The Christmas Album

[charliechaplinfan]

This morning I happened to come across an interview with Karolyn Grimes who played Zuzu in It's A Wonderful Life. I enjoyed the clips and her reminisces about James Stewart. He was the tallest man she had ever seen, he was 6ft 4, I imagine for a child that is a very tall man. The film never became a classic until it's copyright wasn't renewed and it was shown on television, it's elevation to a classic came from there.

[moira finnie]

It's just another Monday in mid-December, until we noted that it is Day Fifteen of our Holiday jaunt. Even we find ourselves humming along with those Hawaiian-tinged guitar chords, the invocation "...Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright..." led by Lee Marvin as the unlikeliest but memorable Wise Man, (or is it wise guy?) as one of the Magi bearing gifts. A startled Duke Wayne is probably trying to decide if Mr. Marvin is Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar. Or perhaps he's wondering how John Ford talked him and a clutch of other Hollywood veterans into appearing in a home movie masquerading as an "entertainment" in Donovan's Reef (1963). Only John Ford could have persuaded these legendary tough guys to take on the task of translating a traditional Christmas into a loopy paean to a "pantheistic paradise" in which even the pugnacious Marvin--after some tedious fisticuffs--winds up not only participating in a holiday pageant at the leaky church, but married and playing with a toy train.

Lee Marvin, a Marine veteran of the worst fighting Pacific in WWII, a former plumber's assistant, and unlikely actor, cut a path through the Hollywood jungle that won him an Academy Award for Cat Ballou (1965), even though many of us think he probably should have been seriously considered long before for his irredeemable baddie in The Big Heat (1953), his realistic soldier in Attack (1957) and not least of all for his brilliantly lacerating performances in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Point Blank (1967), Hell in the Pacific (1968), The Iceman Cometh (1973) or The Big Red One (1980).

He could be amusingly self-deprecating, (when he wasn't intimidating his interviewers), but Marvin seemed to acknowledge an inner desire to expiate his turmoil when he once commented about his acting that "[t]o show my strength is nothing. To show my weakness is everything." A knowledge of violence seemed to haunt his life and inform his acting, giving his indelible presence on screen unmatched by any other actor. Sometimes it seems that his career was a constant struggle to bring some artful sense of order, reason and perspective to his own pitiless self-knowledge about the impulses that create violence, courage and fear in a person. His ambivalence toward his profession veered from the profanely funny to self disgust, as when he claimed that "[y]ou spend the first forty years of your life trying to get in this f***ing business, and the next forty years trying to get out. And then when you're making the bread, who needs it?" I think Lee Marvin needed it and we can treasure the gift of often painful knowledge he brought to us.

[moira finnie]

Fourteen Days into our Holiday jaunt finds us lingering in that transitional decade, the fifties, and who is dropping by, looking like Santa's haughtiest helper, but Elizabeth Taylor, nearing the height of her considerable beauty, and apparently cheesed off about something, based on that expression and hand on her hip. Just what is vexing the lady is a bit of a mystery. Could be the fact that Santa showed up at this photo shoot in the same colors as the star, or maybe she objects to that strange leer on Mr. Claus' bearded face. Either way, behind her peeved pout is a lifetime spent in the public eye.

Taylor, whose first credit remains the dubiously titled There's One Born Every Minute (1942), has been proving her unique qualities from the first. A stunning beauty from infancy may have shaped her life's path, but her spirit, so touching in Jane Eyre (1944) as Peggy Ann Garner's doomed friend at the orphanage, and so naturally noble in Lassie Come Home (1943) and Courage of Lassie (1946), found its most vibrant, youthful expression in what this viewer still regards as her best movie, National Velvet (1944). Ms. Taylor could have called it a day then and she'd probably still be a legendary actress.

Alas, she grew up and bloomed into a voluptuous woman and occasionally, a good actress in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966). For many years the feckless misadventures of Elizabeth Taylor and her too numerous companions filled the tabloids, appalled the Vatican, and sold many tickets for some pretty awful movies. Yet, when her friend and fellow actor Rock Hudson became ill with AIDS, the iconic actress became a graceful human being again, working tirelessly to raise awareness and to find help for those with the affliction. While aging and struggling with her own health problems in the glare of the public spotlight probably hasn't been easy, it's refreshing that Taylor has kept some of her former saltiness alive, commenting recently that she wouldn't want to give up all her admitted faults, since "one problem with people who have no vices is that they're pretty sure to have some annoying virtues."

