Two Classic Movie Recs
Jan. 5th, 2006 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieMy two movie recs of the day are both delightful, complicated looks at relationships and should be better known.
A Letter to Three Wives has recently been released on DVD. It is a 1949 movie from Joseph Mankiewitz who is best known for All About Eve.. You can view it as a trial run for All About Eve, which is also a witty look at strong women, treachery and complicated mess that relationships make, but that would do it a huge disservice because it’s an amazing movie in its own right. And it did win him a Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscars as well as being nommed for Best Picture, so I am not the only one who thought so.
The plot? Three women, Deborah, Lora Mae and Rita, are on an all-day boat trip with a social group in the days of no cellphones. Just before they cast off they receive a letter addressed to all three of them from a fourth member of the group, Addie Ross, who tells them that she’s left town and she took one of their husbands with her. It is too late for them to turn back, so they spend the day anxiously awaiting getting home and remembering their marriages to try to figure out who is the man who ran off with Addie. None of them feel too secure, and the bulk of the movie are the three interconnected vignettes that examine the marriages.
Deborah (the drop dead gorgeous Jeanne Crain) is someone who met her wealthy, upper-crust husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) during the War. And now she is afraid she doesn’t fit in and just embarasses him: she is too naïve, too uncultured, too young. So she wonders if her husband preferred the sophistication of Addie (who we never see by the way).
Deborah’s is the shortest vignette and while it’s quite good, the reason I adore the movie so are the two other ones that look at the problems of marriage and being a woman in a rather sophisticated and startlingly modern way. Rita (Ann Sothern) is a career woman. She works in radio and makes much more money than her bookish, school-teacher husband played by Kirk Douglas. She is definitely the family provider and this is hard for many a man to deal with nowadays, let alone in the 1940s. In addition, she is a workaholic and her drive really plays havoc with family life. Could her husband be dissatisfied enough to run off with Addie? This isn’t really a spoiler, but one of the many reasons I love this movie is that it doesn’t think that it’s bad of Rita to be driven, or have a high-pressure career. It advocates for paying some attention to the family as well, but it is not a “go back to the kitchen little woman” movie in the least.
But my favorite vignette involves the marriage of Lora Mae (played by Linda Darnell who is also uber-gorgeous) and Porter (played by Paul Douglas. I fell for his character rather hard, even though his looks are not matinee idol in the slightest). Lora Mae played her cards right and achieved her primary ambition: to be a trophy wife (or as they would have said back then, she is a golddigger). But what happens afterwards? Especially if your husband is smart and knows exactly why you married him. What if you have feelings for him? Could you ever convince him? And would he get so fed up with your dysfunctional marriage as to run off with Addie? Lora Mae is another strong willed, intelligent woman who is not condemned for it in the slightest. Woo-hoo!
The movie is witty and complicated and delicious and delightful and all good things. So go find it. Oh, and who is the husband Addie ran off with? I am not telling.
Lora Mae and Porter having another one of their fights. Just have make-up sex already:
The three wives in question (L to R: Lora Mae, Rita and Deborah):
Lora Mae and Rita:
Brad and Deborah:
Lora Mae golddigging:
Brad introducing Deborah to Rita and George:
George and Rita on a good day:
Lora Mae:
Deborah:
Lora Mae and Porter's House of Angst (tm):
The second movie I want to recommend had little in common with ALTTW except for the fact that both star Linda Darnell and both are intelligent movies. It’s the 1941 version of Blood and Sand, a Blasco Ibanez novel that was earlier turned into a silent movie with Valentino (this version is far superior). I haven’t read the novel so I have no idea how faithful it is as an adaptation, but as a movie, it’s brilliant.
