Hope you have a great Father's Day. Our sons are coming home to celebrate it. My husband is a wonderful father of two Eagle Scouts. He's the one who went to the Scout meetings and camped out with them, who took care of us and helped put them to bed at night. A good father is irreplaceable, and a light to children.
Spencer Tracy in Boys Town was wonderful. He brought real grace to that role. A priest and father to lost boys.
Hello, Doctor. I take weekends off from harassing the medical profession, at least about medical matters.
I'm delighted that you have discovered Eugene Pallette. He may have been a limited actor, but like William Frawley, in the right part, he was peerless. Those kinds of guys were indispensable to Golden Era Hollywood.
Pallette's voice was a wonder of nature. It had an impossible to miss metallic quality for me. It sounded as though he might have had something cylindrical in place of a voice box.
I enjoyed your words about Glenn Ford, and agree with you. I can understand your aversion to Spencer Tracy. Pauline Kael once referred to Tracy's "boring pugnacity." Glenn Ford was a natural actor with an attractive understatedness in his acting.
In that regard he reminds me of a star somewhat before his time, Joel McCrea, who was incapable of giving a bad performance.
Screwball comedy: it's probably classed more as a farce than a screwball comedy, but "Arsenic and Old Lace" has always been my favorite. I cannot understand Cary Grant's supposed mortification at his performance as Mortimer Brewster. Grant's overacting makes the movie as funny as it is.
Otherwise, I agree with you about "The Lady Eve." Preston Sturges had an astounding seven year run in which he could do no wrong. Have you seen "The Palm Beach Story" and "The Great McGinty?" Both are wonderful. ( Some intellectual somewhere has probably written an article proposing that "The Great McGinty" should be thought of as the "anti Citizen Kane." ) And yes, as you probably know, Joel McCrea was a Sturges favorite. One of the funniest photos I have ever seen was taken from a vantage in the studio above a ladder. McCrea is lying on his back, supposedly in the middle of a nighttime storm. Sturges is at the top of the ladder, pouring a huge pitcher of water onto McCrea's face.
Do you know the work of Val Lewton? His is one of the most interesting stories from that period. He worked for RKO, which had been nearly bankrupted by "Citizen Kane's" box office flop. Their executives had the bad shakes because of their fear that "The Magnificent Ambersons" was about to suffer the same fate. Desperate to save the studio, these guys realized something one day: Universal had stopped making horror films after about 1935. The RKO guys thought there might be a forlorn market for some new films of a nonrealistic nature. They pitched an idea to Val Lewton. Would he be willing to produce some "B" horror films, no more than seventy - five minutes in length, maximum budget $200,000? They would tell him the title, he would go away, and come back in six weeks with a movie. He agreed. The first title they threw at him was "Cat People."
A few weeks later, he came back with a classic. I find it likely that a lot of people have sloughed off that movie because their instincts are that it's probably ridiculous. It's anything but ridiculous, and rightly, it was a huge hit, and rescued RKO. Manny Farber's essay about Lewton is highly laudatory. Lewton was a producer. He didn't direct, though he appears to have written the final draft of all of the screenplays. But as Farber wrote, Lewton relished taking a group of young people "who delighted in being creative without necessarily being fashionable" and turning them loose. He may have been the best boss in the history of capitalism.
Lewton's work couldn't have been more different from Sturges'. Probably the most frequently used word to describe "Cat People" is "moody." "Unsettling" turns up often, also. They weren't exactly horror films, but they were undeniably infused with the supernatural. My favorite is "The Seventh Victim." It may be my favorite movie, period. The sequel to "Cat People," "The Curse of the Cat People," was voted the 17th greatest horror/supernatural film of all time in a fairly recent poll of British film critics and scholars. As was true of all the Lewton films, it was made in beautiful black and white, and is a gorgeous, almost magical thing to look at. The little girl who is essentially the star of the film, Ann Carter was as talented as Margaret O'Brien. She contracted polio not long after she made that movie, and was out of the business for several years. She was too talented not to get back in. She was in a Bogart film from about 1947, which I don't remember the title of. Bogart, who generally wasn't all that fond of kids, I think, took to her. He nicknamed her, "Nostrils." She got bored with showbiz and became a teacher, a wife, and a mother.
Lewton's career was contemporaneous with Sturges' great run. Death got in Lewton's way. For Sturges, it was a run - in with Howard Hughes over a horse.
Lewton's films used many of the same sets as "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons," most interestingly in the latter, a staircase. The staircase on which the Agnes Moorhead character ( Aunt Fanny? I don't remember ) has her hysterical breakdown in "The Magnificent Ambersons" is the same staircase the Kim Hunter character would walk down at her boarding school in "The Seventh Victim" the next year. If you're a stranger to Lewton and might not wish to remain so, my urging is that you start with "The Seventh Victim." For one thing, it has a scene which, as it develops in the first few seconds, will make you gasp. Neither Hitchcock nor Robert Bloch ever denied that the shower scene in "Psycho" might not have existed if not for that scene from "The Seventh Victim" seventeen years earlier.
