Here's what you need to know about Michael Kidd:
The 1953 Broadway musical Can-Can (1953) featured Gwen Verdon, who stopped the show cold with Kidd's "The Garden of Eden Ballet" on opening night and promptly went back to her dressing room to change costumes. So great was the audience's ovation that she was rushed back onstage to take another bow - clutching her costume in front of her, as she had not quite finished changing. Verdon won the Tony that year - her first of four - and became a star overnight Credit the dancer for the performance. Credit the choreographer for the dance.
Kidd also won a Tony Award for Can-Can - his third of five. The others were Finian's Rainbow (1947), Guys and Dolls (1950), Li'l Abner (1957) and Destry Rides Again (1959).
(Complete Broadway credits here.)
Kidd was one of the few choreographers (Fosse was the only other, really) to work successfully both on Broadway and Hollywood. His Guys and Dolls dances were re-created for the 1955 film. Other films include The Band Wagon, Star!, Hello, Dolly! and something about a bunch of horny backwoodsmen...
And on top of everything else, he was in Smile.
New York Times obit.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
All About The Katharine Hepburn Project...
The Katharine Hepburn Project was a grand idea that fell victim to my short attention span and my inherent distaste for following any kind of creative structure. As soon as I had to watch a KH movie a week, I wanted to do anything but. I'm transferring all of the entries from that blog over to this one and then shutting that one down. I still like the idea of watching all of her films in order, so I may keep it up - or I'll just delete everything related to it and insist to anyone and everyone that it simply never existed, which is pretty much what KH did with The Iron Petticoat, a copy of which I was actually able to find!
(I wrote pretty much the same post here.)
(I wrote pretty much the same post here.)
There's Gonna Be Some Changes Made
The biggest change, of course, being the actual posting of entries.
What can I say? - I have a very short attention span.
What can I say? - I have a very short attention span.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Happy Friday the 13th
Okay, so posting a link to an article I found only because it was on imdb's hit list is the laziest form of blogging, but how can I resist this quote?
Baktopia: How to survive Friday the 13th.
Jason is one inventive killer; he is like the Martha Stewart of the slasher genre.The article also features the montage of every Friday the 13th death scene, which you've probably already seen if you're interested in such things.
Baktopia: How to survive Friday the 13th.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
'Twas a noble idea.
And it seemed simple enough. Kathatine Hepburn made 52 films. I usually watch between three and four movies a week. So all I had to do was make sure one of them stars my favorite actressl. I already have most of her movies on tape or DVD and the ones I don't aleady have are readily available. Hell, I even tracked down a copy of The Iron Petticoat.
But then life intervened, as it so often does.
A show that I wrote was produced as part of a workshop of mini-musicals. A week later, the company I work for had its Big Annual Meeting. So I was left with very little free time and, well, I still haven't finished my review of Morning Glory, aka Film #3.
The concurrence of the show and the job resulted in my getting behind my one movie per week goal. Which meant catching up. And suddenly, something that was conceived out of joy became a responsibility. And it just wasn't fun anymore.
So stay tuned for some sort of reconfiguration of The KH Project.
JR
But then life intervened, as it so often does.
A show that I wrote was produced as part of a workshop of mini-musicals. A week later, the company I work for had its Big Annual Meeting. So I was left with very little free time and, well, I still haven't finished my review of Morning Glory, aka Film #3.
The concurrence of the show and the job resulted in my getting behind my one movie per week goal. Which meant catching up. And suddenly, something that was conceived out of joy became a responsibility. And it just wasn't fun anymore.
So stay tuned for some sort of reconfiguration of The KH Project.
JR
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
That sounds like rock and/or roll
I'm sure you've seen the OK Go video for "Here it Goes Again."
Very popular video. Won the first YouTune Video of the Year Award. I've only just now watched it for the first time, which isn't especially unusual since - surprise, surprise - the guy who writes the Katharine Hepburn blog isn't all that up to speed on current music.
But here's the thing. The guy in the pink shirt and vest? The bass player? Tim Nordwind? I know him. We went to college together. We made up half of class of 98 playwriting department at The Theatre School.
Tim is a brilliant playwright. One of the most creative I've ever read. His voice (as a writer) was so unique that he was my hero - something I told him all the time in college.
He wrote a play in college called... actually, it had several titles and I don't remember the final one, but the title isn't important. It was about the circus and I played the fortune teller, which isn't important either. What's important is that I based my entire performance on Katharine Hepburn's voice, circa On Golden Pond. Whenever I had trouble with getting into character, I just did a bad KH impersonation and presto! Worked every time.
I really should read the alumni newsletter more often, huh?
Very popular video. Won the first YouTune Video of the Year Award. I've only just now watched it for the first time, which isn't especially unusual since - surprise, surprise - the guy who writes the Katharine Hepburn blog isn't all that up to speed on current music.
But here's the thing. The guy in the pink shirt and vest? The bass player? Tim Nordwind? I know him. We went to college together. We made up half of class of 98 playwriting department at The Theatre School.
Tim is a brilliant playwright. One of the most creative I've ever read. His voice (as a writer) was so unique that he was my hero - something I told him all the time in college.
He wrote a play in college called... actually, it had several titles and I don't remember the final one, but the title isn't important. It was about the circus and I played the fortune teller, which isn't important either. What's important is that I based my entire performance on Katharine Hepburn's voice, circa On Golden Pond. Whenever I had trouble with getting into character, I just did a bad KH impersonation and presto! Worked every time.
I really should read the alumni newsletter more often, huh?
Sunday, June 3, 2007
KH Film #2: Christopher Strong (1933)
Director: Dorothy ArznerScreenplay: Zoe Akins, based on the novel by Gilbert Frankau
Producer: David O. Selznick
Studio: RKO
Cinematographer: Bert Glennon
Costume Designer: Walter Plunkett & Howard Greer (both uncredited)
Cast: Katharine Hepburn (solo billing above title), Colin Clive, Billie Burke, Helen Chandler
US Premiere: March 31, 1933
KH Firsts:
- First film with solo billing above the title
- First film with costumes by Walter Plunkett, who would work with KH on nine more movies, through the late 1940s
I'll confess that I had to watch Christopher Strong twice. Why? Because the first time I tried to write this entry, I couldn't remember half of the movie. I remembered the cast, a few of the themes and the basic plot elements, but none of the particulars stuck around long enough to take root in the vast wasteland of my mind where I store all the other cultural minutiae. What's so strange is that I like Christopher Strong. I liked it the first time I saw it, several years ago. I liked it last Sunday and I liked it tonight.
We begin at a treasure (scavenger) hunt party, hosted by Irene Browne. In order to win, one must produce a man who has been married more than five years, is still in love with his wife, has never had an affair, and is willing to say so in public; and a woman over 20 who has never had a love affair and isn't afraid to admit it. Helen Chandler and her unhappily married lover Ralph Forbes are determined to come out on top and go prude hunting.
Oh, the 30s. When the spoiled children of the upper class had nothing better to do than drink all night and look down on the unsophisticated.
Oh, the pre-Code era. Where men and women acted like Men and Women, without the need for third act repentance.
Chandler drives home to grab the most loyal husband she know, her father (and title character) Colin Clive. Forbes borrows a motorcycle and goes after Chandler, only to end up in a drag race with Katharine Hepburn, a well-known twenty-something aviatrix who - what luck! - has never had a love affair. Chandler talks Clive into coming to the party (he is Browne's brother) and Hepburn agrees to go back to join Forbes - it's the least she can do after running him off the road when their drag race is interrupted by a cement mixer.
I just love Hollywood.
All of the above takes place in the first ten or so minutes. What happens next is pretty obvious since the man who has never cheated meets the virgin and they're played by the two top-billed actors (third billed Billie Burke plays Clive's wife.) Clive and Hepburn are introduced and take an immediate liking to each other, and Hepburn becomes a big sister of sorts to only child Chandler. Their friendship (Hepburn and Chandler) make it all the more difficult for Hepburn and Clive to fight their feelings for each other. But when they unwittingly end up alone in a motorboat together on moonlit night (don't ask), complications, as they say, ensue.
KH is very good in this picture. We're first introduced to Lady Cynthia through a year-old newspaper trumpeting her latest achievements as a pilot and featuring several photos. She has made a success of herself in a man's world, but has it been at the expense of living?
Perhaps I've played the fool myself in choosing to live such a lonely life.
What makes the line so effective is that she utters it without a trace of self pity; she's simply wondering aloud. When she and Clive first begin their affair, she's troubled by the effect it will have on his family, and at the same time enthralled in the throes of her first love affair. One scene in particular has her waiting for Clive's arrival at her home. She paces around the room, nervously smoking cigarettes, without saying a thing. She doesn't need to tell us about her anguish because we can feel it. It's a marvelous moment, a lesson in screen acting.
As I mentioned above, KH has solo billing above the title. For her second film. Granted, a large part of that is the way the studio system worked. KH's role in A Bill of Divorcement - a lovely young woman supporting the older established Star - is the type that exists in countless scripts designed to get an actress noticed. It worked and the RKO machine went into overdrive to sell their new glamour queen, beginning with Christopher Strong. And what's the best way to sell a new face? Copy someone else's look, of course! Repeatedly, but not throughout, KH is lit with what was called a "north light effect:" one light is placed high above the actress, causing her cheek bones to cast shadows down on her face.
Look familiar? It's the same technique Josef von Sternberg used to show off Dietrich, who had taken Hollywood by storm just three years earlier (though, like everything else, the effect was more dramatic on Dietrich.)
I think it's also significant that KH wasn't cast in another ingenue role or two before achieving star billing. Most of the actresses we now think of as legends (Bette Davis, John Crawford, Norma Shearer, Myrna Loy) started out as extras, but not KH. While she paid her dues in the theatre - she was fired from her first several plays - she was a star in Hollywood virtually from day one.
(Add that to her wealthy New England breeding (not to mention that accent) and it's easy to see why she may not have been the most well-liked person on the RKO lot, earning the nickname "Katharine of Arrogance.")
Christopher Strong also marks the first time KH played a lady of society. Contrary to popular belief, she was an actress of remarkable range - a topic I'll delve into in another post at another time - and her most heartbreaking performance is as the decidedly middle class Alice Adams. But her persona as an actress and as a star was built around roles like Lady Cynthia Darrington: Terry Randall Sims (Stage Door), Susan Vance (Bringing Up Baby), Linda Seton (Holiday), Tracy Samantha Lord (The Philadelphia Story), Tess Harding (Woman of the Year), Amanda Bonner (Adam's Rib), Violet Venable (Suddenly Last Summer), Christina Drayton (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), and let's not forget Eleanor of Aquitaine (The Lion in Winter) were all, if not born to their respective manors, moved into them soon enough. After being declared box office poison in 1937, she had a major comeback with The Philadelphia Story in 1940, having learned the lesson that audiences liked seeing her taken down a peg - a lesson that became the formula for her most successful pairings with Spencer Tracy.
While the society role doesn't exactly mark a turning point in her career, it does make Christopher Strong a significant part of the KH canon. And as far as film history goes, it is the only time KH worked with Dorothy Arzner, the only female director in Hollywood at the time.
And where else are you going to see KH dressed as a moth in silver lamé?
Availability: VHS is out of print, used copies are somewhat scarce and run pretty high (the cheapest copy available through an amazon seller as I write this $36.94); it is in the TCM library and shows up from time to time.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Box Office Mojo: "Close-Up: Robert Osborne on Katharine Hepburn"
Scott Holleran, boxofficemojo.com, 05/09/07
An excellent interview with the host of Turner Classic Movies on KH.
Complete interview.
It's not a flattering quote about KH, but it's honest and a perfect example of why you have to separate the artist from her work (a lesson well-learned in 1992 when faced with the prospect of never again watching Annie Hall , but I digress). Like Garbo, whom Osborne also mentions, James Dean, Judy Garland and others, KH's legend has outgrown her self. We don't want to know anything about her that would in any way negate the image we've drawn from the characters we love. We need to believe that Jo March was named Woman of the Year and then settled down and grew old with Norman Thayer, Jr.
I have William J. Mann's Kate: The Woman who Was Hepburn, which is by all accounts an excellent biography, with much of the praise centered around Mann's deconstruction of KH's persona and legend. I'm both fascinated by the possibility and reticent to let go of the legend.
An excellent interview with the host of Turner Classic Movies on KH.
