Spotlight on a Character Actress: Agnes Moorhead

Having been obsessed with "Bewitched" for several years now, I think I can almost quote every line of Endora's (Agnes Moorehead) dialogue. Gotta love Agnes Moorehead.


Agnes Moorhead (1900-1974)

Agnes Moorhead is perhaps best known for her performance in the 1950s TV series, "Bewitched" as the main character Samantha's (Elizabeth Montgomery) mother, Endora. Both of them being witches. Agnes Moorhead grew up with a strong ambition to be an actress. She sang in church (she and her family were very religious) and joined other groups and organisations which she hoped would further her as an aspiring actress. She later joined Orson Welles's famed Mercury Theatre company with Joseph Cotten and George Coulouris. Orson Welles used her in some of his films when he made his venture out to Hollywood to make it big in movies (boy  did he ever!) including Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.

I first "discovered" Agnes Moorhead when we stumbled upon the third series of "Bewitched" at our local supermarket (we have all been hooked ever since!) and we all thought she was hilarious!!! Since then we have spotted her in movies like Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Showboat. She manages to be quite mannered but also give a very good understanding of her characters at the same time (a quality not always associated with character actresses). My personal favourite from her is her performance as Aunt Fanny in The Magnificent Ambersons, and I love "Bewitched" too, but I didn't feel that they were in the same category... :-)

Best Films To Start With:

1. The Magnificent Ambersons


2. Bewitched


3. Citizen Kane

~Bette

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

"The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873. Their splendor lasted throughout all the years that saw their midland town spread and darken into a city. In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and everybody knew everybody else's family horse and carriage."

I loved this film. I ordered it on Friday for the half term holiday and - thanks to Amazon Prime's super duper fantazmagorical next day delivery - it arrived on Saturday morning and sat near the DVD player beckoning, "watch me... watch me..." all the time while I was trying to do a Grade 5 music theory mock paper (a very frustrating activity, I assure you). So finally, my family and I sat down and watched it after dinner. Wow.


The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) "I wrote the picture and directed it. My name is Orson Welles."

Cast:

• Joseph Cotten as Eugene
• Dolores Costello as Isabel
• Anne Baxter as Lucy
• Tim Holt as George
• Agnes Moorehead as Fanny

Plot:
The Ambersons were a powerful Indianapolis family from 1873 and it seemed that they would be so forever - or so everyone thought. "Their splendor lasted throughout all the years that saw their midland town spread and darken into a city," but its decline started as soon as the new nightmare addition to the family was let loose on the town. George Minifer (the name that his mother had acquired when she married Wilber Minifer) was a spoilt brat of a child ever since his mother Isabel and his father Wilber realised that they could do just as they liked with the infant, giving him a small horse and carriage to tear through the city with. However, his bold and rude attitude coupled with his girly locks garnered him criticism and teasing from other children. As he grew up he developed a cynical and negative view of the world and the non-Amberson inhabitants of it. All the town members prayed that they would live to see the day that the arrogant bully, George Amberson, would get his come-upance.

One night at a ball held at the house a mysterious, handsome looking man comes and it seems that he had known George's mother before. His name was Eugene Morgan, and he had once been Isabel's beau, but the Ambersons found him altogether too much of an enthusiastic and outgoing character to be part of the Amberson family. Disturbed by the prospect of having such a strange man in the house and as a friend, George started to look around at the other guests at the party when he met Lucy. He instantly took a bit of a liking to Lucy, in the most pleasant way imaginable for George to take a liking to anyone, and expressed his woes about the odd man to her, but is mortified to realise that she is his daughter.

After the party, George questions his Aunt Fanny about Eugene but she refuses to admit that there could be anything between Isabel and him. But when Wilbur dies, it leaves Isabel available and Eugene and Lucy start to see lots of the Ambersons. Eugene's newfangled contraption "the horseless carriage" seems to be catching on and he starts to earn almost as much money from making them as George's family has. While Lucy and George are still fond of each other, their relationship doesn't take top priority for George as Eugene makes up his mind to propose to to Isabel. George is sure that if he simply doesn't let Eugene into the house, all will be fine, but the reputation of the Ambersons is suffering badly...

