Claudette Colbert

Eleanor Boardman

Dorothy Lamour

Irene Dunne

Louise Brooks

And here, caught in a rare, candid moment, our two reigning champs of mercilessly plucked eyebrows:

Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:08 AM | Comments (17)

July 08, 2008

Notable Hollywood Eyebrows

Screening old Hollywood films I've noticed an interesting trend—in eyebrows.

During the early days of silent films, female stars appeared pretty normal. Which is to say, the eyebrows were lightly plucked, but retained a recognizably human configuration.

But the Flapper Age, a time of huge social upheaval in America, ushered in severely plucked, thinner brows, eventually morphing into Baroque loops and harsh anorexic gashes.

Narrow eyebrows seem to have come into fashion as Hollywood, and society in general, turned away from the 19th century ideal of the full-figured woman to the rail thin female of the modern age.

Plucked eyebrows reached their apotheosis in the 30's when the thin, elegant lines of Art Deco design were all the rage. Eyebrows in Hollywood evolved into extra fine lines in endless variations which seemed drawn by industrial designers.

Studio stylists regularly shaved the eyebrows of the vulnerable young actresses being groomed for stardom, but after a few shavings the eyebrows of the various Pygmalions failed to grow back. Thus, several generations of Hollywood stars lacked eyebrows and their faces became living canvasses for endless variations of eyebrow art.

Jean Harlow had narrow, deep-set eyes, and so the studio inscribed eyebrows, like soaring roman arches, to create the illusion of rounder, wider eyes.

Jean Harlow

Carole Lombard had a lovely forehead and her eyebrows—low, feline slashes—were etched in order to draw attention to that patrician feature.

Carole Lombard

Below, more examples of notable Hollywood eyebrows.

Clara Bow

Marlene Dietrich

Marion Davies

Greta Garbo

Bette Davis

Joan Crawford

Anna May Wong

Dolores Costello

And finally, the best eyebrows evuh:

Julie Newmar as Catwoman, the “purrfect” villainess,
from the Batman TV series

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:26 AM | Comments (23)

June 27, 2008

Hollywood Hair

So, I've been taking a look at portraits of Hollywood stars from the 50's, a time when the studio system was collapsing, and I noticed a few things.

The quality of studio portrait photography was dismal. The images are, for the most part, bland, with little creative inspiration. Everyone seems bored—the photographers and the stars. Hollywood once employed geniuses like George Hurrell and C.S. Bull, whose iconic photography helped mold the G-d-like images of Hollywood's golden age.

Gene Harlow by George Hurrell

Clark Gable by C.S. Bull

But as the studios were shrinking in power, they drastically cut back on their still departments. And because actors were no longer under long-term contract to the studios, the technocrat executives who replaced the original passionate moguls had no stake or ability to carefully shape and control the images of their most promising thespians.

Since then, Hollywood stars have been shrinking at an incredible speed, eventually collapsing into what we have now: not movie stars, but celebrities who fight for media space with reality TV personalities, serial murderers and scandal choked, drug addled rock stars.

I also noticed hair.

Something was happening to the hairstyles of Hollywood stars in the 50's. There was, in the cultural air, a reversal in the natural order of masculine and feminine. In the past, great Hollywood female stars were often defined by luxurious and cascading curls. But in the 50's a startling number of Hollywood women submitted to a radical and often sexless 'do.

The resulting images come uncomfortably close to evoking memories of post WW II photos of European women who were publicly humiliated and punished as German collaborators, their proud locks severely shorn, harshly clipped and plastered down into tight, impenetrable helmets.

But the men, like vain peacocks, display incredibly complex hair architecture—frequently built in layers like towering wedding cakes. The sensuality just drips from their rococo, thickly gelled cuts.

What was happening? Did the apocalyptic nature and mass slaughter of the Second World War turn fashion conscious Hollywood women into hard-to-define gamines? If so, a new generation of Hollywood men, with pillowy lips and come-hither eyes, stepped into the breach morphing into sexually charged male objects, yet seductively hinting at the inner female.

I'd love to get some input on this vital issue from my readers.

Here are a few samples:

Robert Wagner, '52

Shirley MacLaine, '55

James Dean, '55

Jean Seaberg, '57

Burt Lancaster, '57

Leslie Caron, '55

Tony Curtis, '52

Audrey Hepburn, '56

Elvis Presley, '56

Lilli Palmer, '56

Charlton Heston, '50

Claire Bloom, '52

And finally:

Yul Brenner, '57

Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and restful Shabbat.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:51 AM | Comments (17)

June 18, 2008

Cyd Charisse, 1921 - 2008

The lovely and talented Cyd Charisse passed away last night in Cedars Sinai Medical Center here in Los Angeles.

When I heard the news, I experienced a sense of deep loss.

