Top Secret Affair (1957)



“It’s against my religion. I’m a devout coward.”

            Dorothy “Dottie” Peal (Susan Hayward) is head of Peale Enterprises which include TV, radio, and magazine publishing. She’s a tough, determined lady who does not back down when she wants something. Her magazine has been campaigning for a friend of her father’s as chair for the Joint Atomic International Committee but unfortunately the family friend does not get the job. Eisenhower himself has chosen a military comrade Major General Melville Goodwin (Kirk Douglas). Dottie is out for revenge. She cannot believe that someone she sees as chauvinistic and bullheaded as Goodwin got the job. Dottie immediately plans to smear Goodwin’s name by trying to find dirt on him. She invites the general to her house for the weekend for an interview. Her staffs set up a recorder in the living room and even hang up a portrait of the general to make it seem they have supported him for a long time.

 

            The weekend starts off well but when Dottie and her staff cannot get any kind of dirt on the general they start to panic and begin thinking of things he said to twist. Goodwin is onto Dottie he knows there is some hidden agenda to what she is doing, he is determined to not give in. Dottie decides to make Goodwin loosen up by taking him out for drinks thinking she can get him drunk. Instead it is she who is getting drunk while the general is nice and sober. She then takes him to a restaurant and makes him sing to humiliate him. He does get humiliated but he does not show it and that night back at the house he packs his things. As he packs a drunken Dottie is out his window calling for him and throws a rock through the window. They have more drinks and Dottie becomes more intoxicated.

            When she sobers up Dottie realizes that Goodwin is a very sensitive and caring man. The two spend some nice together alone in the pool house. The next morning Dottie is already to drop her smear campaign and write a nice article promoting Goodwin. But Goodwin says that he is not the marrying kind and blabs about how he had loved someone when he was overseas but she was a spy and had to be killed for what she knew. Dottie is furious over his leaving her. She has Goodwin’s story about the spy printed getting herself and the general into some major trouble.

            Alright, so Top Secret Affair started off well but once Dottie stopped being the shrewd business woman to a woman in love letting her emotions get the best of her the film just tanked. This film is just one of the reasons why I cannot stand many films during the late 1940s and 1950s. America was so wrapped up in Communism and being patriotic it is almost sickening. Now let me back myself up and say that I consider myself a patriotic American but sometimes patriotism can go too far and get out of hand. I see the whole McCarthy era as one gigantic embarrassment in American history and because I find the whole thing ridiculous it bothers me to sit through anything that has to do with the senator and his hearings. Once I saw the film was about an American general I knew I was heading into a little bit of trouble. At the beginning the film was fun and sexy and really enjoyable then once the whole trial with Goodwin being accused as a traitor gets going I found myself mad and bored and really did not pay too much attention. I think really what it comes down to for me when I watch a film I really do not want to see modern issues thrown into the fold… “Art for art’s sake” I guess could be my motto on films. I just do not really see good stories in political themed films or thrillers.

            Susan Hayward and Kirk Douglas were so good together. I do not believe I have ever sat through a Kirk Douglas film before, I did not know what to expect from him but I found myself liking him he was perfect as a bull headed American general. Susan Hayward was fabulous. She always brought a tough side to her characters whether intentional or not and that toughness was perfect for this role.

            My favorite scene was when Dottie was drunk and she was standing on the high diving board above her pool. She is ranting and raving about something and he is totally not listening. He knows she is going to fall in the pool so as she is raving on and on he starts to take off his jacket, shoes, and socks to go get her when she does fall in. Of course she falls in and he gets up from his chair and waits a bit besides the pool before jumping in. Later in the pool house as Dottie sobers up she realizes she is in a bathing suit so she asks Goodwin how she got in it. He tells her she put it on but she had to put it on twice because the first time it was backwards. He also lets her know that they played a game called “Navy” she made up where he was the battleship and she was the torpedo. Those two scenes are the best part of the whole film.

            Top Secret Affair was originally intended to star Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart and followed the book more closely. By the time filming was to start Bogart was already dying from esophageal cancer and could barely speak so he backed out as well as Bacall who had to take care of him. When Susan Hayward and Kirk Douglas were cast the script was rewritten to better suit the two actors. I can kind of see Bogart and Bacall playing the characters but then you have to think their version of the story was much different.

            Top Secret Affair starts off well but does not end well which is a big letdown especially because Susan Hayward and Kirk Douglas were so great together and were doing wonderfully with the comedy. I wish Hayward and Douglas could have made another film together and one that did not have a weak ending. I will still give it a recommendation as a film to see since it does have its good points.

The Heiress (1949)



“He's grown greedier over the years. Before he only wanted my money; now he wants my love as well. Well, he came to the wrong house - and he came twice. I shall see that he does not come a third time.”

            I happened to find The Heiress on sale at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and of course I had to get it Olivia de Havilland is the star and she won an Academy Award for her role. And I have also for the past couple of weeks have been on a bit of an Olivia de Havilland kick thanks to Monty over at All Good Things when he had the actress as his Classic Movie Goddess of the Month in July. Monty had The Heiress listed as one of his essential films to see of de Havilland.

