Rex Harrison top ten

 1. My Fair Lady (1964)

2. Cleopatra (1963)

3. Anna and the King of Siam (1946)

4. The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)

5.  Blithe Spirit (1945)

6. Night Train to Munich (1940)

7. Dr Doolittle (1967)

8. Midnight Lace (1960)

9. Major Barbara (1941)

10. The Rake's Progress (1945) 

Movie review - "Pillow Talk" (1959) **** (rewatching)

 Really good script. Witty. Well structured. Maybe Thelma Ritter could've been used more (her suggestion to Rock is something Rock could've thought up). Risque - bathtub scene, jokes about Rock being gay and Rock having a baby. Rock is handsome and winnings. Doris terrific. But Tony Randall also superb. Everyone is terrific.

Saw this on the big screen. Stylish. Fun.

Movie review - "Back Street" (1961) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Ross Hunter loved his remakes. This takes on an old Universal melo from 1933 and 1941, doing it with Susan Hayward who was a decent star but doesn't bring the camp that say Lana Turner or Joan Crawford would have bought.

The problem with remakes of melodrama is the central issue still has to be relevant. Race was, very much, for imitation of LIfe. Being a permanent mistress I'm not sure had the same appeal in 1961. Or I might be wrong. This film did well at the box office.

The film lacks decent support parts too. Its undercast in some key roles, like the other guy in love with Hayward, Hayward's old mate. Imitation of Life had stronger cast. The kid who plays Gavin's son is terrible. It is fun to watch it and go "okay boomer".

There are flaws. But it has a solid dramatic structure. Good ending with wife Vera Miles madly driving the car, killing herself and Gavin. Solid ending with Gavin calling Hayward on his death bed. I was more involved than I thought it would've been.

I think it would've been better if Miles had been mentally ill instead of an old boozer - and if they'd made it clearer that Gavin worried about the safety of the kids.

I was also nicely surprised by Gavin's performance. He was warm and relaxed in the scenes with Hayward - they work well together. I think it would've helped if Miles and Gavin had older kids - like a Sandra Dee part. That person confronting Hayward would've been better than the kid.

Book review - "Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of Imitation of Life" by Sam Staggs

 One of Staggs' growing library of works on camp classics (which doesn't mean the films can't be good). This melodrama - race, sex, singing - is beloved by cultists, with its Douglas Sirk direction and Lana Turner recovering from the family stabbing.

The structure was slightly odd -I would've preferred a more straight up chronological approach. And it felt padded in places - I don't mind a long book but a lot of it felt like stretching. There's some original scholarship, but not that much.

I did appreciate profiles of people like Ross Hunter, Douglas Sirk, John Gavin, Troy Donahue, etc.

Hayley Mills Top Ten

 I just finished Hayley Mill's memoirs, quite fun, and in the interests of killing time wile half watching a movie I'm not that engaged in I thought I'd do a Hayley Mills top ten.

1) Tiger Bay (1959) - astonishing debut. One of the best ever by a child actor, up there with Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon. One of J Lee Thompson's best movies. Yvonne Mitchell very good in a support role. A lot of 40s and 50s British films were about a kid who witnessed a crime (Hunted, Secret Place, The Fallen Idol, The Yellow Balloon)... this gets points for having a female.

 

2) The Parent Trap (1961) - I always wondered what Annette Funicello thought when Disney flipped over Hayley Mills and started making all these movies for her. "What am I? Chopped liver?" This movie is fun, once you get past the fact the parents conspired to keep kids away from their siblings and other parent for their whole life... oh, and that you can tell the reunion will last five seconds. Mills is excellent. Brian Keith is always good.

 

3) Whistle Down the Wind (1961). A small film, but extremely well done. Superbly acted. Written by Mills' mum - who became an alcoholic. Hayley later did another film written by her mother, Sky West and Crooked, that was a lot less successful.

 

4) The Trouble with Angels (1966) - Mills showed she could be in a popular teen film not made by Disney. Really fun girls-at-convent-school movie, surprisingly hasn't been embraced by many feminist critics despite its female stars, writer and director.