I was a high school student the first time I laid eyes on the long-legged, sinuous Hollywood star Cyd Charisse. I cut school and took the subway into Manhattan to catch a screening of Singin' in the Rain, (1952) at one of Manhattan's revival movie houses. I think it was Dan Talbot's New Yorker Theater.

At the time, I was devouring esoteric film journals and Singin' in the Rain was frequently cited as one of the best musicals ever made.

Look, I was a dopey Yeshiva student obsessed with Japanese movies, but I had a hunger to know about all movies—though musicals struck me as somewhat, y'know, girlie.

But the the film magazines I was reading—and not truly comprehending—called Singin' in the Rain a “seminal movie.” So, when the opportunity arose to catch a screening, well, I took the plunge and made the trek from Brooklyn to Manhattan—another world.

Singin' in the Rain is a seminal movie. It's the finest treatment of the difficult transition from silent films to sound movies ever produced.

But here's the thing about Singin' in the Rain: Debbie Reynolds is all fresh, perky and just perfect in her ingenue role. But one look at Cyd Charisse just blew me out of my seat and erased all memory of Reynolds from my little mind.

Charisse has just one scene with the great Gene Kelly in the film, but she is brilliant, unforgettable, a dangerous slice of fire-breathing womanhood—smooth as silk. And to this day, when I watch the film, I'm once again that hungering, movie mad yeshiva student, cutting classes and coming face to face with one of the most graceful and magnetic dancers who has ever graced the silver screen.

I never had the opportunity to thank Cyd Charisse for making me care about and respect musicals.

This entry is written in deep gratitude.

A warning for those who are religiously modest: This dance number is smoking hot.

Cyd Charisse IMDb

The Official Cyd Charisse Website

The Cyd Charisse Appreciation Page

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:27 AM | Comments (5)

June 04, 2008

Since You Went Away

Miranda Rose Smith reviewed So Proudly We Hail (1943) a few weeks ago. Now, our movie-loving friend from Israel writes about another patriotic Hollywood movie, David O. Selznick's Since You Went Away (1944). Selznick's vision for this movie was a domestic Gone With the Wind whose subject matter he labeled, “The Unconquerable Fortress: Home.”

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Claudette Colbert plays Anne Hilton, a wife and mother, valiantly holding things together while her husband is away at war. Colbert tries to keep up a brave front for her two daughters, Jane, Jennifer Jones, and Bridget "Brig," played by a luminous 16-year old Shirley Temple.

Jennifer Jones, Claudette Colbert and Shirley Temple in
Since You Went Away.

Colbert's husband abandoned a promising job in advertising to join the army. Colbert embarks on a Keep-It-Strictly-Platonic flirtation with an old family friend, Tony Willett, played by the durable and charming Joseph Cotten. Simultaneously, Colbert copes with catty neighbor Agnes Moorehead, the only major character who hoards food and deals in the black market.

Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Joseph Cotton in
Since You Went Away.

Academy Award winning Hattie McDaniel is the no-nonsense housekeeper, Fidelia. At Brig's suggestion, Anne takes in a lodger, the pompous Colonel William G. Smollett, Monty Woolley. Smollett is not the jingoistic military nut so favored by today's Hollywood elite. This character is carefully shaded with human layers. Beneath the boastful exterior lies a sensitive soul. The Colonel suffers a painful estrangement from his grandson, Bill, Robert Walker, expelled from West Point, now an enlisted man.

Bill and Jane, a beautifully doomed movie couple, fall in love and get engaged—only to have Bill killed in action.

The unfortunate Colonel is unable to express his grief and rage. On Christmas Eve, he paces around bitterly sputtering, "Peace on earth. Goodwill towards men."

Thoughts on the great black actress Hattie McDaniel: If McDaniel were alive today and looking for work in Hollywood, she would have to contend with Hollywood's anti-overweightism, a prejudice more deeply entrenched than past Hollywood racism. She would never, or almost never, be asked to play a romantic lead. She would be playing tediously heroic, Oprah-style black women: teachers, social workers, principals, welfare mothers, and nurses—Mammy with an education, Aunt Jemima, R.N.

Hattie McDaniel (center), Chairman of the Negro Division of the
Hollywood Victory Committee, poses with a group of entertainers and
hostesses before a performance and dance for soldiers stationed in
Minter Field.

Jennifer Jones volunteers as a Red Cross nurse's aide in a veteran's hospital. Here she meets combat fatigue victim Craig Stephens. Jones gives a lovely and nuanced performance as a young woman slowly recovering from the loss of a beloved fiance. By the end of the picture, Stephens, gradually healing from his breakdown, leaves Jones to reenlist. Duty before love. The film lovingly hints that something will develop between these two damaged people after the war.

This is one of Jennifer Jones' greatest performances. Unfortunately, she was so beautiful and so allergic to fame and publicity, that even with an Oscar to her credit, she's never been recognized as the superb and versatile actress she truly was.

