The Silver Screen Oasis

Julia McKenzie is a wonderful actress. I saw her on stage in "Sweeny Todd" about 10 years ago. I'm sure she'll be magnificent in the part.

Yes I always thought she was a welcome addition to every film but there was only so much stone-faced singing a movie could take. I believe she was married to a B picture actor called Kirk Alyn (didn't he play Superman at one point?). But she pretty much disappeared from sight after the heyday of the...

There is something extremely watchable about Joan Bennett although I don't think she was a great actress. She always seemed passive to me and was always competent rather than inspired. She seemed to me the very epitome of a workaday actress who worked extremely hard to get where she was. Her main im...

Yes Jean Arthur was crippled by stage fright and seemed to hate acting which makes it all the more remarkable that her career went on for as long as it did. My favourite Jean Arthur film is "Foreign Affair". I think she gives an excellent contrast to the sultry Marlene Dietrich as the mousy Congress...

I always thought Petula could have had more of a career in films had she wanted it. I saw her in "Finians Rainbow" the other day and she was at her most enchanting. I guess the 60s was when she was concentrating on recording but one wonders what might have been if Pet had concentrated more on movies...

Yes I thought Margaret was a very stylish actress who was never really given her due in those Warner movies. Bette Davis made a barbed comment about her in one of her books. Without naming her she said that the actress playing Henry Fonda's wife in "Jezebel" (Lindsay) was having a hard time getting ...

I always thought this talented actress and singer was at least the equal of Judy Garland. She had a great personality, wonderful singing voice and fine sense of comedy and made several highly-rated movies in the 30s and 40s which stand the test of time even now. Which makes her retirement at the age...

I adore Colbert but Noel Coward found her very difficult to work with too as he describes that she fussed around trying to direct the other actors in his TV version of "Blithe Spirit". I think he was rather cruel to her in one rehearsal by saying "I'd wring your neck - if you had one!" She had one o...

I think it was the 1972 stage production that prompted Noel Coward to say of Bonnie Langford the very young actress who played Bonnie Blue "They should cut two things - the third act and the child's throat". LOL. The production was also notable in that it starred Bessie Love, the former American sil...