Movie review - "Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) *****

 Over seventy years on few cinema entrances beat Marlon Brando walking into the apartment here with his insolence and confidence. Vivien Leigh matches him of course with her brilliance - she has the added advantage of having gone mad. Kim Hunter and Karl Malden are very solid support - the less flashy roles, but so crucial.

It's so much better plotted than most Williams works - the arrival, the mystery of Blanche's past, the concern over money, the use of Mitch, the build to climax.

The domestic violence is startling as is the depiction of sexual longing and satisfaction. The censor imposed final scene is fine because we all know Stella will go back to Stanley within a week.

A masterpiece.

Play review - "Look After Lulu" by Noel Coward (1959)

 Look, this was okay and you imagine could be a fun night out. Coward adapts Feydeau so it's set in Paris in 1908 with mistresses, maids, soldiers, Russian counts, misunderstanding. Lulu is a courtesan/mistress/dream part for ageing star whose boyfriend goes away for a few weeks. She fake marries his bestie for cash, which is risky, the boyfriend finds out and ensures it's a real marriage. 

The plotting is a still watery which surprises me - they don't really do much with the character of the horny Russian prince who wants Lulu, or use the girl who loves Lulu's fake fiance.

It's bright enough. There's some fourth wall breaking eg making gags "you wouldn't believe it if it was on stage" and recaps on the plot - which are dicey when the work isn't that good.

Vivien Leigh played this in London.

Play review - "South Sea Bubble" by Noel Coward (1951)

 This was disappointing. I was looking forward to Brits behaving badly in a far flung colony, being pompous and silly and Noel Coward-y but this isn't fun. It borders on a drama but it's not that serious. It's more like a... super light drama, I guess, marked by Coward's reactionary politics. The plot involves a progressive governor clashing with a die hard conservative native politician - hahahah he went to Harrow hahahaha he's more conservative that the Brits hahahaha he's against free public toilets (this subplot gets a lot of time - is it meant to be witty?). The wife hangs out with the hardliners son who makes a sleazy move. She conks him on the head, the later on the hardliner tries to use this as blackmail to make the progressive governor on his wife.

There's a subplot about a Coward/Maugham type writer visiting which doesn't go anywhere. The liveliest character is a gossip. Why not have the wife (played by Vivien Leigh) as a man eater, like Edwina Mountbatten was? Why not use the novelist? The story is resolved too easily - the son turns up and says no hard feelings. There's no real jokes unless you find conservative natives funny.

I would love to have read a Coward take on a British outpost where he just went for everyone. But he doesn't really make fun of anyone here. His fangs were blunted.

Play review - "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams

 When I read this at high school I admit I used to identify with Stanley Kowalski - the penny didn't drop he raped Blanche at the end, and if he hit Stella well he said sorry didn't he, and he was trying to figure out why Blanche was lying. I'm not proud of that fact, just being honest.

As time goes on you can see that wife beating Stanley isn't exactly admirable, though Blanche like Williams is still attracted to him. They are a great mismatched couple, Stanley and Blanche, with Mitch and Stella providing counter balance.

Re reading it, it's so wonderfully theatrical - the noise and bustle of the neughbourhood, the sounds of the poker game, the monologues, the memory.  It's beautifully structured and has good old fashioned story telling at its core, with basic mysteries: why is Blanche here? What is her secret?

It's been much mocked and sent up but the work still has basic power. And it's rich because both Blanche and Stanley are right and wrong.

Movie review - "The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone" (1961) **

 Aging beauties and their male prostitutes - it was the theme of many a Tennessee Williams tale. This was based on his 1950 novel which took a decade to be made - the success of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer showed there was still a low of box office hunger for melodramas about horny women.

This has Viven Leigh as an actor who decides to quit a play then her husband dies. She goes to Rome, where the availability of male prostitutes is emphasised in the opening sequences. This presumably upset the Italian government who temporary withdrew permission to make the movie there.

Warren Beatty actively went after the role of the male gigolo. He puts on the spray tan and the accent and does alright. Sometimes he's effective. Other times he's embarassing and overacts.

