The Seamy Side of Life

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"If you dream, dream big."

Jonathan (Kirk Douglas)

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Officially Vincente Minnelli's "The Bad and the Beautiful" premiered on this date in Los Angeles in 1952 — but it more properly belongs to 1953, when it was released in New York and nationwide.

Whichever is appropriate, "The Bad and the Beautiful" was one of the top moneymakers of its time. And it won five of the six Oscars for which it was nominated — a record for a movie that did not receive a nomination for Best Picture.

Set in Hollywood, the movie was about a ruthless producer (Kirk Douglas) who used a writer (Dick Powell), an actress (Lana Turner) and a director (Barry Sullivan) to achieve his personal goals. Walter Pidgeon played another producer, kind of the go–between in the story, much more of a supporting role.

Douglas played the son of another producer who was so disliked that, when he died, "extras" had to be hired to attend the funeral. Even though the movie industry was against him because of his father, Douglas was determined to prove everyone wrong.

The story that was told was in the form of flashbacks while Powell, Turner and Sullivan waited in Pidgeon's office for a phone call from Douglas regarding a new project he had in mind. Powell, Turner and Sullivan had unpleasant histories with Douglas, who needed to have them in the project in order to secure the funding he required.

Each flashback told a different story of Douglas' betrayal:

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He took a movie idea that Sullivan had been developing and pitched it to a studio, then awarded directorial rights to someone else. The movie's success permitted Douglas to start a studio of his own.

Turner was the alcoholic daughter of a famous actor and didn't feel worthy of her lineage. Douglas boosted her confidence long enough to get the performance he needed from her, then drove her away.

Powell's character was once a professor at a small–town college who was content with his life even after writing a bestselling book. Douglas acquired the movie rights to the book and wanted Powell to write the script. Powell had no interest in that — but his wife did. His wife was a status–conscious Southern belle (Gloria Grahame), and Douglas found a way to use her to get to Powell.

But then she ran off with "Gaucho" (Gilbert Roland), a suave actor, and the two were killed in an airplane crash.

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When the stories had been told, Pidgeon agreed that Douglas had ruined all their lives. He agreed sarcastically, though, making the point that each had profited from his/her association with Douglas.

After parting ways with Douglas, Sullivan had gone on to become an Oscar–winning director, Turner a successful actress and Powell a Pulitzer Prize–winning author.

The three decided not to participate in Douglas' project, but as the movie ended they couldn't help listening on an extension to Pidgeon's phone conversation with Douglas.

Speaking of Oscars, Grahame won Best Supporting Actress despite spending fewer than 10 minutes on screen. That would stand as the shortest appearance by a Best Supporting Actress winner for a quarter of a century — until Beatrice Straight won the award for less than six minutes on screen in "Network."

"The Bad and the Beautiful" also won Oscars for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design — all in the black–and–white category — and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.

To Catch a Falling Star

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"If you're a star you don't stop being a star."

Margaret (Bette Davis)

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It is human nature, I suppose, to be reluctant to give up anything that is comfortable and familiar — whatever it may be.

People who have been in the public spotlight — athletes, politicians, movie stars — seem particularly stubborn about acknowledging the ravages of time or the fickleness of followers. Their resistance is doomed to failure, of course, and most of them probably already know that the batting average for those who preceded them is roughly .000, but they always seem to think that they will be the exception.

Bette Davis played such a character in "The Star," which premiered on this day in 1952. There was an ironic twist to the casting — but I'll come back to that.

Davis' character had once been an in–demand Hollywood star whose latest movies always drew long lines at the box office, an Academy Award winner, but that was when she was young and beautiful. Davis still saw herself that way, but the moviegoing public did not. (Davis, by the way, was 44 when the movie premiered and more than 20 years removed from her own big–screen debut.)

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Davis' character clearly was in the stages of grief later described by Elisabeth Kübler–Ross. Mostly in "The Star," she alternated between the anger and denial stages, but there was a generous helping of depression and even a bit of bargaining involved.

Ultimately all that was followed by the acceptance stage, but it came at the very end, and the audience had to go through that journey with Davis. It was the point of the movie.

