I wanted to share with you this great video on YouTube by Mark Milano on his Broadway Classics channel, posted recently on Facebook. It's a compilation of movie scenes where singing was live and not lip-synched to audio playback, as was and is the usual custom for film. I was pleased to see the Jane Wyman and Bing Crosby duet of "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" among them from Here Comes the Groom (1951). This was mentioned on my previous post on that movie here.
Other gems are when Ethel Waters sings "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" in Member of the Wedding (1952), and Julie Andrews singing "Jenny" in Star! (1968) in an acrobatic circus skit.
Also, we mark the passing of Glynis Johns, whose 100th birthday we noted in October in this previous post. Well done, Sister Suffragette, on a long life and splendid career.
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Our greatest gift from the Greatest Generation was freedom from fascism. Relive, and celebrate, how evil was faced, discussed, dramatized...and fought. Classic films were the weapon.
"Today's Headlines!" the ad above for 2001: A Space Odyssey announces, referring to the first moon walk by astronauts in July 1969. Today we commemorate the enormity of the event, particularly for those of us who remember it, but also we look back at the movies playing at that time to see where America was, culturally, during that monumental moment when man first set foot on another celestial body outside the Earth.
This wrinkled front page is from the newspaper my family read and which my mother saved from Monday, July 21, 1969. As we can see by other front page newspapers below, the moon landing was the biggest news of the day -- of all time, we thought. I especially love this front page of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Daily News because, unlike the other newspapers, there is no headline and no story -- just the dramatic fuzzy image of two astronauts and their lunar module craft on the moon. No words were needed. No words could adequately express our awe.
The astronauts were, of course, Neil A. Armstrong, the civilian commander, and Air Force Colonel Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Collins remained in the command vessel orbiting the moon, called Columbia. The lunar module was the Eagle, as in those triumphant words, "The Eagle has landed!"
The mission was called Apollo 11 and the Saturn 5 rocket was launched July 16th. People all over the globe watched excitedly and followed the progress of the mission. On Sunday the 20th, a little after 11 p.m. EDT, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder and onto the surface of the moon.
In commemorating that event, many will recall the inspiring pledge of President John F. Kennedy at the beginning of that decade that we would be on the moon by the end of the 1960s, and will recall a time when the nation was more idealistic, more driven to setting technological and intellectual goals, and with a far more robust economy that would allow us to provide for the expenditure for such a space program.
Those of us who were children in those days recall watching the series of Gemini and Apollo flights on TV at home and even at school. We had our space toys, and believing we would certainly have a Jetson's car when we were grown.
But from the standpoint of pop culture as it is expressed in the movies, have a look at what we were looking at in the drive-ins, the neighborhood movie houses, and the new cinema complexes in the summer of 1969...
We were really more interested in the 2001: A Space Odyssey above, or was the topical comedy How to Commit Marriage more appealing? We see that in the late sixties, stars of the Golden Age like James Stewart and Gregory Peck, Doris Day, Anthony Quinn and Sir Lawrence Olivier were still starring in feature films, often now alongside younger box office stars and apparently trying to adapt to new subject matter and to new audiences. Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason, and Jane Wyman starred, and in the movie at the bottom of that ad, we see Bandelero! with James Stewart and Dean Martin paired with Raquel Welch.
In this ad, another theater carries How to Commit Marriage, and a drive-in is showing Bullitt with Steve McQueen.
We seemed to have a greater variety in movies at that time -- dramas, comedies, westerns, sci-fi, Shakespeare, and musicals -- and a wider variety of venues in which to see them.
Note that the ad above stresses the theater is "air conditioned" and has "exclusive air-flo rockers."
If we were glued to the TV for those several days the astronauts were on their trip to the moon, the movie theaters might not have gotten as much business. In the next decade, many of the theaters above would close. It might have been the last time that stars of classic films and contemporary actors would have equal footing in pop culture.
“Let’s Do It Again” (1953) gives us a last look at a frivolous musical comedienne Jane Wyman before a long stretch of more “soapy” roles. To be sure, she had her serious talents already explored in her Oscar-winning performance in “Johnny Belinda” (1946), and “The Lost Weekend” (1945) with Ray Milland, with whom she’s teamed again in this movie.
It’s a different matter to take on a frothy role after one is already established; we see her character is not like the old ditzy chorus girls she used to play when she was younger. Her dignity, partly due to age and party due to simply paying her dues, helps her stand out in this otherwise lightweight movie.