It follows the life of a bull-fighter, Juan Gallardo (Tyrone Power). When he was a boy, he wanted to be a matador like his father, even though his father was killed and his mother is a bitter woman scrubbing floors for a living, which could be viewed as a lesson. Well, he runs away from home and returns a young and promising matador. His career is on the rise and he marries his childhood sweetheart Carmen (played by Linda Darnell). But that is only the beginning of the movie. Soon, his newfound popularity goes to his head. He spends money like water on his hangers on which sing his praises only as long as he is the newest fad, he starts an affair with the slumming, thrill-seeking upperclass Dona Sol (Rita Hayworth at her sexiest) because he can’t believe he can have an upperclass woman, just like that. In fact, it’s pretty significant that as the movie progresses, the only two people who truly love him, his mother and his wife, get more and more alienated from him (and his wife does pack her bags and leaves). And hanging over it all is the knowledge that death is just around the corner and when it happens no one will really care as long as newer and better entertainment is provided. The thing I remember most vividly from the movie is the conversation between Carmen and Juan’s mother. Carmen prays every time her husband goes into the ring and the mother asks what she prays for. Carmen replies that she prays for God to bring Juan back to her, unharmed, whole. And then the mother tells her that what she prays her is for a bull to hurt Juan. When Carmen looks at her, horrified, she adds “Not enough to kill him, just enough to maim him so he’d never be able to go into the arena again.”
The cast is really really good. You end up rooting for Juan despite his later behavior mainly because his boyish sweetness comes through no matter what he does. All of his stunts, including the affair with Dona Sol have the feel of “Look, Ma! No hands!” Rita Hayworth is both irresistable and rotten to the core as Sol. She is just bored, bored, bored and I doubt felt a genuine feeling in her life. And yet you can see why Juan is drawn to her, not just for her sheer sexiness, but for a certain class of upper-class arrogance and elegance he can’t help but want to touch with his grubby hands. Linda Darnell, besides being eerily beautiful, comes across as pure and strong and yet not boring at all. It’s largely her doing that I bought the love story between Juan and Carmen even with the infidelity right there because hey, these crazy kids really do love each other, adultery or not. Alla Nazimova is really good as Juan’s bitter, worn-out mother, and the cast of various other bull-fighters and hangers on is excellent. I also love the closing scene way too much.
Dona Sol and Juan:
Dona Sol and Juan having their own bullfight:
Juan and Carmen and a really big mirror:
Publicity shot. Carmen is on the left and Dona Sol on the right:
Carmen and Juan's wedding day:
Moping:
Publicity shot:
Juan:
If this isn't enough to convince you, see the viewer reviews on IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0033405/usercomments They seem to like it too.
A Letter to Three Wives has recently been released on DVD. It is a 1949 movie from Joseph Mankiewitz who is best known for All About Eve.. You can view it as a trial run for All About Eve, which is also a witty look at strong women, treachery and complicated mess that relationships make, but that would do it a huge disservice because it’s an amazing movie in its own right. And it did win him a Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscars as well as being nommed for Best Picture, so I am not the only one who thought so.
The plot? Three women, Deborah, Lora Mae and Rita, are on an all-day boat trip with a social group in the days of no cellphones. Just before they cast off they receive a letter addressed to all three of them from a fourth member of the group, Addie Ross, who tells them that she’s left town and she took one of their husbands with her. It is too late for them to turn back, so they spend the day anxiously awaiting getting home and remembering their marriages to try to figure out who is the man who ran off with Addie. None of them feel too secure, and the bulk of the movie are the three interconnected vignettes that examine the marriages.
Deborah (the drop dead gorgeous Jeanne Crain) is someone who met her wealthy, upper-crust husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) during the War. And now she is afraid she doesn’t fit in and just embarasses him: she is too naïve, too uncultured, too young. So she wonders if her husband preferred the sophistication of Addie (who we never see by the way).
Deborah’s is the shortest vignette and while it’s quite good, the reason I adore the movie so are the two other ones that look at the problems of marriage and being a woman in a rather sophisticated and startlingly modern way. Rita (Ann Sothern) is a career woman. She works in radio and makes much more money than her bookish, school-teacher husband played by Kirk Douglas. She is definitely the family provider and this is hard for many a man to deal with nowadays, let alone in the 1940s. In addition, she is a workaholic and her drive really plays havoc with family life. Could her husband be dissatisfied enough to run off with Addie? This isn’t really a spoiler, but one of the many reasons I love this movie is that it doesn’t think that it’s bad of Rita to be driven, or have a high-pressure career. It advocates for paying some attention to the family as well, but it is not a “go back to the kitchen little woman” movie in the least.
But my favorite vignette involves the marriage of Lora Mae (played by Linda Darnell who is also uber-gorgeous) and Porter (played by Paul Douglas. I fell for his character rather hard, even though his looks are not matinee idol in the slightest). Lora Mae played her cards right and achieved her primary ambition: to be a trophy wife (or as they would have said back then, she is a golddigger). But what happens afterwards? Especially if your husband is smart and knows exactly why you married him. What if you have feelings for him? Could you ever convince him? And would he get so fed up with your dysfunctional marriage as to run off with Addie? Lora Mae is another strong willed, intelligent woman who is not condemned for it in the slightest. Woo-hoo!
