TAWDRY SHOWBIZ FLIX!!!
Who cannot love those garish vehicles (you know, Hollywood tells on its OWN self) from the sixties. Outrageous, laughable, incredibly set decorated to the GILT, these flix make me snigger with glee. Oh, you can keep your (pretty laughable anyway, come to think of it) JUDY! tell all A STAR IS BORN....in ten different dress sizes! or other, more revered films such as SUNSET BOULEVARD, which actually has a swell performance by Gloria Swanson, but HARLOW starring an inept Carol Baker, who has the lusty heated sex appeal of Marjorie Maine, are better suited BY FAR to my taste.
Hollywood sure don't make 'em like this anymore!
Natalie Wood is DAISY CLOVER! And her INSIDE! When inside comes out, what, you might ask, comes out?! HELEN LAWSON. Or at least her voice double. You half expect Wood to start singing "I'll Plant My Own Tree (and I'll Make it Grow)" under a giant mobile, courtesy of Monsanto. Yes, Andre Previn is the composer/lyricist, and he is his usual mediocre self. Wood, pushing 30, is sorta close-one-eye-and-squint-outta-the-other believably 16, and Ruth Gordon, pushing 130, is simply believably I-was-preggers-16-years-ago like my Aunt Fannie. But who cares? It's RUTH GORDON! Robert Redford is the blond he-man of the swishy persuasion, and Christopher Plummer is the evil Studio Head, Mr. Swan. For whatever reason, he's followed by a perpetual flame. Yes, like the JFK grave. Mrs. Swan, the icy cold blonde Cruella de Ville of the piece is harmless. Edith Head makes some hideously '60s costuming choices about the '3os. AND SHE REMEMBERED 'EM!!! But didn't she end up designing for JC PENNEY in the end? This lithe flick turns in at 2:05 minutes, but you could easily skip about forty minutes worth of misguided musicalia. Also featured: Malevolent Homo Roddy McDowell.
THE OSCAR features STEPHEN BOYD'S giant head and tiny pants. Read into to that whatever you want. Oh, he's a scrapper all right! He yells like Charleton Heston....all the time...and he hangs out with HYMIE (I didn't make this one up), a sycophant and "promoter" pal played by Monsanto enhanced Tony Bennett! Jill St. John is the naughty good girl, seen dancing on a pool table clad in nothing but a tiger print bikini. In the first five minutes! And if you can't recognize a henna rinse, you aren't a fag. This flick has THE BEST furniture and wall hangings of any film of the period. Brace yourself for LOVE, EARLY AMERICAN STYLE...IT'S MOD!!! EVERYONE has a cameo! I mean, Merle Oberon? Edith Head? Stephen Boyd's Chest? Bob Hope? Scratch that. So what. Casting like this makes ya wonder: WHAT WAS MARTHA RAYE DOING?! What will Boyd do to get that OSCAR? Only Hymie knows....
Moving slightly off Sunset and onto Broadway. STAGE STRUCK stars a begnign Susan Strasberg (in her FEATURING role), a tall but quiet dude, the older Henry Fonda, the even older Herbert Marshall, traisping along in that wooden leg. This thing proposes that it was based on STAGE DOOR, but this RKO garbage only resembles the main character's stage name: Eva Lovelace. I, know. STRIPPER. But Hepburn made a sensation of her, and Strasberg hocks her father's wares. She drunkenly plays Juliet to Fonda's Romeo at a cast party. A RAVE! Eventually, after playing in rather tawdry coffee houses in the Village, Missy bumps the miscast Broadway Diva off her perch, and in few days takes over, looks forward to walking into Sardi's that night.
Sorry for the spoiler.
You knew where it was going.
Did I mention that Christopher Plummer plays the long-suffering playwrite?
He does.
You doze.
Marion Davies stars in SHOW PEOPLE. In blonde ringlets, carrying a perisol, Miss Davies from the South arrives with her Colnel Pickett Papa on the streets of Old Hollywood. What a pleasure it is to see! LA USED TO BE THE NICEST PLACE. Sigh. Quickly Davies is signed (note the MGM gates), and even more quickly do the coffers run dry. Enter Billy Haines, Hollywood's First Faggot and leading man. Billy works for a keystone cops type comedy outfit, and quickly does Marion sign on, ONLY TO GET A PIE IN THE PUSS!!! Soon, however, Davies signs on at a prestige studio, thereby becoming a STAH! and turning into Gloria Swanson. Davies does a remarkable Swanson, and a luncheon scene on the MGM lot features the likes of Mae Murray, Douglas Fairbanks, Norma Desmond. This flick is SO much fun, and Davies is remarkable. Billy Haines proves to be a good sport, relegated to second lead when he should have been Above the Title.
This is Miss Davies' film.
