Hitchcock blondes driving to ......

Here's Janet and Tippi driving towards their respective fates ..... the sense of doom created by Herrmann's great score builds as Marion Crane approaches the Bates Motel; and poised socialite Melanie Daniels blithely driving towards Bodega Bay with those lovebirds ...

I am now away for a week in Ireland, but will return with those NOCTURNAL ANIMALS
and DR STRANGE, and a Seventies camp classic; Diana Ross in MAHOGANY, as well as More Bad Movies We Love, and a selection of lesser-known European Classics. and some more "Interesting Careers".

Still of the day ...

Two of our favourite blondes: Faye and Michael - Dunaway and York that is, in Richard Lester's all-star extravaganza THE FOUR MUSKETEERS, the more sombre follow-up to his jolly THREE MUSKETEERS, both filmed in 1973. Faye is a deliciously wicked Milady with the York boy as the hapless D'Artagnan .... Charlton Heston scores too as the devious Richelieu, as does Olly Reed as Athos and Christopher Lee in a different role for him. Lots of enjoyment here .... it all looks great too,

Hockney style

As per other reports here, we first discovered David Hockney in the 1960s - that new age of the colour supplements, which featured him a lot. Not only the art, but we liked the look too - he actually looked like the work he produced. It was a very individual look for 1966, of course he had dyed his hair blonde and those round black glasses - as I saw myself then (as mentioned before, Hockney label). 

I was 20 in 1966 and had moved to central London, Bayswater - a short walk to trendy Notting Hill Gate, where I ventured into my first gay pub, in or near Pembridge Villas. A man with that look was there, it could only have been Hockney, maybe visiting from LA. I recognised him right away, but just had a drink and left. Perhaps if I had lingered, I may have been a pool boy myself?  Right: I have had this French poster framed, since 1974.

Jack Hazan's film A BIGGER SPLASH, daring at the time,  continued our fascination with David and his 1970s coterie. He later said he had not realised how much he had been filmed, but surely he must have realised there was a man with a camera in the shower with him ..... 

David of course is now 80 this year and has become the grand old man of British art, still painting and still smoking. The latest huge exhibition at the Tate Gallery opens this week and runs to May, we will be going of course. 

The Look continues: those blocks of colour, wearing odd socks, striped knitted ties, yellow flat caps, and lots of fancy rugger shirts in pastel hues, with baggy cargo trousers and tennis shoes, and cardigans.

London will be gearing up for Hockney fever again, as this latest exhibition gets underway.

Tab Hunter Confidential

The book "Tab Hunter Confidential" was a fascinating read some years ago, as Tab took us through his career as that Fifties heart-throb with a secret - he was gay. It is now a film, with a wealth of clips and interviewees from that Fifties Golden Age. 

Tab, now in his mid-80s, is still fit, busy with his horses, and comes across as a man of integrity. He does not dish any dirt needlessly, and unlike some (Rock) he did not do the usual marriage of convenience for a year or two to put off the newshounds. He was genuinely friends with those girls he dated: Natalie, Debbie, Venetia Stevenson, Terry Moore etc. The survivors are all here, plus Robert Wagner, Clint Eastwood, Mother Dolores Hart, Rex Reed and more.

The clips show what a big deal he was then - I liked him in ISLAND OF DESIRE, BATTLE CRY, the two with Natalie - her dark looks complementing his blonde - and with Sophia Loren in Lumet's under-rated THAT KIND OF WOMAN in 1959. Pity he never got that main role that defined him (unlike his pal Tony Perkins), perhaps his best role now is in DAMN YANKEES in 1958, with that Fosse choreography. 

Tab also had a go at singing and had some top ten hits and albums, but he got tired of all that and bought out his Warner Bros contract, so Jack Warner replaced him with the manufactured Troy Donahue - another of gay agent Henry Willson's boys (as was Tab, plus Guy Madison, Rory Calhoun and of course Rock) while Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Fabian were also hitting the movies. It was though the cusp of the 1960s with a new breed of new guys emerging like the young Warren Beatty and Robert Redford who were able to parlay their looks into enduring careers. Other '50s hunks like Jeff Hunter and Robert Wagner had similar career problems. 

