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: Anne Baxter!

Anne Baxter (May 7, 1923 – December 12, 1985) was best known for her performances in films: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Razor's Edge (1946), All About Eve (1950) and The Ten Commandments (1956).

Please click here to learn more about Anne Baxter.


Video from the film: The Razor's Edge (1946), with Gene Tierney.

Great Dramas: I Confess(1953).

I Confess(1953), is a drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, and Karl Malden . This was the only film Hitchcock made with these three actors. Biographers say he had trouble with "Method" actors such as Clift and Paul Newman, who worked with Hitchcock in Torn Curtain (1966).

Father Michael Logan is a priest in a church in Quebec City. He hires a caretaker, Otto Keller, and a housekeeper, Otto's wife Alma. Otto Keller, also works part-time as a gardener. Keller asks if Father Logan will hear his confession, there he confesses that he accidentally killed a rich lawyer Villette. Because of the binding secrecy of the confessional, Father Logan cannot tell the police anything he now knows about this crime.

At the time of the murder, two young girls saw someone leaving the house of the murdered man wearing a cassock. Evidence all points to Father Logan, who can not provide a alibi for the time of the murder. Logan, in his early life before he became a priest, was in love with Ruth.

In flashbacks: After Logan returns home from fighting in the war, Ruth and Logan ended up stranded over night on an island during a storm. In the morning, Villette finds them there and an argument breaks out and Logan learns that Ruth is married to a politician. Heartbroken, Logan leaves and does not see her for years. After which, Ruth is blackmailed by Villette. She meets Logan on the night of the murder to ask for help.

Ruth tells the police about her meeting with Father Logan to provide him an alibi. Police believes that Father Logan killed the blackmailer Villette to protect Ruth and himself. Otto Keller, takes advantage of the situation and lies to the police in order to keep suspicion from himself. Will Father Logan be convicted for the murder?

It's Like Waves Of Love Coming Over The Footlights...

So far, this is only my second post fully dedicated to All About Eve, which is surprising because it is my favourite film, and is definitely the one I know most about. Thanks to Sam Staggs' book All About "All About Eve" (which I have read many times), I know all about its psychological meanings, on set romances, rivalries and bitchy remarks. Astonishingly, after reading all about the film's chaotic filming schedule and all of the nasty comments that Bette Davis made to Celeste Holm, I don't start to hate the film or its stars, I love them more. Ok. So this post I am going to dedicate to Bette Davis' off screen relationships with her cast and crew. But before I do, here is a clip from one of the most famous scenes from Eve to give yo a feel of it if you haven't seen it before, and remind you if you have.



Cast:

• Bette Davis as Margo Channing
• Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington
• George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
• Celeste Holm as Karen Richards
• Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
• Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards
• Thelma Ritter as Birdie
• Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian
• Barbara Bates as Phoebe
• Marilyn Monroe as Claudia Caswell

Bette Davis and Celest Holm:

Bette Davis and Celest Holm didn't get on. From the first morning on set when Celest Holm greeted Bette with a "Good morning!" And Bette, cuddled up with Gary, (see Bette Davis and Gary Merrill) said "Oh sh*t. Good manners." Obviously, this was not the most charming response to such a remark, but you have to understand Bette's situation. She had an abusive husband that she was in the middle of a sticky divorce with, a boyfriend that had a Doris Day look-alike wife and a career stuck in the doldrums. If I was in that situation and Celest Holm (who irritates me so much that no words can describe) came up to me in her angelic way and said "Good morning!", I probably would not have been completely thrilled. When they were filming the scene in "The Cub Room", there was a lull in the filming process and to fill the silence Celeste said "Did you know that when the man who manufactures Pyrex, found out that people where using those Pyrex kettles to make martinis in, he stopped making them?" Gary Merrill and Hugh Marlow chuckled lightly. Bette waited for the laughter to stop. She then looked from Hugh to Gary, then lowered her eyes for effect and drawled "Really I don't know how I could have lived This long without knowing that."


Bette Davis and Anne Baxter:

Bette Davis and Anne Baxter had a wonderful relationship, despite the fact that they were playing arch Nemesis's in the film. In the late 1970s while towling herself dry at Anne's house, Bette discovered a lump in her breast. Anne Baxter was one of Bette's few close friends outside of her family along with Olivia De Havvilland, and Mary Astor.


Bette Davis and Edith Head:

Edith Head designed Bette's wardrobe for the film, but no one Else's. They had a very good working relationship, and one of my favourite costume-department behind the scenes anecdote shows Bette's thoughtfulness and sweetness that Sam Staggs was keen to hide in his book.