The movie is witty and complicated and delicious and delightful and all good things. So go find it. Oh, and who is the husband Addie ran off with? I am not telling.
Lora Mae and Porter having another one of their fights. Just have make-up sex already:
The three wives in question (L to R: Lora Mae, Rita and Deborah):
Lora Mae and Rita:
Brad and Deborah:
Lora Mae golddigging:
Brad introducing Deborah to Rita and George:
George and Rita on a good day:
Lora Mae:
Deborah:
Lora Mae and Porter's House of Angst (tm):
The second movie I want to recommend had little in common with ALTTW except for the fact that both star Linda Darnell and both are intelligent movies. It’s the 1941 version of Blood and Sand, a Blasco Ibanez novel that was earlier turned into a silent movie with Valentino (this version is far superior). I haven’t read the novel so I have no idea how faithful it is as an adaptation, but as a movie, it’s brilliant.
It follows the life of a bull-fighter, Juan Gallardo (Tyrone Power). When he was a boy, he wanted to be a matador like his father, even though his father was killed and his mother is a bitter woman scrubbing floors for a living, which could be viewed as a lesson. Well, he runs away from home and returns a young and promising matador. His career is on the rise and he marries his childhood sweetheart Carmen (played by Linda Darnell). But that is only the beginning of the movie. Soon, his newfound popularity goes to his head. He spends money like water on his hangers on which sing his praises only as long as he is the newest fad, he starts an affair with the slumming, thrill-seeking upperclass Dona Sol (Rita Hayworth at her sexiest) because he can’t believe he can have an upperclass woman, just like that. In fact, it’s pretty significant that as the movie progresses, the only two people who truly love him, his mother and his wife, get more and more alienated from him (and his wife does pack her bags and leaves). And hanging over it all is the knowledge that death is just around the corner and when it happens no one will really care as long as newer and better entertainment is provided. The thing I remember most vividly from the movie is the conversation between Carmen and Juan’s mother. Carmen prays every time her husband goes into the ring and the mother asks what she prays for. Carmen replies that she prays for God to bring Juan back to her, unharmed, whole. And then the mother tells her that what she prays her is for a bull to hurt Juan. When Carmen looks at her, horrified, she adds “Not enough to kill him, just enough to maim him so he’d never be able to go into the arena again.”
The cast is really really good. You end up rooting for Juan despite his later behavior mainly because his boyish sweetness comes through no matter what he does. All of his stunts, including the affair with Dona Sol have the feel of “Look, Ma! No hands!” Rita Hayworth is both irresistable and rotten to the core as Sol. She is just bored, bored, bored and I doubt felt a genuine feeling in her life. And yet you can see why Juan is drawn to her, not just for her sheer sexiness, but for a certain class of upper-class arrogance and elegance he can’t help but want to touch with his grubby hands. Linda Darnell, besides being eerily beautiful, comes across as pure and strong and yet not boring at all. It’s largely her doing that I bought the love story between Juan and Carmen even with the infidelity right there because hey, these crazy kids really do love each other, adultery or not. Alla Nazimova is really good as Juan’s bitter, worn-out mother, and the cast of various other bull-fighters and hangers on is excellent. I also love the closing scene way too much.
Dona Sol and Juan:
Dona Sol and Juan having their own bullfight:
Juan and Carmen and a really big mirror:
Publicity shot. Carmen is on the left and Dona Sol on the right:
Carmen and Juan's wedding day:
Moping:
Publicity shot:
Juan:
If this isn't enough to convince you, see the viewer reviews on IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0033405/usercomments They seem to like it too.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 04:50 pm (UTC)You should some day see my favorite older movie "Dodsworth"--a thing of beauty. Maybe at some point, I'll do a similar posting.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 04:54 pm (UTC)I know. What happened to writing strong intelligent women? I think you'll like "Letter" if you like Eve. Eve is so brilliant...
Re: Dodsworth. I've heard really good things about it.
I'll do a similar posting
Yes, please.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 07:18 pm (UTC)Gosh, Tyrone Power was gorgeous...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-10 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 07:31 pm (UTC)Love the icon!