            The Heiress is about a young woman named Catherine Sloper (de Havilland). Catherine is a quiet, naïve girl who lacks social skills and great beauty. Her father, Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson), is not at all pleasant to his daughter. He keeps comparing the poor girl to her mother who was beautiful and sociable and had great talent for many things. Catherine’s aunt Lavinia Penniman (Miriam Hopkins) keeps telling her brother to be nicer to Catherine and not compare her to her mother. Whenever Dr. Sloper is mean to Catherine she goes further into timidity and awkwardness.

            At a party one night Catherine meets a young man named Morris Townsend (Montgomery Cliff). He is very handsome and for the life of her she cannot figure out why he is following her and being nice to her. Morris dances with Catherine and even speaks to Dr. Sloper and Aunt Penniman. Aunt Penniman is totally smitten with Morris and is very excited to see a young man speaking to her niece. Dr. Sloper becomes very suspicious of the young man right off the bat. He reasons that the young man has no money and is only interested in his daughter because of her inheritance… and also because he cannot fathom any man being interested in his daughter since he thinks she is dull.

            Morris starts coming over to the Sloper house every day after the party. Catherine is very shy and embarrassed over his constant coming over and his professing how much he likes her. After a while she begins to feel comfortable with him being around and becomes blinded by his love. Morris keeps sucking up to Dr. Sloper but still he only sees the young man as only trying to get at money since Morris has no job and is not looking for one.

            Dr. Sloper decides to take Catherine to Europe for six months to get Morris off of her mind. If she still loves Morris in that time he will permit them to marry. Of course Catherine still loves him and she and her father leave their European trip early to get back home to New York. Once home and reunited with Morris, Catherine tells him that she wants to run away that night and marry him. Morris and Aunt Penniman had it planned that the two would marry the next day but Catherine cannot wait she wants to get married right away. She seems to make a mistake though by telling him that her father will disinherit her and she will not have the money she has been receiving from her mother’s death and what she will receive if the doctor dies. That night Catherine waits and waits for Morris to come with a carriage to take her away but he never comes and she does not hear from him for the next two years.

            Dr. Sloper is happy that Morris is gone. As he and his daughter talk about what has happened he reveals to her what he thinks of her. He tells Catherine she is a coward and plain, no man will ever love her, she has no backbone and the biggest blow that she is not like her mother at all. Catherine finally realizes her father does not love her at all he is ashamed of her. She gets a backbone and for the first time she tells her father to write her out of his will so she will have no money. He confesses he only meant he will disinherit her as a threat he never intended to leave her without money. Now she is very angry with him because she is still hurt from Morris leaving and he never would have left her had it been for her father.

            A few months later the doctor dies. Catherine never forgives her father for what he did and said to her that she does not even go to his side as he is dying. Not long after Morris comes back. Catherine has become a very bitter person and her bitterness comes out even more with Morris’s return.

            Will Catherine go back to the man she once loved or does she finally see Morris Townsend as her father saw him: a gold digger?

            While I will agree with Monty that this is a must see film I do not think it is an essential Olivia de Havilland film. Sure she won the Academy Award but I just cannot see how she won. De Havilland is nothing short of a great actress in any film she is in but I did not see how her performance as Catherine Sloper was enough to give her an Oscar. First of all, I think I may just be sick and tired of seeing her in period films. The woman did so many damn period films!!! In the beginning there is a scene of Catherine getting dresses and putting her slip or something on and I just though “Olivia de Havilland by this time must have been a pro at putting 1800s style clothing on.” Second, I thought she looked TERRIBLE! Seriously she looked like Gollum from Lord of the Rings! That was distracting I could not get over how awful she looked. The costumes were not bad at all but her hair and her lack of makeup did nothing for her. I think it was more the hairstyles than anything because when de Havilland played Melanie Hamilton she barely had any makeup on and she looked great but her hair here did not frame her face well at all. I apologize if this makes me seem shallow and mean but I was distracted by these things.

            Montgomery Cliff I can take him or leave him… mostly leave him. I just did not like him and it was not because of his character. I do not like his acting. Apparently he did not like Olivia de Havilland’s acting and the two of them did not get along. You can see their complete lack of chemistry I mean yes I know that Catherine was shy and Morris was forcing himself into her life and they had nothing in common but to me there should have been a little chemistry between the actors. I think Cliff is overrated as an actor I do not really see anything great about him. I did manage to sit through I Confess with him as the star but that is only because the story was good and it is a Hitchcock film.

            I had never seen Miriam Hopkins in a film before this. I thought she was good. Ralph Richardson was perfection as the evil, manipulative father.

            The Heiress has a good story, I believe it is a little ambiguous. I did not know whether to believe if Morris really loved Catherine or if he was just always after his money and just left her because he meant well and did not want to get her in trouble or he was upset she would no longer be getting money. Olivia de Havilland, as I said, is nothing short of a great actress and she does give a good performance just not an Academy Award winning performance. Even though I could care less about Cliff I did like the cast they were all excellent in their parts. If you are a classic film fan The Heiress is one film that you should not pass up.

