Norma Shearer

pktrekgirl
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Post by pktrekgirl »

precoder wrote:
pktrekgirl wrote:I REALLY disliked Private Lives. I saw absolutely NOTHING likable about any of the four main characters, and the constant bickering that took up about 95% of the movie got tedious - especially when it was interspersed with physical violence.

By the end of this film, I couldn't have possibly cared LESS about any of these character's happiness, because as far as I was concerned they were all spoiled, manipulative, plastic individuals without a sincere bone in their collective bodies - and who deserved any unhappiness that came their way which resulted from their poor behavior.
WoW pktrekgirl ... This kinda surprised me to read. So interesting to me how people view classic films differently than others. See a totally different outcome from a diverse perspective. You have a keen eye for film but I'm a bit puzzled that you saw "Private Lives" this way. The characterizations were portrayed as specifically written. They were like totally supposed to be that way. Eliot and Amanda were created by Noel Coward for his stageplay in which he starred with Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier. I realize that probably isn't saying much that appeases you, but each of the four main characters were meant to be narcissistic, chideful, immature crybabies and I thought all four pulled it off wonderfully. I thought it was an outrageously funny comedy, ahead of it's time (the first screwball comedy?) and enjoyed it immensely. Sorry you didn't ...
Hi Benji,

Yes, I know they were intentionally written that way. But generally speaking, in order for me to like a character, I have to find *something* good about them. Or failing that, at least interesting or marginally redeeming about them....like maybe they learn a lesson by the end of the film...or even get their just deserts. Or even that we come to understand WHY they are the way they are, even if they are disagreeable.

But I really could not find much in that regard relating to these characters. As we have already agreed, they were spoiled, selfish, petty, self-centered, disagreeable individuals who spent a good chunk of their time LOOKING for a fight. And by the end of the film, they had learned nothing - they had changed not at all. Norma Shearer's character and Robert Montgomery's character STILL ran off together, with no remorse, but with a laugh at what they were doing.

This is not to say that the actors did not do a good job. Of course they did a good job! The evidence is in the very fact that they annoyed the heck out of me. :P

But that doesn't mean I have to like the film.

This is not a matter of the film being good or bad. This is simply a matter of personal taste.
I've always loved her myself. In everything. From her first scenes in "The Flapper" 1920 to "Smilin' Through" and "The Barretts Of Wimple Street", I've always found her overly theatrical gesturing engaging not to mention her beauty. I'm sorta in awe of her. Placing the back of her hand over her forehead with a dramatic sigh for theatrics. The way she touches her neck. That sorta deal. She could be slinky and nasty, and play the period dramas with intelligent dignity and poise ...

She also has a good role with Robert Montgomery in "Riptide" ...


Quite possibly true. I have not seen RIPTIDE, I'm afraid...but generally speaking, I very much like Norma Shearer...and I thought I was pretty clear about that in my post.

I just didn't care for this particular film.

Not a slight on Norma - just a personal taste issue.

I know that I like plenty of films others hate. I remember a poster over at TCM who used to HATE 'WRITTEN ON THE WIND'.....which I happen to enjoy very much. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone in particular are brilliant in that film...and I always love Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall.

But another poster didn't like it.

Same with the ending to MOROCCO. Now you know how much I love Gary Cooper and Marlene. But IMO, the ending to that film is just ridiculous. Others love it...but I can't stand it.

I don't know...maybe I have bad taste. But I like what I like. :lol:

Remember? I'm the girl who hates LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and loves DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. 8)
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mrsl
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Post by mrsl »

Just to add my two cents, I've seen a lot of Norma's talkies, but few of her silents, but no matter which, I always like her. Some actors are like that, no matter what type of part they play, you still like them. Nobody could have been more disagreeable than Mr. Potter in Wonderful Life, but it was Lionel Barrymore - he could never do wrong, even as a rat - you could easily dislike Mr. Potter, but never Lionel.

Anytime someone mentions Written on the Wind, I think of that mess that Brad and I started with Ms. nameless, but now realize, it was not a mess that we started, just her way of starting her plan of attack to ruin the boards, which she finally accomplished. Through the whole thing though, I never said I disliked WOTW, I just felt it was a soap opera - I resented her saying I HAD to like it because the director was so special. I don't mind a little soap opera in a movie like the end of Imitation of Life, but when the heartbreaks keep coming and coming like in Magnificent Obsession or All That Heaven Allows, that gets a little much for my taste, although in a corny way, I do watch them for laughs. If I took them seriously, I'd be blubbering for half the night.