I'll bet your house parties look like this. I know mine do.
The film will be inevitably compared (unfavorably) with the original comedy “The Awful Truth” (1937) with Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, and Ralph Bellamy. Most remakes, a lot of us would agree, are disappointing. I wouldn’t look at this as a do-over, though. It’s just another take on a scenario, only with music and set in a 1950s bubble bath. Step right up here, we got your modern furniture, we got your off-the-shoulder gowns. You say you want opera gloves? Sister, we got opera gloves.
Ray Milland is a Broadway composer who, much to the chagrin of his wife, Jane Wyman, spends much of his time on the town carousing without her. She is a former musical star who retired to be a wife. She attempts to make him jealous with a tall tale about staying out all night with his rival composer, played by Tom Helmore. When Milland balks at her story about spending the night with Mr. Helmore in a motel, she, completely unruffled, comforts him, “Darling, don’t look so worried. It was approved by the auto club.”
She plays the scene well, and we see Wyman has not lost her flare for comedy. As their fight moves briskly to the bedroom, she does a does a modest striptease, a few cheesecake poses, singing and never spoiling her perfect makeup in the shower.
Her performance in this scene is terrific, purposefully over-the-top, and a 180-degree turn from the prim, pouting neglected wife. Her suddenly low, husky voice announces for us a bawdy extrovert, sexually charged, and swinging a long cigarette holder like a drum majorette with a baton. She greets her “brothers” Ray Milland and Leon Ames with a sensual kiss on the mouth, and asks Leon, “The thing been giving you any trouble lately?” Her slang-infused repartee is hysterical.
Then, with little provocation, she launches into a song and “interpretive” dance taught her (and sung earlier) by nightclub singer Valerie Bettis. Wyman refers to it as the Zambezi Puberty Ritual. Here it is below.
Please remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page and mute the music so you can hear the video.
Aldo Ray is a rich uranium miner from Alaska who has long had a crush on Miss Wyman back in her performing days. He is cute here, a clean-cut boy, a country bumpkin who can do a mean mamba dance, and who romances Wyman in anticipation of their honeymoon, “this time next month we’ll be moose hunting."
Trivia for you younger folks: with the advent of mp3, the term of a music “album” is probably used less these days, last used for CDs, but it came from the days -- as we see when Jane Wyman plays a record -- when 78rpm records were issued in an album set. That is, a bound book with five or six sleeves to hold as many records. In this case, Miss Wyman holds an album of several song hits by popular singer Dick Haymes. Broadway cast albums (I think “Oklahoma” was the first to be issued) held the entire show, two songs per record, several records for a whole show, in the many sleeves of a rather heavy photo album-type bound book.
You think mp3 revolutionized the industry? You have no idea what 33 1/3 long-playing records did for the industry (especially as regards classical music). Long playing (LPs) were introduced to the general market in 1948, and according to this article from Billboard magazine (August 2, 1952), the year before “Let’s Do It Again” was released, they (along with 45’s) had accounted for half the sales -- 78s were still hanging in there. Only for a couple more years.
Here’s a cast album from the Broadway hit “Brigadoon” in 78rpm (the paperboard album long since has fallen apart after moldering in someone’s cellar for decades) and also in LP. Would we have the patience today to wait for “side 10” to hit the spindle?
One last look at Jane Wyman’s musical talent, and off-the-shoulder gown, and opera gloves.
February is National Children’s Dental Health Month. Most small children have some idea of what the tooth fairy looks like, but most would be wrong. She looks like this:
Jane Wyman in an off-the-shoulder evening gown with white opera gloves, wearing diamond earrings and a choker necklace. Simple, but elegant. Grabbing your teeth right out of your head, in this case Beverly Washburn's head.
It is important to encourage proper tooth brushing and oral hygiene among children, who may not understand how vital this is to their general health. Many Hollywood stars brush their teeth.
Here, Gary Cooper demonstrates his own special technique, which he devised to reach those tough spots right in the front teeth and gums. Notice how his left hand is cupped to hold the tooth powder. Tooth powder was discontinued because it too closely resembled cocaine, which caused much embarrassment at debauched Hollywood parties.
Here, Bette Davis shows us how to carefully lean low over the sink so as not to splurt spit and dribbling flecks of toothpaste onto her blouse. This is most useful if you happen to brush your teeth at work, or in between courses at elegant restaurants.