Bette Davis looked at herself quizzically in the mirror as she modeled her dress for the all important cocktail party scene (clip above). The scene was due to be shot in about ten minutes time. Someone had measured the top half of the dress all wrong, and from the waist up, the dress just flopped around helplessly about Bette's shoulders. Edith was devastated. "Don't worry, as costume designer, I'll take all the credit for the fiasco." Edith steadied herself and headed for the door, when Bette exclaimed "WAIT! Turn around and look, Edith." She had slipped the dress off her shoulders and the dress hung beautifully. It was a perfect fit. Edith hugged her and started to stitch it into place.

Bette Davis and Gary Merrill:

Bette Davis and Gary Merrill fell in love at the moment they met. From then on it was Bette and Gary against the world. Or the rest of the cast and crew, anyway. Although it was her longest marraige at ten years, it turned nasty towards the end. After they adopted two children, Micheal and Margot Merrill, and Gary adopted B.D. Davis, he started to turn alcoholic and Bette filed for divorce. Margot was disabled and is still institutionalized to his very day.


Bette Davis and Joseph L. Mankeiwicz:

Joseph M. whith Katharine Hepburn on the set of Suddenly Last Summer

They had a pretty stable working experience and had lots of good ideas together. When Bette downs her martini, heads for the staircase and waits before speaking the immortal line, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night!", she said it was to "show the audience that she was collecting more venom." Well, whether it was for that purpose or just for emphasis, it was all her idea. After her stroke of genius they had a conversation that went like this:

Joseph M: I'm still waiting for you to start directing the picture. Eddie Goulding (Bette's director in lots of her films) thinks your a "hideous creature."

Bette D: (Deep laugh. Tosses head back.) Mr. Goulding is a genius movie maker. But he also liked to act. He would act out your part for you. And I was difficult because we disagreed on almost everything. 90% of the time I thought that the way I was portraying the woman I was playing, was better than the way he was.

I hope you enjoyed my War And Peace post,
~Bette

Summer Lovin'!

    There are some films that you remember forever, whether you have a special emotional attachment to them, or they are just downright amazing. If you are anything like me and appreciate and love films, some films have probably had a large impact on your life.  Since I am still in my childhood myself, I cannot honestly say which film has had the biggest effect on my entire childhood, but I can say which ones have meant the most to me so far.

         The first old film I ever remember being shown was probably The Wizard Of Oz when I was two. I remember dancing around our old apartment screaming “I’ll fight you with one hand behind my back!” And whenever there was a spare moment when it wasn’t on I would be telling my mum to “Put on the Wizzee Of Ouzz!!!”  The scene with the monkeys where they all fly up to see the wicked witch used to scare me silly, and still does a little bit!

         I guess the next film I had an obsession with was Singing In The Rain. That was the first film that introduced me to Gene Kelly, “Hollywood”, and the 20s. I used to sit during the summer with the doors open to our deck watching Donald O’Connor perform Make’m Laugh over and over again, until I knew the words off by heart. The film has become some sort of family tradition. When my little sister was old enough we showed it to her. For two months all we could watch was the song Moses Supposes from the film.

         When I was nine I was introduced to my favourite film, All About Eve. It was my dad’s birthday in the middle of July and my mum had got it for him as a present. Later in the day we all sat down on the sofa while my mum was sorting out the DVD player. Then she looked up at us and said, “Its not in there!” We were very disappointed. It turned out that the shop had given us an empty DVD case - the suspense was unbearable, but we got it all sorted out in the end. It was an incredibly important film discovery for me. I realized how amazing it would be to be able to write and direct like Joseph Mankiewicz, or act like Anne Baxter or Bette Davis! I have since been besotted with the film, and all of its behind the scenes stories, gossip, and anything to do with it, and I have just finished reading Sam Stagg’s book about it called All About “All About Eve”.

         My parents have always had the “Bring them up on classic movies!” approach to our upbringing, and I am thankful that they do, otherwise I would never have been able to watch such wonderful movies!


~Bette

Guest in the House (1944).

Guest in the House (1944). Director: John Brahm. Cast: Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, Aline MacMahon.

One summer day, the Proctor family is looking forward to seeing Dr. Dan Proctor and meeting his invalid fiancee, Evelyn Heath. Dan's brother Douglas and his wife Ann are very sympathetic toward Evelyn, who had a troubled childhood which left her physically and emotionally scarred. Evelyn soon goes up to her room to rest and plays melancholy music on the record player. Later, Evelyn faints when Lee shows her a pet bird. Douglas sketches her picture on the lampshade to calm her down. After he leaves her room, Evelyn writes in her diary about her desire for Douglas.

That Sunday, when the rest of the family goes to church, Miriam and Douglas decide to work in the studio. Wanting time alone with Douglas, Evelyn is about to join them when Dan returns unexpectedly home, she accuses him of being jealous of her. Then, Evelyn insists that he goes back to work, instead he packs his suitcase and leaves.
Evelyn next comes up with a plan to destroy Miriam's relationship with Douglas. Will she manage to connive, manipulate and destroy this family?