Jennifer Jones reads Margaret Buell Wilder's Since You Went Away,
the novel on which the film is based.

Working in a shipyard, Anne meets refugee Zofia Koslowska, Nazimova, who tells Anne about her little boy. The two of them longed to come to America, but tragically the boy died before they could both emigrate. Zofia recites the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. Anne doesn't even know the poem, thus suggesting that immigrants appreciate this country in ways that many natural American-born citizens cannot.

Nazimova, one of the leading stars of the silent era, turns in a performance of great depth. It's gratifying to see silent players working in sound films. Too many silent stars were unfairly discarded by short-sighted sound engineers and studio executives when sound took over.

Except for Robert Walker's Bill, who is a little too aw' shucks in places, the performances are all superior. Need I point out that they don't make 'em like this anymore.

Joseph Cotton and Shirley Temple, Since You Went Away

We experience the heartache of families who lose loved ones—without blaming the U.S. government or cooking up delusional conspiracy theories. Mr. Mahoney, the local grocer, is proud that his son serves in the Air Force and burns indignant when several customers suggest that he trade in the black market.

Patriotic Americans are honest, decent and sane in this picture. Anne and Tony meet the grocer's son, Johnny, at a U.S.O. dance. Not long afterwards, Johnny is killed in a plane crash. Later, the elder Mahoney walks out of a movie when a newsreel announces a home town welcome for a returning hero. The pain is just too much for the father to bear.

This movie does not shrink from the unbearable tragedy of lost sons. The cost of war is great, says the film, but there is no choice in the face of evil rampant.

Everybody connected with this epic movie—it's three-hours long—sincerely believed that America was a force for good in the world.

Such sentiments have all but disappeared from contemporary Hollywood films—and we are all diminished by this cynical, post-modern attitude.

Robert Walker, Jennifer Jones, and David O. Selznick. Jones and Walker were married as “Since You Went Away” went into production. But the marriage was rocky. Jones and Selznick were having an affair. Cast and crew reported that the tension in the studio was unbearable as Jones and Walker worked before the camera, with Selznick behind the lights, insisting that Walker and Jones perform take after take of their love scenes. Jones and Walker separated during production in 1943. Selznick was angrily kicked out of the home he shared with wife Irene Mayer, daughter of powerful MGM chief, Louis B. Mayer. Robert Walker was never the same afterwards. He became an alcoholic and his career nose-dived. Walker pulled himself together for one last absolutely brilliant performance as Bruno, the oddly sympathetic killer in Hitchcock's classic, “Strangers on a Train.” Sadly, Walker did not receive the Oscar he so richly deserved. Robert Walker died, age 32, just seven years after separating from Jones. Selznick and Jones stayed together until Selznick's death in 1965. Jones' only child with Selznick, Mary Jennifer Selznick (born in 1954), committed suicide in 1976. In 1971 Jones married Los Angeles millionaire art collector Norton Simon. When she was in her eighties, Jones conducted tours of her husband's art collection. The couple remained married until Simon's death in 1993. Currently, Jennifer Jones is on the board of directors of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Jones hates publicity and refuses all movie related interviews. She handed the Oscar she received for Song of Bernadette to her hairdresser. With good grace, a few days later, the hairdresser returned the precious statue.

Poster art of Jennifer Jones by the great American artist Norman Rockwell for “The Song of Bernadette.”

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:05 AM | Comments (6)

May 26, 2008

Memorial Day, 2008

During this Memorial Day Weekend Seraphic Secret remembers those who have fallen, and those who sacrifice so much in the cause of freedom.

Remember when Hollywood celebrities flocked all across the globe to entertain and support American troops?

Here's just a brief sampler of what Hollywood patriotism once looked like.

In February 1954, on her honeymoon in Japan with Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe took time off and traveled to Korea to entertain the troops. Monroe appeared on stage wearing skimpy outfits in freezing temperatures. The men adored her. She performed ten shows in four days, in front of audiences that totaled more than 100,000 soldiers and Marines.

MM performing “Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend” in Korea.

Dinah Shore, a hugely popular singer, traveled with USO tours throughout Europe. During one of these tours she met actor George Montgomery. They married in 1943. Soon after the wedding, Montgomery entered active service.

In the late 1930's Nazi agents approached Marlene Dietrich and asked her to return to Germany. She flatly turned them down. Dietrich was one of the first celebrities to raise war bonds. She entertained troops on the front lines in dozens of USO shows. Dietrich hated the Nazis and often spoke out against anti-Semitism. Here, she's autographing the cast of Earl E. McFarland at U.S. hospital in Belgium 1944.