Jean Arthur, whose craving for the taste of peppermint led to an unfortunate toothpaste addiction, and was known to just stand there all day brushing her teeth, nevertheless shows that even a bad habit can lead to good oral hygiene.
Celebrate Children’s Dental Health Month with a new toothbrush and brush your teeth like the movie stars do. If you do not, Jane Wyman will come to your home and yank your rotten teeth out with her nimble gloved fingers.
This has been a public service announcement from Another Old Movie Blog -- “Serving your old movie and dental health needs since 2007”.
“Here Comes the Groom” (1951) can be viewed through a prism of different spectrums, first and foremost perhaps, as the first in the last handful of movies directed by Frank Capra. There are pieces of Capra’s canon here: a smidgen of screwball comedy, a bit of social commentary. But, as if not too deeply touched by the great director, the film summons up all its parts and walks away on its own, flawed but triumphant just for getting there.
Maybe you could say the same for Frankenstein’s monster. It got up and walked away on its own, too. But, I have a fondness for the monster, and I have a fondness for this pretty delightful movie that tries hard to be more than it is.
Here we have Bing Crosby as a happy-go-lucky foreign correspondent in Paris writing about war orphans. Capra reminds us that we are still in the mopping up stage in the aftermath of World War II, when some six years after the war ended, Americans are getting a bit weary of it.
“The war orphan racket’s milked dry. It’s not news anymore,” Bing’s editor says, played by Robert Keith, who we last saw here in “I Want You” (1950). Words like UNESCO, the United Nations, the Atlantic Charter are bandied about, reminding us of the timeline this movie places us.
We even get a generous dose of the young Anna Maria Alberghetti as a blind orphan (her mother refused to “entertain” the enemy, we are told) singing “Caro None” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto” in an audition to be adopted by Alan Reed and Minna Gombell.
She is very sweet, and very good, and Alan Reed (AKA Fred Flintstone, as if you didn’t know), an opera impresario, adopts her and promises her not only a home but a bright career. The movie is barely ten minutes old and we already have our first happy ending.
(Does anybody else automatically think of the old line from the “Mary Tyler Moore” show, “Anna Maria Alberghetti in a taxi, honey…”?)
Perhaps Mr. Capra, too, is weary of the aftermath of World War II, because this is all that constitutes social commentary in this breezy musical, and we move on, tentatively, to the screwball comedy.
Bing Crosby, despite his efforts at finding homes for war orphans, is not really as much a hero as a lazy fellow for whom things always work out. Doing good comes as a coincidence.
Two of his orphan friends become his own adopted children (eventually): a rascally little boy played by Jacques Gencel, who displays admirable stewardship over the ever-adorable Beverly Washburn, who being younger and not really being French, doesn’t have much to say. We saw her last, I think in this post on “Old Yeller”, where she was a bit older and had a bit more to do.
I like little Jacques’s mimicking of Crosby on the phone.
Crosby receives a letter in the form of a recording, an interestingly used holographic image, from Jane Wyman, the gal he left behind. If he doesn’t high-tail it home, she’s going husband-hunting elsewhere.
Crosby flies home to stop her, with his two orphans, and we get a sudden smidgen of vaudeville right out of left field when several passengers erupt into song with Bing on the plane. “Misto Cristofo Columbo” is a bouncy, fun song about discovering America, as the orphans are about to do, and opening up freedom’s door for war refugees. It is sung by real-life impromptu USO troupe of Frank Fontaine, Phil Harris, Cass Daley, Dorothy Lamour, and Louis Armstrong. Nothing fun like that ever happens when I fly.
When he arrives with the kids in Boston, he discovers that Miss Wyman’s already bound for the altar that week with a millionaire, played by Franchot Tone. Mr. Tone makes a refreshing nemesis; he is handsome, intelligent, kind, and superior in every way. Crosby realizes he has his work cut out for him and he must be especially devious to steal Wyman away from this great guy.
The song immediately became a big hit on the radio. Some of the audience then, and perhaps more so today, who had become used to thinking of Jane Wyman as a dramatic actress may have forgotten she started out a chorus girl and could belt a song out with the best of them.
Another fun “the gang’s all here” kind of aspect is engendered by so many familiar faces getting a piece of the action: James Barton and Connie Gilchrist as Jane’s “wrong side of the track” parents. (It was disapprovingly noted in a recent viewing of this film by one of my relatives that though Jane’s family is from Gloucester, Mass. and the movie takes place in Boston, nobody here has the proper accent. I don’t hold it against anybody, though. I can be big.)
