dirac

Well, both of them had been stars for a long time and were reaching That Certain Age. However, they might have continued on for a bit longer if circumstances had been different. Shearer turned down a Big One, Mrs. Miniver, that might have rejuvenated her career, choosing a couple of weak comedies instead. Garbo was by that time more popular overseas than she was in the U.S. She made up in prestige value what she didn’t generate in homegrown box office, but once the war had cut off the European market she was no longer affordable. She may in fact have intended her retirement to be only temporary, but as it turned out it was permanent.

Thank you, Alymer. Sounds like an interesting read. I had heard of the Pavlova but didn't know a dessert had been named for Cerrito. (In this forum you'd be free to mention the book as a good read even without the connection to ballet. )

Hi, good to hear from you. Astaire also did a Spanish dance in "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" to equally poor effect - it's just not his thing. Re: Funny Face, I think the Hepburn-as-mannequin factor plays an important role in its continuing popularity - there's also the Avedon factor, too. Not to mention the music. “Damsel” has that charming Gershwin score, and “The Sky’s the Limit” has Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer going for it – not only “My Shining Hour” but “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road”).

I loved those books, too, and it wouldn't surprise me that they hold up well.

Good point. Astaire wasn’t handsome or sexy, and it is true that for most of his stage career he wasn’t a romantic lead (part of the purpose of “The Gay Divorce” was to establish him as such), but he did have erotic appeal with the right partner; Katharine Hepburn’s famous comment about the Astaire-Rogers pairing, “He gives her class and she gives him sex,” while simplified, is to the point here. For a time she was popular indeed.

miliosr, by all means you should see “Queen Christina.” You won’t be sorry. It wouldn’t necessarily be much to write home about without Garbo, but she is extraordinary and the rest of the movie is pretty good, although if you're looking for accurate history this isn't your film. Ben Hecht, S.N. Behrman, and Garbo’s good friend Salka Viertel, Peter’s mom, had a hand in the screenplay, not all of them credited, and it contains two great lines – Garbo announcing, “I shall die a bachelor,” and later on, before the magical bedroom love scene with John Gilbert, telling him, “I am memorizing this room.” (Gilbert, BTW, is not bad, although he’s not in the same league with his ex.) .Although the love story at the center of the plot is the height of conventionality, the lesbian subtext is strikingly clear, with Garbo striding around in trousers and boots – she’s never looked happier -- and looking over her ladies in waiting with a speculative eye. It would be more accurate to describe William Daniels as “Garbo’s cinematographer” – he was her favorite and shot many of her best films, along with many other important MGM movies of the era. (He was closely identified with one director, Erich von Stroheim.) Haven't seen the Ullmann picture - it sounds interesting. It's true, offhand I can't think of a bad Garbo performance. There were times when she was not ideally cast or off form.

That's true. It is interesting that, for different reasons, the reigning queens of MGM in the 30s -- Garbo, Shearer, and Crawford -- were gone from the studio by the early 40s.

That's a key point, and it's part of the reason why the producers volcanohunter mentions above couldn't quite figure out what to do with her -- a female tap dancer who didn't partner easily with anyone and couldn't offer much besides dazzling dancing and a mildly pleasing personality could only be, in essence, a novelty performer. There are aspects of tap style that are, in a way, defeminizing -- although for a time in the last few decades there were a number of talented female tappers. More to say but my time is limited today -- keep talking, everyone!

Cutting and pasting this query from bart into a new topic: Well, I have a question about Eleanor Powell. I know that she was considered a great dancer and that Astaire is said to have considered her as such. I've only seen a few old movies on tv -- caught on the fly rather than watched carefully. My impression is one of driving energy, not disguished as it often is with Astaire, and not really much more. Can some of you describe her dancing and explain what made her seem so special? (I confess to an inability to "get" tap except in short doses. I guess I prefer the looser, lankier style of soft shoe. I'd love to get some advice on what to look for when Powell or others tappers dance. And I'd love to find out where Astaire's style fits into all this. Is there a term for what he does?)

