Showpeople: The Burtons and Sophia ...

Not seen this one before: Liz Taylor visiting Richard and co-star Sophia Loren on the set of their THE VOYAGE, Vittorio De Sica's last film, filmed in 1973 and not released until much later ....

Only 3 years earlier I had seen, as mentioned before, The Burtons with director Joseph Losey and veteran film critic Dilys Powell at the CINEMA CITY exhibition at The Roundhouse in London ..... 

Vanessa on BLOW-UP again ...

Thanks to Daryl for emailing me about a new Vanessa Redgrave interview where she discusses making the 1966 Antonioni film BLOW-UP in considerable detail - the interview is 42 minutes - for when you have the time. 

She also discussed filming with Antonioni and his directing methods in that 1993 British documentary series we like HOLLYWOOD UK (right), hosted by director Richard Lester, where she shows what Antonioni wanted from her, how he wanted her to sit and move her body and be part of the fabric of what he was creating. Fascinating stuff for those who still regard this cult classic. 

As the You/Tube text states:

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Antonioni's iconic film Blow-Up, the team behind Fashion & Cinema - a series of events, on-stage conversations and screenings exploring the relationship between fashion and cinema - bring together legendary actress Vanessa Redgrave CBE and photography expert and Deputy Chairman of Christie's Philippe Garner, co-author of the book Antonioni's Blow-Up. The film shaped understandings of contemporary fashion photography and shocked with its portrait of London in the swinging sixties, casual sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Director Antonioni consulted local journalists to help build a picture of the lifestyle of the most fashionable young photographers. David Hemmings's character is a composite of elements that reference David Bailey, Terence Donovan, David Montgomery and John Cowan, whose studio became a principal set.
(Terence Stamp still insists it was all about him and he had been promised the part by the Italian maestro. I have the Garner coffee-table book on the film, which covers it all, with those great images we like so much)..

Vanessa is now on stage here in London in the Ralph Fiennes RICHARD III, being broadcast to cinemas on July 21, we shall be watching. I saw her on stage twice, in a 1973 stylish production of Coward's DESIGN FOR LIVING, and sometime in the '80s in Martin (BENT) Sherman's odd A MADHOUSE IN GOA, Vanessa always mesmerises on stage. 

Another fascinating 1960s interview with Vanessa here:

Off to The Ritz with Treat and Googie ...

Terence McNally's play THE RITZ about the farcical goings-on at a gay sauna seemed an odd choice for Richard Lester in 1976 - the year he also did ROBIN AND MARIAN, but actually it suits his madcap humour, so evident in those '60s Beatles films A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP!, plus THE KNACK, PETULIA, oddities like HOW I WON THE WAR and THE BEDSITTING ROOM and those '70s entertainments like his MUSKETEERS films, ROYAL FLASH and the tense JUGGERNAUT - see reviews at Lester label. 

Gaetano to avoid a "hit" on him by Carmine, tells a cab driver to take him where Carmine can't find him. He is taken to The Ritz, a gay bathhouse where he is pursued amorously by "chubby chaser" Paul B. Price and by entertainer Googie Gomez who believes him to be a broadway producer. His guides through the Ritz are gatekeeper Abe, habitue Chris, and bellhop/go-go-boys Tiger and Duff. Squeaky-voiced detective Michael Brick and his employer Carmine locate Gateano at the Ritz, as does his wife Vivian. It gets funnier and funnier ....

Gaetano: Listen, there's something I have to tell you...

Chris: You're not gay?

Gaetano: [relieved] No!

Chris: What, are you a social worker or something?

Gaetano: No, but I didn't know that everyone in here was...

Chris: GAY! See? It's not a bad word. You might try using it sometime.

Gaetano: You mean to tell me that everyone in here is gay?

Chris: God, I hope so. Otherwise I just paid ten dollars to walk around in a towel in front of a bunch of Shriners.

