Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.”
– Stanley Kubrick

Louis Anquetin (1861-1932)
An Elegant Woman at the Elysse Montmartre, 1888
oil on canvas
90.5 x72 cm
Art Institute of Chicago

 

Steve McQueen driving his Jaguar XKSS on the Sunset Strip, 1963

 

Poster from Argentina for Hitchcock’s Spellbound, 1945

 

“The wise screenwriter is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn’t take things too much to heart. He should have a touch of cynicism, but only a touch. The complete cynic is as useless to Hollywood as he is to himself. He should do the best he can without straining at it. He should be scrupulously honest about his work, but he should not expect scrupulous honesty in return. He won’t get it. And when he has had enough, he should say goodbye with a smile, because for all he knows he may want to go back.”
– Raymond Chandler

 

Louis Anquetin (1861–1932)
Woman with Umbrella
1891
oil on canvas
Height: 35.7 in; Width: 29 in.
Private Collection

 

Vivien Leigh and costar Maureen O’Sullivan on the set of A Yank at Oxford (1938), a British-American production. They were old friends having been school girls together at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, England.

 

1934 Chrysler Airflow

 

Rick McGinnis
Low Sky, 2020 via instagram @rickmcginnis

 

The Bovet Recital26 Brainstorm Chapter Two has a transparent sapphire case, and multiple complications. It can be yours for $383,500. Or you can buy a home. Full review here.

 

“To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.”
—Alfred Hitchcock

 

Louis Anquetin (1861–1932)
Self-portrait with a Smoking Pipe, 1892
oil on canvas
Height: 25.6 in; Width: 19.4 in.

 

Director Frank Capra and James Stewart visit the Lincoln Memorial, 1939. Hard to believe but there was a time when Hollywood loved America.

 

Lielle and Livia wish all our friends and relatives the best Shabbat ever.

 

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Comments

  1. Lotsa stories of McQueen on the Strip and Mulholland Drive. Jay Leno reviewed his XK-SS. BTW they only made a few of those before their factory burned down in 1957. It was the street version of the racing D-Type. Didn’t realize how much performance they had – 170 mph – in 1957.

    Stanly Kubrick looked a bit like that character actor with the cross eyes – Hard to believe Hollywood then….and now.

    • I was a big fan of McQueen. What a shame to go with mesothelioma. One time a few years ago, I sat my kids down to watch “Thomas Crown Affair.” They had never seen it and could not believe how good it was.

      • He grew up tough, too. From an Indiana orphanage IIRC. I think my favorite McQueen movie is LeMans. Did a lot of his own driving, too. Almost bankrupted him.

        Since Robert got me interested in classic Hollywood, a story on that movie, too.

        When John Frankenheimer was casting for his epic movie Grand Prix, McQueen, James Garner’s next door neighbor, was furious that Garner got the role of Pete Aaron.

        I’d throw his empty beer cans over the fence to Garner’s yard.

        Making LeMans was his revenge.

      • My understanding was that McQueen’s experimental medicine treatment in Mexico worked. They removed the tumor. What I read was his blood pressure dropped and he had a heart attack in his sleep after the successful surgery.

  2. Michael Kennedy’s comment regarding Hollywood is right on target. Probably signifies the end of the road; which has been coming for some decades.

    Raymond Chandler is beyond insightful. He is entertaining.

    Stanley Kubrick is a character actor so ugly he can only be cast in tertiary parts.

  3. Louis Anquetin , Woman with Umbrella Looks like Lautrec although his paintings were more like pastels.

    Raymond Chandler was the bard of Los Angeles. As it was in its glory. My mother spent three years living in Hollywood and loved it. Her cousins, with who she lived, lost everything in the 1929 crash and she came back to Chicago. That was a good thing for me.

    Hollywood loved America because the Jews who built it knew what a good thing they had here. Too bad the present day “talent” as my mother in law called actors, don’t see that. She was in the business, fan magazine editor at RKO and worked for Hughes for years. Her theory about his eccentricities was his deafness.

    “Spellbound” was made at the height of the Freudian era of Psychiatry. It took Psychiatry on a ride for 50 years. Probably still responsible for the silliness in Psychiatry.

  4. Kubrick’s eyes, especially the dark bags, make him look somewhat maniacal.

    I like all three of the Louis Anquetin paintings. I like the first one, but I never could understand why fashion brought bustles into usage. I prefer the redheaded Woman with Umbrella.

    I like the design elements of the ’34 Chrysler Airflow.

    I’m not a big fan of this watch. I appreciate the design complications, but it doesn’t appeal to me. Frankly, I don’t think I’d buy it if it were $383.

    Have a Happy 4th of July everyone!

  5. Beautiful pictures, as always, Robert. The blue of that Bovet watch is so intense, it is stunning. A touch out of my price range, though!

    I don’t know why, but every time I see a picture of Kubrick, I am always taken aback. He never looks the way I expect him to look, and that doesn’t happen with any other director I am familiar with (he actually looks like he’s channeling Orson Welles).

    I plan to watch “1776” this weekend and remember when Hollywood would make a patriotic movie without snark, cynicism or nihilism.

    A Glorious Fourth to you and yours.

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