Tab & Fab in '59

Youngsters Tab Hunter and Fabian listen to advice from old timers Frank Sinatra and Gary Cooper back in 1959. Frank was probably shooting CAN CAN on an adjoining 20th Century Fox lot, when Fabian was making his debut in the pleasant HOUND DOG MAN - while over at Warners co-stars Coop and Tab chat on the set of THEY CAME TO CORDURA. Tab and Fab went on to decent careers, see labels - Tab also sang a bit, and Fabian posed for "Playgirl" in the 70s. Here they are at a later date. 

Don Siegel's HOUND DOG MAN is a pleasant diversion and worth seeking out - as per review (Fabian label).

Ingrid, Gary, Flora - still of the day

Its SARATOGA TRUNK of course, filmed in 1943 but not released until 1945 when Ingrid Bergman was at the height of her 1940s popularity. She and Gary Cooper reteamed here have a lot of fun with this one, and Dame Flora Robson plays her Creole maid in blackface. Its still a delirious treat now. 

Coming up: some treats from Jerry, and a new consignment of rare dvds from raredvdsforsale:

Pola Negri and Basil Rathbone in the 1932 A WOMAN COMMANDS; Evelyn Brent as THE PAGAN LADY, 1931; Vadim's 1960 lesbian vampires BLOOD AND ROSES  - not seen that since I was a kid and remember how impressed I was; The Montands and Mylene Demongeot in the 1957 WITCHES OF SALEM; the 1949 FABIOLA - the peplum of peplums in a perfect print, with Henri Vidal; and that holy grail of lost movies: a marvellous looking Jean Seberg in BIRDS IN PERU in 1968, Tashlin's 1961 comedy BACHELOR FLAT: Terry-Thomas coping with American college, and a two part documentary on and by Dirk Bogarde. Oh , and Faye Dunaway as THE COUNTRY GIRL - yes, that Country Girl, sometime in the 80s. Plus Pier Angeli in PORT AFRIQUE, Ava Gardner's 1970 oddity TAM-LIN, and another copy of one of our favourites here: Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) from 1957 -  the French TV version introduced by Alain Delon; plus that recent French wartime drama SUITE FRANCAISE, and the Hardy Boy and Cherlize in that new MAD MAX. Lots to talk about then ....

Grant & Stewart -v- Cooper & Gable ...

Cary Grant and James Stewart now seem the most popular and timeless of the classic male stars – maybe each having done 4 films with Hitchcock, which are always on show somewhere, helps? (NOTORIOUS, REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST are certainly timeless classics). Whereas Clark Gable and Gary Cooper seem not as popular now and did not leave any late classics for us to mull over –well, apart from the elegaic THE MISFITS for Gable …

Both Grant and Stewart also had runs of popular films in the second half of the Fiftes; Grant squiring the likes of Kelly, Kerr, Bergman, Loren and continuing into the Sixties with the tailormade hit CHARADE, before bowing out in 1966; whereas Stewart also had that good run of Anthony Mann westerns and popular hits like THE GLENN MILLER STORY and ANATOMY OF A MURDER, he too continued into the Sixties playing bumbling fathers in Fox comedies and still busy in westerns.

Gable and Cooper though had gone by the dawn of the Sixties – Gable dying at 59 in 1960, and Cooper aged 60 in 1961. Like Spencer Tracy they seem to have aged rapidly, perhaps after years of hard living. Their later films, while entertaining and popular enough at the time, do not get much exposure these days ... 

Wyler’s FRIENDLY PERSUASION may be Coop’s last big hit, in 1956, we like it a lot and he is perfect in it.. He followed this with LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON which - despite Audrey Hepburn -  was a lesser-seen Wilder (which did not work for me at all), then a Jerry Wald literary adaptation (from O’Hara) for Fox: TEN NORTH FREDERICK, and two tough westerns: Mann’s MAN OF THE WEST and Daves’ THE HANGING TREE, in Rossen’s turgid THEY CAME TO CORDURA in 1959 he and Rita Hayworth are both touching – two beauties ravaged by time (what a difference 20 years makes), and he finished with two Michael Anderson thrillers made in England: he is effective in THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE with Heston, but ill-at-ease as the murder suspect (as if he would kill Deborah Kerr!) in the weak THE NAKED EDGE in 1961.

