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,

For the weekend ...

only the greatest song from the greatest musical drama ever.  The 3 alternative versions on the dvd are just as marvellous. See posts on Judy and Cukor ...

A Star Is Born premiere, 1954 + East Of Eden

That fascinating premiere footage of A STAR IS BORN in Hollywood in 1954, a dvd extra on the restored film, is also on YouTube. Its a time capsule now, as Hollywood - old and new - turned out for one of the biggest premieres of the era. It seems they all wanted Judy (rather overweight here) to do well in her comeback film ..... there's Doris Day, Peggy Lee, Debbie and Eddie, Liz and Michael Wilding, Tony and Janet, Jack Carson is the MC and Joan Crawford has fun joshing with her MILDRED PIERCE co-star. There's Liberace and his mother; Raymond Burr "back from Korea" turns up with a cute marine (a Mr Frank Vitti, who it seems spent several years with Burr) - and plenty more: Mitzi, Bacall, Shelley Winters - the furs, the costumes! 

We love A STAR IS BORN here, one of the first movies I saw as a kid, its still marvellous now. What did they think they were doing by cutting it drastically? It made no sense for Norman Maine to say to a nervous Esther Blodgett before her screen test "to think of a man eating a nutburger", as the scene of her working in the burger bar had been cut!

EAST OF EDEN in 1955 was the business too, another big Warner Bros spectacular event. Marilyn and Brando were ushers at this one, handing out the programmes. Somehow, today's premieres are not quite the same ....

Hunk de jour: Guy

Another person we like: Guy Madison - quite a lot about him on various sites. Here is his first role of a few minutes in the 1944 wartime drama SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. He was a real marine then, and had a career once he returned to Hollywood after the war.

I don't know SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, John Cromwell's film seems essentially of that era now, like CASABLANCA or MEET ME IN ST LOUIS. I have had to order it, for that great cast: Colbert, Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker, Hattie McDaniel, Agnes Moorehead, Nazimova, and er, Shirley Temple. Guy made quite an impression here as the young marine. 

Below: with Judy Garland, at a premiere, and with Judy again a decade or so later.

Guy (1922-1996) had a respectable career, gravitating towards westerns - one of the first films I saw, when aged 8, was his 1954's THE COMMAND - like Dale Robertson, also big in westerns then, Guy was ideal out west or in cavalry uniform. as in THE LAST FRONTIER.
He also had a long-runnng western series THE ADVENTURES OF WILD BILL HICKOK. He is also good with Jean Simmons in the 1956 drama HILDA CRANE (review at Simmons label) and I like FIVE AGAINST THE HOUSE (also with gay Kerwin Matthews), and like Jeffrey Hunter, Tab Hunter, Robert Wagner, Tony Perkins etc he was a leading man of the 1950s, before the new crop arrived: Troy Donahue, Fabian, young Warren Beatty, Redford, etc. 
Like a lot of others he then did several costumers in Europe, as did his pal Rory Calhoun (who did a good one: Leone's THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES in 1961).  One of Guy's SLAVE OF ROME in 1961, is on YouTube, where he co-stars with Rosanna (HELEN OF TROY) Podesta:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiPJoCrbtQA

There are lots of pictures actually of Guy and Rory (1922-1999; mainly a B-movie actor (left), best known now for those two Monroe films at Fox: RIVER OF NO RETURN where Mitchum is the lead, and HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE where he is teamed with Betty Grable), and with Susan Hayward in the musical sudser WITH  SONG IN MY HEART, 1952, which we like a lot. 

The boys went fishing a lot (and really caught fish, unlike BBM), both were clients of the notorious agent Henry Willson (Below with the boys). Guy was married for some years to the fragile actress Gail Russell, whom we like a lot, and he had 4 children by his second marriage. Rory was married to actress Lita Baron (usually a tough cookie in westerns), but like Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, and Tab and Tony Perkins, their friendship endured during their marriages.

Guy and Rory both did an intriguing-sounding 1949 western: MASSACRE RIVER. One to check out?  He seems a bit clunky jitterbugging though ... More Guy at label. 

Looking at MASSACRE RIVER now the chemistry between the boys is startling, with all that horseplay and fooling around, as Rory's trousers fall down and they grapple in the hot tub. The rest of it is standard 1940s horse opera. Guy had a good run in cavalry uniform, as here and THE COMMAND in 1954 (which I saw when I was 8, one of the first films I saw), THE LAST FRONTIER in '56, and others. 