William Randolph Hearst
Who cannot love those garish vehicles (you know, Hollywood tells on its OWN self) from the sixties. Outrageous, laughable, incredibly set decorated to the GILT, these flix make me snigger with glee. Oh, you can keep your (pretty laughable anyway, come to think of it) JUDY! tell all A STAR IS BORN....in ten different dress sizes! or other, more revered films such as SUNSET BOULEVARD, which actually has a swell performance by Gloria Swanson, but HARLOW starring an inept Carol Baker, who has the lusty heated sex appeal of Marjorie Maine, are better suited BY FAR to my taste.
Hollywood sure don't make 'em like this anymore!
Natalie Wood is DAISY CLOVER! And her INSIDE! When inside comes out, what, you might ask, comes out?! HELEN LAWSON. Or at least her voice double. You half expect Wood to start singing "I'll Plant My Own Tree (and I'll Make it Grow)" under a giant mobile, courtesy of Monsanto. Yes, Andre Previn is the composer/lyricist, and he is his usual mediocre self. Wood, pushing 30, is sorta close-one-eye-and-squint-outta-the-other believably 16, and Ruth Gordon, pushing 130, is simply believably I-was-preggers-16-years-ago like my Aunt Fannie. But who cares? It's RUTH GORDON! Robert Redford is the blond he-man of the swishy persuasion, and Christopher Plummer is the evil Studio Head, Mr. Swan. For whatever reason, he's followed by a perpetual flame. Yes, like the JFK grave. Mrs. Swan, the icy cold blonde Cruella de Ville of the piece is harmless. Edith Head makes some hideously '60s costuming choices about the '3os. AND SHE REMEMBERED 'EM!!! But didn't she end up designing for JC PENNEY in the end? This lithe flick turns in at 2:05 minutes, but you could easily skip about forty minutes worth of misguided musicalia. Also featured: Malevolent Homo Roddy McDowell.
THE OSCAR features STEPHEN BOYD'S giant head and tiny pants. Read into to that whatever you want. Oh, he's a scrapper all right! He yells like Charleton Heston....all the time...and he hangs out with HYMIE (I didn't make this one up), a sycophant and "promoter" pal played by Monsanto enhanced Tony Bennett! Jill St. John is the naughty good girl, seen dancing on a pool table clad in nothing but a tiger print bikini. In the first five minutes! And if you can't recognize a henna rinse, you aren't a fag. This flick has THE BEST furniture and wall hangings of any film of the period. Brace yourself for LOVE, EARLY AMERICAN STYLE...IT'S MOD!!! EVERYONE has a cameo! I mean, Merle Oberon? Edith Head? Stephen Boyd's Chest? Bob Hope? Scratch that. So what. Casting like this makes ya wonder: WHAT WAS MARTHA RAYE DOING?! What will Boyd do to get that OSCAR? Only Hymie knows....
Moving slightly off Sunset and onto Broadway. STAGE STRUCK stars a begnign Susan Strasberg (in her FEATURING role), a tall but quiet dude, the older Henry Fonda, the even older Herbert Marshall, traisping along in that wooden leg. This thing proposes that it was based on STAGE DOOR, but this RKO garbage only resembles the main character's stage name: Eva Lovelace. I, know. STRIPPER. But Hepburn made a sensation of her, and Strasberg hocks her father's wares. She drunkenly plays Juliet to Fonda's Romeo at a cast party. A RAVE! Eventually, after playing in rather tawdry coffee houses in the Village, Missy bumps the miscast Broadway Diva off her perch, and in few days takes over, looks forward to walking into Sardi's that night.
Sorry for the spoiler.
You knew where it was going.
Did I mention that Christopher Plummer plays the long-suffering playwrite?
He does.
You doze.
Marion Davies stars in SHOW PEOPLE. In blonde ringlets, carrying a perisol, Miss Davies from the South arrives with her Colnel Pickett Papa on the streets of Old Hollywood. What a pleasure it is to see! LA USED TO BE THE NICEST PLACE. Sigh. Quickly Davies is signed (note the MGM gates), and even more quickly do the coffers run dry. Enter Billy Haines, Hollywood's First Faggot and leading man. Billy works for a keystone cops type comedy outfit, and quickly does Marion sign on, ONLY TO GET A PIE IN THE PUSS!!! Soon, however, Davies signs on at a prestige studio, thereby becoming a STAH! and turning into Gloria Swanson. Davies does a remarkable Swanson, and a luncheon scene on the MGM lot features the likes of Mae Murray, Douglas Fairbanks, Norma Desmond. This flick is SO much fun, and Davies is remarkable. Billy Haines proves to be a good sport, relegated to second lead when he should have been Above the Title.
This is Miss Davies' film.
William Randolph Hearst
2 comments:
I love/hate The Oscar! OMG Craig Curtis! As usual, your taste in NetFlix is awful/superb!
Well, you have Hedda, Louella and Rona to thank for that. Yes. I meant Barrett.
And XO to you, TOO!
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