"The Seventh Victim" was made in a world which did not think it strange to bookend a movie with a John Donne quote, and to have a compact but orthodox presentation of the Gospel in it. The one sad thing I know about that movie is that the young actor who plays the poet, a man whose name was, I think, Erford Gage, died heroically in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
The Lewton aesthetic is, without any exception I've ever run across, deeply admired by movie scholars. My hunch is that you'd take to it.
thank you for the great comment! Yes, I like McCrea a lot. I generally stay away from horror, but Cat People is something else, so atmospheric, I can enjoy movies like that over the jump-scare kind all day, I will add The Seventh Victim to my list!
You will get a kick out of this from this morning, I hope:
What was fascinating to me about Eugene Pallette's career is that he saw himself as a leading man, because when he was younger and slender, he was a handsome guy. However, he was never considered a leading man because of his incredible Basso voice. Therefore, he completely changed his perspective, became a character and also a character actor and has left us with so many marvelous performances.
You’re right, Fonda was a darn good actor and especially memorable for his voice, which I can hear in my mind’s ear. It’s too bad that as a dad he spared the rod and spoiled the child[ren], especially Hanoi Jane. My Vietnam veteran dad despised her.
Happy Father’s Day! Question for you - what are your thoughts on nutrition? Asking because I noticed your comment on the government food pyramid earlier. Do you have an article on this?
And I do believe the food pyramid thing was a disaster.
Medicine knows very, very little about proper nutrition, and almost all of the research is ridiculous, Dr. Prasad did a fantastic video about that here:
Hope you have a great Father's Day. Our sons are coming home to celebrate it. My husband is a wonderful father of two Eagle Scouts. He's the one who went to the Scout meetings and camped out with them, who took care of us and helped put them to bed at night. A good father is irreplaceable, and a light to children.
Spencer Tracy in Boys Town was wonderful. He brought real grace to that role. A priest and father to lost boys.
Hello, Doctor. I take weekends off from harassing the medical profession, at least about medical matters.
I'm delighted that you have discovered Eugene Pallette. He may have been a limited actor, but like William Frawley, in the right part, he was peerless. Those kinds of guys were indispensable to Golden Era Hollywood.
Pallette's voice was a wonder of nature. It had an impossible to miss metallic quality for me. It sounded as though he might have had something cylindrical in place of a voice box.
I enjoyed your words about Glenn Ford, and agree with you. I can understand your aversion to Spencer Tracy. Pauline Kael once referred to Tracy's "boring pugnacity." Glenn Ford was a natural actor with an attractive understatedness in his acting.
In that regard he reminds me of a star somewhat before his time, Joel McCrea, who was incapable of giving a bad performance.
Screwball comedy: it's probably classed more as a farce than a screwball comedy, but "Arsenic and Old Lace" has always been my favorite. I cannot understand Cary Grant's supposed mortification at his performance as Mortimer Brewster. Grant's overacting makes the movie as funny as it is.
Otherwise, I agree with you about "The Lady Eve." Preston Sturges had an astounding seven year run in which he could do no wrong. Have you seen "The Palm Beach Story" and "The Great McGinty?" Both are wonderful. ( Some intellectual somewhere has probably written an article proposing that "The Great McGinty" should be thought of as the "anti Citizen Kane." ) And yes, as you probably know, Joel McCrea was a Sturges favorite. One of the funniest photos I have ever seen was taken from a vantage in the studio above a ladder. McCrea is lying on his back, supposedly in the middle of a nighttime storm. Sturges is at the top of the ladder, pouring a huge pitcher of water onto McCrea's face.
Do you know the work of Val Lewton? His is one of the most interesting stories from that period. He worked for RKO, which had been nearly bankrupted by "Citizen Kane's" box office flop. Their executives had the bad shakes because of their fear that "The Magnificent Ambersons" was about to suffer the same fate. Desperate to save the studio, these guys realized something one day: Universal had stopped making horror films after about 1935. The RKO guys thought there might be a forlorn market for some new films of a nonrealistic nature. They pitched an idea to Val Lewton. Would he be willing to produce some "B" horror films, no more than seventy - five minutes in length, maximum budget $200,000? They would tell him the title, he would go away, and come back in six weeks with a movie. He agreed. The first title they threw at him was "Cat People."
A few weeks later, he came back with a classic. I find it likely that a lot of people have sloughed off that movie because their instincts are that it's probably ridiculous. It's anything but ridiculous, and rightly, it was a huge hit, and rescued RKO. Manny Farber's essay about Lewton is highly laudatory. Lewton was a producer. He didn't direct, though he appears to have written the final draft of all of the screenplays. But as Farber wrote, Lewton relished taking a group of young people "who delighted in being creative without necessarily being fashionable" and turning them loose. He may have been the best boss in the history of capitalism.