The Women
will always be my favorite Norma though.

Anne
Anne


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* * * * * * * * What is past is prologue. * * * * * * * *

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precoder
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Post by precoder »

pktrekgirl wrote:I have to find *something* good about them. Or failing that, at least interesting or marginally redeeming about them....like maybe they learn a lesson by the end of the film...or even get their just deserts. Or even that we come to understand WHY they are the way they are, even if they are disagreeable.
Well there wasn't much good in them to like probably why I found it so unusually funny. They played it up that way and made you want to hate them all. I'd agree that the characters weren't very interesting; they were in fact vain and shallow and as for getting their just reward for their sinfulness, I somehow felt happily content at the finale knowing the two had eliminated each other from circulation, ya know, for the betterment of the rest of society. :shock:

You bring up an interesting point by mentioning that they aren't taught a lesson for their infidelity at the end, something the Hays office had singled out as a stipulation of protest. Bootleggers, gangsters and their molls virtually getting away with murder (and worse) in precode movies was specifically sited as an article they felt Hollywood guilty of propagating to viewers. At one point Shearer says to Monty: "You do realize of course, that we are living in sin"; something that surely wouldn't fly a few years later ...
The evidence is in the very fact that they annoyed the heck out of me. :P But that doesn't mean I have to like the film. This is not a matter of the film being good or bad. This is simply a matter of personal taste.
I'm guessing this is one we simply see differently this time. But thanks for the discussion. It certainly suited my tastes as an enjoyable and sophisticated adult comedy which is exactly what it was for me. I'm glad that somewhere along the line I didn't recommend this one to you and then have you hate it like that. Ouch! I've steered others towards this one. But I appreciate your candid views and your sticking to those guns ... Keep 'em loaded ...

I love your unbiased sincerity ...
MOROCCO. Now you know how much I love Gary Cooper and Marlene. But IMO, the ending to that film is just ridiculous. Others love it...but I can't stand it.

I don't know...maybe I have bad taste. But I like what I like. :lol:
I would never say bad taste just a different preference. I think you have good taste in films. And everything I've seen Gary Cooper in was excellent. I guess I was surprised because I don't remember anyone else really saying they totally hated it like that. I guess now I see how it could be viewed as intolerable but I've never found it that way. I actually wrote a review on the thing about two years ago ...

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Here's a boisterous and even raucous early comedy based on Noel Cowards successful stageplay. A play which he scripted in one week while sick with the flu in 1930. "Private Lives" (MGM 1931) is a movie I bet Woody Allen likes ...

Norma Shearer is Amanda, compulsively mendacious and unreliable, and Robert Montgomery is Elyot, brash and narcissistic. They are divorcees who happen to honeymoon at the same hotel and in adjoining suites. Both newly married to others, they each conduct themselves as if their new spouses were mere compensational substitutes for their previous mates. Amanda, now with Victor (Reginald Denny), an intolerable annoyance, who doesn't know peach from pink, and Elyot, now with Sybil (Una Merkel), a dysfunctionally insecure whinebag in perpetual need of reassuring kisses, find themselves pretending to be blissfull, but are inwardly unhappy ...

Left alone momentarily, the couple is unexpectedly reunited and, overcome with emotion by their song, "Someday I'll Find You" (written by Coward himself), their past love resurfaces. They plot a getaway ... "Oh, "this is utterly, utterly ridiculous" and "What are we to do?" ... They quickly decide. Amanda tells Victor "I see I clearly married an fat old gentleman in a club chair" and "You're a pompous ass. Yes, a pompous ass"... That should work ... and likewise Elyot tells Sybil "I shall cut off your head with a meat axe" Sybil can only respond with "You're cruel and beastly. Mother said you had shifty eyes". Elyot recoils, "Don't quibble Sybil" ...

Then Came The Dawn ...

Together, they escape but begin to incessantly bicker with each other, rather raucously, which destroyed their marriage in the first place. So they invent a 'catch-word', "Solomon Isaacs" which when announced by either, will instantly cease all quarreling for two minutes. It barely works ...

Then Came The Dawn ...