Click to view: Guest in the House, movie in full
The cinematography in the film, Guest in the House was wonderful and so is the performance of Ruth Warrick as the trusting wife. Absorbing and fun!

When All My Children debuted on January 5, 1970, Ruth Warrick, was among the contracted cast, playing Phoebe Tyler (the character's full name via her marriages would eventually be Phoebe English Tyler Wallingford Matthews Wallingford). The show was an instant hit and Phoebe became a popular daytime character. Warrick received Daytime Emmy Award nominations in 1975 and 1977. In 1985, she played Hannah Cord in the TV movie Return to Peyton Place.

Other Ruth Warrick performances:
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Corsican Brothers (1941)
Forever and a Day (1943)
Journey into Fear (1943)
Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944)
Guest in the House (1944)
Song of the South (1946)
Swell Guy (1946)
Daisy Kenyon (1947)
Arch of Triumph (1948)
The Great Dan Patch (1949)
Let's Dance (1950)
One Too Many (1950)
Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966)
The Great Bank Robbery (1969)

Happy Birthday Anne Baxter

I didn't realize that Anne's birthday was yesterday. My apologies to Anne and all her fans, but Happy Birthday to another one of my favorite actresses. (7 May 1923 - 12 Dec 1985). My favorite Anne films include All About Eve, Sunday Dinner for a Soldier, The Fighting Sullivans, A Ticket to Tomahawk, The Ten Commandments and her guest appearances as the villaness Olga, Queen of the Cossacks on the 1960's Batman TV series.


Anne Baxter Photos

Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman and his wife, Catherine, who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved to New York City, which at that time was still the hub of the entertainment industry even though the film colony was moving west. The move there encouraged her to consider acting as a vocation. By the time she was 13 she had already appeared in a stage production and had garnered rave reviews from the tough Broadway critics. The play helped her gain entrance to an exclusive acting school. In 1937 Anne made her first foray into Hollywood to test the waters there in the film industry. As she was thought to be too young for a film career, she packed her bags and returned to the New York with her mother, where she continued to act in Broadway and summer stock up and down the East Coast. Udaunted by the failure of her previous effort to crack Hollywood, Anne returned to California two years later to try again. This time her luck was somewhat better. She took a screen test which was ultimately seen by the moguls of Twentieth Century-Fox and she was signed to a seven-year contract. However, before she would make a movie with Fox, Anne was loaned out to MGM to make 20 Mule Team (1940). At only 17 years of age, she was already in the kind of pictures that other starlets would have had to slave for years as an extra before landing a meaty role. Back at Fox, that same year, Anne played Mary Maxwell in The Great Profile (1940), which was a box-office dud. The following year she played Amy Spettigue in the remake of Charley's Aunt (1941). It still wasn't a great role, but it was better than a bit part. The only other film job Anne appeared in that year was in Swamp Water (1941). It was the first role that was really worth anything, but critics weren't that impressed with Anne, her role nor the movie. In 1942 Anne played Joseph Cotten's daughter, Lucy Morgan, in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). The following year she appeared in The North Star (1943), the first film where she received top billing. The film was a critical and financial success and Anne came in for her share of critical plaudits. Guest in the House (1944) the next year was a dismal failure, but Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944) was received much better by the public, though it was ripped apart by the critics. Anne starred with John Hodiak, who would become her first husband in 1947 (Anne was to divorce Hodiak in 1953. Her other two husbands were Randolph Galt and David Klee). In 1946 Anne portrayed Sophie MacDonald in The Razor's Edge (1946), a film that would land her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She had come a long way in so short a time, but her next two were let-downs by comparison. Her next two films were neither critical or financial successes: Mother Wore Tights (1947) and Blaze of Noon (1947), although she was just the narrator for both films. It would be 1950 before she landed another decent role--the part of Eve Harrington in All About Eve (1950). This film garnered Anne her second nomination, but she lost the Osdar to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950). After several films through the 1950s, Anne landed what many considered a plum role--Queen Nefretiri in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). Never in her Hollywood career did Anne look as beautiful as she did as the Egyptian queen, opposite Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. After that epic, job offers got fewer because she wasn't tied to a studio, instead opting to freelance her talents. After no appearances in 1958, she made one film in 1959 (Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959) and one in 1960 (Cimarron (1960). After Walk on the Wild Side (1962), she took a hiatus from filming for the next four years. She was hardly idle, though. She appeared often on stage and on television. She wasn't particularly concerned with being a celebrity or a personality; she was more concerned with being just an actress and trying hard to produce the best performance she was capable of. After several notable TV appearances, Anne became a staple of two television series, "East of Eden" (1981) and "Hotel" (1983). Her final moment before the public eye was as Irene Adler in the TV film The Masks of Death (1984) (TV). On December 12, 1985, Anne died of a stroke in New York. She was 62.