Silver Screen Standards: Mary Poppins (1964), Prop Culture and You
This spring, the streaming service Disney+ launched a new series called Prop Culture, in which host Dan Lanigan brings together props and people from some of Disney’s most memorable live-action pictures. The oldest movie featured on the first season of the show is Mary Poppins (1964), a truly iconic achievement for Disney that has become a beloved classic for generations of viewers.
Prop Culture is a fun series for film fans who enjoy behind-the-scenes stories about movies; it revisits not only physical props but the people who worked on both sides of the camera to get the pictures made, and the Mary Poppins episode is particularly delightful for its inclusion of actress Karen Dotrice, who played Jane Banks, and composer Richard Sherman, who is shown playing the piano in Walt Disney’s office while talking about making the movie. There’s never a bad time to watch Mary Poppins, but the new Disney series makes this a great opportunity to learn a little more about it and perhaps introduce younger fans to the fascinating idea that movies are so much more than just the finished product we see on a screen.
The mix of animation and live-action gives Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke some very amusing costars, including a group of eager penguin waiters.
Julie Andrews is undoubtedly the star of the show with her Oscar-winning performance as the practically-perfect nanny who upends the lives of the Banks family, but there’s also a lot to be said for the treasure trove of supporting actors who populate the film with quirky characters. The Prop Culture episode devotes a lot of attention to the snow globe of St. Paul’s Cathedral that is featured in both the original movie and the 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, but it doesn’t mention Jane Darwell, an Oscar-winning actress whose appearance as the Bird Woman seen in the globe would be her final role (she died three years later at the age of 87). Darwell is just one of the familiar faces classic movie fans can find in Mary Poppins; Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Treacher, Reginald Owen, Hermione Baddeley, and Ed Wynn all contribute to the picture’s charm, although Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson enjoy the largest supporting roles as the Banks parents.
Jane Darwell’s final screen appearance as the Bird Woman gives the “Feed the Birds” number an extra measure of nostalgic sweetness for classic movie fans.
The character actors make Mary Poppins a great starting point for introducing kids to other, perhaps less familiar classics: track down the 1948 mermaid fantasy, Miranda, for a very different look at Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson! Arthur Treacher also appears in several Shirley Temple movies, including The Little Princess (1939), and you might well give some youngster a shock with the news that Katie Nanna is the same actress who plays the title character inBride of Frankenstein (1935), although perhaps Lassie Come Home (1943) is a better introduction to Elsa Lanchester in a more recognizable form. Reginald Owen, who plays the aptly named Admiral Boom, can also be found in The Canterville Ghost (1944), and you’ll find both Lanchester and Owen in the 1948 adaptation of The Secret Garden. Disney had a habit of using the same character actors in multiple movies, so you can also have fun comparing Ed Wynn’s role as Uncle Albert with his portrayal of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland (1951) and then have a look at the vocal tribute to Wynn created by Alan Tudyck for the King Candy character in Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
Bert and Mary enjoy a sooty adventure on the London rooftops with the Banks children during the chimney sweepers dance sequence.
The visual effects in Mary Poppins bring magic into even the most ordinary activities, from unpacking a bag and tidying up to inspecting the chalk art on a London sidewalk, with the mix of live-action and animation creating some of the most memorable moments of the picture. The Prop Culture episode revisits this element of the movie through the history of the carousel horses ridden by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. These delightful sequences earned the movie its Oscar for Best Visual Effects and inspired later productions like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), but Disney had been experimenting with the technique since the first Alice comedy, Alice’s Wonderland, in 1923, and a number of other classic movies also use it to varying degrees. If your family loves the animated scenes in Mary Poppins, introduce them to Anchors Aweigh (1945), Dangerous When Wet (1953), Invitation to the Dance (1956), or, my personal favorite, The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Today, actors in many movies perform with CGI or motion-capture costars, but there’s a particular charm in sequences with traditional 2D animated characters and live-action, and budding special effects experts can benefit from a look at the “old school” efforts like Mary Poppins and its contemporaries.
David Tomlinson and Glynis Johns invest Mr. and Mrs. Banks with quirky traits but also make them likable enough that we want them to be happy, which they are by the kite flying scene at the movie’s end.
Mary Poppins brought Walt Disney a whole new level of success with its five Oscar wins, thirteen nominations, and massive box office returns that helped fund a certain real estate project in central Florida. It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this column not being familiar with its plot, its stars, and its songs, not to mention its contentious backstory in the conflict between Disney and the original books’ author, P.L. Travers. Disney has even provided some of that context itself in the 2013 movie, Saving Mr. Banks, albeit with its own perspective on events. You don’t need me to tell you that Mary Poppins is a classic or that Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are great fun to watch in it. Instead, I want to suggest that Mary Poppins is worth revisiting with people in your life who aren’t necessarily steeped in classic Hollywood lore because it offers such a fabulous starting point for discussions of performers, careers, legacies, and intertextuality. If you’re cooped up with the family this summer due to the pandemic, there are lots of film festival programs you can create using Mary Poppins as a starting point. Let it be the spoonful of cinematic sugar that starts a discussion about adaptation and authorship, for example, or an exploration of later, similar fantasies like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Nanny McPhee (2005). Use the Prop Culture series as a companion to introduce kids (and even other adults) to the rich mix of people, techniques, and props that makes movie magic happen. Mary Poppins has a lot to offer on many different fronts, which is one of the reasons it has endured and is still so beloved today. Whatever your approach to Mary Poppins, be sure to check out the Prop Culture series, which is really a lovely treat for film geeks and also includes episodes devoted to The Muppet Movie (1979) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).
“Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise,” announced crusty New York Times critic Bosely Crowther, “Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress in Bus Stop. She and the picture are swell! She gives a performance in this picture that marks her as a genuine acting star.”
Monroe’s performance in Bus
Stop was a triumph, but during the production, the actress risked it all.
As the first film coproduced by her new corporation, Marilyn Monroe
Productions, everything was at stake: her business investment, her credibility
as a serious actress, her career, and her future. There were many in Hollywood
who expected—and even wanted—her to fail. However, Monroe’s pivotal performance
that made even the toughest critics acknowledge her as a gifted actress.
Released in the summer of 1956, Bus Stop was the first film starring Monroe
distributed in over a year and her first opportunity to implement her
controversial Method Acting training at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio in New
York.
The plot opens with Beauregard
“Bo” Decker, a twenty-one-year-old orphaned cowboy rancher traveling from
Montana to Phoenix to compete in a rodeo. His fatherly guardian, Virgil,
accompanies him. Bo wants to find an “angel” in the big city but has no
experience with women, and Virgil worries about his sheltered innocence. At the
Blue Dragon Café in Phoenix, Bo meets an untalented showgirl, Cherie, a
hillbilly from the Ozarks who dreams of becoming a movie star. Cherie makes up
for her lack of talent with tremendous ambition. On a crumpled roadmap, she
tracks her career trajectory from her birthplace in Arkansas to Hollywood. Over
the course of the story, Cherie tames Bo’s wild nature and transforms him into
a sensitive, gentleman, and Bo validates her worth by loving her
unconditionally. Having transformed individually and together, the couple leave
for Bo’s ranch in Montana.
Early in the film, Cherie shows
Vera a roadmap on which she has circled her starting point in River Gulch and
has drawn a line that she calls her “direction.” Pointing to her destination,
Cherie exclaims, “Look where I’m goin’…Hollywood and Vine!” Her face lights up
with hope. Vera asks what will happen at the intersection of those streets.
“Honey, you get discovered,” Cherie explains. “You yet tested, with options,
and everything. And you get treated with a little respect, too!” The character
and scene are somewhat autobiographical to Monroe and her own dream of stardom,
although she was born in Hollywood.
As an unaccredited co-producer,
Monroe had approval of the story line, cinematographer, and director for the
first time in her career. Maurice “Buddy” Adler, Fox’s new production chief. Having
successfully altered The Seven Year Itch for Monroe, George Axelrod
adapted William Inge’s stage play for the screen and fleshed out the role of
Cherie specifically for her, creating the most fully realized of her roles to
date. Monroe also selected cinematographer Milton Krasner, who had filmed her
beautifully in All About Eve and The Seven Year Itch.
Joshua Logan appeared on her
short list of acceptable directors in her newly renegotiated contract with Fox.
“I nearly missed one of the high spots of my directing life because I had
fallen for the popular Hollywood prejudice about Marilyn Monroe,” Logan wrote
in his autobiography, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me. “I could gargle
with salt and vinegar even now as I say that,” the director later wrote,
“because I found Marilyn to be one of the great talents of all time.”
Logan’s credentials as Method
acting alumnus, successful stage and screen director, and patient temperament
made him a perfect fit for Monroe. Moreover, he was willing to collaborate with
his stars and give them a measure of creative input. Much in the way today’s
stars are afforded power, even when they are not co-producing, Monroe had some
creative control over ways to stage scenes and position the cameras.
Logan described her as “the
most talented motion picture actress of her day—warm, witty, extremely bright
and totally involved in her work.” In Bus Stop, Monroe experienced a
director who, for the first time in her career, truly recognized her artistry
and was open to collaboration. “I’d say she was the greatest artist I ever
worked with in my entire career,” Logan said. “Hollywood shamelessly wasted
her, hasn’t given the girl a chance.”
Rock Hudson was the first
choice for Beauregard “Bo” Decker. With his dashing good looks, virile
masculinity, and undeniable charm, Hudson was arguably the male equivalent of
Marilyn Monroe. Hudson was manufactured to be Hollywood’s ultimate ladies’ man,
much in the same way Marilyn was manufactured to be the ultimate every man’s
ideal, the only difference was that Marilyn was straight and Rock Hudson was
gay. Monroe could live openly as heterosexual, but Hudson had to live a lie in
1950s America.