The cast is uniformly amusing, especially Rita Moreno as Googie Gomez, an untalented Latin singer whom Weston mistakes for a drag queen. She frequently steals the show from everyone. Moreno got a Tony Award for her Broadway portrayal of that role. Also good is the improbably squeaky-voiced detective played by Treat Williams. 
Some of the resulting mayhem is very funny indeed; some stretches are more ho-hum. Nevertheless, it is a generally successful piece of entertainment regardless of one's sexual orientation.

We know Rita Moreno from way back to THE KING AND I; Jack Weston always amuses, as in THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and CACTUS FLOWER, and Treat was a treat in Forman's HAIR, Lumet's PRINCE OF THE CITY and as Stanley to Ann-Margret's Blanche in that ;80s television STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. F.Murray Abraham (AMADEUS Oscar-winner) is a scream as Chris, and then there is Vivian Vance ... The humour is broad farce and the gays are not treated meanly. Lester keeps it all bubbling nicely, The reviewers at IMDB loved it, 

The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996

Weaving oral history with precise cultural analysis, THE GAY METROPOLIS is the definitive social, cultural and political history of gay life in the major cities of the world over the last fifty years. Focusing on New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin, Kaiser chronicles how urban centres have been crucial in the genesis and evolution of gay culture. THE GAY METROPOLIS combines intimate stories of people as famous as Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Gore Vidal, and as little known as Sandy Kern, a young Brooklyn woman who first heard the word 'lesbian' when a neighbour spied her with her arm around her girlfriend at the end of a wartime blackout.

This was a fascinating read when I first read it a decade or more ago, but I had lent it to a friend and never got it back ..... so I was pleased another friend mentioned it again recently, so I got another copy and enjoyed reading it all over again. As social history it can't be beat. Charles Kaiser has concentrated on New York, but it does not detract from an overall understanding of the 20th Century gay tapestry. 

We go from the closeted 1940s where though, as in wartime London, gay life flourished in secret * (see that extract from Gore Vidal's THE CITY AND THE PILLAR below), to the even more closeted 1950s when being gay was as bad as being a communist and they were hounded from government posts, and there was no mention of gay life anywhere, to the start of the gay, black and women's liberation movements of the 1960s, culminating in that Stonewall uprising in 1969 and the success of plays like THE BOYS IN THE BAND. It was routine in the early sixties for gays to kill themselves in films like ADVISE AND CONSENT, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR and THE SERGEANT, at least the British film VICTIM made an impact, as did SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY at the start of the 1970s when gay activism took to the streets and became more visible as the decade wore on, climaxing with the gay decadence of disco, Studio 54, "After Dark" magazine and the availability of gay material on those new video-cassettes .....

The 1980s though is a whole different story as that strange new illness began making inroads into the gay community and how it responded in the face of political indifference from the Reagan goverment...  there are lots of life stories here, and its all uplifting stuff by the mid Nineties - now 20 years later, the changes to gay life would be unimaginable then.  I think its an essential item for any gay bookshelf, maybe next to Vito Russo's THE CELLULOID CLOSET. Not only that, a very engaging read!  

Kaiser shows how before the sexual freedoms of the Seventies, World War II was a great liberator: "the war had caused a great change. Inhibitions had broken down. All sorts of young men - away from home and their towns and farms for the first time - were trying out all sorts of new things". 

Gore Vidal's 1948 novel THE CITY AND THE PILLAR set in Forties New York:

"Jim went straight to a Times Square bar frequented by soldiers and sailors. He studied the room carefully like a general surveying the terrain of battle. Then he selected his objective: a tall Army Lieutenant with broad shoulders, dark hair, blue eyes. Jim squeezed in beside him and ordered a drink. Jim's leg touched the Lieutenant's leg, a hard muscular leg which returned the pressure. 

"You in the service?" asked the Lieutenant. His voice was slow, deep, far Western.

"Yeah, I was in the army too"

"What outfit?"

They exchanged information. The Lieutenant had served with the infantry during the invasion of North Africa. He was now stationed in the South as an instructor. 

"You live around here?"

Jim nodded. "I got a room downtown".

"I sure wish I had a place. I got to stay on a sofa wih this married cousin".