Carole Landis probably logged more miles than any other actress in Hollywood during WWII entertaining American troops. She wrote a book about her experiences, Four Jills in a Jeep. Tragically, this generous young woman committed suicide in 1948 while carrying on a desperate affair with the married actor Rex Harrison—a notorious womanizer.

Bob Hope, friend to GI's, entertains American servicemen at the airstrip in Munda, New Georgia, an island in the central Solomons, on Oct. 31, 1944. Hope's commitment to America's troops brought him into four Wars: World War II, the Korean War, Viet Nam and the Persian Gulf War. When on tour the great comedian usually performed in Army fatigues. A 1997 act of Congress signed by President Clinton named Bob Hope an "Honorary Veteran".

Carole Lombard raised millions of dollars selling war bonds. Tragically, she died in an airplane crash on January 15, 1942, after completing an eight-hour sales drive in Indiana in which she raised $2,017,513 in bonds . She was anxious to reunite with Clark Gable; they had only been married for three years. The last thing she said to him was: “You better get yourself into this man's army.”

Following Lombard's death, deeply depressed and drinking too much, Gable rallied and asked MGM to release him from his contract. He then joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. Most of Gable's friends believed that Hollywood's greatest leading man was seeking death. Far too old for active service, Gable worked hard to earn his stripes. Gable trained with and accompanied the 351st Heavy Bomb Group as head of a 6-man motion picture unit making a gunnery training film. Gable flew five combat missions in B17's. In one mission over Germany he was almost killed when a German 20mm shell exploded through the plane's floor and ripped the heel from one of Gable's flight boots. Adolf Hitler offered a bounty to anyone who captured Gable and brought him back to Germany as a POW. Gable was Hitler's favorite actor. Gable left the Army Air Forces with the rank of major.

Jimmy Stewart was a B-24 pilot in World War Two and flew twenty missions over Europe. Stewart ended the war as a command pilot and stayed in the Air Force Reserves until 1968, when he retired as a Brig. General.

The Hollywood Canteen, 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, California was open from October 3, 1942 until the end of World War II. The club offered food and entertainment for American servicemen. The founders of the Canteen were Bette Davis, John Garfield and composer Jules Stein. All costs and labor for The Hollywood Canteen were donated by the various Hollywood guilds and unions.

In the Hollywood Canteen, Bette Davis ladles out food for American servicemen. Davis devoted enormous amounts of time to the Canteen and served as its President. When funds ran low, she reached into her own pocketbook to cover expenses. Glamorous stars like Olivia De Havilland, Edward G. Robinson, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Sinatra, Dorothy Lamour, Cary Grant, Lauren Bacall, Randolph Scott and hundreds of others, volunteered to wait on tables, cook in the kitchen and clean up. In 1944, Warner Bros. made a star-studded film—a revue really— about the Hollywood Canteen. When the Canteen closed its doors in November 1945, it had hosted almost three million servicemen.

Poster by by Lawrence Wilbur, 1944

Never Forget

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:18 AM | Comments (25)

May 23, 2008

Lillian Gish: Dying for her Audience

Lillian Gish and John Gilbert in La Boheme, 1926.

One of the great tragedies of the fate of silent films in the modern era—indifference and ignorance—but for those who have seen clips from silent films, they invariably view muddy, degraded prints projected at the wrong speed, hence the jerky motions that give the impression that all silent films are bad slapstick.

Silent movies were shot and duplicated on nitrate film. In the few original prints I've been fortunate enough to see the images are just stunning; the screen glows with a liquid, silvery radiance that's impossible to duplicate on modern film or tape.

The art of silent film acting—the best performers—were geniuses who were able to convey a world of emotion through the most subtle means.

The great King Vidor, (1894 - 1982) whose career spanned eight decades—early silent movies, right into the sound era—directed Lillian Gish in a silent version of La Boheme in 1926.

Gish was so powerful at this point in her career that she had contractual approval over script and director. The intensity of her work ethic, the dedication to her craft simply awes Vidor as he writes so many years later, 1952, in his excellent memoir A Tree is a Tree.

The title is very funny; it's a quote from a penny pinching studio executive who famously said: “A rock is a rock, a tree is a tree. Shoot it in Griffith Park!” Hence, in early films, Los Angeles' Griffith Park was used as a location for cowboy movies, Civil War movies, New York's Central Park, the Scottish Highlands, Versailles—you name it, Griffith Park served as a location.

Director King Vidor, 1931.

Here, Vidor describes how Gish rigorously prepared for and played her dramatic death scene in La Boheme:

When she arrived on the set that fateful day, we saw her sunken eyes, her hollow cheeks, and we noticed that her lips had curled outward and were parched with dryness. What on earth had she done to herself? I ventured to ask about her lips and she said in syllables hardly audible that she had succeeded in removing all the saliva from her mouth by not drinking any liquids for three days, and by keeping cotton pads between her teeth and gums even in her sleep.