 

5) The Family Way (1966) I figured this would be a cutesy generation gap comedy jazzed up with a Paul McCartney soundtrack and some brief Hayley Mills nudity and, yeah, it is, only there's all this complex sexual stuff going on. Like Hywell Bennett clearly has a much lower sex drive than Mills which is going to cause troubles down the track, and John Mills plays a man who was clearly in love with his best friend (who went along on John Mills' honeymoon... is that normal in England?).

6) In Search of the Castaways (1962) Bright Jules Verne adventure.

7) Endless Night (1972) The best of Mills' psycho thrillers (Twisted Nerve, Deadly Strangers).

8) The Chalk Garden (1964) An old play gets the Ross Hunter treatment but quite well done.

9) The Moonspinners (1964) Charming spys in Greece tale from Disney, lovely location scenery, and Mills the ideal plucky heroine.

10) Appointment with Death (1988) - I wanted to include one late period HM film and this was it for me, she's very good in an entertaining film.

Movie review - "The Chalk Garden" (1964) ***

 Not a typical Ross Hunter film in some ways - it's not American, not a remake, there's no Lana Turner or Sandra Dee. But there are Lana Turner-Sandra Dee type parts: Deborah Kerr is a mysterious governess with a Past involving murder and Hayley Mills is the spirited kid who is troubled and makes life hard for governesses.

There's some decent mystery - what happened to Mills' father? What's the deal with Kerr? Plus a strong cast including Edith Evans as Mills' grandmother and John Mills (in the John Gavin part I guess) as the butler, who probably should be creepy to make this more exciting but is actually nice.

I enjoyed it. Some movie stars hanging around a nice set, with decent Ronald Neame direction, lush music. I got a bit confused in places, the relationship between Mills and her mother Elizabeth Sellars felt under cooked, but it was entertaining.

Book review - "Homework: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years" by Julie Andrews (2019)

No one denies Andrews' status as a Hollywood icon but what should be a fascinating book - a look at the peak of her Hollywood career, from Mary Poppins through to That's Life! - is a hard slog. It covers what should be interesting stuff - the making of Darling Lili, for instance - and manages to make it dull.

I think it was the logistics. There's so much logistics - all her kids, and step kids, and ex, and family, and Blake Edwards' family - and dealing with homes in Switzerland, and Malibu and going on tour. She didn't make that many movies in the 70s but she seems to be always on the move, making TV specials or following Blake Edwards around or performing in concerts. She's forever worried about the kids education or what the kids are up to. It's a wearying book to read.

Andrews doesn't seem like the brightest tool in the shed though her heart is in the right place (she did a lot of charity work for Vietnamese/Cambodian orphans). She seems a fairly uncomplicated person - I could be wrong about this, but her world view seems narrow: she's spent most of her life working and performing and when she made enough to not work as hard she got drawn into this life of domestic minutae.

The book is invaluable however as a portrait of Blake Edwards - charming, charismatic, talented, self centered, selfish, adulterous (it's implied... Andrews only talks of a flirtation with Peter Sellers' wife but then admits Edwards wrote all those scripts about middle aged men tempted into adulterly), manipulative, controlling, drug addicted, boozy, manic depressive. He has a gall bladder attack than turns out to be nothing when Andrews' mother is dying meaning Andrews couldn't be with her - that sort of thing.

Andrews has done a lot of psycho analysis (she meets Edwards by sharing the same analyst) but it doesn't seem to have given her a lot of particular insight - I get the impression she just liked talking about herself (I could be wrong). She talks about her shrink giving her geography lessons and what not to make up for her lack of education - that's a tutor's job! Julie the guy was ripping you off. But then I think Andrews was one of those performers who are susceptible to people pushing her around - which is why she lasted so long with Blake Edwards.

Andrews encounters with famous people are remarkably un-notable - James Garner was nice, Omar Sharif was nice, Paul Newman was nice, Chris Plummer was nice. Rex Harrison was impatient - that's about as juicy as this gets. The one surprise was that she was good mates with Carol Burnett - they should have made a movie together.

Worth readings if you are an Andrews fanatic and/or interested in Blake Edwards.

Aside: I always figured Andrews sabotaged her career in the late 60s with her choices (Star, Darling Lili)... but when you think about it what other musicals could she have been in? Camelot I guess but... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Bedknobs and Broomsticks? She would have been tricky to cast in the 70s.