Tab was soon old hat, despite a surfing movie and some European cheapies. But he kept going, with smaller roles and guest appearances, as in THE LOVED ONE in 1965. He was also into figure-skating and horse-jumping, and did a lot of dinner theatre. He was also in that short-lived first production of Tennessee Williams' THE MILK TRAIN DOES NOT STOP HERE ANYMORE with Tallulah Bankhead - one of those productions that has passed into legend (it later became the Burtons' BOOM!).  Then of course he was re-discovered by John Waters for POLYESTER and LUST IN THE DUST with bombshell Divine. 

Lots of fascinating stories here, including his relationship with Tony Perkins (a very ambitious actor, who managed to get Tab's television role in FEAR STRIKES OUT to film for himself) and how Tab had to look after his mother and brother, who did not survive Vietnam. 

Tab now seems a contented man, well-liked and respected as the later generation of gays find his story fascinating and how he handled it during that closeted time. Tab is a Hollywood blonde who has endured; like the books by Michael York and John Fraser, Tab's shows how actors keep going once the initial limelight fades ... 

People We Like: Lauren

No, not that one, the other one: Lauren Hutton in AMERICAN GIGOLO.

We have covered Paul Schrader's 1980 hit AMERICAN GIGOLO quite a bit here, see label, usually focusing on Richard Gere, this is the role, as gigolo Julian Kaye, which established him after DAYS OF HEAVEN and YANKS. The film for me ushers in the glamour and glitz of the Eighties, with that Moroder soundtrack. But the more I see it the more I am fascinated by Lauren Hutton as the senator's wife, she is the still centre of the film and is marvellously watchable, and how she wears clothes, being a top fashion model of course (she was on the cover of VOGUE 25 times). Her character though is so sympathetic compared to the others on view here and the climax is so affecting when she gives Julian the alibi he needs to get off that fixed murder rap. 

Lauren, in her seventies now, is as fascinating to look at as Joni Mitchell - they both have that blonde, Nordic look. She is also effective in Alan Rudolph's WELCOME TO L.A. and THE GAMBLER with James Caan, and Altman's A WEDDING, as well as assorted tv series like NIP/TUCK and FALCON CREST.  She has notched up 57 movie credits and has turned producer. Like that other fashion model turned actress, Marisa Berenson, it is always a pleasure to see Lauren. 

Joni is back!

How nice to check Joni Mitchell's site and see that she is back and out and about again after that fall and illness last year. Here she is a month ago, in August, at a concert in L.A. with Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. So pleased to see her well again. 

Lots on Joni at label. 

Hockney's bigger book

We got a lot of David Hockney's books over the years, starting with that 1978 nice Thames & Hudson retrospective on his career to then (right), followed by his books on paper pools, collages, sketches, his dogs and all those various exhibitions, as his art moved from London to Paris and Europe and on to America and back to the North of England in recent years, as per other posts on him, see label, plus of course that A BIGGER SPLASH film in 1974.. Now 79 Hockney is painting and smoking as much as ever - there will be a huge new exhibition at the Tate in London next year, after the one that just finished here Now we have an even bigger book:

Taschen are bringing out A BIGGER BOOK, and this IS  a coffee table tome, in fact it could be a coffee table, if you have £1,750 for the price, but it does comes with its own stand. It is 500 pages, large size, weighing 70lbs ... covering 60 years of David's ever-changing art from his Bradford art-student days to now, and it is signed by Hockney, could he have signed all 10,000 copies? 

Good interview with him too in this week's "Sunday Times", by Lynn Barber. He is going to paint on for as long as he can, but he does have a good team of 9 to help him: 3 assistants, and other staff (housekeeper, gardener, those off-site running his office and archive). 
A BIGGER BOOK follows his 2012 Royal Academy exhibition, A Bigger Picture, in which the artist produced large images with the aid of an iPad. It unveils at Frankfurt's Book Fair in October, with Hockney present to introduce the new tome. 

