Two Blondes

Grace Kelly, "To Catch a Thief," 1955.

Grace Kelly only starred in about a dozen films; three of them were for Hitchcock.  I prefer her roles in "To Catch a Thief" and "Rear Window," where she gets to play something of an accomplice to the main male characters, as opposed to "Dial M for Murder," where she is the target.  But in all of these films she is smart, beautiful, and of course "classy."  I don't know how else to put it. 

Jean Harlow, "The Public Enemy," 1931.

"The Public Enemy" was a big film for Harlow, as it was for Cagney.  His big scene is where he shoves the grapefruit in his girlfriend's face.  He's coming up in the (gangster) world; all she does is nag nag nag.  So he ditches her.  Why not?  He's got Jean Harlow waiting in the wings.  They make a good on-screen couple.  Both brash and photogenic, with similar penetrating eyes. 
Something I forget about "The Public Enemy" - it takes place in Chicago.  Except for a few stock footage shots of the El, streetcars, and a stockyard, though, and a reference to Kedzie street here and there, it's hard to tell.

How to Spend a Rainy Afternoon

Augie and Grammy pass the time on a rainy day.

Five Stars of the '30s, '40s, and '50s

Jean Arthur 

Jean Arthur, "The More the Merrier," 1943.

"The More the Merrier" is a great home-front wartime comedy from 1943 that addressed a very real problem; housing shortages in Washington DC and other centers of politics and industry.  Jean Arthur advertises her spare room for rent, and character actor Charles Coburn weasels his way into the apartment, even though Arhur was looking for a woman renter.  Coburn recognizes that Arthur doesn't allow herself to have much fun, so when Joel McCrae shows up also looking for a room, Coburn rents him half of his room.  Coburn works as something of a matchmaker, orchestrating screwball situations for McCrae and Arthur to get to know each other.  It's really funny!  Lots of spit takes and slamming doors, misconstrued situations and even some good social commentary.  And Arthur and McCrae make a good romantic couple.

Glenda Farrell

Glenda Farrell, "Goldiggers of 1935," 1935.

Glenda Farrell often played hard boiled characters, whether as a reporter, a gold digging secretary, or even tough as nails gangster molls.  I wasn't really aware of the breadth of her career until I caught a recent retrospective of her work on Turner Classic Movies.  She appeared in important supporting roles in many early seminal 1930s films, including "Little Caesar," "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," "The Match King," and "Lady for a Day."  Later she would star in many, many smaller films, in a series of films as girl reporter Torchy Blaine,  and layer in her career finding an enduring life on TV.

Kim Novak

Kim Novak, "Vertigo," 1958.

I don't think I quite got Novak's beauty in this sketch.  She's like a ghostly china doll in "Vertigo" in the early scenes, when Stewart still believes her to be Madeleine, before he believes she jumped from the bell tower.  There's something about her eyes that I didn't get.

Maureen O'Hara

Maureen O'Hara, "The Foxes of Harrow," 1947.

 

For so many years I only knew Maureen O'Hara from "The Quiet Man."  But of course she's had a long and varied career, and she played many variations of "haughty" women, including this odd film from 1947.  She's the daughter of a wealthy landowner in pre-Civil War New Orleans who is wooed by gambler Rex Harrison.  She reluctantly agrees to marry him, but it turns out to be a difficult marriage because of Harrison's unconventional approach to wealth and work.  I really enjoyed the early scenes in this film.  Harrison is a real scoundrel, and O'Hara is simply stunning.  Unfortunately the film became more of a dull domestic drama and lost my interest by the last act.   

Edward G. Robinson

Edward G. Robinson, "Little Caesar," 1931.

Edward G. Robinson shot to fame in this role, modeled after gangster Al Capone.   It amazes me that he was able to avoid stereotyping and go on to appear in such different genres as biopics, dramas, and even comedies.  I did this quick trace/sketch from a great close-up late in the film when he realizes he can't betray his friend, an old partner who is trying to leave the life and go straight.   Robinson just looked devastated and lost. 

"Show Boat" (1936); Two Sides of Elizabeth Taylor; and Joan Fontaine

"Show Boat" 1936

Hattie McDaniel, "Show Boat," 1936.

Hattie McDaniel and Paul Robeson overshadow the leads in 1936's "Show Boat," directed by James Whale for Universal.  Irene Dunne plays the singer who gives up her fame to follow her gambler husband, riding the ups and downs of his winning and losing streaks, until she eventually leaves him and returns to the stage.  Dunne is great in the part. 

But it's Hattie McDaniel and Paul Robeson that really stand out for me.  This version of "Show Boat" doesn't gloss over the racial plot point that forces Dunne's mentor from leaving the show; Julie LaVerne (Helen Morgan) has "mixed blood" and is therefore a Negro, and she's married to a white man.  Her husband pretends to have Negro blood as well, so they avoid jail, but they are forced to flee the show, allowing Dunne's Magnolia to become a star. 

Paul Robeson, "Show Boat," 1936.

Director Whale gives Robeson and McDaniel plenty of screen time early in the film, not just as foils for the white stars, but as real, developed characters with their own backstory.  It's fun to watch them act against each other.  And of course Robeson's rendition of "Old Man River" is phenomenal, and it's given proper visual treatment by Whale.

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, "Suddenly Last Summer," 1959.