Gable after some routine westerns scored with Doris Day in TEACHER’S PET, and guyed his older image in the delightful BUT NOT FOR ME with Lilli Palmer and Carroll Baker in 1959, and was then off to romance Sophia Loren (30 years younger than him) in the popular IT STARTED IN NAPLES (left) before returning to the States for the tough shoot of THE MISFITS for Huston. Did all the delays and doing those stunts with the horses bring on his early demise? He certainly looked sadly aged here.

Perhaps if they – Coop and Gable – had the longevity of Grant and Stewart we may have seen more from them and maybe some more classics – not from Hitchcock though, by the Sixties he was using younger actors: Rod Taylor, Connery, Newman. 

Perhaps the Grant and Stewart personas with their constant sense of humour (even in serious roles)  fitted in better with suit-and-tie mid-century America, and those Hitchcocks certainly helped, Gable and Coop seemed more at home at war or out west. Gable used to finish at 5.00pm every day regardless and seemed happy doing mainly routine fare, cast with the likes of Lana Turner, Jane Russell or Ava Gardner. At least his later films got him Doris Day, Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe, and of course he had those constant revivals of GONE WITH THE WIND to keep his brand alive. 

Something camp for the weekend 2: glamour photos

Some luridly colorful star photos: (I couldn't figure where else to put them). Bette, Susan, Gina, Anita, Kay Kendall, plus Tab, Guy, Charles Farrell, young Gary Cooper, and Cary and Randy at lunch. ... glamour in spades!

Gary by Cecil

I was stunned and pleased to receive as a birthday present (thanks so much Colin) a sumptuous coffee table book on Cecil Beaton portraits with his comments on the sitters. We know he did not like Elizabeth Taylor and his waspish comments are here in full. One he did like was the young Gary Cooper, caught here in this terrific 1937 portrait showing maybe the most beautiful man of the 1930s. We like the older Cooper too in his '50s movies - right. and left: Beaton with Cooper. 

The book includes all those others too: Monroe, both Hepburns, Dietrich, Royalty, all the high society of that era from the 20s to the 60s including another fascination of Beaton's: Mick Jagger, Nureyev, Hockney etc. and of course Greta Garbo ..... and is compiled by Beaton's literary executor and biographer Hugo Vickers. 

Cecil Beaton (1904–80) was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. His photographs first appeared in "Vanity Fair" and "Vogue" in the 1920s. During World War II he served in the British Ministry of Information, covering the fighting in Africa and East Asia. The foremost photographer of his day, he also designed the settings and costumes for numerous films and plays - GIGI, MY FAIR LADY, Streisand Regency flashbacks in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, and was a published and well-known diarist. Beaton was knighted in 1972. I will have to return to his many diaries ...

Coop in London, 1959

Gary Cooper, long a favourite of The Movie Projector, made his last 2 films in England, for director Michael Anderson, after that good run he had from the mid-'50s (FRIENDLY PERSUASION, TEN NORTH FREDERICK, LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (though I don't care for it), MAN OF THE WEST, THE HANGING TREE, THEY CAME TO CORDURA) then THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE and finally THE NAKED EDGE, that rather dull thriller with a obviously ill looking star. (Cooper died in 1961, aged 60 - a pity he could not have gone on like Cary Grant or James Stewart, and made more important movies, like for Hitchcock, which would still be in view today. Same with Clark Gable, dyring at 59 in 1960). 

THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE is still enjoyable now, from a Hammond Innes novel, scripted by Eric Ambler, about wrong-doing at sea, salvage and wrecking the ship of the title. Anderson as usual assembles an interesting cast (as in his same year's SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL and the later NAKED EDGE, OPERATION CROSSBOW etc) - here Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams, Cecil Parker, and the obligatory Richard Harris support Cooper and Charlton Heston (after THE BIG COUNTRY and just before BEN HUR).  It is filmed mostly on boats and the the big courtroom scene in the second half, but there is an interesting moment shot on location at Waterloo Station with Cooper arriving there and taking a taxi to visit Virginia McKenna, the daughter of the late pilot of the wrecked ship. She is an airline hostess and has been provided with the perfect '50s basement flat, with bullfight posters on the wall and other '50s items. We see Gary exiting the station and it is interesting - well for me anyway, as I used that route for 11 years when I lived in Portsmouth and commuted to London every day. I remember the old station as it was then with the old cartoon cinema etc. It has been modernised since and is now the busiest station in London. Gary actually looks quite well here, he was such a fascinating man and reminds me so much of my father, or maybe my father was a Gary Cooper kind of man ...