Vic and Janet go on Safari in 1956

Here is a delicious programmer from 1956, and amazingly, Janet Leigh says in her autobio that they really went to Africa to film it - whereas Susan Hayward and Mitchum over at Fox never left the backlot for their African adventure WHITE WITCH DOCTOR, neither did Susan & Ty Power in UNTAMED; Dirk Bogarde and Virginia McKenna also did one, SIMBA, for Rank about the same time, they never left Pinewood. KINGS SOLOMON'S MINES - the 1951 one with Stewart Granger and Deb Kerr is probably the best of these 50s treats (which MGM cannibalised for WATUSI in 1959), and at least they went to Africa, as of course did Huston with THE AFRICAN QUEEN, Ford for MOGAMBO and Hawks with HATARI!; then there was BORN FREE and THE LION plus of course there were endless 'African' potboilers like TANGANYIKA, BEYOND MOMBASA, MOZAMBIQUE etc .... I also remember seeing a black and white African drama SOMETHING OF VALUE in 1957 from a popular Robert Ruark novel, with Rock Hudson and a young Sidney Poitier, but its never cropped up anywhere since. 

A fond childhood memory is looking at the stills layout of current films in the windows of my local cinema The Astor and seeing the stills of SAFARI and then seeing the film, I particularly remember Janet in a canoe in the rapids as crocs slither into the river .... Its your standard African saga wih a rousing climax as the Mau-Mau attack, but better than usual, with John Justin, Earl Cameron, Niall McGuinness and the usual faces, directed by Terence Young who went on to do ZARAK and other trash favourites before helming the first two James Bond epics DR NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

During the Mau Mau Uprising in British Kenya in the 1950s, settler-hunter Ken Duffield is a hired guide for a lion hunting party but he also hopes to find the Mau Mau rebel who killed his family. 
Vic strides through it with his standard expression - whether shooting a rogue elephant or grieving over his son, but Janet is lovely here, just after MY SISTER EILEEN and before reporting to Mexico for TOUCH OF EVIL and then off to Norway for THE VIKINGS ....  Victor went on to dates with that other blonde Anita Ekberg in 2 guilty plreasures we like: INTERPOL and ZARAK, also by Terence Young. 

Kim Novak x 2: Boys Night Out / Of Human Bondage

Time for a Kim Novak double feature. We like Kim here at The Projector, one of those essential '50s stars - like Janet Leigh. 1958 must have been her zenith year, not only Hitch's VERTIGO (below) but I also like her other one that year with Jimmy Stewart: Quine's BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (right) where she surely never looked better - reviewed at Kim label.. (It was his last as a leading man, as touching 50 he slid into character roles next year, with ANATOMY OF A MURDER and was soon playing those bumbling fathers in 20th Century Fox comedies and in some good westerns). 

I remember being fascinated as a kid by Kim in THE EDDIE DUCHIN STORY where she appeared impossibly glamorous (before dying tragically), she is adequate in PAL JOEY and JEANNE EAGLES. This item is from a 1965 feature on movie stars in my favourite magazine "Films And Filming" by Douglas McVay (author of "The Musical Film").:

A few years ago, Kim Novak mounted a challenge to Liz Taylor: sailing up the evening river on her floral barge as the Labour Day queen in PICNIC (and that dance with William Holden); conducting touching love affairs in MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET; and being ideally cast as the witch in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (one particularly cherishes some literally enthralling close-ups of the luscious sorceress holding her equally seductive Siamese blue Pyewacket). More recently, however, with slightly tatty offerings like THE NORTORIOUS LANDLADY and OF HUMAN BONDAGE, Kim’s goddess-potential has tended to peter out.

