Jenny or Jenny ?

Jenny Bowman or Jenny Stewart, that is. Both are legendary Broadway divas, very used to getting their own way.  Joan Crawford is Jenny Stewart and TORCH SONG is Joan's first in colour, in 1953, and is a camp riot of garish colour, particularly with Joan in "tropical makeup" for the bizarre "Two Faced Woman" number. One feels sorry for the chorus boys Jenny terrorises and Michael Wilding as the blind pianist who is the only man who can stand up to her. Very odd too is her pack of teenage fans crowding the stage door to meet her .... I have reviewed this Camp Classic several times, as per Crawford label, so these are just a taster: love her party where she is the only woman. Joan truck gold again the following year with the equally bizarre western JOHNNY GUITAR, the first movie I saw, aged 8; again see label.

I COULD GO ON SINGING is more serious fare, with Judy Garland's final role, a decade after her A STAR IS BORN, where she plays Jenny Bowman, a version of herself, superbly aided by Dirk Bogarde. The numbers are great and Judy is caught here at a good moment for her in the early sixties. The shoot though was a nightmare, as per Dirk's memoirs. Lots more at Judy label,

Lists: Those Trash Classics ....

We have been here before - call them what you will: Bad Movies We Love, Guilty Pleasures, Trash or Utter Trash ... those delirious melodramas and just plain bad movies that are so enjoyable - most of the great ladies did some: Lana and Susan and Joan and Bette specialised in them later in their careers, while other great ladies like Olivia and sister Joan dipped their toes in the muddy waters too. 

I have covered them in more detail in my earlier reviews - click on Trash-A label to read on ...http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/trash-favourites.html

Right now, I list them:

• PORTRAIT IN BLACK - Lana's crowning epic, from 1960 (whereas IMITATION OF LIFE is a cult classic)
• LOVE HAS MANY FACES - Lana does Acapulco, with Ruth Roman and those beach boy bums in speedos in 1966
• WHERE LOVE HAS GONE - Susan and Bette go head to head in this 1964 stinker 
• I THANK A FOOL - Susan and Finch should have been a great team but not in this weird meller shot in Ireland ...
• ADA - Susan in fighting form
  
• BACK STREET - the best of the Susan's ?, 1961
• STOLEN HOURS - love Susan's British remake of Bette' DARK VICTORY, in 1963
• SERENADE - Fontaine is stupendous in this Mario Lansz sudser, 1956
• ISLAND IN THE SUN - Joan 'romances' Harry Belafonte ... 1957
• LADY IN A CAGE - sister Olivia is trapped
• THE SINGING NUN - Debbie's worst in 1966, a travesty of the real Nun's Story
• A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME - Shelley chomps the scenery. 1964.
• SYLVIA - a Carroll Baker epic, its delirious, its delovely 
• SINCERELY YOURS - Liberace's sickly starrer, with Dot Malone and Joanne Dru competing for him ... a 1956 howler.
• MAMBO - a 1954 discovery, torrid saga with Silvana Mangano and Shelley Winters, in Italy.
• FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN - the perfect 1957 Universal-International meller, as is:
  
• THE FEMALE ANIMAL - thats Hedy Lamarr in 1957 with Jan Sterling, splendid as ever.
• GO NAKED IN THE WORLD - Gina ! 1960.
• THE CHAPMAN REPORT - Shelley, Glynis, Claire, young Jane Fonda ... we love Cukor's starry drama, The Higher Trash.
• THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER - Jane Russell ! with Agnes Moorehead as the madam, 1956.
• A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO - one of Laurence Harvey's worst 
• WALK ON THE WILD SIDE - ditto, but with Stanwyck, Capucine, Fonda, Baxter ...
• THE LOVE MACHINE - a scream with gay David Hemmings and Dyan Cannon both wanting John Philip Law
• THE CROWDED SKY - best of the airline disasters?, 1960
• DORIAN GRAY - Helmut ! in 1970s London 
• GOODBYE GEMINI - one of the terrible British flicks of the era, 1970 - as was:
• MY LOVER, MY SON - why Romy. why did you make this terrible film?
• 10.30 PM SUMMER - fake arty 1966 Eurofare, but it does have Melina, Romy and Peter Finch
  
• POPE JOAN - Liv may have been great in those Bergman films but made some stinkers in English, none worse than this in 1972.
• Glenda made some stinkers too, none worse than THE INCREDIBLE SARAH in 1976, where she flounces around as Bernhardt in a Readers Digest travesty. Its a scream. 
• BLUEBEARD - Edward Dmytryk helmed some Trash Classic favourites like THE CARPETBAGGERS, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, but came a cropper here, aided by Burton's worst performance, in 1972
• THE SQUEEZE - rather good Brit gangster flick, from 1977, with down on their luck Boyd, Hemmings, Carol White ...  BRANNIGAN (John Wayne) and HENNESSEY (Rod Steiger and wasted Lee Remick) were amusing mid-70s British thrillers too ...