Hudson chose to pass on the
logically good fit of Bo in Bus Stop and instead, accepted George
Stevens’ 1956 epic, Giant, alongside James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor,
for which he would receive an Academy Award nomination. Allegedly, Hudson had
made a sexual advance toward Monroe’s business partner, Milton Greene; Greene casually
dismissed the incident, but Hudson apparently remained embarrassed.
Finally, Fox cast newcomer Don
Murray. During the early years of Monroe’s fame, he served as a social worker
for orphans and war casualties in refugee camps in Europe, seeing her films
dubbed in Italian. “From my pay of thirty dollars a month, I saved up fifteen
cents a week to see a movie in the poorest neighborhood,” Murray recalled in
2012. “One movie I had to save up three weeks for was Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes.” When Fox executives thought Murray was too loud and too
boisterous, Logan fired back, “I want Attila the Hun and that’s who we have.”
Logan also influenced Fox’s
pick of Eileen Heckart as Vera. She received rave reviews on Broadway in The
Bad Seed as Hortense Daigle and stole two scenes as the intoxicated
bereaved mother of a young boy killed by an eight-year-old psychopathic serial
killer with blonde braided pigtails. Heckart recreated the character in the
1956 film adaptation and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
Hope Lange made her screen
debut as Elma in Bus Stop and married co-star Don Murray during a pause
in the production.
Monroe and Logan met with designer
William Travilla to review his design sketches for Cherie’s costumes. Having
dressed the glamorous pre-Method Monroe, his watercolor renderings depicted
elegant outfits befitting an MGM Technicolor musical but completely devoid of
realism. With feigned enthusiasm, Monroe approved the designs. After Travilla
left the room, she turned to Logan. “You and I are gonna shred it up,” Monroe announced.
“Pull out part of the fringe, poke holes in the fishnet stockings, then have
‘em darned with big, sprawling darns. Oh, it’s gonna be so sorry and pitiful
it’ll make you cry.” As a Method actress, she searched the studio’s wardrobe
department for pieces that authentically reflected Cherie’s meager salary as a
saloon singer and snatched a gaudy gold blouse with black-lace overlay originally
been worn by Susan Hayward in With a Song in My Heart (1952). She also
selected a tattered gold lamé coat and asked the wardrobe department to add a
border of moth-eaten rabbit fur. When Travilla’s green and gold showgirl
costume was completed, Monroe distressed it with a pair of scissors and ripped
the fish net stockings with her hands. At her request, wardrobe seamstresses
darned the holes for increased realism.
Monroe also conferred with
Allan Snyder about makeup suggestions. Since Cherie slept during the day and
performed at the Blue Dragon all night, her skin was rarely exposed to sunlight
and appeared white. Snyder used a mixture of clown white in the foundation and
urged Monroe to allow him to darken the shade to make her look more attractive,
but she insisted on realism over vanity. When Buddy Alder viewed the costume
and makeup tests, he balked at the pallor of Monroe’s skin, but she convinced
him of its appropriateness for the character.
For added realism in the saloon
scene where Bo watches Cherie perform “That Old Black Magic,” Logan dispensed
with the typical practice of the performer pre-recording the song and
lip-synching to a playback during filming. Instead, Monroe sang live with an
orchestra while two cameras filmed from different distances. Monroe interpreted
Cherie as singing off pitch and using trite theatrical gestures. The character
creates her own lighting effects during her act by kicking floor switches with
her gold high-heeled pump to turn off the nightclub’s lights and to turn on
colored spotlights. “She did it with almost instinctive comic genius,” Logan
recalled. Monroe waved a silk scarf in an old vaudeville move taught to her by
a makeup lady and used corny hand-gestures to act out some of the lyrics,
including. At one point, Cherie even flinched when she hit a note far off-key.
“We had a memorable musical sequence, primarily because we gave a great artist,
a superb comedienne, the freedom to perform the way she felt,” Logan said.
In a mock-up of a bus against a
rear projection screen, Monroe sat beside Hope Lange for her longest speech in
the film. As Bo sleeps in the rear of the bus, Cherie explains her abduction to
Elma and shares her life story, hopes, and dreams. It is the caliber of
soliloquy that begets an Oscar nomination. Fox’s executives edited a portion of
the soliloquy because it slowed the film’s pace, but Marilyn felt betrayed by
Logan and held him responsible for failing to fight for the integrity of her
performance.
At the climax of the film, when
Bo professes his love and Cherie realizes she has fallen in love with him,
Logan envisioned extreme close-ups of the principal actors’ faces from forehead
to chin to highlight the intensity of the emotions. The widescreen process did
not easily accommodate extreme close-ups due to a distortion in the edges of
the frame, but Logan wanted to experiment with the CinemaScope lens to capture
Monroe’s beautiful face. He believed hers was one of the great faces of all
time, and he wanted the world to really see it. Excited, Monroe danced around
the set like a child in anticipation of a big close-up like Garbo’s in the
traditional square lens format of the 1930s and ’40s. Logan started with
Murray. Following Logan’s direction to bring the camera close, cinematographer
Milton Krasner announced that the top of Murray’s head was not visible in the
lens—the camera was too close. “Everybody knows he has one,” Monroe said
logically. “It’s already been established.”
In a tight shot of Cherie and
Bo together, Monroe rests her head on the bar counter, and Murray rests his
head beside hers. Both of their faces are visible in the elongated frame. “I
like ya the way ya are, so what do I care how ya got that way?” Murray says to
her. Monroe nervously brings her hand to her mouth, bursts into tears, and
replies, “That’s the sweetest most tender-est thing anybody has ever said to
me.” As she pulls her hand away from her mouth, another string of saliva spills
to the counter. “She was very real,” Don Murray said. “She tore your heart out.
It’s one of the best performances in the history of talking films.”
Logan completed the final,
touching scene of Cherie and Bo boarding the bus to Montana. Cherie clutches
the box containing her wedding ring as she shivers in the cold. Bo notices her
discomfort in a tattered coat and offers her his heavy, fleece-lined coat. She
looks surprised as he stands behind her and opens the coat. Slowly, Cherie
slides each arm into the sleeves, and Bo lovingly wraps the coat around her.
Logan directed her to imagine slipping into a warm bubble bath. Monroe relishes
the moment as if it were an embrace. She leans back against Murray, closes her
eyes, and tilts her head back. She turns her head to the side and opens her
mouth—her eyes remain closed. Bo pulls her closer to him. She draws his hand
around her.
In London filming The Prince
and the Showgirl with Sir Laurence Olivier, Monroe missed the premiere.
Critics unanimously agreed the performance was a triumph. Playing off
advertising for Anna Christie (1930), “Garbo Speaks,” Louella Parsons’
headline in the Los Angeles Examiner announced, “Marilyn Acts.”
“Monroe had finally succeeded
in delicately balancing being wildly funny, and in the next minute, tender and
fragile,” began
the Hollywood Reporter. “There has been a good deal of comment and some
knowing laughter about Miss Monroe’s attempts to broaden her native talents by
working at her acting,” “It should be some satisfaction to the lady that she
now has the last and very triumphant laugh.”
Monroe lived up to Lee Strasberg’s
endorsement of her being on par with Marlon Brando. She moved audiences. Without
doubt, Monroe drew from her identification with Cherie. Like Norma Jeane (the
young girl who changed her name to Marilyn Monroe), the character dreamed of
escaping her mundane existence by becoming a Hollywood star and living happily
ever after. Cherie doesn’t make it to Hollywood but finds contentment with a
man who loves her, and Monroe achieved stardom but never found eternal love.
“Fox’s promotion of Deborah Kerr
in The King and I had been a deliberate snub to the year’s most
conspicuous non-nominee, Marilyn Monroe, whose tragicomic performance in Bus
Stop had widely been deemed worthy of Oscar consideration,” wrote Anthony
Holden in Behind the Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards.
In his film debut, Don Murray
received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. “I was astonished,” he admitted
on the fiftieth anniversary of Monroe’s death. “But still more astonishing,
Marilyn’s superb performance was overlooked.”
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association honored Monroe and Bus Stop with nominations for Golden Globe Awards. Unfortunately, Monroe lost to Deborah Kerr, whose singing was dubbed by Marnie Nixon, in The King and I. The Directors Guild of America nominated Joshua Logan for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. “Marilyn is as near a genius as any actress I ever knew,” he wrote. “She is an artist beyond artistry… She is the most completely realized and authentic film actress since Garbo. Monroe is pure cinema.”
I’ve never heard a sweeter question than that one recently asked by my 11-year-old niece, Grace.
As classic movie
fans, we all hope to inspire younger generations to discover classic films,
just as family members did for us when we were kids.
Still, I should have remembered when Grace told me “old movies” could catch on fire. I was so excited I started to explain nitrate film to her only to learn she was referencing an episode of The Simpsons. But, she asked me about The Bloband I couldn’t help but answer in the way any B-movie fan would: “Yes! What do you want to know?”
As it turned out, this wasn’t about what I could tell her, but what she was going to tell me.
She sat down, looked at me with big blue eyes and a mischievous grin and said very quietly (clearly for effect): “It’s based on a true story.” Then she held up a phone, added the dreaded words “A YouTuber said …” and hit play.
Jessii Vee’s video about Jell-O gets into the story behind The Blob at about the 5:13 mark.
Boom. Just like
that, The Blob was spoiled by a YouTuber named Jessii Vee who told her
nearly 2 million subscribers and my young niece (not a subscriber) the “true”
origin of The Blob.
This 1958 B-movie horror film was already great without an origin story. In fact, it was nearly perfect in its simplicity. A mysterious object falls from the sky, cracks open to show an innocent blob of jello that soon reveals its terrible truth when it encounters human flesh.
Steve (Steven McQueen) and Jane (Aneta Corsaut) have to cut their date short to prove to the adults that something dangerous in is their small town.