            The Heiress is available on DVD and to view on youtube.

Carol Burnett's parody of The Heiress is hysterical

Wife vs. Secretary (1936)



“My dear, men are like that. So honorable and wise in some things and just like naughty children in others. You wouldn't blame a little boy for stealing a piece of candy if left alone with a whole boxful, will you?”

            So the title of Wife versus Secretary does not leave much imagination or surprise to the plot. I am sure you can probably guess who the wife is and who the secretary is. Today, if there is a plot like this, we are used insane sexual antics and actions that give the term “Screwball comedy” as we know it today a bad name. Usually we can count on a massive bitch fight happening between the cheated wife and the beautiful secretary. But this wife versus secretary plot was made in 1936 and only a mix of adorable, dramatic and moral things happens.

            Van Stanhope (Clark Gable) is a successful magazine publisher with a beautiful and loving wife named Linda (Myrna Loy). The film opens on the couple’s third wedding anniversary (*side note: is it only me or does it seem that every film that has an anniversary celebration the anniversary is always for the third year?*) and they cannot be any happier than the first day they were married.

            At work Van has a very helpful and very sweet secretary nicknamed Whitey (Jean Harlow). The first time we are introduced to Whitey we see her from behind as she us hanging up a caricature drawing (way to go MGM) of Van or “VS” as she and everyone else calls their boss. She is happy to see her boss since he had been on vacation for a few days. Right away we can see that the boss and the secretary are just really good friends neither one of them has any real feelings for the other except for being good friends. Van has been working with Whitey for a few years and Linda trusts that nothing is going on between the two she knows that Van really loves her. But suspicion begins to come into Linda’s mind when she and Van’s mother come to visit him and they see him and Whitey in a phone booth together. The only reason they are in the phone booth together is because Van wanted to call a competitor of his but he did not want the operator to say where the call was coming from. Linda becomes suspicious only because her mother-in-law had said that Van needs Whitey downtown at the office just as much and he needs her (Linda) uptown.

            A few days later Van takes Whitey on a secret business call. He wants to buy out a competitor’s magazine but he does not want anyone, including Linda, to know about the deal. This secret forces Van to lie to Linda about where he has been and doing and making her more suspicious of him. He calls on Whitey for business that has come up while he and Linda are hosting a party. Whitely leaves her house and her faithful and loving boyfriend Dave (James Stewart) who is starting to get upset with the way her boss take advantage of her. At the party Linda is nothing but sweet to Whitey as always and is even happy to see her. The guests begin to talk about the secretary and the boss after he takes her upstairs for business (and you can bet it is because remember this was 1936) and he even dances with her.

            The happiness begins to fade for Linda as suspicion creeps through her mind ever so faster. Everything comes to head after Van had promised to take her on a trip but he goes without her. Rumors she has been hearing are beginning to seem like reality.

            Now I cannot tell you the rest you will have to see for yourself but I am sure you can guess if you have a good imagination… or you have seen countless of classic love stories.

            Ok I need to gush over how unbelievably freaking adorable Myrna Loy and Clark Gable were together. Yes, I am saying that Clark Gable one of the great macho actors of Hollywood was adorable! The two of them had such fantastic chemistry that just explodes in the first half of the film. There is one scene that was so sweet it makes your teeth hurt: Linda is talking to Van (about what I forget) but is not being really straight forward with her. He finishes washing his face and he starts kissing her nose and being nice as she is trying to talk. Clark Gable kissing Myrna Loy’s famous nose makes my list for one of the cutest scenes from a movie ever. So Gable and Loy are fabulous together even in the serious scenes of the film. What made their chemistry so great was that Loy always knew how to be in sync with her costars especially Gable she knew to play tough with him and kind of not take his crap. Gable was really bubbly, jumping all around like a love sick little boy. I was a little leery with Jean Harlow because I could not take her in Libeled Lady I thought she was so annoying so I can kind of prepared myself for that. I was very surprised with Harlow she was really good. It seemed like she was trying to be taken more seriously as an actress she was not playing a smoking hot blonde like her usual. Her best scene of the film was when she and Loy had a heavy scene together. That in itself was a great scene very very well played by both actresses. Whitey was a really good character and Harlow played it so well. Now I am just hoping that she is like this in her other films because I have a bunch of them downloaded. James Stewart was his normal “aw shucks”, love sick little boy he played earlier in his career. I do not normally care for Stewart so I did not really think anything of him here.

            Clarence Brown directed the film. I liked the way he directed the cast. He got some great close up shots of the characters either together or individually.

            The Art Deco sets throughout the film are so awesome. Art Deco is one of my favorite art styles and MGM to me always had the best Deco sets… well it did not hurt that they had Cedric Gibbons as their main set designer.

