Marge Gunderson (Fargo): "I'm not sure I agree with you a hunnert percent on your police work, there, Lou." Frances McDormand as the smalltown cop. Strong, compassionate, pregnant, a trooper in more ways than one.
Susan Vance: (Bringing Up Baby): Cary Grant plays opposite Katherine Hepburn in this first rate screwball comedy: "Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments..." Delightfully daffy, seriously screwy, elegantly cuckoo, Kate at her wacky best.
Charlotte Vale (Now Voyager): Bette Davis with caterpillars for eyebrows.
Mrs Henry Windle Vale (Now Voyager): Gladys Cooper as Charlotte's bad mother, the mother who never tells her daughter about plucking or other activities that rhyme with plucking or anything the least bit plucky. Cooper was a stage actress extraodinaire and it shows.
Stella Dallas (Stella Dallas): Big jewelry, big heart, big sacrifices. If Mrs Vale was one of the nastiest mothers in cinema then Stella wins for being the most loving and sacrificial. In her clanging baubles and gaudy frocks, Barbara Stanwyck aces the part.
Loreli Lee (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes): Upon discovering that the tiara really does belong on top of one's head, Marilyn Monroe as Loreli Lee declares: "I just LOVE finding mew places to wear diamonds." I always understood Loreli's attraction to the sparkly stuff, and Marilyn played the diamond-digging Loreli ("a girl such as I") with her usual winning platinum aplomb.
Baby Jane Hudson (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane): Wearing ringlets and rouge not fit for courtesan nor streetwalker, Baby Jane (former child star now in her 60s) taunts and tortures her crippled sister: "But ya ah in a wheelchair, Blanche, ya ah." BD chewing up the scenery.
Madame X (Madame X): Lana Turner doing the sacrificial wife/mother bit in this superb hanky soaker. Her costars are formindable: Burgess Meredith, John Forsyth, Keir Dullea, and Ricardo Montalban as her sleazy lover. With Constance Bennett playing her evil mother-in-law the cast was complete.
Billie Dawn (Born Yesterday): Judy Holliday originated the role of this not-so-dumb-blonde-gangster's-moll on Broadway but almost didn't get the screen part. Good thing she did: her gin game is the prize in this box of Crackerjacks.
Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard): Gloria Swanson as the hasbeen star of the silent screen. "We had faces then." Full of silent actress gesturing and grand dame overacting Swanson is perfectly creepy in her stagey, needy turn as Norma Desmond.
Prissy (Gone With the Wind): "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" Butterfly McQueen's glorious high pitched voice was once described in print as "a clarinet with a cold". In later years McQueen would be called "Uncle Thomasina" for taking on the stereotypical role of Scarlett O'Hara's maid. I include the character here because McQueen once said: "Now I am happy I did Gone With the Wind. I wasn't when I was 28, but it's part of black history. You have no idea how hard it is for black actors, but things change, things blossom in time." Butterfly was one of the blossoms.
Scarlett O'Hara: (GWTW): The girl had a way with drapery. After I saw the flick in the 60s I made a frock out of my mother's tablecloth. Not as stunning as Vivien Leigh's velvet creation but certainly suitable for the Swinging Decade.
Blanche DuBois (A Streetcar Named Desire): "Oh, look we have created enchantment." Here Vivien Leigh calls upon her vocal chords to help create the last-ditch-attempt and bruised reality of Blanche DuBois: dipping way down low then rising to a frantic pitch, she inhabits Blanche's unhinged mind with characteristic expertise.
Sally Bowles (Cabaret): Liza, Liza, Liza! (With a zee.) I painted my nails green after seeing Cabaret and in my small town that non pink nail polish rocked the small boats of the small people almost as much as my tablecloth dress and my other eye catching sartorial creations.
The Girl (Seven Year Itch): Marilyn in that marshmallow pink ensemble, Marilyn in that iconic white dress, Marilyn in anything (including her underwear which she keeps in the icebox in this heat saturated movie). When I was little I thought Tom Ewell was very funny but now that I am all grown up (kinda) I wish Wilder had gotten his first choice: Walter Mathau.
Judith Canfield (Stage Door): Lucille Ball wasn't always the card we knew from I Love Lucy. In her early movie career she tackled serious roles, this one opposite Kate Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden and Ann Miller.
Tracy Lord (Philadelphia Story): My, Kate was yar - especially in that sleek, sexy, sparkly white evening dress by Adrian.Dinah Lord (Philadelphia Story): Virginia Weidler as the spirited little sister of Tracy. Only Groucho could out do her rousing rendition of "Lydia O Lydia, say have you met Lydia, Lydia, the Tatooed Lady. She has eyes that folks adore so and a torso even more so."
Kate Trask (East of Eden): Jo Van Fleet won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing James Dean's mom in both his first film and hers. She was 41 years old at the time and had up until then been a stage actress exclusively.
6 comments:
You make me want to spend the rest of winter just tucked up in front of a fire watching all these films!
Thanks
S
Blimey! You just know so much about this stuff! I am amazed, and in awe.....
Vargas is a marvel. May I encourage you to do the same as I do and spread the word? tell your friends? post a link? it's good stuff!
Stoke that fire, watch those films, and thank you all.
Vargas, you have certainly made me think about the wonderful actresses that there have been, those from a byegone era. Lovely to read through your post and recall the names. The modern female stars are beautiful and talented certainly, but they don't have the aura and the charm that was part of the attraction of those former leading ladies. A
Great list. By the way, the connection at The Dancing Image has been supplied. Damn, that sounds like some cryptic drug code. I hope no one from the DEA is reading.
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