Priceless Images

Found this and many others like it, on YouTube and they are simply incredible. Cinema icons from the 40's, 50's & 60's hanging out at Rock's place at the beach on a holiday weekend, just like you or I would. Get some of these folks: Film director George Cukor yakking it up with our host Rock. Then there's Adolph Green { co-writer Singin in the Rain, Band Wagon, etc } in sailor hat and red scarf. Oh and look over there, isn't that restauranteur Mike Romanoff in the white shirt ? And look at Jason Robards, he's married to Lauren Bacall  { Betty to her friends don't cha know } in a New York Mets hat!  And here on the coast!! The gall!! Isn't that screenwriter George Axelrod in the blue shirt talking to the camera? There she is: Our girl Betty Bacall, widow of Bogie, but even at forty looking so young and full of fun! There's RJ Wagner in that nice new yellow shirt. Why his divorce from Natalie didn't set him back one bit! And there is Mrs. Thurston Howell III, our own Natalie Schafer at the height of her somewhat dubious fame.

Wow. That was my first reaction to these old 8mm films I found on YouTube. All these folk look so well scrubbed and, well, ordinary. Like my parents home movies from the same time period, only these are not only celebs, but a couple { at least } tinseltown legends. Not just your ol' Aunt Mabel or drunk Uncle Sid making a spectacle of themselves at the 4th of July barbecue. There are other videos I will be posting, including one from Memorial Day 1965 with some footage of  Producer David Selznick { Gone With The Wind }, who was to die on June 22, 1965, less than a month later. And did you get the nice routine with Bacall & Hudson? They co-starred in Written on the Wind less that ten years earlier when Rock was just coming into his own as a major star and Betty was still Mrs. Humphrey Bogart. Love the way Ms. Bacall plays to the camera: she seems just like I thought she would be: Fun and sassy, even without sound.  More coming. I love these things! Whoever posted these priceless images on YouTube, thanks!!! Priceless.

Crush of the Week - Natalie Wood

Not just of the week but my whole life, because I cannot remember when I didn't have a huge crush on the lovely Miss Wood. I guess I first fell for her charms when I was about nine or ten years old. My sister and I  stayed up late one saturday night  [ as we seemed to do a lot, back in the day ] and  watched Sex & the Single Girl on KABC channel 7  broadcast out of L.A. The movie is one of those harmless sex farces from the mid-60's that seemed extremely racy to my adolescent mind but, in retrospect, was quite innocent and harmless. Based on a self-help book by Dr Helen Gurley Brown, it was a precursor to all the self help books that have come after it: He Just Not That Into You, Women Who Run With The Wolves, Excuse Me, Your Soul Mate Is Waiting , etc,etc,etc. You know the drill. But this book, being published in 1962, was a gamechanger. These kinds of books weren't published every week like they are today. Anyway, I digress. Natalie was the total woman for me: Beautiful face, dark brown eyes, great sense of humor, wicked legs, wonderful smile and intelligent.  I still watch her movies and have several on disc, some faves being: Splendor in the Grass, Gypsy, Rebel Without a Cause, The Great Race, West Side Story and This Property is Condemned. In fact, I saw a few of her 70's stinkeroos in the theater: Last Married Couple in America, Meteor, Peeper. None very good and I don't think I've seen any of those 70's epics since.
                              

                                                       
She died tragically in 1981 and I remember that day and the disbelief I felt. She was still young, only 43. Her best movie days were seemingly behind her, she hadn't been in a hit since 1969's adult spouse swapping comedy Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice, but she had made some successful television productions  such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Laurence Olivier and hubby RJ Wagner and a mini-series of From Here To Eternity in the part Deborah Kerr immortalized in the 1953  film version. She was going to appear in Anastasia in Los Angeles in 1982, but that weekend in Catalina ended what would have been her stage debut.

The top picture is from Sex and the Single Girl the other lower in on the set of Gypsy. Check out Natalie Wood's films. I especially endorse Splendor in the Grass [  Her character Deanie may be my fave of hers ] This Property is Condemned and Rebel Without a Cause. Check back next week to see another in my long line of crushes.

" I have always depended on the kindness of strangers"

Since it is an election year [ and cuz it's just plain fun ] I have decided to have a monthly poll of different topics. I am starting off with one of my current [ actually on-going ] obsessions, Thomas Lanier Williams otherwise known as Tennessee Williams. Having just revisited 1959's Suddenly, Last Summer and 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire, and in honor of the anniversary of his birth on March 26 I have decided to make him or rather some of his movie adaptations as the first poll ever here at Movie catholic. So go to your polling place here at Movie catholic and cast your vote. I have inserted a little teaser of a scene from Streetcar, above. Not to influence the voting but I think it has to stand as one of the best adaptations of Williams' work. So come on folks step up and vote, I'm curious as to the outcome. Polls close March 20th