A pall began to settle over the entire company. People moved about the stage on tiptoe and spoke only in whispers. Finally came the scene where Rudolph carried the exhausted Mimi to her little bed and her Bohemian friends gathered around while Mimi breathed her last. I let the camera continue on her lifeless form and the tragic faces around her and decided to call “cut” only when I saw that Miss Gish was forced to inhale after holding her breath to simulate death. But the familiar movement of the chest didn't come. She neither inhaled nor exhaled. I began to fear she had played her part too well, and I could see that the other members of the cast and crew had the same fears as I. Too frightened to speak the one word that would halt the movement of the camera, I wondered how to bridge this fantastic moment back to the coldness of reality. The thought flashed through my mind, “What will the headlines say?” After what seemed many, many minutes, I waved my hand before the camera as a signal to stop. Still there was no movement from Lillian.

John Gilbert bent close, and softly whispered her name. Her eyes slowly opened. She permitted herself her first deep breath since the scene had started; for the past days she had trained herself, somehow or other, to get along without visible breathing. It was necessary to wet her lips before she could speak. By this time there was no one on the set whose eyes were dry. The movies have never known a more dedicated artist than Lillian Gish.

Lillian Gish almost dies for her craft.

Miss Gish did not work with King Vidor again until 1946 when she played Mrs. McCanles in David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun. There's a lovely moment in the film when Jennifer Jones says to Gish: “I'll be a good girl—I want to be like you.”

Whenever I'm in production, working with actors, deep in my heart I too wish they want to be like Lillian Gish.

An early movie magazine featuring
Lillian Gish and John Gilbert.

Karen and I wish everyone a chag sameah, happy holiday on today's Lag Ba'Omer.

And, of course, we wish all our friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:48 AM | Comments (6)

May 15, 2008

So Proudly We Hail

Robert and I have been Internet correspondents for some time now. I suggested that he review one of my favorite World War II patriotic tearjerkers, So Proudly We Hail (1943). Robert, very kindly, suggested that I review the movie.

Caution this does CONTAIN SPOILERS!

—Miranda Rose Smith

Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard and Claudette
Colbert, So Proudly We Hail, 1943.

So Proudly We Hail tells the story of the army nurse corps on Bataan and Corregidor. It stars Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, sans peekaboo hairdo, George Reeves and Sonny Tufts. All performances are top-notch.

Shamelessly patriotic, no excuses are made for the enemy, the Japanese. At one point, the nurses have a pet monkey and one nurse cracks,“We called him Tojo, because they looked so alike.”

All through, the picture broods over the threat of what will happen to the nurses if they should fall into the hands of the brutal Japanese.

Veronica Lake as Olivia D'arcy in So Proudly
We Hail, 1943.

The movie is filled with wrenching scenes of friends and lovers parting; the ship leaves Pearl Harbor just before the infamous bombing; the nurses are ordered to evacuate Corregidor, some doomed to wait for the next transport—only there is no next transport.

Nurses with evacuation orders offer to switch places with their friends. Commanding officer Captain “Ma” McGregor (Mary Servoss), who has lost a son in combat, orders her nurses to leave. Then comes the parting of nurse Janet “Davy” Davidson (Claudette Colbert) from Lieutenant John Summers (George Reeves). Davy meets George when he's rescued from a torpedoed ship—she gives him a bath. Talk about meeting cute. At the end of the picture, when John is leaving Corregidor to see if he can hustle up some black market supplies from Mindanao, Davy tells Ma, “I'm going to break regulations big time. I'm going to get married.”

Ma attends the wedding she officially can't know about.

George Reeves and Claudette Colbert find time for love during World War II

There's a heartbreaking scene between flirtatious nurse Joan O'Doul (Paulette Goddard) and "Aw, shucks" leatherneck “Kansas” Walachek (Sonny Tufts.) Kansas tells Joan he is not going to surrender. Presumably he's going to join the Filipino partisans. They embrace. She says, “I thought you were just another guy on the make.” He replies, “I was.”

That's fine screenwriting, from the less-is-more school. Fade to next scene. Hollywood had admirable restraint in those days when romance powered movies instead of brute lust.

Sigh.

The nurses struggle with hunger, sleeplessness, meager supplies, ceaseless bombardments, and strategic withdrawals. Sometimes they give way to bitterness: “We called ourselves the battling orphans of Bataan. No father, no mother, no Uncle Sam.” They wait for convoys of supplies and re-enforcements that never come.

During an evacuation, the nurses hear rifle shots and realize that a Japanese patrol has broken into the base hospital. As they prepare to flee, Joan runs back for her black lace nightgown. She delays the evacuation a fatal few seconds and the nurses are forced to hide. Realizing that the Japs—the politically incorrect word is used throughout the picture. I believe that bad words were made for bad things, and the Japanese Imperial Army was a bad thing—will soon find them and, “Its one of us or all of us.”