It was the only feature from famed theatre director Jose Quintero. I don't think he did a very good job.

Nice photography. But I didn't care. She's worried about aging. Falls for a hooker even though she knows he's a hooker. He's a hooker who wants money. Is there meant to be a deeper connection? Would this work if Mrs Stone was male? At least then the "unlocking the hidden passion" stuff would have extra cultural dimension. (There was some camp with Vivien Leigh looking all smug and relaxed after she'd slept with Beatty - "I've just been rammed by Warren Beatty"). But she's an actor... wouldn't she have had a chance to have had hot sex with young things on the road before?

There's no real story. I couldn't see the point. There is the psycho who trails Leigh around, which would have been a more interesting movie. But is he going to kill her? He seems devoted? The film implies she's got a terminal illness. (Everyone smokes btw). Being upfront about that may have made a difference.

Jill St John is fun as a starlet in Rome. So too is Lotte Lenya as a pimp.

Book review - "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars " by Scott Bowers (2012)

Exhausting to read. Fascinating in parts. Not particularly well written. The sort of book where the good articles about it are more entertaining than the book itself. Bowers has no problem being molested as a young boy or a young teen under priests - which I know is the attitude of some people.

There's plenty of choice gossip, and to be honest a lot of it seemed plausible - Vivien Leigh was a wildcat in bed, Charles Laughton and Tyrone Power liked shit in their sex, Cole Porter was into oral, Montgomery Clift and Roddy McDowall were exceedingly fussy with their tastes, John Carradine was kinky, Errol Flynn liked girls but very very young, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott liked dudes, Rock Hudson is in there. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Gore Vidal was a friend.

Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn both being gay does surprise me - I guess it makes sense. Who knows?

Some stuff felt true because the people weren't famous eg producer Frank MacArthur being gay. Some stuff was just funny like Steve Reeves turning tricks for George Cukor. Some of it I did struggle with - like Bowers being around J Edgar Hoover. Maybe it happened, I'm not that wordly, I just struggled with it.

The best bits of the book are where it stories feel more detailed and authentic - like getting Nestor Almederos to the Oscar ceremony. Bowers had a full life!

Kenneth More Top Ten

1) Genevieve (1953) - cheery breezy fun where More teams so well with Kay Kendall you wish they'd made a bunch of other movies.
2) Reach for the Sky (1956) - British film par excellance - bit of drama, stiff up lip, cheeriness, being a POW is like being at school, etc. More is very good
3) A Night to Remember (1958) - excellent account of the Titanic with More underplaying effectively in an ensemble piece.
4) Doctor in the House(1954) - More's also good against Dirk Bogarde - why not reteam them?
5) The Admiral Crichton (1957) - entertaining colourful adventure comedy with More very well cast
6) Dark of the Sun (1968) - only a small part but I love the film and More's work in it
7) Northwest Frontier (1958) - postwar Imperial adventure tale, self consciously superior to natives, with More a refreshingly different type of action hero
8) The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) - More's attempt to become a US star and he might have done it with a better co star and stronger material - his fine work was not really appreciated in the US.
9) Appointment with Venus (1951) - More has a showy support role in a fun film
10) The Deep Blue Sea (1954) -bad version of a wonderful play. More is excellent though.

Movie review - "Mad as Hell: The Peter Finch Story" (2011) ****

Very good documentary about the legendary Australian star, which benefits from some fantastic footage and talking heads. There's home movies of Finch by the beach with Peter Thompson (film critic from Sunday), photos of Oliver and Leigh watching the Mercury Theatre, interviews with Virginia McKenna, Vincent Ball, Glenda Jackson, his kids, his first wife (the ballet dancer), Trader Faulkner. There's more random people like Bill Hunter and Barry Norman (though his father, to be fair, directed Finch in a few films).

We see clips from his early films and radio shows, as well as his later British and Hollywood films. There's a lot to get through. The darker side of Finch's nature isn't really explored - he's a hell raiser, and womaniser but that's about the depth of it. I think they simply didn't have time.