Box Office Mojo: Why didn't Katharine Hepburn attend the Oscars?
Robert Osborne: She was never sure she was going to win and she certainly didn't want to lose. There's probably no one more conceited than Katharine Hepburn. She always wanted to be the most fascinating person in the room.
Complete interview.
It's not a flattering quote about KH, but it's honest and a perfect example of why you have to separate the artist from her work (a lesson well-learned in 1992 when faced with the prospect of never again watching Annie Hall , but I digress). Like Garbo, whom Osborne also mentions, James Dean, Judy Garland and others, KH's legend has outgrown her self. We don't want to know anything about her that would in any way negate the image we've drawn from the characters we love. We need to believe that Jo March was named Woman of the Year and then settled down and grew old with Norman Thayer, Jr.
I have William J. Mann's Kate: The Woman who Was Hepburn, which is by all accounts an excellent biography, with much of the praise centered around Mann's deconstruction of KH's persona and legend. I'm both fascinated by the possibility and reticent to let go of the legend.
Friday, May 25, 2007
The House Next Door's 5 for the Day: Kate Hepburn
Sheila O'Malley, of the thoroughly enjoyable blog, The House Next Door, featured her 5 favorite Katharine Hepburn anecdotes - all backed up with actual research. She sums up KH's character (not characters) well:
These stories bring tears to my eyes. The bravery, the willingness to NOT KNOW, to still learn, to be okay with failing, to get up and try again.
Absolutely.
Be sure to check out the comments there as well. Some good discussion by people who type full words.
Monday, May 21, 2007
KH Film #1: A Bill of Divorcement (1932)
Director: George CukorScreenplay: Howard Estabrook & Harry Wagstaff Gribble, based on the play by Clemence Dane
Producer: David O. Selznick
Studio: RKO
Cinematographer: Sidney Hickox
Costume Designer: Josette de Lima
Cast: John Barrymore (solo billing above title), Billie Burke, Katharine Hepburn, David Manners
US Premiere: September 30, 1932
KH Firsts:
- First film
- First film at RKO
- First film directed by George Cukor
- First film produced by David O. Selznick film
A Bill of Divorcement (Sydney Fairfield)
It's Christmas Eve, the Fairfields are giving a party and love is in the air. Mother Billie Burke has just obtained [film title] from father John Barrymore, who has spent the past 15-odd years in an insane asylum. She is planning to marry Paul Cavanagh, the lawyer who *ahem* helped her get her divorce, in January. And before night's end, daughter Katharine Hepburn will be engaged to David Manners. Come Christmas Day and everyone is thrown for a loop when Barrymore is released from the hospital (he is billed above the title after all) and returns home to try and pick up the pieces of his life. Hepburn is in for the biggest shock of them all, as she has been led to believe that her father's mental illness is entirely the result of shell shock from the Great War, when in fact, it is a hereditary condition. Or, in her words, "So... in our family there's insanity."
Really, the biggest obstacle in enjoying the film is its treatment of mental illness. The words "mental illness" aren't ever even used. Whatever is wrong with Barrymore, it's simply referred to as "insanity." Either they didn't know any better or they assumed the audience didn't know any better - it doesn't really matter, as the film's treatment of the issue was handled with sensitivity for its time.
What does matter is that both Barrymore and Hepburn give strong performances. Nowadays, a popular actor playing a mentally ill character may as well be costumed in a "Nominate Me for an Oscar" sandwich board. It's clear that in this case, Barrymore is only concerned with giving a sensitive and genuinely moving performance. Which he does.
But this is a Katharine Hepburn blog, isn't it? in Me: Stories of My Life, KH describes her entrance in the film:
"The first shot was at a party my mother [Burke] was giving. In a long white dress, I floated down the stairs into the arms of David Manners." (p.141)
"Floated" is the exact right word to describe the moment. George Cukor was the perfect director for KH's first film - and just because we now know how well their films always turned out (they made ten in all, spanning five decades.) Cukor was a marvelous director (check out his filmography) with a keen eye for presenting an actress to her best advantage. From Me:
He was primarily an actor's director. He was primarily interested in making the actor shine. He saw the story through the eyes of the leading characters.
When I made A Bill of Divorcement, he set out to sell me to the audience: running down the stairs into the arms of David Manners - throwing myself on the floor - in Barrymore's arms. A sort of isn't-she-fascinating approach.
I'm sure it helped that she was as fascinating as he made her seem. She's good, especially for the first time out. What's remarkable is seeing a young actress with so much promise, already knowing that her career would exceed all imaginable expectations. Everything she had that made her a great actress and a great star is apparent, even if she hasn't quite learned how to use it all just yet.
This next part covers a major spoiler and I just hate it when a reviewer tells you a movie is worth seeing and then tells you how it ends. Highlight the big blank part to read it.
Burke goes off to marry Cavanagh as originally planned. Barrymore accepts that her life has moved on without him and he loves her enough to not deny her her happiness. He is content to live with his daughter and finally enjoy the company of the child he never knew. She hasn't told him that she's engaged and she forbids anyone else from revealing same, ultimately giving up her fiancee for her father, the man who needs her more. All of this is beautifully depicted in one gesture. Hepburn and Barrymore are sitting together after Burke and Cavanagh have gone and she hears Manners calling to her (they whistle to each other, it's cute) from outside. She gets up, walks to the window, closes the drapes and goes back to her father. No tears. No speeches. It's heartbreaking and devastating.
End spoiler.
Rating: 7/10
Availability: VHS is out of print, but used copies are readily available and reasonably priced; shows up on Turner Classic Movies from time to time.
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Shelf's Top 11 Katharine Hepburn Films
Based on the three entries I just read, The Shelf is a blog you definitely want to bookmark. I disagree with a few of the choices on their KH list (Rooster Cogburn?), but that's the beauty of blogging, isn't it?
Saturday, May 12, 2007
New York Times: "Hepburn, Revisited"
William Mann, New York Times, 5/12/07
Mann, author of Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, penned this op-ed piece for today's Times.
Mann, author of Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, penned this op-ed piece for today's Times.
Hepburn became an American Rorschach test, mirroring the ways we wanted to see ourselves. Each generation redefined her, rubbing out and adding to her myth.Full article.
New York Post: "True Grit: Wayne vs. Hepburn"
Lou Lumenick, New York Post, 5/10/07
"Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne, born two weeks apart 100 years ago this month, wouldn't seem to have much in common besides being icons of Hollywood's Golden Age and their late-in-life teaming in Rooster Cogburn (1975). "
Lumenick continues with an amusing comparison of their careers.
Full article.
"Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne, born two weeks apart 100 years ago this month, wouldn't seem to have much in common besides being icons of Hollywood's Golden Age and their late-in-life teaming in Rooster Cogburn (1975). "
Lumenick continues with an amusing comparison of their careers.
Full article.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Required Reading: The A.V. Club's Summer Movie Preview Fall DVD Preview
"With the quality and convenience of DVD, plus widescreen televisions that boast images as crisp as a freshly minted dollar bill, air conditioning alone isn't enough to drive today's consumers to their local googolplexes. For the first time in decades, the movies have to be watchable, too, which is presenting Hollywood with its most formidable challenge since it tried to turn Gretchen Mol into the next big thing. Armed with the only materials necessary to make important movie-going decisions—plot synopses and occasionally trailers—the A.V. Club film staff has assembled this helpful guide to which spectacles must be seen among the text-messaging teens, and which ones might be better appreciated on the La-Z-Boy six months later."
Highlight:
Delta Farce
What it's about: A trio of dumb-ass National Guardsmen (Larry The Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, and DJ Qualls) headed to Iraq are accidentally dropped in Mexico, which they mistake for a war zone. Such a quagmire might seem hopeless, but if anyone can engineer a desirable outcome in such a trying situation (or "Git-R-Done," as it were), it would of course be Qualls. And to a lesser extent, Larry The Cable Guy.
Why it might be worth seeing in theaters: The primal charisma and raw animal sexuality of Qualls, Engvall, and The Cable Guy can only be appreciated fully on the big screen. IMAX would be ideal, but the lesser screens at the local multiplex will have to do.
Why you're probably better off waiting for the DVD: Do you really want to be seen in public shelling out for a movie starring Larry The Cable Guy? We didn't think so.
Possible special feature: Actual MRI footage conclusively showing audience members losing brain mass as they watch the film.
Complete Article at theavclub.com.
Highlight:
Delta Farce
What it's about: A trio of dumb-ass National Guardsmen (Larry The Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, and DJ Qualls) headed to Iraq are accidentally dropped in Mexico, which they mistake for a war zone. Such a quagmire might seem hopeless, but if anyone can engineer a desirable outcome in such a trying situation (or "Git-R-Done," as it were), it would of course be Qualls. And to a lesser extent, Larry The Cable Guy.
Why it might be worth seeing in theaters: The primal charisma and raw animal sexuality of Qualls, Engvall, and The Cable Guy can only be appreciated fully on the big screen. IMAX would be ideal, but the lesser screens at the local multiplex will have to do.
Why you're probably better off waiting for the DVD: Do you really want to be seen in public shelling out for a movie starring Larry The Cable Guy? We didn't think so.
Possible special feature: Actual MRI footage conclusively showing audience members losing brain mass as they watch the film.
Complete Article at theavclub.com.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Katharine Hepburn Celebrated on Turner Classic Movies
In honor of Katharine Hepburn's approaching centennial, Turner Classic Movies is airing a week-long tribute to the actress, beginning Monday, May 7th.
An article about KH and the complete list of films can be found at the TCM website. Of special interest are the rarely seen (for good reason) Spitfire and The Little Minister (both on 5/7) and KH's 1973 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, aired in two parts on May 9th and 10th.
And on the subject of Katharine Hepburn, stay tuned to this space for my own personal tribue, coming soon.
An article about KH and the complete list of films can be found at the TCM website. Of special interest are the rarely seen (for good reason) Spitfire and The Little Minister (both on 5/7) and KH's 1973 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, aired in two parts on May 9th and 10th.
And on the subject of Katharine Hepburn, stay tuned to this space for my own personal tribue, coming soon.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
A Lovely Appreciation of Betty Hutton and Frank Loesser
When Betty Got Frank
Richard Corliss, time.com, 31 March 2006
Betty's notion of acting while singing was to break each lyric into its components, mine each phrase for the mood or situation, then act that out to the hilt, however short the phrase. Given the Johnny Mercer-Victor Schertzinger ballad "Not Mine" in her debut feature The Fleet's In, she dreamily croons the first line ("It's somebody else's moon above"), then immediately pulls a little girl's mope face for the words "Not mine." She took the same approach to acting, with multiple personalities flashing across her face with lightning speed and violence.
Others might run screaming from this jackhammer assault; Loesser ran and embraced it. He didn't want subtlety, he wanted salesmanship, and Betty has the pertest peddler around. He wrote more than a dozen songs for her, all to be found in The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser . They started with the 1943 "Murder, He Says," about a girl's jive-talking beau; during the number she jitterbugs, seesaws her shoulders, puts her hand to her tummy and sashays sexily — all stops out for Betty.
Click here for the complete article.
Richard Corliss, time.com, 31 March 2006
Betty's notion of acting while singing was to break each lyric into its components, mine each phrase for the mood or situation, then act that out to the hilt, however short the phrase. Given the Johnny Mercer-Victor Schertzinger ballad "Not Mine" in her debut feature The Fleet's In, she dreamily croons the first line ("It's somebody else's moon above"), then immediately pulls a little girl's mope face for the words "Not mine." She took the same approach to acting, with multiple personalities flashing across her face with lightning speed and violence.
Others might run screaming from this jackhammer assault; Loesser ran and embraced it. He didn't want subtlety, he wanted salesmanship, and Betty has the pertest peddler around. He wrote more than a dozen songs for her, all to be found in The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser . They started with the 1943 "Murder, He Says," about a girl's jive-talking beau; during the number she jitterbugs, seesaws her shoulders, puts her hand to her tummy and sashays sexily — all stops out for Betty.
Click here for the complete article.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Betty Hutton (1921-2007)
Betty Hutton, Paramount's incendiary blonde bombshell has died.Most of the biographical information I know about her is in her entry on imdb, which you can read in its entirety, here.