Now secure and alone, they share their precious togetherness ... Oh what joy! He massages her feet and she curls her slinky fingers into him and whispers, "I must see those dear flamingos" ... Soon, however, squabbling ensues: "There are certain moments when our cosmic thingamy's don't fuse properly". "Sollochs" announces Elyot and once again an air of dignified comfort returns. Dancing, and in love again, the self-torturing couple converse in dribble: "Is that the Grand Dutchess Olga lying under the piano?" ... "Yes, her husband died a week ago on his way back from Polbrough". "Didn't you notice her at dinner blowing all those shrimp through her ear trumpet?" ... Needless, to say, by this time I'm laughing uncontrollably at the utter utter insanity ...

Without warning (but you know it's coming), a knock-down drag-out row erupts which includes smashing gramaphone records, digging lint from chair cushions and tearing through magazines...up-side down ... Watch Norma twisting, then untwisting, then retwisting a phone chord around her finger while hysterically blubbering, and then take a running leap into a sofa, burying her face in pillows and kicking her feet in relentless tantrum. Elyot calls Amanda "an ill-mannered and bad tempered slattern" ...

Then Came The Dawn ...

Victor and Sybil soon catch up and confront their spouses' sinful infidelity. A pretentiously dignified breakfast is served and the meaningless conversational dribbling soon explodes into violent verbal insults ... but this time it's Victor and Sybil, now thoroughly annoyed with each other, while Amanda and Elyot look on in total disbelief. Victor calls Sybil "a silly scatterbrained little fool", to which Sybil retaliates with "How dare you, you insufferably vain brute" ...

Amanda and Elyot quietly wisk away on a train car and laughing uncontrollably. "I thought only we behaved that badly" ...

Norma Shearer, married to MGM studio exec and producer Irving Thalberg, was perfectly positioned to get this role initially written for Gertrude Lawrence but I believe Norma is at her very best here. Radiant and confident, she proves herself comedically with an outstanding performance. Her very expressive physical gesturing and overly dramatic acting is perfect for Amanda. Robert Montgomery (sometimes under-achieving), excels this time under Sidney Franklin's direction ...

Slick and glossy, the production is top-notch and almost seems ahead of its time. And is perhaps the first talkie screwballer that really works: a precurser to films Lombard and Hepburn popularized in the later 1930s. Sophisticated, mature, quick and very funny ... I'm confident you'll laugh at this rip-roaring and insanely hilarious precoder ...
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precoder
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Post by precoder »

I've got a ton of these old fan magazines. Here's a couple Norma portraits by Earl Christy ... From April 1930 ...

Image

Image

... And from April 1932 ... Oh Norma ... You've gained ... :oops:
pktrekgirl
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Post by pktrekgirl »

precoder wrote:
pktrekgirl wrote:I have to find *something* good about them. Or failing that, at least interesting or marginally redeeming about them....like maybe they learn a lesson by the end of the film...or even get their just deserts. Or even that we come to understand WHY they are the way they are, even if they are disagreeable.
Well there wasn't much good in them to like probably why I found it so unusually funny. They played it up that way and made you want to hate them all. I'd agree that the characters weren't very interesting; they were in fact vain and shallow and as for getting their just reward for their sinfulness, I somehow felt happily content at the finale knowing the two had eliminated each other from circulation, ya know, for the betterment of the rest of society. :shock:
:lol: Okay! I can buy that, Benji! I must admit that I'd never thought of it that way, but I can buy into that idea, and it gives me a bit of what I'm looking for! :lol:

You bring up an interesting point by mentioning that they aren't taught a lesson for their infidelity at the end, something the Hays office had singled out as a stipulation of protest. Bootleggers, gangsters and their molls virtually getting away with murder (and worse) in precode movies was specifically sited as an article they felt Hollywood guilty of propagating to viewers. At one point Shearer says to Monty: "You do realize of course, that we are living in sin"; something that surely wouldn't fly a few years later ...
Well, I was afraid that you and other posters would interpret my comment this way and actually dinked about with the wording some...but I guess not enough. :lol:

What I mean to say was that I need for a character to have at least one redeeming characteristic about him/her that makes me sympathetic to them, *OR*, failing that, they need to either get their just deserts *OR* at least end up learning something about themselves that would cause them to make a change.