But they get the essence of him: the erratic upbringing, the nomadic lifestyle, the talent that flowered in the relatively small patch that was Australian radio and theatre, the stage career that petered out (though it did include being Iago to Orson Welles), the film career that never quite reached the top rank though he managed to appear in a good film at just the right intervals (A Town Like Alice, The Nun's Story, The Pumkin Eater, Far from the Madding Crowd, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Network), the things that held back his talent, the personal charm. An exasperating charming man who left a strong legacy and is surprisingly little remembered in Australia today outside buff circles.

Book review - "Robert Taylor" by Charles Tranberg (2014)

Was there a luckier film star than Robert Taylor? No overwhelming passion to be an actor, or even famous, or show off - he just sorted of ambled along through life, growing up in Nebraska, going to college in California. He was a good looking guy, so they cast him in college plays, where he was spotted by MGM because he was a good looking guy. Then the studio signed him and cast him in some things, because he was a good looking guy, and his parts got bigger and he became a star very quickly. And despite basically getting all this way because he was good looking he stayed a star for 25 years.

Okay that's not entirely fair - he knew he was lucky, and worked very very hard, kept his head down, was conscientious and never phoned it in. He listened to his directors and found the perfect studio home in MGM, where he was happy for Leo B. Mayer to boss him around - and later on he got along well with Dore Schary. He had a good speaking voice, the benefit of a star marriage to the elder Barbara Stanwyck, and was comfortable co-starring against the big female names of the time (this is harder than it sounds - and also helped Fred MacMurray become a name). 

His career was managed well - pretty boy leading man parts in the mid 30s, tales of cocky kids who get redemption a la Tom Cruise in the late 30s, Westerns and war flicks in the 40s, film noir in the late 40s, costume blockbusters and Westerns in the 1950s (where he received an unexpected boost as a swashbuckling star). Stardom eventually faded but the decline was gradual - lesser budgets, a TV series, Disney, European thrillers. He died while still being highly employable.

There's a lot of genuinely good films on Taylor's resume: Camille, A Yank at Oxford, The Crowd Roars, Waterloo Bridge, The Bribe, Undercurrent, Bataan, Quo Vadis, Rio Valdez. To be frank, all these parts could have been played better by other stars at the time - he was from the Golden Age but remained a second rate star. (His 50s swashbuckers especially all seemed as though they should have had Stewart Granger in them instead.) Still, the length and bredth of his career demands serious appraisal and Tranberg does a good job. There is solid research and plenty of sympathy.

Taylor comes out of it well - a solid, decent stick, if a bit dull; an old school Republican, which meant he was a dick during the McCarthy era, where he named names, but he also served his country during the war; he enjoyed hunting, fishing and flying, disliked hippies, became Ronald Reagan's best friend towards the end of his life; he enjoyed a happy second marriage to a woman who wanted to stay at home and raise kids (if not her kids to a first marriage - one of whom killed himself shortly before Taylor's death of smoking-induced cancer). Definitely worth a read, especially if you're a fan of golden era Hollywood.

Movie review - "Gone with the Wind" (1939) *****

Just saw this again on the big screen at the Astor - introduced by none other than Bill Collins - and was struck how well it has aged. Some things didn't surprise me - the sumptuous technicolor, Vivien Leigh's dynamic performance as Scarlett O'Hara, the productions values and epic sweep of the story, Max Steiner's top rate score, the strength of the spine (at it's core the story is about Scarlett's pursuit of Ashley).

But other things did surprise me. The mark of a classic is a film that gives you new things with every fresh viewing and that's certainly the case with Gone with the Wind. For instance Clarke Gable's performance - every film fan knows how well cast he was as Rhett Butler and he does the early smiling, swashbuckling buccaneer stuff with expected aplomb, laughing delightedly at Scarlett's antics and warning the hot headed Southerners they shouldn't go into war; however I was surprised to see how well he handed the later Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? section, where Rhett and Scarlett find themselves in a domestic nightmare: the loathing, drinking, self hatred combined with love, two people essentially smacking themselves around emotionally. In many ways Rhett is a romance novel ideal - impossibly handsome, rich, funny, good at love making, charming, devoted to his daughter, intent at Scarlett, etc - but he does have some light and shade: his jealousy towards Ashley Wilkes, his platonic love/admiration for Melanie. And Gable gets it all. There are some really tricky scenes where he has to go all over the shop - hating and loving his wife, tormented by the loss of his child, etc - but he pulls them off. Gable would have deserved an Oscar for his role - Robert Donat did too, but Gable was a better actor than he got credit for.