Davis' character, who apparently hadn't been in a movie for quite awhile and was forced to sell many of her most valuable possessions to pay her debts, was offered a small role that was completely at odds with her self–image — the role of the older sister of a younger, sexier character (played by the latest Hollywood sex symbol).

In her screen test, Davis' character figured she could snag the starring role by putting a sexy spin on her performance. But that — predictably — was a dismal failure, and Davis realized what Sterling Hayden (a former actor Davis had helped once) and a young Natalie Wood (14 when "The Star" premiered and cast as Davis' daughter) had been trying to tell her.

Her career was over. It was time to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

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Wood's role was definitely a supporting one — and not really all that big, even for a supporting role — but symbolically she represented the future, Hollywood's real–life next generation — in many ways like Davis' younger rival in "The Star."

Davis did receive her ninth Best Actress nomination (she lost to Shirley Booth) but would be so honored only once more in her lifetime — for "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Wood, on the other hand, received only three Oscar nominations and rarely received praise for what she did, but she seldom lacked for work in her comparatively brief career.

The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen on the Silver Screen

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Ordinarily I don't like to devote a post in this blog to anything — movie, music, book, TV show — I have written about before.

But I'm making an exception for "Hans Christian Andersen," which premiered in New York 65 years ago today.

It was one of my favorite movies as a child, and that was what inspired me to write about it seven years ago. But what I wrote on that occasion was different than what I want to say on this one. This time I want to talk more about the movie.

Although, on the other hand, I really should start with something that I mentioned indirectly in 2010.

Before I learned to read, my mother read all kinds of children's stories to me, and the Hans Christian Andersen stories were always my favorites. I liked 'em even better than I liked Dr. Seuss — probably because they were more applicable to life as I knew it.

And that led to my introduction to the movie that made its debut in 1952.

I wanted to share that movie with the stepdaughter of one of my oldest and closest friends. I'm not sure how old she was at the time — maybe 6 or 7 — but I felt she was just the right age for the movie (it seems to me that I was 6 or 7 when I first saw it) so I made a video tape of it and gave it to her.

And it turned out I was right. I may not be exactly right about the age thing, but she loved the movie. Her mother told me she would sing snippets of the many songs Danny Kaye sang in it.

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Talk about making a joyful noise.

The movie was never intended to be a true biography so I wouldn't recommend it as a source to anyone who may be writing a paper on Andersen's life. Instead it was a fictional account of Andersen's life based on his famous fairy tales, among them "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Little Mermaid" and "Thumbelina," among others — and there were songs written for each. In the movie Andersen told his stories to groups of children from his village and sang the songs for them.

It was enchanting — and, as I have said here on other occasions, I am not a fan of musicals. Elise found it enchanting, too, and I decided her Hans Christian Andersen experience was incomplete without the actual stories that she could read when she got old enough — so I gave her a collection of Andersen's writings.

The movie was in the works for more than 15 years. It was the brainchild of producer Samuel Goldwyn, who had several writers work on the screenplay over the years. There was even a time when it appeared Walt Disney might produce the movie, but that didn't work out.

My guess is that Disney regretted that. The movie received six Oscar nominations, and it was one of the top 10 moneymakers in 1952.

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One never really outgrows the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. Sure, they are aimed at young people, but there are also valuable lessons for adults — and they are written to appeal to both groups.

The same is true of the movie.

The Duke in Ireland

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"He'll regret it 'til his dying day if ever he lives that long."

"Red Will" Danaher (Victor McLaglen)

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When most people think of John Wayne, they probably think of cowboy movies or war movies — or, in the case of "The Alamo," I suppose, both, even though I guess the cowboys in "The Alamo" were really frontiersmen.

And I will admit that, if someone mentions John Wayne to me, my first thought will be of "The Searchers," which is my favorite John Wayne movie.

I wrote a year ago that I thought his performance in John Ford's "The Searchers" was his defining role, and I still feel that way. But a close second would have to be a movie in which he played neither a cowboy nor a soldier — another Ford–directed movie called "The Quiet Man," which premiered on this day in 1952.

