Claude, stuck in the middle. That's Bogie on the right and Henreid and Bergman on the left. If I have to identify which movie this is from, your reading the wrong blog.
Claude Rains is one of my all-time favorite actors. If the movie is a turkey he made it seem better. If it is excellent [and they often are], that movie is all the better for having his presence in it. Blessed with one of cinema's most identifiable speaking voices [at least one critic called his voice as sounding like sand laced with honey]. Claude Rains, though late to film [he was 44 at the time of his debut], appeared in nearly 60 films the last coming in 1965's The Greatest Story Ever Told. A good number of those movies have lived on as well regarded classics. As the invisible one in 1933's The Invisible Man to 1965's The Greatest Story Ever Told, Rains garnered 4 Oscar nominations along the way. The first Oscar nod coming in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes To Washington as the corrupt Senator Joseph Paine in 1939. He lost the Best Supporting Actor award to Thomas Mitchell's Doc Boone in Stagecoach.
Rains confronting the real evil, Edward Arnold's big money man, in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, 1939
Rains' second bout with the little gold guy came inthe role he may be best remembered, as the "poor corrupt official" Capt. Louis Renault in Casablanca, Rains gave a scene stealing performance that should have netted him the gold. Alas, voters saw things in a different light and rewarded Charles Coburn the prize for his comic turn in George Stevens' The More The Merrier.
Not happy about losing the Oscar again.
Rains was up for the Supporting Oscar again the very next year for Mr. Skeffington with Bette Davis, one of his favorite co-stars. Davis and Rains made a total of 4 films together starting with 1939's Juarez and culminating with 1946's Deception. Probably the best known of the 4 movies is the penultimate tearjerker Now, Voyager from 1942.
Mutual admiration: Bette and Claude, Mr. Skeffington, 1944
Rains' last tussle with little Oscar came in 1946 with the plum part of Alex Sebastian in the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece of intrigue, Notorious. As a Nazi living in post WW II Rio de Janeiro, Rains' Sebastian is infatuated with Ingrid Bergman's Alicia Huberman, marries her, not realizing she is not only an American spy sent to South America on a mission to find out all she can about Alex and his Nazi boys club, but that she is in love, not with him, but with Cary Grant's Devlin, her contact with the American agency she is employed with. To complicate matters further Sebastian is a momma's boy whose momma is not only still alive but very involved with her son's interests and lives in Alex' house. Notorious may contain the actor's greatest creation. Not only do we see the bad side of Sebastian, his Nazism, his weakness, being dominated by not only his mother but also to a certain extent by Alicia [talk about pussy whipped!], Rains not only makes us empathize with Sebastian's plight but also shows us his cruelty [the poisoning of Alicia]. Yet despite his position as the antagonist in the plot, Rains still allows us total access to Sebastian's motives and fears. The scene where Sebastian realizes Alicia is an agent sent to bring him and his Nazi associates down, goes to mother for comfort, help and support, is one of Rains' finest moments. He allows the frightened little boy to emerge and the results are moving, yet we, the viewers are conflicted. We want Devlin to save Alicia from Sebastian's clutches, yet we also want Rains' Sebastian to be free of implication.
Claude, the odd man out again. With Grant & Bergman in Notorious.
Needless to say Claude Rains lost this bid for Oscar also, this time to real life WW II veteran Harold Russell for The Best Years of Our Lives. It was 1947, our boys were back from the war and Hollywood didn't have time to honor a portrait, not matter how exquisite, of an rich, exiled Nazi living the good life in South America. So when it comes to Oscar, Claude Rains is another in a long line of worthy but empty handed performers. 4 times a bridegroom, never a bride.
As the cruel, egoist conductor Alexander Hollenius. From Deception
Other favorite Rains performances I savor include his virtuoso turn as the jealous, possessive conductor in Deception, the radio actor/entrepreneur in Michael Curtiz' 1947 noir The Unsuspected, the wandering father, trying to fit back into the family unit after 20 years away, in another Curtiz film 1939's much underrated Daughters Courageous and his cuckold husband in David Lean's too-little-seen The Passionate Friends in 1949. These are but a few of several memorable perfs Rains has left us and I didn't even mention Adventures of Robin Hood, The Wolf Man and Lawrence of Arabia and many others. Along with Peter Lorre, George Sanders and a handful of other character actors, Rains made movie watching in the 1930's and 1940's a singular treat and something which, sadly, is missing from the cinema today. To put it bluntly, we are shocked! Shocked!!
Hedy Lamarr. The name hardly registers a blip on the all-time-great-movie star radar, but there was a time, in the late 30's and early 40's of the 20th century, when she was considered one of the most beautiful woman in the movies. Probably best remembered as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's 1949's camp epic Samson & Delilah, Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born in Vienna on November 9, 1913. Married at 19 to Friedrich Mandl, a manufacturer 13 years her senior, she described him as a controlling man who would not let her pursue her acting ambition. By the time of her marriage to Mandl, Lamarr had already appeared in Ecstasy in which her character was featured in close-up having an orgasm and photographed fully nude skinny dipping. By 1937 Lamarr's marriage to Mandl was kaput [ none of her 6 husbands had staying power, so it seems, the longest lasting 7 years ].