            Wife versus Secretary is a very good film. The acting by Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Jean Harlow is excellent. You can really see that the three of them were good friends in real life and their friendship really adds a lot to the film. The story is nothing new and not that exciting but do not let that deter you from seeing it. Wife versus Secretary is definitely a classic film to see. It is neither too silly nor too dramatic it is just right.

Cry Wolf (1947)



“Next time you hear some odd noise in the night, just follow the memorable custom of your sex and stick your head under the bedclothes.”

            Cry Wolf is a Noir (if it can be classified as a Noir) that is not very well known. It stars two of Hollywood’s most classic actors Errol Flynn and Barbara Stanwyck. I had never heard of the film before I typed in Stanwyck’s name on Amazon to see what films of her's were available on DVD. I was curious to see Cry Wolf not only for its title and plot but for the combination of Flynn and Stanwyck.

            Sandra Demarest (Stanwyck) has gone to her husband’s family home for his funeral. She never would have known he was dead if she had not read it in the papers. As Sandra explains Jim married her for the sake of his inheritance to keep his uncle Mark (Flynn) from getting the money. From the moment she gets to the house Sandra senses something strange is going on. Jim’s casket is closed when he apparently died of phenomena and Mark and a family friend are suspicious of her and her marriage to Jim. They believe she is just some woman Jim knew and is after his great sum of money.

            Jim’s sister, Julie, instantly takes to Sandra and reveals many things to her. Julie says that her uncle is untrusting and believes her uncle killed her brother because Jim did not do what Mark wanted him to do. Julie is scared to stay in the house by herself and one night she runs into Sandra’s room after hearing a scream coming from Mark’s laboratory. Someone usually tells Julie the screams are just a nightmare she has but Sandra also hears it. They go to investigate the scream but are stopped by Mark.

            The next day Julie takes Sandra to look at Jim’s room. Sandra has been suspicious of Jim’s death since the day she came to the house and her suspicion was on overdrive once she started looking around the room. She notices Jim’s pipes are missing as well as his sport clothes in the closet. She finds out from the maid that Mark has food sent up to him at 10:30 every night through the dumbwaiter in the kitchen and it is brought down at two in the morning. Sandra decides to use the dumbwaiter to get into the lab. In the lab she hits a water cooler making it move when she hears a noise and hides behind the door Mark opens. He notices some things that are out of place but he just goes back into his lab.

            Things go from bad to worse for Sandra. Julie kills herself out of insanity and Mark just sees her as a little experiment to which she slaps him for. Now Sandra has become more determined to find Jim and uncover why Mark is hiding him and what lies under his seemingly sinister demeanor.

            The ending to the film is not good. The whole thing runs so smoothly with excellent suspense and tension and then the last ten minutes are not good, I would not say it sucks or its garbage it just ruins the flow.

            I loved Barbara Stabwyck and Errol Flynn together. Everyone is so used to seeing Flynn as this debonair sword wielding good guy but he was so good as the sinister Mark Caldwell. From the moment he enters the film I loved him I thought his character was great. One reviewer on IMDB said that Flynn reminded them of characters George Sanders played and I have to agree and Flynn was so good at it. This role for him was so different and he got to play something different and it was great to see him stretch his acting talent. Barbara Stanwyck was so good. She was the tough chick that she loved to play who was also heroic and unafraid to uncover the truth. She leapt, climbed a fence and through an open roof window, and more. Stanwyck gives a great performance I enjoyed her very much.

            Whatever you do when/if you watch the film do not think of the characters as their real ages. Stanwyck was forty years old and Flynn was thirty-eight years old. Mark was supposed to be Jim’s uncle and therefore older than Stanwyck’s character. I assume this situation is part of the story but I feel quite sure it is because a lot of times in classic films they usually made their actors and actresses ages much younger than they were.

            I have never heard of the director Peter Godfrey before but I really liked his direction he did a fabulous job of creating tension and suspense through camera movements and angles. Godfrey created the tension by focusing and panning on details such as Sandra’s hand when she turned on the light in her room and following Mark as he goes to sit down next to Sandra. Some of the camera angles were fantastic. The cinematography was excellent as well. The score was perfectly composed by Franz Waxman who added a great deal more of tension to the film.

            Cry Wolf starts off great and runs smoothly until the end. But do not let the end keep you from seeing the film. There are many great suspenseful moments to keep you enthralled and Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn are great together.

            Cry Wolf is available on DVD.

Midnight in Paris (2011)



“You're in love with a fantasy.”

            As an Art History/Museum Education major I have studied all the major art movements and their time periods. My favorite periods/styles are the Italian Renaissance, art during the French Revolution, Pre- Raphaelites, Impressionism, Post- Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Surrealism, and Art Deco. Last year at the International Center of Photography in New York City I was fortunate to see an exhibit called Twilight Visions: Surrealism and Paris. The exhibit featured photography by Surrealist photographers Man Ray, Ilse Bing, Brassaï, Germaine Krull, André Kertesz, Eugène Ategt, Dora Maar, André Breton, and many others. The photographs were all of Paris and the Parisian people at night in various hot spots. Most of the photographs are of common Parisian sites like the Eiffel Tower and The Pont Neuf but they were all taken from different angles and most of them at night with haunting and stimulating lighting. The photographs were incredible and so beautiful they let my imagination of Paris during that time soar. But it was not until I was in England last summer when I picked up a biography on Lee Miller that I truly started to imagine what life must have been like in Paris during the 1920s with all the artistic and literary figures gathering in the city at cafés and going to decadent parties. Paris was the artistic and cultural center of the world and never in one point in history was so many of these incredible people gathered all together at once. Just imagining seeing Gertrude Stein with Picasso and Matisse and Hemingway in a café or seeing Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald at a party gives me shivers of excitement.            