Olivia D'arcy (Veronica Lake), whose fiance was killed at Pearl Harbor, hides a grenade in her bosom and goes out to meet the Japs. As the enemy soldiers close in, she pulls the pin. Her sacrifice allows her friends to escape. Later, Joan, unable to sleep, says, “All I do is dream about Olivia,” and she works till she collapses from exhaustion.

The nurses are never portrayed as saints. These characters have complexity, depth. Joan's vanity endangers all her friends—risking life and limb for a frilly nightgown goes beyond fetish—and she is so flirtatious that she has two fiances show up to see her off at the dock. When the nurses learn they are headed for Bataan, they hope for lots of food and a beauty parlor.

These women are strong, courageous, yet they are 100% feminine.

Veronica Lake, Claudette Colbert, director Mark
Sandrich and Paulette Goddard, on the set of
So Proudly We Hail, 1943.

For those of you who pay attention to the liberal mainstream media, which gleefully reports each milestone in the American death toll in Iraq, this motion picture honestly reports that 50,000 men died in the delaying action in the Philippines.

The price of freedom is often tragically high and comes soaked in blood.

So, if you want to know what patriotism, courage, and true faith in the future looks like—remember, the outcome of the war was in doubt in 1943—get the DVD of this powerful and inspirational movie.

They don't make them like they used to.

Miranda Rose Smith is a librarian who lives in Ramat Gan, Israel.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:37 AM | Comments (21)

May 13, 2008

Jon Voight Visits Israeli Terror Victims

Photo, Associated Press/Sebastian Scheiner, was taken during Voight's visit with victims of Palestinian rocket attacks.

Have you noticed all the Hollywood stars rushing to Israel on her 60th birthday?

Doesn't your heart swell with pride as Hollywood stars and moguls—many of them Jewish—publicly voice their support for the Jewish State?

Isn't it wonderful how so many Hollywood people are making their way to S'derot to show solidarity with those innocent Jews living under a state of siege?

I'm just messing with your head.

Hollywood couldn't care less.

Hollywood films don't even begin to approach the existential issue of Islamic terrorism.

If you look at Hollywood films, (and many are not) the people who do get harsh treatment are: the American military, American soldiers, Evangelical Christians, Catholics, and of course evil Republicans.

But Islamists who proudly boast of wanting to wipe Israel of the face of the earth are a no-go zone. Muslim cultures that oppress women, homosexuals and religious minorities are also never criticized.

Iran, an imperial, Holocaust denying state, and the world's greatest export of terrorism, is ignored.

No, Hollywood will crank out one loser after another about evil American soldiers in Iraq, or Gitmo, or, sigh, soon to die in your local theaters, Oliver Stone's smear of President Bush.

Not only are the films wretched, but they are washed in red ink.

You'd think the studio heads would notice.

You'd think.

But guess what. Hollywood is so radically leftist in ideology that it continues to produce stinker after stinker knowing that these American-hating films will die at the box office, domestic and foreign.

It's an anti-capitalist mind set that reminds us of the Soviet Politburo. Yes, these people are rigid as calculus in their leftist ideology—thus stockholders suffer and audiences, with alarming regularity, stay home to watch cable television.

Hey, LC on The Hills may have lousy taste in men but she's a solid Republican.

But there is one man who cares, actually he cares a lot more than the current Israeli government which is discussing a hudna with the barbarians when they should be destroying Gaza.

We salute Jon Voight, who, unlike PM Olmert and the criminal appeasers in his government, knows that negotiating with terrorists only invites more terror.

Award-winning American actor Jon Voight has visited Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks during a trip to Israel.

In Jerusalem Monday, Voight played with children whose fathers were killed in suicide bombings. He also chatted with a man who lost his legs in an attack. Voight was visibly moved by the visit and said Israel shouldn't negotiate with Palestinian militants. He called the attackers "barbarians" who "spat" on Israeli peacemaking attempts.

To read the complete article, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:37 AM | Comments (19)

April 24, 2008

Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell or What They Don't Teach You in Film School

Linda Darnell, studio portrait. Scan courtesy of Dr. Macro.

I've had the pleasure of working with some of the best directors in Hollywood. On location and in the studio it's always fascinating to collaborate with gifted directors and then sit back and watch as the actors breathe life into my pages.

I've worked with directors who act as Freudian psychologists to elicit the proper emotions from actors. I've also seen directors who are more results oriented. They tend to block the actors—deeply choreographing their movements—thus adding depth to surface performances so that they carry the proper emotional weight. Hey, whatever works, especially in television where shooting schedules are tight and the margin for error is close to zero. I've witnessed directors who bully actors into submission in order to get what they want. And I've seen directors who will sit down with their actors and spend endless hours discussing, analyzing, and torturing character and back story in order to excavate the core of the character's soul.