Thankfully for the small Pennsylvania town where it landed, teens Steve (then billed as Steven McQueen) and Jane (Aneta Corsaut) find its first victim and refuse to give up when their warnings go unheeded. Was it alien, animal or vegetable? We didn’t know and it didn’t matter. It was equally scary and fun watching it roll around, growing as it consumed whatever was in its path.
But Jessii Vee says there’s a true story to go with The Blob that we need to hear, so I listened and did some digging. Here’s what I found.
* * *
It was 1950 and two
Philadelphia police officers, John Collins and Joseph Keenan, saw something
fall from the sky at about treetop level. They thought it looked like a
parachute, but in the tradition of all movies with something falling from the
sky, it wasn’t as it appeared.
In an open field, the patrolmen found a large mass about 6 feet in diameter. Two other officers they called saw it as well.
A story in The
Philadelphia Inquirer quoted the officers as saying that when they turned their
flashlights on the thing “it gave off a purplish glow, almost a mist, that
looked as though it contained crystals.”
The 1950 article from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Officer Collins, who obviously had never seen a horror film, decided it would be smart to put his hand in the mass. He tried to pick it up, but lucky for him it didn’t crawl up his arm and devour him. Instead, it dissolved and left “a slight, odorless, sticky residue.” It took only 25 minutes for the entire blob to evaporate, not even leaving a mark on the grass where it landed. (That is creepy.)
Without evidence, there was nothing to show the FBI, the Air Force or any other authority. So the story was all but forgotten for a few years until producer Jack H. Harris asked a friend, Irvine H. Millgate, for ideas about a unique creature, something that hadn’t been seen in a movie. Millgate recalled the Philadelphia Inquirer story, came up with a story idea and called Harris in the middle of the night. Harris shared the conversation in his autobiography Father of the Blob: The Making Of A Monster Smash & Other Hollywood Tales.
“We have a monster never done before. It’s a mineral form of life from another world. It defies gravity by climbing trees and has the ability to zap prey. It can fall from any height on to the ground and reform itself at the bottom,” Millgate told him.
Just like Irvine H. Millgate envisioned in his original idea for The Blob, the creature “consumes flesh on contact.” This is how small the blob was when it slithered up a stick and over the hand of its first victim.
The creature, Millgate added, “consumes flesh on contact” and was indestructible. That’s as far as he got. Together, Harris and Millgate came up with more details and a horror star was born. (Screenwriter Theodore Simonson wrote the screenplay, filling it out to include the teens and their big role; Kay Linaker was given co-screenwriter credit although Harris wrote she only worked on the script for a few days.)
* * *
Made for $110,000, The Blob was a surprise hit grossing $4 million. It remains a film we watch and discuss more than 60 years after its release. It even spawned its own annual festival in 2001, Blobfest.
That’s a nice legacy for all involved especially Millgate, who, despite creating one of the greatest creatures in film, made just this one movie. The film also is credited with putting McQueen on track to stardom (this was his first starring role). And it was the first film produced by Harris, a vaudeville star who spent a lifetime in the film industry doing everything from being a theater usher and projectionist to acting and working in distribution.
The growing giant glob has eaten its way out of the theater in search of new victimsb.
So back to learning that the idea for The Blob was based on a true incident.
I know that makes it exciting for many people. But others enjoy creature features and horror movies best when they’re like a big old-fashioned fun house – scary while we’re in it, funny once we leave. So if there’s even a kernel of truth behind a horror film, that’s too much for “some” of us (OK, me) to handle.
Knowing this “truth,” I see The Blob in a different way – especially that giant question mark following the film’s final chilling words.
Steve: “It’s not dead, is it?”
Officer Dave: “No, it’s not – it’s just frozen. I don’t think it can be killed, but at least we’ve got it stopped.”
Steve: “Yeah, as long as the Arctic stays cold, huh?”
Steve and Officer Dave, let me introduce you to global warming. I have some YouTube videos I can show you.
The Blob Trivia
The blob was created out of silicone and red dye.
It spawned two other films: a 1972 sequel directed by Larry Hagman called Beware! The Blob and a 1988 remake. There has been talk of another remake for the past few years.
The movie’s peppy theme song was written by a then-unknown songwriter named Burt Bacharach with Mack David (Hal’s brother).
If you think Aneta Corsaut looks familiar in The Blob, you probably know her from The Andy Griffith Show.
Aneta Corsaut, who made her film debut in The Blob, is best known as Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show.
The annual Blobfest has taken place since 2001 in Phoenixville, Pa., a small town about 30 miles from Philadelphia. Scenes filmed there include the diner, high school, mechanic’s garage and the big one in the movie theater. The fest includes the reenactment of moviegoers running out of the actual movie theater used in the film, The Colonel. This year’s Blobfest will be a virtual event.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
Noir Nook: Noir Vets on Mystery Science Theater 3000
I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to get into cinematic obsessions. One week, I won’t want to watch anything but William Holden movies, another week, nothing but westerns. You get the idea. Well, I’m currently in the midst of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) obsession – for those of you who don’t know, it’s a cult classic TV series that aired during the 1990s, first on Comedy Central and then on the Sci-Fi channel, the original premise of which involves two mad scientists who launch a hapless janitor into outer space, force him to watch bad ‘B’ movies, and monitor his thought processes as part of their plot for world domination. While watching these lousy films, the janitor – and a pair of robots he constructs for company – rake the movies over the coals, hilariously “riffing” and making fun of the plots, the acting, the writing, and whatever else they come across. Ever seen it? I’ve always been a huge fan – a proud MSTie, if you will – and I recently discovered that the streaming service Pluto has a channel that airs MST3K 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I’m in heaven. It provides the perfect backdrop while working from home!
Anyway – what does this have to do with film noir, you might ask? Well, during my daily back-to-back (to back) viewings of the show, I occasionally run across a familiar face starring in one of these “cheesy” movies – I’ve seen such notables as Martin Balsam, Ann-Margret, Beau Bridges, Peter Lawford, Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, and Jack Palance. It’s always a little startling, at first, to see these stars in these, shall we say, less than stellar vehicles. But then I settle back and enjoy the show – somehow, the skewering that these movies receive only serves to make me appreciate the performers all the more.
In addition to the aforementioned celebs, some of my
favorite MST3K episodes feature movies starring some well-known film noir
veterans. This month’s Noir Nook takes a look at two of these noir stars, some
of their best noir offerings, and, of course, their best-loved (by me) Mystery
Science Theater 3000 movie!
Marie Windsor
I love Marie Windsor. I love her impressive, commanding physique. I love her ultra-sassy line delivery like she’s spitting out something that doesn’t agree with her palate. I love that, while a student at Brigham Young University, she won the beauty contest titles of “Miss Covered Wagon Days” and “Miss D. & R.G. Railroad.”
Marie Windsor and Jil Jarmyn in Swamp Diamonds (1956)
Born Emily Marie Bertelsen in Marysvale, Utah, Windsor was drawn to acting from an early age: “At the age of eight, after going to a movie with my grandmother, I wanted to be another Clara Bow,” she said in a 1984 interview with Drama-Logue magazine. During a career that spanned five decades, Windsor starred in two of my all-time favorite noirs – The Narrow Margin (1952), where she played a brassy gangster’s widow being shuttled by train from coast to coast to testify against her dead husband’s cronies, and The Killing (1956), Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant time-bending feature about an intricately planned heist, in which Windsor was a standout as a duplicitous housewife. Her other noirs were Force of Evil (1948), with John Garfield; The Sniper (1952), helmed by Edward Dmytryk; and City That Never Sleeps (1953), which depicts a single night of drama and crime in the city of Chicago.
On Mystery Science Theater 3000, Windsor stars in Swamp Diamonds (released as Swamp Women in 1956, the same year as The Killing). In it, she is one of a trio of feisty felons (and one undercover cop) who breaks out of prison and head for the swamps of Louisiana to unearth a stash of diamonds they buried there before being sent to the pokey. Along the way, they take a young couple hostage – the male half of which is played by Mike Connors (billed back then as Touch Conners), best known as the titular star of TV’s Mannix. Windsor is top-billed as Josie Nardo, the level-headed leader of the group, who seems to spend half the movie breaking up battles between her comrades, but still finds time to deliver lines like: “Sit down – it’s just an alligator.“
The film – directed by Roger Corman, who is famous for his low-budget exploitation pictures – runs a concise 67 minutes and is fairly overflowing with catfights, ridiculously short shorts, alligator battles, double-crosses, and rivalry over the one man in the group. It’s an experience all on its own, but given the MST3K treatment, it’s a positive scream.
Coleen Gray
I interviewed Coleen Gray by phone for my first book, and had the honor of meeting her in person at a Turner Classic Movies film festival several years ago; needless to say, she has a very special place in my heart. But even before my personal encounter with her, I was a big fan. On-screen, she could be a sweet as peach pie and innocent as a baby, or a pleasant and charming murderess, with equal skill.
Coleen Gray and Dolores Faith in The Phantom Planet (1961)
Gray was born Doris Bernice Jensen in Staplehurst, Nebraska, and moved with her family at an early age to Hutchinson, Minnesota, where she attended grade school and high school. Like Windsor, she had dreams of becoming an actress from an early age. “In seventh or eighth grade, our English teacher had each person voice their ambition in life, and most of the girls wanted to be a teacher or a nurse or a housewife,” Gray once recalled. “I said I wanted to be a movie star and they laughed at me – boy, did they laugh – so I never said it again, ever. But it was in my consciousness.” She appeared in a total of five noirs during her career, including Kiss of Death (1947), where she was the young wife of ex-convict Victor Mature, The Killing (1956), where she was seen in a small part as the devoted girlfriend of Sterling Hayden. Her best noir performances came in Nightmare Alley(1947), The Sleeping City (1950), and Kansas City Confidential (1952) – in each of these wildly divergent roles, her talent and versatility was on full display.