"That sounds pretty uncomfortable".

"It sure is".

"You could", said Jim, as though he were thinking it over, "stay at my place. There's plenty of room".

The Lieutenant said no, he couldn't do that; they had another drink and then went downtown to bed.

Next, we are going off to that 1970s gay sauna THE RITZ ! 

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 ... 

RIP, continued ....

Caroline Aherne (1963-2016) aged 52. The first half of 2016 has certainly been tough: not only David Bowie gone but also Prince, not only Victoria Wood but now also that other gifted British comedy genius Caroline Aherne, who bestrode the comedy world like a colossus in the 1990s, with shows like THE FAST SHOW, THE MRS MERTON SHOW and THE ROYLE FAMILY. If you are not familiar with them try to rectify that - I have just ordered a compete run of THE FAST SHOW as I missed a lot of it at the time, for Caroline's very funny contributions: 

that over-chatty checkout girl,the weather girl and that bossy wife Renee and her her henpecked husband Roy. It will be bliss to see them again. It will be poignant though seeing THE ROYLE FAMILY now, where her bone-idle selfish Denise was just one very funny strand, and MRS MERTON was a must too with her barbed putdowns. Caroline though, as well-documented in the press, had problems coping with fame and eventually walked away from it as she coped with several cancers and a problematic private life. Her comedy genius shines on and she will be much missed. We simply loved her. Below: Caroline with ROYLE FAMILY co-stars Liz Smith and Sue Johnston in 2002. 

Scotty Moore (1931-2016), aged 84. Elvis's first guitarist whose early background was in jazz and country music. He was one of The Blue Moon Boys in 1954 the year they first worked with Presley on hits like "That All Right" which had the bluegrass "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the B-side. The hits like "Jailhouse Rock", "Heartbreak Hotel, "Hound Dog" followed before the inevitable rift with Presley and his manager.

Chips Moman (1937-2016), aged 79. Anyone with any regard for soul music would know of Chips Moman, the legendary song-writer ("The Dark End Of The Street" which Aretha and others covered so  well and her "Do Right Woman Do Right Man") and guitarist (again, on Aretha's "I Never Loved A Man"), and record producer. He also revived Elvis's career in the late 60s by including songs like "In The Ghetto" and "Suspicious Minds" in his new act. Other artists he worked with include Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Tammy Wynette, and Dusty Springfield's "Dusty In Memphs" album recorded at Muscle Shoals.

John McMartin (1929-2016), aged 86. While the name might not ring a bell surely the face will. In his 60 year career he worked across all three actor's mediums regularly: stage, tv, and film, being Tony-nominated 5 times - he created the role of Oscar in SWEET CHARITY opposite Gwen Verdon and reprised it in Fosse' 1969 film with Shirley McLaine, and also went on to star in Sondheim's FOLLIES on stage. Films included ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, BRUBAKER, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, KINSEY and lots of television including THE GOLDEN GIRLS, PHYLLIS, LAW & ORDER, MURDER SHE WROTE, FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY.

Michael Cimino (1939-2016), aged 77. The last Hollywood maverick? We loved Cimino's THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT in 1974, a terrific caper movie and one of Eastwood's best; THE DEER HUNTER in 1978 is certainly a key film of the era, though I only ever needed to see it once, while I like so many others simply hated HEAVEN'S GATE.  The rest of his films just did not interest me at all.

As The Telegraph's obituary put it: he was the Oscar-winning American director whose rise and fall occurred at a speed unprecedented even in Hollywood.

Cimino enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with only his second film, the Vietnam war epic The Deer Hunter (1978). But his third, the western Heaven’s Gate (1980), was delivered so far over budget that when it flopped it practically bankrupted the studio, destroyed Cimino’s career, shifted power back from the auteur-director to the executives and became a byword for directorial folie de grandeur.

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.

