Movie For A Rainy Saturday Night - Mildred Pierce!

[launderess]

Have Loved Connie Gilchrist

Of old!

Ever since seeing her in "Mame", then later on a late night viewing of "Letter to Three Wives".

Her so thick you could cut it with a knife brouge, and manner of a anyone's good Irish older mother or gran; you know, the kind of woman that drank beer from a bottle and could beat down the tax man with a chicken! *LOL*

 

[brettsomers]

Bless you Sandy for posting that YT link. I had never heard the Crawford vocal, but had always been curious about it. I wonder if she got rusty after years of not singing in her pictures. Im very familiar with her 30s vocals and was always amazed at her talent. Maybe if Torch Song had a better budget some coaching would have given her a little more strength. IMO the Crawford of the late 30s could have pulled it off, no problem!

 

[danemodsandy]

Brett:

" I wonder if she got rusty after years of not singing in her pictures."

Joan was both a smoker and a drinker, and fifteen years had passed since her previous singing efforts in movies, so it's not surprising she couldn't really do it any more. Also, she had undertaken serious vocal training in the '30s, singing lieder and light operatic arias for friends, but she didn't keep up with it. During this period, she recorded some songs - most for private use, but she recorded "I'm In Love With the Honorable Mr. So-and-So," and "It's All So New to Me" as commercial releases. Her recordings of "The Lamp on the Corner" and "Du bist die Ruh" (one of Schubert's lieder) are bootlegs of two of her private recordings; those was made at M-G-M at her expense, and were never intended for release.

When you watched the YT video, did you notice Joan's "private" voice? Like a lot of stars of her era, Joan had two speaking voices - the one we're familiar with from her movies, and a higher, more casual, Southern-inflected one that she slipped into when she wasn't working. Her first official husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr., mentioned it in his autobiography, Salad Days, but it's very rare to hear Joan use it on a recording.

 

[danemodsandy]

Those WERE Made:

"Those was" - tch! Sloppy edit; sorry about that.

I always has knowed better than that there.

 

[westingman123]

Speaking of radio...

I thought I was the only one who noticed the radio! I've been trying to identify it for years. There's a cool washing machine in the back, by the door, as well. It MIGHT be an Automagic Thor, I can't tell for certain. And, btw, Humoresque is another of my favorites.

 

[danemodsandy]

Keith:

That radio is a honey, isn't it? And that's just the beginning of that kitchen. There's that washer, which I believe is a Thor Automagic, and there are the cabinets, which are Youngstown Kitchens metal cabinets. There's a super wall phone that Ann Sothern uses for a call - I think it's a Western Electric AE50, finished in white. There are milk glass salt and pepper shakers behind the range, and a fortune in Guardian Service cookware on the range.

Looks like Rita's $100 a week from radio writing came in handy! It was equal to about $860 today.

 

[danemodsandy]

Oops again!

I meant Automatic Electric, not Western Electric.

 

[westingman123]

100 pieces

"of what Addie Ross calls 'the most RESTFUL shade of green'".

 

[danemodsandy]

AE50:

Here's a restored one from the Phoneco site (www.phonecoinc.com). They're nice people.

 

[circlew]

Beautiful phone

I have an AE50 wall phone in black, but it has no dial as it was used with a PBX. I got it out of an old dept. store downtown (Pogue's) that had closed.

 

[mrsalvo]

I've really enjoyed this thread, and I belive I could offer some insight to some of the divas.
Norma Shearer was a class act. It's absolutely amazing how she climbed her way to the top and became "Queen Of The Lot," given the many faults she had and learned how to disguise them. Norma had a sever cast in her left eye, causing it to turn inward. She practiced eye muscle exercises everyday to correct the cast. If you ever watch her movies you'll see that she never looks directly into the camera or into a costars eyes but rather she looks just beyond the camera or the object. But whenever she had to look back suddenly the cast would appear. She also had to watch her weight constantly, she had rather thick thighs and not the best legs, so her wardrobe was fashioned to belittle those faults. Her hands were also rather large, she would use extensive jewelry to draw a persons eye away from her hands. Lastly, though she married Thalberg, she still had to fight for her roles. She would have never gotten the role of the Divorcee with the potrait sitting with Hurrell, she had to prove herself. God, did she ever have poise. Like Crawford, she wasn't the best mother though.
Crawford was beautiful, esp. in the early/mid 30's. She too had a few faults that were disguised from the camera. You never saw a shot of her with her head hanging low as it would emphasize her broad forehead. I heard it said that much of her career was built on lighting.