            I had been hearing so much about Woody Allen’s latest movie Midnight in Paris. All I knew about the movie was Marion Cotillard was in it and that it took place in Paris which these two aspects were enough for me to want to see it. I got a little uptight seeing Owen Wilson as the main character because the guy drives me nuts but he was actually really good as Gil Pender. Once the movie got going I was so pleasantly surprised at the plot because it is my Art History loving heart’s dream.

            Gil and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) are in Paris with her parents. Gil loves Paris he would really like to move there so he can write his book. Inez and her parents do not like the city and they do not like the French. Inez’s parents do not really think anything of Gil and she is totally wrong for him she is so demanding and keeps putting him down. To make the trip worse for Gil a former teacher of Inez named Paul and his wife are in Paris at the same time and Inez makes plans with them instead of just spending time taking in the sites with him (Gil).

            That night after a wine tasting party Paul and his wife invite Inez and Gil to go dancing. Gil does not want to go at all that is not his thing so he decides to walk back to the hotel. He gets lost when he stops at a corner on a side street. The clock strikes twelve when all the sudden an old fashioned car pulls up and the people inside shout for Gil to come with them to a party. They are all dresses in 1920s era clothing and so are the people at the party. At the party he notices the man who is singing at the piano from old sheet music. The first guest he talks to tells him her name is Zelda and her husband comes over and he introduces himself as Scott Fitzgerald. Gil thinks they are just pretending to be the famous literary couple but they are serious. He then realizes that the man on the piano is Cole Porter.

            The Fitzgeralds invite Gil to go out on the town with him and he has a great time. Towards the end of the night they come to small café where sitting at a table is Ernest Hemingway. Gil cannot believe that he is talking to one his literary heroes and questions the writer and tells him about his own book. Hemingway tells Gil that he will not read his book but will take him to see Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) the next night so she could read it. Gil leaves the café after Scott and Zelda leave but he realizes he never asked Hemingway where to meet the following day and when he runs back to café it is a modern day Laundromat.

            Gil cannot believe that he spent the night with great literary figures and that he is going to be giving his book to Gertrude Stein to read. The next night the same car arrives at midnight to bring him to Gertrude Stein’s. He first sees the great modern art patron in an argument with Pablo Picasso over one of his works. Stein agrees to read the book after she reads the first paragraph out loud. Hearing the reading was Picasso’s latest mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Adriana is a beautiful woman who came to Paris to study fashion for costume making with Chanel. She met and fell in love with Modigliani and lived with him for a few months then he left her, she met Braque, and that is how she met Picasso. Gil tells her he loves being in the 20s with all the interesting people but Adriana does not like her modern times she wishes she could go back to France’s Le Belle Époque where the country and the people were at their most beautiful and she could go to Maxim’s.

            As Gil goes back in time each night he falls in love with Adriana. He realizes that Inez does not love him or care for him and that she has probably had an affair with Paul. One night both he and Adriana get transported back to the Belle Époque to Maxim’s (which was decorating amazingly in Art Nouveau) where they meet Toulouse- Lautrec, Degas, and Gauguin. Adriana does not want to go back to the 20s she is in her Golden Age and does not want to go back.

            Gil realizes it is better to live in the time he lives in and look back to the past on what was because no matter what time period we live we always think that past ones are so much better than ours. He leaves Inez and falls in love with a girl he had met at an antique dealers in the city.

             Once I saw that Gil got to go back in time and be among the Lost Generation I was totally hooked and just adored the movie. I had such a good time seeing all these famous art figures depicted with their quirks and mannerisms and even some of their art that I have studied. During the movie I was thinking if I could go back and hang out with the Surrealists I would love to talk to Man Ray and Lee Miller and in one scene Gil gets pulled to a table by Salvador Dali (Adrian Brody) and Man Ray walks over! That was so cool, the actor playing Man Ray looked just like the artist it was scary. Adrian Brody was the spitting image of Dali he was perfect. I got especially excited when I saw Picasso’s painting (well a copy anyway) of Gertrude Stein in the scenes of Stein’s apartment because I have seen it in person before.

            Midnight in Paris was a fantasy that constantly plays through my mind. Whenever I study an art movement I always wish I could go back in time and talk to these inspiring people. If I could talk to a few artists/photographers I would love to talk to John Singer Sargent, Gustav Klimt, Man Ray, Lee Miller, Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon, Jacques- Louis David, Picasso, Matisse, Turner and so many more.  