Getting a great performance is a mysterious process. There is a synergy at work among film craftspeople that is impossible to define or capture in a bottle.

George Stevens, an often great director, was known for shooting endless takes of a single scene, but never explaining to his actors what was wrong with the previous takes or what he was looking for. Joan Fontaine, in her autobiography, No Bed of Roses reports Stevens saying: “I don't know what's wrong. Let's shoot it again.”

Sometimes, Stevens would stop filming and go off all by himself, walk around in circles, or just stare into space.

Fontaine informs us that it was the great Carole Lombard who solved the mystery of what the legendary director was thinking during these breaks: “You know what that s.o.b. is thinking about when he's in one of his trances? Not a f****ng thing!”

Which brings us to director Douglas Sirk and actress Linda Darnell (1923-1965).

Director Douglas Sirk. His cycle of lush melodramas were reviled by reviewers during his lifetime but declared masterpieces by a new generation of hip post-modern scribes. Lesson: Film reviewers are, with rare exceptions, slaves to political and cultural fashions—usually left wing. They scrawl film reviews that are, at the core, glorified fashion blurbs. Don't trust them. Trust your eyes and your heart. And, yes, Seraphic Secret.

Sirk, a stridently anti-Nazi German emigre to Hollywood—his wife was Jewish—is best known for several stylish and lush melodramas that achieved cult status in the 70's. When they were released in the 50's, the critics savaged them, dismissing the popular and profitable pictures as hokey “women's films.”

In truth, Sirk's cycle of melodramas are not masterpieces, but they are fine movies and Sirk was a solid talent who was able to draw consistently powerful performances from his actors. Rock Hudson turns in the best performances of his career in three of Sirk's films. Seraphic Secret recommends: Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, and watch Sandra Dee earn her acting chops opposite a finely tuned Lana Turner in Imitation of Life.

Linda Darnell, real name Monetta Darnell, a stunning small town Texas beauty, was hounded into Hollywood by a crazed, alcoholic mother who was determined that her daughter achieve what she never could.

Interpolation

There is a special place in hell for stage mothers. There is no forgiveness for these selfish and greedy parents.

End Interpolation

Darnell came to Hollywood—with a beloved pet chicken hidden in a suitcase—when she was just fifteen years old, after being spotted by a Fox talent scout. She clawed her way to the top, and when she starred opposite Tyrone Power in Blood and Sand, Darnell became a genuine Hollywood star.

But personal problems—a parasitic family, a penchant for abusive men, and, yup, booze—yanked Darnell into a stunning and ugly downward spiral.

In 1944, when Darnell was working with Sirk, she was battling a weight problem, felt underappreciated by her studio boss Darryl Zanuck, her marriage was on the rocks, and her tyrannical mother was constantly demanding money.

George Sanders and Linda Darnell in Summer Storm, 1944.

Always fragile, lacking in self-esteem, Darnell was acting in Summer Storm, an adaptation of an Ibsen play, a role she fought for. But Darnell was falling apart as the camera's merciless gaze bore down on her.

Ronald L. Davis reports the following in his sympathetic but clear-eyed biography of the tragic actress, Hollywood Beauty: Linda Darnell and the American Dream.

Scheduled for release through United Artists, Summer Storm was directed by Douglas Sirk. Filming began in the spring of 1944, with The Wicked and the Weak as a working title. Linda got on well with Sirk, although things didn't always progress smoothly. One particularly bad day, the director had shot sixteen takes of an important scene in a greenhouse. Linda grew tired, embarrassed, and was almost in tears.

Finally, Sirk ordered, “Everybody take a breather.”

Putting his arm around Linda's shoulder, he said, “Now I want you to relax.”

Suddenly he yanked her across his knee and spanked her hard.

“Now you go out there and do that scene right!” he snapped.

The spanking so shocked and infuriated her that she went back on the set and made the scene one of the best in the picture. “After that, Sirk and I got along better than ever,” she said.

Less Dialogue is More

The Son of Stranger Among Us

Seven Samurai and Baby

Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter

Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes

Colleen Moore's Wedding Night

One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks

Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops

Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To

Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess

Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star

Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide

Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star

Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick

Louis B. Mayer Goes to Shul

Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress

The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow

Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign

Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta

Michael Kidd: The Last Dance

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:45 AM | Comments (8)

April 16, 2008

Joy

My friend screenwriter David Sacks (Third Rock From the Sun, among numerous credits) made a short film in Jerusalem that's timed for Passover. The words, for those who don't speak Hebrew, are: “Reb Nachman Me'Uman,” Rabbi Nachman from Uman.

Me'Uman serves as a double entendre: it can mean "from Uman" — Rebbe Nachman's burial place, but it also can mean “believed” or “accredited.” — מאומן.

