Mary Astor

[intothenitrate]

I love Mary in Palm Beach Story, but I have yet to love the film itself. Watching Joel MacRae playing wall-to-wall petulance is a little wearing on me. Maybe it's because I don't watch him with the same agenda as you ladies. Second favorite in that zany romp is Rudy Vallee. His is a very studied, measured, and hilarious performance. He doesn't overdo anything; he's not a cartoon. And when he makes us laugh at him as a crooner of saccharine songs -- music not unlike his claim to fame years earlier -- it just strikes me as supremely generous of him.

[charliechaplinfan]

I agree, Rudy Vallee is hilarious and so unlike his earlier image. Him and Mary Astor make the movie, along with all the men on the train.

[The Ingenue]

And when he makes us laugh at him as a crooner of saccharine songs -- music not unlike his claim to fame years earlier -- it just strikes me as supremely generous of him.

Gee, that's the reason to come here. You learn to love even more. I'd never thought of Vallee's performance in that way...

[CineMaven]

I enjoyed Rudy Vallee in "The Palm Beach Story." The little crinkle of glass could be heard when Colbert steps on his face to get up to her train bunk. I give Rudy a little shout-out here.

CarrieLiz, who is that gorgeous avatar of yours?

[The Ingenue]

She's Patricia Morison, uncommonly blonde in this photo for her role in a nifty comic-mystery titled "Night in New Orleans" (1942), wherein the elegant Miss Morison played a ditz, opposite Preston Foster's bemused husband/detective--a deliciously funny role, and she ran with it. But then she always did play any given part with the whole of her attention, enriching performances with rare insight and humor, even as studio moguls tried to push her into a corner they hoped she'd pay to get out of. She wouldn't. It dimmed her movie career. But not her talent, nor her dignity.

She had started strong at Paramount in '39. But the 1939-40 season was a precarious time to be employed by the studio. New bosses were coming in, changing agendas. ( Preston Sturges, perhaps most notably, felt some of the brunt. ) As head of the studio, Buddy De Sylva was eager to further Pat's career "on conditions." A biographical sketch in Greg Mank's excellent Women in Horror Films, 1940s relates Pat's determination to make her own way, and her priceless reaction as the thwarted De Sylva tried then to clamp the lid on her:

• "He said I could stick around and play heavies. I said no! I over-ate my way out of the Paramount contract."

Slimming down again after she'd secured her release, she braved freelancing, though the roles that came her way were often heavies. But how striking she was! These films of hers are the ones most available. Perhaps you've seen her, sweeping in like a hawk in her black, angular hat, to snatch David Bruce's attentions back from Deanna Durbin in "Lady on a Train" (1945)...matching wits with Rathbone's Holmes in the appropriately titled "Dressed to Kill" (1946)...blazing away at the man who'd killed her lover, in the climax of "Song of the Thin Man" (1947)...

I love to seek out her movies, and her television appearances. You never know quite what she'll be. But one thing is always certain: she'll be grand, whatever the project may be, whatever kind of role she's playing. Late last year, I got hold of "I'm from Missouri" (1939), which was a gem of a comedy. ( Frank Nugent thought so too. ) And part of the reason I had to find it was to find out just how Pat fit into what Nugent termed a "mule opera." She fit like Slim Hawks fit a hunting party: glamorous but at-ease, confident, game; and it was sheer delight to see the regal-looking Patricia kick up her heels on the dance floor with Bob Burns.

She was always a stunner. Always classy. On screen or off, she's one of the people I admire most.

[JackFavell]

Awesome write-up, Carrie Liz! I had a feeling she was a brunette, but simply couldn't place Ms. Morrison.

[CineMaven]

She's Patricia Morison, uncommonly blonde in this photo...

:!: WHAT??!! :!:

I know her...but not like this.

[The Ingenue]

Awesome write-up, Carrie Liz!

Thank you!

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Mary Astor alert on MeTV: Thriller episode, Season 1, Episode 5.

"Rose's Last Summer": Mary Astor plays a fading actress who is reported dead after taking an out-of-town job.

[knitwit45]

Time? ??

[JackFavell]

I'm afraid it was on this past Sunday.

[intothenitrate]

I just picked up Mary's A Life on Film from my public library, having wanted to read it for some time. I know a number of members here have read it. I just got to the part where she gets the role in Beau Brummel (1924). In honor of the occasion, I watched the film after work. The film is certainly nobody's best work -- except maybe the costume department.

Mary isn't given an awful lot to do, and her character, Lady Margery, could have been be a good ten years older than Mary herself. The way she is directed is very silent-movie-ish, almost a throwback to the melodramas of the teens. And yet there she is, our girl Mary, fresh off the turnip truck.

[intothenitrate]

I just wanted to amend my last post. I hadn't watched all of Beau Brummel when I wrote it. The final reel was lovely.

[JackFavell]

I love the ending of Beau Brummel. It's worth sitting through everything that came before.

[intothenitrate]

I'm really enjoying Mary's book A Life On Film. I like the voice of it, its lack of pretense, its bittersweet sense of humor. She takes you into her confidence as though you are an old friend.

Yesterday, I read her version of the backstory of the script development for The Great Lie (1941) which she made with Bette Davis. After reading the initial script, Davis took Mary aside and said "This movie stinks," and began to collaborate with her on adding plot points that would make the film more juicy. For me, the heart of the picture are those days that the two spend out in the Arizona desert, where Mary is bringing George Brent's baby to term while Bette hovers over her, trying to humor her rotten mood and make her comply with the doctor's orders. None of this was in the original story. The whole twist that Mary (or Sandra) is carrying Pete's (who is thought to be dead in the wilds of Brazil) baby is an invention cooked up by Bette and Mary.

Over and over in the book, she emphasizes how she consistently chose to be compliant, to do as she was told, to not stand up for herself. She preferred the security of a studio contract to working freelance, playing unimaginative, decorative parts in (in her words) forgettable films. Then along comes Bette Davis, who embodied the kind of artistic combativeness that Mary lacked, and the two became allies. What a break! She writes that when director Edmund Goulding would arrive on the soundstage in the morning, he would say, "Well ladies, what are we doing today?" She writes that is was easy being mean to Bette on camera because the two liked each other so much.

Needless to say, it was a lot of fun watching the film again with all this in mind. Mary's [Sandra's] bitchiness is so inspired, so artful, so fun to watch. She says that when she received the Oscar for the role, she dispensed with the usual litany of people to thank (esp.her parents) and just acknowledged Bette Davis and Tchaikovsky.