Book review - "All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson" by Mark Griffin

Hudson gets a decent biography with this well researched, even handed account. It tackles head on Hudson's sexuality - the thing that really distinguished him as a Hollywood star, especially the AIDS stuff - but does with compassion and footnotes, and also analyses his appeal and skill as an actor.

Hudson was one of the luckiest stars around - he was blessed with great looks, height and charm. With no training or even stage experience, after a few years of bit parts he was a leading man, and a few years after that he was one of the biggest stars in the world. He remained a star in TV until the early 80s and a leading man all his life.

His great gift was he could play a tough guy but be sensitive - he had a warmth lacking in, say, Jeff Chandler or Audie Murphy, other leading men at Universal. He was more accessible and had more charisma than say Dale Robertson or Rory Calhoun.

He was also lucky. Universal was a good studio to learn your trade at in the late 40s and early 50s - the standard of acting wasn't too high, they turned out a lot of potboilers. Ross Hunter came along at just the right time to put him in Magnificent Obsession then George Stevens put him in another league with Giant and Hunter and Day put him in Pillow Talk which led to half a decade of comedy hits. He was less popular in the late 60s - even sure fire stuff like teaming with John Wayne and doing an Alistair MacLean adaptation and Julie Andrews musical didn't work out - but he found new life doing McMillan and Wife. I was surprised how much theatre he did - including several musicals on the road.

It wasn't all luck. He worked very hard, was conscientious and a nice person. Everyone comments on how nice he was.

He had an exotic personal life. While good friends George Nader and Michael Miller were married to all intents and purposes for years, Hudson had a revolving door of boyfriends, some okay, others a bit less suitable. He drank and smoke very heavily - even if AIDS hadn't have come along this could have knocked him off early anyway.

There's plenty of juicy stuff - stories which you'd assume were urban legends, like Hudson fathering a child after the war, and servicing a college football team, actually could have been true. His father shot through when Hudson was little. When he found out he had AIDS he informed ex lovers anonymously. His last few days were this weird combination of genuine friends paying call, Pat Boone and his wife bringing around the bible, Elizabeth Taylor getting in bed with him for a cuddle, and his friends arguing over memorial services and the estate.

Very good book. Depressing at the end - but Hudson had a pretty good life, a lot of success, and a lot of sex and good friends. He never had a great One True Love but I'm not sure he really wanted one. Like many actors he was probably most comfortable playing other people.

Doris Day - Top Eleven Abusive Spouse Roles

In preparing my earlier Doris list I was struck by the number of films that showed her being in abusive relationships: (warning - some SPOILERS for old Doris Day films)
1) Young Man with a Horn (1950) - Doris plays a singer who falls for a self centered musician (Kirk Douglas) who leaves her for a lesbian who is experimenting with being straight (Lauren Bacall) then takes Day back when he's broke and drunk
2) Tea for Two (1950) - Doris plays a socialite whose freeloading producer boyfriend (Billy de Wolfe) is cheating on her while using her money to produce a show
3) Storm Warning (1951) - Doris is a pregnant newly wed whose husband is an alcoholic and member of the KKK who tries to rape Doris' sister, and winds up being responsible for her death
4) The Winning Team (1952) - Doris plays the wife of some famous baseball player (Ronald Reagan) who got PTSD and a drinking problem in WW1
5) Young at Heart (1954) - Doris elopes with a depressed man (Frank Sinatra) who tries to kill himself to "set her free"
6) Love Me or Leave Me (1955) - Doris plays a singer who marries and abusive, violent gangster (Jimmy Cagney) out of gratitude for what he did for her career
7) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - Doris plays a woman who had to give up a successful singing career to marry James Stewart
8) Julie (1956) - Doris is a stewardess whose husband (Louis Jourdan) tries to kill her
9) Midnight Lace (1960) - Doris' husband tries to drive her insane and then kill her
10) Send Me No Flowers (1964) - Rock Hudson doesn't tell wife Doris he thinks he is dying
11) Ballad of Josie (1967) - Doris has an abusive husband who she accidentally kills