BAFTAs, Terence, Gina, Rupert, Clark & Coop ...

Musings on a snowy day indoors on the BAFTA awards and other stuff ... it was amusing (for a while anyway) seeing the impossible-to-get-away-from-here Stephen Fry hosting, spouting a beard and commenting on the amount of actors who had come with their beards (cue Clooney, Jackman, Cooper, Bardem, Affleck, Phoenix, all spouting lots of facial hair - is this a new trend? I shaved off my own beard in my late 30s when it was getting a bit too greyish ....) .

One actor not there was veteran Terence Stamp, but he turned up next morning on breakfast tv, to promote this new film SONG FOR MARION (another of the 'movies for and by oldies') which teams him with that other great '60s survivor Vanessa Redgrave. Stamp, always so stylish and clothes conscious, looked smart and dapper, if older, at 74 now.  I did a post on him recently here, (Stamp label), on his role TOBY DAMMIT for Fellini in 1968.  Terence was pleased that another veteran, 85 year old Emmanuelle Riva had won the BAFTA Best Actress award for AMOUR, and I had to agree with his comment that it was a shame that Trintignant "so beautiful when he was young" as Terry said, was also not nominated for that very brave performance.

Also in the news lately, is that other veteran: Gina Lollobrigida, also 85, with those stories about a fake marriage by proxy.  Here, in "The Sunday Times", Gina gave her version of events and is seen posed in front of that 1954 photo I have used here before, of her with Marilyn Monroe, in this photo by Nick Cornish. Marilyn had told her that she Marilyn was the American Gina Lollobrigida! Gina also says Marilyn was "modest, an exceptional woman. I was fond of her because she was really undefended and what happened to her happened becasue she wasn't a strong character. I was strong and I defended myself more". She also referred to the time when Howard Hughes was chasing her, he was the most persistent suitor she ever had.

Meanwhile, also in the news here, is a new food scare with horsemeat, labelled as beef, found in ready-meals, burgers and kebabs. Seemingly to originate from horses in Romania, but now also found in abbatoirs and processing plants here in the UK. Thankfully I do not use those kind of meals ..... but did eat horse once in France, in the '70s, but did not know what it was until afterwards, it did taste sweeter than usual beef though .... here is that marvellous round-up scene from Huston's THE MISFITS where the mustangs were caught and sold for pet-food. Now, its food for humans ...

Meanwhile, good to see the run of THE JUDAS KISS continues until April - we saw this last year, as per review (theatre label), and it has been a success, and is now back in business in London's west end, with career-best notices for Rupert Everett.  His latest book of memoirs "Vanished Years" is also in my pending pile to read, that attracted rave reviews too. My next theatre date is next week, for that well-received revival of PRIVATES ON PARADE, more on that then.

Watching (again) those recent Hitchcock revivals - several titles get screened every week here - got me musing on how timeless Cary Grant and James Stewart appear now, and that is due in large part to their 4 each for Hitchcock, which are always on view out there .... their contemporaries Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, after their great years in the '30s and '40s, do not seem as fortunate; no Hitch's for them and their last films in the '50s are not that noteworthy or seldom revived (apart from THE MISFITS), they both also died on the cusp of the '60s, whereas too Grant and Stewart worked well into the 1960s. 

Coop had a few modest successes after that hit FRIENDLY PERSUASION which I like a lot, from 1956 - some more tough westerns with Anthony Mann's '58 MAN OF THE WEST and Daves' THE HANGING TREE in '59; but I find him all wrong and too old opposite Audrey Hepburn in Wilder's disappointing - for me - LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, and in that Fox version of O'Hara TEN NORTH FREDERICK in '58. THEY CAME TO CORDURA is a good one, but little seen, for Rossen in 1959 where he and the equally aged Rita Hayworth are touching; then those final two made in England with Michael Anderson: the so-so WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE with Heston and a good English cast, and the dull thriller THE NAKED EDGE with Deborah Kerr in 1961 where he clearly looks unwell. 

Gable fared better: TEACHER'S PET with Doris was a hit in '58, as was IT STARTED IN NAPLES with Sophia in '60 , then he was suddenly aged for his final, THE MISFITS with Monroe and a quality film by Arthur Miller for Huston, still a key movie now. I also like BUT NOT FOR ME a nice comedy, due for a re-watch, with Lilli Palmer and Carroll Baker, in '59. Clearly though for both maybe years of hard living, drink and smoking had taken their toll.