            If there was one place and time period I would die to visit like Gil got to do it would be 1930s Hollywood. I am always asking my great- grandma what it was like to see all the classic films in the 30s in theaters and I would love to see them originally in the theaters for myself. I would also like to talk some of my favorite actors and actresses from that time too just as Gil got to talk to artists and writers. Also like Gil I would prefer living in the time I do now and look back on the past. In the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s everyone dressed so nice and classy and that is one thing I would like to see back again people taking pride in what they wore and looking classy and sophisticated.

            Midnight in Paris is a wonderful and original movie. Even if you do not know Art History or literature that well the movie is so great to sit through. Woody Allen just lets your imagination take off because you can imagine like I did what it would be like if you could go back to a time period that you admire. The 1920s and the early 1900s costumes were amazing. One costume Marion Cotillard was wearing looks like a Jean Patou dress that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has in their collection.

            Definitely see Midnight in Paris either in the theaters or when it is released on DVD. It is so original which is so rare in films. I guarantee that if you do not know the artists mentioned you will be interested enough to look up their lives and works.

            Let me just end with saying that Art History is not boring… well it can be (Non- Western and early colonial American art is the devil!!) but knowing the history of the time period a work was made in and why it was made and knowing things about the life of the artist makes art so much more interesting. I used to walk around museums when I was younger and look at paintings and think how boring but now I find so many interesting things in art. I can now give anyone a fantastic, very enthusiastic tour (to toot my horn) around the Metropolitan Museum of Art and make looking at the thousands of splendid art works more enjoyable.

Happy Birthday Myrna Loy!!!

“I don´t know any other actress who has the wit that Myrna Loy has. The kind of wit that amuses me – underplayed, suggested, very, very subtle. The whole look of her is witty and wise, but beneath all this there´s a kind of humanity and tenderness. She has something about her that touches your heart.”

George Cukor

            Today August 2, 2011 marks Myrna Loy’s 106^th birthday.

Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams in Helena, Montana in 1905 to a family of Welsh, Scottish, and English decent. Her father named her after seeing it as the name of a railway station. He was a very political from an early age becoming the youngest person ever to be elected to the Montana state legislature. The whole Willams family was political instilling in their daughter to have a great care for her country (this is surely where Loy got her very passionate political nature from).  Loy grew up in Montana until her father died when she was thirteen when her mother moved her and her younger brother to California.

            Once out in California Loy caught the acting bug. She used to perform little plays in her basement and take them very seriously. At fifteen she began to act and dance in local theater. Many of the stage plays were performed at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood where she met Lucille Le Suer aka Joan Crawford and would remain close friend with her for many years. At one show the great lover of the screen Rudolph Valentino was in the audience with his wife Natacha Rambova. He had seen one of Loy’s headshots and really liked her for a film he was about to do. But her test did not go so well, she was not yet ready to be a leading lady. Rambova liked her enough to cast Loy to be in a film she was making. Loy was dressed exotically by Adrian and so began her many years as the exotic vamp. Through the mid 1920s to the early 1930s, Loy played all the exotic and unmoral vamps. She had parts in two of the first synchronized sound films Don Juan and The Jazz Singer when she was signed with Warner Bros.

            By the early 1930s Loy had enough of playing the vamps. When her contract with Warner Bros had expired she finally got to head over to MGM. At MGM her reputation for the perfect wife and a witty independent woman would be made. In 1934 Loy made Manhattan Melodrama where she was paired with the man who would play her husband in thirteen films, William Powell.

            “My first scene with Bill, a night shot on the back lot, happened before we’d even met. Woody [WS Van Dyke, the director] was apparently too busy for introductions. My instructions were to run out of a building, through a crowd, and into a strange car. When Woody called “Action,” I opened the car door, jumped in, and landed smack on William Powell’s lap. He looked up nonchalantly: “Miss Loy, I presume?” I said, “Mr. Powell?” And that’s how I met the man who would be my partner in fourteen films.”

            Throughout the ‘30s Loy would also be paired with Clark Gable who was also in Manhattan Melodrama. In 1936 Loy and Gable would be crowned King and Queen of Hollywood as voted on by readers in a nationwide poll. Loy once and for all shed her exotic image and became the perfect wife (or as Loy once said in an interview she never saw Nora as the perfect wife she saw her character as “the perfect companion”) when she played Nora Charles the wife of detective Nick Charles in The Thin Man. Powell and Loy would play Mr. and Mrs. Charles in six Thin Man films. The pair’s other films in the 30s and into the 40s includes the amazing Evelyn Prentice, Love Crazy, Double Wedding, Libeled Lady, and The Great Ziegfeld.

            When World War II began Loy made very few films during that time instead she focused her energy on the war effort and campaigning for Roosevelt. Through her campaigning she became good friends with the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

            One of Loy’s first films after the War was The Best Years of Our Lives with Frederic March, Dana Andrews, and Teresa Wright, where she played the wife of a returning soldier. She received top billing and much acclaim and praise by the critics.