I also had an increased appreciation for Olivia de Havilland's work. Its a thankless role in many ways - she's nice, genuinely good, kind of like a Christian where Scarlett is part of her faith - and de Havilland succeeds in not only making it believable, but likeable. During some scenes - particularly in the carriage with Belle and with a drunken Rhett - it's lovely subtle work.

Leslie Howard is the least effective out of the four but its the least effective part: virile yet wet, if that makes sense. Howard is believably handsome enough to attract Leigh's attention for so long, but also weak enough understand why he can't leave de Havilland.

I was surprised how many relatively decent roles there were for black actors. Please note the use of the word "relative" - the movie does have the values of its time, and Butterfly McQueen's Missy is a caricature, but compared to other Hollywood movies set in the South, this is positively liberal. Missy has some genuinely funny moments and in the film's defence there are plenty of other white ninnies in the cast (Scarlett slaps her sister as well as Missy). Hattie McDaniel is superb and very charismatic as the no-nonsense Mammie; there's also loyal and tough Sam who saves Scarlett from being raped/murdered and the nice house servant. There are scenes of houseboys fanning sleeping Southern bells and slaves toiling in the fields - yes its whitewashed in many ways, and the movie seems to mock the naive emancipated slaves during the reconstruction scenes, but its not as bad as say Prisoner of Shark Island.

The way David O Selznick dealt with tricky censorship material is marvellous: the Ku Klux Klan equivalent comes across as what it was meant to without spelling it out; ditto the profession of Belle Watling. I was also struck how inexpensively many of the scenes were, particularly in the second half - such as that two hander of Rhett and Scarlett walking along talking to unseen old ladies.

There is considerable richness in the supporting characters: the nice doctor, his wife who excitedly wants to know what the inside of a brothel looks like, Scarlett's dull but brave second husband, Ashley Wilkes' vicious bitchy sister, Scarlett's noble mother, her father who goes ga-ga (he's the one character where its a relief he almost died).

Okay now for some flaws: there's an awful lot of characters talking to themselves to make a point, some over-florid dialogue, occasionally the actors would mumble and some shots seemed out of focus, that marital rape was a bit close to the wind, the race issue is a massively loaded on, the second half feels long going at times. But it was hard to find spots to cut (maybe the London sequence but even that was needed to allow Scarlett time to fall pregnant).

But its aged so well. In part because the central character is selfish - selfishness ages well, just look at Richard III - and also because people's motives are understandable: loving someone who doesn't love them, avoiding hunger, being bound by honour, knowing a cause is stupid but feeling bad for not fighting for it, hating your partner, wanting to gossip. 

Scarlett is a little minx, interested in her own affairs above all... but she's still more sensible than pretty much every other female character in the movie (except Mammy and her mother) and most of the male characters as well. She knows war is a stupid idea - and she's right. 

The south is idealised in a way - but its clear that the war was pointless, caused by romantic idiots, and caused great suffering; the pain and anguish of war is quite full on here: soldiers in agony, limbs go missing, people go nuts, starvation results, there are looters and rapists on both sides. Rhett does fight for the south but not after mocking it. Ashley is a kind, courteous and decent - and held up as a weak idiot. People make fun of Melanie for being naive. No one character is presented as being all knowing and perfect, so its a film that can be enjoyed by many.

It's a flawed contentious masterpiece - but it is a masterpiece.

Book review - "Bring on the Empty Horses" (1975) by David Niven

John Mortimer once wrote that David Niven never quite acted as well on screen as he did after dinner telling anecdotes - but this collection of stories, his second volume of memoirs, gives some idea. It's a different shape to The Moon's a Balloon, consisting of a series of stories rather than an overall narrative - but this allows Niven to go into greater depth and detail for said stories. 