Ford won his fourth and final Best Director Oscar for "The Quiet Man." His previous Oscar was for "How Green Was My Valley," which took place in Wales and also starred Maureen O'Hara (Wayne's love interest in "The Quiet Man"). Among movie fans "How Green Was My Valley" is remembered for being the movie that beat "Citizen Kane" for Best Picture. (Perhaps it was compensation for that injustice that "The Quiet Man," clearly the superior movie, was beaten for Best Picture by "The Greatest Show on Earth" — although "High Noon" was the betting favorite in that category.)

("Of all my films," O'Hara said, "'The Quiet Man' is my favorite, and John Wayne, who became a dear friend, was my favorite leading man.")

Wayne played an American boxer returning to the village in Ireland where he had been born. He had been traumatized by having killed a man in the ring so he had returned to reclaim the family farm and start a new life.

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When he met O'Hara, she became part of his plan for that new life.

But there was one big obstacle — O'Hara's bullying brother played by Victor McLaglen. He had wanted that farm for himself. When the owner, a wealthy widow played by Mildred Natwick, didn't sell it to him, he declined to give his sister his consent. Then, on their wedding day, he refused to give her her dowry. Wayne's character cared nothing about the dowry, not realizing what it meant in Irish culture — and simultaneously creating a rift between them.

In those cowboy and soldier movies, the climactic moment typically had Wayne in some sort of gunfight; in "The Quiet Man," it was a fistfight as Wayne, the supposedly reformed boxer, took on McLaglen in a memorable fistfight that ended with the two of them expressing grudging admiration for each other.

Barry Fitzgerald played a curmudgeonly sort of character, the kind of part he was born to play. I doubt he ever did it better than he did in "The Quiet Man."

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"The Quiet Man" received seven Oscar nominations and won two awards. Ford took home Best Director, and Winton Hoch and Archie Stout won the Oscar for Best Color Cinematography.

Really, with all that gorgeous Irish countryside to work with (Ford, certainly one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, was known for his frequent use of on–location filming), how could they miss?

On the Eve of War

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On the eve of any armed conflict, there is that almost surreal will–they–or–won't–they kind of period when the people whose lives (most of them, anyway) will be shattered by decisions they do not make and actions they do not take are cast into limbo. And they wait to see if, well, they will or they won't.

Then the inevitable happens, and they must adapt to the new situation. Sometimes it requires them to shift their attitudes and their beliefs.

"One Minute to Zero," which made its debut on this day in 1952, was about such a time in the early days of the Korean War.

Ann Blyth, who was 23 at the time, played an idealistic United Nations worker in Korea just before the outbreak of the war — a pacifist who rejected all the evidence around her that a war was imminent. Like all of us, her character was shaped by its experiences, and she had lost her husband in World War II. Like many others she believed the U.N. was the legacy of the Allies' victory in World War II and that its mission was to prevent violent conflict around the world. She mistakenly believed it would do so in Korea.

I don't recall if her character's age was mentioned in the movie, but it is likely that Blyth was playing a character at least a few years older. Blyth was about 16 when World War II ended.

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Robert Mitchum played a career military man who had risen to the rank of colonel. Experience had made him more pragmatic about the situation, and Blyth's character ultimately acquiesced.

Not to take a position in this, but it seemed to me that Blyth's character was eager to switch sides, perhaps a bit too eager. But that was in keeping with the rest of the movie, I thought. And it was in keeping with the times and the perceived woman's role in relationships, I suppose.

While I can think of several movies that managed to combine a good war story with a good love story in which characters didn't have to sacrifice principle, "One Minute to Zero" seemed to do little more than string together cliches from the better movies of its type — and the relationship between Blyth's character and Mitchum's character was a little too formulaic for my taste.

By and large, the females in the movies of that time yielded to the men in their lives on most things. I'm not suggesting that female leads in movies should arbitrarily take positions that are opposite of their significant others' simply to establish their independence. But neither should they go so far to the other extreme.

Perhaps that is something that was learned in that era — but is not always practiced today.

Early in the movie Blyth's character clearly had principles, but it didn't take much for her to shift to Mitchum's more pragmatic position that one had to fight fire with fire.

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I learned long ago that you really can't reach a conclusion based strictly on Academy Award nominations — and the class of 1952 is a good example of that — but they can provide some insight into the quality of a movie.