In light of the death of Elizabeth Taylor, many images of her have appeared in the press once again. Among them, I prefer some of those most stilted but often revelatory photos that show her as she blossomed into a legendary beauty. Who knew that she could also be a good dame--perfectly capable of being sweet, silly, and rather naive, as well as a great beauty?

[movieman1957]

Moira:

Lee marvin was a most unusual man. Excelling in playing nasty people, including an episode of "Combat" I recently saw, you mentioned he could also be quite charming in interviews. If you get a chance to see one he did with Merv Griffin it would be a pleasant event.

[moira finnie]

Chris, I've seen that "Marvin-Mervyn" interview and it was quite amusing. The man had charm and a good mind, at least when sober. One of the best and, sadly, last interviews that Lee Marvin conducted was with David Letterman, who seemed to be both amused, deferential and more than a bit afraid of the actor. You can see that interview from the Merv Griffin Show on youtube here.

[knitwit45]

Hi Moira! This is a great thread, thanks so much for all your time and efforts.

"Donovan's Reef" is one of my favorite movies. To me, at least, it seems like all the main actors were having a lot of fun, and that they were each comfortable in their own skin. Dorothy Lamour running around in Hawaiian dress, claiming to be a "young and innocent bride" was so funny. Jack Warden was not quite as intense as usual, and Cesar Romero's turn as an aging, pompous lothario was perfect. But when Lee Marvin, who was such fun in this movie, appeared as one of the Wise Men, it made my eyes leak a little.

[moira finnie]

The Seventeenth day of our invasion campaign into the land of Holiday's Past finds us in an unglamorous moment with Marlene Dietrich, on the edge of the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, December, 1944. Sixty-four years ago this week, the Berlin-born actress was in the midst of a tour near the front lines of the Allied invasion forces. Fortunately, she was a girl who did not scare easily. If Dietrich had been caught by the Axis, things might have gotten uncomfortable, since she was an avowed enemy of the Reich and had become an American citizen in 1939.

With great pride in her reported Prussian military ties, Miss Dietrich had refused all offers from Adolf and his flunkies to return to Germany to work at the renowned studio UFA. Despite their ardor and the blandishments they offered, Dietrich, who saw the handwriting on the Weimar walls, took her chances after bringing "Lola Lola" to life in two versions of The Blue Angel/Der Blaue Engel (1930). She chose to work in the United States with some of the best, her mentor, Von Sternberg, then Lubitsch, Mamoulian, Borzage, Wilder and others in such films as Morocco (1930), The Song of Songs (1933), The Garden of Allah (1936), Desire (1936), Destry Rides Again (1939), A Foreign Affair (1948), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Some were classics, and some were just outlandish, but the woman created an aura we will not see again, celebrating her separateness from the Hollywood herd. Even if she never quite mastered the pronunciation of her "r"s in English, she was always eager to lend her glamour to any situation that enabled her to "see what the boys in the back room will have..." Surprisingly earthy off screen, given to bursts of hausfrau enthusiasm for nurturing her many lovers and friends, even if Marlene apparently neglected her only daughter, Maria, while all this was going on.

All that fades away in retrospect today. On a lonely road through the Belgian forest, just after the battle ground to an exhausted end in January, the lady pulled up on the back of a jeep to a small bunch of American survivors on the side of the road. To their utter disbelief, Marlene Dietrich applied a bit of makeup, whipped out her musical saw, (which she played with surprising feeling), and, despite where and when they were, transported a small squad to another, more civilized and captivating time and place. Dietrich was, according to all reports, seductively funny, bawdy and artful, singing "Falling in Love Again" and the German song "Lili Marlene" in such a way that all those listening, no matter their language, understood the meaning.

I will personally be eternally grateful to her, for among the men she transported that day for an hour or so was a red-haired soldier with a shy smile and a soft-spoken manner. Years later, he became my father. He never forgot her and, as others have testified, she never forgot those she entertained in that not so peaceful Christmas season either. As she once said, "There's something about an American soldier you can't explain. They're so grateful for anything, even a film actress coming to see them." Thank you Marlene, from one soldier's grateful daughter.


Above: Dietrich with some grateful regular joes.

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi Moira,

Nice to see the lovely 'Mawlaina' trading in her heels for combat boots...
She entertained many, many troops and for weeks on end and was always popular with the GI's.
I've heard that she stood in line in the mess tent and ate with the 'boys' and not with the generals....

What a wonderful story about your father meeting her and being entertained by her...
A true STAR....