There are illuminating, entertaining sketches of other famous people he knew - Clark Gable, Bogart, Errol Flynn (one of the best pieces of writing on Flynn ever done), Ronald Colman, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh (disguised), Mike Romanoff, Fred Astaire, Hedda and Louella, Marion Davies. There are some less famous people too, such as a prostitute Niven knew. He can go into more detail on the dead rather than the living (so Cary Grant and Garbo are more sketchy than say Errol or Bogie).

Niven appears too, as a happy go lucky soul who got along with everyone, was polite and sensible, but also knew great tragedy (he and Gable bond over dead wives). However the focus really is on other people and the result is one of the best memoirs on Hollywood's golden age ever written.

Movie review - "Elephant Walk" (1954) **1/2

A film best remembered for triggering Vivien Leigh's nervous breakdown, I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Elizabeth Taylor is probably better cast than Leigh because she's younger so it makes more sense she'd be swept off her feet by Peter Finch and go to Sri Lanka. She soon finds herself bored out of her brain with no white women to talk to, her husband turns into a bit of a tool back at home obsessed by the ghost of his father (to emphasise the Rebecca parallels there's even a servant who loved the father and doesn't rate Taylor), and always keen to get on the grog with his fellow white colonists. She's attracted to a hunky manager Dana Andrews and further stress is provided by elephants who are upset that Finch's house is built slap bang in the middle of their path, and a cholera outbreak.

This is no ad for colonialism - although the head servant tsk tsks his people for not taking their shots, the English are mostly shown to be drunken buffoons insensitive to the locals. Finch even shoots one who has disease. Yet Taylor still goes back to him at the end and he has to keep things under control when there's a cholera outbreak so I suppose that is endorsement of the system. It is occasionally reminiscent of Red Dust and John Lee Mahin was a writer for this too.

Taylor is beautiful and does her best - I quite liked her. Finch is excellent, very believable as a colonial type (arrogant, drunken, harsh, yet capable of kindness and charm); he looks like he's a man of his hands, whereas Dana Andrews doesn't really - but Andrews has a strong masculine presence and he's a good foil to Finch, a genuine threat. You don't know who she's going to wind up with at the end, which gives some sort of tension (although you guess they will make it because they are married).

Movie review - "My Week with Marilyn" (2011) ***1/2

The Prince and the Showgirl isn't a particularly memorable film but the circumstances of it's production were: the world's greatest sex symbol working with the world's greatest actor, both of whom also had legendary spouses. It wasn't a disaster or even that drama packed (compared to say Raintree County) but the personalities were so strong: Arthur Miller, Vivien Leigh, Terrence Rattigan, Paula Strasberg, etc.

Film buffs in particular will derive a lot of enjoyment from this - references to getting the rewrites from Terry (Rattigan doesn't appear), a cameo from Jack Cardiff complete with his cap, roles to Arthur Jacobs and Milton Greene. The work is sympathetic to Monroe: lots of men warn Eddie Redmayne not to fall for her because she'll destroy him, and that she's not as naive as she appears - but we never see that. Everything we are shown is her being a little lost and insecure, and Laurence Olivier not being very nice for scolding her (presumably through to jealousy). 

 

Surprisingly it was very sympathetic to Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond, believable) - no glimpse of the notorious nutter and cheater here, just a woman afraid of getting old and losing her husband, and being nice to Marilyn. It's also very nice to Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench, excellent) who is shown to be loving and supportive- there's a wonderful actor moment where Marilyn keeps fluffing her lines and she asks Marilyn if she wouldn't mind going over lines to help her.

Not all the female characters are sympathetic - Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker, terrific) is depicted as a bit of a freeloader, continually boosting Marilyn's ego and perhaps not with her best interests at heart. Milton Greene doesn't come across very well.

Colin Clarke is dead now so the filmmakers had a free hand with the characterisation. It's a half success - Eddie Redmayne is at least a different sort of male lead, not a conventional pretty boy; at times I found him irritating, other times winning. The real Clarke seems to have been one of those British upper class types who benefit from family connections: Dad an art historian, family friend of Vivien Leigh, related to people who work at Windsor Castle, he went on to have a not-much career making documentaries for British TV, which is an extension of the private school system anyway.