Lewton's work couldn't have been more different from Sturges'. Probably the most frequently used word to describe "Cat People" is "moody." "Unsettling" turns up often, also. They weren't exactly horror films, but they were undeniably infused with the supernatural. My favorite is "The Seventh Victim." It may be my favorite movie, period. The sequel to "Cat People," "The Curse of the Cat People," was voted the 17th greatest horror/supernatural film of all time in a fairly recent poll of British film critics and scholars. As was true of all the Lewton films, it was made in beautiful black and white, and is a gorgeous, almost magical thing to look at. The little girl who is essentially the star of the film, Ann Carter was as talented as Margaret O'Brien. She contracted polio not long after she made that movie, and was out of the business for several years. She was too talented not to get back in. She was in a Bogart film from about 1947, which I don't remember the title of. Bogart, who generally wasn't all that fond of kids, I think, took to her. He nicknamed her, "Nostrils." She got bored with showbiz and became a teacher, a wife, and a mother.
Lewton's career was contemporaneous with Sturges' great run. Death got in Lewton's way. For Sturges, it was a run - in with Howard Hughes over a horse.
Lewton's films used many of the same sets as "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons," most interestingly in the latter, a staircase. The staircase on which the Agnes Moorhead character ( Aunt Fanny? I don't remember ) has her hysterical breakdown in "The Magnificent Ambersons" is the same staircase the Kim Hunter character would walk down at her boarding school in "The Seventh Victim" the next year. If you're a stranger to Lewton and might not wish to remain so, my urging is that you start with "The Seventh Victim." For one thing, it has a scene which, as it develops in the first few seconds, will make you gasp. Neither Hitchcock nor Robert Bloch ever denied that the shower scene in "Psycho" might not have existed if not for that scene from "The Seventh Victim" seventeen years earlier.
"The Seventh Victim" was made in a world which did not think it strange to bookend a movie with a John Donne quote, and to have a compact but orthodox presentation of the Gospel in it. The one sad thing I know about that movie is that the young actor who plays the poet, a man whose name was, I think, Erford Gage, died heroically in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
The Lewton aesthetic is, without any exception I've ever run across, deeply admired by movie scholars. My hunch is that you'd take to it.
Happy weekend!
thank you for the great comment! Yes, I like McCrea a lot. I generally stay away from horror, but Cat People is something else, so atmospheric, I can enjoy movies like that over the jump-scare kind all day, I will add The Seventh Victim to my list!
You will get a kick out of this from this morning, I hope:
https://anthonyesolen.substack.com/p/arsenic-and-old-lace-1944
I started to subscribe to that Substack last week. I haven't read the article yet, but I was delighted to find it there.
What was fascinating to me about Eugene Pallette's career is that he saw himself as a leading man, because when he was younger and slender, he was a handsome guy. However, he was never considered a leading man because of his incredible Basso voice. Therefore, he completely changed his perspective, became a character and also a character actor and has left us with so many marvelous performances.
Happy Father's Day, Dr G!
The Lady Eve is indeed a hoot!!
Gets me thinking of other Mom/Dad movies, like Life with Father: William Powell is a fab foil to Irene Dunne. Cringe today, funny yesteryear.
Or from one of my fav books, Cheaper By The Dozen 1950: As Dad, Clifton Webb does an efficient job.
Although in versatility Fonda doesn't hold a candle to Ford, I'll admit a sentimental attachment to the hokey 1968 comedy, Yours, Mine & Ours.
After being Angry Juror 8, he's an improbable father of 18.
Whatever's become of large families?? ;)
I love Life With Father! I almost wrote about it instead but figured I'd save it for next Father's Day...
You’re right, Fonda was a darn good actor and especially memorable for his voice, which I can hear in my mind’s ear. It’s too bad that as a dad he spared the rod and spoiled the child[ren], especially Hanoi Jane. My Vietnam veteran dad despised her.
Happy Father’s Day!
Happy Father’s Day! Question for you - what are your thoughts on nutrition? Asking because I noticed your comment on the government food pyramid earlier. Do you have an article on this?
I don't have an article, sorry. I really like Calley Means' writing on this, see here:
https://us6.campaign-archive.com/?e=fe8c283a4c&u=a60af0e1a541ec26cf4658f45&id=3e52307526
And I do believe the food pyramid thing was a disaster.
Medicine knows very, very little about proper nutrition, and almost all of the research is ridiculous, Dr. Prasad did a fantastic video about that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDY7XYmb6nI
My wife and I aren't over the top about it, but the basic principles we try to stick to, more days than not, involve, per that Calley Means link:
- avoiding added/excess sugar (there's something like 100 times more sugar in American diets now than a century ago)
- avoiding highly processed garbage
- sticking to real food
Who knows if that helps, but hopefully it won't hurt!
Happy Father’s Day!
Happy Father’s Day to you as well!