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.

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.

5 Schemers Deliciously Played by Barbara Stanwyck

I've always loved Christmas in Connecticut, despite its many flaws. When re-watching it last month, I realized that Stanwyck may be the main problem (well, Stanwyck and the script). She was cast as a screwy dame who constantly relies on men to get her out of jams. That's all fine and good if you're Carole Lombard. But Stanwyck was always best when she was the one calling the shots:

Florence "Faith" Fallon in The Miracle Woman (1931, Frank Capra) was loosely based on the very successful evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who lost a great deal of credibility when she allegedly faked her own kidnapping in 1926. That's not in The Miracle Woman, though. Stanwyck played a fraudulent evangelist who travels the country with a con man, faking miracles and reaping profits. Hopefully, the presence of Stanwyck and Capra will lead to the film's DVD release, especially since I taped my copy off of Turner Classic Movies during a thunderstorm, resulting in a very poor print.

Lily Powers in Baby Face (1933, Alfred E. Green) starts out being whored out by her father in his speakeasy. She escapes him, flees to New York and - thanks to the teachings of Nietzsche - sleeps her way to the top of a corporation. As the tagline read: "She climbed the ladder of success - wrong by wrong!" Only the censored version of Baby Face was available for decades until an original, uncut print was found in 2004. You can now watch both versions on the Forbidden Hollywood Collection from TCM available on Warner Home Video.

Jean Harrington in The Lady Eve (1941, Preston Sturges) gets her heart broken by beer baron Charles "Hopsy" Pike (Henry Fonda). What's a girl to do? Pretend to be an English Lady, so Pike will fall in love with her again, so she can dump him, so he'll run back to her, of course.

On the day she gets fired from her job as a newspaper columnist, Ann Mitchell in Meet John Doe (1941, Capra) submits a fake suicide note - signed "John Doe" - for her final column. The article gets so much attention that she convinces her editors to re-hire and to hire a bum (Gary Cooper) to act the part of John Doe to keep the gimmick going. What could possibly go wrong?

Stanwyck's greatest role was as one of the most fatales femmes in the entire noir cycle: The amoral Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) seduces insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and contrives a scheme to defraud his company by offing her husband (Tom Powers). Only then does the Neff find out what happened to the first Mrs. Dietrichson.