I got the feeling at times the film had been cut for pacing - scenes such as the opening ones involving Clarke's family feel abrupt, Emily Watson comes and goes, Judi Dench disappears for long slabs. And the low budget hurts at times - the crowd and filming scenes feel like they could have done with more extras. But the acting is strong, the production design a delight and Michelle Williams does excellently in an impossible role. She's not Monroe but who is, and she comes as close as anyone I can remember.

Movie review – “Dark Journey” (1937) **

Vivien Leigh would have made a terrific wartime spy – so gorgeous, captivating and a good actor – so she’s well cast as a double agent during World War One. This was her first lead role (she’d recently impressed in Fire Over England) and the charisma is already there, although she is a bit awkward and inexperienced, and I never quite bought it that she and Conrad Veit were into each other. He’s a spy for the Germans and they duel in Stockholm and Switzerland. 

 

It’s a complicated plot when it might have been better going for the emotion of the central conception – spies in love is a great idea but underdeveloped. There’s also a lack of thrills and suspense. I did enjoy the unshowy finale on a ship with the wind blowing and guns going off – very British action movie, if that makes sense.

Play review – “The Skin of Our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder

A play with a big reputation – it won the Pulitzer, helped launch the careers of Elia Kazan and Montgomery Clift, was done by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. I have to admit that I wasn’t wild about it – although reading it I felt that it might play better than it reads. It deals with a nuclear family, mum and dad and two kids, who go through variation adaptations of history (an ice age, after a way), along with the sexy Sabina. Mum and dad are sort of like Adam and Eve. Wilder mixes things up by having the characters refer to the fact they are in a play, argue with the stage manager, talk about other roles they’ve played. It’s a real pot pouri of stuff here – a whole bunch of ideas and concepts, obviously put together by someone intelligent; it’s often funny and there’s some solid drama too (eg the reaction of the wife when the husband leaves her for Sabina, the son getting up the dad) and a terrific role in Sabina – but I don’t think it’s aged well because we don’t get all the references now. (Also I think theatre-goers are less familiar with the bible). Reading it I was going “gee this is clever” more than enjoying it – but it might play better on stage.

Movie review – “Fire Over England” (1937) ***

George MacDonald Fraser writes insightfully about this film in his Hollywood History of the World, discussing it with The Sea Hawk. Like that film it stars Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth I, fighting to battle for England’s independence against Spain, who are getting increasingly annoyed at attacks from English privateers such as Francis Drake. She also flirts with a handsome young buck (here Laurence Olivier), who has romantic shenanigans amidst his duelling and ferreting out of traitors.

Story-wise this has some problems - it doesn't really make sense they'd risk sending Laurence Olivier back to Spain as a spy when he's lived with a family there for months, and there's a great risk he'd be recognised by them. 

 

The film also can't seem to make up it's mind who the female love interest is - beautiful Vivien Leigh is on hand as the girl waiting for Larry back home in England, but she's a nagging bitch. He seems to have more of a connection with a beautiful Spanish girl (Tamara Desni) who falls in love with him. This is certainly more dramatically interesting - but he winds up with Leigh. 

 

The final attack on the Armada also feels tacked on - the story feels over when Olivier arrives with the traitor's name. (These are all things that were fixed up in The Sea Hawk, which was like a semi remake - they made the film about one person, i.e. Errol Flynn, instead of splitting focus, the dramatic line was clearer, he romanced a Spanish girl, there's no final Armada battle, it ends with the Queen's speech).

 

Oliver is handsome and dashing and all that but overacts at times, particularly when his character gets all upset. Still, the good things outweigh the bad. Like most big budget Alex Korda productions, it looks wonderful. Robson is superb as Queen Bess, and has plenty of queenly moments, and Raymond Massey's Phillip is a worthy (and not completely unsympathetic) opponent. 

 

There is also lots of action and a strong support cast, including Leslie Banks (his blandness works for him for a change, playing the Earl of Leicester, a noble who's been in love with the Queen forever), a young James Mason (as the traitor whose place Olivier takes) and a young Robert Newton. Some fun moments too like when Flora Robson slaps Vivien Leigh. and Laurence Olivier sings not once but twice!