We don't bother with the insultingly bad, like THE OSCAR or HARLOW ..... then there are the Troy Donahue and Ann-Margret clunkers, and you know how we love those Bette and Joans: TORCH SONG, HARRIET CRAIG, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, QUEEN BEE, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, BERSERK! or two Bettes in DEAD RINGER.

For a dull bank holiday .....

While we wait for FEUD here in the UK .... (thanks to Dan-O-Rama).

FEUD ?

WHEN is this going to be screened here in the UK? The word is good and it looks super, with Susan Sarandon an effective Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. Alfred Molina looks right too as BABY JANE director Robert Aldcrich .... 9 episodes I understand, we looking forward to this Ryan Murphy extravaganza.

Feud: Bette and Joan

Here's one to look forward, a new tele-docu drama airing in March. It should be a prime slice of enjoyable trash as it portrays Bette and Joan filming WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? with Susan Sarandon (those Bette Davis eyes!) as of course Bette, and Jessica Lange as the more refined Crawford. 

And that 1963 "Films & Filming" cover ..... 

Summer re-views: for the RVT boys

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of London's oldest gay pubs, is a Grade II listed entertainment venue, which has been catering to confirmed bachelors and their friends ever since it was a music hall in a previous incarnation. I had a lot of pleasant evenings there myself; it now has a free film club on the 1st of every month, and this evening's choice is - wait for it - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? so I am sure the boys in the band will be singing out the lines along with Bette and Joan. Take it away guys: "Butcha are in that wheelchair, Blanche, you are ... " and that delicious end line: "You mean all these years we could have been friends". Here once again is the BABY JANE cover from my favourite magazine ... (I was 17 when I got that issue in 1963). 

Joan and sudden fear somewhere in the night ...

A 1950s Joan Crawford movie I had not seen: 1952's SUDDEN FEAR begins well but limp to an unstisfactory ending ..... I actually like Joan Crawford's 1950s output more than that of her main rival Bette Davis, who after the enormous success of 1950's ALL ABOUT EVE was soon back in routine programmers; well so was Joan of course but they were more fun that Bette's: TORCH SONG in 1953, JOHNNY GUITAR in '54 (the first film I saw, aged 8 as per reports on that, see label) and those campy lurid items like QUEEN BEE, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO up to her cameo in 1959 "as Amanda Farrow in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING - Bette too was cameo-ing in 1959 (two of them, a scene or two with Alec Guinness in THE SCAPEGOAT and coming on for the last five minutes as Catherine The Great in the otherwise turgid costumer JOHN PAUL JONES, hardly seen now. Of course 1962's WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BAY JANE? got them back in the limelight again ...). But back to Joan in 1952.where Woman's Picture meets Film Noir:

Actor Lester Blaine has all but landed the lead in Myra Hudson's new play when Myra vetoes him because, to her, he doesn't look like a "romantic leading man." On the train from New York to San Francisco, Blaine sets out to prove Myra wrong...by romancing her. Is he sincere, or does he have a dark ulterior motive? The answer brings on a game of cat and mouse; but who's the cat and who's the mouse? 

Myra is an essential Crawford role, the middle-aged wealthy woman looking for love and thinking she has found it. Palance is ideal with his odd looks, and add in Gloria Grahame at her bitchiest .... 

It plays like a delicious antique now: those early Dictaphone machines where Myra overhears the plot against her, her odd wardrobe of buttoned-up tops and showing her legs and nylons and high-heels as well as those long white gloves both ladies wear. The plot though as she counterplots against her attackers could have ended better ....... cue large close-ups of Joan agonising, suffering, suffering, suffering, yearning as she conveys the fear and rage at the duplicity of others ...... Directed by David Miller, but those empty streets of San Francisco do not look realistic. 

