MARGARET O'BRIEN
According to Jeanine Basinger, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, still miffed that FOX had procured the services of wunderkind Shirley Temple in the thirties, found his own child prodigy as Temple was moving into that awkward stage: her teens. Who did he find? Why five year old water spigot, Margaret O'Brien! Can you imagine the convo between LB and the talent scout who found her?
Look LB! Here's that kid you've been looking for! Nah, she can't sing! Cute? Well. If you close one eye and squint out of the other, yeah! Can she dance? Hell no! Did that stop you from hiring Virginia Weidler?! But look LB, the kid can cry on cue! C'mon kid! Show him what you got!
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Here are a couple of tear jerking performances meant for those Wartime Audiences.
JOURNEY FOR MARGARET: O'Brien, in an elfin hat, stars with Robert Young. She's a war orphan in blitzkrieg Britain, and American reporter Young has a barren wife, Larraine Day, who, ironically, has gone berzerk with shell shock. Thank GOD that Watson guy from the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes Series was around to diagnose Day's problem! Strangely, O'Brien is shell-shocked, too! But Austrian Refugee Fay Bainter is on hand, running a home for little lost children. AND SHE COAXES THOSE TEARS RIGHT OUT OF O'BRIEN! And once she starts, the hysteria won't stop. O'Brien bonds with some other moppet, Young is bewitched, and the next thing you know, they're trying to figure out a way to get the kids out of Britain on tightly packed military planes. You can guess how this ends.
Edward G. Robinson, Agnes Moorehead and the Magic Font star in OUR VINES HAVE TENDER GRAPES. Based on the novel by George Victor Martin and adapted for the screen by soon to be Black Listed Dalton Trumbo, this flick is set in some Midwestern town of Swedish immigrants, just trying to get along eating egg pancakes with honey and milking cows. Again, there's lot's of talk about the War in Europe. Some broad with the strangest hair 'do costars as the big city gal who comes to town to teach elementary school. O' Brien (accidentally killing a rodent while pretending to be a WAC) starts tearing up in the first five minutes! While Robinson (in a strange departure from his usual gansta roles) puts on an unlikely Swedish accent, Moorehead doesn't even bother.
In LITTLE WOMEN, O'Brien stars as the ever pathetic Beth. Also on hand are an annoying June Allyson, cool and collected adulteress Mary Astor, Peter Lawford, Rossano Brazzi, Janet Leigh, and a bizarrely blonde Elizabeth Taylor. In a weird futuristic twist, Taylor is filmed stuffing her face with pastries, sausages and lampshades. Well, maybe not lampshades, but she recites lines with a mouthful throughout. Louisa May Alcott gets the MGM treatment! You know the story. I won't even bother to go into it.
MEET ME IN ST LOUIS stars a glamourized Judy Garland, Mary Astor, Lew Ayres, and, of course, hydrolically enhanced O'Brien as TOOTIE, the petulant little brat who wants to go to the fair. Technicolor tune-filled schmaltz directed by Vincente Minelli. Rumor has it that by this time, O'Brien knew what she was, and took to ruining takes by moving props around before shooting, infuriating the old pros around her. Garland looks fine, but you know she's hopped up on bennies because she's thin as a rail and her already dark eyes are enhanced by tell-tale enlarged pupils. Fine family fare, if you have one.
In a bit of pre-war revisionist history, screenwriter Sarah Williams tells the tale of WALLIS AND EDWARD, this time from the two time divorcee's point of view. No, Wallis Simpson did NOT want to be queen, no she did NOT want the King to abdicate, yes hubby WANTED a divorce to marry his mistress. O'Brien is nowhere to be seen, and Joely Richardson kinda looks like Wallis's younger pretty sister. Stephen Campbell Moore is on hand as the man who would be king, and Mariam Margolyes is the ever kindly Aunt Bessie, who comforts Wallis by telling her that NO MATTER WHAT, THE WOMAN IS ALWAYS TO BLAME! Ever since Eve! But take heart, Wallis! Your fig leaf is from Cartier. Really horrid supporting cast pretending to be famous figures from the day. Morganic Marriage be damned! At best, a chick flick. At worst, a bunch of malarkey.
William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck star in GOLDEN BOY. Really affecting boxing flick based on Clifford Odet's acclaimed play. Holden is a sensitive violinist-cum-champion boxer, and Stanwyck is the hard-boiled gal he loves. Will she ditch Adolph Menjou? Will Lee J. Cobb forgive his son for throwing over music for sparring? Will Bill Holden just keep his shirt off for 20 more minutes? PRETTY PLEASE? Ironically, this swell flick was produced in 1939, arguably Hollywood's Golden Year.
Get out the Kleenex kids.
And be sure to take your Prozac.
