Stills of the day

Irene Dunne and Cary in THE AWFUL TRUTH, 1937 - I just love them, they also did MY FAVOURTE WIFE and PENNY SERENADE, as per Cary & Irene labels. 

Thanks to Colin for this shot of Antonioni and Vitti during THE RED DESERT in 1964. We love Monica as a blonde but she looks great here too ..... Richard Harris at his most monotonous disliked working with them and walked off the picture. No loss. Lots more at Antonioni, Vitti labels ....

We always like another look at THE BIRDS here, I like this particular scene, where socialite Melanie Daniels meets Mitch's mother for the first time in the cafe, after that gull swoops down to peck her ... See Hitch, Rod & Tippi labels for lots more.

The previous year, 1962, Jessica Tandy had played another controlling mother in HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN, driving son Richard Beymer away and her husband, Arthur Kennedy, to suicide - to get away from her. We will be re-viewing that again soon. 

I loved her in the movies

Another enjoyable addtion to the Christmas gift list is Robert Wagner's new book I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES, his recollections of all the great actresses he knew and worked with, decade by decade, starting with the 1930s.

Whatever one thinks of Wagner as an actor, he is fairly lightweight and agreeable (insufferable movie snob Martin will probably think he should be a shoe salesman too, like his judgement on Kerwin Matthews) and, like Dirk Bogarde in England, Wagner knew everyone (he and Natalie visited the Bogardes in the South of France on one of their European trips). Unlike his contemporaries Jeff or Tab Hunter, Wagner was a Hollywood kid, growing up there - he went to school with Norma Shearer's son, so knew Norma well in her later retired years, and he dated Gloria Swanson's daughter, and writes affectionately about Gloria, she was not like Norma Desmond at all.

We also get affectionate tributes and stories on Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Crawford, Davis (Natalie played her young daughter in THE STAR and she and Wagner were friends for a long time), Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Katharine Hepburn (whom he knew through friendship with Spencer Tracy with whom he co-starred twice), Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur. He certainly moved in the right circles! 

There's also Lana Turner, Greer Garson, Susan Hayward (very helpful to the novice actor on WITH A SONG IN MY HEART, left), Ida Lupino, Jennifer Jones, Claire Trevor, Betty Grable, Ann Sheridan, Joan Blondell, Lucille Ball, Linda Darnell and Gene Tierney, the impossible Betty Hutton, as well as characters like Thelma Ritter, Maureen Stapleton and Eve Arden. Wagner knows too how difficult it was for actresses to maintain long careers ...

The 1950s saw him pals with Doris and Debbie, the young Marilyn, Janet Leigh, June Allyson, Jean Peters, Joan Collins, Angie Dickinson, Debra Paget. He was at Romanoffs that famous 1957 night when Jayne Mansfield usurped Sophia Loren's debut (left) - he later played Loren's husband in De Sica's THE CONDEMNED OF ALTONA in 1962 and writes very affectionately about her, and also Capucine (Cappy) from THE PINK PANTHER, There were some difficult ladies too - Shelley Winters for one! 
Joanne Woodward and Glenn Close also come in for some respectful praise, and of course there's Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews and Natalie. 

Wagner, now in his mid-80s parlayed his looks into a long career on film and television. He was good enough for Olivier for his TV CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF in '76. Its always fun seeing him as PRINCE VALIANT in that wig! His first memoir PIECES OF MY HEART is an agreeable read about it all too. 
He was a 20th Century Fox boy and Natalie was a Warner Bros girl, so he got to know Jack Warner well too - and is hilarious about the abuse Warner heaped on Judy Garland (who would have been so ideal for GYPSY in 62 with Natalie), and he also recounts Vittorio De Sica's hilariously rude comment on Raquel Welch who was driving them mad with her delays on THE BIGGEST BUNDLE OF THEM ALL .... Star gossip does not get much better. As he says: "Movies and TV go on forever - only the delivery system changes ...".

Can't help loving that Showboat - 1936

There is a new production of SHOWBOAT currently on in London, (which I may have to go and see now) but I only know it from the 1951 MGM film which I may have seen once or twice on television - it now looks like a cartoon compared to the 1936 original (despite valiant work from Ava Gardner - dubbed - and Marge & Gower Champion). The rare 1936 film by James Whale (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN etc) is the one to see and cherish, a film of such richness I want to see it again right away. Though I knew of Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan I had not somehow seen or heard them before, and I am bowled over.