Doris Day Obscure Top 5

In memory of Doris Day a top five of some more obscure works in her filmography:
1) Storm Warning (1951) - Doris plays a woman whose husband (Steve Cochran) is a member of the KKK - her sister (Ginger Rogers!) busts up the gang with the help of a crusading DA (Ronald Reagan!)
2) Julie (1956) - Doris is a stewardess with a psycho husband (Louis Jourdan) who she has to battle... leading to a climax where she lands a plane, perhaps the first stewardess landing the plane climax in film history. Go Doris!
3) Midnight Lace (1960) - Doris is stalked again, in a decent psycho thriller co written by Australia's own Ivan Goff
4) Caprice (1967) - Doris and Richard Harris as industrial spies who flirt and double cross each other in a film very, very much like the later Julia Roberts-Clive Owen film Duplicity
5) The Ballad of Josie (1968) - Doris shoots her abusive husband in the old west and sets up a suffrage film

Book review - "Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s" by Matthew Kennedy (2014)

Very good look at the explosions in big budget musicals that followed the success of Sound of Music. The big ones get their own chapter - there were genuine successes like Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oliver! Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar and Cabaret; half successes like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever; films that were okay but lost huge amounts of money: Half a Sixpence,  Camelot, Dr Doolittle, Hello Dolly; films few people remember, like Song of Norway, The Happiest Millionaire, The Great Waltz or Goodbye Mr Chips; surprise flops like Sweet Charity; legendary money losers like Paint Your Wagon, Star!, Man of La Mancha and Darling Lili; surprisingly profitable enterprises like Finian's Rainbow and Son of Norway.

My take out from reading this book:

*Musicals have never stopped being popular. They've never stopped being popular on Broadway and came back in a big way in the animated world. Many of the notorious flops in the book were among the years biggest films eg Camelot. But...

*Musicals need to be made for a price. It's astonishing how needlessly expensive many of these films were. Camelot is basically three people in a castle. Darling Lili is two people, one of whom performs occasionally in a music hall. Goodbye Mr Chips is about a man who teaches at school. But they cost too much money to ever have a real chance of being profitable. Sometimes the film's over production made it less enjoyable eg Hello Dolly, Paint Your Wagon. Part of this is because musicians and technicians used to be under contract and now they aren't... but I think also these filmmakers got panicky and threw money at problems, hoping spectacle would save them.

*Musicals need to be cast well. I don't want to be wise after the event - but the leads of musicals should be able to sing, and suit the parts. Audiences don't mind if they're not film stars - look at the acceptance of Ted Neely, Topol, Mark Lester. Absolutely it won't always work - the public didn't go to see Robert Morse reprise his role in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, for instance. But if you can't get a movie star who suits the part, then cast the Broadway star. There were so many better suited Hollys than Barbra Streisand; the leads in Paint Your Wagon were ridiculous, ditto Redgrave and Franco Nero in Camelot and Man of La Mancha.

*What was really killed in the late 60s was the teen musical - the unpretentious programmer, like the Donald O'Connor musicals of the 40s for Universal, or Elvis' musicals, or the Beach Party films. These seemed to dry up despite the glorious music of the time - even in the early 1960s Hollywood studios would sign up teen idols but this seemed to stop. In particular I can't believe there weren't more blaxploitation musicals.

*These roadshows I feel definitely scared off big screen adaptations that should have happened by now. I get why no one's tried to film Oh Calcutta! But it's a shame there hasn't been films of Wicked, 42nd Street (the newer version), The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, La Cage Aux Folles, Spamalot, Matilda, Promises Promises, They're Playing Our Song, Into the Heights.

An entertaining book, full of fun anecdotes and interesting analysis.

Movie review - "A Stranger in My Arms" (1959) **

Jeff Chandler was one of Universal's biggest film stars of the 1950s - it's odd he didn't make more movies with Ross Hunter, whose plush cinematic melodramas and comedies would've suited the granite-jawed Chandler. While Hunter mostly used Chandler types like Rock Hudson and John Gavin, he did work with Chandler on The Spoilers and this.

Chandler plays a test pilot who has PTSD. He's pressured to visit the widow and mother of a fellow pilot who died in Chandler's arms during the Korean War. Mum is Mary Astor in a classic 50s castrating mother performance. Also entirely suitable to the genre is June Allyson's noble, brave widow.