And then...there's Garbo.

 

[danemodsandy]

Barry:

You might enjoy this article on Shearer I wrote some years ago:

http://owww.divasthesite.com/sorceress.htm

 

[danemodsandy]

Not Even...

...Garbo was immune to camera faults; she had a tendency to expose too much of her gums when she smiled. It used to drive George Cukor nuts.

 

[mrsalvo]

Sandy,
I clicked on the link and it said the page could not be displayed. Would love to read the article.

 

[danemodsandy]

Barry:

Sorry 'bout that! I got an extra letter in there somewhere. Here's a corrected linkie:

http://www.divasthesite.com/sorceress.htm

 

[washabear]

I saw an interesting Crawford movie a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't seen before: Strange Cargo. It was from 1940, which I guess was toward the end of Crawford's MGM days? It costarred Clark Gable, Ian Hunter, and Peter Lorre and was about a group of inmates in a penal colony who escape and travel on a boat to reach freedom. I was surprised to find that it had a bit of a homosympathetic element to it, as shown by the affection between Albert Dekker and a young man on the boat, whom he wants to take with him and protect. Crawford was there mainly as the interest of Gable. I found it rather offbeat and entertaining.

Anyone else know it?

 

[frigilux]

Thanks for the link to the page about Norma Shearer, Sandy. I'm a fan. You'll also find her brother Douglas's name in the credits in nearly every MGM movie from that era: Recording Director (or the equivalent).

Off topic: Did it snow in your part of Nebraska last night? We had quite a little storm for a couple of hours, but it's already melted. I hope you don't find your first northern winter to be too horrible. Those of us who have lived up here all our lives are used to them, but they can be quite a shock to the system for our transplanted southern friends.

 

[danemodsandy]

Strange Cargo:

It was a very strange movie, and there's a story connected to it:

As a reigning female star of many years' standing, Crawford had a "first billing" clause in her contract, meaning that no other actor's name could be displayed as prominently as hers in a movie's credits or advertising. Crawford and Gable had worked together in several movies when he was not (yet) as big a star as she, so her "first billing" clause always applied. But by the time Strange Cargo was made, Gable had become the biggest star in the world, and he had been given a first-billing clause in his contract too. Since Crawford had experienced some box-office slippage by '40 (her last really big box-office year was '37, though her movies still made very good money), she was expected to yield gracefully and allow Gable to be co-starred with her, his name appearing as prominently as hers, and first, because of his professional standing at the time. Joan did no such thing.

She held both M-G-M and Gable to her first-billing clause, which she was able to do because hers pre-dated Gable's. Gable's name and billing came second to hers on the movie and its ads. Whatever satisfaction Joan got out of the situation, she did not benefit in the long run; Gable never made another movie with her, and he also stopped seeing her - they'd had a long-standing affair.

Joan would have done well to take a hint from Norma Shearer, who had yielded her own first-billing clause on The Women so that Crawford could be co-starred; Norma was known to be a tough cookie about stuff like that (and was no friend of Crawford's besides), but she was also a team player, and she understood how important it was to The Women's box-office success to be presented as an "all-star" picture. Norma even yielded a second time on The Women; in the middle of shooting, Rosalind Russell faked illness until her contract was adjusted to give her full star rights, which meant Norma was asked to sign a contract waiver for Russell as well as the one she'd signed for Crawford. Norma's professionalism on The Women was what made Russell a full and unquestioned star after years of supporting-player status.

Not coincidentally, M-G-M stopped putting its full weight behind Crawford about this time; her movies got less budget and promotion than they had previously. After a few years of this, Joan realised that M-G-M was basically through with her, and asked for a release from her contract. It was granted, and that's when she signed with Warner Bros.

 

[mrsalvo]

Sandy,
Your work is thorough and excellent. Who else have you investigated/researched? I would like to read more of your work.
Anyone can make, even despite physical flaws. They were so good at masking them.

 

[danemodsandy]

Frigilux:

I'm in Iowa, not Nebraska, but the "S"-word has been used in tomorrow's weather forecast. We shall see. I'm not as unused to snow and cold as all that, though it was a shock coming here, because the cold has descended on Iowa about three weeks ahead of schedule; even the natives are talking about it.