That was written in 1965, and 50 years later Kim is still here (82 this year) and we are still talking about her and watching her - I have a few of hers to see including the 1962 comedy BOYS’ NIGHT OUT – not seen that since its release, ditto the 1964 supposedly dreadful version of  OF HUMAN BONDAGE where Kim as the slutty waitress Mildred (one of Bette Davis’s best early roles in the 1934 version) and Laurence Harvey famously hated each other. It’s a confusing film – Henry Hathaway walked off it early so direction was taken over by Ken Hughes, Bryan Forbes wrote the script and also appears and t was filmed in Dublin, so there are several Irish players, like Siobhan McKenna, as well as Robert Morley and …..

I must also dig out a 1983 tele-series MALIBU, one of those lush American soaps. Kim is the realtor, and cast includes Troy Donahue, George Hamilton, Chad Everett. Also of course in the early sixties there was her Polly the Pistol in Billy Wilder’s KISS ME STUPID, an acquired taste for some but she acquits herself well here. THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS may be simple fun and a rip off of TOM JONES, but the cast is the thing here: not only Kim but Vittorio De Sica, Angela Lansbury, Lilli Palmer and George Sanders as well as a huge raft of British players of the time:

I simply did not care for THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE at all, though it is a camp classic for some. Kim also pops up in the intriguing JUST A GIGOLO in 1977, but the film belongs to David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich in her few final minutes on screen … (review at Kim label), and she is hilarious in those bitchy scenes with Taylor in the 1980 THE MIRROR’S CRACKED …..

BOYS NIGHT OUT:  I saw this one from 1962,  but could barely remember it as it had never surfaced anywhere since. That early Sixties was a good time for romantic comedies pushing the sexual boundaries of the era. I also liked COME SEPTEMBER from 1961 (where Rock and Gina are a treat - with Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin for us teens - but don't bother with Rock and Gina in 1965's absolutely dreadful STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, totally unfunny and set in a Hollywood backstage version of London). 1963's SUNDAY IN NEW YORK is another terrific one, with the young trio of Jane Fonda, Rod Taylor and Cliff Robertson - as per my review (Fonda label). 

Fred, George, Doug and Howie are quickly reaching middle-age. Three of them are married, only Fred is still a bachelor. They want something different than their ordinary marriages, children and TV-dinners. In secret, they get themselves an apartment with a beautiful young woman, Kathy, for romantic rendezvous. But Kathy does not tell them that she is a sociology student researching the sexual life of the white middle-class male.

The delicious thing about BOY'S NIGHT OUT is that early sixties decor in that apartment. Its lush. The film itself is a pleasant timewaster now and didn't do much for Kim - or Garner - but the guest stars amuse: Jessie Royce Landis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Patti Page, Fred Clark. Jim Backus etc. Directed by Michael Gordon of PILLOW TALK and other frothy items. 

OF HUMAN BONDAGE. Again, not seen here since its 1964 release, I saw it but it was a distant memory, I knew it was panned, and how, at the time. Seems Kim and Harvey (as one note as ever) loathed each other and it was a troubled production with original director Henry Hathaway walking, and Bryan Forbes more or less taking over (so Mrs Forbes, "the lovely Nanette Newman", is the nice girl at the end), though its credited to Ken Hughes. It could be a Trash Classic or a more interesting B-Movie for those in the mood. The Dublin locations and Irish supporting players are of interest now, but its obvious the young Bette Davis owns the role of Mildred (in the 1934 original (right)).  We will have another look at Kim's amusing THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS again soon ... 

Blondes: Platinum or Strawberry ? Both !

PLATINUM BLONDE, this is an early talkie - 1931 - someone on IMDB said it was maybe the first romcom? The platinum blonde is Jean Harlow who is playing a rich dame, and she seems rather subdued from her usual brassy roles (as in DINNER AT EIGHT or RED DUST) and the other two leads are the marvellous young Loretta Young (whom I like a lot in her '30s films like MIDNIGHT MARY, LADIES IN LOVE etc, as per label) and the male lead is one Robert Williams, whom I had never heard of. Understandable, as he died (of peritonitis) that year, 1931, aged 34. This was in fact his last (of 6 films) and he is a rivetting presence here, and surely would have been a bigger star. It is an early Frank Capra picture too and its a real treat now. Its a must-see for several reasons. Jean Harlow is unusually cast as a straight society high-brow. Although the role could easily be played as a caricature, she brings to it appealing depth and vulnerability. 
Loretta Young is radiant. And Robert Williams delivers an eccentric modern day performance.