Turner Classic Movies will pre-empt its scheduled programming on Wednesday (3/15) from noon through 8:00 pm (Eastern) for a memorial salute to Hutton. Click here for details. If you can, try and catch Robert Osborne's Private Screenings interview with her at 7:00. Hutton led a turbulent life and she speaks of it rather candidly.
I've been a Betty Hutton fan for most of my life, having seen Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth when I was a kid. That movie holds the distinction of being the second worst Best Picture Academy Award-winner (right behindMichael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days in 1956), but it's still a great deal of fun. Hutton plays a trapeze artist in love with circus owner (or manager or something) Charleton Heston. She's finally earned the star spot in the center ring, but is bumped when bigger draw Cornel Wilde shows up. So there's your love triangle. Throw in James Stewart, who plays the entire film in clownface; Gloria Grahame as the assistant to an insanely jealous elephant trainer; Balloon Girl Dorothy Lamour (whatever that is); some honest-to-God Ringling Bros. clowns (including Emmet Kelley, who is photographed here for the only time without make-up); and one hell of a train wreck and you get 152 bloated minutes of fun, capped with a severely injured Heston yelling at Hutton, "Judas Priest, woman! You've got nothing but sawdust in your veins!" which can only be topped by our leading lady leading the finale with the film's title song.
She was marvelous in Preston Sturges's The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) as Trudy Kockenlocker, a single girl with an over-protective father (an hysterical William Demarest). In her devotion for doing her part for the war effort, Trudy goes out on the town with some soldiers about to be deployed overseas and wakes up the next morning with a ring on her finger and (as she later learns) a bun in the oven - but no memory of what happened. So she enlists the help of 4-F Eddie Bracken. Another superb satire from Sturges.
Turner Classic Movies will pre-empt its scheduled programming on Wednesday (3/15) from noon through 8:00 pm (Eastern) for a memorial salute to Hutton. Click here for details. If you can, try and catch Robert Osborne's Private Screenings interview with her at 7:00. Hutton led a turbulent life and she speaks of it rather candidly.
I've been a Betty Hutton fan for most of my life, having seen Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth when I was a kid. That movie holds the distinction of being the second worst Best Picture Academy Award-winner (right behindMichael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days in 1956), but it's still a great deal of fun. Hutton plays a trapeze artist in love with circus owner (or manager or something) Charleton Heston. She's finally earned the star spot in the center ring, but is bumped when bigger draw Cornel Wilde shows up. So there's your love triangle. Throw in James Stewart, who plays the entire film in clownface; Gloria Grahame as the assistant to an insanely jealous elephant trainer; Balloon Girl Dorothy Lamour (whatever that is); some honest-to-God Ringling Bros. clowns (including Emmet Kelley, who is photographed here for the only time without make-up); and one hell of a train wreck and you get 152 bloated minutes of fun, capped with a severely injured Heston yelling at Hutton, "Judas Priest, woman! You've got nothing but sawdust in your veins!" which can only be topped by our leading lady leading the finale with the film's title song.
She was marvelous in Preston Sturges's The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) as Trudy Kockenlocker, a single girl with an over-protective father (an hysterical William Demarest). In her devotion for doing her part for the war effort, Trudy goes out on the town with some soldiers about to be deployed overseas and wakes up the next morning with a ring on her finger and (as she later learns) a bun in the oven - but no memory of what happened. So she enlists the help of 4-F Eddie Bracken. Another superb satire from Sturges.
I'll end this with Annie Get Your Gun (1950, George Sidney) because, to be honest, it's the only other Hutton film I've seen. Judy Garland began the film but had to pull out due to illness (she had already recorded the soundtrack, which has had several grey-market releases). Despite her Paramount contract, Hutton actively campaigned for what she knew was a perfect role for her, MGM or no MGM, ultimately winning it and delivering one hell of a star turn.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
The New York Times Interviews Marni Nixon
Voice of the Many, but Rarely Herself
Frank J. Prial, New York Times, 6 March, 2007
The role of Mrs. Higgins, the mother of Prof. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, requires an actress capable of expressing hauteur, exasperation and motherly concern, sometimes all at once. What it does not require is a singing voice, as it is among that classic musical’s few roles without a song.
So who has been cast in the New York Philharmonic’s concert-style revival at Lincoln Center this week?
None other than Marni Nixon, perhaps the most famous singing-voice-without-a-face in the history of motion pictures.
“I’d love to have a song in the show,” Ms. Nixon said during an interview in her West End Avenue apartment in New York. “I’d love to be able to call up Alan Jay Lerner and Fritz Loewe and say, ‘Please, can you add something called ‘Mrs. Higgins’s Lament?’ But it isn’t going to happen, of course.”
Among her unseen roles were the singing voices for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Margaret O’Brien in The Secret Garden — as well as, most famously, Audrey Hepburn in the Oscar-winning screen version of My Fair Lady. Most recently, in 1998, she was the animated Grandmother Fa in Disney’s Mulan.
For her part, Ms. Nixon, 77, said she understood perfectly why the studio moguls chose to place famous faces in the starring roles and relegate her to the shadows.
“Hollywood wanted recognizable stars,” Ms. Nixon said. “And the fact that a lot of the stars couldn’t sing was only a minor inconvenience to the big producers.”
Her first dubbing job was for Miss O’Brien in The Secret Garden. Miss O’Brien, 12 at the time, was one of Hollywood’s top child stars. Ms. Nixon was 19.
Her first major job, she said, was singing the role of Anna in The King and I. “Deborah was tough to work with, but she was a complete professional,” Ms. Nixon said of Miss Kerr. “We worked on phrasing, we worked on interpretation, everything. It’s hard to believe now, but each number took a week.”
A dubber, Ms. Nixon explained, doesn’t simply substitute her voice for the actress’s voice. “The important thing is to sound as the actress would sound if she were doing the actual singing,” she said.
It being Hollywood, of course, sometimes the jobs verged on the ludicrous. Her work with Marilyn Monroe, for instance, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), consisted of just one phrase in one song — perhaps the musical’s most famous, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” The phrase: “These rocks don’t lose their shape.”
If the studio bosses had had their way, Ms. Nixon said, she would have done more. “Actually, the studio wanted her entire voice dubbed,” she said. “They thought her voice was silly. I thought her voice suited her persona beautifully.”
In 1964, when Ms. Nixon was tapped to sing Eliza Doolittle in George Cukor’s screen version of My Fair Lady, one of her chief concerns was how the choice would sit with Julie Andrews, who had had great success with the role onstage but was passed over by Hollywood for the established star: Hepburn.
“I did the job,” Ms. Nixon said, “but I felt uneasy,” especially when she and Ms. Andrews later worked together in The Sound of Music.
The story is now part of Hollywood lore: Ms. Andrews came out ahead by starring in Disney’s Mary Poppins and winning the Oscar for best actress in the same year that “My Fair Lady” was released. [Ms. Nixon voiced the animated geese in "Jolly Holiday" in that film.]
Ms. Andrews seemed to harbor no grudges, Ms. Nixon said. When the two appeared in The Sound of Music, she said, Ms. Andrews made a point of seeking her out, shaking her hand and saying, “I like your work.” (Ms. Nixon played one of the nuns.)
When Ms. Nixon was cast as Eliza in a City Center revival of My Fair Lady, Ms. Andrews helped her overcome anxiety about handling the role.
Ms. Nixon received a modest reward for her highly praised dubbing work: stepping in front of the camera before millions of people as a presenter at the 1969 Academy Awards. The category? Best musical score.
Perhaps naturally, not all the people whose voices she dubbed were happy about it. When filming West Side Story, Wood refused to cooperate, and Ms. Nixon worked by herself on the musical numbers. It was not entirely Wood’s fault; the studio bosses were keeping her in the dark about Ms. Nixon’s true role.
“She thought I was there for backup and that she would be doing the entire picture,” Ms. Nixon said. “In fact, they didn’t like her singing, and, without telling her, proceeded to use my voice.”
And when Wood found out? “Well, she was enraged,” Ms. Nixon said. [Natalie Wood's vocals can be heard on the special edition DVD of West Side Story. The correct decision was made.]
Ms. Nixon will be surrounded by a high-wattage cast at this week’s Philharmonic staging of My Fair Lady, including Kelsey Grammer as Henry Higgins, Kelli O’Hara as Eliza Doolittle, Brian Dennehy as Alfred P. Doolittle and Charles Kimbrough as Col. Hugh Pickering. There will be four performances in Avery Fisher Hall, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Born in 1930 into a musical family in Southern California, Ms. Nixon started learning the violin at 4. Soon she had a singing act with her sisters. But young Marni had bigger plans. As a child she was an extra in dozens of films. As a teenager she joined the Roger Wagner Chorale (in which her best pal was another teenager, Marilyn Horne) and began to sing in local concerts. She won enough parts to make her solo debut at 17, in Carmina Burana, under Leopold Stokowski at the Hollywood Bowl.
Though the dubbing work has drifted away, Ms. Nixon said, she keeps busy. “I still do a lot of singing,” she said. “The idea is to choose the things that are possible for me to do well and to be useful to the play at the same time. It’s just too bad people know how old I am because my voice sounds like I’m much younger.”
She was in the Broadway musical James Joyce’s The Dead, with Christopher Walken, in 1999, and she has put together a one-woman show about herself, titled The Voice of Hollywood.
She describes her show as a stroll down memory lane. “I show some stills from the films I dubbed, tell some stories, sing a few things and answer questions about my life,” she said. “People always love to ask me questions. And why not? I’ve had a really fantastic life, I think.”
Nixon also dubbed for Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember. The liner notes in the remastered edition of The King & I's soundtrack feature more of Nixon's recollections of working with the great Deborah Kerr. The album also contains some material that was cut from the film, including Mrs. Anna's soliloquy, "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" The number shifts back and forth between dialogue and song, and Kerr and Nixon recorded it standing side by side at the same microphone, each pointing to the other when it was her turn to take over.
When I was in college, I took a film class on the genre of the movie musical. My professor told us that Barbara Cook dubbed Audrey Hepburn's voice in My Fair Lady. I tried to tell him he was wrong by asking, "Wasn't it Marni Nixon?" He assured me that it wasn't and I let it go. Don't I tell the best stories?
For further reading... Ms. Nixon has also recently published a biography, I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, that was co-written with Stephen Cole, who has also written, among other things, the book and lyrics to a musical version of The Night of the Hunter.
Seriously. I have the album.
Frank J. Prial, New York Times, 6 March, 2007
The role of Mrs. Higgins, the mother of Prof. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, requires an actress capable of expressing hauteur, exasperation and motherly concern, sometimes all at once. What it does not require is a singing voice, as it is among that classic musical’s few roles without a song.
So who has been cast in the New York Philharmonic’s concert-style revival at Lincoln Center this week?
None other than Marni Nixon, perhaps the most famous singing-voice-without-a-face in the history of motion pictures.
“I’d love to have a song in the show,” Ms. Nixon said during an interview in her West End Avenue apartment in New York. “I’d love to be able to call up Alan Jay Lerner and Fritz Loewe and say, ‘Please, can you add something called ‘Mrs. Higgins’s Lament?’ But it isn’t going to happen, of course.”
Among her unseen roles were the singing voices for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Margaret O’Brien in The Secret Garden — as well as, most famously, Audrey Hepburn in the Oscar-winning screen version of My Fair Lady. Most recently, in 1998, she was the animated Grandmother Fa in Disney’s Mulan.
For her part, Ms. Nixon, 77, said she understood perfectly why the studio moguls chose to place famous faces in the starring roles and relegate her to the shadows.
“Hollywood wanted recognizable stars,” Ms. Nixon said. “And the fact that a lot of the stars couldn’t sing was only a minor inconvenience to the big producers.”
Her first dubbing job was for Miss O’Brien in The Secret Garden. Miss O’Brien, 12 at the time, was one of Hollywood’s top child stars. Ms. Nixon was 19.
Her first major job, she said, was singing the role of Anna in The King and I. “Deborah was tough to work with, but she was a complete professional,” Ms. Nixon said of Miss Kerr. “We worked on phrasing, we worked on interpretation, everything. It’s hard to believe now, but each number took a week.”
A dubber, Ms. Nixon explained, doesn’t simply substitute her voice for the actress’s voice. “The important thing is to sound as the actress would sound if she were doing the actual singing,” she said.
It being Hollywood, of course, sometimes the jobs verged on the ludicrous. Her work with Marilyn Monroe, for instance, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), consisted of just one phrase in one song — perhaps the musical’s most famous, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” The phrase: “These rocks don’t lose their shape.”