Larry

[klondike]

All hail the untarnishable star that was Marlene!
Although my favorite Dietrich role would have to be from The Golden Earrings (just barely squeaking past The Spoilers), the one celluloid exchange that always leaps to mind for me at the mention of her name is from a scene early in Touch of Evil, when Welles' psychotically corrupt sheriff tauntingly asks for her opinion, and after a few seconds of perusing his grotesque, sweaty bulk, with those incomparably glacial eyes from across a skewed, shadowy camera angle, she growls: "I suggest ya lay off the candy bahs!"

[moira finnie]

Thanks for the feedback, Larry & Klonnie.

Despite her artificiality, I've always liked Dietrich, in part, I suppose, because she was one of the few actresses my un-cinematically minded Dad ever mentioned with respect and fondness. I think my favorite performance of hers was in Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948), as the genially corrupt survivor in bombed out Berlin, shaking her lovely head at the naïveté of the victors. Reportedly in part because of her understandable alienation from her native land after the war, Wilder had to beg and cajole her into taking the role, which she played beautifully.

[mrsl]

Again I have to say what an amazing thread this is. I usually let 2 or 3 days pass before I read to catch up. It's kind of like reading a short story in a magazine.

I do disagree with a couple of points though. It's a shame to call Flaming Star a bit of movie low light history as if not worthy of Delores Del Rio. She simply added more class to a pretty good EP offering.

Also, I was well aware of Jimmy Stewart long before seeing him in Wonderful Life. Of course I am a bit older that most of you, so I even got to see some of his movies on the big screen in their first run.

Trust me, it was kind of scary to return to school in September and find some of your friends gone who had been there since kindergarten due to contracting polio during the summer. I guess it's parallel to learning your friend is HIV positive.

Someone said it, and I agree I think those guys were having such a good time on the set of Donovan's Reef, they would have done just about anything to get another laugh, including dressing up like the Magi.

Although I consider La Dietriech as almost the female counterpart to Brando, I'm sure that to a lonely soldier at Christmas time, far away from family, she probably was the true Blue Angel, and I thank her and all the actors/actresses who ventured into the war zone for that.

Anne

[charliechaplinfan]

I love Marlene, she was quite a dame. I have a lovely book jam packed with photos called Photographs and Memories. She worked tirelessly for the troops.

[moira finnie]

Our Eighteenth day on the Holiday hike finds us encountering two of Santa Claus' more likable Western trail hands, Dale Evans, who appears to be enumerating her Christmas wishes on her hand, and Roy Rogers, the somewhat overwhelmed-looking Santa.

Born in 1911 in Cincinnati, Ohio, (which makes this viewer wonder what drove so many great cinematic cowpokes from the big city to the wide open spaces), Leonard Slye aka Roy Rogers felt hemmed in by the factory jobs that loomed in his future, and struggled to help his family throughout the Great Depression, experiencing the hardships described in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath first hand. After drifting out to the Los Angeles area, Roy realized how much happiness he had brought his fellow travellers around the campfires of the destitute. Eventually, Rogers, his brother Stanley Slye and a cousin began to make appearances as the Slye Brothers in the early '30s, which evolved into the Sons of the Pioneers, the singing group that had hits with such songs as "Cool Water" & "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". Rogers' screen debut, under his original name of Slye, was in a 1935 Gene Autry film. After a contract dispute between Republic Pictures and Autry, he was rechristened Roy Rogers and given a chance to star in Under Western Stars (1938), with audiences warming to Rogers' athleticism and quiet charm and sincerity on screen.

By 1940, Roy acquitted himself very well in a supporting role in Raoul Walsh's Dark Command (1940), a corker of a Western dramatizing Quantrill's Raiders and the conflict in Bloody Kansas around the time of the Civil War. After a series of movies, many of them incorporating Roy's magnificent golden palomino horse, Trigger, (who also cut a wide swath as an animal actor appearing in such prestigious movies as 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood as Maid Marian's steed), and Bullet, his dog, Rogers' popularity continued to grow as he also appeared in such cross-over fare as Night and Day and Hollywood Canteen (1944).

