At the Beach

As summer dwindles, let us go to the beach. We had discussed some beach scenes in this post from 2007, and some readers responded with favorite beach scenes. I hope you can come up with some more. Above we have Dorothy McGuire and Guy Madison in “Till the End of Time” (1946), a movie which deserves its own discussion some time or other, but for now, the beach scene will be enough. I think it rivals the famous Deborah Kerr-Burt Lancaster “From Here to Eternity” (1953) scene both in terms passion and pushing the censors’ buttons.



Now, here is a look at some fully-clothed, family style fun in “The Crowd” (1928) with Eleanor Boardman. Few people actually enter the water in this interesting beach scene; it’s really more like a town picnic with an ocean as a backdrop.



Back to McGuire and Madison. One of the things I love about this scene is the continuous movement. They are constantly rolling over each other, touching, and managing a continuous stream of dialogue as they change position in a natural-looking exploration of each other. Perhaps because the dialogue never stops and they never linger in one grasp for long is the only reason I can think of the censors allowed some of this.


Ah, humanity in all its half-dressed glory. Here is a crowd shot (had to have been a real crowd on a real beach), in “The Devil and Miss Jones” (1941), one of many films to be shot with New York’s Coney Island as a setting.










O-kay, we seem to be intruding now. Let’s just walk away quietly and try not to kick any sand. We’ll come back in a minute, and when we do, we’ll clear our throats very loudly so they’ll know we’re here.


Back to “The Devil and Miss Jones” and the sand-covered beach blanket of Spring Byington, Charles Coburn, Jean Arthur, and Bob Cummings. And more extras than you can shake a stick at. One of my favorite beach scenes for its claustrophobic camaraderie.


Jeez-Louise, they’re still at it. AHEM! AHEM! Hello! H-e-l-l-O-O-O-O! Forget it. Let’s go back to Coney Island.


Ah, so telling a gesture, Charles Coburn sifting sand through his fingers, like the sands of time quickly leaving his grasp as he ponders his own lonely life against the passionate young love of Miss Arthur and Mr. Cummings. And he looks great in his saggy woolen rented bathing suit. By the way, have a look here at a fun post on women’s beach fashions over at Allure.



Oh, now see, this is nice. She’s brushing her lips on his arm. Very nice. Am I staring? I’m sorry. Anyone want anything from the snack bar? Some fried clams, maybe? Lobster roll?



Bogie at the beach, with Gloria Grahame in “In a Lonely Place” (1950). More moonlit beach snuggling, but something’s going to set him off any minute in a rage. No baggy rented suit, no snorkel. No boogie board. Or Bogie board. Bogart doesn’t seem to be much fun at the beach. He doesn't even take his clothes off.



Oh, she’s finally stopping to play a record. Aren’t wind-up Victrola’s wonderful? You can take them anywhere, and with a little cranking, you can listen to “Yes, We Have No Bananas” all day long.


Right, now we’re down to the pillow talk pose. Won’t last long, though, this beach encounter, like Bogie’s, ends with an argument, too. Nothing lasts for ever, not snuggling on the beach, not the song on your 78rpm record, and not summer. The older you get, the shorter summer gets.

Make the most of the rest of your summer. In the meantime, have a look here at the beach scene in “From Here to Eternity.”

Love Affair (1939)

“Love Affair” (1939) is the original version of the 1957 “An Affair to Remember” with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. The original features Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, and seems to have a more screwball comedy type feel to it that makes the melodrama at the end all the more poignant.

Boyer is an international playboy who has never worked a day in his life, and Irene Dunne is ostensibly a buyer on a business trip for her boss, but this is only a mask of legitimacy for a carefree socialite who accepts expensive gifts from her boss, whom she does not love. The two of them cross paths on a trans-Atlantic ocean liner, sipping pink champagne and trading smart aleck flirtation in grand salons and even grander staterooms.

We have some pretty good rear screen projection of the ocean behind them as they take numerous walks to the rail to gaze out over the sea (except for one moment when Miss Dunne makes a wide gesture with her arm and we see the shadow of her sleeve on the ocean backdrop). There’s a cute bit of banter between Dunne and little Scotty Beckett, who you will remember from “The Little Rascals” shorts. He plays a little boy performing gymnastics on the banister of a staircase on board ship, and she warns him to be careful.

“You’ll fall and hurt yourself! When I was little like you, I broke my leg.”
“How is it now?”
“It’s all right.”
“Then what are you crabbing about?”

Miss Dunne displays very good comedic timing, and her chemistry with M. Boyer is charming. A very brief, but high note of their journey comes at a port of call where they visit his stately grandmother, played by Maria Ouspenskaya. Her Shangri-La-type villa is a place of otherworldly peace and serenity. There is a small chapel on her property, and when Dunne and Boyer enter for an interesting moment of devotion.

I cannot recall another film of this period (correct me, please, if you can think of others) which illustrates Roman Catholic ritual at a time when most Americans (Catholics not being in the majority) were probably not exposed to it. Director Leo McCarey later gave us “Going My Way” with a Catholic priest as the protagonist, but there was more about the rectory than the Mass in that film. Even Spencer Tracy’s forays into film priesthood did not exhibit demonstrations of Catholic ritual. There had been films with kindly priests counseling gangsters on the way to the electric chair, but few films showing the altar and two lay people going through the act of formal devotions at kneelers.

