Matthew,
You'll love
Hard to Handle (1933). You can see
Cagney trying not to crack up when he's in a scene with
Ruth Donnelly, who's seen below with her on-screen daughter
Mary Brian in this funny movie about salesmanship, con artists and gold diggers, (Guess which Ruth is?).
Re: Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes
First of all, you absolutely brought Joan B. to life on the page. I can just hear her making some of the cracks you quote in the book and giving a little wink along with it. By the time I came to the end and read that they played "I Only Have Eyes For You" from the movie
Dames at her memorial in NYC, I
really got misty-eyed. She was the last of the swell broads. Thanks so much for doing such justice to her life in this clear-eyed yet warm biography.
A few more questions, please:
Do you think that the constant upheavals of Joan's early life as the child of Vaudevillians may have doomed her ability to maintain a sustainable marriage, despite her real interests in building a nest for her family?
Was
Joan Blondell ever consciously looking for creative expression, or was she always inevitably preoccupied with paying the bills? Did she realize what a gifted actress she was when she got older or was she always struggling with her poor self-esteem?
Why do you think that Joan Blondell allowed her marriage to
Dick Powell, (who may not have ever been Mr. Excitement, but at least he had a fairly stable personality), to fall apart once she went East to appear in that dreadful sounding play of
Mike Todd's? Was this episode part of Joan's sometimes seemingly contradictory behavior?
Did you think that the touching story about a lonely
Clark Gable asking Joan to marry him was true? I inferred from your book, that it was not something that could be verified, though I can see the emotional logic of it from Gable's viewpoint.
I honestly had never read much at all about
Mike Todd prior to this book, though I was pretty shocked at his bizarre, almost insane behavior. His son,
Mike Todd, Jr. sounds like a remarkably whole person, despite some of the horrendous events he witnessed as a youngster. Did you rely primarily on his account in trying to discern what happened to his mother,
Bertha Freshman? Do you think the first Mrs. Todd died as a result of too many kinds of anesthesia when being treated for her knife wounds accidentally self-inflicted during an argument with her husband?
Re: Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory:
Did you ever find that the exceptional
Helen Walker had said anything about her experience working with Goulding in
Nightmare Alley? Did
Walker get the role of the duplicitous psychiatrist Lilith because she was under contract at 20th Century Fox? Did
Edmund Goulding choose her?
I also treasure the
Somerset Maugham book and the movie,
The Razor's Edge. Even though I see their flaws, this lovingly crafted film about someone looking for something beyond the material does not come along everyday--especially not in 1946 Hollywood! Actually, from the cinematography to the music to the direction to the heartfelt acting, particularly by Tyrone Power, Herbert Marshall, Clifton Webb, and (a bit surprisingly) John Payne, as well as a gem of a cameo by Elsa Lanchester--it is irresistible stuff.
I realize that the book of
The Razor's Edge was condensed for the screen, but one of the characters in Maugham's story who I thought was most interesting was Suzanne Rouvier, the artist's model whom Larry meets in Europe. She was actually more appealing to me than either Isabelle or Sophie. In researching your book on
Goulding, did you have a chance to see any of the preliminary scripts for this film?
If you were able to see these early drafts, did the character of the worldly Suzanne ever appear in the film script or was she believed to have been too risqué for the production code boys? I also wonder if her character disappeared since her role would have shifted the focus of the story away from the Americans, the audience the movie was being prepared to appeal to in 1945.
After the studio system started to fall apart, it seemed that
Goulding's career did too. Was he anathema throughout the industry after
Zanuck failed to support
Nightmare Alley? Was it too late for him to learn to adapt to the changing times? Were his many indiscretions (physical & psychological) starting to take their toll on him by then or do you think he might have been artistically exhausted?
While
Edmund Goulding's unconventional life wasn't subject to the same scrutiny as the lives of actors in Hollywood, some believe that his marriage to
Marion Moss was largely a public display.
Goulding's emotions seem much more complex than that of one more Hollywood hypocrite. Do you think he loved her? Did Goulding's sybaritic temperament prevent him from forming as close a bond with another person (male or female) after her death?
Several people in your book, among them cinematographer
Lee Garmes, (who did great work on
Nightmare Alley), commented how one minute
Goulding would make a remark that "suggested genius" but ten minutes later he'd completely forget his idea. While his spontaneity & creativity certainly won him many jobs and allies, I wonder if he might have truly been affected with something like serious short term memory loss from the '20s on?
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Finally, thank you so much for your generosity with your time by visiting here this week. If you ever wish to post here again at any time, that would truly be delightful. I hope that you'll let us help in promoting the next book you publish in the future. You are always welcome here, Matthew!