Last year, when I started this blog, I wrote about my fascination with actress Norma Shearer and promised to address it soon.Does a year qualify as "soon"? I guess I got sidetracked. But when I recently watched "Strange Interlude," an MGM drama released in 1932, I was once again drawn to this woman -- wife of Irving Thalberg, who was pushing her as the first lady of MGM (and cinema). She was an actress and star, although it's that "actress" label that people have sometimes questioned. In fact, when doing a little research on this film, once source said that Thalberg's push for Shearer to be a great actress included surrounding her with the best directors, cinematographers, writers and co-stars, which! hid her acting limitations.I think that's harsh. And if you watch Shearer's career progress -- particularly in the sound era -- you clearly see her growth as an actress. She could handle the material just fine.The rest of the above statement is true -- Thalberg wanted the best for his wife. And this is a film adaptation of a Eugene O'Neill play that won a Pulitzer Prize. In it are four characters, and what's unusual is that we hear the characters verbalize their thoughts for the audience. So it's a mix of dialogue and voiceovers that can be a bit jarring at first, although I give MGM credit during this early sound era for trying something novel, even if it doesn't always work. Still, MGM had successfully translated O'Neill's "Anna Christie" into a critical success as Greta Garbo's first talkie, so there was a precedence for the studio to return to his work.Shearer plays Nina, a woman who has lost her husband during World War I. The action opens with her father (Henry Walth! all) concerned for her mental state. Loving friend Charlie (Ra! lph Morg an) would gladly marry her and whisk her away to a new life; naive Sam (Alexander Kirkland) also wants to do the same; and Dr. Ned Darrell (Clark Gable) is strangely drawn to her.Nina marries Sam, but she really doesn't love him as she should. When Sam's mother secretly reveals to Nina that mental illness runs in the family, Nina realizes she cannot have children with Sam. She contemplates a secret affair with Ned and perhaps have a child that she can pass off as Sam's in order to please him.What's irritating about the film is its almost simplistic "I love her-she loves him-she married someone else" territory. And, as the drama unfolds over many years, it feels like we're watching the same scene play out over and over again: Sam happily (and cluelessly) married, Nina torn between duty to Sam and love for Ned, Ned wanting Nina, and Charlie secretly jealous of both Sam and Ned for having Nina's affections and angry at Nina. And then, psychologically, the ghost of Nina's first ! husband -- who is never seen -- hangs over this drama, although never really addressed. You also wonder if these people ever had a life outside of this basic romantic intrigue. After all, years pass and yet they seem to discuss the same thing over and over again.
Still, the one thing that this film has going for it is star power, provided by Shearer and Gable (above). She is radiant; he is ruggedly handsome. Both command every scene in which they appear -- frankly, their charisma (individual and combined) blows everything else off the screen. Watch this movie and you'll understand what star power is. They demonstrated their chemistry together in "A Free Soul" a few years earlier, and they make the material work! here.There's some lovely photography work on display here, as! well as Robert Z. Leonard's expert direction. Particularly striking is a run by Sam and Nina through a grove of cherry trees (crab apples? I'm bad on tree identification) in blossom -- you don't need color to gasp at the breathtaking images, with light filtering through the branches. Another scene has Nina and Ned on a balcony at night, backlit from inside and by the intermittent beacon from a nearby lighthouse, in which the two stars just glow. The MGM sheen is clear here, and it helps the piece.As for Shearer, she hold her own beautifully as the lone female star among her male counterparts. While this wasn't a commercial hit, it's no stinker. And years later, it's clear to see why she was a star -- forgotten by casual movie fans who know only of Garbo or Harlow or Crawford from this time period -- and a fine actress. Hopefully it won't be another year before I write about her again.
Great classic films, best all time movies
Self Styled Siren has a really interesting post on the Shirley Temple / John Ford film Wee Willie Winkie (1937) and...Self Styled Siren ...another post on the attendant hulabaloo at the time by way of controversial critic/ screenwriter/ novelist Graham Greene who called wee Temple "a fancy little piece" in a review that prompted litigation.Com! ing Soon First photos from the upcoming 647th film adaptation of The Three Musketeers (2011). This one stars Mads Mikkelsen and Milla Jovovich.Antagony & Ecstasy reviews Cairo Time. I love this bit. Which is an extremely good reason why you should never let a plot synopsis be the sole reason you choose your movies (whereas choosing them because of the lead actress - now that's just good sense). Total Film has been surveying the movie blog landscape. I'm happy to be included on page 3 of their "another 600 movie blogs" but my goodness... 1200 is a lot of linkage with no real gain for anyone right? I mean you can't exactly list it in your bio. It's not like "Declared one of the top one thousand two hundred movie blogs!" is much of a blurb. But I kid. It's nice to be included. What's scary is that's probably only scratching the surface of all the movie blogs in the world.
offscreenWall Street Journal on "Judy Garland Lost Tracks"Playbill on "Judy Garland Lost Tracks." Ummm... how had I missed this news? Seriously. Must have now. Either my brain is a sieve or the internet is because how are people totally discussing this and I didn't even know about it?! Argh. More Judy = yes.Mighty God King "we need a human behavior patch" See, complainers? I'm not the only movie blogger who sometimes has to let off a little political steam. If you're not sometimes angry about things going on in this world, ur doin it wrong.Parabasis "let freedom ring" another fine post on the anniversary of MLK's historic speech.Boy Culture on last week's Scissor Sisters concert. It was.OMG Blog catches up with Björk. We hadn't checked in with her in awhile and we're going to Iceland soon. Yay.The Film Doctor reads the latest horror novel The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains.