The nub of the plot is that dead man Peter Graves was a useless piece of work - a coward (Graves is good in flashback). Mum Astor wants him to have the Medal of Honour and Jeff is unsure whether to tell the truth That's not a bad idea for a film.

It does lack something extra - some drama playing out in the present day. Written in the Wind, from the same writer as this (the original novel, not the script) had more stuff going on - Robert Stack and Rock Hudson were childhood friends, so there was an element of betrayal when Hudson fell for Stack's wife; Stack kills himself and there's a murder trial; Stack's sister Dorothy Malone loves Hudson.

This doesn't have that. The most interesting character dramatically is Peter Graves who is dead when the film starts. He didn't love Allyson and was a coward. Sandra Dee is on hand as Graves' sister - a bit of a minx, I think meant to be along the lines of Dorothy Malone... but she's too young to be a threat for Allyson/Chandler.

I think Graves had to be alive - or Dee needed to become obsessed with Chandler - or Astor tried to kill him. Or something, anything, that played out more in the present day. There's nothing at stake except Graves' reputation and Astor's feelings and a slight feeling of awkwardness for Chandler. Compare so say Rock Hudson in Written on the Wind who was best friends with Robert Stack and wound up on trial for murder.

It doesn't help that the film is in black and white and lacks production values. Douglas Sirk lite.

Movie review - "Tammy and the Doctor" (1963) **

Props to Ross Hunter for ensuring the Tammy series maintained continuity - this one picks up with Tammy still at college looking over the little old lady from the second film. Said old lady gets sick and so a handsome older doctor (Macdonald Carey) suggests she go to the hospital for an operation.  This entails a move to Los Angeles where Tammy charms yet another grumpy old person, annoys some more stuck up bitches (nurses) who eventually sees what a sweetheart she is, encourages another aging woman devoted to her career to find love, is eyed by a lech (Adam West) and finds romance with a handsome young man (Peter Fona).

I normally like Dee but she's irritating for the most part as Tammy, mugging and overacting. In one or two places she pulls back on the hayseed and is a lot more effective.

Peter Fonda is very gawky and young as the doctor with whom she romances; it's not much of a love story - unlike Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Neilsen in the first movie there's no inherent conflict, he's just a anxious young man, not particularly handsome, who is into his career. He doesn't seem that smarter or more wordly than Tammy and they don't have much charisma. I wish more was made of the love triangle between Adam West, Fonda and Dee - but all that really happens is West makes some lecherous eyes at her and Dee figures out he's no good.

Also this is the third time Tammy has fallen in love and she's beginning to feel flippant - the second film they got away with John Gavin being her love interest because we'd think "oh well Leslie Nielsen was just a puppy love" but then when she bats her eyes at Fonda... how are we meant to think about Gavin? It's as if she's not capable of true love, she's just up for whatever handsome man she comes across when she moves to a new place. Which is an interesting character trait but tends to reduce the stakes of their romance.

They're still making jokes about Tammy's father being in gaol for moonshining; Tammy manages to turn around some bitchy nurses and make them feel ashamed of themselves with one (badly written) monologue. There is more religion in this one - Tammy quotes the Bible a lot, prays to God to help her old lady friend recover.

In fairness, the script has some bright lines and at least Tammy has a job, working hard at the hospital. Dee sings "Tammy's in Love".

Movie review - "Tammy Tell Me True" (1961) **

Universal contract darling Sandra Dee steps into the role originated by Debbie Reynolds and handles it well - she's got the perkiness and girl next door factor down to a tee. The material isn't as strong - Dee gets sick of waiting for her boyfriend from the first film, who is off at college, and decides to educate herself at college. Cue snobbish students and a crusty little old lady for Tammy's heart to melt.

The film does get points for continuity with the first movie, though it's not entirely consistent - she made such a lovely difference to that first film's family's life, you would think they would put in some appearance here.