Miss Dunne replaces the hat on her head that she had removed and carried earlier (pre-Vatican II, cover the heads, ladies). There is an icon of the Virgin Mary prominently displayed, and both Dunne and Boyer cross themselves upon rising from their prayers. It is a simple scene, but quite effective in propelling their romance. The silence and serenity of the chapel creates an intimacy wherein they both feel deeply conscious of each other’s presence, and seem more self-conscious as they leave the chapel. Up until now their flirtation had been harmless and shallow. It is their time spent at the villa, starting with the chapel scene, that their romance really begins.

Another lovely scene is when Mme. Ouspenskaya, whose frail, European dignity is contrasted with Miss Dunne’s tall, healthy, corn-fed, American vigor as they prepare tea. Mme. Ouspenskaya plays the plaintive “Plasir d’Amour” on the piano, and Dunne sings the chorus. The focus is on Boyer as much as the ladies, as we see how affected the carefree playboy is to see the two most important women in his life together and here is where he really begins to fall in love. When the distant sound of the boat horn announces they have to get back to the ship, Maria Ouspenskaya tears up with the almost childlike whimper, “I hate boat whistles.” They leave, but not before Dunne’s sensitive character comes back for a final hug and kiss, knowing that not just they, but life, is leaving this lonely old lady behind.

Back on the boat the couple are confronted with the suspicious, nosy glances of their fellow travelers eager for a bit of gossip, and we trace their voyage with a cartoon boat proceeding on a line across the map. Anytime I travel, I always look out the window for these movie indications of the conquering of distance, but it never happens. This has always been a disappointment.

Acknowledging their love, they firmly resolve to separate and make something of themselves before they can be together. Miss Dunne gets to sing a bit more, and M. Boyer becomes a famous artist, which leads to the final melodrama. When he sees his painting of her in her apartment, which his agent gave to a poor lame woman for free, he realizes she is the lounging on the couch with a blankie over her legs because she can’t walk, not because she callously jilted him by not showing up at their rendezvous point on the top of the Empire State Building a year before.

This is a bit more maudlin in the remake, and I think what makes it work here is Boyer’s wonderful expression of humility, even more than sympathy, in the presence of the self-sacrificing woman he still loves. Only moments before he is full of haughty anger and pride, and pushes her into lying about why she missed their appointment. It is a sudden shift, which has us off balance and leads to a breathtaking ending. Such sentimentality seems more out of place in 1957 with the smooth Cary Grant and the cool Deborah Kerr. Dunne and Boyer do not seem as sophisticated, the times do not seem as sophisticated, for all that pink champagne, and that makes these two oddly more believable.

Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr’s recent passing calls to mind her role in “Separate Tables” (1958), one of her six Oscar-nominated roles. The difference in her appearance in this film from her other characterization of cool, controlled, genteel, and sexy women which made her one of the most appealing actresses of her generation, is the challenge of playing Sibyl Railton-Bell and her success at such a pathetic and unflattering character.

Sibyl is emotionally brittle, shy, nervous and dominated by a manipulative and controlling mother. In this role Miss Kerr manages the unusual combination of appearing hunched over and yet lanky at the same time. She carries herself completely differently than she does in her other mannerly “English rose” type outings. Mousy doesn’t seem quite the word for Sibyl; she is quite emotionally crippled by her own bewilderment at relationships with other people and by her inability to crawl out from her mother’s condescending control.

Nearly every character at the seaside English residential hotel in “Separate Tables” is burdened by some emotional deformity. They do not live here as much as hide out here. David Niven, who won his Best Actor Academy Award for his role in this film, play-acts at being a retired army major, with his “What? What?” and “Cheery-bye” lingo represents a caricature more than a human being, as does the stuffy retired school housemaster, and Mrs. Railton-Bell and her unfortunate daughter. Dame Wendy Hiller, who won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of the hotel’s resident owner, seems the most balanced, flesh-and-blood character in the film.

Miss Kerr’s scenes with David Niven are wonderfully complex. We first see her on a solitary evening stroll, waiting for the Major’s return like a child waiting for the return of a doting father. When her mother warns that her fascination with the Major indicates to others in the hotel that she is pursuing him romantically, Sibyl becomes self conscious and horrified, and a shadow is cast over her only friendship.

When her mother ferrets out the news that the Major has pleaded guilty to charges of “taking liberties” with woman in a local movie theater, and calls a meeting of the other residents to condemn him, Sibyl is stunned and shocked, and eventually when prodded for her opinion, breaks into hysterics. But afterwards, she finds the courage to confront him, and to shakily demand of him, “Why did you do it?” As if to say, why did you spoil everything? Now nothing can be the same.

The innocence of their friendship is lost. However, Sibyl’s innocence is still, remarkably, not lost. She is angry and resentful that he ruined their relationship by exposing his sexual repression, and exposing hers, making both a topic for conversation. Her scene with Rita Hayworth, when she comes to the realization that the Major’s remark that they are really similar in their fears is not far from the mark, and that she is hesitant to even speak the word, “…sex. There. I’ve said it,” is poignantly comic. Sibyl begins to undergo a tiny change now, when her embarrassment turns to compassion and concern and for the Major.

“I just want him to be happy,” she says helplessly, and adds, “God bless you,” when they say goodbye. From this giant step, it takes another giant step to defy her mother, but giant steps seem to come easier for Sibyl when her sympathy for the Major erases her own shyness.

Miss Kerr doesn’t have a lot of room to work with in Sibyl, whose world is so narrow and whose emotions are so brittle. This role must have been a greater challenge than her other more classy roles. It is certainly not romantic, but she shows her range than in “Separate Tables.”

For other tributes to Deborah Kerr, see The Shelf,
Self-Styled Siren
and
Laura's Miscellaneous Musings.