Otherwise, the plot you are left with is simply a voyeuristic peek into some jerkwad's life...and I don't need to watch a film to get that - I can do that sitting in Atlanta traffic for an hour. :lol:

For example, many of Bogart's and Cagney's characters are not nice guys. But generally speaking, I can find SOME redeeming quality about them that will make me sympathetic to them, even though they might be bad guys. In many of these cases, I am NOT rooting for the individual to 'get their just deserts'....but that is because I've found something to like about them.

OR they learn something and become a better man by the end of the picture. Still maybe not a 'good' man...but at least a better one. Then, the story is about someone's JOURNEY in life. Not just a peek into a ghastly and static situation.

I hope that I've made better sense now! Forgive if I've overexplained...but I wanted to clarify that I am not wishing away the precode mentality. I just want the story to be about something other than what's on the screen. Maybe that is why I love Chaplin so much. :)

I'm guessing this is one we simply see differently this time. But thanks for the discussion. It certainly suited my tastes as an enjoyable and sophisticated adult comedy which is exactly what it was for me. I'm glad that somewhere along the line I didn't recommend this one to you and then have you hate it like that. Ouch! I've steered others towards this one. But I appreciate your candid views and your sticking to those guns ... Keep 'em loaded ...
Well first, it wouldn't have mattered to my opinion of you if you *had* recommended this film. Because once again - it is not the film itself. The acting is good. This is just a matter of personal taste. And I am not one to assume that my taste is any better than anyone else's. ;)
I love your unbiased sincerity ...
Well, that is what I come to discussion boards FOR. As long as people are polite, and don't assume their position is THE only 'right' position, I think disagreement is good for a discussion board.

I mean, what fun would it be if one person said "I love this film!" and 25 people agreed? That doesn't make for a very lively discussion. At least IMO.

It's a difficult balancing act for some posters on boards...but IMO, as long as neither side states their OPINION as FACT, discussion is good. Where people run into problems is when they DO state their subjective opinions as fact - that is likely to piss other posters off, because the implication is that anyone who doesn't agree with them is an idiot.

Which is, of course, not the case.

Here's a boisterous and even raucous early comedy based on Noel Cowards successful stageplay. A play which he scripted in one week while sick with the flu in 1930. "Private Lives" (MGM 1931) is a movie I bet Woody Allen likes ...

Norma Shearer is Amanda, compulsively mendacious and unreliable, and Robert Montgomery is Elyot, brash and narcissistic. They are divorcees who happen to honeymoon at the same hotel and in adjoining suites. Both newly married to others, they each conduct themselves as if their new spouses were mere compensational substitutes for their previous mates. Amanda, now with Victor (Reginald Denny), an intolerable annoyance, who doesn't know peach from pink, and Elyot, now with Sybil (Una Merkel), a dysfunctionally insecure whinebag in perpetual need of reassuring kisses, find themselves pretending to be blissfull, but are inwardly unhappy ...

Left alone momentarily, the couple is unexpectedly reunited and, overcome with emotion by their song, "Someday I'll Find You" (written by Coward himself), their past love resurfaces. They plot a getaway ... "Oh, "this is utterly, utterly ridiculous" and "What are we to do?" ... They quickly decide. Amanda tells Victor "I see I clearly married an fat old gentleman in a club chair" and "You're a pompous ass. Yes, a pompous ass"... That should work ... and likewise Elyot tells Sybil "I shall cut off your head with a meat axe" Sybil can only respond with "You're cruel and beastly. Mother said you had shifty eyes". Elyot recoils, "Don't quibble Sybil" ...

Then Came The Dawn ...

Together, they escape but begin to incessantly bicker with each other, rather raucously, which destroyed their marriage in the first place. So they invent a 'catch-word', "Solomon Isaacs" which when announced by either, will instantly cease all quarreling for two minutes. It barely works ...

Then Came The Dawn ...

Now secure and alone, they share their precious togetherness ... Oh what joy! He massages her feet and she curls her slinky fingers into him and whispers, "I must see those dear flamingos" ... Soon, however, squabbling ensues: "There are certain moments when our cosmic thingamy's don't fuse properly". "Sollochs" announces Elyot and once again an air of dignified comfort returns. Dancing, and in love again, the self-torturing couple converse in dribble: "Is that the Grand Dutchess Olga lying under the piano?" ... "Yes, her husband died a week ago on his way back from Polbrough". "Didn't you notice her at dinner blowing all those shrimp through her ear trumpet?" ... Needless, to say, by this time I'm laughing uncontrollably at the utter utter insanity ...