And too many of Tammy II's adventures feel as if by rote: melting the heart of a curmudgeon old lady takes about five minutes (she used to grow up on the river, Tammy takes her out on the river, problem solved), the romance with the public speaking professor (John Gavin doesn't have especially good chemistry with Dee) is perfunctory (I got why Leslie Nielsen's character liked Reynolds in the first - she was deep whereas his crowd was shallow - but why does Gavin like Dee here?), the subplot where Tammy baby sits a horrid little boy is thrown in too late (Billy Mumy is the kid - a role he often played in the 60s), it's never entirely believable that the college let Tammy attend in the first place (would have been easier if she'd just been an employee there who they let attend occasional classes), and there's a horrid subplot where Tammy encourages a college teacher to quit and adopt kids so the teacher's painter husband won't be so threatened that he earns less money. Yuck.

On the bright side, there is a good villain in the niece of the old lady who wants her money and is anti-Tammy, some decent support cast and production values, and Dee sings a song.

Movie review - "The Spoilers" (1955) **1/2

I'm partial to "Northerns", tales of gold in Alaska at the turn of the century - they always look so good and have such colourful characters. This is based on a much filmed novel which has the benefit of colour photography but lacks star power.

Jeff Chandler is effective as the gold miner fighting for his claim (surely this influenced North to Alaska) but Anne Baxter doesn't look very comfortable as a saloon singer, the part so memorably essayed by Marlene Dietrich (NB in Universal's defence I can't think who else they might have been able to afford who would have been good - Maureen O'Hara no, Yvonne de Carlo maybe); Rory Calhoun is too lightweight to be Chandler's rival - Calhoun never really made it as a leading man, and was more effective as an oily false love interest (Ray Danton plays that here - I got him and Calhoun confused).

Still there's plenty of action and scenes in saloons, including a final brawl, and some decent character actors. The basic story isn't bad - very adaptable to Australian gold fields - even if it does endorse the American "you can't trust the government" mantra.

Movie review - "Lost Horizon" (1973) *

Original film musicals rarely work, and this was a notorious flop despite the music of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. I wonder if they considered cutting the numbers out because it wouldn't have been hard to do - they don't really add anything except laughter. The songs aren't so bad by themselves, but they don't really work in the context of the film.

The script seems to follow the Frank Capra original, with a few dud tweaks (e.g. making one of the characters a stand up comic). But things that worked in 1937, don't translate very well - whites being Asians, the whole mystic aspect of it, the romanticism of Peter Finch's character. Also what was mysterious and strange in 1937 was a lot more familiar by 1973 - maybe this was impossible to do. Or maybe it was just ineptly executed.

Peter Finch does what he can in the role - it's a tricky part (who else could have played it?) and he doesn't suit it as well as Ronald Colman but he handles it well enough. Michael York is effective, Sally Kellerman gets on the nerves (part of it is due to her bad dialogue), Olivia Hussey is very pretty, George Kennedy is fine, John Gielgud and Charles Boyer bring on a few laughs pretending to be Asian. Liv Ullman just looks plain darned uncomfortable.

It didn't have the budget to blow the audience away with its sets and production design, like the 1937 film did, or the conviction. Could this have ever worked? Maybe with a cast with actual experience in musicals (none of them are known as musical comedy stars), a better script that tries to update the story while keeping its essence, stronger handling. Or maybe it was just impossible.

Movie review - "Tammy and the Bachelor" (1957) **1/2

Easy to mock, so let's mock it - Debbie Reynolds is a 17 year old cracker who has lived an isolated life and comes to stay with Leslie Nielson, who had crashed in her back yard. He plays a standard 50s heartthrob, brylcreamed and dreamy, channelling Rory/Tab/Troy/George/Rock and all the rest - which is part of this film's appeal today. Walter Brennan does his ol' pappy schtick - this sort of role would usually be played by Arthur O'Connell in 50s/60s teen films - and there are too many scenes of Tammy revealing he's in gaol to the shock of all, although there is a funny moment when people thinks he's dead and Tammy talks about him.

There's some uncomfortable racial politics - Nielsen and his family like to dress up as old Southern types to raise money for their former plantation house, and they have a black maid who of course adores Tammy. A lot of it is dopey, with Tammy charming everyone with her simpleton ways. And there are all these unresolved subplots, such as what happens to Nielsen's father and mother.