Adaptation of the Broadway musical. Magnolia Hawks is the lovely daughter of Cap'n Andy Hawks, the genial proprietor of a show boat that cruises the Missisippi, and his nagging wife, Parthy. She is best friends with the show boat's star, Julie LaVerne, but Julie and her husband Steve are forced to leave when it is revealed that Julie has "Negro" blood in her, thereby breaking the state law by being married to the white Steve. Magnolia replaces Julie as the show boat's female star, and the show's new male star is the suave gambler Gaylord Ravenal. Magnolia and Gaylord fall in love and marry against Parthy's wishes. They and their young daughter lead the high life when Gaylord is lucky in gambling, but live like dirt when he's unlucky. During one such unlucky streak, a broken Gaylord leaves Magnolia and she is forced to start over by returning to the stage. Like Old Man River she just keeps rollin' along.

Jerome Kern's SHOWBOAT, from Edna Ferber's book, may well be the first great American musical, and possibly the greatest movie musical of all, this 1936 version of SHOWBOAT has Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Paul Robeson and Hattie McDaniel joining Helen Morgan and Charles Winninger from the original Broadway cast of 1927. So great that, when MGM made their own version in 1951, they tried to have all prints and copies of the original destroyed. Mercifully they weren't quite successful. Closer to the original stage version, this includes most of the classic songs by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, not least Robeson singing "Ol' Man River" and that's followed by Morgan's "Can't Help Loving That Man", brilliantly staged too, with Irene and Hattie. She was certainly the classic torch singer. Fascinating reading about her and Paul Robeson's life and career. Robeson's rich bass electrifies, I knew he had played OTHELLO and SHOWBOAT in London and how his political leanings had caused such trouble, but he was certainly a trailblazer ahead of his time. We like Irene Dunne a lot here too, as per label - one of the essential 1930s stars like Margaret Sullavan. Allan Jones was the father of singer Jack Jones.  

Jerome Kern has his finest moment here with unforgettable songs following one after the other. "Ol Man River", "My Bill","Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine", "Ah Still Suits Me", "Make Believe", After The Ball" The film remains a classic piece of Americana. James Whale's direction captures it all perfectly, its certainly an essential 1930s film. The last section though when Magnolia and Gaylord's daughter Kim becomes a stage star too in the then modern 1930s setting seems unnecessary now - we just want to be back on the Showboat with Paul and Hattie and Helen and all of them,

The film also show the ugly racism of the time, that blackface number seems grotesque now but was acceptable then ....
The Paul Robeson and chorus rendition of "Old Man River" has to be  one of the greatest numbers in the history of Hollywood musicals, up there with Judy;s "Over The Rainbow" or "The Man That Got Away" or the "My Forgotten Man" number from GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933. And what makes it even more impressive is that the number was directed by a director who had made his reputation directing monster movies (thats the gay James Whale of GODS AND MONSTERS).

Next: One of the great 1950s musicals: THE PAJAMA GAME. Book your tickets now ...

1930s boys

Cary and Randolph with Irene Dunne in MY FAVOURITE WIFE - 1940 actually - but Cary and Randy seemed to hang out a lot in the 1930s - as per previous posts on them. Interesting how Randolph has no visible "bulge" in that swimwear, presumably everything was strapped down ...

Its a penny serenade in 1941

George Stevens' PENNY SERENADE from 1941 is one Cary Grant-Irene Dunne film I had not seen before, I love them in THE AWFUL TRUTH in 1937 and quite liked them (with Cary's pal Randolph Scott) in MY FAVOURITE WIFE in 1940, but this 1941 I never somehow got around to and it did have a sort of mawkish reputation .... so here it is, and I am rather amazed by it.

As Julie prepares to leave her husband Roger, she begins to play through a stack of recordings, which reminds her of events in their marriage. One is the song that was playing when she and Roger first met in a music store. Other songs remind her of their courtship, their marriage, their desire for a child, and the joys and sorrows that they have shared. A flood of memories comes back as she ponders their present problems and how they arose ....

Grant is a surprise here with his family man role, quite different from the sophisticated characters he usually played, and has a great scene when the judge is going to take their child back because of his lack of income. Irene Dunne is natural and warm and often quietly funny as she is in many of those movies of hers that we like, like Margaret Sullavan she should be a lot better appreciated now - they never play a false note. George Stevens, as in GIANT and others, creates marvellous moments as we follow our leads through the ups and downs of family life and the sadness which is part of the whole damn thing, as she has a miscarriage.due to an earthquake (well-staged) when they are in Japan - and one knows something awful is going to happen to their adopted girl at that Christmas play, which teeters on the edge of mawkish sentimentality. It is a bittersweet story dealing with infant death and possible divorce, and how some couples just have to have children to be complete, and the ending seems quite far-fetched but I suppose believeable for that Forties audience. Edgar Buchanan and Beulah Bondi provide solid support. 