Gray in The Leech Woman (1960)
On Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gray was in two separate episodes; in The Phantom Planet(1961), she played a supporting part as the devious daughter of a planetoid ruler, but in The Leech Woman (1960), she was the star. In the title role of this film, Gray portrayed Jane Talbot, an unhappily married alcoholic whose scientist husband wants to use her as a human guinea pig in his quest to find an anti-aging formula. As it happens, a necessary ingredient of the formula is the secretions from the male pineal gland – and extracting the secretions necessitates a fatal procedure. As you can imagine, this minor detail doesn’t stop Jane from killing (and killing again) in her never-ending quest for youth and beauty. Co-starring Phillip Terry, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott, and Kim Hamilton, The Leech Woman is actually quite watchable – but it’s also perfect fodder for the treatment on MST3K.
You can find Swamp
Diamonds, The Leech Woman, and The Phantom Planet on YouTube – if you
want to see a couple of film noir vets like you’re never seen them before, tune
in and check ‘em out!
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Marilyn: Behind the Icon — Monroe Catapults to Global Fame in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gentlemen Prefer Blondessignified an ideal pairing of star & role, catapulting Marilyn Monroe into global superstardom, endearing her to the public, and cementing her comedic & musical talents. According to Sarah Churchwell, the breakout role of Lorelei Lee remains Marilyn’s iconic role “because she so closely approximates the cultural fictions about Marilyn herself.”
Monroe’s interpretation of the
role of Lorelei—with affected speech, exaggerated lip and eye movements, and
deadpan delivery—provided fodder for impersonators for generations to come. The
role was a perfect embodiment of the Marilyn Monroe persona and became the
screen image that the public and critics would equate with the actress for the
remainder of her career. Yet, what Monroe made look so natural and effortless
on screen was a well-crafted performance.
The plot of 20th
Century-Fox’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes involves gold-digging,
diamond-obsessed showgirl Lorelei Lee and her loyal sidekick Dorothy Shaw.
Lorelei is described as a girl “who can stand on stage with a spotlight in her
eye and still see a diamond inside a man’s pocket.” She is focused solely on
marrying for money. Lorelei’s fiancé, Gus Esmond, sends her to Paris with
Dorothy to test her fidelity. Esmond’s father employs a private detective to
spy on the women and report back any suspicious behavior.
Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe
During the transatlantic cruise,
Dorothy and the private detective fall in love while Lorelei befriends a
married diamond merchant, Sir Beekman, and convinces him to give her his wife’s
diamond tiara. Beekman covers his tracks by feigning theft of the tiara and
retreats to Africa. When Esmond learns of Lorelei’s escapades, he cuts off her
line of credit. She is eventually charged with grand larceny. Dorothy poses as
her friend in a court hearing and straightens out the mess. Spoiler alert: The
film ends with a double wedding.
Tommy Noonan, Monroe and Taylor Holmes
Monroe engenders the audience’s
sympathy by effectively projecting a perfect balance of kindheartedness and
materialism. She also mastered the art of gaining laughs by pretending to be
ignorant while endearing herself to the audience. Neither is an easy feat for
any actress. In one of her final scenes, Monroe skillfully delivered a
thoughtful speech to the father of her fiancé:
“Don’t you know that a man
being rich is like a girl being pretty? You might not marry a girl just because
she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help? And if you had a daughter,
wouldn’t you want her to have the most wonderful things in the world? Then why
is it wrong for me to want those things?”
“Hey, they told me you were
stupid,” the fiancé’s father exclaims. “You don’t sound stupid to me.
“I can be smart when it’s
important,” Lorelei responses in a line Monroe herself seized the power to
amend. “But most men don’t like it.”
Director Howard Hawks with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe
Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck tapped Howard Hawks as director. Having directed Monroe in Monkey Business (1952), Hawks was known for a wide range of films including dramas, Scarface (1932) and The Big Sleep (1942), as well as screwball comedies such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). “We purposely made the picture as loud and bright as we could,” Hawks said about Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, “and completely vulgar in costumes and everything.”
Zanuck needed “loud and bright”
name recognition for box office draw and passed on Carol Channing who portrayed
Lorelei Lee on stage. He envisioned Betty Grable as the blonde & Monroe in
a brunette wig as Dorothy. After hearing a recording of Monroe singing “Do It
Again” for the Marines at Camp Pendleton, he decided she would remain blonde as
the perfect Lorelei Lee. Zanuck was also getting a bargain. The second year of
Monroe’s contract stipulated her salary of $750 per week, compared to Grable’s
$150,000 per film.
In an early script conference, Zanuck realized the necessity of the audience’s belief that Dorothy felt genuine affection for Lorelei. This bond motivates Dorothy to defend her friend in the courtroom scene near the end of the film. Ultimately, Fox appropriately cast Jane Russell to deliver Dorothy’s acerbic wisecracks. Russell was five years older than Monroe and assumed the role of her big sister during the production. Russell had graduated from Van Nuys High School, and Monroe’s first husband James Dougherty was Russell’s classmate. Russell had also met Monroe when she was still Norma Jeane at a dance in the early 1940s.
Tommy Noonan, Charles Coburn and Monroe
As Lorelei’s fiancé, Gus Esmond, Fox considered David Wayne before deciding upon the often-bespectacled Tommy Noonan. Monroe was again joined by swag-bellied Charles Coburn, her costar in Monkey Business, as Sir Francis Beekman.
Norma Varden and Monroe
British-born Norma Varden was cast as Lady Beekman. In a delightful scene, Lady Beekman offers Lorelei to wear her diamond tiara. When Lorelei tries to display it around her neck, Lady Beekman explains that it designed to wear on the head. Lorelei squeals, “Oh, I just adore finding new places to wear diamonds!”
Monroe and George Winslow
George “Foghorn” Winslow (1946-2015),
a six-year-old with a stentorian voice and deadpan delivery, portrayed Henry
Spoffard III. A child with the voice of a man, Winslow contrasted with Monroe,
a woman with the voice of a child.
John Weidemann, a stunningly
handsome and well-built 1950s physique model, was heavily featured in close-ups
with Jane Russell in “Bye Bye Baby” and “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?”
The production, beginning in
November 1952 and ending in February 1953, recycled ocean liner sets used for Titanic
(1953) and required weeks of grueling pre-production rehearsal and sound
recording. Monroe
was the first to arrive on the set each morning and worked on the dance routines
for an hour or two after Russell went home in exhaustion. She begged for extra
coaching to allay her insecurity, but her dancing needed no improvement.
Was Monroe difficult on the set? According to musical director Lionel Newman, Monroe was always punctual for rehearsals and courteous and friendly to the men in the orchestra. Monroe made a special point to personally thank everyone who worked with her. Although she had a definite idea of what she wished to accomplish vocally, Newman saw no signs of a temperamental diva. Monroe received Newman’s blessing upon her first take recording “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a particularly challenging playback because of its length. Monroe asked to record eleven takes. In the end, she led Newman to the podium where she apologized to him and the orchestra. Monroe announced that he was correct and requested to use the first take.
Marni Nixon
Did Monroe sing in the soundtrack? Although Monroe’s voice is clearly on the soundtrack, she was challenged to hit some high notes only in “Diamonds” and required minor assistance. Enter Marni Nixon, a soprano who ghosted for Deborah Kerr & Natalie Wood. Nixon provided vocals for only Monroe’s highest notes in the final lyrics “Are a girl’s best…best friend” and sang the song’s operatic prelude of repetitive “No-no-no!” “I don’t even know why they wanted to re-dub [portions of] her voice,” Nixon said, confident of Monroe’s rendition. “Thank goodness they let her sing in her own way. That breathless, sexy sound suited her screen persona perfectly, even if she did need a little help on the high notes.”
Monroe rehearses on set with choreographer Jack Cole & Gwen Verdon
Working with legendary choreographer Jack Cole, Monroe felt a sense of confidence that few of her directors inspired. “There was no sexual tension,” wrote William J. Mann, referencing Cole’s sexual orientation as gay, “and besides, Cole had no loyalty to the studios in the way her directors might: he loathed them and all they stood for, and so could afford to be fully present and attentive to Monroe’s insecurities.” The Cole-Monroe partnership created magic, and Monroe would collaborate with him on five additional films. Gwen Verdon also assisted with choreography. ““My mom liked both Marilyn and Jane,” said Verdon’s son, James Heneghan. “Marilyn especially displayed a tough work ethic that was a big deal with my mother.”
Future Oscar-winner George Chakiris at far right in Marilyn’s chorus
For Monroe’s big production
number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Fox spared no expense to showcase
her talents for what would become the single most identifiable film sequence of
her career. Shot in long takes requiring few edits, the number’s perfect blend
of dramatic art design and superb choreography is forever enshrined as an
iconic film scene and aided by Monroe’s incomparable execution.
Joseph C. Wright’s original art
direction called for Monroe in black against a black background, an Empire bed with
pink sheets emblazoned with black satin Napoleonic emblems. William Travilla’s original
costume for the number was excessively revealing, comprised of a pair of black
fishnet hose attached to a leotard that came up to a bodice of nude fabric. In
the wake of the discovery of Monroe nude calendar pose from 1949, Zanuck called
Travilla and ordered him to “Cover her up.”
What about Jane Russell’s solo? The
premise for Russell’s solo number “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?” is her
seeking the attention of the Olympian gymnasts while they exercise, none
breaking concentration to notice her. The humor exists in the subtext. Many of
the male dancers were gay, and in real life on the set, were disinterested in
her. The number is hugely homoerotic. The men wear flesh toned short swimming
trunks, simulating a nude appearance if not for the black band on the leg
openings. Jack Cole coordinated the body-builders’ exercise routines to music.