Gable died in 1960 aged 59; Coop in 1961 aged 60, whereas Cary went on until 1986 aged 82,  and Stewart till 1997 aged 89 ...

Blowing Wild: homage to Gary Cooper

BLOWING WILD - nice to re-acquaint myself with this nifty 1953 tough little meller, which I saw at a Sunday matinee back in the 50s. Directed by Hugo Fregonese and scripted by Philip Yordan it assembles 5 tough cookies somewhere in South America for a tale of oil riggers versus bandits. When your cast is Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Anthony Quinn, Ruth Roman and Ward Bond then wait for the fireworks!

Coop and partner Bond have their oil digging operation ruined by bandits and have to seek work. Enter wealthy Quinn and his predatory Medusa-like wife Stanwyck who once had the hots for laconic Coop and wants him back - he though falls for new girl in town Roman, playing a nice girl here .... then the bandits come back for the final explosive shoot-out - after Stanwyck has disposed of Quinn, so like all bad girls she has to pay the price. Stanwyck and Cooper (their third teaming?) are great together.

This had made me realise how much I love Gary Cooper, particularly his later films - perhaps the most beautiful man of the 1930s (check out his two with Dietrich MOROCCO and DESIRE, and the delirious THE FOUNTAINHEAD with Patricia Neal in 1949 and he and Ingrid Bergman are perfect together in SARATOGA TRUNK in '43), he was ageing rapidly in the '50s - like Gable, Tracy, Bogart, Flynn, Power and those other early '30s hellraisers who partied hard with all that smoking and heavy drinking - most of them did not see much of their 60s or the 1960s.

He turned out lots of routine movies but I particularly like him in Wyler's still charming FRIENDLY PERSUASION, that fondly remembered hit of 1956 (Samantha the goose and Pat Boone's theme song) and then Wilder's LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON in 1957, one I did not see until lately but this one does not work for me at all, Audrey Hepburn being far too young for his ageing roue - Wilder may have intended a light souffle in the spirit of Lubitsch but not for me. Much better is TEN NORTH FREDERICK in '58 from John O'Hara, and that brace of tough westerns: Anthony Mann's MAN OF THE WEST with Julie London and Lee J Cobb, and Delmer Daves' THE HANGING TREE in '59 with Maria Schell and Karl Malden, a particular childhood memory. Rossen's THEY CAME TO CORDURA is also a tough drama with the ageing Coop and Rita Hayworth very touching here. He then made his final two in Britain for Michael Anderson - the Hammond Innes adventure THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE with Charlton Heston and a great supporting cast (Michael Redgrave, Virgina McKenna, Richard Harris etc) and the thriller THE NAKED EDGE in '61, again the cast is the thing, with Deborah Kerr, Diane Cilento, Hermoine Gingold etc but it is impossible to think Coop could be the murderer. He was clearly ill by then and died on May 13 1961, aged 60, shortly after Gable's passing a few months earlier.

Seeing Coop now always reminds me of my father as my dad was a very Gary Cooper kind of man, both in looks and manner. We will always keep watching Coop and Cary Grant and James Stewart and Bogart and John Wayne, perhaps the greatest of the great male stars - there are others like Gable, Tracy and others whom we do not see so much now, perhaps their later films were not that special and are not revived much now.

Actors 2

A lovely still from Antonioni's L'ECLISSE, 1962, with Alain Delon. The link below, if you copy to your browser, features a terrific page of animated stills of this and other movies like TAXI DRIVER, BLADE RUNNER, 2001, LOLITA etc with brilliant animation of the stills. Enjoy!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2011/09/cinematographs_living_breathin.html

10 great male performances: (or my favourites at any rate)

Robert De Niro - TAXI DRIVER & RAGING BULL (and his sax player in NEW YORK NEW YORK!)
Dirk Bogarde - THE SERVANT / MODESTY BLAISE / DEATH IN VENICE
James Mason - A STAR IS BORN 
Maurice Ronet - LE FEU FOLLET
Peter Finch - SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY / THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE
Anton Walbrook - THE RED SHOES 
Ralph Richardson - THE HEIRESS
Montgomery Clift - WILD RIVER
David Hemmings - BLOW-UP
Cary Grant - NOTORIOUS
Gary Cooper - FRIENDLY PERSUASION
James Dean - EAST OF EDEN
and sneaking in Jack Lemmon as Daphne in SOME LIKE IT HOT - Tony ain't bad either!