Olivia hits 100

Happy 100th birthday to Olivia De Havilland, and not only that great age but she seems well and enjoying life living in Paris, as per that fascinating recent "Vanity Fair" interview with her. Whether as Maid Marian to Erroll's ROBIN HOOD (and of course also CAPTAIN BLOOD) or Melanie in GWTW or her great Catherine Sloper in THE HEIRESS Olivia has a great legacy of film roles and of course she also broke Hollywood's slave contracts winning her court case to be able to choose her roles.
As the BFI sais about her in its current retrosective on her career:

De Havilland brought all kinds of women to life on screen: fiery independent dames, gutsy fairy-tale beauties, love-starved daughters, single mothers, genteel small-towners and conniving psychopaths. But she had to fight for these diverse roles. Her employer Warner Brothers saw her as just a pretty face. Like many Hollywood actresses today, she was frustrated with the narrow range of parts she was offered; ‘I had quite different ideas about my career’ she told audiences at the BFI in 1972. ‘I wanted to play a real human being instead of a delightful romantic heroine.’ When in 1943 Warners refused to acknowledge that her seven-year contract had expired, she took them to court and won, forever changing the studio system by weakening its control over actors. She went on to pick roles in some of the most acclaimed films in Hollywood’s history. 
It was great, as I have mentioned here before, seeing her on stage discussing her career all of 44 years ago in 1972 (above, when I was a mere child, ok: 26) at London's BFI, which was such a success that her pal Bette Davis did the same two weeks later .... As per label we also like Olivia in HOLD BACK THE DAWN, HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE, LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and more (and of course we like her sister Joan too...). 

Vivien

The first paragraph of Alexander Walker’s 1987 biography of Vivien Leigh captures the gilded high-life of the then theatre’s golden couple The Oliviers perfectly:

The Caprice had sent the usual tray over to Vivien’s dressing room at the St James’s Theatre. There were little triangular-shaped sandwiches, enough for the dozen or so people who usually came round after the curtain: smoked salmon, prosciutto and, her own favourites, brown bread filled with thick honeycomb (“Not runny honey” she’d remind Mario, the Caprice’s maitre d’hotel). There were also four bottle of good Chablis  - not for Vivien though. She served her guests wine but preferred a large gin and tonic to be waiting for her when she came off the stage at the end of the play.

That Saturday night at the end of August 1951 the play was CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA …. The Oliviers had been married for eleven years. They would celebrate their anniversary at the end of the month at Notley Abbey, the country house in Buckinghamshire which Vivien and Olivier had created out of the stoney bones of the thirteenth century Augustinian monestary and hospice founded by Henry II. It wad for Notley they were bound tonight, with weekend guests whom Vivien was expecting any minute in her dressing-room as the crowd of backstage visitors dwindled. There would be Orson Welles, the writer and journalist Godfrey Winn, plus Rex Harrison and his wife Lilli Palmer. In addition a number of other people from the world of theatre and films would be coming over for Sunday lunch and staying on to play tennis or croquet. After dinner there would be charades or other party games. Perhaps they would roll back the carpet and have a dance …

The Oliviers were at the height of their power and celebrity in the early 1950s. He was the greatest actor of his generation. They were the most popular couple on the English-speaking stage. He had been knighted in 1947. They had been treated like surrogate royalty when they led the Old Vic on an Australian tour the following year. They were screen stars too. Even in the few places where Vivien’s name may not be known the name and image of Scarlett O’Hara was part of cinema mythology. Olivier’s HENRY V had been a wartime battle-cry and the most successful Shakespeare film ever - and then of course his acclaimed Oscar-winning HAMLET. Only the year before in 1950 she had filmed A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with Marlon Brando in Hollywood – another iconic role for her. At 37 and 44 respectively, Vivien’s clear-cut, delicate Dresden shepherdress beauty and Olivier’s strong, dark good looks – she vivid and outgoing, he more withdrawn and self-absorbed - were hardly beginning to show any signs of the passing years.