“The resulting images could have come straight out of the then-popular gay magazine
Physique Pictorial.
What happened to Monroe’s gold
lame gown? In her deleted number “Down Boy,” Monroe performed in the gold
tissue lamé halter gown with plunging neckline forever linked to her image
through publicity photographs. An audio recording of “Down Boy” surfaced in
2006, but film footage remains lost. The only glimpse of Monroe wearing the
gown onscreen is a brief longshot of Lorelei dancing with Lord Beekman, seen
from the perspective of Dorothy watching through a window.
Isn’t there another number in
the trailer cut from the film? “Four French Dances,” a
quartet of orchestral arrangements, was another musical number edited just
before the film’s release. Wearing yellow-trimmed bustiers and Napoleon-style
hats, Monroe & Russell perform the act while suspended on a quarter-moon
and climbing down an ornate ladder onto a set with the Eiffel Tower. The number
also included a French language version of “Two Little Girls from Little Rock.” Although the sequence appeared in
promotional trailers released while Blondes was still in production, the
film’s final version includes only a brief scene that followed.
Did Monroe & Russell get along with each other? At the end of her life, Monroe still appreciated Russell’s kindness in her last interview: “She was quite wonderful to me.” Russell coached Monroe, dating Joe DiMaggio at the time, explained how couples could be happy together without surrendering identities. She also coached Monroe on managing a household & balance the roles of wife & mother while maintaining a career. “We got along great together,” Russell said, “[She] was very shy and very sweet and far more intelligent than people gave her credit.”
Didn’t ‘I Love Lucy’ re-create
Monroe’s porthole scene? Lucille Ball copied the porthole scene in
1954 episode of I Love Lucy on television when her character, Lucy
Ricardo, crosses the Atlantic on an ocean liner. In Blondes, Monroe gets indelicately
stuck in a too-small porthole. Little Henry Spoffard III agrees to help her get
unstuck for two reasons: “The first is, I’m too young to be sent to jail. The
second is, you’ve got a lot of animal magnetism.”
Was Monroe denied a dressing
room during production? Monroe had warranted only a cubicle in the
studio’s changing room. Fox. “I couldn’t even get a dressing room,” Monroe
later told Life magazine. “Finally, I said, ‘Look, after all, I am the
blonde and it is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Because still they always
kept saying, ‘Remember, you are not a star.’ I said, ‘Well, whatever I am, I am
the blonde!’” offered her Betty Grable’s plush dressing room, but the gesture was
intended more to dethrone Fox’s former blonde champion than to coronate its
current one. “They tried to take me into her dressing room as if I were taking
over,” Monroe said. “I couldn’t do that.” Instead, Fox gave Monroe a large
dressing room next to Russell’s.
On June 26, 1953, Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre invited Monroe & Russell to make impressions of their
signatures, hands, and high heeled shoes in the theater’s famed cement
forecourt. As they simultaneously made imprints of their hands, Monroe turned
to Russell & asked excitedly, “This is for all time, isn’t it?” Then they
shook hands.
As the women held hands and
stepped into the wet cement, the newsreel cameras recorded the event and
described them as “friendly as sorority sisters.” Monroe cement was tinted
yellow, and the “i” in Marilyn was dotted with a rhinestone that would be
repeatedly pried out by fans and replaced.
The little girl who once fit
her hands and feet in the prints of her film idols had now achieved success and
joined their ranks. When Monroe reminisced about visiting the Chinese Theatre
as a child, she acknowledged inspiring the next generation: “It’s funny to
think that my footprints are there now, and that other little girls are trying
to do the same thing I did.”
The Chinese Theatre’s immortalization
of Monroe was symbolic. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes cemented Marilyn
Monroe’s legacy as a superstar. The performance elevated her beyond the
restraints of her pin-up persona and showed her as a full-fledged and
multifaceted actress. The four minutes of Monroe’s flawless breakout solo
number established her as an actress with no formal training who could sing and
dance superbly in a musical comedy. Zanuck now had a formula for his star.
“In her own class is Marilyn
Monroe,” announced Motion Picture Herald. “Golden, slick, melting,
aggressive, kittenish, dumb, shrewd, mercenary, charming, exciting sex
implicit…Miss Monroe is going to become part of the American fable, the dizzy
blonde, the simple, mercenary nitwit, with charm to excuse it all.”
Other reviews were equally positive. “There is the amazing, wonderful vitality and down-to-earth Jane Russell…AND—there is Marilyn Monroe!” lauded the LA Examiner. “Zounds, boys, what a personality this one is! Send up a happy flare. At last, she is beautifully gowned, beautifully coiffed, and a wonderful crazy humor flashes from those sleepy eyes of her…Her natural attributes are so great, it’s like a triple scoop of ice cream on a hot August day, to realize she is also an actress— but, by golly, and Howard Hawks, she is…She’ll do more for 20th Century-Fox than their discovery of oil on the front lot.”
Classic Movie Hub’s July picks for our CMH-Curated BCE Channel More than 40 Titles Streaming Free All Month Long!
As we announced last month, we are thrilled to have partnered with Best Classics Ever (BCE), a mega streaming channel dedicated to classic films and TV shows!
And, we are proud to have our own Classic Movie Hub Channel there, where CMH fans can stream lots of classic movies and TV shows for free each month!
That said, this month on the CMH Channel, we’re featuring over 40 classic movies and TV shows that our fans can watch for free– all you need to do is click on the movie/show of your choice, then click ‘play’ — you do not have to opt for a 7-day trial.
We really hope that you enjoy these films, and please feel free to explore the entire BCE channel. If you click to the BCE Home Page, you can watch even more free classic movies and shows. BCE is able to provide this content for free to you because it includes some commercials – so it’s kind of like watching ‘regular’ TV. There is no sign-up necessary to enjoy this free content, and there are hundreds of movies and TV episodes available with this option. If, instead, you prefer to enjoy your classic movie content ‘straight’ aka commercial-free or if you want access to LOTs more movies and shows, please feel free to check out a 7-day free trial.
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When thinking of early musicals, the output of Warner Bros. studios is certainly worth noting. In the Gold Digger musicals and so many others, a wide variety of Warner Bros.’s triple-threat talents shone in the musical genre. Though Ruby Keeler was not considered a strong singer, she was an exceptionally gifted dancer and charmed audiences with her many film roles.
Ethel Ruby Keeler was born in
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, on August 25, 1909. Her family was of
Irish-Catholic descent, with her father working as a truck driver to support
the family. Keeler was one of six children, with the family living on East 70th
St. in Manhattan. Though born in Canada, Keeler and her family would relocate
to New York City, where her father would earn higher pay.
While growing up, finances were a
constant issue for the Keeler family. Though Keeler expressed an interest in
dancing, it was not financially plausible for the family.
a young Keeler
Keeler studied at St. Catherine of Siena while residing in New York. In addition to the academic curriculum, the school also had a dance teacher on staff to teach the students to dance once a week. The instructor noticed Keeler’s affinity for dance and met with Keeler’s mother to arrange for regular dance lessons. They worked out an agreement that would not put the Keeler family’s finances in a worse situation, and Keeler was able to receive training.
As Keeler continued her classes, opportunity struck when a stage production was seeking chorus girls. Though Keeler was three years under the legal age of 16, she lied about her age and auditioned anyway. Keeler typically danced in the buck dancing style, focusing on heaving taps and little to no movement of the arms. Keeler would be hired to dance at nightclubs and speakeasies, including El Fay nightclub in New York. Soon, she would be performing in Broadway productions produced by the likes of George M. Cohan and Flo Ziegfeld.
In 1928, Keeler met performer Al Jolson in Los Angeles, where she was sent to assist in the publicity campaigns for The Jazz Singer(1927). After a whirlwind courtship, the two married in New York.
Ruby, Al Jolson, and their adopted son
In the 1930s, Keeler would regularly work in films. Producer Darryl Zanuck cast Keeler in 42nd Street (1933) alongside Dick Powell and Bebe Daniels, which was a huge success in addition to being her film debut. Warner Bros. signed Keeler to a long-term contract and starred her steadily in many musicals, typically continuing to cast Powell as her love interest. Though Powell was usually Keeler’s on-screen suitor, Jolson and Keeler did star together in one film: Go into Your Dance(1935).
Keeler and Powell in Gold Diggers of 1933
Sadly, Keeler’s marriage to Jolson
was not a happy one. Though they were initially happy and went on to adopt a
son, there are many anecdotes and resources documenting Jolson’s abusive
behavior towards Keeler. They divorced in 1940.
By 1941, Keeler met and married
businessman John Lowe, leaving the film industry. The couple had four children
and remained married until Lowe’s passing.
Keeler devoted herself to family life upon her second marriage and did not have any screen credits for just over 20 years. In the 1960s and 1970s, she made occasional television appearances. In 1971, her popularity was revived alongside the revival of No, No, Nannette on Broadway. The production was supervised by Busby Berkeley, with whom she worked in 42nd Street and many other musicals. Keeler starred in the musical for two seasons on Broadway and in as part of the show’s tour.
Keeler in the Broadway revival of No, No, Nannette in 1971
In 1974, she suffered a brain
aneurism and dedicated herself to work as a spokesperson for the National
Stroke Association. She passed away from kidney cancer on February 28, 1993, at
age 83. Keeler was buried beside her husband at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange,
California.
Today, some of Keeler’s past
residences remain, in addition to her family continuing to celebrate her
legacy.
In 1928, Keeler and Jolson lived at
465 Park Ave. in New York. This is the building today:
465 Park Ave., New York, NY
The home she shared with Jolson in
the 1930s was within the Talmadge Apartments, which still stand. They are
located on 3278 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.
3278 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
By 1940, she was living at 4326
Forman Ave. in Los Angeles. This is the home today:
4326 Forman Ave., Los Angeles, CA
Keeler was honored with a Golden
Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Fame.