Nuremburg lineup ...

What star wattage for 1961: Tracy, Lancaster, Widmark, Dietrich, Schell, Garland and Clift. The film  JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG -  I should dig the dvd out sometime - was rather a plod as I remember, very Stanley Kramer, but Garland and Clift electrified during their cameo appearances.

Judy: That Old Feeling

Words are superfluous.

A Star Is Born and those Fifties dramas

Nice to catch 1951's A PLACE IN THE SUN again on television, along with SUNSET BOULEVARD and ALL ABOUT EVE, those great early '50s dramas, and of course, as the decade wore on, those Kazan classics like EAST OF EDEN, and the later 50s dramas like ANATOMY OF A MURDER or the over-heated SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER or Susan Hayward classics like I WANT TO LIVE or I'LL CRY TOMORROW, or Magnani or .... See Drama-1 label for my first post here on all those ...

Now, a few more comments on Cukor's A STAR IS BORN, that 1954 musical drama that just keeps looking better and better each time I see it.  There is quite a bit on it here - see the labels - as its one of the first movies I saw that year as a kid of 8. JOHNNY GUITAR was the first, what a vivid introduction to movies that was - but A STAR IS BORN may well have been the second. I loved the widescreen images, like that beach house with the sun reflected on the glass, and that rich Warnercolor just glows now, particularly after the film was restored and the extras included those 3 alternative versions of "The Man That Got Away" and all that premiere footage with all the stars of the time (Doris, Peggy Lee, Crawford, Bacall, the Wildings, the Curtises, the Fishers etc) 

It is one of the great Fifties dramas - a drama with music, as opposed to one of those MGM spectaculars, It was Brando's year of course but for me Mason delivers the performance of the year, and of his career, as Norman Maine. 

Judy of course is something else. It is easy to see now why Grace Kelly got the Oscar for that year. She was the hot new girl in town (like Audrey the year before, and Judy Holliday in 1950 when Bette and Gloria were seen as old-timers; and a decade later in the bright shiny early Sixties when the two Julies - Andrews and Christie - were the next hot new girls in town..).   Judy too had burned her boats a lot and had antagonised too many with her tantrums and delays, maybe caused by a bi-polar or medical condition caused by all her medications and addictions. 

It is though a Hollywood drama at its dizzying peak. Unlike more modern filmed musicals where the performances are edited to pieces (Rob Marshall) or upstaged by other action (Baz Lurhmann), Cukor goes in for long takes and full musical sequences. So many scenes that were phenomenal showing Esther's rise through Hollywood:  "The Man That Got Away" when Norman discovers her again after prowling the nightclub circuit in search of freash cuties (but not from Pasadena!), the number Judy stages for Mason ("I am discovered on a rather simple divan");  the Academy Award scene, the dressing room breakdown scene, Norman's shamed appearance in court ....any one of them would have propelled another actress to an Oscar. At least A STAR IS BORN is appreciated more today - when was the last time anyone mentioned THE COUNTRY GIRL or saw it on television?, its a dull boring film enlived by Grace playing dowdy in a cardigan. 

Yes, Judy's weight fluctuated and she does not always look her best (at only 32) but it is still Garland at her peak and she is thrilling. She was robbed of that Oscar. She and Mason deliver timeless, great performances, maybe the best in any musical. Add in Cukor's great widescreen compositions and lots of savage humour, like Jack Carson's vicious PR man, and Charles Bickford marvellous as the studio head. That first "You Gotta Have Me Go With You" number is brilliantly staged too as the drunk Norman invades Esther's act on stage .... It is full of lovely moments, like the studio makeup men trying to decide on Esther's face and Norman then wiping all the gunk off, or Esther getting her new name Vicki Lester - "Go to L" or the "We can see your face" moment ..... it made no sense to cut the scene where she works in the drive-in burger bar and leave in Norman telling her to "think of a man eating a nutburger" ! The "Born in a Trunk" sequence too has some delicious moments .... 

Judy might well have started out with good intentions but she quickly fell back into her old undependable patterns and habits from her MGM days. George Cukor vowed never to work with her again he was so frustrated with her. Jack Warner lost interest in promoting Judy or the film for any Oscars after his disastrous dealings with her husband and the film's producer Sid Luft, and Judy, (he was also furious to discover they had furnished their house with furniture from the set) and the film was quickly cut to fit in more screenings.  
She did, indeed, burn her bridges with Warners, her last chance to prove that, with all her talent, that she could behave responsibly, professionally.  It irreperably damaged her career. Blame it on drugs or being bipolar or whatever. 