            As she became older Loy focused more on political causes and working for UNESCO and equal housing in New York where she settled. Loy said in an interview in the 70s “As I get older I get more radical.” She did not forget her roots as a performer and made her Broadway debut in the 1970s revival of The Women as well as playing in small theater companies. Loy continued to make films until 1981 with her last film also being the last for Henry Fonda.

            Myrna Loy lived out the rest of her life in New York City where she died on December 18, 1993 at 88.

            With the way I write about Myrna Loy on my blog you would think I have been a fan of hers for years which it certainly feels like but in reality I have been a fan of this wonderful lady for only six months. For the longest time whenever I trolled some DVD stores I would always see The Complete Thin Man Collection in the boxsets section. I always thought the drawn picture of the main actors was awful and I could not imagine that the films were any good. I remember the day like it was yesterday I was walking through the DVDs at Barnes and Noble and I came across TCM’s pack of Myrna Loy and William Powell films. I love photography and I was so struck with the picture of the two actors on the cover that I wrote down the films hoping to find them online. Right next to this pack was The Complete Thin Man Collection so now I had to give in and see what they were about. When I went home one weekend I asked my grandma about The Thin Man films and she said they were really funny. I downloaded them around Christmas time and all throughout my Winter Break I was addicted to watching The Thin Man films.

            I cannot exactly pinpoint the moment when I fell in love with Nick and Nora Charles/William Powell and Myrna Loy but I can tell you which scenes did: Nora asking if “you’ve got types” and Nick replying “Only you darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws”; Nora gets a little plastered after too many drinks and as she goes to get off the bed she falls over a little but tells Nick to stop pushing her when he never did; the two of them flicking and hitting each other teasingly when someone was talking on the phone; Nick telling an intruder that his wife doesn’t mind the gun but he is a timid fellow and Nora telling him he’s an idiot; and the part that will forever be one of my all time favorites “Says you were shot five times in the tabloids” “That’s not true. He came nowhere near my tabloids.” What makes The Thin Man so amazing is Powell and Loy’s chemistry and how Nora was not a wife who was always brushed to the side she was right along with Nick solving the case and he never treated her like she was less than what she was. After seeing so many classic films where it was all about boy chases girl and at the end they get married or if they were married they were not happy it was amazing to see a loving husband and wife who adored each other.

“The Thin Man would never have been the success it was without her. When the bed rolled beneath her in the hangover scene and she looked up at me with the ice bag on her head and said “You pushed me,” she became every man´s dream of what a wife should be: beautiful and glamorous with a sense of humor, provocative and feminine without being saccharine or sharp, a perfect gal who never lost her temper, jumped at conclusions, or nagged a guy. Men-Must-Marry-Myrna Clubs were formed. Hearty Nigel Bruce broke down and wrote his first fan letter. Jimmy Stewart said, “I shall only marry Myrna Loy,” while women wept.”- William Powell

            After watching the entire Thin Man series then watching all of Myrna Loy’s other films with William Powell I became a great admirer of hers. What I admire most about Myrna Loy is that she was very witty and funny but at the same time she was always so classy and sophisticated. I also greatly admire the fact that she never over acted. Time and again whenever I watch a classic film the actresses are always way too over dramatic and annoying. The moment I started to admire Loy for her acting was in the courtroom scene for Evelyn Prentice where her character begins to cry and become upset. She did not over act that scene at all she was perfect and in every other film I have seen her in where she has to be sad she never over did the tears or the sadness. In her incredibly amazing autobiography Being and Becoming (which I highly recommend reading if you can find it it is such a fantastic book) Loy addresses the fact that many critics said she tended to underact her parts. She said that she did not underact she played the parts as they were meant to be played. Loy studied theater and actors in plays, she saw that they did not over act so she did the same thing in her films. I feel you can learn so much about film acting by watching Myrna Loy’s films because she was so good at doing it and she embodies all the things that make classic Hollywood so amazing.

            All the costars she ever worked with had nothing but really nice things to say about her. Cary Grant probably summed up working with her the best:

“Have you ever been married? If you haven´t been married, then you can´t understand what it meant to have Myrna play your wife. Even when she fed me lines off camera, I´d look over and she´d be pulling down her hem or straightening a stocking in a subconscious wifely gesture, instinctively doing the things that married women do. Acting is like playing ball. You toss the ball and some people don´t toss it back; some people don´t even catch it. When you get somebody who catches it and tosses it back, that´s really what acting is all about. Myrna kept that spontaneity in her acting, a supreme naturalness that had the effect of distilled dynamite. She really became the perfect wife. Melvyn Douglas and I used to talk about it on Blandings. All the leading men agreed - Myrna was the wife everybody wanted. The only problem we had was her photographic memory. She seemed to look at a page and know her lines and mine. It was harder for me. “Careful,” I told her, “You´ll make me look bad on the set.”