There is a story that “In the Still of the Night” made L.B. Mayer cry – or was that the title tune? sidwich probably knows..... Thank you for the report – I have not seen ‘Rosalie.’ Miss Powell was always a teeny bit butch for my taste, although she is obviously a very nice person and a fine dancer. Nelson I kinda like. As an actor he gives new meaning to the adjective ‘wooden’ but I always enjoy his singing. I admit that 'Maytime' is one of my favorite movies. Thanks also for the Nugent review. Some years later he became a screenwriter, as you may know, writing several of John Ford’s better pictures – The Quiet Man and The Searchers, others too, I think. I could be wrong but he may have been the first film critic to make that professional leap. She did, charmingly. You should see it again - it's overrated IMO, but Hepburn is very appealing and the movie looks great. I understand that a special edition 50th anniversary DVD has just come out, don't know what's on it. We have other posters out there who are interested in these high matters. Do speak up!

Well, things are better than they used to be, in that the danger age for female stars is now 40 or so instead of 35 or so, as it was in the ‘golden era.’ It doesn’t really have that much to do with individual career choices; even if Meg Ryan’s work in drama, for example, had been more warmly received than it was, it wouldn’t necessarily have prolonged her stay at the top. Helen Mirren is over sixty – she’s passed through the stage where female stars have to do TV to stay visible (Close, Holly Hunter, Mirren herself) and entering Driving Miss Daisy/The Queen territory, where sometimes things actually start happening, as they did for Judi Dench. This doesn’t mean that such women get no work at all; it means that their choices diminish much faster than those of their male counterparts – Streep now plays mainly big supporting roles, whereas for many years her male coevals, such as Pacino and De Niro, despite career ups and downs, continued to play major roles opposite much younger women. ( I remember Streep remarking in an interview a few years ago that the scripts sent to her usually involved playing witches.) .You’re both right – she’s pitted against Cameron Diaz, a genuine threat and pretender to the throne, and the slight age difference between them is emphasized – Roberts is only about five years older, I think, but it’s made to feel like a lot more than that, as if they’re different generations. ).Mulroney was certainly an unworthy bone of contention. I also had trouble believing in him as a writer – he could hardly string two sentences together. The difference, I think, is that Shearer made very few classic films – that is, movies still well known to non-buffs – and Crawford made a few, not to mention the Mommie Dearest book and movie, which kept her in posthumous public view. As you say, though, Shearer was indeed a huge, huge star. Being married to Irving Thalberg helped, of course, but she would have made it anyway. (In fact, she had to fight with Thalberg for one of her biggest roles, in ‘The Divorcee’; her loving hubby didn’t think she was hot enough for the part, and Shearer had George Hurrell take some sexy shots to convince him.)

Dancerboy's professor is a member of Ballet Talk??? Now, I did not know that! It was meant as a generic reference only, a 'for instance.' Sorry for any confusion. :

‘Brockovich’ is pretty good, isn’t it? You know where it’s going, of course – it’s a variation on ‘Norma Rae’ even if the story is taken from life – but I like it. I don’t think anyone noticed, but she was good in ‘Closer,’ too. Roberts hasn’t made many good movies, as noted, but I’m not sure that’s really her fault. As miliosr says, you do have to give her credit for trying things like ‘Mary Reilly’ (and lending her name to the Collins picture, which she helped by looking beautiful even if she was rather obviously not a young lady of the period and had no control over the accent). I agree that ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ is poor but again I think that’s more of a commentary on the current state of romantic comedy than anything else. I’m not objective, though, because I’ve always liked her for herself, and I don’t much care that she hasn’t got the chops of say, Cate Blanchett. I think it depends. Nowadays we think more of Sirk first, but at the time they would have been vehicles for Wyman and Hudson, and don’t forget in that era the producer (Ross Hunter here; Albert Zugsmith for the Sirk pictures The Tarnished Angels and Written on the Wind) had as much say as what made it to the screen as the director, if not more. This isn’t to say that those films don’t bear the marks of Sirk’s individual style; they do, obviously. But he didn’t have the control over his movies that many directors possess today. Thank you, papeeetepatrick, for excavating these old threads.