Without warning (but you know it's coming), a knock-down drag-out row erupts which includes smashing gramaphone records, digging lint from chair cushions and tearing through magazines...up-side down ... Watch Norma twisting, then untwisting, then retwisting a phone chord around her finger while hysterically blubbering, and then take a running leap into a sofa, burying her face in pillows and kicking her feet in relentless tantrum. Elyot calls Amanda "an ill-mannered and bad tempered slattern" ...

Then Came The Dawn ...

Victor and Sybil soon catch up and confront their spouses' sinful infidelity. A pretentiously dignified breakfast is served and the meaningless conversational dribbling soon explodes into violent verbal insults ... but this time it's Victor and Sybil, now thoroughly annoyed with each other, while Amanda and Elyot look on in total disbelief. Victor calls Sybil "a silly scatterbrained little fool", to which Sybil retaliates with "How dare you, you insufferably vain brute" ...

Amanda and Elyot quietly wisk away on a train car and laughing uncontrollably. "I thought only we behaved that badly" ...

Norma Shearer, married to MGM studio exec and producer Irving Thalberg, was perfectly positioned to get this role initially written for Gertrude Lawrence but I believe Norma is at her very best here. Radiant and confident, she proves herself comedically with an outstanding performance. Her very expressive physical gesturing and overly dramatic acting is perfect for Amanda. Robert Montgomery (sometimes under-achieving), excels this time under Sidney Franklin's direction ...

Slick and glossy, the production is top-notch and almost seems ahead of its time. And is perhaps the first talkie screwballer that really works: a precurser to films Lombard and Hepburn popularized in the later 1930s. Sophisticated, mature, quick and very funny ... I'm confident you'll laugh at this rip-roaring and insanely hilarious precoder ...
Actually, I think that is a very good review. And I actually agree with about 90% of it. All the way down to the part about it being funny. I didn't think it was funny....but that's just me. No reflection on you, Norma, Robert Montgomery, or anything like that.

Benji, I just think that I honestly have an odd sense of humor. Really.

Remember how I don't care for the Marx Brothers? That is another example of where my humor doesn't line up with the majority. I worship at Chaplin's feet, and I love Buster Keaton.... I like Harold Lloyd, except when he's up high. In the talkies, I love William Powell/Myrna Loy...or Carole Lombard...or Clark Gable's more comedic roles. I love Doris Day and Rock Hudson films. I love Errol Flynn's tongue in cheek THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN. And Cary Grant is fabulous (except for I don't like BRINGING UP BABY - Katharine Hepburn's character grates on my nerves).

But the practically universally adored Marx Brothers? Don't care for them. I have watched DUCK SOUP a few times now, and I simply do not find it funny. Instead, I find the puns rather annoying.

But I am in the MINORITY there. So how could I even entertain the possibility that my taste is 'correct' and everyone else's is wrong?

I can't.

And so I don't.

I am just resigned to being different. :P

I think for me, comedy needs to have a subtext. Something going on below the physical actions occurring on the screen.

Chaplin is an expert at this - so I love him.

William Powell is also an expert at this - which is why I love his comedies. It's not what William Powell SAYS in a film that makes it funny. It's what he DOESN'T say, but that you know his character is thinking. MY MAN GODFREY - a perfect example. When the whole family is assembled and chaos ensues - Carole Lombard's character is hysterical, the mother is being an idiot saying all sorts of ridiculous things, and Carlo is jumping around the room as an ape.

It's only marginally funny - UNTIL Godfrey enters the room. He says NOTHING. He does nothing. But you know what he is thinking, and THAT is what is funny to me: An outsider stepping into this normal (for this family) situation and looking around objectively thinking 'These people are absolutely NUTS!' :lol:

Same situation in WOMAN OF THE YEAR. My favorite scene in possibly any Kate/Spencer film is when she is making him breakfast and it is a disaster. But Kate isn't what is funny to me - SPENCER TRACY is who is funny to me, looking on in disbelief, not saying a single word.


The Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, etc - all very much focused on exactly what is on the screen and nothing more - no subtext.

And not very funny to me.