Yet there is a solid subplot about the importance of following your dreams - Nielsen is scared to be a farmer, his father scared of engaging with the world, his mother scared of dying. This had surprising depth and makes the movie harder to dismiss. Not impossible, just harder!

Movie review – “Rosie!” (1967) **

One of the last films Sandra Dee made for Universal and Ross Hunter, who had made her a star. She’s the spunky granddaughter of an eccentric Auntie Mame type, played by Rosalind Russell, who runs around spending money, being wacky and driving fast cars. Her kids worry that their inheritance is being flittered away so they move to have her declared insane. 

There’s a climax reminiscent of Mr Deeds (complete with scene where Russell sulks and doesn’t want to be proved sane, but rallies because of the love of a good woman [well in this case man]). There are also references to King Lear which doesn’t quite work because Lear was a ruthless prat who was dumb because he gave up his money and power – Rosie here married into her money and hasn’t done anything to deserve losing it.

It’s based on a play written by Ruth Gordon, who could have played the title role. James Farentino is in the John Gavin part as the young lawyer who falls for Dee and helps Russell. If I’m not mistaken it’s implied they have pre-marital sex – a sign that the 60s were starting to swing in Ross Hunter land. Another sign are comments made about the Youth of Today by Russell that the kids always want everything now, and being young is a state of mind rather than age, and young people can be greedy. It’s sort of trying to have it’s cake and eat it too – say old people aren’t as fogey-ish as you think. Dee is fine in a not-much role (she’s nice and that’s it basically).

Brian Aherne is the elder lawyer who secretly loves Russell; other old timers include Juanita Moore, Margaret Hamilton and Virigina Grey; Leslie Neilson offers smooth villainy as a greedy so in law. It doesn’t look particularly glossy or expensive –a bit TV.

Movie review – “Imitation of Life” (1959) ***

Ross Hunter revived Lana Turner’s career with this glossy remake of the 1934 Claudette Colbert film. It’s a classic mixture of camp, glamour, social commentary. But you can’t dismiss it because few Hollywood films of the time tackled race so head on – silly melodrama can do that. 

 

It’s full of contradictions and complexity – Lana Turner is a selfish career-orientated bitch – but why should she give up her career to marry John Gavin just because he doesn’t want her to work? Susah Kohner is angry and mean – but why sholdn’t she be angry at a society that persecutes blacks? Or embarrassed by her mother, who just wants her to work as a librarian? Juanita Moore is kind, lovely and warm but is an Uncle Tom, with no ambition for her daughter to better herself – or spine to tell Lana Turner (her “friend” who does’nt even realise that Moore has other friends) to stick it. The only really likeable character is Sandra Dee; even she’s a bit patronising to Moore but at least she tries to keep her emotions in check when she falls for Gavin.  

 

Best performances are from Dee and Kohner, who has the standout, showy role. Turner is dreadful, indicating all over the place, Moore is a noble savage (domestic maid version) and John Gavin is exactly like a Ken Doll come to life. 

 

Robert Alda adds some professional zing as a sleazy agent and Troy Donahue gives perhaps his most effective performance as the low life who smacks around Kohner when he finds out she's black.

Movie review – “Polyester” (1981) **1/2

John Waters in Douglas Sirk/Ross Hunter territory, with a bit of William Castle thrown in. It’s a melodrama about a long-suffering suburban housewife (Divine) – hubby runs a porno theatre and cheats with his secretary, mum taunts her, son is hooked on glue on stomping on feet, the daughter is a tramp who wants an abortion, the hunk down the road (Tab Hunter) is actually a louse.

 

Ocasionally this is tiresome, in part because there’s no real overall story, just a series of bad things happening to Divine (who is passive most of the time). 

But some of it is hilarious eg drive in playing a triple feature of Maguerite Duras films – and Waters really goes there (eg abortion satire). Like the William Castle pictures, when watching it without the gimmicks you can’t help thinking ‘gee this would be better with the gimmick’ so you kind of feel like a second class citizen. 

 

Hunter doesn’t strike the right note in his first few scenes but gradually grows more comfortable and he’s very well cast. (It's not a very big part - due to his fee being relatively expensive for Waters - and he doesn't appear for a while).