Those are favorites of mine, too. "Diamonds," "Diamonds," "Diamonds".........

In a sense all words are evolving all the time, but I would be careful about using some of the less established ones in certain contexts. It may not always be clear to your professor, say, that you are using a word because you are aware of the different forms of usage and have deliberately chosen a particular one or that you simply don't know any better. 'Standard' usages have their good points. Thank you, Michael, that's a very succinct way of putting it. More comments, please.

I think we have had variations on this topic before, ngitanjali, the tension between awareness of technical flaws, however small, and appreciation of the broader aspects of performance quality being ever present, but it's worth discussing again. Do others feel this way at times, and if so, how do you cope?

Thanks, sidwich. Enjoyed reading these.

I should have clarified what I meant by 'not great favorites.' I was responding to carbro's comment about Astaire's singing and how it was regarded by various songwriters, and Arlene Croce, writing about about the brothers' less than happy experience working on Shall We Dance, quotes one of them, I believe it was George, as saying apropos of Fred and Ginger, 'the amount of singing one can stand from these two is quite limited.' That's from memory, but I'm pretty sure that was the gist.

Yes, any film critic is going to make that kind of mistake in attribution from time to time, though. Unless you’re dealing with someone like Ingmar Bergman, who works with a chosen team and writes and directs his own material with more or less total freedom (as Woody Allen used to do and still does to a lesser extent), there will always be the question of who is responsible for what, and sometimes the critic will know and sometimes he won’t. I didn’t mind that so much – it’s okay to rave about ‘Intolerance’ even if you overdo it – but she would burble on for pages about things like ‘Tequila Sunrise,’ which was directed and written by one of her pets, Robert Towne. Now, I happen to enjoy ‘Tequila Sunrise’ – it’s a true guilty pleasure, one I’ve indulged in more than once -- but it wasn’t all that. And as time went on this tendency got worse, she had too much space to play with (although I wish today’s New Yorker would give its critics a little more at times). For the uninitiated, ‘Tequila Sunrise’ is an eighties movie starring Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kurt Russell. Mel is a retired drug dealer, a nice one who loves his kid, Kurt is a cop and his best friend, and Michelle runs an Italian restaurant with great lighting, not that she needs it, and she never gets marinara sauce on her blouse. Everyone looks fabulous, and there are beaches and gorgeous sunsets and a plot nobody gets too worried about. There’s also the late lamented J.T. Walsh and the late lamented Raul Julia. Miss you, guys. I recommend it highly.

Thank you for the heads up, miliosr. I'll look for it. Sarsgaard is a favorite of mine and I monitor his professional progress closely. He may always be a little too off for conventional leads - he's like a shorter blond John Malkovich -- but I like him, although he's often cast as a villain (he's raped and murdered Hilary Swank, cast a voodoo spell on Kate Hudson, and gave Jodie Foster a very hard time in Flightplan -- Reese Witherspoon better look out). I've liked him in his many indie pictures - he was great in Shattered Glass, actually made his dopey role in The Dying Gaul credible, and he was stunning in the aforementioned Boys Don't Cry. He's not the first to mention in an interview that ballet classes are good for meeting girls. This might seem obvious but it's worth pointing out, I guess.

I guess writers can't bear to leave out any of their research. With some bios I don't mind it - much depends on the writer (and my interest in the subject). I agree, I think this will probably be the last word on Nureyev for some time. Has anyone begun reading the book yet?

I only hope there's a little more balance in the book.

“Don’t worry, it’s only money! And you’re loaded or you wouldn’t be here. So relax. Rome wasn’t built in a day....”

I think you're right. (And he was making some pretty big claims in those preview/promotion articles, too.) Hmmm...humility, or cold feet? Either way, it's odd to see him pulling in his horns on a gala invitation, I agree. Interesting question, ViolinConcerto -- thanks for raising the topic.

Thanks for posting - I wouldn't have caught this.