Williams is Stew Smith, a reporter who falls suddenly in love with rich socialite (Harlow) but soon gets bored with the rich life and wants to be back being a reporter again with Gallagher (that's Loretta) who really loves him all along and of course they end up happily together. Its a nice  snappy depression-era satire on the rich idle folk too. (Harlow of course died in 1937, aged 26 - while Loretta continued to 2000, aged 87.)

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (or LA BLONDE FRAMBOISE as the French DVD has it) was a pleasant memory from seeing it on television once, nice to finally get it on dvd, its one I will be returning to, more than once. Its an utterly charming comedy from 1941, by Raoul Walsh (script by Julius  J Epstein) with delightful turns from James Cagney, Olivia De Havilland, Rita Hayworth and Jack Carson, and it captures that 'gay nineties' perfectly. 

Biff Grimes is pugnacious but likable young man during the Gay 90's living with his ne'er-do-well father, noted for their scrappy personalities and quick tempers. Like every other young man in town, Biff has a crush on gorgeous and flirtatious 'strawberry blonde' Virginia Brush, who gets catcalls every time she walks past the all-male clientèle of the neighborhood barber shop. Biff is joined in his admiration by his friends, Nick Pappalis, an immigrant Greek barber, and Hugo Barnsfeld, an unscrupulously ambitious young man who doesn't let anything stand in the way of what he wants, including Virginia. Utilizing both fair means and foul Hugo sweeps Vrginia off her feet and frames Biff as the fall guy in a political graft schemee. However, every dog has his day, and eight years later Biff stands poised to take his revenge.

Cagney, in a change of pace, is the young dentist, always outwitted by pushy Carson, both fall for Virigina, the local beauty (Hayworth), but Carson wins her and they are both dis-satisfield. Olivia has a field day as the feisty feminist Amy and she and Cagney are the perfect pair, as Jimmy gets his revenge on bully boy Carson, who has a sore tooth. Alan Hale and Una O'Connor are dependable support. 

The BFI are showing it as part of their Olivia De Havilland retrospective in July, to celebrate her 100th birthday (I saw her there in person in 1972, as per label) and they say: "De Havilland shines as the free-thinking modern gal who falls for Cagney's brawling dreamer. He still yearns after Rita's flirtacious 'strawberry blonde' but its Olivia's Amy who will steal your heart in this romance that packs in comedy and drama.' The perfect 1940s Warner Bros package then. 

Another Marilyn exhibition - I'm going to this one ...

Marilyn Monroe: The Legacy of a Legend is the latest MM exhibition of her dresses, letters, jewellery etc. and is currently on here in London at The Design Centre in Chelsea Harbour,, until June 20 and admission is free. I do not know The Design Centre, but I think I will be heading there before too long - we will file a report.  MM of course would be 90 today 1st June ! The legend goes on .....

As the flyer puts it:

"Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, in collaboration with Julien’s Auctions, presents a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most enduring screen icons. Epitomising the high glamour of 1950s Hollywood, take a journey through Marilyn Monroe’s life and work, transported into her world through the lens of style, fashion, photography and film. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see original designs from the David Gainsborough-Roberts collection, featuring costumes worn by Marilyn in seven notable films such as ‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘No Business Like Show Business’, as well as never-seen-before personal treasures. In a stunning contrast between Marilyn’s private life and her dazzling public persona, personal papers including her journals, handwritten letters, drawings and poetry from the Lee Strasberg estate reveal her intellectual curiosity, vulnerability and humanity. Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour is a leading platform for a broad spectrum of creative disciplines. A world-leading destination for excellence in luxury interiors, it supports cuttingedge expression across the design agenda, making it a natural home for this event. This will be the first, and only time, that these remarkable pieces are available for public viewing in the UK. Following a worldwide tour, they will go on sale at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles on 19 – 20 November."