Ruby Keeler’s Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Fame
Keeler also has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6730 Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles.
Keeler’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
In 2005, Keeler’s granddaughter,
Sarah Lowe, performed Keeler’s dance from the title number in 42nd Street (1933) as part of
the L.A. STAGE Benefit.
Today, Keeler is remembered for her many musical film roles and her enthusiastic dancing style that was featured in many Warner Bros. Pre Code musicals.
Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.
Marilyn: Behind the Icon Marilyn Monroe Steals Scenes in All About Eve
Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe and George Sanders
On the heels of winning the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) director Joseph L. Mankiewicz casted an A-film produced by Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century-Fox. The story, originally titled Best Performance, centered on a fortyish grande dame of the Broadway stage, Margo Channing (Bette Davis), and her young stand-in and rival, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Eve, seemingly a down-on-her-luck star struck ingénue, insidiously ingratiates herself to the actress and becomes her personal assistant and later, her understudy. Slowly, Eve is revealed as a calculating opportunist who arranges for Margo’s absence to perform her role, attract the attention of New York critics, and eventually replace her.
Mankiewicz’s brilliant and
textured screenplay twists and turns in plot and contains sharp, snarky
dialogue and memorable lines. It is a smart exploration of the backstabbing
competition between egotistical actresses and the dynamics and politics of the
theater, written by a heterosexual man with a gay man’s sensibility. The
American Film Institute ranked the film as twenty-eighth among the Greatest
American Films of All Time, and it was the only one of Monroe’s films to win a
Best Picture Academy Award (fourteen Oscar nominations and six wins).
Marilyn Monroe’s performance in
All About Eve redeemed her in the eyes of Zanuck and would lead to
contract with the studio which lasted until her death twelve years later. Previously
under contract with Fox in 1946, Monroe appeared in walk-on parts in two
productions until her option was dropped the following year. She returned
modeling and freelanced at rival studios, delivering a solid performance in MGM’s
The Asphalt Jungle (1950).
Monroe and Mankiewicz
“I felt Marilyn had
edge,” Mankiewicz recalled in casting Monroe after interviewing nearly a dozen
actresses. “There was breathlessness about her and sort of glued-on innocence
about her that I found appealing.” Monroe had prepared for the role of Miss
Caswell, creating a performance out of a handful of lines and only minutes of
screen time. Monroe played her with humor as vacuous but ambitious. Serious
about her craft, Monroe put her soul into menial parts as if they were leading
roles.
The American Film Institute ranked the film’s star, Bette Davis, as second among the greatest actresses in the history of motion pictures. With a strong-willed character, clipped New England diction, large eyes, and idiosyncratic mannerisms, Bette Davis swept across the screen as a force of nature in over one hundred films over the course of six decades. She earned two Best Actress trophies for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), and received a total of ten Academy Award nominations, including one unofficial write-in nomination for Of Human Bondage (1934). By 1950, her twenty-year career was in a slump after leaving Warner Brothers, where she peaked in Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), and Now, Voyager (1942). The comeback role of formidable Margo Channing seemed to define her both professionally and personally at age forty-two, although she played it as a near parody of over-the-top actress Tallulah Bankhead.
Gregory Ratoff, Anne Baxter, Gary Merrill, Celeste Holm, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe
Davis and Monroe had little in
common aside from their dislike of Zanuck. Davis had not set foot on the Fox
lot, nor had she spoken to the mogul since the two had a major falling out
during the time she served as the first woman president of Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences. “You’ll never work in Hollywood again,” Zanuck told
Davis, but she proved indomitable. Indeed, she was not Mankiewicz or Zanuck’s
first choice for Margo. Only after Claudette Colbert injured her spine and
could not perform did Zanuck pick up the phone, make amends, and offer Davis
the role.
Anne Baxter and Monroe
As a contract player at Fox, Anne Baxter was loaned to RKO Pictures for a role in Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). Mankiewicz cast her as Eve partly because she resembled Claudette Colbert, originally cast as Margo, to suggest that Margo was being replaced by her younger self. In 1947, Baxter won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as Sophie MacDonald in The Razor’s Edge (1946).
Bette Davis and Gary Merrill
Gary Merrill portrayed Bill Sampson, Margo’s younger boyfriend. He had only completed four films, including Twelve O’Clock High (1949), before playing opposite the diva of all screen divas. All About Eve brought Merrill and Davis together in an impassioned affair while each awaited a divorce from respective spouses. They married shortly after filming ended, but the tumultuous union ended in divorce in 1960.
Merrill, Davis, Celeste Holm and Hugh Marlowe
As Karen Richards, Margo’s best friend and the wife of her playwright, Celeste Holm outlived her co-stars in the film. Holm signed with Fox in 1946 and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in the studio’s groundbreaking film about anti-Semitism, Gentleman’s Agreement (1947). As the subdued playwright of Margo’s successful show, Lloyd Richards, Hugh Marlowe delivered the proper toned-down stereotype of a writer. Like Marilyn, he was no stranger to studio rejection. Marlowe had been dropped twice from MGM, hired by Fox in 1948, and had starred in Twelve O’Clock High (1949) and Night and the City (1950).
Acid-tongued Broadway critic Addison DeWitt, described as a “venomous fish-wife,” was splendidly portrayed by George Sanders, who embodied suave and snobbish onscreen. For his performance in Eve, Sanders earned the Oscar as Best Supporting Actor of 1950.
Davis and Thelma Ritter
Appearing with Monroe in the first of three films together, Thelma Ritter played the crusty former Vaudevillian entertainer, Birdie Coonan, working as Margo’s maid and companion and intuitively suspicious of Eve from the start. Notorious for stealing scenes, Ritter, with her Brooklyn accent, responded to Eve’s sob story with the comical line, “What a story! Everything but the blood hounds snappin’ at her rear end.”
The role of Miss Claudia
Caswell in All About Eve was an important assignment for Monroe in a
significant film starring several of Hollywood’s veteran actors. When a
supporting actress in Margo’s antebellum play becomes pregnant and requires
replacement, Miss Caswell vies for the role with the support of her benefactor,
critic Addison DeWitt. We learn of Miss Caswell’s lack of professional acting
experience when Addison describes her as “a graduate of the Copacabana School
of Dramatic Art,” implying she had been one of the famous Latin-themed New York
nightclub’s showgirls.
At a Fox’s soundstage nine dressed as Margo’s sprawling brownstone townhouse in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Mankiewicz filmed the legendary cocktail party in which Margo Channing delivers the film’s most memorable line, “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night,” and sashays past her guests toward the second-floor landing to her living room. Miss Caswell ascends the stairs with Addison DeWitt and meets the hostess on the landing.
Monroe is arresting in a white
ermine coat over a strapless white brocade gown with a sweetheart bodice and
white tulle bouffant skirt, designed by Charles LeMaire but credited to Edith
Head. Monroe’s hair was pulled back on each side of her face and pinned up in
the back in curls. Her widow’s peak was prominent, and a wave of hair casually
touched her forehead. For the first time, Allan Snyder had darkened the small
mole on Monroe’s left cheek between her nose and mouth. The “beauty mark” was
her signature makeup trick for the rest of her life.
Monroe steals a scene from
Davis with an adorable, girlish air, and perfectly timed delivery of
Mankiewicz’s sparkling dialogue. In the scene, Miss Caswell meets Margo, much
like the way Monroe had met Davis. The characters paralleled the actress’
actual status in Hollywood at the time. Like Miss Caswell, Monroe was a
fledgling, whose beauty outshone her developing skill-set. Margo, like Davis,
was a diva with decades of acting experience and success behind her.
When Addison asks Margo if she remembers Miss Caswell, the older actress emphatically states she does not. With a sweet smile, Miss Caswell explains the reason — obvious to the others — is because they have never met. Addison makes the introduction, and when Eve joins them, Margo presents her to Addison and Miss Caswell. Until now, he tells Eve, they have only met “in passing.”
“That’s how you met me,” Miss
Caswell reminds Addison.
Margo sarcastically introduces
Miss Caswell to Eve as “an old friend of Mr. DeWitt’s mother.”
Addison pulls Miss Caswell
aside and points to Max Fabien, the producer. While removing the ermine coat
from her shoulders, Addison advises her to “go do yourself some good.” Miss
Caswell asks him why producers always look like “unhappy rabbits.” He tells her
that is exactly what producers are and suggests she advance her career by
making this one happy.
Monroe appears in another scene
in which Margo’s cocktail party winds down. Miss Caswell sits on the stairs
with the film’s stars and Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabien. After calling out, “Oh, waiter”
to a server carrying a tray of cocktail who ignores her, Addison explains that
he is not a waiter, but instead a butler. Miss Caswell retorts, “I can’t yell
‘Oh, butler,’ can I? What if somebody’s name is Butler?” Addison responds, “You have a point. An
idiotic one, but a point.”
Seconds later, Max offers to
bring Miss Caswell a drink, and she smiles coyly at him. “Well done,” Addison
comments, admiring her charms. “I can see your career rising in the east like
the sun.” As art imitated life, the line describes the truth about Monroe in
this film.
“Thees girl ees going to be a beeg star!” Ratoff correctly
predicted in his thick Russian accent.
Whenever Monroe appears on the
screen, she commands the audience’s complete attention, no matter who else
inhabits the camera’s frame, or even if she remains silent. In the cocktail
party scene, all eyes are on Monroe, and she upstages the Hollywood veterans.
Davis was not amused.