If the studio bosses had had their way, Ms. Nixon said, she would have done more. “Actually, the studio wanted her entire voice dubbed,” she said. “They thought her voice was silly. I thought her voice suited her persona beautifully.”
In 1964, when Ms. Nixon was tapped to sing Eliza Doolittle in George Cukor’s screen version of My Fair Lady, one of her chief concerns was how the choice would sit with Julie Andrews, who had had great success with the role onstage but was passed over by Hollywood for the established star: Hepburn.
“I did the job,” Ms. Nixon said, “but I felt uneasy,” especially when she and Ms. Andrews later worked together in The Sound of Music.
The story is now part of Hollywood lore: Ms. Andrews came out ahead by starring in Disney’s Mary Poppins and winning the Oscar for best actress in the same year that “My Fair Lady” was released. [Ms. Nixon voiced the animated geese in "Jolly Holiday" in that film.]
Ms. Andrews seemed to harbor no grudges, Ms. Nixon said. When the two appeared in The Sound of Music, she said, Ms. Andrews made a point of seeking her out, shaking her hand and saying, “I like your work.” (Ms. Nixon played one of the nuns.)
When Ms. Nixon was cast as Eliza in a City Center revival of My Fair Lady, Ms. Andrews helped her overcome anxiety about handling the role.
Ms. Nixon received a modest reward for her highly praised dubbing work: stepping in front of the camera before millions of people as a presenter at the 1969 Academy Awards. The category? Best musical score.
Perhaps naturally, not all the people whose voices she dubbed were happy about it. When filming West Side Story, Wood refused to cooperate, and Ms. Nixon worked by herself on the musical numbers. It was not entirely Wood’s fault; the studio bosses were keeping her in the dark about Ms. Nixon’s true role.
“She thought I was there for backup and that she would be doing the entire picture,” Ms. Nixon said. “In fact, they didn’t like her singing, and, without telling her, proceeded to use my voice.”
And when Wood found out? “Well, she was enraged,” Ms. Nixon said. [Natalie Wood's vocals can be heard on the special edition DVD of West Side Story. The correct decision was made.]
Ms. Nixon will be surrounded by a high-wattage cast at this week’s Philharmonic staging of My Fair Lady, including Kelsey Grammer as Henry Higgins, Kelli O’Hara as Eliza Doolittle, Brian Dennehy as Alfred P. Doolittle and Charles Kimbrough as Col. Hugh Pickering. There will be four performances in Avery Fisher Hall, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Born in 1930 into a musical family in Southern California, Ms. Nixon started learning the violin at 4. Soon she had a singing act with her sisters. But young Marni had bigger plans. As a child she was an extra in dozens of films. As a teenager she joined the Roger Wagner Chorale (in which her best pal was another teenager, Marilyn Horne) and began to sing in local concerts. She won enough parts to make her solo debut at 17, in Carmina Burana, under Leopold Stokowski at the Hollywood Bowl.
Though the dubbing work has drifted away, Ms. Nixon said, she keeps busy. “I still do a lot of singing,” she said. “The idea is to choose the things that are possible for me to do well and to be useful to the play at the same time. It’s just too bad people know how old I am because my voice sounds like I’m much younger.”
She was in the Broadway musical James Joyce’s The Dead, with Christopher Walken, in 1999, and she has put together a one-woman show about herself, titled The Voice of Hollywood.
She describes her show as a stroll down memory lane. “I show some stills from the films I dubbed, tell some stories, sing a few things and answer questions about my life,” she said. “People always love to ask me questions. And why not? I’ve had a really fantastic life, I think.”
Nixon also dubbed for Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember. The liner notes in the remastered edition of The King & I's soundtrack feature more of Nixon's recollections of working with the great Deborah Kerr. The album also contains some material that was cut from the film, including Mrs. Anna's soliloquy, "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" The number shifts back and forth between dialogue and song, and Kerr and Nixon recorded it standing side by side at the same microphone, each pointing to the other when it was her turn to take over.
When I was in college, I took a film class on the genre of the movie musical. My professor told us that Barbara Cook dubbed Audrey Hepburn's voice in My Fair Lady. I tried to tell him he was wrong by asking, "Wasn't it Marni Nixon?" He assured me that it wasn't and I let it go. Don't I tell the best stories?
For further reading... Ms. Nixon has also recently published a biography, I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, that was co-written with Stephen Cole, who has also written, among other things, the book and lyrics to a musical version of The Night of the Hunter.
Seriously. I have the album.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Katharine Hepburn: The TCM Spotlight Collection to be released on May 29th
It's about damn time!
Kate the Great, one of the finest actresses in the whole history of celluloid, is finally getting her
due with her very own DVD collection, to be released 17 days after her 100th birthday (and *ahem* 25 days before my 31st birthday). This is not to begrude the Powers That Be (those who own rights to her films) on the number of her films that are available on DVD. We already have a Tracy-Hepburn collection (which was comprised of three films that had already been available for four years and a fourth that you could only get with the collection), three of her films were included in the Classic Comedies Collection, and numerous titles are available individually, including three stage performances. Compare this with the TWO Norma Shearer film currently available, and neither of them are from her richest years, before Irving died... but I digress.
But why quibble...more? Warner Home Video is bringing us six Katharine Hepburn films, all previously unavailable on DVD and all worth owning for the low low price of $59.95. At least, that's the suggested retail price. The cheapest I've found is DVDPlanet for $41.96, plus shipping. DeepDiscount has it for $43.52 and the shipping is free. The bastards at Best Buy have priced it above the SRP at $69.99, which apparently is how they make up for selling so many individual movies so cheaply. I'm really getting off track here. On to the movies:
Katharine Hepburn: The TCM Spotlight Collection:
The Corn Is Green (1979, George Cukor) is a made-for-TV remake of the 1945 Irving Rapper classic (currently unavailable, but it shows up on TCM from time to time), which featured Bette Davis as Miss Moffat, a spinster schoolteacher in a Welsh mining town. This is the only film in the collection that I haven't seen and I can only imagine that a 72-year-old Kate offers a much different interpretation of the role than did the 37-year-old Davis. Hepburn was nominated for an Emmy, and this was the last of ten films she made with Cukor, 47 years after the first. The Corn Is Green also offers the best tangential side note of the bunch: In 1974, Miss D agreed to reprise her role in a Broadway musical, entitled Miss Moffat. The show tried out in Philadelphia, where it closed. It seems the lading lady "hurt her back" and was unable to bring a ghastly show into New York. Stranger still is the fact that this would have been Davis's second Broadway musical. The first was 1952's Two's Company, which ran three months but was mercifully recorded and is now available on CD.
Dragon Seed (1944, Jack Conway & Harold S. Bucquet) is based on the novel by Pearl S. Buck. It's the story of a Chinese village and the most prominent Asian is the cast is the 14th-billed Clarence Lung, who may not even be Chinese (imdb didn't have any bio info). But this is Hollywood in the 1940s, so what can you expect? Caucasians aside, the acting is terrific and much less condescending than you'd think. At least as far as I can remember. I don't think I've watched Dragon Seed this century. The film received two Oscar nominations: Aline MacMahon (Supporting Actress) and Sidney Wagner (B/W Cinematography).
Morning Glory (1933, Lowell Sherman) features Kate's first Oscar-winning performance. She plays an actress trying to make it on Broadway. So she makes it with producer Adolphe Menjou. Luckily, this was made in the pre-code era, so everyone is very sophisticated about sex. Hepburn forgives Menjou for tossing her aside since she's much more interested in her career. The 1958 remake, Stage Struck, stars Susan Strasberg and Henry Fonda and is a prime example of the difference between the pre-code and enforced-code years. And that's really the only reason to ever watch Stage Struck.
Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) is the only time Kate worked with Vincente and the only film noir either of them made. Which isn't all that surprising considering the rest of their careers. Her co-stars are Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, with Edmund Gwenn once again playing Kate's father (one year later, he won an Oscar for playing Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, in case you were wondering Who That Was.) Honestly, all I remember about this film is that I think I liked it. I didn't even know Robert Mitchum was in it until I looked at the cast list, and I love me some Mitch.
Kate the Great, one of the finest actresses in the whole history of celluloid, is finally getting her
due with her very own DVD collection, to be released 17 days after her 100th birthday (and *ahem* 25 days before my 31st birthday). This is not to begrude the Powers That Be (those who own rights to her films) on the number of her films that are available on DVD. We already have a Tracy-Hepburn collection (which was comprised of three films that had already been available for four years and a fourth that you could only get with the collection), three of her films were included in the Classic Comedies Collection, and numerous titles are available individually, including three stage performances. Compare this with the TWO Norma Shearer film currently available, and neither of them are from her richest years, before Irving died... but I digress.But why quibble...more? Warner Home Video is bringing us six Katharine Hepburn films, all previously unavailable on DVD and all worth owning for the low low price of $59.95. At least, that's the suggested retail price. The cheapest I've found is DVDPlanet for $41.96, plus shipping. DeepDiscount has it for $43.52 and the shipping is free. The bastards at Best Buy have priced it above the SRP at $69.99, which apparently is how they make up for selling so many individual movies so cheaply. I'm really getting off track here. On to the movies:
Katharine Hepburn: The TCM Spotlight Collection:
The Corn Is Green (1979, George Cukor) is a made-for-TV remake of the 1945 Irving Rapper classic (currently unavailable, but it shows up on TCM from time to time), which featured Bette Davis as Miss Moffat, a spinster schoolteacher in a Welsh mining town. This is the only film in the collection that I haven't seen and I can only imagine that a 72-year-old Kate offers a much different interpretation of the role than did the 37-year-old Davis. Hepburn was nominated for an Emmy, and this was the last of ten films she made with Cukor, 47 years after the first. The Corn Is Green also offers the best tangential side note of the bunch: In 1974, Miss D agreed to reprise her role in a Broadway musical, entitled Miss Moffat. The show tried out in Philadelphia, where it closed. It seems the lading lady "hurt her back" and was unable to bring a ghastly show into New York. Stranger still is the fact that this would have been Davis's second Broadway musical. The first was 1952's Two's Company, which ran three months but was mercifully recorded and is now available on CD.
Dragon Seed (1944, Jack Conway & Harold S. Bucquet) is based on the novel by Pearl S. Buck. It's the story of a Chinese village and the most prominent Asian is the cast is the 14th-billed Clarence Lung, who may not even be Chinese (imdb didn't have any bio info). But this is Hollywood in the 1940s, so what can you expect? Caucasians aside, the acting is terrific and much less condescending than you'd think. At least as far as I can remember. I don't think I've watched Dragon Seed this century. The film received two Oscar nominations: Aline MacMahon (Supporting Actress) and Sidney Wagner (B/W Cinematography).Morning Glory (1933, Lowell Sherman) features Kate's first Oscar-winning performance. She plays an actress trying to make it on Broadway. So she makes it with producer Adolphe Menjou. Luckily, this was made in the pre-code era, so everyone is very sophisticated about sex. Hepburn forgives Menjou for tossing her aside since she's much more interested in her career. The 1958 remake, Stage Struck, stars Susan Strasberg and Henry Fonda and is a prime example of the difference between the pre-code and enforced-code years. And that's really the only reason to ever watch Stage Struck.
Sylvia Scarlett (1935, Cukor) is the first of four movies Kate made with Cary Grant. Sylvia and her father (Edmund Gwenn) are on the lam from the law, so she cuts her hair short and poses as a boy. Every time you come across an article on Katharine Hepburn's sexuality, a still from Sylvia Scarlett will accompany the text (see top of this post). A very young, kind of goofy and very cockney Cary Grant plays an amiable con man who hooks up with the Scarletts for a time. You might say that the film captures Cary Grant at his most Arch.
Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) is the only time Kate worked with Vincente and the only film noir either of them made. Which isn't all that surprising considering the rest of their careers. Her co-stars are Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, with Edmund Gwenn once again playing Kate's father (one year later, he won an Oscar for playing Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, in case you were wondering Who That Was.) Honestly, all I remember about this film is that I think I liked it. I didn't even know Robert Mitchum was in it until I looked at the cast list, and I love me some Mitch. Without Love (1945, Bucquet) is the lone film in the set that pairs Kate with Spencer Tracy. They're scientists who marry out of convenience instead of love (hence the title), but guess what happens? My memory on this one is a little foggy, too, but the supporting cast is pretty impressive with two of my favorite ladies, Lucille Ball and Gloria Grahame, as well as Keenan Wynn and Felix Bressart, who, even if you didn't know his name, you would likely recognize from his work in three Lubitch classics: Ninothcka, The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not To Be.