More info at their site:  http://www.dcch.co.uk/Overview

Theatre news

The New York theatre season is buzzing, just as much as the London one. The Arthur Miller estate is ticking over nicely too. That recent London A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE has just finished in NY, with Mark Strong and the addition of a blonde Russell Tovey; and now that interesting new production of THE CRUCIBLE with Ben Whishaw Sophie Okonedo and BROOKLYN's Saoirse Ronan as Abigail. Here's Ben talking about it and more ....

Arthur Miller did a book signing (PLAIN GIRL) in London in his final years and one had to go along and get a copy signed by the great man. We were not allowed to speak to him, but just to be there in his presence was enough.

Soon: Four 'S's: SENSO, SANDRA, SISSI, MRS STONE; another list: 12 Other British '60s Movies; Cyd Charisse's skirt; those 50s/60s Italian compendium films (GOLD OF NAPLES, THE DOLLS, THE QUEENS, BOCCACCIO 70 etc); the trio of Audrey, Capucine & William Holden plus THE 7TH DAWN and THE LION,,

Eva Marie Saint

Eva Marie Saint is perfect as the sleek, ice cool blonde Eve Kendall in Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST in 1959 - I like her poised glamour and those individual line readings, a Hitchcock blonde in fact to equal Grace Kelly. She was already a serious actress before and after her Hitch experience. One of those new girls of the 1950s- like Lee Remick, Shirley McLaine, Joanne Woodward, Carroll Baker and the grown-up Natalie Wood - she was already 30 by the time of her first film ON THE WATERFRONT  (right, on the cover of the first issue of "Films and Filming" in 1954). Like Lee Remick in A FACE IN THE CROWD in 1957, its quite an introduction to cinema. She got on with Hitchcock very well, as they created the perfect look for the poised Kendall - even when dangling off Mount Rushmore wearing white gloves! She hosts the "making of..." documentary on the NORTHWEST dvd/blu-ray and is very interesting on its making and working with Hitch - see other posts at Saint label. 

She was in Preminger's EXODUS next, and was again perfect as Echo O'Brien "the old maid from Toledo" in Frankenheimer's ALL FALL DOWN in 1962, from a book I liked by James Leo Herlihy (author of MIDNIGHT COWBOY). Minnelli's THE SANDPIPER rather wasted her in 1965 as the Burtons took centre stage, but she is marvellous too in LOVING in 1970 with George Segal. She even did a Bob Hope comedy - THAT CERTAIN FEELING in 1956. Its been an extensive career co-starring with the likes of Brando, Newman, Clift, Beatty as well as Cary Grant, with 78 credits listed at IMDB and she is still going now at over 90! A real veteran. 

Marilyn by Lee & and that 1962 film that wasn't ...

Marilyn Monroe would be 90 this year. Yes, I know, its impossible to imagine her - or James Dean - being "old" now - they are forever young, preserved in amber in that Golden Age: the 1950s and early '60 for Marilyn. Would she have aged like her once room-mate Shelley Winters? Would he have aged like Brando ? 

What is astonishing now is looking once again at those test shots for the uncompleted 1962 Fox film SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where she looks simply radiant and totally gorgeous - a new sleek. slim, svelte slimmed-down Marilyn for the new decade, a few months before that still mysterious death - compare with how chubby (by today's standards) she looked in the second half of the 1950s: in that skintight white dress she spends most of THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in, those Orry-Kelly (see below) creations in SOME LIKE IT HOT, how her looks and weight varied in LET'S MAKE LOVE in 1960, or in THE MISFITS in '61 ... I like this pensive shot of her on set in that dress in 1962.

Here also is what remains of SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, mainly Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, and that pool scene which Marilyn did, her intention was to get Liz Taylor (shooting the wildly expensive CLEOPATRA in Rome) off the covers of the world's magazines - 
she certainly succeeded there. We still find those pictures and footage fascinating. Liz of course was getting a million from Fox while Monroe was still on her contract salary and this would be her final Fox comedy - it looks as if it would have been more fun than her last one, the rather dull and tedious LET'S MAKE LOVE ...  I somehow never wanted to see MOVE OVER DARLING, Fox's reworking of the material for Doris Day in 1963 ...