Alexander Walker ( 1930-2003), the well-known influential film critic of London’s “Evening Standard” (we read his reviews eagerly each week) and an acclaimed biographer (of, among others, Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Dietrich, Crawford, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and tomes on the British Cinema in the 1960s); he knew Leigh and Olivier and their milieu and captures it perfectly here. I used to see him around town quite a bit, no doubt on is way to or from press shows. In the Leigh biography he dissects the Oliviers’ union (from 1940 to 1960 when they divorced and he set on that new marriage to Joan Plowright and that new career after THE ENTERTAINER and launching the new National Theatre).

But back in 1951: “The name ‘The Oliviers’ meant something more than the mere aura of showbiz fame of a couple uniquely favoured in love, talent and fame. It signified, style, commitment, audacity and a sense of showmanship that was wonderfully refreshing to experience in the England of those post-war years when the memory of grim austerity had not yet faded. In the public’s perception of them the Oliviers were a couple who were still deeply in love with each other, fused together in their lives and careers, by the irresistible attraction which had compelled them both to break up their marriages to others in the 1930s and recklessly join their fortunes ….

The throng of friends and hangers-on in Vivien’s dressing room began to leave or pass next door to Olivier’s. Godfrey Winn arrived and Vivien kissed him and waved him towards the remnants o the sandwich tray, Rex and Lilli were next door with Larry and they were waiting for Orson to arrive before setting off through the autograph hunters waiting outside, for the hour or so drive to Notley … the weekend was beginning.

It is a fascinating read, capturing it all perfectly, including the fascinating story of Vivien’s rise to fame, her determination to play Scarlett O’Hara, and her subsequent breakdowns and manic depression. I like her also in THE ROMAN SRING OF MRS STONE (see review at Leigh label) from 1960, covered in fascinating detail here, as is her life after Olivier, until her death in 1967. “A lass unparalled’d” indeed …

Glastonbury 2016

Its over for another year, that long weekend in the rain and mud for all those Glasto devotees - we just checked out some main concerts in the comfort of one's own home .... I particularly liked Foals again (below: Yannis Philippakis lead vocals and lead guitar), and Adele stunned with her potty mouth, that super dress, and how she mesmerised that huge crowd with her voice, anthems and attitude - and then Coldplay to finish with Barry Gibb, the surviving Bee Gee .... I think we were all catered for: indie rock, divas, and superstars.

Barry Lyndon is back ...

A super new trailer for Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON, his 1975 film which perplexed people at the time, but now seems a timeless masterpiece. It is being reissued by the BFI in July, and should win a lot of new admirers when seen on cinema screens. Though I got the blu-ray recently I think I will have to experience it again on a cinema screen, particularly that perfect central sequence where our hero Redmond Barry meets the Countess of Lyndon .... did the 18th century ever look better? as I have written about here before (Ryan O'Neal label). 

The Pajama Game, 1957

THE PAJAMA GAME from 1957 is worth another look too, and great to see it in a good print at last, as there have been some ropey public domain copies around. This is another Broadway musical transferred to the screen and it looks wonderful with all those splashy colours and great staging of those classic numbers. Doris Day replaces Janis Paige from the stage show but most of the other cast including John Raitt (father of singer Bonnie Raitt) are intact from the stage show. Bob Fosse's staging of "Steam Heat" with the great Carol Haney is just perfectly Fosse. Doris (before her PILLOW TALK makeover) has probably her best 1950s moments here. Its another Stanley Donen classic then, as we head off to "Hernando's Hideaway" or that "Once A Year Day" .... 

Employees of the Sleeptite Pajama Factory in Iowa are looking for a whopping seven-and-a-half cent an hour increase and they won't take no for an answer. Babe Williams is their feisty employee representative but she may have found her match in shop superintendent Sid Sorokin. When the two get together they wind up discussing a whole lot more than job actions! 

1957 was certainly a classic year for musicals and I was 11 and enjoying them all on the big screen: also Donen's FUNNY FACE, plus Cukor's LES GIRLS, Mamoulian's SILK STOCKINGS and Sidney's not quite so great PAL JOEY, but it has its moments ...  I need to see 1955's MY SISTER EILEEN now again too, with more Fosse and Tommy Rall as well as Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett and Jack Lemmon. 

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 ...

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.