Friday, February 16, 2007
The Independent Interviews Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton: She wears the trousers
She became a star 30 years ago in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Lesley O'Toole meets the resolutely kooky actress
The Independent, 09 February 2007
Diane Keaton is famous for many things: for her eclectic work as an often comedic actress; for her relationships with high-profile men (Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, Al Pacino); for adopting a baby as a single mother at the age of 50, and then, at 55, another; and perhaps, most notoriously, for her dress sense. It was Keaton's Oscar-winning turn in 1977's Annie Hall that turned the trouser-suit into a high fashion item. Since then she has often found herself on "worst-dressed" lists.
Her appearance, then, today, in Beverly Hills, the day after her 61st birthday, is a revelation. She is a vision in a tight-fitting white Gucci trouser-suit, her legs long and very skinny, with strings of clear crystal beads stacked around her habitually covered neck. Keaton's new glamour-puss image is surely a holdover from easily the best film she has made this decade, Something's Gotta Give (2003), with Jack Nicholson. It is surely no coincidence that she is on American television as the older face of L'Oréal.
"I don't know if that means society is changing, but I'm so happy to be a part of it," she says. "People my age do buy products. Give me some lipstick! Give me some powder!" L'Oréal revelled in her being famously anti-cosmetic-surgery. "I need to be authentic. My face needs to look the way I feel."
She says that she signed on for her new movie, Because I Said So, because it was "full of fun situations" that she doesn't often get to play. "I loved being able to play someone drawn from all the great wacky comedy characters like Lucille Ball, constantly interfering with everyone and destroying their lives with wonderful intentions."
Unsurprisingly, given the industry's ongoing allergy to women over 40, Keaton says that she receives hardly any scripts. "But then I don't think anyone does. I don't think there are that many films being made, so it seems that even if you're at the height of your career - if you're Will Smith - you still maybe have only five or six options."
Yet with two children at home (11-year-old "Dexter the girl" and Duke, six), Keaton apparently needs the work, and is unusually frank about what it takes to hire her for your film: "Financing."
Her children do not see her films, even perfectly suitable family fare like 1987's Baby Boom. "I don't want to have that infringe on their lives." She would rather have the family play Scrabble, Old Maid and Monopoly. "And I do like reading with them. I think that's been the most fun for me in a way, just guiding them and watching how they learn to read."
There is a certain irony to Keaton's Because I Said So character meddling in her unmarried youngest daughter's love-life. Daphne, apparently, doesn't want Milly to end up alone, like her, yet Keaton has spent much of her life solo. And if she has not always loved it, she appears fully functioning and undeniably happy without a man.
"Oh, falling in love feels much better, less frightening in the movies," she laughs, deflecting the subject. "I loved kissing Jack. And I loved telling him how upset I was that he didn't love me as much as I loved him." Keaton insists that Nicholson invented the widely-reported tale of their real-life fling as a ticket-selling scam, though she patently adores him. "I fell in love with him when we were making Reds. No. Not in that way. [Keaton was dating the director and star Warren Beatty when she made the film]. But I have always loved him. Look at him. Oi! He's the greatest. That smile!"
Since she's not a touchy-feely person, do movies also provide her with a bit of human touch? "Yeah, maybe I'm getting my fix in the movies." She is at it again in Because I Said So."
The particularly grating Dorothy is, mercifully, far removed from her own mother. Keaton was born in Los Angeles to Dorothy (a housewife and amateur photographer - Keaton's own photos have been published many times) and Jack, a civil engineer. She knew early on what she would be when she grew up. "I wanted to be a performer on so many levels, but I failed so often. No one was interested in my talent when I was 12. I was constantly heartbroken because, even at school, I couldn't accomplish what I wanted. But my mother was my co-conspirator. She enabled me all my life. She would always step back and let me find my way. I think you have to have some failure in your life. It makes you stronger."
At high school, she played Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and later studied acting at two California colleges before dropping out to try her luck on stage in Manhattan. "It wasn't that I loved cinema right away. It started with certain pictures. I can remember loving To Kill A Mockingbird as a teenager. And when I got older I started liking foreign films because that was really exciting. I liked actresses: Jeanne Moreau, Anna Magnani and people like that. I identified with and cared about them. I loved Vanessa Redgrave. I thought, and think, she's great. There were certain actresses I clung to because I thought they had such powerful emotional lives and they were such compelling people. Such humanity."
She spent her New York nights singing for her supper in nightclubs. In 1968 she performed as an understudy in the Broadway musical Hair and caused something of a ruckus by refusing to get naked (despite the offer of a $50 bonus if she did). And then she got the job which changed her life, in the theatre production of Play It Again, Sam opposite its writer and star, Woody Allen.
On film, she appeared in The Godfather 35 years ago. Annie Hall, meanwhile, is 30 years old. "La-de-dah," coos the real Annie, as she does in the film. "The passing of time is mysterious. But I think that's what life is. There's nothing you can hold on to."
Keaton says she has never been proposed to by any boyfriend, famous or not. I ask if having dated some pretty spectacular talents means that she has high standards now when it comes to lovers. "I have no standards at all. It's just about what anyone needs, a connection. " She is still in touch with Allen and Beatty but can't quite put a finger on why she is resolutely single. "My mother never really gave me any direction about men, which has made it interesting. So I think I picked people I admired. And it's too hard to manage people like that."
Okay, so it's not a very deep interview. I hated Something's Gotta Give and have no intention of seeing Because I Said So, but any interview with Diane Keaton is worth reading.
She became a star 30 years ago in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Lesley O'Toole meets the resolutely kooky actress
The Independent, 09 February 2007
Diane Keaton is famous for many things: for her eclectic work as an often comedic actress; for her relationships with high-profile men (Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, Al Pacino); for adopting a baby as a single mother at the age of 50, and then, at 55, another; and perhaps, most notoriously, for her dress sense. It was Keaton's Oscar-winning turn in 1977's Annie Hall that turned the trouser-suit into a high fashion item. Since then she has often found herself on "worst-dressed" lists.
Her appearance, then, today, in Beverly Hills, the day after her 61st birthday, is a revelation. She is a vision in a tight-fitting white Gucci trouser-suit, her legs long and very skinny, with strings of clear crystal beads stacked around her habitually covered neck. Keaton's new glamour-puss image is surely a holdover from easily the best film she has made this decade, Something's Gotta Give (2003), with Jack Nicholson. It is surely no coincidence that she is on American television as the older face of L'Oréal.
"I don't know if that means society is changing, but I'm so happy to be a part of it," she says. "People my age do buy products. Give me some lipstick! Give me some powder!" L'Oréal revelled in her being famously anti-cosmetic-surgery. "I need to be authentic. My face needs to look the way I feel."
She says that she signed on for her new movie, Because I Said So, because it was "full of fun situations" that she doesn't often get to play. "I loved being able to play someone drawn from all the great wacky comedy characters like Lucille Ball, constantly interfering with everyone and destroying their lives with wonderful intentions."
Unsurprisingly, given the industry's ongoing allergy to women over 40, Keaton says that she receives hardly any scripts. "But then I don't think anyone does. I don't think there are that many films being made, so it seems that even if you're at the height of your career - if you're Will Smith - you still maybe have only five or six options."
Yet with two children at home (11-year-old "Dexter the girl" and Duke, six), Keaton apparently needs the work, and is unusually frank about what it takes to hire her for your film: "Financing."
Her children do not see her films, even perfectly suitable family fare like 1987's Baby Boom. "I don't want to have that infringe on their lives." She would rather have the family play Scrabble, Old Maid and Monopoly. "And I do like reading with them. I think that's been the most fun for me in a way, just guiding them and watching how they learn to read."
There is a certain irony to Keaton's Because I Said So character meddling in her unmarried youngest daughter's love-life. Daphne, apparently, doesn't want Milly to end up alone, like her, yet Keaton has spent much of her life solo. And if she has not always loved it, she appears fully functioning and undeniably happy without a man.
"Oh, falling in love feels much better, less frightening in the movies," she laughs, deflecting the subject. "I loved kissing Jack. And I loved telling him how upset I was that he didn't love me as much as I loved him." Keaton insists that Nicholson invented the widely-reported tale of their real-life fling as a ticket-selling scam, though she patently adores him. "I fell in love with him when we were making Reds. No. Not in that way. [Keaton was dating the director and star Warren Beatty when she made the film]. But I have always loved him. Look at him. Oi! He's the greatest. That smile!"
Since she's not a touchy-feely person, do movies also provide her with a bit of human touch? "Yeah, maybe I'm getting my fix in the movies." She is at it again in Because I Said So."
The particularly grating Dorothy is, mercifully, far removed from her own mother. Keaton was born in Los Angeles to Dorothy (a housewife and amateur photographer - Keaton's own photos have been published many times) and Jack, a civil engineer. She knew early on what she would be when she grew up. "I wanted to be a performer on so many levels, but I failed so often. No one was interested in my talent when I was 12. I was constantly heartbroken because, even at school, I couldn't accomplish what I wanted. But my mother was my co-conspirator. She enabled me all my life. She would always step back and let me find my way. I think you have to have some failure in your life. It makes you stronger."
At high school, she played Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and later studied acting at two California colleges before dropping out to try her luck on stage in Manhattan. "It wasn't that I loved cinema right away. It started with certain pictures. I can remember loving To Kill A Mockingbird as a teenager. And when I got older I started liking foreign films because that was really exciting. I liked actresses: Jeanne Moreau, Anna Magnani and people like that. I identified with and cared about them. I loved Vanessa Redgrave. I thought, and think, she's great. There were certain actresses I clung to because I thought they had such powerful emotional lives and they were such compelling people. Such humanity."
She spent her New York nights singing for her supper in nightclubs. In 1968 she performed as an understudy in the Broadway musical Hair and caused something of a ruckus by refusing to get naked (despite the offer of a $50 bonus if she did). And then she got the job which changed her life, in the theatre production of Play It Again, Sam opposite its writer and star, Woody Allen.
On film, she appeared in The Godfather 35 years ago. Annie Hall, meanwhile, is 30 years old. "La-de-dah," coos the real Annie, as she does in the film. "The passing of time is mysterious. But I think that's what life is. There's nothing you can hold on to."
Keaton says she has never been proposed to by any boyfriend, famous or not. I ask if having dated some pretty spectacular talents means that she has high standards now when it comes to lovers. "I have no standards at all. It's just about what anyone needs, a connection. " She is still in touch with Allen and Beatty but can't quite put a finger on why she is resolutely single. "My mother never really gave me any direction about men, which has made it interesting. So I think I picked people I admired. And it's too hard to manage people like that."
Okay, so it's not a very deep interview. I hated Something's Gotta Give and have no intention of seeing Because I Said So, but any interview with Diane Keaton is worth reading.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
New Boxed Sets A-Comin' Our Way!!!
The Gloria Swanson Collection (Passport/Koch, 2/13/07)
Male and Female (1919, Cecil B. DeMille)
Don't Change Your Husband (1919, DeMille)
Why Change Your Wife? (1920, DeMille)
The Affairs of Anatol (1921, DeMille)
Sadie Thompson (1928, Raoul Walsh)
Indiscreet (1931, Leo McCarey)
Smiles and Spectacles: A Harold Lloyd Treasury (Passport/Koch, 2/13/07)
(That link will take you to a list of all 23 titles in the collection.)
The Ultimate Adventure Collection (Passport/Koch, 2/13/07)
(That link will take you to a list of all 12 titles in the collection.)
Male and Female (1919, Cecil B. DeMille)
Don't Change Your Husband (1919, DeMille)
Why Change Your Wife? (1920, DeMille)
The Affairs of Anatol (1921, DeMille)
Sadie Thompson (1928, Raoul Walsh)
Indiscreet (1931, Leo McCarey)
Smiles and Spectacles: A Harold Lloyd Treasury (Passport/Koch, 2/13/07)
(That link will take you to a list of all 23 titles in the collection.)
The Ultimate Adventure Collection (Passport/Koch, 2/13/07)
(That link will take you to a list of all 12 titles in the collection.)