Dale Evans, wearing that snappy cowgirl outfit above, was born Frances Octavia Smith in Uvalde, Texas. She became a popular and sassy band singer in the '40s, appearing in small roles in such now classic tuneful movies as Orchestra Wives (1942) and in Westerns such as John Wayne's In Old Oklahoma (1943) playing a character with the intriguing name of "Cuddles Walker". Dale came into Roy's life via the movies, taking third billing to Trigger in The Yellow Rose of Texas (1944). That all changed by New Year's Eve, 1947, when the pair, after several earlier marriages, became life partners. Their union helped them to flourish even though it was marked by the death of three children. Their deep compassion, particularly for adopted, homeless and handicapped children, was an expression of their love for one anther as well as their shared faith, which was impressive to see even if one did not share it.

Movies with the genial and yet ethical Roy and Dale had often been made in color on location at a time when many films were still in black and white and studio bound. The warm and bantering humor that the pair engaged in also gave their films a longer shelf life, as did Roy's excellent horsemanship. Their long running television show, The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, enlivened by the presence of Gabby Hayes and Pat Brady, ended each episode with the song that Roy and Dale helped to make a wish and an anthem for all their little cowpoke pals, (no matter how much gray has come to stay under their stetsons): "Happy trails to you, Until we meet again..."

[moira finnie]

Day Nineteen of our Holiday countdown has dawned, along with the keen realization that Deanna Durbin's long years of retirement from the business of show seems much more understandable now that this particular image has emerged from the vault. Hollywood dress designers aside, the Canadian born Edna May Durbin blended a classically trained, lush voice with a sparkling personality that is hard to describe but highly enjoyable to witness on film. Despite the fact that she was a mere fourteen when her singing talent burst forth in Three Smart Girls (1936), like horror movies and later Abbott and Costello, Durbin's slim shoulders are often cited as lifting Universal from its artistic and financial coma, "saving" the ramshackle studio from bankruptcy with the sheer force of her mezzo-soprano voice and engaging manner.

At first under contract to MGM, they let her slip through their fingers while mulling over their preference for Durbin or Garland, (with whom Deanna warbled in the 1936 MGM short, Every Sunday). Universal snagged her services thanks to producer Joe Pasternak, who paired Durbin with veteran director Henry Koster, beginning with her appearance in that first feature, which consisted of her fixing up her divorced parents' lives, (despite the fact that little was wrong with them from an adult viewpoint). This was followed rapidly by One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), in which she straightened out maestro Leopold Stokowski's relations with many poor musicians, and nine other movies followed in rapid succession, in which Deanna played every variation possible as a Miss Fix-It with some phenomenal pipes, even as she became, with each passing year, more interestingly self-assured, and, despite attempts to quell Mother Nature, a very bodacious young lady, (which may account for two rather unfortunate early marriages off screen to older men).

This string of films, culminating in one of this viewer's favorite of her recently rediscovered films, was the gossamer farce, It Started With Eve (1941). In this film Durbin deftly stole scenes from that fine ham, Charles Laughton while playfully bringing out previously unrevealed likable qualities in her romantic leading man, Robert Cummings. While most observers seem to look askance at her post-Pasternak films at Universal, Frank Borzage's His Butler's Sister (1943), Robert Siodmak's noirish Christmas Holiday (1944) (with a non-dancing, very earnest Gene Kelly!) and the delightful musical mystery, Lady on a Train (1945), which was directed by her future husband, Charles David, are among Durbin's most entertaining and intriguing later films.

As Deanna Durbin matured, the intelligent young woman became, despite her 400k per movie, an astute critic of her own screen persona, and longed for a truly private life, which she chose in 1949 at twenty-eight, moving to a French village, Neauphlé-le-Château, where she has since ignored all offers to emerge. Deanna Durbin once brushed off the fulsome praise heaped on her during her career by pointing out that "Just as Hollywood pin-up represents sex to dissatisfied erotics, so I represented the ideal daughter millions of fathers and mothers wished they had."

[jdb1]

Moira, the last two posts give us an interesting juxtaposition of stars.

I've always loved Roy and Dale, and when I got older, I began to appreciate them even more for the nice little Western-style Nick and Nora chemistry they had. It wasn't quite as apparent in their TV show, which was intended for children, but it was there as well, in a diluted form.

However, I have never understood the appeal of Durbin, who just rubs me the wrong way, and always has. I'd never describe as "lush" her thin, reedy little voice, always singing in keys really too high for her to negotiate successfully. To my mind, she is always overshadowed and outclassed by whomever she is co-starring with. IMO, bland and blah, even as an adult. Then there is the unfortunate fact that, as child, I heard my mother mention while watching a Durbin movie that Durbin had a stiff elbow (the left, I think), which didn't unbend. I could never take my eyes off that arm after that.