Fun with Doris & Irene + Rock, Cary, Randolph, Clint

I had not seen SEND ME NO FLOWERS since its release in 1964 when I was a teenager, but it remained a pleasant memory, particularly of daffy Doris accidentally locked out of her house in her nightie and fluffy slippers, as oblivious husband Rock Hudson showers with earplugs in .... I thought LOVER COME BACK in 1961 was the best of their comedies, particularly when Edie Adams was around (more on her soon, in LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER), but SEND ME NO FLOWERS, Rock and Doris's third and final comedy, is blissfully funny, well scripted by Julius Epstein (from a play) and directed by Doris regular Norman Jewison. Its conjures up a perfect suburban world of lawns and country clubs, sexy paper boys and gossiping milkmen, as our married couple (no kids to spoil the scenario...) have misunderstandings and fall out with all the cliches perfectly in place.

Rock is a hypochondriac forever taking pills and potions, he overhears his doctor (splendid Edward Andrews) talking about another patient who has not long to live and Rock thinks doc is talking about him .... amusement follows as he and neighbour Tony Randall (whose family are conveniently away) plan his funeral and good old Rock wants to find another suitable husband for Doris, so we get amusing scenes of the 2 men eyeing up other suitable men, and sleeping in the same bed - and then they discover Clint Walker, even more perfect than Rock. Clint has some fun here away from his usual western surroundings. Doris meanwhile thinks Rock is having an affair ...

Paul Lynde is bliss as usual as the unctious undertaker where Rock wants to buy 3 plots, for himself, Doris and her new husband ... Doris of course misunderstands and all the usual complications follow until the blissful ending. Poignant moments too as Rock has lines like she will be sorry when he is in his bed of pain at some future date ....

 I did a piece on Doris last December (Day label) as the London BFI was doing a tribute to her, but only 12 of her films (back in 1980 they showed 30 of hers!) - they only showed PILLOW TALK of her later comedies. The early to mid 60s was Doris's great period and she was a top box office attraction, with these with Hudson, the 2 with James Garner, Cary Grant etc.
(I love THE THRILL OF IT ALL but never want to see MOVE OVER DARLING, that re-heated remake of Marilyn's aborted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE from 1962 which itself was a reheated version of Irene Dunne's 1940 MY FAVOURITE WIFE ..... with Cary and Randolph Scott. (Doris's 2 with Rod Taylor were not quite in the same league, and I shall be seeing CAPRICE with, er, Richard Harris in 1966 before too long - it is though a Frank Tashlin comedy). 

As fate would have it MY FAVOURITE WIFE is being screened again tomorrow morning, so I can catch it again then, and needn't dig out the dvd. I simply adored Dunne when I discovered her a few years ago, THE AWFUL TRUTH remains sublime, up there with the best of the 30s Screwballs, and MY FAVOURITE WIFE is more of the same. (Above, how do those swim trunks conceal any sign of male bulge?)

Irene is blissfully funny and glamorous here, its the one where the wife comes back after years missing and pronouced dead only to find her husband has just re-married. 
Garson Kanin handles the material perfectly and Cary Grant and Randolph are ideal as the husband and the man Irene was shipwrecked with for all those years .... Cary and Randy were of course still buddies, if not housemates, in 1940 and they all play perfectly together. Gail Patrick has a few moments as the latest wife... An ideal double bill then - it would have been interesting to have seen what Marilyn and Cukor would have made of it (fantasy poster, right) but the the 1962 fragments that remain are spell-binding.  Instead, Michael Gordon helmed MOVE OVER DARLING! 

We are Siamese if you please ...

ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM from 1946, directed by John Cromwell, is a rarity indeed - I have never seen it crop up anywhere here; we are of course familiar with the musical version, Fox's 1956 gaudy Scope and colour extravaganza from Oscar & Hammerstein's hit show, where Deborah Kerr as Mrs Anna and Yul Brynner as The King both excel.

As I like Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell (see labels) this is a treat indeed, if rather long - and a lot more realistic in its own way. Its a long time since I saw the musical but I don't think Tuptim goes up in flames in it ... This was the first version of the very well known story of the English governess who travelled to Siam to be teacher of the king’s many children. In this version she is called Anna Owens. The film is an opportunity for a strong performance by the likeable Irene Dunne, popular in many films since the 1930s (SHOWBOAT, THE AWFUL TRUTH, MY FAVOURITE WIFE and I must still see her in I REMEMBER MAMA from 1948, her last film of note). It also brought British actor Rex Harrison, to the American screen after his successful career in Britain (MAJOR BARBARA, BLITHE SPIRIT etc); he appeared in a number of films in Hollywood including THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR, THE FOXES OF HARROW and UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (reviewed here, see labels) before that scandal and his great era in the 50s (Kay Kendall label). Linda Darnell had emerged at 20th Century Fox as a star and appears as Tuptim; Lee J. Cobb was also beginning his career and Gale Sondegaard was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Lady Tiang. In fact, the film won Oscars for best set decoration and best black and white cinematography. Odd though now see westerners playing orientals (as per recent review of Katharine Hepburn in DRAGON SEED).