Here are two visions of Ms. Taylor, from only seven years apart, showing what tremendous range and skill she had as an actress.  In "Suddenly Last Summer" (1959) she plays a young woman in a mental institution, suffering from memory loss and general hysteria, scheduled for a lobotomy by Dr. Montgomery Clift.  She's suffering from trauma (spoiler alert) after seeing her cousin mauled to death at a beach resort.  The cousin was gay and trolled for conquests using the beautiful Liz, and his mother - played icily by Katherine Hepburn - wants to keep this under wraps, so she's happy to lobotomize her niece.  It's a strange, dark, psychological drama.   

Taylor is vulnerable and beautiful; scenes of her at the beach, dressed evocatively as "bait" for her cousin, are striking.

Elizabeth Taylor, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," 1966.

She won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966).  She's an alcoholic, the wife a history professor who is stuck at a middle rung of his career.  The fact she's the college president's daughter makes her extremely bitter about her husband's failure to advance; and (spoiler alert) their inability to have a child has also taken much of the love from their marriage.  She has turned to other men at the college searching for something she can't get from her husband, leaving their relationship hollow. 

It's a classic performance.

Joan Fontaine 

Joan Fontaine, "Letter from an Unknown Woman," 1948.

In the melodrama "Letter from an Unknown Woman" (1948) Joan Fontaine plays a young woman in early 20th Century Austria infatuated with a self-centered pianist.  She basically stalks him until he notices her; they have a brief affair, she gets pregnant, and he goes on a worldwide tour, where he promptly forgets about her.  She marries a generous man who accepts the child as his own, but she can't get over her infatuation, and when she bumps into the pianist, years later, she can't help but fall for him again.  But he doesn't even remember her! 

The husband (spoiler alert) leaves her because of the infatuation, the child dies of consumption (or something just like it), and she dies in a convent - and writes all of this down in a letter, delivered to the pianist after her death.  What a whopper!  He had a son and never knew it; he had her in his arms again, and didn't know who she was.  And Fontaine is great in the role as someone longing for someone and something she will never fully have.

"Retired" 16mm Film Projection and Editing Equipment

Retired 16mm film projection and editing equipment from my personal collection, including a Bell & Howell projector, a single gang sync, and a splicer. 

Photographed using Canon Powershot SX280 HS, a nifty "point and shoot" camera with a nice zoom and manual aperture.

Three Stars: Arden, Henreid, Kelly

Eve Arden

Eve Arden, "Comrade X," 1940.

Eve Arden plays a smart-mouthed girl reporter in this Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer penned comedy.  The big stars are Clark Gable as an investigative reporter black-mailed into marrying strident Communist Hedy Lamarr (as if one needs to be blackmailed into that marriage).  He's supposed to get her out of Russia because she's a target of a potential purge.  It's a funny film with patented Hecht/Lederer banter, in many ways reminiscent of "The Front Page."  And Eve Arden is great in her supporting role as the "best friend" gal pal who might be a better reporter than Gable.

Paul Henreid

Paul Henreid, "Deception," 1946.

Paul Henreid plays Bette Davis' cellist husband in this psychological drama.  She's an artist who has been living the high life as the "companion" of demanding, eccentric maestro Claude Rains.  When she marries Henreid she tries to keep her life with Rains secret (hence the title), but Rains butts into their life, writing a concerto for Henreid to perform.  What is Rains' motive? To destroy the young couple, or to help a new protege?  Will Davis ever come clean to Henreid?  And can Henreid's fragile psyche manage the drama AND perform the concerto?  It's a good, complicated Warner Bros. drama.

 

Gene Kelly

Gene Kelly, "An American in Paris," 1951.

I could sketch Gene Kelly all day.  This is from late in "An American in Paris," as he watches Leslie Caron leave with her French cabaret singer for a boat to America.  He's brooding.  He's serious.  And he's about to dance his "ballet." 

Dick Powell, Susan Hayward X 2, and Jane Greer

Murder, My Sweet

Dick Powell, "Murder, My Sweet," 1944.

 

This is Powell as Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe in "Murder, My Sweet,"  the great adaptation of "Farewell, My Lovely."  I like Powell as Marlowe, especially in the scenes with the big bruiser Moose Malloy, the guy looking for "his Velma" that sets the story in motion.  Powell is both hard-boiled and sardonic, as only someone who had been through the Hollywood trenches as he had could be.   

 

They Won't Believe Me

Jane Greer, "They Won't Believe Me," 1947.

"They Won't Believe Me" is a screwy film noir starring Robert Young as a cheating husband.  That's putting it lightly; he cheats on his nagging, but innocent, wife first with nice-girl Jane Greer; then when forced by his wife to take a job out of town, he cheats on his wife with bad girl Susan Hayward.  

Susan Hayward, "They Won't Believe Me," 1947.

The wife kills herself; Susan Hayward dies in a car crash; and Young gets blamed for both deaths.  Greer tricks him into turning himself in.  At his murder trial, she sees he's really innocent, but unable to overcome his guilt (and satisfy the Production Code) he tries to kill himself, but he's shot and killed before he can finish jumping out the window.  The verdict, read post mortem?  Innocent.  Like I said, screwy film. 

 

Deadline at Dawn 

Susan Hayward, "Deadline at Dawn," 1946.

Talk about screwy, "Deadline at Dawn" needs multiple flow charts and power point slides to explain the plot.  A sailor gets accused of murder and Susan Hayward plays the dance hall girl who, along with a philosophical cabbie, try to figure out if he actually killed her.  Maybe he imagined it?  Or maybe it's the gangster, or the blind piano player, or any one of a dozen other real and false leads.  Susan has lots of crazy lines and Paul Lukas is great as the cabbie.