Right: MM and Curtis on the set of SOME LIKE IT HOT ....

Here too is that 1987 documentary hosted by our Projector favourite Lee Remick  (four years before her own death in 1991....) - maybe the best of the Monroe documentaries - fascinating seeing one star commenting on another and of course Lee, back in 1962, had been named as replacing Marilyn in the Cukor film - which it seems was a bargaining ploy to get Marilyn back - it was the only film Fox had in production apart from the ruinously expensive CLEO .... I have the video-cassette of the Monroe/Remick documentary, shame its not on dvd. 
Left: that Nov1962 issue of British TOWN magazine with some of those last photos of Marilyn on the beach at Malibu, shot by George Barris - more on these at MM labels. We love those photos here ...I had this magazine when I was 16, it now fetches astronomical prices on the internet, I have seen it on eBay for £100, or £299 on a vintage magazine site - luckily I snapped up another copy of it last year for £40 ! 

ANOTHER Marilyn exhibition ....

A new Marilyn Monroe exhibition is opening in London at The Little Black Gallery (http://www.thelittleblackgallery.com)

and yes it is billing it as showing some rarely-seen images of MM - but of course they are not. These images (available as framed prints at rather stunning prices) have been available for a long time - and featured heavily in Norman Mailer's 1973 iconic book on Monroe. My teenage niece even has this MM image by Greene on her bedroom wall ...

The photos here are by two of the main photographers who knew and worked with her: namely Milton Greene who look some of the best portraits of her in the mid-1950s (he had become her friend and they set up her production company which made THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in 1956), and Douglas Kirkland who did those - yes, iconic - shots of her wrapped in that silk sheet, in 1961. (Other great MM photographers were - as mentoned before - Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, George Barris who did those great beach photos with her in 1962, and Bert Stern whose "Last Sitting" caught a darker Monroe ...

The Greene pictures though are marvellous and certainly worth looking at. 

People We Like: Dorothy Malone

Idly looking at Robert Aldrich's 1961 western THE LAST SUNSET - not seen that since I was a kid - on TV yesterday afternoon, I was again struck by how watchable and magnetic Dorothy Malone is. Maybe not a star of the front rank, she was one of those reliable ladies - like Vera Miles, Shelley Winters or Martha Hyer - who forged a long career, and was probably at her cinematic peak in the 1950s. 

Dorothy first caught one's attention with that scene in the bookshop with Bogart in Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP in 1946 - even then she was someone unusual. As she matured her sultry, rather bruised looks made her a Hollywood blonde to watch - up there with Janet Leigh, Kim Novak and the others: Lana Turner, Grace Kelly, Judy Holliday, Jayne Mansfield ..... Dorothy was one of those girls who fitted in well out west, being an expert horsewoman - among her westerns are solid items like WARLOCK in 1959, FIVE GUNS WEST, QUANTREZ, and TENSION AT TABLE ROCK. 

Her other plentiful credits include YOUNG AT HEART, the army wife seducing young Tab Hunter in BATTLE CRY (both 1954), romancing Liberace in SINCERELY YOURS - Dorothy made everything look convincing; ARTISTS AND MODELS, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, TOO MUCH TOO SOON, THE LAST VOYAGE, FATE IS THE HUNTER and her final screen credit BASIC INSTINCT in 1992. 

Maybe her biggest hits were for Dougas Sirk in the mid-50s: her Best Supporting Actress win for WRITTEN ON THE WIND in 1956 as the trampy nymphomaniac with that killer mambo dance, and THE TARNISHED ANGELS in 1957. 

The 1960s saw her going successfully into television as Constance McKenzie in the very long running series PEYTON PLACE, which ran for years. Among her husbands was French actor Jacques Bergerac (who had also married Ginger Rodgers). Dorothy is 90 now and one trusts she is well after some serious illnesses.