The film offers a portrait of an assured British woman who came to Siam with her young son in order to be an teacher and has to open her eyes to an alien culture. The King of Siam also wanted to open Siam to a broader world culture but was trapped in many of his traditions. Audiences are more familiar with this story from Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s musical – with many popular songs. In 1999 there was a further version, ANNA AND THE KING, with Jodie Foster playing Anna and Hong Kong actor, Chow Yung Fat as the king, but I wasn't interested enough to see it at the time. This original version is certainly fascinating now - Dunne is as pleasing as ever, and Harrison certainly matches Brynner in making the King an individual. Her son is killed in a fall from a horse here, but not if memory serves me right in the musical version.

The 1956 musical was one of my early childhood movie-going pleasures - we loved Debroah and those huge crinolines and all that exotic decor and of course Brynner as King - Dunne sports similar huge dresses here; and there is of course that colonial subtext of the wise woman from the West if not taming, then humanising the strange court of the oriental monarch with all his wives, children and those scheming courtiers ... "Whistle a happy tune" indeed!. Dunne like in my earlier posts on her and those other 30s ladies recently re-discovered (Margaret Sullavan, Norma Shearer, Loretta Young) continues to please - and the King suits the imperious often not very likeable Rex perfectly! Linda too is another under-rated '40s lady whom we now like a lot ...

1930s: Irene and Theodora

A pre-Christmas week of looking back at some of those great '30s stars and their iconic roles ....

THEODORA GOES WILD - why isn't this 1936 comedy better known or discussed today? How come I had never heard of it until recently - I had never even seen Irene Dunne until last year! Which goes to show how some star's reputations get unfairly sidelined over the years. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s it was Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck who, like Bogart, got all the attention with movie revivals and we re-discovered Garbo and Dietrich, West and Harlow, Colbert and Lombard - but though we knew of Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, Norma Shearer, Katharine Hepburn's earlier roles or Margaret Sullavan their best work, in that pre-video age, was not really on show. So, let's rectify that...

But back to THEODORA: The blurb states: "The small-town prudes of Lynnfield are up in arms over 'The Sinner,' a sexy best-seller. They little suspect that author 'Caroline Adams' is really Theodora Lynn, scion of the town's leading family. Michael Grant, devil-may-care book jacket illustrator, penetrates Theodora's incognito and sets out to 'free her' from Lynnfield against her will. But Michael has a secret too, and gets a taste of his own medicine". It captures '30s small town life and bigotry nicely and builds to a stunning, hilarious, code-breaking climax.

Dunne plays Theodora, who lives a sterile life with her two aunts in a small, puritan, judgmental town. Douglas (like Boyer in his two with Dunne) is a perfect foil as he shows up in her home town as a down on his luck man seeking work and she's more or less blackmailed into giving him a job as the family gardener. He of course was also perfect opposite Garbo in NINOTCHKA and TWO FACED WOMAN. THEODORA is expertly directed by Richard Boleslawski.

Irene Dunne [1898-1990] now seems such an under-rated actress but of course was a huge star then, starring in great hits like the first versions of those classic weepies BACK STREET, LOVE AFFAIR (AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER), MAGNIFICIENT OBSESSION and that first KING AND I: ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM. She also stars in the delightful Astaire and Rogers ROBERTA and also that first version of SHOWBOAT as Magnolia. Then of course there are her movies with Cary Grant!

I grew up loving BRINGING UP BABY and HOLIDAY but for some strange reason never saw THE AWFUL TRUTH until last year when it of course bowled me over. It is pure champagne watching Cary and Irene fizz and spark off each other in this delightful classic. Their 1940 MY FAVOURITE WIFE (with Randolph Scott) is slightly less sparkling - and I still have to see their PENNY SERENADE! Irene was by all accounts a very popular, well-liked lady, one of Hollywood's leading Catholics (along with Loretta Young and Roz Russell) - she is perfect too in in one of her later roles in I REMEMBER MAMA in 1948, and she finished with the big screen with THE MUDLARK in 1950 playing Queen Victoria opposie Alec Guinness's Disraeli. She also did some later television roles. Here she is (below) (singing "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes") in ROBERTA and I REMEMBER MAMA. Irene Dunne now comes across as a delightful lady it is always a pleasure to see, and I must seek out her other movies. Next: Loretta Young