This is in reference to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, (1772-1810) a great and holy Hasidic leader, whose teachings, even in death, continue to inspire Jews from all walks of life.

This is David's directorial debut and I think you'll agree that he is the Jewish Busby Berkeley—without the beautiful chorus girls.

Enjoy!

To view more compelling and delightful shorts, go to Jewish Impact Films.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:07 AM | Comments (13)

April 15, 2008

The Persecution of Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot in Shalako, 1968

The Orwellian persecution of the great film icon Brigitte Bardot continues. Freedom of speech is dead in France. Bardot is being prosecuted—for the fifth time—for insulting Islam.

Meanwhile, Jew-hating Imams safely spew hatred and call for violence from hundreds of mosques in France and all across Europe. The gutless French choose to repeatedly persecute the one woman in France who dares speak the truth about Muslim jihadists.

Seraphic Secret has long maintained that within two or three generation—unless the French radically reform her policies of appeasement—France will be an Islamic State ruled by Sharia. Jews are now emigrating from France to Israel, America and Canada in record numbers.

The larger question is: How long before Europe becomes Eurabia? Make no mistake about it, all of Europe is in play.

French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers.

Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts."

Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim traditions and immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.

She has been fined four times for inciting racial hatred since 1997, at first 1,500 euros and most recently 5,000.

Prosecutor Anne de Fontette told the court she was seeking a tougher sentence than usual, adding, "I am a little tired of prosecuting Mrs. Bardot."

Bardot did not attend the trial because she said she was physically unable to. The verdict is expected in several weeks.

Complete article at Ynetnews.

BB says: “I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population
which is destroying us...”

Scans courtesy of Dr. Macro.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:57 PM | Comments (20)

April 11, 2008

Less Dialogue is More

Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Waterloo Bridge, 1940

I'm working on a script, specifically a scene where the main character, The Hero meets The Woman for the first time.

I've written this scene maybe ten times.

The dialog is clever and sharp and, and just this side of tender.

But something is wrong.

This has been going on for days.

I move on. I never stay on a scene that's not working. The rule is just keep moving forward, build the structure and then go back and rewrite.

But I wake at four in the morning—mind whirring away—the scene is driving me crazy.

Why can't I get it right?

Maybe I have no talent. Perhaps my entire career is an elaborate hoax.

And then last night I was watching Waterloo Bridge, and there's a scene where Robert Taylor meets Vivien Leigh for the first time, and you know what they say to each other?

Nothing.

They just look at each other and —

It. Is. Magic.

It. Is. Perfect.

Vivien Leigh, Waterloo Bridge, 1940.

I rush to my library, grab legendary director Mervyn LeRoy's autobiography, Take One, flip madly through the pages and find the following passage regarding production on Waterloo Bridge:

One of the key scenes was the one in a nightclub on New Year's Eve, in which Vivien and Bob were supposed to meet and fall in love. He was leaving the next day for the front. It was a scene that [screenwriter] Behrman, [producer] Franklin and I had spent a lot of time on, and the dialogue between the two was, we had all thought, beautiful and tender. But on the set it just didn't seem to work too well. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on just what it was.

At four in the afternoon, after some hours of fruitless fiddling with the scene, I told everybody to go home. I sat there, in that make-believe nightclub, with just one small work light to give me illumination. Over and over, I read the scene, read the words that Sam, Sydney, and I had labored to get right. I was still there at two in the morning, when suddenly the answer came to me.

“No dialogue!” I said, aloud. “No dialogue at all!”

I realized at that moment what silent directors had always known, and what I should have known too. Often, in great emotional moments, there are no words. A look, a gesture, a touch can convey much more meaning than spoken sentences. Since sound came in, we had become dependent on it, perhaps overdependent on it. It was time to go back to basic human behavior, and often human beings say nothing. This scene was one of those times when silence was more expressive than dialogue.

Oh my, nothing ever changes.

I've just rewritten my scene. Of course, there is no dialogue. And it works.

Only problem is, I don't have the durable Robert Taylor or the luminous Vivien Leigh to play the scene.

No, my actors will appear on Jay Leno and reveal themselves as dopey mortals; they'll show up in the pages of the National Enquirer as feature players in some sordid affair, or they'll travel abroad and make poisonous comments about America.

The power and glory of old time Hollywood stars is forever gone and because of this motion pictures have been reduced to the size of cancelled postage stamps.

Robert Taylor, studio portrait.

Most actors keep copies of their films. But Robert Taylor, always a modest man, was an exception.

In the last months of his life, dying of cancer, Taylor asked for just one print of one picture he had made—Waterloo Bridge. At the time, Taylor was under contract to Disney. The studio acquired a copy of the film for him, and with friends the dying star watched it over and over again.

Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and meaningful Rest in Shabbat.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:47 AM | Comments (12)