Photography for Monroe’s third
scene took place on location in San Francisco in the lobby and main hall of the
Curran Theatre. To film her brief scene, Monroe arrived in the lobby of the
theatre wearing her own sweater-dress previously worn in 1950’s Fireball and
Hometown Story. Wardrobe attendants draped a fur chain of lynx pelts
over her shoulders. Mankiewicz blocked the movements. Davis, as Margo, arrives
at the theater late to Miss Caswell’s audition as Addison sits in the lobby
waiting for Miss Caswell, who is in the ladies’ restroom being “violently ill
to her tummy.” He tells Margo that Eve’s performance was filled with “fire and
music” and had been hired as her understudy. Margo conceals her fury. As Miss
Caswell exits the ladies’ room, Addison asks how she is feeling.
“Like I just swam the English
Channel,” Miss Caswell replies as she undulates across the lobby. Addison
suggests her next option is television.
When Miss Caswell inquires if
producers hold auditions for television, he explains that television is
“nothing but auditions.” The exchange is a joke demeaning the perceived
inferior medium competing with both theater and film.
Monroe was playing in the big
league with an all-star cast, and her anxiety skyrocketed. According to Celeste
Holm, she kept her co-stars waiting as she vomited off-stage, just as her
character had at the Curran Theatre.
Marilyn appreciated George Sanders’
kindness in San Francisco. They started having lunch together at the studio’s
Café de Paris. Sanders said she was “very inquiring and unsure; humble,
punctual and untemperamental. She wanted people to like her, her conversation
had unexpected depth. She showed an interest in intellectual subjects.”
Sanders was not the only male
on the set that found Monroe intelligent and complex. Mankiewicz drew the same
conclusion after he saw her carrying a copy of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters
to a Young Poet and asked if someone had recommended it to her. “No,”
Marilyn explained, “I go into the Pickwick and just look around. I leaf through
some books, and when I read something that interests me, I buy the book.”
Mankiewicz told her it was a good way to select reading material, and she
smiled.
In All About “All About
Eve”: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made,
author Sam Staggs noted that among her veteran costars, Monroe’s career was the
only one to ascend. For the others, this film was the peak. In the final scene,
Eve wins the fictitious Sarah Siddens Award as Best Actress and returns to her
apartment to find a young woman, Phoebe (Barbara Bates). The woman identifies
herself as the president of the Eve Harrington Fan Club and ingratiates
herself. Later, Phoebe quietly slips on Eve’s satin cape, clutches the award,
admires herself in a four-mirrored cheval, and repeatedly bows, echoing an
early scene in which Eve had bowed before a mirror while holding Margo’s
costume close to her body. Phoebe’s infinite reflections represent multiple
ambitious ingénues poised in the wings to replace aging actresses.
Monroe and Thomas Moulton
Monroe’s performance garnered 20th
Century-Fox signing her to a seven-year contract which she effectively
renegotiated in 1955. She also appeared at the Academy Award Ceremony in 1951
and presented the Best Sound Record Oscar to Thomas Moulton for All About
Eve. Like Eve and Phoebe, Monroe was poised in the wings and equally
ambitious for a successful acting career, but not at the expense or
exploitation of another established performer. Like Eve, she was willing to
sacrifice a personal life to achieve the goal of stardom.
Until her death, Monroe used the name “Miss Caswell” in phone messages for her friend, columnist Sidney Skolsky.
Western RoundUp: Review – The Cariboo Trail (1950)
It’s hard to believe, but this month’s column marks two years
since the Western Roundup debuted here at Classic Movie Hub.
My introductory post covered Five of My Favorite Westerns, and since then it’s been a great honor
to share my love for Westerns from a variety of angles including looks at
additional favorite Westerns, movies available for streaming, books on the
Western genre, film festivals, locations, and visits to interesting
Western-related places such as the Autry Museum of the American West and McCrea Ranch.
I appreciate everyone who stops by to read my columns, as I
certainly enjoy writing them!
This month I’m going to take a “close-up” look at a single Western movie. My last such review earlier this year was of a new-to-me Audie Murphy film, Seven Ways From Sundown (1960).
This time around I’ve watched The Cariboo Trail (1950), a movie I’ve never seen starring another Western film legend, Randolph Scott.
The Cariboo Trail (1950)
Scott is supported by a tremendous cast of great Western faces such as Dale Robertson, Jim Davis, Gabby Hayes, and Bill Williams, for starters; reliable character actors such as Victor Jory, Douglas Kennedy, and James Griffith are also on hand. Leading lady Karin Booth is also a familiar face for fans of the genre.
The Cariboo Trail, set in British Columbia, might more properly be termed a
“Northerner,” as some of us like to call films set on the Canadian
frontier. The movie combines familiar Western themes of cattle driving and gold
prospecting, with Jim Redfern (Scott) doing a little of both.
Jim and his partners Mike (Williams) and Ling (Lee Tung Foo) are driving cattle along the Cariboo Trail from Montana to British Columbia. They drive their cattle across a toll bridge controlled by local tycoon Frank Walsh (Jory) without paying, but in turn, Walsh’s men (including actors Davis and Kennedy) later stampede Jim and Mike’s cattle.
Dale Robertson, Randolph Scott and George “Gabby” Hays
Mike loses his arm in the incident; Jim, Ling, and new friend
Grizzly (Hayes) get him to safety in the nearest town, but Mike becomes an
embittered alcoholic, spending far too much time drinking at the local saloon
owned by Francie (Booth).
Francie and Jim regard one another with noticeable interest, but
for the time being Jim is focused on building his future. Walsh wants Francie
himself, and her preference for Jim gives him one more reason to cause Jim
problems.
Randolph Scott & Karin Booth
With the cattle gone, Jim, Ling, and Grizzly go gold prospecting, looking for a new stake, but are captured by Indians. They manage to get away but are separated in the process; Jim, making his own way through the wilderness, stumbles across a creek with enough gold to get a fresh start in the cattle business.
The three men make a pact with Grizzly’s relatives Martha (Mary
Kent) and Jane (Mary Stuart), along with Martha’s foreman Will (Robertson), to
go into partnership, taking Martha’s cattle to land Jim has found in a
beautiful valley; along the way the group will face plenty more trouble, from
both Indians and Walsh’s men.
The Cariboo Trail may not be a great film, but this Randolph Scott fan found it a very enjoyable, solid Western tale. It features a top cast and packs a great deal of story into 81 minutes, and on the whole, I was quite entertained.
In fact, while I’m definitely a fan of shorter films, in this case, I would have liked the movie to be few minutes longer so the supporting cast had more time to shine; in particular, I would have enjoyed seeing more of the secondary love story between Robertson and Stuart.
Dale Robertson & Mary Stuart
Scott is terrific, as always. He plays a level-headed man who
reminds his partners that while it might be nice to do a little gold
prospecting, their long-term future will more reliably be found in good land
and raising cattle. He’s also remarkably good-natured and understanding when
Mike repeatedly lashes out at him in anger after losing his arm.
Williams’ Mike becomes such an angry man that it’s almost hard to
watch him at times, but late in the film he starts down the path toward
redemption and becomes a more multi-shaded character. A scene where the
one-armed Mike takes down two gunmen is a terrific bit of staging.
Storywise there are some interesting elements scattered throughout the movie. For instance, I found it notable that the loyal cook, Ling, was not relegated to a minor hired servant’s role but was a full, equal partner with Jim, Mike, and Grizzly. Ling has a couple of nice moments in the film, including providing Jim with a getaway horse when it’s needed in a hurry.
Lee Tung Foo, Gabby Hayes and Randolph Scott
Women turn up as independent businesswomen with perhaps surprising
regularity in Westerns, typically either running a saloon, a boarding house, or
a restaurant. Francie is interesting in that while she runs a business often
associated with “bad” women in Westerns — while the “good”
women run more respectable establishments — there is never any question about
her being Jim’s love interest and potential wife. While Francie looks briefly
worried at possible competition from young Jane, that issue is immediately
dropped, with Jane and Will having eyes for one another.
Leading lady Karin Booth, who plays Francie, spent much of the ’40s in minor roles, along with occasional more substantive parts such as a ballerina in MGM’s The Unfinished Dance (1947). The Cariboo Trail marked her first film as a Western lead. She would appear opposite George Montgomery in a trio of Westerns and also starred with Sterling Hayden in Top Gun (1955). Booth’s film career ended in 1959.
This was only the fifth film credit for Dale Robertson, who was
working his way up from uncredited bit parts. Although the role is small, he’s
extremely handsome, and it’s easy to see why his career soon progressed forward
into lead roles, including many film and TV Westerns.
Mary Stuart plays Jane, who’s interested in Robertson’s Will.
Stuart had played bit roles for the past decade; the year after this film she
would star in a new TV soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, and remain
with the show for its entire 35-year run. After Search for Tomorrow ended
she joined the cast of another soap, The Guiding Light. The
Cariboo Trail is a rare opportunity to see Stuart in a nice-sized
movie role.
The Cariboo Trail was produced by Nat Holt and released through 20th
Century-Fox. The film’s production values waver somewhere between an
“A” and a “B” film; the second-unit photography, filmed in
Colorado, is extremely good, but at the same time it’s quite clear that
stand-ins are used in the long shots and the main cast never left California.
Some of the exterior scenes with cast members are actually filmed
inside a sound stage, while other sequences, such as the opening cattle drive,
at least took them outdoors to Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park, Los Angeles.
The rocky Bronson Canyon backgrounds will look familiar to anyone who’s been
there.
The movie was originally filmed by Fred Jackman Jr. in two-strip Cinecolor, and for many years it could only be seen in a black and white print. Happily, the film was restored to its original color a few years ago, a process that took over a year, and the restored print is now available on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber.
Director Edwin L. Marin spent the last few years of his career directing Westerns, including half a dozen starring Scott; sadly, he died less than a year after The Cariboo Trail was released, at only 52 years of age.
Randolph Scott
While Randolph Scott’s Western career later reached its zenith working with director Budd Boetticher — along with his very last film, Ride the High Country (1962), for director Sam Peckinpah — he made many Westerns in the ’40s and early ’50s which are quite entertaining. The Cariboo Trail is a strong exemplar of this phase of Scott’s Western career and illustrates why he continues to have so many fans.