Now back a decade for another Noir thriller: Mankiewicz's SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT from 1941, his second feature as director. 
My friend Leon describes it thus:

Somewhere In the Night dates from 1946, the same year Mank's second directorial effort Dragonwyck was released and it's well up to snuff. A lot of 'amnesiac' films are, by definition, forgettable, but not this one. Mank assembled as tasty a supporting cast as had ever been shoehorned into one film ranging from Whit Bissell through Harry Morgan, Jeff Corey to the standout Josephine Hutchinson. Leading from the front are the slightly wooden John Hodiak - marriage to Ann Baxter didn't improve his acting -, newcomer Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan and Richard Conte and Mank keeps the balls spinning in the air leaving little time for awkward questions - like why would Conte - who'd got away with murder for three years, introduce Hodiak to a detective friend (Nolan) knowing that Hodiak was trying to get to to bottom of the very murder for which he, Conte, was responsible. This the kind of movie, popular at the time, in which a protagonist who is possibly a murderer is befriended by a girl/woman who's never met him before - for example Alad Ladd and Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia and/or in which a street-wise gal like Guild here, has to have the expressions 'private eye' and 'shamus' explained to her. None of this detracts from an enjoyable ride and it's one to add to your Blockbuster shopping list.
Leon was quite right, its a zippy intriguing little meller, essential for anyone keen on 1940s noir and Mankiewicz's style. Pleased I found it. 

John Hodiak (1914-1955) was an interesting guy, of Polish descent he was one of the second-tier actors who came to prominence during the early Forties - like Dana Andrews - when the big hitters were away during the war. He only lived to be 41 though, and had some big hits at the time, and even married Anne Baxter for several years (right). I saw him again the other day in Hitch's LIFEBOAT with Tallulah, and he is the male lead in the entertaining THE HARVEY GIRLS with Judy in 1946. We particularly like his DESERT FURY here, from 1947, one of the great camp Hollywood movies, where he and Wendall Corey are an intriguing pair, plus Lizabeth Scott and Mary Astor playing her mother, and a young Burt Lancaster - its a delirious 1940s concoction as per my review (Hodiak label). 

Coming up: A '60s Kim Novak double-bill, and then its off to THE RITZ in THE GAY METROPOLIS.

Bad Movies We Love

Here is a Trash Classic indeed. Rebello and Marguilies' 1995 tome on those bad movies we love, with a foreword by Sharon Stone, who gets a whole chapter to herself. The usual suspects though are here in force: Lana, Susan, Joan (Crawford), Bette and all those delirious movies of theirs.

Browsing it again makes one want to dig out QUEEN BEE (Joan - ["wearing the kind of gown a female impersonator would choose"]: "Any man's my man if I want it that way" or: "You look sweet - even in those tacky old clothes"); or Lana's PORTRAIT IN BLACK or LOVE HAS MANY FACES - perennial favourites of ours. Others like THE CHAPMAN REPORT, THE  BEST OF EVERYTHING, SERENADE, PARRISH and those Troy Donahue spectaculars get their due (I will have to look out for PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND, which sounds a hoot).

Pity they did not include Suzanne Pleshette's opus A RAGE TO LIVE, or THE SUBTERRANEANS or THE SOUND AND THE FURY or Lee Remick's SANCTUARY or Jean Simmons' HILDA CRANE or Jane Russell's THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER or Shelley's A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME or Debbie's THE SINGING NUN.... maybe in a new edition, and with a foreword by Joan Collins please? At least JOHNNY GUITAR gets it due - a delicious piece on its gay subtext, as does TORCH SONG, AUTUMN LEAVES, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, Bette's THE STAR and DEAD RINGER and Lucille's MAME, plus the pure trash of THE OSCAR and THE LOVE MACHINE and ... those 'disasters' get trashed again too: those AIRPORTs, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, EARTHQUAKE etc. too easy to make fun of those! 

Lets' savour a few comments on the usually-respected THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (the 1968 one, natch): "Its not the money" business tycoon Steve McQueen drawls soulfully "Its me and the System" - that 60s phrase explains why the ineffably cool McQueen - who plays polo, drives a Rolls, pilots his own glider plane and dune buggy, and lives in a killer Boston mansion - masterminds multi-million dollar bank robberies on the side.... Everything's so terribly, laughably with-it in Norman Jewison's chi-chi epic - that you could bliss out with glee from all the faux hip dialogue, multiple-screen images ... Dunaway, all teeth and legs, and blissfully unaware of how disasterously dated she is going to look in those Theodora Van Runkle costumes, sets a trap to catch a thief, McQueen, whom she just knows is the mastermind".