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Joan Blondell: 5 Decades, 5 Movies
Joan Blondell's first feature film was in Lloyd Bacon's The Office Wife (1930), where she stole the show from star Dorothy Mackaill. Her last role was in Joseph Van Winkle's The Woman Inside, which was released in 1981, but obviously filmed sometime before Blondell died in 1979. Her career didn't just span five decades, it lasted five decades. The longest she went without working was between 1947's Christmas Eve and 1950's For Heaven's Sake...years she spent married to theatrical impresario Michael Todd, who filed for bankruptcy and then ditched Joan for Elizabeth, who left him after she stole Eddie from Debbie.
1930s: Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933, Mervyn LeRoy). Despite the fact that she didn't really sing, Blondell was cast in musical after musical at Warner Brothers in the 1930s. In this one, she pretends to be her roommate, Ruby Keeler, in order to teach Warren William a lesson or two about chorus girls so the real Keeler can keep dating William's younger brother Dick Powell (who was married to Blondell at the time in real life) behind his back. It's a very lightweight Busby Berkeley musical until the finale, "Remember My Forgotten Man," when Blondell leads the entire company in a grandly staged indictment against Herbert Hoover. I miss the 30s.
So this Friday, I salute Joan Blondell, one of the very first and very best of the wisecracking blondes.
1930s: Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933, Mervyn LeRoy). Despite the fact that she didn't really sing, Blondell was cast in musical after musical at Warner Brothers in the 1930s. In this one, she pretends to be her roommate, Ruby Keeler, in order to teach Warren William a lesson or two about chorus girls so the real Keeler can keep dating William's younger brother Dick Powell (who was married to Blondell at the time in real life) behind his back. It's a very lightweight Busby Berkeley musical until the finale, "Remember My Forgotten Man," when Blondell leads the entire company in a grandly staged indictment against Herbert Hoover. I miss the 30s.1940s: Nightmare Alley (1947, Edmund Goulding). Blondell plays a fortune telling carny/scam artist alongside Tyrone Power, who eventually descends into drug-addled madness and is forced to take a job biting the heads off of live chickens. The film did not do well at the time.
1950s: Desk Set (1957, Walter Lang). Blondell works with Katharine Hepburn in the research department at a TV network. Enter computer man Spencer Tracy, who the women suspect of trying to automate them to the unemployment line. Joan and Kate have a terrific scene together getting drunk at the office Christmas party.
1960s: The Cincinnati Kid (1965, Norman Jewison). Blondell plays Lady Fingers, a card dealer who really gets under Edward G. Robinson's skin.
1970s: Opening Night (1977, John Cassavetes). Blondell plays a playwright who has very little patience for Gena Rowlands's existential crisis.
Every single one of these movies is available on DVD, so I just planned your weekend for you. You're welcome.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Inland Empire
The movie: Inland EmpireThe director: David Lynch
The year: 2006
The cast: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux
The confession I made to my friend Paul afterwards: "I think I lasted about an hour. After that, I didn't know who anybody was, what was going on, or why it took three hours to get there. Actually, I think it was more like 45 minutes. I only said 'an hour' to give myself more credit."
The first 45 minutes of the plot: Dern and Theroux are making a movie directed by Irons. It's a remake of something that never was finished because the leads were both murdered. And a strange German woman just moved into Dern's neighborhood. Julia Ormand watches human-sized rabbits dressed in people clothes on TV. Harry Dean Stanton, the AD, is broke and shamelessly borrows money from everyone in the cast. That covers the first 45 minutes.
The Point: um...it had Laura Dern? Does that count? And Justin Theroux and Jeremy Irons are both pretty hot. And it looked cool. But what the hell was up with those rabbits?
The score: 5.5/10
Why a 5.5 for something so baffling? I want to give Lynch the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he thinks the movie makes sense. And maybe I will, too, someday. And it had Laura Dern. And Justin Theroux and Jeremy Irons are both pretty hot. And it looked cool. And I'd rather sit through Inland Empire two or three more times before a Date Movie/Epic Movie double feature.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Review: The Cincinnati Kid
The Director: Norman Jewison
The Screenplay: Ring Lardner, Jr. & Terry Southern.
The Cast: Steve McQueen, Eddie G, Karl Malden, Joan Blondell, Ann-Margret, Tuesday Weld, Cab Calloway and a surpringly hot young Rip Torn.
The Year: 1965
The connections: Jewison would direct McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair three years later.
McQueen and Weld played opposite each other two years earlier in Soldier in the Rain.
Robinson and Blondell co-starred in Bullets or Ballots 29 years earlier.
Let’s pause a moment to consider: Only someone as cool as Steve McQueen could pull off the name Steve McQueen.
The plot: Everyone gathers in New Orleans to play poker. More to the point, to pit McQueen, the Kid, against Robinson, the Man, to see who comes out on top. Malden sets it all up and acts as dealer. He’s married to a very unfaithful and expensive Ann-Margret. Torn tries to fix the game by promising Malden a cut. Weld is McQueen’s fresh-off-the-farm girlfriend. Calloway sits in on the game. Joan Blondell is called in to spell Malden and needle the hell out of Robinson.
The point: Death before dishonor. What’s the point of honor if your dead? What’s the point of a life without honor?
Also intergenerational warfare and a good old-fashioned virgin/tramp showdown.
Double Feature Fun: The Sting.
Rating: 9/10. The cast, director and authors raise expectations before the opening titles are over and they all deliver. What makes the film great is that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Credit Jewison, cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop, editor Hal Ashby and especially producer Martin Ransohoff for bringing them all together.
Friday, February 2, 2007
5 Movies With 5 Different Bears
(because I'm from Chicago)
Real: Grizzly Man (2005, Werner Herzog)
Toy: A.I. (2001, Steven Spielberg)
Chicago: Brian's Song (1971, Buzz Kulik)
Animated: The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977, Wolfgang Reitherman & John Lounsbery)
Billy Bob: Bad Santa (2003, Terry Zwigoff)
Real: Grizzly Man (2005, Werner Herzog)
Toy: A.I. (2001, Steven Spielberg)
Chicago: Brian's Song (1971, Buzz Kulik)
Animated: The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977, Wolfgang Reitherman & John Lounsbery)
Billy Bob: Bad Santa (2003, Terry Zwigoff)
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Happy Birthday, King!
When I started this thing, I made a conscious decision to ignore birthdays. Too many, too often. I can't even keep up on the weekly DVD updates that I'm pretty sure nobody cares about anyway.
But this is the King.
Clark Gable earned that nickname when he was voted the King of Hollywood by some poll; Ed Sullivan crowned him in 1938 and it stuck.
I recently finished the book Deadly Illusions: Jean Harlow and the Murder of Paul Bern by former MGM story editor Samuel Marx and a dancer named Joyce Vanderveen, who was presumably his girlfriend at the time. The book, published in 1983, isn't great. MGM Producer Paul Bern married Jean Harlow in July of 1932. Two months later, his body was found in their home with a bullet through the brain. Officially, his death was labeled a suicide, though that conclusion has been under scrutiny since day one, mostly because several MGM executives (including LB himself) were at the scene several hours before the cops were called. The situation grew even fishier when Bern's brother announced that Paul had never had a secret first wife - even though no one had asked.
It's a fascinating subject for a book, and Marx & Vanderveen uncover a great deal of evidence that the secret first wife - who was scizophrenic - probably killed Bern. But a lot of their evidence is hearsay. The not-entirely-reliable biographer Charles Higham calls Marx out of the blue to say that Howard Strickling, MGM's head of publicity at the time, called him out of the blue about writing his (Strickling's) memoir. Strickling showed up at Higham's and confessed everything about the Paul Bern cover-up - after insisting that Higham neither record the conversation nor take notes. And of course, Strickling died before Higham revealed anything to Marx. Please.
There's a lot of extraneous information (Joyce lost her appetite when the restaurant they went to was decorated with hunting trophies! Parking is hard in Los Angeles!) that has nothing to do with Paul Bern or Jean Harlow. What is ultimately an occasionally dull 260-page book, could likely be trimmed to the length of a fascinating article in Vanity Fair. (Of course, it didn't help matters that I started Deadly Illusions right after reading James Ellroy's My Dark Places, a much better book about a man digging into the past to solve the death of someone close to him.)
And why do I bring all this up on Gable's birthday? Because reading about Jean Harlow made me want to see her in action, so I watched Red Dust last night. Directed by an uncredited (for some reason) Victor Fleming, Red Dust is the film Baby Jean was making when Bern died, but I_01.jpg)
chose it because it's my favorite Harlow movie and the best of the six films she made with Gable. He owns and runs a rubber plantation in Indochina. She's a "hostess" in trouble with the law in Saigon, hiding out until the heat dies down. Neither can resist the other's raw sex appeal and the sparks and banter fly.
Trouble ensues when the new surveyor shows up from the States with his wife (Mary Astor) in tow, but everything works out in the end. John Lee Mahin's script is packed with indelible dialogue, none of which I can remember at the moment. And if I have to re-watch the movie, I won't get this damn thing posted until tonight and no one will read it until after the King's birthday is over. Suffice it to say that never has a debate between roquefort and gorgonzola been so delightful.
Red Dust is not available on DVD yet (though it does show up occasionally on Turner Classic Movies), but two other Gable/Harlow vehicles are: China Seas and Wife vs. Secretary. Both are included in the divine Clark Gable Signature Collection, as is John Ford's 1953 remake of Red Dust, Mogambo. Re-set in Africa, Mogambo features Gable in the same role, with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in for Harlow and Astor. Unlike Red Dust, Mogambo was made under the strictures of the production code. And it shows.
But this is the King.
Clark Gable earned that nickname when he was voted the King of Hollywood by some poll; Ed Sullivan crowned him in 1938 and it stuck.
I recently finished the book Deadly Illusions: Jean Harlow and the Murder of Paul Bern by former MGM story editor Samuel Marx and a dancer named Joyce Vanderveen, who was presumably his girlfriend at the time. The book, published in 1983, isn't great. MGM Producer Paul Bern married Jean Harlow in July of 1932. Two months later, his body was found in their home with a bullet through the brain. Officially, his death was labeled a suicide, though that conclusion has been under scrutiny since day one, mostly because several MGM executives (including LB himself) were at the scene several hours before the cops were called. The situation grew even fishier when Bern's brother announced that Paul had never had a secret first wife - even though no one had asked.
It's a fascinating subject for a book, and Marx & Vanderveen uncover a great deal of evidence that the secret first wife - who was scizophrenic - probably killed Bern. But a lot of their evidence is hearsay. The not-entirely-reliable biographer Charles Higham calls Marx out of the blue to say that Howard Strickling, MGM's head of publicity at the time, called him out of the blue about writing his (Strickling's) memoir. Strickling showed up at Higham's and confessed everything about the Paul Bern cover-up - after insisting that Higham neither record the conversation nor take notes. And of course, Strickling died before Higham revealed anything to Marx. Please.
There's a lot of extraneous information (Joyce lost her appetite when the restaurant they went to was decorated with hunting trophies! Parking is hard in Los Angeles!) that has nothing to do with Paul Bern or Jean Harlow. What is ultimately an occasionally dull 260-page book, could likely be trimmed to the length of a fascinating article in Vanity Fair. (Of course, it didn't help matters that I started Deadly Illusions right after reading James Ellroy's My Dark Places, a much better book about a man digging into the past to solve the death of someone close to him.)
And why do I bring all this up on Gable's birthday? Because reading about Jean Harlow made me want to see her in action, so I watched Red Dust last night. Directed by an uncredited (for some reason) Victor Fleming, Red Dust is the film Baby Jean was making when Bern died, but I
_01.jpg)
chose it because it's my favorite Harlow movie and the best of the six films she made with Gable. He owns and runs a rubber plantation in Indochina. She's a "hostess" in trouble with the law in Saigon, hiding out until the heat dies down. Neither can resist the other's raw sex appeal and the sparks and banter fly.Trouble ensues when the new surveyor shows up from the States with his wife (Mary Astor) in tow, but everything works out in the end. John Lee Mahin's script is packed with indelible dialogue, none of which I can remember at the moment. And if I have to re-watch the movie, I won't get this damn thing posted until tonight and no one will read it until after the King's birthday is over. Suffice it to say that never has a debate between roquefort and gorgonzola been so delightful.