Review:
Now, when you watch this you have to be aware that it isn't an Orson Welles masterpiece in the sense that Citizen Kane is, in fact most of the film as directed by Orson was cut before its proper release, but it is still a brilliant film. The boy who plays George I felt, should have been Orson Welles but wasn't. He was fine but not quite as great as the other actors. I thought that Anne Baxter was also very good, and I hadn't seen her in anything else except All About Eve so it was very nice to get a different feel of what kind of an acting she did. Dolores Costello was also pretty good. Oh yeah, and she was only married to John Barrymore hence being Drew Barrymore's grandmother. 'Cause that's not completely and utterly amazingly awesome.

Joseph Cotten was amazing as usual. I liked his moustache in this film, even if it wasn't quite as moustachey as the one he has in Citizen Kane. And can I just say, Agnes Moorehead? She was so good! I've only ever seen her in the beginning of Citizen Kane and in her comedic mode as Endora in "Bewitched" (best TV series ever by the way) but she was so good in this. So dramatic! I can imagine that she would be quite hard to cast though.

Not sure this shot ended up in the final cut.

Last but not least, I think that some of the cast in this and Citizen Kane are members of his theatre group, the Mercury Theatre Company founded by Orson Welles. Pretty cool, no?

I thoroughly enjoyed this film and the sets were amazing and worked wonders when teamed with Orson's great wide angle shots. Definitely recommended.

~Bette

Happy Birthday Agnes Moorehead (1900 - 1974)

Happy birthday to film and TV actress Agnes Moorehead. Mostly known for playing Elizabeth Montgomery's mom on the TV classic series Bewitched, Agnes was also a notable film actress. She appeared in such films as Citizen Kane, The Magnificient Ambersons, All That Heaven Allows, Caged, and Hush..Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Caged(1950)

Caged(1950). The movie was adapted by Virginia Kellogg from the story Women Without Men by Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld. It was directed by John Cromwell. Cast: Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby, Hope Emerson, Betty Garde, Sheila MacRae, Jan Sterling, Lee Patrick, Jane Darwell and Gertrude Hoffman.

Among the new prisoners at the Women's State Prison is 19 year old Marie Allen, who has been sentenced as an accessory in a armed robbery where her husband was killed. During Marie's physical they find out that she is pregnant, the warden, assigns her to work in the laundry. When the matron of Marie's cell block learns that Marie has no money, she reassigns her to scrubbing floors. Marie is befriended by Smoochie, Kitty Stark and Claire, who believe most of the women are in prison because of men.

Marie is still in jail when the baby is born, she hopes that her mother will take the child until she is paroled.

Kitty invites Marie to join her shoplifting racket when she gets out, telling her that even if she is paroled, she will be forced to stay in jail until she is offered a job. Marie, turns her down. One of the convicts then has a breakdown and when June, is denied parole, she hangs herself.

After Marie goes into labor, the doctor is disgusted by the prison conditions and goes to the medical board. The Warden is aware of the matrons treatment of the women, but her efforts to have the matron fired are always stop by her political friends. Her request for teachers and a psychologist are also denied by the prison board.

Marie's mother refuses to take her baby, so she puts him up for adoption and as Marie's parole hearing nears, Kitty renews her job offer. Even though the matron gives favorable recommendation, Marie's parole is denied. Will her experience in prison change her from a Innocent young girl into a hardened convict?

I thought this film was full of wonderful performances with great black and white filming and lighting. It is a very engaging film, you will find yourself getting wrapped up in the characters and how they choose to cope in unbearable circumstances.




Gertude Hoffmann, began her film career in Germany in 1918, aged 40, but made her American film debut in 1933. She made quite a few films over the next 20 years, though many of her parts were unbilled. She played Mrs. Odets on Gale Storm's My Little Margie, a situation comedy that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced at Hal Roach Studios by Hal Roach, Jr. and Roland D. Reed. My Little Margie premiered on CBS as the summer replacement for I Love Lucy on June 16, 1952.

She also performed in films: Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, which was nominated for Best Picture Oscar in 1941, as well as The File on Thelma Jordon (1950), Caged (1950), and The War of the Worlds (1953).