Lots more here too on bad girls we love like Gina Lollobrigida in GO NAKED IN THE WORLD, Taylor and Burton get roasted for THE SANDPIPER and THE VIPs and Liz' THE DRIVER'S SEAT and X, Y AND ZEE (one I have been meaning to return to...). Carroll Baker gets her due (SYLVIA, THE CARPETBAGGERS, HARLOW) as does Natalie Wood (MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR), Ann-Margret ("THE SWINGER might just be the all-time tackeiest major studio  movie") and so many more .... its well worth seeking out for Trash devotees.   

Above: Bette, Susan and director Edward Dmytryk who after his early successes (THE YOUNG LIONS, RAINTREE COUNTY) hit the Trash trail with a vengance: WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, THE CARPETBAGGERS, BLUEBEARD ...

By Royal command ...

I have written about those Royal Film Performances here before, but here's a recap for those who missed them. The British Royal Film Performance was a big event each year during those key 1950s and 1960s years, when an usually important film was chosen for the Royals to see at the Odeon in Leicester Square in London, when a motley round-up of players were lined up to meet the Queen. Everyone it seems turned up ...

I was fascinated by this photo of Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve and Ursula Andress at some mid-60s event, and sure enough it was at the 1966 Royal Film Perf. , the girls seem engrossed in their fashions and dig those long white gloves - in 1966. It seems the gloves were de rigeur. The film that year was BORN FREE and also present were Warren Beatty with consort Leslie Caron - maybe this was where Warren and Julie first met? - plus Dirk and Deborah, Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts, and Raquel Welch and Woody Allen, James Fox and the stars of the film Virgina McKenna and Bill Travers. They also had to do rehearsals that afternoon ....  before the Royal party arrived. These events were covered by the newsreels of the time and the snippets make fascinating viewing now, a glimpse into a long gone movie world.

A decade earlier the 1956 one was the famous one when Marilyn was presented to Her Majesty - but also in the lineup was the young Brigitte Bardot and Anita Ekberg.... while the 1957 Royal film was LES GIRLS but its star Kay Kendall was detained in America, but here we have Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (along with Michael Craig, Yvonne Mitchell, William Holden etc.) presumably before their famous encounter at Romanoffs in Hollywood in April that year.

The 1954 junket for the London premiere of A STAR IS BORN is fascinating too with Olivier as master of ceremonies, and Kay Kendall makes it to this one, as does Diana Dors and the Attenboroughs who like Kenny More and Jack Hawkins must have been regulars at these events, This is 14 minutes but worth watching - how movies where marketed and shown then ...

Another odd line-up is this 1970s one (FUNNY LADY?) where Barbra Streisand (with James Caan) broke with convention when being presented to the Queen asked why they had to wear the long gloves. Lee Remick and James Stewart (reunited from 1959's ANATOMY OF A MURDER are also in the lineup here). 

Joan Crawford megamix

We first came across this some years ago, its such fun it deserves another look. Go, Joan

Just to add that I don't consider Joan a figure of fun. I love her 40s dramas like Cukor's A WOMAN'S FACE or the grim camp of HUMORESQUE, and MILDRED PIERCE is quintessential forties. Her fifties movies are a whole lot of fun: HARRIET CRAIG, the delirious TORCH SONG, the marvellously baroque JOHNNY GUITAR the first movie I ever saw aged 8 (what a vivid introduction to cinema!) and those camp treats QUEEN BEE, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, AUTUMN LEAVES right up to her cameo in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING in 1959. The quality dropped in the 1960s but I deft anyone not to enjoy STRAITJACKET or BERSERK! and there's always her Crystal Allen in THE WOMEN. See Joan label for more ....

Something for the weekend ....

Another chance to use this stunning photograph of Joan Crawford, by ace Magnum photographer Eve Arnold - from a new book on her; EVE ARNOLD: MAGNUM LEGACY. 

