, has a woman stashed away in New York. Just for good measure, Mr. Buchanan, was a muscular brute who was a successful football player at Yale.

Depending on what his studies were, one might be startled. Consider Buchanan’s words: “Civilization is going to pieces… Have you read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’…. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be… will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”

So there’s the guy who married Daisy.

Thanks, Larry.  Since we haven’t caught up with the latest screen edition of  The Great Gatsby, we went back and took a look at the 1974 Paramount version starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Karen Black and Sam Waterston.

This obviously was a “prestige” Hollywood production at the time, produced by Broadway impresario David Merrick (huge name back then but all but forgotten today) with a script by none other than Francis Ford Coppola.  The director, Jack Clayton, adopted a workmanlike approach to his subject, and Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography is big on gauzy lushness.

This adaptation of the Fitzgerald is generally good to look at (Ralph Lauren designed the stunning period costumes).  The performances range from the very lively (Dern is excellent as the boorish Tom Buchanan) to Indian-store wooden. Redford is great to look at but fails in every way to create an emotionally evocative Jay Gatsby.

A bit of casting trivia: Paramount was the recipient of several pitches from a powerful agent (the late Sue Mengers) on behalf of client Barbra Streisand.  She would make a “perfect” Daisy, pleaded Mengers.  The role went to Farrow who does a creditable job managing her characters mental and emotional swings.

In Frank’s book, Bruce Dern — 38 when he played nasty Tom in this film — steals the show. Therefore, it’s heartening to hear that the 77-year-old veteran, reduced to B-level horror movies in recent years, won the best actor citation at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for his role as an alcoholic father in director Alexander Payne’s new black-and-white film, Nebraska. 

Mucho congrats to a much underrated actor.

Hello, everybody. Inspired by the rcent movie version of The Great Gatsby, we at Classic Movie Chat — Joe Morella and Frank Segers — asked our BOOKS2MOVIES maven Larry Michie to re-examine that durable 1922 novel.

We’ll also take a look at how Fitzgerald fared as a Hollywood screenwriter (hint: not well) and revisit just a bit the 1974 movie version costarring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. All this will be covered in a pair of successive blogs beginning today.

There have been four films versions of Gatsby including the current one with Leonardo DiCaprio: there is the (hard to come by)1949 edition with Alan Ladd; then the 1974 Redford-Farrow outing; and a silent version made in 1926 with Warner Baxter as Jay Gatsby. (A print of this edition, perhaps fortunately, does not exist.)

You are probably wondering what the link below is doing there and what it delivers.  Well, folks connected to Warner Bros. came up with this “infographic” to, of course, promote the latest screen Gatsby. It’s not bad, and contains some interesting information.  So please click on to the link and see what you think.

http://www.electric.com/great-gatsby.html

Now back to the business at hand. We’ll set the stage today, and get to Larry’s comments about the novel tomorrow. Its author (no, not Larry), a notorious lush, was born in Minnesota in 1896, and expired 44 years later in the apartment of Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham, his mistress at the time.

Graham recalled that Fitzgerald dropped by her place after lunch expressing a craving for candy.  The columnist obliged with a box, and F. Scott popped a few into his mouth.  While licking his fingers, Graham recalled, he suddenly stiffened and then fell to the carpet.  “He was very considerate,” she said.  “He died in the afternoon.”

Fitzgerald needed lots of money all his life and while his early novels (This Side of Paradise in 1920, Gatsby in 1922 and Tender Is The Night in 1934) went on to become landmarks of American literature, they were greeted with varying degrees of commercial success. Therefore, Fitzgerald trod a time-honored path, and spent three separate stints in Hollywood at MGM to make real money.

Graham recalled that once Joan Crawford, for whom Fitzgerald was writing a script, “met him in the street, gripped him by arm and said, ‘Write Hard!’”

As it has been for some many, Hollywood was Fitzgerald’s undoing.  Mused veteran screenwriter and confirmed cynic Ben Hecht, who rhetorically asked in the late Fifties: Why go to work in Hollywood if you think movies are mainly trash, and the bosses who turn them out chiefly muttonheads?

Answering his own question, Hecht explained that working in Hollywood was easy money…in large sums. You got it sometimes for good work, more often for bad. But there was a law in the studios — hire only the best.  As a result, the writer who had written well in some other medium was paid the most…His large salary was a bribe.

Fitzgerald was a deliberative novelist.  He took his time.  This did not sit well with the studio bosses, who soon criticized him for being “slow.” Hecht hit another factor: Fitzgerald wrote scripts under the illusion that workmanlike quality would invariably recognized in the front office.

Scotty had toiled on a movie script for four months in the studio, recalled Hecht. He handed it in proudly to his boss. Like many of his kind, the boss, who has never written anything… fancied himself a writer. He re-dictated the Fitzgerald script in two days, using four stenographers. He changed all the dialogue.

A horrified Fitzgerald wrote the boss: How could you do this to me? If there is anything I know it’s the sound of how my generation has spoken….How can you throw me away in this fashion? Hecht noted that his signature on the letter was soon followed by a nervous breakdown.

This is not to say that Fitzgerald did not admire at least one studio exec. Monroe Stahr, the protagonist of the author’s 1942 unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, is based on fabled MGM production boss Irving Thalberg.

Director Elia Kazan used that novel as the basis of an excellent 1976 movie with Robert DeNiro cast as a Thalberg-like producer working himself to death.  Search this movie out. Ironically, given Fitzgerald’s unhappy Hollywood history, it’s one of the best films ever made about the place.

Yesterdays Pix:  Did you recognize Audrey Totter and Anita Louise?