Topless in 1933's Ecstasy
Escaping Nazi Germany, Hedy made her way first to Paris, then to London where she caught the wandering eye of Louis B.Mayer of Metro Goldwyn Mayer fame. Mayer put her under contract and changed her name from Kiesler to Lamarr, after silent film actress Barbara [ Too Beautiful ] LaMarr. Her American film debut was 1938's Algiers opposite French heartthrob Charles Boyer as Pepe LeMoko in which in uttered the immortal line "Come with me to the Casbah", which per wikipedia, was said in the film's trailer but not in the film proper. A major success in it's day, Algiers went a long way in helping establish Hedy with American audiences, a good thing because her follow ups, I Take This Woman with Spencer Tracy [ dubbed I Re-Take This Woman, after so many starts, stops and changes of director ] and Lady of the Tropics with Robert Taylor both bombed. However, Boom Town with Clark Gable, Tracy and Claudette Colbert was a huge moneyspinner and 1942's Crossroads co-starring William Powell was well recieved and the extravagant musical Ziegfeld Girl [ Lamarr was one of several of Ziggy's Girls including Judy Garland and Lana Turner ] was a blockbuster.
"A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody": Ziegfeld Girl with Judy and Lana, lower right, 1941
But if there is one standout film it would have to be Samson & Delilah, in which Lamarr portrays one of the wickedest women of the bible. It's $11 million dollar gross made it the most successful film of 1950 and came at a time when Lamarr's career was in real need of a boost. Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and several others were considered for the part. C.B.DeMille's first epic bible film since 1932's Sign of the Cross, Burt Lancaster was the first choice for Samson but the role ultimately went to Victor Mature.
As the wicked, sexy Delilah, 1949
As the 50's progressed Lamarr's films became less and less successful. In fact she would make only 6 more movies after Samson with 1958's The Female Animal representing her farewell to the screen. In 1966 Lamarr made headlines when she was arrested for shoplifting in Los Angeles. The charges were dropped. 1967 brought her autobiography Ecstasy and Me and an attempt at a comeback on the silver screen with Picture Mommy Dead, in a part eventually played by Zsa Zsa Gabor. The talented Miss Lamarr was also an inventor. With composer George Antheil, Lamarr invented " frequency-hopping ", which is necessary for wireless communications.
"I am Tondelayo". 1942's White Cargo
By the 1970's Hedy Lamarr became reclusive and about the only news worthy item was the lawsuit for invasion of privacy brought on by Mel Brooks' movie Blazing Saddles in which one of the main characters played by Harvey Korman was named Hedley Lamarr but almost everyone in the film, at one point or other, call him Hedy. The real Hedy Lamarr died in Casselberry, Florida in 2000 at the age of 86.
"Go do that voodoo that you do so well". Harvey Korman as Hedley.
One of classic cinema's supreme beauties, Vivien Leigh's birthday was yesterday November 5th. Yes, Scarlett O' Hara would have been 99 years old, had she still have been with us. But she died far too soon in 1967 at the age of 53, not an old age by any stretch, however if she wished Vivien could have looked back upon her life with a sense of accomplishment. Twice an Oscar nominee for Best Actress, twice a winner, first for 1939's GWTW opposite Clark Gable, then 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Marlon Brando. In both Vivien played a southern belle, in fact one could make a case [ and probably already have ] for these two characters being flip sides of the same coin. One can see Vivien's Scarlett as a young Blanche DuBois, before the death of family, the burden of responsibility, age and sexual dysfunction took over her life and one can see a lot of Scarlett as a young and vivacious Blanche, entertaining, teasing and tempting all the men in her sphere, Blanche as the belle of the ball, before she "depended on the kindness of strangers".
On the verge: Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire
Vivien played other parts than Scarlett and Blanche in the movies but they are the roles upon which her legacy is firmly based. Other prominent characters in Leigh's filmography include Myra the doomed ballet dancer in 1940's haunting, romantic Waterloo Bridge with Robert Taylor, That Hamilton Woman opposite husband and love of her life Laurence Olivier and Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945 with the magnificent Claude Rains. Vivien didn't make a lot of films in her career, only 21. Based on the percentage of films she made and Oscars won, one could say she had the best wins per film ratio in all of cinema.
Do the Charleston! From Ship of Fools
With love of her life, Laurence Olivier. That Hamilton Woman, 1941
Other significant movies are 1961's The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone also starring a very young Warren Beatty in his second film and Stanley Kramer's all star opus Ship of Fools from 1965 which was Vivien's very last film in which she plays a faded actress, drinking and flirting on a luxury ocean liner in the early days of the Nazi take over of Germany. She aged considerably since her previous film, Mrs. Stone, and her health was not particularly good, but she gave a wonderful performance as Mary Treadwell fighting off the advances of Lee Marvin's uncouth former baseball player [ at one point she beats him off with her shoe ]. In a delightful scene she is shown dancing the charleston alone, to imaginary music. And in another, she is shown gazing at her aged image in a mirror grotesquely applying her make-up. Her performance doesn't save the film, yet it does make for fascinating viewing.
The frightened, lonely Mary TreadwellinShip of Fools, 1965
Married to Olivier from 1940 to 1960, she, unlike Sir Larry, never remarried. Throughout her life Vivien suffered from tuberculosis and recurring mental problems. In 1948 Leigh and the actor Peter Finch began an on-off affair that would last for several years. In 1953 while making the Paramount film Elephant Walk, Leigh had a complete mental collapse and had to be replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. A fictional, disturbing portrait of Leigh at that time can be found in two chapters of David Niven's book Bring on the Empty Horses, his memoir of his Hollywood days circa 1935-1960, called Our Little Girl . I suppose one could say Vivien Leigh lost quite a lot in her quest and struggle for success but for millions of filmgoers worldwide, she provided us with nothing but wonder and joy, and we can always celebrate both her unique talent and magnificent beauty because the movies and performances she left us with will live on forever.
This is the image Robert Taylor fell in love with. 1940's Waterloo Bridge