I have done several posts on Arnold (who died in 2012 three months short of her 100th birthday - she was born in 1912) on her work with the Magnum photo-agency and had published several books, including one on Marilyn Monroe - Arnold had covered the shoot of THE MISFITS in Nevada in late 1960 and also did several shoots with Marilyn in the '50s, they seemed to get on well.

She also did a wonderful book (FILM JOURNAL) on the various locations she covered in the '50s and '60s when she photographed almost everybody from Mangano to Loren and Anouk to Vitti and Vanessa - she must have been as prolific as Bob Willoughby as she too was on the sets of some of my favourite movies such as BLOW-UP, MODESTY BLAISE and JUSTINE. Check the Eve Arnold label for lots more of her wonderful images, from that great era of the photo-journalists for  magazines like LOOK and LIFE.

Cyd is a party girl .... Sterling is Johnny Guitar

Deliriously camp trailer for a favourite meller, 1958's PARTY GIRL from MGM, with Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse (who gets to dance too) as the party girl in thrall to hoods led by Lee J. Cobb and John Ireland. What lifts this above the average is that is a Nicholas Ray movie with great imagery - a noir in lurid colour. When I first saw it as a kid that scene where Cobb threatens Cyd with the bottle of acid, which he pours over the christmas decorations and we see them melt was terrific - of course in the shootout the acid goes over his own face .... 
PLUS - the trailer for Ray's 1954 classic JOHNNY GUITAR - with all its highlights here. This, as per other posts was the first film I ever saw aged 8 - I was agog - what an introduction to the vivid world of cinema! 

Something camp for the weekend 1 - Joan's Torch Song posters !

We love Joan's 1953 TORCH SONG here at The Projector (almost as much as her JOHNNY GUITAR or QUEEN BEE or FEMALE ON THE BEACH or ....), as per review on it, at Joan label. Here are some delirious posters which give a taste of it ...
Plus her MILDRED PIERCE co-star Ann Blyth (Veda) drops in to visit, and Joan shows off those gams. ...

Showpeople: 1956: Royalty, MM, BB, Anita & Joan is not pleased ! + Belinda and the Rank girls.

What a glamorous night, at the 1956 Royal Film Performance, all in 90 seconds (below): this was the one Marilyn Monroe attended - I didn't know Brigitte Bardot and the recently departed Anita Ekberg were there as well, did the girls get to chat?. as - a decade later - Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve and Ursula Andress did at the 1966 Royal Perf, as per my previous posts on that ... Showpeople label. 

Ekberg (next to Joan Crawford, below) was with her husband, the attractive British actor Anthony Steele. Bardot had not yet exploded on the scene with AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, this would have been about the time she appeared in Dirk's DOCTOR AT SEA. Sylvia Syms (in her MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER phase!) and Vic Mature were there and er, Norman Wisdom and John Gregson. The line-up is in alphabetical order, that should sort out any diva tantrums - so its Bardot, Ian Carmichael, Crawford, Ekberg,  Gregson - with Mature and Monroe further down the line ...

Joan Crawford was less than complimentary on the girls for being late and not attending rehearsals:
"If you want my opinion, far too many actresses today are little more than tramps and tarts. The Queen is a lady and expects to meet other ladies. Most of today's actresses can't even act politely. Arlene Dahl, Marilyn Monroe, and Anita Ekberg didn't even show up for rehearsals. And Monroe's hairdresser was still doing her hair while Her Majesty was on her way up the staircase. And when Monroe finally got there, she still didn't know how to curtsey. I felt so ashamed."
Below: more '50s glamour: some of the Rank Organisation girls at maybe another 1956 Royal Film event: Belinda Lee, Maureen Swanson, Shirley Eaton, Mary Ure and June Thorburn.
The James Bond golden girl Shirley Eaton is the only one still here, in her late 70s. Belinda was killed in a car accident in 1961 aged 25, and June Thorburn (tom thumb) in a airplane crash, aged 36 in 1967, Swanson married into the English nobility and died in 2011, Ure died in mysterious circumstances after the opening night of a play she was appearing in, in 1975, aged 42. Thanks to that fabulous site Poseidon's Underworld for the photograph. 

Pity these newsreels were not in colour, see the 1957 and 1966 Royal Film Performances and the London 1955 A STAR IS BORN premiere at Showpeople label.

Sunday treats

What a busy day - "The Sunday Times" has "100 Soundtracks to Love" - fascinating, but does not include my favourite five: BLOW-UP, UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, AMERICAN GIGOLO, CLEOPATRA or THE LION IN WINTER  (Kate Hepburn, below).... 