Note: The first part of this two part article can be found here.As far as party girls go, Lindsay Lohan had nothing on Lana Turner in the early 1940’s (well, accept arrests and rehab time). With her perky nose, dancing dimples and honey blonde hair, the gorgeous “Sweater Girl†was on the top of the Hollywood heap, both socially and professionally. Although she was still technically a starlet, her career was on the rise, which only heated up her love life all the more.Her wild woman reputation would only be enhanced by her whirlwind four month marriage to bandleader Artie Shaw (pictured below), a notorious ladies man, who jilted both Betty Grable and a young and impressionable Judy ! Garland for Turner. Eloping after their first date, the 29 year-old lothario and the sweater girl (who had just turned 19 earlier that week) had a tumultuous time of it and Lana famously called her tenure with Shaw her “college education.†The irony is that Turner claims that she married Shaw on the rebound from yet another infamous Hollywood wolf, attorney Greg Bautzer. Bautzer ditched her for Joan Crawford (Bautzer would be portrayed by actor Steve Forrest in 1981’s Mommie Dearest). He would not only represent her in her divorce from Shaw, but also in her split from second husband, restaurateur Stephen Crane. And so goes the fast and furious Hollywood sexual Merry-Go-Round.
With her divorce ! came a new crop of men and nightclub rounds. Victor Mature and! singer Tony Martin were just a few who squired the blonde beauty around town. MGM took the opportunity of Turner’s burgeoning notoriety to cast her in Ziegfeld Girl (1941) with fellow studio beauty Hedy Lamarr and fellow studio cutie Garland. As Sheila Hale, top banana in a sea of legs and sequins that only the great showman Florenz Ziegfeld could display properly, Lana tumbled and stumbled in yet another kind of sea…..booze and men. The hit film played as a precursor of sorts to 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, and allowed Turner melodramatic training which, not only boosted her career at the time, but would hold her in good stead twenty some odd years later in her middle aged diva stage (ie: Peyton Place (1957), Imitation of Life (1959) and Madame X (1966)).Her next picture was the big budget remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which placed her at third billing after Spencer Trac! y and Ingrid Bergman. Originally slated to play the slutty victim of Mr. Hyde, she was cast as the good girl in love with Dr. Jekyll, when Miss Bergman, set to play that role, wanted a change of pace and requested their parts be switched. With the success of Ziegfeld Girl, Metro cast her with the studio’s top male star, the King himself, Clark Gable, in a western/romance called Honky Tonk (1941). Mrs. Gable, aka Carole Lombard, reportedly didn’t like the film pairing, believing the kisses during the fade out might linger after the cameras stopped rolling. Rumors swirled to that notion, though Turner stated, both in a Ladies Home Journal article, as well as her autobiography, that no such affair took place.
Yet another case! of alle ged extramarital cuddling occurred during the filming of Johnny Eager (1942) with another MGM heavyweight heartthrob, Robert Taylor. The films promotional ads read: "Taylor's Johnny, Turner's eager." Married to actress Barbara Stanwyck at the time, Taylor reportedly was so smitten with Turner that he asked Stanwyck for a divorce. As with the rumored Gable affair, Lana also denied any wrongdoing with Bob Taylor. The onscreen chemistry was definitely there, as it was with Gable and tongues continued to wag when she and Gable were cast yet again in Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942), and it was during the filming of this picture that Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash while on a war bond selling tour. The following year, Turner starred in a picture called Slightly Dangerous.By the end of the war, Lana Turner was a hot property, both on and off screen. No film could display this sexy femme fatale persona better than the on! e for which the actress would become most famous, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). As a tanned and tempting married waitress on the make, she would forever brand her image, wearing a stark white two piece short set and matching turban. She would have several more husbands in the next 25 years and many other big roles, but this part defined her sex goddess persona for the rest of the decade and most of the next one. The starlet had become a star.Want to know more?Here are some recommendations regarding the article above:Ziegfeld Girl (1941) DVDThe Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Others ~ Jane Ellen WayneIf you are interested in these or any other merchandise, please help support this blog by purchasing them through the Amazon portal at the top of this page. By accessing Amazon through this site, you help me maintain resource mater! ial and continue to share my love of classic film. Thank you v! ery much .