And "One Minute to Zero" received no Oscar nominations.

Take from that what you will.

Yes, Marilyn Could Do Drama

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"The female race is always cheesing up my life."

Jed (Richard Widmark)

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Even though she was before my time, I am a fan of Marilyn Monroe.

My admiration goes beyond her obvious physical appeal. I think she was a talented actress, too, unappreciated during her life and still so decades after her death.

And I thought I had seen all of her movies — until one day a few years ago when I happened to see "Don't Bother to Knock" being televised. I realized I had never seen it before so I watched it. That movie, which premiered 65 years ago today, was definitive proof of talent that did not depend on good looks.

In that sense, I was reminded of Grace Kelly in "The Country Girl."

Like Kelly, Monroe was always beautiful, but there were variations to her beauty. Sometimes she was glamorous; in "Don't Bother to Knock," I guess her beauty was more understated. It would take concentrated effort to mar her beauty, but you could drape her in clothes that were rather plain and that would bring her beauty down a notch or two.

That, I would say, is what they did in "Don't Bother to Knock."

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And Monroe reciprocated with a riveting performance.

It was part of her character. At first she came across as shy and demure. Her clothes were plain. Her demeanor was almost unassuming. But that was all deceptive.

Her character wanted to wear nice clothes and expensive jewelry. But she, like so many others then and now, did not feel she could ever have the finer things she desired. Some people turn to lives of crime to gain the things they want in life. When the audience first saw her in "Don't Bother to Knock," Monroe's character was content to take risks but not necessarily to commit crimes. Well, not exactly, but we'll come back to that.

She was Richard Widmark's love interest. He was on the rebound after being jilted by Anne Bancroft, who was the real glamour girl, a sultry lounge singer. Bancroft had had a fling with Widmark, decided it was one of those things and wrote him a Dear John letter. In this case, I guess you'd call it a Dear Jed letter.

Jed came to New York to try to talk Bancroft out of it, but she didn't budge. Back in his hotel room, Jed looked out his window and saw Monroe across the courtyard, wearing clothes and jewelry that belonged to her employers for the evening, an out–of–town couple (Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle) who hired her to babysit their daughter (Donna Corcoran) while they were attending a banquet downstairs.

Widmark and Monroe agreed to have a liaison in Monroe's room. Widmark was unaware that the young girl was sleeping in the adjacent room until the girl walked in on them.

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As the evening progressed, Widmark became more and more aware that Monroe's character was mentally unstable. At one point, he thought Monroe would push the child out an open window — modern audiences would probably be shocked to see no barriers of any kind on upstairs windows — no rails or bars or anything at a time when air conditioning was still a rare luxury and the only relief to be found on a hot night came from open windows.

I'll leave some of the intricacies of the plot for you to discover for yourself, but Monroe's character continued to descend into a mental state in which she was convinced that Widmark was actually her deceased fiance.

She also bound and gagged the child with whom she had been sitting that evening. Turned out she had a history of mental issues. She had been institutionalized after her fiance's death. She had tried to kill herself, too, by slashing her wrists.

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"Don't Bother to Knock" was a mostly forgettable movie, I suppose. The characters lacked emotional depth, and there wasn't a lot of context given until near the end (which, I suppose, was typical of film noir).

But Monroe's performance as the psychologically fragile Nell undoubtedly was influenced by Monroe's own experiences with her mother. That alone would make "Don't Bother to Knock" worth watching.

It was Monroe's first truly dramatic effort after appearing in 17 other films, mostly comedies, and it was a few years before the comedies for which Monroe is best remembered — "The Seven–Year Itch" and "Some Like It Hot."

It was Bancroft's debut.

Monroe's wasn't the first film portrayal of a mentally disturbed individual — but seldom has it been as honest.

It's Good for What Ails You -- and It's So Tasty, Too

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"Well, I'm your Vitavigavegivat Girl. Are you tired, run down, listless? Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular? — Well, are you?"

Lucy (Lucille Ball)

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When I was a child, I loved watching I Love Lucy reruns with my father when I got home from school.