“Myrna is just exactly the type of actress Willy loved. He never liked things that seemed too theatrical, overstated. She exudes powerful yet quiet femininity. It´s so inner. The subtlety of what goes on within her amazes me. You feel her sensual quality, her deep womanliness, while underneath there is always this little laugh lurking. She would look at Fred [March], and the distance caused by months and months of separation just vanished. It was a lovely thing to watch in rehearsal and in the actual scenes. You seldom realize during shooting when a scene is very, very special, but I always was aware of it in their scenes.”- Teresa Wright

            Never have I gotten so into an actress as I have with Myrna Loy. She is the only actresses from yesterday or today that when I sit through one of her films I know I will never be disappointed in her performance. Since first watching The Thin Man I have watched twenty- six of her film with many more yet to be seen as more of her films become widely available on DVD and on the internet. Myrna Loy is an actress I am proud to enjoy and look up to.

They Died with Their Boots On (1941)



“To hell ... or to glory. It depends on one's point of view.”

            Hollywood loves to take stories from the pages of history and turn them into romantic mushed up love affairs or just totally mangle the way things unfolded. I think the only book or movie to ever mix both romance and history together perfectly was Gone with the Wind. At least Margaret Mitchell researched the Civil War, Atlanta and the south, and the customs of that time period and the film was faithful to the book. I despised Pearl Harbor to no end I thought it was horrible especially the “love triangle” (maybe it is more due to the fact that I HATE Ben Affleck and Josh Harnett with a passion). Pearl Harbor was trying to be Titanic and it failed miserably.

            They Died with their Boots On is just one example of Hollywood taking a historic figure and turning that figure into a romantic, accidental hero who dies valiantly for the sake of his country. The historic figure being portrayed here is General George Armstrong Custer the famous Custer of Custer’s Last Stand. Errol Flynn plays the ill fated general. Custer starts off on the wrong foot at West Point when the film begins. He has the worst record ever in the school since he is always getting in trouble. One day at school he happens to meet a general’s niece named Elizabeth “Libby” Bacon (Olivia de Havilland) and they fall in love.

            Custer gets to graduate from school early due to the Civil War. The professors/board of the college is reluctant to pass the poor student through but soldiers are needed desperately. They send the young soldier down to Washington DC to await assignment. He is not given one for some time and he grows anxious and impatient. Custer meets the head of the army and the man gets him a spot in the best cavalry. Along the lines someone messes up in the War Department and Custer is given the title of Brigadier General. He makes a good general leading his unit to a major victory.

            In the mean time he meets Libby again and the two are still in love. They marry when he returns home from the war and he becomes the pride of the town. A few months go by and Custer turns to drink and he gets depressed with nothing to do. He wants to do something with his name and for it to mean something. Libby helps him out by talking to one of Custer’s superiors. The superior officer gets him a place out in the Dakota Territory at Fort Lincoln and Custer could not be happier.

            Custer is in way over his head. An old enemy from school is causing trouble with his trading posts and the Indians attack left and right if they leave the fort. On top of it all the soldiers of the fort are all disorganized and constantly drunk. Custer changes that by closing down the saloon and keeping the Indians out of the fort. The unit keeps fighting the Indians but after too much fighting the Indians make peace telling Custer that they can have all the land they want except for the Black Hills to which Custer agrees. Unfortunately Custer’s old enemy and some government officials want the land to make a railroad and they break Custer’s promise to the Indians. Custer is furious but no one will listen to him.

            The Indians and the unit wage a fight which will turn into Custer’s last stand. He does not want to fight but he feels it is his duty as a soldier of the United States.

            This was the last film that paired Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland together. I wish their last pairing could have been in a better film but their scenes were very good and they were the only ones worth paying attention to. They were such an excellent pair you can see how great their chemistry was, well it should have been after having done nine films together. You can see they were giving this paring their all and it clearly shows especially in their last scene. By this time in her career de Havilland wanted to do other roles, roles she felt were more important and had more substance since she had become a star in her own right. I mean come on, two years previously she had just played her best known character Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind and was even nominated for Best Supporting Actress I think she fully deserved to demand and want better roles. And seriously how much longer could she have gone on just playing Flynn’s love interest? Errol Flynn, being a good friend, fully supported her.

            The supporting cast was very well made up. Hattie McDaniel played Callie, Libby’s maid. Sydney Greenstreet was Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott. Anthony Quinn was Crazy Horse.

            Raoul Walsh directed the film. The guy was amazing. His films are always of the highest quality. Walsh got some great shots from close-ups of the actors to shots of the cavalry from high in the mountains. Max Steiner created the score and the man was (I believe) a total musical genius. His scores always add much more to a film.

            I was bored to death with They Died with their Boots On. I really only paid attention to the scenes Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland were in together. I felt the film was way too long. I guess I did not like it too much because I am not a huge fan of Westerns. The film obviously has more battles, horse riding through deserts, and fighting while I like more of a story even a mushy romantic story.

            They Died with their Boots On is definitely a romanticized historical drama (just go to IMDB and check out the long list of all the inaccuracies). I did not have a fantastic time watching it. It is not a god awful film but it was not the greatest. Check it out for the fact that it is the last film Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland made together and it is a Raoul Walsh film.