Red Dust is not available on DVD yet (though it does show up occasionally on Turner Classic Movies), but two other Gable/Harlow vehicles are: China Seas and Wife vs. Secretary. Both are included in the divine Clark Gable Signature Collection, as is John Ford's 1953 remake of Red Dust, Mogambo. Re-set in Africa, Mogambo features Gable in the same role, with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in for Harlow and Astor. Unlike Red Dust, Mogambo was made under the strictures of the production code. And it shows.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Sidney Sheldon (1917-2007)
Sidney Sheldon was one of the most prolific screenwriters of the 1950s. I can only vouch for the films of his I've seen, but even if they comprised his entire body of work, it'd be one hell of a career.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947): Academy Award, Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Easter Parade (1948)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Dream Wife (1953, which he also directed)
He also created the TV series Hart to Hart and I Dream of Jeannie
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947): Academy Award, Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Easter Parade (1948)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Dream Wife (1953, which he also directed)
He also created the TV series Hart to Hart and I Dream of Jeannie
On DVD This Tuesday Yesterday...
A lot of good stuff is coming out this week. As always, a complete list of releases for 1/30/07 can be found at DVD Aficionado.
Twentieth Century Fox brings us three Doris Day films: Caprice (1967, Frank Tashlin), Do Not Disturb (1965, Ralph Levy) and Move Over Darling (1963, Michael Gordon), a remake the 1940 Cary Grant/Irene Dunne comedy My Favorite Wife. Move Over Darling was originally conceived as a vehicle for Dean Martin and Marilyn Monroe, called Something's Gotta Give and directed by George Cukor, but Monroe died before the film could be completed.
The fabulous Michelle Pfeiffer's Oscar-nominated performance in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989, Steven Kloves).
The Criterion Collection: Monsters and Madmen
The Atomic Submarine (1959, Spencer Gordon Bennett)
Corridors of Blood (1958, Robert Day)
First Man Into Space (1959, Day)
Grip of the Strangler (1958, Day)
The Silence of the Lambs: Collector's Edition (1991, Jonathan Demme). This is a two-disc set with all the trimmings: "Inside the Labyrinth: Making of The Silence of the Lambs" hour-long documentary; "The Silence of the Lambs: Page to Screen" 2 Part Documentary; "Jonathan Demme & Jodie Foster" 3 Part Documentary; "Scoring the Silence" featurette; Original 1991 Making Of Featurette; 22 Deleted Scenes; Outtakes Reel; Anthony Hopkins Phone Message; Photo Gallery; TV Spots; Theatrical Trailer; Teaser Trailer. A Hannibal Lecter collection is also released on the 30th, but it looks like it contains the single-disc release of SotL
Phyllis Diller: Not Just Another Pretty Face appears to be a compilation of some of her TV appearances. According to amazon, one of the special features listed is Phyllis on What's My Line?
Film Noir Double Feature: Please Murder Me (1956, Peter Godfrey) / A Life at Stake (1954, Peter Guilfoyle). Both of these films star Angela Lansbury. The former pairs her with Raymond Burr. I. Love. Hollywood.
Sinners in Paradise (1938, James Whale). I know nothing about this film, but anything directed by Whale is worth seeing.
Viva Pedro - The Pedro Almodóvar Collection
Carne trémula (Live Flesh) (1997)
La Flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret) (1995)
Hable con ella (Talk to Her) (2002)
La Ley del deseo (Law of Desire) (1987)
La Mala educación (Bad Education) - Original Uncut NC-17 Version (2004)
Matador (The Bullfighter) (1986)
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1988)
Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) (1999)
Warner Home Video releases the second (and final) round of the DVD Decision 2006 winners:
Angels in the Outfield (1951, Clarence Brown) (amazon.com Exclusive)
The Arrangement (1969, Elia Kazan)
Band of Angels (1957, Raoul Walsh)
Gymkata (1985, Robert Clouse): "The thrill of gymnastics. The kill of karate." Never has a tagline made me want to see a movie more.
Looker (1981, Michael Crichton)
Madame Curie (1943, Mervyn LeRoy)
Twentieth Century Fox brings us three Doris Day films: Caprice (1967, Frank Tashlin), Do Not Disturb (1965, Ralph Levy) and Move Over Darling (1963, Michael Gordon), a remake the 1940 Cary Grant/Irene Dunne comedy My Favorite Wife. Move Over Darling was originally conceived as a vehicle for Dean Martin and Marilyn Monroe, called Something's Gotta Give and directed by George Cukor, but Monroe died before the film could be completed.
The fabulous Michelle Pfeiffer's Oscar-nominated performance in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989, Steven Kloves).
The Criterion Collection: Monsters and Madmen
The Atomic Submarine (1959, Spencer Gordon Bennett)
Corridors of Blood (1958, Robert Day)
First Man Into Space (1959, Day)
Grip of the Strangler (1958, Day)
The Silence of the Lambs: Collector's Edition (1991, Jonathan Demme). This is a two-disc set with all the trimmings: "Inside the Labyrinth: Making of The Silence of the Lambs" hour-long documentary; "The Silence of the Lambs: Page to Screen" 2 Part Documentary; "Jonathan Demme & Jodie Foster" 3 Part Documentary; "Scoring the Silence" featurette; Original 1991 Making Of Featurette; 22 Deleted Scenes; Outtakes Reel; Anthony Hopkins Phone Message; Photo Gallery; TV Spots; Theatrical Trailer; Teaser Trailer. A Hannibal Lecter collection is also released on the 30th, but it looks like it contains the single-disc release of SotL
Phyllis Diller: Not Just Another Pretty Face appears to be a compilation of some of her TV appearances. According to amazon, one of the special features listed is Phyllis on What's My Line?
Film Noir Double Feature: Please Murder Me (1956, Peter Godfrey) / A Life at Stake (1954, Peter Guilfoyle). Both of these films star Angela Lansbury. The former pairs her with Raymond Burr. I. Love. Hollywood.
Sinners in Paradise (1938, James Whale). I know nothing about this film, but anything directed by Whale is worth seeing.
Viva Pedro - The Pedro Almodóvar Collection
Carne trémula (Live Flesh) (1997)
La Flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret) (1995)
Hable con ella (Talk to Her) (2002)
La Ley del deseo (Law of Desire) (1987)
La Mala educación (Bad Education) - Original Uncut NC-17 Version (2004)
Matador (The Bullfighter) (1986)
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1988)
Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) (1999)
Warner Home Video releases the second (and final) round of the DVD Decision 2006 winners:
Angels in the Outfield (1951, Clarence Brown) (amazon.com Exclusive)
The Arrangement (1969, Elia Kazan)
Band of Angels (1957, Raoul Walsh)
Gymkata (1985, Robert Clouse): "The thrill of gymnastics. The kill of karate." Never has a tagline made me want to see a movie more.
Looker (1981, Michael Crichton)
Madame Curie (1943, Mervyn LeRoy)
Saturday, January 27, 2007
On DVD Last Tuesday...and the Tuesday before that... (January 16th and 23rd)
Tuesday, January 16th...
- The Criterion Collection released Border Radio (1987, Alison Anders, Dean Lent, Kurt Voss) and Robert Bresson's Mouchette (1967).
- From First Run Features came Rotation, [imdb, DEFA] (1949, Wolfgang Staudte) and Der Rat der Gotter [imdb, DEFA] (1950, Kurt Maetzig). Usually, I only link film titles to the internet movies database, in case anyone wants to learn more about the title in question. However, imdb does not have a lot of information on either film's actual content. Fortunately, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the home of the DEFA Film Library, "...the only archive and study center outside Europe devoted to the study of a broad spectrum of filmmaking by East German filmmakers or related to East Germany from 1946 to the present.... DEFA stands for Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft – the state-run East German film studios, where films were made from 1946 to 1990." Hence, the two separate links. Each movie looks fascinating, and we can be grateful to UMass Amherst for preserving the film legacy of East Germany.
- Click here for a complete list of 1/16/07 releases.
Tuesday, January 23rd...
- The Signature Collection: Robert Mitchum (Warner Home Video)
Angel Face (1952, Otto Preminger)
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969, Burt Kennedy)
Home from the Hill (1960, Vincente Minnelli)
Macao (1952, Josef von Sternberg)
The Sundowners (Fred Zinnemann, 1960)
The Yakuza (1975, Sydney Pollack) - Sony brings us two twofers: Don't Knock the Rock/Rock Around the Clock, both directed by Fred F. Sears in 1956; and Twist Around the Clock/Don't Knock the Twist (1961/1962), both directed by Oscar Rudolph.
- A 2-disc special edition of Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof (1971, MGM).
- The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume 1 (Fantoma)
Eaux d'artifice (1953)
Fireworks (1947)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)
Puce Moment (1949)
Rabbit's Moon (1950) - Current Oscar nominee for Best Documentary, Jesus Camp (2006, Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady, Magnolia)
- Criterion is reissuing remastered editions of Kurosawa's twin classics Yojimbo (1961) and Tsubaki Sanjuro (1962), available both individually and together.
- Click here for a complete list of 1/23/07 releases.
Academy Award Nominations: Best Supporting Actress
I'm not going to bother with a complete list of Oscar nominations because by this time, you've probably already seen them. (In case you haven't, here you go). Instead, I figured I'd just take one category at a time, starting with Best Supporting Actress, since that's the only one for which I've seen every nominee.
Here are the nominees, followed by the number of awards each has won already this year, from various critics' societies (a breakdown of who won what from whom can be found here).
Adriana Barraza for Babel: 1
Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal: 6
Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine: 5 (2 for Supporting Actress, 3 for Performance by a Youth)
Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls: 18 (11 for Supporting Actress, 7 for Breakthrough Performance)
Rinko Kikuchi for Babel: 4 (3 for Supporting Actress, 1 for Breakthrough Performance)
Hudson is clearly the favorite to win, though her fellow nominees all delivered strong work. Effie is really a leading role in Dreamgirls, and Hudson gets as much screen time as Beyonce Knowles. But Knowles is a Big Star, so she got the above-the-title billing and the right to a (non-existent) Leading Actress nomination. And to be fair, she did make The Pink Panther and Goldmember.
Of all the nominees, Kikuchi impressed me most. Her character was the most heartbreaking in Babel and her story the most compelling, both because of her extraordinary performance. Barraza was just as good, but I didn't believe for one second that her son would dump her in the desert with two children in the middle of the night.
Cate Blanchett is one of my favorite actresses of our generation. In 2006, she turned in equally strong work in Babel, the little-seen (and even littler-appreciated) The Good German and Notes on a Scandal, for which she is nominated. Her versatility is reminiscent of Meryl Streep's. But, like Streep, Blanchett is so consistently good that she may never get another Oscar. We expect her to be great, and aren't surprised when she is. She'd have to have another perfect vehicle like Elizabeth to really wow the Academy.
Breslin is the heart and soul of Little Miss Sunshine and her performance showed remarkable range. Consider her reaction to the news that she qualified for the pageant, the silent way she comforts her brother along the side of the highway, and her joyfully oblivious striptease. This is a cute little girl who can also act - which is always a nice surprise. (As a totally random side note, I saw LMS at a preview screening that was followed by a Q&A with the film's directors. One guy raised his hand and compared Breslin with a "young Dakota Fanning." Please.)
Front-runner: Jennifer Hudson
Upset-that-wouldn't-surprise-me: Abigail Breslin
I would vote for: Rinko Kikuchi
The Overlooked:
Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration
Sharon Stone, Bobby
Anyone I've left out?
Here are the nominees, followed by the number of awards each has won already this year, from various critics' societies (a breakdown of who won what from whom can be found here).
Adriana Barraza for Babel: 1
Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal: 6
Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine: 5 (2 for Supporting Actress, 3 for Performance by a Youth)
Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls: 18 (11 for Supporting Actress, 7 for Breakthrough Performance)
Rinko Kikuchi for Babel: 4 (3 for Supporting Actress, 1 for Breakthrough Performance)
Hudson is clearly the favorite to win, though her fellow nominees all delivered strong work. Effie is really a leading role in Dreamgirls, and Hudson gets as much screen time as Beyonce Knowles. But Knowles is a Big Star, so she got the above-the-title billing and the right to a (non-existent) Leading Actress nomination. And to be fair, she did make The Pink Panther and Goldmember.