…
– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
Marilyn: Behind the Icon – The Asphalt Jungle, Monroe’s Break-Out Performance
In April 1955, Marilyn Monroe appeared on Edward R Murrow’s television series Person to Person featuring celebrity interviews. From his armchair in a studio, Murrow conversed with Monroe, who appeared remotely from the living room of a Connecticut farmhouse owned by her business partner and his wife, Milton and Amy Greene. Monroe had fled Hollywood five months earlier to establish her own production company — Marilyn Monroe Productions — and to study The Method at Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio. “What the best part you’ve ever had in a movie?” Murrow asks. Monroe immediately references The Asphalt Jungle in addition to her latest role in The Seven Year Itch, a film she was promoting.
Five years before this
interview and shortly after 20th Century-Fox Studio dropped her as
contract player, Monroe dazzled critics for the first time in The Asphalt
Jungle (1950). The MGM Studio’s Oscar-nominated drama was one of the most influential crime
films of the 1950s.
The plot centers on a corrupt lawyer, Alonzo D. “Uncle Lon” Emmerich (Louis Calhern), who fronts an elaborate jewel heist executed by criminal mastermind Doc Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe) and a team of experienced thieves; Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), Gus Ninissi (James Whitmore), and Louis Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso). While the robbery is precisely designed, a series of mishaps, including Emmerich’s betrayal, thwarts its success. Ultimately, each criminal succumbs to his inner weakness and faces prison or death.
Influenced by neorealism, director John Huston combined the naturalism of that genre with the stylized look of film noir & crime films. Huston was nominated for fifteen Oscars over the course of his five-decade career and won the Best Director and Best Screenplay statuettes for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). In the fall of 1949, he began production on producer Arthur Hornblow’s The Asphalt Jungle. Once a successful screenwriter for Warner Brothers, Huston had transitioned to directing with The Maltese Falcon (1941), followed by classics such as Key Largo (1948) and The African Queen (1951).
Angela Phinlay, Emmerich’s much-younger mistress, was a small but featured role in a major film with a veteran cast delivering strong performances. The character was significant in both the film’s plot and theme and had the potential to push Monroe into the limelight. She nearly lost the opportunity to portray Angela when Huston chose Lola Albright. Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt, had also auditioned for the role.
Working alongside Monroe’s agent, John Hyde, was Lucille Ryman, Monroe’s benefactor and — serendipitously — the casting director at MGM. Ryman reminded Huston of Albright’s recent success in the acclaimed Champion (1949) and the actress’s resulting increased fee. When Huston paused, Ryman recommended Monroe as a more affordable and equally effective alternative. Coincidentally, Huston’s gambling debts prevented him from paying his $18,000 bill for the boarding and training of his twenty-three horses at Lucille’s ranch. Allegedly, Ryman agreed to a payment plan contingent upon Monroe’s audition for the role. [
In preparing for her audition, Monroe rehearsed with her acting coach Natasha Lytess for three days and three nights, exploring the character’s inner psychology and relationship to the plot. “I played a vacuous, rich man’s darling attempting to carry herself in a sophisticated manner in keeping with her plush surroundings,” Monroe told columnist Dorothy Kilgallen. “I saw her as walking with a rather self-conscious slither and played it accordingly.”
With Monroe’s performance honed, Ryman called on Sydney Guilaroff, the studio’s official hairstylist, to lend his expertise. “I trimmed her hair carefully,” Guilaroff wrote in his memoir, “curling it under in the beginnings of a pageboy but leaving it free to move and shift with Marilyn’s motions. It was an original style, much shorter than the standard length at that time and structured to follow the contours of her face. It was the look that would help make her famous and become her trademark.” Ryman next called Louis B. Mayer, the head of the studio, to tell him that an important audition would take place the next Wednesday.
Monroe’s audition scene was her
character’s introduction twenty minutes into the film. Emmerich stands above
his young mistress as she naps on a sofa in an elegant striped pants suit, his
expression a mixture of admiration and contempt. “What’s the big idea standing
there staring at me, Uncle Lon?” Angela asks. He instructs her stop calling him
“Uncle.” Sitting up, Angela seeks his approval by reporting she ordered the
delivery of salt mackerel because he enjoys it for breakfast. “Some sweet kid,”
Emmerich remarks in a soft voice.
Angela stretches and yawns. Emmerich
mentions the late hour and suggests she go to bed. Angela leans over to kiss him
goodnight, and he takes her in his arms, pulls her down onto his armchair, and
kisses her passionately. Angela gently pushes him away and lowers her eyes from
his. Monroe’s expression suggests the melancholy of a young woman being kept by
an older man for whom she feels no passion. Angela slinks off the chair, pats
his hand, and slowly walks across the room. The camera cuts to a long shot of
Angela walking down the hall to her room and slowly closing the door as she
shyly smiles at Emmerich. “Some sweet kid,” he repeats.
Monroe recalled trembling with
fear when she auditioned for Huston. She had studied her lines the previous
evening but could not relax. He invited her to sit on one of the
straight-backed chairs in the room, but she asked to lie on the floor. Hoping
to increase her comfort, she also asked permission to remove her shoes. Having
been told Monroe was unusual, the request did not surprise Huston.
“When it was over,” Huston recalled, “Marilyn looked very insecure about the whole thing and asked to do it over. I agreed. But I had already decided on the first take. The part of Angela was hers.” She impressed him more off screen than on. “There was something touching and appealing about her,” the director remarked in The Legend of Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was convinced her reading was “awful,” but before she could apologize, Huston smiled and announced she had earned the part. He told she would probably develop into a very good actress, the goal to which she aspired.
When Monroe filmed the scene in
the fall of 1949, she looked over Huston’s shoulder for Natasha Lytess’s
approval. In the finished film, as she walks across the living room and off
camera, Monroe can be seen glancing off-camera toward her coach.
Monroe played most of her scenes with 55-year-old actor Louis Calhern who portrayed Emmerich. In 1950, his career peaked with three exceptional performances: as Buffalo Bill in the musical Annie Get Your Gun, as Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Magnificent Yankee, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, and as Monroe’s sugar-daddy in The Asphalt Jungle.
In her second scene, Monroe
wears a tight black dress with off-the-shoulder straps designed by Otto Kottke,
a diamond necklace, and bracelet. “Uncle” Lon tells Angela that he will be busy
with cases and offers to send her on a trip.
With girlish delight, Angela
darts to her bedroom to retrieve a magazine advertisement for a vacation in
Cuba and rests her head on his lap. Monroe makes the most of a few lines, which
now appear dated by slang interjections of the era: “Imagine me on this beach
with my green bathing suit. Yipes! I almost bought a white one, but it wasn’t
quite extreme enough. Don’t get me wrong. If I’d gone in for extreme-extreme,
I’d have bought the French one.”
A pounding on the door
interrupts her excitement. Angela becomes frightened by the disturbance at such
a late hour and asks “Uncle” Lon to see who is calling. Monroe completed the
scene in one take. Her acting ability shines in this final sequence. The police
commissioner and detectives have arrived at Emmerich’s home to present the
signed confession of his accomplice and arrest him.
One of the detectives knocks on
Angela’s bedroom door. When she opens the door, Monroe speaks in a natural
voice. “Haven’t you bothered me enough, you big banana-head?” she booms
angrily. “Just try breaking my door, and Mr. Emmerich will throw you out of the
house.” Her posture is bold and determined.
When the detective announces
the commissioner is ready to interrogate her, Angela’s anger turns to
little-girl fear as her shoulders cave and she clings to the door- knob. In a
slight, tremulous voice, she asks if she can talk to the detective instead. He
gently advises her to comply by telling the truth. The policeman leads Angela
by the arm into the living room where the commissioner stands over Emmerich as
he calmly reads his accomplice’s confession. The commissioner interrogates
Angela, who has provided her lover with an alibi, and threatens her with a jail
sentence for perjury. She looks pleadingly at Emmerich, who directs her to tell
the truth. Breaking down in to tears, Angela buries her face in her hands; the
policeman leads her away to sign a statement.
Monroe satisfied Huston on the
second take. Angela apologizes through tears as she grabs Emmerich’s hand. He
assures that, all things considered, she did well. She asks about the status of
their trip to Cuba. “Don’t worry about the trip baby,” Emmerich responds.
“You’ll have plenty of trips.”
Monroe would cite her
experience of working in The Asphalt Jungle as one of the most rewarding
of her career. “I don’t know what I did, but I do know it felt wonderful,” she
told Natasha, as told to Jane Wilkie in an unpublished manuscript. Cinematographer
Harold Rosson, who had been Jean Harlow’s last husband, lighted and filmed
Monroe beautifully.
In her first starring role, Jean Hagen is effective as Doll Conovon, the woman who loves Dix Hanley and remains at his side until the bitter end. Like Monroe, she is best known for comedic roles; Hagen was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain (1952).
When The Asphalt Jungle
premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on May 23, 1950, Los Angeles police
officer James Dougherty served with a squad of other officers to restrain the
crowds. He looked at the posters advertising the film and saw the image of his
former wife, but she was not in attendance.
Photoplay lauded
Marilyn’s enormous screen presence: “There’s a beautiful blonde, too, name of
Marilyn Monroe, who plays Calhern’s girlfriend, and makes the most of her
footage.” New York Herald-Tribune acknowledged Monroe’s performance as
lending “a documentary effect to a lurid exposition.”
The next spring The Asphalt
Jungle won four Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Sam Jaffe;
Best Cinematography, Black-and White, Harold Rosson; Best Director, John
Huston; and Best Screenplay, Ben Maddow and John Huston.
Monroe and Huston worked together again during the summer of 1960, when she achieved another dramatic milestone in her last completed film, The Misfits (1961).