According to Jeanine Basinger, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, still miffed that FOX had procured the services of wunderkind Shirley Temple in the thirties, found his own child prodigy as Temple was moving into that awkward stage: her teens. Who did he find? Why five year old water spigot, Margaret O'Brien! Can you imagine the convo between LB and the talent scout who found her?
Look LB! Here's that kid you've been looking for! Nah, she can't sing! Cute? Well. If you close one eye and squint out of the other, yeah! Can she dance? Hell no! Did that stop you from hiring Virginia Weidler?! But look LB, the kid can cry on cue! C'mon kid! Show him what you got!
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Here are a couple of tear jerking performances meant for those Wartime Audiences.
JOURNEY FOR MARGARET: O'Brien, in an elfin hat, stars with Robert Young. She's a war orphan in blitzkrieg Britain, and American reporter Young has a barren wife, Larraine Day, who, ironically, has gone berzerk with shell shock. Thank GOD that Watson guy from the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes Series was around to diagnose Day's problem! Strangely, O'Brien is shell-shocked, too! But Austrian Refugee Fay Bainter is on hand, running a home for little lost children. AND SHE COAXES THOSE TEARS RIGHT OUT OF O'BRIEN! And once she starts, the hysteria won't stop. O'Brien bonds with some other moppet, Young is bewitched, and the next thing you know, they're trying to figure out a way to get the kids out of Britain on tightly packed military planes. You can guess how this ends.
Edward G. Robinson, Agnes Moorehead and the Magic Font star in OUR VINES HAVE TENDER GRAPES. Based on the novel by George Victor Martin and adapted for the screen by soon to be Black Listed Dalton Trumbo, this flick is set in some Midwestern town of Swedish immigrants, just trying to get along eating egg pancakes with honey and milking cows. Again, there's lot's of talk about the War in Europe. Some broad with the strangest hair 'do costars as the big city gal who comes to town to teach elementary school. O' Brien (accidentally killing a rodent while pretending to be a WAC) starts tearing up in the first five minutes! While Robinson (in a strange departure from his usual gansta roles) puts on an unlikely Swedish accent, Moorehead doesn't even bother.
In LITTLE WOMEN, O'Brien stars as the ever pathetic Beth. Also on hand are an annoying June Allyson, cool and collected adulteress Mary Astor, Peter Lawford, Rossano Brazzi, Janet Leigh, and a bizarrely blonde Elizabeth Taylor. In a weird futuristic twist, Taylor is filmed stuffing her face with pastries, sausages and lampshades. Well, maybe not lampshades, but she recites lines with a mouthful throughout. Louisa May Alcott gets the MGM treatment! You know the story. I won't even bother to go into it.
MEET ME IN ST LOUIS stars a glamourized Judy Garland, Mary Astor, Lew Ayres, and, of course, hydrolically enhanced O'Brien as TOOTIE, the petulant little brat who wants to go to the fair. Technicolor tune-filled schmaltz directed by Vincente Minelli. Rumor has it that by this time, O'Brien knew what she was, and took to ruining takes by moving props around before shooting, infuriating the old pros around her. Garland looks fine, but you know she's hopped up on bennies because she's thin as a rail and her already dark eyes are enhanced by tell-tale enlarged pupils. Fine family fare, if you have one.
In a bit of pre-war revisionist history, screenwriter Sarah Williams tells the tale of WALLIS AND EDWARD, this time from the two time divorcee's point of view. No, Wallis Simpson did NOT want to be queen, no she did NOT want the King to abdicate, yes hubby WANTED a divorce to marry his mistress. O'Brien is nowhere to be seen, and Joely Richardson kinda looks like Wallis's younger pretty sister. Stephen Campbell Moore is on hand as the man who would be king, and Mariam Margolyes is the ever kindly Aunt Bessie, who comforts Wallis by telling her that NO MATTER WHAT, THE WOMAN IS ALWAYS TO BLAME! Ever since Eve! But take heart, Wallis! Your fig leaf is from Cartier. Really horrid supporting cast pretending to be famous figures from the day. Morganic Marriage be damned! At best, a chick flick. At worst, a bunch of malarkey.
William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck star in GOLDEN BOY. Really affecting boxing flick based on Clifford Odet's acclaimed play. Holden is a sensitive violinist-cum-champion boxer, and Stanwyck is the hard-boiled gal he loves. Will she ditch Adolph Menjou? Will Lee J. Cobb forgive his son for throwing over music for sparring? Will Bill Holden just keep his shirt off for 20 more minutes? PRETTY PLEASE? Ironically, this swell flick was produced in 1939, arguably Hollywood's Golden Year.
Get out the Kleenex kids.
And be sure to take your Prozac.
2 comments:
Craig S Curtis!
I get your inference!
"Liz Taylor.....lampshades.."
!
Ooops! That was a Freudian slip on my part. But then I remembered how she chewed up and spit out Eddie Fisher.
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