But Chaplin....William Powell....Or Errol Flynn making fun of his real-life self in DON JUAN? Hilarious.
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Post by mrsl »

pktrekgirl:

I find we have something more in common than sci-fi here. Your previous post, just before this one of mine does such a wonderful job of describing EXACTLY my feelings about comedy is one I will have to memorize to pick from time to time. Both of the scenes you describe, and your reaction to them is a duplicate of how I feel. Again, I, too cannot fall under the spell of countless admirers of the Marx brothers, or the Stooges, but I, unlike you, continue the path with Chaplin - he's pathetic to me, not funny - and that sadness of character does not make me laugh.

Thanks for such an eye opening post.

Anne
Anne


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* * * * * * * * What is past is prologue. * * * * * * * *

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Post by precoder »

I'm not a big fan of the Stooges myself. That particular brand of obnoxious slapstick never appealed to me, even as a reckless kid. The Marx Brothers are somewhat of an enigma to me right now. I sorta find them too schticky, predictable and overplay their routines somewhat. I've only seen four of their films, and admit they are not the so-called best four. I've gotten some laughs from them though, but the jury is still out ...

Charlie Chaplin I adore. His floppy and naive little tramp caricature is just too adorable for me to dislike. Very much a people person. He was a genius for sure ...

Beda, I'm glad you liked my review ... **90% anyway** hehe ...
And thanks for making me feel welcome around here ... :P
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Post by pktrekgirl »

mrsl wrote:pktrekgirl:

I find we have something more in common than sci-fi here. Your previous post, just before this one of mine does such a wonderful job of describing EXACTLY my feelings about comedy is one I will have to memorize to pick from time to time. Both of the scenes you describe, and your reaction to them is a duplicate of how I feel. Again, I, too cannot fall under the spell of countless admirers of the Marx brothers, or the Stooges, but I, unlike you, continue the path with Chaplin - he's pathetic to me, not funny - and that sadness of character does not make me laugh.

Thanks for such an eye opening post.
Glad you enjoyed it. :)

I can't tell you how many times I have seen someone else post something and think "Yeah! I never thought about it, but yeah - I'm that way too!"

As for Chaplin...well, I think that Chaplin is one of those folks that you either love or you hate. He really is pretty much one-of-a-kind...and for some folks, he is 'their kind'...whereas for other folks, not so much.
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Post by pktrekgirl »

precoder wrote: Beda, I'm glad you liked my review ... **90% anyway** hehe ...
And thanks for making me feel welcome around here ... :P
Benji, you ought to know by now that a) I enjoy ALL of your posts and b) I would be REALLY pleased to see you here!

I know that there are a few people you don't know very well yet...but this board is starting to be the 'come-together spot' of many of my favorite posters from the two main boards I have posted at.

I am positively THRILLED you are here.
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Post by MissGoddess »

Wow, interesting discussion I have come late to!

I absolutely adore Robert Montgomery and admire most of Noel Coward's work so it's long been strange to me that this comedy has been a bit of a let down. Actually, like PK, I positively disliked it the first time I watched it, which surprised me because I knew the play and so wanted to like it. Even becoming enamoured of Bobby M. didn't help. I watched it again not too long ago and I appreciated it a bit more, but it's still not a favorite. Probably for similar reasons to PK's, in that the characters are just too brittle and self-absorbed. Maybe if their 2nd spouses had been worse, I might have had more sympathy, but I don't think either of them did anything bad enough to warrant being treated the way they were by Amanda and Elyot.

I don't remember reacting that way to the play itself, so it's a puzzle.

Still, I can almost forgive it all because of Noel Coward's immortal line, one I swear by, "Isn't it incredible how potent cheap music can be?" That may not be it verbatim, but it's close and so true.
feaito

Post by feaito »

feaito wrote:
dfordoom wrote:I thought she was superb in Private Lives.
Ditto!!! Notwithstanding the fact that I've read that her performance was modelled after Lynn Fontanne's (I remember reading that Thalberg filmed the play so that Shearer could study and inspire herself on Ms. Fontanne's interpretation).