We also have dear old Adeline De Walt Reynolds, who we featured once in this post, who gets a couple of funny lines. Charles Halton, who last showed up as the detective in “The Shop Around the Corner” shows up here as an immigration agent. H.B. Warner is one of Franchot Tone’s stodgy wealthy uncles.
The magnificent (so says anyone carrying a torch for him) Charles Lane as the FBI agent makes my day.
Chris Appel, who surprisingly made only two films, appears here as the frantic wedding arranger who cannot get anyone to cooperate during the wedding rehearsal.
Check out Jane Wyman’s wedding apparel, particularly the tiara and recall our series on the 1950s princess here, here, and here.
I’m saving the best for last. Alexis Smith. She plays the distant cousin of Franchot Tone who agonizingly harbors a secret crush on him. Her awkward, blue-blood tweediness has left her ignored by him and her family, until Bing Crosby takes her in hand and teaches her how to flirt, and how to wrestle, in order to give her the confidence to go after Franchot Tone, so that Crosby may have Miss Wyman to himself. Though it’s a preposterous scene, it’s also touching when we realize that Crosby is the only one to understand her feelings and to give her the confidence she desperately needs.
“You are beautiful. You’re a knockout,” he says, and especially compliments her height, something all shy tall girls need to hear.
Alexis Smith blooms under his rough-and-tumble tutelage, and becomes a bombshell. Later she will wrestle with Miss Wyman (or the stunt doubles will, actually), and declare her worthiness both as a member of the clan, and as an object of lust. She even gets to sing her own verse of “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” a cappella.
I like when editor Robert Keith, who is a conspirator in her “education”, leaves to head back for the office and one of Miss Smith’s stockings snags a ride on the back of his hat.
At the 11th hour, amid busybody government officials, wisecracking newspapermen, a congregation of elite Boston society at the televised wedding of the year, Crosby’s conniving plans gel as everything else falls apart. Franchot Tone and Jane Wyman choose other partners, and it’s a happy ending where nobody is foiled, not really, because there were never really any bad guys.
Have a look below for “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening”. Note how it’s sung “live” and not lip-synched.
Below that, our USO troupe singing “Miso Cristofo Columbo”.
(Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom and mute the music so you can hear the video.)
When Lew Ayres first meets Belinda, she is raggedly clothed, with a dirty face, attending the birth of a heifer, tending to chickens and lugging sacks to the grist mill, consumed as much as her father and her aunt are in the endless drudgery of working just to eat. It is not a glamorous role for Jane Wyman, but as Belinda changes and cleans herself up to primp for the doctor, we see profound beauty in her, and in her studious dark eyes that dart over the faces around her, and in the lovely expression of her hands.
The film introduces sign language for a movie going audience which probably had not seen it before. It is conveyed in a simple and almost childlike way, as Belinda learns to sign “father” from the two signs of “man” and with hands to indicate he is holding a child. Even her father wonders delightedly at the fluttering fingers sign for “butterfly.” He shows this to his sister, asking her if she can guess what it means. Miss Moorehead’s crushing and funny reply is, “It means you’ve gone looney.”
When Belinda is raped by Locky, the progress she has made is lost and she retreats back to a zombie state, frightened and repulsed at being touched. There is a nice scene when Ayres, frustrated at being unable to reach her, confesses his own loneliness to her. A softness returns to her inscrutable expression, and we see that they are the key to each other’s happiness.
It is a tight script, and several incidents build on each other. Some fine scenes are when Richardson must tell Belinda she is going to have a baby, when he confides in Aggie, who expresses horror at the crime and sympathy for her niece with whom she has always been sharp, and when he finally must tell Belinda’s father, who does not take the news well. Richardson eventually guesses that Locky is the father, and when the banns of marriage are read between him and Stella in church, Mr. Ayres’ sardonic expression, like Jane Wyman’s performance, is restrained yet tells us everything about his disgust and lack of surprise.
Another good scene is when Belinda’s baby, called Johnny, is born and Aggie wearily tells the worried expectant grandfather, “It’s hard to get born and it’s hard to die.” When Johnny is born, we hear only his infant cries. Belinda cannot even whimper much less scream. Just as affecting are her crying scenes, particularly when Richardson tells her he must go away. Her expression is anguished and her tears are silent, and all the more powerful for being so. Black MacDonald’s tears are silent, too, as he sits in the dark, waiting to be told if mother and child are well.