It was the same problem with her last film I COULD GO ON SINGING in 1963, when again she is marvellous, and its a great record of Judy then more or less playing herself, but as Dirk Bogarde related in his memoirs, the shoot was a nightmare with everyone quickly getting tired of Judy's dramas, wanting to sack the director, etc. Mel Torme wrote a book on the nightmare her early '60s tv shows had become. The films continue to fascinate though. More on them at Judy/Dirk labels.

The ones that got away ... *

I have been, as mentioned previously, tracking down 1950s issues of British film magazine "Films and Filming" - a magazine I grew up with which I first discovered in 1962 when 16, so over the years I have been collecting earlier issues, and had them all from 1960 onwards through the 60s and 70s, when it folded. 

I even worked there for a year in the mid-70s and got to know the reclusive owner and that great crew of staff, as we manually did subscriptions and got each issue out - of course it would all be computerised now. 
But it also gave me a chance to catch up with some more back issues. Now that the magazine has been gone for decades, I feel I am keeping its memory alive. I also got to know its editor Robin Bean and did some reviews for him. But by the late '70s the magazine was in decline, there were other good film magazines around (FILMS ILUSTRATED) and its quality declined as did its finances ..... it got more explicit too due to the changing movie scene.

The back issues are fascinating reading, covering reviews and feautures, as they interviewed all the names with movies coming out: Lee Remick, Dirk Bogarde, David Hemmings, Michael York, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Lean and almost any director one could mention. It was big on European cinema too and introduced me to the works of Antonioni, Visconti, Fellini, Losey et al and it had several French and Italian editions where the likes of Delon and Belmondo were interviewed and there were at least 7 issues with Delon on the cover. Brando had 6 covers, Bette Davis was on 4 covers, Dirk Bogarde, and Sophia Loren had 5 each. Gina was on the cover of the 2nd issue (below), the first (in October 1954) had Brando and Saint in a shot from ON THE WATERFRONT.

So, I have been collecting the 1950s back numbers, from eBay (plenty of 60s and 70s issues still available...), but there are just four I cannot find ... I finally got a 1957 one I was missing, which had Monroe and Olivier on the cover from THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, that is now winging its way to me from America. But the June 1959 number with SOME LIKE IT HOT on the cover may be unobtainable now, and perhaps the third issue in December 1954 with Judy and A STAR IS BORN. 

The unique thing about "Films and Filming" is that it was a quality monthly - the only one in England at the time, as "Sight and Sound" was then a quarterly producing just 4 issues a year until it went monthly in the 1990s, of course it was/is a BFI publication so no lack of finance there, whereas "Films and Filming" and Philip Dosse's other arts magazines were privately financed.  For magazine junkies these are endlessly fascinating, not least for their not-so-coded gay subtext and advertisements. 
Left and right: F&F in the 1960s. The chunky 100-page 100th issue January 1963, with a long interview with David Lean for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and features on BB, CC, DD, and MM: Brigitte, Claudia Cardinale, Diana Dors and Marilyn.  More F&F covers at label ....

* They didn't get away - I've got them, from a job lot of 40 F&F mags on eBay, at a very reasonable price - they arrive this week, and my friend Martin will buy the spares I don't need. So its all good.

A Star Is Born in 1954 ...

Its interesting for A STAR IS BORN fans - thats the 1954 Cukor film obviously, not the Streisand abomination - to see an original review from 1954 when it had just opened. This is just a few comments (by Clayton Cole) from the Nov 1954 issue of "Films and Filming" which gave the film lavish praise and coverage in those early issues. 

A STAR IS BORN is a film of almost incomparable brilliance and richness whose brilliance and richness never intrude for their own sakes, but are used solely as aids in the unfolding of the drama, the colour is used in the most subtle way to increase the spectator's emotional involvement, set the mood of the scene and convey the emotions of the characters. The opening shots of a mammoth charity gala perfectly capture the overwrought atmosphere that prevails at any function of this sort in Hollywood: backstage, in the lobby where the struggle is to be seen, and on the street lined with fans who scream at the arrival of every preening celebrity ...(I also love that marvellous opening sequence with that rich Warnercolor adding depth). 

With this film Judy Garland takes her place among the few very great ladies of theatrical art, for added to all that we knew of her before there is now an emotional talent of the greatest depth. Throughout this enormously long film she never makes one wrong move or utters a false sound. Where before she was primarily a great entertainer, she is now that and so much more. The catch in the voice, the bubbling laugh, the pathos under the gaiety, are here used as manifestations of a character and not just as examples of virtuosity. 