Radio review – Lux – “Rebecca” (1951) ***1/2

Vivien Leigh auditioned to play the female lead in the famous 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel, but Joan Fontaine was preferred instead. A good idea, too - Leigh was a fine actor, but too "strong" for that role; she would however have been a perfect Rebecca: bitchy, beautiful, unfaithful, witty, enchanting.

Losing the part must have annoyed her, so ten years later she played it for radio opposite her then-husband - he's excellent (he adapts his performance as the brooding, tormented Maxim for radio brilliantly), but she's not. She tries her best but she's just miscast - you don't believe she'd get swept up by Maxim, and be tormented by the memory of his ex-wife.

For all that this is an entertaining production, fascinating to listen to because of it's stars. It follows the film's changes by not having Maxim murder Rebecca - he just punches her out, then she falls over. So much better!

George Sanders and Judith Anderson are missed in their parts. At the end, Leigh and Olivier talk about their plans to take a tramp steamer back to England.

Book review – “Hollywood” by Garson Kanin

Fun, but surprisingly not as good as Kanin’s books about Maugham and Hepburn/Tracy. Maybe Kanin is uncomfortable writing about himself – he seems drawn to personalities stronger than himself (although as a highly successful writer-director he must have had strength); more time seems devoted to characters like Harry Cohn and Sam Goldwyn than Kanin himself. 

 

And sometimes having characters in the book telling stories via dialogue doesn’t feel real, at least not in the way it did in the Maugham and Hepburn/Tracy books (eg Carole Lombard). (Could this be because Kanin wasn't keeping a journal back then?

 

Still, there are some great stories, like getting John Barrymore to lift his game by having all the crew on The Great Man Votes refer to him as “Mr Barrymore”; Barrymore getting annoyed at a child actor who was pulling focus and throwing her across a sound stage; Goldwyn saying “no one knows anything” (‘you believe, you feel, but you don’t know’) years before William Goldman; Vivien Leigh being jealous of Greta Garbo talking to Laurence Olivier; negotiating contracts with Harry Cohn and Goldwyn; dealing with the temperamental Charles Laughton on They Knew What They Wanted (constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing, “finding” a performance in the vineyards the night before a shoot and having to go back during the shoot to find it again – only to have Kanin ruin the takes by constant sneezing); Ginger Rogers aggressively going after the role of Elizabeth in John Ford’s Mary of Scotland (you know something? She wouldn’t have made the film worse); Sam Goldwyn on the importance of story; Kanin visiting a brothel where all the hookers look like movie stars (years before LA Confidential – Kanin even admits he’d sleep with the hookers); Ginger Rogers being distracted by an extra on the set of Tom, Dick and Harry and asking him to be removed, only to marry him later on; MGM executives at lunch all comparing pills.

Movie review – “Gone with the Wind” (1939) *****

This film ages so well. Not just the quality that went into it's making - the stunning art design, costumes, colour photography, cast - but the relationship between Scarlett and Rhett. He's a creature out of romantic fiction but with a modern neurotic twist: he loves Scarlett but can't let her know because she'll crush him, which she ends up doing anyway; and she's so selfish and self-involved, chasing after a guy who doesn't want her. It's Edward Albee territory in a way, and remains powerful drama. The film has appalling racist depiction of blacks (although Hattie McDaniel's Mammy has spirit), but is a true epic, and Scarlett O'Hara is one of the great unsympathetic protagonists of all time. Perfectly cast: Vivien Leigh is so good, as is Clark Gable and Olivia de Havilland (wonderful in an impossible role). I liked Leslie Howard too as the wishy-washy Ashley. A huge tribute to the studio system.

Book review – “Memo from David O Selznick” Ed Rudy Behlmer

Excellent collection of memos from the famed producer whose record during the Golden Years of Hollywood is second to none. His record in the post-war environment was a little more iffy; the memos reveal a man with great insight and ideas, a considerable ego, and real talent. Fascinating reading (although David Thompson in his biography of Selznick claims that this book make Selznick seem more decisive than he actually was).