The trial is a bit melodramatic, but movie trials tend to be. The stalwart Canadian Mountie is positioned like a product logo for Canada in several shots to remind us the Dominion is just and fair, even for unwed deaf mute mothers who kill people.
Back to the musical score for a moment, at each tense scene, such as the Belinda’s difficult labor and the struggle between Locky and her father that results in her father’s death, we hear the scratchy fiddle sound that Locky made on the violin he stole to trick her into coming close enough to him for him to grab her. The sound is a harbinger of doom and a reminder of violence. It’s a small element, but very effective.
Johnny Belinda rode the crest of an era of post-war socially conscious films. It was a powerful film for its day tackling uncommon subjects, which director Jean Negulesco keeps from descending into lurid sensationalism by his attention to detail of everyday life in the village, on keeping this primarily a character study, and through the intelligent playing of a complicated girl half her age by a very talented lead actress.
This slide show from “Johnny Belinda” was recently placed on YouTube. Here you get a nice chance to listen to Max Steiner’s score.
The recent death of actress Jane Wyman calls to mind one of her most famous roles, the role for which she won the Oscar as the deaf mute in Johnny Belinda (1948). It’s an interesting film, and quite unexpectedly beautiful.
The character of Belinda is isolated from the small Nova Scotia community by her deafness and by their prejudice. A lot happens in the film, most notably her rape and resulting pregnancy, and afterwards she goes on trial for murder. With such a forlorn character in such harsh surroundings and grim events, one would think the film could be as lurid as the sensational movie poster advertising the film, with its menacing shadow of a man over a cowering Belinda. The unusual inclusion of rape, a taboo subject in those days, was enough to attract publicity. There are indeed a few menacing shadows in the film; one can pick out film noir influences here and there, particularly the table level and floor-to-ceiling camera shots. However, the film comes off as gentle and kindly, and almost uplifting.
Max Steiner’s lilting score that seems to echo Belinda’s innocence may have something to do with this, and perhaps that most of it is shot out of doors, against a wide sea and a majestic sky. But a lot of the credit for the hopefulness and gentleness of this film lies with Jane Wyman.
Miss Wyman reportedly studied at a school for the deaf and learned, along with sign language, to use her eyes to convey how Belinda learns about the world; in effect, to listen with her eyes. Her expression, and her whole body language, is curtailed and without any exaggeration. It is a minimalist performance. She stiffens at the presence of others, like an animal relying on its instincts. She has adjusted to her world, but is lost in the world of others. She is classic case of a handicapped person who has been dismissed by others, and she has adjusted to being dismissed as much as to her deafness.
The film tells us right off what kind of world this is. We see immediately the working harbor, the fishing boats unloading their catch. We see the weather-beaten cottages and straggling fences, the peeling paint, the laundry that hangs limply in a wet ocean breeze. We see this is a hardscrabble existence. This is a poor community, but not an indolent, depressed and out-of-work community. Just the opposite; everyone is working as hard as they can at whatever they can to do survive. It is a hand-to-mouth existence. There is no time for pity even for someone like Belinda, who works as hard as an indentured servant on her father’s struggling farm and grist mill.
We also see immediately how the principle characters are established. Locky, played by Stephen McNally, is bullying, selfish and a charmer. Dr. Richardson is preoccupied, aloof. We see that Stella, played by Jan Sterling in a small but important role as his young housekeeper has a crush on him, but is courted by Locky because she is to inherit an uncle’s property. Locky needs the money to pay off his debts. We see Pacquet, the posturing, arrogant store owner to whom Locky, and many in the village, owe money. The villagers make the film. They are realistic and create a caste system we can easily follow.
Agnes Moorehead plays Belinda’s aunt, in one of her best roles. Miss Moorehead is feisty, curt, no nonsense, humorless, with a charming Scots burr.
But it is Miss Wyman’s film, and not just because she has a soap-opera heroine type role as an uber-victim. Her Belinda, curious and kind, blossoms under the attention of Dr. Richardson. He teaches her sign language, and by the end of the film even we know enough to understand her signing The Lord’s Prayer over the dead body of her father, and her confession of love to Dr. Richardson.
It is a simple message from the start, as Richardson, played by that master of kindly doctors, Lew Ayres is told by Black MacDonald, Belinda’s father, played by Charles Bickford, “If people would only learn to let each other live, it’d be a different world.”