James Mason's Norman Maine is no mere foil, but the most finely etched performance he has given since coming to Hollywood. His portrait of great talent disintegrated through drink is completely true, and even in the scenes of sodden drunkeness he is always Norman Maine. A STAR IS BORN is a film of great technical achievement that is illuminated throughout by the sensitivity and quality of its very particular star. (I know it was Brando's year, but Mason gets my award for best actor of 1954).

Ironically though next to the review on the page - below - is a still of Grace Kelly in that year's THE COUNTRY GIRL .... a portent then of the coming Oscars.  

We love A STAR IS BORN here at The Projector, as per the many other posts on it - see Garland/Cukor/Mason labels. It was in fact one of the first films I saw that year when I was 8, and like JOHNNY GUITAR its images were stunning to the young me, and have remained so. 

A Star Is Born, London style ...

Here is an interesting oddity - a 14 minute newsreel on the 1954 London premiere of A STAR IS BORN.

We are familiar with the footage of the American premieres in New York and L.A. when all the stars of the time turned out - these are among the extras on the restored dvd. But this London premiere footage is quite intriguing too - as narrated by and featuring Dickie Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sim. Theres also Diana Dors, Janette Scott and her mother Thora Hird, and at about 8.00 minute mark, divine Kay Kendall. Jack Hawkins, John Gregson, Finlay Currie Kenneth More and more are also in attendance, as is Laurence Olivier greeting the guests on behalf of the Variety Club, I half expected Dirk Bogarde to turn up as well, being such a Garland fan. We see the preparations for the screening - how movies were shown then! There is also some black and white footage from the film, a Projector favourite here, and there is the old Warner cinema too which I knew so well. 

Showpeople - troupers

More weird and wonderful photos:

I like this tender moment with Flora Robson and John Ford on the set of YOUNG CASSIDY in 1964. Ford only directed the first 20 minutes of the film as he got ill and was replaced by Jack Cardiff - more on this film which I like a lot at Cardiff label.

Flora and Ford worked again on his last film, SEVEN WOMEN in 1966.

Left: Rock and Diana Dors, in the 50s. Right: Judy Garland and Juliet Mills visit Margaret Leighton in her dressing room - Margaret's stage make-up is rather much - she would have been playing Hannah Jelkes in that original run of Tennessee's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, circa 1962 ...

Below: Rock with veterans Gloria Swanson and Tallulah Bankhead, at the premiere of his PILLOW TALK in 1959!

Rhapsodising about 1954, again

RHAPSODY, 1954. The opening titles tell us it’s the South of France. Wealthy Louis Calhern is arranging namecards for his lunch party, but then his daughter Louise (Elizabeth Taylor) enters and instead of being his hostess she is off to Zurich, driving in her open sports car, with her cases of all those Helen Rose outfits, a different one for each scene. Louise we soon see is a spoiled rich girl, used to getting her way and indulged by her indulgent father ….  She has her eyes of fiery Paul Bronte, master of the violin, but only if he studies hard enough to please teacher Michael Chekhov. Louise settles in to Celia Lovsky’s charming apartment and starts to get bored as Paul (Vittorio Gassman in one of his first American films) puts his music first and her second. She is left on the sidelines in her furs, white gloves and diamonds at the café as the other students, including predatory Barbara Bates, crowd around him. But diversion is at hand, as she gets to know the upstairs tenant, John Ericson, who becomes hopelessly devoted to her, putting his music at risk. 
He at least plays the piano – cue endless close-ups of them playing as Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff swamp the soundtrack, and of course there is the obligatory montage of capital cities and concert posters as Bronte tours and becomes famous, while Louise marries John, who is now drinking heavily. Bronte comes back into her life as she decides to leave her husband while trying to convince him he can become a great player without her. 
We finally leave her (this thing seems to go on for hours) at the concert hall as Ericson can indeed play without her, as Bronte arrives to collect her. Which man does she choose?  This is a prime farrago, which I remember seeing as a kid, one of four Taylor did in 1954, overall I much prefer THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS but Liz is certainly at her early zenith as the camera lovingly lingers on her rapt expressions as her men play, and play and play …. High Class Trash, it has that MGM lush quality, directed by Charles Vidor (an old hand at this kind of thing – he began, but died, during the 1960 SONG WITHOUT END). 