The Times also has a hilariously awful interview with Aretha Franklin (to plug her new album, see Aretha label) where it is obvious Aretha does want to to be there or do the interview .... this is compulsive stuff for Aretha fans here in England, as we do not get enough of her over here now.

Then there was that equally fascinating interview with Maggie Smith yesterday, as per post below, and now that Sophia Loren's book is out, there are some - yes, that word again - fascinating reviews plus a new interview she granted in Geneva to Chrissy Iley of The Sunday Telegraph .... 

Then we looked at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT 3, recorded from yesterday, with some choice moments like Dolores Gray doing our favourite from IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER: "Thanks a lot, but no thanks" (where she has a man "who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined") - and the juxtaposition of Joan Crawford in that lurid outfit and "tropical makeup" miming to India Adams' vocal for "Two Faced Woman" in TORCH SONG - which Cyd Charisse (those legs!) had also done for THE BANDWAGON, but that number was cut from the film. Both were in 1953 - at least Joan got to immortalise it, but Cyd's is nifty too. See them both here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LMUJtcID5c

More '60s: Sophia and Max, and Greg and Joan, again

An interesting photo I got sent today .... Sophia Loren and Maximilian Schell in 1961 - it looks like it was taken at Sardi's restaurant, with those sketches on the wall. Both had won best actor and best actress Oscars that year, when Hollywood was celebrating international cinema. Previously Anna Magnani had won in 1955 and Simone Signoret in 1959, but by the early '60s the international movie was certainly on the rise. Canny producer Carlo Ponti soon had both stars in his next De Sica film, the little-seen now and rather ponderous 1962 drama THE CONDEMNED OF ALTONA, its certainly a fascinating re-view now though, as per Schell, Loren labels. 

The following year Max and Sophia were in Hollywood (she had not attended the 1961 ceremony as she was sure she would not win) to present to the next winners, so Sophia presented Gregory Peck with his, and Maximilian presented the Best Actress, but not to winner Anne Bancroft, but to Joan Crawford who had graciously accepted for her. This meant that Joan looking glamorous was photographed with the winners holding an oscar too - 
while nominated Bette Davis who had lost, was left fuming backstage. Joan looks great here and Max looks like her hot date for the night ... we like this photo, which we have posted here before. Peck returned the favour, presenting Sophia with her second, the lifetime achievement one, in 1993 - as per Peck label.

Here's another new one: Sophia with director and artist Jean Negulesco at an exhibition of his drawings in Greece in 1956 - they had just finished BOY ON A DOLPHIN where the director had done several sketches of her - as per Negulesco label.

Heatwave movies: Johnny Guitar

Yup, its the annual JOHNNY GUITAR thread .... 

JOHNNY GUITAR was the very first film I saw, aged 8 - what a vivid introduction to cinema, I was mesmerised by the woman in white about to be hanged, and that other woman in black shooting down the lamps and setting the place on fire. Then of course later when I knew which film it was repeated viewings made it more delirious and desirable than ever. I just simply love it. Nice now to have good dvd showing that odd Republic Technicolor, with an introduction by Marty Scorsese, no less (as good as his one for EL CID)

Then there are those tales of the feud between Joan and Mercedes on set, it is all though oddly poetic as directed by Nick Ray. Joan is perfect as Vienna "sitting at her piano in her own home" waiting for the railroad to come so she can sell out. McCambridge is Emma Small the vicious town boss who is oddly drawn to the Dancing Kid, or perhaps it is Vienna she is drawn to and cannot act on it? The men - even Ward Bond - are just stooges here, as Emma and Vienna dominate. Events move at a pace as the two women face up to the climax. 

Sterling Hayden is sterling again as the quiet Johnny - his scenes with Vienna as they try to recapture their lost love are just so perfect. Then the lynch mob arrive ... For a child of 8 it was a marvellous experience and led to my being taken to other westerns that year: THE COMMAND, DRUM BEAT, SITTING BULL and other movies like A STAR IS BORN (1954 label). Looking at it again now the architecture is fascinating: Vienna's large casino built into the mountain, the waterfall hiding the way to the mountain-top log cabin - and what a perfect cabin it is... one almost wants to live there; and then there's that theme song by Peggy Lee !