Of all the nominees, Kikuchi impressed me most. Her character was the most heartbreaking in Babel and her story the most compelling, both because of her extraordinary performance. Barraza was just as good, but I didn't believe for one second that her son would dump her in the desert with two children in the middle of the night.
Cate Blanchett is one of my favorite actresses of our generation. In 2006, she turned in equally strong work in Babel, the little-seen (and even littler-appreciated) The Good German and Notes on a Scandal, for which she is nominated. Her versatility is reminiscent of Meryl Streep's. But, like Streep, Blanchett is so consistently good that she may never get another Oscar. We expect her to be great, and aren't surprised when she is. She'd have to have another perfect vehicle like Elizabeth to really wow the Academy.
Breslin is the heart and soul of Little Miss Sunshine and her performance showed remarkable range. Consider her reaction to the news that she qualified for the pageant, the silent way she comforts her brother along the side of the highway, and her joyfully oblivious striptease. This is a cute little girl who can also act - which is always a nice surprise. (As a totally random side note, I saw LMS at a preview screening that was followed by a Q&A with the film's directors. One guy raised his hand and compared Breslin with a "young Dakota Fanning." Please.)
Front-runner: Jennifer Hudson
Upset-that-wouldn't-surprise-me: Abigail Breslin
I would vote for: Rinko Kikuchi
The Overlooked:
Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration
Sharon Stone, Bobby
Anyone I've left out?
Monday, January 22, 2007
2006 Awards Season Round-Up: Golden Globes, Producers Guild and 8 other Film Critics Circle Awards
2006 Award Season Round-Up
Your one stop shop for winning the office Oscar pool
Below is a list of award-winners from those award-giving institutions that I feel merit mention. I'll update throughout the award-season.
(Not every film society gives every award, so some categories may seem a little thin.)
Critics' Societies Included:
- African-American Film Critics Association (A-A)
- Austin Film Critics Association (Au)
- Boston Society of Film Critics (Bo)
- Broadcast Film Critic Association (BFCA)
- Central Ohio Film Critics Association (OH)
- Chicago Film Critics Association (Chi)
- Dallas-Ft. Worth Film Critics Association (DFW)
- Florida Film Critics Circle (FL)
- Hollywood Foreign Press Association Golden Globe Awards (GG)
- The International Press Academy Satellite Awards (IPA)
- Iowa Film Critics (IA)
- Kansas City Film Critics Circle (KC)
- Las Vegas Film Critics Society (LV)
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LA)
- National Board of Review (NBR)
- National Society of Film Critics (NSFC)
- New York Film Critics Circle (NY)
- New York Film Critics Online (ny.com)
- Oklahoma Film Critics Circle (OK)
- Online Film Critics Society (OFCS)
- Phoenix Film Critics Society (Ph)
- Producers Guild of America (PGA)
- St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association (St.L)
- San Diego Film Critics Society (SD)
- San Francisco Film Critics Circle (SF)
- Southeastern Film Critics Association (SE)
- Toronto Film Critics Association (Tor)
- Utah Film Critics Society (UT)
- Vancouver Film Critics Circle
- Washington, DC Area Film Critics (DC)
Best Film
United 93: 9 (Au, DC, DFW, KC, NY, OFCS, OK, Ph, UT)
The Departed: 8 (Bo, BFCA, Chi, FL, IPA: dr, LV, SE, St.L: dr) *
Dreamgirls: 3 (A-A, GG: com/mus, IPA: comedy)**
Letters From Iwo Jima: 3 (LA, NBR, SD)
Children of Men: 2 (OH, Van)
Little Children: 2 (IA, SF)
Little Miss Sunshine: 2 (PGA, St. L: com/mus)
The Queen: 2 (ny.com, Tor)
Babel: 1 (GG: drama)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: 1 (BFCA: mus/com)
El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): 1 (NSFC)
*dr = drama
**com/mus = comedy/musical
Best Director
Martin Scorsese, The Departed: 17 (Bo, BFCA, Chi, DC, DFW, FL, GG, IA, LV, NBR, NY, OFCS, OH, OK, Ph, SE, St. L)
Paul Greengrass, United 93: 4 (KC, LA, NSFC, SF)
Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men: 3 (Au, UT, Van)
Bill Condon, Dreamgirls: 2 (A-A, IPA (tie))
Stephen Frears, The Queen: 2 (ny.com, Tor (tie))
Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne, L'Enfant: 1 (Tor (tie))
Clint Eastwood, Flags of Our Fathers: 1 (IPA (tie))
Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima: 1 (SD)
Best First Film
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine: 3 (OK, ny.com, OSFC)
Ryan Fleck, Half Nelson: 2 (Bo, NY)
Rian Johnson, Brick: 2 (Au, Chi (Most Promising Director))
Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking: 2 (NBR, Tor)
Emilio Estevez, Bobby: 1 (Ph (Breakout Performance of the Year, Behind the Camera))
Best Original Screenplay
Peter Morgan, The Queen: 9 (Chi, GG, LA, IPA, NSFC, NY, ny.com, St. L, Tor)
Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine, 6 (BFCA, DC, DFW, KC, Ph, SE)
Rian Johnson, Brick: 3 (OH, SF, UT)
Guillermo del Toro, El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): 2 (Au, OFCS)
Zach Helm, Stranger Than Fiction: 1 (NBR)
Karen Moncrieff, The Dead Girl: 1 (SD)
Best Adapted Screenplay
William Monahan, The Departed: 8 (Bo. Chi, FL, IPA, KC, OH, Ph, SE)
Jason Reitman, Thank You for Smoking: 3 (DC, LV, SD)
Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men: 2 (Au, OFCS)
Todd Field & Tom Perrotta, Little Children: 1 (SF)
Ron Nyswaner: The Painted Veil: 1 (NBR)
Best Animated Feature
Cars: 11 (Au, BFCA, GG, IA, NBR, OH, OK, PGA, SD, SE, St. L)
Happy Feet: 6 (DC, DFW, LA, NY, ny.com, Tor)
Monster House: 2 (FL, LV)
Flushed Away: 1 (Ph)
El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): 1 (IPA (Animated or Mixed Media))
Over the Hedge: 1 (KC)
A Scanner Darkly: 1(OFCS)
Best Documentary
An Inconvenient Truth: 19 (Chi, DC, DFW, FL, KC, LA, LV, NBR, NSFC, ny.com, OFCS, OH, OK, Ph, SE, SF, St. L, UT)
Deliver Us from Evil: 3 (Bo (tie), IPA, NY )
Shut Up & Sing: 2 (Bo (tie), SD)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated: 1 (Au)
Manufactured Landscapes: 1 (Tor)
Best Foreign (Language) Film
El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): 12 (Au, Bo, DC, FL, IA, ny.com, OFCS, OH, OK, SE, SF, St. L)
Letters From Iwo Jima: 7 (BFCA, Chi, DFW, GG, KC, Ph, UT)
Volver: 3 (IPA, NBR, Van)
L'armee des obres (Army of Shadows): 1 (NY)*
L'Enfant: 1 (Tor)
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others): 1 (LA)
Qian li zou qi (Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles): 1 (SD)
*Though it was made in 1969, L'armee des obres did not receive its US premiere until 2006.
Best Actor
Forest Whitaker, The Last King Of Scotland: 23 (A-A, Bo, BFCA, Chi, DC, DFW, FL, GG: dr, IA, IPA: dr, KC, LA (tie), LV, NBR, NSFC, NY, ny.com, OFCS, OK, Ph, SE, St. L, Van)
Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: 5 (GG: com/mus, LA (tie), SF, Tor, UT)
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed: 2 (Au, OH)
Joseph Cross: Running with Scissors: 1 (IPA: com/mus)
Ken Takakura, Qian li zou qi (Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles): 1 (SD)
Best Actress
Helen Mirren, The Queen: 28 (A-A, Bo, BFCA, Chi, DC, DFW, FL, GG: dr, IA, IPA: dr, KC, LA, LV, NBR, NSFC, NY, ny.com, OFCS, OH, OK, Ph, SD, SE, SF, St. L, Tor, UT, Van)
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada: 2 (GG: com/mus, IPA: com/mus)
Ellen Page, Hard Candy: 1 (Au)
Best Supporting Actor
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children: 8 (Chi, DFW, IA, NY, OFCS, OK, SE, SF)
Michael Sheen, The Queen: 5 (KC, LA, ny.com, Tor, UT)
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond: 4 (DC, LV, NBR, St. L)
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls: 4 (A-A, BFCA, GG, OH)
Jack Nicholson, The Departed: 3 (Au, FL, Ph)
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed: 2 (Bo, NSFC)
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine: 1 (Van)
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed: 1 (IPA)
Ray Winstone, The Proposition: 1 (SD)
Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls: 11 (A-A, BFCA, DC, GG, IPA, LV, NY, ny.com (tie), OH, SE, St. L)
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal: 6 (DFW, FL, OK, Ph, Tor, Van)
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel: 3 (Au, Chi, UT)
Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration: 3 (KC, NBR, ny.com (tie))
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine: 2 (IA, OSFC)
Adriana Barraza, Babel: 1 (SF)
Shareeka Epps, Half Nelson: 1 (Bo)
Luminita Gheorghiu, Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu): 1 (LA)
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada: 1 (NSFC)
Meryl Streep, A Prairie Home Companion: 1 (NSFC)
Lili Taylor, Factotum: 1 (SD)
Breakthrough Performance: Male
Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat... and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: 2 (Chi, OSFC)
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson: 1 (NBR)
Breakthrough Performance: Female
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls: 7 (Au, FL, NBR (tie), ny.com, OH, OK, Ph)
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel: 1 (NBR (tie))
Best Performance by a Youth, Male
Paul Dano, Little Miss Sunshine: 1 (BFCA)
Jaden Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness: 1 (Ph)
Best Performance by a Youth, Female
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine: 3 (BFCA, LV, Ph)
Best Acting By An Ensemble
Little Miss Sunshine: 4 (BFCA, DC, ny.com, Ph)
The Departed: 3 (IPA, NBR, OH)
Babel: 1 (SD)
United 93: 1 (Bo)
Best Art Direction and Production Design
K.K. Barrett (PD) & Anne Seibel (AD), Marie Antionette: 3 (DC, LV, Ph)
Henry Bumstead (PD), Jack G. Taylor Jr. & Richard Goddard (AD), Flags of Our Fathers: 1 (IPA)
Eugenio Caballero (PD/AD), El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): 1 (LA )
Owen Paterson, V for Vendetta: 1 (SD)
Costume Design
Milena Canonero, Marie Antionette: 1 (Ph)
Patricia Field, The Devil Wears Prada: 1 (IPA)
Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki, Children of Men: 6 (Au, Chi, LA, LV, NSFC, OSFC)
Guillermo Navarro, El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): 3 (Bo, FL, NY)
Dean Semler, Apocalypto: 3 (DFW, OH, Ph)
Dick Pope, The Illusionist: 2 (ny.com, SD)
Tom Stern, Flags of Our Fathers: 1 (IPA)
Best Editing
Christopher Rouse, Richard Pearson and Clare Douglas, United 93: 2 (OSFC, SD)
Thelma Schoonmaker, The Departed: 2 (LV, Ph) Mark Helfrich, Mark Goldblatt, Julia Wong: X-Men: The Last Stand: 1 (IPA)
Best Music Score
Gustavo Santolalla, Babel: 3 (IPA, OH, SD)
Alexandre Desplat, The Painted Veil: 2 (GG, LA)
Philip Glass, The Illusionist: 2 (BFCA, ny.com)
Clint Mansell, The Fountain: 2 (Chi, OSFC)
Alexandre Desplat, The Queen: 1 (LA)
Thomas Newman, The Good German: 1 (LV)
Best Original Song
"Listen,"Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler, Beyoncé Knowles, and Anne Preven, Dreamgirls: 1 (BFCA)
"Ordinary Miracle," David Stewart & Glen Ballard, Charlotte's Web: 1 (LV)
"The Song of My Heart," Prince Rogers Nelson, Happy Feet: 1 (GG)
"You Know My Name," Chris Cornell, David Arnold, Casino Royale: 1 (IPA)
Sound (Editing & Mixing)
Willie Burton, Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer, Richard E. Yawn, Dreamgirls: 1 (IPA)
Best Visual Effects
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: 2 (IPA, St. L)
Superman Returns: 1 (Ph)
X-Men: The Last Stand: 1 (LV)
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