As I recall, the bus I rode to and from school each day typically deposited me at my home right around the time that I Love Lucy was starting in the afternoons. Dad was a college professor and seldom had a class that late in the day. He was usually home by the time the episode began, and I remember spending many pleasant afternoons with him in our living room watching the syndicated reruns of I Love Lucy.

I saw a lot of classic TV in that living room. Some of it was generated by I Love Lucy, and some of it was from other programs, but the episode that first aired on this night in 1952 was one of the most classic episodes in not only I Love Lucy's illustrious history but in the history of television in general. It was called "Lucy Does a TV Commercial," but it is better known as the Vitameatavegamin episode.

And it is, without a doubt, my favorite I Love Lucy episode even if it was first shown long before I was born. It lives on in reruns, no doubt gaining new fans with each showing.

It is my understanding that it was Lucille Ball's favorite episode, too, and why not? It was a very simple story based on an ongoing element of the series — Lucy's desire to be a star — and it gave Lucy a chance to do what she did best — physical comedy.

Now, there have been many physical comedians over the years. You can quickly run out of fingers and toes trying to count the physical comedians who have been on television or in the movies, but the list of the truly great physical comedians is considerably shorter — and Lucy is definitely on that list. Some would even put her at the top of that list. I would — even though I equally admire the work of the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Don Knotts, Dick Van Dyke, etc.

Lucy's character in I Love Lucy always saw Ricky (Desi Arnaz) as an obstacle to her objective, and that may well have had its roots in this episode. It was, after all, the first season of I Love Lucy, and the running jokes were still being defined. In this episode, Ricky was going to be on a TV special, and Lucy desperately wanted to be a part of it, but Ricky wouldn't allow it.

Then there was an opening for the pitch girl. At that time, TV commercials were frequently performed live on television, and the pitch girl for Ricky's show would be promoting a product called Vitameatavegamin. The pitch girl was supposed to take some, smile and remark about how tasty it was.

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Lucy was the one who showed up for the tryout, having manipulated things so the legitimate applicants didn't show up. In her tryout, believing the tonic was truly made of natural ingredients — and not realizing it was 23% alcohol and apparently tasted awful — Lucy took a big gulp and grimaced at the taste, managing to squeak out the words, "It's so tasty, too! Just like candy!"

But if Lucy didn't have a taste for alcohol when her tryout began, she quickly acquired one. After a few more takes, her speech was noticeably slurred, and the physical shtick was in charge of things, riding a wave of momentum all its own. The laughs got louder and louder.

In truth, everything in the episode was done to set up Lucy for her moments in the spotlight.

Everything Lucy did in that episode was funny — and it is still funny 65 years later. I never tire of watching it.

'High Noon:' A Thinking Man's Western

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I've never been much of a fan of westerns — there have been some I liked, but that was mostly because those movies made you think. They weren't about gunfights alone.

"High Noon" — which premiered 60 years ago today — was such a movie.

It's been many years now, but I can still remember the day I first saw "High Noon."

I was in college, taking a film appreciation class. There were several such fine arts courses on the Arts and Sciences' basic requirements list. A student didn't have to take them all but did have to take two or three so enrollment in each was usually quite high every semester. To satisfy the demand, the school offered several classes of each every semester.

Choosing the film class to fulfill part of that particular academic requirement was a no–brainer for me. I have always enjoyed classic movies, and it turned out that the instructor liked to show movies in class, which met for two hours at a time, and then discuss them.

One day, he showed us "High Noon." That was hardly surprising. "High Noon" was — and still is — regarded as a classic.

What was surprising, I guess, was the fact that I had never seen it before. I was well acquainted with many other classic movies by the time I got to college, and we watched several of them in that class, but I had never seen that one. Strange.

Well, I was mesmerized.

I suppose part of it was the contrast. I mean, it was a late winter/early spring kind of day — cold, windy, a bit snowy. I remember being bundled up in layers of clothing as one typically had to be to go from building to building on the University of Arkansas campus at that time of year — and then practically breaking into a sweat the minute I walked into the seemingly always overheated fine arts building.

On the other hand, "High Noon" seemed to be set in a hot, dry, dusty Western town. I don't know what time of the year it was supposed to be, but I have heard that the location filming was done in the late summer and early fall.