And among her post Pre-Code roles I'd choose definitely Elizabeth Barrett in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street". Excellent!!
I have just realized that I committed a terrible gaffe here... I made a mistake in naming Lynn Fontanne, because it was Gertrude Lawrence's performance in the stage play "Private Lives", which was the pivotal inspiration for Norma in the film. Wasn't it? Ms. Fontanne never played Amanda on stage. Did she? And it was Norma's performance in "Strange Interlude" which was inspired by Lynn Fontanne's interpretation of Nina Leeds in the stage play. I got it right now? :roll:
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Private Interlude

Post by Moraldo Rubini »

Now you've got it, Fernando! Gertrude Lawrence was Amanda on Broadway (and Talullah Bankhead played her 15 years later). Lynn Fontanne played Nina Leeds in the original Broadway production of Strange Interlude. Trivial sidenote: Charles Walters played Gordon Evans as a child in this production. This was years before he danced with Judy Garland in Presenting Lily Mars and went on to direct and choreograph so many MGM musicals.
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Post by pktrekgirl »

MissGoddess wrote:Wow, interesting discussion I have come late to!

I absolutely adore Robert Montgomery and admire most of Noel Coward's work so it's long been strange to me that this comedy has been a bit of a let down. Actually, like PK, I positively disliked it the first time I watched it, which surprised me because I knew the play and so wanted to like it. Even becoming enamoured of Bobby M. didn't help. I watched it again not too long ago and I appreciated it a bit more, but it's still not a favorite. Probably for similar reasons to PK's, in that the characters are just too brittle and self-absorbed. Maybe if their 2nd spouses had been worse, I might have had more sympathy, but I don't think either of them did anything bad enough to warrant being treated the way they were by Amanda and Elyot.
Agreed. Especially with that last bit. If the two new spouses had been worse, I might have been more sympathetic to Amanda & Elyot. But as it was, it seems to me as of these two were the same people A & E agreed to marry to begin with - I don't think they instantly changed overnight or anything into something evil. So even though they are annoying, they are not as annoying as the main characters, and because of that I find myself more in sympathy with them that I am with A&E - even at the end during the breakfast.

Which is why the film is so unsatisfying, notwithstanding the 'they deserve each other' rationale put forth by Benji earlier.
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precoder
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Post by precoder »

Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence were an ornery pair themselves. They bickered just like that. It's a matter of record that their arguments over scene details were loud and boisterous. He insulted her singing in his Bitter Sweet, and she his playwriting and songwriting. The stock market had just crashed and so when the play bombed, he told her "your voice doesn't have the strength to carry a substantial singing role". She said "I didn't care for the play or our parts in it" ... "Then never mind darling, I'll write a new play especially for us" ... The play would be Private Lives ...

In Shanghai, Coward wrote it in one week then caught the flu and had to stay. So he dispatched the script to London for Gertie to read and she cabled back: PLAY DELIGHTFUL (STOP) NOTHING THAT CANT BE FIXED. Of course, he took this as an insult and the row was on. The author spat back: THE ONLY THING WHICH MIGHT NEED FIXING IS YOUR ACTING ...

To her dying day Miss Lawrence insisted she was refering to a contractual obligation and not his script, but nevertheless she had touched off a barrage of hateful cables the likes of which would light up the Pacific for weeks, finalizing with his note: LOST ALL PATIENCE (STOP) WILL DO PIECE WITH SOMEONE ELSE ...

After the great success of Private Lives in 1930, Noel Coward said of Gertie: "She was the epitome of grace and charm and glamour" ... :lol:

They were exactly like Amanda and Elyot ... They were mutually wrathful :lol:

The song (or should I say that cheap music) was "Someday I'll Find You" which was recorded by Lawrence (with lyrics) on Victor in March 1932. And Noel and Gertie also produced studio session recordings of the plays acts: LOVE SCENE from act I and from act II in May 1930 ...
I absolutely adore movies. Even bad ones. I don't like pretentious ones, but a good bad movie, you must admit, is great. ~ Roddy McDowell
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Gagman 66
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Post by Gagman 66 »

Precoder,

:) Hey Benji, it's great to see you so active on these boards! I was wondering have you seen Ernst Lubitsch OLD HEIDELBERG (1927), starring Norma, Ramon Novarro, and Jean Hersholt yet? This has to be one of my favorite Silent's, not just with Shearer, or Novarro, but overall!

I have another rare Norma Shearer Silent on the way, THE DEVILS CIRCUS (1926). I am getting this one from a guy in Canada. Unfortunately, it looks like most of Norma's Silent features have been lost, including the ones she made at Fox with John Gilbert. :(

:? I am hoping that TCM still has a few more of the long unseen MGM titles other than just these LADY OF THE NIGHT, and A LADY OF CHANCE stashed away in the vault someplace though? Anyway, hope to talk with you more soon.
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