There's no business like show-biz as Marlon's Napoleon 
drops in on Marilyn

1954 - my first year at the movies, aged 8. What a year that was, as I have mentioned before here - see label, 1954-1, JOHNNY GUITAR and A STAR IS BORN were the first films I saw, taken to by my parents, in small-town Ireland .... it was that great year for routine westerns, costumers and mini-epics, and several musicals. The big hitters of the year were of course ON THE WATERFRONT, Ava as THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA, Audrey as SABRINA, Grace as THE COUNTRY GIRL, REAR WINDOW, DIAL M FOR MURDER, while other popular hits included CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, THEM!, EXECUTIVE SUITE, WOMAN’S WORLD, THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN, CAINE MUTINY, THE GLENN MILLER STORY as James Stewart and June Allyson continued to be so very popular. Meanwhile, Kazan was shooting EAST OF EDEN .... the first of James Dean's three major releases for 1955 and 1956. 

The big foreign movies were THE SEVEN SAMURAI and LA STRADA, and Visconti's SENSO, and I just recently discovered Mizogushi's LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

I was soon lapping up other westerns (often with my father) like: THE COMMAND, DRUM BEAT, SITTING BULL, CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, RIVER OF NO RETURN, BROKEN LANCE.

while other musicals we loved were: THE STUDENT PRINCE, CARMEN JONES, 7 BRIDES FOR 7 BROTHERS (well, I never liked that one much), THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (where Marilyn was at her most peaches and cream, the blonde to Elizabeth Taylor's exotic darkness), WHITE CHRISTMAS, BRIGADOON, YOUNG AT HEART, ROSE MARIE.

The epics and peplums included THE EGYPTIAN and DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS (see below), THE SILVER CHALICE (Paul Newman's odd debut with young Natalie Wood, right, as a blonde who grows up to be Virginia Mayo, and Jack Palance mesmerising as Simon the Magician who thinks he can fly..below.),  
KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS, SIGN OF THE PAGAN,  BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH, PRINCE VALIANT - cardboard castle time indeed, while Italy gave us ULYSSES, ATILLA and TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA, these two with that young Sophia Loren. I simply loved her WOMAN OF THE RIVER, but did not catch up with the delightful TOO BAD SHE'S BAD, her first with Marcello, until much later. De Sica's GOLD OF NAPLES with her and Silvana Mangano was a popular choice too, and still marvellous now. 

Other programmers we liked were Charlton Heston in THE NAKED JUNGLE (terrific with Eleanor Parker) and SECRET OF THE INCAS, plus TAZA SON OF COCHISE, VALLEY OF THE KINGS, and Rock's CAPTAIN LIGHTFOOT. 

Grace Kelly was very busy that year, not only those Hitchcock's but the dull COUNTRY GIRL and the programmer GREEN FIRE where she looked very tailored down on her South American plantation. La Taylor fitted in not only RHAPSODY and LAST TIME I SAW PARIS but also BEAU BRUMMELL and replaced Vivien Leigh in ELEPHANT WALK - once GIANT made her a superstar next year in 1955 she slowed down to barely one a year... her husband Michael Wilding was also toiling in Hollywood then, to less effect in TORCH SONG, THE GLASS SLIPPER, THE EGYPTIAN, THE SCARLET COAT .....  Shelley Winters was very busy, with 6 titles that year, while Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr, Susan Hayward etc were all churning them out. Brando had not only ON THE WATERFRONT but as Napoleon in the Fox costumer DESIREE, James Mason was not only Norman Maine in A STAR IS BORN but also the bad guy in PRINCE VALIANT and Nemo in 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA.

The English studios were busy too:  with the hilarious BELLES OF ST TRINIANS and DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE (Dirk and Kay! - right with Kenneth More), dramas like THE WEAK AND THE WICKED, HELL BELOW ZERO, THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, and Glynis Johns and Dora Bryan as mermaids in the delicious MAD ABOUT MEN.

1954 discoveries of mine in recent years include MAMBO - a lurid melodrama where marrieds Shelley Winters and Vittorio Gassman are both keen on Silvana Mangano who dances up a storm; Rene Clement's KNAVE OF HEARTS (or MR RIPOIS) with Gerard Philipe on the loose in London, wooing lovely young Joan Greenwood among others - right; and Linda Darnell is the marvellous romantic melodrama THIS IS MY LOVE (see Linda label). 1954 we love you. Next major years: 1959/1960, 1962.