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The time of year really didn't play an important role in the story. It happened to be set in the West, but it could have been anywhere. The story was about a man's battle with his conscience — and a similar battle waged by his pacifist Quaker bride — when word spreads that a dangerous criminal is coming to town with his gang.

Then the struggle was to persuade the people of the town to stand with him.

The man was played by Gary Cooper, of course. Many critics thought he was miscast. He was nearly 30 years older than his love interest (Grace Kelly), but, in many ways, he was the best, the only choice.

He was definitely an heroic figure.

He was — arguably — the most heroic of Hollywood's leading men of that time. He had already won one Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of World War I hero Sgt. York — and he received another statuette for his performance as Will Kane, the sheriff in "High Noon."

Kelly, who was not yet 23 when the film was released, was making her debut in a leading role, and she did a spectacular job.

I had seen her in other movies before I saw "High Noon," but it was when I saw "High Noon" that I fell in love with her — one of those this–cannot–possibly–happen kind of things.

Kelly didn't win the Oscar for her performance in "High Noon." That kind of recognition came a couple of years later when she received the Best Actress Oscar for "The Country Girl."

But I've thought, ever since that brisk northwest Arkansas day when I first saw "High Noon," that it wouldn't have been the same without her.

Her career was a bit sluggish after "High Noon," though. But it picked up. She only made nine more movies before she retired from acting to assume the duties of princess of Monaco, but she made three ("Dial M for Murder," "To Catch a Thief" and "Rear Window") under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock.

She never made another film with Fred Zinnemann, her director on "High Noon."

Zinnemann's movies were nominated for a total of 65 Oscars and won 24 of them. But Kelly wasn't nominated for her work in "High Noon."

I'm not sure why that was so.

But her performance deserved a nomination.

Vitameatavegamin

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To succeed in comedy on television, I believe it is necessary to excel at physical comedy.

Now, personally, I appreciate the good writing that some of the really great comedies have in common — but it takes a talented performer to coax genuine laughter from the audience.

You know what I mean. There are laughs that are little more than polite titters that practically scream "I know I'm supposed to laugh at this part and I feel obligated to do so, but I just don't feel it."

And then there are the belly laughs, the I–couldn't–keep–from–laughing–if–you–held–a–gun–to–my–head kind of laughs. More often than not, these laughs are evoked by good physical comedy.

The really great ones make it look effortless. But, as Johnny Carson once observed to someone who bombed while filling in for him during his vacation, it ain't as easy as it looks.

It does help, though, if the story has an established joke that can be exaggerated in some way. On May 5, 1952, that rare combination of material and talent occurred in a memorable way on I Love Lucy.

The show was nearing the end of its first season. It had been established early in the series that Lucy (Lucille Ball) wanted to break into show business and believed that Ricky (Desi Arnaz) was actively trying to prevent her from doing so.

By the evening of May 5, 1952, audiences needed no reminders. They were prepared for what they would see.

Well, maybe not.

What they saw was a truly remarkable example of physical comedy. In its way, I think, it was every bit as impressive as the extraordinary physical comedy routines of some of the stars of the silent film era (i.e., Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin) or the great mimes (i.e., Marcel Marceau) — or Lucy's TV contemporaries (i.e., Dick Van Dyke).

In the 1950s — and beyond — commercial spots often were done live from the TV studio. In the context of this story, Lucy's assignment was to do a TV commercial for a health tonic called "Vitameatavegamin," a product that contained "vitamins, meat, vegetables and minerals" — but Lucy didn't know it was also 23% alcohol.

And that — along with a repeated sales pitch that was virtually flawless in the rehearsals but got increasingly out of hand as the alcohol in the product began to take effect — was what that night 59 years ago was about. But not entirely.

The early part of the script was really used to set up Lucy's monologue, and the last part tried valiantly to tie together all the loose ends, but that half hour was really all about Lucy and her gift for physical comedy ...

... that so natural, involuntary shudder when she swallowed a spoonful of tonic that was "tasty ... just like candy" or when, clearly intoxicated, she kept observing that "it's hot in here."

If you ever doubted that Lucy was the best, watch the attached clip.